Cold War History - The Complete History – From World War 2 to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War to Reagan and Gorbachev – 1945-1991 (Required History)

Do you know why the world nearly destroyed itself in a catastrophic nuclear war?

Two words – ‘Cold War’.

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The Cold War was international affairs for the second half of the 20th century. Nuclear weapons testing, civil wars in all corners of the globe and the race for economic dominance were all key spheres of the Cold War, although they were just a few elements of an intriguing global puzzle. More so than the great battles between Carthage and Rome in Ancient times or the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War defined our world. But, there was one key difference between the Cold War and earlier major wars. Due to advances in technology and communications, the Cold War touched most countries on earth.

This introduction to the Cold War tells the story of the great clash between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA. It covers the period from 1945 to 1991 in one combined edition, neatly breaking the Cold War up into three parts.

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The book starts by describing how two super-powers emerged out of the rubble of World War Two and includes the following:

·      How the Soviet Union and the USA quickly went from war-time allies to enemies

·      Events in East Asia - the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War

·      The most dangerous event of the early Cold War years, the Cuban Missile Crisis

·      The Vietnam War and its impact on the Cold War

·      The shocking power of nuclear weapons – and attempts to control them

·      Uprisings on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain

·      The super-powers as friends? Détente, Richard Nixon, and Leonid Brezhnev

·      The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

·      The rise of Ronald Reagan and his aggression in the early 1980s

·      How Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader

·      Glasnost, Perestroika, and how the Cold War ended

The approximately 250-page book is the perfect complement to the Cold War History audio series that is available as part of the ‘History in 28-minutes’ podcasts.

So come and join the past – get the book now!

Required History

The aim of the 'Required History' book series is to create approachable, succinct written introductions to some of the most interesting topics in history. They are designed for those:

·      That want to quickly learn about some of the world’s major historical events

·      Studying history. The books act as a perfect complement and overview to those undertaking high school and introductory college courses in history

·      Who enjoyed the audio podcasts and want to reinforce and further their knowledge

·      Learning English. The language and level of detail in the books are perfect for those in advanced English classes

All of the Required History books are designed to build on the audio podcasts available on the publisher’s website. They provide an extra layer of detail to the major historical events that the audio podcasts cover.

The End of Empire – Just how did Indonesia gain its independence from the Dutch?

Independence movements come in different shapes and sizes in different parts of the world. And while many of us are familiar with Vietnam’s anti-colonial history, that is less true of other countries in South-East Asia. Here, Miguel Miranda explains the anti-colonial movement and quest for independence in post-World War Two Indonesia.

Revolutionaries who wanted Indonesian independence. 1946. Source: Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures. Available here.

Southeast Asia used to be a chaotic map of internecine conflict. This was indeed the prevailing state of affairs when the Portuguese and Dutch arrived in the early 16th century. As the scholarly adventurer Antonio Galvao wrote of the Moluccas’ martial culture, “they are always waging war, they enjoy it. They live and support themselves by it.”

Maritime forays into the Orient, an uncharted expanse whose nations were completely unknown to Europeans, were inspired not by Marco Polo’s tall tales but the raw desire for commodities. Spices, cloves and nutmeg, in particular, were the prizes. The problem was exactly where the precious cloves were to be found—the Moluccas Islands in the Banda Sea.

Owing to competition from Portugal, the Dutch East India Company or the VOC established a firm toehold in Java instead. The sumptuous domain was where petty Sultans and pirates held sway. European arms and technology weren’t as superior as presumed in this setting because local armies had greater numbers and formidable warships. After all, the Portuguese adventurer Fernao Magalhaes and his men were slaughtered in the shores of Mactan. The VOC employed the alternative to force of arms, focusing their energies on cultivating alliances, patronizing local rulers, and building outposts for absorbing exports.

The Dutch influence

This changed when the Netherlands consolidated the Dutch East Indies after the brutal Java War ended in 1830. Appointed governors, tasked with running an export-driven economic policy, assumed control of Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Papua and Borneo. The Dutch were stern and ruthless masters and every revolt, such as in Aceh, was dealt with by force.

The very idea of Indonesian nationalism took hold in the early 20th century. It even followed a pattern many anti-colonial movements went through, where a so-called intelligentsia educated in Europe began to aspire for political freedom. This ferment produced two seminal figures who would usher Indonesia’s birth: the coldly intellectual Mohammad Hatta, who was more Dutch in his outlook and conduct than Javanese, and Achmed Sukarno, whose own background as an engineer hardly prepared him for a career as professional rebel. Together they formed an interesting partnership, the ideologue and the man of action, and commanded a powerful vehicle for their ideas: the PNI, or Partai Nasional Indonesia.

Japan’s lightning assault on Southeast Asia in 1941 deposed the Dutch colonial government in Batavia, which is present day Jakarta. This brief interlude, complete with the harsh wages of occupation, did galvanize Java’s nationalists. Sukarno himself, long familiar with imprisonment meted by Dutch colonial authorities, was freed by the Japanese. In turn Sukarno didn’t hesitate to solicit aid from his country’s occupiers. His dalliance with Japan extended to the personal realm. A compulsive womanizer, Sukarno’s better half was a Japanese entertainer.

Independence?

Towards the end of 1945, with the Imperial Japanese Army having surrendered and ready for demobilization, the nationalists and their allies—hardened by years of guerilla warfare—were poised to reclaim Java. The PNI rallied and with Tokyo’s blessing Sukarno declared a republic on 17 August 1945.

But what followed instead was swift retribution from the Dutch. Cobbling a military from young recruits equipped with Allied Lend Lease and surplus, some 120,000 soldiers were shipped to the Indies to smother the new country. Their activities, which would include prison camps and wholesale slaughter, were officially labeled as “Police Actions.”

The historical record of Indonesia’s “national revolution” remains murky. The available facts form a bare outline lacking in color and drama. Its most critical battle, for example, is a farcical episode in the city of Surabaya where the British—not the Dutch—had to rout the local guerillas who had seized the metropolis to restore order.

Owing to the young republic’s tenacity, a typical stalemate soon prevailed between conventional European armies (the Dutch and the British) garrisoned in the large cities while the local rebels had free reign in the countryside. The fate of Madiun, in East Java, was interesting as it fell to hardcore communists who were then crushed not by the Dutch but the nascent republic’s own troops. In West Java a separate rising under the guise of Darul Islam sought to wage jihad and establish a grand theocracy lasted two decades.

Even the Japanese had a role in the conflict. With a substantial garrison stuck in Java, IJA officers willingly lent arms and equipment to the Indonesian resistance before departing for their homeland. This was done just as the British were relying on Japanese troops to help police the restive colony.

The rise of a new leader

Sukarno’s revolution wasn’t an exceptional one. Other eruptions were tearing apart Europe’s aging dominion on foreign territories. The British in Palestine. The French in Vietnam and Algeria. The Belgians in their precious Congo. World War Two may have saved Western civilization, but it ignited small fires among the people suffering under colonialism’s yoke.

Indonesia’s war for independence never had its own Dien Bien Phu where local grit and daring prevailed over European hubris. This didn’t make it any less bloody. It killed more than 100,000 Indonesians and cost the Netherlands several thousand troops along with at least a thousand dead British and Indian soldiers. Rather than Sukarno and the PNI victorious beyond doubt, it was the United Nations who eventually recognized and then restored Indonesia’s independence on 27 December 1949. The Dutch acquiesced owing to their battered economy and withdrew their forces. Rather than usher peace, however, Indonesia’s emergence allowed a dictator in the making to craft grand schemes.

Despite an early fixation on parliamentary democracy in the 1950s, Sukarno eventually steered the PNI toward “guided democracy,” which was really just shorthand for lifelong dictatorship. With a powerful army at his disposal a headlong push to annex Borneo ignited a confrontation with the British in what became the Konfrontasi. Provocations aimed at Singapore and separate invasions of Sulawesi and West Papua enhanced Jakarta’s reputation as a contentious neighbor.

As he leaned closer to Peking and Moscow, Sukarno dreamed of establishing a super state across Southeast Asia. This compelled Washington, DC’s long campaign to unseat him, beginning with a botched covert invasion in 1958 and a full-blown coup d’etat in 1965 that ushered the Suharto era and the horrific purge of Indonesia’s communists.

The only recourse that checked Indonesia’s belligerence was when five ministers, from Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Bangkok, convened in the Thai capital on 8 August 1967 and agreed—on paper—to establish an informal union. The idea came from Indonesia’s Adam Malik, who would go on to serve a brilliant diplomatic career. 50 years later and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN is thriving, albeit still uncomfortable with the challenges posed by what the First World considers “development.”

Indonesia paid dearly for its independence and suffered under two corrupt dictators. Having achieved true democracy it’s exciting to think about whether Indonesia is destined to emerge a peerless regional giant. Could Sukarno’s fever dream become real?

Did you find this article of interest? If so, tell the world. Tweet about it, like it, or share it by clicking on one of the buttons below.

