title: American imperialism

text: The U.S. dollar is the "de facto" world currency. The term petrodollar warfare refers to the alleged motivation of U.S. foreign policy as preserving by force the status of the United States dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced. The term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title. The phrase "oil currency war" is sometimes used with the same meaning.


title: American imperialism

text: Manyperhaps mostscholars have decided that the United States lacks the key essentials of an empire. For example, while there are American military bases around the world, the American soldiers do not rule over the local people, and the United States government does not send out governors or permanent settlers like all the historic empires did. Harvard historian Charles S. Maier has examined the America-as-Empire issue at length. He says the traditional understanding of the word "empire" does not apply, because the United States does not exert formal control over other nations or engage in systematic conquest. The best term is that the United States is a "hegemon." Its enormous influence through high technology, economic power, and impact on popular culture gives it an international outreach that stands in sharp contrast to the inward direction of historic empires.


title: American imperialism

text: In the book "Empire" (2000), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that "the decline of Empire has begun". Hardt says the Iraq War is a classically imperialist war and is the last gasp of a doomed strategy. They expand on this, claiming that in the new era of imperialism, the classical imperialists retain a colonizing power of sorts, but the strategy shifts from military occupation of economies based on physical goods to a networked biopower based on an informational and affective economies. They go on to say that the U.S. is central to the development of this new regime of international power and sovereignty, termed "Empire", but that it is decentralized and global, and not ruled by one sovereign state: "The United States does indeed occupy a privileged position in Empire, but this privilege derives not from its similarities to the old European imperialist powers, but from its differences." Hardt and Negri draw on the theories of Spinoza, Foucault, Deleuze and Italian autonomist Marxists.


title: American imperialism

text: Geographer David Harvey says there has emerged a new type of imperialism due to geographical distinctions as well as unequal rates of development. He says there have emerged three new global economic and political blocs: the United States, the European Union, and Asia centered on China and Russia. He says there are tensions between the three major blocs over resources and economic power, citing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the motive of which, he argues, was to prevent rival blocs from controlling oil. Furthermore, Harvey argues that there can arise conflict within the major blocs between business interests and the politicians due to their sometimes incongruent economic interests. Politicians live in geographically fixed locations and are, in the U.S. and Europe, accountable to an electorate. The 'new' imperialism, then, has led to an alignment of the interests of capitalists and politicians in order to prevent the rise and expansion of possible economic and political rivals from challenging America's dominance.


title: American imperialism

text: Classics professor and war historian Victor Davis Hanson dismisses the notion of an American Empire altogether, with a mocking comparison to historical empires: "We do not send out proconsuls to reside over client states, which in turn impose taxes on coerced subjects to pay for the legions. Instead, American bases are predicated on contractual obligations — costly to us and profitable to their hosts. We do not see any profits in Korea, but instead accept the risk of losing almost 40,000 of our youth to ensure that Kias can flood our shores and that shaggy students can protest outside our embassy in Seoul."


title: American imperialism

text: The existence of "proconsuls", however, has been recognized by many since the early Cold War. In 1957, French Historian Amaury de Riencourt associated the American "proconsul" with "the Roman of our time." Expert on recent American history, Arthur M. Schlesinger, detected several contemporary imperial features, including "proconsuls." Washington does not directly run many parts of the world. Rather, its "informal empire" was one "richly equipped with imperial paraphernalia: troops, ships, planes, bases, proconsuls, local collaborators, all spread wide around the luckless planet." "The Supreme Allied Commander, always an American, was an appropriate title for the American proconsul whose reputation and influence outweighed those of European premiers, presidents, and chancellors." U.S. "combatant commanders ... have served as its proconsuls. Their standing in their regions has usually dwarfed that of ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state."


title: American imperialism

text: Harvard Historian Niall Ferguson calls the regional combatant commanders, among whom the whole globe is divided, the "pro-consuls" of this "imperium." Günter Bischof calls them "the all powerful proconsuls of the new American empire. Like the proconsuls of Rome they were supposed to bring order and law to the unruly and anarchical world." In September 2000, "Washington Post" reporter Dana Priest published a series of articles whose central premise was Combatant Commanders' inordinate amount of political influence within the countries in their areas of responsibility. They "had evolved into the modern-day equivalent of the Roman Empire's proconsuls—well-funded, semi-autonomous, unconventional centers of U.S. foreign policy." The Romans often preferred to exercise power through friendly client regimes, rather than direct rule: "Until Jay Garner and L. Paul Bremer became U.S. proconsuls in Baghdad, that was the American method, too".


title: American imperialism

text: Another distinction of Victor Davis Hanson—that US bases, contrary to the legions, are costly to America and profitable for their hosts—expresses the American view. The hosts express a diametrically opposite view. Japan pays for 25,000 Japanese working on US bases. 20% of those workers provide entertainment: a list drawn up by the Japanese Ministry of Defense included 76 bartenders, 48 vending machine personnel, 47 golf course maintenance personnel, 25 club managers, 20 commercial artists, 9 leisure-boat operators, 6 theater directors, 5 cake decorators, 4 bowling alley clerks, 3 tour guides and 1 animal caretaker. Shu Watanabe of the Democratic Party of Japan asks: "Why does Japan need to pay the costs for US service members' entertainment on their holidays?" One research on host nations support concludes:


title: American imperialism

text: Increasing the "economic burdens of the allies" was one of the major priorities of former President Donald Trump. Classicist Eric Adler notes that Hanson earlier had written about the decline of the classical studies in the United States and insufficient attention devoted to the classical experience. "When writing about American foreign policy for a lay audience, however, Hanson himself chose to castigate Roman imperialism in order to portray the modern United States as different from—and superior to—the Roman state." As a supporter of a hawkish unilateral American foreign policy, Hanson's "distinctly negative view of Roman imperialism is particularly noteworthy, since it demonstrates the importance a contemporary supporter of a hawkish American foreign policy places on criticizing Rome."


title: American imperialism

text: Annexation is a crucial instrument in the expansion of a nation, due to the fact that once a territory is annexed it must act within the confines of its superior counterpart. The United States Congress' ability to annex a foreign territory is explained in a report from the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations, "If, in the judgment of Congress, such a measure is supported by a safe and wise policy, or is based upon a natural duty that we owe to the people of Hawaii, or is necessary for our national development and security, that is enough to justify annexation, with the consent of the recognized government of the country to be annexed."


title: American imperialism

text: Prior to annexing a territory, the American government still held immense power through the various legislations passed in the late 1800s. The Platt Amendment was utilized to prevent Cuba from entering into any agreement with foreign nations and also granted the Americans the right to build naval stations on their soil. Executive officials in the American government began to determine themselves the supreme authority in matters regarding the recognition or restriction of independence.


title: American imperialism

text: When asked on April 28, 2003, on Al Jazeera whether the United States was "empire building," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied, "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been."


title: American imperialism

text: However, historian Donald W. Meinig says imperial behavior by the United States dates at least to the Louisiana Purchase, which he describes as an "imperial acquisition—imperial in the sense of the aggressive encroachment of one people upon the territory of another, resulting in the subjugation of that people to alien rule." The U.S. policies towards the Native Americans, he said, were "designed to remold them into a people more appropriately conformed to imperial desires."


title: American imperialism

text: Writers and academics of the early 20th century, like Charles A. Beard, in support of non-interventionism (sometimes referred to as "isolationism"), discussed American policy as being driven by self-interested expansionism going back as far as the writing of the Constitution. Many politicians today do not agree. Pat Buchanan claims that the modern United States' drive to empire is "far removed from what the Founding Fathers had intended the young Republic to become."


title: American imperialism

text: Andrew Bacevich argues that the U.S. did not fundamentally change its foreign policy after the Cold War, and remains focused on an effort to expand its control across the world. As the surviving superpower at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. could focus its assets in new directions, the future being "up for grabs," according to former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz in 1991. Head of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, Stephen Peter Rosen, maintains:


title: American imperialism

text: In , the political activist Noam Chomsky argues that exceptionalism and the denials of imperialism are the result of a systematic strategy of propaganda, to "manufacture opinion" as the process has long been described in other countries.


title: American imperialism

text: Thorton wrote that "[...]imperialism is more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves. Where colonization finds analysts and analogies, imperialism must contend with crusaders for and against." Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term hegemony is better than empire to describe the U.S.'s role in the world. Political scientist Robert Keohane agrees saying, a "balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided ... by the use of the word 'empire' to describe United States hegemony, since 'empire' obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of governance between the United States and other Great Powers, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the Soviet Union in the twentieth".


title: American imperialism

text: Since 2001, Emmanuel Todd assumes the U.S.A. cannot hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic power, due to limited resources. Instead, the U.S.A. is going to become just one of the major regional powers along with European Union, China, Russia, etc. Reviewing Todd's "After the Empire", G. John Ikenberry found that it had been written in "a fit of French wishful thinking."


title: American imperialism

text: Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas Wright, argue that neither term exclusively describes foreign relations of the United States. The U.S. can be, and has been, simultaneously an empire and a hegemonic power. They claim that the general trend in U.S. foreign relations has been away from imperial modes of control.


title: American imperialism

text: American imperialism has long had a media dimension (media imperialism) and cultural dimension (cultural imperialism).


