Uncategorized – Page 13 – Amazing Bible Timeline with World History

Posted on October 31, 2017October 18, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

The Story of Tambuka 1728

The Story or Epic of Tambuka (Utendi/Utenzi wa Tambuka) is a Swahili epic poem written by Bwana Mwengo wa Athman in 1728. Also known as Chuo Cha Herkali (the Book of Herakleios or the Battle of Tabuk), the utendi tells of the victories of Prophet Muhammad’s armies against the Byzantine army in Tabuk during the rise of Islam. The text was written in Arabic script, but the author used the Swahili dialect kiAmu in writing the poem. The text contains a few expressions from other northern Swahili dialects, such as the kiUnguja and kiTikuu (kiGunya). This event is recorded on the Bible Timeline Online with World History during that time.

The Utendi wa Tambuka was written with four vipande (lines) within each stanza. Each kipande (line) has eight mizani (syllables). Each end of the first three lines should rhyme, while the last syllable of the fourth line always in “a.” It also follows that this last syllable is always repeated at the end of the each stanza.

Ali Ibn Abi-Talib is celebrated as one of the heros in the Epic of Tabuk.

The manuscript begins with Prophet Muhammad’s commemoration of three Muslim soldiers who were killed in battle. It then transitions to the beginning of the poem with an account of Jibril (the angel Gabriel) paying a visit to Muhammad. The angel tells the prophet that God had commanded him and his sahabah (followers) to take Tabuk which, at that time, was held by the Byzantine Empire. It is not clear whether the Hirqal (Herakleios) referred to in the poem was the Byzantine emperor or a governor of the province of Shams (Syria).

The Prophet accepts this mission, and commissions his son-in-law Ali Ibn Abi-Talib to write the accounts of the expedition to Tabuk. Muhammad then writes a letter to the governor of Shams (or the Byzantine Emperor Herakleios) Hirqal telling him to renounce Christianity. The Shahada (the Islamic creed) follows this page, and it then transitions to the commissioning of Ibnu Omar as the bearer of the letter. It also tells of Ibnu Omar’s preparation for the trip and his delivery of the letter to the hands of the Byzantine minister at Tabuk.

The minister just shrugs the letter off and tells the messenger that renouncing Christianity is out of the question. The narrative then skips to the time when Hirqal receives the said letter in his residence in Damascus. He refuses to convert to Islam, and soon the two sides are preparing to go to war. It is followed by a narrative of the battles, and Hirqal’s imprisonment after the Byzantine side was allegedly defeated.

Muhammad’s followers compel Hirqal, his minister, and his friends to convert to Islam, but the offer is met with refusal. The prophet then orders the execution of the Byzantine governor and his companions. The utendi celebrates Imam Ali as one of the heroes of the narrative, along with the Prophet’s companions, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab.

References:

Picture by: Hakob Hovnatanyan – http://www.paymanonline.com/article.aspx?id=E030AEC0-8F65-4A91-91A8-385F52EDA20E, Public Domain, Link

Green, Roland, and Stephen Cushman, eds. The Princeton Handbook of World Poetries. Princeton University Press, 2016.

“Item Record (Utenzi wa Hirqal).” Swahili Manuscripts Database. Accessed August 22, 2017. http://mercury.soas.ac.uk/perl/Project/showSwahiliItem.pl?ref=MS 45022a.

Posted on October 29, 2017October 18, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

John Knox, born between 1505-1515

Although his years of involvement in the Reformation spanned approximately 30 years, few people made a greater impact on the movement in Scotland than John Knox (b. between 1505 and 1515). He spent the first 40 years of his life as a priest and a tutor but joined the Reformation movement through the influence of the Scottish reformer George Wishart. Knox plunged into the life of a reformer after the death of his mentor, but his work at the Protestant haven of St. Andrews was cut off when he and several others were taken as prisoners by the French.

With the help of English authorities, Knox was freed from the life of a French galley slave. He was able to work as a preacher in England with the help of English patrons, but this was once again cut off when the Catholic princess Mary Tudor became Queen in 1553. With his life in danger, Knox fled to Geneva and spent some time in Frankfurt. He went back to Geneva after some time and served as a preacher to the English refugees.

He came home to Scotland in 1559 and helped organize the Scottish Church during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Civil war engulfed Scotland during his final years, but he continued to preach, write, and work to promote the Reformation in the kingdom. Knox died of natural causes on November 24, 1572. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during that time.

Early Years

John Knox was born in the Scottish town of Haddington between 1505 and 1515, near the city of Edinburgh. He was the son of a man named William Knox who possibly worked as a farmer or a merchant. His mother died when he was young, and his father remarried soon after.

The younger Knox received a Catholic education in a school at Haddington for the first seventeen years of his life. His father later sent John to the University of Glasgow to study divinity when he reached eighteen. He studied under the Catholic theologian John Major and went on to study at the University of Saint Andrews after his stint at Glasgow. It was also during this time that the Reformation spread in many areas of Scotland with the help of the Scottish reformer Patrick Hamilton.

From Catholicism to Protestantism

John Knox was ordained as a priest between 1531 and 1532 and then served as a notary nine years later. In 1545, he worked as a tutor in East Lothian to the son of John Cockburn, laird of Ormiston and the sons of Hugh Douglas, laird of Longniddry. Both lairds were known to be sympathetic to the Reformation movement in Scotland. It was during this time that he met the Scottish reformer George Wishart who had just returned from his exile in Europe.

Wishart had been preaching in East Lothian when he met John Knox in 1545. Knox soon became his disciple, and later served as Wishart’s bodyguard after an assassination attempt ordered by Cardinal Beaton. In 1546, an agitated Wishart preached in Haddington with Knox as his sword-bearer. He had already been condemned to be burned at the stake so he was fearful for his disciple’s life. Wishart convinced Knox to return to his work as a tutor so that the authorities would not go after him.

Knox followed his mentor’s advice with a heavy heart and went back to Longniddry. The authorities arrested Wishart soon after and he was once again tried and sentenced to death. Wishart was hanged and burned on the 1st of March 1546 in St. Andrews Castle in front of Cardinal Beaton. The cardinal was killed three months later when Protestants from Fife stormed the castle in revenge for Wishart’s death.

Cardinal Beaton’s death angered the Catholic authorities who soon targeted Knox himself. Knox, along with his students, moved constantly between 1546 and 1547 to avoid arrest. He requested the lairds to allow him to flee to Europe, but they refused. In spite of the danger, Knox continued to teach their sons while they were on the move. After some time, the lairds suggested that Knox and their sons hide in the St. Andrews Castle. The Protestants, by then, had converted Cardinal Beaton’s home into their own stronghold after his death. Knox agreed to move, and they arrived at St. Andrews at Easter of 1547.

St. Andrews, by then, was home to a ragtag group of people which included earnest Protestants, lairds, soldiers, preachers, women, and assassins. John Rough, the former chaplain to Governor Arran (James Hamilton), came to live at St. Andrews and discovered Knox’s talent for preaching. Rough, along with Sir David Lyndsay and Henry Balnaves, soon convinced him to preach to the residents of the castle.

The somewhat timid (and prone to tears) Knox refused many times by saying that preaching was not his calling. Besides, he did not have experience in preaching as he worked for many years as a tutor and a notary. He gave in only after Rough preached against the dangers of not answering God’s call and admonished him in front of a crowd.

Knox’s timidity disappeared whenever he stood behind the pulpit. He echoed Luther’s belief on sola fide (“faith alone”) and sola scriptura (“Scriptures alone”). He also started to challenge the Pope’s authority, the existence of Purgatory, and the benefits of praying for the dead. Because of his preaching, many people joined the bands of refugees in the St. Andrews Castle.

The Galley Slave

Knox’s role as a preacher in St. Andrews, however, did not last long. On June 29, 1547, twenty-one French war galleys appeared off the coast of St. Andrews. The galleys were under the command of Admiral Leone Strozzi (cousin of the Queen of France, Catherine de Medici) who immediately ordered the French forces to attack the residents of the castle. The French forces were initially unsuccessful, but an epidemic broke out in the castle which only weakened the defenders. With no hope or allies in sight, the Scottish defenders finally surrendered more than one month after the appearance of the French fleet.

The French forces then took Knox and other inhabitants of the castle and loaded them aboard the galleys. It was far from a pleasure cruise as Knox and his fellow Scots were now galley slaves. They were commanded to row the galleys back to France and were separated when they arrived. Those who belonged to the nobility were sent to Rouen, while Knox and his companions remained as galley slaves.

The French tried their best to get the Scottish prisoners to embrace Catholicism but to no avail. Life as a galley slave took its toll on Knox’s health. In 1548, a feverish Knox and several prisoners were made to row back to the coast near St. Andrews to look for English ships that the French preyed on. When a fellow prisoner named James Balfour asked him if he recognized the place, Knox replied that he remembered the steeple of St. Andrews and that was where he first preached. He vowed that in spite of his illness, he would not die without preaching once again at St. Andrews.

The Exile in England

John Knox was a notable figure in the Scottish Reformation movement, as well as the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

John Knox worked as a galley slave until he was freed in early 1549 when relations between the French and the Scots warmed. By then, the kingdom of Scotland (with French support) was already engulfed in a war against England (the Rough Wooing) because of the infant queen Mary Stuart betrothal to the French prince Francis (later Francis II). This betrothal was opposed by King Henry VIII who wanted her to marry his heir, Edward VI.

Apart from the warming relations with the French, it was possible that the Protestant Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector Edward Seymour had a hand in Knox’s release. The Duke was keen on using Knox to strengthen the Reformation in Northumberland, so the Scottish preacher was allowed to stay in England upon his release. The Privy Council even issued him a license to preach in the English border town of Berwick in summer of 1549.

Berwick was the temporary home of English soldiers and foreign mercenaries during the Rough Wooing period. More importantly, however, it was a haven for Scottish Protestant refugees with whom Knox found a home. Anti-Scot sentiments were rampant in this poverty-stricken border town, but strangely, it was here that Knox was said to be at his happiest. Ministering to the refugees took up most up of his time, but he was able to spend the rest of it studying and recovering from his stint as a galley slave. He also became a spiritual mentor for Elizabeth Bowes and her daughter (Knox’s future wife), Marjorie Bowes, during his stay in Berwick.

Knox was well-liked by his congregation in Berwick. His style of preaching was similar to modern Protestant preaching, and he adopted the Calvinist belief on the nature of the bread and wine. He also introduced a more egalitarian way of receiving the bread and wine. He did this by stepping down from the pulpit and sitting with the congregation to receive the elements.

The authorities of the Church of England felt that Knox’s innovation strayed from The Book of Common Prayer, so he was immediately summoned to Newcastle to explain himself. He met with Bishop Tunstall on April 4, 1550, and successfully defended his position on receiving communion. His fame as a preacher spread, and he was soon transferred to St. Nicholas Church in Newcastle.

