“The Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question” [Review]
This highly offensive essay,“The Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question” is a written by Thomas Carlyle published in 1849 in the “Frasers Magazine for Town and Country”. His essay was reprinted four years later, renamed using the word nigger. His deeply controversial and racist essay was greeted with shock and anger because Carlyle was one of the most influential writers of England at the time. Carlyle's essay is about his own ideology, specifically how the work of the West Indians was to work and the work of the British was to ensure that the West Indians work. Numerous writers and scholars have negated Carlyle's philosophy but one stand out is African explorer, abolitionist and Black Nationalist, Martin R. Delany. In Delany's book “In Search for a Place: Black Separatism and Africa”. Delany's articulation of arguments tells us that he firmly negates Carlyle's stance and disapproves of his racist theories. That is, "To succeed as a state or nation, we must become self-reliant, and thereby able to create our own ways and means; and a trade created in Africa by civilized Africans, would be a national rock of 'everlasting ages'" (Delany 120) Delany states here, the answer to Carlyle, that is, blacks are a kind of their own and need not a supervising power but self-dependence to embrace true liberation.
Delany's argument calls for liberation and revolution. He tells us the root cause for slavery is money. The ignorance of Carlyle (and maybe his contemporaries) especially when he uses ‘divine right’ to justify slavery shows his nonchalance in the destruction of another people. 'The destruction of every hope entertained', though aggressive, Delany sets an emotional tone in this argument, that tells us people lost lives under this sort of ignorance. Any reader of the “The Negro Question” has every right to be shocked and angry at his nonchalant intentions for 'men'.
A third outrageous, nationalistic and racist argument is offered by Carlyle. He discusses the supremacy of the Saxon British. “they hitherto have cultivated with some manfulness; and when a manfuller class of cultivators, stronger, worthier to have such land, abler to bring fruit from it, shall make their appearance, they, doubt it not, by fortune of war, and other confused negotiation and vicissitude, will be declared by nature and fact to be the worthier.” Here Carlyle reinforces his point of the idea that the Indian’s work is to work and the English's work is to ensure slaves work. Carlyle is saying here, that without English dominance prevalent in the West Indies that it would turn into a “tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous jungle.” (673) Here, the previous Delany point would prove why Carlyle is wrong again. Africa (or in this case, the Indies) belong to its inhabitants. The English who never had any care for the West Indians, they're land, wants or the requirements of its inhabitants, do not want to rebuild the civilization but exploit it for profit thus destroying the land and its people.
"To succeed as a state or nation, we must become self-reliant, and thereby able to create our own ways and means; and a trade created in Africa by civilized Africans, would be a national rock of 'everlasting ages'" (120) Delany states here, the answer to Carlyle, that is, blacks are a kind of their own and need not a supervising power but self-dependence to embrace true liberation. Carlyle does nothing in any way to prove himself as a sophisticated writer of his time but he does show his true colors and put his own entire culture and legacy to shame by advocating the destruction of another people. Carlyle once an influential writer validated his decline with “The Negro Question”. Martin R. Delany would prove Carlyle’s opinion to be wrong in the fact that liberation for black people means freedom from all oppressors. And if the White man’s job from God is in fact to oppress ‘men’ (black people), then there would not be monetary profit for only men of European descent. The world would be turned into a dystopia if slavery was justified by ‘divine right’.
My Philanthropic Friends: It is my painful duty to address some words to you, this evening, upon the rights of negroes. Taking, as we hope we do, an extensive survey of social affairs, which we find all in a state of the frightfullest embroilment, and, as it were, of inextricable final bankruptcy, just at present, and being desirous to adjust ourselves in that huge up-break, and unutterable welter of tumbling ruins, and to see well that our grand proposed Association of Associations, the UNIVERSAL ABOLITION-OF-PAIN-ASSOCIATION, which is meant to be the consummate golden flower, and summary of modern philanthropisms, all in one, do not issue as a universal "Sluggard-and-Scoundrel Protection Society" -- we have judged that, before constituting ourselves, it would be very proper to commune earnestly with one another, and discourse together on the leading elements of our great problem, which surely is one of the greatest. With this view, the council has decided, both that the negro question, as lying at the bottom, was to be the first handled, and, if possible, the first settled; and then, also, what was of much more questionable wisdom, that -- that, in short, I was to be speaker on the occasion. An honorable duty! yet, as I said, a painful one! Well, you shall hear what I have to say on the matter; and you will not, in the least, like it.
West Indian affairs, as we all know, and some of us know to our cost, are in a rather troublous condition this good while. In regard to West Indian affairs, however, Lord John Russell is able to comfort us with one fact, indisputable where so many are dubious, that the negroes are all very happy and doing well. A fact very comfortable indeed. West Indian whites, it is admitted, are far enough from happy; West Indian colonies not unlike sinking wholly into ruin; at home, too, the British whites are rather badly off-several millions of them hanging on the verge of continual famine -- and, in single towns, many thousands of them very sore put to it, at this time, not to live "well," or as a man should, in any sense, temporal or spiritual, but to live at all-these, again, are uncomfortable facts; and they are extremely extensive and important ones. But, thank heaven, our interesting black population equaling, almost, in number of heads, one of the ridings of Yorkshire, and in worth (in quantity of intellect, faculty, docility, energy, and available human valor and value), perhaps one of the streets of seven dials --are all doing remarkably well. "Sweet blighted lilies "'-- as the American epitaph on the niggar child has it -- sweet blighted lilies, they are holding up their heads again! How pleasant, in the universal bankruptcy abroad, and dim, dreary stagnancy at home, as if, for England too, there remained nothing but to suppress Chartist riots, banish united Irishmen, vote the supplies, and wait, with arms crossed, till black anarchy and social death devoured us also, as it has done the others; how pleasant to have always this fact to fall back upon; our beautiful black darlings are at last happy; with little labor except to the teeth, which, surely, in those excellent horse-jaws of theirs, will not fail!
Exeter Hall, my philanthropic friends, has had its way in this matter. The twenty millions, a mere trifle, despatched with a single dash of the pen, are paid; and, far over the sea, we have a few black persons rendered extremely "free" indeed. Sitting yonder, with their beautiful muzzles up to the ears in pumpkins, imbibing sweet pulps and juices; [p.529] the grinder and incisor teeth ready for every new work, and the pumpkins cheap as grass in those rich climates; while the sugar crops rot round them, uncut, because labor cannot be hired, so cheap are the pumpkins; and at home, we are but required to rasp from the breakfast loaves of our own English laborers, some slight "differential sugar duties." and lend a poor half million, or a few more millions, now and then, to keep that beautiful state of matters going on. A state of matters lovely to contemplate, in these emancipated epochs of the human mind, which has earned us, not only the praises of Exeter Hall, and loud, long-eared halleluiahs of laudatory psalmody from the friends of freedom everywhere, but lasting favor (it is hoped) from the heavenly powers themselves; which may, at least, justly appeal to the heavenly powers, and ask them, if ever, in terrestrial procedure, they saw the match of it! Certainly, in the past history of the human species, it has no parallel; nor, one hopes, will it have in the future.
