In the first section on Armenia I related how that country was one of the most Christian in the world. In this section I cronicle how that caused them to become one of the most persecuted countries, ever, by the Musilms. What happened to them is one of the most stupendos atrocities in world history. You must read about it.
Ron
Armenia’s medieval capitol of Ani was called “the city of a 1,001 churches,” with a population of 200,000, rivaling the populations of the largest cities of the era, such as: Constantinople, Baghdad, Damascus, Florence, Rome, Paris, London, and Milan. And it was all Christian.
Islam emerged in the 7th century and quickly conquered throughout north Africa, Egypt and the Middle East.
In 704 AD, Caliph Walid tricked Armenian nobles to meet in St. Gregory’s Church in Naxcawan and Church of Xram on the Araxis River. Once they were all inside, he broke his promise, a practice called “taqiya,” and ordered his soldiers to surround the church, set it on fire, and burn to death everyone inside.
In 1064, Muslim Sultan Alp Arslan and his Seljuk Turkish army invaded Armenia and after a 25-day siege, destroyed the city of Ani.
Arab historian Sibt ibn al-Jawzi recorded: “The city became filled from one end to the other with bodies of the slain. The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it, leaving it in ruins. Dead bodies were so many that they blocked the streets; one could not go anywhere without stepping over them. And the number of prisoners was not less than 50,000 souls. I was determined to enter city and see the destruction with my own eyes. I tried to find a street in which I would not have to walk over the corpses; but that was impossible.”
Ottoman Turks reduced conquered Christians, Jewish, and non-Muslim populations to a second-class status called “dhimmi,” and required them to annually ransom their lives by paying an exorbitant tax called “jizyah.”
Sultan Murat I (1359-1389) began the practice of “devshirme” — taking away boys from the conquered Armenian and Greek families. These innocentboys were systematically traumatized and indoctrinated into becoming ferocious Muslim warriors called “Janissaries,” similar to Egypt’s “Mamluk” slave soldiers. Janissaries were required to call the Sultan their “father” and were forbidden to marry, giving rise to depraved practices and abhorrent pederasty — “the sodomy of the Turks.”
For centuries Ottomans conquered throughout the Mediterranean, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Spain and North Africa, carrying tens of thousands into slavery.
Beginning in the early 1800s, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania won their independence.
When Armenia’s sentiments leaned toward independence, Sultan Abdul Hamid II put an end to it by massacring 100,000 from 1894-1896.
President Grover Cleveland reported to Congress, December 2, 1895: “Occurrences in Turkey have continued to excite concern. Massacres of Christians in Armenia and the development of a spirit of fanatic hostility to Christian influences have lately shocked civilization.”
The next year, President Cleveland addressed Congress, December 7, 1896: “Disturbed condition in Asiatic Turkey, rage of mad bigotry and cruel fanaticism, wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women, and children, made martyrs to their profession of Christian faith. Outbreaks of blind fury which lead to murder and pillage in Turkey occur suddenly and without notice. It seems hardly possible that the earnest demand of good people throughout the Christian world for its corrective treatment will remain unanswered.”
President William McKinley told Congress, December 5, 1898: “The envoy of the United States to Turkey is charged to press for a just settlement of our claims of the destruction of the property of American missionaries resident in that country during the Armenian troubles of 1895.”
On December 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt reported to Congress of: “systematic and long-extended cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the indignant pity of the civilized world.”
Sultan Abdul Hamid II made a league with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, trading guns for access to oil.
When Sultan Hamid was deposed in 1908, there was a brief euphoria among the citizens of Turkey, as they naively hoped the country would adopt a constitutional government guaranteeing individual rights and freedoms.
Instead, the government was taken over by the “Young Turks” — three leaders or “pashas”:
Mehmed Talaat Pasha,
Ismail Enver Pasha, and
Ahmed Djemal Pasha.
They acted as if they were planning democratic reforms while they clandestinely planned a genocidal scheme called “Ottomanization,” ridding the country of all who were not Muslims Turks.
In the first step unsuspecting Armenian young men were recruited into the military. Next they made them “non-combatant” soldiers and took away their weapons. Finally, they marched them into the woods and deserts where they were ambushed and massacred.
With the Armenian young men gone, Armenian cities and villages were defenseless. Nearly 2 million old men, women and children were marched into the desert, thrown off cliffs or burned alive.
Armenian cities of Kharpert, Van and Ani were leveled. Entire Armenian populations were deported to the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia where hundreds of thousands were killed or starved to death.
Theodore Roosevelt recorded the fate of Armenians in his 1916 book Fear God and Take Your Own Part:
“Armenians, who for some centuries have sedulously avoided militarism and war are so suffering precisely and exactly because they have been pacifists whereas their neighbors, the Turks, have been militarists. During the last year and a half. Armenians have been subjected to wrongs far greater than any that have been committed since the close of the Napoleonic Wars. Fearful atrocities. Serbia is at this moment passing under the harrow of torture and mortal anguish.”
Roosevelt continued:
“Armenians have been butchered under circumstances of murder and torture and rape that would have appealed to an old-time Apache Indian. The slaughter of the Armenians must be shared by the neutral powers headed by the United States for their failure to protest when this initial wrong was committed. The crowning outrage has been committed by the Turks on the Armenians. They have suffered atrocities so hideous that it is difficult to name them, atrocities such as those inflicted upon conquered nations by the followers of Attila and of Genghis Khan. It is dreadful to think that these things can be done and that this nation nevertheless remarks ‘neutral not only in deed but in thought,’ between right and the most hideous wrong, neutral between despairing and hunted people — people whose little children are murdered and their women raped — by the victorious and evil wrong-doers. I trust that all Americans worthy of the name feel their deepest indignation and keenest sympathy aroused by the dreadful Armenian atrocities. I trust that they feel that a peace obtained without righting the wrongs of the Armenians would be worse than any war.”
Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: “Turkish rule is slaughtering or driving from their homes, the Christian population. Only a third of the two million Armenians in Turkey have survived, and that at the price of apostatizing to Islam or else of leaving all they had and fleeing across the frontier.”
Attaturk was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey and served as President from 1924 to 1938, ushering in an era of moderation. He abolished sharia courts, and made Friday a workday, instituting the “weekend” of Saturday and Sunday. He outlawed polygamy and elevated the status of women, appointing the first female judges, and insisting on education of girls. He abolished women wearing of scarves, veils, chadors or burqas – the full-length body dress worn by Muslim women, and requiring women to wear skirts.
Ataturk stated:
“If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.”
Ataturk abolished the position of the Sultan and set up a secular government. He ended the religious Caliphate, thus preventing Muslim religious leaders from controlling government affairs.
In an effort to cut ties with the fundamentalist past, he introduced the western use of last names, replaced Arabic Islamic names with Turkish names, and encouraged the next generation not to take Arabic names but instead ethnic Turkish names. He abolished the use of Arabic and Persian script, and replaced it with the Latin alphabet.
In spite of all that Ataturk did, In some Islamist countries, Christian minorities continue to suffer persecution and even genocide:
Iraqi Chaldean Christians,
Assyrian Christians,
Syriac Christians,
Lebanese Maronite Christians,
Egyptian Coptic Christians,
Aramaic Christians,
Melkite Christians, and
Kurds.
Harvard Professor George Santayana wrote in Reason in Common Sense (Vol. I of The Life of Reason, 1905):
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Similarly, Will and Ariel Durant wrote in The Lessons of History (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1968): “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew. If the transmission should be interrupted civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”
Most folks dont know about the very old civilization of the Armenians, and its very important part in world history. In fact, it is so important that I thought that you would want to know more about it. Its history is so colossal that I have needed to put it into two parts. Below is the first part that I hope you will read with interest.Ron
One of the oldest civilizations is that of the Armenians. According to ancient tradition, Noah’s Ark rested on Mount Ararat in the Armenian Mountain Range.
Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat is featured on Armenia’s National Coat of Arms.
The ancient Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi (410-490 AD) recounted the tradition that Noah’s son Japheth had a descendant named Hayk.
He refused to submit to Bel (Nimrod), builder of the Tower of Babel in Babylon. Bel (Nimrod) was the first tyrant of the ancient world who centralized government power.
In this legend, Hayk reportedly led his people north to the land near Mount Ararat, but Bel (Nimrod) chased them. In a battle near Lake Van (c.2492 or 2107 BC), Hayk is said to have pulled his powerful long bow and made a nearly impossible shot with an arrow and killed Bel (Nimrod).
Hayk is the origin of “Hayastan,” the Armenian name for Armenia.
Armenia’s major city of Yerevan, founded in 782 BC in the shadow of Mount Ararat, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
Armenia was mentioned in the Book of Isaiah when King Sennacherib of Assyria invaded Judah around 701 BC. In this national emergency, King Hezekiah and the Prophet Isaiah prayed and Judah was miraculously saved.
Sennacherib returned to Assyria, where he was killed by his sons who then escaped to Armenia: “And it came to pass, as Sennacherib was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia.” (Isaiah 37:38)
Armenia was first mentioned by name in secular records in 520 BC by Darius the Great of Persia in his Behistun inscription, as being one of the countries he sent troops into to put down a revolt.
In 331 BC, Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but never conquered Armenia.
In 67 BC, Roman General Pompey invaded the nearby Kingdom of Pontus on the Black Sea. Its king, Mithridates VI, fled to Armenia, which unfortunately implicated that country in the Mithridatic Wars with Rome.
Adding to the tension, King Tigranes’ son wanted to overthrow his father, so he foolishly invited Pompey to invade Armenia. Pompey let King Tigranes continue to rule in exchange for tribute, but arrested the son and sent him back to Rome as a prisoner.
