Ex Post Facto

Journal of the History Students at San Francisco State University

FALL 2006

VOLUME XV

Ex Post Facto
Ex Post Facto is published annually by the students of the Department of History at San Francisco State University, and members of Kappa Phi Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. All views of fact or opinion are the sole responsibility of the authors and may not reflect the views of the editorial staff.

Questions or comments may be directed to:

Ex Post Facto c/o Department of History, San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Ave. San Francisco, CA 94512 Contact us via email at: epf@sfsu.edu The journal is also published online at userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf The Ex Post Facto editorial board wishes to thank the Instructionally Related Activities Committee at San Francisco State University for providing funding. Ex Post Facto also thanks Christopher Waldrep, Vernon Sanders, and Deborah Kearns, who have all made the process much smoother than it might have been. Thanks should also go to the professors who encouraged students to write the high quality papers that are included in this publication. Ownership of papers is retained by authors and may be submitted for publication elsewhere. Authorization has been granted by authors for use of papers both in the printed publication of Ex Post Facto and thewebsite.

Copyright 2006, San Francisco State University.

STAFF

MANAGING CO-EDITORS Rhiannon Anderson & Michael T. Caires

EDITORIAL BOARD Benjamin Brown Martin Burke Daniel Elash Sierra Gehrke Kayleigh Henson Rebecca Hodges Peter Johnsson Wojciech T. Kawalek Timothy Kellogg Jonathon Krupp Thomas Ladd Sarah Lara-Toney Marc McGinnis Steven Myers Kevin Mummey Jacob Richards Elizabeth Rodoni Megan Schultz Ryan Tripp Jared Taylor Lauren Woods

LAYOUT Rhiannon Anderson & Piret Saagpakk

FACULTY ADVISOR Christopher Waldrep

Dear Readers, As managing co-editors for this year, it is our honor to present the Fall 2006 issue of Ex Post Facto. For many issues now, EPF has served as a unique venue to display the work of the history students at San Francisco State University and at the same time exhibit their dedication, hard work, and insightfulness. We believe this year to be no different and feel that this issue contains many excellent articles that display these characteristics. We have preserved the format of last years issue by dividing the articles into undergraduate and graduate sections. However, we have also made some minor adjustments that we believe are beneficial for the journal. As you might have noticed, we have decided to change the dating of the journal from a Spring publication into a Fall onedue to the reasoning that EPF is always published in the Fall. It is our sincere wish to thank the many students, staff, and faculty that made this endeavor possible. We would also like to encourage students to continue submitting their work and to become part of the future editorial staff. In closing, we hope that this issue reflects the very active and thriving community of historical scholars at SFSU that we consider ourselves lucky to be a part of. Sincerely, Michael T. Caires & Rhiannon Anderson San Francisco, California August 2006

CONTENTS
Undergraduate work
MARK PIPER p. 1 The Holy Office of the Inquisicin in the New World: Sorcerers and Plants in the Indies TRACY DODGE p. 31 American Can Save Greece: The World War II Relief Mobilization of the Greek Diaspora and the American Public KEVIN MUMMEY p. 45 Anatomy of a Crusade: The De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi and the Lisbon Crusade of 1147 JARED TAYLOR p. 63 Royal Culpability: King James VI and the Scottish Witch Craze of the 1590s

Graduate work
THOMAS DORRANCE p. 79 Trials & Troubles: Organization, Cooperation, and Administration in the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp ARI CUSHNER p. 95 Coming to Terms with Cannabis: A Discursive History of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act DANIEL FRONTINO ELASH p. 117 Not One Man in America Believed Him: On the Historical Misunderstanding of John Adams, with an Apologia GIOVANNA PALOMBO p. 135 The Roman Cult of Mithras: Religious Phenomenon and Brotherhood RYAN W. TRIPP p. 155 A Corruption of Morals: The Boston Massacre in the Social Imagination of Resistance and Revolution

Book Review and Historiography

Lucinda McCray Beier, Sufferers & Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England Reviewed by TIMOTHY A. KELLOGG p. 177 PETER S. GRAY p. 183 Is the Origin of Capitalism Eurocentric? A Review of Recent Debates in Socio-Economic History

he Holy Office of the Inquisicin in the New World

Sorcerers and Plants in the Indies

Mark Piper
UNDERGRADUATE WINNER OF THE JOHN MULLIN PRIZE

ccording to historian Richard E. Greenleaf, the leading twentieth century authority on the Mexican Inquisicin, the tribunals of Holy Office of the Inquisicin in the New World did not often encounter witches Sabbaths or damage to body or property caused by curses among the indigenous, standard accusations in the European witch trials. Instead, the Holy Office encountered idolatry and human and animal sacrifices conducted by indigenous priests using mind-altering plants.1 The mechanics of how the Spanish Crown and Council of the Supreme Inquisicin dealt with indigenous pagan religions in the New World is the primary objective of this article. Queen Isabela of Castille and King Ferdinand of Aragn established the Inquisicin in 1478 specifically to persecute the covert practice of Judaism and Islam as heresy.2 Monastic inquisitorial persecution in the New World religions began in 1522; in 1535, the Spanish Crown named Fray Juan de Zumrraga apostolic inquisitor in Mexico.3 Formal Inquisicin and Provisorate tribunals continued this work on from 1571 to 1818.4 From this point forth, the Holy Office became a state-controlled device used to enforce the conversion of the indigenous of the New World to the Catholic faith and their acculturation to European culture; to eradicate indigenous pagan religions, including banning the use of mindaltering plants; and to discredit indigenous leaders in order to empower the Spanish colonization. Important primary sources for the study of the Inquisicin in the New World are the letters and narratives of the Spanish chroniclers including Bernal Daz de Castillo, Bernardino de Sahagn, Ramn Pan and Diego de Landa that served in the New World. The documents of the Holy Office and the Spanish chronicles clearly show that the language and demonization of the European witch trials were applied to New World indigenous religious practices, following European historical patterns to legitimize their eradication.5 A number of Inquisicin trials in Europe can be interpreted as also supporting the argument for enforced acculturation by Inquisitorial persecution to eradicate preChristian cults and folkways in European cultures. Carlo Ginzburgs book The Night Battles describes a series of Holy Office investigations of ritual traditions dating from the 1570s to the 1640 in the Friulian region of northern Italy.6 Ginzburg interprets the Friulian traditions as remnants of an ancient European fertility religionhealings and the
1

Greenleaf cites ninety-six tribunal processes of indigenous defendants dating from 1522 to 1818 in the Mexican National Archives. None of the indigenous processes mention witches Sabbaths or curses. See: Appendix to The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians: Sources for the Ethnohistorian The Americas, 34, no. 3 (January 1978), 337-44. 2 Gary K Waite, Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 19, 30-1. 3 Monastic Inquisicin tribunals refer to processes presided by Spanish priests in the early years of the colony, which were replaced after 1535 with state-appointed apostolic inquisitors. See, Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 315-6. 4 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 316, 335. 5 Waite, Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft, 100; Julio Caro Baroja, The World of Witches [1961] trans. Weidenfield & Nicolson (London: Phoenix Press, 2001), 41-66. 6 The Friulians were a pre-Roman people of Italian, Germanic and Slavic origin in the northern Italian peninsula. See, Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteen and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. John & Ann Tedeschi (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992), ix, xx.

Ex Post Facto

protection of crops and fertility by witches battling evil forces in a dream state. The Friulian traditions were determined by the Holy Office to be witchcraft. The Inquisicin tribunals had the desired effect, reducing the Friulian benandanti cult to isolated practitioners.7 Martin Luther condemned the practice of dowsing as witchcraft; dowsing appears to be a pre-Christian practice described by Greek and Roman writers as rhabdomancy. After conversion, dowsing remained prevalent in areas of historic Celtic and Germanic cultures. Curiously, many traditions call for the divining rod used in dowsing to be crafted from hazel, a tree sacred to Celtic religion, on St. Johns Day, 24 June, very close to the day of the summer solstice.8 The Inquisicin tribunals of 16091614 in the Basque region of Spain, described by Gustav Henningsen in The Witches Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisicin (1609-1614), describe the investigation and persecution of witches who used toads to create poisons, which cast spells, and participated in sexual orgies known as witches Sabbaths.9 Pierre De Lancre, the witch hunter of the French Basque region, himself despised the superstitions, myths, and folklore of the Basque.10 Noted Basque historian, Julio Caro Baroja sees a remarkable similarity between their activities [Basque rituals described in the 1609-1614 investigations] and the mystery-religions of classical antiquity.11 As late as 1586, Pope Sixtus V wrote that [o]thers cling on to relics of the age-old worship of the ancient gods.12 Even if not intended, the Basque Inquisicin tribunals had the effect of eradicating many pre-Christian Basque cultural practices. The conversion of Europe to Christianity before the year 1500 was not firm, with many converted pre-Christian populations practicing pagan rituals fused to Catholic icons.13 In this manner, Samhain, the pagan Celtic celebration held at the end of October became the syncretic Catholic All Saints Day, known as Halloween, a celebration that incorporated the Celtic concept of
7

The benandanti, meaning good walkers were a small group of men and women who, because they were born with a caul, were regarded as witches. A caul is a remnant of the amniotic sac that adheres to the face of a newborn baby and was considered by many ancient European religions as a special mark indicating second sight. See, Ginzburg, The Night Battles, ix, 143-5. 8 Dowsing is the practice of locating hidden objects with divination rods. Dowsing is frequently used to locate hidden reserves of water, minerals and lost objects. See, Theodore Besterman, The Folklore of Dowsing, Folklore 37, no. 2, 30 (June 1926): 113-33. 9 The Basque are considered a proto-European culture that is not part of and predates the Indo-European family that includes most European, Levant, Central Asian and Indian sub-continent peoples and languages. Not much is known about Basque religion before Roman times, but archeological remains suggest it was based on a sacrificial solar cult with associations with animals, as known with other prehistoric nations of Europe. See, Mark Kurlansky, The Basque History of the World (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 23, 80-82. For more on the investigation and persecution of witches in this area, see Gustav Henningsen, The Witches Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisicin (Reno: University Nevada Press, 1980), 297-300. 10 Baroja, The World of Witches, 159, 173. 11 Baroja, The World of Witches, 173. 12 Sixtus V, Coeli et Terrae [1586], cited in P.G. Maxwell-Stuart: The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999), 59. 13 The Lap nation of northern Scandinavia did not embrace Christianity until the seventeenth century, practicing pagan rituals led by their priests called the Noaides. See The Nomads of Arctic Lapland by Clyde Fisher in National Geographic (November 1939): 654-655. In 1065 AD, King Sweyn Estriden of Denmark describes the Germanic Baltic coast city of Vineta as a trading town where, in fact, all its inhabitants still blunder about in pagan rites. See Shareen Blair Brysac, Atlantis of the Baltic, Archaeology (July-August 2003): 62-66. The natives of the Shetland Islands celebrate an annual ritual called Up Helly Aa held in Lerwick including a bonfire on the last Tuesday in January. The festival with a torch lit parade, bonfire and revelry with participants in Viking-era Norse costumes originates with the pagan Norse midwinter festival. See Karl W. Gullers, Viking Festival in the Shetlands, National Geographic (December 1954): 853-862. The Csngs of Romania have a tradition of sorcerers and magic that predates Christianity and continues to the present day in a fusion with Catholic rites. See Frank Viaviano Song of the Csngs, National Geographic (June 2005): 66-83. Erla Zwingle, Italy Before the Romans, National Geographic (January 2005): 56-73.

MARK PIPER

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communion with the dead and Catholic imagery of witchcraft.14 Again and again, European persecutions of witchcraft focused on practices of folklore, often times traceable to antecedent Celtic and Roman religions, practices demonized by Christianity as sorcery, heresy, superstition or witchcraft for allowing access to supernatural powers or to knowledge termed by Christianity as demonic.15 The archives of the European Inquisicin trials do not clearly state that acculturation of pre-Roman Europe was a goal, and this may be a particularism not applicable in the context of those times. Still, the Inquisicins prosecuted, punished and banned cultural and religious practices, ancient or modern, that countered religious Christian orthodoxy. The indigenous gods of the Americas were quickly termed by the Spanish priests as devils, and their worship idolatry. Supernatural indigenous rituals such as divination, communion with the dead, and healings were demonized as sorceries, artifice, and tricks employed by indigenous priests used by the Devil to deceive them because they had no knowledge of the Catholic faith.16 Early Spanish chronicler Father Bartolom de las Casas defined the indigenous pagan priests of the Americas as priest, prophet or sorcerer and as theologians, prophets and soothsayers.17 The Spanish also demonized indigenous rituals as artifice and tricks employed by indigenous priests used by the Devil to deceive the indigenous because they have no knowledge of our holy faith.18 The Spanish came to understand the indigenous rituals in the Americas as similar to those of the barbarous past that had been discredited and eradicated in Europe.19 The Spanish Crown decided by 1511 that the indigenous peoples they conquered were to be converted to the Catholic faith.20 When they refused or reverted to pagan indigenous practices, the narratives and actions of the Spanish priests such as Diego de Landa, and archives of the Holy Office in Mexico, clearly support the argument that Inquisicin trials and punishment of the indigenous for idolatry, sorcery and witchcraft were used as a state tool to enforce religious orthodoxy and European acculturation in the Indies.21 In turn, the Spanish Crown controlled the Spanish clergy by virtue of the papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae of 28 July 1508, issued by Pope Julius II and reconfirmed in subsequent bulls of 1523, 1530 and 1543. These papal bulls gave the Spanish Crown authority to appoint a religious hierarchy in Spain and in the New World, as well as to receive and distribute

14

Samhain is a Celtic idiom, combing the words for summer and end. See Mara Freeman, Kindling the Celtic Spirit (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2000), 297-8. 15 Baroja, The World of Witches, 17-131. 16 Fernando Colombo, Historie del S.D. Fernando Colombo; nelle qualisha particolare & vera relatione della vita & defatti dellAmmiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre, quoted in An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, trans. Jos Juan Arrom (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 44: Father Ramn Pan, An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians [1498] trans. Jos Juan Arrom (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 21, 26. 17 Father Bartolom de las Casas, Apologtica Historia de las Indias, [1550] Chapter 120, quoted in An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, trans. Jos Juan Arrom (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 57. 18 Father Bartolom de las Casas, Apologtica Historia de las Indias, 59. 19 de las Casas, Apologtica Historia de las Indias, 63. 20 In Apologtica Historia de las Indias, Bartolom de las Casas quotes a letter King Ferdinand wrote to the indigenous of the island of Hispaola demanding their conversion to Christianity. He does not date the letter but it is included in his narrative for the period after 1511. Because Juana, King Ferdinands daughter, is named as co-regent in the text, it is assumed the letter dates after 1504, when Queen Isabela died. 21 Father Diego de Landa, An Account of the Things of Yucatan [1560], trans. David Castledine (Mexico: Monclem Ediciones, 2000), 60 & Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 337-44.

The Holy Office of the Inquisicin in the New World

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tithes; his authority came to be known as the patronato real.22 It is a common historical fallacy that the Holy Office in Mexico was not present until 1571, and that it never had authority over the indigenous. The Holy Office archives in Mexico, researched by Greenleaf, tell a different story. As early as 1522, monastic Inquisicins against the indigenous were held in Mexico. The Spanish priests based their authority to conduct tribunals on the papal bull Exponi nobis (known in Spanish as the Omnmoda) of 10 May 1522, by Pope Adrian IV. This bull empowered priests more than two days distant from a resident bishop with almost all powers except ordination. In 1535, the Crown named Bishop Juan de Zumrraga as apostolic inquisitor, and he conducted investigations and tribunals. His harshness with the indigenous was criticized, and he was replaced in 1543. Zumrragas replacements also conducted tribunals against the indigenous until 1571, when the Holy Office of the Inquisicin was formally established in Mexico. 23 Hampering the application of orthodoxy in the New World was the legal status of the indigenous, finally determined in 1537 by Pope Paul III to be rational beings with souls.24 When established in 1571, the Holy Office was specifically denied jurisdiction over the indigenous, which were instead subject to the bishops or archbishops office under the care of a Provisor (Vicar General). However, the mixed-blood mestizos were within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office regardless of whether they retained indigenous habits. Jurisdiction really meant little, since the Holy Office conducted Provisorate investigations and administered the discipline of the indigenous. Both institutions conducted tribunals with the goal of eradicating indigenous religious practices. A review of the Holy Office and Provisorate processes given by Greenleaf does not show the Provisorate with less zeal or more leniency in punishment. As in Spain, the Inquisicin tribunals were conducted with investigations, sworn testimony, hearings, and sentences. 25 The Holy Office or Provisor delegated arrests and punishment to the civil authorities. However, the arrested were held in cells at monasteries of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustine orders in the New World.26 Conversion and acculturation of the indigenous peoples became the goal of Admiral Christopher Columbus soon after the discovery of the New World. In 1494, Columbus wrote a letter to the Spanish monarchs while preparing for his second voyage to the New World. In his letter, Columbus promises that there shall be a church, and parish priests or friars to administer the sacraments, to perform divine worship, and for the conversion of the Indians in the newly discovered territories.27 After his return to the New World in 1494, Admiral Columbus commissioned Father Pan to live amongst the
22

John Lloyd Mecham, Church and State in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), 36, cited in Rafael E. Tarrag: Experiencias politicas de los cubanos en la Cuba Espaola: 1512-1898 (Barcelona: Puvill Libros, S.A., 1996), 22. 23 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indian, 139-41. 24 Bartolom de las Casas: The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account, 1542, trans. Herma Briffault (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992), 6. 25 Greenleaf, The Inquisicin and the Indians of New Spain: A Study in Jurisdictional Confusion, The Americas Vol. 22, No. 2, (October 1965): 138, 141. 26 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1969), 7 : Jacinto de la Serna, Manual de Ministros de Indios para el Conocimiento de sus Idolatrias y Extirpacin de Ellas, [1650], published as Tratado de las Idolatrias, Vol. 2, 2nd Ed. (Mexico: Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 1951), 204-5 27 Admiral Christopher Columbus: Columbus letter to the King and Queen of Spain: 1494, in Medieval Sourcebook, ed. Paul Halsall (Fordham: Fordham University, 1996) accessed 4 May 2005. Available from <http//:www.fordham.edu/halsall/source.columbus2.html>.

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indigenous Caribbean Tano of the Guarionex nation, in what today is known as Haiti. His mission was to discover and understand of the beliefs and idolatries of the Indians, and how they worship their gods.28 By 1498, Pan prepared a narrative that focused on the myths and religious practices of the Tano. In his narrative, Father Pan also describes the initial conversion and acculturation of indigenous Tano, with the converts accepting Christian names, learning the Catholic prayers, caring for the religious icons and chapels set up by the Catholic fathers, and participating in the ritual of baptism.29 After 1511, conversion to Catholicism gained legal force with the letter of King Ferdinand of Spain to the peoples of the Indies. The letter stated that the Pope had granted the American lands to the authority of the Spanish Crown, and warns those indigenous natives that do not accept the Catholic faith:
Should you fail to comply, or delay maliciously in so doing, we assure you that with the help of God we shall use force against you, declaring war upon you from all sides and with all possible means, and we shall bring you to the yoke of the Church we shall enslave your persons, wives and sons, sell you or dispose of you as the King sees fit; we shall seize your possessions and harm you as much as we can as disobedient and resisting vassals.30

As ordered by the Spanish Crown, the Spanish priests were to lead the conversion of the Indians, and to establish parishes in every township established by the conquerors. 31 Conquerors and settlers using indigenous labor known as encomienda were also charged with the conversion of the indigenous laborers under their charge.32 The Holy Office investigated those Spanish who were accused of insufficient vigor in conversion of the indigenous for whom they were responsible.33 They were also to convert pagan African slaves brought to the New World. Owners were charged with the responsibility of conversion and observance of the Catholic rituals.34 Acculturation in the New World also meant the imposition of the Spanish language as the official language and the adoption of Eurocentric apparel and technologies.35
28 29

Admiral Christopher Columbus. Pan, The Antiquities of the Indians, 3, 32-8. 30 King Ferdinand of Spain: Letter to the Indies in Bartolom de las Casas, Apologtica Historia de las Indias, Book 3, Chapter 57. 31 Eduardo Torres-Cuevas & Oscar Loyola Vega, Historia de Cuba 1492-1898: Formacin y Liberacin de la Nacin, 2d ed. (La Habana: Editorial Pueblo y Educacin, 2002), 52-3. 32 Encomienda is an archaic Spanish term whose closest English translation is to place in charge of such as one would do when assigning the care of a child or assets to another. After the conquest of the New World, the territories became Crown property to be distributed or operated as the Crown dictated. The conquered indigenous natives, as subjects of the Crown, were free but subject to pay tribute to the Crown in the form of goods, or they could be compelled to labor to satisfy this obligation. The Crown rewarded conquerors and prominent colonists with land grants and or encomiendas consisting of tribute in the form of goods or labor due the Crown from its indigenous subjects. In return, the recipients of encomienda licenses were bound to render military service to the Crown if needed and were to provide for the conversion of the indigenous laborers they used. See Charles Gibson, Spain in America [1966] (New York: Harper Touchbooks, 1967), 48-52 & Francisco Perez de la Riva: Origen y Regimen de la Propiedad Territorial en Cuba (Havana: Academia de la Historia de Cuba, 1946), 25. 33 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 22. 34 Robert Edgard Conrad, Children of Gods Fire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 156-9. 35 Father Diego de Landa: An Account of the Things of Yucatan, 59; new technologies include wheel thrown glazed pottery vs. unglazed coiled, blown glass, and single crop vs. multi-crop cultivation. See Patricia Fournier, La cermica colonial del Templo Mayor, Arqueologa Mexicana (Mayo-Junio 1998): 52-9; Ana Maria L. Velasco Lozano, El Jardn de Iztapalapa, Arqueologa Mexicana (Septiembre-Octubre 2002): 26-33.

The Holy Office of the Inquisicin in the New World

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Religious conversion over time created new Catholic myths, some intentional and others not, that cemented the foundations of the new Catholic faith in the New World. The Spanish priests learned the indigenous languages to enable conversion, though a lack of fluency was blamed at times for an unintentional mixing of indigenous and Catholic religious concepts.36 The creation of new myths incorporating elements of pre-Christian religions into Catholic rituals had previously happened in Europe. Roman emperor Aurelian designated the December 25th celebration for the winter solstice and this pagan Roman celebration of lights was later adopted by the Christian faith as the date of the birth of the child Jesus.37 Similarly, Miguel Sanchez in 1648 and Jesuit priest Francisco de Florencia in 1688 described the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a brown Virgin, as protector of the Indians on Tepeyac Hill in northern reaches of the Mexica capital in 1531.38 They located this apparition at a venerated indigenous shrine to the Mexica Earth Mother goddess Tonatzin.39 None of the chroniclers of the time mention the miraculous apparition, giving credence to the argument that the Virgin of Guadalupe was a syncretic myth created by the Spanish priests to further evangelization.40 An important step in conversion was baptism, and the adoption of European names to replace the indigenous composite names based on religious calendars.41 In Mesoamerica, an astronomical calendar of eighteen months of twenty days (365 days) concurrent with a sacred calendar of thirteen months of twenty days (260 days) was used for the timing of indigenous rituals, including the naming of children.42 This was replaced after the conquest, first by the Julian and later by the Gregorian calendar used in Europe. The Andean calendar, based on an eight-day week and timed to astronomical observations, was also eradicated. 43 The Catholic Church dedicated each day of the calendar to a saint or feast of the Church. In the New World, in a syncretic practice, children were given European names matching the Catholic patron saint for the day on which they were born, a practice still common in Latin America. The indigenous themselves fused Catholic icons to their indigenous religions, a practice that the Spanish priests fought against with varying success.44 For example, the
36

Francisco Morales Valerio, Fray Jacobo de Tastera (1490-1542): Un notable misionero en Tabasco, Arqueologa Mexicana (Mayo-Junio 2003): 58-60; Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 124: Kenneth J. Andrien, Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness under Spanish Rule 1532-1825 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 167. 37 Anthony F. Aveni, The Star of Bethlehem, Archaeology (November-December 1998): 42. 38 The Meseoamerican civilization known in the western world as Aztec in fact called itself Mexica. At the time of the Spanish Conquest in 1521, the Mexica had conquered a number of regions and city-states extending from central Mexico to the Mayan lands of Central America. The Mexica governed the conquered nations and city-states as vassal states, and introduced the Mexica language, Nahuatl, as a common regional language. See Jacques Soustelle: Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest, [1955] trans. Patrick OBrian (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), xiii, and Miguel Len-Portilla: Aztec Thought and Culture, trans. Jack Emory Davis [1963] (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), xix-xxi, 39 Sylvia R. Santaballa, Writing the Virgin of Guadalupe in Francisco de Florencias La estrella del norte de Mexico, Colonial Latin American Review, Vol. 7 Issue 1 (June 1998): 83. 40 Margaret Zires, Los mitos de la Virgen de Guadalupe: Su proceso de construccin y reinterpretacin en el Mxico pasado y contemporaneo, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 1994): 286. 41 Bernardo Garca Martnez, La conversin de 7 Mono a don Domingo de Guzmn, Arqueologa Mexicana (JulioAgosto 1997): 56. 42 Johanna Broda, Ciclos de fiestas y calendario solar mexica, Arqueologa Mexicana (Enero-Febrero 2000): 48-55. 43 Darrell S. Gundrum, Fabric of Time, Archeology (March-April 2000): 47-8. 44 Jacinto de la Serna, Tratado de las Idolatrias, 64-7.

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syncretic rituals in Central Mexico for the feast of Archangel Michael, on 28 September, combine the blessing of harvests and thanks giving for rain with pagan elements associated with the same day in the ancient Mesoamerican calendar.45 Other indigenous festival days were similarly fused to Catholic ritesthe Day of the Dead celebrations held on 2 November correlate with the veneration of ancestors that was part of the tepeihuitl (harvest) celebrations dedicated to Tlaloc, the Mesoamerican god of rain.46 In the remote Cora nation of western Mexico, the traditional pageants of Catholicism for Holy Week were combined with indigenous rituals and the use of the hallucinogen peyote.47 A similar syncreticism can be seen in the Holy Week procession in the city of Iztapalapa that includes a Catholic reenactment of the walk of Christ to Calvary Hill and a pagan sacrificial aspect with the crucifixion of a penitent.48 Not surprisingly, excavations since 2004 at the site where the Holy Week crucifixion is performed have revealed an indigenous temple buried underneath.49 In the process of religious conversion, the mythology of indigenous religions was also subject to revisionthe myth of Quetzalcoatl given by Sahagn in the Florentine Codex includes a description of Quetzalcoatl as a monarch who condemned human sacrificials, and who would return by sea from the East.50 Later he gained Caucasian attributes including pale skin and a beard because of his syncretic association with St.
45

The day 28 September celebrated as the Feast of Archangel Michael corresponds to the Mexica calendar for the 11th month of Ochpanztli (harvest), day 1 Atl (water), though the Catholic calendar celebrates the Feast on the 29th of September. Similarly in Catholic liturgy, the Archangel Michael is attributed to agricultural concerns and rain. See Dora Sierra Carrillo, San Miguel Arcngel en los rituales agrcolas, Arqueologa Mexicana (Julio-Agosto 2004): 7479. The correlation of Gregorian and Mexica calendars was done using the conversion table given in El calendario meseoamericano by Rafael Tena in Arqueologa Mexicana (January-February 2000): 6-7. 46 Broda, Ciclos de fiestas y calendario solar mexica, 53. 47 Johannes Neurarth, La Semana Santa cora en Nayarit: ritual de tradicin prehispnica, Arqueologa Mexicana (Noviembre-Diciembre 2001): 72-7. 48 Iztapalapa is located in the Valley of Mexico and was one of the vassal city-states of the Mexica Empire. 49 The Iztapalapa Holy Week procession is known throughout Mexico. The last Iztapalapa celebration occurred during Holy Week 2006, which was rebroadcast from Mexican TV Azteca on San Francisco KDTV on 16 April 2006. 50 In one Mexica myth, Quetzalcoatl was the king of the city-state of Tolln, a place that the Mexica nation attributed to their origin. After Quetzalcoatl died, he was deified in myth, and the name Quetzalcoatl was also adopted as a title of nobility. Conquistador Juan Cano, who married a daughter of the Mexica emperor Mocetezuma, told this myth in Relacin de la geneologia y linaje de los senores que han seoreado en esta tierra de la Nueva Espaa published by J. Garcia Icazbalceta in Nueva Coleccin de documentos para la historia de Mexico [1891], 263-281 cited in Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 87-88. Quetzalcoatl in Mexica religion was also the god who brought the bones of previous creations to earth, ground these and mixed this with blood from his penis, creating mankind. This myth is part of the Legend of the Suns and is recorded in the Codice Chimalpopoca: Anales de Cuauhtitln y Leyenda de los Soles, see Walter Lehmann: Die Geschichte der Konigreiche von Colhuacan und Mexico, Vol.1 in Quellenwerke zur alten Geschichte Amerikas. (Stuttgart, 1938), cited in Len-Portilla: 107-9. According to some historians such as Camilla Townsend, it was chronicler Francisco Lopez de Gomara in 1552 that first created the new myth that the Mexica had taken the Spanish as gods. See Lesley Byrd Simpson, Cortes: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 137, cited in Camilla Townsend, Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico, The American Historical Review Vol. 108, No. 3, (June 2003): 659. The Spanish later created another myth, with Quetzalcoatl as a ruler of Tolln who refused to observe human sacrificials, was exiled from his kingdom and left the prophecy that he would return by sea from the East to reclaim his kingdom. According to Spanish chronicler Sahagn, the Spanish were taken to be the return of Quetzalcoatl, which created great fear in the Mexica ruler Motecuzoma and which allowed the Mexica defeat. See Stuart B. Schwartz, Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2000), 10, 93. Father Pans narrative also includes a prophecy in the Tano world that clothed men would arrive that would cause the extermination of the Tano. See Pan, The Antiquities of the Indians, 31. Pedro de Cieza de Len documented a similar myth about Viracocha in Peru. Whether these examples support or weaken Townsends argument is a topic that needs further study.

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Thomas.51 After 1550, Pedro de Cieza de Len and Juan de Betanzos documented a similar revision in Peru, with descriptions of the Inca god Viracocha as a tall man who had a white robe reaching down to his feet a white man, large of stature, whose air and person aroused great respect and veneration.52 In 1614, Franciscan Father Francisco Pareja gave an idealized vision of the eradication of the indigenous pagan religions, stating, the Indians do not even remember them so much so that the younger generation which has been nourished by the milk of the Gospel derides and laughs at some old men and women.53 However, the reality was quite different. Writing in the 1650s, over one hundred years after the conquest of Mexico, Father Jacinto de la Serna wrote in reference to indigenous rituals still observed in the Valley of Mexico that [a]fter so much light, preaching and work in them is discovered acts of true idolatry ... as their forefathers practiced that they hold and have held, and which they have never forsaken. As early as 1496, the indigenous Tano on Hispanola had shown resistance to religious conversion and acculturation. In 1524, a group of indigenous leaders and priests of the Mexica told the Spanish friars that [w]e cannot be tranquil, and yet we certainly do not believe; we do not accept your teachings as truth, even though this may offend you. Were we to remain in this place, we could be made prisoners. Do with us as you please.54 The Holy Office condemned resistors to conversion as dogmatizers.55 This was not the first time that the Catholic Church had encountered resistance to conversion from an indigenous population. As early as the fourth century, St. Martin of Tours destroyed pagan shrines in Gallic France and in 782 Charlemagne ordered the killing of 4,500 Saxon prisoners who refused religious conversion.56 In 1561, Jean Gay wrote that [t]hese people have revived the ancient superstitions of the auguries and divinations of ancient idolaters57 The Catholic Church had used aggressive means of conversion in the past to eradicate pagan religions and impose Christianity in Europe, and it did so again in the New World. In its fifteen centuries of history, the Catholic Church had battled and won over Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Russian indigenous paganism, and had battled against Judaism and Islam.58 As was done in Europe earlier, the indigenous idolaters and dogmatizers of the New World who resisted conversion were prosecuted, tortured and sentenced to corporal punishments, fines or death not only by Inquisicinal trials, but at times also in an extra-judicial manner by parish priests and even private individuals.59
51 52

Townsend, Burying the White Gods, 669. Pedro de Cieza de Len, The Incas of Pedro de Cieza de Len [1553], trans. Harriet de Onis, ed. Victor W. von Hagen (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 1959), 27-9: Augustinian (attributed to Juan de San Pedro), Relacin de la religion y ritos del Peru hecha por los primeros religiosos augustinos [1560] in D. Joaqun F. Pacheco, Francisco de Cardenas & Luis Torres de Mendoza , eds.,Coleccin de documentos inditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonizacin de las posesiones espaolas en Amrica y Oceania sacadas en su mayor parte del Real Archivo de Indias, eds., [1865] Vol. 3, 5-58 cited in John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), 98. 53 Jerald T. Milanich, Laboring in the Fields of the Lord, Archaeology (January-February 1996): 66. 54 Pan, The Antiquities of the Indians, 34-5; Walter Lehmann: Sterbende Gotter und Christliche Heilsbotschft, Wechselreden Indianischer Vornehmer und Spanischer Glaubenapostel in Mexiko [1524] (Colloquies and Christian Doctrine), Spanish and Mexican text with German translation. Stuttgart, 1949, cited in Miguel Len-Portilla, 66. 55 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 319. 56 Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick, A History of Pagan Europe (London: Routledge, 1995), 97, 127. 57 Jean Gay, Historie de scismes et heresies des Albigeois [1561] cited in P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, 168. 58 Jones and Pennick, A History of Pagan Europe, 1. 59 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 9, 120-1

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The policy of eradication of the indigenous religions was based on the biblical Ten Commandments, given in the book of Exodus, chapter 20. Exodus specifically banned the worship of other gods, the making of idols, and the worship of idols as gods. 60 The 1511 letter of King Ferdinand of Spain and subsequent edicts, such as the 1552 First Church Council of Lima, all of which call for the burning of idols and temples and their replacement with Christian temples or crosses, were used to justify the destruction of indigenous temples and idols in the Americas.61 Unlike early modern Europe, where preChristian pagan practices consisted of half forgotten rituals, the Spanish priests in the New World found indigenous pagan cultures in full zenith. Also unlike Europe, where in many places those accused of sorcery and witchcraft were up to eighty percent women, in the Americas they were mostly menthe priests and political leaders of the indigenous world. Eradication of the pagan religions of the Indies began with Admiral Columbus, who wrote that the Tano on Hispanola would hide their idols in fear of their being taken by the Spanish conquerors. Rapid depopulation of the Caribbean islands, caused by the introduction of diseases unknown in the Americas before contact and mistreatment, effected eradication of indigenous religions and their believers in the Caribbean. 62 In 1519, a group of Spanish explorers led by Hernn Corts arrived from Cuba, landing in the Veracruz region in the Gulf of Mexico. During their two-year campaign to conquer the Mexica nation, the Spanish saw repeated examples of human sacrifices. Bernal Daz del Castillo wrote that the Mexica regions were full of sacrifices and wickedness.63 After the conquest of the Mexica capital in the Valley of Mexico, conqueror Hernn Corts ordered the razing of the ceremonial temple complex, building the new Catholic Cathedral upon what once was the Mexica temple to the Sun God and the ceremonial ball court.64 The great temple to Quetzalcoatl at Cholula, renowned in Mexica times as a site of pilgrimage, was demolished, and the Catholic Church of the Miracles was built atop the remains of the Mexica temple. 65 In each area conquered by the Spanish, the idols were destroyed, buried or hidden away and subjugated indigenous leaders were forced to provide labor to dismantle the indigenous temples and construct new temples to the Christian faith. Conqueror Hernn Corts also banned the use and cultivation of the indigenous cereal grain huautli (amaranth) in Mexico because of its use in indigenous
60 61

Exodus 20: 3-5 KJV. Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatal y Guadalupe: La formacin de la conciencia nacional en Mxico (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1977), 308, cited in Margaret Zires, Los Mitos de la Virgen, 283. 62 Colombo, Historie del S.D. Fernando Colombo, 4: Torres-Cuevas & Loyola Vega: Historia de Cuba 1492-1898, 579. 63 Bernal Daz de Castillo participated with Cortes in the conquest of Mexico. Afterwards he settled in Guatemala, where he wrote a narrative of the Spanish conquest and the Mexica world that existed prior to the conquest. See Bernal Daz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de La Nueva Espaa [1565] trans. Joaqun Ramrez Cabana (Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 1968), 359. 64 Tenochtitlan was the island-city center of Mexica political power and religion. The Mexica believed the highest order of sacrificial were captured foes; to obtain captives the Mexica waged wars against other city-states. As the Mexica Empire grew, more captives were needed, in an ever-increasing never-ceasing cycle. See Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 9, 12, 98-102. Human sacrificial rituals were performed in the temples, and these were the first the Spanish ordered dismantled after the Conquest. The material from the temples was used to build the nucleus of the new City of Mexico. See, Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Francisco Hinojosa and J. Alvaro Barrera Rivera, Excavaciones arqueolgicas en la Catedral de Mxico, Arqueologa Mexicana (Mayo-Junio 1998): 15. 65 Mara del Carmen Solanes Carraro, Cholula, Arqueologa Mexicana (Mayo-Junio 1995): 27-8.

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rituals that combined amaranth flour with human sacrificial blood to make idols.66 Eradication continued, due to both resistance to conversion and to reversion to pagan practices. In the 1540s, Inquisicin tribunals prosecuted Mixteca leaders in Oaxaca for participating in human sacrificials.67 In 1562, Franciscan bishop Diego de Landa ordered an investigation of reports of idolatry among the Maya in Man, in the Yucatan peninsula. Over three months, 4,500 Mayans were arrested and tortured with whippings. The idols and books that the victims produced under torture were burned. Landa later wrote that [a]n auto-de-fe was held, when many were put on scaffolds, with conical hats showing their crimes. Many Indians were whipped and their hair shorn.68 Landa also wrote, We found a large number of these books in these characters, and, as they contained nothing in which there was not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, [emphasis mine] we burned them all.69 In South America, the main temple at the Inca capital at Cuzco, the Coricancha, was stripped of its gold foil wall coverings and partially demolished. The Catholic Church and Convent of St. Dominic were built using the remains of this Inca temple as the foundations of the new buildings.70 The Inca venerated their ancestors, preserving them as mummies that were thought to be able to partake in rituals with the living. During the conquest, the Inca hid the mummies from the Spanish conquerors but they were tracked down and burned. The Spanish also hunted down the precious Inca representation of the sun, the Punchao, until it was recovered in 1572 and broken down for bullion.71 After the Third Lima Church Council in 1582, quipus were linked to idolatry and a call was made for their destruction. In 1610, Father Joan Antonio Cumis
66

Amaranth is a grain that in Mexica times was highly valued for its resistance to drought and for its high nutritional value. Amaranth also was part of ritual celebrations. Amaranth flour was mixed with human sacrificial blood to make representations of Mexica deities. After the festivities, the deities were broken up and consumed by the public attending the festival. Corts, as Marquis of the Valley of Mexico after the Conquest, deemed the practice to be a perversion of the Catholic Eucharist, and banned the use or cultivation of amaranth, with the penalty of amputation of the hands for those guilty of violating his edict. Cultivation was limited in colonial times to remote areas. In modern times, the use of amaranth in Mexico returned with the annual Day of the Dead celebrations; amaranth flour skull-shaped pastries called alegrias [meaning laughter as a noun] are sold - amaranth in a syncretic Mexica-Catholic religious usage. See Monica del Villar K., Del maz al banquete de Moctezuma II, Arqueologa Mexicana (Octubre-Noviembre 1993): 55; Jacinto de la Serna, Tratado de las Idolatrias, 233-4. 67 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 329. 68 Auto de f means an act of faith and consisted of a public event where those judged guilty by Inquisicin tribunals were punished in an act to inspire faith by the destruction of sin. Punishments included the public wearing of penitential garbconical duncecap hats with banners describing the wearers offense, called a coroza, and the sanbenito (derived from saco bendito, holy robe). The garb consisted of a yellow robe, with a red cross on the front. After the penitence was finished, the sanbenito was displayed at the church with the name of the offender for all to see. See Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 32, 96, 166. Other punishments included shearing of hair, whippings, and immolation in a bonfire. 69 The Maya wrote their literature on folded strips of paper producing multi-page foldout pamphlets called codices. The surviving examples are religious calendars that allow the calculations of festival dates for the Maya deities. These were also used in other rituals, such as in the calendrical naming of children, and in divination. The 1562 Landa auto de f destroyed many Mayan books and caused their disappearanceonly four examples, most of them in European collections, are known today. The same fate met the pictograph books, the tonalamatl, of the other Mesoamerican nations. See Father Diego de Landa, An Account of the Things of Yucatan [1560], trans. David Castledine (Mexico: Monclem Ediciones, 2000), 60; Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 318: Colleen P. Popson, Gods of Yucatan, Archaeology (January-February 2003): 64. 70 Inca is the common Western descriptive for the Andean civilization conquered by the Spanish after 1532. Tawantinsuyo, the land of the four corners, was the name they gave themselves; the word Inca itself was the Quechua word for ruler. The Coricancha (golden courtyard) was the holiest temple of the Inca nation; from there the Inca divided their world into four quadrants. In this indigenous world-making, world-centering, world-renewal concept, Cuzco and the Coricancha were the navel of the world. See Rebecca Stone-Miller: Art of the Andes: from Chavin to Inca (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002), 195-7. 71 John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), 127, 450.

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wrote these royals quipus do not exist anymore; they were burned by the Spaniards out of ignorance.72 In 1623, the Holy Office investigated reports in Zapotitln of performances of prohibited dances such as the Tum Teleche, which reenacted human sacrifices. Participants were to be punished with two hundred lashes and three years of banishment.73 Other indigenous festivals such as the Rabinal Ach in Guatemala and the balsera in Panama were also banned, forcing the festivals to be held covertly.74 Across the Americas, the indigenous towns and cities were demolished by the Spanish using indigenous labor, and new Spanish towns were built over the remains. The temples and shrines of the indigenous past were covered with new Christian structures such as churches and convents. Both in early modern Europe and in the conquered Americas, depopulations due to war, disease, and famine also significantly reduced indigenous populations, no doubt easing the imposition of Christianity. The Spanish policy of pagan eradication in the New World followed patterns established earlier by Christianity in Europe. In Europe, the construction of many early modern towns such as London, Rome and Paris covered earlier pagan towns. Christianity imposed Latin, and vernacular language in Europe and pre-Christian languages such as Basque disappeared or were diminished to remote pockets. The eradication of Ogam as a writing form for Celtic languages and its replacement with Christian Roman letters after the seventh century was later duplicated in the New World with the imposition of the Roman alphabet and the eradication of indigenous formats, with indigenous languages surviving only in remote pockets.75 The Julian and later the Gregorian calendars, timed to events of the Christian faith, replaced the pre-Christian astronomical-religious calendars both in Celtic Europe and later in the Americas.76 In the New World, state-controlled eradication of indigenous cultures continued to the end of the colonial period.

72

Quipu is Andean Quechua word that translates in English as knot, as in thread. Spanish chroniclers document that the Incas used an accounting system using knots in threads hanging from a central cord. The accepted history is that the Andean nations had no form of writing, and that the quipu was only used for numerical calculationsa sort of abacus in thread. In 1996, an article in Archaeology makes a strong case for the use the quipu to also record languagepoetry, lineage and religious secrets. This would explain the almost complete eradication of quipu by the Spanish after 1582if the quipu were used solely for numerical purposes, it would seem unlikely the Spanish would have taken such effort to eradicate them. Examples in museums come from Incan burials untouched by the Spanish. The Archaeology article described an Andean colonial document, Historia et Rudimenta Lengua, written between 1610 and 1637 by two Italian Jesuits that deciphers an Inca poem using a quipu. See Viviano Domenici & Davide Domenici, Talking Knots of the Inka, Archeology (November-December 1996): 52; Kenneth J. Andrien, Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness Under Spanish rule, 1532-1825 (Albuquerque: New Mexico University Press, 2001), 113. 73 Archive General de la Nacin [Mexico], Inquisicin, Tomo 303, folios 357-65, cited in Greenleaf, The Inquisicin and the Indians, 143-4. 74 Dennis Tedlock, The Last Drink of a Prisoner of War, Arqueologa Mexicana (Enero-Febrero 2003): 85; Matthew W. Stirling, Exploring the Past in Panama, National Geographic (March 1949): 397-9. 75 Simon James, The World of the Celts (London: Thames & Hudson, 1993), 163. The post-conquest adoption of the Roman alphabet for writing indigenous languages can be seen in the 1554-1558 Quiche version of the Popul Vuh, in numerous post-conquest Mexica codices and in the Quechua texts of the 1615 El primer nueva cronica y buen gobierno by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala in the Andes. See Tedlock, Popul Vuh, 26,56; de Landa, An Account of the Things of Yucatan, 59; Perla Valle, Codices coloniales, Arqueologa Mexicana (EneroFeb. 1997): 69; Andrien: Andean Worlds, 121. 76 The Celtic calendar had four festivals: 1 February for Imbolc, 1 May for Beltain, 1 August for Lughnasa and 1 November for Samhain, which are survived as the Feast of St. Brigid, Whitsunday, and Martinmas or All Hallows Day. Curiously the Meseoamerican calendar marked similar major festivals on 2 February, 3 May, 15 August and 2 November and these also survived in syncretic form after the conquest as the Feast of the Virgin of Candelaria on 2 Februrary, Feast of the Holy Cross on 3 May, Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, and All Saints Day on 2

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The physical eradication of indigenous pagan religions was completed quickly, taking advantage of superior technology and extreme depopulation. However, the eradication of the intangible system of pagan beliefs proved to be much more difficult to achieve. The Catholic conversion of the indigenous peoples was voluntary, but the Spanish priests quickly noted that the conversions were less than sincere, with frequent reversion to indigenous paganism.77 Resistance to religious conversion by indigenous leaders was termed as dogmatizing against Christian conversion, and because the dogmatizers were often prominent indigenous nobility, such a challenge could not be tolerated.78 The monastic Inquisicins were the initial suppression of indigenous resistance to evangelization. In 1522, the first Franciscan monastic Inquisicin tribunal tried Marcos de Alcohuacan for concubinage, and in 1524, four Tlaxcalan natives were tried and executed for idolatry and human sacrifices.79 The civil and criminal jurisdiction of the monastic inquisitors came under question in July 1525, when Franciscan prelate Father Toribio de Motolina was summoned before the council of aldermen in Mexico City and told that until an edict was issued by the Spanish Crown giving authority, the priests were to refrain from conducting Inquisicin tribunals. Later Inquisicin records indicate many early documents from the 1520s were lost by 1574, but the remaining evidence indicates monastic Inquisicins continued. In 1528, Father Vicente de Santa Maria tried Juan Fernndez del Castillo for encouraging the Indians to practice idolatry. The first auto de f in Mexico was held on 17 October 1528. On 27 June 1535, Juan de Zumrraga was named as apostolic inquisitor. Zumrraga believed that the Inquisicin needed to punish Indians accused of idolatry and sorcery to achieve eradication of paganism in the Indies. To this end, Zumrraga held nineteen trials prosecuting seventy-five prominent Mexica including Chichimecatecotl, the Mexica chief of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico in 1539, which resulted in his execution and burning. Reports of Zumrragas actions in Mexico filtered back to the Spanish Crown, who reprimanded Zumrraga for his severity and removed his title of apostolic inquisitor in 1543.80 The Spanish crown had received numerous reports detailing abuses of the indigenous peoples as the cause of the extreme indigenous depopulation, dramatically reducing the available labor pool for encomiendas and profitability of operating land grants. The new apostolic inquisitor, Tello de Sandoval, punished indigenous paganism less severely, with fines.81 A number of reasons made eradication of indigenous pagan religions in the New World difficult, ineffective, and never-ending. Geographically, the terrain was difficult to traverse and control. The minority Spanish presence could only control the indigenous populations in colonial urban areas. Beyond those areas, indigenous pagan practices continued in an illicit manner, many times in syncretic form,

November, just as they had in Europe. See James: The World of the Celts, 90, 155; Jones and Pennick: A History of Pagan Europe, 90-91, 122-124; Broda, Ciclos de Fiestas, 54-5. 77 Greenleaf, The Inquisicin and the Indians, 138; de Landa, 60. 78 Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 353. 79 Concubinage is a term used by the Spanish inquisitors to describe to practice of multiple wives or consorts among the Indian nobilities, also known as polygamy, a common practice among the indigenous elite. 80 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century 10, 11, 32, 37, 74-5: Proceso de Oficio de la justicia eclesistica contra Juan Fernndez de Castillo, escribano por acusarle de que haba hecho idolatrar a los Indios [1528] AGN, Inquisicin, Tomo 40, exp. 3-bis-a, cited in p. 39. 81 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 75-81.

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as denounced by a number of colonial authors including Father Jacinto de la Serna.82 The abusive and punitive behavior of the Spanish created popular resistance. Most importantly, the indigenous priests passed their knowledge to future indigenous and mestizo descendants.83 In the Viceroyalty of Peru, eradication of indigenous religion began with the demolition of Inca temples such as the Coricancha and lesser shrines, known as huacas, with new Christian temples built on the remains. Personal deities, known as conopas, also became target of eradicationin 1617, three Jesuits priests claimed to have confiscated more than 2,500 conopas in the Chancay region. The venerated ancestor mummies, the mallquis, and the quipu records were burned. In 1609, the first organized campaign to eradicate the indigenous religions of the Andean region began, following the discovery of indigenous rituals performed under the guise of the Catholic Feast the Assumption in Huarochir. On 20 December 1609 an auto de f was held in the central square of Lima, with the public burning of idols and mummies. Hernando Pauccar, convicted of serving as a priest for the indigenous Chaupi Nanca religion, was given two hundred lashes, shorn, and sentenced to exile. Visiting tribunals continued persecuting Andean religious practices in Incan and vassal territories until 1750.84 The eradication of pagan practices also extended to Spanish immigrants and the African slaves brought to the Spanish colonies. In 1650, Cathalina de Miranda, a resident of the city of Valladolid, was tried for witchcraft. She is described as a single female Spanish subject, arriving from Spain via Sevilla, Santo Domingo and Veracruz. She was accused by nine witnesses of keeping human skulls, placing flowers on her breasts to determine whether men were interested in her, and cooking up love potions with roses. She told others her actions were not a sin. Her punishment was a fine of 100 gold pesos, to be satisfied by the seizure of her assets.85 In 1704, the eighty-year old African mulatto and freewoman, Magdalena Durango of Mazagua, Guatemala, was tried for witchcraft.86 On folio twenty three of her Inquisicin archive, she was accused of making a beverage to stupefy the people, which she makes with the leaves of a tree called San Juan that has white leaves, and with this she makes a beverage or is put in chocolate or in food, and takes effect.87 She was accused by Maria Candelaria, a free girl of Alto Pueblo of killing her husband with a beverage.88 Another witness, Lucia Garca, testified that she saw Durango and other women after eight oclock at night, under a ceiba tree in the
82 83

Jacinto de la Serna, Tratado de las Idolatrias, vol. 1, 240-56. Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 351-3. 84 Andrien: Andean Worlds, 113, 159, 172-3, 183. 85 A gold peso, later known as a castellano, was a monetary weight rather than coinage, with each unit containing approximately 4.18 grams of 22 karat gold, worth sixteen pieces of eight or 128 reales of silver. A fine of 200 gold pesos was a considerable amount. In 1547, the price of a rabbit was worth one-twentieth of a real and a slave could be purchased for one half real. The comparative monetary equivalents given here are in La Moneda Mexicana by Jos Manuel Sobrino (Mexico: Banco Nacional de Mexico, 1972), 9, 10, 28, 29. Holy Office of the Inquisicin: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Cathalina de Miranda, Mexico City, [1650], BANC MSS 72/57M, box 5, Special Collections, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. Hereafter cited as Holy Office. 86 In colonial Mexico, the word mulatto referred exclusively to racial mixtures with black Africans; racial mixtures with the Indians were referred to as mestizo. See Peter Bakewell, A History of Latin America, 2nd ed., (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 164, 172. 87 Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Magdalena Durango, Mexico [1704], 23. 88 Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Magdalena Durango, Mexico [1704], 32.

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town plaza and the women took off all their clothes, and they prayed behind the ceiba [tree], about eight paces apart, and they said, buxxe, buxxe this I saw two times.89 She later states she did not know if Durango had made a pact with the devil in order to take animal form.90 Durango was fined 200 gold pesos.91 The 1711 trial of Josepha de Balcazar from San Juan del Ro, Quertaro, described as a white mulatto in her Inquisicin archive, accused her of witchcraft as well. She was accused of keeping idols in a box in her home, including one spiked with thorns, of drinking intoxicating pulque, and of having a pouch with roots called cola de rata and tufts of hair that she kept under her pillow when she slept. Luis de Almaraz testitied that [o]n one occasion in the cazadero [estate], going to the chapel, he saw lit on the altar a dark candle, and he saw Josepha on her knees alone in chapel.92 The Inquisicin trial of Petra de Garca in Guichiapa describes Garca invoking the Devil to her aid, taking in her hand the doll cleaved with maguey needles in the lower part and another maguey thorn near the abdomen as she was ordered by another Indian, actions that the inquisitor determined to be maleficium.93 The dedication of trees to animist spirits and the use of dolls to effect harm were rituals unknown in the Americas before the conquest and more common to the West African Yoruba and Angolan religious traditions that were brought by slaves from Africa. The rituals described in the Mexican Inquisicin trials of mulattos in Mesoamerica reflect West African animist traditions brought from Africa by slaves, at times mixed with Indian rituals and using Indian ingredients. A similar syncretic European witchcraft with indigenous elements can be seen in proceedings against subsequent generations of Europeans in the New World, such as the February, 1709 investigation of Isabel de Tovar in Mexico and the 1740 investigation of Maria Antonia Gallegos in Guadalajara. However, their punishments were admonishments.94 A similar pattern can be seen in the Caribbean on the island of Cuba, where the majority of those accused of witchcraft and sorcery were African slaves or mixed blood mulattos practicing West African animist traditions. In 1625, Francisco Angola, an African slave, was tried for sorcery. In 1628, Ana de Mena, a mulatto, was tried for distributing herbal love potions; Antn Cababal, an African slave, was also tried for sorcery for distributing herbal potions for sexual gratification. In 1655-57, Antonio, a black slave from El Cobre, was convicted of heresy, and Mara Sebastiana, Tomasa Prez, Juana de Vera, and Mara Enrquez were convicted of sorcery. In 1657, Mara de Rivera, Ana de Brito, and Tomasa de los Reyes were also convicted of sorcery. Inquisicinal tribunals in Cuba were mandated to Santo Domingo (1516-1519), San Juan,
89 90

Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Magdalena Durango, Mexico [1704], 40. Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Magdalena Durango, Mexico [1704], 42. 91 Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Magdalena Durango, Mexico [1704], 48. 92 Pulque is an intoxicating beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant (Acacia angustissima). It was a traditional ritual drink with a long tradition in Meseoamerica. The Spanish Crown banned the production of pulque by royal decree on 24 August 1542, without success. In colonial times, pulque became the common wine of the lower classes; it is a frothy drink that is compared to pineapple-flavored beer. See Jacinto de la Serna, Tratado de las Idolatrias, Vol. 2, 212 & Patricia R. Anwalt, Los conejos y la embriaguez, Arqueologa Mexicana (Mayo-Junio 1998): 66-73. Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Josepha de Balcazar, Mexico City [1711], folio page 4, 7, 15, 18. 93 Holy Office: Processo y Causa Criminal contra Petra de Garcia, Mexico [1718], folio page 3. 94 Ruth Behar, Sex, Sin, Witchcraft and the Devil in Late-Colonial Mexico, American Ethnologist, Vol. 14, No.1, (February 1987): 36-40.

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Puerto Rico (1519-1569), Mexico (1569-1610), and Cartagena de las Indias, Colombia (1610-1820).95 An important category in the eradication of the indigenous religions is the demonization of, and later Holy Office ban on the use of plants that induced altered trance states, a consistent factor in indigenous religious rituals.96 The Spanish first encountered the use of mind-altering plants in Hispanola, where Father Ramn Pan documented the use of cohoba to induce trance states to permit divination, healing and communion with the dead:
They take a certain powder called cohoba, inhaling it through the nose, which inebriates them in such a fashion that they do not know what they are doing; and thus they say many senseless things, affirming therein that they are speaking with the zemis. [Emphasis mine].

Father Pan was also the first to describe the effects of the American hallucinogens as inebriation.97 The Spanish were very disturbed by the effects of the mind-altering plants used in indigenous rituals, referring to the effects observed as drunkenness. Unlike the fantastical herbal concoctions presented to the Spanish Inquisicin during the Basque witch trials of 1609-1614, the herbs of the Americas truly did have mind-altering properties. In Pnuco, in central Mexico, Bernal Daz describes drunkenness and the use of enemasthey funnel themselves in the rear with tubes, and stuffed their entrails with wine, of the type made among them, as when we administer a medicine.98 Father de Landa wrote that the Maya of the Yucatn lost themselves to drunkenness with wine made from honey, water and the root of a certain tree they cultivate for this purpose.99 Landa also tells us that the Maya held that drunkenness and sacrifices were the most pleasing to the idols 100 In Mexico, Father Diego Durn also described the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms by the Aztec nobility as part of a human sacrificial ceremony called the Festival of the Revelations as inebriation.
Their flesh [of the human sacrificial] was eaten and a banquet was prepared with it after the hearts had been offered to the Devil. When the sacrifice was finished and the steps and courtyard were bathed with human blood, everyone went to eat
95

Carlos Manuel Trilles y Govin, La Inquisicin en Cuba desde 1518 hasta 1610, Revista Bimestre Cubana 26 (1935): 46-49; Mara del Carmen Victoria Ramos: Entre Brujas, Picaros y Consejas (La Habana: Editorial Jos Mart, 1997), 30-2, 41-3. 96 Earliest usage of hallucinogens in Mesoamerica is difficult to define, though scholar Peter T Furst and others cite the bones of a toxic frogBufus marinuswhich is totally inedible, found in the excavation of the Olmec site of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, dated to as early as 900 B.C.E., and the number of Olmec jade spoons as evidence of the practice of snuffing hallucinogenics or tobacco, which was later observed by Spanish chroniclers. For more see, Peter T. Furst, Shamanism, Transformation, and Olmec Art, in The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 2004), 29, 106-7. 97 Father Pan describes cohoba as a powdered snuff made from the powdered seeds of the tree (Anadenanthera peregrina). The use of cohoba, or yopo as it is known in Amazonia, has been documented in a large region of the Caribbean islands, and the length of the southern Caribbean coast of Panama to Venezuela. Zem is a Tano word that Pan applied to the intangible forces that the Tano worshipped as gods. See Pan, The Antiquities of the Indians, 14-6, 21. 98 Gustav Henningsen, The Witches Advocate, 297-300.Daz del Castillo, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de La Nueva Espaa, 359. 99 de Landa: An Account of theThings of Yucatn, 67. 100 de Landa: An Account of theThings of Yucatn, 104.

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raw mushrooms. With this food they went out of their minds and were in a worse state than if they had drunk a great quantity of wine With the strength of these mushrooms they saw visions and had revelations about the future, since the Devil spoke to them in their madness. [Emphasis mine].101

Between 1558 and 1577, Father Bernardino de Sahagn wrote the twelve-volume Historia de las cosas de Nueva Espaa, that detailed the history, socio-political organization, religion, commerce, and customs of the Mexica nation, based on numerous interviews with the Mexica of the Valley of Mexico. Even though the Sahagns Historia did not reach a wide audience, it does gives the opinion of the Catholic priests in Mexico on the use of mind-altering plants as demonic inebriation that caused supernatural divination.102 Book eleven, chapter seven of Sahagns work focuses on the herbs of the Mexica used to induce mind-altering trance states. Sahagns work describes hallucinogenic plants used by the Mexica. In each instance the hallucinogenic effects are described as demonic drunkenness and madness. South America and the Caribbean had coca, yopo (cohoba), ayahuasca, and the San Pedro cactus, The Spanish also demonized these plants. Hemp (Cannabis sativa), brought from Europe to grow cordage fiber in Mexico, was later adopted by the indigenous as a topical analgesic applied in poultices or smoked to produce a relaxed euphoria. Cultivation of hemp in Mexico was reduced after 1550, when the Spanish authorities realized that the indigenous were using it as a drug. The Spanish feared this use could provoke a rebellion or degrade the workers.103 Sahagns descriptions make it clear that he disapproves of the use of the many different herbs which perturb one, madden one.104 Modern research has shown that all these plants possess alkaloids that induce altered trance states. Archeological work at Teotihuacan has shown that use of plants dates back far in time.105 Ethnographic studies and interviews with twentieth century indigenous healers and priests show that the properties of plants were identified by a doctrine of signatures based on the color of the plant, its flower, or its seed. Plants identified as white, such as toloache or mushrooms, usually indicate death or poison; in diluted form, some of these are used as hallucinogens.106 The indigenous named plants to reflect their use or properties. Thus, several different species can bear the same name.107 The trumpet-shaped purple or white flowers of the morning glory vine (Ipomoea violacea or Turbina corymbosa) produce the hallucinogen ololiuhqui. The seeds are steeped in a tea taken to induce a powerful altered state, used for divination and ritual
101

Father Diego Durn, The History of the Indies of New Spain [1581], trans. Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas (New York: Orion Press, 1964), 225. 102 Father Bernardino Sahagn: Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espaa (Codex Florentine), [1577] trans. Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1959), 129-130. 103 Luis Daz, Las plantas mgicas y la consciencia visionaria, Arqueologa Mexicana (Enero-Febrero 2003): 24; Martin Booth, Cannabis: A History (New York: Picador St Martins Press, 2005), 38. 104 Sahagn, Historia General, 129. 105 Daz, Las plantas mgicas 19; Xavier Loyoza, Un paraso de plantas medicinales, Arqueologa Mexicana (Septiembre-Octubre 1999): 20-1. 106 Angela M. H. Schuster, On the Healers Path: A Journey Through the Maya Rain Forest, Archeology (JulyAugust 2001): 35. 107 The easiest way to illustrate this concept is the current definition of jade, which can be one of two different minerals with similar properties nephrite, a silicate of calcium and magnesium, and jadeite, a silicate of sodium and aluminum. See Fred Ward, Jade: Stone of Heaven, National Geographic (September 1987): 288.

