Recycling History

Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon are Anasazi Indian ruins that today draw large masses of tourists. They are historical and are protected and no one would consider tearing them down.

Such was not always the case. In Canyons of the Colorado, now renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, John Wesley Powell tells of a ruin they visited as they floated down the river:

. . . here stood an extensive ruin not many years ago. Some portions of the pueblo were three stories high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins.

Now get this:

The Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo in building their homes, and no vestiges of the ancient structure remain.

Oh man. Can you imagine? I mean, you can't blame the settlers. Here was a lot of perfectly good building materials ready to be used. But think of Mesa Verde and imagine it being dismantled to build settler homes. What a loss.

John Wesley Powell Describes How Kit Carson Conquered the Navajos

You can't really imagine the courage it took for John Wesley Powell and his men to float the until-then unexplored Colorado River until you read his report of the trip, Canyons of the Colorado, now retitled The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons. They started out with four boats and had two left at the end. Four men gave up the quest before it ended, convinced that death was too likely an outcome.

But the rest did make it through, and their journey is well worth reading about.

Aside from the trip itself, the book contains a number of pretty dang interesting sidelights, and I will discuss them here in a series of posts. This first item has to do with Kit Carson, a celebrated (among the whites) scout, who it seems the natives of the region has good reason to consider in a much less appreciative light.

Powell opens the book by setting the stage, discussing the topography and history of the region traversed by the river. One subject he touches on was the white man's triumph over the original inhabitants of the land, the Navajos.

Powell tells this story:

After the acquisition of this area by the United States they (the Indians) became disaffected by reason of encroaching civilization, and the petty wars between United States troops and Navajos were in the main disastrous to our forces, due in part to the courage, skill, and superior numbers of the Navajos and in part to the character of the country, which is easily defended, as the routes of travel along the canyons present excellent opportunities for defense and ambuscade. But under the leadership and by the advice of Kit Carson these Indians were ultimately conquered. This wily but smart frontiersman recommended a new method of warfare, which was to destroy the herds and flocks of the Navajos: and this course was pursued. Regular troops with volunteers from California and New Mexico went into the Navajo country and shot down their herds of half-wild horses, killed hundreds of thousands of sheep, cut down their peach orchards which were scattered about the springs and little streams, destroyed their irrigating works, and devastated their little patches of corn, squashes, and melons: and entirely neglected the Navajos themselves, who were concealed among the rocks of the canyons. Seeing the destruction wrought upon their means of livelihood, the Navajos at once yielded.

Wow. We all know that the whites basically came in and stole the land from the Indians, and we've read about Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears, but this is another stain that I had never heard of. "OK, you won't let us just take your land away from you? Fine, we'll destroy your civilization. How do you like that?" What in the world made those people think they had any just reason for doing this? Sometimes it makes you ashamed to be an American. Enough said.

I Thought the Civil War was Over

Here's an interesting and disturbing thought: apparently for a sizeable number of people in the U.S. south, the Civil War is not over, it's just in remission. Now, I spent some years growing up in Tennessee and I'm familiar with the phrase "The South will rise again," but I didn't think anyone took that seriously. More than that, I've always had the impression that Southerners are among the more patriotic folks in this country.

According to this book I just read, Confederates in the Attic, there's a lot more below the surface south of the Mason-Dixon Line than most of us think. This book by Tony Horwitz, subtitled "Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War," is largely about the reenactors who dress up as Union and Confederate troops and stack reenactments of Civil War battles. However, as the author researched his subject he found a lot more than he bargained for. Here's the passage from the book that I find most chilling:

After the quiz, I went with the Curtises and a couple named the Crowders to a Southern-style restaurant chain called Morrison's. We loaded our trays with un-Confederate heaps of cornbread, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. I was about to shovel in the first bite when Violet Crowder loudly cleared her throat. Then she turned to her four-year-old son, Warren. "Lord," he intoned, "we thank thee for this meal and especially for the great and wonderful Confederacy."

. . . (skipping a couple paragraphs)

Her son sat quietly completing a connect-the-dot picture of the rebel flag and filling in a coloring-book map of America: gray for the Confederacy, blue for Union, green for border states. "Warren," his mother said, "tell this nice man from Virginia, is there anything you hate more than Yankees?"