Then Pompey received word that there was a terrible civil war going on in Judea between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. He decided it was an opportune time to invade Judia.
Though the history of Judea is somewhat complicated, it is nevertheless important. In 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia let Jews return to Israel and build the Second Temple. Ezra led the nation in returning to studying the Scriptures. This was the origin of the Pharisees.
Then 336-323 BC, Alexander the Great conquered from Greece, to Egypt, to Persia, spreading the Greek language and culture all over the world, a process called “Hellenization.”
Pharisees vigorously opposed “Hellenization” as they considered Greek culture sensuous, immoral and pagan. They emphasized a decentralized system where in each village the scriptures were taught by rabbis every Sabbath in a synagogue.
Sadducees were Jews who, in varying degrees, were “Hellenized” in order to have favor with their new Greek rulers.
As a result, they were politically connected, wealthy elites in charge of the centralized priestly system of Temple worship in Jerusalem. The difference between the views of the more liberal Sadducees and more conservative Pharisees is somewhat reflected in the modern differences between Reformed Judaism and Orthodox Judaism.
When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, four of his generals divided up his empire, with Seleucus I Nicator taking Syria to Persia, founding the Seleucid Empire in 312 BC. This included the land of Israel.
A successor Seleucid king was Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He was so intent on Hellenizing Judea that he tried to completely erase the Jewish religion.
Jews were rallied by Judah Maccabee to rebel in the Maccabean Revolt, 167-160 BC. This is commemorated by the Feast of Hanukkah.
After Judah Maccabee’s death, his brother, Simon Thassi, founded the Hebrew Hasmonean Dynasty, which eventually gained independence for Judea.
Simon Thassi the Hasmonean was assassinated by his son-in-law at a banquet. Afterwards, Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, served as both the political leader and the High Priest, though he still respected the decentralized authority of “The Assembly of the Jews.”
Hyrcanus was successful in establishing a relationship with the distant Roman Senate, getting it to recognize Judah’s independence.
When John Hyrcanus died, his son, Aristobulus I, seized control, threw his mother in prison, concentrated political power, and reestablished the monarchy. He was the first person in Jewish history to claim the actual titles of both King and High Priest.
Sadducees, who were Hellenized political insiders, had no problem with Aristobulus I having both titles. Pharisees, on the other hand, did have a problem, as they were religious students of the Law and believed that only a descendant of David could be king.
When Aristobulus I died in 103 BC, his widow, Alexandra-Salome, married his brother, Alexander Jannaeus, who also was King and High Priest.
Alexander Jannaeus, a Sadducee, ordered 800 Pharisees to be crucified. When he died, his wife, Alexandra-Salome, ruled Judea, but she switched to align with the Pharisees. She ruled as a monarch and appointed her son, Hyrcanus II, to be High Priest. Judea was noticeably blessed during the reign of Alexandra-Salome.
After her death in 67 BC, her two sons started a civil war which culminated in the end of Judea’s independence. Aristobulus II, was backed by the Sadducees. Hyrcanus II was backed by the Pharisees.
As civil war violence escalated, word of it reached Roman General Pompey who was located north of Judea in the area of Pontus and Armenia. Aristobulus II sent a large golden vine weighing over 1000 lbs. to Pompey requesting his help against his brother, Hyrcanus II. Pompey decided this was the ideal time to invade Judea.
In 63 BC, Pompey left the area of Armenia and marched south toward the city of Jerusalem, which was divided into warring sections due to the civil war. Hyrcanus II and the Pharisees allowed Pompey to enter their section of the city. The Sadducees, though, refused to let Pompey into the Temple complex.
Pompey laid siege, defeated the Sadduccees, and entered the Holy of Holies of the Temple. After seeing Ark of the Covenant, he exited the Temple and forbade his soldiers from desecrating it. The next day, he order the Temple area cleansed of defilement.
Historian Josephus wrote: “Of the Jews there fell twelve thousand and no small enormities were committed about the temple itself, which, in former ages, had been inaccessible, and seen by none; for Pompey went into it, and not a few of those that were with him also, and saw all that which was unlawful for any other men to see, but only for the High Priests. There were in that temple the golden table, the holy candlestick, and the pouring vessels, and a great quantity of spices; and besides these there were among the treasures two thousand talents of sacred money; yet did Pompey touch nothing of all this, on account of his regard to religion; and in this point also he acted in a manner that was worthy of his virtue. The next day he gave order to those that had the charge of the temple to cleanse it, and to bring what offerings the law required to God.”
Pompey ended Judea’s independence by making it a Roman province. He recognized Hyrcanus II as High Priest, but arrested Aristobulus II and sent him back to Rome as a prisoner.
Hyrcanus II was a weak ruler. He had an official named Antipater the Idumaean, who was opportunistic and forceful. Idumaea was the land of Edom, a neighboring kingdom to Judea, where lived the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother.
In 49 BC, a civil war broke out in the Roman Empire between Pompey and Julius Caesar. In 47 BC, a key battle took place near Alexandria, Egypt. At a critical moment in the battle, when it looked like Caesar would be defeated, Antipater the Idumaean came to his rescue.
In gratitude for his timely assistance, Caesar appointed Antipater as epitropos (regent) over Judea with the right to collect taxes, and left Hyrcanus II as High Priest. Antipater was the father of Herod the Great.
Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Antipater was poisoned in 43 BC. Another Roman civil war began between Caesar’s general, Mark Anthony, and Caesar’s nephew, Octavian.
Then, in 40 BC, war broke out between the Romans and the Parthians over who would rule Armenia.
The conflict spilled over into Judea.
The son of Aristobulus II, Antigonus Mattathias, sided with the Parthians and with their support, was proclaimed King and High Priest in Judea. He seized his uncle, Hyrcanus II, and, according to Josephus, bit off his ear to disqualify him from being High Priest, and had him taken away captive by the Parthians into Babylonia. In 36 BC, Antigonus was defeated by Antipater’s son, Herod, with help from the Romans. Herod ransomed Hyrcanus II from the Parthians.
Herod then ruled in Judea. He married Mariamme, the granddaughter of both Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, which provided Hasmonean legitimacy to Herod’s rule.
Mariamme pressured Herod to appoint her 17-year-old brother, Aristobulus III, as High Priest. Since Aristobulus III was the last male of the Hasmonean royal line, Herod feared him as a potential rival to the throne. Two years later, Herod ordered Aristobulus III to be assassinated by drowning while bathing in a pool at a party.
At the height of the Roman civil war, the naval Battle of Actium took place in 31 BC, between Octavian and Mark Anthony with Cleopatra VII of Egypt. It is considered one of the most consequential battles in history, as it effectively ended the Roman Republic and began the Roman Empire, with Octavian, the victor, becoming Emperor — the undisputed most powerful man in the world. Octavian changed his name to Augustus Caesar.
And as you have heard, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide in Egypt.
Herod met with Augustus Caesar on the Island of Rhodes and pledged his allegiance. In return, Augustus confirmed Herod as King of Judea. Suspicious of plots against him, Herod had the 80-year-old former High Priest Hyrcanus II executed.
Herod the Great supported the Sadducees and funded the reconstruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus’ disciples were admiring the Temple, He told them: “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!” (Matthew 24:2 NLT)
Herod had many wives and children. His sons by Mariamme were Aristobulus and Alexander. Alexander married a Cappadocian Princess Glapyre, and together they had a son, Tigranes V, who became the future King of Armenia.
Herod was paranoid of treason. He divorced, disowned, exiled or executed many of his family, including his wife, Mariamme, and her sons, Alexander and Aristobulus; as well as Antipater, a son by another wife.
His psychotic behavior was displayed when the magi visited from the east to see the new born “King of the Jews,” resulting in Herod massacring all the male children in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger.
Herod was so hated that he feared no one would mourn him when he died, so he ordered that upon his death all the distinguished leaders in Jerusalem would be immediately arrested and executed. Herod’s son, Herod Archelaus, did not carry out this order.
Herod’s young grandson Tigranes V, after Herod had killed his father, Alexander, departed with his Cappadocian mother Glaphyra to Armenia. Glaphyra later married Herod’s son, Herod Archelaus.
Tigranes V was sent to finish his education in Rome, and afterwards he was appointed by Augustus Caesar to be King of Armenia.
Tiberius, the future Emperor, accompanied Tigranes to Armenia’s capital of Artaxata, where he was crowned in 6 AD.
In 52 AD, the King of Parthia installed his brother, Tiridates I as King of Armenia, beginning the Arsacid Dynasty. For the next several centuries, Armenia was caught in the violent middle between Rome in the West and Parthia in the East during the Roman-Parthian Wars,
According to tradition, it was during this time in the 1st century AD, that the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus of Edessa went to the area of Armenia and healed Abgar V of Edessa of leprosy. They then founded the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is considered one of the oldest Christian institutions in the world.
Briefly, from 114 to 118 AD, Armenia was once again a Roman province under Emperor Trajan. In the 3rd century AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian betrayed Armenian King Tiridates III and captured large areas of Armenia.
Gregory preached to King Tiridates, and then baptized him in 301 AD.
St. Gregory the Illuminator is credited with turning Armenia from paganism to Christianity.
Armenia is considered the first nation to “officially” adopt Christianity as its state religion when King Tiridates III converted in 301 AD.
In 313 AD, Constantine the Great ended the persecution of Christians throughout the Roman Empire.
Marco Polo traveled with his father and uncle the thousands of miles of the Silk Road by land from Europe all the way to China where Marco stayed for many years. The publication of his life experiences and travels there changed European history. Two hundred years later, even Christopher Columbus used this publication as his inspiration to sail to find the “New World”. Here, I have prepared for you an account of Marco Polo’s journey and adventures:
Between the 7th and 8th Crusades, Venetian traders Niccolo and Matteo Polo settled on the Black Sea in 1259, in an area conquered a few years earlier by Genghis Khan. This was over two centuries before Columbus sailed west.