Sunk in deep froth-oceans of "Benevolence," "Fraternity," "Emancipation-principle," "Christian Philanthropy," and other most amiable-looking, but most baseless, and, in the end, baleful and all-bewildering jargon -- sad product of a skeptical eighteenth century, and of poor human hearts, left destitute of any earnest guidance, and disbelieving that there ever was any, christian or heathen, and reduced to believe, in rosepink sentimentalism alone, and to cultivate the same under its christian, anti-christian, broad-brimmed, Brutus-headed, and other forms -- has not the human species gone strange roads during that period? and poor Exeter Hall, cultivating the broad-brimmed form of christian sentimentalism, and long talking, and bleating, and braying, in that strain -- has it not worked out results? Our West India legislatings, with their spoutings. anti-spoutings, and interminable jangle and babble-our twenty millions, down on the nail for blacks of our own-thirty gradual millions more, and many brave British lives to boot, in watching blacks of other people's-and now, at last, our ruined sugar estates, differential sugar duties, "immigration loan," and beautiful blacks, sitting there, up to the ears in pumpkins, and doleful whites, sitting here, without potatoes to eat; never, till now, I think, did the sun look down on such a jumble of human nonsenses, of which, with the two hot nights of the Missing-Despatch Debate,* God grant that the measure might now, at last, be full! But no, it is not yet full; we have a long way to travel back, and terrible flounderings to make, and, in fact, an immense load of nonsense to dislodge from our poor heads, and manifold cobwebs to rend from our poor eyes, before we get into the road again, and can begin to act as serious men that have work to do in this universe, and no longer as windy sentimentalists, that merely have speeches to deliver, and despatches to write. O Heaven! in West Indian matters, and in all manner of matters, it is so with us-the more is the sorrow! The West Indies, it appears, are short of labor, as, indeed, is very conceivable in those circumstances. Where a black man, by working half an hour a day (such is the calculation), can supply himself, by aid of sun and soil, with as much pumpkin as will suffice, he is likely to be [p.530] a little stiff to raise into hard work! Supply and demand, which, science says, should be brought to bear on him, have an up-hill task-of it with such a man. Strong sun supplies itself gratis -- rich soil, in those unpeopled or half-peopled regions, almost gratis: these are his supply; and half an hour a day, directed upon these, will produce pumpkin, which is his "demand." The fortunate black man! very swiftly does he settle his account with supply and demand; not so swiftly the less fortunate white man of these tropical localities. He, himself, cannot work; and his black neighbor, rich in pumpkin, is in no haste to help him. Sunk to the ears in pumpkin, imbibing saccharine juices, and much at his ease in the creation, he can listen to the less fortunate white man's "demand," and take his own time in supplying it. Higher wages, massa; higher, for your cane crop cannot wait; still higher -- till no conceivable opulence of cane crop will cover such wages! In Demerara, as I read in the blue book of last year, the cane crop, far and wide, stands rotting; the fortunate black gentlemen: strong in their pumpkins, having all struck till the "demand" rise a little. Sweet, blighted lilies, now getting up their heads again!
Science, however, has a remedy still. Since the demand is so pressing, and the supply so inadequate (equal, in fact, to nothing in some places, as appears), increase the supply; bring more blacks into the labor market, then will the rate fall, says science. Not the least surprising part of our West Indian policy, is this recipe of "immigration;" of keeping down the labor-market in those islands, by importing new Africans to labor and live there. If the Africans that are already there could be made to lay down their pumpkins and labor for a living, there are already Africans enough. If the new Africans, after laboring a little, take to pumpkins like the others, what remedy is there? To bring in new and ever new Africans, say you, till pumpkins themselves grow dear -- till the country is crowded with Africans, and black men there, like white men here, are forced, by hunger, to labor for their living? That will be a consummation. To have "emancipated" the West Indies into a black Ireland -- " free,"' indeed, but an Ireland, and black! The world may yet see prodigies, and reality be stranger than a nightmare dream.
Our own white or sallow Ireland, sluttishly starving, from age to age, on its act-of-parliament "freedom," was hitherto the flower of mismanagement among the nations; but what will this be to a negro Ireland, with pumpkins themselves fallen scarce like potatoes? Imagination cannot fathom such an object; the belly of chaos never held the like. The human mind, in its wide wanderings, has not dreamt, yet, of such a "freedom" as that will be. Toward that, if Exeter Hall, and science of supply and demand, are to continue our guides in the matter, we are daily traveling, and even struggling, with loans of half a million, and such like, to accelerate ourselves.
Truly, my philanthropic friends, Exeter Hall philanthropy is wonderful; and the social science -- not a "gay science," but a rueful --which finds the secret of this universe in "supply and demand," and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone, is also wonderful. Not a "gay science," I should say, like some we have heard of; no, a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; [p.531] what we might call, by way of eminence, the dismal science. These two, Exeter Hall philanthropy and the Dismal Science, led by any sacred cause of black emancipation, or the like, to fall in love and make a wedding of it -- will give birth to progenies and prodigies: dark extensive moon-calves, unnameable abortions, wide-coiled monstrosities, such as the world has not seen hitherto!
In fact, it will behoove us of this English nation, to overhaul our West Indian procedure from top to bottom; and to ascertain a little better what it is that fact and nature demand of us, and what only Exeter Hall, wedded to the Dismal Science, demands. To the former set of demands we will endeavor, at our peril -- and worse peril than our purse's, at our soul's peril -- to give all obedience. To the latter we will very frequently demur, and try if we cannot stop short where they contradict the former, and, especially, before arriving at the black throat of ruin, whither they appear to be leading us. Alas, in many other provinces, beside the West Indian, that unhappy wedlock of philanthropic liberalism and the Dismal Science, has engendered such all-enveloping delusions, of the moon-calf sort -- and wrought huge woe for us, and for the poor, civilized world, in these days! And sore will be the battle with said moon-calves; and terrible the struggle to return out of our delusions, floating rapidly on which, not the West Indies alone, but Europe generally, is nearing the Niagara Falls. [Here various persons, in an agitated manner, with an air of indignation, left the room; especially one very tall gentleman, in white trousers, whose boots creaked much. The President, in a resolved voice, with a look of official rigor, whatever his own private feelings might be, enjoined, " Silence! Silence!" The meeting again sat motionless.]
My philanthropic friends, can you discern no fixed headlands in this wide-weltering deluge of benevolent twaddle and revolutionary grapeshot that has burst forth on us -- no sure bearings at all? Fact and nature, it seems to me, say a few words to us, if, happily, we have still an ear for fact and nature. Let us listen a little, and try. And first, with regard to the West Indies, it may be laid down as a principle, which no eloquence in Exeter Hall, or Westminster Hall, or elsewhere, can invalidate or hide, except for a short time only, that no black man, who will not work according to what ability the gods have given him for working, has the smallest right to eat pumpkin, or to any fraction of land that will grow pumpkin, however plentiful such land may be, but has an indisputable and perpetual right to be compelled, by the real proprietors of said land, to do competent work for his living. This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who are born into this world. To do competent work, to labor honestly according to the ability given them; for that, and for no other purpose, was each one of us sent into this world; and woe is to every man who by friend or by foe, is prevented from fulfilling this, the end of his being. That is the'" unhappy" lot -- lot equally unhappy cannot otherwise be provided for man. Whatsoever prohibits or prevents a man from this, his sacred appointment, to labor while he lives on earth -- that, I say, is the man's deadliest enemy; and all men are called upon to do what is in their power, or opportunity, toward delivering him from it. If it be his own indolence that prevents and prohibits him, then his own indolence is the [p.532] enemy he must be delivered from; and the first "right" he has -- poor indolent blockhead, black or white -- is, that every unprohibited man, whatsoever wiser, more industrious person may be passing that way, shall endeavor to "emancipate" him from his indolence, and, by some wise means, as I said, compel him to do the work he is fit for. This is the eternal law of nature for a man, my beneficient Exeter Hall friends; this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and, if need be, compelled, to do what work the Maker of him has intended, by the making of him for this world. Not that he should eat pumpkin with never such felicity in the West India islands is, or can be, the blessedness of our black friend -- but that he should do useful work there, according as the gifts have been bestowed on him for that. And his own happiness, and that of others around him, will alone be possible, by his and their getting into such a relation that this can be permitted him, and, in case of need, that this can be compelled him. I beg you to understand this, for you seem to have a little forgotten it, and there lie a thousand inferences in it, not quite useless for Exeter Hall, at present. The idle black man in the West Indies, had, not long since, the right, and will again, under better form, if it please Heaven, have the right (actually the first "right of man" for an indolent person) to be compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will, who had constructed him with such and such prefigurements of capability. And I incessantly pray Heaven, all men, the whitest alike, and the blackest, the richest and the poorest, in other regions of the world, had attained precisely the same right, the divine right of being compelled (if "permitted" will not answer) to do what work they are appointed for, and not to go idle another minute, in a life so short! Alas, we had then a perfect world! and the millennium and true "organization of labor," and reign of complete blessedness, for all workers and men, had then arrived, which, in these, our own poor districts of the planet, as we all lament to know, it is very far from having yet done.
