Yesterday Shadowlands included a tale of the 1857 riots in New York City over economic conditions.  That served as a reminder of another New York City riot over who was the best Shakespearian actor.  There had been an intense professional rivalry for the crown of best thespian between American Edwin Forest and Englishman William Charles Macready.  It was a clash of acting styles with Forest being the darling of the masses and Macready being preferred by the elites.  When Forest was performing Macbeth in London in 1845 Macready hissed the performance.  Forest returned the favor by hissing throughout a performance of Hamlet.

On May 10, 1849 Macready was at the Astor Opera House when the rivalry came to a head.  Nativists in the audience began to harass and threaten the aristocratic Macready's fans.  The stage was showered with rotten fruit and soon the disorder spread to the street.  There E.Z.C. Judson, a.k.a. Ned Buntline, a famous writer and one of the founders of the Know-Nothing Party, inflamed a crowd of as many as 15,000 people.  They shouted, "Down with the English hog!"  Macready fled the scene while the New York State Militia fielded infantry and cavalry to break up the unruly mob.  As the soldiers charged the crowd they were showered with bricks and many were injured.  The soldiers pulled back and when they renewed their assault fired on the crowd, killing as many as twenty rioters.  Dozens of rioters were arrested and ten stood to trial (Judson  sentenced to a year in prison).

Macready hid out in the Boston home of George William Curtis, who had an outstanding career as the editor of magazines such as Harpers Weekly.  Macready never performed again in America.  Despite having his reputation tarnished by the riot Forrest continued acting.  He went on to have an exceptionally notorious divorce in the 1850s, losing five appeals to the initial decision of the court in favor of his wife.  Forest was enormously successful on the stage but lived a lonely, bitter life.

The year 1857 saw the United States in chaos.  The economy was collapsing and banks were folding.  Kansas was bleeding with what many consider the first real fighting of the Civil War.  Most of the army was in Utah Territory returning that theocratically-run territory to control under the national government.   The nation was being split at the seams by the slavery issue and an economic system that worked to benefit the most wealthy while allowing the poor to become a genuine underclass bereft of rights and hope. It is a lesson for the ages that masses of hungry people are difficult to govern.

On July 4th Manhattan exploded into gang violence on a grand scale.  Mostly Irish street gangs like the Dead Rabbits took to the streets.  As the police attempted to restore order they were beaten back.  Fighting continued apace for over a week.  By July 13th the rioters were strong enough to begin assaulting police stations.  Roughly 500 Dead Rabbit Club members attacked a police station.  The rioters armed with knives and guns killed several policemen.  What was there to do?

The rioting continued into August and finally sputtered to an end with a whimper rather than the crash of gunfire.  By that time the energy of the rioters expended itself and the street violence ended more from overall boredom than any positive action taken by the authorities.

The image below is from the July 11, 1857 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.  It shows three rioters throwing brickbats at police out an open window.  In the doorway, a policeman prepares to shoot one of the women in the back.

Another convention goes into history.  We had a great time in Lubbock and it was heart warming to see Will Bagley get a Spur Finalist Award; Robert Conley be admitted to the hall of fame, and Win Blevins get an Owen Wister Award/admission to the  hall of fame.  There were so many other winners.  They all deserve congratulations and a high-five.  Now I'm going to take a nap after a week with little sleep in it.

I'll be at the Western Writer's Association meetings in Lubbock this week.  You Texans better have some super chili this time or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous blog entries.  We'll be adding new entries in about a week.

Two hundred years ago today Europe was waking up to the news of a decisive defeat of the Corsican Ogre in Belgium near a village named Waterloo.  The decisive battle on June 18, 1815 did not immediately end the conflict between France and the Coalition but soon Napoleon saw the handwriting on the wall and abdicated.  Louis the XVIII returned to rule in France.  There literally are hundreds of books on Waterloo and its impacts on world history.   None of the participant nations that day have anything to be disappointed with how their young men fought.  British histories overemphasize the importance of their hero Wellington on that day, but in reality he took a hard pounding and without the dogged assault late in the action by tens of thousands of Prussians on the right and rear of the French lines it didn't look good for the Duke's army.  Napoleon was the architect of his own downfall, as he saw the Prussians coming early in the battle and instead of breaking off the fight with the English which had degenerated into a slugging match and dealing with the crisis on the right, he chose to finish off the English army.   Wellington was in little condition to attack and it is unlikely he would remove himself from the anchor of his ridge to bail out his Prussian allies if they were repulsed.   As night fell, Napoleon's army was shattered with but a few cavalry and Imperial Guard units providing cover for the fleeing soldiers.