In 1552, Knox became one of the six chaplains to King Edward VI despite the fall from grace of his patron, the Duke of Somerset. The controversy regarding his belief in the nature of the bread and wine (as well as his innovations on communion) were far from over. This time, however, his refusal to kneel during communion became the subject for debate.

He came to London with his other patron, the Earl of Northumberland, to defend his views before the church authorities. He told them that he refused to kneel because it was an act of idolatry. The divided authorities were forced to create a committee to judge the validity of his belief. In the end, the committee decided that kneeling would be allowed during the communion, but it was only optional.

Happy that Knox was temporarily out of trouble, the Earl of Northumberland then suggested that he be appointed as the new Bishop of Rochester. Knox declined this politically-motivated offer, and promptly returned to Newcastle. The Earl was stung with his refusal, but they remained on good terms even after the incident.

In late 1552, news of King Edward VI’s illness and impending death reached Knox and alarmed him. If the Protestant King Edward died, he would then be succeeded by his sister, the Catholic Princess Mary, to the throne. Her succession only meant renewed violence against Protestants. In spite of his fears, he temporarily put them out of his mind to arrange his engagement (or possible marriage) to Marjorie Bowes. He also refused the offer of vicarship in London because of his disinterest in politics and his insistence on staying independent.

In early 1553, Knox returned to London to deliver one last sermon to the dying king. His sermon offended some of Edward’s advisers, and Knox was soon sent to a remote village in Buckinghamshire as punishment. Edward VI died on June 6, 1553, and he was soon succeeded by his sister, the Princess Mary. Even in his remote village, Knox delivered a scathing sermon against Mary and her intended groom, Philip II of Spain.

News of the sermon eventually reached the Catholic Queen and Knox’s life was once again in danger. He fled Buckinghamshire and traveled north until he reached Newcastle on November 22, 1553. He tried to go to Berwick to see Marjorie, but his friends stopped him as it was too dangerous. With Catholicism back in the mainstream, Knox was forced to leave England for France as an exile. The wanderer arrived in Dieppe in Normandy in February 1554.

The Marian Exile

Knox knew France was not a safe place for him, so he quickly traveled to Geneva to seek refuge. John Calvin welcomed Knox warmly, but the Scottish refugee did not stay long. Knox had asked Calvin his views on Queen Mary Tudor’s right to rule, but the latter was not willing to dip his toes into a new controversy. Knox then traveled to Zurich and posed the same question to Heinrich Bullinger, but he fared no better.

He went back to Geneva, but Calvin would not give the answer that he was looking for. He went back to Dieppe, and despite Calvin and Bullinger’s reluctance to answer the issue, Knox had his mind made up. He wrote and published a pamphlet in the middle of 1554 criticizing Queen Mary, the Catholic bishops of England, and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

He went back to Geneva and stayed there for a short while before he joined some English refugees in Frankfurt. The city, however, was embroiled in a dispute between the local Lutherans and Calvinist refugees. Despite this existing conflict, Knox accepted the Calvinists’ offer for him to serve as their minister during the autumn of 1554. These refugees had been using the Book of Common Prayer, but with a few innovations of their own. Another group of refugees arrived in Frankfurt, but this set strictly followed the Book of Common Prayer.

The disagreement on the Book of Common Prayer turned into a new conflict. To resolve the issue, Knox and his colleague William Whittingham were forced to send a letter to Calvin to ask him for views. Calvin sent the Frankfurt congregation a stern warning against the division and advised Knox to settle on a compromise. Knox did as he was advised, but conflict rose once again when Richard Cox (one of the authors of the Book of Common Prayer) arrived and protested the changes. To maintain peace, the authorities in Frankfurt finally advised Knox to leave the city.

Knox left Frankfurt on March 26, 1555, and went back to Geneva to serve as a minister there. He then received a letter from his mother-in-law asking him to see her daughter Marjorie. He left Geneva and returned to Scotland in August of the same year in spite of the dangers he faced to see his wife. He then went on a preaching tour and promoted the Reformed beliefs advocated by his friend Calvin.

He met influential Scottish noblemen along the way, and they became his supporters when he was summoned by the authorities upon the request of the bishops. The meeting was canceled, but the Scottish authorities could not deny that Knox now had an influential base. He left Scotland once again, but this time he took his wife and mother-in-law with him back to Geneva. They arrived in Calvin’s city in late 1556.

Knox and His Family in Geneva

Knox served as a minister to English and Italian refugees while living in exile in Geneva. It was not only the birthplace of his sons but it was also a popular destination for English refugees. He considered the years spent in Geneva the most peaceful in his life, but he continued his harsh criticism of female rulers while he was living there. He specifically targeted the French-born Scottish regent Mary of Guise and Queen Mary Tudor of England in his pamphlet The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women.

In Scotland

Knox returned to Scotland when he received a plea to come home from Scottish Protestant noblemen and preachers. They had been summoned to appear before Mary of Guise and they desperately needed his support. He and his family left Geneva in January of 1559 to be with his countrymen, but the pamphlet he wrote in 1558 came back to haunt him. It had reached and offended Queen Elizabeth I of England, so his request for a safe conduct pass was refused. It was not until May of 1559 that he and his family finally arrived in Scotland.

He was soon declared an outlaw by Mary of Guise, but he still traveled several miles to preach at St John the Baptist Church in Perth. What started out as a sermon soon turned into a riot, and the Queen was forced to send troops to control the crowd. Knox fled to St. Andrews and delivered a sermon in the area, but it once again descended into a riot.

The chaos soon spread to other parts of Scotland, so the Queen was forced to send her troops to check the Protestant rebels. She became distracted when news of the death of King Henry II reached her. She was now one of the most powerful women in Europe, thanks to her brothers who took a lion’s share of the power upon the king’s death. Apart from her brothers, the French queen regent’s influence also grew when her daughter (the future Mary, Queen of Scots) married Henry II’s heir, Francis II, in 1558.

Queen Elizabeth I felt that England was in a dangerous position as it was wedged between an unstable Scotland and Catholic France. Knox used the danger of French incursion in Scotland to appeal for some support from the English queen. She still felt the sting of Knox’s criticism of female rulers, so it was not until 1560 when Elizabeth allowed her troops to intervene in Scotland. The French queen regent died in the same year, so the French troops were forced withdraw from Scotland. With Scotland temporarily at peace, Knox was able to focus on transforming the Church of Scotland along the lines of the Reformed theology.

The Scottish Reformed Church and the Reign of Mary, Queen of Scots

The Scottish Parliament decided to resolve the country’s religious issues once and for all, so they summoned Knox and other ministers to write a confession of faith on August 1, 1560. Knox handed the text of the Scots Confession to the Parliament several days later, and it was soon approved. The Parliament also commissioned Knox to head the creation of a new Scottish Church.

However, his efforts to organize the Scottish church was put on hold when his wife Marjorie died in December 1560. Apart from her grief-stricken husband, Marjorie left behind two young sons. Knox resumed his efforts to organize a Scottish church by writing the Book of Discipline in 1561. In this book, Knox outlined his plans for the Scottish Church, but the Parliament put it on hold to wait for the arrival of Mary, the Queen of Scots, from France.

The young queen was raised in Catholic France, so Knox knew that they would one day come to blows. One of her servants was harassed during the celebration of Mass several weeks after her arrival, so she immediately issued a proclamation forbidding the Scots to interfere with her servants. She also reassured her people that she would not meddle when it comes to religious matters.

Mary knew that Knox was a powerful force in Scotland, so she needed to address his involvement with the church and the government head on. She summoned him before her, and the two discussed her role as queen and his roles as her subject and the leader of the Reformation. The discussion solved nothing, and the heated showdowns between the queen and Knox were repeated several times between 1562 and 1563. Knox’s disapproval of Mary’s planned marriage to Don Carlos of Spain became their most bitter disagreement. The frustrated Mary publicly admonished him, but she soon broke down in angry tears. Knox left the queen’s presence with many things unresolved between them.

Knox rubbed salt into Mary’s wound in 1564 by marrying the queen’s young relative, the 17-year old Margaret Stewart. The marriage produced additional bad blood between the two as Mary was not informed of her young relative’s wedding to the elderly Knox. The marriage produced three daughters.

Later Years

Knox’s endless conflict with and rejection of Mary’s rule took their toll on his popularity. The Queen married Lord Darnley in July 1565, but it proved very unpopular among the Scottish people. Knox, too, publicly criticized this marriage during a sermon with the Queen’s husband in attendance. The outraged Darnley walked out, and Knox was soon prohibited by the authorities to preach in the city while the Queen stayed there.

The murder of the Queen’s secretary, David Rizzio, on March 9, 1566, sparked another conflict during her reign. The chaos that ensued in Edinburgh drove Knox to leave the city and seek refuge in Ayrshire. He used the time to finish the History of the Reformation of Scotland which he had worked on since 1559. He returned to Edinburgh when the hostilities died down, but found that Mary’s position had also deteriorated when she nearly married the main suspect in Darnley’s murder.

Mary abdicated in 1567 and was sent to prison soon after. The Scottish nobility crowned her one-year-old son, James VI, as king of Scotland while Lord Moray served as his regent. Mary’s power was greatly reduced, but Knox continued to preach against her and even called for her death. The deposed queen escaped from prison in May 1568, and soon the kingdom was once again plunged into a civil war.

Age had greatly weakened Knox, and he left Edinburgh in 1571 to escape the hostilities. He returned to St. Andrews and resumed preaching there until 1572. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire, so Knox was able to return to Edinburgh in the same year. He preached for the last time in St. Giles and died on November 24, 1572.

References:

Picture by: Theodore Beza, Icones (1580) – Scanned from an old book, Public Domain, Link

Graham, Roderick. John Knox: Man of Action. Edinburgh: St Andrew Press, 2013.

MacCunn, Florence A. John Knox. London: Methuen, 1904.

Muir, Edwin. John Knox: Portrait of a Calvinist. Dallas: Kennikat Press, 1972.

Parker, T.M. The New Cambridge Modern History: The Counter-Reformation and Price Revolution, 1559-1610. Edited by R. B. Wernham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Posted on October 27, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Georgia Settled By Oglethorpe 1732

In 1732, King George II of England granted James Oglethorpe and his co-trustees the right to create a settlement in Georgia. Oglethorpe’s initial purpose was to provide a haven for England’s poorest, but in the end, workers who possessed skills necessary for building a colony were prioritized. The immigrants sailed from England in November 1732 and docked in America in February 1733. Oglethorpe and his men explored the mouth of the Savannah River and soon came across a Yamacraw village along its banks. Oglethorpe befriended the Creek chief Tomochichi and negotiated to obtain the land on which the city of Savannah now stands. These events are recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during that time.