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healings.108 Sahagn informs us that [i]t makes one besotted; it deranged one, troubles one, maddens one, makes one possessed.109 As late as 1625, Father Fernando de Porras of Chiautla, in the Villa Alta region of Oaxaca, tried and convicted a Zapotec Indian for using ololiuhqui. He was sentenced to wear penitential garb at Mass, and was given fifty lashes afterwards. 110 In 1650s Father Jacinto de la Serna also reported continued use of ololiuhqui in the Valley of Mexico. He describes its use as a tea taken to induce a trance state to permit divination, stating that ololiuhqui is consulted as an oracle for the many illnesses they pretend to cure, for whatever things they want to know, be they lost or hidden and those things beyond human knowledge; to know the origin of illness.111 He also tells us that they [the indigenous] hold ololiuhqui in great veneration, as if it were a god; they light candles to it and keep it in special cases or boxes for this purpose, and they place offerings to it, and place it on the altars of their rituals.112 In colonial Mexico, ololiuhqui acquired a syncretic name in Spanishmanto de la Virgen [Virgins Veil] referring to the Virgin Mary. The name may well be an oblique reference to the visions the Virgin Mary received from God prior to the birth of the Christ child, described in the Gospel of Saint Luke. Usage in rural areas of Oaxaca continued in the colonial era in spite of repeated persecution against the practice.113 Peyotl, commonly known as peyote (Lophophora williamsii), is a cactus native to the desert regions of northeastern Mexico. The cactus produces growths in the shape of circular buttons, which are broken off. The dried buttons are chewed or steeped in tea to produce a hallucinogenic trance state. Father Sahagn writes that peyote was discovered by the northern Mexican desert nations known as the Chichimeca, who esteemed it above wine or mushrooms.114 Sahagn describes peyote as having effects like mushrooms that last a day to two days, adding that [h]owever, it harms one, troubles one, makes one besotted, takes effect on one.115 After the Mexica conquest, the Inquisicin banned the use of peyote because of its hallucinogenic properties. Father de la Serna described the use of peyote and its effects as similar to ololiuhqui.116 Researchers Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrn and William B. Taylor have identified ninety-two Inquisicinal or Provisorate tribunals prosecuting usage of peyote between 1614 and 1779. In the colonial era, use of peyote was persecuted as far away as Manila and was adopted for hallucinogenic and medicinal use by many indigenous North American nations such as the Wichita, Delaware, Kiowa, Kickapoo, Shawnee, and Comanche in the United States. In the United States, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the Court of Indian Offenses in 1883. This was the American version of the Inquisicin, persecuting performances of old heathenish dances or ceremonies such as the Sun Dance and the Scalp Dance; plural marriage (concubinage); the usual ritual practices of the so-called

108 109

Xavier Lozoya, Plantas del Alma, Arqueologa Mexicana (Enero-Febrero 2003): 62. Sahagn, Historia General, 129. 110 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mexico], Inquisicin, Tome 510, folio 133, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 145-6. 111 de la Serna, Tratado de Idolatrias, 234. 112 de la Serna, Tratado de Idolatrias, 234-6. 113 Lozoya, Plantas del Alma, 62. 114 Sahagn, Historia General, 173. 115 Sahagn, Historia General, 129, 173. 116 de la Serna, Tratado de Idolatrias, 234-9.

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medicine men; destruction of property at a burial; or the use of any intoxicants.117 By 1909 American prohibitionists cut off shipments of peyote from Mexico based on the 1897 Prohibition Law that prohibited alcohol among the indigenous natives, and in 1912 they attempted to enact federal legislation against peyote. Arrests and persecution on a state level continued until 1955, while the Native American Church claimed the use of peyote as a constitutionally protected practice of religion. The state ban in Texas was tested in March 1968. Judge E. James Kazan dismissed the case, leading to the creation of the Texas Narcotic Law of 1969 that exempted indigenous users from prosecution. Other states have since followed suit. 118 Sahagn describes another hallucinogen as tolohuaxihuitl, known in Mexico as toloache,and known to the Western world as datura (Datura stramonium, D. inoxia, D. metel). The showy fragrant white or yellow trumpet-shaped flowers of the datura vine (tlapatl) or tree (tzintzintlaptal) produce spiny round pods with black seeds. Powdered or steeped as a tea, the seeds provide a powerful hallucinogenic experience. 119 Sahagn tells us [i] t harms one, takes [sic] away ones appetite, maddens one, makes one besotted. He who eats it will no longer desire food until he shall die. And if he eats it moderately, he will forever be disturbed, maddened; he will always be possessed, no longer tranquil.120 The colonial herbal Codice Badiano lists medicinal uses for toloache as a sedative.121 Sahagn lists tzitzintlapatl as just like tlapatl (toloache); today this plant bears a syncretic Spanish namehoja de pastora (the shepherdess leaf) that appears to imply its role [as] a spiritual shepherd or guide.122 The Holy Office itself issued a report in 1698 that described the harmful effects of pipizizintle (tzitzintlapatl).123 Its botanical name (Salvia divinorum) today also infers its hallucinogenic qualities. Sahagn also lists one other plant, another herb that is called mixitl. Its [name] means to be insane, as if one eats this herb it is small and stands up straight. It is green and bears seed and if it is eaten or drunk, it does not give a bad flavor; but later it takes all the strength from your body. The 1959 Dibble and Anderson translation of Sahagns work identifies mixitl as Datura stramonium but because Sahagn identifies it separately, and its image is different, it is likely that mixitl is a plant that has not been properly identified.124 The use of toloache for divination, initiation rites, and medicinal purposes continued in the colonial era among the indigenous in the remoter areas of northern Mexico, including the Cahuilla, Cupeno Paipai, and Kumiai nation of Southern California.125 In the twentieth century colonial era, toloache could be found in markets in

117

Omer C. Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 21-24, 213-27, 239-48. 118 Omer C. Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 21-24, 120-9, 138-40, 213-27, 239-48. 119 Lozoya, Plantas del Alma, 59. 120 Sahagn, Historia General, 129. 121 Xavier Lozoyo, Fuentes del Siglo XVI: Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (Librito de las yerbas medicinales de los indios) o Codice Badiano & Elaboracin del Cdice Badiano (Siglo XVI), Arqueologa Mexicana, (Septiembre-Octubre 1999): 22-3. 122 Trevio, Usos de las plantas medicinales mexicanas, 35. 123 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mexico], Inquisicin, Tomo 706, exp. 27, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 327. 124 Sahagn, 130; Sahagn [1989], Vol 2. , 747-8, cited in Jos Luis Daz, Las plantas mgicas, 21. 125 Elisa Ramirez, Toloache or Devils Herb, Arqueologa Mexicana (Enero-Febrero 2003): 56.

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the rural regions of the Valley of Mexico. 126 Use of toloache has continued in current times. In 2003, three students in Berkeley, California ate datura flowers after being told that ingesting the flowers would produce a legal high. The flowers are poisonous, and the students ended up in the hospital.127 The Mexica called a number of species of mushrooms teonanacatl. The Nahuatl word teonanacatl means flesh of the god. Mushrooms were eaten with honey, smoked, or ground into powder, and their ingestion induced visions. Botanists have identified a number of mushrooms used as hallucinogens, including Panaeolus (campanulatus, sphinctrinus), as well as species of Conocybe, Psathyrella, Stropharia, and Psilocybe (aztecorum, mexicana, muliercula, wassoni). Most reports of usage come from the Mexica regions. However, the Maya also practiced similar sacrificials while consuming intoxicating beverages and images show Classic Mayan elite smoking in the context of visions, in order to commune with ancestors.128 In Pre-Classic Maya highland sites, a number of mushroom-shaped pestles have been found, dating to 1000 BC. 129 Curiously, among Quiche Maya, kaqulja is the word used for thunderbolt and the poisonous mushroom Amanita muscaria.130 Sahagn wrote, It makes one besotted; it deranges one, troubles one. It is a remedy for fever, for gout. Only two [or] three can be eaten. It saddens, depresses, troubles one; it makes one flee, frightens one, makes one hide. He who eats many of them sees many things which make him afraid, or make him laugh. He flees, hangs himself, hurls himself from a cliff, cries out, takes fright. One eats it in honey.131 As with the other hallucinogens, use was limited to a ceremonial and religious context, though Sahagn also hinted at the abuse of mushrooms when he wrote that [o]f one who is haughty, presumptuous, vain, of him it is said: He mushrooms himself.132 Elsewhere, Sahagn tells us mushrooms even provoke lust and describes a Mexica harlot as rude, drunk, shamelesseating mushrooms.133 In the 1650s, Father de la Serna described continued use of hallucinogenic mushrooms called quautlan nanacatl in the Tlaxcala region, which he denounced as a way for Satan to give his sacrament in food and drink; that Satan does this out of hate for the Christians; and that during use, animal sacrificials are also conducted.134 In spite of persecution, use of hallucinogenic mushrooms continued in the colonial era. Not until 1955, when Mazatecan sorceress Mara Sabina invited Western researcher R. Gordon Wasson to a velada ritual did teonanacatl emerge from the shadows of Christian persecution.135
126 127

Isabel Romero Jurez, personal communication with the author. 2006. Kids Eating Park Plants for High, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 August 2003. 128 de Landa, Account of the Things of Yucatn, 81-84; Robert Bye & Edelmora Linares, Plantas medicinales del Mxico prehispnico, Arqueologa Mexicana, (Septiembre-Octubre 1999), 5, 7, 11. 129 Carlos Alvarez Asomoza, Sacred Mushrooms in Teotenango, State of Mexico, Arqueologa Mexicana (EneroFebrero 2003): 84. 130 Dennis Tedlock, Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), 294. 131 Dennis Tedlock, Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), 130. 132 Dennis Tedlock, Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), 294. 133 Sahagn, Historia General, 55, 129. 134 de la Serna, Tratado de las Idolatrias, 100, 234. 135 Velada is a Spanish word that implies a vigil or celebration held by candlelight (vela) that is a common feature of syncretic indigenous divinatory ololiuhqui rituals. The lit candles are syncretic signs of respect for the hallucinogen itself, which is considered an entity that instructs and heals. Daz, Las plantas mgicas, 21.

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Testimony given in 1544 against indigenous nobles of Yanhuitln, Oaxaca stated they were drunk during the ceremonies, when they invoked the Devil, [emphasis mine] while they sacrificed during rituals dedicated to the rain god.136 In 1547, testimony against Don Juan, chief of the Teutalco, stated that he kept an idol called Ometochtli in his home and he regularly offered sacrifices to the god, getting drunk and dancing as part of the ceremonies.137 In book ten, chapter fifteen, Sahagn makes the curious observation of a Mexica harlot, whom he describes as one who sells her body repeatedly sells her body, a lascivious old woman, of the itching buttocks and one who is shamelesseating mushrooms.138 In describing an example of a bad Mexica noblewoman, Sahagn writes, The bad noblewoman [is] infamous, very audacious, stern, proud, very stupid, brazen, besotted, drunk. She goes about besotted; she goes about demented; she goes about eating mushrooms.139 The Christian Bible disapproves of drunkenness, which is blamed for shameful and sinful behavior. The narrative in the book of Genesis of Noah being seen by his sons in a drunken naked stupor sets the biblical standard against drunkenness. 140 In the New Testament, St. John used drunkenness as an analogy of sin, when he wrote that Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.141 The intoxicated divinatory state produced with hallucinogens was demonized with the negative descriptive of drunkenness and association with pagan sacrificials. In South America, other plants were used to induce altered trance states. The Caribbean was the first location that yopo, known there as cohoba, was observed. Rapid depopulation of the Caribbean islands facilitated the eradication of the use of cohoba. However, its use continued in South America among isolated Amazonian tribes, where ethnologist William Safford rediscovered it in 1916.142 Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis caapi), the Andean vine of the soul, is another hallucinogenic from Amazonia with a long history of use in South America, in indigenous divinatory and healing rituals. Ayahuasca is steeped in a tea, and is ingested by a healer called an ayahuasquero, who in a trance state acts as an oracle. 143 South America has its own hallucinogenic cactus, huachama, also known as the San Pedro cactus (Trichocereus pachanoi). Its use has been identified
136 137

Sahagn, Historia General, 49. Archivo General de la Nacin (AGN) [Mexico]: Proceso del Fiscal del Santo Oficio contra Don Francisco y Domingo, indios del pueblo de Yanhuitln por idolatries[1544-1547]; Proceso contra los indios de Yanhuitln [1546]; Razon del Proceso que se hizo en el santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Domingo Cacique de Yanhuitln [1545]; Probanza de Fiscal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Francisco y Don Domingo y Don Juan, Cacique y Gobernadores de Yanhuitln [1546], Inquisicin, Tomo 37, exps. 7, 8, 9, 10, & Proceso del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Juan Gobernador del Pueblo de Teutalco por idolatra [1546-1547] Inquisicin, Tomo 37, exp. 10, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 76, 80. 138 Ernesto E. Tabio: Arqueologia: Agricultura Aborigen Antillana, 31. 139 Sahagn, Historia General, 49, 55. 140 Genesis 9. 20-7 KJV. 141 Revelations 14. 9 KJV. 142 William E. Safford, Identity of Cohoba, the Narcotic Stuff of Ancient Haiti Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 6, no. 15 [1916], 547,562, cited in Ernesto E. Tabio, Arqueologia Agricultura Antillana, (Havana, Editora de Ciencias Politicas, 1989), 31-3. 143 Fred Katz and Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Hallucinogenic Music: An Analysis of the Role of Whistling in Peruvian Ayahuasca Healing Sessions, Journal of American Folklore Vol. 84, No. 333 (July-Sept 1971), 321-2.

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as early as the Chavin culture (900-200 BCE).144 Healers identify seven varieties of the tall horizontal cactus. The four-ribbed variety, the San Pedro of the Four Winds cactus, is most valued for its links with the four-quadrant Andean universe. Use of ayahuasca and the San Pedro cactus continued during the colonial era in areas outside direct control of the Spanish authorities, where indigenous healers continue to use it.145 Two other New World plant intoxicants received different treatment from the Inquisicin. When Admiral Columbus reached the island of Cuba on 28 October 1492, he sent Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres to reconnoiter the island. They returned to report the island was populated. The natives had the curious habit of smoking the dried leaves of a local plant, which dulls their flesh and as it were intoxicates and so they say that they do not feel weariness146 The rolled up leaves were called tabaco. Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica and tabacum) originally came from the Amazonian region of South America. It had been domesticated no later than 2,500 B.C.E., and its use and cultivation spread throughout the Americas.147 Tobacco was used ritually as well as for pleasure. The Mexica prepared elaborate cigars with tobacco, sometimes mixed with aromatic flowers or mushrooms.148 Even remote peoples such as the Tlingit of the Alaskan peninsula, who practiced a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture, took time to cultivate tobacco. The Spanish explorers grew to like tobacco and the effects of its active agent, nicotine, and took it back to Europe. Originally, the Catholic Church termed tobacco usage as a vice. It came to be called the henbane of Peru. An ecclesiastical decree issued in Lima in 1588 dictated that [i]t is forbidden under penalty of eternal damnation for priests, about to administer the sacraments, either to take the smoke of tobacco into the mouth or the powder of tobacco into the nose, even under the guise of medicine, before the service of mass. The British acquired tobacco in third party trade, and piracy, with Spain and it became quickly popular. King James I struggled to eradicate the use of tobacco, denouncing its use in a pamphlet, titled Counterblaste to Tobacco. Unsuccessful, he then turned instead to taxing tobacco as a commodity, with better success. An independent source of tobacco is one reason England also took to the ocean to establish its own colonies in the Americas. Popular demand had caused the initial prohibitions in Europe to be dismissed, to allow profit from the cultivation of tobacco. 149 Something similar happened with coca (Erythroxylum coca and varieties). It also received initial condemnation from the Catholic Church. Cultivation of coca, another Amazonian native, is dated as far back as 2500 BCE. The indigenous Andeans use coca as a stimulant. Cocaine is chewed with powdered lime or ash to release the active agents in the leaves. The Tano of Hispanola were recorded using gueio in rites to commune with the dead. Tano authority Sven Loven postulates that gueio was in fact coca. Pan described gueio as resembling European basil, which in fact coca does. 150 On his fourth
144 145

Stone-Miller, Art of the Andes, 30-3. Marlene Dobkin de Rios, Folk Curing With a Psychedelic Cactus in Northern Peru, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 15 (1968), 23-32. 146 Admiral Christopher Columbus. 147 Tabio, Arqueologia: Agricultura Aborigen Antillana, 30-1. 148 Sahagn, Historia General, 88. 149 Iain Gately, Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization, (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 2, 24-5, 36, 67-9. 150 Tabio, Arqueologia Aborigen Antillana, 33-4.

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voyage, Admiral Columbus described an encounter at the Urisa River, writing that [t]his cacique and his chief man never ceased putting dry herb unto their mouths, which they chewed, and sometimes they took a sort of powder, which they carried along with that herb.151 Coca was the most important offering the Andean nations offered their gods. Spanish noble Diego de Robles called coca a plant that the Devil invented for the total destruction of the natives.152 The First Church Council of Lima in 1552 petitioned the Spanish Crown to ban coca, but because of the economic value of Spanish cultivation of coca, this request was declined. Coca production had become profitable for the Spanish cultivators in Peru, who sold it to mining operations. Mining operations to extract silver and mercury used indigenous mita labor that refused to work without coca as a stimulant to overcome the extreme conditions in the mines. The Second Council of Lima in 1567 also requested a ban on coca and Spanish monarch Phillip I again declined but instead appointed a new viceroy for Peru, Francisco de Toledo, to institute reforms to reduce the exploitation of indigenous labor. But the Inquisicin never banned coca, and production continued throughout the colonial era.153 While the Spanish priests had not encountered intoxicating plants such as those found in the New World, Christianity had battled plants before. Mistletoe (Viscum album) was banned by the British bishops in the Middle Ages because of its links with Celtic religion. Roman historian Pliny gave a description of mistletoe in a religious sacrificial context, but it is unclear how it was used. Later Norse legends also linked mistletoe to death. One legend has the Norse god Loki using mistletoe to kill Balder, the son of Odin.154 Mandrake (Mandrogora officinarium) was linked in German folklore with Alrune, a devil spirit and magic root in the form of a human, which when questioned revealed all secret things 155 Plants that produced hallucinogenic effects, known in the European world to cause hallucinations, were valued as medicinal pain suppressants for millennia and were not banned because they all had a long historiography as beneficent. The eleventh century medical compilations by Constantinus Africanus edited at the Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy gave a recipe for a soporific sponge to be used during surgery, which was soaked in a solution of water, henbane, hemlock, opium, and mandrake. This was used to induce anesthesia during surgery.156 In 1529, Franciscan father Martin de Castaega wrote a study on sorcery and witchcraft that was skeptical of the demonization of medicine men, writing that [i] t is therefore necessary to note that many natural curative powers are so hidden from human understanding in this life that many times we see marvelous cures and we do not know the reason for them. Unfortunately, not many shared Castaegas views and his treatise was not published again until 1946.157 The hallucinogenic plants of the New World, even if they possessed
151 152

Dominic Streatfield: Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography (New York: Picador, 2001), 23. Streatfield, 31. 153 Streatfield, 2, 8, 11, 23, 31-3. 154 James, The World of the Celts, 95. 155 H. F. Clark, The Mandrake Fiend, Folklore Vol. 73, No. 4 (Winter 1962): 262. 156 Crisciani C Agrini J, Charit et assistance dans la civilisation chrtienne mdivale, Histoire de la pense mdicale en occident. Ed. M. Grmek (Paris: Le Seuil, 1995), 151-74, cited in Philippe Juvin, MD and Jean Marie Desmonts, The Ancestors of Inhalational Anesthesia: The Soporific Sponges (XIth XVIIth Centuries, Anesthesiology Vol. 93 (2000): 266. 157 Martn de Casteega: Tratado de las supersticiones y hechicerias, [1529] ed. Agustin G. de Ameza (Madrid: Sociedad de Bibliofilos Espaoles, 1946), cited in David H. Darst, Witchcraft in Spain: The Testimony of Martin de

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25

proven medical use, were demonized and banned for facilitating contact with supernatural forces. On 29 June 1620, the Holy Office in the City of Mexico, by virtue of apostolic authority, issued an edict that banned the use of peyote or other herbs that produced similar intoxicating effects. The use of peyote or other herbs for the purpose of detecting thefts, of divining other happenings, and of foretelling future events is condemned as an act of superstition.158 The Devil is called the real author of this vice, who first avails himself of the natural credulity of the Indians and their tendency to idolatry 159 The edict was posted on church doors in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Yucatan, Veracruz, Honduras, the Caribbean, and the Philippine Islands:
We order that henceforth no person of whatever rank or social condition can or may make use of the said herb, Peyote, nor of any other kind under any name or appearance for the same or similar purposes with the further warning that disobedience to these decrees shall cause us to take action against such disobedient and recalcitrant persons as we would against those suspected of heresy to our Holy Catholic Faith.160

The 1620 edict against peyote eradicated common use in areas under Spanish control. In Latin American Spanish parlance, the users of hallucinogens were labeled as [brujo(a)s] in a syncretic adaptation of the original Italian word. Independence from Spain after 1820 eliminated the religious tribunals. Secular persecution in Mexico was uncommon. Use of hallucinogens slowly regained validity in the twentieth century.161 Along with the conversion to Christianity, acculturation to European culture, and eradication of indigenous religions, the subjugation of the indigenous socio-political leadership using Inquisicin tribunals was a necessary policy for the survival of the Spanish colonization. Political motivations for Inquisicins in Europe had a long history. In 1311, King Philip IV of France used the Inquisicin to convict Pope Boniface VIII of blasphemy, heresy, and ritual magic in order to gain control the French church. Earlier in 1307, a bankrupt Philip had gone after the wealthy Knights Templar, leading accusations against them for idolatry, sodomy, and blasphemy. For his efforts, when the Templars were dissolved, Philip received a share of the confiscated assets.162 The process of the Inquisicin was also used in Mexico as a political instrument, to discredit prominent Spanish colonists and merchants with accusations of blasphemy and Judaism.163 An added incentive to Inquisicinal abuse was the fact that the Holy Office relied on
Castanegas Treatise on Superstition and Witchcraft, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 123, No. 5 (15 Oct 1979): 298, 307-8. 158 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mxico] (Inquisicin) Tomo 289, exp. 2, cited in Irving A. Lenard, Peyote and the Mexican Inquisicin, 1620, American Anthropologist 44 (April June 1942): 326. 159 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mxico] (Inquisicin) Tomo 289, exp. 2, cited in Irving A. Lenard, Peyote and the Mexican Inquisicin, 1620, American Anthropologist 44 (April June 1942): 326. 160 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mxico] (Inquisicin) Tomo 289, exp. 2, cited in Irving A. Lenard, Peyote and the Mexican Inquisicin, 1620, American Anthropologist 44 (April/June 1942): 326. 161 Stewart: Peyote Religion: A History, 21-4. 162 Waite, Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in early Modern Europe, 27-8. 163 Greenleaf, Francisco Millan before the Mexican Inquisicin: 1538-1539, The Americas Vol. 21, No. 2 (October 1964), 184.

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revenues from fines to fund its operations. 164 In a letter to the Spanish monarch in 1561, apostolic inquisitor Alonso de Montfar described how the parish clergy was conducting autos de f independent of the Holy Office, targeting the indigenous leadership.165 By 1640, the Inquisicin had confiscated over 300 million pesos in assets. Bishop Juan de Palafox charged that the Holy Office terrorized the community by arresting prominent priests and citizens 166 In the initial phase of conquest, the Spanish frequently slaughtered the native leadership of a region, in order to incapacitate and conquer the indigenous nations.167 Converted indigenous leaders remained after conquest to aid in governance, because of the small Spanish presence in a continent with millions of inhabitants. However, indigenous leaders were also feared since they could easily organize rebellions against the Spanish. When indigenous leaders resisted conversion, they were accused of dogmatizing and were prosecuted by the Inquisicin. Greenleaf explains the political implication of the indigenous Inquisitorial prosecutions asan imperative to [s]tay within the bounds of orthodoxy or be punished with the full force of the law.168 The cases of the Mixteca chief Seven Monkey and of Chichimecatecotl, the Mexica chief of the city-state of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico in 1539, both illustrate this tactic. In 1529, the Franciscan fathers had baptized Seven Monkey with the Spanish name Domingo de Guzmn, and he was allowed to remain as the indigenous leader of the Yanhuitln region of Oaxaca. In spite of his conversion to Catholicism, between 1544 and 1547, Don Domingo and three other leaders were arrested and tried for idolatry and offering human sacrifices.169 Don Francisco, the Governor of Yanhuititln claimed he was the victim of a native plot against his authority.170 Don Domingo and the others eventually were freed after paying substantial fines. The subliminal political message given by the Inquisicins prosecution was that the Spanish colonial authorities would be more lenient with compliant indigenous rulers. Properly chastised, from 1550 to 1575 Don Domingo built one of the largest convents in Mexico, and his lineage remained in power until 1629.171 Punishments inflicted by the Mexican Inquisicin, such as substantial fines, penitential garb, and lashings, were clearly meant to discredit and impoverish indigenous leaders that resisted Spanish authority.

164 165

Greenleaf, The Great Visitas of the Mexican Holy Office, The Americas Vol. 44, No. 4, (April 1988): 399. AGI, [Mexico] Carta a Su Magestad del Arzobispo de Mexico, de cuatro de febrero de 1561, Legajo 2978, folios 650-656, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 120. 166 Maria Asuncion Herrera Sotillo: Ortodoxia y Control Social en Mexico en El Siglo XVII: El Tribunal del Santo Oficio (Madrid:Universidad Complusente de Madrid, 1982), 156-57 & AGS, Patronato Real [Mexico] Inquisicin, Legajo 2928, cited in Greenleaf, The Great Visitas: 399,405. 167 de las Casas: The Devastation of the Indies, 37,39,40,45,62,68-69; Solanes Carraro, Cholula, 27-8. 168 Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 353, 355, 357, 363. 169 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mexico]: Proceso del Fiscal del Santo Oficio contra Don Francisco y Domingo, indios del pueblo de Yanhuitln por idolatries[1544-1547]; Proceso contra los indios de Yanhuitln [1546]; Razon del Proceso que se hizo en el santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Domingo Cacique de Yanhuitln [1545]; Probanza de Fiscal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Franicsco y Don Domingo y Don Juan, Cacique y Gobernadores de Yanhuitln [1546], Inquisicin, Tomo 37, exps. 7, 8, 9, 10, cited in Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 65-366. 170 Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin and the Indians, 329. 171 Garca Martnez, La conversin de 7 Mono a don Domingo de Guzmn, 56, 58.

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In 1539, Don Carlos Chichimecatecotl, the Mexica chief of the city-state of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, was tried by Inquisitor Zumrraga for idolatry, sacrifice, concubinage, and dogmatizing, for the purpose of undermining the authority of the Catholic Church and Spanish colonial authority.172 Texcoco had been a vassal citystate of the Mexica kingdom in the Valley of Mexico. In Mexica times Texcoco was considered an influential center of intellectual and academic knowledge, and a powerful military force in the Mexica Triple Alliance. In 1437, Don Carlos grandfather, Nezahualcoyotl, had led the enthronement of the Mexica king Motecuzoma Ilhuicamina.173 Don Carlos was investigated after a speech he gave at Chiconautla in which he asked, [w]ho are those that undo us and disturb us and live on us and we have them on our backs and they subjugate us? An indigenous leader that expressed such views could easily incite a rebellion against the Spanish. Curiously, Don Carlos was convicted of dogmatizing, while found innocent of the other charges.174 Don Carlos was burned on 30 November 1539, sending a clear message that defiance of the Spanish rule was not an option. Between June 1536, and December 1539, the famous sorcerer Ocelotl (Martin Ucelo), Don Baltasar, chief of Culoacan, Marcos and Francisco of Tlatelolco, and the elders of the town of Azcapotzalco were all convicted of dogmatizing for publicly denouncing the Spanish religion and conversion.175 It is curious that rarely was the common man prosecuted, but instead every defendant was a prominent indigenous political and religious leader. Another Inquisicinal charge used to prosecute indigenous leaders was that of concubinage. Polygamy was an accepted privilege of the nobility of the indigenous nations of the Americas, with multiple wives many times sealing political pacts between nations. In the 1590s, in the Florida peninsula, Father Alonso Escobedo reported that when the son of the Guale chief disobeyed the religious ban on concubinage, the Spanish priests appointed another noble as chief.176 In 1522 the Inquisicin tribunal tried Marcos de Alcohuacan for concubinage. In 1557, the Holy Office tried Toms and Maria of Tecoaloya for the same offense. In those cases, substantial fines were imposed.177 Other times, such as with the 1539 Don Carlos Chichimecatecotl tribunal, the charge appears to have been added to an indictment to ensure a conviction or a fine to benefit the Holy Office.

172

Archivo General de la Nacin [Mexico]: Proceso Criminal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin y del fiscal en su nombre contra Don Carlos indio principal de Texcoco por idolatra [1539], Inquisicin, Tomo 16, exp. 11, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 74. 173 Jos Luis Martnez, Nezahualcoyotl, Coyote Hambriento (1402-1472), Arqueologa Mexicana (Noviembre Diciembre 2002): 23 & Patrick Johansson K., La imagen de Nezahualcoyotl en los cdices nahuas, Arqueologa Mexicana (NoviembreDiciembre 2002): 36-7. 174 Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 357, 359. 175 Archivo General de la Nacin [Mexico]: Inventario de bienes de Martin Ucelo [1536], Inquisicin, Tomo 37, exp. 4; Proceso del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Don Baltazar, Cacique de Culoacn por idolatra y oculatar dolos [1539], Inquisicin, Tomo 42, exp. 18; Proceso del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Marcos y Francisco, indios, por haber hablado en contra de las doctrinas predicadas por los frailes [1539], Inquisicin, Tomo 42, exp. 18; Proceso de Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra los indios de Atzcapozalco por idolatras [1538], Inquisicin, Tomo 37, exp. 2.; cited in Greenleaf, Persistence of Native Values, 355. 176 Father Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo, La Florida, trans. A. F. Falcones (St. Petersburg, FL: Great Outdoors Publishing Company, 1963), 28, 39, 59. 177 Archivo General de la Nacion [Mexico]: Causa del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicin contra Toms, indio natural de Tecoaloya y Mara india con quien se haba casado antes de la conquista conforme a los ritos de su gentilidad, acusados de manceba [1547], Inquisicin, Tomo 34, exp. 6, cited in Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisicin of the Sixteenth Century, 10, 81.

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As early as 1493, one goal of the Spanish conquest of the Indies was the eradication of the indigenous pagan religions. The 1511 Letter to the Indies by King Ferdinand of Spain, and subsequent Catholic edicts, all empowered the destruction of the indigenous idols and temples and ordered the religious conversion of the Indians to the Catholic faith with the threat of war, destruction, and enslavement. As we have seen, religious Inquisicins came to the New World in 1522, in the form of Episcopalian or monastic tribunals. With the appointment of Father Juan de Zumrraga as apostolic inquisitor in 1535, the Holy Office became a state-controlled device of the Spanish Crown, used to enforce indigenous conversion and acculturation to the Catholic faith and European culture. The establishment of the Holy Office of the Inquisicin and Provisorate tribunals in Mexico, in 1571, continued this work. The narratives of Spanish priests of Pan, Sahagn, Durn, and others, all describe how the conversion and acculturation was done by force, with the demonization of indigenous religions. Yet the indigenous and their descendants resisted conversion. Trance-inducing plants used in indigenous rituals were also countered with demonization, and with the 1620 Inquisicin edict banning their use. The Inquisicin charges were also meant to ensure political compliance in order to empower the Spanish colonization. The archives of the Holy Office in Mexico also clearly show that those indigenous leaders who publicly resisted conversion faced Inquisicin trials and punishment. Christianity had employed similar tactics in the past in its battles against Roman, Celt, Germanic, Russian and Baltic pagans, as well as against Judaism and Islam. The efforts of the Holy Office did not completely eradicate the indigenous religious beliefs and customs in Europe; instead, syncretism, intentional or not, incorporated and accommodated elements of the pagan indigenous religions. The same process occurred in the New World, allowing indigenous pagan religions to survive in syncretic form into the current era.

MARK PIPER

merican Can Save Greece

World War II Relief Mobilization of the Greek Diaspora and the American Public

Tracy Dodge

reeks abroad, as always, remembered the mother-land, observed Homer Davis, president of Athens College, commending the creation of the Greek War Relief Association.1 Nowhere was this more accurate than in North America, where young Greek men had come, in search of economic opportunities since the turn of the twentieth century.2 They left the poverty of their agricultural villages with the goal of temporarily working as laborers, and eventually becoming small business owners, in order to save money. These immigrants settled mainly in American cities where they founded Greek Orthodox Churches and local societies.3 Within two decades, the largest Greek-American colonies were located in New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco, respectively.4 A government report, published in 1932, estimated that at least 500,000 Greeks had immigrated to the United States.5 By 1940 Americanization had made some inroads among the Greek-American population, but the diaspora still maintained connections to its Hellenic identity.6 As Greece faced fascist invasions, a brutal Axis occupation, and a heroic resistance on the side of the Allies, Greek-Americans rallied on behalf of their country of origin while supporting their country of residence. This paper argues that Greek-Americans used the ethnic and religious resources of their communities and the relationship between their ancient Greek heritage and American values to gain support for the Greek War Relief effort. World War II and the Greek War Relief Association On 28 October 1940, Mussolinis ambassador demanded the entry of Italian troops into certain areas of Greece. Considering the ultimatum a declaration of war, the reaction of Premier Ioannis Metaxas was Okhi, meaning no.7 He called on the Greek people to fight for the independence, the integrity and the honor of Greece, and the
*

America Can Save Greece is taken from a Greek War Relief Association (GWRA) pamphlet of the same title, n.d., Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 1 Homer W. Davis, Greek War Relief and the Greek Spirit (Cincinnati: Convention of Order of Ahepa, August 18, 1941), Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 2 Although the Greek-American diaspora dominated the World War II relief movement, the GWRA worked with the Greek War Relief Fund of Canada and the Greek-Canadian population made a significant contribution relative to its size of about 12,000 people. The GWRA also received donations from Greeks living in Mexico. GWRA, Destination: Greece. n.d. [c. 1946], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 3 Theodore Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 30, 44-7, 70, 75-6. 4 George P. Daskarolis, San Franciscos Greek Colony: The Evolution of an Ethnic Community (Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing, 1995), 5. 5 Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States, 44. The GWRA estimated the Greek-American population at 700,000 people. 6 In this paper, I use Greek-Americans to refer to those born in Greece who lived in the United States, as well as their children and subsequent generations. I use the term diaspora in a broad sense to mean the Greek-American community in the United States. 7 In his desire to maintain political order, King George II supported General Metaxas as the quasi-fascist dictator of Greece (19361941). Termed authoritarian paternalism by historian Thomas Gallant, Metaxas was not the leader of a popular movement in the vein of Hitler and Mussolini. Although his rule was oppressive, particularly against communists, he also initiated reforms and his military foresight would prove to be keen with the outbreak of World War II. Thomas W. Gallant, Modern Greece (London: Arnold, 2001), 157-8.

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Greek army quickly forced the Italians back into Albania.8 This victory led to the German and Bulgarian invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941. Within two months the Axis powers divided and brutally occupied Greece. The communists coordinated a strong, popular resistance movement called EAM-ELAS (the National Liberation Front and the National Peoples Liberation Army, respectively), and the nationalists formed a smaller group known as EDES (National Republican Greek League). Although there was some cooperation between the two factions, conflicts arose between EAM-ELAS and EDES as early as 1943. Increasing violence and repression of leftists characterized the period following liberation in October 1944, was characterized by increasing violence and repression of leftists until it escalated into a civil war lasting from 1946-1949.9 Throughout this decade of occupation and war, the Greek people desperately needed food, clothing, and medical care. Greek-Americans anticipated this need and recognized the advantages of coordinating their relief activities; thus, just over a week after the Italian invasion, they created the Greek War Relief Association (GWRA), with influential entrepreneur, Spyros Skouras, as president, and prominent San Francisco business owner, Peter Boudoures, as western regional director.10 By the beginning of the occupation, the GWRA had supplied $3,819,393 worth of aid to Greece.11 At this point, Peter Boudoures emphasized the increased need of the Greek people and the necessity of Greek-Americans to continue their efforts to alleviate suffering in Greece. 12 What followed was a creative marketing campaign to win over the heartsand donationsof Americans, and a skillful behind-the-scenes negotiation to put those dollars to work in occupied Greece. The occupation and the Nazi policy of economic exploitation, the British blockade, and an anemic harvest led to mass starvation following the fall of Greece in April 1941.13 The Greek-language press initiated a letter writing campaign among the Greek-American diaspora with the goal of encouraging Washington to pressure the British to alter the blockade. The GWRA developed a plan, acceptable to both U.S. and British governments, that allowed the Association to purchase food in Turkey, ship it to Greece, and have the International Red Cross supervise its distribution beginning in October 1941. The Axis did not interfere with the shipments of food and medical
8

Ioannis Metaxas, Proclamation of the Prime Minister to the Greek People, October 28, 1940, in GWRA, Lest We Forget that Noble and Immortal Nation Greece, 1943, http://ahistoryofgreece.com/press/lestweforget/ 9 Gallant, ch. 8, The Terrible Decade: Occupation and Civil War 19401950, 160-77. 10 Spyros Skouras immigrated to the United States in 1911 and within a few years was running a theater with his brothers in St. Louis. By the beginning of World War II, he was president of the National Theaters Company and shortly thereafter he became president of Twentieth Century Fox. Saloutos, 278-80. Peter Boudoures began life in America as a laborer at age seventeen and eventually opened a successful restaurant in San Francisco, which also served as a meeting place for the politically active Ahepans. Daskarolis, 25-8, 82. 11 GWRA, $12,000,000, 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 12 GWRA, Pacific Region Report on Examination, November 15, 1940 to April 30, 1941, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 13 Historian Alexandros K. Kyrou analyzes the diplomatic and logistic activities of the GWRA in negotiating its relief plans with the International Red Cross and state powers prior to liberation. See Alexandros K. Kyrou, Ethnicity As Humanitarianism: The Greek American Relief Campaign for Occupied Greece, 1941-1944, in New Directions in Greek American Studies, eds. Dan Georgakas and Charles C. Moskos (New York: Pella Publishing, 1991), and Operation Blockade: Greek-American Humanitarianism During World War II, in Greeces Pivotal Role in World War II and Its Importance to the U.S. Today, ed. Eugene Rossides (Washington, DC: American Hellenic Institute Foundation, 2002).

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supplies, which continued until January 1942 when Turkeys wheat reserves became low.14 At this point, the famine in Greece reached a critical point with 1,000 deaths per day in Athens and more in other areas. The Greek-American communities stepped up their lobbying efforts and the U.S. government began making inquiries to London. After the British agreed to lift the blockade in February 1942, an emergency shipment was sent to Greece, and the GWRA developed a plan whereby a neutral nation, Sweden, would act as an intermediary to transport humanitarian aid to Greece.15 Regular shipments began in August 1942, preventing the one million deaths predicted for each of the following winters and saving one-third of the Greek people. The GWRA estimated the monetary value of the Trans-Blockade program during the occupation at $100,000,000.16 In light of this overwhelming success, the following analysis will attempt to explain the strategies the GWRA used to mobilize support for its relief campaigns. Greek-Americans and the Greek War Relief Association Following World War I, the Greek ideal of temporary migration to America gave way to the reality of permanent residence, as immigrants established jobs and families. Military service and the anti-foreign attitudes of the 1920s encouraged Americanization of Greek immigrants and their children.17 Nevertheless, at the beginning of World War II, Greek-Americans, particularly first generation immigrants, still maintained close ties to the home country and their ethnic identity through their membership in Churches, fraternal societies, and their contact with friends and family abroad. This emotional and familial connection to Greece inspired a sense of responsibility among Greek-Americans to the Greek war relief effort. In the program for a 1942 Hellenic Community of Oakland fundraiser, Peter Boudoures referred to the audience as devoted sons and daughters of Greece dedicated to our revered Homeland. James Nitson, district governor of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), emphasized the role of the fundraiser to assist our beloved ones back in our Motherland and the pride Greek-Americans felt in the bravery of our people.18 Greek-Americans identification with the home country and their emotional connection to its aid influenced their patterns of giving. A Cretan woman in Florida insisted that two hand woven blankets, passed down from mother to daughter for 125 years, must go to Greece.19 It was these emotional and ethnic ties that Greek-American communities utilized for the cause of Greek war relief. The formation of Greek communities in the United States meant the establishment of a community council, a church, and societies. The councils ran the Greek Orthodox Churches, which functioned as centers of Greek identity. Ethnic and regional societies
14 15

Kyrou, Ethnicity As Humanitarianism, 112-9. Kyrou, Operation Blockade, 1202. 16 GWRA, $12,000,000, and Kyrou, Operation Blockade, 125-6. 17 Saloutos, 44-5, 232. 18 Hellenic Community of Oakland. The Voice of Greece: A Dramatic Interpretation of the War (Oakland: Scottish Rite Temple, 11 April 1942), Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 19 GWRA, We Thank The American People, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 10, October 20, 1943, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral.

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served the needs of immigrants from particular locales in Greece and provided aid to their home provinces.20 The organization of Greek-American communities around the Church and societies meant that when the time came to mobilize Greek-Americans for humanitarian campaigns there was already an existing infrastructure in place.21 A GWRA document, written in approximately 1946, outlines the important role Greek-American societies played in the Association. As the largest group, AHEPA had a special relationship to the GWRA, with many people serving in both organizations.22 At the same time, local GWRA chapters sought to maintain balance and harmony between the different societies by not giving special consideration to one over another. Bebe Lafka, secretary of the Oakland chapter, requested in a 1944 letter to Sam Anastas that the clothing drive appeal printed in AHEPAs publication be worded as coming from AHEPA so that other organizations would not feel slighted.23 In this way, the GreekAmerican societies and Church organizations provided the labor and publicity needed to make Greek war relief a success. The Church and the societies were also fundamental to the humanitarian campaigns as sources of funds. The GWRA Pacific Region Report, covering the period from 15 November 1940 to 30 April 1941, listed the Bay Area organizations that collected contributions. For the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, these included AHEPA, GAPA, Philoptohos Societies (Friends of the Poor), Church and Sunday school communities, groups representing specific regions of Greece, and the Greek-language press, for a total of approximately $145,000 in contributions.24 Societies, such as the Hellenic American Progressive Association in Mobile, Alabama, turned over their entire treasuries to the Greek War Relief Association.25 Other societies funded projects related to medical aid in the post-liberation period.26 Churches, Philoptohos Societies, and regional organizations paid for mobile medical units, many of which were placed in their particular regions.27 Some of the more extensive projects were the GWRA partnerships for the establishment of hospitals and health centers in Greece. The Pan-Arcadian Charity
20 21

Saloutos, 74-7, 96-7, 118. See also Kyrou, Operation Blockade, 126. 22 GWRA, Relations with Greek Societies [c. 1946], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. The American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA) was created in 1922 in Atlanta in response to the antiimmigrant activities of the Ku Klux Klan. National, nonpartisan, and nonsectarian, the organization was geared toward the middle-class, U.S. citizens, and English-speakers. By the end of the decade, AHEPA shifted away from strict Americanism and became interested in maintaining Hellenism for the children of immigrants. Saloutos, 246-56. 23 Bebe Lafka, letter to Sam P. Anastas, September 25, 1944, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. Many factions existed in Greek-American communities over different issues at one time or another. An example is the rivalry between AHEPA and the Greek American Progressive Association (GAPA), formed in 1923, as a response to the Americanization policies of AHEPA, to preserve the Greek language, traditions, and Church. Saloutos, 246-56. 24 GWRA, Pacific Region Report. 25 GWRA, Mobile Merchants Donate $5,146 for Orphan Support, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 3, April 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 26 GWRA sources mention only post-occupation rehabilitation, and not the civil war, as the reason for their continued work in Greece, see for example the booklet $12,000,000. One reason for this could be the contradiction the civil war presented to the image the GWRA promoted in their campaigns of a democratic Greece and American values (to be discussed later). Another reason is likely the strong non-partisanship of the GWRA and AHEPA, with which it had close ties. The president of AHEPA, in 1944, acknowledged the responsibility of Greek-Americans to aid Greece, but also asserted the Orders non-sectarianism and the right of Greece to self-determination. George Vournas, quoted in Saloutos, 358. 27 GWRA, Fourteen Organizations Purchase Mobile Units for Greek Rural Areas, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. VI, No. 5, July 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.

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37

Fund and the GWRA planned a 250-bed hospital and nursing school in Tripolis, Arcadia in the Peloponnesos. 28 AHEPA worked with the GWRA and the Economic Cooperation Administration on hospital projects in Athens and Thessaloniki and health centers in other areas of Greece.29 These examples show the great impact of the Greek-American societies on humanitarian aid in Greece. According to a GWRA report, its achievements during the occupation of Greece would have been utterly impossible without the outstanding and unfailing support of the Greek communities of America.30 After the Axis invasion in April 1941, Peter Boudoures emphasized the responsibility of those of us of Greek birth or extraction to provide relief to Greece.31 The minutes of the GWRA Oakland chapter from this period reveal that the main office expected every possible dollar [to] be obtained from everyone of Greek extraction.32 In the 1947 $12,000,000 campaign, Greek-Americans were still expected to give to their fullest capacity. Although the Churches and societies formed the first line of solicitation, their contributions did not relieve the personal responsibility of the individuals.33 Greek-American donations were expected to account for 35 to 50 percent of local campaign goals, with wealthy individuals expected to make up the majority.34 Far from being simply rhetorical strategies, Greek-American ethnic identity and community affiliation were mobilized at the grassroots level for fundraising purposes. The personal and familial ties between Greeks of the home country and those living in the United States were not always advantageous to the GWRA fundraising efforts. A GWRA document written in 1946 revealed that one of the greatest difficulties in soliciting funds was the priority Greek-Americans gave to the unfortunate people of [their] own village or nomos. In response, the GWRA developed an orphan support program organized by nomos so that this administrative handicapwould become perhaps the greatest single inducement in securing immediate and sustained contributions and personal interest in the work of the Association.35 Along these lines, the GWRA ran other programs that enabled Greek-Americans to provide direct aid to their friends and relatives in Greece. The Give an Animal campaign was a way for Americans to buy and send farm animals at discounted prices to Greek farmers, and prepared packages of food were also available through the GWRA for purchase and shipment to individuals in Greece. 36 In the post-liberation period, these programs allowed
28

GWRA, Pan-Arcadian Group and GWRA to Erect Complete 250 Bed Hospital at Tripolis, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. VI, No. 5, July 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. See also GWRA, Relations with Greek Societies. 29 Saloutos, 364-5. 30 GWRA, Destination: Greece. 31 GWRA, Pacific Region Report. 32 GWRA, Oakland chapter minutes, April 30, 1941, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 33 GWRA, Campaign Plan, 1947, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, GWRA, Instructions to Greek Field Representatives, n.d. [c. 1946/47], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 34 GWRA, Instructions to Greek Field Representatives. 35 GWRA, Proposed Plan for Orphan Support in Greece, February 8, 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 36 GWRA, GWRA Launches Campaign to Provide 10,000 Animals for Greek Farmers, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 2, February 1946, and GWRA Offers Prepared Food Parcels at All-inclusive Price of $12.75 for 35 lbs., Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. VI, No. 3, April 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. Built into

America Can Save Greece

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the GWRA to take greater advantage of the personal and familial ties between Greeks and the Greek-American diaspora. Americans and the Greek War Relief Association In the Greek war relief campaigns, members of the Greek diaspora in the United States emphasized their status as Americans. At an early 1941 GWRA chapter meeting in Oakland, a legal adviser suggested that in letters written to the American papers individuals refer to themselves as American citizens of Hellenic extraction.37 This negotiation of Greek and American identity sometimes required a balancing act on the parts of local GWRA chapters. The GWRA was affiliated with other humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross and the Community Chests and Councils, and on more than one occasion, the Oakland chapter was asked to defer their activities to these organizations. 38 In both cases, the contention revolved around the celebration of Greek Independence Day. John Young, the assistant director of the GWRA, advised chapters to support the annual American Red Cross campaign in March 1944. 39 The following year, Bebe Lafka requested that Peter Boudoures clarify the suggestion that our War Chest affiliations made it unadvisable to mention Greek War Relief in connection with the annual 25th of March celebration.40 The response she received from Margaret Thompson, publicity director at the New York headquarters, asserted that such benefits, while permissible, should be approved by the local Community War Chest.41 These examples show that in the competition between Greek and American affiliations, the GWRA often emphasized the latter as a way to gain broader public support. Despite the unprecedented support of the Greek-American diaspora, its relatively small size meant that it was limited in its ability to finance Greek war relief on its own, making the participation of non-Greeks an absolute necessity.42 The Association thus brought Americans into the fold whenever possible and highlighted the contributions of non-Greeks.43 The local Citizens Committees of the $12,000,000 campaign were expected to be made up mostly of a cross-section of prominent American citizens of the community.44 The Greek War Relief Newsletter often portrayed the pan-American character of the Association. The clothing drive was one example of the emphasis on
these programs was a system for matching Americans with families in Greece who were not personally connected to the American diaspora. For example, the adult Sunday School class at First Presbyterian Church in Oakland adopted the Papaconstantinou family from the island of Mytilene (Lesvos). Florence M. Bass and Bebe Lafka correspondence, September 1946 to April 1947, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. Sending cash remittances was disadvantageous during this time because of the exchange rate on the black market. Saloutos, 363. 37 GWRA, Oakland chapter minutes, January 15, 1941, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 38 The GWRA was a member agency of the National War Fund (NWF), which was run under the auspices of the Community Chests and Councils (a predecessor of the United Way) from 1943 to 1947. The purpose of the NWF was to consolidate the fundraising activities of war relief organizations for Allied nations in order to fashion a better weapon for victory, conserve effort and cost, and raise more money. Harold J. Seymour, Design for Giving: The Story of the National War Fund, Inc. 19431947 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), 110. 39 He also recognized the significance of Independence Day for local communities and the possibility it provided for raising awareness of Greek war relief. John H. Young, letter to GWRA chapters, March 7, 1944, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 40 Bebe Lafka, letter to Peter Boudoures, February 22, 1945, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 41 Margaret Thompson, letter to GWRA Oakland, March 24, 1945, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 42 GWRA, Here Are the Answers, n.d. [c. 1946], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 43 See also Kyrou, Operation Blockade, 111-2. 44 GWRA, Instructions to Field Representatives, n.d. [c. 1946/47], Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.

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39

American support of Greek war relief. Inspired by a letter of appreciation from a Greek man who had received a Benson and Rixon jacket but whose family still had nothing to wear, the Chicago clothing store, working with the GWRA, organized a publicity display and set up collection bins for the clothing drive.45 Another example of the American aspect of the Association was the S.S. Adelphic, bought by the GWRA to transport supplies to islands in Greece, Although christened with a Greek-inspired name (translated as friendly) by the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of North and South America, the S.S. Adelphic was an all-American ship: She [flew] the American flag, [sailed] under American registry and [was] manned by an American crew.46 The stress the GWRA placed on American participation was one way in which the Association expanded its outreach beyond the Greek-American communities. In order to achieve the goal of full American involvement in Greek war relief, the GWRA tried to tap into the tremendous latent sympathy and admiration Americans felt for the Greek people. Greece was, after all, the best merchandise in the world.47 The ancient heritage was one angle from which Greece was promoted. Ancient ruins such as the Parthenon were often used as visual representations of Greece on posters and pamphlets. One GWRA poster with the slogan HELP GREECE NOW featured a marble statue, the Parthenon, and a woman with a baby; another poster with the same caption portrayed a mother and child in the forefront and the Parthenon in the background.48 Ancient imagery, both rhetorical and visual, was used on pamphlet covers even when the content referred to strictly contemporary problems. An example was The Ancient Glory of Immortal Greece, which showed archaeological ruins on the front and inside described the war-time suffering of the Greek people and the work of the GWRA. 49 The aim of this type of war relief publicity material was to associate ancient Greece with the modern nation in the minds of Americans, many of whom were likely more familiar with Greeces classical past and triumphs than its modern history. In addition to connecting ancient and modern Greece through symbols of ancient glory, the GWRA and the American press made direct parallels between ancient and contemporary events. In 1943, the GWRA compiled a collection of newspaper articles, editorials, and cartoons into a pamphlet called Lest We Forget that Noble and Immortal Nation Greece, which featured in the forefront of its cover a prominent column and, in the background, the silhouette of the Acropolis. Several of the articles and cartoons compared the Greek resistance to the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae in the fifth century B.C. between the outnumbered Greeks and the Persians. The former battle, won by the Greeks, and the latter, won by the Persians, became proud landmarks in Greek history, according to a writer in The Christian Science Monitor, because of the heroism
45

GWRA, Chicago Store Aids Clothing Drive, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 3, April 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 46 GWRA, Association Purchases 500 ton Vessel to Deliver Supplies to Greek Islands, Greek War Relief Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 4, June 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 47 GWRA, No Title, June 1, 1946, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 48 GWRA, Help Greece Now poster, n.d., Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral; GWRA, Help Greece Now poster, n.d., http://www.greece.gr/GLOBAL_GREECE/SPOTLIGHT/the_war_papers.stm. Similar gender motifs were used on Belgian relief posters in World War I. Historian Theodore Saloutos proclaims Greece as the Belgium of World War Two (Saloutos, 344). 49 GWRA, The Ancient Glory of Immortal Greece, n.d., Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral.

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of the Greek forces that took part.50 Many hailed the Greek resistance in Albania as a second Thermopylae; a cartoon originally published in the New York Daily Mirror was labeled THERMOPYLAE 480 B.C. and THERMOPYLAE 1941.51 The GWRA described the ancient battle as one in which a band of gallant Spartans, fighting beyond endurance, finally had to succumb to innumerable hordes, just as their descendantshad at last to yield tothe overwhelming might of the Nazi blitz machine.52 In these examples, the glory of ancient Greece was reclaimed by modern Greeks. This strategy was a vital way to appeal to Americans who romanticized ancient Greece and thus mobilize their support for Greek war relief. The ancient and modern parallels of Greek heroism entered the consciousness of Americans through the rhetoric of liberty and democracy. Ancient Greece was understood to be the foundation of Western civilization. Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, applauded ancient Greek culture as the birthplace of democracy and the treasured heritage of modern civilization.53 The GWRA also promoted Greece as the cradle of democracy from which they claimed, most of the fundamentals of civilization came.54 This Greek resistance was portrayed as another battle in the continuous struggle of Greek democracy covering 2,500 years from ancient Greece to World War II. A cartoon from the New York Journal American showed GREECE, THE BIRTHPLACE OF DEMOCRACY etching these words onto a column: DEFENDER OF LIBERTY, BATTLE OF 55 MARATHON, BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE, BATTLE OF ALBANIA, GREECE WILL FIGHT ON! In the same publication, a journalist wrote, The power of Greece lay in the same force that moves all Americansthe power of the word LIBERTY.56 The association of Greek and American values of democracy and liberty was one more way in which the GWRA sold Greek war relief to the American people. The Greek War of Independence was another reference point for GreekAmericans and Philhellenes during the humanitarian campaigns.57 The assumption was that Americans would relate to the allusions of independence because of their own Revolutionary War. A writer in the New York Evening Sun was explicit in this comparison: What the Fourth of July is to patriotic Americans, the Twenty-fifth of March is to history-respecting Greeks.58 The occasion of Greek Independence Day was used to promote Greek war relief throughout the country. In 1941, the East Bay Unit of the GWRA organized a benefit entitled the Cavalcade of Greek Democracy: Celebrating
50 51

Marathon and Thermopylae, in GWRA, Lest We Forget. GWRA, Lest We Forget. 52 GWRA, $12,000,000. 53 Victory Over Tyranny, in GWRA, Lest We Forget. 54 GWRA, Greece Starves and Fights, n.d. [c. 1943/44], Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 55 GWRA, Lest We Forget. 56 Benjamin DeCasseres, The March of Events, in GWRA, Lest We Forget. 57 The war was against the Ottoman Empire which controlled most of Greece and the rest of the Balkans for almost 400 years. Independence Day is celebrated as 25 March , which is also the Christian holiday of the Annunciation (the Archangel Gabriels declaration to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the son of God). According to the legend, the revolution was declared by the Metropolitan of Patras on this day in 1821 at the Aghia Lavra Monastery in the Peloponnesos. A presidency under Ioannis Kapodistrias was established in 1828, but after his assassination, the Great Powers negotiated treaties that created the Greek state as a monarchy in 1832 under a Bavarian king. Gallant, 19, 26, 28. 58 Greek Independence Day, in GWRA, Lest We Forget.

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41

the 120th Anniversary of Greek Independence 18211941.59 In addition to the comparisons between the War of Independence and the World War II resistance, the positive response of America to both wars was highlighted. After the Nazis razed the Aghia Lavra monastery, a GWRA press release, dated March 25 commended the past and contemporary support of Americans who admired the determination of this small nation to fight for its independence.60 The Greek War of Independence thus provided an intermediary step on the continuum of Greek democracy with which Americans could identify. The GWRA emphasized the values of freedom and democracy in Greek history to inspire Americans to contribute to the Greek war relief cause. During the Greek humanitarian campaigns, America was envisioned as the successor to ancient Greek civilization whose citizens had a responsibility to aid Greece in its struggle for democracy. Historian James Truslow Adams wrote that it was not asking much of Americans, as the heirs of ancient Greece who also believe in freedom, to assist the small but heroic people who are fighting our battle for us against terrific odds.61 At the same time that they glorified modern Greece as the descendant of ancient Greece, Greeks and Philhellenes also humbly proclaimed Greeces reliance on help from America as the towering bulwark of freedom.62 In a speech given to the AHEPA convention in 1941, Homer Davis, stated his desire for Americans to know with what challenging and implicit faith Greeks in every corner of the land look to America as the land of democracy and liberty which will not tolerate a world made hideous by a tyranny that destroys all liberty, decency and human dignity.63 Greek Ambassador Cimon Diamantopoulos echoed this sentiment in a response to President Roosevelts letter commemorating the second anniversary of Okhi Day. He wrote that all free peoples look with fervent hope to the U.S. and Roosevelt for the prevalence of liberty and justice for which we are fighting.64 Greeks and Philhellenes recognized the necessity of American aid for the survival of Greece in World War II. Their deferment to America as the successor of Greek civilization also carried with it a responsibility on the part of Americans to help their predecessors by aiding the Greek war relief cause. Conclusion The conditions in Greece during the 1940s created an urgent need, to which Greeks and non-Greeks alike responded with generosity. After the Italian invasion of Greece on 28 October 1940, Greek-Americans immediately created the Greek War Relief Association and donated about ninety percent of the funds received in the first few months.65 Although figures were not available on the difference between Greek and nonGreek contributions for later periods, based on the national Greek-American quota of 35 percent for the $12,000,000 campaign in 1947, one may infer that Americans outside of the Greek-American community had responded well to GWRA appeals in the previous
59

GWRA, Cavalcade of Greek Democracy: Celebrating the 120th Anniversary of Greek Independence 18211941 (Oakland: Civic Auditorium, March 22, 1941), Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 60 GWRA, press release, March 25, 1943, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 61 James Truslow Adams in GWRA, Lest We Forget. 62 GWRA, Greece Starves and Fights, n.d. [c. 1943/44], Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 63 Davis, Greek War Relief. 64 Cimon Diamantopoulos, The Greek Ambassadors Reply, October 29, 1942, in GWRA, Lest We Forget. 65 Saloutos, 348.

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six years. During that period, the GWRA provided $25,000,000 worth of aid and coordinated the Trans-Blockade program, which was valued at $100,000,000.66 The 1947 campaign was also successful considering that the AHEPA and Pan-Arcadian hospitals they planned are still in operation to this day.67 The popularity and success of the GWRA can also be judged from a comparison with other National War Fund (NWF) agencies. Most ethnic relief organizations were limited to helping refugees during the war and were able to work in their countries of origin only after liberation. Greece, on the other hand, benefited from humanitarian aid that saved one-third of the population during the occupation. According to Harold Seymour, NWF general manager, Nowhere in Europe did war strike harder, and nowhere has American aid striven harder to send commensurate help.68 NWF payments to the GWRA totaled $8,172,181.96, behind only those agencies aiding China ($32,534,140.86) and Russia ($16,028,952.67). American Relief for Poland followed the GWRA, receiving payments of $6,880,382.81.69 This organization, chosen by the NWF to represent the six million Polish-Americans in the United States, raised $11,434,985 and helped five million people around the world between 1939 and 1948.70 The unique success of the GWRA, relative to other organizations, can be attributed to skillful leadership, successful marketing campaigns, and widespread support by Greek and non-Greek Americans. The diplomatic and logistic agreements the GWRA arranged with state powers and the International Red Cross, as described by Alexandros Kyrou, were underwritten by the infrastructure and ethnic loyalty of the Greek-American communities. The Church and societies such as AHEPA provided the networks necessary for the grassroots organization and fundraising of the GWRA. Personal and emotional ties to the home country created a sense of responsibility that influenced the generosity of Greek-Americans to the war relief effort. In order to provide maximum aid, the GWRA promoted identification with America and the connection between Greeces heroic past and the values of freedom and democracy. The GWRA presented itself as a panAmerican organization and Greek-Americans as true American citizens. The modern Greek state, born from a noble revolution, claimed the glory of ancient Greeces achievements in architecture, democracy, and defense, which entitled them to the help of Americans who were also the heirs to the Western civilization Greece founded. At least one historian notes that one of the lessons to be taken away from the Greek war relief experience is the impact of the Greek-American diaspora on Greeces
66 67

GWRA, $12,000,000. See Projects/Committee Activities of the Pan Arcadian Federation of America, http://www.panarcadian.org/projects.htm, and AHEPA University Hospital, http://www.ahepahosp.gr/ 68 Seymour, 83; for summaries of NWF member agencies and services, see pp. 7989. 69 Seymour, 70-1. 70 Donald E. Pienkos, Polonias Humanitarian Services to Poland in the World War II Era: The Work of the Polish American Council (Rada Polonii Amerykanskiej), in For Your Freedom Through Ours: Polish American Efforts on Polands Behalf, 1863-1991 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1991), 88. The experience of Polish-Americans, the largest Eastern European minority in the United States, and GreekAmericans, one of the smallest European minorities, paralleled each other in many ways. See Bradley E. Fels, Whatever Your Heart Dictates and Your Pocket Permits: Polish-American Aid to Polish Refugees during World War II, Journal of American Ethnic History 22, no. 1 (2003): 3-30.

