Winter 2015 PDF

Transcription

Winter 2015 PDF

THE
CONCORD REVIEW
I am simply one who loves the past and is diligent in investigating it.
K’ung-fu-tzu (551-479 BC) The Analects
Sugar Islands
William Christian Maines
St. John’s School, Houston, Texas
Early Islamic Iberia
Benjamin Goldstein
Centennial High School, Ellicott City, Maryland
Southern Republicans
Quentin Dupouy
Baseball Anti-Trust Status
Theodore Hurley
Hunter College High School, Manhattan Island, New York
The Branson School, Ross, California
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Rachel Lily Gold
Richard Montgomery High School, Rockville, Maryland
Pavel Dmitriyevich Korin
Joonha Park
Anglo-American School, Moscow
Comanche Transition
Vikram Shaw
Amarillo High School, Amarillo, Texas
Chess and Communism
Langston Chen
Belmont High School, Belmont, Massachusetts
South Carolina 1876
Peter Luff
Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire
Arab Unification
Se Young Jeon
Semiahmoo Secondary School, Surrey, British Columbia
Byzantine Empire
Fox Lane High School, Bedford, New York
Harrison Voss
A Quarterly Review of Essays by Students of History
Volume 26, Number Two
$30.00
Winter 2015
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Volume Twenty-Six, Number Two
1
Sugar Islands
25
Benjamin Goldstein
Early Islamic Iberia
57
Quentin Dupouy
Southern Republicans
75
Theodore Hurley
Baseball Anti-Trust
93
Rachel Gold
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
127
Joonha Park
Pavel Dimitriyevich Korin
143
Vikram Shaw
Comanche Transition
165
Langston Chen
Chess and Communism
189
Peter Luff
South Carolina 1876
221
Se Young Jeon
Arab Unification
239
Harrison Voss
Byzantine Empire
272
Notes on Contributors
Winter 2015
Editor and Publisher, Will Fitzhugh
e-mail:
[email protected]
tcr.org
website:
The Winter 2015 issue of The Concord Review
is Volume Twenty-Six, Number Two
Partial funding was provided by: Carter Bacon, Earhart Foundation,
the History Channel, the Lagemann Foundation, Robert Grusky,
Jason May, the Rose Foundation, Kevin Zhang and other donors.
©2015, by The Concord Review, Inc., 730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24,
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776, USA. All rights reserved. This issue was
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Copyright 2015, The Concord Review, Inc., all rights reserved
REVOLUTION AND THE SUGAR ISLANDS: THE WEST
INDIES AND FRENCH DIPLOMACY IN THE AMERICAN
WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
O
n the foggy morning of September 5, 1781, a French
lookout ship patrolling the Chesapeake Bay signaled the arrival
of a British fleet. Admiral Thomas Graves gave the order to form
his ships into a column parallel to those under the command
of Admiral François-Joseph de Grasse. At 3:46 in the afternoon,
Graves gave the order to open fire on the French, commencing
the Battle of the Chesapeake, and by sunset, the British faced
nearly 350 causalities as well as damage to six ships. De Grasse immediately sailed for Yorktown, where General Charles Cornwallis
was under siege, and cut off Cornwallis’s only remaining route
of retreat, forcing his capitulation and concluding the American
Revolutionary War.1 De Grasse’s maneuver epitomizes the successes
of the combined Franco-American forces and their strategy in the
latter half of this war, but the question remains as to what initially
drew the French into the fray.
If not for the aid offered to the Americans by France both
secretly and overtly throughout the course of the Revolutionary
William Christain Maines is a Junior at St. John’s School in Houston,
Texas, where he wrote this Independent Study paper in the 2014/2015
academic year. Wendall Zartman is head of history.
2
War, the American cause likely would have ended in disaster. The
military and financial involvement of France in the war sustained
the American war effort and enabled the execution of maneuvers
such as this one. The French government was largely invested in
the war to protect its own imperial interests, namely the profitable West Indian sugar islands. French intervention and policy
throughout the American Revolutionary War may be viewed as an
extension of the French mercantile competition in global trade
with Great Britain rather than a product of the ideals shared by
the United States and France. This paper will discuss the nature of
foreign policy in France during the decade leading up to the war,
throughout the conflict’s course, and ultimately in the peace talks
of 1783, with the goal of illustrating the immense weight that the
West Indies carried within the French government and offering a
new way in which the French intervention should be viewed that
takes French imperial ambitions into account.2
The French were not alone in their assessment of these
islands’ value; the West Indies played an integral role in the development of the foreign policies of several European powers,
including England and Spain, during the years leading up to the
American War for Independence. The war is generally viewed
as having simply pitted the North American colonies against
their English rulers in their struggle for sovereignty, which has
caused scholars to ignore the Caribbean islands in the context of
the American Revolution.3 This interpretation, though partially
accurate, conveys only one aspect of what was truly a world war
among Britain, its rebellious colonies, and the many European
powers. The war hinged on sophisticated strategies and alliances
formulated by diplomats in Europe, all of whom understood the
value of the islands in relation to the colonies in New England.
Before the Alliance
To describe the Revolutionary War as a string of battles
all fought along the eastern coast of North America would fail to
acknowledge perhaps the greatest victory of the American colonies, which occurred across the Atlantic Ocean with their signing
THE CONCORD REVIEW
3
of the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce
with France on February 6, 1778. To understand the significance
of the West Indies in relation to the French alliance, it is important to evaluate the context of European diplomacy and politics
before and during the Revolutionary War. Since the conclusion
of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the Ancien Régime had hoped
for an opportunity to recoup its losses from the British, who had
crippled the French naval force and conquered the vast majority of North America, leaving the French with possessions in the
Americas reduced to merely a few islands.4 In fact, the French
traded the entirety of their North American territory, stretching
from Canada to Louisiana, to England in exchange for the islands
of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia.5 Within the French
Foreign Office, Charles Gravier de Vergennes, who held strong
views about diminishing Britain’s control over North America,
advised against entering into outright conflict with Britain, but
in the three years leading up to the signing of the treaties, he became convinced that the outbreak of war was a chance to decrease
the power of Britain in the Americas.6 Pierre de Beaumarchais, a
French spy and the author of The Marriage of Figaro, listened for
news in London. In the winter of 1776, Beaumarchais sent a letter
back to Paris demanding that the French intervene in the conflict
as the Americans would likely soon have to make peace due to
a lack of currency and provisions. Louis XVI and his ministers
eventually resolved to send one million livres worth of munitions
and supplies to America, well aware that the British would quickly
notice this action. Beaumarchais nonetheless attempted to mask
this aid by sending it through the puppet corporation he created,
Roderigue Hortalez and Company.7 It was with these actions that
France began to make its intentions known to the Americans, but,
for the reluctant French ministry to consider anything close to
fully-fledged war, there would have to be a more tempting prize
than that of simply agitating the British.
While this process was underway, two battles took place
that brought the American conflict into the heart of French foreign policy and resulted in the Continental Congress’s sending
several American diplomats to Paris, culminating in the signing
4
of the two treaties. The collapse of British general John Burgoyne
at Saratoga on October 7, 1777, was likely the most significant factor in persuading the French to join the American military effort
as Burgoyne’s defeat would constitute the Americans’ first great
victory; furthermore, General George Washington’s engagement
at Germantown increased French confidence in the American
military force. Before the battles, Vergennes was disconcerted by
reports from Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in Paris, who
had delivered false news that Burgoyne had been successful in New
York and that the American generals faced failures throughout New
England.8 Despairing, Vergennes sent an envoy to America to determine exactly the state of Washington’s army, and Beaumarchais
returned to France with news that contradicted that of Stormont:
Burgoyne had in fact surrendered to the American forces under
General Horatio Gates, and Washington had made a successful
retreat from Germantown after inflicting heavy casualties on the
English. While still by any standard a defeat for the Americans,
Germantown may well have resulted in a victory for Washington
if not for unfavorable weather conditions. Following the recommendation of Vergennes, Louis XVI then publicly received the
American diplomats, starting on true discussion with the American
colonies.9 Vergennes and some of the French government viewed
Washington’s success as further evidence of the general’s military
genius and affirmed belief within the French government that
the American armies were strong enough to face the British in
more consistent and long-term combat. By this point, France’s
previous Foreign Minister Étienne François de Choiseul had
fallen from power, and Vergennes, who held very clear notions
about how France might make use of Britain’s crisis, ascended to
that position.10 As 1777 drew to a close, the circumstances of the
American forces had changed dramatically, and their diplomats
were preparing to negotiate a possible alliance with France. For
the French Foreign Ministry, these battles and the changes they
effected in the public perception of the American cause symbolized an opening for the expansion of France’s foreign influence.
The first logical step in exploiting this opportunity was to enact
an alliance with the Americans.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
5
The Treaties
The forging of the two treaties was, in and of itself, somewhat
of an anomaly, one that immediately calls into question the theory
that there might have been some sort of sharing of ideals between
the French and the Americans. The American and French states
were remarkably dissimilar, and their differences seemed great
enough to preclude any sort of alliance based on common principles. America was a comparatively young state, and its Protestant
heritage and republican ideals contrasted with the Catholic and
monarchial characteristics of France, the oldest and most despotic
government of Western Europe. Furthermore, Louis XVI had ascended to the throne with promises to end foreign interventions
such as this one in order to focus resources on domestic issues—this
final endeavor of entering the Revolutionary War ruined France
financially and ultimately brought about the death of His Most
Christian Majesty.11 All of this proved fairly inconsequential after
news of Saratoga and Germantown arrived in France. Vergennes
firmly believed that independence was within the grasp of the
Americans and that whichever power, France or Great Britain,
first acknowledged the independence of the Americans would
receive the benefits of commerce with the colonists.12 Before any
formal alliance could be concluded, however, the diplomat had to
win over the rest of the French ministry to his cause. Despite the
Americans’ victories, many politicians within the Foreign Office
remained unconvinced. Vergennes argued in the French court
that the war had become one of necessity rather than choice due
to growing fears that Great Britain would wage war on France and
Spain if not defeated in America—the idea of a British assault on
the French West Indies was worrisome enough to the court, and
Vergennes employed nearly alarmist techniques to amplify those
concerns. Beaumarchais wrote to King Louis:
But the most interested of all is certainly France, whose sugar islands
are, since the last peace [of 1763], the object of the constant hopes
and regrets of the English, hopes and regrets which must inevitably
cause war, unless, by a weakness impossible to imagine, we sacrifice
our riches in the gulf to the chimera of a peace more shameful and
destructive than the war we fear.13
6
The “last peace” to which Beaumarchais referred had already resulted in France’s losing a significant portion of its North American
possessions. The prospect that France might “sacrifice [its] riches
in the gulf” to secure peace with the British proved enough for
Vergennes and Beaumarchais to accomplish their goal, which was
to convince Louis to commit to war with England. Vergennes and
Beaumarchais discussed the possibility of reconciliation between
the American colonies and the British as a means of furthering
their cause, suggesting that Britain might form a coalition with the
Americans against Spain and France. In reality, these concerns were
not unfounded, as Vergennes’s informants discovered that Benjamin Franklin and other Americans had secretly met with British
diplomats to discuss these possibilities, and the ministers of Lord
North’s cabinet had discussed this very possibility at length.14 The
end result was that which Vergennes intended: Panic within the
ministry. Premonitions of a peace treaty, which threatened French
colonial ambitions, rapidly grew, and this anxiety became exacerbated by the worsening state of the French economy. American
diplomat Arthur Lee did indeed suggest to Beaumarchais that, if
France did not accept the Americans as commercial allies, America
would “accept peace and join with England in an attack on the
French West India islands.”15 Vergennes solidified the concern
that Great Britain would expand its control over the economic
and industrial resources that America had to offer.16
The West Indies had already become the object of attention
and concern within the French government before an alliance
had even been drafted. Vergennes had to demonstrate that Great
Britain’s impending threat was enough to warrant intervention, and
the simplest means of doing so was appealing to French fears of
losing their most profitable colonial possessions in the Caribbean.
This task was made easier by reports from the French ambassador
in London, Louis de Noailles, who wrote back to Versailles that
the English were aware of the secret aid from Beaumarchais and
were content to wage war on French possessions in the Caribbean
as soon as a truce with America was concluded.17 While the idea
of allying with America against France was appealing to the North
cabinet, an English truce with America was merely entertained by
THE CONCORD REVIEW
7
the Americans as a means of extracting a greater degree of aid
from France. Indeed, after the two great battles of 1777, America
was set on independence and was simply “worrying both England
and France to the eternal advantage of their native land.”18 The
Americans were extremely successful in doing this, leading both
Lord George Germain, Secretary of State of North’s cabinet,
and Vergennes to try to formalize treaties with the Americans.
Vergennes, still unaware of the Americans’ intentions, ultimately
came to the conclusion that war with England was inevitable and
that the decision to be made was whether the French would fight
an alliance of England and America or fight only England, with
the Americans as allies. Vergennes chose the latter, and the rest
of the ministers seemed to consent, culminating with the King’s
making the decision that would “cost him his crown and his life.”19
The American diplomats were informed on December 17th, 1777,
that Louis XVI and his ministers had decided to acknowledge
the independence of the United States. Louis convened a royal
council at Versailles, and the two treaties were unanimously passed.
The first official representative of the Crown to parley with the
Americans was Conrad Alexandre Gérard. Gérard made a trip
to Passy, where he visited Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee,
informing them that the treaties had been passed.20 Vergennes’s
strategy for gaining the support of the ministry relied heavily upon
exciting fears about France’s colonial position in the Americas,
suggesting that French interests had much less to do with helping
the American cause than with advancing their own.
Initially, the treaties between America and France were
to involve only commerce, but the attitudes of the French court
shifted to include an official alliance as well. This change occurred
due to the American commissioners’ wile in agitating the European powers as their own cause grew seemingly more and more
desperate at home. The Treaty of Alliance was to come into effect
if war broke out between France and Great Britain, which was at
this point all but inevitable.
The semantics of the two treaties suggests that the French
clearly intended to exert colonial control within the Caribbean
8
under pretenses of a common hatred of England, which certainly
existed but could not possibly have been an impetus enough to
drive the French into such an agreement. In the Treaty of Alliance,
France and America determined to “join their Councils and efforts
against the Enterprises of their common Enemy.”21 The nations
agreed to mutually aid each other and preserve the liberty of the
United States, and neither party was allowed to conclude a treaty
of peace with Great Britain “without the formal consent of the
other first obtain’d.”22 Article 5 guaranteed all land conquered
from England on the North American continent to the United
States, while Articles 6 and 7 laid the claims of France:
The Most Christian King renounces for ever the possession of the
Islands of Bermudas…If his Most Christian Majesty shall think proper
to attack any of the Islands situated in the Gulph of Mexico, or near
that Gulph, which are at present under the Power of Great Britain,
all the said Isles, in case of success, shall appertain to the Crown of
France.23
These articles established that the French had permission to
take the West Indies if they could defeat the minuscule English
forces stationed on their shores. That the negotiators would take
steps to ensure the French claim to the islands in the text of the
treaty indicates that the French Ministry fully expected to take
the islands as recompense for their decision to intervene and
aid the Americans. Finally, in Article 10 of the treaty, the parties
agreed to “invite or admit other Powers who may have received
injuries from England to make common cause with them, and to
accede to the present alliance.”24 This section was largely directed
towards the Spanish government, which had as of yet remained
completely neutral. Early in 1778, Lord North expressed premature concerns about possible Spanish commitment to the war effort, remarking that “an approaching war with France and Spain
appears now almost out of doubt.”25 Spain could not be moved
to enter the war until the 1779 Treaty of Aranjuez, after which
Spain, too, would attempt to increase its imperial prominence in
the West Indies. Spain never entered into a formal alliance with
the United States.26 This clause demonstrates the intense desire of
the French ministry to establish control over the islands because
THE CONCORD REVIEW
9
introducing Spain into the war would bolster the French position
militarily but would also add another layer of complexity to what
was already an intricate strategy. The very suggestion that the two
Bourbon powers, France and Spain, might be united sent Lord
North’s ministry into a panic, leading Baron Jeffrey Amherst, the
most experienced soldier in the cabinet, to demand an immediate
“Sea War” on French possessions in the West Indies.27
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce echoed the Treaty of
Alliance in its declaration of peace and friendship between the
nations, and it declared reciprocal “most favored nation” status
between France and America. This treaty guaranteed mutual protection of French and American merchant vessels and afforded
the French the rights to several fisheries in Newfoundland; both
nations also exempted each other from certain taxes and duties.
Finally, the French guaranteed the Americans access to several
“free ports” with relaxed customs and duties in the French West
Indies and Europe.28 The emphasis placed on the islands in both
of these treaties indicates that the French strongly desired protection for their commercial interests—the initial aid offered to
America of one million livres in the form of clothes, cannons,
and medicine was inconsequential compared to the amount that
France was knowingly investing by entering into an official compact of alliance with America, which was by itself tantamount to
declaring war on Britain.29
The Prize
To understand the European diplomacy underway, it is
important to evaluate what was at stake in the Caribbean. The
French diplomats considered the islands to be of the utmost importance. Similarly, King George voiced his concerns about the
West Indies to his cabinet:
Our Islands must be defended even at the risk of an invasion of this
island, if we lose our Sugar Islands it will be impossible to raise Money
to continue the war and then no Peace can be obtained…We must
be ruined if every idea of Offensive War is to lye dormant until this
Island is thought in a situation to defy attacks, if there is the small-
10
est spark of resolution in the country it must defend itself at home
though not a Ship remained for its defense.30
King George’s remark that losing the islands would result in an
inability to continue financing the war illustrates the necessity of
maintaining profitable colonies such as the Caribbean Islands.
Considering that the islands constituted such a significant portion
of England’s economy, the possiblity that the Royal Navy might
leave no ships to defend home waters seemed reasonable. The
West Indies figured largely in the foreign policies of both France
and England for similar reasons, especially for subsidizing the
countries’ imperial ventures. Controlling the islands conferred
both economic and strategic rewards upon their colonizers, and,
at the start of the Revolutionary War, the English retained these
advantages.
The islands’ most important export was sugar, either in
its raw form or manufactured into rum or molasses.31 England
conducted an enormous volume of trade with the West Indies;
the value of commerce with the islands varied between three and
four million pounds in the three years leading up to the war. The
net value of the exports from the islands to England was greater
than that of all thirteen colonies’ exports combined. The colonies’
exports consisted largely of the less profitable cash crops: tobacco,
flour, and rice.32 The Revolutionary War brought about a steep
decline in the economies of the islands: the value of West Indian
exports to England dropped by about four hundred thousand
pounds annually, and the sugar imports decreased by half. This
was partially due to the English plantation owners’ loss of their
previously profitable American market for rum.33 The West Indies
nonetheless remained an extremely valuable commercial asset, as
reflected in Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty of Alliance, and their
close proximity to the American continent meant that they were
useful not only financially, but also strategically as a rendezvous
point for ships. It was for these reasons that the islands became
powerful bargaining chips in the peace negotiations at the conclusion of the war.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
11
As of 1777, The English dominated the West Indies and
controlled the richest of the islands. The crown jewel of the island
possessions was Jamaica, the source of nine-tenths of Britain’s
rum and two-fifths of its sugar. Jamaica rests some 1,000 miles to
the west of the other main islands, the Leeward Islands: Antigua,
Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, and farther eastward, Barbados,
another important sugar producer. St. Vincent, Grenada, and
Tobago, further south and also under British control, were collectively known as the Windward Islands. The French governed
the small islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia, which,
as mentioned earlier, they retained at the conclusion of the Seven
Years’ War.34 King George’s concerns were valid in that the troops
stationed in the English possessions were inadequate, with only
1,600 soldiers, of whom only 1,060 were healthy enough to fight.
The planters in control of the islands were unwilling to cooperate
or organize any sort of defense, leaving the islands highly vulnerable
to invasion. Furthermore, resistance to an invading force would
doom the production of the islands and put the planters’ most
valuable capital, their slaves, at risk of capture. For the planters,
the far more sensible option would be to welcome the French
to the islands as new governors.35 The immediate strategy of the
French, therefore, was to intercept the supply ships destined for
the English islands and to capture whichever islands they could.
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce had made French ports in
the West Indies available to American merchants, so the American
market for sugar transitioned from English to French control.
France’s newly-opened commerce with the United States provided
new incentives for the French to conquer as many of the sugar
islands as possible.36 The French Alliance would soon become
quite profitable if the French Navy could conquer and retain a
substantial number of the West Indian islands.
Aside from England, France found an equal competitor in
the Spanish foreign ministry under Chief Minister Floridablanca.
The French had hoped to secure a Spanish alliance without jeopardizing their interests in the Caribbean but acknowledged that
Spain would seek some recompense for their entry into the war.
Vergennes and Floridablanca struggled to advance some sort of
12
alliance while simultaneously moving to restore their respective
countries’ colonial possessions. Spain controlled Cuba, half of
Hispaniola, Trinidad, and Porto Rico as of 1777, along with one
of the most substantial military forces of Europe. On April 12th,
1779, Floridablanca and statesman Armand de Montmorin of
France signed the Convention of Aranjuez in secret.37 This treaty
was an extension of the Bourbon Family Compacts put into effect by Choiseul, which, in theory, merged the military powers of
France and Spain in 1761.38 The Convention of Aranjuez offered
the English one last chance to reconcile with Spain, which was
turned down, and the remaining articles followed in line with those
of the French alliances of 1778. Floridablanca laid certain claims
in the Convention that posed problems for the French later on,
namely demanding that Spanish control of the Strait of Gibraltar
be a prerequisite for peace. This condition resulted in the longest
military action of the war, a three-and-a-half year struggle in which
France and Spain had to fight in concert to satisfy Spanish imperial ambitions.39 The Convention was a problem for Vergennes
and the French Foreign Ministry due to Spain’s land claims, especially to the fisheries of Newfoundland, but the French signed
the Convention, and Spain entered into the war. The Spanish
crown held similar ambitions to monopolize the West Indies, and
Vergennes was, in his desperation, prepared to offer the islands
to Spain in exchange for their entrance into the war. Vergennes
did not have to do so, but the Spanish remained interested in the
possibility of monopolizing the Caribbean as well as the western
half of Florida.40 By this point, the three largest European powers
had all essentially laid claim to the profitable sugar islands, and
the military campaigns of all three nations were underway.
The Campaigns
The most telling evidence of the French ministry’s fixation on the islands is the enormous expenditure of resources
and ships that the French carried out to capture and fortify the
Caribbean islands in the latter half of the war. French policy in
the final phase of the Revolutionary War was to depend heavily
THE CONCORD REVIEW
13
on the military campaigns in the West Indies, as the islands would
function as bargaining chips of sorts with the European powers
once peace negotiations began. The French choice to employ
this strategy marks the global conflict of the Revolutionary War
as similar to the colonial struggles between England and France
of the previous decades. In 1778, St. Lucia became the primary
focus of the British, and Dominica became the target of France.
Dominica was chosen because it was centered among several
islands already under French control, and it would increase the
capacity for communications between the Antilles.41 The French
fleets consisted of 21 ships of the line at Brest and 12 at Toulon;
in the spring of that year, they constructed another 12 ships. This
presented a problem for the British, as any significant dispatch of
ships from these fleets to the West Indies would give the French
naval superiority in the region. The strategies suggested by Lord
North’s cabinet included a blockade at the Strait of Gibraltar to
prevent the French forces at Toulon from exiting the Mediterranean Sea and a similar blockade around the coast of Brest.
Charles Hector, Comte d’Estaing, sailed from Toulon after the
French treaties were signed.42 Indecision racked the North cabinet
as Lord George Germain and John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich,
fervently debated the best course of action to defend both Great
Britain’s West Indian possessions and the British Isles themselves.43
Despite this indecision, the English were ready to change their
strategy to accommodate the French forces, but the possibility of
a French attack on the British Isles worried many ministers as well,
resulting in a period in which no policy could be formulated. This
allowed the French an early advantage in their campaign for the
islands as d’Estaing was afforded a head start in his transatlantic
voyage. The cabinet ultimately ordered General Henry Clinton
to send an expeditionary force of 5,000 men to the West Indies in
March 1778, after the signing of the treaties between France and
America. New York was to be retained at all costs, but Philadelphia
was abandoned in favor of the West Indies. The English fleet was
slightly smaller than that of France by Sandwich’s estimate.44 Admiral Sandwich and Admiral Augustus Keppel argued in favor of
preserving the fleet in home waters, while Germain wished for the
14
fleet to sail and meet d’Estaing in the Mediterranean. Ultimately,
Sandwich’s strategy was chosen over Germain’s, but intelligence
arrived in England about the size of d’Estaing’s fleet, and King
George decided that a fleet would be sent out to meet d’Estaing.45
The hesitancy of the British ministry as to their course of action as
well as the immediate departure of d’Estaing from Toulon for the
Caribbean indicate the gravity of the West Indies in both nations’
military strategies. Furthermore, the dispatching of d’Estaing along
with the crème of the French naval force with orders to secure the
Caribbean signifies the priority allotted French colonial interests.
Germain responded to the French immediately, recommending in a direct address to King George that thirteen ships
be sent “to pursue and attack them in whatever station they may
have taken, and even to follow them to the West Indies, if they
should have proceeded thither after having complied with their
orders upon the coast of North America.”46 Continued vacillation
resulted in d’Estaing’s successful arrival in North America, where
he conducted a few unsuccessful coastal marine invasions, and by
the end of 1778 he sailed for his true objective, the West Indies.
If Germain had been allowed to enact his strategy more quickly,
and a fleet had sailed to meet d’Estaing at Gibraltar, the West Indies would not likely have been challenged by d’Estaing’s fleet.47
Unfortunately for the North cabinet, this did not occur, and when
d’Estaing’s detachment arrived in the Caribbean, English possessions came under immediate threat. France’s move to claim the
West Indies for herself had begun, and so had the international
phase of the war.
In September 1778, the French governor of Martinique
captured Dominica, solidifying the French position and effectively
dividing the British islands into two groups.48 Admiral Samuel Barrington, in charge of British ships in the Leeward Islands, fortified
the coast of St. Lucia with his seven ships. D’Estaing arrived and
made three assaults on the English line to reinforce the French
garrison stationed on the island, but he was repulsed each time,
as he had been on the coasts of New York and Rhode Island previously.49 St. Lucia was more strategically significant than Dominica,
THE CONCORD REVIEW
15
and Barrington’s work was met with praise from Sandwich.50 The
other ministers were shaken by the loss of Dominica, which proved
the strategic fragility of the Leeward Islands.51 July of 1779 proved
disastrous for the British in the West Indies, as d’Estaing captured
Grenada, the second most profitable of the British islands, as well
as St. Vincent. Vice Admiral John Byron, grandfather of poet Lord
Byron, tried unsuccessfully to retake Grenada and fumbled many
other maneuvers in the Caribbean, allowing the French control
over the majority of the islands.52 The British reinforcements destined for the West Indies were delayed or denied due to Clinton’s
troubles on the mainland, and the French would continue to hold
superiority in the West Indies. In 1778 and 1779, the French navy
expended enormous resources to try to dominate the islands, and
the English efforts were temporarily blocked.53
The English war ministers became disconcerted when they
heard of France’s successful domination of the Caribbean. Amherst
and Sandwich urged that the West Indies be strengthened and
retaken with whatever forces Clinton could spare; the plan hinged
on d’Estaing’s decision to return to Europe, in which case the
English would be able to take command of the waters.54 Admiral
George Rodney arrived at St. Lucia with four ships after reinforcing the British forces defending Gibraltar.55 The French strategy
became one of evasion, and Rodney followed closely behind the
French fleet under the Comte de Guichen before engaging him.
The battle resulted in a draw, angering Rodney, as the battle could
have been a decisive victory if not for failures in signaling, which
resulted in several court-martials in England.56 A twelve-ship fleet
under Don José de Solano arrived in the West Indies to reinforce
the French, and the combined forces outweighed Rodney’s twentyseven to eighteen. Rodney fell back to New York, and the islands
largely rested in the hands of the French, save for Jamaica.57
British fears of losing this most important colonial possession struck deep in the ministry, with Sandwich writing to Lord
North in 1778 that the Spanish targets were “Gibraltar, Minorca,
and perhaps Jamaica…Jamaica is at their mercy, if a squadron is
not immediately sent to defend it.”58 The island’s immense wealth
16
was enough to spur a joint Franco-Spanish invasion in 1782 under
Admiral de Grasse, which constituted the first time that the two
powers truly cooperated in a military action during the Revolutionary War.59 The concerted efforts of the French and the Spanish
in their attempt to capture Jamaica culminated in the Battle of
the Saintes nearly half a year after the Battle of Yorktown, Washington’s decisive defeat of General Cornwallis. In fact, the French
fleet involved in this maneuver was the same one that blockaded
the Chesapeake to prevent Cornwallis’s escape.60 The contest for
the Saintes islands ended in defeat for the French, with Admiral
Rodney overwhelming Admiral de Grasse and simultaneously pioneering the tactic of “breaking the line,” sending ships out of his
own column to destroy those of his opponent.61 The Battle of the
Saintes concluded French efforts in the West Indies, as Admiral
de Grasse was captured and taken back to England a prisoner.62
Considering that the last of the continental battles had concluded
and peace negotiations were already underway, the struggle for
Jamaica suggests, if only anecdotally, that France’s true intentions
in offering naval aid to the Americans were rooted not in a desire
to see the Americans successfully revolt against the British but
rather in a wish to dominate mercantile activity in the Caribbean.
Peace Talks
The Marquess of Rockingham’s ministry replaced North’s
in 1782 just as peace talks commenced, and Rodney’s victory
made waves in Parliament and began to worry Vergennes. Early
in July, Rockingham died of influenza, and the duty of carrying
out negotiations with the United States was passed on to Lord
William Petty Shelburne.63 Shelburne was anxious for peace and
readily conceded the Americans the full independence, acceptable
boundaries, and fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland that
Franklin demanded. After some disputes over the borders of the
United States, peace was concluded.64 Great Britain’s peace with
the other European powers proved more difficult. Shelburne offered de Grasse St. Lucia and retention of the two islands France
had captured over the course of the war as well as a trading outpost
THE CONCORD REVIEW
17
on the Western coast of Africa to supply slaves to the island plantations.65 Ultimately, due to Shelburne’s duplicity in his dealings
with French diplomat Alphonse de Rayneval and tensions over
the lands Spain was to receive, France was forced to give up all of
its West Indian conquests in exchange for St. Lucia and Tobago.66
So concluded the American Revolutionary War, with the French
ceding their most profitable islands, despite the lengths to which
they had gone to capture and retain them. The ultimate result of
the Revolutionary War was extremely unusual, as France, having
seemingly emerged as the victor, reaped no great benefits from
the conflict. France stalled economically and underwent its own
revolution, while Great Britain, despite sustaining great losses,
prospered economically and underwent industrialization.
Since France faced defeat in 1763, the desire to recoup
the losses of the Seven Years’ War had been fomenting not only
within the Foreign Ministry but also in the heart of the French
people. Colonial possessions have always been attractive prizes to
European powers due to their dual nature as important sources of
raw materials and sources of national pride. From Beaumarchais’s
strategy of secret aid to the planned joint invasion of Jamaica,
French interests were clearly focused on obtaining the Caribbean
sugar islands to exploit their resources and enjoy their implicit
prestige; possessing the sugar islands conferred a great economic
advantage to their holders. Despite the exceptional figures such
as the Marquis de Lafayette and Pierre Charles L’Enfant who
could accurately be considered liberal idealists, the underlying
motivation of the French was to secure their colonial interests
in the Americas. The French alliance and participation in the
American War for Independence is mistakenly characterized as
having originated either as the work of some particularly talented
American diplomat or as a new brand of a shared animosity towards
the English.67 This common contempt for the English monarchy
certainly existed, but the French entry into the war was a calculated
and strategically sound means of extending France’s previously
diminished colonial footholds in the New World.
18
George Bancroft argues that, in the case of the alliance
between France and the American republic, “the force which
brought all influences harmoniously together…was the movement
of intellectual freedom.”68 However, the men who formulated
that alliance were not philosophers; rather, they were pragmatic
diplomats invested in the futures of their respective countries.
The welfare of colonial European dynasties rested upon their colonial possessions, and in France and England the responsibility
to expand overseas territories largely rested with those countries’
foreign ministries.
As exemplified by both the enormous political weight
that the West Indies carried within the French ministry and the
great lengths to which the French went to dominate the islands,
the French alliance with America was at least predicated upon,
if not a product of, the desire to see the islands fall into French
hands. The decline of the French Ancien Régime and economy over
the course of the previous century no doubt made the policy of
sending secret aid to the Americans to spite the English highly appealing, but the transition from that policy to one of overt warfare
and conquest represents the last stand of monarchial France as a
European and colonial power.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Endnotes
Alfred T. Mahan, The Major Operations of the Navies in the
War of American Independence (Cambridge: The University Press,
1913), pp. 172-177.
2
Corwin makes the case that France was well prepared
to defend her West Indian possessions and therefore must
have had other motives in forging an alliance with America.
Ross disregards the issue entirely and argues that French
intervention “should not be minimized because of certain
scruples about her intentions.”
3
Strayer acknowledges the greater importance of the
West Indies in relation to the North American colonies
but describes the conflict simplistically as “a struggle for
independence from oppressive British rule.”
4
Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 402.
5
Étienne-François de Choiseul, the Foreign Minister
of France, who suggested this trade, recognized the growing
tension between Britain and her colonies as an opportunity
to reduce the British Empire’s holdings in the Americas and
became the first to advocate sending aid to the Americans.
“Milestones: 1750-1775,” U.S. Department of State Office of the
Historian, accessed March 14, 2015, https://history.state.gov/
milestones/1750-1775/treaty-of-paris/.
6
Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, p. 403. In 1775,
Vergennes sent Julien Achard de Bonvouloir as a secret agent
to America, where he was to offer reassurance to the colonial
forces of France’s commitment to their cause.
7
Ibid., pp. 404-405.
8
Orville T. Murphy, “The Battle of Germantown and the
Franco-American Alliance of 1778,” The Pennsylvania Magazine
of History and Biography 82, no. 1 (1958): 55-57, accessed
December 21, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20089039.
9
Ibid., pp. 58-60.
10
Edward S. Corwin, French Policy and the American Alliance
of 1778 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916), p. 54.
11
Ibid., p. 7.
12
Ibid., p. 121.
13
Henri Doniol, Histoire de la Participation de la France à
l’Établissement des États-Unis d’Amérique, I (Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1886), p. 402.
14
Corwin, French Policy, pp. 123-126.
1
19
20
C.H. Van Tyne, “Influences Which Determined the
French Government to Make the Treaty with America, 1778,”
The American Historical Review 21, no. 3 (1916): 534, accessed
December 30, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1835010.
16
Corwin, French Policy, p. 141.
17
Van Tyne, Influences, pp. 535-536.
18
Ibid., pp. 538-539.
19
20
The final drafts of the treaties were signed on February
6th. Ibid., p. 154.
21
“The Avalon Project: Treaty of Alliance Between The
United States and France; February 6, 1778,” Yale Law School,
accessed March 14, 2015, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_
century/fr1788-2.asp/.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
25
Sir John Fortescue, ed., The Correspondence of King George
the Third from 1760 to December 1783 IV, (London: Macmillan,
1928), pp. 5-6.
26
Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American
Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 109.
27
Fortescue, Correspondence, pp. 14-15.
28
United States and France; February 6, 1778.”
29
Van Tyne, Influences, pp. 530-531.
30
Fortescue, Correspondence, pp. 433-434.
31
In 1775, the West Indies exported over 200 million
pounds of sugar and 230 million gallons of rum to England.
Selwyn H.H. Carrington, “The American Revolution and the
British West Indies’ Economy,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 17, no. 4 (1987): 831, accessed January 14, 2015, http://
www.jstor.org/stable/204655.
32
Ibid., p. 834.
33
Ibid., p. 835.
34
Mackesy, War for America, pp. 224-227.
35
Ibid., p. 227.
36
Paul Cheney, “A False Dawn for Enlightenment
Cosmopolitanism? Franco-American Trade during the
American War of Independence,” The William and Mary
Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2006): 475, accessed January 16, 2015,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877372.
37
15
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Ibid., pp. 35-36.
Ibid., pp. 192-194
40
Ibid., p. 178.
41
Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, p. 414.
42
Ibid., p. 415.
43
Gerald S. Brown, “The Anglo-French Naval Crisis, 1778:
A Study of Conflict in the North Cabinet,” The William and Mary
Quarterly 13, no. 1 (1956): 3, accessed January 19, 2015, http://
www.jstor.org/stable/1923386.
44
Ibid., pp. 6-10.
45
Ibid., pp. 13-16.
46
Ibid., p. 17.
47
Ibid., pp. 24-25.
48
Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, p. 414.
49
50
John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, The Private Papers
of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1771-1782
II, eds. G.R. Barnes and J.H. Owens (London: Navy Records
Society, 1932), pp. 364-366.
51
Mackesy, War for America, p. 237.
52
Ibid., pp. 272-273.
53
Ibid., p. 278.
54
D’Estaing ultimately ventured north to America once
more rather than returning to Europe, but that was of little
consequence for the time being. Ibid., pp. 309-312.
55
Mahan, Major Operations, p. 130.
56
Mackesy, War for America, p. 331.
57
Ibid., p. 334.
58
Barnes, Private Papers, pp. 179-180. Jamaica had been
taken by Spain from the British 120 years earlier.
59
Ibid., p. 141.
60
61
Ibid., p. 458.
62
Ibid., pp. 456-459.
63
Dull, Diplomatic History, pp. 137-143.
64
Ibid., pp. 144-151.
65
Ibid., pp. 152-153.
66
Ibid., pp. 155-158.
67
Hill and Dull accurately attribute the accomplishment
of negotiating the Treaties to Franklin, but both, and Hill
especially, neglect the notion that Franklin never could have
secured alliance with the French if not for the strategy of
Vergennes and Beaumarchais.
38
39
21
22
George Bancroft, History of the United States of America V
(New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888), p. 256.
68
Bibliography
United States and France; February 6, 1778.” Yale Law School.
Accessed March 14, 2015. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_
century/fr1788-2.asp/.
Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, V.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888.
Brown, Gerald S. “The Anglo-French Naval Crisis, 1778: A
Study of Conflict in the North Cabinet,” The William and Mary
Quarterly 13, no. 1 (1956): 3-25. Accessed January 19, 2015.
Carrington, Selwyn H.H. “The American Revolution and
the British West Indies’ Economy,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 17, no. 4 (1987): 823-850. Accessed January 14, 2015.
Cheney, Paul. “A False Dawn for Enlightenment
Cosmopolitanism? Franco-American Trade during the
American War of Independence,” The William and Mary
Quarterly 63, no. 3 (2006): 463-488. Accessed January 16, 2015.
The Correspondence of King George the Third from 1760 to
December 1783, IV, ed. Sir John Fortescue. London: Macmillan,
1928.
Corwin, Edward S. French Policy and the American Alliance of
1778. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1916.
Doniol, Henri. Histoire de la Participation de la France à
l’Établissement des États-Unis d’Amérique, I. Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale, 1886.
Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American
Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Mackesy, Robert. The War for America, 1775-1783. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1964.
Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Major Operations of the Navies in
the War of American Independence. Cambridge: The University
Press, 1913.
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
“Milestones: 1750-1775,” U.S. Department of State Office of
the Historian. Accessed March 14, 2015. https://history.state.
gov/milestones/1750-1775/treaty-of-paris/.
Murphy, Orville T. “The Battle of Germantown and the
Franco-American Alliance of 1778,” The Pennsylvania Magazine
of History and Biography 82, no. 1 (1958): 55-64. Accessed
December 21, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20089039.
O’Shaughnessy, Andrew. The Men Who Lost America. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the
Admiralty, 1771-1782, II, eds. G.R. Barnes and J.H. Owen.
London: Navy Records Society, 1932. Ross, Maurice. “Teaching the Reasons for France’s
Participation in the American Revolution,” The French Review
36, no. 5 (1963): 491-498.
Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martins, 2011.
Van Tyne, C.H. “Influences Which Determined the French
Government to Make the Treaty with America, 1778,” The
American Historical Review 21, no. 3 (1916): 528-541. Accessed
December 30, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1835010.
23
24
At 9: 30 A.M. on Friday, [February 2, 1945] the pugnacious gray
prow of the cruiser U.S.S. Quincy glided past that same Fort St. Elmo, escorted
by U.S.S. Savannah, revived and refitted after nearly being sunk by a German glide bomb off Salerno seventeen months earlier. A half-dozen Spitfires
wheeled overhead like osprey, and whooping crowds lined the rooftops and
the beetling seawalls around the quays. “The entrance to the harbor is so
small that it seemed impossible for our big ship to get through,” a passenger
on Quincy wrote.
As the cruiser crept at four knots along the stone embankment, a
solitary figure could be seen sitting on the wing bridge, wrapped in a boat
cloak with a tweed tam-o’-shanter atop his leonine head and a cigarette
holder clenched between his teeth. For this journey he had been assigned a
sequence of code names—BRONZE, GARNET, STEEL, and, from the British,
ADMIRAL Q—but now there was no hiding his identity. Tars and swabs came
to attention on weather decks across the anchorage. A field piece at the fort
boomed a slow salute of twenty-one rounds, and that band aboard Sirius tootled through the much-rehearsed American anthem to herald the arrival of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States. The diplomat Charles
E. Bohlen described the moment:
“The sun was glistening on the waves and a light breeze was snapping the
flags flying from the British warships and walls of the city.…Roosevelt sat on
deck, his black cape around his shoulders, acknowledging salutes from the
British man-of-war and the rolling cheers of spectators crowding the quays.
He was very much a historical figure.”
Across the harbor, on the quarterdeck of H.M.S. Orion, another
historical figure stood in a naval uniform, puffing a cigar and waving his
yachtsman’s cap until the American President spotted Winston Churchill and
waved back. An abrupt hush fell across the harbor. “It was one of those moments,”
another witness wrote, “when all seems to stand still and one is conscious of a
mark in history.” Quincy eased her starboard flank against Berth 9. Thick hawsers lassoed the bollards, and the harbor pilot signaled belowdecks: “Through
with engines.”
Rick Atkinson(2013-10-22). The Liberation Trilogy Box Set
(Kindle Locations 44258-44275). Henry Holt and Co.. Kindle Edition.
REBELLION, REVOLT AND RESISTANCE: A STUDY OF
SOCIETAL, RELIGIOUS, AND ETHNIC TENSION
IN EARLY ISLAMIC IBERIA
Benjamin Goldstein
I
n 1236 CE, after a brutal six-month siege, the forces of
Christian King Ferdinand III of Castile finally breached the citadel
of Córdoba, a once great Muslim center of power, culture, and
learning in Islamic Spain,1 and stormed through the city.2 The great
Mosque of Córdoba, with its elegant horseshoe arches, stunning
domed roof, and golden mihrab, already steeped in a rich fivehundred-year history as the center of Islamic rule in Spain, fell into
the hands of the conquering Christians.3 It was soon consecrated
and partially re-constructed as a Catholic cathedral, as it remains
to this day. In 2010, during the climax of the Holy Week of Easter,
several members of the Association of Young Austrian Muslims
defied the Catholic Church’s centuries-old ban on Muslim worship
at the very same Cathedral, laid out their prayer mats, and began
to pray. Several security guards intervened and a minor scuffle
broke out, leading to the arrest of two of the Muslim worshippers.4 Additional modern examples of Spain’s rich, but certainly
controversial ethno-religious history abound; in 2014, under the
Benjamin Goldstein is a Senior at Centennial High School in Ellicott
City, Maryland, where he wrote this Independent Study paper in the
2014/2015 academic year. The head of history is Jim Zehe.
26
Benjamin Goldstein
auspices of domestic and international media attention, a small
village of fifty-seven persons in the North-West Spanish province
of Castile and León held a referendum deciding to change the
town’s nearly four-hundred-year-old name of Castrillo MatajudíosCamp Jew Killer.5 That same year, the Spanish cabinet passed a bill
correcting Spain’s “historic mistake” of the 1492 CE expulsion
of the Jews by setting up a system allowing descendents of Spanish Jews, otherwise known as Sephardic Jews, to obtain Spanish
citizenship.6 In 2004, in a more tragic reminder of Spain’s diverse
past, an Islamic terrorist cell launched an attack in the heart of
Madrid, killing 191 and injuring 1,800.7 Although the motivations
of the terrorists remain somewhat murky, as is common in such
situations, an email correspondence with a confirmed Al-Qaeda
associate has uncovered that history and historical “justice” were
on their minds; they considered their own attacks a “retaliation
for the perceived injustice of the Reconquista and Inquisition, a
vendetta operation aimed at ‘settling old accounts with Spain, the
Crusader.’”8 Even five hundred years after Spain’s expulsion of the
Jews, and four hundred years after its expulsion of the Muslims,
Spain still remains haunted, blessed, and unmistakably marked
by its diverse and multifaceted ethno-religious history. From today’s perspective, rife with intercultural and interreligious strife,
conflict, and violence, society during the era of Medieval Spain
may serve not as a perfect model to be copied, nor a dream to be
admired, nor a past to be cursed, but simply as an example of a
diverse society whose parts struggled to define themselves, create
stability while maintaining tradition, and preserve peace without
sacrificing values and lives.
Since the decline and eventual fall of the Western Roman Empire, which had included Spain, or Hispania, during the
mid-fifth-century CE, Germanic tribes began to establish regional
kingdoms throughout the Iberian Peninsula. The largest and most
significant of these tribes to inhabit Spain was the Visigoths, who
between the years 409 CE and 711 CE exerted more or less consistent
political hegemony over the peninsula. The Visigoths were originally Aryan Christians, heretics, according to the Roman Catholic
Church. However, by 589 CE through the work of missionaries
THE CONCORD REVIEW
27
they were brought into the fold of traditional Catholic doctrine.9
However, in the year 711 CE seven thousand Berber North African
raiders crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and with incredible swiftness
overran the Visigoths, who numbered perhaps 200,000.10 Within a
few years the Muslim forces assumed control over nearly all of the
Iberian Peninsula and christened their new land Al-Andalus, the
land of the Vandals, another smaller Germanic tribe that resided
in the area before the Visigoths.11 However, both the Christians
and the Muslims had to share the land with a substantial Jewish
population that had long resided in Iberia, perhaps before either
of the other religions had established any roots in the peninsula.
Although traditional legend suggests that Jews first inhabited Iberia during biblical times, the first substantial Jewish
communities in the peninsula most likely developed during the
era of the Roman Diaspora (c. 200 BCE - 200 CE). The movement
intensified in its latter years as Rome harshly repressed various
Jewish revolts in Palestine, causing the Mediterranean region,
including Spain, to flood with fleeing Jews. The status of Jews,
as it did for much of history, in pre-Islamic Spain varied greatly
throughout the various political climates. In earlier Roman history,
Judaism in Spain was considered a religio licita, or “legal religion,”
and generally tolerated to some level, but after the adoption of
Christianity by the Roman Empire, Judaism began to be seen as an
opponent of the new state religion and lost status and protection.12
Then during the chaotic period of the Germanic invasions, the
treatment of Jews improved, as Visigoths, who themselves never
numbered over 200,000, actually had to rely on the Jewish population to intercede between the Aryan Visigoth non-native elite and
the native Catholic majority. However, with the slow conversion of
the Visigoths from Aryan Christianity to Catholicism, cumulating
in King Reccard I’s conversion in 587 CE, Judaism once again fell
under virulent and harsh state-sponsored repression.13 As demonstrated by this highly fluctuating history of Judaism in Iberia,
the status of Spanish Judaism in a particular era largely depended
on the socio-political circumstances of the age and the whims of
the rulers; Jews were never truly secure in their standing. This
28
Benjamin Goldstein
phenomenon is certainly not unique to pre-islamic Iberia and
would continue into the history of Islamic Spain itself.
With the arrival of the Muslim invaders in 711 CE, individuals of all three of the principal Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—now shared the same country and even
interacted, usually peacefully, with each other on a daily basis.
Several historians, such as Maria Rosa Menocal and Chris Lowney,14
have looked back on the seemingly incredible coexistence of
these three religions in the Early Islamic Period and drawn the
conclusion that Early Islamic Spain somehow masterfully harmonized the existence of the three Abrahamic faiths, fueling the
Golden Age of culture, learning, philosophy, and science that also
emerged during the Early Islamic Period. Certainly many great
intellectual advancements, cultural accomplishments, and famous
scholars emerged from this period; Arab-Andalusian poetry and
art flourished, interest in the ancient Greco-Roman classical ways
of thought experienced a rebirth, and countless polymath Jewish and Muslim scholars pushed the boundaries of scientific and
religious thought of the day. Additionally, certainly the melting
pot of cultures, religions and ideas that the society of Al-Andalus
experienced at this time contributed toward the diverse and energetic intellectual and cultural climate of the day.15 However, the
very same ethnic and religious diversity that helped to bring such
a cultural and intellectual flourishing to Early Medieval Iberia
also caused great divisions, sectionalism, and tensions both within
and between ethnic and religious cultural groups, as shown by
several instances of rebellion, resistance and revolt. Eventually, the
poor and weak management of ethno-religious tensions in Early
Modern Muslim Spain would significantly contribute toward its
political fragmentation and downfall, while in Christian Spain the
more efficient but also cruel managing of ethno-religious practices would lead to terrible cultural genocide and persecution of
ethno-religious dissidents.
Many of these sources of societal tension stemmed from
the difficult undertaking of managing relations among the highly
diverse populations of Jews, Christians, and Muslims that now
THE CONCORD REVIEW
29
inhabited Al-Andalus. However, it would be folly to think that any
of these groups in itself was a monolith. All of these groups were
composed of a variety of individuals with both differing religious
opinions and, especially for the Muslims, heritages. Oftentimes
people’s decisions or opinions regarding the important ethnic
or socio-religious questions of the era depended more on their
heritage, social status, or simply personal disposition than their
religion. For example, as will be demonstrated, a poor Berber
Muslim would have a very different position on many key political and social matters than would a more wealthy Arab Muslim.
Therefore ethno-religious conflict in Early Medieval Iberia often
fell along sub-religious or sub-ethnic lines and involved infighting
within a religion rather than between the religions. However, most
of the major societal conflicts in Early Medieval Iberia, even when
they involved individuals or groups of the same religion, tended
to stem from the sheer religious and ethnic diversity of Al-Andalus.
Conflict within the Muslim community was exacerbated by the
presence of Christians and Jews in their society, just as conflict
within the Christian and Jewish communities was exacerbated by
the presence of Muslims.
The Muslim community especially had to deal with an ethnically diverse membership. The first Muslim invaders in 711 CE
were recently converted North African Berbers, the early political
core of Muslim society tended to be of Arabic descent, and much
of the previously Christian and Jewish population converted to
Islam, becoming musalim. The musalim’s descendents were called
muwallad (plr. muwalladun).16 Also, despite Mohammad’s words
that “There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab and
for a non-Arab over an Arab; or for white over the black or for
the black over the white…,”17 Arabs, especially during the early
stages of the conquest of Al-Andalus often claimed superiority
over Berber, ex-Christian, and ex-Jewish Muslims, all of whom,
especially in the earlier stages of Muslim rule, tended to be
relatively new converts. The Arabs, believing their more deeply
rooted Islamic culture and even language to be superior to those
of the Berbers, developed a deep prejudice against their darker
skinned co-religionists. The animosity that the Arabs felt against
30
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the Berbers became so ingrained in Arabic and Spanish culture
that the Spanish word for babble derives from a term the Arabs
gave to the Berber language.18
The Berbers had been the foot soldiers and military backbone of the Iberian conquests, but post conquest seemed to be
brushed aside as second-hand inferior citizens. While the Arabs
were distributing the more fertile and productive lands among
themselves, the Berbers were left with either the mountainous
regions of the north or the more arid and inhospitable central
lands (more reminiscent of the old American Southwest than any
fertile lands of a Mediterranean climate).19 Part of the justification
for the apprehension that Arabs felt against Berbers stemmed
from the ratio of their populations, as throughout the history of
Early Muslim Spain the politically dominant Arab population was
much smaller than the Berber population.20 By keeping Berbers
away from agriculturally productive lands they hoped to limit
their opportunities for social or political mobility and therefore
prevent any perversion of the Arabic way of life. In fact, even
into the tenth century the Arabs feared a “berberization” of their
superior culture as the numbers of the Berber population always
overshadowed those of the politically elite but small Arab population.21 However, even the Arabs themselves were not entirely
socially or religiously unified, as old tribal allegiances and other
factors divided the community. Sunni Muslims took issue with
Shi’a Muslims, North Arabians fought against South Arabians,
and pro-Umayyads faced off against pro-Abbasids.22 Several times
these tensions exploded into outright rebellion, specifically during the Great Berber Revolt of 740 CE and the formation of the
rebel kingdom of Umar ibn Hafsun.
Although the Great Berber Revolt of 740 CE started in
Morocco, it quickly spread to Spain when discontented Spanish
Berbers marched away from their infertile land, joined their Moroccan brothers and rose up against their Arab overlords. Caught
off guard, the governor of Al-Andalus had few resources to use in
crushing the Iberian side of the revolt; his only true option lay
in calling in a Syrian-mercenary army that was attempting, and
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31
interestingly, failing to deal with the Moroccan part of the revolt.
Even though the governor was hesitant to summon a large army
to the recently conquered and still rather politically unstable AlAndalus, in 741 CE he called the Syrian mercenaries over to Spain
to crush the revolt. They were indeed successful in this regard,
as they eliminated the main Berber militant groups’ threats in
Toledo, Córdoba and Medina-Sidonia. However, they also proved
the governor’s fears and worries completely correct when they
soon deposed and killed the governor himself.23
Arab-Berber and Arab-Arab tensions would continue to
weaken the fledgling Spanish Islamic state afterwards, aiding in
the 756 CE Umayyad coup by ‘Abd al-Rahman I. For the next three
centuries the Umayyad dynasty would, at least in comparison to
the highly tumultuous political climate of pre 756 CE Al-Andalus,
actually bring relative political stability to Iberia. However, even
Umayyad hegemony and control over the peninsula was not
complete. Various rebel states of often muwallad makeup and
leadership sprung up throughout Al-Andalus and at times posed
serious threats to the Umayyads. These rebel states thrived on the
strong ethno-religious tensions of the day; much like the Berbers,
the recently converted muwalladun were often looked down upon,
restricted from public office, and discriminated against by the
Arabs.24 By the end of the 8th and 9th centuries CE, Spain was dotted with a large number of these small muwalladun rebel states,
but perhaps one of the most significant, telling and dangerous of
these insurgent territories was the outlaw kingdom led by Umar
ibn Hafsun.
