Person.
Daniel Boone is one of the most mythologized Americans in history, and he became one of America's first folk heroes. Born in Pennsylvania in 1734, Boone was the sixth of eleven children born to a Quaker family. As a boy, he spent most of his days hunting and learning woodslore, often with and from Native Americans. As a man, he served in the militia in the American Revolution, mostly fighting the British-allied Shawnee in Virginia.He supported his growing family through hunting and fur-trapping, often away from home for weeks at a time. He was never as comfortable in "civilization" as he was in the woods, always ready to move on when he saw too much chimney smoke. In 1767, he and his brother were among the first white men to explore the territory called Kentucky, and he returned to explore and hunt many times over the next several years, sometimes clashing with the Shawnee or Cherokee, who considered the region occupied - and theirs - and white settlers invaders. In 1773, he led about fifty settlers into the region, then called Transylvania by whites. After the Revolution, even more settlers followed the trail he blazed.
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Wilderness Road is the name given to the trail blazed by Daniel Boone, and a few others, beginning in 1773 and passing through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. Eventually, over 200,000 pioneers traveled the Wilderness Road, many of them Scots-Irish and German who couldn't find land east of the Appalachians.
Thing.
If someone said, "Picture Daniel Boone," I bet you pictured Fess Parker as Daniel Boone in the eponymous NBC television series of the 1960s. Yes?
Hold on to something. DANIEL BOONE NEVER WORE COONSKIN CAPS! According to his son, Nathan, Daniel Boone "despised" them and thought they were beneath him. Like many hunters of his day, he preferred wide-brimmed hats that kept sun and rain out of his face, hats like the hats the Quakers he grew up around wore.
I enjoyed reading Blood and Treasure and learned a lot about the real Boone and a lot about Native American relations and politics of the Southeast.
Person.
Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, poet, and mathematician born in Naples. He entered the Dominican order at age 17, and, from the start, he aroused suspicions because of his free thinking and reading and recommending of prohibited texts.
From 1576 to 1592 , Bruno traveled around Europe, teaching, writing, and publishing. In 1593, he was imprisoned and tried by the Roman Inquisition over the next seven years, accused of blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy. While steadfastly insisting that he accepted the Church's dogma, he was accused of questioning the Church on the issues of the Trinity, Christ's divinity, Mary's virginity, and transubstantiation, among others. He refused to recant, and Pope Clement VIII declared him a heretic.
Found guilty, on February 17, 1600 in the Campo de' Fiori (a central Roman market square), he was gagged, stripped naked, and hung upside down before being burned at the stake. His ashes were thrown into the Tiber River.
While his arrogance and impatience with people disagreed with him acted against him, it's thought that his most damning "heresies" were his beliefs that the universe was infinite, there were innumerable worlds, and the Earth moved.
Bruno is one of 18 philosophers and thinkers of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution profiled in Heretics, some you have heard of and some you haven't.
Place.
Campo De' Fiori, literally "field of flowers", was a fairly undeveloped meadow within Rome, near the more well known Piazza Navona, until the mid 1400s when it was paved, and buildings were constructed around it. It became, and still is, an active market square. During the Roman Inquisition and the Renaissance, book burnings and executions were held there. Convicted heretic Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake there in 1600.
Thing.
Executions used to be held publicly in Campo de' Fiori. Here, on 17 February 1600, the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt alive for heresy, and all of his works were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Holy Office. In 1889, Ettore Ferrari dedicated a monument to him on the exact spot of his death: He stands defiantly facing the Vatican and was regarded in the first days of a reunited Italy as a martyr to freedom of thought. The inscription on the base reads: A BRUNO – IL SECOLO DA LUI DIVINATO – QUI DOVE IL ROGO ARSE ("To Bruno – the century predicted by him – here where the fire burned"). - from Wikipedia
Person.
Ask most people about the Indian Wars, and their thoughts likely go directly to the Plains Indian Wars of the West, thanks largely to Hollywood. However, the longest series of Indian wars, and the least successful from the U.S. government viewpoint, were the three Seminole Wars of 1816 to 1858 in Florida. I have to admit, even though they took place in my backyard, so to speak, and my 4th great-grandfather was a teamster in the first war from 1817-1818, I didn't know enough about the wars, and I didn't teach them in my U.S. history classes. Since moving to Florida, I'm learning more and more.
