In my last essay, I tried to find the records of what happened to the slaves that my ancestor, James Edgar, owned. He named five in his will in 1814: Cato, Lett, Mariann. Jake and Suck. The last three were to be freed when they came of age.
I found a manumission for Mariann. The others seem to have vanished.
She seemed to have been freed in 1818 by James’ son, Samuel. Part of my problem is that many of the records are not online. James owned many more slaves than were listed in his will. James listed a child, Hetty, born to Lett in 1805. [i] What happened to Hetty? There were also four other children born to a slave named Bett, which might be a misspelling of Lett. Where did they go?
What worries me is that I also found a record that confirmed the story of Jacob Van Winkle.[ii] The gist of this is that, on April 22, 1818, Jacob reviewed the case of a slave woman named Phyllis, “aged twenty-five years, with her male child named Charles, aged one year six months,…” Jacob says that he interviewed her apart from her master and that she “freely consented to remove out of this state to Point Coupee in the state of Louisiana and there to serve Colonel Charles Morgan and Nicholas Van Winkle…the save child to serve until he is twenty-five years of age.”
Somehow, reading about this is not as upsetting as seeing the paper, knowing that Phyllis was likely told that her son, who had been born free in New Jersey, would be freed immediately upon arrival in Louisiana. I believe that she knew she was dooming herself to a life in the fields but would endure it for her child.
This research into the actions of one family that happens to be mine, has opened up a world to me. People are getting all upset over Critical Race Theory. I call it completing the history of the country to include all its inhabitants and events in which they played a vital part.
The record of Phyllis’ illegally being sold into Louisiana
It took me a while to write this, the third part of the account of slavery in New Jersey and the part my family played in it. The post-Revolution behavior of the family upset me more than anything else, even discovering that James Edgar, his father, Alexander, and his sons and cousins owned slaves. As you read, you may realize that the worst part is that the legislative actions and elite mentality (are they the same?) are still with us.
Background: In 1804 the New Jersey legislature passed a convoluted law for the slow emancipation of slaves. [i] Now, many people had already freed their slaves, but there were hold outs. James Edgar was one.
The law took into account that slave owners were entitled to a return on their investment. OK. So they decided that children born to slave mothers after July 4, 1805 were born free. To ensure this, all children must be registered by the time they were nine months old. James was assiduous in doing this.
[I James Edgar of the township of Woodbridge in the County of Middlesex, farmer, certify that Hetty, a female Black child was born of my slave, Letty, on the second day of December in the year of our Lord Eighteen hundred four. Witness my hand this twentieth day of July, eighteen hundred & five. James Edgar]
Isn’t that lovely? Hetty was born free. But there was a catch, several, in fact. Hetty’s mother Letty, was still a slave. Also, to make sure James got his worth of her, Hetty would be “apprenticed” to James until she was twenty-one. If she had been born male, the “apprenticeship” would last until twenty-five. The legislature rationalized this by saying that this would give time for the child to be trained to a profession and even to read and write. However, this wasn’t often done.
James listed several other births, but one interested me particularly. Those who follow Finding Your Roots will know that slaves didn’t have last names. However, in reading through these birth records, I found many who did.
This is a record of the birth of Margaret to John Hill, owned by Charles Stelle and to Catherine, owned by James Edgar, February 4, 1807. An
John and Catherine seem to have been a married couple. So, for those who found their ancestors in the 1870 New Jersey Census and thought they could go back no further, these records are a gold mine.
That is about the only silver lining to this story. The law contained a lot of codicils. If the owner of the mother didn’t want the child, it could be given to the poor house to raise. I don’t know how many survived, but this leads to a practice that is horrifying and, to me, is too much like what is happening today with the coalition of the lawmakers and the rich to disenfranchise the poor.
It did not go unnoticed by the thousands of free Black people in New Jersey. In 1841 a group of Black businessmen sent a petition to the New Jersey legislature asking for these children to be educated, as promised. They further insisted that they be raised as free, as they were born. “Making the children free will produce the necessity of a guardianship for them, which can only be supplied by liberating their parents.”[ii]
Finally, the men pointed out that even free Black people were not allowed to vote or own property,
Another rule in the gradual emancipation was that no slave or free child could be sold out of state without their permission. Sales within the state were apparently not regulated.
As the date of complete emancipation, 1846, drew closer, the remaining slave holders worried that the value of their “property” was evaporating. With the help of corrupt judges, owners devised a plan. “The predominant plot to remove enslaved blacks from New Jersey centered on two men: Jacob Van Wickle and Charles Morgan. Morgan, a Louisiana state legislator and plantation owner in Point Coupee Parish, left his plantation in January 1818 in search of additional slaves to work for him.”[iii]
Morgan was born in New Jersey. Van Winkle was his brother-in-law.
The two men cooked up a plan whereby New Jersey slave holders could get top dollar for their slaves. They herded people through Van Winkle’s court where their permission to be sold in the South was ignored by the judge; he stamped the form and the slaves and free children were taken to Louisiana and Alabama to be sold to work in sugar plantations.
Some women were told that their children would be immediately free in the south, since they had been born free. Young mothers agreed for the sake of these children. If a baby cried, the Judge took that as its giving permission. But most had no say in the matter. They were taken to a ship off New Yok. Hundreds of people stayed slaves until 1865 because of these men.
I’m glad to say that I’m not related to either Van Winkle or Morgan, but I suspect that some of my family took advantage of the scam.
