Private Proprietary Pirates - Early Capitalism in America, 1700

A letter from Edward Randolph depicts the arrogance of aristocratic oligarchs known as the Lords Proprietors in England and the negligence they placed upon their private possessions in the American colonies, particularly Carolina, the Bahamas, and New Jersey. This was a prime example of the dangers of private control in the matters of government. Privatization at this level facilitated piracy in the Bahamas as well as multiple abuses across America. Indeed, it began the development of America by the Stuarts of England as a criminal domain, given as gifts to these aristocrats who were charged with the theft of all the possessions of Spain "beyond the lines of amity" or friendship! This attitude remained in America through the reign of the Stuart Dynasty - nearly the entire 17th century - until the ascendancy of the Whigs, or more liberal administrators of England took control after the "Glorious Revolution of 1688." Still, the damage was already done.

These pervasive criminal tendencies involved theft, slavery, murder, extortion, bribery, rampant smuggling so far from authorities, 3,000 miles away in England. It probably infested the nascent United States with the same ubiquitous criminal element and led to the Confederate States of America attempting to maintain this criminal West-Indian society, slavery, and all the abuses that accrued hereto during the Civil War (1861-1865). And, it likely led to many abuses we find in government today under the outlaw Trump Administration. We are indeed, as "Capt. Charles Johnson," the author of A General History of the Pyrates, called us in 1724, a "Commonwealth of Pyrates!"

This is just a small window into the behavior of the men that came to rape Spain's colonial lands - before the development of the "Flying Gang" of Benjamin Hornigold in the Bahamas almost two decades later. Edward Randolph tried to warn the Board of Trade of the dangers still infesting these waters because of these criminal creoles. Many of today's Americans are their descendants.

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March 25, 1700  New Providence [separated for readability]

Edward Randolph to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Begins as March 11.

I am, I thank God, in health but not recovered of the lameness I got in gaol at Bermuda. I landed [at New Providence] the 10th inst.[March 1700] and finding Mr. Read Elding (tho'illegally, yet) actually in the possession of the Government,

... the next day, after some debate [I] had with him [Elding], I administered to him the oath, though several objections were at that time made to the contrary, viz. that he assumed the Government by virtue of an illegal commission clandestinely obtained from [Nicholas] Webb, being also contrary to the Lords Proprietors' instructions which direct the method of appointing another Governor, in case of the death or departure of the present.

Besides, Webb went away on a suddaine to Philadelphia, not having first advised with the Council nor had the consent of any one of them about his appointing Elding his Deputy, which was not known to any of them till Webb was under sail, so that the Government is of right invested in Mr. Richard Peterson, a Lords' Deputy and the first in Council.

But they, finding the inhabitants divided and ready to cast off all Government, chose rather to sit still than hazard the peace of the country, and expect the Lords Proprietors' directions in that matter.

But the chief thing before I gave the oath that I scrupled at [had a problem with] was, that Elding, under pretence of a commission to him from Webb to apprehend pirates, etc., piratically seized a briganteen of Boston, John Edwards, Master.

Webb, Elding, and the others to whom he had given the like commissions, shared the money they found aboard.

Elding does not only brave it out [take advantage of?] upon the Commission Webb gave him to be Lieutenant Governor, but supports himself in the lawfulness of the other commission to take pirates, but sets a very high value upon his services by the accidental seizing Hind the pirate and afterwards executing six of his accomplices.

Hind and four of his men were surprised upon an island 10 or 12 leagues from hence by a Bermuda man [Bermuda vessel]: the three others were taken by chance and executed also, but one of the four, having nothing proved against him, [though he] was discharged and sent by Elding to cut logwood at Campeach, run away, and [Elding] believes his good services against Hind, etc., will expiate for his own piracy upon Edwards.

[Elding] a day or two ago caned Mr. Gower, a Lords' Deputy, most severely, and keeps him in prison, for questioning his power to appoint a Judge to try the pirates, a thing questioned by all the Lords' Deputys.

Their Lordships [Lords Proprietors] at home are very careless and ignorant of their own interest and of the good of the inhabitants. Though many complaints upon just grounds are made to them, praying for relief, yet they take no notice of it, nor of the most arbitrary government of Trott and Webb; neither of the late action done by Elding against Edwards, which they had notice of, but discourse him very indifferently upon that matter.

These inhabitants are daily more unsettled, and will give little credit to what their Lordships [Proprietors] say or promise them they will do for their encouragement, when at the same time they sell and dispose of their privileges for very inconsiderable sums, as Hog Island, lying to the north of Providence, which makes the harbour, 'tis, after several grants and confirmations thereof to the inhabitants, sold to [ex-Gov] Mr. Trott for 50l., to the utter ruin to the inhabitants of this town.

Hog Island in the Bahamas - just across Nassau Town Harbor from Nassau, New Providence Island

Their Lordships [Proprietors] have likewise granted away the royalty of the whale fishing and a great part of the Island of Abbico to one Dudgeon, late Secretary and Marshall of Bermuda a sort of stock jobber, for 30 years, as appears upon record here;

... neither do they regard into whose hands the Government of these Islands comes [lawlessness].

I am well informed that for more than seven years past seldom less than four known pirates have been [on] the Council.

I brought Commissions to persons upon the place to be Officers in the Court of Admiralty, but all of them, except Ellis Lightwood, the intended Judge, are either dead or removed.

I find him [Lightwood] an ill man, and was a busy promoter of oppression in Trott's and Webb's time, as appears by the records of the Courts in which he was Judge. Besides, he is the only security for Bridgeman [Henry Bridgham], alias Every's appearing here when demanded, in one bond of 1,000l., and also for 10 or 12 of his company in a like bond of 1,000l. for each of their appearance.

I have suspended the delivery of the Commission to him for that reason. 'Tis expected that orders will be directed to some persons here to put those bonds in suit, ('twill deter others); the securities have got a great deal of money.

I know no man so fit for that service as Mr. Thomas Walker;

... as to Mr. Warren, the Attorney General, he is security also for some of Every's men.

Packer, one of that gang [Henry Avery/Bridgham's], is married to Elding's sister now in town. His Majesty will have little justice done him by Elding and others of his party, who bear all the sway here.

Webb was directed and proved an apt scholar under Trott's discipline and advice: Elding writes after his [Webb's] copy and expects to be made the Governor, by which appears the deplorable and miserable conditions the poor inflicted inhabitants have lived in from the time of their resettlement, after they were drove off and destroyed in 1680 by the Spaniards, who watch an opportunity to do the like again.

The Lords Proprietors laid out money and sent over a few arms with some ammunition to the value of 3,600l. [it actually came to just over 800l., which was the presumed profit of the Bahamas] sterling towards the defence of the country. After all their charge their fort is not serviceable. Certainly the inhabitants will either desert the place or submit to any foreign Power that will protect them.

The interests and the affairs here between the Lords and the inhabitants are so different and distracted that it will require a long time to bring them to a right understanding. From the consideration whereof I humbly propose that His Majesty will please to require Read Elding to answer in England for his piracy against Edwards, and, further, that in the meantime till there be a complete settlement in this and all other the Proprieties, that His Majesty be pleased to direct his Commission to Thomas Walker, Esq., an ingenuous man, one of the Lords' Deputies, to be the President, and to Richard Peterson [father-in-law of Adm. Judge Edmond Porter of North Carolina], a Deputy, Isaac Rush, Richard Tollefero, Thomas Williams, Martin Cook, Samuel Frith, Perient Trott, Jeremiah Wells, and John Bethel, to be the Council and to take upon them the administration of the Government of these Islands, (being all of them settled inhabitants,) during His Majesty's pleasure.

