Davidson Black

Davidson Black (July 25, 1884 – March 15, 1934) was a Canadian paleoanthropologist who spent many years searching for early human fossils in China. He is best known for his discovery of Sinanthropus pekinensis (now Homo erectus pekinensis) or the “Peking Man.” Although many were skeptical of Black’s discovery of a new hominid species based on his initial finding of a single tooth, further work uncovered additional bones and skulls which confirmed the significance of the finding for our understanding of human evolution. Black had believed that human beings originated in Asia, and hoped his discovery would validate his theory. Despite the fact that Africa was later found to be the origin of humankind, Black’s work greatly advanced our knowledge of the development of human beings in Asia.

Life

Davidson Black was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 25, 1884. As a child he showed a great interest in biology, despite being born to a family associated with law. He spent many summers near or on the Kawartha Lakes, canoeing and collecting fossils. While a teenager, he made friends with First Nations people, learning one of their languages. He also tried unsuccessfully to search for gold along the Kawartha Lakes.

In 1903, he enrolled in the medical school in the University of Toronto, obtaining his degree in medical science in 1906. He continued to study comparative anatomy. In 1909 he received M.D. and M.A. degrees, and became an anatomy instructor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His interest in anthropology was evoked there, and he spent many hours helping in the local museum of comparative anthropology and anatomy.

In 1913 he married his wife, Adena Nevit, who accompanied him on his trips. They had two children together, a son (b. 1921) and a daughter (b. 1926). Both were born in China.

In 1914, Black spent half a year working under neuroanatomist Grafton Elliot Smith, in Manchester, England. At the time, Smith was studying the “Piltdown man,” which turned out to be a hoax, and was involved in the discussion of where were the origins of humanity—Asia or Africa. Black argued that China was the most suitable place for evolution to have started.

In 1917, during World War I Black joined Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, where he treated injured returning Canadian soldiers. In 1919, he was discharged from the service, and went to Peking (now Beijing), China, in order to work at Peking Union Medical College.

At first he was professor of neurology and embryology, but soon he was promoted to head of the anatomy department in 1924. He planned on going on a search for human fossils in 1926, though the college encouraged him to concentrate on his teaching duties. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Black began his search around Zhoukoudian in China. During this time, many western scientists left China due to military unrest involving the National Revolutionary Army. Davidson Black and his family however decided to stay.

Black launched a large scale investigation at the site. He was the primary coordinator, and as such he appointed both Caucasian and Chinese scientists to work for him. One of the scientists, in the fall of 1927, discovered a hominid tooth, which Black thought belonged to a new human species, named by him Sinanthropus pekinensis. He put this tooth in a locket, which was placed around his neck. Later, he presented the tooth to the Rockefeller Foundation, which, however, demanded more specimens before further grants would be given.

During November 1928, a lower jaw and several teeth and skull fragments were unearthed, validating Black’s discovery. Black presented this to the Foundation, which granted him $80,000. This grant continued the investigation and Black established the Cenozoic Research Laboratory.

Later in 1929 another excavation revealed a skull. Later, more specimens were found. Black traveled to Europe in 1930 where he found more accepting atmosphere than earlier. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1932 for his work.

In 1934, Black was hospitalized due to heart problems. He however continued to work. He died at his desk in Beijing, from a heart attack, working again alone late at night. He was 49 years of age.

Work

Davidson Black was convinced that the cradle of humanity was in Asia. He saw China’s climate as being particularly suitable for the survival of early hominids. His claims were rooted in the earlier work of some German and Austrian paleontologists who found remains of early man in China. In 1926 Austrian paleontologist Otto Zdansky found two hominid teeth at Zhoukoutian’s Dragon Bone Hill site, and in 1927 Swedish paleontologist Birger Böhlin found a nicely preserved left lower molar bone. Based on those findings, Black launched a large scale excavation at the site in Zhoukoutian, thirty miles from Beijing.

In 1929 Chinese paleontologist W. C. Pei, found a nearly complete skull embedded in the rocks of a cave. Black spent nearly four months trying to free the skull from the stone. After he managed to separate the bones, he reassembled the skull. Black believed that the brain capacity of the species placed it within the human range. Between 1929 and 1937, a total of 14 partial craniums, 11 lower jaws, a number of teeth, and some skeletal bones were found on the location of Zhoukoutian. Their age is estimated to be between 250,000 and 400,000 years old.

Black argued that the teeth and the bones belonged to the new hominid genus that he named Sinanthropus pekinensis, or “Chinese man of Peking.” His claims met resistance in scientific circles, and he traveled around the world to convince his colleagues otherwise. Although the bones resembled closely the Java Man, found in 1891 by Eugene Dubois, Black claimed that Peking Man was a pre-human hominid.

Franz Weidenriech (1873-1948), a German anatomist, continued Black’s work. He studied the fossil materials and published his findings between 1936 and 1943. He also made a cast of the bones. During World War II, the original bones were lost, some believe sunk with the ship that was carrying them off the coast of China. Only the plaster imprints were left.

Criticism

Fellow researchers were skeptical of Black’s classification of Sinanthropus pekinensis as a distinctive species and genus. Their objections lay in the fact that the claim of a new species was originally based on a single tooth. Later the species was categorized as a subspecies of Homo erectus.

Others, such as creationists, were and continue to be skeptical of Peking Man as a transitional species or an “Ape-Man,” as non-human hominids have been commonly called. They claim it is a mix of human and ape fossils, or a deformed human.

Legacy

Davidson Black’s research and discover of “Peking Man” greatly contributed to present knowledge of human evolution, especially regarding the human line that developed in Asia.

Unlike most Westerners of his era, Davidson Black tolerated and respected his Chinese co-workers. In return, he was well liked by many of them, who put flowers on his grave after his death. Also, unlike many Western excavators, Black believed artifacts discovered in China should be kept there.

Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest primate that ever lived, was named in Black’s honor.

 

Samsāra

Samsāra refers to the state of perpetual reincarnation or rebirth, in which all beings are ensnared, according to the Indian religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Etymologically, samsāra is derived from Sanskrit and Pāli, meaning “continuous movement,” “continuous flowing” or “wandering.” The term is also generally applied to conditioned, transient existence within the material world, which is in juxtaposed with notions of liberated states such as moksha and nirvana.

Although understandings of samsāra vary between the Indian philosophical traditions as well as within their sects, certain points are consistently acknowledged. Indic religions typically assert that rebirth is an ongoing and beginningless cycle as well as an observable principle of nature. This cycle is inextricably linked with the doctrine of karma, which states that human action has consequences not only in this life, but in future lives as well. Karma is said to determine the nature of one’s rebirth in the samsaric world. Most of these traditions regard samsāra negatively, as a fallen condition marked by suffering, sorrow and impermanence. Actions motivated by desire, selfish individualism or ignorance of the true nature of the self and reality lead to rebirths. According to the merit of their karma, an individual may be reincarnated as another human, animal, or even as an insect or plant. One may also be reborn in a particular locale, such as heaven or hell. The ultimate goal of all three religions is to escape from samsāra. However, in all three religions, some lay practitioners engage in so-called “samsaric” forms of religiosity, which refers to the performance of good works in order to improve karma and thereby gain a more favorable birth in the next life.

Origins

The precise origin of the Indic belief in samsāra is uncertain. The idea of cyclical time was a widespread presupposition of many ancient cultures who celebrated the cycles of nature, the various seasons, and human-earthly fertility rhythms. The concept of rebirth may also have been prominent in India’s ancient Harrapean culture that pre-dated Aryan and Vedic beliefs, subsequently reappearing in Upanishadic times. The rise of the samsāra doctrine, however, seems to have been contemporaneous with a shift towards more metaphorical interpretations of sacrifice found in the Aryanaka and Upanishadic texts, as well as with the appearance of Buddhism and Jainism.

The early Vedic emphasis on precisely executed ritualistic sacrifices that were thought to bring about specific results in this world, or in heaven, eventually lead to the idea that any action (karma) could have specific results in the future. Vedic religion upheld the idea of punar mrtyu, or “redeath” which took place in heaven, and preceded punar avrtti, or return to life on earth. Alternate theories have suggested the rebirth doctrine emerged among ancient non-Aryan tribal people of India, or else groups located around the Ganges who opposed the Vedas. Regardless of origin, the doctrine of rebirth was gradually accepted in India by the sixth century B.C.E. when the Upanishads were composed, and the new religions of Buddhism and Jainism were being developed.

Samsāra in Hinduism

All Hindu traditions view samsāra negatively, although they disagree on its causes. Why beings are ensnared in samsāra is a point of contention among various Hindu schools of thought. Some suggest that it is beginningless karma that binds us to samsāra. They say that the perpetual transmigration of the individual self (or jiva) to another body, as determined by their karma, after it departs the body at death. The eternal self, or atman, which resembles the western concept of the soul, remains unaffected by karma. In other forms of Hinduism, it is avidya (ignorance) of one’s true self that leads to ego-consciousness of the body and therefore the perception of the phenomenal world. This material world breeds desire within the individual and grounds them in the perpetual chain of karma and reincarnation.

Since the doctrine of karma and reincarnation are inextricably tied together in Hinduism, there are several possible outcomes for a being trapped in samsāra. Karma of the worst variety may result in rebirth in hell, or else on earth as an insignificant being such as an insect, plant, or small animal. A step up from this is the so-called “way of the ancestors,” which is the fate of those who are householders and performers of sacrifices. Here the soul, upon death, is converted to rain and brought back down to the earth where it nourishes plants. These plants are then consumed by animals, who expel the soul in the form of semen which provides it with a new body after conception. At this level of rebirth, one can potentially gain what is supposedly higher incarnation through birth into a more advantageous caste. However, it can also be a step downward to the life of an animal or an outcast, which are believed to be less advantageous positions for karmic advancement. The Chandogya Upanishads describe the weight which rests upon karma in determining the nature of rebirth:

Accordingly, those who are of pleasant conduct here (…) they will enter a pleasant womb, either the womb of a Brahman, or the womb of a Ksatriya, of the womb of a Vaishya. But those who are of stinking conduct here — the prospect is, indeed, that they will enter a stinking womb, either the womb of a dog, or the womb of a swine, or the womb of an outcaste. (Chandogya Upanishad V:10:7)

The third and most desirable result of reincarnation is the “way of the gods,” and is only attainable by those who have led austere lives dedicated to isolation and contemplation. Such discipline allows for the transcendence of notions of space and time, which leads to the cessation of rebirth, and therefore liberation. Hinduism has many terms for the state of liberation, such as moksha, nirvana, and mahasamadhi, among others.

Hindus believe that once the karma of this eternal self is purified, one can escape the bonds of existence in samsāra. Hinduism provides four different means by which to attain liberation:

1. Bhakti Yoga, or love and devotion to a personalized form of God
2. Raja Yoga, or psycho-physical meditation
3. Jnana Yoga, or discrimination of what is real from the unreal through intense study and contemplation
4. Karma Yoga, the path of selfless action and subversion of the ego

Generally, all of these paths provide an equal opportunity for liberation, though certain paths may be favored by particular schools.

The school of Advaita Vedanta believes the atman to be one and the same as Brahman, the supreme divinity. Any perception of a difference between the two is merely human egoism, caused by maya, or illusion. The phenomenal world itself and samsāric participation in it is fundamentally a consequence of maya. Illusion is the bondage, then, but bondage is also an illusion; therefore, once the illusion is understood, it can be overcome. For Advaitans, liberation from samsāra is gained when one transcends the illusion of samsāra and comes to realization of the equivalence of their soul with Brahman.

The tradition of Visistadvaita Vedanta, in contrast, believes that the individual soul is only a part and not wholly equivalent with Brahman. Therefore, mere realization of the nature of atman is not sufficient for purposes of escaping samsāra, and one must practice bhakti in order to obtain liberation through Ishvara’s grace. For Visistadvaitans and other followers of bhakti, samsāra is problematic in that it commonly involves failure to acknowledge the existence of a personal deity. Release, then, for a bhakti devotee, is characterized by emancipation from the temptations of everyday life so that one may become fully absorbed in their chosen god or goddess. Thus, samsāra does not necessarily need to be “transcended” in these traditions.

