The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the largest armed uprisings in American history. From August to September 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia, more than 10,000 coal miners confronted state and federal troops in an effort to unionize the West Virginia mines. It was the final act in a series of violent clashes that have been termed the Red Neck War, from the colour of neckscarves worn by the miners.
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Stand Watie (12 December 1806-9 September 1871) (also known as Degataga “standing together as one,” or “stand firm” and Isaac S. Watie) was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the American Indian cavalry made up mostly of Cherokee, Creek and Seminole.
Please forgive me if I mispronounce any of these names or places.
Stand Watie Born the son of Oo-watie (David Uwatie) and Susanna Reese, who was of Cherokee and white heritage at Oothcaloga in the Cherokee Nation, Georgia (near present day Rome, Georgia) on December 12, 1806 (also known as Degataga “standing together as one,” or “stand firm” and Isaac S. Watie) was a leader of the Cherokee Nation and a brigadier general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the American Indian cavalry made up mostly of Cherokee, Creek and Seminole.
He attended Moravian Mission School at Springplace Georgia, and served as a clerk of the Cherokee Supreme Court and Speaker of the Cherokee National Council prior to removal. He was the brother of Gallegina “Buck” Watie (Elias Boudinot). The brothers were nephews of Major Ridge, and cousins to John Ridge. The Watie brothers stood in favor of the Removal of the Cherokee to Oklahoma and were members of the Ridge Party that signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, in defiance of Principal Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokees. The anti-Removal Ross Party believed the treaty was in violation of the opinions of the majority of the tribe and refused to ratify it. Watie, his family, and many other Cherokees emigrated to the West (present-day Oklahoma), in 1837 and settled at Honey Creek.. Those Cherokees (and their slaves) who remained on tribal lands in the East were forcibly removed by the U.S. government in 1838 in a journey known as the “Trail of Tears” during which thousands died. The Ross Party targeted Stand and Buck Watie and the Ridge family for assassination and, of the four men mentioned above, only Stand Watie managed to escape with his life.
Following the murders, Stand Watie assumed the leadership of the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction and was involved in a long-running blood feud with the followers of John Ross. He also was a leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which bitterly opposed abolitionism. Watie, a slave holder, started a successful plantation on Spavinaw Creek in the Indian Territory. He served on the Cherokee Council from 1845 to 1861, serving part of that time as speaker.
Watie was the only Native American on either side of the Civil War to rise to a Brigadier General’s rank. After Chief John Ross and the Cherokee Council decided to support the Confederacy (to keep the Cherokee united), Watie organized a regiment of cavalry. In 1861, he was commissioned as a colonel in the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles. Although he fought Federal troops, he also used his troops in fighting between factions of the Cherokee, as well as against the Creek and Seminole and others who chose to support the Union.
A portion of Watie’s command saw action at Oak Hills (August 10, 1861) in a battle that assured the South’s hold on Indian Territory and made Watie a Confederate military hero. Afterward, Watie helped drive the pro-Northern Indians out of Indian Territory, and following the Battle of Chustenahlah (December 26, 1861) he commanded the pursuit of the fleeing Federals, led by Opothleyahola, and drove them into exile in Kansas. Although Watie’s men were exempt from service outside Indian Territory, he led his troops into Arkansas in the spring of 1861 to stem a Federal invasion of the region. Joining with Maj. GEn. Earl Van Dorn’s command, Watie took part in the bAttle of Elkhorn Tavern (March 5-6, 1861). On the first day of fighting, the Southern Cherokees, which were on the left flank of the Confederate line, captured a battery of Union artillery before being forced to abandon it.
Watie is noted for his role in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, a Union victory, on March 6-8, 1862. Watie’s troops captured Union artillery positions and covered the retreat of Confederate forces from the battlefield. After Cherokee support for the Confederacy fractured, Watie continued to lead the remnant of his cavalry. He was promoted to brigadier-general by General Samuel Bell Maxey, and was given the command of two regiments of Mounted Rifles and three battalions of Cherokee, Seminole and Osage infantry. These troops were based south of the Canadian River, and periodically crossed the river into Union territory. The troops fought a number of battles and skirmishes in the western confederate states, including the Indian Territory, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Texas. Watie’s force reportedly fought in more battles west of the Mississippi River than any other unit. Watie was elected principal chief of the Confederate Cherokees in August 1862.
Watie, or troops in his command, participated in eighteen battles and major skirmishes with Federal troop during the Civil War, including Cowskin Prairie (April 1862), Old Fort Wayne (October 1862), Webber’s Falls (April 1863), Fort Gibson (May 1863), Cabin Creek (July 1863), and Gunter’s Prairie (August 1864). In addition, his men were engaged in a multitude of smaller skirmishes and meeting engagements in Indian Territory and neighboring states. Because of his wide-ranging raids behind Union lines, Watie tied down thousands of Federal troops that were badly needed in the East.
Watie’s two greatest victories were the capture of the federal steam boat J.R. Williams on June 15, 1864, and the seizure of $1.5 million worth of supplies in a federal wagon supply train a the Second battle of Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864. Watie was promoted to brigadier general on May 6, 1864, and given command of the first Indian Brigade. He was the only Indian to achieve the rank of general in the Civil War.
On June 23, 1865, at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nations’ area of Oklahoma Territory, Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives, becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down.
