Egyptian_Mythology (1)

Egyptian Mythology: The Sun and Creation

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Similar to the myths of some other cultures, Egyptian creation stories talk of a time before creation which was filled with void and chaos—an expanse called “Nu.”

To the Egyptians, the beginning of all things was Zep Tepi (“first occasion”). The void itself was described as a primordial body of water out of which rose up a mound shaped like a pyramid—a benben. This word is similar to the name given to the sacred bird of rebirth (compare Greek phoenix), the bennu.

From the ancient city of Khemenu (known to the late Greek rulers of Egypt as Hermopolis), their story of creation starts with the formation of eight gods of the Ogdoad.

Nu was male and his female mate was Naunet. Together, they represented the dead, primordial sea.

Huh was male and his female mate was Hauhet. Together, they represented the infinite expanse of that ancient sea.

Kuk was male and his female mate was Kauket. Together, they represented the dim murkiness which was a natural part of that primeval fluid.

Amun was male and his female mate was Amaunet. Together, they represented the opaque obscurity of that earliest of waters. This quality made it impossible to discover more about the water’s nature.

With all of them filled with the theme of water, it should be no surprise that they were symbolized as frogs (male) and water snakes (female).

When the Ogdoad came together, an imbalance was created which forced the emergence of the first benben, and from it, the appearance of the sun to give its light to all of material existence.

From the ancient city of Iunu (known to the late Greek rulers of Egypt as Heliopolis), the creation story takes on a somewhat different form.

To the people of Iunu, Atum created himself out of the watery void. In some versions, Atum is seen sitting on the primordial benben; in others, he is the benben itself. Atum represented the setting sun—where the day reaches its completion.

It’s interesting to note that the Hebrews also viewed sunset as the end of the day and the moment after the sun disappears as the beginning of a new day.

Because of Atum’s association with the sun, he was sometimes called Ra or Atum-Ra. Like many of the myths in other cultures, the gods are frequently described as if they have human-like form. For instance, Atum either masturbates or sneezes his first two children into existence. They are the god of air, Shu, and the goddess of moisture, Tefnut.

The First Tragedy in Creation

While Atum was working on one of his many creation projects, both Shu and Tefnut took an interest in their environment.

“What is this watery substance surrounding the island of creation?” asked Shu.

“Father did not say much about it. Only that it was here before he arrived.”

“Aren’t you curious about it?”

“Well,” replied Tefnut, “perhaps a little. What did you have in mind?”

“Father’s busy. We shouldn’t disturb him.” Shu nodded, gaining confidence in his new decision. “Perhaps we should explore it. Maybe, if we find something of value out there, we can bring it back to Father for him to use.”

Tefnut smiled and also nodded. Abruptly, she jumped into the primordial waters and swam away. Shu followed close behind.

Later, when Atum was ready for a break, he called for his children, but did not hear a reply. Soon, he became frantic. Creation was still brand new and Atum was still learning how to deal with the nature of reality and how to shape its form. Was there something he had missed? Could there be something in the tools with which he was working that created destruction? Then, he noticed a residual swirl in the primordial waters. In an instant, he knew his children had dove into those waters and had swum away.

“Oh! My dear children.” He feared that they might become lost in the murky gloom of that infinite void. His light would not reach infinity. They would not be able to see it if they swam too far.

“What to do?”

All of a sudden, thought and action became one. He plucked out his right eye and cast it into the void. “Find my children!” was the commandment and divine intention.

Not long afterward, this new goddess—the Eye of Ra—returned with the children in tow.

Atum was so relieved that he wept and each teardrop became a new creation, each one an individual human being.

The Supreme Council of Gods

After Atum had worked a while at creating the world and many of the new gods he had needed to help manage all of physical reality, he established a supreme council of gods called the Ennead. Its nine members were Atum-Ra and his two children, Shu and Tefnut, and their two children, Geb and Nut, and their four children, Auser, Asett, Sett, and Nephthys.

In contrast to the Ogdoad, which dealt primarily with the void of chaos, the Ennead handled physical existence.

More Creation Stories

From the ancient city of Inbu-Hedj (known to the late Greek rulers of Egypt as Memphis), their story of creation involves the patron god of all craftsmen, Ptah. Here, the physical world was carefully crafted with intellectual precision, unlike the accident of Khemenu’s creation myth, or the sneeze of Iunu’s creation story.

Ptah possessed an innate ability to see a desired end result in all its details and to find all the necessary resources for its fabrication.

Egyptian myth placed the mental faculties in the heart, rather than in the brain. It was said that when Ptah spoke from the heart, the things he visualized became manifest in physical reality. As he would speak the name of something, it would suddenly appear. His spoken word was the source of all other gods, physical objects, and mortal beings.

At creation, Ptah was connected to Tatjenen, the god of the first benben.

In some respects, Ptah is similar to the Abrahamic God of Judaism and Christianity where creation was more an activity of intelligent intention. In some other respects, Ptah’s method of creation—from the heart—mimics the nature of prayer. Philosopher Rod Martin, Jr. notes, “Prayer, when done right, comes from feeling or ‘the heart.’ It never comes from thought or the words on someone’s lips. A fearful heart, asking for salvation, will receive more to fear. A confident, but humble heart, asking for anything, will receive that thing instantly. And most people are not too confident about instantly, so time (delay) becomes part of the delivery.”

From the ancient city of Waset (known to the late Greek rulers of Egypt as Thebes, and in modern times, Luxor), we receive still another version of creation. To them, Amun was an invisible force behind every aspect of creation and also an element of the Ogdoad. Amun’s form encompassed everything—from beyond the deepest underworld, and the highest of the heavens.

When Amun uttered his first cry, it shattered the sameness of the infinite nothingness and gave birth to both the Ogdoad, and its eight gods, but also the Ennead, and its nine gods.

To the people of Waset, Amun was a mystery shrouded in darkness for even all of the other gods. And the attributes and skills of all the other gods were merely one aspect or another of Amun. The inhabitants of Waset considered their city to be the location of the original benben.

The Sun—A Pivotal Aspect of Creation

Central to all of these stories is the appearance of the sun. All of Kemet (Egypt) worshiped at least one aspect of the sun. In fact, Heliopolis was literally “sun city.”

When Atum plucked out his eye in order to find his children, Shu and Tefnut, that new goddess not only had the ability to perceive, but also the ability to cast the necessary light on her surroundings in order to see more clearly. The Eye of Ra has been represented throughout Egyptian myth by various goddesses. The list is long and includes Bastet, Hathor, Mut, Sekhmet, and Wadjet. This “eye” was sometimes symbolically represented as the solar disk. On the back of the American dollar, it may also be the eye in the benben that is glowing above a truncated pyramid.

A number of gods were more directly associated with the sun. Of course, there is Ra, who represented the sun at or near zenith, when its blazing light does most of its work in nourishing the plants of the physical world.

Naturally, the sun has different aspects to its daily cycle. Khepri took the first visible slot of the day as the sun rose. Because of this “newborn” state, he also represented rebirth.

The lesser god, Aten, represented the perceptible disk of the sun, but not any of its life-giving warmth or light.

As we’ve already seen, Atum represented the setting sun, which ties in thematically with his status as a source of creation. The setting sun completes each day, and Atum was able to complete each creation by giving it form, substance, and persistence.

And Ptah was long associated with the sun after it set. During each night, the sun replenished itself, preparing for the new day. Besides his skills as a craftsman, Ptah was also a god of the arts and biological creation (fertility).

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Franklin_Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Term in Presidency

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the thirty-second president of the United States on March 4, 1933 during the country’s worst economic depression in history. At this time, one out of four Americans were unemployed, and agricultural prices fell by sixty percent. That same day, thirty-two of forty-eight states closed their banks and discarded the key until further notice.i People entered a frenzied panic and began withdrawing their money in lump sums. Roosevelt started his inauguration address by blaming the crisis on financiers and bankers, capitalism, and greed. Roosevelt said:

“Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”ii

With this speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt firmly separated himself from the origins of the Great Depression, claiming that he believed the United States would rise up. He firmly stated that basic economic rights should be seen as a Second Bill of Rights. He looked forward to a new time, a better time for which the people could hope and anticipate.

Franklin soon went about initiating what many historians refer to as his relief, recovery, and reform plan. Under this plan, Franklin would supply relief to the millions of people unemployed in the United Sates, recovery to the economy that desperately needed normalizing, and reform to the tanking financial and banking systems.

Franklin engaged with public radio as a means to present his ideas to the American public, and these talks became known as fireside chats. Public opinion was very important to Roosevelt; therefore, he initiated a method to speak directly to his electorate through mass communication. At this point, Roosevelt’s opposition controlled many of the major newspapers. Historian Betty Houchin Winfieled said, “He and his advisors worried that newspapers’ biases would affect the news columns and rightly so.”iii Historian Douglas B. Craig continued to say that Roosevelt’s use of the radio “offered voters a chance to receive information unadulterated by newspaper proprietors’ bias.”ivOf course, Franklin utilized these chats for more than simply a conduit for information. Each time he spoke to listeners, crowds would send letters to legislation that asked to pass measures Roosevelt proposed over the radio.

The fireside chats created a sense of security for Roosevelt’s listeners because they could actually hear his own voice. Inspiring the term, Franklin’s press secretary, Stephen Early, said that Roosevelt wanted to consider the listeners as people who were sitting with him around his fireside. CBS broadcast executive Harry C. Butcher coined the term in a press release on May 7, 1933. “Fireside chats” trickled throughout the news, and Roosevelt began using it, as well. Eventually, the term grew to become part of American folklore.

Roosevelt’s presidential fireside chats began eight days after his inauguration, on March 12, 1933, and they were especially helpful when the general public panicked over the banks’ closings. He told them “what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be.”v Historian William L. Silber said the fireside chats initiated a “remarkable turnaround in the public’s confidence … The contemporary press confirms that the public recognized the implicit guarantee and, as a result, believed that the reopened banks would be safe, as the president explained in his first Fireside Chat.”

Of course, the first one hundred days of every new presidency is closely critiqued, but Franklin was under particularly heavy pressure to succeed in a time of such distress. His efforts and legislation became known as the New Deal. In regard to the anxiety that arose due to the banking crisis, Franklin stated, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”vi People were no longer spending money because they were afraid, which made the economic depression worse. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt initiated a bank holiday and called for a special session of Congress on March 9. He sent Congress a record number of bills between March 9 and June 16, 1933, all of which were passed with no issue and no complaints. As one of the first problems addressed, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first step to recovery.vii Then, Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), a program that assured Americans that their money was safe inside banks. In other words, the FDIC underwrote savings deposits.

Franklin’s primary concern was to look at the relief part of his plan. To do so, he continued measures to ensure that Hoover’s major relief program for the unemployed continued under a new name: Federal Emergency Relief Administration. In an attempt to create new jobs, Roosevelt generated a multitude of new agencies, one of the most successful of which was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a program that employed 250,000 young men to work on local rural projects. Additionally, he moved to expand the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, one of Hoover’s projects, which provided a major source of financing for industry and railroads. One of Franklin’s main concerns was the agricultural industry; therefore, he set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which forced higher prices for commodities through paying farmers to cut down on herds and crops.viii He also pushed through the Federal Trade Commission, which provided regulatory powers and mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. With no doubt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a busy man.

The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 aimed to reform the economy through attempting to end intense competition by requiring that industries create codes to establish the rules of operation. Mandated requirements included minimum prices, non-competition agreements, and production restrictions. As a condition for approval, industry had to raise wages. Later, on May 27, 1935, the NIRA was found to be unconstitutional by a unanimous decision in the US Supreme Court. In reply, Franklin said, “The fundamental purposes and principles of the NIRA are sound. To abandon them is unthinkable. It would spell the return to industrial and labor chaos.”ix

As a continued effort to reform the banking system, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was commissioned to regulate Wall Street. This organization is responsible for enforcing all federal securities laws and proposing securities rules, while regulating the nation’s stock and options exchanges, the securities industry, and other organizations, which include the electronic securities markets in the United States.x Franklin was determined to push through a federal minimum wage as part of the NIRA. He argued, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”xi He eventually achieved this goal with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which provided the last major domestic reform measure of the New Deal.xii

For the most part, federal spending was Roosevelt’s idea of recovery in the United States. The Public Works Administration allowed $3.3 billion worth of spending to stimulate the economy. Out of this idea rose the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a new program which employed people to build dams and power stations, thereby providing flood-control and modern technology for agricultural areas in the Tennessee Valley, one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the United States. Additionally, Roosevelt moved to repeal prohibition—one of his campaign promises—which brought in new tax revenues. He signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, redefining 3.2% alcohol as the allowed maximum.

As a measure to boost the economy by countering inflation, Franklin pushed through Executive Order 6102, which required that all American citizens were to sell their privately held gold to the United States Treasury; this move raised the price of gold from twenty dollars per ounce to thirty-five dollars per ounce.xiii

All of Franklin’s ideas did not rest as well with the American people, though. One of his most unpopular commissions was his idea to cut the federal budgets by reducing military spending, veterans’ benefits, federal employees’ salaries, and spending on research and education. The American veterans groups came close to a full revolt. They protested heavily, and most benefits were increased or restored by 1934. In fact, Roosevelt restored $50 million in pension payments, then Congress added an additional $46 million.xiv When veteran groups campaigned to alter their benefits to payments due in 1945 to immediate cash—henceforth called the Bonus Act—in January 1936, the economy boosted.

Roosevelt was quickly learning that a change would be necessary for continued growth in the country, and he commenced working toward that goal. In 1935, Franklin began to pursue what was later known as the Second New Deal. He had the largest majorities in both houses after the 1934 Congressional elections, and he started with a fresh set of new legislation ideas. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was one of the first initiatives. The WPA employed two million family heads—usually unemployed male leaders of family units—to carry out public works projects, including the construction of many public roads and buildings. In 1938, the WPA helped bring unemployment down by twenty percent in comparison to 1933’s count.xv

Not only was Roosevelt concerned for younger families, but he also labored toward legislation for those who could not work. Enacted in 1935, the Social Security Act established economic security for the poor, sick, elderly, and otherwise financially unstable citizens of the United States of America. Senator Robert Wagner pushed through the Wagner Act, or the National Labor Relations Act, which established and guaranteed the basic rights of employees to organize unions, engage collective bargaining for better conditions at work, and take collective action to ensure their needs are met. As a result, labor unions became strong proponents of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s re-elections.xvi

Roosevelt was determined to use his power to help the citizens of his country in their pursuits. He did not leave them to struggle out of dark holes on their own; rather, he provided assistance when they fell until they could stand on their own again. As to his ideas on how to improve the country, Franklin said, “The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation … It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”xvii In other words, Roosevelt took action.