Probably the Draft Commissioned below... in the Library of Congress maps

I have the promise of an exact draft of these Islands and of the fort and harbour of of this town, but being presently bound to Carolina in my return to Bermuda, I have recommended the care thereof to Mr. Walker, who will make it his business to see them exactly drawn and transmit them with a complete narrative thereof to your Lordships. Signed, Ed. Randolph, S.G. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, Read July 25, 1700. Holograph. 2½ pp. Enclosed,

    250. i. Abstract of above. 1¼ pp.
    250. ii. Copy of Read Elding's Commission from Gov. Webb to be Deputy Governor of New Providence, etc. April 13, 1699. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, 1700. 1 p.
    250. iii. Copy of a clause in the Lords Proprietors' Commission to their Governor about appointing Deputy Governors, Jan. 12, 1692. ½ p. Same endorsement.
    250. iv. Copy of Gov. Webb's Commission to Read Elding to take pirates, July 13, 1698. 1 p. Same endorsement.
    250. v. Copies of depositions by John Edwards, Master; Ebenezer Dennesse, Mate; and John Stiles, Boatswain; William Gray and John Ashcroft, Mariners, of the Bohemia Merchant, which was chased and piratically seized by Read Elding off Cape Florida, August 2, 1698; and of Daniel Kenney, of the Sweepstakes. 3 pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vi. Copy of letter from Lords Proprietors of the Bahama Islands to Gov. Webb and Council, May 27, 1699. 1¾ pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vii. Copy of an Order of the Grand Council, Nassau, July 8, 1690, making Hogg Island a free Common. On back, Copy of disallowance of the same by the Lords Proprietors. Sept. 21, 1699. Same endorsement. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 5. Nos. 31, 31.i.–vii.; and (without enclosures), 26. pp. 248–256.]

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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

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Author website:
baylusbrooks.com 

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Only $0.99... so, please read. Understand the need for #Resistance

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True History of Our Pirate Nation or Why the GOP are such Assholes!

 This actually introduces the conclusion in my book Quest for Blackbeard: The The Story of Edward Thache and His World, but I believe it holds great relevance to our monstrous political problems today and the reasons why our conservatives are such gigantic assholes! So, I'm including it here - so anyone can read it.

True History of Our Pirate Nation!

When Bernard Cooke of Barbados had accused James Grazett of saying “God damn King George and all his family; He is a Dutch dog and son of a whore… Here is King James the third’s health, right and lawful heir to the Crown,” he employed a common Jacobite rhetorical device.[1] Logicians today call it “attacking the man,” or an ad hominem political attack. The United States’ system of checks and balances only works when both political parties negotiate in good faith. Otherwise, any hearings or discussions devolve into ad hominem political attacks, like Cooke's. 

King George’s claim to England’s throne is confusing unless you understand that the House of Nassau was an aristocratic dynasty associated with Nassau Castle, located in present-day Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany – once a part of Prussia. Nassau, the primary town on New Providence Island of the Bahamas – the stronghold of the Flying Gang of Benjamin Hornigold’s pirates – was named in honor of William of Orange, a prince of Nassau. How did a Dutchman become a prince of a territory in Prussia? Well… William was a Dutchman (although married to Mary Stuart of fine Scottish stock), but also from the Ottonian branch of the Princes of Nassau who gave rise to the Princes of Orange and the monarchs of the Netherlands. The Principality of Orange actually originates from what is now France, but I’m sure you’re already completely confused as most everyone. Suffice it to say that this heritage goes back to the Holy Roman Empire until 1544 when the dynasties of Orange and Nassau aligned. William of Orange married Mary Stuart – but had no issue and therefore, the Principality of Orange fell into the hands of Frederic-Henry, Frederick I of Prussia, who ceded the principality — at least the lands, but not the formal title — to France in 1713. So, the title of a “Prince of Orange” no longer carried property – just a royal connection to the line of Frederick I.

On 1 August 1714, George Louis, son of Sophia of the Palatinate in Heidelberg – herself, the daughter of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart of England, became King of Great Britain and Ireland and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the Holy Roman Empire. George carried only a minor connection to the Stuart dynasty of England – as well as the Principality of Orange – and, so, was only seen as a “Dutch dog” and an illegitimate heir to the British Crown – especially by Jacobites, or supporters of James III’s claim to that Crown. Jacobite objection to the Hanoverian king owed much to isolationist political ideology – like today’s Republican Party in America. Okay, this is even more confusing and now, you need a mug of grog, right?

Anyhow, this device made political use of prejudice against foreigners: the non-British – particularly against the Protestant Dutch and their kin – Protestant Prussians or Germans. “Dutch dog” made light of George’s legal right to sit on the English throne – especially when he spoke no English, but only German! Cooke accused Grazett of being a traitor for elevating James III or the “Pretender” over King George I, the sitting monarch of the realm and the one that all loyal British citizens were supposed to support. Grazett accused Cooke’s wife of exactly the same thing – with almost exactly the same phrase.

British historian of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, Ragnhild Marie Hatton assured us that the problem with King George I was not so much his ignorance of English. It had little to do with his public shyness. It did not even center on his scandalous treatment of his wife, Sophia Dorothea. The German prince was simply a weak, pallid, and foreign Protestant replacement for the strength of a Stuart of Great Britain. As William Makepeace Thackery wrote:

His heart was in Hanover... He was more than fifty years of age when he came amongst us: we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us assuredly from Popery ... I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains [James, the Stuart Pretender] with the French king's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train.[2]

Thackery had presumed that George I was good for Britain, that despite his dullness, George was the Protestant puppet that Parliament needed in their liberal Whig transformation away from monarchial corruption – a corruption that still threatened to ruin the colonies in America. And, then there was the politico-religious threat of popery. For Thackery, being a German was far better than being Catholic! The accession of George I signaled the beginning of a new British Empire, even newer than it was upon the accession of a Dutchman in 1688. Not all of the empire, however, agreed with these Whig changes that had originally begun under King William, the Dutch king who married Mary Stuart in a compromise of sorts to usher in Parliament’s will over the sovereign.

During the majority of the seventeenth century, America developed its piratical character from the Stuarts. Although also anti-Catholic, the American soul had not changed in the same way as Britain’s. America was still Stuart, a distant imperial reminder of Charles I’s casting of Parliament aside – casting aside the will of the people, not unlike the current U. S. president’s casting aside of Congress’s oversight authority. Parliament executed that Stuart king and ruled without a monarch for eleven years. They finally restored Charles II – with conditions – but the aristocratic excess yet returned with him – as it has today with corporations – as he finished developing the American colonies. Great wealth and great violence inhabited – and still inhabits – the American side of the Atlantic – essentially there to steal Spanish treasure – so also developing great prejudice against foreigners. Americans, having later lost their human property in 1863, simply have never consented either to return pirated Spanish property to its rightful owners – nor will it allow darkened foreigners on its stolen soil - no! Can’t you read the sign – “Whites Only!”?

