Civilization’s Essentials, Part I: Faith

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Fred Zilian

Stunned I was when my daughter informed me that my twin grandsons had their first Junior Pee Wee (10-11 year olds) football game on Sunday, August 28, here in Portsmouth, RI. College football did not begin until the following weekend, and professional football a week later.

As last year, they began summer practice five nights per week, beginning August 1, pretty intense for boys that age. (This switched to three nights per week once school began.) This has impacted substantially on my ability to spend quality time with them in the afternoons and evenings.

Very early in my youth I can remember playing football with my friends, tackle as well as touch. We donned some ragged, pathetic football gear, rode our bikes to the nearest field, and got down and dirty. At twelve, I played Pop Warner youth football the very first year it was organized in my northern New Jersey hometown of Hasbrouck Heights. I continued to play through high school and also freshman football in college. In hindsight I can say that it helped me in my character formation, not so much the year we were state champs, but more so the year we lost most of our games. It was also on the football field where I first met the man who would become my primary mentor, teacher, coach, and eventually close friend. Even after he passed in 2004, his words and advice continue to resonate in my ears.

Earlier that Sunday I had attended mass at St. Barnabas Church. It was a decent crowd for a sunny Sunday morning in late August. However this crowd paled in comparison to the masses at Portsmouth High School football field. It was a happening place. The first thing which struck me was the over-crowded parking lot. Second was the number of entire young families in attendance. This was clearly not just a dad-son affair; this was an activity for the whole family. Indeed, there was organized activity for both genders. The boys were on the football field; on the sidelines were the young girls, 24 by my count, fully outfitted in their cheerleader costumes, including polka-dot bows in their hair.

As I walked the several hundred yards from the lot to the field, I passed the other teams and coaches who had just finished playing or were prepping for their games later in the day. The younger teams had already played and were now receiving their post-game talks from their coaches and departing with their families. Such a sight are these Mighty-Mites (7-8 years), looking hardly human. They are walking shoulder pads surmounted with helmets. I passed one young family which was trying to deal with a bedraggled and overheated son. As he complained, Mom said: “You can take that off in the car.” Dad, offering little solace, joined in with: “See, no one else is complaining.” Two generations ago, this football extravaganza would have been perfectly normal on a Saturday morning or afternoon. Now it has migrated to Sunday.

Under development on this gridiron altar are such things as teamwork, work ethic, discipline, physical courage, and football skills, all laudable traits which the ancient Greeks would admire. The Spartans especially would have high praise for those attributes which would relate to the battlefield. Generally at seven years, boys were taken from their families, placed under the supervision of the city-state, made to live in small groups, and subject to strict discipline and very demanding training.  Plato himself would have praised the development of what he would call technical virtues.

Still, I cannot help wonder about the opportunity costs, in the first instance to the children and the families, but also to our society at large. Positioning football on Sundays makes it very challenging for a Christian family, whose children wish to play football and cheerlead, to attend faith-based, communal worship together. The ancient Greeks, who gave us the Olympics, would shudder at this; religion was embedded in their Olympic Games. Societies require individuals, rich in faith, to sustain them, and communal religious worship has been an effective, traditional way to nurture faith.

Fred Zilian played intercollegiate football and baseball and coached baseball and basketball at Portsmouth Abbey School for fifteen years. He lives in Portsmouth and teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

 

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The Pentagon Celebrates 75 Years

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published by the Newport Daily News on September 10, 2016.)

September 11 marks the 75th anniversary of the ground-breaking for the Pentagon, the home of the U.S. Department of Defense. It is also the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on it.

The need for such a building to house the War Department, then scattered among many buildings in Washington, DC, was underlined by the eruption of World War II in Europe in 1939. The original site chosen was a 67-acre plot of land called Arlington Farms. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to move the site to a location known as Hell’s Bottom to remove it farther from Arlington Cemetery. Construction began on September 11, 1941.

Millions of cubic yards of soil were transported to the site to level it. Since steel was in short supply and because of the sogginess of the site, concrete pilings were poured in place. Concrete was also used for the ramps between floors.

Even though about 4,000 workers were on site day and night, by December the project was behind schedule. Then came Pearl Harbor on December 7. The original design was expanded to include five concentric rings and a fifth floor, and the workforce expanded to 6,000 people. At its height, the operation produced 3500 yards of concrete daily.

The first tenants moved in April 1942, and the building was declared finished on January 15, 1943, at a cost of $83 million.

At 9:37 AM, September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77, commandeered by five terrorists, crashed into the Pentagon, penetrating 310 feet as it pierced the outer three rings (E, D, and C rings). This attack killed the 64 people aboard the plane and 125 people in the building.

The Phoenix Project, the name for the rebuilding plan, envisioned a three-year project; however, construction workers vowed to complete it in one, a feat they accomplished at a cost of $5 billion.