Although Umar ibn Hafsun’s ancestry is somewhat murky,
historians generally agree that he was a mumwallad living in southern Spain during the mid 9th century CE to the late 10th century
CE. After a tumultuous and criminal adolescence, by 850 CE he
had begun to organize a headquarters for his rebel kingdom in a
fortress in the southern town of Bobastro.25 From 850 CE till around
924 CE, with a few brief gaps in-between, he and his descendents
managed to exert significant political authority in the south of
the Iberian peninsula, right in the very heartland of Umayyad Al-
32
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Andalus. He attracted many other muwalladun discontented with
Arab oppression and dominance in addition to many Christians.
Some historians, such as Manuel Acién Almansa, have suggested
that since Ibn Hafsun’s alliances and connections crossed over
different ethnic and religious groups and that both Muslim muwalladun and Christians were attracted towards Hafsun’s realm,
the rebel state’s motivations must have been more political and
not have been based on ethnic or religious grounds.26 However,
simply because both Muslims and Christians participated in his
rebellion does not mean that both religious and ethnic motivations were not present.
The defining characteristic that marked nearly all of Hafsun’s constituents was an anti-Arab mentality, whether manifested
in an ethnic or a religious fashion. Umar ibn Hafsun, demonstrating the anti-Arab stance of his kingdom, is quoted by ibn Idhari, a
Muslim historian, stating to his followers that “Too long… already
have you born the yoke of this sulatan[ruler] who seizes your
possessions and crushes you with forced tribute. Will you allow
yourselves to be trampled underfoot by the Arabs…who regard
you as slaves?”27 The ethnic motivations for rebellion are found
especially strong in the muwalladun, who did indeed share the
same religion as the Arabs but due to poor inter-ethnic relations
still felt pushed to rebellion. The ethnic differences between the
muwalladun, either Spanish, Berber, or a mix of both, and the
Arabs were great enough to overcome their shared religion and
provoke discrimination, tension and conflict.
The Christians, who would have had Spanish or Visigothic
heritage, also experienced ethnic discrimination by the Arab aristocracy, but their relationship with the Arabs entailed significant
religious as well as ethnic differences. Although Christians were
supposed to be protected and honored as people of the book, Ahl
al-Kita, under Islamic law, oftentimes the Arab elite heavily discriminated against Christians, again alienating them from Umayyad
society. Because of this anti-Arab and anti-Umayyad stance, some
Christians certainly joined with Hafsun’s rebellion.28 The importance of religion and its socio-political implications in Umar ibn
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Hafsun’s state is furthermore proved by Hafsun’s remarkable and
somewhat curious conversion to Christianity in 899 CE. From the
beginning of the rebellion, Hafsun had distinguished himself from
the Umayyad caliphate by his different ethnicity, now he decided
to also distinguish himself by his religion. When Hafsun converted
he alienated many of his core Mumwallad supporters, who were
still devout Muslims, but he gained the support of many of the
Christians in neighboring regions. If his rebellion did not have
a serious element of religious implication, then his conversion
would not have perturbed so many Mumwalladen and attracted so
many Christians. His conversion also further legitimized Umayyad
military incursions against his states as the Umayyads who fought
against him could now claim holy jihad 29against the apostate.30
Both religion and ethnicity were powerful and dangerous tools
in manipulating the political and social landscape; clearly the
presence of multiple religions and ethnicities in early Al-Andalus
greatly aided in its fissiparous nature.
Both the Berber Revolts and Umar Ibn Hafsun’s rebellious
kingdom demonstrate the social tensions that pulsed through
and divided the society of early Al-Andalus. In the Berber Revolts,
Berber turned on Arab, in the beginning of Hafsun’s kingdom
muwalladun and Christian combined turned on Arab, and with
Hafsun’s conversion the sides switched as muwalladun and Arab
turned on Christian. These events demonstrate that ethno-religious
relations in early Al-Andalus were fluid, with situations quickly
changing and new alliances between different groups forming
as the times demanded. Tensions formed both within religious
groups, as demonstrated by the Berber-Arab and muwalladun
-Arab conflicts, and between religious groups, as illustrated by
the muwalladun desertion of Hafsun’s rebel kingdom once he
converted to Christianity. However, these ethno-religious tensions
manifested themselves in many ways; they did not always result in
the complete rebellion of an entire group. In one particular case,
the martyrs of Córdoba, ethno-religious stress showed itself in a
slightly more subtle way.
34
Benjamin Goldstein
The episode of the martyrs of Córdoba occurred between
850 CE-859 CE when forty-four Christians, as documented and
occasionally encouraged by a monk named Eulogius, intentionally
and publicly committed blasphemy or apostasy against Islam and
received the standard capital punishment. This event developed
during a highly uncertain and precarious time for Spanish Christians as the Spanish Christian community in the 8th and 9th centuries
CE found itself confronted with a multitude of issues regarding how
Christianity was to operate in a predominantly Muslim land. Under
social, economic and political pressures and incentives, significant
numbers of Christians, though in the 9th century CE not quite truly
in mass amounts, abandoned the faith and converted to Islam; the
Christian community saw its own numbers dwindling.31 Perhaps
more importantly, the Christian population that remained often
became Mozarabs, meaning that while retaining their religion, they
adopted Arab customs, dress, and even language.32 Many of these
Mozarabs tacitly accepted Muslim rule and the relative toleration
of the Christian religion that it brought, as out of respect for the
people of the book, Christians were generally allowed to freely
practice their religion and maintain semi-autonomous judicial
control.33 However, Spanish Islamic law, at least strictly according
to the books, was certainly not pro-Christianity; the construction
of new churches was prohibited, religious processions and the
ringing of bells were condemned, and all non-Muslims had to
pay a tax, jizya, to ensure their continued protection.34 Even if
the Christians’ Islamic overlords were somewhat respectful and
permissive of Christian beliefs and practices, they were still nonChristian rulers ruling over Christians. A growing sense of the
disappearance of Christian solidarity and the increasing influence
of Islam, as demonstrated by the lifestyle of the Mozarabs, deeply
worried more conservative Christians. In this atmosphere of great
doubt and concern regarding Christian identity, a decentralized
group of radical Christians, as recorded by the scholar and later
martyr, Euolgius, would try to rekindle Christian purity through
faith, sacrifice and blood.
Although Euologius was only one of the forty-eight martyrs, it is worth thoroughly analyzing his own history, beliefs, and
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35
rationale for his actions. He provides one of the only windows
into the minds of the martyrs and his writings illuminate both the
atmosphere of Muslim-Christian relations at the time and the potential reasoning for the martyrs’ sacrifice. Although each martyr
was obviously individual and surely had some small differences
in their reasoning for their sacrifice, since their true motives are
lost to history, scholars must use Euologius as the archetype and
authority of the martyrs.
Although historians have been able to form an unusually clear picture of Euolgius and his life, especially compared
to many other prominent contemporary Christian figures and
their lives, he still remains a somewhat obscure figure. According to another Mozarab scholar, Alvarus, Eulogius had aristocratic
lineage and perhaps some Arab ancestors, but again the sources
are not terribly clear or illuminating on Euolgius’s early life and
background.35 However, scholars do agree that he went into the
priesthood and fell under the tutelage of Abbot Sepraniedo,
who would be very influential in helping Euolgius develop his
anti-Islam and pro-Christian solidarity mentality. Speraindeo’s
teachings prepared Christian priests to preach their faith in a nonChristian land, specifically by demonstrating, as Speraindeo saw,
the clear differences between Islam and Christianity and Islam’s
obvious fallacies. In one of his diatribes against Islamic theology,
Speraindeo, as quoted by Eulogius, attacked Islamic theology of
the afterlife, claiming that the Islamic afterlife is “but a brothel,
a most obscene place” and used Christian theology to counter
and ridicule this particular Islamic belief. Based on the format of
Speraindeo’s works, as quoted by Euolgious, Speraindeo had most
likely articulated a thorough “point-by-point” disproof of Islamic
theology.36 One can clearly see in these attacks the desire and
need for the more conservative Spanish Christians to distinguish
their religion from the foreign religion around themselves and
to reinforce their identity through differentiation.
Euologius furthered his theological radicalization during
a trip to the north of the Iberian Peninsula, which still remained
under Christian control, where he visited a monastery just out-
36
Benjamin Goldstein
side of the city of Pamplona. While at the monastery, he had the
unique opportunity to learn from ancient Christian texts not
available in Muslim Iberia; however, the most important work he
viewed there was not any work of Christian theology, but a small
four page “biography” of Muhamad the Prophet.37 This Istoria de
Mahomet (History of Muhammad) was written in Latin ca. 850 CE,
and although the author’s name has been lost, based on the point
of view of the text, it was almost certainly composed by a Spanish
Christian. Whoever the author was, he certainly had a vendetta
against Islam and, as shown by a close analysis of his work, a desire
to defile Islam and by comparison elevate Christianity’s merits.
His biography tells a very twisted version of Mohammed’s life,
one that contains the bare skeleton of information regarding the
Prophet’s story,38 but also one that misrepresents certain events
and portrays Mohamad and Islam in an undeniably negative light.
Mohammad is “a shrewd son of darkness,” and a “false prophet”;
additionally, his revelations come to him by “the spirit of error…in
the form of a vulture.” In fact the author of the Istoria de Mahomet
goes so far as to, although somewhat subtly, actually parody Islam
against Christianity. The vulture that comes to provide Mohammad’s “revelations” is a warped comparison to the dove of the Holy
Spirit, as Mohamed’s supposed and failed deathbed promise to
rise from the dead within three days clearly reflects Jesus’ resurrection.39 Religious warfare in Early Spain took many forms and
occurred in different places; military struggle occurred on the
physical battlefields of the Peninsula but the battlefields of theological warfare were in such works as the Istoria de Mahomet where
authors attacked each other with the steel of religious diatribe in
order to show the errors and heresy of the other’s religion. Now
armed with supposed knowledge on the evils of Islam, Euologius,
now a theological soldier of Christianity, would return to Islamic
Córdoba ready to try to strike a devastating blow against Islam in
the heart of Islamic Spain.40
Interestingly, Euologius would not actually be the first
martyr; in 851 CE Isaac, a high government official in charge of
relations between the Christian and Islamic Communities with no
direct connection to Eulogious, approached a leading Islamic judge
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(qadi), intentionally blasphemed the prophet Mohammad, and
after his decapitation became the first41 of the forty-four martyrs
to intentionally insult Islam and receive capital punishment. Much
like Eulogious, Isaac was a relatively well-educated and prominent
member of society. Also, perhaps even more so then Eulogious,
as a mediator between the Christian and Islamic populations of
Córdoba, he would have been in day-to-day contact with Islam and
Muslims and been exposed to more realistic views of Islam than
Eulogious’s view which was tainted by Speraindeo and the Istoria
de Mahomet. Yet Isaac too went through a radicalization process
by leaving the Córdoban community, as he went to a Christian
monastery and developed his ideas for three years before returning and martyring himself.
After Isaac’s martyrdom and the Emir’s (governor of AlAndalus) subsequent edict reaffirming capital punishment for all
future blasphemers, through various circumstances, forty-three
other Christians would be hanged as martyrs, most for blasphemy,
but also for apostasy.42 Most of these martyrs took a similar course
to Isaac’s; they intentionally used Islamic law to facilitate their
own martyrdoms by openly blaspheming Islam in front of a qadi,
knowing that they would receive capital punishment. The capital
punishment that the Emir had ordered for all blasphemers had
done nothing to stem the tide of the martyrs. If anything it had
only stoked the fires of the martyrs’ resolves.43 This intense desire
to martyr oneself begs the question of why at this particular point
in Early Islamic Spanish history these individuals would have been
so driven to martyrdom.
The motives of the martyrs were obviously not completely
uniform, and more importantly, they are not completely obvious
or available to scholars. The only original sources available to attempt to glean their reasoning are Eulogious’s works, which of
course will not be completely representative of all the martyrs,
Alavaro’s works, which are perhaps even more removed and secondhand, and a few other sources illuminating general life in 9th
century CE Spain. However, by combining Eulogious’s accounts
and perspective of the martyrdoms and scholars’ knowledge of 9th
38
Benjamin Goldstein
century CE Christian and Islamic relations, we can make educated
guesses and assumptions regarding the mentality of the martyrs.
Certainly there was some amount of concern regarding personal
salvation, as Eulogious’s sources do indicate that a certain amount
of fear of damnation and the possibility of salvation through
martyrdom motivated the martyrs. However, this is not enough
to completely explain their actions, as this line of thinking raises
the question of why they felt such a concern for their salvation
at this particular point in time. Wolf K. Baxter illuminates this
matter by pointing out that as many of the martyrs went through
some level of monastic or at least penitential lifestyle, they would
have been acutely concerned with their previous existence and
would have embraced a “rejection of the secular world within
which [they] had hithero operated.” Furthermore, they would
have associated the secular world that surrounded them as a
predominantly Islamic world; therefore “a rejection of the world
became indistinguishable from a rejection of Islam.” Although
Wolf’s explanation does develop and further explain the issue over
why the martyrs would have felt such an “acute spiritual anxiety,”
it fails to completely make the connection between a rejection of
Islam and a defense of Christianity.44 At this time many of these
Christians would have been experiencing a Christianity that was
heavily subservient to and dependent on Islamic leaders. Many
of the Spanish Christians, especially in Cordoba, fraternized and
came into contact with Muslims on a daily basis and had become
almost completely “arabized” in dress and manner. Outside of the
clergy, Córdoban Christians would have appeared almost identical to Córdoban Muslims.45 As Eulogious details in his works, he
and undoubtedly other Christians would have felt like they were
losing a grip on their own religion as it sank into the hand of
the infidel. By publicly disparaging Islam and marking it as the
enemy, they clearly hoped to raise Christian spirits and reinstall
vitality and unity in the face of Islam.46 However, Islamic rulers
also clearly saw the potential threat that the martyrs represented
against the status quo of Spanish Islamic society, and tried to meet
the threat accordingly.
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As the martyrs continued stepping forward and denouncing
Islam, the Emir and his councilors were met with an increasingly
dangerous situation. Córdoba and its surrounding regions were
far from stable, as demonstrated by the countless rebel states of
the 9th century CE, and the more or less steady stream of martyrs
represented a serious threat to peace. The Emir had to find a
way to both stop the martyrdoms and not anger or provoke the
Christian community into full rebellion; the mini-rebellion had
to be crushed peacefully before it grew into a full rebellion that
could only be crushed, if at all, violently.47
After restating that the punishment for blasphemy was hanging, the Emir then tried to crack down on the Spanish Christian
community by imprisoning their clerical leaders, which lasted for
four months, until November 851 CE. This temporarily seemed to
abate the martyrs, but during the summer of 852 CE martyr activity
rose again. This time instead of imprisoning the church leadership,
the Emir decided to try to use them and their religious influence
to control and perhaps even condemn the martyrs. He ordered
them to convene a church council to address the problems that
these radicalized martyrs were causing. The result of the council
was a statement that condemned all future martyrs but not those
who had already been martyred.48 This was clearly not enough to
stop the martyrs, as more and more came forward, so the Emir
attempted to convince the Christian community to further condemn and cease the martyrdoms by removing Christian officials,
depriving Christian soldiers of a pension, levying heavier taxes,
and even threatening the demolition of churches. These carefully
placed pressures acted much as the Emir desired, as the frequency
of martyrdoms began to diminish significantly. However, it is somewhat remarkable that in a situation when Christians in a relatively
peaceful manner rose up against their infidel overlords that the
Church officials would actually side with the “infidel.” Does this
simply speak to a complete control that the Arab aristocracy exerted over the Christian leadership, or does it speak to something
more fundamentally embedded in the Christian community of
Early Islamic Spain? Although certainly Islamic rulers did exert
some direct influence over Christian leadership, oftentimes the
40
Benjamin Goldstein
Christian leadership simply saw it in its best interest to support or
at least not blatantly defy Islamic leadership. Generally the status
quo of Islamic rule over church leadership both supported the
power of the current church officials and permitted freedom for
the Christians to practice their religion. Although technically
laws prohibited the construction of churches and the ringing of
bells, in practice these rules were not enforced and as long as the
Christians did not cause any serious problems, like the martyrs of
Córdoba were doing, Christians were allowed a surprising amount
of religious freedom and autonomy.49 Many local Church leaders
in Córdoba simply could not see the point of trying to shake the
foundations of a system that actually tended to work out just fine
for the majority of Christians; cooperation seemed to be the most
logical and beneficial option in an unfortunate situation.
The episode of the martyrs of Córdoba brings into focus
both the tensions and divisions that were occurring between
Muslims and Christians and within the Christian community at
this time. Those few Christian radicals still yearning for Christian
solidarity and purity criticized the more moderate leadership for
seemingly helping the Muslim community more than it served the
Christian community, while the moderate majority criticized the
radicals for bringing undue instability and danger to the Christian
community. In the radicals’ effort to revitalize Christian oneness
and solidarity, they attempted to target Islam as a common enemy
to unite against. One can almost argue that the real purpose of
the martyrs of Córdoba was not to simply attack Islam but more
importantly to revitalize what the martyrs considered a weakened
and “arabized” Christianity. As the martyrs of Córdoba show, the
tensions and fracturing of the two different religious groups intertwined and built on each other.
As the history of Al-Andalus progressed, important political
changes would begin to mark the landscape of Islamic Spain. The
most important of these changes was the dissolution of the centralized Emirate and later Caliphate that had dominated the Peninsula
since the mid 8th century CE; in 1031 CE the state collapsed due
to infighting and was replaced by several smaller, independent
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41
kingdoms, called taifas. Each of the different taifas was ruled by
a different leader, with each establishing his own court. These
rulers and courts were highly competitive and often attempted
to outdo the other taifa courts in extravagance. The taifa kings
competed for the most distinguished scholars, poets, musicians,
and other talented individuals, and under their sponsorship, the
arts and sciences experienced another great revival. Additionally,
in their earnest desire to gather the best and brightest scholars of
the land, the taifa kings did not particularly discriminate among
Jews, Christians, and Muslims. They were perpetually challenging
each other, militarily in addition to culturally, and would grasp
and ally with any opportunity to get an edge on their opponents,
regardless of what religion that “opportunity” practiced.50 This
again fostered a thriving, religiously diverse and vibrant community; however, as in the 9th and 10th centuries CE, it also brought
significant internal and external strife, as demonstrated by the
Naghrela-Family and the 1066 CE massacre of the Granadan Jews.
Jews in both Umayyad and Taifa Al-Andalus tended to hold
precarious positions in society; although they were considered
“people of the book,” Ahl al-Kitab, and were generally well respected
and protected, their fate still rested heavily on the whims of political leaders and accompanying socio-political situations. However,
Jews, especially after Islam gained large numbers of converts in
the 8th to 10th centuries CE, perhaps had the fewest members out
of the three religions in Al-Andalus, and thus held the unique potential to act as more or less neutral liaisons and arbiters between
Christians and Muslims. Many times Muslim rulers, especially in
the highly competitive and unstable age of the taifa kingdoms,
would not trust a Christian or even a fellow Muslim with political
duties, as the fear of betrayal or conflict of interest by the other
two groups was often too great.51 This odd set of socio-religious
circumstances often led to very interesting combinations of rulers
and ruled; as the Naghrela family demonstrated, a Jew ruling (or
at least exacting some sort of political control) over a Muslim was
certainly not unprecedented during the era.
42
Benjamin Goldstein
In the early 11th century CE, Samuel ibn Nagrela, a Jew,
worked his way up from humble beginnings as a refugee from the
recently sacked Córdoba to become an important advisor to the
King of Granada, the same position that his son, Joseph, would
come to assume later in the 11th century CE. Samuel embodied
all of the dynamism, opportunity, and cultural effervescence of
the age; he was an accomplished Talmudic scholar, leader of the
Jewish community, comparative theologian, poet, philologist and
even a political advisor at court. He accumulated significant political power after supporting the successful contender to the throne
during a power struggle, and soon after consolidated and solidified his political footing in Granada.52 Samuel gained so much of
the King’s trust that he was appointed as a general and led several
successful military expeditions against Granada’s enemies. Samuel
proclaimed himself the “David of his age” and was almost certainly
the most powerful Jew in all of Medieval Europe.53 Yet Samuel did
not wield his power without criticism; many Muslims complained
of a Jew having so much power, especially military power, and influence over Muslims and their affairs. Samuel himself wrote in his
poetry that his power, as a Jew, was tenuous, often depending on
his successes and the whims of the ruler.54 Nonetheless, Samuel
never saw any real threats to his status or power, and his many
successes do suggest that the religious and ethnic diversity that
so marked Al-Andalus was capable of producing cultural wonders,
sustaining tolerance, and perhaps even minimizing inter-religious
and inter-ethnic violence. Overall, Samuel was able to balance
the substantial power that he, as a Jew, exerted over Muslims with
the problematic reality of many Muslims’ displeasure with a NonMuslim wielding such influence. However, Samuel’s son, Joseph
ibn Naghrela, was far less adept at maintaining this precarious
balance and would discover the terrible consequences when a Jew
ruling over Muslims overstepped his own power and authority.
Joseph ibn Naghrela assumed his father’s post after Samuel’s
death in 1056 CE and quickly took to his duty with enthusiasm,
re-establishing the trust between the Naghrela family and the
Granadan King.55 Joseph, like his father, was also an accomplished
polymath, influential advisor to the King, leader of the Jewish com-
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43
munity and successful military general; however, he lacked some
of Samuel’s most important leadership qualities: modesty and political savvy. Samuel, even according to a fellow Jewish chronicler,
“lacked his father’s humility…he grew haughty.”56 While Samuel
more or less kept his head down, knowing the precariousness of
his position, Joseph was far more reckless. He flaunted his wealth
by building a luxurious, palace-like house on a hill away from the
Jewish section of town; Samuel had shown his down-to-earth style
by living among the Jewish people in the Jewish district. Other
influential and wealthy Jewish associates of Joseph followed him
and built up their own lavish abodes, publicly showing off their
status and affluence in a society that still had a tenuous relationship with Jews. Joseph even had extravagant and wild parties at
his palace, where he had the nerve to commission Muslim poets
to laud his virtues in verse.57 These unrestrained and debaucherous behaviors not only irritated the Grandan Muslim community,
which considered such uninhibited displays of wealth and prestige
by Jews intolerable, but also the Jewish community, which blamed
Joseph for becoming out of touch with the common Jew and perhaps, due to his close associations with Muslims, even losing his
faith.58 Again, one sees the tendency of the many religious tensions
and conflicts that arose in the diverse, multifaceted and dynamic
society of Al-Andalus, to manifest themselves not only between,
but within religious groups.
Joseph began to attract more and more serious criticisms
regarding his lavish lifestyle and more importantly regarding his
role as a Jew in Muslim affairs. One particularly vehement poet,59
a former member of the Granadan court, wrote a harsh diatribe
against Samuel and the Granadan Jewish community. Interestingly, he both attacks the Jews for their transgressions and the
Muslim ruling elite, especially the King, for allowing such unholy
behavior to take place. “Your chief [the Grandan King] has made
a mistake…He has chosen an infidel as his secretary…Through
him, the Jews have become great and proud…And how many a
worthy Muslim humbly obeys the vilest ape among these miscreants.” One can clearly see the vexation that the Muslim community felt at having to obey a non-Muslim, especially one who was
44
Benjamin Goldstein
so “proud and arrogant.” In this work, one also sees a profound
disappointment in their ruler for allowing such a practice to even
happen in the first place: “And this[the rise of the Jews]did not
happen through their[the Jews] own efforts, but through one of
our own people who rose as their accomplice, Oh why did he60 not
deal with them….put them back where they belong and reduce
them to the lowest of the low.”61 This stinging poem was widely
circulated among the Muslim population of Granada, further
inflaming public opinion.
The entire situation boiled over on December 30, 1066 CE
when Joseph was hosting several Muslim and Jewish associates in
the King’s palace.62 He began to sense his guests’ uneasiness and
attempted to reassure them, but one Muslim, supposedly drunk,63
began to wildly claim that Joseph had killed the King and then
ran into the streets saying so. A mob rapidly began to form calling for Joseph’s blood; in response Joseph ran to the King, who
went and presented himself to the crowd, showing that he was in
fact still alive. However, public sentiment had grown beyond the
limits of rationality, and after a brief moment of confused quiet,
the mob roared back to life again and stormed the palace, killing
Joseph and hanging him cross-fashioned by the city gate. Yet the
mob was still not appeased; they further let out their fury against
the Jews by storming into the Jewish section of Granada and enacting a terrible and bloody massacre of the Jewish population of
Granada. The Jewish community of Granada would never recover
from such a devastating blow, and no Jew would ever again hold
such a high position in the society of Al-Andalus.64
Samuel Naghreal managed to obtain prestige, political
and intellectual successes, and relative stability in his position, yet
his son Joseph failed to maneuver in the socio-political intricacies
of the day and in doing so provoked his own death and a bloody
anti-Jewish Massacre. Joseph’s fall also reminds the historian that
all non-Muslims, especially Jews, with any sort of political power or
prestige only held onto that power by a dangerous thread; a whim
of a ruler, or in this case, the whim of the capricious public, could
easily snap the thread and cause chaos. From a broader perspective,
THE CONCORD REVIEW
45
the Naghrela family’s story shows how the society of Al-Andalus
struggled to determine how to deal with its diversity. Should the
devout Muslim disassociate from and scorn the non-believer, or
should they embrace their fellow “people of the book” as brothers
and integrate them into society? The responses to this question
fractured the political and social landscape of Al-Andalus. In reality, the society’s treatment of its ethnic and religious dissidents
oscillated between persecution and tolerance. The only constant
was uncertainty and instability; even during an age of toleration,
such as the beginning of Joseph’s reign, an ethno-religious dissident could not truly feel secure.
Religious, ethnic and social tensions were clearly a hallmark
of the Early Spanish Islamic period, but they would continue to
affect and weaken Al-Andalus for the rest of its existence. From the
11th to the 14th centuries CE, Islamic Spain would be convulsed by
brief episodes of centralization imposed by outside forces, followed
by the state breaking down into the decentralized taifa kingdoms.
Largely due to these unresolved and continuing ethno-religious
tensions, Al-Andalus was chronically plagued by an inability to
form a politically strong and stable state. Poor Berber-Arab relations especially posed difficulties to the idea of any sort of political unification, but the factitious and tense nature of ethnic and
religious relations as a whole in Al-Andalus simply made political
centralization impractical, which in turn greatly facilitated the
conquest of Al-Andalus by the northern Christian Kingdoms during the Reconquista.
The Christian kingdoms that had in the 9th century CE first
carved out a relatively small piece of land in the far north of the
peninsula had begun to grow in strength and size since the 11th
century CE. As these Christian states pushed farther and farther
south into Muslim territory in what is known as the Reconquista,
they were met with some of the very same social, religious, and
ethnic problems that the Arab-Berber conquerors experienced
during their 8th century CE conquests. In 1236 CE, Córdoba, the
geographic center of the Iberian Peninsula and an important cultural and political Muslim center, fell to Christian armies. In this
46
Benjamin Goldstein
new era of Christian expansion and increased political domination over the peninsula, the newly enlarged Christian kingdoms
began to govern over areas with high numbers of Muslims, and
to a slightly lesser extent, Jews.65 Again, as with the 9th century CE
Muslim conquerors, the Christian forces were confronted with the
problems of administering a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state;
would toleration and peaceful inter-faith relations be promoted,
or would Christian purity and supremacy rule? Initially, in the
13th century CE and perhaps the beginning of the 14th century
CE, the Christian kingdoms tended to favor a policy somewhat
similar to that of early Islamic Spain. According to the Christian
law books, Christians were prohibited from fraternizing with Muslims or Jews, who should always be subservient to their Christian
masters. However, these rules were very laxly enforced and even
flaunted by Christian royalty; Sancho IV, a king of the Christian
kingdom of Castile, often dined with his Jewish financiers.66 Much
as in early Islamic Spain, there was a significant gap between the
theory of the law and the reality of its implementation. This lack
of any strong policy, either pro or anti-Jews/Muslims, created an
atmosphere of inconsistency, instability, and doubt regarding the
treatment of society’s ethnic and religious minorities or dissidents;
a Jew’s or Muslim’s status and treatment was often decided not by
any explicit laws but, much as in the case of the Naghrela family in
Muslim Granada, by the whims of a leader or by the socio-political
situation at a certain time.
However, during the 14th to the early 17th centuries CE, the
Christian kingdom’s attitudes towards Muslims and Jews crystallized and adopted a far more definitive, and negative, position
than the more capricious and unstable reality of the earlier years.
Laws themselves became much more restrictive towards Muslims
and Jews, and mainstream Spanish society increasingly began to
concede to the demands of the law. Muslims and Jews were increasingly prodded, both with carrot and stick, to convert to Christianity, and the Spanish Inquisition, instituted in 1478 CE, attempted
to ensure that these Neo-Christians stayed true to the new faith
and did not falter back on old religious habits. These efforts at
both religiously and ethnically purifying Spanish Christendom
THE CONCORD REVIEW
47
culminated with the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 CE and the
expulsion of the Moriscos, or Muslim converts to Christianity, in
1611 CE.67 Although these efforts at religious and ethnic cleansing
did eventually, after centuries of effort, succeed at homogenizing
and uniting Spain under Catholicism; they also had significant
side effects. In the long run, the Spanish Christian Kingdoms’ and
Spain’s decision to end toleration of Jews and Muslims backfired
with devastating consequences.
Islamic Al-Andalus had tried to maintain a middle ground
with their treatment of ethnic and religious minorities and dissidents and failed to institute a lasting, strong and legal way of
dealing with those individuals. Their lack of an authoritative
policy created an atmosphere where both tolerance and tension
thrived; Al-Andalus did experience incredible instances of peace
and interaction among their ethnic and religious groups, but
they also witnessed terrible breakdowns of the system. Eventually
the uncertainty and unsustainability inherent in the system led to
dangerous and bloody instances of revolt, resistance, and rebellion that plagued Al-Andalus throughout its years, leading to its
political breakdown and demise. On the other hand, the Christian
kingdoms of Spain took the step that Muslim Al- Andalus never
managed to take; they created a definitive, albeit harsh, policy
regarding management of their ethnic and religious diversity.
However, even these extreme attempts at eliminating diversity failed
to eliminate inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions. Throughout
the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries CE a culture of ethno-religious
paranoia gripped Spain. Many “older” Christians envied the new
social and economic positions68 that many of the newly converted
Christians were stealing away. Additionally, the Christians with
more “pure” heritage additionally suspected the newly converted
Christians of religious infidelity and falling back on old religious
habits.69 In this environment of suspicion and oppression, the
Moriscos revolted from 1569 CE-1570 CE in Granada and caused
significant physical damage to surrounding towns and villages.70
Meanwhile, the Inquisition, which ultimately led to thousands of
deaths of religious dissenters, encouraged neighbors to spy on each
other and report any suspicious or unorthodox behavior; clearly
48
Benjamin Goldstein
religious and ethnic tensions had not abated.71 Lastly, despite
the Spanish Crown’s greatest attempts to eliminate all Jews and
Muslims from their kingdom, some number of Muslims almost
certainly remained more than a hundred years after the edict of
expulsion. The Christian Spanish policy was neither entirely effective nor humane in any sense.
The failures of both Christian and Islamic Iberian civilizations to cope successfully with their ethnic and religious variety
illuminate intrinsic elements regarding the nature of diversity
itself. A society of multiple religions and ethnicities has great
potential for both incredible successes, such as the cultural effervescence that accompanied the early Spanish Islamic period,
and serious risks and dangers, such as the rebellions and revolts
of early Al-Andalus. Again, as shown by the patterns of Al-Andalus,
neglecting to set a definite policy regarding diversity and simply
leaving the fate of religious and ethnic outliers to the caprices of
a particular ruler or situation simply exacerbates uncertainty and
the potential for greater danger to society as a whole. Yet, as shown
by the situation in the Christian Kingdoms, creating a concrete
policy that attempts to eliminate that societal, religious and ethnic
variety altogether creates a set of new problems. Spanish society,
and perhaps all societies, needed and depended on ethnic and
religious variety; they simply needed it managed in a stronger
and more consistent way, one that neither Christian nor Islamic
Spanish civilization provided, that could bring stability as well as
the benefits of diversity to the state.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Endnotes
Technically the term “Spain” is anachronistic for the
majority of the time periods discussed in this paper, as the
modern state of “Spain” truly only began to develop in the late
15th and 16th centuries. However, for the purposes of simplicity
and brevity, “Spain” is generally, unless otherwise noted, used
in this paper to describe the area contained in the Iberian
Peninsula.
2
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Warfare (DK Publishing,
2012).
3
“The Great Mosque of Córdoba,” Columbia University,
http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ma/htm/dj_islam/ma_dji_
discuss_Córdoba.htm
4
Atika Shubert, “Muslims in Spain Campaign to Worship
Alongside Christians,” CNN, August 30, 2010.
5
Alasdair Fotheringham, “Castrillo Matajudios: Namechange Helps Village to Forget its Links with Spanish
Persecution,” The Independent, May, 26, 2014. The name was
changed to Castrillo Mota de Judios, Camp Jew Hill.
6
Meritxell Mir and Bernal, Ana “Sephardic Jews Eager to
Apply for Spanish Citizenship,” The Washington Post, February
17, 2014.
7
Paul Hamilos, “The Worst Islamist Attack in European
History,” The Guardian, October 31, 2007, http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/31/spain.
8
Atef Louayene, “Pathologies of Moorishness: Al-Andalus,
Narrative, and Worldly Humanism,” Journal of East-West
Thought:1-2, http://www.cpp.edu/~jet/Documents/JET/Jet6/
Louayene31-44.pdf; Abdel Bari, Atwan. The Secret History of
Al Qaeda. (University of California: Berkley and Los Angeles,
2008), 211.
9
Chris Lowney, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden
Age of Enlightenment, (The Free Press: New York, 2005), 22-24.
10
Lowney, 23.
11
Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain
(Ithaca: Cornell University, 1975), 97.
12
Jane S. Gerber, Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic
Experience (The Free Press : New York, 1992), 1-5.
13
Ibid., 5-11.
14
This comment specifically refers to their works Ornament
of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of
1
49
50
Benjamin Goldstein
Tolerance in Medieval Spain and A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s
Golden Age of Englightenment.
15
Lowney, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of
Enlightenment, 8-14.
16
O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 97-98
17
“The Last Sermon of the Prophet”; O’Callaghan, A
History of Medieval Spain, 97-98.
18
Roberto Marin-Guzmán, Sociedad, política y protesta
popular en la España musulmana. (University of Costa Rica: San
José, 2006), 99.
19
Marín, Sociedad, política y protesta popular en la España
musulmana.,99; Lowney. A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s
Golden Age of Enlightenment, 39.
20
Peter C. Scales, The Fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba: Berber
and Andalusis in Conflict. (E.J. Brill: New York, 1994.) 160.
21
Marín-Guzman, Sociedad, política y protesta popular en la
España musulmana, 99.
22
Philip K. Hitti, (University of Minnesota: Minneapolis,
1973), 138-139. The Umayyad and Abbasids were two
competing families and dynasties in Arabian politics.
23
O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 98-99.
24
Ibid., 96.
25
Anwar G. Chejine, Muslim Spain: Its History and Culture.
(University of Minnesota: St. Paul, 1974), 24.
26
Safran, Jaina M., Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus:
Muslims, Christians and Jews in Islamic Iberia. (Cornell University
Press, Cornell; 2013.), 61.
27
Jaina, Defining Boundaries in Al-Andalus: Muslims,
Christians and Jews in Islamic Iberia, 59.
28
Roberto Marin-Guzmán, “Rebellions and Political
Fragmentation of Al-Andalus: A Study of the Revolt of ‘Umar
ibn Hafsun in the Period of the Amir ‘Abd Allah (888-912).”
Islamic Studies: 428 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20840180 428.
29
Although the term jihad has several meanings, in this
passage jihad specifically refers to an act of holy war against the
infidel.
30
Marin-Guzmán, “Rebellions and Political Fragmentation
of Al-Andalus: A Study of the Revolt of ‘Umar ibn Hafsun in the
Period of the Amir ‘Abd Allah (888-912),” 451-454.
31
Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early
Middle Ages (Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden, 2005), 22-24.
32
O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, 98; Lowney. A
Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment, 63.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Kenneth Baxter Wolf. “Christian Martyrs in Muslim
Spain.” The Library of Iberian Resources Online: 7, 10 http://www.
documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/sinedata,_Wolf._Kenneth,_
Christian_Martyrs_in_Muslim_Spain,_EN.pdf.
34
Lowney, 60.
35
Wolf, “Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain” 34.
36
Ibid., 34-35.
37
Lowney, 55.
38
The “biography” correctly identifies his orphan status,
his two main marriages, his revelations by the angel Gabriel,
and even Islam’s monotheism.
39
Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and
Jewish Sources, edited by Olivia Remie Constable (University of
Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1997), 48-50.
40
Charles Lowell Tieszen, Christian Identity amid Islam in
Medieval Spain. (Brill: Boston, 2013) 50. Tieszen makes the very
interesting observation that Euologious in his own writings
adopts a near-military perspective on the martyrdoms, describes
the martyrs as “soldiers of Christ” fighting against the “enemy
of justice.”
41
Some will identify the first martyr as an individual
named Perfectus, but his particular blasphemy occurred under
different circumstances, was less voluntary and less of a catalyst
for the rest of the martyrs.
42
The individuals charged with apostasy were usually
products of religiously-mixed marriages, and their apostasy
still represented a fundamental anti-Arab, anti-Islam and proChristianity mindset.
43
Enlightenment, 58.
44
Wolf, “Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain,” 72-74.
45
Ibid., 9.
46
Ibid., 72-74; Lowney, 62-63.
47
Lowney, 59.
48
Wolf, 11.
49
Lowney, 61.
50
Lowney, 94; Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal:
A Political History of Al-Andalus (New York: Longman, 1996).
130-142.
51
Lowney, 96; David Wasserstein. The Rise and Fall of
the Party-Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain, 1002-1086.
(Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1985), 49.
33
51
52
Benjamin Goldstein
Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, Volume 2,
Translated by Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein.
(Jewish Publication Society: Philadelphia,1992), 65, 116-124;
Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics and Society
in Islamic Spain, 1002-1086, 197.
53
A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From The Origins to the
Present Day, edited by Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora.
(Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2013), 132.
54
Enlightenment, 97.
55
Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, Volume 2, 159.
56
Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources,
102.
57
Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, Volume 2, 165-166.
58
Ibid., 166-167.
59
Poetry in al-Andalus was often a form of political activism
and a choice weapon for political or religious critics.
60
It can be reasonably assumed that the “he” referred to
in this passage is the current King of Granada, who appointed
Joseph in the first place.
61
Jacob Neusner et al, Religious Foundations of Western
Civilization: Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Abingdon Press,
2016, Chapter 9, 9-11.
62
As a precaution against the growing anti-Semitic
atmosphere, Joseph actually moved himself and his family into
the King’s palace.
63
This claim is not implausible, as despite Koranic
prohibition against the consumption of alcohol, dietary
restrictions regarding alcoholic consumption were loosely
followed at best in the first Taifa period of Al-Andalus.
64
Ashtor, 190-194.
65
Lowney, 192-194.
66
J.N. Hilgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms (1250-1516) Volume
1, (Clarendon Press, 1976), 169-172.
67
Lowney, 240-245; Trevor J. Dason, “The Assimilation of
Spain’s Moriscos: Fiction or Reality?” 11.
68
By converting, at least in name, former Muslims and
Jews were allowed to take more prestigious jobs that had
previously been closed to them.
69
Indeed many of the recently converted Muslims
and Jews did secretly practice their old faiths, which only
contributed to greater tensions.
52
THE CONCORD REVIEW
The Conversos and Moriscos in late Medieval Spain and
Beyond, edited by Kevin Ingram. (Boston: Brill, 2009), 88.
71
Toby Green, The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth
Century Spain. (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009).
70
Bibliography
Ashtor, Eliyahu. The Jews of Moslem Spain, Volume 2,
Translated by Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein.
Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992.
Atwan, Abdel Bari. The Secret History of Al Qaeda. Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California, 2008.
Chejne, Anwar G. Muslim Spain: Its History and Culture. St.
Paul: University of Minnesota, 1974.
Columbia University, “The Great Mosque of Cordoba,”
http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ma/htm/dj_islam/ma_dji_
discuss_cordoba.htm.
Constable, Olivia Remie, ed., Medieval Iberia: Readings from
Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
Dadson, Trevor J. “The Assimilation of Spain’s Moriscos:
Fiction or Reality?” (2011). http://www.bibliotecaspublicas.es/
villarrubiadelosojos/imagenes/Dadson_Assimilation_Reality_
oo_Fiction.pdf
Duque, Adriano. “Claiming Martyrdom in the Episode
of the Martyrs of Córdoba.” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia,
http://www.uco.es/investiga/grupos/hum380/collectanea/
sites/default/files/8_1.pdf.
Fotheringham, Alasdair, “Castrillo Matajudios: Name- Change
Helps Village to Forget its Links with Spanish Persecution.” The
Independent, May, 26, 2014.
Gerber, Jane S. Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic
Experience. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
Glick, Thomas F. Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early
Middle Ages. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2005.
Green, Toby. The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century
Spain. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2009, 7-11.
Guzmán, Marín. Sociedad, política y protesta popular en la
España musulmana. San José: University of Costa Rica, 2006.
Hamilos, Paul. “The Worst Islamist Attack in European
History,” The Guardian, October 31, 2007, http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/31/spain
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54
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Hilgarth, J.N. The Spanish Kingdoms (1250-1516) Volume 1.
Clarendon Press, 1976.
Hitti, Philip K. Capital Cities of Arab Islam. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota, 1973.
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Warfare, DK Publishing, 2012.
Indiana Universty-Purdue University Indianapolis, “The Last
Sermon of the Prophet,” http://www.iupui.edu/~msaiupui/
lastsermon.html.
Ingram, Kevin, ed.The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval
Spain and Beyond, Boston: Brill, 2009
Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History
of al-Andalus. Longman: New York; 1996.
Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam. Princeton University Press:
Princeton, 1992.
Louayene, Atef. “Pathologies of Moorishness: Al-Andalus,
Narrative, and Worldly Humanism,” Journal of East-West
Thought, http://www.cpp.edu/~jet/Documents/JET/Jet6/
Louayene31-44.pdf
Lowney, Chris, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age
of Enlightenment. New York: The Free Press, 2005.
Marin-Guzmán, Roberto. “Rebellions and Political
Fragmentation of Al-Andalus: A Study of the Revolt of ‘Umar
ibn Hafsun in the Period of the Amir ‘Abd Allah (888-912).”
Islamic Studies, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20840180
Marin-Guzmán, Roberto. “The end of the Revolt of
‘Umar Ibn Hafsun in Al-Andalus: The Period of ‘Abd AlRahman III(912-28).” Islamic Studies, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/20840203
Meddeb, Abdelwahab and Benjamin Stora, eds., A History of
Jewish-Muslim Relations: From The Origins to the Present Day, edited
by Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Mir, Meritxell and Bernal, Ana “Sephardic Jews Eager to
Apply for Spanish Citizenship,” The Washington Post, February
17, 2014.
Neusner, Jacob, Avery-Peck, Alan J, Chilton, Buturovic,
Amilla, Chilton, Bruce, Wlfson, Elliot R, Homerin, Emil,
Brundage, James A, Levenson, Jon, Constable Olivia Remile,
Feldman, Deymour, Green, William. Religious Foundations of
Western Civilization: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abingdon
Press, 2006.
O’Callaghan, Joseph. A History of Medieval Spain. Ithaca:
Cornell University, 1975.
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Roldán, Pedro Herrera, ed., Obras Completas San
Euolgio(Complete Works Saint Eulogius), Tres Cantos: Akal, 2005.
Safran, Jaina M. Defining Boundaries in al-Andalus: Muslims,
Christians and Jews in Islamic Iberia. Cornell: Cornell University
Press, 2013.
Safran, Janina M. “Identity and Differentiation in NinthCentury al-Andalus.” Speculum, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/2903880.
Scales, Peter C. The Fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba: Berber and
Andalusis in Conflict. New York: E.J. Brill, 1994.
Shubert, Atika. “Muslims in Spain Campaign to Worship
Alongside Christians,” CNN, August 30, 2010.
Tieszen, Charles Lowell. Christian Identity amid Islam in
Medieval Spain. Boston: Brill, 2013.
Wasserstein, David. The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics
and Society in Islamic Spain, 1002-1086. Princeton: Princeton
Wolf, Kenneth Baxter. “Christian Martyrs in Muslim
Spain.” The Library of Iberian Resources Online. http://www.
documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/sinedata,_Wolf._Kenneth,_
Christian_Martyrs_in_Muslim_Spain,_EN.pdf.
55
56
Benjamin
Goldstein
The Crusade
of Nicopolis
Much larger was the Crusade of Nicopolis. In 1395, King Sigismund of
Hungary (1387-1437) sent a desperate plea for assistance to the French
court. Charles responded enthusiastically with money and men, and
he urged his subjects to contribute their time and money to the cause.
Both Popes endorsed the proposed crusade and issued indulgences for
whichever troops recognized them. Many Burgundian and German barons
also joined the expedition. The troops rendezvoused in 1396 at Buda,
where they were joined by Sigismund and his armies. It was an impressive
force, one of the largest crusades ever assembled.
In a council of war, the King of Hungary argued for a cautious
advance into Turkish territory, but the knights, eager to cover themselves
with glory, would not hear of it. They wanted to follow the example of
the First Crusade, fighting the infidel directly and winning conquests all
the way to Jerusalem. The crusaders crossed the Danube into Bulgaria,
where they took a few small towns. Next they laid siege to Nicopolis, a wellfortified town overlooking the Danube. Sultan Bayazid I (1389-1402) was
prosecuting his own siege at Constantinople when he heard of Nicopolis’s
distress. At once, he marched his forces to meet the crusaders. The two
sides had armies of equal size but unequal quality. Unlike the Christians,
Bayazid’s men were well-disciplined and under a unified command. The
sultan took up a position on a hill and waited. Sigismund again counseled
caution, but the French and Burgundian knights insisted on an immediate
attack. They also demanded the honor of leading the assault.
The thunder of the Frankish charge echoed in the valley outside
Nicopolis as the brightly adorned knights galloped toward the Turkish
lines. Quickly and decisively, they defeated the Turkish light cavalry.
Beyond was a forest of wooden stakes driven into the soil to break up a
charge. When the knights dismounted and began removing the stakes,
archers approached and showered arrows down on them. The Franks fell
ferociously on the archers, who ran up the hill to safety. On foot, the knights
pursued them. As they crested the hill, they found an unexpected sight.
Waiting for them was the sultan himself with his elite Turkish cavalry and
Serbian army. The flower of chivalry turned tail and ran back down the
hill, but it was too late. The Turks advanced in good order, crushing the
crusading army. The defeat was total. Most of the crusaders were captured
or killed; a few escaped into the woods. Those barons who could arrange
ransoms were allowed to go free. The rest, about three thousand in all,
were stripped naked, tied together with ropes, and led before Bayazid,
where they were decapitated.
A Concise History of the Crusades, John F. Madden
New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, pp. 196-197
CALHOUN’S CAROLINIAN LEGACY:
STROM THURMOND AND
THE REPUBLICANIZATION OF THE SOUTH
Quentin Dupouy
T
he South has always been seen as the most backward
region of the United States, firmly committed to the ways of the Old
South.1 Since the Scots-Irish first settled the area, the Jeffersonian
ideals of limited government have formed the basis of Southern
political ideology; conservatism has long coursed through the
veins of Dixie. Many historians argue that the Republicanization
of the South came out of the development of the New South—as
defined by the educated, affluent, mostly white professionals concentrated in Southern cities and their suburbs who had been the
Southern Republican Party’s base since the party’s foundation.
However, these theorists are too focused on what the Republican
Party once was, neglecting to see the profound shifts that the party
underwent during the latter half of the 20th century in response
to the Democratic Party’s growing support for African Americans’
priorities. The reality is that the roots of Southern Republicanization are far older than the New South and far less radical. Prescient
political thinkers like Strom Thurmond and Harry Dent saw that
Quentin Dupouy is at the University of Chicago. He wrote this paper
for Ms. Giovanna Termini’s U.S. History class at Hunter College High
School in Manhattan, New York, in 2014.
58
Quentin Dupouy
the Democratic Party was changing and that the traditional values they had always known in South Carolina risked going with
it. Their response was to champion the Republican Party, taking
a path that could yield political gains and provide the means to
preserve the values of the Confederacy. Thurmond initiated a sea
change of political shifts, beginning in 1964 with South Carolina,
as he rebranded the Party of Lincoln the Party of White Interest.
Though the political changes were radical, the causes for which
the emerging Southern Republican Party advocated were conservative. In this way, the Grand Old Party firmly established itself as
the protector of the Old South. With the promise to preserve old
traditions, pioneers like Thurmond siphoned off the conservatives
who had once made up the bulk of the Democratic Party, so it was
no coincidence that South Carolina and Mississippi, the strongest
bastions of Bourbon Democrats, were the first to switch to the
Republican Party. However, the final step in the Republicanization of South Carolina, and the South at large, was made under
Reagan, who built a lasting electoral coalition that brought the
New South resolutely into the Old South’s Republican embrace.
Thurmond had seen that the path to keeping the Old South
would run through the GOP, and Reagan realized his dream by
building a campaign promise that transformed the Old South’s
concerns and values into one acceptable to the New South, and
the nation as a whole.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal built the largest,
most diverse coalition of voters the American political system
had ever seen, but while temporarily it strengthened Democratic
control of the Solid South, with time, the diversity of his coalition
would cause its unraveling and lead to the loss of the South. The
New Deal brought farmers, blue-collar workers, Catholics, blacks,
liberals, unions, and intellectuals into the party of the Bourbon
Democrats.2 The South, and particularly South Carolina, adored
him because he gave them hope that they could escape the horrors
of the Depression.3 In fact, South Carolina gave Roosevelt a larger
majority than any other state in his first bid for the presidency in
1932, granting him 98% of their votes.4 Republicans were few and
far between in South Carolina, having survived as only an “esoteric
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59
cult,” perceived by most Southerners as Yankees, carpetbaggers
and scalawags.5 In 1950, there were no Republican senators from
the South, and only two of the 105 Southern Congressmen were
Republicans.6 However, Democrat’s monopoly on power was not as
solid as it seemed. Roosevelt’s coalition had built a strong northern
liberal wing in the national Democratic Party that inevitably would
force its progressive racial ideas on the South.7 This schism made
itself apparent as early as 1948, when President Truman, seeking
reelection, found himself trapped between the liberal, pro-civil
rights wing, represented by Henry Wallace, who sought sweeping
civil rights legislation, and the conservative, segregationist wing,
led by Mississippi Governor, Fielding Wright, who opposed any
efforts to reform race relations.8 Truman, facing potential third
party challenges from both sides, decided to tack left, proposing
moderate civil rights legislation, based on the misguided advice
of a senior political strategist: “It is inconceivable that any policy
initiated by the Truman administration, no matter how ‘liberal,’
could so alienate the South in the next year that it would revolt.
As always, the South can be considered safely Democratic. And in
forming national policy can be safely ignored.”9 The Democrats
could not have been more off the mark. The South was outraged,
and Strom Thurmond, after failing to get concessions from the
national party, challenged Truman as a States’ Rights Democrat.10
Thurmond carried only a few Deep South states, but even though
the Southern Democrats made only a small splash in 1948, the
fissures were growing, and eventually their break would not just
be with the national Democratic Party, but with the Democrats
themselves.
After the Dixiecrat uprising, Southern Democrats returned to voting for establishment Democrats, but Republicans
had noticed the cracks in the Solid South, and some realized that
they could build a winning coalition with disgruntled conservative Southerners by styling themselves the protectors of the Old
South. Since Hoover, the moderate Eisenhower had been the
only Republican to occupy the White House, and Democrats had
dominated both chambers of Congress, losing the majority only
a couple of times.11 When Vice President Nixon lost the 1960
60
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election, the Republicans realized they would have to make some
changes, and Senator Barry Goldwater thought he knew how.12
He argued that Republicans could only win the presidency with
a foothold in the South, and therefore Nixon’s pro-civil rights
stance had stood between them and success.13 In reference to
the Republican Party, in 1961 Goldwater bluntly stated, “We’re
not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964 and 1968, so we
ought to go hunting where the ducks are.” By which he meant
assuring Southerners that he believed that school integration was
“the responsibility of the states.”14 Thus the Southern Strategy was
born; Republicans would concede the black vote in favor of building up their appeal to whites, specifically Southern whites, with a
“distinctly conservative and segregationist call.”15 The Democratic
Party had once had a monopoly on Southern conservatives. In
1952 over 80% of Southern whites identified as Republican. But
ever since the New Deal, Southern Democratic conservatism had
been eroding, a process accelerated by civil rights reform, so that
by 1964 only half of white Southerners were Democrats.16
The Republican Party, under Goldwater’s lead, had begun to reposture itself as the conservative party, which made it
increasingly attractive to Southerners like Strom Thurmond who
had ever-growing concerns that the Old South’s way of life was
under attack by their own party. In 1960, following the National
Democratic Convention, Thurmond issued a five-page attack on
his party’s platform calling it a strategy to divide and conquer
“special interest groups, blocs and minorities.” That is, it tried
to lure everyone but “fifty million Southerners.” He wrote, “The
so-called civil rights plank is the most extreme, unconstitutional
and anti-Southern [position] ever conceived by any major political party.”17 By 1964, Thurmond had been in the Senate for ten
years, and though he was an established political voice, he was “the
unwelcome guest at every Democratic Party caucus.”18 His most
trusted advisors, Harry Dent and Fred Buzhardt, had been urging
him for some time to leave the Democratic Party, feeling that the
Democrats had abandoned conservatism and believing that the
Republican Party had untapped potential in South Carolina.19 The
prospect of a white Southern conservative joining the Republicans
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61
at first seemed absurd, but when Lyndon B. Johnson tapped the
ultraliberal Hubert Humphrey as his running mate, it became clear
that the Democratic Party was no longer the party Thurmond had
once known.20 Furthermore, he found Barry Goldwater’s promise
of true conservatism, states’ rights and tough anti-Communism
highly appealing.21 He had already decided that he would vote
for Goldwater, and Thurmond wanted to maximize his support
for him.22 After deliberation, he decided the best way to do so was
by officially switching his party affiliation, and on September 15,
1964, CBS broke the news that the South had its first Republican
Senator: Strom Thurmond, the archetypal Southern Democrat.23
In his 1960 attack on the Democratic Platform, he had concluded
that the platform “sounds the final death-knell of the Democratic
Party known to our forebears and completes the transition to a
party dedicated to…welfare statism.”24 He probably did not realize at that time how accurately he was describing the changes of
the coming decades.