Samsāra in Jainism

Like Hinduism, Jainism also centers its belief in samsāra upon the notion of a pure and perfect soul, which they refer to as jiva, fettered by karma and the material world. For the Jains, however, karma is conceptualized as a kind of substance rather than a metaphysical force. The jiva becomes trapped in the cycle of rebirth due to the accumulation of karma upon it. This karma forms the physical body or bodies which becomes attached to the soul and determines various characteristics of each rebirth.

Jains identify four types of karma which are responsible for these characteristics. The various aspects of the body, such as class, species, and sex are determined by Namakarma (“naming karma”). Spiritual qualities of any given incarnation are determined by Gotrakarma (“status-determining karma”). The extent to which each incarnation is punitive or pleasant is determined by Vedaniyakarma (“feeling producing karma”), and Ayuhkarma (“age-determining karma”) determines the length of this punishment or pleasure. The fate of the soul is dictated by these four types of karma until liberation. Jains refer to liberation from samsāra as mukti, in which souls are said to float to the top of the universe to an abode of liberated beings (siddha loka). However, much like in Advaita Vedanta, so long as the ego (anuva) remains unconquered, the veil of maya persists, and liberation is impossible.

Samsāra in Buddhism

While the Buddhist concept of samsāra parallels Hinduism’s in so far as it posits a cycle of birth, decay, and death that can only be escaped through the attainment of enlightenment, it is summed up as unenlightened life characterized by suffering. For this reason, samsāra is typically described by Buddhists as a “Wheel of Suffering” or “Wheel of life.” Entrapment within samsāra is conditioned by akushala, or, the three roots of suffering: dvesha (hatred), trishna (desire or craving) and avidya (delusion).

Whereas in Hinduism it is the soul (jiva) that is trapped in samsāra, Buddhism teaches that such a self does not exist (a doctrine known as anatman.) How exactly reincarnation can occur without an eternal self has been a topic for Buddhist philosophers since the time of Siddhartha himself. Buddhists originally accounted for the process of rebirth by appeal to phenomenological or psychological constituents.

Theravadins, for instance, identify consciousness as the link between death and rebirth. Although there is no existence of self, perpetual ignorance from moment to moment causes every changing psychological states (or the skandhas) to be perceived to be indicators of selfhood. As long as mental representations of self persist, so too does the cycle of rebirth. Theravada, therefore, places the realm of samsāra in direct opposition to nirvana, though the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools actually equate the two realms, considering them both to be devoid (or “empty”) of essence. If everything is a mental representation, then so too are both samsāra and nirvana, which are nothing more than labels without substance. In these schools, realizing this simple fact allows for the realization that samsāra itself is the sole attainment, and existence is nothing other than the moment as it is.

Others schools of Buddhism dealt with the difficult coexistence of the samsāra and anatman doctrines in different ways. For instance, the Pudgalavāda school resurrected the concept of a “person” (pudgla) which transmigrates after death. Although this concept of a “person” is not necessarily equated with conceptions such as atman, such a teaching very nearly contradicts the notion of anatman. Another concept used by this school as well the Sarvastivadins to explain rebirth was that of antarabhava. This doctrine suggested the existence of an “intermediate being” present between life and rebirth. This being scouts out the location where rebirth is to occur as is dictated by karma from the previous life, and proceeds to attach itself to the sexual organs of the prospective parents of new child in which the soul will dwell.

One of the most florid representations of samsāra in the Buddhist tradition comes from Tibeta Buddhism, where the cycle of existence is commonly referred to as bhavacakra. Here the samsaric cycle is depicted as being contained, fittingly, within a circle (or mandala). The bhavacakra most often drawn or described as having six sections, each of which represents a realms of existence, spanning the world of hell, demigods, hungry ghosts, humans, animals, and to the world of the gods. The bhavacakra is held in the jaws, hands, and feet of a malevolent being, usually Mara (the demon representing sensual pleasures) or Yama (the God of death), who continually turns the wheel. The goal of life, naturally, is to proceed from the innermost rings of this circle to the outside, where liberation is attained.

 

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo

Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo (June 19, 1917 – July 1, 1999) was the leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union from the Ndebele tribe. He was affectionately known in Zimbabwe as Father Zimbabwe, Umdala Wethu, Umafukufuku, or Chibwechitedza (“the slippery rock”) and is widely recognized as the first black leader in what became Zimbabwe. Educated in South Africa where he befriended Nelson Mandela, he returned to what was then Rhodesia in 1948, as an official with the railway union. He founded a series of freedom movements, culminating in the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) in 1962. All were banned by the colonial authorities. A split the following year with fellow revolutionary, Robert Mugabe, led to years of bitter rivalry between these two men. Both spent most of the next decade in prison. Released due to pressure from South Africa in 1974, Nkomo led his supporters in the Rhodesian Bush War against the illegal white-minority government that had declared unilateral independence in 1956. Nkomo was assisted by the Soviet Union. Mugabe, also a leader of the independence movement, looked to China for support.

In 1980, both Nkomo and Mugabe took part in the Lancaster House talks that brought the war to an end and established Zimbabwe as a majority-led state. In the subsequent election, Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) took 57 seats to ZAPU’s 20. Nkomo joined a coalition government as Minister for Home Affairs but was dismissed and placed under house arrest in 1982, accused of plotting against Mugabe. Following several years of civil strife during which Mugabe used troops to crush opposition in Nkomo’s native Matabeleland, he agreed to become Vice-President in 1987. This supposedly reconciled the two men, but Nkomo’s own supporters saw this as a sell-out because effectively ZAPU ceased to exist. Although the vice-presidency was a powerless post, Nkomo was declared a national hero after his death in 1999, in recognition of his leading role in the freedom struggle. Reluctant to turn to violence, Nkomo was instinctively a builder of bridges, not of barriers. In a world where too often race, ethnicity, or religion is used to drive people apart, more bridge-builders like Nkomo are needed if global justice, peace, and prosperity for all is to be achieved.

Early life

Nkomo was born in Semokwe Reserve, Matabeleland, in 1917, and was one of eight children. (His BBC obituary in 1999 stated he was born in 1918). His father (Thomas Nyongolo Letswansto Nkomo) worked as a preacher and a cattle rancher and worked for the London Missionary Society. After completing his primary education in Rhodesia, he took a carpentry course at the Tsholotsho Government Industrial School and studied there for a year before becoming a driver. He later tried animal husbandry before becoming a schoolteacher specializing in carpentry at Manyame School in Kezi. In 1942, aged 25 and during his occupation as a teacher, he decided that he should go to South Africa to further his education. He attended Adams College and the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work in South Africa. There he met Nelson Mandela and other regional nationalist leaders at the University of Fort Hare. He later spoke of how he had to squeeze his large body into seats designed for children as he first completed his high school diploma. However, he did not attend university at Fort Hare University. It was at the Jan Hofmeyr School that he was awarded a B.A. Degree in Social Science in 1952. Nkomo married his wife Johanna MaFuyana on October 1, 1949.

After returning to Bulawayo in 1947, he became a trade unionist for black railway workers and rose to the leadership of the Railway Workers Union and then to leadership of the African National Congress in 1952. After a visit to England in 1952, where he was impressed by the pride the English take in preserving their history, he founded a society to “preserve all the African cultures and heroes.” Culture became for him a source of pride and also a weapon against colonial exploitation, “Treated as less than human” by whites, culture reminded him that he “had value and that” his “culture had value too.” In 1960, he became president of the National Democratic Party which was later banned by the Rhodesian government. He also became one of Rhodesia’s wealthiest self-made entrepreneurs.

Armed struggle

Nkomo was detained by Ian Smith’s government in 1964, with fellow revolutionaries Ndabaningi Sithole, Edgar Tekere, Maurice Nyagumbo, and Robert Mugabe, until 1974, when they were released due to pressure from South African president B. J. Vorster. Following Nkomo’s release, he went to Zambia to continue the liberation struggle through the dual process of armed conflict and negotiation. Unlike ZANU’s armed wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, ZAPU’s armed wing, the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army, was dedicated to both guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare. At the time of independence ZIPRA had a modern military stationed in Zambia and Angola, consisting of Soviet-made Mikoyan fighters, tanks, and armored personnel carriers, as well as a well-trained artillery units.

Joshua Nkomo was the target of two attempted assassinations. The first one, in Zambia, by the Selous Scouts, a pseudo-team. But the mission was finally aborted, and attempted again, unsuccessfully, by the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS).

ZAPU forces committed many acts of violence during their war to overthrow the Rhodesian government. The most widely reported and possibly most notorious were when his troops shot down two Air Rhodesia Vickers Viscount civilian passenger planes with surface-to-air missiles. The first, on September 3, 1978, killed 38 out of 56 in the crash, with a further 10 survivors (including children) shot by ZIPRA ground troops dispatched to inspect the burned-out wreckage. The eight remaining survivors managed to elude the guerrillas and walked 20 km into Kariba from where the flight had taken off (it was headed for Salisbury, Rhodesia’s capital, now renamed Harare). Some of the passengers had serious injuries, and were picked up by local police and debriefed by the Rhodesian army. The second shootdown, on February 12, 1979, killed all 59 on board. The real target of the second shootdown was General Peter Walls, head of the COMOPS (Commander, Combined Operations), in charge of the Special Forces, including the SAS and the Selous Scouts. Due to the large number of tourists returning to Salisbury, a second flight had been dispatched. General Walls received a boarding card for the second flight which departed Kariba 15 minutes after the doomed aircraft. No one has been brought to trial or charged with shooting down the aircraft due to amnesty laws passed by both Smith and Mugabe. In a televised interview not long after the first shootdown, Nkomo laughed and joked about the incident while admitting ZAPU had indeed been responsible for the attack on the civilian aircraft. In his memoirs, Story of My Life, published in 1985, Nkomo expressed regret for the shooting down of both planes.

Politics

Nkomo founded the National Democratic Party (NDP), and in 1960, the year British prime minister Harold Macmillan spoke of the “wind of change” blowing through Africa, Robert Mugabe joined him. The NDP was banned by Smith’s white minority government, and it was subsequently replaced by the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU), also founded by Nkomo and Mugabe, in 1962, itself immediately banned. ZAPU split in 1963 and while some have claimed this split was due to ethnic tensions, more accurately the split was motivated by the failure of Sithole, Mugabe, Takawira and Malianga to wrest control of ZAPU from Nkomo. ZAPU would remain a multi-ethnic party right up until independence.

An unpopular government called Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, led by Abel Muzorewa, was formed in 1979, between Ian Smith and Ndabaningi Sithole’s ZANU, which by then had also split from Mugabe’s more militant ZANU faction. However, the civil war waged by Nkomo and Mugabe continued unabated, and Britain and the U.S. did not lift sanctions on the country. Britain persuaded all parties to come to Lancaster House, in September 1979, to work out a constitution and the basis for fresh elections. Mugabe and Nkomo shared a delegation, called the Patriotic Front (PF), at the negotiations chaired by Lord Carrington. Elections were held in 1980, and to most observers’ surprise Nkomo’s ZAPU lost in a landslide to Mugabe’s ZANU. The effects of this election would make both ZAPU and ZANU into tribally-based parties, ZANU with backing from the Shona majority, and ZAPU the Ndebele minority. Nkomo was offered the ceremonial post of President, but declined. Mugabe was Prime Minister and the ceremonial presidency was held by Canaan Banana.

Coup d’état

Despite reaching their ultimate goal, overthrowing Ian Smith and the minority white Rhodesian Front party, Mugabe and Nkomo never did get along. Nkomo was always trying to improve relationships between the two parties but Mugabe never responded as he believed that ZAPU were more interested in overthrowing ZANU. Allegedly, when Julius Nyerere summoned the two to a meeting to improve relations between the two party leaders, they entered Nyerere’s office separately, first Nkomo, then Mugabe. When Mugabe was offered a seat, he refused and instead went up close to Nyerere’s face and told him, “If you think I’m going to sit right where that fat bastard just sat, you’ll have to think again.” As a result of this strained relationship, fighting between ZANLA and ZIPRA soldiers increased and widened the gap between the two men.

Finally after much debate and refusals, Nkomo was appointed to the cabinet, but in 1982, was accused of plotting a coup d’état after South African double agents in Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization, attempting to cause distrust between ZAPU and ZANU, planted arms on ZAPU owned farms, and then tipped Mugabe off to their existence.

In a public statement Mugabe said, “ZAPU and its leader, Dr. Joshua Nkomo, are like a cobra in a house. The only way to deal effectively with a snake is to strike and destroy its head.” He unleashed the Fifth Brigade upon Nkomo’s Matabeleland homeland in Operation Gukurahundi, killing more than 20,000 Ndebele civilians in an attempt to destroy ZAPU and create a one-party state.

Nkomo fled to London to a self-imposed exile. Mugabe’s government claimed that he had “illegally” left dressed as a woman. “Nothing in my life,” wrote Nkomo, “had prepared me for persecution at the hands of a government led by black Africans.” In the The Story of My Life, Nkomo ridiculed the suggestion that he escaped dressed as a woman. “I expected they would invent stupid stories about my flight…. People will believe anything if they believe that.”

Vice-President

After the Gukurahundi massacres, in 1987 Nkomo consented to the absorption of ZAPU into ZANU, resulting in a unified party called ZANU-PF, leaving Zimbabwe as effectively a one-party state, and leading some Ndebeles to accuse Nkomo of selling out. These Ndebele individuals were, however, in such a minority that they did not constitute a meaningful power base within the cross-section of ZAPU. The post of Prime Minister was abolished; Mugabe assumed the office of executive president with two Vice-Presidents, Nkomo and Simon Vengai Muzenda (who remained in office until his death in 2003). In a powerless post, and with his health failing, his influence declined. He would later be criticized for “his attacks on whites for not becoming assimilated as ‘true Zimbabweans'” and for failing to respond to those women who were “seeking equality in a traditional African society.” Mugabe is said to have bullied the older, less charismatic leader. In some respects, Nkomo may have been out-of-touch. On the other hand, his vision for Zimbabwe was as a common home for all citizens, not as a place where some enjoyed privileges over others.

When asked, late in his life, why he agreed to what was effectively the end of his party, he said that he did it to stop the murder of the Ndebele (who supported his party) and of the ZAPU politicians and organizers who had been targeted by Zimbabwe’s security forces since 1982.

Nkomo had been an inactive member of the Missionary Church for most of his life. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1999, shortly before he died of prostate cancer on July 1 at the age of 82 in Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare. “Speaking at the ceremony, President Robert Mugabe described Mr. Nkomo as the founder of the nation” according to the BBC.

Nkomo letters

Letters allegedly written by Nkomo to the prime minister Robert Mugabe while in exile in the United Kingdom began to resurface following his death in 1999. In the letters he argues against his persecution and accused the government of cracking down on opposition.

National Hero status

In 1999, Nkomo was declared a National Hero and is buried in the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

On June 27, 2000, a set of four postage stamps were released by the Post and Telecommunications Corporation of Zimbabwe featuring Joshua Nkomo. They had denominations of ZW$2.00, $9.10, $12.00, and $16.00 and were designed by Cedric D. Herbert.

Legacy

Nkomo is remembered for what has been described as his “common touch” and for inspiring “love and respect from his people.” He liked to achieve consensus and consulted widely. Internationally, he gained “respect as an analytic politician.” He was, however, critical of the United Nations as too dominated by Western powers although during the Rhodesian Bush War, he continually brought the issue of Zimbabwe to the attention of both the UN and the Organization of African Unity. Sibanda says that Nkomo’s deep Christian beliefs meant that he was reluctant to turn to violence in the struggle for freedom and only did so after deep thought when he “realized that violence … was inevitable.”

He was critical of whites for failing to integrate. However, he wanted Zimbabwe to be a common home for all her people. He was opposed to substituting white domination for that of any other group, such as the Shona. He was interested in building bridges not barriers, which is why he was willing to attempt reconciliation with Mugabe. His legacy remains significant for Zimbabwe, where bridges need to be built between competing communities, and in a world where people too often use ethnicity, race, or religion as an excuse to dominate others or to claim social and political privileges. Nelson Mandela described Nkomo as “one of those freedom fighters who stood up for justice at the most difficult time in the course of our struggle.”

 

Murad IV Ghazi

Murad IV Ghazi  (July 26/27, 1612 – February 9, 1640) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623 to 1640, known both for restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his methods. Murad IV was born in Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I (1603–17) and the ethnic GreekValide Sultan Kadinefendi Kösem Sultan (also known as Mahpeyker), originally named Anastasia. Brought to power by a palace conspiracy in 1623, he succeeded his uncle Mustafa I (1617–18, 1622–23). He was only 11 when he took the throne. He married Aisha, without issue.

Murad IV reign (1623-1640)

In the early years of Murad’s reign, he was under the control of his relatives. During this period, peace and harmony in the Ottoman lands were completely lost and tyrants took control of the cities. His absolute rule started around 1632, when he took the authority and repressed all the tyrants, and he re-established the supremacy of Sultan.

Early Reign (1623-1632)

Murad IV was for a long time under the control of his relatives and during his early years as Sultan, his mother, Kösem Sultan, essentially ruled through him. The Empire fell into anarchy; the Safavid Empire invaded Iraq almost immediately, Northern Anatolia erupted in revolts, and in 1631 the Janissaries stormed the palace and killed the Grand Vizier, among others. Murad IV feared suffering the fate of his elder brother, Osman II (1618–22), and decided to assert his power.

Absolute Rule and Imperial Policies (1632-1640)

Murad IV tried to quell the corruption that had grown during the reigns of previous Sultans, and that had not been checked while his mother was ruling through proxy. He addressed this corruption with several policy changes, such as limiting wasteful spending.

Murad IV also banned alcohol, tobacco, and coffee in Constantinople. He ordered execution for breaking this ban. He would patrol the streets and taverns of Constantinople in civilian clothes at night, policing the enforcement of his command. By prohibiting tobacco he assimilated the idles gathering in the taverns. He restored the judicial regulations by very strict punishments, including execution. Halil İnalcık reports that even though he was a ruthless supporter of alcohol prohibition, Murat IV was a habitual drinker.

Military Campaigns

Militarily, Murad IV’s reign is most notable for the war against Persia in which Ottoman forces invaded Azerbaijan, occupied Revan, Tabriz and Hamadan, and recaptured Baghdad in 1638. The sultan had a famous quote about the fall of Baghdad: “Bağdat’ı almaya çalışmak, Bağdat’ın kendinden daha mı güzeldi ne” (“I guess trying to capture Baghdad was better than Baghdad itself”).

While he was encamped in Baghdad, Murad IV is known to have met the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s ambassadors: Mir Zarif and Mir Baraka, who presented 1000 pieces of finely embroidered cloth and even armor. Murad IV gifted them with the finest weapons, saddles and Kaftans and ordered his forces to accompany the Mughals to the port of Basra, where they set sail to Thatta and finally Surat.

Murad IV himself commanded the Ottoman army in the last years of the war, and proved to be an outstanding field commander. He was the third last Ottoman Sultan to command an army on the battlefield. During his campaign to Iran, he annihilated all rebels in Anatolia and restored the order of the state.

The war was concluded by the Treaty of Kasrı Şirin in May 1639, which restored Mesopotamia to the Ottomans. After his return to Constantinople, he ordered respected statesmen of the Empire to prepare a new economic and political project to return to the Empire the old successful days.

Physical power

Murad IV was the last Warrior Sultan who led campaigns in front of his army and fought on the battlefield. His physical strength was phenomenal, which is described in detail on the books of Evliya Çelebi. He was especially known for his exceptional strength in wrestling – capable of fighting several opponents at the same time. His favorite weapon was a huge mace, weighing 60 kilograms (132 lbs), which he wielded effortlessly with a single hand^. Among his other favourite weapons are a longbow and a large two-handed broadsword weighing more than 50 kilograms (110 lbs). His weapons are today displayed at the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul, intact and well preserved.

Architecture

Sultan Murad IV put emphasis on architecture and in his period many monuments were erected. Some of them are Meydanı Mosque, Bayram Pasha Dervish Lodge, Tomb, Fountain, Primary School, Konya Serefeddin Mosque.

The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan had exchanged ambassadors with the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV, it was through these exchanges that he received Isa Muhammad Effendi and Ismail Effendi, two Turkish architects and students of the famous Koca Mimar Sinan Agha. Both of them later comprised among the Mughal team that would design and build the Taj Mahal.

Death

Murad IV died in Constantinople at the age of 27 in 1640. There are two separate claims on the cause of death. Western sources claim Murad IV, who had outlawed alcohol, died from cirrhosis of the liver. Ottoman sources claim that he died of gout.

On his deathbed, Murad IV ordered the execution of his mentally disabled brother, Ibrahim I (reigned 1640–48), which would have meant the end of the Ottoman line; but the order was not carried out.

 

Joseph Kony

Joseph Kony, the cause of countless of tears of grief and sorrow in Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

Joseph of Kony whose actions of terror held large portion of Uganda hostage for over 20 years. Joseph Kony whose actions of terror caused 2 million to flee their villages and homesteads in the Acholi and Lango areas of Uganda and settle in squalid Internally Displaced People Camps.  Joseph Kony who enslaved 35,000 or more children, kidnapping whole boarding schools under the cover of the night.  Joseph Kony who slashed and burned villages, settlements and even refugee camps, killing, raping, kidnapping and keeping a people under the yoke impending terror.  Joseph Kony whose LRA dismembered, cut off lips, ears, fingers, hands, feet off of the innocent to keep them in fear.  Joseph Kony who impoverished a whole region of Uganda through oppression and intimidation, through sheer terror.  Joseph Kony, who took young women, called them his wives, beat them into submission, raped and impregnated them, scarring them emotionally for life.

“Joseph Kony” – Who has eluded the Ugandan Army, the army of South Sudan, the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the army of the Central African Republic and the UN Peace keeping force inside of the Congo (MONUC).

Who is this man Joseph Kony?

Joseph Kony came into this world in April of 1963 (some sources claim 1961, or 1962, 1963 would be one year after Uganda’s Independence from Britain) in a house just outside of what is referred to as the Trading Center of Odek, 1½-hours drive from the town of Gulu.

Joseph Kony was born into an Acholi family in the midst of the Acholi People’s area of Uganda.  He was the last of six children, his father was Luigi Abol ( also called Cilio Obol), a teacher and very active in the Catholic Church. (The name Luigi would attributable to the fact that many of the Catholic missionaries were of Italian Origin).  His mother, who died on November 10th, was Nora Anek Oting 86 years old. Her dying wish was that her son Joseph Kony make peace with the government of Uganda and the people of Central and East Africa.

His family was not wealthy since teachers did not receive much of a salary, most likely the food on the table came from the family garden that his mother Nora Anek Oting tended with the help of the children.

Joseph Kony was not the brightest student, but he had a sense of humor, he was pleasant, polite, loved soccer (football) and he was one of the best Larakaraka dancers (traditional Acholi Dance) and he loved when others cheered him on.

Since his father was a lay preacher in the Catholic Church it be only natural that Joseph Kony wind up as one of the altar boys in the church where his father also served.

Joseph Kony attended Odek Primary School, if you went looking for it, you would only find some ruins today.   His education ended before he graduated and it is said that he joined his older brother Ginoni Okello who operated a traditional shrine outside of Odek and had become a witch doctor.  There he assisted his brother with the shrine and it is very likely that a lot of the mystical and occultist ways were formed in those days within Joseph Kony.

In the early and mid 80’s the now President Museveni was in the bush outside of Kampala and the soldiers fighting him were mostly Acholi or Langi.  In 1985, there was even a short-lived rule of an Acholi, President Okello.

The Acholi people felt that they were in power with one of their own as President.  Museveni and his National Resistance Army were perceived as wanting to take that power from the Acholi People.

In January of 1986, Yuweri Museveni’s army marched victoriously into Kampala while the army of Okello fled to the north and into South Sudan.  The end had come, so it was thought, then there was fear of retribution since Acholis had fought against the army whose government was now in power.