This largest office building in the world contains 17.5 miles of corridor, 6.5 million square feet of floor area, and holds 26,000 employees who engage in 200,000 phone calls each day. Each outside wall is 921 feet long and 77 feet high. The area encompasses 200 acres of lawn and 8770 parking spaces. It includes medical and dental facilities, a post office, a bank, a pharmacy, gift and floral shops, a DMV service center, a fitness facility, and 17 different types of food places. In the center is an open area with trees and benches. At the very center of this area is a small structure which the Soviets during the Cold War assumed housed something malicious. However, the structure has always been a simple food stand.

pentagon_getty-thehill

       (Getty Images, thehill.com)

           Of all my assignments during my Army career, the two years at the Pentagon (1982-84), where I served on the Army Staff, were especially challenging and rewarding. It was quite intimidating at first with so many high-ranking officers and officials. This was before personnel computers; “Word-processing” stations at certain locations had just been established. Therefore, all work had to be hand-drafted and given to the office typists. My major duties included preparing briefing papers and giving briefings to Army leaders, accompanying Army leaders on trips to European countries, drafting letters for Army leaders to send to their foreign counterparts, and interacting with military attaches of other countries who were posted at embassies in Washington DC. As my regional specialty was Europe, probably the most interesting issue I monitored was the deployment of the intermediate range nuclear weapons into several allied European countries. The assignment was such a change from my preceding assignment in the Republic of Korea where I served on the De-Militarized Zone in a troop unit. It was such a stark contrast to come from an overseas assignment in a troop unit in a developing country to the fast-paced, high-level, political-military world of Washington, DC and the Pentagon. And the traffic was horrible.

A retired Army officer, Fred Zilian (zilianblog.com) teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

 

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Rio Olympic Games Rooted in Ancient Greek Olympic Games

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “Ancient Roots of Olympics,” by the Newport Daily News on August 19, 2016.)

Among their many other innovations, the ancient Greeks invented organized, competitive sports, commonly accepted to have begun in 776 BC. The ancient Olympic Games continued for almost 1200 years until the Christian Emperor Theodosius outlawed the games in 393 AD as a form of pagan ritual. While the modern Olympic Games, re-instituted in 1896, share some similarities with the ancient Games, there are also vast differences.

The ancient Games were and the modern Games are truly majestic spectacles. However, the ancient Games were more than just a remarkable athletic event. Writer Tony Perrottet describes the overall experience at the ancient Games as a combination of “Carnival in Rio, Easter Mass at the Vatican, and a tour of Universal Studios.”

Ancient Olympics 1, Collage, pinterest.com

(pinterest.com)

          We are not sure why the ancient Greeks began the Games; however, they were certainly motivated by religion, dedicating the Games to their main god Zeus. Factors which help explain their initiation include the ancient Greeks’ love of physical exercise and challenge, their adoration of the beauty and functionality of the human body, and finally their intense competitiveness.

In modern times, the site of the Games is determined by a formal, complex bidding process among major cities of the world. Rio is the first South American city to host the Summer Games, and the Rio Games are the first to be held in Latin America since 1968.

Unlike the modern Games, the ancient Games were held in one place, Olympia, a rather remote location in southwest Greece on the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Ancient Greece was not a unified country as we know it today. It was a collection of city-states (town and city political units) which shared a “Greek-ness”: common linguistic, cultural, religious, and political elements.

As today, the ancient Games took place every four years. Also as today, there were many other regular athletic competitions, the three other important games being at Delphi, Corinth, and Nemea. The Games of Zeus at Olympia, however, were the most sacred and prestigious and the olive wreath prizes were the most coveted. There were no winter games; these were added to the modern Games in 1924. The Rio Games will last for a total of 17 days while the ancient Games were simply five days.

While today’s Games may have an air of spirituality at certain times, the ancient Games were imbued with religion. A sacred war truce was declared for the month preceding and the month after the Games. The altar of Zeus and the eventual 40-foot statue of Zeus played large roles in the Games, the statue becoming one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Finally, of the five days of the ancient Games, over two full days were devoted to religious ceremonies and rituals.

While the modern Games are open to the best athletes of the world, the ancient Games were restricted to adult, free-born, Greek males, at least until Rome annexed Greece in the second century BC. Women, slaves, and foreigners were banned. Greek girls, probably teenagers, had a separate sporting event dedicated to the goddess Hera.

Attire was starkly different. Athletes, and eventually their trainers, were stark naked. The Greeks believed that only barbarians would be ashamed of displaying their bodies. This also helped to eliminate any vestiges of social status differentiating the competitors.

Ancient Olympics 2, Runners, quatr.us

(quatr.us.com)

          The Rio Games are featuring 28 sports, including two new ones: rugby sevens and golf, with 306 events at which medals may be won. The ancient Games contained 18 core events, many similar to today’s events, such as running, boxing, javelin, and discus. However, the ancient Games also included others, such as chariot racing, a foot race in full armor, and finally the pankration, an extreme form of wrestling and boxing even more of a brawl than our professional “ultimate fighting”. Only eye-gouging was banned. There were no team sports, ball sports, swimming events, or marathons, even though we get our word “marathon” from ancient Greek history. There were also events for boys 12-18 years of age.

In terms of prizes, while today’s Olympics offer “gold”, “silver”, and “bronze” medals, the ancient Games at Olympia awarded olive wreaths. There were no prizes for second or third place. Just like today, however, lucrative benefits flowed for those who were victors. Every city in ancient Greece had cash prizes for athletes who won, but also other benefits, such as victory parades, lifetime seats at theatrical venues, pensions, community roles, and free meals.

Attendance at the ancient Games was restricted to men and unmarried women, with strict punishment for married women who sought to attend.

The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus in the first century pondered the popularity and longevity of the Games and argued that they were like life itself: “Unpleasant and difficult things happen in life. Don’t they happen at Olympia?” The heat of the sun, the crowds, the bad washing facilities, the rain, the noise, the shouting, and many other annoyances. “But of course you endure all of it because it’s unforgettable spectacle.”