References

http://www.christopherhalemedia.org/2013/05/the-battle-of-surabaya/

http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/16.htm

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/west-papua-forgotten-war-unwanted-people

http://dannyreviews.com/h/Indonesian_Revolution.html

http://www.iisg.nl/collections/hatta/intro.php

http://indonesia-dutchcolonialheritage.nl/

http://www.indonesia-investments.com/culture/politics/soekarno-old-order/item179

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/timeline-dutch-history/1820-1950-indonesia-and-decolonisation

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/unreleased-indonesian-national-revolution-pics

http://www.lowensteyn.com/indonesia/

http://www.nusantara.com/heritage/surabaya.html

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Indo58.html

http://www.san.beck.org/20-11-Indonesia1800-1950.html

http://users.skynet.be/network.indonesia/ni4001c10.htm

The Bizarre Dancing Plague of Strasbourg – Just how did it happen?

In the early 16th century a bizarre dancing plague arrived in the city of Strasbourg in modern-day France. The dancing mystified many people at the time, and they had various explanations for it. But do modern-day historians know how it happened? Mike Jones explains all…

A depiction of a dancing plague in Molenbeek (modern-day Belgium) by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

Several decades after the infamous Black Death had wreaked havoc all over Europe, the continent was plagued, once more, by a deadly epidemic. On June 24, 1374, Aachen, Germany was struck with a bizarre phenomenon that involved dozens of people suddenly starting to break into uncontrollable dance routines. Days passed and the consecutive days of uninterrupted dancing started taking their toll – the people affected were dropping like flies from exhaustion.

The disease became known as the “dancing mania,” a mysterious phenomenon that rampaged through European countries between the 14th and 17th centuries. Even today, scholars and historians are still puzzled by the epidemic, and there has yet to be a consensus among experts regarding a possible explanation. One thing is for sure – most people wouldn’t have paid so much attention to the dancing mania if it weren’t for one particular episode that took place in Strasbourg.

 

The Strasbourg Outbreak

In July 1518, the dancing mania settled in Strasbourg, in that time an integral part of the Holy Roman Empire. The hysteria started with a woman named Frau Troffea, who left her house and started twisting and twirling in the middle of the street. Not long after, dozens of other people joined her and, eventually, there were a little over 400 people all uncontrollably dancing.

Although this may bewilder most of us today, the people of early modern era Strasbourg deemed the phenomenon as nothing more than a mere, albeit a peculiar, form of entertainment.  Professional dancers joined the ones affected by the disease, and there was even a stage set up and a band hired to accompany their hectic movements. When question marks began to arise, the rest of the people had no choice but to consider the erratic behavior a result of fever.

The prolonged intense physical activity concluded with hundreds of people collapsing due to strokes, heart attacks, exhaustion, or dehydration. Since the outbreak in July, the dancers continued dying until those remaining were forcibly removed from the streets and taken to a shrine to pray for their recovery in September.

A Medical Enigma

Many theories have been suggested by experts, some of who have tried to tie the event to a scientific explanation. One of the most common theories blames the dancing mania on mass hysteria, a phenomenon that wasn’t uncommon during the era.

Some records were discovered that speak of an episode that took place in the late-15th century Spanish Netherlands, which involved several people displaying ‘devilish’ behavior that made many people believe they were possessed. They would run around the streets like dogs, climb trees and imitate birds, or even pretend to be cats by scratching at trunks.

This, along with the fact that disease and famine were violently gnawing Europe during the time, led researchers to believe that it might have been a stress-induced disease with neurological origins. It didn’t help that, at the time, people believed it to be the result of a curse casted by St. Vitus. With this in mind, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to consider it some form of medieval Nocebo effect that caused people to subconsciously dance solely because they believed that the curse was real.

Going by the laws of mass hysteria and moral panic, all it took was one person with a damaged psyche to ‘do the twist’ in order to increase the numbers of people affected by the dancing mania.

Of course, there are many other theories, some of which consider the possibility that amateur forced dancers were part of a religious cult and their worship routine involved these endless dance sessions. All it took was a couple of people to kick off the movement in order to get others to join in, purely because of the desire to be included in this alleged public activity.

Why it’s A Big Deal

Several centuries have passed since the last recorded episode of the dancing plague, so most of us look back at them as a series of slightly surreal moments in history. Outbursts of mass hysteria are considerably less likely to occur today, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.

In 1962, a disease swept all across Tanzania and caused several schoolgirls to suddenly break into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Similarly to how the dancing plague branched to other people, the laughter infected other people from the school and, eventually, from the village. Many of those affected also had trouble with loss of consciousness and respiratory issues induced by the seemingly endless series of giggles. A whole year and a half was necessary to completely put an end to the rampant laughter plague.

There aren’t too many events that modern day historians are still in the dark about, but the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg is certainly one of them. The big mystery comes from the fact that it is difficult to tell whether it was a medical, social, or psychological phenomena. Perhaps it was a confluence of all three at once, which is why this is one of the plagues that sparked the interest of experts from a variety of fields aside from medicine.

Can such an event ever happen again? The lack of a proper answer to this question is what makes the dancing mania so frightening.

What do you think caused the Dancing Plague of Strasbourg? Let us know below…

References

• http://www.access2knowledge.org/history-politics/weirdest-plague-in-history/
• https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-22/edition-7/dancing-plagues-and-mass-hysteria
• http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-the-nocebo-effect-5451823/?no-ist
• http://study.com/academy/lesson/mass-hysteria-moral-panic-definitions-causes-examples.html 

Cold War History - Brave New World – Reagan, Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War – Part 3: 1979-1991 (Required History)

Just how did the Cold War end?

We reveal all in the fascinating conclusion to the Cold War series.

The Cold War was international affairs for the second half of the 20th century. Nuclear weapons testing, civil wars in all corners of the globe and the race for economic dominance were all key spheres of the Cold War, although they were just a few elements of a very complex global puzzle. More so than the great battles between Carthage and Rome in Ancient times or the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War defined our world. But, there was one key difference between the Cold War and earlier major wars. Due to advances in technology and communications, the Cold War touched most countries on earth.

Get the book on Amazon

This introduction to the end of the Cold War tells the story of the great clash between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA. It considers events at a time of ever-faster change. Following the relative calm of the Détente years, the world became much more dangerous. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a new and very assertive US president arrived who would seek to radically alter the international order. And soon enough a new Soviet leader would arrive and lead a great change in the international system. The biggest change since World War Two…

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The topics in the book include:

·      The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

·      The rise of US President Ronald Reagan and his aggression in the early 1980s

·      How Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader

·      The most important nuclear treaties made during the Cold War

·      The surprising friendship between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev

·      Great internal changes in the Soviet Union and wider Eastern Bloc

·      How the Cold War ended

The approximately 90-page book is the perfect complement to the Cold War History audio series that is available as part of the ‘History in 28-minutes’ podcasts.

So come and join the past – get the book now!

Required History

The aim of the 'Required History' book series is to create approachable, succinct written introductions to some of the most interesting topics in history. They are designed for those:

·      That want to quickly learn about some of the world’s major historical events

·      Studying history. The books act as a perfect complement and overview to those undertaking high school and introductory college courses in history

·      Who enjoyed the audio podcasts and want to reinforce and further their knowledge

·      Learning English. The language and level of detail in the books are perfect for those in advanced English classes

All of the Required History books are designed to build on the audio podcasts available on the publisher’s website. They provide an extra layer of detail to the major historical events that the audio podcasts cover.

Tales of Piracy – How Six Pirates were Captured and Killed

April 26, 1717, started out as a typical day in the life of the band of pirates led by Sam Bellamy aboard their ship the Whydah Galley. Like most pirates of their day, they expected to spend it hunting down ships to plunder. They might even arrive at a safe port where they could trade some of their stolen loot for cash, then spend time in a tavern or brothel to blow their money on rum and women. Unfortunately for them, fate had something entirely different in mind.

Laura Nelson tells us about this pirate tale.

Piracy has a long tradition. Here is a fight after British sailors boarded an Algerian pirate ship. Painting from the nineteenth century.

How It All Began

Bellamy had been in command of the Whydah since March. He had started out as a treasure hunter in Florida, diving for sunken Spanish treasure. He acquired a couple of periaguas (canoes) and plundered a few ships, then hooked up with Benjamin Hornigold, who provided him an opportunity to learn the craft of high seas piracy. When the crew rebelled because Hornigold wouldn’t attack English ships, Bellamy was elected captain, and his career took off. By the time the Whydah and the majority of her crew were lost on a shipwreck off Cape Cod in April of 1717, he had plundered about 50 ships and collected tens of thousands of dollars in treasure and coins.

The pirates sailed northward along the eastern seaboard of the American colonies that day reportedly headed for Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Some accounts say that Bellamy wanted to reconnect with his lover, Maria Hallet. Others say he was headed towards a tavern he knew of in the area where he could trade some of their goods for cash and other necessities. Around 4 to 6 in the morning, between Nantucket Shoals and St Georges banks, they crossed paths with a ship called the Mary Anne. Ordering the captain of the pink to strike her colors, Bellamy sent seven members of his crew over to her in a boat to take charge of her as a prize ship.[i]

The Day of the Wreck

Of the seven men sent aboard the Mary Anne, Hendrik Quintor, Peter Cornelius Hoof, John Shuan, John Brown, Thomas South, Thomas Baker and Simon Van Vorst, Baker came aboard with his sword drawn, while only South and Shuan came aboard unarmed. The armaments of choice were muskets, pistols, and cutlasses. The captain of the Mary Anne, Crumpstey, was ordered to go aboard the Whydah with his ship’s papers and five members of his crew. Once on board the Whydah the crew of the Mary Anne were promptly held as prisoners. A perusal of her papers revealed that she was carrying a cargo of 7,000 gallons of Madeira wine.