The Seminole are not an ancient people. Most indigenous Floridians had died during Spanish occupation. The Seminole are a conglomeration of southeastern Indians who had been forced south into Florida by the Georgia and Carolina settlements, with some runaway enslaved Africans. Theses groups merged and created a whole new culture.
Of course, everyone knows Osceola, a Seminole leader,but never a chief. However, the Seminole hold Abiaka, aka Sam Jones, in higher esteem. Abiaka was already a respected medicine man and leader when the first war started, and he led the Seminole through almost five decades of war. Osceola and other leaders like Coacoochee served under Abiaka. Abiaka was the strongest voice opposing removal to Oklahoma. At the end of the wars, he led the remaining Seminole in Florida deep into the Everglades, beyond white reach. The Florida Seminole survive because of him.
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The Seminole Wars were, in general, fought because whites, from mostly Georgia and the Carolinas, were intent on encroaching on Seminole land, pushing them deeper and deeper into Florida. However, a more particular reason was that, for years, there was a southbound underground railroad in effect as Georgia and Carolina slaves moved south into Florida, forming black settlements and often intermarrying with Seminoles. Southern slaveowners demanded that the Federal government disrupt this activity and return their "property."
The first Seminole War is said to have begun in July of 1816 at Negro Fort on the Apalachicola River, the largest structure between St. Augustine and Pensacola. It had been built by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812. When the British evacuated in 1815, the commander left the fort to his Corps of Colonial Marines, mostly composed of free blacks and runaway slaves. There were also Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw allies. On July 16, 1816, General Andrew Jackson opened artillery fire on the fort from the river, even though Florida was not American territory. Estimates if the dead defenders range from a few dozen to nearly 300. A few dozen captured blacks were enslaved or re-enslaved in Georgia. The first Seminole War began.
John And Mary Lou Missall have written extensively about the wars. The Seminole Wars is a comprehensive look at the wars within the larger American context.
Thing.As stated in the the first post of today, Osceola, aka Asi-yahola or Billy Powell, was never a Seminole chief, but he was a highly charismatic and effective warrior-leader during the Second Seminole War. On October 21, 1837, he was invited to Fort Peyton under a flag of truce to talk peace. Instead, General Thomas Jesup ordered him and his entourage arrested. This betrayal of the flag of truce caused a firestorm of outrage within Congress and among the general public, effectively destroying Jesup's military career.Osceola and the other prisoners were taken to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, and then to Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island outside of Charleston. While there, Osceola sat for three paintings. The first here by George Catlin and the second by Robert John Curtis. Along with W.M. Laning's portrait, they were widely sold and distributed as prints and engravings, and cigar store Indian figures were based on them.Osceola was ill throughout his imprisonment and died on January 30, 1838. A plaster cast of his head and upper chest was made, and several death masks were created from that cast of (Picture #3) The fort doctor, Frederick Weedon, removed and embalmed Osceola's head before the body was buried, took it back to St. Augustine, and displayed it in his pharmacy, attached to his home and office. Weedon family lore says that, on occasion, when one of the doctor's children misbehaved, Osceola's head would appear on his bedpost. When Weedon died, the head was donated to the specimen collection of New York Doctor Valentine Mott. Mott bequeathed it to a collection at the museum of the Medical College of the City of New York. It is believed that that entire collection was destroyed in an 1866 fire.
Person.
Red Cloud, or Mahpiya Luta, was one of the most important leaders of the Oglala Lakota from 1868 to 1909. From 1866 to 1868, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota allied and attempted to prevent white encroachment into Wyoming and Montana along the Bozeman Trail. Led by Red Cloud, the allies inflicted the worst U.S. defeat of the Indian Wars until Little Big Horn, the Fetterman Fight.