Fred Zilian, Ph.D., (www.pegasusenrichment.com) teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

Sources:

Amos, H.D. & A.D.P. Lang. These Were the Greeks. Chester Springs, PA: Dufour, 1982.

Freeman, Charles. The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World. NY: Viking, 1999.

Perrottet, Tony. The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games. NY: Random House, 2004.

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Metacomet’s Death Ends King Philip’s War in Southern New England

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “1676: Metacomet’s Death Ends Bloody Colonial War,” by the Newport Daily News on August 12, 2016.)

Three hundred and forty years ago today, Metacomet, chief sachem of the Wampanoags, was killed by the colonial militia and its Native American allies, essentially ending King Philip’s War in southern New England. This war, named after Metacomet who had earlier taken the European name of Philip, devastated both the English settlers and the Native Americans. About one-third of the towns of New England (Connecticut to Maine) were destroyed. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick estimates that per capita the war was twice as bloody as the Civil War and seven times as deadly as the Revolutionary War. Plymouth Colony lost about 8% of its adult male population; the Native Americans lost 60-80% of their total population in southern New England. Through it all Aquidneck Island never saw conflict.

There were several underlying causes to the conflict. First, the pressure of demographics from the wave of migration to America. While the first settlers in New England sought to maintain peaceful relations with native peoples, later groups came with various motives and did not necessarily share the same view. Over the succeeding decades, pressure on the land and the Native Americans increased. By 1676, it is estimated that the European population of New England was about 70,000.

Second, differing conceptions of agreements and of the relationship between humans and the land. The English came from a capitalistic society based on the right to own private property and on the rule of written law and contracts. Native Americans did not put much stock in written contracts and did not commonly accept that human beings could “own” land.

Third, power politics. Many different Native American tribes occupied New England, the largest being the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett, Mohegan, and Pequot. They could be friendly but also bitter enemies. European settlers entered this political environment, and complicated it.

Fourth, the death in 1661 of Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag and friend of the settlers, followed by the death of his eldest son, Wamsutta, in 1662. This brought Metacomet to the leadership of the Wampanoag. Unlike his father, he did not strive for peaceful relations with the settlers; rather he became more and more irritated by their increasing numbers and their ways.


Metacom, Paul Revere, 1772, Granger Collection, NY

Metacomet, Engraving by Paul Revere, 1772

Granger Collection, NY

The immediate cause for the war came in June 1675 when three Wampanoag were brought to trial for the death of a Christianized Indian, John Sassamon. He had earlier informed the English that Metacomet was building a Native American alliance to wage war against the English. The three men were found guilty and were hanged on June 8, 1675, at Plymouth. On June 20, a band of Pokanoket-Wampanoag attacked the Plymouth Colony settlement at Swansea, burning it and killing several people.

The spring of 1676 brought calamity to English settlements from the Connecticut River to Maine. After successful attacks on English militia and their Native American allies on the Blackstone River and then at Rehoboth, the Native Americans burned Providence on March 29. However during the succeeding months, the scales tipped toward the colonists and their Native American allies.

By August 11, most colonial forces were disbanded. However, Plymouth militia Captain Benjamin Church and the allied Sakonnets were still searching for Metacomet and his band. An Indian whose brother was killed by Metacomet decided to desert. During the early morning of August 12, he guided Church and about two dozens colonists and Sakonnets to Metacomet’s hideout near a swamp at Mount Hope. They surrounded the swamp and attacked.

Once attacked, Metacomet leaped to his feet, grabbed his powder horn, bullet pouch, and musket, and began to run into the swamp. He approached Caleb Cook and a Pocasset Indian named John Alderman. When Cook’s weapon failed to fire, Alderman shot Metacomet through the heart.

Church gathered his men and told them of Metacomet’s death. The group cheered “Huzzah!” three times, a common cheer at that time. Church stated that because Metacomet “had caused many an Englishman’s body to lie unburied and rot above ground, that not one of his bones should be buried.”  He then directed a Sakonnet to quarter the body, a common treatment for criminals in that era. Church awarded Metacomet’s distinctively scarred hand to Alderman, who later preserved it in rum and exhibited it for “many a penny” for years to come.

On August 17, Pastor John Cotton led his Plymouth congregation in a day of Thanksgiving. Shortly after the service, Church and his men arrived with Metacomet’s head, a great prize of war. The church record states that the “head was brought into Plymouth in great triumph … so that in the day of our praises our eyes saw the salvation of God.” For more than two decades the head remained on a stake as the town’s main attraction.

Sources:

Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. NY: Vantage Books, 1999.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower. NY: Penguin Group/Viking, 2006.

Warren, James A. God, War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians Against the Puritans of New England. NY: Scribner, 2018.

A retired Army officer, Fred Zilian teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

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100-Year Anniversary of Deadly Battle of the Somme

Posted on July 23, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “Bloodiest of Bloody Battles,” in the Newport Daily News on July 12, 2016.)

One hundred years ago this month, the Battle of the Somme began with British and French forces attacking entrenched German forces near the Somme River in northern France. The largest battle of World War I, the battle or “Somme Offensive,” lasting from July 1 to November 18, 1916, was one of the bloodiest in history.

The First World War had begun on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia. Within two weeks all the major European powers were at war. By mid-1916 the two blocs included the Allies, composed of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, on the one hand, and the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, on the other. Many lesser states also joined. The United States had not yet entered the war. In November, 1916, Woodrow Wilson would be re-elected on a campaign including a pledge to keep the U.S. out of the war.