The Polos traveled east, where, after 5,600 miles, they made it to China. There they were received by the new Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, 1215–1294, grandson of Genghis Khan. He was Emperor of China, Korea, North India, Persia, Russia and Hungary.
Kublai Khan sent Nicole and Matteo Polo back to the Pope requesting 100 teachers of the Christian faith and a flask of oil from Christ’s empty tomb in Jerusalem.
Upon reaching Rome, they found out that the Pope, Clement the Fourth, had died. The new Pope, Gregory the Tenth, had just been elected and was preoccupied with the wars in Europe.
Due to the unsettled situation, only two preaching Dominican friars accompanied the Polo’s on their return to China in 1271. Niccolo also brought along his 17-year-old son, Marco Polo.
As they crossed a warring area of Turkey, the fearful friars turned back, leaving only speculation as to how history would have been different had they continued the journey and turned China all Christian.
They gave Kublai Khan the flask of oil from Jerusalem. He was so impressed with young Marco Polo that he employed him as an envoy for 17 years. Marco Polo learned several Asian languages.
He requested the Christian Bible be brought to him for Easter and Christmas, which he would kiss. Kublai Khan also honored Saracen-Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist feast days.
When asked why he did this, not understanding the incompatibility of differing beliefs, he responded: “I respect and honor all four great Prophets: Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Moses and Buddha, so that I can appeal to any one of them in heaven.”
Most folks don’t realize that a thriving Nestorian Christian community existed in China throughout Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty, but declined during the subsequent Ming Dynasty when Mongolian and other “foreign influences” were forced out.
During the many years that Marco stayed in China, he occupied many high positions for Kublai Khan. He traveled extensively there and learned very much about the culture and customs of China and the Far East.
In 1291, the Polos accompanied the Mongol princess Kököchin to Persia for Kublai Khan. From there, they travelled to Constantinople and then to Venice, returning home after being gone for 24 years.
Marco was captured during the Battle of Curzola in 1298 and imprisoned in Genoa.
There he recited to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa his travels to Persia, China, Mongolia, and India. Upon being published, it became Medieval Europe’s best-seller, The Travels of Marco Polo.
It was nicknamed “Il Milione” or One Million Lies, as it described many things unbelievable to Europeans:
India’s worship of cattle;
homes smeared with cow dung;
naked holy men;
exotic herbs and spices;
indigo blue dye;
fields of cotton cloth being dyed;
China’s spaghetti noodles;
a Chinese compass;
gunpowder;
paper from tree pulp;
printed paper currency;
ice-cream;
eye glasses;
wheelbarrow;
thread from worms – silk;
porcelain dishes – “China”;
burning black stones – coal;
pinatas;
wine from rice;
asbestos from a mineral;
feet-binding of little girls so their feet remain tiny;
arrows shot from a recurve bow; and
an imperial “pony-express” style postal system.
Marco Polo surprised Europeans with the claims that the Magi, who brought gifts to baby Jesus, were buried in Saveh, a town in Persia south of Tehran, Iran.
After a year, Marco Polo was released. He returned to Venice, married, had three children and became a successful merchant. He died in 1324 and was buried in Venice’s San Lorenzo Church.
Marco Polo stated regarding his return to Europe from China: “I believe it was God’s will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice.”
On this Veterans Day, I have provided you below a brief history of this special Day. Do read it in honor of all those who have died defending our courntry.Ron
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War One ended.
Though the “cease-fire,” called “Armistice,” was signed at 5:00am in the morning, it specified that 11:00am would be the hour the actual fighting would cease. Tragically, in the intervening six hours of fighting, an additional 11,000 more were killed.
Following World War One — “the war to end all wars” — President Warren Harding, in 1921, had the remains of an unknown soldier killed in France brought to Arlington Cemetery and buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Inscribed on the Tomb are the words: “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
On October 4, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge stated at the dedication of the Monument to the American Expeditionary Forces: “They did not regard it as a national or personal opportunity for gain or fame or glory, but as a call to sacrifice for the support of humane principles and spiritual ideals. If anyone doubts the sacrifices which they have been willing to make in behalf of what they believe to be the welfare of the nation, let them gaze upon this monument and other like memorials that have been reared in every quarter of our broad land. Let them look upon the representative gatherings of our VETERANS, and let them remember that America has dedicated itself to the service of God and man.”
In 1926, President Coolidge began issuing proclamations honoring veterans every year, and in 1938 the day became a legal holiday.
In 1954, the name “Armistice Day” was changed to “Veterans Day” to honor all soldiers of all American wars. Four million Americans served in World War One.
Sixteen million served in World War Two.
Nearly seven million served in the Korean War.
Nearly nine million served in the Vietnam War.
From the First Gulf War till the present, 7.4 million men and women served.
While Veterans Day honored the living soldiers, Memorial Day honored those who died while serving.
General Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962: “The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training — sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.
In 1958, President Eisenhower placed a soldier in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War Two, and another soldier from the Korean War.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan placed a soldier from the Vietnam War in the Tomb of the Unknown.
DNA test later identified the body as that of pilot Michael Blassie, who was flying an A-37B Dragonfly when he was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam.
In 1998, the body of Michael Blassie was reburied at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Michael Blassie was a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970, and before that, a graduate of St. Louis University High School in 1966.
On Veterans Day, November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding stated: “On the threshold of eternity, many a soldier, I can well believe, wondered how his ebbing blood would color the stream of human life, flowing on after his sacrifice. Standing today on hallowed ground it is fitting to say that his sacrifice, and that of the millions dead, shall not be in vain. I can sense the prayers of our people, of all peoples, that this Armistice Day shall mark the beginning of a new and lasting era of peace on earth, good will among men.
Let me join in that prayer.
‘Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.'”
U.S. Army veteran Charles Michael Province wrote the poem:
“It is the Soldier, not the minister Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”
Baptist Chaplain John Inzer spoke at the American Legion’s founding meeting in St. Louis in 1919: “Gentlemen if you can only think about this Legion as the jewel of the ages. I cannot say anything greater than this: I believe God raised up America for this great hour. I can say that the strong young man of the time is to be The American Legion in this country and in the world.”
The Preamble to the American Legion Constitution begins “For God and Country.”
In 1954, the American Legion sponsored a Back-to-God program. President Dwight Eisenhower addressed them in a broadcast from the White House, February 7, 1954: “As a former soldier, I am delighted that our VETERANS are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth-that there are no atheists in the foxholes. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage and peace of mind. All the history of America bears witness to this truth. Out of faith in God, and through faith in themselves as His children, our forefathers designed and built this Republic.”
Eisenhower continued:
“We remember the picture of the Father of our Country, on his knees at Valley Forge seeking divine guidance in the cold gloom of a bitter winter. Thus Washington gained strength to lead to independence a nation dedicated to the belief that each of us is divinely endowed with indestructible rights. We remember, too, that three-fourths of a century later, on the battle-torn field of Gettysburg, and in the silence of many a wartime night, Abraham Lincoln recognized that only under God could this Nation win a new birth of freedom.”
Eisenhower concluded:
“Today as then, there is need for positive acts of renewed recognition that faith is our surest strength, our greatest resource. This ‘Back to God’ movement is such a positive act. As we take part in it, I hope that we shall prize this thought: Whatever our individual church, whatever our personal creed, our common faith in God is a common bond among us. In our fundamental faith, we are all one. Together we thank the Power that has made and preserved us as a nation. By the millions, we speak prayers, we sing hymns — and no matter what their words may be, their spirit is the same — ‘In God is our trust.'”
The next year, on February 20, 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower again addressed the American Legion Back-To-God Program: “The Founding Fathers recognizing God as the author of individual rights, declared that the purpose of Government is to secure those rights. In many lands the State claims to be the author of human rights. If the State gives rights, it can – and inevitably will – take away those rights. Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life.
Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first-the most basic-expression of Americanism.”
So, we held an “election” in America yesterday where we elected a new president and numerous elected represenatives. However, you may not know that the very word “election” was coined by the first churches in America and and was taken directly from the Holy Bible. Do read the following narative so that you will know about the very first elections in our country and how they came about.Ron
Theodore Roosevelt stated October 24, 1903 “In no other place and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.”
How did America’s experiment in self-government begin?
At a time when most of the world was ruled by kings, Americans held their first popularly elected legislative assembly.
Jamestown was initially a “company colony,” run by the 1606 Virginia Company Charter, which had by-laws and an appointed governor.
Unforeseen crises, such as famines, diseases, Indian attacks, labor shortages, and struggles to establish a cash crop necessitated the calling of the first meeting of the Virginia House of Burgesses, July 30, 1619.
A burgess was a citizen elected to represent a “borough” (neighborhood).
There were eleven Jamestown boroughs which elected twenty-two representatives.
They met in the church choir loft. Master John Pory was appointed as the assembly’s Speaker. He wrote “A Report of the Manner of Proceeding in the General Assembly Convented at James City, July 30, 1619: “But forasmuch as men’s affairs do little prosper where God’s service is neglected, all the Burgesses took their places in the Quire (choir) till a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the Minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctify all our proceedings to his own glory and the good of this Plantation. The Speaker delivered in brief to the whole assembly the occasions of their meeting. Which done he read unto them the commission for establishing the Council of Estate and the general Assembly, wherein their duties were described to life and forasmuch as our intent is to establish one equal and uniform kind of government over all Virginia.”
The House of Burgesses set the price of tobacco at three shillings per pound, and passed prohibitions against gambling, drunkenness, idleness, and made it mandatory to observe the Sabbath.