"No sir! Nothing!" he shouted.

All right, these are people in the 1990s (the book was published in 1998) who are raising their son to worship an entity that ceased to exist 130 years before, and to hate his fellow countrymen. These people are members of a group called the Children of the Confederacy and which, says the author, "was designed to prep youngsters for Confederate citizenship in rather the way that Future Farmers of America readied teenagers for agricultural life." The group has a 16-page "Catechism" with gems such as this:

Q. What was the feeling of the slaves towards their masters?
A. They were faithful and devoted and were always ready and willing to serve them.

Are you getting queasy yet?

Maybe it's because I live in Colorado, where racial harmony is very much the norm, but I really had no idea that racism is still so prevalent in other parts of the country. Horwitz goes into that quite a bit, telling about his discussions with Blacks, Whites, red-necks, liberals, and everyone else. The picture he paints is not pretty. The one bright hope he touches on is that for the younger generations the issue of racism is receding. Perhaps in the last 10 years it has receded even further.

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination for president it will be interesting to see just which states he takes in the election. If he wins in the South I'll feel a lot more optimistic than I did when I finished reading this book.

Random Interesting Tidbits from WWII France

I just finished reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, by William Shirer, about how the government and military of France came to be so weak and divided that Nazi Germany could sweep in and conquer the nation in just one month. This is a book that is hard to put down but it is also hard to keep reading at times because it is downright painful to witness the short-sightedness and timidity that led to bloody catastrophe.

I'm not going to get into that; you can read the book yourself. It's worth reading.

What I want to make note of are just a few of the surprising bits of information I ran across in the book.

For example, when France was on the verge of collapse they continued to have one of the strongest navy fleets in the world. Great Britain was extremely worried about those ships falling into German hands. The French were guaranteeing the British that they would never allow that to happen, but considering all the other failed guarantees France had given in so many other situations, it is not surprising that the British were a bit doubtful.

Winston Churchill was not timid. He gave the order for the seizure of all French vessels possible and sinking of the rest if that were the only recourse. Most were seized with little bloodshed but at Mers-el-Kebir, in French Algeria, the two navies fought a lop-sided battle that resulted in the sinking or destruction of all but one of the French ships in the port. The French soon capitulated to Germany and the Petain dictatorship made common cause with Hitler.

That led to another of the points I want to note. With the French government at Vichy now on the side of the Axis powers, the Nazis were able to walk into the French African possessions. This of course was the setting for the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall flick "Casablanca." When the time came for the British and American troops to invade North Africa, the French fought them. Approximately 1,500 French and a like number of Americans killed each other in that initial battle. Sort of like if the Kuwaiti military had fought the U.S. military when the Americans came in to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.

Lastly, I remembered from childhood that Charles De Gaulle was the leader of France at that time. During the period the book covers he was a colonel and then a general, and he did not capitulate, but rather went on to lead the French resistance (I'm not clear on details here, haven't read about that yet). I guess I just assumed that he became president after the war and that he headed the Fourth French Republic.

Well, not exactly. First off, De Gaulle did not immediately become the French head of state. He eventually did become the last Premier of the Fourth Republic and then he became the first President of the Fifth Republic. Apparently they rewrote their constitution again at that point. I'm only assuming that the government of France today is still the Fifth Republic.

So those are the particular things that struck me. Of course the whole book really struck me. Everything is so clear in hindsight but there are always at least a few people who see it clearly in foresight. If only it weren't so difficult to figure out who those people are and who they are not.

The Euro to Be a Failed Currency?

Now I find this extremely dang interesting. According to a column in the April 21, 2008, issue of Forbes magazine, there is some possibility that the whole common currency thing in Europe is failing. That is to say, the Euro will fail and the countries over there will revert to their old currencies, i.e., the franc, the deutsche mark, the lira, etc. Who knew?

The writer, Avi Tiomkin, is described as a "macroeconomic adviser to hedge funds." The gist of his argument is that different countries want and need different things economically, and it is these tensions that will ultimately lead some countries to abandon the euro and return to what they used before. He begins the column stating that

It is only a matter of time, probably less than three years, until the euro experiment meets its end.

He also states that

Along with the steep selloff that will precede the disintegration of the high-flying euro, other markets will be shaken.