Back aboard the Mary Anne, the prize crew quickly discovered that a heavy cable was blocking access to the hold. Letting it go for the time being, they plundered the crew quarters, taking clothes and some bottles of wine that they found in the Captain’s cabin. Hearing of the discovery, some of the crew of the Whydah rowed over to get a couple of the bottles to take back and share amongst their crewmates.

While this was going on, some of the prize crew finally managed to move the cable blocking the hold and they were able to get at the barrels of Madeira. Van Vorst told two of the crewmen of the Mary Anne, Thomas FitzGyrald and Alexander Mackconachy, “That if he would not find liquor he would break his neck.”[ii] The pirates began to indulge.

Ordered by Bellamy to follow the Whydah, the pirates forced the crew of the Mary Anne to alternate taking turns at the wheel with them. Things were going fine until about 4 in the afternoon, when fog began to cover the sea. Bellamy then gave new orders to steer to the North, and put a light on the stern of the Whydah for the prize crew to follow. They also kept company with a sloop called the Fisher which was out of Virginia and that Bellamy had captured that same day.

But the prize crew had been partaking of the captured wine since morning, and began to fall behind. When Bellamy ordered them to keep up, Brown swore “That he would carry sail till she carried her masts away.”[iii] Baker told the remaining crewmen of the Mary Anne that they had a commission from King George, upon which Van Vorst answered, “We will stretch it to the Worlds end.”[iv]

Throughout the day the prize crew from the Whydah took charge of the Mary Anne, ordering her remaining crewmembers to do such chores as reefing the topsail. But, when they began to realize how leaky the Mary Anne was, everyone took turns manning the pumps.

About ten o’clock in the evening, the thick fog became a thunderstorm. “An Arctic storm from Canada was driving into the warm air that had swept up the coast from the Caribbean. The last gasp of a frigid New England winter, the cold front was about to combine with the warm front in one of the worst storms ever to hit the Cape.”[v] “According to eyewitness reports, gusts topped 70 miles [113 kilometers] an hour and the seas rose to 30 feet [9 meters].”[vi] They had long since lost sight of the Whydah. No one on board the Mary Anne could see adequately, and thus they failed to discover how close they were to the shore until they were amongst the breakers. By then it was too late, and the Mary Anne ran ashore. Upon realizing their plight, one of the prize crew cried out, saying “For God’s sake let us go down into the hold and die together!”[vii]

Everyone stayed in the Mary Anne’s hold for the rest of the night, at one point one of the prize crew asking FitzGyrald to read from the Common-Prayer Book, which he did for about an hour. When the ship ran onto shore, Baker went out and cut down the fore and mizzen masts in an effort to keep the ship from further peril.

The Next Morning

When they woke in the morning they found that one side of the ship had beached on dry ground and they could walk out onto what proved to be a small island. Shuan and Quintor broke into a crewman’s chest and took out some sweetmeats and other items to eat, washing it all down with more wine. Brown declared himself to be the captain and the other members of the prize crew to be his men. There was talk amongst them of trying to reach Rhode Island, at that time a haven for pirates.

Around ten o-clock that morning local residents John Cole and William Smith passed by and saw the men’s plight. They rowed over to the little island in a canoe and took them over to the mainland. While resting at Cole’s house, Mackconachy found the courage to speak up and reveal that these men were pirates and members of Bellamy’s company. Now they had no choice but to flee. They made a fateful decision to stop and refresh themselves at a tavern in Eastham, Massachusetts. There they were apprehended by Justice Doan. They spent the night in Barnstable Gaol in Eastham. The next day they were put on horseback and taken to Boston to await their trial.

During their journey to Boston the pirates were joined by two of their crewmates from the Whydah, Thomas Davis and John Julian. From Davis and Julian they learned that the Whydah had been lost in the storm after they lost track of her the night before and that they were the only two survivors. The men must have been despondent over the loss of their friends and their treasure.

Imprisoned

From the end of April until October the pirates were confined in Boston’s hot, foul jail. It is during this period of time that John Julian disappears from official records. Depending on what source you read, he either died in jail, escaped, or was sold into slavery. Some believe he may have been the Julian the Indian who is mentioned in a 1733 paragraph in The Weekly Rehearsal, a Boston newspaper, describing a slave who killed a bounty hunter while trying to escape who is going to be executed the next day.

To break the monotony of their confinement, the pirates were ministered to by the Reverend Cotton Mather, of Salem witch trial fame. The pirates from the Mary Anne were one of at least three groups of pirates he would minister to during his lifetime.[viii] Mather considered it a personal mission to persuade such men to repent. At one point he felt so good about the work he was doing with one of them that he noted in his diary, “Obtain a reprieve and, if it may be, a pardon for one [of the] Pyrates, who is not only more penitent, but also more innocent than the rest.”[ix] Unfortunately, inquiries into historical records in Boston failed to unearth any evidence that Mather ever took any official steps towards obtaining an actual pardon, nor for which of the pirates he was referring to.

Unknown to the pirates, while they languished in prison, Blackbeard was making plans to come to Boston to attempt a rescue. He set out from the West Indies, (or never left the harbor, depending on which source you read), but had not gotten very far when he learned that the authorities in Boston had ordered a blockade of the harbor with a man-of-war and several other ships. After the six pirates were hanged, he took out his vengeance on several ships from Boston, burning them to the waterline, cargo and all, including a ship called the Protestant Caesar, in the Bay of Honduras.

Something else the pirates didn’t know about was that on September 5, 1717, King George I issued a royal proclamation for the suppression of piracy that included a pardon. The pardon read, in part:

…we do hereby promise, and declare, that in Case any of the said Pyrates, shall, on or before the Fifth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighteen, surrender him or themselves, to one of our Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any Governor or Deputy Governor of any of our Plantations beyond the Seas, every such Pirate and Pirates so surrendering him, or themselves, as foresaid, shall have our gracious Pardon…[x]

This date is important because there is some debate as to when exactly the authorities in Boston became aware of the pardon’s existence. There is some speculation that they knew the arrival of the pardon was imminent and thus hastened the trial and execution. On December 9, 1717, the Boston News-Letter published the proclamation.

Pre-Trial Interrogation

Each of the pirates was interrogated before the trial. Unfortunately the name or position of the person or persons who conducted the interviews is not mentioned, and the men’s answers are written in paragraph form, rather than in the question and answer format we’re used to seeing in modern court transcripts.

John Brown of Jamaica spoke at length about how he was originally a captive of Louis Labous’ ship. After four months he requested to transfer to Bellamy’s ship in hopes of escaping more easily.[xi] Brown tells of the movement of the pirates during the past year, including some of the places they visited and ships they plundered. He also told of how there were 50 forced men and that the pirates kept a watchful eye over them. The forced men’s names were entered onto the watch bill (duty roster) and they had to perform ship’s duties the same as the pirates.

Thomas Baker, from Flushing, Holland, said that he was never sworn as the rest of the men were, and that married men were sent away rather than being forced. When he pleaded with Bellamy to be released, Bellamy threatened to maroon him “if he would not be easy.”[xii] The pirates had about 20,000 to 30,000 pounds aboard, which he said the Quarter Master declared any man could have some if he wanted. Baker described how the pirates flew a black flag with a Death’s Head and crossed bones on it when they attacked ships.

Thomas Davis of Wales said he was by trade a Shipwright and was also originally a captive of Labous. Davis gives the number of forced men as being one hundred and thirty.

Peter Cornelius Hoof of Sweden said that about three weeks after he was taken captive there was a disagreement amongst the pirates about what ships of what nations to attack. As a result of the disagreement, Benjamin Hornigold and a few of his loyal men departed the company. Hoof stated that “the Money taken in the Whido, which was reported to Amount to 20,000 to 30,000 Pounds, was counted over in the Cabin, and put up in bags, Fifty Pounds to every Man’s share, there being 180 Men on Board… Their Money was kept in Chests between Decks without any guard, but none was to take any without the Quarter Master’s leave.”[xiii]

John Shuan of Nantes, France, said that he was taken captive by Bellamy while coming from Jamaica. Shuan said he also was never sworn.

Simon Van Vorst of New York was another man who was originally held captive by Labous and later transferred to Bellamy. Bellamy told him he couldn’t leave the company until they had more volunteers or he would maroon him.

Hendrick Quintor of Amsterdam was originally a captive of Labous. He said that he and the other six men who were sent on board the Mary Anne were forced men.

Thomas South of Boston said that the pirates forced the unmarried men from his ship to stay on board Bellamy’s vessel. The pirates brought arms to him and threatened him when he wouldn’t take any. He told a member of the Mary Anne’s crew that he would run away from the pirates if the opportunity arose.

