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| Blogs > kzoopair > Take two- they're small |
Early Dates
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Early Dates First Dates Is The Topic For The Fourteenth Virtual Symposium I’ve thought a lot about first dates the last few days, since the topic was chosen for the Fourteenth Virtual Symposium. It doesn’t run to what most of us think when we hear “first dates” on a dating site. It doesn’t run to what I myself think either, blogging here. This is the Thanksgiving Symposium, and the dates I’m thinking of are historical. Among those dates is 11 November 1620, the day the Mayflower Compact was signed. The Pilgrims who created that document didn’t settle on a site for their fledging colony for another month, but in that agreement was the kernel of representative democracy in America among the immigrants. There is 4 May 1607, when the Virginia Company of London established James Fort, the first of what were to be permanent settlements in the New World. These adventures into North America were hundreds of miles apart, nearly as remote from one another as they were from Europe. They were remote from one another in other ways too. For investors, America was a business venture from the beginning. Spain had reaped untold riches from pillaging the native people of the New World, and in addition to pirating those riches from Spain on the high seas, England hoped to mine the new land for gold and silver itself. In the first eleven years of Jamestown, something like eight thousand emigrants had come to the colony, all in order to maintain a population of barely a thousand. The death rate was that appalling. It took years to establish that it wouldn’t be mineral wealth, but tobacco that would ensure the financial success of the Virginia Colony, and human slavery would enhance those profits. In Massachusetts, it would be beaver pelts and timber that would bring profit. England, ever a nation of shopkeepers, got with the reduced program quickly and set about taking what profit it could however it could. I have ancestors who came by both routes. My own same surname ancestor came on 16 July1767 as a slave, transported here for the theft of sixpence. He learned to grow tobacco after being sold as an indentured servant in the Annapolis market, and followed that occupation for the rest of his life. He was a pioneer always, and litigious all his life, leaving a court record wherever he went that made him easier to trace than a more amicable man might have been, paying his debts and his marriage bond in pounds of tobacco that were recorded from Lord Dunmore’s War to his service in the Revolution to his settlements in Kentucky and Ohio. I have an impression of him as a pugnacious old reprobate who was at all times cognizant of his rights as a free man, rights that he fought for and won hard. Another branch of my family arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1642, fleeing the Civil War in England for the chance to start over in New England. Tristram Coffin became a Quaker, a dissident among dissidents. Quakers were not welcome in Massachusetts- their immigration was prohibited by law in 1656 and they were persecuted mercilessly by the Puritan government. In 1659 Tristram Coffin and a consortium of other Quakers bought Nantucket Island from its deed holder and settled there, to escape the hounding of the Puritan majority as much as to have a domain of their own. One member of the consortium, Thomas Macy, had been fined and admonished for giving shelter to Quaker travelers during a storm in 1657. You suspect that he had had his belly full of Puritans and their theocracy. It’s been stated time after time that the Pilgrims who came here against all odds to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth came not so much to escape religious persecution as to find a place where they might practice it themselves. That certainly seems to have been their goal when you read the historical record. My own people, Quakers, were their victims, and required the intervention of King Charles the Second, who ordered that the Puritans cease and desist from hanging Quakers shortly after the Restoration in 1660. These Puritan separatists and dissenters did not willingly tolerate dissent in their own ranks. Their dealings with the native Americans betray a ruthlessness that was to be echoed throughout our history as a nation. They seem to have set a precedent. The bloodiest war ever fought on American soil- per capita- was not the American Civil War but King Phillip’s War, when the Wampanoag and other New England tribes were decimated by the colonists. The English themselves suffered mightily in that war but cemented their hegemony in an orgy of bloodlust that dealt a death blow to the Indian tribes. The colony would suffer from the attacks of Native Americans a little over decade later, but it would be the Algonquian allies of the French and not local tribes who threatened them. The list of their sins is long, and still I have