Europe went back to its condition of an uneasy peace as the monarchies that had kept that continent in an almost constant  state of war returned to their thrones to plot their next adventures.  Napoleon was exiled on St. Helena where he died, some maintaining that he was slowly poisoned by an agent of King Louis.

In 1792 the Northwest Coast of North America remained a land of mystery.  Encased in a thick shroud of mist and far from colonial population centers to the colonial powers Nootka Sound might as well have been the dark side of the moon.  Francis Drake had visited Alta California long before and even made a discovery of gold.  Since Drake many explorers had followed and the gold that brought Spain, England, Russia, and the United States to the these misty waters were the pelts of animals.  The fur trade was reaching deeper into the American Outback faster than mineral exploration and colonial nations competed to control this burgeoning source of wealth.

Few remember the expeditions, mainly of Britain and Spain, in this part of the world where Bodega Y Quadra and George Vancouver cooperated in exploring and mapping the area for their respective monarchs.  Though they noted the many Chieftainships in the region these were envisioned as mere curiosities and being mostly peaceful, were incorporated into their schemes to take the wealth of the rainforests and seacoasts.  Today Vancouver Island still carries the name of one of the explorers, but originally it was put on the charts as Isla de Quada y Vancouver (Spanish) or Quadra and Vancouver Island (English).  Is was named such in light of the unusual cooperation between Spain and Britain in exploring the Nootka Sound area.

Bodega kept and extensive journal an excerpt of which is reproduced below.  Welcome to 1792 as a Spanish explorer attempts to describe the inhabitants of the Northwest Coast who had lived there for thousands of years.  

Here Bodega describes his relationship with a local headman.

"The natives are of a most peaceful nature and little disposed to revenge.  I have never had to fear any one of them.  On the contrary, I can say with assurance that it is not possible to mistake the confidence they have in me and the affection the commoners declare they have for me but the chiefs as well, because they frequently sleep at night in my house with the satisfaction that perhaps they would not have in the houses of their most immediate relatives.   Thus I have no difficulty in establishing with them the kind of personal relationship towards which my disposition inclines.  I constantly treat Maquinna as a friend, singling him out among all with the clearest demonstrations of esteem.  He always occupies a place of honor when he eats at my table, and I myself take the trouble to serve him.  I favor him with anything that might give him pleasure, and he boasts of my friendship and very much appreciates my visits to his villages"

Bodega continues with a description of a potlatch.

"On the occasion of the first visit I made to one he had on the point that bears his name, he offered a dance in my honor, himself dancing solo to the rhythm of a song being sung by his female relatives and servant, striking the floor with the shafts of their spears and their muskets for the bass of the music even though somewhat stylized.  At the conclusion of each short dance he presented me through his brother Qua-tla-zape a beautiful sea otter pelt, loudly testifying to his goodwill.  To the boat crews he gave shells and muskets, which for them are jewels of value.  I repaid him with a coat of mail made of leaves of tin plate beautifully embroidered in the shape of scales, which he received with immense gratitude. I also distributed among his people trifles of the kind that please them most."

Bodega's response to being feasted at the potlatch was typical of Europeans, who practice specific reciprocity.  The Europeans saw (and see) gift-gifting as a roughly balanced exchange of values.  Maquinna was, through his lavish potlatch, displaying his wealth and importance to the Europeans.  Tribes of the Northwest Coast practiced non-specific reciprocity, essentially giving gifts without expectation of getting something of equal value in return.  The potlatch served to keep too much wealth accumulating in a few hands by dispersing it through such gift giving ceremonies.  These ceremonies cemented relationships between clans.  Bodega's only obligation of having a potlatch in his honor was, whenever Bodega sponsored a potlatch in the future, the expectation that Maquinna and his kin be invited as an honored guests. The Nootkans politely ignored Bodega's breach of etiquette of turning the potlatch into a diplomatic exchange of gifts.

Going through images of one of my may trips I found a set from Grand Island, Nebraska, home to one of the best railroad museums in the country.  Railroad Town is more than a choo-choo display but conveys the complexities of life on the plains.  If you're getting hypnotized by Interstate 80, pull off in Grand Island and spend a day at a wonderful place.  You will not regret it.

These cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon, AZ are among thousands of such places that could only be accessed with ropes, hand/toe holds carved in rock, and ladders.  What amazing people lived in these places!  What would they think of us?

The skunk (from the Algonquian squunk) was a matter of great curiosity and no small amount of concern to Europeans and Africans that came to North America.  The creature is unknown on those continents.  Travelers and settlers in the New World provide ofttimes hilarious accounts of first encounters.  One Englishman recounted seeing a marvelous black cat with a white stripe in the wild.  He couldn't understand why his horse was reticent to get closer to the creature which just froze in place and looked at them.  After much coaxing he finally got the horse next to his new find.  The animal remained still as the tomb.  He leaned over in the saddle and touched the animal with his riding crop and then it happened.  He described being coated with a "Stygian Liquor."  That is a most appropriate description.

Today we look into John Bradbury's 1809-1811 Travels in the interior of America (first published in 1817).  He is describing his first encounter with a skunk and feels compelled to tell his fellow Britons about the dreaded Viverra mephitis.  John, desirous of taking a pelt, attempted to shoot his skunk but botched the first shot, likely wounding it.  The animal turned toward him and ran at a horrified John.  The chase was on and with an angry skunk hot on his heels John feverishly reloaded on the run.  The next shot did the trick but the skunk had released some of its Stygian liquor an John couldn't bear being close enough to the animal to skin it.  Making a noose out of a vine John dragged the corpse to his boat.  There he was fortunate that some of the Canadians with whom he traveled considered skunk a delicacy, so they did the skinning for him.  He never did fess up as to whether he tried the skunk meat.  Here is his description of the creature.

""This animal in its defense discharges a few drops of a liquid so foetid, that the stench can barely be endured by any animal.  Clothes on which the smallest particle has fallen must be buried in the earth for at least a month before they can be worn.  This liquor is highly inflammable, and is secreted in a gland beneath the tail, from which it is thrown with a force that will carry it a distance of three or four yards.  Only a very few of the American dogs can be induced to attack it, and those are so powerfully affected by the horrid stench, that they continue to howl for a considerable time afterwards, and instinctively relieve themselves by scratching holes in the earth, into which they put their nose."

In 1856 a fascinating travel memoir titled The Englishwoman in America was published.  The author, Isabella Lucy Bird strayed from the usual travel routes and landed in Halifax, going overland to St. John and then by boat to Boston.  She took in the Massachusetts, the Connecticut River Valley, New York City, Albany, and Montreal before striking west for Rock Island, Illinois.  She sailed on Lakes Erie and Ontario, visiting Buffalo, Quebec, Toronto, Hamilton, and Detroit.  Other stops included Chicago, Davenport, and Cincinnati.

When on the western bank of the Mississippi River west of  Rock Island she felt she had crossed into the true West, a land of "buffalos and Indians."  There she saw emigrant trains heading to the vastness of the Great Western Desert and uncertain futures. "There, in a long wooden shed with blackened rafters and an earthen floor, we breakfasted at seven o'clock, on johnnycake, squirrels, buffalo-hump, dampers, and buckwheat, tea and corn spirit, with a crowd of emigrants, hunters, and adventurers..."


The regular readers of this blog by now realize I love to include accounts by visitors to this nation.  Isabella was an excellent writer and observer and her little-known memoir stands up to many of the better-known accounts.  I especially appreciate Isabella trying to navigate the shoals of American slang from the mid-nineteenth century.  For example, when two Kentuckians passed a frame shanty on the shore one pointed at it and said,  "Who's the alligator to hum?"  The pointing man had asked if the other knew owned the home (hum).  Alligator was a vulgarism for "fellow" in those days.

HOTEL HELL

Isabella had wild encounters on her trip and her thwarting a clever Chicago pickpocket is delightful.  Her description of travel accommodations reflect the shock that many foreign travelers had in America. "Meaning to stay all night at Chicago, we drove to the two best hotels, but, finding them full, were induced to betake ourselves to an advertising house, the name of which is unnecessary to give, though it will never be effaced from my memory.  The charge advertised was a dollar a day, and for this every comfort and advantage were promised.  


The inn was a large brick building at the corner of a street, with nothing very unprepossessing in it external appearance.  The wooden stairs were dirty enough, and on ascending them to the so-called "ladies' parlour," I found a large, meanly furnished apartment, garnished with six spittoons, which, however, to my disgust, did not prevent the floor from receiving a large quantity of tobacco-juice.  


There were two rifles, a pistol, and a powder flask on the table; two Irish emigrant women were seated on the floor (which swarmed with black beetles and ants), undressing a screaming child; a woman evidently in a fever was tossing restlessly on a sofa; two females in tarnished Bloomer habiliments were looking out of the window; and other extraordinary-looking human beings filled the room.  I asked for accommodation for the night, hoping that I should find a room where I could sit quietly.  A dirty chambermaid took me to a room in dormitory containing four beds.  In one part of it three women were affectionately and assiduously nursing a sick child; in another two were combing tangled black hair; upon which I declared that I must have a room to myself.


The chambermaid then took me down a long, darkish passage, and showed me a small room without fireplace, and only lighted by a pane of glass in the door; consequently it was nearly dark.  There was a small bed with a dirty buffalo-skin upon it; I took it up, and swarms of living creatures fell out of it, and the floor was literally alive with them.  The sight of such a room made me feel quite ill, and it was with the greatest reluctance that I deposited my bonnet and shawl in it."


The fun was only beginning for poor Isabella, as she found that the house contained one case of Asiatic cholera, three cases of ague (a malarial fever), and one of typhus.  The Cholera was especially dangerous as it spread through bodily fluids, and any patient was emitting those in every way imaginable.  Thousands were then perishing of cholera on the emigrant trails and in slums.  Her traveling companions thought they should all press on to Detroit (yes, Detroit) but Isabella wanted to learn about America's "society in its lowest grade."

"We went down to dinner, and only the fact of not having tasted food for many hours could have made me touch it in such a room.  We were in a long apartment, with one table down the middle, with plates laid for one hundred people.  Every seat was occupied, these seats being benches of somewhat uncouth workmanship.  The floor had recently been washed, and emitted a damp fetid odour.  At one side was a large fireplace, where, in spite of the heat of the day, sundry manipulations were going on, coming under the general name of cookery.  At the end of the room was a long leaden trough or sink, where three greasy scullery-boys without shoes, were perpetually engaged in washing plates, which they then wiped upon their aprons.  The plates, however, were not washed, only superficially rinsed.  There were four brigand-looking waiters with prodigious beards and mustaches.


There was no great variety at table.  There were eight boiled legs of mutton, nearly raw; six antiquated fowls, whose legs were of the consistence of guitar-strings; baked pork with "onion fixings," the meat swimming in the grease; and for vegetables, yams, corn-cobs, and squash.  A cup of stewed tea, sweetened with molasses, stood by each plate, and no fermented liquor of any kind was consumed by the company.  There were no carving knives, so each person hacked the joints with his own, and some of those present caved dexterously with bowie-knives taken out of their belts.  Neither were there salt-spoons, so everybody dipped his greasy knife in the little pewter pot containing salt.  Dinner began, and after satisfying my own hunger with the least objectionable dish, namely "pork with onion fixings," I had leisure to look around me."


Isabella determined that her dining company included Scots, Irish emigrants, French traders, Mexicans, Californians, New England speculators, Canadian pack-men, Prairie-men, trappers, hunters, and adventurers.  It added zest that many in the crowd were armed with pistols and bowie-knives.  She took time out to castigate two women sitting opposite her in Bloomers.  Next to Isabella sat a swarthy Mexican relating his success in a duel that very morning and how he laid his opponent low with a pistol shot.  Isabella learned that there had been three duels that very day in Chicago before they were interrupted by desert.  Even this had it's adventure, "...when the waiters changed the plates, their way of cleaning the knives and forks was so peculiarly disgusting, that I did not attempt to eat anything."

Isabella was somewhat shocked that in this lowest of company that the use of foul language was absent and that women were treated with "deferential respect."  She also noted that there was little public inebriation (the only case she mentions being a Scotch fiddler).  We could go on here... as after dinner it was a night on the town in the Windy City.  However, you get the point.  If you want an entertaining and educational reading experience, give Isabella's book a try.  Remember to book your lodging well in advance if you don't want bed bugs, bad food, and to eat a greasy dinner with a noted duelist.  At least they didn't make her share a bunk with a sick person as happened to many a traveler in those days.

See ya later alligator!