Preparing for the Trial

Finally on October 18, 1717, the pirates were brought to the State House in Boston for trial. On this first day the indictments “for Crimes of Piracy, Robbery & Felony committed on the high Seas”[xiv] against the pirates were read and included several articles: First, that the pirates “without lawful Cause or Warrant, in Hostle manner with Force & Arms, Piratically & Feloniously did Surprize, Assault, Invade, and Enter… the Mary Anne of Dublin…” Second, they did “Piratically & Feloniously seize and imprison Andrew Crumpstey, Master thereof….” Third, they did “Piratically & Feloniously Imbezil, Spoil and Rob the cargoe of said vessel….” And fourth, they “were powered and subdued the said Master and his Crew, and made themselves Masters of the said Vessel… di then and there Piratically & Feloniously Steer and Direct their course after the above-named Piratical Ship, the Whido, intending to joyn and accompany the same, and thereby, to enable themselves better to pursue and accomplish their Execreble designs to oppress the Innocent, and cover the Seas with Depredations and Robberies.”[xv]

After the indictments were read, Van Vorst requested, and the pirates were granted, council, a move that was not generally common in trials at that time. Robert Auchmuty argued that the court did not have jurisdiction because the commission of the late Queen Anne had ended with her death. The court countered that the proclamations of King George were sufficient jurisdiction. He also asked that Thomas Davis, the Whydah’s carpenter, be brought in to give evidence on the pirate’s behalf. The motion was rejected because Davis was also in prison for the same offense and was waiting to be tried separately. When his motion to have Davis called as a witness for the pirates was denied, Auchmuty resigned and left the court.

The pirates all held up their hands and pleaded not guilty except Shuan, who managed to make known to the court that he didn’t understand the proceedings because he didn’t speak English. The court then swore in Mr. Peter Lucy to translate for Shuan at which point Shuan also pleaded not guilty. The prisoners were provided copies of the indictment along with the names of the King’s witnesses and sent back to Gaol until the court convened again.

The Trial Begins

The court reconvened on October 22, 1717. The pirates, of unknown education and level of literacy and only one attorney, faced a powerhouse court consisting of:

                  His Excellency Samuel Shute, Esq., Governour, Vice Admiral & President;

                  The Honourable William Dummer, Esq., Lieutenant Governour;

The Honourable Elisha Hutchinson, Penn Townsend, Andrew Belcher, John Cushing, Nathaniel Norden, John Wheelwright, Benjamin Lynde, Thomas Hutchinson, and Thomas Fitch, Esqrs., of His Majesty’s Council for this Province;

                  John Meinzies Esq., Judge of the Vice Admiralty;

Capt. Thomas Smart Commander of His Majesty’s Ship of War the Squirrel, and John Jekyll Esq., Collector of the Plantation Duties.[xvi]

An interesting part of reading the trial transcript is that the prosecutor and witnesses have statements of one or more paragraphs, while the pirates’ statements are only a sentence or two, an inaccuracy in transcribing the actual trial proceedings that would be shocking today.

Then the Advocate General gave a long speech addressing the crimes of the pirates. His speech is written out over three pages in small letters. One of his first arguments is that since most governments have declared pirates to be enemies of mankind, “therefore he can claim the Protection of no Prince, the privilege of no Country, the benefits of no Law.”[xvii] He describes how piracy is a more heinous crime than many because since it is conducted on the high seas, its victims often have no chance for rescue or escape, and are left helpless after the crime.

Then the witnesses were called. Thomas FitzGyrald, late mate of the Mary Anne, testified that when Baker came on board he approached Captain Crumpstey with his sword drawn and ordered him to board the Whydah with his papers and five of his hands. That action left himself, Alexander Mackonachy, and James Dunavan behind on the Mary Anne.

FitzGyrald said that he was told by Van Vorst that if they didn’t find liquor he would break his neck.

He said Baker bragged that they had a commission from King George, and Van Vorst then declared that they would “stretch it to the World’s End.”[xviii]

He then told of how at one point in the evening Baker threatened to shoot Mackonachy through the head because he had steered to windward of their course, and that shooting him was no more to him than shooting a dog.

Other witnesses were brought in to testify that they had been held by either Bellamy or Labous at one point, and that while they were imprisoned Brown was very active among them and that Shuan had declared to all that “he was now a pirate” willingly climbed and unrigged the main top-mast in response to an order by the pirates.[xix]

When the witnesses were done, the pirates were given an opportunity to speak for themselves. Each one reiterated that they were forced men under threat of death or marooning. Van Vorst added that the Mate of the Mary Anne revealed that he was inclined to be a pirate himself, so he declined to reveal to him that he actually wanted to try and escape. [xx]

Baker declared that he tried once to escape at Spanish Town, but Bellamy “sent the Governour word that they would burn & destroy the Town, if the said Baker, and those who concealed themselves with him were not delivered up. And afterwards he would have made his escape at Crab Island, but was hindered by four of Capt. Bellamy’s Company.”[xxi]

The Verdict

Ultimately, the court found it not credible that Bellamy and Labous would force men into piracy. All of them were found guilty except Thomas South. South fell on his knees and thanked the court. He was allowed to leave.

Then the court told the pirates that they would be taken to be hanged by the neck until dead. On November 15, 1717, the remaining six pirates were escorted to Charlestown Ferry for the hanging.

Mather walks with the Pirates

The afternoon of the execution, as the pirates were led from the jail through town to a canoe at the harbor, they were accompanied by Rev. Mather. Mather took time to speak with each of them as they walked. It must be noted that Mather wrote down from memory what he spoke to each of them about and their responses after the fact. Each man repented, but that of course did not save them from the hangman’s noose.

Van Vorst reiterated that they were all forced men, and that his biggest regret was “my Undutifulness unto my Parents; And my Profanation of the Sabbath.”[xxii]

Hoof declared that “my Death this Afternoon is nothing ‘tis nothing; ‘Tis the wrath of a terrible GOD after Death abiding on me, which is all that I am afraid of.”[xxiii]

Quintor told Mather “’Tis a Dark Time with me.”[xxiv]

When they reached the site of their execution, they heard a prayer given by the Minister of the city. Then they led onto the scaffold, at which point Baker and Hoof were said to appear to be “very distinguishingly Penitent.”[xxv] Brown, however, was said to have broken out in a fury, using language he had become accustomed to in the company of the pirates. He then read some prayers from a book he had been carrying, and gave a short speech advising sailors to “beware of all wicked Living, such as his own had been; especially to beware of falling into the hands of the Pirates: But if they did, and were forced to join with them, then, to have a care whom they Kept, and whom they let go and what Countries they come into.”[xxvi]

The others said little except for Van Vorst, who along with Baker sang a Dutch psalm, and advised youngsters to “Lead a Life of Religion, and keep the Sabbath, and carry it well to their Parents.”[xxvii]

The Execution

In 1717 hangings were not like you see in Wild West movies where the noose is tied around the neck, a horse or wagon is kicked out from underneath the condemned, his neck snaps from the force of the drop and, in a couple of minutes, he is dead. Hanging at this time was done by a method called the short drop. The noose was around the neck, but the body was only dropped a short distance, not enough to break the neck. What killed the person was the slow movement of the noose against the larynx, causing a prolonged, torturous death by slow asphyxiation. The entire process takes about fifteen to twenty minutes, during which time the body naturally convulses as the person chokes and gags while struggling for breath.

Hangings in this day were a public event, attended by hordes of people, who jeered and taunted the victims. Even children were brought along to watch the victims choke to death.

No death certificate exists for any of the pirates. As a deterrent to piracy, pirates’ bodies would be covered in tar and then caged in iron gibbets that were hanged from a scaffold in full view of the harbor. The tar was supposed to slow down the deterioration of the body. They would then be left there to rot, sometimes for years as a warning to sailors not to take up the profession of piracy.

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[i] Pirate lingo for a ship that the pirates captured with the intention of plundering it for whatever goods (and sometimes even members of the crew) might be aboard and be of value or use to them.

[ii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 304.

[iii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 303.

[iv] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 304.

[v] “Technically known as an occluded front, the warm and moist tropical is driven for miles upward where it cools and falls at a very high speed, producing high winds, heavy rain, and severe lightning.”  Clifford, Barry with Paul Perry. Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World’s First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her, Cliff Street Books, 1999, p 262.

[vi] Donovan, Webster. “Pirates of the Whydah,” National Geographic Magazine (May 1999).

[vii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 304.

[viii] Vallar, Cindy. “Cotton Mather: Preacher to the Pirates,” in the online magazine Pirates and Privateers, October/November 2008 and January/February 2009. www.cindyvallar.com/mather.html. Other pirates he administered to included John Quelch in 1704 and William Fly in 1726.

[ix] Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007, p 227.

[x] Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. John F Blair, publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 2006, p 243.

[xi] Louis Labous, or Olivier Levasseur, was a French pirate who sailed in consort with Bellamy from about mid-1716 until about January of 1717.

[xii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 318.

[xiii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 318 – 319.

[xiv] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p 296 – 297.

[xv] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p 296 – 297.

[xvi] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p 299.

[xvii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 300.

[xviii] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 303.

[xix] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 305.

[xx] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 306.

[xxi] “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 306.

[xxii] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p. 135.

[xxiii] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p. 139.

[xxiv] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p. 140.

[xxv] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p 143.

[xxvi] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p 143.

[xxvii] Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p 144.

Bibliography

Clifford, Barry with Paul Perry Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World’s First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her, Cliff Street Books, 1999.

Donovan, Webster. “Pirates of the Whydah,” National Geographic Magazine (May 1999).

Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. John F Blair, publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 2006.

Mather, Cotton. “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering and Chatto, 2007, 4:129-144.

“The Trials of Eight Persons Indited[sic] For Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 2:289 – 319.

Vallar, Cindy. “Cotton Mather: Preacher to the Pirates,” in the online magazine Pirates and Privateers, October/November 2008 and January/February 2009.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007.

The fascinating tale of the European King who never visited his Long Island mansion

Rich and powerful people are prone to buying properties in the world’s most attractive places, whether that be the south of France, London or the Hamptons. Here, Christopher Benedict looks at one such property hot spot. He tells the fascinating story of King Zog I of Albania and how he purchased a mansion that he never visited in Long Island.

King Zog I of Albania.

The Gold Coast

The handful of hamlets and villages which comprise the Hamptons are collectively associated with Long Island’s go-to getaway spot, second home, or den of iniquity for contemporary celebrities. An all-inclusive VIP playground with a guest list reading like a who’s who of the well to do and the ne’er do wells. Faces familiar from movie screens and television sets, concert stages and the rear flaps of dustjackets. Personalities whose images with accompanying tales of achievement and debauchery alike are routinely spread throughout the pages of Vogue and Variety, Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Time.

The Hamptons are a relatively recent phenomenon and not at all relevant to the not too distant past when Long Island’s North Shore was the place to be and be seen (or not be seen, depending upon one’s desire for privacy and seclusion) for those who could afford such ostentatious status symbols as the mansions and sprawling estates built on what came to be known as the Gold Coast between just before the birth of the 20th century with its financial windfall created by the Industrial Revolution and the sobering death knell for the inebriated obliviousness of the Jazz Age (which turned blissfully blind eyes away from the horrific aftershocks of the First World War and flaunted their ill-gotten alcoholic party favors in the absurd face of the Volstead Act) sounded by Black Tuesday and the Great Depression.

Among the original occupants of these opulent, custom-built dwellings were luminous names such as William Vanderbilt, Alfred DuPont, J.P. Morgan, the Guggenheims, Lewis Tiffany, Frank Woolworth, William Robertson Coe, Otto Hermann Kahn, Henry Clay Frick, and John S. Phillips. Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay served as Theodore Roosevelt’s permanent domicile and ‘Summer White House’ while president. Oscar Hammerstein, W.C. Fields, Ring Lardner, Eugene O’Neill, Groucho and Chico Marx, not to mention their father and mother Sam and Minnie, all maintained addresses up and down the Long Island Sound for varying lengths of time and frequent visitors like Charlie Chaplin, Ethel Barrymore, Dorothy Parker, Herbert Bayard Swope, and Winston Churchill, to name but a few, came and went as they pleased. 

The Gold Coast is most famous for its fictional depiction in The Great Gatsby, authored of course by short-term Great Neck denizen F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived with Zelda on Long Island from October 1922 through April 1924 and based the novel’s East Egg and West Egg on Port Washington’s Sands Point and Kings Point of the Great Neck peninsula respectively. Lands’ End, the manor many consider to have been Fitzgerald’s inspiration behind Daisy Buchanan’s home in Gatsby, was demolished in 2011, the property sold off for a five-unit sub-division. In fact, it is estimated that fewer than 400 of the approximately 1,200 mansions constructed from the 1890s to the 1930s remain standing, with some functioning today as national landmarks, historic sites, state parks, public gardens, and museums.

It is the dilapidated ruins of a massive structure once known as Knollwood in the Incorporated Village of Muttontown, however, and one of its intended residents in particular that concern us now.

Bloody Inauguration

Ahmet Zogu was born to a family of feudal landowners in their Burjaget Castle on October 8, 1859 in the Muslim province of Mati which had established an independence of sorts from its Christian neighbors eight years prior. Albania remained, at the time, under the thumb of the Ottoman Empire and young Ahmet was sent off to begin his studies in Constantinople, an academic endeavor which lasted for all of three years. Indeed, Zogu would live out his entire existence as a functional illiterate. His friend and future foreign diplomat Chartin Sarachi alleged in his unpublished memoirs that “Zog never learned Albanian grammar and…is unable to write a line in the Albanian language. He can write in the old Turkish alphabet, but indeed that very poorly.” Sarachi contends that Zogu had only ever read two or three books, and each of them biographies of Napoleon. Which itself speaks volumes.  

Unlettered though he was, Ahmet would not allow this minor nuisance to thwart his ambition and patriotic fanaticism. At the age of sixteen, Zogu succeeded his deceased father as the Mati Governor and would add his signature to the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912. After having volunteered for service in the Great War on the side of Austria-Hungary, Ahmet would return home to a country fallen to disorder amidst a revolving parliamentary door of provisional figureheads, all of which Zogu served in some capacity or other.

From out of this chaos Ahmet ultimately emerged as Prime Minister and initiated several progressive if controversial measures such as converting expansive graveyards into public parks, liberating Muslim women from religious and social restrictions, outlawing polygamy, and drawing a firm line between religion and state. Shortly after being shot at by a student representing a radical group of young Albanian intellectuals who plainly saw tyranny dressed as democracy (one of a supposed 55 assassination attempts, as Albanian legend tells it), Zogu was forced into Yugoslavian exile in early 1924. Backed by a group of paid mercenaries 5,000 strong, he fought his way back across the Albanian border and reached the capital of Tirana on December 24 following two weeks of intense battle and much spilled blood. Ahmet almost immediately proclaimed himself President and made his designation official by virtue of a perfunctory election thrown together the following January. Thus did Zogu become not only Albania’s inaugural President but also the first Muslim sovereign of a European nation.

Chartin Sarachi remarked in his unfinished autobiography that Zogu “liked flattery and expected godlike veneration.” Those who failed to comply with these lofty wishes or in any way opposed his autonomy met with lengthy prison sentences or more decidedly grisly fates, prompting the European press to refer to Zog as “Ivan the Terrible of the Balkans.”

The Bizarre King

In the wake of his expulsion for criticizing “the fanatical, cross-bred, cringing, corrupt, face-grinding Beys and Moslems”, Albanian newspaper correspondent J. Swire wrote of Zogu in 1933 that “the alarming thing is that this very able man, the ruler of a very able people, is still so insecurely seated on a rickety throne.” Swire went on to suggest, “His death alone would be enough to provoke the break-up of the army, an explosion among the clans, intervention by land and sea and, possibly, a major war.” The root cause of this diagnosis lay in the fact that the country’s financial situation was not only devoid of equity but wildly lacking in accountability.

Zogu treated the extremely finite resources within Albania’s Treasury Department as a bottomless cookie jar from which he helped himself annually to more than twice his self-allotted £35,000 salary. He cut quite the ostentatious figure in an all-white ensemble of military tunic, feathered Cossack cap, gloves, pants, and patent leather shoes and his paramour Francy, a Viennese cabaret dancer with whom Ahmet became acquainted in Belgrade during his pre-presidential banishment, wore gowns produced by the finest Parisian dressmakers complimented by scores of jewels which, as Chartin Sarachi surmised, would have won the envy of Cleopatra.  

When this malfeasance threatened to unravel into a national economic crisis, Zogu first sought relief from Russia’s ambassador in Vienna who refused to take the matter to Moscow much less any further than the consulate itself. With no Communist assistance forthcoming from the Soviet front, Ahmet turned his attention to Fascist Rome which proved much more receptive to Zogu’s entreaties. Having knowingly bought into the lie with ulterior motives already in mind, Benito Mussolini personally approved a £200,000 loan to help stave off what he was informed to be an imminent revolution. There was more than a scarce element of truth behind Zogu’s ruse, surrounded as he was not only by a discontented general population but by sycophants, illiterates, and traitors which Ahmet proudly yet contemptuously referred to as “my circus.”

The creation of an Albanian National Bank, established and kept solvent by international handouts and headquartered in Rome, was a laughable attempt at legitimacy and necessitated the signing of a formal alliance with Italy in 1927. What followed was the coronation of Zog I, King of the Albanians, in what could only have been an eerie procession. The monarch rode in an open-top automobile flanked by armed cavalry, traveling into Tirana past houses all adorned with Italian-made Albanian flags, inside of which the occupants were ordered to remain. The purpose of this was to keep the streets clear, eliminating any risk of assassination.

The Puppet Defies Its Master

If Zog was initially thought of as an easy mark who would exist contentedly and be manipulated effortlessly beneath the boot of Italy, Il Duce had another guess coming, particularly when the Balkan King brazenly rejected four of the seven demands included in a 1933 ultimatum drafted by Mussolini. The disputed points of contention called for “the dismissal of all Albanian high officials not of Italian origin, the removal of English officers commanding the police and their replacement by Italians, the reopening of Catholic schools recently closed by the government, and the replacement of the French school at Kortcha by an Italian school.”     