It required great men of power and endurance to command the “trade” in that part of the world – trade that must be taken – and not actually “traded” from their rivals. Significant cultural change had already taken place between the softening, liberalizing British and the brutal, aggressive American martial mind. Of the Spanish depredations of the “pyrate” Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Osborne lamented in 1701 that “no Peace beyond the Line [in America] was a belief so Riveted in the Opinions of all, as he could not have been Indicted anew.”[3] Britain finally desired peace, but Americans, still much in tune with Raleigh, yet craved more bloody war, like their original Stuart patrons.

University of York historian J. A. Sharpe noticed an “upsurge in upper-class debauchery” during the Stuart reign of Charles II – and when Carolina was founded.[4] In his book Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750, Sharpe said these debauchers, like Charles Sackville, the earl of Dorset, or John Wilmot, the earl of Rochester, “another courtier of vicious life,” largely passed freely and unpunished in England.[5] He also asserted about the gentleman class that “a number of types of behavior regarded as illegal by the authorities were thought of as legal, or at least justifiable on quasi-legal grounds.”[6] Court records, asserts Sharpe, reflect the consistent criminality of the lower orders – likely for reasons of sustenance – but completely ignore actions of the elite. These gentlemen were not the exceptions to the rule, but rather the rule itself in Stuart times. Their wealth and position gave them immunity from justice – they were “too big to jail.” It is reasonable to assume that when the invasion of the Spanish West Indies by the English occurred during this time, these freely-expressed negative characteristics came with these gentlemen – the violent notoriousness necessary to conquer Spain’s wealth in America. The result was an early America filled with an English criminal ruling element that showed little if any remorse for their criminal acts – a perfect pirate force to steal the wealth of the Spanish New World Empire. These attitudes spread not only to the West Indies, but also to mainland America with the establishment of Carolana with an “a” in 1629 under Charles I and Carolina with an “i” in 1663 under his son, Charles II - especially after the founding of Charles Town in 1671 by Barbadians – literally named for a Stuart monarch! Malcontents of all persuasians left England for a less-discriminating America, including ex-hero Parliamentarians with a certain fundamental ideological connection to the more northern colonies of New England. In America, they would be free to exercise the worship of their vengeful god and almost any crime with impunity!

From 1688-1689, at the accession of the Dutch Protestant reformer King William of Orange, Francis Nicholson was sent as lieutenant governor to the Dominion of New England. He quickly gained a reputation as a progressive and immediately alienated his less than enthusiastic conservative constituents in Stuart-favoring America. The Crown, though, appreciated his efforts at liberal reform, and upon his advisable departure from New England, he proceeded to Virginia to be its governor from 1690-1692. The British Crown was impressed and appointed him next to serve as Maryland’s governor from 1694-1698, and again as governor of Virginia from 1698-1705. Of his second term in this colony, biographer Natalie Zacek says that “Virginians recoiled at Nicholson's military gruffness and his uncouth public courtship of Lucy Burwell,” and his “attempts at reform threatened the power of such men as William Byrd I, so that several members of the governor's Council—including Nicholson's former ally, [James] Blair—convinced the Crown to remove him.”[7] Americans fought back! Neither progressives nor liberal reformers could grow amenable roots “beyond the lines of amity” in America – especially while at war, which, for America today, is just as frequent overseas – if not brutally consistant with hired mercenaries to do the dirty work and bring back the gold – or, in this case, oil. 

Once again, the Crown’s reform efforts in the colonies had been put aside for Queen Anne’s War, in which the future “Blackbeard,” or Jamaican gentleman Edward Thache participated. Nicholson returned to London and petitioned the new queen to make an expedition to take French territories in Canada. Nicholson captured the French Port Royal on October 2, 1710. This battle began the conquest of Acadia and permanent British control over Nova Scotia. In that effort, he combined forces with Sir Hovendon Walker, then commander of HMS Windsor – at one time, Thache’s ship – at the head of his fleet, perhaps with Thache aboard. Much of Walker’s fleet foundered on rocks near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. The expedition was cancelled, which greatly angered Nicholson, leading the land forces. He reportedly tore off his powdered wig and threw it to the ground when he heard the news. He spent some time afterward as Nova Scotia’s governor in Boston. There, he re-attempted his reform efforts, again, angering colonials, and removed these “notorious” American malcontents from office. Still, they all claimed him to be mad and had him declared incompetent. They regained their positions and cast Nicholson from New England. This was a common tactic used by colonial conservatives to maintain their power in America against the efforts of British Whig reformers.

Undeterred as a reformer, still the fervent wish of the growing Whig ministry under George I, Nicholson then found appointment as first royal governor of South Carolina during the more turbulent second phrase of the Golden Age of Piracy from 1721 to 1725. His instructions from the Crown cite the usual dealings with Indians, trade, and such, but a preamble to these instructions involved the legal issues surrounding piracy. His superiors realized that their initial efforts at reform could not be trusted purely in still-conservative colonial hands. Once the Crown gained control from the corruptly-Stuart Lords Proprietors, Carolina’s former private owners, they would still attempt to use this new Bahamian base in America to ensure reform – but, as all best laid plans….

Americans did not want reform and had proven quite obstinate and stubborn. They abused the procedures for piracy trials under the outline laid out by Sir Charles Hedges in the late seventeeth century. Edward Randolph’s assertion that pirates could not try pirates resoundingly rang true. The preamble called for no less than seven men, the governor or his representative being required as one. Also, the other six being “no person but Such as were known Merchantts, factors, or Planters or Such as Captains, Lieutenants or Warrant Officers in any of his said Late Majesties Ships of Warr or Captains, Masters, or Mates of some English shoar Should be Capable of being So Called and Sitting and Voting in the said Court.”[8] The word “English” is ambiguous here. It was not “British,” although the distinction is barely noticed today – at a time when these distinctions are nowhere near as important. Why write this detail or make this distinction? Americans had not been prone to put French or Spanish citizens on their admiralty courts – nationality was not the problem. Could it be that “English shoar” referred to the actual shores of England herself? It’s subtle, but, the Crown likely had not wanted natural-born Americans, as well as foreigners, judging pirate trials or administering justice to their own. Many English vessels visited the colonies on a regular basis. South Carolina records show a regular pattern of trans-Atlantic commerce from Bristol, Liverpool, London, as well as West Indian traffic. These “Captains, Masters, and Mates” of “English shoars” – not colonial or provincial – would be readily available to serve on such courts in America.

Nicholson’s superiors were quite serious – their subtly anti-pirate preamble went on for almost five full pages before Nicholson’s actual instructions began. They listed three anti-piracy acts: 11^th William III, 1^st George I (not only to prevent piracy, but specifically piracies on the king’s ships), 10^th Anne I (on building county jails), and 12^th William III (reiterating 13^th Charles II for support of the navy overseas). One might get the impression that the Crown did not trust those remote provincials in the American wilderness. They had good reason!

The instructions themselves contain the usual references, with specific exception. No. 56 was undoubtedly generated by the extreme difficulties with the Richard Tookerman-Henry Wills case of that same year in London Courts. This instruction read that “no persons for the future be Sent as Prisoners to this Kingdom from the said Province of South Carolina, without Sufficient Proof of their Crimes, and that proof transmitted along with the Said Prisoners.”[9] Capt. Edward Vernon probably nodded his approval for the Crown’s caution – still smarting financially from that affair. He paid £1,200 in fines from the resulting judgement of false arrest, a travesty of justice expertly manipulated by pirates Tookerman and Wills – similar to the consistent obstruction of Republican President Donald J. Trump and his Attorney General William Barr in refusing to free the wheels of justice in America’s Trump Era by holding out on the Mueller Report and angering Democrats across the nation and in Congress.

