Victors of Circumstance – The Rise of Chinese Communism

The Chinese Communist Party, formally born in 1921 and reinvigorated by the victory of Mao Zedong in 1949, succeeded not only out of its political ingenuity and advances, but also through the failures and shortcomings of its competitors and enemies. Mao’s inspirational rhetoric on 1st October 1949 claimed that with the reign of the People’s Republic of China, the old China had died and New China was born, and with his dramatic social revolution in the face of dire socio-economic conditions and pleas to nationalism following the destruction of the Sino-Japanese war, it is clear how the CCP gained extraordinary public support throughout the Chinese nation. However, the widespread public disillusionment with the failures of the Nationalist party, the Guomindang, led them to support the only political opponent as the ultimate protest vote.

Historians are in general agreement that the communists succeeded from their own actions, but are divided on which actions secured their victory in 1949. It is widely agreed that the Sino-Japanese war played a crucial role in the mobilization of the Chinese people towards the communist party, simply through appealing to Chinese nationalism, which had taken a crippling blow as a result of the bloodshed witnessed by Nanjing in 1937, putting the Chinese in an extremely vulnerable and threatened position under the Japanese. The war seemingly defined China as a reinvigorated country and supplied them with the military unification they so desperately required to mobilise and unite the population. At the outbreak of war in 1937, the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang formed a second attempt at a United Front, where ‘the CCP agreed to abandon its radical land reform policy in favour of one of rent reduction’ to keep the peace. However, relations soon grew sour with communist expansion to the north and resulted in a return to hostilities, but the peaceful years had allowed the communists to grow significantly in influential territory and numbers, while their power as ‘heroic resisters against fascism’ had been witnessed by foreign visitors to Yan’an in that time. In 1941, the rectification movement saw the student faction’s last stand, which aided the communist movement’s political leadership by Mao and his theologies that sparked the movement. The communist party successfully implemented methods to enforce political orthodoxy such as self-criticism and written confessions which became key to future movements led by Mao, the majority of which succeeded through this technique which, through public admittance, gained sympathy and unwavering support.

The most attractive element of the communist party was their appeal to peasants and workers alike, launching workers’ strikes, local uprisings and army mutinies in February 1930. Mao Zedong prioritised the importance of social revolution under communism, and emphasised peasants education on matters such as government and politics, creating people’s councils in villages which invited all adults to vote regardless of class, while subsequently encouraging sub-associations to represent women and young people in local governments. To the population, Mao and the communists were appealing to them as no party had before. The party achieved their goals through the peasantry who had been their best defence against the Japanese in the years before, and sought to appease them through acting both ‘for the sake of the peasantry’ and ‘on the side of the peasantry’, the latter of which had proved more successful.

The communists succeeded as a party as well as a triumphant political victor through persistence and strong leadership. Under the control of Mao Zedong, his policies and determination as shown specifically in the 1940s shows a defiance in the party which may not have succeeded in his absence. Mao, a charismatic and defiant character with communism coursing through his veins, lay his priorities with the peasantry, the foundations for a powerful political control. In the face of opposition by the Guomindang which withdrew funding for communist troops and economically blockaded communist-controlled areas, drastically reducing CCP controlled population by 19 million between 1940 and 1942, Mao refused to accept defeat. He administered Border Regions to mobilise the communist populations, increasing industrial production, reducing militia and in turn reducing government expenses and encouraging peasant-led co-operative trades, much to the approval of members of all classes, having previously become disillusioned with the Guomindang who had slowly alienated students, as shown in the May 4th Movement of 1919 by intellectuals and the urban bourgeoisie. Spectacular movements such as these brought wide-eyed attention from the watching Chinese population, demonstrating that the CCP were far from weak, and could hold their own in conflicts with the Nationalists.

In the face of ‘the final extermination’ at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek in 1925, Mao’s defiance and refusal to accept defeat led to his return to Hunan where he gathered peasant support and consequently launched the Autumn Harvest Uprising, however largely unsuccessful, this bought the CCP most of Kiangsi province territory to fund what would be renowned as The Long March from 1934 to 1935. The 6,000 mile journey brought a positive reception from communities they passed through due to the communists’ respectful behaviour unrivalled by the Nationalists. However embroidered with mythical tales of heroic bravery in the face of adversity, for example the Luting Bridge of chains and fire, the realistic race of the communist forces against the Guomindang from Kiangsi province to the Shensi province marked the loss of 270,000 communist lives, but also a milestone in the party’s development as a formidable political and military enemy, the crux of their struggle for eventual victory. The historian Johnson elaborates that, alongside the militia, the emphasis on guerilla warfare in Mao’s approaches advanced the support of the communist party, in Mao’s words ‘because guerilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them, it can neither exist nor flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and cooperation’. The CCP emerged well-equipped to capitalise on the Sino-Japanese war following a decade of guerilla warfare development while the Guomindang emerged war-weary and exhausted.

The historian John Roberts details that, among support in the countryside and the takeover of China’s main cities, the success of the CCP can be accredited to their victory in Manchuria. In 1948, Manchuria was the first state to accept the communist approach, following a vigorous battle since 1945 for ownership between the GMD and the communists, vying to claim the most developed industrial region in China since the Japanese invasion left behind an impressive infrastructure. The communist party had offered the countryside a revolutionary land reform that was to be expanded in 1950 following their victory. Taxes and services provided by the peasants in terms of food, labour and military industry would be repaid in land and other forms of wealth confiscated from the old elite. Despite the contentment of the civilians, however, the Guomindang returned armed and the consequent bloody Manchurian campaign took a drastic toll on Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, primarily through casualties and large numbers of desertions to the communist party in Lin Bao’s Fourth Field Army. Following this unanimous defeat assisted also by the rallying of northern Chinese peasants against the Guomindang, Chiang Kai-shek and his two million troops were forced to retreat from the mainland to Taiwan. While this would be assumed as a communist victory, the Guomindang did not disintegrate entirely despite the successes of communism.

Alongside the communists’ advantages were the Guomindang’s shortcomings which helped elevate the CCP to power in 1949. The Guomindang had remained untrustworthy in the eyes of the public for some time, as the May 4th Movement of 1919 demonstrated. Considered the first mass public movement of modern Chinese history, the movement brought to light public concerns with the Guomindang government’s plans for the future of the nation. The peasant population had been unsettled by the GMD’s compromises with intellectuals on who should be taxed and how, followed by the military conscription and heavy taxes brought into effect, the Nationalist government slowly lost its life force and public backing. Upon Sun Yat-sen’s death and Chiang Kai-shek’s consequent control in 1925, the Guomindang turned against their communist allies and sought to subdue the party, commencing the ‘final extermination’ of communist territories. The Guomindang’s response to the Sino-Japanese war further discredited their governing tactics in the eyes of the peasants as the opposing party that did not support Chinese foreign superiority and ultimate independence. Rampant inflation hindered the public’s trust, primarily the middle classes, in the Guomindang’s control of the economy. Having grown exhausted from incessant conflicts, Guomindang members had corrupted the party from the inside, and as a consequence financial scandals gradually lost the party its favour, losing both the party and its armies the will to rule, as opposed to the communists’ unwavering morale and incorruptible structure.

