Saturday 19 May 2012

Indian raids on towns in the west


The American frontier moved steadily westward from the 1630s to the 1880s (with occasional movements north into Maine and Vermont, and east from California into Nevada). The "West" was always the area beyond that boundary.Most often, however, the "American West," is used for the area west of the Mississippi River during the 19th century.
Anglo Texans greeted the end of the U.S-Mexican War in 1848 with the hope that federal troops would at last put an end to violent encounters with Indians and Mexicans along the state's western and southern borders and open the vast frontier to settlement. All too quickly the lure of nearly free and unbroken land attracted a multitude of pioneers. So rapidly, in fact, that it thrust some white settlers far beyond the protection of the eight new military installations established at war's end, running from Fort Worth in North Texas to Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande.
In response, the U.S. Army in 1851 began establishing a new line of forts a hundred miles beyond the original vanguard. Others were located in the Big Bend country along the Rio Grande and in extreme South Texas.
The Great Raid of 1840 was the largest raid ever mounted by Native Americans on white cities in what is now the United States.It followed the Council House Fight, in which Republic of Texas officials attempted to capture and take prisoner 33 Comanche chiefs who had come to negotiate a peace treaty, killing them together with two dozen of their family and followers. The Texas Officials were determined to force the Comanche to release all white captives among them. To avenge what the Comanche viewed as a bitter betrayal by the Texans, the Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump raised a huge war party of many of the bands of the Comanche, and raided deep into white-settled areas of Southeast Texas.

Friday 18 May 2012

maori war

Jackson, Mason, 1819-1903. The war in New Zealand : surrender of the Tauranga natives at the Te Papa station [picture]the wilson edwars soldiers here are eeasily convertible to plastic using them as an example, acw will suffice for the conversion.Calvert, Samuel, 1828-1913. The war in New Zealand, storming rifle pits at Te Ranga, June 21, 1864 [picture]To some extent conflict was inevitable. When the Treaty of Waitangi was signed on February 6 1840 between the British Crown and the Maori tribes, both parties; and indeed most of the signatories; had different understandings of its meaning. The Maori believed that it guaranteed them the continued possession of their land and the preservation of their customs. Many of the British thought that it had opened up the country to mass immigration and settlement. On May 21 1840 New Zealand was formally annexed by the British Crown and the capital moved to Auckland, some 200 km south of Waitangi.
Meanwhile the New Zealand Company was aggressively purchasing land and bringing settlers to New Zealand. It maintained that the Treaty was not legally binding upon them and continued their activities in defiance of the new government.
In June 1843 the company attempted to survey some land that was still subject to dispute about its ownership. In the ensuing melee 23 Englishmen and four Maoris were killed. This became known as the Wairau Massacre.
In the Bay of Islands, Hone Heke, one of the original signatories to the Treaty, was becoming increasingly unhappy with the outcome. Among other things, the relocation of the capital had resulted in a decline of the European population of the bay, a reduction in the number of visiting ships and a serious loss of revenue. Furthermore he was told by American and French traders that the British flag flying over the town of Kororareka signified slavery for the Maori. What made this intolerable was that the flag pole had itself been a gift from Hone Heke to the first British Resident.
Then in June 1844 a girl from his tribe went to live with an English butcher in Kororareka and defied his orders to return to the tribe. Heke and his men went into the town, looted the butcher's shop and recovered the girl. Almost as an afterthought they cut down the flag pole. This is depicted in a painting by Arthur David McCormick, Hone Heke fells the flag pole at Kororareka
In August 1844 Governor FitzRoy arrived in the bay backed by the navy and 170 men of the 96th Regiment. He summoned the Maori chiefs to a conference which apparently defused the situation. Hone Heke did not himself attend but sent a conciliatory letter and offered to replace the flag pole.
The new accord did not last. Rumours that their land was going to be confiscated were given credence by the large number of European settlers pouring into the country. More to the point, there had not been a trial of strength between the Maori and the British. Kawiti, one of the leaders of local tribe, the Ngapuhi, had spent his whole life in inter-tribal warfare in which Ngapuhi were usually the winners. Encouraged by Heke's defiance he decided to test his strength against the white tribe. Meanwhile Hone Heke cut down the flag pole a second time.
Once again troops of the 96th Regiment were sent to replace it, and almost immediately it was cut down again.
Reinforcements were called in. A new and stronger pole sheathed in iron was erected and a guard post built around it. Meanwhile 

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Tuesday 15 May 2012

Last Apache


OF WHOM was it said, "Crueller features were never cut"? Yet, who was known for his outstanding courage and determination? He was the last Apache leader to surrender to the U.S. Army. He lived to be about 80 years of age and died in 1909 in Oklahoma, supposedly a Dutch Reformed Christian. He was Goyathlay (pronounced Goyahkla), better known as Geronimo, the last great Apache leader is said that he came to be called Geronimo after Mexican soldiers cried out in fear to "Saint" Jerome (Jerónimo) when Goyathlay attacked them. About the year 1850, Mexican troops killed 25 Apache women and children who were camped on the outskirts of Janos, Mexico. Among them were Geronimo.'s mother, his young wife, and his three children. It is said that "for the rest of his life Geronimo hated all Mexicans." Spurred by a desire for revenge, he became one of the most feared Apache chiefs.
But what do we know about the Apache Indians, featured so often as the villains in Hollywood stereotypes? Do they still exist? If so, how do they live and what future do they face?The Apache(their name apparently comes from the Zuni word apachu, which means "enemy") were known as fearless and resourceful warriors. Famous 19th-century Indian fighter General George Crook called them "the tigers of the human species." Yet, one authority says that "at no time after 1500 did all the Apache tribes together exceed six thousand people." But a few dozen warriors could tie up a whole enemy army in guerrilla warfare!
However, an Apache source states: "In contrast to the popular conceptions created by the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans, Apaches were not war-like bloodthirsty savages. We raided for food only during times of shortage. Wars were waged not as random acts, but were generally well planned campaigns for revenge against injustices against us." And of those injustices, there were plenty!
An exhibit at the San Carlos Apache Cultural Center, in Peridot, Arizona, explains Apache history from their viewpoint: "The arrival of outsiders into the region brought hostilities and change. The newcomers had little regard for our aboriginal ties to the land. In an effort to protect our traditions and culture, our ancestors fought and won many battles against the soldiers and citizens of Spain, Mexico, and the United States. But overwhelmed by superior numbers and modern technology, our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were forced to finally accept the demands of the U.S. Government. We were forced to give up our life of the wind and live on reservations." The phrase 'forced to live on reservations' evokes deep feeling for about half a million reservation dwellers (out of over two million Native Americans) in the 554 tribes in the United States and the 633 bands across Canada. The Apache number about 50,00
Most experts on early Native American history accept the theory that the original tribes came from Asia by way of the Bering Strait and then slowly spread southward and eastward. Linguists relate the Apache language to that of the Athapaskan-speaking peoples of Alaska and Canada. Thomas Mails writes: "Their time of arrival in the American Southwest is placed by current estimates at between A.D. 1000 and 1500. The exact route they followed and the pace of their migration has not yet been agreed upon by anthropologists."—The People Called Apache.
In earlier centuries the Apache often survived by organizing raiding parties against their Spanish-Mexican neighbors. Thomas Mails writes: "Such raids continued for almost two hundred years, beginning about 1690 and lasting until about 1870. The raids are not surprising, for Mexico proved to be a veritable cornucopia of needed supplies."


As a result of the constant conflicts between Mexico and the Apache nation, the Mexican Sonoran government "returned to the old Spanish method" of offering scalp bounties. This was not an exclusively Spanish innovation—the British and the French had followed this custom in earlier times.
The Mexicans scalped in order to claim a cash bounty, and it sometimes did not matter whether the scalp was Apache or not. In 1835 a scalp bounty law was passed in Mexico that offered 100 pesos for each warrior's scalp. Two years later the price included 50 pesos for a woman's scalp and 25 for that of a child! In his book The Conquest of Apacheria, Dan Thrapp writes: "The policy frankly sought extermination, evidence that genocide has widespread roots and was not a modern invention of a single nation." He continues: "The Apaches themselves did no scalping." However, Mails says that the Chiricahua did at times take scalps—but not often, "because of their fear of death and ghosts." He adds: "Scalping was done only in retaliation after the Mexicans inaugurated the tactic."
Thrapp says that miners "often banded together . . . and went a-hunting Indians. When they could trap them, they killed them to the last man and, sometimes, to the last woman and child. The Indians, naturally, did the same to the whites and to other tribes."
War with the Apache reached a point where it was profitable to the state of Arizona, says Charles Lummis, since "the continuance of the Apache wars [meant] that more than $2 million annually [was] disbursed within Arizona's borders by the War Department." Thrapp states: "There were powerful and unscrupulous interests wanting no peace with the Apaches, for when peace came, the streams of funds spent by the military would dry up."




Sunday 13 May 2012

Thiais . Against the Boche


September 4th 1870. Only two month of war were enough for Prussia and its Germanic allies to induce Napoleon III to abdicate in Sedan.
The Republicans refuse the defeat, proclaim the 3rd Republic, form the government of the national Defence and call the French population to rise up in arms. The objective: to burn in enthusiasm, like it happened in 1792. They are determined to push back the coalition of the German States. The fight continues.

Too disorganised, the French Army, made up of the mobile national Guard and the infantry cannot prevent the German progression. September 19th, Paris is besieged. In the capital more than two millions of people need to be feed, among them 500 000 soldiers.above from blog i like the things i like, check it out.

The government, which found refuge in Tours, charge General Trochu of the defence of Paris. He chooses Decrot to command the troupes de ligne and asks him to work out a plan in order to eliminate the German presence. The day of the offensive is fixed on the 28th of November. The breakthrough has to take place in the south-east of Paris. The objective is to allow the Parisian troops to get Fontainbleau where a new army should soon arrive on the Loire river
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November 28th the troops are ready. The Marne must be crossed from Joinville and the contact with the enemy must be carried out in Champigny, Bry and Villiers. A first bridge is built but an unexpected flood from the Marne destroys it. General Ducrot decides to postpone the offensive. But the enemy is not naive. Well positioned on the hillsides of Chennevières and Champigny, he had the chance to observe the troop's movements towards Joinville, as well as the first attempt to get over the river which separates them .Immediately a Saxon division receives the order to reinforce the Würtemberger who occupies Champigny and its surroundings. In Thiais, Hay and Choisy-le-Roi, the in charged Generals the operations of the diversionary move, are not warned of the postponement of the offensive. November 29th they literally run into the enemy's arm for a huge lost.