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U.S.S. Wasp – War of 1812 and the H.M.S. Reindeer

June 28, 2014 in American History, History

Johnston Blakeley, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor

It’s important for those interested in the U.S.S. Wasp and its battles, to understand that when it comes to the naming of ships, the U.S.S. Wasp was not first ship to carry that name. In fact, it was actually the fifth ship to be named the Wasp (although internet searches will sometimes refer to it mistakenly as the second ship to be named thus). Going back in time slightly, it’s also important to remember that the American Navy was in its infancy having been born on 11 October 1775, when Congress decided that the Continental Navy (as it was known then) was authorized the first official ship of the United Colonies. Ship naming was haphazard until the later assignment of that duty to the Secretary of Navy, which wouldn’t occur until 1819. Our navy ships were named in honor of famous people, patriots, heroes, American cities and towns, positive character traits, and small creatures who packed a sting, such as insects – hence the popularity of the ship name “Wasp.” The Wasp was certainly a ship that lived up to the “sting” of its namesake.

During the War of 1812, the U.S.S. Wasp was built in 1813 by Cross & Merrill of Newburyport, Massachusetts and ready to launch by 1814. She was a fast moving sloop-of-war, meaning that she was a smaller square-rigged sailing warship with cannons on only one deck. The Wasp had twenty 32 pounder carronades and two long guns. She carried one hundred and seventy-three Marines and sailors. That crew was made up of almost entirely New Englanders of youthful age, averaging only 23 years of age. For many of them they had not previously been to sea but had on their side both enthusiasm and ambition. It would take a skilled and talented man to be in charge of them.

American Historical Marker in North Carolina – Captain Johnston Blakeley

Her first and only commander was thirty-three year old, Irish born, Master Commandant Johnston Blakeley, who waited patiently in Portsmouth, New Hampshire until May 1^st, 1814 for its first war cruise. This was not his first war time naval rodeo, as he had already earned his place in naval history on board the U.S.S. Enterprise in the splendid victory over the H.M.S. Boxer. He had had the perfect ingredients for commanding the Wasp. The destination was the English Channel.

More than a month before she was to engage the H.M.S. Reindeer in battle, she captured her first vessel, the Neptune which after taking her crew as prisoners, she promptly burned. Her next conquest was the William, and once again she burned that 91 ton brig as well. She would also scuttle the Pallas, the Henrietta, and scuttle the Orange Boven before she would encounter the H.M.S. Reindeer. He would write shortly after in a letter of July 8, 1814 that not every ship they encountered was prey:

“After arriving on soundings, the number of neutrals which were passing kept us almost constantly in pursuit. . . . I found it impossible to maintain anything like a station, and was led in chase farther up the Channel than was intended.”

The battle between the U.S.S. Wasp and the H.M.S Reindeer is recorded in history to have last only 19 minutes, but seldom is it mentioned that for two hours before the actually taking of the H.M.S. Reindeer, these two ships were engaged in a cat-and-mouse standoff and a bit of a chase. It was the Reindeer that fired the first 12 pound cannonade loaded with round and grape shot. Still, the U.S.S. Wasp did not immediately respond in turn, but instead, Commander Blakeley, put his helm alee; and only then returned fire, in succession, all the guns of his broadside as they bore. This caused the Reindeer to become somewhat disabled and run aboard of the Wasp, her port bow against the Wasp’s quarter, in which position the Wasp raked with telling effect.

This is the point in naval battle where the youthful crew of the American marines and riflemen with the marksmanship they were famed for, picked off many of the exposed officers and crew of the Reindeer. The captain of the H.M.S. Reindeer was among the wounded, but kept the deck and urged his crew on in the fight. A second wound soon went through his thighs and brought him to his knees, still he was said to have stood up, bleeding profusely, and shouted to his men:

“Follow me, my boys, we must board.”

With those words, it’s told that he climbed the rigging to lead them on, but two balls from the Wasp’s maintop instantly passed through his skull, and killed him. The sea battle action left the Wasp six round shot in her hull, and a 24-pound shot had passed through the center of her foremast, and her sails and rigging injured. Commander Blakeley would later write:

“The Reindeer was literally cut to pieces in a line with her ports.”

Medal of Honor was awarded to Captain Johnston Blakeley

The Wasp lost five of its crew and twenty-one were ,wounded. The Reindeer lost twenty-five crew, and had forty-two wounded. The American take on this victory was that the crews were splendidly disciplined and both had the finest of leaders, but in the in that victory depends on something else than determination and courage; and in this case the fair conclusion was it was due to superiority in power. After the battle Blakeley set out to get care for his wounded and make needed repairs in L’Orient, France — where they remained for a month and went on to make six more valuable captures before arriving back safely in Savannah, Georgia, only to be lost at sea somewhere in the Caribbean a couple of weeks later. Commander Johnston Blakeley would be promoted to Captain after his death and the Medal of Honor was awarded to him. His widow was given by Congress a pension for the rest of her lifetime and also provided for the education of their child.

Tags: HMS Reindeer, USS Wasp, USS Wasp and HMS Reindeer, War of 1812 4 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

Commemoration of a Hero: Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans

March 6, 2014 in American History, Caribbean History, general history, History, Louisiana History

A “Buccaneer” scene from the Battle of New Orleans, with Yul Brynner as Jean Laffite, at Battery No. 3.

Almost 200 years ago, privateer-smuggler Jean Laffite became a hero because he did something most people wouldn’t have done: in the face of extreme adversity, he had helped save New Orleans for the Americans, even though United States officers had destroyed his home base and seized his property a few months earlier.
Sometimes incorrectly regarded as a pirate, Laffite and his Baratarian associates were actually privateers sanctioned by the Patriot regime of Carthagena to prey on Royalist Spanish shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. They smuggled prize goods past customs at New Orleans through their base ports of both Cat Island and Grande Terre, providing low-priced goods to the populace through both auctions and other sales.
“Though proscribed by my adoptive country, I will never let slip any occasion of serving her, or of proving that she has never ceased to be dear to me” wrote Laffite to Louisiana legislator Jean Blanque on Sept. 4, 1814, in an enclosure that contained British letters he had received from Commodore Nicholas Lockyer of HMS Sophie the day before at Grande Terre. Laffite also said the British represented to him a way to free his brother Pierre from prison. Pierre had been incarcerated at the Cabildo in New Orleans since early summer 1814 after being arrested on a grand jury indictment.
Lockyer had tried to bribe Laffite to aid the British in their plans to seize New Orleans, but Jean had stalled for time about a reply, so he could advise the New Orleans authorities about the imminent threat. Lockyer told his superior, Capt. William Henry Percy, that his mission to secure ships and assistance from Laffite had met with “ill success.”
Blanque gave the letters, including Laffite’s, to Louisiana Governor W.C.C. Claiborne. Perversely, Claiborne’s advisory council decided to allow US Commodore Daniel Todd Patterson and Col. George Ross to proceed with a raid on Grande Terre. On the morning of Sept. 16, US ships and gunboats under the direction of Patterson and Ross blew up Laffite’s home and Grande Terre to bits, confiscated nine ships in the harbor, and all the goods they could find, from wine to German linen to exotic spices. They also pursued fleeing Baratarians, and imprisoned some 80 of them, including Dominique You, who had made sure that none of the Baratarians fired on the American vessels, per Laffite’s instructions.
Almost as soon as the British letters arrived in New Orleans, somehow Pierre escaped from jail and quickly rejoined his brother at Grande Terre, where he, too, wrote a letter to Claiborne to offer allegiance to the US.
Jean and his brother Pierre then had left Grande Terre to hide out at the LaBranche plantation on the German Coast, slightly upriver from New Orleans. They would remain fugitives until a short while after Gen. Andrew Jackson’s arrival at New Orleans in December. Jean was subject to arrest on sight following the raid.
So what did Laffite do right before the raid, and afterward? Here is what he says he did, in his own words, in a letter to President James Madison written Dec. 27, 1815:
“I beg to … to state a few facts which are not generally known in this part of the union, and in the mean time solicit the recommendation of your Excellency near the honourable Secretary of the treasury of the U.S., whose decision (restitution of the seized ships and items in the Patterson raid) could but be in my favour, if he only was well acquainted with my disinterested conduct during the last attempt of the Britannic forces on Louisiana. At the epoch that State was threatened of an invasion, I disregarded any other consideration which did not tend to its safety, and therefore retained my vessels at Barataria inspite of the representations of my officers who were for making sail for Carthagena, as soon as they were informed that an expedition was preparing in New Orleans to come against us.
“For my part I conceived that nothing else but disconfidence in me could induce the authorities of the State to proceed with so much severity at a time that I had not only offered my services but likewise acquainting (sic) them with the projects of the enemy and expecting instructions which were promised to me. I permitted my officers and crews to secure what was their own, assuring them that if my property should be seized I had not the least apprehension of the equity of the U.S. once they would be convinced of the sincerity of my conduct.
“My view in preventing the departure of my vessels was in order to retain about four hundred skillful artillerists in the country which could but be of the utmost importance in its defense. When the aforesaid expedition arrived I abandoned all I possessed in its power, and retired with all my crews in the marshes, a few miles above New Orleans, and invited the inhabitants of the City and its environs to meet at Mr. LaBranche’s where I acquainted them wih the nature of the danger which was not far off…a fews days after a proclamation of the Governor of the State permitted us to join the army which was organizing for the defense of the country.
“The country is safe and I claim no merit for having, like all inhabitants of the State, cooperated in its welfare, in this my conduct has been dictated by the impulse of my proper sentiments; But I claim the equity of the Government of the U.S. upon which I have always relied for the restitution of at least that portion of my property which will not deprive the treasury of the U.S. of any of its own funds.
Signed Jn Laffite”

Two French honey-colored flints from the Laffite cache at Chalmette

Diagram shows how the stone flint was positioned in the lock mechanism of a gun.

The interesting thing about Jean’s letter to the President is he considered the aid of his veteran artillery personnel to be the most important contribution to the defense of New Orleans, and he says nothing at all about what was truly his most valuable aid to the Americans_the supply of some 7,500 desperately needed gun flints, flints which Gen. Andrew Jackson himself said later were the only ones he had during the battles against the British at Chalmette. Indeed, in a letter to a friend in 1827, Gen. Jackson flat out stated that the Laffite cache was “solely the supply of flints for all my militia and if it had not been for this providential aid the country must have fallen.”
For those unfamiliar with firearms of that era, most were muskets, fowling pieces, some Kentucky long rifles, and a variety of pistols, all with the flintlock firing mechanism. Flintlocks require small specially shaped squares of flint to spark the charge into the gunpowder to fire the lead shot. Without a flint, the weapon is useless save as a club, and indeed many pistols of the time were fortified with brass wrap-arounds on the stock to make them heavier towards that end. If Jackson’s men had no flints, they would have only had cannons, swords, knives, bayonets and guerilla style hand-to-hand fighting to fall back on, whereas the British were fully supplied with flints and firearms. The British would have easily routed Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans if Jackson’s troops could not have fired back at them. Jackson was correct in his assessment of the value of those flints, he was not exaggerating at all. Sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest impacts.
It is not known exactly when Laffite delivered the flints to Jackson, but it was sometime after Dec. 22, as the Americans had insufficient flints during the night raid on the British camp on Dec. 23, and were seizing British weapons in that event.
On Dec. 22, Jackson sent Jean Laffite to the Temple area near Little Lake Salvador to assist Major Reynolds with blocking the bayous there, plus setting up fortifications on the ancient Indian shell mound area. He told Jean he wanted him back at Chalmette as soon as possible. On his way back to Jackson’s Line, Laffite and some of his men must have picked up the kegs of flints from a Laffite warehouse in New Orleans, or the immediate vicinity, as the flints were soon being distributed on Jackson’s line.
The combination of Laffite’s flints, the expert cannoneers Dominique You and Renato Beluche, Jackson’s tactical skills and leadership, and the logistical combined nightmare of the swampy ground and unusually cold weather proved overwhelmingly devastating for the British. The Battle of New Orleans was an extremely horrible defeat for them, as at the conclusion, the ground in front of Jackson’s Line at the Rodriguez Canal was called a literal “red sea” of the dead and dying English troops and officers.
The most prominent history of the New Orleans campaign is
”Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana” written by Jean Laffite’s friend and Jackson engineer Arsene Lacarriere Latour. There were some contemporary histories written by British participants in the New Orleans campaign. None of these say anything about receiving any type of assistance whatsoever from Jean Laffite, although British historian Tim Pickles of New Orleans makes the preposterous and undocumented claim that only Jean could have led the British through Lake Borgne to the Bayou Bienvenu. However, neither Jean nor Pierre were anywhere near that vicinity on Dec. 16, 1814. Some Spanish fishermen who knew those bayous thoroughly were there, because that’s where they lived. A few of them, named in Latour’s history, were the ones who aided the British, not either Laffite. History is the art of interpretation of the past, but facts are facts. Jean did not tell Lockyer he would help the British, he did not give them any ships or maps, or even geographical attack advice. He certainly didn’t stay neutral. His sentiments, as clearly stated in his letters in the archives, were wholly with the United States, his adoptive country, as proven by his actions.
In the end, the Laffites never got their ships back for free, or most of the goods that were taken in the raid. Ross had beaten Jean to the punch about approaching Washington authorities regarding proceeds from sales of the raid items, and he successfully lobbied for a congressional bill to approve the award to Patterson, Ross and their soldiers. That was not approved until 1817, by which time Ross had died, so Patterson was the one who benefitted from the $50,000 windfall.
Madison had promised the Baratarians a full pardon for anyone who fought for the US in the New Orleans campaign, but neither Laffite ever applied through the governor for one of these pardons. Medals, swords, and all sorts of praise were heaped on Gen. Jackson after Jan. 8, 1815, but the Laffites only got a few appreciative words from the general in newspaper articles.
Chalmette Battlefield is now a part of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park, and it will celebrate the 200th anniversary of that glorious victory day on Jan. 8, 1815. Let’s hope the ceremonies include some recognition of Jean Laffite, Pierre Laffite. and the Baratarians. It would be the proper and fitting thing to do.

Tags: Andrew Jackson, Barataria, Battle of New Orleans, British, Carthagena, Daniel Todd Patterson, Jean Laffite, Lockyer, Louisiana, Percy, privateer, smuggling, Tim Pickles, W.C.C. Claiborne, War of 1812 13 Comments »

by Aya Katz

The Meaning of Treason: United States v. Aaron Burr

February 1, 2014 in American History, general history, History, Legal History

Under the English common law, treason was an inexact and nebulous charge, one that could be leveled at almost anyone by association. Speaking against the government might be treason. Having friends who were traitors might be treason. A person might never have raised a hand in anger against his King or the state and yet still be hanged as a traitor. But under the United States constitution, treason is a well-defined and very limited offense.

Article Three of the United States Constitution

Article 3, Section 3 of the United States Constitution defines and limits treason as follows:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Notice that the word “only” is part of the definition of treason. That means that the drafters of this section of the constitution wanted a very strict construction of their words to apply. They realized that case law often adds to or changes a statutory definition, but they did not want this to happen in the case of treason. Treason was to be what they said and no less than that should ever be allowed to pass for treason in an American court, nor could the definition of treason be changed by statute or case law. Only an amendment to the constitution could ever overturn the expressed desires of those who drafted this clause.

Why did the drafters of the Constitution feel so strongly about this? Because each and every one of them, by British law, had been a traitor against Britain, long before ever they levied war against their mother country, and each of them remembered how it felt. They wanted people to be free to rise up against an oppressive government, to speak against it, censure unjust rulers and seek redress for wrongs, before it became necessary to rise up in arms.

The people who wrote this section of the constitution were still alive at a time when one of their own decided to use a different definition of treason. That man was Thomas Jefferson, and he was at the time the President of the United States. He wanted Aaron Burr found guilty of treason, declared him in public to be a traitor in advance of trial by his peers, ignored the right to habeas corpus and used the military to arrest persons who were material witnesses in the trial and to hold them without access to an attorney until they had confessed.

Thomas_Jefferson_by_Rembrandt_Peale_1805_cropped

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale 1805
From the Wikimedia Commons

Here is a brief factual description leading up to the case. In 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr had been tied for the presidency. They had both run on the same ticket. Eventually Jefferson had become the president, and Aaron Burr was his vice president. However, when Jefferson ran for a second term, he did not choose Aaron Burr as his running mate. Burr then devised a scheme whereby he intended to attack Mexico and acquire land in Texas. His ally in this plan was American General James Wilkinson, but Wilkinson, unbeknownst to Burr, was being paid by Spain to protect its territorial interests. In pursuance of the best interests of Spain, James Wilkinson informed Thomas Jefferson that Aaron Burr was planning to use his army against the Western territories held by the United States. Thomas Jefferson declared Aaron Burr a traitor, and he used the United States army, under the command of General Wilkinson, to arrest various people whom he believed to be aiding and abetting Aaron Burr to commit treason. Among these people were Erich Bollman and Samuel Swartwout. Although they were arrested in Louisiana Territory, they were transported to Washington City, where the president took it upon himself to personally interrogate them.

Chief Justice John Marshall painted by Henry Inman in 1832

A writ of habeas corpus was eventually ruled upon by John Marshall in the case of Ex Parte Bollman and Ex Parte Swartwout. Although Bollman and Swartwout were set free for want of evidence against them and also because the Federal Court in the District of Columbia was not the Court before which they should have been brought, some of the obiter dicta in his published opinion later came to haunt John Marshall when he was presiding over the treason trial of Aaron Burr.

Namely, it was this part of the opinion that could be argued to expand the constitutional definition of treason beyond what the founders intended and to bring the American law on treason into a closer agreement with English common law:

When war is levied, all those who perform any part, however minute or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are traitors.

Aaron Burr had at no time levied war against the United States. Neither had any of the persons who supported his scheme to conquer Mexico and acquire land in Texas. However, at one point, on Blennerhassett’s Island, when a United States officer had come to arrest some of the men who were planning to help Burr with his conquest of Mexico, the men refused to be arrested and pointed their muskets at the poor man, who then backed down. This was the “act of levying war” on the United States that the prosecution and the Jefferson administration were basing their case on. However, when this happened, Aaron Burr had been nowhere near Blennerhassett’s Island and was not a direct participant in this “act of war”, which in fact might more accurately be described as resisting arrest.

The great legal question that had to be resolved by John Marshall in the trial of Aaron Burr was this: which definition of treason holds, the one spelled out clearly in the constitution or the one he himself had set forth in Ex Parte Bollman and Ex Parte Swartwout.

A very nice dramatization of the decision before John Marshall can be found in the video below:

John Marshall’s decision at the time was unpopular. He decided to abide by the constitution, even if it seemed that he was reversing his earlier ruling. Aaron Burr had not levied war against the United States government and no evidence that he had had been presented in court. Marshall instructed the jury on the definition of treason as set forth in the constitution, and the jury found Aaron Burr not guilty.

The Constitution of the United States is still the law of the land. Anyone charged with treason over actions not defined as treason in that document is not a traitor. This is as true today as it was in 1807.

RELATED ARTICLES

http://www.pubwages.com/14/the-character-of-aaron-burr-a-review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVnsnLI2I5o

http://historum.com/blogs/aya+katz/1751-gideon-granger-precursor-nsa.html

Tags: Aaron Burr, Article 3 section 3, Blennerhasset, Blennerhassett, constitution, constitutional definition of treason, definition of treason, Erich Bollman, John Marshall, meaning of treason, obiter dicta, Swartwout, Thomas Jefferson, treason, United States Constitution, United States v Aaron Burr, what the constitution says about treason 6 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Resisting the Japanese: The Rival Chinese Resistance Movements in WWII

January 27, 2014 in general history, History, History of China, History of Japan, Pacific History

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1941) merged into the Second World War following the attack on Pearl Harbor. After that, historians refer to the continued war in China against Japan as part of the Pacific Front of WWII. But these types of labels serve to obfuscate the shifting loyalties and general lack of ideological coherence of the global war in question, and of each front of that war, as participants switched sides and coalitions shifted. In its resistance against the Japanese, China received aid from Germany, the Soviet-Union and the United States — although not all at the same time.

During a time of war and grave national calamity, we may expect rival factions for internal control of a country to band together to fight the common enemy. Idealized depictions of allegiance also foster a view of allies who choose one side of an international dispute and stick to that side until the war is over. Generalized historical accounts of the era do tend to describe events in broad brushstrokes, speaking of the Allies versus the Axis, or of the Americans as a homogeneous monolith, rather than the FDR administration as opposed to its detractors, but in reality the subtle distinctions and gradations within a nominally united group are very telling. Infighting continues while a war is in progress, and the true winners are those who end up on top, (e.g. Soviet Union) regardless of which side ( Axis or Allies) emerges as victorious.

In China, during the Japanese occupation, there was a very active local resistance movement in Shandong Province. In fact, there were two such movements: the Nationalists and the Communists. When they were not engaging the Japanese, they were intent on destroying each other.

The lack of cohesion among the Chinese resisting the Japanese can be in some measure attributed to the lack of cohesion on the the part of the ever changing membership roster of the Allies and the Axis in Europe and the Pacific as the war progressed.

“Britain, the United States and Japan were drawn towards a Pacific war after Japan signed a Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in late September 1940, and sponsored a collaborationist government in Nanjing, formed in March 1940 and led by Wang Jingwei. The United States and Britain responded by granting China loans and imposing economic sanctions against Japan.” (Lai 2008.134)

The Soviet Union was a wild card with no particular allegiance to any cause but its own. Though the Soviets allied themselves with Germany during the beginning of the war in Europe and the 1939 invasion of Poland, by 1941, due to Germany’s aggression toward Soviet-held territories, the Soviet Union joined the Allies.

According to Sherman X. Lai, the Soviet Union supported the Chinese Communists and supplied them with weapons, but there was also some negotiation by Stalin with the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek. Anything was possible, and the parties to these negotiations were motivated primarily by practical considerations, rather than any allegiance to ideology or to a nominal side in the international struggle for power. (Lai 2013)

Early in the Sino-Japanese war, Joseph Stalin was worried that Mao Zedong’s focus was too much on territorial expansion against the Nationalists, rather than fighting the Japanese. For this reason, despite the Soviet Union’s theoretical support for the the ideology of the Chinese Communists, Stalin also helped to arm the Chinese Nationalists. (Lai 2013.5)

The eventual outcome of the war between the Nationalists and the Communists was to be decided not only by military means through skirmishes and pitched battles, but even more so by behind the scenes dealing in currency and munitions.

According to Laurance Tipton (1949), a British escaped internee who served with the Nationalist resistance, General Wang Yumin (王豫民) who was at that time in charge of the Nationalist resistance in Shandong Province, issued his own currency and prohibited the use of any other currency in the area that he controlled.

Tipton (1949.120 ) writes:

“Under Japanese occupation, the Chinese National currency in North China was declared illegal tender and was replaced by the Japanese issued Federal Reserve Bank notes. But although Chinese National currency was forced out of circulation in the larger cities and railway towns, it was still current in the interior. As Chief of the Financial Department, Yu-Min’s first step was to print and circulate resistance money, which he exchanged for Chinese National Currency, silver dollars and gold bars at specified rates of exchange. At the same time he issued a proclamation prohibiting the use of any currency but the newly issued ‘resistance money.’ As the funds in the exchequer grew, so an increasing number of purchasing agents were dispatched to obtain ammunition, but, still dissatisfied with the results, Yu-Min continued to press for the opening of their own munitions and arms factories and finally won his point.”

According to Sherman Lai (2008) the Communist resistance eventually proved more successful not by implementing the principles of communism — redistribution and collectivism — but by reviving the feudal system of landlords and tenants that had operated in China for thousands of years prior to modernization.

Rather than attempting to reform society or to level any social stratification of which communism did not approve, the commissars recruited high level people in the existing order of things along the country-side in order to help them gain control.

In defense against banditry, local society was protected by powerful families who built fortifications and maintained private security forces. Those powerful families, also de facto bandits, stood in the way of the 115th Division’s … deployment southwards. In the campaign to gain a footing in this strategic region, Luo Ronghuan, its commissar, showed diplomatic skills. He approached a few prominent semi-bandit families who had displayed patriotism, seeking to persuade them to join the CCP-led anti-Japanese United Front. (Lai 2008.126)

Equally interesting is the fact that trade, not warfare, played an important role in strengthening the Chinese Communist Party in Shandong. It is easy to forget that the entire purpose of war for a free nation is to keep trade routes open. But a corollary may be this: that even during outright war, trade in staple goods and exchange of currency must continue to exist. Whoever corners the market on trade eventually wins the war. For the Communist Party (CCP) of Shandong, defeating the Japanese was partially made possible by trading with the Japanese.

Sherman Lai sums up the situation:

” ..the CCP in Shandong not only controlled economic affairs within its territory, but also obtained access to territories under enemy occupation through manipulation of currency exchange rates and by controlling the trade in staple grains, cotton, salt and peanut oil. As a result, trade with occupied China and with the Japanese invaders became the principal source of revenue of the CCP in Shandong as early as the second half of 1943.” (Lai 2008.i)

The greatest success of the Communist Shangdong Bureau during the Japanese invasion was their “red banking system.” Recognizing that simply printing money would result in devaluation, the Communists sought to corner the real market in agricultural staples for the purpose of trading for other goods. They realized that private enterprise in agriculture was the real tax base under communist control, so they encouraged local farmers.”The regulation of trade was intended to barter surplus products made in the CCP zones for needed supplies from the occupied zones” (Lai 2008.301) They founded their own bank and saw to it that the currency it printed would be more attractive and more stable than those issued by the Japanese collaborators or the Nationalist opposition.

The core of this system was the North Sea Bank (Beihai Yinhang) …. one of the three forerunners of the People’s Bank of China, China’s current central bank. Its banknotes, the beipiao (北票), spread from Shandong throughout eastern China and remained in circulation until December 1949. (Lai 2008.217)

Toward the end of the war, at a time when the Nationalist forces were crumbling under economic pressure and the Japanese themselves were weakening due to lack of supplies, the Chinese Communist party was taking in income through trade. They were a successful business concern, operating in a highly chaotic market.

It was not until the summer of 1944, after the invasion of Normandy and after the Japanese suffered a grave reversal in the Battle of the Philippine Sea that Mao started to prepare to implement the collectivization of agriculture that was to be the hallmark of his peacetime reign.

The nominal communists defeated their nationalist rivals and their imperialist invaders by being more successful capitalists. Once they had done this, they could afford to show their true colors. This is just one of the many ironies of a war with ever-shifting allegiances, multiple causes and fronts, which today, for some reason, is viewed by many in the Western world as the only truly “moral” war.

Order it on Amazon

REFERENCES

Lai, Sherman Xiaogang . 2008. Springboard to Victory. http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/6186/1/Lai_Sherman_X_200809_PhD.pdf

Lai, Sherman Xiaogang. 2013,. A war within a war: the road to the new fourth army incident in January 1941. http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/22127453-12341249;jsessionid=m1l3vwtlvkh1.x-brill-live-02. Journal of Chinese Military History,

Lunghu, 2012. Blog Post: Part Deux: East of the Mountains. https://lunghu.wordpress.com/2012/11/

Tipton, Laurance. 1949. Chinese Escapade. Macmillan and Company, Ltd.

Tags: beipiao, CCP, Chiang Kai-shek, GMD, GuoMinDang, Japanese Occupation in China, Joseph Stalin, Laurance Tipton, Mao, Mao Zedong, Nationalist Party, New Fourth Army, North Sea Bank, Second Sino-Japanese War, Shandong, Wang Yu-min, 王豫民 3 Comments »

by J-Hanna

Books About James Cook’s Voyages

December 13, 2013 in general history, History, Pacific History

Captain James Cook only held the position of post-captain for the last four years of his life, but he will be remembered for his voyages of discovery in the South Pacific and beyond. Today he has been critiqued by indigenous people for the legacy that his travels brought to places such as Hawaii and Australia, which led to colonization and displacement of native populations on, but the same token, Cook was not the vengeful explorer than many other Europeans had track records for being. Cook often had admiration and respect for indigenous peoples, and he even expressed remorse and hurt when he his sailors had brought venereal diseases to isolated regions, such as the Hawaiian Islands. Cook tried to prevent infected men on his ship from engaging in conjugal relations for this reason, but this was often beyond his control. Cook was also recognized for ameliorating incidents of scurvy on his expeditions by provisioning his men with fresh produce, but he also could go into a fit of rage when a sailor refused to eat part of his provisions. Thus, Cook was a man who cared deeply about the sanitation and health of his crew, but he was not above flogging for cases of insubordination when it came to small things, like not eating an allotment of meat. Cook was literally about running a tight ship, and his protege William Bligh would later try to emulate his commanding style with far less positive results.

Sir Joseph Banks was an aristocrat with an interest in science, and he went on Cook’s first voyage, where he learned about breadfruit. Later the push to gather breadfruit plants and transport this fruit-bearing plant from Tahiti to Jamaica would be supported by Sir Joseph Banks, and this idea never would have come about if it had not been for his accompanying Cook on his first voyage. This was all in the future when Cook embarked on his first expedition in 1768, but these events illustrate the connection between Banks, Cook, Bligh,and the eventual mutiny on the HMAV Bounty, which is probably the reason I find James Cook fascinating.

During Cook’s three voyages the transit of Venus was documented, it was proven once and for all that there was no large southern continent that kept the globe in balance, and the hope of discovering a Northwest Passage was finally abandoned. Cook’s cartography skills created detailed maps of the coastlines of Australia, New Zealand, and many Pacific Islands, which he claimed for the British Empire, and he even sailed as far north as Alaska. Despite his far flung and note-worthy voyages, on the third and final voyage Cook was killed in a dispute in Hawaii over attempting to take a local chief hostage in hopes the Hawaiians would return some of their equipment stolen from the ship. It turns out Cook was not killed because he was a fallen god, even though this theory has long been regarded as the reason for his murder. Cook was most likely killed over the tense interactions between his crew and the Hawaiians, but the short documentary clip below offers a bit more explanation as to what may have really happened.

Captain Cook was a talented navigator who made a significant contribution to the history of exploration, and his mapping of Australia was the catalyst that led to the colonization on this continent, even though this was largely Banks’ idea. From what I gather via my reading, in Australia Cook is often regarded as being similar to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson in the US, but he also is considered to be somewhat of the villain in that his explorations of Australia led to the aborigines being dispossessed of their land. Thus, he is not quite the shining icon previous generations made him out to be, but just like our founding fathers, he had his flaws and achievements. There are several books that I read that discuss Cook’s travels in depth, and here is a tidbit about each:

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz.

Tony Horwitz is a journalist, but he is also known for having empathy towards how others interpret events. Horwitz will speak to anyone and everyone, and this man is never biased or curt. When he wanted to learn more about New Zealand gang members and how they viewed Cook’s legacy, he went and spoke with a few and found out many were mixed raced men who did not feel they fit in with mainstream society. Next, Horowitz recounts speaking with official leaders or kids smoking pot in Tahiti, which illustrates how this man will talk to anyone!

One fascinating thing about Horwitz is that around the time of the Gulf War he wrote the account of his travels in the Middle East in the book Baghdad Without A Map, and actually spoke to Muslims in hostile situations, such as attending the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini. In one breath people were telling Horwitz they hated America, but in the next they were asking him if he had ever been to Disneyland, and sharing how it was their dream to go there. Just as with the Baghdad book, in Blue Latitudes Horwitz’s journalistic and people skills allow us to glimpse into the minds of the modern day residents of the places Cook visited to discover how they view this man.

Horwitz visits many different Pacific Islands in his travels and provides the novice with a good introduction to the history and cultures of each place he stays in, which basically followed Cook’s travels, so there is a little bit of everything in here. The most intriguing aspect of the book is when Horwitz uses Cook’s journals to show the admiration he had for the aborigines in Australia, thus illustrating he was not completely the brash explorer many regard him to be.

Horwitz endeavors to learn more about what people have to say about this renowned explorer, so whether you love Cook or hate Cook, you kind of have to be in awe of all the places he visited and charted after reading this book. If you want to learn more about Captain Cook and his adventures with an engrossing and first hand feel, then I suggest you read this volume.

The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain Cook by Nicholas Thomas

This historical text is a detailed examination of Cook’s voyages, and offers anthropological insights into the people this British expeditions encountered. The volume has fascinating moments, such as Cook’s observations about the starkness of the land on Easter Island, and including a ink drawing of the famous moai on Easter Island, which was created by Johann Forster.

Thomas’s historical account is very detail oriented, and a bit more critical of Cook than other authors have been. I enjoyed reading his insights, but also felt perhaps some of the judgments about Cook were slightly biased, especially considering this explorer was a man of a different time. I am not justifying the outcome of the age of exploration, but just feel that Cook was a man who could be admired when it came to his knowledge of geography, and his sense of equality, which probably had to do with his origins as a farmer’s son. Cook had shortcomings, but in my opinion, there were other explorers who were far worse.

Cook always made sure his men received adequate provisions with fresh vegetables to ward off scurvy, which is something that Thomas points in this book. It is quite voluminous, and probably not recommended for someone who is just learning about Captain Cook, or who wants a more engaging read. However, I do find this text to be a good reference on Cook’s voyages. The index is comprehensive, and you can find many small details about his journeys by referencing it.

The Bounty by Caroline Alexander

This historical text probably seems unrelated to those who want to read more about James Cook, but it is definitely of interest for those who yearn to learn more about William Bligh, and what inspired him to become obsessed with hygiene and regimen on the HMAV Bounty. Once again we meet Joseph Banks, who is connected to Cook since he also sailed aboard the Endeavor. During that voyage Banks had admired the quality of the starchy fruit produced by breadfruit trees in Tahiti, and came up with the far fetched idea of gathering seedlings to transplant in Jamaica. Unfortunately, it was not simply a grandiose botany experiment, but the Royal Society’s rationale behind this was that it would make a cheap source of food for the slaves working on plantations in the Caribbean, which is one of the more unsavory aspects of the entire Bounty expedition.

William Bligh used many of Cook’s commanding strategies on the Bounty, but we learn that things dis not always go very well. Bligh did not possess the charisma that Cook had with his men, and things definitely go South after the departure from Tahiti leading up to the mutiny on on April 28, 1789. This book is not about Cook, but history buffs will enjoy connecting the dots between Cook, Banks, and Bligh. As I have long said, there would have been no famous mutiny on the part of Fletcher Christian if Banks had never sailed with Captain Cook and become mesmerized with breadfruit. Bligh was appointed sailing master of on Cook’s last expedition, and he was also critical of how others handled the skirmish that resulted in Cook’s death.

Tags: Captain Cook, Joseph Banks, voyages of discovery, William Bligh 2 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

The Short-Lived Military Camp on Grande Terre

December 3, 2013 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

This is a map drawn by Lafon in 1813 of Grande Terre, showing a proposed military battery which was never built.

Even people who are well versed in Louisiana history probably never have heard of Camp Celestine. The pretty name makes it sound like a Girl Scout gathering place, but in reality it was a failed military post on the marshy dunes of Grande Terre island during May through June of 1813.
British ships had started blockading the Balize at the mouth of the Mississippi River in May 1813 during the War of 1812, and the HMS Herald had been steadfastly harassing shipping to and from New Orleans as the main feature of the blockade. American authorities were worried that the British might get ideas about using the bayou approach to New Orleans plus they wanted to end the smuggling that had been going on from privateers in that area, so they decided to set up a small military garrison on Grande Terre. For some reason, the Laffites and Baratarian privateers were concentrated then more heavily 12 leagues away, on Cat Island near the mouth of Bayou LaFourche, so the American military encountered no obstacles. Militia earlier had been mustered into federal service as the Second Battalion of Louisiana Volunteers, under the command of Major H.D. Peire, and it was members of this force that stood ready to defend the island from the British and smugglers.
On May 6, 1813, Spanish authorities said pirates in an armed boat captured a Spanish schooner below English Turn on the Mississippi River, carried her out through the unguarded Southwest Pass, and brought the prize to Grande Terre, unaware that the Laffites and Baratarians were elsewhere. The captain also didn’t know an American force was present, until it was too late. The prize and cargo were seized, but the pirates escaped in their ship, according to a May 18, 1813, letter about the incident written by Diego Morphy, New Orleans, to Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, captain general of Cuba.
Apparently, other privateers got enough warning to stay away from Grande Terre while the Americans were there, because no other ships were seized. Major Peire decided to take the offense, and make an expedition to Cat Island, using barges filled with all the American forces and supplies. Interestingly, at almost the exact same time, Capt. Clement Millward of the nearby HMS Herald had the same plan, and sent out his launches with about 100 men to attack the Cat Island privateers. The five privateer schooners manned by Baratarians near Cat Island fought back soundly, defeating the British and severely wounding the leader of the British contingent, Lt. Edward Handfield, who had his left shoulder shattered by a musket ball. A squall rose up, and the British boats were separated from their ship; the American forces were near enough to be caught in the storm as well, and the barges upset, losing all the supplies and two of the volunteer militia men. The American men seem to have scattered during the storm, as shortly afterward back on Grande Terre, a court martial convened for a trial of 10 to 15 mutineers and of Major Henry of the Volunteers. Authorities must have looked kindly on these men, for none of them were sentenced to death. Their supplies and guns totally lost, the Americans quickly left Grande Terre to the sand crabs and returned to New Orleans, defeated. Camp Celestine as a military post was now just a minor footnote in history, and the Laffites and Baratarians soon took advantage of this departure and shifted all their operations from Cat Island to Grande Terre, given its closer proximity to New Orleans. The HMS Herald was absent from the Gulf Coast for a couple of months due to damage from a hurricane that hit her home base of Nassau, and when she returned to the Balize, she gave a wide berth to the French privateers.

Tags: 1813, Baratarians, British, Camp Celestine, Grande Terre, Jean Laffite, Louisiana militia, Mississippi River, Pierre Laffite, privateers, War of 1812 2 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

Daniel Todd Patterson’s Secret Visits to Dauphin Island in 1814

November 24, 2013 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

Daniel Todd Patterson

Daniel Todd Patterson, commander of the New Orleans Station, made a curious visit to New Orleans notary John Lynd in late summer 1814 to record a document testifying to his continued assistance with an unnamed stranded ship at Dauphin Island, not far from Mobile. He said in the document that he was assisting the ship captain (again unnamed) with offloading cargo and supplies and bringing them to New Orleans.

Found in New Orleans’ historic treasure trove of the Notarial Archives, the Patterson document is odd for a few reasons. Chief among these reasons is Dauphin Island was quite some distance on the Gulf Coast from New Orleans, and British warships such as HMS Herald had been keeping a steady blockade of all sea traffic to and from New Orleans since early 1813. Patterson’s small fleet of gunboats could not battle a British ship full of trained sailors, yet in the document he says he is taking one boat out to the stranded ship and making a series of long trips to offload the items. The second reason the US commander’s action is strange is why would he take such an interest in assisting a ship while risking losing one of his boats, plus placing himself at risk of capture from one of the British ships? The third reason the mission was odd is the most bizarre: during the late summer of 1814, the British forces were making concerted preparations for invading New Orleans, including forays among the Indian tribes along the Gulf Coast, and they had set up a temporary base camp at Dauphin Island (proof of this is the fact that in the late 20th century, treasure hunters uncovered a cache of unused British uniform buttons at Dauphin Island, supplies that were intended to be used at New Orleans by occupying forces.)
History books of the War of 1812 on the Gulf Coast do not tell the story about Patterson’s visits to Dauphin Island in late summer of 1814. What was he really doing there? The main thing we read about Patterson during that time period is his “defeat” of the Baratarians at the Laffite brother’s smuggling base of Grande Terre, a raid by all of the New Orleans naval flotilla in which not a single shot was fired at the American forces. And then, of course, Andrew Jackson arrived on the scene at New Orleans in December 1814, and Patterson provided naval support and men to help Jackson against the British, culminating in the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815. Historian Robert Remini went so far as to call Patterson “one of the most important and valuable figures in the defense of New Orleans.”

The question remains, however: what was a US naval commander doing going back and forth to Dauphin Island at a time when British forces were present there? If he was spying on them, reports of such endeavors do not appear in any official US records. Since he was able to go back and forth to New Orleans without interference from the blockaders, it looks more likely that he was spying *for* the British forces, acting as a double agent.

And then there’s the weird coincidence of the British attack on Fort Bowyer near Mobile and Dauphin Island which occurred at almost the same time in mid September 1814 as the Patterson-Ross raid on Grande Terre. The British ships failed in their mission to take Fort Bowyer even though the US Naval forces were all busy way off to the west approaching Grande Terre to arrest Baratarians and seize goods and ships. One of the British ships at Fort Bowyer was the HMS Sophie. Capt. Nicholas Lockyer of the Sophie had less than two weeks previous tried to bribe Jean Laffite at Grande Terre to join the British forces. The Sophie was supposed to return to Grande Terre within a fortnight to get Laffite’s reply, but the ship and crew never did. The timing coincidence is mysterious. The truth of what really happened behind the scenes will probably never be known.

A check of New York native Daniel Todd Patterson’s genealogy is interesting: his father came to the US in 1750 from Ireland, and was a British soldier in the US during the French and Indian War. His paternal uncle was the first Royal Governor of Prince Edward Island. Patterson’s mother was from the socially prominent and wealthy Livingston family of New York, so he was a kinsman of New Orleans attorney Edward Livingston, who just happened to represent privateers Jean and Pierre Laffite in legal matters. Livingston’s familial connections to Patterson were not known by their New Orleans contemporaries.

Tags: 1814, Barataria, Capt. Nicholas Lockyer, Daniel Patterson, Dauphin Island, Grande Terre, HMS Sophie, Jean Laffite, War of 1812 4 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Eerie Coincidences in Jean Laffite Research and Other Spooky Stories as Told by Pam Keyes

October 30, 2013 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

Pam Keyes is the Research Coordinator of the Laffite Society and a well known expert on the history of Jean Laffite and of the artifacts and written evidence that are available on the life of the famous privateer. In this interview we talked about some strange and eerie happenings surrounding her research.

Aya Katz: You have been researching Jean Laffite’s history nearly all your life. Have there been coincidences or eerie happenings that involved the research into the Laffite past?

Pam Keyes: There was the time I ran across Laffite’s Bar & Grill restaurant at St. Louis. I found that restaurant during the trip to St. Louis and Alton LaffiteRestaurat to find the cemetery at Fosterburg where Jean laffite is said to be buried, so happening across that restaurant was very eerie. But it is just one of the strange things I’ve run across in Laffite studies, and I’m not the only one who has had such experiences. Jack Davis said before he started writing the Pirates Laffite book, when he was living in London for a year, he ran across a US Civil War themed restaurant that had a wall-size painting of Jean Laffite, along with paintings of Generals Butler and Sherman. Why the London.restaurant had placed Laffite in there was a total mystery. But one of the spookiest stories is the one about the attic windows in the convent of the Ursuline nuns.

Aya: Tell me the story of the attic windows.

Pam Keyes: This actually happened to me on a visit to New Orleans in November 2001. There was a legend I had heard about the casket girls, the young ladies who were brought over in the early 1700s to become brides of the plantation owners. When they first arrived in New Orleans, they stayed in the attic rooms, and some of these girls became sick and died before they ever got married. The legend is that a few of these girls haunted the Ursuline Convent and that they became vampires, preying at night on the tourists in the French Quarter. The legend was you could tell when the vampires were loose because the shutters of the attic windows of the Ursuline Convent would be open. On my visit to New Orleans, I went out alone one night around 9 p.m. when it was dark, with a full moon. My hotel was on Chartres, a couple of blocks away from the Ursuline Convent, which I had to walk by on my way to the St. Louis Cathedral as I planned to sit in the square and people watch. As I walked by the big convent building, I remembered the story about the casket girls/vampires, and checked out the dormer windows of the attic: the shutters weretightly together, as theyhad been earlier that day. I laughed to myself about the silly story and proceeded on to Jackson Square as planned. I sat down on a bench and watched the people walking by for about an hour, then decided I had better walk back to my hotel before it got too late and dangerous to be alone. At the corner of the Ursuline Convent, I stopped and looked up at the full moon, then over to the convent attic: the dormer shutters were all wide open! I made it back to the hotel in record time, and did not venture out in the dark again for the rest of the trip.

Aya Katz:What was the earliest eerie event that happened when you were researching the Laffite history?

Pam Keyes: Hmn, earliest eerie event would be a hard one to pick from. There was the time in the 1980s when I almost got killed by a lightning bolt in the French Quarter, that was pretty dramatic; but my favorite strange event was the time the Jean Laffite signed statement plopped into my lap at the New Orleans Public Library in 2003. But since you asked for earliest, it’s got to be the lightning story from the 1980s.

Aya Katz: What happened?

Pam Keyes:My then-husband and I were walking around looking at various shops in the French Quarter in one of those light misty rains that usually happens at least once a day in New Orleans because it is so close to the Gulf. I had brought my umbrella for both of us to use, and we were both under it as we walked down Chartres from Jackson Square (yes, Chartres again). We had just been to the Cabildo to look around and I was most vexed to not find anything whatsoever there on display regarding Laffite (the little portrait by Jarvis was in archival storage). There was a bookstore, the Librarie, in one of the old buildings that looked enticing, and my husband went inside the open door but I had to wait outside for a minute to take down my umbrella, had just done so, and barely had stepped onto the stoop when all at once there was a BOOM! as a bolt of lightning hit the cast iron lightpost about four feet from the door. My hair was all electrified, and there was a strong smell of ozone, but I wasn’t hurt. The shopkeeper and my husband were quite amazed, and the shopkeeper said in all his years of having that French Quarter bookstore, he’d never seen lightning hit a street light. Wish I could say I found a really rare book cheap there, to make the story neater, but alas I did not.

Aya Katz: That was a close call! Tell me about the Jean Laffite signature that just fell in your lap.

Pam Keyes: I had looked for some 35 years to no avail for a Jean Laffite signature for sale in autograph collections, etc., and had pretty much given up hope of ever finding one. All the known ones were in collections at federal archives and universities. The first one I actually got to touch had already been found by William C. Davis in the Notarial Archives, so when I went to New Orleans on a visit in late 2001, I looked at that one, and I realized there had to be a lot more around New Orleans somewhere. Since Davis already had combed the New Orleans area archives for Laffite items that were cataloged as such, I decided to strike out and look at some of the materials relating to the Laffite associates, like Vincent Gambie aka Jean Roux. I found a listing for two court cases involving him in the archives at the New Orleans Public Library, and requested the originals to view. Unlike the Notarial Archives, there was no close supervision at the city library special collections department, and I didn’t even have to wear gloves to handle the original documents, which were in plain manila folders. The librarian handed me the folder, then turned his back to me and went back to a different area of the stacks. I opened up the folder, and a folded slip of old paper fell out, into my lap. I retrieved it and opened it up, and got a shock as there before me was an authentic Jean Laffite signature on a July 1815 document. Jean had attested that some runaway slave had been working for Gambie on his ship at Barataria. I looked at the front of the folder, where the contents were listed: the statement signed by Laffite was not there. I looked back at the librarian, he was out of sight. I had found a previously unknown Laffite signature, and the way it was not archived, it could have easily been stolen. I took the paper over to the librarian in the back, and showed it to him, saying it hadn’t been noted on the folder and needed to be, because it was vulnerable to theft. The librarian to my disgust acted like it was no big deal. I had to wonder what else wasn’t properly archived there. Hurricane Katrina destroyed a lot of these documents in 2005, so it probably was lost then, but I still have a copy of the whole court case, including the signature.

Aya Katz: Do you have any other spooky stories?

Pam Keyes:I do have another spooky story, but it’s more about Andrew Jackson than Laffite. My ex-husband was from Mississippi, and we often went there to visit on vacation. One of my favorite places was Natchez. On one visit, we went on a trip to see the plantation houses up and down the Mississippi from Natchez, and because I was especially interested in one sort of off the regular tourist trail, we went to see Springfield Plantation, where Andrew Jackson and Rachel Donelson got married and spent their honeymoon. Back in the early 1980s, the plantation was owned by a railroad company, and one of their employees was living there and serving as caretaker of the home, giving occasional tours of the house. The layout was the typical early plantation style first floor, with big main foyer and hall, and rooms off to each side of the hall. Many of the original furnishings remained, according to the caretaker, as he led us down the hall. He proceeded into one room that was painted a sunny yellow and boasted a big fireplace with a large mirror to one side, and I noted a pianoforte to my right as I walked into the room. The tour guide continued his spiel about the house, said the room we were in had served as the music room at the time the Jacksons were married there, and in the early 1800s, but no more, as there was no piano anymore. What! I thought, and quickly looked back to where I had seen the pianoforte. It was gone, and as the saying goes, the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

Tags: Andrew Jackson, casket girls, eerie stories, ghost stories, Halloween, Jean Laffite, lightning, New Orrleans, Pam Keyes, Ursuline convent 2 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Was the Journal of Jean Laffite an Original, a Copy or a Forgery?

October 19, 2013 in American History, Ancient History, Caribbean History, general history, History, Louisiana History, Texas History

This photo of the Laffite family copybook on the left and the Journal of Jean Laffite n the right was contributed by Pam Keyes. Both documents were acquired by the Sam Houston Regional Library from John A. Laffite.

What is the difference between a forgery and a copy? How can you tell something is a good copy of an original document and has not been altered? And if it is, indeed, a copy, how do you go about recognizing alterations in the copied document? What is the distinction between a facsimile and just a copy, and is every good forgery a facsimile?

These are questions that come up over and over again in life. Sometimes people rely on physical evidence to determine the age of a document, based on the age of the papyrus it is written on or the ink it is written in. If it’s a clay tablet, carbon dating can help establish its age.

But the age of a copy is not conclusive when it comes to the question of when the original might have been written. Here is one example: we have many, many copies of the Old Testament. But we have no original. That does not mean that there was no original; it may have been written so long ago that it would have been destroyed by now, and the only reason we know about it is because of the copies. It is also possible that the original of some or all of the books was not written down but passed orally from one generation to the next, so that the scribe or scribes who first wrote it down were not the authors of the text. The original might have been a sequence of memorized words that passed from one living brain to the next until someone transcibed it. Once transcribed, this text was copied extensively. The copies were not forgeries. They were not meant to pass for originals. They were merely meant to transmit and preserve the text. Copies are all we have.

The copies were made by scribes, and their job was to write down word for word, letter by letter the same things as the scribe who came before them did. But sometimes a scribe made an error. Sometimes the error is so obvious that any modern reader of Hebrew could point it out and correct it, as if it were a typo. But because the scribes were sworn to copy exactly what was written and not add or subtract a jot, when they spotted an error, they just kept copying it word for word, letter for letter. Over the generations, quite a few errors accumulated.

In addition to all this, since the Old Testament is composed of more than one book, written at more than one time, by more than one author, there are arguments about which books are more authentic or which are just something that got inserted much later and really does not belong there. And also, some things have been intentionally altered by later scribes to go along with changing social mores and religion. Biblical scholars often have to use document-internal evidence to try to ferret out what is what. And the discovery of an older copy, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Kaifeng Scrolls, which may have been less open to more modern tampering, can shed some light on what the original is more likely to have been like.

Having established that authorship and scribeship are separate issues, we should also take into account the difference between the copy of a document’s textual content and a facsimile copy which is meant to represent exactly how the original document looked, even though it is not the original.

In the case of the Old Testament, scholars now understand that when the text was first set down in writing, it could not have been in the Assyrian script in which Hebrew is currently written, which was borrowed from Aramaic and imported into use for Hebrew after the Babylonian exile. Instead, early Hebrew was written in letters more nearly resembling the ancient Phoenician alphabet. But as much as the letters were different in appearance, it was still the same alphabet with a one to one correspondence of symbols to symbols. Hence the text has come down to us letter by letter transcribed, though the letters look entirely different from those in the original. The text matters. What it looks like, considering that there is no original, does not matter. Nobody claims that any of the scrolls that we currently have access to, however ancient, is a facsimile copy of an original.

In all these cases, none of the copies are deemed to be forgeries, just because they are not original. Forgery, for the purposes of this discussion, would only occur if a modern person tried to create an older looking scroll and pass it off as something that it is not. But even in the event of such an attempt, most of the text would still be an accurate copy of another copy. The thing that would make it a forgery would be trying to pass a new copy off as an old copy. It would not change the document’s validity as some sort of copy of a very old document that no one currently living has ever seen the original of.

The Old Testament is not the only book to be subject to this kind of scrutiny or to require this type of analysis. Many a copied document can be found which has no original extant, and all can be subjected to the same type of analysis.

Take what is commonly known as “The Journal of Jean Laffite.” Ostensibly this was an original document presented by John A. Laffite, aka John Andrechyne Laflin, aka John Nafsiger or John Matejka, as the original, unaltered one and only journal of the famed privateer. Some have claimed it to be a forgery, created by the man who presented the document to the public. But even if it is a forgery, what exactly would that mean to those who are interested in the text rather than in the artifact in which the text is embedded?

The Journal as an artifact is a kind of notebook written upon by an ink pen, with a number of old newspaper clippings inserted within, and with some drawings and other extraneous matters. To determine its age would allow us to know if it was written at the same time as the text purports to have been written, but it does not tell us who is the author of the text, nor when the text was composed.

Composing a text and writing it down are two very different things. In some cultures, oral texts are passed on from one generation to another until one day someone writes them down. The person who transcribes these oral texts is not the author. That person is merely a scribe. Authentication of the text, in the event the scribe is suspected of having invented it, involves finding other versions of the same text elsewhere, circumstantial evidence of the existence of the text that long predates the writing and also text internal evidence that indicates through linguistic cues just how old the text really is.

In determining whether the Journal of Jean Laffite text is a hoax devised in the twentieth century or a genuine text from the period and by the person it is ascribed to, here are some of the issues that must be addressed:

The language in which it is written: in this case, a Creole French patois common to the Cuba-Haiti islands sprinkled with some hispanicisms. According to linguist Gene Marshall, who studied and translated it, the writing is in a style common before 1850.
The spelling and other idiosyncracies not common to all writers of the dialect.
The story it tells in terms of its detail and accuracy.
Whether it is similar to other such documents, if any are available
The voice of the author or narrator, and whether it conforms to the voice of other available documents known or believed to be written by Jean Laffite in the latter part of his career.
The handwriting, but not necessarily as proof of scribeship or authorship, but as possibly pointing to the author or the scribe of the original document, in the event that it is a forgery.

If the text is genuine, but the particular copy which we have available at the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center is not the original or not of concurrent age with the text, then it may well be a financial loss to the institution that purchased it, as its market value would be greatly reduced. But its value as a historical text would in no wise be diminished, if the sequence of words that it enshrines is a genuine and authentic transcription of a text whose author was the privateer Jean Laffite. That is the difference between the value of a forgery and the value of an accurate copy of a text.

It is said that John Andrechyne Laflin, aka John A. Laffite, aka John Nafsiger, did not speak French at all. It is said that those French speakers he had access to were not speakers of that dialect of French used in the Journal. It is known that there was not just one copy of the journal but at least two, as another copy was lent to Madeleine Fabiola Kent, who used it as background information when writing her novel The Corsair. If all these facts are true, and if indeed it were to turn out that John A. Laflin/Laffite/Nafsiger did copy the text of the Journal of Jean Laffite in a hand that looks very much like that of the famous privateer’s, then he could not have been its author, though he may have been a forger. If he was a forger, what did he forge? A copy of an original. But the very existence of the copy tends to corroborate the existence of an original.

How could a man who did not read or write French forge a document in a French Creole? One way is if he was indeed an expert artist, by looking at the original not as a text at all, but as a picture that must be copied line by line, angle by angle, correctly, much in the way a photocopier duplicates a text or a photo without understanding what it is copying. To do this, a forger has to be a great savant or a great artist. There is no evidence that John Andrechyne Laflin/Laffite/Nafsiger had that kind of skill or talent. Even if he did, the Journal of Jean Laffite is probably not a facsimile copy of the original journal, because it incorporates genuine newspaper clippings into the notebook in which the journal is copied.

Even if there was no forgery, and the document known as the Journal of Jean Laffite was actually written by the hand of Jean Laffite himself, it is still a copy. There is nothing blotted out. The text flows without interruption. Clearly this is a composed text whose composition took place elsewhere than in this notebook. The copy we have is just a copy. And there were other copies, for it was Jean Laffite’s stated intention to leave a copy for each of his grandchildren, of whom there were several.

When examining the Journal of Jean Laffite for purposes of proving its authenticity or lack of same, it is also good to keep in mind the following basic rules of thumb:

Though Jean Laffite may be the author, this does not mean that everything he wrote was true – or for that matter, that anything he wrote was true. People have been known to prevaricate when telling the story of their lives. They have even been known to misremember. Therefore, finding an inaccuracy or historical untruth does not necessarily cast doubt on the authenticity of the text.
If the language of the text is very different in one or more sections than in the body of the work, it is more likely that those parts are not part of the original document but were added or embellished upon later.
Suspected alterations should be judged by the four corners rule for document interpretation: the internal consistency of the document will determine what parts must be errors or extraneous.

A forgery is an attempt to create a facsimile copy that passes for an original. A forged signature, for instance, to be effective, needs to duplicate an original signature almost identically. A copy that is not a forgery is merely the transmission of a text through duplication. It need not look the same in its typography or handwriting. Sometimes a copy is also a forgery. But being a forgery does not necessarily prove that a copy is a bad copy. In fact, the better the forgery, the more a copy resembles the original.

REFERENCES

http://www.historiaobscura.com/an-interview-with-pam-keyes-about-jean-laffite/ (For background on Jean Laffite scholarship.)

http://www.bubblews.com/news/1356968-what-is-forgery-and-why-is-it-wrong (About Forgery and the artistry it involves)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Memoirs-Jean-Laffite/dp/0738812536 (Gene Marshall Translation and commentary)

http://www.livescience.com/8008-bible-possibly-written-centuries-earlier-text-suggests.html (For what the Hebrew letters used to look like during the period when the Hebrew Bible was first written down.)

Tags: Andrechyne, Assyrian Writing, facsimile, forgery, Hebrew, Jean Laffite, John A. Laffiten, John Andrechyne Laflin, Nafsiger, Old Testament, Pam Keyes, Phoenician alphabet, Sam Houston Regional Library, The Journal of Jean Laffite 3 Comments »

by Pam Keyes

The New Orleans Bank Run of 1814

June 25, 2013 in American History, general history, History, Louisiana History

New Orleans merchants, planters, and other citizens rushed the Planter’s Bank, Bank of Orleans and Louisiana Bank in panic in mid April 1814, desperate to exchange their paper bank notes for specie (mostly gold and silver Spanish coins), but nearly all were refused, with the banks locking their doors early to avoid the hostile crowds. There was no specie to be had. Pandemonium ensued_ were the bank notes worthless tender?

The Louisiana public already was edgy due to the continuing wartime embargo and to the British warship blockade of the Balize below New Orleans. The British ships successfully harassed shipping by most merchants heading to and from New Orleans, plus the trade traffic from the Gulf of Mexico to the upper Mississippi River.. Almost the only ones who could avoid the blockades consistently were the Laffite brothers’ Baratarian privateers. The smugglers brought captured prize goods in to sell at auction, often at the Temple site near New Orleans, attracting large crowds of eager buyers who were only too happy to pay in silver reales, pieces of eight, and gold doubloons for such items as German linen, exotic spices, glassware, wine and other trade goods. Thanks to the restrictions of the War of 1812, the Laffites’ smuggling operation had a virtual monopoly on imported goods which were cheap due to avoiding the customs duty and the fact that the Laffites got them for free from captured Spanish prize ships.

When the New Orleans banks ran out of specie, it was only natural for the public to immediately pin the blame on the smigglers, sure that they, and they alone, had drained the port city of all that gold and silver.

Stoking the fires of public animosity toward the Baratarians that spring of 1814 was none other than prominent New Orleans attorney Edward Livingston. At an address to a meeting of concerned citizenry at Tremoulett’s Coffee House on April 29, 1814, Livingston concurred with the generally held sentiment, accepted as fact by the populace, that the scarcity of specie could “be almost entirely ascribed to the encouragement shown to the Baratarian pirates.” When specie could be obtained earlier, “immense sums were daily carried away to purchase goods at Napoleonville, as Lafitte (sic) has not unaptly denominated the capital of his empire.” Many planters made trips to the Laffite base at Grande Terre to purchase slaves and other goods, and it was Grande Terre that was nicknamed “Napoleonville.”

It is particularly curious that Livingston agreed with the public at this meeting that the Laffites were to blame, since at almost the same time as the bank run, Livingston was named chairman of the secretive New Orleans Association, an expansionist group of the elite which had evolved from the previous Baratarian Association of the Laffites and their privateers. The Laffites were members of the New Orleans Association, so apparently Livingston was playing both sides against the middle. Interestingly, it was also during this time period that Livingston became the power broker for the some 21 members of the elite who controlled the ciy economically and politically.

Presidents of all three New Orleans banks agreed it was in the best interests of the community to suspend payments in specie and to accept each other’s bank notes as payment in kind. They assured their customers that nothing would be neglected “to preserve your properties their full value, and maintain the public credit at a moment when the want of specie may produce the ruin of various classes of the community.” The statement was published widely and signed by Thomas Urquhart, president of the Louisiana Bank; Dusuau De La Croix, for the president of the Planter’s Bank, and Benjamin Morgan, president of the Bank of Orleans.

A committee composed of merchants William Nott, Caizergnes, H. Landreaux and P.F. Dubourg and attorney Mazureau was formed to investigate the cause of the shock upon the public credit in New Orleans, a shock which contemporary newspapers said was “severely felt through all the ramifications of Society.” According to New Orleans merchant Vincent Nolte, this committee did find the true cause of the specie shortage to have been a personal vendetta between the two chief cashiers at the Planter’s Bank and Bank of Orleans, T. L. Harman and Joseph Saul (both British-born immigrants), but the committee chose not to inform the public of this fact. Instead, the specie shortage was blamed on the “accumulation of produce in our stores, for which there is no vent, and in the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of receiving supplies through the usual channels.” In other words, they blamed the wartime embargo. The public dismissed this finding outright and continued to blame the Laffites and their men.

The species shortage continued throughout the summer with no relief, and animosity toward the Laffites simmered among the very merchants who had profited handsomely from their smuggled goods in happier times. Even some of the privateers’ French friends were getting hostile.

By early July 1814 things reached a boiling point and Pierre Laffite was arrested in the French Quarter on a charge of piracy and thrown into the Cabildo jail. A grand jury formed around the same time, and issued indictments for piracy among other Baratarians as well. Jean Laffite stayed around Grande Terre and avoided the authorities. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Louisiana Gazette and New Orleans Advertiser in which he tried to allay the public’s suspicions about the earlier specie disappearance from the banks. Jean wrote that several rich prizes had been brought into Barataria, and that the public could share in the profits of the trade, as specie was not the only payment accepted. He stressed bank note money of the banks of New Orleans also would be received for goods sold, pointedly saying this was proof of the “blind and stupid opinion of the late Grand Jury of this city, who stated that our trade contributed to drain the country of its specie.” He stressed, “We deal in specie instead of carrying it away.”

However, the die was cast in the public eye of not only the New Orleans area, but throughout the nation, as reports of the Baratarians’ actions draining specie made the newspapers throughout the country. The negative public relations would soon prove disastrous to the Laffites and their operations.

When the British ship Sophie and Captain Nicholas Lockyer visited Grande Terre the first week of September 1814 and tried to bribe Jean Laffite into siding with the British, Jean wasted no time in turning over the British letters to Louisiana Governor W.C.C. Claiborne via Jean Blanque, saying he wished to assist the American cause. This was the chance at redemption that the Laffites needed, but it was far too late. Pierre Laffite escaped from the Cabildo jail even as the governor and his council perused the letters, and naval Commander D.T. Patterson already had orders in place to blast Barataria to bits, confiscate ships and property there, and arrest whomever could be caught. The public was not made aware that the Laffites had offered to help in defence. The existence of the British letters was later made public, but it seems everyone thought those were among the papers found by Patterson during his raid on Barataria.

Patterson and his gunboats arrived at Grande Terre on Sept. 16 and met with no resistance from the privateers present, per Jean’s orders not to fire on Americans. Both Jean and Pierre Laffite escaped to friends along the the German coast above New Orleans. Second in charge Dominique Youx and several other Baratarians were taken prisoner and placed in jail in New Orleans to face possible hanging.

In late September, a ship finally arrived in New Orleans from Vera Cruz with much-needed specie on board. The specie was immediately deposited in the Planter’s Bank but was not exchanged for bank notes among the populace.

The Laffites were now fully aware of how dire their situation was. In early October, 1814, Jean Laffite wrote a letter of entreaty to Livingston, thanking him for earlier assistance and begging him for whatever help he could provide in rescuing him from his current troubles. Livingston, for his part, was telling the newly formed Committee for Public Safety of which he was chairman, that the Baratarians’ assistance could be helpful for the American cause. Meanwhile, the Grand Jury was continuing to hand down indictments to not only Baratarians, but also to some New Orleans merchants whose papers had been found in the raid on Grande Terre,

When Major General Andrew Jackson arrived at New Orleans in early December, Edward Livingston was probably the one who convinced him to accept the Baratarians’ assistance in defending the city from the British. By mid December, Dominique and the other jailed privateers were freed on a conditional pardon, and the Laffite brothers emerged from hiding. Jackson’s men were poorly armed and had no backup supplies. Jean Laffite and his men provided all the gun flints and powder that the Americans had through the ending battle of Jan. 8, 1815, according to Jackson’s later accounts. Jackson also praised the Laffites and their men for their assistance in winning the battle against the British.

In reflecting about how all this came about, and the available information about the political and economic condition of the city, it seems the Laffites were motivated to help the Americans to expunge the extremely negative aftermath of the bank run of April 1814. The damage to their social standing was already done, though, and could never be wiped clean.

One has to wonder what would have happened if, at the time of the bank run, the public had been made aware that the real reason for it was that cashier Joseph Saul of the Bank of Orleans wanted to attract the Planter’s Bank customers of cashier T.L. Harman to his own bank as they were mostly planters who allowed their deposits to lie longer than the merchants were accustomed to do. Saul had collected his rival’s bank notes until he had amassed a large group, then presented it to the Planter’s Bank on a day when he knew the amount of the notes far exceeded the silver held by that bank, Then Saul made sure everyone at the coffee house knew about the shortfall, and the run on the Planter’s Bank happened, but it didn’t end there. The public also rushed to the other two banks, demanding specie when there wasn’t specie to be had. So why didn’t the investigating committee tell the public the true reason for the bank run? Most likely, no one wanted to be called out to a duel by Saul, who was notorious for being a hothead and an expert boxer who thought nothing of beating someone up for irritating him.

People will always believe what they want to believe, so even if the truth of the matter had been stated at the time, perhaps the Baratarians would still have been blamed. Perhaps not.

Maybe, in a what if alternate ending, the Patterson raid would never have happened, and the Laffites would have moved away from New Orleans before the British invasion so they couldn’t have been said to have assisted the British; Jackson and his men would have had no flints or powder to fight the British when they advanced at Chalmette on that famous day of Jan. 8, 1815 and thus would have lost the battle. General Pakenham would have lived and declared a British victory. The Treaty at Ghent would be nullified, the US would have returned to British rule. Everything would have turned out differently, all due to a case of petty jealousy among two bank cashiers.

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Historia Obscura

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U.S.S. Wasp – War of 1812 and the H.M.S. Reindeer

Commemoration of a Hero: Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans

The Meaning of Treason: United States v. Aaron Burr

Resisting the Japanese: The Rival Chinese Resistance Movements in WWII

Books About James Cook’s Voyages

The Short-Lived Military Camp on Grande Terre

Daniel Todd Patterson’s Secret Visits to Dauphin Island in 1814

Eerie Coincidences in Jean Laffite Research and Other Spooky Stories as Told by Pam Keyes

Was the Journal of Jean Laffite an Original, a Copy or a Forgery?

The New Orleans Bank Run of 1814

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