Category Archives: History

Old History

Current News, Election, History, Research

Might sound redundant, but it is not. A “History Book” is one that attempts to expound the events and possibly explain the connections and “whys” between them, so that the reader has a better understand of what has happened in the past and how we got here. Sometimes our understanding of past events changes when new information comes to light. This is generally a good thing, though sometimes more (but still incomplete) information confuses things from the initial simple or largely speculative view.

However, there are also people trying to rewrite history and make the ‘wrong” things go away, and constantly invent or “reinterpret” things in order to push a particular narrative. This is NOT good. It is something the SJW and Marxists do a lot.

so it is expected that what history books say will, to some degree, change over time. But the whole-sale revisions going on now are all the wrong type. So I think it might be good for people to make it a goal to accumulate or copy or locate or translate or make availible older history texts to that it is not lost. For example I came across one the other day – US History – in a used book store printed in 1904. That means there were still a considerable number of Civil War survivors around to point out flaws. Any bets I discover something in it that is not popular in today’s books?

Real alternate history

History

This interview with James Lafond is fascinating.

He has written a LOT of books, and his summary of the historical non-fiction series “Plantation America” and what order they might be best read in looks useful. He expects to wrap them up with a summary and consolidation with a comprehensive narrative of the practice of white servitude / slavery / bondage in the colonies and early USA.

I’ve completed “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: The Foundation of Our Misbegotten Nation“, and found it fascinating. Technically there are some errors (e.g., a two-page repeated passage about twenty pages apart and typos), and the style is kind of rambling, but it’s a fast and easy read with a lot of good sources cited. He does seem to have a passion for using primary sources, and a distain for secondary sources, which is nice. Well worth reading. Part of it ties in well with another book I read recently, “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World” by Virginia Postrel. In both they use and learn from runaway slave reward posters and advertisements. LaFond learns about the races and how language was used, Postrel learns about fashion and clothing because it was often described as being part of the stolen property the runaways took.

Look at a war none of us have heard about

Current News, History, Release

Well, maybe technically a few readers here might have heard a little bit about  the NAGORNO-KARABAKH WAR. Here is an article titled “WHAT THE UNITED STATES MILITARY CAN LEARN FROM THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH WAR” in the Small Wars Journal.

short version: they made extensive use of cheap off-the-shelf items like old biplanes converted for remote control and other unmanned areal system to identify and destroy much more expensive air-defense systems. Shows how unconventional thinking, uses of miniaturized digital systems, and unmanned systems to reduce your own casualties can radically change the course of things. I do hope our military is paying attention to it.

So should we non-military people.

QOTD- James LaFond

History, Research

“Plantation American of the 1600’s was almost exclusively white-over-white slave-system.
The 1700’s was a time of very mixed-race slavery, roughly 60% white, 30% black and 10% Indian or mixed race in terms of total bondage rations across the original 13 states”

From The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: The Foundation of Our Misbegotten Nation by James LaFond, from the chapter titled “Boys and girls”, where he shows a bit of the etymology of the terms and their use in America and why they are perceived so differently by black and white men.

I knew from a quote in “White Cargo” that in 1775 George Washington posted a runaway slave notice that only described three of the ten runaways as black, but I didn’t think it likely that was a typical ratio. LaFond goes on to say it wasn’t until the 1800’s that slavery gradually morphed into an almost exclusively black institution.

The book is oddly organized, more like a lightly edited set of research notes, emails, blog posts and snippets, but he’s got some interesting sources quoted. Not as many specific sources cited for specific claims as a more formal history book might, but this is something like book 9 out of a planned 13. I’m thinking some if some grad student wants a good research thesis, documenting just how many slaves/indentures were shipped to North America in the 1600’s and 1700’s by decade, and what their survival / runaway / actually able to claim their headright acreage numbers and rates were, it might be very eye-opening and would have a good-sized audience.

 

Common figures

History, Research

What do Captain John Smith (of Jamestown fame, to most Americans) and Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote) have in common?

       

They were both military bad-asses (Smith- fighting as a mercenary against the Turks, won 3 individual combats leaving his opponent’s head’s on pikes, look at his coat of arms; Cervantes fought with notable bravery at Lepanto). They were both doing important things in the first decade of the 1600’s. They were both white guys (English and Spanish, respectively). They both had amazing lives worth reading a biography about. And they were both Christians who were held as Muslim slaves, Smith by the Ottomans in what’s now Turkey, Cervantes by the Barbary pirates looking for galley-slaves out of Algiers. Smith killed his owner and escaped across a considerable distance to friendly Christian territory, Cervantes had four unsuccessful escape attempts and was finally ransomed after fives years a slave.