The freezing winters, epidemics, and the Indian attack of March 22, 1622, where some 400 colonists were massacred, led to the Virginia Company’s Charter being revoked and the king sending over a crown governor.
In 1624, Virginia went from being a “company colony” to a “crown colony” ruled directly by the king through his royal-appointed governor.
As the king did not pay the governor’s salary, the royal-appointed governor instructed the House of Burgesses to provide his funding. As long as they paid that, he did not mind them discussing other issues and otherwise functioning largely on their own.
England went through a Civil War, 1642-1651, and King Charles the First was beheaded.
During this time the House of Burgesses took an increased role in running the Colony.
In 1660, King Charles the Second was brought back from exile and restored to the throne of his father.
Soon, Virginia’s liberties returned to being restricted, leading to Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion in 1674, which restored their liberties once again.
Virginia’s House of Burgesses served as a legislative model for other colonies.
In Massachusetts, Puritan delegates controlled the legislature, insisting that only Puritans be allowed to vote.
Various pastors thought that voting should be extended to anyone who was a Christian. These pastors led their congregations to leave and found other communities in New England.
It was in these New England communities that pastors had the freedom to apply biblical principles to voting.
Rev. Roger Williams founded Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636;
Rev. John Wheelwright founded Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1638;
Rev. John Lothropp founded Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1639;
Rev. Thomas Hooker founded Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636.
After leading his church congregation through the wilderness they founded Hartford which greatly prospered.
(Then on May 31, 1638 one of the most important episodes in Americh history happened. It did not seem profound at the time, but for sure turned out to be.)
Rev. Thomas Hooker gave a sermon at Hartford which was now the colonies’ capitol city. In it he championed universal Christian suffrage (voting), stating: “The foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of the people.”
This was a blueprint for other New England colonies and eventually the Declaration of Independence, which states: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Hooker’s sermon had the line: “The privilege of election belongs to the people according to the blessed will and law of God.”
One of the first elections in America was in church. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony needed to select a pastor for the Salem Church. Since they did not have a king-appointed minister, members of the church fasted and prayed, then wrote on pieces of paper the name of who they thought was God’s chosen person to be the next pastor, thus allowing God’s will to expressed through them. The belief was, that God had preordained someone to be their pastor and church members were simply to recognize the one God had chosen.
Being chosen by God was called being “the elect.”
First Peter 1:1-2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect.”
Paul wrote in Colossians 3:12 “As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies.”
Second Timothy 2:10: “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes.”
Mark 13:20 described the last days: “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.”
The process of putting down the name of God’s “elect” was called an “election.”
This election process was revolutionary, as most of the world at the time was ruled by kings, emperors, sultans, czars and chieftains who did not ask people for their consent.
New England was the beginning of a polarity change in the flow of power, instead of government being run top-down, it became bottom-up, a model that eventually turned into the U.S. Constitution, which states: “We the People in order to form a more perfect union and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution.”
Instead of powerful political leaders forcing their will on the people through emergency mandates, it was the people’s will being carried out by their elected representatives.
Rev. Thomas Hooker’s sermon notes became known as the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut,” 1639, which was used as the foundation of Connecticut’s government until 1818.
According to Connecticut historian John Fiske, the Fundamental Orders, inspired by Hooker’s sermon, comprised one of the first written constitutions in history that created a government.
Hartford’s Traveller’s Square has a bronze statue of Connecticut’s first settlers and a plaque which reads: “In June of 1635, about one hundred members of Thomas Hooker’s congregation arrived safely in this vicinity with one hundred and sixty cattle. They followed old Indian trails from Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Connecticut River to build a community. Here they established the form of government upon which the present Constitution of the United States is modeled.”
Rev. Thomas Hooker’s statue holding a Bible stands at the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut.
The base of the statue reads: “Leading his people through the wilderness, he founded Hartford in June of 1636. On this site he preached the sermon which inspired The Fundamental Orders. It was the first written constitution that created a government.”
President Calvin Coolidge stated July 5, 1926: “The principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations. In the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that: ‘The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people. The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.’
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church.”
Coolidge added:
“The principles which went into the Declaration of Independence are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government.
In New England, instead of “separation of church and state,” it was churches and pastors who CREATED the State!
Coolidge concluded his address: “But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that ‘Democracy is Christ’s government.’ The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty. Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their Declaration and adopted their Constitution.”
President Grover Cleveland stated, July 13, 1887: “The SOVEREIGNTY OF 60 MILLIONS OF FREE PEOPLE, is the working out of the divine right of man to govern himself and a manifestation of God’s plan concerning the human race.”
America’s founders set up a democratically-elected Constitutional Republic. The Pledge of Allegiance is “to the Flag and to the Republic for which it stands.” A “Republic” is where the people are king, ruling through their servants, called representatives. The word “citizen” is from the Greek and means “co-ruler” or “co-king.”
In 1832, Noah Webster wrote in his History of the United States: “When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers ‘just men who will rule in the fear of God.’ The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.”
He continued: “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.
If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.”
At the time of Columbus, most everyone thought that the earth was flat. No one had ever sailed as far as Columbus in the open ocean beyond the sight of land. So, after five weeks most of his sailors thougt that thy were for sure going to fall off of the earth. Following is the amazing history of those days.
Yes, others found the “New World” before Columbus, but were never made public, since few believed them. His discovery was made public to the whole world. We gave him great credit and honor for discovering America, though he always thought it was Asia. We even had a holiday to honor him……..”Columbus Day”. Do read the following exact histoy of those times:
Columbus was looking for a SEA route to India and China because nearly 40 years earlier Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 cutting off the LAND routes.
A biography of Columbus was written by Washington Irving in 1828, titled A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. In it, Irving created an imaginative dialogue of Europeans arguing over whether the Earth was round or flat. His book was so popular, that people actually thought such a debate took place when it had not.
Washington Irving was known for mixing entertainment with history and legend. He wrote Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, and Diedrich Knickerbocker’s A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, filled with tales of visits from St. Nick coming to New York City, which he nickname “Gotham.”
Some Europeans knew the Earth was round.
Pythagoras had speculated that the earth was a sphere in the 6th century BC, and Aristotle validated it in the 4th century BC.
In the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes computed the circumference of the earth with amazing accuracy. He had heard that at Aswan, Egypt, the sun cast no shadow down a well at noon on the summer solstice, June 21, yet at the exact same moment in Alexandria, Egypt, a column cast a shadow with a 7.2 degree angle.
7.2 degrees is 1/50th of a 360 degree circle.
It was known that the distance between Alexandria and Aswan was 5,000 stadia, approximately 500 miles, or 800 kilometers.
All Eratosthenes had to do was multiply 500 miles times 50, which equals 25,000 miles, just 99 miles off from the Earth’s actual circumference of 24,901 miles (or 800 km x 50 to equal 40,000 kilometers, just 75 kilometers less than the actual 40,075 km circumference).
Eratosthenes also calculated distance to the sun and moon, the tilt of the earth, and created the first world map with parallel latitude and meridian longitude lines.
In the 1st century BC, Posidonius used stellar observations at Alexandria and Rhodes to confirm Eratosthenese’s measurements.
In the 2nd century AD, astronomer Ptolemy had written a Guide to Geography, in which he described a spherical earth with one ocean connecting Europe and Asia.
St. Isidore of Seville, Spain, wrote in the 7th century that the earth was round.
Around the year 723 AD, Saint Bede the Venerable wrote in his work Reckoning of Time that the Earth was spherical.
The Book of Isaiah 40:22 states: “It is He that sitteth upon the globe of the earth.” (Douay-Rheims Bible)
Columbus knew the Earth was round, but the question was, how far around. The confusion was over the length of a mile.
Columbus read Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly’s “Imago Mundi,” which gave Alfraganus’ estimate that a degree of latitude (at the equator) was around 56.7 miles.
What Columbus did not realize was that this was expressed in longer Arabic miles rather than in shorter Roman miles. Therefore Columbus incorrectly estimated the Earth to be smaller in circumference, about 19,000 miles, rather than the actual nearly 24,901 miles.
Columbus knew there was land to the west, as he may have read Ptolemy’s account, written in 150 AD, of the Greek sailor named Alexander, who visited the Far East port city of Kattigara, beyond the Malay Peninsula (Golden Chersonese).
He could have heard of the Roman traveler, during the reign of Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius, who made his way to the court of the Chinese Emperor of the Han Dynasty.
Indeed, Roman glassware and medallions dating from this period were found at Guangzhou along the South China Sea, and at Óc Eo in Vietnam, near the Chinese province of Jiaozhi.
Great amounts of Roman coins were found in India, indicating there was Roman sea trade.
Columbus most likely heard the story of Irish monk St. Brendan, who sailed west in 530 AD to “The Land of the Promised Saints which God will give us on the last day.”
Columbus would have known of the Christian Viking Leif Erickson’s voyage in the year 1000 to Vinland (Newfoundland), called Markland in the Nordic Grœnlendinga Saga.
A Dominican friar in Milan, Italy, named Galvaneus Flamma, wrote an essay titled Cronica universalis, c.1345, in which he referred to the Icelandic description of a wooded land far to the west called Marckalada.
Columbus owned a copy of Marco Polo’s travels to China and India in 1271.
Columbus may have possibly seen maps, rumored to have been in Portugal’s royal archives, from China’s treasure fleets which were sent out in 1421 by Ming Emperor Zhu Di, led by Admiral Zheng He.
Columbus corresponded with Florentine physician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, who suggested China was just 5,000 miles west of Portugal. Based on this, Columbus estimated that Japan, or as Marco Polo called it “Cipangu,” was only 3,000 Roman miles west of the Canary Islands, rather than the actual 12,200 miles.