this affinity for those disagreeable people, the Puritans. There were sinners among them- genealogists and scholars have studied the meticulous records they kept and found that they drank, and cheated and stole and fornicated with abandon and were a constant trial to their civic and spiritual leaders. So this speaks well of them. They were human, after all. But they brought something besides their religious zeal and human frailty. The historian and demographer Kevin Phillips has wondered if there might be a gene for theological experimentation, a predilection for the creation of new religious sects and the invention of new doctrine that passes as the latest in the Word of God business. From Quakers to Shakers to Mormons to abolitionists to the Mother Chautauqua, they are always thinking and pondering and meddling. When sides were chosen prior to the American Civil War, the players were cast as Cavaliers versus Roundheads again, a virtual replay of the English Civil war, with Southerners promising themselves that they’d get free of those damned Puritans once and for all and advance the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was to be the aristocratic Stuarts fighting the disloyal and plebeian Parliamentarians in one final conflagration- yet again. I think it’s the striving that seduces me. They are never fucking happy. This is ordinarily antithetical for me. Make the most of it, is my motto. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff. You get one life- enjoy it. Puritans cannot stand this attitude. They always see how a thing could be better, how it could be more fair…more godly. And they always hook me. My Quaker ancestor John Woolman was an early abolitionist. He could not leave well enough alone. How could he in good conscience rest when another man was a slave? A Quaker, in this context, is really a dissident Puritan, the quintessential Puritan. And he helped to convert the Puritans to the anti-slavery movement. Levi Coffin, another cousin, was an underground railroad conductor, in North Carolina and Indiana. These damned ancestors set a high bar. They repeatedly disregarded their own leisure and safety to follow some moral compass, some higher good. New England and western New York, where many Yankees settled after the Revolution, became a birthplace of radical theology and ideology And they are constantly making things uncomfortable for the rest of us. I have all these dates roiling around in my head- 1620 and Plimouth Plantation, 1642 when Tristram Coffin sailed to Massachusetts, 1659 and the settlement of Nantucket, 1660 and the royal prohibition against the persecution of Quakers, 1689- King William’s War, 1767 and transportation as an indentured servant, and on and on. In 1776 my seventh great grandfather enlisted in the Jersey Blues and fought in the rout of the Continental Army in the Battle of Brooklyn. And 1861 when my abolitionist forbears lined up once more against yet another aristocracy. There is much to be proud of and a lot to live up to. There’s one more date- 5 November 1605, Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes was the man fingered as the leader of the Gunpowder Plot, a plan by Catholics to blow up the Tower of London, assassinate King James the First and install a true Catholic monarch on the throne of England. Yet another dissident! The mask worn by Anonymous, the cyber dissidents who have publicly named members of ISIS and the Ku Klux Klan, is a Guy Fawkes mask, a symbol of dissidence and revolt. And I have an ancestor involved in this as well. The man who tortured and extracted Fawkes confession was my eleventh great grandfather, Sir William Waad, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, known to his captives as “that beast Waad”. One ancestor among thousands with a title, and he was a jailor and interrogator. You win some, you lose some. You can pick your friends, but you can’t do a damned thing about your family. At least I didn’t have to endure him for Thanksgiving dinner. Sir William Waad  Become a member now and get a free tote bag. |
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Very Inciteful. Thank You for sharing
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Quite the illustrious lineage you have going there. I am a 13 year old boy in my head- the phrase "fingered him" made me titter with unexpected glee, and the last name Waad, made me think of "shooting his waad" and giving it a whole new meaning when he was torturing and extracting a confession. Oh dear. Thanks for the contribution to the symposium and I'll be trying to post mine soon enough. Kk The observant make the best lovers, I may not do right, but I do write, I have bliss, joy, and happiness in my life, Kitkat Come check out my blog KItkat1415 check out this post by me Adventures In Body Grooming #39 April Topic Link: What Lies Beneath If April Showers Oh Bloody Hell What Kind Of Weather Turns Me On Bloggers Symposium 40
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Colorful characters, indeed!