title: American imperialism

text: In "Mass Communication and American Empire", Herbert I. Schiller emphasized the significance of the mass media and cultural industry to American imperialism, arguing that "each new electronic development widens the perimeter of American influence," and declaring that "American power, expressed industrially, militarily and culturally has become the most potent force on earth and communications have become a decisive element in the extension of United States world power."


title: American imperialism

text: In "Communication and Cultural Domination", Schiller presented the premier definition of cultural imperialism asIn Schiller's formulation of the concept, cultural imperialism refers to the American Empire's "coercive and persuasive agencies, and their capacity to promote and universalize an American 'way of life' in other countries without any reciprocation of influence." According to Schiller, cultural imperialism "pressured, forced and bribed" societies to integrate with the U.S.'s expansive capitalist model but also incorporated them with attraction and persuasion by winning "the mutual consent, even solicitation of the indigenous rulers."


title: American imperialism

text: Newer research on cultural imperialism sheds light on how the US national security state partners with media corporations to spread US foreign policy and military-promoting media goods around the world. In "Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry", Tanner Mirrlees builds upon the work of Herbert I. Schiller to argue that the US government and media corporations pursue different interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the latter, profit), but structural alliances and the synergistic relationships between them support the co-production and global flow of Empire-extolling cultural and entertainment goods.


title: American imperialism

text: Some researchers argue that military and cultural imperialism are interdependent. Every war of Empire has relied upon a culture or "way of life" that supports it, and most often, with the idea that a country has a unique or special mission to spread its way of life around the world. Edward Said, one of the founders of post-colonial theory, said,


title: American imperialism

text: International relations scholar David Rothkopf disagrees with the notion that cultural imperialism is an intentional political or military process, and instead argues that it is the innocent result of economic globalization, which allows access to numerous U.S. and Western ideas and products that many non-U.S. and non-Western consumers across the world voluntarily choose to consume. In a similar analysis, Matthew Fraser argues that the American "soft power" and American global cultural influence is a good thing for other countries, and good for the world as a whole. Tanner Mirrlees argues that the discourse of "soft power" used by Matthew Fraser and others to promote American global cultural influence represents an "apologia" for cultural imperialism, a way of rationalizing it (while denying it).


title: American imperialism

text: Louis A. Perez Jr. provides an example of propaganda used during the war of 1898, "We are coming, Cuba, coming; we are bound to set you free! We are coming from the mountains, from the plains and inland sea! We are coming with the wrath of God to make the Spaniards flee! We are coming, Cuba, coming; coming now!"


title: American imperialism

text: In contrast, many other countries with American brands have incorporated these into their own local culture. An example of this would be the self-styled "Maccas," an Australian derivation of "McDonald's" with a tinge of Australian culture.


title: American imperialism

text: Chalmers Johnson argued in 2004 that America's version of the colony is the military base. Chip Pitts argued similarly in 2006 that enduring U.S. bases in Iraq suggested a vision of "Iraq as a colony."


title: American imperialism

text: While territories such as Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico remain under U.S. control, the U.S. allowed many of its overseas territories or occupations to gain independence after World War II. Examples include the Philippines (1946), the Panama Canal Zone (1979), Palau (1981), the Federated States of Micronesia (1986), and the Marshall Islands (1986). Most of them still have U.S. bases within their territories. In the case of Okinawa, which came under U.S. administration after the Battle of Okinawa during the Second World War, this happened despite local popular opinion on the island. In 2003, a Department of Defense distribution found the United States had bases in over 36 countries worldwide, including the Camp Bondsteel base in the disputed territory of Kosovo. Since 1959, Cuba has regarded the U.S. presence in Guantánamo Bay as illegal.


title: American imperialism

text: By 1970, the United States had more than one million soldiers in 30 countries, was a member of four regional defense alliances and an active participant in a fifth, had mutual defense treaties with 42 nations, was a member of 53 international organizations, and was furnishing military or economic aid to nearly 100 nations across the face of the globe. In 2015 the Department of Defense reported the number of bases that had any military or civilians stationed or employed was 587. This includes land only (where no facilities are present), facility or facilities only (where there the underlying land is neither owned nor controlled by the government), and land with facilities (where both are present).


title: American imperialism

text: Also in 2015, David Vine's book Base Nation, found 800 U.S. military bases located outside of the U.S., including 174 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. The total cost: an estimated $100 billion a year.


title: American imperialism

text: According to "The Huffington Post," "The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases. ... Research by political scientist Kent Calder confirms what's come to be known as the "dictatorship hypothesis": The United States tends to support dictators [and other undemocratic regimes] in nations where it enjoys basing facilities."


title: American imperialism

text: One of the earliest historians of American Empire, William Appleman Williams, wrote, "The routine lust for land, markets or security became justifications for noble rhetoric about prosperity, liberty and security."


title: American imperialism

text: Max Boot defends U.S. imperialism, writing, "U.S. imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during the past century. It has defeated communism and Nazism and has intervened against the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing." Boot used "imperialism" to describe United States policy, not only in the early 20th century but "since at least 1803." This embrace of empire is made by other neoconservatives, including British historian Paul Johnson, and writers Dinesh D'Souza and Mark Steyn. It is also made by some liberal hawks, such as political scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael Ignatieff.


title: American imperialism

text: Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson argues that the United States is an empire and believes that this is a good thing: "What is not allowed is to say that the United States is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad." Ferguson has drawn parallels between the British Empire and the global role of the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, though he describes the United States' political and social structures as more like those of the Roman Empire than of the British. Ferguson argues that all of these empires have had both positive and negative aspects, but that the positive aspects of the U.S. empire will, if it learns from history and its mistakes, greatly outweigh its negative aspects.


title: American imperialism

text: Another point of view implies that United States expansion overseas has indeed been imperialistic, but that this imperialism is only a temporary phenomenon, a corruption of American ideals, or the relic of a past era. Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis argues that Spanish–American War expansionism was a short-lived imperialistic impulse and "a great aberration in American history," a very different form of territorial growth than that of earlier American history. Historian Walter LaFeber sees the Spanish–American War expansionism not as an aberration, but as a culmination of United States expansion westward.


title: American imperialism

text: Historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the U.S. does not pursue world domination, but maintains worldwide influence by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges. On the other hand, Filipino revolutionary General Emilio Aguinaldo felt as though American involvement in the Philippines was destructive: "The Filipinos fighting for Liberty, the American people fighting them to give them liberty. The two peoples are fighting on parallel lines for the same object." American influence worldwide and the effects it has on other nations have multiple interpretations.


title: American imperialism

text: Liberal internationalists argue that even though the present world order is dominated by the United States, the form taken by that dominance is not imperial. International relations scholar John Ikenberry argues that international institutions have taken the place of empire.


title: American imperialism

text: International relations scholar Joseph Nye argues that U.S. power is more and more based on "soft power," which comes from cultural hegemony rather than raw military or economic force. This includes such factors as the widespread desire to emigrate to the United States, the prestige and corresponding high proportion of foreign students at U.S. universities, and the spread of U.S. styles of popular music and cinema. Mass immigration into America may justify this theory, but it is hard to know whether the United States would still maintain its prestige without its military and economic superiority., In terms of soft power, Giles Scott-Smith, argues that American universities:


title: Bear Stearns

text: The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The company's main business areas before its failure were capital markets, investment banking, wealth management, and global clearing services, and it was heavily involved in the subprime mortgage crisis.


title: Bear Stearns

text: In the years leading up to the failure, Bear Stearns was heavily involved in securitization and issued large amounts of asset-backed securities which were, in the case of mortgages, pioneered by Lewis Ranieri, "the father of mortgage securities". As investor losses mounted in those markets in 2006 and 2007, the company actually increased its exposure, especially to the mortgage-backed assets that were central to the subprime mortgage crisis. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provided an emergency loan to try to avert a sudden collapse of the company. The company could not be saved, however, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for $10 per share, a price far below its pre-crisis 52-week high of $133.20 per share, but not as low as the $2 per share originally agreed upon.


title: Bear Stearns

text: The collapse of the company was a prelude to the meltdown of the investment banking industry in the United States and elsewhere that culminated in September 2008, and the subsequent global financial crisis of 2008–2009. In January 2010, JPMorgan ceased using the Bear Stearns name.


title: Bear Stearns

text: Bear Stearns was founded as an equity trading house on May 1, 1923, by Joseph Ainslie Bear, Robert B. Stearns and Harold C. Mayer with $500,000 in capital. Internal tensions quickly arose among the three founders. The firm survived the Wall Street Crash of 1929 without laying off any employees and by 1933 opened its first branch office in Chicago. In 1955 the firm opened its first international office in Amsterdam.


title: Bear Stearns

text: In 1985, Bear Stearns became a publicly traded company. It served corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals. The company's business included corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, institutional equities, fixed income sales & risk management, trading and research, private client services, derivatives, foreign exchange and futures sales and trading, asset management, and custody services. Through Bear Stearns Securities Corp., it offered global clearing services to broker dealers, prime broker clients and other professional traders, including securities lending.