The British Colonies in America

Since their arrival in the early 1600s, English settlers in North America had been mostly confined to the northeastern coast. Unfortunately, New England was unsuitable for farming, so the settlers turned to fishing on the rich waters off the eastern coast. Fishermen from New England ventured to the waters off Maine and Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, others ventured south into the waters off the coast of the Carolinas. Although not as small as those of their French and Dutch counterparts, the British population in the Americas still left much to be desired.

It was not until the middle of the 1700s that the population of British settlers began to surge. Children were born, while new European immigrants flocked into English settlements. Ulster Scots who fled repression and poverty made up the largest wave of immigrants. They initially settled in Boston but were driven into New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania when disagreements with the established settlers occurred. Some eventually found their way inland into the Shenandoahs and the Carolinas.

German farmers from the Palatinate region followed the Ulster Scots. They first found a home in New York but were soon enticed by the tolerant communities of Philadelphia. They moved into Pennsylvania (particularly Lancaster County), and soon established farms in this fertile land. The majority of the German immigrants were Lutherans, but they were also accompanied by a few Mennonites, Moravians, and other Protestant denominations.

Tobacco plantations still existed in Maryland and Virginia, but they were past their prime. Many of the English plantation owners were deeply in debt and found the land that they had long cultivated had lost its fertility. Some of them pushed further into the Appalachians and converted the lands they cleared into farms. Others shifted to rice and indigo farming which they soon found to be very profitable.

The area that is now Georgia, however, was still free from English settlements, and this made the English authorities uneasy. Spanish colonists were firmly lodged in Florida and the West Indies, while the French were catching up in Louisiana. Worried that their rivals would slowly make their way into this “unoccupied” area, the authorities in England then allowed settlers into the area with the help of James Oglethorpe.

James Oglethorpe and the Settlement of Georgia

James Oglethorpe was the governor of Georgia from 1732–1743.

James Oglethorpe was born on December 22, 1696. He was born in London, but the family soon relocated to Westbrook Place in Surrey. His father, a member of the House of Commons, sent his son to Corpus Christi College in Oxford. The younger Oglethorpe soon dropped out and studied in a French military academy so he could fight against the Turks. He rose through the ranks, and eventually served as an aide to Prince Eugene of Savoy. He then continued his studies in Oxford after earning his stripes in the war against the Turks. Oglethorpe was not able to finish his degree but was still awarded a special Master of Arts by the university.

James Oglethorpe was elected as a member of the House of Commons in 1722. In 1729, the authorities arrested and imprisoned his friend Robert Castell for failing to pay his debts. At that time, prisoners needed to pay wardens so they would be given “better accommodations.” Castell, naturally, was unable to pay, so he was thrown into a prison with a man who was suffering from smallpox. He contracted the disease and died after some time in prison. His friend’s death deeply affected Oglethorpe, and it inspired him to start a campaign to reform prisons in England.

He headed a commission that investigated prison conditions and was horrified at what he saw. He and his colleagues tried to improve prison conditions, but he knew that they needed to address poverty and indebtedness. He and a group of trustees then petitioned King George II to allow a number of poor and debt-ridden English people to leave their homeland. These refugees would then make a new life in one of England’s colonies in North America.

This petition essentially killed two birds with one stone for King George. England’s poor now had a chance to have a better life, while their settlements would then create a buffer against the French and Spanish colonists. He approved Oglethorpe’s plan and granted him a royal charter to occupy Georgia in 1732. Oglethorpe would serve as its governor and work with the 21 trustees to administer the colony.

However, the original plan was defeated at the onset when impoverished and indebted people themselves were left out of the newly formed population. The trustees knew that the colony needed people with the right skills, so they prioritized merchants, tailors, carpenters, and farmers as immigrants.

The English immigrants sailed from England to North America in the same year. They stayed briefly at Charleston and proceeded to Port Royal. Oglethorpe left the new settlers at Port Royal and took local rangers with him to explore the area further south. They soon entered the Savannah River and explored several miles inland until they arrived at the Yamacraw Bluff.

Oglethorpe encountered the Creek chieftain Tomochichi and the Native Americans who lived in the area. He became friends with the chief and negotiated (with the help of an interpreter named Mary Musgrove) to acquire the land which later became Savannah. Tomochichi agreed, so Oglethorpe and his men hurried back to Port Royal to tell the settlers of their good news.

He and the new settlers arrived at the Yamacraw Bluff on February 12, 1733. They cleared the land while Oglethorpe was busy preparing the plans for the town of Savannah. From the start, Oglethorpe wanted Savannah to have an egalitarian society. The trustees gave away equal-sized plots of land which could not be sold by its owners to other parties. The land would then be transformed to vineyards and mulberry trees would be cultivated for the silk industry. Settlers were prohibited from bringing in African slaves, while Catholics were not allowed to settle in the area for fear that they would side with the Spaniards and the French. The trustees strictly regulated the fur trade and forbade the settlers from bringing in rum, which was a common incentive for Native Americans who traded pelts.

References:

Picture by: after William Verelst – National Portrait Gallery, London [1], Public Domain, Link

Coleman, Kenneth. A History of Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991.

Jackson, Edwin L. “James Oglethorpe (1696-1785).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. Accessed August 22, 2017. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/james-oglethorpe-1696-1785.

Lindsay, J. O., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 7. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521045452.

Ross, Mary. “Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild.” ISTG Vol 2 – Ann. Accessed August 22, 2017. https://www.immigrantships.net/v2/1700v2/ann17330201.html.

Smith, George Gilman. The Story of Georgia and the Georgia People, 1732 to 1860. Georgia: G.G. Smith, 1900.

Posted on October 25, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Fall of the Songhai Empire

The Songhai Empire flourished in the western Sahel region of Africa between AD 1400 and 1600. Sonni Ali, the paramount chief of the Sonni Dynasty, led the Songhai people in conquering the former territories of the Ghana and Mali Empires. The power, wealth, and influence of the Songhai Dynasty increased over the years, but it started to unravel during the chaotic reign of the Askia Dynasty. Finally, in 1591, the Songhai Empire fell to the hands of the army under the Saadi Dynasty of Morocco. This event is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during that time.

The Rise of an Empire

The Songhai Empire was built upon the ashes of the great Mali Empire when it disintegrated in the early 1400s. The Songhai state which was ruled by the Sonni Dynasty rose several years before the fall of the Mali Empire, but it emerged as a strong independent force when the empire finally crumbled. By the mid-1400s, the great city of Timbuktu was reduced to a tributary of the Tuareg who ruled the city through an appointed Berber governor. Across the Niger River, the Songhai people under the leadership of Sonni Ali (1464-1492) were already consolidating power.

The citizens of Timbuktu and the Songhai people lived side by side for many years until the Tuareg launched a bloody takeover of the city. The residents of Timbuktu soon appealed to Sonni Ali to deliver them from the Tuareg and offered their submission to the Songhai ruler in exchange for protection. Sonni Ali agreed to help them drive the Tuareg out and brought the ancient city into the orbit of the Songhai state.

After the conquest of Timbuktu, Sonni Ali launched a campaign to take the surrounding areas. He extended the state’s borders as far west as the Massina and Djenne Djenno areas through the Niger waterways and reduced the town of Oualata into a Songhai garrison. During the expansion, the Songhai army was able to decimate the Fula people and Tuareg-sympathizers. Although Sonni Ali claimed to be a Muslim, he still practiced paganism and did not hesitate to order the execution of any Muslim who sympathized with the Tuareg.

Mathematics and astronomy manuscripts found in the city of Timbuktu.

Sonni Ali spent most of his life conquering the areas along Niger River. Centered in the city of Gao, the Songhai state had been transformed into an influential and powerful empire with borders that extended into some portions of northern Nigeria. The people he conquered breathed a sigh of relief when he died in 1492.

His son, Sonni Baru, succeeded him as king but did not inherit his father’s talent and luck in war. He was defeated twice by Muhammad Ture (one of his father’s generals) who launched a rebellion against him. In November 1493, Sonni Ali went into exile and was succeeded by Muhammad Ture as ruler of the Songhai Empire.

The devout Muslim leader then adopted the name Askia Muhammad and soon transformed the empire into a haven for Islam in the western Sahel region. The king expanded the empire further into the Futa Tooro region in the west and as far east as Agadez. Sonni Ali treated the Tuareg as enemies, but the Askia reversed this by turning them into trade partners. They soon became the empire’s allies against Arab tribesmen and Moroccans who raided the valuable salt mines in Taghaza.

By 1515, the Songhai Empire had reached its peak, but it would soon enter into a decline. Askia Muhammad maintained numerous concubines and the equally numerous (and jealous) sons they produced played a part in the empire’s downfall. In 1528, a son named Musa rebelled against their elderly and blind father along with some of his brothers. Askia Muhammad was forced to abdicate so that his rebellious son, Askia Musa, could reign.

Askia Musa’s reign was off to a bad start when his own brothers rebelled against his rule. Battles raged between his troops and his brothers, but he still emerged as the victor. Those who were not killed in battle were driven into exile. He killed the rest of his brothers in Gao and ruled the empire until he, too, was killed in 1531.

A cousin named Askia Muhammad Benkan succeeded the tyrannical Askia Musa. Although not as evil as his cousin, the new Askia angered Askia Muhammad’s son Ismail when he sent the elderly ruler to an isolated island. He was deposed by Ismail, and he soon traveled to Mali to seek refuge.

Little is known of Ismail’s reign except that he restored his father in Gao. He died of natural causes in 1539 and was succeeded by another brother, Askia Ishaq I. Ishaq’s reign also became bloody because of his suspicious nature. He died a natural death and was succeeded by Askia Dawud in 1549.

The Songhai Empire experienced a renaissance during Askia Dawud’s reign. He subdued the Fula, Mossi, Borgu, and Gurma peoples. He also led a successful campaign in Mali and subdued the Arab tribesmen who lived near the empire. The Songhai Empire was at its most prosperous during his reign. A devout Muslim, Askia Dawud helped Timbuktu retain its title as the center of Islamic studies in the Sahel region during his reign.

Askia Dawud, with his numerous sons, was bound to repeat Askia Muhammad’s mistake. He died in 1582, and two of his sons immediately scrambled for the throne. His son, Askia Muhammad al-Hajj, emerged as the victor, but he was met with another rebellion led by his brother just one year into his reign. He ruled the Songhai Empire for another three years until he was deposed by his brothers in 1586.

The former emperor’s brothers then elected another brother named Muhammad Bani as the new Askia. He turned out to be not only foolish but also cruel. His brothers rebelled against him and plunged the Songhai Empire into civil war once again. Askia Muhammad Bani died in 1588, and his courtiers immediately announced another brother named Ishaq as the new Askia. The supporters of a rival brother named Sadiq declared him the new Askia, but he and his troops were quickly defeated by Ishaq.