A debate raised by Wasserstrom questions whether there was even a revolution when the communists came to power in 1949, suggesting the drastic developments in Chinese society following the formation of the People’s Republic of China could not be directly or indirectly attributed to Mao’s victory. Wasserstrom also suggests that the changes brought forward by the communist victory would have been supported and implemented by their opponents in the GMD without such drastic methods, for example the complete eradication of the waning influence of foreign imperialism which led to the re-establishment of a central government control over Chinese territory, which was welcomed by the population after almost a hundred years of partial sovereignty and political state division. This in turn brought the reinstatement of domestic peace and agreement following years of civil warfare and overseas conflicts, and, closer to home, the work force was more than twice the size it had previously remained. Mao’s insistence on educational expansion brought literacy to all echelons of Chinese society, plus the drastically required improvements in public healthcare which consequently led to a growth in population. All aspects of Chinese society at the time were expanding, improving and moving forward with the age of the New China as Mao promised.

By 1947, the CCP had mobilised to advance on Beijing in January 1949, and by October, the Gate of Heavenly Peace begged an audience for Mao Zedong’s proclamation of ‘the birth of the new People’s Republic of China and to declare that China had stood up’, announcing the communist victory with a promise of nationalist rejuvenation and ultimate Chinese independence. While communism marched to victory in 1949, the party’s continued existence to this day stands as an effective memorial to their successes of that year. As a result of their encouragement of popular political protests which earned the population much needed government alterations, attractive policies such as land reform appealing to every echelon of society, and their strategic territory occupations, the Chinese Communist Party earned its successes but its ultimate victory can be strongly attributed to the long-term failures of the opposing Nationalist government.

Sources

Davin, Delia, Mao Zedong (Gloucestershire, 1997).
Eastman, Lloyd E., Seeds Of Destruction: Nationalist China In War And Revolution (California, 2002).
Goldston, Robert, The Long March (London, 1972).
Johnson, Chalmers A., Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power (California, 1962).
Karl, Rebecca E., Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World (London, 2010).
Mackerras, Colin, China In Transformation 1900-1949 (New York, 1998).
Moise, Edwin E., Modern China: A History (Harlow, 1986).
Pepper, Suzanne, Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949 (London, 1978).
Roberts, J.A.G., Modern China: An Illustrated History (Gloucestershire, 2000).
Sheridan, James E., China In Disintegration: The Republican Era In Chinese History 1912-1949 (New York, 1975).
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N., Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches (London, 2003).

Review: Chichester Record’s Office

In this blog update I am going to briefly describe my recent visit to the Records Office at Chichester in West Sussex. I will explore some of the pros and cons of this visit as well as answer why the record offices are so useful to historians studying their local areas/regions.

To begin with it is worth mentioning why I travelled to this records office in particular considering the shorter distance that the records office at Winchester is for me. For my university assignment I needed to explore the reasons behind the increase in crime levels in the counties of Hampshire and Sussex in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I had previously visited the Winchester records office for this purpose and decided to go further a field for more primary source information. After about 45 minutes on the train I reached Chichester and about 20 minutes later I had walked the record office (thanks to Google maps, though it was not that difficult to find). Similar to the Winchester Records office I show my readers ticket and was given access to the store of records that Chichester held. This I felt was convenient because it meant that I did not need to sign for a new ticket, just use the one from Hampshire. I had a rough idea of what I was looking for, mainly cases of smuggling and reports of incidents relating to the Swing Riots of 1830. As I looked through the records that I had requested, a very speedy process just to mention, I began reading through the sources. In the end I found that not all of the sources that I ordered were entirely of use but that’s to say they were not of interest. Some of the Swing Riot accounts were very useful as well as the sources relating to the national population and crime convictions.

By far the best aspect of the visit was the helpfulness and friendliness of the records office staff. They helped me find the sources that I required and even offered to send me photocopies of sources that they held at a separate building in Chichester. They also showed me sources that I did not think were held there such as the A full and Genuine History of the Inhuman and unparalleled murder of Mr William, A Custom Officer and Mr Daniel Chater A Shoemaker, By Fourteen notorious smugglers with the trials and execution of seven of the bloody criminal at Chichester (1749). There were some cons to the visit but they were only minor. Problems such as unreadable texts within letters and reports and not being able to find the sources that would tell me what I wanted to find were foreseeable. There was also the problem that some of the sources that I required were elsewhere but the information that I found more than made up for that. Overall it was a very useful visit that provided more primary sources for research as well as bolstering the evidence that I already had from Winchester.

With the increase in research for local studies and history, record offices are treasure troves to any seeking to uncover their family histories and local history. They too often have many sources that have never been investigated and offer another perspective on the historical past. Whilst they may not be the most enjoyable places to spend your time, they are both quiet and comfortable places to do research in. To summarise, the visit to the records office at Chichester was both productive and helpful in expanding my knowledge of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Formation of the Kingdom of Serbia

The Kingdom of Serbia was a medieval Serbian Kingdom that existed from 1217 to 1346. It was ruled by the Nemanjić dynasty and was formed from the previous Serbian Grand Principality that was based in Raška. The Kingdom lasted until 1346 when it became The Serbian Empire.

The Grand Principality of Serbia in the Raška region had already been in conflict with the Byzantines for many years, and there had been a long history of Byzantine control over the area. However, it is partially thanks to the Byzantine attacks on the previously most powerful Serb region of Duklja that Raška rose to the top. There would have been another invasion on Raška, but through diplomatic ties with the Kingdom of Hungary, Serbia managed to keep independence.

In the years shortly after this, Serbian leaders fought against the Byzantines, and continued to turn towards Hungary for support. However this was planned to be stopped by the Byzantine Emperor who put a new Grand Prince on the throne in 1166 called Stefan Tihomir, who was of a lower line of Serb nobles. Tihomir ruled jointly with his brothers, the most important of which was Stefan Nemanja. Nemanja swore allegiance to the Byzantine emperor and became a vassal of Byzantium. He aided the Imperial army in many campaigns, including one against the Hungarians. Tihomir saw the tie between Nemanja and the Emperor as a threat.

Stefan Nemanja was eventually imprisoned by his brother. This was supposedly because Nemanja had ordered the construction of two monasteries without the Grand Prince’s permission. However, it is most likely that Tihomir felt threatened by his brother’s allegiance to the Emperor and thought that he was trying to assert his own independence. Nemanja’s supporters conspired to the church that Tihomir had done this because he disapproved of church building in general, so the church turned on Tihomir, which allowed Nemanja to escape.