In addition to his progress in the economy, Franklin maintained a heavy focus on environmental conservation. In 1931, he said, “Heretofore our conservation policy has been merely to preserve as much as possible of the existing forests. Our new policy goes a step further. It will not only preserve the existing forests, but create new ones.” While in office, Franklin established one hundred and forty national wildlife refuges, twenty-nine national forests, and twenty-nine national parks and monuments.xviii The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built 13,000 miles of trails, upgraded 125,000 miles of dirt roads, and planted two billion trees. Although later critics knew that dam systems were not a component of conservation, Franklin thought they would help the environment and commissioned many dams, thinking they would provide a way to further help the earth’s longevity.xix

During his first term of presidency, Roosevelt had to deal with the onslaught of foreign policy issues, along with all the problems happening within his own country. Roosevelt sided with isolationism, rejecting the League of Nations treaty in 1919. He determined that the best method was to be prepared for war but to avoid taking sides unless absolutely necessary. For the most part, Franklin wanted the United States to mind their own business and avoid dallying in foreign issues. He listed that one of his primary goals with foreign policy was to end European colonialism, as he was vastly opposed to imperialism.xx He wanted each country to rule itself.

Continuing on the topic of foreign policy, one important aspect of Roosevelt’s first term as president was the Good Neighbor Policy. This policy terminated the United States Marines’ occupation of Nicaragua in 1933 and occupation of Haiti in 1934. In this, he was taking additional steps toward isolationism. Additionally, this political and military move led to the extinction of the Platt Amendment by the Treaty of Relations with Cuba in 1934 and, in 1938, the negotiation of compensation for Mexico’s nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets. Cuba and Panama were no longer United States protectorates, as well, and Roosevelt signed the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States in 1933, giving up the country’s rights to intervene in Latin American affairs.xxi During this term, Roosevelt signed a mandatory arms embargo.xxii The United States was slowly withdrawing its long-reaching arms.

These New Deal policies were bold and impressive, especially for a new president. The people of the United States obviously considered Franklin’s first term successful because he won the next election by a large majority as a New Deal Democrat, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont.

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References

i Alter, Jonathan. The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. 2006.

ii Roosevelt, Franklin D. First Inaugural Address. 4 March 1993. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.html. Accessed 23 June 2017.

iii Winfield, Betty Houchin. FDR and the News Media. 1994.

iv Craig, Douglas B. Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920—1940. 2005.

v “FDR’s First Fireside Chat.” Radio Digest. February 1939.

vi Roosevelt, Franklin D. First Inaugural Address. 4 March 1993. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.html. Accessed 23 June 2017.

vii McJimsey, George T. Documentary History of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidency: The Bank Holiday and the Emergency Banking Act, March 1933. 2001.

viii Smith, Jean Edward. FDR. 2007.

ix Hawley, Ellis. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. 1995.

x “What We Do.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Article/whatwedo.html. Accessed 23 June 2017.

xi Tritch, Teresa. “FDR Makes the Case for the Minimum Wage.” The New York Times. 7 March 2014. https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/f-d-r-makes-the-case-for-the-minimum-wage/. Accessed 23 June 2017.

xii Pederson, William D. A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt. 2011.

xiii Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Volumes. 1952-73.

xiv “Heroes: Economy’s End.” Time. 26 August 1935. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,748895,00.html. 23 June 2017.

xv Darby, Michael R. “Three and a Half Million US Employees Have Been Mislaid: Or, an Explanation of Unemployment, 1934 – 1941” Journal of Political Economy. February 1976.

xvi Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt. 1956.

xvii  Roosevelt, Franklin D. Looking Forward. 1933.

xviii  Roosevelt, Franklin D. Public Paper of the Presidents of the United States: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940, Volume 9. 1941.

xix  Brinkley, Douglas. Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America. 2016.

xx  Doenecke, Justus D. and Mark A. Stoler. Debating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Foreign Policies, 1933 – 1945. 2005.

xxi  Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932 – 1940. 1963.

xxii  Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt. 1956.

Haitian_Revolution

A Captivating Guide to How the Haitian Revolution Began

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The slave rebellion that was to shake the western world started in the Northern Province. In the region with the most to lose, the slaves had the most to gain by rising against the people who hoped to turn the French Revolution to their own advantage. The wealthy and powerful plantation owners were so narrowly focused on how to turn the tide in their favor that they failed to recognize the swell of the people they had oppressed for over a century. Segregating their slaves from others had been meant to keep them from hearing anything that could be used as inspiration to rebel. Instead, it provided the slaves with the distance from their masters’ eyes required to plan their own freedom.

The Haitian Revolution began with a secret voodoo ceremony that has been called the Bois Caiman Ceremony. Held in Morne-Rouge in August 1791, the slaves converged to determine their best course of action. Their anger had been fueled by a rumor that the plantation owners were going to fight against equality for freemen and mulattoes. Following months of planning, they were now ready to determine when was the right time to enact their plan.

The actions of Mackandal and Oge were imitated, resulting in more than 200 slaves coming forward as leaders and coordinators of the effort that was to start the rebellion. All from the Northern Province, the leaders held higher positions on their plantations, giving them the necessary authority to persuade other slaves to agree to the revolution. Their positions also ranged across the numerous needs of slave owners. Some of the leaders worked in the fields, others in the homes, and some were free. This created the kind of network that Mackandal had tried to maintain during the six years of his resistance. Through that network, they were able to plan for the Bois Caiman ceremony, and the actions that they were to take to remove the plantation owners from power.

Similar to Mackandal’s use of African tradition and religion to bring the slaves together, the larger underground revolution brought the slaves together. The ceremony highlighted their shared heritage. Meeting in a heavily wooded area, the slaves participated in a solemn voodoo ritual performed by Dutty Boukman, a voodoo priest from Jamaica, and an unnamed high priestess.

Perhaps it is romanticizing the events of the night, but stories about that night have said that a tropical storm or hurricane punctuated the resolve of the participants. In the winds of the storm, the rebels were convinced that it was an omen that pointed to their success. Regardless of the weather, the emotional atmosphere was charged, creating a legend out of the night based on its own merits. There are many aspects on which histories disagree. Some say that the ceremony happened on August 14, while others say it was August 21 or 22. There are a few things on which they do agree. The banning of voodoo under the French had helped to spread it in secret among the slaves. It was a unifying factor that reminded the slaves both what they were fighting for and who the enemy was.

The result of the ceremony was that the slaves had the plan and the signal they needed to act against their oppressors.

History’s Sense of Irony

It is with historic irony that the French colonial elite were given a chance to quell the rebellion. Within days of the Bois Caiman ceremony, a smaller band of slaves acted early. It is possible that they did not understand the instructions provided during the ceremony, or it could have been through impatience, but the early participants were captured in the act of setting an estate on fire. Though it is unclear what caused them to execute the plan early, it was clear that during their interrogation, some of the slaves divulged the plan, as well as the leaders who were to oversee the plan.

The irony is that the plantation owners who oversaw the named leaders could not, or would not, believe that their slaves were involved. Thinking that their slaves were either incapable of such an organized effort or believing that their slaves were too loyal to rebel, the slave owners stood by the very leaders who plotted their demise. The same wealthy and powerful members of the French colony elite had already ignored the vague prognostication of Reynal. Now that they were faced with the reality, they chose to blindly trust in their own perceived superiority and ability to control their slaves than to acknowledge the threat that they had created. Not all of them, but enough slave owners ignored the imminent danger that was reported to them. Those who did believe the reports successfully escaped with their lives and little else.

Despite the fact that the plan had been revealed, the slaves decided to go ahead with the set course of action.

