…woke up this morning (after a lovely New Year’s, thank you)—hearing some professor on the military channel (Battles BC) proclaim that Julius Caesar went to Gaul as a completely inexperienced novice senate appointee who had never been in the field. Hello?
First of all, he was brought up in a military household (uncle Marius)
he spent a year living in a swamp, refusing to divorce his wife—who was daughter of a political rival then in the ascendancy: lost that battle when he caught malaria and got caught.
Went to the Asian district to avoid assassination. Winner of his nation’s equivalent of the Medal of Honor, the corona civica, for saving the life of another soldier in battle…”Roman citizens who saved the lives of fellow citizens by slaying an enemy on a spot not further held by the enemy that same day. The citizen saved must admit it; no one else could be a witness.” He was also first over the wall in the battle for an Asian city. When kidnapped by pirates as a young man, he went to an Asian-area-of-operations base to call in old favors and led the expedition back to get the pirates; he served in Spain, another of the world’s trouble spots, where assassins and political zealots lived under every bush, and returned to Rome to stand for office only when it looked as if he was going to be the Roman army’s oldest lieutenant: you couldn’t get above that until you got a senate appointment, and he had to go back and make a deal with the devil (Crassus) to get it. THAT is when he got the appointment to Gaul, which brought him the legion Uncle Marius had created (the 10th), and who were suffering under a Sullan commander, that they didn’t like.
Novice? I don’t think so. The Senate kept saddling him with novices as tribunes, but they learned. Fast. Before the big dustup with the Germans, the tribunes were famously hiding in their tents drawing up their wills. Perhaps the Military Channel’s pet historian got these fellows mixed up with Julius.
‘S cuse me, I just had to vent. That is the stupidest thing I have heard out of a Discovery channel this decade.
Perhaps a civil, yet scathing, letter to said historian in your best academic manner with references, footnotes, etc, would be in order? Academic warfare at its best.
It sounds like someone was trying to make Caesar out to be even more impressive, but saying oh, look, the “novice” conquered Gaul! Or it was lazy history. Or both. With the Discovery Channel, I suspect everything they say has been modified for dramatic effect.
Thank you. I just got a very short but memorable history lesson on ol’ Julio. — And a good reminder not to trust all their sources / spokes-critters say.
Grey, cold, trying to rain or sleet again today, and my power browned out a few seconds. Good day to be inside. But errands tomorrow. Can’t skip.
Looks like I’m going to squeeze in a Fontographer for Mac purchase this month, hang the budget. It’s now owned by FontLab. I’m a registered user of the old version 4.2, but it’s been so long and changed developers twice, I’m going to get new. This will be a welcome purchase, despite the cost. Still looking for a good, stable drawing program other than Acostly Illustrator.
Think I’m going to read some. Nothing too creative happening in the old noggin today. Wish I had a good Western Civ text or Greek and Latin Civ. plenty on the To Read pile, though.
O’Reilly Press’ schedule is slipping.
EPUB 3 Best Practices, by Matt Garrish, has a revised ship date, sooner this time, Feb, 4th. Still no ebook version listed, guess they’re going for irony. Very glad it’s getting out sooner.
But I finally got fed up with another book’s release date getting pushed back by a month or two each month…for a year. If it ever gets published, I want it (badly) but I no longer really expect to see it on the shelf. HTML5 Graphics.with SVG and CSS3 by Kurt Cagle.
Not sure what the holdup is, though I’ve been trying to squash an SVG/CSS display bug in Safari with no luck so far. Looks like I might have to target separate browser prefixes to get it to work, but no luck yet.
At least I know one book will be out soon, a month earlier than last reported, with Protector out after my birthday. 🙂 Like I don’t have enough to read already? Playing catchup. Might be gaining on it.
Well, sadly most of the MainStream Media is equally inept, be it by design or accident. You get the most reliable information from the unregulated internet. Sure, they put crazies on here too, to try to obfuscate the truth, burying it in so much wacko stuff which the greedy 1% hopes will cause people to believe that ONLY wackos post online, and stop reading anything that isn’t the MSM’s approved and totally manipulated fare.