title: Bear Stearns

text: Bear Stearns' World Headquarters was located at 383 Madison Avenue, between East 46th Street and East 47th Street in Manhattan. By 2007, the company employed more than 15,500 people worldwide. The firm was headquartered in New York City with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Francisco, St. Louis; Whippany, New Jersey; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Internationally the firm had offices in London, Beijing, Dublin, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Lugano, Milan, São Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo.


title: Bear Stearns

text: In 2005–2007, Bear Stearns was recognized as the "Most Admired" securities firm in "Fortune" "America's Most Admired Companies" survey, and second overall in the securities firm section. The annual survey is a prestigious ranking of employee talent, quality of risk management and business innovation. This was the second time in three years that Bear Stearns had achieved this "top" distinction.


title: Bear Stearns

text: By November 2006, the company had total capital of approximately $66.7 billion and total assets of $350.4 billion and according to the April 2005 issue of "Institutional Investor" magazine, Bear Stearns was the seventh-largest securities firm in terms of total capital.


title: Bear Stearns

text: A year later Bear Stearns had notional contract amounts of approximately $13.40 trillion in derivative financial instruments, of which $1.85 trillion were listed futures and option contracts. In addition, Bear Stearns was carrying more than $28 billion in assets on its books at the end of fiscal 2007 versus a net equity position of only $11.1 billion. This $11.1 billion supported $395 billion in assets, which means a leverage ratio of 35.6 to 1. This highly leveraged balance sheet, consisting of many illiquid and potentially worthless assets, led to the rapid diminution of investor and lender confidence, which finally evaporated as Bear was forced to call the New York Federal Reserve to stave off the looming cascade of counterparty risk which would ensue from forced liquidation.


title: Bear Stearns

text: On June 22, 2007, Bear Stearns pledged a collateralized loan of up to $3.2 billion to "bail out" one of its funds, the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Fund, while negotiating with other banks to loan money against collateral to another fund, the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leveraged Fund. Bear Stearns had originally put up just $25 million, so they were hesitant about the bailout; nonetheless, CEO James Cayne and other senior executives worried about the damage to the company's reputation. The funds were invested in thinly traded collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Merrill Lynch seized $850 million worth of the underlying collateral but only was able to auction $100 million of them. The incident sparked concern of contagion as Bear Stearns might be forced to liquidate its CDOs, prompting a mark-down of similar assets in other portfolios. Richard A. Marin, a senior executive at Bear Stearns Asset Management responsible for the two hedge funds, was replaced on June 29 by Jeffrey B. Lane, a former Vice Chairman of rival investment bank Lehman Brothers.


title: Bear Stearns

text: During the week of July 16, 2007, Bear Stearns disclosed that the two subprime hedge funds had lost nearly all of their value amid a rapid decline in the market for subprime mortgages.


title: Bear Stearns

text: On August 1, 2007, investors in the two funds took action against Bear Stearns and its top board and risk management managers and officers. The law firms of Jake Zamansky & Associates and Rich & Intelisano both filed arbitration claims with the National Association of Securities Dealers alleging that Bear Stearns misled investors about its exposure to the funds. This was the first legal action made against Bear Stearns. Co-President Warren Spector was asked to resign on August 5, 2007, as a result of the collapse of two hedge funds tied to subprime mortgages. A September 21 report in "The New York Times" noted that Bear Stearns posted a 61 percent drop in net profits due to their hedge fund losses. With Samuel Molinaro's November 15 revelation that Bear Stearns was writing down a further $1.2 billion in mortgage-related securities and would face its first loss in 83 years, Standard & Poor's downgraded the company's credit rating from AA to A.


title: Bear Stearns

text: Matthew Tannin and Ralph R. Cioffi, both former managers of hedge funds at Bear Stearns Companies, were arrested June 19, 2008. They faced criminal charges and were found not guilty of misleading investors about the risks involved in the subprime market. Tannin and Cioffi were also named in lawsuits brought by Barclays Bank, which claimed they were one of the many investors misled by the executives.


title: Bear Stearns

text: They were also named in civil lawsuits brought in 2007 by investors, including Barclays Bank, who claimed they had been misled. Barclays claimed that Bear Stearns knew that certain assets in the Bear Stearns High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Master Fund were worth much less than their professed values. The suit claimed that Bear Stearns managers devised "a plan to make more money for themselves and further to use the Enhanced Fund as a repository for risky, poor-quality investments". The lawsuit said Bear Stearns told Barclays that the enhanced fund was up almost 6% through June 2007—when "in reality, the portfolio's asset values were plummeting."


title: Bear Stearns

text: On March 14, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ("FRBNY") agreed to provide a $25 billion loan to Bear Stearns collateralized by unencumbered assets from Bear Stearns in order to provide Bear Stearns the liquidity for up to 28 days that the market was refusing to provide. Shortly thereafter, FRBNY had a change of heart and told Bear Stearns that the 28-day loan was unavailable to them. The deal was then changed to where FRBNY would create a company (what would become Maiden Lane LLC) to buy $30 billion worth of Bear Stearns' assets, and Bear Stearns would be purchased by JPMorgan Chase in a stock swap worth $2 a share, or less than 7 percent of Bear Stearns' market value just two days before. This sale price represented a staggering loss as its stock had traded at $172 a share as late as January 2007, and $93 a share as late as February 2008. Eventually, after renegotiating the purchase of Bear Stearns, Maiden Lane LLC was funded by a $29 billion first priority loan from FRBNY and a $1 billion subordinated loan from JPMorgan Chase, without further recourse to JPMorgan Chase. The structure of the transaction, with both loans collateralized by securitized home mortgages and with the JPMorgan Chase loan bearing losses before the FRBNY loan, meant that FRBNY could not seize or otherwise encumber JPMorgan Chase's assets if the underlying collateral became insufficient to repay the FRBNY loan. Chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, defended the bailout by stating that a bankruptcy of Bear Stearns would have affected the real economy and could have caused a "chaotic unwinding" of investments across the US markets.


title: Bear Stearns

text: On March 20, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said the collapse of Bear Stearns was due to a lack of confidence, not a lack of capital. Cox noted that Bear Stearns' problems escalated when rumors spread about its liquidity crisis which in turn eroded investor confidence in the firm. "Notwithstanding that Bear Stearns continued to have high quality collateral to provide as security for borrowings, market counterparties became less willing to enter into collateralized funding arrangements with Bear Stearns", said Cox. Bear Stearns' liquidity pool started at $18.1 billion on March 10 and then plummeted to $2 billion on March 13. Ultimately market rumors about Bear Stearns' difficulties became self-fulfilling, Cox said.


title: Bear Stearns

text: On March 24, 2008, a class action was filed on behalf of shareholders, challenging the terms of JPMorgan’s recently announced acquisition of Bear Stearns. That same day, a new agreement was reached that raised JPMorgan Chase's offer to $10 a share, up from the initial $2 offer, which meant an offer of $1.2 billion. The revised deal was aimed to quiet upset investors and was necessitated by what was characterized as loophole in a guarantee that was open ended, despite the fact that the deal required shareholder approval. While it was not clear if JPMorgan's lawyers, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, were to blame for the mistake in the hastily written contract, JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, was described as being “apoplectic" about the mistake. The Bear Stearns bailout was seen as an extreme-case scenario, and continues to raise significant questions about Fed intervention. On April 8, 2008, Paul A. Volcker stated that the Fed has taken "actions that extend to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers". See his remarks at a luncheon of the Economic Club of New York. On May 29, Bear Stearns shareholders approved the sale to JPMorgan Chase at the $10-per-share price.


title: Bear Stearns

text: An article by journalist Matt Taibbi for "Rolling Stone" contended that naked short selling had a role in the demise of both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. A study by finance researchers at the University of Oklahoma Price College of Business studied trading in financial stocks, including Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and found "no evidence that stock price declines were caused by naked short selling". "Time" magazine also labelled former Bear Sterns head James Cayne as the CEO most responsible out of all the CEOs who "screwed up Wall Street" during the Financial crisis of 2007–2008, even reporting that "none seemed more asleep at the switch than Bear Stearns' Cayne".