Let me suggest another consideration withal; West India islands, still full of waste fertility, produce abundant pumpkins; pumpkins, however, you will please to observe, are not the sole requisite for human well-being. No! for a pig they are the one thing needful -- but for a man, they are only the first of several things needful. And now, as to the right of chief management in cultivating those West India lands -- as to the "right of property" so called, and of doing what you like with your own. The question is abstruse enough. Who it may be that has a right to raise pumpkins and other produce on those islands, perhaps none can, except temporarily, decide. The islands are good withal for pepper, for sugar, for sago, arrowroot, for coffee, perhaps for cinnamon and precious spices-things far nobler than pumpkins, and leading toward commerces, arts, politics, and social developments, which, alone, are the noble product, where men (and not pigs with pumpkins) are the parties concerned! Well, all this fruit, too, fruit spicy and commercial, fruit spiritual and celestial, so far beyond the merely pumpkinish and grossly terrene, lies in the West India lands; and the ultimate "proprietorship" of them -- why, I suppose, it will vest in him who can the best educe from them, whatever of noble produce they were created fit for yielding. He, I compute, is the real [p.533] "Vicegerent of the Maker" there; in him, better and better chosen, and not in another, is the "property" vested by decree of Heaven's chancery itself!
Up to this time, it is the Saxon British mainly; they hitherto have cultivated with some manfulness; and when a manfuller class of cultivators, stronger, worthier to have such land, abler to bring fruit from it, shall make their appearance, they, doubt it not, by fortune of war, and other confused negotiation and vicissitude, will be declared by nature and fact to be the worthier, and will become proprietors, perhaps, also, only for a time. That is the law, I take it, ultimate supreme, for all lands, in all countries, under this sky. The one perfect, Eternal Proprietor, is the Maker who created them; the temporary, better or worse proprietor, is he whom the Maker has sent on that mission; he who the best hitherto can educe from said lands the beneficent gifts the Maker endowed them with -- or, which is but another definition of the same person, he who leads hitherto the manfullest life on that bit of soil, doing better than another yet found can do, the Eternal Purpose and Supreme Will there. And now observe, my friends. it was not Black Quashee, or those he represents, that made those West India islands what they are, or can, by any hypothesis, be considered to have the right of growing pumpkins there. For countless ages, since they first mounted oozy on the back of earthquakes, from their dark bed in the ocean deeps, and reeking, saluted the tropical sun, and ever onward, till the European white man first saw them, some three short centuries ago, those islands had produced mere jungle, savagery, poison reptiles and swamp malaria till the white European first saw them, they were, as if not yet created; their noble elements of cinnamon -- sugar, coffee, pepper, black and gray, lying all asleep, waiting the white Enchanter, who should say to them, awake! Till the end of human history, and the sounding of the trump of doom, they might have lain so, had Quashee, and the like of him, been the only artists in the game. Swamps, fever-jungles, maneating caribs, rattle-snakes, and reeking waste and putrefaction: this had been the produce of them under the incompetent caribal (what we call cannibal) possessors till that time; and Quashee knows, himself, whether ever he could have introduced an improvement. Him, had he, by a miraculous chance, been wafted thither, the caribals would have eaten, rolling him as a fat morsel under their tongue-for him, till the sounding of the trump of doom, the rattlesnakes and savageries would have held on their way. It was not he, then -- it was another than he! Never, by art of his, could one pumpkin have grown there, to solace any human throat; nothing but savagery, and reeking putrefaction could have grown there! These plentiful pumpkins, I say, therefore, are not his; no, they are another's; they are only his under conditions -- conditions which Exeter Hall, for the present, has forgotten; but which nature, and the Eternal Powers, have, by no manner of means, forgotten, but do, at all moments, keep in mind; and, at the right moment, will, with the due impressiveness, perhaps in rather a terrible manner, bring again to our mind also! If Quashee will not honestly aid in bringing out those sugars, cinnamons, and nobler products of the West India islands, for the benefit [p.534] of all mankind, then, I say, neither will the powers permit Quashee to continue growing pumpkins there for his own lazy benefit, but will sheer him out, by and by, like a lazy gourd overshadowing rich ground -- him, and all that partake with him -- perhaps in a very terrible manner. For, under favor of Exeter Hall, the "terrible manner" is not yet quite extinct with the destinies in this universe; nor will it quite cease, I apprehend, for soft-sawder or philanthropic stump-oratory, now, or henceforth. No! the gods wish, besides pumpkins, that spices and valuable products be grown in their West Indies; thus much they have declared in so making the West Indies; infinitely more they wish -- that manful, industrious men occupy their West Indies, not indolent, two-legged cattle, however "happy" over their abundant pumpkins! Both these things, we may be assured, the immortal gods have decided upon -- passed their eternal act of parliament for; and both of them, though all terrestial parliaments and entities oppose it to the death, shall be done. Quashee, if he will not help in bringing out the spices, will get himself made a slave again (which state will be a little less ugly than his present one), and with beneficient whip, since other methods avail not, will be compelled to work. Or, alas, let him look across to Hayti, and trace a far sterner prophecy! Let him, by his ugliness, idleness, rebellion, banish all white men from the West Indies, and make it all one Hayti, with little or no sugar-growing, black Peter exterminating black Paul, and, where a garden of the Hesperides might be, nothing but a tropical dog-kennel and pestiferous jungle -- does he think that will forever continue pleasant to gods and men? I see men, the rose-pink cant all peeled away from them, land one day on those black coasts; men sent by the laws of this universe, and the inexorable course of things; men hungry for gold, remorseless, fierce as old buccaneers were -- and a doom for Quashee, which I had rather not contemplate! The gods are long-suffering; but the law, from the beginning, was, He that will not work shall perish from the earth -- and the patience of the gods has limits!
Before the West Indies could grow a pumpkin for any negro, how much European heroism had to spend itself in obscure battle; to sink, in mortal agony, before the jungles, the putrescences and waste savageries could become arable, and the devils be, in some measure, chained there! The West Indies grow pineapples, and sweet fruits, and spices; we hope they will, one day, grow beautiful, heroic human lives too, which is surely the ultimate object they were made for; beautiful souls and brave; sages, poets, what not -- making the earth nobler round them, as their kindred from of old have been doing; true "splinters of the old Hartz Rock;" heroic white men, worthy to be called old Saxons, browned with a mahogany tint in those new climates and conditions. But under the soil of Jamaica, before it could even produce spices, or any pumpkin, the bones of many thousand British men had to be laid. Brave Colonel Fortescue, brave Colonel Sedgwick, brave Colonel Brayne -- the dust of many thousand strong old English hearts lies there, worn down swiftly in frightful travail, chaining the devils, which were manifold. Heroic Blake contributed a bit of his life to that Jamaica. A bit of the great Protector's own life lies there -- beneath those pumpkins lies a bit of the life that was Oliver Cromwell's. How [p.535] the great Protector would have rejoiced, to think that all this was to issue in growing pumpkins, to keep Quashee in a comfortably idle condition! No, that is not the ultimate issue, not that!