The Revolution Begins

Within ten days of the Bois Caiman ceremony, the Haitian Revolution began. The Northern Province erupted in violence as Boukman and those under him moved across the region, killing or imprisoning everyone of European descent. After taking control of a plantation, they set it on fire.

Slaves carried a wide range of weaponry on their march. Some carried the torches that burned everything that belonged to their oppressor. Some carried rifles or pistols. Many slaves were armed with whatever improvised weapons they could find. At each plantation, the mass of marchers swelled with the slaves from the plantation.

By sunrise the next morning, most of the slaves in the region where Boukman and his marchers went had joined them. With between 1,000 and 2,000 rebels, the group was too big to be efficient. Splintering off into smaller groups, each of the groups moved toward a specific plantation to continue the revolution.

The astounding organization and planning enacted by the uneducated slaves soon proved that they had been severely underestimated. Their numbers continued to swell so that the remaining plantation owners began to fear that the primary city in the north would be taken. The city of Le Cap was considered the cultural heart of the colony, and it was where the majority of the slave owners fled after the slave bands went unchecked. To further discourage the slave owners, any captured slave offered disheartening warnings about the city itself. As they were tortured the former slaves mocked their torturers with the knowledge that the slave rebellion numbers included people everywhere, including within the precious city of Le Cap. Both sides realized the importance that controlling the city would play in the overall revolution.

Those with power within the city set up a way of monitoring the city for any sign of fire, a signal that had come to be associated with the slave rebellion. By monitoring the skyline, they hoped to prevent the destruction of the city by the rebels who lived within it.

Away from the city, the slave rebellion continued to spread, killing those of European descent who had not fled and burning everything that could help the French colony return to its former oppression. However, the rebellion also began to change. Slaves and freemen who were not willing to participate in the revolution were killed. The rebellion would not allow for any potential betrayal based on misplaced loyalty to slave owners.

In less than 48 hours, the slave rebellion had destroyed the majority of the most profitable plantations in the Northern Province. The leaders had planned well beyond the plantations in the north. To succeed, they had to continue to press forward before the French colonists had time to respond. Having found success in the first 48 hours, the marchers rested for a day before beginning the next phase of the plan.

On the morning of August 24, they pressed forward, aiming to reach Port-Margot by the day’s end. This would mean they would reach the La Cap less than a week after the revolution began. Knowing that the rebellion would eventually target the city, the inhabitants prepared. They prepared cannons and station guards at every possible entrance into the city. For the first time since they began marching, the rebellion faced a real challenge. They were not adequately equipped to face such a heavily armed resistance. Even though they had taken little time to rest and had silenced anyone they thought might help the city, the French colonists had adequate incentive to quickly mobilize against them.

The first attempt to take the city failed, and the rebellion fell back to strategize a new plan of attack. Though they had initially succeeded in resisting the slaves, the resistance soon proved to be too short-sighted against the sheer numbers and planning of their former slaves. The same day that they were driven back, the former slaves regrouped and divided to take on different points of the city. Splitting into two different groups, they approached the city from two different locations and began a siege. Though they were not armed with the necessary tools to take the city, the former slaves were able to stop those in the city from gaining any more supplies, including food.

Over the next three weeks, the city’s inhabitants attempted to eliminate the former slaves. Though the city dwellers only had one place to hide, the former slaves had the luxury of time. Whenever the French colonists began to gain the upper hand, the slaves were able to retreat into the woods. The colonials gained nothing from this tactic, and the former slaves continued to wear them down as nothing could make it through the siege.

Slaves to the north east of the city soon joined the rebellion. Their success was swift, and soon all communication between the city and the North Plain was eliminated.

By the end of August 1791, more than 15,000 slaves had joined the rebellion. Le Cap sent out pleas to many of the surrounding islands and the United States asking for military assistance. It had taken the slaves one week and one day to obliterate the plantations in the Northern Province. More than 180 plantations were annihilated. As September 1791 began, there were no plantations within a 50-mile radius of Le Cap.

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Winston Churchill ebook

Winston Churchill’s Childhood and Early Education

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Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, into the influential and aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer-Churchill family, in the closely knit inner circle of Victorian society. Winston S. Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a direct descendent of John Churchill, the man who became first Duke of Marlborough early in the eighteenth century after fighting for king and country against Louis XIV of France during the War of Spanish Succession. In light of John Churchill’s deeds, parliament granted him the money to build a family seat, henceforth known as Blenheim Palace, which was named after his greatest victory.i Winston S. Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was born to Leonard W. Jerome, a New York financier, avid horse-racing fan,ii and partial owner of the New York Times.iii It was rather common in the late nineteenth century for British aristocrats to marry American heiresses, as the women often arrived with sizeable wealth.

Soon after Winston was born, the family moved. Churchill called Dublin, Ireland, his home from ages two to six while he lived with his grandfather who served as Viceroy of Ireland and employed Churchill’s father as his private secretary. It was here in Dublin that Winston Churchill’s little brother, Jack, was born and Churchill began the earliest stages of his education in which his governess instructed him in those noble pursuits of history, literature, writing, and mathematics.

The family traveled between homes often, moving from Ireland to the Isle of Wight off England’s southern coast to Blenheim Palace and to London. Reportedly, the relationship between Churchill’s parents took a downward turn, and his mother was absent for a large portion of his childhood. According to some reports, Jennie Churchill found solace in the company of other men, considering that her husband was syphilitic, a fact Churchill did not know until his father was near death. After he died, Jennie married twice, and both men proved unsuitable partners. In 1899, she married a man twenty years younger than herself, and after a divorce, she married again in 1917 to another man twenty years her junior. When she died in 1922, Churchill said, “All the sunshine and storm of life was over,” perfectly exemplifying the difficult and disruptive life they had lived together as mother and son.iv

As he was often separated from his parents, Churchill developed a strong and close relationship with his nanny, Mrs. Elizabeth Everest,1 to whom he fondly referred as “Old Woom” or “Woomany.” He later said, “Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants.”v Their relationship grew into a close friendship as Winston S. Churchill grew older, and he was the only member of his family to visit her when he learned that she was gravely ill of peritonitis in 1895. Leaving his military duties, he brought a doctor and a nurse to her deathbed. Upon her death, Churchill arranged her funeral, provided the tombstone for her grave, and paid for its continued upkeep. “She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole twenty years I had lived,” he said.vi “I shall never know such a friend again.”vii Everest had served as his comrade, nurse, and motherly figure. In a letter to his mother, Churchill wrote, “I feel very low, and I find I never realized how much old Woom meant to me.”viii He kept her memory alive, though. In his bedroom hung a picture of her until he died; as with many children of the Victorian aristocracy, Winston found a real mother figure in his nanny, rather than in his biological mother. Now, The Churchill Centre and the Churchill family keep attention to the grave of Mrs. Elizabeth Everest, making sure that Churchill’s efforts to care for his childhood nanny did not cease.ix

Growing older, Winston passed the age of in-home learning and moved toward boarding school. During his childhood education, Churchill maintained a poor academic record. He attended three schools: St. George’s School in Berkshire; Brunswick School (since renamed Stoke Brunswick School) in Hove; and Harrow School.

In 1882, as befitted his family’s wealth and social standing, Winston Churchill packed up his belongings and was shipped off to St. George’s boarding school a few weeks before his eighth birthday. Therefore, he moved from receiving education from a governess to learning from St. George’s. Regarding his early educational system, Churchill said, “It appeared that I was to go away from home for many weeks at a stretch in order to do lessons under new masters … Now it was to be all lessons.” After two years with St. George’s, Churchill transferred to The Misses Thomson’s Preparatory School. Here, he found more interest in subjects such as French, horseback riding, poetry, and swimming.x

From an early age, Winston expressed a heavy interest in military history and affairs. His earliest surviving letter comprises a military scene filled with flags, castles, and toy soldiers, which Churchill particularly loved and collected. He amassed an army of around fifteen hundred Napoleonic-era toy soldiers, which he played with often during his self-simulated battles. Therefore, it was no surprise that Churchill began his military career soon after entering Harrow Schoolxi in April of 1888. A month after starting at Harrow, he joined the Harrow Rifle Corps, which formed in 1859 as an affiliate of the Middlesex Regiment.xii An old Harrow song “Left, Right” proceeds as follows:

Young Brown he was a little boy

and barely four foot four

But his manly bosom yearned to join

the Harrow Rifle Corps.

So he went to see the Sergeant

and he made a grand salute.

And he said says he, I want to be

a volunteer recruit.

Winston Churchill began developing military skills—riding, gunmanship, and fencing—here at Harrow. Churchill especially loved the days when the Corps held “field days,” or mock battles when he was able to put his mind and mettle to the test. In 1892, Churchill won the Public Schools Championship for his excellence in these fields.xiii

Although Churchill excelled in the military aspect of his education, he did not particularly exceed in other areas right away. Speaking of his Harrow Latin entrance exam, Churchill recalled, “I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question, ‘1.’ After much reflection I put a bracket around it, thus, ‘(1).’ But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally, there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle; and then merciful ushers collected up my piece of foolscap and carried it up to the Headmaster’s table.”xiv

He entered Harrow with low expectations, a stutter, and a lisp, yet he never let these obstacles overcome his fondness for the English language.xv The master of the school, Robert Somervell, taught English in a way that appealed to Winston. Churchill wrote, “Thus, I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence—which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinctions for writing such beautiful Latin poetry had come down to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage.”xvi Despite his achievements and success in military matters, Churchill later revealed that he would have preferred to skip Harrow altogether. Churchill said, “In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.”xvii It was likely determined beforehand, though, that the child of Lord Randolph Churchill would not be turned away from Harrow, regardless of his poor exam results.

While probably not the underlying reason for his failures in school, Churchill’s strained relationship with his parents certainly did not encourage his studies. In fact, Churchill’s mother rarely visited him even though he wrote her letters, asking her to come see him at Harrow or allow him to go home.xviii In 1890, young Churchill’s mother wrote, “I had built up such hopes about you and felt so proud of you—and now all is gone … your work is an insult to your intelligence. If you would only trace out a plan of action for yourself and carry it out and be determined to do so—I am sure you could accomplish anything you wished.”xix

It was at Harrow that Churchill’s abilities as an orator grew. Although Churchill had a lateral lisp that plagued his career, the matter remains that his skills as a speaker are well-established.xx At Harrow, Churchill entered a competition in which he recited from memory 1200 lines of Lays of Ancient Rome, a long Macaulay poem.xxi

Due to Churchill’s interest in the military, his father determined that his son would join the army, and Winston Churchill accepted this instruction and set about following through with this goal. The next year, Churchill enrolled in the army class at Harrow, and he placed all his efforts in gaining entry in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.xxii Thankfully, the army’s requirements fell at a lower rate than those for Home, Diplomatic, or Indian Civil services.xxiii Regardless of his low expectations in school, Churchill geared toward the political realm, and his career in the military helped him reach his goals. While at Harrow, he told his friend Murland Evans, “I tell you I shall be in command of the defenses in London … In the high position I shall occupy, it will fall to me to save the Capital and save the Empire.”xxiv Even at this early age, Churchill began plotting for his place as prime minister.

On his third attempt to pass the Sandhurst exam, Winston finally scored high enough to achieve entrance. After failing the second part twice, he left Harrow to study with Captain Walter James who professionally trained young men for the Sandhurst exam. Thankfully, his skills helped Churchill enter Sandhurst at age eighteen in 1893.xxv

Make sure to check out our latest book on Winston Churchill:

As of now, you can download it for free on Amazon by clicking here.

References

1 “Mrs.” was an honorary title, as Elizabeth Everest never married.

i Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

ii Nicholas, Herbert G. “Sir Winston Churchill.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Winston-Churchill. Accessed 21 May 2017.

iii Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

iv Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

v “Winston’s Nanny.” National Churchill Museum. https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-nanny.html. Accessed 21 May 2017.

vi Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

vii “Winston’s Nanny.” National Churchill Museum. https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-nanny.html. Accessed 21 May 2017.

viii Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

ix “The Life of Churchill: Child.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child. Accessed 21 May 2017.

x “The Life of Churchill: School Years.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/school-years. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xi Harrow School was founded in 1572 under a Royal Charter granted by Elizabeth I.

xii “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xiii “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xiv Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

xv Sheldon, Michael. Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill. 2013.

xvi Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

xvii Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

xviii Jenkins, Roy. Churchill: A Biography. 2011.

xix“The Life of Churchill: Harrow School.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/harrow. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xx “Winston Churchill: Stutterer.” University of Toronto. http://www.utstat.utoronto.ca/sharp/Churchill.htm. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxi “The Life of Churchill: Harrow School.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/harrow. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxii “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxiii Keegan, John. Winston Churchill. 2002.

xxiv “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxv “Lt. Churchill: 4th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society. http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

Egyptian_Mythology (1)

A Captivating Story of Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Horus

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Perhaps the most important myth of Ancient Egypt is that of Osiris. In it, his wife Isis and his son Horus battled against his brother Seth.

The spellings with which we are most familiar are modern versions of the Greek. The original Egyptian names were more like the following:

  • Osiris—Auser

  • Isis—Asett

  • Seth—Sett

  • Horus—Heru

The double “t” at the end of Asett and Sett is not traditional, but it helps to distinguish the name “Sett” from the common English word “set.”

Throughout all of Egyptian myth, there is very little actually said about Osiris (Auser) himself. Most of what is said comes after his betrayal by Seth (Sett).

Imagining the Osiris Myth

As they had done for all the ages of man, the priests of the great city of Iunu had crossed over the Ne’weya during the twilight hour after dawn and before sunrise. But this morning vigil at the temple plateau was more somber than usual. All of Kemet was in mourning for their dead ruler, Auser.

The death of a god was not to be taken lightly. Such things tended to throw the entire universe out of balance. Sett had gone over to the dark side of reality. No longer did he stand on the prow of the sun barge, fighting off Apep—the great snake of chaos. Instead, Sett had become chaos. He had betrayed his brother, Auser, and had murdered him. If the priests could believe the rumors, Sett had hacked up Auser’s body and flung the parts all up and down the great Ne’weya and its life-giving waters.

As the eastern horizon brightened, the priests performed their daily ritual, burning a handful of grain in sacrifice to the great god, Ra—giver of light. His return to the skies above the mortal realm would be to look upon a world greatly saddened by what had happened to the children of Geb (Earth) and Nut (Heavens). Their offspring, Auser, had been murdered by his brother, Sett. And their offspring, Asett, had been made a widow by the same action.

When the priests had returned to Iunu, they heard the news that Sett had taken control of all Kemet. Asett, Auser’s lovely wife, had fled into the hills to the West. Or so people were being told.

Ahmose of Zau made his way into the temple and toward the large meeting hall. Outside the hall, he saw a familiar face. At first, he could not put a name to that visage. Something about it all didn’t make sense. What was a beggar doing in the temple at this hour? And why would he recognize a beggar? Then, the truth struck him. That was no beggar, despite the shabby clothes she wore. That was Asett, herself! The goddess was in disguise.

“Your eminence!” said Ahmose, loud enough only to be heard by her. “What are you doing here? It’s not safe!”

She turned and bade him to come closer.

“I need your help,” she said. “Sett has robbed us all, but especially me. Auser and I wanted to have a son. If we act quickly, it is still not too late. I need for the priesthood to gather all the pieces of Auser. They are to bring them together so that I may perform sacred rites and to consummate the union which was denied us. Our son will become the rightful ruler of Kemet.”

Ahmose looked confused, but nodded slowly.

“Why do you hesitate?” she asked.

“I don’t doubt your powers, eminence. It’s just that Sett is undoubtedly looking for you and I fear for your safety.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I am from Zau, here in the Delta. I know of several places where we could bring together the pieces of your husband and find the peace and security required for your ceremony.”

“Good. And thank you …”

“Ahmose, your eminence. My name is Ahmose. I’ll see to it right away.” He turned to leave.

“One more thing,” said Asett. “We also need to have Auser’s royal accessories. Do you know of someone who can steal them away from Sett and his forces?”

Ahmose thought for a moment and nodded. “Yes, your eminence. I know of some officers who are still loyal to you and to Auser.”

“Thank you, Ahmose.”

“My lady.” The priest hesitated. “Has Sett become corrupted by Apep?”

The goddess shook her head. “I don’t know, yet. Perhaps. He had held that duty for so long, fending off the attacks of chaos. Others have taken over those duties. We can only hope they do as good a job without becoming corrupted.”

Within days, all of the pieces had been returned to Lower Kemet and Ahmose had found a warehouse in Zau perfect for the sacred ceremony to be performed.

Within the week, the new god, Heru, had been born, with all the attributes needed to rule. The young god had all the skills of the father and the wisdom of the mother. In addition, Heru had the gift of sight, like his namesake—capable of seeing clearly everything from afar. And like the falcon after which he had been named, Heru also had the swiftness to strike hard at his enemies.

In the first month after his birth, Heru held many battles against his uncle. The young god was so successful in waging combat that Sett feared he might lose the war.

Ever wanting to find an advantage, Sett challenged young Heru to a battle under water.

“We should become as hippopotami and face each other beneath the waves. If either one of us surfaces before three months are up, we will forfeit. Are we agreed?”

To Heru, this seemed reasonable. Soon, they were under water battling against one another.

Asett feared for her son’s life and vowed to help him win. From the sky, she hurled massive harpoons at the hippopotamus below, but she had struck the wrong beast.

Heru cried out, “Mother, you have struck me. Please be more careful with your aim.”

Asett studied the scene more carefully and soon realized that her son was in pursuit of Sett. There her brother was, several dozen meters ahead.

Several times, she took careful aim, but the harpoon glanced off Sett’s wet body. But finally, a harpoon stuck and Sett surfaced.

“Please, dear sister,” said Sett, “take pity on your poor brother.”

Asett showed her brother mercy and let him heal from his wounds.

Later, Heru confronted his mother. “How could you show him mercy after he tried so many times to kill me?” Suddenly, Heru cut off his mother’s head and hid it from her in the mountains to the West.

When Ra, the sun god, heard what Heru had done to his mother, he bound the young god’s hands and restored to Asett her head. Then, he gave her a crown of protection so that no one could ever do to her what Heru had done.

But while Heru was bound, Sett swooped in to take advantage of his enemy. Abruptly, he plucked out Heru’s eyes and made him blind.

Asett forgave her son for what he had done and wept at what had happened to his eyes. She consulted with Tehuty, the god of wisdom and knowledge. There, she learned that new eyes could be fashioned for Heru from the old arts. Soon, Heru could see again. Once more, he went on the offensive, taking every opportunity to beat his uncle in battle.

Again, it looked as though Sett would lose everything, partly because his sister, Asett, was interfering in his war against Heru.

Sett made his way to the great council of gods—the Ennead. There, he begged the council for a meeting to discuss with Heru their differences, but without the interference of Asett.

They agreed to a meeting. So, Sett sent out word to Heru that he wanted to meet at the Island of the Middle Ground and let the Ennead judge between them. And Sett commanded the ferryman not to let anyone of the likeness of Asett to journey to that island.

The following day, the council met. There, Sett and Heru presented their cases while the council listened. In the meantime, Asett disguised herself as an old woman and bribed the ferryman with a gold ring so that she may pass to the Island of the Middle Ground.

When she arrived, she turned herself into a young maiden so that she could distract Sett and help him to fail. As she served the guests more wine, she caught Sett’s eye and he called her near.

“My Lord Sett,” she said. “I am so grateful for all you have done. Your bravery makes my own hardship seem more durable.”

“Hardship?” replied Sett with concern. “What could make such a beautiful woman less than happy?”

“An intruder has invaded my home, killed my husband, and stolen my son’s birthright.”

“Damn him!” exclaimed Sett. “The man should be publicly executed for his crimes. We shall do that immediately.”

“No, please!” she replied. “Do not kill him. I would never wish to have anyone’s blood on my own hands. Banishing him from the land would be sufficient to set my heart at ease.”

“Then,” said Sett loudly, “he shall be banished.”

“Thank you, my Lord Sett. For the home is Kemet, my husband was Auser, my son is Heru, and the intruder to be banished is you!”

Suddenly, Sett realized that this young wench was none other than his pesky sister. His own words had condemned himself and all in front of Heru and the gods of the Ennead. He was outraged.

Asett flew away, calling out her words to mock her brother. “You have condemned yourself, dear brother. What say you?”

“The ferryman should be punished,” said Sett. So, the next day, Sett had the toes on both the ferryman’s feet cut off because he had disobeyed Sett’s command not to let Asett across.

Heru soon won the war and banished Sett from Kemet for all time.

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The Story of Nancy Wake (1912-2011)

There is a story that when Nancy Wake parachuted into Nazi-occupied France in the spring of 1944, she got tangled up in a tree, and when the head of the local resistance unit pulled her down he said, “I hope all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year,” to which she replied, “Don’t give me that French shit.”

That tale may be apocryphal, but it goes with the reputation she earned during the war, and even before it, as a quick-witted, adventurous, and courageous woman who knew what she wanted—and what she didn’t.

Wake was born in New Zealand, the youngest of six children. When she was two, her father moved the family to North Sydney, Australia, and then almost immediately took himself back to New Zealand, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves.

Wake lived at home until she turned sixteen, then left and found work as a nurse. When a relative left her a few hundred pounds, she took off for New York, stayed there for a while, and then went on to London, where she began to develop her skills as a writer and reporter. She apparently learned well, and by the time she was eighteen she was in Paris working as a correspondent for the Hearst newspaper chain. While she was doing that, she got her first taste of Nazi mentality when she did a story in Vienna, and saw firsthand the violence that was being inflicted on the Jewish people in that city.

In 1939 Wake married a French businessman, Henri Edmond Fiocca, and settled into a comfortable life in Marseilles, on the south coast of France. That pleasant existence only lasted a few months, and then World War Two began. Wake and her husband immediately got involved. Early in the war, Wake served as a nurse and ambulance driver in Belgium, fleeing back to Marseilles after Dunkirk. She and her husband joined a network of resistance fighters there, buying and setting up a safe house, and helping soldiers and airmen trapped by the fall of France, guiding them over the Pyrenees to Portugal, from where they could ultimately get back to England.

Initially, Vichy, France, of which Marseilles was a part, was technically a separate state from that part of the country occupied by Germany. But when the Allies invaded North Africa, the Germans occupied the rest of France. The maquisard, the French resistance fighters, continued to maintain their escape network, and Wake was one of their most successful operatives. She was credited with saving more than two hundred stranded pilots and soldiers. The Germans called her the White Mouse, and ultimately put a price on her head of five million francs.

Then, in 1943, the network she and her husband worked for was betrayed. After several botched tries, Wake managed to get across the mountains into Portugal, and then on to England. Her husband stayed behind, and was captured and tortured, and eventually shot. Wake did not learn of his death until after the war.

It wasn’t long before Wake was back across the English Channel again. She was recruited by the British Special Operations Executive and went through a period of intense training—spycraft, communications, hand-to-hand combat, firearms—and then climbed into an airplane, flew across the Channel, and parachuted into the Auvergne, in the mountains of central France, where she was assigned to be the liaison person for the local resistance unit. Her job was to manage and coordinate the cash, arms, and supplies airdropped by the Allies.

Wake was there for the rest of the war, and she did not limit herself to her assigned liaison duties. She fought and went on raids against German installations. Once, she crept up on a German guard and killed him with a karate chop. She had been taught that during her Special Operations training, but said later that she was actually surprised that it worked. She earned a reputation for fearlessness, and also for ruthlessness. At one time, her maquisards captured a young girl who had been spying for the Germans. The men were reluctant to kill her because of her sex. Wake told them that if they weren’t willing to do the job, she would do it for them. Shamed, they carried out the execution.

In later years she would say, “I was not a very nice person. And it didn’t put me off my breakfast.”

After the war, Wake was awarded the George Medal for Bravery, the U.S Medal of Freedom, the Medaille de la Resistance, and the Croix de Guerre, but she seems to have had a hard time finding a peacetime calling. She said herself that postwar life was “dreadful because you’ve been so busy and then it all just fizzles out.” She returned to England and worked for a while for the British Air Ministry, then went back to Australia.

In Australia, she tried a run for political office and lost, and in 1951 she returned to England. She went back to work at the Air Ministry as an intelligence officer, and in 1957 she married a Royal Air Force officer, John Forward.

Wake and Forward moved back to Australia in the 1960’s where she tried another run for public office, but with no more luck that the previous time. Forward died in 1997, and four years later Wake went back to London one last time. She lived there until her death at the age of 98, and at her request, her ashes were scattered over the mountains of the Auvergne.

I hope you enjoyed the story about Nancy Wake. For more captivating stories, check out my author page!

History

Why We Are Giving Away This For Free

So one of our most loyal readers asked us yesterday; why are you giving away this book for free? I told him that it’s a way of giving back to the community.

It’s also an excellent way to get people interested in our work. I continued and asked him, wasn’t that how you first was introduced to the captivating series?

He smiled and said; yes it was…

If you haven’t grabbed the free copy of the book on the industrial revolution yet, get it here: http://www.captivatinghistory.com/ebook

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The Story of Margaret Knight (1838-1914)

In the early nineteenth century, as the Industrial Revolution began to spread from Europe and make its way across the Atlantic, it settled happily into the New England states, especially Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This was a time when most people still farmed, and farming was hard in the far Northeast. The terrain was steep, the soil stingy, and the rocks everywhere; but what New England had in abundance was rivers and brooks rushing down from the mountains and spilling into the bays.

Water turned wheels and those wheels generated power, in the early years primarily for grinding grain and sawing timber. Then, as industrial technology progressed, mills and factories started popping up. Mills and factories needed people to work in them. New England had people, most of them on farms that offered only meager livings, and so those people began to send their children to work in the mills and factories. Mostly, they sent the girls, and either kept the boys at home to dig up the rocks and plant the crops, or into the woods to cut timber.

Margaret Knight was one of those girls. She was born on a farm near the town of York, Maine, in 1838, and had two brothers, Charlie and Jim. Knight was bright, apparently mechanically precocious from early on, and was more interested in tools than pots and pans. She spent much of her time making kites and toys for her brothers and her friends.

When she was twelve, her father died, and she had to drop out of school and find work to help support her family. She never finished her formal education, but wasted no time putting her mind to work. Her first job was at a cotton mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, and before a full year of work was done, she came up with her first invention. She was in the plant when a co-worker was injured when a shuttle flew off the mill loom and the machine kept running. Knight came up with a gadget that automatically put the brakes on a machine when something malfunctioned or anything got caught in the loom. The design wound up being copied and used in looms all over New England, but Knight never saw any money from it. The idea of having it patented had not occurred to her.

Knight stayed at the New Hampshire mill for several years, and then moved on to other jobs. She was working at a paper bag plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, when she got the idea for a machine that led to her first patent and set her on the path to becoming one of the best known inventors of the age.

Paper bags at that time looked more like large envelopes. Knight began to play with the idea of a bag with a flat bottom, and realized that shaping such a bag by hand would take forever, so she began sketching out the design for a machine to make the bags. Six months later, the idea had moved from sketches to a wooden prototype that cut the paper, folded it, and then glued it, all with the turn of a crank. It worked, and Knight managed to make a thousand bags with it.

She took the prototype to a machine shop in Springfield and created a version made of iron. She tinkered with it a little more, then took the device to Boston and enlisted the help of two machinists there to fabricate a final version. Then she applied for a patent.

The patent was rejected. It turned out that another machinist, Charles Annan, who had been observing the work in Boston, had stolen the design, applied for a patent, and received it.

Knight took Annan to court. She went at it with the same vigor and determination that she applied to everything else. She brought in witnesses, including the Boston and Springfield machinists who had worked with her, as well as several years’ worth of drawings and plans, all dated, to bolster her case. Charles Annan’s argument mainly amounted to the notion that a woman could not have the intelligence and knowledge to come up with such a complex idea.

Annan lost. Knight got her patent and went on to start a paper bag company of her own. Her bags quickly spread everywhere and became the standard. It made her name as an inventor. Queen Victoria even gave her a medal; apparently even a queen needs a good paper bag now and then. The bag you put your groceries in today is essentially the same bag that Knight invented. The thousands of machines that churn them out in countries all over the world do things faster, of course, and have more bells and whistles, but the basic design is pretty much the same.

Knight went on to design and invent things for the rest of her long life—a paper feeding machine, a machine for cutting and assembling shoes, a special tool for drilling holes in concave and cylindrical surfaces. In later life, as automobiles became more common, she designed rotary engines. She was commonly referred to as a female Thomas Edison. Overall, Knight wound up with more than two dozen patents to her name, although none of them had the same impact as her paper bag machine.

While Knight’s work gave her fame, it never made her a fortune. When she died, her estate was valued at $275.05. If you enjoyed this story about Margaret Knight, check out my author page for more of my work!

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The Mirabal Sisters: Patria (1924-1960) Minerva (1926-1960) Maria Teresa (1935-1960)

If you live in a country that is run by a corrupt, violent dictator, you may decide to choose between two options—stay there, or get out and go to live somewhere else. If you decide to stay, you still have two choices. Do you follow the advice that former U. S. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn used to give to new members of Congress when they first came in—if you want to get along, go along—or do you join the opposition to the dictator and work to take him down? If you opt to join the opposition and work to bring the dictator down, one of two things will then occur, but the choice there will be up to the dictator and his people, not you. Either you will live, or you will die.

The Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, faced those choices. They were born in the Dominican Republic, a country that takes up the eastern two thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The Republic of Haiti takes up the rest of the island. After independence from Spain, Haiti actually controlled the entire island until 1844, when the Dominican Republic was established as an independent nation, following a period of armed conflict.

The country went back and forth between periods of peaceful progress and internal strife. The United States actually occupied the country and ran its government for eight years, from 1916 to 1924. Then, in 1930, an army colonel named Rafael Trujillo managed to win a rigged election and became president. He stayed in power until 1961, part of the time as president, rest of the time as the power behind the throne, until some of his own troops assassinated him.

Over those years, Trujillo earned a reputation as the most vicious, corrupt, grandiose dictator in the history of Latin America. He also became one of the wealthiest; his fortune at the time of his death was estimated to be eight hundred million dollars—a lot even today, and a huge fortune at that time. When Trujillo wanted something, he took it. If persuasion, coercion, or bribery failed to work, murder would.

Trujillo was racist as well. Although he himself was a quarter Haitian, he despised his black fellow islanders, and expressed his fear of the “darkening” of his country. It distressed him that a number of Haitians actually lived on the Dominican Republic side of their mutual border, so in 1937, on the pretext that some of them were stealing cattle and crops, he sent troops into the area with machetes to kill them off. The troops stayed for six days, and when they left, somewhere between seventeen thousand and thirty-five thousand Haitians were dead. No one knows the exact number.

Trujillo’s violence was matched by his grandiosity. He had the country’s capital, Santo Domingo, renamed Ciudad Trujillo—Trujillo City. The country’s tallest mountain, which is in fact the tallest in the Caribbean, was La Pelona Grande, the Big Bald Mountain, before Trujillo showed up. He changed the name to Pico Trujillo. He had other villages named after himself or his relatives over the years.

This was the toxic terrain that formed the country the Mirabal sisters grew up in. There were actually four sisters, but one of them, Belgica Adela, who was second oldest, avoided any involvement with groups opposing Trujillo, and managed to stay alive. She had mixed feelings about her sisters’ fate. At one time she said, “I blamed them for putting themselves in danger,” but on another occasion she said she “Wanted to be a part of it all as well. But I didn’t have the heart or the willpower.” She wound up raising her sisters’ six children.

The sisters were raised in a comfortable middle-class home in the central part of the Dominican Republic. Their parents were farmers, raising crops and cattle. In addition to the farmland, they had a machine shop, a coffee mill, a rice mill, and a small meat market. By the standards of the time, they were well off. Neither of the parents had much in the way of formal education; the mother, Chea, had almost none, but they were believers in education for their daughters, which was unusual at that time. Three of the sisters finished college.

Patria, the oldest, was born on the anniversary of the Dominican Republic’s declaration of independence. Her first name came from that. She was considered the artistic one in the family, and loved to paint and draw. She was sent to a Catholic school, as all of her sisters would be, but dropped out of school and got married at seventeen. She and her husband, Pedro, had four children, one of whom died in infancy.

Minerva was considered the brainy one in the family. She learned to read at an early age, and was reciting French poetry by the time she was seven. She graduated from the University of Santo Domingo with a degree in law, but never practiced. She had become an outspoken critic of Trujillo by that time, and was not allowed to obtain a law license. She became more radicalized over the years, and was a supporter of communism and a fan of Fidel Castro in the final years before her death. She married after college and she and her husband, Manuel, had two children.

Maria Teresa also attended the University of Santo Domingo, and graduated with a degree in math. She later married and had a daughter by her husband, Leandro.

Minerva became involved in the opposition to Trujillo early on, and got her husband involved after their marriage. Maria Teresa started becoming involved during a period when she was living with Minerva. Most of their energy went into meeting with others who were opposed to the Trujillo regime, writing pamphlets, and spreading the word about individuals were murdered by Trujillo’s people. It was enough to catch the dictator’s attention, and they were jailed on more than one occasion. Minerva continued to be the more deeply involved of the two, and belonged to an undercover group that hoped to overthrow Trujillo. Her code name in that group was Mariposa, Spanish for butterfly.

In 1959, a group of men who had left or been exiled from the Dominican Republic attempted to mount an invasion. They called themselves the Dominican Liberation Movement, and invaded in three groups. About fifty men flew into the mountain town of Constanza on the June 14. Six days later another hundred and forty-four men split into two launches and hit the beaches at the towns of Maimon and Estero Hondo on the north coast of the island. Most of the invaders were from the Dominican Republic, but the group also included men from other Caribbean countries, and even two from the United States.

Within a week or so, the invading force, if such a tiny group could be called that, was defeated. All of those not killed in the fighting were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Trujillo’s people also began killing others who were believed to be involved in the abortive uprising. Patria witnessed some of those killings, and at that point joined her sisters in the effort to overthrow the dictator. They helped form a new group that called itself the Fourteenth of June Movement.

The leaders of that movement met again in January, 1960, to put together plans for another uprising. Maria Teresa and her husband Leandro were a part of the group. It turned out that they had been betrayed. Trujillo’s people swarmed into the farmhouse where they were meeting and arrested all of them. Then they started arresting everyone in sight.

The mass arrests created an uproar in the Dominican Republic and everywhere else. Even the Catholic Church protested, long with ambassadors from the United States and other countries. The Organization of American States officially condemned Trujillo.

He backed off. First, he freed all the women who had been placed in prison. That quieted things down some, but not enough, so shortly after that, he freed most of the men, but not the Mirabel sisters’ husbands—Manolo, Pedro, and Leandro. They were seen as ringleaders and kept in prison. All three men were initially held in jail in their home town of Salcedo. Then Minerva’s husband, Manolo, and Patria’s husband, Pedro, were transferred to a prison in Puerto Plata, on the north coast of the island.

On the evening of November 25th, 1960, Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa were returning from a visit to the Puerto Plata prison. A crew of Trujillo’s men waylaid them in the mountains, pulled them and their driver from the car, and clubbed them to death. Then they put the bodies back into the car and pushed it off a cliff to try to make it look like an accident.

No one in the country was fooled, and people were outraged, in and out of the Dominican Republic. It was the beginning of the end for Trujillo, although he seems not to have thought so. If anything, he escalated. He decided he had a bone to pick with Venezuelan president Romulo Betancourt, and sent agents to Venezuela to try to assassinate him. The effort failed, Trujillo sank deeper into trouble with other Latin American countries, and in 1961 a group of his own troops assassinated him. After he was dead, one of his officers admitted that the Mirabal sisters had been murdered.

Still, there was not much acknowledgement of the fact for many years. After Trujillo’s death, one of his supporters, Joaquin Balaguer, stepped into his shoes and ran the country until 1996.

The picture is changing now. The country has a democratically elected government, and is doing well socially and economically. Trujillo would be galled to know that Dede Mirabal’s son, Jaime, served as a vice president, and Patria’s son, Nelson, was one of his aides. Minerva’s daughter, Minou, has served as deputy foreign minister.

An obelisk that Trujillo had raised to celebrate the renaming of the capital city, which by the way is called Santo Domingo again, is now covered with murals of the Mirabal sisters.

Salcedo Province, which was their home turf, is now Hermanas Mirabal Province.

The $200 Dominican Republic bill has a large portrait of the sisters on its face, and a picture of their family home on the back.

So maybe all is well that ends well, but the people who loved them would probably rather have the Mirabal sisters home again. If you enjoyed this real-life story about the Mirabal sisters, check out my author page for more of my work!