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Juan Ponce de León (, , , ; 1474 – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and "conquistador" known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida and for serving as the first governor of Puerto Rico. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain in 1474. Though little is known about his family, he was of noble birth and served in the Spanish military from a young age. He first came to the Americas as a "gentleman volunteer" with Christopher Columbus's second expedition in 1493.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: By the early 1500s, Ponce de León was a top military official in the colonial government of Hispaniola, where he helped crush a rebellion of the native Taíno people. He was authorized to explore the neighboring island of Puerto Rico in 1508 and to take office as the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown in 1509. While Ponce de León grew quite wealthy from his plantations and mines, he faced an ongoing legal conflict with Diego Colón, the late Christopher Columbus's son, over the right to govern Puerto Rico. After a long court battle, Columbus replaced Ponce de León as governor in 1511. Ponce de León decided to follow the advice of the sympathetic King Ferdinand and explore more of the Caribbean Sea.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: In 1513, Ponce de León led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to the area. He landed somewhere along Florida's east coast, then charted the Atlantic coast down to the Florida Keys and north along the Gulf coast; historian John Reed Swanton believed that he sailed perhaps as far as Apalachee Bay on Florida's western coast. Though in popular culture he was supposedly searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which most modern historians consider a myth.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León returned to Spain in 1514 and was knighted by King Ferdinand, who also reinstated him as the governor of Puerto Rico and authorized him to settle Florida. He returned to the Caribbean in 1515, but plans to organize an expedition to Florida were delayed by the death of King Ferdinand in 1516, after which Ponce de León again traveled to Spain to defend his grants and titles. He would not return to Puerto Rico for two years.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: In March 1521, Ponce de León finally returned to southwest Florida with the first large-scale attempt to establish a Spanish colony in what is now the continental United States. However, the native Calusa people fiercely resisted the incursion, and Ponce de Léon was seriously wounded in a skirmish. The colonization attempt was abandoned, and he died from his wounds soon after returning to Cuba in early July. He was interred in Puerto Rico; his tomb is located inside the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in San Juan.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Juan Ponce de León was born in the village of Santervás de Campos in the northern part of what is now the Spanish province of Valladolid. Although early historians placed his birth in 1460, and this date has been used traditionally, more recent evidence shows he was likely born in 1474. The surname Ponce de León dates from the 13th century. The Ponce de León lineage began with Ponce Vélaz de Cabrera, descendant of count Bermudo Núñez, and Sancha Ponce de Cabrera, daughter of Ponce Giraldo de Cabrera.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Before October 1235, a son of Ponce Vela de Cabrera and his wife Teresa Rodríguez Girón named Pedro Ponce de Cabrera married Aldonza Alfonso, an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso IX of León. The descendants of this marriage added the "de León" to their patronymic and were known thereafter by the name Ponce de León.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Although the identity of Juan Ponce de León's parents is still a matter of conjecture, according to Fuson and Arnade, citing Puerto Rican historian Aurelio Tió, Pedro Ponce de León and Leonor de Figueroa were most likely the parents of Juan Ponce de León. Thus Ponce appears to have been a member of a distinguished and influential noble family.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: His relatives included Rodrigo Ponce de León, Duke of Cádiz, a celebrated figure in the Moorish wars (sometimes known as a "new Cid"), and Juan Ponce de León's first cousin. Aurelio Tió, in his "Nuevas fuentes para la historia de Puerto Rico", made a vigorous case for Juan Ponce's aristocratic heritage, determining that Juan Ponce's father was Pedro Ponce de León, the Fourth Lord of Villagarcía, and his mother was Leonor de Figueroa, the daughter of Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa, Lord of Salvaleón, and María Manuel; consequently Juan Ponce's paternal grandmother, Teresa de Guzmán (Teresa Ponce de León y Guzmán), was La Señora de la Casa Toral, making Juan Ponce a Ponce de León on both sides of his family.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Through this grandmother, Ponce de León was related to another notable family, the Núñez de Guzmáns; a contemporary chronicler, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, says that as a young man he served as a page and then as a squire to Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, Knight Commander of the Order of Calatrava. Devereux says Ponce de León probably joined the Spanish campaigns against the Muslims in the Granada War in which the Catholic Monarchs finally conquered in 1492 the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim polity surviving in the Iberian peninsula. Puerto Rican historian Vicente Murga Sanz states that as the squire of Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, it is possible that Juan Ponce de León fought on the side of Rodrigo Ponce de León at the Battle of Granada. Fernandez de Oviedo writes that when Juan Ponce de León arrived in the Americas he was a military man who had gained his experience in the Granada War, but Arnade cautions, "Without proof the biographers of the conquistador state that he accompanied Pedro Núñez de Guzmán in the war against the Moors during the Granada campaign"..


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: In September 1493, some 1,200 sailors, colonists, and soldiers joined Christopher Columbus for his second voyage to the New World. Ponce de León, nineteen years old, was able to get passage in this expedition, with Núñez de Guzmán's help, as one of 200 "gentleman volunteers".


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The fleet reached the Caribbean in November 1493. They visited several islands before arriving at their primary destination in Hispaniola, and anchored on the coast of a large island the native people called Borikén (Boriquen in Spanish), "the land of the brave lord", which would eventually become known as Puerto Rico. This was Ponce de León's first glimpse of the place that would play a major role in his future. Historians are divided on what he did during the next several years, but it is possible that he returned to Spain at some point and made his way back to Hispaniola with Nicolás de Ovando.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: In 1502 the newly appointed governor, Nicolás de Ovando, arrived in Hispaniola, with the Spanish Crown expecting him to bring order to a colony in disarray, a task in which he succeeded. Ovando interpreted his instructions as authorizing subjugation of the native Taínos, and consequently authorized the Jaragua massacre in November 1503. In 1504, when Taínos overran a small Spanish garrison in Higüey on the island's eastern side, Ovando assigned Ponce de León to crush the rebellion.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León was actively involved in the Higüey massacre, about which friar Bartolomé de las Casas attempted to notify Spanish authorities. Ovando rewarded his victorious commander by appointing him frontier governor of the newly conquered province, then named Higüey also. Ponce de León received a substantial land grant with an "encomienda" of sufficient Indian slave labor to farm his new estate.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León prospered in this new role. He found a ready market for his farm produce and livestock at nearby Boca de Yuma where Spanish ships stocked supplies before the long voyage back to Spain. In 1505 Ovando authorized Ponce de León to establish a new town in Higüey, which he named Salvaleón. In 1508 King Ferdinand (Queen Isabella having opposed the exploitation of natives but dying in 1504) authorized Ponce de León to conquer the remaining Taínos and exploit them by forcing them to mine gold.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Around this time, Ponce de León married Leonora, an innkeeper's daughter. They had three daughters, Juana, Isabel and María, and one son, Luis. The large stone house Ponce de León ordered built for his growing family still stands today near the city of San Rafael del Yuma; he named it Salvaleón after his grandmother's estate in Castile.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: As provincial governor, Ponce de León heard stories from Island Caribs who had been captured when they raided Spanish colonies. They told him of gold on the neighboring island of San Juan, now Puerto Rico, which he had first seen as a member of Christopher Columbus's second voyage in 1493, describing a fertile land with much gold to be found in the many rivers. Inspired by the possibility of riches, Ponce de León requested and received permission from Ovando to explore the island.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The official settlement of San Juan by Spaniards is often dated to 1508, when Ponce landed in a caravel with about fifty men on the southern coast of the island, but there is documentation in the Archive of the Indies ("Archivo General de Indias") that he had led an expedition there with several hundred men as early as 1506, under orders by Governor Ovando to explore, settle, and conquer the island. Puerto Rican scholar Aurelio Tió wrote two books which contain much archival material concerning Ponce de León, including documentation he discovered in Spain and in Puerto Rico. He writes in detail of the "Probanza de Juan González", according to which a temporary base was established on the west coast of Puerto Rico near the Bay of Añasco in 1506. This earlier trip was said to have been done quietly because the Spanish crown in 1504 had commissioned Vicente Yáñez Pinzón to explore the island and build a fort. Pinzón did not fulfill his commission and it expired in 1507, leaving the way clear for Ponce de León.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: His earlier exploration had confirmed the presence of gold and gave him a good understanding of the geography of the island. In 1508, Ferdinand II of Aragon gave permission to Ponce de León for the first "official" expedition to the island, which the Spanish then called San Juan Bautista. Ponce de León led a small exploratory party to Puerto Rico in 1508 that found placer deposits of gold in the western end of the island. This expedition, consisting of about 50 men in one ship, left Hispaniola on 12 July 1508 and eventually anchored in San Juan Bay, near today's city of San Juan.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León searched inland until he found a suitable site about two miles from the bay. Here he erected a storehouse and a fortified house, creating the first settlement in Puerto Rico, Caparra. Although a few crops were planted, the settlers spent most of their time and energy searching for gold. By early 1509 Ponce de León decided to return to Hispaniola. His expedition had collected a good quantity of gold but was running low on food and supplies.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The expedition was deemed a great success and Ovando appointed Ponce de León governor of San Juan Bautista. This appointment was later confirmed by Ferdinand II on 14 August 1509. He was instructed to extend the settlement of the island and continue mining for gold. The new governor returned to the island as instructed, bringing with him his wife and children. The rush of Spaniards from Hispaniola wanting to mine gold disrupted the way of life of the Taíno native people.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Back on his island, Ponce de León parceled out the native Taínos among himself and other settlers using the system of forced labor known as encomienda. The Indians were put to work growing food crops and mining for gold. Ponce put those assigned to his personal encomienda, "Hacienda Grande", to work searching for gold in the Toa Valley just east of San Juan. Many of the Spaniards treated the Taínos very harshly and death rates were very high. The demand for slaves kidnapped from other islands grew. By June 1511, the Taínos, pushed to the limits of their endurance, began a short-lived rebellion, which was forcibly put down by Ponce de León and a small force of troops armed with crossbows and arquebuses.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Even as Ponce de León was settling the island of San Juan, significant changes were taking place in the politics and government of the Spanish West Indies. On 10 July 1509, Diego Colón, the son of Christopher Columbus, arrived in Hispaniola as acting Viceroy, replacing Nicolás de Ovando. For several years Diego Colón had been waging a legal battle over his rights to inherit the titles and privileges granted to his father. The Crown regretted the sweeping powers that had been granted to Columbus and his heirs and sought to establish more direct control in the New World. In spite of the Crown's opposition, Colón prevailed in court and Ferdinand was required to appoint him Viceroy.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Although the courts had ordered that Ponce de León should remain in office, Colón circumvented this directive on 28 October 1509 by appointing Juan Ceron chief justice and Miguel Diaz chief constable of the island, effectively overriding the authority of the governor. This situation prevailed until 2 March 1510, when Ferdinand issued orders reaffirming Ponce de León's position as governor. Ponce de León then had Ceron and Diaz arrested and sent back to Spain.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The political struggle between Colón and Ponce de León continued in this manner for the next few years. Ponce de León had influential supporters in Spain and Ferdinand regarded him as a loyal servant. However, Colón's position as Viceroy made him a powerful opponent and eventually it became clear that Ponce de León's position on San Juan was not tenable. Finally, on 28 November 1511, Ceron returned from Spain and was officially reinstated as governor.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Rumors of undiscovered islands to the northwest of Hispaniola had reached Spain by 1511, and Ferdinand was interested in forestalling further exploration and discovery by Colón. In an effort to reward Ponce de León for his services, Ferdinand urged him to seek these new lands outside the authority of Colón. Ponce de León readily agreed to a new venture, and in February 1512 a royal contract was dispatched outlining his rights and authorities to search for "the Islands of Beniny".