Instructions 67-70 may have been of strong interest to Edward Thache. They concerned “Merchants and Planters of the West Indies” in corresponding and trading with the French Islands in those parts. The 5^th and 6^th articles of their mutual 1686 treaty prohibited “to Trade and Fish in all Places possessed or which shall be possessed by the other in America.”[10] The Crown worried that intelligence would leak to their Catholic enemy by continuous contact with these English traders – indeed as privateers and pirates gained intelligence from them. While at the Virginia Capes with Benjamin Hornigold, pirate Edward Thache may have been quite pleased to learn from Capt. Pritchard about the future visit of a large, lightly-manned and gunned slave ship (La Concorde) near Martinique. Pritchard had come upon the pirates as he sailed northward from his home port of St. Lucia, in the French Windwards. Still, once Thache arrived there, and soon after taking La Concorde, Thache might also have been quite annoyed with such English merchants as Christopher Taylor trading to Bequia. Taylor was the only man in any record who claimed violence was done to him directly by Thache, although greed - the money – may also have influenced Thache to do so. Furthermore, Thache never hanged Taylor from the yardarm, as he threatened; so, it may yet have been a bluff. Still, Thache expressed a particular annoyance with the French, who consistently threatened his home of Jamaica and with whom he fought consistently in the former war. His actions after capturing his Queen Anne’s Revenge demonstrate a steady determination to hurt the French in the French Windward Islands and at Petit Goâve in French Hispaniola.

Stuart Tories, Jacobites, and many elite Americans of conservative persuasion saw King William’s progressive policies and those of his successors and their many reforming administrative “Dutch dogs” as weakness. War had been natural for them. One may hear that “Might made right; strength over weakness made a resilient nation – it commanded trade and ensured profit,” or “Only the truly strong could be truly free.” “Piracy had become so interwoven into the social infrastructure of the Atlantic colonies,” writes Douglas R. Burgess, “that it helped shape the policies of many colonial governments.”[11] Piracy had built America. It completed the task begun in 1588 at the defeat of the Spanish Armada. British piracy had taken by force the precious treasures of Spain’s overseas empire. Piracy provided “many goods and luxuries that colonists from Boston to Charleston later took for granted.”[12] The end of King William’s War initiated a political transformation. Differentiation from England had occurred for at least the past five generations, 3,000 miles away, “beyond the lines” of amity, with West Indians consistently beating everyone else, including their own. The strong and martial Stuart ideologues in America were winning. By far, they won the lion’s share of the gold, silver, sugar, indigo, rum, and molasses. Of course, they should keep it for themselves, not give it to the British who ignored their needs! “Illegal” trade of piracy had become the primary source for goods on the American market. Remember that “legal” and “illegal” are wholly ambiguous terms, just like “treason,” “sovereign,” “freedom,” or “pirate.”

Britain’s efforts at reform only strengthened a conservative America’s resolve. As in Somalia, piracy can be a desperate act of resistance to perceived change or injustice. So it was in early America. This extraordinarily Stuart conservative New World Empire was threatened by changing liberal ideals back home in Britain itself since the accession of King William in 1688 and, again, with the end of Stuart rule upon the death of Queen Anne in 1713. The accession of the “Dutch dog” George I was the last straw. Conservatives or Tories of the eighteenth century, either in England or America saw their world and their profit coming to an end when a German king took the throne of Britain. It did not really matter that he was Protestant and not Catholic, although much has been made about that distinction and the religious differences had played their part. The main points, however, had little relation to religion. They were financial, political, and, to an increasing extent, cultural – the new king was a threat to their Stuart policies in America. He was the most liberal monarch yet foisted upon them from 3,000 miles away, and even, not English, Scottish, Irish, or even Welsh! George I was an immigrant king in his own country.

Jacobites, followers of the Stuart line of James III, or the ousted “Pretender,”responded with an attack on England to restore his rightful place on the throne. Pirates of the Golden Age in the West Indies may have believed that their actions aided the same agenda. These conservatives lashed out at a purportedly unfair system that threatened their traditions. Still, they were not yet prepared to mount a revolution and probably would have backed down had it not been for the glittery treasure, a source of great profit, spilled on the Florida shores in July 1715. The timing created a perfect storm in America.

During the Golden Age of Piracy, Douglas Burgess asserts, “Loyalty (or at least deference) to the English flag, which had been a hallmark of the profession [piracy] since the sixteenth century, gradually succumbed to a quite different sentiment: ‘war against all the world.’”[13] This shift in basic intent denoted a change in far more than just politics: it was territorial, the final culmination of cultural differentiation between England and America – the bonds snapped. Burgess said that this shift caused some, like Marcus Rediker, to “posit a protodemocracy of pirates that stood apart from and in conflict with the Crown and its colonies.”[14] Burgess’ desire to explain piracy as a phenomenon separate from American politics, however, handicaps his interpretations. Americans all across the continent and in the West Indies enjoyed and benefitted from the same “pirate,” or one-sided autocracy. Rediker was correct except that his “conflict with the Crown and colonies” was really just a conflict of the colonies with the Crown. America tested its hegemony in the water. It revolted against England in the Golden Age and simply failed the first time around – the second, however, would succeed. The argument is inescapable – we diverged from Britain in that they moved away from piracy while we firmly embraced it and created our culture from it. The umbilical cord snapped. America ideologically separated from Britain and began to truly see itself as an independent “Pirate Nation.” No amount of redeemer or conservative rhetoric would change that.

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[1] Redington, ed., Calendar of Treasury Papers: 1720-1728, 166-167.

[2] William M. Thackery, The Four Georges: Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court and Town Life (London: Smith, Elder, 1860), 52–53.

[3] Francis Osborne, The works of Francis Osborn, Esq; divine, moral, historical, political (London: printed for A. and J. Churchil, at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row, 1701), 378.

[4] J. A. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750 (Essex: Longman Group Limited, 1984), 97.

[5]Ibid.

[6]Ibid., 12.

[7] Natalie Zacek, “Francis Nicholson (1655–1728),” Encyclopedia Virginia (Richmond: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2016), http://www.encyclopedaniavirginia.org/ (accessed 30 Jul 2016).

[8] "South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-19424-37315-19?cc=1919417 : 21 May 2014), Charleston > Miscellaneous record, 1696-1729 > image 128 of 301; citing Department of Archives and History, Columbia.

[9]Ibid., image 138 of 301.

[10]Ibid., image 139 of 301.

[11] Douglas R. Burgess, Jr., The Pirate’s Pact: The Secret Alliances Between History’s Most Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009), 169.

[12]Ibid.

[13] Burgess, Politics of Piracy, 200.

[14]Ibid.

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#Blackbeard - 300 years of Fake News - based upon Quest for Blackbeard - https://youtu.be/AnaYDaNoufE

All #pirate #history lovers:

https://www.facebook.com/bayluscbrooks/

https://www.facebook.com/HistorianBCBrooks

https://www.facebook.com/Q4BB1718/

https://www.facebook.com/sailingeast/

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks

America has been called the "Commonwealth of Pirates" since 1724 for a reason!

