Wednesday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

“For it was not in my ear that you whispered but into my heart, it was not on my lips that you kissed me but on my soul.”

                                       Judy Garland

I cannot believe the lack of knowledge of the history of the United States that I have encountered lately so I feel it is my duty to briefly tell a little about it with relation to slavery:

1607 Beside St. Augustine the first European permanent settlement in the New World was the village of Jamestown, Virginia. The local Indian tribes had an occasional slave that they held over from various tribal wars. By the way, there was a settlement in Pensacola, Fl. that was older than St. Augustine but was not permanent.

1620 The next permanent settlement was Plymouth, Massachusetts. Four years later a Dutch slave ship that had miscalculated the amount of food needed to cross back to Europe stopped at Plymouth and traded slaves they had purchased in Africa for food to make the trip. The local Indians also had an occasional slave as a result of tribal warfare. It is from this point that our ancestors began wholesale trading for slaves. Both Jamestown and Plymouth flew the British flag.

1776 The “colonies” were 13 in number by this time and slavery was common but serious trouble was on the horizon. The colonists were weary of British domination and declared themselves an independent nation. The British Parliament said “like hell you are” and war was declared.

1783 After years of bloody warfare the Treaty of Paris was signed making the colonies an independent nation named the United States of America. A flag was adopted that is like the one today but it only had 13 stars indicating 13 states. There were “slave” states and “free” states but all flew the American flag.

1809 The importation of slaves was outlawed by Congress but only after a careful census was taken that determined about the same number of slaves were being born as died keeping the population static but buying, selling and trading continued under the American flag.

1850 The Republican Party was formed for the sole purpose of freeing the slaves. We still had the American flag but there were more stars for the new states. Congress carefully balanced the number of slave states as opposed to the number of free states. Texas was not allowed to become a member of the United States as a slave state for nearly 10 years after gaining independence from Mexico because there was not another free state available until Maine entered the Union to balance things out. Slavery was still allowed under the stars and stripes with two additional stars.

So far our ancestors under British flag then the United States under the American flag had been allowing slavery continuously for about 225 years.

In 1860 a Republican named Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Some of the slave states felt threatened and for a variety of reasons, slavery being one of them, decided to secede from the Union. The centuries long concept of slave state/free state was apparently coming to an end. Lincoln and Congress felt they could not allow this nation to be fragmented and declared war.

1862 After the Union army had received a series of ass-kickings there was a move afoot to allow the Confederacy to indeed form their own country to stop the slaughter. Lincoln saw that “preserving the Union” was not going to get the job done and changed horses from patriotism to freeing the slaves making it an issue of conscience.

1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slave “in those states in rebellion”. This document was ignored by the Union army because they had their hands full with the Confederate army making the Proclamation unenforceable. In fact the Proclamation made things worse. Slaves would join passing Union infantry units giving them more mouths to feed. There were four slave states that did not join the Confederacy and they continued buying, selling and trading slaves throughout the war without interference. They were Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and Missouri...they continued to fly the American flag the entire time.

1865 The war essentially ended in April with the near destruction of the southern states and its armies. In December, 1865 the 13^th amendment was ratified which banned slavery in the United States and it possessions. Thus ended 245 years of continuous slavery in the colonies under the British flag and the United States under the American flag. The American flag and the British flag had been flown by our ancestors over millions of slaves continuously for 240 years...like it or not, that is what happened. Did you know that there was 460,000 Americans (both blue and gray) that died in that war? That is more than all other wars America has been involved in combined. It is the worst tragedy this country has ever endured...and I am supposed to forget about it? Not likely.

                 This Date in History July 8

1960 Two months earlier an American CIA espionage aircraft called a U-2 is shot down over central Russia. This US aircraft was capable of flying at altitudes about 80,000 feet and the CIA believed that the Russians had no defense against such a high flying plane. In fact, the CIA had been flying these missions since 1956 with no ill effects but apparently the Russians had perfected a missile that could reach that altitude. On this date the pilot of that aircraft who survived a bailout, Francis Gary Powers, went on trial in Russia for espionage. There was little defense for Powers because he indeed was caught in the act of espionage. He was sentenced to 10 years but only served two. He was traded for Soviet spy Rudolph Abel. After returning to the US he was given a cold shoulder by the intelligence community because he failed to arm the bomb in the aircraft that would have blown it to smithereens and it would have been unlikely that the Russians could have identified it as American. But as it was, large pieces of the aircraft crashed to earth and were reassembled and identified. Also, Powers had a cyanide capsule in his flight suit and was supposed to have committed suicide but he didn’t. In typical government fashion they wait until Powers died years later before acknowledging his contribution to US intelligence. He had flown over Russia several times before being shot down. His family was given several medals and ribbons that Powers was due, too little, too late.

1928 On this date Rose Booher, her son Fred and two transient workers are found shot to death on the Booher ranch in Manville, Ontario, Canada. The RCMP (Mounties) cannot find a clue as to the identity of the murderer. They do find that the victims were shot with a rifle of the caliber of one that was stolen a month or two earlier from an adjoining ranch. They bring in Rose’s oldest son named Vernon for questioning but got nowhere. So they resort to witchcraft. They employ a renowned French psychic named Max Langsner from Vienna, Austria. Max claimed he could “read” the mind of criminals. Max showed up and has a chat with Vernon that apparently went no where. Then Max suddenly went to the Mounties and told them where the murder weapon was hidden. The Mounties went to the spot designated and found a rifle that turned out to be the stolen rifle. When confronted with this Vernon confessed. He said that he despised his mother and wanted to leave no witnesses so he killed them all. He said the only one he regretted was killing his younger brother Fred. Vernon went to meet his maker wearing a hemp necktie.

             Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.