While going through census records, I found a man who was a distant in-law of the Edgars. In the 1820 census, he was in New Jersey. In 1830, he was in Alabama, living without his family. He listed 249 slaves. In 1840, he was in Alabama (still? Again?) He owned 19 slaves. I couldn’t find him in 1850. This made no sense to me until I found out about Van Winkle and Morgan. As Gigantino adds on Van Winkle, “he blatantly failed to certify any slave’s consent and ceded all pretense of legality in the service of his own profits.”[iv]
There are many other examples of the determination of New Jersey slave-holders to hold on to their slaves or, at least, make money from them. The most pernicious was/is the use of laws to establish the rules, with the law makers and the beneficiaries all coming from the same class, even the same families.
I found many more documents that show the Edgar family and their relatives were part of the determination to keep the status quo regarding slavery. Most of the other information on them is inoffensive, even laudatory. But this blot on their character seeps into the rest of their deeds. Anyone applying for DAR or SAR membership through one of them should know the whole story.
It would be nice to say that they were products of their era. That doesn’t float. There were many at the time who believed in full emancipation for slave and voting and property rights for free Black men. Also, as I have implied, we are not as far from the nineteenth century as we would like to believe.
There are many more secondary sources that go into depth on slavery in the North. Many of the Ivy League schools are now coming to terms with their relationship to slavery. But the primary sources have not all been transcribed and some not even digitized. There is nothing wrong with rewriting history to make it more inclusive. It’s when it reflects only one segment of society, whitewashing (literally) the crimes the committed that it ceases to be history and becomes propaganda.
[i] Votes and Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly of the State of New Jersey. Trenton, 1800, p. 118 [This bill was debated in committee for some time but finally accepted, but not enacted until 1804]
[ii] Address to the Legislature of the State of New Jersey on Behalf of the Colored Population of the State. Patterson, NJ. 1841. P.6 [This 17-page document is literate, logical and cleverly assumes that the legislators are all sensible men who will agree with their proposals.]
[iii] James J. Gigantino., II,” TRADING IN JERSEY SOULS: NEW JERSEY AND THE INTERSTATE SLAVE TRADE” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies , Vol. 77, No. 3 (SUMMER 2010) University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia p. 281
It was many years before I started researching James Edgar again. I told myself that I was being cowardly. I needed to learn the whole story about his relation to slavery. Also, by this time I had the internet to help and a pandemic to keep me from being distracted.
The first thing I wanted to know was what happened to the slaves that James freed in his 1815 will: Mary Ann, Jake, and “Suck”. Were they freed? Did they stay in New Jersey?
Before I could answer either of these questions, I needed a course in slavery in New Jersey. It didn’t seem the same as in Southern colonies and states. There are several books on the topic, but I don’t have access to them. Some of the online sources I found are at the end of this essay. They don’t make for pleasant reading. They also raise a lot of questions. As you might guess, the laws and the records don’t always match. Here is the short form of the history.
The Dutch were the first to settle what are now New York and Northern New Jersey, They were not settling for religious or political reasons, but to make money. They were being supported by the Dutch West India Company, a consortium of investors. The Company established outposts in Africa, Brazil, Curacao, and North America to get, in reverse order, furs, cotton, sugar, tobacco and slaves.
Since there were few Dutch citizens willing to emigrate to do manual labor, Africans were essential to the success of the enterprise. They cleared the land, built the houses. raised the crops and brewed the beer. In 1644, the governor of New Amsterdam asked that more slaves be sent. “Negroes would accomplish more work from their masters, and at less expense, than [Dutch] farm servants, who must be bribed to go thither by a great deal of money and promises”[1].
Two differences between the Dutch and the later English forms of slavery were that baptized Indians and slaves could marry white Dutch settlers and, since one of the tasks of the Company was to capture Spanish ships, slaves could become privateers. Some even captained ships.
So, by the time the British took over the Dutch colony, slavery was well established in what is now New Jersey. There were many Black and mixed-race people living there who owned property. Their descendants were among the prominent families in the state. “Among the soldiers of (Governor) Stuyvesant who were given land upon retirement who were transplanted to Bergen, were some of the Moorish race, whose particular complexion, physiognomy and characteristics are, it is alleged, yet to be traced in their descendants—the swarthy complexion, the sharp eye and curling black hair, so opposite to the ruddy color, the light eye and fair hair of the Hollander”[1][2]( (I haven’t researched this thoroughly but would love to.)
In the eighteenth century, slavery flourished in New Jersey. Perth Amboy was a major port for slave ships. Slaves were among the dock workers. They were trained in many crafts: carpentry, leatherwork, blacksmithing, masonry, and many more. Even before the Revolution, landless white people started to move west, to colonies like Pennsylvania that had fewer slaves to compete with for work. “ Slaves manned the furnaces and forges of the ironworks on the property, and its grist and saw mills. Their numbers peaked during the Colonial period, when they helped forge the Continental Army’s camp ovens, tools and hardware. They even helped make the boom system powering the “great chain” at West Point which blocked British passage of the Hudson.”[3]
The economy of New Jersey was based on slave labor as well as trade with the South and the Caribbean islands, where the crops of sugar, tobacco, and cotton took the place of farming or raising domestic animals. There was strong resistance to abolition, particularly among merchants and large landholders. (anyone surprised?)
After the Revolution, in which many free men of color and slaves fought, many people freed their slaves, claiming that slavery was against the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. The Edgar family wasn’t among them. James’ brothers, Samuel and Thomas, both left slaves to family in their wills.[4] The slaves were all named, at least. Their father, Alexander Edgar, left to his wife, “cows, slaves and goods”.[5]
The manumission records for Middlesex Co, NJ have been scanned but not transcribed. That’s actually a good thing, although many of them are hard to read as the ink ran out in the quill. Still, I was able to find two of the slaves James intended to be freed.
This is the document that freed Mary Ann: “On this third day of October in the year of Our Lord, eighteen hundred and eighteen, Samuel Edgar [son of James]…brought before us … his slave named Mary Ann, who appeared to be sound in mind and not under any bodily incapacity… and not under the age of twenty-one or over the age of forty.” The manumission was signed by the overseers of the poor.
So far, I haven’t found Jake but “Suck” was freed by James other son, Thomas, on Nov. 8, 1818. This document gives his real name “Saul Edgar”. (Don’t trust transcriptions; find the original document.)
I’m still trying to find out what happened to them. I haven’t found Saul in any census or voters’ list. But he may well have changed his name. He must have gone somewhere.
It was nice , I suppose, that James made sure these people were freed. But it wasn’t as noble as you might think. Behind that act lies the Byzantine law of ‘gradual emancipation.” This included registering the births of slaves, a treasure for genealogists. It also contained classic examples of Catch 22. The methods used by New Jersey lawmakers to prevent economic and political equality are too close to the proposals being made today to limit voting rights.
If there is any interest, I can give a synopsis of that in the next instalment.
It’s not just national heroes who have feet of clay. After watching all those middle-aged white supremacists storm the Capitol, believing they were emulating the Revolutionary patriots of old, I realized how important it is for us to look more closely at the ancestors we were taught to revere as the founders of the country.
My grandfather was very proud of his mother’s family. Her great-grandfather fought in the Revolution from New Jersey and I heard his name a lot while growing up. James Edgar was the grandson of a Scottish immigrant, Thomas Edgar. Thomas’ family were devout Stuartists who refused to accept William and Mary as rulers of England. One of his brothers died in chains in Stirling Castle. Another brother went in to exile with the Old Pretender. The eldest fled to Canada after the battle of Culloden. Thomas decided to flee New Jersey. His branch of the family did well, acquiring a great deal of land and status in two generations.
Stories about James and the Revolution had been floating around the family for generations. Grandad said that the British had raided his home, stolen all the livestock and his second best pair of trousers off the clothesline. Another tale was that he had owned a printing press and that’s why he was attacked. (He didn’t; that was a cousin) Sometime around 1780, James’ wife died. This was blamed on the British, too, but records from that time are lost so we don’t know exactly what happened.
I promised grandad that I would try to flesh out the story. There were military records that implied James was in the militia and occasionally attached to the army, as were many of his brothers and cousins. The town he lived in, Woodbridge, was across the river from Staten Island, held by the British, so the area was both a battleground and a foraging site. Everyone was either a Patriot or a Loyalist. The Quakers just tried to lie low.
During this time and after the war James’ name was on land deals and petitions to the local government. He seemed to be an upstanding member of society. Grandad would be pleased.
Then I researched further. I’m not sorry that I did, but it took me a long time to deal with what I found.
James wasn’t a bigamist or an embezzler. He was worse; he owned slaves.
I sat on the floor in the library, reading and rereading his will. (This was forty years ago, well before the Internet) My stomach was in knots. I turned hot and cold by turn. I couldn’t believe it. This was New Jersey! It had never occurred to me that slavery had even existed there. Lord, I was naïve!
It got worse.
Then, a ray of hope…
OK, he did promise to free three of his slaves. But what about Cato and Lett? And did his sons follow his directions and free Mariann, Jake and Suck [sic]? And how old were they in 1815, when the will was proved? So many questions and, at the time, I had no clue how to find the answers.
The only other thing I could find on James was a piece on his behavior after the war. It did not reassure me.
This is from Quaker records and it lists money property confiscated from Quaker families who had refused to fight. James Edgar is first on the list. Actually, I am related to about half of these men. They were proud of themselves! Not only that, but the people they were persecuting were their relatives. Mary Dunham had her tea table removed from her house, “for unpaid war taxes”. Edward Fitz Randolph, brother of Samuel, was hit up for four and a half bushels of wheat.
Great guys, all. Every one of these men have hundreds of SAR and DAR descendants, who put them at the top of the list of their glorious Revolutionary ancestors. It’s possible that those who invaded the Capitol wouldn’t be bothered by knowing that their ancestors deprived people of their freedom and punished pacifists.
I, however, was devastated.
Finally, I reminded myself that we can’t choose what we come from. But we can’t whitewash these people, either. They weren’t a product of their times. New Jersey had a large Quaker population that remained true to their beliefs. There were a number of abolition societies throughout the state. James Edgar was exposed to different beliefs and decided not to listen.
Some may admire those who fought to create the United States. But, as we are beginning to learn, putting historical figures on a pedestal keeps us from facing the inequities that are still with us. Instead of going after Washington and Jefferson, I decided it was time I faced the feet of clay in my own family.
I’ve been haunted for years about the fate of James’ slaves. I had a lot of self-educating to do first. I think I found some of them, but I also had to learn about the history of slavery and abolition in New Jersey. It’s a work in progress, but that will be the next instalment.
Note from me: I had intended to finish this up quickly but I made the mistake of doing more research. This, as always, muddied the waters of my conclusions. Actually, I have more questions than conclusions. Input would be helpful.
