Eye of the Storm

Today You Learned about Omar ibn Said:

Captured in Senegal and sold into slavery in 1807, he arrived in the US in Charleston, SC. Wasn't a huge fan of that, so he ran away. Sadly, ibn Said was captured again (this time while praying in a church), and put in jail in North Carolina. Then he started doing something that weirded out his captors: he started writing on the walls in a language they didn't understand.

As you can probably guess from his name, Omar was Muslim, and before his enslavement he traveled around and talked to several high profile religious scholars in Senegal. The people of the American South at this point had very little understanding of what Islam and Arabic even were, so they were a bit shocked. When he was taken back into slavery by James Owen, he was treated as something of a curiosity. More generous types characterize his treatment from here on out as "good, for a slave," but I'd like to point out that his writing that has survived from this point on continued to condemn the practice of slavery.

Oh yeah, his surviving written work? It includes his autobiography, and it's all in the Library of Congress. It was all written in Arabic before being translated, but this also means that given no one around him could read and write it, it means it sure as heck wasn't edited or toned down by slaveowners. So here we have the only Arabic language account of American slavery, from an enslaved man, untouched by white editors.

Pretty cool, huh?

The man's religious views are a bit of a mystery. He's recorded as converting to Christianity, but it's also noted that he continued to write praises to Muhammad in his Bible and continued to use Muslim prayers. His conversion was used as something of an inspirational story to people of the time, but it's unclear if he even saw himself as Christian. He may have! Just with some Islamic flavor to it. Or maybe he saw himself as Muslim. Or maybe he was just doing the best he could with what he had. Who knows! (God does, I imagine.)

We don't know! That's the thing!!

[What the eff. My inbox said I have ten new messages, but there are only two in here? Whatever, I’m still happy to answer requests.]

Okay. So. I’ve mentioned that there’s A Whole Thing about Davy Crockett’s death, and we’re going to talk about it. Today You Learned about the whole debate on how Davy Crockett died.

Davy! Davy Crockett!

You probably know the gist. Early American folk hero, statesman, King of the Wild Frontier and all of that. He didn’t get along with President Andrew Jackson, and opposed the Indian Removal Act. He lost an election in 1835, prompting him to bail on Tennessee, with the famous quote, “You can all go to Hell, I’m going to Texas.” He got wrapped up in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of Alamo in 1836, in which he fought against General Santa Anna’s Mexican soldiers.

Here’s where it gets tricky: we know the day he died, we know where he died, but it’s the manner of death where there’s confusion. Crockett wasn’t in the Alamo church itself–he was right outside. There’s a statue marking the spot. The problem is that there are two main versions of the story. One says that his body was found dead, and around him were over a dozen dead enemy soldiers, meaning he went down taking as many enemies with him as he could. The other says that, surrounded by enemies, Crockett surrendered, and then was executed by Santa Anna’s troops.

See the issue? No? Okay, well then, how about this: in case you haven’t noticed, Americans take their heroes very seriously, and the Alamo is one of the biggest parts of the story of Texas. The idea that one of the most famous American heroes, a living legend, did not go down fighting to the last breath is an insult to every single American or Texan. 

In an ideal world, we’d look at first-hand accounts and see what they say. Except… we have, and they’re contradictory, too! A former enslaved man named Ben, working for Santa Anna, said that Crockett’s corpse was surrounded by dead enemy soldiers. However, a Mexican officer who served there, José Enrique de la Peña, wrote in his memoir that Crockett wasn’t killed in combat, but in captivity.

The lady who translated that memoir into English, by the way, was harassed by letters and phone calls from angry Crockett fanboys. There was also a movement to prove that the original text was a forgery, but as far as we can tell, the manuscript and the materials used to write it are consistent with what we know of the time period.

We don’t know what happened! We have two different eyewitness accounts that both tell two contradictory stories as to how the man died. And people have strong feelings about it. If you go to the Alamo, they’ll tell you about both but chances are they’ll also tell you which one they think is more likely. 

Aaron Burr! He was famous as The Guy Who Shot Hamilton (while he was Vice President of the United States!), and became a lot more popular in modern culture because of the 2016 musical Hamilton. What the musical doesn't cover is that time he (maybe) tried to build an empire.

Today You Learned about the Burr Conspiracy.

After shooting Alexander Hamilton, Burr's political career was a bit lot in the crapper, his wife and daughter were gone, and so he had to figure out something else to do with his life. So he went West! And into the Louisiana Territory (which had recently been bought) and started buying land there and in what was the Texas territory. Which, as you might know, was not US property yet. And he started recruiting people for a militia. One of his partners in this endeavor was a James Wilkinson, who we today know was DEFINITELY a spy for the Spanish.

So it's reported by a lot of people at the time that he was planning to go to war with Spain and claim some land, or even to build his own empire from Mexican territory and! Quite possibly! Secede his US territory from the US! Maybe take over the United States! When the governor of Ohio saw that a bunch of men and supplies were moving around on Burr's behalf in HIS territory, he started sending out orders for arrest. Getting antsy about the whole thing, Wilkinson then turned on Burr and told President Jefferson that Burr was plotting against the country. Jefferson had Burr labeled as a traitor and called for his arrest.