Eventually, Stefan Nemanja formed an army with Byzantine help in order to overthrow Tihomir. This was a success, and Tihomir and his other two brothers were banished from Serbia. They went to Byzantium in 1167. In the next few years, Nemanja became a powerful figure as the single ruler of Serbia. However, the Byzantine Emperor did not approve of this, and turned to Tihomir and his brothers. Planning to see Serbia divided between the princes in order to keep it weak, The Emperor provided Tihomir with an army to take back Serbia. In 1171, Nemanja had gathered his own army and defeated his brother’s forces at the battle of Pantino. Tihomir was killed by drowning in the Sitnica river at the end of the battle, and Nemanja made peace with his other brothers, returning their old lands to them. After this Nemanja was recognized as the only ruler of Serbia, and at this point begins the Nemanjić dynasty.

Stefan Nemanja planned to gain full independence from Byzantine rule, so he joined the anti-Byzantine coalition with the Kingdom of Hungary, the Venetian republic and the Holy Roman Empire. However, this alliance was short-lived, as Venice faced mutiny and an outbreak of plague destroying their fleet, and the Hungarian King was replaced by a pro-Byzantine successor. Shortly after this, Byzantine Emperor Manuel I launched an attack on Raška, and defeated Nemanja’s forces. Nemanja surrendered to the Emperor, and was imprisoned and brought to Constantinople to be his personal slave. During his time in Constantinople, Nemanja befriended Manuel I, and vowed to never again attack him. In return The Emperor recognized Stefan Nemanja as the rightful ruler of Serbia, and let him return. However, this peace only lasted 9 years, until 1180 when Manuel I died, and Nemanja no longer considered he owed any allegiance to the Byzantines since his vows were to Emperor Manuel I and not the Empire.

Over the next decade, Nemanja worked on the expansion of his territory, and continued to fight with the Byzantines successfully. Although, in 1191, a large Byzantine army led by the new emperor Isaac II Angelus fought and defeated Stefan Nemanja. Nemanja retreated into the mountains with his remaining men and began raiding the Byzantine forces in the area. Nemanja had the tactical advantage at this point, so this prompted the Emperor to negotiate final peace treaty, in which Nemanja had to give up most of his Eastern conquest, and recognize the Emperor’s supreme rule.

On March 25, 1196, Stefan Nemanja summoned a council where he officially abdicated in favour of his second son, Stefan II. Although Vukan was his eldest son, Nemanja preferred to see Stefan II on the throne due to him being married to a Byzantine princess, which allowed them to have peace with Byzantium. Stefan Nemanja would later begin to establish the Serbian church in 1199 with his third son; Sava. Sava would later become ‘Saint Sava’, and Stefan Nemanja himself also later became a monk and took up the name ‘Simeon’, eventually becoming a Saint of Serbia too.

During the beginning of his reign, Stefan II had to deal with the heir conflict with his older Brother Vukan. While Nemanja was still alive, Vukan didn’t oppose Stefan II’s rule, but as soon as Nemanja died in 1199, he started to plot against Stefan II in order to become Grand Prince himself. Vukan used the help of the Hungarian Kingdom to overthrow Stefan II in 1202 and became ruler, while Stefan fled into Bulgaria. Vukan later became a Hungarian vassal and promised to convert to Catholicism if the Pope would give him the title of king. However, Vukan became involved in the Hungarian conflict with Bulgaria, leading to Stefan taking the opportunity to return to Serbia and overthrow Vukan, becoming ruler once again in 1204. The conflict power struggle between the two brothers only ended when the third brother, Sava, returned to Serbia from his work on founding Serbian Christianity. Sava brought with him the remains of their father, Stefan Nemanja, which convinces Vukan and Stefan II to make peace. Sava subsequently asked to stay in Serbia by Stefan, and he does so, starting his widespread education of the people of Serbia. In the following years, Stefan II still had to deal with the tension between himself and Vukan’s son Đorđe after Vukan’s death in 1209. This eventually led to Đorđe’s lands being taken from him in 1216.

In 1217 Stefan, Stefan II managed to secure the title of king from Pope Honorius III. Sava brought the regal crown from Rome, and crowned his brother himself as ‘King of all Serbia’. In 1218, Sava began the real formation of the Serbian Church, and was consecrated as the first Archbishop of Serbia in 1219. In the same year, Sava published ‘Zakanopravilo’; the first constitution of Serbia, thus acquiring the Serbs both political and religious forms of independence. The Nemanjić dynasty continued to rule Serbian lands for the next 200 years, which emerged into a powerful state that would dominate the entire Balkan peninsula, eventually becoming the Serbian Empire on 1346.

The ‘Ideal’ Sorceress: Gender Ideology and the Stereotypical Witch.

Why is it that on hearing the word ‘witch’, I immediately think of scary old ladies? If you are anything like me and have seen one too many Disney films, it’s not hard to see where the stereotype is reinforced in our modern society. J K Rowling has done a good job at making witches a little less hunchbacked and wart-covered, but it is the image of the old, decrepit widow with a vendetta against society is what will always endure. This image of a witch became prevalent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is possible to glean some insight into how people thought about women at the time when such an image became deeply rooted in the common psyche. In religious terms, women were complete contradictions (how could they be both Eve and the Virgin Mary?) and so were regarded as inconstant and suspicious. This might be the reason why, at a basic level, women were the ones accused of witchcraft.

The primary concern of a community was maleficia. This type of magic had long standing associations with the cunning-folk who were a constant in English communities from the Middle Ages. They are described as possessing a multitude of skills, including healing and love magic, and interestingly counter-magic for those who believed themselves bewitched. Obviously these cunning folk had a place within the community, albeit ambiguous and open to suspicion as their quasi-pagan practices were both strange and invaluable. Cunning-folk were often older, widowed women, whose ‘magical’ services provided income, thus reinforcing the image of a witch as a marginalised female in popular thought. When the post-Reformation push to rid society of these cunning folk began a programme of persecution, these marginalised women were the first in the firing line.

Maleficia, natural misfortunes without obvious explanation, were additionally more prevalent in spheres naturally attributed to women, such as cooking, midwifery or nursing. It was generally recognised that these particular roles offered women better opportunities to practice malign magic; thus inviting accusation. For example, in 1661, a lady named Helen Grey was nursing a boy extremely ill with kidney stones. The pain made him hallucinate, and as a result he accused Helen of witchcraft. To back this up, a neighbour said that it was Helen who had made her bread go sour using maleficium. Helen’s involvement in the care of the sick and preparation of food, vocations natural to her sex, left her vulnerable to charges of witchcraft. Other professions, such as midwifery or wet-nursing, were exclusively female roles, and thus the male exclusion gave fertile ground for the suspicion of women. Demonological theory, prevalent in the state driven witch-hunts, associated midwives with diabolism through their proximity to unbaptized children as these infants could be acquired for ceremonial sacrifice. High mortality rates in young children only served to ‘prove’ the notion that it was women who caused such suffering. Evidently, the roles attributed to women made then vulnerable to suspicion, demonstrating that gender ideology did contribute to the image of the stereotypical witch.

Women who didn’t sit quietly, as gender ideology dictated, were also open to suspicion. Suspicion also developed over time, explaining why women accused of witchcraft were of advanced age. For example, Jane Wenham is described in 1712 as ‘…and old woman over seventy who had a very unsavoury reputation in the village.’ Age and reputation evidently work against here in this case. And to add fuel to the fire, Jane was a widow. In Kent, 75 per cent of those accused were unmarried women. This is because widows were both estranged from and dependant on the parish, as they had no other means of income. Giving alms was an integral part of society, but doing so became more difficult in the economic downturns of 1550 to 1650. This created a ‘gulf of misunderstanding and suspicion’ between the social orders of a parish, and the resulting guilt and fear of retribution undoubtedly contributed to accusations of witchcraft. This was especially prevalent as old, widowed women were naturally connected to cunning-magic, thereby giving her a vehicle for revenge. That many accusations of maleficia begin with the refusal of alms adds credence to this view.

On the other hand, when the hunt was run by the state rather than the community, the focus was on diabolism. This includes all the gruesome practices like child sacrifice and sexual relations with the Devil. Specialist contemporary writings such as the Malleus Maleficarum and On the Demon-Mania of Witches strengthened the connections between women and witchcraft. According to the Malleus, women were witches because they were weaker, feebler and more impressionable than men, thus falling more easily into the clutches of evil spirits. Although being described as ‘intensely misogynistic’, the Malleus is useful because it overtly expresses the ideas held by many members of the elite concerning the female state and constitution. This undoubtedly bolstered the female witch stereotypes as it drew on her weak and fundamentally wicked nature to explain and justify the presence of witchcraft.

Additionally, there is a focus on female sexuality; a pivotal factor in the demonological stereotype of a female witch. This opinion is reflected in the writings of Jean Bodin who claims that all witches had a sexual relationship with the Devil. As the Devil was male, women were considered his natural mates, so implicating women on their gender alone. This view stemmed from male concerns about female sexuality, particularly highlighted by the carnal image of women endorsed by the clergy. In this respect, it could be argued that widows were accused of witchcraft because their status as experienced women without the restraints of a male patriarch made them sexually threatening to men. This element of the witch stereotype is displayed in the works of Hans Baldung Grien, a German artist who in the sixteenth century depicted witches as the embodiment of female sexual power.

To sum up, this brief assessment of the witch in early modern England demonstrates why it was women, not men, who felt the brunt of witchcraft accusations. There was a polarised view of the world; men were rational and strong whilst women were physically and morally weak. The state’s focus on diabolism reflected these moral concerns. Documents such as the Malleus Maleficarum served to enforce this view, harnessing the classical and religious interpretations of fundamental evil to enforce the female stereotype. Women also became the focus of accusations due to her position within the community, dictated by the gender ideologies of household and a submissive relationship to the patriarchal society. For example, a community’s concern with maleficia became tied to the image of women through her designated roles, buttressed by the traditional interrelation of widows and cunning-magic that had endured for centuries. Undoubtedly elements of misogyny do creep into the stereotype, particularly clear in the Malleus wherein Kramer and Sprenger barely associate women with humanity. This once again reflects the paradoxical nature of womanhood in this period, a key factor in driving gender ideology and creating the witch stereotype of pre-industrial England.

Sources

Amussen, S.D., ‘Gender, Family and the Social Order, 1560-1725’, in Fletcher, A., and Stevenson, J., (eds), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1985), pp.196-217.

Davies, O., Cunning-Folk, Popular Magic in English History, (New York, 2003).

Gaskill, M., ‘Witchcraft and power in Early Modern England: The Case of Margaret Moore,’ in Kermonde, J., and Walker, G., (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England, (London, 2003), pp.125-145.

Guskin, P. J., ‘The Context of Witchcraft: The Case of Jane Wenham (1712)’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 15 (1981), pp.48-71.

Holmes, C., ‘Women: witnesses and witches’, Past and Present, 140 (1993), pp.45-78.

King, M. L., Women of the Renaissance, (Chicago, 1991), pp.1-2

Levack, B. P., (2^nd ed), The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, (London, 1995).

Scott A. R., and Pearl J. L., (trans), Bodin, J., On the Demon-Mania of Witches, (Toronto, 1995),

Summers, M., (trans), The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, (New York, 1971)

Zguta, R., ‘Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth Century Russia,’ American Historical Review, 82 (1977), pp.1187-1207.

Heretics in Sixteenth-Century England

Welcome to Minorities Month on our blog! Today I’m going to discuss the term ‘heretics’ as a minority in Tudor England. After Henry VII’s victory at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the sixteenth century became dominated by a new and eventually infamous dynasty known as The Tudors. The severing of the Church with Rome in 1534 confused the definition of ‘heretic’ and left people in a state of ambiguity regarding which faith was ‘legal’ under Henry VIII and his heirs that would follow. This is not the story of ‘Catholics’ or ‘Protestants’ as such, since both of these groups would become heretics or traitors under Tudor rule at some point in the sixteenth century, but rather an insight into how suddenly a group or person could be declared a criminal when so previously praised for their ‘true’ faith. In this article, the status and treatment of ‘heretics’ under the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I will briefly be examined.

Up until 1534, England was part of the unified Catholic Church under Papal authority in Rome. Anybody who did not accept Catholic doctrine or recognize the Pope as Head of the Catholic Church was immediately labelled a heretic and, if unrepentant, put to death by burning at the stake. The first heretical threat to England under Henry VIII was Protestantism, a new and radical movement that gained influence in the 1520s rooting from Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Thesis in Germany. Luther promoted personal faith and Bible-reading, attacked idolatry, the Pope, transubstantiation and many other aspects of Catholic doctrine. Thomas More, a deeply religious Catholic who took the post of Chancellor after Wolsey’s fall, began to crack down on heresy, viewing it as a spreading disease. He saw it as his duty to exterminate Protestants to protect the ‘true’ faith, and burnt a total of six people during his short rule of power, who were charged for accusations such as distributing banned books.

Yet in a drawn-out, England-altering battle with the Pope to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII decided to split with Rome in 1534 and create his own Church of England, allowing him as Supreme Head to do as he pleased within it. The Oath of Supremacy enforced his subjects to recognize him, and not the Pope, as Head of the English Church – and to deny it was treason, punishable by death. The tables had now turned for Thomas More, who would not sign the Oath and acknowledge Henry as Head of the Church instead of the Pope due to his ‘conscience’. Despite his long-term friendship with the King, Henry had him executed in July 1535 in the Tower.

As Henry became more radical and introduced pro-Protestant doctrine, influenced by Anne Boleyn as some would argue, the Catholics that had experienced one faith their entire lives were seen as a threat to Henry’s authority and for the first time in England it was them, and not the Protestants who had been previously persecuted, that were now seen as the heretics and traitors.