The scattered Acholi troops regrouped and formed the Uganda People’s Army.  Joseph Kony gave them his spiritual input that he had gained as altar boy and witch doctor apprentice and he recruited others to the cause.

It was1986 in Uganda, Museveni was in power, the Acholis seemingly defeated. Enter “Alice Lakwena- the cousin of Joseph Kony.”  An Acholi “Joan of Arc” (perceived as that by her people) who briefly came upon the scene to inspire thousands of Acholi Men into battle with sticks and stones with the promise that the bullets of the enemy would not penetrate their bodies  which had been anointed with water and oil. That the stones of the Acholi would turn into grenades as they were thrown, that the enemy, Museveni’s Army be routed and the land cleansed and the Acholis returned to power.

Her initial successes were most amazing, but as she and her troops attempted to cross the Nile near Jinja, Alice Auma Lakwena was routed by superior troops with superior weapons.  Alice fled to Kenya where she remained in a refugee camp until the time of her death in 2007.

The National Resistance Army rejoiced at their victory, but it was short-lived when it was announced that another rebel army had declared war on Kampala, led by Alice Lakwena’s cousin, the former altar boy Joseph Kony.

The land of the Acholi was going through a hard time.  The heavy hand of the government’s National Resistance Army was being felt everywhere.  Precious cattle were disappearing in the thousands.  A man’s worth was as to how many heads of cattle he owned, some Acholi lost hundreds of cattle in one night, people disappeared, and women were raped.  Accusation against the government troops abounded, something that is still discussed and disputed today.

Most of the government troops had fought the Acholi soldiers who had been the soldiers of the former government and they had been accused of hundreds of atrocities in the Luwero area near Kampala of stealing, murdering and raping civilians, so now some Ugandan government soldiers felt it was payback time.

Joseph Kony with his band of former soldiers (he was not into abducting children in those days) led some successful raids on government troops, the Acholi people once again thought that someone had come to restore their dignity, status, cattle, land and of course power. In those days, Kony’s plan was to overthrow the government rule Uganda according to the 10 commandments of the Old Testament.

Little did people in and near Gulu know that twenty some years of death, destruction, and abductions would await them.

The response to Kony’s victories was two fold, Betty Acan Bigombe, an Acholi was appointed Minister of State for Pacification of Northern Uganda, a title soon to be changed to something gentler such as Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister, Resident in Northern Uganda.  The second part was a military operation that was simply an iron fist birthed in frustration because of losses that Kony and his troops had inflicted upon the government army.

The military operation literally blocked out the northern Acholi region.  Politicians were arrested in fear that they were collaborating with Kony, a media-blackout took place.  There were also the alleged crimes against the civilian population that abounded in all corners of Acholi land.  Betty Bigombe and her staff started handing out bows and arrows to the Acholis to defend themselves against Joseph Kony in the small villages of northern Uganda.  This infuriated Kony.

The result was that Kony’s wrath turned against his own people. He felt betrayed.  His own people were now caught between the government army and their methods, and Kony and his retribution against the Acholis who he felt had deserted him. Kony also continued to attack the Army.

Kony issued a threat to the Acholi elders that they had cast him aside. Resulting in 250 innocent people being massacred.

In 1992, the abductions began with secondary schools for girls.  A group of 44 girls was abducted from Sacred Heart Secondary School and St. Mary’s Girls School near Gulu.  Both were boarding schools, the kidnappings began.  Joseph Kony was going to produce a new kind of Acholi people.  He would use young children that were a blank slate on which he could draw his ideas.  Shaping a new Acholi people, loyal to him, a pure people.  (shades of Adolf Hitler)

Joseph Kony would become President’s Museveni’s thorn in the flesh for years to come.  Joseph Kony also showed that he was different from his relative Alice Lakwena who had a strict moral code of behavior for her army. Though such a code existed at first it quickly faded along with all the Biblical rhetoric that Joseph Kony spewed out.  Kony’s religious rhetoric quickly lost its validity replaced by violenc.

Joseph Kony needed cash to buy weapons; he needed supplies to continue his war.  He would take food from villages around him, but weapons were something else.

Enter the Khartoum connection.  At this time, President Museveni was supporting the John Garang of the SPLA who was fighting the Khartoum in the south of Sudan.  Garang and Museveni and were close in thought, both had been in Tanzania at Dar es Salam and were friends.

The Khartoum government began to use Joseph Kony and the LRA as a proxy to do harm to Museveni and his government and also to become an irritant to John Garang’s SPLA in South Sudan.

The Khartoum support became evident in the smart uniforms the leaders in the SPLA wore and the type of weapons they used and are using.  This support is seen as ongoing even in 2009, though denied by the government of President Bashir in Khartoum.  (It is ironic that both Bashir and Kony have been indicted by the International Criminal Court)

The association with Khartoum also changed some of the up to now so called Christian ways, “Allah Akbar” could now be heard as LRA fighters raided villages, Friday became a Holy Day.  Pork was no longer served, and it is said that Kony received the name “Mohammed.”  A blending of animist, Christian beliefs along with some Islamic practices was now a part of the LRA. (Joseph Kony is not a Christian nor is he a Muslim – He is a person mis-guided by his demonic visions and his selfish desires for power, his theology consists of violence for violence sake.)

President Museveni entered into peace negotiations with Kony, but Kony used that time to regroup and get ready for next phase.

Kony and his troops had been receiving training in Sudan and other countries in guerilla warfare.  Things were heating up.  Kony had the weapons, Kony’s top leaders were being trained, they were ready for war but they would need more fighters, more foot soldiers and support personnel.

The answer to the need for troops began to rear its ugly head in full  in1994 when child abductions began in mass. Children were being taken from boarding schools at night, and boys brainwashed and forced to be killers-child soldiers of Uganda, while girls were forced to become sex slaves even though they were referred to as wives.  (Not surprisingly, many of these women upon release will say that their abuser such as Kony was a kind man and always apologized after beating them – the mind in captivity does strange things to many.)

Boys had to kill other boys, at times their own family in order not to be killed and prove their new loyalty.  Violence for violence sake became the rule of the day. Children were scarred for life, their childhood snatched from them, turned into ruthless killers, mindless robots doing the bidding of a crazed man.  Joseph Kony claims he never killed himself, he only heard the spirits and gave the orders, which were then put into marching orders.

Thousands were killed, maimed, kidnapped and displaced from their homes.  The dark of night had come to the north of Uganda.

The government-erected camps (Internally Displaced Persons Camps) were thousands were moved to. This was often done with a very short notice of just a few days.  The Acholi people and then the Langi were weeping as their children were taken from them, as their men were killed, the women were raped, and they moved into camps.

The camps were erected for the safety of the people but also in order to empty villages so that Kony had no support, no places to hide and less places to kidnap new recruits for his army.

This went on for years; no end seemed in sight. Acholi elders and religious leaders made appeals, lip service was given, overtures of kind gestures made by the government at times like sending Kony’s mother to Sudan to meet him (which did not take place.)  Kony would say one thing, but do another.

All the while the cries in the night ,of mothers losing their children, of fathers their son, the weeping continued for years.  Families lived in camps where before they had lived in villages with much cattle and gardens where to raise their food.  The Acholis always pushed their children to be educated, now they were suffering with no education.  Children grew up thinking that the source of food were NGO trucks rather than the rich soil their parents used to till.

Almost 2 million people were in the IDP camps, a whole generation of children grew up without their usual cultural ways.  Sadly, the camps did not guarantee protection from the LRA, there were times were a whole camp would be raided and burned, many dying as in a camp outside of Lira in the land of the Langi people.

Kampala was safe (for the most part, there were threats and actual attacks by rebels from Western Uganda) and thriving, while the northern region of Uganda was dying.

People accused the army, Kony and the LRA.  Everyone was pointing the finger but nothing was taking place to bring an end to the dilemma.  Kony seemed to escape every trap, every encounter with the government army.  The man with nine lives.  Some began to think, that just maybe he had mystical powers from his spirits.  That he was truly a man who was in touch with another realm.

The atmosphere in northern Uganda was tense.  In some towns such as Gulu, children would come to the town at night to seek shelter in fear of possible raids by the LRA and potential abductions.  They became the night commuters’ children growing up in fear for their lives, not knowing if their parents would be alive when they returned home the next morning.

The north had become the  killing fields of Uganda. The world stood by quietly for the most part while people died, were abducted, enslaved, brainwashed, starved.  Shades of Rwanda, now in the north of Uganda where a people were losing their identity and human dignity.

BBC called the situation in northern Uganda “Worse than Iraq.”  A United Nations report referred to Northern Uganda as “the most dangerous place to live in the world.”

In the meantime, a maniac, Joseph Kony, listening to his unholy spirits kept up his evil ways.  During the war, he is said to have had 50 girls or young women as concubines (he calls them wives), fathered a hundred children, displacing 2 million people, killing over 30,000 kidnapping up to 30,000 or more (some reports say 66,000 abducted children).  Burning and slashing the land of his own people.  Unlike his relative Alice Auma Lakwena, no one can call him an Acholi Patriot.  Alice Lakwena asked him to stop repeatedly, to no avail.  Kony continued his campaign of death and violence.

Joseph Kony is simply a sick man, misguided and misled by the demonic entities that visit him.  He has poisoned a nation, violated his own people and spread it to other nearby countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

The war kept on and on…in 2005, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Joseph Kony and some of his leaders for Crimes against Humanity. There are mixed feelings in Uganda regarding the warrants. It is felt the reason that a final Peace Treaty has never been signed is because of the warrants by the ICC.  Many Africans are quite critical of the ICC and its seeming selective ways of ignoring westerners but singling out Africans.

To incarcerate Kony in the Netherlands in a comfortable cell with good food, TV and medical treatment seems ludicrous to many her.  The thoughts are, let the Acholi people, let Ugandans handle him.  In some ways, it is the International Criminal Court that has delayed the signing of the final peace treaty.

Since July of 2006, there has been a cessation of hostilities agreement in force between the Ugandan government and the LRA.  Peace has slowly come to the shell shocked north, towns are rebuilding, the camps are mostly empty, and schools are open again, even though some have no buildings and meet under trees in the open.

Joseph Kony has not been inside of Uganda since that time in 2006, he has been in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, continuing his path of destruction especially after being attacked on the 14^th of December of 2008. Once again his vengeance came forth and many people died, including worshippers in a church on Christmas day.  Operation Lightning Thunder killed some LRA members, captured others, but split up Kony’s army into small groups that now increased their attacks on the Congolese, causing 200,000 to flee their homes, many innocent people have been killed and abduction attacks are once again being made.  Joseph Kony himself has kept quiet up to now, his army continuing carrying out what Kony knows best, a reign of terror.

The reality is, that this man, Kony, who claims to be divinely inspired, this man who twists the minds of young men and women, who scars hearts and minds of people, who rapes children’s sense of right and wrong and steals their soul.  This man Kony is in his heart fearful of being arrested and held accountable.  He stays in the bush,  he keeps up his ways, creating continual misery in Central Africa so that he can avoid accountability and imprisonment. (Presently in the Democratic Republic of Congo)

The war has become chic, westerners buzz about it on the internet, daily I get requests as to how many child soldiers there are? How many people has Kony abducted recently?  A game of abduction has even been created by a UK charity so that they you can experience in cyberspace of what it is like to be abducted and then find your mother. (Acholi people and others in Uganda have a real problem with some such things)

The reality is this, it is not a game, it is real life and it is a war.  Mothers and fathers all over the north of Uganda, now in the Congo are still weeping, not knowing if their son and daughter are dead or alive.  The actual LRA size is estimated to be around 1000 to 1200 with mothers and children, about 600 actual combatants.

Joseph Kony Hunt: Caesar Acellam, Top LRA Commander, Captured, Says Uganda Official

KAMPALA, Uganda — Ugandan forces captured a senior commander of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army after a brief fight with rebels near the Congo-Central African Republic border, an army official said Sunday, in what an analyst said was an “intelligence coup” for forces hunting for Kony.

Lt. Col. Abdul Rugumayo, intelligence chief for Uganda’s military operation against the LRA, said Caesar Acellam was captured Saturday with two other rebel fighters as they tried to cross a river called Mbomu.