In this post, I’m concentrating on two American icons, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Both were looked up to as examples of Yankee initiative and success. Both held deep beliefs concerning ‘racial purity’. I’ve been reading a lot about the conflict many people feel when they discover that their heroes did things or had attitudes that are personally repugnant to them. Thomas Jefferson is a classic example of this. But Jefferson didn’t encourage others to buy slaves.
Henry Ford was among the richest industrialists in the United States. He made cars that most people could afford. When he was losing employees due to the mind-numbing boredom of the assembly line, he raised the pay to five dollars a day. He hired immigrant workers, paying for them to learn English and take citizenship classes. He rewarded those who became citizens, honouring them at ceremonies. He’s held up as an example of a capitalist who cared for his people.
Unlike most other employers, “Henry Ford’s promise of a Five Dollar Day was not tainted with discrimination; blacks were paid a wage equal to that of whites. During the late teens, “the name Ford became synonymous with northern opportunity,” recalled LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), inspiring hundreds of black southerners to travel North with their sights set on a job at the Ford Motor Company (fmc).¹
In many ways, he helped more Americans move into the middle class than any other industrialist while becoming incredibly wealthy.
He was also a virulent anti-Semite. It’s not clear where he developed this belief. He was a farm boy who had likely never met a Jew until he was an adult. But, by the time he was in his twenties, he had formed the firm idea that Jews were an inferior ‘race’ who happened to have a talent for making money. From this he concluded that all negative events were somehow caused by a cabal of Jews. He suspected Jews of causing World War I, a belief heartily endorsed in Germany by Adolph Hitler. Ford also thought Jews were responsible for Jazz and short skirts, not really well explained in his work.
Hitler found out about Ford’s belief through the Dearborn Independent, a newspaper that he bought in 1919. From 1920, the paper ran a column on the front page called ‘The International Jew’. Ford’s major complaint was that the Jews had “no interest in manufacturing” but only in finance. And Jews have become so adept at finance that they control the economics of the world. “There is apparently in the world today a central financial force which is playing a vast and closely organized game, with the world for its table and universal control for its stakes.* Ford was certain that Jews also controlled the press, something that has been repeated by modern demagogues. Hitler must have rejoiced when reading, “The Jew in Germany is regarded as only a guest of the people; he has offended by trying to turn himself into the host. There are no stronger contrasts in the world than the pure Germanic and pure Semitic races;…” This may have encouraged the Fuehrer to believe that America would never fight to save Europe from fascism.
Ford’s influence extended far beyond Dearborn MI. He insisted that all his dealers take out subscriptions and give them free to anyone who bought a model T. There was an uproar in many circles and some dealers refused. Eventually, he was convinced to issue an apology, but the paper continued.
What to make of Ford? He did great things for the middle class. He was apparently open to having immigrants and people of colour work for him. He revolutionized manufacturing. If he had just been anti-Semitic, making comments at parties or preferring not to hire Jews, I might have believed that this was a reflection of the times. But he not only published his beliefs (along with a lot of incorrect history, a cardinal sin in my eyes) he printed an English translation of the infamous forgery “The Protocols of Zion”. This early conspiracy theory has long legs. I found a copy at Academia.edu along with the comment that it was suppressed history. One can also find all 722 pages of The International Jew. Perhaps there are readers who agree with Ford, but I can’t look at him as a benefactor of humanity any more.
If this is too long to hold your attention, there is a 2013 American Experience from PBS on Ford that covers some of this https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/henryford/ and there are several books on it, including Henry Ford and the Jews:The Mass Production of Hate, by Neal Baldwin.
Charles Lindbergh
1.BATES, BETH TOMPKINS. “Henry Ford Ushers in a New Era for Black Workers.” In The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford, 39-68. University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Accessed March 20, 2020.
In May of 1927, at the age of 25, Charles Lindbergh became the darling of America when he became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic. He was an ideal of the all-American boy, good-looking, diffident, from a solid Midwestern background. He was idolized by all. Two years later, he married Anne Morrow. He might have faded into semi-obscurity, especially with the shock of the Great Depression, except for the horror of the kidnapping and murder of his first child, Charles Jr. in 1932. The media circus around the event drove the Lindberghs to move to Germany where they lived until 1939. “While living abroad, Lindbergh, acting at the U.S. military’s request, made multiple trips to Germany to assess the country’s aviation capabilities. He was impressed by what he encountered: As historian Thomas Doherty says, Nazi Germany shared Lindbergh’s admiration of “Spartan physicality” and aviation-centric militarism.” (Meilan Solly, “The True History behind the Plot Against America” Smithsonian , Mar 1, 2020)
He seems to have also been impressed with German ideas on racial purity. In this, Lindbergh is much less a cipher than Ford. He hated Jews; he believed they were secretly running the world, but he also hated Negroes, Slavs, Chinese, Arabs—anyone who wasn’t ‘Aryan’.
When he came back to the US, Lindbergh became a spokesperson of the “America First” movement. This was a strong isolationist group that did not want to be involved in another European war. Lindbergh’s father had been opposed to American’s entering World War I, feeling that it was only intended to make Wall Street financiers richer. Along with his German experience, this made the aviator a perfect representative. He gave speeches all across the country. Lindbergh’s main argument for staying out of the war was military. “But we in this country have a right to think of the welfare of America first, just as the people in England thought first of their own country when they encouraged the smaller nations of Europe to fight against hopeless odds.” Hitler was winning and the war was already lost. Why fight a losing war? Many agreed with him. Then, in a speech in Des Moines Iowa, in September of 1941, he stated, “I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.” Other comments made it clear to most of America that he preferred the Nazis to Communists and that he felt Hitler was the only one keeping the “Asiatic hordes” at bay. For more information, including the texts of his speeches, see: http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech.asp
When the war began, Lindbergh went on his own to the Pacific. Eventually, he flew several combat missions. Many people forgave or ignored his pre-war folly.
Charles Lindbergh died in 1974. It wasn’t until 2001 that three of his seven German children revealed their existence, later proved with DN tests. Starting about 1957, Lindbergh had simultaneous affairs with three women in Germany and Switzerland. He may well have been fond of all of them, but there is also a suspicion that he was acting on the belief that the world needed more Aryan children.
charles-lindbergh—opposition-to-world-war-ii.jpg1.BATES, BETH TOMPKINS. “Henry Ford Ushers in a New Era for Black Workers.” In The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford, 39-68. University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Accessed March 20, 2020.
charles-lindbergh—opposition-to-world-war-ii.jpg1.BATES, BETH TOMPKINS. “Henry Ford Ushers in a New Era for Black Workers.” In The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford, 39-68. University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Accessed March 20, 2020.
Apart from believing in America first, Ford and Lindbergh also shared the ‘honour’ of the highest civilian award Nazi Germany gave, The Order of the German Eagle. Ford’s was given in 1938 in Michigan, Lindbergh’s was presented by Herman Goering in 1939.
Now, when I began working on this, it was because I was wondering if the positive things people did were negated when they also did evil things. I still don’t know.
But I do know that the feelings expressed by Ford and Lindbergh are becoming more prevalent today. America First is a catchphrase again. Bigotry of all sorts is becoming more open. And, while most of the world is coming together through a shared fear, there are those who somehow still have decided to blame the Jews. I have read a number of comments to the effect that George Soros is somehow behind the virus. The NY Post just had an article on Neo-Nazis encouraging those who have tested positive to give the disease to Jews, who invented it so they could sell vaccines. Tricky, since there isn’t one. https://nypost.com/2020/03/23/white-supremacists-reportedly-urge-members-to-infect-cops-jews-with-coronavirus/
Since I started writing this, the world has changed. It’s not just hatred of the Jew; as I said in my last post, that’s just a warning sign. In Bangladesh, the internet has been cut off in Rohinga refugee camps. Why? I have no idea. I do know that the misinformation and blaming of others is coming from the very top. We can follow that into chaos or we can decide that this is a chance to make the earth one unified entity, remembering, as so may have said, we’re all in this together.
“If any one of these groups–the British, the Jewish, or the administration–stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement.“ Charles Lindbergh- September 11, 1941
“The Jew is the world’s enigma. Poor in his masses, he yet controls the world’s finances. Scattered abroad without country or government, he yet presents a unity of race continuity which no other people has achieved. Living under legal disabilities in almost every land, he has become the power behind many a throne. There are ancient prophecies to the effect that the Jew will return to his own land and from that center rule the world, though not until he has undergone an assault by the united nations of mankind.”
In 1939, Sen. Robert Reynolds of North Carolina (who ran his own anti-Semitic newspaper, the American Vindicator), proposed bills to end all immigration for five years, declaring in a June 1939 speech that the time had come to “save America for Americans.”
“America First” has been a rallying cry throughout the history of the US. Of course, what was always was meant was “My America First”. The Puritans didn’t want Quakers, even hanging some who proselytised. William Penn had to acquire a new colony for them to settle. Catholics were only welcome in Maryland, and so forth. Native Americans and Africans were rarely considered as human. As the nineteenth century progressed with immigrants needed as a work force, Catholic Irish were vilified, as were Italians, Greeks, and then those from Eastern Europe. There were a number of Chinese exclusion acts up until the 1930s. But, throughout Western history, the canary in the coal mine of intolerance has been the Jews.
This seems to be a feeling always lurking beneath the surface of society. Years ago, when I was in grad school, I was called for jury duty. I took a copy of “The History of Christianity” to study. A sweet woman in her fifties came up to me and said, “I think it’s just a miracle that Christianity has survived all those persecutions, don’t you?” I considered. “Well, I answered. “It’s more amazing that Judaism has survived.”
Her whole face changed. Her eyes narrowed; her mouth twisted; her skin grew red. It was like watching the Slythereen pull off their masks to revert to alien form.
“You’re Jewish, aren’t you?” she accused.
I answered without thinking because my conclusion had been based on scholarship, not religion.
“No,” I said. “I am an historian.”
She vanished. But I was shaken by her transformation and wondered how many other kindly people in the room harboured such a clear hatred of those not like them.
I started thinking about the icons of American culture who also were strong anti-Semites. We have already seen a rise in the desecration of Synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, with discrimination becoming more blatant.
My greatest worry is that it never stops with the Jews. That’s just the beginning. All the racial, religious and social bigotry that lies beneath the surface starts oozing to the top. Fear may resurrect feelings that always lay beneath or even create them as people search for a scapegoat.
Since I’m also staying home, which I enjoy, I’ll post tomorrow on Lindbergh, Ford and other American role models who also had dark sides. Their beliefs had a disproportionate effect on the rest of the country.
Today, February first, is St. Brigid’s Day. In Ireland it’s been celebrated for thousands of years. I know, someone will point out that Christianity has only been in Ireland for fifteen hundred years. But, thanks to Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) missionaries were encouraged to adapt local holy places to Christian saints. So Brigid, the Celtic Goddess, became Saint Brigid, a miracle-working abbess.
There may have been a real woman named Brigid, born sometime in the sixth century, who was first married to the lord of a feuding family to bring peace. It didn’t work and, in on battle, her son was killed. Converted by St. Patrick, she asked the local king for land to build her monastery. He refused and so she asked only for the land that could be covered by her cloak. The king agreed. She lay out her cloak and it grew and grew until it covered acres and acres. This became her abbey of Kildare.
However, the goddess and the abbess never really separated in the minds of the Irish and still live comfortably together in rituals and art. In the picture to the left, Brigid holds her symbolic cross, which is made of reeds on January thirty-first. The cross is placed over a door or window to protect the house from evil.
February first is Imbolc, one of the four Irish fire festivals to mark the seasons. The name means ‘in the womb’ or ‘in milk’, apparently referring to the hope of a successful lambing season. The next festival is Beltane, ‘bright’, at the beginning of summer. Harvest season is marked by the feast of the sun god, Lugh, called Lughnasagh. Finally comes Samhain ‘summers end’ now celebrated universally as Halloween.
In her other hand Brigid holds eternal fire. That was another aspect of the goddess. Both women watch over new mothers and protect cows. The goddess also protected poets and sailors.
“St. Brigid is the patron saint of babies, blacksmiths, boatmen, cattle farmers, children whose parents are not married, children whose mothers are mistreated by the children’s fathers, Clan Douglas, dairymaids, dairy workers, fugitives, Ireland, Leinster, mariners, midwives, milkmaids, nuns, poets, the poor, poultry farmers, poultry raisers, printing presses, sailors, scholars, travellers, and watermen.”
There are many shrines to Brigid, many of them at holy wells. We visited one the other day, near the Cliffs of Moher. It’s a grotto where a stream runs through a small hallway. On the ways are hundreds of photos of people who have died. There are also religious statues festooned with rosaries. Sometimes toys or other mementos are also left. Looking at these was very poignant. People come here to grieve and find comfort. It’s a place of shared sorrow. They know that, since St. Brigid lost a child of her own, she would be kind to those who had also lost someone. The day we were there, late January of 2020, we were the only pilgrims. Having had three friends die in the proceeding weeks and feeling weighed down with the state of the world, I found solace in the thought that for so many centuries, both Brigids have been comforting people and reminding us that there will be another spring.
Part II Philip the Fair, Pope Boniface VIII and the separation of Church and State.
Nogaret’s men arrest the pope
When the constitution of the United States was written, the founders established a principle that was unheard of in Western (or perhaps any) society.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Since many of the original colonists had come fleeing religious persecution by their governments, this made sense. But it was a radical solution to a problem that had existed for millennia.
Philip IV of France is a classic example of the struggle for power between Church and State.
Just a bit of background first. Contrary to what is taught almost everywhere, the popes in Rome did not control the minds of every Christian in Europe. Nor did the rulers of the various countries always feel obliged to obey them. Yes, by and large, most people in Western Europe considered themselves Christian. However, there were wild variations in how they understood the faith.
Philip IV of France was not the first ruler to take on the popes. In the eleventh century the Holy Roman emperors had huge fights with Rome over the right to appoint bishops. It was called the Investiture Conflict. Barrels of ink have been used to describe the fun and games that ensued, so I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that there was a lot of shouting, some fighting and several anti-popes. However, all the participants were of the same faith even if they each thought the others to be heretics and power-grabbers.
Philip wanted something more. He had a lot of issues concerning his family and religion. First of all, since the time of his umpteenth great-grandfather Louis VII, the kings had been anointed at their coronations with holy oil, found in the tomb of St. Remi. Popular belief stretched this much further back, to the time of the first Capetian, Hugh Capet, in 987. To this they added that the oil had been delivered from heaven by the Holy Spirit, in its form of a dove.
Added to that, his immediate ancestors had all been pious crusaders. Philip had a lot to live up to and those pesky popes kept getting in his way.
So, Philip set about slowly easing power from Rome. He believed, and there is some truth in this, that the papacy was nothing more than a prize in a power struggle among the noble Roman families and not a divine calling.
The pope he faced was Boniface VIII, the current winner, who was concerned to keep the rights of the church out of the hands of monarchs.
In Philip’s war with Edward I of England,* both sides had taxed the clerics, especially wealthy monasteries. This was a no-no. said the pope. The tithes from churches and abbeys helped keep the papacy afloat. Boniface forbade the kings to take more money from the Church. Did I mention that Philip and Edward both had active armies? After some fuss, Boniface backed down and proclaimed that kings could tax the church without approval from the pope if there were a clear and present danger.
Round one to Philip.
In 1297, after some pressure, Boniface declared Philip’s grandfather Louis IX, who had died on crusade, to be a saint.
Round two to Philip.
Next Philip heard that a bishop from the south of France had, while in his cups, said some nasty things about him. Bernard Saisset was Bishop of Pamiers and a good friend of Pope Boniface. He and Philip had already been on opposite sides of a land dispute. According to many witnesses, Bernard had said of Philip, “Our king resembles an owl, the fairest of birds, but worthless. He is the handsomest man in the world, but he only knows how to look at people unblinkingly, without speaking.” He also accused Philip of being a bastard and opined that St. Louis was in hell. This insulted Philip and, even more, the counsellors who wrote most of his pronouncements.
Naturally, Philip went ballistic. He ordered the bishop arrested and charged with heresy and treason, among other things. Now, all clerics accused of a crime were supposed to be tried in religious courts. If they were convicted, they might be turned over to secular courts for punishment. Boniface couldn’t ignore the treatment of a bishop and a friend. Perhaps unwisely, he sent a pronouncement to the king, titled Ausculta fili. Loosely translated, it means “Listen up, kid”.
Philip’s minions quickly went to work and published a “slanted summary of its main points which gave the impression that the pope was claiming the feudal lordship of France.”@ This gave Philip the opening to attack the pope directly. As I mentioned in the first part of this essay, he accused Boniface of heresy, sodomy, murder, idolatry and simony. The actual author of this charge was Philip’s chief advisor, Nogaret. He arranged for assemblies to be held across France to condemn Boniface. Then, with the help of a rival Roman family, Nogaret went to Italy and captured the pope in his home town of Anagni. Reports differ as to what was done to him, but he was certainly abused. The citizens of Anagni rose up and freed Boniface but the pontiff, in his eighties, died a month later.
This round was sort of a tie.
Finally, Philip got a French pope, Clement V, who would compromise enough to dissolve the Templars.
Are you still with me? Because I’m finally getting to the point.
Philip IV wanted money, but he also wanted to be free of papal meddling. He was divinely consecrated, the grandson of a saint. “ In accusing Bernard Saisset of heresy, Nogaret created the chance to affirm the right of the Capetian king to replace the pope, if necessary, in his Christlike function Henceforth, “what [was] committed against God, against the faith or against the Roman Church, the king consider[ed] committed against himself.” #
Philip was establishing himself as the direct link to God, above the popes. His broadsides confirmed this. During the trial of the Templars, another advisor, Guillaume de Plaisians, told the assembly that “The king of France has come to announce to you great joy!” This was the dissolution of the Templars. Plaisians was stating that, like the angels, Philip had received word from Heaven without going through the pope.# God had sent Philip to the French, and he agreed, styling himself “the most Christian king”, in the world.
Louis XIV
So Philip, and the kings who followed him, up to Louis XVI, did not want to separate church and state; they wanted control of both. And, with power over both, people had no one to appeal to against the excesses of the monarch. It was as if the American president also controlled the Congress and the Supreme Court,
The framers of the Constitution got it right, in my opinion. They learned from history that legislating private belief is tyranny. Let’s don’t let it happen again.
Notes:
*The war continued, off and on, for over a hundred years. You may have heard of it.
@ Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars. P. 30
#Julien Théry-Astruc, “Guillaume de Nogaret and the Conflicts Between Philip the Fair and the Papacy” The Capetian Century ed. William Chester Jordan and Jenna Rebecca Phillips.(Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium, 2017) p219
Know your terrorist: the Wahabi sect of Saudi Arabia and the Family Saud.[1]
Yes, I know it’s been ages since I posted anything. The Saud family and Wahhabi Islam shouldn’t have taken so long. I did keep busy with other things, of course, but the research for this report kept expanding. I began to feel that I was writing a dissertation. And, just a few days ago, I read an article by Carlotta Gall about Saudi influence in Kosovo.[2] But more about that later.
Saudi Arabia, as far as I know, is the only country in the world named for its ruling family. It was founded, in 1932 by Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (Ibn Saud). However, Ibn Saud was preceded by nearly two hundred years of determined ancestors whose beliefs made the Puritans seem easy going.
It all began in the early 1700s. At that time, Arabia was ruled, in principle, by the Ottoman Empire. It was actually a land of many tribes who spent most of their time fighting each other. One aspect of the society was the blood feud. This was not unique to Arabs. As in other cultures, the tribe of the murderer could pay a blood price to the aggrieved family. If this failed, there existed an elaborate system of rules. Revenge could reach to the fifth generation and if the perpetrator died before the family of the victim could take revenge, his nearest relative would be targeted.[3] Loyalty to the tribe was essential for self-protection.
The Ottoman rulers were not terribly interested in Arabia. Most of its interaction with the outside world was trade. From the time of Herodotus, North Arabia produced many luxury goods, not available elsewhere: frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, and laudanum. They also transferred spices, silks and other luxury goods from India and Yemen. [4]
Both the Saud family and their religion came from the central region of the peninsula. known as the Najd. (plateau) Surrounded by coastline and mountains, it was little explored and thought to be inhabited only by nomadic Bedouin traders. However, hidden among the arid dunes were a number of oasis towns. Under the Najd is an enormous glacial aquafer. Grain, dates and other fruit were grown and the culture allowed time for poetry and study. [5] Gertrude Bell in 1927 was still surprised by the oases, “ It was curious riding through hilly ways and cultivated country to-day after three weeks of desert.”[6]
Now the stage is set. Imagine this remote, independent cluster of towns at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Apart from trade and Muslim pilgrims, most inhabitants neither know nor care about the world outside.
Part Two, The Purifier of Islam
Mohammad ibn Ahd al-Wahhib was born in the town of Uyaina, in 1704. He came from a family of scholars. His father was a qadi, or judge according to the Hanbali school of shari’a law. Ahd was Mohammad’s first teacher. By the time he was ten Mohammad had memorized the Quran. He then went to Mecca on the hajd, or pilgrimage. There he studied for a time, then continued to Medina for further education. Over the years, he traveled as far as Bagdad and Damascus.[7]
In his studies and his travels, ibn Abd al-Wahhib was shocked at how far the Muslim population had strayed from the teaching of the Prophet. He began preaching a return to the roots of Islam. Only the Qur’an, and the Hadith were authoritative. Every innovation since then was shirk, idolatry.
In Islam at the time, many people believed in the power of saints to give aid to the living. Pilgrims brought offerings to their graves. They also believed in holy stones, trees and caves, soothsayers and the power of djinn, all of which horrified ibn al-Wahhib. Even more, he was shocked by the mysticism of the Sufis, who tried to achieve oneness with Allah. This was blasphemy.
His book of Islam is still studied by all Wahhabi followers, It has influenced radical fundamentalist groups such as Al-Quaeda, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. It begins with a commandment that may sound familiar:
“And verily, We have sent among every Ummah (community, nation) a Messenger (proclaiming): ‘Worship Allah (Alone), and avoid (or keep away from) Taghut (all false deities etc. i.e. do not worship Taghut besides Allah).’ (16:36)”
In some places where he preached, local authorities were tolerant of his ideas. However, many towns made a good income from the pilgrims. Others saw no problem with popular belief and considered ibn al-Wahhib a trouble maker.[8] He was expelled from one place to another until he had the good fortune to land in Dariyah, the home of emir Mohammed ibn Saud, who “presented himself before the Sheikh as one of his students of Islam, along with his family.”[9] This was the beginning of the partnership that would result in the formation of the theocracy of Saudi Arabia,
[1] Nawaf E. Obaid. “In Al-Saud We Trust”, Foreign Policy, No. 128 (Jan. – Feb., 2002), p. 74
[3] Alexi Vassiliev, History of Saudi Arabia, Saki Books, (2013) Kindle edition. Chapter One, p. 25 As a side note, there was a gang-related murder in Ireland recently where the victim was a relative of a target who could not be found,
[4] Sharifah M. Al-Boudi, “Najd, the Heart of Arabia”. Arab Studies Quarterly (Summer, 2015)
[8]Joseph Nevo, “Religion and National Identity in Saudi Arabia”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1998), pp 37-38
[9] ‘Alamah’ Abd al-Rahman al-Sa’di. Explanation ‘ Of an by Mohammad Ibn Wahhadi ‘ ‘s Kitab the At-Tauhid , nd
______________________________________________________________________________IIf there is interest in my thumbnail sketch of how we got so entangled with Saudi Arabia and why I, along with many others, find it unsettling, let me know and I’ll post another piece on how we wound up in this situation. There are many good books on the topic. I’m writing for those who just want the basic information. Thanks, Sharan.
Here I am, totally ignorant of what will happen, trying on my pussy hat for the Women’s March on Washington. ( “SPES” by the way, is Latin for “hope”, something in short supply lately.)
People asked me why I felt I had to take my walker and go all the way across the country to do this when there were protests in town. There are either too many answers to that, or none. One reason is that more than half my ancestors have been in the country since before 1700. They settled the land, served in the armies and government. Some were kind, compassionate people, some weren’t. Some clear cut trees for their fields, fought Natives in King Joseph’s War, owned slaves and persecuted Quakers. One can be proud of Colonial ancestors but also see the results of their actions.
I stand with Standing Rock, because they were among those who pushed Natives onto reservations.
I stand for women’s rights because my male ancestors refused to vote for them.
I believe Black Lives Matter remembering how those of my family believed their lives were property.
In short, I believe in not repeating history but in working hard to make the world better and more equal for all.
So, I went to Washington and it was a euphoric experience. Whatever you hear, I was surrounded by people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, ages, genders and professions. They say that there were so many causes that it was chaos. I didn’t see one sign I didn’t agree with. Heidi Stemple put it better than I can:
I’m seeing lots of criticism of the Women’s Marches. Let us all remember, that whatever it meant to each of us– every one of those reasons are important and significant. Did we save access to health care for women? Did we stop the pipeline or make undocumented people more safe? No. But, we needed each other and we showed up to prove that we are here and not to be taken lightly, forgotten, or discounted. We are women who, when pushed, will push back. Will letters or phone calls help these causes? Perhaps not. But, we, the daughters, mothers, lovers, and sisters, we will raise our voices and shout down those who wish to keep us down–every damn time– until the time when we find or make or learn other ways to make a difference. We ARE the wall. We will take care of the children you will leave behind and we will boil the water you make unsafe to drink. We will nurse the ill who have no access to health care. We will teach the science you refuse to believe. We will remember the souls you shoot and kill on the streets. We will form the secret networks to help all the people you care nothing about. We are not snowflakes. We are the people who birthed you, fed you, nurtured you. Do NOT mistake our femininity as weakness. Because, even when we are down, WE ARE NOT WITHOUT POWER.
What she said. Here are some examples of the wonderful people who came out to support us all:
United Health Workers. There were at least a hundred of them, with shirts, purple hats and stickers. (They gave me one) They marched for health care for all and better working conditions for those who do the real caring; home health workers, CNAs and nurses.
There were many people supporting gay and trans issues.
Domestic workers came to many of the marches all over the country. They wanted respect, immigration reform, health care and decent pay. Or, as they said. Human Rights for all.
These speak for themselves. Personally, I think that a man wearing a pussyhat is very appealing. A man who takes his daughter to a march for human rights is a treasure and an example to fathers everywhere.
When your congress person votes to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, this young man is the one who will have fewer treatment and education options. Many people were concerned about health care cost and availability. I rant about this all the time. We are the only first world country without national health. Could is possibly be because there is such a powerful health insurance lobby ?
So, this is my new Facebook image, partly because I need to keep reminding myself not to fear and partly because I really would like to look as beautiful as she.
Apocalypses and Other Thoughts 
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