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survival during World War II.71 Indeed, the humanitarian campaigns speak to the relationship of the diaspora to the home country, but also of its relationship to its adopted country. As early as 1941, a British reserve officer articulated the changing perception of Greeks in North America, We used to think you wore skirts [fustanellas, traditional kiltlike costumes] and kept restaurantsNow the English-speaking and the Grecian peoples are in one anothers hearts, and I hope forever.72 Peter Boudoures was aware of the ramifications of the GWRAs success on the prestige of Greek-Americans who would be expected to set an example for the rest of the country.73 Given the increasing status of Greek-Americans following World War II, it seems fair to conclude that GreekAmericans commitment to humanitarianism in the 1940s enabled them to prove a lasting synthesis of their Hellenic and American identities.74

71 72

Kyrou, Operation Blockade, 127. GWRA, Oakland chapter minutes, January 22, 1941, Historical Committee, Ascension Cathedral. 73 GWRA, Pacific Region Report. 74 See Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States, ch. 18 on The Era of Respectability.

America Can Save Greece

natomy of a Crusade

The De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi and the Lisbon Crusade of 1147

Kevin Mummey

When at last they took the city [Lisbon] and routed the barbarians, the King of Galatia asked the crusaders to give him the unoccupied city. As allies they had first divided the booty among them. So was established there a colony of Christians which subsists even to the present day. Of all the works which the crusading army did, this alone proved successful. -Helmold of Bosau 1

elmold of Bosaus subdued footnote concerning the siege of Lisbon is detailed in comparison with other contemporary notices. The attack on Lisbon by Flemish, Lotharingian, and Anglo-Norman crusaders in 1147 has only recently begun to receive the attention it deserves. In 1936, C.W. David produced an invaluable critical edition of the De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi (The Siege of Lisbon, hereafter DEL). In addition, present-day work by Johnathan Phillips and Harold Livermore has brought the event into a clearer focus. In 1990, Livermore successfully identified the author of the DEL as the Anglo-Norman monk Raol, and this overlooked historian is the concern of this study. The DEL is essentially a historical narrative interspersed with speeches. This paper will argue that the author crafted the speeches largely after the fact, and that Raol was able to graft ecclesiastical crusade theory onto the siege.2 In effect, he was able to marry a military success to the growing body of crusade propaganda. These speeches, when disentangled from Raols narrative, reveal the tensions that existed in twelfthcentury society between the celestial ideal and the temporal reality. This essential tension existed not only in the intellectual realm. An examination of the language of the DEL and its historical context reveals that this dichotomy is multi-layered. It is present in the entire Second Crusade, in the politics of the Reconquista, and in the formation of the state of Portugal. The tension between the ideal and the actual is heightened at the siege itself, and it is in the complex and disparate motives and actions of the crusaders, and in the author of the DEL, that one may better understand the world of the Second Crusade. After reviewing the historical background of the siege, this study will discuss the manuscript itself. It will then look at the narrative and the set pieces, and conclude with a discussion of Raols purpose and its importance for the Crusades, both in the twelfth century and the present. An examination of the historical processes that led up to the siege of Lisbon helps to explain the success of 1147. The capture of Lisbon was a key success in the formation of the Kingdom of Portugal. Bernard Reilly has pointed out that moderns tend to assume
1

Helmold of Bosau, The Chronicle of the Slavs, trans. By F.J. Tschan (New York: Colombia University Press, 1935), 175. 2 C.J. Tyerman, Were there any Crusades in the Twelfth Century? English History Review 110 (1995), 553-77. Tyerman contends, but in many theatres of war, in Spain, the western Mediterranean and the Baltic, religious elements were grafted on to existing political ambitions (565). Tyermans thesis that the twelfth century was Crusading's Dark Ages is overstated, but his observation that it is difficult to separate tradition and innovation during the crusades is important. His useful look at the DEL is at 563-5. In 1936, C.W. David expressed suspicion about the Bishops speech in the DEL, see C.W. David, The Authorship of the De Expugnatione Lyxbonesi, Speculum 7 (1932) 50-7. Giles Constable argued that it has the appearance of being a genuine report, not a literary concoction. Giles Constable, The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries, Traditio 9 (1953), 213-79.

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that the appearance of a separate and autonomous Portugal was natural and inevitable. This was hardly apparent in the twelfth century. The same author has pointed out that the county of Portugal had never been more than an administrative convenience of the kingdom of Leon-Castilla, the land around Oporto. In the 1090s, Alfonso VI placed his son-in law Raimund of Burgundy in the path of the ascendant Almoravid army.3 By 1094, the cities of Badajoz, Sintra, and Lisbon had fallen, and the defense of the north had passed to the founder of the royal house of Portugal, Henry of Burgundy.4 It was as a march of the kingdom of Leon against the Muslim of Anadalusia that Alfonso entrusted the county of Portugal to his son-in law Henry and daughter Teresa.5 The history of the west of the Iberian Peninsula needs to be understood in the context of its ambiguous relationship with the emperors of Leon-Castilla.6 The close political and family relationships clouded the issue as to whether the county of Portugal was, as Reilly has put it, a powerful appanage in the west or a new Iberian monarchy.7 Upon Henrys death in 1112 Teresa took over the government of Portugal, as the future king Affonso Henriques was no more than five years old. The transformation of Portugal from county to kingdom begins with Teresa, a tenacious and shrewd political operator. By 1117, she had begun to style herself regina as opposed to infanta. During her reign the county of Portugal was in a precarious position. While unable to advance on the Almoravids to the south, she was able to fend off her sister Urraca, the Leonese Queen, and to achieve a truce with the Galician nobles in the North. Threatened by Teresas liaison with the Galician noble Fernando Perez, Affonso and a coalition of northern barons defeated the Queen at San Mamed in 1128.8 The future King of Portugal was nineteen years old. While Affonso was not yet a king and Portugal not yet a kingdom, the events of the 1130s and early 1140s witnessed the increasing independence of the county. Despite being defeated in Galicia in 1135 by the Leonese emperor, Alfonso VII, Affonso continued to intervene in Galician affairs. By 1139, he was able to direct his energies to the south, defeating an Almoravid offensive at Ourique. By 1140, Affonso was confident enough to style himself Portugalensium rex. The man who would be king was also
3

Bernard Reilly, The Conquest of Christian and Muslim Spain (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992), 142-3. The Almoravids (al-murrabit, possibly confederation) were a confederation of Berber tribes who followed a more literal interpretation of the Koran. Their emir, Yusuf Ibn Tashfin had been invited to Spain several times by the ruler of Seville, AlMutamid. To head off a suspected alliance between Al-Mutamid and Alfonso VI of Len, Ibn Tashfin landed at Algeciras on June 30, 1086. He then proceeded to destroy Alfonsos army at Sagrajas. The Almoravids then proceeded to conquer most of the territories of the taifa kings, who had ruled Spain for most of the eleventh century. See Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London: Longman, 1978), particularly chapter three. A good discussion of the Almoravid belief system and that of their successors, the Almohads, is Angus Mackay, Spain in the Middle Ages (London: Macmillan, 1977), 26-9. Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal (London: Longman, 1996) is the most thorough look at the whole period of Almoravid and Almohad influence, especially chapters 7-9. 4 The taifa king of the region, al-Mutawakkil of Badajoz, had given Lisbon, Sintra, and Santarem to Alfonso VI in return for a promise of help. It was too late. Alfonso was incapable of stopping the Almoravids, especially that far west. Al-Mutawakkil was himself tortured and killed in 1097 (Lomax, 72). 5 Reilly, Conquest, 200. 6 For early twelfth-century Len see Reilly, The Kingdom of Len Castilla Under Queen Urraca (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). 7 Reilly, Conquest, 196. 8 Reilly, Conquest, 196; A. H. Oliviera-Marques, History of Portugal (New York: Colombia University Press, 1976), 39. Teresa fled to Galicia, where she died in 1130.

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49

adept at using the Papacy when it suited his needs. In 1143, he offered himself as a liegeman of Pope Lucius II, and was recognized as dux Portugalensium. While not yet rex in the eyes of the Church, Affonso had taken another step toward establishing his independence.9 Portugal was being defined not in terms of an inevitable process, but by the entrepreneurial initiatives of Affonso and his noble and ecclesiastical supporters. It was to this nascent kingdom and its opportunistic leader that the crusaders of 1147 made their appearance. Our main source for this event is the DEL. For more than eight hundred years, its author was misidentified. The manuscript, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Ms. 470 was labeled in a fine renaissance hand as the Historia Osberni de Expeditione.10 In 1861, the Portuguese historian Alexandre Herculano included a transcription of the Historia Osberni de Expeditione in his Portugaliae Monumenta Historica: Scriptores. By 1884 Herculano had accepted the shortened title Historia Osberni for the manuscript, and it appeared for the first time in Portuguese translation. The only English edition was that of Bishop Stubbs, who in 1864 entitled the manuscript De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi. In 1936, C.W. David adopted the title, although for Livermore there is no authority for either title or for the assumed author. He could have also added that Lisbon in 1147 was the Muslim and Mozarabic Al-Ushbun, further problematizing the title. The original confusion regarding authorship arises from the salutation, OSB. de Baldr. R., Salutem. The close connection of the author of the DEL to the Glenville family led David to identify OSB. de Baldr. as Osbert of Bawdsey, a Glenville family priest.11 While David provisionally conjectured that Osbert was the author, he correctly pointed out some the difficulties with this designation.12 In 1990, in what another historian has called convincing detective work, Harold Livermore identified the author as the R. of the salutation.13 This R. is the Anglo-Norman monk Raol, who donated 200 silver marks to found a cemetery in Lisbon. Carefully examining the language of both documents, Livermore connected the R. of the DEL to the Raol of the cemetery donation. He further suggested that Raol was an emissary of St. Bernard, more on which will be discussed below.14 Whatever the extent of Raols connections, Livermores work established that a warrior priest with a formidable education was among the leaders of the assault on Lisbon. The arrival of the Second Crusade in Portugal was the product of both immediate political circumstances and long standing feudal, regional and commercial relationships.
9

Harold Livermore, A New History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) 53. See OlivieraMarques, 42-3, for a more detailed look at Affonsos dealing with the Papacy. Pope Alexander III finally recognized Affonso as king in 1179. 10 Livermore, The Conquest of Lisbon and its Author, Portuguese Studies 6 (1990) 2. Information below on the manuscript comes from David, 26-7. 11 David, 26-7. Also, see De Expugnatione Lybonensi, ed. and trans. by David (New York: Colombia University Press, 2001) 40-6. (Hereafter referred to as DEL. David refers to his first suspicion that the author was Ranulf de Glenville (44). 12 David, Authorship, 55-6. 13 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade and Holy War in De Expugnatione Lybonensi, in Swanson, ed. Holy Land, Holy Lands, and Christian History (Suffolk: Woodbridge, 2000), 125. 14 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 6, 16.

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After the fall of Edessa in 1144, Eugenius III had responded with the crusade bull Quantum praedecessores, aimed largely at King Louis VII of France.15 Unable to preach the crusade in person, he delegated the responsibility to his fellow Cistercian Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.16 Bernard included Flanders and the Empire in his preaching tours, partially to reign in the renegade monk Radulf, and to tap into the vast resources of the urbanized Low Countries and the Empire. Phillips has also suggested that Bernards preaching was a result of his communication with Affonso Henriques, but this letter is controversial and will be discussed further below. There is little doubt, however that many of the crusaders, especially the Flemish and Imperial contingents, were responding to the enthusiasm for Holy War that had been generated by the formidable Abbott Bernard. Crusade enthusiasm could go only so far in assembling a fleet of such size. Raol mentions that men of divers nations had gathered at Dartmouth in about one hundred and sixty-four vessels.17 Such an undertaking required a great deal of planning and cooperation, and in the absence of great feudal magnates, was the initiative of the lower nobility and the rising commercial class. There is, by twelfth-century standards, a corporate, entrepreneurial, and even democratic sense to the Lisbon expedition that was noticed at the time. Henry of Huntington, writing of the disasters in the east, commented:
Meanwhile a naval force that was made up of ordinary, rather than powerful, men and was not supported by any great leader, except Almighty God, prospered a great deal better, because they set out in humility. For although few, with Gods help in their battles they gained possession from the many of a city in Spain which is called Lisbon, and another called Almeria,[sic] and neighbouring territories. Truly, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. For the armies of the French king and the emperor had been more splendid and larger than that which had earlier conquered Jerusalem, and yet they were crushed like a spiders web.18
15

Trans. of QP from Riley-Smith, Idea and Reality, 57-59. Rudolph Hiestand, The Papacy and the Second Crusade,in Phillips and Hoch, eds. The Second Crusade-scope and consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press) discusses the connections between Eugenius, QP, and St. Bernard, concluding that The Second Crusade was not Eugenius IIIs but Bernard of Clairvauxs crusade. 16 Phillips, The Second Crusade in History and Research, in Phillips and Hoch, 3. 17 Our other primary source for the siege is the letter of the priest Winand, a participant, to the Archbishop of Cologne. Winand, Lisbon Letter found in Susan Edinburgh, The Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade, Historical Research (1996) 328-39. The Lisbon Letter mentions about two hundred ships. For more about this letter and the versions by Duodechin and Arnulf, see Edgington Albert of Aachen, St. Bernard and the Second Crusade in Phillips and Hoch, 54-70; and The Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade, The Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 69 (1996) 328-39. 18 Interea quidam exercitus naualis uirorum non potentum, nec alicui magno duci innixinisi Deo omnipotentiquia humiliter profecti sunt, optime profecerunt. Ciuitatem namque in Hispania que uocatur Vlixis Bona, et aliam que uocatur Almaria, et regiones adaiacentes, a multis pauci Deo cooperante bellis optinuerunt. Vere, Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem day gratiam. Exercitus namque regis Francorum et imperatoris et splendidor et maior fuerat quam ille qui prius Ierusalem conquisierat, et a paucissimus contriti sunt, et quasi tele aranearum disterminati sunt, et demoliti. (Henry, Archdeacon of Huntington, Historia Anglorum, ed. And trans. by Diana Greenway (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 752. For Henrys biblical allusion see I Pet. 5:5. The sieges of Almeria and Lisbon took place at the same time. Constable has suggested that Henry combined reports of the two in one sentence. For the siege of Almeria, see the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, book 2 in Barton and Fletcher The World of El Cid (Manchester: Manchester University Press), hereafter referred to as CAI; and Caffaro of Genoa, De Captione Almeria and Tortosa in John Bryan Williams, The Making of the Crusade: the Genoese anti-Muslim attacks in Spain, 1146-1148, Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997), Appendix I.

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It is a passage that has attracted a great deal of attention; it seems to portray the virtue of a nascent, vigorous middle class.19 Henry was probably aiming his criticism at the nobles of his own country who, in 1147, seemed hopelessly entangled in a civil war. Still, lesser men had succeeded where greater men had failed. It is another example of the tension between ideal and reality presented by the Lisbon expedition. Raol begins his narrative with a description of the expeditions leaders. Arnold of Aerschot led a Lotharingian contingent, and Christian of Giselles led the crusaders of Flanders and Boulogne. The English were led by Hervey de Glanville, Simon of Dover, Saher of Archelle, and Andrew, who led the Londoners.20 Glanville and Archelle were clearly of the nobility. Nothing is known of Simon. Round suggested that Andrew may have been of the Buccuinte family, who were prominent London merchants, and Stubbs suggested that Andrew was justiciar of London in 1137.21 This list is not unusual. The surviving section of the Poem of Almeria is largely a list of the leaders involved in that siege.22 What is unusual is that later in the narrative, participants express confusion as to who the leaders of the expedition really are. Raol reports that Affonso sought leaders from among the crusaders. He is briefly informed that such and such were our chief menbut that we had not yet decided on anyone on whom authority should be conferred to make answer for all.23 Furthermore, non-noble families play an important role in the narrative but, conspicuously, are omitted from the opening roll call. William Viel is not mentioned as one of the leaders of the expedition, but he exerted a great deal of influence. In the DEL he is depicted as being in favor of piratical activity instead of staying in Lisbon.24 The Viel family had close ties to the Angevins, and is found in the latter half of the twelfth century accepting shipping contracts from Angevin nobles, including the court.25 It appears that there were representatives of the merchant class on the expedition. They inclined toward practical and profitable solutions to problems presented en route to
19

Beginning with the work of John Horace Round, The Commune of London and other Studies (Westminster: Constable & Co., 1889), 97-113. 20 Hervey was the father of Henry IIs justiciar Ranulf. Hervey held fief in Bawdsey, where the addressee of the DEL was the son of the priest. R. Mortimer, The Family of Ranulf de Glanville, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981), 3. 21 DEL, 53-56 and esp. footnotes. In fn. 5, 57-58, David claims that the Lisbon crusade seems to have been organized on a more broadly democratic basis than any analogous enterprise of which we possess adequate knowledge. While his use of the term democratic is misleading, the regulation of life aboard the ships does reflect the practical expertise of the sailors on board. Their organization may have impressed Raol, who does not display any familiarity with seafaring. Rounds dialogue with Stubbs is mentioned in the DEL, fn. 1, 56. 22 Poem of Almeria, in the CAI, 250-63. 23 The entire quotation reads: breviter responsum est nos primates habere hos et hos, et quorum precipue actus it consilia preminerent, sed nondum deliberatum cui responsionis officia committerent. DEL, 98. The lack of clear leadership may also indicate the corporate nature of the expedition. There is no indication here that many of the crusaders were in the pay of a great feudal magnate whom they would have identified as a leader. 24 DEL, 101-103 and fn. 1, 100-103. 25 DEL, fn. 1, 100-103. The absence of the Pipe Rolls in the 1130s and 1140s makes the composition and activities of the commune of London difficult to trace. It is possible that leading families of London may have felt it prudent to send a member on crusade. The late 1140s were still a dangerous time in England, and merchant families may have perceived the benefit of having their property protected by Papal decree. Also, the DEL mentions a contingent from Boulogne, the home of Stephens queen Matilda. Matilda and Stephen had considerable property and connections in London. Some members of the commune may have received the message of the crusade from their connections in Boulogne. Interestingly, there is no mention of any strife in the crusader camp related to the civil war. St. Bernard was certainly aware of the merchant families. Bernard of Clairvaux, The Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. B.S. James (Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1998). See, section 5 of Letter 391, To the English, begins with St. Bernards appeal to those of you who are merchants, men quick to seek a bargain, let me point out the advantages of this great opportunity. Take up the sign of the Cross and you will find indulgence for all the sins you humbly confess. The cost is small, the reward is great (Clairvaux, 460).

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Jerusalem. This inclination is disagreeable to Raol, and the commercial element is often the antagonist of the narrative, representing the lust for profit instead of the higher purpose that is at the heart of Raols sermons. The first sermon, attributed to Bishop Peter Pitoes of Oporto, puts higher motives at the core of the crusade. Although it is difficult to separate the Bishops words from Raols, the circumstances and language of the sermon give cause to suspect that this version was written later. The sermon holds a central position in the narrative, but even Raol admits that the Bishop received a lukewarm reception from the crusaders. As Linehan has noted, horny handed warriors not renowned for their ability to distinguish pilgrimage from brigandage were unlikely to be much impressed by the proposition that the sin was not in waging war, but in waging war for the sake of plunder.26 At the end of the speech, the crusaders decided to wait to hear from the king in person the proposals which had been made to us by commission in his absence.27 This is hardly an endorsement of the Bishops power of persuasion. The second problem with the depiction of the speech is Raols staging of the event. The crusaders are described as hearing mass in an overflowing church, with an overflow crowd on a hill. At best, a few elite crusaders would have heard the sermon, a few more might have heard about it, and most would not have heard it, or even cared to. Raol mentioned that the sermon was given in Latin so that it could be translated, ostensibly into the vernacular of the gathered crusaders. 28 It is a curious notice, possibly an indication that Raol was anticipating objections from his readers who would have needed to know how the soldiers understood the speech. A third issue is the mechanics of how such a sermon was transcribed. It seems unlikely that Raol was reporting what the Bishop said by memory. The detailed and sophisticated nature of the theological and philosophical arguments of the sermon indicates that it was composed and edited later.29 Finally, it has been assumed that the Bishop of Oportos speech is an early example of a war sermon.30 However, the sermon hardly enticed the crusaders to immediate action. Before leaving Oporto to parley with the King, they waited for the arrival of the Archbishop of Braga. Peter Pitoes oration apparently carried little weight with the crusaders.31 Raol may well have written this speech later, to graft contemporary crusading theory onto the narrative of a successful crusading mission. There is a tension between Raols understated description of the event and his motives for including such a
26 27

Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 245. ut illinc a rege illorum audiremus presentes, que absentibus mandabantur. DEL, 84. The Flemish leader Christian of Giselles and the count of Aerschot were not at the original negations in Oporto. Their ships had scattered and didnt arrive for another eleven days. It is also intriguing that the crusaders waited for the arrival of John Peculiar, the Archbishop of Braga, who they took with them to London along with Peter Pitoes. John was appointed Bishop of Oporto in 1136 and Archbishop in 1138. He may have had prior dealings with the crusaders, who knew of his influence with Affonso. In any case, the Bishop of Oporto does not seem to have earned the respect of the crusading mission. For John Peculiar see Livermore, 51. 28 For the physical description of the sermon, see the DEL, 68, 70. 29 A thorough, indispensable analysis of the Bishops speech is found in Phillips, Ideas of Crusade. Phillips remarks that the repetition of themes indicates the likelihood that Raol manipulated the text (132). 30 For a review of preaching in Portugal see P.A. Obder de Baubeta, Towards a History of Preaching in Medieval Portugal, Portuguese Studies 7 (1991) 1-18. Obder de Baubeta refers to the sermons in the DEL, 5. as army sermons. She also questioned the accuracy of the transcriptions and asks whether the chronicler embellished them (1215). 31 The crusaders may have surmised that the Bishop of Oporto was not influential enough to make guarantees for the division of spoils. Some of the English who had come in 1142 may have had dealings with the Archbishop, and would have known of the influence he had with Affonso I.

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detailed, sophisticated sermon in his narrative. The persuasion of the Bishop, and his exhortation to a higher purpose, were probably an afterthought. Oporto in May of 1147 was full of crusaders as yet unsure of their next destination. The Bishops speech also has raised a more fundamental question of motive, i.e. whether the crusaders ever intended to go to Portugal at all. At his first meeting with the crusaders, as well as in the conclusion of his sermon, the Bishop indicates that he and King Affonso had known of their coming.32 Affonso also reveals later that he understood that the crusaders were brave and strenuous men of great industry.33 The argument that the Portuguese had prior knowledge of the expedition rests largely on St. Bernards letter to Alphonsus, King of Portugal.34 St. Bernard indicated that he had been in contact with Affonsos brother Pedro, who had passed through France and would soon be fighting in the armies of the Lord. Livermore concluded that Pedro was going to fight in Iberia in 1147.35 Bernard also indicated that he had with promptitude complied with a request of Affonso, and that his messenger was bringing documents that set forth the liberality of the Holy See. This letter has been questioned since its first publication by Brito in 1602, and has been dismissed as a forgery as recently as 1994. 36 For now we will accept Phillips and Livermores arguments that the letter is authentic, though more work needs to be done to firmly establish this connection.37 Phillips has placed Bernard in the Low Countries between July 1146 and February 1147, and it is possible that he could have preached an Iberian crusade.38 A simpler explanation of the kings foreknowledge may be found in the DEL. Before Affonsos speech Raol reveals that the king learned in advance of our coming from some of our people who had been attached from our association in five ships.39 They had arrived a week before the other crusaders, having made the trip in five days. The speed of the voyage indicates the presence of skilled sailors, and it seems more likely that the advance guard was an initiative not of the crusade, but of the shipping families of the English ports. The crucial question remains as to what degree the Lisbon crusaders were part of a grand Papal strategy, making Lisbon the flank of what Bishko has called the western theater of Catholic Europes war against Islam.40 There are undoubtedly connections between
32 33

DEL, 69, 85. DEL, 99. Scimus satis et compertum habemus vos fortes et strenuos magneque industrie viros fore 34 Clairvaux, Letter 308 in the Mabillon edition of 1719. In James recent translation, it is numbered 397. Letters, 469. The words in quotation below are from this translation. 35 Livermore, The Conquest of Lisbon, 12. 36 Alan J. Forey, The second Crusade: Scope and Objectives, Durham University Journal 55 (1994) 170. 37 Livermore, The Conquest of Lisbon, 9-12. Phillips, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Low Countries and the Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), 485-97. Giles Constable has pointed out the influence of St. Bernards rule for the Templars in the shipboard regulations, and in the Bishop of Oportos speech. Neither piece of evidence connects Bernard directly to the Lisbon expedition. Raol was apparently a stranger to seafaring. His descriptions of the voyage often lapse into classical allusions, and this may have been his first experience with justice at sea. Like the speeches, the details of the regulations may be a combination of the actual agreement and later additions couched in monastic language more familiar to Raol. Raols use of Bernard further supports Phillips arguments of the connection between the two men, but again, not to Lisbon. 38 Phillips, St. Bernard, 488. Phillips is in no doubt about the connection between St. Bernard and Lisbon. In other words it [the Lisbon expedition] had been discussed and planned in northern Europe before the fleet set out and Bernard of Clairvaux played a leading role in organizing it (494). 39 DEL, 99. Audierat enim per nostros de nostro adventu, qui, in navibus V. a nostra societate segregate. 40 C.J. Bishko, The Spanish and Portuguese Reconquest, 1095-1492 Studies in Medieval Spanish Frontier History (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980), 399. Also, see Hiestand, The Papacy, who calls the second crusade a global

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Bernards crusade and the expedition that sailed from Dartmouth, but there is no clear evidence that they intended to take Lisbon. The decision to fight there was a product of negotiation between commercial interests, crusaders, and the Portuguese monarchy. Raols writing does not indicate a concern for external contexts. For him, the struggle is immediate and internal. The theme that runs through the Bishops sermon, the kings negotiation, the Muslims defense, and the priests exhortation, is the appeal to piety over riches. The Bishops speech begins with a parable of a young man who was told by Christ to sell all he had, for his riches were the source of his sadness. 41 They are reminded of their sacrifice, of leaving behind their wives and children. Yet this sacrifice is a victory over sin, and the reward is the joy of all those present who present a more cheerful face to hardships and pain than we do, we who, alas are vegetating here in slothful idleness.42 This will become a common theme for the war sermon, and it will echo in King Henry Vs battle speech at Agincourt. But in the twelfth century, the righteousness of the foreign adventure was still finding its voice. Here, right intention begins with action, and the answer to the call to arms is a victory over sin. If Raol were indeed writing these sermons after the fact, as an appeal to the next generation of the Glenville family to take the cross, this would have been an attractive image. The Bishops speech also contains a warning against envy, and is illuminative of Raols theme of internal struggle. He is trying to warn his audience that the welfare of the crusader and his associates is one. Perhaps Raol had seen plenty of the damage of discord in his experience on crusade. His admonition uses siege imagery. The entrance to the mind must be guarded with sagacious care, as envy the more stealthily creeps in at the moment of temptation.43 Phillips has pointed out that Fulcher of Chartres and Orderic Vitalis used the themes of envy, pride, and gluttony to explain the disasters of 1107-8.44 Here Raol uses the same themes to explain a success. Before the siege begins, he has the Bishop warn his crusaders of the dangers, and he points out the spiritual opportunities of their sacrifice. In doing so, Raol was able to weave his didactic purposes into his narrative. The struggle between the temporal and the spiritual is reflected in the narratives most famous quote. Raol describes how the Spanish Church has been attacked, the cities destroyed, the people placed under a yoke of grievous servitude.45 His reliance here on Biblical allusions and rhetorical devices betrays Raols unfamiliarity with the specifics of the Portuguese situation. He needs, however, to accentuate the damage done by the enemy, in order to build his case for just war. It is in this segment of the speech that Raol reveals the depth of his education. The teachings of St. Augustine, Jerome, Bernard, Ambrose, and Isidore, et.al., are used to buttress his argument. Mother Church cries out for vengeance, and She can be avenged on the coast of Spain. Therefore be not seduced
enterprise, (37). He also points out the increased activity in Papal chancery charters in 1147 and 1148, significant numbers of which focus on Iberia. 41 DEL, 71. 42 DEL, 72. The whole quotation reads, O quanta omnium hilaritas, quibus ad laborem et penam facies iocundior quam nobis, qui hic heu torpentes segni vacamus otio! 43 DEL, 74. Sollerti igitur custodia muniendus est mentis aditus, et eo observandum callidius quanto in ipso temptationis articulo fallacius surreptit. 44 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 128. 45 DEL, 77, which includes an inaccurate description the population of Oporto. See p. 77, fn. 4.

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by the desire to press on with the journey you have begun, for the praiseworthy thing is not to have been to Jerusalem, but to have lived a good life on the way46 It was noticed as early as the nineteenth century that this passage is a play on words from a letter of St. Jerome to Paulinus, and it was also used by Augustine and other ecclesiastical writers.47 More importantly, it was used by his contemporary, Peter the Venerable, in a letter to Hugh of Chalons.48 It appears to be a straightforward case for right intention. Raol quotes Ambrose on the crusaders duty to their fellow men and Isidore of Sevilles doctrine of just war as that which is waged after a declaration, to recover property, or to repulse enemies.49 Raols argument is careful, and it had to be. He is, in effect, as Phillips has noticed, making the case for Lisbon as the spiritual Jerusalem. 50 There is a sense that he is explaining the diversion of the crusade to himself.51 During a storm in the Bay of Biscay, he admits the possibility that God is punishing them for this perversion of their pilgrimage.52 Despite the strength of Raols argument, this is some fancy footwork. What has been overlooked in this passage is that the desire to go to Jerusalem is portrayed as a seduction. The world of the First Crusade has been turned upside-down, and the desire to liberate the Holy Land is a symptom of wanderlust.53 Raol and his contemporaries had no idea what a Pandoras Box they were opening. If there were a spiritual Jerusalem in Lisbon, there could be many, and they would be sought in Lithuania, in Constantinople, in the Languedoc. The question of what it was to have lived a good life on the way would never, and could never be answered. The spiritual ideal was inextricably bound with the historical context; it could never wriggle away from the immediacy of the situation. The immediate need of the Lisbon expedition was the negotiating skills of King Affonso. The crusaders, apparently unmoved by whatever case was pleaded with them in Oporto, sailed for Lisbon to hear what the King had to offer. They had taken with them as hostages the Bishop of Oporto and the Archbishop of Braga, John (Joao) Peculiar.54
46

DEL, 79. Nulla ergo itineris incepti vos festinationis seducat occasio, quia non Iherosilimis fuisse sed bene interim invixisse laudabile est. For a detailed description of this passage in the context of Holy War theory, see Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 132-3. 47 DEL, 78, fn. 3. Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 131. 48 Phillips Ideas of Crusade, 131, who dates the letter 1146-7. A possible source for Raols knowledge of Islam may have been the work of this influential Cluniac Abbott, who was the first Westerner to translate the Koran. Peter had gone to Spain to collect information on Islam, and an Englishman, Robert of Ketton, had translated much of the Toledan Collection. Some of the earliest information on Islam was circulating in geographical areas and intellectual circles familiar to Raol. For Peters life and work, see James Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (London: Longman, 1996). 49 DEL, 80 quod ex indicato geritur de rebus repetendis aut hostium pulsandorum causa 50 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 131-2. What Raol had done by using Jerome was, in effect, to fit the diversion to Lisbon into existing crusade theory by making it a meritorious part of a penitential journey which could popularly be described as being to the spiritual as well as the earthly Jerusalem. This is a brilliant analysis, but Phillips stops short of suggesting that this is the work of a man who is reflecting on the crusade experience as a whole, and is using the Lisbon success as a way to inspire the next generation of crusaders. 51 R.A. Fletcher attributes the sermon to the Bishop of Oporto but suggested that it was the sermon of a man who had his doubts about crusading. R.A. Fletcher, Reconquest and Crusade in Spain, 1050-1150, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5 (1987), 44. I would argue that Raol is not in doubt about crusading, but about how to explain the success of a crusade that was clearly diverted from the Holy Land. 52 DEL, 61 53 DEL, 72, Videte ne iterum post concupiscentias vestras abieritis. 54 See above, 8 and fn.

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Excited crusaders prematurely disembarked and attacked the western suburb of the city until Saher of Archelle recalled them.55 The pace of events was accelerating, threatening to get out of control. That night a nervous watch was kept, as only the tents of Archelle and Glenville, with a thirty-nine-man contingent, were left on shore. This is our best evidence of Raol as a fighting priest. He is a member of this vanguard, and they celebrated the vigil of St. Peter with their corslets on.56 Affonso arrived on the scene, accompanied by his bishops. After flattering the crusaders on their wealth, he pleaded his own povertyhe could not offer the kind of money that his contemporary, Alfonso VII, could offer to the Genoese. 57 His letter of introduction said we will promise money to your forces so far as the resources of the royal treasury will permit.58 His offer in person was somewhat different, promising to deliver to the crusaders whatever the land possesses, assumedly what land and treasure they could acquire through combat. Then Raols theme resurfaces, when the King hoped that beyond what he had promised, we feel certain that your piety will invite you to the labor and exertion of so great an enterprise more than the promise of our money will encite you to the recompense of booty.59 Raols description of the crusaders response gives us an insight into his feudal, Anglo-Norman background. Not all of the crusaders were invited by their piety. In fact, it appears that the Kings plea of poverty fell on deaf ears, if it fell on many at all. Shouting arose from the mass of gathered crusaders. Affonso Henriques, perhaps wary of this quarrelsome mob, called again for a council of leaders to convene, lest our discourse be disturbed by the shouting of your people.60 After the King discussed his terms, the crusaders reconvened to discuss them. Raol was disdainful, both of this council meeting and of the debate that followed it. Accustomed to the ordered world of the Church and the rigidity of the feudal hierarchy, he recoiled at the boisterous exchange of opinions. His Anglo-Norman bias is also revealed in this episodethe Flemings, feeling the pinch

55

As R. Rogers has put it, the first attack took place as much out of enthusiasm as out of planning on June 30th. R. Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 183. The military details of the siege are outside the scope of this paper. See Rogers, 182-188 for the most useful summary of the military aspects. Rogers work also contains valuable summations of other sieges taking place on the Peninsula during the Second Crusade era. Also see Matthew Bennett, Military Aspects of the Conquest of Lisbon, 1147, in Phillips and Hoch, 7189. Bennett incorporates political and logistical considerations of the siege. 56 DEL, 97. 57 Valuable sources exist for contemporary sieges taking place on the Iberian Peninsula. For the siege of Almeria, see the Poem of Almeria in CAI, 250-63. The De Captione Almerie et Turtuose of the Genoese consul Caffaro is especially useful. Richard Face has called him the first secular historian in Western Europe,and his businesslike reporting of the siege stands in marked contrast to the DEL. In the De Captione, Caffaro mentions that the Genoese netted 60,000 gold morabetinos, as well as booty and slaves. While indicating that the Genoese were also fired with crusade enthusiasm, the corporate nature of the expeditions to Almeria and Tortosa, particularly their planning and execution, stand in marked contrast to the Lisbon adventure (169). For other contemporary Iberian sieges see Simon Barton, A Forgotten Crusade: Alfonso VII of Len-Castile and the Campaign for Jaen (1148), Historical Research 73 (2000) 312-20; and Nikolas Jaspert, Capta est Dertosa, clavis Christianorum: Tortosa and the Crusades, in Phillips and Hoch, 90-110. 58 DEL, 84, peccunie vero sponsionem, si vobis placet, proinde facturi vestris, prout fisci regie potestatis facultas sequeter. 59 DEL, 99. Certi vero hiis, quod vos magis pietas vestra ad laborem studiumque tanti operis invitabit, quam nostre sponsio peccunie ad premium provocabit. 60 DEL, 98. Sed ne populorum conclamationibus vestrorum nostra turbetur oratio

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of want, made a surreptitious deal with the King.61 The debate continued, and a more serious threat to the expedition arose. William Viel, his brother Ralph,
and almost all the men of Southampton and Hastings, together with those who had come to besiege Lisbon five years before this, all with one voice declared that they took the kings promise to be nothing but treachery.62

Evidence for this previous expedition is sparse, although there is mention of it the Chronica Gothorum. It is generally accepted that Affonso had attacked Lisbon in 1142 or 1143 with the help of a fleet of crusaders.63 It appears that English sailing families had participated in this affair and dealt with Affonso, and that their familiarity had bred contempt. They were also aware that opportunities for booty were available further south, at much less cost than that of helping Affonso take Lisbon. Raols language demonizes the Viels, as when he characterized William as breathing out threatenings and piratical slaughter.64 Yet Raol was a thorough enough reporter to note that the sailors reminded the expedition that this was the time that favorable winds would carry them to Jerusalem. The experiences of the English maritime families were an important component of the pre-siege maneuvering.65 Again, the crusade ideal was turned on its head, as those who argued to press on to Jerusalem were depicted as greedy and piratical. Raol, family priest to a feudal magnate, had little understanding of families like the Viels. However, Raol did understand the Glenville family, whom he served, and it is not surprising that a speech of Hervey de Glenville was included in the DEL.66 He is depicted as uniting the discordant Anglo-Norman contingent. (The Flemish and Lotharingians had already taken up their positions on the east side of the city walls.) Whether or not he made such a speech, its inclusion in the narrative served Raols later purpose of inspiring another generation of Glenvilles to take the cross. There are two themes in this speech, one which appeals to Norman racial pride, and another that lays out the doctrine of crusading as an act of love. Hervey extolled the virtue of activity as a remedy to the vice of sloth, recalling the Bishops speech. He appealed to Norman pride, when he noted that even the Scots, whom nobody would deny are barbarians, had faithfully cooperated with the enterprise!67 Those who had objected were cowards and sinners for violating the terms of their association, and thus their desire for booty had brought them dishonor. In the second part, Raol had Hervey plead his own ignorance and inexperience at public speaking, and then had him weave a rather eloquent argument for the virtue of a pilgrimage founded on charity and love, an argument that parallels the writings of St.
61 62

DEL, 101. Not surprisingly, this deal is not mentioned in the Lisbon Letter of Winand to the Bishop of Cologne. DEL, 102, et omnes fere Hamtunenses et Hastingenses, cum hiis qui ante hoc quinquennium urbem Ulyxbonam obsidendam convinerant, omnes uno ore regis [s]ponsionem accipere nichil aliud quam proditionem aiebant. 63 DEL, intro pp. 15-26 gives a history of previous naval activity. For the attack of 1142, see Bishko, 40 Also see Carole Hillenbrand, A Neglected Episode of the Reconquista, Revue des etudes islamiques 54 (1986) 165; Livermore, New History, 54-5, esp. 55, fn. 1; and Bennett, 72. 64 DEL, 103. 65 They would also play an important role in other crusading adventures in Portugal. For a primary source account of the capture of the southern Portuguese port of Silves in 1189. See Narratio de Itinere Navali Pergrinorum Hierosolyman Tendentium et Silviam Capientum, ed. David, American Philosophical Society 81 (1939), 592-676. 66 For the Glenville family, see R. Mortimer, The Family of Ranulf de Glanville, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 54 (1981) 1-18. Hervey is mentioned on page 3. 67 DEL, 107, Quis enim Scottos barbaros esse negit?

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Augustine. He then called on his fellow Normans to resist the seduction of the promise of future profits, and to forego coveting the goods of others. This is a repetition of themes that Raol had already established in the speech of the Bishop of Oporto. The speech of Hervey de Glenville reveals the feudal aspect of Raols personality, and the sophistication of the arguments and repetition of themes hint at his authorship. A unique feature of the DEL is that Raol chose to include a Muslim point of view, or at least his understanding of it. In reply to an opening parley, a Muslim elder responded to the crusaders.68 Phillips has pointed out that he attacked the vices of greed, glory, and ambition, the same vices that both the Bishop of Oporto and Hervey de Glenville had earlier warned against.69 The crusaders, claimed the elder, interfere with our destiny. He continued that in labeling your ambition [a] zeal for righteousness, you misrepresent vices for virtues.70 This is suspiciously similar to the Bishops warning that vices often steal in under the guise of virtues.71 The elder also reminded the crusaders that they had been defeated many times previously, and that God would this time determine the winner.72 His trial-by-battle theme is time-honored, an example of what Tyerman has seen as the confusion of novelty and tradition, the difficulty of distinguishing old practices, motives, and beliefs from the new customs of the crusade.73 The crusaders may have been offered an opportunity at spiritual rebirth, but the road to redemption was paved with ancient stones. While the elder was certain of Divine Justice, he was less certain about the people with whom he was dealing. The restlessness and avarice of the crusaders, their inability to remain at home, honestly befuddled the elder. To him, their actions were insane. Surely your frequent going and coming is proof of an innate mental instability, he claimed, for he who is unable to arrest the flight of the body cannot control the mind.74 While the themes of the speech were Raols, he had also made an astute observation regarding the inhabitants of Al-Ushbun. They must have wondered why God had sent this accursed army from overseas. The Muslims speech was a powerful literary and teaching device. Raol had put into the mouth of the enemy his own warnings about wrong intention. It was a reminder to his audience that the desires of the body for pleasure and gain will run wild if the mind were not attuned to the higher purpose.

68

While Islamic politics on the peninsula are unfortunately outside of the size limitations of this paper, it should be mentioned that changes in the Iberian Islam contributed significantly to the capture of Al-Ushbun. The Almoravids had ruled Portugal from Seville until the 1140s, when they were overthrown in a series of popular uprisings. They were replaced by a series of short-lived taifa kings, to one of whom, Ibn Ben-Wazir, the besieged of Al-Ushbun had appealed for help. The Almohads, a confederation of Berber tribes led by Ibn Tumart and sharing similar fundamentalist views of Islam to the Almoravids, were eventually to sweep into Spain. By the early 1150s, the border of Christian and Muslim Portugal was again the Tagus. But in 1147, the Almohads were preoccupied in taking Marrakesh, the last Almoravid stronghold in North Africa. See Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal (London: Longman, 1978), chapters 7-10. A Muslim account of Ibn Tumart is included in Constable, Medieval Iberia, 185-9, and is followed by an Almohad creed of 1189, 190-197. 69 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 136, whose discussion is followed here. Phillips has pointed out that Raol does not mention how this speech was translated. 70 Both quotes from the DEL, 121. 71 Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 136. The Bishops quote is from the DEL, 76, nam sepe pro virtutibus vitia surrepunt. 72 DEL, 123. 73 Tyerman, Were There any Crusades, 563. 74 DEL, 121. Et certa frequens migratio vestra innata animi instabilitate fore convincitur, quia nec animum continere qui nec corporis fugam sistere valet.

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Raol displayed an awareness of Muslim criticism of Christianity, with what Benjamin Kedar calls remarkable accuracy.75 The besieged were making their first attempts to repel the attack, making offensive sorties through the still open portas of the citadel, taunting the crusaders from the walls. Those on the battlements attacked such tenets of the faith as the veneration of Mary, the idea behind the Trinity, and the Christian belief of Jesus as the greatest of the prophets. Lest the more unsophisticated in his audience fail to follow the theological arguments, Raol castigated the Muslims for defiling the cross with excrement and body fluids and hurling it at the crusaders.76 Scatological literary devices notwithstanding, where did Raol get access to the Muslim perspective? Knowing nothing of Raol outside the DEL and the cemetery donation, it is impossible to tell. But the mid-twelfth century had seen a rise in interest in Islam, most noticeably in the work of Abbott Peter of Cluny.77 If Raol were an influential ecclesiast, as Phillips has suggested, he could have had access to Peters manuscripts. Another possibility is that Raol could have learned something of Islam from his stay in Lisbon, where information would have been far more plentiful than in the Anglo-Norman realm. A third possibility is that Raol made it to the Holy Land, and there obtained his information.78 In any case his, knowledge of Islam reveals a mind that was, by the standards of twelfth-century Europe, unusually well informed and worldly. The last speech is likely a transcription of a battle sermon that Raol preached himself. He wrote that the sermon was delivered by a certain priest, holding a bit of the sacred wood of the cross in his hands.79 It was preached after the final positioning of the Anglo-Norman siege tower on the western wall, where Raol had described himself as a combatant.80 In the speech, he returned to his themes of the dangers of pride and envy. He also pointed out that to combat these tools of the Devil, corrective rather than destructive punishment had been allotted to man, echoing his references to the teachings of Isidore and Augustine.81 The theme of the repentant nature of the crusade reappears, and even the last battle is a chance for rebirth. Therefore show yourselves once more in this undertaking such men as you were when you first arrived here, Raol continued, and I confidently promise you that you will shatter the power of your enemies.82 He further revealed his own role in the siege, when he reminded his comrades that he had been a participant in your trials and labors, and a sharer in your rewards"83 He was also holding a piece of the true cross while spurring his charges forward, and Phillips
75

B.Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 103-4. Kedars examination of medieval historians and their role in Christian-Muslim relations are a valuable contribution. 76 DEL, 132. 77 See above, fn. 39. Also see Kedarespecially his discussion of the conversion motif, 99-112. Peter of Cluny was the first westerner to have commissioned a translation of the Koran. Kritzek, Peter the Venerable, especially the first chapter. 78 For the route of the crusaders after the siege see Constable, A Note on the Route of the Anglo-Flemish Crusaders of 1147, Speculum 28 (1953), 525-6. 79 DEL, 147. 80 Cf. DEL, 135-7 ,where Raol gives a detailed, first hand account of the fighting. 81 DEL, 155. This last sermon also contains a refutation of Islamic criticism, and is discussed by Phillips, Ideas of Crusade, 136. 82 DEL, 155, Exhibite ergo vos iterum ad hoc negotium, quales huc advenistis, et secure promitto vobis hostium vestrorum potentias frangere. Contrast this with the bishop of Oporto, who says to the crusaders that [y]ou were employed with arms and the sword; you were committing acts of pillage and other misdeeds of soldiers, concerning which there is no need now to speak in detail. 83 DEL, 157.

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claims that his possession of such a powerful relic further connects him to the highest ecclesiastical authorities, namely St. Bernard.84 Much of the last sermon in the DEL connects us to the previous speeches, and may further connect Raol to the Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical elite. The siege ended in November of 1147, and little of the conclusion of the narrative displays the crusaders sense of higher purpose. Fights ensued between the Flemish and Norman factions. Pillaging got out of hand, murder and avarice ran rampant. The mutual distrust of the crusaders and Affonso I flared. Appalled by the slaughter, Raol concluded the DEL with a prayer for mercy. Spare now Lord, spare the work of thine hands, he lamented. It is indeed enough that thou hast fought for us thus far against them.85 Kedar has seen the final prayer as a thinly veiled disapproval of the Lords doings at Lisbon.86 This may be the case, but if indeed Raol wrote much of the DEL in the 1160s, this may be the prayer of a man who has seen his share of senseless slaughter, repenting the part he played in it. Raol must have been aware that the leaders of the Church had started a violent process that often proved difficult to control. Giles Constable has conceded that it would be hopeless to expect that in the twelfth any more than in the twentieth [century], contemporary writers could express completely the motives of the men whose actions they describe. Many factors other than those they [the chroniclers] mention must have played an essential partin the campaigns of 1146-8. Moreover, like all medieval sources, these must be studied in the light both of the information available to the writer and the sense of responsibility with which he approached the task. (Italics, Constable.)87 Constables enviable observation applies directly to a study of the DEL. Hopeless as the task of discovering motive may be, the DEL is an overlooked vantage point from which to view the conflicts and tensions of the age. Indeed, many factors played a part in the European capture of Al-Ushbun. The initiative of first Teresa and then Affonso I in building the state of Portugal; the renewed energy of the Reconquista; the struggle of the Almohads, Almoravids, and taifa kings; and the Second Crusade all played a part in the Siege. But historical contexts and long term processes did not often concern the chronicler, and they did not concern Raol. For him, the struggle was internal. He was concerned with the hearts and minds of the crusaders, and he used the entire arsenal of teachings at his disposal to harness their potential for savagery. This paper has argued that his later editing of the DEL reflects his sense of responsibility to the next generation of crusaders in the Glenville family. But the struggle he undertook as he edited his manuscript was not only with his crusader audience, it was with himself. Raol is an embodiment of the contradictory aspects of twelfth-century existence. He was at once a warrior, a priest, a servant of a feudal household, and an influential ecclesiastical thinker. He was grappling with the consequences of violence, with sin, and with right intention, that elusive and tenuous doctrine that was being developed as the philosophical and theological bulwark of the crusade. It is not in the great movements of armies, but in the mind of this too long
84 85

See above, n. 14. DEL, 185. 86 Kedar, Crusade and Mission, 104. 87 Constable, The Second Crusade, 215. He is quoted at length because of the brilliance of his summation, evidence as to why this 1953 article is still required reading for anyone interested in medieval historiography.

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ignored historian that valuable insights into the personal, as well as the political, struggles of the twelfth century are to be found.

Anatomy of a Crusade

oyal Culpability

King James VI and the Scottish Witch Craze of the 1590s

Jared Taylor

he episodic witchcraft hysteria, which swept through Scotland during the 1590s, was the ultimate result of King James VIs personal interests in witchcraft, and his subsequent political maneuvering within the legal system of Scotland. Laws, pamphlets, letters, and books based on superstition and politics were some of the tools James VI used to secure his interests and his kingship. The most powerful device at James disposal, however, came in the form of his personal participation in various witch trials and his sole right as king to set up commissions to investigate witchcraft cases. James definitively direct connection to the North Berwick and Aberdeenshire trials, as well as his fascination with the occult, put all of these devices into proper perspective. Witchcraft trials were the perfect means for carrying out his personal and political aspirations. Other forms of popular media and verbal church dogma in the form of moving sermons during and after James reign as both king of Scotland and England also helped to reinforce his views, and win the support of the populace. The result was an institutionalization of witchcraft that led to the legitimization of the mass burnings within the minds of the people. Acts issued by Scottish monarchs, trial procedures, popular literature, and decisions made by the Privy Council are some examples of useful evidence not directly tied to the King that easily lend themselves to an examination of the witch hysteria in Scotland.1 Many historians have attempted to use these and other sources of evidence to demonstrate the nature of witch-hunting in Scotland and its relation to the Crown. This has usually been in regard to King James VI and his involvement in the North Berwick and Aberdeenshire panics of the 1590s, and the resulting witch craze that lasted from 1591 until 1598. James exact involvement and responsibility have been debated by numerous historical scholars. The most prominent of these historians are Christina Larner, Julian Goodare, Lawrence Normand, Gareth Roberts and P.G. Maxwell-Stuart. While quite varied, all of the interpretations of these authors can be used in conjunction to build a coherent historiography on the subject, as well as explicate the exact nature of King James involvement in the witch craze of the 1590s. The debate concerning the connection between James and witchcraft has its roots in the work of the five historians mentioned. Dividing the hypotheses of these historians into two groups provides a useful starting point for an examination of their significance. Larner and Goodare see James culpability in the episodic witch craze of the 1590s as an ultimate explanation for the panic. His direct participation in the trials, as well as his publications and speeches, are the focus of their studies. James is seen as the instigator of widespread interest in witches. Normand, Roberts and Maxwell-Stuart, on the other hand, regard James as merely one of the proximate explanations of the witch craze. His culpability lies in being one piece of a much larger puzzle of causation. The beliefs of the common people, decisions and actions by local judges and commissions, and trial
1

The Privy Council was a permanent central government council of professional judges granted special commission by the Crown to try serious local criminal cases, including witchcraft.

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procedures are the main foci of these historians. Each of the variables is seen by these writers as being interconnected and equal in terms of causation. Finding a common link between these authors investigations in order to synthesize a balance between their views will be shown to be historically useful in determining James guilt, and backed by the actual data. Public speeches given by the king, books authored by James, popular pamphlets, trial documents including transcripts and dittays, royal grants for legal commissions to hunt witches, and James reputation as seen in the work of popular writers of the time, make up the bulk of historical evidence available on this particular subject. James speeches at both trials and courtly social events demonstrate his immense interest in witchcraft. The publications of both of James books, Daemonologie and The Trew Lawe of Free Monarchies, are evidence of his obsession with his divine right being in potential jeopardy at the hands of diabolical and political agents. Popular pamphlets, such as News for Scotland, helped to fuel the hunting appetite of the commoners, as well as elevate the Kings person to the rank of the divines beloved. Grants for commissions to hunt witches show how his will was done. The works of various authors, including Shakespeare, help to prove that his reputation as a witchmonger was well known at the time. The extent and exact nature of this aspect of the Kings character is undeniable. All of the data taken together support the contention that James was the ultimate cause of the 1590s witch craze in Scotland. A search for connections between ultimate (James aspirations) and proximate (popular superstition and local influence) factors that led to the explosion of witchcraft cases in the 1590s must be empirical. Actual evidence must be compared with the scenarios put forth by historians of the subject. Understanding a complicated maze of causation is not an easy task. A careful juxtaposition of current historical research and the available evidence will provide the necessary framework for a study of King James VI and Scottish witchcraft. The historical work done on James and the witch craze of Scotland has been as varied as it has been prolific. Many historians have at least touched on the topic, but none have arrived at a completely satisfactory explanation of the issue of his exact involvement in the 1591-98 craze. The five historians worth examining divide into those that see a culpable king as an ultimate explanation and those that see a culpable king as only one of many proximate explanations. These views have been heavily argued and defended over the years, which has resulted in a serious scholastic debate full of both insightful historical work and professional mudslinging. Christina Larner has done some of the best work on this subject. She is recognized by most historians as the leading expert on Scottish witchcraft. Larners importance to this discussion lies in her placement of James as the undeniable, perhaps sole, ultimate cause for the 1590s witch craze. She not only claims this, but also argues that James is responsible for the nature of Scottish beliefs on witchcraft after the treason trials in 1590-1, in which he took part.2 Although James did not create the belief in witches and their craft, he helped to reshape cultural definitions of them. There were anti-witch laws and scattered trials before this time, but
2

Christina Larner, Enemies of God (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) and Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief (New York: Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd, 1984). In both of these works, Larner argues that James obtained his notions on witchcraft during his visit to the Danish court in the early part of the 1590s.

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these were not in relation to satanic pacts and the punishments were usually mild.3 However, the involvement of King James finally tipped the scale. By 1591, his intense interest and fear in witchcraft had begun and sustained the hunt, through royal example at the very least. Once many of the accused confessed to a diabolical plot against the King, and James was convinced of its truth, the madness began. The result was that accusations and trials became much more common, and were easily justified. Commoners were more likely to make accusations due to royal sanction. A centrally controlled commission actively searching for witches resulted in the outbreak of a craze. This central commission, under James leadership, did most of the damage. James interest in demonology and his fear of treason combined with other, less prominent, factors to create an increase in the unique, but dangerous legal situations. Witchcraft trials became treason trials, and the tenacity of the trials and interrogations increased as a result.4 By equating treason with witchcraft, James was able to harvest public fear and at the same time cement his divine right in the minds of the people. Julian Goodare agrees with a limited version of this assertion. He argues that James was directly responsible for the hunting peaks in 1591 and 1597; focusing on the latter.5 He relies almost exclusively on the work of Larner for information on the 1591 outbreak, seemingly accepting Larners assertions at face value. The 1597 outbreak, however, is discussed in painstaking detail in at least three separate works, all of which advocate that James was largely responsible for the panic of 1597.6 The main point of separation for these two authors concerns the nature of the craze in between the two major series of events in 1591 and 1597. Goodare places blame on the aspirations of local government officials during this time. He claims that a special central commission did exist, but was quickly set up and disbanded by the Crown during two largely unrelated witch panics. This theory is consistent with how witchcraft was treated in Scotland, both before and after the 1590s. The trials in between the two panics were controlled by local commissions with limited power.7 In other words, Goodare sees two distinct witchcraft trial outbreaks. More specifically, he argues that the nature of witch-hunting during the time lapsed between these events is not much different then those that took place before and after the North Berwick and Aberdeenshire panics. He goes on to claim that the rest of the burnings of the decade were fueled by peasant interests. This was due to the power of trial being handed over to local authorities in addition to their own political games and aspirations.8 James began the craze but others carried it through until 1597, when the king
3

Buckland, Raymond. The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism (Michigan: Visible Ink Press, 2002), 423-9. 4 Larner, Witchcraft, 10. 5 Goodare, Julian, The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 11. Goodares explanation of James book, Deamonolgie, illustrates his view well. He claims, James had composed his book...as a response to the previous witchcraft panic of 1590-1, but revised and published it in 1597 as a contribution to the debates generated by the events of that year. 6 These works include Goodares The Aberdeenshire Witchcraft Panic of 1597, Northern Scotland 21 (2001): 17-37; The Framework for Scottish Witch-Hunting in the 1590's, The Scottish Historical Journal 81.2 (October 2002): 240250; and Witch-hunt in Context, 51, 62. 7 Goodare, Framework. These local commissions are falsely said to have acted purely in their own self-interest. 8 Goodare, Aberdeenshire.

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was once again intimately involved. Such an assertion, though largely inaccurate, leads well into a discussion of the historians that argue that James was only one of many proximate explanations for the burnings. A discussion and examination of the argument for James VI as a proximate cause of the Scottish witch craze during the 1590s must begin with the work of Normand and Roberts. Their collection and commentary on the craze in Scotland is some of the best work on the subject. These historians argue that James was part of the cause in an indirect way. They state that responsibility for the 1591 witch hunt cannot be attributed to one man, even if he was a king [James VI]. In the North Berwick witch hunt, as in most European witch hunts, there was also coalescence between longstanding popular beliefs and the agencies for enforcing social and religious conformity.9 Furthermore, Normand and Roberts argue that the witch craze had its cause in the personage of the King, as well as in other things, including traditional beliefs and power-hungry local officials. They are correct in that more than one cause existed for the witch craze, and that King James was one of them. Additionally, they argue that the trials were conducted through a network of political elites under the King. James delegated power out and had a keen interest in the outcome of numerous trials, but most of the details of the hunts were orchestrated by governmental commissions, which in turn handed power over to local nobles and barons.10 These views merely set James up as only piece of the larger picture. James interest and own fear sparked the craze, but the craze was fueled by a conglomeration of factors, including local beliefs and the behavior of barons and other low-level elites. However, mapping out a hierarchy or chain of causation, beginning with the instigation of the events and ending with the social justification used to alleviate them, is what is needed to arrive at a proper historical explanation of the killings. Local commissions may have done a significant amount of the damage between the two major peaks of the craze, but it was always at the behest of the Crown. Maxwell-Stuarts historical work on this issue is markedly different from all the other historians presented. His closest connection is to Normand and Roberts, but only on the grounds that he too gives James a proximate place in the cause of the witch craze in Scotland. This is perhaps due to the fact that he spends much more time on the events surrounding 1597, which did not completely focus on the King in terms of plots against him. Maxwell-Stuart argues that the local elites of the Kirk rather than James or his book fostered and ignited the trials of 1597.11 He argues that the leaders of the Kirk used peasant fears of witchcraft to get the Crowns attention and subsequent approval. Winning the Kings favor meant more money and power for local rulers. This may have been part of how the craze developed, but does not detract from the fact that James began craze in 1591 and that his interest in witchcraft kept the craze alive.
9

Lawrence Normand and Gareth Roberts, eds. Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VIs Demonology and the North Berwick Witches (Exeter, Great Britain: Short Run Press, 2000), 4. 10 Normand and Roberts, eds. Witchcraft, 89-106. This entire chapter covers the legal processes under James at the time of the North Berwick panic. 11 Some argument has been put forth regarding the use and meaning of this word in order to discredit certain views. This authors research suggests that this term refers to the politico-social elites of the country-side, or nobles outside of the direct pay of the royal court. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, Satans Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (London, 2001). The book reference is to Daemonolgie and its connection to the peak of 1597, which he adamantly denies, despite the evidence.