And more sadly, a lot of people are that brainwashed and accept, without question, that the MSM is the ‘free’ press and the ‘watchdog’ of things governmental and corporate, and that they will always tell us the real truth. But what happens when 6 or so gigantor companies own said media? Will they allow their employees to write exposes about the companies that own them, or the fact that many of the government officials both hired and elected are mostly owned by these same companies? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is not just ‘no’, but ‘heck NO’.
All I have to say about their latest propaganda about the ‘necessity’ for a gun ban, is don’t believe a word they say. The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good man with a gun, and I’m pretty sure there’s a LOT of bad men behind this effort to disarm us.
Isn’t it funny how you only hear about the ‘successful’ shoot ’em ups, like Sandy Hook, but not a peep about at least 4 other recent events that could have been equally bad massacres but were stop short by some armed citizen?
Or do you ever hear how many crimes were *stopped* because the citizen was armed and could successfully fight back? Nope, don’t hear about them either. All we hear about are the ‘poor little johnny shot by his brother’ or where some guy for ‘unknown’ reasons suddenly shows up and starts shooting up the place. Doesn’t that seem just a little suspicious to anyone else??
Sorry, had to get on the soap box for a minute… but really, just think about it, people, eh?
I agree that propaganda is rife, snookers many of the public who don’t have the capability to focus in depth on complex issues. Public media is certainly focused on “attractive” entertainment, not information, including “talk radio”. But you’d better read this:
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2012/12/security_guard_said_he_had_rob.html
We had a kid go to Clackamas Town Center’s food court, spray bullets with a Bushmaster, killing two, just before Christmas. Nick Meli, an off-duty security guard, was there, packing. He moved to the safety of a column, and drew a bead on the shooter. But being trained and responsible he didn’t stop the shooter–somebody moved behind him–it wasn’t a clear shot. As it happened, Meli thinks the shooter saw him, because he left the food court and his next shot was suicide.
“It ain’t necessarily so.” A good guy with a gun was there, but he couldn’t stop two deaths, and didn’t ensure it stopped there because it was the responsible thing to do. As Meli said, “You never know what will happen.”
But the more important aspect here is NOBODY outside of Portland heard about this successfully stopped rampage, except via the internet. And there have been at least 3 other events equally stopped and equally unreported.
I would guess that the Portland shooter guy stopped because either that was what his programming made him do, if armed response was possible, to go kill himself (dead people really are very poor sources of information) or there was a black ops team there who shot the kid as the patsy which gave them time to get away, as with the Sandy hook bunch. I think they left the colorado shooter guy alive as leverage with his father. Cooperate with us, or your son gets the death sentence.
An interesting aside which the MSM also fails to mention is that both the colorado theater shooter AND the Sandy Hook shooter were sons of some of the top level whistle blowers in the LIBOR scandal investigation, a huge greedy 1% scam that is robbing the WORLD blind.
I’ve been “Discovering” less and less as time goes on, it seems as if they’re not so slowly turning editorial content to fluff, fad and fiction.
I have given up on television. Just given up.
I am reading the Cambridge Ancient History books, though. Lovely stuff. And so full of plot bunnies. I don’t have time to write all the stuff that I come up with while reading these things.
As a Celt, I’m not a big fan of the Romans. I think that too many historians gush at the very mention of their name. They think that the Romans brought Civilization to Britain. Wrong, Britain had a Civilization that was older than the Romans by a big mark. That said, I might postulate that perhaps the historian you watched was commenting on his naivety in Roman Politics, as practiced by the back stabbing antics of the Senate. Pun was intended
Actually, while human habitation goes way back in Britain, hot and cold running water and flush toilets there don’t predate the Romans. Codified law doesn’t. While the Celts of Britain were minting coins and conducting trade on their own with a stability largely reliant on the strength of whatever leader was in charge, it is not likely they could have withstood the Germanic tribes, which were making incursions into Celtic territory in the late years BC. The Romans managed to push that tide back for some little while, and to build a trade network in Celtic lands clear to the Mediterranean, spreading wealth and goods and communication across what had been sealed borders within the Celtic regions. For the average inhabitant, life was more secure and goods were more plentiful than they would be for centuries after. Unfortunately what was bottled up behind the Germanic border was a situation with more depth and more force behind it than the Romans understood soon enough. Augustus (who had a German bodyguard and valued them) had a clue, when he established a model cities program on that border to try to lure the Germans into trade and communication; but when Varus lost his legions in a world-class military blunder, it was technically the beginning of the end up there. Subsequent emperors (Tiberius, Caligula) were strongly prejudiced against the Germans, and the next (Claudius, Nero) were ignorant of the area…so things more than got out of hand: they went to hell in a handbasket…chaos and subsequent barbarian invasions (Goths, Visigoths, Huns) finally saw the collapse of the Empire of the West and the rise of the Franks (Carolingians; Germanic folk)–who despite Charlemagne’s noble intent to teach himself to read and his emphasis on an orderly distribution of power, still had a lonnnnnnng way to go. At least the common folk became better off, intermittent with the endless jockeying for power among the rulers.
But they didn’t in fact. The whole Ivanhoe story about the Normans putting down the Anglo-Saxons in Britain is predicated on the Angles from lower Denmark and the Saxons from, well, Saxony having taken power themselves.
Personal note: I’ve always been interested in “Ancient” History, i.e. pre-Richelieu after which it’s all politics. It’s the migration of peoples, who we are, where we came from and how that has been interesting. But alas, I couldn’t follow it up properly. In the mid-60’s male Chemistry students graduated, History students didn’t.
It’s one of the strange ironies of history that the various Celtic / Gaelic tribes had such a large portion of western Europe, but then Roman and Germanic tribes made large inroads, sometimes more peacefully, often not. Yet the Irish and the (Germanic) Anglo-Saxon monks retained a wealth of knowledge that was lost after the fall of Rome, and was later recovered piece by piece.
I had American History I and II in college, and some coverage of English history and Western/World history in high school and college, with some focus on parts of English history in my English lit. classes. — But I *never* got a satisfactory answer about how and why the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (Britannia) and made it England (Angle-Terra). What I got were always variations on hand-waving “something happened” involving probably Anglo-Saxon mercenaries or traders being invited(?) in to Breton Britannia, then intermarrying or conquering or forcing out the Bretons, who then settled in northern Gaul (future France) in Bretagne, Brittany, becoming the modern Bretagnards. The explanation was always that this was largely unknown, vague. But it “feels like” there ought to be a fuller answer there. — This would’ve been well after the period of Roman Britain.
We were also taught that the Arthurian legends, including things like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, were originally British pre-Christian, then adopted and modified by the Saxons, and further adopted and modified after the Norman Conquest, into their eventual chivalric feudal Christian form, before being further transformed during recent times, post-Enlightenment period. I was fortunate in that one of my professors liked that. The same prof insisted we read Chaucer in Middle English, sometimes aloud, in class, though we could use translations too. (Also fortunate in that an advanced English class in junior high, our teacher decided to read a section of Middle English aloud, in what was passably good Anglo-Norman pronunciation, strongly Middle French in flavor. This was at the same time I had my first exposure to foreign language classes.)
And for what it’s worth, as an illustration of how very mixed we are, Americans and English both, my full name has three language sources: A nice solid Biblical Hebrew given name (I go by Ben), a properly Gaelic first given name, though uncommon for males in America, and my family surname is very solidly Anglo-Saxon…or possibly early German or Dutch, a dialectal variation on someone with very fair hair or complexion, and who just might have been friendly with elves, according to some medieval folklore. Other ancestry, Scots and German-speaking and Native American, didn’t quite make it into my personal name, but they are there in the ol’ family tree. That’s the real thing of it. Whether most of us know it or not, we are a blend of all those people, all those tribes, European and otherwise, who contributed to our family trees, however willing or accepted they were by their kin and neighbors. I’m lucky in that I know some sizable portion of that ancestry, going back to when they arrived in America. I’d love to know what portions, though, were lost, sometimes perhaps intentionally, by the person him-/herself or by the relatives and community.
If I get the chance (or make the chance) to take more courses, then besides more foreign language and web and ebook design, I would like to take some more history, especially world or Western history. — I was a mutt, academically; I started as an English major with lots of French, and took computer science classes too. My intent was to become a tech writer and possibly translator, to pay the bills, and write science fiction until I could make a living at that. Hah! Instead, I went into early computer-based design/publishing (then called desktop publishing), which meant being a jack of all trades, and that moved into web editing and amateur web author editing, before settling down to where I am now. And now the publishing industry is in an even bigger upheaval than when I started, when desktop computers were first coming into publishing. At least I have that under my belt, so I can make the transition ahead. It’s strange to me that for so long, I thought I was off track, when really, I wasn’t so far from my original goal after all.
My internal editor notes I wandered very far off topic, but that’s not unusual for me; nor are long, rambling posts…. 😆
Look up Hengist and Horsa.
But I *never* got a satisfactory answer about how and why the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (Britannia) and made it England (Angle-Terra).
“Why” is about motivation, and without chronicles of explanation, we’ll likely never know. Nevertheless, we do know there occasionally are these migrations and expansions.
But as to the “how”, there is more evidence. There was a strong migration of related “Germanic” tribes out of the “plains of Poland”, Lithuania area westward into Europe, but possibly also related to the Aryan push southeast to India, and the Finno-Ugric migration westward from the Urals.
I always found it interesting that along with the emigration out of Africa (in at least two waves), the Siberian push into the New World (again in at least two waves), there seemed to be another “source” of peoples radiating out of Eastern Europe.
Linguistics provides a lot of information about peoples’ origins and relations, but we’ve got a lot of new information from genomics, which I haven’t kept up on. 🙁
But what always intrigued me is the question if the Basques line of descent originates with the Cro-Magnon, without all these other tribes’ “influence”, something of the nature of the Ainu in Japan.
‘Why’ is about motivation, but sometimes circumstances can be discovered which would lead to very logical reasons ‘why’.
If historic climate research uncovers clear evidence for a large drought in central Asia, that would push the steppe-riders into invading the nearest farmed country. Killing or displacing the Persian farmers (and destroying their organisation) meant they couldn’t keep up the underground aquaducts (Qanat) that had been buffering them from droughts, making that area more vulnerable to succeeding droughts and thus to new waves of migrations triggered by the droughts.
Eastern european peoples, pushed off their lands by the raids or invasion from the East, will move further West, displacing the people who were living there. And so on, in a knock-on effect. That this, in the end, means some people will try to migrate to or invade Britain at the Western end of the continent, seems a fairly logical progression to me.
I’m no student of history, and have forgotten most of the details I ever heard about some of these periods of mass migrations, so the above is a very gross oversimplification. The point was, that I do remember several instances where, following the chain back, and combining that with historic climate research, changes in monsoon patterns and such have been found to coincide quite neatly with (the beginning of) such periods of mass migrations or destruction of established civilisations.
The ones that came to mind were the Persian qanat system, the Mayans and several North-american indian cultures (I forget the names), a few waves through Europe when the ‘Mongol Hordes’ came west, an African civilisation which collapsed when the Sahara desert expanded, and I faintly remember even the period of Viking raids had something to do with a cooling-down in the Scandinavian area which meant they had to raid southwards because they couldn’t subsist on their own farming anymore.
This very amateurish post is not meant to undercut the people here who can really say intelligent things about this. I do love learning new things here from people like CJ and Raesean and Green Wyvern!
I remember in the American Southwest around 1400 AD or so there were a succession of droughts; the last one, according to dendrochronology, lasted more than 7 years. The Anasazi/Cliff Dwellers, who were at the top of their game then, had expanded to the limits of what the land could sustain. Even with clever (and some rather yucky) practices, the civilization fell apart and the survivors dispersed. It didn’t help that during their decline, the Anasazi were rather warlike and did not endear themselves to the surrounding peoples. You can trace some of the old trade routes and later migratory paths by pottery and other design work south into northern Mexico and out to the surrounding Colorado Plateau.