Zog ran further afoul of Mussolini by subsequently entering into a commercial agreement with Yugoslavia as well as initiating diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. However, growing financial instability and a resulting small-scale rebellion in the city of Fier in 1935 would force Zog to relent to Mussolini’s ultimatum in order to guarantee the continual flow of money into Albania from Rome. Zog additionally sought to curry favor with his benefactor by publicly protesting the sanctions imposed upon Italy by the League of Nations as a penalty for its annexation of Ethiopia.  

Ironically, it would be another annexation order issued by Mussolini - in 1939 against Albania - which would finally cause the two vainglorious dictators to come to loggerheads. Zog’s denial of Italy as Albania’s military protectorate would be his final act of defiance. Mussolini’s vengeful response arrived in the form of a naval bombardment from the Adriatic Sea which cleared the way for a boots-on-the-ground invasion over the Easter weekend. While the Albanian crown transferred to the head of Italy’s Vittorio Emanuel III, Zog escaped to Greece with his beautiful Hungarian bride Geraldine Apponyi and their infant son, Crown Prince Leka. From there, they re-routed to London where the royal family took sanctuary within the luxurious confines of the Ritz Hotel.

Knollwood

The famed Manhattan architectural firm of Hiss and Weeks drafted plans for the immense 60-room stone mansion which was constructed sometime between 1906 and 1920 as the centerpiece of Westbrook Farms, a 260-acre estate in Nassau County on Long Island intended for Charles Hudson who amassed his fortune through dealings on Wall Street as well as in the burgeoning steel industry.   

With the purpose of utilizing Knollwood as a by-proxy Albanian kingdom, the exiled Zog purchased the estate in 1951 for a reported amount of $102,800, which today would equate to slightly less than a million dollars. Pillagers and vandals, fueled by speculation that Zog had completed the transaction by means of rubies and diamonds and already had hidden for him within the mansion by low-level Albanian functionaries his money and multitudinous treasures, looted and destroyed beyond repair the vacant premises.

Never having laid eyes or set foot upon the property, Zog sold it four years later and the Town of Oyster Bay declared the unsafe structure condemned and had it all but leveled to the ground in 1959. Accessible - albeit difficult to find - from hiking trails winding through the present-day Muttontown Preserve, the ruins of Knollwood are still today a popular destination for scavengers and curiosity-seekers who may not even necessarily be privy to the story of the obscure Albanian king who very nearly lived there.

And, so, what of Zog? Rather than Long Island, he and his family relocated to Paris where he died in 1961 and was buried in the Thiais Cemetery. In 2012, the Albanian government - including Zog’s grandson Leka, a political advisor to President Bujar Nashani - commemorated the centennial of the nation’s independence from the Ottoman Empire by having Ahmet Zogu exhumed and repatriated to Tirana.

Committed to a specially built mausoleum, Zog’s remains have fortunately received far more reverential treatment than those of the Gold Coast’s ransacked and bulldozed mansion. 

Did you find this article fascinating? If so, tell the world. Tweet about it, share it, or like it by clicking on one of the buttons below.

Sources

King Zog of the Albanians: The Inside Story by Chartin Sarachi (Unfinished and Unpublished Manuscript, 1940)

King Zog’s Albania by J. Swire (Liveright, 1937)

Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century and After by R.J. Crampton (Routledge, 1997)

In Albania, Mussolini’s Interference (Sunday Times of Perth, Australia-August 27, 1933)

Invasion of Albania by C. Peter Chen (World War II Database)

King Zog I of Albania by Richard Cavendish (History Today, 2014)

Bizarre King Zog’s Remains Repatriated to Albania by Robert Myles (Digital Journal-November 12, 2012)

Stumbling on the Abandoned Ruins of King Zog’s Long Island Estate by Nick Carr (Scouting New York-March 4, 2013)

Just what is a progressive? It used to be different…

The word progressive is used a badge of honor by some and a means of attack by others in modern politics. But to be progressive meant something different in earlier times. Here, Joseph Larsen tells us about a new book on the subject: Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era, by Thomas C. Leonard.

Bernie Sanders, a self-styled progressive and contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.  Pictured here in 2014.

The United States is in an election year with public confidence in government sinking – 2014 and 2015 Gallup polls show confidence in Congress at all-time lows.[1] Voters and pundits are engaged in bitter battles over the meaning of left and right, with the politically charged term “progressive” used and abused by voices across the political spectrum. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic Party candidates, both wear it as a badge of honor. But this term is often used but little understood. During Barack Obama’s first presidential term, one left-leaning history professor described a progressive as anyone “who believes that social problems have systemic causes and that governmental power can be used to solve those problems.”

Progressivism has an ugly history, too. The side of the Progressive Era the American left would rather forget is dredged up by Princeton University Scholar Thomas C. Leonard in Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era. In a scathing criticism of the American Progressive Era Leonard emphasizes the movement’s rejection of racial equality, individualism, and natural rights. Progressivism was inspired by the torrent of economic growth and urbanization that was late nineteenth century America. Mass-scale industrialization had turned the autonomous individual into a relic. “Society shaped and made the individual rather than the other way around,” writes Leonard. “The only question was who shall do the shaping and molding” (p. 23). Naturally, the progressives chose themselves for that task.

Much of the book is devoted to eugenics. Defined as efforts to improve human heredity through selective breeding, the now-defunct pseudoscience was a pillar of early 20th century progressivism. Leonard argues that eugenics fit snugly into the movement’s faith in social control, economic regulation, and Darwinism (p. 88). But Darwin was ambiguous on whether natural selection resulted in not only change but also progress. This gave progressive biologists and social scientists a chance to exercise their self-styled expertise. Random genetic variance and the survival of inferior traits is useless; what’s needed is social selection, reproduction managed from above to ensure proliferation of the fit and removal of the unfit (p. 106). Experts could expose undesirables and remove them from the gene pool. Forced sterilization and racial immigration quotas were popular methods.

The book’s most memorable chapter is where it analyzes minimum wage legislation. These days, this novelty of the administrative state is taken for granted – many on the left currently argue that raising the wage floor doesn’t destroy jobs – but Leonard finds its roots in Progressive Era biases against market exchange, immigrants, and racial minorities. Assuming that employers always hire the lowest-cost candidates and that non-Anglo-Saxon migrants (as a function of their inferior race) always underbid the competition, certain progressives undertook to push them out of the labor market. Their tool was the minimum wage. Writes Leonard:

The economists among labor reformers well understood that a minimum wage, as a wage floor, caused unemployment, while alternative policy options, such as wage subsidies for the working poor, could uplift unskilled workers without throwing the least skilled out of work … Eugenically minded economists such as [Royal] Meeker preferred the minimum wage to wage subsidies not in spite of the unemployment the minimum wage caused but because of it (p. 163).

In the hands of a lesser author, this book could have been a partisan attack on American liberalism, and one that would find a welcoming audience in the current political landscape. Leonard deftly stands above the left-right fray. Rather than give ammunition to the right he argues that progressivism attracted people from both ends of the political spectrum. Take Teddy Roosevelt, a social conservative and nationalist who nonetheless used the presidency to promote a progressive agenda. “Right progressives, no less than left progressives were illiberal, glad to subordinate individual rights to their reading of the common good. American conservative thinking was never especially antistatist”, Leonard writes (p. 39). Furthermore, eugenics had followers among progressives, conservatives, and socialists alike. The true enemy of progressivism? Classical liberalism, the belief that society is a web of interactions between individuals and not a collective “social organism.”

Insights for today?

Leonard combines rigorous research with lucid writing, presenting a work that is intellectually sound, relevant, and original. Readers should take his insights to heart when asking how much of the Progressive Era still lives in 2016. The answer is not simple. Contemporary progressives like Clinton and Sanders certainly don’t espouse biological racism. For those who whip up anti-immigrant sentiment to win votes, “progressive” is a dirty word, not a badge of honor. Moreover, the American left long ago abandoned attempts to control the economy via technocratic experts.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Modern progressives still place a disturbing amount of faith in the administrative state and a lack of it in market exchange. Leonard closes by arguing that the Progressive Era lives on: “Progressivism reconstructed American liberalism by dismantling the free market of classical liberalism and erecting in its place the welfare state of modern liberalism.” (p. 191). It is up to the reader to decide whether that is something to be lauded or fought against.

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You can buy the book Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era, by Thomas C. Leonard here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Joseph Larsen is a political scientist and journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. He writes about the pressing issues of today, yesterday, and tomorrow. You can follow him on Twitter @JosephLarsen2.

[1] “Confidence in Institutions.” Gallup.com. Accessed January 29, 2016. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx/.

One of the most important events of the early 20th century – but why did it happen?

One of the most important events of the early twentieth century was the collapse of the Chinese Qing Dynasty during the Xinhai Revolution from 1911-12. But what was it and why did this monumental event happen? And was it inevitable? Scarlett Zhu returns to the site and explains all (PS – you can read Scarlett’s earlier article here.)

A battle outside Hankow in the 1911 Chinese Xinhai Revolution. Source: Wellcome Trust, available here.