As a tribal leader after the war, he was involved in negotiations for the 1866 Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty and initiated efforts to rebuild tribal assets. Watie and his nephew Elias C. Boudinot were arrested for evading taxes on income from a tobacco factory, and were plaintiffs in the Cherokee Tobacco Case of 1870, which negated the 1866 treaty provision establishing tribal tax exempt status. As a result of this case, Congress officially impeded further treaties with Indian tribes, delegating Indian policy to acts of Congress or executive order.
Waite then abandoned public life and returned to his old home along Honey Creek. Watie married four times, the first three before tribal relocation to the west. His fourth marriage in 1843, to Sarah Caroline Bell, produced five children. He died on September 9, 1871. He is buried in Polson Cemetery in Oklahoma, near southwest Missouri.
A special thank you to Christian A. and Jim W. for helping out with the information in this episode. The sources I used will be linked to on the website.
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William Wallace was a Scottish knight who led a resistance to the English occupation of Scotland during significant periods of the Wars of Scottish Independence. William was the inspiration for the historical novel The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie written by the 15th century minstrel Blind Harry. This work is more of a novel than a biography and is responsible for much of the legend encompassing the history of William Wallace.
William Wallace also known as Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Well here is the real story…
Sir William Wallace, one of Scotland’s greatest national heroes, leader of the Scottish resistance forces during the first years of the long, and ultimately successful, struggle to free Scotland from English rule.
His father, Sir Malcom Wallace, was a small lander owner in Renfrew. In 1296 King Edward I of England deposed and imprisoned the Scottish king John de Balliol and declared himself ruler of Scotland. Sporadic resistance had already occurred when, in May 1297, Wallace and a band of some 30 men burned Lanark and killed its English sheriff. Wallace then organized an army of commoners and small land owners and attacked the English garrisons between the Rivers Forth and Tay. On Sept. 11, 1297, an English army under John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, confronted him at the Forth near Stirling Castle. Wallace’s forces were greatly outnumbered, but Warenne had to cross a narrow bridge over the Forth be for he could reach the Scottish positions. By slaughtering the English as the crossed the river, Wallace gained an overwhelming victory. He captured Stirling Castle, and for the moment Scotland was nearly free of occupying forces. In October he invaded northern England and ravaged the countries of Northumberland and Cumberland.
Upon returning to Scotland early in December 1297, Wallace was knighted and proclaimed guardian of the kingdom, ruling in Balliol’s name. Nevertheless, many nobles lent him only grudging support; and he had yet to confront Edward I, who was campaigning in France. Edward returned to England in March 1298, and on July 3 he invaded Scotland. On July 22 Wallace’s spearmen were defeated by Edward’s archers and cavalry in the Battle of Falkirk, Stirling. Although Edward failed to pacify Scotland before returning to England, Wallace’s military reputation was ruined. He resigned his guardianship in December and was succeeded by Robert de Bruce (later King Robert I) and John Comyn “the Red”.
There is some evidence that Wallace went to France in 1299 and thereafter acted as a solitary guerrilla leader in Scotland; but from the autumn of 1299 nothing is known of his activities for more than four years. Although most of the Scottish nobles submitted to Edward in 1304, the English continued to pursue Wallace relentlessly. On Aug. 5, 1305, he was arrested near Glasgow. Taken to London, he was condemned as a traitor to the king even though, as he maintained, he had never sworn allegiance to Edward. He was hanged, disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered. In 1306 Bruce raised the rebellion that eventually won independence for Scotland.
Many of the stories surrounding Wallace have been traced to a late 15th-century romance ascribed to Henry the Minstrel, or “Blind Harry”. The most popular tales are not supported by documentary evidence, but they show Wallace’s firm hold on the imagination of his people.
The source for this information was Encyclopedia Britannica.
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The Great Hinckley Fire was a major conflagration that burned an area of more than 400 square miles (1000 km²), killing 418 to 459 people in the process. The fire occurred on September 1, 1894 and was centered at Hinckley, Minnesota. After a two-month drought, several fires started in the pine forests of Pine County, Minnesota. The main contributor to the fire was apparently the then-common method of lumber harvesting, which involved stripping trees of their branches, littering the ground with such detritus. Another contributing factor was a temperature inversion that trapped the gases from the fires, the fires developed into a firestorm, with flames reaching over four miles (6 km) high and temperatures reaching 1000 degrees Fahrenheit (550 °C). Some people were able to escape by climbing into wells, or by reaching a nearby pond or the Grindstone River. Others escaped by jumping onto two crowded trains that were able to get out of town. James Root, an engineer on a train heading south from Duluth, was able to rescue nearly 300 people by backing a train up nearly five miles to Skunk Lake, where people could escape the fire.
On Saturday, September 1, 1894 between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., a great firestorm consumed and destroyed Hinckley and 5 smaller communities, namely Mission Creek, Sandstone, Miller, Partridge and Pokegama.
Picture a land covered with giant pines, some hardwoods, many swamps and small rivers; a virgin land untouched. Then, in 1870 the lumbering companies arrived and many lumbering camps, saw mills, railroads and finally villages developed. The area around Hinckley prospered and Hinckley incorporated in 1885. By 1894, Hinckley grew to a population of nearly 1400.
Over the years, lumbermen had reaped the best of the timber. Left was the ground choked with limbs and stumps from the trees that the loggers had felled. The slashings lay where they fell getting dryer and dryer each year. The summer of 1894 was extremely hot and dry. Little rain had fallen over a period of three months and conditions were ripe for fires. Many small fires had been set from the sparks of the many trains passing through and lumber companies routinely set fires to clear their slashings. The air was constantly hazy from the smoke.