The Moroccan Invasion and the Fall of the Songhai Empire

During the reign of Askia Muhammad al-Hajj, the Saadi sultan of Morocco Ahmad al-Mansur sent an influential merchant as a spy in Gao. While the civil war raged on in 1589, the merchant convinced one of Muhammad Bani’s brothers to leave the area and live in Morocco in peace. However, this misguided prince was immediately arrested when he reached Taghaza and was sent to Marrakesh as a prisoner. The Moroccan authorities then forced the prince to write a letter to the sultan, asking him to depose Askia Ishaq II and take over the Empire.

Sultan al-Mansur then sent an ultimatum to Askia Ishaq II, but was ignored. The Askia was in a campaign in a far-off province when news of the Moroccan invasion reached him. He scrambled to gather allied tribal chiefs, but his messengers were killed along the way. He went back to Gao and hastily assembled an army.

Moroccan forces led by Judar Pasha at Tondibi in 1591.

Ishaq ordered a herd of cattle to be released in the battlefield to confuse the Moroccan army. This strategy backfired and it was his troops instead who became confused during the melee. The Songhai troops were routed that day, and the survivors (military and civilians) had to flee for their lives to the other side of the Niger.

The Moroccan army entered the deserted Songhai capital of Gao soon after their victory in the Battle of Tondibi. Ishaq offered to become Morocco’s tributary—an offer which Judar Pasha wanted to accept. However, the sultan wanted the gold mines of the empire for himself and refused Ishaq’s offer when it reached him. Al-Mansur then recalled Judar Pasha and replaced him with another official as governor of the once-mighty Songhai Empire.

Ishaq was then deposed by his own people as Askia and replaced by a man named Muhammad Gao. The reduced Songhai state continued to be ruled by Askias even after the end of the independent empire.

References:

Picture by Unknown – EurAstro : Mission to Mali, Public Domain, Link

Levtzion, Nehemiah. The Cambridge History of Africa: From c. 1050 to c. 1600. Edited by Roland Oliver. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

Terdiman, Moshe. Encyclopedia of African American History. Edited by Leslie Alexander. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010.

Posted on October 23, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — 4 Comments

Ashanti Empire Trade Slaves for Guns

In the late 17th century, the Akan people of modern Ghana started to transform their small chiefdom into an empire which they called Ashanti (Ashante or Asante). They expanded their territories by waging war with neighboring peoples and soon captured many prisoners of war. These captives were then sold off to European slave traders who would take them to the plantations in the Americas and West Indies. Starting in the early 18th century, however, the Ashanti Empire started to accept guns in lieu of gold as payment for every slave they sold to European traders. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History around this time.

The Rise of the Ashanti Empire

During the 1670s, groups of Akan people from northern Ghana escaped strife in their homeland and flocked to the fertile region around Kumasi. Two of the most powerful clans that migrated to Kumasi were the Bretuo and the Oyoko. At that time, however, the refugees were forced to submit to the powerful Denkyira nation.To assure the Denkyira of his people’s submission, the Oyoko chief Obiri Yeboa sent his nephew Osei Tutu to live with and serve them.

Osei Tutu served as a shield bearer to Boa Amponsem, the chief of the Denkyira. He later fled to the territory of the Akwamu because of the cruelty of the people he served. He worked for the Akwamu chief and quickly rose to prominence there. He also befriended the priest Okomfo Anokye who soon became his firm ally. His uncle, chief Obiri Yeboa, later died in battle, so Osei Tutu was summoned back to his homeland to rule. He continued the conquests made by his uncle and even subdued other groups of Akan people in the area.

Osei Tutu, with the help of Okomfo Anokye and his Akwamu allies, slowly built the Ashanti kingdom. During the 1690s, Osei Tutu and his people declared their independence from the Denkyira. Full-scale war flared out between the Denkyira and the Ashanti in 1699, but the Ashanti emerged victorious in 1701 in the Battle of Feyiase.

Slaves, Gold, and Guns

An example of Kente cloth, the traditional garment worn by Ashanti royalty.

In the middle of the 15th century, the first slave ships sailed from Lisbon and docked off the coast of northwestern Africa. The crew then came to land and captured unsuspecting natives which were then sold off as slaves in the markets of Lisbon. The slave trade turned out to be so profitable that Spanish, English, and Dutch ships soon followed Portugal’s lead.

As the years passed, European trade ships sailed deeper into the coast of western Africa to acquire more slaves and gold. The coast of modern Ghana became one of the chief ports of these trades that it was soon divided into the Gold and Slave Coasts. Dutch slave traders outdid the Portuguese in the 17th century, but they were replaced by the English by the time the Ashanti were building their empire.

The Ashanti’s long-time ally, the Akwamu, were among the first ones to profit from the slave trade with the Europeans. Their captives were almost always prisoners of war, but they were not above to selling Akwamu men who offended the chief. They also kidnapped able-bodied men from other tribes and sold them in the coastal slave markets.

The English (who had displaced the Dutch as the leader in the slave trade) paid three ounces of gold for each male slave. It was a good sum, and many Africans saw this as a profitable venture.

The Ashanti soon joined in the slave trade by kidnapping traveling men or even those who were just working on their farms. They also went to war with neighboring peoples (especially in the Black Volta and savanna regions) not only to expand their territory but also to acquire more slaves which they then sold to Dutch and English traders. This practice had become so profitable that by 1720 the Slave Coast of Ghana had eclipsed the Gold Coast.

A vicious cycle soon emerged from this business. The Ashanti initially accepted gold as payment for slaves, but soon preferred flintlocks, muskets, and gunpowder as payment. With these weapons in hand, Ashanti warriors would then subdue another group of people and sell the captives of war to the European as slaves. By 1730, as much as 180,000 European-made firearms had been shipped to the Slave Coast and handed to the natives.

References:

Picture by: CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Harms, Robert W. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Rodney, Walter. The Cambridge History of Africa: From c. 1600 to c. 1790. Edited by Richard Gray. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Posted on October 21, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Philadelphia Settled 1681

The Lenape were some of the first peoples who called the city of Philadelphia their home. Dutch and the Swedish colonists built their own outposts along the banks of the Delaware River, but their population remained small for many years. Eager to flee the hostilities in England, the Quaker merchant William Penn petitioned the king for a land in the New World. The king granted his request, and in 1681, the Quaker settlement of Philadelphia finally began. This event is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Chart with World History during that time.

Early Settler and the European Arrival

Located at the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, the area that is now Philadelphia was once home to an Algonquian-speaking people called Lenni Lenape (or Delaware). Henry Hudson was the first known European to visit the Delaware Bay area in 1609. It was not until 1616, however, that the Dutch scout Cornelius Hendrickson explored its coast on board the ship Onrust. Between 1623 and 1624, the fur trader Cornelius Mey explored the coast of modern New Jersey while looking for a new capital for New Netherland. His ship came close to what is now the location of Philadelphia, but the plan was abandoned. The Dutch instead chose to build Fort Nassau (present-day Brooklawn, New Jersey) on the opposite side of the Delaware River.

In 1633, the Dutch bought the land on the eastern side of the mouth of the Schuylkill River from the Lenape people and built Fort Beversrede. Their dominance in the area, however, was challenged with the arrival of Swedish colonists. In 1648, the new emigrants built their own outpost (Fort Nya Korsholm) directly opposite the Dutch fort. The Dutch later demolished Fort Beversrede and built another fort along the bank of the Christina River.

But the population and number of colonies of the Dutch and Swedes still lagged behind their English counterparts. English settlers even slowly migrated to New Jersey and established new colonies there. In 1664, the outnumbered and outgunned Dutch colonists led by Peter Stuyvesant gave up their claims to New Netherland after the land was claimed by the English. The Netherlands completely gave up its colonies in North America in 1674 when its leaders signed the Treaty of Westminster.

The Foundation of Philadelphia

The Governor of Pennsylvania, William Penn, paid the Native Lenape people for their land and negotiated a treaty. He also named the city of Philadelphia, which is Greek for “brotherly love”.

In the mid-1600, a religious group called the Quakers emerged in England. Just like past breakaway religious groups, the Quakers were treated with hostility in their homeland. Tired of the hostility they experienced, they finally decided to look for a new land where they could live in peace.

In 1680, the influential Quaker merchant William Penn requested for the land north of Maryland to be granted to him. King Charles II owed Penn’s father a large sum of money, so the son’s request was granted in 1681. Penn then received a royal charter which allowed the Quakers to occupy the land between the 43rd parallel north and the Delaware River. Penn’s territory, however, overlapped the lands of the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore in Maryland, so a dispute soon emerged.

William Penn, as governor of the colony, immediately drafted laws for the new colony. After looking for new settlers, he then outlined the layout of the city that he called “Philadelphia” even while he was still in England. He sailed to Pennsylvania in 1682 and immediately granted citizenship to the new settlers upon his arrival.

Penn envisioned the settlement as a place where the citizens could live in peace and equality. What distinguished him from other colonists was that he worked hard to create peace between his people and the natives. Penn befriended them and even paid for the land that they sold to him.

Settlers from the north and western parts of Europe flocked to Pennsylvania as soon as they heard of the new colony. Its population soon swelled to 8,000 by the time Penn returned to England in 1684. Philadelphia itself became a center of trade and had a robust population of 2,500. The harmony between its inhabitants continued until 1685 until the Quakers themselves fell to division.

References:

Picture by: Benjamin West – Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Public Domain, Link

Carsten, F. L., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 5. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521045445.

Soderlund, Jean R. “Colonial Era.” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. Accessed August 15, 2017. http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/colonial-philadelphia/.

Weigley, Russell Frank. Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. Edited by Nicholas B. Wainwright and Edwin Wolf. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.

Young, John Russell. Memorial History of the City of Philadelphia: From its First Settlement to the Year 1895. New York: New York History Company, 1895.

Posted on October 19, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Louisiana Settled 1699

After claiming the vast Mississippi River area for France in 1682, La Salle worked hard to establish settlements in the colony he called Louisiana. Although most of La Salle’s efforts failed, the French still managed to hold on to the area through fur traders and Catholic missionaries. The French authorities knew that it was possible for the English and the Spaniards to acquire the territory, so they commissioned the ruthless soldier, explorer, and privateer Pierre Le Moyne Iberville to establish a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1699, Iberville finally led Canadian colonists to permanently settle in the southern region of Louisiana. This event is recorded on the Biblical Timeline Poster with World History during that time.

Earliest Settlers and the Arrival of the French

Various Native American tribes were the earliest settlers of the vast interior plains of North America and parts of the South. The tribes usually lived along or near the banks of the Mississippi and other great rivers that cut through the plains. The arrival of the Europeans in the early 16th century, however, slowly changed the American landscape and the lives of the natives.

In 1541, the explorer Hernando de Soto ventured into the lower parts of the Mississippi River area to look for gold. The gold failed to materialize, and the luckless de Soto remained a wanderer until he died there in 1542. With no gold in sight, the Spaniards were forced to abandon the southern Mississippi River area for the greater part of the 16th and 17th century.

It was not until the late 1600s that Europeans once again ventured into the area. In 1673, the French explorer Louis Jolliet and the Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette explored the Mississippi River. They were able to reach the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers until they were forced to turn back for New France.

In 1682, Rene Robert de Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle was able to accomplish what de Soto, Marquette, and Jolliet were unable to do: traverse the Mississippi River Delta. He then claimed the region for France and christened it Louisiana after King Louis XIV.

La Salle, unfortunately, had a knack for making enemies, so his efforts to establish settlements in Louisiana were often thwarted. He established Fort Saint Louis in Illinois, but it lacked the support he needed because of the hostility of the new governor of New France. He tried to establish another fort near present-day Victoria, Texas, but it too, failed. La Salle’s adventures in the New World ended in 1687 when he was murdered by the Frenchman Pierre Duhaut in Texas.

Louis XIV felt that these Louisiana ventures were too expensive and troublesome. He ordered that any activities in French Louisiana must stop immediately. However, the French authorities knew that the English would soon take over if they neglected the area and that Spain might also reassert its claim to the region. As an answer to this threat, the French authorities allowed the Jesuit missionaries and French fur traders to continue plying their trade in the area.

From Maine to the upper Mississippi River, Jesuit missionaries were able to extend Roman Catholic and French influence over the natives. Despite the presence of the fur traders, it was the missionaries who made a lasting impact in the area during the early years of colonization.

Louisiana Settled

The French colony of Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV.

The rulers of France once again considered the idea of establishing colonies in Louisiana because of its importance. This pushed Louis Phelypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain and Navy Secretary to Louis XIV, to further French interest in Louisiana. He commissioned Pierre Le Moyne Iberville to find the mouth of the Mississippi River and build a fort to secure the area from Spanish and English incursions. Iberville, a soldier and privateer who had long tormented English settlements in the Hudson Bay and New York, was the right man for the job. His ruthlessness was exactly what Pontchartrain needed for the colonies of Louisiana.

In early 1699, Iberville did exactly as he was told and transported 120 (mostly Canadian) settlers into the southern reaches of French Louisiana. He and the settlers finished Fort Maurepas near modern Biloxi, Mississippi on May 1, 1699, but its population remained small for many years.

References:

Picture by: Charles Le Brun – La Varende, Jean de: Louis XIV, Paris : Éditions France-Empire, 1958. – Château de Versailles, Public Domain, Link

Bromley, J. S., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 6. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521075244.

Gayarre, Charles. History of Louisiana. Vol. 1. A. Hawkins, 1885.

Giraud, Marcel. A History of French Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974.

Posted on October 19, 2017March 19, 2019 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Christianity Introduced by Francis Xavier

In 1549, the Jesuit priest and missionary Francis Xavier landed in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu. With him were two Jesuit missionaries, three Japanese converts (including their translator Anjiro), and one Chinese convert. Despite the danger of evangelizing in a war-torn country and the language barrier, it was not long before this small yet hardy group gained their first few converts. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during that time period.

The First Jesuits in Japan

In 1543, a couple of Portuguese traders landed on the island of Tanegashima and became the first Europeans to establish contact with the Japanese. Although they did not stay long, they made a lasting impact in war-torn Japan when a local warlord bought the arquebus they brought along for the trip. The warlord ordered his craftsmen to copy the arquebus, and the result was the Tanegashima, the firearm used widely by samurais during the conflicts of the Sengoku period (1467-1603).

On August 16, 1549, Father Francis Xavier and two fellow Jesuit missionaries landed in Kagoshima. Two years before their arrival in Japan, Francis Xavier had met a Japanese fugitive-turned-pirate named Anjiro (Yajiro) in Malacca. He was able to convert Anjiro to Christianity and the new convert soon took the name “Paulo de Santa Fe.” Xavier naively believed the good things he heard from Anjiro about Japan and its people.

Xavier was able to convert the pearl fishermen of southwest India to Christianity, but he believed that Portugal’s exploitative colonization was incompatible with the message of the gospel. He had been thinking of leaving the Jesuit base in Goa and establish instead a new mission in another country. The arrival of Anjiro gave him the perfect opportunity to travel to Japan and introduce Christianity to its people.

A depiction of St. Francis of Xavier baptizing a Japanese man.

After wrapping up his work in Goa, Francis Xavier and his companions stopped briefly in Malacca and then sailed to Japan. With him were two European Jesuits, Anjiro, two other Japanese converts, and another Chinese convert. His first convert, Anjiro, would serve as his translator.

He was surprised the moment he and his companions arrived in one of Japan’s southernmost islands. Kagoshima, a port city on the island of Kyushu and Anjiro’s hometown, was far from Japan’s then capital of Kyoto. Xavier learned later on that although an emperor ruled Japan, he was virtually impoverished and that local warlords held the reins of power. Wars were the norm, and he did not encounter the Japanese equivalent of European universities.

Despite the shock, Francis Xavier and his companions were welcomed warmly by Anjiro’s family and the townspeople. The newly arrived Europeans were fascinated with Japan and its people, and the feeling was returned by the people they encountered. It was not long before Xavier was able to convert Anjiro’s mother and sister to Christianity.

With the help of Anjiro, Francis Xavier was able to secure an interview with the young and curious daimyō Shimazu Takahisa. The daimyō, himself a devout Buddhist, became fascinated with the image of the Virgin and Child that the priest brought along as a present for the emperor. He saw its similarity to the goddess of mercy Kannon and proceeded to worship the image. Members of the daimyō’s household soon followed suit. More than a month after their arrival in Japan, the daimyō allowed his vassals to convert to Christianity.

Francis Xavier and Father Cosme de Torres wrote down everything they thought the Japanese people needed to know about the Christian doctrine during the winter of 1549. Anjiro translated the text to his own language, but it was not known how well he translated the text. Their translator’s daughter soon converted to Christianity, and she was followed by a ronin the Europeans later named “Bernardo.” “Bernardo the Japanese” later became one of Xavier’s first disciples. He would later travel to Europe in 1552 but died in Coimbra seven years later.

Xavier gained converts, but his inadequate knowledge of the language hampered his efforts. Buddhist monks of the Shingon sect also forced daimyō Takahisa to withdraw his support from Christianity, so the missionary left in a hurry for Kyoto (Miyako or capital). He left Anjiro behind to carry on his mission in Kagoshima while he traveled northward to secure an audience with Emperor Go-Nara. Cosme de Torres, the lay brother Juan Fernández (who, by then, had become quite fluent in Nihongo), and the Japanese converts Bernardo and Matteo accompanied him on his journey north.

They stayed for a while in Hirado Island where Portuguese traders docked their armed and richly-laden ships. In a letter written later in 1552, he boasted that he managed to convert more people in Hirado than in Kagoshima. They soon left Hirado and continued north to the city of Yamaguchi to seek an audience with the shogu Ōuchi Yoshitaka who was a known intellectual and scholar. He was known to welcome Confucian, Buddhist, and Shinto scholars in his domain, so Xavier thought that there was no reason for him to deny access to Christianity. He left Torres behind in Hirado, while the rest of the companions traveled with Xavier during the winter of 1550. They arrived in Yamaguchi in late January 1551 and preached to the inhabitants of the city as soon as it was possible.

They were summoned by the shogu Ōuchi Yoshitaka to explain their reasons for coming to Japan. Xavier discussed the Christian doctrine to the shogu for an hour but made the fatal mistake of criticizing the ruler’s dissolute lifestyle. His group was soon dismissed, and they were forced to leave Yamaguchi after seeing that only a few people converted to Christianity. The journey to Kyoto was difficult because they made it in the dead of winter. The roads were also full of danger as fighting flared out every now and then, as well as the presence of bandits in the countryside.

They reached Kyoto, but Emperor Go-Nara refused to see them (possibly because of his shame in his poverty). According to Xavier, the Emperor was “not obeyed by his own people” so they stopped seeking an audience with him. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru was equal to the emperor in prestige, but he, too, held little sway among the daimyōs. Children followed and mocked them on the streets, while monastery doors remained closed to them.

The trip was a failure for Xavier and his companions, but not a total waste of time. He returned to Yamaguchi and stayed there for a while to ponder where they did wrong. He realized that in Japan the people considered them “barbarians,” or outsiders. He had to adapt to its culture if he was to successfully evangelize in the country.

After a brief stay in Yamaguchi, the group returned to Hirado to take back the luxurious gifts from the Viceroy of the Indies and the Governor of Malacca which they left behind for safekeeping. They then returned to Yamaguchi and gave these gifts to shogu Ōuchi Yoshitaka. The governor was impressed this time, and he allowed them to preach on the streets of Yamaguchi. He also allowed the group to occupy a monastery where they preached and discussed various topics (even science) with the ever curious and perceptive Japanese audience. The number of Christian converts in Yamaguchi increased, but the Jesuits failed to convert the shogu who did not want to let go of his concubines.

Language and miscommunication remained one of the greatest obstacles in Xavier’s mission. Fernández was still the only person who could speak, read, and write in both languages, and the rest remained monolingual. They also started to attract the jealousy of the local priests whose food and clothing depended on the alms given by the people.

In the middle of September 1551, Xavier received a letter from Otomo Yoshishige, the yakata of Bungo province. He was being summoned to Oita (Funai) where a Portuguese ship captained by Duarte da Gama just docked. He was welcomed warmly by da Gama when he arrived in Oita, and he soon became friends with Otomo (Sorin) Yoshishige. He received from da Gama the news that he was being recalled by the authorities in Europe and they would set sail for Goa in two weeks.

He received distressing news while staying in Oita. A rebellion led by Sue Takafusa had flared up in Yamaguchi and their patron, Ōuchi Yoshitaka, had been deposed. Xavier was able to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard that his Jesuit friends were safe after they were sheltered by the wife of a nobleman. Luckily, the regime that replaced Yoshitaka’s was also friendly to Christianity.

The Japanese converts Bernardo, Matteo, Antonio, and Joane sailed with him to Goa on November 21, 1551. An ambassador sent by Otomo Yoshishige also accompanied them, but Xavier left Torres and Fernandez behind in Japan to continue the mission. By early 1552, his group had arrived in southwest India. He wanted to establish a new mission in China and he left India once again in late 1552. The Chinese authorities refused to grant him entry upon his arrival off the coast of Guangdong. While waiting for his permit to enter China, Francis Xavier suddenly fell ill and died on December 3, 1552, in Shangchuan Island. His remains were then taken back to Goa. Japan’s first evangelist was 46 years old when he died.

References

Picture by: Isaac Wong (惡德神父) – Isaac Wong (惡德神父), CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Elisonas, Jurgis. The Cambridge History of Japan: Early Modern Japan. Edited by John W. Hall. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Lacouture, Jean. Jesuits: A Multibiography. Translated by Jeremy Leggatt. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1995.

Toon, S., and David Michell. The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by J. D. Douglas and Earle E. Cairns. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996.