The imperial court in the last days of the Qing Dynasty was a shadow of its former self.[1] Pressurized by the 1911 Chinese Revolution, on February 12, 1912, the Empress Dowager Longyu, with her young adopted son, the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, signed the abdication papers forcing the young emperor from the Dragon Throne. The act not only ended the Qing Dynasty at its last gasp, but also China’s millennia-long feudal rule. The reasons for the dynasty’s decline are fairly straightforward, but there has been a prolonged debate as to the relative weighting between them. It all boils down to the question of whether the nature of one event was the product of historical inevitability or a once preventable choice, whether the Qing Dynasty was destined to fall or whether it could have been saved. Some scholars argued the decisive turning point was its initial alienated identity, or Emperor Qian Long’s legacy; its internal socio-economic problems towards its final years or invasions from foreign powers. However, the more compelling case seems to be that the influence from Western societies and culture, which turned the once preventable choice into historical inevitability. Inevitability, in a historical context and in this case, would be the moment when the Qing Dynasty was incapable of avoiding the consequences of being overthrown. An assessment on inevitability and various turning points would be the best way to weigh up the importance of these factors.

An ethnic minority

It could be argued that the Qing Dynasty’s identity as a regime established by ethnic minorities determined its fate being “doomed from the beginning”. The Qing Dynasty was an empire established by the Manchus, a tribal minority which conquered Beijing in 1644. As Hsu puts it, in the end, "the very fact that the Qing was an alien dynasty continuously evoked Chinese protest in the form of secret society activities and nationalistic racial revolt and revolution."[2] The Qings did spend effort on trying to mitigate the discontent such as keeping the system of rule of the Ming government, promoting Neo Confucianism, which was a popular religion in China at the time, and allowing Han Chinese into its bureaucracy. But most of the time, it did much to show that the Manchus were separate and superior, with the prime example of prohibiting intermarriages between the Manchus and the Han Chinese. In this sense, because the majority Han Chinese would never have been content with being ruled by foreigners, internal discontent and rebellion was guaranteed. This was illustrated by the Revolt of the Three Feudatories by Han Chinese army officers in 1673. This also falls in line with Marxist historians’ view, as they see the historical process characterized by endless class struggles. In this case, it would be the oppressed Han Chinese against the oppressive Manchus, which indicated a struggle to overcome alienation successfully and thus the fall of the dynasty.

In short, the long-term resentment of the Han Chinese at being ruled by “foreigners” triggered a snowballing growth of opposition to the regime as it went on, such that it could be argued that the dynasty’s collapse became inevitable. However, this turning point was not the most decisive. This was due to the strength, assertiveness and high centralization enforced by its early founders and the fact that they all understood that the empire could only be held together by talking in political and religious idioms of their Han Chinese subjects. It meant the possibility of a submissive and marginal Han Chinese opposition and implied the survival of the dynasty was still open to them - a possibility that some argued was soon diminished when Qianlong came to power in1735.

A corrupt emperor

Emperor Qian Long’s legacy was another turning point which many argued that contributed the most to the inevitability. Despite the prosperity and peace Qian Long maintained throughout the empire, he, like many past emperors, became incompetent as a leader towards the end of his years. As the great Emperor aged, he began to adopt a series of measures which, with hindsight, planted the seeds for the inevitable downfall of the Manchus. The corruption was the most evident feature as untrustworthy officials and their needy relatives pocketed public funds. But Qianlong turned a blind eye to it, since the architect behind all this large-scale corruption and nepotism was his court favorite, He Shen. By the end of Qianlong's reign in 1796, the once-prospering treasury was “nearly depleted”[3]. In addition to this strain in the empire’s income, the untrained and ill equipped Bannerman and the Chinese Green Standard Army led by those corrupt generals was equally detrimental. This resulted in the failure to put down the famous White Lotus Rebellion in 1794 efficiently and quickly, and encouraged foreign invasions in the long term. The rebellion was significant as this was the first sign of the politicization of the general public. This was also the first peasant-led open rebellion against the extortion of tax collectors, which would eventually become a common feature towards the end of the dynasty. Furthermore, his dealings with the Europeans were also argued to encourage later aggressive foreign invasions as he adopted an isolationist approach. It could be argued that Qianlong’s reluctance to tackle corruption and to improve the quality of the military and his foreign policies made the collapse inevitable. However, the collapse at this point was not envisaged. The Qing Empire maintained goodwill from the West through trade and commerce. Alongside this, there was not a systematic breakdown within the government despite its ongoing corruption. Both factors ironically settled disputes and criticisms of the emperor, as people, whether rich or poor, high or low, were provided with great economic security, or at least from the surface it seemed this way - thus the possibility of the dynasty’s survival was still conceivable.

Weaknesses in society

The exposure of the structural socio-economic weaknesses of China in Qing’s later years, a third turning point, cannot be understated. Agriculture dominated 90 to 95 per cent of the Qing Dynasty’s rural economy[4], wealth distribution was unequal and there was significant population growth with its population exceeding 100 million, the largest hitherto in China’s history.[5] This made the economy and society incredibly weak when external shocks hit, like natural disasters and diseases. As far as Wu argued, two of the biggest floods in world history, the Yellow River flood in 1898 and the Yangtze River flood in 1911, helped to end the Qing Dynasty.[6]This pressure would ultimately tilt the balance of economic power[7] and lead to the collapse of the socio-economic system. A subsequent array of social unrest and discontent towards the Qing Dynasty was created, thus making the uneducated public more receptive to the idea of revolution. This was perhaps best illustrated by the outbreak of one of the bloodiest civil wars, the Taiping Rebellion led by the poor and the unemployed in 1850. Thus, the fact that economic and social practices, which were seen to be the backbone of the dynasty, were unsustainable meant that the fall was inevitable. However, this may not be the most convincing case. The peasants’ rebellions in response to socio-economic issues were short-lived (Dungan Revolt 1895–96) and were failures (Nian, Du Wenxiu, Dungan rebellions). Their reactions were also, to a large extent, controllable as long as Qing maintained the loyalty of the army and imposed a strong degree of force and terror. This turning point did not necessarily mean the outright fall of the Qing Dynasty, for peasants’ rebellions and the empire’s assertive suppression in response was a mode that had remained relatively unchanged for 2,000 years since the Han Dynasty[8], which ensured political stability and re-established state authority.

Foreign powers

The First Opium War in 1839 was argued to be another crucial turning point towards the inevitability of the fall, as Trotsky once described war as “a locomotive of history”[9]. It was the product of the collapse of negotiations between the British and the Chinese to open up trade barriers and soon turned China into “a drug-crazed nation”[10]. Qing’s army may have had the capacity to put down internal strikes, but they were no match for external artillery and naval strength. The event is significant in signaling the beginning of “unequal treaties” (Treaty of Nanjing, Treaty of Bogue) and a chain of foreign invasions and interference (The Invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance). This meant that the Chinese lost confidence in the once-invincible army and the Imperial political system. In turn, this led to even more unrest in the Chinese society, with patriots enraged at the weakness of their country and forming revolutionary movements. One of the most notable was the Boxer Rebellion, which initially was against both the Qing government and the foreign spheres of influence. China’s defeats, the exacerbation of the socio-economic problems by the wars and the protests that followed did mean the empire’s future looked incredibly bleak. It seems that the collapse was highly possible. However, this turning point was not the most important one. Firstly, it is important to note that the Western powers generally had no intention to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, but rather desired to turn it into a subordinate. Secondly, the Qing government was clever enough to manipulate the patriotism in their favor. They managed to mobilize the protestors against the foreign powers, as demonstrated by the change of the peasants’ aims in the Boxer Rebellion.

Western ideas

An accomplice of foreign invasions, Western influence and culture, was argued to have a profound impact on the inevitable downfall. It reflected the great sense of crisis and highlighted the need of a change. Western modernistic literature, religion and political ideologies promised a liberal and capitalist utopia, a promotion of love and peace by Christianity and the subsequent economic prosperity following industrialization. This made the political repression of Qing seem remarkably backward and thus hugely appealed to the public. People were more educated, receptive and sensitive toward revolutionary ideas, with the example of the wave of students travelling abroad to study being radicalized, one of which became the leader in the 1911 Revolution, the “Father of Modern China”, Sun Yat-sen.

Arguably Emperor Guang Xu’s last attempt to save the country based on Western culture, the Hundred Days’ Reform in 1898, made the collapse inevitable. The example set by Western powers provided the Manchus with a route to ensure their survival. The reform consisted of numerous progressive ideas such as capitalism, constitutional monarchy, and industrialization. Despite the reform ending within 103 days, it opened up expectations which the traditional ruling elites of Qing would never be able to satisfy, particularly given their deeply rooted backward imperialism and reluctance to change. Great impetus was given to revolutionary forces within China and such sentiments directly contributed to the success of the Chinese Revolution barely a decade later, which ultimately brought down the hundred-year-old rule of the Qing Dynasty.