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The most unusual departure Maxwell-Stuart takes from most other historians is in the idea that there actually was a cult of witches in operation in Aberdeenshire and elsewhere.12 He offers an assortment of weak evidence on this fact. He merely dances around the issue with lofty talk of the details from confessions as though they are completely reliable, factual accounts. Talk of elaborate drug use to produce hallucinations and secret meetings with wild dancing, drinking and sex are supposed events that are discussed uncritically by the author.13 This notion is rightly mocked by almost all respectable historians; there is simply no real evidence to support it. He also makes the dubious claim that the 1597 craze was not a craze at all but rather part of a constant level of persecutions around this time.14 No other historian agrees with Maxwell-Stuart on this issue because it is a gross misunderstanding of the data. The evidence of an increase in the number of trials during this year is enormous and valid.15 A synthesis of the different histories explained must be created to put the role of James into proper perspective. Building a coherent juxtaposition of these hypotheses will result in a better explanation of the Scottish witch craze of the 1590s. Larner provides a foundation and starting point for James as the ultimate cause. She offers a guide through the happenings of the craze, and the evidence used to support it all points to James as instigator. Goodare connects the ultimate to the proximate in terms of James obsession and local interest. His explanation consists of seeing the causation of the craze switching back and forth between the Crown and local elites. Each cause both ignited and responded to commoner accusations and hysteria. James can be seen as a ringleader of a witch-crazed circus. Normand and Roberts provide a useful foil in relation to local judicial procedure and influence. James is merely another part of the larger conglomeration of factors including traditional peasant fears and specific legal procedures. Detailed explanations of how power diffused from the King sheds light on his role in the hierarchy of causation. Maxwell-Stuart agrees that James was involved in the witch trials of the 1590s, but was not the cause of the hysteria of the time. The supposed existence of the witch sects is instead alluded to. None of these historians outright deny James connection to the issues. The debate centers on the depth of his culpability and the exact nature of the legal procedures. A careful juxtaposition of these hypotheses suggests that James personal and political interests and behavior began, as well as justified, the craze, and that it continued with the actions of the local Kirk officials, whose aspirations were shaped by the legal procedures and common beliefs already in place before the 1590s. In order to make complete sense

12

Margaret Murray and Raymond Buckland are the only exceptions this author is familiar with. The latter has been used in this discussion for his work on Scottish witchcraft in general and James in particular, but also due to his expertise on actual witchcraft practice and its possible connection to these events, regardless of whether an actual historical connection exists or if the links were dreamed up after the fact. 13 Maxwell-Stuart, Satans Conspiracy: Magic and Witchcraft in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (London, 2001). 14 Maxwell-Stuart, Witchcraft and the Kirk in Aberdeenshire, 1596-97." Northern Scotland. 18 (1998): 13. 15 Larner provides quantitative tables of trials in Enemies of God that show a peak in 1597 during the larger craze. George Black has also compiled case documents that show the same increase in his work, A Calendar of Witchcraft in Scotland, 1510-1727 (New York: Arno Press Inc, 1971). There are also other primary sources that contain collections of trials that disprove this claim, such as the Miscellany of the Spalding Club.

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of the differences and similarities between these ideas, and to formulate an argument in favor of James as an ultimate cause, one must look to the actual evidence. It is not exactly clear when James first became interested in witches. Evidence suggests that he was first introduced to demonology during his trip to Denmark to receive his wife. The hysteria over witches in Denmark coincided with his stay, hence he learned about the continental ideas on demonology, such as diabolical magic and the supposed connection witches had with Satan.16 Conflicting views have been put forth by different historians that suggest his interest in witchcraft began in childhood, but little proof has been offered. For the most part, all historians agree that when James returned from his trip and heard about the rumors of a group of witches planning his assassination, he immediately became fascinated with the subject. The trouble began when a North Berwick woman, Geillis Duncan, confessed under torture that she and others had been working together against the king. Her implication of the local schoolmaster, John Fian, and his subsequent confession, caught the whole kingdoms attention.17 The trial of Fian took place on December 26, 1590. His confession reads, filed for assembling himself with Satan at the kings returning from Denmark, where Satan promised to raise a mist and cast the kings Majesty in England.18 Both of these trials had James fairly concerned, but he was not convinced of the power of witches to truly harm him. He may have been afraid for his kingship, but probably not for his life. This is evidenced by the fact that James accused the witches of lying in early January of 1591. However, another witch named in the plot, Agnes Simpson, turned the tide of his belief. James was present at her confession and was unconvinced of the truth of her story until she whispered details of his wedding night to him.19 Once James was convinced that her story was true, and that witchcraft was a powerful and potentially deadly force, he became much more intimately involved in the trials. Fian and Sampson also implicated the Earl of Bothwell, the kings cousin, in the plot to kill him, claiming that he was the head master of the coven of witches. Bothwell proved difficult to control and punish by escaping from prison and mounting efforts to usurp the Kings power. He was finally dealt with years after the fact. In his trial, Bothwell was accused of plotting against the king through treacherous and diabolical means, was found guilty of treason and exiled.20 The involvement of Bothwell and his obvious intention to usurp the throne pushed James interest in witchcraft into new directions, and the conduction of the trials with a new enthusiasm that meant more blood would be shed.

16

Larner, Enemies, 13. It has been suggested that James meeting with the Danish theologian and witch-hunter, Hemmingius, helped peak his intrigue into the occult. 17 Buckland, 425. 18 Normand and Roberts, 228. The transcripts provided by these authors are highly detailed, edited and referenced. The case of Dr. Fian is also covered extensively in News from Scotland. Also see, J. Stuart, ed., Miscellany of the Spalding Club (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1841). 19 Henry Charles Lea, Materials Towards A History of Witchcraft (New York: Thomas Yoseloff Ltd, 1957), vol. 1-3, 1331. 20 Black, A Calendar, 24; and Normand and Roberts, 21-4, 281-7.

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The whole of the North Berwick situation peaked James interest tremendously, causing him to become obsessed with witches and demonology for the next six to seven years. He quickly became the principal overseer of the trials, tortures, and confessions of numerous witches. James felt that his divine right as king had, and was continuing to be, threatened. In a speech at the trial of Barbara Napier he explained to jurors that they must take the crime of witchcraft very seriously by following his lead and equating it with treason. As king, James believed that his judgment was to be respected and understood. He stated, God hath made me a King and judge to judge righteous judgement.21 Later on in his speech, James continued, as for them who thinke these witchcraftes to be fantacyes, I remmyt them to be catechised and instructed in these most evident poyntes.22 Evidence of his involvement also comes from his public announcements such as, whatsoever hath bene gotten from them (witches) hath bene done by me my selfe.23 Bragging of this sort fits well with the idea that he was obsessed with his divine right as King and as a warrior for the Almighty. Handing out verdicts, or at least demanding them, and the speeches given at certain trials, directly link James to the hysteria of the 1590s. As James became more deeply involved in the trials, his personal interest in witchcraft grew into political motive. King James VIs political maneuvering within the legal system of Scotland began with the passing of new legislation. This new legislation was mostly in the form of commissions set up to hunt witches. These commissions usually divvied out power to bureaucratic authorities to seek out and capture suspected witches. A letter written by a Scottish government official in February 1591 discusses a commissioner sent to England to locate escaped witches, the King desires their apprehension and offers to send David Seaton of Treanent, who knows them, to search them out.24 This same official wrote another letter in March, concerning another group of witches, the witches lately taken in Ingland and comytted to safe custody in Barwicke is delyvered into Scotland agreeable to the Kings desyre; wherewith the King is well pleased.25 These letters undoubtedly demonstrate James concern with hunting witches. Further powers and responsibilities for prosecuting witches were also granted to the Privy Council. The King allowed the Privy Council, with the help of the parliament and the church, to establish edicts, acts, and laws to deal with witch accusations. In response, the council created numerous commissions on how to conduct witch hunts and trials. 26 However, it has been argued that most of the commissions gave power directly to local nobles and barons to find possible suspects, and that this resulted in their aspirations

21

Larner, Enemies, 13-14. The real significance of this trial and speech document reprinted by Larner is that the jurors originally found Napier not guilty. James did not agree with this verdict and over turned it. 22 James Craigie, ed., Minor Prose Works of King James VI and I (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., 1981), 191. The points he refers to are the beliefs in the diabolical nature of witchcraft that was becoming the norm in Scotland since his return from Denmark. He called on people to believe, convict and to support his judgment. 23 Stuart Clark, ed., King Jamess Daemonolgie: Witchcraft and Kingship, in The Damned Art (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 159. This quote is directly cited from Clarks text, where he used it to prove the same point. However, the name of the person whose trial this was announced at is omitted. 24 Black, 24. Seaton was an influential sheriff who was friendly with the King. 25 Black, 24. 26 Goodare, Framework, 241-2. These were always approved by the Crown before being put into affect.

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being the most important fuel behind the burnings.27 Whether or not direct local or central control ruled the day in most cases, such forms of legislation as set up by the Crown proved useful in keeping the witch hunts under some type of central governmental control. These legal changes, however, were not enough to necessarily convince the public or shire legal officials and sheriffs that the trials and executions were justified. It would be both public and personal publications that would allow James to completely ignite the fire of persecution. The publication of the pamphlet, News from Scotland, was directly aimed at persuading the public to adhere to and participate in the hunting and trying of witches. It paints a picture of James as a godly man with a deep concern for witchcraft and the work of the devil. James excitement and fascination with witchcraft was illustrated by descriptions of his participation in certain trials, these confessions made the King in a wonderful admiration, and sent for ye said Geillis Duncane, who vpon the like Trump did playe the said daunce before the Kings Maiestie, who in respect of the strangenes of these matters, tooke great delight to be present at their examinations.28 This certainly would have had the effect of justifying witch hunting by royal sanction in the minds of the average Scot. Designed to be a propaganda tool by also casting James in the light of a righteous and godly man who fights against the legions of the devil, this pamphlet easily inflamed the passions of the people.29 The sensationalism that accompanied the idea of Satan himself in combat with James was enough to drive the populace into justified frenzies. Another excerpt from News from Scotland puts the purpose of this publication into proper perspective:
And trulie the whole scope of this treatise dooth so plainely laie open the wonderfull prouidence of the Almightie, that if he had not bene defended by his omnipotencie and power, his Highness had neuer returned aliue in his voiage fro Denmarke; so that there is no doubt but God woulde as well defend him on the land as on the sea, where they pretended their damnable practise.30

The propaganda in this publication shows how King James used everything at his disposal to make sure he was respected and obeyed. The influence of this pamphlet on the people of Scotland was certainly one that portrayed James as the rightful and divinely inspired leader of Scotland, and perhaps the whole of Britain. People began to see their king as more than a man: he was not only a servant of God, he was also a vessel of holiness. This document was not the only instrumental publication to convince people of the seriousness of witchcraft. King James VIs treatise on demonology, witchcraft, and the devil, the Deamonologie, was one of the most unique and influential books ever produced by a
27 28

Normand and Roberts, 92-4. G.B. Harrison, ed., King James the First, Daemonologie (1597), News from Scotland (1591). (New York: Barnes and Noble Inc., 1966), 14. 29 Normand and Roberts, 290, 306. Other historians who agree with this notion include Clark, Larner, and Jenny Wormald. See Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland 1470-1625 (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1981). 30 Harrison, 29.

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European monarch. The nature of the work is quite illuminating by proving James preoccupation with witchcraft. Published in 1597, the books purposes were to refute skeptics of witchcrafts power, prove the witchcraft-treason connection, and to demonstrate Jamess intellectual strength and religious importance.31 James does all of this and promotes his authority illustrated in a passage from his Deamonologie: but in the end to spare the life, and not strike when God bids strike, and so seuerelie punish in so odious a fault & treason against God, it is not only vnlawful but doubtlesse no less a sin. . . And so comparable to the sin of Witch-craft it selfe.32 Witchcraft is exclaimed as treason, and without a doubtthis was a crime. God and his divine servant, the King, would save the people from this threat as long as they believed and remained obedient. The obviousness of James attempt at controlling the publics interest in order to stir their fury is an important example of how he used witchcraft to further his political agenda. His book is a prime example of an attempt at creating a complete hegemony of knowledge on demonic matters. Royal sanction in all its forms paved the way for increased public suspicion. The resulting hysterias suggest that the populace was loyal to the King and quick to accept scapegoats. The influence of the Deamonologie was apparently so strong that in the city of Aberdeen a wave of turmoil caused the deaths of twenty-three suspects as a result of the books publication.33 By advocating his importance and explaining how witchcraft was an element of treason, James easily turned the attention of the public to witches rather than to himself directly. He became a victim and a divine ruler at the same time. James deep concern with the legitimacy of his rule caused him to write another important book, The Trew Lawe of Free Monarchies.34 In this short treatise, he attempted to explain the power and place of kings over their subjects. He wanted to emphasize the divine right of kings, and its subsequent meaning in terms of locally controlled power and/or the growing concern over the necessity of a secularized ruling system. The King saw himself as directly connected to God. To him, monarchie [was] the true pattern of Diuinitie.35 This bold statement set him up as divine ruler. James basically used his book to spread ideas that granted him further authority in all matters of state and law. He writes:
Out of the Law of God the duety, and allegeance of the people to their lawful King, their obedience, I say, ought to be to him, as to Gods Lieutenant in earth, obeying his commands in all things, except directly against God, as the commands of Gods minister, acknowledge him as a Judge set by God ouer them, hauing power/to judge them, but be judged onely by God, whome to onelie he must guie count of his judgement; fearing him as their judge; louing as their father, praying for him as their protector; for his continuance, if he be good; for
31

This is admitted by James himself in the opening of Daemonologie in regard to Reginald Scots The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Many historians including those discussed have picked up on this as evidence of the books main purpose. For more on Scots The Discoverie, see Harrison. Also see, Miscellany of the Spalding Club, 156-7. 32 Harrison, 78. 33 Michael Kerrigan, The Instruments of Torture (London: Amber Books Ltd, 2001), 78. Both Larner and Goodare seem to support this claim in their discussions on the book. 34 The Trew Lawe of Free Monarchies was published in 1598, only one year after Deamonologie. 35 Craigie, 60. James claimed that this authority came straight from scripture.

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his amendment, if hee bee wicked; following and obeying his vnlawfull, without resistance, but by sobbes and tears to God. 36

This long passage sums up the entire position of James on his divine right as King and protector of the people. People are to obey, love and acknowledge their King without question, regardless of his behavior. Scots could overcome doubt and social guilt for killing witches by taking these words and their meanings seriously. This powerful statement was the final justification needed to follow the royal example in all things, including witch hunting, as advocated by the King in the previous years.37 Other tools of persuasion and proof of James influence and reputation come in the form of popular sermons and literature. A 1591 sermon advocated the Kings right to execute justice on witches, but warned that it might be a hazard to his health and well being.38 People recognized James fascination with, and the danger of, witchcraft. As a result, this could easily be used to create particular ideas in the minds of the populace. Fiery speeches from the local pulpit have a long history of such influence. Such notions were then used to James advantage by continuing to encourage the idea of his divine right and the peoples obligation to help capture and try suspected witches. The reputation of James as a witchmonger had also reached England. It has been suggested that Shakespeares inclusion of witches and their craft in Macbeth may have been an attempt to please his new King, and that the playwright actually drew on James experiences in 1591 to help create his drama.39 However, this is not known for sure, and is merely a speculation based on the date, content and history of James and Shakespeares works. The personal crises of James life mirrored those of both Scotland and England, hence his popular reputation. By being a hands-on ruler in terms of the certain political and social issues of his time, including witchcraft, religious dissent and economic unrest, James was unlike any other previous monarch. He is the perfect representation of rationalistic ideology fused with religious fury in the minds of Scottish witchmongers, because he helped to create and proliferate it. To discover the roots of the witch beliefs that James reshaped, as well as the reasons for the later branching out of his ideas, a brief regression into the Scottish treatment of witchcraft before and after James must be discussed. Scotlands witchcraft hysteria began late in comparison to the rest of Europe. The earliest cases on record come from the mid 1400s. This is probably about the same time that the belief in magical witches reached Scotland from the European mainland. However, there were only a few isolated trials and executions until the beginning of the sixteenth century.40 It was not until the 1560s that a rise in the number of systematic trials began. This rise was undoubtedly linked to acts passed or supported by the Scottish
36 37

Craigie, 69. It should be noted that the lower, illiterate classes would still have been aware of James publications and its contents. Information was spread throughout towns by gossip and Sunday sermons. The work of all the historians discussed demonstrate this well. 38 Larner, Witchcraft, 8. Protestant church leaders promoted James witch policy during and after the 1590s craze. 39 James became King of England in 1603.Marion Gibson, Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550-1750 (New York: Cornell University Press, 2003), 113. 40 Buckland, 423-4. Larner agrees with this, see Witchcraft, 23.

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crown. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 was ratified by Queen Mary in 1565. This act was a collection of a number of articles put together by the Scottish Assembly. The act called the practice of witchcraft a horrible crime and equated it with sorcery and enchantment.41 In addition, the Witchcraft Act was apparently modeled after the Continental Witchcraft Doctrine that identified a witch as anyone who had entered into a secret pact with the devil.42 However, few prosecutions took place before James came to the throne. The endorsement of the belief in magical witches, and their connection to the devil by the Scottish government, helped to stir the publics fear and mistrust of strange persons. James own Witchcraft Act of 1604 solidified this in the minds of his subjects.43 The result of James mixed character and his strong conviction of the evil of witchcraft was the creation of a social institution against witchcraft. This belief became instilled in Scottish culture. Witches were seen as the ultimate enemy of both God and the emerging state. These new ideas were further instilled into society by the church through the actions of individual priests. The 1626 publication of the Compendium Maleficarum is one example of a church document against witchcraft that became popular in Scotland, although it was not produced there.44 It was most likely used as a how-to guide for conducting trials. The book promoted the belief that witches were devil worshipers and worked magic. It also included directions on how to identify, capture, punish, and remove the spells of a witch.45 The use of this religious work was often accompanied by moving sermons. These sermons, by local priests, were the most important external tools that helped James beliefs to be resounded and his political resolutions to be accomplished even after his death. Moving sermons were just as important in the continuation of the episodic witch hysteria of Scotland many years after James rule as they were during his reign. A sermon in 1697 by an important and renowned priest is a great example of the church promoting the witchcraft hysteria in Scotland. In the sermon the speaker draws a correlation between treason and witchcraft, whatever Lawfull means may be used to bring a person guilty of treason against the King to a confession the same is necessary to bring a witch to confession.46 This source shows the powerful influence James had on the church and, in turn, the church on his subjects. The trend begun by James and carried on by the church had an enormous impact on the people of Scotland. More than a hundred years later his claims were still being used as examples, and the public was still willing to murder out of fear and superstition. This is especially evident in the episodic hysterias that broke out after James had died.

41

Black, 21. This was before James became King of England, but it still had a tremendous influence on how witchcraft was seen in both kingdoms. 42 Larner, Witchcraft, 24. 43 Gary K. Waite, Heresy, Magic, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 176-7. This revision worked in the idea of treason. However, once King of England, James paid little attention to witchcraft cases, due to most having nothing to do with the new addition. 44 Buckland, 94, 426-8. 45 Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Maleficarum (Secaucus: University Books, 1974). 46 Geo Neilson, ed., A Sermon on Witchcraft in 1697, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology: Witchcraft in Scotland (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1992), 378-7, 398. Sermons similar to this were espoused throughout the kingdom before, during and after James reign. Unfortunately, few were recorded or have survived.

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The worst outbreaks of violence and madness occurred in the 1620s and 1660s. In the 1620s there were more than 170 witchcraft cases recorded. 47 However, it was during the early 1660s that Scotland experienced the worst witch hunt in its history, with more than 206 accusations. The panic started in Edinburgh and quickly spread to the rest of Scotland.48 Trials took place across all of Scotland and were almost exclusively presided over by the Privy Council at this point. The installation of treason into the crime of witchcraft by King James was undoubtedly an important aspect of why these frenetic witch hunts happened as they did. The Privy Council played a large role in administering trials and handing down judgments as James had sequestered them to do years earlier.49 An indictment of a witch would usually begin with the accuseds supposed crimes laid out, such as this example from 1633: Intrat upon pannell Marion Richart, alias Layland, for the pointis of witchcraft, sorcerie, and divination, and utheris uderwrittin.50 The indictment then goes on to discuss in detail the exact crimes that the accused had committed, and how she was to be punished. The continued centralization of the prosecution process is more evidence of James lasting influence on Scottish legal protocol in terms of witchcraft. The trials became the political tools of the Privy Council just as they had been for King James. The actions of the council prove that witch hunts were almost always centrally controlled in Scotland after James reign. King James role in the persecutions of witches is obvious when the evidence is scrutinized. The witchcraft hysteria that took place in Scotland in the 1590s was almost solely the fault of the King. His speeches, books, commissions, and participation in the trials of several suspected witches helps to prove this connection. The periodic witch hunts that followed over the next hundred years can also be traced back to James and his concern for his health and his kingship. The idea of treason and witchcraft as equal to one another was probably the most significant contribution of James to Scotlands view of witches and witchcraft. His strange fascination with the practice of demonology and paganism produced terrible consequences. The murder of hundreds of people, coupled with mass fear and hysteria were directly caused and/or inspired by King James wellknown obsessions. Personal and public publications, along with the attitudes of popular church clergy members, helped to justify his attitudes and the hysteria. King James VI was the final agency for enforcing conformity to secure his own ends. Every possible chain of causation for the 1590s panic ultimately leads back to the king. James direct connection to and involvement in the witch trials strongly indicate that he was ultimately responsible for the Scottish witch craze. However, a conglomeration of factors were involved, with some more important than others, including local officials ambitions and the traditional supernatural beliefs of the Scots.
47 48

Black. There are certainly more cases whose trial transcripts have been lost, or were not conducted legally. Brian P. Levack, The Great Scottish Witch-Hunt of 1661-1662, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology: Witchcraft in Scotland (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1992), 256-8. 49 Black, 34-45. Also see Michael Wasser, The Privy Council and the Witches: The Curtailment of Witchcraft Prosecutions in Scotland, 1597-1628, The Scottish Historical Review. 82.1 (April 2003): 20-5. This evidence comes from the commissions themselves, thereby demonstrating the change in the control of the trials by this time. The role of the Privy Council in the witch hysterias of Scotland is somewhat conflicting. The Council seems to have both supported and discouraged the zealous accusations against people without direct evidence of guilt. 50 A Scottish Indictment, in C. Lestrange Ewen, ed., Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (New York: Barnes & Noble Inc, 1971), 286-90.

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Both the King and his subjects perceived their misfortunes in terms of diabolical agents. Additionally, they were interested in political security and economic prosperity. These facts combine with the direct historical evidence to show that the panic of the 1590s was sparked by James and was continuous due to his publications, speeches and his support from the Protestant establishment. A new definition of witches and their craft, created by King James VI, was the perfect excuse for the king, the bureaucracy and the common people to hunt and kill suspected evildoers. Continued research emphasizing a synthesis of all the ideas on this topic in reference to the available evidence and current historical and historiographical work is needed to arrive at a more formal conclusion on the nature of the witch hysteria in Scotland. Information on James VI is of great importance to early modern history. He was unique among monarchs both publicly and privately. An exploration of his character and behavior will provide a more accurate picture of sixteenth century Scottish beliefs. Empathy for those murdered can be used to grasp a better understanding of the political organization under James VI, the nature of humanity, and the consequences of the unknown in history.

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rials and Troubles

Organization, Cooperation, and Administration in the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp

Thomas Dorrance
GRADUATE WINNER OF THE JOHN MULLIN PRIZE

erhaps the most visible element of Californias Depression Era experience, migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas came to represent a generalized experience of hardship victimization symbolized by their constructed moniker of Okie. This epitaph contained within its layered meanings converging historical forces of race, time and location. The oppressive realities of Californias agricultural labor system did not emerge in response to this influx of desperate workers. Instead these migrants simply became the most visible participants of an agricultural system, which had long been the hidden underbelly of Californias remarkable prosperity. Walter Stein argues that these migrants intruded upon an agricultural system that contravened every myth in the Jeffersonian pantheon, and they served as unwitting publicists for those who found Californias agriculture and its social effects unsound.1 Products of the Great Depression, these migrants also became victims of an already established economic system. Derided, glorified, and patronized, this heterogeneous group actively participated in a dynamic process of assimilation and identity formation. This process acted at a heightened level in the governments migrant labor camps, operating between 1935 and 1940. All of the conflicting currents of thought that formed the Okie epitaph converged within the physical space of the government camps.2 The camp at Arvin operated throughout the period of migrant fervor and its changing dynamics illustrate the complex reactions to the migrant problem exhibited by federal and state reformers and by the migrants themselves. Administrative officers and camp managers wrestled with questions concerning the nature of the camps and of migratory labor. These questions never found resolution, as camp programs varied from those designed to limit tenancy to those aimed at establishing some level of stability within the camps confines. The migrants residing in the camps reacted to an evolving administrative structure and to different camp managers in a manner reflective of their diverse character. Some embraced the traditional values that James Gregory refers to as Plain-Folk Americanism, while others flirted with the radical possibilities of an organized agricultural proletariat.3 The camp itself withstood these divergent forces and incorporated them into an evolving institutional structure sensitive to the changing personalities of its participants. The campers, camp managers, and federal and regional directors operated in dialogue with each other. Ideally, these three groups existed in symbiotic balance. Changes in personnel and administrative purpose upset this balance and the ensuing tensions shaped the camps development over time. Although it did not progress toward any singular goal, the resulting narrative illustrates a nuanced process of compromise and conflict.
1 2

Walter Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973), xi. I use the term Okie here to represent the stereotypical characteristics attached to the southwestern migrants by those reacting to their presence in California. For the remainder of the article I will use the term migrant to describe the peoples escaping the dust bowl conditions of the Southwest as a term that lacks the pejorative connotations associated with Okies. 3 James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 139.

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An investigation of Californias experience during the Great Depression helps to move the focus of examination away from federal deliberations of relief in Washington, D.C. and toward the implementation of those programs in local settings. California remained relatively immune to the industrial strife of the Great Depression. However, the impact of the Depression on the agricultural sector of Californias economy created an indelible image of suffering that challenged the very core of the American dream. Extremist responses to the influx of migrant farmers emerged from both sides of the political spectrum. This interplay of responses exemplifies the political volatility that characterized the general climate of the Depression Era United States.4 This regional context does not further an exceptionalist depiction of California during the Great Depression, but instead demonstrates the plasticity of New Deal relief during its implementation within the specifics of various local climates. The migrant camp program emerged in response to the unique demands California faced during the Depression and evolved, in part, according to its increasing integration into the federal relief program. One of two camps originally created as demonstrations for a more elaborate government camp system, Arvin became a model for all later camps. Constructed in the later half of 1935 on forty acres of land in Kern County, Arvin offered a healthy sanctuary to migrants who would otherwise have resided in private grower camps or roadside squatter camps. Originally the camp consisted of tent spaces built around common sanitary facilities that provided hot water for showers and sinks for laundry. The government later constructed tin houses that provided more protection from rain and wind but became uncomfortably warm during the hot summer months.5 The camp also provided such common facilities as a first aid center, a community building, and an outdoor dance floor. Arvin had its faults; camp life certainly compared unfavorably to living in ones own home, but it did mitigate some of the harsher features of the migrant labor system in California. Historians have found it difficult to resist judging the migratory labor camp program as either a success or a failure. Most have pointed to displays of apathy by the campers, attitudes of condescension among reformers, or the inability of its administrators to radically mobilize the migrants as signs of failure. Each of these elements surfaced periodically during the camps operation, but none sufficiently encapsulate the nature of camp culture. Whether researching from the top down or constructing the migrant experience from the bottom up, historians have frequently depicted Arvins diverse population as monolithic. This tendency masks the conflict that lies at the heart of Arvin. Walter Steins California and the Dust Bowl Migration exemplifies the top down approach. His work remains fundamental to any understanding of the interaction between
4

Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), vii-viii. 5 For a good overview of daily life in the camps see Brian Q. Cannon, Keep on a-going: Life and Social Interaction in a New Deal Farm Labor Camp (Arvin Migratory Labor Camp, Kern County, California) Agricultural History 70, 1 (1996).

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the federal and state administrators of migrant relief. Stein shows that the decentralized structure of the Resettlement Administration (which later evolved into the Farm Security Administration) allowed the local administrators of Region IX to construct a relief program that more closely fit the unique conditions of Californias agricultural structure. Stein remarks, By extending RAs specific goals to the programs larger implied meaning, the directors of Region IX turned from the problems of tenantry and rural poverty to that of migratory labor in California.6 Stein, however, does not extend this nuanced analysis to the actual migrants who benefited from the camp. These migrants were instead pawns, acted upon by the liberal and conservative forces in California.7 Within this context, Stein portrays a general decline in camp activity emerging from an apathetic camper population as proof of the camps unsuccessful experiment in planned democracy.8 The camps greatest contribution was as an important vehicle of assimilation that allowed those in the neighboring towns to see the migrants as more human than the miserable forms that had earlier camped on their roadsides.9 Striving to explore the middle ground between elite impressions of migrant culture and the actual culture, Charles Shindos Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination offers another perspective on those administering relief and chronicling the lives of the migrants. 10 However, instead of exploring the dialogue between these groups, Shindo attempts to amplify the manner in which the migrants were acted upon to create an image of generalized Depression victims. Shindo relies almost exclusively on James Gregorys depiction of migrant culture in American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California, as evidence of the gulf between reformers and migrants. However, Gregory is after something more elusive than a simple demonstration that all migrants subscribed to a belief in Plain-Folk Americanism. He argues instead that this was a dominant cultural trait that evolved through the interplay of Southwestern values and the external pressures of a hostile California environment.11 Gregory adds depth to the more superficial descriptions of Dust Bowl migrants, showing that migrant culture emerged through a range of responses to the unique circumstances this diverse group faced in the agricultural regions of Depression Era California. Gregory aspires to more than a simple investigation of the relationships in one government camp, and he succeeds in presenting a balance to Steins comprehensive study. However, a more focused examination of the camp at Arvin can provide a bridge between these two works by illustrating the connections between reformers intentions and migrant culture. These larger works must make practical decisions that sacrifice complexity at times in order to construct a more general narrative. Because these authors do not focus on the camps themselves, they tend to evaluate the camps according to more overarching goals. Gregory points to paternalist and condescending attitudes among camp workers as contributing to the sense of otherness and inferiority that characterized Californias

6 7

Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 149. Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, xi. 8 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 162. 9 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 186. 10 Charles J. Shindo, Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1997). 11 Gregory, American Exodus, 142.

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reaction to the migrants.12 All these elements can be found in the camps to various degrees at various times, but as part of a larger whole. Brian Cannon, recognizing the important role of Arvin in Californias response to the Great Depression, focuses primarily on the living conditions at Arvin in an attempt to reconstruct the migrant experience. Cannon argues that the close proximity in which migrants lived with each other magnified individual differences and prevented the emergence of any kind of communal sentiment. Though investigating migrant life, Cannon still uses the reformers goal of a cooperative community to measure success at Arvin. Cannon states, Occupying small lots with only walls of canvas or tin to separate them from their neighbors and sharing the same sanitary and laundry facilities, neighbors readily discovered how different they were from each other and how greatly those differences mattered in such an intimate setting.13 Cannon views the decrease of communal activity as a linear decline away from its ideal as the novelty of the camps facilities and organization diminished in the eyes of the campers. To be fair, Cannon is not investigating change over time but instead seeking to identify those elements within the camper population which produced internal divisions and became sources of tension. The manner in which the camps government mediated conflict and created community standards changed over time as a function of evolving dynamics between campers and managers. A regional administrator, Eric Thomsen, used the term Functional Democracy to describe the ideal operational structure of the camp. This organizational structure promoted involvement among the migrants through a wide spectrum of camp activities as its fundamental purpose. Stein recognized that the majority of the activities in which the migrants participated in were of a trivial nature, including organizing ice cream feeds and deciding which band would play at the weekly dances.14 However trivial this participation may have been, the involvement of a large segment of the population in camp activities channeled the internal tensions identified by Cannon into an institutional structure that alleviated the divisive potential of natural differences. Although this relationship served more as an ideal than the norm for most of the camps history, an analysis of the changing dynamics of this institutional structure illustrates the complex relationship between administrators and recipients of relief at Arvin. Assuming that measurements of the camps successes and failures are relative to the different perspectives of those interacting within Arvins larger institutional structure, it becomes apparent that the camp did not emerge from or progress towards any consensus ideal but instead vacillated according to changes within its administrative structure, between camp managers, and according to the shifting population of the migrant campers. The idea of a migratory camp system originated in 1935 with Harry Drobisch, state director of Rural Rehabilitation, a division of the State Emergency Relief Administration.15 Shortly thereafter, Drobisch and his program fell under the jurisdiction
12 13

Gregory, American Exodus, 111. Brian Q. Cannon, Keep on a-goin: Life and Social Interaction in a New Deal Farm Labor Camp, 7. 14 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 178. 15 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 150.

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of the Federal Resettlement Division under Rexford Tugwell. Originally constructed to demonstrate the potential of a larger network of migratory camps, Arvin began operation in December of 1935 with Thomas Collins serving as its first Camp Manager. From its inception, no consensus existed regarding the camps primary purpose. The question revolved around the issue of tenancy: should the camps be reserved exclusively for the use of workers following the seasonal patterns of harvest or as a more semi-permanent home for workers remaining in the area after the harvest? Drobisch conceived of the camp program as an immediate palliative rather than long-range curative action,16 while Collins felt the camps could do both. He advocated a platform of unlimited tenancy for semi-permanent workers arguing that by refusing the semi-permanent workers unlimited tenancy we are merely aiding and abetting the continuance, and probably, the growth of the terrible squatter camp menace.17 The question of tenancy remained unsettled throughout the first year of Arvins operation. Collins combined paternalist sympathies with an absolute commitment to selfgovernment in the camps. In one report, he relayed a compliment paid to the camp by one of its residents, Now I kin go any place I wants ter wuk, and if he dont pay rite I kin tell him nufin doin and go sum place else. At the govmnt camp I is a free citizen.18 Identifying himself as a great emancipator, Collins mused, We wonder if the blacks of those days did not use the VERY SAME LANGUAGE contained in this quotation from our very own camper?19 He did not approach his task with the humility of a minor public servant, but went about his work with a mixture of egotism, dedication, condescension, and compassion. His ideal arrangement was to reduce the need for any kind of management; They feel the camps a civil unit of its own. This pride has made it possible to operate the camp at a high degree of efficiency and with a minimum of donts and shall nots.[sic] 20 However, his ideal simultaneously reaffirmed the important role of the manager in freeing the migrants from the chains of ignorance and oppression. Steinbeck relied heavily upon Collins for information while working on a series of articles for the San Francisco News about Californias migrant situation in 1936. Later published in a collection called The Harvest Gypsies, these reports formed the factual basis for his major work, The Grapes of Wrath. Indeed, John Steinbeck dedicatated Grapes of Wrath to Collins: To Tom who lived it. In his discussion of the camps, Steinbeck asserted that the restoration of dignity remained the managers primary intention. Steinbeck defines his use of dignity stating, It has been used not as some attitude of self-importance, but simply as a register of a mans responsibility to the community.21 This connection between dignity and community had many purposes in Collins camp structure. First, on a practical level it served the manager best to stay
16 17

Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 150. Thomas Collins, Weekly Report for February 8, 1936, Box 22, Series 2, Farm Security Administration Collection, National Archives San Bruno, Record Group 96. 18 Collins, Weekly Report, 2/8/36, Box 22, FSA. Camp managers frequently attempted to recreate migrant speech in their weekly reports. Whenever it seems apparent that the writer is attempting to mimic the phonetic patterns of speech I have transcribed the passage complete with spelling errors. 19 Collins, Weekly Report, 2/8/36, Box 22, FSA. 20 Collins, Weekly Report, 2/29/36, Box 22, FSA. 21 John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1988), originally published in 1936 by San Francisco News, 39.

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above the day-to-day conflicts and enforcement of rules that remained a regular feature of camp life. Second, it helped to create and stabilize a self-contained community within the camp boundaries. Finally, participation in a functioning democracy helped to prepare migrants, whom reformers believed to be socially underdeveloped, for participation in society. This structure worked both to promote stability within the camp and to help the camp become a more effective steppingstone for integration into the larger society. Collins stated in a report, The self-governing community of which they are a part compensates, to a degree, for the lack of the essentials required for proper living and which their meager earnings prohibit them from procuring.22 Collins approached the migrant situation as an idealist and through a deep reservoir of energy and charisma swept both campers and administrators into a swirl of activity. Collinss term as camp manager represents the high water mark of functional democracy in the camps. In addition to personal abilities, Collins also enjoyed an unobtrusive administrative structure and strong relationships with campers who believed in and became models for this type of structure. In particular, the camper Sherman Easton leaps out from the records, a figure almost as dynamic as Collins himself. Easton left a powerful impression on Arthur Lundin, another camp administrator who personified the paternalist attitude of camp workers depicted by Gregory in his description of the majority of the campers, [t]hese characteristics make the people seem almost child-like at times, as indeed they are.23 However, Lundin described his encounter with Easton after being introduced as a potential camp manager to the Camp Council in an entirely different manner:
I had been told of his frankness and directness. He asks the questions the only way he knowsdirectly and to the point. The man has the bearing of a Middle Western Pioneer, of medium height, slender build, with a lean, bronzed face that speaks of a simple and a hard life close to the soil. As one person said, Easton doesnt need to carry a gun. He packs two of them in his face. All the time Easton was speaking and I was answering his questions, his eyes kept boring into my face, never wavering. His voice was low and hard. He was the master, and I had come to be judged.24

Collins could create a community standard based on cooperation at Arvin because campers like Easton took responsibility for policing those standards. Eastons name appears prominently on camp flyers calling for increased attention to cleaning duties and adherence to camp rules.25 Camp administrators could display a condescending attitude to migrants in general but they also fully appreciated the democratic abilities of individuals, like Easton. The patronizing attitude among of camp administrators described by Stein and Gregory did exist, and Collins certainly saw himself as giving the gift of democracy to the migrants. However, the presence of strong individuals such as Easton among the

22 23

Collins, Weekly report, 2/29/36, box 22, FSA. Arthur Lundin, Observations made during stay at the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp, July 10 to July 17, 1936, Box 22, FSA and Gregory, American Exodus ,108. 24 Lundin, Observations, Box 20, FSA. Parts of this report appear in two separate boxes in the FSA collection. 25 See To all Camp Residents, 6/25/36, and From Camp Committeeman S.E. Easton, no date, Box 18, FSA.

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camp population demonstrates that the migrants were not a passive body acted upon by government reformers. At the end of 1936, Collins left Arvin to implement his system in other camps. Robert Hardie took over as the new camp manager, Easton still served on the camp committee, and Thomsen remained at his post in the administration. Hardie benefited from these continuities and his administration showed many similarities to Collinss term. However, during this period the camp began to emerge from its embryonic state. As its organizational structure became more defined, divisions emerged between the different levels of participants, restricting the open channels of interaction that had characterized Collinss tenure. An emotional recall election involving a member of the womens Garden Club, shortly after Wallaces visit illustrates the importance of the committees in settling internal disputes. One member of the camp, Mrs. Stout, organized a campaign to remove a committee member, Mrs. McBride, from the Garden Club. McBride, who according to Collins weighed nearly 200 pounds and had an explosive personality, responded violently to the campaign against her and in response to her violent behavior, the committee voted to evict her from the camp. In a letter to Thomsen, Collins hinted that religious differences may also have played a role in this dispute. He felt that McBride should have been recalled much earlier and connected her disruptive presence to other revitalizing meetings at his new camp. Cannon, in his description of the event, also claims that Stout used family and religious connections to initiate the campaign against McBride.26 Gregory shows that relocation to California both disrupted and intensified religious sentiment among the migrants.27 In the camps, different denominations and varying conceptions of morality had the potential to become sources of tension within the population. Because these tensions existed internally, the camp committees played an important role in their resolution. By dealing with the problem themselves rather than forcing the manager to arbitrate the dispute, the committee channeled the conflict into the institutional structure of the camp government and allowed Hardie to remain above the internal squabble. Hardie, in a letter to Collins, celebrated the event as an indication of the camps democratic strength:
Tom, I really feel damn bad about this recall coming up just as soon as you stepped outmy one consolation is that there is a real expression of the peoplereal democracypeople fighting for their civic rights. Fights of this nature I believe are like growing painstheir worth it (sic)and only through them may we grow. We seem like pregnant womenat times we must grow worse in order to grow better. Thats my consolation.28

26

Letter, Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36; Letter, Collins to Thomsen, 12/17/36 Box 19, FSA; and Cannon, Keep on AGoin, 9. 27 Gregory, American Exodus, 193. 28 Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36, Box19, FSA.

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This seems to have been an especially difficult trial; any interference by Hardie would have upset the governmental framework established by Collins. As proof that the camp continued along the same path, Easton and another camper, D.K., sent along a greeting to Collins in Hardies letter, Sherman and D.K. are here as I write thissay to tell you that everythin is a runnin smooth cept for the recall and thet dont amount to anything.29 When the campers and manager operated on somewhat equal terms, the camp government could function smoothly. However, as the camper population turned increasingly transitory due to later administrative directives, this balance became upset. In 1937, the RA evolved into the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Placed under the control of the Department of Agriculture, the FSA operated with a tight budget and under closer congressional supervision.30 Some congressmen questioned whether a permanent camp program operated more as a long-term subsidy to the big corporate farms in California than as relief for the migrant workers.31 In April 1937, an administrative decision limiting tenancy positioned the camps as intermediary stops along a path to more general assimilation. Administrators hoped that tenancy limits would allow the camps to accommodate newer families and encourage its long-term residents to move to houses within the community.32 Hardie told Thomsen that while there was talk that some of the older families threatened not to move, none stated it directly to him. Hardie also claimed some of the families had already found homes within the outlying community.33 Word did come to Hardie that the issue came under discussion at a local labor meeting of the Agricultural Workers Union in Bakersfield. He stated that the Union as a whole backed an action that the situation should be discussed with those higher up in the Resettlement Administration.34 Hardie felt this situation emerged largely through misunderstanding, but did not want to proceed without clearance from the regional office. The emergence of the Agricultural Workers Union, as a third party in the relationship between the manager and campers further illustrates the divisions beginning to emerge at Arvin. The increasingly rigid institutional structure forced managers to assume a more conspicuous position in the camps administration. While it is unclear whether this new regulation forced all long-term families off of the camp, the records do indicate that a relatively equal number of families entered and exited the camp each month. The transitory nature of the camps population eroded the stability of the camps committees and caused a decrease in the camp activities so vital to the functioning of its government. These two developments tipped the balance between managers and campers resulting in an increase in managerial involvement in the enforcement of community standards. Perhaps a manager with a delicate touch and an intuitive understanding of human interaction could have maintained the level of community involvement during this period
29 30

Hardie to Collins, 12/15/36 Box 19, FSA. Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 155. 31 Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration, 157. 32 Letter, Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37 Box 18, FSA. 33 Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37, Box 18, FSA. 34 Hardie to Thomsen, 4/19/37, Box 18, FSA.

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of transition. Unfortunately, a string of ineffectual managers rotated through the position between 1937 and 1939. The camp did not collapse during this period, nor was it torn apart by the inability of the different levels of organization to interact as before. Instead, the camp simply persevered without any shining examples of enlightened democratic citizenry to celebrate. Norman Corse, the manager in April 1937, described the level of community participation at camp:
We are aware of an indifference to elections etc. and translate the attitude as a result of the fact that many of our families are too new to be acquainted and the old families, realizing that they are soon to move, are not particularly interested in the outcome. WE look for a healthier attitude when the new become acclimated and the old are gone.35

The absence of an energetic Camp Council voted in by an involved population signaled a rupture in the maintenance of community norms. Easton is absent from the records at this point. In 1940, a camper who remembered Easton as the inspiration for Tom Joad in the Grapes of Wrath, said he had moved to Winters, California.36 No other individual camper stands out in the records as prominently as Easton did. This absence of camper leadership further testifies to the erosion of the Camp Councils power to enforce community standards during this period. The lack of a strong institutional committee structure to absorb internal conflict, such as the one that handled the Garden Club recall conflict during Hardies tenure, required Corse to step into the void. Instead of strengthening the communitys government, Corses enforcement of community standards contributed to a more adversarial relationship between manager and campers than had existed before. During one week in June 1937, Corse expelled two groups. The first was a family whose children, he claimed, seemed to be at the bottom of every bit of devilment which occurred not only in their own unit but anywhere in camp.37 After the parents refused to discipline their children, Corse felt compelled to move the family from the camp. The second dismissal involved a man found guilty of buying liquor for underage children. (Some of these children belonged to the other family dismissed.) Because the man accused was the sole wage earner for a family of two children, the fathers of the children who had purchased the alcohol decided to drop the charges. However, Corse felt that because the man had lied and tried to defend himself at the expense of a group of small though misguided boys we felt that dismissal was indicated and followed through.38 Corses actions present a stark contrast to Hardies claim that the Camp representatives seemed to treat offenders in the camp much more harshly than he could ever think of doing.39 The differences between the two managers disciplinary styles reflect more than just the personal abilities of each individual. The lack of participation by the campers in community government also helped to reduce Arvins democracy to one of form rather than function.
35 36

Norman Corse, Weekly Report, 4/24/37, Box 19, FSA. Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin, Fieldnotes, U.S. Library of Congress, American Memory: Voices from the Dust Bowl, < http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html> [May 25, 2005], 4. 37 Corse, Weekly Report, 6/19/37 Box 19, FSA. 38 Corse, Weekly Report, 6/19/37 Box 19, FSA. 39 Inspection of Arvin Migratory Camp, 2/24/37 Box 18, FSA.

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At this same time, union activity emerged as a more prominent feature of camp life. Unions had maintained some presence on the camps for much of its operation, but in the fall of 1938, a cotton strike made union solidarity an important issue in camp discussions. The strike caused a great deal of division among the campers as many continued to work while others held out. Some statements published in the newly established newspaper expressed a certain degree of ambivalence about the situation. In an article entitled To whom this may concern, one camper remarked:
In regards to the strike, the people all know well by this time that we struck from 75 cents to $1.00 per hundred for cotton picking, and some came out and stayed out for a few days, and then went back. Some would step out and some would go back but I dont know whether to call them scabs or not. I and my family aim to stay out until the strike is over. I have got as large a family as there is in camp, and need to work very bad, but I dont think it is fair for the scabs to go and get relief and then go back to picking cotton.40

These expressions of ambivalence concealed a great amount of tension caused by the strike. One week after To Whom This May Concern appeared, Brisby published a piece reminding campers to respect differences of opinion and demanding order in the camp. We must insist that no camper molest or threaten another. If this request is not lived up to, we will be forced to take action.41 Enforcing order through threat, Brisbys statement illustrates the inability of the campers to channel conflict internally through a democratic structure. The strike concluded with no increase in cotton wages. The union remained a source of discord and presented a challenge to the authority of the manager and council. In April 1939, the council, with the approval of manager Harold Teft, banned all union material from the camp bulletin boards and prohibited any meetings on camp property.42 This ban lasted about as long as Tefts term as manager. When Fred Ross took over in August 1939, he attempted to orchestrate a return to the level of camper participation characteristic of the first years of Arvins operations. Ross, who later worked very closely with Cesar Chavez organizing farm workers, tried to close the gap between migrants and managers by consciously adapting a more colloquial style. When Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin visited the camp in 1940 to record migrant folk songs, Ross performed a song that he had written in a migrant vernacular entitled, Cotton Fever. He also admitted to writing other poems and stories in the camp newspaper. 43 In his first weekly report, Ross anticipated an overhaul of the existing Camp Council in favor of a more active administrative body. He also used camp funds to restore recreation equipment that had fallen into disrepair. He hoped an increase in activity would serve as a release for tensions among campers. Reflecting on this program he stated, On the whole, however, from the looks of things at present, we seem to have achieved a modicum of

40 41

W.A.J., To Whom This May Concern, Weedpatch Cultivator, 10/21/38, 1. Brisby, Clean-up, Weedpatch Cultivator, 10/28/38, 1. 42 Committee Minutes, WeedPatch Cultivator, 4/21/39, 2. 43 Todd and Sonkin, Field notes, U.S. Library of Congress, American Memory: Voices from the Dust Bowl, 6, 12.

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success in diverting camp energy from argumentation to recreation.44 The records of Rosss term as manager contain a higher overall degree of energy compared to previous managers. The desire for increased camper involvement, no matter what the activity, guided the majority of Rosss actions as manager. After less than six months with Ross as manager, Arvin had activities for campers every night of the week. These activities ranged from boxing and wrestling on Monday night to religious services and Sunday school on Sunday afternoons.45 Ross hoped these activities would increase the sense of community in the camp. He felt that the failure to generate interest in camp government resulted from the campers inability to see themselves as inter-related parts of a whole. Through increased activity, Ross tried to instill a sense of involvement among the campers reminiscent of the camps earlier years. Though most of his programs concerned recreational activities, Ross also supported social activism among the campers, thus channeling it into another avenue promoting solidarity. Union activity became a more accepted part of camp life. Two consecutive editors of the newspaper, Charlie Spurlock and Sam Birkhimer, both continuously expressed pro-union opinions in regular articles. Spurlock, in an announcement for a C.I.O. informational meeting, illustrated a level of cooperation between management and union activity that perhaps had not always existed. As an addendum to the announcement he stated, Incidentally, this meeting is not being called to discuss or cuss management of the camp, or anything in or about camp. Thats all gone and forgotten.46 By cooperating with pro-union campers, Ross diminished the threat union activity presented to earlier managers. Birkhimer took time in each issue of the newspaper to explain a different dimension of union activity and to set out the pro-union argument for collective action. Ross also published pieces in the newspaper promoting cooperation. Through his colloquial alter-ego, The Feller, he used a caricatured reproduction of the migrants speech patterns to promote pro-union cooperation:
As the feller sez, it aint so much how much youre ahankerin to cooperate, as it is who youre hankerin to cooperate withWhat I seen was hundreds ahungry, cold, people settin right next to miles an miles apure white cotton a spoilin for pickin, an them not pickin a boll. Theyd jus come to the decision all by themselves an they wroont budgin for no .80cents cottonWhen a group a workin people get organized together and stick together for the main purpose a bettern their own condition and livin decent, thats COOPERATION.47

Ross donned his Feller alter-ego for more than just promoting the union cause. He used his regular column in the newspaper as a forum to help create a community standard in tune with his expectations for the campers in regards to rent payments and cleanliness. Elements of frustration leak through in some of his public statements as he attempted to stimulate a greater sense of communal responsibility among the campers. He began one
44 45

Fred Ross, Weekly Report, 7/19/39, Box 22, FSA. Ross, Weekly Report, 7/19/39, Box 22, FSA: Ross, Weekly Report, 1/17/40, FSA. 46 C.I.O. Tonight, Towsack Tattler, 8/24/39. 47 As The Feller Sez, Towsack Tattler, 11/4/39.

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article stating, I sort of hoped that you could reason with people and show them that certain things just had to be done around Camp for the benefit of every one living in Camp,and then everybody would go ahead and do those things, sort of naturallike. Unsuccessful in cajoling the campers to cooperate, Ross proceeded to remind them that they indeed lived on a government camp and must accept its authority or else they should simply leave the property.48 The frequency of these articles suggests that Rosss efforts met with a limited amount of success. There still existed a certain amount of friction between Ross and some of the campers. Ross had a specific idea of how he thought the camp should function and at times took an authoritative stance while enforcing his vision. Todd and Sonkin discovered that one family moved just outside of camp partly because they believed Ross had worked to deny another campers promotion within the community.49 Some inhabitants of the camp when interviewed in 1981 about their experiences during the Depression remembered the conflict that arose between managers and independently minded campers as managers attempted to enforce community regulations. Bobby Russell recalled that his father was blackballed from the camps mainly because he wouldnt take any crap from the camp managers. Russell stated that other campers also felt that the manager should just manage the camp and not the people.50 Hattye Shields remarked that this friction emerged naturally from the necessity of having to impose community regulations upon a group of individuals used to living independently in their own homes.51 The Camp Councils ability to allow campers to enforce their own community standards had ceased to function properly. Though it usually contributed to an adversarial relationship between managers and campers, when conflicts emerged it remained the managers responsibility to find a solution. The importance of cooperation between campers, managers, and administrators is best illustrated in times of dysfunction. Lacking a stable camper population committed to selfgovernment, camp managers had to assume a more active role in enforcing community standards. This produced an adversarial relationship between campers and managers and created an even greater distance between the ideal of self-government and the reality operating within the camps. The functional democracy created by Collins rested on a precarious balance between camper, manager, and administrator. This system emerged through the cooperative efforts of Easton, Collins, and Thomsen. Without a balance of strength, this system fell into dysfunction and hindered the ability of each level to operate at its ideal. Though government officials identified Arvin as a reform project, within the camp boundaries administrators and migrants formed a community. Conflict and compromise drove the formation process operating at the heart of Arvin as individuals, connected through their position in the camps institutional structure, pursued specific interests in relation to their place within the wider climate of Depression Era California.

48 49

Ross, Towsack Tattler, 10/6/39. Todd and Sonkin, Field notes, 66. 50 Bobby Russell, interview by Judith Gannon, February 3 and 10, 1981, interview 107, transcript, California Odyssey Project, California State University, Bakersfield, <http://www.lib.csub.edu/special/interviews.html>, 28. 51 Hattye Shields, interview by Judith Gannon, May 24, 1981, interview 209, transcript, Odyssey Project, 10.

THOMAS DORRANCE

oming to Terms with Cannabis

A Discursive History of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act

Ari Cushner

Constructing the Killer Weed

Marijuana is the same as Indian hemp, hashish, or cannabis. Marijuana is the Mexican term. The plant was known to the Greeks as nepenthe. Its use in Egypt has been common since ancient times and has continued down to the present. The natives of Malay Peninsula while under its effect have been known to engage in violent and bloody deeds with complete disregard for their personal safety.

-Chief Paul E. Madden, California Division of Narcotic Control, 19401

n the night of 6 October 1937, Denver field agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) apprehended Samuel R. Caldwell on suspicion of cannabis peddling. Caldwell was the first accused violator of the newly passed Marihuana Tax Act which made it a federal crime, as of 1 October 1937, to handle cannabis-hemp without first registering and paying a fee to the United States Treasury Department. Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Treasurys seven year-old Bureau of Narcotics, claimed to have witnessed the 58 year-old mans arrest, which he said involved gunplay.2 Fortyeight hours later, a grand jury swiftly indicted Caldwell, and a court soon convicted, sentencing him to four years at Leavenworth Penitentiary plus a $1,000 fine. Presiding U.S. District Judge J. Foster Symes expressed his opinion during sentencing, where once again Anslinger was present, that Marihuana destroys life itself.3 Two months earlier, in August 1937, Newsweek magazine featured an article about the case of Victor Licata, a Florida youngster [who] put the axe to his mother and father while supposedly under the influence of marihuana.4 This horror story was accompanied by a statement that, despite the uses of cannabis in fiber, varnish oil, birdseed, and medicine, Representative Robert L. Doughton (D-North Carolina), the Marihuana Tax Acts Congressional sponsor, was interested in Cannabis sativa because it is a dangerous and devastating narcotic known to the Orient as hashish, to the Occident as marihuana.5 Thus after several thousand years of benign, unimpeded cultivation and consumption throughout the world, cannabis-hemp came under sustained assault in the first half of the twentieth century. With roots in the Temperance/Prohibition movement, Commissioner Anslingers drug criminalization regime rhetorically redefined cannabishemp as a lethal scourge imported by nefarious, nonwhite, non-Christian or non-Western
1

California Division of Narcotic Enforcement, Marihuana: Our Newest Narcotic Menace (Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1940), 3. 2 Marihuana Conference, Shaffer Library of Drug Policy. 25 May 2005. <http//:www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/1938_mhc.htm>. 3 John C. McWilliams, The Protectors: Harry J. Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1930-1962 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 77-8. 4 Federal Tax Hits Dealings in Potent Weed, Newsweek, 14 August 1937, in Steven R. Belenko, ed., Drugs and Drug Policy in America, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000), 154-5. 5 Federal Tax Hits Dealings in Potent Weed, 154-5.

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others, particularly Mexican and Latino immigrants. Using a Mexican colloquialism translated to English as maryjane, Treasury Department and FBN policymakers deliberately renamed cannabis marihuana and reclassified the ancient commodity as a new and deadly narcotic.6 The FBN promoted use of propagandistic rather than scientific phraseology in order to facilitate the weeds linguistic conversion into an unknown yet dangerous drug, while highlighting its supposedly foreign and un-American nature. This terminological preference was embedded within a larger discursive matrix centered on the convoluted etymological and mythological associations between cannabis, assassin and hashish, an orally ingested preparation of resin extracted from dried cannabis flowers. This unique etym-mythology discursively linked an eleventh century Persian military sectthe notorious Hashishin, or Assassinswith the hashish they allegedly consumed before or after obediently murdering the enemies of their master, Sheik Hassan Sabah, known prominently in European folklore as the Old Man of the Mountain.7 Having transposed the etym-mythological derivation of assassin from Crusade folklore into the eighteenth and nineteenth century European colonial context, policymakers and their allies cleverly grafted its racialist connotations onto the Mexican marijuana menace of early twentieth century United States sociopolitical discourse. During the buildup to federal cannabis legislation, periodical articles, bureaucratic conferences, and congressional deliberations filled a discursive space that was ideologically constructed around the haunting specter of the oriental Other. In this

For more on this, see Associated Press, House Approves Curb On Use of Marihuana, Washington Post, 15 June 1937, 11. The report announces the details of the proposed legislation while repeating a House Ways and Means Committee conclusion that cannabis, regardless of its established industrial applications, is being used by hardened criminals to steel them to commit violent crimes and that unscrupulous persons peddle it to high school children. 7 One of the original sources of information about the Hashishin was the Marco Polo text Concerning the Old Man of the Mountain. According to this tale, Sheik Hassan Sabbah, the Old Man, recruits young fighters into an Edenic garden where he intoxicates them with hashish and then orders his essentially hypnotized Assassins to go out and kill his political opponents. It is unclear in the multifarious versions of the story whether the Sheik used hashish in order to disorient his men, sustain their ability to commit murder, or reward them for successful assassinations. Neither is it certain that the intoxicant employed by Sabbah was even hashish at all and not opium, for instance, or how widely it was distributed. The basic sources and details of this folkloric Crusade discourse will be discussed further in the essay, yet the important point here is that the word assassin developed into its current English language usage through this etym-mythological process whereby the Sheiks notorious fighters were labeled by Europeans as the Hashishin. Thus arose the fundamentally intertwined development of a European ideological mindset associating hashish not only with its direct linguistic progeny-assassination, but also numerous other forms of depravity that were inscribed into the discourse during the colonial era, and re-inscribed in the course of early twentieth century, US-led international narcotics control. While the Washington Posts unscrupulous schoolyard marihuana peddlers bear a haunting resemblance to the mythologized image of Hassan Sabbah using hashish to lure young men into his hilltop fortress, an equally vivid connection exists between the original Assassin discourse and contemporary depictions of hypnotized assassins such as in the Manchurian Candidate films (1962, 2004) or the parody on televisions The Simpsons in 2001. For that matter, the unremitting allegations that Robert F. Kennendys 1968 assassination was carried out through Central Intelligence Agency operatives who hypnotized Palestinian-born Sirhan Sirhan, currently imprisoned for the presidential candidates murder, is strikingly consonant with the concept of assassination popularized through the evolving etym-mythology initiated through The Old Man of the Mountain. For more on this, see Robert Zepezauer, The CIAs Greatest Hits (Monroe, Maine: Odonian/Common Courage Press, 1994), 36-7. For a particularly demonstrative example of how the Assassin discourse interfaced with nineteenth century European imperial policy from Persia to Malaysia and beyond, see: Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (Berkeley: U.C. Press, 1991) 117-8.

ARI CUSHNER

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space, nonwhite or non-Anglo-Saxon Protestant marijuana smokers in the New World fulfilled the mythic role of hashish eating Muslim Assassins. Thus began a decades-long demonization of cannabis-hemp on the basis that it leads to violent criminality, despite its use for millennia as an intoxicant, a medicine, and an agricultural commodity. Without substantiated evidence of cannabis reputedly hazardous physiological effects, leading anti-cannabis crusaders like Commissioner Anslinger depended on a discursive and linguistic transference of cannabis from the context of oriental hashish to occidental marihuana. This process proved to be a crucial factor in the justification of the Marihuana Tax Act as a public safety measure and the propagandistic association between cannabis and murderous insanity. The following analysis of the etym-mythological construction of the Killer Weed utilizes a theoretical toolbox that includes the work of Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, and Stuart Hall in order to deconstruct the hegemonic, disciplinary power of the Hashish-Assassin discursive formation in relation to the sociopolitical and economic conditions presaging federal cannabis legislation in 1937. Historicizing the Marihuana Tax Act Shortly after Harry Anslingers retirement, sociologists Howard Becker (1963), Alfred R. Lindesmith (1965), and Donald T. Dickson (1968) initiated academic discourse regarding the origins of federal cannabis legislation. These brief studies were followed by more in-depth analysis in the writing of psychiatrist and historian David F. Musto (1973) and law-professors Richard J. Bonnie and Charles H. Whitebread (1974). Sociologists John F. Gallihner and Allyn Walker (1977) and Jerome L. Himmelstein (1983) also contributed significantly to the debate. They were followed by criminologist John C. McWilliams (1990). Sociologist Michael C. Elsner (1994) and History M.A. candidate John Craig Lupien (1995) have made important additions to the literature as well. While not an exhaustive list, the work of these authors constitutes the essential scope of scholarly inquiry into the subject. They were printed thirteen times between 1985 and 2000, in addition to Jack Herers popular and highly polemical work.8 It is sufficient in this context to briefly sketch the interconnected set of developments that authors have established and debated as contributory factors in the passage of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. The seminal 1960s literature focused on the
8

Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (London: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963); Alfred R. Lindesmith, The Addict and the Law (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1965); Donald T. Dickson, Bureaucracy and Morality: An Organizational Perspective on a Moral Crusade, Social Problems 16 (1968); David F. Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (New York: Oxford University Press,1973); Richard Bonnie and Charles Whitebread II, The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States (New York: The Lindesmith Center, 1999); John F. Galliher, Allynn Walker, The Puzzle of the Social Origins of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Social Problems 24 (1977); Jerome L. Himmelstein, The Strange Career of Marihuana: Politics and Ideology of Drug Control in America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1983); John Craig Lupien, Unraveling an American Dilemma: The Demonization of Marihuana, (M.A. thesis, Pepperdine University, 1995); Michael C. Elsner, The Sociology of Reefer Madness: The Criminalization of Marijuana in the United States, in P.J. Venturelli, ed., Drug Use in America: Social, Cultural and Political Perspectives (Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1994); Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and the Conspiracy Against Marijuanaand How Hemp Can Save the World! (Van Nuys, California: AH HA Publishing, 2000), 26-7.