The Old South felt besieged by increasingly liberal Democrats, the overly powerful federal government, and growing black
power, but Goldwater and Thurmond made the Republican Party
the solution to their worries. Democrats had once been the unabashed fighters for continued white supremacy; now, under Goldwater’s leadership, Republicans were the ones making demands for
greater “states’ rights.” The day after Thurmond announced his
party switch, he flew home to make the case to his constituents; on
statewide TV, sitting in front of a poster of Goldwater, he said, “The
Democratic Party has abandoned the people…The party of our
fathers is dead. Those who took its name are engaged in another
Reconstruction.” Therefore, to “put the people of South Carolina
first,” he would now have to work “within the framework of the
Goldwater Republican Party.”25 Less than a century earlier, white
Southerners would have lynched anyone who publicly declared
support for the Republican Party; now thousands of Carolinians
would follow Thurmond into the new era of Southern politics.
However, it is misleading to call the Republican chapter
new, because while party affiliation may have changed, Thurmond
and Goldwater’s vision strongly resembled that of the Bourbon
62
Quentin Dupouy
Democrats and was designed to protect the old ways. Goldwater
had been one of the few non-Southerners to oppose civil rights
legislation, and he sought to capitalize on that by siphoning off
conservative Democrats angered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.26
Under his leadership, the Republican Party made explicit promises
to stop the federal government’s involvement in school integration and to halt affirmative action programs that the platform
called “federally-sponsored inverse discrimination.”27 More generally, Republicans envisioned a scaled-down federal government,
emphasizing “the individual’s right and capacity to advance his
own economic well-being.”28 The Southern belief in empowered
individuals free from the tyranny of government was as old as
Jefferson and Calhoun. Jeffersonian Republicans had imagined
a nation of independent landowners who could, as the Republicans of 1964 proposed, “control the fruits of his efforts and…plan
his own and his family’s future.”29 Thurmond’s fiery reproach of
the civil rights plank in the 1960 Democratic Platform mirrored
Calhoun’s Exposition, which proposed nullifying the “Tariff of
Abominations” on the grounds that it was anti-Southern and an
unconstitutional abuse of Congress’s power. “[I]ts burdens are
exclusively on one side…It imposes on the agricultural interest
of the South…the burden, not only of sustaining the system itself,
but that also of sustaining government.”30 The Southern rebels’
rallying calls during the Civil War to protect the South’s “peculiar
domestic institutions” from the tyranny of the North are hard to
distinguish from Thurmond’s statements during the Senate discussion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: “Passage of this bill will visit the hell
of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield
against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best
design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men.”31 U.S.
populist passions tend to rebel against unequal concentrations of
power, and when the federal government overstepped its bounds
by attempting to alter centuries-old race relations, Thurmond, with
Goldwater, led the charge of Southern populism against the excesses
of the federal government and the Democratic establishment.32
Thurmond, a born Southern Democrat, decided that he had to
give up one piece of the Southern identity, the Democratic Party,
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63
so that he could protect the rest. He was not the only Southerner
who felt this way; Johnson slammed Goldwater in 1964, but “Mr.
Conservative” did pick up his home state of Arizona as well as five
Deep South states, including South Carolina.33
In 1966 Thurmond’s reelection on the Republican ticket
and Republicans’ broader electoral success in South Carolina
would vindicate Thurmond’s party switch. In 1965 the South
Carolina GOP Chairman stepped down, and Harry Dent jumped
at the opportunity to replace him.34 In 1966, both Senate seats,
the governorship, and all the House and state legislature seats
were up for reelection, and Dent was eager to mount the first
organized effort to elect Republicans to state and federal office
since Reconstruction.35 Dent released newsletters combining party
information with partisan appeals, while a group called “The S.C.
Independents” released incendiary brochures appealing straight
to race tensions.36 One pamphlet read, “It’s as simple as 2 + 2 = 4.
The Negro Bloc Vote + Democratic Machine = Black Power…It’s
your vote, use it. Support those men who will support you.”37 The
State newspaper astutely noted that South Carolina Republicans
“have given public notice that they expect to get little or none of
the Negro vote.”38 That was indeed the plan; Thurmond would
forfeit the black vote in exchange of a solid hold on the white
moderate-to-conservative vote.39 Conventional wisdom said that
it was a risky strategy, given the fact that black voters constituted
18-20% of voters, but Thurmond was well-known for his ability
to keep a pulse on his constituency, and they were pleased: he
won 62% of the vote, getting more votes than anyone else in the
state.40 While Republicans won neither the other Senate seat nor
new Congressional seats, they did make gains in the state legislature, winning 17 seats in the House and six in the Senate; since
Reconstruction there had never been more than two Republicans
in the legislature.41
Thurmond and Dent’s transformation of South Carolina
from the most solidly Democratic state into the one with the most
competitive Republican Party would make Thurmond a central
player in national Republican politics, granting the Old South a
64
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powerful voice in national politics. Thurmond and Dent aimed
to use the approaching presidential election of 1968 to further
their Southern conservative agenda, and after Dent persuaded
Thurmond that Nixon was a more viable candidate than Reagan,
Thurmond met with Nixon in May to discuss the future of the
campaign.42 Nixon struck a deal, effectively promising, “If I’m
president of the United States, I’ll find a way to ease up on the
federal pressures forcing school desegregation or any other kind of
desegregation.”43 In return, Thurmond fought hard to make sure
the Southern GOP delegations backed Nixon, and when Nixon
won the nomination, Thurmond was heralded as his “kingmaker.”44
Thurmond fought even harder during the general election, working to brunt the appeal of Albert Wallace, the segregationist third
party candidate.45 Mostly thanks to Thurmond’s campaigning,
Nixon won in South Carolina and five other Southern states.46
After the election, The Atlanta Constitution ran a cartoon of Nixon
with his arms held up in victory by Dent and Thurmond, and the
ensuing coziness between Nixon and Thurmond earned the White
House the nickname “Uncle Strom’s Cabin.”47 Thurmond’s growing influence reveals the bounty and wisdom of his party switch,
as it both increased his power and that of the South. In 1948, during his Dixiecrat campaign, Thurmond said, “Whenever a great
section of this country is regarded as so politically impotent that
one major party insults it because it is ‘in the bag’ and the other
party scorns it because there no chance for victory, then the time
has arrived for corrective and concerted action…we are going
to preserve our civilization in the South.”48 Now that Thurmond
had transformed the Solid South into a two-party system, it would
become an essential battleground between a burgeoning GOP
and a floundering Democratic Party. Nixon made his opposition
to busing one of his administration’s central issues, illustrating
how Southern concerns became part of the national discussion.49
Congress was listening now, and Thurmond was following up
on his promise to give the Old South its voice back so that their
“civilization” could live on.
The civil rights movement led to major political shifts, but
while the 1964 Civil Rights Act had pushed white Southerners
THE CONCORD REVIEW
65
to lash back out against blacks’ growing rights, the 1965 Voting
Rights Act forced Southerners to temper their response as it made
blacks an important voting bloc. Thurmond was the first to realize
he could make just as strong of an appeal to white conservatives
while not being so intolerable to blacks that they felt the need to
mobilize en masse to vote for his opponent, a maneuver termed
“neutralizing” the black vote.50 Thurmond’s adjustment was necessary in light of the fact that by 1970, 55% of eligible black voters
in South Carolina were registered as compared to 72% of whites,
while in 1956 only 25% of voting age blacks were registered in
contrast to 60% of whites.51 Furthermore, the Voting Rights Act
gave black Carolinians the confidence that they could vote without
being turned away by poll workers or threatened with reprisal.52 It
is rumored that after Republican segregationist, Albert Watson, lost
the 1970 South Carolina Gubernatorial election Thurmond told
him, “Well, Albert, this proves we can’t win elections any more by
cussin’ Nigras.”53 Whether Thurmond really said it or not, he certainly followed the advice. In 1971 Thurmond made news by being
the first Southern member of the Senate or House to hire a black
aide, and later he was the first Southerner to sponsor an African
American for a federal judgeship.54 Thurmond consistently voted
against federal programs to help minorities, but got Congress to
fund projects in South Carolina that were important to the black
community.55 Thurmond insisted that he was not racist, but rather
that he thought people would eventually work through race issues
themselves and that it was not the federal government’s role to
intervene in race relations.56 By funneling government money to
the state, making modest gestures of support, and toning down
his rhetoric, Thurmond was able to neutralize the black vote,
while also moving South Carolina politics during the 1970s away
from the overt, antiblack rhetoric that had characterized the early
Carolinian Republican Party.57
While it would be nice to imagine Thurmond’s rapprochement to black Carolinians came out of a sense of tolerance and
responsibility, the reality is that Thurmond was playing good politics by neutralizing black voters while simultaneously continuing
his commitment to the Old South and strengthening his hold
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on the moderate-to-conservative white vote. In 1971 the New York
Times and three other major papers said that Thurmond, a relic
of old Southern politics, would soon reach the end of his career.58
However, Thurmond was adjusting, using toned-down rhetoric
intended to attract a wider coalition of economic conservatives
that went beyond old school social and racial conservatives. On
this basis he staved off Democratic challengers in 1972 and 1978,
continuing to do so until his last election in 1996.59 The Southern Strategy was working nicely. In 1968 half of Southern white
conservatives thought of themselves as Democrats, while 24% said
they were Republican.60 By 1976, Democrats claimed only about
37%, while Republicans closed the gap with 30% of Southern
white conservatives.61 The changes to presidential voting were
even more drastic: in 1976 about 72% of Southern white conservatives supported Ford over Carter, their fellow Southerner,
for whom only about 28% voted.62 However, it was Republicans’
inroads to moderate whites, or the New South, that provided the
key to their success. In 1972 Southern moderate whites voted
for Nixon 86% to 14%, and in the much closer election of 1976
Carter and Ford tied for the moderate white vote.63 During the
1970s Thurmond hired a handful of young aides, most notably
Lee Atwater, who pushed him towards reasoned moderation and
modern campaign tactics.64 Increasingly, a more moderate Thurmond emerged, distanced from the outright segregationism of
his earlier career. More general conservative principles—which
left out explicit race references—but made more guarded attacks
on integration through opposition to busing or federal control of
voting procedures, were Thurmond’s way of protecting the Old
South in a way that was appealing to conservatives and moderates
alike while also not upsetting blacks.
Thurmond had first built up the Southern GOP on the
promise to protect the Old South, and he was making tentative
steps towards building a wider Republican coalition, but it was
Reagan who completed the saga. Reagan saw the common thread
of individualism that ran through old-school conservatives, evangelicals, segregationists, business interests and white moderates;
and with the promise of conservative government he brought
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67
them all into a strong Republican coalition.65 Reagan weaved a
populist conservative message that stressed the need to scale back
the federal government and take it “off the backs of the people,”
which resonated across the nation as a result of Carter’s “failed
presidency.”66 This brand of conservatism was firmly rooted in
Southern political ideology as first put forward by Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Calhoun, and later articulated by Thurmond
and Dent. By making limited government the answer to every
question, Reagan and the Republican Party made an appeal to
the whole nation, but it was a promise that resonated particularly
strongly in the South.67
Reagan’s conservative message illustrated the success that
Thurmond had in elevating Southern issues to the national level,
as Reagan made it a clear priority to weave the Old South’s racial
views into his economic conservatism. After receiving the nomination, his very first campaign stop was at Philadelphia, Mississippi,
where three civil rights workers had been murdered with the
complicity of the police in 1964.68 In front of an almost entirely
white crowd he said, “I believe in states’ rights.” Introducing his
New Federalism model, which offered to empower the states, he
said he would reorder priorities and “restore to the states and local
communities those functions which properly belong there.”69 His
message was clear: backing states’ rights before a crowd of white
Southerners atop the soil into which the blood of innocent black
men had seeped, he signaled that his limited government would
mean limited civil rights protections as well. Reagan never made
outwardly anti-civil rights comments, but instead used coded
messages through his criticism of busing and affirmative action as
the need arose. The 1980 Republican Platform called affirmative
action “inherently discriminatory.” In the section labeled “Black
Americans” it provided only tacit sympathy for poverty and then
said: “Our fundamental answer to the economic problems of black
Americans is the same answer we make to all Americans,” which
is “economic expansion” through tax reductions and incentives.70
This statement encapsulates the Republican approach to black
American’s problems: they offered conservative economic policies that would encourage growth and if that helped some black
68
Quentin Dupouy
people then that was great, if not, it was their fault. The platform’s
assumption that black and poverty issues were one in the same,
also points to a rhetorical tool employed by the Reagan campaign
and administration, in which he characterized social services and
the people they served using stereotypes that took advantage of
popular notions of welfare recipients.71 Most people on welfare
were white, but a disproportionate number of blacks received
aid, leading to stereotypes and the prevailing notion that “poor”
and “black” were synonymous.72 Reagan called for massive cuts to
federal relief programs so that “the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars
go only to the truly needy” and not the “greedy.”73 Reagan’s genius
was in leaving the “greedy” ambiguous.74 To Southerners, the undeserving were blacks.75 This new subtle version of the Southern
Strategy was transparently described by Lee Atwater, Reagan’s
campaign manager, in a 1981 interview, “[Y]ou’re talking about
cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally
economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt
worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it.”
Thus below Reagan’s conservative economic policies lay subliminal
racial messages, visible only to those who were looking for them,
and hence Reagan was able to assure the Old South that it had
not been forgotten.
Reagan won every Southern state in both presidential
elections, and in 1984, in the middle of Reagan’s highly successful presidency, for the first time ever, a majority of Southerners
identified as Republican.76 The DNC conducted a study to evaluate
the white electorate following Reagan’s gains; in the final report
it says that white Southerners believed “the Democratic Party
ha[d] not stood with them,” and that they felt “threatened” by
“an economic underclass that absorbs their taxes.” They felt that
now the “giveaway” party, also known as the Democratic Party, was
serving only “blacks, gays, [H]ispanics, feminists and labor” while
“leaving the ‘common man’ out of the picture.”77 In the pluralistic
society of the late 20th century, the American “common man” would
likely be a multiracial service worker, but to those surveyed, the
common man was himself: a middle class, American-born, white
Southerner. Just as Andrew Jackson had risen up in the 1800s to
represent the interests of the common man in the face of the
dominating Eastern elite and National Bank, Reagan exalted the
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69
common (white Southern) man in his fight to preserve the old
order against the tyranny of liberal Democratic rule of the federal
government. The South heard his message. By 1980 Republicans
held 10 of the 22 Senate seats in the South and 30% of the House
delegation.78 In 1984 Reagan got 61% of the Southern vote, winning 88% of white conservatives, 63% of white moderates and
even some white liberals.79 His victory showed that the party of
white interest could defeat Carter’s biracial coalition on his own
home turf.
Thurmond was the first Southern Democrat to break a
century-old loyalty to the party that had broken its promise to
him. The Republican Party, once the Party of Lincoln, was now the
Party of White Supremacy. And yet, with time, particularly under
Reagan, the blatantly racist message was toned down as its policies
were incorporated into more innocuous-sounding conservative
principles. Thurmond and Reagan effectively built the Old South
into the framework of a new conservative politick. The Old South,
as it has always managed to do, survived into a new era through the
clever political maneuvering of leaders like Thurmond who packaged the Old South to fit with the New South. There is an inherent
contradiction in talking about the Republicanization of the South
as if it were a radical political realignment. Unlike the advent of
Jacksonian Democracy or the construction of the New Deal coalition, in which the very nature of government underwent significant
changes, the realignment of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s involved
not much more than a switch of labels: the Democrats taking up
the mantel of social justice from the Lincoln Republicans, and
the Republicans continuing a long legacy of limited government
and white supremacy inherited from the Democrats. In fact, the
two great leaders of Southern Republicanization, Thurmond and
Reagan, had both been archetypal Democrats until they became
prototypical Republicans.
70
Quentin Dupouy
Endnotes
Angela Hattery and Earl Smith, “Social Stratification
in the New/Old South: The Influences of Racial Segregation
on Social Class in the Deep South,” Journal of Poverty 11, no. 1
(2007): 55, accessed May 5, 2014, doi:10.1300/J134v11n01_03.
2
Wayne Greenhaw, Elephants in the Cottonfields (New York:
Macmillan Publishing, 1982), 122.
3
20% of South Carolinians were on federal relief,
significantly higher than the national average. Nadine
Cohodas, Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change
(New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 37.
4
In 1932, less than 2,000 Carolinians voted for Hoover.
David Leip, “1932 Presidential Election” in Dave Leip’s Atlas
of U.S. Presidential Elections. Accessed May 1, 2014. http://
uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1932&datatype=
national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0.
5
At this point Republicans existed only in traditionally
Republican mountain enclaves and among the wealthy, urban
“country-club crowd.” See Joseph A. Aistrup, The Southern
Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South
(Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 8-9, 25.
“Esoteric cult” was quoted in Earl Black and Merle Black, The
Rise of Southern Republicans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2002), 2.
6
Ibid., 2-3.
7
Aistrup, Southern Strategy, 12.
8
Cohodas, Thurmond, 126-127.
9
Ibid., 129.
10
Ibid., 183. The Dixiecrats won only 2.5% of the vote,
carrying Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama.
David Leip, “1948 Presidential Election,” Dave Leip’s Atlas
of U.S. Presidential Elections, accessed May 1, 2014, http://
uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1948
11
Democrats had a majority in the House from 1930 to
1994, with only four years of a Republican majority in between.
Democrats also had a majority in the Senate from 1932 to 1980
with only six years of a Republican majority in between. See
Office of the Historian, “Majority Leaders of the House (1899
to present),” History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives,
Accessed May 8, 2014, http://history.house.gov/People/
Office/Majority-Leaders/. See also Senate Historical Office,
“Majority and Minority Leaders and Party Whips,” Accessed
1
THE CONCORD REVIEW
May 8, 2014, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/
common/briefing/Majority_Minority_ Leaders.htm.
12
13
Ibid.
14
Goldwater added, “I would not like to see my party
assume it is the role of the federal government to enforce the
integration of schools.” Aistrup, Southern Strategy, 25. See also
Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson, Strom: The Complicated
Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond (New York: Public
Affairs, 2005), 183.
15
16
Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 208.
17
Cohodas, Thurmond, 312.
18
Ibid., 358.
19
Bass, Strom, 188.
20
21
Bass, Strom, 188.
22
23
Ibid., 359.
24
Ibid., 313.
25
Bass, Strom, 191-193. See also Cohodas, Thurmond, 360.
26
27
Republican National Convention, “Republican Party
Platform of 1964,” July 13, 1964, Online by Gerhard Peters and
John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed April
28, 2014, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25840.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
30
John C. Calhoun, “South Carolina Exposition and
Protest,” December 1828, accessed May 5, 2014, http://
www.sewanee.edu/faculty/willis/Civil_War/documents/
SCExposition.html.
31
Congressional Record. 14310-19 (June 18, 1964)
(statement of Senator Thurmond).
32
33
David Leip, “1964 Presidential Election,” Dave Leip’s
Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, accessed May 1, 2014, http://
uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1964&datatype=
national&def=1&f=0&off= 0&elect=0.
34
Bass, Strom, 195.
35
36
Another brochure asked over pictures of riot-torn
streets and crowds of black people, “Black Revolution—Who
71
72
Quentin Dupouy
Is to Blame? Democrat Leaders Endorse Black Revolution.”
The official party campaign material appealed to these issues
in slightly more subtle ways. Dent printed newsletters that
included a picture of incumbent Democratic Governor Robert
McNair shaking hands with a black lawyer, implying that
McNair was on board with the “black agenda.” See Cohodas,
Thurmond, 385.
37
Ibid., 385.
38
John C. Kuzenski, “South Carolina: The Heart of GOP
Realignment in the South,” in The New Politics of the Old South:
An Introduction to Southern Politics, ed. Charles S. Bullock, III and
Mark J. Rozell (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
1998), 30.
39
Bass, Strom, 196.
40
Thurmond was the biggest vote-getter in the state,
winning 15,400 more votes than popular Democratic Governor
McNair. Cohodas, Thurmond, 386.
41
Ibid., 306.
42
Ibid., 396.
43
44
Bass, Strom, 209. Thurmond was able to get Southerners
to vote for Nixon, by pointing out that if Nixon did not win
during the first round at the convention then the liberal New
York Governor Rockefeller would likely get the nomination.
See Ibid., 218.
45
Ibid., 209.
46
Ibid., 219.
47
The cartoon is described in Cohodas, Thurmond, 400.
The nickname is on p. 365.
48
Bass, Strom, 111.
49
The prominence of busing, affirmative action, the death
penalty and other Southern issues led some pundits to declare
the “Southernization” of national politics during the 1970s.
50
Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 215. See also
Kuzenski, “South Carolina,” 30.
51
For the 1970 data see Cohodas, Thurmond, 411. For the
1956 data see Ibid., 289.
52
Bass, Strom, 194.
53
54
55
56
Ibid., 429.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
59
Kuzenski, “South Carolina,” 44-45.
60
61
Ibid., 223.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
Greenhaw, Elephants, 118. See also Bass, Strom, 290-291.
65
66
Reagan’s message in 1980 to reduce government
spending, lower taxes and build a stronger military, resonated
across the nation as a result of Carter’s “failed” presidency,
for which confident conservatism seemed like a solution to
high inflation, high unemployment, and the Iran hostage
crisis. Reagan also promised a national renewal emphasizing
traditional values, the dignity of work, love of family, faith in
God, and the commitment to freedom as American concepts.
Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 211-212.
67
Republican National Convention, “Republican Party
Platform of 1980,” July 15, 1980, online by Gerhard Peters and
John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, accessed April
28, 2014, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25844. See
also Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 218.
68
69
Ronald Reagan, “Reagan’s 1980 Neshoba County
Fair Speech,” speech, Neshoba County Fair, Philadelphia,
Mississippi, August 3, 1980, Available by Neshoba Democrat,
accessed March 14, 2014, http://neshobademocrat.com/main.
asp?SectionID=2&SubSection ID=297&ArticleID=15599.
70
The section on Black Americans sits amidst a number
of sections including Hispanic Americans, women, and
the handicapped. To every troubled minority it offers only
that conservatism will create a stronger economy. See RNC,
“Republican Party Platform of 1980.”
71
72
Ibid.
73
Ronald Reagan, “Address Before a Joint Session of the
Congress Reporting on the State of the Union,” January 25,
1983, available by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The
American Presidency Project, accessed March 27, 2014, http://
www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41698.
74
Occasionally Reagan filled in the outline of the “greedy”
by depicting the “welfare queen,” who had many children and
57
58
73
74
Quentin Dupouy
a Cadillac, which carried subtle racial connotations. Aistrup,
Southern Strategy, 43.
75
Ibid., 44.
76
77
78
Ibid., 3.
79
Black, Rise of Southern Republicans, 218-219.
MORE THAN A GAME
Theodore Hurley
B
aseball enjoys a unique position, not just as America’s
pastime but also in United States law. Almost a hundred years ago,
in 1922, when professional baseball was a fledgling business, the
U.S. Supreme Court determined that the sport was not interstate
commerce and therefore not subject to the Commerce Clause of
the Constitution. As a result, professional baseball remains the
only sport exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act. For decades,
baseball clubs were permitted to include a reserve clause in players’ contracts which prevented players from moving to another
club without the permission of their existing team, yet clubs could
trade or move players freely. Although the reserve clause has now
been negotiated away, other aspects of trust-like behavior remain.
For instance, a club wishing to move to a new city must obtain the
permission of other clubs in the league. In 1922, when professional
baseball was taking its first tentative steps towards becoming the
lucrative business it has become, its future economic viability was
in doubt, and the Justices opted for a narrower application of the
law than likely would have been the case had Federal Baseball Club v.
National League been argued years later. In the decades since that
original ruling, while the Supreme Court steadily expanded the
Theodore Hurley is a Senior at the Branson School in Ross, California,
where he wrote this paper for Dennis Shannon’s U.S. History course in
the 2014/2015 academic year.
76
Theodore Hurley
definition of interstate commerce, and along with that Congress’
authority to regulate, it has refused to overturn the original judgment, instead arguing that Congress was responsible for determining the extent of baseball’s antitrust regulation. Given what the
Justices knew at the time, and in the context of when they made
their ruling, the 1922 Court acted wisely, and its successors have
shown admirable judicial restraint.
Major League Baseball first came to the attention of the
Supreme Court in 1922 in the case of Federal Baseball Club, when
the Baltimore Terrapins, one of the teams of the by-then defunct
Federal League, brought an antitrust suit against the National and
American Leagues, arguing that the reserve clause in the National
and American Leagues players’ contracts violated the Sherman
Act.1 Players could not switch to the Federal League even when
given attractive offers because in their existing contracts their current team reserved the right to rehire them the following season.2
Only if the team they played for chose not to exercise that right
were the players free to sign with another team. Essentially, a player
was “bound to a team for life.”3 As one of the lawyers in a later
case explained, the clause was like saying, “you’re an American
and have the right to seek employment anywhere you like, but
this right does not apply to baseball players.”4
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the pithy opinion in
Federal Baseball Club v. National League, rejecting Federal Baseball
Club’s request for an application of the Sherman Act to baseball.
In the text of its ruling, the Court cited Hooper v. California (1895),
an insurance case in which the Court decided that “insurance was
not commerce” and so could not be regulated as interstate commerce because “the transport is a mere incident, not the essential
thing.”5 Holmes stated that “personal effort” is “not a subject of
commerce” and compared baseball players to “lawyers…argu[ing]
a case or…[a] lecture bureau sending out lecturers,” pointing out
that lecturers and lawyers do not engage in interstate commerce
even if they travel to another state.6 The unanimous opinion of
the Court derived from a limited definition of interstate commerce, asserting that an individual offering up his skills, even
THE CONCORD REVIEW
77
when across state lines, is not a commercial activity subject to
federal regulation. The judgment invoked the Commerce Clause
to explain that the federal government does not have jurisdiction
over baseball and, therefore, that the Sherman Antitrust Act did
not apply. The assessment appears to be straightforward, and it is
significant that at this point there was no reference in the ruling
to an exception for baseball.
Many observers have criticized the decision for the apparent
failure of the Justices to anticipate the future national and even
international character of the sport. While in 1922 one could point
to early indications that baseball was bigger than the game on the
field, the future of the business was hard to anticipate. Newspapers
started covering baseball in the 1860s, in the 1890s telegraph was
used to broadcast games to bars, and in 1910 the movie industry
purchased the rights to show highlights of the World Series.7 The
first radio broadcast of a game occurred in 1921, and the World
Series went on the air the next year.8 Therefore, the Justices, although not omniscient, might reasonably have anticipated that
the business was more than “giving exhibitions of baseball,” as
Holmes had concluded.9 Even though there were some signs for
big things to come for Major League Baseball, few could tell in
what direction it was headed—the billion dollar business it is today or another failed enterprise like the National League’s other
by-then defunct competitors.
The Justices who heard the case had differing levels of
interest in baseball. William Howard Taft, the only Justice nominated by newly-elected President Harding, had the role of Chief
Justice and appears to have had a minimal level of interest in the
professional version of the sport. Even though he attended games
as President, and his brother owned a team, he rarely attended
games after he retired from the presidency and those he did were
for his alma mater, Yale.10 Justice Holmes had even less interest;
a law clerk remembered that “there was nothing that did not interest him except athletics.”11 In contrast, Justice William R. Day
“lament[ed] that to sit on the bench never seem[ed] so difficult as
when there [was]…a game in Washington,” and during the World
78
Theodore Hurley
Series, he even asked a page to bring him updates each inning.12
The other six Justices fell somewhere in between in their level of
baseball enthusiasm.
Passionate fan or disinterested judge alike would have had a
hard time anticipating the multibillion dollar industry baseball has
become today, because the first three decades of the sport indicated
that the business was struggling. For example, in 1890, the players started their own Players League, only to see it soon absorbed
into the existing structure.13 Later, in 1900, a Western League was
formed, which ended up incorporated into the American League
in 1903, helping form today’s two-league structure.14 The 1922
court case arose out of yet another failed attempt to expand the
industry with the addition of another baseball league. This volatility in the number and profitability of teams and leagues was also
reflected in the salaries paid to players. The late 1800s nominal
average annual salary of $3,054 more than doubled to $6,523 by
the early 1900s, but then dropped to even less than the earlier
number in the 1910s with an average of $2,307.15 The comparisons
are clear when adjusted for inflation. Today, the shift equates to
sixty thousand dollars in the 1800s, $124 thousand in the 1900s,
and then forty two thousand dollars in the 1910—hardly the mark
of a healthy business.16 Finally, Major League Baseball almost went
bankrupt multiple times between its founding and 1922, making
it hard for even the biggest of baseball fanatics to anticipate the
future growth of the industry. The likelihood of this bright future
would have seemed especially low to individuals (i.e. many in the
Court) who did not see the sport’s appeal in the first place.
Accusations by other observers of bias on the part of the
baseball-loving Day are also unconvincing when the case is viewed
in the context of when it was heard. While some early rulings had
expanded the regulatory role of the federal government, that
expansion was still in its infancy. Furthermore, the clear intent
of the Sherman Act was not to drive companies out of business
but to promote robust economic competition in industries where
some individuals had become too powerful. A ruling in favor of
the plaintiffs would have been aggressive for the time and, if it
THE CONCORD REVIEW
79
led to further economic pressure on an already shaky industry,
potentially run counter to the goals of the Act, for it might have
killed the industry, serving neither the law, nor the players, nor the
owners. Importantly, it would also have been bad for consumers,
whose interests were ostensibly the central rationale for the Act.
While the text of the decision does not directly point to
the considerations above, the Justices had ample exposure to the
line of reasoning that application of the Sherman Act to baseball
would have been aggressive in light of earlier precedents and
run counter to the goals of the Act. The defense cited a number
of cases, including United States v. E.C. Knight Co. (1894). In that
decision, the Court ruled that the federal government could not
regulate a trust that controlled 98% of the sugar refining business
in the United States because the key issue in the case was “not on
whether the defendant’s conduct violated the substantive prohibition of the antitrust laws, but on whether the conduct sufficiently
partook of interstate commerce to be prohibited by Congress
at all.”17 In E.C. Knight the Court had decided that because the
company was not engaged in interstate commerce the Sherman
Act should not be applied, despite the defendant’s near absolute
control of the sugar refining business.18 Major League Baseball
also argued that in both the antitrust precedents of Standard
Oil Company (1911) and American Tobacco Company (1911)
the objective of the Court had been to offer “better or cheaper
tobacco or oil” to the consumer, but no such results could be accomplished by declaring that the National League was a trust, as
the games would not be better to watch or cheaper to attend.19
The defense contended, ultimately successfully, that the business
of baseball was not interstate commerce because a product is not
moved across state lines and that a consumer of baseball games
was better off with the status quo of not being subject to antitrust
laws. Finally, it is worth noting that the defending lawyers also
implied that the burgeoning sport could not survive without the
reserve clause, as it would enable teams with large budgets to buy
all of the available good players.20
80
Theodore Hurley
The reference in the text of the ruling to “personal effort”
indicates that the Justices may also have been persuaded by the
defense lawyers’ arguments that focused on the game aspects of
the business. The defense claimed that “playing baseball, whether
for money or not, is a striking instance of human skill exerted for
its own sake and with no relation to production,” thus asserting
that by purchasing a ticket to a baseball game, one is not buying
something that was produced.21 Although the lawyer admitted that
players and equipment travel, often across state lines, he pointed
out that “the transit is not the end in view,” and that it only serves
as a way to bring the men and supplies to the venue where they
could play.22 The lawyer for the Federal Baseball Club countered
that baseball clubs are “not engaged in a pastime for…[their] own
amusement” and pointed out that players are “transport[ed]…
from state to state in order that they may give an exhibition of
skill.”23 With this argument, the plaintiffs may have been drawing
a parallel with American Tobacco Company, which the Supreme
Court dissolved under the Sherman Antitrust Act because the
“Company exert[ed its monopolistic power] over the marketing
of tobacco as a raw product, its manufacture, its marketing when
manufactured, and its consequent movement in the channels of
interstate commerce…and the commerce of the whole world.”24
In this way the plaintiff very persuasively illustrated that in this
previous judgment, the Court had focused on the control of
manufacturing and distribution, not the local consumption of
the product. One could reason that the National and American
Leagues dominated the production of baseball games, regardless
of where the games were consumed, especially given the name
of the championship game as the World Series. Similarly, in the
case Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905), meat dealers were charged with
antitrust violations even though they bought the livestock in one
state and sold the meat in another.25 In Swift, the meat dealers’
lawyer argued that based on Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), interstate
commerce meant “only the buying, selling and transport of goods
between states” and that, because the purchase and sale of meat
are both local and independent events, antitrust laws did not apply.26 In fact, Justice Holmes wrote an opinion which expressed
THE CONCORD REVIEW
81
the view that although the buying and selling of meat might be
viewed as local, the two steps were an essential part of the “stream
of interstate commerce” when they were put together.27 Operating a baseball team in one state and then visiting another state
for a competition could have been construed similarly. However,
instead of using these precedents, the Supreme Court focused on
the lack of commercial activity in baseball games and, as a result,
decided that the Commerce Clause did not apply to the industry
of baseball.
Federal Baseball Club entered into constitutional law and
remained unchallenged at the Supreme Court level for more than
thirty years. During this time, the Court had greatly expanded
the reach of the Commerce Clause. For example, in Wickard
v. Filburn (1942) the Supreme Court established that Congress
could regulate intrastate activities that had an effect on interstate
commerce in total. The case was related to wheat production, yet
could easily be interpreted to include baseball games because they
too had, by then, an effect on interstate commerce.28 Similarly,
under United States v. Darby Lumber Co. (1941), the federal government charged Darby with violating the Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938 that established a minimum wage and maximum
hours for employees involved in producing goods for interstate
commerce. Darby argued that regulating intrastate issues such as
in-state labor practices exceeded the reach of Congress, but the
Supreme Court held that Congress could “exclude from interstate
commerce articles which deteriorate[d] the health, welfare, and
morals of the nation” and that “Congress may apply its own vision
of public policy.” 29 With these two cases, the Supreme Court greatly
extended Congress’ authority to regulate businesses.
By the time the second baseball-related case made it to
the Supreme Court in 1953, namely Toolson v. New York Yankees,
the business of baseball had changed significantly. In the Toolson
case, when a minor league player was reassigned to another team,
he sued, claiming that the reserve clause violated antitrust laws.
Although two judges dissented this time, the majority opinion was
“that if there are evils in…[baseball] which now warrant applica-
82
Theodore Hurley
tion of it to the antitrust laws, it should be by legislation.”30 The
Court concluded that Congress should be the branch limiting
baseball’s trust-like aspects and, because Congress had not acted,
the Court also could not now act. However, in Federal Baseball Club,
the Court had found that baseball was not subject to the Commerce
Clause of the Constitution and was thus not subject to federal
government regulation. Therefore, the judges in the Toolson case
clarified that Congress had the authority to regulate baseball if
it so chose. This decision established that baseball is under the
purview of the Commerce Clause, albeit implicitly, because the
majority opinion makes no mention of interstate commerce. The
Court spelled out the reasoning behind this decision when it expressed a concern that baseball had “been left for thirty years to
develop on the understanding that it was not subject to existing
antitrust legislation,” and if were now held to antitrust standards,
past and present players could sue for triple damages retroactively,
thus bankrupting the league.31 A legislative change, on the other
hand, would protect the league from an invalidation of all of its
contracts.32 The Justices legitimately were worried that overturning
the earlier decision would lead to chaos as players sued over past
contracts. Therefore, their only recourse was to explicitly shift the
burden of baseball regulation to Congress.
Another twenty years passed before the Supreme Court
again confronted a baseball case. In Flood v. Kuhn (1972), Curt
Flood, a star player for the St. Louis Cardinals who did not want
to be traded, declared free agency and introduced an antitrust
lawsuit after the Cardinals tried to send him to Philadelphia via
trade.33 In the lower courts, the defense sought to demonstrate
that investors in baseball had assumed that the legislative status
quo would continue and that they “would not have put…money
into” a baseball team if they thought courts would reverse the
exemption.34 Although the lower court criticized Federal Baseball
Club by stating that the case “was not one of Mr. Justice Holmes’
happiest days,” it refused to rule against the two precedents.35 Yet
again, a baseball antitrust case moved up to the Supreme Court.
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83
During the two decades since Toolson had reaffirmed the
Federal Baseball Club decision, the business had grown in ways that
would make it difficult to argue that professional baseball was not
a form of interstate commerce. By 1971 television revenue from
baseball was forty-one million dollars annually and, adjusted for
inflation, that would be $180 million in today’s dollars.36 Therefore,
a significant portion of baseball club owners’ revenue came from
broadcasts of games, especially because the average ticket price
had remained relatively stable in real dollars at $11.50 in 1950 to
$12.57 in 1970.37 Furthermore, between 1953 and 1972, over fifty
bills related to antitrust regulation of baseball had been entered
in Congress, yet none of them had passed, largely because no one
could agree on the best approach for regulating the business.38
Therefore, the situation was ripe for change.
Again the Supreme Court ruled against the player, but this
time with three judges dissenting and one recusing himself from the
case. Although the opinion opens with a celebration of baseball in
which Justice Harry Blackmun whimsically summarizes the history
of the sport and the importance of baseball as America’s pastime,
the majority opinion explicitly states that “professional baseball
is a business…[which] is engaged in interstate commerce.”39 The
opinion continued by clarifying that baseball’s “reserve system
enjoy[s] exemption from the federal antitrust laws, [so] baseball
is…an exception and an anomaly.”40 For the first time, the Court
explicitly recognized baseball’s antitrust exemption and acknowledged that it created a historical footnote in constitutional law,
explaining that this “aberration [is] confined to baseball” and that
“even though others might regard this as ‘unrealistic, inconsistent,
or illogical’…the aberration is an established one.”41 The opinion
cited several cases which supported baseball’s unique established
precedent of antitrust treatment, including Radovich v. National
Football League (1957), where the Court found that the NFL did
not enjoy the same exemption.42 Furthermore, the opinion points
out that it was an “aberration that has been with us now for half a
century…[and should therefore have] benefit of stare decisis” and
that this treatment of baseball “has survived the Court’s expanding
84
Theodore Hurley
concept of interstate commerce.”43 In Flood, the Supreme Court
established that baseball’s status was unique to the particular sport.
Although Major League Baseball was not subject to the
Sherman Act, the Supreme Court reminded everyone that Congress had the authority to regulate baseball. In fact, the Justices
pointed out that baseball enjoyed its own unique set of laws. By
introducing “remedial legislation” multiple times, but never implementing them, the Justices argued that Congress had upheld the
special status. The opinion placed the regulatory situation entirely
into Congress’ domain when Justice Blackmun stated that “[t]he
Court…has concluded that Congress as yet has had no intention
to subject baseball’s reserve system to the reach of the antitrust
statutes” and that the Justices had concluded this lack of action
“to be something other than mere congressional silence and passivity.”44 With this admonishment, the Supreme Court implied
that while Congress should do something about baseball’s reserve
clause, the judicial branch of the government could not.
The wording of the opinion in Flood suggested that the
Justices were in a quandary over maintaining baseball’s exemption from Sherman Act antitrust regulation. Justice Blackmun
wrote that “there is merit in consistency even though some might
claim that beneath that consistency is a layer of inconsistency.”45
Unwilling to overturn a fifty-year-old precedent largely because of
the financial repercussions of the triple damages that a plaintiff
could seek under the Sherman Act, the Supreme Court felt forced
to allow collusive behaviors over labor practices that were clearly
at odds with existing laws for other businesses, including other
professional sports. Although some critics of the Flood decision
have claimed that the Justices based their reasoning on their love
of baseball, by showing restraint in not overruling the previous
baseball cases, the Justices actually aligned themselves with the
Founding Fathers who had established the balance of power
between the three branches of government and left Congress to
write the laws. The Supreme Court chose not to undermine the
business of baseball by overruling the previous decisions, but underscored the need for Congress to pass definitive and relevant
THE CONCORD REVIEW
85
legislation either upholding or removing baseball’s special status
under anti-trust law.
While the Court did not eliminate baseball’s antitrust
exemption, the Flood case encouraged baseball team owners
to compromise in order to avoid legislation from Congress. In
1972, the Major League Baseball Players Association, a recently
organized players’ union, convinced Major League Baseball to
accept collective bargaining and, as a component of that, salary
arbitration.46 Although many players refused to sign contracts
in the years immediately after Flood, others relented to pressure
from their clubs’ management and accepted terms that included a
reserve clause.47 Finally, in 1975, both Dave McNally, a pitcher for
the Baltimore Orioles, and Andy Messersmith, a pitcher for the
Los Angeles Dodgers, played an entire season without agreeing to
new contracts.48 When an arbitrator heard the cases, he ruled that
because the reserve clause did not specifically state that it was in
effect in perpetuity, it was valid for only one season.49 Therefore,
McNally and Messersmith were free agents who were no longer
bound to their teams. Although at first owners were outraged,
worrying that teams with lower payrolls could no longer remain
competitive, they eventually relented and agreed to allow free
agency.50 While baseball technically retained its unique status in
U.S. jurisprudence, through a cooperative effort between the
player union and management, the two sides effectively eliminated
the reserve clause.
Professional baseball continues to hang onto its antitrust
exemption. In fact, Federal Baseball Club, Toolson, and Flood have
only strengthened the judicial anomaly that gives baseball an
exemption that is not enjoyed by any other professional sport in
North America. Each case had a significant impact on the development of the sport of baseball, with Toolson making the exemption
explicit and Flood demonstrating the reluctance of the Court to
the overturn the precedents, but neither would have occurred
without the original Federal Baseball Club case, when few could
have foreseen how big a business baseball could and did become.
Today the decision to evaluate professional baseball as something
86
Theodore Hurley
other than interstate commerce is puzzling, leading some to the
unfounded accusations of judicial bias to protect the business of
baseball. Even though the reserve clause is no longer a part of
baseball players’ contracts, other aspects of baseball’s exemption
still affect the sport today. For example, an owner who hopes to
move his team to a new location requires the permission of other
club owners. The San Francisco Giants are currently blocking efforts by the Oakland Athletics to relocate to San Jose, an area that
Major League Baseball views as Giants’ territory.51 When the city
of San Jose and the Athletics tried to use the legal system to aid
their cause, local judges agreed that the immunity is abnormal,
yet they, like the Supreme Court, felt bound by precedent and
ultimately ruled in favor of the Giants.52 If this case is heard by the
Supreme Court, one can look forward to another debate about
baseball’s unique legal status.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Endnotes
Stuart Banner, The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball’s
Antitrust Exemption, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 54.
2
Ibid., 9.
3
Allen Barra, “How Curt Flood Changed Baseball
and Killed His Career in the Process.” The Atlantic. July 12,
2011. Accessed June 26, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/
entertainment/archive/2011/07/how-curt-flood-changedbaseball-and-killed-his-career-in-the-process/241783/.
4
“How Curt Flood Changed Baseball and Killed His
Career in the Process.”
5
Banner, The Baseball Trust, 83.; “Hooper v. California 155
U.S. 648 (1895),” Justia Law, Accessed June 26, 2015. https://
supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/155/648/case.html.
6
“Federal Baseball Club v. National League 259 U.S. 200
(1922).” Justia Law, Accessed June 7, 2015, https://supreme.
justia.com/cases/federal/us/259/200/case.html.
7
Michael J Haupert, “The Economic History of Major
League Baseball,” EHnet, Accessed June 26, 2015. https://
eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-major-leaguebaseball/.
8
Stuart Banner, The Baseball Trust.
9
“Federal Baseball Club v. National League 259 U.S. 200
(1922).”
10
Ross E. Davies, “A Crank on the Court: The Passion of
Justice William R. Day,” Social Science Research Network. 2009.
Accessed June 26, 2015, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=1555017.
11
Stuart Banner, 82.
12
“A Crank on the Court: The Passion of Justice William R.
Day.”
13
“The Economic History of Major League Baseball.”
14
Banner, 6-7.
15
16
Ibid.
17
Oyez, Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v.
National League of Professional Baseball Clubs Et Al,” Federal
Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional
Baseball Clubs Et Al, Accessed June 7, 2015, http://www.oyez.
org/cases/1901-1939/1921/1921_204.
18
Donald J. Smythe, “The Supreme Court and the Trusts:
Antitrust and the Foundations of Modern American Business
1
87
88
Theodore Hurley
Regulation from Knight to Swift,” The Supreme Court and the
Trusts: Antitrust and the Foundations of Modern American Business
Regulation from Knight to Swift, Accessed June 7, 2015.
19
Banner, 85.
20
Ibid., 9.
21
Ibid., 83.
22
Ibid., 84.
23
Ibid., 83.
24
“United States v. American Tobacco Co. 221 U.S. 106
(1969).” Justia Law, Accessed June 07, 2015, https://supreme.
justia.com/cases/federal/us/221/106/case.html.
25
Alex McBride, “Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905),” PBS,
Accessed June 26, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/
supremecourt/capitalism/landmark_swift.html.
26
“Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905).”
27
Ibid.
28
Lawnix, “Commerce Clause—The Commerce Power of
Congress,” Lawnix Free Case Briefs RSS. Accessed June 07, 2015,
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/commerce-clause.html.
29
“Commerce Clause—The Commerce Power of
Congress.”
30
David Greenberg, “Why Does Baseball Have an Antitrust
Exemption?” Slate, Accessed June 26, 2015. http://www.slate.
com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2002/07/
baseballs_con_game.html.
31
“Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc. 346 U.S. 356 (1953),”
Justia Law. Accessed June 07, 2015, https://supreme.justia.
com/cases/federal/us/346/356/case.html.
32
Banner, 118.
33
Ibid., 189.
34
Ibid., 194.
35
Ibid., 194.
36
37
Ibid.
38
Charles E. Quirk, Sports and the Law: Major Legal Cases,
(New York: Garland Pub., 1996).
39
“Flood v. Kuhn, (1972).” Findlaw. Accessed June 26, 2015.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/407/258.html.
40
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).”
41
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).”
42
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).” ; “Radovich
v. National Football League 352 U.S. 445 (1957),” Justia Law,
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Accessed June 26, 2015. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/
federal/us/352/445/.
43
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).”
44
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).”
45
“Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972).”
46
Baseball Reference, “Reserve Clause.” Baseballreference.com. Accessed June 05, 2015. http://www.baseballreference.com/bullpen/Reserve_clause.
47
“Reserve Clause.”
48
49
50
51
Brent Kendall. “Supreme Court on Deck in MLB
Antitrust Battle?” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2015, Accessed
June 26, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/baseballs-antitrustexemption-upheld-in-appeals-court-1421347744.
52
Ibid.
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Banner, Stuart, The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball’s
Antitrust Exemption. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Barra, Allen, “How Curt Flood Changed Baseball and Killed
His Career in the Process.” The Atlantic. July 12, 2011. Accessed
June 26, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/
archive/2011/07/how-curt-flood-changed-baseball-and-killedhis-career-in-the-process/241783/.
Baseball Reference, “Reserve Clause.” Baseball-reference.
com. Accessed June 05, 2015. http://www.baseball-reference.
com/bullpen/Reserve_clause.
Davies, Ross E., “A Crank on the Court: The Passion of
Justice William R. Day.” Social Science Research Network. 2009.
Accessed June 26, 2015. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.
cfm?abstract_id=1555017.
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Duquette, Jerold J., Regulating the National Pastime: Baseball
and Antitrust. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.
“Federal Baseball Club v. National League 259 U.S. 200 (1922).”
Justia Law. Accessed June 07, 2015. https://supreme.justia.
“Flood v. Kuhn, (1972).” Findlaw. Accessed June 26, 2015.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/407/258.html.
Greenberg, David, “Why Does Baseball Have an Antitrust
Exemption?” Slate. The Slate Group, 2014. Web. 03 June
2015.”Why Does Baseball Have an Antitrust Exemption?” Slate.
Accessed June 26, 2015. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_
and_politics/history_lesson/2002/07/baseballs_con_game.
html.
Hagen, Eric, “Putting the Framers’ Intent Back Into the
Commerce Clause.” The Freeman Foundation for Economic
Education. The Freeman Foundation for Economic Education,
01 Dec. 1996. Web. 07 June 2015.
Harbour, Pamela Jones, The Antitrust Source, December 2007.
Accessed June 26, 2015. https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/
documents/public_statements/418271/dec07_harbour12_17.
authcheckdam.pdf.
Haupert, Michael J., “The Economic History of Major
League Baseball.” EHnet. Accessed June 26, 2015. https://
eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-major-leaguebaseball/.
History.com Staff, “Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Major
League Baseball.” History.com. 2009. Accessed June 26, 2015.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/supreme-courtrules-in-favor-of-major-league-baseball.
“Hooper v. California 155 U.S. 648 (1895).” Justia Law.
Accessed June 26, 2015. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/
federal/us/155/648/case.html.
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Johnson, Calvin H., William & Mary Bill Of Rights Journal
13, no. 1 (2004). October 2004. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://
constitution.org/lrev/cjohnson/pandas_thumb.pdf.
Kendall, Brent., “Supreme Court on Deck in MLB Antitrust
Battle?” Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2015, Accessed June
26, 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/baseballs-antitrustexemption-upheld-in-appeals-court-1421347744.
Lawnix, “Commerce Clause—The Commerce Power of
Congress.” Lawnix Free Case Briefs RSS. Accessed June 07, 2015.
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/commerce-clause.html.
Mannino, Edward F., “Dinan on Mannino, ‘Shaping
America: The Supreme Court and American Society’” H-Law.
2009. Accessed June 26, 2015. https://networks.h-net.org/
node/16794/reviews/17178/dinan-mannino-shaping-americasupreme-court-and-american-society.
McBride, Alex, “Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905).” PBS. PBS,
Dec. 2006. Web. 03 June 2015.”Swift & Co. v. U.S. (1905).”
PBS. Accessed June 26, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/
supremecourt/capitalism/landmark_swift.html.
Oyez, “Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National
League of Professional Baseball Clubs Et Al.” Federal Baseball
Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball
Clubs Et Al. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://www.oyez.org/
cases/1901-1939/1921/1921_204.
Quirk, Charles, E., Sports and the Law: Major Legal Cases. New
York: Garland Pub., 1996.
“Radovich v. National Football League 352 U.S. 445 (1957).”
com/cases/federal/us/352/445/.
Smythe, Donald J., “The Supreme Court and the Trusts:
Antitrust and the Foundations of Modern American Business
Regulation from Knight to Swift.” The Supreme Court and the
Trusts: Antitrust and the Foundations of Modern American Business
Regulation from Knight to Swift. Accessed June 7, 2015.
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“Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc. 346 U.S. 356 (1953).” Justia
Law. Accessed June 07, 2015. https://supreme.justia.com/
cases/federal/us/346/356/case.html.
Totenberg, Nina, “Justice Sotomayor Takes Swing At
Famed Baseball Case.” NPR. May 23, 2013. Accessed June 26,
2015. http://www.npr.org/2013/05/23/186314129/justicesotomayor-takes-swing-at-famed-baseball-case.
“United States v. American Tobacco Co. 221 U.S. 106 (1969).”
OUT OF THE EVERGLADES, CITY UNDAUNTED: MARJORY
STONEMAN DOUGLAS AND THE REMAKING OF THE
WILDERNESS-CITY RELATIONSHIP
Rachel Gold
Out of the Everglades, city undaunted,
Forum of river and trade winds and sea,
Go forward in sight of this earth, that, unvaunted
Waits for your challenge to quicken and be.
Out of the Everglades, rooted and strengthened,
Forward, Miami, go forward and free.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1922
Abstract
This essay examines how writer and Everglades advocate
Marjory Stoneman Douglas impacted the American conception
of and value for wilderness in the 20th century. It responds to the
question, “To what extent did Marjory Stoneman Douglas reconceptualize the wilderness-city relationship?” as a means of assessing
her influence on the broader arc of American environmental history. Though it can be argued that Douglas’ greatest impact came
Rachel Gold is at Brown University. She wrote this IB Extended Essay
for Robert Hines at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville,
Maryland in the 2014/2015 academic year.
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later in her life when she was a leading crusader for Everglades
protection, this essay highlights her early- and mid-life years as a
writer as the critical node in her career path. It examines how her
writing both produced and was a product of her emergence as a
regionalist who appreciated the fates of Miami and the Everglades
as inextricably linked.
An extensive study of Douglas’ writing, including years of
her daily newspaper columns, short stories, novels, and autobiography, was crucial for tracking the development of her views.
Primary sources from America’s earliest environmentalists provided
grounds for demonstrating how Douglas’ work marked a turning
point. By examining the views of those who worked with Douglas,
most notably through an interview with one of her closest friends
and colleagues, this essay reflects Douglas’ evolving beliefs. Finally,
modern scholars’ books and monographs were critical in evaluating the scale of Douglas’ impact from a broader historical view.
In the end, the essay concludes that Douglas was a pioneer who modernized the American wilderness-city relationship
by framing the Everglades as interdependent with Miami. She
justified this interdependence with an evolved understanding of
regionalist theory; she came to believe that in order to develop
Miami into a world-class metropolis, South Floridians needed to
appreciate and cultivate the unique, native qualities of their region, both in terms of what the Everglades could provide to South
Florida materially—namely, a reliable water and soil supply—and
immaterially—a muse, a unifier, and an identity as a region.
Introduction
The American environmental century dawned in the
early 19th century, when naturalists and explorers returned from
the virgin West and invoked in the national conscience a respect
for wild landscapes. These explorers sought to protect the country’s wilderness as the “antipode of civilization, of cities, and of
machines” in industrialized society.1 By the end of the century,
America’s understanding of human society’s interconnectedness
with the environment had led to legislation protecting our land,
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air, and water. Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ 108-year life spanned
this century, and the 1947 publication of her book River of Grass,
“the green Bible of Everglades environmentalism,” served as a
fulcrum in its transformation.2 Douglas, who friends remember as
a “force of nature, energetic and everywhere,” earned the notice
and respect of her community as a newspaper writer. She used
her voice to guide the public of South Florida to a new appreciation of the Everglades, and the nation to a new understanding of
the wilderness-city relationship.3 River of Grass reconceptualized
the long-feared Everglades as a singular landscape and, more
significantly, showed how the Everglades were fundamental to the
identity and health of South Florida. This love of the Everglades
was borne of her love of the city of Miami, for she believed that her
city would only become truly beautiful when its people embraced,
culture reflected, and policies protected its best feature—the Everglades. Douglas and her River of Grass thus marked an at once
quiet and profound turning point in the American conception
of the wilderness.
At five feet, two and half inches, Douglas was diminutive
in stature, but in her characteristic floppy hat and with a voice
that “had the sobering effect of a one-room schoolmarm’s,” she
can only be described as a heavyweight.4 Douglas was a renaissance woman known for her passion for productiveness—at age
83, she asked a reporter, “Do you realize I have practically no life
expectancy and so many things left to do?”5—and her command
of any crowd—former Florida Senator Bob Graham remembers
a Douglas message to the state legislature: “We would safeguard
the health of the Everglades, and if we didn’t, we would spend an
uncomfortable afterlife in hell.”6 But while Douglas was stubborn
and did not want to sacrifice her independence to a husband, she
built a close circle of friends, was quick to laugh, and was deeply
empathetic. Her life picked up steam in old age, when she believed
“there’s no reason you have to be soft in the head” and that life
ought to be lived “vividly and intensely.”7 In the words of her friend
John Rothchild, Douglas projected “a voice of independence, a
voice of reason…a voice that [admitted] no uselessness, bitterness,
and sedentary despair.”8 It is a voice that, in her writing, is often
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brisk and always direct; with no melodrama, but bright with caring, empathy, and overwhelming honesty—with life. It is a voice
we must emulate if our society is to fulfill her vision of a human
world in a balanced interdependence with the natural world. In
becoming the greatest defender of Florida’s Everglades, Douglas
taught that humans must cease viewing the environment as a
separate wild and instead consider it a part of our home.
The Roots of American Environmentalism
The first generation of American environmentalists, who
came of age in the industrial revolution of the early nineteenth
century, saw their society as infected by “the vice of over-industry
and the deadly apathy of luxury.”9 They conceived of America’s
wild landscapes as “fountains of life” entirely separate from cities.10 Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s and John Muir at
the turn of the century spoke of the wilderness in spiritual terms,
calling it “sublime”—a philosophical construct, which according
to Edmund Burke, represented “the strongest emotion which
the mind is capable of feeling.”11 This belief in wilderness as the
sublime antithesis of the corrupting civilization was the premise
of Thoreau’s Walden, Or Life in the Woods [1854]. Thoreau, widely
considered the forebear of American environmentalism, famously
spent two years at the pond in isolation from society so that he
would “be refreshed by the sight of [nature’s] inexhaustible
vigor.”12 Thoreau’s successor in environmentalism, John Muir,
was instrumental in the forming of Yosemite National Park in
1890. Muir’s widely read books about California’s mountains set
a precedent for preserving mountain landscapes that were seen
as home to God.13 Muir denounced the developers who wanted
to dam a “most precious and sublime” valley in Yosemite National
Park as “temple destroyers,” reflecting his vision of mountains as a
sacred space where man could rise to a higher plateau of being.14
During the same years that Muir was exploring and extolling
the American west, Frederick Jackson Turner announced to the
world in 1890 that the American frontier had closed; that there
was no more “free land” to be settled.15 Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”
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touched off a wave of sentimental longing for the wide-open, fundamentally American west. On the heels of this nostalgia grew a
sense of urgency, as Americans, led by the gilded, leisure-seeking
upper strata, decided that the wilderness needed to be preserved.
These two currents—the notion of the sublime wild and a nostalgia
for the American frontier—converged at the dawn of the twentieth
century to give rise to the preservation movement, which in turn
led to the birth of the nation’s first national parks.16 Americans
rushed to preserve lands that were visibly sublime: President Ulysses
S. Grant designated Yellowstone a national park in 1872; Yosemite
followed in 1890, Mt. Rainier in 1899, and Crater Lake in 1902.17
Elevated in scale and beauty, the geysers of Yellowstone
and glaciers of Rainier were an obvious foil to the low and dirtied
condition of city life. Inherent in being wilderness—and more specifically, sublime wilderness worth protecting—was being separate
from modern society. As historian William Cronon articulated,
“This nostalgia for a passing frontier way of life inevitably implied
ambivalence, if not downright hostility, toward modernity and all
that it represented.”18 America’s first national parks and forests
were the product of the desire to escape civilization. Therefore, an
impassable barricade between wild and civilized was, and remains,
fundamental to the identity of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Rainier,
and every national park approved by Congress—until Everglades
National Park was designated in 1934, “upending cultural and
institutional convention” and demanding “that Americans adjust
their panoramic expectations of wilderness.”19
Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Miami
It was far away from the West’s “boundless affluence of
sublime mountain beauty,” amidst the cypress swamps of the
Florida Everglades, that Marjory Stoneman Douglas proclaimed
that human and natural worlds belonged together.20 Unlike her
forebears Thoreau and Muir, who saw the wilderness as a sanctuary from civilization’s evils, Douglas conceived of the Everglades
as “the heart and the center, the core, the meaning of all south
Florida.”21 The first preservationists looked to find God’s face in
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nature, but the climate of preservation in Douglas’ era was moving
from spiritually- to societally-motivated. Douglas, however, took
this evolution of preservationist further still. She appreciated the
degree to which the fates of the Everglades and the surrounding
communities were inextricably linked, both practically—the Everglades provided water to the city—and culturally—the Everglades
were South Florida’s identity. While Muir’s love of the wild was the
product of his aversion to the city, Douglas’ self-proclaimed “friendship” with the Everglades was a result of her deep connection to
Miami.22 Joe Browder, who was a personal friend of Douglas and
who later recruited her to lead a pro-Everglades advocacy group,
said, “Marjory loved the Everglades in part for its own mysteries
and beauties, but largely because she loved almost everything that
sprouted and grew in South Florida, particularly Miami.”23
Douglas arrived in Miami in 1915 at the behest of her
father, Frank Stoneman, who encouraged her to start anew after
a failed marriage. Stoneman himself had started anew in Miami;
he moved to the city after multiple business ventures failed and
bought a printing press, which he and a partner used to establish The Miami Herald in 1910. Douglas was only twenty-five and
Miami was nineteen, having been established at the terminus of
oil baron Henry Flagler’s railroad in 1896.24 Douglas saw Miami
as a young town; speaking for the city and herself, she wrote, “We
are a frontier city and we are the last frontier city.”25 While the
“frontier” settlement had grown into a city by the time Douglas
arrived—the Florida census estimated Miami was home to 15,437
people in 1915—the city was raw in a way to which Marjory could
relate.26 Miami was a budding metropolis, and Henry Flagler’s
Florida East Coast railroad and the newly-opened Dixie Highway
brought a human flood down the Florida coast in “one of history’s
wildest land booms.”27 Frank Stoneman, the managing editor of
the nascent Herald, gave his daughter a perch from which to observe the budding metropolis’ growth when he named her editor
of his newspaper’s society page.28
Douglas became more aware of the consequences of this
growth when she arrived in Paris in 1918 to aid the Red Cross’
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war-relief efforts.29 She was stimulated by the beauty and sophistication of the European cities, and was convinced of her own
city’s potential to grow into a world-class metropolis. Inspired by
Europe, she would later write in the Herald, “Look at Miami. A city
with so many beautiful possibilities that it makes one gasp a little
to think what the merchants of Venice, who built Venice, could
have done with it. Think what those artist-citizens of Florence
could have produced under this sky, by this sea, backed by these
tremendous Everglades.”30 Douglas recognized Miami’s singular
natural setting, and believed that if Miami’s artists and citizens were
to invest themselves in their city’s development, it could rise to
become as beautiful as Paris. Armed with a firm conviction in her
city’s potential, Douglas’ post-journey articles in the Herald argued
for increased funding for Miami’s parks and careful development
of the waterfront to make Miami “the best that has been known
and done and thought in the world.”31
Regionalism
From her desk at the Miami Herald, Douglas was equipped
to voice her newfound dreams for the city, and her deeply-felt care
for the health of Miami clearly manifested in her articles urging
managed growth, improved child welfare, and excellent public
education, among other proposals. Douglas’ articles attracted
the attention of Jessica Waterman Seymour, the president of the
Florida Federation of Garden Clubs.32 Seymour had studied art
and city planning in Europe, and in Florida “carried on the work
of teaching city planning and development of a people.”33 Douglas
said of the civic leader, “Mrs. Seymour had elaborate theories about
regionalism, and noticed that I was writing things about a region
but I wasn’t calling it that.”34 Regionalism, as explained by Douglas
in her column, makes the citizens of a locality “more conscious
of the unique possibilities of that locality” and teaches people to
“enjoy the richness of their own boundaries.”35 By the time the
“new science of the region” had become a widely-accepted arena
in social science in the late 1930s, regionalism had been defined
as the “study of the relation of man to geographic areas, and the
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potentialities which this relation represents in terms of human
welfare in progress.”36 But when Douglas was first introduced to
regionalism, it was a nascent philosophy, being developed and
promoted by University of North Carolina sociologist Howard
Odum. In a broader historical context, regionalism was a response
to the sectionalism that characterized American reconstruction:
whereas sectionalism emphasized divisiveness and rested upon the
clash between northern and southern interests, regionalism “had
an integrative quality” by which unique regions of the country
complemented each other in a unified whole.37 Historian Jack
Davis claims Seymour “likely” introduced Douglas to Social Forces,
the journal Odum founded in 1922 to develop his theories.38
Odum believed in “strength and unity through diversity”; instead
of cultural standardization, he claimed that each region should
develop according to comparative advantage.39
The timing was auspicious, and the two currents of
thought—Odum’s diffusion of the regionalist doctrine, and Douglas’ need to articulate her city’s potential—coincided. Douglas
found in Odum’s ideas an explanation of how Miami could join
the ranks of the European cultural epicenters. The city had to
cultivate and market its most unique assets, including its weather,
its agriculture, and its status as the country’s only tropical state.40
In The Galley, she proclaimed Odum’s journal a “splendid organ of
modern social thought.”41 She soon incorporated the regionalist
ethos into her Galley columns, writing that “people from all over
the United States can come here to study tropical growths, to see
how tropical trees and plants and shrubs can be utilized in making the loveliest city in the world.”42 Douglas had felt profoundly
connected to Miami since her arrival in 1915, and had envisaged
the city’s potential since her European tour, but it was her schooling in regionalism that gave her the tools to articulate Miami’s
singularity. By late 1922 and early 1923, her writing indicates the
onset of the realization that only when the young city’s design,
institutions, and citizens were a product of the physical region
would Miami rise to the level of Florence and Paris.
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Yet for all Douglas’ evangelizing about the city’s potential,
her voice was muted by developers and realtors’ feverish promotion of the city. As south Florida barreled into an era of explosive
growth in the 1920s, Douglas lamented how the influx “in one
season began to change the shape and color and feeling of Miami”
as “business lots, house lots, buildings, and tracts beyond tracts
began to sell and resell as fast as the papers could be made out.”
Paper profits were dizzy.43 Investors, realtors, and buyers flooded
the city; in 1920, Miami had one high-rise building, and by 1925,
more than thirty skyscrapers were under construction.44 Michael
Grunwald characterized Miami as “the epicenter of the insanity”:
It was the Jazz Age, a fizzy time of rising hemlines and soaring markets. Life on the south Florida frontier felt especially out of control,
like a never-ending party that lacked adult supervision…Nothing
was crazier than the real estate market. A veteran who had swapped
an overcoat for ten acres of beachfront after World War I found the
property worth $25,000 during the boom. A screaming mob snapped
up 400 acres of mangrove shoreline in three hours for $33 million;
some of the speculators were so desperate to buy lots in the future
Miami Shores that they threw checks at salesmen.45
Finding Meaning in the Everglades
It became evident to Douglas that her regionalist ideas
did not hold up in the face of this hurried development. She had
previously praised this development, writing a Galley poem in 1920
celebrating the ways in which humans improved the landscape:
“Gardens and gracious lanes and new set trees/ Swept streets
and shiny, careful subdivisions… A city rising to a mighty future/
Greater than all men’s dreams that gave it rapture.”46 This poem
reflected the regionalism of Odum’s protégé, Rupert Vance, who
in his 1932 manifesto on the subject, called for “a survey of the
region-as-is” to be followed by “a blue print of the region as it can
be reconstructed.”47 By Vance’s logic, Miami’s natural features were
only so good as the human improvements—the gardens, gracious
lanes, and careful subdivisions—that manipulated them towards a
utopian end.48 Though Odum and Vance published their theories
in the 1930s, when Douglas, too, published the short stories that
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marked the maturation of her own brand of regionalism, their
developing ideas reached Douglas through the women’s clubs
and messengers like Seymour. As Douglas witnessed Miami’s
unchecked growth, her writings demonstrate her realization that
the current theories of regionalism, with their desire to control
native landscapes, fell short. She noted in The Galley at the end of
1923, “It takes a quick kind to keep up with Miami these days…
the shores of what should be a beautiful river front seem choked
with debris. So for all of our development, here and there a beautiful new building, of right and harmonious proportions, changes
violently our conception of all Miami.”49 Aware of the scars hurried growth would leave on her city of infinite potential, Douglas
began to develop her own brand of regionalism.
While the artificial city grid and tropical landscaping that
developers engineered in Miami were indicative of a metropolis
on the rise, they were not reflective of the life and tradition of the
region; they did not teach people to enjoy the richness of their
own boundaries. What did embody the richness of Miami, however, was the very victim of Vance’s reconstruction: the region-as-is.
And in southern Florida, the region-as-is was the Everglades. In
a reflection of her changing conception of regionalism, Douglas
lamented in late 1922 the destruction of native pine trees in favor
of transplanted species: “If people will only give up a few of their
preconceived notions about what this country ought to be like
and really see its charms for what it really is, we will much sooner
begin to develop it properly.”50 Further evidence of her evolved
views on regionalism is evident in the late 1922 Galley statement,
“It is especially important that we who are here trying to build
up a new region, trying to devise new ways and means of living in
the tropics, trying to shape our civilization of the future…will find
that we cannot get away from the geography of our own region.
It should be taught that way in schools.”51
In a drastic shift from her poem hailing the city’s streets
and subdivisions, Douglas published in The Galley a lyrical statement
expressing her new and transformative view that the meaning of
South Florida would arise out of the Everglades:
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Out of the Everglades, city undaunted,
Forum of river and trade winds and sea,
Go forward in sight of this earth, that, unvaunted
Waits for your challenge to quicken and be.
Out of the Everglades, rooted and strengthened,
Forward, Miami, go forward and free.52
Douglas had first ventured out into the Everglades around 1920,
when she and her friends would drive into the wetlands, build a
fire in the middle of the road, and watch the sun rise.53 She found
“nothing more invigorating and thrilling” than watching “the
clouds piling high in great soft toned mountains, over the wide
expanse of lavish green earth.”54 She wrote in 1923, “It seems to
me that this year will be marked upon the annals of South Florida
as the year when people became more and more vividly aware
of the Everglades,” reflecting her own growing awareness of the
Glades’ bounty.55 In late 1923, Douglas’ frustration with having to
meet constant Herald deadlines drove her to leave the newspaper,
leave her father’s home to build a house of her own, and earn
her livelihood writing short stories. She loved the privacy of the
compact, practical, airy home. She loved the brick patio open to
the sunsets and the breezes. But most of all, she loved the freedom to dictate her own life—and, increasingly, venture into the
Everglades. Historian Jack Davis writes that during this period,
“South Florida turned out Douglas.”56
If Douglas’ Galley musings from the early 1920s indicated
the roots of a regionalist voice, her stories and short books of the
late 1920s and 1930s marked the flowering of that voice. Douglas
had always wanted to write fiction, and she found an immediate
outlet in the Saturday Evening Post, the well-known weekly magazine
with nearly three million subscribers.57 The Post’s editor, George
Lorimer, was a proponent of the national park movement, and
he accepted nearly all of Douglas’ submissions: fifty-seven of her
stories were published in sixteen years.58 Though some of the stories were set in the Caribbean and World War I-era Europe, many
were set in south Florida and displayed a keen sensitivity to and
appreciation of the rhythms of Everglades life. In 1926, Douglas
wrote in the story “A River in Flood,” “The blue water danced
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with sparkling patches of glitter. The palm fronds and shiny oak
leaves on the shore thrashed and glittered as the morning wind
raced headlong and fresh from the sea.”59 Sawgrass, high winds,
fierce hurricanes, and endless pines figured prominently in her
characters’ lives, but Douglas was quick to point out that she was
not a “nature writer.”60
Rather, her stories explored “the dialectic between humans
and nature.”61 Douglas was, first and foremost, an urban creature
and a lover of Miami, and wrote about people in relation to their
environment, as in her 1925 story “Pineland”: “Sometimes, the pine
woods came so near the road he could smell their sunny resinous
breath… He felt the comprehension of them growing upon him—
the silence of their trunks, the loveliness of their tossed branches.”62
This interaction between the human and natural worlds reflects
Howard Kantor’s interpretation of Odum’s regionalist philosophy,
“in which time, space, and people are considered together. No
group of people would be separated from their natural geographic
or cultural base.”63 In her semiautobiographical writings, Douglas’
characters were often transplants to Miami from the Northeast or
Midwest, and as these characters interacted with their new landscapes, they adapted. Agnes Page, for example, in the 1925 story
“Goodness Gracious, Agnes” moves to Florida from Boston and
projects a “female rugged individualism” in stopping wildcat-dog
fights in the Everglades. This Floridian machismo represents not
Vance’s regionalism, in which the region as a “complex of physical forces ends by being so re-shaped by the human groups which
occupy it that it emerges as a cultural product,” but Douglas’ own
regionalism, in which the physical forces of a region shape both
the individual humans and collective culture occupying it.64 Thus,
through her short stories, Douglas fulfilled the vision of regionalism she had laid out in The Galley years before; she showed how
people stood to benefit from not only enjoying, but adapting to
and drawing inspiration from, the richness of their own boundaries in the Everglades.
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Voice of the River
For 120 miles, from Lake Okeechobee in the center of
the Florida peninsula until Florida Bay at its tip, the Everglades
sweep downwards, a subtle yet exceptionally complex river of
pinelands, mangroves, cypress swamps, and lakes. 65 Before white
men stepped foot in the Everglades in the 1800s, south Florida’s
skies were filled with so many birds that a flock in flight darkened
the skies, and their sawgrass stood resolute even against the force
of a hurricane.66 Species ranging from the American alligator to
wild orchids comprise the intricate web of Everglades life. The
web is supported by rains that feed Okeechobee each year, causing the lake to flood and water to drop over its southern lip; the
water then flows southward at a rate of a few feet per minute,
heading towards the Gulf of Mexico. In the words of Douglas,
“the whole system was like a set of scales on which the forces of
the seasons, of the sun and the rains, the winds, the hurricanes,
and the dewfalls, were balanced so that the life of the vast grass
and all its encompassed and neighbor forms were kept secure.”67
Until the 1940s, few saw the Everglades in such a positive
light—if with any appreciation at all. The U.S. government’s first
survey of the Everglades had dismissed them as a fetid swamp,
“suitable only for the haunt of noxious vermin,”68 and settlers
and explorers appreciated the wetlands only for their potential
to be transformed into farmland. Though the benefits of the wetlands—filling groundwater repositories with freshwater for urban
use, controlling the flow of water to keep coastal cities dry, and
providing habitat for wildlife—were beginning to be recognized,
government at every level remained committed to extracting
resources. In 1850, Congress passed the Swamp and Overflow
Land Grant Act, turning thirty thousand acres of land over to
the state government, which would serve only as a middleman for
agricultural and railroad interests.69 Florida governor Napoleon
Bonaparte Broward declared war on the Everglades’ water during his 1904 campaign for governor, setting in motion an assault
on the harmony of water and grass.70 The 1904 city directory
celebrated, “before the weapons of civilization, wielded by an
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army of energetic men, the almost impenetrable tropical growths
melted away, and in its place the hand of progress set its mark.”71
Douglas framed the push towards drainage differently: “The only
argument [for drainage] was a schoolboy’s logic. The drainage
of the Everglades would be a Great Thing. Americans did Great
Things. Therefore, Americans would drain the Everglades.”72 As
this “schoolboy’s logic” was carried to fruition, the Everglades’
water was dredged, birds killed, and vitality diminished: only fifty
percent of the original expanse of Everglades remains, and that
half, by the 1940s, was “pushed to the brink of ecological death.”73
The effort to halt this destruction, with which Douglas
was, at most, marginally involved, began gaining steam in the
mid-1920s. Ernest Coe, a developer who believed fervently in the
Everglades’ value and set himself single-mindedly to the task of
preserving them, founded the Tropical Everglades National Park
Association in 1928. Coe lobbied ardently for the park, first targeting the state government in Tallahassee, and ultimately traveling
to Washington to sell the park to legislators. In January 1930, he
led a Park Service delegation around the Everglades; Coe brought
Douglas along, knowing her “militant love of the region” and
access to influential publications would serve his cause.74 Coe’s
own militant loves were the flora and fauna of the wetlands; he
studied the land in maps and scientific papers, and would spend
nights in the grass, with just a blanket between himself and the
sky. He was a nature-first conservationist: he believed, with such
fanaticism that he ostracized many initial supporters, that the
Everglades “ought to be preserved for its own sake” and wanted
to protect the entire expanse of the wetlands, from Okeechobee
to the ocean.75 Fighting allegedly with, but mostly against, Coe
was Florida governor Spessard Holland, who considered the park
“the single biggest business proposition pending.”76 Holland was a
people-first conservationist, who believed the park would be a gold
mine for the tourist, agriculture and oil drilling industries.77 Coe
had envisaged the entirety of the Everglades protected, whereas
Holland, who was elected to the Senate in 1946, was willing to appease constituents and compromise territory. In the end, thanks
to both Coe’s unyielding crusade and Holland’s power brokering,
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Everglades National Park was dedicated on December 6, 1947.
Built in the image of the people-first conservationists, the park
was “badly shrunken piecemeal” from Coe’s original vision, but
it was in Florida to stay.78
In a parallel development—one that reflecting growing
interest in the Everglades but that was outside of Coe’s efforts—a
friend of Douglas’ working on the Rivers of America book series
approached Douglas, now widely known for her Galley columns
and short stories, in the early 1930s and asked her to write a volume on the Miami River. Douglas, who said to her friend, “You
can’t write a book about the Miami River. It’s only about an inch
long,” proposed writing about the Everglades instead.79 Douglas
signed a contract to write about “Miami River, South, and the
Everglades”—and produced, in 1947, the re-named volume,
Everglades: River of Grass. The quietly groundbreaking decision to
label the Everglades a “river of grass” was borne of conversations
with U.S. Geological Survey scientist Garald Parker, who taught
her about the flowing nature of the system.80 In one of many
conversations with Parker, Douglas asked if she could safely call
it a river of grass. “He said he thought I could,” Douglas said in
her autobiography, and in an uncharacteristically self-accrediting
acknowledgment of her decision’s significance, she wrote, “Some
years later, my colleague Art Marshall said that with those three
words I changed everybody’s knowledge and educated the world
as to what the Everglades meant.”81 Granted, Douglas was not
the first to publicly describe the Everglades as a sheet of moving
water. In 1897, explorer Hugh Willoughby, a former naval officer,
“embarked on a Lewis-and-Clark-style journey of discovery across
the Everglades” in a dugout canoe.82 In writing, “It will be my endeavor to show…that the word swamp, as we understand it, has
no application whatever to the Everglades; that it is a country of
pure water; that this water is moving in one direction or another,”
Willoughby preceded Douglas’ recognition by half a century.83
Four factors set Douglas apart: her emphatic call for preservation,
the extent to which the book wove together natural history and
human history, the book’s appeal to a wide public audience, and
the regionalist nature of her claims.
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Firstly, Douglas’ integration of a full human history—she
spoke with experts on Florida Indians, black Seminoles, slaves, and
Spanish—with natural history was unprecedented.84 Only the first
chapter of River of Grass is exclusively about the natural aspects of
the Everglades. The following fourteen chapters illustrate in great
detail the human history of South Florida, charting a path from
the native tribes of the Glades to the European conquerors of the
16th through 18th centuries, and finally to Florida’s 20th century
population explosion. Douglas had a great respect for the natives
who lived in a symbiotic harmony with the land and its resources.85
She demonstrated, in the words of environmental scholar Michael Branch, a “recognition that stories about landscapes are
ultimately inextricable from stories about human dwellers in the
land.”86 Furthermore, Douglas’ work appealed to a wide public
audience. She was a natural storyteller, with “mellifluous prose
and her impressively bold declarations [that] enthralled readers,” and the book received press in the New York Times, Chicago
Tribune, and civic clubs around the state. Thus, Douglas not only
subverted the enduring image of the miasmic swamp, but did so
on the biggest stage, without inhibitions, and in language that appealed to academics, book critics, elected officials, and the reading
public. This transformation of the Everglades’ image is enough
to render Douglas’ work a turning point. But River of Grass went
beyond transforming past misconceptions; Douglas concludes
with a jarring warning for the future. She conjures the damages
Broward and his peers had inflicted: “The whole Everglades were
burning. What had been a river of grass and sweet water that had
given meaning and life and uniqueness to this whole enormous
geography…was made, in one chaotic gesture of greed and ignorance and folly, a river of fire.”87
Finally, and most significantly, Douglas’ entire work rests on
a regionalist foundation—a foundation thirty years in the making.
River of Grass reflects an intense love of the region, and a governing belief that the natural and human realms of the region must
be considered and respected in the same frame of reference; in
a single “vast unified harmonious whole.”88 Whereas Ernest Coe
was a nature-first conservationist and Spessard Holland a people-
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first conservationist, Douglas, in River of Grass, showed herself
to be in a category apart: she was a region-first conservationist.
Coe was willing to compromise the city’s interests in the name of
expanding the park; Holland sacrificed wild lands in the name
of appeasing the city. Douglas, however, loved nature, but not at
the expense of the city, and loved the city, but not at the expense
of the natural realm. Her book pulses with love for both Miami—
which “grew with the thrust and vigor of a tropical organism”—and
the wetlands—with the “sweetness of their massive winds, under
the dazzling blue heights of space”—as well as an anger at those
whose “inertia and pigheadedness” rendered them blind to the
connectedness of the realms.89 In Douglas’ regionalist conception,
the people of Miami owed the Everglades respect, reverence, and,
increasingly, protection, in return for what the Everglades provided
to man: a supply of fresh water and fertile soil upon which to build
the city itself, and a supply of singular character and inspiration
upon which to build that city’s identity.
Much of River of Grass discusses the pragmatic significance
of the Everglades in satisfying the cities’ need for water. Since “the
domestic water supply for the east coast cities is dependent upon
the store of water in the permeable rock,” and drainage and flood
control manipulations had not only diminished this store but
exposed it to saltwater intrusion, south Florida’s water supply was
in critical danger.90 Douglas wrote that the Everglades basin was
“the central support for our South Florida existence—the drinking water, all our water, all our rainfall. If the flow stops, it would
mean the destruction of South Florida.”91 Parallel to this utilitarian
value was the more spiritual value of the Everglades as the source
of the region’s identity: as a wellspring of inspiration for art and
architecture, a unifying force in a community characterized by
sprawl, a preservationist cause to which individuals could devote
themselves, and as she had found in her own life, a source of love
and pride. She captured this value in her book’s oft-quoted first
line: “There are no other Everglades in the world.”92 Joe Browder,
one of Douglas’ closest friends and colleagues, sees these material
and immaterial merits as fundamentally and necessarily linked. In
his view, “Marjory clearly understood the convergence of interest
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between those who appreciate the Everglades for its biological
and aesthetic values, and those who depend on water from the
Everglades system as an asset for urban development and for agriculture. When writing River of Grass, that’s all she saw.”93
In judging the immediate reception of River of Grass, scholars’ views vary. Environmental historian Paul Sutter claims that the
volume was “hugely popular from its first appearance” and “gave
readers a new way of understanding what the Everglades were and
how they worked—not a stagnant swamp but a vast and flowing
‘river of grass,’ unique and worthy of protection.”94 Browder, on
the other hand, agrees that Douglas was significant as a regional
writer, but contends that her book had “very little national impact”
at the time of publication and only served to make Marjory “Miami’s
best-known local writer,” a platform that became significant later
in her life when she became the voice of the Everglades preservation movement.95 Browder worked closely with Douglas during this
stage of her life; it was he who, in November 1969, encouraged
her to found the Friends of the Everglades organization. At the
time, Browder was the head of the National Audubon Society in
Miami and leading a crusade against a proposed oil refinery in
the Everglades, and he needed a “voice with an impeccable public
record as a teller of important truths about Florida.”96 Together,
Browder and Douglas “save[d] the Everglades from jet planes, a
mass transit system, and urban sprawl” in a series of campaigns
that earned Douglas the name “Grand Dame of the Everglades.”97
It thus makes sense that Browder would consider River of Grass a
prelude—a necessary one, but a prelude nonetheless—to her years
as a vocal advocate. But the book, and Douglas’ short stories and
Galley columns, did far more than simply lay a foundation from
which Douglas could later preach the gospel of the Everglades.
River of Grass, in teaching Floridians to value what the Everglades
provided to Miami and thus consider the wetlands a part of their
home, became the backbone of a local movement, and when that
movement became national, effected an at once quiet and seismic
shift in American wilderness understanding.
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Thus emerges the significance of River of Grass as a work
and Douglas as an environmentalist. Since the pioneering conservation philosophy of Thoreau and action of Muir, American
wilderness appreciation had insisted that the value of the wild lay
in its separateness from the city, and that “an infinite and unaccountable friendliness” in nature “made the fancied advantages of
human neighborhood insignificant.”98 Douglas, however, placed
the natural and human worlds in the same neighborhood, in a
sustainable interdependence that benefited both the wilderness
and the city as it defined and elevated the region she loved. In her
conception, to care for a city and the humans that inhabit it is to
care for its surrounding wilderness. This conception, articulated
in River of Grass and further engraved in Florida’s conscience with
each purchase of the book—it has been re-released numerous
times—is the vision of preservationism and environmentalism
that drove the fight to save the Everglades, which in many ways,
drove the next chapters of the American preservation movement.
Serving as the “constitution for Everglades protection,” the book
changed the public’s view of the wetlands so that, for example, in
the 1960s when local government, with its “vociferous willingness
to destroy the Everglades,” wanted to erect a massive airport in
the wetlands, “that kind of attitude no longer held currency in
the public arena.”99 With the eyes of the Nixon administration,
the National Academy of Sciences, and media outlets ranging
from Playboy to Walter Cronkite focused on the Everglades, in the
1960s, the south Floridian sense that “made everyone feel they
were stewards of the Everglades” seeped into the national conscience.100 In NBC News’ Emmy-winning documentary about the
Everglades jetport fight, interior secretary Wally Hickel told host
Hugh Downs and the national audience, “I think there’s been a
new set of values, and it isn’t just the young who are talking about
ecology—it’s America as a whole.”101 Thus, the campaign to save
the Everglades became a major current, flowing alongside Rachel
Carson’s book Silent Spring and the anti-pesticide movement it
inspired, the first Earth Day celebration, a growing Sierra Club
and National Audubon Society, and other environmental developments, in the stream of change that rendered “the late 1960s
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and early 1970s a turning point in the environmental history of
the Everglades and of the entire nation.”102
Some historians cast doubt on Douglas’ status as a pioneering environmentalist. Firstly, while writing The Galley and as
a short-story writer, she expressed acceptance of the import of
non-native flora that “contributed elementally to the essence and
hue of the natural setting”—an ecologically-damaging practice
she later discredited.103 Later, when River of Grass was published,
Douglas supported the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to control
the flooding of the Everglades and limit saltwater intrusion into
the city’s drinking supply.104 In a 1947 unpublished essay, Douglas
called the government’s plan, the Central and Southern Florida
Project (C&SF Project), “the first scientific, well-thought-out plan
the Everglades has ever known.”105 The government’s flood control
effort, however, served commercial developers at the expense of
the wetlands’ natural balance: the C&SF Project, run by farmers
and businessmen, refused to share water with the park, siphoning
massive quantities of freshwater to farms.106 It was not until 1959
that Douglas first turned against the Corps and acknowledged
the “great agricultural interests” were damaging the wetlands.107
However, historian and Douglas scholar Jack Davis wrote of the
misguided belief, “[Douglas] had no way of knowing at the time
that in truth the Corps put little importance in the park.”108 Davis claimed that “even if Douglas stumbled before reaching the
mountaintop, such stumbling is natural.” Douglas’ evolving view
on the subject must not undermine what must be viewed as her
groundbreaking conception of the Everglades as a river of grass
whose fate was intertwined with that of human society.109
The claim can also be made that Douglas’ greatest contributions to the Everglades and to the American conservation
movement came later in life, when she was leading Friends of
the Everglades and crisscrossing the state exhorting Floridians to
protect the wetlands. Indeed, it was during this career as a fulltime activist that she became “Grand Dame of the Everglades.” But
Douglas only had this impact as a crusader because she had spent
years inspiring the local public to connect to the Everglades and
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find meaning in the wetlands. It was through her Galley columns
and short stories that Douglas first experimented with regionalism and developed the theory that manifested so visibly in River of
Grass, and it was this regionalist appreciation of the nature-culture
symbiosis that makes River of Grass so significant. These newspaper pieces and short stories also rendered Douglas the voice of
South Florida, ultimately providing for the dissemination of her
regionalist theories into the public’s understanding. Therefore,
River of Grass, which culminated the evolution of Douglas’ wilderness-city conception, the ascendance of the Everglades into the
national conscience, and the absorption of regionalist philosophy
into environmental thinking, is the critical fulcrum in Douglas’
influence, and Douglas’ conception of the link between the natural
and human worlds becomes extremely influential in the sweep of
environmental history.
Conclusion
River of Grass would go on to change the public image of
the Everglades, not only by subverting the age-old idea that it was
a miasmic swamp, but also by bringing the city and the wilderness
into the same sphere, and saying that they could—and must—coexist. The book’s importance would evolve over the next century, as
Douglas herself came to take a more active role in advocating for
Everglades preservation. But it was River of Grass that established
for the first time that the Everglades were the keystone to the
health and identity of South Florida. No longer would the ideas
of Thoreau and Muir—that civilization was full of evils and the
wild, as its antipode, the home of God—dominate the American
wilderness protection movement. While Thoreau wrote, “On this
side is the city, on that is the wilderness, and ever am I leaving the
city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness,” Douglas
conceived of the city and wilderness as on the same side.110 “The
most important thing to us, the one factor which colors and shapes
our lives and has always colored and shaped the lives of man, is this
wrinkled old Earth beneath our feet,” she wrote.111 The barricade
that divided civilization and wilderness in the country’s first national
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parks did not exist in the Everglades, making it the first modern
national park, and nor did it exist in Douglas’ mind, making her
one of the first modern American environmentalists. Douglas
cast the Everglades as essential for both the water and fertile soil
they provide to sustain humans physically, and the identity they
provide to sustain us culturally and emotionally.
In teaching that the wild and the civilized must together
make up the landscape of society, Douglas gave us the conception
of the wilderness that we must carry forward if we are to lead sustainable and fulfilling lives on this planet. As human populations
expand and environmental resources contract, it is Douglas’ view of
the natural world as an essential partner to the human world that
will give us the impetus to protect wilderness—not just mountains
and wetlands, but the spectrum of flora and fauna to be found in
neighborhood woods, rural plains, even urban parks—and build
more inspired cities. In the words of environmental historian
William Cronon:
We need to embrace the full continuum of a natural landscape that
is also cultural, in which the city, the suburb, the pastoral, and the
wild each has its proper place, which we permit ourselves to celebrate
without needlessly denigrating the others...In particular, we need
to discover a common middle ground in which all of these things,
from the city to the wilderness, can somehow be encompassed in
the word “home.”112
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Endnotes
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed.
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 157.
2
Jack E. Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman
Douglas and the American Environmental Century, Environmental
History and the American South (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 2009), p. 5.
3
Joe Browder, e-mail interview by the author, December
21, 2014. Douglas met Browder in 1969 when he was leading
the National Audubon Society’s Miami chapter. He was
spearheading a crusade against a proposed oil refinery in
the Everglades, and needed an individual to serve as a public
face for and to lend energy, gravitas, and recognition to his
campaign. In a now-legendary series of events, when Browder’s
assistant stumbled into Douglas in a grocery store in 1969,
Douglas told the assistant to call her if Browder needed
anything. Browder, then campaigning against a jetport being
built in the middle of the Everglades, indeed needed help, and
he called Douglas. He convinced her to found an organization
to advocate for the Everglades, and in November 1969, Friends
of the Everglades was born. The group quickly grew to form
the main pro-Everglades advocacy network. Douglas and
Browder would remain close friends and co-workers until the
end of Douglas’ life. Browder went on to occupy a series of
environmental posts in the U.S. government.
4
John Rothchild, “Notes from a Fan,” introduction
to Voice of the River, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas and John
Rothchild (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1987), p. 14.
5
Eric Sharp, “‘River of Grass’ protection championed,”
The Daytona Beach News-Journal (Daytona Beach, FL), April 15,
1973, Features, p. 8E.
6
144 Cong. Rec. 9637 (May 19, 1998) (statement of
Senator Bob Graham). Accessed January 3, 2015.
7
Marjory Stoneman Douglas and John Rothchild, Voice of
the River (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1987), p. 258.
8
Ibid., p. 24.
9
John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1901), p. 1.
10
Ibid.
11
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of
Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 5th ed. (London: J. Dodsley,
1767), pp. 58-59. Burke was a pioneering British statesman
1
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and philosopher. His 1767 “Philosophical Enquiry” was the
first treatise to separate the “sublime” from the “beautiful”; he
defined the sublime as that which inspires awe and tightens,
instead of relaxes, the body. According to Cronon, the word’s
“modern usage has been so diluted by commercial hype and
tourist advantage that it retains only a dim echo of its former
power.”
12
Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or Life in the Woods, ed.
Francis Henry Allen, Riverside Literature Ser. 195 (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910), p. 419.
13
John Muir, The Mountains of California (New York: The
Century Company, 1907), p. 179.
14
John Muir, The Yosemite, (New York: The Century
Company, 1912), p. 261.
15
Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the
Frontier in American History” (paper presented at the
American Historical Association, Chicago, July 12, 1893),
accessed August 14, 2014, www.fordham.edu/halsall/
mod/1893turner.asp.
16
William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or,
Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” in Uncommon Ground:
Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York, N.Y.: W.W.
Norton, 1996), p. 73.
17
“National Parks Timeline,” The National Parks: America’s
Best Idea, last modified 2009, accessed December 21, 2014,
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/history/timeline/.
18
Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” p. 77.
19
Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory, p. 366.
20
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), p. 153.
21
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, “River of Grass,” The
Rotarian: Florida and the Caribbean 95, no. 5 (November 1959),
p. 21.
22
Douglas and Rothchild, Voice of the River, p. 233.
23
Joe Browder, e-mail interview by the author, November
15, 2014.
24
Michael Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida,
and the Politics of Paradise (Bridgewater: Paw Prints/Baker &
Taylor, 2008), p. 107. Flagler made his fortune in the booming
American oil industry of the 1870s, and then devoted it to
realizing his visions of Florida. He wanted to transform what
he considered to be Florida’s worthless wasteland into an
extravagant civilization, and when Miami was incorporated, its
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117
citizens wanted to name the city “Flagler.” Hoping to expand
Miami, he began cutting and burning the pine forests of the
Everglades—embedding Everglades destruction in the city’s
agenda.
25
Douglas, Miami Herald, Dec. 29, 1922, quoted in The
Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman
Douglas, ed. Jack E. Davis (Gainesville: University of Florida
Press, 2006), p. 57.
26
“N.B. Crusoe Opens New Factory in Miami: Tourist
Trade of Bumper Proportions,” United States Tobacco Journal 85
(1916), p. 33.
27
Grunwald, The Swamp: The Everglades, p. 176.
28
Frank Stoneman, born in Indiana and raise in
Minnesota, married Lillian Trefethen in Minneapolis and the
two had Marjory in 1890. Frank was, according to Davis on page
54 of An Everglades Providence, a “persistent competitor in the
race for middle-class stability,” but all his business ventures—
running a grocery store, managing a loans department, selling
oil—ultimately failed. Lillian, meanwhile, began having mental
breakdowns. Slipping into madness, Lillian began saying that
Frank wanted to kidnap Marjory, and ultimately left Frank
to raise Marjory with her side of the family in Massachusetts.
Abandoned, Frank left for Florida in 1896 to start a new life.
29
“Mrs. Marjory Stoneman Douglas goes to France for Red
Cross Work.” Miami Herald (September 6, 1918), p. 3.
30
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, The Galley, The Miami
Herald, October 8, 1922, p. 24.
31
Ibid.
32
In her autobiography, Voice of the River, Douglas wrote,
“one important influence on my column was Mrs. Robert
Morris Seymour…I have to thank Mrs. Seymour for steering me
toward the Everglades” (p. 135). According to the entry titled
“Seymour, Mrs, Robert Morris” in Woman’s Who’s Who of America:
A Bibliographic Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United
States and Canada, edited by John William Leonard, Seymour
had been a major patron of the arts and an active women’s club
member as an adult in Minneapolis, where she was director
of the St. Paul Institute of Arts and Sciences. It was there she
taught classes in city planning and became acquainted with the
theories of regional development. She retired to Florida, where
she helped found the Miami Community Council of Civic Clubs
and led classes about city planning and regionalism.
118
Rachel Gold
“Accomplishments of Miami Woman Breathe the Spirit
of America,” Miami Herald (Miami), May 25, 1964, p. 5A.
34
35
Douglas, The Galley, quoted in Jack E. Davis, An
Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American
Environmental Century, Environmental History and the American
South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 283.
36
Carol Aronovici, “Regionalism: A New National
Economy,” Columbia University Quarterly, December 1936: p. 268,
quoted in Howard Odum, American Regionalism: A CulturalHistorical Approach to National Integration, (New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 1938), p. 16.
37
Harvey A. Kantor, “Howard W. Odum: The Implications
of Folk, Planning, and Regionalism,” American Journal of
Sociology 79, no. 2 (September 1973), p. 285. accessed January 8,
2015, JSTOR.
38
Jack E. Davis, “Up from the Sawgrass: Marjory Stoneman
Douglas and the Influence of Female Activism in Florida
Conservation,” in Making Waves: Female Activism in TwentiethCentury Florida, ed. Jack E. Davis and Kari Frederickson
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), p. 159.
39
George L. Simpson, Jr., “Howard W. Odum and
American Regionalism,” Social Forces 34, no. 1 (1955):
p. 104, accessed August 18, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/2572822.
40
Douglas, The Galley, Miami Herald, December 21, 1922,
p. 4.
41
Douglas, The Galley. Miami Herald, December 30, 1922
quoted in Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory, p. 268.
42
Douglas, The Galley. Miami Herald, October 8, 1922,
p. 24.
43
Marjory Stoneman Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass,
60th anniversary ed. (1947; repr., Sarasota: Pineapple Press,
2007), p. 334.
44
45
Ibid., p. 177.
46
Douglas, Miami Herald, July 17, 1921, quoted in The Wide
Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, ed.
Jack E. Davis (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2006),
p. 46.
47
Rupert B. Vance, Human Geography of the South: A Study in
Regional Resources and Human Adequacy (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1932), p. 483.
33
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119
Robert L. Dorman, Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist
Movement in America, 1920-1945, H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs
Lehman Ser. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2003), p. 134.
49
Douglas, Miami Herald, October 13, 1923, p. 16.
50
Douglas, Miami Herald, November 11, 1922, p. 6.
51
Douglas, Miami Herald, December 21, 1922, p. 4.
52
Douglas, “Out of the Everglades,” Miami Herald, March
15, 1922, p. 4.
53
54
Douglas, Miami Herald, June 23, 1923, p. 6.
55
Douglas, Miami Herald, March 20, 1923.
56
57
Ibid., p. 312.
58
Ibid., p. 316.
59
Kevin McCarthy, comp., A River in Flood, and Other Florida
Stories (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998), p. 97.
60
61
Ibid., p. 323.
62
Ibid., p. 325.
63
Kantor, “Howard W. Odum: The Implications,” p. 285.
64
Vance, Human Geography of the South, p. 482, quoted in
Dorman, Revolt of the Provinces, p. 135.
65
66
67
Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass, p. 25.
68
Report of Buckingham Smith, Esq., S. Rep. No. 30,
1st Sess. (1848), p. 34. Everglades Digital Library, Florida
International University, accessed February 23, 2015, http://
everglades.fiu.edu/archive/FI07020101_final.pdf.
69
70
Letter by Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, “Open Letter
of Governor N. B. Broward to the People of Florida,” 1906,
Publication of Archival Library and Museum Materials, State
University Libraries of Florida, Gainesville, accessed May 28,
2014, http://palmm.fcla.edu/fhp/.
71
72
Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass, p. 286
73
Clarke Ashe, “He came home to examine the Glades for
National Geographic,” The Miami News (Miami, FL), December
27, 1971, p. 10A, accessed January 21, 2014.
74
48
120
Rachel Gold
Michael Grunwald, afterword to The Everglades: River
of Grass, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 60th anniversary ed.
(1947; repr., Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2007), p. 396.
76
77
White settlers arriving in Florida had long believed that
below the rich muck of the Everglades were vast oil stores.
However, drilling in 1901 yielded no results. Demand for
crude oil increased during World War II, so wartime governor
Spessard Holland encouraged drilling and offered a 40,000acre lease to the first drilling company to find oil. Humble Oil
(now ExxonMobil) won the prize—though the well was hardly
profitable, speculation mushroomed, and landowners again
imagined infinite flows of oil in the Everglades.
78
79
80
Ibid., p. 510.
81
Douglas and Rothchild, Voice of the River, p. 135. Douglas
considered Marshall one of the most important contributors to
Florida environmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, providing scientific data
for environmentalists advocating for preservation. He would
later work for the governor and the University of Miami.
82
83
Hugh L. Willoughby, Across the Everglades: A Canoe Journey
of Exploration (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1904),
p. 14. Willoughby was a former naval officer who, in 1897,
“embarked on a Lewis-and-Clark-style journey of discovery
across the Everglades in a dugout canoe,” according to
Grunwald on page 110 of The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and
the Politics of Paradise.
84
85
For a concise early human history of the Everglades
(pre-European contact), see Grunwald, pp. 20-23.
86
Michael P. Branch, “Writing the Swamp: Marjory
Stoneman Douglas and The Everglades: River of Grass,” in Such
News of the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers; [this Collection
Had Its Roots in the First American Women Nature Conf. in
Portland, Maine], ed. Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A.
DeWolfe (Hanover [u.a.]: University Press of New England,
2001), p. 130.
87
88
Ibid., p. 377.
89
Ibid., pp. 350, 5, 376.
75
THE CONCORD REVIEW
121
Ibid., p. 382.
92
93
Browder, interview.
94
Paul Sutter, foreword to An Everglades Providence: Marjory
Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century, by Jack
E. Davis, Environmental History and the American South (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. xiv.
95
Browder, interview.
96
Browder, interview.
97
98
Thoreau, Walden, p. 146.
99
100
Ibid., p. 483.
101
Ibid., p. 489.
102
Ibid., p. 489.
103
Ibid., p. 325.
104
Douglas, “River of Grass,” The Rotarian, p. 23. After a
series of hurricanes in 1947, which dumped more than one
hundred inches of rain on the Everglades, devastating flooding
threatened agriculture and development and prompted
public outcry for flood relief. In addition, drilling wells in
into the limestone under the Everglades—the source of South
Florida’s municipal water—had caused saltwater to intrude into
freshwater bodies. This contaminated the city’s water supply
and killed stands of palmetto and palm trees. To remedy these
effects, the Army Corps proposed a system of canals, dikes,
pumps, and reservoirs to control the water.
105
Grunwald, afterword to The Everglades: River of Grass,
p. 392.
106
Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory, pp. 405-406.
107
Douglas, “River of Grass,” The Rotarian, p. 60.
108
109
Ibid., p. 398.
110
Thoreau, “Walking” in Excursions, The Writings of Henry
David Thoreau, Riverside edition (11 vols. Boston, 1893), p. 267
as quoted in Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, p. 84.
111
Douglas, The Galley, Miami Herald, Dec. 21, 1922.
112
Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” p. 89.
90
91
122
Rachel Gold
Bibliography
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Bob Graham). Accessed January 3, 2015.
Ashe, Clarke. “He came home to examine the Glades for
National Geographic.” The Miami News (Miami, FL), December
27, 1971, 10A. Accessed January 21, 2014.
Branch, Michael P. “Writing the Swamp: Marjory Stoneman
Douglas and The Everglades: River of Grass.” In Such News of
the Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers; [this Collection Had Its
Roots in the First American Women Nature Conf. in Portland,
Maine], edited by Thomas S. Edwards and Elizabeth A.
DeWolfe, 125-35. Hanover [u.a.]: University Press of New
England, 2001.
Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte. Letter, “Open Letter of
Governor N. B. Broward to the People of Florida,” 1906.
Publication of Archival Library and Museum Materials. State
University Libraries of Florida, Gainesville. Accessed May 28,
2014. http://palmm.fcla.edu/fhp/.
Browder, Joe. E-mail interview by the author. November 15,
2014.
Ibid., December 21, 2014.
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of
Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 5th ed. London: J. Dodsley,
1767.
Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting
Back to the Wrong Nature.” In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking
the Human Place in Nature, 69-90. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton,
1996.
Davis, Jack E. An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman
Douglas and the American Environmental Century. Environmental
History and the American South. Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 2009.
Davis, Jack E., and Kari Frederickson, eds., “Up from
the Sawgrass: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Influence
of Female Activism in Florida Conservation.” In Making
Waves: Female Activism in Twentieth-Century Florida, Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2003.
Dorman, Robert L. Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist
Movement in America, 1920-1945. H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs
Lehman Ser., Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
2003.
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Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. “Everglades.” The Galley. The
Miami Herald, April 6, 1923, 19.
_________The Everglades: River of Grass. 60th Anniversary ed.
1947. Reprint, Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2007.
________“Out of the Everglades.” The Galley. The Miami
Herald, March 15, 1922.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, October 8, 1922.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, December 21, 1922.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, December 30 1922.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, June 23, 1923.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, October 13, 1923.
_________The Galley. The Miami Herald, November 11, 1922.
In The Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory
Stoneman Douglas, edited by Jack E. Davis, 47-49. Gainesville:
University of Florida Press, 2006. Previously published in Miami
Herald (Miami), July 17, 1921.
“River of Grass.” The Rotarian: Florida and the Caribbean 95,
no. 5 (November 1959): 20+.
Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, and John Rothchild. Voice of the
River. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1987.
Grunwald, Michael. Afterword to The Everglades: River of Grass,
by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 391-425. 60th Anniversary ed.
1947. Reprint, Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 2007.
_________The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of
Paradise. Bridgewater: Paw Prints/Baker & Taylor, 2008.
Kant, Immanuel. “Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and the Sublime.” 1764. In Observations on the Feeling
of the Beautiful and the Sublime and Other Writings, edited by
Patrick Frierson and Paul Guyer, 11-65. New York: Cambridge
Kantor, Harvey A. “Howard W. Odum: The Implications of
Folk, Planning, and Regionalism.” American Journal of Sociology
79, no. 2 (September 1973): 278-95. Accessed January 8, 2015.
JSTOR.
McCarthy, Kevin, comp. A River in Flood, and Other Florida
Stories. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998.
Miami Herald. “Accomplishments of Miami woman breathe
of the spirit of America.” May 26, 1924, 5.
Muir, John. The Mountains of California. New York: The
Century Company, 1907.
_________My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1911.
124
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________Our National Parks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1901.
________The Yosemite. New York: The Century Co., 1912.
Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
“N.B. Crusoe Opens New Factory in Miami: Tourist Trade
of Bumper Proportions.” United States Tobacco Journal 85 (1916):
33.
Novak, Barbara. Nature and Culture: American Landscape and
Painting, 1825-1875. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press,
2007.
Odum, Howard. American Regionalism: A Cultural-Historical
Approach to National Integration. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1938.
PBS. “National Parks Timeline.” The National Parks: America’s
Best Idea. Last modified 2009. Accessed December 21, 2014.
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/history/timeline/.
Pregill, Philip, and Nancy Volkman. Landscapes in History:
Design and Planning in the Eastern and Western Traditions. 2nd ed.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
Report of Buckingham Smith, Esq., S. Rep. No. 30, 1st Sess.
(1848). Accessed February 23, 2015. http://everglades.fiu.edu/
archive/FI07020101_final.pdf.
Rothchild, John. “Notes from a Fan.” Introduction to Voice of
the River, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas and John Rothchild, 13-24.
Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1987.
“Seymour, Mrs. Robert Morris.” In Woman’s Who’s Who of
America: A Bibliographic Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the
United States and Canada, 1914-1915, edited by John William
Leonard, 732. New York: American Commonwealth, 1914.
Sharp, Eric. “’River of Grass’ protection championed.” The
Daytona Beach News-Journal (Daytona Beach, FL), April 15, 1973,
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Simpson, George L., Jr. “Howard W. Odum and American
Regionalism.” Social Forces 34, no. 1 (1955): 101-06. Accessed
August 18, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2572822.
Steyaert, Lou, NASA GSFC, and USGS. “Map of Florida
landcover.” Map. Earth Observatory. Accessed January 22, 2015.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/DeepFreeze/
deep_freeze3.php.
Sutter, Paul. Foreword to An Everglades Providence: Marjory
Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century, by Jack
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E. Davis, xiii-xv. Environmental History and the American South.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden: Or Life in the Woods. Edited
by Francis Henry Allen. Riverside Literature Ser. 195. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910.
Turner, Frederick Jackson. “The Significance of the Frontier
in American History.” Paper presented at American Historical
Association, Chicago, July 12, 1893. Accessed August 14, 2014.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1893turner.asp.
USGS. “The natural Everglades.” Map. NASA
Earth Observatory. Accessed January 22, 2015. http://
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/DeepFreeze/deep_
freeze3.php.
Vance, Rupert B. Human Geography of the South: A Study in
Regional Resources and Human Adequacy. Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1932. Accessed September 8, 2014.
Willoughby, Hugh L. Across the Everglades: A Canoe Journey of
Exploration. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1904.
126
Rachel Gold
Canadian physician
Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,
May 3, 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
AN EMPTY CANVAS IS FULL
Joonha Park
W
hen a person pays 450 rubles to attend an art exhibition,1 the last thing they would expect to see is a blank canvas.
Exiting the permanent collection that exhibited the clash between
the newly popular avant-garde artistic style and the state sponsored
socialist realism, a white exhibition hall temporarily dedicated to
the project “Requiem” by Pavel Korin appeared in front of the
eye. The continuous array of somberly colored, yet highly intricate
life-size portraits were displayed on three sides of the exhibition
hall, and all twenty-nine portraits of the collection were facing one
focal point: a monumental, 450 x 941 cm canvas. The canvas faced
the opposite direction from every other art piece in that room,
promising a suspenseful and grand finale to the exhibition; yet,
the pristine canvas was unmarred by a single pencil mark. It baffles
the mind that anyone would display a blank canvas as the piece de
resistance for such a high-profile exhibition. The unexpected and
puzzling revelation of the empty canvas arouses inquiries among
the viewers, tantalizing them with conjectures of the identity of
the artist as well as the enigma of the artwork, unfinished and
yet prominently displayed as the special exhibition of the State
Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow.
Joonha Park is a Senior at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, where
she wrote this IB Extended Essay for Marc Fogel and Colleen Nelson in
the 2014/2015 academic year.
128
Joonha Park
Pavel Korin, known as both the savior of iconography2
during the Soviet Regime and a decorated Soviet commissioned
painter, left behind a blank canvas surrounded by an army of
portrait studies; the collective work was titled “Requiem” and later
renamed “Passing of the Rus.” From the early sketches, one could
deduce that the work meant to portray the funeral of a hallmark
figure in the Russian Orthodoxy--a particularly bold and dangerous move during the turbulence of post-revolutionary Russia.
Korin’s career as an iconography artist began when he
started an apprenticeship at Mikhail Nesterov’s iconography
workshop in Donskoy Monastery, where he later witnesses the
funeral of Patriarch Tikhon that shapes his artistic pursuit for the
rest of his life. As a pupil, Korin helped Nesterov with the work
on the Cathedral of the Holy Protection at the Marfo-Mariinsky
Convent, which allowed him to meet various significant religious
figures during the time, including Tikhon.3 Yet, during this period,
Stalin’s Great Purge and anti-religious campaign was in full swing,
as illustrated by the fall in the number of active Russian Orthodox
priests—tumbling from 60,000 to 5,665 in two decades—the drastic diminution in the number of active churches in the country,
and finally, the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Under this political and religious climate, Korin struggled to find
his place not only as an extremely religious Russian man, but also
as a Russian iconography artist, as he was unable freely to practice
his craft in a state with such oppression.4
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Korin strongly sympathized with the church and respected Tikhon—the 11th Patriarch
of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was imprisoned for his
alleged anti-revolutionary actions. The Soviet authorities, with
no substantial proof, accused Tikhon of hindering the saving of
the lives that were suffering from the famine. However, these accusations did not affect the public’s opinion on Tikhon. He was
revered by many of the Russian people as the last hope of the Russian Orthodoxy during the Great Purge, as he was known for his
incorruptible and principled morals and dedicated his life to aid
those suffering from starvation. In order to portray their respect
THE CONCORD REVIEW
129
and support, the day Tikhon was released from prison, thousands
of people filled the whole square around the prison waiting for
the appearance of Tikhon. When the crowd viewed the extremely
weakened Patriarch, they fell to their knees, venerating a figure
who had sacrificed for the Church and the people. Tikhon fought
for the Russian Orthodox Church, overcoming the moral torture
imposed on him through means of repeated clandestine conversations with the secret police. Eventually, Tikhon was poisoned and,
after his death, was indeed a “Martyr for Religion.” Many people
from around Russia and abroad paid homage to Tikhon by visiting his three-day-long funeral, grieving the end of a religious hero
and possibly the last active moment of Russian Orthodoxy. His
death and funeral represented a highly symbolic moment for the
church, and Pavel Korin was deeply inspired by the responses of
the people and the overall ceremony itself.5
As Korin regarded Tikhon’s funeral as the final act before
the destruction of the Church, he wanted to frame this funeral and
began to cultivate a new purpose in his artistic career. He started
actively sketching, inspired by the idea of creating a monumental canvas art piece, depicting the funeral not only for its artistic
values but also as a historical record of a watershed event in Russian Orthodox history. In one of his notebooks, Korin described
the funeral by stating, “a great many people attended. It was an
eventide, quiet and clear. People stood with candles alight, some
of them were crying, one could hear funeral chants. An elderly
schema-monk walked by. It should be painted, it cannot just disappear, it is the Requiem [sic]!”6 Knowing that the entire class of
Russian clergymen was soon to become obsolete under Stalin’s new
regime, Korin wanted to immortalize the relics of the religion that
played an essential role in shaping the nation’s collective identity.
When Korin began working on his art, the Bolshevik antireligious campaign was intensifying, and anyone who supported
Tikhon’s ideals was arrested and sent to a labor camp, which was
synonymous to a death sentence. The authorities were busily working to destroy the foundations of organized religion throughout
Russia. The aggressive anti-religious values of the Bolsheviks made
130
Joonha Park
this period the most precarious time to work on such a controversial art piece, but they did not stop Korin from his pursuit of
recording Tikhon’s funeral.7 In order to successfully convey his
message, Korin emphasized the necessity of perfection in the
piece including the accuracy of his depiction and the symbolic
meaning implied. He was not satisfied with transcribing the scene
from his memory; instead, he requested that the people present
at the funeral—and the additional characters he wanted to depict—pose for him at his studio, Korin observed these people for
several months at a time to illustrate the exact image he wanted.
It speaks volumes for Korin’s credibility and respectability
within the religious community, that in a time when the religious
community was under such severe threat, Korin was able to reach
out to and earn the trust of the clergymen and other religious
figures he wanted to include in his painting. Through his connections with Mikhail Nesterov, who was a major representative
of religious symbolism in Russian art, Korin effectively joined the
greater Orthodox community, advancing both his career and his
standing within the Church. Mikhail Nesterov thought highly of
Korin and his work; he praised Korin by stating that he “won’t tire
of admiring him. Admiring his moral, spiritual traits.”8 As Nesterov
appreciated and supported Korin’s “Requiem,” he was not hesitant
to introduce Korin to the Metropolitan Trifon Turkestanov,9 who
not only posed for Korin but also initiated Korin into a society of
other Church figures—men who were present at Tikhon’s funeral
as both Korin and the Metropolitan were in agreement that the
calamities befalling Russia were omens of an apocalypse. When
Korin set out to work on “Requiem,” he sketched these figures
with high precision and accuracy, not limiting his observation
to one modeled position but observing them during church
services as well. His wife, Praskovia, testified “before Korin chose
characters for his painting, he watched and studied them during
the liturgy.” Korin wanted to depict the realistic and natural state
of the clergymen when they were full of their faith to effectively
convey the political message of the painting: the longing of the
Russian people for their lost religion and their sorrow regarding
the end of Russian Orthodoxy.10
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131
Korin purposefully chose to depict people in the painting
who were not present at Tikhon’s funeral: a deaf and blind man
who resembles an insightful and prophetic folk figure, a well-built
man who resemble Bogatyr—a stock character in Russia who appeared in Slavic Medieval legends known to have not only great
physical strength but also altruism—and another popular Russian
folk figure with physical disability who is known for his sagacious
mind. These recognizable and familiar images and characters
Korin chose to depict allow the Russian audience to identify and
relate with the message of the painting to a greater extent. The
wide range of people from different classes, professions, genders,
age groups, and regions are included in order to transmit Korin’s
message of the importance of religion for Russians, rather than
to limit his characters to the religious figures or those who were
able to attend the funeral. Korin included more than just the
clergymen and the religious figures, because it is impossible to
detach the Russian Orthodox Church from the essence of Russian
identity. Since the Christening of Russia in 988, Russian identity
had merged with the Church, as it became a national institution
because Christianization corresponded at that time to Russification.11
By viewing the sketch of what Korin’s final version of
the “Requiem” was supposed to look like, one can observe the
disparities in colors of clothing, the flamboyance of the attire,
facial expressions, and positions of these characters. Some critics had interpreted these differences as the separation of class,
because powerful religious figures such as the Patriarch and the
Metropolitan are dressed in embellished, colorful attire, while
the ordinary, Russian lower-class people, such as the blind man,
are dressed in dull-colored, poorly-made clothing. However, it is
more probable that Korin used these techniques to accentuate
the variety of classes present at the funeral, portraying the unifying aspect of religion rather than emphasizing the segregation of
classes and the problematic feudalism that characterized Romanov
Russia. The supposed aim of the Soviet Regime was to eradicate
the unfair class system in Imperial Russia, where there was unbalanced wealth distribution and discontentment among the peasant
132
Joonha Park
class who made up eighty-two percent of the population. However,
the attempt to eliminate the bourgeois sparked serious conflict
and led to the Civil War between the Whites and the Reds; the
continuous warfare created a critical economic disaster that led
to starvation, population loss, and religious oppression. In stark
relief, Korin was able to achieve class integration in his painting
—he effectively eliminated the boundary of class and gender by
showing the collective spirit of these people united in the context
of religion. 12
In fact, from the perspective of the audience, the lower class
people are positioned closer to the audience, leaving a stronger
impression than the higher-class people who are dressed in ostentatious attire and positioned further away from the viewers. The
seamless blending of these higher-class clergies into the peasant
class in this sketch is a testament to how Korin had successfully
annihilated the barriers between classes within his art. In fact, in
the first row, near the center of the sketch, there are more people
of lower class than there are significant, religious figures. Regardless of their position in the frame or their attire, the characters
appear similarly discontent, with the nuances varying among anger,
determination, grief, and sorrow—yet, they are all present at the
funeral for the purpose of commemorating the Russian Church
and the old regime that passed away with Tikhon. 13
Moreover, a close examination of the figures presented in
“Requiem” revealed that Korin considered the canvas composition and characters in great detail. One of the most prominent
personages is a man dressed in a black cassock, looking straight
at the audience, while the majority of the others are turned away.
There is no trace of sorrow or grief in his eyes, but only determination and passion. The figure represents Pimin, the future
Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodoxy who would later carry out
Korin’s own funeral in November 22, 1967. Pimin left a strong
impression on Korin as the former had a marvelously beautiful
voice, which was extremely noticeable, as singing was a crucial
part of Russian Orthodox liturgies. Even though Pimin was not
present when the funeral of Tikhon actually occurred, Korin
THE CONCORD REVIEW
133
painted him in the “Requiem” as a prominent character because
of the powerful impact Pimin’s strong determined look had on
Korin. Even though Korin encountered Pimin when he was much
younger, Korin chose to depict the more grown-up, experienced,
and purposeful form of Pimin that Korin believed played a crucial
role in displaying the sensation of anger and determination in
some characters in the “Requiem.” This strong depiction of the
future Metropolitan, a notable symbol against Soviet atheism,
was risky, and it intensified the artwork’s message of the unified
resolute stance of Russian people against the Orthodox Church’s
diminishing social prominence. 14
Soon after the conception of “Requiem,” rumors spread
about Korins’ controversial artwork, reaching officials as high up
the hierarchy as Josef Stalin. According to Korin’s wife, Korin and
his family lived in constant fear of surveillance and arrest, and
they had a bag prepared with all of the essential items necessary to
survive a life in the Gulag.15 Fortunately, Korin was able to live and
continue his work under the protection of Maxim Gorky,16 a highly
influential writer and political activist who initially supported the
Bolshevik revolution, but grew discontent with the reality of the
Soviet Regime.17 Gorky was an avid supporter of artists and writers who were not able to freely express their ideas because of the
artistic limitations imposed upon them by the Soviet government.
Gorky visited Korin 1931, after he became aware of the rumors
about Korin’s controversial project and showed great interest in
what Korin’s “Requiem” intended to portray. When Korin displayed
doubts about the continuation of his project, Gorky provided
overwhelming support, offering up essential counsel—such as
changing the name of the project from “Requiem” to “Passing of
Rus” to render the piece more acceptable in the current political
climate—as well as providing monetary support, obtaining the costly
and rare canvas for the painting. Consequently, Gorky’s death had
a detrimental effect on Korin’s work as well as his lifestyle; with the
loss of Gorky in 1936, Korin lost the protection that allowed him
to continue his work, perhaps leading to the eventual stagnation
in the progress of the “Requiem.”18
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Joonha Park
Around this time, the level of religious policing in the Soviet Union substantially decreased due to the outbreak of World
War II. For all of its rhetoric, the Soviet Union was willing to
sacrifice the oppression of religion in order to collect a unifying
force and encourage nationalism in the chaos of the new World
War. Furthermore, the government did not have the luxury to
surveil and suppress religion and arts when its attention was highly
demanded elsewhere. Korin, quite inexplicably, started taking
commissions from the Soviet Union during this era, and created
several highly regarded artworks that led him to receive the Stalin
and Lenin awards for his contributions. Many condemned Korin
for his complicity with the Soviet Regime; however, upon closer
reflection, this accusation is not supported by the chronology
of events. It is illogical that Korin would give up his artwork in
fear of the surveillance and the oppression when it was the least
dangerous time period for him to pursue this project due to the
relatively lax surveillance from the government. Therefore, it is
reasonable to question what caused Korin to completely halt his
“Requiem” project after several years of preparation and leave
the canvas empty in the corner of his gallery. Some argue that it
is likely that the loss of Gorky dissuaded Korin from continuing
a painting that was essentially sponsored by Gorky, his closest
supporter and patron. Korin might have ceased working on the
artwork as a way of grieving for his friend, or perhaps he might
have been afraid of continuing his work without the protection of
Gorky. However, Gorky’s death does not fully explain why Korin
started doing commissioned artworks for the Soviet government.
Korin’s collaboration with the Soviet Regime marked a
substantial change in the way that Korin as a public figure was
received in Russian society. Korin’s first commissioned artwork
was the Nevsky triptych, which embellished his career and allowed
him to gain recognition from the Soviet government. Alexander
Nevsky was a legendary hero of Medieval Russia, and he was renowned for his military successes over German and Swedish invaders. Interestingly, two out of the three characters in this artwork
are practically identical to characters from “Requiem,” including
the determined young priest, who persisted in his opposition
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135
during excruciating torture by the Party, who was located at the
center of the sketch of the “Requiem” depicted in the triptych
with the exact same facial expression yet in different attire and
the Bogatyr who was depicted as a strong peasant man towering
over the people in the “Requiem” sketch, as Nevsky in the Triptych. The incorporation of these characters reveals that Korin still
held true to his previous ideals even after he stopped working
on “Requiem;” the commissioned works from the government
that had been oppressing and monitoring him for years did not
indicate a change in Korin’s mindset and devotion to his beliefs.
The purpose of these Socialist Realist paintings commissioned by
the Soviet Union was to raise the morale of the Russian citizens
challenged by the German invasion rather than to undermine the
necessity of religion and to support the religious oppression that
the Soviet government pursued. Therefore, Korin’s effort in these
pieces did not necessarily indicate his support of Communism,
but rather was a means for him to practice his iconography techniques as well as to support his countrymen during this critical
period in Russian history.
Furthermore, Korin’s defiance of the atheist Communist
sensibility was made even more apparent after many accusations
were filed about the resemblance of his mosaics on metro stations
Novoslobodskaya to images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.19 In fact,
Korin was the Head of the Restoration Department of the Pushkin
Museum and responsible for the restoration of Raphael’s “Sistine
Madonna,” which was taken by the Red Army from Dresden. It
is difficult to miss the strong resemblance between the mosaic of
Pavel Korin and the painting by Raphael as the composition and
positioning of the mosaic was almost identical to that of Raphael’s
“Sistine Madonna.”20 Consequently, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet
leader of the time, decided to temporarily cover this work, clearly
demonstrating that Korin’s acceptance of Soviet commissions
is not correlated with a loss of his religious devotion but rather
was a subversive effort to incorporate elements of the lost state
religion into mainstream artworks right under the surveillance of
the autocratic government.
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Joonha Park
It was also during this period that Korin announced,
through a statement to one of his pupils, his philosophy: the role
of an artist is not to be involved in political actions but to immortalize history and bequeath these recordings to the next generations.21 Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that Korin’s sketches
of the portraits in preparation for the full-scale canvas represent
Korin’s true intention, that these were the spirits of “Rus” and a
detailed record of the history Korin wanted to preserve. Korin
may have chosen not to transfer his drawings onto the blank canvas precisely because the separate portraits, as individual works,
were completed in the most perfect form, delivering the desired
message that Korin intended to convey and successfully achieving
his purpose of presenting the importance of individualism in a
strictly Communist regime.
One cannot help but wonder why, 21 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and nearly ninety years after the
first portrait for the “Requiem,” this unfinished painting by a
controversial artist of a bygone era is being brought back into
prominence. A renowned contemporary Russian writer named
Felix Razumovsky recently stated that “Russians [have] not only
lost their state religion, they [have] lost their Soviet identity. This
is the real crisis in Russia today.”22 There is a direct correlation
between this lack of Russian identity, a currently pressing issue,
and the confusion in Russian identity, which existed 20 years ago
during the Soviet Oppression. The enigma surrounding Korin
and the artwork he left behind is still open to scholarly interpretation, but the recent special exhibition in Moscow honoring him
suggests that while the initial message of “Requiem” was meant to
be one of defiance and opposition, it has now been incorporated
into one of unification for Russian identity. The manner in which
Korin portrayed the strong determination and devotion to Russian Orthodoxy of the “Requiem” characters may be understood
as a representation of what is missing in the collective consciousness of the Russian people today, and his posthumous success is
a testament to the strength of his legacy and belief, transcending
the curtain of censorship bequeathed upon the modern viewer.
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137
In the past forty years, the artwork that the young aspiring artist Pavel Korin had initially launched to memorialize the
Patriarch Tikhon and the Russian Orthodox Church has been
reincarnated in detailed sketches and numerous portraits—the
results of countless meetings in which Korin delved ever deeper
into religion and the community in order to better understand
his subjects. Korin’s decision to leave the canvas completely empty
could be similar to that of Robert Rauschenberg, an American
abstract expressionist who created a “White Painting” similar to
Korin’s “Blank Canvas.” Rauschenberg was recorded to have said:
They are large white canvases organized and selected with the experience of time and presented with the innocence of a virgin. Dealing
with the suspense, excitement and body of an organic silence, the
restriction and freedom of absence, the plastic fullness of nothing,
the point a circle begins and ends, they are a natural response to
the current pressures of the faithless and a promoter of intuitional
optimism.23
As stated by Rauschenberg, “a white canvas is full” because despite
the absence of colors, such simplicity of the canvas creates room for
a multitude of interpretations. Especially for Korin’s “Requiem,”
the absence of figures on the canvas allows the audience to envision the potential placements of the separate portraits on the final
canvas. By not physically depicting the characters on the canvas,
Korin is refraining from distinguishing different levels of significance of individual figures. If all the figures in the portraits were
put together in a canvas, some figures would inevitably be more
noticeable than the others due to the limitations of composition.
However, as the portraits are detached from the canvas, the artist
can fully display the similarly-sized and equally-detailed portraits
to the audience in their complete forms as intended. Furthermore, the white canvas itself encourages various interpretations
of its tacit meaning: the canvas could be reflecting its twenty-nine
surrounding characters, or it could be the “organic silence” incarnate, symbolizing the oppression against art in order to record for
the ages the reality of artistic censorship faced by artists during
the Soviet Regime. Even if there is no single valid interpretation
of the blank canvas, for the Russian audience, the “Requiem” il-
138
Joonha Park
lustrates “the current pressures” facing the Russian people today
as it depicts the new loss of a collective identity—rather than the
religion that was lost before the time of Korin—that commenced
after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Twenty-one years after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the Russian people recognize the message Korin intended to immortalize. The State Tretyakov Gallery is renovating the house
museum of Pavel Korin to display “Requiem” as it was originally
placed: with the huge blank canvas in the center surrounded by
29 portraits, creating a contrasting image of the dark hues of the
portraits with the pure whiteness of the canvas. From afar, one
could barely make out the hazy shadows of Russian history through
the dark spectrum of colors used for the portraits, captivated as
they would be by the completely clashing white, empty canvas that
represents the limitless potential--that “promoter of intuitional
optimism”—Russia has for its future, and likewise, the world’s.
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139
Endnotes
Special exhibition named “Requiem: the Passing of
Russia” that took place in the New Tretykaov Gallery from
November of 2013 to March of 2014.
2
Both Pavel Korin and his brother Alexander Korin were
able to protect and preserve some of the iconostasis paintings
that their hometown Palekh is known for, during the Soviet
Oppression and Stalin’s Great Purge. In the house museum
of Pavel Korin, there are approximately 200 iconography
paintings in the “Green Sitting room” that consists of icons that
were preserved by the brothers during the Soviet Regime and
other works from the hometown Palekh.
3
Anastasia Starovoitova, “Patriarchs of the 20th Century
in Pavel Korin’s works,” (Moscow: Tretyakov Magazine number 2:
2014).
4
Semyon Ekshtut, Pavel Korin a Will Unbending (Moscow:
Russian Life, 2002).
5
Anastasia Starovoitova, “Patriarchs of the 20th Century
in Pavel Korin’s works,” (Moscow: Tretyakov Magazine number 2:
2014).
6
Strovoitova, Treytyakov Magazine, #2,
7
Robert Service, The Penguin History of Modern Russia: from
Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century (London: Penguin UK, 2009)
8
Mikhail Nesterov to P. Neradovsky, April 10, 1929
9
Metropolitan Trifon Turkestanov was one of the most
revered hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church during
the time of Korin’s life, and both agreed in their perception
of the threat of the growing oppression towards religion.
The Metropolitan is a key figure who aided the creation
and preparation of the “Requiem,” as he helped Korin find
the exact models he needed in order to create the perfect
depiction.
10
Natalija A. Aleksandrova, and Vera I. Golovina,
“Rekviem” Pavla Korina: K Istorii “Rusi Uchodjaščej” ;
Biografičeskie Kommentarii K Izbrannym Portretam = Pavel
Korin’s “Requiem”: Notes on the History of “The Passing of
Rus’” ; Biographical Commentary to Selected Portraits. (Moskva:
SkanRus, 2014), 166.
11
“The Adoption of Christianity in Russia,” Russia the
Great, RIN, n.d. Web, 20 June 2015.
1
140
Joonha Park
Isaiah Berlin, Henry Hardy, The Soviet Mind: Russian
Culture Under Communism, (Washington D.C: Brookings
Institution, 2011), 1-28.
13
Aleksandrova, Golovina, Requiem, 90-92.
14
Aleksandrova, Golovina, Requiem, 82-99.
15
Gulag is an abbreviation of Chief Administration of
Corrective Labor Camps, which is the government agency
that administered the major Soviet labor camps during the
Stalin Regime. Many of the opposition party members as well
as artists who created works that defied the ideals of the Soviet
regime were sent to the gulags, which inflicted fear upon the
population.
16
Maxim Gorky was initially an avid supporter of the
Bolshevik revolution and was a highly revered figure during
the revolution. However, he was also the protector of the arts
especially during Stalin’s Great Purge.
17
“Agents | Dealers—An Authority on Russian Art.”
Socialist Realism, (Lindsay Russian Art, 2015).
18
Joy Neumeyer, Terror Grips “A Hymn to the Church”
(Moscow: Russian Life, 2014).
19
http://russos.ru/wp/novoslobodskaya-03-1440x900.jpg
The Novoblodskaya metro station Mosaic that is shown in the
link above greatly resembles the famous “Sistine Madonna” by
Raphael.
20
Armen Apresyan, Myths and Propaganda Surrounding
Raphael’s 500-year-old Masterpiece, (Moscow: The Voice of Russia,
May 2012).
21
I.L. Gamazkova, Alex and Pavel Korin: The Tale of an Artist
and Commander, (Moscow: White City, 2006).
22
Felix Razumovsky, In post-Soviet Russia, a Quest to Define
National Identity, (PRI, Podcast).
23
Robert Rauschenberg, letter to Betty Parsons (18 October
1951),” SFMOMA On the Go (July 2013).
12
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Bibliography
Ekshtut, Semyon. Pavel Korin a Will Unbending, Moscow:
Russian Life, 2002.
Starovoitova, Anastasia, Patriarchs of the 20th century in Pavel
Korin’s works, Moscow: Treytyakov Magazine issue 2, 2014.
Service, Robert, The Penguin History of Modern Russia: from
Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century, London: Penguin UK, 2009
Aleksandrova, Natalija A., and Golovina, Vera, “Rekviem”
Pavla Korina: K Istorii “Rusi Uchodjaščej” ; Biografičeskie
Kommentarii K Izbrannym Portretam = Pavel Korin’s
“Requiem”: Notes on the History of “The Passing of Rus’”;
Biographical Commentary to Selected Portraits. Moskva: SkanRus,
2014.
Berlin, Isaiah and Hardy, Henry, The Soviet Mind: Russian
Culture under Communism, Washington D.C: Brooking
Institution, 2011.
Neumeyer, Joy, Terror Grips “A Hymn to the Church,”
Moscow: Russian Life, 2014.
Apresyan, Armen, Myths and Propaganda Surrounding
Raphael’s 500-year-old Masterpiece, Moscow: The Voice of Russia,
May 2012.
Gamazkova, Alex and Pavel Korin: The Tale of an Artist and
Commander, Moscow: White City, 2006.
Razumovsky, Felix, In post-Soviet Russia, a Quest to Define
National Identity, PRI, Podcast.
Rauschenberg, Robert, “letter to Betty Parsons,” 18 October
1951, SFMOMA On the Go, July 2013.
141
Martin Amis, Koba the Dread [Stalin]
New York: Hyperion, 2002, pp. 74-75
But the worst prison is better than the best camp. In the
camps such words (dear, human) are used facetiously or contemptuously or not at all; the future tense is never heard; and
for the zek, more generally, the “natural desire to share what he
has experienced dies in him” (Solzhenitsyn); “He has forgotten
empathy for another’s sorrow; he simply does not understand
it and does not desire to understand it” (Varlam Shalamov).
Thus there was nowhere to turn but inward. Speculating on the
“astounding rarity” of camp suicides, Solzhenitsyn writes:
“If those millions of helpless and pitiful vermin still did not put
an end to themselves—this meant that some kind of invincible
feeling was alive inside them. Some very powerful idea. This was
their feeling of universal innocence.”
Because they were all innocent, the politicals. None of
them had done anything. On arrest, the invariable response was
Zachto? Why? What for? When she heard that a friend had been
picked up (this was in the early 1930s), Nadezhda Mandelstam
said: Zachto? Anna Akhmatova lost patience. “Don’t you understand?” she said, “that they are now arresting people for nothing.” Why, what for? That was the question you asked yourself
each day in the gulag archipelago. And we must imagine this
word carved on the trunk of every tree in the taiga: Zachto?...
There are no names for what happened in the Soviet
Union between 1917 and 1953 (although Russians refer, totemically, to “the twenty million,” and to the Stalinschina—the time
of Stalin’s rule). What should we call it? The Decimation, the
Fratricide, the Mindslaughter? No. Call it the Zachto? Call it the
What For?
FROM HORSEMEN TO HERDSMEN:
THE COMANCHE TRANSITION FROM
THE PLAINS TO THE RESERVATION
Vikram Shaw
T
hroughout the early and mid-nineteenth century, the
Great Plains became a battleground for conflicts between Native
American tribes and Anglo-American settlers. By the late 1850s
and early 1860s, encroachment from settlers had caused raids from
the resident Great Plains tribes like the Comanches to increase
in ferocity and severity, prompting the United States government
to seek a peace agreement. In late October 1867, an effort by the
United States government to move Anglo-American settlement
further into the West and end hostilities with the Comanche,
Kiowa, Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes culminated in the
Medicine Lodge Treaty.1 Article I of the treaty stated that, “the
government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is
here pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now
pledge their honor to maintain it.”2 However, more than one-third
of the Comanches refused to sign the treaty.3 The United States
government failed to realize that the Comanche bands that had
signed the treaty were not representative of the entire Comanche
Vikram Shaw is a Senior at Amarillo High School in Amarillo, Texas,
where he wrote this Independent Study paper in 2015. The head of
history is Danney Haney.
144
Vikram Shaw
tribe. So, when several non-signing bands did not relocate to the
reservation, the United States pinned the blame on the Comanches
and used the Comanches’ “refusal” to move to the reservation as
justification to wage a war that would come to be known as the
Red River War.
The great catastrophe that befell the Comanche nation,
plunging from their unparalleled dominance on the horse to a
life on the enclosed reservation, can be attributed to the loss of
the buffalo and limitations of Comanche warfare in the face of
increasing Anglo-American military advancement spawned by the
Industrial Revolution and the American Civil War. With respect
to these two reasons, how were the seemingly inexhaustible buffalo reduced to a meager size in the matter of a decade? How did
this affect the culture and lifestyle of the Comanches? To what
extent can their response of adapting to the cattle industry on the
reservation be a testament to the perseverance and strength of
the Comanche nation? In this essay, I will explore the two reasons
that the Comanches were forced from their lands towards the end
of the 19th century: the slaughter of the buffalo and increasingly
powerful Anglo-American warfare. Additionally, I will discuss the
events and tribal policies that led to many Comanches becoming
small herd cattlemen on the reservation.
On the Plains: How The Comanches Were Forced From Their
Traditional Lands
The incessant buffalo slaughter that occurred on the Great
Plains during the latter part of the 19th century handicapped the
Comanches, since their cultural and military strength depended
on the buffalo. The buffalo defined gender roles and social customs. The job of the Comanche man was to go to war or to hunt
buffalo while the job of the Comanche woman was to tan hides,
weave tipis, and make clothes, all by-products of buffalo. Buffalo
provided the Comanche with nearly everything: food, clothing,
blankets, cloths, tents, shields, weapons, ropes, bowstrings, and
even ornaments.4
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145
For the Comanches, the use of the buffalo was pragmatic
on the Great Plains due to its abundance. The buffalo provided
the necessary protection and nourishment to help the Comanches
deal with the harsh Plains climate. From 1869 to 1873, Colonel
Richard Irving Dodge, who spent thirty-three years fighting the
American Indians, noted that at the peak of the buffalo population, “the whole vast landscape appeared a mass of buffalo. Of
their number it was impossible to form even a conjecture.”5 The
Texas Historical Commission estimates the number at fifty million.6
The Comanche system and way of life relied on the buffalo,
and a loss of the buffalo meant a loss of basic necessities. Many
buffalo products were even traded for manufactured goods such
as guns and ammunition. Every October, the Comanches prepared
for the “Great Fall Hunt” with the purpose of gathering supplies
for the upcoming winter. Runners were sent to establish a suitable
location for the hunting-camp, and once selected, the entire village moved in.7 This camp would be the base of operations for at
least one month each year. The Plains Indians truly believed that
“however recklessly the white men might slaughter [the buffalo],
they could never exterminate them.”8
Interest in the buffalo from East coast industrialists began
in the late 1860s and early 1870s as tanners in Philadelphia had
perfected a chemical process that turned buffalo hides into elastic
machine belts.9 Prior to that, danger from the Plains Indians and
lack of a viable market had protected the buffalo.10 Large buffalo
robes were used for sleigh wraps and bedding, while smaller robes
were used for overcoats.11 These hides and robes brought $3.75
each in the market.12 By the time the buffalo business started to
fully develop, roughly one hundred thousand hides and seven million pounds of buffalo tongues were being shipped from Dodge
City each year.13 Those numbers were low, however, because hide
preservation was inefficient. One hide could be the product of five
dead buffalo.14 According to zoologist William Hornaday, who did
extensive research on the anatomy and ecological relationships
of the buffalo during the 1870s and 1880s for the Smithsonian
Museum, less than one-third of the number of buffalo killed were
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Vikram Shaw
utilized; the other two-thirds were eaten fresh or wasted.15 It was
essentially the “Anglo-American business ethic that destroyed the
buffalo;” the hunger for profits and the concept of the American
Dream on the rugged frontier drove the slaughter.16 Three groups
emerged that profited from the buffalo industry. First, the buffalo
hunters, typically young, single, rowdy men, sold hides directly
to companies that specialized in buying and selling hides, and
consumers. Second, investors or owners of buffalo hide speculation companies were able to either increase the efficiency of their
factories by using buffalo hides for machine belts, or they would
buy cheap hides to sell for profit. Finally, consumers benefitted
from the lower prices that were a result of the increased factory
efficiency. Consumers also had a selection of utilitarian buffalo
products, including overcoats, ropes, and bedding. The economic
opportunity from the buffalo was unfathomable. Hornaday estimated that 500,000 killed buffalo introduced to the United States
economy would add $2,500,000 in wealth to the United States.17
The speed with which the buffalo were killed uprooted Comanche beliefs and surprised Anglo-American consumers. Several
factors aided in the quickness of the slaughter. First, the development of an extensive cross-country railroad system opened up the
Eastern markets to buffalo hunters. In 1869, the Union Pacific
and Central Pacific railroads met, forming the Transcontinental
Railroad. When the buffalo industry picked up just a few years
later, the growing railroad system provided a way for hunters to
transport buffalo robes and hides to market quickly. The railroad
companies also had an aversion to the buffalo after stampeding
herds had derailed many trains. Conductors soon recognized the
danger of the buffalo, and trains were often slowed down or even
stopped to allow them to pass.18
Advances in weaponry, a direct result of the Industrial
Revolution, facilitated a rapid decimation of the buffalo population. The .50 caliber Sharps rifle fired a 600-grain bullet driven
by 125 grains of black powder.19 The rifle could kill a 2,000-pound
buffalo at a distance of over half a mile.20 Hunters such as William
Cody, Wylie Poe, and Brick Bond demonstrated the ease with which
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147
the buffalo could be killed. Cody, nicknamed “Buffalo Bill,” killed
4,280 buffalo over seven months.21 Poe once killed 90 buffalo without moving from his shooting spot, and Bond typically killed 250
buffalo in a single day.22 The Comanches witnessed their source
of livelihood quickly vanishing. To counterbalance the loss of
the buffalo, Comanches began to engage in more raids to obtain
basic necessities. This aggravated the United States government
and settlers who wished to expand west without obstruction. The
government failed to realize that it was actually the success of the
buffalo industry that had caused the Comanche backlash on the
frontier.
The destruction took less than a decade, and by October
1874, Colonel Dodge noted that, “a few buffalo were encountered,
but there seemed to be more hunters than buffalo.”23 A memorandum from Messrs. J & A. Boskowitz, a buffalo hide speculation
company, shows the speed with which the buffalo industry grew
and collapsed. In 1876, the company purchased 31,838 buffalo
robes for $39,620.24 As the industry grew, by 1878, the company
purchased 41,268 buffalo robes for $150,500.25 By 1880, the buffalo
supply had begun to fall while demand was still high. As a result,
the company purchased only 34,901 robes for $176,200.26 Finally,
by 1883, the company purchased 5,690 robes for $29,770, and
in 1884, the company purchased no robes.27 This sharp decline
indicates the ultimate depletion of the buffalo population and
the direct effect on the Comanche lifestyle.
Law protected the Plains Indians and the buffalo, but
the Indian Bureau made only a half-hearted attempt to keep the
buffalo hunters out of the Great Plains.28 The loss of the buffalo
took away the food, shelter, and morale of the Comanches, who
by July of 1875 had opted to relocate to the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation.29 Estimates of the total number of buffalo killed during
the entire span starting in the 1860s range from five million30 to
upwards of forty million.31 Dodge wrote that “with [the buffalo],
[the Plains Indian] is rich and happy, without it he is poor as poverty itself, and constantly on the verge of starvation.”32 The loss
of the buffalo, coupled with defeats on the battlefield, drove the
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Vikram Shaw
Comanches to a hopeless state, left with no way to resume their
original way of life.
With the pre-1860s buffalo numbers, Comanches frequently
and successfully engaged in battles as they had sufficient food and
weaponry. Without the buffalo, however, Comanches were forced
to shift to a survival-oriented mentality. Regardless, Comanche
society was centered around war and had been for over a century.
To stay successful on the Great Plains, tribes had to simply win
battles. When the Comanches acquired the horse from the Spanish in the late 17th century, their transformation from an obscure
tribe to one of astounding dominance ensued. The introduction
of the horse revolutionized Comanche warfare and society; the
horse became their currency, war vehicle, and hunting vehicle.
With the horse, Comanche raids were fiercer and quicker. Despite
this, there were several limitations of Comanche warfare when
compared to the newer technology and size of the United States.
First, the warrior population was small. The highest estimate of
the warrior population, given by the Mexican government, was
8,000.33 The U.S. government estimated that there were around
5,400 Comanche warriors.34 George Catlin, an American painter
who spent many years constructing Plains Indian portraits, estimated the warrior population at around 7,000 and a total population between 30,000 and 40,000.35 To highlight the weakness that
this presented, the population of the United States from the 1850
census was over 23,000,000.36
Comanches had guns, but a Comanche warrior typically did
not use guns until the age of twenty-five. Even then, Comanches
favored the bow and arrow over the gun.37 As primarily shortdistance weapons, however, arrows lost their penetrative power
shortly after being released. When the Comanches had guns, they
were of various types from different trades with no uniformity of
make or caliber.38 Colonel Dodge described this as, “a fortunate
circumstance for his enemies, but extremely annoying to the Indian.”39 Though obtaining powder and lead from Comanchero
traders was easy, the warriors had to hammer the lead into spherical form, often reloading shells forty to fifty times.40 The practice
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149
of re-using bullets and shells inherently decreased the efficiency
of the gun, explaining why the Comanches remained loyal to the
bow and arrow. Furthermore, it was tedious and difficult to reload
guns on horseback, restricting Comanche use of the gun to either
the opening volley or hand-to-hand combat.
Though these limitations were negligible against other
Native American tribes, United States soldiers and frontiersmen
had learned through experience and failure how to gain an upper hand in the chaos of typical Plains warfare. These soldiers
and frontiersmen did not always have success in battle, however.
During the 1830s, Texas Rangers, the semi-organized group of
frontiersmen that protected Anglo-American expansion, were
often outmaneuvered and outsmarted by Comanche bands. With
the Rangers fighting only on foot, the Comanches easily won
battle after battle.
It was not until the Industrial Revolution of the mid and late
19th century, which provided Texas Rangers with more advanced
weaponry, that the tide slowly started to turn. In 1847, Samuel
Walker and Samuel Colt drastically changed warfare with the Comanches through the invention of the Colt Walker revolver. The
gun had a large, nine-inch barrel, held .44-caliber bullets, and was
“as deadly as a rifle up to a hundred yards.”41 Rangers learned to
shoot the new guns quickly and on horseback. Since Comanche
gun use was restricted by the many difficulties of reloading and a
lack of uniformity, Rangers had a significant weaponry advantage.
Comanche losses were oftentimes not strategic failures but rather
due to disadvantages in weaponry.
In addition to the sheer power behind the new revolver,
Walker and Colt also included a mechanism that quickly loaded
six lead balls into the barrel. Nelson Lee, who was captured by
the Comanches for three years, explained the power of the new
revolver:
[The Comanches] were two hundred in number, and fought well
and bravely, but our revolvers, fatal as they were astonishing, put
them speedily to flight.42
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Vikram Shaw
The fight that Lee described came to be known as the Battle of
Walker’s Creek. It was one of the first times that the Comanches
directly witnessed the full force of the Colt Walker revolver. Captain John Coffee Hays and his company of fourteen volunteers
successfully repelled two attacks from a Comanche raiding party.
The raiding party’s numbers were estimated between forty to
upwards of two hundred men.43 After an hour of fighting, one
Ranger was killed with four others wounded while from twenty to
fifty Comanches were killed, including their leader Yellow Wolf.44
This fight displayed the advantage that came with the Rangers’
Colt Walker revolvers.
When the Comanches fought in the Red River War, they
again had a significant firepower disadvantage. The Plains Indians
used a seven-shot .50-caliber Spencer repeating rifle while the
United States Army used single shot .45-caliber Springfield rifles
and carbines. Although this seemed like a mismatch, the 800-yard
range of the Army’s Springfield offset the 400-yard range of the
Plains Indian Spencer, preventing Indian hit and run tactics.45 The
Army basically “picked off” Plains Indians and prevented them from
prompting a close-range fight, where the Indians would have had
an advantage with the Spencer.46 The army also employed a use
of artillery such as the mountain howitzer. Although its use was
limited on the rough terrain, it had a “debilitating psychological
effect” on the Plains Indians who were involved.47 In 1864, during
the First Battle of Adobe Walls, Kit Carson employed two mountain howitzers against twelve to fourteen hundred Comanches.48
Alvin Lynn, a historian on the First Battle of Adobe Walls, wrote:
The Indians, not familiar with the big guns, stood high in their stirrups and pondered the firing. As the shells began to explode around
them, they headed their mounts, in a dead run, toward their villages
down river. By the time the artillerymen fired another volley, the
Indians were totally out of range of the cannons.49
Moreover, the fundamental battle mentality of a Comanche warrior
was conservative. The Comanches rarely pushed an advantage due
to their fear of losing large numbers. Colonel Dodge explained
that, “the population being small, the life of each skilled warrior is
of serious importance to the whole tribe.”50 Nelson Lee witnessed
THE CONCORD REVIEW
151
an engagement between a band of Comanches and a band of
Apaches. He observed, “The Apaches at length gave way, disappearing beyond the ridge. Instead of pursuing their advantage,
however, the Comanches hastily gathered up their dead and retreated towards the mountains we had crossed.”51 A similar event
occurred in 1838. On August 10, two hundred Comanches in
Arroyo Seco attacked Henry W. Karnes, a citizen of San Antonio,
and his group of twenty-one volunteers. The Comanches had a
patent advantage and ten to one odds but retreated after losing
just over twenty of their warriors.52
Thus, when the United States government waged its war
against the Comanches from 1874 to 1875, the Comanches were
already indisposed. This war, known as the Red River War, pitted
3,000 United States soldiers against a meager 700 Plains Indian
soldiers.53 The final blow came at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon
on September 28, 1874. Colonel Ranald S. Mackenize led his
Fourth United States Cavalry, the Tenth Infantry, and the Eleventh
Infantry down a steep 1,000-foot bluff in the middle of the night
into a camp comprised of Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Comanches.54
Only three warriors were killed, but Mackenzie’s troops burned the
village and captured over one thousand Indian horses. Inspired
by William T. Sherman’s “March to the Sea,” this total warfare
method attempted to damage the resources and economic strength
of the Comanches.55 Mackenzie gave some of the horses to his
officers and subsequently ordered the rest to be shot.56 Most of
the Indians who had escaped then straggled the long trek to the
Kiowa-Comanche Reservation, beaten and disheartened. It was
a combination of losing the buffalo and losing key battles that
forced the Comanche onto the reservation.
On June 2, 1875, Quanah Parker and his Kwahadi band, the
last major band that would relocate to the reservation, rode into
Fort Sill waving the peace flag.57 Quanah did not surrender, but
he voluntarily moved his band to the reservation after witnessing
the destruction of his fellow Comanches, a move ending a twohundred-year-long run of absolute dominance by the Comanches
on the Great Plains.
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Vikram Shaw
On the Reservation: The Comanches and the Cattlemen
On the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation, the Comanches,
who had always freely roamed the Great Plains, were now forced
into a sedentary lifestyle. Living on the reservation, they were surrounded by a booming cattle business. The buffalo were nearly
gone and the plains were wide open. I will discuss the events,
tribal policies, and outcomes of the relationship between the
Comanches and the cattle industry as well as the extent to which
the Comanches became cattlemen in order to show the perseverance of the Comanche nation in the face of being displaced from
their traditional lands.
Once on the reservation, Colonel Mackenzie wanted to
introduce livestock to the Comanches to encourage them to give
up the practice of roaming after the buffalo. In the summer of
1875, he purchased $22,000 worth of purebred sheep and goats,
which the Comanches had no taste for.58 Mackenzie, however,
also gave the Comanches cattle. They appreciated the cattle, but
they were never able to fully become cattlemen in the early years
on the reservation because starvation forced them to kill the few
cattle that they had. The Indian agent was allowed a paltry sum of
$3.00 per month to feed each Native American on the reservation,
supplemented with any buffalo that were killed. The buffalo were
near extinction, which left most of the Comanches heavily dependent upon the small beef rations that the agency gave to them.59
Starting as early as the 1690s with Spanish missionaries
in northern Texas, the cattle business had turned into a multimillion dollar industry.60 Cattle in the Texas region, worth $3 or
$4, brought $30 or $40 apiece in northern markets.61 As the buffalo population dwindled, cattle outfitters replaced the buffalo
hide industry with the beef industry using the extensive railroad
network. Cattle tycoons such as Charles Goodnight, who owned
more than 100,000 cattle on 1.335 million acres, secured enormous
wealth.62 Supersized ranches dominated the lands that had once
belonged to the Comanches and the buffalo. One such ranch,
named XIT, had herds ranging in size from 125,000 to 150,000
cattle on more than 3 million acres.63
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153
The cattlemen and Comanches collided when John Lytle, a
former Confederate soldier who began ranching and trail driving
on his own, developed the Western Trail for cattle drives to the
Dodge City, Kansas shipping point in 1871.64 Lytle was forced out
of necessity to develop this trail as cattle drivers going to Abilene,
Kansas on the more eastern Chisholm Trail had met resistance
from farmers in Arkansas, Missouri, and eastern Kansas.65 Cattle
drives to Dodge City were highly profitable as the westward expanding Kansas-Pacific Railroad opened eastern markets to the
cattle drivers.66 The reservation where the Comanches, Kiowa,
and Kiowa-Apaches resided sat between Greer County to the west
and the Chickasaw Reservation to the east. The Western Trail ran
directly through the western part of the Comanche, Kiowa, and
Kiowa-Apache reservation. It started northwest of San Antonio,
and then it passed through Fort Griffin, which was about one hundred miles west of the Fort Worth stockyards. From there, the trail
moved north to Doan’s Crossing, named after an entrepreneurial
couple who maximized profits from passing cowboys.67 After Doan’s,
which had turned into a supply center and gathering place for
both cowboys and Plains Indians, the cattle crossed the Red River
and entered Comanche lands.68 By 1879, Doan said that, “One
hundred thousand cattle passed over the trail by the little store.”69
The cattlemen saw the western Plains Indian reservation
lands as an opportunity to allow the cattle to recoup from a difficult
drive after the Red River, and hold there until prices increased
in Dodge City, and “fatten” the cows to bring more money at
market.70 This method worked because the reservation Indians
rarely ventured into the western part of their lands. They were
tied to the agency in the east because they could no longer hunt
the buffalo and had become dependent upon government rations
to keep themselves from starvation.71 The cattle problem began
to increase, and by 1876, “Fort Sill’s adjutant reported that five
herds were traversing the west end of the reservation.”72 An agent
was sent to have the cattle removed in 1877, but the policy was
corrupt and ineffective. The policy stated that if the cattle were
driven onto the reservation to graze, a penalty of one dollar per
head was incurred; however, if the cattle incidentally grazed while
154
Vikram Shaw
being driven through the reservation, no penalty was incurred.
So, cattlemen easily bypassed the penalty by decreasing their rate
of travel across the reservation.73
In 1881, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs attempted
to fix the cattle problem by establishing a distinct trail across the
reservation that led to Dodge City as well as requiring that cattle
move at least 10 miles per day through the reservation. The Commissioner directed soldiers and police to enforce the mandate.74
The small Indian police and Fort Sill soldier force, however, was
unable to control all of the illegal grazing. The army officers
“had to exercise a great deal of tact and diplomacy.”75 They were
ordered to respect the rights of the cattlemen, Indians, and beef
contractors, which often meant that the cattlemen would pay the
insignificant fine and continue to drive across the Indian reservation lands.76 The western border of the reservation extended for
about one hundred miles, and in his 1885 Annual Report, Indian
Agent P.B. Hunt argued that, “it would have required an army to
keep [the cattlemen] off.”77
Starting in the late 1870s, tribal politics regarding the
cattlemen split the Native American population on the reservation into pro-leasing and anti-leasing factions.78 The pro-leasing
faction was typically comprised of Comanches, who were further
west than the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache and thus had more of a
vested interest.79 They argued that game on the reservation had
declined due to hunting by both Anglo-American settlers and
Plains Indian tribes, so it was vital that a new means of subsistence
be secured. They also argued that over two million acres were
available, and thirty-five cattle companies were lined up to enter
into leasing agreements.80 Many government officials shared the
same view, including the Indian Agent Hunt who stated, “There
are thousands of acres of excellent grass going to waste.”81 On the
other hand, the anti-leasing faction was comprised primarily of the
more eastern Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, and a section of Comanches.
The anti-leasing faction members typically did not directly benefit
from any leasing deal or thought them to be detrimental to the
THE CONCORD REVIEW
155
future of the Indians. William T. Hagan, a Comanche historian,
stated that:
[The anti-leasing faction] felt that their future as farmers and stockmen would be endangered by turning over half of the reservation to
the white men. Not only would it restrict the area open to the Indians,
but the income from the lease…would encourage gambling among
their young men and distract them from opening farms and caring
for their own livestock.82
Though the motives behind each faction seem coincidentally
spatial, the leaders of the anti-leasing faction, Tabananaka and
White Wolf, were actually Comanches.83 Before any serious tribal
or governmental action was taken, Comanches would take bribes
from passing or grazing herds in the form of steers. Hagan writes,
“The trail boss usually complied, accepting this levy as simply a
cost of using the trail across the reservation.”84
The first informal leasing talks occurred in 1879 and 1880
with Quanah Parker, Principal Chief of the Comanches, representing the anti-leasing faction.85 By 1881, however, drought caused
Comanche vegetables, such as corn, beans, and melons, to fail.86
Coupled with insufficient government rations, the Plains Indians
were starving. This prompted Indian Agent Hunt to seek a better,
strictly unofficial deal with the cattlemen. He allowed them to
graze on reservation lands if they would give a certain amount of
beef to the Indians.87 For a short period of time, the Plains Indians
had more food. Agent Hunt realized that farming would not be
practical as the Kiowa-Comanche reserve had a climate that was
not conducive to agriculture. So, he encouraged them to start
cattle herds of their own.88
During the next four years, Quanah realized the potential
for himself and others in the cattle market, and by 1884, he had
emerged as the leader of the pro-leasing faction. The anti-leasing
faction rebuked Quanah, saying that he had sold out to the cattlemen. However, when a cattle driver named Julian Gunter encountered Quanah’s group of Indians on the reservation, Quanah
sternly told him, “Your government gave this land to the Indian
to be his hunting ground. But you go through and scare the game
and your cattle eat the grass so the buffalo leaves and the Indian
156
Vikram Shaw
starves.”89 Quanah’s conversion to the pro-leasing faction was not
a matter of personal benefit, but rather one of practicality.
In mid-November of 1884, an “agreement” had been
reached in the tribe that favored leasing. Special Agent Folsom
conducted his own poll, however, and found an anti-leasing
majority of 402 to 290.90 So, Folsom was surprised when on December 23, 404 Comanches, Kiowas, and Kiowa-Apaches signed
the lease agreement. Despite the questionable voting turnout,
Agent Hunt quickly endorsed the lease.91 In February of 1885, a
delegation of Indians went to Washington to secure federal approval to lease grazing lands to the cattlemen. President Chester
A. Arthur refused to make any decisions and advised the Indians
to make their own agreements with the cattlemen.92 The Indians
thus made arrangements with several large cattle firms, and the
first “grass payments” were made in the summer of 1885.93 The
semiannual “grass payments” amounted to $9.50 to each member
of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache tribes.94
In February 1892, the Indian delegation went to Washington again. This time, it was decided that the Indian Agent had
the authority to submit one-year contracts for approval. Starting
on September 1, 1892, six leases, totaling 250,580 acres would be
leased to the approved cattle outfitters.95 All the leases were made
through the Anadarko office and sent to the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs in Washington for approval. By 1893, the KiowaComanche reservation was leasing 1,304,958 acres to approved
cattle outfitters.96 Hagan writes:
The cattlemen’s “grass payments” to the Comanches and associated
tribes had reached $232,000 by 1900…some of the Comanches had
opened farms and most of them owned cattle, a few holding herds
that ran into the hundreds. Hunger was no longer the problem that
it had been throughout most of the 1880s.97
Though some Kiowa and Kiowa-Apaches still opposed leasing, the
overall effect of leasing was that it put the Plains Indians on their
own two feet. The “grass payments” provided the Comanches with
enough money to buy cattle of their own. The Comanches would
never become big cattlemen in the Great Plain’s context of owning
hundreds of thousands of cattle, but they owned enough to sur-
THE CONCORD REVIEW
157
vive on the reservations without the buffalo and without sufficient
support from the federal government. No exact number has been
calculated for the Comanches, but when the Kiowa-Apache sold
their herd of cattle, it brought over $300,000.98
The leasing agreements would come to a close with the
Jerome Agreement. Pressure from land-hungry “boomers” to open
the Kiowa-Comanche reservation prompted the October 6, 1892,
agreement between the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache
tribes and the United States.99 The agreement stated that:
Each Indian man, woman, and child is to secure 160 acres of land
by allotment. Church, agency, school, military, or other public land
cannot be claimed by an individual…The allotments are to be held
in trust for twenty-five years, after which they are to be conveyed in
fee simple to the holder.100
The agreement also set aside four tracts of land that would belong
collectively to the Indians. The “Big Pasture” with 414,720 acres out
of the total 551,680 acres was by far the largest.101 The Comanches,
Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache used this communal landholding for
the open-range cattle business. Until the opening of the pasture in
1906, the Indians continued to lease the land to cattle outfitters.102
On June 6, 1900, Congress passed the Jerome Agreement,
turning it into law. On July 4, 1901, President McKinley issued
Presidential Proclamation 460,103 ordering the execution of the
agreement.104 Each family was placed on a small plot of land, once
again removed from their homes, and expected to learn the trade
of farming and ranching. The Comanches transformed to the best
of their abilities. The Comanches had lost their homes, fallen from
horseback dominance on the Great Plains, moved to an enclosed
reservation, and sought new lives in the cattle industry. And thus,
over the course of half a century, the Comanches had finished
their transition—from horsemen to herdsmen.
158
Vikram Shaw
Endnotes
Kim Gant, Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty (2011), accessed
November 23, 2014, https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/
medicine-lodge-peace-treaty/16709.
2
Compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler, Treaty With
The Kiowa and Comanche, 1867 (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1904), accessed December 21, 2014, http://
digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/kio0977.htm.
3
Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of
Quanah Parker (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 1995), 102.