The West Indian whites, so soon as this bewilderment of philanthropic and other jargon abates from them, and their poor eyes get to discern a little what the facts are and what the laws are, will strike into another course, I apprehend! I apprehend they will, as a preliminary, resolutely refuse to permit the black man any privilege whatever of pumpkins till he agrees for work in return. Not a square inch of soil in those fruitful isles, purchased by British blood, shall any black man hold to grow pumpkins for him, except on terms that are fair toward Britain. Fair; see that they be not unfair, not toward ourselves, and still more, not toward him. For injustice is forever accursed; and precisely our unfairness toward the enslaved black man has -- by inevitable revulsion and fated turn of the wheel -- brought about these present confusions. Fair toward Britain it will be, that Quashee give work for privilege to grow pumpkins. Not a pumpkin, Quashee, not a square yard of soil, till you agree to do the state so many days of service. Annually that soil will grow you pumpkins; but annually also without fail, shall you, for the owner thereof, do your appointed days of labor. The state has plenty of waste soil; but the state will religiously give you none of it on other terms. The state wants sugar from these islands, and means to have it; wants virtuous industry in these islands, and must have it. The state demands of you such service as will bring these results, this latter result which includes all. Not a black Ireland, by immigration, and boundless black supply for the demand; not that -- may the gods forbid! -- but a regulated West Indies, with black working population in adequate numbers; all "happy,"' if they find it possible; and not entirely unbeautifutl to gods and men, which latter result they must find possible! All "happy" enough; that is to say, all working according to the faculty they have got; making a little more divine this earth which the gods have given them. Is there any other "happiness" -- if it be not that of pigs fattening daily to the slaughter? So will the state speak by and by.
Any poor, idle black man, any idle white man, rich or poor, is a mere eye-sore to the state; a perpetual blister on the skin of the state. The state is taking measures. some of them rather extensive, in Europe at this very time, and already, is in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere, rather tremendous measures, to get its rich white then set to work; for, alas. they also have sat, negro-like, up to the ears in pumpkin, regardless of "work," and of a world all going to waste for their idleness! Extensive measures, I say; and already (as, in all European lands, this scandalous fear of street-barricades and fugitive sham-kings exhibits) tremendous measures for the thing is instant to be done.
The thing must be done everywhere: must is the word. Only it is so terribly difficult to do; and will take generations yet, this of getting our rich European white men "set to work!'" But yours in the West Indies, my obscure black friends, your work, and the getting of you set to it, is a simple affair; and by diligence, the West Indian legislatures, and royal governor, setting their faces fairly to the problem, will get it done. You are not " slaves" now; nor do I wish, if it can be [p.536] avoided, to see you slaves again; but decidedly you will have to be servants to those that are born wiser than you, that are born lords of you -- servants to the whites, if they are (as what mortal can doubt they are?) born wiser than you. That, you may depend upon it, my obscure black friends, is and was always the law of the world, for you and for all men; to be servants, the more foolish of us to the more wise; and only sorrow, futility and disappointment will betide both, till both, in some approximate degree, get to conform to the same. Heaven's laws are not repealable by earth, however earth may try and it has been trying hard. in some directions, of late! I say, no well being, and in the end no being at all, will be possible for you or us, if the law of heaven is not complied with. And if "slave" mean essentially "servant hired for life," or by a contract of long continuance, and not easily dissoluble -- I ask, Whether in all human things, the "contract of long continuance" is not precisely the contract to be desired, were the right terms once found for it? Servant hired for life, were the right terms once found, which I do not pretend they are, seems to me much preferable to servants hired for the month, or by contract dissoluble in a day. An ill-situated servant, that -- servant grown to be nomadic; between whom and his master a good relation cannot easily spring up!
To state articulately, and put into practical law books, what on all sides is fair from the West India white to the West India black; what relations the Eternal Maker has established between these two creatures of His: what he has written down, with intricate but ineffaceable record, legible to candid human insight, in the respective qualities, strengths, necessities and capabilities of each of the two; this will be a long problem; only to be solved by continuous human endeavor, and earnest effort gradually perfecting itself as experience successively yields new light to it. This will be to "find the right terms" of a contract that will endure, and be sanctioned by Heaven and obtain prosperity on earth, between the two. A long problem, terribly neglected hitherto; whence these West Indian sorrows; and Exeter Hall monstrosities. just now! But a problem which must be entered upon, and by degrees be completed. A problem which, I think, the English people, if they mean to retain human colonies, and not black Irelands in addition to the white, cannot begin too soon! What are the true relations between negro and white, their mutual duties under the sight of the Maker of them both; what human laws will assist both to comply more and more with these? The solution, only to be gained by earnest endeavor and sincere experience, such as have never yet been bestowed on it, is not yet here; the solution is perhaps still distant; but some approximation to it, various real approximations, could be made. and must be made; this of declaring that negro and white are unrelated, loose from one another, on a footing of perfect equality, and subject to no law but that of supply and demand according to the Dismal Science; this which contradicts the palpablest facts, is clearly no solution, but a cutting of the knot assunder; and every hour we persist in this is leading us toward dissolution instead of solution.
What, then, is practicably to be done? Much, very much, my [p.537] friends, to which it hardly falls to me to allude at present; but all this of perfect equality, of cutting loose from one another; all this, with "immigration loan," "happiness of black peasantry," and the other melancholy stuff that has followed from it, will first of all require to be undone, and have the ground cleared of it, by way of preliminary to "doing!"
Already one hears of black Adscripti glebae; which seems a promising arrangement, one of the first to suggest itself in such a complicacy. It appears the Dutch blacks, in Java, are already a kind of Adscripts, after the manner of the old European serfs; bound by royal authority, to give so many days of work a year. Is not this something like a real approximation; the first step toward all manner of such? Wherever, in British territory, there exists a black man, and needful work to the just extent is not to be got out of him, such a law, in defect of better, should be brought to bear upon said black man! How many laws of like purport, conceivable some of them, might be brought to bear upon the black man and the white, with all despatch, by way of solution instead of dissolution to their complicated case just now! On the whole, it ought to be rendered possible, ought it not, for white men to live beside black men, and in some just manner to command black men, and produce West Indian fruitfulness by means of them? West Indian fruitfulness will need to be produced. If the English cannot find the method for that, they may rest assured there will another come (brother Jonathan or still another) who can. He it is whom the gods will bid continue in the West Indies, bidding us ignominiously, Depart, ye quack-ridden. incompetent!--
One other remark. as to the present trade in slaves, and to our suppression of the same. If buying of black war-captives in Africa, and bringing them over to the sugar-islands for sale again, be, as I think it is, a contradiction of the laws of this universe, let us heartily pray to Heaven to end the practice; let us ourselves help Heaven to end it, wherever the opportunity is given. If it be the most flagrant and alarming contradiction to the said laws which is now witnessed on this earth; so flagrant and alarming that a just man cannot exist, and follow his affairs in the same planet with it; why, then indeed ----. But is it, quite certainly, such? Alas, look at that group of unsold; unbought, unmarketable Irish "free" citizens, dying there in the ditch, whither my lord of rackrent and the constitutional sheriffs have evicted them; or at those "divine missionaries," of the same free country, now traversing, with rags on back and child on each arm, the principal thoroughfares of London, to tell men what "freedom " really is; -- and admit that there may be doubts on that point! But if it is, I say, the most alarming contradiction to the said laws which is now witnessed on this earth; so flagrant a contradiction that a just man cannot exist, and follow his affairs in the same planet with it, then, sure enough, let us, in God's name, fling aside all our affairs, and hasten out to put an end to it, as the first thing the Heavens want us to do. By all manner of means; this thing done, the Heavens will prosper all other things with us! Not a doubt of it -- provided your premise be not doubtful.
But now furthermore give me leave to ask: Whether the way of doing it is this somewhat surprising one, of trying to blockade the con-[p.538]tinent of Africa itself, and to watch slave-ships along the extremely extensive and unwholesome coast? The enterprise is very gigantic and proves hitherto as futile as any enterprise has lately done. Certain wise men once, before this, set about confining the cuckoo by a big circular wall; but they could not manage it! Watch the coast of Africa, good part of the coast of the terraqueous globe? And the living centers of this slave mischief, the live coal that produces all this world-wide smoke, it appears, lie simply in two points, Cuba and Brazil, are perfectly accessible and manageable. If the laws of Heaven do authorize you to keep the whole world in a pother about this question -- if you really appeal to the Almighty God upon it, and set common interests, and terrestrial considerations, and common sense, at defiance in behalf of it -- why, in Heaven's name, not go to Cuba and Brazil with a sufficiency of 74-gun ships, and signify to those nefarious countries, that their procedure on the negro question is too bad; that of all the solicisms now submitted to on earth, it is the most alarming and transcendent, and, in fact is such that a just man cannot follow his affairs any longer in the same planet with it; that they clearly will not, the nefarious populations will not, for love or fear, watching or entreaty, respect the rights of the negro enough; wherefore you here, with your seventy-fours. are come to be king over them, and will, on the spot, henceforth see for yourselves that they do it. Why not, if Heaven do send you? The thing can be done; easily. if you are sure of that proviso. It can be done, it is the way to "suppress the slave-trade;" and so far as yet appears, the one way.
Most thinking people! -- If hen-stealing prevail to a plainly unendurable extent. will you station police officers at every henroost; and keep them watching and cruising incessantly to and fro over the parish in the unwholesome dark, at enormous expense. with almost no effect; or will you not try rather to discover where the fox's den is,and kill the fox? Most thinking people, you know the fox and his den; there he is -- kill him, and discharge your cruisers and police-watchers! Oh. my friends, I feel there is an immense fund of human stupidity circulating among us, and much clogging our affairs for some time past! A certain man has called us, "of all peoples the wisest in action;" but, he added, "the stupidest in speech:" and it is a sore thing, in these constitutional times, times mainly of universal parliamentary and other eloquence, that the "speakers" have all first to emit, in such tumultuous volumes, their human stupor, as the indispensable preliminary, and everywhere we must first see that and its results out, before beginning any business!
"Chocolate Babies have been around for nearly 100 years. With a texture similar to candy corn, but chocolaty flavored, I can understand why they've been a long-time favorite of many.
You can actually still get Chocolate Babies online, but they come in a generic bag and I don't think they're made by Heide anymore.
Though the name could understandably be misconstrued to be politically incorrect..."
"A voice of reform and reason, Ida B. Wells-Barnett led the anti-lynching movement. In 1892 she expanded the column that she wrote for The New York Age and published it as a pamphlet, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. Three years later, she published A Red Record: Tabulated Stastictics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, 1892 - 1894. Concerned with the causes and the occurrences of lynchings , Wells-Barnett argued that white women were making false allegations of rape. She stressed that political and economic reasons, as well as consensual sex, prompted most of the lynchings. She knew this to be true from her many years of research and from personal experience. In 1892 in Memphis, Thomas Moss, a friend of Wells-Barnett, and two other black men were lynched because their grocery store attracted black customers away from a white grocery store.
Born to slave parents in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Wells-Barnett had to take caare of her seve siblings when her parents died during a yellow fever epidemic in 1878. To do so Wells-Barnett used the training that she had recieved at Shaw University (later Rust College) to become a teacher. She moved to Memphis where she began the activism for which she is best known. In 1884, she sat down in the ladies coach, rather than the segregated coach for blacks, and white male passengers had to remove her. She sued, won her case, but a higer court revervesed the decision. When she critiqued the condition of black schools in Memphis, she was fire from her tacher job. She began soliciting subscriptions to the Memphis Free Speech an Headlight, a newspaper she edited, becoming a full-time newspaper-woman. When her editorial on the Thomas Moss incident appeared in the paper, she was at a general conference meeting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Mobs destroyed the office of Free Speech and threatened her life. Wells-Barnett then settled in New York where she began writing the columns of New York Age that would become Southern Horrors.
Because she was interested in a wide range of issues affecting the black community, Wells protested the exclusion of black from Chicago World's fair of1893, publishing twenty thousand copies of her pamphlet, The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition. She stayed in Chicago, formed the Ida B. Wells Club, and married Ferdinand Barnett, a Chicago lawyer. who had two children. The couple had four more children, and with her husbands support, Wells-Barnett was able to continue her activist agenda , founding the first black female suffrage club, the Alpha Suffrage Club, in 1913. When her white Illinois delegates refused to let her march in the national suffrage parade with them, she waited until the right moment and stepped in the front of the procession, thus integrating the suffrage movement. Wells-Barnett was a champion of issue of race and gender and a towering transition from the late 19th century to the Harlem Renaissance."
-Valerie Lee
[African American Women's Literature]
Who is the real Dracula? When the name “Dracula” is mentioned, should we refer to the undead blood-sucking vampire who sleeps in coffins and transforms into a bat, or should we reflect upon a fifteenth century Romanian prince with an obsession for impalement? Such questions lead us to realize that folklore offers us one Dracula, while history offers us another. We can thank Bram Stoker for stealing Dracula’s name and replacing it with a mythical villain who cannot even endure sunlight, and for leaving us to piece together the truth of a forgotten man.[1] When the myth finally dies, and the fables are at last put to bed, the name of Dracula will remain unchanged in our history books – as it has for over half a millennia. Then we will find that the true history of Dracula, in fact, is far more fascinating than any vampire fairy tale.
The real Dracula, Vlad Tepes III Dracula, was born during the winter months of 1431 in the Transylvanian fortress of Sighisoara, located in Romania.[2] Dracula’s father, Vlad II, had three sons: the eldest, Mircea; Vlad, who kept his namesake; and Radu, who would come to be known as “The Handsome.” The early childhoods of Dracula and Radu were typical for sons of the nobility. Dracula’s first steps in becoming a monster were taken on at the age of five, when he began a formal apprenticeship for knighthood. Dracula learned the art of warfare, and the skills of combat deemed necessary for a Christian knight living in turbulent Europe.
Contrary to the popular romantic legends of the Draculas living in Transylvania, they resided just southeast, in the Romanian independent province of Wallachia.[3] Wallachia, a principality, was often found caught in the middle of the constant power struggle between its stronger neighbors, Hungary and Turkey. At that time, Vlad II was living in Transylvania attempting to gather support for his intended effort to seize the Wallachian throne from a pro-Turkish puppet prince. The same year Dracula was born, Vlad II joined a group of Slavic rulers and warlords who swore to uphold the Christian faith by fighting off the advancing Ottoman Empire.[4] The group was known as the Order of the Dragon. It gained Vlad II the Holy Roman Emperor’s pledge to support his claim to the throne of Wallachia.
The Order of the Dragon was created by the Emperor Sigismund to defend the Cross and to war against its enemies, principally the Turks.[5] It was comprised of noble princes and vassals that Sigismund considered useful for both political and military alliances. Dracula’s father was included in this Order, which used the mythical dragon as their emblem.[6] From his induction on, Vlad II had the dragon symbol of the Order displayed on his coinage. True to the modern image of vampires, he also had it embroidered on a black cape over a silk red garment.[7]
Vlad II fell so deeply in love with the idea of being part of the cliquey Order that he adopted the dragon to his name, using the word “Dracul,” which means “The Dragon” in Romanian. His son Vlad III used the sobriquet “Dracula” in the context of “The Son of Dracul” or “The son of he who was a member of the Order of the Dragon.” However, it was only a matter of time until young Vlad Dracula would cause the name to take on a second meaning. Dracula would give his enemies and superstitious peasants good reason to refer to members of the Dracul family as “Devils.” Dracula grew to be so deeply feared and associated with the diabolical, he was even depicted martyring St. Andrew in paintings of the day.[8] Regardless of his devil image, Dracula’s father killed his pro-Turkish rival in 1436, and became the Voevod (Warlord–Prince) of Wallachia with the help of the Order.[9]
However, the political situation in Wallachia remained unstable after Vlad Dracul seized the throne. In 1442, Vlad II decided to keep his principality neutral during Turkey’s invasion of Transylvania.[10] The prince of Wallachia was a vassal of King John Hunyadi of Hungary, but at the same time had been forced to pay steep tributes to Sultan Mehemet. After Hunyadi (leader of the Order of the Dragon) successfully repelled the invasion, Vlad II was driven out of Wallachia as punishment for his neutrality. Vlad II regained his Wallachian throne via the Sultan in 1443 by swearing loyalty to him – not the Order of the Dragon, and by promising to pay steep tributes. Just to prove his goodwill to the Sultan, Vlad II topped it off by sending Vlad III and Radu to Istanbul as hostages.[11] His two youngest sons were sent in 1444; Dracula would stay there until 1448, while Radu would remain until 1462. It was in a cell where young Vlad Dracula grew into a striking figure, with a chalky complexion, long nose, large mouth, and piercing green eyes.[12] He was considered good looking for his day, sporting a lengthy mustache and wearing his hair long.[13]
It would be preposterous to explain how Dracula eventually turned so batty; however, his Turkish captivity surely must have played an important role in his upbringing. It was during this time that Dracula developed his pessimistic and sadistic outlook on life. The years of imprisonment taught Dracula the Turkish language and trained him in Byzantine cynicism, which the Turks had merely inherited from the Greeks.[14] Life became cheap for Dracula from this point on; after all, his own life was constantly threatened, hinging on the good behavior of his father. Any hint of morality that remained in Dracula was swallowed by suspicion and revengefulness. Dracula was known for his insubordination, while the younger Radu was much more malleable.[15]
Sultan Mehemet quickly indoctrinated and converted Radu to Islam, but had trouble with the wiser, more stubborn Dracula.[16] The Sultan’s goal was to make allies of the two Romanians, and to use their claim to the future Wallachian throne to his own advantage. The Sultan’s idea of imprisoning Dracula for twelve years proved to be the wrong way to win over the young Romanian’s heart, and resulted in Dracula developing a permanent hatred for the Turks. Regardless, the Sultan’s plans for Dracula to gain the Wallachian throne eventually came to pass in 1448. Just before Dracula was seated on the Wallachian throne, the Sultan decided to slip him some information: his father and older brother were tortured and buried alive by the Hungarians.[17] Their murders were traced to rival Christian warrior, John Hunyadi, which only added another name to the list of Dracula’s enemies.
Earlier in 1444, Hunyadi launched a campaign to drive the Turks out of Europe. Hunyadi demanded that Vlad II fulfill his oath as a member of the Order of the Dragon and join the crusade against the Turks. Either way Vlad II looked at the situation, he was going to enrage one of his more powerful neighbors. He tried his best to walk a tightrope between them. Vlad II did not join the Christian forces, but instead sent Mircea in hopes that the Sultan would spare his two younger sons. Vlad Dracul and Mircea criticized Hunyadi’s idea of a campaign in the first place, and after the Christian forces were utterly destroyed by the Turks, they accused John Hunyadi of being solely responsible for the debacle.[18] Hunyadi became bitterly hostile toward Vlad II and Mircea, and hired assassins to kill them. After their brutal deaths, Hunyadi placed his own candidate on the throne of Wallachia.
Mehemet loathed the idea of a Hungarian puppet ruling Wallachia, so he released the seventeen year-old Dracula, and helped him seize the Wallachian throne by 1448.[19] Within two months however, Dracula was forced by Hunyadi to surrender the throne, whereby he fled north to Moldavia. Dracula hated the fact that he was just a puppet prince for the Turkish Sultan, so Hunyadi’s threats in fact provided him the opportunity to leave. However, Turkish advances made Moldavia unsafe as well, and by 1451, Dracula was forced to flee back to Transylvania.
Meanwhile, the fact that Radu willingly remained with the Sultan greatly troubled Dracula.[20] He came to believe the only way to both oust the Turks that brainwashed his brother and become the true prince of Wallachia was to seek the help of fellow-Christian John Hunyadi. Dracula temporarily put aside the humiliating murders of his father and older brother, swallowed his pride, and crawled to Hunyadi in an attempt to gain back his throne. The timing bade well for Dracula, since Hunyadi's puppet on the Wallachian throne had recently instituted a series of pro-Turkish policies. To the luck of Dracula, Hunyadi saw him as more reliable, and accepted the allegiance of his old enemy's son. Dracula became Hunyadi’s vassal, received his father’s old Transylvanian duchies, and remained under Hunyadi’s protection.[21]
In 1453, the Christian world was shocked by the final fall of Constantinople to Islam.[22] As a result, John Hunyadi immediately began planning another campaign against the Turks, while Dracula continued waiting for an opportunity to regain his throne. In 1456, Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia while Dracula simultaneously invaded Wallachia with the help of Hungarian forces. Hunyadi was defeated and killed, while Dracula succeeded in taking back the Wallachian throne.[23]
Dracula’s second term as the Prince of Wallachia proved to be his longest and most renowned. His leadership united the Wallachian people like never before, and protected them from any hostile foreign influences. It was during this reign that Dracula initiated his campaign against the Turks. His skill as a Voevod and his infamous acts of cruelty made him a dreaded enemy. There are numerous accounts concerning his atrocities, and it is estimated that anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 people were executed throughout his reigns.[24] Most of the carnage associated with Dracula's name took place during the years of his second reign.
Dracula, not known to procrastinate, began his reign of terror as soon as he was inaugurated. His first significant act of brutality was one of vengeance, which targeted any possible suspects in the murder of his father and older brother. Dracula held a feast at his capital in Tirgoviste for his boyars (nobles) to celebrate his recent coming to power. He knew many of these boyars ousted numerous Wallachian princes in the past, and felt without a doubt they were part of the conspired plot against his father. The boyars were naïve to Dracula’s tactics, and saw the invitation as another opportunity to gorge and drink. During the feast, Dracula asked his noble guests how many princes had ruled during their lifetimes. The answers varied from at least fifty princes, to no less than seven. Dracula felt his point was made, and immediately extended all five hundred of his guests the hospitality of being impaled on the spot.[25]
Dracula worked relentlessly and methodically in eradicating Wallachia’s old boyar class, who were responsible for the undermining and violent overthrowing of previous princes.[26] Dracula was paranoid about any internal threats, and made sure his power would be secure at least within his own principality. He replaced the slaughtered nobles with men from the peasantry and middle class, who proved to be loyal only to their prince. Dracula's acts of cruelty can be interpreted as efforts to secure and strengthen the central government, or they can be seen as the acts of a madman pure and simple. In any case, they were nothing less than atrocities. In reference to the extreme methods used throughout his second reign, Dracula defended himself saying:
My sacred mission is to bring order to Romania. If someone lies or commits any injustice, he is not likely to stay alive, whether nobleman, priest, or common man. There must be security for all in my land. If they say I am a vindictive man, they fear me. And that is well. When a prince is powerful at home, he will be able to do as he wills. If I am feared by the right people, Romania will be strong.[27]
Dracula’s terror tactics indeed united his people, who essentially had little choice whether they wanted to be united or not. He gave his people the ultimatum to either be united, or be impaled until you rot in the sun. Not surprisingly, the choice to be united became popular.
Committing atrocity after atrocity against his own people, Vlad Dracula became known for his inhuman cruelty. The tortures he employed included amputation, eye gouging, strangulation, nails in heads, burning at the stake, cutting off of noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to wild animals, and boiling alive.[28] Dracula however developed a particular taste for subjecting his victims to impalement, which was known to be one of the most agonizing ways of dying imaginable. As his victims twisted and twitched as they neared death, Dracula was known to say, “Oh, what great gracefulness they exhibit!”[29] His obsession with impalement earned him the surname “Tepes,” which means “The Impaler” in Romanian. Even the Turks had a special name set aside for Vlad, and referred to him as “Kaziklu Bey,” which meant “The Impaler Prince.”[30] The horror Dracula put his impaled victims through is nearly incomprehensible.
Vlad Tepes would attach each of his victims’ legs to a horse while forcing a sharpened stake into the body very slowly, lest puncturing a gaping wound, which would kill them on the spot.[31] Dracula made sure the stakes were rounded and oiled so that the victims would writhe in agony for a while before succumbing to the mercies of death.[32] Normally the stake was inserted in the buttocks and through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices, or through the mid-back or chest. Some victims were impaled upside down, while others were impaled through their abdomens. Victims sometimes endured for days, only to have their decaying corpses spitefully left hanging for months.[33]
Dracula’s goal to bring order to Romania was easily accomplished when he forced his critics to consider their alternative – the end of a stake. Vlad Tepes therefore had the power to enforce his order throughout Wallachia, which he did fiercely, ironically insisting on honesty and his own moral code. Crimes ranging from lying and stealing, to ones more serious like killing, were all punished by impalement. Maidens who lost their virginity, adulterous wives, and unchaste widows were all candidates for impalement. Such women often had their breasts removed and their sexual organs cut out before they were impaled through their genitalia.[34]
Dracula meticulously insisted that his people be honest - especially the women, and also demanded that Wallachians be hard working. Like so many other things, Vlad was stringent in that all his subjects work and be productive to the community. He regarded the poor, vagrants, and beggars as mere thieves. Consequently, he once invited all the poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. Apparently, Dracula’s idea of a feast was quite different from that of the poor beggars. Like the nobles he invited earlier, the beggars jumped at the chance of receiving a free meal. After Dracula’s guests gluttonously ate and drank, he ordered the hall to be boarded up and set ablaze. To Vlad’s sadistic approval, no one survived.[35]
Even if you worked regularly, it was still highly probable that one would offend one of the Voevod’s many quirks. Such was the case with many Transylvanian merchants, who whether intentionally or not, ignored Vlad’s numerous trade laws. Vlad Tepes made sure that merchants who cheated their Wallachian customers would be found mounted on a stake beside common thieves.
Although no one was immune to Dracula's terrors, the vast majority of his victims proved to be the merchants and boyars of Transylvania, which gave Dracula a Robin Hood image to some peasants.[36] Dracula viewed the largely Saxon merchants as nothing more than parasites preying upon Romanian natives of Wallachia, while the boyars’ disloyalty could not have been clearer to Vlad. In 1459, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, Dracula rounded up thirty thousand of the merchants and boyars of the Transylvanian city of Brasov. Sadistically proving why he was called “The Impaler,” he then celebrated as he ordered his army to impale the multitude.[37] A German woodcut clearly illustrates Dracula’s feast amongst a forest of stakes and their agonized victims outside Brasov, while at the same time one of his executioners hacked apart the remains of other victims.[38] One wonders how somebody could have an appetite while surrounded with such horror; but considering the legend that he preferred his bread soaked in his victims’ blood, one realizes just how much of a devil Dracula really was.[39] As dreadful as it may seem, scenes like this almost became commonplace while Dracula’s was Voevod. The Impaler thought these measures to be necessary in making others fear him, and more importantly, in keeping his power and order intact.
Being confident in the effectiveness of his law, Dracula even placed a golden cup on display in the central square of his capital, Tirgoviste. The cup was for all the townspeople as well as any thirsty travelers to use, but the Voevod made it clear that it had to remain on the square. Throughout Vlad’s reign, the cup was never stolen and remained completely unmolested in the square.[40] Dracula was not good at making friends, and tempted anyone to disrespect him in the slightest of ways. Such a deliberate flaunting of power only shows how terrified the Wallachians, as well as foreigners, were of Dracula.
Despite the atrocities committed against Wallachians and Transylvanians alike, Voevod Dracula was seen as a hero of Christianity by many Romanians.[41] The wars he waged against the Turks to preserve his homeland have placed him in history books as a valiant military genius; while the atrocities he committed against the Turks only created his demonic image. It would be illogical to imagine a fiend such as Vlad Tepes limiting his terrors exclusively to his own people, when the Turk was the true object of his hatred.[42]
One of the most grisly acts committed by Dracula against the Turks occurred when the Sultan sent two of his ambassadors with a message. When the Sultan’s ambassadors entered Vlad’s throne room, he asked them to remove their turbans. It was considered impolite to address the prince without taking off one's hat, and Vlad oddly enough cared about good manners. The Turks, however, took exception to this request. Most importantly, the turbans were not simply headgear; they were a symbol of Islam and the Eastern culture. In addition, the Sultan was not on the best of terms with Vlad, so flattering him was not of the ambassadors’ concern. The Turks therefore declined to remove their turbans; not knowing just how serious a mistake it was to tempt the likes of Dracula. Vlad immediately ordered his guards to seize them, and then stated that if they were so unwilling to part with the turbans, they should be nailed to their heads. Dracula, in his cruel humor, watched in satisfaction as the Turks writhed and screamed as large spikes were driven through their skulls.[43] Vlad was not very good at making friends.
Just as Vlad reacted violently to insult, he responded very well to flattery. King Mathias, son of John Hunyadi, once sent a messenger to Vlad that apparently did not bring the tidings of good news. It was unknown what news the messenger brought, but Vlad became so enraged that he felt the ambassador deserved to be invited to feast with him. Before the meal, Vlad asked the ambassador if he knew why he was asked to eat with him. The ambassador knew the reputation of Vlad Tepes – and possibly his “feasts,” realized he was angry, and saw two guards standing, holding a spear behind Vlad. Thinking fast, he replied, “My Lord, should I have been responsible for something worthy of death, do as you please, for you are the best judge and in that case you would not be responsible for my death, but I alone.” Vlad burst out laughing and then motioned the soldiers away, and said “Had you not answered me in this fashion, I would truly have impaled you on the spot.”[44] He then enjoyed the feast with the Hungarian ambassador, and showered him with gifts for his return to King Mathias.
Dracula’s relationship with the Turkish Sultan however, would never be on such good terms. In hopes of settling the matter of disputed territories, the Sultan attempted to set up a peaceful meeting with Vlad. The only thing the Sultan set up was another opportunity for Vlad Tepes to prove why his people called him “Tepes.” Suspecting a trap, the Voevod surrounded the appointed meeting place with a Wallachian contingent, and then captured the Turks. To no ones surprise, they had the honor of being subjected to Dracula’s favorite method of tortuous death: impalement on large wooden stakes. Dracula had the stakes arranged in concentric circles, and altered the heights of the spears according to the ranks of the victim – giving the higher ranking enemies the privilege to be elevated.[45] Dracula could not help but make it a habit to thoroughly burn any possible bridges that could lead to peace with the Turks. By the end of his second reign as Voevod of Wallachia, relations with the Turks deteriorated so rapidly that an all-out war seemed inevitable.
In the beginning of 1462, Dracula launched his largest campaign against the Turks in an attempt to drive them out of the Danube River valley. Despite being often outnumbered by the Sultan’s forces, Dracula’s Wallachian army was successful and managed to gain many victories. In retaliation, the Sultan launched a full-scale invasion of Wallachia with a force three times that of Dracula’s. Vlad was forced to temporarily retreat, but first employed guerrilla warfare techniques against the Turks. In what was to be known as the “Night of Terror,” Dracula slipped his army into the enemy’s camp at night, and silently sliced the throats of thousands of Turks.[46] Before his cunning genius could lead him to the Sultan himself, he was forced to retreat altogether.
While retreating, Dracula burned his own towns and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would find nothing to eat or drink.[47] Dracula had a terrifying habit of repeatedly raiding certain villages in his own territory, and murdering great numbers of people. One of these villages was Sibiu, which held a heavy German population. Dracula’s contingent of 20,000 men killed, tortured, and impaled 10,000 of his neighbors in the greater Sibiu area.[48] For reasons unknown, the towns selected for these meaningless attacks were often those with large German populations. As a result, most of the records of Vlad’s atrocities come from propaganda pamphlets printed by the Germans on the newly invented printing press. The most famous picture of Vlad is a woodblock print depicting him eating his dinner on a grassy hill surrounded by a forest of impaled bodies.[49]
The atrocities Dracula committed on Sibiu proved to be meaningless because the Sultan immediately retreated after reaching the capital city of Targoviste, which lay much further east. The Sultan was confronted with a most gruesome scene; one that has earned Dracula the infamous image he holds to this day. Vlad Tepes created the “Forest of the Impaled,” which featured the carcasses of 20,000 Turkish captives impaled on long stakes.[50] The Turkish forces were not known to be the slightest bit squeamish, considering how valiant they fought during the crusades. On the other hand, they never came in such close contact with the likes of Vlad Dracula, who truly was one of a kind.
This sadistically ingenious terror tactic by Vlad Tepes may have won the battle, but not the war. Following the Sultan’s retreat from Wallachia, he left the next phase of the war to Vlad’s younger brother, Radu the Handsome. Radu, the Sultan’s favorite for the Wallachian throne, was provided an army to pursue Dracula across Transylvania. Radu’s army tracked Dracula to his fortress at Poenari. Vlad’s wife, believing that escape was impossible, committed suicide by leaping off the upper walls into the Arges River below.[51] Dracula had constructed a secret passageway in his castle at Poenari, and used it along with the help of some loyal peasants to escape across the mountains into Transylvania.[52]
He sought help from Hunyadi’s son, King Mathias of Hungary, but the evil deeds of Vlad the Impaler finally caught up with him. The German people living in the Sibiu area had gotten to King Mathias first. The Germans in Transylvania had published numerous pamphlets concerning Dracula’s evil deeds, which caused a shockwave of horror throughout Europe. Avenging the atrocities Dracula committed against them earlier that year, the Sibiu people forged three letters depicting Dracula as a spy and ally of the Turks.[53] The forgeries failed to make sense in the first place, mainly because they had Dracula requesting the Turks to invade and destroy Mathias’ fortresses. Dracula was certainly insane, but he still valued his own life, and would never ask the Turks to destroy the very place his was retreating to for asylum. Regardless, Mathias threw Vlad into prison immediately after he arrived, and kept him there for the next four years.[54]
Dracula’s imprisonment however, was not nearly a burden. Vlad developed a relationship with the guards that allowed him to satisfy his sickening urges, and not give up his favorite pastime. The guards would often deliver Dracula captured birds and mice, which he then proceeded to have the pleasure of torturing and mutilating. Some were beheaded, while most were impaled on tiny spears.[55] Surprise, surprise.
Despite such unromantic tendencies, Dracula caught the eye of King Mathias’ sister, Ilona, and gradually managed his way to win back the graces of Hungary’s monarch.[56] She tirelessly pleaded that her brother release Vlad, and convinced Dracula to renounce the Orthodox faith and to adopt Catholicism. Meanwhile, Radu’s pro-Turkish policies as the puppet prince of Wallachia helped Dracula’s reputation as a vehement anti-Turk. As a result, Mathias soon pardoned Vlad, but required him to stay within the general vicinity of Buda. Over the next eight years, Dracula became an ally of Mathias, married Ilona, and fathered two sons with her. During this time, he moved across the Danube to Pest and then even to Sibiu, since his marriage connections with the Hungarian crown reconciled him with the German people living there.[57]
Radu the Handsome died in 1475, and had his Wallachian throne replaced by another Turkish candidate, Basarab the Old. Dracula decided to make his third, and final bid for the Wallachian throne. In 1476, he invaded Wallachia with an alliance of Transylvanian forces, dissatisfied Wallachians, and Moldavian troops from the north. Basarab’s armies temporarily fled to the east, and Dracula consequently assumed the throne in November.[58] To Dracula’s disgust, his Transylvanian and Moldavian allies grew homesick and returned to their lands - west and north respectively. This in turn left Dracula's tactical position in Targoviste extremely weak to a Turkish offensive.
The Turks swiftly launched an overwhelming counterattack in December, which forced Dracula to march his band of 4,000 men to meet their forces. Dracula’s forces were greatly depleted because many of them left with the Transylvanians and Moldavians. A significant part of Dracula’s army sided with the Turks; figuring life would be better under Basarab the Old, since it could not get much worse under the Impaler. As a result, Dracula was killed while fighting near Bucharest at the age of forty-five.[59] To this day, it is not known whether Dracula was assassinated by his own men, killed by them on accident, or simply killed by the Turks in battle. Nevertheless, Dracula’s remains reveal that his head was severed, and that his first two vertebrae were crushed – clear signs of decapitation. Turkish soldiers brought Dracula’s severed head to their Sultan, who then had it displayed on a spike in Constantinople to prove to everyone that the infamous Impaler was in fact dead.[60] He was reportedly buried at Snagov, an island monastery located near Bucharest.[61]
Dracula’s standard battlefield death seems less than fitting when compared to the extraordinary life he led. One can understand how Bram Stoker was successful in creating a myth from the likes of Vlad Dracula, a man whose life was legendary in its own right. Literally hundreds of horrors committed by Dracula were recorded, to which this paper did no justice in only including a few. Although history tells the tale of this diabolical Dracula, we are left with Stoker’s prevailing fable of an undead garlic-fearing bat.[62] The only element the two Draculas share in common is their obsession with blood; one loves the gory scene of impalement, while the other is infatuated with biting and sucking his victims’ necks.[63] I am sure if Bram Stoker somehow presented his mythical Dracula to Vlad Tepes III Dracula, the Voevod would either invite him to a feast, or simply skip the sadistic prelude and have him impaled on the spot.
Several nights ago, I had a pretty interesting conversation with my father on what "soul food" is. Laughingly, we aptly defined soul food as, "coon food" (it's okay, we're African-American). But without hesitation, his eyes were soon filled with fury and the conversation took a stark turn.
"Soul food ain't black food boy! It's American food. Just because they say black folks eat fried chicken and watermelon don't mean it's the only thing we eat - cuz black folks cook!"
I stared and hesitatly grinned to give him the signal that I did not want to talk anymore. I tried to turn back to the t.v, but not because I thought he was a militant black righteous radical. I did so because I knew he was right and I didn't want the history lesson again. I didn't want to know about what they don't put in the textbooks, and how they destroy, recycle, exploit the heritage that makes us, us.
Africans are an indigenous people he told me.
"To understand the meaning of soul food, you'll have to understand how the slaves were treated. After hours of insufferable labor in extreme heat, slaves were given meager rations from their masters. But these were really the leftovers. And slaves would cook their ass off with leftovers too!" He exclaimed. "Make anything from nothing! But them white folks; once they got a piece of that food. The food the slaves cooked up from leftovers; they took that too! So while I'm sitting hear eating my coon food boy. Just think about it."
My father would tell me tons of stories since I was a child about soul food and they all had the same conclusion: white people stealing it. The worst part is that I believed all of them. I watched him sit back and eat his coon food (watermelon and fried chicken). He eventually went to the point of his story and I dared not peep a word.
"Everybody eats fried chicken boy. You might not, but fried chicken doesn't discriminate to much, you know? Whites eat it just as much as we do. Chicken, chitlins, cow tongue, chicken feet. It's that... you know... the master's would give the slaves the leftovers or parts of the animal the master's themselves didn't want to eat. But those are sometimes the good parts, you know? You might think I'm racist, but I'm not. It's just kind of crazy to think someone can define someone else based on food they eat when the fact is, that it's actually that persons fault. And today, it's a stereotype. That makes no sense. It never made sense. But hey, I'ma enjoy this damn coon food if they like it or not. And I know they like it!"
I usually have routine odd conversations with folk around the city on the general topic of racism. It's so touchy to some people, not knowing what to say, replacing "white" with "Caucasian" and "black" with "negro" and so forth. However, these conversations always tell me to check out the past. Learn about my past. How did we suffer? How did we pull through? What was (is) the struggle if there is such a thing. And I love reading up on it.
CoonFood is a rather shaming, blunt title. But CoonFood is comforting in that it mocks the very stereotypes that elicit such shame on upon us. I welcome the day of the coon. The coons haunt the white. It should eat the they! Coons know no shame. Coons appropriate the very naturalness that was bestowed upon them at birth - and they live in their naturalness. I want to learn about the past. I want to learn what others did for the future generations.
CoonFood , is an ongoing diary. A project created for one reason and that is to bring more to the table than, King's "I Have a Dream" speech or Malcolm's "by any means necessary", without the harsh radical undertones that denote the our "white" counterparts. That's probably one of my biggest problems with people on issues of race. They are so damn angry, but few of us know what we are angry about. Some of us just want to be angry. And the rest have nothing else to do. I rather learn than be angry. It's so counterproductive and a huge waste of time for me to become an extremist on past things (where's the progress/change in that). This project will be only for me; to list the things I've learned, currently learning, and hoping to learn about.
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
prguitarman