As a young man, Columbus began sailing on a trip to a Genoese colony in the Aegean Sea named Chios. In 1476, he sailed on an armed convoy from Genoa to northern Europe, docking in Bristol, England, and Galway, Ireland, and even possibly Iceland in 1477.
When Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and hindered land trade routes from Europe to India and China, Portugal, which had been freed from Islamic occupation for two centuries, began to search for alternative sea routes.
The treasures of the East were long brought overland to Alexandria, or Constantinople, or the cities of the Levant, and thence distributed to Europe by the galleys of Genoa or of Venice. “But when the Turk placed himself astride the Bosporus, and made Egypt his feudatory, new routes had to be found.”
Historian Howard Zinn admitted in A People’s History of the United States (1980): “Now that the Turks had conquered Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled the land routes to Asia, a sea route was needed.
The Spanish Monarchs then joined the quest for a sea trade route to India and China. They backed Columbus’ plan. Though Columbus was wrong about the miles and degrees of longitude, he did understand trade winds across the Atlantic.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail on the longest voyage to that date out of the sight of land.
Trade winds called “easterlies” pushed Columbus’ ships for five weeks to the Bahamas. On OCTOBER 12, 1492, Columbus sighted what he thought was India.
He imagined Haiti was Japan and Cuba was the tip of China.
He called the first island he saw “San Salvador” for the Holy Savior.
Thus, in his search for the riches of Cipangu (Japan), Columbus stumbled upon America.
The great Genoese lived and died under the illusion that he had reached the outmost verge of Asia; and though even in his lifetime men realized that what he had found was no less than a new world.”
In his journal, Columbus referred to the native inhabitants as “indians” as he was convinced he had successfully arrived in India: “So that they might be well-disposed towards us, for I knew that they were a people to be converted to our Holy Faith rather by love than by force, I gave to some red caps and to others glass beads.
They became so entirely our friends that I believe that they would easily become Christians.”
Most folks have heard about Benedict Arnold and that he was a traitor, but don’t know much else about him. Below I have provided you the amazing details of what he did and how he was discovered and what happened to him. Do read it and be informed.
Since photography had not been invented when the content of this post happened, the pictures had to be paintings or drawings.
The oath of military enlistment states: “I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
The most common form of government in history is kings. The king of England was the most powerful king in the world at the time of the Revolution.
The Constitution was a way to take power away from a king and give it to the people.
In other words, the Constitution’s purpose is to prevent power from re-concentrating back into the hands of the government; to prevent the return to a king; to keep one person from ruling as a dictator.
In a word, the Constitution’s ultimate purpose it is to prevent a President from ruling through Executive Orders and Mandates.
General Douglas MacArthur addressed Massachusetts State Legislature in Boston, on July 25, 1951: “I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept that the members of our Armed Forces owe primary allegiance to those who temporarily exercise the authority rather than to the Constitution which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous. For its application would at once convert them from their traditional and constitutional role as the instrument for the defense of the Republic into something partaking of the nature of a praetorian guard, owing its allegiance to the political master of the hour.”
Cicero addressed the Roman Senate, c.42 BC: “A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. He works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.”
Probably the most painful betrayal of America during the Revolution was that of Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold was one of America’s most popular leaders, renown for helping Ethan Allen capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.
Arnold fought courageously on Lake Champlain at the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776.
He fought in the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut and came to the rescue at the Siege of Fort Stanwix.
Benedict Arnold was considered the hero of the pivotal Battle of Saratoga in 1777, leading a daring flanking charge, though he disobeyed a direct order to do so.
Shot in the leg during the battle, his career was sidelined for a season.
For his courageous, patriotic service, Arnold was, at this time, as popular as George Washington.
Philadelphia was the largest city in America, with a population of 43,000.
The next biggest cities were:
New York City, with 25,000;
Boston, with 16,000;
Charleston, with 12,000; and
Newport, Rhode Island, with 11,000.
A year earlier, rather than coming to the rescue of British General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga, British General William Howe, possibly due to professional rivalry, abandoned Burgoyne, left New York, and sailed for Pennsylvania.
Howe defeated General Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, then marched into Philadelphia, being gloriously greeted by the large number of British Loyalists still in the city.
The British occupied the city for eight months, but gaining no strategic benefit from being there, they left Philadelphia in June of 1778.
Americans once again took control, with Benedict Arnold being appointed the military commander of Philadelphia.
As Philadelphia had a significant population of Quakers, who refused for religious reasons to take up arms in defense of America, citizens who were still loyal to the King of England could blend in.
While military commander of Philadelphia, Benedict Arnold became captivated by Peggy Shippen, the daughter of a wealthy loyalist-leaning judge.
Arnold and Peggy were married in 1779.
At the same time, Arnold was accused of using his position for his own financial benefit. He had to endure a long and drawn out court-martial trial. Interestingly, during the trial, Arnold, vehemently accused his prosecutors of being disloyal to the patriot cause.
This behavior was later termed by Sigmund Freud as “psychological projection,” where a guilty person accuses their innocent opponent of the exact crime that they, themselves, are guilty of.
Arnold was eventually cleared in the trial, but the ordeal, along with being passed over for promotion, confirmed to his loyalist-leaning wife, Peggy, that the Americans did not appreciate her husband.
Meanwhile, Arnold incurred much debt attempting to maintain his wife’s upper-class lifestyle.
All this while, Peggy had maintained communication with a British spy, the young and handsome Major John Andre, who had stayed behind in Philadelphia posing as a civilian.
After a year of coaxing, Peggy finally convinced Benedict to meet with Andre.
That same year, 1779, the Continental Congress declared a Day of Public Prayer to Almighty God.
Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson observed this by signing a State Proclamation of Prayer: “Congress hath thought proper to recommend to the several States a day of public and solemn Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his mercies, and of Prayer, for the continuance of his favor. That He would go forth with our hosts and crown our arms with victory; that He would grant to His church, the plentiful effusions of Divine Grace, and pour out His Holy Spirit on all Ministers of the Gospel; that He would bless and prosper the means of education, and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth. I do therefore issue this proclamation appointing a day of public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God. Given under by hand this 11th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1779, Thomas Jefferson.”
The next spring, April 6, 1780, General Washington issued the order from his headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey: “Congress having been pleased by their Proclamation of the 11th of last month to appoint Wednesday the 22nd instant to be set apart and observed as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, there should be no labor or recreations on that day.”
Due to Arnold’s heroic reputation, Washington had a blind spot when it came to suspecting Arnold’s betrayal. General Benedict Arnold lobbied General Washington to put him in charge of West Point, which Washington did on August 3, 1780.
The fort at West Point was America’s largest and most important fort, designed by the Polish freedom fighter Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
West Point controlled the Hudson River Valley, which stretched from near Canada in the North to New York City in the south.
The Hudson River effectively divided colonial America in half, with the New England Colonies on the east and the Middle & Southern Colonies on the west. The surrender of West Point would have split the country and possibly cost the Americans the War.
By August 30, 1780, Benedict Arnold not only agreed to betray West Point, but to do so on the very day General Washington would arrive to inspect it. This way Washington would be captured.
In return, for his betrayal, the King’s British Empire would pay Benedict Arnold money, lots of money — 20,000 British pounds sterling, the equivalent of one million dollars today.
Arnold proceeded to intentionally weakened West Point’s defenses by neglecting repairs and removing supplies, all the while complaining to General Washington of shortages.
The trap was set. General George Washington and Major-General Lafayette set out on their way to West Point to examine its defenses.
On September 19, 1780, British General Henry Clinton left Charleston, South Carolina, and put his troops in position to capture West Point.
On September 23, 1780, Arnold met with British spy Major John Andre to arranged the final details of the fort’s surrender.
Talking too long, Andre missed the rendezvous with a British boat waiting in the Hudson River. This was due in part to some Americans, by chance, spotting the idle British boat and firing shots at it, causing it to retreat down river.
Arnold then had Andre dress as a civilian and take the risky route back to the British lines by land.
This was a fateful decision, for the accepted rules of warfare were, that if a combatant was captured in uniform, he was afforded certain treatment as a prisoner of war, but if the combatant was captured dressed as a civilian, he was considered a spy, for which the penalty was immediate hanging.
Historians question why Arnold did not take more precaution to keep Andre from being caught. It is suspected that Arnold may have been blinded by jealousy. Arnold seemed to harbor resentment toward the younger and more handsome Andre for maintaining a such a close relationship with his wife, Peggy.
Andre departed from Arnold, and hiked across the American controlled territory, and no-man’s land. He almost made it to the British lines when, providentially, some random American sentries spotted him in the woods and decided to stop him for questioning.
Trying to talk his way out of why he was there, the sentries were unconvinced. They searched him once and again.
They almost let him go when they decided to make him take off his boot. There, hidden in Andre’s sagging stocking, they found the folded up map of West Point.
The American sentries arrested Andre and immediately sent word to General Benedict Arnold. Arnold was anxiously waiting at West Point for the arrival of General Washington, supposedly to have breakfast, but where he intended to capture him.
Major James McHenry, for whom Fort McHenry was later named, rode ahead to let Arnold know that Washington was on his way, but had been delayed.
By the time Major McHenry arrived at West Point, Benedict Arnold had realized his plot was discovered. He left his wife and child, and fled to the waiting British ship, HMS Vulture.
His wife, Peggy, feigned insanity to avoid being questioned by Washington.
The day after Arnold’s plot was thwarted, American General Nathaniel Greene reported September 26, 1780: “Treason of the blackest dye was yesterday discovered! General Arnold who commanded at West Point, was about to give the American cause a deadly wound if not fatal stab. Happily the treason had been timely discovered to prevent the fatal misfortune. The providential train of circumstances which led to its discovery affords the most convincing proof that the Liberties of America are the object of divine Protection.”
