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Napoleon’s Son – Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte

August 14, 2014 in European History, History

Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte – Great Expectations

With the birth of most children, there are all kinds of exciting possibilities and great expectations of what kind of person this new life will grow up to be. Sometimes a child comes into this world only with expectations upon the part of his parents and immediate family. While for others the expectations of the world might prove to be like the weight of the world in the hands of a babe. Such, was the birth of Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, the only son of Napoleon Bonaparte.

He was expected to be the next ruler of France and for Napoléon II, no higher expectations were perhaps heaped upon one child than this little boy. Therein lies the problem — the trouble with great expectations are that they are merely expectations, and life has a way of turning expectations into figments of our imaginations, never-to-be in real life. I’m sure this was a lot like Napoleon Bonaparte’s own expectation that he’d conquer the world, something that proved to be beyond his grasp when it came down to the details.

Napoléon had promised his son, “It’s All Yours.”

Napoléon Francis Joseph Charles Bonaparte (aka Franz)

A little over two hundred years ago, Napoléon Francis Joseph Charles Bonaparte was born in the Palace of the Tuileries. It was assumed that he was destined to rule over a great empire. His mother was the Empress Marie Louise, a daughter of the Emperor of Austria. She was his father’s second wife, after he had divorced the Empress Joséphine.

The boy’s birth on March 20, 1811 was announced by the roaring salute of many guns. At the time, his birth was a great joy to the French nation, as well as his parents. So you would think that historically his life would be as well-known as that of his father. However, this was not meant to be.

He was given the title of King of Rome, and his christening was a stately ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It seemed as though he had a great future before him. It is a recorded fact that his father adored him, often spent time playing and talking with him as an infant. A doting father is not generally something most of us would think of when it comes to the Napoléon we’ve known through the retelling of history.

Yet, in the end he grew up without a mother’s love or a father’s care. His short life was pitifully lonely. His early death was a relief to most of the people. The few who thought of his existence at all have all passed away, and his name is scarcely mentioned in the teaching of history.

Napoléon Bonaparte and his son, who was called “Franz.”

Napoléon Bonaparte’s son, who was called “Franz.”

The Education of Napoléon’s Son

When Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte was a toddler, his father, Napoléon, was at the height of his power. Everyone thought that the little King of Rome, as his baby son was officially called, was sure to succeed him on the throne of France. When Franz was only two and a half years old, his education was begun. He was given lessons almost before his baby lips could repeat the words that were taught him. It’s been claimed that at the age of three, he was fluent in French as any grown up. It was said that by the age of nine, rather than having a child s vocabulary, he was able to converse with ease on an adult level. He later learned German, Italian, Greek, and Latin.

His father was determined that he should be well prepared for the great place in history that he was to fill. But, before the prince was three years old, Napoléon had been defeated by the bitter cold of the Russian winter. All the countries in Europe had combined and conspired against him. He had fought and lost the Great Battle of the Nations at Leipzig. Even then, he might have kept his throne, if he had promised to be content with the kingdom of France, but this he refused to do so, ended up having everything was taken from him. The legacy of Franz’s father would prove to be his most difficult lesson of all.

The education of Napolean’s son Franz was a serious undertaking.

The Destiny of Franz — Napoleon II

As the armies of the allies who had defeated the Emperor neared Paris, Marie Louise fled from the city, taking the young King of Rome with her. When his mother first fled with him from Paris, they had to leave most of their possessions behind. Being a child, Franz thought that Louis XVIII had stolen his toys. The toys were later forwarded, but all Napoléonic symbols which were decorated on every toy, had been stripped from them on orders of his maternal grandfather.

Napoléon never again saw the son of whom he was so proud and whom he loved so dearly. Napoléon, of course, was sent into exile on the Island of Elba in the Mediterranean, from which he would later escape. Marie Louise who did not care for her husband any longer, made no effort to go to him, despite his loving pleas and commands that she do so. She was quite content to obey her father’s command that she should give up on her marriage and come home. She agreed, too, to give up the title of empress, and was made Duchess of Parma and two other small Italian states.

The title of King of Rome was taken from her son, and it was agreed that he was to succeed his mother, as Duke of Parama. His mother’s family wanted him to forget his French blood and his father. In time, however, he would rebel and later say:

“If France called me, I would come.”

All of this was in 1814, and the next year it seemed for a time, as if he might be emperor of the French after all. Napoléon escaped from Elba. He gathered a great army as he went and marched through France to Paris and turned out Louis XVIIII, the Bourbon king whom the allies had placed on the throne.

The boy all of France chose to forget.

Denied His Place in History

But, the Emperor’s second reign lasted such a short period of time that it is called “The Hundred Days.” Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo put an end to it forever, and lost for his son even his small dukedom. For after Napoléon had been banished to St. Helena, the little boy was given the title of Duke of Reichstadt by his grandfather. It was decided that he should never rule.

Meanwhile, his father continued to dictate specific instructions to his young son Napoléon II. Even though he’d named his son as his successor when he abdicated, no one was willing to recognize him as legitimate to the throne of France. This was despite the fact that at the time most French peasant households had pictures of him on their walls. By this time, Marie Louise had gone to live in her duchy of Parma, but she did not take the little duke with her. From this time onward, he became a pawn in the game of European politics.

These efforts only made the great powers of Europe the more determined that no son of Napoléon should ever rule. Sometimes the great Austrian minister Metternich put forward his claims, and the other malcontents in Italy and in France used his name to stir up trouble. In November 1816, Marie Louise was informed that her son could not succeed to the duchy of Para. As he was not to succeed her, it was thought better that he should be left in Vienna with his grandfather, who undertook his education. His mother would only see him one more time, on his deathbed.

The Rest of Franz’s Short Life

He was brought up as an Austrian subject, instead of a French prince, and so all his French attendants were sent away. Even his nurse was eventually sent away. He was placed in the care of an Austrian gentleman, named Count Moritz von Dietrischtein, who was called his governor.

He was still so young that it was hoped that once he was surrounded by Germans, that he would forget all he had been told about his father. However, he never did forget who his father was. Perhaps, it was because he had some faint recollection of the man who played with him in the old days in France. He certainly remembered the stories his nurse had told him of his father’s greatness. It was reported that he grew up to love his memory and liked to think of him.

Later, his many tutors found him a difficult pupil, especially at first. He was about ten years old when his father died. He was very obstinate and he did not wish to speak German. There were many outbursts of temper to be subdued. Happily, however, he became much attached and fond of Count Dietrishstein, who was a very kind man. He treated him with great wisdom and affection.

Young Franz would grow to be a little over six feet tall at the age of seventeen. As much as others wished him to not be like his father, he shared many mannerisms. In anger, he shared a look that Napoléon was famous for, and was a constant reminder to the Austrians of his father. Additionally, he was known to have walked just like his father, often with his hands behind his back when thinking, walking in a circle, with his head down. He admired his father so much that he was delighted when he learned that his grandfather wished him to become a soldier. It was later another great day for him when he got his first uniform, though he was only made a corporal, for his tutors thought it better that he should be advanced slowly.

Learning to be a soldier was Franz Bonaparte’s strongest wish.

Franz Will Face His Own Waterloo

He was a clever boy, but lazy, and promotion was held out as a reward for diligence in his studies. No pains were spared to provide him with good teachers and to train him to be not only a good soldier, but also great man. His youth though wasn’t a pleasant one, as he was seldom allowed outside the palace grounds, and could never be alone. There were only a handful of theatre or battalion regiment practices that he was able to attend under supervision.

The year before he died, it’s speculated that this lonely boy did know love, or at least infatuation. He secretly met a ballerina at a theatre one night. She invited him to her dressing room after her performance. Her name was Franziska (Fanny) Elssler, and she was just one year older than him.

He was carefully taught his profession. All the soldiers were said to have looked forward to the time when he would command them, and perhaps lead them to victory. But their hopes were not to be realized, for already his days were numbered. In the spring of 1832, he fell ill with tuberculosis, and by July 22nd of that year, he was dead. When news of his death was heard in France, it caused but little mention. He was only twenty-one years old.

While much has been written about his father, and even his mother — there are very few references and details about the boy who might have been King of France — had history played out a different hand. He has been referred to in history books as the “the lifelong captive (but very much loved) of Habsburg empire.” Finally facing his own personal Waterloo in death, there was no denying his fate — he could not escape being a mostly forgotten footnote in history.

It’s seems almost ironic that all the hopes that Napoléon Bonaparte and others had invested in his son, were not what was to be his legacy. Rather what has remained instead is Napoléon Civil Code concepts, Napoléon’s sale of the Louisiana Territory, and his defeat at Waterloo. Seems sort of prophetic that Napoléon himself said:

“There is no immortality, but the memory that is left in the minds of men.”

Perhaps the most ironic part of the tale of the sad life of Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, is another quote, that of his grandfather, who upon learning of his death was reported to have said:

“It was best for both of them that he was dead. Very sad life.”

Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte

Tags: did Napoleon have a son, Franz Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, Napoleons son 1 Comment »

by Jerilee Wei

Huron or Wyandot Mythology and Cosmogonic Myths

July 27, 2014 in Native American History

After having written of the New Madrid earthquake of 1811, Tecumseh, and the Native American prophecies, it comes to my mind that many people are not aware of the multitude of native peoples’ oral history histories when it comes to cosmogonic theories or creation myths. It should also not surprise anyone that virtually all indigenous peoples had a vast knowledge of basic astronomy, yet apparently it does. The studies and explanations of the origin of the universe, the solar system, and the earth moon system, have been handed down for generations in indigenous tribes on the American continent. Their native education in such matters began in early childhood. This fact alone should make Native American prophecies a little less mysterious.

It is well known that Tecumseh had an unusual education, mingled with white settlers, and traveled extensively. Certainly he owed some of his education due to the tutelage from Rebecca Galloway. It’s also been speculated that he must have had access to an almanac, which could be true in relationship to his prophecies of both the Great Earthquake of 1811 and the Great Comet of 1812. However, what’s not been talked about, is the role of Native American oral traditions and native knowledge of the natural world played in his prophecies. Tecumseh, the great leader of the Shawnee and the Tecumseh Confederacy, was not the only native leader who possessed great knowledge on such matters. The average white colonists and invaders, however, often didn’t possess the same education. Yet, even with shared knowledge of history, the versions of reality are tested in the telling of the same stories by different peoples. White settlers did not appreciate what they did not understand or ever heard. Their history and the history of native peoples merged at times, but there is a great divide in viewpoint of history and the temptation of revisionist views. Since recording history is akin to walking a tight rope over Niagara Falls, we’ve failed to bridge the gap of accepting alternative history of other cultures and understanding those differences.