The key factors

Two elements indicate that the Chinese Revolution of 1911 was the decisive turning point for the destiny of the Qing Dynasty. Firstly, it was the first time that such a huge wave of universal discontent rose. It was the outburst of the accumulation of national resentment, unrest and instability. Reasons for the outburst varied, ranging from the failure of Qing to reduce the ethnic alienation, to confront foreign aggression, to solve socio-economic problems, which united a vast number of people with a variety of class, background and interests. Started by the mishandling of the building of a railway, the situation soon escalated into successive and spontaneous uprisings that occurred throughout the year across remarkably different regions. By the end of the year, 14 provinces had declared themselves against the Qing leadership.[11] Debatably the previous rebellions had been motivated by the same factors, but never had the public been so aware of the sharp contrast between the East’s backwardness and the West’s superiority, which brings in the second factor. It was the immense exposure to Western cultural influence and ideologies which heightened the pressure on the regime. China’s issues across all aspects of society were evident and the possibility of their nation pursuing the path of the modern powerhouses like Britain and France seemed achievable. This in turn also gave the leadership the ideas it needed, as it was mainly led by groups of intelligentsia who received profound influence from Western education, such as Sun Yat-sen. Hence when universal discontent met foreign ideologies, the collapse of the imperial Qing Dynasty had finally become inevitable.

The end

Thus before the Chinese Revolution of 1911, the dynasty’s collapse has always been a preventable choice. Sun Yat-sen once said that when he first advanced the Principle of Nationalism, he won responses mostly from secret societies but "seldom from the middle-and-above social strata"[12]. This is highly suggestive of the fact that the essential elements and support for the collapse was absent previously. It also indicates the impromptu nature of the 1911 revolution. However, as progressive Western ideas prevailed and nationalism spread at a tremendous pace, penetrating into every stratum of society, almost everyone came to realize the necessity of waging a revolution.[13] By claiming the fall was made inevitable by Qing’s initial identity or Qianlong’s legacy would be a claim largely reliant on hindsight. Its internal socio-economic issues, on the other hand, were persistent and prolonged by the use of fear and terror. The West’s invasions by warfare can be regarded to be far less important than the invasions by culture and ideologies, as foreign powers only envisioned the Qing to be a submissive puppet government. In conclusion, until the Qing Dynasty was highly exposed to the Western ideologies which nurtured a high level of awareness for change and comparison, its downfall was never inevitable.

Did you find this article interesting? If so, tell the world. Tweet about it, like it, or share it by clicking on one of the buttons below.

You can read Scarlett’s article on the burning of the Summer Palace by the British and French here.

[1] The Extraordinary Life of The Last Emperor of China, Jia Yinghua, 2012

[2] The Myth of the 'Five Human Relations' of Confucius, Hsu Dau-lin, 1970-71

[3] http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Qianlong_Emperor

[4] A Changing China: Emerging Governance, Economic and Social Trends, Civil Service College, P71

[5] China’s Population Expansion and Its Causes during the Qing Period, 1644–1911, Kent Deng, P6

[6] History of the Qing Dynasty, Annie Wu, 2015

[7] Manslaughter, Markets and Moral Economy, Thomas M. Buoye

[8] A Changing China: Emerging Governance, Economic and Social Trends, Civil Service College, P71

[9] Report on the Communist International, Leon Trotsky, 1922

[10] Pathway to the Stars, DD Rev Ernest a. Steadman, 2007

[11] http://www.britannica.com/event/Chinese-Revolution-1911-1912

[12] Sheng Hu, "Anti-imperialism, democracy and industrialization in the 1911 Revolution," in The 1911 Revolution: A Retrospective After 70 years, 9-25. Beijing: New World Press, 1983.

[13] Shu Li, "A Re-Assessment of Some Questions Concerning the 1911 Revolution."  in The 1911 Revolution: A Retrospective After 70 years, 67-127. Beijing: New World Press, 1983.

Spanish Civil War Maps

We created a number of maps to go with our Spanish Civil War book. Rather than keep them hidden away, we thought we'd share them with you on the blog...

The maps show the situation at four key stages of the Spanish Civil War between General Franco's Nationalists and the Republicans. They are a very useful complement to the book.

Return to our Spanish Civil War page by clicking here.

And remember, you can obtain a copy of our book on the Spanish Civil War instantly here.

Images produced for www.itshistorypodcasts.com by Yazuo Baca of Luna Media Lab.

Cocaine: A Wonder Drug Gone Wrong?

For most of us, cocaine brings to mind the image of drug-fueled discos or wealthy Wall Street stockbrokers, feeding an insatiable habit. However, the history of this addictive stimulant is a far more interesting tale than one might imagine. Liz Greene explains.

An 1885 advert for children's cocaine toothache drops.

The story of cocaine starts in the high mountain ranges of South America, where native Peruvians chewed the leaves of the coca plant in order to increase energy and strength. The stimulating effects of the leaf sped breathing, raising the oxygen level in their blood and countering the effects of living in thin mountain air. Once the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, word of the coca plant and its interesting effects began to spread.

 

The Wonder Drug

In 1859, German chemist Albert Niemann isolated, extracted, and named the purified alkaloid cocaine from a batch of coca leaves transported from South America. Despite the detailed information he provided on the alkaloid in his dissertation, it wouldn’t be until later in the century that its effects were recognized in the medical community.

As medical experiments testing cocaine’s analgesic properties began, other doctors were studying the drug’s more stimulating traits. In 1883, Theodor Aschenbrandt, a German army physician, administered cocaine to soldiers in the Bavarian Army. He reported that the drug reduced fatigue and enhanced the soldiers’ endurance during drills. These positive findings were published in a German medical journal, where they came to the attention of famed psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.

Freud’s findings on cocaine were based widely on his own experience with the drug. Not only did he use it regularly, he also prescribed it to his girlfriend, best friend, and father. In July 1884, he published Über Coca, a paper promoting cocaine as a treatment of everything from depression to morphine addiction. He concluded,

Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug...

Unfortunately, he was not only wrong, he was already addicted.

A Wider Audience

Inspired by Paolo Mantegazza’s reports of coca use in Peru, French chemist, Angelo Mariani developed a new drink concocted of claret and cocaine. With 6 milligrams of cocaine in every ounce, Vin Mariani became extremely popular, even among such high hitters as Queen Victoria, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope Saint Pius X.

Motivated by the success of Vin Mariani, in 1885, a drugstore owner in Columbus, Georgia decided to formulate his own version. Unfortunately for John Pemberton, the county in which he lived passed prohibition legislation, forcing him to come up with a new recipe for his French Wine Nerve Tonic. In 1886 he created a new, nonalcoholic version based on both coca and kola nut extracts — giving rise to the name Coca Cola. The euphoric and energizing effects of the drink helped to skyrocket the popularity of Coca-Cola by the turn of the century. Until 1903, a standard serving contained around 60mg of cocaine.

But cocaine wasn’t limited to beverages. Throughout the early 1900s, unregulated patent medicines containing cocaine were sold en masse. Toothache drops, nausea pills, analgesic syrups — all were easy to obtain, and far more addictive than consumers realized. By 1902 there were an estimated 200,000 cocaine addicts in the United States.

A 1890s advert for Vin Mariani tonic wine.

A Serious Problem

As cocaine use in society increased, the dangers of the drug became more evident. In 1903, the New York Tribune ran an expose that linked cocaine to crime in America, pressuring the Coca-Cola Company to remove cocaine from the soft drink. Eleven years later, the Harrison Narcotic Act came into effect, regulating the manufacture and dispense of cocaine in the United States. With the passing of the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act in 1922, cocaine became so heavily regulated that usage began to decline sharply — and continued to do so through the 1960s.

In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. It classified cocaine as a Schedule II Controlled Substance, meaning the drug could only be possessed with a written prescription of a practitioner. This allowed for cocaine to still be used medically as a topical anesthetic, but not recreationally.

The passing of the Controlled Substances Act didn’t stop the popular media of the time from portraying cocaine as fashionable and glamorous. Rock stars, actors, and other popular figures of the time brandished paraphernalia like a trendy accessory, and America’s urban youth were watching.

Around this same time, a new, crystallized form of cocaine — known as crack — appeared. This cheaper alternative to cocaine made a name for itself in low-income communities during the 1980s. With such a high rate of addiction, users were willing to do almost anything for their next hit — leading to a dramatic rise in crime and a moral panic labeling crack as an epidemic.

Though cocaine use has steadily declined in recent years, the drug is still gathering about 1,600 new users each day. More than 40,000 people die from drug overdoses each year in the U.S — around 5,000 of which are due to cocaine. It’s seems as though cocaine isn’t quite ready to let go of its place in society — nor does it appear to be going away anytime soon.

Liz Greene is a dog loving, beard envying, history and pop culture geek from the beautiful city of trees, Boise, Idaho. You can catch up with her latest misadventures on Instant Lo or follow her on Twitter @LizVGreene.

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References

http://www.wired.com/2010/09/0915cocaine-local-anesthetic/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68768839/Uber-Coca-Pt-1

http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2015/10/freud-and-his-drug-demons.html

http://www.lycaeum.org/eleusis/en/articles/vel-mantegazza.shtml

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/buyers/socialhistory.html

http://southernmemoriesandupdates.com/stories/coca-cola-removes-cocaine-from-its-secret-formula/

http://www.salon.com/1999/05/11/crack_media/

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHresultsPDFWHTML2013/Web/NSDUHresults2013.htm#5.4

https://www.watersedgerecovery.com/business-executives-addiction-and-mental-health-issues/

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates