I remember in eighth grade history class, Mr. Vincek warned us that we were going to be studying a sort of dark period of history during the decades following the Civil War, when America started to seize territories across the globe. I don't remember how it was explained to us, but it's a part of American history that we certainly don't like to dwell on much.
Sarah Vowell touched on this towards the beginning of her book on Hawaii, "Unfamiliar Fishes." She notes that during the time was researching the book, America was preparing to go to war in Iraq. The anti-war protestors tried to argue that what we were doing was against American ideals, and that "this isn't who we are." Sarah Vowell's history of American involvement in Hawaii, as she put it, demonstrated that "from time to time, this is exactly who we are."
Her book is very short, only about 200 pages. It outlines a part of history that we generally don't learn about in school: how exactly Hawaii became part of America. She outlines the period of time when American missionaries traveled to Hawaii from New England to bring Christianity and the written word to Hawaii, and how, over time, the interests of their descendants turned more towards the worldly pursuits of sugar farming, which is what led to its being annexed. She explores how its annexation wasn't entirely on the up-and-up (it was done through a joint resolution after failing an up-or-down vote). And in the process, she notes how its culture was nearly destroyed: through the outlawing of the hula dance, the replacement of creation myths with Christian stories, the spread of disease and death of large portions of the native populace, and more.
One thing I disliked about the book was the lack of other voices besides Vowell's. It told the story primarily from the American perspective. I found the apparent passivity of the native Hawaiians baffling. I know she's writing from a historical perspective, but she included brief glimpses of a modern Hawaiian nationalist movement and a few words with experts on Hawaii's past. I would have liked to have seen more of that, but at the same time, the book opened my eyes a lot. Hawaii's story is hardly untold: Vowell included a two-page reccomended reading list of primary and secondary sources. But at the same time, it seems like it's not widely known either. I picked this book up as a Sarah Vowell book, not as a book about Hawaii, so I'm glad that she used some her her fame to shine light on this topic. If I had any myself, I'd like to think that I'd do the same sort of thing.
Showing posts with label colonial history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colonial history. Show all posts
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sunday, June 24, 2007
The Code of the Brethren
Does anyone remember that phrase from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise: "The Code of the Brethren, set down by Morgan and Bartholomew?" The book I've just finished, Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty, is about the real-life career of the "Morgan" of that phrase: Captain Henry Morgan 1635-1688.
One beautiful thing about my Colonial Reading Thing is that it's helped me to see the broader connections. When they referenced trouble between the English and the Dutch heating up, I know of the trouble they're talking about. When Morgan came to the Caribbean, the English were about 9 years away from taking New Amsterdam. You can also see many of the trends and currents swirling about the story of the pirates in the Caribbean: how the old-world thinking, mired in religion, tradition and superstition, was about to be exploded by a more humanistic, individualistic worldview.
In this book, the old worldview was quite literally, exploded, over and over again by the democratic scallywag army Morgan raised, "made up of trash tossed out of a half a dozen European countries". In my beloved Pirates movie franchise, the pirates are depicted as mercenaries and enemies of all. In Empire, Talty shows how the British crown used them as a weapon: there was a razor-thin distinction between "pirates" and "privateers." The latter (of which Morgan was the best-known) had official commissions from the Crown to pillage and plunder strategic Spanish locations. The Spanish, in contrast, were mired in their old ways. Talty talks of ships that crossed the Atlantic bearing nothing but pages and pages of records and orders. It took a very long time for anything to happen in Spain, and the Spanish were terribly overextended. They did not have a counterpart to the privateer system; in fact, it would've been anathema to their whole way of thinking, in which God was at the center of everything, not the individual.
There are many delectable characters in this book. There's the melancholy King Phillip IV of Spain, who, overwhelmed by problems he couldn't solve, spent hours staring into his own tomb. Mary Carleton, the notorious whore who had impersonated a German princess down on her luck back in England, and her cohorts, with the delectable names of No-Conscience Nan, Buttock-de-Clink Jenny and Salt-Beef Peg. The terrifying, bloodthirsty psychopathic French pirate L'Ollonais. And Morgan himself, the cunning, brave Welshman who proved to be a natural leader and considered himself not an outlaw but a British patriot.
I will confess again: I am a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I love Jack Sparrow, and would marry him if he were real, even though I know he wouldn't make a very good husband. I also like the ride, too, and was interested to see historical correlations to several details in both: the mayor in the well (when towns had advance notice of pirate raids, wells were popular hiding places for valuables); the pirate wallowing with the pigs (livestock and provisions were as highly prized as swag); Elizabeth's reluctance to reveal herself as the governor's daughter in the first film (pirates often kidnapped citizens and held them for ransom, as a way to get valuables that had been hidden). There were real Gallows Points to warn pirates of what they were in for, just like the one Captain Jack Sparrow saluted as his boat was sinking on the way to Port Royale. Tortuga was not only a real place, but it seems as though it was accurately depicted in the first film. Pirates really did have a superstition that banned women from their ships, although the real-life pirates made a few notable exceptions, too.
The book was relatively entertaining, and although I have few doubts of its historic accuracy, it's clear from the bibliography that it's not presenting anything new, unlike Shorto's book. Talty seems to have leaned mostly on secondary sources, some going all the way back to the early 20th century. He lists only ten primary sources, and all of those are previously published documents. He also used a device that further separates this book from more scholarly works: he creates a fictional character. His fictional character is a "typical" pirate that would have sailed with Morgan. Initially, I thought his invention (named Roderick) was just an example, but Roderick is with is throughout the entire book, past the death of the Captain. Anyone reading this book should be aware, then, that it's more history-as-entertainment than scholarly work. That's not necessarily a bad thing: given the upsurge in interest in pirates, it's an enjoyable, easily digestible way to start, but it is just a starting place. If you already have some knowledge of Morgan's career or the pirates in the Caribbean, this book is not likely to add much, though.
One beautiful thing about my Colonial Reading Thing is that it's helped me to see the broader connections. When they referenced trouble between the English and the Dutch heating up, I know of the trouble they're talking about. When Morgan came to the Caribbean, the English were about 9 years away from taking New Amsterdam. You can also see many of the trends and currents swirling about the story of the pirates in the Caribbean: how the old-world thinking, mired in religion, tradition and superstition, was about to be exploded by a more humanistic, individualistic worldview.
In this book, the old worldview was quite literally, exploded, over and over again by the democratic scallywag army Morgan raised, "made up of trash tossed out of a half a dozen European countries". In my beloved Pirates movie franchise, the pirates are depicted as mercenaries and enemies of all. In Empire, Talty shows how the British crown used them as a weapon: there was a razor-thin distinction between "pirates" and "privateers." The latter (of which Morgan was the best-known) had official commissions from the Crown to pillage and plunder strategic Spanish locations. The Spanish, in contrast, were mired in their old ways. Talty talks of ships that crossed the Atlantic bearing nothing but pages and pages of records and orders. It took a very long time for anything to happen in Spain, and the Spanish were terribly overextended. They did not have a counterpart to the privateer system; in fact, it would've been anathema to their whole way of thinking, in which God was at the center of everything, not the individual.
There are many delectable characters in this book. There's the melancholy King Phillip IV of Spain, who, overwhelmed by problems he couldn't solve, spent hours staring into his own tomb. Mary Carleton, the notorious whore who had impersonated a German princess down on her luck back in England, and her cohorts, with the delectable names of No-Conscience Nan, Buttock-de-Clink Jenny and Salt-Beef Peg. The terrifying, bloodthirsty psychopathic French pirate L'Ollonais. And Morgan himself, the cunning, brave Welshman who proved to be a natural leader and considered himself not an outlaw but a British patriot.
I will confess again: I am a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I love Jack Sparrow, and would marry him if he were real, even though I know he wouldn't make a very good husband. I also like the ride, too, and was interested to see historical correlations to several details in both: the mayor in the well (when towns had advance notice of pirate raids, wells were popular hiding places for valuables); the pirate wallowing with the pigs (livestock and provisions were as highly prized as swag); Elizabeth's reluctance to reveal herself as the governor's daughter in the first film (pirates often kidnapped citizens and held them for ransom, as a way to get valuables that had been hidden). There were real Gallows Points to warn pirates of what they were in for, just like the one Captain Jack Sparrow saluted as his boat was sinking on the way to Port Royale. Tortuga was not only a real place, but it seems as though it was accurately depicted in the first film. Pirates really did have a superstition that banned women from their ships, although the real-life pirates made a few notable exceptions, too.
The book was relatively entertaining, and although I have few doubts of its historic accuracy, it's clear from the bibliography that it's not presenting anything new, unlike Shorto's book. Talty seems to have leaned mostly on secondary sources, some going all the way back to the early 20th century. He lists only ten primary sources, and all of those are previously published documents. He also used a device that further separates this book from more scholarly works: he creates a fictional character. His fictional character is a "typical" pirate that would have sailed with Morgan. Initially, I thought his invention (named Roderick) was just an example, but Roderick is with is throughout the entire book, past the death of the Captain. Anyone reading this book should be aware, then, that it's more history-as-entertainment than scholarly work. That's not necessarily a bad thing: given the upsurge in interest in pirates, it's an enjoyable, easily digestible way to start, but it is just a starting place. If you already have some knowledge of Morgan's career or the pirates in the Caribbean, this book is not likely to add much, though.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Even Old New York Was Once New Amsterdam
After reading Island at the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto, I CAN say why they changed it, and also state that it's open for debate whether people really liked it better that way at the time.
Telling an epic story, like that of the Dutch colony on Manhattan (c.1620 - 1664) is a difficult task. Imagine it today. I have three close friends living in the general vicinity. One is in his early 50s, and came to the city several years ago with $400 and no other prospects other than the promise of a free month's rent and the possibility of getting back with an ex-girlfriend, and in a modern-day Horatio Alger tale, is now happy and has a successful and lucrative career. Another friend is a scientist who, despite being intelligent, well-spoken and passionate about life and her field, has not managed to land a job in her field and lives at the edge of poverty. A third friend lives not on Manhattan but in Brooklyn. She holds a BA in English and is pursuing her master's in education while working at a group home. She is the only child of a single mom, and they live together. So whose New York is it? Probably most of you were drawn to one of the first two stories, but there are probably more people living like my third friend. Or does the story of New York in the beginning of the 21st century belong to any of them? Does it really belong to Guiliani and Bloomberg, to plummeting crime rates, skyrocketing real estate values, terrorist attacks and rebuilding?
Russell Shorto manages, in only 325 pages, to weave all of these types of stories together in presenting the true origins of America as we think of it. It takes an unusual sort of person to leave everything they knew and make a new life in a region which is essentially unknown. You'd have to be either terribly brave and noble, or terribly foolish with nothing to lose. There are plenty of both peopling Shorto's book. I laughed out loud to read about Griet Reyniers, the prostitute with a knack for self-promotion and a penchant for measuring her customer's penises on a broomstick, and her husband, pirate Anthony "The Turk" van Salee, described as a "one-man criminal class...even his dog was trouble."
But I came to admire a man who deserves his own paragraph (and more). Adrien van der Donck was poised to have it all. He was from a good family and a lawyer, recently graduated from the best university in Europe, yet he chose to come to the Manhattan colony. Once there, he proved himself to be both a shrewd politician and clever manipulator, but also an advocate for freedom and representative government. He was imprisoned and nearly lost his life to the cause, but one can see in his struggle the prototype for the American revolution.
Another hero, to me anyway, is Dr. Charles Gehring, director of the New Netherland Project. In a move that must have had his parents tearing their hair out, he earned his PhD in 17th Century Dutch Language. By fortunate coincidence, the New York State Library was looking for someone to translate a cache of 12,000 pages of documents from the New Amsterdam colony as he was searching for a job. This was 26 years ago, and Gehring has been there ever since. If you want to visit him in his office, you cannot just go in. The elevator doesn't stop there. You have to go up a floor, state your business, and be escorted downstairs to see him. I've just left a job that I found increasingly isolating, and his ability to keep going in the fact of that is remarkable to me.
The central thesis of the book is that the Dutch, through their tolerance, created the "melting pot" one can find in New York City today, also that their influence has been more pervasive than has been thought in the past. Wall Street was the site of a fortification they built to keep the English out (you can tell just by the name change how that worked out). If you came to the colonies as an apprentice, you'd work for a master, or baas. So if you've ever bitched about your "boss", that's where the word came from. The Manhattan Dutch also invented a dish called koosla, cabbage chopped and tossed with vinegar and melted butter. We call it cole slaw today. The book contains several other wonderful nuggets like this, both mundane and profound, to show the true influence of this often-forgotten colony.
This is starting to change. There has been more scholarship in the field, as well as general interest. I did my internship at a Dutch homestead, built shortly after the end of the Manhattan colony, and during my summer there, we received visits from the New Netherlands Project, and also from several people at the Met, who had recently acquired a Dutch homestead to exhibit and were researching the architecture and furnishings of Dutch homesteads that were still extant. It was there that I first heard about this book, and I'm glad I read it. I highly recommend it. I've also included a link to the New Netherlands Project should you want to know more...just click on the title to this post.
Telling an epic story, like that of the Dutch colony on Manhattan (c.1620 - 1664) is a difficult task. Imagine it today. I have three close friends living in the general vicinity. One is in his early 50s, and came to the city several years ago with $400 and no other prospects other than the promise of a free month's rent and the possibility of getting back with an ex-girlfriend, and in a modern-day Horatio Alger tale, is now happy and has a successful and lucrative career. Another friend is a scientist who, despite being intelligent, well-spoken and passionate about life and her field, has not managed to land a job in her field and lives at the edge of poverty. A third friend lives not on Manhattan but in Brooklyn. She holds a BA in English and is pursuing her master's in education while working at a group home. She is the only child of a single mom, and they live together. So whose New York is it? Probably most of you were drawn to one of the first two stories, but there are probably more people living like my third friend. Or does the story of New York in the beginning of the 21st century belong to any of them? Does it really belong to Guiliani and Bloomberg, to plummeting crime rates, skyrocketing real estate values, terrorist attacks and rebuilding?
Russell Shorto manages, in only 325 pages, to weave all of these types of stories together in presenting the true origins of America as we think of it. It takes an unusual sort of person to leave everything they knew and make a new life in a region which is essentially unknown. You'd have to be either terribly brave and noble, or terribly foolish with nothing to lose. There are plenty of both peopling Shorto's book. I laughed out loud to read about Griet Reyniers, the prostitute with a knack for self-promotion and a penchant for measuring her customer's penises on a broomstick, and her husband, pirate Anthony "The Turk" van Salee, described as a "one-man criminal class...even his dog was trouble."
But I came to admire a man who deserves his own paragraph (and more). Adrien van der Donck was poised to have it all. He was from a good family and a lawyer, recently graduated from the best university in Europe, yet he chose to come to the Manhattan colony. Once there, he proved himself to be both a shrewd politician and clever manipulator, but also an advocate for freedom and representative government. He was imprisoned and nearly lost his life to the cause, but one can see in his struggle the prototype for the American revolution.
Another hero, to me anyway, is Dr. Charles Gehring, director of the New Netherland Project. In a move that must have had his parents tearing their hair out, he earned his PhD in 17th Century Dutch Language. By fortunate coincidence, the New York State Library was looking for someone to translate a cache of 12,000 pages of documents from the New Amsterdam colony as he was searching for a job. This was 26 years ago, and Gehring has been there ever since. If you want to visit him in his office, you cannot just go in. The elevator doesn't stop there. You have to go up a floor, state your business, and be escorted downstairs to see him. I've just left a job that I found increasingly isolating, and his ability to keep going in the fact of that is remarkable to me.
The central thesis of the book is that the Dutch, through their tolerance, created the "melting pot" one can find in New York City today, also that their influence has been more pervasive than has been thought in the past. Wall Street was the site of a fortification they built to keep the English out (you can tell just by the name change how that worked out). If you came to the colonies as an apprentice, you'd work for a master, or baas. So if you've ever bitched about your "boss", that's where the word came from. The Manhattan Dutch also invented a dish called koosla, cabbage chopped and tossed with vinegar and melted butter. We call it cole slaw today. The book contains several other wonderful nuggets like this, both mundane and profound, to show the true influence of this often-forgotten colony.
This is starting to change. There has been more scholarship in the field, as well as general interest. I did my internship at a Dutch homestead, built shortly after the end of the Manhattan colony, and during my summer there, we received visits from the New Netherlands Project, and also from several people at the Met, who had recently acquired a Dutch homestead to exhibit and were researching the architecture and furnishings of Dutch homesteads that were still extant. It was there that I first heard about this book, and I'm glad I read it. I highly recommend it. I've also included a link to the New Netherlands Project should you want to know more...just click on the title to this post.
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