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Quite the illustrious lineage you have going there. I am a 13 year old boy in my head- the phrase "fingered him" made me titter with unexpected glee, and the last name Waad, made me think of "shooting his waad" and giving it a whole new meaning when he was torturing and extracting a confession. Oh dear. Thanks for the contribution to the symposium and I'll be trying to post mine soon enough. Kk Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Colorful characters, indeed! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Wow... just wow.... This is phenomenal! To have ancestors such as you have ... it just blows my mind.. To dig so deep to unveil family history that intertwines with history of the country! This leaves me speechless... Thank you for yet another fantastic post and lesson in history!  Visit my blog It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World of NaughtyInSO, leave a comment, become a watcher. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LIVE AND LET LIVE Be happy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Wow... just wow.... This is phenomenal! To have ancestors such as you have ... it just blows my mind.. To dig so deep to unveil family history that intertwines with history of the country! This leaves me speechless... Thank you for yet another fantastic post and lesson in history! If you're atheist like me, you could do a lot worse than finding Quakers in your background. Like I said to Keith in the comment above, I'm immensely proud of those Quakers. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Hey! Is that your new profile pic? It sounds quite noble,"Lord Waad of Kalamazoo"! I'd go with that! It figures that the one guy in the tree who's a knight is a prick. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Very Inciteful. Thank You for sharing Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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The power of the righteous is not to be taken lightly. Good, bad or indifferent (which is rare) they have shaped the world as we know it. Vive La Difference
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The power of the righteous is not to be taken lightly. Good, bad or indifferent (which is rare) they have shaped the world as we know it. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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My mother's family came as copper miners, to Upper Michigan. I like finding bootleggers in a family- insurgents, entrepreneurs and scofflaws- that impresses me. People flipping the ancestral bird to authority. High five!!! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Once again, you have outdone yourself, Sir William!!!!!!!      WITHOUT PASSION LIFE IS NOTHING
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Once again, you have outdone yourself, Sir William!!!!!!! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I wasn't disappointed by the slaves and servants- I give them high marks for surviving and prospering. Je n'ai pas été déçu par les esclaves et les domestiques que je leur donne des bonnes notes pour survivre et prospérer. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Awsome. Immigrants stories are full of surprises. The distortions are even more enlightening. Bartholdi the architecht of statue of liberty (a frenchman) went to Egypt and was awestruck by statues at the temple of Ramasses at abu simbel. His fellow travel mate on the ship was the builder of Suez canal. Bartholdi convinced him to have an Egyptian woman holding a light as the light house. The statue was to stand 86 feet high, and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet. But the Egyptians ran out of money to commission a sculpture and instead built a plain light house at port said. A broke Bartholdi immigrated to America for opportunity. He tried to sell his a gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant to NY. They didn't want it. He built just the hand and torch and displayed it in Pensylvania exibition and said he preferred PA to NY for the statue. Now NY wanted it and at a bigger scale. They hired Eiffel to do the structure U.S to pay for the Pedestal and France to pay for the statue. She may have been Pagan, Coptic, Jewish, Yazzidi or any of the many religions that was in Egypt. Now for the U.S bringing in Muslim refugees is a priority. So The government is promoting the Idea that Statue of liberty is muslim. Political hacks at Smithsonian and media are pushing this. Below is how they are spinning this  "The Statue of Liberty was originally conceived as a Muslim peasant woman and was to have stood at the approach to the Suez Canal, a lantern in her upraised hand serving as both lighthouse and a symbol of progress. But the sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi of France, proved unable to sell the idea to the khedive of Egypt, Ishma’il Pasha. Bartholdi remained determined to erect a colossus on the scale of the one in ancient Rhodes. He sailed to America with drawings of the Muslim woman transformed to the personification of Liberty." "Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”― Immanuel Kant .
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Awsome. Immigrants stories are full of surprises. The distortions are even more enlightening. Bartholdi the architecht of statue of liberty (a frenchman) went to Egypt and was awestruck by statues at the temple of Ramasses at abu simbel. His fellow travel mate on the ship was the builder of Suez canal. Bartholdi convinced him to have an Egyptian woman holding a light as the light house. The statue was to stand 86 feet high, and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet. But the Egyptians ran out of money to commission a sculpture and instead built a plain light house at port said. A broke Bartholdi immigrated to America for opportunity. He tried to sell his a gigantic female fellah, or Arab peasant to NY. They didn't want it. He built just the hand and torch and displayed it in Pensylvania exibition and said he preferred PA to NY for the statue. Now NY wanted it and at a bigger scale. They hired Eiffel to do the structure U.S to pay for the Pedestal and France to pay for the statue. She may have been Pagan, Coptic, Jewish, Yazzidi or any of the many religions that was in Egypt. Now for the U.S bringing in Muslim refugees is a priority. So The government is promoting the Idea that Statue of liberty is muslim. Political hacks at Smithsonian and media are pushing this. Below is how they are spinning this "The Statue of Liberty was originally conceived as a Muslim peasant woman and was to have stood at the approach to the Suez Canal, a lantern in her upraised hand serving as both lighthouse and a symbol of progress. But the sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi of France, proved unable to sell the idea to the khedive of Egypt, Ishma’il Pasha. Bartholdi remained determined to erect a colossus on the scale of the one in ancient Rhodes. He sailed to America with drawings of the Muslim woman transformed to the personification of Liberty." The history of the Statue of Liberty that you've provided is fascinating, and I'm grateful for it, but let's keep our eyes fixed on the message. America has constructed a powerful image of itself as a haven for the oppressed. If, as it has been recently asserted, "All lives matter", then the lives of Syrian refugees matter too. Which is it going to be? Often in our past we've turned our backs on people seeking asylum here. We've even turned our backs on American citizens born and raised here- Native Americans have been shuffled onto reservations where we can conveniently ignore them. People of Japanese descent have been confined in concentration camps. American citizens of African descent "with one drop of Negro blood in his veins" have been damned to live in a political limbo as second class citizens with abrogated rights that they've had to fight and die to gain. It ain't over yet. I don't want the restriction of Syrian refugees to be one more time that we forgot who we are and what we stand for. There can be no religious or ethnic test applied to immigrants to the United States that allows us to be more than hypocrites mouthing empty and meaningless slogans. Let's NOT send Jews back to Europe in 1939 all over again because we're cowards. Instead let's welcome those fleeing war and political oppression as if they were human beings just like you and I because we have the courage of our convictions. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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I agree with you 100%. I learned the history (1982 maybe) when Lee Iaccoca was in charge of her renovation and he said lady liberty is the second most beautiful woman that came from Europe. Number one being his mother. I as an Immigrant, like most immigrants initially lived very close to the statue in New Jersey. I have been there dozens and dozens of time. Irish were having a nasty civil war then and were trying to get here as refugees, but were blocked to please the British. Reagan and Tip Oneal both being Irish changed the rules and let a small number in. Then the political argument was that Lady liberty is European and we should let Europeans in. Now i find it amusing to hear the spin. Joseph kilroy was an Irish orphan who was adopted by a Lebanese couple. Once in the U.S joe Kilroy changed his name to George John Mitchell. His son a liberal democrat senator from Maine who loved Irish finally negotiated a peace deal in Ireland. Sen Mitchell is considered a prominent Arab American(his mom is Lebanese). This is what I love about America. I don't know that we have a single serving senator who is as decent and dignified as Sen Mitchell. I am with you that Lady liberty has come to represent America's ideal even though we seldom live up to it. Please delete both my messages after you read it. Don't want our conversation to take away from your magnificent post. "Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”― Immanuel Kant .
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Our conversation is part of the post. I wouldn't think of deleting it. Living up to standards is hard work, and it's bound to get ugly from time to time. You got to keep your eyes on the prize. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Couplea thoughts: 1. What would a sixpence in 1767 be worth today? You don't really give us a context: Could your forefather have been an 18th Century Bernie Madoff? 2. Had to reconstruct someone else's genealogy for a recent project. Fell in love with small town newspaper archives as a result. What a great bit of knowledge to have about your own family! 3. So, given your roots, when the Re**bl**ans talk about "real Americans," are they talking about you? If so, tell us what the people want! Tell us right now! 4. "Coffin" is a wonderful forefather name. The most interesting name I have in my history is phonetically similar to an intimate part of a woman's anatomy. Spelled differently, but pronounced the same. 5. We've already discussed that "miscreant" along with "reprobate" are two of my favorite words. Always glad to see either one of 'em in others' writing. ("Upstart" is fine, too, especially when discussing the works of Mr. Julius Henry Marx.) 6. Your exchanges with 08540Tantrafun represents the very best of what blogging here can be. I'm very, very glad you didn't delete them. I loved them! Your views on Wodehouse vs. Twain represent the very worst of what blogging here can be. I loved them! 7. Once again, you have managed to distort the symposium topic beyond any recognition. Well done. Stop in, read, and offer comments at my "swinging as seen in the media" blog, "Confessions of a Lifestyle Man" humorlife, which is also the home of the monthly virtual symposium. New post: The Virtual Symposium Returns Lets Pick A Topic
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What a fabulous, fabulous post!!! Loved it KZ hugsssssss V That is why your a great blogger on here! Become a blog watcher sweet_vm
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Thank you darling. Every one of us has a story like this. It may be so buried that we can't dig it up and discover it, but it's there anyway. Immigrants and exiles often have had their history and their identity stolen and obliterated, especially in the case of slaves. One of the most compelling things about researching for my Jewish niece has been the rich history that Jews have revered and preserved throughout the Diaspora. To cling to a sense of self through all that is an amazing accomplishment. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Thanks! History is simply a story, if you tell it right. When I get started on my family history I have to be reminded to shut up- I tend to go on and on, generally. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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Couplea thoughts: 1. What would a sixpence in 1767 be worth today? You don't really give us a context: Could your forefather have been an 18th Century Bernie Madoff? 2. Had to reconstruct someone else's genealogy for a recent project. Fell in love with small town newspaper archives as a result. What a great bit of knowledge to have about your own family! 3. So, given your roots, when the Re**bl**ans talk about "real Americans," are they talking about you? If so, tell us what the people want! Tell us right now! 4. "Coffin" is a wonderful forefather name. The most interesting name I have in my history is phonetically similar to an intimate part of a woman's anatomy. Spelled differently, but pronounced the same. 5. We've already discussed that "miscreant" along with "reprobate" are two of my favorite words. Always glad to see either one of 'em in others' writing. ("Upstart" is fine, too, especially when discussing the works of Mr. Julius Henry Marx.) 6. Your exchanges with 08540Tantrafun represents the very best of what blogging here can be. I'm very, very glad you didn't delete them. I loved them! Your views on Wodehouse vs. Twain represent the very worst of what blogging here can be. I loved them! 7. Once again, you have managed to distort the symposium topic beyond any recognition. Well done. 2. Newspaper archives are a wonderful thing, and even more wonderful is when some benefactor scans them and posts them online for researchers. 3. No. If you don't agree with Republican bigots there is no amount of time and no amount of blood that your family might shed for this country to qualify you as a real American. Being a real American is an exclusive rather than an inclusive thing for them. You and I will never be here long enough. What do the people want? An iPhone 6. 4. Coffyn, from "coffer", Old French "cofin". A small box or basket for valuables. The Coffin forbears appear to have invaded England in 1066 with William of Normandy. 5. Miscreant, reprobate and upstart all seem to fit him well. He couldn't stay out of a courtroom at any point in his life and I suspect he always had the larcenous heart of a born scofflaw. It made him easier to track than many ancestors who followed generations later but were more agreeable with their neighbors. He made noise and left tracks- loud ones. 6. None of us evolved here, not even the Clovis People. We ALL migrated here. And we should be forever grateful that the parents of Mr. Julius Henry Marx did. 7. Thanks. Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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What a fabulous, fabulous post!!! Loved it KZ hugsssssss V That is why your a great blogger on here! Become a member now and get a free tote bag.
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