Yet the situation would change again. With unstable foreign policy and an ageing Henry yearning Spanish support whilst tackling France, he introduced The Act of Six Articles which consisted of mostly Catholic doctrine in the hopes of pleasing Catholic Spain (and perhaps the rebels following the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536). The Protestants that had gained influence from the split with Rome were now expected to revert to a more conservative and traditional faith, even to the point of accepting Transubstantiation. At this point the confusion and insecurity of the religious people in England can be understood. It was not as easy to unofficially change the state’s religion now, however. The Protestant movement had finally been given the chance to grow and build communities in England and it was not going to back down without a fight. Anne Askew is the only woman in English history to have been tortured at the Tower of London on the rack before being burnt at the stake. According to Henry, when informed of the woman’s interrogation (which was against the law),  he replied “from the word of God, we know that the Devil takes many forms.” Askew’s links within Protestantism were strong, though. Support for her and the movement she promoted can perhaps be seen by an anonymous person placing gunpowder around her neck before the flames were lit, resulting in a quicker and easier death.

Henry VIII’s death in 1547 paved the way for the Protestant factions surrounding his son and heir, Edward VI, to reinstate the Protestant doctrine and continue to dissolve the monasteries for financial gain. As Edward was a minor, however, no Catholics were tried or executed during this point except those involved the Western Rebellion of 1549.

The situation reversed in 1553 after Mary I (or ‘Bloody Mary’) took her rightful place on the throne from Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Day’s Queen. A staunch Catholic who resented the Reformation under her father, viewed as the cause of her and her mother’s suffering, Mary intended to restore the true faith to England in the counter-Reformation and finally put an end to heresy (or Protestantism). Infamously known for her burnings, Mary executed approximately 287 men and women during her short reign, a colossal figure even for the gory time period. Although she had achieved in reuniting England with Rome, she was resented by Protestants and even some Catholics for her brutality, exposing the majority of London the stench of burning flesh.

Elizabeth I, following Mary’s sudden death, immediately reinstated the Act of Supremacy and became Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Her ‘Protestant’ regime aimed to please both Catholics and Protestants alike, and at the beginning, there were no persecutions of either faith since Elizabeth showed little interest for personal religion. This all changed, however, when Mary Queen of Scot’s sparked the Catholic threat in England, and the Northern Rebellion began in 1569. When excommunicated by the Pope, Elizabeth cracked down on Catholics (or rather ‘traitors’) to secure her political position. Most were beheaded or hanged rather than burnt, including Mary, Queen of Scot’s herself. This would be the only safe point to say, however, that Catholics were truly a minority in Tudor England. The Reformation that introduced Protestantism in Henry VIII’s reign had now planted a deep root in the English Church and as the older generation died out, few disgruntled Catholics remained. Elizabeth’s paranoia regarding a Catholic conspiracy leading up to the Spanish Armada, however, blew the threat of remaining Catholics out of realistic proportion.

If we had lived in the sixteenth century, we must have been very religiously-versatile in order to survive. And because of the unbreakable integration of religion and politics, this was never really possible. With each monarch, or new political situation, came different laws on what was heretical and what was not. A heretic under Henry VIII in 1520 would be praised from 1534 (H VIII – Act of Supremacy), burnt from 1539 (H VIII – Act of Six Articles), secure from 1547 (Edward VI), one of Bloody Mary’s victims from 1553, and favoured from 1558 (Eliz. I). As explored, Catholics were not always safer than Protestants, either. It appears it was safest to remain loyal to the King/Queen before the Church in such a temperamental religious climate in sixteenth-century Tudor England.

The Sherpa: victims of their own success?

Today I would like to provide you with some details about the Sherpa, one of the ethnic minorities living in republican China- around 2600 live in the People’s Republic of China, and there is a total of approximately 180.000 Sherpa in the world. The word Sherpa means people from the East, which makes reference to the area they live in. Most of the Sherpa live in the Himalayas, although they are starting to suffer the effects of migration attempting to obtain a better life. The Sherpas are presumed to have originally been a nomadic culture. It seems likely that the left their home lands in the Khan region in the 16th century for the Nepalese area due to warfare, hence why their language, despite being Tibetan, is not like that of the rest of the Nepalese society. The 18th century presence of the British in Daarjelin attracted the attention of many Sherpa, who offered their services to the Empire for seasonal employment and a chance of better income into their households. This was a very important factor in the development of what nowadays is the Sherpas best known activity: professional mountaineering.

In fact some of the most famous Sherpa owe their renown to mountaineering. Such is the case of Tenzing Norgay, who climbed the Everest in 1953 with the expedition of Sir Edmund Hillary. Many other Sherpa have got to the top of this mountain and many others. This is a result of their live in high altitudes. As that is a common feature of their everyday life, they are well prepared and knowledgeable of the skills required in hiking, climbing, examining the landscape and weather conditions for the purpose of professional mountaineering…This is in fact the job of many in current times. They play a crucial role in the expeditions to the highest mountains in the world.

We know some other details about their culture, such as their clothing and religious believe. Male Sherpa tend to wear something called chhuba (long-sleeved robes) on top of a raatuk (shirt), as well as a piece called kanam (trousers) and a type of jacket named tetung. The women wear very long dresses known as tongkok, and aprons; metil and gewe for the front and the back, hold together with silver buckles called kyetig. Their religious belief is quite interesting. Most Sherpa practice Buddhism, particularly a Tibetan sect known with the name of “The Red Hat Sect”. This sect was founded in the 8th century and borrows many elements from the local pre-Buddhist traditions, deities and shamanistic rituals. For reasons that will now seem obvious, it has a deep connection with their environment, especially mountains (mountains are supposed to bring you closer to enlightenment, so we can understand that the altitude at which these people live is quite important not only for their economy, but for their culture in general). This also explain why their approach to climbing and mountain expeditions is different from the Western ideas, as to reach Nirvana you require to do actions for others in a very altruistic fashion. Apart from that, we know that some Sherpa worship other cults, but these can be considered minority religions amongst them. The other two main cults that have Sherpa followers are Catholicism and Hinduism.

Nonetheless, and despite how lovely and peaceful this life in the mountains may seem to accomodated people of the West like us, it is not all good and “gravy”. Tourism to the Nepal areas has had a huge impact in the lifestyle of these people in last half of the 20th century and the 21st. On top of that, there is the ongoing tension between China and Nepal (especially now that the Chinese government has announced their desire to create what I like to call “Buddha-land”). These people are effectively caught in the middle of disguised communism and aggressive capitalism, different cultures, and pressures. Moreover, accidents within the sphere of professional mountaineering make their prestige crumble. In 2010 the team of the Spanish mountaineer Tolo Calafat, suffered a terrible incident when climbing the Annapurna. As a result he died, and many of his companions, several Sherpa included suffered his very same fate. Much controversy was arose about the fact of how much are worth the lives of Sherpa, or how easy they are to bribe to go to places they otherwise won’t, if it wasn’t for the non-sensical desire of their patrons. They are victims of their own success and their own circumstances. They live between to opposite worlds that pull the strings in different directions, leaving them exposed to the cruel reality: the life of a minority group, of any kind, is tough.

 

The Amish: a growing minority.

This month’s topic about minorities has been interesting in that it allows me to recapture a visit to an Amish farm in Nappanee, Indiana, when visiting the United States last year. The Amish are a rather private group and so the visit, which was led by an Amish tour guide, was an intriguing look into a very different lifestyle to the one many of us live in today. They speak in Pennsylvanian German, which can sometimes be referred to as Pennsylvanian Dutch.

The Amish are a fascinating group of people that are considered a minority in this world. Despite European origins, there are around 165 000 Amish people in the United States and 1500 in Canada, with numbers increasing since the beginning of the twentieth century. This group of people are a minority because of their religious beliefs rather than because of their ethnic background. They are part of the Mennonite Church, which is a subgroup of the Christian Church. The Amish Church was set up because of a schism in Switzerland in a contest between the Swiss and the Alsation Anabaptists in 1693.  The Amish were not the only result of these contests, with the Hutterites and Mennonities also being descent from the Anabaptist movement throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Jakob Ammann was the leader of the Alsation Anabaptists during this time and so the people that chose to follow him became known as the Amish.

The Amish are particularly religious and have strict rules regarding baptism and marriage. Usually, baptism is done between the ages of 16 and 25, you are not an official member of the Amish community until you are baptised. It is a requirement for both people within a marriage to be baptised and of the same faith for the marriage to go ahead. There is no Church for the Amish religion; they instead meet in a member’s home in order for their services to be carried out. They must follow the Church rules at all times. This includes no electricity, televisions, mobile phones, cars and some types of clothing. There is also no participation in military service, nor participate in social security. They very much choose to live outside of modern day society. Those which are unable to follow these rules are expected to excommunicate and are likely to be shunned by their family and friends. Around 90% of Amish teenagers do commit to the faith. There is a definite willingness to remain separate from the English speaking world, and there is a very heavy influence on the importance of Church and family relationships. Formal education is stopped at the age of 13-14 where a more rural life will then generally be accepted.

In todays’ society, the Amish can often be treated with hostility because of their alternative lifestyle. There is constant pressure for them to partake in modern day things such as taxation, education and law and its enforcement. Some Amish communities choose to educate their own children in small schools run by an unmarried female within the community. It is extremely unusual for a pupil go to college or university. They choose to use horses and carts as transportation and therefore pay no road tax and because of their beliefs, the United States government exempts them from any kind of social security tax as it is something that they do not believe in.

When visiting the farm, it was clear how self-sufficient these communities are. Their houses were simple, yet clean and sufficient. They made their own cheeses and raised their own animals for meat. There were shops selling home-made fudge and ice-cream. In many ways, the whole experience was rewarding in that it really did allow for us to be reminded of moral values, the importance of family, and the rewards that could be gained from hard work. Furthermore, it was inspiring to see how people live without the modern goods we all consider a necessity in everyday life.  It proves that people today rely too much on their mobile phones, cars, computers and many other accessories and actually, they need none of that to live a happy life. People say today that moral standards and values are slipping; it is in this way that the Amish could provide some inspiration for today’s society.

INTERVIEW WITH DR.ELENA WOODACRE, UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER, MARCH 2013

OUR LATEST INTERVIEW HAS BEEN WITH DR. ELENA WOODACRE, ONE OF OUR LECTURERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER!

She is devoted to the study of medieval queens, especially within the kingdom of Navarre, so we decided to ask her some questions about her research and her interests!

Here we leave you the link to our podcast in out You Tube Channel, we hope you like it!

We would like to thank Ellie for spending some time with us and having such a lovely conversation!

<W.U Hstry Team>

What are minorities? (And the story of two minorities in Norway)

When we decided that April should be minorities’ month, I was thrilled, cause then I could write about a minority of any kind. However, I have the last few weeks been thinking: how can I choose one minority in history and write about it? Or shall I look at a set of minorities? Or shall I write about why a minority became a minority? These thoughts have been bothering me for a while, because I wanted to get it all right. However, what does seem to stand clear in front of me is that no matter what I do, I will have to determine what a minority is, and why it is a minority. (As I will be referring to the Sami and the Kvens in this text, will I also be adding a brief account of their history at the end of this update, but if you find them interesting, then please go ahead and read more.) 

Based on common sense can minorities be seen as a group of people that are different from the majority population within its society, and at the same time must this minority to some extent recognize its own members as a part of this minority. So far, so good, but what kind of minorities are there out there? And who are they? Too many to count will be the easiest answer, but in general can minorities be divided in a set of groups; 1 ethnic minorities, 2 religious minorities, and 3 sexual minorities. The 3^rd group will always be present in any kind of society, no matter how homogeneous the population is ethnically and culturally. So this blog post will focus on the two other types of minorities, and two very specific examples of them in Norwegian history, after all this is a history blog.

Traditionally have Norway only had a small number of national minorities, or so I was told while I was in school, these were the Sami, the Kvens, the Jews and the Gypsies. Of these 3 of them came into Norway, after the reformation, and the Jews did not gain access to the country until the second half of the nineteenth century, and that after a long public debate if they should be let in. But all of them have become minorities in Norway due to migration, and the search for a living and a better life.  Minorities become minorities due to migration in two ways: firstly by migrating into an area already populated by a different ethnic group, this applies to the Kvens, Jews and Gypsies. (Although, the Jews might also be seen as a religious minority as they are defined to some extent more by religion, than ethnicity.) Secondly, by being the original inhabitants in an area settled by groups that over time evolve into a majority and that bring the territory into a greater political unit. This is the story of the Sami, a group of indigenous peoples in Northern Scandinavia that over the last thousand years have gone from being a nomadic majority population in regions, to become a minority split between 4 states: Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Due to the history of forced assimilation directed against the Sami and other minorities in Norway, have some of them received more attention than others. The idea in the years prior to the Second World War was that the Norwegian society should be Norwegian through and through, and that any minority languages and cultures should be rooted out and corrected so that these minorities could be integrated into the majority as full members of a Norwegian state. This assimilation process was supported by the idea of eugenics, and race studies, but in the beginning it started as a ‘crusade’ to convert the pagans living in the wilderness of the north. These processes destroyed the original Sami culture and its traditional religion. The policies of assimilation went so far, that for a period in the twentieth century were there children who were raised that was not taught the traditional Sami language, and the languages was dying. Furthermore did it develop a stigma of shame to be Sami, so many chose not to mention that they had Sami blood, for who wanted to be part of the ‘inferior’ people? All this changed after the Second World War, and during the 1970’s the Sami people started to wake up and claim respect and acceptance for who they are within the nation, and that they had been there longer than the state itself. Today the Sami have a separate parliament within the Norwegian state, and the languages that once was dying are now in active use. This is a total shift from what the life of this ethnic minority was like only 70 years ago.