Although Acellam is not one of the LRA commanders indicted along with Kony in 2005 by the International Criminal Court, Ugandan officials say he was one of Kony’s top military strategists and a reliable fighter.

“He is in good condition,” Rugumayo said of Acellam. “He was captured with two other rebels. They were in a group of 30 rebels.”

He said the others escaped.

Details of precisely how Acellam was captured were not available, but some analysts said it was possible he had just walked into the hands of Ugandan army officials.

“He’s been on the defection shelf for a long time,” said Angelo Izama, a political analyst with the Kampala-based security think tank Fanaka Kwawote. “This is a big intelligence coup for the Ugandan army.”

A Ugandan army official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said losing Acellam was a big blow to Kony, whose forces have become increasingly degraded by a lack of food and having to constantly move to elude capture.

“He is big fish, very big fish,” the official said of Acellam, who has been with the LRA for over 20 years. “He is one of the top division commanders.”

The official said Kony, who Ugandan officials suspect to be hiding somewhere in Sudan, has traditionally lived in bush camps significantly far from where his top commanders hide, apparently as a security precaution.

“Kony does not want his commanders near him,” he said. “He wants to be alone.”

Kony recently became the focus of international attention after the U.S. advocacy group Invisible Children made an online video seeking to make him famous. In 2005 the ICC indicted Kony, along with four other LRA commanders, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Two of them have since died.

Last year U.S. President Barack Obama sent 100 troops to help regional governments eliminate the LRA. But the manhunt for LRA leaders has proved tough, with the rebels moving in very small groups and avoiding technology. Encounters between Ugandan troops and the rebels are very rare.

Only about 200 LRA members remain the jungle, according to Ugandan officials.

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), also known as “King of the Beatniks” and “Father of the Hippies,” was an American writer, poet, artist, and novelist. He is most famous for his simple, confessional, and meandering writing style that describes his nomadic travel experiences captured throughout his novels, especially On the Road.

Early on in his college days, Kerouac embraced a bohemian lifestyle that lead him to take drug-fueled cross-country trips. He notes in his personal writings and in his novels that he rejected the values of the time and was seeking to break free from society’s restraints. These practices no doubt led to his life-long addictions and habitual drug use, including psilocybin and LSD. He also rejected traditional ideas about spirituality, and devoted time to studying Buddhism.

Kerouac often wrote of every person and place he encountered as being holy. Yet while his writings were suffused with religious imagery, it was usually stained with decadence. Perhaps he was searching for God, but the holiness he sought for himself was not contingent on any kind of morality. He instead resonated with the moral vacuum of his times and became one with it. His flirtation with Buddhism was a superficial one; he required drugs to understand it. His friends Gary Snyder and Alan Watts, on the other hand, were serious students of Buddhism and their lives were positively affected by it. None of the personal influences in his life helped him to understand that genuine spirituality is achieved only through disciplined efforts.

Jack Kerouac’s books and poems have often been referred to as the catalyst for the 1960 counterculture revolution. Tom Robbins, Richard Brautigan, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and others, have publicly testified to Kerouac’s influence on them.

His life story, as much as any figure from his time, is a testament to the results of a confused ideology that seeks spirituality with no moral boundaries to guide it.

Early Life

Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922 with the given name of Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac. He was the third and final child of Leo-Alcide Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque, working-class immigrants from Quebec, Canada. Jack’s father ran a print shop and published the Spotlight magazine. This early exposure to publishing, printing, and the written word piqued Kerouac’s already growing interest in the literary world. At the age of four, Kerouac’s elder brother, Gérard, was stricken with rheumatic fever and died at the age of nine. The family, and especially Jack, was heartbroken. Jack believed that from that time on Gerard served as his guardian angel, and followed him throughout his life. This belief, along with his memories of his beloved brother, inspired him to write his book Visions of Gerard.

Nevertheless, his family’s traditional Catholic values began to fall by the wayside. His brother’s death seemed to make him and his father angry at God and religion. When the relationship between Jack and his father began to deteriorate, that anger in Jack turned into rage and rebellion. He went from a strong Catholic upbringing to a lifestyle of no moral boundaries.

Kerouac grew up speaking a dialect of French-Canadian known as joual. He spoke English as a second language and didn’t begin learning it until he was almost six years old. Kerouac played sports extensively, liked to take long hikes, and wrote little diaries and short stories. He was a sociable child who made friends easily, but his main companion during his youth and adulthood was the constant notebook he would carry with him wherever he went. He loved to write letters that were peppered with details about thoughts he was having, current world situations, and the actions of his daily life. He says his early desires to write were inspired by the radio show “The Shadow” and the writings of Thomas Wolfe, whose style he modeled in his first novel.

Education was an important part of Kerouac’s early life, but he soon lost interest in its formalities. He was a very bright student who skipped the sixth grade. He went to high school in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Horace Mann School for Boys, and then, in 1939 he attended Columbia University in New York City. Kerouac was a star athlete who earned a football scholarship from Columbia. By the time he finished high school he knew that he wanted to be a writer so he deliberately skipped classes at Columbia to stay in his room and write. His disenchantment with college increased when he broke his leg at the beginning of the football season during his freshman year and as he continually had disagreements with his coach about playing time.

When Kerouac left Columbia in 1941, his budding wanderlust led him to join the merchant marines in 1942, and in February 1943 he enlisted in the United States Navy. He was discharged from the Navy while still in boot camp on psychiatric grounds for “indifferent disposition.”

He returned to New York after his discharge and sought refuge with his former girlfriend Edie Parker. They married in 1944 and while living in a small apartment he met and formed strong bonds with Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs. These three men, more than any other people in Kerouac’s life, influenced him, inspired him, and were the subjects of many of his writings. Their influence included experimentation with religious practices, sexual preferences, and hallucinogenic drugs.

These men were to become his traveling partners as he roamed the United States. It was the experiences Kerouac had while living and traveling with these men that led him to describe his friends and his generation as the so-called Beat Generation. In a conversation with novelist John Clellon Holmes in 1948, Kerouac commented on his generation by saying, “Ah, this is nothing but a beat generation.” Holmes wrote an article in The New York Times shortly thereafter entitled “This is the Beat Generation,” and the name stuck.

While he was still working on his breakthrough novel On the Road his marriage to Edie Parker was annulled and he remarried in 1950, this time to Joan Haverty. Not long after Kerouac finished his manuscript in 1951, Haverty threw him out and filed for divorce, despite being pregnant with Kerouac’s daughter.

Later Life

Just as Burroughs and Cassady were Kerouac’s mentors in his young adulthood, Gary Snyder took this role later in Kerouac’s life. The Dharma Bums details Kerouac’s newfound devotion to Buddhism and his traveling adventures with Snyder. The main character in the novel is based on Gary Snyder’s personality and his ideas. Snyder’s influence went beyond Jack Kerouac’s writings and into his personal life when he took a job as a fire lookout for several months because Snyder recommended taking time to be with nature. Kerouac gives an account of that summer, which was a difficult one for him, in his novel, Desolation Angels. Snyder spent more than a decade studying Zen Buddhism in the Japan and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for his poetry collection “Turtle Island.” Kerouac’s novel Big Sur is based on the time spent with the Episcopalian priest turned Zen Buddhist scholar Alan Watts. Big Sur is considered his last great novel.

With the acclaim of On the Road, Jack Kerouac soon became a household celebrity. Ironically, this rise to fame led to a rapid downward spiral in his personal life. Kerouac (the book character) and Kerouac (the conservative Catholic) came into severe conflict and his drinking and drug use intensified. He was uneasy and unhappy.

He moved in with his mother and she continued to live with him for the rest of his life. Just three years before he died he married Stella Sampas, the sister of his childhood friend Sebastian Sampas, who died fighting in Europe during World War II. They continued to live with his mother Gabrielle. He continued to write after Big Sur, but the writings were sad and slower and showed a very disconnected soul. As his depression and drunkenness worsened, Kerouac became reclusive, staying at home, playing with the same deck of cards, and giving up all of his Buddhist beliefs and replacing them with the devout Catholicism of his mother.

Kerouac was rushed to St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, on October 20, 1969. He died the following day from an internal hemorrhage that was the result of cirrhosis of the liver. He had been experiencing severe abdominal pain in direct relation to a life of heavy alcoholism and drug use. He was buried in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.

In 1985 John Antonelli made a documentary film called Kerouac, the Movie that shows rare footage of reading from On the Road and “Visions of Cody” from The Tonight Show with Steve Allen in 1957.

On May 22, 2001, Jim Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts professional football team, bought the original “On the Road” manuscript for $2.2 million at Christies Auction House in New York City. In 2002 the New York Public Library acquired a major portion of the remaining Kerouac archives that included letters, journals, notebooks, and other manuscripts.

Career

Kerouac’s first novel was The Town and the City, published in 1950. Kerouac’s father died in his arms in 1946, and he began writing the book almost immediately after his death. The novel, like all of Kerouac’s novels, was autobiographical, and told of the decline of his own family.

The whole family never really recovered from Gerard’s death. His mother fell back on her Catholicism to deal with it while his father rejected it. He refused to attend mass, claiming the church was no more than a business organization out for a profit. His son’s death, and the subsequent failure of his business and then Jack’s departure from Columbia left Leo bitter. His relationship with Jack soured as he called him a “bum,” and called his friends “dope fiends, crooks and “misfits.” His life became chain smoking, drinking, and gambling.

Kerouac’s parents had moved from Lowell, Massachusetts to Queens, New York when Kerouac enrolled in Columbia University. The novel dealt with Kerouac’s mixed feelings about the decline of his parent’s small town values and his own increasingly wild lifestyle in the city. It received brief critical acclaim, but Kerouac always thought of it as a failure. It was patterned after the style of his favorite author, Thomas Wolfe. It was not until Kerouac’s second novel that he put his own revolutionary stamp on his writings.

In 1951 Kerouac took the ideas from various brief writings and decided to come at those ideas from another direction. He sat down to write and in just three weeks he created what would eventually be his biggest success, On the Road. He didn’t sleep, he barely ate, and his main fuel was an amalgam of Benzedrine, a widely-abused commercial version of the stimulant amphetamine and coffee (caffeine). In this manic state Jack taped together long strips of Japanese drawing paper that formed a roll that could be fed continuously through his typewriter. The finished work was one paragraph with no punctuation marks. He said that he was writing the way that Neal Cassady spoke, “in a rush of madness with no mental hesitation.”

Kerouac’s initial efforts to get it published were rejected because of the odd and unfamiliar writing style, as well as its favorable portrayal of minority and marginalized social groups. After six years of attempts, Viking Press finally purchased On the Road, but he had to agree to clean up the more explicit passages..

The year 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the first publishing of On the Road. To celebrate this milestone, the book is scheduled to be re-released by Viking Press in its original uncensored form, with text taken straight from the original scroll.

On the Road is an autobiographical account of Kerouac’s road trip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady. The main character, Sal Paradise, is modeled after Kerouac and the character of Dean Moriarty was created from the experiences and letters of Neal Cassady. Kerouac’s novel is the defining work of the Beat Generation.

Kerouac’s friendship with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso, among others, defined a generation. Kerouac also wrote and narrated a “Beat” movie entitled Pull My Daisy in 1958. He wrote many of his novels during the 1950s, yet none of them were published during that time. It was only when he and his friends began to get a group of followers in San Francisco that the publishers began to take any notice of Kerouac’s writing. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder were underground celebrities because of their constant poetry readings. This led to the eventual publication of On the Road as well The Dharma Bums, which many have dubbed the sequel to On the Road.

Style

One of the most famous sentences ever penned by Kerouac is “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” This quote from On the Road demonstrates what Kerouac called his original technique of “spontaneous prose.”

His style is similar to the “stream of consciousness” technique. His motto was “First thought=best thought,” and thus many of his books, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans, were written in a matter of weeks, instead of years like his some of his contemporaries. Kerouac claimed that this style was greatly influenced by the exploding jazz era of his time. More specifically, it was the effect of the bebop genre established by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others that gave feeling and mood to much of Kerouac’s writings.

Kerouac’s writing centered around the idea of breath (borrowed from jazz and from Buddhist meditation). Connected to this idea also came a disdain for the full stop or period, instead he would much rather use a long dash that he felt gave his writings a sense of connectedness. This prolific use of dashes caused his works, when read aloud, to sound as if they had their own unique rhythm. Thus his works were compared to the lyrics and music of jazz.

Unlike many writers who liked to keep their methods and ideas secret, Kerouac never tired of talking about his inspiration and his style. Often influenced by drugs and alcohol, Kerouac could talk to anyone for hours about how he wrote and why he wrote. These indiscretions were frowned upon by Ginsberg, who felt that Kerouac’s drunken openness would make it more difficult for him to sell his work to a publisher. Nevertheless, Kerouac decided to write down his method for anyone who wanted to know how write like him. The most specific directions he gave on his spontaneous prose can be found in [“Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.”

Although Kerouac made a name for himself during his lifetime, he had many critics. Among them were Truman Capote, who described Kerouac’s quick writing ability by saying, “That’s not writing, it’s typewriting.”

It is a fact, however, that although his initial draft may have been spontaneous, he did spend days perfecting many of his writings. This is most likely attributed to the fact that Kerouac was constantly trying to get his work published during the 1950s and thus trying to adjust to various publishers’ standards. Kerouac documented his struggles, his revisions, and his disappointments in a vast number of letters he wrote that were also written in his Spontaneous Prose style.

Jumbo

Jumbo (1861 – September 15, 1885) was a large African Bush Elephant, born 1861 in the French Sudan – present-day Mali – imported to a Paris zoo, transferred to the London Zoo in 1865, and sold in 1882 to P. T. Barnum, for the circus.

The giant elephant’s name has spawned the common word “jumbo”, meaning large in size.

History

Jumbo was born in 1861 in the French Sudan, whence he was imported to France and kept in the old zoo Jardin des Plantes, near the railway station Gare d’Austerlitz in Paris. In 1865 he was transferred to the London Zoo, where he became famous for giving rides to visitors, especially children. The London zookeepers gave Jumbo his name; it is likely a variation of one of two Swahili words: jambo, which means “hello” or jumbe, which means “chief”.

Jumbo was sold in 1881 to P. T. Barnum, owner of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, known as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” for 10,000 dollars. When Barnum had offered to buy Jumbo, 100,000 school children wrote to Queen Victoria begging her not to sell the elephant. In New York, Barnum exhibited the elephant at Madison Square Garden, earning enough from the enormous crowds to recoup the money he spent to buy the animal.

Jumbo’s height, estimated to be 3.25 metres (10.7 ft) in the London Zoo, was claimed to be approximately 4 metres (13.1 ft) by the time of his death.

Death

Jumbo died at a railway classification yard in Canada at St. Thomas, Ontario, where he was hit and fatally wounded by a locomotive. Barnum afterwards told the story that Jumbo died saving a young circus elephant, Tom Thumb, from being hit by the locomotive, but other witnesses did not support this.

Barnum’s story says that the younger elephant, Tom Thumb, was on the railroad tracks. Jumbo was walking up to lead him to safety, but an unexpected locomotive hit Tom Thumb, killing him instantly. Because of this, the locomotive derailed and hit Jumbo, killing him too.

Many metallic objects were found in the elephant’s stomach, including pennies, nickels, dimes, keys, and rivets.

Jumbo’s skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The elephant’s heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo’s hide was stuffed by William J. Critchley and Carl Akeley, both of Ward’s Natural Science, and the mounted specimen traveled with Barnum’s circus for a number of years. In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975, coincidentally a fate that befell many of Barnum’s exhibits during his own lifetime.

The great elephant’s ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director, while his taxidermied tail, removed during earlier renovations, resides in the holdings of the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives. A statue of an elephant, dubbed “Jumbo”, was purchased from an amusement park and placed on the Tufts campus after the fire. Jumbo became the university’s mascot, and remains such to this day.

 

The Siege of Fort William Henry

The Siege of Fort William Henry was conducted in August 1757 by French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm against the British-held Fort William Henry. The fort, located at the southern end of Lake George, on the frontier between the British Province of New York and the French Province of Canada, was garrisoned by a poorly supported force of British regulars and provincial militia led by Lieutenant Colonel George Monro. After several days of bombardment, Monro surrendered to Montcalm, whose force included nearly 2,000 Indians from a large number of tribes. The terms of surrender included the withdrawal of the garrison to Fort Edward, with specific terms that the French military protect the British from the Indians as they withdrew from the area.

In one of the most notorious incidents of the French and Indian War, Montcalm’s Indian allies violated the agreed terms of surrender and attacked the British column, which had been deprived of ammunition, as it left the fort. They killed and scalped a significant number of soldiers, took as captives women, children, servants, and slaves, and slaughtered sick and wounded prisoners. Early accounts of the events called it a massacre, and implied that as many as 1,500 people were killed, even though it is unlikely more than 200 people (less than 10% of the British fighting strength) were actually killed in the massacre.

The exact role of Montcalm and other French leaders in encouraging or defending against the actions of their allies, and the total number of casualties incurred as a result of their actions, is a subject of historical debate. The memory of the killings influenced the actions of British military leaders, especially those of British General Jeffery Amherst, for the remainder of the war.

Background

The French and Indian War started in 1754 over territorial disputes between the North American colonies of France and Great Britain in areas that are now western Pennsylvania and upstate New York. The first few years of the war had not gone particularly well for the British. A major expedition by General Edward Braddock in 1755 ended in disaster, and British military leaders were unable to mount any campaigns the following year. In a major setback, a French and Indian army led by General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm captured the garrison and destroyed fortifications in the Battle of Fort Oswego in August 1756. In July 1756 the Earl of Loudoun arrived to take command of the British forces in North America, replacing William Shirley, who had temporarily assumed command after Braddock’s death.

British planning

Loudoun’s plan for the 1757 campaign was submitted to the government in London in September 1756, and was focused on a single expedition aimed at the heart of New France, the city of Quebec. It called for a purely defensive postures along the frontier with New France, including the contested corridor of the Hudson River and Lake Champlain between Albany, New York and Montreal. Following the Battle of Lake George in 1755, the French had begun construction of Fort Carillon (now known as Fort Ticonderoga) near the southern end of Lake Champlain, while the British had built Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George, and Fort Edward on the Hudson River, about 16 miles (26 km) south of Fort William Henry. The area between William Henry and Carillon was a wilderness dominated by Lake George that historian Ian Steele described as “a military waterway that left opposing cannons only a few days apart.”

Loudoun’s plan depended on the expedition’s timely arrival at Quebec, so that French troops would not have the opportunity to move against targets on the frontier, and would instead be needed to defend the heartland of the province of Canada along the Saint Lawrence River. However, political turmoil in London over the progress of the Seven Years’ War both in North America and in Europe resulted in a change of power, with William Pitt the Elder rising to take control over military matters. Loudoun consequently did not receive any feedback from London on his proposed campaign until March 1757. Before this feedback arrived he developed plans for the expedition to Quebec, and worked with the provincial governors of the Thirteen Colonies to develop plans for a coordinated defence of the frontier, including the allotment of militia quotas to each province.

When William Pitt’s instructions finally reached Loudoun in March 1757, they called for the expedition to first target Louisbourg on the Atlantic coast of Île Royale, now known as Cape Breton Island. Although this did not materially affect the planning of the expedition, it was to have significant consequences on the frontier. The French forces on the Saint Lawrence would be too far from Louisbourg to support it, and would consequently be free to act elsewhere. Loudoun assigned his best troops to the Louisbourg expedition, and placed Brigadier General Daniel Webb in command of the New York frontier. He was given about 2,000 regulars, primarily from the 35th and 60th (Royal American) Regiments. The provinces were to supply Webb with about 5,000 militia.

French planning

Following the success of his 1756 assault on Fort Oswego, Montcalm had been seeking an opportunity to deal with the British position at Fort William Henry, since it provided the British with a launching point for attacks against Fort Carillon. He was initially hesitant to commit his limited resources against Fort William Henry without knowing more about the disposition of British forces. Intelligence provided by spies in London arrived in the spring, indicating that the British target was probably Louisbourg. This suggested that troop levels on the British side of the frontier might be low enough to make an attack on Fort William Henry feasible. This idea was further supported after the French questioned deserters and captives taken during periodic scouting and raiding expeditions that both sides conducted, including one resulting in the January Battle on Snowshoes.

As early as December 1756, New France’s governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, began the process of recruiting Indians for the following summer’s campaign. Fueled by stories circulated by Indian participants in the capture of Oswego, this drive was highly successful, drawing nearly 1,000 warriors from the Pays d’en Haut (the more remote regions of New France) to Montreal by June 1757. Another 800 Indians were recruited from tribes that lived closer to the Saint Lawrence.

British preparations

Fort William Henry, built in the fall of 1755, was a roughly square fortification with bastions on the corners, in a design that was intended to repel Indian attacks but was not necessarily sufficient to withstand attack from an enemy that had artillery. Its walls were 30 feet (9.1 m) thick, with log facings surrounding an earthen filling. Inside the fort were wooden barracks two stories high, built around the parade ground. Its magazine was in the northeast bastion, and its hospital was located in the southeast bastion. The fort was surrounded on three sides by a dry moat, with the fourth side sloping down to the lake. The only access to the fort was by a bridge across the moat. The fort was only capable of housing four to five hundred men; additional troops were quartered in an entrenched camp 750 yards (690 m) southeast of the fort, near the site of the 1755 Battle of Lake George.

During the winter of 1756–57, Fort William Henry was garrisoned by several hundred men from the 44th Foot under Major Will Eyre. In March 1757 the French sent an army of 1,500 to attack the fort under the command of the governor’s brother, Pierre de Rigaud. Composed primarily of colonial troupes de la marine, militia, and Indians, and without heavy weapons, they besieged the fort for four days, destroying outbuildings and a large number of watercraft before retreating. Eyre and his men were replaced by Lieutenant Colonel George Monro and the 35th Foot in the spring. Monro established his headquarters in the entrenched camp, where most of his men were located.

French preparations

The Indians that assembled at Montreal were sent south to Fort Carillon, where they joined the French regiments of Béarn and Royal Roussillon under François-Charles de Bourlamaque, and those of La Sarre, Guyenne, Languedoc, and la Reine under François de Gaston, Chevalier de Lévis. Combined with the troupes de la marine, militia companies, and the arriving Indians, the force accumulated at Carillon amounted to 8,000 men.

While at Carillon, the French leadership had difficulty controlling the behaviour of its Indian allies. Although they did stop one group from forcing a British prisoner to run the gantlet, a group of Ottawas were not stopped when it was observed that they were ritually cannibalizing another prisoner. French authorities were also frustrated in their ability to limit the Indians’ taking of more than their allotted share of rations. Montcalm’s aide, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, observed that attempts to curb this activity would have resulted in the loss of some of these forces. In another prelude of things to come, a large number of prisoners were taken on 23 July in the Battle of Sabbath Day Point, some of whom were also ritually cannibalized before Montcalm managed to convince the Indians to instead send the captives to Montreal to be sold as slaves.

Prelude

Webb, who commanded the area from his base at Fort Edward, received intelligence in April that the French were accumulating resources and troops at Carillon. News of continued French activity arrived with a captive taken in mid-July. Following an attack by Joseph Marin de la Malgue on a work crew near Fort Edward on 23 July, Webb travelled to Fort William Henry with a party of Connecticut rangers led by Major Israel Putnam, and sent a detachment of them onto the lake for reconnaissance. They returned with word that Indians were encamped on islands in the lake about 18 miles (29 km) from the fort. Swearing Putnam and his rangers to secrecy, Webb returned to Fort Edward, and on 2 August sent Lieutenant Colonel John Young with 200 regulars and 800 Massachusetts militia to reinforce the garrison at William Henry. This raised the size of the garrison to about 2,500, although several hundred of these were ill, some with smallpox.

