A First Draft of History: Week of April 2 – 9
1614 - Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, married Englishman John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia. The marriage ensured peace between the Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan Indians for several years.
In May 1607, about 100 English colonists settled along the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. The settlers fared badly because of famine, disease, and Indian attacks, but were aided by 27-year-old English adventurer John Smith, who directed survival efforts and mapped the area. While exploring the Chickahominy River in December 1607, Smith and two colonists were captured by Powhatan warriors. Smith's companions were killed, but he was spared and released, according to Smith, and Walt Disney, because of the dramatic intercession of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's 13-year-old daughter. A fun fact: Pocahontas’s real name was Matoaka; Pocahontas was a pet name that has been translated variously as "playful one" and "my favorite daughter."
In 1608, Smith became president of the Jamestown colony, but the settlement continued to suffer. An accidental fire destroyed much of the town, and hunger, disease, and Indian attacks continued. During this time, Pocahontas often came to Jamestown as an emissary of her father, sometimes bearing gifts of food to help the hard-pressed settlers. She befriended the settlers and became acquainted with English ways. In 1609, Smith was injured from a fire in his gunpowder bag and was forced to return to England.
After Smith's departure, relations with the Powhatan deteriorated and many settlers died from famine and disease in the winter of 1609-10. The colony was saved by two things – one a man, the other, a magical, wonderful crop. The man was John Rolfe, who arrived in Jamestown in 1610. The crop was tobacco, which Rolfe cultivated for the first time in 1612. With tobacco profits flowing in from the mother country, the colony was saved, but that didn’t mean it was all smooth sailing from then on.
In the spring of 1613, English Captain Samuel Argall took Pocahontas hostage, hoping to use her to negotiate a permanent peace with her father. Brought to Jamestown, she was put under the custody of Sir Thomas Gates, the marshal of Virginia. Gates treated her as a guest rather than a prisoner and encouraged her to learn English customs. She converted to Christianity and was baptized Lady Rebecca. Powhatan eventually agreed to the terms for her release, but by then she had fallen in love with John Rolfe, who was about 10 years her senior. On April 5, 1614, they married with the blessing of Chief Powhatan and the governor of Virginia.
Their marriage brought a peace between the English colonists and the Powhatans, and in 1615 Pocahontas gave birth to their first child, Thomas. In 1616, the couple sailed to England. The so-called Indian Princess proved popular with the English gentry, and she was presented at the court of King James I. In March 1617, Pocahontas and Rolfe prepared to sail back to Virginia. However, the day before they were to leave, Pocahontas died, probably of smallpox, and was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend, England.
John Rolfe returned to Virginia and was killed in an Indian massacre in 1622. After an education in England, their son Thomas Rolfe returned to Virginia and became a prominent citizen.
1841 - President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office. A total of eight presidents have died in office, four of them – Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy – due to assassination. Three others died in office of natural causes in addition to Harrison – Zachary Taylor, Warren Harding, and Franklin Roosevelt. Harrison’s case is especially tragic though, because he had served only 31 days. In contrast, by the time FDR died in office (actually, I think he died in a hot tub in Georgia with his mistress) he had served over 4,400 days.
1882 - One of America's most famous criminals, Jesse James, was shot to death by fellow gang member Bob Ford, who betrayed James for reward money. For 16 years, Jesse and his brother, Frank, had committed robberies and murders throughout the Midwest. Detective magazines and pulp novels glamorized the James gang, turning them into mythical Robin Hoods who were driven to crime by unethical landowners and bankers.
The James brothers had a long history of violence. As teenagers during the Civil War, they joined up with southern partisans known as bushwhackers fighting in Missouri, Kansas, and Kentucky – the scenes of some of the most brutal clashes of the entire war. After the war was over, the brothers, and several of their comrades, turned to crime. Jesse's first bank robbery occurred on February 13, 1866, in Liberty, Missouri.
Over the next couple of years, the James brothers became the suspects in several bank robberies throughout western Missouri. However, locals were sympathetic to ex-southern guerrillas and vouched for the brothers. Throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s, the James gang robbed only a couple banks a year, otherwise keeping a low profile.
In 1873, the gang started robbing trains. During one such robbery, the gang declined to take any money or valuables from southerners. The train robberies brought out the Pinkerton Detective Agency, a vicious band of thugs employed to bring the James gang to justice. However, the Pinkerton operatives' botched attempt to kill James left a woman and her child injured and elicited public sympathy for Jesse and Frank James.
The James gang suffered a setback in 1876 when they raided the town of Northfield, Minnesota. The Younger brothers, cousins of the James brothers, were shot and wounded during the brazen midday robbery. After running off in a different direction from Jesse and Frank, the Younger brothers were captured by a large posse and later sentenced to life in prison. Jesse and Frank, the only members of the gang to escape successfully, headed to Tennessee to hide out.
After spending a few quiet years farming, Jesse organized a new gang. Charlie and Robert Ford were on the fringe of the new gang, but they disliked Jesse intensely and decided to kill him for the reward money. On April 3, 1882, the new gang met over breakfast to hear Jesse's plan for the next robbery. When Jesse turned his back to adjust a picture on the wall, Bob Ford shot him several times in the back.
Jesse’s family and friends were understandably upset. His tombstone reads, "Jesse W. James, Died April 3, 1882, Aged 34 years, 6 months, 28 days, Murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here." Of course, as is often the case with famous villains, there are all sorts of theories about whether Jesse might have survived and escaped somehow.
As Bob Ford earned his living by posing for photographs as "the man who killed Jesse James" in dime museums. He also appeared on stage with his brother Charles, reenacting the murder in a touring stage show, but his performance was not well received. He had many other careers after that, including keeping a saloon. Appropriately enough, he was killed when an associate shot him in the back with a shotgun.
I’ve been thinking about Jesse James a lot lately, because I just read a novel based the life of his mother entitled Mamaw by Ocracoke’s own Susan Dodd. Most of you are probably familiar with her work, but if you’re not, I highly recommend it.
2001 - NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft took off on a six-month, 286-million-mile journey to the red planet. The craft arrived in orbit around Mars on Oct 24, 2001, and it’s been sending home images and data ever since, for over a decade now. In fact, Mars Odyssey holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth.
2010 - An explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Charleston, W.Va., killed 29 workers. Alpha Natural Resources, the owner of the West Virginia mine, reached a settlement with federal prosecutors late last year, agreeing to pay a record $209 million in compensation and fines. The agreement stopped prosecutors from pursuing criminal charges against the firm, which last June acquired Massey Energy, the company that owned Upper Big Branch at the time of the explosion. The deal with prosecutors applied only to the company, not to individuals who might have been criminally negligent.
In fact, late last month Gary May, a former mine official pleaded guilty to conspiring to impede mine safety enforcement at the Upper Big Branch mine. He admitted to concealing health and safety violations, using code phrases to give advance warning of inspections and ordering a mine examination book to be falsified. His actions, while he was superintendent of the mine, were intended to mask safety violations, including poor airflow and accumulation of explosive coal dust, two factors that have been deemed causes of the deadly explosion. May is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 9. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Now five years seems awfully light for contributing to the deaths of 29 people, but prosecutors said that May is cooperating with the ongoing investigation, so there may be more arrests to come.
International News:
Coup leaders in Mali have agreed to stand down and allow a transition to civilian rule. Now, I have to admit, I hadn’t even realized that there had been a coup in Mali, but apparently there was. In exchange for the coup leaders stepping down, Mali’s neighbors will lift trade and economic sanctions and grant amnesty to the ruling junta, mediators said.
To back up a bit, the coup overthrew president Amadou Toumani Toure, a former army general widely credited with rescuing Mali from military dictatorship and establishing democracy. Mr Toure himself first came to power in a coup in 1991 - overthrowing military ruler Moussa Traore when security forces killed more than 100 pro-democracy demonstrators. He handed power back to civilian rule the following year. He went on to win presidential elections in May 2002, and was re-elected in 2007. The ousted president is free and still in Mali, probably in or around the capital Bamako. The 21 March coup seems to have been spontaneous, arising out of a mutiny that erupted at the Kati military camp located about 10km (6 miles) from the presidential palace in Bamako.
Now, under the terms of transition plan, the leaders of the coup will cede power to the parliamentary speaker, Diouncounda Traore, who as interim president will oversee a timetable for elections. Once sworn in, Mr Traore would have 40 days to organize elections, the five-page agreement says. Officers led by Captain Amadou Sanogo seized power on 22 March, accusing the elected government of not doing enough to halt a rebellion in the north.
Those rebels, representing a people known as the Tuaregs, recently declared the independence of territory they call Azawad. International bodies have thus far declined to recognize the independence of that region. There are in fact two major rebel groups in northern Mali: the secular National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar Dine, an Islamist group, which is seeking to impose Sharia law and which has ties to Al-Qaeda. Despite having very different aims, MNLA and Ansar Dine have joined forces to fight together from time to time, including in the capture of Timbuktu - but there are serious tensions between them.
The Tuareg people inhabit the Sahara Desert in northern Mali, as well as several neighboring countries and have fought several rebellions over the years. They complain that they have been ignored by the authorities in the capital.
Rights group Amnesty International has warned of a major humanitarian disaster in the wake of the rebellion.
If you’re wondering whether it’s a coincidence that all this is happening in Mali so soon after the turmoil in Libya, which is near Mali…it’s probably not. Many of the Malian Tuaregs participating in the rebellion had been in exile in Libya, where they fought alongside Col Gaddafi's forces as he tried to cling to power. Once he was toppled, they returned to Mali - well-trained and with plenty of heavy weaponry.
Now, when I spend this much time discussing the internal politics of Mali, you can guess that it was a pretty slow news week. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to learn a little about Mali. Here’s what I discovered: Mali gained its independence from France in 1960. It is 90% Muslim, and its population is 14.5 million (68th in the world). It is the 24th largest country in the world, just under twice the size of TX. So it’s large, but it’s landlocked, and less than 4% of its land is arable. A big part of it is actually the Sahara desert. Mali is among the 25 poorest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP $1300, and life expectancy in Mali is only 53 years. Still, it has some things going for it: it is home to a long stretch of the Niger river and the ancient caravan city of Timbuktu. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Mali.
And in other international news, the president of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika died on Thursday, in somewhat mysterious circumstances. There was speculation that there may be a contest to replace him, but last I heard the vice president had taken office with no bloodshed. I did some further investigation into this story and I confirmed that Mali and Malawi are not the same country, I repeat, they may sound alike, but they are different countries, although they are both in Africa, and apparently they both have some issues to work out.
And speaking of issues to work out…
National News:
The contest for the Republican nomination slogged on this week, but take heart, there is an end in sight. Mitt Romney tightened his grip on the nomination Tuesday night, sweeping primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington D.C.,
In Wisconsin, Romney won 44% of the vote, followed by Rick Santorum with 37%, Ron Paul with 11% and Newt Gingrich with 6%. In Maryland, Romney had 49%, Santorum 29%, Gingrich 11% and Paul nearly 10%. Romney took 70% of the vote in D.C.
With three weeks before candidates face another batch of voters, Tuesday's contests marked an important point in a race that has entered its fourth month and is now tipping further in favor of the former Massachusetts governor.
Romney's latest wins come as Republicans increasingly are closing ranks behind him in the hopes of expediting the fall showdown with President Obama. The run-up to Wisconsin brought Romney endorsements from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, two lawmakers often mentioned as possible running mates.
Romney now has a total of about 658 delegates, Santorum 281, Gingrich 135, and Paul 51. Once again, the magic number of delegates needed to win is 1,144.
As Romney consolidates his hold on the nomination, he is increasingly forgoing attacks on his Republican rivals to instead focus his criticism on President Obama. Obama is no doubt ready to respond in kind, but this week, he had a different target on his mind – the US Supreme Court. In the wake of the recent arguments over the healthcare law known as Obama care, arguments in which several members of the court expressed their skepticism and concerns about the law, the president decided that it would be a good idea to warn the court not to defy him.
On Monday, the president, in remarks at a press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, had this to say about his healthcare law: "I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."
First of all, let’s dispense with the most obvious absurdity in this statement: that the law was passed with a “strong majority.” In fact, the Affordable Care Act barely squeaked through the Congress. In the Senate it escaped a filibuster by a hair. The vote was so tight in the house—219 to 212—that the leadership went through byzantine political maneuvers called reconciliation just to get the measure to the president's desk. No Republicans voted for it when it came up in the House, and the drive to repeal the measure began the day after Mr. Obama signed it. So, that’s hardly a “strong majority.”