The second type of minority I mentioned is one that for many nations and states might be the most problematic, the religious minority. Britain itself suppressed its religious minorities, and in so many states throughout the world have religious minorities been discriminated and prosecuted against. I can think of a few just on the top of my head: Huguenots in France, Catholics in England, Protestants, Jews and Muslims in Imperial Spain, among others. Religious divisions have in some conflicts given the rise to the same frictions as ethnic minorities within empires can create. The Kurds in Turkey or the Albanians within former Yugoslavia, are both ethnic groups that are/have been minorities within the states they once lived in. In Norwegian history was the Sami  the only religious minority for a long time, until during the course of the nineteenth century, first Catholics and then Jews were welcomed into the nation. Over the years have most Sami’s converted to Christianity, but the traditional religion is still practiced by some. But this have taken an ethnic minority into the religious majority, and equally have ethnic Norwegians converted to Catholicism or Islam, and through that are both a majority and a minority. It all depends on where you draw the lines within which we count the members.

Although minorities, and majorities have existed as long as written records, and even longer, I have a feeling that it is impossible to fully study a minority or majority in a given society, for there will always be members of each group that overlap with the other. In fact I’m personally both a part of minorities and a majority at the same time in my everyday life, it all depends on who I choose to be, and which identity I feel is most suitable at any given time. Although I’m white and European, this makes me in the Ethnic majority on campus at the University of Winchester, I am also male, which makes me a minority, furthermore am I gay, and foreign, both which are minorities both at the University and in the world in general. So depending on how we look at minorities, will determine who we are examining, and in some cases will our minorities and majorities be the same persons.

So as we have seen is a minority a group of people who are different from the majority of the population within a society, and often have these become so because of migration, and the longing for a better life.

A brief story about the Kvens and the Sami, a case study for minority assimilation.

Some of the first references to the ethnic diversity of Northern Scandinavia, and maybe also a good source for how the relationship between the ethnic groups were in those regions, can be found in the text known as Ohthere’s journey. A story added on to Alfred the Great’s translations of Orosius, that not only is about the journey of Ohthere, a Norseman who travels to Alfred’s court, but also about the society he lives in, and the lands he traveled through to get there.

                The text mentions several groups of people, but especially how the relationship is between the Norse settlers in Northern Norway and the Sami living inland from them. A relationship marked by taxation and domination by one group over the other. In addition to outline the trade and taxation practices of Northern Norway both in the early middle ages, but also trends that continued for many hundred years later, the text also mentions another ethnic group that together with the Sami have shaped Northern Norway since the seventeenth century, the Kvens. The Kvens, is an ethnic group originally from areas that today is part of Finland, but migrated to Norway in two waves. Firstly, during the seventeenth and eighteenth century to find more agricultural land, due to population growth in their homelands, secondly, during the nineteenth century when the population again was rising in, but this time it was combined with famine and failed harvests in the Torneo Valley on the border between Finland and Sweden. Both the first and the second wave of Kven migration to Northern Norway brought a new work force to the region, whereas the first migration settled and took up agriculture as a way of life, mixed with fishing and forestry, did the second settle in fishing villages or mining villages as they were both skilled and hard working labourers. But why did this group that migrated from today’s Finland become so significant for the region? Well the answer is in the share numbers of the migration, it is estimated that at the beginning of the Twentieth century there were about 25% of the population of Finnmark that were of Kven origin. In some regions there was not only the dominant ethnic group, but also a significant minority to take account of.  If there is one act in the history of Norway that can be seen as the formal starting point of the nationalization of the minorities, then it is the law of 1902 about purchasing land from the state. The law stated that only Norwegian speakers could purchase land from the state, this was to prevent foreign business interests to buy up Norwegian resources, and above all to make sure that the land would stay on Norwegian hands. This did not only prevent Kvens, who spoke a language related to Finnish, but also the Sami from buying land for agriculture or for other reasons. This law can stand as a monument for all the actions that followed which forcefully attempted to assimilate the Kven and Sami population into the majority population.

Some have suggested that these actions of Norwegianisation of the Kvens were an attempt to prevent a Finnish rebellion among the Kvens in support of Finland, the cultural mother-land of the Kvens. And there have, as far as I can tell, not been many large scale rebellions against this Norwegianisation of the Kvens or the Sami, well maybe with one exception. What I have in mind is an episode known as the Kautokeino rebellion, a short episode were a small group of Sami led an attack on the local authorities and trade center. As far as I am aware, is this the only incident were violence was used by members of either ethnic group, in what some choose to see as an attempt to fight back against the settlements and oppression. However, there are more elements to this one case than just this one,  for those that have the possibility is the sources, which are published in a collected volume, available in Norwegian. And there is also made a film about this event, although it is not very accurate, it is a free interpretation of a series of events which till this day is not fully understood. For the theories range about everything from religious fanatics acting against the selling of alcohol, to a reaction against the exploitation of the  Sami among the local Norwegian population, or as desperate act in response to the loss of the grazing areas east of the Finno-Russian border, after it got closed in the middle of the nineteenth century. However, this is not the place or time to debate the origins for the rebellion, but what this rebellion suggest alongside its sources, is that the Sami population and their culture was changing as a result of the Nationalization of the nation.

As a part of the Norwegianization policies applied by the Norwegian government during the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, were the teaching of Sami and Kven/Finnish slowly abolished in schools. In some areas were these languages taught until 1936, this abolition was a part of the ideas of ‘one nation- one people- one language’ that formed the base note of the assimilation policies prior to the Second World War.

In the years after the Second World War, were these policies re-examined in relation to the Human Rights and Norway’s relationship with the UN. It lead to an re-establishment of teaching in Sami and Finnish in schools, and the establishment of a Sami Parliament to safeguard Sami interests in relation to their rights as an indigenous people. Whereas the Sami have gained recognition of their status as Indigenous people, and have a Parliament guiding the state on Sami related issues, the Kvens have been integrated into Norwegian society, although their cultural and linguistic heritage is now safeguarded from extinction due to the legal protection of these traditional elements in Kven culture.

In comparison to other minorities around the world, the story of the Sami and Kvens is not as gruesome as it perhaps could have been. Thanks to a strong political and cultural awareness among these groups they have survived and developed within the Norwegian state into what they are today. It is believed to live between 40-60 000 Sami and 15-25 000 Kvens in Norway, so these groups are not easily dismissed in the wider national context. Although minorities exist, and come into existence due to migration, and although it sometimes seems easier to assimilate minorities into one culture, where everyone speak the same and have the same culture, we as citizens of the World should remember that it is the diversity of these culture that makes life exciting to live. So please let us not go backwards and force minorities into the closed, where they will hide in shame and die, but let us celebrate them and accept them. For who knows, we might need their knowledge one day. So let’s have the Sami Parliament in Norway stand as a monument for the rights indigenous people have, and the respect minorities, both those forgotten and extinct, and those living today, deserve to have. After all, you who read should remember that you might also be a minority from time to time, depending on time and space.

 

Source:

WWW.SNL.NO

A brief guide to the argument between Booker T. Washington and W.E.DuBois.