Red Cloud and other Indian leaders signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, in which the U.S. agreed to abandon all forts and settlements in Lakota Territory. Unfortunately, gold was discovered in the Black Hills precipitating a gold rush and military forces on sacred Lakota Territory. Red Cloud made numerous trips to Washington D.C in a futile attempt to restore peace. Continued violations led to the Lakota War of 1876-1877. Red Cloud chose not to participate in this war, which was led by his proteges, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
Red Cloud was one of the longest-living Plains leaders, dying in 1909 at the age of 87, and he was the most photographed American Indian in history. He spent the last four decades of his life leading the Lakota into reservation life, while continuing to fight for the rights and welfare of his people.
Drury and Calvin, the authors of Blood and Treasure, wrote an excellent biography of Red Cloud.
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The Black Hills of South Dakota were home to several Native American tribes until about 1776 when the Lakota conquered the Cheyenne and made the territory theirs. To the Lakota, the Black Hills are Paha Sapa, "the heart of everything that is," the center of their spiritual world. According to Oglala Lakota cosmology, their ancestors were star people, descended from the sky. They see a connection between various points in the Black Hills and identify them with constellations. Many Lakota ceremonies, like the Sun Dance, also have their connections to the Black Hills
The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie recognized the region's importance, stating that it would be "forever" protected from American settlers. Then, gold was discovered, precipitating a huge white invasion, in total violation of the Treaty.
In the 1930s, the Black Hills were desecrated again by the carving of Mt. Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore prompted some leaders to begin work on the Crazy Horse Memorial nearby, begun in 1948 and still under construction.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. vs the Sioux Nation that the Black Hills we're illegally seized by the U.S. and ordered $106 million in renumeration. The Lakota have refused to touch the money, now over $1.2 billion, believing that accepting the money would allow the U.S. to justify control of the land.
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In 1870, Red Cloud made the first of several trips to Washington, DC to meet with President Ulysses S. Grant. In preparation for his journey, the Lakota Sioux nation presented him with a shirt of great spiritual meaning and importance. Each element of the shirt had a special significance to the Lakota intended to impart “sacred powers” to the “Wicasa Itancan” (leader of men). It was believed the shirt would give Red Cloud the collective power of all of his people and protect him on his journey.
Today, the shirt is in the permanent collection of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.
Person.
Into the Forest, published in 2021, is the story of the Rabinowitz family, who in 1942 escaped the roundup for a Polish ghetto and fled into the Forest. For the next two years, the family were with hundreds of other people, trying to survive hunger, typhus, German troops, and Polish civilians. Eventually, the family crossed the Alps and made their way to the U.S.
The book is a graphic and intense account of a family determined to survive. It's a major addition to the Holocaust survival library.
Place.
The Rabinowitz family escaped the German roundup of Jews in late February 1942, in the town of Dziatlava, or Zhetel in Yiddish, Belarus. (Then, it was in Poland.) All Jews were ordered to report into the ghetto. Five or six families were forced to share each house, as many as 8 people per room.
On April 30, 1942, 1,200 people were marched to the edge of town where they were shot, in groups of 20, by German and Belarusian Auxiliary Police forces. The remaining 3,300 ghetto residents were killed from August 6 to August 9, 1942.
The Rabinowitz family, and others, fled into the Bialowieza Forest, one of Europe's oldest and only surviving primeval forests, today recognized as a protected site by UNESCO. Nazi Deputy Fuhrer Hermann Goering promoted and supported breeding programs to restore the ancient European bison, bears, wolves, and other extinct and endangered animals; he envisioned the forest as a huge hunting preserve for the Nazi elite
Over the next two years, the Rabinowitz family and hundreds of others survived harsh conditions in the forest camps, and numerous Polish and Jewish partisan guerilla groups operated from within the forest.
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In some of the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust, residents hid family documents and valuables and important religious documents and artifacts, including Torahs. They also hid photos, letters, and journals. They used metal boxes and milk jugs which they then buried. In some cities and towns, these boxes were the only surviving evidence after the war of the Jewish residents and their lives.
Person.
Henry Spalding (1803-1874) and his wife Eliza were missionaries who joined Marcus and Narcissus Whitman on their journey to the Oregon Territory. Supported by American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, their job was to establish missions in order to convert and "civilize" the Native Americans there. Eliza and Narcissus became the first white women to make the overland trip. The Whitman's established a mission a few miles from Fort Walla Walla, in what is now Washington, and lived among the Cayuse. The Spalding's became the first permanent white settlers in present day Idaho, among the Nez Perce.
After a measles outbreak swept through the Cayuse, it appeared that the Whitmans were powerless to stop it, and, suspiciously, the whites did not suffer the disease, having built up immunity, while Cayuse, who had no immunity, died. Angry Cayuse attacked the mission, killing the Whitmans and 11 others
The Spaldings were alerted to the murder and hidden by a Catholic priest. Spalding was, by his and the Mission board's standards, much more successful than the Whitmans, baptizing many Nez Perce, but he was also known for his harsh and uncompromising Calvinistic views, often whipping Nez Perce men and women into submission.
Following the murders, Spalding became a propagandist, and his stories made the Whitmans martyrs. He wrote that their murders were the result of a British and Catholic plot to take control of the territory, and he accused the priest who saved his life of coordinating the effort. The Whitmans were killed, he said, because Marcus discovered the plot. He all but deified the Whitmans, creating a full mythology, elevating their status as founders of Washington and Oregon.
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(Taken from the National Park Service, Whitman Mission)
In September 1836, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman reached the Columbia River, along with Reverend Henry Spalding and his wife Eliza. The Whitmans opened their mission in Waiilatpu to work with the Cayuse, and the Spaldings established their mission among the Nez Perce people of Lapwai. Once settled, the missionaries learned the native tongue, and by 1839, Spalding published his book in the Nez Perce language. While the Whitman and Spalding missions expanded gradually, other missionaries reached the complex and established new stations. During this time, three properties were erected, the blacksmith shop, gristmill, and a main large adobe house or mission house. Both missions establish large complexes; however, Whitman’s site was not as successful as Spalding’s mission.
Although the two mission sites were within close proximity, the cultural differences between the two American Indian tribes and the white settlers caused great friction. Whitman’s Cayuse Indians were not as receptive to the white man’s religion as Spalding's Nez Perce converts. By 1842, having heard of the growing dissension between the Cayuse and Whitman’s mission, the Board ordered the closing of both the Waiilatpu and Lapwai stations. Whitman, convinced his mission would succeed if provided more time, traveled to St. Louis, New York, Washington, DC, and Boston to make his case and save his mission. In 1843, moved by his statement, the American Board of Foreign Missions offered the Whitman and Spalding missions a second chance and withdrew the original orders to close the missions. On his final return to Oregon during the Great Migration of 1843, Whitman led the first wagon train to the Columbia River on what would later become the historic Oregon Trail.
Thing.
The Whitmans Bible, on display at the Whitman Mission National Monument.
In Murder at the Mission, author Blaine Harden challenges the mythology that grew up around the Whitmans, largely created by Henry Spalding, and examines the creation and propagation of that mythology as history, in the context of American history. It's an interesting study in the writing of history.
Person.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Within hours, over 100 cities were in flames and burned for up to a week. But not his home city of Atlanta, largely thanks to the Mayor Ivan Allen Jr (pic 1), who immediately realized that the world would be watching Atlanta, and thousands ( well over 100,000) would soon be descending on the city for the funeral. Determined to keep peace and showcase the city, he, the police chief, and several prominent white business owners immediately hit the streets and met with black church and civic leaders to create a united front. Atlanta truly emerged, at least for a moment, "the city too busy to hate." Coca Cola CEO Robert Woodruff stepped up and paid a large amount of the expenses for the effort.
Meanwhile, Georgia's segregationist governor, Lester Maddox (pic 2), refused to acknowledge or assist the funeral planning and execution in any way, ordering 64 state troopers to surround the state capitol. Before entering politics, Maddox had gained notoriety for refusing to integrate his Atlanta restaurant, brandishing an ax handle to threaten would-be black diners. As a campaigner, he was known for his bicycle tricks and passing out souvenir ax handles to supporters.
All kinds of people attended the Atlanta services, from civil rights movement foot soldiers to Jackie Kennedy to Emperor Haile Selassie I. Hollywood was represented by Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis Jr, Diahann Carroll, Eartha Kitt, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Bill Cosby, and Dick Gregory, to name a few. Samuel L. Jackson, a sophomore at Atlanta's Morehouse College at the time, was an usher at the funeral.
Then, there are the hundreds of Atlantans and Georgians, black and white, who opened their homes and churches to the city's visitors and fed and took care of them.
Burial For a King is a fantastic book that delves deep into all of the "controlled chaos" of the planning and execution of the funeral. I highly recommend it.
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The Martin Luther King Jr National Historical Park covers about 35 acres and includes several sites in Atlanta related to the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: his boyhood home, Ebenezer Baptist Church (where he and his father were both pastors), a visitors center and museum, and Dr. King's and Mrs. Coretta Scott King's gravesites, among other structures
It was made a National Historic site in 1980, and a National Historic Park in 2018.
Thing
For the week after the assassination, King's body was moved around by hearse. But his lieutenants, including Hosea Williams, decided that a mule-drawn wagon would transport the African mahogany casket. It would begin in the heart of one predominantly black district, Auburn Avenue, and wind up in the heart of another predominantly black district, Atlanta University Center (Spelman, Morehouse, Clark College and Atlanta University). The mules and the denim attire of Williams, Andrew Young and others also represented King's final fight for the nation's impoverished, his Poor People's Campaign. The wagon is now in the MLK Visitors Center.
Person.
William Bligh (1754-1817), an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator, has been portrayed on film by some of the greatest actors ever: Charles Laughton, Trevor Howard, Anthony Hopkins, and Bugs Bunny. And he's usually portrayed as a cruel, vindictive, and evil tyrant, most famous for the mutiny on board the Bounty. According to popular culture, Bligh's erratic behavior and cruelty drove Master's Mate Fletcher Christian to lead the Bounty crew in a mutiny. Bligh and the crew members loyal to him were set adrift in an open launch boat. Bligh's boat completed a voyage of more than 3,500 nautical miles, reaching safety in the Dutch East Indies ( now Indonesia). (By the way, because the Bounty was a small merchant ship, it did not rate having a captain. Bligh was a Lieutenant, although he eventually rose to the rank of Vice Admiral.)
Caroline Alexander's book, The Bounty, relies on ship's logs and the trial proceedings of the mutineers to paint a different picture of Bligh, Christian, and the mutiny. In reality, there were more men loyal to Bligh than there were mutineers. Bligh was known for his aversion to whipping and physically punishing his men. He was known for his care for his men, providing them exercise, a good diet, and sanitation. In many ways, he was ahead of his time compared to his peers.
The Bounty is another great example of historiography, how history is written, often to suit an agenda.
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There were 23 Bounty mutineers who set Lieutenant Bligh and his loyalists afloat in a launch. Led by Mate Fletcher Christian, they had become enamored with the beautiful women, beautiful land, and easy living of Tahiti, and they decided to stay in the Pacific Islands. After a couple of clashes with native on a few islands, they split into two groups. Fourteen men were captured by another ship, the Pandora, sent to round up the mutineers. Four of the men drowned when the Pandora foundered on the Great Barrier Reef. The other ten faced court-martial in England in September 1792. Four were acquitted, six were found guilty and sentenced to death. Three of those were pardoned, and the other three were hanged in October 1794.
Meanwhile, Christian and the other 8 men had a found safe haven, or so they thought, on Pitcairn Island, one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the Pacific. In September 1793, four and a half years after the mutiny, Tahitians killed four of the 8 mutineers, including Christian. They had been angered by the way the Pitcairn women, and they themselves, were being treated. By the end of the next decade, only one mutineer, John Adams, lived. Adams was eventually granted amnesty, and he was buried on the island in 1829. The main settlement and capital, Adamstown, is named for Adams. Some Islanders are descendants of the mutineers.
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In January of 1790, the Bounty mutineers stripped the ship of useful items and burned the remains at Pitcairn Island. Although Islanders always knew where the wreck was, it was never really explored until a National Geographic Society expedition did it in 1957.
The photos show some of the objects recovered from the Bounty, a drawing of the ship, and a page from Lieutenant Bligh's journal.