The president’s mischaracterization of the bill’s passage aside, there is the issue of whether or not it is appropriate for the president to thrown down a gauntlet to the Supreme Court in this manner, and whether the president acknowledges the court’s jurisdiction and the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. Remember, Obama has a track record of this sort of thing. You may recall that in his 2010 State of the Union address he denounced the Supreme Court justices, who were sitting right in front of him, for their ruling in the Citizens United decision on campaign spending by corporations. This week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voiced its concerns about the president’s opinion of the court’s function. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the Court ordered the Justice Department to explain its position by Thursday at noon. In fact, one of the judges ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced memo on that topic.
In response, Attorney General Eric Holder, in full damage-control mode, said on Wednesday: "We respect the decisions made by the courts since Marbury v. Madison," a reference to the landmark 1803 case that established the precedent of judicial review. "Courts have final say." Holder personally submitted the three-page letter by the Thursday deadline. Holder's letter affirmed the government's stance that federal judges indeed have the authority to decide the fate of the 2010 Affordable Care Act -- and any other law Congress passes. "The power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute," Holder said. Well, that’s reassuring.
But Holder also defended the president describing his comments as "appropriate," saying that while the courts have final say they "are also fairly deferential when it comes to overturning the statutes that the duly elected representatives of the people -- Congress -- passed."
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also defended the president's remarks, arguing that there's no dispute from the administration regarding the courts' authority to strike down laws. According to Carney the president was instead referring specifically to the traditional deference the court has shown Congress when it comes to laws addressing challenges to the economy -- such as health care. Now, in fact, there have been numerous cases over the past two decades where the Supreme Court did overturn federal laws because they exceeded limitations under the Commerce Clause -- which is at the heart of the health care case. The administration though argues that those cases did not deal with major economic regulation as the health care law does.
Essentially, President Obama and his spokesmen are correct when they note that it would be an unprecedented act for the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act. But that’s only because the passage of the Affordable Care Act was itself unprecedented. Here you have a law dramatically reshaping 1/6th of the economy which Congress passed without a single vote from the opposition party. It’s worth noting that in contrast, Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid, all enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. So yes, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation so broad and sweeping. On the other hand, it is far more unusual to pass such a fundamentally transformative law on such a narrow, partisan basis.
And speaking of partisanship, one last note on the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court. Many left-leaning commentators are already claiming that if the five Republican-nominated justices on the Court overturn the law, it will demonstrate that they are slaves to a narrow-minded ideology. But none of these commentators are complaining about the fact that the four left-leaning justices on the Court are almost assuredly going to support the law. When the justices on the right oppose the law, it’s partisanship; when the justices on the left support it, it’s principle. Yet another example of the logical inconsistencies of the pundits in our mainstream media.
Local News:
It’s not quite local news, but it’s news about an area many folks around here know well. On Friday a 12-ton Navy jet loaded with tons of fuel crashed in a spectacular fireball into a big apartment complex in Virginia Beach, scattering parts and wiping out some 40 units. Despite the scale of the catastrophe, no one was killed, or even seriously hurt.
The mayor of Virginia Beach called it a "Good Friday miracle" and pilots marveled at how a failed training flight that engulfed buildings in flames managed not to kill anyone. The student pilot, his instructor and five on the ground were hurt, but all were out of the hospital by Saturday.
Investigators, witnesses and experts said multiple factors were at play: Most of the jet's fuel was dumped before the crash, causing less of an explosion. The Navy also credited neighbors and citizens with pulling pilots away from the flames after they safely ejected. Lastly, the plane crashed into the apartment complex's empty courtyard, and two days before Easter in the middle of the day, most residents weren't home.
Still, it was an amazing struck of good luck, or providence. Adm. John C. Harvey, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces, said he was "quite surprised, to be honest", that no one had died, calling it an "amazing miracle."
The F/A-18D Hornet suffered some sort of massive mechanical problem while soaring above Virginia Beach on Friday, sending it plunging into the Mayfair Mews apartment complex and taking out dozens of units. All residents had been accounted for early Saturday after careful apartment checks, fire department Capt. Tim Riley said.
Investigators will work from the outside of the site toward the center to gather parts from the jet and examine them, as well as check out the flight data recorders, which had not yet been recovered. The investigation could take weeks, he said.
Andrew Stern is, among other things, an historian, an Ocracoke resident, and a board member at Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV 90.1FM where you can hear his weekly broadcast of “A First Draft of History” every Monday morning at 9am.