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bureaucratic need for uniformity of existing state laws and expansion of state-level reform, as well as the powerful administrative role of Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics publicity and propaganda campaign. The 1970s studies added another dimension to this story by exposing the xenophobia among politicians and law enforcement officials in Southwestern states where Mexican and Latin American immigration deeply affected social and economic relations. Musto, Bonnie and Whitebread began interrogating the influence of Anslingers involvement with international narcotics control efforts through the League of Nations and the general influence of Depression-era politics, including the failed prohibition of alcohol in the development of federal anti-cannabis legislation. Authors Herer and Lupien, meanwhile, examine the provocative yet thinly supported hypothesis that the forces of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, William Randolph Hearst, and I.E. Du Pont De Nemours & Company were at the center of a conspiracy involving Anslinger to create a legislative pretext for eliminating hemp production as a competitor of the lumber and emergent synthetic textiles industries. Not enough attention has thus far been paid to the specific function of a discursive apparatus which became constitutionally embedded within the twentieth century anti-cannabis matrix. This discourse was rooted in the explosive interaction between Shiite soldiers and their Crusader counterparts, a discourse which evolved throughout time into an etym-mythology of hashish-smoking Muslim assassins that terrorized the imagination of Christendom. Historicizing the Hashish-Assassin Etym-Mythology
Only authors McWilliams, Bonnie, and Whitebread discuss the importance of the assassin etymology at any length, yet both texts fail to grasp that, although based in mythologized developments, the etymological derivation of assassin is firmly rooted in the word hashish.9 While these works offer an entryway into more comprehensive investigation of the discourse connecting hashish and assassin as it was applied in twentieth century cannabis prohibition, their efforts require revision and expansion. Far from being a discredited or purely mythological construct, as John Ayto writes, Etymologically, an assassin is an eater or smoker of hashish, the drug cannabis.10

The etymological trajectory of assassin is corroborated by at least three scholars in the fields of medieval history and linguistics.11 A brief consultation of these and similar
9

McWilliams cites writings by Dr. A. E. Fossier and New Orleans District Attorney Eugene Stanley who related the myth (since discredited) of the military and religious sect of the Assassins of Persia that in 1090 A.D. committed secret murders in blind obedience to the chief after [becoming] intoxicated with hashish. McWilliams adds that Commissioner Anslinger related the same tired story of marijuana having originated with the Assassins of Persia a thousand years ago (McWilliams, 48-9). Bonnie and Whitebread, while also disputing the veracity of the story, observe that Nevertheless, throughout the period of marihuana prohibition, medical journals, pharmacology texts, popular articles, official government statements, newspaper reports, and legislative testimony all recounted a version of this tale, adding that no small role in this [linkage between crime and cannabis use] was played by the alleged etymology of the word assassin (Bonnie and Whitebread, 143-5). 10 John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1990), 39. 11 Charles E. Nowell, The Old Man of the Mountain, Speculum 22 (1947); Kevin M. McCarthy, The Origin of Assassin, American Speech 48 (1973); Juliette Wood, The Old Man of the Mountain in Medieval Folklore, Folklore 99 (1988). Nowell argues that Presumably the dagger-men of Hassans sect were given this [hashish] as a stimulant to their murderous work. But the connection between hashish and Assassin was slow to penetrate the European mind(499). Mcarthy contends that [t]he generally accepted etymology of assassin has recently been

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sources reveals that the convoluted authenticity of the hashish-assassin etymological connection, however distorted and mythologized, highlights the manner in which anticannabis discourse was molded and implemented during the 1930s, and underscores the historical significance of this unique terminological and discursive constellation.12 Cannabis in World Historical Context: 2700 B.C.E.-1900 C.E.
The reefers and muggles [marihuana] of today are of the same origin as the bhang of the Arabian Nights and the hashish of certain nineteenth century voluptuaries. Parts of the Indian hemp plant have been known as intoxicant since earliest times, and its abuse had been practiced widely throughout the Mediterranean littoral and in India. Depravity has always been and still is the only motive for its habitual use. -Fred T. Merrill, Foreign Policy Association, 193813

Cannabis-hemp was likely first cultivated for fiber in western China several millennia before the Common Era. From China, the plant diffused rapidly throughout the Afro-Eurasian landmass, first appearing in western Europe as early as 1500 B.C.E. In the ancient Mediterranean world, the Greeks and Israelites were both familiar with cannabisusing cultures, yet Judeo-Christian communities continued to use cannabis-hemp primarily for agricultural purposes. Many researchers have contended that the Old Testament of the Christian Bible (Hebrew Torah) makes numerous references to cannabis, such as the honeycomb mentioned in the Song of Solomon 5:1, and elsewhere as calamus.14 Hindus established the use of cannabis as an intoxicant throughout India as early as 1,000 B.C.E., and from there it spread into Arab and Mediterranean vectors by 10 C.E., through southern Russia, Assyria, and Persia. According to Edward Brecher, cannabis was cultivated widely for fiber in Europe by the seventeenth century, while [t]he first definite record of the marijuana plant in the New World dates from 1545 C.E. when Spaniards introduced it into Chile. Brecher adds that [i]t has been suggested, however, that African slavesbrought the seeds with them to Brazil even earlier in the sixteenth century. There is no doubt that Jamestown colonists brought cannabis-hemp

challenged[yet] assassin can be derived from Arabic hashashin, as the OED [Oxford English Dictionary] states (77). Meanwhile, Wood contends that [t]he use of hashish was incorporated into the practices of the Assassin sect. In actuality, it was probably not used too frequently, but its place in the legendary material attached to the Hashishin is very important(79). 12 Nowells article provides the basis for sophisticated examination of the historical realities of the infamous Assassins, from their founding in the eleventh century at Sabbahs castle, Alamut, to their subsequent division into two Shiite branches based in Syria and Persia (Iran) fighting against Sunni Arab rivals as well as Christian Crusaders. Considering the Assassins equivalent to Crusade secret societies such as the Knights Templar, Nowell establishes that [n]ot until the first part of the nineteenth century did the orientalist, Sivestre de Sacy, work out the etymology of Assassin so thoroughly that no doubt has remained (500). This is particularly significant given that orientalism, as discussed by Edward Said, pervaded the discourse surrounding the Assassin and hashish use generally from the nineteenth century through to Nowells 1947 article, with a distinctly racialist undertone, to Woods 1988 subtly prejudiced conclusion that the terrorist activities of the Assassins are frequently cited in Arabic chronicles (78). 13 Frederick T. Merrill, The Marihuana Problem, New York Times, 11 December 1938, 134. 14 Edward M. Brecher, Licit and Illicit Drugs (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972). 398-412.

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with them to the New World in 1619, where it became a valuable American crop especially useful as a fiber for the rigging on ships.15 In the nineteenth century, the value of hemp and the strength of its industry went into decline with the invention of the cotton gin. By the mid-nineteenth century, people in the United States were surrounded by hemp, both cultivated and wild, throughout states such as Mississippi, Georgia, California, South Carolina, Nebraska, New York, and Kentucky. Extractum Cannabis was listed as an official medicine in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850-1942.16 The noticeable practice of marijuana smoking did not develop north of the Mexican border until the early twentieth century, although cannabis was used for religious or recreational purposes as early as 1856mainly in the form of hashish, with secretive hash-smoking dens arising in large cities such as New York by 1881.17 Regarding this unique physical and linguistic diffusion of cannabis-hemp throughout the world, John Ayto explains that:
Hemp is ultimately the same word as cannabis (as, bizarrely, is canvas, which was originally made from hemp). Both go back to a common ancestor which produced Persian kanab, Russian konplya, Greek knnabis (source of English cannabis), and prehistoric Germanic *khanipiz or *khanapiz. From the latter are descended German hanf, Dutch hannep, Swedish hampa, Danish hamp, and English hemp.18

Emergence of the Marihuana Menace: 1900-1930 Despite its ancient historical roots, cannabis-hemp did not appear significantly in the United States public consciousness until the turn of the twentieth century, when policy-makers facilitated its rhetorical transplantation from the hashish of the Assassins to the marijuana associated with Latino dissidents like the Mexican revolutionary soldiers of Pancho Villa and the rebel forces of Simn Bolivar.19 A 1905 Washington Post article, Terrors of Marihuana, encapsulates the irreverent attitude of the press towards cannabis, stating that [c]uriosity has often been expressed as to the cause of the peculiar mental traits of Latin-American warriors and revolutionists which lead them to view North America as a monster of hideous shape and ungovernable appetite.20 The reason for these rebellious delusions is found in a strange weed which flourishes in Venezuela. This plant is the marihuana.21 Admonishing Venezuelan president General Cipriano Castro and his adviser Col. Lamedo, who in seeking trouble with the United States are a manifestation of this mysterious trait, the
15

Brecher, 398-412. Also based on Brechers account, George Washington not only grew cannabis-hemp at Mt. Vernon, but apparently indicated in diary entries that he separated his male and female plants (403). By todays standards, this action would indicate intent to increase the potency of female plants by preventing their being pollinated by nearby male plants thus producing sinsemilla, or buds without seeds. It is thus possible, if not also likely, that Washington was aware of the psychoactive and medicinal properties of his crop. 16 Brecher, 403. 17 Bonnie and Whitebread, 1, 32; Brecher, 408-9. 18 Ayto, 279. 19 Bonnie and Whitebread, 5; Harvey L. Johnson, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), History of Simon Bolivar, 25 May 2005. <http://www.bolivarmo.com/history.htm>. 20 Johnson, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830). 21 Johnson, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830).

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authors warn that [i]f they do not break themselves of the [marijuana] habit, their visions may materialize in the shape of ironclad monsters belching fire and nickel-nosed balls in the heavily mortgaged harbors of the sons of Bolivar.22 The author thus warns that [t]hey must forswear marihuana, and live cleanly, as patriots should.23 The next stage of intoxication [after euphoria] is full of terrors, the article continues. Lions, tigers, panthers, and other wild beasts occupy his vision.24 Using fantastical imagery that recalls and signifies the Assassin discourse, the article concludes that [t]hese wild animals are then attacked by hosts of devils and monsters of unheard-of shapes. The [marihuana] smoker becomes possessed of superhuman strengthIt is at this stage of the debauch that murders are committed.25 Washington Post articles from the following year continued presenting the image that marijuana was wreaking havoc south of the U.S. border. A 1913 piece argued that [t]he revolution in Mexico has brought with it not only the ravages of war, but also the degradation of the social conditions of soldiers and prisoners through marijuana addiction. Continuing this theme, in 1914 the Post published an article entitled Weeds That Cause Insanity: Danger to United States Troops Lurks in Vegetation of Mexico. Its author argues that [o]ne of the things to be avoided by American soldiers in Mexico is the seductive marihuana weed, warning that people addicted to marihuana finally lose their minds and never recover.26 Disruptions in the wake of the world war and Mexican Revolution produced a new stream of Mexican immigrants into the United States during the 1920s, which triggered increased public and governmental attention to the legendary ravages of cannabis. In 1924 the Washington Post ran a feature story in which the author, inspired by discursive connections between hashish and marihuana, symbolically transplants the killer weed from the Old to the New World by indicating that imported into Mexico from India and Egypt, it [marihuana] has been the scourge of the lower classes. Into the cities of Texas and other Southern States, the dread dope has followed the Mexican element, causing untold death and trouble.27 To further drive home the point, the author draws a sharp yet nebulous parallel between the two foreign drugs, writing that [h]ashish behind closed doors produces no more weird reaction than the exotic Mexican dope. This accounts for the popularity of Marihuana to a large extent, for the Arabians consider Hashish as the fountain of all voluptuousness and material pleasures.28 In its conflation of Japanese, Chinese, Indians,
22 23

Johnson, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830). Terrors of Marihuana, Washington Post, 21 March 1905, 6. 24 Terrors of Marihuana. 25 Plants Cause Madness: Startling Effects of Mexicos Substitute for Tobacco, Washington Post, 9 March 1913, MT3. 26 Weeds That Cause Insanity: Danger to United States Troops Lurks in Vegetation of Mexico, Washington Post, 15 June 1914, 6. 27 Mystery of the Strange Mexican Weed: American and Mexican Authorities Seek to Curb Growing Use of Dread Marihuana Drug That Stirs Its Victims to Atrocious Deeds of Violence, Washington Post, 24 August 1924, SM7. 28 The written text appears beneath a visually stunning array of graphics dominated by the image of a group of four men crowded and sprawled around a burning cauldron from which emanates the fiery image of a horned Lucifer looking down and pointing at the one man standing, who signifies a stereotypical Mexican by his dress accented by a sombrero. One of the mans hands points towards the fire while in the other he holds what appears to be a blade. A

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and Egyptians with Mexicans as users and purveyors of the exotic and toxic drug, the article, entitled Mystery of the Strange Mexican Weed, fuses anti-marijuana with antihashish imagery in a manner that illuminates the etym-mythological function of public anti-cannabis discourse.29 A 1928 Washington Post article datelined from Chicago demonstrates further cross-fertilization between the images of hashish and marijuana. It claims that Marijuana (Mary Jane) the devastating Mexican drug, is said to be wrecking members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians in addition to thousands of other usersIt is related to hemp and hashish, the dope so common in India and Persia.30 A few months later the Post ran another article with a headline, placed directly above the visual of a Mexican marijuana patch, that read: Widespread Indulgence Among Mexicans and Americans in Deadly Narcotic That Produces Hypnotic HilarityIt Is Found in Flowered Tops of Indian HempAnother Drug Evil to be Combated.31 After illustrating who grows marihuana, where, and for what purposes, the author traces the evil directly back to the land of Indian Hemp and emphasizes the etymmythological motif by claiming that marihuana is an old world drug masquerading in the New World under a new nameIn Arabia and Persiait is known as hashish. It is from the hashishians, the users of hashish, that our word assassins has come.32 More than just strategic publicity and propaganda, this racialized discourse was deeply rooted in prevailing sociopolitical undercurrents stretching back centuries. The Immediate Discursive Origins of the Marihuana Tax Act: 1930-1937
Marihuana has no therapeutic or medicinal value that can not better be replaced by other drugs. It serves no legitimate purposes whatever. For thousands of years it has been known in Persia as hashishfrom which we get the word assassin. Another word we get from the characteristics of this drug is the word amuck, and the phrase running amuck. Amok means kill and was the word that the native of Malay would shriek as he, maddened by hashish, would, dash down the street in a murderous frenzy.
second man lays either dead or unconscious in the foreground while a third, obscured by shadows, stirs the devilish brew as a fourth man crouches frightfully in the corner. This horrific depiction of degenerate Mexicans is adjacent to a picture of a military infantry division dug-in at a trench in a gun battle, next to a caption describing how [m]arihuana brings all the cruelty that is in a man to the fore. It gives him a desire to fight and unlimited confidence. Mexican generals give it to their soldiers before going into battle, and a soldier under its influence may die in his tracks but will never turn back. An accompanying illustration graphically depicts a cloaked man pulling a mule next to the caption, [a]t the right, a Japanese, who are said to be the greatest smugglers, is shown crossing the Rio Grande with a muleload of the contraband. Readers are informed that [s]moked like tobacco, the pungent fumes seep into the brains of the smokers and bring delusions of grandeur and visions of wealth, and, worst of all, uncontrolled viciousness that leads to fights and murders (Mystery of the Strange Mexican Weed, SM7). 29 Mystery of the Strange Mexican Weed, SM7. 30 New Drug, Not Illegal, Claiming Many Addicts: Federation of Musicians at Chicago Reports Victims in Its Membership: PARALYSIS IS OUTCOME, Washington Post, 1 July 1928, 3. 31 Nell Ray Clarke, More Mary Jane Laugh Addicts: Widespread Indulgence Among Mexicans and Americans in Deadly Narcotic That Produces Hypnotic HilarityIt Is Found in Flowered Tops of Indian HempAnother Drug Evil to be Combated, Washington Post, 2 September 1928, SM6. 32 Clarke, SM6.

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-Clarence Beck, Kansas Attorney General, 1938 33

In 1930 Harry J. Anslinger became the first Commissioner of Narcotics, bringing with him a background as foreign diplomat, spy, Prohibition agent, Mafia combatant, and stalwart anti-Bolshevik.34 The Treasury Department had already elevated Anslinger in 1929 from second-in-command of the Narcotics Division to acting head of narcotics enforcement after a corruption scandal in New York rocked the department and forced its chief, Col. Levi Nutt, to resign. Anslinger was thus already technically in charge when he accepted his appointment as Commissioner from the powerful Du Pont and J.P. Morgan affiliated banking magnate and Republican Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, who also happened to be his future uncle-in-law.35 Having ascended the throne of Drug Czar, Anslinger was in position to weigh various options in regards to the federal control of cannabis. While most anti-narcotics enforcers and reformers favored the prohibition of marihuana, federal legislation proved elusive up to the early 1930s due to a combination of environmental, sociopolitical, and economic factors. Cannabis had been viewed as an intrastate issue not applicable to national and international narcotic trafficking regulations. Similarly, the plant grew wild throughout the country and thus, unlike poppy or coca-derived drugs, was produced domestically without dependence on foreign importation. Furthermore, the multiple industrial applications of cannabis-hemp were unique obstacles to the development of federal legislation. A 1931 Associated Press report related Anslingers lamentation that the plant [is] being grown so easily that there is almost no interstate commerce in it, which would make federal anti-cannabis legislation technically unconstitutional.36 Thus, the best available option for Anslinger and the Treasury Department bureaucracy was to support state level control efforts and favor federal cannabis prohibition in the future, when the sociopolitical climate of the nation might permit it. Treasury and FBN officials thus facilitated the passage of state-level legislation organized through the Uniform State Narcotic Act. While not mandating inclusion of cannabis, Anslingers bureaucratic team offered an optional anti-cannabis clause in the legislative template the FBN advertised to state officials. This was likely designed as a precursor to the eventual development of a federal marijuana prohibition scheme.

33 34

Clarence Beck, Marijuana Menace, Washington Post, 13 January 1938, X9. Before taking control of the new FBN, Harry Anslinger had served at many levels of government including as member of the State Department diplomatic corps. Fluent in both Dutch and German, Anslinger had been sent to inform Kaiser Wilhem II that the U.S. government did not wish for the German monarch to abdicate his throne at the close of World War One, fearing that Social Democrats would incite chaos if he were exiled. Anslinger, who according to John McWilliams was knowledgeable in the clandestine operations of organized smuggling ringsand [participated] in intelligence operations in Western Europe during World War I, also participated during World War Two in the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agencyand had a long-standing relationship with the first CIA director, General Wild Bill Donnovan. Given these connections to intelligence and espionage, it many, upon further research, be necessary to reconsider the nature Anslingers role in crafting anti-marihuana legislation, and his potentially sinister motivations (McWilliams, 15, 21, 29). 35 McWilliams, 28-42; Musto, 206-9. 36 Government Will Ask States to Ban Growing of Marijuana, New York Times, 16 September 1931, 37.

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First in support of the Uniform State Narcotic Act, and then for what became the Marihuana Tax Act, Anslinger organized a network of politicians, bureaucrats, and social and religious reformers dedicated to uprooting the marijuana menace.37 Often referred to as Anslingers Army, this veritable anti-cannabis cabal included members of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, Foreign Policy Association, World Narcotics Defense Association, and media outlets such as the sensational Hearst Press.38 Aided by a backlash against nonwhite immigrants competing for increasingly scarce employment, the marijuana problem moved rather swiftly into the bureaucratic void created by the 1933 repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. In a 1934 New York Times article concerned with the perceived use of cannabis in combination with alcohol and its growing influence within youth culture, the author describes how the drug is particularly popular with Latin Americans and its use is rapidly spreading to include all classes.39 The author suggests that individual states like Colorado, which had had an anti-cannabis law on the books since 1927, were mysteriously acquiescing to the foreign marijuana menace. The Times article adds that [t]he seriousness of the problem, growing out of laxity in enforcing State laws barring the drug, is indicated by the fact that it is the same weed from which the Egyptian hashish is made.40 This FBN directed anti-cannabis discourse purposefully exaggerated the rise of youth marijuana consumption in order to instill immediate outrage throughout the Washington D.C. political establishment and spread fear among middle-class Americans. In 1935 The Washington Post ran a feature article informing readers that Marihuanaa habit forming drugis a weed which was originally imported from Mexico, but which is now grown on this side of the Rio Grande, adding incorrectly: The Spanish word, marihuana, means in English, merry widow.41 Nearby is a series of pictures including the headshot of a stereotypical Chinese opium addict, resting on top of a proportionally enlarged opium pipe, on top of a caption reading: The type of men narcotic agents must deal with in their war to stamp out the drug evil.42 This discursive textual linkage between marijuana and opium accentuates an underlying impression that cannabis, with its birthplace in China, is somehow related both to the threat of Mexican marihuana-smoking hordes, as well as the infamous Yellow Peril posed by opium-smoking Chinese immigrants. There is an implicit association between the opium derived from poppies and hashish derived from the resin of flowering cannabis buds grown throughout Asia and the Middle East. In this same manner, mythologized accounts of the Assassins were woven into the sensationalized anti-cannabis discourse of the 1930s. Rather than Hassan Sabbah using
37 38

McWilliams, 56. Bonnie and Whitebread, 100. 39 Use of Marihuana Spreading In West: Poisonous Weed Is Being Sold Quite Frequently in Pool Halls and Beer Gardens. CHILDREN SAID TO BUY IT: Narcotics Bureau Officials Say Law Gives No Authority to Stop Traffic, New York Times, 16 September 1934, B6 40 Use of Marihuana Spreading In West, B6. 41 Edward F. Atwell, America Declares War on Dope, The Mighty Maker of Criminals: An Army of Peddlers Are At Work Recruiting New Addicts Among the Young, Washington Post, 24 March 1935, F6. 42 Atwell, F6.

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hashish to recruit young soldiers for political murder, shady foreign-born peddlers recruited school children into lives of crime and debauchery after selling them marijuana cigarettes, and axe-wielding maniacs like Victor Licata chopped up family members under the weeds influence. Mexican and other immigrants replaced Muslims in this stereotyped formulation. Both posed a violent and intolerable threat, as did the plant they smoked. During the 1935 Congressional session, Senator Hatch and Congressman Dempsey of New Mexico introduced twin bills, S.1615 and H.R.6145, to prohibit cannabis in interstate and foreign commerce. While neither of these bills reached the floor of Congress, this was the first signal that the Treasury Department officially endorsed federal anti-cannabis legislation.43 Once the necessary state laws were firmly in place, the Treasury commenced a series of special meetings in order to develop the legislation that would become the Marihuana Tax Act. The Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. On the morning of 14 January 1937, Harry Anslinger and his colleagues convened an official Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. Highlighting the discursive implications of their planning session, consulting Treasury chemist and meeting co-chair Dr. Herbert J. Wollner announced that their purpose was to set up a definition of terms with reference to what we generically refer to as the marihuana problem, in a sufficiently clear style and sufficiently competent as to be significant from a law enforcement point of view.44 All those in attendance either worked for the government or functioned as official consultants to the Treasury Department. In addition to Anslinger and Wollner, the other main participants were chemists, pharmacologists, and lawyers. The discussion revolved generally around strategy for the most expedient and successful way to present their case before Congress and to preempt potential legal challenges. Wollner admitted to his colleagues that in pursuit of an answer to this general problem of defining terms, you get very little satisfaction. For every negative statement made there is a positive one made to counteract it.45 Indeed, scientists at the time possessed only rudimentary knowledge of the complex chemical, biological, and pharmacological properties of cannabis. Wollner continued: We havent a problem akin to the morphine or opium problemthe state of definitive knowledge [about those substances] does not obtain with regard to cannabinol, which, again, some people dispute the existence of. Scientists did not yet know that the primary chemical agent in cannabis, out of approximately 400-500, is isolated in the intricate compound delta-9tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC.46 Ironically, Dr. Wollner would be largely responsible for this very discovery in 1942.47
43 44

Bonnie and Whitebread, 119. Conference on Cannabis Sativa L., Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, 23 April 2005, <http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/canncon.htm>. 45 William E. Cohen and Darryl S. Inaba, Uppers, Downers, All Arounders: Physical and Mental Effects of Psychoactive Drugs, 2nd ed. (Ashland, Oregon: CNS Productions, INC., 1993), 171. 46 Cohen and Inaba, 171. 47 The Positive and Negative Effects of Marijuana, <http://www.onlinepot.org/medical/positivepot.htm> (25 May 2005).

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Perhaps sensing Wollners underlying frustration, Dr. Lyster Dewey, a representative from the Department of Agriculture, found it necessary to give his colleagues some historical perspective, and in so doing, set the stage for a heated debate about correct terminology. It is the oldest plant describedat least 2700 B.C. That description has come down without question to the present time.48 Thus Dr. Wollner was inspired to suggest avoiding stigmatized terminology, asking whether we [can] get away from the use of the term marihuana?49 Treasury lawyer Alfred L. Tennyson responded that [w]e just happened to mention it as a general term, prompting Wollner to reply, I think we would be on sounder ground if we left in the scientific name Cannabis Sativa Linne.50 Assuming that the scientists in the room might be ignorant of legal nomenclature, a lawyer from the General Counsels office, S.G Tipton, remarked that [i]n a statute you can pick a term and define it as you please. Marihuana struck us as a good short form. Its meaning in any other regard would be of no consequence.51 Tiptons claim that the government had no interest in the propagandistic value of using marihuana rather than cannabis was, however, dubious. Later in the meeting, Tipton would reiterate to Anslinger, horror stories in the way of negative publicity. By the end of this exchange, Tennyson was convinced of Dr. Wollners position and asked, [d]ont you think, in order to be a little more scientific, we might call it Cannabis?52 Yet such moderated efforts would prove unable to match the force of Anslingers anti-cannabis propaganda campaign.53 Wollner announced that using the term marihuana is technically unsound and wrong, but thats up to you [legal] men to decide.54 Decide they did. R.L. Pierce, a Treasury lawyer, signaled the legal teams direction when he asked rhetorically, [i]snt there some advantage [as far as sensationalizing the threat of cannabis] in using the popular term marihuana?55 The draft text of the bill presented to the House of Representatives a few months later read in part, [t]he term marihuana includes all parts of the plant Cannabis Sativa Lthe seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds, or resin.56 In the minds of policymakers attempting to define terms that would generate Congressional support for cannabis prohibition, propaganda value trumped science. The Congressional Hearings The Treasury Departments General Counsel, Herman Oliphant, was given the task of drafting proposed legislation in order to craft an effective smokescreen for efforts
48 49

Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 50 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 51 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 52 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 53 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 54 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 55 Conference on Cannabis Sativa L. 56 Committee on Ways and Means, Taxation of Marihuana: Hearings Before the House of Representatives, House of Representatives on H.R. 6385, 75th Cong., 1st sess., (Washington D.C.: GPO, April/May 1937), 8. (From this point on, I will refer to this as Taxation of Marihuana).

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to outlaw cannabis. Oliphant would incorporate a synthesis of wording from the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, which required all legitimate handlers of narcotics to register, pay an occupational tax, and file information regarding their use of the drugs, and the 1934 National Firearms Act, which stipulated all manufacturers, dealers and importers of firearms [read gangsters] should register and pay special taxes ranging from $200 to $500.57 The text of the bill was then transferred to sympathetic channels in the House of Representatives, particularly those with jurisdiction over proposed tax measures. On 27 April 1937, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, North Carolina Democrat Robert L. Doughton, introduced H.R.6385The Marihuana Tax Act. Most, if not all, members of the committee were aware that the Department of the Treasury and its Bureau of Narcotics concocted the nominal revenue-generating measure in order to pave the legal road for the federal prohibition of cannabis.58 The Treasury Departments Assistant General Counsel, Clinton M. Hester, opened the testimony by introducing the bills technical features and reading from several newspapers. Included in the articles was a recent Washington Times editorial stating that the fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug and American children must be protected against it.59 Amid the hegemony of the committee hearings that took place on April 27-30 and May 4, the Treasury Department produced a staged-managed event where lawyers, chemists, and lawmen, among others, controlled the information being transmitted to the largely ignorant, though not wholly disinterested, legislative body. After the first day of hearings, the remaining time was devoted to smoothing over various wrinkles, while only one hostile witnessed testified. Nonetheless, certain textual elements of the hearings provide significant insight into the foundational role of the etym-mythological anticannabis discursive apparatus. Commissioner Anslinger began his testimony by stating that:
The drug is as old as civilization itself. Homer wrote about it as a drug that made men forget their homes, and that turned them into swine. In Persia, a thousand years before Christ, there was a religious and military order founded which was called the Assassins and they derived their name from the drug called hashish which is now known in this country as marihuana. They were noted for their 60 cruelty, and the word assassin very aptly describes the drug.

After immediately establishing a prominent link between cannabis and the hashish used by the legendary Muslim Assassins, Anslinger announced that marihuana is the same as Indian hemp and reiterated to members of Congress that we seem to have adopted the Mexican terminology, and we call it marihuana.61 As if needing to legitimize to himself the specious yet crucial connection, Anslinger repeats later in his remarks that

57 58

Taxation of Marihuana, 1. Bonnie and Whitebread, 163-4. 59 Taxation of Marihuana, 6. 60 Taxation of Marihuana, 18-9. 61 Taxation of Marihuana, 18-9.

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Marihuana is the same as Indian hemp, hashish.62 A short way into his statement, Anslinger read from a 1936 Washington Post health editorial column describing marijuana as an intoxicant with the most vicious propensities.63 Then returning to his edifying theme, the Commissioner described how history relates that in the eleventh century a remarkable sect of Mohammedans established themselves as a powerful military unit under the leadership of a sheik who led his marauding band to victory while under the influence of hemp.64 Perhaps worried that the connection would somehow still be lost on lawmakers, Anslinger also included a reprise of the Assassin etym-mythology in his addendum of additional statements submitted in writing:
The origin of the drug is very ancient. In the year 1090 A.D., the religious and military order or sect of the Assassins was founded in Persia and the numerous acts of cruelty of this sect were known not only in Asia, but in Europe as well. This branch of the Shiite sect, known as Ismalites, was called Hashishan, derived from hashish, of the confection of hemp leaves marihuana. In fact, from Arabic Hashishan we have the English word assassin.65

Anslinger ends this section with a related yet entirely false legend that natives of the Malay Peninsula have been known, while under its [cannabis] influence, to rush out and engage in violent and bloody deedsto run amok in the Malay Peninsula is synonymous with saying one is under the influence of this drug.66A few paragraphs later Anslinger again reminds the committee that it is said that Mohammedan leaders, opposing the Crusaders, utilized the services of individuals addicted to the use of hashish for secret murders.67 Anslinger concludes his additional statements with a well-traveled essay by New Orleans parish district attorney Eugene Stanley, Marihuana as a Developer of Criminals, which further recounts the etymological roots of assassin. It includes sensationally that it [hashish] is mentioned in the Arabian Knights.68 As part of his reliance on the Assassin discourse, much of the supposed evidence Anslinger presented to Congress was from his suspiciously thin and haphazard file of drug-related crimes.69 The Commissioners favorite tale of marihuana-induced depravity was the particularly gruesome case of Victor Licata:
A twenty-one-year-old boy in FLORIDA killed his parents, two brothers and a sister while under the influence of a Marihuana dream which he later described to law enforcement officials. He told rambling stories of being attacked in his bedroom by his uncle, a strange woman and two men and two women, whom

62 63

Taxation of Marihuana, 18. Taxation of Marihuana, 21-2. 64 Taxation of Marihuana, 21-2. 65 Taxation of Marihuana, 29. 66 Taxation of Marihuana, 29. This confusion over the Malaysian etymology of Amok is, along with constant references to Egyptian Hashish and Indian Hemp, a further example of how the modern Euro-American understanding of cannabis was refashioned in line with prior colonial strategies of classification and control. 67 Taxation of Marihuana, 30. 68 Taxation of Marihuana, 38. 69 McWilliams, 52.

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he said hacked off his arms and otherwise mutilated him; later in the dream he saw real blood dripping from an axe.70

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Uninterested in evidence that the accused had a prior history of mental illness, Anslinger recorded the Licata story in a manner suggestive of his ingrained fascination with the Assassin etym-mythology. Anslinger thus set a biased tone that lawmakers willingly emulated. Treasury consultant, Dr. James C. Munch of Temple University, opened the second day of Congressional hearings, testifying as an expert witness. Once becoming aware, however, that Munchs experiments had only measured the effects of cannabis on dogs and other animals, Representative John McCormack of Massachusetts found it appropriate to steer his line of questioning in another direction:
Mr. McCormack: I understand this drug came in from, or was originally grown in, Mexico and Latin American countries. Dr. Munch: Marihuana is the name for Cannabis in the Mexican Pharmacopeia. It was originally grown in Asia. Mr. McCormack: That was way back in the oriental days. The word assassin is derived from an oriental word or name by which the drug was called; is not that true? Dr. Munch: Yes, sir. Mr. McCormack: So, it goes way back to those years when hashish was just a species of the same class which is identified by the English translation of an oriental word; that is, the word assassin; is that right? Dr. Munch: That is my understanding.71

Rep. McCormacks somewhat confused reasoning is illustrative of how continual reverberation of the hashish-Assassin discourse mesmerized bureaucrats, lawmakers, and public commentators alike. On 4 May, the final day of committee hearings, legislative council to the American Medical Association, Dr. William C. Woodward, gave singularly hostile testimony against passage of the bill, arguing that it would encumber future medical research while unfairly burdening doctors. Woodward was harangued by the committee for favoring amendment of the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act to include cannabis, yet still managed to deploy an enlightened condemnation of the governments nefarious use of propagandistic language:
I use the term Cannabis in preference to the word marihuana, because cannabis is the correct term for describing the plant and its products. The term marihuana is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the Mexican border and has no general meaning, except as it relates to the use of Cannabis preparations for smoking. It is not recognized in medicine, and I might say that it is hardly even recognized in the Treasury Department.72

Treasury Department officials were perfectly deliberate in their decision to use modern Mexican slang rather than the long-established scientific terminology. Allies in Congress
70 71

McWilliams, 54. Taxation of Marihuana, 47-9, 51. 72 Taxation of Marihuana, 90.

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and elsewhere happily followed the Treasurys script.73 The Marihuana Tax Act sailed through the House Ways and Means Committee without objection, after minor modifications at the behest of the birdseed and paint industries. As H.R.6909, the bill moved up to the full House of Representatives where, in hearings on 10 June, lawmakers displayed their ignorance and acceptance of dogma:
Mr. Snell: What is the bill? Mr. Rayburn: I believe it has something to do with something that is called marihuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind. Mr. Fred. F. Vinson: Marihuana is the same as hashish.74

The House then dutifully sent the bill into a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Finance. On 12 July the subcommittee, heard and approved an updated version of the Act.75 This formulaic session foreshadowed the unanimous senatorial consent that would deliver the bill to President Roosevelts desk the following month. The man who orchestrated the New Deal was probably pleased about signing the Marihuana Tax Act into law on 2 August 1937. Assassinating the Killer Weed In July 1937 The American Magazine ran an article co-authored by Commissioner Anslinger and Courtney Cooper entitled Marihuana, Assassin of Youth.76 Anslinger and Cooper began their rhetorical attack with a familiar sounding etym-mythological refrain establishing the drugs lethality:
The sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story of a Chicago apartment house. Everyone called it suicide, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic known to America as marijuana, and to history as hashish.77

The authors reminded readers that marijuana was introduced into the United States from Mexico, and swept across America with incredible speeda record of murder and terror running through the centuries.78 Perhaps most prescient of all is their final admonition that America now faces a condition in which a new, although ancient, narcotic has come
73

Attached at the very end of the committee transcripts was a letter authored by Elizabeth Wright, the widow of Dr. Hamilton Wright, former U.S. Opium Commissioner and acknowledged progenitor of domestic narcotics legislation Mrs. Wright bore the title of Special Representative to the Bureau of Narcotics. Congressmen would read her letter, if they chose, as the very last word on the marijuana matter. She wrote: I am surprised there should be any opposition to the Doughton billMarihuana is the American form of the familiar and insidious hashish or Indian hemp which has been associated in the Orient with crime for many centuries. We know it as the ordinary hempweed which can be grown in any backyard in any State in the Union. Its use as a stimulant or narcotic is, however, of recent date. It was introduced about 10 years ago by Mexican peddlers in the form of cigarettes. Its use has spread like wildfire and is associated with crime in its most vicious aspects (Taxation of Marihuana, 124). 74 Bonnie and Whitebread, 173-4. 75 Subcomittee of the Committee on Finance United States Senate, Taxation of Marihuana, Hearings Before the Subcomittee of the Committee on Finance United States Senate, H.R. 6909, 75th Cong., 1st sess., (Washington D.C.: GPO, 12 July 1937). 76 Harry J. Anslinger and Courtney Cooper, Marijuana, Assassin of Youth, The American Magazine (July 1937), 19, 150. 77 Anslinger and Cooper, 19, 150. 78 Anslinger and Cooper, 19, 150.

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to live next door to us.79 Just as Sheik Sabbah reputedly enticed his Assassins into his service, Commissioner Anslinger lulled other anti-cannabis crusaders into combat with repetitive use of the etym-mythological discourse. An interwoven set of sociopolitical and economic factors converged in the early twentieth century and, at the height of the Great Depression, while the international community mobilized for war, coalesced into a federal legislative assault on cannabishemp. A diffusion of propagandized information about the supposed horrors of this new narcotic formed the foundational discursive apparatus around which a popular image of the Killer Weed was constructed and reified. Yet lacking solid evidence of the weeds dangerous effects, Commissioner Anslinger and his allies structured their discursive assault on cannabis around the conveniently prearranged etym-mythological constellation that conflated murderous Orientals with hashish use. This centuries-old discourse facilitated the hegemonic amplification of racially prejudiced ideologies, as lawmakers exploited the fact that the same substance that reputedly drove Muslim infidels to kill Christians was also present within the recreational habits of unwanted Mexican immigrants. This highly potent discursive formation of the Killer Weed permeated various structures of power and radiated from specific controlling apparatuses including the press, Congress, and eventually mainstream public opinion. In 1937 the United States Treasury Department finally came to terms with its budding green nemesis and, at the same time, strategically set the parameters of future debate.80 Liberal reformers would not begin to resurrect cannabis until after Harry J. Anslingers retirement in 1962. The etym-mythology of assassin, meanwhile, found its
79

Anslinger and Cooper, 19, 150. Harry J. Anslinger and Courtney Cooper, Marijuana, Assassin of Youth, The American Magazine (July 1937), 19, 150. Tellingly, Marihuana, The Assassin of Youth was also the original title of the now cult-classic, 1937 Dwain Esper film since facetiously re-titled Reefer Madness. The now somewhat humorous movie was part of a series of films, including the 1936 Marihuana: Weed with Roots in Hell, directed and produced by Esper with apparent assistance from Harry Anslingers FBN. While contemporary society generally refers to the 1930s and 1940s propaganda campaign as Reefer Madness, the propagandists themselves regarded cannabis as the Assassin of Youth. 80 For instance, on 5 December 1938, in room 3003 of the Internal Revenue Building, Commissioner Anslinger and Dr. Wollner once again presided over a cannabis conclave, this time far more comprehensive than the 1937 strategy session. No lawyers were among the approximately twenty-five men who, representing a wide cross-section of government and officialdom, included affiliates of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bureau of Customs, Public Health Service, and the New York State Chief of Drug Control. This time around, Treasury Department officials touted their summit on cannabis-hemp as a Marihuana Conference. No longer under pressure to make facts fit with desired federal policy, Dr. Wollner felt free to announce triumphantly that cannabis peculiarly enough, had withstood competent attack for an extensive period of time. That is, until he and his colleagues succeeded in vanquishing their enemy. University of Wisconsin Professor of Agronomy, A.H. Wright, also sensed the newfound ability to speak candidly, stating to fellow conferees that I would like to inject this thought here for I am sure it will do no harm, and that is that hemp is not a large industry. It has had its ups and downs, but it has been an American industry since Colonial times, and it is one of the oldest crops that we have in the United States (Marihuana Conference, Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. 25 May 2005. <http//:www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/1938_mhc.htm> (25 May 2005). Wrights comment thus illustrates how the modern cannabis canvas might be colored quite differentlyperhaps with the red, white, and blue of Washingtonian patriotismunder a different set of circumstances, as was the case briefly during the governments 1942 Hemp For Victory campaign when Midwestern farmers were encouraged to grow cannabis as a strategic wartime supply.

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way to the top of a CIA training manual, A Study on Assassination, apparently produced as a guidebook for political murder.81 Today, amid the U.S. Governments interconnected war on drugs, war on terror, and persistent concern with immigration and border control, society is grappling more than ever with the profound repercussions of the etymmythological discourse that attended passage of the 1937 Marihuana Act.

81

A Study of AssassinationA Transcription, Online National Security ArchiveGeorge Washington University. 17 March 2006. <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ciaguat2.html >.

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ot One Man in America

Believed Him

On the Historical Misunderstanding of John Adams, with an Apologia

Daniel Frontino Elash

ne thing becomes apparent in reading through the correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. As the two reconciled years of personal acrimony with each other, after long lives spent together involved in revolutionary politics, they truly felt that few really understood them anymore. As Jefferson put it in a letter to Adams, why am I dosing you with these Ante-diluvian topics? Because I am glad to have some one to whom they are familiar, and who will not receive them as if I dropped from the moon.1 Adams felt much the same, in a way that both caused him personal anguish and doggedly obscured his legacy across the centuries since his desperate last minute efforts to come to a common understanding with Jefferson.2 Adams problem, put as simply as possible, was that he had one foot firmly in the classical tradition of Greece and Rome, and the other in a future world of an enlightened population governing itself in democratic republics. He thus straddled worlds that did not always make immediate sense to each other. This was true in his time and has only become truer ever since, as classical education has retreated from the core of an eighteenth century schoolboys education to a collegiate discipline involving years of exclusive study and, so often, accompanying years of student debt and monastic living.3 As a result, historians have largely misunderstood John Adams legacy as a staunch believer in republican government, because of the central role of the classics in his thinking and writing. A rigorous if not necessarily exhaustive survey of works on Adams and his beliefs supports the assessment that scholars of American history have almost universally ignored classical influences on Adams thought. Such ignorance, willful or unwitting, has contributed to the propagation of the myth that Adams was a monarchist in particular, and pro-aristocracy in an antidemocratic sense more generally. Some historians, while discussing Adams, his writings, and his legacy, never mention classical factors such as

1 2

Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 434. Adams discussed how due to a lack of understanding of his politics, I and my Sons and all my Friends will be hated throughout New England in his letter to Jefferson of 3 May 1812, Cappon, Letters 303-4. He complained to Jefferson in his letter of 9 July 1813 that I have been so unfortunate as never to be able to make myself understood on the topic of natural aristocracy (Cappon, Letters 351-2), indeed the source of much of his bad political reputation, as will be discussed further on. Adams held forth at some length on the exact nature of how he was misunderstood so as to be construed a monarchist in his letter to Jefferson of 15 July, 1813 (Cappon, Letters 357-8). 3 For the prevalence of the classics in American education prior to the Revolution, see for examples Clinton Rossiter, Seedtime of the Republic: The Origin of the American Tradition of Political Liberty (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1953), 122, 356-7. For an assertion of the undeniably important role the classics curriculum played in fomenting the American Revolution on colonial college campuses, see Lewis Lenard Tucker, Centers of Sedition: Colonial Colleges and the American Revolution, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 91 (1979) 16-34, page 21. For the decline in classical education after the American Revolution, see Meyer Reinhold, Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1984), particularly Chapter 6, 174-95; for opposition to classical instruction in the same time period, see Reinhold, Classica, Chapter 4, 116-37. Carl J. Richard contradicts Reinhold in the last chapter of his book The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 196-231, in which he describes the anticlassics campaign and cites evidence of use of Latin and Greek by the American Revolutionary generation as evidence against a decline. Of course, that does not disprove a decline in classical pedagogy after that generation, as Jefferson complains of to Adams in the passage cited in Footnote 1, in a letter dated 5 July 1814.

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Rome or Greece, or writers such as Polybius or Livy, anywhere in their discussions.4 This has the effect of propagating misunderstandings of both Adams and of his positions. Others will mention such influences in passing, but not credit or situate them as central to Adams thinking.5 This has the effect of perpetuating misunderstandings of Adams
4

James Truslow Adams, The Adams Family (New York: Hillary House, 1957). While absolving Adams of the monarchist charge (104) Truslow never mentions classical influences on his thinking. James H. Hutson, John Adams and the Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1980) credits Adams Defence of the US Constitutions with being the principal architect of the US Constitution, without ever mentioning any of the classical materials found in it. George Gibbs, ed. Memoirs of the Administrations of Washignton and John Adams, Edited from the Papers of Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury. 2 vol. (New York: William van der Norden, 1846) discusses attacks on Adams character without ever describing them (I.377-8, II.364). Ralph Adams Brown, The Presidency of John Adams (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1975) shows how someone can be generous to Adams legacy simply by not being harsh (12, 16), though never mentioning the classics again contributes to a distortion of Adams views on, for example, a strong executive (210-1). Stephen G. Kurtz, The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism 1795-1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1957) never mentions the classics, offers a superficial treatment of the ideologies underlying the monarchism/aristocracy charge (402-3), and while acknowledging that aspersions of Adams opinions were mischaracterizations (98), blames this on his relationship with Hamilton (98-9). Catherine Drinker Bowen, John Adams and the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1950) does not discuss classical influences on Adams in over 600 pages. Nor does Walt Brown, John Adams and the American Press: Politics and Journalism at the Birth of the Republic (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co. Inc., 1995), though discussing Defence and Davila (68, 102) as well as the monarchism charge (2). John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992) has Adams holding pro-monarchist views (3067), and as reacting against the French revolution (287-290), without ever once mentioning Rome or Greece. Zoltan Haraszti, John Adams and the Prophets of Progress (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952) maintains that Adams views were all determined by class interest (26-34), discussing English thinkers and even Marx without ever mentioning Rome or Greece. He ultimately absolves Adams of being a monarchist (42), but not before presenting pages of discussion on the monarchist charge and implying the contrary (37-42). John R. Howe Jr., The Changing Political Thought of John Adams (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) accurately discusses Adams views on natural aristocracy (133-7), but his attribution of those views to American economic development reveals the authors own biases. That and his explanation that Adams bad reputation was because he belonged to no party (5), coupled with his utter lack of reference to Rome or Greece, serve to reiterate his failure to properly understand Adams. While relatively nuanced, Richard Brookhiser, Americas First Dynasty: the Adamses 1735-1918 (New York: The Free Press, 2002) sums up Defence as being anti-unicameralist (43), and holds that Adams understanding of natural aristocracy was an acceptance of both aristocracy as such (43) and monarchism more generally (193). He summarizes Adams writing as unreadable (183), and never mentions its classical contents anywhere. Edmund S. Morgan, The Meaning of Independence: John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976) is dismissive of Adams generally (4), emphasizing character flaws (6-8 for examples). He discusses Adams appearance of monarchial advocacy as an embarrassment to Washington (46), but he never once mentions classical content or influence in any of Adams thought. Adrienne Koch, ed. Adams and Jefferson: Posterity Must Judge. Berkeley Series in American History (Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1963) almost immediately acknowledges the loss of Adams legacy as a serious historical issue (2), but her examination of issues like Defence (25-7), monarchism (30-6), and aristocracy and equality (51-55) all attribute misunderstandings to Adams contemporary political situation, and never mention classical content or influences. 5 For example, Correa Moylan Walsh, The Political Science of John Adams: A Study in the Theory of Mixed Government and the Bicameral System (New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1915), holds that it took English political thinkers to perfect the flawed and incomplete ideas they inherited from the ancients (22-3, plus notes). While he does give the Roman republican system some credit where it is due (95), he disputes its overall soundness in quite polemic terms (38), holding it to be representative of primitive times (106 plus note), and he repeatedly asserts its defectiveness (182, 231). As for Adams alleged monarchism, Walsh seems to uphold and perpetuate the myth, for examples on pages 276, 281-2, 284. Edward Handler, America and Europe in the Political Thought of John Adams (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) entirely misunderstands Adams (22-9), concluding that Adams was the political theorist of an American restoration (29). His utter incomprehension of the classical influences on the thinking he misunderstands is apparent in his characterization of Greece and Rome as horrors (45), in his dismissiveness (54, 58), and in his doubt as to the applicability of classical models at all (61-2). Merrill D. Peterson, Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue, Mercer Univ. Lamar Memorial Lectures no. 19, (Athens GA: University of Georgia Press, 1976), while directly absolving Adams of being a monarchist (56), still holds him to be pro-aristocratic (63), and while he drops Ciceros name (4, 95, 125) he never gives the classics credit for influencing Adams thought, as evidenced by lack of mention in his discussions of Discourses on Davila (38-43, 51-2). Manning J. Dauer, The Adams Federalists (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1953) offers an excellent treatment of Adams

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points of view, by ostensibly explaining him without providing the classical context that is critical to understand his thinking. Very few historians actually give full faith and credit, as it were, to the large role that Greek and Roman writers of classical history played in informing Adams and others thoughts on society, governance and politics.6 Such writers affirm that Adams is indeed properly understandable, where one chooses to delve into the classical components of his thought, a vital perspective without which Adams can truly seem as bad as his reputation alleges. Why have so many historians missed the mark entirely on the classical origins of the controversial material in Adams writings? The liberal use of the Latin language throughout important primary sources can present significant hurdleseven if much of it is simply quotation of classical scholars such as Cicero and Tacitus, readily available in conveniently-ubiquitous, English-language Penguin Classic editions.7 At the same time,
opinions and writings (37-43, 44, 50, 51-52, 61, 83-4, 86), while almost perfectly divorcing them from their classical context (41). John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair, eds., The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805-1813 (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1966), mention the classics in the context of the educational debate (8-9), without connecting them to Adams writings (8, 174, 220) or opinions (174). Even an Adams rehabilitationist like Gilbert Chinard, Honest John Adams (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1933), who would be well served by an examination of the classics in Adams thinking, only barely mentions them in discussion of his writings (ix-xi, 90, 203-14), and does so in such a bare and peripheral way as to reveal his own lack of understanding. Robert A. East, John Adams (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979) shows his disdain for Adams (66-7, 71) and the classics in equal measure, in a way that both perpetuates the monarchist smears against Adams while obscuring the classical influences on the writings upon which those charges were based, in the very same breath (71). David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001) understands that Adams was no monarchist (375), but even his discussions of Adams views (409-410, 421) barely mention Cicero (375) and never Polybius. His recognition of classical influence on Adams is made most explicit where he says that [t]o Adams nothing had changed about human nature since the time of the ancients (377). However, he does not extend that understanding to his discussion of Adams views on natural aristocracy (421). Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1993) discusses Defence and Davila at length without ever mentioning their classical content (145-53, 165-73), and while the book offers a picture of a bust of Adams as an American Cicero (178), it never seriously discusses classical sources or thinkers as influences in Adams work. Ellis misses important classical elements underlying apparently topical issues; for example, in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001) he sees the few-versus-many debate between Adams and Jefferson in polemic terms, when in fact it is the republican people-senate debate stretching back to antiquity (230-3). Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: The Viking Press, 1963), barely offers a Roman allusion in a four-page discussion of the revolutionary thought of John Adams (114-7). Cappon makes one bare passing reference to classics in 18 pages of introduction to over 600 pages rich in Latin and Greek language and reference (Cappon, Letters xxxi-xlix). 6 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) properly contextualizes Adams thinking on separation of powers in its classical context (128), and likewise his political thinking in general (317) and on natural aristocracy (395). He properly characterizes Defence as misunderstood to advocate aristocracy (526). He discusses the abandonment of virtue as a republican foundation (526-7), fears that the Order of the Cincinnati would become a hereditary aristocracy (5278), and the Roman content of American political discourse (529). Not least, he properly characterizes Adams classical republicanism in a Roman context (531). Likewise Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967) gives due credit to classical influences on the thinking of the founders generally (23-6), including on that of Thomas Jefferson (24-5) and John Adams in particular (26), though he does quote Johnson in agreement with his allegation that much of it generally is merely window dressing (24). He goes on to hold that the classics are more illustrative than determinative in such thinking, and credits Enlightenment rationalism with a more direct sort of influence (26). To contest that in its fullness is beyond the scope of this paper though the assertion of a barrier between classical and Enlightenment thought is quite contestable indeed. Suffice it here to say that the evidence in Adams own writings shows that the classics are central to his thinking, whatever descriptor one cares to assign to their function in that thought, as this paper will proceed to illustrate. 7 For example, see John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Volume 1 (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1979), wherein he supplies lengthy quotes in Latin without translation (226-30, 242). Adams does it again in his Discourses on Davila, for example see The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Vol. 6 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 248, 263-4. For an example from the Jefferson-

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classicists can just as easily fail to see the very American purposes that the use of the classics served for its founders. Perhaps they look at these texts as sources of republican ideas, or at least of a learnd gravitas, but at any rate as derivative expressions of earlier ideas that are purer the further back one goes.8 This is in stark contradiction to the founders use of the classics as critical but imperfect tools that had to be adapted to the purposes of the American Revolution.9 Without a wider understanding in each others fields, it is possible and perhaps even likely that both sets of scholars have missed the central importance of the classics to John Adams revolutionary thinking, and moreover, the significance of that thinking to the American republican experiment. A fuller consideration of Adams writings illustrates the gap between his own understanding of his ideas and others understandings of those same ideas. For example, counting and sorting every classical reference in the Adams-Jefferson correspondence clearly reveals both the large amount and the intellectual importance of the classical material therein. There are literally dozens of such references in their correspondence, particularly after 1812 when each was formally retired from public life and after years of bitter silence between the two. A closer look reveals that while a majority of these references were allusions, brief references, name-dropping, and other such comments made in passing or aside from the point being made, many of them were also germane to the topic at hand, if not the topic itself. There are at least eighty-two classical allusions and references in the letters.10 Both men possessed an obviously high level of classical education, an education that they felt was becoming a thing of the pastan observation with which at least some modern scholars agree. These classical references also sometimes indicate a particular topic of shared interest or passion, and revealing these topics is a major reward for the labor of counting and sorting them. Classical references are strewn throughout the letters, and it may be that counting these and noting the clusters will likewise reveal the most fruitful areas for more in-depth work. Aside from education, two topics emerge as subjects of sustained interest in the classical components of the Adams-Jefferson correspondence: the origins and development of monotheism, and the origins and development of aristocracy. There are nineteen points in the correspondence at which Adams or Jefferson draw on or make classical references in the course of discussing the topic of monotheism.11 Adams and
Adams correspondence, see the letters of 27 June 12 October 1813, in which they each push the other to achievement in Greek and Latin (Cappon, Letters, 335-86). 8 M.N.S. Sellers discusses the situation in the introduction to his book, American Republicanism: Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution (New York: New York University Press, 1994), in which he states that as a classics undergraduate who earned a Doctorate in History and went on to work in a faculty of law, he set out to write a book that bridges the limits of perception in each respective field, as it relates to the others (see page x of the introduction). 9 Adams was acutely aware that past republican failures left the American project open to criticism. He countered that learning the lessons of the past and adapting provisions accordingly was the answer (Davila, 397-9). In fact, his whole Defence is aimed at the question (see Preface, i-xxii). In late 1819, Jefferson and Adams agreed that there was little of actual virtue in the Roman system, as evidenced by its decline into despotism (Cappon, Letters 549-51). They were also concerned about NapoLen as illustrative of republican failure (Cappon, Letters 434-9, 596-7). 10 Cappon, Letters 291, 295, 298, 308, 314-5, 317, 321-3, 325-6, 328, 337, 350-1, 356, 399, 432, 435, 438, 451-2, 4556, 462, 471, 483, 486-8, 493, 498-9, 503, 509-10, 517, 522, 524-5, 533, 536-9, 542, 548-51, 559-61, 567, 569-71, 574, 576, 580-1, 584-5, 588, 590, 599, 602, 610, 613-4. 11 Cappon, Letters, 359-60, 363, 364, 378-86, 389-91, 394, 396, 402-6, 410-3, 428, 432-3, 445, 491, 506, 530, 568,5934.

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Jefferson explored the origins of monotheism, both within and outside of the Christian tradition. If they did not specifically foresee a transition from a religiously-based to a post-God public sphere, they at least forecast the spreading of Enlightenment ideals and the decline of religious mysticism as going hand in hand. Both agreed that this was a most desirable goal, and even necessary for the long term success of democracy.12 There are also an additional fourteen points in the correspondence at which Adams or Jefferson drew on or made classical references in the course of discussing the topic of aristocracy.13 This conversational thread offers insight into Adams personal theories on the existence of a natural aristocracy (i.e. of influence if not merit as opposed to hereditary), and its use as a component in the basis for republican government. Both the aristocracy and the monotheism threads are visibly clustered at specific nodes in the correspondence, whereas the allusions are spread throughout. It is worth noting that not all allusions are quotes of other peopleboth Adams and Jefferson have their own things to say, particularly in Latin but also in ancient Greek. All three of these topics directly relate to Adams and Jeffersons educations and to their shared concerns about the establishment and governance of a viable republic (or set of republics) in America. Due to space and time constraints, this paper will look most closely at the aristocracy thread, though all three are in fact wound up together. Thus, while some of the classical materials in the sources fall beyond the scope of this paper, their interwoven nature brings up deeper questions that deserve a fuller consideration, and doing justice to even this limited topic requires acknowledgement of that. The immediate reason Adams discussed aristocracy with Jefferson was because of the old idea that John Adams was secretly a monarchist. Jefferson had played a major role in that misperception, and so it was one of the things they aimed to reconcile in their correspondence. It mattered very much that the issue was seriously framed and used as a cudgel against Adams character in the partisan context of the nasty presidential campaign Jefferson ran and won against Adams in 1799. These attacks had drawn on Adams writings, particularly Discourses on Davila and also Defence of the Constitutions. Adams seethed for years in the bitterness of the betrayal, not only of himself by an old friend, but also of the sacred mission of the American Revolution for which both had fought so long and hard.14 In other words, the slanderous charges that Adams secretly wanted to impose a monarchy and an aristocracy on America, that he would crown himself and attempt to pass it on to his son John Quincy Adams, and that his writings were the proof, were not just an assault on him personally, but on the ideals he understood the founders to more or less collectively hold in common.15 After all, the Defence was meant specifically to articulate the ideals upon which the American republic had been based at least since the Federal Constitution had replaced the dysfunctional Articles of Confederation in 1787.
12

A particularly scathing indictment of organized religions historical obstruction of the process by Adams may be found in Cappon, Letters, 351. An example of Jeffersons radical revisionism of Christianity may be found on pages 383-6. However, he cannot do it without quoting Greek (386). In fact, he sees science as the salvation of humanity (391). Adams view on rational religion is well-articulated on pages 445-6. 13 Cappon, Letters, 335, 337, 352, 355-6, 365-6, 370-2, 375-7, 387-8, 390-2, 401, 406, 437, 549, and 551. 14 Ellis, Brothers, 167-70. 15 Ellis, Brothers, 209.

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Adams mentioned Herodotus, Cicero and Tacitus in his Preface to the Defence of the US Constitutions as ancient authorities on mixed-government democracies.16 However, it is no secret that his ideas came right out of book six of Polybius writings. Two sections found in Volume 1 of Defence made this clear, complete with Adams own source citations. 17 Where Tacitus offered descriptions of various ancient systems as they existed, Polybius offered a holistic theory of how a cohesive government of component parts may be set upmuch more useful to the tasks at hand of Americas founders.18 Polybius was a Greek political hostage and observer at Rome for some twenty years at the height of the Roman Republic. He set out to describe the Roman political system to which he was a witness. In his writings, Polybius theorized three political cyclesthat of a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy. He believed that each grew out of the decline of the previous one from its virtuous to its degenerate form. More specifically, he claimed that a monarchy would corrupt into tyranny, and at length be replaced by an aristocracy. The aristocracy would in time decline into an oligarchy, until it was no longer sufferable and was replaced by a democracy. Democracy in its turn would give way to mob rule, and the cycle would be completed in a curative return to monarchy.19 Polybius personally attributed the original implementation of the idea of a mixed government, in which each of these three elements coexist in the same government and balance power between them by providing checks on the abuse of power by each, to the Spartan ruler Lycurgus.20 Polybius maintained that the Romans drew the same conclusions from their own mistakes, something Americas founders were happily spared for being able to draw on these ancient lessons as a gift of their classical educations.21 He went on to describe the Roman system as a mixed constitution government, in which two consuls played the monarchial role, while the Senate took on the role of an aristocracy, and the people held their own supreme powers.22 Polybius then discussed interactions between component bodies of the Roman system, specifically praising the strength of the whole system.23 It is very important to note here that these elements only played the roles of the respective social orders in a governmental system; they were not the orders themselves in society. The two consuls acted in the role of kings although they were not entitled to absolute monarchial power, and likewise with the senate in the role of an aristocracy. Adams surely thought he could not be clearer that the Senate playing the role of an aristocracy in a mixed-government system was not the same thing as a European-style, hereditary (and thus not natural, and thus corrupt) aristocracy. After all, he pointed right at the relevant passages in Polybius that made this clear.24
16 17

Adams, Defence, Herodotus on p. ii, Cicero and Tacitus on xix. Adams, Defence, Letters XXX and XXXI, see in particular page 169. 18 As discussed by Adams, Defence, Letter XXXVII 19 Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert (London: Penguin Books, 1979) Book 6, Chapters 3-9. 20 Polybius, Rise, 6:10. Adams takes up the case of Lycurgus and Sparta (Lacedaemon) in Defense, Letter XL. 21 Polybius, Rise, 6:10. 22 Polybius, Rise, 6:11-4. 23 Polybius, Rise, 6:16-7. 24 He also makes it clear in his later correspondence with Jefferson (but not without reaching for Latin and Greek in illustration of his points). For examples, see Cappon, Letters, 352, 355, 365-6, and 370-2.

