John

Blog Post #3

1. Cambell attempts to examine how white women in Columbia South Carolina, survived Sherman’s tigers sacking the city.  She wants to examine how in the face of all the destruction and despair during the attack, the women banded together and grew stronger.
2. Her main points are that the women in the south due to their family heiarchy are predisposed to be strong warriors when their families are threatened.  She also examines the phenomenon that occurred when the supposed yankee monsters, weren’t monsters and treated the people they were guarding well and the relationships that formed due to that.  She determines that it was the shared unity of having been through Sherman’s tigers worst that enabled the women of Columbia to become stronger.
3. She used historical records from both newspapers and women’s correspondance with families and friends during and after the sacking of the city.
4. Cambell’s account is similar to both Constructing the American Past and Out of many.  It is similar because it shows the women of the south attempting to rise up and fight against these insurgents.  It also shows how after Shermans march to sea instead of curling up and surrendering, the Women of the south got stronger and their patriotism for the south grew stronger.  After the south had surrendered the women of the south were still resisting as Cambell shows.
5. It shows that while the town was being pillaged the women stayed strong.  One example shows a women who would go and stand over the soldiers as they looted her property giving them disapproving looks and how this would cause them to apologize to her out of fear, but mostly respect.  Cambell would disagree saying that Shermans march did not provide disillusionment for the women, but instead strengthened their resolve.  Shermans march is an example of total warfare in that he went in and tried to destroy the city, the only reason it is not total war is that he left most of the citizens alive.

 

Bouton “A Road Closed to Rural Insurgency”

1. Bouton attempts to examine the phenomenon of intended road closures in Pennsylvania in the late 18^th century after the civil war and their relationship to the economic downturn of the same time period.  Bouton lays out evidence that shows that the reason for the road closures was economic strife.  He goes on to show that while not often discussed, there was a severe shortage of money available in Pennsylvania during this time period, which caused many of the rural farmers to become laden with debt.  And eventually led to mass forfeitures of property and land.
2. Bouton, in his essay tries to show, that while closing roads, a major lifeline for the farmers and members of frontier communities, it was the last step in a series of steps aimed at public resistance of the new tax laws in Pennsylvania.  He goes on to show that there were several methods, such as a judge refusing to try someone that the county tax collector has brought forward as a delinquent.  Another way that the citizens resisted was to not vote to convict a person even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  “Evidence was worthy of consideration when it saved someone from hurt.  It would be ignored when it undermined the independence of the citizenry”(Bouton, 873).  The citizens at this time would also refuse to bid on the goods being auctioned off to pay off a persons debt as a means of community resistance.  When the state government realized that the collection of taxes became almost impossible, they changed the laws.  They made it almost impossible not to collect taxes and one of the last forms of resistance became shutting down the roads so that the tax collector could not reach town.  While they hurt themselves, they also hurt the government.
3. Boutons main source of information comes from historical records.  He uses court records to determine how many foreclosures were going on at the time.  He only used the records for which the seizure could be determined.  He also uses public records and correspondances between county and state officals to assess what was going on during this time period, economically and socially.
4. The article was a very persuasive one.  Bouton uses historical accounts to show just how bad it had gotten in the farming communties of rural Pennsylvania at the time.  He also shows that the wealth was concentrated to a few elites who controlled most of the war debts, and it was these debts that caused the state to tax its people so how.  Bouton also does a good job of showing the escalation of the resistance by the people.  When they changed the laws the people changed the way they reisisted. “With state and national leaders working to destroy rural defenses, farmers were forced to develop increasingly ambitious, creative, and confrontational strategies to defend their communities”(Bouton, 878)

 

Fenn Biological Warfare

In the article “Biological warfare in Eighteenth-century North America” by Elizabeth Fenn, the author is trying to show that biological warfare was a problem during this time and it was not just isolated incidents. The author using first hand accounts in the form of letters and sundry requests to show that not only did people spread the deadly small pox disease on purpose like in the fort pitt incident, but that the soldiers did this on a wider scale. She presents evidence on both sides of the debate, but tends to side more with the idea that biological warfare was used on both the indians before the revelutionary war, but also during the war by both the British and the American sides. An example of the British using it against the indians outside of the Fort Pitt episode is this one from the ottawa indians Ojibiwa neighbors traders at Mackinac infected visiting Indians with a contaminated flag presented to the Indians “as a token of friendship.” After the homeward-bound Ojibwas unfurled the flag among friends at Fond du Lac on Lake Superior, smallpox broke out. Some three hundred reportedly died at Fond du Lac alone. Writing in 1928, Heagerty noted that the account still remained in circulation: “The Indians to this day are firmly of the opinion that the small-pox was, at this time, communicated through the articles presented to their brethren by the agent of the fur company at Mackinac.” The British were not immune from Biological warfare though. During the revolutionary war it was used against them as this quote shows ome of the parolees were survivors of the massacre at Fort William Henry just over a month before. Some of them, moreover, were sick with smallpox. Four died in transit, and another twenty showed symptoms by the time they reached their destination. French motives in shipping the sick prisoners drew suspicion. “This was said,” according to an unnamed accuser, “to have been an attempt to introduce the small-pox into Halifax, many men being ill of the disorder on their embarkation. Providence, however, frustrated this benevolent design.” This is an important part of our history, it shows that not only has biological warfare been around for centuries, but it also shows the devestation that it can cause, which is a reminder for us to be weary about using it as a means of attack in the future.