He then goes on to recommend that investors should

Gradually start to hoard dollars and short the euro. Another strategy is to sell investments in Italy and Spain and buy German fixed-income assets.

I don't know about you but this is the first I've heard of this. Not that I'm some big investor to take measures to prepare, but I never dreamed something like a currency in use in such a large area even could fail. You live and learn, I guess. I know I'll be watching with interest in the next three years.

A Digression Just To Make Some Money

I'm going to do this just because I can. If you're not interested just ignore this particular post. Besides, making a bit of cash this easily is pretty dang interesting to me.

Everyone is familiar with PayPal, right? That company that lets you send and receive money via the Web? Well, they now have competition. Apparently Steve Case, one of the cofounders of AOL, has started this thing called Revolution Money Exchange, and for everyone who signs up before May 15 gets an immediate $25 in their account to spend, withdraw, or whatever they want to do. So you can't lose, right? And I checked it out--they are legit. They're a registered bank and you do have to give them your social security number, as you do with any bank account. Then, if you refer anyone else to them who signs up you get an extra $10.

So here's the link. Just click on the image to get started. Do it if it appeals to you. Either way, I'll be back to regular posts after this one.

When The Jews And Muslims Were Friends

I mentioned last time that I was reading Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031, by Charles Reginald Haines, and that the Jews of Spain aided the Moors in their conquest of that country. Here's some more on that subject.

The persecution of the Jews by the Gothic Spaniards naturally made them the implacable enemies of the Christians. Being a very numerous colony in Spain--for Hadrian had transported thither many thousand families--the Jews gave the Arabs very effective help in conquering the country, both by betraying places to them, and garrisoning captured towns while the Arabs went on to fresh conquests. Consequently the relations between the Jews and Moslems were for a long time very cordial, though this cordiality wore off in the course of time. . .

In France the prejudice against the Jews shewed itself very strongly among the clergy, though Louis I and his wife Judith favoured them. They were generally ill-treated, and their slaves were induced by the clergy to be baptized. Thereupon they became free, as Jews were not allowed to have Christian slaves. But it must be admitted that the Franks had reason for disliking the Jews, as it was well known that they sold Christian children as slaves to the Moslems of Spain.

Wow. That last remark is one of the things I often find most interesting in reading old texts. This is one of the things that makes Haines especially interesting as a writer. He shows his prejudices openly and yet still manages to view the overall picture with amazing objectivity in light of his prejudices. Did the Jews really sell Christian children to the Moors as slaves? I have no idea, but it sounds like one of those urban legends that everyone knows but no one can prove or find a source for. Still, considering how badly the Jews were treated it wouldn't surprise me if it happened at least once or twice. Vengeance leads people to do pretty outrageous things some times.

Anyway, all things must pass and a bit later Haines notes that:

The good understanding between the Jews and the Arabs with the gradual process of time gave place to an ill-concealed hostility, and at the beginning of the twelfth century there seems even to have been a project formed for forcing the Jews to become Moslems on the ground of a promise made by their forefathers to Mohammed that, if in five centuries their Messiah had not appeared, they would be converted to Mohammedanism.

Of course, when the Christian retook Spain the Jews were in a bit of a bind. The Christians still hated them and now they had the added impetus of the Jews' collaboration with the Moors. Interestingly, the Jews of Toledo appear to have pulled a fast one in 1085 when the Christians reclaimed that city. Says Haines:

They waited on Alfonso and assured him that they were part of the ten tribes whom Nebuchadnezzar transported into Spain, and not the descendants of those Jerusalem Jews who crucified Christ. Their ancestors, they said, were quite free from the guilt of this act, for when Caiaphas had written to the Toledan synagogue for their advice respecting the person who claimed to be the Messiah, the Toledan Jews returned for answer, that in their judgment the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled in Him and therefore He ought not by an means to be put to death. This reply they produced in the original Hebrew. It is needless to say that the whole thing was a fabrication.

A little fast footwork there, wouldn't you say?

Eventually, the Inquisition murdered and drove out all the Jews from Spain, with the exception of those known today to have continued their rituals in private while publicly accepting Christianity. The remaining Moslems were also killed or driven out, and you have to give Haines credit that he states, "The story of the treatment of Jews by Christians is indeed one of the darkest in the history of Christianity."