A bundle of silences

A day without immigrants?

2006-05-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

I went to a pro-amnesty rally yesterday. I was mainly interested on a historical level, for what's taking place now is history in the making, and I want to experience and see it. But I was also interested in that I am opposed to this movement, which demands special privileges be given to those who have disregarded our laws; a movement which is predicated upon the false notion that this is a nation of immigrants and those who come here illegally are no different from my ancestors or the ancestors of any other American citizen.

This is a nation of immigrants and immigrant ancestors. Tens of millions of American citizens and their ancestors came here legally, by applying for citizenship and following the law. Many of them came from even more economically depressed conditions than the average Latino illegal from Mexico or Central America. The difference between them and those marching in our streets and demanding citizenship today is that they did not break in and demand to be made citizens. Many sold all or much of what they owned to be able to travel to this country and take their chances at being accepted. Being made a citizen was not a sure thing. Many who arrived on our shores were sent back home; Ellis Island is called the "Isle of Tears" for this reason.

At the rally on Sunday there were several hundred people. The flyers that were distributed in advance of the event featured a list of required attire and decorum on the back. The first regulation set by the organizers banned the carrying and waving of Mexican/Central American flags. After the backlash against the last round of protests, the organizers of this rally were looking to create an image of American patriotism. The American flags and protest signs were pre-made. A few marchers brought their own American flags (like the fellow below, who I thought was pretty cool), but most were plastic flags passed out by organizers. There were no signs proclaiming "Yanquis no! Raza, si!" or "Mi Gente Primero" or anything inflammatory. The premade signs (two of which you can see here and here) featured the image of the statue of liberty.

After about 15 or 20 minutes of waiting the first speakers arrived. Between the first presentation, which was all in Spanish, and the second speaker (who spoke in English), two girls went on stage to sing the national anthem. Before they began, the individual who introduced the singers asked those present to "show respect to this country" by removing their hats and to sing along with the anthem "if they knew the words." Well, despite the request being given in Spanish, I saw no one remove their hat for the singing of the anthem.

The two girls that were selected to sing the anthem were absolutely atrocious. In addition, no one sang along to the anthem. I heard no one in the audience even attempt to hum the melody. Now, is the American national anthem so unknown to these folks that they are incapable of at least humming along? The whole display just made me angry. The organizers went out of their way to present this movement in a patriotic light, but it fizzled.

Then one of the organizers, a Franciscan friar, got up to speak. In his presentation he spoke of how American immigration laws had become "more stringent" in recent years and that the proposed bill HR 4437 would "criminalize acts of mercy." What alternate universe is my habit-wearing friend living in?

After about 45 minutes of speakers I attempted to leave. I was on a street corner up against a line of police tape. The intersection had gotten so crowded that I couldn't exit to the right, left, or directly ahead. I was forced to cross over the police tape behind me. When I did so, a policeman approached me. "You can't come back here, sir," he said. I looked back at the crowd that made it impossible for me and my bike to get through. "I can't get out any other way, " I replied. The officer then led me out underneath another line of police tape. What I found ironic about the situation was that I was being admonished for crossing over this line of police tape, yet all around us were individuals who are in this country illegally.

The Cultural Report has more:

The most radical talk actually came from a Mr. Richard Jones, one of the few non-Hispanics present, who was introduced as “just another citizen.” After getting warmed up by comparing illegal immigrants to “runaway indentured servants” and soldiers in the American revolution, and Jones drew cheers when he declared, “We need you!”

He cried, “I am asking you to do something for us. Stay here!” Pausing for renewed cheers, he continued, “Do what you have to, to stay here. Break the rules! By nature, we [Americans] are rule-breakers who thumb our noses at authority.” Jones finished his speech to chants of “Si se puede! Si se puede!”

Mark Krikorian weighs in about the coming backlash.

Tom Tancredo imagines just what a "day without immigrants" might be like.

Nobody's business but the Turks

2006-04-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

A section entitled "Why Do They Hate America?" on the website for the film United 93 is utterly ahistorical:

Islam rebounded and expanded with the creation of the Ottoman Empire. They won back Constantinople (which changed hands several times before the modern day name change of Istanbul) and took Serbia in the key Battle of Kosovo where the Ottoman army met the Serb’s Christian forces. The year was 1389. Then, in 1683, the Ottomans went on the offensive again and took Austria in the decisive Battle of Vienna. This resulted in even more influence given to the Ottoman Empire in the state of European politics.

This is bad. Where to begin? Well, first of all, Constantinople was the chief city of the Byzantine Empire from the 4th Century until 1453 - when it was captured by the Ottomans under Mehmed II. Constantinople was never under the dominion of Islam before that period and hence could not be "won back" as this article claims. Nor did the city "change hands" several times before the name change. Second, the omission of the events that occured between 1389 and 1683 is rather conspicuous. What about Ottoman gains throughtout the Balkans during that period? What about Ottoman gains in the Mediterranean? The battles for Greece, Malta, and Cyprus? What of the war with the Holy League?

Third, Vienna was not captured by the Turks in 1683. The Ottoman siege was broken by the Polish king Jan III Sobieski. The battle was quite decisive, not only on the battlefield (15,000 Turkish casualties to the defenders' 4,000), but also in that it became the high water mark of Ottoman movement into Europe. After Vienna, the Turks were still able to influence European politics, but that influence was considerably less than it would have been had they captured Austria in the 1683.

Over the decades, with no clear identification with an empire, fundamentalism grew up within Islam with jihad as a focal point.

Let's ignore this term "fundamentalism" for a moment. It's such an unfortunate term. What Muslim does not follow the "fundamentals" of his religion? I take issue with the notion the notion that "fundamentalism grew" because there was no "no clear identification with an empire." One of the strongest current Islamic purity movements, the Wahabbis, came about as a reaction to the existence of the Ottoman Empire, which was viewed as corrupt and un-Islamic. Most militant Islamic purity movements owe their existence to the period of European colonial rule in the Middle East. After the failure of Arab Nationalism (adopted Western ideas) and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 (and after multiple failed attempts to destroy it), many Islamic thinkers began to consider Islam's fall from a position of world power the result of a deviation from "true" Islam.

Universal studios should consider hiring someone who at least knows the facts. Interpretation is debatable, but you should at least have your facts straight.

This makes me not want see this movie.

Poor Fractured Atlas

2006-03-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have heard about the student who recorded his 10th grade geography teacher. If not, the story is here and the audio is here (requires Quicktime). The teacher in question, Jay Bennish, is not merely preaching instead of teaching; his preaching is not based on sound scholarship - or scholarship at all for that matter. His claims, presented from a position of authority, do not have any basis in fact. I won't touch on his political views, but rather on some of his more outlandish historical claims. He makes wild claims and paints complex situations in broad and absurd generalizations. If Jay Bennish is any indication, then our schools are in trouble.

The following is a transcript I made of the recording:

Bennish: What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world?

Student: (inaudible)

Bennish: No, cigarettes. Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States. What part of the country grows all of our tobacco? Anyone know the states in particular?

Students: (inaudible)

Bennish: Mostly what's called North Carolina. Right? That's where all of the cigarette capitals are. Durham, North Carolina, that's where a lot of them are located from. Now, if we have the right to fly into Bolivia and Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing cocoa (sic) and that can be turned into cocaine and sold to us. Well then, don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their country every year and costing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

First, cocaine and tobacco are not equal. I don't think I need to go into much detail about that.

Worthy of more attention is this claim that the U.S. is the chief producer of tobacco. The United States and North Carolina are not the world's largest producers of tobacco. Nor are the largest tobacco companies located in North Carolina - let alone Durham - as this fellow claims. China is the world's largest grower and manufacturer of tobacco. China's yearly tobacco yield is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.4 to 1.7 million tons. That's more than double what was produced in the U.S. the last couple of years - 500,000 tons or less. The China National Tobacco Company is the world's largest tobacco producer, accounting for 32.7% of the world's total cigarette production. Only Philip Morris, which is based in Virginia and New York, comes close with a 17.3% share. If you add the two largest North Carolina firms together (R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard) you only get a 2.7% global share (here is a wiki link to these figures).

Today there are somewhere around 100 companies in China that produce cigarettes - most of which are directly controlled by the state. The reason? The Chinese smoke 2 trillion cigarettes a year - a demand that cannot be filled by American firms alone. The cash income derived from cigarette sales accounts for a substantial amount of the cash flow into the Chinese government's coffers.

He also mentions Iran and Peru. The most recent WHO report on tobacco use in Iran states that 26 to 30 million cigars and 16 billion cigarettes were produced there in 1994 alone. The estimated import figures for cigarettes into Iran during the 90s was somewhere around 15 billion annually. The major Iranian tobacco company, ITC, accounts for .5% of the global share of the cigarette market - which is significant considering where it is based. In Peru, the latest figures reveal somewhere in the range of 4 to 5 billion cigarettes produced domestically each year by three firms, including one owned by the Peruvian government. In both of these countries, tobacco and tobacco manufacturing is extremely important to the economy. Hence, his hypothetical situation in which China, Iran, and Peru bomb North Carolina due to skyrocketing healthcare costs is absurd.

But Bennish made another claim, so wild and so ahistorical, that I had to address it (and remember, he's saying this in front of a classroom of young adults who see him as an authority on these matters):

Bennish: The september 11th attacks were, according to bin Laden, a direct response to our, number one, support of the nation of Israel, which they consider to be a terrorist regime that does not have the right to control the land that the Palestinians lived on for over 1500 years....This is the whole thing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Well, who was there first? Well, if you believe the Bible, you say, 'well, God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites.' But who was in that land when they got there? The Canaanites - who some archaeologists would argue are the ancient descendents of the Palestinians.

When referring to "Palestinians," I'm assuming Bennish means the current group of Arabs who inhabit the land between Israel and Jordan. This current group of Arabs who self-identify as "Palestinians" are not the same as those who inhabited of the land of Israel, west bank, Jordan, and the Levant 1500 years ago. In the year 500, that part of the world was controlled by the Byzantine Empire. The inhabitants were not of Arab, but of Greek, European, and Jewish ethnicity. In the past 2000 years, Palestine has been inhabited by Jews, Romans, Greeks, Turks, Mongols, Persians, Arabs, and Europeans. Never could it be considered ethnically or culturally homogenous, and never in that period was there a "Palestine" with a Palestinian culture and identity. The "Palestinian" identity as it exists today dates from the early 20th century. In fact, as a result of the many conflicts which plague the Arab world and the money doled out by the U.N. and other NGOs in the West Bank and Gaza, Arabs (and even Africans) from all over have flocked to Palestine in the last few decades.

As far as Bennish's claim that "some archaeologists would argue [the Canaanites] are the ancient descendents of the Palestinians," I don't know of any credible archaeologists who believe this. No archaeologist could lay claim to this and still be considered credible. There is no archaeological evidence to connect the Palestinians - a group of Arabs not unlike any other group of Arabs in the Middle East - to the Canaanites. Canaanite culture is a separate entity from the ethnically diverse group that now self-identifies as "Palestinian." Racially, the old Canaanites and the current inhabitants of "Palestine" are both semitic groups; but, to be fair, so are the Jews. Both Jews and Arabs have gone through a considerable amount of intermarriage with Turks, Europeans, North Africans, Persians, Mongols, and Indians over the past 2,000 years. Accordingly, the terms "Arab" and "Jew" should be seen through the prism of 2,000 years of miscegenation. Cultural and ethnic homogeneity is rare in a part of the world that has been conquered dozens of times by dozens of cultures and ethnic groups.

But, being a Geography teacher, Mr. Bennish should have already known that.

While I'm bothered that Mr. Bennish has used his classroom as a forum for his political rantings, I'm more disturbed that his rantings are not based on history or sound scholarship. His absurd claims demonstrate that he is unqualified to teach a course on geography, let alone talk coherently about current political events.

The future of American public education looks bleak.

Counterrevolution and elite resurgence

2006-02-22T20:02:00.000-08:00

(continued from part 2 below)

J.G. De Roulhac Hamilton, in his work on Reconstruction in North Carolina, opens his chapter on the activities of the Klan with an apologia for the violence and intimidation utilized by the night riders, which allowed “the women of the South [to] once more leave their doors without the accompaniment of a deadly terror.” Hamilton excused Klan violence, although at times “oppressive” on the grounds that,

The old order with its security and stability had disappeared and the people of the South were confronted with problems which required immediate solution. Not the least pressing and important of these was that of the relation of the races, with its important bearing upon the labor question.

Afterall, “desperate diseases require desperate remedies.”

On one side, according to Hamilton’s interpretation, were the “unprincipled adventurers who had been lifted into political power by the Negro vote,” and on the other were Anglo-Saxon knights, out to guard white women’s honor, men who lifted the South from its “slough of despond” through illegal force. In reality, the Klan waged a war of terror against whites and blacks alike in Alamance County, the aim of which was a return to pre-war aristocratic control through the destruction of the coalition of white and black Republicans. Among those Hamilton acknowledges in his preface is J.A. Long, Klan chief of Alamance County, the architect of the counterrevolution.

There were three branches of the Klan in Alamance County: the White Brotherhood, the Invisible Empire, and the Constitutional Union Guard. These were subdivided into “dens,” “camps,” or “klans,” each with its own chief. In Alamance County, there were ten camps of the White Brotherhood and five camps of the Constitutional Union Guard. It is not known exactly how many members of the Klan there were in Alamance County, but Hamilton estimates the number to be somewhere in the 600-700 range. Much of the leadership is known, however, and it was dominated by the old county elite. J.A. Long, clerk of the Superior Court in Alamance County and the son of a prominent land owner, was head of the White Brotherhood and the Invisible Empire. Long owned 197 acres of land prior to the war and was among the 200 wealthiest men in the County in 1869.

Among Long’s fellow Klansmen were men who either currently occupied a public office, or had formerly held one, or who were the sons of men who had formerly held an office. John A. Moore, Alamance County’s representative in the North Carolina Assembly; A.H. Boyd, the chair of the county court; his son James Boyd; John G. Albright, a former magistrate; J.R. Stockard, a former magistrate; C.C. Curtis, a former magistrate; J.T. Trollinger, former chairman of county schools; Albert Murray, Sheriff; and William Stockard, a former magistrate were all known members.

Alamance Klansmen were men of considerable means. J.A. Long, George Anthony, and A.J. Patterson, were all camp chiefs. Long owned 197 acres in 1860; George Anthony owned 220 acres in 1860, and he and his son Daniel were among the fifty wealthiest men in the County in 1869; Patterson owned a vast tract of land in 1860 and was a significant tobacco planter. Judge A.H. Boyd and Alamance County Representative J.A. Moore -both known Klansmen - also possessed considerable wealth. Boyd was among the 30 wealthiest men in the county, Moore was among the 70 wealthiest. Other prominent Klan members such as C.C. Curtis and J.R. Stockard were among the 100 wealthiest men in the county, and John G. Albright was within the top 200.

Much of the early Klan activity was directed at those symbols, individuals, and institutions which bridged the gaps between whites and freedmen. Alonzo Corliss, a white man from New Jersey, came to Alamance to open a school for freedmen. With funds from the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, Corliss set up a school for freedmen in Mebane. He advocated racial integration and promoted blacks sitting among whites in congregations at Hawfields Presbyterian Church, Cross Roads Presbyterian Church, and Union Church in Company Shops. In the autumn of 1868, he was visited by night riders. The Klansmen whipped him, shaved his head, tarred it black, and severely beat him. Corliss was crippled and unable to defend himself or his wife from the attack of the Klansmen. A flag bearing the emblem of a coffin was placed near the Corliss School soon after the incident. It read: “Corliss and the Negroes. Let the guilty beware. Don’t touch. Hell.” Corliss charged four men with assault, but with the courts in the Klan’s pocket, he was powerless.

Another educator, a “Mr. Meder” was also the target of Klan hostility. Meder used the Company Shops School at night to teach freedmen. Jacob Long sent out a call “to put a stop to the nigger school.” On January 10, 1869, John Trollinger, the Chief of the Company Shops Camp and former chairman of county schools, ordered three men to burn the school. The men met at Trollinger’s Tavern, a center of Klan activity similar to Outlaw’s barroom in function, although its patrons were considerably more militant. Two men, John W. Long and Thomas Gray, set out from the Tavern to commit the deed. Gray doused the schoolhouse with kerosene and “burned it in defiance of the devil.”

The intimidation of blacks and the destruction of black schools were important tactics in the maintenance of aristocratic control in the county. Educated blacks were empowered blacks, and it was harder to force them into disadvantageous labor contracts. One of Thomas Ruffin Sr.’s overseers stated that his black workers had to “work and act slave fashion or tha (sic) can’t stay with me.” Cheap farm labor was a concern for men who had relied on slave labor prior to the war. Preventing blacks from attaining equality with whites tightened their dependent status. Violence and intimidation contributed to long-term supplies of cheap farm labor. Clinton A. Cilley, superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau for the Western District, commented on the level of unfair labor contracts:

Perhaps, two thirds of the Whites are willing to do well by their former slaves [and that] at least three fourths…are willing to employ Blacks…not more than two thirds are willing to give them fair prices….There are not one hundred men that I know of in this District who would deal out what I call justice to the Blacks, unless for the [Freedmen’s] Bureau.

From the surrender through December 1865, Freedmen’s Bureau agents settled over 2,000 labor disputes. The situation improved somewhat in 1866 and 1867, but blacks continued to file hundreds of complaints.

In one instance of unfair treatment of black laborers in Alamance County, known Klansman C.C. Curtis was accused of robbing black farm hands of the tobacco due them. In a letter dated August 29, 1868, a Freedmen’s Bureau member at Company Shops informed Albion Tourgee of the situation:

Six Freedpersons…contracted last year by written agreement with a Mr. C.C. Curtis, to make a Crop of Tobacco on shares. The freedpeople were to receive ½ of the Tobacco made on old Land. The freedpeople were to put the Tobacco in marketable order and he, Curtis, was to sell the Tobacco and to divide the money among them…but the Tobacco was not divided. The freedpeople now complain to me that they made some 11000 Lbs. Tobacco, that the Tobacco was ready for Market…that Curtis, instead of selling the Tobacco wholesale, is selling it in small quantities without the knowledge or permission of the freedpeople…Curtis claims there is nothing due the laborers, and that he refused to give them their due….

The agent encouraged the freedmen to sue for their share but informed Tourgee that “Mr. Thos. Ruffin, Atty at Law, is a silent partner with C.C. Curtis,” and that the freedmen are “needy…nearly all of them are now out of work because of their republican principles, and are forced to believe that their political enemies can discharge them from work without just cause.” The partnership of Thomas Ruffin Jr. and C.C. Curtis suggests a vested interest on the part of the Ruffin family (which owned a plantation at the confluence of Alamance Creek and Haw River, as well as a plantation in eastern Rockingham County) in maintaining elite control over labor contracts.

In early 1869, Mayor William Albright and the Graham town commissioners organized a patrol of armed men in response to the violence of the Klan. This patrol, comprised of white and black men, included Wyatt Outlaw. The patrol was used to enforce a curfew and stop all persons who came on the streets after 9 o’clock. The use of armed, black deputies was an outrage to the Klan. Caswell Holt, a former slave of textile manufacturer E.M. Holt, was the county’s first black deputy. Holt was whipped and shot by the Klan for enforcing the curfew against whites.

J.A. Long, the county Klan chief, ordered a night ride for the purpose of frightening the town patrol. According to J.G. De Roulhac Hamilton, 31 armed Klansmen rode into Graham, and when fired on by the alarmed officers, returned fire “to the extent that each one emptied his pistol.” No one was hurt, but the level of violence was increasing.

Klan violence spread to those blacks who were seen as bold and self-assertive. Daniel Jordan, an ex-slave of modest means by white standards, but considerably wealthy by Freedmen standards, received 50 lashes for owning a horse and buggy, which the Klansmen also seized. Intimidating assertive blacks struck at the root of black political participation and black-white political cooperation. Hamilton relates a poignant story, which is probably apocryphal, but which nonetheless reflects the same sentiment of perceived black impudence. In the story, a young former slave tells the daughter of his former master that he will one day marry her. The girl tells the boy to be silent, but the boy replies by promising her that if she utters a word of it to her mother, he will kill her. The girl informs her uncle, a Klansmen, who visits the boy with his fellows, and the boy is never heard of again. There were scores of whippings and murders in Alamance County and the Piedmont between 1868 and 1870. Hamilton records that twenty two whites were whipped, and two were warned for their activities by the Klan in Alamance County alone. Fifty four blacks were whipped, one hanged, and one shot by the Klan in this period in Alamance County as well.

The violence reached a crescendo in 1870. A group of somewhere between 75 and 100 Klansmen rode into Graham on the night of February 26. Their target was Wyatt Outlaw. He was seized by the night riders and taken to the courthouse square, where he was hanged from a maple tree. Filled with bloodlust, the Klansmen then rode around the home of Mayor Albright and attempted to bait him out. Albright refused and a rock was tossed through one of his windows. The next morning, Outlaw’s body was found hanging thirty yards from the courthouse, a note pinned to his chest read: “Beware! You guilty parties – both white and black.” Outlaw was the central figure in the political cooperation between blacks and whites in the county. This, coupled with his assertiveness and daring to be a town commissioner, had earned him a death sentence. William Puryear, “a semi-idiotic negro” who witnessed the event and recognized some of those involved in Outlaw’s murder, reported what he had seen. He was found some days later murdered - drowned in a nearby pond.

Governor William Holden, faced with a situation spiraling out of control, declared martial law in Alamance and Caswell County. Holden hired former Union raider and “bushwhacker” Colonel George W. Kirk to recruit a police force to restore order to Alamance. Kirk’s role as a raider in the western part of the state conjured unpleasant memories for North Carolinians, and his methods were described as “despotic.” Habeas Corpus was suspended, and men were held indefinitely under suspicion of their involvement with the Klan. Kirk arrested nineteen men in Caswell and eighty-two in Alamance County for suspected membership in the Klan. Kirk and his men also utilized torture to extract information about Klan activities. Suspected Klansmen William Patton and Lucien Murray were hung by a rope three times in order to force them to reveal the murderer of Outlaw.

Public opinion soon turned against Kirk for his use of these methods. In an article entitled “Who is Col. Kirk?” the Democratic Hillsborough Recorder referred to Kirk as a “phrenzied (sic) brute.” Even in the northern press, the methods of Holden and Kirk were deemed oppressive. The New York Times noted that “Ladies have been insulted [by Kirk’s men], and with their children, are flying to Virginia for protection.” Holden became highly unpopular, even among Republicans. As a result, the Conservatives were the overall winners in the 1870 fall elections and were able to gain a two-thirds senatorial majority. The Conservatives quickly moved to impeach Holden. After a forty four day trial, Holden was impeached by a vote of 36 to 13 and removed from office. Aristocratic control was being regained. Hamilton later wrote that “the second step in the overthrow of Reconstruction was complete.”

With the central representative figure of black-white political cooperation in Alamance dead and the Republicans both unpopular and discredited by the Kirk episode, North Carolina elites were poised to regain their former levels of power and influence. There was an immediate push by members of the conservative elite for a constitutional convention that would affect a return to the old system of county government. The measure was rejected, but the elites were gaining in power. Republicans controlled Alamance only by the narrowest of margins. County election returns for 1868 through 1872 show a gradual erosion of Republican dominance. The 1868 returns reveal a thirty eight vote majority for the Conservative NC gubernatorial candidate Thomas S. Ashe. Four years later, Alamance County selected the Democrat Augustus S. Merriam by a difference of 255 votes. Republicans carried the state for president and governor but lost the legislature to the Democrats in 1872.

An elite take-over of Alamance County’s political structure occurred in the wake of the 1872 elections. Thomas Holt, son of the prominent textile manufacturer E.M. Holt, was elected chair of the County Commission. Holt, displeased with Republican taxation on his mill, immediately changed the tax valuation on the Holt factory from $25,000 to $1,800. County power was back in the hands of the upper elite, and the interests of the oligarchs were once again protected. Ironically, Holt was not connected with the Klan. But his interests and those of the night riders dovetailed in their opposition to Republican control and black political action. Holt needed cheap labor; lower-class whites to fill his factory and blacks to work the fields. Klan intimidation proved a boon for him. Holt benefited from the death of Outlaw and the overturning of Republican control in the county, even if he had nothing to do with it.

But control was far from complete. In 1873, Judge Albion Tourgee sought the indictment of those responsible for Outlaw’s murder. The Grand Jury of Alamance County indicted sixty three Klansmen for felonies and eighteen for the murder of Wyatt Outlaw. Soon after the indictments were brought forth, Conservatives within the legislature passed a bill to repeal the law under which the indictments had been secured. The sixty-three felony charges were dropped. The Conservatives then cannily used a national program of “Amnesty and Pardon” to proclaim amnesty for all who committed crimes on behalf of a secret society. This was extended to the Klansmen of Alamance County. There would be no justice in the case of Wyatt Outlaw. The elites were tightening their control.

The Klan was by no means finished in Alamance County. With Holden impeached, Kirk gone, and the legislature firmly under the command of the elite, the Klan continued its assaults. In February of 1873, a band of night riders attacked the home of Alex Russell and stabbed him. Days later, a group of Klansmen paid a visit to a black family living on the land of J.W. Stockard. The group drove the family from its home with pistols. When Stockard approached the masked riders and asked them to leave, they threatened to kill him. The New York Times reported, “there are other instances of like character, and the whole community is in a state of terror.”

Throughout 1875 and 1876 elites set their sights on overturning the Republicans’ reforms once and for all. The elites successfully pushed for a constitutional convention in 1875 and were able to give the general assembly “power by statute to modify, change, or abrogate” the standing rules of county government. They had recognized that control of local-level state affairs was necessary in order to enforce their will. The 1876 election returns reveal the dissipation of Republican control at the county and state level. Alamance County only narrowly selected Rutherford B. Hayes as President by a majority of 55 votes; and they selected former secessionist Democrat Zebulon Baird Vance by a margin of 167.

Vance was the symbol of elite control in North Carolina. The reelection of a former Confederate governor demonstrated better than anything else how North Carolina had solidly returned to the hands of oligarchs. The main theme of the Vance campaign was racism. In order to convince poor whites to vote for constitutional amendments that would limit their political voice, Democrats told poor whites that it was imperative to surrender their political power to prevent the greater evil of black ascendancy. One Democratic newspaper played on racist fears: “Do you think Negro children and white children ought to sit side by side in the school house, and do you think Negroes and whites ought to intermarry?” A Democratic campaign message warned of “White Slavery” in the eastern part of the state, where there were black majorities. Democrats also appealed to the fear that blacks might make themselves masters under Republican rule. A Democratic circular thundered, “White Men of North Carolina Help Your Eastern Brethren By Voting for the Constitutional Amendments.” These tactics were successful. The state went for Democratic presidential nominee Samuel J. Tilden, and the Democrats were again able to secure their hold on the legislature.

In the following decades, elite control was maintained by a narrow margin. North Carolina had the most competitive political system in the South prior to 1900, as is reflected by the number of blacks elected throughout the state between 1870 and 1890. Edgecombe County elected eleven black men to the legislature during this period and New Hanover selected six. These, however, were eastern counties with black majorities. Statewide, forty three blacks were elected to the state house, and eleven were elected to the state senate during the same period. In addition, the Democrats were never able to secure more than fifty four percent of the gubernatorial vote.

But Republican victories were moot in light of elite control over local governments. In February 1877, the Republican reforms that made the election of Wyatt Outlaw and his Republican colleagues possible were eradicated. The legislature abolished elected county government and put control of local government back in the hands of appointed officials. The overthrow of Reconstruction was therefore complete. The elites had fully regained the control they had held prior to the war. Hamilton summed up the feelings of the elite after the destruction of the short-lived Republican rule:

Heart had been put into the despairing whites and a revolution had been wrought through [the Klan’s] operations, or, to be more exact, the results of a revolution had been overthrown and a form of government, wickedly, illegally, and unconstitutionally imposed upon the people, had come into the hands of the class best fitted to administer government, and the supremacy of the white race and of Anglo-Saxon institutions was secure.

Democracy in North Carolina had been overturned. Blacks were driven from the polls by violence, and poor whites were convinced that loyalty to one’s race trumped political power. Thus, at all levels, North Carolina’s government had been secured by the resurgent elites. Upper-class control in Alamance County after 1872 was so solid that Republican inroads were nearly impossible. As factory and mill owners voted, so voted their employees. John W. Harden, a local political strategist, remarked in 1892, “as [the Holts] go, their Factory Hands have to go too.”

The “disease” of Republican reform and the erosion of elite power required a desperate remedy. Elites saw Klan violence as a necessary evil needed to purge the state of lower-class political action and black aspirations of equality. Racial violence was a means to an end. The brief period of political cooperation between lower-class whites and freedmen was slowly forgotten, smothered by the violence of the Klan. Those who planned, instigated, and carried out Klan violence were once again the masters of North Carolina.

In 1876, the year of the end of Reconstruction in North Carolina, a white Baptist congregation bought the site of Wyatt Outlaw’s home. The two story building was removed and replaced with a church. Memory of the man Wyatt Outlaw faded away in the minds of many. Meanwhile, as memory of Outlaw faded, ex-Klan Chief Jacob A. Long went on to further prominence in the community after Reconstruction. Long worked as an attorney in Graham where he accumulated large tracts of land throughout the 1880s and 1890s. He built his law offices on a parcel of lot 41, north of the courthouse square. Every day on his way to the office, Long could see the tree where not only Wyatt Outlaw, but Democracy, was lynched.

Revolution and Reconstruction

2006-02-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

(continued from part 1 below)

None of the southern constitutional conventions of 1865 granted blacks the right to vote. There was the concern amongst Republican circles that the men who had held power prior to secession had returned to their former positions of control. In February 1866, the Republican Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill. It called for the distribution of land to the freedmen, provided schools for black children, and set up courts in Southern states to protect freedmen's rights. Andrew Johnson, who opposed black suffrage, vetoed the bill.

In March of 1866, Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill. It granted ex-slaves citizenship and gave them the right to contract and own land. Again Johnson used his veto. Once Johnson’s veto had been overturned by a two-thirds majority in both House and Senate, the perception began to grow in Congress that Johnson was being too lenient on the rebel states. After the failure of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, which would give blacks the right to vote, Congress abolished the governments of the South and set up five military districts which would rule over the South through Federal troops and martial law. In 1868, Johnson was impeached and congressional reconstruction began.

Facing a dictated peace, North Carolina’s gentry were apprehensive about the future. Most elite Tarheels had long felt contempt for the democratic beliefs of the lower class, who they judged to be inferior. The wartime behavior of yeomen confirmed the elites’ worst fears about the dangerous character of the masses. It seemed to the elites that the principle of hierarchy was threatened as never before. Not only had a substantial portion of their estates disappeared in the form of emancipated slaves, but lower class whites were threatening to enter into political alliance with the ex-slaves and overturn aristocratic control once and for all.

These fears were articulated in the words of Calvin Wiley, North Carolina’s leading educator. Wiley warned of the rise of a tyranny supported by “the negroes and the meanest class of white people,” which would “constitute a majority.” Base-born blacks and whites would form a dangerous combination. A despot would arise out of their majority, usurping the upper class and enforcing his power through reliance on a “vast and brutal soldiery.”

Jonathan Worth, Governor of North Carolina from 1865 to 1868, expressed his concern about whites “in Montgomery and Randolph, who are expecting to attain political ascendancy through the negro....The mean whites, cooperating with the negroes, may appropriate all the land.” Worth feared that the “cupidity of the propertyless, the majority in all Counties, will demand and enforce distribution of property.”

In determining the basis for suffrage under the 1865 constitution, heated debate arose among the elite. Thomas Ruffin, a citizen of Alamance County and a prominent jurist, voiced his opposition to the proposed constitution in 1865-66 on the grounds that the white basis for suffrage and representation was “the very worst basis,” because political rights were granted “according to the sense of the Community of the fitness of particular classes.” Before granting suffrage, the community needed to consider the homogeneity of the classes and the safety of the most “intelligent, virtuous, and valuable portion of the population.” In other words, lower class whites should not be allowed to vote.

Despite successful elite opposition to democratic reforms from 1865 to 1868, Congressional Reconstruction posed further threats to elite control. The 1868 Constitutional Convention had an overwhelming Republican majority of 107 to 13 as well as 15 Negro delegates. Under this new constitution, William Holden, a Republican and an outspoken opponent of the war, took the governor’s chair. Republicans won all but a single seat in Congress and more than two-thirds of the seats in the legislature.

At the local level, the average worth of the newly elected officials’ real estate fell considerably. In Alamance County, this figure dropped from $10,523 to $4,188 after the 1868 election. In terms of personal estate, the difference was more dramatic, falling from $26,388 to $1,400. These averages indicate that the old elites had largely been removed from their positions of power. A revolution was underway.

This revolution was due to a white-black political coalition. Energized by their new-found freedom and desire to improve their lot, freedmen entered very rapidly into politics following the war. Mass marches of blacks were visible very soon after the war. In 1865, at least 2,000 marched through Raleigh, carrying banners that read: “No slave lives beneath this flag!” and “Equal Rights before the law: the only equality we ask.” In Beaufort, more than 2,000 freedmen marched in an orderly fashion, proclaiming “all equal rights before the law, and nothing more.”

The freedmen convention, held September 29 through October 3, 1865, served to build an alliance between white Republicans and freedmen. The convention was “to take such measures as will advance the welfare of the colored people of this State....The white people...are about to hold conventions for the purpose of reconstruction, and it is necessary that the colored people should take steps as may influence these conventions and promote our good.”

In Alamance County, Wyatt Outlaw was the central figure in the white-black coalition. The illegitimate son of Chesley Faucette and a slave, Outlaw was a mulatto. He worked as a mechanic and cabinet maker on the Nancy Outlaw farm prior to the war and joined the 2nd Regiment U.S. Colored Cavalry in 1863. Being the son of a well-known member of the Red Strings and living among those opposed to Confederate policies, means Outlaw undoubtedly imbibed some of the rhetoric and Old Testament imagery of the Red Strings movement, which may have formed a foundation for his wider political consciousness. After returning home from the war, Outlaw attended the 1866 convention of the North Carolina Equal Rights League of Freedmen and was elected to the convention’s executive board.

After attending the convention, Outlaw organized the Alamance County Loyal Republican League, “a political organization of black and white workingmen.” Loyal Leaguers called each other “Pioneers,” after the term given to black railroad workers who rebuilt rail lines for the Union Army. Loyal Leaguers continued in the traditions and adopted the Old Testament symbols and rhetoric of the Red Strings movement. William Albright, a former Red Stringer and Mayor of Graham, was the most prominent member of the Loyal League, and he brought many of the symbols and ideas of the Red Strings movement into the Loyal League. Like Red Stringers, Loyal Leaguers would wear strips of fabric in their lapels to identify themselves to one another, and they inconspicuously tapped their lapels when passing fellow members.

The organization was established to help voters have the courage to vote, as well as to build a church and school in Graham, the Alamance County seat. Members were posted at each of the polling places at election time to see who voted, and how. This collection of symbols and ideas created a “collective self confidence," which made challenging the aristocratic system within Alamance County possible. Governor Holden commissioned Outlaw as a deputy member of the Union League’s “Grand State Council” in July of 1867. In 1868, he was named a county commissioner by Holden, and was later elected to the position.

Outlaw established himself on Graham’s North Main Street, where he worked as a carpenter and mechanic. He was the most prominent and propertied black man in Alamance County in 1869. Outlaw owned a town lot and was listed at a $200.00 tax valuation according to the 1869 census. Compared to white elites, Outlaw was lower-class, but his position in the black community made him uniquely suited to leadership. Outlaw also retailed liquor from his store. Black and white Republicans frequented Outlaw’s barroom, since the only other barroom in town was run by a violent Democrat, J.T. Trollinger. This was an important gathering place for Black and white Republicans and served as a center of Republican activity in the county.

In addition to Outlaw serving as County Commissioner, William “Red-Eyed” Albright became the mayor. Albright and his colleagues W.G. Clendenin, J.W. Harden, C.C. Cheek, and Outlaw had been elected to their positions with the help of the Loyal League.

Republicans brought about significant changes in state policy after 1868. Few were amenable to the old elites. The Republican legislature enacted a more progressive tax in 1868-1869 which provided that families could exempt a homestead, $500 of personal property, and $1,000 of real property. This tax fell more upon the propertied elite, who naturally owned more land and real property. The rates themselves also increased to 35 cent on every $100 of land and $1.05 on each poll. Alamance County taxes were set at 31 cent on every $100 of land. In 1870, the legislature tried to freeze the total state plus county taxation at 66 cent on each $100 of land. Higher taxes on land may have seemed to the old elites to be the first step towards outright confiscation of land as it had been foretold by Worth and Wiley.

The assertiveness of lower class whites and freedmen was bringing about the destruction of aristocratic control in Alamance County. This was a reality that the elites felt they had to prevent by any means necessary. However, Republicans were strongly opposed to any attempts on the part of the old elite to reclaim control over the county. W.A. Patterson, an Alamance County Republican, wrote to Governor Holden of his refusal to yield to conservatives, whom he termed “unhung rebels:”

I do not want such men to dictate and domineer over me and my friend[s] as has [been the case] for the last 8 or 10 years…Death is more preferable than such rule again. In my own county there has not been one instant as yet that the peoples wishes has been granted, both in the convention and the legislature.

Conservative elements reacted to these developments in different ways. William K. Ruffin, one of Alamance County’s most prominent men, wrote to Samuel A’court Ashe that he was leaving Alamance County because he was “surrounded…by a large number of free niggers instigated to the study of Deviltry by the malice and vengeful spite of a large Tory district.” Others were determined to meet revolution with violent counterrevolution. The Klan began to form in Alamance County.

Desperate diseases require desperate remedies

2006-01-30T19:17:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following as part of my senior seminar course in American Civil Rights history. I feel it is the best example of my historical research and writing thus far. Since it is around 30 pages long, I will present it in several sections. If a stray superscript number appears, indicating a footnote, just ignore it. I will remove all of the notes for now in the interests of a clean presentation. If you would like to see any of the references, feel free to ask.

“Desperate diseases require desperate remedies:”

Class, Race, and Reconstruction in Alamance County, North Carolina

Violence perpetrated against blacks in the American South has generally been blamed on poor whites. Rooted in the social reality of the South from the very beginning, racial violence was somehow inherent in the character of poor, ignorant, savage white men. The image we have today is of the rural, lower-class, uneducated, lout whipping blacks into submission. However, as Stephen Kantrowitz demonstrates in his biography of Ben Tillman, violence against blacks in Reconstruction South Carolina was instigated and carried out primarily by elites. The legacy of the Red Shirts, the Klan, and the night rides has left a congenital stain upon the cheek of the white South, an image of a poor white savage “lurking just beneath respectable restraint.” In the public perception, then, Klan violence became the natural white reaction to black emancipation, for it stemmed from a “cultural inheritance so deeply ingrained that it might as well be biologically rooted.” Elite men like Tillman constructed this image all throughout the South for the purpose of maintaining or returning to their position of control in their respective localities.

Alamance County, North Carolina, offers a rich example of how elites were able to utilize violence – in this instance in the form of the Ku Klux Klan – to effect a return to their aristocratic position of control. Alamance County, home to a sizable minority of unionists, saw intense class conflict before and after the war and experienced a brief black-white political coalition in the war’s aftermath. The county elites took to night riding, intimidation, and murder in order to overthrow a revolution in progress and reassert their control over the county and the state. Through violence, elites were able to reframe the debate from one of rich versus poor and yeoman versus oligarch to one of white man versus black man.

Class Divisions

North Carolina stood out amongst the states of the antebellum South as being particularly aristocratic. Its government was an oligarchy of prominent men elected by a small percentage of large land owners and planters. Property qualifications for high political offices meant that yeoman (small subsistence farmers) could not serve in the legislature. Up until the decade before the Civil War, North Carolinians could not vote for state offices unless they owned a set amount of land. It is therefore not surprising that the North Carolina legislature was conspicuously unrepresentative of the population on the eve of the Civil War. Despite the fact that less than one-third of North Carolina families owned slaves, 85 percent of the 1860 legislature was made up of slaveholders. This was the highest percentage of slaveholders in any southern legislature. Three percent of North Carolina slave holders were planters (20 or more slaves), yet more than 36 percent of the legislature was made up of planters.

In North Carolina slave property was not taxed on its value. The poll tax on free men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-four was the same for slaves between the ages of twelve and fifty, with no increase in the value of slaves over time. That is, there was no appreciation in the value of slaves for tax purposes. This was put in place by elites to insure that taxes on slaves remained low, for an increase in taxes on slaves meant an increase in taxes on everyone else. A movement among yeoman pushed for ad valorem taxation of slaves throughout the decade preceding the war, but this was only modestly successful. Elite lawmakers were still able to tie the slave tax to the land and poll tax, thereby insuring the tax would remain low.

Local governments also reflected the unrepresentative nature of the state government. Since colonial days, local authorities had exercised more power over the average citizen than state authorities. Counties were governed by oligarchies of prominent men, many of whom served in their positions for decades, only to pass their posts on to their sons. Of all the southern states, only South Carolina had a more aristocratic system of local government than North Carolina.

As the prospect of war approached, there were fears among the elite that those within the lower orders of North Carolina society would not support secession. On the eve of war in 1861, a member of the gentry remarked, “The people who did not own slaves were swearing that they ‘would not lift a finger to protect rich man’s negroes.’” These fears were not without foundation. The Civil War would in fact widen class cleavages and upset the aristocratic control North Carolina elites had held since colonial days.

When the war began, lower class North Carolinians soon perceived that this was a “rich man’s war.” Laws were created to insure that slaveholders were protected from military service. The “Twenty Nigger Law” exempted the owner or manager of 20 or more slaves from military service. Wealthy men were also allowed to hire substitutes to serve for them. When compared with the policy of conscription for those of lesser property and wealth, these laws created a great deal of widespread resentment. Private O. Goddin wrote to Governor Vance, “the Gov’t. has made a distinction between the rich man and the poor man who fights for that he never will have….we will have a revolution unless something is done…the majority of our soldiers are poor men with families who say they are tired of the rich mans war & poor mans fight….”

Disaffection and opposition to the Confederacy was widespread in Alamance County. A meeting of Unionists took place near Alamance Battleground on the anniversary of the Regulators’ fight against colonial officials. The Unionists raised an American flag and reaffirmed their allegiance to the United States. At a constable election, one of the candidates utilized ballots emblazoned with the Eagle, as emblematic of his attachment to the Union. In the southern part of the county, militia refused to muster under the flag of the Confederate States and defended themselves from arrest with arms in their hands. There were fears that this might escalate into violent opposition.

Elsewhere, disaffection escalated into overtly class-oriented violence and theft. Draft resisters and deserters formed the nuclei of thieving bands that roamed the countryside. Food riots erupted in 1863 and 1865 in which bands of armed women seized corn from state officials. Partisans known as “buffaloes” ransacked the homes of wealthy individuals and appropriated luxury goods for their own use. An angry landowner wrote to Josiah Collins that “Young Wm Adkinson has got possession of my Carriage & Buggy and has a pair of your best mules & is driving over the County. He has furnished his house with Mr. C.L. Pettigrew’s furniture….” Property had become so insecure that many amongst the elite feared the worst for their estates. What the aristocracy viewed as crime became justifiable acts of resistance in the eyes of the masses.

By 1864, a secret organization had formed in North Carolina to help men evade conscription and to preserve the Union. Known as the “Red Strings” from the Old Testament story of Rahab, this organization had a significant presence in Alamance County and the Piedmont. While not basing their critique of Confederate policy on class issues, their rhetoric played well with lower class North Carolinians. Among the gentry, there was also the fear that a form of radical agrarianism lay at the root of the Red Strings movement. Many were concerned that the Red Strings would favor confiscation and redistribution of land from large landholders. While there was no basis for this suspicion, it was powerful nonetheless. Key members of the organization in Alamance County were “Red-Eyed Will” Albright, a town commissioner, and Chesley Faucette, Alamance County's representative in the North Carolina legislature. These men would later play an important role in the Reconstruction of Alamance County. Faucette’s son, Wyatt Outlaw, would play a central part in the drama of Reconstruction.

By the war’s end, North Carolina was gripped by tumult. Banditry and violence within the state had continued unabated and only ceased with the arrival of Federal troops in 1865. The war had exacerbated class cleavages and made the disaffection and outrage of yeomen towards the elite more pronounced. The controls North Carolina aristocrats had exercised over local and state governments were destroyed by internecine violence and the arrival of Federal troops. Out of the ashes there would emerge a democratic revolution.

Caesar in China

2005-09-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

In modern day Kansu Province, China, not far from the city of Yongchang, lie the ruins of an ancient settlement. Chinese records dating from the 1st century CE refer to this small village as Li-jien. This would be nothing of note - since many small, desolate ruins dot the Kansu corridor - if it were not for the significance of the name Li-jien. This name, it has been argued, is one of several Chinese names for Rome. Roma, The empire that stretched from Gaul to Syria, the empire that was Han China’s only comparable counterpart. As with the Romans, what the Chinese knew about Rome was spotty. This area was often characterized in vague terms. In fact, the vaguest possible term, Ta-Ch’in, which meant simply “Greater China,” was employed most often when referring to the lands beyond the marches of Han China. Rome was the largest country beyond the borders of China, hence Ta-Ch’in became the most common term for the realm of the Caesars. For many years, the two empires had contact only through middlemen in Parthia and later Sassanid Persia. There are reports of Roman merchants making it through to Chinese trading posts, but these are unconfirmed.

The point at which the name Li-jien came to be applied to the tiny settlement cannot be determined with certainty. Historians do know that sometime prior to the reign of Wang Mang, usurper to the Chinese throne (8-23 A.D.), there existed a settlement on the same spot. Wang Mang’s reign and policies offer us some clues as to who may have lived in this settlement. Holding closely to Confucian principles, Wang Mang adopted a policy of “rectifying names,” which held that towns and cities should have names that best reflect their character. As part of this policy, Li-jien was renamed Jie-lu, which means “caitiffs taken in storming a city.” Some take this as proof that the origin of the name Li-jien lies in the Roman soldiers who were captured at Che-che’s city.

This would mean that the Romans were brought back to China as a group and given a place to settle. Not only that, but it suggests there were sufficient number of Romans to justify forming a settlement around them. After Wang Mang was overthrown and the Han dynasty restored, the name of Jie-lu was done away with and the name Li-jien was readopted. It has been suggested in some Chinese historical texts that the name Li-jien was used to refer to the settlement until it was overrun several hundred years later.

Current residents of the area claim to have European traits. Some point to red hair and unusually tall stature amongst locals as proof of Roman blood. Recent excavations have unearthed exceptionally tall, supposedly European, skeletons. None of this evidence is proof of Romans. The location of Li-jien, near Mongolia and along the Silk Road, means it has been subject to two thousand years of cultural transmission, including intermarriage. Fair skinned Mongols and other barbarians have moved all over the territory upon which Li-jien is situated. No artifacts that would conclusively indicate the presence of Romans, such as religious items, Latin script, or even arms and armor have been uncovered. Some point to walls exhibiting Roman construction methods, but this is also inconclusive.

The recent historical light that has been focused on Li-jien has energized local party bosses to proclaim the site a national historical monument – without even a shred of proof. The excitement has gotten absurd, and has almost completely strangled any objectivity that may have existed in the investigation. This designation makes it difficult, if not impossible, for interested historians and archaeologists to dig there. Now that it is a national monument, all that matters is what the party says, and the party says that it is a Roman town. Even those outside the fold of the Communist Party have latched onto the Li-jien legend. A local Buddhist priest claims to have been visited by the spirit of Julius Caesar, who, he claims, was once a resident of the town of Li-jien. In addition, a small Roman style portico and a statue have been built in the city of Yongchang to commemorate the city’s Roman ancestors. It’s become accepted fact on all levels of Chinese society that Li-jien was inhabited by Roman prisoners from the legions of Crassus.

If impartial archaeologists were allowed to survey Li-jien then it could be determined fairly conclusively whether or not Romans inhabited the site. Until that day (if it ever comes), supporters of the theory can only point to the body of literary evidence, which on the whole, is not strong enough to hold up as fact the notion that Romans lived in China.

But for some, the possibility is all that matters. And it is certainly possible, right?

Perhaps not.

What we know Han policy on captured barbarians does not support the theory. 145 Romans was too small a number to be allowed to found a city. Han frontier policy dictated that barbarians who submitted to Chinese authority exist as an administrative district known as a shu-kuo or a pu, which was under a type of military commandery. This was only if the barbarians surrendered their lands and there were sufficient numbers to constitute a settlement. The transformation from shu-kuo or pu to hsien or chün (a county) normally took a long time. Li-jien appears to have been a regular hsien without ever having undergone this process of transformation.

Small groups of elite barbarian soldiers, which would doubtless include the Romans, were commonly organized by the Chinese into special fighting units and put under a Chinese military official in charge of frontier barbarians. These units were known as “voluntary barbarian followers.” Why would the Chinese settle these elite warriors instead of drafting them into their own army?

It is doubtful whether Li-jien ever contained barbarian settlers at all, given what is known about Han barbarian policy. In Han China, the name hsien was changed to tao when it contained a foreign settlement. For instance, in An-ting there was a Yueh-chih tao (the Yueh-chih were a group of Indo-European barbarians). Had Li-jien been home to Romans it would be called a tao, not a hsien.

But until the site of Li-jien is thoroughly excavated, we shall not know for certain whether this was a settlement of captured Roman soldiers in China.

Fields of Fire

2005-09-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Between the father and his son

Between the city and the one

Between the teacher and the test

Between the journey and the rest

The shining eye will never cry

The beating heart will never die

The house on fire holds no shame

I will be coming home again

Four hundred miles

Without a word until you smile

Four hundred miles

On fields of fire

The Roman prisoners, according to ancient historians, were taken east to the Parthian capital of Seleucia (which is near modern day Baghdad). After this, the prisoners were then taken still further east to the city of Margiane (also known as Merv), which is situated in modern day Turkmenistan. Here, the western accounts end. Some historians have argued – without any solid evidence – that the Romans were brought here to serve as border guards in the Parthian army. Given what we have in the way of documentary and archaeological evidence (which at this time is none) any speculation is as good as another. It could alternatively be suggested that the Romans were brought to Margiane to be held as prisoners or slaves in some sort of penal colony or work project.

The fact that numerous empires and peoples (Persians, Arabs, Turks, Uzbegs, Russians) have conquered and occupied the site for over two thousand years makes the task of uncovering evidence of misplaced Roman soldiers more akin to finding a needle in a haystack than anything else. Digging through the vast, rugged and often uninhabitable landscape of central Asia, with it’s multitude of nomadic civilizations, empires, ethnic groups, and over half a century of Soviet domination is a daunting task for archaeologists and historians. It is an area that could not be more unsuitable for archaeological work, especially detective work of this magnitude.

Even so, historians make due with what they have. And what historians do have are strands that may have been connected somewhere in modern day Turkmenistan. But before we can get back to our Romans, we must have some back-story.

The outer territories of China were populated in those days by nomads known as the Hsiung-nu (pronounced Shong-noo). The Hsiung-nu were comprised of multiple tribes that were united in a confederacy and ruled over by an appointed lord known as the Shan-yü (Prince). For many years, the Hsiung-nu plagued the northern limes of China, raping and pillaging and creating a great deal of havoc. Eventually, the Hsiung-nu Confederacy and Han Empire came to an agreement of mutual toleration. The Hsiung-nu Shan-yü agreed to recognize the Chinese Emperor as “The Son of Heaven” (which was the title of Chinese Emperors) if, in return, the Chinese would not meddle in their affairs and supply them with regular infusions of loot. This amounted to extortion, but since the Han were in no mood to wage fruitless wars against the elusive nomads, they relented. As part of the agreement, the Chinese made the Hsiung-nu agree to deliver the son (or sons) of the reigning Shan-yü as captives in the court of the Han capital. This was intended to prevent the reigning Shan-yu from attempting any acts of war as well as inculcating the Shan-yü’s son with Han customs.

For some time this arrangement worked well. The Hsiung-nu were supplied with loot - which was distributed amongst the various chiefs - and the sons of the Shan-yü’s were sent to serve as captives in the capital. Until one day there arose a dispute amongst the Hsiung-nu as to who should be the Shan-yü. Two claimants arose in the 40s BCE. The most important claimant to the title of Prince for our purposes was a chief named Che-che (or Jzh-jzh or Zhizhi). Che-che was what today we might call a “hardliner.” He wanted to return to the days when the Hsiung-nu raided Chinese territory at will, raping, pillaging, and taking captives. He saw the current state of affairs as betraying their ancestors, as a state of servitude to a foreign master. As a result there arose a war amongst the Hsiung-nu. Despite being a formidable warrior, Che-che was soon forced to flee into the west with his loyal followers, far away from his opponents who supported a more moderate Shan-yü.

Che-che and his followers, now exiles, raided across the far western lands of Greater China, subjugating many smaller tribes and increasing their infamy. After becoming quite well known, a small kingdom not far form Parthia requested Che-che’s aid in defeating another group of nomads that had been plaguing their kingdom. This was the kingdom of Sogdiana, one of the kingdoms established long ago by Alexander the Great. In return for his services, Che-che was offered a place to settle, as well as the daughter of the king of Sogdiana. Che-che agreed and quickly defeated the barbarian tribe that was plaguing the kingdom. With this accomplished, Che-che established a city in the kingdom.

Hsiung-nu warrior, far right

During the time of the controversy, the sons of both Shan-yü were kept at the Han capital as captives. Che-che, despite being a hardliner, understood how important it was to court the favor of the Han Emperor. But now that he had been sidelined even amongst his own people, there was no longer any need to put up pretenses. He sent emissaries requesting the return of his son. When the Han government ambassadors returned his son, Che-che had them brutally killed. It amounted to an act of war against the Han Empire. Now that Che-che was far away from the borders of China and firmly ensconced in another kingdom he perhaps thought he was above the law. He was wrong.

Che-che’s haughtiness was only matched by his brutality and lust for power. Feeling confident, Che-che killed the daughter of the Sogdian king and declared himself ruler of the kingdom. This resulted in a state of war between the Sogidans and the followers of Che-che. Everything was ready to boil over into a blood bath.

It’s at this point the Romans may have entered the picture. The “Lost Legion” was four or five hundred miles from Che-che’s city in 36 BCE. It has been suggested that the Romans, now perhaps settled into their life in Margiane, got wind of the great warrior Che-che and decided to offer him their services as mercenaries. The likelihood of the Romans making it 400 miles across a burning desert populated by hostile barbarians is debatable. How exactly the Romans were able to abscond from Parthian territory cannot be determined. Yet, a passage in the Hanshu (the history of the former Han dynasty) suggests that they may have done just that.

The Han General of the Western Territories, aware of Che-che’s act of war and the possible threat he posed to Chinese trade and expansion, launched a massive campaign to crush him in the spring of 36 BCE. Tens of thousands of troops converged on Che-che’s city that summer, surrounding it. They were joined by the Sogdians who wished to also oust the power mad Che-che. The chronicler of the Hanshu, writing of the siege from a second-hand account, described “a group of several hundred foot-soldiers outside the gate closely arrayed in a formation like the scales of a fish,” and a wall around the outside of Che-che’s city in the form of a “double palisade of wood.”

To anyone not attuned to Roman modes of warfare, these passages would be overlooked as meaningless details in an otherwise bland description of a siege. But to those who are familiar with how Romans fought, these passages are quite significant. For one, the formation of the foot-soldiers, described as “like the scales of a fish” is remarkably similar to a Roman military formation known as the testudo. Testudo, the latin word for “turtle,” was the name of a military formation in which the soldiers on the sides and front would raise their shields up to form a wall while the soldiers in the center raised their shields above their heads – thereby creating a huge turtle shell capable of deflecting missile fire. Furthermore, Roman shields have a very distinctive shape that could appear to look like fish scales to a foreign observer. It has been suggested that the Chinese witness of this formation, lacking other means to describe an infantry formation he had never witnessed, likened it to the appearance of fish scales. This argument is bolstered by the fact that barbarian soldiers did not fight in formation, preferring to charge forward in a disorganized horde.

The testudo

The “double palisade of wood” is also a remarkable detail for several reasons. For one, nomadic barbarians were not known to have employed wooden walls in surrounding their encampments. It was common for them to build earthen mounds of varying size, but wood appears almost never in descriptions or archaeological remains of Hsiung-nu fortifications. Second, and perhaps most importantly, wooden walls - in this case it has been suggested by translators – a “palisade,” was a common defensive method employed by the Roman army. The Palisade was to the Romans what trench works were to the armies of the First World War, an indispensable part of siegecraft. In fact, many Roman legionaries would probably have spent more time cutting down trees and building fences than actually fighting barbarians! It is asserted that the Romans, acting as advisors to Che-che, fortified the city in preparation for the Chinese attack.

Despite the presence of the Romans and the likely hastily built palisade, the Chinese overwhelmed Che-che’s outer fortress. According to the account, the probable Romans fall back into the citadel. Che-che, ever the bloodthirsty warrior, brings his concubines up onto the battlements to help him fight. The women take up bows and fight to the death to protect their lord. The effort is in vain. Each is killed in turn by Chinese crossbow fire. Che-che himself has his nose shot off by an arrow. The Chinese began to burn everything, pressing their advantage from all sides. Now holed up inside the citadel, Che-che had nowhere to go. A Chinese captain entered the citadel and bested him in close combat, severing his head. The chronicler then records that 145 men were taken alive. Some historians connect this number to the Roman foot-soldiers, asserting that the Romans remained in formation and surrendered only when they saw their employer was dead.

So what we have is this: “Several hundred” Roman mercenaries engaged in combat against the Chinese army at Che-che’s city in 36 BCE. 145 of them survived and were taken prisoner by the Chinese general. If true, it is a remarkable occurrence, since the Han Chinese and Romans would more or less parallel each other but never meet on the battlefield.

But the story goes even further, adding yet another fascinating chapter to the journey of the men from Rome....

Defeat

2005-09-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

In 54 BC, Roman Triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus led 42,000 troops into Mesopotamia. Initially successful, Crassus was able to quickly take several small towns. However, as winter approached, Crassus retired to his quarters in Syria to await the arrival of his son, Publius. The campaign was postponed until next spring. In the meantime, the Parthians were able to gather all of their strength and prepare themselves for any further Roman incursions.

The Parthian armies were comprised almost exclusively of cavalry, which suited the flat, vast, and harsh terrain of the Parthian Empire well. The vast majority of those serving in the Parthian military were horse archers, while a much smaller component was made up of heavily armored knights known as “cataphracts.” Parthian horsemen were formidable due to an amazing feat of dexterity known as the “Parthian Shot.” The “Parthian Shot” involved being able to ride a horse using only the strength of one’s legs while the upper body fired the bow (this was before the advent of the stirrup). Parthian horsemen were capable of firing as they approached their target and then firing once more as they rode away. This allowed Parthian horsemen to perform deadly hit and run attacks with their compound bows – which easily sliced through the heaviest armor.

A Parthian cataphract (left) and horse archer (right).

The force Crassus brought with him into the Parthian Empire was comprised mainly of infantry, the formidable Roman legionaries. The common Roman legionary was armed with a large, broad shield and a short sword. Some Romans carried either bows or a weapon known as a “pilium,” which was a type of javelin. Attached to this force of legionary infantry was a small force of cavalry from Gaul (Germany and France). The fact that the majority of the Roman army was comprised of infantry would be their undoing. Slow moving infantry forces could not function effectively in the wide-open terrain and blazing heat of Parthia. What had worked for the Romans in Europe and Asia Minor would not work in Mesopotamia.

With the coming of the next spring, 53 BC, Crassus set out to conquer the rest of Parthia. Crassus hired an Arab chief, known as Ariamnes, to guide his forces through Mesopotamia. It would prove a monumental mistake.

Ariamnes, secretly loyal to the Parthians, guided the Romans along a desolate route through the most arid desert. Through this method, Ariamnes was able to lead Crassus aimlessly through the desert to no end. The troops were not only sensitive to the heat but were also deprived of water. Ariamnes would ride along the Roman column and taunt the Roman troops: “Are you dreaming of shade and streams of water?” He asked. “Would you care for a drink?” Cassius, one of Crassus’ senior generals - who was wise to Ariamnes - remarked to him:

With what drugs and jugglery did you persuade Crassus to pour his army into a
yawning and abysmal desert and follow a route more fit for a robber chief of
Nomads than for a Roman imperator?

