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Post Slave Trade in French Antilles, Costa Rica-Nicaragua
Created by John Eipper on 04/08/17 8:28 AM

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Slave Trade in French Antilles, Costa Rica-Nicaragua (Timothy Brown, USA, 04/08/17 8:28 am)

A very interesting and valuable synopsis from John Heelan on the transatlantic slave trade (April 6th).

But African and Middle Eastern slaving was not entirely unique. For example, during the Spanish conquista there was also a great deal of slaving in Native Americans as well. During the early years of the Conquest, the virtual annihilation of the native populations of Cuba and most of the islands in the Caribbean became perhaps the biggest generator of demand for African slaves to replace them.

During my years in the French Antilles Guyane, this had resulted in each "departemente"--Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyane Francaise--having a primarily black but different population from the other.

I was told time and again that until slave trading stopped, many slavers would first bring their "merchandise" to Fort de France, where the wealthiest French elite would buy the "best." They would then go to Guadeloupe and sell as many as they could. As a result, the blacks of Martinique looked down on those of Guadeloupe as second-class noires. I also I found two other interesting pecking orders. Both Martiniquaise and Guadeloupaine looked up to Haitian quimboisieres ("sorcerers").

The noires in French Guiana also looked down on whites as inferiors. The latter came as quite a surprise until it was explained to me by a Guyanaise Senator. Up until fairly recently, France's largest, and probably most notorious, penal colony was in French Guiana and prisoners sent there were sentenced to double sentences known as doublage. First they served, say, ten years in a prison, including perhaps a few years on Devils Island (its French name is Isle de Salut, Health Island, and part of the Euroespace rocket complex), and were fed, clothed and housed by their jailers. They then had to stay in French Guiana for another ten years. But, unlike their first ten years, during those years they had to find some way to feed, clothe and house themselves. This resulted in the better off local noires hiring them as domestic servants--gardeners, washer-men, household help, and so forth. As a consequence, their black employers considered whites inferiors. But I digress.

Earlier, far across the Caribbean, the Spanish were fairly quickly expanding their new empire south from what is today's Mexico into today's Central America. But, as almost everyone always forgets, the Spanish were not the first Conquistadores in the Americas. In the 900s (ninth century), six centuries before the Spanish arrived, Nahua-Mexica from the region around today's Puebla had been sent southward and displaced the region's pre-Nahua Chibchan populations as far south as Guanacaste in today Costa Rica. By the time the Spanish arrived, today's Pacific lowlands Nicaragua had been a Nahua/Mexica colony for six centuries.

When the Spanish, supported by Nahua troops from today's Mexico, arrived, they just replaced the pre-Spanish Nahua-Mexica elites as the region's colonial rulers. But, unlike Mexico or Peru, there wasn't much gold or other valuables to be quickly acquired, so they tried to use indigenous labor on encomiendas. (Linda Newson, in her Indian Survival estimates the pre-Spanish Nahua population of today's Nicaragua was around 1 million) and were able to produce a few exportable products. But, within a short period, their treatment of the Nahua plus the consequences conquest decimated the Nahuas. So they also began to do something even more damaging--sell Nahua into slavery. Slaving in Nahua proved so lucrative that it's been called "The Second Golden Key" of the Conquista. According to cargo manifests in the Archives of the indies, ships that sailed from Nicaragua carried about 300,000 Nahua slaves to Peru alone, while others were shipped to Cuba, where they disappeared from history.

Those of my colleagues who are still awake can find a short synopsis of all of this in chapter 12 of my doctoral dissertation, The Real Contra War (Oklahoma UP, 2001). Unlike the Pacific coastal Nahua and post-Conquest Spanish/Nahua mestizos that dominate Nicaragua today, the Contras were almost all descendants of Chibchas that had been pushed out of the Pacific lowlands into the Segovian mountains, first by the Nahuas and then by the Spanish.

So as far as they were concerned, what we called the Contra War was just another effort by them to resist another attempt by Pacific lowlands to conquer them.

JE comments:  Tim Brown is one of the great debunkers of Latin American history.  Another overlooked chapter of American slavery was the selling of Yucatecan Mayans into Cuban slavery during the time of the Caste Wars (mid-19th century).  This sad episode is depicted in Mérida's most famous murals, Fernando Castro Pacheco's series in the Governor's Palace.  I visited them again last month.  See below.

Mayans being sold into slavery: Fernando Castro Pacheco, Mérida

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  • John Ashby; Ile du Salut (Carmen Negrin, -France 04/08/17 2:47 PM)
    I wonder if among the information that Timothy Ashby has about his trader ancestor, there is precise information about the slaves traded, names, where they came from, who sold them, who bought them, or were they just numbers?

    In response to WAISdom's other Tim, Tim Brown (8 April), Île du Salut is the Island of Salvation rather than Health (santé). In other words, after x years of penitentiary from where it was almost impossible to escape and in any case to return to the metropole, the prisoners would at least have saved their souls.

    JE comments:  There are three islands in the Îles du Salut group:  Diable, Royale, and Saint-Joseph.  All three were penal colonies, depending on your crime and level of incorrigibility.  Royale was fairly comfortable, Diable was for political prisoners (such as Dreyfus), and Saint-Joseph was where the hardest criminals were kept in silence and solitary confinement.  The world got to know these islands through Henri Charrière's book Papillon.  One thing I remember from reading the book decades ago was that the islands were indeed healthier than the mainland colony.  This perhaps explains the confusion about the name.

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    • Medieval Slavery in England: Gelds and Perches (Timothy Ashby, -Spain 04/11/17 7:39 AM)
      More on the topic of slavery.

      Chattel (i.e. legally movable personal property) slavery was common globally since prehistoric times. In the British Isles, slavery was practiced long before the Romans arrived with their elaborate social hierarchy of slaves, freedmen, plebeians and patricians. For centuries slavery had no relation to the skin pigmentation or ethnicity. St. Patrick was a Romano-British slave captured by Irish raiders.

      William of Malmesbury (c. 1095 - c. 1143), the English historian, wrote that Bristol was a well-established market where slaves were brought from all over England for sale to Ireland. He wrote: "You might well groan to see then long rows of young men and maidens whose beauty and youth might move the pity of the savage, bound together with cords, and brought to market to be sold."

      After the Norman conquest, the king continued the Anglo-Saxon practice of receiving four pence for every slave sold. According to the Domesday Book census of 1086, over 10% of England's population were slaves. My ancestor Sasfrid, who held the manor of Ashby Magna (from whence his grandson took our family name when Englishmen began using surnames), was recorded in Domesday as having:

      Taxable units: Taxable value 15.8 geld units.

      Value: Value to lord in 1086 £3. Value to lord c. 1070 £1.

      Households: 1 villager. 10 smallholders. 2 slaves. 13 freemen.

      Ploughland: 7 ploughlands (land for). 3 lord's plough teams. 4.5 men's plough teams.

      Other resources: Meadow 40 acres.

      Prominent members of contemporary society--especially the Church--obviously thought that slavery was wrong. At the Westminster Council of 1102, it was ruled that "no one is henceforth to presume to carry on that shameful trading whereby heretofore men used in England to be sold like brute beasts." However, this Ecclesiastical Council had no legislative powers. While there was no legislation against slavery in Ireland and Wales, William the Conqueror introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas. By about 1200 slavery in the British Isles was non-existent, although the Scots and Welsh took captives as slaves during raids. Of course, serfs were little more than slaves throughout the Middle Ages, until the Black Death upended the social structure.

      Slave raiding was still practiced by the infamous Barbary pirates, who captured an estimated 1.25 million Europeans between the 16th and 19th centuries, raiding as far as Ireland to sell captives in slave markets across North Africa and in the Ottoman Empire. Although enslavement of Caucasians was banned early in the 19th century, legal slavery was widespread throughout the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I, and certainly persists today in the Middles East, Africa and Asia.

      To answer Carmen Negrín's query about the slaves traded by the Royal African Company:

      I've never investigated the records of the RAC (I'm not even sure where they are archived, if they still exist). Because Great-8x Grandpa was an "arms length" investor in the RAC, I've never been compelled to search out the records, having used published sources for my genealogy research.

      By the way, membership in the RAC was similar to being a Lloyds "Name" (until the Exxon Valdez insurance disaster). RAC investors and board members had to be invited to join by existing members, most of whom were connected to the royal court.

      JE comments:  Gosh, that's nearly 1000 years of traceable Ashbys!  I almost made the edit above to "gold unit," but then I checked.  A "geld unit" is the "length of a ploughed furrow, or 40 perches long."  Next I had to look up perch:  it's 5 and 1/2 yards.  This is the stuff you learn only on WAIS!

      Can you geld a perch...?

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      • How Large was the African Holocaust of Slavery? From Gary Moore (John Eipper, USA 04/11/17 12:56 PM)

        Gary Moore writes:

        WAIS discussion of both the Islamic and transatlantic sides of slave trafficking
        begin to point toward a seemingly inaccessible sum: How large was the overall
        African holocaust of slave-taking, if all sides are considered, as is rarely done?

        If one moves away from deaths to the larger number of people harmed, either
        by becoming slaves or in African families shattered by slaving, might a vague range--"over 100 million"--begin to give perspective? Far too small? Far too large?
        The debate hits an important obstacle, the emotional impact that feels
        no exaggeration is enough, in order to avoid minimization, while denial
        places the opposite pressure.

        And the meta-number moves toward
        suggesting a still larger existential dilemma, by adding the question:
        What is Africa's overall harm from its conflicts today?  Just the
        Second Congo War alone (1998-2003) is said to have killed 5.4 million,
        with 2 million displaced; add injuries and broken families and it
        goes higher. Talk about denial. How many American discussions
        mark that figure as a benchmark? Africa's overall position in some
        sort of crosshairs in global growth would seem to outstrip even
        our ability to phrase the questions, inviting the familiar rounds
        of fanaticism and politics.

        JE comments:  A parallel challenge would be to quantify the violence, poverty, and dysfunction that remains from the legacy of African slavery and its parallel evil, colonialism.  As Gary Moore says, no exaggeration is enough, but this is not what serious history is about.

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        • Types of Colonialism (Tor Guimaraes, USA 04/13/17 2:01 PM)
          Gary Moore's post of April 11th raised some interesting questions. For the privileged citizens of a very powerful nation, quickly conquering the world may be a viable fantasy. There are many alternative courses of action, not necessarily mutually exclusive:

          1. We can select a country with desirable resources and invade it militarily, kill whoever resists, and establish a puppet government to protect our interests.

          2. We can peacefully enter foreign lands and settle. Superior military force is used only to protect the settler population as the need arises. As more territory is needed, we just move the indigenous population into smaller and less desirable territory until the native population is wiped out over time for many different reasons. This form of colonization is ideal to expand a nation.

          3. Another form of colonization starts with the very simple objective of providing maximum economic benefit to the colonizing power at the lowest possible price. Thus whole continents such as Africa were partitioned by England, France, and Germany according to defined rules (Berlin Conference in this case), so native areas with significant productive resources were brought under political colonial control to satisfy the economic needs of the colonizing nations with a relatively minimum investment of resources. The needs of the native population in the colonized nations is irrelevant or secondary at best.

          4. For powerful nations with significant local economic production, the use of imported slaves has been historically widely used.

          As stated in my 9 April post, no matter how heinous or expensive the deeds to implement any and all of the alternative ways to rip off your fellow man, the reason can always be explained by a combination of perpetrator's convenience, insanity, religious fervor, and/or continuous thirst for power or money. The problem is that eventually reality catches on, usually with the yet-unborn generations who must live with the results. Then our first reaction is to say, "I was not there, so I am not responsible." Or the classic "I just followed orders."  Or, "So what? everybody has been doing that throughout history."

          Trying to place blame for these ripoff schemes is useless; all we can do is learn. That is why Gary Moore's post is so important. Comparing the cost of the violence under these alternatives is multidimensional and extremely complex. Walking on intellectually very thin ice, I offer a few thoughts. War and slavery have been pervasive and going on from the beginning so the cost for each is immense, but with two world wars under our belt, I think war in total is by far the most costly to mankind. Colonialism as traditionally defined (alternative 3) probably is the second most costly, because it has generated so much misery to colonized nations, led to so many wars, and kept the colonized humans is chronic abject poverty and ignorance for generations. The other form of colonialism (alternative 2) seems less prevalent perhaps because, unlike the European-American experience with Native Americans, quite often the conflicting parties historically combined after a few generations.

          JE comments:  Reality eventually catches on, or the Colonizer's chickens come home to roost.  Indeed, but this fails to explain why some post-colonial societies flourish and others remain mired in permanent despair.  In the field of Cultural Studies, "post-colonial" is often shorthand for a perpetual victim status, but consider this:  the United States is also a post-colonial society, although it in turn became a colonizer.

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          • Was the US a Harsh Colonizer? (David Duggan, USA 04/15/17 4:04 AM)
            The US a Colonizer? (See John E's response to Tor Guimaraes, 14 April.)

            Puerto Rico? We've left the indigenous people, language and culture intact. The Philippines? We defended them against a more virulent aggressor then gave them independence. The North American continent west of the Appalachians? We entered into under-populated regions, made treaties with those who had possession (though hardly ownership via any legally recognized claim of right: all indigenous had "taken" their lands from someone else after their ancestors had made it over the Bering land bridge, and there is some evidence of their conquest of Lascaux-cave-era indigenous who had come via crude watercraft over the ice-choked North Atlantic to settle in the Carolinas).

            True, we defeated some indigenous militarily and claimed their lands by conquest, but as a whole we did not treat the indigenous lands as colonies but as separate sovereigns (the saw about the worst thing you could do is rob a federally insured, state-chartered bank on an Indian reservation: one act, three crimes and possible punishments), admittedly with a thinly veiled trustee relationship (hence the BIA's "bank accounts" for the benefit of the indigenous).

            JE comments:  To go one better, the Hispanic population of Puerto Rico is no more "indigenous" than the US Anglo metropole, just a few centuries older.  The Spanish colonizers eliminated the native population already in the 16th century.

            David Duggan raises an important question:  was US expansionist behavior more benign than most?  I'm skeptical, but I did not address this question in my original comment.  Rather, I used the word "colonizer" merely as a historical fact:  Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, Canal Zone, the US Southwest, Hawaii, Samoa, and neo-colonies such as Panama, Cuba through 1959, and the various banana republics.

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          • Can Post-Colonial Nations Flourish? (Tor Guimaraes, USA 04/15/17 4:32 AM)
            John Eipper commented on my 13 April post: "The Colonizer's chickens come home to roost. Indeed, but this fails to explain why some post-colonial societies flourish and others remain mired in permanent despair."

            My post not only failed to explain it, but also had nothing to do with explaining why some colonized countries eventually are successful.

            Out of the four alternatives for nations to rip off other nations, the only one which has potential for the colonized nation to prosper requires that it has the political power (not necessarily military power) to throw the colonizer out. In the case of the American colonies, the political power derived from military power. In India the political power came mostly from philosophical, logical persuasion, and incredible political discipline inspired by Gandhi. Also, as Gandhi stated, in the end there is little chance that 100,000 British soldiers can suppress the Indian population of close to a billion. Nevertheless, the English managed to leave a little departure political gift by inducing the India/Pakistan split, which cost close to a million native lives. Similar to what they have done in Palestine and Northern Ireland.

            Besides the US, I don't know specifically which nations John had in mind when stating "some post-colonial societies flourish." Certainly not Australia, where the native population have been oppressed and marginalized at best, some say murdered at worst. John, which flourishing post colonial nations did you have in mind?

            JE comments:  The usual suspects of flourishing ex-colonies--US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand--all did so at the expense of their native populations.  They are still post-colonial countries, even if they act like replicas of the British metropole.

            Tor Guimaraes's post inspires the larger question:  does the term "post-colonial" have any usefulness?  What do the US and Canada have in common with India, Pakistan, Ghana, Vietnam, Zimbabwe?  How about long-independent but still non-flourishing countries like Nicaragua and Bolivia?  Or former colonies that once flourished but now don't, like Argentina and (especially) Venezuela?  Where do you place Syria and Iraq on the spectrum? 

            And what is meant by "flourishing"?  Anything beyond a robust GDP?  Can a poor country "flourish" if its institutions are solid and its people happy?  I hope we'll get a discussion going on this.

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            • Does the Term "Post-Colonial" Have Any Usefulness? (Tor Guimaraes, USA 04/16/17 7:14 AM)
              Commenting on my post of April 15th, John Eipper asked two interesting questions.

              First John asked, does "the term "post-colonial" have any usefulness?" Yes, it is useful to indicate that nominally, officially, legally, etc. the ex-colonized nation is now independent. Being post-colonial provides no assurance whatsoever that the nation will flourish. Further, a post-colonial status in most cases has little to do with de facto independence.

              Second, John asked, "what is meant by flourishing?" I think it should mean that the nation democratically elects its political representatives, there is well-established rule of law, a reasonably stable economy with low unemployment, and most citizens enjoy a decent health care and education systems. Most important, a flourishing nation should show that these critical factors are not being eroded away over time as we see today all over the world, including here in the great USA. Thus, "a poor country [can] 'flourish' if its institutions are solid and its people happy," and it satisfies the above conditions. Maybe Iceland does qualify.

              In my response to the first question, post-colonial does not mean truly independent, and without independence the likelihood for flourishing dissipates. In a world where governments and business interests operate globally, and major corporations have immense power over whole nations, independence is not easy to achieve. Even the most powerful nation in the world is now controlled by powerful global corporations and is not flourishing as it did a few decades ago. Perhaps that is what "US and Canada have in common with India, Pakistan, Ghana, Vietnam, Zimbabwe," etc.

              Concurrently, nations are constantly vying for power following their own agendas. Thus, in the Latin American context long dominated by the US government and corporations, "long-independent but still non-flourishing countries like Nicaragua and Bolivia, or former colonies that once flourished but now don't like Argentina and Venezuela" must operate in the powerful shadows of the US government and global corporations.

              Last, in the dimension of physical reality, nations become post-colonial in different states of health regarding their natural resources, available infrastructure, ability to earn future income, population level of education and skills, etc. Thus countries ravaged by war just before gaining post colonial status should be viewed as complete basket cases without something equivalent to a Marshall Plan. Even a nation like Vietnam with strong leadership still have a heavy burden to come out from under the rubble that we put them in. Libya, Iraq, Syria, etc., whose infra structures have been bombed out of existence and have no significant leaders, are doomed to perpetual manipulation by global special interests into the foreseeable future.

              JE comments:  Iceland is poor?  I must be missing something here.  It makes most Top-Ten lists for GDP per capita.  The IMF puts Iceland ahead of the US for both 2016 and projections for 2020.


              And what about "independence"?  As Tor Guimaraes suggests, there really are no such nations.  "Interdependence" is a more accurate term.  The most independent nation in the world is probably North Korea, and it is certainly not flourishing.  Or look at the other side:  French Guiana has no independence and is nominally the most prosperous state in South America.

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              • Post-Colonial Writers (John Heelan, -UK 04/17/17 3:39 AM)
                I became very interested in the impact of post-colonialism when studying the literature of the African continent (e.g. Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and more recently Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie), the various theories ranging from Victorian racist and "White Man's Burden" to Franz Fanon's "Negritude" and Wole Soylinka's mocking response "Tigritude."

                We have already discussed Derek Walcott's attempt to escape from the subaltern culture of Caribbean English that V.S. Naipaul accused of being "ashamed of its cultural background" and "seeking approval of a superior culture whose values were gravely in doubt." Edward Said commented about a "sense of place," saying "For the native, the history of his/her colonial servitude is inaugurated by the loss to an outsider of the local place, whose concise geographical identity must thereafter be searched for and somehow restored."

                There are many foremost Indian writers, such as Salman Rushdie, Amit Chaudhuri and Arundhati Roy continuing the battle to re-establish their indigenous culture. May their laptops be blessed with inspiration!

                JE comments:  This post is a Who's Who of Anglophone post-colonial writers.  Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) has delivered at least two TED lectures, such as this one below with over 12 million views:


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        • Transatlantic Slave Trade: Fact and Legend (Robert Gibbs, USA 04/19/17 3:01 AM)
          It is quite distasteful to discuss numbers when dealing with the slave trade. Numbers keep popping which begin really to look like Stalin's statistics.

          However, regarding the West African slave trade, we must remember that from the 16th century, the process was a triangular trade. The trip, in rather small vessels, went mainly from England, France, Holland, and Portugal. The journey from Europe to West Africa took about 6-8 weeks to the slave coast (the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast). In these ports of call there were no docks and a very rough surf.  The main trading posts were small forts like El Mina on the Gold Coast. Visit El Mina; at best it could hold about 100 slaves depending upon the various tribal wars in the interior. The slavers were a mix of merchants hoping to take on more cargo and take advantage of the trade winds and currents, to real slave traders. The trip to the Americas was about 3-4 months. All of these limited the numbers a vessel could carry. The need for food and water alone were severe limitations on the size of the "cargo." Then the ships returned to home port in about 3-4 months, depending upon trade winds. All of this with the need to clean the ship and refit damage. In short, the trade was tied to tide and currents as well as food and water supplies.

          Admittedly, my historical knowledge of the trade is until the 19th century and the anti-slaver patrols (mainly British). However, the largest amount of slaves the British found was one ship with 38 (if memory serves), and by the mid-19th century only Portugal and Spain seem to have become the "big" players, together with a few American.

          What I am arguing is that this nefarious trade and numbers are lost in politics. In the late 1960s to the present day, scholars went out of their way to inflate the numbers. One professor in his maiden lecture claimed that the numbers were over 80 million West African slaves, an impossible figure to which several Oxford Dons walked out--a thing that is never done.

          My argument here is that the numbers will never be known with anything approaching accuracy, as the discussion is lost in our modern politics (yes, even in Academia), and the larger fact is that there are so few real, accurate and truthful records.

          One of the anomalies is that Europeans--who abolished chattel slavery--would license trading companies (Britain, France, Holland and others). Also, the African Wars between the British and French on the Gold coast went totally unobserved in Europe.

          There are no clean hands here: European, American or African. (The real rise of the Ashanti was their slave trade.)

          As an aside, I would suggest that if he has not read it and is interested, Tim Ashby might want to read Haklyut's Voyages, a 16-17th century record of several voyages, especially to the Gold Coast (Modern Ghana). Those were hard men.

          JE comments: Among my most haunting memories from Junior High history are textbook pictures of the "typical slave ship." Many of us have seen images like the one below. I haven't counted, but the image depicts far more than 38 captives in these unfathomably inhumane conditions.  Are engravings of this type inaccurate?

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          • Transatlantic Slave Trade: Fact and Legend; from Gary Moore (John Eipper, USA 04/20/17 4:51 AM)
            Gary Moore writes:

            I don't know if WAIS is tiring of the slave trade discussion, but I'm glad for Robert Gibbs's comments (April 19). In pointing out his own personal experiences in hearing the victim numbers exaggerated for the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Bob opens deep questions--and not just statistically. With the baseline established of Bob's hearing 80 million captives (though most authorities now say closer to 13 million, and Bob's own discussion suggests still lower numbers), we can ask the fundamental question: Why did that professor that he remembers feel obliged to so stratospherically exaggerate?

            This, too, goes to the left-right discussion, and the feeling that Western culture really is moving forward, however unevenly, toward greater inclusiveness on basic rights. Naturally I think the general movement (left) is desirable, and is helping to mend grievous wounds. But the very virtue of that position hides a pitfall, one that would seem especially germane in a crossroads time marked out by the electoral choice of Trump. Bob's reminiscence is far from the only case showing that there definitely is a point at which the mysterious sympathies that carry us toward the Golden Rule (liberalism) can become--what? Euphorically blind? Sentimentally counter-productive? Even predaciously accusational? I think this threshold point is crucial to define, precisely because the "progressive" or inclusive emphasis is a bright light, and would seem to be the hope for a smoothly functioning society.

            The argument becomes less abstract in a related field, where circumstances have given me a viewpoint behind the curtain of public illusions. This is the field of present-day thinking--after about the 1990s--on the history of American racial violence. I think every single major incident of white pogroms in the lynching era--cases surely needing no exaggeration--has had its death toll colossally revised and ramped up, on basically no evidence. This kind of euphoria, when one sees it up close, begins to assume the majesty of a wonder of nature, like watching Old Faithful erupt. Yet it's a solitary show, because the spirit of the times has generally endorsed the rush of exaggeration, without asking for proof. If this seems heretical, this kind of process can more easily be seen from left perspectives in the form of the special pleadings for Creationism. Mountains of minor details are heaped together and focused on with obsessive narrowness, leaving all the inconveniences outside the viewfinder.

            I don't think the future of our culture, and its discourse, should be dominated by a slugfest betwen fanaticisms, on left and right. And I think the left may have the better chance of seeing this dilemma clearly. Though it should be said that the mysteries of excessive sympathy--or disguised grandiosity--can't necessarily be approached in a come-to-Jesus moment, by mere personal meditation. How often, after all, does anyone pipe up and say: "Boy, I sure got crazy on that one"?

            So is the slugfest between different kinds of craziness the best we can do?

            Is what might be called "redemptive exaggeration" actually good and productive?

            Do I remember correctly that on a couple of occasions our esteemed moderator seems to have suggested just that?

            So here's the reflective moment, suddenly defining the terms, and thus inviting focused reply.

            JE comments:  Great points, Gary.  "Redemptive exaggeration" is well-intentioned but counterproductive, precisely because it provides ample material for reaction and the meanest types of revisionism.

            And what about the infamous slave ship of tidily packed, human sardines?  Bob Gibbs (next) comments.

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            • Danes in West Indies (Holger Terp, Denmark 04/21/17 3:54 AM)







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                A few titles:



                A little bit more about the huge online archive:



                The collection was included on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 1997.


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                  • Abolition and Emancipation are Not the Same Thing (David Pike, -France 04/26/17 7:49 AM)






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                      Gary Moore writes:

                      were synonymous.  All those Antebellum slave owners
                      weren't hollering about "emancipationists," and the trade
                      itself had long since been outlawed. And yes to Timothy
                      Ashby on how the slave trade was not "the systematic and
                      on many different peoples.


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                  • Was the Transatlantic Slave Trade a Holocaust? (Timothy Ashby, -Spain 04/26/17 12:28 PM)





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                    Gary Moore writes:

                    yesterday by Ric Mauricio and David Duggan).

                    called a crime against humanity.

                    And JE beat me to the punch on pointing out Denmark


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            • Slavery Seen from Two Perspectives; from Gary Moore (John Eipper, USA 04/21/17 4:27 AM)
              Gary Moore writes:

              Again WAIS discussion refines the focus on a cultural watershed often lost in haze.

              The dialectic between Robert Gibbs's (April 20) well-founded skepticism about the size of ships in the transatlantic slave trade, and JE's wonderfully relevant rejoinder on how large and packed the ships documentably could be, helps again to take the inquiry beyond its usual confines of polemics and into defining the emotional or "sympathetic" bedrock involved. I'll seek (poorly) to parse this treacherous ground:

              Could it be said that underpinning opinions on panoramic issues of cultural harm like slavery are (perhaps among others) two general opposites:

              1) The viewpoint finding paramount importance in sympathizing with the victims.  Such a viewpoint may emphasize--and hence may be led to exaggerate--the disempowered aspect of a cultural interface; and

              2) The viewpoint finding paramount or at least parallel importance in sympathizing with the overall value of a mainstream culture that had done the harm, seeing more urgently the question of how a familiar and admired mainstream could have stooped or been carried to the alleged depths--and hence seeing glaringly the dissonance of claims or exaggerations--that seem to demonize the empowered culture.

              However poorly I've phrased this, it strikes me that I may at least have the credentials--since maybe I've been on both these sides.

              Maybe the word "dissonance"--as in cognitive dissonance--is part of the key here.  What is intuitively dissonant to whom, and how to cross that bridge mutually--if only we could find the tools...

              JE comments:  We could further parse viewpoint #2 to include the "it wasn't so bad/let's not exaggerate" school of reasoning and the classic Soviet tu quoque/"you are lynching Negroes" retort.  This latter category likes to say how warring African tribes were responsible for rounding up the "human resources" sold into slavery.  This of course begs the question of how the slave market incentivized war by making it profitable.  A related tactic is reminding the listener that Native Americans slaughtered each other just fine before the White Man showed up to do his own slaughtering.

              We could add a third viewpoint:  the empowering idea that the colonizers' culture is irrevocably changed by the people they subjugate.  Just for starters, consider cuisine, language, the arts, and British tea and chutney.

              Well phrased, Gary.  Tell us more about how you've been on "both sides."  No doubt I'm oversimplifying, but can I take this to mean that you were once an unapologetic apologist for imperialism?

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              • Thoughts on Colonization and Imperialism; from Gary Moore (John Eipper, USA 04/22/17 8:48 AM)

                Gary Moore writes:

                Now JE is exaggerating my implications about exaggerating, with
                regard to my attempt to articulate the two sides in the debate on cultural harm,
                including colonization and slavery.

                In my post of April 21st, I tried to see if I could see from both sides
                of such debates, saying one side emphasizes victim viewpoints and one side
                emphasizes mainstream culture viewpoints--and I said I thought maybe I had
                been on both sides. But I meant right now, not in some nefarious past: right
                now I can feel both sympathies.

                Example: JE also noted the claim that slavery
                was promulgated by the Africans themselves when they were at war, taking
                captives to sell, and he said that was a red herring since it was the Europeans who
                were providing the market for the slaves. True, but, sad to say, that counter-argument
                is another form of the blindness--because no war was needed and there were
                well-documented native organizations and societies that specialized in capturing
                whoever they could, simply for profit. It doesn't make the European depredation
                any less, but the disproportion here is in minimizing the parallel native flaws,
                so the Europeans are left as sole demons--sort of the way Roots removed the
                African captors and had Europeans ranging out through the jungles on hunts
                (which also did occur, but was not the main action).

                JE phrased his reply to me like this: "Were you [Gary] once an apologetic spokesman for imperialism?"
                That's not only like asking, "When did you stop beating your wife?" but like the
                fundamentalist's insulting challenge: "Do you believe in God?"--insulting because
                they're packing into that one little nugget a message that says: "You do define the
                things you hold sacred exactly as I do, do you not, and I need not specify this since
                the way I view sacredness is the only possible way."

                In the two-sided debating teams I imagined, can't we all feel both sympathies
                to some degree? And might fanaticism be the complete loss of one or the other
                balancing magnetism?

                And by the way, thanks for that great reminder of the old Stalinist answer-for-everything:
                "You also lynch Negroes." Maybe somewhere there's a compilation of such arguments
                down through history: the tu quoques, red herrings, ad hominems, and simple shrugs,
                perhaps including: "Kill them all. God will know his own."

                But as a former "unapologetic spokesman for imperialism," I feel inadequate for such discussion,
                and that I should instead be concentrating on penance.

                This whole notion I had--of trying to reconcile polemics--smacks a bit of walking into a Sunday-school
                class and asking can't they see that atheism has a point, too. A great way to paint a bulls-eye
                on oneself.

                How do I get myself into these messes?

                JE comments:  No offense was intended, Gary, but I apologize nonetheless.  And there might even be sound and--dare I say?--politically correct apologies for imperialism.  The emergence of English as a lingua franca, like Latin in its day, is a good thing to combat the Tower of Babel phenomenon of chaos and misunderstanding.  Granted, misunderstanding is all too common, even when you speak the same language.

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                • Enslaving Ourselves; from Ric Mauricio (John Eipper, USA 04/23/17 4:53 AM)
                  Ric Mauricio writes:

                  Once again, a very interesting discussion on WAIS. The debate on slavery got me thinking. Isn't the debate not really on whether it was Europeans or Africans who promulgated the practice of enslaving, but rather the treatment of human beings by other human beings? What if I purchased slaves and treated those slaves with respect and love and not as property? What if I viewed my wife not as my property, thus forcing her to adopt my surname as hers, but rather as my partner? What if I provided clean lodging to my farm workers (a form of slavery or indentured service; I know I couldn't work in the hundred-degree temperatures in California's Central Valley)? What about the Chinese rail workers who were forced to be the canaries in the tunnels being built and yet had limited access to marrying? What about the Native American Indians who were forced to live on reservations, which I could never understand?

                  But let's amp up this discussion even further. I find that right-wing or left-wing believers will only believe in right-wing or left-wing rhetoric, always dismissing the other side as fake news. Are they not enslaving themselves by only listening to teachings that support their beliefs?

                  Have we not enslaved ourselves to fiat currency, thus abdicating our economic power to those in government who choose to debase the fiat currency because they can? But going one step further in this discussion, is not that part of the government really not part of the government at all, but controlling the economics of the government with its policies? Oh, yes, I am talking about the Central Banks, whether they be in the US, the UK, Europe, or Asia. The real shareholders of the Central Banks are really the financial institutions. In the US, the shareholders are led by the likes of Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, and Goldman Sachs. In Europe, it is led by the likes of Deutsche Bank. And through the talking heads on TV and other forms of mass media, they propagate their enslaving lies.

                  In the Ivy League Universities, we are enslaved by the economic teachings of the Keynesian theory, pushing other economic theories such as the Austrian School as irrelevant.

                  In religion, we are enslaved by the teachings of the Churches. I find it interesting that the Christian Church bases most of its teachings on the apostle Paul. His teachings comprise about two-thirds of the New Testament and they many times contradicts the teachings of Jesus. But realize that Paul was a Pharisee in his pre-Christian life and therefore his beliefs crept into his teachings. Not to just pick on Christianity, but I find that teachings in other faiths have been expanded and bastardized in the same way by the formal institutions that go forth to spread the Way. Siddhartha was a skinny dude, not a fat-looking Buddha. In fact, Buddha is not even a person but a state of being. Is not the Hindu view that we are all little gods an attempt to deslave ourselves by explaining that we are all part of the life force of the universe, that life force often referred as God or Allah or Yahweh? Isn't the Holy Spirit another explanation of the Zen enlightenment?

                  In physical fitness, we are enslaved to workout myths, that, looking at the obesity rate in the United States, are obviously myths. Spending two hours a day to burn off calories does not work. Doing Crossfit does not make you fit. In fact, I have members who come in injured from Crossfit.

                  So, in life, there are those who choose to enslave others, but many of us choose to enslave ourselves.

                  JE comments:  This post from Ric Mauricio is part Rousseau, part William Jennings Bryan, and 100% food for thought (a nourishment which never leads to obesity).  Many would say, however, that you cannot compare "self-colonization" or "cultural hegemony" to the very real slavery of the whip, the market, and the genocidal transatlantic passage.

                  A question for our economists:  Is Keynesian theory truly the "gospel" in Ivy League schools?  My first exposure to the Dismal Science was during my year as an exchange student in Chile, where the Austrian-influenced Chicago School ruled the roost.  Is/was U Chicago an outlier?

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                  • Yes, But... (Timothy Brown, USA 04/23/17 5:46 PM)
                    I enjoy Ric Mauricio's thoughtful "if only, but then" thoughts.

                    They remind me of a saying from my youth: "If the world were flat, we'd never have to walk uphill."

                    JE comments: Yes, but then how would we ski?  (Cross-country skiing is tedious.)

                    But seriously, Tim, isn't "but then" the central syntactic structure of WAIS, the cornerstone of critical thinking itself?

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                  • Does Paul Contradict the Teachings of Christ? (Enrique Torner, USA 04/24/17 3:49 AM)
                    I really liked Ric Mauricio's post on enslaving ourselves (April 23), that is, until I reached the part where he stated that the Apostle Paul contradicts the teachings of Jesus.

                    I would like Ric to support his statement with verses from the Bible, because, personally, I don't see those contradictions. I do agree with him, though, that we are enslaved by the teachings of the Churches. That's why I am against formally joining one: I don't want to be enslaved by any church or anybody! I have my own beliefs, which I base on my understanding of the Bible, the only authority I want to have. The Catholic Church has been an example of an institution that tries to control their members (and non-members) by threatening and punishing them to unbelievable degrees. Even Pope John Paul II recognized this by apologizing for over 100 of their wrongdoings, including the Catholics' involvement with African slave trade!

                    Wikipedia lists many of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apologies_made_by_Pope_John_Paul_II

                    The Bible states that we all are enslaved to sin, and that only God can free us from it, so we can become enslaved only to Him (Romans 6:16, 6:22; Titus 3:3; 2 Peter 2:19).

                    Regarding the initial discussion on slave trade, I am ashamed to admit that Spain was guilty of that since the times of the Greeks, and by the time of the Renaissance, Spain had the highest rate of African slaves in Europe (Wikipedia). Seville became the main entry port of slaves, where 7.4% of the population was enslaved. African slaves ended up replacing the Native American slaves Spain had in the New World, partly because the African slaves were immune to the European diseases that Native Americans were dying from. This is what led to the development of the Atlantic slave trade. Later on, Native American slavery would be banned, while African slavery continued being legal. Why would this difference be? (I'm being sarcastic here).

                    After this free time I used to write this post, I will now go back to the slavery of grading tests and papers, a chain I cannot break, no matter how hard I try! When I finally return papers, students hand me more! I feel like an Egyptian slave.

                    JE comments: By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground!  I feel your pain, Enrique.  It's finals week at the College and I too am in grading purgatory/peonage.  But students truly appreciate thoughtful feedback on their essays.  We must remember that it's a privilege to labor with the pen and not the plow.

                    Who can help us with our Paul/Christ discussion?  For starters, wasn't Paul, not Jesus, the one who came up with mulieres in ecclesiis taceant, which silences women in the Catholic Church--specifically forbidding them from the priesthood?

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                    • Does Paul Contradict the Teachings of Christ? From Ric Mauricio (John Eipper, USA 04/25/17 7:10 AM)

                      Ric Mauricio writes:

                      Ah, horror of horrors.  If only the world were flat...we would have not exhilarating downhill runs at Heavenly or Squaw Valley, the awesomeness of Yosemite Falls nor the Grand Canyon, and the romance of cable cars to the stars.

                      But in response to Enrique Torner (April 24th), I will try to illustrate cases where I humbly (I am not a biblical scholar by any means) present my insights to the teachings of both Jesus and the Apostle Paul.


                      Secular authorities are stated by Paul to be God's own agents. (Romans 13:1-5.) Wow, I thought when I first heard this: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were God's own agents. Paul exhorts us not to rebel against these agents of God. Paul also contradicts Hosea 8:4 (700s BC): "They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval." (NIV) Compare Luke 4:5-8 (Satan offers his authority to Jesus to rule the kingdoms of the world), John 18:36 ("my kingdom is not of this world") and Acts 4:26 ("rulers of the world rise up against the Annointed One").


                      Paul's teachings against marriage really threw me for a loop. If all men can control their passion (oh, a bad thing), then none of us would marry, thereby dooming the human race into extinction. Makes sense, right?

                      Paul taught against being married. He wrote in 1 Cor. 10:27-28: "Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek marriage." Sounds like Paul equates marriage to enslavement.

                      In line with this Paul also wrote: "I wish all were as I am," meaning unmarried. (1 Cor. 7:7.)

                      To help prevent the desire to be married, Paul said: "It is good that a man should not touch a woman." (1 Cor. 7:1.)

                      Obviously Paul clearly endorses celibacy for us as a superior way of life.


                      The contradiction arises because Jesus never says or implies "do not seek marriage." Significantly, Jesus never applies any moral pressure to be celibate, while Paul clearly does so.


                      In 1 Cor. 5:9, Paul clearly writes:

                      I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: 5:10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such n one do not to eat. 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? 5:13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.









                      Paul was exclusionary; Jesus advocated inclusion. Paul was a persecutor of Christians, but found that when he couldn't beat them, he simply hijacked the teachings and molded it to his Pharisee mindset.

                      There are many more contradictions, but these are the ones that really get my ire. I will continue to eat with my non-believer friends; I will continue to eat with my Muslim and Jewish friends (as well as Christians); I will continue to eat with all my friends of different ethnic, cultural and sexual orientation groups. God forbid that all people were alike. What an absolute boring world this would be. And I will not blindly follow our leaders (political or religious), thinking of them as agents of God.

                      And I still believe that love and passion is a good thing (although I do believe that sex without love is just an animal act).

                      JE comments:  To go one further, might we say Paul was a misogynist?  (Granted, that would be a "presentist" appraisal.)  I hope David Duggan will join this discussion.

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                      • Reconciling Paul and Christ (David Duggan, USA 04/25/17 5:43 PM)






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                          Gary Moore writes:

                          The wonderfully two-sided WAIS exchange on the New Testament



                          The countless fanciful wanderings of Church doctrine between Gethsemane
                          of certainty, so they couldn't feel good...)

                          There are reasons to suspect that we owe an
                          kind of enduring happy confidence.


                          era was filled with speculations and fanciful novels to such effect.

                          discussion someday.




                          A fine essay, Gary.

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                    • Old Testament and New Testament from a Historian's Perspective (Robert Whealey, USA 04/29/17 5:05 AM)
                      As a historian I have taken the Bible seriously as history. As I grew up, I became an agnostic about life after death. As I read the Enlightened Philosophers and the history the American Presidency, I came to the conclusion that the Bible is a conglomerate of theology, history, law, poetry, and folklore, inherited from previous pagan societies before 1000 BC, when the Jews discovered the alphabet and a calendar. The time of King David is the beginning of real history.

                      It is assumed that Moses lived about 1400-1200 BC. Moses died in the Sinai Peninsula and told his successor Joshua to take the twelve tribes of the Israelites to invade the land of Canaan as the "Promised Land." The first five books of the Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch by the Christians, were considered infallible by the ancient Hebrews.

                      The Jewish Bible, or the Old Testament, became closed about 200 BC when the Greeks invaded the land of Israel and Judea. The New Testament is clearer about its historical sources. Scholars have concluded that Jesus was born about 4 BC and died in 29 AD. The letters of Paul, who never met Jesus, date about 50-70 AD and are primary sources. The NT is good history, since the writers had more primary sources than the writers of the Old Testament.

                      The Four Gospels were written about 70-100 AD. Mark is the oldest but Matthew was placed first in the Canon as more theological, moral, and ethical. In 70 AD the Roman government destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. The Jews scattered to the four winds of the compass.

                      The period known as the Diaspora was a long time from 70 AD to about 1671 when Baruch Spinoza, living in Holland, decided to read Latin. Spinoza wanted to be more scientific. From the 1670s, Jewish Theology and Christian Theology have interacted through dialogue.

                      I now believe in a free-thinking theology: 25% Christian, 25% Liberal, 25% Socialist, 15% Conservative, 7% Anarchist, and 3% for future growth. I am a free-thinking Christian. But I can never become a Jew because I have no Jewish mother. The Jews do not encourage conversion and proselytizing.

                      Carl Sagan as an astronomer, has sound reasons in believing in atheism. But mass, militant atheism failed in the French Revolution, and it failed a second time in the USSR 1917 to 1991. The great mass of children 18-21 are too emotional to learn philosophy until the college and university levels.

                      George Washington, who gave up the Church of England to become the founder of American Episcopal Church, wrote a special letter to the head Rabbi in New York City. He wrote that the First Amendment guaranteed freedom of religion to all American citizens, included the Jews. The Jews were gradually emancipated by the French, British, and German governments in the 19th century, but the Tsarist government in 1880s down to the First World War was the most reactionary, intolerant, and medieval form of government in Christendom.

                      So to get to the point of John E's question, I think that Jesus and Paul together established a new religion and they both contribute the ethical, moral standards of Christianity of America today.

                      Jewish intellectuals from the 19th century contributed to science, philosophy, and history, and therefore have created with the Christians a new Western Civilization.

                      The Roman Catholics developed a theological doctrine called Immaculate Conception. Jesus was supposedly born of the Virgin Mary. Liberal Protestants and Jews began to reject this as a biological impossibility.

                      An old-fashioned theology established about 1910 at Princeton University called itself Fundamentalist. These theologians rejected Charles Darwin's science and demanded that true Christians accept the virgin birth. They also accept that the earth was created in six days. From the 1790s until today, this has proven that to be another myth.

                      In the 1948, Fundamentalists in the United States gradually became less dogmatic, and the new conservative preachers such as Billy Graham called themselves Evangelicals and became more flexible than the Fundamentalists.

                      To get to the point of feminism, the worship of the Virgin Mary improved the status of women in the Christian world from the 300 AD to the Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1517. The Protestants rejected the celibacy of the clergy and Martin Luther immediately married a nun.

                      The Greek Orthodox Church had allowed priests to marry since the 300s. The Papal States (Vatican) only began the principle of the celibate clergy with Pope Gregory VII.

                      Pope John XXIII in the Second Vatican Council, 1958-1962, liberalized Catholicism, allowing the use of vernacular languages in the Catholic Mass. John XXIII remained a conservative on sexual questions. Now we have come to Pope Francis, who is beginning to think about liberalizing the Roman Church doctrines on abortion, divorce, birth control, homosexuality, and the marriage of the clergy.

                      JE comments:  Here it is in a nutshell!  A masterful synthesis of Christian history, Robert.  I'd like to know more about Princeton's contribution to the Fundamentalist movement.  Couldn't, or shouldn't, we trace Fundamentalism to the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century?

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                      • Conversions to Judaism (Timothy Ashby, -Spain 04/30/17 2:37 PM)
                        I greatly enjoyed Robert Whealey's edifying synthesis of Christian history (29 April), but is Robert correct in stating that he could "never become a Jew because [he has] no Jewish mother"? Or that the "Jews do not encourage conversion and proselytizing"? Sammy Davis, Jr. converted to Judaism, referring to himself as "a short, ugly, one-eyed black Jew," and Ivanka Trump, President Trump's daughter, converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner.

                        By the way, the Duchess of Cambridge, former Kate Middleton, is of Jewish descent even though the family of her mother, Carol Goldsmith, has practiced Christianity for five generations. David Cameron is also of Jewish descent: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10692563/David-Cameron-tells-Israelis-about-his-Jewish-ancestors.html . The former PM is also distantly related to the Queen, as he is great-great-great-great-great-grandson of William IV and his mistress, Dorothea Jordan.

                        Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/cameron-is-queen-s-cousin-but-from-wrong-side-of-the-blanket-1-1111991

                        JE comments:  Here's a euphemism I've never heard before:  "from the wrong side of the blanket," as in illegitimate.  Is this a common expression in the UK?

                        Conversions to Judaism certainly exist, but I believe Robert Whealey was trying to say that there is little if any active Jewish proselytizing.

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                        • "Wrong Side of the Blanket" (John Heelan, -UK 05/01/17 4:41 AM)
                          JE asked on April 30th: "Here's a euphemism I've never heard before: 'from the wrong side of the blanket,' as in illegitimate. Is this a common expression in the UK?"

                          Yes. Further I seem to remember that the surnames of illegitimate children of royalty were appended with the word "Fitz."

                          Wiki tells us:

                          "From the Stuart era (1603-1714) and later, a pseudo-Anglo-Norman usage of Fitz was adopted for younger sons of the British royal family who lacked a legal surname, and particularly for illegitimate children of kings, princes, or general upper-class men, for example Fitzroy, (meaning "son of the king," from the French fils du roy); Fitzjames, son of king James II (1685-1688); and FitzClarence, son of the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV (1830-1837)."

                          Given the sexual mores of some past UK monarchs and their consorts, one suspects that the ranks of UK MPs and peers in Westminster would be depleted should all those with the family surname prefix "Fitz" were banned.

                          JE comments:  How about the late Duchess of Alba, aka María del Rosario Cayetana Paloma Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Fernanda
                          Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castor
                          Dorotea Santa Esperanza Fitz-James Stuart, Silva, Falcó y Gurtubay?  This thanks to Ronald Hilton, 2001:


                          Euphemisms are always fascinating, but for argument's sake, aren't the Fitzy "love babies" the result of being on the right side of the blanket?

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                          • More "Wrong Side of the Blanket": Rt Rev Justin Welby (David Duggan, USA 05/01/17 8:44 AM)
                            The Rt. Rev. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, had claimed that his grandfather was a German-Jewish immigrant to England: Bernard Weiler, who had changed his name to counter anti-German sentiment during WWI.

                            It was therefore assumed that his father, Gavin Welby, was Jewish. DNA testing of a year ago however disclosed that his biological father was Sir Anthony Montague Browne, with whom his mother, Jane Portal, Winston Churchill's personal secretary, had had an affair shortly before marrying Gavin. Oh, the English.

                            JE comments:  When learning of his paternity, Archbishop Welby remarked, "I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes."

                            Just to clarify:  Montague Browne, not Jane Portal, was Churchill's personal secretary.

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                            • Churchill's Private vs Personal Secretaries (Timothy Ashby, -Spain 05/02/17 5:10 AM)
                              A minor correction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's colourful ancestry.

                              His actual sire, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, was in fact Churchill's last private secretary. Sir Anthony's paramour Jane Portal, mother of the Rt. Rev. Justin Welby, was one of WSC's personal secretaries.

                              JE comments:  David Duggan also wrote in with the same correction.  Mea culpa; I had conflated the private and the personal.

                              Now, I surmise, we know how Portal and Montague Browne met.


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                          • Royal Bastards, or, Fun with the Fitzes (John Heelan, -UK 05/03/17 4:18 AM)
                            I found this on the Fitzes:

                            Henry I

                            Henry I had 21 to 25 bastards, including Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, Maud FitzRoy (wife of Conan III, Duke of Brittany), Constance or Maud FitzRoy, Mabel FitzRoy, Alice FitzRoy, Gilbert FitzRoy, Emma. "It might be permissible to wonder how it was that Henry I managed to keep track of all his illegitimate children, but there is no doubt that he did so," wrote historian Given-Wilson.

                            Henry VIII

                            Henry VIII had one acknowledged royal bastard, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset. As he had many mistresses, six other people are also put forward by historians as possibly being Henry's illegitimate children, including the mercenary Thomas Stukley, the poet Richard Edwardes and two of Mary Boleyn's children.

                            Charles II

                            Charles II fathered at least 20 illegitimate children, of which he acknowledged 14. The most famous of these was the Duke of Monmouth, his son by Lucy Walter. After Charles' death, Monmouth led a rebellion against his uncle James II.

                            When Nell Gwynn brought her first child to Charles, she told it, "Come hither you little Bastard and speak to your father!"

                            "Nay, Nellie, do not call the child such a name," said the king.

                            "Your majesty has given me no other name by which I may call him."

                            Charles then named the child "Beauclerk" and bestowed the title "Earl of Burford."

                            Both James and his older brother Charles II were known for their numerous bastards.

                            Illegitimate children of Charles II

                            by Lucy Walter (c. 1630-1658)

                            James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (1649-1685). Ancestor of Sarah, Duchess of York.

                            by Elizabeth Boyle, Viscountess Shannon (1622-1680)

                            Charlotte FitzRoy, Countess of Yarmouth (1650-1684),

                            by Catherine Pegge

                            Charles FitzCharles, 1st Earl of Plymouth (1657-1680), known as "Don Carlo," created Earl of Plymouth (1675)


                            by Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland (1641-1709)

                            Anne Lennard, Countess of Sussex (1661-1722). She may have been the daughter of Roger Palmer, but Charles accepted her.

                            Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Cleveland (1662-1730).

                            Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton (1663-1690). The 7-greats-grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales

                            Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield (1664-1717).

                            George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1665-1716).

                            Lady Barbara FitzRoy (1672-1737). She was probably the child of the Duke of Marlborough. She was never acknowledged by Charles.

                            by Nell Gwyn (1650-1687)


                            James, Lord Beauclerk (1671-1680)

                            by Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (1649-1734)

                            Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond and Lennox (1672-1723). Ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales;

                            Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; and Sarah, Duchess of York.

                            by Moll Davis, courtesan and actress of repute

                            Lady Mary Tudor (1673-1726).

                            James II had 13 bastards.

                            William IV had 11 bastards. They used the surname "FitzClarence," because he was duke of Clarence.

                            (Nowadays it seems such Fitzes are kept concealed under the blanket.)

                            JE comments:  "Come hither you little Bastard."  That's a quote for the ages.

                            Recently we saw the calculation that every European can trace his/her ancestry to Charlemagne.  Given Henry I's prodigious "issue," aren't all Britons of royal lineage?  (Aren't we all bastards in a sense?)  Here's another one of Hank the First's children:  Fulk FitzRoy, who became a monk.  The Incredible Fulk:  I presume the better names were taken.

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                            • "Come Hither, You Little Bastard" (Cameron Sawyer, Russia 05/04/17 4:06 AM)
                              JE asked on May 3rd: "Aren't we all bastards in a sense?"

                              Answer: Not really. We may have bastards in our lineage, but that doesn't make us bastards. A bastard is a person born out of wedlock. The son or daughter of a bastard, himself or herself born in wedlock, is not any kind of a bastard, much less the grandson or great-grandson or distant descendant.

                              JE comments:  How about bastard DNA?  (Looks like my genealogical joke fell flat.  Or was I trying to "reclaim" the term for bastards everywhere?)

                              Next with his thoughts on bastardry, Gary Moore.

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                              • Namibia's "Basters" (Jose Manuel de Prada, -Spain 05/04/17 3:30 PM)

                                In the 18th century it began to be applied to the offspring of Khoikhoi and slaves, who commonly were called Bastaard-Hottentots.

                                Later in the 18th century and well into the 19th, Bastaard/Baster was applied to people who had Khoisan (Khoikhoi or Bushman) blood, most often the offspring of Khoikhoi or Bushman women and white farmers.

                                Thus a social and racial group emerged, people who had many of the trappings of European culture and lifestyle, yet were rejected by settlers of Dutch descent.

                                When the British occupied for good the Cape Colony in 1805, they were appalled by the fact that there were people who called themselves "bastards."

                                Possibly then the alternative "coloured" began to emerge, which in South Africa is still used to refer only to people of mixed descent, most of them Afrikaans-speakers.

                                (In Afrikaans kleuring, although a lot of people prefer to speak about bruine mense, "brown people.")

                                Rev. Campbell, of the London Missionary Society, managed in the 1820s to persuade a group of Basters living near the Great River to find another way of calling themselves, and thus the Griqua (or Griekwa) emerged.

                                This happened beyond the colony's boundary as it existed then, because Basters, fleeing discrimination in the colony, where it wasn't easy for them to own land, began in the 1760s to go in the Karoo areas south of the Orange river.

                                There many of them participated quite actively in the genocidal campaigns against the Bushmen, the original inhabitants of the area.

                                They did this often as accomplices of white farmers, only to be dispossessed by them after the area became "pacified."

                                In 1868 a group of them left the colony and settled in what today is Namibia.

                                They are still there, at Rehoboth, quite proud to be Basters.

                                Here is their website:


                                To my knowledge, no community in South Africa identifies with the name.

                                JE comments:  Fascinating.  José Manuel:  did the mixed-race Basters occupy a relatively privileged position under the German colonizers of Namibia, or were they persecuted as ruthlessly as the other native peoples?

                                Non-Spanish speakers might be intrigued to know the term for italic script:  letra bastardilla.

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                                • Bastardo, Batard, Dog-Brother (Edward Jajko, USA 05/05/17 2:00 PM)
                                  All this talk on mamzerut brings to mind food like zuppa bastarda and the Italian bastarda and French batard loaves. There is an Italian restaurant in Chelsea, New York City, called Il Bastardo.

                                  Antonio Francisco Bastardo Rafael, of the Dominican Republic, is a relief pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and formerly for the Mets and Phillies. He is known as Antonio Bastardo. I wonder what his teammates call him.

                                  On my phone I have a Polish dictionary app which shows a rich array of choices of words for English "bastard," available for suitable occasions. There are the literal "nie'slubne dziecko" and "nie'slubny" for "illegitimate," i.e., "unwedded child" and "unwedded." There is also "falszywy." These terms are no doubt for legal use. There is the loan word "bastard," as well as "bekart." There are "mieszany," "mixed, cross-breed," and the extreme "nienormalny," "abnormal." My favorites are "dra'n," which seems to be just plain "bastid," and "psubrat," which is literally "dog-brother," and "skurwysyn," "whoreson." These last three words are imprecations, cusses, not expressions of legal status.

                                  JE comments:  My Polish dictionary (Aldona) says that "psubrat" has a 19th-century ring, like "knave" or "blackguard" in English.  On the other hand, "skurwysyn" still gets plenty of air time in today's Poland--and occasionally at WAIS HQ.

                                  After zuppa bastarda, we should inquire about "puttanesca" (prostitute) sauce.  What's the deal with those Italians?

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                                  • Bastards Again; from Ric Mauricio (John Eipper, USA 05/06/17 4:50 AM)
                                    Ric Mauricio writes:

                                    I would like to put forth that we desist in labeling a person a "bastard" in a negative tone when that person has been born out of wedlock. After all, it wasn't the child's doing that he or she was born out of wedlock. And yet, he is stuck with such a negative label. However, utilizing the term to denounce a jerk or an a**hole is perfectly fine.

                                    In response to Ed Jajko (5 May), I often wondered why Antonio Bastardo didn't go by Antonio Rafael. Those with surnames of Butt have to endure being the butt of all jokes. I believe there is a football player with that name.

                                    JE comments:  Didn't we desist from that a century or two ago?  The jerk/a**hole meaning of "bastard" has now fully taken over in popular parlance.

                                    Regarding butts, I had this experience recently at a local diner.  One of the featured pies was butterscotch.  A wise-guy patron had erased the "erscotch" from the whiteboard, to leave "today's special:  butt     pie."


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                                    • Jake Butt, Football Superstar (Patrick Mears, -Germany 05/06/17 9:54 AM)



                                      Go Blue!



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                                        Ric Mauricio writes:

                                        Yay! Go Michigan! Go Wolverines!



                                        John, do you root for Michigan or Michigan State?




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                                  • Etymology of Puttanesca Sauce (Eugenio Battaglia, Italy 05/22/17 10:27 AM)
                                    John Eipper (5 May) asked about puttanesca sauce.

                                    In the good old days when officially state-regulated brothels were lawful, until 20 September 1958, nothing was more mannerly and friendly than these clean, medically checked and strictly controlled places.

                                    Pasta alla puttanesca, however, according to one legend, is said to come from the dinners that were arranged in some places in the countryside around Naples. Customers would bring in any kind of stuff and the young ladies would cook.

                                    The recipes, therefore, are varied. However, "puttanesca" will always be a sauce made with capers, olives, anchovies, garlic, tomatoes, hot pepper, marjoram and whatever you still want to add, such as parsley.

                                    It is also said that late one evening, a restaurant had run out of food when a group of customers came in and asked for anything, even for a "Puttanata" of pasta. The cook mixed what was left and it was highly appreciated.

                                    JE comments:  I like the first explanation better, but either one is convincing.  Folk etymologies are endlessly fascinating, and over the years, with enough reinforcement, they become "true."

                                    Eugenio:  what led to the closing of the legal brothels in 1958?

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                                    • Buonismo and the End of the (Legal) Italian Brothel (Eugenio Battaglia, Italy 05/23/17 9:56 AM)
                                      John Eipper asked about Italy's proscription of legal and regulated prostitution in 1958. It was a result of the arrival of a democracy, "buonismo" (goodism?), one determined socialist lady, and perhaps some UN declaration against prostitution.

                                      So now all the principal streets around Italy have open brothels with no checks at all and every possible type of crime, illness, and drugs.

                                      JE comments:  It's hard to argue against goodism in theory, but in practice?

                                      WAIS doesn't shy away from frank discussions, but with a few exceptions we've never addressed comparative prostitution law.  Some nations with legal or institutionalized prostitution surprise me:  Turkey and Bangladesh are examples.  (This is according to Wikipedia...not personal experience.)


                                      From the above, it's clear that policies towards prostitution cannot be generalized along a left-right or liberal-conservative divide.

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                                      • "One Determined Socialist Lady": Lina Merlin (Roy Domenico, USA 05/23/17 11:52 AM)
                                        In answering JE's question on the criminalization of prostitution in Italy, Eugenio Battaglia (23 May) mentioned some factors that may have pushed for it--democracy and buonismo, the UN and "one determined socialist lady." That would have been Lina Merlin--a socialist deputy from the Veneto. She gave her name to the "Merlin Law," ending legal prostitution in 1958. For all her trouble, however, the Socialists purged her from the Party, not supporting her in a 1961 run.

                                        She then moved over to support the Christian Democrats (DC) in their unsuccessful 1974 referendum to end divorce (which had become legal by 1970 parliamentary votes.) The DC preferred to leave these issues alone in the hope that they'd just go away. It would certainly be awkward for a Catholic party to support prostitution--although it had been legal in the papal states. Maybe better than others, the Holy Mother Church and the Christian Democracy understood weaknesses of the flesh and the sins they lead to--so in the fine Italian tradition: regulate it, turn away and hope for the best.

                                        JE comments:  I can see the criminalization of prostitution as a measure ostensibly in favor of women, but how could ending divorce be viewed that way?  Wikipedia says nothing more than "La socialista Merlin fu una convinta antidivorzista."  (There's no Wiki bio in English.)  I see no indication that she ever married--perhaps that's why she was against divorce.

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                                        • Attitudes Towards Divorce in Italy, 1950s and '60s (Roy Domenico, USA 05/24/17 5:11 PM)
                                          I am literally writing on this topic--part of my manuscript on Catholic cultural politics in the 1950s and 1960s.  So, if JE forgives me, I can strike here while the iron's hot.

                                          As to the reasoning behind women's suspicion of divorce, a few issues. First, this is pre-feminist Italy. Most women were socially conservative.  They followed Church teachings and voted Christian Democrat (DC). The two big arguments from the DC--often fronted by prominent DC women deputies--was that divorce victimized women by allowing the husbands to cut the ties and run; and it harmed the children. Remember, good Catholic wives were--ideally--mothers. All DC propaganda promoted "Mamma." In Italian mythology she's right up there with il Papa, San Francesco and Padre Pio.

                                          When divorce went through at least the Catholics got a 5-year waiting period, later, I think, reduced to 3 in the 1980s. But still, divorce remains at pretty low levels in Italy, much lower than the US, and with a big stigma attached to it.

                                          JE comments:  Social causes can create unexpected bedfellows.  We take it for granted that legal divorce is an issue of women's rights.  But who are the "we"?  Roy Domenico takes us to another time and place, in which an inviolable marriage was considered a good thing for women.  The situation vis-à-vis divorce it Italy is somewhat parallel to the 19th-century feminist movement in the US, where prohibitionism was a goal almost as important as achieving the vote.

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                                • Namibia's Basters under German Colonization (Jose Manuel de Prada, -Spain 05/05/17 2:58 PM)
                                  According to David Olusoga and Casper W. Erichsen, in their book The Kaiser's Holocaust (London: Faber & Faber 2010), the Rehoboth Basters were forced to fight with the Germans against the Herero under the terms of the treaty they had signed with the former when the colony was established, but refused to wage war against the Nama, who were led by a charismatic and capable leader called Hendrik Witbooi.

                                  Witbooi, say Olusoga and Erichsen, in spite of having heard about the atrocities committed by the Germans against the Herero, chose to play by "the rules and conventions that were a central part of Nama tradition."

                                  The Herero had also played by the rules and didn't target civilians, yet the Germans treated both them and Nama as decades later they would treat the Jews and the Slavs.

                                  As for more recent history, according to this 1998 article published in The Independent, in the years previous to the independence of Nambia, at least some Basters engaged "in an ugly ideological marriage with South African apartheid."


                                  I don't know how this community deals nowadays with its fraught past, and if they remember at all that before trekking to Namibia in 1868 they had participated in genocidal campaigns against the /xam Bushmen of the Karoo.

                                  JE comments:  I read The Kaiser's Holocaust some years ago, at José Manuel de Prada's recommendation.  The historical record often paints Imperial German colonization as (slightly) more benign than that of the French, Belgians and even the British, but this was not the case in the nasty, genocidal campaigns the Germans waged in Namibia.

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                            • On Bastardry and Crimes Against Humanity; from Gary Moore (John Eipper, USA 05/04/17 4:24 AM)

                              Gary Moore writes:

                              Re John Heelan and "Come hither you little bastard" (May 3):
                              Too close for comfort! The proverbial genealogical aunt in my
                              family (remarkable librarian and archivist Linda Jensen) long ago
                              found that we seem to be descended from the scandalously active
                              Mary Boleyn, one of the Fitz-progenitors John listed (in our case,
                              supposedly, through later Lord De La Warr [Delaware], though
                              presumably not when he was in the colonies for scorched earth

                              And re that latter theme: Serendipitously, though belatedly,
                              I've come across in my notes two sources for our discussion
                              of how to classify, jurisprudentially, the transatlantic slave trade
                              (and confirming the comment by Timothy Ashby):

                              1. “Emerging Challenges for Criminology: Drawing the Margins of Crimes against Humanity,” International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, Vol. 6, No.2, March 2013, 1150-1160, by Nikos Theodorakis (Harvard Law and University of Cambridge) and David P. Farrington (University of Cambridge).

                              Some quotes:
                              "The field of international criminal law is a continuously evolving and challenging area of study."

                              "The broader notion of crimes against humanity is as old as humanity itself. However the present status has evolved mainly throughout the twentieth century, greatly influenced by the Nuremberg Trials."

                              "The latest development was the consensus in defining Crimes against Humanity during the ICC Diplomatic Conference of 1998, which can be considered as a milestone for the international community in the fight against human rights violations (Mettraux, 2002)."

                              "Crimes against humanity encompass attacks and violations on a wide range of civilian populations, which can be committed in times of peace and do not result necessarily in the physical extermination of the victims (Olmo, 2006). In contrast, the term 'genocide' is narrower, and 'war crimes' can only be committed during an armed conflict."

                              "The expression 'laws' or 'principles of humanity' embodies the idea that some transcendental humanitarian principles exist beyond conventional law that are not subject to any form of violation (Ntoubandi, 2007)."

                              "Crimes against humanity are therefore offences against humankind and injuries to humanness. Their gravity qualifies the perpetrators hostis humani generis, offending fundamental values not adequately defended in internal legal systems, urging international intervention (Stahn and van den Herik, 2010)."

                              "The very essence of 'humanitas' can be traced to the landmark concept in Greek philosophy of 'philanthropia' and the Roman concept of 'ethos' (Bauman, 1996)."

                              "Crimes against humanity are characterized by acts so abhorrent that shock our sense of human dignity (Kastrup, 2000)."

                              "The mens rea for crimes against humanity has a cognitive character, with the tribunals requiring that a
                              defendant must have actual knowledge that his act is a part of a widespread or systematic attack on a
                              civilian population and pursuant to a plan."

                              2. The second source is Michel Gurfinkel of the Roussau Institute, as relayed by the Middle East Forum, April 24, 2015. (This one goes controversially farther in narrowing the terms, placing the Holocaust in a unique extreme category
                              beyond mere genocide, different even from the Armenian genocide. The logic demands attention, since it speaks
                              to the psychopathology underlying fanaticism; key quote, below: "crime was an end unto itself.")

                              "For the sake of clarity and decency, one must delineate between (a) genocides (documented attempts to wipe off a race or a nation); (b) non-genocidal mass murders; (c) enslavement of large numbers of people; (d) planned dispossession and expulsion of large numbers of people; and (e) secondary effects of wars and other crises. In that order.  The Holocaust qualifies under point (a). So does the starvation program against the Hereros (in German Southwest Africa shortly before WWI), and the further genocidal operations against the Armenians, the Iraqi Chaldeans, the black minority in the Dominican Republic, the Roma/Sinti in Europe, and the Tutsis in Rwanda."

                              "The Soviet, Red Chinese, and Khmer Rouge domestic massacres qualify under point (b), as well as the Nazi treatment of European nations (like the Poles), the Japanese atrocities in China, and many further ethnic and religious massacres in the Balkans, South Asia, and Africa."

                              "The African slave trade and the slavery regimes in both Islamic countries and the Christian colonies in the Americas and elsewhere qualify under point (c). So do massive slave work programs in the Soviet Union, in Nazi Germany, in Maoist China, and in present-day North Korea."

                              "Qualifying under point (d): The US treatment of many Native Americans in the 19th century; the French treatment of Kabyles in Algeria in 1871; the alternate expulsion of Turks, Greeks, and Turks again between 1912 and 1923; the expulsion of Poles and French from areas slated for German colonization during WWII; the expulsion of ethnic Germans from East Prussia, Transoderian Germany, and Czechoslovakia in 1945; the mass anti-Christian pogroms in Turkey in 1955; the expulsion of Christians and Jews from Arab or Islamic countries from 1956 on (Egypt, North Africa, the Middle East); and the expulsion of ethnic Greeks from Northern Cyprus."

                              "A lot of tragedies befell civilian populations over the past hundred years, as a result of war, civil war, revolution, or other political or social upheaval. Many were cynically and deliberately engineered by governments or the military; the mass murder of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire paved the way. Many were planned and implemented along near-industrial methods. Still, there was something unique about the Holocaust, as the world realized in 1945, when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated."

                              "Crime, including political crime and politically or militarily motivated mass murder, is usually a means to achieve some higher purpose or to bring about some practical benefit. For instance, the Ottoman rationale in 1915 was to 'remove' the Armenian minority from Turkish Anatolia in order to prevent a pro-Russian Armenian uprising and to achieve geostrategic cohesion. They had no further racial or metaphysical concerns. The few Armenians who converted to Islam were spared; many Armenian orphans were adopted by Turkish families and raised as Turks."

                              "As far as the Holocaust was concerned, however, crime was an end unto itself. Under the Nazi genocidal project, no Jew was allowed to survive, neither by renouncing Judaism nor even as a pariah or a slave, and in fact very few Jews in the Nazi-controlled areas managed to survive. Moreover, the annihilation of the Jews was to take precedence over Germany's strategic considerations, and did actually divert and waste crucial resources in manpower, energy, and transportation needed by German forces. Finally, the Jews were not just to be murdered: they had to be murdered in the most gruesome and sadistic way, not just with physical cruelty but with moral or mental cruelty as well."

                              JE comments:  These are very useful working definitions.  Ultimately, however, "Crimes against Humanity" boil down to the Potter Stewart test of "I know it when I see it."  A case in point is the transatlantic slave trade, which Southern apologists considered a cornerstone of the timeless "natural order."  More importantly, it was legal.

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                              • Bastards Poor and Rich (Tor Guimaraes, USA 05/05/17 10:26 AM)
                                Most people get quite indignant by the "ghetto" culture, whereby irresponsible young people take advantage of social welfare to freely engage in the creation of bastards. The WAIS discussion about bastard creation by royalty shows that the self-indulgence is universal, with royalty also making taxpayers pay for their promiscuity. Both groups are just like many animal species that do not mate for life and/or neglect their offspring.

                                Regarding crimes against humanity (see Gary Moore, 4 May), it seems as if the law is way ahead of its enforcement. The evidence is clear that might makes right, since powerful countries get away with proverbial murder, simply refusing to abide by rulings from international courts. Without enforcement, any law becomes useless. Thus, powerful countries refusing to accept responsibility for their crimes merely point fingers at the crimes committed by their accusers on the other side.

                                JE comments:  Traditionally, the bastard was the child of a nobleman.  Here's the 13th-century French definition:  "acknowledged child of a nobleman by a woman other than his wife."  Note the operative term acknowledged.  Presumably, legitimacy didn't matter if you were a commoner, as there was no property or inheritance to squabble over.

                                Bastardry is proving to be a popular topic for WAISers.  Next up:  Edward Jajko.

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                      • Was Moses Historical, or Mythical? (Istvan Simon, USA 04/30/17 6:41 PM)
                        I am grateful to Robert Whealey (29 April) for his informative and very interesting essay on various religions from a historian's perspective. I would like to add a minor comment to Robert's essay.

                        I met Alice Whealey, Robert's daughter, who is also a historian. Furthermore, Alice read the original sources on ancient history, including reading in Greek and Aramaic about the Bible. I would like to add the observation that Robert's daughter thinks that Moses is a mythical rather than historical figure. I'd like to suggest that Robert discuss his ideas about Moses with his daughter Alice.

                        JE comments:  I am reminded of Ed Jajko's recent comment that "all of the Bible is true, and some of it actually happened."  So...hmm...what do we know about Moses?

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                      • Please Don't Blame the Children (Tor Guimaraes, USA 05/02/17 9:23 AM)
                        I found Robert Whealey's post of April 29th quite interesting and historically informational, with a few exceptions.

                        Robert stated: "The time of King David is the beginning of real history." I am surprised by Robert, because that seems like a very chauvinistic, narrow-minded thing to say. Real history started as early as historians can investigate.

                        Also he declared:  "Carl Sagan as an astronomer, has sound reasons in believing in atheism. But mass, militant atheism failed in the French Revolution, and it failed a second time in the USSR 1917 to 1991." The French Revolution and the USSR failed for many reasons, none of which have much to do with atheism or any other religion. They failed because they did not have the chance to study my book God for Atheists and Scientists (Sorry!). By the way, our beautiful nation is going down the drain for similar reasons: the lack of things like law and order, true democracy, justice, etc. Why do we have so much corruption in the social, political, and economic sub-systems? As I wrote in my book that no one seems to read, it is because ultimately our religion is not Judaism or Christianity. Our nation's underlying gods are self indulgence and increasing wealth/profit.

                        Last, I have no idea what Robert means by "The great mass of children 18-21 being too emotional to learn philosophy until the college and university levels." This strikes me as scary. If it is true, our society is doomed beyond redemption. On the other hand, I believe our philosophical/religious knowledge accumulated over the centuries adds up to a lot of BS to the "great mass of children 18-21." It has not produced a good world and has lead us to corruption, billionaire aristocracy, violence, mass poverty, wars and destruction.  Don't blame the children.

                        JE comments:  The French and Russian revolutions constructed their own gods to replace traditional religion.  How could we describe the situation in today's China?  Are Mammon and Deng's "glory of riches" the only gods beyond an ever-dwindling cult of the Party?

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                      • Fundamentalists and Evangelicals (Robert Whealey, USA 05/07/17 8:36 AM)
                        Garry Wills, a liberal Catholic, has traced Fundamentalism back to the Great Awakening. That is his historical rewrite and interpretation.

                        My mother who belong to a Fundamentalist Methodist Church and quoted her minister, who claimed the movement as having started among a small group of Princeton theologians in 1910. Their theology was caused by the rejection of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The first Fundamentalist principle was that the earth was created in six days. The second principle of Fundamentalism was that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, which contradicted all scientific understanding. Paradoxically, the Fundamentalists had no problem with the Roman Catholics about the Virgin Mary, but the Catholics later invented a new doctrine, the Immaculate Conception.

                        Fundamentalists in 1948 were usually pious people who did not have an education beyond high school. In 1948 Billy Graham, who was originally a Methodist Fundamentalist, could see that he could make more converts in Yankee Stadium on TV by calling himself an "Evangelical." The Evangelicals were far more liberal and came from the idea that John the Baptist called himself an Evangelical. Gradually in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Fundamentalists gave up their hard and fast dogmatism and became more flexible Evangelicals.

                        Today there are conservative Evangelicals and liberal Evangelicals. I don't think I ever met a Fundamentalist after I left college in 1952. In 1948 at Bates College, there were only two or three Fundamentalists on campus. And I had a great debate during my freshman year with a half a dozen students.

                        When I arrived on the Bates campus in September 1949, I told my roommate Stelian Dukakis, the brother of the more famous Micheal Dukakis, that I was no longer a Fundamentalist. Stelian, raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, laughed. Later Stelian took me to Beacon Street, the First Unitarian Church on the Boston Commons. This was my first visit to any Unitarian Church. Later Michael Dukakis married Kitty in a Unitarian Church.

                        JE comments:  Are there any Liberal Evangelicals left?  And a second question:  Doesn't the Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception go back centuries?  Ed Jajko--can you answer this?

                        I was curious and did a Google search:  Stelian Dukakis died in a bicycle accident in 1973.

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                  • Enslaving Ourselves (Tor Guimaraes, USA 04/25/17 4:40 AM)
                    Ric Mauricio (23 April) made some profound statements regarding the most important human problem: How more powerful human beings treat the less powerful ones, just like other animals do. Everything about humanity depends on this problem. These "what if?" questions may seem silly to some people, but they are critical if mankind is to ever rise above the miserable conditions that most humans live under today. And it seems to be getting increasingly worse lately.

                    Ric followed up with the observation that humans engage in stupid ideological debates akin to religious confrontations, where both sides believe they are right and the other side not bothering to get to the truth behind the arguments. That was exactly my primary motivation for writing the book God for Atheists and Scientists, whereby God is Truth and humanity's only way to get there is through scientific methods, not ideology, and certainly not religion. To the extent that we avoid the Truth for immediate selfish reasons or just plain stupidity, we become slaves to the wrong master and are more likely to become evil.

                    Lastly, I agree with most of Ric's statements regarding fiat currency, the manipulative Fed, the need for less religion, less corruption and politics, and more science in the discipline of economics. Keynes seems to be right about the need for consumer demand (give them income and they will spend) as the primary driving force for economic development. Schumpeterian economics (Austrian School) is also truthful but is heavily dependent on innovation (which, supposedly just like poetry, humans are much less fond of).

                    JE comments:  Isn't innovation what humans do best?  Am I too optimistic?  Look at it this way--we are far better at innovating than at bringing justice to the world.

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                    • Innovation in Humans, Bacteria (Tor Guimaraes, USA 05/01/17 4:24 AM)
                      In my post of April 25th, I mentioned that humans are usually more fond of the status quo rather than change and innovation. John Eipper commented: "Isn't innovation what humans do best? ... Look at it this way--we are far better at innovating than at bringing justice to the world."

                      John's last sentence has the key to this apparent puzzle. Humans are good innovators at some things when they are forced to innovate or the benefits are clear like in the cases of business or war, for examples. Nothing is more true than necessity being the mother of invention. But innovation to achieve long-term benefits like from justice, getting along with rivals, changing business processes while attempting to improve customer service, the benefits are less obvious and it takes considerably more effort in leadership, cajoling, and even some form of butt-kicking. Such forms of innovation are closer to the Schumpeterian economic principles we were discussing in my last post.

                      Another interesting perspective regarding innovation is that biological evolution seems to be the most basic and powerful innovation process. Among bacteria today, the process of evolution (notwithstanding the religious deniers) would make Darwin very proud of his theory (a universal law as obvious as gravity).

                      Bacteria are winning the war against humanity. Because of our carelessness with using and abusing antibiotics, whichever bacteria are not killed genetically mutate into stronger and stronger (super bacteria) strains capable of surviving any of the presently available antibiotics. In some cases, the available arsenal has been proven useless and the bacteria have killed specific patients. To complicate the issue, because the profit margin from research on new antibiotics is relatively small, the pharmaceutical industry is less than motivated in this antibiotic war. So the bacteria are innovating faster (more effectively?) than the humans.

                      JE comments:  Shouldn't we make a distinction between innovation in (evolution) and innovation by?  The latter involves some form of intentionality.

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                • Enslaving Europeans (John Heelan, -UK 04/23/17 5:27 AM)
                  When one goes back in history, one discovers that European victors in conflicts collected slaves as part of their tribute. The Romans were large users of slaves taken from their conquered peoples and displayed when the triumphant military leader paraded through Rome. One recalls Pope Gregory's (AD 540-604) comment on seeing the pale-skinned English (Angle) boy slaves "Non Angli, sed angeli."

                  It is thought that much of Cicero's works were in fact written by his slave secretary whom he later freed. (One hopes that there was not some form of pederasty afflicting the Church at that time.) I am currently reading a novel about the Danes (Vikings) ravages of Saxon kingdoms a few hundred years later. Their slaves were called "thralls" (from which we get the verb enthrall).

                  Then we can fast-forward to the 20th Century and remember the slave labourers in Germany and the USSR. So we should not be too hard on the Arabs for being slavers as they learned from Europeans.

                  JE comments:  And let us not forget etymology:  Slave comes from the word Slav.

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          • Slave Ships: The "Brookes" (Robert Gibbs, USA 04/20/17 12:34 PM)

            The ubiquitous engraving of the transatlantic slave ship that John appended to my last post is what pushed me to look into the trade. The image is bogus, more accurately a propaganda piece.
            Wilberforce and others wanted the trade ended and were not beyond stretching the truth.

            Also, no one has ever seen such a ship.
            How many slaves could survive a 3-4 month trip chained like that? Moreover, the crew would also suffer disease. 
            With this ship, how were they fed or given water? Chained as they were in a choking position?

            To clarify, the only thing I was suggesting was that all numeric figures for the transatlantic slave trade are at best questionable. Whether it was one or a dozen, or the full 80 million, the trade was both immoral and wrong.

            I did argue that ships at that time made 5 to 7 knots best over months of travel and had to use the yearly trades and currents. This limited the amount and frequency of the trade.

            Then again there is the constant problem of food and water.

            JE comments:  I've done some more digging.  The Brookes image is a 1788 engraving of a real ship--the Liverpool slave ship Brookes, which was legally permitted (!) to confine 454 humans in its "cargo."  The engraving, according to those who've counted, depicts 487 people on two decks.  The ship had reportedly carried as many as 744 on one journey.

            Consider the provisioning, the vile sanitation and disease, and the infernal cruelty.  There must be figures somewhere on the mortality rate in transit, but I would think 50% or higher.

            On a far more pleasant note, it's Robert Gibbs's birthday--the legendary "four-twenty."  Happy birthday, Bob!  Hope to talk to you soon.


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      • Royal African Company Archives (Edward Jajko, USA 04/12/17 2:05 PM)
        As a quick reply to Tim Ashby (11 April), the records of the Royal African Company are in the National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England. One collection is in the Bodleian Library. Two are in the Senate House Library of the University of London. Cf. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

        JE comments:  Thanks, Ed!  I'm sure several WAISers have done research in the National Archives (UK).  What is the experience like?  Helpful?  Intimidating?  Overwhelming?  Immensely satisfying?

        "Entrance is free and there is no need to book."  That's an encouraging start.

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        • National Archives, Kew, Surrey (Angel Vinas, Belgium 04/14/17 4:58 AM)
          I've been a very frequent visitor to the British National Archives at Kew (Surrey) in Greater London. Before their establishment I used to visit the Public Record Office at Chancery Lane, near the London School of Economics. I cannot imagine how many hours I've spent at both locations.

          To give an answer to John Eipper, it's my experience that the BNA are among the best in the world in terms of organisation, easy of access, working conditions, and friendliness of their staff. Unfortunately, I cannot make any comparison with NARA, because my visits to Maryland took place too long ago.

          On the other hand, my admiration for the BNA is marred in terms of availability of certain records to the public.

          For colleagues interested in this matter I recommend the recent book by Ian Cobain, The History Thieves.  It´s an account of the lengths to which the British Governments have gone to keep from the public many records dealing with decolonization after WWII. Simply harrowing.

          In my own experience, I regret to say that I´ve been unable to find very few records of MI6 dealing with Spanish affairs. They may not have been important to London in the 1920s, but I cannot believe that they were routine matters during the Civil War and WWII. Needless to say MI6 records afterwards also remain under lock and key. Why? FOIA doesn't apply to them.

          JE comments: One can only wonder what kind of decolonization skeletons remain closeted.  Cobain chronicles the UK's less-than-glorious record during the 1950s' independence struggle in Kenya, its complicity with the French attempts to re-colonize Indochina after WWII, and elsewhere.  It's a fascinating story I'd like to know more about--as would many historians, hence the closed archives.

          NARA is the (US) National Archives and Records Administration, in College Park, Maryland.  Who in WAISworld has spent time there?

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          • Researching at the National Archives, College Park (Roy Domenico, USA 04/14/17 12:02 PM)
            To JE's question about who's worked at the US National Archives--I have (and I'm sure quite a few other WAISers have, too).

            I started there working on my dissertation that concerned, in part, the Allied occupation of Italy in World War Two. It also required work at the British National Archives (the old PRO) at Kew and the Imperial War Museum which had a beautiful reading room, up in the dome. In Washington I was able to work in the old archives building on Pennsylvania Ave which was a real delight. Later most of the scholars were kicked out and exiled to College Park, Maryland, which is a very nice facility but pretty isolated. Apparently Pennsylvania Ave remains open for genealogists and others looking into their family histories and, for some reason, it's still open for Civil War scholars.

            One interesting anecdote--sometimes my work necessitated that I use the military archives in Suitland, MD. The National Archives provides a shuttle bus out there. The place looks like the poor relative, a kind of drab warehouse with a 1960s dull reading room. Maybe to show off a little--to prove that there was more here that meets the eye--the archivist took me into the area where the documents were kept. It was astonishingly enormous and reminded me of the place--indeed in the National Archives--at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" where they "file" the Ark of the Covenant. It looked as if that scene was actually filmed where I was standing.

            This summer I'll be doing some preliminary snooping at archives in Milan and Bologna for my new project on the Italian Home Front during WWII.

            JE comments:  Some of my fondest memories are of doing archival research--experiencing the quietness and the thrill of digging into people's long-ago business.  It's a splendid feeling.

            Best of success with your summer digging, Roy!


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            • Researching at the National Archives, College Park (Timothy Brown, USA 04/15/17 6:52 AM)
              I fully agree that doing research in an archival collection can be both intellectually and personally rewarding, especially when you can do so by seeing original documents rather than electronic copies of them.

              I, too, did research in the (US) National Archives, but when virtually all of its collection was in the old Archives building. So I never had to travel all the way out to the the wilds of College Park.

              During my 15 years with Hoover I collected a number of interesting archival collections in cooperation with our late and much lamented WAIS colleague, Bill Ratliff, that are now in the Hoover archives.

              Among these are the surviving archives of several Central American and Mexican guerrilla movements. Those now available to researchers include the greater part of the surviving archives of the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance (better known as the Contras), among them those of three parts of their organization, their civilian political leadership, two largest guerrilla forces, the FDN/ERN and YATAMA, the Miskito Indians' forces.

              In addition, Bill and I were able to collect and deposit at Hoover the surviving central archives of the 1959-1969 FSLN, smaller collections of the FMLN (El Salvador's Faribundo Martí Front) and less well-known revolutionary movements in Honduras, Costa Rica and Mexico.

              I also authorized Hoover to make and retain copies of hour to hour-and-a-half-long one-on-one interviews I did with former Contra, Sandinista and Faribundo Martí guerrillas, some surviving original leaders of the Sandinista, Costa Rican, Salvadoran and Mexican Marxist revolutionary movements, and other key early participants in the revolutionary movements in Cuba and Latin America, such as Noel Guerrero Santiago and Elizabeth Burgos-Debray. These, and more, are available in the Hoover archives.

              Hoover now also has a verbatim copy of the Costa Rican legislature's investigation into the role the Costa Rican government's cooperation in transporting arms from Cuba directly to the Sandinista armed forces in Costa Rica (that they were shipped to them from Colombia via Panama was a cover story).

              I could go on. But this is already very long--and may well have angered those of my readers who prefer to believe the fabricated Cold War propaganda versions of the revolutionary movements in Central America that believe what they themselves secretly documented in their original records.

              JE comments:  The anniversary of Bill Ratliff's passing was this week, on April 11th (2014).  It's already been three years.  The last time I saw him was at lunch just a few weeks before that, when he picked me up (appropriately) at the Hoover, where I was doing research on the Ronald Hilton archives.

              Bill Ratliff, my predecessor as WAIS President, was an outstanding and tireless scholar, as well as a good friend.  I'm still shocked by his sudden passing.

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    • My Diplomatic Service in French Caribbean (Timothy Brown, USA 04/12/17 3:45 AM)
      During my four years as US Consul General in the French Caribbean, 1983-87, my portfolio included Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana. My office was in Martinique, arguably the oldest American "diplomatic" post

      since the Revolution, but my responsibilities included all three of them. WAISdom's history buffs might find the story of the first "American" representative in the French Caribbean The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham 1752-1804 (by Robert C. Alberts) very interesting since Bingham was the American Revolution's key representative in the Caribbean during the Revolution, well before my time there. What is still largely unknown is the importance of France's presence in the Americas to this day.

      While I spent most of my time in Martinique, I made a point of also visiting Guadeloupe and Guyane Francaise for a week or so every three months. All three were then and still are both fascinating and important to the US for many reasons, which is largely why I dedicated the last chapters of Diplomarine to them. Because all three are integral departementes of France, France--and through France both NATO and the EU--have common borders with several Caribbean countries plus Brazil and Suriname. Since my tour in Martinique, the United States has closed all of its bases in Panama and Puerto Rico, save its rented coaling station at Guantánamo, Cuba, this has made France the strongest member of NATO in the Western Hemisphere south of Florida, with an Army regiment in Guadeloupe, a Marine Regiment in Martinique, the 3rd Foreign Legion in French Guiana, and smaller naval and air units and NATO's regional communications in Fort de France, Martinique. For security reasons the 3rd Legion is located in Kourou near Euroespace's satellite launching pads and its nearby facilities.

      If you want to vacation on an idyllic Caribbean island, I recommend Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Barths or the French side of St. Martin. But if you'd rather get to know what is probably the most exotic and little-known province of France, I recommend going to French Guiana. Just be sure to have a yellow fever shot before you do.

      JE comments:  "Well before my time there"--great quip, Tim!

      Even (especially?) Latin Americanists know next to nothing about French Guiana.  I must visit someday.  Tim--were St Pierre and Miquelon, probably the most obscure outposts of France, part of your diplomatic portfolio?  St P and M are the only part of France that Americans and Canadians can drive to.


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