There is much hysteria lately about monuments. To various people they assume the mantels of symbols of Southern heritage or ugly reminders of slavery, segregation and white supremacy. I, however, have never been prone to hysteria. Whether it was engaging in a fifty foot free fall onto lava rock or being bracketed by naval gunfire, I remained calm. It’s probably a brain defect.
Yesterday’s Free Lance-Star ran a ran a front page story on calls on the Fredericksburg City Council to move the slave auction block at the corner of William and Charles streets to a museum. The other side of the debate contends that the auction block should remain where it is. “We need to sometimes feel shock, pain and remorse to know how far we’ve come, what has been done, what has been sacrificed,” one city council member said. The debate is heart felt, respectful and calm. I am very proud of that fact.
I am of the firm conviction that the auction block should stay where it is, but with a more meaningful and appropriate marker than the one that exists now. I first saw the auction block in the Summer of 1988 when I first moved to the area. It gave me a depressed and uneasy feeling. I felt the same thing when I walked through Dachau several years later. This artifact of Fredericksburg’s history must stay in place and bear witness to our past.
During this visit in 1988, I also visited the sunken road and the Kirkland Memorial commemorating the story of South Carolina Sergeant Richard Rowland Kirkland bringing water to wounded Union soldiers lying in front of Confederate positions at the sunken road during the first battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. Although the story of “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” may not be historically accurate, the memorial is a moving tribute to a soldier’s compassion for another soldier. The monument was erected and dedicated during the Civil War Centennial in 1965. I know of no demonstrations occurring for or against this memorial. I would hope that anyone trying to stage a political spectacle near these monuments in these turbulent times would be run out of town. The same goes for the Meade Pyramid on Prospect Hill or any of the Confederate monuments within the Confederate cemetery. The annual lighting of luminaria in this cemetery and in the nearby National cemetery remain respectful and moving commemorations. Things are as they should be in Fredericksburg.
——————————————
The situation in Richmond is quite different. Here the potential for strife and violence is real. It was not always the case. As late as last May, Civil War historian Kevin Levin wrote “What Richmond Has Gotten Right About Interpreting Its Confederate History.” At that time Mayor Stoney still ruled out the removal of any of the Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue. Rather, in recent years, Richmond chose to bring in other monuments to balance the significant and quite beautiful Confederate commemoration sites. Although not at all related to the Civil War, the Arthur Ashe monument was installed on Monument Avenue in 1996. Many white Virginians were aghast that a monument to a black tennis player would be placed on what they consider hallowed ground. Many black residents of Richmond were upset that a monument to their native son was so close to monuments to slave holders. But Arthur went up without violence and now presides over the annual Confederate commemoration parade along with Davis, Lee, Jackson and Stuart.
In April 2003 a life-sized statue of Lincoln and his son Tad sitting on a bench was installed on the site of Tredegar Ironworks. Behind Lincoln and his son is a wall with Lincoln’s words “To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds” inscribed upon it. Although this monument memorializes the historically significant event of Lincoln’s visit to Richmond just days after it fell to Union forces in April 1865, there was loud opposition to the monument’s installation. Bragdon Bowling, then president of the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) was one of the leaders of the opposition. He described the Lincoln monument as "a slap in the face of brave men and women who went through four years of unbelievable hell fighting an invasion of Virginia by President Lincoln.” He further said the statue "is a not-so-subtle reminder of who won the war, and who our heroes should be." There were several hundred protesters at the event, many wearing Confederate uniforms and carrying the confederate battle flag. Bowling saw the monument as “a painful reminder of who won the war.”
Well, whether you call it the Civil War, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression, it is a fact that Lincoln’s Union won that war. That fact is also part of the city’s heritage. Perhaps Bragdon Bowling should heed his own words when he offered advice for those who oppose Confederate monuments “turn your head if you don’t like it.” I think this Lincoln memorial, far more modest and contemplative than the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, is a fitting addition to Richmond.
There are several other recent additions to Richmond’s acknowledgement of her heritage. There is the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue installed in Shockoe Bottom in 2007. Identical statues stand in Liverpool, England and in the Republic of Benin. Efforts to preserve Lumpkin’s Slave Jail and create a Slavery Memorial Park in Shockoe Bottom around that archeological site and a nearby African burial ground are underway. I’d much rather see this go forward than see Richmond or Virginia expend resources moving any Confederate statues from Monument Avenue. Given our current legal statutes, that idea is a non-starter anyways.
There is one other event that I would like to see memorialized in a grand manner in Richmond. It consists of the events described in this dispatch from the front.
City Point, VA., April 3, 1865—11 a.m.
Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War:
General Weitzel telegraphs as follows:
We took Richmond at 8.15 this morning. I captured many guns. The enemy left in great haste. The city is on fire in two places. Am making every effort to put it out. The people received us with enthusiastic expressions of joy.
T. S. Bowers, Assistant Adjutant-General.
The events of that moment are well described in this account from Mark St. John Erikson, a reporter for the Daily Press out of Newport News. Whenever I visit my younger son, I pass the two highway plaques that now commemorate that event. I also remember passing the Surrender Tree, a massive white oak that stood close to the spot where Richmond Mayor Mayo surrendered the city to advancing Union troops. It fell during a derecho in 2012. Luckily, my son’s house escaped damage other than losing a few shingles.
The first Union infantry unit that marched into Richmond was the 36th Infantry Regiment, US Colored Troops. Many of the infantrymen in the 36th were former slaves from the Tidewater Virginia region. It was these former slaves who were greeted by the black residents of Richmond, slaves and freedmen, with such enthusiasm on what became Emancipation Day in Richmond. I would like to see this event memorialized in a grand way at a prominent location in Richmond. It would be a fitting counterpoint to the statues memorializing the Confederacy on Monument Avenue. History should be remembered.
TTG
P.S. – The photo at the top of this post is the Soldier's Monument in Prospect, Connecticut. I grew up in the house, a former glebe house, visible behind the monument. That soldier and I have had a close relationship as far back as I can remember. In first grade I marched around him with my classmates wearing shakos made from construction paper, carrying our American flags and singing patriotic songs. The tree at the far left is a scion of Connecticut's Charter Oak. I often climbed it as a youth.
TTG
On the topic of tearing down monuments, page 195
of my copy of George Orwell’s “1894”
has this passage which, sadly, seems relevant
to what is currently taking place
“Already we know almost literally
nothing about the Revolution and the years before
the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified,
every book has been rewritten, every picture has been
repainted, every statue and street and building has been
renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is
continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has
stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which
the Party is always right.”
Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96
TTG,
Make that George Orwell’s “1984”.
1894 is my marlin carbine model #.
Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96
Thanks TTG. Well said!
As the descendant of families who fought on both sides in that horrible war that killed close to a million Americans – on both sides. I second your recommendations.
Nightsticker,
I believe the idea isn’t to destroy history. If anything blacks want the civil war remembered. It’s due to the adoption of Confederate symbols by today’s white supremacists, whose message is actually the opposite of the Lost Causers. They believe the war had little to do with slavery, if I understand them correctly.
The Roof incident got this ball rolling. I believe what prompted Nikki Haley to bust the dam was a feeling of a need for a reciprocal gesture for the magnificent grace shown by the survivors and the victim’s families. This sort of gesture is IMO a true southern virtue, but moreover it sends a message to those who have adopted these symbols and have begun using them as rallying points.
Whatever symbols they adopt expect a lot of people to mess with that symbol and/or them for doing so. Orwell might not be a good fit for this, is all.
Yes, my Kentucky wife reminded me the other day that her great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy until he was captured. He then switched sides and fought for the Union. After the war he eventually was able to draw some veterans benefits from both sides which my wife’s family cynically figured was his plan all along. He was referred to by the family as “Yankee Duvall”.
mike & TTG
“I second your recommendations.” What recommendations are those, to stay calm? It’s really easy to be calm about the wave of cleansing when you live on the beach in Washington State or really think yourself a Northern person even though you live here. My abolitionist ancestors were all in the Union Army, so I suppose I should easily be calm about radical students throwing paint all over Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, but, you know what I AM NOT calm about it. Today, the Coalition of Minority Students at UVa demanded the cleansing of the campus, including suitable “Contextual” material at the site of Thomas Jefferson’s statue on The Lawn. It would seem that DJT was right when he asked, to the outrage of the revolutionary left, if Washington and Jefferson would be next. pl
They could always follow through to the logical conclusion and disband UVa since Jefferson founded the damned thing.
I am curious about the legacy of William Mahone in Virginia. I came across this article yesterday, which I found fascinating. I’ve heard Mahone’s name with respect to the Civil War but knew nothing of his post-war career or of the readjusters. Does the author paint a fairly representative picture of Mahone and the readjusters in Virginia?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-confederate-general-who-was-erased-from-history_us_599b3747e4b06a788a2af43e
Colonel –
I have no beef with Lee’s statue or most other Confederate veterans’ statues. Let them stand in peace. If someone does not like them, they should turn their head as TTG recommended. And I would have no problem with erecting a memorial to the Black 36th Regiment entering Richmond either.
On the other hand maybe we should be removing memorials to ‘Beast’ Butler. But I do not know of any statues of him. There is a painting of him in the New Hampshire statehouse as he was born in Deerfield. And there is probably a bust of him in the Mass statehouse or in Lowell? Take them down. What about Sherman? Rename the M4 Medium Tank to Lee or Stuart? Oh wait, never mind we already had both of those.
Porkchop Express
Mahone was an inn keeper’s son. He was an excellent division commander. After the war expediency caused him to become a Republican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mahone pl
Mark,
” They believe the war had little to do with slavery, if I understand them correctly.”
“Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
There is a great deal of literature on the subject of
how Lincoln, the Union soldiers, and most citizens in the Northern
states felt about the slaves and colored folk in general.
I will leave it to you, if you have not already done so, to
do the reading. It is extremely heavy reading but, for the Southern
point of view, I recommend to you “A Constitutional View of the War between the States, its Causes, Character, Conduct and Results”
by Alexander H. Stevens [2 volumes]. He of course was the vice President of the Confederate States of America.
Orwell was a most interesting man. He started out as sort of
a 1936 version “snowflake”; went to fight in Spain; discovered the true face of Leftism [see Homage to Catalonia]; wrote “1984”. There can be no mistake; he thought tearing down statues and monuments
was an attempt to erase/rewrite history.
I was flattered that you took the time to respond to my post.
So it is in a friendly frame of mind that I encourage you
not to write sentences that could be possibly construed as
sympathetic, understanding, or encouraging to nasty, bed wetting, limp wristed,rear area, cosmopolitan,illiterate, gender confused, perverts who want to tear down statues of General Lee, his officers and men.
Cordially,
Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96
TTG,
What wonderful ideas. The anti-American left can erase the past so that they can control the future and we should all just ‘chill out’? This is a wonderful distraction from:
MSM’s overt racism, this particular piece directed against an Asian American reporter:
http://nypost.com/2017/08/24/espn-president-we-were-protecting-robert-lee/
The Google/Gulag Manifesto and the requirements of corporate conformity imposed by the left:
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sundar-pichai-anti-diversity-manifesto-fired-2017-8
Ongoing racism on campus directed against white students and professors, which is on top of the damage Melissa Click did to the University of Missouri or Rolling Stone managed to inflict at UVA with a fake rape story:
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/the-evergreen-state-college-no-safety-no-learning-no-future/
(Howard University student outrage at a trio of high schoolers is just icing on the three-layer cake of it’s ok if you are on the left:
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/08/22/white-teenage-girls-claim-they-were-harassed-at-howard-university-for-wearing-make-america-great-again-hats-hbcu/23157174/ ).
We are watching the cultural marixsts in action setting the narrative that society is not componsed of individuals but identity groups and you are either a victim or an oppressor; and of course white Americans, especially traditional Americans or Southern Americans are and have always been racist.
Topping it all off is the vaulue of distracting attention away from the ongoing investigation into the infiltration of the US House IT system, at least on the Democratic side, by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s now idicted IT staffer(s).
@Mark Logan,
The trouble with “history,” as popularly understood, is that it is a tool of propaganda, a set of convenient truths, half-truths, and sometimes, plausible but outright lies jiggered together for the politically ascendant factions today. In a sense, the re-emergence of a lot of Southern symbols a few decades ago had more to do with the politics of 1960s than the events of 1860s, and the movement today to wipe out (or to “defend”) the memorabilia of 1860s has more to do with the politics of 2010s than the actual “history,” made up of the events whose nuances are conveniently ignored, suppressed or twisted out of shape, by all sides.
Most of it, of course, is anathema to an understanding of the actual history, much like those who want to ban Huckleberry Finn because of the N-word, without even bothering to know what the book is about, a product of wilful ignorance and an surplus of self-righteousness. The best counter to this, I thought, is an understanding of actual history–but few people seem patient enough to actually know the past for the past, and not what they wish it was. I suppose it’s not just limited to just history, though.
I rather liked the way TTG described the way Richmond dealt with the weight of the past: rather than taking the monuments away, she added more. If the past (or anything else) can be understood in a better context, with greater nuance, I’m all for it. Not to pass judgment, one way or another, for Father Time’s judgment will ultimately be greater than any of us mortals in due time anyways, but so that we can at least understand why things happened as they did. For those who are impatient, I suppose, it’ll make all things so complicated, but that is not such a bad thing, if it means people needing to slow down in their rush to form a judgment and have to think a bit.
Fred,
How did you get the idea that I want history erased? Throughout this post I called for more history to be put on display and nothing, no Confederate monuments or slave blocks, to be moved or razed. Read the whole thing before going rabid.
As for ESPN’s pulling of Chinese-American Robert Lee out of calling a Charlottesville game, That’s another example of not staying calm. I wonder if ESPN realizes how ridiculous they look.
mike,
Sherman was the founding superintendant of what would become LSU–it was founded as a state military school just before the Civil War. I believe there are several monuments/momentos to him at LSU, as his leadership was fondly remembered. I always thought they were a nice gesture, reminders of the complexities of the Civil War.
@mike,
PS.
Apparently, there is no formal university-wide recognition of Sherman at LSU, if this op-ed piece is to be believed. If so, I stand corrected:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/article_fc70868a-25dc-11e7-86a2-2b4ada8d06e7.html
But in this case, this would be an excellent addition that could be made to LSU, a bigger, more prominent reminder of the complexities of the Civil War and the people who fought in it, a reminder that we should remember the past, all of it in the manifold complexities, not forget all that’s at odds with what we of today think the past should be.
Nightsticker,
Exactly right. We should be reminded of and learning more history, the good, the bad and the ugly. To do otherwise is foolish and literally ignorant.
Colonel, James Madison was the main author of the U.S. Bill of Rights &
was also a slave owner. So I also wonder where does all end?
Do the antifas want to abolish the 1st & 2nd amenments? Where does it all end? New rights? Free health care, free college education & free housing? “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”? Some leftist utopia? This isn’t just about marble & bronze. Next come reparations? More noise about CW equals martial law. Silly humor like
replace the monuments with statues of Tom Brady or big busted woman don’t
help either.
To hell with natzis & the klan, to hell with slavery wherever it exists today but these rioters appear to be going after the U.S. Constitution if you follow their reasoning to a conclusion. I share your concern on many levels. Thanks also to Nightsticker, his 1984 reference is spot on.
pl,
My recommendations emphasized keeping all monuments and memorials in place. I also called for more memorials in Richmond. Do you think the Lincoln memorial at Tredegar should remain in place?
A monument of Christopher Columbus was vandalized in Baltimore this week, and Mayor De Blsdio is considering removing the Columbus statue in NYC.
The Joan of Arc statue in New Orleans was recently spray painted with the words “take it down.” In Los Angeles, a statue of St. Junipero Serra was painted red, and “murder” was scrawled in white letters.
I wonder about the candor, or perceptiveness of anyone who suggests the recent spate of iconoclasm promoted by the radical left is primarily driven about issues related to the Confederacy and/or slaveholding.
This is about hating Western Civilization, “white privilege”, and our form of government.
Mayor Signer would do well to study the fate of Robespierre when he attempted to institute a Republic of Virtue.
As the outrageous antics at the Charlottesville City Council this past Monday so amply demonstrate, it is very hard to control a blood thirsty mob. The cynical politicians who have tried to manipulate BLM and Antifa for electoral advantage may soon find that they are the mob’s next victims.
I think this group is a small minority. I hope so.
They also want to turn the lawn into a residential space. I begin to wonder if these kids knew anything about Jefferson before applying to attend his school.
I think it would be cool if the statue came to life and ordered them to Get Off My Lawn. Although that is not what Jefferson would want. He’d try to engage the students.
As my son would say, why don’t they demand the leveling of pyramids? After all, they have been built at terrible costs for dark-skinned slaves.
I am from Europe. I have got family in Richmond. Haven’t been visiting for a while though, prefered the old ways. US have changed a lot in a couple of decades.
Yet I still visit your blog which seems to be deeply rooted in Virginia. This might compensate after all. My salutations to Virginians, their heritage, be it glorious or shameful, and all sensible Americans.
The monumental lines of Horace:
http://nonnumadanda.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/horace-ode-330.html
Latin and English.
The many losses of physical monuments through ideological or religious causes or mere avarice (village WWI and WWII plaques commemorating multiple members of local families who lost their lives have been levered off of walls and sold for scrap value in many parts of the UK – hey, let’s all welcome the Roma!) shouldn’t obscure the fact that great words can, indeed, really convey the spirit of their creators down through the succeeding generations.
Colonel, TTG,
Can I ask two questions, and the first one is — I don’t understand why it’s not being done, namely why aren’t the opium/poppy crops in Afghanistan being destroyed instead of letting them continue unabated? Our satellites know exactly where every poppy field is, and we can defoliate/destroy Afghanistan’s entire opium poppy field within a month easy, back to the question why aren’t they being destroyed? Who gains by their continuation?
Every area that the Taliban gained control of, the Taliban proceeded to eradicate the opium poppy crops in the areas they held. So why don’t we the U.S. do the same?
Now to the second question, has Valerie Plame Wilson lost her mind with her gofundme campaign to kick POTUS off Twitter? Such an idea IMO is really stupid and dumber than dirt. Has the Taos yuppie mindset fogged up Valerie’s thinking processes?
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/32477/53/
Ok, now I’m done with my questions.
Send in the Marines and let them decimate/destroy/eradicate Afghanistan’s opium/poppy crops.
The phrase “anti-American left” is ironic, inasmuch as it occurs in the context of a discussion of monuments to traitors who were so ‘anti-US’ they chose to secede from it.
“…Southern Americans are and have always been racist.”
Many of them, yes, absolutely. The statues that have provoked the demonstrations (demonstrations that saw Confederate flags and Nazi flags displayed alongside and dishonoring the US flag) were erected as displays of white supremacy when Jim Crow laws were being enacted and civil rights legislation was being fought. It continues to this day, with the apologists for the statues, the neo-Nazi and KKK demonstrators, and the Southern War of Treason in Defense of Slavery mostly being members/supporters of the same political party that is working systematically to disenfranchise black voters.
TTG
The Confederate Statue controversy reminds me of Ukraine and other hotspots where a radicalized majority gains power with the help of outside agitators and starts lording itself over disenfranchised minorities. Being a Westerner by birth, every single statue of Robert E. Lee is worth keeping and remembering for one simple reason; he surrendered at Appomattox and spared North America a protracted guerrilla war. Since the elite have lost all sense of history with their mad money grab from everyone else with the forever wars; a future historian might well say that the second American Civil War started in Charlottesville, VA when black shrouds were placed over the statues of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E Lee.
TTG,
Not you, the cult-marxists. ESPN is quite concious of what they are doing, it’s cut a couple hundred million out of its revenue stream by becoming political commentary rather than a sports network.
Bob,
Rejoice, you conquer! Or in this case my ancestor in Battery-B, 1st NJ artillery did. We maybe not conquer so much as win a war of attrition against people whose states said they seceded from the Union, kind of like California is threatening to do. At least the slaves are free. I’m still waiting for some folks to say thanks for the freedom; it’s only been 150 or so years; maybe next Juneteeth. Meanwhile be sure to help the poverty stricken SPLC raise some funds by waiving the battle flag around. I hear they’re down to thier last third of a billion. As for me, I’m a dues paying Democrat living in the great state of Michigan; though I shouldn’t mention that to you since the Democratic Party is the party that enacted all those Jim Crow laws, succeeded for years to disenfranchise black voters and whose longest serving Senator and mentor to Hilary was a KKK member. Perhaps, in the spirit of reconciliation, we should issue a joint declaration of condemnation against Slick Willy and his wife for not taking down any of those monuments while he was Governor of Arkansas. Or President.
Congrats on the virtue signal though. Oh, on second thought, “dishonoring the US flag)” That’s Colin Kaepernick, America’s greatist victim of slavery, oppression and police brutality. I hear he’s having trouble getting some billionaire sports team owners to give him another hundred million or so. I should write up something about that.
K_H_C –
Thanks! I was vaguely aware of the pre-war Sherman in Louisiana. But had no idea he was popular there after the war. But probably they were glad that the Union did not send Beast Butler back and were happy to see Sherman as he was never considered an abolitionist. And Louisiana never felt Sherman’s total war that he unloosed on GA, SC, and NC.
I was never a fan of Sherman. His March to the Sea and what followed was IMHO too late to affect the war.
I see on Wikipedia that he gave LSU two cannons from Ft Sumter. Wonder if they were Beauregard’s or Anderson’s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman#/media/File:LSUcannons_crop.jpg
Bob,
We shouldn’t be too quick to proclaim that all these Confederate monuments were erected to reinforce Jim Crowe Laws or as a backlash to the Civil Rights movement. Many of the monuments honoring Union soldiers and leaders were erected in the same time periods. And the Civil Rights era coincided with the Centennial of the war. That soldiers monument in Prospect didn’t go up until 1907. Donnie Johnston, a Culpepper writer for the Free Lance-Star wrote a column today addressing this very point.
http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/columns/donnie-johnston-nation-is-losing-respect-for-its-history/article_41c296c1-1212-5eae-9978-bb60f81ed3fe.html
However, you are correct that the KKK, alt-right and neo-nazis have hijacked these monuments and the Confederate battle flag as symbols of their still held white supremacist ideas. That is what had brought all this hell down upon these symbols of the South. I think the only possible way to correct this is for those dedicated to preserving a non-racist Southern heritage to break that affiliation. At the same time, those of us who care for the rule of law must enforce the protection and preservation of these monuments and symbols until constructive solutions are found.
Very well stated Bob. I am sure TTG came about his views honestly, even if he tries to occupy an evenhanded space that may not exist. No doubt, most of these questionable monuments were erected to celebrate slavery and treason and are thus now condemned by a lot of people. By allowing Nazis and the Klan to advocate for, it has just increased the people against.
If the admirers and apologists for the Confederacy want to keep these artifacts, let them raise the money to build museums. That may not happen, since I have learned over the years that when wallets get involved, views change.
The good news is that there is a vigorous debate about all this. Hopefully, a solution will be found, even if it will not please everyone.
The Founders created a representative republic because they understood that democracy devolves into mob rule and chaos. That is what we’re seeing with the protests against the monuments and Trump. It’s the break down of our governmental process and no one knows where it’s going to stop.
Portland, Or, is a breeding ground for progressive experiments. For years I’ve watched higfh school teachers encourage their students to leave class to march in the street over teacher pay, a sign saying “Build the Wall” a student wrote at anothjer school in an adjacent city and other causes I don’t remember. These teachers must think they’re Ghandi or MLk for teaching their students that whatever they want is the most important thing in the world and they have every right to demand it.But their causes aren’t noble and are not based on true suffering but the suffering of their ancestors. I find that ignoble.
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Cleveland is a spectacular memorial to the 10,000 men who gave their lives in the Civil War.
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/332
That should be “10,000 men from Cuyahoga county who gave their lives in the Civil War.” I grew up in that county.
I wonder how many in Atlanta are freaking out over Grant Field at what is now Bobby Dodd Stadium at Georgia Tech in that city. It is, of course, named after an entirely different Grant, one native to Atlanta, but I doubt that will get in the way of some reactionaries.
Nikki Haley’s response, like everything else she does, was to curry favour with the neocons to aid her planned for bid for the Presidency. The Roof incident was an excuse to enact long desired eradication of Confederate memorials.
The opinion polls I have seen suggest Americans overwhelmingly wish the monuments to stand, and black Americans are evenly split on the matter. Unfortunately your university system is spewing forth fanatics that would make Mao’s Red Guards look the picture of moderation. The old Yankee Victorian capitalists or Methodist and Congregationalist villagers from the North were happy to see the South have their history, the new masters of discourse, not so much.
Today, the Coalition of Minority Students at UVa demanded the cleansing of the campus, including suitable “Contextual” material at the site of Thomas Jefferson’s statue on The Lawn.
you admittedly made me feel a little guilty, along the line of one of my favorite quotes: In every statement there is a little error and the error gets bigger until the snake is scotched, seeing you use quotes around contextual. Could it be, I overuse the word context? Beyond declaring myself a “cultural marxist” …
On the other hand, I don’t completely agree with TTG here while appreciating his “contextual” allusion to hysteria:
Ronnette Cooper can’t walk past the slave auction block in downtown Fredericksburg without wondering if her ancestors had been sold there.
…
She said that whether it remains at the corner of William and Charles streets or is relocated to a museum, a plaque be placed there. It should say not only that slavery was evil, but that America today stands for the success and liberty of all, regardless of their color.
Who are the citizen who cannot even walk on the street?
As far as I am concerned. and with all due respect to Ms Carr Rossi and Ms Cooper. Are they asking for contextualization since they are too lazy both as interviewee and journalist to look into historical context? Or as far as Ms Cooper is concerned. Is it more hard for black versus white people in the US to study their family history or “roots”? Is it much too hard to find out at what point in time the block got the additional plate? Which after all gives it “context”?
What’s its history? Before getting rid of it, wouldn’t people want to know it?
*******
Nutshell, not sure if this needs more visually present contextualization, beyond historical research. But maybe I didn’t read Ms Cooper’s article close enough:
http://www.getawaymavens.com/fredericksburg-va-one-day-is-not-enough/
Col. Lang,
I agree. The cost of removing all of these monuments can’t be justified and the money would be better spent elsewhere. Plaques can be placed to tell the rest.
An example;
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/21/protesters-demand-removal-nyc-statue-hailing-doctor-who-experimented-slave-women/588661001/
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present is a 2007 book by Harriet A. Washington. It is a history of medical experimentation on African Americans
LeaNder
When I was a small child that auction block was embedded in the paving at that corner. We traveled around a bit. The people of Fredericksburg chose to leave it there for the last 150 years as a reminder of the improvement of society. It did not arrive from outer space so that TTG could discover it in 1988. pl
Bill H
US Grant was a pre-war slave owner. as was George Thomas. pl
Good post. I like the idea of more statues commemorating a broader range of people, if history is the concern. I thought the following article was going to be about Longstreet, but it was about a different Confederate general who had a postwar career as a member of a political party in Virginia defending black rights. He sounds like someone long overdue for a statue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-confederate-general-who-was-erased-from-history_us_599b3747e4b06a788a2af43e?section=us_politics
Col. Lang:
This situation in US regarding monuments and memorials to men who fought for CSA is analogous to the situation in Europe regarding the monuments and memorials to the men and women who fought for USSR against the Third Reich; see please the fate of the Bronze Soldier of Talin @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Soldier_of_Tallinn.
I am waiting to see when Germans will obliterate, under one pretext or another, the Soviet War Memorials at Treptow and at Tiergarten in Berlin.
The ruthless & viscous first Qajar Shah, Agha Mohammad Khan, is the founder of what became, eventually, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet his name appears on no buildings or streets or plazas, his visage is not on any Iranian currency, and no monument exists dedicated to him. Even in Tabriz, in the Notables of Tabriz sculpture garden, there is no bust of him.
Some historical facts and truths are evidently too unpalatable to future generations who wish to obliterate them from the historical memory.
Concerning the removal of Civil War monuments, I guess Virginia should get with the program of protecting their Civil War statues as other southern states have done. Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi, all have laws on the books that are designed to prevent the removal of Civil War memorials and preempt local governments from removing them. So much for local control of government.
More monuments to traitors who lost a war are needed asap.
Today it’s Civil War Monuments while yesterday its was BLM, Occupy Wall Street, Environmental Actions, Chicago Anti Trump protests, etc. now what will tomorrow bring. To me these chameleons with different names are out to disrupt our nation and take away our civil rights of assembly, speech, press, political thought etc.
The Democratic Party used to be one of Joe Six Pack today it’s one of Jessica Yogamats who have no clue what these Crap Stirrers will do with them before they are finished tearing this country apart. The Republican Party is not much better but are now seeing the light when it comes to the Crap Stirrers. Frankly neither party is representing the whole of this country as they bicker away time in congress which is why the population is moving towards an independent view. But just let the chameleons continue and you will see large majorities of Republicans in congress as at least they know what Law and Order means.
I was born in the town and played as a child on Gallows Hill where some women were put to death because they were different, held odd beliefs or were just odd. We have learned from that. Respect thy Neighbor and all that he believes for that is his view as one desires the same Respect for his own views.
y.t.kealoha,
Davis, Lee and the others were secessionists, not traitors. There is a big difference. The New England states came very close to seceding from the Union during the War of 1812. At that time these northern states thought the southern states had far too much sway at the Federal level to the detriment of the New England mercantilists. Traitor is a term that is thrown about far too casually today.
mike,
The received word on the cannons (which were what I was thinking when I mentioned monuments/momentos to Sherman on LSU campus) is that the story about Ft Sumter is probably a myth–the guns were manufactured in Massachusetts in 1861 and it is improbable that they were in either Confederates’ or Federals’ hands at Ft. Sumter by April of that year. Still, it’s a nice story.
I’ve heard a lot of conflicting stories about Sherman’s views on slavery–some recent accounts, details of which I cannot remember, made him seem like a full on abolitionist at times. He was, after all, a brother of John Sherman, the noted abolitionist (and anti-monopoly) senator from Ohio. I always got the sense, though, that he rarely made public his real sentiments and genuinely thought full-on “justice,” by whoever’s definition, and reconciliation, especially after a bitter and divisive struggle, did not go well together. If that is the case, that’s a sentiment worth emulating. “Justice,” to different people, mean different things. “Full on justice” can only be achieved by complete, even annihilatory, conquest of one faction over all those whom its members disagree with and the forcible imposition of what it considers just, and nothing is more incompatible with reconciliation and reflection than such abominable things.
Babak,
We need to keep reminding ourselves that even in Europe, especially Central and Eastern Europe, the history of World War 2 is quite different. (Or, as I keep bringing up, the peculiar and somewhat successful attempt by the Japanese in early 1940s to create a pro-Japanese version of Korean nationalism–which, of course, has been completely forgotten in both countries, at least officially.) History is complicated. It’s not a morality tail. Different peoples have different memories that are socially sanctioned and reinforced. Nothing is a greater folly than to assume that everyone views the past events the same way.
@mike,
PS. One thing about Sherman, which I suspect you are already well-aware, is that he became close friends with Johnston after the war, to the point that Johnston, despite being in ill-health and foul weather, acted as one of pallbearers at Sherman’s funeral and died soon after after catching bad cold. A joint memorial to Sherman and Johnston would be something that I’d love to see.
SR Wood
The states are legally sovereign, not the localities within them which usually operate with the four corners of a charter granted to them by the state. All other power is reserved to the state under the Dillon principle. I think Virginia does have such a law, but the governor seems loath to apply it and annoy the street people. pl
I think his real sentiment was: “…damn all those who brought war into our country…”
Yes, of course. That Romanians, Croats, Muslim Bosnians, Western Ukrainians, the Hungarians, and the Italians were solidly behind the Third Reich is best forgotten.
That Austrians were basically asking Germany to come and take them over is something impolite to mention in Polite Company.
That French Police were helping the Gestapo in rounding up the members of the Resistance or Jews, that NAZI Dutch held a huge rally outside of Rotterdam after its bombing by the Luftwaffe is also erased from memory.
That ordinary Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians were murdering their Jewish fellow-country-men (per the ideas of Citizenship of the Enlightenment Tradition) in street are conveniently obliterated from memory.
Lastly, there was that little matter of the SS, an all-volunteer force of foreign nationals recruited to fight for the Third Reich.
It was all USSR’s fault – we all know – and it is Russia’s fault today that we are not living in a Post Post Enlightenment Utopia.
“US Grant was a pre-war slave owner.”
True, with a couple of notes to place that fact in context. As I’m sure you know, Grant came of an abolitionist family although he was not an abolitionist himself. (His father disapproved of his marriage into a family of slaveholders and did not show at the wedding; Longstreet, a relative of Julia Dent’s, was there.) For awhile Grant worked on a Dent family farm with slaves owned by his father-in-law. He sometimes worked alongside them. Later he acquired a slave also formerly owned by his father-in-law and freed him after a year or two. By freeing the man and not selling, Grant was walking away from at least $1,000, and he and his family needed money badly.
And those who brought war into our country were ardent “justice seekers” on all sides.
Not that forgotten. When Yatsenyuk, the most democratic man in Ukraine (TM) reminded the Westerners that Stalin invaded Europe through Ukraine in 1944, everyone clapped.
The iconoclasts in Charlottesville should go north and tear down those monuments to the old slave trading families of New England, and the bankers in New York that financed their slave ships.
Brown University in Providence RI was named after the Brown brothers who ships brought slaves to the new world. They also had slaves working in their RI factories. Brown University was founded by Ezra Stiles, an early abolitionist who also profited from the slave trade. He eventually freed his slave but forced that slave’s two year old son into indenture until he was 24. Why not go after memorials at Brown, or Stiles’ house in Newport, or the college building at Yale named after him? By the way, most if not all of the old mansions in Newport were built from profits of the slave trade. Tear them down, or at least label them for what they are.
The multi-million dollar Cabot family of Boston got their seed money ten generations ago through the slave trade and the opium trade. They later made huge grants to Harvard, MIT and Norwich Universities to get respectable and sanitize their past.
Fanueil Hall in Boston, known tongue in cheek as the Cradle of Liberty, was named after Peter Fanueil, a slave trading Boston merchant.
Connecticut was as much a slave state as VA or MS. Connecticut had many slave-worked farms (i.e. plantations). On the eve of the American Revolution in Connecticut ”…half of all the ministers, lawyers, and public officials owned slaves, and a third of all the doctors.” The many textile mills there (as well as in RI & MA) relied on cotton harvested by southern slaves.
Even before the African slave trade, New England merchants made money by selling Indian slaves to the plantations of the Caribbean. They also sold some criminal whites into slavery in Jamaica; nice way to zero out any cost of penal institutions and actually make money from it.
K_H_C –
Great thinking on that joint memorial to Sherman & Johnston. I concur. And why not joint memorials to Lee and Grant like the famous painting of them shaking hands?
Someone a lot smarter than all of us here once said “The only thing civil about the terrible war between the Union and the Confederacy was its climax. On Palm Sunday 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant strode into the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s farmhouse in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and shook hands with General Robert E. Lee.”
mike,
The revisionists are doubling down. DeBlasio is going after Columbus because those Europeans….
http://nypost.com/2017/08/23/de-blasio-says-removing-columbus-statue-is-on-the-table/
Fred –
Mayor de Blasio may lose his job in the 2017 elections if he moves that statue, due to the influence of the Knights of Columbus and the large Italian contingent in NYC. He is Italian himself, isn’t he? I suspect the KofC will talk to him behind the curtain and he will flip on this issue.
On the other hand, Columbus did NOT discover America. The fable that he did discover America is a bit of revisionism in itself. And I have never been a fan of Columbus: the first European slaver in the new world.
If Americans did not like drugs so much, maybe we would not have to send in the Marines to destroy the fields. We are the largest abusers of drugs in the world. I haven’t a clue what can be done. Obviously just say no didn’t work, nor did having a Drug Czar.
mike,
“the first European slaver in the new world.” The native version was better. Kind of like Boko Haram’s with “our girls” only with human sacrifice.
Good point, but out here on the high plains (SD &NE) I can not imagine the state government telling a locality whether or not to take down a statue. But then again we don’t have the history the southern states do.
Fred –
The same human sacrifice was practiced in Europe by Romans, Greeks Celts, Germans, and Slavs.
In the Americas, conquistadores quite often massacred all the males in villages and pulled a boko haram on the women and children. We Americans may not have done the boko haram routine, but as Colonel Chivington said: “Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
Nightsticker,
I believe you have mis-interpreted by statement. What I am saying is not all removal of symbols is an attempt to “erase history”. I pondered what the Hindus thought of what the hell happened to the Swastika, but they were forced to largely shun that too. It’s what happens when clowns mis-appropriate them. Nothing fair about it, this is not advocacy.
I’ve done a fair bit of reading on the topic, mainly with an interest in sorting out how the people felt at the time. Has anyone done that better than our host? I think not. Nevertheless, I believe your warning is most wise, and have determined to run and hide behind Shelby Foote, who is equipped with much thicker armor for such accusations: “The great shame of the Confederate flag is it has been desecrated by those who now wave it.”
It appears that symbols must be curated with exceedingly great care…if they are going to represent history.
“At least the slaves are free. I’m still waiting for some folks to say thanks for the freedom; it’s only been 150 or so years; maybe next Juneteeth.”
Nope, not racist.
“…I shouldn’t mention that to you since the Democratic Party is the party that enacted all those Jim Crow laws, succeeded for years to disenfranchise black voters and whose longest serving Senator and mentor to Hilary was a KKK member.”
Sure, pretend none of us are aware of the political alignment that occurred in the 1960’s, changing the electoral map of the former Confederacy from solidly blue to solidly red. What could possibly have caused that?
“..on second thought, “dishonoring the US flag)” That’s Colin Kaepernick”
Because kneeling during a song that contains the verse “No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” dishonors the American flag more than carrying alongside Nazi and Confederate flags (you know, people who fought and killed US citizens) while chanting “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us”.
Give us a reputable authority on that aspect of the conquistadors’ behaviour, please, Mike.
Thanks, Pat.
Seems the plate was added in 1984, thus early enough for TTG to take a closer look. Not sure what the HFFI at the bottom of the plate refers to.
http://www.getawaymavens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Slave-Auction-Block-Fredericksburg-VA.jpg
Interesting anyway. I hoped I would find a little context?
A local historian that can tell me a little bit more about the block. In a nutshell a much longer struggle around the block, aural history plus at least eight historical traces of slaves sales in front of what was once the planter’s hotel, and at least one instance of a possible property auction at the same location. Good historical image collection too:
https://fredericksburghistory.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/hello-world/
In any case concerning Ms Cooper I was wrong, rude? Sorry, Ronnette Cooper. Trade matters, I should have realized must indeed be very hard to trace. Except if family archives wind up in libraries.
Bob,
That’s right, thanks for noticing. Now you are beginning to understand the cause of the agitators. Perhaps you should run for office to fix all that and bring about the ‘new man’ utopia.
Mike,
That’s hard to believe since the conquistadors had a great number of native allies and most of the deaths were from smallpox, which the locals had never been exposed to. The intermarriage to the native population wasn’t done by kidnapping girls out of government run schools.
Cortes –
Here are a few that I know of: Check out the Napituca and Mabila massacres by de Soto, the Tiguex massacre by Coronado, the Acoma and Tompiro massacres by Onate, and the Zia Pueblo massacre by de Cruzate.
These were all documented by the perpetrators themselves or by the padres that accompanied them. They plus others are on record in the Crown archives in Madrid. There are also numerous books in English on the subject that were researched in Madrid.
You should do your own homework.
Read the Journals of Bernal Diaz.
A satanic order was smashed thanks to Spaniards.
LeaNder,
You’ve taken quite an interest in the Fredericksburg slave auction block. I commend your curiosity. Check out the Lumpkin’s slave jail archeological site in Richmond. That site came very close to being lost when the city was thinking about putting the new baseball stadium in that location. Luckily, that idea was discarded. Public parking is already tough in the Shockoe Bottom area. A stadium would have made it impossible. The proposed slavery memorial park is a good fit for the location. It is near the newly renovated Main Street railroad station and the soon to be expanded historic farmers market which often hosts various street fests. The new Stone Brewing Co. Brewery will also be building a beer garden on the James River with the Capitol bike trail running through it. My younger son takes that trail to work every day. Come to think of it, you’d probably feel right at home in Richmond.
http://www.smbw.com/project/main-st-station/
http://www.richmond.com/digital/richmond-bacon-festival/collection_6d008cae-d13d-11e2-94b6-0019bb30f31a.html#1
Fred –
Intermarriage? Kidnapping girls into forced concubinage is the same whether they were kidnapped from schools, pueblos, or Yezidi villages.
LeaNder
No one pays much attention to the auction block. It was actually used for the auctioneer to stand on so that he could see who was bidding. Virginia likes auctions. I have been to many. Other kinds of property were auctioned there as well as slaves. there is a city museum that deals with slavery as well as other things. “Fast Fred” as the town is jokingly called is a pretty little place with a wealth of shops along Caroline Street. Mary Washington Univerity is there and the town is always infested with students and their parents. They are a very good source of income in bars and restaurants. 50 miles from DC, “Fast Fred” is about at the limit of comfortable commuting by car from DC but there is a train. IMO the best thing in the town is Carl’s soft ice cream stand where they make the best soft ice cream I have ever experienced. Farm auctions are the best. These happen when the old folks die or go to “the home” and the heirs don’t want the farm or quarrel over it. Such auctions are festive affairs. everything comes out of the barn and house, th accumulated acquisitions of a family over generations. When that is gone the house and farm land is sold. The women’s association of some country church serve lunch; country ham biscuit sandwiches and home baked pies are the order of the day. Just lovely. pl
You’ve taken quite an interest in the Fredericksburg slave auction block.
It was a bit of a Pavlovian response, TTG. I am sure you realized. The interest in the auction block was more a result of that Pavlovian response. I needed something easy and fast for the argument? …
In a nutshell: Richmond is a much more complex “context”, it feels, I preferred to avoid therefore. 😉
Arbitrary choice: Who decided or campaigned for the Ashe statue to be put up in monument row. Apparently in semi-distance to others on Monument Avenue? City council decision in 1996?
Babbling mode: I sure remember strong inner resistance toward earlier centuries’ monumental expressions over here, the soldier/rider/emperor type of raised statues. As a close friend later I became to love the weathering of e.g. the Bronze statues, or the patina.
My basic field is literature and film. I miss the necessary art history, or a comparative approach to statues as cultural expression over the ages. In “context”. But what exactly did the artist force to keep the visual raising onto a column above commuter’s perception in his celebration of Ashe? What would Ashe have said? I do understand that it doesn’t show on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Avenue#/media/File:Arthur_Ashe_Monument.jpg
I am aware I also semi-ridiculed the idea of Emancipation Park. Maybe I shouldn’t have? What exactly could emancipation mean today? How could we ever emancipate from the rules that dictate our lives today, versus at the times in question? …
Let me ask a rather innocent question. Why didn’t Paul DiPasquale do some research on unknown soldiers and add one? That would have been a true juxtaposition to the respective monumental expressions. No column raising the average soldier above the perception level of the commuters? … The Ashe statue a ore whimsically choice, an idea that was easy to sell? No harm meant to DiPasquale. I am aware as artist you have to be to 50% good in art and to 50% good in marketing.
Understand my avoidance? The relic is I found out a semi-disputed piece of history for much longer. Art although, Kant assumed it shouldn’t be, is usually disputable. And maybe should be since it often is linked via an “umbilical cord” to both money and power.
******
Interview with Paul DiPasquale. The motivation for the Ash monument. The reason why he worked on the statue, he met him and recognized Ashe had been largely ignored in his home town. around 1:50. What’s the exact history of the whole story how the statue made it via the City Council decision in 1996 onto Monument Avenue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=errz_bR2BS4
DiPasquale seems to concentrate on public art. At least as far as the little I can find out about him is concerned. The public approach may have somewhat dictated his rather conventional approach, as lover of art, if I may?
hoping there aren’t more linguistic blunders as a result of trying to keep this short, no idea where became” was heading in this specific “linguistic context”.
mike,
While it is a violation of the current sjw narrative there was actual intermarriage of Spanish immigrants with natives in the new world over the centuries.
Fred –
“over the centuries”. Perhaps some in the last century or two. But most of those were marriages between blancos and mestizos. And even many of those were the equivalent of common law marriages, termed concubinage in Mexican law even up to the 1980s. There were NO marriage contracts between 16th & 17th century Spaniards and natives. Cohabitation is not marriage. Even today there are strong cultural biases against marriage between blancos and indios in Mexico.
Although I confess I have no idea what is going on in the rest of Latin America.
But what exactly did the artist force to keep the visual raising onto a column above commuter’s perception in his celebration of Ashe?
Ok, this seems the worst blunder, since it might block communication/understanding: what exactly did force the artist to stay within convention by raising his counter-hero (if I may?) on the pedestal? Is he higher above then the others? At their height? Or was the column a dictate by the city council?
Carl’s soft ice cream stand
Caught my attention too. There were times soft ice was all around. I wouldn’t might to have one occasionally. By now it has completely disappeared. Versus the Italian ice, rumors say originating from all from the Veneto region in Northern Italy. Which may be true. M close by favorite seller rents his place once it gets colder, and may or may not return to the Venoto region or a specific village there. Would I know?
It was actually used for the auctioneer to stand on so that he could see who was bidding. Virginia likes auctions.
Maybe. Why not? But space seems rather narrow, thus were could the bidders inspect their ware before bidding? Has anyone ever put those type of auctions into the larger context of auction history in the US or Virginia?
LeaNder
There were/are many auction houses in small towns but the most enjoyable auctions were in the open air at the farm site. The farms were open to inspect tagged goods for days before the auction. “maybe?” Why “maybe?” you think I would lie about this? As for Ash’s statue and that of Bo Jangles Robinson there was no objection that I remember to these statues. I never measured them for height. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl%27s_Ice_Cream pl
Carl’s looks 100% American to me. 😉
But concerning the block, you may have changed your mind. Hopefully we all do once given new evidence. Only in this case evidence may be missing, and research won’t pay.
LeaNder,
That Ashe monument ended up on Monument Avenue due to the insistence of then Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder. The sculptor never intended for it to be installed there. There was some opposition to its placement, but it was muted, especially compared to the crap going on these days.
I can vouch for the ice cream at Carls. It’s delicious. The soft frozen custard is hand scooped into the cone complete wit the artistic twist. SWMBO and I stop there every time we go to Fredericksburg. I’m glad Carls isn’t too close to my home. I get a jumbo cone every time I do go there.
LeaNder,
Concerning auction houses in Fredericksburg:
There was a livestock exchange operating here until last year conducting auctions. It shut down due to dwindling business, but was soon bought by Asad Yosufzai, who owns a halal slaughterhouse and grocery next to the exchange. He reopened it and now hosts poultry and farm equipment actions along with livestock.
LeaNder
“Changed my mind?” No. You are searching for evil doing. I called several old Fredericksburg residents whose ancestors have lived there for many generations. pl
TTG
You should try going to a farm auction in the Piedmont or Shenandoah Valley. I voted for Wilder. I regretted it later when he started using State Police helicopters to visit Kluge, a German immigrant the music mogul, and his wife, a former soft porn actress. Kluge imported an Irish baronet as gamekeeper on his vast Albemarle County estate. The baronet started shooting the neighbors’ dogs and various hawks. He was tried in federal court for the hawk part and deported. That probably saved his life. pl
mike,
“There were NO marriage contracts between 16th & 17th century Spaniards and natives.”
If you say so. Didn’t realize you were an expert on Latin American marriage customs over the centuries. Guess all those professors of mine were incompetent, liars or both.
LeaNder
https://fredericksburghistory.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/hello-world/
pl
LeaNder
Gelato is widely sold in supermarkets here and in some Italian restaurants. There is a lot of creamy ice cream sold here in premium brands. My wife is lactose intolerant so I have become used to eating ice cream made with lactaid milk. pl
In NC, they were known as Fusionists. Kinda of like readjustors.
They were overthrown by the only known coup d’etat in the history of the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898