4
William T. Hornaday, The Extermination of the American
Bison (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889), 259,
EPUB.
5
Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, Our Wild Indians: ThirtyThree Years’ Personal Experience Among the Red Men of the Great West
(Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1978), 283.
6
Texas Historical Commission, Red River War of 18741875: Clash of Culture in the Texas Panhandle (Austin: Texas
Historical Commission), 6.
7
Dodge, p. 287.
8
Ibid., p. 287.
9
Pekka Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008), 336.
10
Dodge, p. 293.
11
Hornaday, p. 283.
12
T.R. Fehrenbach, Comanches: The History of a People (New
York, NY: Anchor Books, 1974), 522.
13
Ibid., p. 522.
14
Dodge, p. 293.
15
Hornaday, p. 254.
16
Fehrenbach, p. 522.
17
Hornaday, p. 250.
18
Ibid., p. 76.
19
Fehrenbach, p. 523.
20
S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon (New York, NY:
Scribner, 2010), 270.
21
Fehrenbach, p. 522.
22
Ibid., p. 523.
23
Dodge, p. 295.
24
Hornaday, pp. 264-265.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid.
1
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Ibid.
Dodge, p. 296.
29
J. Evetts Haley, “The Last Great Chief,” The Shamrock,
Spring 1957.
30
Dodge, p. 295.
31
Texas Historical Commission, p. 6.
32
Dodge, p. 282.
33
Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches:
Lords of the South Plains (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1986), 31.
34
Ibid., p. 31.
35
Neeley, p. 33.
36
U.S. Census, “Pop Culture: 1850,” U.S. Census, accessed
September 19, 2014, https://www.census.gov/history/www/
through_the_decades/fast_facts/1850_fast_facts.html.
37
Dodge, p. 416.
38
Ibid., p. 423.
39
Ibid., p. 423.
40
Ibid., pp. 423, 450.
41
Gwynne, p. 150.
42
Nelson Lee, Three Years Among the Comanches: The
Narrative of Nelson Lee, the Texas Ranger (Santa Barbara, CA: The
Narrative Press, 2001), 23.
43
Thomas W. Cutrer, “Battle of Walker’s Creek,” Handbook
of Texas Online, accessed March 17, 2015, https://tshaonline.
org/handbook/online/articles/btw02.
44
Ibid.
45
46
Ibid., p. 14.
47
Ibid., p. 14.
48
Alvin R. Lynn, Kit Carson and the First Battle of Adobe Walls
(Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2014), 71.
49
Ibid., p. 71.
50
Dodge, p. 436.
51
Lee, p. 142.
52
John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas
(Austin, TX: L.E. Daniell, 1880), 50-51.
53
54
Thomas F. Schilz, “Battle of Palo Duro Canyon,”
Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 17, 2015, https://
tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btp03.
55
Hämäläinen, p. 333.
56
Gwynne, p. 282.
27
28
159
160
Vikram Shaw
Haley.
Colonel W.S. Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort
Sill (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 250.
59
Ibid., p. 250.
60
Bill O’Neal, West Texas Cattle Kingdom (Charleston, SC:
Arcadia Publishing, 2013), 14.
61
Ibid., p. 17.
62
Ibid., p. 38.
63
Ibid., p. 43.
64
Ibid., p. 28.
65
Neeley, p. 182.
66
Ibid., p. 182.
67
O’Neal, p. 28.
68
Neeley, p. 183.
69
Ibid., p. 183.
70
William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief
(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 28.
71
Ibid., pp. 28-29.
72
Ibid., p. 28.
73
Wallace and Hoebel, p. 346.
74
Ibid., p. 346.
75
Colonel W.S. Nye, p. 257.
76
Ibid., p. 257.
77
78
Hagan, p. 28.
79
Ibid., p. 28.
80
Gwynne, p. 298.
81
Hagan, p. 29.
82
Ibid., p. 34.
83
Ibid., p. 34.
84
Ibid., p. 30.
85
Ibid., p. 31.
86
W. E. S. Dickerson, “Comanche Indian Reservation,”
Handbook of Texas Online, accessed February 23, 2015, https://
tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bpc10.
87
88
Ibid., p. 258.
89
Ibid., p. 297.
90
Hagan, p. 36.
91
Ibid., p. 37.
92
Colonel W.S. Nye, pp. 258-259.
93
57
58
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Bill Neeley, Quanah Parker and His People (Slaton: Brazos
Press, 1986), 144.
95
96
Ibid., p. 349.
97
William T. Hagan, United States-Comanche Relations, (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press: 1976), 154; quoted in Bill
Neeley, Quanah Parker and His People, (Slaton, TX: Brazos Press,
1986), 145.
98
99
100
Ibid., p. 349.
101
Ibid., p. 350.
102
Richard Mize, “Big Pasture,” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma
History and Culture, accessed March 18, 2015, http://www.
okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=BI003.
103
Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, “The American
Presidency Project,” University of California Santa-Barbara,
accessed March 19, 2015, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu.
104
94
161
162
Vikram Shaw
Primary Sources
Dodge, Richard Irving. Our Wild Indians: Thirty-Three
Years’ Personal Experience Among the Red Men of the Great West.
Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1978.
Hornaday, William T. The Extermination of the American Bison.
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889. EPUB.
Kappler, Charles. Treaty With The Kiowa and Comanche, 1867.
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904. Accessed
December 21, 2014. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/
Vol2/treaties/kio0977.htm.
Lee, Nelson. Three Years Among the Comanches: The Narrative
of Nelson Lee, the Texas Ranger. Santa Barbara, CA: The Narrative
Press, 2001.
Secondary Sources
Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas. Austin,
TX: L.E. Daniell, 1880.
Cutrer, Thomas W. “Battle of Walker’s Creek.” Handbook of
Texas Online. Accessed March 17, 2015. https://tshaonline.org/
handbook/online/articles/btw02.
Dickerson, W.E.S. “Comanche Indian Reservation.”
Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed February 23, 2015. https://
tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bpc10.
Fehrenbach, T.R. Comanches: The History of a People. New
York, NY: Anchor Books, 1974.
Gant, Kim. Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty. 2011. Accessed
November 23, 2014. https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/
medicine-lodge-peace-treaty/16709.
Gwynne, S.C. Empire of the Summer Moon. New York, NY:
Scribner, 2010.
Hagan, William T. Quanah Parker, Comanche Chief. Norman,
OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
Hagan, William T. United States-Comanche Relations. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.
Haley, J. Evetts. “The Last Great Chief.” The Shamrock. Spring
1957.
Hämäläinen, Pekka. “Comanche Empire.” New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008.
Lynn, Alvin R. Kit Carson and the First Battle of Adobe Walls.
Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2014.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
163
Mize, Richard. “Big Pasture.” Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History
and Culture. Accessed March 18, 2015. http://www.okhistory.
org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=BI003.
Neeley, Bill. Quanah Parker and His People. Slaton, TX: Brazos
Press, 1986.
Neeley, Bill. The Last Comanche Chief: The Life and Times of
Quanah Parker. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 1995.
Nye, W.S. Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill.
Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969.
O’Neal, Bill. West Texas Cattle Kingdom. Charleston, SC:
Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Peters, Gerhard, and John T. Woolley. “The American
Presidency Project.” University of California Santa-Barbara.
Accessed March 19, 2015. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu.
Schilz, Thomas F. “Battle of Palo Duro Canyon.” Handbook of
Texas Online. Accessed March 17, 2015. https://tshaonline.org/
handbook/online/articles/btp03.
Texas Historical Commission. Red River War of 1874-1875:
Clash of Culture in the Texas Panhandle. Austin: Texas Historical
Commission.
U.S. Census. “Pop Culture: 1850.” U.S. Census. Accessed
September 19, 2014. https://www.census.gov/history/www/
through_the_decades/fast_facts/1850_fast_facts.html.
Wallace, Ernest, and E. Adamson Hoebel. The Comanches:
Lords of the South Plains. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1986.
“The Secret Victory”
Richard Bernstein, Dictatorship of Virtue,
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, pp. 223-227
If the space invader has become the hero and the earthling the villain,
similar inversions have taken place in at least one other cinematic prototype—
the cowboy-and-Indian adventure, the classic in this case being Kevin Costner’s
Dances With Wolves of 1990. Never mind that Costner uses a historical event that
never happened (the defection of a Civil War cavalry officer to the Indians)
and transforms the warlike, scalp-taking, torturing, predatory, patriarchal, malechauvinistic Sioux Indians into a group that might have founded the Ethical
Culture Society. Dances With Wolves replaces one myth, that of the brave settler
and the savage Indian, with another—the morally advanced friend-of-the-earth
Indian (“Never have I seen a people more devoted to family,” the cavalry defector
says with reverence) and the malodorous, foulmouthed, bellicose white man.
The desire to put the Indian on a pedestal of superior moral awareness
defeats even simple truth. In 1991 two American Indians were the subjects of bestselling books. They became icons of the New Consciousness, and they continued
to be so even after it was discovered in both cases that their most admirable
qualities had been invented for them by white men. One of them, Chief Seattle,
became identified with a statement reproduced on posters in practically every
multicultural school in America, the statement about “The earth is our mother”
and “I have seen a thousand rotting buffalos on the prairie, left by the white
man who shot them from a passing train.” These quotes reappear every year on
Earth Day and form the centerpiece of Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief
Seattle, which sold 280,000 copies in its first six months in print. The problem is
that Chief Seattle’s ecological views were invented by a screenwriter named Ted
Perry for a 1972 film about environmentalism. Very little is actually known about
Chief Seattle himself because he left scant written record of himself, but it is
known that he spent his entire life in the Pacific Northwest and never saw buffalo
or the prairie.
The Education of Little Tree and the cult that grew up around him brings
into even sharper relief our collective search for new heroes of virtue. Little Tree,
which was on top of the New York Times paperback best-seller list for thirty weeks in
1991, won the Abby Award from the American Booksellers Association, and drew
twenty-seven film offers, is supposedly about Native American Forrest Carter’s
heartwarming Cherokee upbringing, in which white people are depicted as fools
and ignoramuses. The evidence is that, in fact, the book was written in the late
1970s as a kind of gag by a certain Asa Carter, a former speechwriter for Alabama’s
governor George Wallace, a member of the anti-integrationist White Citizens’
Council and a founder in 1957 of the Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy. Even
after it was revealed that Carter was no Cherokee but actually a white supremacist,
the book remained a Times bestseller. A new printing of one hundred thousand
copies was ordered by the publisher.
CHESS AND COMMUNISM IN THE USSR
Langston Chen
“Nowadays in the most distant corners of our land, in remote villages,
collective farms, from the mountain settlements of Dagestan to the
villages of Central Asia, there are chess clubs. Millions of people,
organized or unorganized, love this game.”
– Pravda, “The Chess Players of Our Homeland,” 19361
Introduction
C
ountless games have existed throughout the course
of human history, all of which possess their own distinct properties and gameplay. Among all of these games however, one game
in particular has been unique in finding a role of unmatched
prominence and prevalence in human civilization: chess. In the
words of former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov “chess is
everything: art, science, and sport.”2 Karpov’s sentiment illustrates
both the rich and complex nature of chess, and further alludes to
the important roles the game has found in societies throughout
history. For over a millennium, chess has transcended political
and geographic borders and flourished as a part of the culture of
Langston Chen is a Senior at Belmont High School in Belmont,
Massachusetts, where he wrote this paper for Kelly Prevost’s Advanced
Placement European History course in the 2014/2014 academic year.
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Langston Chen
civilizations ranging from the imperial palaces of the Gupta Empire, to the coffee houses of Enlightenment Europe, to the public
benches of Washington Square Park. Yet seemingly paradoxically,
chess, a game based on creative and analytical thinking not only
survived but flourished in one of the most culturally barren and
anti-intellectual regimes in human history: the Soviet Union.
From the rise of the Bolshevik party during the October
Revolution in 1917, up until the collapse of communism in 1991,
chess gained an unprecedented following in the Soviet Union as
a result of state-backed efforts to promote the game across the
country. Soviet leadership, believing that a mass chess movement
could help advance their political and ideological goals, took
the initiative in subsidizing, professionalizing, and promoting
the game across the Soviet Union. Social and economic factors
within the Soviet Union also further catalyzed and accelerated
the expansion of chess across the state. As a result, the number of
active and registered chess players in the Soviet Union exploded
from just five thousand prior to the October Revolution to over
five million during the peak years of the Cold War.3 By the end
of the Second World War, top Soviet grandmasters had achieved
dominance in international chess tournaments and would go on
to maintain the world chess title for decades. Chess became no
longer just a sparsely played game limited to a few social elites,
but rather an immensely popular national pastime that came to
embody an important part of the Soviet cultural identity.
Ultimately, although the Soviet government was successful in popularizing chess as a result of their program of cultural
centralization, the success of chess in and of itself failed to achieve
in any significant capacity the original aim of helping advance
the state’s long-term ideological goals. Nevertheless, the success
of chess in the USSR brought a sense of national pride, culture,
and unity to the state as a whole as well as personal happiness and
fulfillment to the individuals who came to embrace the game.
These successes and failures of the Soviet Union in its efforts
to promote chess are indicative of the complex nature of statesponsored cultural centralization and are reflective of the various
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social, economic, and political transformations happening in the
Soviet Union at the time.
Background
Prior to First World War, Western Europe—not Russia, was
regarded as a chess capital of the world. The game was originally
exported to Europe as a result of cultural diffusion from both
conquests and commercial interactions from the Islamic Empires
and Russia sometime around the seventh century.4 In Europe, chess
was able to gain a respectable following relatively quickly among
the aristocrats. Chess was even popular among many prominent
monarchs of Western Europe including Elizabeth I, Frederick
the Great, and Napoleon Bonaparte.5 Chess was seen as a sophisticated game of thinking and strategy, and especially during the
Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, became a popular activity
of the middle and upper classes. The game was played in coffee
houses, clubs and salons and became acknowledged in literature
and culture such as in John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding.6 By 1886, the first official World Championship was
held, taking place first with preliminary qualifying tournaments
in London, followed by a series of championship matches across
the United States.7
Chess in pre-revolutionary Russia, however, lagged significantly behind that of its Western European counterparts.
Although the game had been introduced to Russia around the
same time as it reached Western Europe, it never gained much
traction largely due to the demographics of the Russian state. In
fact, up until the nineteenth century, due to the lack of a strong
middle or upper class, chess was played almost exclusively in aristocratic circles, greatly limiting the game’s reach and resulting in
a much smaller and weaker pool of competitive players.8 However
in the mid-nineteenth century chess began to make progress in
Russia as it gained interest in small but growing literary and political circles.9 At the same time, chess also quietly began gaining
popularity among radical circles including the Bolsheviks, some
of whose chess-playing members included Vladimir Lenin and
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Leon Trotsky.10 The growing popularity of the game among the
Russian intelligentsia eventually led to the formation of the AllRussian Chess Federation in April 1914.11 The Federation was a
private body whose duties included overseeing and managing
chess tournaments in the country. In addition, the Federation
set the goal of generating more interest in chess within Russia as,
despite recent progress, both the quantity and performance of
chess players in the Soviet Union lagged significantly behind that
of its Western European counterparts.12
In the subsequent years, as a result of wartime turmoil,
organized chess would become almost completely erased from the
Russian State, which, while a major step back, would eventually
allow the game to later return in the state stronger than ever. With
the outbreak of the First World War only months after its formation, the All-Russian Chess Federation was forced to disband due
to the disruptions caused by the war.13 Even worse, the rise of the
Bolshevik Party, followed by Russia’s withdrawal from the war, led
to chess being opposed by the Bolshevik revolutionaries due to
the perception of the game being a part of “bourgeois culture.”14
Major remaining chess clubs and cafes were shut down, equipment was confiscated and destroyed, and many of the leading
members of the chess community who opposed the Bolsheviks
were forced either to flee or face persecution.15 In the following
years, the Bolsheviks and their new Communist dictatorship would
attempt to impose their political and ideological beliefs on the
Soviet people by taking direct control of almost every aspect of
the state and lives of its citizens.
Ideological Origins of Political Chess
Not long after consolidating its authority over the new
Soviet State, the Bolshevik Party underwent a remarkable shift in
the attitude towards chess. Instead of vilifying the game as an evil
manifestation of “bourgeois culture,” chess instead came to be
seen as a socially positive activity which encouraged Communist
ideals. In the eyes of the new Soviet government, chess was no
longer a threat, but rather a tool of social engineering and state-
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building, which they could use to help advance their political and
ideological agenda.
The presence of various conflicts within the gameplay
of chess drew perceived parallels with Communist ideology, and
gained the approval of the Soviet government. According to
Hegel’s theory of synthesis, all ideas are the product of a constant
back-and-forth conflict between opposing truths. There is always a
predominant set of ideas known as the thesis which clashes with a
new and opposing set of ideas known as the antithesis to ultimately
lead to a synthesis of the two sets of ideas and the formation of a
new thesis.16 This idea of a constant back-and-forth struggle of ideas
was extended by Marx, who went on to argue that Communism
was the inevitable final product of these constant clashes between
previous political systems.17 This emphasis on a constant back-andforth clash between opposing ideas led many Bolshevik leaders
to come to the conclusion that chess could serve as a metaphor
for this very struggle with its own constant move-countermove
dynamic. Former Soviet grandmasters Lev Alburt and Larry Parr
explained “following every [chess] move, a new situation arises. Call
it a thesis. The requirement is to find the correct antithesis so as
to create a victorious synthesis… Dialectical struggle. Negation of
negation. That’s chess.”18 In addition to this interpersonal struggle
between opposing forces, the idea of the existence of additional
intrapersonal dialectical struggles in chess was supported by a 1925
state-sponsored study into the psychology of chess. In the study,
various cognitive tests and evaluations were done on Soviet chess
masters. Among the conclusions of the study was that chess was a
unique “intellectual art” in that it required a strong blend of both
scientific thought and artistic creativity.19 The study then went on
explain how in determining their next move, chess players conduct
both objective analytical calculations as well as subjective artistic
observations of the position at hand.20 The study concluded that
these two mental processes could come into conflict with each
other thus forming a second core dialectical conflict within the
game of chess.21 These arguments of chess both illustrating and
encouraging dialectical thought aided in giving the game ideologi-
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cal legitimacy in the eyes of the Soviet government and helped
lay the foundations for future state-sponsorship.
Another argument which also helped chess secure the
backing of the Soviet government was that learning to play chess
could help train positive character qualities in individuals. The
idea of chess teaching positive character qualities in individuals
who played it can be traced back to Benjamin Franklin’s 1796 essay The Morals of Chess.22 In his essay Franklin, a chess enthusiast,
explained that “the game of chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course
of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it.”23 In
particular, Franklin identified four distinct qualities one could
learn from playing chess: foresight, caution, circumspection, and
perseverance.24 Years later, a Soviet official named Aleksander
Illyin-Zhenevskii, perhaps influenced by Franklin, would attempt
to use similar ideas to justify the expansion of chess in the Soviet
Union. Illyin-Zhenevskii, as head of the Soviet Vsevobuch, an organization responsible for training military recruits, observed
how sports were used in the training program to improve not
only the physical fitness but also the character of the conscripts.
Illyin-Zhenevskii, believing that chess could be similarly used in
the Vsevobuch, lobbied Soviet leadership to allow him to integrate
chess into the training, arguing that it could help the trainees in
developing “boldness, presence of mind, composure, a strong will,
and most important, something which a sport cannot, a sense of
strategy.”25 Illyin-Zhenevskii’s argument was further augmented by
some more results of the earlier mentioned 1925 state-sponsored
psychological study into chess which had found that several skills
such as memory, planning, calculation, visualization, and imagination were associated with strong chess skills and could be attained
through learning and playing the game.26 Thus, chess in addition
to being a symbolic metaphor for Communist ideals was also a
practical tool in training more mindful and capable citizens.
The Bolsheviks also hoped that the creation of a more culturally and politically sophisticated populace through chess would
enable them to achieve their long-term political and ideological
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objectives. According to orthodox Marxist theory, a state would
have to experience a capitalist stage of development in order for
the working class to acquire the necessary political consciousness
for a true socialist revolution to occur.27 Since the Soviet Union
had essentially skipped a capitalist market stage and gone directly
to a highly industrial command economy following the First World
War, there was concern that true socialism would be unable to
emerge in the Soviet Union. Lenin described such concerns in his
writings warning that the Soviet population was “not sufficiently
educated. They [the working class] would like to build a better
apparatus for us, but they do not know how. They cannot build
one. They have not yet developed the culture required for this;
and it is culture that is required.”28 This was in part caused by a
lack of consumer goods in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union
due to the heavy emphasis on industrial and agricultural output
during and after the war. This in turn resulted in there being a lack
of sophisticated cultural activities available to the general population. Thus chess was seen as a potential activity to bring culture to
the masses, as Bolshevik official Nikolai Krylenko who would later
emerge as head of the Soviet chess movement explained: “in our
country [Soviet Union] where the cultural level is comparatively
low, where up to now a typical pastime of the masses has been
brewing liquor, drunkenness, and brawling, chess is a powerful
means of raising the general cultural level.”29 It even was hoped
that the skills cultivated by chess could serve as a stepping stone
to greater learning and education as illustrated by an anecdote
told by a chess club organized in the Soviet Union:
In the Red Triangle factory, we knew several old workmen who were
completely illiterate and had no desire to learn to read and write. But
having learnt to play chess they eventually began to study. Eventually,
they declared, not without some pride, not only could they read and
write but they also knew about chess notation and specialist literature.
This example is very typical…In the right conditions the steps from
chess to literature, then to education, then to political awareness can
be taken automatically.30
This vision of chess not only creating a more culturally sophisticated,
but also an intellectually curious and politically-aware populace,
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was greatly appealing to the Soviet government. Ultimately it, along
with the various other imperatives already mentioned, were key in
convincing the Soviet government to launch a vast state-directed
program to expand and professionalize chess across the state.
Expansion and Professionalization
During the 1920s and 1930s the Bolshevik government
undertook extensive efforts to expand and professionalize chess
in the Soviet Union. In order to achieve this, they launched a
combination of state subsidies, propaganda, and training programs
all geared towards advancing the growing chess movement. These
efforts on behalf of the state would ultimately yield remarkable
results, and chess went from being nearly extinct in the Soviet
Union following the October Revolution to a massive movement,
and a key part of the national culture and identity of the state by
the outbreak of the Second World War.
One of the first major initiatives the Soviet government
took in expanding and professionalizing chess in the state was
approving Illyin-Zhenevskii’s request to integrate the game into
the Vsevobuch training program. A new distinct Soviet chess section under the leadership of Illyin-Zhenevskii was established and
placed in charge of chess at Vsevobuch.31 The new chess section
was also given a six-room apartment at the state’s Central Military
Sports Club to serve as headquarters along with a 100,000 ruble
budget.32 A significant portion of those funds would go to organizing the first ever state-sponsored All-Russian Chess Olympiad,
a chess tournament to determine a national champion. The winner of the tournament, Alexander Alekhine, later described the
subsidies the Government had provided to the chess section and
how “all sorts of Red benefits began to rain down on the Moscow
chess community as if from a cornucopia.”33 All of the aid and
benefits provided the requisite tools and logistical means for the
expansion of the chess community in the future.
In 1924, Soviet chess underwent another major transformation as the Soviet chess section led by Illyin-Zhenevskii
was replaced by the larger, also state-sponsored, All-Union chess
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section.34 The new All-Union Chess Section was led by Nikolai
Krylenko who in addition to being a devoted chess player was a
high-ranking Bolshevik official and Commissar of Justice for the
Soviet Union.35 Krylenko was an ambitious leader and quick in
creating a plan for the expansion of chess in the Soviet Union
beyond just the Vsevobuch program. Krylenko’s plan for the new
Chess Section consisted of five main goals which included (1)
the popularization of chess among the working masses (2) the
creation and overseeing of new chess sections across the country
(3) beginning the tradition of holding annual chess congresses
(4) the organization of chess tournaments (5) the increased
publication of chess literature.36 In addition, after Stalin had announced Five-Year Plans for the Soviet economy, Krylenko even
excitedly followed in suit and went on to declare to his comrades
that “we must organize shock brigades of chess players and begin
the immediate realization of a five-year plan for chess.”37 The
ultimate goal of Krylenko’s five-year plan consisted of increasing
the number of registered chess players in the Soviet Union from
approximately 150,000 in 1928 at the time of the announcement
to a total of one million by 1934.38 Krylenko’s plan also set specific
demographic benchmarks in how he intended to achieve such
expansion of the chess program, with the new recruits consisting of sixty percent workers, nineteen percent students, fifteen
percent collective farmers, and eleven percent military and police
organizations.39 Such colossal goals would be almost logistically
impossible to complete in just five years, yet Krylenko and the
Soviet Chess Section were determined, adopting the new slogans
“take chess to the workers!” and “chess must become a future of
every club and peasant reading room!”40 Chess was no longer just
a game, but an essential part of the state’s future vision and plan
for Soviet Society.
In order to achieve his goals for Soviet chess, Krylenko
launched a series of promotional and propaganda efforts to
generate interest in the game. The most direct approach taken
in generating interest in the game was through enlisting masters
to travel across the country and promote the game, as one Soviet
master, Duz-Khotimirsky explained in his memoirs:
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The chess section enrolled me to carry out this work in the provinces.
Over the next seven years, from 1924 to 1931, I travelled through
almost the entire Soviet Union—from the White Sea to the Caucasus, from the Baltic to Vladivostok—passing on my experience to
the young people of the eight Soviet Republics… I visited dozens of
towns, putting out propaganda on behalf of chess, organizing chess
sections on physical culture committees and chess columns in the
local press, giving lectures and simultaneous displays, and taking part
in republic and city championships, training individual players and
bringing in groups of youngsters.41
In addition to this direct outreach, Krylenko and the chess section
also launched a print campaign by expanding chess coverage in the
heavily-censored Soviet media through magazines and newspapers
such as Shakamaty v. SSSR (Chess in the USSR), Shakhmatyi Listok
(Chess Pages), and Pravda (Truth).42 Krylenko himself also even
served as editor of his own chess magazine, 64, which discussed
both general chess strategy and what he and Soviet leadership
believed to be the political mission of chess in the Soviet Union.43
Another promotional tool Krylenko used to broaden interest in
the game was organizing national and international tournaments,
which generated much interest from the Soviet public. In 1925,
Krylenko held one of the first international tournaments in the
Soviet Union, where he invited top foreign masters to compete
with the top Soviet players. Although at that point in time the
state of chess in the Soviet Union was still not quite as advanced
as it was in Western Europe and the winner of the tournament
was Jose Raul Capablanca, a non-Soviet player, the tournament
was still regarded as a great success due to the public interest the
game generated, with the tournament later being known as “The
Great Spectacle of 1925.”44 A short silent comedy film titled “Chess
Fever” which included clips from the tournament was even released
soon after, depicting the newfound obsession and fascination the
Soviet populace found in the game.45 Although the Soviet Union
was not yet the world-class chess champion it hoped to one day
become, the interest in the game was rapidly rising in the state
and would continue to rise for years to come.
Having found success in capturing the public’s interest
in chess through his propaganda efforts, Krylenko and the Chess
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Section next set out to develop the necessary infrastructure and
organization for the Movement to continue to expand. In order
to achieve this the Chess Section began reorganizing competitive
chess play according to the “production principle.”46 Previously
chess had been organized in the Soviet Union in a manner as it
was in Western Europe, with interested players gathering in private
clubs to play both recreationally and competitively after working
hours. However, under the “production principle,” chess was
brought directly to the factories, farms, offices, and workplaces of
Soviet citizens, and competitive chess leagues were organized not
according to what club players went to but rather what industry
they worked in.47 This reorganization of chess directly to the workplaces of citizens made it more accessible to established players,
gave the game better exposure to potential new members, and
also made the organization of the game better match up with the
centrally planned nature of the Soviet economy.
The final major initiative the chess section took in reforming the game in the state was aimed at creating long-term foundations for a new generation of world class chess talent through
youth recruitment. By finding and training young chess talent,
the Soviets hoped that they would not only be able to increase the
number of players in the Soviet Union, but also over time to develop
world-class chess talent to compete on the international stage. In
order to achieve this, the chess section secured the government’s
support, helping incorporate the game not only directly into the
curricula of many primary schools but also through offering the
game as an extracurricular activity after school.48 Chess was also
introduced to many youth organizations such as the Pioneers (Soviet Boy Scouts) and the Komsomol (Leninist Young Communist
League).49 Within these outreach programs, the chess section also
took steps to observe and identify the most talented students and
provide them with private training from Soviet masters.50 These
students would eventually be expected to represent the Soviet
Union in future international contests.
Krylenko and the chess section’s ambitious efforts to expand Soviet Chess yielded promising results. Although they did
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not reach the colossal benchmark of a million registered players
by 1934, Soviet Chess made major progress in both the number
and skill level of chess players in the Soviet Union. In 1928 when
Krylenko first announced his Five-Year Plan for chess there were
a total of 150,000 registered players in the Soviet Union, but by
1934 that number had more than tripled to 500,000.51 In addition
young Soviet players yielded promising successes in international
contests, most evident when in 1936 Soviet Chess champion Mikhail
Botvinnik pulled an upset and managed to tie the then- reigning World Chess champion Jose Raul Capablanca for first place
at the prestigious Nottingham Tournament in England.52 This
achievement was regarded as a great victory for Communism in
the Soviet press and taken as evidence of the progress of not only
Soviet Chess but also the state as a whole. Botvinnik himself was
heralded as a hero and the newspaper Pravda soon published a
piece lauding the achievement as validating the efforts of the state
to promote chess, declaring “the USSR is becoming the classical
land of chess…the unity of feeling and will of the whole country
—these are sources of Soviet victories whether in the conquest of
the air, in the stadium of Czechoslovakia, or at the chess tables of
Nottingham.”53 Chess by then had solidified its position as not just
a game, but an extension of Soviet national culture and identity.
Social, Economic, and Political Catalysts
While the astounding early successes of Soviet Chess was
in large part the result of direct government efforts, various other
factors were also responsible in allowing the game to grow so
quickly. Such factors include the social and economic conditions
of the Soviet Union, which made the game more appealing to
the general public as well as political developments that provided
new avenues for generating exposure for the game to the masses.
These circumstantial factors all gave the Soviet Union a unique
advantage in their efforts to spread and expand chess and were
crucial in allowing the game to reach great heights in such a
relatively short period of time.
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The Soviet people found great inherent appeal in chess
due to its simple requirements yet limitless possibilities, especially
given the social, economic, and political conditions of the state
at the time. The fact that chess was a cheap and portable activity
that did not require much equipment made it very accessible to
most of the Soviet people. Thus, with relatively small subsidies,
the Soviet government was able to make the game available to
large swaths of the population. British grandmaster Daniel King
explained: “equipment was easy to produce; tournaments relatively easy to organize…soon there were chess clubs in factories,
on farms, in the army…the vast social experiment quickly bore
fruit.”54 In addition, the spread of chess was further aided by the
lack of alternative forms of entertainment available in the Soviet
Union at the time. The government’s heavy emphasis on agricultural and industrial production came at the expense of consumer
goods and entertainment, which therefore were not available to
compete with chess for the attention of the people. Finally, many
modern scholars theorize that another factor that enabled chess
to find such popularity among the Soviet people was that it provided an outlet for free expression in the otherwise repressive and
censored Soviet State. The earlier mentioned 1925 psychological
study in chess had found that playing the game could help “allow a free unfolding of the personality…[chess could] satisfy the
demands and strivings which lie deep in a man’s nature but fail to
find satisfaction in everyday life.”55 Unlike other areas of life such
as media, literature, or politics, which were heavily censored and
had dangerous repercussions for saying the wrong thing, most
chess players enjoyed relative freedom and autonomy in their
work, making chess a safe and appealing activity.
In addition to the inherent appeal chess had to many,
Soviet government and society also attached many explicit and
implicit social and economic incentives to playing chess in order to
help advance the movement. As the popularity of chess increased,
top chess players began to enjoy great social status and prestige.
Mikhail Botvinnik, for his earlier mentioned success at the Nottingham tournament, became a national celebrity and received
praise and honors from top Soviet leadership including a personal
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congratulatory letter from Stalin.56 Botvinnik and other leading
masters also enjoyed special privileges that came with their status
including the opportunity to travel abroad to play in international
tournaments. In fact, these international trips also led to top Soviet
players receiving generous gifts and stipends for their work after
the Soviet government was forced to address the problem of many
of their top players defecting to more economically-prosperous
Western nations while abroad during international tournaments.57
These stipends ranged from several hundred to tens of thousands
of rubles per month depending on the skill level and ranking of
the player.58 In contrast, professional chess players in Western
nations received no monetary compensation from the state and
nowhere near the levels of social prestige that their Soviet counterparts enjoyed in the USSR.59 Upon visiting the Soviet Union,
Czech grandmaster Sal Flohr remarked on this difference between
the way chess was regarded in the Soviet Union compared to the
West such that “I [Flohr] have only to recall the situation of players
abroad [Western Nations] to begin, through that contrast, to see
even more clearly the gulf which divides the culture of our Soviet
land from capitalist culture. Even the very best representatives of
chess abroad live a relatively pitiful existence.”60 The promise of
potential wealth and fame that came with becoming a successful
chess player in the Soviet Union attracted many people to the
game in the Soviet Union, and this did not occur anywhere else
in the world.
The cultural significance of chess in the eyes of the Soviet
people, along with the political importance of the game in the
eyes of the Soviet Government, also allowed the game to not only
survive but grow during the Second World War. During the war,
leading cultural figures in the USSR were called upon to make
contributions in order to help inspire the war effort in the home
front, with works ranging from Eisenstein’s epic Ivan the Terrible,
glorifying Russian history, to Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony,
dedicated to Soviet resistance at the siege of Leningrad.61 Thus,
many top chess players who were not called up to arms were mobilized to play in widely broadcast chess tournaments for propaganda
purposes in trying to project a sense of normal life during the war.62
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Other prominent players such as Boris Vainshtein organized chess
lectures, exhibitions, and tournaments in the Red Army to provide
the soldiers with entertainment and to boost morale.63 Vainshtein
was particularly successful in introducing chess to the wounded at
hospitals, and according to accounts, “over 30,000 army men in
Moscow received a chess rating while undergoing hospital treatment.”64 Over the course of the war, Vainshtein’s chess displays
were reportedly attended by hundreds of thousands of soldiers,
leading to continued growth of the Soviet chess movement even
during the war. In addition, after the war, many of the veterans
who had picked up chess during the war ended up introducing
the game to their hometowns in rural areas that had not yet gotten
exposure to the game.65 Thus in stark contrast to the First World
War after which the game had been all but eradicated in the state,
Soviet chess emerged from the Second World War stronger and
more popular than ever.
Cold War
During the Cold War era the Soviet Union would quickly
emerge as a superpower not only in geopolitics but also in competitive chess. Domestically, the game reached its cultural zenith
as chess literature flourished, membership reached record levels,
and the game became an unquestionably important part of Soviet
culture and society. Internationally, Soviet chess masters dominated
tournaments and contests against foreign players in both individual
and team contests. Later on, in the wake of new challengers, chess
became a symbolic battleground for the Soviet Union representing the Cold War struggle between capitalism and Communism.
Towards the end of the Cold War, domestic problems within the
state brought an end to the Soviet Union’s experiment both in
Communism and, by extension, political chess.
During the early years of the Cold War era the Soviet
Union was quick to establish itself as a dominant juggernaut in
the international chess scene. On September 2nd 1945, the same
day that the Second World War officially came to an end, the
United States and Soviet Union engaged in the first ever radio
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chess match.66 In the match, the top ten players on each national
team was paired with an opponent from the other nation with
each move being transmitted via radio. At that point, despite
the progress made by Soviet Chess over the interwar years, most
pundits and news outlets still believed that chess in America and
Europe was significantly more advanced than in Russia and the
match would result in a relatively easy American victory. The New
York Times even declared in the days leading up to the contest the
United States should “have no misgivings about the match.”67
Thus in the actual contest it was quite a shock to Americans when
the Soviets not only won the match but routed the U.S. team by a
decisive 15.5 to 4.5 score.68 Not long after, the Soviets would again
make headlines in international chess when Soviet representative
Mikhail Botvinnik won the World Chess Championship in 1948.69
Botvinnik’s victory marked the beginning of more than two decades of complete dominance by the Soviets in international chess,
during which their world title would go unchallenged, earning
their world-class team and training system the nickname: “The
Soviet Machine.”70 While the rest of the world was shocked by the
massive advances Soviet chess had made, the Soviets took these
victories on the chessboard as clear indications of the triumph of
not only their chess program, but also the triumphs of the nation
and ideology of Communism as a whole. In the words of Soviet
master Alexander Kotov, Botvinnik’s victory “provides indisputable proof of the superiority of socialist culture over the declining
culture of capitalist countries.”71 Chess was held in high regard
by the Soviet nation, not only as a national pastime enjoyed by
millions at the point, but also as a symbol of the greatness of the
Soviet people and their state.
The success of the Soviets in international chess competitions was both the result of the enormous cultural role the game
had taken in Soviet society, and the cause for even greater interest
in the game following Soviet international successes. The number of
registered chess players in the Soviet Union had rapidly risen from
500,000 in 1934, to 1 million by 1950, to 3 million by 1960, to five
million near the end of the Cold War.72 In comparison, there were
only 6,000 registered chess players in the United States by 1963.73
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The increased role of chess in the Soviet Union also extended beyond just membership rates, as Soviet chess literature and events
flourished during the time. There was mass publication of chess
textbooks, chess histories, game archives, player biographies, and
player memoirs, and in addition local and national tournaments
were held more frequently than ever.74 Chess penetrated into almost all levels of Soviet Society, and integrated itself into the lives
of citizens from schools, to farms, to factories, to the army. When
visiting the Soviet Union, Dutch grandmaster Hans Ree humorously described how “when I am in the USSR, I have the feeling
that every tram conductor plays chess better than I do.”75 In the
Soviet state, chess was held not just a novelty activity limited to a
few thousand enthusiasts like in the West, but a meaningful part
of life to millions of citizens across the Soviet state.
The Soviet domination of chess would be first tested in
1972 against the American chess challenger, Bobby Fischer. In
1960 Fischer had been the youngest U.S. chess champion in history at the age of 14, and by 1972, at the age of 26, became the
first non-Soviet player to pass the necessary qualifying tournaments
to challenge then reigning Soviet champion Boris Spassky for the
world chess title.76 The match was heavily anticipated and hyped
by the media as a symbolic battle between the forces of capitalism
and Communism. The eccentric Fischer further escalated tension
around the match by publicly denouncing the Soviet Union and
accusing their chess teams of cheating.77 Thus by the time the
match began in Reykjavik, Iceland, it drew record viewing across
the world and was hyped to be the “match of the century.”78 In
the actual contest, Spassky was able to start off strong, winning the
initial two games. However, Fischer managed to quickly recover
and decisively won the overall match by a score of 12.5 to 8.5, and
became the first non-Soviet player to win the title in more than
two decades.79 Given the unprecedented coverage and attention
the game had drawn, Fischer returned to the United States and
was heralded as a hero much as Botvinnik was decades earlier. At
the time it appeared as if the era of Soviet domination of chess
could be over, as Fischer vowed to continue to defend his new
position as world chess champion for years to come. However,
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Langston Chen
while the stunned Soviet chess community scrambled after the
tournament to prepare for a future attempt to regain the title,
such efforts proved unnecessary as Fischer would become his own
undoing. In the years following his victory over Spassky, Fischer
grew increasingly eccentric, and then to the shock of the world
declined to defend his title in the following championship cycle
and announced his retirement from competitive chess.80 Thus by
default, the world chess championship title reverted to the Soviet
Union in 1975.
Although for the rest of the Cold War period there were
no other major non-Soviet challengers to the world chess title, the
Soviet Union much like Fischer would prove to be its own undoing.
For the remainder of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union stayed
atop world chess rankings, however its reputation of invincibility
had taken a hit with the loss to Fischer and the rest of the world
began to catch up. Nearing the end of the twentieth century, the
Soviet Union found itself overwhelmed with internal problems,
including political demonstrations, a failing economy, and weak
leadership. Ultimately neither chess nor Gorbachev’s policies of
glasnost or perestroika could save the USSR, and from 1991-1992 the
Soviet Union dissolved into the Commonwealth of Independent
States. With the collapse of the Soviet state, Soviet chess also followed suit and in 1991 the Soviet chess section was broken up,
marking the end of the era of Soviet chess.81
Conclusion
In less than three decades, chess in the Soviet Union went
from a state of near extinction to becoming an integral part of
the Soviet culture and society. Chess became a part of the lives of
millions in the USSR, and the Soviets came to experience unprecedented success in international chess competitions. The game was
successful in the Soviet Union due to both social and economic
conditions that made the game appealing to the public, as well as
political intervention that provided the funding and infrastructure
for the game to expand. Yet despite these successes, neither the
Soviet Union’s experiment in chess nor its experiment in Communism achieved the original goals of the founders. Chess never truly
THE CONCORD REVIEW
183
served as a catalyst for bringing a triumph for socialism, perhaps
because the game was never suited to accomplish such a task, or
perhaps because it was an impossible task due to inherent flaws in
Bolshevik ideology. Both the Soviet Union and the Chess Section
had broken up by the end of the century. Nevertheless, during
the era of Soviet chess the game did help in bringing happiness
to those who played it, a sense of pride and unity to those who
watched the successes of Soviet masters, and a cultural identity
for the state as a whole.
Looking forwards, with the collapse of Communism and
the breakup of the Soviet Union, the futures of both the Russian
state and the game of chess is uncertain. In a sense, the two have
diverged in recent years, as chess no longer quite holds the same
status it did during its peak years in the Soviet Union. In the
present day, while the Soviet Union is still consistently among the
top in world chess rankings, the gap between it and the rest of
the world has shrunk considerably and recent world champions
have come from different nations across the world. However, in
another sense, both chess and the Soviet State share many common uncertainties going into the modern day especially with the
advent of new technologies and changing cultures. Advances in
computing have led to the creation of advanced chess software
that is on par with the top chess players in the world, which has
radically altered the landscape and future of the game.82 Similarly
the free flow of information through social media and digital
technology in this modern age has recently led to international
and domestic challenges to the authoritarian nature of the Russian
government whose future direction remains to be seen. However,
despite these uncertainties, the game of chess has consistently
endured over millennia, constantly surviving and evolving over
changing times and circumstances, and will likely continue to
survive and influence the world and its peoples for years to come.
184
Langston Chen
Endnotes
“The Chess Players of Our Homeland.” Pravda, August
1936, p. 32.
2
Andrew Soltis. Soviet Chess, 1917-1991, London:
McFarland & Company, 2000, p. 347.
3
David Richards. Soviet Chess. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1965, p. 6.
4
David Shenk. The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, New
York: Anchor Books, 2006, p. 4.
5
Ibid., p. 7.
6
Ibid., p. 104.
7
Richards, p. 96.
8
Ibid., p. 169.
9
Shenk, p. 173.
10
Alexander Kotov, and Mikhail Yudovich. The Soviet School
of Chess. New York: Ishi International, 2011, pp. 45-49.
11
Anderson, Lucas. “The Soviet School of Chess.” Speech,
June 25, 2014, p. 1.
12
Ibid., p. 17.
13
Shenk, p. 55.
14
Alexander Illyin-Zhenevskii. Notes of a Soviet Master.
Leningrad: n.p., 1929, p. 101.
15
Shenk, p. 59.
16
Dylan McClain. “Class Struggle and Fabergé’s
Imagination Played Out on a Board.” New York Times, October
10, 2010. Accessed March 14, 2015, p. 1.
17
Ibid., p. 1.
18
Shenk, p. 168.
19
P.A. Rudik and N. V. Petrovsky, Psychology of Chess.
Moscow: n.p., 1926, p. 5.
20
Ibid., p. 5.
21
Ibid., p. 3.
22
Benjamin Franklin. “The Morals of Chess.” The
Columbian Magazine, N.p., 1796. p. 1.
23
Ibid., p. 1.
24
Ibid., pp. 1-2.
25
Illyin-Zhenevskii, p. 28.
26
Ibid., p. 130.
27
Kotov and Yudovich, p. 90.
28
Ibid., p. 72.
29
Richards, p. 35.
30
Ibid., p. 37.
1
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Illyin-Zhenevskii, p. 9.
Ibid., p. 9.
33
Soltis, p. 30.
34
Richards, p. 20.
35
Soltis, p. 11.
36
Richards, p. 93.
37
Kotov and Yudovich, p. 17.
38
Richards, pp. 44-45.
39
Ibid., pp. 44-45.
40
Kotov, p. 63.
41
Richards, p. 21.
42
Soltis, p. 71.
43
Ibid., p. 71.
44
Ibid., p. 132.
45
Ibid., p. 21.
46
Richards, p. 51
47
Ibid., p. 51.
48
Ibid., p. 293.
49
Brady Frank. Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and
Fall—From America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness. New
York: Crown Publishers, 2011. p. 77.
50
Dave Edmonds and John Eidinow. Bobby Fischer Goes to
War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All
Time. p. 31.
51
Richards, p. 90.
52
Ibid., p. 180.
53
Shenk, p. 168.
54
Rudik, p. 5.
55
“The Chess Players of Our Homeland.” Pravda, August
1936. p. 2.
56
Richards, 173.
57
Ibid., p. 170.
58
Ibid., p. 171.
59
Ibid., p. 145.
60
Soltis, p. 120.
61
Richards, p. 67.
62
Ibid., p. 69.
63
Soltis, p. 45.
64
Ibid., p. 49.
65
Richards, p. 30.
66
Seth Bernstein. “Valedictorians of the Soviet School:
Professionalization and the Impact of War in Soviet Chess.”
31
32
185
186
Langston Chen
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 13 (2012).
p. 1.
67
Frank, p. 303.
68
Bernstein, pp. 1-2.
69
Richards, p. 178.
70
Edmonds and Eidinow. p. 89.
71
Richards, p. 23.
72
Ibid., p. 72.
73
George A. Chressanthis, “The Demand for Chess in the
United States 1946-1990.” American Economist. Accessed January
29, 2015. JSTOR. p. 3.
74
Richards, p. 12.
75
Frank, p. 19.
76
Edmonds and Eidinow. p. 41.
77
Ibid., p. 58.
78
Ibid., p. 63.
79
Ibid., 40.
80
Frank. p. 206.
81
Kotov and Yudovich. p. 287.
82
Mikhail Botvinnik. “Men and Machines at the
Chessboard.” Soviet Review, pp. 1-4.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
187
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Botvinnik, Mikhail, “Men and Machines at the Chessboard.”
Soviet Review.
Byrne, Robert, “Chess: World Team Championship Won
Easily by Soviet Union.” The New York Times (New York),
December 21, 1985.
“The Chess Players of Our Homeland,” Pravda, August 1936.
Franklin, Benjamin. The Morals of Chess, The Columbian
Magazine, N.p., 1796.
Illyin-Zhenevskii, Aleksander, Notes of a Soviet Master.
Leningrad: n.p., 1929.
Rudik, P. A., and N. V. Petrovsky, Psychology of Chess. Moscow:
n.p., 1926.
“The Soviet Chess Machine: Another Empire Crumbles.”
The Economist, December 21, 1991.
Secondary Sources
Anderson, Lucas, “The Soviet School of Chess,” Speech,
June 25, 2014.
Bernstein, Seth, “Valedictorians of the Soviet School:
Professionalization and the Impact of War in Soviet Chess,”
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 13 (2012).
Accessed February 6, 2015. http://muse.jhu.edu.ezp-prod1.hul.
harvard.edu/journals/kritika/v013/13.2.bernstein.pdf.
Chressanthis, George A., “The Demand for Chess in the
United States 1946-1990,” American Economist, Accessed January
29, 2015. JSTOR
Edmonds, Dave, and John Eidinow, Bobby Fischer Goes to War:
How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time,
New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Frank, Brady, Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and
Fall—From America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness. New
York: Crown Publishers, 2011.
Kotov, Alexander, and Mikhail Yudovich, The Soviet School of
Chess. New York: Ishi International, 2011.
McClain, Dylan, “Class Struggle and Fabergé’s Imagination
Played Out on a Board,” New York Times, October 10, 2010.
Accessed March 14, 2015. http://gambit.blogs.nytimes.
188
Langston Chen
com/2010/10/06/class-struggle-and-faberges-imaginationplayed-out-on-a-board/
Richards, David, Soviet Chess, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Shenk, David, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess. New
York: Anchor Books, 2006.
Sinitsyna, Olga, “Censorship in the Soviet Union and
its Cultural and Professional Results for Arts and Art
Libraries.” Censorship in the Soviet Union and its Cultural
and Professional Results for Arts and Art Libraries. Accessed
January 28, 2015. http://archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla64/067-101e.
htm.
Soltis, Andrew, Soviet Chess, 1917-1991, London: McFarland
& Company, 2000.
“CROSSING THE JORDAN”: THE LOST CAUSE
IN THE 1876 REDEMPTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA
Peter Luff
O
n October 13, 1876, the sound of the “rebel yell”
rang out across York County, South Carolina, for the first time
in eleven years. Six thousand of the county’s citizens converged
on the town of Yorkville to witness a rally of the local Democrats
and their candidate for governor, Confederate general Wade
Hampton.1 “Mounted on a splendid charger,” Hampton took his
place at the head of a procession of 1,300 horseback supporters.
“Cheer after cheer rent the air,” reported the Yorkville Enquirer,
while the town’s “noble women…vied with each other in paying
homage to the chieftain.”2 Then “a thousand tongues joined to
swell the melody” of the hymn Hold the Fort, its lyrics altered to
suit the occasion.3 Writing fifty years after the event, journalist
Alfred B. Williams could still remember the atmosphere of the
crowd as Hampton approached the speaker’s stand. “The Rev.
E.J Meynardie offered prayer,” recalled Williams, then “Hampton
advanced in a storm of roses, thrown at him by the women, and
to the screaming music of the Rebel yell from thousands of lusty
throats.”4 At the subsidence of the applause, Hampton began to
Peter Luff is a Senior at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire,
where he wrote this paper for D. Clinton Williams’ History 333 course
in the 2014/2015 academic year.
190
Peter Luff
speak. “I do not speak to you as a mere candidate seeking office,”
he roared, but “as a Carolinian who wants to redeem our dear old
State to her former proud position.”5
During the period of Reconstruction, Hampton’s call
for “Redemption” at Yorkville echoed across the entire South.6
In the eyes of the South’s white Democratic elites, the “radical”
changes of Reconstruction had made a mockery of Southern selfgovernment. In South Carolina, for example, the un-Southern-ness
of the Republican regime was almost comical—the incumbent
Republican governor, Massachusetts-born Daniel Chamberlain,
was an abolitionist who had commanded black troops during
the war, while of the three justices serving on the state’s Supreme
Court, one was a Yankee, another was black, and all three were
Republicans.7 One Southerner described the government of his
state as a “grand carnival of crime and debauchery” while another
characterized the South’s state governments as “a mixture of Sheol,
Hades, hell fire, the black death and pandemonium.”8 Starting in
the late 1860s, white elites schemed to expunge radical Republican rule from the South. Georgian Democrats “redeemed” their
state in 1871, while Democrat George S. Houston was elected
governor of Alabama in 1874 on a platform of “home rule” and
“white supremacy.”9 Between 1869 and 1875, the Democratic Redeemers returned control of ten state governments to the hands
of conservative whites.10
The struggle for redemption in South Carolina took on
a special urgency. The first state to declare for secession, in 1876
South Carolina remained one of only three un-redeemed states
in the South.11 To many South Carolinians it was an insult to the
state’s illustrious history as the epicenter of Southern civilization
and political independence that its white citizens should have to
bow to the command of “negroes” and Yankee “radicals.”12 Yet for
years Democratic efforts to redeem South Carolina had been, as
historian Hyman Rubin writes, “crippled by white apathy.”13 Faced
with a 40,000 strong black majority in the state, many whites presumed that the Democratic cause was hopeless and simply did not
vote.14 Others cast their ballots for the Republicans that they viewed
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191
as least threatening.15 The Hampton canvass of 1876 achieved the
remarkable feat of reversing this trend. Democrats used elaborate
rhetoric and pageantry in their campaign events, called “Hampton
Days,” to intimidate blacks and inspire political zeal in whites.16
By employing symbolism and language that targeted white voters’ anxieties about race, gender, religion and honor, Democrats
convinced South Carolina’s whites that Hampton’s triumph in
the election would be a victory for the social principles that they
cared about most. 17 As a result, the Democratic canvass succeeded
in inflaming the political passions of whites who had been indifferent to electoral campaigns for nearly a decade, producing a
Democratic turnout that propelled Wade Hampton to victory
in the election and reversed years of Republican dominance in
South Carolina.18
The set of beliefs that the Hampton campaign appealed to
in 1876 originated largely from the ideology of the Lost Cause.19
First envisaged in Edward A. Pollard’s 1866 book The Lost Cause:
A New History of the War of the Confederates, the Lost Cause was an
approach to interpreting the South’s experience of defeat in the
Civil War that celebrated the Confederacy’s unique history and the
sacrifice of its soldiers.20 During the Reconstruction period, belief
in the doctrine of the “Lost Cause” spread rapidly among white
Southerners.21 Hampton and his Democratic allies invoked four
primary themes of Lost Cause ideology in their 1876 campaign—
the importance of honor, the holiness of the Confederacy and its
cause, the inferiority and dependency of blacks, and the patriarchal
obligation of white males to protect white women. 22
Honor: Redemption as the Restoration of South Carolinian
Primacy
South Carolina Democrats promised audiences that they
would reclaim the honor of their state and its citizens if elected.
Upholding personal and collective “honor” was singularly crucial
to 19th century Southerners. Historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown has
argued that, while its meaning was interpreted in multiple ways,
“honor” formed a “set of social expectations of rituals” that all
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Peter Luff
Southerners, regardless of class, were expected to follow.23 The notion of “Southern Honor” was essential to the Lost Cause because
it justified Pollard’s assertion that Southern society was superior
to Northern society.24 Oftentimes honor expectations demanded
of males that they confront and subdue physical threats. A young
Wade Hampton was commended by his parents for attacking an
especially loud duck with a toy sword, until the “web-footed bully”
lay dead and frightened the boy no more.25 For women, maintaining family honor was essential. In 1873 the Edgefield Advertiser
reported the tragic death of a South Carolina mother, who “fell
dead to the floor” upon finding that her unmarried daughter had
born a child by a stranger. “The shock, when the knowledge of the
disgrace…came upon her, killed her as suddenly as a bullet in the
heart would have done,” lamented the Advertiser.26 Republican rule,
therefore, threatened white South Carolinians’ honor because it
challenged white authority and interfered with the home sphere
by freeing the slaves who had once served in white households.27
By invoking a martial atmosphere at their campaign appearances, Democrats allowed audiences to retrieve a sense of the
honor that had been lost during Reconstruction. Wade Hampton’s
appearance at Anderson on September 2 featured a two-mile-long
parade.28 The column of advancing white South Carolinians was
so reminiscent of a Confederate army regiment that the Anderson
Intelligencer saw fit to describe it in military terms. The procession
“moved under the command of Maj. W.W Humphrey,” assisted
by a “staff,” and in an “order of march” that boasted two bands,
dozens of local Democratic clubs, and “a company of forty little
boys who were on foot, each carrying a United States flag.”29
White South Carolinian William Ball welcomed the sight of native
Southerners exhibiting power at the “Hampton Days,” after years
of watching the demonstrations of Federal troops—“I remember
that they were the first company of semi-military men I had ever
seen, except Yankees,” he later wrote.30 While displays like the one
at Anderson exerted no real influence on behalf of whites, they
still served as symbols of the hope that South Carolina might one
day recover her former military honors.31
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193
Wade Hampton’s candidacy helped bolster the link between the Democratic campaign for “Redemption” and South
Carolina’s honor. In the eyes of many South Carolinians, Hampton
represented the ideal of Southern Honor. Hampton had displayed
resilience in the face of loss—a rich planter in the antebellum
years, Hampton lost a son, two estates, and much of his hometown
to Union armies during the Civil War.32 As a Lieutenant General
in the war, Hampton had personally financed a unit of cavalry,
called “Hampton’s Legion,” for South Carolina’s defense.33 On
one occasion Hampton sent a cadre of his men on a mission to
capture the loathed William Sherman.34 A contemporary observed
that Hampton “strikingly crystallized all the arrogant old plantation qualities of the South.”35 With someone who embodied the
honorable qualities of South Carolina as governor, whites could
be assured that the state and its citizens’ honor would be restored
after over a decade of the “pandemonium” and “hell fire” of Reconstruction rule.36
Countless South Carolinians placed their trust and hope
in the Democratic promise of restored honor. The Anderson Intelligencer called the pseudo-military display in its town the “grandest
success ever witnessed in Anderson.”37 A reporter for the Abbeville
Press and Banner, after watching Hampton speak, explained how
“no…Carolinian can listen to his arguments without being…
generally made to feel like following Hampton to the death!”38
Hampton and the Democratic Redeemers had come to symbolize the Honor that South Carolinians cherished. The Yorkville
Enquirer declared that Hampton “combines in himself a fairer
share of those better qualities of mind and character, of which
Southerners are so uniformly proud.”39 Democratic leaders had
succeeded in portraying their candidate as a Redeemer of both
South Carolina’s government and its honor.40
Faith: Appropriating the Language of Southern Religion to the
Politics of Redemption
Just as Wade Hampton’s canvass promised to recover South
Carolina’s honor, the Redeemers claimed that a Democratic vic-
194
Peter Luff
tory in the elections would restore government dedicated to the
Christian faith in South Carolina.41 The Redeemers’ reputations as
Confederate war heroes helped buttress this argument. Historian
Charles Reagan Wilson contends that the trials of the Civil War
profoundly shaped the faith of Southerners in the post-bellum
period.42 From the Confederacy’s inception, its religion had been
intertwined with its war efforts. Chaplains like I.T. Tichenor urged
soldiers to carry on the war against the Yankees. “I called upon
them to stand and die, if need be for their country…I feel in my
heart I have served the cause of God and my country,” Tichenor
wrote of his work at Shiloh.43 Southern dedication to “God and
country” did not end with Appomattox, however, as adherents
to the “Lost Cause” worked to weave the Lost Cause myth into
the fabric of Southern religion during Reconstruction. St. Paul’s
Church in Richmond installed a stained-glass memorial honoring
Robert E. Lee in 1868, while the United Daughters of the Confederacy guarded, among other “relics,” the Bible that Jefferson
Davis used during the war.44 South Carolina’s Redeemers claimed
to exemplify the dual commitment to the Christian faith and the
memory of the Confederacy practiced by Tichenor and many
other Southerners.45
Democratic leaders deliberately used religious language
to communicate the divinity of their political cause. This tactic
was most evident in the name Democrats gave to the goal of their
endeavor—the “redemption” of South Carolina. The use of the
word “Redemption” implied that a Democratic victory in the November elections would deliver South Carolina from her present
sins—presumably transgressions committed by her Republican Reconstruction government.46 Democrats employed various phrases
that linked Christianity with Redemption. Even the act of joining
the Democratic Party became holy. “The most thrilling incident
was the appearance of Judge Cooke … to announce that he had
‘crossed Jordan’ and was heart and soul for Hampton,” recalled
Alfred B. Williams of the campaign proceedings at Abbeville on
September 16.47 In some cases fervent Democrats tried to combine
the religious instruction of children with political education. A
Democratic Sunday school teacher in a Republican community
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195
was fired for incorporating pro-Hampton lessons into his efforts
to “advance the mental, moral and Christian condition” of his
students.48 In the eyes of Democrats and the thousands of whites
who “crossed Jordan” to support them, the election transcended
typical politics to become a holy battle as well as an electoral one.49
South Carolina’s ministers extolled the Christian virtues
of the Redeemers’ cause on Democrats’ behalf. The Press and
Banner reported that during Hampton’s appearance at Abbeville,
“Dr. Bonner…was requested to invoke the Divine Blessing upon
our present assemblage…praying that the God of nations…would
deign to bless the efforts of our people to redeem our prostrate
state.”50 The Redeemers’ political messages entered South Carolina’s churches through the sermons of politically active ministers.
At the “Church of the Good Shepherd” in Yorkville, Reverend R.P.
Johnson delivered a sermon condemning the radical Republican
government on October 26. “When we look at our own State,
‘wickedness in high places’ rules and oppresses; dishonesty and
villainy are unchecked and prosper,” he declared.51 Contributions
by preachers to the Democratic campaign added legitimacy to
Democrats’ claims of Christian superiority and reinforced the
association of the Christian faith with Democratic Redemption.52
The conflation of religious and political messages in the
Democratic campaign led audiences to believe that a vote for
Redemption was a vote for Christian values. The Anderson Intelligencer beseeched its readers to “vote and work for Hampton” in
order to deliver [South Carolina] from the thralldom of thieves
and merciless adventurers.”53 One South Carolinian signed her
pro-Hampton editorial “An Old-Fashioned Christian.”54 Everywhere they looked, South Carolinians saw juxtapositions of their
faith with Democratic politics. The Intelligencer recounted the
story of a “young man of Anderson who went to sleep in one of
our churches last Sunday night, and when awakened exclaimed:
‘Hurrah for Hampton.’”55 Consequently, the successful conclusion
of the campaign was viewed as a product of divine favor. “God has
crowned the closing year with another blessing. Wade Hampton
is our governor,” announced a Baptist magazine.56 John Leland
196
Peter Luff
exclaimed “To the world, [South Carolina] once more proudly
holds forth her time-honored escutcheon—re-baptized with the
blood of some of her bravest and best.”57 By weaving religious
messages into their canvass, South Carolina Democrats inspired
white audiences to view Redemption in the same transcendent
terms that the Redeemers did.
Prejudice: White Redeemers, Black Republicans, and the Politics of Dehumanization
While Southern faith was ingrained in the history of the Confederacy, it was white hatred of blacks that formed the foundation
of the Confederates’ social and political beliefs. The Democratic
campaign of 1876 appealed to the paternal and racist instincts
that white South Carolinians felt towards African Americans.
Lost Cause supporters embraced these prejudices, maintaining
that slavery had been a “benevolent” institution that benefitted
Southern society as a whole.58 In his book The Burden of Southern
History, C. Vann Woodward argues that, throughout the South’s
history, “racial prejudices, aggressions and jealousness could
be stirred to rally massive popular support.”59 Wade Hampton’s
campaign exploited this feature of Southern politics to the fullest
extent.60 By and large, Southern whites were infuriated by the new
privileges granted to blacks during Reconstruction. The Edgefield
Advertiser called a parade of black troops an “insult to the white
people of Edgefield as no white people on earth had ever to put
up with before.”61 Charleston resident Eliza Holmes confided her
anxieties about the growing power of blacks to a friend. “Surely our
humiliation has been great when a black postmaster is established
here,” she wrote when Benjamin Boseman, a black man, became
postmaster of the city.62 Some whites viewed the black race as
inherently barbaric and uncivilized. Alfred Holt Stone, a planter
from Mississippi, offered a justification for prejudice toward the
black race, writing that “its very failure to develop itself in its own
habitat, while the Caucasian, Mongolian and others have gone
forward, is in itself proof of inferiority.”63 South Carolina’s Redeemers crafted the rhetoric and ritual of their campaign so that
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197
it could take advantage of white discontent with the post-bellum
elevation of blacks.64
While party leaders rarely used racial odium on the campaign trail for fear of alienating black voters, Redeemers used
other avenues to express their disdain for blacks. In late August,
the Democratic club of Slabtown passed a resolution declaring
that the state’s black-influenced government was “a disgrace to
the civilization of the age.”65 Democratic papers like the Yorkville
Enquirer circulated stories of black brutality. On September 14, the
Enquirer related how “a fierce and howling mob of negroes” incited
a riot in Charleston, “savagely attacking and beating every white
man who chanced to be on the streets.”66 More radical Hampton
supporters went so far as to portray the gubernatorial contest as
a race war. The Edgefield Advertiser, in an August editorial argued
that “the white people of this state must control the negroes or
be controlled by them …” 67And while Redeemer candidates had
ceased to degrade blacks in public, few South Carolinians could
forget Democratic leader Martin W. Gary’s warning of only a few
years before that if white voters assented to black suffrage, they
then “consented to make this a mongrel government—to make the
children of your former slaves the successful competitors of your
children...”68 By degrading the humanity of their black Republican
opponents, Democrats ignited white fears of black domination,
inducing voters to side with the white Redeemer ticket instead.69
While Hampton himself was less hostile to blacks than many
of his Democratic allies, the paternalistic language he used in his
campaign speeches to describe blacks assured white audiences that,
under a Redeemer government, blacks would remain second-rate
citizens.70 At Yorkville on October 26 Hampton attempted to sway
blacks to the Democratic ticket. Addressing African Americans as
“my colored friends,” Hampton pledged “to [their] people better educational facilities than they have hitherto enjoyed,” and
claimed that “colored people all over the State are rallying to the
[Democratic] call.”71 Other Democrats shared tales of alleged
white compassion towards blacks as proof of the Redeemers’
benevolence. In late August the Enquirer reported the heartwarm-
198
Peter Luff
ing story of a black Democrat whose white Democratic friends
rescued him from a party of Republicans trying to dissuade the
black from voting the Redeemer ticket. “[The Republicans] soon
found the Democratic negro reinforced by some whites, who told
him to stand firm, for they were at his back,” the paper gushed.72
Hampton and his allies purported to want to help blacks, but their
views were still informed by the belief that blacks were unable to
help themselves—in 1871, Hampton had asserted that “[Blacks]
have been dependent for a long time; they have no provision, they
have no forethought at all…”73 Hampton’s approach to handling
the black population appealed to the paternalistic inclinations of
whites who believed that blacks were helpless as a race.74
The Hampton canvass effectively drew upon one of the most
universally-held sentiments of white South Carolinians—their fear
of and contempt for blacks—in order to muster public support
for the Democratic electoral ticket.75 To many South Carolinian
whites, blacks posed a threat to white households that needed to
be subdued and controlled—in October of 1876 a white man in
Aiken County told a reporter that “them women was safe, because
we’ve taught the niggers down here that our women is one thing
they can’t tetch.”76 The Redeemers presented white voters with a
platform that would control the black threat and maintain white
supremacy.77 As the election neared, the Democratic strategy appeared to be working. Lizzie Geiger of Lexington County, South
Carolina observed that “The mind of every person seems to be
taken up with Hampton. I don’t think there was ever as much excitement through the county about an election as at this time.”78
As numerous other white Southern elites had before them, South
Carolina’s Redeemers used what C. Vann Woodward called “all the
subtle psychological devices of race prejudice and propaganda at
their command,” in order to garner political support.79
A targeted and effective Democratic campaign was not the
only source of election excitement during the 1876 campaign season. The deep-seated hatred of blacks that fueled some whites to
support Hampton often prompted them to instigate racial violence
in the name of “redemption.”80 At Hamburg, South Carolina, white
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199
rifle club members massacred several members of a black militia
unit in July of 1876.81 In September, whites in Ellenton clashed
with blacks in a skirmish that left dozens of African Americans
dead.82 Such violence discouraged black Republicans from voting,
a circumstance that most likely contributed to Hampton’s margin
of victory in the election. This does not mean that the nonviolent
components of Hampton’s campaign contributed any less to
his eventual victory, however.83 While intimidating black voters
undoubtedly succeeded in depressing Republican turnout, and
fraud inflated the number of Democratic ballots cast, it does not
account for why Hampton himself received over 23,000 more votes
than the last Democrat to run for South Carolina’s governorship.84
Systematic violence directed against blacks only won half of the
election for the Democrats—the other half of the campaign, the
half that necessitated that Democrats themselves muster enough
votes for their own candidates, was won by Hampton’s campaign
and the political fervor it fomented among South Carolina’s white
voters.85
Patriarchy : Portraying South Carolina and her Female Citizens
as Ladies in Distress
The Redeemer canvass of 1876 roused white men’s fear for
the safety of white women just like it inspired fear of blacks. The
campaign garnered the support of white voters by suggesting that
Radical Republican rule posed a threat to the integrity of white
womanhood.86 Many 19th century Southern males felt obliged as
patriarchs to defend the purity of white women. Historian Katherine Cote Gillin maintains that in the South white men viewed
themselves as the defenders of what Gillin calls the “angelic ideal
of white womanhood.”87 Proponents of the Lost Cause sought to
preserve the archetype of the “Southern Lady” just like they tried
to safeguard other aspects of the South’s antebellum culture.88
The prospect of losing their “womenfolk” to foreign influences
frightened white men.89 The Orangeburg Times published a fiction
story representative of white patriarchal anxieties at the time, about
a young lady named Eleanor who ran away from the household
200
Peter Luff
of her elderly father. “[Eleanor] had grown to be all [her father]
had hoped for, and when he was most proud of her she had flown
from him, and his labor of love had been lost in vain!” lamented
the author.90 Women also played an integral role in the household
of the Southern patriarch. “Home is sad without a mother,” reads
one South Carolinian poem of the era.91 Guarding white women
from the perceived perils of the world formed a significant feature
of Southern males’ identities as patriarchs.92
South Carolina’s Redeemers charged Republicans with
endangering the ideal of Southern womanhood that white males
cherished. Democrat Charles Hard explained how, during Reconstruction, he and fellow Democrats “were worried about having
so many ladies and children to look after, and afraid the niggers
might…cause a panic while the men were off guard.”93 Redeemers
extended the tales of blacks and Republicans imperiling women
into a metaphor for the predicament of the entire state.94 On August 23, Major Meetze of Hope Station made an address “on the
present and degraded condition of South Carolina, advising her
patriotic sons what course to pursue for her redemption,” reported
the Newberry Herald.95 A more optimistic Hampton told an audience that South Carolina had yielded to Yankee rule in the past,
but that “she is not degraded.”96 Others used less subtle imagery.
John Leland wrote that, when South Carolina was redeemed, “the
Federal Bayonet was withdrawn from [South Carolina’s] throat
and she at once rose from her dust and ashes…”97 By alluding to
South Carolina’s weak femininity in their campaign, Democrats
portrayed the task of redeeming the woman-like South Carolina
as a duty similar to white males’ patriarchal obligation to care for
their own wives and daughters.98
The Redeemers wove elaborate performances celebrating
white womanhood into their campaign events. Alfred B. Williams
described the scene at Orangeburg, where, in the yard of the local pastor, thirty-seven young women were “poised like statues,
representing the states, and surrounding a crouched figure in
mourning and rags.” When Hampton approached, “the prostrate
figure arose, rags and mourning falling from her,” then turned and
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201
faced Hampton, smiling.99 Williams recounted that “Miss Cora Wannamaker was the South Carolina.”100 Democratic leaders intended
the representation of South Carolina as a young woman clad in
“mourning and rags” to stir the patriarchal instincts of the South
Carolinian males who witnessed the scene. The Democrats involved
women in their canvass in additional ways. South Carolinian Mary
Reynolds wrote that at the Hampton appearances “Every lady and
every child who could get one, bore a flag…embroidered with a
palmetto tree, surmounted by a scroll bearing the insurrectionary inscription, ‘Our liberties and our homes.’”101 The News and
Courier described how at one event “the windows along the line
of march…were adorned with the sweet fair faces of women and
children…snowy handkerchiefs were waived by hands that never
seemed to tire.”102 The pervasive presence of white women on the
Democratic campaign trail reminded male voters that Redemption wasn’t just a battle for control of state politics, but a struggle
to uphold the nobility of the state’s women.103
Conclusion: Redeemers and the Rebirth of South Carolinian
Hope
The various beliefs of the Lost Cause that Democratic leaders invoked in their 1876 campaign events—their appeals to the
faith, prejudices, honor, and patriarchal instincts of white voters
—coalesced to inspire one final emotion in the South Carolinians who witnessed the campaign: hope. The Lost Cause narrative
had become popular in the first place because of the hope that
it provided to Southerners still suffering the hardships of defeat.
The Hampton campaign was so successful because it promised to
fulfill this narrative of Northern tyranny and Southern dignity.104
At Yorkville, Democrat I.D. Witherspoon spoke of his “hope in the
future” that South Carolina might “drive out the radical oppression
and misrule that has so long afflicted [his] people.”105 After years
of suffering ignominy at the hands of “radical” Republicans, white
South Carolinians saw in Redemption the opportunity to return
antebellum prosperity and preeminence to South Carolina.106 It
didn’t seem to bother whites that securing their own prosperity
202
Peter Luff
would come at the expense of South Carolina’s thousands of black
citizens; the Hampton campaign had ensured that whites saw Redemption as a blameless, even holy, cause and its opponents as either
scheming radicals or dangerous savages.107 The canvass promised,
and voters gleefully believed, that, under Redeemer rule, ancient
South Carolinian honor would replace Reconstruction shame, the
true Christian faith of the South supplant the insincere religion of
Yankee Republicans, enlightened whites retake government from
dimwitted blacks, and the integrity of white women prevail over
the political and moral chaos of Reconstruction.108
The almost universal enthusiasm of the white inhabitants
in the towns Hampton visited was a testament to the hope he inspired in white South Carolinians. A Georgia paper reported that
“splendid audiences turned out to hear [Hampton],” the “great
exemplary of the man-hood and patriotism in Southern democracy.”109 The Abbeville Press and Banner announced that the local
Hampton campaign event was “without parallel in the history of
the town, and it is one which will not soon be forgotten.”110 Encouraged by the speeches they had seen at Hampton Days, many
whites declared for Redemption and implored their acquaintances
to do so as well. “Work, then, diligently from now until it is over
for the redemption of all that is dear to us,” declared the Anderson
Intelligencer.111 While newspaper editors undoubtedly exaggerated
some of their claims about the popularity of the campaign, the
myriad accounts of white enthusiasm for Redemption still testify
to the extent to which the campaign’s messages resonated with
its audiences.112
As the November election neared, the Redeemers’ messages seemed to have permeated every aspect of South Carolinian
society. Some observers began to use the same language used by
Democratic politicians themselves when describing Redemption.
The Edgefield Advertiser cheerfully informed its readers that “In
almost all the Counties the people are working harmoniously
together...which is a good sign, for it is our only hope of salvation.”113
Each campaign speech and procession persuaded more South
Carolinians to “cross the Jordan” and join the Democrats in their
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203
struggle for the state’s Redemption, moving the party closer to
securing the political power that it had been unable to capture for
nearly a decade.114 “From the highest to the lowest, our citizens
have entered into this campaign and the spirit of the celebration
with a will and determination only equaled by the perils of the
hour,” explained the Press and Banner.115 Even Hampton’s enemies
attested to the success of his campaign. “General Hampton and
the intelligent Democrats around him know very well that mere
numbers are always controllable by intellectual and moral mastery,”
remarked a Harper’s Weekly writer.116
On November 7, 1876, South Carolinians went to the
polls and voted for their state’s next governor. Initially the results
of the election were unclear—a preliminary vote count showed
Hampton as the victor with 1,000 more votes than Chamberlain,
but an electoral commission soon discounted these results as
both Edgefield and Laurens counties had returned more votes
than they had citizens.117 The new tally gave Chamberlain a 3,145
vote margin of victory, and for a brief time both Chamberlain
and Hampton operated their own governments.118 As a part of
the Compromise of 1877, however, federal troops withdrew from
South Carolina and Chamberlain ceded the governorship to
Hampton.119 Hampton had redeemed South Carolina, winning
92,261 votes while the last Democratic candidate for governor had
received only 68,818.120Although the results of the election were
disputed, Hampton and the Democratic Redeemers had brought
about a shift in the views of white South Carolinians that would
have endured even if Hampton lost the election.121
Wade Hampton’s 1876 gubernatorial campaign accomplished what had, for nearly a decade, seemed impossible. South
Carolina Democrats wrested control of the state government from
a Republican regime which enjoyed the support of federal troops,
the nearly unanimous support of a race that comprised sixty percent of the state’s registered voters, and the political indifference
of their opponents’ voter base.122 Democratic leaders skillfully
preyed upon the cultural anxieties of their audience in the 1876
canvass. By invoking the religious, cultural and social doctrine of
204
Peter Luff
the Lost Cause in their campaign events, Democrats were able to
communicate a subliminally political message to voters who were
captivated by the mythology of the Lost Cause but apathetic to
typical electoral platforms.123 At the outset of the campaign, Mr.
P.B. Walters, speaking at the Saluda, South Carolina, Democratic
club, envisaged that “[South Carolina]’s sons would be true” and
help their state “rise Phoenix-like to former glory.”124 The Lost
Cause-inspired rhetoric and ritual of South Carolina Democrats’
1876 campaign ensured that their state would rise from the ashes
of Reconstruction to reassert its Home Rule and the superiority
of its culture, and remain under the control of Democrats for
nearly a hundred years.125
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205
Endnotes
“Grand Demonstration by the York Democracy,” Yorkville
Enquirer. October 19, 1876, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.
gov/lccn/sn84026925/1876-10-19/ed-1/seq-2.pdf (accessed
April 28, 2015); Alfred B. Williams, Hampton and His Red Shirts
(Charleston: Walker, Evans and Cogswell,1927), 280.
2
Enquirer, October 19, 1876.
3
Ibid., “Long our ‘Prostrate State’ has suffered / But our
help is near; / Onward comes our great commander, / Cheer,
my comrades, cheer, / Hold the fort, for we are coming, /
Hampton leads us still.”
4
Williams, Red Shirts, 280-281.
5
Enquirer. October 19, 1876.
6
Otto H. Olsen, ed., Reconstruction and Redemption in the
South (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 5.
7
Belton O’Neall Townsend, “The Political Condition of
South Carolina,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 39, no. 232 (February
1877), 177-183; W. Scott Poole, “Religion, Gender and the Lost
Cause in South Carolina’s 1876 Governor’s Race,” The Journal
of Southern History, vol. 68, no. 3 (August 2002), www.jstor.
org/stable/3070159 (accessed April 4, 2015), 577; Eric Foner,
Reconstruction 1863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988),
543.
8
W. Stuart Towns, Enduring Legacy: Rhetoric and Ritual
of the Lost Cause (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
2012), 99. http://site.ebrary.com.exeter.idm.oclc.org/lib/
phillipsexeter/reader.action?docID=10527747 (accessed April
25, 2015); Belton O’Neall Townsend, “The Political Condition
of South Carolina,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 39, no. 232 (February
1877), 180.
9
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution,
1863-1877 (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 424; C. Vann
Woodward, Origins of the New South 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1951; reprint, Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1970), 9.
10
Edward Ayers, Promise of the New South (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992), 8; Woodward, Origins, 11, 19.
11
Woodward, Origins, 3-19; Vernon Burton, “Wade
Hampton III,” in Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era, ed.
1
206
Peter Luff
Richard Zuczek (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing
Group. 2006), 585. Townsend, “Political Condition,” 182.
12
“The Carpetbagger has Ruined Us Politically,”
Abbeville Press and Banner, October 18, 1876, http://
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026853/1876-10-18/
ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1876&index=2&rows=1 (accessed April 20,
2015). “The name of our state, once so honored in the roll of
nations, was now a stench and a bye-word; the people who had
once influenced and oftentimes led the councils of this great
republic, were now weak, and without influence, and ignored
by those who were formerly proud to do them reverence.”
13
Hyman Rubin, South Carolina Scalawags (Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 37.
14
W. Scott Poole, “Religion, Gender and the Lost Cause in
South Carolina’s 1876 Governor’s Race,” The Journal of Southern
History, vol. 68, no. 3 (August 2002), 596. www.jstor.org/
stable/3070159 (accessed April 4, 2015).
15
Michael Perman, The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics,
1869-1879 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1984), 165.
16
Poole, Lost Cause, 596; Perman, The Road to Redemption,
165.
17
Foner, Reconstruction, 574, 581.
18
Poole, Lost Cause, 586-587, 596; Martin W. Gary, “Plan of
the Campaign of 1876.”
http://www.screconstruction.org/Reconstruction/
Citations_files/GaryCampaign.pdf (accessed April 16, 2015).
19
Charles R. Wilson, “Southern Civil Religion, 1865-1920,”
The Journal of Southern History, vol. 46, no. 2 (May 1980), 221222. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2208359 (accessed April 10,
2015); Poole, Lost Cause, 581.
20
Aaron Sheehan-Dean, “Lost Cause” in Encyclopedia
of the Reconstruction Era, ed. Richard Zuczek (Santa Barbara:
Greenwood Publishing Group. 2006), 376-377.
21
Wilson, Civil Religion, 219-221; Sheehan-Dean, Lost
Cause, 376-377.
22
Ayers, New South, 8-9, 27; Belton O’Neall Townsend,
“The Political Condition of South Carolina,” Atlantic Monthly,
vol. 39, no. 232 (February 1877), 183-4.
23
Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “The Evolution of Heroes’
Honor in the Southern Literary Tradition,” The Georgia Review,
vol. 40, no. 4 (Winter 1986), 991-992. http://www.jstor.org/
THE CONCORD REVIEW
207
Edward Pollard, The Lost Cause (New York: E.B Treat and
Co. Publishers, 1866), 50-1. Also, Pollard contrasting the ideal
of the honorable Southerner with a materialistic Northerner:
“There are others who, in the midst of public calamities, and
in their own scanty personal fortune, leave behind them the
memory of noble deeds, and a deathless heritage of glory,” 751.
25
Wyatt-Brown, Heroes’ Honor, 156-157.
26
“Dishonor and Death,” Edgefield Advertiser, April
10, 1873, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
sn84026897/1873, (accessed April 21, 2015).
27
Ayers, New South, 8-9.
28
Francis B. Simkins and Robert H. Woody, South Carolina
During Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1932, 1966), 496; Williams, Red Shirts, 280.
29
“Democratic Rally,” Anderson Intelligencer, September
7, 1876, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
sn84026965/1876-09-07/ed-1/seq-3.pdf (accessed April 23,
2015).
30
Carole Emberton, Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence and
the American South after the Civil War (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2013), 184.
31
Rod Andrew, Wade Hampton: Confederate Warrior to
Southern Redeemer (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2008), 397.
32
Andrew, Wade Hampton, 264, 267; James McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1982), 502.
33
Simkins and Woody, South Carolina, 491; Poole, Lost
Cause, 578.
34
Andrew, Wade Hampton, 290.
35
Townsend, Political Condition, 183.
36
Foner, Reconstruction, 291-292; Poole, Lost Cause, 589.
37
“Democratic Rally,” Anderson Intelligencer, September 7,
1876.
38
“Democracy Triumphant,” Abbeville Press and Banner,
September 20, 1876, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
lccn/sn84026853/1876-09-20/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1876&sort
(accessed April 8, 2015). Emphasis original.
39
“General Wade Hampton,” Yorkville Enquirer,
August 31, 1876, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
2015).
24
208
Peter Luff
Poole, Lost Cause, 592-593, 596. Rubin, Scalawags, 49.
Poole, Lost Cause, 586-587.
42
Wilson, Southern Civil Religion, 223.
43
W. Harrison Daniel. “An Aspect of Church and State
Relations in the Confederacy: Southern Protestantism and
the Office of Army Chaplain,” The North Carolina Historical
Review, vol. 36, no. 1 (January 1959), 66. http://www.jstor.org/
44
Wilson, Southern Civil Religion, 224-227.
45
Sheehan-Dean, Lost Cause, 377.
46
Justin A. Nystrom, “Redemption,” Encyclopedia of
the Reconstruction Era, ed. Richard Zuczek (Santa Barbara:
Greenwood Publishing Group. 2006), 520.
47
Williams, Red Shirts, 202. Emphasis mine.
48
“A Card to the Christian Public,” The News and
Herald, Winnsboro, S.C, November 2, 1876. http://
ed-1/seq-3/#date1=08%2F30%2F1876&index=2 (accessed
April 24, 2015). The article does not explicitly state that the
Sunday school teacher was indoctrinating his students with
Redeemer propaganda, but it is implied that his political
leanings became mixed with his teaching.
49
Andrew, Hampton, 393.
50
September 20, 1876.
51
“Reading for the Sabbath,” Yorkville Enquirer,
November 9, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
2015).
52
Poole, Lost Cause, 586.
53
“Editorial Notes,” Anderson Intelligencer, Nov. 2, 1876.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026965/1876-1102/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1876&sort=relevance&rows=20&words
=Hampton+vote+voting&searchType=basic&sequence=0&inde
x=11&state=South+Carolina&date2=1876&proxtext=vote+Ham
pton&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=3 (accessed
April 17, 2015).
54
Kate Cote Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs: Women, Gender and Racial
Violence in South Carolina, 1865-1900 (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 2014), 95. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/
phillipsexeter/detail.action?docID=10809245 (accessed April
20, 2015).
40
41
THE CONCORD REVIEW
209
“Brief Mention,” Anderson Intelligencer, September
7, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
2015).
56
57
John Leland, A Voice for South Carolina (Charleston:
Walker, Evans and Cogswell, 1879), 184. https://books.google.
com/books?id=isBMAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=j
ohn+leland+south+carolina+voice+for&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DZ
0xVenmOIq0yQTkuoCgBg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepa
ge&q=blood&f=false (accessed April 13, 2015).
58
Sheehan-Dean, Lost Cause, 376-377.
59
C. Vann Woodward, The Burden of Southern History (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960; reprint, Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 11.
60
Ayers, New South, 8-9.
61
Vernon Burton, “Race and Reconstruction: Edgefield
County, South Carolina,” Journal of Social History, vol. 12, no.
1 (Autumn 1978), 40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3787455
(accessed April 26, 2015).
62
Bernard E. Powers, “Community Evolution and Race
Relations in Reconstruction Charleston, South Carolina,” The
South Carolina Historical Magazine, vol. 101, no. 3 (July 2000),
218. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27570448 (accessed April 25,
2015).
63
Guion Griffis Johnson, “Southern Paternalism toward
Negroes after Emancipation,” The Journal of Southern History,
vol. 23, no. 4 (November 1957), 500. http://www.jstor.org/
64
Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs, 90; Poole, Lost Cause, 596.
65
“The Slabtown Meeting,” Anderson Intelligencer,
August 31, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
2015).
66
“A Bloody Outbreak,” Yorkville Enquirer, September
sn84026925/1876-09-14/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=08%2F15%2F1
876&index=17&date2=11%2F24%2Fession&dateFilterType
67
“Vehicles of Truth, Progress, Patriotism and Pure
Democracy,” Edgefield Advertiser, September 7, 1876. http://
55
210
Peter Luff
ed-1/seq-5/#date1=1876&index=4&rows=20&words= 1
68
Burton, Race and Reconstruction in Edgefield, 34.
69
Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs, 90.
70
71
Enquirer. October 19, 1876.
72
“Letter from Chester,” Yorkville Enquirer, August 31, 1876.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026925/1876-0831/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=08%2F14%2F1876&index=6&date2=11
73
Andrew, Wade Hampton, 314.
74
75
Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 91, 353.
76
“A Pretty Picture of Peace,” The News and Herald,
Winnsboro, SC, October 26, 1876. Emphasis mine. http://
ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1876&index=7&rows=20&words=nigg
er&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=South+Carolina
&date2=1876&proxtext=nigger&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 (accessed April 23, 2015).
77
Mark M. Smith, “’All Is Not Quiet in Our Hellish
Country’: Facts, Fiction, Politics and Race: The Ellenton Riot
of 1876,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine, vol. 95, no. 2
(April 1994), 154. www.jstor.org/stable/27570004 (accessed
April 7, 2015); Andrew, Hampton, 382, 386.
78
79
Woodward, Burden, 105.
80
Douglas R. Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction (New
York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 16-17, 21.
81
Michael Golay, A Ruined Land (New York: John Wiley
and Sons, 1999), 334, 336-7. James McPherson, Ordeal by Fire:
The Civil War and Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1982), 598.
82
83
Egerton, Wars of Reconstruction, 21. Egerton claims that
white violence was the decisive factor in Hampton’s victory.
84
John Moore, Jon Preimesberger and David Torr, eds.,
“South Carolina Gubernatorial Elections,” in Guide to United
States Elections (Washington: CQ Press, 2001), 1464.
85
Andrew, Hampton, 393-395.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
211
Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs, 13, 89.
88
Poole, Lost Cause, 590. Pollard, Lost Cause, 518. One of
Confederate hero J.E.B. Stuart’s many virtues, according to
Pollard, was the “gallantry towards ladies” that he displayed.
89
Michael P. Johnson, “Planters and Patriarchy:
Charleston, 1800-1860,” The Journal of Southern History, vol.
46, no. 1 (February 1980), 50-51. http://www.jstor.org/
90
“Eleanor’s Ruse,” The Orangeburg Times, July 17, 1872.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93067790/1872-0717/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1866&index=14&rows=20&words=woma
nhood&searchType=ba (accessed April 26, 2015).
91
“Home is Sad Without a Mother,” Yorkville Enquirer,
November 23, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/
2015).
92
Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs, 12-13.
93
Ibid., 98.
94
95
“Hope Station August 23,” Newberry Herald. August
sn84026909/1876-08-30/ed-1/seq-arRange&page=1 (accessed
April 16, 2015).
96
97
Leland, A Voice for South Carolina, 174.
98
99
Williams, Red Shirts, 354-55.
100
Ibid. For similar scenes see Williams, Red Shirts, 287, 341.
101
Gillin, Shrill Hurrahs, 96-97.
102
Ibid., 94.
103
104
Pollard, Lost Cause, 751. The last chapter of Pollard’s
book is titled “Duty and Hope of the South.”
105
Enquirer. October 19, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
lccn/sn84026925/1876-10-19/ed-1/seq-2.pdf (accessed April
28, 2015).
106
107
108
Ibid., 590-596; Foner, Reconstruction, 570, 573-4.
109
“High-Tide For Hampton,” The Constitution, Atlanta, GA,
September 28, 1876. http://search.proquest.com.exeter.idm.
86
87
212
Peter Luff
oclc.org/docview/494615825/943F8A9797774902PQ/1?accou
ntid=36348 (accessed April 10, 2015).
110
September 20.
111
“Brief Mention,” Anderson Intelligencer, September 7,
1876.
112
113
“Grand Mass Meeting at Mt. Willing,” Edgefield
Advertiser, September 7, 1876. http://chroniclingamerica.
loc.gov/lccn/sn84026853/1876-11-15/ed-1/seq2/#date1=1876&sort=relevanc (accessed April 7, 2015).
Emphasis Mine.
114
Foner, Reconstruction, 574, 581-583.
115
September 20.
116
“An Unmistakable Sign,” Harper’s Weekly, September 16,
1876. http://app.harpweek.com/viewarticletext.asp?webhitsfile
=hw18760916000017%2Ehtm&xpath=%2FTEI%2E2%5B1%5D
%2Ftext%5B1%5D%2Fbody%5B1%eIds=%7C (accessed April
13, 2015).
117
Poole, Lost Cause, 596; Ronald F. King, “Counting the
Votes: South Carolina’s Stolen Election of 1876,” The Journal
of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 32, no. 2 (Autumn, 2001), 191.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3656976 (accessed April 14, 2015).
118
Jeff Strickland, “‘The Whole State Is On Fire,’ Criminal
Justice and the End of Reconstruction in Upcountry South
Carolina,” Crime, History and Societies, vol. 13, no. 2 (2009), 96,
www.jstor.org/stable/42708752 (accessed April 5, 2015).
119
Simkins and Woody, South Carolina, 540-541.
120
John Moore, Jon Preimesberger and David Torr, eds.,
“South Carolina Gubernatorial Elections,” in Guide to United
States Elections (Washington: CQ Press, 2001), 1464.
121
Foner, Reconstruction, 574, 581. Poole, Lost Cause, 596597.
122
James T. Moore, “Redeemers Reconsidered: Change and
Continuity in the Democratic South 1870-1900,” The Journal of
Southern History, vol. 44, no. 3 (August 1978), 357-359. http://
www.jstor.org/stable/2208047 (accessed April 14, 2015);
123
Foner, Reconstruction, 574, 581.
124
“Grand Mass Meeting at Mt. Willing,” Edgefield Advertiser,
September 7, 1876.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
George C. Rogers, The History of Georgetown County, South
Carolina (Columbia, SC:University of South Carolina Press,
1970), 443-444.
125
213
214
Peter Luff
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Pollard, Edward A., The Lost Cause: A New Southern History
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Publishers, 1866.
“Proceedings of the Mass Meeting on the 5th,” Pickens
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THE CONCORD REVIEW
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“The Carpetbagger Has Ruined Us Politically,” Abbeville
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13, 2015).
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County, South Carolina.” Journal of SocialHistory, Vol. 12, No. 1
(Autumn 1978), 31-56. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3787455
Burton, Vernon, “Wade Hampton III.” Encyclopedia
of the Reconstruction Era, ed. Richard Zuczek. Santa
Barbara:Greenwood Publishing Group. 2006.
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Relations in the Confederacy: Southern Protestantism and the
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Egerton, Douglas R., The Wars of Reconstruction. New York:
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Emberton, Carole, Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence and the
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Foner, Eric, Reconstruction 1863-1877. New York: Harper and
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Gillin, Kate Cote, Shrill Hurrahs: Women, Gender and Racial
Violence in South Carolina, 1865-1900. Columbia, SC: University
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phillipsexeter/detail.action?docID=10809245 (accessed April
21, 2015).
Golay, Michael, A Ruined Land, New York: John Wiley and
Sons, 1999.
Holifield, E. Brooks, “Thomas Smyth: The Social Ideas of a
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THE UAR AND THE UAE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF
TWENTIETH CENTURY ARAB UNIFICATION MOVEMENTS:
WHY DID THE UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC FAIL AS A PANARAB STATE IN 1961 WHILE THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
SUCCESSFULLY REMAINED UNITED?
Se Young Jeon
Abstract
There were several noticeable similarities in the creation
of the United Arab Republic and the United Arab Emirates—both
countries united multiple Arab nations, both occurred in the
second half of the twentieth century, and both received international recognition as sovereign states. Despite these parallels,
the former broke up a mere three years after its inception, while
the latter continues to exist to this day. Why then, did the United
Arab Republic (UAR) fail in 1961 while the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) successfully remained united?
To answer this question, I first explored the history of
Egypt, Syria, and the Trucial States in the context of nineteenth
and twentieth century Middle Eastern affairs. This essay then considers the philosophy of Arab nationalism itself and its influence
on the political climate of these nations. A detailed profile of the
Se Young Jeon is at McGill University. He wrote this paper at Semiahmoo
Secondary School in Surrey, British Columbia, for Mr. Mike McMartin’s
IB History HL course in the 2014 school year.
222
Se Young Jeon
conditions and policies of the UAR and the UAE is presented and
followed by an analysis of the three main factors that led to their
respective failure and success.
The conclusion reached is that the UAE’s longevity can
be attributed to the conditions of its formation and the political
and economic policies that characterized the attitudes of its ruling sheikhs. Whereas the primary motivation for the creation of
the UAR was an ideological Syrian desire for Arab unity, the UAE
was an institution born out of geopolitical necessity. Influential
Syrian factions were also frustrated with the decisions made by
the more dominant Egyptian authorities, and their discontent
led Syria to quit the union. On the other hand, the sheikhs of
the UAE retained the public’s goodwill and thus prevented the
emergence of secession movements.
I
Introduction
The idea of an Arab identity transcends the numerous
religious and geographical divisions that exist in the Middle East
by unifying Arabs through a common history and language. The
United Arab Republic (UAR) and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) shared this ambition to fuse existing Arab nations into
one political entity. So despite having a common goal, why did
the UAR fail as a pan-Arab state in 1961 while the UAE successfully remained united?
To understand the spirit of Middle Eastern affairs during
the twentieth century, the idea of pan-Arabism must be explored.
This philosophy is essentially Arab nationalism with the goal
of political unity, and has its origins in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century.2 Pan-Arabism arose from a general feeling among Middle East residents that separate Arab states were
artificial creations and remnants of European imperialism.3 This
perception was supported by decades of Western control in the
region, like through the mandate system established after World
War One.4 Nationalist sentiment also rose in the 1930s and 1940s
in response to social and political pressure placed on Palestinian
Arabs by a growing Jewish population.5
THE CONCORD REVIEW
223
Calls for unification accompanied the increasing popularity
of pan-Arabism and were fulfilled in 1958 by the joining of Egypt
and Syria into the United Arab Republic.6 Despite initial enthusiasm, Syria left the union just three years later.7 Egypt continued to
call itself the UAR,8 but could no longer be considered a successful
pan-Arab state because it failed to unite multiple Arab nations.
Attempts to consolidate Arab nations persisted, and in 1971,
the Trucial States (a group of small independent sheikhdoms near
the Persian Gulf previously under British control) entered into a
federation called the UAE.9 Unlike the UAR, the UAE exists today.
Despite sharing a common history and language, the Arab
states of the modern Middle East are still sharply divided along
national lines. The inability to abolish borders in favour of Arab
unity can be better understood by examining the factors which
caused Syria to secede from the UAR. The significance of a common ethnic heritage in promoting national cohesion can also
be investigated by comparing the UAR’s collapse with the UAE’s
longevity. Along with the fundamentally different circumstances of
their formation, the failure and success of the UAR and the UAE
can be explained by the need for an ideology to be reinforced by
tangible wealth and prosperity.
II The UAR
i.
Conditions
The conditions in Syria and Egypt in the months and years
preceding the formation of the UAR significantly shaped the political structure and power dynamics within the republic. Syrians
were more enthusiastic than Egyptians about the creation of a
pan-Arab state, and Nasser was initially hesitant about the union.
When Syria overthrew a military dictator and established a
democratic government in 1954, there was massive public support
for a merger with Egypt in the name of Arab nationalism, which was
reflected in the positions of the political parties of that period.10
Most prominent among these was the ruling Ba’ath Party, which
224
Se Young Jeon
endorsed socialism as well as a united Arab state.11 Their power
was threatened in the beginning of 1957, however, when the Syrian
Communist Party seemed poised to take control of the government.12 Wishing to avoid a Communist takeover of the country,
prominent Ba’ath members hoped to convince a reluctant Nasser
to join Syria with Egypt and form a new nation.13 This was an act
of desperation on the Ba’athists’ part, and the need to persuade
Nasser to accept the merger automatically placed the Syrians in a
weaker position to negotiate the terms of the union. The effects of
this imbalance, which ultimately favoured Egyptians, would incite
much resentment among Syrians in years to come.
In contrast to the Syrian Ba’athists’ insecurity, Nasser’s
enormous popularity both within Egypt and in the context of
the larger Arab world made it almost unthinkable for anyone to
seriously consider challenging his control. Unlike the Ba’athists,
he was not concerned with threats to his political power from
domestic opposition parties, thus the merger was not a necessity.
In Arab Nationalism, Adeed Dawisha argues that a key distinction between Syria and Egypt was the degree to which the general
public endorsed Arab nationalism.14 Although this ideology was
incredibly popular in Syria, according to the Syrian co-founder
of the Ba’ath Party Salah al-Din Bitar, “the Arab idea never went
very deep in Egypt.”15 Even Nasser’s confidant, the prominent
journalist Muhamad Hasaneen Haykal, admitted that “in Egypt,
the Arab people had not reached the stage of complete mental
readiness for Arab unity.”16 Whatever the cause, Egyptians did not
believe as strongly in an inclusive Arab identity.
From the onset, a notable power imbalance existed between
Syria and Egypt, which would be reflected later in the political
and economic institutions of the UAR. A combination of political
popularity and stability, as well as a strong public attachment to
Egyptian heritage meant that Nasser would be in a far more advantageous position to negotiate the terms of the union between
Egypt and Syria.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
225
ii. Methods
The conditions present in Egypt and Syria are reflected
in the methods through which union was achieved. Donald N.
Wilber, an American intelligence officer situated in the Middle
East during the mid-twentieth century, claims that, due to Egypt’s
numerous resources and Nasser’s popularity in the Arab world,
Nasser’s full cooperation was the deciding factor which allowed
the state to be created.17 In order to secure Nasser’s assent, Syrians ended up accepting terms that would hand over virtually all
political control of the UAR to him. Among these agreements
were promises to dissolve all Syrian political parties and for the
Syrian army to completely remove itself from politics.18
Despite this weakening of Syrian political and military
power, Nasser still worried about his control over Syria and the
possibility of a military coup. Consequently, members of the Syrian
Military Council had to sign a document pledging unequivocal
support for the union in order to fully convince Nasser to support it.19 Despite his clear refusal to share power, Syrian elites still
proceeded with the merger due to overwhelming public support
for it. Once Nasser had been granted an unprecedented level of
control over the new UAR, he issued a new constitution on March
5, 1958.20 According to Wilber, this declaration was “in both spirit
and wording, an adaptation of the Egyptian constitution.”21 Political power in the UAR was concentrated in the hands of one man,
and powerful Syrian factions such as the Ba’ath Party had been
marginalized even before the UAR was an official nation.
In the process of convincing Nasser to support a union
between Syria and Egypt, Syrians made great political concessions
and also restricted the agency of their military. Although enthusiasm for the UAR persisted in Syria, the cost of this ideological
triumph was their autonomy.
iii. Practices
The day-to-day running of the state was a crucial aspect of
the UAR’s political structure that should be examined because it
226
Se Young Jeon
exemplified the relationship between Syria and Egypt. As per the
terms of the merger, Egyptian officials dominated councils and
committees—all cabinet ministers were personally appointed by
Nasser, and the UAR National Assembly contained two Egyptians
for every Syrian member.22 Historian Robert Henry Stephens claims
that the Syrian Ba’ath Party should have been Nasser’s natural
ally due to a shared socialist ideology, but its abolition strained
relations between Egypt and Syria.23 Since the Ba’ath’s power was
derived from its ability to appeal to both rural workers and the
middle class, its exile from politics was regarded by Syrians of all
backgrounds as an insult.24 The political union between Egypt and
Syria is neatly summarized by Professor Raymond Hinnebusch,
who declares that the UAR “began with a great fund of political
capital, enormous mass adulation for Nasser in Syria… but turned
out to be essentially bureaucratic rule from Cairo.”25
Nasser’s economic policies were another source of great
discontent, this time among Syria’s elite and merchant class, with
the absence of a Syrian voice in the management of the UAR exacerbating these tensions. Staying true to his socialist beliefs, Nasser
implemented programs that were not conducive to developing
a strong economy and only served to alienate the Syrian middle
class. A ninety percent tax was instituted on all income above ten
thousand British pounds, limits on land holdings were halved, and
Nasser embarked on a colossal wave of nationalizations starting
in 1961 that included the cotton industry, banks, and insurance
companies.26 Most of these changes were made without consulting
top Syrian officials.
While Nasser’s socialist policies appealed to the peasants
and the urban working class, Podeh indicates that the attempts to
transform a capitalist Syrian society into a socialist one angered
the economic elite who had originally supported the union.27 The
merchant class’s initial enthusiasm for a pan-Arab state quickly
cooled with the realization that joining Egypt had not enhanced
their business activities, but only smothered the private sector.28
Although they had been willing to sacrifice some political autonomy
THE CONCORD REVIEW
227
for Arab unity, the financial reality of their situation eventually
caused the Syrian elite and merchant class to oppose the union.
iv. Failure
The UAR lost its status as a pan-Arab state in September
of 1961 when Syrian army officers led a coup to withdraw from
the union.29 Once his staunchest supporters, the Syrian merchants
grew to resent Nasser’s socialist programs which were bad for
business, and his persistent attempts to undermine Syria’s military
power angered high-ranking officials. From the establishment of
democracy in Syria during the early 1950s to the union with Egypt
in 1958, the Syrian army was, as journalist Patrick Seale observed,
“The main repository of power.”30 Thus, Nasser took precautions
to ensure that it would never have too much influence in Syria
and be isolated from its regional power bases by centralizing army
administration and forcing officers to move to Cairo.31 Ironically,
Nasser’s efforts to prevent a military uprising partly drove the Syrian officers to stage a coup. He upset the military and economic
elite of Syria and gave both groups, who had historically close ties
with each other, an incentive to act against the union.
Not only did Nasser’s policies turn the financial and military might of Syria against him, but the extreme centralization of
political power also closed a vital channel of information between
him and the Syrian people. The former Syrian interior minister
Colonel Abd al-Hamid Sarraj was a Nasser sympathizer who chaired
the Syrian Executive Council, which was the committee that governed Syria.32 He found himself isolated upon being transferred
to Cairo on Nasser’s orders that all military officials must reside
there, and resigned his post to return to Syria.33 Without a close
ally in Syria who thoroughly understood the dynamics of the region, Nasser was kept mostly unaware of the growing unrest that
would eventually lead to the September coup.
Despite being greeted with wild enthusiasm, the UAR broke
apart a mere three years after its creation because the financial
struggles of the merchant class and the resentment felt by military
officials could no longer be placated by the dream of Arab unity.
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Nasser further crippled the union’s success by undermining his
ability to monitor Syrian discontent.
III The UAE
i.
Conditions
The UAE’s path to statehood was a long and lengthy process
triggered by Britain’s withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. The seven
sheikdoms that were to become the UAE were originally known as
the Trucial States, and had been under British control for many
decades.34 In 1968, the British Labour government decided to withdraw from the Persian Gulf because the financial cost of maintaining
a physical presence had become too high, making it unpopular with
voters.35 With the sudden discovery of vast commercial oil reserves
in the 1960s, and its location surrounded by powerful neighbours
like Saudi Arabia and Iran, historian Michael Peck indicates that
the withdrawal of British military support left the Trucial States
in a vulnerable position.36 Both the sheikhs and British officials
recognised that the seven Gulf States were too small to remain as
independent, sovereign nations in a highly volatile area.37 Peck’s
observations that each sheikhdom had its own weakness further
support this analysis; Ajman and Fujairah had tiny populations
and lacked any considerable source of income, Abu Dhabi had
not developed a modern bureaucratic system, and Dubai lacked
territory.38 No state was clearly suited for independence and the
desire for unification arose from necessity.
ii.
Methods
The individual vulnerability of each emirate in an area
dominated by more powerful neighbours meant that cooperation
among the leading sheikhs of the Trucial States was required to
form a sustainable federation. Their attitude was best reflected
in the words of Sheikh Zayed of Abu Dhabi, as he remarked that
“In harmony, in some sort of federation, we could follow the example of other developing countries.”39 Although it was Sheikh
Zayed who initiated the process of unification by entering into
negotiations with Sheikh Rashid of Dubai, Peck emphasizes that
THE CONCORD REVIEW
229
the rulers of other emirates were invited to join the discussions
that would determine the future of the UAE.40 Sheikh Zayed and
Sheikh Rashid had to work toward making the federation an appealing prospect for the other monarchs because Abu Dhabi and
Dubai alone could not establish a strong, sovereign nation, due to
an outdated system of administration and limited land resources.
Even though Abu Dhabi and Dubai outstripped the other emirates in terms of resources and population, the necessity of the
remaining five States’ inclusion meant that the Sheikhs had to
reach an agreement that was mutually agreeable.
iii. Practices
Concerning the division of power within the UAE, each
emirate maintained a significant level of regional autonomy which
satisfied the sheikhs’ desire to maintain some private control.
While foreign affairs, national security, and public health services
were handled on the federal level, the UAE government delegated
control over infrastructure, cultural regulations, and corporate
licensing to each individual emirate.41 Since regional authorities
managed local issues like the water supply and public works projects
instead of delegating these responsibilities to a national ministry,
Peck contends that they could generate solutions which suited the
unique circumstances of each region.42 Therefore, UAE residents
were still being ruled by locals with an extensive understanding
of their region and did not experience a drastic overhaul of their
existing political institutions.
The issue of communication between the government
and its citizens was resolved early on by the ruling families of the
UAE. Power was concentrated among the elite, but the existence
of significant local authority and the traditional practice of holding
public councils kept the federal government attuned to the public’s
wishes and prevented a build-up of discontent. The ruling families’
well-established custom of holding maljises, or public forums where
people could present petitions or air grievances, were crucial in
keeping the leaders informed and aware of popular opinion.43
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Although each emirate had to cede some control to a
higher federal authority, they still retained enough power to
manage their own affairs so that their residents were still being
ruled by experienced locals. The sheikhs also avoided isolating
themselves from the concerns of the masses by hosting public
conventions to hear these issues.
iv. Success
The political structure in the UAE was a significant factor
in its longevity because by respecting its residents’ desire to maintain some elements of self-government and keeping the leaders
attuned to popular opinion, it did not antagonize or alienate powerful factions within the country. However, economic prosperity
is another crucial element in the UAE’s success.
Oil wealth and public development programs generated
tremendous enthusiasm for the federation. With the discovery of
vast commercial oil reserves, Abu Dhabi was the first emirate in
1962 to start exporting commercial quantities of oil, followed by
Dubai in 1969.44 Much of this new capital was diverted to the Trucial
States Development Fund, a trust set up by the British government
to finance health care and other necessities in the emirates.45 This
allowed less wealthy states like Sharjah and Fujairah to provide
previously absent public services to their residents.46 In 1975, the
sheikhs launched a major effort to link major population centres
through modern highways, which promoted national unity and
facilitated trade.47 This initiative was quickly followed by largescale housing projects and the construction of public schools.48
Because these new social developments were funded by wealth
generated from oil revenues, it was not necessary to significantly
increase taxes, which would have angered wealthier factions. The
new government of the UAE secured support and legitimacy by
allowing the Emiratis, especially in poorer regions, to experience
the tangible benefits of unification.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
231
IV Comparison
i.
Reasons for Unification
When the sheikhs officially united the Trucial States, their
main objectives were survival and economic stability. In comparison, Syrians were inspired by a less pragmatic cause—the dream
of a pan-Arab state. Although Syria’s Ba’ath Party had further
political reasons for seeking a merger with Egypt, the union itself
was promoted as a pan-Arab movement, earning it overwhelming
support from the Syrian masses. Unlike the Trucial States, however, neither Egypt nor Syria had significant practical reasons for
the merger. These two countries were of a respectable size and
had a sustainable population with access to reasonable amounts
of natural resources.
The sheikhdoms had a greater incentive to remain united
because the UAE was formed out of political, territorial, and economic necessity, whereas Egypt and Syria were only joined by an
ideological bond that was easily shattered by financial difficulties.
Egypt and Syria had the option of splitting up, but the sheikhs
needed to cooperate or risk being overrun by their neighbours.
ii. Attitude of Leadership
Despite both practicing authoritarian rule, Nasser and the
Sheikhs greatly differed in how they distributed power. Nasser favoured a solitary, centralized form of government that concentrated
authority in Egyptian hands.49 His hesitance to give Syrian officers
any substantial control disaffected some of his major supporters,
and he was kept unaware of the resentment that pervaded the upper ranks of the army until 1961 when the discontent materialized
in the form of a military coup.50 Compared to Nasser’s unwillingness to share power, the sheikhs devolved control to regional
authorities concerning local issues, and avoided the resentment
faced by the Egyptian government when Syrians felt they were
being marginalized. Open channels of communication between
the emirates’ ruling families and their subjects also meant that
232
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the sheikhs were kept aware of important public grievances and
could act accordingly to mitigate them.
iii. Economic Situation
The importance of a nation’s financial success is emphasized by the comparison between the UAR and the UAE. Syria’s
secession from Egypt demonstrates that an ideology alone could
not persuade a group of people, in this case the Syrian elite and
the merchants, to ignore economic hardship. Since the economy
is closely associated with the success of a regime’s administration,
it is unsurprising that the UAE’s prosperity, which manifested in
the form of public services and social programs, sustained the
federation. The UAR could not subsist on nationalism alone but
needed to prove that there were real, practical advantages to the
union, which they failed to do.
Conclusion
The necessity of the union, combined with the sheikhs’
ability to satisfy various factions within a country and demonstrate
the tangible benefits of unification, was instrumental to the success
of the UAE. Contrarily, the UAR’s formation revolved around an
ideological desire rather than financial or geopolitical advantages,
and Nasser’s policies fractured the country by isolating influential
Syrians.
Comparing these two cases also provides insight into the
relevance of nationalism as a cohesive force. Once the initial excitement of the merger faded, pan-Arabism could not convince the
Syrian elite and the merchants to ignore financial hardship and
the decline in their political power. While the UAE also unified
multiple Arab nations, there were many practical benefits to this
merger and the emirates’ collective survival in a volatile region
dominated by more powerful neighbours depended on it. The
union between Egypt and Syria was a luxury, whereas the UAE
was born out of necessity.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
233
Given Pan-Arabism’s popularity in the twentieth century,
it is still unclear why the emirates chose not to brand the UAE as
a pan-Arab movement. Retrospectively, the sheikhs did not need
ethnic nationalism to promote the federation, yet the question of
why the ruling families would not use it as a major rallying point
to further strengthen their cause still remains unanswered. PanArabism’s exclusion from UAE politics suggests that the practical
incentives for unification were judged to be enough of a cohesive
force that ideological appeals were not necessary.
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Endnotes
“Pan-Arabism,” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, accessed
July 22, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EB checked/
topic/878838/Pan-Arabism.
2
Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century:
From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2003), 3.
3
Mike Shuster, “The Middle East and the West: WWI
and Beyond,” in NPR, August 20, 2004, accessed October
19, 2014, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=3860950.
4
Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, 108-109.
5
“United Arab Republic,” International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, accessed July 23, 2014, http://www.encyclopedia.
com/topic/United_Arab_Republic.aspx#1.
6
Youssef M. Choueiri, Arab Nationalism: Nation and State in
the Arab World (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Pub, 2000), 167–169.
7
Sarah Mousa, “Commemorating the United Arab
Republic,” in Al Jazeera, February 22, 2013, accessed
July 23, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/
opinion/2013/02/201321985412606377.html.
8
Frauke Heard-Bey, “The Beginning of the Post-Imperial
Era for the Trucial States from World War I to the 1960s,” in
United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective, ed. Ibrahim Al Abed and
Peter Hellyer, (Abu Dhabi, UAE: Trident Press, 2001), 117.
9
Social Sciences, published 2008, accessed 23 July 2014, http://
www.encyclopedia.com/topic/United_Arab_Republic.aspx#1.
10
Ibid.
11
“The United Arab Republic,” Saylor Academy, accessed
July 23, 2014, http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/
uploads/2011/06/United-Arab-Republic.pdf.
12
Social Sciences.
13
Dawisha, Arab Nationalism, 136.
14
Ibid., 136-137.
15
Ibid., 137.
16
Donald N. Wilber, The United Arab Republic: Egypt (New
Haven: Hraf, 1965), 229.
17
Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of
the United Arab Republic (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 1999), 43.
18
Ibid., 43.
1
THE CONCORD REVIEW
235
Wilber, United Arab Republic, 148.
Ibid., 148.
21
Ibid., 149.
22
Robert Henry Stephens, Nasser: A Political Biography
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), 631.
23
Elie Chalala, “Arab Nationalism: A Bibliographic Essay,”
in Pan-Arabism and Arab Nationalism: The Continuing Debate, ed.
Tawfic E. Farah, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1987), 43.
24
Maye Kassem, Egyptian Politics: The Dynamics of
Authoritarian Rule (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2004),
18.
25
“The United Arab Republic,” Saylor Academy.
26
Podeh, x.
27
Ibid., 68.
28
Marsha E. Ackermann et al., “United Arab Republic,”
Encyclopedia of World History: The Contemporary World, 1950 to
the Present, accessed July 23, 2014, http://www.fofweb.com/
History/HistRefMain.asp?iPin=WHVI3 27&SID=2&DatabaseNa
me=Modern+World+History+Online&InputText=%22Iraq+revo
lution%22&SearchStyle=&dTitle=United+Arab+Republic+(UA
R)&TabRecordType=Subject+Entry&BioCountPass=3&SubCou
ntPass=5&DocCountPass=0&ImgCountPass=0&MapCountPass=
0&FedCountPass=&MedCountPass=0&NewsCountPass=0&RecP
osition=4&AmericanData=&WomenData=&AFHCData=&India
nData=&WorldData=Set&AncientData=&GovernmentData=.
29
Patrick Seale, “The Break-Up of the United Arab
Republic,” in The World Today, July 17, 1961.
30
31
Ackermann et al., “United Arab Republic.”
32
33
Helene von Bismarck, “The United Arab Emirates—A
Product of British Imperialism,” in The British Scholar Society,
January 16, 2012, accessed July 23, 2014, http://britishscholar.
org/publications/2012/01/16/the-united-arab-emirates-aproduct-of-british-imperialism/.
34
Malcolm Peck, “Formation and Evolution of the
Federation and its Institutions,” United Arab Emirates: A New
Perspective, ed. Ibrahim Al Abed and Peter Helleyer, (Abu
Dhabi, UAE: Trident Press, 2001), 146.
35
Ibid., 147.
36
Von Bismarck, “The United Arab Emirates.”
37
Peck, “Formation,” 149.
19
20
236
Se Young Jeon
“The UAE—A Federation,” National Center for
Documentation and Research—UAE Ministry of Presidential
Affairs, accessed August 5, 2014, http://www.cdr.gov.ae/ncdr/
English/uaeGuide/PrintFederation.aspx.
39
40
“Government,” Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in
London, accessed August 5, 2014, http://www.uae-embassy.ae/
Embassies/uk/Content/676.
41
42
Ibid., 155-156.
43
James Langton, “The Day Abu Dhabi Set Sail as an Oil
Nation” in The National, July 2, 2012, accessed August 6, 2014,
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/the-day-abu-dhabiset-sail-as-an-oil-nation.
44
Donald Hawley, The Trucial States (London: Allen &
Unwin, 1970), 226-227.
45
Ibid., 229.
46
47
Ibid. 154.
48
Mustafa al-Labbad, “Egypt Authorities Replicating Worst
Aspects of Nasser’s Rule” in Al-Monitor, March 2, 2014, accessed
November 10, 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/
politics/2014/03/egypt-new-authorities-worst-aspects-abdelnasser.html#.
49
Podeh, United Arab Republic, 148.
38
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THE CONCORD REVIEW
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Chalala, Elie. “Arab Nationalism: A Bibliographic Essay.”
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Arab World. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.
Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century:
From Triumph to Despair. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2003.
“Government.” Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in London.
Last Modified August 5, 2014. http://www.uae-embassy.ae/
Embassies/uk/Content/676.
Hawley, Donald. The Trucial States. London: Allen & Unwin,
1970.
Kassem, Maye. Egyptian Politics: The Dynamics of Authoritarian
Rule. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2004.
Langton, James. “The Day Abu Dhabi Set Sail as an Oil
Nation.” The National, July 2, 2012. http://www.thenational.ae/
news/uae-news/the-day-abu-dhabi-set-sail-as-an-oil-nation.
Mousa, Sarah. “Commemorating the United Arab
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com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/201321985412606377.html.
“Oil in Dubai: History & Timeline.” Gulf News, February
4, 2010. http://gulfnews.com/business/oil-gas/oil-in-dubaihistory-timeline-1.578333.
“Pan-Arabism.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.
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Peck, Malcolm. “Formation and Evolution of the Federation
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Edited by Ibrahim Al Abed and Peter Hellyer. Abu Dhabi:
Trident Press, 2001.
Podeh, Elie. The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the
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Seale, Patrick. “The Break-up of the United Arab Republic.”
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Stephens, Robert Henry. Nasser: A Political Biography.
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Tibi, Bassam, Marion Farouk-Sluglett, and Peter Sluglett.
Arab Nationalism: A Critical Enquiry. New York: St. Martin’s, 1981.
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Haven: Hraf, 1965.
THE SHAPING OF AN EMPIRE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE
INFLUENCE OF SHIFTING POLITICAL-GEOGRAPHIC
TERRITORIES WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE BYZANTINE
EMPIRE ON ITS CULTURE & SOCIETY FROM 306-1453 A.D.
Harrison Voss
The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking heir of
the Roman Empire in Eastern Europe, surviving from the Fall of
Western Rome in 476 A.D. until Constantinople’s conquest by the
Ottomans in 1453 A.D. The Empire served as a preservationist of
Greek and Roman laws and culture, though in time it developed
a distinct culture of its own, marked by various influences from
Rome, Greece, Islam, and feudal Europe. The creation of Byzantine
culture and its departure from its Roman origins was the result of
the shifting political geography within and without the Byzantine
Empire throughout its millennial history. As the Empire’s borders
constricted to a Greek epicenter, its culture became influenced by
what it was most exposed to. Moreover, as neighboring kingdoms
formed around the Empire, Byzantium adopted some of these
nations’ characteristics through trade and conquest. In order to
study just how the shifting boundaries of Byzantium influenced its
identity, its expansive history must be broken into three distinct
Harrison Voss is a Senior at Fox Lane High School, in Bedford, New
York, where he wrote this Independent Study paper in 2015. The head
of history is Mary Harrison.
240
Harrison Voss
periods, each displaying its own cultural and societal shifts as a
result of the political geography. This essay shall examine Early
Byzantium as from 306-582 A.D., Middle Byzantium as from 5821057 A.D., and Late Byzantium as from 1057-1453 A.D. These
three periods will each be examined as bearing distinct outer
and inner-societal influences. Early Byzantium will be characterized by Rome, Middle Byzantium by Greece and the surrounding
Islamic Caliphates, and Late Byzantium by Greece and Western
European Crusader States. By analyzing the culture and society
in Byzantium under these three periods, geography will become
the topic of focus, highlighting how far the Empire expanded or
constricted, or what neighbors interacted with it, and how these
territories and boundaries affected Byzantine culture. It will be
imperative to analyze the imperial policies and beliefs that the
Emperors dictated within Byzantium. As an autocratic power, the
decisions of the Emperors were deeply influential in shaping Byzantium’s culture and society. Thus it will be necessary to analyze
how political-geographic boundaries affected imperial policies in
order to fully comprehend the cultural and societal development.
In order to analyze Byzantine culture and society it must
first be defined. This in itself is a difficult task, as understanding
the Byzantine Empire first requires understanding its origins. The
Western Roman Empire fell in 476 A.D. with the submission of
Emperor Romulus Augustulus to the German warrior Odoacer.
However, the Eastern Empire survived and flourished under
the rule of Emperor Zeno. This Empire would last until 1453
A.D., and by then experience many societal and cultural shifts.
A simple definition of Byzantine culture and society would be
that it continued the practices and laws of the Roman Empire,
but had Christianity serve as the state’s religion as opposed to
paganism. Christianity would become a backbone for Byzantine
life, serving as its inspiration for art, literature, music, and more.
But as with any culture and society, it was never wholly stagnant.
It was always shifting. This essay will examine how, specifically,
political-geography caused the culture and society to change. It
will express how and why the Byzantine Empire was initially very
Roman, then Greek and Islamic, and later feudal.
THE CONCORD REVIEW
241
Though debates on the founding of the Byzantine Empire
rage on, for convenience’s sake this essay will adopt the belief that
the Empire began once Emperor Constantine I took power and
moved the capital of the Roman Empire to the Greek town Byzantium (later renamed Constantinople on behalf of the Emperor
himself). Constantine’s early efforts in regard to Christianity set
the foundation of Byzantine life. In 313 A.D. he passed the Edict
of Milan, which legalized and tolerated Christianity. Constantine
himself converted,1 and began to pass laws that forbade pagan
practices.2 Prostitution was restricted, and gladiatorial contests3
were abolished. The persecution of pagans in the Eastern Empire
was less prevalent, as Christianity spread more rapidly in the East
than in the West. A part of this could be attributed to the correlation between nobility and Christianity. As Emperor, Constantine
promoted many Christian officers upon their conversion. Many
converted Senators moved East with Constantine after he named
Constantinople the capital of the Roman Empire.4 With judicial
and noble life focused in the East, civilians in the Eastern Empire
became more exposed to Christianity and the privileges conversion
offered. The most prominent of these privileges was the exemption
of Christian clergy members from land taxation.5 Still, while the
East began to differ from the West, Roman traditions continued
to endure during the Early Period of Byzantium (306-582 A.D.).
An example of enduring Roman art in Byzantium would
be Classical portraiture through the creation of busts and statues.
The clearest examples are the Head of Emperor Constans6 and
the Head of Empress Flaccilla,7 constructed in the 4th and 5th
centuries respectively. By this point in history, even with Constantine’s declaration of Christianity, Roman culture was not gone.
Under Constantius II, Roman structures were continuously built
in Byzantium including baths, granaries, and a library.8 As the
Western Empire was still alive and the Byzantine Empire held
close connections to it, the continuation of Classical practices
was made easier.
Pagan culture in particular became a strong influence for
the Byzantine Empire during its Early Period. Despite laws passed
242
Harrison Voss
by Emperors such as Constantius II, who ordered the closing of
all temples9 and executed those who disobeyed,10 the cultural
influence of paganism endured. Christians adopted the burning
of incense and candles, which was popular amongst pagans.11
Julian the Apostate became the last Emperor to promote paganism. It can be seen that, because of his rule, pagan practices were
allowed to endure in the centuries to come. The reason why Julian
became so accustomed and closely knit to paganism was, in part,
thanks to the geography of Byzantium. Julian was raised amidst
pagans in Greece, studied in Athens, and was fond of philosophy.12
Greece was a center of Classical life, with ancient philosophical
universities, like those in Athens, still in practice.13 Had Julian
been born in a Western province and not been as exposed to such
a concentration of Classical culture, he possibly would not have
been so drawn to it.
Following the death of Julian, future Roman and Byzantine Emperors continued to adopt Christianity as their religion.
Under Theodosius I, the Empire’s citizens were forced to become
Christian through the Edict of Thessalonica. All Christians and
citizens had to profess their faith to the bishops of Rome,14 making
Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Empire. The West
continued to influence Byzantium, as seen with the construction
of a forum, much like that in Rome, in Constantinople,15 and the
Second Ecumenical Council. This Council established that Theodosius, and all future Emperors, would be the holder of powers of
the faith, i.e. Byzantine Emperors held power over the Church as
well.16 This rule only applied to the Caesars of the East, contributing to a loss of political power in the West and a refocus of power
in the East. Theodosius’ heirs continued the trend of promoting
Christianity, as well as Roman Classical culture. Theodosius II
even established the University of Constantinople and the Theodosian Code, which continued laws of the Roman Empire into
Byzantium.17 These laws were anti-Semitic, seeking the creation of
a fully Christian nation. For example, Jews were forbidden from
obtaining office or becoming jail wardens.18
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As Byzantium was close to Western Rome while it still lived,
the Pope became influential in Byzantine Christians’ lives. The
Council of Chalcedon, which saw the confirmation of the Tome by
Pope Leo I, exemplifies this.19 The Tome dictated that the nature
of Christ was of two distinct beings, the Father and the Son, and
not singular.20 This would contribute to the controversy with the
Monophysites in later centuries.
It was while Emperor Marcian ruled Byzantium that the
Western Roman Empire was crumbling in the 450s. Thanks to its
location as a crossroads between Asia and Europe by the Black Sea,
Constantinople engaged in heavy trade with foreigners. For years
Byzantine Emperors used the accumulated wealth to pay tribute
to the Huns to keep them at bay. Marcian chose not to, allowing
the royal treasury to build, and concentrating wealth in the East.21
Without the threat of foreigners, and a strong economy, the Classical culture of Byzantium was not threatened from destruction
or conquest, and was enabled to endure.
By the time Justinian I became Emperor in 527 A.D. the
West had already fallen. By attempting to reclaim it, Roman culture
reached its height in Byzantine life. Justinian gradually reshaped
the Byzantine Empire, guided by its predecessor, by including
various aspects from its past. For example, his Codex Constitutionum
continued Roman laws, much like Theodosius’ Code, though it
allowed for laws that were more Christian-related and, therefore,
Byzantine. This can be seen with Justinian’s laws against homosexuals, which had them whipped and burned, though they were not
killed.22 In Classical times, homosexuality was viewed with more
relaxation, but as Christianity forbade it, laws needed to be passed
against it. Justinian’s laws also continued to persecute pagans and
Jews, by forbidding the former to teach in academies, and even
had pagan teachers cast out of the Academy of Athens.23 Despite
the lack of pagan instructors, the university remained a center of
Greek philosophy and thought.24 It should be noted that Justinian’s
policies were rather lenient towards the Monophysites,25 Christians
who believed that the nature of Christ and the Father were one.26
The logic behind this could most likely be found in the fact that
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the Empire’s borders now stretched further eastward into Egypt
and Syria. Within these provinces Monophysitism was very common.27 Thus to persecute them would be to risk a rebellion in a
concentrated, and wealthy, region.
Justinian’s reign was also marked by noticeable advances in
Byzantine art and architecture. The Pantheon of Rome inspired
the construction of the massive church the Hagia Sophia, though
the latter bore the basic structure of the basilica, which was the
standard church design at the time.28 By molding the two together,
Justinian created something distinctly Byzantine. The influence
of Rome and its architecture was still accessible to Justinian, as
he was able to re-conquer all of the Italian peninsula and even
Rome itself. Thus by having the Empire incorporate its ancient
territories, there was greater exposure to the Classical past and
its achievements.
It was during the reign of Justinian that icon art began
to take shape. The mosaics created at this time were done in a
fashion similar to their Roman ancestors, which can be seen in
the floor tiles and mosaics of St. Catherine’s Monastery.29 Also
done in the Roman tradition was the creation of ivory panels that
served as imperial gifts. Upon such panels were Latin inscriptions
that depicted Emperor Justinian in his glory.30 Christian themes
merged with Classical art, as seen specifically with the Antioch
Chalice constructed during Justinian’s rule,31 and even depictions
of the Emperor and his court as seen in the San Vitale in Ravenna,
Italy.32 The pronounced focus on mosaics under Justinian’s reign
contributed to the decline of human sculpture. Sculptures of
humans and gods were associated with paganism in Byzantium
and thus to perform such art was to be unholy.33 Still, the centralization of the Empire in Greece, and its expansion into Rome,
continued to favor the presence of Classical art and architecture.
It is because of this presence that Christian art had become influenced by its Classical past. This is found in the depiction of Jesus
Christ in Byzantine art. It was under Byzantium’s greatest extent
that the first prominent appearance of Jesus Christ was given.34
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245
Given the location of the church or monastery, different pagan
gods influenced different depictions of Jesus.
In the West, Jesus was typically depicted with a Hermes-esque
appearance in that he was young with a short beard; he also bore
the locks often associated with Dionysus.35 In Egypt and Syria, his
depiction was more in line with Zeus or Poseidon, though most
relics showing him this way have since been destroyed by Muslim
conquests.36 Thus once the Byzantine Empire encompassed most
of the Roman Empire, influences from the old world resurfaced.
Certain societal aspects from Rome lingered well into this period
and beyond, one of which was slavery. Slavery, which had been
popular as far back as Ancient Greece, continued through Byzantium and thrived under Justinian. The Emperor strengthened laws
for feudal land-owned slaves by placing bounties on their heads
should they choose to flee.37 As the Empire was a vast territory at
this time, the number of barbarians enslaved by conquests presumably rose. A higher number of slaves meant a higher number
of slaves willing to flee. It would make sense, then, for Justinian
to create laws to control this growing group.
Above all, Justinian sought to centralize the authority of
the Emperor over all others, including the Church.38 Despite the
ruling at the Second Ecumenical Council centuries prior, the
Church fought to act autonomously. Justinian opposed this. His
belief in holy power can be seen in simple artistic depictions, such
as on his imperial seals, on which one side has an image of him
and on the other an angel, in place of a pagan god.39 He passed
laws that were meant to strengthen his authority over the Church
by directly dictating the actions and prayers of bishops and priests.
Provincial governors were punished if they did not enforce these
laws.40 Once again Justinian can be seen responding to the vast
geography of the Empire: the greater the territory, the greater the
need for centralized rule in order to maintain it. By attempting
to assume higher power over the Church, Justinian tried to keep
internal rebellion and schisms from occurring, which might divide
the Empire. Despite holding Pope Vigilius hostage and forcing
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him to agree to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, a schism
did occur in 610 A.D.41
Justinian ruled with an emphasis on the military, much
like Ancient Roman Emperors, and he strengthened the cultural
bond between Byzantium and the Roman Empire. Following the
death of Justinian, the Early Period of Byzantium, in which Roman
culture was the most influential, came to an end. Heirs and future
dynasties in the Middle and Late Periods would instead define the
culture with predominantly Greek characteristics.
Middle Byzantium (582-1057 A.D.) began under Emperor
Maurice. He was the first to promote Greek Orthodox, as opposed
to Roman, culture. The establishment of the Exarch provincial
system of governance introduced a Christian-toned bureaucracy.
Under the new Empire created by Justinian, more governors were
required to manage the territory. These Exarchs set the stage for
the introduction of Themes (military provinces) later on in Byzantine history.42 Most importantly, Maurice introduced a military
handbook, the Strategikon. This was the first written manual for
Byzantine battle and siege tactics.43 It highlighted a change in military to a more medieval approach. This was evidently a response
to the changing world around the Empire. With the development
of, and reliance on, castles, fortified cities, and other strongholds
for which the period is famous, also came increased need for a
siege-ready military. This starkly contrasts with the more open-field
battle military of the Romans.
The Strategikon was complemented by various military laws
as well. Foremost among these was the inclusion of peasants as
soldiers.44 This, along with the changing development in Byzantine military attire, can be attributed to the growing number of
barbarian neighbors. The Strategikon describes soldiers as wearing
certain garb directly attributed to the Huns and Goths, such as
the full body suit of chainmail, and wielding cavalry lances made
in the Avars’ fashion.45 Despite the changes made, Maurice’s focus on the military did reveal a continuity often attributed to his
Roman predecessors: whoever controlled the military controlled
the Empire. This belief was exercised when General Phocas led
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a military rebellion against Maurice.46 The military would be a
consistent center of power and society in the Byzantine Empire,
only to grow even more influential with the development of military Themes under Emperor Heraclius.47 The increased emphasis
on the military could be explained by the numerous enemies
surrounding the Empire. To the west were the Lombards and
the Avars, to the north Slavs, and to the east the Persians.48 The
military, which had been reformed to keep these foes at bay, was
a necessary backbone that kept the Empire alive.
Christianity also influenced the Byzantine military. As areas in the south, in particular Syria and Palestine, were lost to the
Persians,49 it became a Byzantine goal to reclaim lost holy lands,
in particular Jerusalem.50 Thus Emperor Heraclius led a successful campaign that resulted in the re-conquest of Jerusalem and
the reclaiming of the Cross of Jesus Christ.51 Heavily influenced
by the Bible, the Emperor used its teachings to justify his merciful
treatment over those conquered.52 Heraclius also introduced a new
provincial system that would endure for centuries. The military
Theme System was established to replace the Exarchate System
previously used. Instead of holy accord blessing the governors,
military status deemed whether or not a governor was fit to rule.53
The establishment of military-focused provinces was a continuation of the need for enhanced military guard in response to the
numerous tribes surrounding the Empire. Under Heraclius’ rule,
nearly half a century since Emperor Maurice’s, the Lombards still
remained in Italy,54 while Northern Europe had the centralized
Kingdom of the Franks.55 North of the Byzantines were the Avars56
and in the Spanish peninsula were the Goths.57 It only made sense
for the Empire to continuously reinforce a more defensive structure in response to so many foes. Along with the establishment of
Themes came the establishment of the aforementioned peasantry
fighting system. This system was revised under Heraclius. It now
imposed on soldiers a hereditary requirement, meaning their
children would have to enlist in the military as well. In return, the
peasants would be given tracts of land.58 This system provided a
fundamental focus on the military in Byzantine culture outside of
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its urban centers. This focus only arose from the hostile politicalgeographic climate growing around Byzantium.
Heraclius also made a heavy departure from the origins of
Rome by replacing the official language of the Empire, Latin, with
Greek.59 By the early 7th century, Greek had become the language
of the Empire’s Church,60 the language among scholars,61 and the
language used between provincial traders and merchants.62 It only
made sense for the language, which was so common among the
whole of society, to be used by the governing elite as well.
During Heraclius’ reign, Islam entered the world stage and
the Islamic Caliphates began to grow. Arabs now overran the lands
reclaimed by the Persians, and even seized Egypt, the Byzantine
Empire’s wealthiest province.63 Although this was a strike at the
Byzantine economy, it aided in their cultural unity by absorbing
lands that were primarily populated by rebellious Monophysites.64
With the loss of territory, the geography of the Empire became
more focused on its political epicenter: Greece and Anatolia.
The new Arab neighbors recognized this centralized focus and
understood that to conquer Constantinople and its surrounding
lands essentially meant to conquer the Empire as a whole. But
when Emperor Constantine IV defeated them after a four-year
siege of the city, the Arabs were forced to pay annual tributes that
boosted the Byzantine economy and held its enemies at bay.65
This allowed for an era of peace that was further propagated by
the efforts of Justinian II years later to hold joint sovereignty of
Cyprus, Armenia, and Georgia.66 This peace allowed art to boom.
During this age the Attarouthi Treasure was constructed,67 a feat
of Byzantine metal and artwork. The treasure, constructed from
the late 6th to early 7th centuries, reflects Byzantine religion and
values with depictions of saints, the Mother of God, and Jesus
Christ.68 It was constructed in Isauria, a province in which Islamic
influence was the most prevalent.
Following a period of cultural stagnation known as the
Twenty Years’ Anarchy, the Isaurian Dynasty was founded. This
was a fundamental imperial dynasty in regard to establishing the
present and future of Byzantine culture and society in the 8th
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249
century. The force that drove the dynastic rulers to act and rule
in the way they did can be attributed to geography. Quickly upon
ascension, Emperor Leo III resisted a siege against the Umayyad
Caliphate, damaging the Arabic Empire.69 Leo continued to divide
up the military Themes established by Heraclius, as some Themes
accumulated armies large enough to threaten the throne.70 Leo,
a devout Christian, forced the baptism of Jews and Montanists.71
Moreover, he forbade the creation and veneration of religious
icons, which had become the Empire’s most popular art form.
Many of these icons depicted important biblical scenes, but infused components of Byzantine life, as seen in a series of rich silver
plates that depict the triumphs of David and Saul.72 Despite being
ancient Biblical heroes, they are clad in Byzantine court attire.73
Emperor Leo III was born in the late 7th century, in Isauria.74
The Byzantine province was close to Muslim territory. Leo grew
up speaking Arabic and continued to do so while Emperor. It can
be concluded that the Emperor was influenced by Islamic culture,
as Islam preaches against the creation and veneration of icons,
believing they detract the worshipper from actually worshipping
God. Leo used this belief to justify his persecution through laws
of icons and their makers.75 His famous law code that published
these was called the Ecloga.76 This code continued Justinian’s laws,
although it forbade icon practice, and generally changed death
penalties to amputations and mutilations.77 It is important to note
that this law code had been issued in Greek instead of Latin78 with
the intention of being understood by more people.79 This was thus
an important event in the process of Hellenistic transitioning for
Byzantine culture.
Leo’s initial successors would continue to persecute icon
veneration. Constantine V forced all bishops and priests to deem
icons unlawful at the Council of Hieria in 754 A.D.80 This did not
run well with the Western Provinces, or the Pope.81 Despite his
unpopularity in the provinces, Constantine was quite popular
in Constantinople, as he had repaired the Aqueduct of Valens,
revealing that Roman technology was still accessible.82 Moreover,
Constantine established the Tagmata, a mobile army based in
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Constantinople.83 The garrison was created in order to control
and protect Byzantium’s political center. Usurpation of the throne
through control of the military was not a foreign concept. Constantine recognized, like his father, that the military would need
to be controlled in a vast territory in order to prevent an insurrection.84 However, what added to the uniqueness of the Tagmata was
its initial purpose to maintain control over the Empire’s central
region in response to the Iconoclast controversy.85 This military
devotion to strengthening the Empire’s epicenter helped develop
the culture within Constantinople and its surrounding Greek
territories. However, the more distant provinces, such as those in
Italy and North Africa, would lose their cultural ties, as provincial
governors gradually abandoned executing laws from the Capital.
Poor future administrative policies and the rise of new Islamic
Caliphates would continue to shrink the Empire’s borders.
Empress Irene, ruler from 780-802 A.D., became a central
figure in Byzantine culture by breaking off Byzantium’s official
ties to its Roman past as far as Western Europe was concerned.
Irene, an iconophile, restored the veneration of icons in 787 A.D.
with the Seventh Ecumenical Council.86 This solidified the future
of Byzantium’s artistic culture, as artists, monks, holy men, and
more were allowed to create their religious art.87 However, Irene’s
influence in the artistic and cultural sphere was not nearly as profound as that in the political. For five years she ruled alone on the
throne, adopting the title Emperor, although she was not one.88
The Pope, who viewed the throne as empty because a woman sat
on it, named Charlemagne Emperor of the Roman Empire.89 As
far as the West was concerned, Byzantium was no longer Rome.
By this point, though, Byzantium had developed far from its Roman past. Its art was Christian themed, its political center was in
Greece, its army was medieval, its administration was a military
bureaucracy, and its official language was no longer Latin, but
Greek. Although strains of Classical Rome continued to weave
through the Empire, its centralized Greek territory and Arab
neighbors were more influential.
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251
Islamic culture continued to permeate Byzantine society
through the 9th and 10th centuries as a new caliphate, the Abbasid, claimed the territory that once belonged to the Umayyads.
Emperor Theophilos (813-842 A.D.) was an interested follower
of Islamic culture, drawing influences from the Royal Court of
Baghdad.90 It was said that he would wander Constantinople’s
streets to connect with the citizens and see what distressed them.91
Public complaints were previously heard by Emperors sitting
near spectators in the Hippodrome.92 This tradition, of Roman
origin, had been replaced by one of Islam. Moreover, Theophilos
restored the iconoclast controversy by persecuting those who bore
and created them. He also substituted the script used by writers
and copiers for a larger one, similar to Arabic script.93 Theophilos
reestablished the University of Constantinople94 to foster learning
and the arts, which at that point would be competing with the
House of Wisdom in Baghdad.95 It seemed that while Theophilos
felt a strong connection to the Islamic Caliphate and its culture,
there was an inherent competition present as well.
Also in response to the shifting territories around Byzantium, Theophilos established fortresses along the northern borders
in a defensive response to the Vikings and Magyars.96 He created
three new Themes and installed a series of warning beacons
throughout the border of Eastern Anatolia in case of a Muslim
attack.97 This was an achievement of Leo the Mathematician. He
was a teacher and scholar at the University of Constantinople, and
taught Aristotelian logic. This logic was one of various Classical
culture aspects that continued throughout Byzantium’s existence.98
As a result of promising conquests, well-defended borders,
and further centralized power, there was a cultural renaissance
under the Macedonian Dynasty from the 9th to 11th centuries.
The first cultural accomplishment was the creation of the Basilika,
a re-codifying of Justinian’s laws in Greek that ignored many of
the changes made in the Ecloga.99 Continuing the trend set by Leo
III’s Ecloga, this law book was also written in a more conventional
vernacular for the citizens to read. The change from Latin to
Greek was necessary as the Empire had been reduced to primarily
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Anatolia, Greece, and fragmented portions of Italy and Sicily,100
thus leaving a majority of the people within the Empire’s borders
Greek-speaking. The predominant and continuous centralization
of land in Greece allowed greater exposure to Greek culture and
language.
A point of Hellenistic transformation can be best seen
under the rule of Leo VI (866-912 A.D.). He wrote a number
of treatises and novels pertaining to the Orthodox Church and
its nature, highlighting the potency of Christianity in the ruling
elite.101 He also wrote the Book of Eparch, a manual for the governor
of Constantinople on how to manage trade guilds and trading in
general.102 Geography served as the backbone to the Byzantine
economy and many credit it as the reason why the Empire lasted
for so long. The locations of the cities Constantinople and Trebizond in Eastern Anatolia promoted increased trade with Asia. The
Silk Trade, begun by Justinian I in the 6th century, introduced a
monopoly over one of the most precious commodities in Europe
at the time.103 Trade was the source of Byzantine wealth and consequently a highlight of Byzantine life. Yet its success would not
have been possible without the geographic location of the Empire.
During Leo VI’s rule, Sicily was lost to Muslims,104 further
centralizing the Byzantine Empire to Greece and Anatolia. Leo
was also forced to pay annual tribute to the Bulgars after failing to
conquer them, limiting the northwestern territories and further
separating the Empire from Western Europe.105 By this point the
Byzantines were geographically boxed in, with Bulgars to the
northwest and Arabs to the east and south. The only culture that
the Byzantines were generally exposed to at the time was Greek
Orthodox. Thus religious art flourished, as exemplified in the Paris
Psalter. This illuminated manuscript is a hallmark of the Macedonian Renaissance. It revealed a continuation of two-dimensional
Hellenistic art forms, but set to Orthodox religious stories.106 Thus
the Greek footprint was alive and well in Byzantine art.
During the Macedonian Dynasty, the Byzantine social
structure began to shift. Military nobles, the dynatoi, took shape,
owning and ruling large estates in Asia Minor. The struggle be-
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tween the dynatoi, who would often absorb small farmers,107 and
the Macedonian Emperors would run through the entire dynasty’s
existence. Emperor Romanos I, in particular, excessively taxed the
aristocracy and even imperialized untouched tracts of land so as
to keep them from the dynatoi.108
The origin of these struggles was a mixture of politicalgeographic forces. Since the establishment of the Theme System
to combat outside forces, military commanders and leaders had
been given land so long as they maintained a hereditary line of
service. This system was intelligent in that it kept a consistent military force for Byzantium, which was generally at war. Emperors,
such as Leo III, would divide up the Themes, and consequently
the land and men controlled by the military commanders, so as to
ensure a stability of power to the Emperor himself. But with a time
of relative peace, and lack of geographic redistribution, it would
make sense for an aristocratic class of military leaders to take form.
The Macedonians recognized this threat much as Leo III had,
yet instead of redistributing the lands, they would simply support
small farmers in the hopes of them countering the aristocracy, as
in the case of Romanos I.109 Still, the aristocracy persisted, despite
the over-taxation attempts by John I Tzimiskes,110 and Basil II.111
The latter of these Emperors openly absorbed the dynatoi land
for the state, despite protests.112 These harsh policies could be the
result of his successful campaigns in the Balkans and Bulgaria,
which opened more lands to the nobility.113 Nonetheless, this
brisk policy only further strained the upper-class tensions within
the Byzantine Empire. The society grew accustomed to internal
political strife that would ultimately result with the victory of the
dynatoi as Constantine XI, an aristocrat, married into the throne.114
With the ending of the Macedonian Dynasty in the 11th
century and the rise of the Komnenian, the Byzantine Middle
Period came to an end. Late Byzantium (1057-1453 A.D.) would
be characterized by a culture heavily influenced by its Western
European neighbors as it moved away from its Roman past,
and Islamic and Greek influences. It was during the rule of the
Komnenian Dynasty that the First Crusades took place and the
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threat of Turks began to grow in the East. Ultimately, as Western
European Kingdoms began to move in to aid Byzantium during
the Crusades and set up puppet states of their own, the culture
from the West began to influence the East.
Alexios I, who ruled from 1081 to 1118 A.D.,115 began the
first trickle of Western influence by granting exclusive trading
rights to the Venetians. This allowed for an easier flow of Byzantine goods westwards and vice-versa.116 Alexios also granted the
aristocratic dynatoi special concessions. His heirs maintained this
tradition, thus resulting in a decentralization of authority as the
dynatoi obtained more autonomous wealth.117 This aspect of Late
Byzantine Society was very Western European and departed from
the Roman tradition of direct imperial allegiance.
Upon the success of the First Crusade (1096-1099 A.D.), the
kingdoms of Western Europe established Crusader States amidst
the Seljuk Sultanate that neighbored Byzantium.118 Most importantly, it was during this direct meeting with Western Europeans
that for the first time in centuries, the Byzantines were referred
to, in Latin, as Hellenes.119 This term, which meant Greeks, was
adopted by the Byzantines and consequently led to the demise
of their traditional Roman identity. Although the influences of
Rome were still prevalent in Byzantine government, they had all
but disappeared from its culture.
As a result of cultural diffusion with the neighboring
Crusader States, Emperor Manuel I (1143-1180 A.D.) introduced
court tournaments and jousting as in Western European fashion.120 Moreover, Manuel increased the Byzantine feudal system
by expanding the Pronoia.121 This system granted land to specific
individuals, generally military officials, who then would control
the land’s taxes and peasants.122 This served as a continuation of
the importance of military status in Byzantine society. Although
nobility by blood was not uncommon, as seen with the dynatoi,
those who managed to show promising leadership in battle were
the most rewarded. This is undoubtedly a result of the Theme
System, which in turn was a result of the enemies surrounding
Byzantium. As more enemies threatened the peace of the Byzan-
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255
tine Empire outside of it, high importance was placed on those
who could defend it. The history of the Empire has shown that it
was constantly engaged in war. Thus the hostile external politicalgeography was a driving force in the Byzantine social structure
throughout most of its existence.
Following the Komnenian Dynasty was the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204 A.D.). The hostility
that arose took shape because of the Great Schism (1054 A.D.)
and the Latin Massacre (1182 A.D.), in which every Catholic in
Constantinople was slaughtered. This arose from the increased
Western influence that had long been held at a distance from the
Byzantines. In Constantinople, the Crusaders held the most maritime trade authority123 by the time of the Massacre, something that
would undoubtedly infuriate the native Greeks. With this increased
internal competition, the Byzantines revolted. Yet they would not
see the endless repercussions coming down the road years later
with the Sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders themselves.
Upon Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259-1282 A.D.) retaking Constantinople and reforming the Byzantine Empire in
1259 A.D.,124 Byzantium would never again be what it was. The
Empire’s culture and society had once more become limited to
the Greek territory that constituted it, and the Crusader states that
surrounded it. Despite Michael’s efforts to reunite the Orthodox
and Catholic Churches in an attempt at peace, there was none.
The greatest unrest came not from the Latins, but rather the Byzantines themselves.125 Christianity had been the driving force of
the people from the very beginning of the Empire. The citizens
particularly opposed the Filioque, the nature of Christ in regards to
the Father in the Nicene Creed, and the use of unleavened bread
during Communion.126 Although the Byzantines argued religion
to keep the Western Europeans away, the true reason for their
unrest was the fear of control by Western authority once more.127
Byzantine society had grown nationalistic by the 13th century. Byzantium had not encompassed a vast number of people and
cultures for centuries and was restricted, on a geographic basis, to
a primarily Greek-speaking nation.128 With a more homogenous
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population came a more homogeneous culture, as the Byzantines
were once again boxed in. Classical Greek culture returned to the
forefront of Byzantine life as the University of Constantinople
was reopened, and Michael VIII promoted general learning.129
Monasteries and churches were built, with the art of fresco-making
beginning to flourish.130 Although these frescos were Western in
style because of the heavy European exposure, they were created
in a Greek Orthodox manner.131
The Palaiologan Dynasty, the last ruling family of the
Byzantine Empire, seemed to end almost as quickly as it had
begun. Its cultural advances were minimal to Byzantium, as it
became stressed with the growing Ottoman threat in the East.
Emperors were more concerned with diplomatic missions than
with the arts, with Emperor Manuel II even reaching England on
his expeditions.132 Although these missions were numerous, they
were relatively unsuccessful. Byzantine territory shrunk to little
more than Constantinople and Southern Morea,133 which became
a cultural hub for the Byzantines.134 The centralization of culture
to a Greek state was a result entirely of the shifting external and
internal political geography as the Empire had shrunk to little
resemblance of its former glory.
The Byzantine Empire lasted from 306 to 1453 A.D. and
was troubled with internal and external strife. Amidst shifting
political-geographic territories (i.e. the formation of barbarian
kingdoms and Islamic Caliphates outside the Empire), the culture
of Byzantium shifted in response. But for most of their existence,
the Byzantines viewed themselves as the cultural descendants of
Rome. This made sense, as their society and culture stemmed from
the Classical Empire. Yet as Rome fell and faded into memory,
other cultures began to take its place. Early Byzantium (306-582
A.D.) might have felt intense Roman influence, but it was taken
over by Greek and Islamic powers during Middle Byzantium
(582-1057 A.D.), ultimately being overcome by Western influence
during Late Byzantium (1057-1453 A.D.). These cultural and societal shifts, that meant a loss of centralized rule and adoption of
societal tropes typical to the Middle Ages, were the results of the
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257
shifting political powers outside and inside the Byzantine Empire.
To an extent, a historian could view the Byzantine Empire as a
story of the Aeneid coming full circle. In Virgil’s epic poem, the
titular protagonist is tasked with founding the city of Rome. The
irony here is that Aeneas came from Troy in Anatolia, Byzantium’s
political center. Very much as Aeneas flew westwards to establish
Roma, Constantine went east to establish Byzantium. The legend
of the Aeneid came full circle with the origins of Rome returning
home with the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire.
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Endnotes
Phillip Schaff, Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of
the Christian Church, (Charleston, South Carolina: Nabu Press,
2010), pp. 489-491.
2
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Constantine I,”
accessed 5 February 2015, http://www.britannica.com/
EBchecked/topic/133873/Constantine-I.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
R. Gerberding and J.H. Moran Cruz, Medieval Worlds
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004), pp. 55-56.
6
“Head of Constans [Byzantine]” (67.107), New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000, accessed 5 February 2015,
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.107.
7
James J. Rorimer and William Holmes Forsyth, “The
Medieval Galleries,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12,
no. 6 (1954): 130.
8
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Constantius II,”
EBchecked/topic/134089/Constantius-II.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Incense,” accessed 10
February 2015, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07716a.
htm.
12
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Julian the Roman
Emperor,” accessed 10 February 2015, http://www.britannica.
com/biography/Julian-Roman-Emperor.
13
Ibid.
14
Codex Theodosianus XVI.1.2.
15
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Theodosius I,”
biography/Theodosius-I.
16
Ibid.
17
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Theodosius II,”
biography/Theodosius-II.
18
Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook,
315-1791, (New York: JPS, 1938), pp. 3-7.
19
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Council of
Chalcedon,” accessed 20 February 2015, http://www.britannica.
com/EBchecked/topic/104580/Council-of-Chalcedon.
1
THE CONCORD REVIEW
259
Ibid.
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Marcian,” accessed
20 February 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/364251/Marcian.
22
Derrick S. Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian
Tradition, (Hamden, Connecticut.: Archon/Shoestring Press,
1975), p. 128.
23
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Justinian I,” accessed
14 March 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/308858/Justinian-I.
24
Ibid.
25
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Monophysite,”
accessed 14 March 2015, http://www.britannica.com/
EBchecked/topic/389961/monophysite.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid.
28
“Basilica Plan Churches,” Carthage.org, accessed 15
March 2015, http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Arts/
Architec/MiddleAgesArchitectural/EarlyChristianByzantine/
BasilicaPlanChurches/BasilicaPlanChurches.htm.
29
Helen C. Evans and Brandie Ratliff, Byzantium and Islam:
Age of Transition (New York: Exhibition Catalogues, 2012), p. 51.
30
Ernst Kitzinger, Byzantine art in the making: main lines
of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, 3rd-7th century
(Cambridge: Faber and Faber), p. 27.
31
“”Antioch Chalice”, The [Byzantine]” The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, accessed 17 March 2015, http://www.
metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/50.4.
32
“Justinian Mosaic, San Vitale,” Khan Academy, accessed
18 March 2015, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/
medieval-world/byzantine1/venice-ravenna/a/justinianmosaic-san-vitale.
33
Charles Rufus Morey, “The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia,”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, (1944), pp. 201-222.
34
Ibid., p. 215.
35
Ibid., p. 216.
36
Ibid., p. 222.
37
Roy C. Cave and Herbert H. Coulson, eds., A Source Book
for Medieval Economic History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing
Co., 1936), pp. 264-269.
38
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Justinian I,” accessed
20
21
260
Harrison Voss
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Justinian I (527-565),” accessed
19 March 2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/godsregents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperial-seals/
rulers-of-byzantium/justinian-i-527201365.
40
Justinian, Novella, CXXXVII, translated by S.P. Scott in
The Civil Law (Cincinnati, Ohio: 1932), Vol. XVII, pp. 152-156.
41
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Christianity
:: Eastern Controversies,” accessed 20 March 2015,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/115240/
Christianity/67434/Eastern-controversies.
42
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Maurice Tiberios (582602),” accessed 23 March 2015, http://www.doaks.org/
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43
George T. Dennis, Maurice’s Strategikon, Handbook of
Byzantine Military Strategy (University of Pennsylvania Press,
1984,) pp. 106-108.
44
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Maurice,” accessed
topic/370050/Maurice.
45
Dennis, p. 107.
46
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Phocas,” accessed
topic/457062/Phocas.
47
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Heraclius,” accessed
topic/262495/Heraclius.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid.
52
Ibid.
53
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Theme - Byzantine
Government,” accessed 26 March 2015, http://www.britannica.
com/EBchecked/topic/590490/theme.
54
John F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The
Transformation of a Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1997),
p. 65.
55
Ibid., p. 65.
56
Ibid., p. 65.
57
Ibid., p. 65.
39
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Heraclius,” accessed
59
Ibid.
60
James Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, Vol. 1.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1911), p. 59.
61
Myles Anthony McDonnell, Roman Manliness: Virtus and
the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), p. 77.
62
Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief
under Theodosius II (408–450), (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2006), pp. 97-98.
63
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Herakleios (610-641),” accessed
rulers-of-byzantium/herakleios-and-herakleios-constantine-ca.6162013ca.-625.
64
Ibid.
65
John Julius Norwich, Byzantium: The Early Centuries (New
York: Penguin, 1990), p. 324.
66
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Justinian II,” accessed
topic/308902/Justinian-II.
67
“Attarouthi Treasure [Byzantine; From Attarouthi,
Syria]” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed 26 March 2015,
68
Ibid.
69
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Leo III,” accessed
topic/336200/Leo-III.
70
Ibid.
71
Ibid.
72
Michael Norris, A Masterwork of Byzantine Art : The
David Plates; The Story of David and Goliath (New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 9-15.
73
Ibid., pp. 9-11.
74
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Leo III,” accessed
topic/336200/Leo-III.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid.
58
261
262
Harrison Voss
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Ecloga,” accessed
29 March 2015 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/178179/Ecloga.
78
Ibid.
79
Ibid.
80
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Constantine V (741-775),” accessed
rulers-of-byzantium/constantine-v-and-leo-iv-751201375.
81
Ibid.
82
Ibid.
83
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Constantine V
Copronymus,” accessed 30 March 2015, http://www.britannica.
com/EBchecked/topic/133956/Constantine-V-Copronymus.
84
John F. Haldon, Byzantine Praetorians. An Administrative,
Institutional and Social Survey of the Opsikion and Tagmata, c. 580900. (R. Habelt 1984), p. 78.
85
Ibid., pp. 228-235.
86
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Irene,” accessed
1 April 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/293922/Irene.
87
Ibid.
88
Ibid.
89
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Eirene,” accessed 1 April 2015,
http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/gods-regents-onearth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperial-seals/rulers-ofbyzantium/eirene-7972013802.
90
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Theophilos,” accessed 2 April
2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/gods-regents-onearth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperial-seals/rulers-ofbyzantium/theophilos-829201330-31.
91
Ibid.
92
Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome
and Byzantium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 161.
93
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Theophilus,” accessed
topic/590954/Theophilus.
94
Ibid.
95
Ibid.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
George Holmes, The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval
Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 52.
77
THE CONCORD REVIEW
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Basilica,” accessed
topic/55131/Basilica.
100
Georges Duby, Atlas Historique (Paris: Larousse, 2011),
p. 38.
101
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Leo VI,” accessed
topic/336238/Leo-VI.
102
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Eparch,” accessed
topic/189449/eparch.
103
Claudius Maltretus, Procopii Caesariensis Historiarum
Temporis Sui Tetras Altera De Bello Gothico (Milwaukee: The Bruce
Publishing Co., 1936), pp. 244-245.
104
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Leo VI,” accessed
5 April 2015 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/336238/Leo-VI.
105
Ibid.
106
Ingo F. Walther and Norbert Wolf, Codices Illustres: The
World’s Most Famous Illuminated Manuscripts, 400 to 1600. (Köln:
Taschen, 2005), pp. 90-91.
107
George Ostrogorsky, Cambridge Economic History of Europe
from the Decline of the Roman Empire: Agrarian Life of the Middle
Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 205234.
108
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Romanos I (920-944),” accessed
7 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/godsregents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperialseals/rulers-of-byzantium/romanos-i-constantine-vii-andstephen-931201344.
109
Ibid.
110
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “John I Tzimiskes (969-976),”
accessed 9 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/
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111
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Basil II (976-1025),” accessed
10 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/godsregents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperial-seals/
rulers-of-byzantium/basil-ii-976-1025.
112
Ibid.
113
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Basil II,” accessed
topic/55048/Basil-II.
99
263
264
Harrison Voss
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Constantine IX Monomachos
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115
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Alexius I Comnenus,”
accessed 16 April 2015 http://www.britannica.com/
EBchecked/topic/14548/Alexius-I-Comnenus
116
Ibid.
117
Ibid.
118
Alexander G. Findlay, Classical Atlas of Ancient Geography
(London: W. Tegg and Co., 1849), p. 24.
119
Cyril Mango, “Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism,”
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 28 (1965):
29-43, accessed 21 April 2015, http://www.jstor.org/
stable/750662?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
120
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180),”
accessed 17 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/resources/
seals/gods-regents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantineimperial-seals/rulers-of-byzantium/bzs.1958.106.607
121
Ibid.
122
Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Pronoia System,” accessed
topic/478807/pronoia-system
123
Robert Fossier, Stuart Airlie, and Robyn Marsack,
The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 950-1250
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 506-508.
124
Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Michael VIII,” accessed
22 April 2015 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/379862/Michael-VIII-Palaeologus
125
Ibid.
126
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Michael VIII Palaiologos (12611282),” accessed 22 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/
resources/seals/gods-regents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-ofbyzantine-imperial-seals/rulers-of-byzantium/michael-viiipalaiologos-1261-82
127
Ibid.
128
William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry
Holt and Company 1923), p. 89.
129
Dumbarton Oaks, s.v. “Michael VIII Palaiologos (12611282),” accessed 22 April 2015, http://www.doaks.org/
resources/seals/gods-regents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of114
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265
byzantine-imperial-seals/rulers-of-byzantium/michael-viiipalaiologos-1261-82
130
Annie Labatt, “Frescoes and Wall Painting in Late
Byzantine Art,” New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000,
accessed 26 April 2015, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/
fwbz/hd_fwbz.htm
131
Ibid.
132
Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Manuel II,” accessed
topic/363136/Manuel-II-Palaeologus
133
Oddvar Bjorklund, Haakon Holmboe, and Anders Rohr,
Historical Atlas of the World (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970),
p. 34.
134
Ibid., p. 34.
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“Theophilus.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Accessed
3 April 2015. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/
topic/590954/Theophilus.
Walther, F. Ingo, and Norbert Wolf. Codices Illustres: The
World’s Most Famous Illuminated Manuscripts, 400 to 1600. Köln:
Taschen, 2005.
271
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William Christian Maines (Sugar Islands) is a Junior
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Benjamin Goldstein (Early Islamic Iberia) is a Senior
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Quentin Dupouy (Southern Republicans) is at the
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Peter Luff (South Carolina 1876) is a Senior at
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Se Young Jeon (Arab Unification) is at McGill
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Harrison Voss (Byzantine Empire) is a Senior at
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Send questions to the Editor, Will Fitzhugh, at [email protected]

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