Both sides were surprised that the war had continued this long and that the former mobile, offensively-oriented type of warfare had given way on the Western Front to a stagnant, defensively-oriented “trench warfare,” the trench lines running essentially from the French coast to the Swiss Alps. Neither side had been able to effect a decisive breakthrough.

By mid-1916, the trench lines had become elaborate networks, protected by barbed-wire fields five feet high and thirty yards wide, machine gun positions, mortars, and artillery. Troops lived in horrid conditions subject to the elements and at times to the rotting corpses of their comrades.

SoldiersinTrenches, WWI, westerncivguides.umblogs.org

(westernciv.umblogs. com)

       The battle began on July 1 with a combined British-French offensive, the British attacking with 13 divisions, the French with 11. The Germans defended with about 10 divisions. The horrendous, week-long, preliminary, Allied bombardment with 1537 guns was supposed to destroy the German’s barbed wire and initial line of defense so that the assaulting forces would have a simple “walkover”.  Unfortunately for the British forces, the artillery bombardment did not succeed in these tasks. At 7:30 am, when the bombardment lifted and the infantry attacked, many German forces simply moved back into their firing positions and mowed down the assaulting forces with deadly machine gun fire.

Our own Newport Daily News, on the day of attack, covered the battle in its lead, front-page articles. The main article was headlined: “Allies Take Three Towns and Two Woods,” It continued: “Main First-Line Trenches Stormed and Second Line Reached.” To be expected from a report from “British Headquarters in France”, it was more positive than the actual events justified. It incorrectly reported that the combined forces had “broken through a distance of more than five miles beyond the German trenches.” In reality their farthest penetration that first day was merely a mile and perhaps four miles wide. The article ends: “Thus far the day has gone well for France and England.” (Granted that the article is based on information as of mid-day, July 1.)

Reality was different. The first day was the bloodiest day in British history. It lost 57,470 men: 19,240 killed and 35,493 wounded. Historians have called this day the “low point” of the entire war for the British.

Much of the other news reported in the July 1 edition focused on the coming July 4 celebration. Lt. Cdr. Franck Evans, USN, drilled 125 women at Morton Park in preparation for the July 4 parade. A large ad announced the “Buffalo Bill (Himself)” show on July 5, including “750 people and horses”. (In 1916, this paper cost two cents, six dollars a year.)

BuffaloBill,netmole.blogspot.com

(netmole.blogspot.com)

       The entire offensive did not end until November 18, 1916, with close to 100 British and French divisions taking part against about 50 German divisions. The British, including its imperial forces, sustained a staggering 419,654 casualties; the French: 204, 253 casualties. German statistics vary widely: at least 237,000 casualties, and perhaps as high as 465,000. This expenditure of human life paid for a gain of about six miles across a 16-mile front.

The effects of World War I, and this battle in particular, lasted for decades. Jump forward some 26 years to World War II. In a combined meeting of American and British political and military officials, George C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, was arguing eloquently for an early cross-channel invasion of the continent. Frederick Lindemann (Lord Cherwell), the principal, British science advisor to Prime Minister Churchill responded: “It’s no use. You are arguing against the casualties on the Somme.”

A retired Army officer, Fred Zilian (www.zilianblog.com) teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

 

 

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The Year There Was No Summer–200th Anniversary

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(An abridged version of this essay was published as “The Year Without a Summer” by the Newport Daily News on June 21, 2016.)

In recent decades we have become accustomed to hear how an event in a far-off place may affect us in Rhode Island—politically, economically, demographically, security-wise, and also environmentally. This was not the case two hundred years ago. However two centuries ago this summer, a volcanic event halfway round the world had a dramatic impact on weather in the United States. It became known by such names as the “Year There Was No Summer,” and “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” Happily southern Rhode Island was spared its worst effects.

On April 5, 1815, British forces at a fort in Jakarta, Indonesia, heard what appeared to be cannon fire. It was actually the beginnings of the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa about 750 miles away. The full eruption came on April 10, killing some 60,000 people with many others dying later from disease and famine. The ash cloud spread across the globe carrying an estimated 140 billion tons of volcanic matter, sulfur particles and sulfur-dioxide gas, substantially decreasing the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth. When the gas reached the stratosphere, it mixed with hydroxide gas and created a massive cloud, which the jet stream transported around the globe.

That spring and summer were both unseasonably cold and wet. Napoleon and his forces at Waterloo in mid-June struggled with weeks of rain, their cannon sinking into the mud.

Napoleon at Waterloo, Hulton Archive, Getty Images, 6-13-16

Napoleon at Waterloo

(Getty Images)

The following year, 1816, proved to be Great Britain’s coldest year ever recorded, causing bread riots, famine, and disease. In France the starving rural peasants swarmed southward for survival. Lord Byron’s social group, on holiday at a lake in Switzerland, were trapped indoors by the heavy rains, thunder, lightning, and cooler temperatures. Mary Shelley, a 19-year old member of the group, conceived and wrote her classic horror novel, Frankenstein. Jane Austen, declining in health in England, described the summer of 1816 as one in which “the gloom, darkness and rain was an extraordinary and dismal affair ….”

Frankenstein, doctormacro.com, 6-13-16

(www.doctormacro.com)

In North America, frosts occurred throughout the spring. On June 6-7 it snowed in New England with freezing temperatures continuing afterward. There was snow also in upstate New York, and sheep began dying for lack of forage. The uncanny weather continued all summer with drought and high winds, causing streams to dry up and wild fires to increase. August felt like October with low temperatures and frost killing crops from Maine to South Carolina, causing many farms throughout New England to fail.

Happily Aquidneck Island and southern Rhode Island appear to have been spared the worst effects of the bad weather. The local newspapers reported the severe weather from other parts of the country, but not much about ill weather here.

In mid-summer, reports about the weather were optimistic. On July 27 the Newport Mercury (precursor to the Daily News) reported: “Fears have been entertained that the coldness and backwardness of the season would produce an alarming scarcity. But these fears we believe were premature.” … “In the Southern States it is stated there is an unusual plentitude of wheat; so that notwithstanding the gloomy appearances, which have passed before us, we may now anticipate the blessing of Providence, in a sufficient supply of the fruits of the earth.”

On August 10, it gave an August 5 report from Albany, NY: “We are much gratified to hear from various parts of the country … the crops of grain are more promising than was expected.” It went on to predict sufficient harvests to supply the people.

However, by September, the tone of the reports had changed. On September 11, the RI Republican newspaper (printed in Newport) gave an August 20 report from the Norfolk Herald [VA]: “The cool (we may say cold) and dry weather … will have a serious effect upon the crops of every description; in the upper country we fear the effects will be most severely felt.”

On September 28, the Mercury gave a report from the Richmond Enquirer [VA]: “the communications on the subject of the crops from all parts of the State, are more than gloomy, and the mischief occasioned by the drought has been increased by the torrents of rain.” A writer in that paper called for action from the U.S. Congress.

On October 12, the RI Republican gave an October 5 report from Windsor, Vermont. Referring to the weather, it stated: “Never perhaps in this vicinity appeared more gloomy and cheerless …. It is extremely cold for the time of year, and the drought was never before so severe.”

The diary of Thomas B. Hazard (“Nailer Tom”) of Kingstown, RI, also suggests that southern RI was not hit as hard as the rest of New England. He reported snow and rain on May 14, rain September 11-16, and heavy frost on September 28. On June 21 and September 21, the first day of summer and of fall, he reports only commonplace activities and uneventful weather. Both days were clear. On June 21 he bought 7 lbs of Bass for 28 cents, worked in his shop, and dined with Reynolds Barber. On September 2, his son Benjamin killed four lambs and a yearling ram and Hazard, with his daughter Hannah, visited John Congdon.

In a letter to a former colleague, 73-year old Thomas Jefferson in Virginia summarized the year: “We have had the most extraordinary year of drought and cold ever known in the history of America.”

(The author would like to thank Bert Lippincott of the Newport Historical Society for his help with this essay.)

Fred Zilian (www.zilianblog.com) teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

 

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Colony of Rhode Island Is First to Sever Allegiance to Great Britain

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “First in Independence,” on May 4, 2016, in the Newport Daily News.)

Two hundred and forty years ago today, the colony of Rhode Island became the first of the thirteen colonies to sever its relationship with Great Britain. Newport, a political and economic center of the colony, played an important role in the resistance leading up to the break.

There were two underlying causes for the action: first, the increasingly coercive actions of the British; and second, the rising resistance to these actions by Rhode Islanders.

While Great Britain was victorious in the Seven Years War (1757-1763), giving it dominance in North America over France, the costs were heavy. Great Britain believed it was fully justified in requiring the American colonies to pay their share of the war costs and also for the subsequent stationing of British troops.

It decided first to enforce more strictly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, challenging the colony’s long history of evasion and smuggling. Second, beginning in 1764, the British Parliament repeatedly imposed new taxes on the colonies. The Sugar Act (1764) increased the duty on molasses and sugar which Rhode Island merchants used to produce rum, a product traded in Africa for slaves. The following year it passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax on all colonists. Further taxes followed with legislation such as the Townshend Acts (1767) and the Tea Act (1773).

Rhode Islanders saw such acts as violations of the rights and liberties granted by the hallowed Charter of 1663, issued to Rhode Island by King Charles II. They held firmly to the belief that only their colonial General Assembly could tax them directly, not the British Parliament, in which they were not represented.

The final aspect of British coercion was the stationing of British troops throughout the colonies, supposedly to protect the colonists from possible French incursions, and the increasing presence of the Royal Navy. In the case of Rhode Island, this meant the heightened presence of the British Navy in Narragansett Bay, which led to the confiscation of the colony’s trading vessels and also the impressment of colonists into service for the Royal Navy.

From 1764 to 1776, Rhode Islanders became increasingly belligerent in their reactions to what they viewed as unjustified British coercion. In July 1764, Newporters went to Fort George on Goat Island and began firing on the British schooner St. John, after the ship had seized a cargo of sugar from a New York merchant ship.  Soon afterwards the HMS Maidstone appeared at Newport with a similar mission: confiscation and impressment. Incensed Newporters stole one of its boats, dragged it to the Parade (Washington Square) and burned it.

In August 1765, anger was building toward those Newporters, called “Tories” or “loyalists,” who supported cooperation with the British.  Martin Howard led a group of prominent loyalists, named the “Newport Junto,” and called opponents of British rule “licentious, sordid, and incompetent.” Led by Samuel Vernon and William Ellery, a large group of men created three effigies of loyalists, dragged the effigies through the streets of Newport, hung and later burned them. The following day hundreds of men carrying axes and clubs ransacked the homes of the three loyalists who fled the town.

In the space of three years, Rhode Islanders escalated their resistance by burning two British naval ships. In July 1769, Newporters stripped and burned the Liberty, an armed sloop which had been harassing merchant vessels on the Bay. On June 9, 1772, John Brown of Providence and 60 men seized the HMS Gaspee by force, brought its crew ashore, and set the ship ablaze. Coming three years before the Lexington and Concord, this can be viewed as the first battle of the revolution. Historian Rockwell Stensrud states: “The total destruction of the HMS Gaspee … was a direct assault on the Royal Navy and thus an offensive action against the king and Great Britain itself.”

Burning of Gaspee, gaspee.com

Burning of the Gaspee

(gaspee.com)

The immediate cause of RI’s severance was the British Navy’s acts of coercion on the colony 1774-1776. In November 1774, the Rose, a British frigate with 24 guns captained by James Wallace, arrived at Newport. It continued the patrolling of the Bay and the halting of merchant ships. Fearful of a bombardment, Newporters fled the town bringing the economy to a standstill.

In March 1775, the citizens of Providence had their own “Tea Party,” burning some 300 pounds of tea. On April 22, 1775, three days after Lexington and Concord, the RI General Assembly voted to raise an army of 1500 men.

In July 1775, British ships opened fire on the town, repeating these attacks over the next several months. The Newport Mercury reported: “a great many inhabitants moved part of or all their effects out and many families … left town. The carts, chaises, riding chairs and trucks, were so numerous that the streets and roads were almost blocked up with them.”

By late summer 1775, the situation in Newport worsened. The 14-gun sloop Swan joined the Rose. With more sailors to feed, Captain Wallace sent sailors on foraging missions to Aquidneck Island, stealing crops and animals.

map_Blaskowitz, 1777

Newport, 1777

In December, Wallace announced that his Christmas present to Newport was going to be its destruction. The Mercury reported Wallace as stating that inhabitants “should be burnt in their houses if they did not instantly turn out.”

On February 20, 1776, Ezra Stiles, Congregational minister, wrote in his diary: “All marketing from Narrag. & the northward cut off at Newport by the Fleet …. The Town with perhaps a Third of its Inhabitants yet behind suffering greatly for Wood & Provision ….  All Business stagnated.”

Finally, on May 4, 1776, the colony’s General Assembly, impatient with the Continental Congress’ lack of action, took the initiative. After listing the many grievances against Great Britain and its king, it declared that all allegiance to the king by “his subjects, in this his colony and dominion of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, BE, AND THE SAME IS HEREBY REPEALED.” This was essentially Rhode Island’s declaration of independence.

Follow me on Twitter: @FredZilian

Fred Zilian teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

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The Colonial Portsmouth Schoolhouse

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “Schoolhouse has survived centuries of change,” by the Newport Daily News on April 5, 2016.)

Believing in “how excellent an ornament learning is to mankind,” the Town of Portsmouth three hundred years ago authorized the building of two schools, the Southermost School and the Northermost School. The Southermost with its original frame posts still stands today at the corner of East Main and Union Streets. The Portsmouth Historical Society claims that it is the oldest schoolhouse in Rhode Island.

Southernmost School

Southermost School today

(portsmouthhistorical.org)

Founded in 1638, Portsmouth in 1716 had existed for 78 years when the town took the action. Its records show that in that year the Town authorized the building of the two schools, the first schools to be built by the town. Portsmouth at the time probably had close to 700 people, as the census of 1708 indicated a population of 628.

The land for the Southermost was donated by William Sanford, presumably a descendant of John Sanford, one of the original 23 signers of the Portsmouth Compact in 1638. It was to be built near what is today 102 Union Street. The Town authorized the sum of 20 pounds for the project; however, the final cost was 23 pounds.

Six years later in 1725, the schools were actually built. The original bill indicates that it was built by Adam Lawton and a “negro.” The building has simple post and beam construction and contained a cellar, chimney, and fireplace.

Sketch, School, frank-coelho-1940-1.jpg-300x220

Rendering of Southermost School in 18th century

(portsmouthhistorical.org)

James Preston was hired as the first schoolmaster, and the town allowed him and his family to live in the school’s cellar. Schoolmasters during the colonial period throughout New England were generally men. The curriculum was probably designed to teach the students how to write and also to read, if their parents had not taught them. The texts used were probably the hornbook, primer, psalter, and ultimately the Bible. (The hornbook was not an actual book, but a sheet of paper with written material on it, mounted on a board with a handle. It had a piece of transparent material over the sheet.)

On display in an exhibit at the Portsmouth Free Public Library on early education in Portsmouth is a “200 Year Old List of Rules and Punishments Posted at the Southermost School.” The list brings us back to an age when corporal punishment was the norm. It includes:

  • Climbing for every foot over 3 ft up a tree  – 1 lash
  • Wearing long fingernails – 2 lashes
  • For not saying yes or no sir or yes or no marm – 2 lashes

The list gives us insight into views on gender and the apparent unruliness of boys to girls:

  • Boys and girls playing together  – 1 lash
  • Girls going to boys play place – 2 lashes
  • Boys going to girls play place – 3 lashes
  • Misbehaving to girls – 10 lashes

Fighting and unruliness were clearly disapproved.

  • Quarreling at school – 3 lashes
  • Fighting at school – 5 lashes

Misusing the gift of language was also.

  • Giving each other ill names – 3 lashes
  • Telling lies – 7 lashes
  • Telling tales out of school – 8 lashes

The school may have fallen into disuse as records show that at a town meeting in 1746, the widow Sarah Strange, who had been living there, was ordered to leave so that the school could be renovated and once again used as a school.

In 1863, it was bought at auction by the Almy family, moved to Lakeside Farm on Union Street, and used as a storage and harness shed. In 1952 the Hall family gave the school to the Portsmouth Historical Society (founded in 1939), and it was moved to its current location. Inside the school are various artifacts, including original student desks and examples of the primers, copy books, and textbooks from the colonial period.

For more info, see the website of the Portsmouth Historical Society at: portsmouthhistorical.org. The Society’s building at East Main Rd. and Union St. is open to the public on Sundays, 2-4 pm.

(The author would like to thank Jim Garman for his help in writing this essay.)

Fred Zilian lives in Portsmouth and teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

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Despite Roger Williams’ Efforts, Providence Burns in 1676

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(This essay was originally published as “Despite Roger Williams’ Efforts, Providence Burns Down,” in the Providence Journal on March 29, 2016.)

Three hundred and forty years ago today Divine Providence did not smile kindly on the burgeoning town of Providence in the colony of Rhode Island. On March 29, 1676, Native Americans attacked and set it ablaze, one of many New England towns which met this fate during King Philip’s War, 1675-78. This war, named after the leader of the Wampanoag, Metacomet (with the European name of Philip), devastated both the English settlers and the Native Americans. About one-third of the towns of New England towns (Connecticut to Maine) were destroyed. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick estimates that per capita the war was twice as bloody as the Civil War and seven times as deadly as the Revolutionary War.

Metacomet

There were several underlying causes to the conflict. First, the pressure of demographics from the wave of migration to America. The Spanish,  French, Dutch, and English were establishing settlements from Florida to Maine. The Mayflower Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. While these first settlers in New England sought to maintain peaceful relations with native peoples, later groups came with various motives and did not necessarily share the same view. Over the succeeding decades, pressure on the land and the Native Americans increased. By 1676, it is estimated that the European population of New England was about 70,000.

Second, differing conceptions of agreements and of the relationship between humans and the land. The English came from a capitalistic society based on the right to own private property and on the rule of written law and contracts. Native Americans did not put much stock in written contracts and did not commonly accept that human beings could “own” land. Misunderstandings and encroachments followed.

Third, power politics. Many different Native American tribes occupied New England, the largest being the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett, Mohegan, and Pequot. They could be friendly but also bitter enemies. European settlers entered this political environment, and complicated it. As misunderstandings and incidents multiplied, so did mistrust.

Fourth, the death in 1661 of Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag and friend of the settlers, followed by the death of his eldest son, Wamsutta, in 1662. This brought Metacomet to the leadership of the Wampanoag tribe. Unlike his father, he did not strive for peaceful relations with the settlers; rather he became more and more irritated by their increasing numbers and their ways.

The immediate cause for the war came in June 1675 when three Wampanoag were brought to trial for the death of a Christianized Indian, John Sassamon. He had earlier informed the English that Metacomet was building a Native American alliance to wage war against the English. The three men were found guilty and were hanged on June 8, 1675, at Plymouth. On June 20, a band of Pokanoket-Wampanoag attacked the Plymouth Colony settlement at Swansea, burning it and killing several people.

The spring of 1676 brought calamity to English settlements from the Connecticut River to Maine. After successful attacks on English militia and their Native American allies on the Blackstone River and then at Rehoboth, the Native Americans approached Providence on March 29. Its approximate 500 residents had already departed for the protection of Aquidneck Island. Roger Williams, the town’s founder and now seventy-seven years old, and about 30 men remained. The natives set the town ablaze.

 Providence Burns, 2

Rendering of Providence burning

In a letter to his brother in Newport, Williams described the scene. After accosting a group of the attackers, he asked them why they were burning and killing. “This house of mine now burning … hath lodged kindly some thousands of you these ten years.” They mentioned the support that Rhode Island had given to colonies assaulting them.

“I told them they … had forgot they were mankind and ran about the country like wolves tearing and devouring the innocent and peaceable…. They confessed they were in a strange way.”  After arguing with them more, Williams eventually offered to serve as peacemaker. The natives declined, indicating that after they settled more scores with Plymouth Colony over the next month, they might return. “We parted and they were so civil that they called after me and bid me not go near the burned houses….”

Fred Zilian teaches history and politics at Salve Regina University.

Sources:

Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. NY: Vantage Books, 1999.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower. NY: Penguin Group/Viking, 2006.

Warren, James A. God, War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians Against the Puritans of New England. NY: Scribner, 2018.

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The Humanities Keep Us Human

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Fred Zilian

(Note: This essay was originally published in Education Week on January 6, 2015.)

President Obama’s announcement in the fall 2014 of an additional $28 million to bolster STEM teachers was great news and reminded me of my passion for science during those heady days of the Kennedy “Camelot” when the president announced the goal of reaching the moon. In a speech before a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, he said: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project…will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important…and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

During those days, the Cold War—the state of tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union—was in full swing. Several years before in 1957, the Soviets had leapt out in front us in the space race with the launching of Sputnik. There were fears of a “missile gap” by which the Soviets, leading the U.S. in missile technology, could intimidate, coerce, and—at worse—attack us with nuclear missiles, and we could not defend ourselves. Fallout shelters were all the rage.

