Any history buffs here?

Love History.
Read about it and watch the History and International History Channel all the time.

My favorite historical period is Great Britain from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. While the royals are fun, I much prefer reading how the majority of the people lived during that time.

Not to say I don't enjoy the history our young country! It's all very fascinating to me!

Pony!

[COLOR=Navy]By 1800 there were more than 5,000,000 souls in the United States. Estimates are that 1 out of 5 was a slave, possibly 1 in 4.

Pres. Jefferson, "The whole commerce between master and slave is perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. (Children of slave owners) look(s)on, catches the linaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, (by the example of slave-owning parents), cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances."
Neverthless, Jefferson owned slaves.
He hated slavery, and wanted to see it abolished from the U.S.
Just not in his lifetime.
He took a different tack towards Indians. They were 'noble savages' and by education and change of environment well capable of becoming citizens of the white man's world.

We just finished watching a video we got from National Geographic called, Lewis & Clark Great Journey West, narrated by Jeff Bridges. It showed some of the hardships they endured. Seeing it in movie form made you realize how hard it must have been! Were you closer, I would loan the VHS to you. We enjoyed reading "Follow the River." Sorry, the author's name escapes me. I loaned the book and it never came back. It was a true story about a woman captured by Indians and how she found her way back home through the wilderness. And how she was received once she was home. I would suggest reading this book. Jklady

Back when I was very young we would visit my great grand mother. She was born on a plantation and had slaves. She would tell us stories about her childhood. She had a very interesting life and lived to be 96 years old. She carried a gun from the day she learned to walk until the day she died. She always made sure to show us her latest gun, always hidden in those big aprons.

Could you possibly mean Conrad Richter? He wrote a number of books about Indians and settlers. Some of the stories dealt with whites being kidnapped by Indians and their subsequent difficulty in being re-integrated into white society. Some of them failed, tried to return to their adoptive Indian families, were ostracized by the Indians and came to very sad ends.

We love history. We have a 240 yo house that belonged to the local Iron Master for the iron furnce that still stands at the edge of our property. It was also owned by James Smith, signer of the Declaration of Independence. We also do Civil War re-enacting and are always trying to learn the old crafts. The house unfortunately is in need of major repairs or total restoration, but it's home for now.

I love history too -

I am a genealogy buff & volunteer my services for this area to help those who are far away & can't get here to research

Last night I finished a fictional novel entitled "The Last Town on Earth" by Thomas Mullen -
If you like fiction & history, I'd suggest it - it was great -
About the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic hitting the Northwest US

Anyway, now I'm hooked on the flu epidemic & can't wait to get back to the library to get all of the non-fiction I can find on the subject

I also love looking at historical maps - it's interesting how things change

I was interested this morning to read the news about the Radicals winning the majority of the vote in Serbia - it's interesting how history continues to push into the present & affect the way we live today


ha! I just re-read my comments & see they were very disjointed!
O well - I have many interests!!



That Dark and Bloody River by Allan Eckert is a good read.......part of the story deals with my husband's ancestors who were kidnapped from here in western PA & marched to Detroit - they were captives of the Natives for about 3 yrs until they were traded to the French & allowed to come back here to western PA & re-start their lives

First, Heather, I just read a report the other day that some scientists have recreated the actual 1918 virus by digging up a couple of Norwegians that died in the pandemic and were buried in permafrost and have been frozen all these years. The DNA of the virus was found in the bodies and recreated. In testing the virus, they found that the virus turned the body's immune system against the lungs and they filled with fluids within hours in some cases. This is the same thing the Asian Bird flu does, but the 1918 flu jumped from animal to man very easily, which the bird version doesn't very well. So far.
For the rest of you history buffs, I would like to recommend Page Smith's five volume set of history of the united states. It covers U.S. history from before the American Revolution to about 1872. His story of the Restoration after the Civil War is one of the best I have read. In his story of the era between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, he covers so much about the common people and how they lived, not just the big names in politics or industry or the science community. Now, those five volumes can be costly, but I have a solution. Abebooks.com is a website that helps find books from thousands of dealer in the US. Go to the site and put in Page Smith's name and up will come a hundred or more of his writings for outrageously low prices. Before I found Abebooks, I bought two volumes at about $15 apiece. The last three were purchased for between $3 and $4 apiece. With shipping as low as $2.50 in some cases. You can find out of print and current books really, really cheap. And all the books purchased Thru Abe have been in excellent condition hard covers. I used to think the Hamilton Books Catalog was the last word in cheap books but now when the Hamilton catalog comes, I read it as a guide on what to look for on Abe.
Now for the person that wondered about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, I recommend getting a copy of "Empire Express" subtitled The Building the first Transcontinental Railroad by David Haward Bain. This is a very well done book and it will make you wonder how it every was built with all the crookedness that went on behind the scenes. It was published in 1999 and you should be able to find it cheaper than the original price of $34.95 on abebooks.com. A long winded post but reading history is a huge pleasure and good part of my life.