September 1st would have gone by as had each day before except for certain conditions. there were an unusual number of small scattered fires and a temperature inversion covered the entire area keeping the atmosphere filled with smoke and haze. About 10:00 that morning a breeze sprang up out of the southwest fanning the smoldering fires into open flames and creating fires large enough to break through the inversion and reach the cooler air on top. With the cooler air feeding down into many fires now raging, the wind and fire became fierce. As people fought the multiple fires, it soon became apparent that it was a losing battle. By mid afternoon, a gigantic wall of flame developed as the smaller fires, fed by the wind and cool air combined into a racing cyclonic fury.
As the fire consumed its territory, 418 people perished in Hinckley and the surrounding communities. The fire left a path of death and destruction too horrible to believe. About 28 people killed in Pokegama (now Brook Park) and about 80 perished from the Sandstone area. The fire covered 400 square miles consuming nearly everything in its path. It was impossible to outrun the wall of flame. Many tried but perished. People were saved in the Grindstone River and in a water filled gravel pit in the center of Hinckley. Two trains, the Eastern Minnesota (a division of the Great Northern) and the St. Paul & Duluth Railroad (later Northern Pacific) were instrumental in saving many lives. The heroic courage of the engineers of these trains saved hundreds of lives as they took survivors to Superior and Duluth where the two cities prepared to feed and house those that escaped.
The panic massive exodus which occurred as hundreds fled the fire separated many of the families and in many cases it was several days of anxious worry and waiting until they knew if their loved ones were alive and safe.
Those that somehow survived in water holes, potato fields, or by some other miracle were in very poor condition. Their lungs were burned from the hot air, their eyes swollen shut from the smoke and their arms and legs badly burned and blistered. Many of the survivors were in shock.
One of the many heros of this tragedy was the telegrapher stationed at the St. Paul and Duluth Depot in Hinckley. Tommy Dunn remained loyal to his post and waited for orders. Eventually the very tracks the trains traveled on burned and no orders came. The young telegrapher perished in the fire. He had been determined to save the people of this area. His last know message that he tapped out on his key to the agent in Barnum was “I think I’ve stayed too long” Tommy Dunn had waited until it was too later for his own escape.
Following the fire, a group of seven brave men dared to venture out from the gravel pit where they had been saved and made their way on foot to Pine City which had not been touched by the fire. As that community was awakened by the horrifying news, they immediately prepared a train loaded with medicine, food and clothing. The train was on its way by 10:00 p.m. that night. Help also came from the north bringing doctors and supplies to what remained of Hinckley.
Before the fire, Hinckley was a prospering town and was well known as the “hub” of the lumbering industry in Minnesota. Two major railroads brought up to 22 trains a day through the town. Thanks to the courage and determination of a small group of local men, it was decided to rebuild Hinckley. Relief housing was set up immediately by the State and Hinckley was reborn out of the ashes.
After the fire, the huge Hinckley depot was rebuilt exactly as it had been before the fire. Today it houses the Hinckley Fire Museum that tells in detail the story of the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894.
Just to the east of town is the Hinckley Fire Monument which memorializes the 418 people that died. Beneath it are the four trenches where 248 victims are buried.
Beginning at the north end of Hinckley, just off Co. road 18 is the abandoned railroad bed that was the means of saving hundreds of lives. Today, it is a beautiful and well groomed bike and snowmobile trail.
Come visit the Fire Museum which is open May 1st through mid October interpreting the story of the great fire of 1894. A historic walking tour highlighting many points of interest is available at no charge. Location is 106 Old Hwy 61 South, Hinckley.
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This a a request from the history hotline. John Brown was a militant American Abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va., in 1859 made him a martyr to the anti-slavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War (1861 – 65).
John Brown was a militant American Abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va., in 1859 made him a martyr to the anti-slavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War (1861 – 65).
Moving about restlessly through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, Brown was barley able to support his large family in any of several vocations at which he tried his hand; tanner, sheep drover, wool merchant, farmer, and land speculator.
Though he was white, in 1849 Brown settled with his family in a black community founded at North Elba, N.Y., on land donated by the New York antislavery benefactor Gerrit Smith. Lon foe of slavery, Brown became obsessed with the idea of taking overt action to help win Justice for enslaved black people. In 1855 he followed five of his sons to the Kansas Territory to assists antislavery forces struggling for control there. With a wagon laden with guns and ammunition, Brown settled in Osawatomie and soon became the leader of antislavery guerrillas in the area.
Brooding over the sack of the town of Lawrence by a mob of slavery sympathizers (May 21, 1856), he concluded that he had a divine mission to take vengeance. Three days later he led a nighttime retaliatory raid on a pro-slavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek, in which five men were dragged out of their cabins and hacked to death. After this raid, the name of “Old Osawatomie Brown” conjured up a fearful image among local slavery apologists.
In the spring of 1858, Brown convened a meeting of blacks and whites in Chatham, Ont., at which he announced his intention of establishing in the Maryland and Virgina mountains a stronghold for escaping slaves. He proposed, and the convention adopted, a provisional Constitution for the people of the United States. He was elected commander and chief of this paper government while gaining the moral and financial support of Gerrit Smith and several prominent Boston Abolitionists.