On May 8, 1783, Yale President Ezra Stiles stated: “A providential miracle at the last minute detected the treacherous scheme of traitor Benedict Arnold, which would have delivered the American army, including George Washington himself, into the hands of the enemy.”
The Continental Congress issued a Day of Thanksgiving, October 18, 1780: “In the late remarkable interposition of His watchful providence, in the rescuing the person of our Commander-in-Chief and the army from imminent dangers, at the moment when treason was ripened for execution. It is therefore recommended a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer to confess our unworthiness and to offer fervent supplications to the God of all grace to cause the knowledge of Christianity to spread over all the earth.”
Washington offered to do a prisoner exchange with the British. He would return John Andre to the British in exchange for Benedict Arnold being returned to the Americans. The British refused.
Since the British earlier hanged the captured 21-year-old American spy, Nathan Hale, General Washington insisted that the same fate be administered to the captured British spy Andre.
Major John Andre was hung on October 2, 1780.
Benedict Arnold fulfilled his betrayal by pledging loyalty to the King and joining the British ranks.
He led attacks where he fought and killed Americans, even burning the city of New London, Connecticut, in 1781.
Benedict Arnold led British troops to capture Richmond, Virginia.
They burned government buildings and homes, destroyed the foundry, and attempted to catch Governor Thomas Jefferson.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has plaques hanging in the Old Cadet Chapel commemorating the name of every general of the Revolutionary War, except one. Arnold’s plaque had his name struck off. It simply reads: “Major General ___________ Born 1740.”
Academy historian at West Point Steven Grove explained: “We wanted to commemorate all the war generals, so we have a plaque for him, but he disgraced his uniform, so we don’t put his name up there.”
John Jay, who was later appointed by George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, stated September 8, 1777: “This glorious revolution is distinguished by so many marks of the Divine favor and interposition in a manner so singular, and I may say miraculous, that when future ages shall read its history they will be tempted to consider a great part of it as fabulous.
Will it not appear extraordinary like the emancipation of the Jews from Egyptian servitude.”
This is the story of how the Senior Pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor later amazingly became a Christian and became a Christian Evangelist. Do read this and be inspired:
Japanese Emperor Meiji allowed many freedoms during the Meiji Restoration, 1868-1912.
The country industrialized, adopted many Western ideas, allowed voting, ended feudalism, permitted private citizens to own land, and abolished the historic distinctions of four social classes, though the samurai class opposed this.
In 1905, Japan won a war against Russia.
By the early 1900s, Japan expanded into one of the largest maritime empires in history.
It annexed Korea in 1910 and took control of Russian ports in Siberia in 1918.
Citizens of Japan experienced unprecedented freedom and prosperity during the “Taishō democracy,” 1912 to 1926.
Japan’s economy successfully survived World War I.
This all changed with the 1929 Stock Market Crash and Great Depression, which had global repercussions.
Exports from Japan to America and other Western nations dramatically dropped off, causing a financial crisis. This worldwide economic panic allowed Stalin to seize more power in Russia, Hitler in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy.
Similarly, Shōwa Emperor Hirohito and his generals, inspired by a resurgence of the nationalist spirit of the samurai, centralized power into a Japanese totalitarian, militaristic state. Power concentrated so much, that the emperor was revered by some Shinto followers as an incarnate divinity who must be obeyed without question, whose subjects were forbidden to criticize.
In 1937, Imperial Japan’s Army killed an estimated 200,000 in Nanking, China.
In 1941, it was the world’s 3rd largest naval power, with the 9th largest economy.
It made an alliance with Germany and Italy.
In 1941, over 3,000 Americans died when Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
In 1942, over 20,000 Americans and Filipinos died on Bataan’s Death March, where starving prisoners were marched 65 miles in heat and jungles to a disease infested camp.
Similar to jihad suicide-bombers, kamikaze suicide-pilots were indoctrinated with the honor-shame samurai code, that it was more honorable to die killing the enemy than to shamefully surrender and be captured. Japanese fought fiercely, resulting in over 100,000 deaths as the Allies took Okinawa and Pacific islands through 1945. About 3,860 kamikaze pilots met their deaths hitting more than 400 Allied ships.
An incident in the Pacific War occurred September 2, 1944, when U.S. Navy torpedo-bombers were on a bombing raid near Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands, 700 miles south of Japan. Ten pilots were hit with anti-aircraft fire and ejected from their burning planes.
As recorded in the book Navy Wings of Gold (3rd edition, 2010), Japanese boats sped from the shore and quickly captured nine of the ten downed pilots. The tenth pilot was able to get further out to sea before ejecting. He was only saved by the circling plane of American pilot Lt. “Blackie” Adams. “Blackie” Adams kept shooting at the Japanese boats till the submarine, USS Finback, could rescue the last downed pilot.
The rescued pilot was 20-year-old Lt. George H. W. Bush.
When Bush saw the submarine providentially surface near him, he thought he was seeing an hallucination. Had he not been rescued, he most certainly would have suffered the fate of the other nine captured pilots in what became known as the Chichi Jima Incident.
The book Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (2003) recorded what happened to Bush’s fellow pilots. Imperial officers Lt Gen. Yoshio Tachibana and Major Sueo Matoba ordered them to be beaten and cannibalized, sometimes amputating only one limb at a time.TIME Magazine reported in an article, “National Affairs: Unthinkable Crime,” September 16, 1946, that two of the soldiers were beheaded and their livers eaten.
Imperial military embraced the samurai code, preferring killing one’s self in hara-kiri more honorable than capture. As a result, they held contempt for captured prisoners of war.
The Telegraph (Feb. 6, 2017, published an article “George H.W. Bush narrowly escaped comrade’s fate of being killed and eaten by Japanese captors: Lt George Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot, was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles south of Tokyo, in September 1944, and was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.”
The former President George H.W. Bush narrowly escaped being beheaded and eaten by Japanese soldiers when he was shot down over the Pacific in the Second World War, a shocking new history published in America has revealed. The book, Flyboys, is the result of historical detective work by James Bradley, whose father was among the marines later photographed raising the flag over the island of Iwo Jima.”
The two Imperial officers who ordered the gruesome acts were found guilty of war crimes and executed.
U.S. Marine fighter ace Greg “Pappy” Boyington, of the Black Sheep Squadron, was also shot down in the Pacific, January 1944. He was a prisoner of war for a year and a half, and his biography attests to similar horrendous treatment.
Realizing that every Japanese soldier would fight to the death instead of surrender, Democrat President Harry Truman made the secret and controversial decision August 6, 1945, to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reasoning was that, though devastating, it would prevent an additional one million casualties on both sides from a long, continuing war.
Emperor Hirohito finally made the official surrendered aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay, on SEPTEMBER 2, 1945.
After the war, George H. W. Bush graduated from Yale. He worked in the Texas oil industry and entered politics, being a Congressman, Ambassador, Director of the C.I.A., Vice-President, and eventually the 41st President of the United States.
In his Inaugural Address, George H.W. Bush, January 20, 1989, he stated: “I have just repeated the oath taken by George Washington 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my hand is the Bible on which he placed his.
My first act as President is a prayer: Heavenly Father,make us strong to do Your work, and if our flaws are endless, God’s love is truly boundless.”
A story of redemption occurred after World War II. Mitsuo Fuchida was the Imperial Japanese Navy pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, shouting, “Tora, Tora, Tora.”
Mitsuo Fuchida was depicted in the 1970 Movie Tora, Tora, Tora. “Tora,” meaning “tiger” was the Japanese code word meaning, the enemy is caught in complete surprise.
In 1950, after World War II was over, Fuchida became a Christian, then an evangelist, and then in 1960, an American citizen. His story was written in Readers Digest “God’s Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor” (February 1954).
Mitsuo Fuchida wrote in his biography From Pearl Harbor to Calvary (1953): “I was in Hiroshima the day before the atom bomb was dropped. Fortunately, I received a long distance call from my Navy Headquarters, asking me to return to Tokyo.
With the end of the war, my military career was over, since all Japanese forces were disbanded, I returned to my home village.
As I got off the train one day in Tokyo’s Shibuya Station, I saw an American distributing literature. When I passed him, he handed me a pamphlet entitled “I Was a Prisoner of Japan” (published by Bible Literature International). What I read was the fascinating episode which eventually changed my life.”
Fuchida continued:
“Jake DeShazer volunteered for a secret mission with the Jimmy Doolittle Squadron, a surprise raid on Tokyo from the carrier Hornet.
After the bombing raid DeShazer found himself a prisoner of Japan. There in the Japanese P.O.W. camp, he read and read (the Bible) and eventually came to understand that the Book was more than an historical classic. The dynamic power of Christ, which Jake DeShazer accepted into his life, changed his entire attitude toward his captors. His hatred turned to love.”
Fuchida wrote further, that after the War: “DeShazer returned to Japan as a missionary. And his story, printed in pamphlet form, was something I could not explain. Since the American had found it in the Bible, I decided to purchase one myself, despite my traditionally Buddhist heritage.
I was certainly one of those for whom He had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.
Right at that moment, I seemed to meet Jesus for the first time.
I understood the meaning of His death as a substitute for my wickedness, and so in prayer, I requested Him to forgive my sins and change me from a bitter, disillusioned ex-pilot into a well-balanced Christian with purpose in living. I became a new person. My complete view on life was changed by the intervention of the Christ I had always hated and ignored before.”
Fuchida added:
“I have traveled across Japan and the Orient introducing others to the One Who changed my life.
I believe with all my heart that those who will direct Japan, and all other nations in the decades to come must not ignore the message of Jesus Christ.
Youth must realize that He is the only hope for this troubled world. I would give anything to retract my actions of twenty-nine years ago at Pearl Harbor, but it is impossible.
Mitsuo Fuchida concluded:
“Instead, I now work at striking the death-blow to the basic hatred which infests the human heart and causes such tragedies.
And that hatred cannot be uprooted without assistance from Jesus Christ.”
Throughout history, in the United States there have been two competing factions as respects the native American Indians: Those who wanted to lead them to Jesus and understand the Gospel vs. those who wanted to exploit them and take their lands. Following is a brief history of both factions:
Ron
Throughout history, there have been those motivated by GREED, who:
took land from Indians;
sold people into slavery;
hung signs in their shops: “Help Wanted-No Irish Immigrants Need Apply”;
British East India Company merchants who grew opium in India and imported it into China;
seen more recently as in this Huffington Post article, May 5, 2017: “Since the U.S.-led invasion, Afghan opium production has increased 35-fold. Overdoses from heroin, an opium derivative, and other opioids kill more than 27,000 people each year.”
Greed is evident in political tactics:
organizers engaging in “race-baiting” — intentionally inciting racial tensions for political gain;
politicians who create or capitalize on national crisis as an excuse for the government to usurp rights away from the people and set up totalitarian dictatorships.
people who vote for candidates promising entitlements, while advocating immorality and disregard for human life.
Scripture states in I Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
On the other hand, there have been those motivated by the GOSPEL, such as those who:
dug wells in native villages;
opened orphanages and medical clinics;
founded hospitals, inoculated children;
taught farming techniques;
provided literacy programs;
donated money, food & clothes to help the poor;
took in homeless;
visited those in prison;
fought to abolish slavery, forced marriages, and sex-trafficking.
Matthew 25:44-45: “Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.”
It is not the color of one’s skin but the thinking in one’s brain.
In other words, it is not a situation where one race is good and another bad, as people of the same race can treat each other poorly.
It is a battle over thinking – what behavioral software is guiding a person’s action.
Is it selfish greed or the caring love of the Gospel. Besides the American Indians, there were many others who ministered to similar down and out peoples:
Though many Spanish conquistadors were greedily searching for gold and glory, there were sincere Spanish missionaries, like Bartolome’ de Las Casas, who were motivated by the love of the GOSPEL to minister and care for native peoples.
Some of those motivated by the GOSPEL include: Scottish Missionary to the Congo David Livingstone, who worked to end the Muslim slave trade in Africa;
Scottish Missionary to Nigeria Mary Slessor, who promoted women’s rights and the ending twin killing;
Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, who created a Burmese-English Dictionary;
Baptist Missionary Lottie Moon, who helped famine victims in China;
Missionary to India William Carey, who helped end the practice of “sati”–the burning of widows on their husband’s ashes;
George Muller, who founded orphanages in the slums of England;
Gladys Aylward, missionary to China who helped end the binding of little girls’ feet;
Hudson Taylor, who was a missionary and physician to the poor in China;
Irish missionary Amy Carmichael, who worked with orphans in India;
Olympic athlete Eric Liddell, who was a missionary and teacher among the extreme poor in war torn areas of North China;
Jake DeShazer, who was a prisoner-of-war turned missionary to war-torn Japan;
Nate Saint and Jim Elliot, who were missionary martyrs to Ecuador’s Auca Indians;
and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who said: “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”
Scripture states in James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (NASB)
Those motivated by the GOSPEL spread uniquely Judeo-Christian ideals like:
women and children first;
charity and philanthropy;
tolerance, equality, honesty, marital fidelity;
civil rights;
volunteerism;
forgiveness;
racial healing.
The competing motivations of GREED versus the GOSPEL can be observed most prominently when more advanced civilizations have clashed with less advanced civilizations.
The Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997), explained how the first humans were hunter-gatherers, foraging and scavenging for their daily food, pursuing wild animals and collecting wild plants.
As time progressed, some advanced from hunter-gather to domesticating crops and animals, these being the first occupations: “tiller of the ground” and “keeper of flocks.”
As methods of food storage developed, these peoples advanced from spending all day hunting and gathering to now developing other occupations, inventions, writing skills, bureaucracies, and eventually armies, with which they displaced less advanced hunter-gathers.
Mesopotamia had the largest share of domesticable crops and animals, along with favorable climate conditions:
Cereals: Wheat, Barley, Rye, Oats;
Pulses: Lentil, Pea, Chickpea, Bean;
Other: Almonds, Olives;
Flax: a source of linseed oil and fiber for clothes, ropes, rugs, bedding, curtains, sails; and
Animals: such as donkey, horse, camel, pig, chicken, cattle and oxen.
Mesopotamia’s had a head start in advancing civilization, which spread into Europe, the East and North Africa.
For the most part, Asia was limited to just rice.
Africa had large animals, but, other than camels and elephants, their wild dispositions rendered them untamable, i.e., water buffalo, rhino, giraffe, zebra, and gazelle–who could run 60 miles an hour.
In Australia, varieties were scarce.
The American continent had lots of wild game and fish, but only a small selection of domesticable crops, mainly: beans, squash, potatoes, and later maize-corn. These were limited by climate and terrain from spreading north or south across equatorial central America.
America’s buffalo, llama, and alpaca, were difficult to domesticate, and dogs could only pull sleds.
The people of the Americas survived because there was a plentiful abundance of food which could be hunted and gathered.
When the Europeans immigrated to the New World, they were carrying with them 5,000 years of advancement in civilization, whereas the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas were still predominantly hunting and gathering, living somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age, without even the invention of a usable wheel.
As a result, there was a civilization clash.
The American Indians were caught in the clash of technological disparity, as well as in the struggle between GREED versus the GOSPEL.
They were often pulled into larger global conflicts.
For example, many Indians were persuaded to side with the French against the British during the French and Indian War.
When the French lost, the Indians also lost, and some of their land was confiscated.
Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the Revolutionary War as Britain limited colonial westward expansion in 1763.
When the British lost, Indians again lost more land with the Treaty of Greenville, 1795.
Many Indians were persuaded to side with the British during the War of 1812.
When the British lost, Indians lost more land with the Treaty of Fort Jackson, 1814.
Catholic and Protestant missionaries were motivated by the GOSPEL to better the condition of Indians, such as:
Fr. Isaac Jogues, S.J., missionary martyr to the Iroquois;
-Fr. Charles Garnier, S.J., missionary martyr to the Iroquois;
-Rene Goupil, S.J., missionary martyr to the Mohawk and Huron;
-Fr. Anthony Daniel, S.J., missionary martyr to the Huron Indians;
-Fr. John de Brebeuf, S.J., missionary to the Huron Iroquois Indians;
-John Elliott, missionary to the Massachusetts Indians;
-Pierre Jacques Marquette, S.J., missionary to Natives along the Saint Lawrence River, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River;
-David Brainerd, missionary to Mohican Indians in New York and Delaware Indians in Pennsylvania and New Jersey;
-Francis Makemie, Scotch-Irish founder of the Presbyterian Church in America and Barbados;
-John Stewart, African-American missionary to the Wyandot Tribe;
-Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, missionaries to the Pacific Northwest;
-Pierre-Jean DeSmet, S.J., missionary to midwestern Indian tribes;
-Fr. François Blanchet, missionary to Pacific Northwest;
-Fr. Modeste Demers, missionary to Willamette Valley tribes;
-Jason Lee and nephew Daniel Lee, missionaries to Oregon;
-Henry and Eliza Spalding, missionary to Nez Perce;
-William Gray, missionary carpenter to Walla Walla, Washington;
-Elkanah and Mary Walker, missionaries to Spokane Tribe;
-David Leslie, missionary and founder of Salem, Oregon;-Hiram Bingham, missionary to Hawaiian Islands.
On April 26, 1802, President Jefferson extended a 1787 act of Congress in which special lands were designated: “For the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren missionaries for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.”
After the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson asked Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Tribe, negotiated by William Henry Harrison – the future 9th President.
The Kaskaskia Treaty, December 3, 1803, stated: “And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature, and the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars, to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.”
In 1806 and 1807, two similar treaties were made withthe Wyandotte and Cherokee tribes.
Jefferson compiled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English.”
It was first published in 1804, then again in 1816, with the intention of it being a book of ethics to help Christianize and civilize the Indians, reasoning that if they were given the entire Bible, they may emulate Old Testament stories of warfare.
Jefferson wrote on the cover page: “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth–extracted from the account of his life and doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John–being an abridgement of the New Testament for the use of the Indians unembarrassed with matters of fact or faith beyond the level of their comprehensions.”
When gold was discovered in Georgia, greedy settlers rushed in.
A Democrat controlled Congress hurriedly passed a big government solution — the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by Democrat President Andrew Jackson.
Christian missionary Jeremiah Evarts, motivated by the Gospel, organized resistance to the Federal Government’s removal plan, with many other missionaries being arrested by the State of Georgia and sentenced to years of hard labor.
Christian missionaries Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler were arrested and their case defending the Indians went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in favor of the Cherokee in Worcester v. Georgia, 1832.
Jackson ignored the Supreme Court decision, being convinced that removal was the only “wise and humane” way to prevent the Indians from “utter annihilation” by greedy, encroaching settlers.
The Federal Government then moved to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma thousands of:
Chickasaw,
Choctaw,
Muscogee-Creek,
Seminole, and
Cherokee.
Four thousand died on the Trail of Tears, resulting from the Treaty of Fort Armstrong, 1832 and Treaty of Echota, 1835.
President Jackson stated in his Third Annual Message, December 6, 1831: “The removal of the Indians beyond jurisdiction of the States does not place them beyond the reach of philanthropic aid and Christian instruction.”