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The contract stipulated that Ponce de León held exclusive rights to the discovery of Beniny and neighboring islands for the next three years. He would be governor for life of any lands he discovered, but he was expected to finance all costs of exploration and settlement himself. In addition, the contract gave specific instructions for the distribution of gold, Native Americans, and other profits extracted from the new lands; the contract made no mention of a rejuvenating fountain.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León equipped three ships with at least 200 men at his own expense and set out from Puerto Rico on 4 March 1513. The only near contemporary description known for this expedition comes from Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, a Spanish historian who apparently had access to the original ships' logs or related secondary sources from which he created a summary of the voyage published in 1601. The brevity of the account and occasional gaps in the record have led historians to speculate and dispute many details of the voyage.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The three ships in this small fleet were the "Santiago", the "San Cristobal" and the "Santa Maria de la Consolacion". Anton de Alaminos was their chief pilot. He was already an experienced sailor, and would become one of the most respected pilots in the region. After leaving Puerto Rico, they sailed northwest along the great chain of Bahama Islands, known then as the Lucayos.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: On 27 March, Easter Sunday, Herrera says they sighted land he described as an island that was unfamiliar to the sailors on the expedition. Because many Spanish seamen were acquainted with the Bahamas, which had been depopulated by slaving ventures, some scholars believe that this "island" was actually Florida, as it was thought to be an island for several years after its formal discovery. Historian and marine archeologist Samuel Turner says that Ponce de León sighted the Florida coast on Easter Sunday of 1513, and that many historians have misinterpreted Herrera's text by claiming it was one of the Bahama Islands Ponce saw on that date. Turner writes that because Beimini is described as an island, they assume that Herrera refers to one of the Bahama Islands, variously proposing that this "island" was Eleuthera, Man-O-War Cay, Great Abaco, or Grand Bahama.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: For the next several days the fleet crossed open water until 2 April 1513, when they sighted land which Ponce de León believed was another island. He named it "La Florida" in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called "Pascua Florida" (Festival of Flowers). The following day they came ashore to seek information and take possession of this new land.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The precise location of their landing on the Florida coast has been disputed for many years. Some historians believe it occurred at or near St. Augustine, but others prefer a more southerly landing at a small harbor now called Ponce de León Inlet. Some believe that Ponce came ashore even farther south near the present location of Melbourne Beach, an hypothesis first proposed by Douglas Peck, an amateur historian who attempted to reconstruct the track of the voyage sailing in his 33-foot Bermuda-rigged sailboat. Samuel Turner dismisses this theory, pointing out that Ponce's fleet encountered a storm on 30 March, sailing in it for two days, with no indication in Herrera of the wind direction or how strong it was, and that this fact complicates any attempt to reconstruct the voyage (not to mention that Peck's boat was nothing like the Spanish ships). On April 2, after the weather improved, Ponce's pilot Anton de Alaminos took a navigational fix by the sun at noon in nine fathoms of water with a quadrant or a mariner's astrolabe, and obtained a reading of 30 degrees, 8 minutes of latitude, the coordinate recorded in the ship's log when it was closest to the landing site, as reported by Herrera (who had the original logbook) in 1601. This latitude corresponds to a spot north of St. Augustine between what is now the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve and Ponte Vedra Beach. The expedition sailed north for the remainder of the day before anchoring for the night and rowing ashore the next morning.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: After remaining in the area of their first landing for about five days, the ships turned south for further exploration of the coast. On 8 April they encountered a current so strong that it pushed them backwards and forced them to seek anchorage. The smallest ship, the "San Cristobal", was carried out of sight and lost for two days. This was the first known encounter by Europeans with the Gulf Stream, occurring where it reaches maximum force between the Florida coast and the Bahamas. Because of the powerful boost provided by the current, it would soon become the primary route for eastbound ships leaving the Spanish West Indies bound for Europe.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: They continued down the coast hugging the shore to avoid the strong head current. By 4 May the fleet reached and named Biscayne Bay. They took on water at an island they named Santa Marta (now Key Biscayne) and explored the Tequesta Miami mound town at the mouth of the Miami River. The Tequesta people did not engage the Spanish, but instead evacuated into the coastal woodlands. On 15 May they left Biscayne Bay and sailed along the Florida Keys, looking for a passage to head north and explore the west coast of the Florida peninsula.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: From a distance the Keys reminded Ponce de León of men who were suffering, so he named them "Los Martires" (the Martyrs). Eventually they found a gap in the reefs and sailed "to the north and other times to the northeast" until they reached the Florida mainland on 23 May, where they encountered the Calusa, who refused to trade and drove off the Spanish ships by surrounding them with warriors in sea canoes armed with long bows.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Again, the exact site of their landfall is controversial. The vicinity of Charlotte Harbor is the most commonly identified spot, while some assert a landing further north at Tampa Bay or even Pensacola. Other historians have argued the distances were too great to cover in the available time and the more likely location was Cape Romano or Cape Sable. Here Ponce de León anchored for several days to take on water and repair the ships. They were approached by Calusa, who initially indicated an interest in trading, but relations soon turned hostile.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Several skirmishes followed with casualties on both sides. The Spaniards captured eight Calusa (four men and four women) and seized five war canoes abandoned by the retreating warriors. On 5 June, a final confrontation occurred when some 80 Calusa warriors attacked a party of eleven Spanish sailors. The result was a standoff with neither party willing to come within striking distance of their opponents' weapons.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: On 14 June they set sail again looking for a chain of islands in the west that had been described by their captives. They reached the Dry Tortugas on 21 June. There they captured giant sea turtles, Caribbean monk seals, and thousands of seabirds. From these islands they sailed southwest in an apparent attempt to circle around Cuba and return home to Puerto Rico. Failing to take into account the powerful currents pushing them eastward, they struck the northeast shore of Cuba and were initially confused about their location.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Once they regained their bearings, the fleet retraced their route east along the Florida Keys and around the Florida peninsula, reaching Grand Bahama on 8 July. They were surprised to come across another Spanish ship, piloted by Diego Miruelo, who was either on a slaving voyage or had been sent by Diego Colón to spy on Ponce de León. Shortly thereafter Miruelo's ship was wrecked in a storm and Ponce de León rescued the stranded crew.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: From here the little fleet disbanded. Ponce de León tasked the "Santa Maria" with further exploration while he returned home with the rest of crew. Ponce de León reached Puerto Rico on 19 October after having been away for almost eight months. The other ship, after further explorations returned safely on 20 February 1514.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Although Ponce de León is widely credited with the discovery of Florida, he almost certainly was not the first European to reach the peninsula. Spanish slave expeditions had been regularly raiding the Bahamas since 1494 and there is some evidence that one or more of these slavers made it as far as the shores of Florida. Another piece of evidence that others came before Ponce de León is the Cantino Map from 1502, which shows a peninsula near Cuba that looks like Florida's and includes characteristic place names.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: According to a popular legend, Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Though stories of vitality-restoring waters were known on both sides of the Atlantic long before Ponce de León, the story of his searching for them was not attached to him until after his death. In his "Historia general y natural de las Indias" of 1535, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés wrote that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of "Bimini".