An enduring and common perception in western popular culture is that the true resolution of the problems generated by American reconstruction was centred on post-Truman America. When examining the history of race relations within America, the reconstituted civil rights movement headed in a de facto sense by Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy provide us with a sharp and more viable contrast to arguably irreconcilable polemics concerned with the autonomy of the black community in America, such as Malcolm X, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Through strategic and non-violent protest epitomised in events such as the 1960 Greensboro sit-in and the Montgomery bus boycott, dedicated activists are seen to have triumphed against the odds in the face of reactionary and unprecedented violence that retains a capacity to shock, such as the infamous Birmingham, Alabama campaign of bombings and the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.

This is in many regards a sound interpretation, although perhaps simplistic and questionable when it comes to deterministic attitudes, leadership and the exact extent to which “outsiders” contributed. However, it is an interpretation that sits within a much larger sphere of history concerning American race relations before Woodward’s “Bulldozer Revolution.” We should not underestimate the remarkable scope of the civil rights movement in transforming attitudes to both historical and contemporary racism within the United States. However, it is an extensive disservice to resilience and the erudite nature of agitation as well as the extensive process of reconciliation undertaken arguably from the very start of Johnson’s presidency to characterise Civil Rights as a concept confined to the Atomic age. In particular, the survival of Douglass’s concept of agitation against comparative appeasement is worth observing, both in order to chart modern impact of seemingly intangible historical concepts as well as the shifting nature of discourse of the nature and roles of race within America.

To narrow this down further, the “nadir” (as the historian Logan defined it) of the African-American experience between 1880-1920 is perhaps our most productive area for summary examination, and Booker T. Washington (1859-1915) and W.E.DuBois (1868-1963) the foremost representative intellectuals within that particular narrative. This epoch saw the rise of “Jim Crow” in law from 1896 following Plessy vs. Ferguson as well as violent upsurges in lynching during the 1890′s, with a particularly grisly and fundamentally irrational resumption centred on the “Red Summer” of 1919, all events that can be seen to have contributed to the early twentieth century “great migration” of the persecuted and beleaguered Southern Black populace northward.

It is also this era that saw both the founding of the educational institute of Tuskegee by Washington in 1881 and the N.A.A.C.P by Du Bois in 1909; both organisation intended to advance the standing of minorities within America. However, Washington and DuBois were grounded in vastly different methodologies representative of a dichotomy of reasoning as to how the Black community should respond in a time of endemic discrimination. In order to understand this, we must delve further into the beliefs of the individuals responsible, and in particular into a few central moments of communication between both of them.

Booker T. Washington is representative of an accommodating strand of thought within the movement for African-American improvement. Born c.1858 under slavery, Booker T. Washington rose spectacularly from manual labourer to teacher, and from there to leading advocate of black education. His legacy forms a contentious issue, with debate over Washington’s intentions and achievements still a point of discussion for many historical and social commentators. In many ways, Washington’s achievements have been overshadowed by his tendency to compromise for pragmatic ends. By 1901, Washington had become the “White selected” ideologue of the community, patronised by Rockefeller and Carnegie, and respected on an intellectual and political level by many Northern Whites. Washington also established an influential political network within his own lifetime and was notably invited by Theodore Roosevelt himself to dine at the White House in 1901.

Washington provided desperately needed minority visibility and influence within the landscape of early twentieth century American politics and culture.Despite this apparent active prominence, he faced direct opposition from contemporary Black intellectuals such as Du Bois, and later critics of his alleged “Uncle Tom” role(s). Retroactive criticism frequently centres on his famous 1895 address to the Cotton States Exhibition, contrasting the often unconditional praise given to his autobiography, “Up from slavery” (1901). This short speech constitutes part of his rise to prominence in that it briefly outlined Washington’s core beliefs to the late nineteenth century industrial aristocracy of the south. Washington laid out his support to for an acceptable solution to rich Southern Whites to the supposed “Negro problem” in that he outlined what can be seen as a pragmatic strategy for the Black southerner of 1895.

Through avocation of economic autonomy, practical education and manual labour in his speech, Washington attempted to lay a foundation for Black improvement with a degree of White patronage from capitalist investees. The speech formed an appeal for conditional acceptance of Black participation in American capitalism; a modified “manifest destiny” for the share-cropping community. This was Washington’s avocation of advancement through trained labour applied to a much larger scale; a kind of economic equality would emerge through participation within the foremost laissez-faire society of the new world.

As Du Bois highlighted in “The Souls of Black Folk” (1903), Washington’s “compromise” failed to address both the growing racial divide in funding and the aforementioned pejorative “Jim Crow” legislation. In hindsight, his economic strategy seems naïve in the face of violent constraints on black progression (such as the dramatic increase in lynching) and a lack of widespread Southern cultural or infrastructural development. The relative success of later lobbying associations such as N.A.A.C.P in contrast to Washington’s ideology of the “self-made Negro” stand testament to the failure of his publicly expressed principles, and partially explains his conflicted reputation after his death in 1915. Manufacture of capital under certain conditions of bondage such as the exploitative and isolating practice of “sharecropping” proved a dead end for fuelling inclusiveness.

DuBois can thus be seen as a riposte to accommodation while (perhaps conflictingly) the harbinger of the future strategy of movements intended for Black liberation, although with a distinct emphasis on the theoretical in many cases. A Harvard graduate and sociologist, DuBois outlined a framework of participation heavily akin to classical liberal education. Through avocation for self-justifying, equitable education for of the “talented tenth” of the Black population and constant agitation in order to maintain the dialogue on racial segregation and discrimination, DuBois can be seen to have provided a solid foundation to later twentieth century civil rights in helping to foster the creation of both productive working and middle class individuals within the Black community. The N.A.A.C.P provided welcome guardianship and assistance in later, complex cases concerning racial relations, such as Scottsboro in 1931.

DuBois was more abstract in his ideas and his improving methodology deliberately confrontational albeit gradualist. However, his grand ideals can be seen to have helped the steady removal of fundamental assumptions that dominated a significant part of the early twentieth century White American population concerning the inclusiveness of the Black community. Although DuBois can be seen to have “won” the argument by default in this sense, his long term influence and implications are ultimately still ones of debate today, particularly with his substantial loss of prominence following post-war McCarthy era accusations of Communist affiliation and self-exile to Ghana.

The Washington-DuBois debate ultimately illustrates the diffuse nature of different forms of and attempts at advancement within the grand overarching narrative of American Civil Rights. Although the visibility of King’s movement in popular culture is enhanced by proximity to post-industrial, post-agrarian modernity, we can see that it is but part of a much larger process. From our brief discussion, we can see that the nature of minority advancement within the United States is far more complex and the results of individuals far less determinable than the typical summary presentation of a straightforward liberal battle for acceptance and the practical end of discrimination.

This post contains significant amounts of material reworked and augmented by myself for online consumption from an unpublished piece of work submitted by myself on the American South in 2011.