Author Spotlight: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks

#twitterstorians #pirates #Blackbeard

RED ALERT! Christian-GOP Dominionism and Donald Trump

This is a thread from "Mr. Spock" on twitter about one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever faced! These are America's Dark Ages!

You will note several similarities in the following thread that may sound familiar if you are used to studying history - particularly the Civil War. This is the racist "white man's" theology of the South's "god of the slavemaster".. now the dominant domain of Republican political ideology!

1898 caption from the Raleigh News & Observer - annotated by the author

The continuous criminality of the South and the GOP: Over 100 Years of GOP Crime & Fascism: https://youtu.be/qBU3lBlecaI

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In Star Trek, one of the core story lines was the Dominion war. But it was mostly in Deep Space Nine. It was originally aired in the 1990s. But it was really speaking to America. Because America is truly at war with the Dominion, here and now. Dominion theology is Christian [in origin].

Political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based only on their personal understanding of Biblical law. Dominionism is a label that only applies to certain groups of Christians within the United States, nowhere else on Earth does this apply. [One particularly anti-American - and Southern neo-Confederate - one is "Church of God Evangelistic Association" operated by David J. Smith]

Dominionism is a radical movement, it cloaks itself in the mantle of Christian faith and American Patriotism, when what it is actually trying to do is dismantle democracy. These people put themselves on a pedestal and dictate the morals of a country based on their limited subjective views that they cherry pick from the Bible and ignore the parts that would effect them. So for example, they will press for oppression of LGBTQ, but not divorce or adultery. They are raping the faith of millions and calling themselves moral whilst acting amorally.

Dominionism has a belief in magic along with adoration of a leader - sound familiar? They believe in the supremacy of a master race, this master race is the bastardised version of American Christianity where Jesus is white and protects only America 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

But most importantly, the give away is not on what they say, but on how they act. The Dominion movement is a totalitarian movement, exploiting those of faith, but of people that don’t truly understand their faith. They will use religious and patriotic language, usually combined. For example, one cannot be truly a patriot American unless you are a Christian, but not true Christianity, it has to be the White bastardised version of Christianity. Everyone else is the enemy. Everyone else is evil and must be eradicated. One must do as they say..

It is the only way to be a Christian and American [according to Dominionism]. Adhere to all of their rhetoric. Find a leader to adore, no matter how unethical he is [GOP's Donald Trump in this case].

So what is their ultimate goal? A legal system based on “Christian Values.” Labor unions & Civil rights movements will be abolished. It will form the basis of the educational system. Women will be removed from the workforce to stay at home [if this reminds you of the "Handmaid's Tale" series on Hulu, you're not wrong!].

Seen these women protestors dressed in red robes? That's from "Handmaid's Tale"

The most important book for the Dominionist is the “Institute of Biblical Law,” which calls for a Christian society that is harsh, unforgiving and violent.

It calls for the death penalty of LGBTQ, blasphemy, astrology and incorrigible juvenile delinquency and women only to be chaste before marriage. The book calls for the Christian United States. There are 2000 radio stations feeding this in America and 6 TV channels. Right now!

So who are the poster boys of Dominionism? Well Pat Robertson for one and I’m sure that surprises no one.

Here’s an article from 2006 which speaks of the rise of Dominionism.

This is why WE HAVE TO STICK TOGETHER. We cannot ever allow this Draconian society to occur. This is why we must call out this fake version of Christianity which is all about white straight men having all of the power. We must say no. Never surrender.

The enemies of morality will not stop and will not back off. The Left cannot and will not change.

"If the Democrats in the Senate try again to usurp the President's constitutional authority by filibustering, there will be a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea." —James Dobson

[more Civil War news & rhetoric by Robert Reich, Franklin Graham,

Politics is religion, and the right is getting ready for the end times

Pete Buttigieg: "Hypocrisy" of Evangelical Christians Supporting Trump

The Evangelical Civil War: An Interview With Russell Moore - Bloomberg ]

Can you understand why tRump is so important to them and their movement?

So the religious right now have 30 million active voters. They go out and vote no matter what. This is why we must ALWAYS VOTE.

None of my tweets I must add are attacking Christians. Real Christians. Not at all. Christians are needed to push back, to speak the truth, to say no to the cheapening of their daily spirituality. I think America needs true Christians now more than ever, to speak out more.

Why Christian nationalists love Trump

------------------

My thanks to Mr. Spock for his ever logical and fascinating analysis!

I have written a quite a few blog entries myself on Southern conservatism combined with theology and originating from early American piracy and crime:

North Carolina: The Subtle Politics of Slavery Before and After the Civil War 

Progressive Liberal Minister Born in the Confederacy!  

"Quest for Blackbeard" and the "Counterfactual" Politics of the South 

Why do Poor White Voters Vote Against Themselves?

North Carolina's Political Pirate Nest

Really! Pirates and Tea Party Conservatism 

Carolana to Carolina: Imperialism, Science, and Early Huguenot Interest in Bath County

Pirates and Capitalists: Two Sides of the Same Coin 

The National Rifle Association in a Culture of Terrorism

A Proud North Carolina Tradition!

North Carolina: The Subtle Politics of Slavery Before and After the Civil War

Republicans were Liberal Before the Confederacy Took Them Over!

North Carolina's Most Amusing Governor and Wilmington Founder 

Political Agenda of "Redeemer Historians" in North Carolina

Responsibility in Business: Imperialism, Africans, and Rice in the South Carolina Trade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mueller Report: Watch As We Read The Whole Thing Live

A 12-hour long reading of the Mueller Report... it starts slowly, so be patient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G73iRRgoLKg

Progressive Liberal Minister Born in the Confederacy!

Rev. E. M. Brooks (1861-1943)

Parties are quite enjoyable for me. You see, I have the best ice-breaker. My family is unique for having their kids at an advanced age and stretching out the generations and it provides me with the best conversation starter!

My grandfather - no, not a great grandfather - was born two months before the start of the Civil War - the reactions from my fellow party-attendees are usually shock and surprise! 

Still, the Civil War started only 158 years ago... by chance the precise range between my Grandpa and myself (plus my current age of 57). The shelling of Fort Sumter was actually not that long ago! 

Grandpa was born 5 Feb 1861. The Southern States had already seceded after the election of Abraham Lincoln on 20 Dec 1860, and the Montgomery (Alabama) Convention (to organize the Confederacy) was held 4 Feb 1861-17 Feb 1861 - so he was essentially a child of the emerging new country - the Confederate States of America. 

But the war would not begin until 12 Apr 1861 when Confederate forces demanded the surrender of Federal Fort Sumter in Charleston and shelled it. So, Grandpa was actually born a couple of months before the Civil War! 

You should have seen the looks from my history professors in college!

Map of the Confederate States and Territories - c1860. In early 1865, after four years of heavy fighting which led to 620,000–850,000 military deaths, all the Confederate forces surrendered and the Confederacy vanished. The war lacked a formal end; nearly all Confederate forces had been forced into surrender or deliberately disbanded by the end of 1865, by which point the dwindling manpower and resources of the Confederacy were facing overwhelming odds. By 1865 Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the civil war, lamented that the Confederacy had "disappeared" - but that wasn't exactly true. See: North Carolina: The Subtle Politics of Slavery Before and After the Civil War for events leading to the Election of Donald Trump in 2016

Despite Grandpa's birth as a Confederate, he later became a staunch liberal progressive of the restructured United States who actually practiced what he preached! He desired not money, just good will to all men and opposed the conservatives of that former Confederacy in which he was born - a hateful racist political machine active in recovering their harsh dominance after the end of Reconstruction and ridding their society of African-American influence. They were essentially successful in 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson - or the establishment of "separate but equal" education. This did not end until 1954 and Brown v. Board. The subsequent Civil Rights Act in 1964 was simply a slap in the Southern face - and signed by a Southern Democrat!

Consequently, Grandpa could have been in danger from hometown terrorists in his home in Stanly County, North Carolina, especially after the special election in 1898 when conservatives retook the state and reinforced their control... almost exactly the time he was ordained as a minister! This was a time of white political dominion and African-American suppression. It eventually led to the Great Migration of nearly half of the African-American population to the North - refugees from a hateful Southern theocracy. By 1970, the African-American population in the United States fell from 90% living in the South in 1890 to 53%. They were lucky compared to the Syrian people. The 37% who left the South is only paralleled by a full 60% of the Syrian population needing humanitarian relief today - whereas only 22% have actually been able to leave Syria as refugees.

Ironically, Grandpa had been the great-grandchild of a slave-owner, William Brooks I of Stanly County, North Carolina - just east of Charlotte. His grandfather William Brooks II also owned slaves, but may have manumitted them. His maternal great grandfather (father of his grandmother Mary Burleson), David Burleson (later of Rutherford County, Tenn.) had transacted slaves with him. The most notable thing about this deed was that Burleson paid about ten times the going rate of a horse for this single slave from William Brooks II. Slaves were an enormously valuable commodity in the South - they were simply free labor for a harsh capitalistic society, a boon to any business' "bottom line." William Brooks I owned as many as thirteen slaves at one time, the financial equivalent of 130 horses of free labor on his farm! The family lost their financial prominence (most probably gained through slave labor) after the war ended in 1865 - about $150,000 - calculated at $4,618,337 today!

1814 deed for a slave from William Brooks

The war occurred during the time that my great-grandfather Culpeper "Cullen" P. Brooks and his wife Louisa Lowery Allen birthed and raised my grandfather and their only surviving son, Edgar Marcelus Brooks (he had two sisters who lived and two brothers who died young). This was only 4-5 years following the death of Culpeper's mother, Mary Burleson.

William II and Mary both died in 1846 and 1852 respectively, so very little is known about their son's life in 1861 - all of the court documents ended before - but we can extrapolate from census records. Unfortunately, there are no slave census records to help. The first census they appear on is the 1850 Union County, as a young couple of two years with two young children. Union was formed from Anson just a few years before and was the home county of his father on the south side of the Rocky River, just adjacent to the old Brooks home of William Brooks I, still standing on north side of the river in Stanly County. 

William Brooks I (1736-1818) homeplace near Oakboro, Stanly County, North Carolina

My Uncle Cullen (Dad's brother, named for Culpeper) found it fascinating when I told him that his grandfather was listed as "Cullen" and not "Culpeper" on this census (and a few other records). He never knew! Turns out that "Cullen" was a nickname that got passed down to him - he had no idea, but then like myself, he had never met his grandfather... who died before he was born. That's that having kids late in life thing... rough on the grandkids!

In 1860 - just before the war started - Culpeper was a 43-year-old farmer living on the north side of Rocky River in what was then Stanly County, but further east from the old Brooks homeplace. Apparently, Culpeper and Louisa Allen Brooks had moved closer to her family's homestead near the Pee Dee River. Her grandfather, a wealthy former Revolutionary War soldier originally from Henry County, Virginia by the name of Darling Allen (emigrated c1792) may have died a decade after arriving in North Carolina in an interesting way, according to History and Genealogy of the Nances (Charlotte, 1930), 22:

History and Genealogy of the Nances (Charlotte, 1930), 22

This was, of course, passed down by oral tradition, so.. it may or may not be true. Still makes for a good tale. It's interesting that an alleged murderer "Mose Speaks" was captured in Anson County almost twenty years before publication of the Nance history book. Although he wasn't a slave, this event may have influenced the oral tradition somewhat since "Mose" or "Moses" was a common slave name. The story could still be true, however... I have no way of knowing except that I can't find details in any other source - including court records. As a genealogist, I'm always fascinated - when I read amateur genealogies - by how all us white folks are suddenly descended from "Indian Princesses," too.. lol

Messenger and Intelligencer (Wadesboro, Anson County), 23 Feb 1911, 2.

Culpeper and Louisa Brooks had $2,000 in real estate in 1860 - worth $61,577 today. They owned personal estate valued at $4,200 or $129,313 today - worth a total of about $191,000 in today's value (not poor by any means - but not rich either.. certainly a small smattering of William Brooks I's $4 million!). They probably lived near Norwood, Center Township, Stanly County. In 1870, they appear again in Center Township, with land at $1,500 value with personal estate at only $500 - a total then of about $61, 577. Their total worth had reduced by 56% in a single decade. By the time Culpeper grew sick some years before his death in 1893, they had relocated to Anson County near Polkton and both he and his wife were buried at Rocky River Baptist Church Cemetery, Polkton, Anson County... back to their old home territory.

Where did most of the money go? My Brooks-Allen family had supported the Confederacy in the war, converting their U.S. currency into Confederate bills in 1864 when their nation was badly in need of funds. When the Confederacy fell in 1865, these bills were then made worthless.

Interestingly, Grandpa, who settled his father Culpeper's estate, kept the pre-war chest of his family's old Confederate money, including a bundle of the family's papers wrapped in tobacco twine. My Aunt Clara noted that the chest full of $150,000 worth of Confederate money was just "worthless paper," probably repeating just what her relatives had told her after the war. I have seen a sample of several of those bills scooped up by my Uncle Cullen when Grandpa died in 1943 - xeroxing a copy of a ten dollar note after interviewing him back in the 1990s:

$10 note from Brooks Family fortune before the Civil War

A somewhat clearer facsimile of the same $10 note from 1864

Few details of a farmer's life - even well off - entered the newspapers. After the war, everyone had it hard, but there's little evidence that Culpeper kept slaves. There's not much on him at all, actually, after the deaths of his parents - so I don't really know if he inherited slaves from his father's estate - or Louisa from her Allen family. William Brooks II's estate was settled in 1846 in Union County and included the old family land adjacent to Drury Morgan on the Rocky River. If he owned slaves, they were not on his 3-page estate sale inventory nor were there any on his wife Mary Burleson Brooks' estate in 1852.  Still, William I's original thirteen slaves would have been divided at his death in 1818, so few slaves were inherited by any single kid and no further purchases have been found. Still, this was an agricultural community and slaves were often used, especially by the wealthier families.

The most liberal Brooks to certainly break with this trend became my grandfather, a late arrival in Culpeper and Louisa Brooks' home. Their first three sons, William H., Robert Julian, and Preston L., died in infancy. The last two were buried in the Wall-Almond Cemetery (AKA Almond Cemetery, William Wall Cemetery) near Norwood in Stanly County. My Grandpa's two sisters, Eliza Jane Teal and Mary Frances High were a full ten years older than him and their families rarely associated with my grandfather's children. 