Posted on October 19, 2017March 16, 2019 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

Alexander I Reigns 1801

Alexander I of Russia started his reign after the botched coup and assassination of his father in 1801. He was born in 1777 and was raised by his formidable grandmother, Catherine the Great. He spent most of his years as Russia’s Emperor fighting (and occasionally befriending) Napoleon Bonaparte between the Second and Seventh Coalition Wars. He rejected liberal ideas after seeing the effects of the French Revolution and became increasingly conservative during the later years of his reign. These events are recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during that time.

Early Years

Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia, was born on December 24, 1777, in St. Petersburg. He was the eldest son of Tsarevich Paul by his wife Maria Feodorovna, the former Sophia Dorothea of Wurttemberg. Nine more children followed his birth, but Alexander remained the favorite of his grandmother, Catherine the Great.

The Empress’s relationship was never genial in the first place, so she decided to send Paul and his family to the distant Gatchina estate. In 1781, Catherine sent Alexander’s parents on a European tour. She then took a page from Empress Elizabeth’s playbook and kidnapped young Alexander and his younger brother Constantine from Gatchina. She took them to her home in Tsarskoye Selo and there took charge of their education. The parents protested when they came back, but their tears and entreaties did not move the Empress. The episode only deepened Paul’s anger for his mother.

Catherine started to groom the young Alexander as her heir. His military education was entrusted to General Nikolay Saltykov, while the cosmopolitan Father Andrew Samborsky instructed him in religion. However, the person who made the greatest impact on the young Alexander was the Swiss tutor Frederic-Cesar de La Harpe who was a disciple of the leading philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, including Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu.

LaHarpe instructed the boy in science, language, philosophy, and history. Paul imbibed from him the liberal and humanist ideals which tempered his traditional Russian religiosity. The liberal LaHarpe slowly fell from grace after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and had to leave the court after the French revolutionaries guillotined King Louis XIV. LaHarpe and his charge parted ways in tears when he left Tsarskoye Selo in December 1794.

Alexander’s adjutant Adam Czartoryski filled the hole LaHarpe had left behind. This Polish nobleman became a hostage in Russia after the Third Partition of Poland and was later assigned as the prince’s tutor. Like LaHarpe, he was cosmopolitan and intelligent. The two young men respected each other, and it was to Czartoryski that Alexander first confided that he did not want to be Tsar.

The Empress arranged 16-year old Alexander’s marriage to the beautiful 15-year old Elizabeth Alexeievna (former Princess Louise of Baden). Now considered adults, Catherine soon allowed the brothers to visit Gatchina more often to their parents’ delight. Paul guided his sons in drilling the troops, but it was Constantine who stood out. Both sons, however, soon took a liking to their father’s penchant for military parades and Prussian-style uniforms.

Catherine suddenly died in 1796, and against her will, the crown passed to her mentally unstable son. This began Paul’s mad and bloody reign. The Emperor slowly became unpopular among the military after he insisted that they get rid of the practical uniform Catherine reintroduced. He then insisted that they wear the tight-fitting Prussian-style uniform that he favored. He also had his father’s remains exhumed and reburied it with his mother’s corpse. He instituted several reforms, but his unstable personality made him tyrannical. His paranoia worsened when the Russian armies suffered defeats during the first two Coalition Wars.

Paul appointed Alexander the governor-general of St. Petersburg soon after his accession to the throne. This position, however, came at a price. His father would often berate Alexander in front of their soldiers and compared him to the younger Constantine. He planted spies everywhere and suspected Alexander of plotting to depose him. The prince naturally denied any wrongdoing, but the Emperor remained suspicious.

In March 1801, groups of soldiers led by the recalled Zubov brothers and Count Peter von der Pahlen stormed Paul’s Mikhailovsky Castle. Alexander agreed to go along with the coup on the condition that his father would live and would only be isolated in his castle for the rest of his life. Pahlen’s drunken soldiers, however, botched the plan and ended up killing Paul instead. The grief-stricken Alexander was proclaimed Tsar soon after.

Alexander, Emperor of All Russia

Alexander I ruled Russia from 1801 to 1825.

Paul was mourned by his wife and children, while courtiers, military officers, and the common people breathed a sigh of relief. But the guilt and remorse of having been a part of his father’s death hounded Alexander, so he immediately sent the ringleaders into exile. He then recalled the men exiled by his father, including his friend and his wife’s former lover Adam Czartoryski. He also recalled the Russian army which was on its way to attack India.

Alexander then established the Private Committee to address the situation of the serfs. It was made up of the Emperor’s four other friends who shared the same liberal ideals and led by Czartoryski himself. In 1802, he traveled to Prussia and met with the King Frederick William III and his wife Louise. The Emperor and the King then signed a treaty of alliance in hopes of stopping Napoleon Bonaparte and the French expansion. To this end, he also made peace with Austria and England.

The Coalition Wars

In early 1804, the French authorities arrested the suspected participants of the Cadoudal Conspiracy. These men were accused of conspiring to depose Napoleon Bonaparte and attempting to restore a member of the House of Bourbon to the throne. One of the suspected ringleaders was the Duke of Enghien, a member of the House of Bourbon who lived in exile in Baden and one of the possible claimants to the French throne. Napoleon sent his soldiers to Baden to arrest the Duke and had him brought back to Paris to be tried. The innocent Duke of Enghien was tried immediately after his arrival in Paris and hanged on the day of his sentencing. With his power secure, Bonaparte soon crowned himself the Emperor of France.

The death of the Duke of Enghien alarmed Alexander especially after he was taken from his Empress’s homeland. His death, as well as Napoleon’s interest in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, finally cemented Alexander’s decision to go to war against the French Republic. In 1805, Russia, Britain, and Austria agreed to renew their coalition against France. Prussia, meanwhile, remained neutral.

In the same year, Napoleon decided to dissolve the Italian Republic and bring the peninsula into the fold with him as its king. The alarmed Austrians mobilized their army in preparation for the attack, but this move only gave Napoleon a reason to order his own army to cross the Rhine. The French Grande Armee and the Austrian army led by Baron Karl Mack von Leiberich met at Ulm on October 16, 1805. General Mack miscalculated by refusing to wait for the arrival of his Russian allies led by General Mikhail Kutuzov, so his vastly outnumbered troops were soon hemmed in and destroyed. Mack surrendered before the arrival of the Russian reinforcements.

The Russians led by General Kutuzov finally joined what remained of the Austrian army after the Battle of Ulm. Alexander also arrived and despite his lack of experience, he disregarded the elderly yet experienced Kutuzov and assumed command of the army at the Battle of Austerlitz. He also allowed the equally inept Holy Roman Emperor Francis II to direct the maneuvers instead of relying on Kutuzov.

On December 2, 1805, the Russian-Austrian Coalition and Napoleon’s Grande Armee met at Austerlitz. The Coalition initially occupied Pratzen Heights but abandoned it to attack the French army’s seemingly weakened right flank. With Pratzen heights abandoned, the Russian-Austrian army exposed the vulnerability of its center. Napoleon then took them by surprise when a French contingent appeared behind the Coalition army and attacked its center. The Coalition army was decimated with thousands killed or wounded. The Russians, including the hapless Alexander, fled the battlefield and were forced to return to their homeland in utter defeat.

Alexander shouldered all the blame for the humiliating rout, but it did not stop him from going after his arch nemesis. In the following year, Russia and Prussia agreed to create the Fourth Coalition. Russia decided to enter the fray once again after Bonaparte encouraged the Ottomans to reclaim Wallachia and Moldavia. Prussia, meanwhile, agreed to go to war after Napoleon had the Nuremberg bookseller Philipp Palm executed for releasing a subversive tract.

Napoleon’s Grande Armee, however, was able to defeat the Prussians at the Battle of Jena (October 14, 1806). Alexander responded by sending Levin Bennigsen and the Russian army to fight the Grande Armee at Eylau (February 7, 1807) and at Friedland (June 14, 1807). Both battles resulted in an overwhelming French victory although the body count was high on both sides. With these losses, Alexander finally realized that he had no choice but to make peace with Napoleon.

The Treaty of Tilsit

They met on a raft which floated in the middle of the Niemen River and immediately started the peace negotiations. Napoleon dazzled Alexander with his wit and the Emperors became temporary friends. The Emperor of France was not overly impressed with Alexander but admired him to a certain extent. King Frederick William III, meanwhile, was left on one of the banks of the river to await the fate of his country while Alexander negotiated on his behalf.

The result of this negotiation was the Treaty of Tilsit which was signed on June 25, 1807. The treaty allowed the King of Prussia to retain his throne but left him with a significantly diminished territory. Russia also agreed to renounce its claim on the Ionian Islands and recognized Napoleon’s brothers as rulers of Naples and Westphalia. Alexander also agreed to Napoleon’s Continental System which favored French trade interests over British commerce. With this agreement, Russia started to block English trade ships in the Baltic. Alexander was also forced to agree to the creation of the Saxon Duchy of Warsaw in Poland.

The Treaty of Tilsit became unpopular back in Russia. In late 1808, Alexander and Napoleon met once again in a summit near Erfurt, but this time their meeting was less pleasant. Alexander grumbled about the blockade’s negative effects on the Russian economy and the fact that Russia did not benefit from Napoleon’s Continental System. He also raised the threat of the presence of thirty thousand French troops in the Saxon Duchy of Warsaw which Napoleon had folded into the Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon tried to pacify him by offering Moldavia and Wallachia and encouraged him to take the Swedish Duchy of Finland.

Temporarily pacified, Alexander returned to Russia and started his conquest of Swedish-held Finland. His father’s trusted general Aleksey Arakcheev took over when the campaign floundered and soon brought Sweden to heel. Russia then transformed Finland as its own duchy.

The Fifth Coalition War

Austria once again declared war against France (War of the Fifth Coalition) in 1809. Austrian soldiers then invaded Bavaria while most of the French forces were fighting in the Iberian peninsula. Napoleon hastily recalled his soldiers from Spain but was initially unsuccessful at overpowering the Austrians. To Napoleon’s dismay, Alexander proved to be an unreliable ally. He called upon the Emperor to send in some troops but was forced to wait seven weeks before additional Russian reinforcements arrived. Finally, on July 6, 1809, Napoleon once again showed his enemies that he was Europe’s most brilliant general by routing the Austrians in the Battle of Wagram. The Austrians were forced to sue for peace and limp home in defeat. Napoleon and Alexander’s brief friendship ended soon after and bitter hostilities returned.

The Sixth Coalition War

In 1808, Napoleon invaded Portugal and Spain as part of its war against the British. Despite his unpopularity because of the strain of the prolonged conflicts, he unwisely declared a new war against Russia in 1812. The main reason for the war was Russia’s unsatisfactory performance in the Continental System that he imposed in 1807. In 1810, Russia finally discarded the Continental System and ended their alliance with the French. For Napoleon, it was time to bring Russia to heel.

Prussia and Austria, repeatedly crushed by Napoleon years prior, had no choice but to send their armies to the frontline to support France’s invasion of Russia. Russia, meanwhile, sealed an alliance with Sweden after Alexander promised to help the kingdom annex neighboring Norway (then held by Denmark). Alexander himself wanted to lead the army, but his sister Catherine restrained him since she knew that he was not a brilliant commander and he did not inspire trust in the battlefield.

Around 600,000 French, Dutch, German, Swiss, Italian, and Polish soldiers marched to occupy Smolensk starting in June 1812. They arrived in Smolensk in August, but Napoleon’s army already suffered from diseases, hunger, and the heat. The indecisive Russian generals knew their chance of overcoming Napoleon’s army was low, so they abandoned the city to the invaders with little resistance. Napoleon had planned to spend winter with his army in Smolensk, but then unwisely decided to follow the enemy deeper into Russia.

The Russian army led by General Kutuzov and Napoleon’s army finally met at the Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812. Casualties were high on both sides, and the result was a stalemate (although both sides claimed victory). The Russians prudently retreated deeper into their territory. Napoleon decided to push into Moscow but found that the city had been abandoned by the Russians upon their arrival. Fires had broken out in the deserted city (possibly set by its own inhabitants) and soon turned it to ashes. The devastation did not deter Napoleon from occupying Moscow, but the victory was hollow.

Alexander, meanwhile, stayed in St. Petersburg during the French occupation in Moscow. This made him unpopular among his people as news of the disasters of the war trickled in. Several of his advisers and members of his own family asked him to sue for peace, but he steadfastly refused to give in. Napoleon, on the other hand, was growing despondent in Moscow. His supplies had run low and he feared that the arrival of the harsh Russian winter would decimate his army further. He decided that it would be prudent to order his troops to march back west.

The journey home was a disaster of epic proportions. The dreaded Russian winter soon set in and made the journey back to Smolensk hellish. Only half of the original 600,000 men remained by the time Napoleon’s army reached Smolensk, but their numbers would be reduced further. In November 1812, the French army tried to cross the Berezina River, but they were fired upon by Russians positioned on both banks. Many were killed, while some were taken as prisoners. By the time they set foot on their homeland, Napoleon’s army was down to its last 100,000 men.

Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812 made Alexander ecstatic. But he realized that Russia would never be at peace as long as Napoleon remained as ruler of France. The Emperor then made it his ultimate goal to bring Napoleon down.

In 1813, Alexander, the Russian army, and some Swedish reinforcements marched east to join the Prussian army. Although Napoleon led a significantly smaller force made up of French and Polish soldiers, he was still able to rout the Coalition at Lutzen (May 2, 1813) and Bautzen (May 20-21, 1813). But the tide soon turned on him, and the allies won most of the minor battles thereafter. Napoleon sued for peace, but his unwillingness to compromise meant that he and the allies would have to meet on the battlefield once again.

Napoleon’s second wife Marie Louise was an Austrian archduchess, but it did not stop her fellow Austrians from joining the Coalition during the latter half of 1813. Napoleon’s army defeated the Coalition’s forces in the Battle of Dresden on August 26, 1813, but it was one of his last significant victories. The Coalition finally crushed the French forces at the two Battles of Kulm (August 29 and September 17) and at the Battle of Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813).

Fresh from these victories, the Coalition’s army then marched west to pursue Napoleon and arrived in France in middle of March 1814. Alexander wanted his troops to storm Paris, but he was restrained by the Austrian minister Klemens von Metternich and the British diplomat Viscount Castlereagh who only wanted to force Napoleon to abdicate as Emperor in favor of his half-Austrian son.

Napoleon had escaped to Fontainebleau where he tried to mobilize another army to no avail. Meanwhile, in Paris, Napoleon’s duplicitous Minister of Foreign Affairs Talleyrand soon announced his removal as Emperor of France. He finally gave up the fight and offered to abdicate in favor of his son. The allies refused this offer and soon exiled him to the remote island of Elba off the western coast of Italy.

The Congress of Vienna and the Last Coalition War

Upon Napoleon’s abdication, the allies agreed to restore the House of Bourbon to the throne through King Louis XVIII (brother of the executed King Louis XVI). They also agreed to meet once again in Vienna later that year to decide the fate of France and of greater Europe.

On September 13, 1814, Alexander and his entourage arrived in Vienna as promised. Representatives of Prussia, Britain, France, and Austria also converged in the capital to hammer out the details on how to maintain the balance of power among the European powers. Their main goal was to prevent another political revolution from happening, as well as to prevent the rise of another Napoleon. Austria was represented by the experienced diplomat Klemens von Metternich, while Viscount Castlereagh represented Britain. Prussia’s Prince Karl August von Hardenburg’s deafness hindered his participation in the Congress and therefore he could not obtain a good bargain for his country. Prince Talleyrand was also invited to the Congress as a representative of France and its newly-restored monarch.

The partition of the Kingdom of Saxony was one of the thorny issues tackled in the Congress of Vienna. Alexander wanted Poland as a Russian territory, while Prussia wanted to bring the Kingdom of Saxony into its fold. These territorial ambitions did not sit well with Austria, France, and Britain so their representatives protested. It was Prince Talleyrand who saved the negotiations when he proposed a new war against Russia and Prussia if they did not agree to a compromise.

After months of bargaining and bullying, the allies forced Alexander to accept a palatable partition of the Kingdom of Saxony. He gave up his claims to Galicia and gave it to Austria, and accepted instead the Duchy of Warsaw as a Russian client state. King Frederick Augustus (who, at that time, was a prisoner of Prussia) retained his title as ruler of Saxony. However, he was forced to cede a significant portion of his territory to Prussia.

The Last Coalition War

The negotiations were not yet finished when the representatives received news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba on February 26, 1815. French soldiers quickly abandoned their posts and joined the charismatic general when he reached mainland France. Alexander and his allies had no choice but to mobilize the allied armies once again to face Napoleon. Despite his resistance, Napoleon’s fate was already sealed. The allied forces defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo and he was sent to the remote island of St. Helena where he died in 1821.

Alexander had become smitten with Christian mysticism and this influenced his political decisions. He proposed a Holy Alliance with his allies which would use the precepts of Christianity to guide their conduct. Austria and Prussia saw no harm in joining, but Britain’s Prince George IV made up excuses so he would not be compelled to sign the alliance.

Alexander’s Russian Projects and His Abandonment of Liberalism

Alexander started out as a liberal thinker thanks to LaHarpe’s influence but became a staunch conservative and autocrat later in his reign. He first freed the serfs of Livonia but backtracked after asking his nobles to submit plans to free the serfs in Russia proper. He then created settlements where soldiers and their families lived and farmed but appointed the brutal Arakcheev as the project’s administrator. Forced into years of hard labor and subject to Arakcheev’s cruelty, thousands of soldiers soon revolted in 1819. The rebellion, however, was brutally crushed by Arakcheev. Despite his belief in Christian mysticism, the Emperor wholly approved Arakcheev’s ruthless way of quashing the rebellion.

France was ruled once again by a monarch, but the liberal ideals of the Revolution slowly made its way into other parts of Europe. Uprisings inspired by the French Revolution flared out in Spain, Germany, and Portugal, and alarmed Alexander and other conservative European leaders. When a revolution engulfed Naples in 1820, Alexander immediately summoned a congress to address this new threat. Austria’s Metternich proposed that the Holy Alliance intervene to quash the rebellion. The Tsar initially opposed this, but news soon reached him that his own Semyonovsky Regiment rebelled in response to the brutality of Arakcheev’s protege. The Emperor allowed Arakcheev to crush the rebellion with severe ruthlessness.

Later Years and Death

In 1819, Alexander’s beloved sister Catherine died in Wurttemberg. Her death devastated the Emperor who was already tired of the wars he experienced and of ruling his vast empire. He finally verbalized his desire to leave the throne in 1820, but his lack of heir stood in the way of his abdication. Alexander’s marriage with Elizabeth did not produce children, so he was hard-pressed to find a suitable heir. He had several children by his mistress Maria Naryshkina, but they were immediately disqualified because of their illegitimacy. The ruthless Constantine had already renounced his claim to the throne, so the Tsar privately appointed his younger brother Nicholas as his successor in 1823.

In 1824, his daughter by Maria Naryshkina died and the young lady’s death was soon followed by Elizabeth’s illness. The Tsar, recently reunited with his wife, suggested that they travel south to the Sea of Azov so she could recuperate. On September 1825, the Emperor left with a small group of servants and settled in a villa in Taganrog. His wife later followed him in the seaside villa.

The Emperor contracted typhoid fever on October 27 and frustrated his doctor by refusing to take any medication. He recovered little by little but suddenly fainted in the middle of November. He sank into a coma three days later and died on the 19th of November, 1825. He was forty-seven years old.

References

Picture by: George Dawe – Белый Городъ, Public Domain, Link

Breunig, Charles. The Age of Revolution and Reaction: 1789-1850. New York: Norton, 1977.

Dziewanowski, M. K. Alexander I: Russia始s Mysterious Tsar. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990.

Lieven, Dominic, ed. The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 2. The Cambridge History of Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521815291.

Montefiore, Simon Sebag. The Romanovs: 1613-1918. New York, Vintage Books, 2017.

Posted on October 15, 2017October 17, 2017 by Kat Cendana — Leave a comment

La Salle Explored the Mississippi River 1682

The French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, was the first known European to explore the Mississippi River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682. La Salle’s parents intended him to serve as a Jesuit priest, but his personality made him unsuitable for the job. He left the Jesuits and followed his brother to New France after he receiving a land grant. Adventurous, independent, and bullheaded, La Salle started to explore the Great Lakes area in 1669. He came close to his dream of exploring the Mississippi River and finding an opening to the Pacific Ocean but failed in his first attempt. In 1682 and after many difficulties, La Salle’s dream of exploring the Mississippi River finally came true. This event is recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History during that time.

Early Life and Becoming Sieur de La Salle

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born on November 21, 1643, in the parish of St. Herbland in the city of Rouen. He was the son of the wealthy landowner Jean Cavelier by his wife, Catherine Geest. His parents were devout Christians, and they had wanted Rene-Robert and his older brother Jean to become priests even when they were young. Jean entered the Order of Saint Sulpice at a young age, while Rene-Robert enrolled at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen at age nine.

The young Rene-Robert excelled in academics at the Jesuit-led school. He was also known for his athleticism, independence, and willfulness as a child which made him unsuitable for a life as a priest. He later joined the Jesuits in Paris and in La Fleche. He asked the Jesuits to send him to a mission in China and in Portugal, but he was refused on both instances. He later decided that he did not want to serve as a priest.

The elder Jean Cavelier died in 1666, and unfortunately for Rene-Robert, his father did not leave him an inheritance. Finding himself penniless, Rene-Robert renounced his vows and decided to follow instead his older brother who had emigrated to New France. With the help of an uncle who had become a member of the Company of One Hundred Associates, the young Rene-Robert made his passage to New France in mid to late 1667. He also received a land grant in Montreal from the Sulpicians, and soon adopted the title Sieur de La Salle.