In the summer of 1859, with an armed band of 16 whites and 5 blacks, Brown set up a headquarters in a rented farmhouse in Maryland, across the Potomac from Harpers Ferry, the site of a federal armory. On the night of October 16, he quickly took the armory and rounded up some 60 leading men of the area as hostages. Brown took this desperate action in the hope that escaped slaves would join his rebellion, forming an “army of emancipation” with which to liberate their fellow slaves. Throughout the next day and night he and his men held out against the local militia, but on the following morning he surrendered to a small force of U.S. Marines who had broken in and overpowered him. Brown himself was wounded, and 10 of his followers (including two sons) were killed. He was tried of murder, slave insurrection, and treason against the state and was convicted and hanged.
Although Brown failed to start a general escape movement among slaves, the high moral tone of his defense helped to immortalize him and to hasten the war that would bring emancipation.
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I’m back. Thank you all for hanging in there while I was away on my business trip. I got back earlier this week. If you are new to the show welcome. You can find more information about this podcast at historypodcast.blogspot.com.
As you just heard I have a very special podcast for ya’ll this week. My good friend Christy from Phsyecology and Podcast for Good was able to meet me while I was on my business trip. We met at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. As you heard in the beginning of the podcast Robert Jones will be giving us the low down on Kennesaw, Gerogia. You may have heard the large booms in the background, they had re-enactors at the park outside the museum during our recording and they were firing cannons. You also heard a bugler from the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
Next I would like to play an interview Christy co-hosted with me while at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, which is also in Kennesaw, Gerogia. And now for our interview of Robert Jones, President of the Kennesaw Historical Society. You may notice that my voice and Christy’s is a lot lower than Robert’s this is just a result of real-life recording. Enjoy the podcast.
Sorry, I don’t have the transcript of our converstaion.
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This one is a request from the history hotline. Jomo Kenyatta born 1894 in Ichaweri, British East Africa. African statesman and nationalist, the first prime minister and then president of independent Kenya.
Jomo Kenyatta born 1894 in Ichaweri, British East Africa. African statesman and nationalist, the first prime minister and then president of independent Kenya.
Kenyatta was born as Kamau, son of Ngengi, southwest of Mount Kenya in the East African highlands. His father was leader of a small agricultural settlement; his grandfather was a murogi, or diviner, known for his knowledge of medicine and magic. Like all Kikuyu boys, Kamau learned hunting skills, close observation, memory discipline, social obligations and responsibilities, and family clan history. From his grandfather he learned herbal remedies and gained a respect for spiritual knowledge and powers of the diviner.
At about the age of 10 Kamau became seriously ill with jigger infections in this feet and one leg, and he underwent successful surgery at a newly established Church of Scotland mission. This was his initial contact with Europeans. Fascinated with what he had seen during his recuperation, Kamau ran away from his home to become a resident pupil at the mission. He studied the bible, English, mathematics, and carpentry and paid for his fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a European settler. In august 1914 he was baptized with the name Johnstone Kamau. He was one of the earliest of the Kikyu to run away from the confines of his own culture. And, like many others, Kamau soon left the mission life for the bright lights of Narobi.
He secured a job as a clerk in the Public Works Department and during WWI. There enjoyed relative affluence. He added the name Kenyatta, the Kikuyu term for a fancy belt that he wore. After serving briefly as an interpreter in the High Court, Kenyatta transferred to a post with the Nairobi Town Council. About this time he married and began to raise a family. According to his younger brother, he was “not interested in politics.”
The African political protest movement in Kenya against a white-settler-dominated government began in 1921-the East Africa Association (EAA), led by an educated young Kikuyu named Harry Thuku. Kenyatta joined the following year. One of the EAA’s main purposes was to recover Kikuyu lands lost when Kenya became a crown colony in 1920. The African’s were dispossessed, leaseholds of land were restricted to white settlers, and native reservations were established. In March 1922 Thuku was arrested; he was later deported and overt protest was silenced. Kenyatta however, continued to work privately for the EAA as propaganda secretary. As a government employee, he was supposed to avoid politics, but he managed to remain inconspicuous. In 1925 the EAA disbanded as a result of government pressures, and its members reformed as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). Three years later Kenyatta became its general secretary, though he had to give up his municipal job as a consequence.
In May 1928 Kenyatta launched a monthly Kikuyu-language newsletter Mwigithania (“He Who Brings Together”), aimed at gaining support from all sections of the Kikuyu. The paper was mild in tone, preaching self-improvement, and was tolerated by the government. But soon a new challenged appeared. A British commission recommended a closer union of the three East African territories (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika). Settler leaders supported the proposal, expecting that internal self-government might follow. To the KCA such a protest looked disastrous for Kikuyu interest; in February 1929 Kenyatta went to London to testify against the scheme.
In London the Secretary of Stat for Colonies refused to meet Kenyatta, but several groups critical of British colonialism aided him; the League Against Imperialism arranged a brief trip to Moscow for him, from August to October 1929. The following July Kenyatta attended the International Negro Workers’ Conference at Hamburg. His hosts urged the unity of the black proletariat as a worldwide exploited class, but Kenyatta’s interests remained rivetted on the sufferings of his own people. On March 26, 1930, he wrote an eloquent letter in The Times of London setting out five issues championed by the KCA: (1) security of the land tenure and the return of lands allotted to European settlers; (2) increased education facilities; (3) repeal of hut taxes on women, which forced some to earn money by prostitution; (4) African representation in the Legislative Council; and (5) noninterference with traditional customs.
He concluded by saying that the lack of these measures “must inevitably result in a dangerous explosion-the one thing all sane men wish to avoid.”
Again in 1931 Kenyatta’s testimony on the issue of closer union of the three colonies was refused despite the help of liberals in the House of Commons. In the end, however, the government temporaily abandoned its plan for union. Kenyatta did manage to testify on behalf of the Charter Land Commission. The commission decided to offer compensation for some appropriated territories but maintained the “white-highlands” policy, which restricted the Kikuyu overcrowded reserves. Kenyatta again visited the Soviet Union (he spent two years at the University of Moscow) and traveled extensively through Europe; on his return to England he supplied information on Phonetics to researchers at University College, London, and studied anthropology under Bronislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics. His thesis was revised and published in 1938 as Facing Mount Kenya, a study of the traditional life of Kikuyu characterized by both insight and tinge of romanticism. The study defended a way of life that was already deeply eroded, and it ignored the extensive adaptations the Kikuyu had made to European culture. The book signaled another name change to Jomo (Burning Spear) Kenyatta.
During the 1930s, Kenyatta briefly joined the Communist Party, met other black nationalist and writers, and actively organized protests against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The onset of WWII temporarily cut him off from the KCA, which was banned by the Kenya authorities as potentially subversive. Kenyatta maintained himself in England by lecturing for the Workers Educational Association and working as a farm laborer. But he continued to produce political pamphlets publicizing the Kikuyu cause.
Kenyatta helped organize the fifth Pan-African Congress, which met in Manchester on Oct. 15-18, 1945, with W.E.B. Du Bois (Da Boyz) of the United States in the chair Kwame Nkrumah, the future leader of Ghana, was also present. Resolutions were passed and plans discussed for mass nationalist movements to demand independence from colonial rule.
Kenyatta returned to Kenya in September 1946 to take up leadership of the newly formed Kenya African Union, of which he was elected president in Jun 1947. From the Kenya African Teachers College, which he directed as an alternative to government educational institutions, Kenyatta organized a mass nationalist party. But he had to produce tangible results in return for the allegiance of his followers, and the colonial government in Kenya was still dominated by unyielding settler interests. The “dangerous explosion” he had predicted in 1930 erupted in Kenya as the Mau Mau rebellion of 1952.
On Oct. 21 1952, Kenyatta was arrested at his home at Gatundu. Police seized documents and arrested 98 other African leaders. Despite government efforts to portray Kenyatta’s trial as a criminal case, it received worldwide publicity as a political proceeding. In April 1953 Kenyatta was sentenced to a seven-year imprisonment for “managing the Mau Mau terrorist organization.” He denied the charge then and afterward, maintaining that the Kenya African Union’s political activities were not directly associated with Mau Mau violence.
The British government responded to African demands by gradually steering the country toward African majority rule. In 1960 the principle of one man-vote was conceded. Kenya nationalist leaders such as Tom Mboya and Oginga Odinga organized the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and elected Kenyatta (still in detention despite having completed his sentence) president in absentia; they refused to cooperate with the British while Kenyatta was detained. In a press conference Kenyatta promised that “Europeans would find a place in the future of Kenya provided they took their place as ordinary citizens.”
Kenyatta was released in August 1961, and, at the London Conference early in 1962, he negotiated the constitutional terms leading to Kenya’s independence. KANU won the preindependence election in May 1963, forming a provisional government; Kenya celebrated its independence on Dec. 12, 1963, with Kenyatta as prime minister.
A year later Kenya became a one-party republic with a strong central government under Kenyatta as president. Kenyatta presided over the complex problems of post independence development and instructed his United Nations delegates on the subtleties of a “non-aligned” foreign policy. Always-in spite of his imprisonment by the British authorities-one of the more pro-British of African leaders, Kenyatta made Kenya the stablest black African country and one that attracted foreign investment on a broad scale. Under his leadership the economy prospered; agriculture, industry, and tourism all expanded. He died at Mombasa in 1978.
From Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol.6, p.808
One note before we get to the listener apprecation segment. I will be away for the next two weeks on a extended business trip without access to my podcasting gear. Before I leave I hope to put up another podcast from Tom Barker on the Mongol Invasion. So stay tuned for that and I will put up another podcast just as soon as I get back from my business trip so please stay subscribed.
The winner of last months book contest was Christian from Higley, Arizona. Christian will be receiving a copy of The Brothers Bulger from the gracious people at Warner Books. We will be delaying the book contest next month, since I won’t be available most of the month.
This episodes frapper mappers are:
1.Tony Paull from Ottowa, Ontario 2.Megan from Medford, MA 3.Mark Sawyer from Portland, Oregon 4.Len from Woodstock, Illinois 5.Leslie Lewis from Huntington Beach, CA
Thank you all for listening. You can also email me at historypodcast@gmail.com and visit the website at historypodcast.blogspot.com.
The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as “The Rape of Nanking”, refers to the most infamous of the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II—acts carried out by Japanese troops in and around Nanjing, China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the period of carnage lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938.
During the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, a large number of innocent men were wrongfully identified as enemy combatants and killed. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.
The extent of the atrocities is hotly debated, with numbers ranging from the claim of the Japanese army at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that the death toll was military in nature and that no such atrocities ever occurred, to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000. The West has generally tended to adopt the Chinese point-of-view, with many Western sources now quoting 300,000 dead. This is in no small part due to the commercial success of Iris Chang’s “The Rape of Nanking”, which set the stage for the debate of the issue in the West; and the existence of extensive photographic records of the mutilated bodies of women and children.
The massacre is a major focal point of burgeoning Chinese nationalism, and in China, opinions are relatively homogenous. In Japan, however, public opinion over the severity of the massacre remains divided. The event continues to be a point of contention in Sino-Japanese relations.
That was Intect opening up the show again. Today our friend Tom Barker will be doing a guest podcast on the rape of nan jing. Stay tuned after the end of Tom’s contribution because today is the last Thursday of the month which means we will be giving away The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr. Warner Books was nice enough to donate a book to give away to the awesome listeners of HistoryPodcast. A quick word of caustion. This episodes content may be disturbing to some.
Sorry, no transcript for this guest podcast.
Thank you very much Tom! If you would like to contribute your own guest episode to historypodcast please contact me via historypodcast@gmail.com.
Now on to our listener appreciation segment.
This past Tuesday was Ron aka the Griddlemaster’s birthday from griddlecakes radio.
There are currently 121 frapper mappers on the map.
Todays frapper mappers are:
Doug Hoyer from Kailua, Hawaii Doug says “Aloha from Hawaii history buffs! Hey, Hey! I am the 1st History Podcast guy from the entire Pacific!”
Xanthippe from Zurich, Switzerland
Rick from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rick Says “Hi from Colorado springs!”
Robertas from Lithuania
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We have had two guest podcasters on this month. Who were they?
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The struggle between church and state in Mexico broke out in armed conflict during the Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929. This was a popular uprising against the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.
After a period of peaceful resistance, a number of skirmishes took place in 1926. The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927 with the rebels calling themselves Cristeros because they felt they were fighting for Christ himself. Just as the Cristeros began to hold their own against the federal forces, the rebellion was ended by diplomatic means, in large part due to the efforts of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow.
Thank to Juan for calling into the history hotline. Since Juan is the first person to call in a request using the history hotline his request goes straight to the top of the list making it todays subject. Opening the show was Intelect with PodTheme.
The struggle between church and state in Mexico broke out in armed conflict during the Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929. This was a popular uprising against the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917.
After a period of peaceful resistance, a number of skirmishes took place in 1926. The formal rebellion began on January 1, 1927 with the rebels calling themselves Cristeros because they felt they were fighting for Christ himself. Just as the Cristeros began to hold their own against the federal forces, the rebellion was ended by diplomatic means, in large part due to the efforts of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow.
The 1917 Constitution
Five articles of the 1917 Constitution of Mexico were particularly aimed at reducing the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexican life. Article 3 demanded secular education in schools. Article 5 outlawed monastic religious orders. Article 24 forbade public worship outside of church buildings, while Article 27 restricted religious organizations’ rights to own property. Finally, Article 130 took away basic civil rights of members of the clergy: priests and religious leaders were prevented from wearing their habits, were denied the right to vote, and were not permitted to comment on public affairs in the press.
The anticlerical mindset of the government extended also to superficial changes made to place names to “laicize” them. For instance, the state of “Vera Cruz” (closely resembling the phrase “True Cross”) was renamed Veracruz.
Background to rebellion
When the anti-Catholic measures were enacted in 1917, the President of Mexico was Venustiano Carranza. Carranza was overthrown by the machinations of his one-time ally Álvaro Obregón in 1919, who succeeded to the presidency in late 1920. While sharing the anti-clerical sentiments of Carranza, he applied the measures selectively, only in areas where Catholic sentiment was weakest.
This uneasy “truce” between the government and the Church ended with the election of Plutarco Elías Calles in 1924. Calles applied the anti-Catholic laws stringently throughout the country and added his own anti-Catholic legislation. In June 1926, he signed the “Law for Reforming the Penal Code”, known unofficially as the “Calles Law”. This provided specific penalties for priests and religious who dared to violate the provisions of the 1917 Constitution. For instance, wearing clerical garb earned a fine of 500 pesos (approximately 250 U.S. dollars at the time); a priest who criticized the government could be imprisoned for five years.
Peaceful resistance
In response to these measures, Catholic organizations began to intensify their resistance. The most important of these groups was the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, founded in 1924. This was joined by the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth (founded 1913) and the Popular Union, a Catholic political party founded in 1925.
On July 11, 1926, the Mexican bishops voted to suspend all public worship in Mexico in response to the Calles Law. This suspension was to take place on August 1. On July 14, they endorsed plans for an economic boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas). Catholics in these areas stopped attending movies and plays and using public transportation and Catholic teachers stopped teaching in secular schools.
However, this boycott collapsed by October 1926, in large part due to lack of support among wealthy Catholics, who were themselves losing money due to the boycott. The wealthy were generally disliked because of this, and the reputation was worsened when they paid the federal army for protection and called on the police to break the picket lines.
The Catholic bishops meanwhile worked to have the offending articles of the Constitution amended. The Pope explicitly approved this means of resistance. However, the Calles government considered this seditious behavior and had many churches closed. In September the episcopate submitted a proposal for the amendment of the constitution, but this was rejected by Congress on September 22, 1926.
Escalation of violence
In Guadalajara, Jalisco, on August 3, 1926, some 400 armed Catholics shut themselves up in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in that city. They were involved in a shootout with federal troops from there, and surrendered only when they ran out of ammunition. According to U.S. consular sources, this battle resulted in 18 dead and 40 injured.
The following day, in Sahuayo, Michoacán, 240 government soldiers stormed the parish church. The parish priest and his vicar were killed in the ensuing violence. On August 14, government agents staged a purge of the Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, chapter of the Association of Catholic Youth and executed their spiritual advisor, Father Luis Bátiz Sainz.
From here actions begin to move very rapidly. A band of ranchers under the leadership of Pedro Quintanar, upon hearing that Father Bátiz had been killed, seized the local treasury and declared themselves in rebellion. At the height of their rebellion, they held a region including the entire northern part of Jalisco.
Another uprising was led by the mayor of Pénjamo, Guanajuato, Luis Navarro Origel, beginning on September 28. His men were defeated by federal troops in the open land around the town, but retreated into the mountains, where they continued as guerrillas. This was followed by an uprising in Durango led by Trinidad Mora on September 29 and an October 4 rebellion in southern Guanajuato, led by former general Rodolfo Gallegos. Both of these rebel leaders were forced to adopt guerrilla tactics, as they were no match for the federal troops on open ground.
Meanwhile, the rebels in Jalisco (particularly the region northeast of Guadalajara) quietly began gathering forces. This region became the main focal point of the rebellion led by 27-year-old René Capistran Garza, leader of the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth. The rebellion began on January 1, 1927.
The Cristero war
The formal rebellion began with a manifesto sent by Garza on New Year’s Day, titled A la Nación (To the Nation). This declared that “the hour of battle has sounded” and “the hour of victory belongs to God”. With the declaration, the state of Jalisco, which had seemed to be quiet since the Guadalajara church uprising, exploded. Bands of rebels moving in the “Los Altos” region northeast of Guadalajara began seizing villages, often armed with only ancient muskets and clubs. The Cristeros’ battle cry was ¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe! (“Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!”)
The Calles government did not take the threat very seriously at first. The rebels did well against the agraristas (a rural militia recruited throughout Mexico) and the Social Defense forces (local militia), but were always defeated by the federal troops who guarded the important cities. At this time, the federal army numbered 79,759 men. When Jalisco federal commander General Jesús Ferreira moved on the rebels, he calmly stated that “it will be less a campaign than a hunt.”
However, these rebels, who had had no previous military experience for the most part, planned their battles well. The most successful rebel leaders were Jesús Degollado (a druggist), Victoriano Ramírez (a ranch hand), and two priests, Aristeo Pedroza and José Reyes Vega. In total, five priests took up arms.
Recent scholarship suggests that for many Cristeros, religious motivations for rebellion were reinforced by other political and material concerns. Participants in the uprising often came from rural communities that had suffered from the government’s land reform policies since 1920, or otherwise felt threatened by recent political and economic changes. Many agraristas and other government supporters were also fervent Catholics.
Whether the Cristeros’ actions were or were not supported by the episcopate or the Pope has been a subject of controversy. Officially, the Mexican episcopate never supported the rebellion, but by several accounts, the rebels had the episcopate’s acknowledgement that their cause was legitimate.
The episcopate did not, in any event, condemn the rebels. Bishop José Francisco Orozco y Jiménez of Guadalajara remained with the rebels; while formally rejecting armed rebellion, he was unwilling to leave his flock. Many modern historians consider him to have been the real head of the movement.
On February 23, 1927, the Cristeros defeated federal troops for the first time at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, followed by another victory at San Julián, Jalisco. The rebellion was almost extinguished, however, on April 19, when Father Vega led a raid against a train thought to be carrying a shipment of money. In the shootout, his brother was killed, and Father Vega had the train cars doused in gasoline and set afire, killing 51 civilians.
This atrocity turned public opinion against the Cristeros. The government began moving the civilians back into the population centers and prevented them from providing supplies to the rebels. By the summer, the rebellion was almost completely quelled. Garza resigned from his position at the head of the rebellion in July, after a failed attempt to raise funds in the United States of America.
The rebellion was given new life by the efforts of Victoriano Ramírez, generally known as “El Catorce” (the fourteen). Legend has it the nickname originated because during jailbreak he killed all fourteen members of the posse sent after him. He then sent a message to the mayor—his uncle—telling him that in the future he had better not send so few men after him.
El Catorce was illiterate, but a natural guerrilla leader. He brought the rebellion back to life, enabling the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty to select a general, a mercenary who demanded twice the salary of a federal general. Enrique Gorostieta was so alienated from Catholicism that he made fun of his own troops’ religion. Despite his lack of piety, he trained the rebel troops well, producing disciplined units and officers. Gradually, the Cristeros began to gain the upper hand.
Both priest-commanders, Father Vega and Father Pedroza, were born soldiers. Father Vega was not a typical priest, and was reputed to drink heavily and routinely ignore his vow of celibacy. Father Pedroza, by contrast, was rigidly moral and faithful to his priestly vows. However, the fact that the two took up arms at all is problematic from the point of view of Catholic sacramental theology.
On June 21, 1927, the first brigade of female Cristeros was formed in Zapopan. They named themselves for Saint Joan of Arc. The brigade began with 17 women, but soon grew to 135 members. Its mission was to obtain money, weapons, provisions, and information for the combatant men; they also cared for the wounded. By March 1928, there were some 10,000 women involved. Many smuggled weapons into the combat zones by carrying them in carts filled with grain or cement. By the end of the war, they numbered some 25,000.
The Cristeros maintained the upper hand throughout 1928, and in 1929, the federal government faced a new crisis: a revolt within Army ranks, led by Arnulfo R. Gómez in Veracruz. The Cristeros tried to take advantage of this with an attack on Guadalajara in late March. This failed, but the rebels did manage to take Tepatitlán on April 19. Father Vega was killed in that battle.
However, the military rebellion was quickly put down, and the Cristeros were soon facing divisions within their own ranks. Mario Valdés, widely believed by historians to have been a federal spy, managed to stir up sentiment against El Catorce leading to his execution before a rigged court-martial.
On June 2, Gorostieta was killed when he was ambushed by a federal patrol. However the rebels had some 50,000 men under arms by this point and seemed poised to draw out the rebellion for a long time.
Diplomacy and the uprising
Before and after the successes had by the rebels and the support of Bishop Orozco y Jiménez, the Mexican bishops supported the Cristeros. The bishops were expelled from Mexico after Father Vega’s savage attack on the train, but continued to try and influence the war’s outcome from outside the country
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, in October 1927, was Dwight Whitney Morrow. He initiated a series of breakfast meetings with Calles where the two would discuss a whole range of problems, from the religious uprising, to oil and irrigation. This earned him the nickname “ham and eggs diplomat” in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to come to an end both for humanitarian reasons, and to help find a solution to the oil problem in the U.S. He was aided in his efforts by Father John Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The Vatican was also actively suing for peace.
Calles’ term as president was coming to an end and president-elect Álvaro Obregón was scheduled to take office on December 1. However, he was assassinated by a Catholic radical two weeks before he was to take office, gravely damaging the peace process.
Congress named Emilio Portes Gil interim president in September, with an election to be held in November 1929. Portes Gil was more open to the Church than Calles had been, allowing Morrow and Burke to reinitiate their peace initiative. Portes Gil told a foreign correspondent on May 1 that “the Catholic clergy, when they wish, may renew the exercise of their rites with only one obligation, that they respect the laws of the land.”
The next day, exiled Archbishop Leopoldo Ruíz y Flores issued a statement that the hierarchy had elected to suspend worship because it “was not able to accept laws that are enforced in my country.” That is, the bishops would not demand the repeal of the laws, only their more lenient application.
Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. The pact he drafted, called the arreglos (arrangements) would allow worship to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics: only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register, religious instruction in the churches (but not in the schools) would be permitted, and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. But the most important part of it was that the church would recover the right to use its properties, and priests recovered their rights to live on such property. Legally speaking, the church was not allowed to own real estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However, the church took control over them, and the government never again tried to take these properties back. It was a convenient arrangement for both parties and Church support for the rebels ended.
The arreglos led to an unusual end to the war. In the last two years, many more anticlerical officers who were hostile to the federal government for other reasons had joined the rebels. When the arreglos were made known, only a minority of the rebels went home, those who felt their battle had been won. As the rebels themselves were not consulted in these talks, most of them felt betrayed and some continued to fight. The church then threathened rebels with excommunication, and gradually the rebellion died out.
The officers, fearing that they would be tried as traitors, tried to keep the rebellion alive. This attempt failed and many were captured and shot, while others escaped to San Luis Potosí, where General Saturnino Cedillo gave them refuge.
On June 27, the church bells rang in Mexico for the first time in almost three years.
The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000: 56,882 on the federal side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war’s end. As promised by Portes Gil, the Calles Law remained on the books, but no organized federal attempts to enforce it were put into action. Nonetheless, in several localities, persecution of Catholic priests continued based on local officials’ interpretations of the law. The anticlerical provisions of the Constitution remain in place as of 2005, though they are no longer enforced.
Cristero War saints
The Catholic Church has recognized several of those killed in connection with the Cristero rebellion as martyrs. Perhaps the best-known is Blessed Miguel Pro, SJ. This Jesuit priest was executed by firing squad on November 23, 1927, without benefit of a trial, on the grounds that his priestly activities were in defiance of the government. The Calles government hoped to use images of the execution to scare the rebels into surrender, but the photos had the opposite effect. Upon seeing the photos, which the government had printed in all the newspapers, the Cristeros were inspired with a desire to follow Father Pro into martyrdom for Christ. His beatification occurred in 1988.
On May 21, 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 25 martyrs from this period. (They had been beatified on November 22, 1992.) For the most part, these were priests who did not take up arms, but refused to leave their flocks, and were executed by federal forces.
To cite just one example (mentioned above in the history), Father Luis Bátiz Sainz was the parish priest in Chalchihuites and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He was known for his devotion to the Eucharist and for his prayer for martyrdom: “Lord, I want to be a martyr; even though I am your unworthy servant, I want to pour out my blood, drop by drop, for your name.” In 1926, shortly before the closing of the churches, he was denounced as a conspirator against the government because of his connections with the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty, which was preparing an armed uprising. A squad of soldiers raided the private house he was staying in on August 14, taking him captive. He was executed without trial together with three youths of the Mexican Association of Catholic Youths.
Thirteen additional victims of the anti-Catholic regime have been declared martyrs by the Catholic Church, paving the way to their beatification. These are primarily lay people, including the 14-year-old José Sánchez del Río. The requirement that they did not take up arms, which was applied to the priest martyrs, does not apply to the lay people, though it had to be shown that they were taking up arms in self-defense.
On November 20th, 2005 on Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico, these 13 martyrs were blessed by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins.
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Moving on to our listener appreciation segment. Our Frapper map is now 118 listeners strong. Today’s frappermappers are:
Bob Wright from Anaheim, CA. Bob is the host of Baseball History Podcast, you can find a link to his show on our website.
Rusty Bender from Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rusty is the host of Strange Brain Radio.
Tim Neely from Castle Rock, Colorado
lard0 from Sydney, Australia. He says, “Makes a boring workday 20mins more interesting cheers.”
Erik Due-Hansen from Harrislee, Germany
This months book is the brothers Bulger by Howie Carr. Stay tuned to hear how you can win this book at the end of the month. Every month we will give away a new book.
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