The Monroe Journal, 17 Aug 1909, 2

What was a young boy growing up just after a major war - then in dire straights - with only older sisters as an influence, bound to experience? Cullen and Louisa's Rocky River Baptist Church, founded in 1776, became a definite influence in my Grandpa's lonely and sparse life - penance and poverty surrounded him - as well as thousands of freed slaves.  

It may be that Grandpa had planned to settle on a small farm of seventeen acres in Burnesville near Ansonville in 1894, but - thanks to Rocky River Baptist Church and various influences after the war, I believe - he soon became an itinerant Baptist Minister and family historian, bringing the family back together for numerous reunions and writing The Brooks of Union County in 1925. 

It should also be said that he certainly influenced me to study genealogy since I was 16 and to obtain my master's degree in America History. Thanks, Grandpa.. even though we've never met!

Brooks Reunion, c1940

His first appearance in the Biblical Recorder (Raleigh, NC) was on 17 Aug 1898, telling that he was ordained 3 Aug and then served two churches in Anson and Stanly Counties:

Biblical Recorder, 17 Aug 1898, 22

The North Carolinian
Raleigh, North Carolina
21 Jun 1900, Thu  •  Page 4

As I said, thousands of freed slaves searched for a new life when Grandpa was just a young boy of four years. He grew up seeing destitute blacks and whites panhandling and begging, suffering from the ravages of a lost war... the "Lost Cause." That desire for vengeance to get back at the "Damn Yankees" of the United States would spark much resentment among whites after William Woods Holden and Reconstruction ended abruptly. Henry Louis Gates' RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR is a must see presentation!

The special election in North Carolina for 1898 which sparked the racial violence and killings in the Wilmington Race Riot coincided with the beginning of his service in the ministry. Grandpa had to be very careful, for 40% of the people lynched in America were white! Most were killed by the Ku Klux Klan for supporting blacks or for other reasons not considered "desirable" in their neighborhood. It was typical for the KKK or "red shirts" (active in 1898 Wilmington Race Riot) to make up a valid-sounding story to uphold their mob verdict of death by lynching - especially when their victim was a white man.

Ku Klux Klan on horseback

One lynching occurred in Stanly County in 1892 - a white man named Alexander Whitley, allegedly for murder. But, there was little evidence and more hearsay, he stood no trial, and was lynched by a vigilante mob "all wearing red shirts." His descendant has written a book with a title that expresses how society dealt with such violence: Stanly Has a Lynching: The Murder of Alexander Whitley: A Family Legacy Entangled in a Web of Fiction & Folklore 

Enterprise, 13 Aug 1903

As M. Lynette Hartsell tells in chapter nine, a lynching of "Pharoah the Bull" occurred in 1880 - a tale which carried many racially-charged anecdotes of a black man as "savage," a reflection of one Prohibitionist preacher's political animus. I have included the article in Stanly News and Press: "Old King Pharoah Was Stoned For Goring Man". Prohibitionists had tied race to their cause, suggesting that anti-Prohibitionists were in league with the " beastly negroes." As Hartsell suggests, this gave their racism - even violence - a religiously righteous flavor - another parallel with Trump's evangelical supporters today, angered as they are by "Negro Rule" reminiscent of Barack Obama's administration. Hartsell does an excellent job of weaving through the political rhetoric to find reality. 

Still, lynching or attempts to lynch seemed forever on the minds of the more meek shepherds - like I suspect my Grandpa was - attending their flock!

"Indian Doctor" J. L. White was held in prison a full year and narrowly escaped lynching for rape in 1896. In 1900, another lynching of a black man accused of killing a Dr. S. J. Love occurred "by a mob of some 25 person, all disguised" who took the man from the jail, with no resistance from Sheriff McCain, at 2 a.m. in Stanly County. Henry Young was accused of assaulting a white woman in 1908 and nearly lynched by a mob. And, yet another lynching was narrowly averted in Dec 1909 and again, with two black men accused of murder in 1913. Certainly, only a few lynchings and other forms of racial violence had been recorded in newspapers and, contrary to my reporting, they were not just happening in Stanly County - this was a Southern-wide phenomenon. 

The "Lynching Mania" appeared in Stanly Enterprise of 7 March 1901 and almost a full column appeared in the Stanly Enterprise for 13 Aug 1903 which asked the question "But lynching is now on? How can we stop it?" The insincere answer was for faster trials! Whites should ensure swifter justice and that "it would largely stop in the South if negroes would stop committing rape, and this is true." Look at the cartoon below from 1892 of the large black man with bats wings, reaching out for the young white fleeing women - tine and helpless. The caption read "The dangers that hover over North Carolina." It is certain that these accused black men had not raped these women, but were accused nevertheless and hanged. The article went on "It comes of course, as a result of low, uncontrolled bestiality, fed fat by the habits of the life of the negro." As we've seen especially today, "bestiality" appears rather a human quality, practiced by anyone, regardless of any particular skin hue. 

Lynchings from 1835-1964. From data of Monroe Work.

Grandpa's association with, or admiration for, the liberal secretary for populist Gov. Lindsey Russell would be the first clue as to his liberal Christian nature. That secretary was Rev. Baylus Cade of Lenoir, inventor and Baptist Minister, a man who was reviled by conservatives as "Decayed Cade," "once a useful Baptist preacher," for "slandering his church." The North Carolinian of 21 June 1900 spouted a lot of likely "non-sense" as Donald Trump's supporters today, but the last sentence told the strongest sentiments and the original spark for the "righteous flames" - "When a man joins with the negroes in politics, he is ready to tear down the church and slander its good name!" Another article of similar venom spouted "[Cade] is not content to misrepresent the amendment and traduce the white people - that's what all fusion orators do - and Decayed Baylus could not stand to be merely conventional." 

The Semi-Weekly Messenger
Wilmington, North Carolina
03 Jul 1900, Tue  •  Page 2

Oddly enough, Rev. Cade was also a man respected by a quite reverent servant of God, and frequent contributor to the same Christian journals as Rev. Cade - my Grandpa - who named his 4rd son and 5th child - my father - Baylus Cade Brooks in 1916 in his honor!

Rev. Cade's story is an extraordinary tale of rife with the conservative political machine of the day in their battle against "Negro Rule!" The parallels with the Trump Administration today cannot be ignored! I encourage you to click the link above and read about him!

Raleigh News and Observer, 27 Sep 1898

It was in the middle of this tense racial division that my grandfather met and married my grandmother, Emma Eugenia Morton, daughter of Rev. David Stanley Morton on 23 Jan 1902. Their first son was born in 1902 - my Uncle Cullen - already mentioned with the handful of "worthless paper."

Rev. E. M. Brooks and Emma Eugenia Morton, married 23 Jan 1901

Many articles in both the Biblical Recorder and in the Stanly Enterprise newspaper detail his biblical devotion to living a humble life. His personal ministry was directly with the people - he was a do-gooder for sure - and he made various contributions to several Baptist churches in Stanly, Union, and Anson Counties. One of these articles details how Grandpa lived this life and even gave a family historian like myself a unique surprise about my great-great-great grandfather!


Enterprise of 6 Sep 1906 told that Pleasant Grove Baptist Church had given him a "handsome gold watch, Elgin movement" that they wanted him to have to replace his "98-cent timepiece he has been wearing." The article also mentioned a gift he gave them in return - a family heirloom of his great-grandfather's which I'll come back to momentarily.

The same wording appeared also in Carolina Watchmen of Salisbury, 12 Sep 1906. The paragraph before it also included a bit of political news that hints at a "great evil" from which we suffer today - voter suppression by the modern conservative Republican Party. It's helpful to know that, in the 1898 Election, conservatives tried to kill Gov. Lindsey Russell on his train trip home to vote Republican:

It is to be hoped that in Stanly this year there will be no vote buying or vote selling. If a man is honestly a Republican [liberal], he deserves credit and should be allowed his right of suffrage. If honestly a Democrat [conservative], he is entitled to the same privilege. There can be no honesty in elections when there is traffic in votes. In the end the country suffers therefrom and the voter holds the remedy for granting us immunity from this great evil.

[but...] "If the radicals [liberal Republicans] stay in power two years more, the roads in Stanly will be in such a fix that a man won't be able to get anywhere," remarked a citizen of Harris township on Monday.

It seems that any excuse against liberals was fit to print. Everything I read about my grandfather convinces me that he would be seen as a liberal Democratic Socialist today. Of course, in his time, conservatives - actually ex-slavers - were termed the "Democrats," and these cruel conservatives would move into the Republican Party by 1968. My grandfather would certainly not have associated "Democrat" with his own way of thinking!


As promised... Grandpa also mentioned that he gave Pleasant Grove Church a gift in return - one powder horn, "considerably over a hundred years of age," that had belonged to his "grandfather," William Brooks II, made from a gourd. Messenger and Intelligencer of Wadesboro reported in its issue of 10 Apr 1890 that "Cullen" or Culpeper Brooks had the horn in his possession then, that it was his grandfather's (William I) and that it had been used so often it "appeared to be varnished." The 1906 article mentioned "from the seventies," meaning that it had definitely belonged to Ensign William Brooks I when he and his brother Lt. John Brooks went in Capt. John Culpeper's regiment of Rutherford's Campaign against the Cherokee about 1770, before the Revolution. BTW, care to guess where my Great Grandpa "Culpeper" got his name? The powder horn "furnished many a charge when a deer proved a fallen victim," they said. It had done more than that, but I doubt that my Grandpa knew its full history! Or maybe he did and that 's why he gave it away?

Grandpa helped establish the Stanly Baptist Union, a circuit of Baptist churches in Stanly County. He often preached at various locations, but was limited to his place of residence. He had worked in Norwood from 1909 to November of 1915. He and his wife, Emma, pregnant with my father then moved to Palmerville, near Oakboro and "Big Lick" and their child arrived on New Year's day, 1916. 

The next day, Grandpa penned a letter to Rev. Baylus Cade, informing him of his "little namesake" and named "for a great man. One whose ripe scholarship and faultless English excites our admiration.":

Letter of Rev. E.M. and Emma Brooks of Palmerville, NC to Rev. Baylus Cade of Shelby, 2 Jan 1916

Rev. Cade responded ten days later, saying "I value the honor you have done me in giving your dear little boy my name...."

Letter of Rev. Baylus Cade of Shelby to Rev. E. M. Brooks, 12 July 1916

The next year, for my Dad's first Christmas, the family transferred to New London, Stanly County. There, the true followers of a beneficent Jesus celebrated a special "White Christmas" for the "destitute poor" of Stanly County. But, he still visited to other parts of Stanly, like the more western village of Pleasant Grove.

It was not longer after my father's birth, in May 1916, that my grandfather demonstrated his interest as historian - not just as family historian - when "E.M. Brooks of Palmerville gave a historical sketch of the history of" Norwood Baptist Church. He gave a "field meeting" in the open for Palmerville, Ebenezer, and New London in 1918.

By 1919, while living at New London, Grandpa helped initiate an effort to educate the people of Stanly county, with a "Mobile School" for which he served as Dean. According to the Stanly County Herald of 17 July 1919, the school would travel from town to town and spend five days at a time teaching to the children. While the curricula was based on church studies, it did also include various scholarly subjects. The next year, the town of Badin presented him with a gift of $24 to further the poor preacher's pursuits. 

Stanly County Herald of 9 Oct 1919 announced a distant move for the Brooks - nearly to the town of my own birth of Fayetteville - in the small town of Lumber Bridge, southwest of Fayetteville. My father would spend his childhood and later years here - maybe why he chose to purchase his first home near Hope Mills, a bit closer to the metropolis of Fayetteville. 

 

Stanly County Herald, 9 Oct 1919, 1

The Robesonian of Lumberton noted his arrival 20 Nov 1919, where he instructed their parishioners "more perfectly in the ways of finance," and Emma Morton Brooks appeared to have become ill late in September of 1922 but the paper noted that she was "convalescing." On 7 June 1923, the same paper noted him as "Rev. E.M. Brooks of Fayetteville, pastor of the Baptist Church of Boardman," a small town ten miles south of Lumberton. My Grandpa, Rev. E.M. brooks served as pastor at the Person Street Baptist Church in downtown Fayetteville and was listed on the Fayetteville City Directory for 1924. Albemarle Press reported that they were back in Albemarle 25 Oct 1925, but still noted him as "of Fayetteville." My father spent six years from ages 3 - 9 in Lumber Bridge, but his family then resided in Peachland for a number of years.

I remember my father telling me that he walked about a mile to go to school while in Peachland. He and his elder brother Julian Allen used to play pranks on folks by tying fishing line to a dollar and laying it in the street. When someone bent over to pick up the dollar, they'd snatch it away. Dad also told me that he and Allen would try to hit each other's mouths with milk, squeezed straight from a cow! Of course, he laughed at the look on my face!

At some point, my father left Peachland and moved to Fayetteville to live with his older brother Macon - I'm guessing by time of the 1930 census - certainly by the 1931-2 school year, when he was found attending Fayetteville High School (today's Terry Sanford) and working at Matthew's Pharmacy on Hay Street. He graduated from there in 1933 and continued "jerking sodas" at the pharmacy. 

Grandpa retired about that time. He spent his remaining years reading the local papers, clipping articles and exploring history, as he loved it so much. Grandpa saved a collection of newspaper articles, personal anecdotes, and facts that he collected in a scrapbook, dating from about 1931-1939. One of those articles was "Black Mammy Tells Graphic Story of Slavery." This huge article caught my Grandpa's liberal eye.. and I know why. It described a woman who had been severely affected by her servitude as a slave and, later, as a free woman. She never left the home of her former master. This sparked a long, detailed study you'll find in "North Carolina: The Subtle Politics of Slavery Before and After the Civil War." It's not hard to imagine what must have gone through my Grandpa's mind when he read it.

Article written by Charlotte Story Perkinson titled "Black Mammy' Tells Graphic Story of Slavery," Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), 19 March 1933

I can't say that Grandpa was an activist in any meaningful way, but I can discern his thoughts. Maybe the South was the source of the general meek image of a liberal today... as Grandpa would say, they "shall inherit the Earth." Let's hope he's right.

Rev. Edgar Marcelus Brooks passed away from a heart attack at his home in New London, Harris Township, Stanly County just after midnight at 12:45 on the morning of 25 March 1943. My Dad was away in the Navy, oddly enough, stationed at New London, Connecticut. He received an early discharge as a result. 

And, I received one of the best family histories of all time!

Monroe Enquirer, 8 Apr 1943

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