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: A similar account appears in Francisco López de Gómara's "Historia general de las Indias" of 1551. Then in 1575, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a shipwreck survivor who had lived with the Native Americans of Florida for 17 years, published his memoir in which he locates the waters called the River Jordan (flowing out of Eden) in Florida, and says that Ponce de León was supposed to have looked for them there.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Though Fontaneda doubted that Ponce de León had really gone to Florida looking for the waters, the account was included in the "Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos" of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas of 1615. Most historians hold that the search for gold and the expansion of the Spanish Empire were far more imperative than any potential search for such a fountain.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Ponce de León found the island in turmoil. A party of Caribs from a neighboring island had attacked the settlement of Caparra, killed several Spaniards and burned it to the ground. Ponce de León's own house was destroyed and his family narrowly escaped. Colón used the attack as a pretext for renewing hostilities against the local Taíno tribes. The explorer suspected that Colón was working to further undermine his position on the island and perhaps even to take his claims for the newly discovered Florida.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Ponce de León decided he should return to Spain and personally report the results of his recent expedition. He left Puerto Rico in April 1514 and was warmly received by Ferdinand when he arrived at court in Valladolid. There he was knighted, and given a personal coat of arms, becoming the first conquistador to receive these honors. He also visited Casa de Contratación in Seville, which was the central bureaucracy and clearinghouse for all of Spain's activities in the New World. The Casa took detailed notes of his discoveries and added them to the Padrón Real, a master map which served as the basis for official navigation charts provided to Spanish captains and pilots.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: During his stay in Spain, a new contract was drawn up for Ponce de León confirming his rights to settle and govern Beniny and Florida, which was then presumed to be an island. In addition to the usual directions for sharing gold and other valuables with the king, the contract was one of the first to stipulate that the Requerimiento was to be read to the inhabitants of the islands prior to their conquest. Ponce de León was also ordered to organize an armada for the purpose of attacking and subduing the Caribs, who continued to attack Spanish settlements in the Caribbean.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Three ships were purchased for his armada and after repairs and provisioning Ponce de León left Spain on 14 May 1515 with his little fleet. The record of his activities against the Caribs is vague. There was one engagement in Guadeloupe on his return to the area and possibly two or three other encounters. The campaign came to an abrupt end in 1516 when Ferdinand died. The king had been a strong supporter and Ponce de León felt it was imperative he return to Spain and defend his privileges and titles. He did receive assurances of support from Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, the regent appointed to govern Castile, but it was nearly two years before he was able to return home to Puerto Rico.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Meanwhile, there had been at least two unauthorized voyages to "his" Florida both ending in repulsion by the native Calusa or Tequesta warriors. Ponce de León realized he had to act soon if he was to maintain his claim.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: In early 1521, Ponce de León organized a colonizing expedition consisting of some 200 men, including priests, farmers and artisans, 50 horses and other domestic animals, and farming implements carried on two ships. The expedition landed somewhere on the coast of southwest Florida, likely in the vicinity of Charlotte Harbor or the Caloosahatchee River, areas which Ponce de León had visited in his earlier voyage to Florida.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: Before the settlement could be established, the colonists were attacked by the Calusa, the indigenous people who dominated southern Florida and whose principal town was nearby. Ponce de León was mortally wounded in the skirmish when, historians believe, an arrow poisoned with the sap of the manchineel tree struck his thigh.


title: Juan Ponce de León

text: The expedition immediately abandoned the colonization attempt and sailed to Havana, Cuba, where Ponce de León soon died of his wounds. He was buried in Puerto Rico, in the crypt of San José Church from 1559 to 1836, when his remains were exhumed and transferred to the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista. Inscribed on the side panel of the altar-tomb in his mausoleum are these words in Latin: "MOLE SVB HAC FORTIS REQVIESCVNT OSSA LEONIS OVI VICIT FACTIS NOMINA MAGNA SVIS" ("Under this structure rest the bones of a lion, more for his great deeds than for his name").


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestant church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7million, comprising soldiers, officers and adherents collectively known as Salvationists. Its founders sought to bring salvation to the poor, destitute, and hungry by meeting both their "physical and spiritual needs". It is present in 133 countries, running charity shops, operating shelters for the homeless and disaster relief, and humanitarian aid to developing countries.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The theology of the Salvation Army is derived from Methodism, although it is distinctive in institution and practice. A distinctive characteristic of the Salvation Army is its use of titles derived from military ranks, such as "lieutenant" or "major". It does not celebrate the rites of Baptism and Holy Communion. However, the Army's doctrine is otherwise typical of holiness churches in the Wesleyan–Arminian tradition. The Army's purposes are "the advancement of the Christian religion... of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole".


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Army was founded in 1865 in London by one-time Methodist preacher William Booth and his wife Catherine as the East London Christian Mission, and can trace its origins to the Blind Beggar tavern. In 1878, Booth reorganised the mission, becoming its first General and introducing the military structure which has been retained as a matter of tradition. Its highest priority is its Christian principles. The current international leader of The Salvation Army and chief executive officer (CEO) is General Brian Peddle, who was elected by the High Council of The Salvation Army on 3 August 2018.


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 2011 Charity Watch rated the Salvation Army an "A−" to an "A", indicating a high level of financial efficiency and organisational transparency. The Salvation Army has received an A-rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army is one of the world's largest providers of social aid, with expenditures including operating costs of $2.6 billion in 2004, helping more than 32 million people in the U.S. alone. In addition to community centres and disaster relief, the organisation does work in refugee camps, especially among displaced people in Africa. In the United Kingdom, the Salvation Army is no longer the largest nongovernmental provider of social services; however, it still provides a significant service to people in need. The Salvation Army is the second largest charity in the United States, with private donations of almost $2 billion for the fiscal year ending 30 September 2007. and is a member of the American organisation "Christian Churches Together".


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army refers to its ministers as "officers". When acting in their official capacities, they can often be recognised by the colour-coded epaulettes on their white uniform dress shirts. The epaulettes have the letter "S" embroidered on them in white. Officer ranks include Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, Commissioner, and General. Promotion in rank from Lieutenant to Major depends primarily on years of service.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Officers are given Marching Orders to change ministries within the Salvation Army. Usually, officers are given new marching orders every two to five years and reassigned to different posts, sometimes moving great distances.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The ordination of women is permitted in the Salvation Army. Salvation Army officers were previously allowed to marry only other officers (this rule varied in different countries); but this rule has been relaxed in recent years. Husbands and wives usually share the same rank and have the same or similar assignments. Such officer-couples are then assigned together to act as co-pastors and administer corps, Adult Rehabilitation Centres and such.


title: The Salvation Army

text: As of 2001, the organisation will not appoint homosexual people to posts as ministers, preferring individuals "whose values are consistent with the church's philosophy". (See also section.) See also LGBT clergy in Christianity.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Army has churches throughout the world known as Salvation Army corps that may be used as part of a larger community centre. Traditionally, many corps buildings are alternatively called temples or citadels.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army is well known for its network of thrift stores or charity shops, colloquially referred to as "the Sally Ann" in Canada and the United States, "Salvos Stores" in Australia, and "Sally's" in New Zealand, which raise money for its rehabilitation programs by selling donated used items such as clothing, housewares and toys. Clothing collected by Salvation Army stores that is not sold on location is often sold wholesale on the global second hand clothing market.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army's fundraising shops in the United Kingdom participate in the UK government's Work Programme, a workfare programme where benefit claimants must work for no compensation for 20 to 40 hours per week over periods that can be as long as 6 months.


title: The Salvation Army

text: When items are bought at the Salvation Army thrift stores, part of the proceeds goes towards The Salvation Army's emergency relief efforts and programs. Textile items not sold are recycled and turned into other items such as carpet underlay. The Salvation Army also helps their employees by hiring ex-felons, depending on the circumstances, because they believe in giving people second chances. Job opportunities are nationwide and employees are able to move up to become managers or even work in one of the corporate offices.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Some shops are associated with an Adult Rehabilitation Centre (ARC) where men and women make a 6-month rehabilitation commitment to live and work at the ARC residence. They are unpaid, but they are provided with comfortable room and board. Many ARCs are male-only. The program is primarily to combat addiction. They work at the warehouse, store or residence. This is referred to as "work therapy". They attend classes, twelve-step programs and chapel services as a part of their rehabilitation. The Army advertises these programs on their collection trucks with the slogan "Doing the Most Good". The general design pattern is that an ARC is associated with a main store and warehouse. Donations are consolidated from other stores and donation sites, sorted and priced, and then distributed back out to the branch stores. Low-quality donated items are sold at the warehouse dock in a "dock sale".


title: The Salvation Army

text: Farmland at Hadleigh in Essex was acquired in 1891 to provide training for men referred from Salvation Army shelters. It featured market gardens, orchards and two brickfields. It was mentioned in the Royal Commission report of 1909 appointed to consider Poor Laws. 7,000 trainees had passed through its doors by 1912 with more than 60% subsequently finding employment.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army operates children's summer camps, Silvercrest Residences, and adult day care centres. It has headquarter offices internationally, nationally and for each territory and division. Some of the other facilities include:


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Early beliefs of the Salvation Army were influenced by a book "Helps to Holiness", which was to influence spiritual life of the Army for a generation. The sacred text of the Salvation Army is the Bible and the beliefs of the Salvation Army rest upon these eleven doctrines:


title: The Salvation Army

text: The denomination does not celebrate the Christian sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. The International Spiritual Life Commission opinion on Baptism is that enrolment as a Soldier by accepting the call to discipleship should be followed by a lifetime of continued obedient faith in Christ. The Commission's considered option of Holy Communion is that God's grace is readily accessible in all places and at all times, although Salvationists may participate in Holy Communion if attending a service of worship in another Christian denomination if the host Church allows. Although its officers conduct marriages, it holds a traditional Protestant belief that marriage was not instituted by Christ and therefore is not a sacrament. The mercy seat is a focal point in a Salvation Army Church, symbolising God's call to his people, and a place for commitment and communion, and is available for anyone to kneel at in prayer.


title: The Salvation Army

text: There is no requirement for anyone attending a service to be a member of the Salvation Army in any capacity (as a Soldier, Adherent or Officer) and services in Salvation Army churches feature a variety of activities:


title: The Salvation Army

text: Local corps usually sing contemporary worship music songs in Sunday worship services as well as traditional hymns from the official Songbook of the Salvation Army, and music is sometimes still accompanied by a brass band. Many American corps have adopted a mainstream Christian format with video screens showing words to music so that the audience can sing along. Though worship services usually no longer include a brass band, some Salvation Army corps instead use small ensembles of musicians. The early Salvation Army bands were known for their excitement and public appeal, and the modern ensemble keeps to this ideology. Traditional hymns are blended with other musical pieces from Christian Music Publishers such as Vineyard Music, Hillsong, and Planet Shakers to name but a few.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Soldier's Covenant is the creed of the Salvation Army. All members of the church and congregants are required to subscribe to this creed; every person has to sign the document before they can become enrolled as a Soldier. Members have traditionally been referred to as "soldiers" of Christ. These were formerly known as the "Articles of War", and include "Having received with all my heart the salvation offered to me by the tender mercy of God, I do here and now acknowledge God the Father to be my King; God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be my Savior; and God the Holy Spirit to be my Guide, Comforter and Strength, and I will, by His help, love, serve, worship and obey this glorious God through time and in eternity."


title: The Salvation Army

text: Positional Statements describe Salvation Army policy on various social and moral issues, are carefully considered and subject to review. They are derived from work by the International Moral and Social Issues Council. The Salvation Army opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide. Its official stance on abortion is that "The Salvation Army believes in the sanctity of all human life and considers each person to be of infinite value and each life a gift from God to be cherished, nurtured and redeemed. Human life is sacred because it is made in the image of God and has an eternal destiny. (Genesis 1:27) Sacredness is not conferred, nor can it be taken away by human agreement." The Salvation Army official stance admitted in 2010 exceptions in cases such as rape and incest: "In addition, rape and incest are brutal acts of dominance violating women physically and emotionally. This situation represents a special case for the consideration of termination as the violation may be compounded by the continuation of the pregnancy." It is also against the death penalty: "The Salvation Army recognises that the opinions of Salvationists are divided on the moral acceptability of capital punishment and its effectiveness as a deterrent. However, to advocate in any way the continuance or restoration of capital punishment in any part of the world would be inconsistent with the Army's purposes and contrary to the Army's belief that all human life is sacred and that each human being, however wretched, can become a new person in Christ."


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 2012, the Salvation Army published a "Positional Statement on Homosexuality" after receiving adverse publicity about their position on homosexuality.


title: The Salvation Army

text: On 8 December 2017, the Salvation Army released an International Positional Statement on racism which says that racism is "fundamentally incompatible with the Christian conviction that all people are made in the image of God and are equal in value. The Salvation Army believes that the world is enriched by a diversity of cultures and ethnicities."


title: The Salvation Army

text: In the United States, the Salvation Army's first major forays into disaster relief resulted from the tragedies of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The Salvationists' nationwide appeals for financial and material donations yielded tremendous support, enabling the Army to provide assistance to thousands. General Evangeline Booth, when she offered the services of Salvationists to President Woodrow Wilson during the First World War, thrust Salvation Army social and relief work to newer heights. Today the Salvation Army is best known for its charitable efforts.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army is a nongovernmental relief agency and is usually among the first to arrive with help after natural or man-made disasters. They have worked to alleviate suffering and help people rebuild their lives. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, they arrived immediately at some of the worst disaster sites to help retrieve and bury the dead. Since then they have helped rebuild homes and construct new boats for people to recover their livelihood. Members were prominent among relief organisations after Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Andrew and other such natural disasters in the United States. In August 2005, they supplied drinking water to poor people affected by the heat wave in the United States. Later in 2005 they responded to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They helped the victims of an earthquake in Indonesia in May 2006.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the Salvation Army has allocated donations of more than $365 million to serve more than 1.7 million people in nearly every state. The Army's immediate response to Hurricane Katrina included the mobilisation of more than 178 canteen feeding units and 11 field kitchens which together have served more than 5.7 million hot meals, 8.3 million sandwiches, snacks and drinks. Its SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network) network of amateur ham-radio operators picked up where modern communications left off to help locate more than 25,000 survivors. Salvation Army pastoral care counsellors were on hand to comfort the emotional and spiritual needs of 277,000 individuals. As part of the overall effort, Salvation Army officers, employees and volunteers have contributed more than 900,000 hours of service.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army was one of the first relief agencies on the scene of the September 11 attacks in New York City in 2001. They also provided prayer support for families of missing people.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army, along with the American National Red Cross, Southern Baptist Convention, and other disaster relief organisations, are national members of the National Voluntary Organisations Active in Disaster (NVOAD).


title: The Salvation Army

text: Also among the disaster relief capabilities is the Red Shield Defence Services, often called the SallyMan for short. The effort that they put in is similar to that of a chaplain, and reaches many more, offering cold drinks, hot drinks, and some biscuits for the soldiers of the military to have, though, if a SallyMan is on deployment, the locals are offered a share in the produce.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Around the world, the Salvation Army have Emergency Services Support Units throughout the country and Emergency Disaster Services in the United States. These are mobile canteen vehicles providing food and other welfare to members of the Emergency Services such as bushfires, floods, land search, and other both large- and small-scale emergency operations undertaken by Police, Fire, Ambulance and State Emergency Service members, and the general public affected by these events. Volunteers and officers run the canteen service and the response policy is to respond when emergency services have been on the scene for more than four hours or where four or more Fire vehicles are responding.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Family Tracing Service (sometimes known as the Missing Persons Service) was established in 1885, and the service is now available in most of the countries where The Salvation Army operates. The Tracing Service's objective is to restore (or to sustain) family relationships where contact has been lost, whether recently or in the distant past. Thousands of people are traced every year on behalf of their relatives.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army includes many youth groups, which primarily consist of its Sunday schools and the Scout and Guide packs that are sometimes set up. The Scout and Guide packs are affiliated and sponsored by the Salvation Army but are open units allowing anyone to join. These units/pack observe Christian standards and encourage the young people to investigate and develop in their Christian faith. Some territories have Salvation Army Guards and Legions Association (SAGALA). In the United States these internal youth groups that are specifically for girls are known as Girl Guards (older girls) and Sunbeams (younger girls). Adventure Corps serves boys who are enrolled in school for first through eighth grades, and is sometimes separated into Rangers (6th–8th Grade) and Explorers (5th Grade and younger).


title: The Salvation Army

text: In the 21st century, the Salvation Army in the United Kingdom created a branch for the youth, called Alove, the Salvation Army for a new generation. Its purpose is to free the youth of the church and their communities to express themselves and their faith in their own ways. Its mission statement is "Calling a generation to dynamic faith, radical lifestyle, adventurous mission and a fight for justice", and it emphasises worship, discipleship, missions, and social action. Alove is a member of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS).


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army works with a specialist team in partnership with the UK service "Modern Slavery Helpline" (telephone 0800 0121 700) to help people at risk of exploitation. Work is also done assisting homeless people by running 461 hostels and 20 refugee programmes.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army was founded in London's East End in 1865 by one-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth and his wife Catherine Booth as the East London Christian Mission, and this name was used until 1878. The name "The Salvation Army" developed from an incident on 19 and 20 May. William Booth was dictating a letter to his secretary George Scott Railton and said, "We are a volunteer army." Bramwell Booth heard his father and said, "Volunteer! I'm no volunteer, I'm a regular!" Railton was instructed to cross out the word "volunteer" and substitute the word "salvation". The Salvation Army was modelled after the military, with its own flag (or colours) and its own hymns, often with words set to popular and folkloric tunes sung in the pubs. Booth and the other soldiers in "God's Army" would wear the Army's own uniform, for meetings and ministry work. He became the "General" and his other ministers were given appropriate ranks as "officers". Other members became "soldiers".


title: The Salvation Army

text: When William Booth became known as the General, Catherine is known as the "Mother of The Salvation Army". William Booth's early motivation for The Salvation Army was to convert poor Londoners such as prostitutes, gamblers and alcoholics to Christianity, while Catherine spoke to the wealthier people, gaining financial support for their work. She also acted as a religious minister, which was unusual at the time; the Foundation Deed of the Christian Mission states that women had the same rights to preach as men. William Booth described the organisation's approach: "The three 'S's' best expressed the way in which the Army administered to the 'down and outs': first, soup; second, soap; and finally, salvation."


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 1880, the Salvation Army started its work in three other countries: Australia, Ireland, and the United States. Salvationists set out for the US in 1880, and when George Scott Railton and his team arrived they started work in Harry Hill's Variety Theatre on 14 March 1880. The first notable convert was Ashbarrel Jimmie who had so many convictions for drunkenness that the judge sentenced him to attend the Salvation Army. The corps in New York were founded as a result of Jimmys' rehabilitation. It was not always an Officer of The Salvation Army who started the Salvation Army in a new country; sometimes Salvationists emigrated to countries and started operating as "the Salvation Army" on their own authority. When the first official officers arrived in Australia and the United States, they found groups of Salvationists already waiting for them and started working with each other. Australia was the place where the Army's organised social work began on 8 December 1883 with the establishment of a home for ex-convicts.