Though the STEM acronym did not exist at the time, I was STEM through and through: Sputnik, Telstar, missiles, spaceships, those great missile-like fins on the ‘57 Chevy and the ‘59 Cadillac, and atom-smashing accelerators. Hollywood gave us all those great, corny, “B” science fiction movies. I was all in.

The president’s Educate to Innovate program is now five-years old. When Obama launched it on November 23, 2009, he described it as “a nationwide effort to help reach the goal this administration has set: moving to the top in science and math education in the next decade.” The White House has portrayed it as “an all-hands-on-deck campaign to help more girls and boys be inspired to excel in science, technology, engineering , and math (STEM) subjects.” The program has sought a synergistic effort, using the combined forces of government, education leaders, foundations, companies, non-profits, and scientific and technology professionals. Its major components have included such initiatives as the 100kin10 (seeking to prepare 100,000 excellent STEM teachers over the next decade), Change the Equation (a coalition of CEOs committed to expanding STEM programs to more than 1 million students by 2016), and Discovery Communications (launching a new show next year to inspire students in STEM fields, highlighting “All –American makers”).  Even though I chose not to become a scientist, I am all for this.

However, caution is needed here, a caution against imbalance. In our rush to emphasize the empirical sciences, we must be careful not to reduce too much the resources devoted to the Humanities, the mix of subjects normally including the language arts, history, philosophy, religion, and the visual and performing arts. (STEM in recent years has, in some circles, morphed to STEAM, integrating the visual and performing arts.) Science and technology have given us wondrous benefits and conveniences. I can imagine the relief in back pain when 5,500 years ago we invented the wheel. I relish the ability to communicate with ease with my friends in Germany or Skype with my grandchildren far away. Nonetheless, we should not place STEM on a pedestal too high. It brought us the wheel, the polio vaccine, and the Internet; it also brought us napalm, cluster bombs, and the atomic bomb.

STEM can give us the “what and why” of the physical universe, but not the “ought.” Beyond the molecules, fractions, and scientific laws that govern the physical universe, the Humanities, collectively, teach us about “human-ness” and our relationships with each other. They help us connect with each other, understand each other, and cooperate rather than conflict with each other. As the world gets smaller and as we are forced to share more of its fewer resources, it is the Humanities along with the social sciences that will help us cooperate, coexist, continue, and even flourish rather than cancel each other.

Artwork, Humanities Keep Us Human, 1-7-15

We need the language arts. When I decided in 10th grade to study German, little did I know that almost thirty years later, I would be using German to interview former communists of the East German army about German Unification (1990). As anyone who understands a foreign language appreciates, actually living in another language—rather than relying on translations–gives one a much richer and comprehensive understanding of that people, a larger and more nuanced window into the world of that society.

We need English and literature so that we can see and employ the beauty and utility of the spoken, recited, sung, and written word. We cannot think without words. The more sophisticated our vocabulary; the more sophisticated and subtle our thoughts, especially important as we increasingly rely on clipped and mangled English in the digital world. Also through reading about other humans, we can learn more of ourselves. Finally, in my first career as a professional Army officer, during the challenging times I faced, it was not the First Law of Thermodynamics or Newton’s Second Law of Motion that sustained me. It was Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Frost.

We need history. The historical method teaches us how to weigh carefully the credibility and reliability of the sources from which we derive our information and hence our picture of reality. Though I strongly disliked all the “curricular requirements” faceless, unnamed but clearly highly-credentialed educators from the College Board heaped on me as an AP history teacher, I appreciated how these forced me to teach my students such essentials as the difficulties of pursuing knowledge and causality in history compared to the STEM subjects. Crucial is also the skill of patiently and thoroughly asking questions—before the first word of the document is read—about the creator of the document (or visual).

We need philosophy and ethics. More here than in the other Humanities, especially for students who prefer rationality and linearity, is where we can learn to deal with ambiguity and irrationality, where we can grapple with essential questions which have no right answers. In my “War & Morality” course, we deal with such questions as: When is it right to use violence against other human beings? Who is to judge whether there is “just cause” to begin a war? How many alternatives must a state attempt before it is using violence truly as a “last resort”?  My students role-play a post-World War II commission, examining whether the British-American fire-bombing of Dresden in February 1945 was a war crime. We end the course with the political, military, legal, and finally ethical implications of using drones in warfare. Moreover, in a world where so much emphasis is placed on “metrics” to measure, these subjects can force us to deal with factors that resist quantitative measurement: trust in Ferguson, Missouri; mistrust with Iran; the fundamentalism and hatred of ISIS.

And finally, there is religion. Whether one is a believer or non-believer, understanding the history of the world’s major religions, their role in societies, and their influence in shaping our world today is crucial to any educated person and engaged citizen. Religion also can give us words and ideas for our celebrations as well as for our commemorations and memorials.

After a Western Civilization lesson on the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, one of my Chinese remained after class. She was curious about Jesus Christ and the broader subject of religion and society. I asked her about religion in China. She indicated that she was never really taught religion, and followed by saying that if there was any “religion” in Chinese education, it would be “science.”

In ancient Greece even wealthy, aristocratic non-Greeks would journey to the famous Oracle at Delphi to seek guidance on their most pressing questions. One of the most common responses the oracle gave was: Meden Agan (Moderation in all things.) STEM must be complemented with an ample ration of the Humanities rather than displace it. Giving too much emphasis to STEM may cause us to lose too much of our HUMAN-ness.

(A retired Army officer, Fred Zilian teaches history and political science at Salve Regina University, RI.)

 

 

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