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Some days are not worth gnawing through the restraints

Perhaps. Many think it was murder made to look like suicide. He was Governor to Louisiana and traveling back to Washington on business. He died in TN at a road side inn.

It was called a Journey of Discovery for many reasons, the first American explorer in the region, a huge scientific investigation due to Jefferson (Lewis was his secretary before the trip) and the waterway passage that everyone hoped existed.

Lewis was a cousin of my 3rd great grandmother on the maternal side. I grew up a few miles of where his winter encampment is ND is thought to be. The trip was studied in my high school history class in the 50's due to his local influence.

Dog was eaten by many Indians as a ration of last resort. It was still part of some Indian religious rites in the late 50's in NM.

Ambrose's book is not the best, some factual errors and of course the liberal bending of history to suit today's environment. In any case a study of their times and way of life is interesting.

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Mess with me? I may let karma take care of it. Mess with my family? I become Karma.

History has always been a an interest of mine/ours, but along with reading about it we have for a lot of years re-lived it.
Mountain man re-enacting gettogethers called "rendezvous".

Lots of groups around for civil war, Pow-Wows, colonial villages, Old west and even "Renaissance", medieval fairs.

It's fun when you can read about something , then go try it your self, cooking on the open fire, making cloths, tents, fire (flint/steel/bow drill), shooting, knife making, all sorts of primitive crafts, and living the "life of".

Actually dog meat is still eaten on some Indian reservations..the Iroquois have a white dog ceremony in which they eat white dogs...I know some Plains Indians who still eat dog primarily because it's something on the paws which they feed until they eat it..same thing as we do with cattle. I ate dog meat once. Wasn't too bad..a bit greasy but good tastin'!

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

The Mandan and other plains Indians ate fat puppies as an delicacy in the early 1800's. The one I ate a bite of in this country was an old scrawny dog in a religious ceremony, it taste fine but was not greasy.

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Mess with me? I may let karma take care of it. Mess with my family? I become Karma.

There was plentiful game for the Corps between St. Louis and the Mandan village. The grueling nature of moving the keel, by sail, pole or portage, gave the men a tremendous appetite, and they ate up to 10 pounds of meat per day. Due to the low fat content, however, they still felt hungry.

Few of us barely move enough to use up 2000 calories a day. Neither imagination or re-enactment can do justice to the lean, bare boned, grit and resiliency of the indomitable men of the Corps. A chosen few.

Stef, your absolutly correct, if you really do do any rendezvous,(or re-enactments of any kind) for any length of time, you will find that it's hard work, cold, hot, dirty and after a couple of days smelly!

We all can thank those who DID it back then, so that we can enjoy the life style we have today.
We can "choose" to live like that if we want to, (then go home when you get tired of it) they didn't have a choice.

I knew there was some question if it was suicide or murder. He was in financial trouble because of his land investments. He was on his way to Washington to answer questions about his public expenditures of government funds for the territory.
He was supposed to have shot himself twice.

Follow The River by James Alexander Thom is an excellent book! The settlement that was raided by indians was only a few miles from here. I happened to read the book in late October and that's also the month the raid took place. I felt as if it could have been our land and creeks here that was being described. Everytime I went out to walk the dogs or hike up to the waterfall I felt that Indians could have come out of the woods at any time! It's a haunting and amazing story. I think last year was the 200th anniversary of the event.

Pauline

The great grandaughter (I think it was only one great) of Sacajewa was my great aunt by marriage.

Just a general question about historical non-fiction.

I do love history, but when you read a nonfiction about history, do you take it as gospel?

Do you read older historical books and newer ones and do you see a difference in them?

I do know there was a big difference in the history I learned in school and the history my kids learned - and I just wonder if other books on history also are different based on the time they were written.

Not many of the books I have read lately have been non-fiction - I like to pick up a whodunit when I relax. However, I have read a couple of books on Israel and it's path to becoming a nation. It always strikes me that I could be reading a book that is not truly a history but thinly disguised propraganda, and how would you know the facts. Not necessarily about Israel, but about any happening of the past?

Isn't there a saying about controlling the past and controlling the future.

Didn't mean to veer off topic - it's just something I have wondered about.l

I love Bent's Fort.... very facinating history. DW and I were there in August for part of our vacation....

So true. I recently finished reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrook and the Pilgrims barely made it through the first year. Subsequent years were riddled with disease and killings.

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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
--Thomas Jefferson