As a direct descendant of Catherine Annennontak, daughter of Jeanne Otrihoandit and Nicolas Arendanki, all of which were Ouendat (aka Ouendanke, Huron, Wendake, or Wyandot), my family owes much to a certain Jesuit missionary priest and those who followed him, who faithfully recorded the history of the Huron/Wendake people starting in 1637. Father Paul Ragueneau, Society of Jesus, preserved both the oral history and many of the myths of the Huron Wendake tribes. Of great interest to this eventual Superior of the Huron mission in Quebec, were the beliefs, myths, and cosmogonic myths of his mission charges. He had been sent to Huron country in 1637. He arrived during very troubled times of epidemics, violence, horrific hardships, famine, wars, martyrdom, emigration and eventual resettlement of the Hurons. Back then, likeTecumseh, their elders, shamans, and chiefs learned first hand of their cosmogonic and etiological myths and passed them on. Only the priest and other lay people around him, took the trouble and had the ability to record many of them.

Father Paul Ragueneau was charged with the conversion to Catholicism of what the French viewed as savage peoples living in ignorance. In his writings, he quite readily acknowledged his respect for his converted flock and their heritage and his awe of their oral traditions and myths. Along with other Jesuit priests and laymen that would come after him, they would come to understand that traditional native people stories needed to be protected, recorded, and understood. He personally took great offense to some missionaries and settlers mixing too much in indian affairs. He mastered their language. He masterminded their escape and survival from the Iroquois, as they and the French escaped from St. Joseph’s Island to Quebec. In his recording of Huron traditions, he noted how some of the Huron disapproved of the French stories on the same subject of the creation of earth. Intolerance for another’s view point often went both ways.

Huron oral tradition bundle of straw used as an aid in storytelling.

“The elders of the country were assembled this winter for the election of the very celebrated Captain. They were accustomed, on such occasions, to relate the stories which they have learned regarding their ancestors, even those most remote – so that the young people, who were present and hear them, may preserve the memory thereof, and relate them in their turn when they shall have become old. They do this in order thus to transmit to posterity the history and the annals of the country – striving, by this means, to supply the lack of writing and of books, which they have not. They offer to the person from whom they desire to hear something, a little bundle of straws, a foot long, which serves them as counters for calculating the numbers, and for aiding the memory of those present – distributing in various lots of these same straws, according to the diversity of the things they relate.”

“The turn having come to a Christian old man, to tell what he knew, he begins to narrate the creation of the world, of the Angels, of the Demons, of Heaven and Earth, with a most sagacious reservation, which kept all those present in a state of expectancy; for he was far along in the matter, and still had not yet given the name of the one who had made this great masterpiece. When he came to name him, and to say that God, whom the Christians adores, was the Creator of the world, the eldest Captain of those present seizes the straws from his hands, imposes silence upon him, and tells him that he does wrong to relate the stories of the French, and not those of the Hurons. But he says, he is going to relate the pure truth, and how it has happened that the earth, which was submerged in the waters, has been pushed out of them by a certain tortoise of prodigious size, which sustains it and which serves it for support – without which the weight of the earth would again engulf it in the waters, and would cause in this world below a general desolation of all the human race.” — Father Paul Ragueneau, Society of Jesus.

THE ORIGIN OF THE PLEIADES

The origins of the Pleiades as told in Wyandot myth.

Here’s a look at one Huron/Wendake cosmological beliefs that revolves around the star cluster, Pleiades, found within the constellation of Taurus. This cluster is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and one of the most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions. The Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Hopi, Lakota, Nez Perce, Onondaga, Shasta, and the Cherokee all have quite different stories to tell than the Huron. Similarly, Homer, in the Iliad and Odyssey had his own story about Pleiades. Even, the Greeks made them the Seven Sisters who descended from Atlas and Pleione. Clearly, the pleiades are popular cosmogonic myths with mankind. The Hurons believed the constellation consisted of only six stars. This is the story Chief Nicolas Arendanki of the Bear Clan likely knew:

The Singing Maidens

“The Sun and his wife, the Moon, had many children. Among these were six little girls, the daughters of a single birth. They were beautiful, kind, gentle, and loving children. They were great favorites in all the heavens for they loved to go about and do good. In addition to their other accomplishments, they were the sweetest singers and the more tireless and graceful dancers in all the sky-land. They were called the Singing Maidens.

These sweet singers often looked down to this world. They had compassion on the Wyandots when game was scarce, when the corn was blasted, when famine threatened. One day they said to their father, the Sun:

“Let us go down to visit the Wyandots on the Great Island. We wish to sing and dance in that land.”

The Sun said in reply, to his daughters, the Singing Maidens:

“I forbid your going down to the Great Island to sing for man. Remain in your own house. Be content with the heavens.”

But when the Sun was gone to give light and heat to the Great Island, these Children of the Light, the Singing Maidens, went abroad. They looked down on the Great Island.

They saw the Wyandot villages almost concealed by the beautiful woods on the banks of the lake. The glittering waves rolled in upon the pebble-strewn beach. The blue waters reflected the autumn-colored woods. The gulls, geese, and swans floated at rest on the bosom of the lake, or soared lazily aloft. The great crane waded and fished among the water-lilies. Little children ran from the village down to the beaten shores. They were merry on the yellow sands. They swam and splashed in the brilliant waters. Mermaids were not more lovely than these simple children of the forest playing upon the shores of the lovely lake on the Great Island. This enchanting scene moved the Singing Maidens to ecstasy. They cried out:

“Here is a more beautiful land than can be found in the sky. Why should we be restrained from visiting it? Let us now go down and dance with those happy children, and sing among the beautiful trees on the shore of the bright lake.”

Then the Singing Maidens came down to the shining sands on the lakeshore. they sang for the happy children and danced upon rippling waters. The children were charmed with the Maidens. They clapped their hands. They sang for joy. They ran and danced along the wooded banks.

The music of the Maidens and the sounds of the merry making children floated through the great trees to the Wyandot villages. The people stood entranced. They said to each other: “What music is this? We have not heard before so lovely a song. Let us see who visits our children.” And they went to towards the lake shore.

When they saw the Singing Maidens, the Black Cloud of the Little Turtle overshadowed the land. The voice of Heh-noh, the Grandfather of the Wyandots, rolled over the lake in thunder tones. It was the Keeper of the Heavens come to carry up the truant Singing Maidens.

The Sun was very angry with his daughters for their disobedience. He said to them:

“I will give you a place so far away that you can never again visit the Great Island.”

Then he placed them in a distant circuit so far away in the land of the sky that their bright and shining faces can scarcely be seen. They look with love down to the land of man, where once they sang on the billowy lake and danced with happy children on the shining shore.

And the Indian mother says yet to her child in the calm and silent twilight, “Be quiet and sit here at my feet. Soon we shall hear the Singing Maidens as they dance among the leaves of the trees.”

Mary McKee, (Ta re ma) Huron/Wendake story teller of the Bear Clan (b. 1838)

Thinking upon that story, it seems that a likely connection in the myths of one this Huron tribe is that their children and subsequent generations, grew up remembering the stories while looking about and observing all that the earth and the universe had to offer them. One can’t help but wonder, if this natural connection is what’s often missing from the accounts of invading peoples who failed to incorporate a wonderment and appreciation for the earth and stars above them? Shawnee Tecumseh knew it. Father Ragueneau understood it. Have the elders of our modern world failed to teach our own children the stories that would keep them looking far beyond the myths of their childhood, and endeavor to be both life long stewards of earth and seekers of the science of the universe?

Tags: Father Paul Ragueneau, Huron myths, Pleiades, Pleiades myth, Tecumseh, The Singing Maidens, Wendake myths 3 Comments »

by Jerilee Wei

The Red Stick Creeks and the Great Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812

July 16, 2014 in Native American History

Without exception every historical event has a backstory and several other backstories within it. That’s certainly true with many of the Native American stories that often fail to get told from their perspective. This is the story of the Red Creek Red Stick tribe decision making process when they joined in the War of 1812 and the role certain natural phenomena that played a backstory in their history.

Hidden Backstory

On the eve of the War of 1812, white settlers were increasingly encroaching upon Native American lands as they cut and cleared trees and built villages. Capitalizing on the deep resentment many tribes felt in regards to this, the British had already given Shawnee leader, Chief Tecumseh, guns and ammo to fight the Americans in an effort to get the various tribes to join on their side. Tecumseh and his brother Prophet Tenskawatawa went a step further and traveled from tribe to tribe trying to unite all Indians into a confederation to fight against the white settlers.

There were sixteen main tribes of native peoples that would become involved in one form or another as the conflict escalated into war. The main tribes were: Ojiibwa (Chippewa), Ottawas, Sioux (Santee Sioux), Menominee, Winnebago, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Creeks (Muscogee Creeks, Red Sticks, White Sticks), Seminoles, Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Salk (Osakawak) and the Fox (Meskawakie). Not all of these tribes wanted war. Some pushed for peace, such as Chickasaws and the White Sticks. However, the Red Sticks for example, wanted to fight the white settlers. Soon native peoples were also fighting each other; Choctaw Chief Pushmataha led his people against the Red Sticks; the Cherokee and White Sticks joined with the white settlers; and the whole situation spiraled into one big messy war.

Prophecies About Earthquakes and Comets

Chief Tecumseh

It’s claimed that in 1811, as Chief Tecumseh and his brother contacted other tribes in their efforts to raise a mighty defensive army to do battle against the white settlers trying to take their land, that Tecumseh told the Red Stick Creeks in particular:

“Brothers, the Great Spirit is angry with our enemies. He speaks in thunder, and the earth swallows up villages, and drinks up the Mississippi. The great waters cover the lowlands. Their corn cannot grow. The Great Spirit will sweep those who escape to the hills from the earth with his terrible breath.”

“Your blood is white! You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me. You shall know. I leave Tuckabatchee directly, and shall go straight to Detroit. When I arrive there, I will stamp on the ground with my foot and shake down every house in Tuckabatchee.”

The tribal location of Tuckabatchee was on the Tallapossa River in what is today Alabama. His audience were the Creek leaders, and his message didn’t go over well at the time. The leader of the Upper Creeks (Red Sticks) was Big Warrior, and he refused to pledge his people into the confederation of native peoples Tecumseh was assembling. It was Big Warrior that he accused of having white blood.

Imagine his skeptical audience’s surprise when on December 16, 1811, exactly when he arrived in Detroit, that the first of two a strong earthquakes shook the ground. Actually, these two earthquakes that hit the same day were so intense, that they are still considered the most powerful earthquakes to hit the Eastern United States in history. It’s believed the first quake hit at 2:15 a.m. at an estimated strength of 7.2 to 8.1. Six hours later a second quake of equal force hit the same area again. These were no ordinary earthquakes. The epicenter was around what is today New Madrid, Missouri. They were thought to be felt strongly across 130,000 square miles and moderately for a total of nearly 3 million miles. The earthquakes were felt as far away as the White House, and it’s said that church bells in Boston rang on their own. These earthquakes actually altered the landscape so severely, that the Mississippi River momentarily reversed its direction. It is also believed that over two thousand aftershocks occurred in the months following, five of which were 8.0 or greater in strength.

Of course, the Red Sticks thought that this was Tecumseh’s signal to start war. How could they think otherwise? Such were the calls to action that were based on prophetic insight when the events predicted came true. His prophecy was a signal to the Red Sticks and other tribes to unite in resisting the European white intruders intent on claiming their lands.

Native People and Prophecy

It is well known among Native American tribes that the wisdom of ages is passed down from generation to generation. I don’t think that any of us can definitely prove that there isn’t an ancient science for predicting the future from collective memory of the distant past that was handed down from generations ago. One can only speculate that Tecumseh knew which natural signs to look for, and there were plenty of natural occurrences during this time period for Tecumseh to draw from. Native peoples heavily relied upon stories to explain the natural world and its phenomena. Had he been taught from childhood what to look for? Or had there been a large number of mild or moderate tremors in the region that tipped him off?

Also, it’s no secret that animals and insects do seem to be able to sense such events. It has scientifically been recorded that catfish behave strangely right before earthquakes. Chickens have been known to stop laying eggs. Dogs and cats bark and whine for no apparent reason and other animals show signs of stress before such events. Are they just simply feeling the “foreshocks” that predict an earthquake? Could it be that since native peoples are more in tune with nature that Tecumseh was more in tune with what happening in a world that white people did not understand when it came to earthquakes?

The Great Comet of 1812

How much of an influence of Tecumseh’s prophecy had to do with other unusual phenomena of the time remains unknown. The Great Comet of 1812 (which was seen for over 260 nights) was so large that it has been estimated to have been over a million miles across, almost fifty percent larger than our own sun. Since the comet was becoming more visible during the New Madrid earthquakes in December of 1811, arriving almost in conjunction with a fiery comet rushing across the horizon, it must have also struck fear into many native peoples hearts. After all, wasn’t the comet all part of Chief Tecumseh’s prophetic prediction of a great fire coming across the sky?

Here too, the ability to predict the future was a part of many Native American tribes, and the Shawnee culture and religion did acknowledge that many of the leaders and medicine men of such tribes could predict the future based on their extensive traditional lore. Shawnee cosmology dictated that catastrophic things happen when people do not follow the warnings and laws of their given Deities. Certainly the sanctity of ancestral lands and the obligation to protect them from invaders were in fact, simply common sense to a certain degree.

Muskogee Creeks (Red Sticks) shared very similar belief systems and alliances with the Shawnee. Both were among the “Five Civilized Tribes.” When it came to the Red Stick Creeks and the others who joined in the Native American confederation in the War of 1812, it really didn’t matter whether or not Chief Tecumseh and his Prophet brother could actually predict the future — all that was important was that they believed he had been right. The Great Spirits did indeed seem angry. Belief in something is sometimes all the power a leader needs to motivate his soldiers in action.

Surprisingly, Tecumseh, although angered when they first refused to join in, needed them as much as they needed his guidance. The Red Sticks had a long history of being fierce warriors who trained since birth for war. When Tecumseh lost his life shortly after, the decisions made by those Native American leaders who remained in the war spelled the beginning of the end for America’s native peoples and their way of life. It also would prove to be the complete loss all their native lands to the invading white settlers and rulers.

Tags: comet of 1811, great earthquake 1811, Missouri, native people prophecy, New Madrid, Red Stick, Red Stick Creeks, Tecumseh, War of 1812 3 Comments »

by Aya Katz

Governor Joseph Alston’s Record in the War of 1812

July 13, 2014 in American History, general history

Joseph Alston was born in 1779 to a wealthy family in South Carolina. He attended the College of New Jersey, which was later renamed Princeton, but he never graduated. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, but he never practiced. He was a planter by trade and one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina.

Joseph Alston also had political ambitions. In furtherance of same, he married Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr in 1801. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican party, the same one that Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr belonged to. The marriage to Theodosia Burr took place on the eve of the resolution of the complicated election that would catapult Jefferson to the presidency and made Aaron Burr vice president. It was during a period of time when Burr’s fortune was on the rise, and prior to the duel with Hamilton and the the falling out with Jefferson that eventually snuffed out Burr’s career prematurely

The marriage to Theodosia, together with his status as a wealthy landowner and businessman, enabled Alston to win elective office. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from November 20, 1805 to December 10, 1812. He was a speaker of the house from 1809 to 1812, and he was chosen to be Governor of South Carolina beginning December 1 of 1812.

Joseph Alston’s wealth came primarily from rice plantations, and the labor on which his business depended was by and large slave labor. Because of the warm weather and the humidity, and because the rice paddies harbored many mosquitoes, malaria was a disease to contend with. At the time, the causes of malaria were not known, but successful planters knew that the best laborers — and the ones most likely to survive the swamps — were those imported from the Senegambia region in West Africa where they were already likely to have survived a childhood bout of malaria. For males between the ages of fourteen and eighteen they paid, in today’s money , between $11,000 and $23,000. With such an investment on the line, they wanted slaves who were likely to survive the difficult conditions.

While on average two in three West African children fell victim to malaria and died, those who survived to the age of fourteen were immune to the disease. On the other hand, the white population of South Carolina did not undergo the serious trials of their black counterparts and largely avoided exposure to malaria by going up into the mountains or leaving on some other vacation during the summer months. When Aaron Burr first gave his consent to the marriage of his daughter to Joseph Alston, the plan was that she would spend her summers up North with her father. But Burr fell on hard times, went into exile, and had only just returned to New York a ruined man in 1812.

In June of 1812, the Alstons were not able to go elsewhere to avoid exposure to malaria. War had just been declared against Great Britain. Joseph Alston had duties in the state militia. He had to stay where he was, and so did his wife, and their ten year old son, Aaron Burr Alston, was exposed to and died of malaria. Alston’s grieving wife, Theodosia, boarded the Patriot on December 31, 1812 for a trip to New York to see her father and disappeared into the mists of time. But Alston’s troubles were only just beginning.

When he tried to muster the militia to prepare for war, he encountered unexpected resistance. The problem was not that the men refused to serve against the British. The enemy they most feared was malaria. Many openly disobeyed orders, refused to serve, and when the Governor attempted to have the ringleaders tried for desertion, the court found in favor of the accused. A contemporary account of the court’s reasoning can be found in John Belton O’Neal’s Biographcal Sketches of Bench and Bar:

I knew Mr. Stark well, and had much to do with him as Solicitor; and I have no hesitation in saying, that the objection, which was urged against him, that he was ” too severe” was altogether untrue. He was a firm, just man, in the discharge of his duty; but there was no one who sooner yielded to the just claims of mercy than he did. In 1814, Mr. Stark and myself defended Colonel Starling Tucker, before the Court Martial ordered to try him, on charges preferred against him by the Commander-in-chief, Governor Allston, in relation to the service of the first class of the militia, ordered into service from the brigade, then ranked as the second, now the tenth. (Biographical Sketched of Bench and Bar, p. 68)

.The chief reason that was given in mitigation of harsh sentence was that the men required to serve were “unaccustomed to the climate.”

Immediately after the regiment encamped, a council of all the officers of the line assembled, to consult as to what should be done, as to the detailed order to throw up the tête du pont, and they unanimously advised that it should be disobeyed; and everyone from the highest to the lowest so pledged themselves. This was not only disobedience, but mutiny, and might have been visited by serious consequences; but there was a great palliation in the excited state of the men’s minds, and their belief that the duty to be done under a stern disciplinarian, and would probably be at the sacrifice of many lives, who were unaccustomed to the climate. (James Holdridge, John Belton O’Neal, sources.)

That South Carolina freemen were unaccustomed to the climate of South Carolina, though many had been born and bred there, whereas the imported slaves on the plantations in the area were accustomed to the climate, is one of the many ironies of the situation.

Alston was so incensed at having his orders countermanded and the courts siding with the deserters, that he decided to disband the militia altogether and sent everyone home. However, when a British force landed on St. Helena Island, and the coast of South Carolina was all undefended, he was forced to reverse himself. He returned to the state legislature and asked for and was granted greater war powers for mustering the state militia. But the British could not have been more immune to malaria than the Americans, so they do not appear to have stayed on St. Helena Island for long. There appears to be no record of an engagement with the enemy there.

Although the cause of malaria and effective treatments for it were not known at the time, the South Carolina planters and other free whites in peacetime found ways to protect themselves and reduce their children’s exposure to the disease, while the slaves on their plantations could not. This resulted in higher infant mortality among the slaves, but those who survived to adulthood had genetic immunity that they could even pass on to their children, while a whole generation of military age free men did not. Yet the slaves could not serve in the military unless they were first freed, and the freemen could not serve effectively without exposing themselves to the deadly disease.

As for Joseph Alston, his service as governor ended on December 1, 1814. He was not well for the remainder of his life, possibly suffering himself from symptoms of malaria. He died on September 19, 1816. Today he is remembered chiefly for the fact that he had once been married to Theodosia Burr.

Theodosia and the Pirates TheoFinalWindlass

References

The African Slave Trade and South Carolina

African-American Heritage and Ethnography

Biographical Sketches of Bench and Bar — online

James Holdridge

John Belton O’Neal, Biographical Sketches of the Bar and Bench of South Carolina, II:69-73

Malaria

Members of the 19th General Assembly — South Carolina

South Carolina Governor Joseph Alston

Starling Tucker

Tags: Aaron Burr, Aaron Burr Alston, adult mortality, Beaufort County, Camp Alston, immunity, immunity to malaria, infant mortality, James Holdridge, Joseph Alston, malaria, South Carolina, Starling Tucker, The Oaks, Theodosia Burr Alston, War of 1812 Comments Off on Governor Joseph Alston’s Record in the War of 1812

by Pam Keyes

Yellow Fever: Napoleon’s Most Formidable Opponent

July 8, 2014 in American History, Caribbean History, general history, Louisiana History, Nautical History

By Pam Keyes

LeClerc

In mid-1802, French general Victor-Emmanuel LeClerc took up his pen to write back to his superior and sighed in the dripping, humid heat of Port-au-Prince. His brother-in-law, Napoleon, thought it would be an easy mission to quash the latest slave uprising on the island of Haiti and French-controlled colony St. Domingue. After all, he had sent 20,000 seasoned French troops to supplement the St. Domingue garrison and assist LeClerc in ending the terror on French planters and colonists caused by marauding black slaves and maroons hiding in the mountains around Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country. LeClerc himself had believed they would have the rebellion ended in a few months, but there was one factor they had failed to take into account, an infinitesimally small enemy that would kill more Frenchmen than all of the black rebels could ever have slain: the dreaded virus of yellow fever.

From 1802-1803, yellow fever at St. Domingue ravaged almost 50,000 French soldiers due to their lack of immunity to the disease, plus the medical ignorance of their doctors in ways to successfully treat a fever. The ports of St. Domingue, particularly the main one at Port-au-Prince, were surrounded by quagmires and swamps, prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes during hot and humid times of spring and summer. After being bitten by an Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying yellow fever, the victim would get either a mild or a severe form of the disease a week later. Symptoms included headaches, fever, muscle cramps, nausea, a black vomit, and in the worst cases, delirium, coma and death. At one point in early summer 1802, the men were dying at the rate of as many as 50 a day. LeClerc himself fell victim to the disease late in 1802. Children under 18 usually got the mild disease, and once they had had it, were immune for life, so the French planters’ children on the island were mostly safe, as were the natives of the island, and most of the slaves, who had acquired immunity in Africa. Safe also were older residents of the island who had had the mild form in their youths.

French fighting renegade slaves in Snake Gully area of St. Domingue in 1802

Some 20,000 additional French reinforcements were sent to supplement the surviving troops in late 1802, and LeClerc was replaced by General Rochambeau. By November, 1803, Rochambeau retreated to France with only 3,000 survivors. Almost twice as many French troops were felled by yellow fever on the island of Haiti than were slain in the Battle of Waterloo years later.

Napoleon reacted decisively to the slave insurrection victory due to the epidemic sickness of the French troops. He had met his match in a disease he couldn’t conquer, so he abandoned all ideas about expanding the empire into the Louisiana Territory of the US, and offered it for sale to the Americans for $15 million. The purchase agreement was signed in late 1803, doubling the US in size with a penstroke. Haiti declared its independence in 1804, becoming the first independent nation in Latin America.

Old map of Haiti

In the end, the US benefitted greatly from the land, port of New Orleans and Mississippi River waterways additions; the French lost a major sugar-producing colony plus the chance for expansionism; and the slaves of St. Domingue (with the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Dessalines) accomplished the only successful slave revolt, all due to a microscopic virus that physicians could not properly treat nor understand at that point in history.

Tags: Dessalines, early medicine, French history, Haiti, LeClerc, Napoleon, Napoleonic soldiers, Port-au-Prince, slave revolt, St. Domingue, Toussaint L'Ouverture, yellow fever 2 Comments »

by Jerilee Wei

Malaria – The Mystery Plague of Colonial America

June 30, 2014 in American History, general history, History

The mosquito, a deadly foe to mankind.

Despite modern advances in medicine, there is a plague (one of many) that still haunts mankind around the globe and that is malaria. Malaria is a parasite spread by the female mosquito that affects your blood cells. Somewhere in the world, every thirty-five seconds, a child unnecessarily dies from this horrible disease. Of course today, we know that it is spread by the lowly female mosquito — who despite modern technology, modern medicine, and awareness has managed to outwit the humans who live within its many kingdoms. To understand the way that malaria and the mosquito have changed history, a trip down memory lane to Colonial America will yield a good bit of understanding.

Beginning with the first Europeans setting foot in the Americas, the would-be colonists and explorers, quickly became profoundly aware of their own mortality in the face of such diseases as yellow fever, smallpox, and malaria. Thanks to a compatible climate, those living in more Southern and temperate locations, such as Georgia, Louisiana, and the Carolinas would soon face an overwhelming reality exemplified by this quote:

“They who want to die quickly, go to Carolina.”

Along with people in the Louisiana and Georgia, during in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries in South Carolina, especially around Charleston, had such a high mortality that less than 20% reached their 20^th birthday. Most of those who died did so because of malaria, or because of being in a weakened state after a bout of malaria. It’s almost unimaginable that so many mothers and fathers would be burying their children so young. Anyone who has experienced such a loss knows that this life event alters your life forever.

Another staggering set of statistics, just in the fifty years that one group, England’s Society for the Propagation of Gospel in Foreign Parts, was sending young men to South Carolina – of the total fifty young men (one per year), only 43% survived, and many resigned within five years of setting foot on South Carolina soil due to poor health from malaria. And, of course, it goes almost without saying the medical lack of knowledge as to what caused malaria back then, and how to treat it also was another gravestone upon many. It left much of the South a place to die rather than a place to live. Perhaps, no greater community suffered from the spread of malaria than those in and around South Carolina for more than a century (except those living in The Floridas and coastal Louisiana).

“More die of the practitioner than of the natural course of the disease.” – Dr. William Douglass

In Colonial days, the cause of malaria was unknown, and when people don’t know something they are scared of — they make up theories and stories as to why their loved one has departed from them. Different groups of people had different names for malaria. It was called ague; bilious fever, country fever, intermittent fever, remittent fever, tertian fever, and mal aira. Colonists believed that the fever, by whatever name, was caused by the methane gasses that could be seen arising from any nearby swamp, often referred to as “vapors” or miasmas” arising from the putrefaction in vegetation in the swamps from rotting plants and dead animals. People literally believed it came from bad air that attacked you somehow mysteriously in your sleep. Many of the folk tales of African slaves and the Acadians in Louisiana, had central themes tying folk monsters of the swamps such as the feux-folet of Cajun folklore being somehow connected to this disease.

Additionally, deaths in Colonial America continued well into the early 1900s — when colonies became states, yet quackery, medical ignorance, poor hygiene, barbaric medical remedies such as blistering, phlebotomy, and purging all continually played a huge role in the malaria disease cycle. However, there was an obscure fact that is often ignored when it comes to malaria — and that is the role of the crops that early colonists and rural America chose to grow and how it contributed to the problem. In other words agriculture, plus temperate climate, plus natural terrain, all played a huge role in the spread of malaria. The female mosquito may have carried the disease, but we unwittingly invited her as a house guest when our early settlers decided to grow rice and indigo.

This was particularly true in the coastal regions of the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana, where the spread of malaria was quickened because rice and indigo cultivation. In order for both crops widely grown for commercial value, the necessary irrigation and pools of stagnant shallow water were important in making such places is a virtual mosquito growing nursery. Furthermore, the African slaves who worked the fields became the most likely first victims of malaria bearing mosquitoes. In turn, a mosquito biting a person with the malaria parasite spread the disease to rich and poor. The blood thirsty mosquito does not discriminate.

There are countless examples in history of this, one such Carolina example is that of a ten-year-old boy, the only son his parents would ever have. His father was the governor of South Carolina, his mother the daughter of a former U.S. Vice President, and yet no amount of money could protect him from malaria. Aaron Burr Alston, died from a mosquito bite, despite having a family rich enough to sleep under a “Pavilion of Catgut Gauze” the choice of the rich in terms of what we call mosquito nets today. Like countless others of unfortunate victims to malaria, the world will never know what this one little boy or his descendants could have accomplished — a common bond between every malaria victim.

The grave of Aaron Burr Alston who was another loss to history by malaria. His father, Joseph Alston was buried in the same grave.

Breeding sites for the female Anopheles mosquito were also naturally prolific between great thunder storms and annual hurricanes. Drainage especially around both agriculture and towns were another contributor to the huge problem. It was reported that mosquitoes were so thick that they could blacken an arm in sheer numbers at times and were documented in the deaths of killing cattle by suffocation of the nostrils. While malaria by itself, actually doesn’t kill the vast number of people who succumbed to it, malaria does weaken its victim’s resistance to other diseases they wouldn’t have normally been bothered by. Side effects after having had malaria are: anemia, fatigue, proneness to infections, pneumonia and a greatly weakened immune system. Once over the initial bout of malaria, victims were also likely to have reoccurring attacks of malaria and never really recover completely.

Malaria also preys on the defenseless, infants, small children, and the elderly were all groups that had high mortality rates. Women often contracted malaria during pregnancy were also prone to miscarriages, premature labor, and death. It was the leading cause of death for Colonial Southern women. More people would die in the Americas from it than all of the deaths from wars fought within our borders, especially during the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

Soon, it would become apparent that cinchona bark, similar to quinine was an effective cure, but the people of that those days still lacked the ability to understand the true cause and carrier of the disease. Others favored alternative remedies and ineffective healing attempts, such as St. John’s Wort, mustard plasters, wormwood, and foxglove. Prevention methods of the day were the burning tobacco to clean the air, mud baths, blood letting, and mercury pills – all equally ineffective at best. Even netting around beds for the lucky who had them was not connected in the minds of people to stopping malaria – only a way of keeping biting and itchy insects off them while they slept.

Fast forward to today, where malaria is still a plague but not longer a mystery, except to the puzzle as to why mankind has not eradicated the disease now that we know the cause. How many more people will die from the bite of a mosquito? Will history continue to be altered because of malaria? This one quote says it all:

There are more people dying of malaria than any specific cancer.” — Bill Gates

Tags: Aaron Burr Alston, malaria, malaria in Colonial America, malaria in Colonial times, Malaria in South Carolina 1 Comment »

by Jerilee Wei

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 Jerilee Wei

Impressment of American Seamen

June 26, 2014 in American History

Most lovers of naval history will already know that the British were famous or rather infamous, for the impressment of British seamen during the late eighteenth century well into the early nineteenth century. Few, however, will remember that impressment of American seamen is often cited as a major contributing factor to the War of 1812. Great Britain’s struggles with Napoleon left her desperate to populate her gigantic navy with the number of seamen necessary to keep it operating. The duties of these seamen were not only hard labor but also emotionally difficult. Meanwhile, at the same time the American Merchant Marines were a much more attractive paid voyage towards both the unknown possible sea battles. American ships offered more comfortable accommodations, better food, and astonishing higher wages compared to their British counterparts. Both deserters of the Royal Navy and other British native seamen soon started flocking not only to American ships, but they also in turn became naturalized American citizens. This was a thorn of contention on both sides of the Atlantic.

The British government’s policy was clear — once a citizen, always a citizen. In turn, they claimed the right to stop American ships and seize seamen upon them and impress them back into their Navy. As bad as that was, it was also problematic because mistakes were frequent and American born seamen were also removed against their will. It was not only a huge big deal to American ship captains and owners of those ships but also problematic because British ships were stopping and searching their ships supposed for deserters. This was also a great outrage publicly when Americans were seized against their will and illegally.

Chesapeake Affair

All of this underlying tension came to a head when the United States frigate Chesapeake was stopped by the British Leopard during a British blockade of the Chesapeake Bay in June 1807. This incident snowballed into further British and American confrontations and led to even more crews deserting and a huge disagreement over whether or not these men were actually deserters, or whether or not they were British or American sailors. As the incidents between these two ships and their captain escalated tempers flew. Soon Americans across the nation were outraged at what became known as the “Chesapeake Affair” leading both nations to be on the brink of war. In an effort to avert war negotiations were entered into by 1811. While negotiations continued, war became inevitable both on land and the sea. By the time the H.M.S. Shannon would capture the U.S.S. Chesapeake on June 1, 1813 in Boston Harbor, this war was being battled on all fronts in a slug out to the finish. A little known fact is that by the end of the War of 1812 in 1815, there were no winners or victors despite claims on both sides. In fact, the War of 1812 is one war that altered history dramatically for all parties involved.

Tags: HMS Leopard, HMS Shannon, impressment of seamen, USS Chesapeake, War of 1812 2 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 »

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

The Meaning of Treason: United States v. Aaron Burr

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