A New Life in New France

La Salle led a modest life as a landowning gentleman in Montreal. He befriended the natives in the area, learned their language, and soon engaged in the fur trade. These natives told him about the presence of the Ohio River which flowed into another body of water. This body of water was the Mississippi River, but La Salle initially believed that it was the Pacific and that it would eventually lead to China.

He became curious and soon grew restless. He yearned for an adventure, but his resources were limited. To fund this adventure, La Salle sold a portion of the land he received to the Sulpicians (from whom he received the land grant) in January of 1669. He then traveled to Quebec to inform the governor of his goal and secure the necessary permit. The governor was only too happy to grant the permit to expand the borders of New France. La Salle, however, was forced by the governor to team up with the Sulpician missionaries Francois Dollier de Casson and Rene de Brehart de Galinee.

First Attempt

Nine canoes bearing La Salle and his companions left Montreal in July 1669. All were novice explorers who were ill prepared and poorly equipped, so they were off to a dismal start. Their lack of knowledge of the natives’ language also made the journey more difficult. The party finally reached Lake Ontario on August 2, and soon encountered the Seneca people which lived on the lower shore of the lake. The tribe was friendly, and they invited the weary and sick travelers to their village to rest.

La Salle then asked the Seneca people to provide him with a guide for the continuation of their journey. This request alarmed the Seneca leaders. If they provided La Salle and his companions a guide, the Frenchmen would then be able to continue their journey. They would then encounter the natives from which the Seneca acquired fur and other products to trade to the Frenchmen. Hence, they would no longer be able to play as the middlemen in the thriving fur trade between other natives and the colonists.

For this reason, the Seneca did not provide a guide to La Salle and discouraged the party from further exploration. The French explorers were delayed for a month until an Iroquois man passed by and offered to guide them from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. La Salle and his companions, however, were once again delayed when he was bitten by a snake when they arrived near Burlington Bay. They stayed in the area for some time until they encountered the party led by another Frenchman named Louis Jolliet near what is now Hamilton, Ontario.

La Salle told his companions that he would return to Montreal because of his ill health. The men were divided between him and the Sulpician missionaries who proceeded to explore the Great Lakes region. When they parted ways, La Salle then announced to the remaining men that they would continue south to the Ohio River.

In Limbo

The French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was born on November 21, 1643.

The discovery of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers was still a far-off dream. La Salle travelled all over Montreal and Quebec between 1670 and 1672, and not—as some contemporaries and biographers claimed—anywhere near the Mississippi River. He returned to Montreal in 1673 and became friends with Governor Louis de Baude Frontenac.

Frontenac wanted to build a fort in the part where the St. Lawrence River flowed into Lake Ontario but did not have the necessary permit from the French king. Instead, he sent La Salle back to France between 1674 and 1675 to obtain the permit. While in the king’s court, La Salle met the politician Jean-Baptiste Colbert who was a friend of King Louis XIV. Colbert convinced the king to support La Salle who soon received the land grant he requested. Louis XIV also gave La Salle the right to manage the fur trade in the area for five years and fund the defenses of the fort with the money derived from the trade.

La Salle returned to New France and took up his new position in the fort which he named after his friend, Governor Frontenac. His ambition led him to become one of the most powerful men in the colony, but this did not sit well with his neighbors. The power and the status, however, did not satisfy him and the expedition to find the Mississippi River stayed on his mind.

The Exploration of the Mississippi River and the Foundation of French Louisiana

La Salle returned to France in 1677 with bigger and bolder requests. He asked Louis XIV to allow him to build forts at the entrance of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. He also requested that he be allowed to explore further south and claim any land he “discovered” for France, including those abandoned by the natives. Louis XIV eagerly granted the request on March 12, 1678.

La Salle arrived in Quebec on September 15 with Dominique La Motte de Luciere and Henri de Tonti who later became his most trusted lieutenant. He also brought with him several seamen and craftsmen who built a barque for the expedition. The 45-ton boat was named Le Griffon and launched on the 7th of August, 1679. Thirty men, three Recollect missionaries, and a pilot completed Le Griffon’s crew.

The Griffon sailed the Lake Erie and entered Lake Huron after 20 days. La Salle and his crew stayed in the St. Ignace Mission on Mackinac Island and left for Green Bay on the 12th of September. They then engaged in the fur trade with the natives which forced La Salle to send the Griffon back to the French settlement in Niagara with its cargo. The Griffon, however, met with a mysterious end as it disappeared soon after.

La Salle then took 14 men with him and switched to canoes. They paddled from Green Bay to the southeast portion of Lake Michigan until they reached the entrance of the St. Joseph River on the 1st of November. La Salle decided to stay in the area until the arrival of Henri de Tonti on the 20th of November. His men built a crude fort on the bank of the river while La Salle toyed with the idea of waiting for the Griffon to catch up. However, he grew restless, so they continued by paddling upriver until they reached the Kankakee in Illinois.

From the Kankakee, La Salle’s group entered the Illinois River and reached the village of Pimitoui (near present-day Peoria) on January 15, 1680. La Salle befriended the natives and told them that he wanted to build a fort and a barque in the area. The natives agreed but soon changed their minds when an allied Mascouten (Algonquian) chief arrived and convinced them that the Frenchmen were allies of the Iroquois. The villagers then discouraged La Salle and his men from continuing the journey. Some of his men abandoned the group for fear of the dangers upriver, but La Salle remained determined.

The Frenchmen left Pimitoui and paddled upriver until they reached the area that is now Creve Coeur on January 15. La Salle and his men built a fort there and stayed in the area for more than a month waiting for the Griffon to catch up. (He was still unaware that the Griffon was lost—perhaps sunk by one of his hired men who then stole the pelts).

By the end of February, La Salle became restless once again. He sent the Recollect missionary Father Hennepin and two other men ahead of him to the junction of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. He and his remaining men went back to the mouth of the St. Joseph River to look for his ill-fated barque. No one had heard of or seen the Griffon at St. Joseph, so he and his men were forced to make the difficult overland journey back to Lake Erie on foot. It was the dead of winter, so many of La Salle’s companions fell ill during the journey.

The men arrived in the Niagara area on April 21, 1680, but to his disappointment, they found that the fort had been destroyed and the Griffon was nowhere in sight. They continued to Fort Frontenac and arrived there on the 6th of May so he could settle some of his debts. He later received news that the fort he built in Creve Coeur had been destroyed by the men he left there. They were also on the way back to Fort Frontenac so they could kill him. La Salle preempted the attack and ambushed them before they arrived at the fort.

Any hope that he could recoup his losses disappeared along with the Griffon. La Salle had no choice but to continue the search for the passage to the Pacific in hopes that this would bring him the wealth and fame he so desired. On August 10, 1680, he set out on another journey along with 25 men he hired. La Salle’s fleet entered the Humber River after sailing in Lake Ontario, and from there entered Lake Simcoe. They then entered the Severn River and crossed the Georgian Bay to arrive at the Sault Ste. Marie area on September 16.

The group hastened to Fort St. Joseph and paddled upriver to the village of Pimitoui. They arrived on the 1st of December but found the village sacked and its inhabitants massacred by Iroquois warriors. La Salle worried that his lieutenant and close friend Henri Tonti was one of the victims. The company raced upriver to look for survivors and found that the Iroquois had also rampaged in the surrounding area. La Salle was disheartened when he failed to find his friend and had to return to Fort St. Joseph in January 1681 to wait for further news. He sent a letter addressed to Tonti to the Saint Ignatius mission on Mackinac Island just in case Tonti had ventured there.

News that Tonti was safe and had been spotted with the Potawatomi people reached him later on. He sent Tonti a message and told him to meet him at Michilimackinac in May. By the end of May, the two friends were finally reunited. Tonti, however, told him that Father La Ribourde (one of the missionaries who joined La Salle’s expedition) was murdered by some Kickapoo warriors. La Salle was later summoned by Governor Frontenac and together, they traveled back to Montreal.

La Salle spent the rest of 1680 and the greater part of 1681 in Montreal and Quebec. He was hounded by creditors, so he drew up a will and specified that he would leave any asset he had just in case he died in the expedition. He increasingly felt alienated in both colonies when he was accused as the instigator of the war that flared out between the Iroquois and the Algonquian-speaking Illiniwek people after he traded with the Outaouais (Odawa).

He set out on another expedition in late 1681 with a crew composed of 41 Frenchmen and natives. He met Henri Tonti at the fort along the St. Joseph River on December 19 and the group paddled their canoes upriver until they reached Creve Coeur one month later. On February 6, 1682, La Salle finally realized his dream when he and his companions entered the Mississippi River. They, however, were forced to camp out for some time along its bank because of the river had turned to ice.

La Salle and his men continued their journey after one week but were forced to break the ice along the way so they could continue. Icy conditions forced them once again to set up a camp when they reached the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. They broke camp sometime later and rowed once again until they reached the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

They stayed for ten days in present-day Memphis to wait for one of the men who lost his way while looking for food. La Salle, always restless, directed his men to build a fort which he later named Prudhomme. They continued their journey on the 5th of March but were forced to stop when they heard war cries and drums from the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River. To La Salle’s relief, the tribe which flocked along the banks of the Mississippi turned out to be friendly. He befriended them and they stayed briefly in their camp. He then claimed the land for his patron, King Louis XIV.

The members of the tribe were so friendly and affectionate to La Salle and his crew that they were forced to tear themselves away from them just to continue their journey. Two members of the tribe accompanied La Salle and his crew down the Mississippi, and they soon came upon its confluence with the Arkansas River.

On the 22nd of March, La Salle’s group camped out with the friendly Taensa (Tensaw) people. They continued their journey after staying with Taensa for some time. They soon came across the Koroa people who told them that the ocean was only a few days away from the camp. They left the Koroa camp on the 29th of March and finally arrived in the Mississippi River delta on the 6th of April, 1682. On April 9, La Salle claimed the land for France and named it “Louisiana” in honor of King Louis XIV.

References:

Picture by http://www.ifremer.fr/envlit/actualite/20030401.htm, Public Domain, Link

Busbee, Westley F., Jr. Mississippi: A History. 2nd ed. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2015.

Carsten, F. L., ed. The New Cambridge Modern History. Vol. 5. The New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521045445.

Dupre, Celine. “Biography – CAVELIER DE LA SALLE, RENÉ-ROBERT – Volume I (1000-1700) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography.” Home – Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Accessed August 15, 2017. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cavelier_de_la_salle_rene_robert_1E.html.

Galloway, Patricia Kay. La Salle and His Legacy: Frenchmen and Indians in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012.

Hannan, Caryn. Illinois Biographical Dictionary. Hamburg, MI: State History Publications, 2008.