President Jackson stated in a Message to Congress, January 20, 1830: “According to the terms of an agreement between the United States and the United Society of Christian Indians the latter have a claim to an annuity of $400, commencing from the 1st of October, 1826, for which an appropriation by law for this amount will be proper.”
In the 1850’s, the territory of the Five Civilized Tribes in the eastern Oklahoma had Gospel-motivated missions, schools and academies:
Congregational-American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’s Wheelock Academy, Choctaw, 1832;
Methodist Episcopal Church’s Quapaw Mission, 1843; and
Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852.
President Lincoln stated in his 3rd Annual Message, December 3, 1863: “It is hoped that the treaties will result in permanent friendly relations with such of these tribes. Duty to these wards of the Government demand our anxious and constant attention to their material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and, above all, to that moral training which under the blessing of Divine Providence will confer upon them the elevated and sanctifying influences, hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith.”
Some Indians sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.
When the South lost, Indians lost more land.
Eventually the Democrat policy of Indians REMOVAL was replaced with the Republican policy of RESERVATIONS.
To pressure nomadic tribes into settling on reservations, as well as to make way for profitable railroads, millions of buffalo were unfortunately killed off.
Once Indians were on reservations, oil and minerals were found there.
Again, greedy politicians soon took land from the Indians, such as in the Teapot Dome Scandal.
President Grant’s “Quaker Policy” removed entrepreneurs from being Indian agents and replaced them with missionaries, stating in his First Annual Message, December 6, 1869: “I have attempted a new policy toward these wards of the nation. The Society of Friends (Quakers) is well known as having succeeded in living in peace with the Indians in the early settlement of Pennsylvania. They are known for their opposition to all strife, violence, and war, and are generally noted for their strict integrity and fair dealings. These considerations induced me to give the management of a few reservations of Indians to them. The result has proven most satisfactory.”
In 1869, the Board of Indian Commissioners noted in its annual report: “The religion of our blessed Savior is the most effective agent for the civilization of any people.”
President Grant stated in his 2nd Annual Message, December 5, 1870: “Reform in Indian affairs has received special attention. The experiment of making it a missionary work was tried with a few agencies given to the denomination of Friends (Quakers), and has been found to work most advantageously. Indian agencies being civil offices, I determined to give all the agencies to such religious denominations as had heretofore established missionaries among the Indians, and perhaps to some other denominations to Christianize and civilize the Indians, and to train him in the arts of peace.”
President Grant stated to Congress, January 1, 1871: “Civilized Indians of the country should be encouraged in establishing for themselves forms of Territorial government compatible with the Constitution. This is the first indication of the aborigines desiring to adopt our form of government, and it is highly desirable that they become self-sustaining, self-relying, Christianized, and civilized.”
President Grant stated in his 3rd Annual Message, December 4, 1871: “The policy pursued toward the Indians has resulted favorably. Through the exertions of the various societies of Christians … many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations, to cultivate the soil, to perform productive labor of various kinds, and to partially accept civilization. I recommend liberal appropriations to carry out the Indian peace policy, not only because it is humane, Christian-like, and economical, but because it is right.”
Oklahoma had missions run by:
Baptists,
Methodists,
Episcopalians,
Presbyterians,
Mennonites,
Quakers,
Moravians,
Nazarene,
Catholics, and others.
Mennonites had a mission among the Comanches at Post Oak Mission and at Colony.
Catholics had missions in the Potawatomi Nation at Sacred Heart Abbey, at Anadarko on the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation, and in north central Oklahoma among the Osage, Ponca, and Otoe.
In 1884, one of the first missionaries to the Yupik Indians in Alaska was John Henry Killbuck, great-grandson of Lenape Chief Gelelemend, who in 1778 made the first Indian Treaty with the United States and later was converted to Christianity by German Moravian missionaries.
President Cleveland issued the Proclamation respecting Church property in Alaska, November 14, 1896: “Whereas the Russian Empire ceded to the US the Territory of Alaska … the churches which have been built in the ceded territory shall remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church. The Cathedral Church of St. Michael. The Church of the Resurrection called the Kalochian Church, situated near the battery number at the palisade separating the city from the Indian village. Three timber houses for lodging of priests. Four lots of ground belonging to the parsonages.”
In the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act, Indians officially made legal wards of the state, an idea first introduced in the 1831 case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.
This meant that U.S. government no longer needed to make treaties with tribal leaders, and through Federal government assistance, tended to create a crippling dependency.
In 1924, Republican President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizen Act granting citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States.
In 1927, President Coolidge was “adopted” into the Sioux tribe at Fort Yates in North Dakota.
As a boy, Herbert Hoover had spent several months living on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma Territory.
Republican President Hoover chose as his Vice-President Charles Curtis, the nation’s first Native American Vice-President, from the Kaw tribe in Kansas.
Hoover reorganized and provided increased funding to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The next President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had John Collier serve as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1933-45. The son of a successful Atlanta businessman, John Collier pressured Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This preserved Indian identity by restoring native lands, improving reservation medical services, and promoting development of business opportunities for Indians.
The two competing threads of human motivation, Greed versus the Gospel, can be traced through history, and the struggle between them still continues to this day.
Jesus explained in Matthew 13:30, let the wheat and tares grow together until the harvest.
Some individuals of American Indian ancestry who have become well-known include:
Will Rogers: 1879-1935, cowboy, actor, humorist, and newspaper columnist, of Cherokee descent.
Jim Thorpe: 1887-1953, Olympic athlete, of Sac and Fox descent.
Oral Roberts: 1918-2009, evangelist who reached millions, broadcast television pioneer, founder of Oral Roberts University, of Cherokee and Choctaw descent.
Navajo Code Talkers: Chester Nez, Willson Price, William McCabe, Teddy Draper, Sr., Carl Gorman, Peter MacDonald, Kee Etsicitty, Samuel Tom Holiday, Joe Vandever, Keith Little, John Kinsel, Samuel Tso, together with over 400 Navajo sent vital communications during World War II that the Japanese were unable to decode, allowing for the success of major Marine assaults.
Chuck Norris: b.1940, actor, martial artist, film producer, of Cherokee descent.
John Bennett Herrington: b.1958, first American Indian Astronaut, launched into space with NASA on November 23, 2002, of Chickasaw descent.
Yes, each session of the U.S. Congress starts with a prayer, but this is the amazing story of the very first prayer and its history. Do read this and be inspired:
The First Session of the First Continental Congress opened in September of 1774 with a prayer in Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia.
America was being threatened by the most powerful monarch in the world, Britain’s King George III.
On September 7, 1774, as the Congress began, the founding fathers listened to Rev. Jacob Duche’ read Psalm 35, which was the “Psalter” for the day according to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer: “Plead my cause, Oh, Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield, and rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’ Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me.”
Then Rev. Jacob Duche’ prayed: “Be Thou present, O God of Wisdom, and direct the counsel of this Honorable Assembly; enable them to settle all things on the best and surest foundations; that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that Order, Harmony and Peace may be effectually restored, and that Truth and Justice, Religion and Piety, prevail and flourish among the people. Preserve the health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds, shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting Glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen.”
That same day, September 7, 1774, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, describing the prayer: “When the Congress met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with Prayer. It was opposed by Mr. Jay of New York, and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina because we were so divided in religious sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists, that we could not join in the same act of worship.”
Adams continued:
“Accordingly, next morning Reverend Mr. Duche’ appeared with his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the established form, and read the collect for the seventh day of September, which was the thirty-fifth Psalm. You must remember, this was the next morning after we heard the horrible rumor of the cannonade of Boston. I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning.
After this, Mr. Duche’, unexpectedly to every body, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such earnestness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the town of Boston. It has had an excellent effect upon everybody here. I must beg you to read that Psalm.”
The Library of Congress printed a historical placard of Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia, which stated: “Washington was kneeling there with Henry, Randolph, Rutledge, Lee, and Jay, and by their side there stood, bowed in reverence the Puritan Patriots of New England. ‘It was enough’ says Mr. Adams, ‘to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers of Philadelphia.'”
The Journals of Congress then recorded their appreciation to Rev. Mr. Duche’:
“Wednesday, SEPTEMBER 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m. Agreeable to the resolve of yesterday, the meeting was opened with prayers by the Rev. Mr. Duche’. Voted, That the thanks of Congress be given to Mr. Duche’ for performing divine Service, and for the excellent prayer, which he composed and delivered on the occasion.”
In the Supreme Court case of Town of Greece, NY, v. Galloway et al, Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, May 5, 2014:
“Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. In the Supreme Court case of Town of Greece, NY, v. Galloway et al, Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, May 5, 2014: “Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. The first prayer delivered to the Continental Congress by the Rev. Jacob Duché on Sept. 7, 1774, provides an example: ‘All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Saviour, Amen’. From the earliest days of the Nation, these invocations have been addressed to assemblies. Our tradition assumes that adult citizens can tolerate and perhaps appreciate a ceremonial prayer delivered by a person of a different faith.”
Town of Greece v. Galloway was cited by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in upholding “In God We Trust” on national currency, August 28, 2018:
“We recognize that convenience may lead some Plaintiffs to carry cash, but nothing compels them to assert their trust in God. The core of the Plaintiffs’ argument is that they are continually confronted with ‘what they feel is an offensive religious message.’ But Galloway makes clear that ‘offense does not equate to coercion.'”
Ten months after the First Prayer in Congress, Rev. Jacob Duche’ exhorted Philadelphia’s soldiers, July 7, 1775:
“Considering myself under the twofold character of a minister of Jesus Christ, and a fellow-citize involved in the same public calamity with yourselves, addressing myself to you as freemen: ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, wherewith Christ hath made us free’ (Galatians, ch. 5).”
True Texan Tales 