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Defense drew on such ancient and universally respected sources as Polybius, as well as those of other, more recent republics and theoreticians, to drive home the point that the US Constitution, far from being a wild eyed experiment in fact was state of the art political science backed up by millennia of thought and practice. Adams opened Defense with a historical summary, not only speaking for a mixed government but also veritably warning of the consequences of a failure to provide for one properly. Without three orders, and an effectual balance between them, in every American constitution, it must be destined to frequent unavoidable revolutions noted Adams at the start of his work.25 This statement hardly seems to be that of a monarchist. In addition, Adams noted, it would be better for America [to] go through all the revolutions of the Grecian states, rather than establish an absolute monarchy among them26 Furthermore, he continued:
It is become a kind of fashion among writers, to admit, as a maxim, that if you could always be sure of a wise, active, and virtuous prince, monarchy would the best of governments. But this is so far from being admittable, that it will forever remain true, that a free government has a great advantage over a simple monarchy.27

The rest of the paragraph sang the praises of a mixed government, comprised of three distinct branchesan oft-reiterated theme in Adams writings, and most obviously not the stuff of crypto-monarchism. The first volume of Adams Defense was rushed off of the presses and into the hands of delegates arriving for the Convention that was to eventually recommend adoption of the Constitution.28 The Romans were widely considered, of every historical and contemporary republic studied by the founders (and Adams looked at them all), to have been the ones to most effectively solve the very problem facing American constitutional framershow to assure that a republic once established did not degenerate into the perpetual bloodshed and revolving dictatorships of political instability.29 As Adams put it, The institutions now made in America will never wholly wear out for thousands of years: it is of the last importance then that they should begin right; if they set out wrong, they will never be able to return, unless it be by accident, to the right
25 26

Adams, Defence, vii. Adams, Defence, vii. 27 Adams, Defence, viii. 28 Sellers, Republicanism, 33 and 38. It is notable, however, that today we think of the tripartite division of powers of government in the executive, legislative and judicial, when in the mind of John Adams it was clearly in the executive and each chamber of Congress, the Senate playing the aristocratic role and the House that of the people, as discussed above. Ironically, it is the judiciary that is the most monarchial in the nature and use of its powers in the American constitutional system. 29 As the Tables of Contents of all three volumes of the Defence makes clear, Adams considered everything from the evolution of English division of powers in Letter XX, to the little Republic of San Marino in Italy in Letter III, and all time periods from the ancient Greeks such as in Letters XXX-XXXIII to political theorists who were his contemporaries, such as Locke in Letter LIV and Montesquieu in Letter XXVIII.A warning of the dire, bloody consequences of the degeneration of the republicin the form of a historical laundry list of disastersare among the very first things a reader finds in Adams Defence, iv-vi. In other words, it is one of the first things he would have Convention delegates consider.

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path.30 It is perhaps telling that the precedent he gives for these remarkable assertions is the destruction of the western Roman Empire by German tribes, and the subsequent endurance of the idea of mixed government in Europe, degenerate as it was under feudalism.31 For their part, delegates to the Convention felt unmitigated gratitude to the otherwise-absent Adams, who was nevertheless omnipresent in the form of his Defense. As Benjamin Rush wrote to Richard Price from Philadelphia on 2 June, 1787:
Mr. Adams's book has diffused such excellent principals amoung us, that there is little doubt of our adopting a vigorous and compounded federal legislature. Our illustrious minister in this gift to his country has done us more service than if he had obtained alliances for us with all the nations of Europe.32

Meanwhile, the unresolved and yet unutterable polemic of slavery as a doubtful basis for a free republic was in the back of everyones minds. Slavery gave a stark and foreboding sense of perilous duty to what were, perhaps, otherwise-sanguine debates over whether one or two legislative chambers were preferable.33 At least some of that foreboding was to come true by the 1860s, though reading the Adams-Jefferson correspondence, one might wonder that it was put off for so long. As Jefferson wondered to Adams in his letter of 22 January 1821:
Are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger? Are we then to see again Athenian and Lacedaemonian confederacies? To wage another Peloponnesian war to settle the ascendancy between them? Or is this the tocsin of a merely servile war? That remains to be seen: but not I hope by you or me.34

Adams replied on 3 February of that year:

Slavery in this Country I have seen hanging over it like a black cloud for half a Century. I might probably say I had seen Armies of Negroes marching and countermarching in the air, shining in Armour. I have been so terrified with this Phenomenon that I constantly said in former times to the Southern Gentlemen, I cannot comprehend this object; I must leave it to you.35

As we all know, it turned out that the republic did survive the crisis when it came. Nevertheless, the stability of the republic is something Americans have never ceased worrying about and guarding, each party in its own ways, to this day.36
30 31

Adams, Defence, xxi. Adams, Defence, xx-xxi. 32 Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols., (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), v.3, 33. 33 See for example, Rufus Kings ruminations at the Convention, that [i]f [the Southern states] threaten to separate now in case injury shall be done them, will their threats be less urgent or effectual, when force shall back their demands. Even in the intervening period there will be no point in time at which they will not be able to say, do us justice or we will separate. Farrand, Records, v.1, 596. 34 Cappon, Letters, 570. 35 Cappon, Letters, 571. 36 A fine example may be found in the 2000 presidential election, unprecedented and effectively decided by a Supreme Court ruling, amid much talk of a constitutional crisis if the Florida ballot situation were not somehow resolved and no

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At any rate, on the cusp of dangerous times, delegates to the Constitutional assembly readily embraced Adams contribution. It is not difficult to imagine them skimming the book-length work among the many other materials at hand for them to consider, spending more time with the introduction and conclusion and glancing through the intervening chapters on the likes of Polybius and the Roman Republic and Greek citystates with a knowing nodafter all, anyone who had been to grade school had studied some Latin. Sellers makes the interesting point that Adams (and many other writers of the time) did not even feel it necessary to offer translations of their Latin quotationsone could look them up if not just read them, or translate them for oneself.37 Such a rhetorical underpinning must have also provided a gravitas that delegates would find both useful and comforting as they went home and faced sharp questions from skeptical constituents apprehensive of a new, central government with too much power, too remote from their daily lives. Defence played an important role in getting the Constitution adopted. Everyone loved the Defenceat least everyone who embraced the Constitution, including Jefferson. Jefferson wrote to Adams from Paris on 6 Feb. 1787, stating I thank you much for the valuable present of your book [the Defence]. The subject of it is interesting and I am sure it is well treated. I shall take it on my journey that I may have time to study it.38 Lest that seem mere politeness, he replied again, having read the book by 23 February of the same year, I have read your book with infinite satisfaction and improvement. It will do great good in America. Its [sic] learning and its [sic] good sense will I hope make it an institute for our politicians, old as well as young. The only reconsideration he asked of Adams regards whether Congress be a legislative or diplomatic assembly. He added that he had personally taken steps to assure a goodquality translation into French.39 These are hardly the words and acts of a dissenter. So, what exactly happened to the reputation that won Adams election as Americas first Vice President and second President? In short, the French Revolution happened. American revolutionaries were delightedit seemed that the universal promise of Americas own revolution would indeed spread across the Earth, and that a new Age of Reason would dawn on a humanity freed from monarchial-aristocratic chains. It was not that Adams did not harbor these same hopes. As early as 1787 he had written to Jefferson that All Europe resounds with Projects for reviving, States and Assemblies, I think: and France is taking the lead.How such assemblies will mix, with Simple Monarchies, is the question.40 A propensity to mix them by bloodshed left Adams with grave doubts. In his 1812 note prepended to the Discourses on Davila, written to express those doubts, Adams wondered in writing that he himself:

clear winner emerged. For a summary, see Christine Barbour and Gerald C. Wright, What's at Stake in the Contested Presidential Election of 2000?, Houghton Mifflin Textbook Site for Keeping the Republic, n.d. [website]; available from <http://college.hmco.com/polisci/barbour_wright/keep_repub/1e/students/election/ electionupdatef.html; Internet; accessed 23 April 2005>. 37 Sellers, Republicanism, 21. 38 Cappon, Letters, 170. 39 Cappon, Letters, 174-5. 40 Cappon, Letters, 214.

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had the courage to oppose and publish his own opinions to the universal opinion of America, and, indeed, of all mankind. Not one man in America believed him. He knew not one and has not heard of one since who then believed him. The work, however, powerfully operated to destroy his popularity. It was urged as full proof, that he was an advocate for monarchy, and laboring to introduce a hereditary president in America.41

Davila was an Italian writer on French history.42 Tracing the emergence and development of the French throne from its Frankish origins, Adams drew heavily on Davilas work in his own, to illustrate the bloodshed by which the French monarchy had gained and maintained something like a political hegemony only relatively recently in France. Indeed it is a dull, heavy volume, brimming with obscure characters unleashing bloodbaths on the French population the moment they saw the slightest chance of advantage over rivals to the French throne. Adams wondered what would become of France with the removal of any semblance of mixed government in favor of rule of the people alone. What was to become of any people whose government suffered the crushing of two of the three orders by violent bloodshed? The long and gory list of battles was his barely-implicit answer, and in case that dire warning escaped the gentle reader Adams concluded that:
It has been said, that it is extremely difficult to preserve a balance. This is no more than to say that it is extremely difficult to preserve liberty. To this truth all ages and nations attest. It is so difficult, that the very appearance of it is lost over the whole earth, excepting one island and North America. How long it will be before she returns to her native skies, and leaves the whole human race in slavery, will depend on the intelligence and virtue of the people. A balance, with all its difficulty, must be preserved, or liberty is lost forever. Perhaps a perfect balance, if it ever existed, has not been maintained in its perfection; yet such a balance as has been sufficient to liberty, has been supported in some nations for many centuries together; and we must come as near as we can to a perfect equilibrium, or all is lost. When it is once widely departed from, the departure increases rapidly, till the whole is lost. If the people have not understanding and virtue enough, and will not be persuaded to the necessity of supporting an independent executive authority, an independent senate, and an independent judiciary power, as well as an independent house of representatives, all pretensions to a balance are lost, and with them all hopes of security to our dearest interests, all hopes of liberty.43

What strikes one is how much like the Defence this reads, in both its general concerns and in its particular prescriptions. However, in the context of a critique of a then still fresh democratic revolution, it could be read easily enough as bemoaning the loss of a monarchial-aristocratic system to the rise of a democracy. Was Britain free under a king, while France was oppressed under popular rule? None would buy it, not in America anyway.

41 42

Adams, Davila, 227. He refers to himself in the third person. Adams, Davila, 227 n. 1. 43 Adams, Davila, 399.

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Adams extensively illustrated his points in several places, drawing examples from classical antiquity to do so. His first such use was an extensive description of the Roman political system.44 In the context of government playing a rightful role in the regulation of human competition for glory, prestige, and social recognition, Adams queried the reader as to whether there has ever been a nation who understood the human heart better than the Romans, or made a better use of the passion for consideration, congratulation, and distinction?45 He then went on to describe the distinctionsone might call them social classes or ranksin Roman society. Adams spoke of distinctions of dress, such as wearing the color purple and gold rings; of symbols of power such as chairs, crowns, and rods; and of rituals such as triumphs and ovations. That he went on to contextualize such displays as in the true spirit of republics is a point easily enough lost if one is dwelling on the distinctly imperial/monarchial implications of such things as special chairs and crowns for heads of state. 46 Even the example that follows, of a republican Rome parading the defeated King Perseus, could be read with suspicion as sympathy, if not apology, for monarchy.47 Adams use of Caesar as an example of ambitions insatiability in addition to his mention of Plato in relation to kingship and his return to the exemplary disgrace of the Macedonian royal house by Paulus Aemiliusemphasizing the attachment of his followers to the king looked suspicious to one who believed that Adams was attacking a revolutionary people in defense of a monarchial-aristocratic system.48 For his part, Adams felt himself to be clear enough on what he did want:
Let the rich and the poor unite in the bands of mutual affection, be mutually sensible of each others ignorance, weakness, and error, and unite in concerting measures for their mutual defence against each others vices and follies, by supporting an impartial mediator.49

On the other hand, would that impartial mediator happen to be a king? Furthermore, Adams fed the flames of his own fire by doing things like suggesting that the president be addressed as His Highness or His Majesty and by arguing that the existence of an aristocracy was both natural and inevitable. 50 Of course, he meant something different than the characterizations by his opponents of those positions, as he later made explicit to Jefferson in their correspondence. What he really meant was that some people were, for whatever reason, more influential than others whether by birth or by beauty, wealth, intelligence or virtueand that influence is also known as aristocracy.51 Such influence was natural and thus should be accounted for, even harnessed for the sake of the public good.52 Far from contradictory, this was entirely consistent with a republican world view. Polybius noted that in the Roman electoral
44 45

Adams, Davila, 243-4. Adams, Davila, 243. 46 Adams, Davila, 243. 47 Adams, Davila, 244. 48 Adams, Davila, 249, 255, 261. He also mentioned Caesar on pages 263 and 275. 49 Adams, Davila, 396. 50 Ellis, Brothers, 168. Adams, Davila, 245-8. 51 Adams, Letters, 371-2, for example. Of course by then it was years later and he was explaining himself to Jefferson. Note he also reached for Greek and Latin precedents with which to frame his commentsand in the original languages. 52 Cappon, Letters, 365-366. Again, in direct response to Greek and Latin sources.

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system, it was the people who bestow offices on those who deserve them, and these are the noblest rewards of virtue the state can provide.53 It was not uncommon for Adams to express his agreement with that in aristocratic terms, for example where he stated in the conclusion to Defence that Congress will always be composed of members from the natural and artificial aristocratical body in every state54 Why did he need to make the distinction if he intended an artificial hereditary aristocracy to be instituted, as opposed to a natural one that recommended itself for public service by its public virtues, its persuasion by whatever means, as expressed in and validated by elections? Aristocracy, to Adams, was a natural organizing element and social glue to a functioning democracy, nothing more or nothing less. To his mind, an imposed aristocracy was a perversion of a natural human tendency. Government was the proper check to this natural drive.55 Public virtue, while ultimately replaced in the American ideological structure of governance with the concept of a balance of competing interest, was generally held by the founders as an ideal to be cultivated for the sake of the safety and health of the republic.56 It was concern for this loss of virtue, as well as loss of balance in the government, that gave Adams cause for such grave concern in the French Revolution.57 If he expressed these concerns better with the benefit of hindsight, he had every right to believe himself understood in Davila because of the warm reception the same ideas had received in Defence. However, in the case of Davila, Adams efforts to convey his fears about the French Revolution were, in turn, causing some concerns about his own leanings, and all the Roman republican rhetoric he could muster was not assuaging them. Written in 1790, Davila predates significant events in the French Revolution, events from which Adams would take a great deal of justification if not solace later. Meanwhile, Davila in and of itself was not enough to prevent his election as successor to George Washington in 1796. Neither its gentlemanly concern for proper governance, nor democratic umbrage with some of its tone or appearance, were the end of Davilas continued political relevance. In 1799, Jeffersons political party found it quite useful to characterize, or perhaps to recharacterize, those writings in its quest to capture the White House from Adams and the Federalists. The fact that Jefferson campaigned at all was something of a scandal, at least in Adams view. Actually competing for office was an innovation and spoke of an unseemly eagerness to achieve that office. Elective office in a republic was instead supposed to be more of a duty, something one sought deferentially. In its pursuit,
53 54

Polybius, Rise, 6:14. Adams, Defence, 363. 55 Adams, Davila, 262-3. 56 For examples, all in John P. Kaminski and Richard Leffler, eds. Federalists and Antifederalists: The Debate Over the Ratification of the Constitution (Madison: Madison House, 1989): of founders relying on public virtue, see the end of Madisons letter, page 62; for elections as public expression of virtue, see Coxes letter, pages 76-7. The anti-federalists tended to see virtue as insufficient public protection, see for example the end of James Monroes comments at the Virginia ratifying convention (97). For a discussion of the shift from virtue to balance of competing interests in the American political sphere at this time, see Gordon Wood, The American Science of Politics, in What Did the Constitution Mean to Early Americans?, ed. Edward Countryman (Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999), particularly pages 105-7. 57 An excellent example may be found in Cappon, Letters, 457, in which Adams describes being blamed for his early prediction that France would become a bloodbath. Jefferson concedes that Adams had been right and he wrong in his reply, pages 458-461.

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a virtuous candidate was expected to remain somewhat aloof.58 Furthermore, running for office as part of a party (or faction) was also innovative in a way that seemed to Adams corrosive to the best interests of the republic.59 In other words, his old friend seemed to him to be putting personal interests ahead of those of the republic, which was at least unvirtuous if not outright hypocritical behavior on the part of a founder. What damage might it cause the tender membranes of a brand new system of government? Davila offered Jeffersons partisans almost ready-made political hay, and they made much of it. They construed Adams previously well-understood sentiments in favor of a mixed system of government in which social elements were balanced against each other in a separation of powers, as expressing a secret agenda to impose a king and nobility on an unwitting and unwary America.60 This spin was vastly aided by Adams own refusal to adapt his tactics to those of a political party willing to manipulate public opinion for advantage at the polls. Instead, he remained virtuously above the fray of actually campaigning for the office for which he was standing.61 Adams lost the election to his now-former friend Jefferson, and the festering wounds took a long time to heal. The center of gravity in the stillborn attempt of Adams and Jefferson to re-establish correspondence in 1804 was a withering letter by Abigail Adams, detailing for Jefferson not only his political sins but the enduring sense of personal betrayal with which he had left the Adamses.62 Not least of these, Adams had written his Discourses on Davila in part on Jeffersons urging,63 to try to express his republican concerns, but later it was used as propaganda to prove that he was somehow a monarchist by an old friend who in fact knew better. Adams was left to retire, his reputation in tatters, alone and raging, not only at the personal betrayal of dear old friends and comradesbut also at the collective betrayal of the very ideals in which the republic had been ostensibly vouchsafed, and all for a mess of electoral pottage. The correspondence in which the two men later repaired that old friendship, in the dusk of their lives, was famous even in its own day.64 However, despite attempts to get the men to publish these letters, each wanted the letters to remain intensely personal. 65 There were old demons to exorcise, and the betrayals of private letters published
58 59

Ellis, Brothers, 210. Ellis, Brothers, 210. Jefferson saw it as perhaps inevitable and probably eternal, especially as it always fell along the same lines; see Cappon, Letters, 337-8. Adams replied that that was exactly the problem (351). 60 Ellis, Brothers, 211. 61 Ellis, Brothers, 210. 62 Cappon, Letters, 271-4. That exchange was the only one in an 11-year gap in correspondence between Jefferson and the Adamses; see Cappon, Letters, xv-xvi, i.e. the Table of Contents, bearing in mind that the book is the complete correspondence. 63 Cappon, Letters, 351. 64 Jefferson noted that he had been approached about publishing their correspondence, and speculated that postal carriers had made their correspondence known, Cappon, Letters, 453. He was appalled. Both Jefferson and Adams were deeply satisfied at having avoided such calamities as published letters (579-80). 65 I generally disagree with Ellis analysis in Brothers that each had the major goal of writing, as if past one another, to posterity, such as he discusses on pages 223 and 227. On the other hand, Adams did seem to be addressing non-present readers of their correspondence in Cappon, Letters, 346. Yet he immediately proceeded to despair of making himself understood to Posterity, and doubted that the effort to collect the documentation to do so was even worth it. Jefferson saw it as perhaps inevitable in Cappon, Letters, 349. That it was there for the two men to come to grips with did not therefore necessitate same as one of their main goals.

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(whether by each other or others) figured in them.66 Rather, as two of the last of their generation,67 it became increasingly important to make peace and achieve understanding, both for personal reasons and for the sake of intellectual companionship. As Adams famously put it to Jefferson, You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.68 Tellingly, it was after this breakthrough moment that the intellectual exchange took on the depth and breadth for which it is so remarkable, and this activity must have been a significant reward in itself. Posterity, while it may have been interested and while the two men must have known this, was an interferent in their relationship. They sought to minimize such static in their reclaimed relationship, as evidenced by their repeated assurances of discretion.69 In fact, as shown above, the public stage had been a major component of the damage Adams and Jeffersons relationship suffered, and one they were glad enough to be rid of, as retired gentlemen-farmers. They set about explaining themselves to each other, on every topic that had ever interested either. They did so with copious doses of Latin and Greek, and drew on sources in those languages to make their points. To reduce that to an intended, eventual public display misses the point, in a way not unlike considering all the Latin merely for show of erudition. The issue of a natural aristocracy, and the damage done to Adams in the general misunderstanding of his position on the topic, is the beating heart of the section of this correspondence described in the beginning of this paper as the aristocratic thread or cluster of classical referents found in this body of documents. According to Adams himself:
my defence of the Constitutions and Discourses on Davila, laid the foundation of that immense Unpopula[ri]ty, which fell like the tower of Siloam upon me. Your steady defense of democratical Principles, and your invariable favorable Opinion of the french Revolution laid the foundation of your Unbounded Popularity Now, I will forfeit my Life, if you can find one Sentence in my Defence of the Constitutions, or the Discourses on Davila, which by a fair construction, can favor the introduction of a hereditary Monarchy or Aristocracy into America. They were all written to support and strengthen the Constitutions of the United States.70

Truth be told, Jefferson in the end could not but agree that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.71 In fact, the world and events intervened to twist his meaning, and the nature of that intervention was a direct result of the effects the founders themselves had had on the world.72 With the benefit of hindsight, the irony was not lost on Adams and Jefferson.
66

See for example Cappon, Letters, 326, in which Adams warned Jefferson that a Mr. Lindsey had published some private letters sent him by Jefferson. Jefferson replied with concern (331) and Adams reassured him in his response (333). 67 Cappon, Letters, 326. Adams mourned in 1813 the passing of Benjamin Rush (328). The situation was dire by the fall of 1821(574). 68 Cappon, Letters, 358. 69 Adams expressed both desire for discretion and lack of concern for reputation and posterity in Cappon, Letters, 333. 70 Cappon, Letters, 356. In fact, the whole letter addressed the situation (354-6) as well as his next one (357-8). 71 Cappon, Letters, 388. 72 Cappon, Letters, 575.

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Jeffersons admission that he had been wrong about the French Revolution, and that Adams had been correct, gave Adams immense satisfaction. The destruction of the French aristocracy had in fact led first to a bloodbath, and then to a dictatorship, as Adams had predicted. Jeffersons concession to this truth went a long way towards giving Adams a sense of vindication, and also towards reestablishing a trust that had been so damaged in those election-driven betrayals of common understandings of shared ideals. 73 It also made discussions of subsequent events like the deposition and exile of Napoleon or the restoration of the French monarchy an extremely gratifying topic of conversation for both men.74 If one had been wrong about France, both had done a great deal better by their own country. Fears of a civil war over slavery notwithstanding, neither lived to see the American republic fall into the bloodbath-and-dictatorship cycle. They had every right to feel good about that, given European events.75 Another and perhaps ultimate proof that their late correspondence was not merely a side function of concern for their legacy in the eyes of posterity, is the persistence of the idea that John Adams was indeed to any degree a sympathizer with or supporter of an aristocratic or monarchial governmental system, and not the ardent republican to which his whole life gave its testimony. Rather, his credibility gap widened over the intervening decades, perhaps incidentally as the classics were relegated to increasingly rarified or increasingly superficial levels of the educational system.76 After all, when Adams wrote the Defense, he presumed that his readers could read Latin from their grade school educations, which implied by extension some familiarity with the contents of Polybius writings. However, if one does not even know Polybius name, what is one to make of Adams views on the necessity of tripartite balances of power in a mixed government? This fundamental misunderstanding of John Adams has cost America much of its Adamsian legacy, as well as obscured the major role the classics played in the revolutionary thought of John Adams. That is both unfortunate and rectifiable, as the American republic continues to navigate the stormy political seas of war and constitutional crisis, partisan polemics and long term instability. Adams and Jefferson, in their peace, found room for optimism, even with the cautions appropriate to the dawning of the nineteenth century.77 We might likewise profit from a reconsideration of their legacy in the fullness of its rich classical content.

73 74

Ellis, Brothers, 237-9. For example, Cappon, Letters, JA at 435-8, 455-6, 517-8, and TJ at 441-2. 75 Jefferson expresses that satisfaction in Cappon, Letters, 391-2. 76 Jefferson himself bemoans the situation as early as 1814 in Cappon, Letters, 434. 77 Adams in Cappon, Letters, 456, and Jefferson at 458.

Not One Man in America Believed Him

he Roman Cult of Mithras

Religious Phenomenon and Brotherhood

Giovanna Palombo

he male [god] they worship is a cattle rustler, and his cult they relate to the potency of fireunited by the handshake of the illustrious Father.1 So wrote the Christian writer Firmicus Maternus about the followers of Mithras showing much contempt and little understanding on one of the most widespread ancient mystery religionsMithraism. The worship of Mithrasa god of Persian originwas part of the socalled mystery cults that developed in the East and rapidly spread all over the provinces under Roman rule, reaching its greatest extent during the second and third centuries A.D. The present analysis will limit its attention to three areas only. It will first consider, Italy mainly Rome and Ostia where this cult was very popularand Gallia-Germania-Noricum (modern France, Germany, and Austria) and third, ancient Syria (modern eastern Turkey and Syria) as representatives, respectively, of western provincial territories and an eastern province. In particular, two aspects will be the objects of investigation: Mithras iconography and inscriptions in order to identify his visual patterns, various epithets, and associations with other deities, and the very nature of the Mithraic religion as a mystery cult. The purpose of conducting an analysis of both the Mithraic image, and of what it may have meant for Mithras worshippers to be part of this mystery religion, will help explain the reasons for the cults widespread popularity. This cult became very popular, specifically among the Roman soldiers all over the empire, despite the fact that Mithras was the god of Romes enemiesthe Parthians. I will argue that the key to understand Mithras popularity is to be found, first of all, in his iconography and not his theology, namely in his simple and yet powerful image. Secondly, as a mystery religion, Mithras cult not only had a votive character, but also offered an opportunity for a secret brotherhoodan organizational structure similar to a secret society of a Masonic type that must have been particularly appealing for soldiers. Finally, the syncretic and universal aspects of the Mithraic cult represent additional elements that can help explain the Parthian gods popularity among the Roman troops. Before proceeding with the analysis of why Mithraism was so wide-spread particularly among the soldiers, it is necessary to address the problem of the sources. In contrast with Mithraisms popularity and the fact that Mithraic sanctuaries can be found all over the Roman provinces, historians are faced with a dearth of literary source material on Mithras. This is not surprising and can be explained in part by the fact that, as a mystery cult, Mithraism had an element of secrecy. Because the written evidence on the cult of Roman Mithras is very scarce as few documents have survived, scholars have looked at evidence from material culture and, in particular, they have relied on the comprehensive catalogue of inscriptions and monuments which offers a valuable source about the Mithraic cult and its worshippers.2 While this monumental list of epigraphical evidence provides information on both the patterns of nomenclature for the god Mithras and the people that were involved in this mystery cult, the archaeological remainsmainly of architectural and pictorial naturehelp identify visual patterns associated with the Mithraic religion. The few written documents available, the epigraphical material, and the visual elements from material culture will constitute the main base for the evidence presented in this article. Among the many problems in dealing with evidence of
1

Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum, 5.2, translated by Marvin W. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook. Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 208. 2 Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (Hagae Comitis: M. Nijhoff, i-ii, 1956-1960), hereafter cited as CIMRM followed by the document number. The dating of the inscriptions is provided when available.

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archaeological nature there is the fact that images, monuments, and artifacts speak their own language, therefore attempting to translate the visual into text is a process that requires the help of various tools, such as an understanding of the social context and values of that particular past society.3 Thus, one should keep in mind that ancient Romans were polytheistic and that their concept of religion and relationship with the divine differed from the belief system of our modern, predominately monotheistic, society.4 In the case of Mithraism in particular, it is necessary to consider anthropological aspects and sociological significance of ancient mystery cults in order to understand the appeal of the cult to many ancient Romans. The cult of Mithras fascinated people in antiquity, and it has also raised much interest among modern scholars. Historians have produced a plethora of articles and books since 1896-1899.5 Mithraism has attracted an enormous amount of scholarly attention, mainly because of the supposed link with Christianity.6 In the last few decades, the focus on the cult of Mithras has been on theology, namely on deciphering the mystery behind the mystery cult. Thus, many historians have looked at the Mithraic iconography and from it they have extrapolated an abstract meaningoften rather complexthat links Mithras to a deeper astronomical and astrological paradigm.7 Other analyses have pointed out a convergence of Neoplatonic ideas with the theology of
3

Knowing the social contextand specifically the Weltanschauung and role within society of those for whom the image or artifact was intendedconstitutes relevant information when using material culture as historical evidence. Peter Burke exemplifies this concept by mentioning how the painting by Tiziano entitled Sacred and Profane Love can be understood correctly only if viewers are aware of the changes through time in assumption about nudity. The clothed Venus represents the profane love, while the naked woman symbolizes the sacred lovecontrarily to what our modern sensibility would suggest. See Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 38-9. 4 I am referring in particular to concepts such as soul, salvation, and afterlife that, even when present in antiquity, had a different significance for the ancient people than the meanings attributed to those notions in modern times. For the pitfall of anachronism when dealing with ancient religions, see John Scheid, An Introduction to Roman Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indian University Press, 2003), 18-21. 5 These are the dates of publication of the two-volume work by the Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, who is universally recognized as the father of Mithraic studies. Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra; translated from the 2nd rev. French ed. by Thomas J. McCormack (New York: Dover Publications, 1956). Despite the numerous studies that have appeared in the last three decades, the Roman cult of Mithras still presents a series of puzzling questions. In particular, there was an upsurge of interest in Mithras in the 1970s. See the proceedings of two major conferences on Mithraism held during that time: John R. Hinnells, ed., Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975) and Ugo Bianchi, ed., Mysteria Mithrae: Atti del Seminario Internazionale su La specificat storico-religiosa dei Misteri di Mithra, con particolare riferimento alle fonti documentarie di Roma e Ostia, Roma e Ostia 28-31 Marzo 1978 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979). For a detailed historiographical review on Mithraic studies up to the mid 1980s, see Roger Beck, Mithraism since F. Cumont, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rmischen Welt, II.17.4 (1984), 2002-15. 6 Many scholars have interpreted Mithras as a savior and perceived Mithraism as a religion of salvation and redemption. For an interpretation of Mithraic salvation, see Leroy A. Campbell, Mithraic Iconography and Ideology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), 371-93. For the soteriological nature of mystery cults in general (with particular emphasis on Mithraism), see also Ugo Bianchi and Maarten J. Vermaseren, eds, La Soteriologia dei Culti Orientali nell'Impero Romano: Atti del Colloquio Internazionale su La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell'Impero Romano, Roma 24-28 settembre 1979 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982). Finally, see the recent study by Roger Beck, Ritual, Myth, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel in The Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 145-80, which stresses the sacramental character of Mithraism (and the equation cult meal = Eucharist) as well as its similarity with Christian rituals. 7 The studies of David Ulansey, Roger Beck, and Richard L. Gordon have emphasized an astronomical-astrological reading of the Mithraic cult by connecting the Mithraic bull-killing scene with the zodiacspecifically the ecliptic between Taurus and Scorpius. For instance, Gordon states that it is ... quite evident from the iconography of the Mysteries that an astronomical idiom was employed to make theological statements. R.L. Gordon, Authority, Salvation and Mystery in the Mysteries of Mithras, in Image and Mystery in the Roman World: Three Papers in Memory of Jocelyn Toynbee, edited by J. Huskinson, M. Beard, and J. Reynolds, Gloucester: A. Sutton Publishing (1988), 50.

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Mithraism.8 In particular, a recent interpretation of the so-called Mithras Liturgy has connected the latter to the theurgy, or ritual practice of the Chaldaean Oracles.9 Additionally, attempts have also been made to interpret Mithras as something else or rather someone else, thus speculating on the symbolism of the god and proposing an understanding of Mithras and its cult in allegoric terms.10 Instead of analyzing the Mithraic theology in order to understand the significance of Mithras and its cult, it is necessary to focus, respectively, on his image and on the aspect of this mystery religion as a social function and a bonding experience among its worshippers. First of all, in order to explain the gods appeal a look at how Mithras was represented in mural paintings, reliefs, and statues, is instrumental. A reason for the popularity of Mithras cult was in the power of its simple and at the same time evocative iconography. That Mithras may have had a deeper, secondary meaning is not to be excluded. The various interpretations of Mithraism within an astrological context fail to explain why the cult became so popular, particularly among soldiers. Most likely, the more abstract meaning was known to very few worshippers of the cultthe patres, or those at the top of the cult hierarchy. However, it was in the direct perception of Mithras imagea direct reading of his iconography that was accessible to the any common viewerthat one can find the mystery of the cults appeal. Overall, Mithras iconography presented an image that combined new and old, simple and familiar features with more exotic ones. With very few exceptions, Mithras iconography is very consistent throughout the Roman territories. Typically, he wears Persian clothing, such as a Phrygian cap, flying cloak, tunic, and trousers.11 He is represented in the act of slaughtering a bull, which he
8

See Richard L. Gordon, Reality, Evocation and Boundary in the Mysteries of Mithras in Journal of Mithraic Studies 3 (1980): 19-99. 9 The so-called Mithras Liturgy is a section of a fourth century A.D. Graeco-Egyptian papyrus, namely lines 475-834 of the Great Magical Papyrus of the Bibliothque Nationale of Paris. See Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, 211-21. It is one of the most perplexing texts concerning the worship of Mithras. Because it mentions the ascent of the soul, many scholars have found connections between this text and Neoplatonic ideas. For an interpretation of how the ritual technique of ascent in the Mithras Liturgy may find its closest parallel in the theurgic practices of the Chaldaean Oracles (a collection of enigmatic verses from the second century quoted by Neoplatonists), see Radcliffe Edmonds, Did the Mithraists Inhale? A Technique for Theurgic Ascent in the Mithras Liturgy, the Chaldaean Oracles, and some Mithraic Frescoes in The Ancient World 32 (2001): 10-22. 10 See Michael P. Speidel, Mithras-Orion: Greek Hero and Roman Army God (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980). Speidlers study provides a clear attempt to interpret Mithras as someone else and Mithraism as permeated with symbolism. He has formulated a complex analysis on the Mithraic cultan analysis in which he connects Mithras to the constellation Orion and his myth. Speidler has suggested that Mithras was in reality the Greek deity Orion. This would explain his popularity in the Roman army, since Orion was a Greek hero, strong, swift, armedin fact he was called the swordbearerand very skilled in hunting. More importantly, as the son of Mars and a victorious military leader himself, he was the epitome of manhood ... and the embodiment of a fierce warrior (Speidel, Mithras-Orion, 38). According to Speidler, astral features and astrological significance would also permeate the Mithraic cult. A cosmic meaning would be attached to Mithras icon, which represents a series of equatorial constellationssuch as the bull being the Taurus constellation, the scorpion being the zodiac sign of Scorpio and so forth. In essence, Speidler sees Mithraism as a Greek cosmic religion, not a Persian cult. Thus, when faced with the question why did a truly Greek religion present itself in Iranian garment? he simply dismisses it with an anachronistic statement, namely that the founders of the cult shared the old Greek and Roman belief that the wisdom of the Orient was superior to their own (Speidel, Mithras-Orion 46). In my opinion, it is not clear why the Romans could not have worshipped Orion directly, and instead they chose a disguised Mithrasdressed in Persian garments, but actually a Greek god!because in reality they wanted to pay their devotion to Orion. 11 The image of Mithras does not differ much from East to West. One of the few variants is a statue found in Ostia that represents the god dressed like a Greek hero with the chiton (cf. CIMRM 239). Because he is not wearing the Persian trousers that are a key component of his eastern attire, Mithras resembles more a Greek god according to Speidler (cf. Speidler, Mithras-Orion, 24-5). This is one of the proofs used by Speidler to justify the connection Mithras-Orion and, in the end, according to the Dutch scholar, despite Mithras Persian garments, Mithraism was ostensibly a Persian cult... [since] the myth of Mithras is largely the myth of the Greek hero Orion (Speidler, Mithras-Orion, 3). See also

The Roman Cult of Mithras

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holds down with one hand while with the other hand he holds a dagger (Mithras Tauroctonos). The Latin poet Statius described the scene of Mithras slaying the bull precisely as it is consistently found in archaeological evidence, namely with the god grabbing the bull by the horns and trying to pull the animal toward the opposite direction.12 As part of the bull-killing scene, one may often find a dog, a snake, a scorpion, a crow (raven), and two torchbearersidentified as the deities Cautes (with torch up) and Cautopates (with torch down).13 Around this standard scene (tauroctony, or the bull slaying), the twelve signs of the zodiac also appear in some cases.14 In addition, there are some images of a banquet between Mithras and the sun-god and representations of his birth from a rock.15 His peculiar birth not only appears in inscriptions and is represented in statues, but it is also mentioned in Firmicus Maternus, who called Mithras , or the god (born) from the rock, and in Commodianus, who referred to the Persian god as invictus de petra natus [...] deus (the invincible god born from a rock).16 Finally, other elements in the Mithraic imagery are the presence of stars on his flying cloak or around his head, and sun rays and a nimbus also around his head.17 Despite his Persian attire, Mithras image must have appeared very familiar and rather appealing to the soldiers, since the god represents a hunteror rather a heroand conveys the idea of strength, courage, and invincibility.18 Mithras appears as an energetic god, active, unconquerable, unsurpassable.19 The gods image is very powerful in its straightforwardness. The power of Mithras image lies in his direct appeal: the act that the god is performing is not mysterious or unusual, but rather evokes a familiar context to soldiers, namely a fight, a struggle in order to subdue the dangerous other or the enemy. Mithras was thought to be the creator and father of all, the Demiurge, whose creative energy generated and still permeates the entire cosmos. The god Mithras struggled with the white cosmic bull, which he finally overcame and killed.20 The bull represented a force that had to be subdued, like the enemies of Rome. In essence,
previous footnote. However, it is worth noting that Mithras is depicted rather consistently in his eastern/Persian attire with trousers and the Phrygian cap. 12 Persei sub rupibus antri indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mithram. Statius, Thebais, 1.719-720 in Paolo Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri: Samotracia, Andania, Iside, Cibele e Attis, mitraismo (Milano: Mondadori, vol. 2, 2002), 358. 13 In ancient mythology, the torchbearer Cautes was linked to the south wind, whereas Cautopates was associated with the north wind; Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum, 24 in Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, 360. However, some scholars hold that the two deities corresponded respectively to the rising and setting sunascending and descending in relation to the equator; see Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times (New York: Routledge, 2001), 132. 14 Among the various examples, see CIMRM 42, Syria, Dura-Europos, approx. 168 A.D. and CIMRM 695, Rome, Italy. 15 See CIMRM 42, Syria, Dura-Europos for an example of the banquet of Mithras and Helios. See also CIMRM 894, Gallia, St. Aubin: exceptional representation of Mithras rock-birth depicting the naked child stepping out of the piled up boulders, on which he leans with both hands; CIMRM 966, Gallia, Pons Saravi: Mithras rock-birth; CIMRM 985, Gallia, Augusta Treverorum: Mithras rock-birth. 16 See Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum, 20 and Commodianus, Instructiones Adversus Paganos, 13.1, both quotes in Paolo Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, 354 and 356. 17 CIMRM 90, Syria, Lattakieh-Tartous, first half of the second century A.D.: head of Mithras with Phrygian cap and surrounded by a nimbus and rays. 18 R.L. Gordon underlies the concept of invincibility as a key component of the Mithraic image and states that Mithras is god, hero, and athlete at the same time. According to Gordon, the language of invincibility, of physical strength, of struggle and victory was taken over from pre-existing narrative and iconographical patterns, which served to familiarize the unfamiliar Persian god, to assimilate him to a pattern of classical heroes (Gordon, Authority, Salvation and Mystery, 49), and, I would add, of Roman gods. For an example of Mithras as hunter, see CIMRM 55, Syria, Dura-Europos and CIMRM 77, Syria, Sidon, 188 A.D. 19 Richard L. Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society: Social Factors in the Explanation of Religious Changes in the Roman Empire in Religion 2 (1972): 100. 20 Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum, 6 in Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, 210-1. Porphyry describes Mithras as the Demiurge of the cosmos.

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Mithras image is simple and primordial as it incorporates recognizable elements (sun as the good force and bull as the antagonista strong power to fight against) and, at the same time, it is peculiar and unfamiliar (the gods eastern attire). The Mithraic scene also portrays a scorpion, a snake, and a dog that appear to be wanting to extract the life out of the slaughtered bull by attacking its genitals. This image expresses a concept of cosmic oppositesthe duality of good versus evil (Mithras versus his antagonists). Thus, Mithraic iconography is ultimately universal in his syncretism of old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, good and bad. Furthermore, the contrast between unfamiliar versus familiar features in Mithras representation is mirrored in his nomenclature and connection with other gods. On the one hand, like his attire, the gods name is foreign since it is a Latinized form, through the Greek, of the Avestan Mithra that means pact, contract, covenant.21 On the other hand, Mithras is familiar as his portrayal appears in association with other deities, such as Apollo, Helios, Iuppiter Dolichenus, and Hercules, hence showing that the Persian god was of the same status as long-established, well-known deities. For instance, one of the oldest Mithraic monuments from Roman times shows the association Apollo-MithrasHelios.22 In general, various deities are present in Mithraic sanctuariesdeities that were supposed to protect each grade of initiate (such as Venus for the second grade). 23 A strange-looking figure is often found connected to the cult of Mithrasa lion-headed god, who is encircled by the coils of a snake and may likely represent Aion, also identified as Chronos (time or cosmic eternity).24 More importantly, Mithras is connected with the cult of the sol invictus, or unconquered sun.25 This is not surprising, since Mithras was not only linked to the idea of contract, but he was also the Persian god of light and justice. Although Mithras and the sun-god are separate in the Persian myth, yet their figures often tend to merge and blend.26 Altars to sol invictus have been found in Mithraic sanctuaries along with inscriptions attributing that title (either sol invictus or deus sol invictus) to Mithras himself.27 Undoubtedly, the appellative of invincible given to Mithras along with the

21 22

Mithra (i, nominative) is the Avestan form whereas Mithras or Mithres the Latin and Greek forms. See the archeological complex at Commagene (Eastern Turkey): CIMRM 28, Syria, Nemrud-Dagh, approx. 69-34 B.C. In the sepulchral monument of King Antiochus I of Commagene among the five eight-meter high statues there is one representing Apollo-Mithras in a sitting posture on a throne. For an English translation of the inscription on the throne, see John Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974), 83. In the same monument one can also admire a relief of Apollo-Mithras-Helios. See also CIMRM 33, Syria, Samosata, same as above: Apollo-Mithras-Helios (same time / Antiochus of Commagene). 23 For the Mithraic seven grades of initiation, see pages 13-14. 24 CIMRM 78, Syria, Sidon, 188 A.D.: an entirely naked figure with a lions head (Aion). Beneath his wide-open mouth there is the head of a snake, entwining him with three large coils. CIMRM 879, Gallia, Arelata: dressed torso of a standing Aion, whose head and legs got lost. A serpent, winding itself in three coils round the gods body, rests its head on the gods breast. Between the coils of the snake, there are the twelve signs of the zodiac. Thus, the serpent must symbolize the annual circumvolutions of the sun in the ecliptic and its passage through the different constellations. Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 226. 25 The sol invictus (or El Gabal) was originally a Syrian sun deity whose worship was actively promoted in Rome by the emperor Elagabalus (r. 218-222). See Leslie Adkins and Roy Adkins, Dictionary of Roman Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Gaston H. Halsberghe, The Cult of Sol Invictus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972). 26 Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire, 47. 27 CIMRM 34, Syria, Dura-Europos, 168 A.D.: mithraeum with many scenes from the myth from the time of the emperor Septimius Severus. The inscription states Mithras-sol invictus. Also, CIMRM 88, Syria, Secia: deo soli invicto; CIMRM 897, Gallia, Bourg-Saint-Andeol: deum invictum; CIMRM 890, Gallia, Vasio: deo soli invicto Mithrae; CIMRM 898, Gallia, Mons Seleucus: deo soli invicto; CIMRM 907, Gallia, Lugdunum: deo invicto; CIMRM 986-987,

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persistent emphasis upon light and brightness made this god very attractive in the eyes of the soldiers.28 In addition, the Mithras-sun association conferred a universal character to the deity, since the sun is a primordial and powerful element that was an object of worship in many ancient societies, both east and west. In addition to the iconography, a look at the Mithraic membership, the places of worship, the organizational structure, and at Mithraism within the context of mystery religions can provide useful insights into the significance of the cult, ultimately explaining its popularity. Mithraism was not exclusively the cult of the Roman soldiers, since members of the imperial administrative service, merchants, and freedmen also worshipped the Persian godas it is well attested in the many Mithraic sanctuaries in the ancient port of Ostia.29 Since Roman religion was a social religionmeaning that it was closely linked to the community, not to the individuala cult may fulfill different roles among different social groups.30 Roman gods usually varied according to the community concerned: they were, so to speak, members of the same community as their worshippers.31 Thus, the meaning of Mithraism among the soldiers may not have been the same as the one among civilians. For the purpose of this analysis, the emphasis is placed on Mithraism as the religion of Roman troops, because the cult of Mithras was predominantly popular in the army and, in fact, it was the latter that had been responsible for bringing this religious practice all over the Roman territoriesfrom south-east toward north-west. Additionally, Mithraism was confined almost exclusively to men.32 Therefore, one should look at what made this god so appealing to men and soldiers in particular. Since the Roman cult of Mithras was mainly linked to soldiers, a look at religions and cults among military men is instrumental. Mithraism can be defined overall as the religion of the Roman soldiers par excellence during the empire.33 The definition religion of the Roman soldiers instead of religion of the Roman army is used on purpose and has its reason. In fact, the Roman army had official religious practices, such as the cult of the standardswhich included the gold eagle, the images of the emperor, the
Gallia, Augusta Treverorum: deo invicto Soli and deo invicto Mithrae, respectively. These are only some of the numerous examples that can be found in Syria, Gallia, and Italy. 28 For instance, in a mithraeum in Britain (near the fort of Carrawburgh on Hadrians Wall) one can see that on one of the altars was carved a relief of Mithras with a radiate crown, the rays of which were cut through the stones so that a lamp could be placed behind it with the effect of giving light to the crown like a halo. Graham Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 278-279. In addition, Lane Fox states that many special effectsespecially lights reflected on water and fireworkswere particularly vivid in the worship of Mithras, conducted in the chambers of his small, subterranean shrines. Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1995), 136. 29 Samuel Leuchli, ed., Mithraism in Ostia: Mystery Religion and Christianity in the Ancient Port of Rome (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 56-60. 30 Scheid stresses the social character of Roman religion, which involved individuals insofar as they were members of a particular community. There was not one Roman religion, but rather a series of Roman religions, as many Roman religions as there were Roman social groups: the city, the legion, [...] colleges of artisans, sub-districts of the city and so forth. Scheid, Roman Religion, 19. 31 Scheid, Roman Religion, 20. 32 According to traditional scholarship, Mithraism was a cult exclusively for men and the presence of women was forbidden. In a recent article, Jonathan David has showed some compelling evidence that women were not absolutely excluded from the Mithraic cult, although their participation was very limited; Jonathan David, The Exclusion of Women in the Mithraic Mysteries: Ancient or Modern? in Numen 47 (2000): 121-41. In the end, we cannot say that Mithraism was confined to men only, but it certainly remains a predominately male religion. 33 Another well-attested cult of the Roman soldiers was the worship of Jupiter Dolichenus, which reached its peak of popularity during the first past of the third century. Overall, it was not so widespread as Mithraism. For the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus (and also Jupiter Heliopolitanus) among Roman legionary centurions, see Eric Birley, The Religion of the Roman Army, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rmischen Welt, II.16.2 (1978): 1506-41.

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vexilium (flag), and the sacramentum (sacred oath). The army also celebrated various religious ceremonies and festivals throughout the year, as attested in the Feriale Duranum, a calendar found at Dura-Europos that marked the numerous religious observations during the entire military religious year.34 These official religious observances intended to identify the life of the individual soldier and of the individual legion with the destiny of Rome, maintained the esprit du corps, and created a social structure based on values such as discipline, loyalty, and tradition.35 Additionally, since most religious celebrations coincided with public festivals of the civilian population, these religious practices connected the Roman armyat least symbolicallyto the society of Roman civilians. However, Mithraism fell under the so-called unofficial army cults and served a different purpose. The cult of Mithras was the soldiers personal religion as opposed to the army religion that was imposed from above.36 Roman soldiers needed somethingor rather someonethey could identify with, and the unconquerable Mithras with his features of physical strength, courage, and victory over a dangerous antagonist fit well such need. Thus, soldiers must have felt drawn to this decidedly forceful god. The dualism of Mithraism also appealed to the soldiers, namely the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, order and chaos in which Mithras was fighting on behalf of Rome as a good, civilized power against the disorderly barbarians. In addition to membership, the physical setting of the cult of Mithras helps to define its character and meaning, and hence its appeal. Like Mithras portrayals appear very uniform, his sanctuaries, or mithraea, also share similar features throughout the empire.37 The consistency in the architectural and pictorial features of the mithraea can be explained in view of the fact that the religious use of space enabled the soldier to orient himself... Roman soldiers often moved from place to place, and the religious use of space helped keep them from becoming disoriented.38 The mithraeumor temple for the worship of Mithraswas built to resemble the cave (spelaeum) in which Mithras was supposed to have captured and killed the divine bull. The mithraea were small and tunnel-like.39 Because it was supposed to resemble a cave, the space was rather dark and often underground and was often decorated with the signs of the Zodiac in order to represent an image of the cosmos itself.40 The focus of the temple interior was a marble relief or a painting on the opposite end of the entrance, portraying Mithras killing the bull.

34

For a detailed analysis of the Roman armys religious practicesboth official and unofficial ones, see John Helgeland, Roman Army Religion, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rmischen Welt, II.16.2 (1978): 1470-1505. 35 Helgeland, Roman Army Religion, 1473. 36 The impersonalities of state-religion could not satisfy the religious needs of the individual. For these he turned to the mysteries (cf. Ferguson, The Religions of the Roman Empire, 99). 37 In reality, mithraeum (pl. mithraea)the standard modern term for the Mithraic cult buildingsis a recent scholarly invention. The ancients had no such term, but used simply templum or speleum. Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome: A Sourcebook (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 2, 89. 38 Helgeland, Roman Army Religion, 1503. 39 For instance, the largest mithraeum discovered in Romethe Mithraeum Thermarum Antoninianarum, near the Baths of Caracallameasures 25.15 by 10.60 yards, or 23 by 9.70 meters (cf. Adkins & Adkins, Dictionary of Roman Religion). 40 The idea of the cave as an allegory of the cosmos is found in ancient philosophical writing, such as in Porphyrys treatise where he analysis the Homeric cave of the nymphs and elaborates his interpretation on the basis of a mystical reading of the Mithraic cave. Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum, 6-7 in Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, 210-11. Additionally, for the significance of the Mithraic cave and a platonizing perspective in the symbolism of Mithraism, see the study by Reinhold Merkelbach, Mithras (Knigstein: Hain, 1984), 228-244.

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Two interesting elements emerge from the mithraeum spatial configuration. One characteristic is the small size of these templesa peculiarity that suggests that the number of worshippers in any one place must have been also small. Thus, the small group of men in the caves must have experienced an intimate feeling of togetherness.41 Instead of building bigger sanctuaries as the cult membership grew, Mithras worshippers kept utilizing a religious space that could accommodate few devotees at once, hence maintaining a sense of familiarity and intimacy within each group. As a result, as they gathered in small groups, they were able to form a close-kin brotherhood with welldefined grades of membership.42 Secondly, the mithraeum itself was an intimate space that resembled a dinning room with Mithras, as the host of the banquet, sitting at the head of the table. In fact, along the sides of the mithraeum, there were benches on which the worshippers reclined at ritual meals.43 There is no reason to doubt that the allegoric scene representing Mithras and Helios feasting together, which is frequently present in Mithraic iconography, had a realistic counterpart in enjoyable banquets with plenty of food consumed by the devotees. The archaeological evidence confirms this. In excavated mithraea the remnants of animal bones of various species clearly indicate that the benches on the sides were not used just for praying, but also as couches on which substantial meals were consumed.44 One can clearly see how the ritual became a social experience. Thus, the religion was always world-affirming rather than world-denying.45 However, along with Mithras image as a hunter or victorious fighter, and along with the small size of Mithraic community where devotees could closely interact with one another, an element that played a significant role in the popularity of Mithraism was its rank structure. The cult of Mithras contributed to the creation and consolidation of ties among the soldiers mainly because the Mithraic community was a highly structured organization. In fact, the worshippers were grouped according to seven levels or grades by which they progressed through successive stages of initiation as more of the mysteries of the cult were revealed to them. The seven grades were Corax (Raven), Nymphus (Gryphon / Griffin or Bridegroom or Embryoscholars disagree on the translation of this term), Miles (Soldier), Leo (Lion), Perses (Persian), Heliodromus (Courier of the Sun), and Pater (Father).46 The Mithraic hierarchy must have reminded the soldier of the army hierarchy; hence the idea of a well-structured order was something familiar to the Mithraic worshipper. It was in the highly hierarchical structure of its community that the cult of Mithras differed from most other mystery cults. Mithras cult presented an organizational system similar to a church order.47 Every Mithraic unit was a small face-to-face group, in which relations of authority were
41 42

Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 47. As Gordon aptly summarized it, to highlight the narrowly religious elements in Mithraism does not get us far. Mithraism is of course not only a system of teaching about a god and the experience of the individual soul, but an organization, a social teaching, a cultural system that not only explains experience but patterns it (Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 112). 43 See the images in the mithraea at Santa Prisca on the Aventino and at San Clemente (CIMRM 476 and CIMRM 338348), two of the thirteen mithraea that have survived in Rome. 44 See CIMRM 480/483 and Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, 234. 45 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 112. 46 The Christian scholar Jerome mentions the seven grades of the Mithraic hierarchy; Jerome, Epistulae, 107 in A.S. Geden, trans., Select Passages Illustrating Mithraism (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1925), 61. The best depiction of the Mithraic grades can be found in the floor mosaic of the mithraeum of Felicissimo at Ostia contained in Samuel Laeuchli, ed., Mithraism in Ostia: Mystery Religion and Christianity in the Ancient Port of Rome (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967), plates 22-8. For a detailed description of these seven grades and their significance within the Mithraic ritual, see Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries (New York: Routledge, 2001), 131-40. 47 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 96.

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clearly defined by the seven grades and ultimately sanctioned by religious beliefs. The head of each group was the pater, or Fatheran individual who had reached the seventh grade of the Mithraic hierarchy. He embodied the highest authorityall the members were subordinated to himand, as emblems of his power, he carried the Phrygian cap (like Mithras) and Saturns sickle, and wore a special ring.48 He decided whom to admit to the cult, supervised the rituals, and was responsible for initiations and grade promotions.49 Thus, Mithraism can be seen as a divine replication of social, ordinary (in this case, military) experience, since it reinforced hierarchy and authority.50 Because Mithraism had a rank structure in the seven grades of the cult, it appealed both to the soldiers working their way up through the ranks and to the officers, who saw the Mithraic hierarchy as a religious duplication and reaffirmation of the military hierarchy.51 This made the cult of Mithras a familiar practice in the eyes of the soldiers and a safe cult for the authorities. Mithraism included both common soldiers and military officers, therefore it was not perceived as a suspicious club that may trigger revolts against the superiors.52 As a matter of fact, there was no revolutionary message in the Mithraic cult. The typical worshipper of Mithras as depicted in paintings is young and strong, the image of social conformity, not of marginality. His promotion through the grades was achieved only by acceptance of and submission to authority.53 There was no hint of any desire to break social boundaries in Mithraism. On the contrary, in its strict hierarchy, the entire secret ritual reinforced social boundaries. Ultimately, the cult of Mithras combined the hierarchic and disciplined structures and values of its male members [...] with a new integrated view of the cosmos now completely structured in terms of masculine attributesa masculinity that was epitomized in the bull-slaying icon.54 Since Mithraism intended to mirror the social organization in its religious hierarchy, this could explain the almost absence of women in the cult due to a replication of the army structurein which women were not presentand not necessarily a misogynist feature of the cult.55 It is also noteworthy that until about 195 A.D., there was a peculiar refusal of the Roman army to approve of the legal marriage of soldiers. Therefore, the religious life of Mithraism was more closely modeled on the values of the camp than of the domestic hearth.56

48

For the Fathers iconography, see the mithraeum of Felicissimo at Ostia and the one in Santa Prisca. The latter is shown sitting on a throne and receiving homage from members of the lower grades. See, respectively, Samuel Laeuchli, ed., Mithraism in Ostia: Mystery Religion and Christianity in the Ancient Port of Rome (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967) and Maarten Jozef Vermaseren and C.C. van Essen, The Excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965). 49 For the authority of the Mithraic Father, see R.L. Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 101. 50 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 104. 51 For an analysis of groups or associations characterized by a hierarchical structure, see Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), 191-2: One can instance the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Elks, the Sicilian Mafia, and other kinds of secret societies and brotherhoods, with elaborate ritual and ceremonial, and with generally a strong religious tinge. The membership of such groups is often drawn from socio-political communities of similarly ranked persons, with shared egalitarian values and a similar level of economic consumption. 52 As far as the evidence of the inscriptions regarding military membership, around 22 percent were centurions, 44 percent occupied one of the many ranks between that of junior centurion and private, and 35 percent were private (some of whom may have been retired). Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 108-9. 53 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 101. 54 Luther H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 118. 55 Some scholars have attributed a misogynist aspect of Mithraism based on the one piece of evidence from the socalled Pseudo-Plutarch, who accounts how Mithrashater of womenjoined himself in sexual union with a rock. Cf. Pseudo-Plutarch, De Fluviis, 23.4 in Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, 355. 56 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 98.

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More importantly, a major factor contributing to the popularity of Mithraism is its very nature as a mystery cult. The diffusion of mystery religions, such as the cult of Isis, the Great Mother, and Mithras, was an important religious phenomenon that characterized the Roman Empire.57 In ancient times, religion was the product of various concernspolitical, social, and psychological. For the Roman soldier in particular, religion provided a structure that helped him distinguish between Roman and alien (the other, the enemy), between order and chaos. However, while this function was mainly covered by the army official cults, it was rather in a mystery cultsuch as was the case of Mithraismthat the Roman soldiers could have found a personal, more intimate shelter from the hazards of military life. The army proved effective in its ability to control the natural fear in the soldiers lives by promoting religious festivals, oaths, and the signa. In addition, the strict military disciplina was certainly a powerful antidote against the unconscious impulse of fear. However, it was in ritual behavior (and mysteries had welldefined rituals) that soldiers found comfort for their own anxieties.58 Thus, Mithraism as a mystery religion was very powerful in helping the soldiers dealing with their fears to a greater extent than the official army cults, because of its votive character and the fact that it provided protection by reinforcing ties among its adepts. The concept of votive religion constituted the basis of a mystery cult.59 Most historians have looked at mystery cults and defined them as a form of personal religion aimed at some sort of salvation. Thus, many scholars have interpreted Mithraism as a cosmic religion of salvation.60 If salvation of ones soul had been indeed at the core of this cult, one may have a difficult time explaining why Mithraism had no funerary symbolism and there were no statues of the dead or Mithraic sarcophagi.61 On the contrary, the cult of Mithras and mysteries in general are to be understood as personal religions at a more elementary level, namely as the practice of making vows. Mithraism shares in the general instrumental nature of Roman religion that was characterized by a highly developed contractual relation to the gods.62 It may not be a coincidence that the name of Mithras itself indicates the idea of contract.63 Worshippersin this case, soldiers made promises to Mithras through offerings and rituals expected protection in return, either because they were in danger or ill. The concept of do ut des was a means to

57

It is worth remembering that Roman religion was polytheistic, therefore there were gods of particular places and particular functions and the worshipping of different gods at once posed no spiritual conflict. In addition to allowing for a multiplicity of deities, Roman religion was always changing. Some rituals fell into disuse and others developed as Rome expanded its territorial conquests and came into contact with other cultures. 58 Helgeland, Roman Army Religion, 1501. 59 Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 12-29. 60 Various scholars stress the promise of soul immortality as a strong element of appeal for mystery cults. See, among the many ones, the study by David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). In opposition to numerous interpretations of Mithraism as a religion of salvation and the emphasis on making it a parallel / antagonistic cult to Christianity, Burkert has stated that there is no clear evidence that Mithraism guarantee[d] his followers some kind of transcendent salvation or immortality and the ascent to heaven from the cave which is the cosmos. Instead, Mithraism may in fact have been heroically facing and maintaining this cosmos built on violence and sacrifice (cf. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 27). I concur with such an interpretation. 61 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 102. 62 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 98-9. For the contractual nature of mystery religions, see also Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 13. Burkert pointed out that ancient mysteries were a personal, but not necessarily a spiritual, form of religion (op. cit., 87), a statement which underlies the personal and practical nature of votive / contractual religions, such as Mithraism. 63 As previously mentioned, Mithras is comes from the Avestan Mithra that means pact, contract, covenant.

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appease ones agonizing experience of distress during military campaigns.64 Many Mithraic inscriptions clearly show this votive nature and express the devotees gratefulness towards the god, who had provided protection.65 Overall, Mithraism provided vertical as well as horizontal protection. One the one hand, protection came from abovefrom Mithras and the other deities associated with him, such as the protective gods of the seven grades. On the other hand, protection also came from the other worshippers within ones Mithraic communityboth from those of higher ranks and from ones peers. Knowing that one could count on divine assistance as well as on companions in both combat and prayer, helped to reduce the anxieties of fighting in war. It is also worth noting that in his myth Mithras appears as the one bringing world-order, strong, invincible, and, most importantly, unlike other gods, he does not die.66 The absence of death in the Mithraic myth must have provided the soldiers with a powerful sense of re-assurance and self-confidence vis-a-vis dangers. Mithraism was not only about coping with fear, seeking protection (divine or human), and reinforcing the notion of authority through a rigidbut at the same time familiarhierarchical structure. Mithraism was also about creating ties, bonding together and the unconscious need to belong. Vertical ties were accompanied by equally strong horizontal ones. Mithraic groups emphasized their communal feeling by stressing the importance of the collectivity over the individual. It is worth noting that the term Mithraist is a modern scholarly creation. Instead, one name that Mithras worshippers used for themselves was syndexioi, or those linked by the handshake. Final admission into the Mithraic community was sealed by a handshake () with the pater. Last but not least, we know that as a group, they were jointly united by the oath.67 A famous inscription, discovered in Rome on the Campus Martius and written by the pater Proficentius, commemorates in verses the founding of a mithraeum and refers to the handshake as a marker of Mithras worshippers:
This spot is blessed, holy, observant and bounteous: Mithras marked it, and made known to Proficentius, Father of the Mysteries, That he should build a dedicate a Cave to him; And he has accomplished swiftly, tirelessly, this dear task That under such protection he began, desirous That the Hand-shaken (Lat. syndexi) might make their vows joyfully for ever. These poor lines Proficentius composed, Most worthy Father of Mithras.68

It is noteworthy that the cave is consecrated to the god Mithras so that vows could be made to him on behalf of the worshippers that are called the Hand-shaken. These
64

In essence, thanks to the themes of placation and contract that were at the core of a votive act, the soldiers fought better knowing that the gods were on their side. Graham Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 275. 65 As one of many examples see CIMRM 413 from Rome: [De]o invicto Mithrae / [..U]lpius Paulus / ex / voto / d(ono) d(edit) / antistante L. Iustino / Augurio p(atr)i et Melito. The numerous votive offerings are an indication that Mithras was perceived to be a successful and helpful god. 66 Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 235. 67 The joining of the right hands promoted the initiates to syndexioi with the Father; the oath (sacramentum) made them sacrati or consacranei. Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Mithras, the Secret God (New York: Barnes & Nobles, 1963), 136. See also R.L. Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 107 on the Mithraic oath. 68 Translation from Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries (New York: Routledge, 2001), 42. For the original text of the Latin inscription, see CIMRM 423.

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verses reiterate three elements that characterize the Mithraic cult, namely that Mithraism was a religion of small groups (a fact that appears clear from the fact that most caves were incapable of hosting more than ten or twelve individuals), that the cult had a votive character, and that its members were tied together through a pact sealed by a handshake. This act of handshaking was performed not only among the cult members but also between Mithras and the sun-god, hence turning such action into a symbolic marker of this cult. A recurrent scene in Mithraist iconography is the so-called pact of friendship an image in which Mithras and the sun-god stand in front of each other as equal partners and shake their right hands (sometimes in front of an altar).69 Among the Greeks and Romans handshaking (iunctio dextrarum, or joining of the right hands) was not an everyday gesture as it is now in western societies. Rather, it was a sign of very close friendship.70 Often friends who returned from a long journey were received with a handshake, or the same gesture was used to sanction an agreement.71 Therefore, with the handshake, Mithras and the sun-god are settling a pact.72 The pact between the deities was the model for the ritual handshake between the pater and the initiate. Bound by both an oath and a handshake, Mithras worshippers must have known one another very well and provided reciprocal help like the brothers of a Masonic lodge. Thus, the cult also had a sociological aspect, not just a religious one. As a cult of men and specifically soldiers, it had the features of a brotherhoodan organization based on principles such as secrecy, loyalty, and unity in the fight for mutual interests. By creating a boundary between those who belonged and the outsiders, it reinforced the idea of being Roman soldiers as opposed to the others (the enemies), hence reinforcing the groups inward-looking solidarity. Additionally, the element of secrecy created strong cohesiveness. One should not ignore the fact that the Mithraic religious experience had effects upon the earthy community, particularly in relation to the sense of mutual belonging.73 Moreover, like any secret society of any given time, the cult of Mithras had a rite of initiation based on the notion of re-birth, a highly hierarchical structure, and a strong congregational aspect. 74 One can certainly speak of the Mithraic community as being based on sodalitas (companionship), a society formed by socii and amici.75 Numerous
69

See as an example CIMRM 1430, Virunum, Noricum, third century A.D. On a relief from Virunum, near modern Klagenfurt, Mithras right hand clasps the sun-gods right hand in a friendly handshake. Mithras also puts his left hand upon Helios left shoulder. 70 For the meaning of handshake in the classical world, see Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 152. 71 In fact, the joining of the right hands was a means of solemnizing marriages. Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras. 72 Among the various scenes that give the impression that the two gods are making an agreement, there is an interesting, but uncommon relief from Nersae, Italy (CIMRM 647-650). The sun-god, naked, is kneeling on one knee before Mithras in the vicinity of an altar. Helios is grasping Mithras right wrist with one hand, while with the other he is holding a dagger. Mithras is holding a knife in one hand. Vermaseren had suggested that the two gods are presumably making a blood pact. Vermaseren, Mithras, the Secret God, 97. 73 See Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 105. Clauss also points out that modern sociological studies have made plain how widespread is the need to belong, and in antiquity the case was no different. 74 For the concept of spiritual regeneration in Mithraism within the broader context of rites of initiation in various cultures, see Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1994), 93-4 and 112 and Turner, The Ritual Process. 75 Interestingly, Scarpi has suggested a similarity between the Mithraic community and the comitatus of the German tribes as described by Tacitus (Germania, 13, 1-4; 14,2-3), since both structures were based on a hierarchical and

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inscriptions utilize the words socius and sodalicio.76 Indeed, the devoted members must have spent together considerable amount of time, energy, and money for the god and for their fellow-initiates. Obligations similar to those of private amicitia might have included helping in burial and funeral, as was the case in other mystery cultsalthough the evidence for it in regard to the Mithraic cult is scarce. 77 In essence, the Mithraic communities were not only spiritual brotherhoods tied together by spiritual bonds, but they were also associations that enjoyed the right of holding property, that provided legal assistance to his members, and that elected officers.78 Thus, the aspect of the cult of Mithras as a social experience of bonding together makes sense especially when one considers the fact that soldiers were away from home and most of the time in unfamiliar environments. The development of the associative phenomenon of religious matters is also characteristic of a fairly mobile population, where the individual was no longer part of a fixed family or a city in the traditional sense of the word. These cultist clubs housed in the Mithraic caverns ... gave the rootless immigrants to Rome [andI would addthe soldiers as well], of every race and class, the feeling that they had found the comfort of a piety closer to gods and men.79 In essence, Mithraism sought to secure an at-home feeling by strengthening social ties. Additionally, the cult of Mithras also served as reinforcement of its members identity.80 Mithraism perfectly fit within the larger context of the mystery religions, because the mystery discourse established sociopolitical identity for the alienated individual, whether rural (Eleusinian) or urban (Isiac), male (Mithraic) or female (Dionysian).81 A last element that can help explain the popularity of the cult of Mithras was its universal and syncretic character, which stemmed from both its parthianitas and romanitas. The Persian origin of Mithraism is not much disputed, although there may be no clear relationship with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.82 Mithras origin can be
militaristic organization and fit within the Indo-European context. Lampia diffusione del mitraismo tra soldati delle legioni romane pu lasciare sospettare unorigine legata a possibili comunit iniziatiche e cultuali di uomini, fondate su unetica di tipo aristicratico e guerriero, analogamente al comitatus delle trib germaniche [...] che si inseriscono nel medesimo orizzonte culturale indo-europeo a cui appartiene anche la civilt iraniana. Scarpi, Le religioni dei misteri, 352. 76 CIMRM 361, Rome: S[oli] i(nvicto M(ithrae) / et sodalicio eius .... See also CIMRM 730, Italy: D(eo) i(nvicto) M(ithrae) / et Soli soci/o sac(rum)... as an inscription that reiterates the pact between Mithras and the sun-god. 77 Members of various mystery religions helped one another in funerary arrangements (Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 44). In the case of those worshipping Mithras the evidence is inconclusive. See, as supporting evidence, CIMRM 1021, Colonia Agrippina, Germany (near modern Cologne) where a sepulchral inscription in limestone has been found in the immediate vicinity of a mithraeum. The inscription is most likely about a Mithras worshipper that was buried there: Have / Cimber es(sedarius) et / Pietas Ensocho / essed(ario) sodali / [b]ene merenti / [pos]uit. Vale. Note the word sodali, to the companion, or member of a club. 78 Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithras, 168. 79 Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 134. 80 Ancient mysteries were a personal, but not necessarily a spiritual, form of religion (Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 87). 81 Martin, Hellenistic Religions, 161. See also, One possible function of mystery religions was to solve individual problems of identity (cf. Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 94). 82 CIMRM 28, Syria, Nemrud-Dagh: an inscription states that the Mithraic priests must dress in the Persian attire on the annual and monthly feasts of the cult. However, Merkelbach has advanced a unique theory about the origin of Mithraism. According to the German scholar, the cult may have been the creation of an individual of genius, who was of east Anatolian origin, well-versed in both the Persian religion tradition and the Hellenistic culture, and resided in the Roman imperial court. The purpose of creating this new religion was to reinforce loyalty among the soldiers. Thus, Mithraism was born in Rome and from there it was spread all over the empire. Ich vermute, da die Mithras-religion

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traced among the Indo-Aryan people. According to Plutarch, the cult was popular among Cilician pirates, who introduced the celebration of the Mithraic mysteries into the Roman world around the first century B.C.83 After defeating the sea raiders, Pompey seems to have settled a good number of them in Calabriaa fact that helps explain how Mithraism arrived in Italy.84 However, it was not until the end of the second century A.D. that the worship of Mithras became widespread first among the Roman soldiers in the east and then, moving westward and northward, all over the provinces.85 Whether its point of origin was actually Parthia or Anatolia-Syria, Mithraism has a clear connotation of parthianitas, which is attested by both the gods attire and the use of the Persian word nama (= hail! or long live...!) as a form of greeting among Mithras worshippers.86 Both Firmicus Maternus and Porphyry stressed the Persian origin of the god.87 Although Roman Mithras maintained Parthian attributes, his cult underwent some changes when it became popular among Roman troops. Before his introduction into the Roman world, Mithras in association with the sun-god was simply a symbol of fertility.88 From the bull, the plant/life was born (see the ears of grain coming out of the bulls tail). His cult arrived in the western part of the Roman Empire from the Hellenized East.89 Even Alexander the Great is said to have been initiated into Persian Mithraism. According to Q. Curtius Rufus, the king himself with his generals and staff passed around the ranks of the armed men, praying to the sun and Mithra and the sacred eternal fire to inspire them with courage worthy of their ancient fame and the monuments of their ancestors.90 When the god arrived in the West, his myth focused in particular on the
ausgebildet worden ist von einem Mann aus der kaiserlichen Hofstaat, der ursprnglich aus dem Osten stammte, z.B. aus Armenien oder aus der Provinz Pontos; und da er diese Religion geschaffen hat fr die Bedrfnisse der um ihm lebenden Caesariani, als eine Religion der Gruppe, welche eine religis sanktionierte Loyalitt nach oben hin anbot. Cf. Merkelbach, Mithras, 161. 83 Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 24: [the Cilician pirates] offered strange sacrifices of their own at Olympus, where they celebrated secret rites or mysteries, among which were those of Mithras. These Mithraic rites, first celebrated by the pirates, are still celebrated today. Cf. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, 204. 84 Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 131. 85 As mentioned above, not all scholars agree on the point of origin and beginning date of the cult of Roman Mithras. For instance, Beck has proposed that the mysteries of Mithras were developed in a subset of Commagene soldiers and family-retainers of the dynasty of Antiochus IV. On the one hand, while they were engaging in the Judaean wars, Commagenian military elements had extensive contact with Roman troops and were responsible for transmitting the mysteries to the Roman army. On the civilian side, with the deposition of Antiochus IV in 72 A.D., the eastern dynasty established its residence in Rome and contributed in spreading the cult throughout Italy. Thus, according to Beck, the foundation period of Mithraism should be moved from the first century B.C. to the first century A.D. in spite of Plutarchs account. Roger Beck, The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis in The Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 115-28. 86 Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 8, 133. See also the inscription on the Aventino in the mithraeum near Santa Priscas church (CIMRM 480), in which each order is greeted with the word nama: nama Patribus; nama Heliodromus, nama Persis... and so forth. 87 Firmicus Maternus, De Errore, 5.2 and Porphyry, De Antro Nympharum, 6 in Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, 208 and 211, respectively. 88 Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 95-6. 89 According to Nock, the Mithraism which reached the western world was a new thing, created by fusion in Asia Minor. In general, the cult was carried by pirates, soldiers, functionaries, traders, and slaves, who had learned this derivative of Persian belief, and it did not travel on a national basis. Cf. The Genius of Mithraism in Arthur Darby Nock, ed., Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), vol. 1, 108-13. 90 Quintus Curtius Rufus, Alexander the Great, 4.13, in A.S. Geden, trans., Select Passages Illustrating Mithraism, 278. One cannot help but notice that Mithras as god in connection with the sun appealed to military men even during Hellenistic times.

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killing of the bull, the concept of re-birth, the ideals of strength and invincibility, and the dualism of order-chaos. More importantly, the gods exoticness may have made him attractive, in a manner similar to other foreign deities such as the Egyptian Isis. In essence, his parthianitas made him popular. His foreignness gave him a reassuring connotation of impartialitya virtue that may have been very appealing to a diverse group such as the Roman imperial army. Despite the fact that the worship of Mithras had a Persian origin and maintained traces of its native cult, Mithraism became utterly Roman.91 It was Roman in the sense that the cult had a pragmatic feature. The strong element of pragmatism in Roman society and culture influenced the Weltanschauung of its citizens in many aspects, including that of religion. Not only did Roman religion with its polytheistic character allow for the worship of many deities at the same time, but also it was specifically the fundamental pragmatism of ancient Romans that caused them to try other practices when the old rituals appeared ineffectual.92 This opened the way to foreign cults, like the mystery cults. In Roman religion there was no jealousy or exclusivity when it came to worshipping deities, but instead a sense of inclusiveness. The pragmatic aspect of Mithraism can also be seen in both its previously discussed nature as a votive religion, as well as in its willingness to include other gods within the cult. Just as romanitas extended all over the provinces thorough the extension of Roman citizenship, the cult of Mithras integrated other deities, hence assuming a trait of universality. An attractive feature of Mithraism was that each grade of the hierarchy had a specific protective deity and associated emblems. The deities were respectivelyin order from the first to the seventh gradeMercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Moon, Sun, and Saturn. Therefore, the mithraeum presented itself as a sort of pantheon, a sanctuary including the main and best-known deities. This can help explain the appeal of the Mithras religion in the eyes of soldiers coming from a variety of different places, namely its universal and comprehensive character. Although centered on the figure the Mithras, Mithraism was more than just that gods cult. It was a cult that included other deities and that also incorporated the signs of the zodiac into an all-inclusive system. Thus, Mithras combined elements that may have appeared exotic (his origin and attire) with aspects that were very familiar to the Roman world. The god remained in part Persian and became in part Romanresulting in a syncretic character that made him universal. On the one hand, Mithras universality stems from his own parthianitas or the fact that Mithras was a Parthian, hence a foreign god that did not come from any of the Roman provinces. This conferred him a neutral and impartial characterand ultimately a universal onemaking him easily accepted in an army formed by soldiers that came from all different parts of the empire. The idea that Mithraism stands as evidence for the barbarization of the army is to be rejected.93 On the other hand, the cult of Mithras was universal in the sense that it was very Roman and all-inclusive of Roman religion. In essence, because of its syncretic character, Mithraism was the religion of no one place and of all places, of no one single god and of many gods, hence it was universal. Although some historians have seen Mithraism and the worship of the sun god (the latter
91 92

Gordon, Mithraism and Roman Society, 111. Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 105. 93 Ramsay MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 118-26.

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promoted especially during the reigns of the emperors Elagabalus and Aurelian) as a growing drift into monotheism, the presence of many other gods in the Mithraic shrines makes Mithraism appear as the apogee of paganism (more precisely, henotheism) and of romanitas.94 In conclusion, the cult of Mithras was popular among the Roman soldiers for a number of reasons, including the gods powerful image, the highly hierarchical Mithraic structure, the very nature of Mithraism as a mystery cult and its emphasis on votive character, the aspect of brotherhood that each community fostered, and the inclusiveness of other deities that made the religion universal. In his simplicity and direct iconographical representation, Mithras was very compelling for Roman soldiers, since the god embodied notions such as strength, invincibility, and courage, and he marked a clear boundary between us and the other in the dualism of good versus evil and light versus darkness. The rank structure provided a system that was familiar to the soldiers in reinforcing hierarchy, authority, and ultimately order; whereas the votive character of the cult helped them cope with their fears and anxieties. Most importantly, Mithras widespread popularity throughout the Roman Empire resulted from his syncretic and universal character, and from the nature of the Mithraic community as not only a religious group, but also as a brotherhood. Moreover, small mithraea meant that the group of worshippers that met there was also small. The space itself was utilized for communal ceremonial meals. Even if coated with religious ritual, the act of eating together was undoubtedly a social function. Vertical and horizontal ties constituted unifying forces that were at least as compellingif not moreas any promise for salvation. Without completely discarding the significance of Mithraic theology (including its complex symbolism and liturgy), Mithraism was not simply a religious community, but rather a religion and a community. In essence, the cult of Mithras was a social and psychological phenomenon and not merely a religious practice, because it was about bonding as much as it was about spirituality.

94

Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 575.

GIOVANNA PALOMBO

Corruption of Morals

The Boston Massacre in the Social Imagination of Resistance and Revolution

Ryan W. Tripp

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676:

Violence and death gripped the region as a conflict between Puritans and Algonquian Indians, later known as King Philips War, raged across the land. Neither side hesitated to commit atrocities. Puritans murdered hundreds of Indians in a single encampment; Indians buried Puritans alive as they begged for mercy. Puritan women and children ran screaming into the woods, their faces and bodies on fire, while Puritan men decapitated Algonquian Indians Narragansetts, Nipmucks, Pocumtucks, Pequots, and Wampanoagsin countryside and swamp habitations. In the midst of this carnage, a Natick Indian awaited execution for high treason. A Protestant convert supposedly aiding Puritan fathers during the conflict, the praying Indian had in fact become a spy for the Algonquians. Death came swiftly for the Natick, easing the transition from life to spirit, from history to memory.1

Boston, March 1775:

A doctor entered an apothecarys shop, his servant trailing close behind. Once inside, he lifted a white bundle from the attendants arms and walked to the back of the building. He then robed himself with the cloth. His expectant audience, staring from the doors of the Old South Church across the street, gaped as the doctor exited the establishment and strode towards them, a Ciceronian Toga draped around his body. The doctor entered the church and ascended the pulpit.2

emory of the Boston Massacre unified these seemingly disparate acts, separated across time and geographic space in New England, by contributing to the perpetuation of a colonial American identity and the emergence of American nationalism. During the resistance movement that preceded the American Revolution, the white populace of New England embraced a memory of the Boston Massacre that accorded with popular conceptions of a white, masculine, and virtuous colonial American identity, first by supporting an image of Crispus Attucks as a white patriot, and then accepting his vilification as a half-black, half-Indian savage. As resistance developed into revolution and colonial identity developed into American nationalism, white men and women attending Boston Massacre commemorations confirmed, by crowd action in the public sphere, a masculine construction of national origins that excluded Attucks and conflated the New England past with the totality of British North American history, providing a foundation for a regional form of American nationalism in the early Republic. Histories of the Boston Massacre have focused solely on the event instead of how it was remembered, thereby ignoring its central role in the creation of American nationalism in New England. The first book-length study, Frederic Kidders A History of
1

Bill Belton, The Indian Heritage of Crispus Attucks, Negro History Bulletin 35 (November 1972), 149-52; Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philips War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 71-121. 2 New York Gazetteer, March 16, 1775.

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the Boston Massacre (1870), contained both a narrative and collection of corresponding primary source documents. Kidders history, published in the centennial year of the Massacre, often paralleled the Boston radicals version of eventsa dubious source at best because their accounts sought to rally the public into the resistance movement.3 The second full-length study came in 1970 (the bicentennial of the event) with the publication of Hiller Zobels The Boston Massacre. Zobel characterized the Massacre as a culmination of the resistance and violence that had plagued Boston since the Stamp Act Crisis. He closed the study by briefly surveying events immediately after the trial, arguing that the Boston Massacre as an event did not incite revolutionary sentiments across the colonies. The apparent thoroughness of Zobels survey dissuaded subsequent historians from investigating the impact of the Boston Massacre as a remembered event in the public imagination.4 Recently, however, literary analyst Sandra Gustafson studied the recorded bodily actions and spoken metaphors used by radicals in the Boston Massacre trial and in other orations in a book on early American oratory. She contends that, at first, patriot orators legitimated their claims to power by engaging in rational discourse, believing that irrational discourse corrupted society. However, bodily movements and symbolism in oral performances, such as the Boston Massacre orations, gradually became more important than rational discourse.5 Visual and written accounts of the Massacre remain unanalyzed, as do the contextual reasons forand consequences ofAdamss characterization of Crispus Attucks during the Boston Massacre trial. Such a contextual treatment, especially in analyzing the effects of King Philips War and Attucks Afro-Indian heritage on public memory, forms the first section of this paper. A study of subsequent Boston Massacre commemorations, the orators performance techniques and garb (such as a toga), their construction of an imaginary American past that excluded Attucks, and the concomitant audience reaction, comprises the second section of this essay. This analysis employs the early American public sphere to demonstrate the cultural negotiation between audiences attending the orations and radical orators who needed public affirmation to legitimate the imagined American nation and American nationalism. The final part investigates the influence of these printed and oratorical representations of the Boston Massacre on American nationalist rites in the early Republic. But first, by way of introduction, the initial section will begin not with the propaganda or trial, but with a summary of the Boston Massacre as an event according to eyewitness accounts and secondary sources. I The Boston Massacre resonated across New England because the skirmish came on the heels of a similar incident in London that confirmed colonial fears of ominous corruption within the British Empire.6 On 10 May 1767, thousands of young men
3 4

Frederic Kidder, A History of the Boston Massacre (New York: Munsell Press, 1870). Hiller Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1970). 5 Sandra Gustafson, Eloquence is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). 6 Tracts by radical republican Britons John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon that pointed to this perceived corruption, collected largely in volumes entitled Catos Letters, were widely read in the American colonies and contributed to colonial fears of imperial corruption. See Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, enlarged ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1991), 1-54.

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gathered outside of a London jail to protest the imprisonment of John Wilkes, a Whig dissenter and pamphleteer. British troops, unable to quell their own anger in the face of demonstrator ridicule, fired into the crowd. As a result, a young man named William Allen lay dead.7 In the days that followed, Whig opposition writers harangued the British ministers whom they believed to be responsible, dubbing the tragedy The Massacre of St. Georges Field.8 Reports of the Massacre and subsequent trial reached American newspapers, always full of political news from Europe, in a few months. The merchant politicians and pundits of BostonPaul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Dr. Joseph Warren, among othersdevoured any news on the tragic event.9 On 27 October 1768, the Boston Newsletter published the trial narrative by a Ministerial Hireling who noticed that the curiosity of the Boston public had been very much excited by the trial. This Hireling, lamented the venality of the times; such a massacredue to the corruption pervasive in English governmentproved that all public virtue [was] lost.10 By March 1770, British troops had been stationed in Boston for two years and many New Englanders viewed their presence, along with the 1765 Stamp Act and the 1767 Townshend Acts, as evidence of the same corruption that had caused the Massacre of St. Georges Field. This burgeoning animosity engendered conflicts between British troops and Bostonians that eventually culminated in the Boston Massacre. Hiller Zobels narrative offers the most accurate account of these events. On March 2, a small fight broke out between British soldiers seeking jobs to supplement their meager pay, and rope-workers who kindly offered one of the troops monetary reward to go and clean my shithouse.11 A similar skirmish between British troops and Boston laborers erupted the next day. Then, on the cold, snowy evening of March 5, 1770, fights broke out between British troops and Boston civilians in three parts of the city: Dock Square, Murrays Barracks, and King Street between the Town House and the Customs House. A church bell began to ring, a signal for fire in Boston for decades. People from all over the city stopped their tasks and armed themselves with clubs and sticks, chanting Fire! Strangely enough, no fire existed in Boston on that snowy night, suggesting some sort of signal.12 As soon as the bells began ringing, a man named Samuel Johnson quickly finished his supper at Thomas Symmonds victualing-house (a diner), seized a cordwood stick, and led a large group of sailors toward King Street. Meanwhile, crowds from the other two locales converged on King Street, pelting snowballs and yelling curses such as, Lobster son of a bitch! aimed at the British 29th Regiment stationed in front of the Customs House. Thomas Preston, Captain of the Regiment, arrived on the scene and pleaded with the growing mob to disperse. The mob, still chanting fire, replied by surrounding and pressing in on the troops. The soldiers held their bayonets fixed in front
7

Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991), 172. 8 Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 173. 9 Peter Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 161. 10 Boston Newsletter, October 27, 1768. 11 Zobel, The Boston Massacre, 182. 12 No evidence exists explaining why the church bell rang and why different people from all over the city suddenly took to the streets chanting Fire! while armed with wooden clubs and sticks (wood does not put out fires very effectively).

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of them. Individual skirmishes began breaking out as any hope for reconciliation dissipated into the dark Boston evening. A club sailed through the air and hit Private Montgomery in the face. Blood ran down his face and into his eyes, spattering onto the fresh snow. He heaved himself back up and thrust a musket into the crowd blindly, firing a single shot.13 The shot missed, but the impetus to discharge spread like wildfire among the frightened troops. The blasts came almost in unison, mortally wounding Samuel Johnson as well as Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr. Preston, shocked and enraged at his troops for firing at will, screamed at them to stand down. The troops, in a daze, obeyed his command. Some members of the crowd returned to the smoke-filled street, dragging the mortally wounded away from the scene. The next day, thousands of Bostonians led by Samuel Adams demanded that Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson order Lt. Col. William Dalrymple, leader of the British forces, to remove the troops from Boston. Hutchinson could do nothing except comply with the request. Dalrymple and the British Regiments subsequently retired to Castle William on an island just off Boston Harbor. However, their compliance failed to deter Boston leaders from seizing the moment and characterizing the tragedy as a Massacre of St. Georges Field on New England soil.14 Although they privately considered the March 5 protestors to be a mob acting improperly outside state authority, the radicals denounced the Boson Massacre in public.15 Samuel Adams, for instance, immediately orchestrated elaborate funeral processions for the victims.16 Paul Revere, meanwhile, busily copied an incendiary image of the skirmish by Henry Pelham that whitened the skin of a principal victim of the Massacre: Samuel Johnson. Before he was thrust into historical memory, residents of Boston knew this former Framingham slave both by his free name of Samuel Johnson and his slave name, Crispus Attucks. His father had been an African, and his mother a Natick Indian named Nancy Attucks, granddaughter to John Attucks, a praying Natick executed for treason during King Philips War. Although most Bostonians did not recognize that attuck meant deer in the Natick language, Minister Nathaniel Emmons nevertheless remembered him as that half Indian, half Negro, and altogether rowdy, who should have been strangled before he was born.17 New Englands Afro-Indian population had increased dramatically during the years leading up to the American Revolution. Colonial conflicts such as King Philips War decimated the number of Indian males available for reproduction within tribal enclaves, while enslaved male Africans entered New England at twice the rate of African females. Many male blacks consequently sought sexual gratification and filial attachment with Indian women during the eighteenth century. As the cross-union rate continued to
13 14

Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 194-5. Zobel, The Boston Massacre, 184-200. 15 Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 125-6. 16 L.H. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3 vols. (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1961), I: 349-50. 17 Nathaniel Emmons quoted in Patricia Bradley, Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 60.

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climb, legal categories of race in New England blurred into a confusing milieu of subjective interpretation. That is, white leaders identified people of color as Indian, black, or the ambiguous mulattothe last of which hinted at the possibility of white ancestry, either real or imaginedaccording to the designator that best fit certain legal or rhetorical contexts.18 During the 1760s and early 1770s, cultural representations of blacks and Indians also facilitated white, masculine, and independent notions of a colonial American identity in New England. In plays, engravings, and broadsides, New Englanders defined a virtuous colonial American identity against blacks subservient status and perceived ignorance. On the other hand, white colonists often demonstrated noble independence and almost indigenous American roots by donning Indian garb during resistance activities. Actual Indians depicted in broadsides, newspapers, and other resistance propaganda represented outsiders and vicious savages allied with the British.19 A New England discourse of colonial American identity contributed to such ignoble sentiments. During and after King Philips War, Puritans wrote war narratives that defined colonial Americans as virtuous, merciful, and pious against the cruel Spanish and the savage natives.20 The resistance movement resurrected these war narratives in propaganda form, characterizing the British as even more savage than the Indians, yet reiterating the otherness of both groups in a new discourse on American identity.21 Paul Revere whitened Crispus Attucks in the March 12 Boston Gazette engraving and a 26 March broadside of the incident because the image of a half-black, half-Indian patriot contradicted New England notions of colonial American identity.22 The description labeled Attucks a mulatto, implying the possibility of white ancestry and skin. The corresponding engraving, based on the earlier design by Pelham, depicted Captain Preston actually ordering the soldiers to fire at an unarmed crowd, some of whom attempted to rescue the initial victims of the alleged British onslaught. Hovering over the corpses, a woman draped in black mourned the fallen men, echoing the drama of Mary lamenting Christs crucifixion. In one of only two major departures from the Pelham print (aside from minor changes such as switching the direction of the moon and omitting a chimney, steeple, and townhouse sundial), Revere designated the second story of the Customs House, right above the British troops, as Butchers Hall. In the other major departure, Revere decided to color the broadside. All the men retained white faces and, in keeping with Pelhams original design, white features. The only figures he chose to darken were two British troops with malevolent expressions and a dog. In this widely distributed image of the Boston Massacre, Revere transformed Attucks into a homogenous patriot that accorded with white, masculine, and virtuous notions of a colonial American identity.
18

John Wood Sweet, Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003), 173-9. 19 Sweet, Bodies Politic, 187-193. 20 Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philips War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), xiv. 21 Lepore, The Name of War, 187-188; Sweet, Bodies Politic, 193-4. 22 For a copy of the engraving, please visit <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bostonmassacre/massacrereverelarge.jpg>.

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John Adams, defense counsel for the British troops implicated in the 5 March killings, reconfigured Attucks as a counterpoint for this colonial identity by characterizing him as a half-black, half-Indian savage and the Massacres primary instigator. Adams argued that the mob, under the command of Attucks, emitted a whistle akin to screaming and rending like an Indian yell, suggesting a band of bloodthirsty savages similar to those found in popular narratives of King Philips War. Then this war-painted savage, whose very looks was enough to terrify any person and whose mad behavior, in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night is chiefly to be ascribed, ordered the mob to Kill them! Kill them! Knock them over! And he tried to knock their brains out. Adams characterized the rest of the protestors as a band of outsiders, a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes and molottoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs. The jury, frightened by the memory of King Philips War, quickly returned a verdict of acquittal. In November, Edes and Gill published a transcript of the trial that found wide readership. Despite a small number of burlesques written by Samuel Adams in December, the Massachusetts public did not actively denounce the jurys decision.23 By the end of 1770, radicals had constructed a social memory of the Boston Massacre that allowed New Englanders to continue defining themselves against blacks, Indians, and the British. This othering framework formed the basis of New England regional nationalism during the late eighteenth century.24 Elegizing the heterogeneous victims as a homogenous group that corresponded to American national identity subsequently proved a problematic task. When Boston Massacre commemorators did lament a victim, they almost always chose a white casualty. John Hancock, the only orator who mentioned Crispus Attucks, did so in the context of naming all the fallen men. By and large, the radicals refrained from describing or even referring to, any of the deceased protestors. Instead, they used the Massacre commemorations to espouse an imagined American past, fueling the fires of nationalism burning in New England.25 II Colonial American identity developed into American nationalism when radical resistance developed into revolution, a transformation reflected in the Boston Massacre orations performed within the early American public sphere. In the 1760s, radicals hoped that the ostensibly virtuous colonies would reform the British Empire from within the imperial system. Following the Boston Massacre, radicals published propaganda of the skirmish to voice their grievances against the Empirepropaganda that did not espouse revolution or an independent nation. Between 1772 and 1774, however, Royal officials attempted to circumvent colonial legislatures and receive their salaries directly from the
23

John Hodgon (Shorthand Recorder), The Trial of William Weems, James Hartegan, etc., Soldiers in His Majestys 29th Regiment of Foot, For the Murder of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr (Boston: Edes and Gill, November 1770), 170 and 175-6; Robert Smith, What Came After? News Diffusion and Significance of the Boston Massacre, 1770-1775, Journalism History 3 (August 1976): 71-5, 83. 24 Lepore, The Name of War, xiv. 25 John Hancock, An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774 (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1774; reprint), 8; John Wood Sweet argues that the significance of race and its complex relationship to notions of nationalism in the years before and during the Revolution has not been fully appreciated. See Sweet, Bodies Politic, 186.

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Crown. In response, radicals called for independence and engaged in acts that defied British authority, especially after passage of the Intolerable Acts, transforming resistance into revolution.26 In the midst of this transition, white men and women confirmed a social imaginary masculine past during Boston Massacre commemorations that facilitated a masculine horizontal comradeship among inhabitants of the imagined American nation.27 Most of the orations began with a review of the founding of America, which created a definitional ambiguity between the Puritans and the original colonists, between America and New England. Orators then moved on to describe the corruption of morals supposedly caused by the British standing army and its effect on Bostonians behavior before and during the Boston Massacre; a tragedy which in turn served as the pretext first for concluding remarks on resistance measures, and later, American nationalism. However, these orations did not exist in a cultural vacuum. Crowds and radical orators across British North America began to negotiate regional national consciousness alongside a burgeoning national print culture. In New England, this cultural negotiation and approbation by upper and lower orders came in the form of applause, cheering, postoration festivities, and other crowd actions in the early American public sphere. This public sphere consisted of printed materials expressing both rational-critical and wild discourse, coffeehouse-tavern discussion, fetes, and commemorations where early American peoples created an imagined nationhood by gate-keepingcollective assent, dissent, or qualified acceptance of formal political acts.28

26 27

See Maier, From Resistance to Revolution. Inhabitants of a given geographic space such as Boston define themselves and their societies by imagining a history and ideology. See Cornelius Castoriadis, Radical Imagination and the Social Instituting Imaginary, in The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1997), 330; Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 353-9. Benedict Anderson argues that the American Revolution, along with the revolutions in Spanish America, generated a national consciousness only among Creole functionaries primarily due to the paucity of print capitalist media. See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso Press, 1991), 6-65. Michael Warner counters Andersons contentions by examining the dissemination of print in the early American public sphere in Michael Warner, Letters of the Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). I found that newspaper accounts of Boston crowd action indicate that the nationalism spawned by the American Revolution was not solely relegated to the upper orderseven without proving the spread of print capitalism beyond elite ranks. San Francisco State University Professor Paul Longmore also disagrees with Anderson and argues for an alternate definition of nationalism. See Paul Longmore, Nationalism and the Coming of the American Revolution (unpublished book, San Francisco State University, 2006). 28 Sandra Gustafson holds that a vernacular political oratory emerged as a formal genre with a national audience in tandem with the expansion of print culture. Patriot orators created novel modes of nationalist identity based on their public performances in the public sphere. See Sandra M. Gustafson, Eloquence is Power: Oratory and Performance in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 169-70. The early American public sphere deviates from the bourgeois rational-critical or facts and norms models offered by political theorist Jurgen Habermas. See Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), 1-30; Jurgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), 307-8. John Brooke provides a framework for the early American public sphere in John Brooke, Consent, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere in the Age of Revolution and the Early American Republic, in Jeffrey Palsey, Andrew Robertson, David Waldstreicher, eds., Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 227-29; Dick Hoerder, Boston Leaders and Boston Crowds, in Alfred F. Young, ed., The American Revolution (Dekalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1976), 23961.

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Every year around March or April, bells tolled in Boston during the day, while lanterns flickered on ghostly transparencies of white Massacre victims at sunset, awing children and adults alike. The crowds that attended the subsequent afternoon and early evening speeches included both white men and women, indicating the acceptance of an imagined masculine past by multiple sets of these gendered audiencesan annual and persistent acceptance that gave birth to New England regional nationalism. In a 1773 diary entry, for instance, John Adams expressed his shock at the sheer diversity of the crowd in the Old South Church, the setting for the invented tradition of the Boston Massacre orations. That large Church, he wrote in wonder, was filled and crowded in every Pew, Seat, Alley, and Gallery, by an Audience of several Thousands of People of All Ages and Characters and of both Sexes.29 On 2April 1771, Minister James Lovell commenced the first of these orations, providing a foundation for the later nationalist orations by espousing an imagined colonial past, although he called for resistance measures rather than independence. After short remarks on the horror of the tragedy, he abruptly turned to constructing an American past. British North American history began not in Virginias Jamestown, but when the Puritans left their native land, risked all the dangers of the sea, and came to this then-savage desert. He proclaimed that the people of Boston showed upon the alarming call for trial that their brave spirit still exists in vigor, though their legacy of rights is much impaired.30 After decrying, in the republican style, the corruption of standing armies and the virtues of militias, Lovell again returned to his narrative of the colonial past.31 He declared the compact that the Puritan settlers made with the British king to be Massachusetts only true legislative authority. He chose not to enlarge upon the character of those first settlers, even if they did defend their religion and their lives from the greatest inland danger of the savage natives, as represented in popular accounts of King Philips War, because he wished to implore the audience to perpetuate Puritan virtues into the perilous future.32 Republicanism could not be perpetuated by independence and war, but by allowing the Royal government in Boston to enjoy the common protection of the British Constitution.33 Lovell finished his speech to the universal Acceptance of a crowded Audience, indicating the Acceptance of this regional construction of the American past, by a universal representation of Boston society, in the public sphere.34 On 5 March 1772, Dr. Joseph Warren reiterated this regional construction of the colonial past in the second oration. According to Warren, the American colonies would counteract venality with virtue and reform the British Empire. Evidence for inevitable
29

The Connecticut Journal, March 30, 1772; The Boston Gazette, March 9, 1772; The New Hampshire Gazette, March 8, 1773. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 2, 79; E.J. Hobsbawm, Introduction: Inventing Traditions, in E.J. Hobsbawm, ed., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 7. 30 James Lovell, An Oration Delivered April 2nd 1771 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1771), 7. 31 For the origins of the Atlantic republican tradition that stressed the corruption of standing armies, see J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, second ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 361-422; for the transmission of these European ideas into America, see Bailyn, The Ideological Origins, 22-54; Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787, 2nd ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 3-90. 32 Lovell, An Oration Delivered April 2nd 1771, 13-4. 33 Lovell, An Oration Delivered April 2nd 1771, 18. 34 Boston Evening Post, April 8, 1771.

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fulfillment of this prophecy could be found in the American colonial pastwhich of course began in the northern rather than southern colonies. He explained that the Puritans, after their initial settlement, secured a new charter during the British Glorious Revolution of 1688, which promised liberties and immunities to all British subjects.35 Building upon Lovells imagined narrative, Warren extolled Bostonians for not falling prey to the moral corruption of the standing army stationed in the city, despite the efforts of British troops to replace Boston men in the gendered patriarchy of New England. Resistance against growing imperial tyranny brought the arrival of an army to Massachusetts, engendering a corruption of morals . . . this is one of the effects of quartering troops in a populous city.36 The republican trope of corruption had suddenly taken a sexual turn. This baneful influence of standing armies caused the Boston Massacre; for, by a corruption of morals, the public happiness is immediately affected. According to Warren, the standing army raped the citys beauteous virgins who were then exposed to all, [by] the insolence of unbridled passion.37 The sexual domination of Boston women by British troops had undermined the traditional roles of New England patriarchs. In response, mens hearts beat to arms; we snatched our weapons. Fortunately, propitious heaven forbad the bloody carnage, for the inbred affection to Great Britain among all males prevented an immediate recourse to the sword.38 For now, he advised the audience to be wary of British corruption; but earlier in the oration, in a moment of courage, he ventured to assert that whenever government by consent is lost, the constitution must be destroyed.39 He also hinted that in new communities, citizens freshly remembered the equality of their natural state, preventing people cloathed with authority from violating natural rights.40 By the close of his speech, Warren retreated from these radical insinuations of independence, simply hoping to be a shining beacon of virtue in the corrupt British Empire. In three years time, Warren would attempt to legitimate his position as a leader in a new and revolutionary Massachusetts community by expanding the colonial past in national directions, as well as by literally appearing cloathed with authority.41 According to newspaper accounts, the heterogeneous crowd composed of both men and women confirmed this gendered construction of the American past in the public sphere with cheers and a unanimous declaration of gratitude. This mob, who had crowded to hear the ORATION in such Numbers, that it was with much Difficulty that the Orator reached the pulpit [in the Old South Church], gave him universal applause and then these Fellow Citizens voted him their Thanks. In the evening, the crowd met at Mrs. Claphams in King Street for a social gathering; the meeting was marked by a

35 36

Dr. Joseph Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772 (Boston: Edes and Gill, 1772), 9. Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 12. 37 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 13. 38 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 13. 39 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 8. 40 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 6. 41 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 5th, 1772, 18.

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lively representation of the bloody Massacre on her balcony that commemorated the Retrospect of so horrid a Transaction.42 At the end of the year, the Boston insurgency shifted its aims from resistance to independence, revolution, and nationalism, a transition reflected in the Boston Massacre commemorations.43 In June 1772 Royal Governor Hutchinson declared that he and the Massachusetts judiciary would bypass colonial assemblies and receive their salaries directly from the British government. Incensed radicals, despite the dissolution of the colonial non-importation agreement and removal of troops from Boston city proper, continued to rouse popular resentment against the British Parliament. They also vociferously denounced imposition of the sole remaining Townshend duty: the tax on tea. Boston radicals subsequently initiated the first Committee of Correspondence, an organization that bequeathed formal political roles to radical leaders in outright rebellion against the British Empire.44 On 5 March 1773, in the Old South Church, Dr. Benjamin Church delivered the first oration that argued for a national future, signifying the demise of resistance sentiments and the rise of American nationalism. Church presented the American past in reverse chronological order, beginning with a gendered vision of the national future and ending with Puritan beginnings. He declared that only a masculine union could perpetuate the virtue of America. The general infraction of the rights of all the colonies, he argued in a footnote, must finally reduce the discordant provinces, to a necessary combination for their mutual interest and defence. He defined this, collective power of the whole, as a state or society of men during the actual oration, denoting the masculine contours of the imagined American nation.45 Church subsequently repeated James Lovells and Joseph Warrens vision of the American past. After the Boston Massacre, dire was the interval of rage, fierce was the conflict of the soul. Posing a rhetorical question to unseen challengers of this interpretation, Church asked, Did not the consideration of our expiring LIBERTIES, impel us to remorseless havock? Fortunately, the supposed havock apparently subsided in Boston after the tragedy. In contrast to Warrens secular explanation for this constructed turn of eventsthe inbred affection to Great-BritainChurch described the guardian GOD of New-England as suddenly thundering over the murderous city, ordering her inhabitants, PEACE, BE STILL, and thus hushd was the bursting war. Like Warren, he attributed the actual cause of the Boston Massacre and the behavior of Bostonians to the foul oppression, of quartering troops, in populous cities, in times of peace. In keeping with the Puritan tradition of both Lovell and Warren, he reminded the audience that they owed their ancestors the duty to separate from Britain and perpetuate civic virtue.46
42 43

The Connecticut Journal, March 30, 1772; The Boston Gazette, March 9, 1772. Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 228-271. 44 Richard Middleton, Colonial America: A History, 1565-1776, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 468. 45 Dr. Benjamin Church, An Oration Delivered March 5th 1773: The Fourth Edition (Boston: J. Greenleaf, 1773), 1213; This first explicit argument for union in 1773 corresponds to Pauline Maiers findings that, between 1772 and 1774, resistance transformed into revolution. 46 Church, An Oration Delivered March 5th 1773, 19-20.

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Men and women in the crowd confirmed this imagined national past and its gendered conception of the American nation by cheering Church and further commemorating the Boston Massacre that evening. He had the universal applause of his Audience, a crowd that consisted of a great many Inhabitants, and many of the Clergy, not only of this, but of neighbouring Towns. Once again, the crowd attended a social gathering at Mrs. Claphams to commemorate the tragedy with drinks and festivities.47 If the sentiments of John Adams, former defender of the British troops, served as any indication of the audiences confirmation of Churchs narrative, then Church had successfully accomplished his goals. Although Adams still believed the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right, he wrote in his diary that this however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre. He finished the entry with a republican flourish, endorsing Churchs proposition that the Boston Massacre is the strongest of Proofs of the Danger of standing Armies.48 Just months after Churchs oration, Bostons Royal Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, thwarted attempts by insurgency leaders to bypass the tax on tea. In response to Hutchinsons actions and the East India Companys monopoly on tea distribution in Boston, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and others disguised themselves as Indians on the night of December 16. Radicals and their supporters boarded the ships and tossed approximately 10,000 British monetary pounds of East India Company tea into the Atlantic.49 John Hancock delivered the fourth commemorative oration three months after this Boston Tea Party. According to his version of events, the very presence of British troops inverted the proper, gendered roles of republican male and female citizens of Boston, a mark of standing army corruption. The soldiers attempted to implement a nefarious scheme in order to betray our youth of one sex [males] into extravagance and effeminacy, and of the other [females] to infamy and ruin. He concentrated especially on women, because the female breast protected and harbored the essence of virtue in Boston society. Despite the solidity of virtue in the female breast, however, Hancock bemoaned a few young ladies who had fallen prey, either by charm or by force, to the sexual prowess of British soldiers.50 Hancock reiterated the radical interpretation of the Boston Massacre, contending that only the extraordinary virtue of Bostonians shielded them from the corruption of British soldiers. If indeed America had been infected by the corrosive influence of the British, he asked his audience if they wondered what with-held the ready arm of vengeance from executing instant justice on the vile assassins? Perhaps your feardd promiscuous carnage might ensue alongside the outbreak of sexual promiscuity.

47 48

The New Hampshire Gazette, March 8, 1773. Butterfield, ed., Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 2, 79. 49 Middleton, Colonial America, 469. 50 Hancock, An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774, 6. For the gendered roles of females in republican culture and the public sphere, see Ruth Bloch, Gender and Morality in Anglo-American Culture, 1650-1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 143-4; Ruth Bloch, Inside and Outside the Public Sphere, WMQ 62 (January 2005): 99-106; Alfred F. Young, The Women of Boston: Persons of Consequence in the Making of the American Revolution, 176576, in Harriet Applewhite, ed., Women and Politics in the Age of the American Revolution (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 203.

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Apparently, only general compassion emanating from the noble bosoms of Americans stifled their violent rage.51 He concluded the narrative by presenting the audience with a suggested national path, a climax that became characteristic of the orations. Let US also be ready to take the field whenever danger calls, Hancock thundered, let us be united and strengthen the hands of each other, by promoting a general union among us. Although the Committees of Correspondence had done much for national cohesion, only a national Congress of Deputies could facilitate a uniting of the Inhabitants of the whole Continent.52 John Hancock spurred the Boston Massacre orations to new heights: to the republican past and national future of America he added exemplary protagonists, transforming himself and other Boston men from insurgent radicals into national founding heroes. Sure I am, he bellowed, I should not incur your displeasure, if I paid a respect so justly due to their much honoured characters in this public place [or public sphere]; but when I name an ADAMS, such a numerous host of Fellow-patriots rush upon my mind, that I fear it would take up too much of your time. In any case, he boasted, their revered names, in all succeeding times, shall grace the annals of America. From them, let us, my friends, take example.53 By cheering Hancock and giving him their universal Approbation after this closing statement, Boston men and women confirmed a gendered version of the American past and a founding patriot myth in the public sphere.54 Passage of the Intolerable Acts in late 1774 undermined radical leadership by circumscribing the Massachusetts governing charter, closing Boston Harbor, and authorizing another British occupation of the city. The British ordered the Boston populace to recognize the king as the ultimate political authority, not colonial Americans like John Hancock. Thus, radical leaders needed not only to keep the nationalist cause alive but simultaneously to protect their formal political roles in the public sphere from British encroachment. Joseph Warren, the next orator, attempted to accomplish this goal by altering his physical appearance in order to assert political authority. A letter featured in the March 16 edition of the New York Gazeteer, by an anonymous Spectator, described the scene. The radicals, assembled in the pulpit [of the Old South Church], which was covered with black, and we all sat gaping at one another above an hour expecting the orators arrival. At long last, a single horse chair stopped at the Apothecarys, opposite the Meeting. Joseph Warren descended from the traveling chair and entered the shop, followed by a servant, with a bundle. To the surprise of the Spectator, the bundle turned out to be a Ciceronian Toga. Warren strode into the Apothecarys building where he evidently robed himself. From the open church door, the audience watched in fascination as he exited the shop, proceeded across the street to the Meeting, and being
51 52

Hancock, An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774, 7. Hancock, An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774, 13. 53 Hancock, An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774, 14-5. 54 New Hampshire Gazette, March 11, 1774.

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received into the pulpit, he was announced by one of his fraternity to be the person appointed to declaim on the occasion. Warren raised his body to its fullest height as he faced the audience, then put himself into a Demosthenian posture, with a white handkerchief in his right hand, and commenced the fifth annual Boston Massacre oration.55 The spread of revolutionary sentiments across New England challenged its progenitors, including Joseph Warren, to assert their leadership positions in the new revolutionary movement. The idea of a natural aristocracy, intertwined with political theorist James Harringtons belief that only propertied, independent, and therefore virtuous males should govern, had its roots in the Ciceronian critique of the last generation of the Roman Republic. Hereditary ties theoretically held no place in republican political systems; only complete propertied independence from potentially tyrannical others qualified a citizen as a virtuous potential leader. Orators, however, could not easily display their virtuous independence to audiences. Joseph Warren, though, had arrived at a solution to this dilemma: he established himself as a member of the American natural aristocracy by becoming Cicero. In the Old South Church stood the reincarnation of this original natural aristocrat, commemorating a tragedy caused by the corruption of standing armies, and once again critiquing a decadent governmentthis time, the once glorious British state. Nothing less than a transposition of past into present legitimated this audacious claim to patriarchal power.56 In Warrens version of the colonial past, King Philips War and other Puritan conflicts with savage Indian villains became the prelude for rebellion against a corrupt British Empire. His imaginary story began in a familiar manner: an English subject discovered what would be our country in 1620. Our ancestors, the Puritans or American forefathers, apparently for every colony in British North America, reached an agreement with King James I for certain lands in North-America, allegedly purchased legally from the savage natives. Soon the fields began to wave with ripening harvests.57 Then the savage natives saw with wonder the delightful change and quickly formed a scheme to obtain that by fraud or force, which nature meant as the reward of industry alone. Fortunately, the Puritans were not less ready to take the field for battle than for labour; and the insidious foe was driven from their borders as often as he ventured to disturb them.58 After reiterating the Boston Massacre corruption of morals narrative, he argued that the prospective national union remained the closing act of the drama.59 This argument contained three contentions. First, Warren believed that colonial resistance to Parliamentary taxation sparked a national inquiry into the nature of constitutionalism in all of the colonies. Second, the Boston Port Bill had engendered sympathetic feelings for a brother in distress in a unified and masculine nation. Third, the British Empires mutilation of the Massachusetts governing charter struck fear in similar colonial governments, forming a national sentiment of defense. This defense would succeed, Warren added in a statement that contradicted his own interpretation of Boston Massacre

55 56

New York Gazetteer, March 16, 1775. Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 145-89, 213-25; Caroline Winterer, The Culture of Classicism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 25-6. 57 Dr. Joseph Warren, An Oration Delivered March 6th 1775 (Rhode Island: S. Southwick, 1775), 7-9. 58 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 6th 1775, 8-9. 59 Warren, An Oration Delivered March 6th 1775, 15.

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causes, because the exactness and beauty of [the British militarys] discipline inspire our youth with order and in the pursuit of military knowledge.60 The toga-clad Warren had asserted his own authority to lead by transforming himself into a classical member of the natural aristocracy, uniting his audience by defining their nationalism against imaginary savages, and ending with a promise that the sanctions against Boston would spawn the militant birth of a nation. Although independence had not been our aim, he concluded, if these pacific measures [of the Continental Congress] are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is, through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes. He persuaded the crowd that they held a central place in this dramatic event of Americas past. In exchange for their presumed consent of his formal political role in the public sphere, Warren assured the audience that future generations, who fired by your example, shall emulate your virtues, and learn from you the heavenly art of making millions happy.61 According to the Spectator, Warren was applauded by the mob, confirming his version of the American past and his leadership position in New England. After the clamor subsided, a British officer yelled to his troops, Fie, fie, fie!The gallerians apprehending fire, fire [an order to discharge] bounced out of the windows, and swarmed down the gutters. Suddenly, the 43rd Regiment, returning accidentally from exercise, with drums beating, threw the whole body into the utmost consternation. For the audience, these British actions confirmed the radicals narrative account of the Boston Massacre. Protests against the 43rd Regiment also represented the crowds rejection of formal British authority in the public sphere, even as they embraced Joseph Warren as their rightful leader.62 Although most of the audience applauded Warren, the Spectator observed that others groaned after the speech. When military conflict broke out between Minutemen and British troops at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Boston radicals decided to silence these and other dissenting voices to their cause, revealing the fiction of nationalist union promoted by orators.63 Joseph Warren led the charge on 8 May at the extra-legal Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Watertown. As President of the Congress, he signed into law a bill that ordered the several Committees of Correspondence . . . to enquire into the Principles and Conduct of such suspected Persons. These suspected Persons would have to give investigators full and ample Assurances . . . of their Readiness to join their Countrymen on all Occasions, in Defence of the Rights and Liberties of America.64 Joseph Warren next endorsed, and most likely authored, a law that closed provincial borders and mandated that neighbor spy on neighbor in order to validate radicals espousals of a unified front. The Provincial Congress led by Warren resolved to prevent any Massachusetts inhabitant from removing themselves and Effects out of this Colony into the Government of Nova-Scotia, and elsewhere. Congress proclaimed that no Person could leave Massachusetts unless he shall obtain the Permission of the Committee of Correspondence of the Town he belongs to. The bill empowered all the

60 61

Warren, An Oration Delivered March 6th 1775, 19-20. Warren, An Oration Delivered March 6th 1775, 20-2. 62 New York Gazetteer, March 16, 1775. 63 New York Gazetteer, March 16, 1775. 64 Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Whereas there are (Watertown: Broadside, May 8, 1775).

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members of every such Committee to observe and report on the Motions of all such Persons whom they have Reason to suspect.65 While radicals argued that American virtue prompted all people to support independence, the persecution of Loyalists became a paid enterprise. The heavy losses that General Gages regiments incurred at the Battle of Bunkers Hill in June, which took the life of Joseph Warren, induced the British government to replace Gage with General William Howe. Before Gage departed in the fall of 1775, a contingent of Massachusetts Loyalists pleaded with him to voice their approbation of the King when he arrived in England, hoping to secure protection from an increasingly hostile New England populace.66 Warrens death had evidently not stopped the crackdown on Loyalists. In January of 1776, the Massachusetts House of Representatives placed an advertisement in New England newspapers for the capture of Dr. Samuel Gelston . . . apprehended as an enemy to this country. They added that whoever, will take up said Gelston and deliver him to the messenger of the House of Representatives, shall be well rewarded for his time and expence.67 Meanwhile, Peter Thacher reiterated the American historical narrative at the next Boston Massacre oration on 5 March 1776. He included the Tragedy of Lexington and Concord as well as Bunkers Hill, linking these conflicts again with the corruption of standing armies.68 He then praised General Warren as the model inflexible patriot. Thacher lambasted Warrens savage enemies that exulted over his corpse, beautiful even in death, promising a monument to thy memory and guaranteeing Warrens central place in American historical memory to the latest ages.69 He closed with a resounding O GOD, LET AMERICA BE FREE!70 As the war progressed, the physical exclusion of Loyalists and state seizure of their property facilitated the myth of consensus and thrust them alongside the British, blacks, and Indians as essential counterpoints for the collective sense of a now manifest national consciousness. Hundreds of Loyalists from the New England countryside streamed into Boston, hoping to elicit protection from General Howe and the British Regiments. On 19 April 1776, the Massachusetts House of Representatives ordered the Committees of Safety to take Possession of all such estates, both personal and real, that belonged to fleeing Loyalists. By 1776, the Boston radicals had devised such a familiar American history and collective identity in the public spheresupported by the patriotic sentiments of allies in other coloniesthat separation seemed an almost inevitable and necessary dnouement to American colonial history. That July, delegates to the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence.71 III Doctor Thomas Welsh stood before a Boston crowd on 5 March 1783, peering into their eager eyes and exhausted faces. Throughout the bitter war years, radicals had persisted in calling for oratorical commemorations on the Boston Massacre, always successful in gathering crowds that consisted of every age, sex, and social rank. Welsh told his audience a story that day of a corrupt imperial government abridging the rights of
65 66

Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Whereas there are (Watertown: Broadside, May 15, 1775). Various Loyalists, An Address of the Gentlemen and Principal Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, to His Excellency Governor GAGE (Boston: Gage Correspondence, 1775). 67 Massachusetts House of Representatives, Advertisement (Watertown: Broadside, January 26, 1776). 68 Peter Thacher, An Oration Delivered at Watertown on March 5th 1776 (Watertown: Benjamin Edes, 1776), 9-10. 69 Thacher, An Oration Delivered at Watertown on March 5th 1776, 11-12. 70 Thacher, An Oration Delivered at Watertown on March 5th 1776, 15. 71 Massachusetts House of Representatives, In the House of Representatives (Watertown: Broadside, 1776).

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a virtuous colony, forcing a standing army upon her people. Corruption sparked a tragedy, a massacre, but did not stir the inhabitants to violence; rather, the birthing pangs of retribution were sharp indeed which ushered into life, a nation! This event, in a single city within the vast expanse of America, gave birth to an independent nation; she has now to maintain her dignity and importance among the kingdoms of the earth. 72 Surely, he concluded, this tragedy comprised a manly and fortunate beginning to a masculine national history. Finishing the speech, Welsh beamed at men and women in the audience as the last of the Boston Massacre orations came to a raucous end.73 American nationalism, however, continued well past the final Boston Massacre commemoration. In the early Republic, regions legitimated the primacy of their interests in the nation by associating themselves with the federal union, employing the usual nationalist rhetoric and patriotic festivities in the public sphere. New Englanders, for example, published American histories that placed themselves at the center of the national narrative. They also continued to define themselves against the British, but replaced Loyalists with southerners in this othering framework. In the 1790s, for instance, New England Federalists linked themselves with American patriotism while equating southern Democratic-Republicans with radical Jacobins of the French Revolution.74 Blacks and Indians continued to serve as counterpoints for a masculine American nationalism in New England. During the early nineteenth century, white New Englanders associated national identity with imagined Indian innocence and masculinity, celebrating indigenous people in a past Indian Golden Age. In contrast, they continued to propagate the subjugated status of women, while ridiculing urban free blacks for a perceived dysfunctional lifestyle. That is, white New Englanders defined their regional nationalism against others striving to enter the proto-capitalist economy. A black print public sphere attempted to counter these white male notions of national identity and citizenship, resurrecting Crispus Attucks as a symbol of black patriotism during the American Revolution. Yet, knowledge of Attucks Indian mother faded from American memory as this counter-public print placed emphasis solely on his African heritage. Moreover, by the late nineteenth century, New Englanders turned once again to denigrating both actual and imagined indigenous peoples.75 Social memory of the Boston Massacre thus provided a foundation for a regional nationalism of the early Republic. As New Englanders fashioned an exclusionary American identity and participated in a nationalism that defined America as New England, and the American past as the New England past, communities across the
72 73

Dr. Thomas Welsh, An Oration Delivered March 5th 1783 (Boston: John Gill, 1783), 13. Welsh, An Oration Delivered March 5th 1783, 17. 74 David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 251-9. For the argument that nationalism develops unevenly across regions, see E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 12. 75 Lepore, The Name of War, 201-202 and 224-226; Sweet, Bodies Politic, 398-409; Joanna Brooks, The Early American Public Sphere and the Emergence of a Black Print Counterpublic WMQ 62 (January 2005), 67-92; Stephen Browne, Remembering Crispus Attucks: Race, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Commemoration, Quarterly Journal of Speech 85 (1999), 169-87; Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 163-4.

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country engaged in similar rites of regional nationalism. Diverse constructions of a masculine nation consequently vied for legitimacy in the simultaneous fragmentation and fusion of an imagined Union.