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 1891 Booth established a farm colony in Hadleigh, Essex which allowed people to escape the overcrowded slums in London's East End. A fully working farm with its own market-gardens, orchards and milk production, it provided training in basic building trades and household work.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army's main converts were at first alcoholics, morphine addicts, prostitutes and other "undesirables" unwelcome in polite Christian society, which helped prompt the Booths to start their own church. The Booths did not include the use of sacraments (mainly baptism and Holy Communion) in the Army's form of worship, believing that many Christians had come to rely on the outward signs of spiritual grace rather than on grace itself. Other beliefs are that its members should completely refrain from drinking alcohol (Holy Communion is not practised), smoking, taking illegal drugs and gambling. Its soldiers wear a uniform tailored to the country in which they work; the uniform can be white, grey, navy, fawn and are even styled like a sari in some areas. Any member of the public is welcome to attend their meetings.


title: The Salvation Army

text: As the Salvation Army grew rapidly in the late 19th century, it generated opposition in England. Opponents, grouped under the name of the Skeleton Army, disrupted Salvation Army meetings and gatherings, with tactics such as throwing rocks, bones, rats, and tar as well as physical assaults on members of the Salvation Army. Much of this was led by pub owners who were losing business because of the Army's opposition to alcohol and targeting of the frequenters of saloons and public houses.


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 1882 the Salvation Army was established in Asia with the first outpost in India. The Army also established outposts in Australia in 1879, Japan in 1895 and China in 1915.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army's reputation in the United States improved as a result of its disaster relief efforts following the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In the U.S. alone, over 25,000 volunteer bell ringers with red kettles are stationed near retail stores during the weeks preceding Christmas for fundraising. The church remains a highly visible and sometimes controversial presence in many parts of the world.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army was one of the original six organisations that made up the USO, along with the YMCA, YWCA, National Catholic Community Services, National Jewish Welfare Board, and National Travelers Aid Association.


title: The Salvation Army

text: National Salvation Army week was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on 24 November 1954, encouraging people to honour the Salvation Army during that week for its work in the United States throughout the past seventy-five years.


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 1917, over 250 Salvation Army volunteers went overseas to France to provide supplies and baked goods, including doughnuts, to American soldiers. The women who served doughnuts to the troops fried them in soldiers' helmets. They were known as "Doughnut Lassies" and are credited with popularising doughnuts in the United States. National Doughnut Day is now celebrated on the first Friday of June every year, starting in Chicago in 1938, to honour those who served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I.


title: The Salvation Army

text: In 1911, New York City architect Bradford Gilbert donated a yacht, "The Jerry McAuley", to the Salvation Army. Jerry McAuley was a reformed criminal who founded the McAuley Water Street Mission (now the New York City Rescue Mission) in Lower Manhattan; he was also Mrs. Gilbert's first husband. This 35 foot powerboat with two cabins was the first vessel in the Salvation Navy in America; there were already two or three such vessels in Scandinavia. Its purpose is "to cruise the Atlantic coast, north in the summer and south in the winter, doing missionary work among the seamen of the ports." There was a six person crew; the captain was evangelist Major Nils Erikson.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The involvement of the Salvation Army in work to combat slavery and human trafficking can be traced back to William Booth publishing a letter in "The War Cry" in 1885. The same year an escapee from a prostitution house arrived at the door of the Salvation Army headquarters and sought help from Bramwell Booth.


title: The Salvation Army

text: An early precursor to the Salvation Army becoming involved in safeguarding work was Catherine Booth writing to Queen Victoria regarding a Parliamentary bill for the protection of girls. Safeguarding legislation was strengthened by a new Act of Parliament, the "Public General Act, An Act to make further provision for the protection of women and girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes, (otherwise known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885)", which received Royal Assent on 14 August 1885


title: The Salvation Army

text: The Salvation Army was involved in getting this Act passed. Work included a petition (numbering 340,000 signatures deposited on the floor of the House of Commons by 8 uniformed Salvationists), mass meetings and an investigation into child prostitution. W. T. Stead of the Pall Mall Gazette launched a campaign in 1885 by writing articles on "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" to expose the extent of child prostitution which involved procuring a girl, Eliza for £5. She was cared for by the Army, taken to France and subsequently testified as a key witness at the trial of Stead and Rebecca Jarrett (the prostitute who had arranged the "sale" of Eliza) at Bow Street. Both were sentenced to 6 months in prison.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The newly founded Salvation Army in Japan also encountered child prostitution, derived from a system of "Debt Bondage". While an imperial ordinance (written in classical Japanese which few could understand) declared the girls right to freedom, the pioneer Salvationist Gunpei Yamamuro rewrote it in colloquial speech. His wife Kiye took charge of a girls home to provide accommodation for any girl wishing to give up prostitution. An imperial ordinance passed on 2 October 1900 stated that any woman who wished to give up prostitution only had to go to the nearest Police station and ask.


title: The Salvation Army

text: As of 23 October 2016 the Salvation Army operates in 128 countries and provides services in 175 different languages. For administrative purposes, the Salvation Army divides itself geographically into 5 zones: Americas and Carribean, Europe, South Asia, South Pacific and East Asia, and Africa, and the "zonal departments" at International Headquarters in London, United Kingdom are the main administrative link with territories and commands


title: The Salvation Army

text: These are further divided into territories, which are then sub-divided into divisions. Some territories cover several countries (like Italy and Greece) while some countries may have several territories ("Australia Eastern" and "Australia Southern") In larger areas, regional and area commands are also introduced as subdivisions of divisions. Each territory has an administrative hub known as territorial headquarters (THQ). Likewise, each division has a divisional headquarters (DHQ). Each of these territories is led by a territorial commander who receives orders from the Salvation Army's international headquarters in London. A territory is typically led by an officer holding the rank of colonel (for small territories) or commissioner for larger territories. In some countries, the work of The Salvation Army may be called a command, led by a command commander. A larger command is typically led by an officer holding the rank of colonel. There is a Women's Ministries division devoted to supporting women in ministry which has 766,369 members, founded as the "Home League" in 1907. Red Shield Defence Services work with the Armed Services in order to provide assistance such as refreshments, soap, chewing gum, toothpaste and sewing kits. "Waves of Transformation" is a water resources project assisting deprived communities. The International Spiritual Life Commission is convened by the General to examine and identify aspects relevant to the spiritual growth of both the Church and individual Salvationists. Reliance Bank is the financial services arm of the Salvation Army, providing bank accounts, loans and mortgages. It is registered with the UK banking regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, registration number 204537. SAGIC Insurance is the insurance services arm of the Army, offering various types of policy, a nationwide removals service and a conveyancing service for buying and selling houses.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Heritage Centres are museums run by the Salvation Army which have exhibits and historical documents related to the history and work of the organisation. Heritage Centres collect, preserve, catalogue, research and share material about the life and work of The Salvation Army. The International Heritage Centre in London can provide details of premises in any specific territory. Much of what happens at the High Council is governed by British Law, as set out in the Salvation Army Acts (1931 to 1968). The 2013 High Council consists of 118 members (62 women and 56 men) made up of the Chief of Staff, all the active commissioners and territorial leaders (some territories are led by colonels), each of whom was summoned by the Chief of the Staff for the sole purpose of electing a new General. The International Heritage Centre in London, England is located at the William Booth Memorial Training College and provides details of premises in any specific territory and manages the Salvation Army's archival Twitter feed. Another training college for officers is the Catherine Booth Bible College based at Winnipeg, Canada which was authorised in August 1983 by the Manitoba Legislature to grant academic degrees. International Development Services team work with some of the poorest communities around the world and manage the Salvation Army's project-based Twitter feed.


title: The Salvation Army

text: Various Constituting Instruments apply to different aspects of the work of the Salvation Army. Legislation passed in the United Kingdom Parliament covered the following:


title: The Salvation Army

text: The most recent statistics for membership from the 2018 Year Book are 111,859 employees, 17,168 Active Officers, 9,775 Retired Officers, 1,050 Cadets, 175,811 Adherents, 411,327 Junior Soldiers and 1,182,100 Senior Soldiers. Previous membership statistics (as quoted from 2010 year book) includes 16,938 active and 9,190 retired officers, 39,071 Corps Cadets and more than 4.5 million volunteers. Members of the Salvation Army also include "adherents"; these are people who do not make the commitment to be a soldier but who recognise the Salvation Army as their church. (According to the 2006 Salvation Army year book, in the United States there are 85,148 senior soldiers and 28,377 junior soldiers, 17,396 adherents and around 60,000 employees.) Further information is available from the Salvation Army International website.


title: The Salvation Army

text: The International Congress of the Salvation Army is normally held every 10 years as a conference for all Salvationists from around the world to meet. The first such conference took place in London, UK, from 28 May to 4 June 1886, and subsequent Congressional meetings were held sporadically until 1904 and then 1990. The seventh International Congress in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, from 28 June to 2 July 2000, was the first held outside of the UK.