A plausible hypothesis has been offered that capturing Anasazi and transporting them to Tenochtitlan for the Aztecs’ blood sacrifices not only contributed to the climatological decline, but led to construction of some of the “granaries” that are out of sight from the ground.
Yes indeed, thank you for the little summary of Julius’s earlier military/political career, esp. some more details on the “kidnapped by pirates” bit. I had come across a “picture” of his arguing with pirates in my… (pause to pull it off the book shelf)… oh no, it was not in National Geographic’s excellent if now old “Greece and Rome: Builders of our World” marvelous book of fun text, photos, artefacts and those superb, Nat’l Geo paintings recreating past times in ardent colour. At any rate, I have a strong memory of a painting from somewhere of a commanding if young (and dirty blond) Julius C. standing on a pile of rocks and arguing successfully with his band of pirate kidnappers into letting him go. I have always wanted to know some more on that time of his life.
Zette: “plot bunnies” is it? What a great phrase! I read the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (and now peruse the on-line version) and have come up with numerous plot angles and “daily life” hooks on which I have hung pieces of my novel’s plot too.
I hate it when some history or archaeological program has these idiot experts or cheerfully present fantasy as fact. I do alot of muttering, frequently argue with the nonresponsive narrators/experts and occasionally send a comment to the show complaining about their ‘scholarship’. So, so disappointed in several channels any more — Discovery and the History channels and especially NatGeo. I couldn’t believe all the hooey on the Mayan Apocalypse! The facts can be so much more interesting.
Gurk! If one has to go for apocalyptic storytelling to get audiences, there are plenty of historical events that can be factually presented, and still have the requisite amount of drama, pathos, and gore. For your delectation: the eruption of Vesuvius and subsequent destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the Battle of Gettysburg (novelized as The Killer Angels, then turned into the movie Gettysburg, both top-notch), the 1900 hurricane that took out Galveston, TX, the eruption of Krakatoa. Earthquakes are particularly good: New Madrid Fault in 1812, San Francisco in 1906, Lisbon, Portugal in 1755, Port Royal in 1692. I could go on for several paragraphs.
Aeons ago Discovery started to air “documentaries” on the most suspect and wacko theories one can find, making them into “truth”. Stopped watching, there and then.
My distrust and dislike for the American style “documentary”, with its mandatory silly re-enacting and all, is huge.
And the worst thing is people BELIEVE the stuff. I say more resources should go to schools and education. It is the only way to stop the down-slide humanity is on.
What’s needed to stop the slide is to ground the public thoroughly in logic and semantics with a strong side of ethics. First of all, upgrading parenting beyond the “open range” model where one rounds up the children occasionally for delousing and such, is needed to provide a firm foundation and then we must somehow mandate and enable the public schools to build sound judgement and character. Eliminating Bachelors and Masters in Education degrees and requiring prospective teachers to graduate in the top third of both their (real) majors departments and students as a whole might go a long way towards that.
So long as wealth and power flow to those who are best able to reach into the heads and wallets of the public and siphon out their sense and cents in exchange for what’s worthless and toxic through cynical manipulation of language and symbols, it ain’t gettin’ better anytime soon.
Not to mention paying teachers commensurate with high academic requirements…and requiring teachers pass a simple communication test. We’ve all met really bright people who can’t explain what they know.
One of the most brilliant communication tests I know is the ability to describe a particular potato well enough that a person can pick it out of a lineup. And some people can’t do that.
Darned right we have too many ‘open range’ parents and far too many helicopter parents.
It’s so often noted that it’s easier for teenagers to become parents than get a license to drive a car.
But back to the prior digression, aren’t the first mistakes to believe entertainment is anything but that, or that, like life, the commercial interests behind it do what is necessary for self preservation. “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Well, if you are trying to dumb down a population, you have to make it impossible to have good teachers, or if you do, you have to cripple their ability to teach. It’s good to remember uneducated people make better slaves, and are easier TO enslave, eh?
Off-topic again, but if anyone has any interest in heraldry, you have to see this cat demonstrating the ‘passant guardant’ position: Heraldic Cat
That’s Seishi’s favorite pose when he’s trying to wake me up in the morning. The paw goes right on my nose. He smiles when he does it. Seishi always smiles.
Too cute!
Back on topic… here is Plutarch’s account of Caesar and the pirates:
http://www.livius.org/caa-can/caesar/caesar_t01.htm
Ah, thank you very much for that historical sourcing!
Saw one the other day on H2 about some yoyo who maintained that Elizabeth II had no right to the throne because Edward IV was not Edward III’s son, but the son of his mother’s lover, based on several documents that stated that the last time Edward III and his wife were in the same place at the same time was 11 months before Edward IV’s birth. He then proceeded to track down the “rightful” heir who was this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abney-Hastings,_14th_Earl_of_Loudoun
Edward IV was the son of Richard, Duke of York, not of Edward III.
The allegation that he was illegitimate came from the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses. It shouldn’t be taken seriously – it was just propaganda to discredit the other side. You have to consider who was saying it, and why, and whether the facts support it (they don’t).
But I suppose they always need plenty of material for TV documentaries – the more sensational the better. They’re not much concerned with truth, just with the entertainment value.
Anyway, if you start arguing about the legitimacy of English monarchs, there is no end to it. There were any number of debates/disputes/wars about the succession to the throne throughout English history.
History before the age of the liberal guilt trip was always written by and for the winners; and a fair amount of what was written soon after particularly contentious eras doesn’t stand up to cross-checks against independent sources and plotted time-lines. As far as the legitimacy of the British succession is concerned, IMHO, there were more than a few of the monarchs who were absolute sons of sows regardless of their putative line of descent.
Oh, my son, you are so naive about the “right to rule.” 😉
According to ancestry.com my sister is running, we’re descended from Edmund Langley, Edward III’s fourth son. So I’ve been running the family story recently. We had family on both sides of the War of the Roses. I believe you’re talking about Isabella, “the she-wolf of France”. Then there’s the Hugh Despenser story, which we also were on both sides of apparently. Then there’s the story of “Le Dangerose de l’Isle Boouchard” grand dame of Eleanor of Aquitane, from whom both CJ and we descend.
There are claims, and then there’s ability to hold.
Just found one of my own family characters, Squire Francis Cherry, who was a Jacobite, and who truly did not like William and Mary: he was a nonjuror (refused to swear allegiance). However that part of his politics worked out, his lands were fairly close to the hunting chase at Windsor, and he apparently habitually rode to the hunt with the king. He was, among other talents, a famously skilled rider. Riding right with King William, he veered off course, over a hedge and down a slope, which was pretty dangerous doings: if one horse goes, the horse next to him may—but not-so-good horseman that he was, King William did not let his horse take that route. It was whispered that the Squire had done it in hopes William would break his royal neck, but of course there was no proof.
Squire William Cherry, contemporary of James I, was the subject of a broadside ballad about his cutting down the oldest, largest oak in England, under which James’ first wife Anne had sickened and died. He then impounded (fenced) Waltham Commons, of which the locals complained to the king at Windsor. The king empowered the locals to take back the commons and break down the fences and fill in the ditches. Buried in that ballad (Squire William and the Tree) is very likely some sort of allegory, perhaps about religion, perhaps about the queen. Or perhaps it’s simply because my ancestor was a jerk and thought he could get away with it. http://www.berkshirehistory.com/legends/kingsquirecherry_bal.html
Part of the family, protestants, took advantage of James I’s taking Irish lands, took his land grant to English protestant families, and settled near Antrim. This didn’t last too long, apparently, since in a very few generations a very leading part of the family (but not all,) were off to the American colonies, to lose their shirts in the attempt to grow tobacco and end up heading for the new lands of the Louisiana Purchase, then migrating (illegally) across the Texas border from the Louisiana Purchase before Texas was a state. They do seem to have kind of skittered about the edges of the powerful and dangerous—and the law—during dangerous times.
My brother ran down this interesting tidbit. I know how they got to England, but now we’ve gotten them from England to Ireland, and we’re wondering why they’d suddenly headed for Virginia and the Carolinas.
The land isn’t so good in many parts of Ireland. Maybe the quality of the land in the mid-Atlantic states was sufficient draw? Could have been just a practical reason.
It’s either a case of wanderlust, itchy feet; or the sudden and urgent need to be anywhere else but the vicinity of whomever one has caused, justly or not, to become greatly vexed at one’s continued presence, or even existence. Or it could be a mix of both.
My dad’s dad *always* had “itchy feet.” He liked Texas very much, but he always longed for home in Virginia. He moved the family back and forth between Virginia and Texas at least three times when the kids were growing up, and ironically, he was well thought of, even friends with and related to a local sheriff. He just had itchy feet, always wanting to explore or to get a bit better for the family.
Their history goes back in that one spot of Virginia for over 150 years, beginning somewhere around 1828 or earlier. Prior to that, they’d been in what was then both Virginia and Pennsylvania, back to when my dad’s ancestors arrived off the boat in about 1755, with some ambiguity whether they were English or Dutch or German, purportedly two brothers, Phillip and John or Johann. (My family name could be dialectal English, northern near the Scots border, or else early Dutch or German, mangled by English ears or by the brothers to suit English ears.) Most of the family tree on my dad’s side are English, Germans and Dutch, and Scots.
On my mom’s side, things are more muddled. My mom’s mom’s family (the parents of the grandmother I often have mentioned) were originally Texans, who crossed the line into Oklahoma when it was opened for statehood. My mom’s dad’s family were also in Texas and Oklahoma. One woman from that family, a great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother to me, was full Indian and lived in Texas, and the marriage was accepted by both the White and Indian sides of the family, but I don’t know which Indian nation/tribe; probably Cherokee, Choctaw, or (given Texas then) Comanche or Alabama-Couchatta. Back past that, things get a bit iffy, with one male ancestor being an orphan who didn’t know much about his family. My mother’s father’s side traces back to an English doctor who immigrated to America in the 1800’s. Oddly, when doing some reading, I came across something that *might* indicate that family were very friendly with the Cherokee in Oklahoma.
It’s quite possible, but I don’t as yet have any solid proof, that I might be related to the Cherokee on both sides of my family. However, it wouldn’t be enough to be a Cherokee citizen, even if I do find proof.
Also, there’s a very thorny tale on my dad’s side, local history of the Revolutionary War era, involving two friends or relatives, one White and the other half White and half Cherokee. It’s a tragedy involving White and Cherokee and other Indian cultures, the clash of people on both/many sides with very opposing ideas of things like land ownership, being neighbors, trading, or simply taking, and how those sides viewed what was fair and lawful…or how some would do some dang illegal, immoral thing or other. My dad was of the opinion the two men were indeed best friends or in-laws, torn apart by events from either side. My dad also felt this might be the ultimate basis for family stories of “Indian blood” in the family. It’s highly likely, given those events and where the family lived at the time. It may have originally been quite amicable. But events led to tragedy instead. However, (obviously) there were descendants of all involved, though the “chief” was ultimately killed for what the young men under him had done without his approval. (It’s acknowledged in what of the stories were recorded that the chief himself wasn’t responsible, but because of what the men under him did, and because of how things fell apart, badly, he later turned renegade, perhaps understandably so.) (The story involves Lt. Vincent Hobbs (or Hobs or Hobbes) and Chief Benge or Bench. It’s a tale that shows just how badly things could fall apart and why, between Whites and Indians who had been living near each other for some time by then. And it foreshadows later events.)
That particular story keeps nagging at me, whenever I think of it, to research it further and write something more about it.
My parents both made a point to teach me to respect the land and animals and people, because we were from farming folk, and because it was entirely likely we had Indian relatives as well as White.
(On my mother’s side, I still have to find if the photo of the Indian woman, an ancestor, survived my move. If so, it *may* have a little bit more documentation than what I can remember. But I don’t think it had written down what her exact relation and name was. I know it wasn’t in living memory what Indian tribe or nation she was from. My memory is fuzzy, but I recall her as being a grandmother of my mom’s dad. The photo was from the 1800’s. I can’t recall if it was before or after the Civil War, bur from the photo type and quality, likely after. In it, you see a woman with Indian features and braids in a pioneer White woman’s dress, standing in the foreground for her portrait, with a teepee in the middle background. The photo was taken in Texas.)
Oh, and my mom’s mom’s relatives are still in Oklahoma, primarily Duncan. As far as I know, they never crossed paths with CJ’s family, but there’s some common ground because of Oklahoma heritage.)
I don’t know of any genealogy that has crossed from the American Colonies back to Europe (England or a Dutch or German port) for either side of my family. (For instance, I don’t think the ship name or port of origin was known. My dad’s dad always claimed the family was ultimately German, but this could be because at one point, there were German (or Dutch?) in-laws, many of whom are buried in the family cemetery. (Kopenhauer, sometimes with C/K or U/V.) What history I’ve read from the 1750’s period indicates it was common enough for English colonists to leave England, go to Holland or Germany, and get passage aboard a ship bound for the American Colonies. This was sometimes for religious reasons and sometimes simply practical reality. But because the family name is just different enough from standard English, there’s some potential it could be English, Dutch, or German, dialectal, then further mangled by English colonial ears once over here and assimilating. There’s some indication the two brothers could read and write, and they and their descendants bought tracts of land, so there was some money. At any rate, within a generation or two, there were landowning descendants in the area my dad was from, recorded in the county court’s office, with spelling as stable as anything was then, and apparently literate, which wasn’t always usual.
As a further aside, when the Civil War was getting under way, my dad’s ancestors did something fairly unusual for the times. The family farm, land, and livestock were deeded over to the wife and mother, with younger sons staying at home. At the time, they weren’t slave owners. I can’t recall without looking, if the xeroxes survived my move, whether an earlier generation had had any slaves. However, in the transfer recorded in the county clerk’s records, you’ll see listings of the people living there, the buildings, livestock, and so on. You’ll see other records back then that did count fractions of people (slaves). For what it’s worth, there’s an ancestor on my dad’s dad’s side who served in the Union Army…though reading between the lines of what my grandpa and grandma said, I think there were relatives on both sides, perhaps within both families.
…Wow, all that, just because I was reminded of genealogy? Whew!
I suppose my ultimate point would be that we are all something of an unholy mix of many, many sides, all sorts of people from all over, not just any one continent, either, and never only one ideology or outlook on life. Some of those ancestors were scoundrels. Some were victims and some were victors. But each one of them passed on his or her genes to the next generation — or sometimes adopted or fostered a child into the family too.
When we’re caught up in the daily grind of whatever is good or bad at the moment, it’s easy to forget the bigger picture is a story with all sorts of weird plot twists and unlikely outcomes. But somehow or other, all those people made it despite the odds, at least long enough to produce a descendant or to influence the life of someone who carried their memory onward.
BlueCatShip said: But I *never* got a satisfactory answer about how and why the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain (Britannia) and made it England (Angle-Terra).
A good place to start may be the primary sources for the period. There are some extracts here:
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/sbook1g.asp
Gildas, writing in the 6th century, says that at first the Saxons were invited as mercenaries, then turned on their hosts and came in larger numbers. He says the complete conquest took 44 years, during which there were many battles.
I’m sure there are many books by serious academics about the period, and papers in scholarly journals. If you have access to a good library you may be able to find a lot of information.
GreenWyvern, and CJ up-thread, thank you both for the pointers on the Anglo-Saxons. 😀
Isn’t that the Hengist and Horsa story?
One of the things I don’t get about the whole study of Romans and Celts is why people have to be either pro-Roman or pro-Celt. They were both fascinating civilizations whose legacies permeate our culture.
What really gets under my skin are the attempts, usually by the fundies, but not always, to equate the Romans with the Nazis. Nothing could be farther from the truth, no matter what way you look at the history. I’ve got to get ready to go to the gym so don’t have time to support my observation, but Carolyn’s above description of the Romans pretty well does it for me.
Gotta scoot! Exercise! Yay!
Off topic but when I saw this, CJ, I thought of you —
http://bluepueblo.tumblr.com/post/39598901891/underwater-bedroom-fiji-photo-via-cmart
Yikes, that one gives a whole new meaning to the idea of ‘doing the windows’