A Corruption of Morals

eview

Lucinda McCray Beiers Sufferers & Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England
reviewed by Timothy Kellogg

istoriography

Is the Origin of Capitalism Eurocentric? A Review of Recent Debates in Socio-Economic History

by Peter S. Gray

Lucinda McCray Beiers Sufferers & Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England
(Routledge: London, 1987)

Reviewed by TIMOTHY A. KELLOGG Before modern medicine brought expectations of good health and an illness-free existence, people living in seventeenth century England experienced health complications that interrupted their lives, causing discomfort, suffering, and premature death. Social historians of medicine commonly ask what healers and patients did and experienced when illness or injury struck. Sufferers & Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-Century England, by Lucinda McCray Brier, examines this very question. Briers approach is neither quantitative nor epidemiologic. Instead, the author offers impressionistic conclusions regarding the experiences of illness in seventeenth-century England, a century fraught with civil war, political and social realignment, and recurring plague outbreaks. This book provides no demographic analysis on the types of illnesses present at the time, nor does it try to establish causal explanations to specific diseases or factors associated survival of newborn infants. Rather, the authors purpose is to explore illness and the suffering caused by illness contextually. She does this by selectively examining the voices of those who lived during the period, thereby locating their opinions on ailments, treatments, and healers of the era. Moreover, Brier qualitatively describes popular attitudes on illness, the dynamic between healer and sufferer, and how medical decisions were made and who made them, all within the competing contexts of secular, religious, and supernatural approaches to healing. In her analysis, Beier utilizes a variety of sources in documenting the illness experience of both sufferer and healer. The conceptual foundation of the book is laid down by classic secondary sources on social and medical historical. Such works include Lawrence Stones The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 as well as Paul Slacks The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England. Attitudes and opinions of practitioners and patients, principally from the upper and middle classes, come by way of the casebooks of physicians and surgeons who tracked the symptoms, therapies, and outcomes of their patients. Brier utilizes diaries and correspondence of prominent lay people during the time to offer accounts of those who were ill and who described their illnesses and their opinions of the medical practitioners who treated them. Popular and vernacular literature also provided the author the social context of critics who set out to undermine learned or empiric medicine. Although this book is not a demographic study of mortality, Brier does use the London Bills of

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Ex Post Facto examination of the casebooks of prominent and ordinary surgeons and physicians, which provide a list of treated ailments and their outcomes. She also teases out practitioners opinions, both of others within their profession and of the patients they served. In the next several chapters, the author examines the personal correspondences, diaries, and autobiographies of English lay people, the very clients seen by practitioners within the medical marketplace. Beiers examination of personal documents reveals the types and severity of illnesses, the expectations of the physicians, and the approaches they chose to illness management as seen from the sufferers point of view. In some cases, the sufferer assumed the role of healer themselves. Finally, in the last chapter, Beier provides a concluding discussion of individual illness, and its implications to a wider understanding of the social aspects of illness. That is, how does the experience of illness among individuals reach into the larger community? What were the natures of illness and caretaking networks? Brier ends the book with exploratory questions and offers some of her own explanations. Drawing from specific, individual experiences of illness, the author distinguishes the healer and the sufferer as her two conceptual constructs. Brier is successful in describing the dynamic, but not centralized, marketplace in which healers competed and negotiated their skills. Medicine as a profession was largely unregulated, without a consensus on treating illness. University-trained physicians did receive a license to practice a form of internal medicine, and were recognized by institutions like the

mortality and parish records to confirm outbreaks of infectious disease, such as the plague. Beier outlines three separate arguments. First, the field of medicine in early modern England was not completely professionalized at the time, although governmental and educational institutions did offer official licenses to academically trained practitioners. Moreover, physicians and surgeons with official sanction represented only a small minority of healers in the marketplace. Amateurs, barbers, barber-surgeons, white-witches, magicians, folk healers, and apothecaries, all competed together in a very dynamic marketplace, offering services on a variety of illnesses, conditions, and injuries. Second, within this milieu, medical conventions did not exist. No medical consensus existed on how certain conditions were to be treated. Brier argues that lay sufferers tended to focus on self-diagnosis and treatment, stimulated by the broad range of healing knowledge available in the public sphere. This knowledge came from a wide spectrum of sources in the marketplace, without clear demarcation between traditional and learned medicine. Thirdly, Brier argues that this diffusion of knowledge made the healing process a very social affair, often involving family members, communities, and patrons beyond the private realm of doctor and patient. This social care network was particularly evident during childbearing. The book follows a generalized structure that begins with an overview of the medical marketplace in seventeenthcentury England. In the next several chapters, Brier turns to the individual experiences of practitioners, in an

TIMOTHY A. KELLOGG

Ex Post Facto Anglican Church and the Royal Academy. However, they were only a small minority, competing with surgeons (some licensed through guilds), barbersurgeons, grocer-apothecaries, midwives, traditional and magical healers, and even ministers who promoted Godly-inspired therapy. All in this marketplace claimed legitimacy. Many distributed their own medical pamphlets advocating certain therapies and methods, and exposed the methods of their competitors as unsound through a new genre of anti-quack literature. Licensed physicians of the time stood out by fostering a learned status through distinctive vestments and a university training in Latin and the humanities. Practically speaking, however, there was very little distinction between these learned physicians and other healers. Beier argues that other healers, such as barbers and apothecaries, also offered treatment for internal ailments. Brier also describes effectively the battles healers fought to gain an advantage over each other, in an effort to attract sufferers. Such efforts include everything from the publication of individual successes among physicians, to the condemnation of empirics by religious healers. Despite her adequate description of the characteristics of the medical marketplace, Brier does not comment much on some of the emerging trends seen in the practice of medicine, even during the mid 1980s when this book was written. For example, the author excluded from her analysis the decline of magic and folk medicine as alternatives during the seventeenth-century, and the relegation of magic and supernatural healing to marginalized and persecuted activities in England by 1700. Also,

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despite claims of a wide-open market and a variety of healers, the majority of internal medical treatment focused on the medieval practice of humeral evacuation. Methods included bleeding, cupping, enemas, diuretics, and purging medicines. Moreover, empirical medicine, considered quackery by learned physicians trained in theology and humanities, continued to make strides during the traumatic seventeenth century, a time plagued by civil wars and revolts throughout the fractured United Kingdom. Wartime surgical skills and methods advanced considerably, culminating in standardized chiguries to treat and repair not only battlefield injuries, but also apostems, fistulas, and tumors of various kinds. Brier could have expanded her commentary on the medical marketplace to include the methodological differences among learned and empirical healers. Beier concentrates her analysis on the opinions of healers who left traces of their work through notes and casebooks. However, the inclusion of only a few healers results in an inability to generalize beyond the activities found in these particular sources. Undaunted, Brier uses the cases of one typical surgeon from London to illuminate the how a healer conducted his practice. Joseph Binns practiced in London near St. Bartholomews Hospital between the years 1633 to 1663. Brier concludes that Binns was probably typical of most London healers because he was a generalist. Brier lists sixty-seven different conditions in his casebook, and his treatments of both men and women. Specialists, on the other hand, tended to treat a single sex and only one condition that drew a large number of patients (fractured bones for example). Binns

Book Review

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Ex Post Facto treatments to their patients, hoping for vindication in their patients return to health. Although Brier does state this in a somewhat cryptic way, physicians (unlike other learned authorities such as ministers and lawyers) had to demonstrate their knowledge in a very concrete wayby curing people. This placed the physician at a disadvantage over other empirical healers, who did not claim superior knowledge, but apt prognoses based on their experience repairing individuals with similar illnesses. Like healers, sufferers of illness were demographically, socially, and medically diverse. The experience of illness among laypersons ranged from mild ague to life threatening infectious disease like plague and syphilis. Prominent diarists like Samuel Pepys and Robert Hooke provided the author with interesting but very subjective material on the medical conditions they encountered in their lives. However, Brier does an effective job in detailing experiences that may have been typical to the average upper middle-class London dweller. Both men suffered from various ailments, including gout. Pepys had life-long urological problems that caused testicular swelling, as well as an ulcerated leg that probably contributed to his death in 1703. Brier notes that both men felt it important and a duty to visit ailing friends and family as a source of comfort. Conversely, both men expected visits from others when they were ill, even during very difficult procedures, as when Pepys pass[ed] a very difficult stone. Such an analysis supports her argument that social care networks existed, and made the experience of illness more public than the modern, more private connection

traveled extensively to the homes of his patients to personally assess the status of care, to perform procedures if unable to do so in his surgery, or to administer treatment. Brier argues that caring for a patient at home supported her contention that a healing network within the household was common. When the therapy required complicated procedures, like setting a bone fracture, or tenting a large wound, or if the patient required a long convalescence, then the family, servants, friends, patrons, neighbors, and ministers, as well as the doctor, all networked together to care for the sufferer., What little detail Breier offers on such networks tends to the obvious, such as ministers providing pastoral care, servants attending to sickroom duties, and so on. The nature of these roles cannot be ascertained from the surgeons casebook. Furthermore, care networks as suggested by Brier perhaps were more realistic in an urban environment, such as in London, where the individual attendants are in close proximity to the patient. Through case notes and correspondence, Beier also touches upon the perceptions of learned physicians in contrast to the generalist surgeon Binns. The author chooses three provincial physicians outside of London. These physicians all sought to demarcate their position and role in society. They considered university training superior to the knowledge acquired by a frontline surgeon. Despite the apparent sense of superior high position of many physicians, Beier's illumination of their casebooks shows that they had to compete with other physicians and healers even in the villages surrounding London. They also had to justify their

TIMOTHY A. KELLOGG

Ex Post Facto between sufferer and doctor. Briers analysis might have benefited had she compared illness visitations with other, non-medical forms of social gatherings, to see if they were indeed different. The diaries of Pepys and Hooke do support Briers assertion that a high degree of medical information permeated English society, although she does not expand on how diffuse and extensive this information was. Pepys and Hooke made clear that they sought information from colleagues and healers to help formulate their own diagnoses and determine treatment options. Brier, a feminist writer, turns to the role of women as both sufferers and healers. For Brier, womens roles as sufferer included not only illnesses and injuries, but also the recurring cycles of female bodiesmenstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and menopause. As healers, Brier maintains that women assumed a greater role in the provision of care as sick nurses, midwives, and caretaking wounds of all types. While many seventeenth-century sources clearly indicate that women had active roles inside the birthing chamber, took charge of domestic ailments within the household, and were the principal dispensers of folk medicine, it is difficult to accept Beiers general claim that women were the principle healers in English society. Brier does not make clear the decision-making role of women in the general provision of care. Overall, the book is successful on many levels. Written in 1985, when medical and social history began to merge, the accounts of early-modern healers are useful in elucidating opinions and expectations of those who healed and those who were ill. Briers claims are

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interesting. The rise of the medical marketplace, the development of social networks to serve the ill, the influence of medical knowledge on independent healing, are all valid theories deserving of further study. Beier herself points to one intriguing expansion of independent healing, the rise of spa medicine and medicinal waters in later English society. The inclusion of biased and limited testimony is not a criticism of Beier, but rather an indication of the limitations of her sources. Certainly, those who had the education and leisure of writing about their experiences cannot be considered indicative, but only illustrative of their times. The only major flaw in Briers work is the lack of a proper overlay with the political and religious turmoil of seventeenth-century England, and how such structural changes impacted illness and the provision of medicine.

Book Review

Is the Origin of Capitalism Eurocentric? A Review of Recent Debates in Socio-Economic History PETER S. GRAY
At the end of the twentieth century, there has been a movement among intellectuals against Eurocentrism. This term is somewhat ambiguous, as its meaning can shift depending upon who is using it, but Eurocentrism generally means the privileging of European civilization over other civilizations based on some ascribed superior quality or qualities that it possessed and currently possesses. Critiques of Eurocentrism occur across a broad variety of topics. It is only natural that such critiques should include the debate about the origins of the modern world, since Europe is central to Eurocentric views on those origins. Capitalism is central to Eurocentric views of the origins of the modern world, because European social theorists since the nineteenth century have seen capitalism as a crucial aspect of modernity. In the 1990s, three major works appeared that mixed historical analysis with social theory, and that challenged in different ways Eurocentric views of the economic history of the world in the early modern period. These three works are Andre Gunder Franks Reorient, R. Bin Wongs China Transformed, and Kenneth Pomeranzs The Great Divergence.1 All three sought, in different ways, to challenge the Eurocentric view that Europe possessed special qualities that other areas of the world lacked, qualities that allowed Europe to develop capitalism and, thus, become modern. Instead, all three argued that Europe played a secondary role in a world economy dominated by Asia, specifically China, before 1800. None of these works challenge the idea that Europe dominated the world economy from the nineteenth century on, but they all challenge the notion that Europe achieved this dominance because its civilization had some superior quality or qualities inherent to Europe. While there are differences among these authors, they all argue that Europe became dominant in the world economy for other reasons. These books have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the economic history of the world before 1800, synthesizing much work on non-European economic history and banishing old stereotypes about these economies, but they still contain misguided claims primarily due to the socio-economic theory they adopt: a Neo-Classical economics that has its origins in Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations.2 While many Eurocentric arguments are false and even reprehensible, the Eurocentric argument that capitalism originated in Britain in the three centuries prior to 1800 and spread from there around the world is still fundamentally correct, though the societies that became capitalist after Britain (primarily the United States, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan in the nineteenth century) did so in manners different from that of Britain. Capitalism did not develop in Britain because Britain was racially superior, environmentally more favorable, more
1

Andre Gunder Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 2 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (New York: The Modern Library, 1937).

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rational, had better technology, or better institutions. Instead, capitalism was a unique outcome of developments in British society and, in that respect, Britain was no different from any countryall countries have unique historical developments. Britains development brought about a new way of organizing the fundamental economic relations of its society, a way that proved to be immensely powerful in the long run. This is essentially the view that Karl Marx held and Robert Brenner developed. Marxs and Brenners ideas will be compared below with those of Smith and his epigones especially Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz. Britains economic power was evident to nearby observers at the time (and one far away observerJapan) and they sought in various ways both to create similar economic relations in their countries and to prevent certain other countries from doing the same. This view of the development of capitalism is not Eurocentric in any sense other than that it maintains that capitalism began first in Britain and then spread to Europe and Britains former colony, the United States. None of this is to deny that many have used the English and European development of capitalism and the resulting dominance by the West to justify notions of various kinds of innate European superiority. Those arguments are clearly wrong, but because those specific arguments are wrong, it does not follow that the British origin of capitalism is also wrong. A clarification is thus in order, as to what is not meant here by the argument that capitalism arose first in Britain and then spread elsewhere. J.M. Blaut's The Colonizer's View of the World maintains that capitalism was developing just about everywhere in the world in the centuries before 1500.3 The European discovery of the Americas and their subsequent appropriation of the wealth of the Americas gave Europe the capital it needed to turn the tables in its favor in the world economy.4 The first part of the argumentthat non-European economies were capitalist and thus not stagnantis new and a main feature of all three primary works discussed here. The second part of the argument is older, and a part of two of the three works discussed here. It was traditionally called the Williams thesis since it was first put forward by Eric Williams.5 Since it is an older argument, it has also been debated, and the more so as it argues that the foundation of European development and modernity was, in effect, theft. The role of the appropriation of the wealth of the Americas is a continuing debate, most likely because how one feels about Europes colonization of the Americas (or anywhere) is deeply embedded in ones worldview and clearly different worldviews are on show here. Franks book sides with Blaut on this issue, while Pomeranz integrates the Americas into a wider argument, and R. Bin Wong has nothing to say about the issue. Blaut is helpful in his delineation of various Eurocentric arguments that are either simply wrong or even morally reprehensible. He thus provides some clarification of intention when this paper critiques the arguments of Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz. Blaut explicates five types of arguments that are what he calls Euro-myths: biology, environment, rationality, technology, and society.6 Blaut notes that these arguments fall into two categories, cultural explanations and noncultural explanations. In the non
3

J.M. Blaut, The Colonizers Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993). 4 Blaut, The Colonizers Model of the World, 152-3. 5 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London: Andre Deutsch, 1944). 6 Blaut, The Colonizers Model of the World, 61-151.

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cultural sphere, there are two types of biological argumentsracial arguments and demographic argumentsand an environmental argument. Racial arguments assert European biological superiority, and are essentially non-cultural. These arguments are not usually put forward anymore because of the disrepute that racial thinking has fallen into since the end of World War II. Europe has also been argued to be environmentally superior, which is a non-cultural argument. This argument posits that Africa and Asia had environments that negatively affected their economic development, Africa because of its tropical climate and Asia because of its arid climate. According to such arguments, Africas tropical climate had a severe effect on labor productivity and population growth while Asias arid climate led to the creation of despotic states that were required to undertake the massive irrigation-works need to farm in an arid climate. These despotic states proved to be a hindrance to economic dynamism and innovation. Demographic arguments assert that Europeans had a superior ability to control their population growth and thus avoided extreme Malthusian crises. Blauts identification of demographic arguments as non-cultural arguments is in error here, because such arguments become entangled in arguments about superior European rationality and institutions, particularly family structure, i.e. society and culture. Other arguments hold that Europe possessed superior technology compared to the rest of the world, accounting for its development as this technology accumulated over time and allowed Europe to achieve a higher level of productivity. Related to this argument is the idea that Europeans possessed a superior capacity for rationality apparently due to their cultural or ethnic background. This did not imply that non-Europeans were necessarily irrational, but rather that they were at a lower stage in the development of rational thinking. Finally, the existence of superior European institutions before the development of capitalism has been offered as a reason for the European miracle. These arguments usually focus on the state, the church, class, or the family. Institutional arguments are closely bound up with the argument that Europeans possessed a superior form of rationality. None of these arguments will be offered here. While an argument is made here based on conflict and class structures, it will not be argued that Britains class structure before the advent of capitalism was superior to or more rational than any other countrys. All of these Euro-myths have been used to explain the superiority of Europe and thus justify its dominant role in the world since as early as 1500. However, in economic history there are really only two theories of the origins of capitalism. Both can incorporate the Euro-myths outlined above but neither relies fundamentally on any of them. This may not be apparent at first, but when the works by Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz are analyzed, the case for this statement will be made clearer. These two models are not only old (the first from the late eighteenth century and the second from the mid-nineteenth century), but they are also products of Europeans and the European tradition. It will be argued below that this causes a problem, be it slight or major, for the anti-Eurocentrists. The first of these two models was put forward by Adam Smith, and is usually called the commercialization model. This model has been and still is the dominant

Is the Origin of Capitalism Eurocentric?

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explanation for the rise of capitalism in Britain.7 As will be seen, it is the model adopted by Frank, Wong and Pomeranz, though each does so in different ways. The second model was put forward by Karl Marx, and is the main dissident model of the origins of capitalism (if one excludes the anti-Eurocentric authors discussed here, who consider themselves dissidents). In Marx, there are really two models of the origins of capitalism. In the early Marx of the Communist Manifesto and the German Ideology, the Smithian commercialization model predominates but it is articulated with Marxs concerns with class (though it should be remembered that a concept of class exists in Smiths model, albeit a different conception than Marxs conception in the late 1840s).8 After his intensive study of economics and British economic history in the 1850s, Marx offered a different model for the origins of capitalism in the first volume of Capital, but elements also appear in the other two volumes of Capital and in the Grundrisse.9 Unfortunately, Marx did not systematize this model (Smith did not really systematize his model of capitalisms origins either, but did a better job of getting his basic ideas across than Marx did). When this is combined with the fact that there are two models in Marxs corpus, this created a great deal of confusion among later Marxists (and non-Marxists), who often did not recognize that there were two models.10 This was the problem with the Dobb-Sweezy debate of the 1950s. 11 Dobb instinctively went with the account in Capital and Sweezy went with the commercial model in the German Ideology. None of the participants recognized that there were two different models in Marxs thought. No wonder they eventually gave upthey were fundamentally confused about the theoretical issue in Marxs writings to be explicated. By the 1970s Robert Brenner had realized the problem of the two models and offered a systematic version of the Capital model.12 Since this is the most developed, systematic, and consistent statement of the mature Marxian model, some time will be devoted to explicating it below. First, however, it is necessary to explicate these models. As for Smiths model, this essay will offer it in abstract form. Called the commercialization model, it has been updated to be more consistent with modern neo-classical economics. Thus this model leaves out such things as Smiths labor theory of value and his rudimentary class
7

A recent well argued statement of it can be found in Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 8 Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party in Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 477-519; The German Ideology in Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 15-539. 9 Karl Marx, Capital vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Penguin, 1990); Capital vol. 2, trans. David Fernbach (New York: Penguin, 1992); Capital vol. 3, trans. David Fernbach (New York: Penguin, 1991); Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Penguin, 1993). 10 This issue is a result of a lamentable problem among Marxists that only the majority of present day Marxists have come to understand. Marxs thinking developed over time and what he wrote in the 1840s is not always consistent with what he wrote from the late 1850s on. This issue arose with Louis Althusser in the 1970s, but there the issue was whether Hegel should be considered a fundamental influence on all of Marxs thinking right up to the end or whether these was a break after which Marx definitively rejected all Hegelianism. That this had no affect on many Marxists way of writing about Marx is evidenced by the constant juxtaposition of a sentence from an early work and a sentence from Capital in the Marxist literature to prove a point. Sometimes this works because there are continuities in Marxs thought, but many times it is a disaster. 11 Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, rev. ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1963) and Rodney Hilton, ed., The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (New York: Verso, 1978). 12 Robert Brenner, Bourgeois Revolution and Transition to Capitalism in A.L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James Rosenheim eds., The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 271-304.

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analysis, both of which are anathema to neo-classical economists who usually try to pretend such things do not exist in Smiths work.13 As for Marxs model, this essay will limit itself in this part to some general considerations about the mature Marxian model. The full mature Marxian model will be laid out when Robert Brenners work is discussed later in the essay. The Smithian commercialization model argues that human societies go through a series of stages of development with the highest stage being the commercial stage, an idea that originated with such Scottish Enlightenment writers as Adam Ferguson.14 These stages are characterized by definite economic relations to which correlate the social, political, and cultural aspects of those societies (note the influence of Smith on Marx here). What causes the development of one stage into another is the development of commercial relationsrelations and institutions of exchange, not productionand the development of internal and external markets. While the concept of commerce had a broader meaning for Smith in his overall thought, here his focus was on its economic aspect. The commercial stage represents the highest development of these commercial relations. For Smith, it was Britain and, to a lesser extent northwestern Europe, that had achieved this stage in his own time. However, that did not mean that other societies could not reach this stage, as the model is universal. It should be noted that when Smith wrote, the industrial revolution had not yet occurred. Britain in Smiths day was overwhelmingly agricultural, with a healthy manufacturing sector of artisans, not individual wage workers. Smith did not call this society capitalistMarx had the honor of naming the system. Smiths commercial model, replaced by a Neo-Classical model in modern variants of the theory, presupposes a Smithian conception of the market economy. This economic model assumes that market exchange, as explicated by Smith or the NeoClassical economists, is a fundamental and natural part of the human condition. The basic logic of the market exchange dynamic is not a product of history, but rather operates with the force of natural law. Indeed, Smith modeled his conception of economic relations after Newtons physics, which represented in his time the pinnacle of European scientific thinking. In Newtonian physics, physical laws do not have a history. They do not develop over time. They were, are, and always will be present. In Smiths economics, the laws of market exchange are assumed to be much the same as Newtons physical laws. Even so, Smith recognized that human societies change, and so he argued that social, cultural and political conditions developed outside of the economic sphere. He maintained that this prevented the laws of market exchange from operating, as they naturally ought to. Thus, social, cultural, and political conditions represented a block on the progression of human societies to the highest stage of commercial society. Smith held that as of 1776, only Britain (and perhaps northwestern Europe) had successfully removed many but not all of these obstacles to the development of commercial society. The removal of these external constraints was crucial to Smith, because the development
13

For the original statement of the commercial model, see Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book III, 356-96; a concise statement of the commercialization model can be found in Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View, 2nd ed. (New York: Verso, 2002), 11-33. 14 Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Fania Oz-Salzberger ed. (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1995).

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of exchange led to increasing specialization and an increasing division of labor. That, combined with technological improvements in the instruments of production, led to an increase in labor productivity, which increased the wealth of the nation. Thus, commercial society is not so much something new but the culmination, once freed of social, political and cultural constraints, of these basic laws of economics, i.e., of this basic feature of humans and human society. It is a quantitative model of change rather than a qualitative model of change, as the development of commercial society is the outcome of the numerical expansion of the natural laws of economics throughout society, and the world. This model does not therefore see capitalism (not Smiths term) as having any specific differences from other economic systems, except that different societies have different external constraints on the development of commercial society and have progressed at different rates (or not progressed at all) in removing them. For modern Neo-Classical economists and some economic historians, this means that the concept of capitalism is questionable insofar as it refers to a historically specific set of economic relations that arose at a specific time and a specific place. When Smithians and Neo-Classicists talk of capitalism, they mean the ever-present laws of market exchange, specialization, division of labor, and so on. These same economic laws have basically always been with us, with imperfections and deviations resulting from human interference with natural laws. Modern Smithians, some Neo-Classical economists, and economic historians often deny any meaning to the term capitalism. Frank, the anti-Eurocentric, lists himself in their company. The early Marx relied heavily on the commercial model. The details of his version of this model will not detain us here because, as explained above, his mature model is the more important one. Under the influence of Hegel, Marx always thought in terms of the history of social processes and qualitative change. Marx came to reject many elements of Smith, Ricardo, and their followers precisely because their economic theories were not historical, i.e., because of their assumption that the basic laws of economics never changed. Marxs fundamental argument was that systems of economic relationships, and societies as a whole, are historical and they develop qualitatively through time. Thus, the laws of the market postulated by Smith were not the same for all humans in all times and places. In his works from the late 1850s on, Marx made the distinction between capitalism and pre-capitalism, with pre-capitalism subsuming all other economic systems. While it is clear from the Grundrisse that Marx knew these pre-capitalist systems came in various forms, he never investigated any of them thoroughly. (Whether he could have, given the state of European knowledge about the history of non-European societies is another question).15 Marxs concern was capitalism, and he took care to make the point that capitalism was a unique set of economic relationsdifferent from those that preceded it in Europe, and different from those outside Europe. This concern led him to England, which European thinkers at the time considered to have been the birthplace of a new form of economy, and where this new form of economy was most developed as of the 1850s. For Marx, any discussion of any other part of the world was a secondary concern. He thought that the rest of the world only showed the distinctiveness of this new economic system, which he was the first to call capitalism. Later Marxists and even some
15

Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 471-513.

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non-Marxists have turned to short abstract statements by Marx, like the 1859 preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, to try to construct grand theories of nonEuropean economic systems and their development, because of the absence of a systematic explication of non-capitalist economic systems in Marxs writings.16 The best example of this is a theory of the economic history and development of India that was developed out of a few short newspaper articles Marx wrote in the 1850s. 17 Marx never explicitly warned against this practice. How could he know that some would later treat everything he wrote as sacred text? Nevertheless, he never clarified the issue and thus bore some responsibility for the situation. In contrast to Smiths commercial model, the mature Marxian economic model rejects the argument that commercial society is created by the expansion of the operations of the market, in turn best stimulated by the removal of misguided human-created constraints on the market. Marxs key point was that the expansion of commerce, i.e., the creation of wealth, was not the real factor in the origins of capitalism. He held that capitalism is neither the result of the previous accumulation of wealth or capital, nor the quantitative growth of market relations. This is why he referred to the notion of primitive accumulation as so-called.18 Marx argued that capitalism arose due to a fundamental transformation of economic relationships, especially class or social property relations, and this is what he meant by primitive accumulation. According to Marx, it was social relationships that changed, specifically economic relationships, and this is what created the new economic system. A key factor in this is the relationship between the direct producers of the economic surplus of a society and the expropriators of that surplus. Every human society with the exception of primitive communal societies had and has a specific form of relationship between these two groups. Marx provided a clear if abstract statement of this view in the third volume of Capital:
The specific economic form in which unpaid surplus labor is pumped out of the direct producers determines the relationship of domination and servitude, as this grows directly out of production itself and reacts back on it in turn as a determinant. On this is based the entire configuration of the economic community arising from the actual relations of production, and hence also its specific political form. It is in each case the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the immediate producersa relationship whose particular form naturally corresponds always to a certain level of development of the type and manner of labour, and hence to its social productive powerin which we find the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social edifice, and hence also the political form of the relationship of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the specific form of the state in each case. This does not prevent the same economic basisthe same in its major conditionsfrom displaying endless variations and gradations of appearance, as the result of innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural conditions, racial

16

Karl Marx, Preface in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One in Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 29 (New York: International Publishers, 1987), 261-5. 17 The main articles are collected in Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Political Writings: Volume 2, ed. David Fernbach (New York: Penguin, 1992), 301-24. 18 Marx, Part Eight: So-Called Primitive Accumulation in Capital vol. 1, 873-940.

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relations, historical influences acting from outside, etc., and these can only be understood by analysing these empirically given conditions.19

Marxs views on what today we would call culture are relevant here. He wrote that [i]n the case of the arts, it is well known that certain periods of their flowering are all out of proportion to the general development of society, hence also to the material foundation, the skeletal structure, as it were, of its organization.20 Marx did not adhere to an economic determinism, and to read the above as a base-superstructure model is clearly inaccurate. In capitalism, these relationships take the form of wage-labor and capital in the most abstract sense. However, this specific articulation of direct producers and exploiters was the foundation of a system of imperatives of competition and profit maximization, a compulsion to re-invest surpluses in the production process, and the relentless need to improve labor productivity and develop forces of production. This specific transformation occurred in the English countryside over the course of three hundred years, and was an outcome of class struggle between landlords and their tenants. This struggle created those fundamental aspects of the capitalist system in England and eventually led to Englands economic take-off and the industrial revolution.21 Robert Brenner, who has given the most systematic argument for the Marxist view, explains how this happened, as will be discussed below. All three anti-Eurocentric authors under consideration here argue that the features of capitalism outlined above were not distinct to Britain or Europe, but were present in other parts of the world before 1800most notably in China. Two more theories need consideration before this discussion can turn to the books of Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz. The first of these is Immanuel Wallersteins development of the theory of the Modern World System, and the second is Robert Brenners development of a systematic Marxist explanation for the origins of capitalism. Both of these theories were developed at roughly the same time and the major statements of their views were published within a few years of each other in the mid-1970s. Both have been influential, Wallersteins more so, and both have been heavily debated. Wallerstein needs to be discussed because he is crucial to understanding Frank and Brenner, and because he is crucial for criticizing Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz. Wallerstein is a historical sociologist who started out studying Africa. His work there led him to conclude that to study Africa, one needs to situate it within a worldwide historical context. This led him to develop his notion of social systems, and especially world-systems. A social system is defined by the existence within it of a division of labor, such that the various sectors or areas are dependent upon economic exchange with others for the smooth and continuous provisioning of the needs of the area. Such economic exchange can clearly exist without a common political structure and even more obviously without sharing the same culture.22 Certain key terms should be noted here division of labor and exchangeand the absence of other termsclass,
19 20

Marx, Capital vol. 3, 927-8. Marx, Grundrisse, 110. 21 Marx, Capital vol. 1, 873-940. 22 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis in The Essential Wallerstein (New York: The New Press, 2000), 74 -5.

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property, and production. For most of human history, what Wallerstein calls minisystemsan entity that has within it a complete division of labor, and a simple cultural frameworkhave existed, but they have ultimately been supplanted by world-systems.23 A world-system is a unit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural systems.24 World-systems come in two forms. The first form is a world empire, which is a world system with a common political system. The second form is a world-economy, which is a world-system without a common political system. A world-system need not necessarily encompass the entire globe. Wallerstein calls the major civilizations of pre-modern times such as China, Egypt, and Rome world-empires, and argues that the nineteenth century European empires were really nation-states with colonial appendages operating within the framework of a world economy.25 Wallerstein argues that redistributive economic systems characterized worldempires, in that the state and its formal or informal representatives appropriated the surplus of peasant producers and redistributed it in various ways. Merchants who engaged in commercial activity existed in all world-empires, but they were a minor part of the local economy and engaged primarily in long-distance trade. This trade was administered in various ways and was not Smithian free-market trade. In no way was market activity determinative of the development of a world-empire. This changed only in the sixteenth century with Europes creation of the modern world-economy, in which market trade developed and became paramount. For Wallerstein, this is capitalism. Wallerstein distinguished capitalism from redistributive world empires and tributary states by defining capitalism as production for sale in a market in which the object is to realize the maximum profit. In such a system production is constantly expanded as long as further production is profitable, and men constantly innovate new ways of producing things that will expand the profit margin.26 Technically, this does not differentiate capitalists from merchants in world empires. What makes capitalism different is that the capitalist world system is organized around market exchange, and the redistributive tributary state ceases to exist. Wallerstein argued that the modern world system came into being between 1450 and 1640. During this period, the modern world economy arose around Europe. Before this period most economies in the world had been based on world empires, which redistributed the surplus product collected either by trade or taxation, and which conducted only some long-distance trade. Europe instead developed a capitalist world economy, i.e., one based on market exchange and commerce, one which conformed to the above definition of capitalism. This change happened in Europe because there was a crisis in the late Middle Ages in its small tributary states. Wallerstein argued that this could have resulted in anarchy and contraction but instead, Europeans, starting with Portugal, expanded their political and economic control to the Americas and over time created an economic system based more on exchange than tribute or taxation. Western Europe also integrated Eastern Europe into these exchange relations at this time. Within
23 24

Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein, 75. Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein, 75. 25 Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein, 75. 26 Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein, 73.

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the whole system, but especially in the new areas of expansion, Europeans developed new forms of labor control depending on the product and the area in which it was produced. These economic changes led to the development of strong state machines in the core states of the new world economy. These states certainly taxed their populations, but they were neither redistributive tributary states nor world empires. While there were bids to turn this system into a world empire, all failed.27 Wallerstein has often been taken to be a Marxist, because his arguments were associated with the Third World-ism of the 1970s. In particular, his arguments were linked with the underdevelopment school of thought. This school of thought blamed Europe for the underdevelopment of the rest of the world, arguing that Europeans had structured the world economy in such a way that massive amounts of wealth had been transferred to Europe from the third world ever since the discovery of the Americas. It held that this wealth was the basis of the development of capitalism and, once capitalism had been established, capitalist profits. This association of Wallersteins thoughts with the underdevelopment school of thought has tended to obscure the fact that Wallerstein is essentially offering a variant of the commercial model. While Wallerstein was clear about the difference between the economics of the tributary states (and thus world empires) and the capitalist world economy, he still argued that there was market exchange in tributary states, albeit long-distance trade. Thus, one can argue that tributary states were a constraint on the development of commercial society. In Europe, the crisis of feudalism weakened these tributary states. The rise of the strong state in the core, and the failure of any of these states to turn the new economic system into a world empire, provided the basis for the expansion of commercial society. Not long after Wallerstein published the first volume of his Modern World System, Robert Brenner published two articles criticizing European historians who argued for the commercial model. Brenner also criticized the demographic model, which he considered a variant of the commercial model, and Wallersteins adaptation of the commercial model. In these articles, he put forward a detailed Marxian argument derived ultimately from the first volume of Capital. Brenner is a European historian who also occasionally focuses on other sections of the world, but only when Europe is involved. This has earned him a place in Blauts pantheon of Eurocentric historians, but this is really name-calling rather than argument.28 Brenners main argument against the commercial model, whatever its variants, is that the rise of market exchange in itself does not explain the origins of capitalism. One of his arguments has already been encountered, i.e., that the commercial model is a quantitative model of development and that what needs explanation are the qualitative changes in the European economy in late-medieval and early modern Europe. Brenner argued that commercial expansion does not in itself explain historical change. Instead, it is the structure of class relations, of class power, which will determine the manner and degree to which particular demographic and commercial changes will affect long-term

27 28

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System I (New York: Academic, 1974). J.M. Blaut, Eight Eurocentric Historians (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 45-72.

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trends in the distribution of income and economic growthand not vice versa.29 This argument comes straight from Marx. Brenner further argues that commercial activities can, in varying degrees be found in many different societies at different times and places with widely differing class structures, but none of them developed capitalism before the English. In fact, production for profit in the market, i.e. commercial exchange, is compatible with a wide variety of differing class structures. The widely varying developments of these societies show that something more than production for profit on the market is needed for capitalism to arise. Brenner argued for the basic correctness of Marxs argument that class structure and its development through class conflict is the key to the development of capitalism in England. To support this contention, Brewer discussed European developments in the latemedieval and early modern period. He argued that the break through from traditional economy to relatively self-sustaining economic development was predicated upon the emergence of a specific set of class or social property relations. This outcome depended, in part, upon the previous success of a two sided process of class development and class conflict: on the one hand, the destruction of serfdom; on the other, the short-circuiting of the emerging predominance of small peasant property.30 Brewer continued, asserting that the economic developments of the late Middle Ages contained a:
contradiction between the development of peasant production and the relations of surplus extraction [which] tended to lead to a crisis of peasant accumulation, of peasant productivity, and ultimately of peasant subsistence. This crisis was accompanied by an intensification of the class conflict inherent in the existing structure, but with different outcomes in different places...depending on the balance of forces between the contending classes.31

These results were not predetermined, but were indeterminate and bound up with the historical specificity of the areas in questionespecially the relative strength of the different classes in different areas of Europe, which were, in turn, the results of previous historical developments. It turned out that in Eastern Europe, the landlords were the victors and re-imposed an intensified serfdom. The situation was quite the opposite in England, where the peasantry was strong enough to break the feudal controls that had existed there. In the long term, peasants were unable to establish freehold control over the land and landlords were able to create large farms and to lease the land to tenants, i.e., the former peasants. Landlords preferred and cultivated tenants who could make improvements on the lands they leased, i.e. invest capital in improving the land. This new landlord-tenant relationship was a partnership of sorts. The tenant would receive a reasonable share of the revenue and not have it confiscated by the landlord, in return for the tenant investing in the land and increasing revenues. This encouraged all kinds of improvements in technique and technology, as the tenant had an interest in the productivity of the landbut technique and technology were driven by the logic of the
29

Robert Brenner, Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe in T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin, eds., The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 11. 30 Aston and Philpin, eds., The Brenner Debate, 30. 31 Aston and Philpin, eds., The Brenner Debate, 36.

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new socio-economic system, and not the other way around. (Marx and Brenner are not technological determinists.) Additionally, this created competitive markets in agricultural produce as tenants had to compete with each other to increase revenues. This process did not happen over night; in fact, it would take centuries. This development in agriculture had effects outside of that sector. Over time, agricultural improvement made it possible for larger numbers of the population to leave the land to enter industry. Thus, the development of manufacturing into industry towards the end of the eighteenth century and thus the opposition of capital and wage-laboris the result of the establishment of this new economic logic. Agricultural improvement also provided a growing home market, which was crucial to the growth of industry in England. This was well under way before England acquired any colonies with significant wealth. Although Brenner offers a complete micro-analysis, he can be criticized for not including a macro-level analysis, i.e., an analysis of the economic policies of the British state during this period, which are extremely important. Nevertheless, his micro-analysis is still valid. France represents a different case. Here, as in England, the peasants freed themselves from medieval feudalism but, unlike England, they retained effective control of the land. The landlords in France were never able to change this. In part, this was because of the development of the French monarchy. The French state did not side with the nobility against the peasants but instead saw the peasantry as a financial base. Thus, the state and property owners were competitors for the right to extract peasant surpluses. This meant that peasants were under relatively little pressure to operate their plots as profitably or effectively as possible because there was no real competitive system among them. French peasants did engage in exchange, but the state and the landowners still appropriated their surpluses. They were not tenants competing for tenancies and then competing to keep these tenancies. French peasants were secure on their lands because the state wanted them to be. Consequently, France did not become capitalist before the nineteenth century. Brenners argument about Europe has been discussed in detail, in order to show what kind of argument it is. It is not based on any Euro-myth but rather on concrete historical evidence. It shows that each set of societys leaders governed by a specific socio-economic logic, which was the product of qualitative historical developments linked ultimately to class conflict but not excluding other factors. One can disagree with the theory underlying it, but then one would have to explain the fact that the three areas under consideration had the outcomes that Brenner delineates. No one argues any longer that neither France nor Eastern Europe were capitalist before the nineteenth century. Social position of French peasants, East European serfs, and English tenants (yeoman farmers) are all accepted facts of the early modern period. More importantly, they all had expanding commercial relations not only within their countries, but also with other parts of Europe and even the world. If the expansion of market exchange leads to capitalism, why is it that only England became capitalist before the nineteenth century? It is important to note that while the outcome of class conflict in Britain led to the creation of a superior economic logic (from the standpoint of productivity and economic growth), this argument does not presuppose that British institutions were superior before these developments and that this superiority caused these developments.

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Brenner has been discussed mainly in relation to Europe, but he also argued against Wallerstein, and against Frank in his early incarnation as a theorist of the development of underdevelopment (a position he has subsequently rejected). Brenner argued in an article devoted primarily to Wallerstein that Wallerstein essentially had adopted a Smithian model of economic development, i.e. the commercial model, as discussed above. This fundamentally means that Wallerstein had abandoned Marxism, and class conflict and structure, as an explanation for economic development There are various areas of Wallersteins work that Brenner criticizes, but two will be focused on here: Wallersteins notion of labor control and the crucial use of primitive accumulation in his argument. Brenners basic argument against Wallerstein is that by adopting the commercial model, Wallerstein has mistaken the fundamental causal relationships. Instead of class conflict and class structure causing economic development or its lack, Wallerstein sees the expansion of the market and commercial exchange as causing economic development. In fact, the development of class structure in Wallerstein is an outcome of the expansion of commerce, i.e., changes in class structure depends on the expansion of markets. New forms of labor control emerge not from class conflict, but merely from the facilitation of market-induced processes of economic development and underdevelopment.32 Indeed, in Wallersteins analysis, European capitalists impose different forms of labor control because the market dictates it. Wallerstein does not analyze whether there might have been class conflict in the establishment of new forms of labor control. Brenner argued that this was because Wallerstein essentially adopted a Smithian positionone that denied class conflict and structure in favor of a market composed of individual producers and consumers. Another issue on which Brenner criticizes Wallerstein is the notion of primitive accumulation. Wallerstein essentially argued for a European primitive accumulation of wealth derived from its exploitative control over the Americas. To him, this massive transfer of wealth was vital to the economic development of Europe. Brenner argued against this view. He did not argue that there was no transfer of wealth to Europe, or that exploitation was not involved. Rather he challenged the notion that this transfer had any qualitative effects on the European economy. Brenner saw this whole issue rooted in problems in Smiths analysis of the development of commercial society. Smiths system essentially presupposed capitalist relations of production. Thus, Smith needed to find a source for the capital required for the operation of his model, and so he postulated a previous accumulation of wealth that served as the basis for the capital required by his model. More importantly, Brenner argued (following Marx) that even if one were to specify the origin of this accumulation, the very fact of its accumulation would not turn it into capital. It could just as easily have been merely consumed, and not invested in improving productivity. Brenner instead argues that capital comes into being under specific historical circumstancescertain historically-developed social-productive

32

Robert Brenner, The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism, New Left Review 104 (1977) 56.

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relations.33 The development of a specific set of social relationships allows wealth to become capital, and not the other way around. Wallersteins argument implies that no amount of transfer of wealth to Europe would have created capitalist economic relations there. These relations arose out of class conflict in England. This is not to deny that wealth was appropriated from the non-European world and that some of that wealth was transformed into capital. No doubt some of it was simply consumed. Nevertheless, while this transfer of wealth may have made life more comfortable for some Europeans, it did not create the modern world system. There are important reasons for such a lengthy consideration of Brenners ideas. First, he offers a coherent account of the origins of capitalism in England, one that avoids all of Blauts Euro-myths. More importantly, Brenners ideas will inform subsequent discussion of Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz. Brenner stands as a forceful critique of Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz, even though his work precedes theirs by twenty years. Finally, this essay will culminate with some suggestions of how Brewers positive argument on the origins of capitalism can be applied to the whole world. Although Brenner devoted most of his essay on the origins of capitalist development to Wallerstein, Andre Gunder Frank was another of the Neo-Smithian Marxists that Brenner criticized. Franks early work on the development of underdevelopment, which he has since repudiated, was nevertheless a most important influence on Wallerstein. In 1998, Frank published Reorient, which was a conscious attempt to rewrite the history of the world economy from 1400 to 1800 from an antiEurocentric position. Frank did an impressive amount of research in secondary sources, work that is commendable for bringing much information together in one volume that before was only contained in specialist manuscripts. However, serous problems remain in Franks analysis. Frank argues there already was an ongoing world economy before the Europeans had much to do and say in it.34 He derives two sub theses from this assertion, first that Asia, and especially China and India, but also Southeast Asia and West Asia, were more active and the first three also more important to this world economy than Europe was until about 1800, and second that Europe used its American money to buy about a ticket on the Asian train.35 Thus, Franks aim is to challenge Eurocentric models of the origins of the modern world system. In doing this, he rejects almost all nineteenth- and twentieth-century European historical and social scientific work on the subject, including that of Marx, Weber, Wallerstein, and Brenner. They all are Eurocentric in Franks opinion, because in one-way or another they all privilege Europe over Asia in the early modern period. However, Frank gives that other European thinker, Adam Smith, a pass on the issue because, as we shall see, Smiths economic theory and one of his specific arguments are crucial to Franks own argument.

33 34

Brenner, The Origins of Capitalist Development, 86-7 Frank, Reorient, p. xxivxxv. 35 Frank, Reorient, p. xxivxxv.

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Frank argues that there was a world economy dating back thousands of years (though he focuses on the years 1400-1800), an economy characterized by regional trading systems linked together in a world system involving the Eurasian landmass and Africa. This trade was not just long-distance trade in luxury goods, but was also trade in staple goods. For Frank, this constitutes a true world system in that it incorporated the entire known world except the Americas (which Europe would integrate into the world economy after the 1500s). Wallerstein was explicit about what he considered a world system. He was clear that it did not literally have to encompass the entire world. At some point, Frank seems confused on Wallersteins definition of a world system, and thus he castigates Wallerstein for ignoring Asia in general and China in particular. Frank clearly has not understood Wallerstein here. Even so, Frank maintains one of Wallersteins central ideasthat a world system has a single division of labor. The underlying idea is the same, whether in the more geographically circumscribed Wallersteinian version or the global Frankian version. Frank further argues that the introduction of various forms of circulating money during this period integrated this world system and its single division of labor. Money was indispensable to the operation of this world system. The European conquest of the Americas gave them control over large amounts of silver and gold, thus allowing Europeans to buy goods from Asia that they otherwise could not afford, because Europeans lacked commodities Asians wanted. Frank argues that in this world system, with a single division of labor integrated by money circulation, the Europeans were not the economic leaders, that they did not dominate the world economy. The Asian economies, particularly China and India, were the major economies in terms of population, production, trade, and consumption. More significantly, European social scientists falsely classified them as stagnant economies. They were dynamic economies that grew faster and more than Europe and maintained [their] economic lead over Europe in all these aspects until at least 1750.36 In fact, the Asian economies were the dominant economies in the world system before 1750. This is in part because Asia was in no way inferior to Europe in productivity, technology, and economic and financial institutions. It is commonly argued that the opposite was the case, i.e. that the European miracle was that of its superiority in these areas. Instead, Frank argues that there was a great deal of innovation throughout Eurasia and that, because of the international commercial links of the world system, these innovations were diffuse and adapted to local conditions. Frank argues the Europe benefited greatly from this diffusion. Unquestionably, many Europeans adopted and adapted non-European innovations, but European technological superiority is not the lynchpin of most arguments for European superiority. Ultimately, though, Frank has to address the eventual European dominance of the world economy, i.e. that something changed after 1750, making Europe the dominant region in the world economy. He first argues that Europeans were able to integrate themselves into this system by means of their appropriation of New World silver and gold, an argument he claims ultimately comes from Adam Smith. More importantly, he argues that cycles of growth and contraction both did and do characterize the world economic system and that, while the effects of each phase in the cycle are unevenly
36

Frank, Reorient, 35.

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distributed around the world system, one can delineate general trends for the world system. He argues that the so-called seventeenth-century crisis was really a European crisis and not a global crisis. Thus, while Europe suffered a contraction, the world economy as a whole was still in its growth phase. By the end of the eighteenth century, though, Asia was entering a phase of contraction. Europeans, who had entered a growth phase at this time, were able to take advantage of Asias cyclical weakness because they were by then integrated into the world economy. This summary of Franks argument excludes much about its theoretical underpinnings, though these are important. Frank is essentially a Smithian, Neo-Classical economist. However, he differs from his colleagues position that no equivalent to the commercial society developing in Europe existed in Asia. Instead, he maintains that commercial society was already present around the world in 1400, and even earlier. Frank never talks of constraints on the rise of market exchangewhen any economy is in a growth phase, market exchange increases. Frank is almost obsessively concerned with trade, especially international trade, and he never discusses the relations of production under which traded goods were actually produced. Even when he considers economic institutions, he discusses business organization and finance. The world of 1400-1800 was overwhelmingly agricultural and dominated by peasants, even in Europe, which affected the structures of its various societies and states. However, peasants and agriculture receive little or no mention, let alone analysis, in Franks book. Frank is so wedded to his Smithian view of economics and his anti-Eurocentrism that he even denies the very existence of capitalism. He suggests that capitalism is a Eurocentric myth designed primarily to differentiate Europe from the rest of the world, in order to assert European superiority. Frank thus argues that the same economic relations have operated in the world economy for hundreds or thousands of years, and that what happened between 1500 and 1800 in Europe and the world was nothing truly new. This places him firmly within the Smithian commercial model. R. Bin Wongs goals are less ambitious then those of Frank, but he still seeks to downgrade Europe from its privileged position. A specialist on China, Wong wants to compare Europe and China to see how they were similar and differentbut with the aim of dislodging European state making and capitalism from their privileged positions as universalizing themes in world history.37 To do this, Wong analyzes both the economic history and the history of political institutions in Europe and in China. He argues that in the most advanced areas of Europe and China, their economic systems were largely the same and conformed to Smithian dynamicsproductivity gains accruing from the division of labor and specialization with a decentralized price system that widens the scope of the market and extends the advantages accruing from the division of labor.38 Wongs basic economic argument is that between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, China was economically no different from Europe. Both were pre-industrial, both exhibited Smithian dynamics, and both were subject to occasional Malthusian crises.39
37 38

Wong, China Transformed, 7. Wong, China Transformed, 16. 39 Wong, China Transformed, 89.

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Where they did differ was in their political systems. China had a unified state that, while not an oriental despotism, did not develop the representative institutions of European polities nor the European system of interstate competition. Instead, China was an agrarian empire with a different political logic than that of any European state. We should not expect European style institutions to have developed there. European states, apart from developing representative institutions in some areas and being in competition with each other, lacked the kinds of active promotion of popular education and morality, as well as a concern to promote the material welfare of its subjects, especially the poor and peasants, that were ancient features of the Chinese state. These differences are crucial for the economic developments of both regions. The Chinese state was concerned with static, not to say stagnant, efficiency and wanted to spread the best techniques available across a vast area. Its goal was to increase state revenue by encouraging the material improvement of its subjects. European states, on the other hand, sought competition and growth, not anticipating that this would result in the industrial revolution. Thus, the differences in Chinese and European development were the outcome of their specific historically developed state structures and their policies. When Wong discusses the Chinese economy, he makes it sound as if it were solely a market economy for both peasants and artisans. This ignores the tributary nature of the Chinese state in this period. The Chinese state appropriated and redistributed peasant surpluses in a manner quite different from what European states were doing during this period, although one must distinguish between this and the tributes the Chinese state received from its client states. This did not preclude peasants selling what remained in markets, but Wong glosses over the tributary aspect of the Chinese states and this is a serious omission. Further, Wong replicates, in a more palatable form, the Eurocentric argument that Chinese state institutions represented a block on economic development. The Chinese economy may have been dynamic and not stagnant, but Wong does not decisively refute the Euro-myth of European institutional superiority. Kenneth Pomeranz is also a specialist in China and a colleague of Wong. He, too, wants to challenge Eurocentric views. He argues no matter how far we may push back the origins of capitalism, industrial capitalism, in which large-scale use of inanimate energy sources allowed an escape from the common constraints of the pre-industrial world, emerged only in the 1800s. There is little to suggest that Western Europes economy had decisive advantages before then, either in its capital stock or economic institutions, that made industrialization highly probable there and unlikely elsewhere.40 Pomeranz argues that before the nineteenth century, high levels of capital accumulation, demographic patterns, and markets in general existed in Western Europe, China, Japan, and perhaps elsewhere. Consequently, these factors cannot explain why Europe industrialized in the nineteenth century, nor would they even suffice to explain a counterfactual Chinese industrialization. According to Pomeranz, technology cannot explain this either, because the real differentiation between Europe and Asia in technology occurred in the nineteenth century. Perhaps Europe had some advantage in international trade, but this was a difference in degree rather than in kind, and does not justify any claim that
40

Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, 32.

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Western Europe had developed a capitalist mode of production or a consumer society which differentiated it from Asia by creating the industrialized society of Europe in the nineteenth century. Pomeranz further argues that by the end of the eighteenth century, a series of fundamental ecological constraints increasingly beset Asia. Increased trade within Eurasia and Africa would not ease these constraints. Fortunately for Europe, the conquest and colonization of the New World provided a way out. Since Europeans were able to structure their trade relations with their coloniesas opposed to free, consensual trade among EurasiansEurope was able to transcend its ecological constraints. In the process, Europe created the worlds first modern core and periphery, which allowed Europe to build a unique industrial system upon an advanced market economy which itself was not unique in Eurasia. There are some things to note here. First, Pomeranz presupposes Smithian economics. It is the only economic model and it is found everywhere. Even so, Smithian dynamics do not lead to capitalism. In fact, just as in Frank, Pomeranz denies the very notion of something qualitatively different called capitalism. Industrialization is what distinguishes Western Europe after 1800, a result of escaping ecological constraints. This, in turn, is a consequence of the conquest of the Americas, their colonization, and the transfer of wealth to Europe. In Pomeranz, this wealth took the form not only of precious metals, but also of colonial products, especially various types of food products. Thus Pomeranz returns to a Wallersteinian theme, though he is critical of Wallerstein here and there. What are missing here are any fundamental qualitative changes in social relations in Western Europe leading to industrialization. Some general criticisms of these works are in order. The first point to make is about how Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz actually characterize Asian economies during this period. As noted earlier, Frank has very little to say about peasants and instead is obsessed with trade. This is a serious flaw in his book. The vast majority of the worlds populations until the twentieth century were peasants, and peasant production was the main global economic activity until that time. Frank has practically nothing to say about this, and what he does say about peasant production has to do with merchants trading their products. Wong and Pomeranz do discuss peasants, but there is a curious absence in their discussions. One gets the impression in both books that Chinese peasants were akin to the small independent farmers found in the United States in the nineteenth century. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Chinese system integrated peasants into a tributary state that appropriated and redistributed a share of their production by essentially non-market means. Here, Wallerstein is correct in his analysis of China as a world-empire, though he vastly underestimates the amount of market exchange that existed alongside this tributary system. In order to make their arguments, Wong and Pomeranz have simply ignored this important aspect of the Chinese socio-economic system. This is a severe distortion of reality. This absence is a product of the adoption of Smithian economic theory, refracted through Neo-Classical economics. To bring up the Chinese tributary system (which should not be confused with these authors discussions of tribute received by the Chinese state from countries in its sphere of influence) is to undermine the Smithian

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argument that Wong and Pomeranz want to make. None of the three authors seriously consider alternative economic theories. When Marx is discussed, his ideas are dismissed. Frank is most vociferous about this, spuriously arguing that Marxs analysis of the origins of European capitalism is intimately tied to his belief that Asian economies were stagnant and their political systems despotic, preventing economic dynamism. Certainly, Marx considered England the place where capitalism arose, and never considered any other area as a candidate for this development. However, Marxs limited analyses of India and China are not justification for the dismissal of his arguments about England. By the end of the 1850s, Marx was the expert on the English economy and its development, and his analysis did not rely on other parts of the world being stagnant. His arguments are about England, what had happened there, and how its economy worked at that time. The same holds true for Brenner, who is the major modern proponent of the Marxian view of the origins of capitalism. None of the anti-Eurocentric authors seriously consider Brenners arguments, because they have already made their choice for Smith and against Marx. This means that class is not a category of analysis for any of these authors. Thus, they derive no meaning from Brenners claim that class conflict leads to changes both in class structure and in the economic logic governing the economies of the different European states. This is already evident when Pomeranz tries to pair Brenner with Douglas North, a Neo-Classical economic historian, stating that they essentially reach the same conclusions. However, the gulf between Marxism and Neo-Classical economics is immense. That Brenner and North can be seen as kindred spirits shows either that Pomeranz does not know Marxism (the rest of the book shows he knows NeoClassicism), or that he simply does not care. Historians should prefer Marx to Smith, because Marx offers a thorough historical explanation for the development of capitalism, right down to the level of the very laws that govern the operation of an economic system. Smith and the Neo-Classicists do not go this far, and instead posit their basic economic models as operating at all places and times, something akin to the laws of Newtonian physics. Marx argued that the economic sphere is just as historical as the social, cultural, and political spheres that, in fact, the economic sphere is itself social, and should not be separated from society. Neo-Classical economists tend to do just that, when they are not trying to reduce society to the market model. Humans have devised different economic systems throughout their existence different at the most fundamental leveland these systems have changed over time. For Marx, the motor of change is class conflict, arising from the development of a socioeconomic system that in itself is the result of earlier class conflicts. This class conflict is not mechanical or deterministic. Circumstances, unintended consequences, and other factors influence the outcome of a class conflict. Many historians are uncomfortable with the notion of class as a prime mover of historical development. One does not need to adopt this aspect of Marxism to agree with another aspect of Marxism, outlined above, that the laws governing economic activity change qualitatively over time. One does not have to be a Marxist to use class as a category of analysis. Max Weber, generally taken to be the most sophisticated alternative to Marx as a social theorist, had no problem using a concept of class.

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It is not surprising that orthodox economics has influenced Frank, Wong, and Pomeranz, given the generally anti-Marxist climate found in the United States and elsewhere. In rejecting the thoroughgoing historicism of Marx in favor of Smith, all three thus reject the very idea of capitalism, in one way or another. As we have seen, Smithian/Neo-Classical thinking essentially maintains itself to be the basic model for all economic activity. Any deviation from it is the result of human interference, which usually turns out badly. Since the basic logic of economics is the same everywhere and at all times, it makes no sense to talk of capitalism if one means by that term some sort of different form of economy. If by capitalism one means the Smithian model of the economy, then, by this theory, capitalism has always been present in one form or another. For this reason, Neo-Classical economists usually avoid the term capitalism altogether. The anti-Eurocentrists have another reason to avoid the term. To talk of capitalism is to grant some validity to nineteenth-century European social science and historical writingespecially Marx, who created capitalism as a category of historical and socio-economic analysis. Consequently, anti-Eurocentrists are keen to deny any validity to the term as it relates to notions of European difference and superiority. When confronted with undeniable European economic difference, these authors talk of industrialization rather than capitalism. This is because they believe that industrialization neatly fits into the parameters of the Smithian model. However, industrialization postdated Smith, who really only knew an economy based on agriculture and incipient factories. There is another problem with this anti-Eurocentric line of thinking. European thinkers did not develop the concept of capitalism to denigrate non-European people. Rather, they wished to explain the rapid changes taking place in Europe and especially in England, changes to which Marx gave the term capitalism. Marx was the first thinker to offer a truly historical view of the problem. He realized that previous economists, Smith and Ricardo in particular, did not think in historical terms, but instead took ahistorical Newtonian physics as the model for their theories. The anti-Eurocentric historians, in trying to de-privilege Europe by eliminating the concept of capitalism, are essentially going back to this ahistorical model. Thus, no matter how detailed their historical research, the model within which they articulate their evidence is fundamentally flawed. There is a further irony in this choice as well. Smith was European, and the Smithian model is a product of European thought. Smith may have said a positive thing about China here and there (and Frank is quick to point these statements out, though not as interested in some of the more negative things Smith said about China), but this does not change the fact that Smiths model is based on European thought and experience. 41 What Smith knew of the rest of the world came from accounts written by Europeans, some of whom had been to the places they wrote about, some not. In this, Smith was no different from Marx and Weber. Yet somehow Smith escapes the charge of Eurocentrism, despite the fact that he clearly thought that Europe had reached the highest stage development. Smiths implication that the commercial stage was open to all nations does not change anything. In fact, Smith is Eurocentric in arguing that Europe had best
41

For some negative comments on China in Smith see Wealth of Nations, 95, 462, 644-5.

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removed constraints on the development of commercial society. Surely, this makes Europe specialeven superior in some sense. Anti-Eurocentric historians thus essentially continue to rely on European derived theories and categories, calling into question their claims of being truly anti-Eurocentric. R. Bin Wong is aware of the problem, claiming he tries to avoid it, but his work is firmly rooted in European social science. There is a strange contradiction here which is unacknowledged by these authors. The European roots of a Marxian approach to this issue do not share this problem, just because it is not trying to deny capitalism or the European origins of capitalism. Marxism does argue (without privileging Europeans for any of the reasons that Blaut offers) that changes in European society lead to Europe being more advanced than the rest of the world, in terms of both economic structure and thought about the nature of that structure, for examples. However, nothing in Marxism denies other societies the ability to develop capitalism, or even something entirely different. Instead, Marx argues that societies change qualitatively over time and that the main factor in such change is class conflict, which changes both class structure and the overall economic logic of the society in question. That England developed capitalism first is an accident of historythe result of a particular set of circumstances in a specific place and time. It could have happened somewhere else, or it could have not happened at all. Capitalism did not arise first in Asia, and when it did arise there, e.g. in Japan in the late-nineteenth century or in China in the last two decades of the twentieth century, it developed in a different manner. It is possible to use the Marx-Brenner model on a world scale. While the model denies that the expansion of commerce caused the rise of capitalism, it does not deny that there was commerce among societies, nor does it deny the importance of that commerce. Societies trade with each other and have always traded with each other. This is, in fact, a main way that technological and other innovations spread throughout the world. A MarxBrenner model of economic world history since 1400, for example, would focus on tracing the internal development of class conflict and class structure (and how those created different economic logics in different societies of the world), while also paying attention to how world developments such as trade affected the development of those class conflicts, structures, and logics. An ideal Marxist account of the world economy since 1400 would integrate a variant of the world systems approach (i.e., one without the commercialization model) with a detailed analysis of the various class conflicts, class structures, economic logics, and the social and political formations arising from them around the world, and would also consider how these two levels interacted both vertically and horizontally. Such a task is most likely beyond the ability of any single historian, but a collective endeavor could achieve it.

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