Ariamnes soon quit the employ of the Romans. But the damage was already done.

Crassus’ scouts brought back word of the enemy not far from their present position. The men were immediately put into battle order. While marching to the field to meet the Parthian force, the Romans came upon a small stream. The men rejoiced that finally they might get a drink of water. The officers thought they ought to rest there, but Crassus urged them on to battle. They were then ordered to eat and drink as they stood in the ranks. Crassus’ men went into battle tired, hot and thirsty from the march.

The picture brought back by the scouts seemed favorable. From a distance, the Parthian force seemed small. However, whether it was a mirage of the desert or some sort of Parthian deception, the Parthian force was actually much larger than the Romans thought. Crassus, itching for a fight with an enemy that had been slipping through his fingers, led the Romans forward into battle he was confident of winning.

The Romans were arrayed in a formation totally unsuited to battle against the Parthians. Formed into squares of several thousand men, the Roman ranks made easy targets for Parthian arrows. Marching forward in this formation, the slow Roman infantry was quickly enveloped by the Parthian horsemen, who began firing on them from all sides. The barbed Parthian arrows sliced through Roman armor and shields with ease, riveting hands to shields or simply pinning men to the ground, utterly helpless. For the men in the tight infantry formations, the situation was not pretty:

…being crowded into a narrow compass and falling one upon another, [the Romans]
were shot, and died no easy or even speedy death. For, in the agonies of
convulsive pain, and writhing about the arrows, they would break them off in
their wounds, and then in trying to pull out by force the barbed heads which had
pierced their veins and sinews, they tore and disfigured themselves the more.
Thus many died, and the survivors also were incapacitated for fighting.

The Romans were almost totally incapable of getting to grips with the Parthian troops, who moved swiftly around them, pouring an almost constant stream of arrows into the Roman ranks. Those the Parthian archers failed to kill were hunted down and killed by the Parthian cataphracts, impaled on long lances. Only the Roman cavalry were capable of putting up any sort of fight. They, however, were easily overwhelmed by the Parthians’ superior numbers.

A Persian coin depicting the "Parthian Shot."

Crassus’ son, Publius, was killed – decapitated – his head paraded on a Parthian spear as a trophy of battle. This enraged Crassus, who vowed revenge. Despite his vehemence, the Romans were so utterly beaten that he found it impossible to rally them. A general rout began.

By nightfall 20,000 Romans lay dead. Ten thousand more were taken prisoner by the Parthians. Crassus, despondent at the loss of his son and now any hopes of remaining Triumvir of Rome, retreated with the majority of his men. A group of Parthians found Crassus, lured him out from his men on the pretext of wishing to talk of a truce, and murdered him. His head was severed, wrapped, and sent to the Parthian king. Thus Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives passed out of history.

But the story does not end here.

The ten thousand Roman prisoners, the “Lost Legion” were taken to the Parthian capital, Seleucia, where they were paraded as captives and mocked. After this, nothing more is recorded of the Roman soldiers in western sources. There is no concrete evidence of where they went or what became of them. It was assumed they were made slaves, killed, or that they simply married into the local population. Yet, some point to a tantalizing reference in Chinese history books, an event that occurred over 2,000 miles from the deserts of Mesopotamia – a reference to men who could have been a remnant of the “Lost Legion.”

A reference that, if it were true, would mean Crassus’ Roman soldiers were the first westerners to ever walk the “Silk Road” and make contact with the Chinese – over 3,500 miles from Rome and 1,300 years before Marco Polo...

Silence, sand

2005-09-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

In Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes, a man disappears and is never heard from again. Or, rather, to the outside world - the "known" world - he "vanishes." Many theories are advanced as to the man's whereabouts, but he cannot be found. There is not even a body. Not a trace of him is discovered. To the world "outside" he is officially declared dead after being lost for seven years.

But the man is not dead. In fact, he is alive.

He has slipped between the cracks of society. The evidence of life - the things that make up our existences - the noise that we produce as human beings, leaves a mark upon the world. Societies and individuals leave evidence of their existence - they leave physical records of themselves. The man has fallen into a realm that is characterized by silence. He might as well have no existence.

To a historian, Kobo Abe's man would be dead. His life would only be a silence.

And yet, so much of history is sorting out silences. From the very first written records until the present day, the historian is confronted with emptiness. Empires generate a great deal of noise in history, but they are surprisingly silent. There is so much that remains hidden about even mighty Rome. Along the frontiers of Rome, in the sands of Mesopotamia, men had the tendency to "vanish" and never be seen or heard of again. Not only was this harsh desert, but a land populated by Rome's enemies: robber chieftains, and into the far marches of the east - multitudinous barbarians. It was an easy place for men to disappear.

Rome's chief enemy in the east, straddling the Tigris and Euphrates, was a dynasty of Persian people known as the Parthians. The Parthians were a settled people who inhabited parts of today's Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and portions of Afghanistan. The Parthian's principle cities, Ctesiphon and Seleucia, were important trading cities along the route between the far east and Rome, and this allowed them to act as middlemen in a lucrative trade of goods coming from both Han China and the Roman Empire. Although militarily quite small, Parthian horsemen were formidable in the wide-open and harsh terrain of Mesopotamia's deserts.

Beyond Parthia lay largely unknown territory. The only reason the Romans were able to know anything of this area was because of the conquests of Alexander the Great and his lieutenants during the 4th century BC. Alexander had, up to that point, gone further than any conqueror in history. He'd conquered everything from Athens to western India. The records he left were the only information westerners had to go on when studying the east. This information, which was somewhat outdated - and sometimes wrong - was supplemented by second-hand accounts by Greek merchants and other travellers, which, at best, was itself often dubious.

This area was populated by nomadic tribes of various barbarian groups. Among them were the Scythians (also known as the "Sakas" or "Sacae"). The Scythians were a powerful group of nomadic barbarians whose influence stretched from the Don River, around the Black Sea, and down to the Danube. Their size and influence often brought them into conflict with the more settled people of the Persian Empire. The Scythians were reputedly very strange. The Persian emperor Darius was surprised to see Scythian horsemen abandon their horses in the middle of a battle to chase after a rabbit they had spotted. In addition to being a bit odd, the Scythians were highly ferocious and accomplished warriors. Scythians made drinking cups out of the heads of their enemies and displayed them like trophies on their person. Their ferocity proved a serious enough challenge for the great Persian emperor Darius, so serious that he was forced to give up attempting to bring them to heel. Since there were no Scythian cities to hold, Darius could win no victory against them. After a long, drawn-out, and bloody campaign, Darius was forced to return home. The Scythians dominated the Black Sea area from 700 BC to 300 BC.

Around the time of Roman penetration into Asia Minor, similar groups of barbarians, the forerunners of groups such as the Mongols, roamed the territory beyond Parthia. It was no less dangerous and no less "barbaric" than it was during the time of Darius. The phrase "wild, wild east" would be apt.

It's at this time, 55 BC, that the chief loser in our story comes onto the stage of world history. Marcus Licinius Crassus, Along with Julius Caesar and Pompey, was that year made one of the Triumvirs of Rome. Crassus, an old ally of Julius, was a man of wealth who had more than once helped Caesar out of financial dire straits (Marcus' full name, Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives literally means "Marcus Licinius Crassus The Rich"). His money had financed many a project, both public and private. Yet despite his wealth, he was not as esteemed as Caesar or Pompey. While the other two triumvirs were great conquerors who enjoyed the honorific of "Triumphator" - that is, "Triumphant One," a victorious army commander - Crassus enjoyed no such military glory. Crassus' only claim to military fame was the suppression of the Spartacus revolt in 71 BC, which was not viewed with much respect by the Romans. The suppression of a slave army was not seen as a proper military victory, even a force as dangerous and notorious as the one assembled by Spartacus.

In order to satisfy his vanity and propel himself to new heights of glory and fame in the eyes of the Roman public, Crassus hatched a plan. He began look to the east to enhance his glory and enrich his purse. With the words "go east, old Roman, go east" ringing in his ears, Crassus saw to it that he was made Proconsul of the province of Syria. This was to be his jumping-off point for a war against the Parthians, a war, he reckoned, would be won quickly - thereby enhancing his status as not only Rome's wealthiest man, but also its mightiest conqueror.

The impending move against Parthia was met with indignation in Rome. The Parthians had never done anything against Rome, and it was seen as unjust for Crassus to invade them unprovoked. Yet, despite the vehement opposition of many of Rome's influential politicians, Crassus went ahead with his bold plan. In 54 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives led 42,000 men into the deserts of Mesopotamia. It was to be the one of the most disastrous military blunders in history, and the beginning of one of history's greatest missing person cases: Crassus' Lost Legion.