Burr actually turned himself in (more than once because he was released). Jefferson was dead set on having him declared guilty as a traitor, but treason is a very hard thing to prove, and while Burr was suspicious as fudge, he was never actually declared guilty of treason. Judge declared that conspiracy and talking about going to war with Spain or secession from the US wasn't enough--if he didn't actually do any of it, you can't make the treason charge stick.

Burr got off, despite Jefferson and Wilkinson's best efforts (Wilkinson tried VERY hard to pin everything on Burr, with edited letters), but basically no one liked him. As in, they were burning effigies in the streets of him. His reputation in ruins, he was a financial wreck until the day he died.

But! Basically, I want a sequel to Hamilton in which we see this guy

Try to build an empire. Because guys, this was INSANE. Imagine if one of the former vice presidents alive today went and shot someone, and we all knew it, and then next thing you know he's building an army, buying up land, and gets arrested with claims that he's going to try to build an empire.

Today you learned about Mike the Headless Chicken (head's up, that article has a picture, if you are worried about that).

On September 10, 1945, Lloyd Olsen went into his yard, thinking to collect a chicken to cook for dinner for his family. He took his axe and lopped off its head. Except he missed a chunk of the head, the brain stem, and the jugular, and the chicken didn't die.

No really. The chicken kept walking around, trying to eat, trying to crow, trying to live, despite not having a head. The owners decided to keep it alive as best as they could and fed the rooster with an eyedropper.

This, as you can imagine, became kind of A Thing, and so Mike the Headless Chicken became a popular exhibit in freak shows. He went on tours! He had pictures in Time and Life magazines. His owner earned over four thousand dollars a month for having this headless chicken. And remember, this is in the 1940's!

Sadly, this wasn't always to last. One day in 1947 the chicken got a corn kernel stuck in his throat and he choke to death. He could live without a head, but apparently not without air.

Also! In Fruita, Colorado, the third weekend in May has "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" in which they have chicken-themed activities.

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!! Right, so you want to know something cool? Hows abouts the first submersible vessel used for combat? Today You Learned about The Turtle.

[Not the first submarine, period; early versions of those had been kicking around for a bit longer.]

David Bushnell went to Yale to study [checks notes] gunpowder? Exploding gunpowder underwater? I suppose back in the 1770's that was a pretty out-there idea, but Bushnell was intent on making it work. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Bushnell, a Patriot, thought he could use his work in underwater splodeys to help out the cause for independence, meeting with prominent military leaders and constructing... The Turtle, so- named because the shape reminded him a bit of a shell. The idea was that it would travel underwater to an enemy ship, plant a bomb, and then leave until the explosive charge went BOOM and took out a British vessel.

Sadly, the uh, submarine didn't... it didn't work so well. The best-documented use of it was in 1776, when it was supposed to blow up the HMS Eagle (somethingsomething, turtle vs eagle symbolism). Bushnell had health issues, and the guy who piloted it instead didn't have enough training, so while the bomb exploded, it was too far from the ship to do any damage.

There were a couple other attempted missions during the war, but they didn't work out, and then the ship handling The Turtle was sunk by the British. Bushnell wrote that he was able to salvage it, but we don't know where it ended up. We have the designs, though, and several replicas (like the one pictured above) exist, including ones that actually function. In 2007, police actually found someone piloting a replica near a cruise ship.

And it's worth noting that, while it didn't really work out so well as a weapon, Bushnell's invention of it was downright brilliant for the time, and some of his techniques are still used in the construction of war submarines today.

It also appears in the opening credits (and an episode or two) of the AMC series Turn: Washington's Spies.

Today You Learned:

The first Valentine's Day letter in US history was given by British Lt. Col. John Simcoe to Sally Townsend, while he and several other British soldiers were staying at her family's house during the American Revolutionary War. By all accounts the soldiers and the household members got along very amiably.

Now, if you've watched Turn: Washington's Spies those names are familiar, as Simcoe is a recurring villain in that show (dialed up to eleven in viciousness, nowhere like he was in real life apparently). Sally Townsend doesn't appear in the show, but her brother Robert does--and like in real life he's a spy. For the American Culper Ring, a group of spies answering to George Washington so covert that its existence didn't become public knowledge until the 20th century.

So the first Valentine's Day card in American history... was given to the sister of an enemy spy.

Alright, well, technically it started in England, but it was more famous as an American thing. Today You Learned about the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or, as you probably heard about them in US History class: the Shakers.

Begun in the mid-1700's as an off-shoot of the Quakers ("Shaking Quakers"), they had really strange ideas for the time, such as, like Quakers, pacifism and communal living, but also ecstatic ceremonies (hence the shaking), God being both male and female, Christ's Second Coming as having happened and that it was a woman that time, and celibacy--they believed the Original Sin was sex. Now you would think that celibacy wouldn't be a great way to have a lot of people sign on, or have a large religion. Except! By the mid-1800's, there were around three thousand Shakers in the US.

Now there's only two left living. The New York Times ran an article about it yesterday (which is why it was on my mind).

They're happy to tell people about their faith, show them around their community (the last active Shaker one; Wiki says many others are now museums), and they'd be happy to accept converts if anyone's interested.

I just thought it was interesting and crazy, because I remember learning about this movement in high school history, and I didn't really think about how it was doing today. Not well, apparently, but still has faithful believers, and they're firm in their faith.

For reference, this was my feed: