I had a link I liked about the term Black Dutch. I went looking for it today and found it in Wayback. The page is so old it recommends a Yahoo group for further discussion. In 19th and 20th centuries America it was relatively common for people to identify themselves or other people as Black…
Myth of the frontier
I keep watch for pieces about the mythology of the American West. Westerns and cowboys are the American myth, hands down. My neo-pagan friends find meaning in Norse culture, in Celtic culture, in every romanticized period of history except America. I’m not going to embed this one because it’s so long: How Historians Killed the…
Thomas Nock
I noticed recently the Scottish Prisoners of War Society (SPOWS) still lists Thomas Nock as a possible prisoner. Oh my. I thought we settled that. The Scottish prisoners of war who are the subject of this society’s research were taken prisoner after the Battles of Dunbar (1660) and Worcester (1661), then deported to New England….
Waco
We watched Waco last Sunday night. It was, for me, unimaginably powerful. Here’s a trailer from YouTube. In 1993 the ATF got a search warrant for the Branch Davidian headquarters in Waco, Texas, and an arrest warrant for David Koresh, the religious leader of the group, on weapons charges. Instead of serving the warrants, the…
Heritage of Hate
I hadn’t planned to write about Southern identity any time in the immediate future. I decided to do it because of this excellent video by The Cynical Historian. He does interesting work and this one is particularly good. The video is particularly timely right at the moment, when America is governed seemingly by un-reconstructed Confederates…