Siege

While Montcalm’s Indian allies had already begun to move south, his advance force of French troops departed from Carillon on 30 July under Lévis’ command, travelling overland along Lake George’s western shore because the expedition did not have enough boats to carry the entire force. Montcalm and the remaining forces sailed the next day, and met with Lévis for the night at Ganaouske Bay. The next night, Lévis camped just 3 miles (4.8 km) from Fort William Henry, with Montcalm not far behind. Early on the morning of 3 August, Lévis and the Canadians blocked the road between Edward and William Henry, skirmishing with the recently arrived Massachusetts militia. Montcalm summoned Monro to surrender at 11:00 am. Monro refused, and sent messengers south to Fort Edward, indicating the dire nature of the situation and requesting reinforcements. Webb, feeling threatened by Lévis, refused to send any of his estimated 1,600 men north, since they were all that stood between the French and Albany. He wrote to Monro on 4 August that he should negotiate the best terms possible; this communication was intercepted and delivered to Montcalm.

Montcalm, in the meantime, ordered Bourlamaque to begin siege operations. The French opened trenches to the northwest of the fort with the objective of bringing their artillery to bear against the fort’s northwest bastion. On 5 August, French guns began firing on the fort from 2,000 yards (1,800 m), a spectacle the large Indian contingent relished. The next day a second battery opened fire from 900 feet (270 m) further along the same trench, creating a crossfire. The effect of the garrison’s return fire was limited to driving French guards from the trenches, and some of the fort’s guns were either dismounted or burst due to the stress of use. On 7 August, Montcalm sent Bougainville to the fort under a truce flag to deliver the intercepted dispatch. By then the fort’s walls had been breached, many of its guns were useless, and the garrison had taken significant casualties. After another day of bombardment by the French, during which their trenches approached another 250 yards (230 m), Monro raised the white flag to open negotiations.

Massacre

The terms of surrender were that the British and their camp followers would be allowed to withdraw, under French escort, to Fort Edward, with the full honours of war, on condition that they refrain from fighting for 18 months. They were allowed to keep their muskets and a single symbolic cannon, but no ammunition. In addition, British authorities were to release French prisoners within three months.

Montcalm, before agreeing to these terms, tried to make sure that his Indian allies understood them, and that the chiefs would undertake to restrain their men. This process was complicated by the diversity within the Indian camp, which included some warriors who spoke languages not understood by any European present. The British garrison was then evacuated from the fort to the entrenched camp, and Monro was quartered in the French camp. The Indians then entered the fort and plundered it, butchering some of the wounded and sick that the British had left behind. The French guards posted around the entrenched camp were only somewhat successful at keeping the Indians out of that area, and it took significant effort to prevent plunder and scalping there. Montcalm and Monro initially planned to march the prisoners south the following morning, but after seeing the Indian bloodlust, decided to attempt the march that night. When the Indians became aware that the British were getting ready to move, a large number of them massed around the camp, causing the leaders to call off the march until morning.

The next morning, even before the British column began to form up for the march to Fort Edward, the Indians renewed attacks on the largely defenceless British. At 5 am, Indians entered huts in the fort housing wounded British who were supposed to be under the care of French doctors, and killed and scalped them. Monro complained that the terms of capitulation had been violated, but his contingent was forced to surrender some of its baggage in order to even be able to begin the march. As they marched off, they were harassed by the swarming Indians, who snatched at them, grabbing for weapons and clothing, and pulling away with force those that resisted their actions, including many of the women, children, servants and slaves. As the last of the men left the encampment, a war whoop sounded, and a contingent of Abenaki warriors seized a number of men at the rear of the column.

Although Montcalm and other French officers attempted to stop further attacks, others did not, and some explicitly refused to provide further protection to the British. At this point, the column dissolved, as some tried to escape the Indian onslaught, while others actively tried to defend themselves. Massachusetts Colonel Joseph Frye reported that he was stripped of much of his clothing and repeatedly threatened. He fled into the woods, and did not reach Fort Edward until 12 August.

“At last with great difficulty the troops got from the Retrenchment, but they were no sooner out than the savages fell upon our rear, killing and scalping, which occasioned an order for a halt, done in great confusion at last, but, as soon as those in the front knew what was doing in the rear they again pressed forward, and thus the confusion continued & encreased till we came to the advanced guard of the French, the savages still carrying away Officers, privates, women and children, some of which later they kill’d & scalpt in the road. This horrid scene of blood and slaughter obliged our officers to apply to the French Guard for protection, which they refus’d told them they must take to the woods and shift for themselves…”

— Joseph Frye

Estimates of the numbers killed, wounded, and taken captive during this time vary widely. Ian Steele has compiled estimates ranging from 200 to 1,500. His detailed reconstruction of the siege and its aftermath indicates that the final tally of British missing and dead ranges from 69 to 184, at most 7.5% of the 2,308 who surrendered.

Aftermath

On the afternoon after the massacre, most of the Indians left, heading back to their homes. Montcalm was able to secure the release of 500 captives they had taken, but they still took with them another 200. The French remained at the site for several days, destroying what remained of the British works before leaving on 18 August and returning to Fort Carillon. For unknown reasons, Montcalm decided not to follow up his victory with an attack on Fort Edward. Many reasons have been proposed justifying his decision, including the departure of many (but not all) of the Indians, a shortage of provisions, the lack of draft animals to assist in the portage to the Hudson, and the need for the Canadian militia to return home in time to participate in the harvest.

Word of the French movements had reached the influential British Indian agent William Johnson on 1 August. Unlike Webb, he acted with haste, and arrived at Fort Edward on 6 August with 1,500 militia and 150 Indians. In a move that infuriated Johnson, Webb refused to allow him to advance toward Fort William Henry, apparently believing a French deserter’s report that the French army was 11,000 men strong, and that any attempt at relief was futile given the available forces.

Return of captives

On 14 August, Montcalm wrote letters to Loudoun and Webb, apologising for the behaviour of the Indians, but also attempting to justify it. Many captives that were taken to Montreal by the Indians were also eventually repatriated through prisoner exchanges negotiated by Governor Vaudreuil. On 27 September a small British fleet left Quebec, carrying paroled or exchanged prisoners taken in a variety of actions including those at Fort William Henry and Oswego. When the fleet arrived at Halifax, about 300 people captured at Fort William Henry were returned to the colonies. The fleet continued on to Europe, where a few more former captives were released; some of these also eventually returned to the colonies.

Consequences

General Webb was recalled because of his actions; William Johnson wrote that Webb was “the only Englishman [I] ever knew who was a coward.” Lord Loudoun was also recalled, although this occurred primarily because of the failure of the Louisbourg expedition. Colonel Monro died in November 1757, of apoplexy that some historians have suggested was caused by anger over Webb’s failure to support him.

Lord Loudoun, upset over the event, delayed implementing the release of French prisoners promised as part of the terms of surrender. General James Abercrombie, who succeeded Loudoun as commander-in-chief, was asked by paroled members of the 35th Foot to void the agreement so that they would be free to serve in 1758; this he did, and they went on to serve under Jeffery Amherst in his successful British expedition against Louisbourg in 1758. Amherst, who also presided over the surrender of Montreal in 1760, refused the surrendering garrisons at Louisbourg and Montreal the normal honours of war, due in part to the French failure to uphold the terms of capitulation in this action.

Legacy

The British (and later Americans) never rebuilt anything on the site of Fort William Henry, which lay in ruins for about 200 years. In the 1950s, excavation at the site eventually led to the reconstruction of Fort William Henry as a tourist destination for the town of Lake George.

Many colonial accounts of the time focused on the plundering perpetrated by the Indians, and the fact that those who resisted them were killed, using words like “massacre” even though casualty numbers were uncertain. The later releases of captives did not receive the same level of press coverage. The events of the battle and subsequent killings were depicted in the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper and in film adaptations of the book. Cooper’s description of the events contains numerous inaccuracies, but his work, and the sometimes lurid descriptions of the event by early historians like Benson Lossing and Francis Parkman, led to the belief that many more people died than actually did. Lossing wrote that “fifteen hundred [people] were butchered or carried into hopeless captivity”, when many more were captured than killed, and even many of those captured were eventually freed.

Historians disagree on where to assign responsibility for the Indian actions. Francis Jennings contends that Montcalm anticipated what was going to happen, deliberately ignored it when it did happen, and only stepped in after the atrocities were well under way. In his opinion, the account by Bougainville, who left for Montreal on the night of 9 August and was not present at the massacre, was written as a whitewash to protect Montcalm. Parkman is more vigorous in his defence of Montcalm, claiming that he and other French officers did what they could to prevent atrocities, but were powerless to stop the onslaught.

Ian Steele notes that two primary accounts dominate much of the historical record. The first is the record compiled by Montcalm, including the terms of surrender and his letters to Webb and Loudoun, which received wide publication in the colonies (both French and British) and in Europe. The second was the 1778 publication of a book by Jonathan Carver, an explorer who served in the Massachusetts militia and was present at the siege. According to Steele, Carver originated, without any supporting analysis or justification, the idea that as many as 1,500 people had been “killed or made prisoner” in his widely popular work. Yale College president Timothy Dwight, in a history published posthumously in 1822, apparently coined the phrase “massacre at Fort William Henry”, based on Carver’s work; his book and Carver’s were likely influences on Cooper, and tended to fault Montcalm for the Indian transgressions. Steele himself adopts a more nuanced view of the underlying cause of the massacre. Montcalm and the French leaders repeatedly promised the Indians opportunities for the glory and trophies of war, including plunder, scalping, and the taking of captives. In the aftermath of the Battle of Sabbath Day Point, captives taken were ransomed, meaning the Indians had no visible trophies. The terms of surrender at Fort William Henry effectively denied the Indians any significant opportunities for plunder: the war provisions were claimed by the French army, and personal effects of the British were to stay with them, leaving nothing for the Indians. According to Steele, this bred resentment, as it appeared that the French were conspiring with their enemies (the British) against their friends (the Indians), leaving them without any promised war trophies.

Participating Indian nations

According to historian William Nester, a large number of tribal nations were present during the siege. Some were only represented by a few individual warriors. Some individuals were estimated to travel 1,500 miles (2,400 km) to join the French, coming from as far away as the Mississippi River and Hudson Bay. Nester claims that some of the atrocities, which included the murder and scalping of sick individuals and the digging up of bodies for plunder and scalping, may have resulted in many Indians becoming infected with smallpox, which they then carried into their communities. The devastation wrought by the disease in the following years had a notable effect on Indian participation in the French campaigns of the following years. The tribes that Nester lists are:

• Abenaki
• Algonquin
• Fox
• Huron
• Iowa
• “Canadian” Iroquois
• Menominee
• Miami
• Mi’kmaq
• Mississauga
• Nipissing
• Ojibwe
• Onondaga
• Ottawa
• Potawatomi
• Sac
• Tetes-de-Boules

 

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Ponte Palacios y Blanc

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Ponte Palacios y Blanco (July 24, 1783 – December 17, 1830) was a South American independence leader. Credited with leading the fight for independence in what are now the countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia, he is revered as a liberator in those countries—although the Bolivarian dream of a unified America never came to realization.

Bolivar is known as “El Libertador,” The Liberator. The Spanish crown had ruled its American colonies through vice regencies, with the former Aztec Empire, the former Incan Empire, and Buenos Aires being the three largest. One-fifth of all of the gold, precious stones and other wealth extracted from the Americas were the property of the King. The viceroys, who represented the King and were appointed for five year terms, and other key holders of power had to be not only pure Europeans but they had to have been born in Europe. Europeans born in Latin America were referred to as criollos or Creoles. Although they might accumulate great material wealth, they could not hold political office. This sense of political disenfranchisement, as well as Spain’s insistence on being Latin America’s only European trade partner, led to a growing sense of alienation and to the calls to follow the example of the colonies of North America by gaining independence from Spain.

Although Bolivar has become known as the chief architect of Latin America’s independence and was ceaseless in his dedication to independence and in his love for Latin America, he is often criticized for having focused too much on securing his place in history as the father of Latin American independence. Bolivar’s own inability to build coalitions with other key players in Latin American independence such as Francisco de Miranda and, most importantly, with Jose Antonio de San Martin, the liberator, and “the Protector” of the Southern Cone helps to explain why, even before the end of Bolivar’s life, Latin America had splintered into military-controlled fiefdoms, which would define Latin America’s political evolution and legacy.

Family heritage and early life

The Bolívar aristocratic bloodline derives from Puebla de Bolíbar (also Bolívar or Bolívar, today part of the municipality of Ziortza-Bolibar), a small village in the Basque county of Biscay (Spain), and is the origin of their surname. A portion of their wealth by the 1600s came from the Aroa River gold and copper mines in Venezuela.

By the 1500s, rumors about rich gold deposits around the rivers Yaracuy, Santa Cruz, and Aroa brought Spanish settlers, including members of the Bolivar family, to the region. In 1605, more precise locations of ores became known, particularly in a small valley lateral to the Aroa River next to La Quebrada de Las Minas.

In 1632, gold was first mined, leading to further discoveries of extensive copper deposits. Towards the later 1600s, copper was exploited with the name “Cobre Caracas.” These mines became property of Simón Bolívar’s family.

Later in his life as a revolutionary, Bolivar used part of the mineral income to help to finance the South American revolutionary wars although the British Empire was a prime contributor because of Britain’s interest in gaining access to the rich trade opportunities in the region. Some people claim that the Bolivar family grew to prominence before gaining great wealth. For example, the Cathedral of Caracas, founded in 1575, has a side chapel dedicated to Simón Bolívar’s family.

Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, in modern-day Venezuela, into an aristocratic family, and educated by different tutors following the death of his parents. Among his tutors was Simón Rodríguez, whose ideas and educational style heavily influenced the young Bolivar.

Following the death of his parents, he went to Spain in 1799, to complete his education. There he married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa in 1802, but on a brief return visit to Venezuela in 1803, she succumbed to yellow fever. Bolívar returned to Europe in 1804, and for a time was part of Napoleon’s retinue.

El Libertador (The Liberator)

Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1807, and, when Napoleon made Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain and its colonies in 1808, he participated in the resistance juntas in South America. Spanish America being placed under the auspices of a French ruler (even if he had assumed the Spanish crown) contributed to the distancing between Latin America and Spain.

The Caracas junta declared its independence in 1810, and Bolívar was sent to England on a diplomatic mission.

Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1811.

In July 1812, the independence movement leader Francisco de Miranda surrendered, and Bolívar had to flee to Cartagena de Indias. It is argued that Bolivar played a role in Miranda’s arrest and that Miranda’s disappearance from the scene contributed to Bolivar’s ascent into the role as the key figure in Latin American independence. It was during this period, that Bolívar wrote his Manifiesto de Cartagena, calling for Latin American independence.

In 1813, after acquiring a military command in New Granada under the direction of the Congress of Tunja, he led an invasion of indepence forces into Venezuela on May 14. This was the beginning of the famous Campaña Admirable, the Admirable Campaign. Bolivar entered Mérida, Venezuelaon May 23, where he was proclaimed as El Libertador (the liberator from the Spanish army), following the occupation of Trujillo on June 9. Six days later, on June 15, he dictated his famous Decree of War to the Death (Decreto de Guerra a Muerte). Caracas was retaken on August 6, 1813, and Bolívar was ratified as “El Libertador,” thus proclaiming the Venezuelan Second Republic. Due to the rebellion of José Tomás Boves in 1814 and the fall of the republic, he returned to New Granada, where he then commanded a Colombian nationalist force and entered Bogotá in 1814, recapturing the city from the dissenting republican forces of Cundinamarca. He intended to march into Cartagena, Colombia and enlist the aid of local forces in order to capture Royalist Santa Marta. However, after a number of political and military disputes with the government of Cartagena, Bolívar fled in 1815, to Jamaica, where he petitioned the Haitian leader Alexandre Pétion for aid.

In 1816, with Haitian help (given because he promised to free slaves), Bolívar landed in Venezuela and captured Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar).

A victory at the Battle of Boyacá, in 1819, added New Granada to the territories free from Spanish control, and in September 7, 1821, the Republic of Gran Colombia (a federation covering much of modern Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador) was created, with Bolívar as president and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president.

Further victories at the Battle of Carabobo, in 1821, and Battle of Pichincha, in 1822, consolidated his rule over Venezuela and Ecuador respectively. After a meeting in Guayaquil on July 26 and 27, 1822, with Argentine General José de San Martín, who had received the title of Protector of Peruvian Freedom in August 1821, after having partially liberated Peru from the Spanish, Bolívar took over the task of fully liberating Peru. This meeting and the failure of Bolivar to involve San Martin in the final stages of liberation led to a division between the independence forces of San Martin that had effected liberation from the South beginning with Buenos Aires, and then Santiago and onward to Peru and Bolivar’s forces that had traveled south from Venezuela to Peru. San Martin first asked Bolivar for military support in liberating the final Spanish stronghold in Peru. When Bolivar refused, San Martin proposed that they lead the forces for liberation together. When Bolivar again refused, San Martin proposed to fight under Bolivar and Boliar again refused. San Martin returned to Buenos Aires and then onward to Paris, lamenting that the ideal of Latin American indepedence had been lost.

The Peruvian congress named Bolivar dictator of Peru on February 10, 1824, which allowed Bolívar to completely reorganize the political and military administration. Bolívar, assisted by Antonio José de Sucre, decisively defeated the Spanish cavalry on August 6, 1824, at Battle of Junín. Sucre destroyed the still numerically superior remnants of the Spanish forces at Battle of Ayacucho on December 9.

On August 6, 1825, at the Congress of Upper Peru, the Republic of Bolivia was created in honor of Bolívar, who drafted a new constitution for the new nation. This constitution reflected the influence of the French and Scottish Enlightenment on Bolívar’s political thought, as well as that of classical Greek and Roman authors. Bolivar accepted the position reluctantly, recognizing that it pointed to the splintering of Latin America.

Presidency of Colombia

Bolívar had great difficulties maintaining control of the vast Gran Colombia. During 1826, internal divisions had sparked dissent throughout the nation and regional uprisings erupted in Venezuela, thus the fragile South American coalition appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

An amnesty was declared and an arrangement was reached with the Venezuelan rebels, but political dissent in New Granada grew as a consequence of this. In an attempt to keep the federation together as a single entity, Bolívar called for a constitutional convention at Ocaña, Colombia, during April 1828.

He had seen his dream of eventually creating an American Revolution-style federation between all the newly independent republics, with a government ideally set-up solely to recognize and uphold individual rights, succumb to the pressures of particular interests throughout the region, which rejected that model and allegedly had little or no allegiance to classical liberal principles.

Bolivar wanted to implement in Gran Colombia a more centralist model of government, including some or all of the elements of the Bolivian constitution he had written (which included a lifetime presidency with the ability to select a successor, though this was theoretically held in check by an intricate system of balances). This move was considered controversial and was one of the reasons why the deliberations met with strong opposition. The convention almost ended up drafting a document which would have implemented a radically federalist form of government which would have greatly reduced the powers of the central administration.

Unhappy with what would be the ensuing result, Bolívar’s delegates left the convention. After the failure of the convention due to grave political differences, Bolívar proclaimed himself dictator on August 27, 1828, through the “Organic Decree of Dictatorship.” He considered this as a temporary measure, as a means to reestablish his authority and save the republic, though it increased dissatisfaction and anger among his political opponents. An assassination attempt, in September 1828, failed.

Although he emerged physically intact, this nevertheless greatly affected Bolívar. Dissident feelings continued, and uprisings occurred in New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador during the next two years.

Death and legacy

Bolívar finally resigned his presidency on April 27, 1830, intending to leave the country for exile in Europe, possibly in France. He had already sent several crates (containing his belonging and his writings) ahead of him to Europe. He died before setting sail, after a painful battle with tuberculosis on December 17, 1830, in La Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, in Santa Marta, Colombia.

His remains were moved from Santa Marta to Caracas in 1842, where a monument was set up for his burial. The Quinta’ near Santa Marta has been preserved as a museum with numerous references to his life.

Political legacy

On his deathbed, Bolivar asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel Florencio O’Leary to burn the extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches. O’Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a vast wealth of information about Bolivar’s classical liberal philosophy and thought.

A great admirer of the American Revolution (and a great critic of the French Revolution), Bolívar described himself in his many letters as a classical “liberal” and defender of the free market economic system. Bolivar’s defense of the free market system is understandable, given the tight control exercised on Latin America’s markets by Spain. Among the books he traveled with when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution were Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

Bolívar’s many speeches and writings reveal him to be an adherent of limited government, the separation of powers, religious freedom, property rights, and the rule of law. Nevertheless, Bolivar did not feel that Latin America was sufficiently mature to be ruled by such principles.

Relatives

Simón Bolívar has no direct descendants. His bloodline lives on through his sister Juana Bolívar y Palacios who married Dionisio Palacios y Blanco (Simón and Juana’s maternal uncle) and had two children: Guillermo and Benigna.

Guillermo died when fighting alongside his uncle in the battle of La Hogaza in 1817. Benigna Palacios y Bolívar married Pedro Amestoy. Their great-grandchildren, Pedro (94) and Eduardo (90) Mendoza-Goiticoa live in Caracas. They are Simón Bolívar’s closest living relatives.

 

Sun Li-jen

Sun Li-jen  (December 8, 1900–November 19, 1990) was a Kuomintang (KMT) General, best known for his leadership in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. His achievements earned him the laudatory nickname “Rommel of the East”. His New 1st Army was reputed as the “1st [Best] Army under heaven” and credited with defeating the most Japanese troops. He was also known as Sun Chung-neng (孫仲能, Sūn Zhòngnéng) and had the courtesy name Sun Fu-min (孫撫民, Sūn Fǔmín).

Early life

Sun Li-jen was born in Jinnu, Lujiang, Chaohu, Anhui, with ancestry in Shucheng County. During the May Fourth Movement, he was part of the Scouts in the march at Tiananmen Square. In the same year (1919) he married Gong Xitao (龔夕濤) and was admitted in 1920 to Tsinghua University to study civil engineering. Sun played basketball at Tsinghua, becoming a star. He led the Chinese team to a gold medal at the 1921 Far Eastern Championship Games.

With a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, he transferred to Purdue University in the United States to complete his senior year in 1923, where he graduated in 1924. But in the United States, ideological zeal motivated him to dramatically change vocations and pursue a military career instead. China was in the middle of civil war, and Soviet and Japanese invaders seemed poised to devour China. Sun decided that he could better serve his divided nation as a soldier rather than an engineer.

He applied to the Virginia Military Institute, also in the United States, lying about his age by four years so that he would appear young enough to meet the school’s admissions requirements. He graduated from VMI in 1927 and joined Nationalist Army Finance Department army by Minister Sung. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the latter war against the Chinese Communists in the Chinese Civil War in Northwest China, Sun Li-jen became a highly effective field officer and valued military general to KMT.

Second Sino-Japanese War

Sun was a colonel and led his troops, a Tax Police Regiment, fighting Japanese during the Battle of Shanghai in 1937. He was badly wounded by mine fragments. After recovery from his injury, Sun led his troops back to the front line. Later, the Nationalist government formed National Salt Gabelle Brigade with 8 regiments. These were the KMT best trained and equipped troops. Four of the regiments later became the New 38th Division, with Sun as the Commandering General. His training center was located in Duyun, in the province of Guizhou.

After two years training, Sun’s New 38th Division was part of the forces Chiang Kai-shek sent into Burma to protect the Burma Road under General Du Yuming. Sun led Chinese forces to the relief of 7,000 British forces trapped by the Japanese in the Battle of Yenangyaung. Although unable to stop the Japanese from cutting the Burma Road, Sun gained the respect of General William Slim, the Commander of the British 14th Army, for his competence. Sun and his division retreated into India and became a part of ‘X Force’, the Chinese forces under the command of Joseph Stilwell, the American commander of all American and Chinese forces deployed in the “China Burma India Theater”. Sun’s division spearheaded Stilwell’s 1943 drive to reconquer North Burma and re-establish the land route to China by the Ledo Road.

 

In Taiwan

As the commander of the Army Training Command and deputy commander of the Republic of China Army in 1947, Sun moved one training facility to Taiwan, independent from the on-going civil war. Sun trained new officers and troops for the Nationalist government, hoping to change the tide of the civil war. The effort was too little too late in comparison with the massive numbers of troops defeated, but one of the division trained (201 Division of the 80th Army) was sent to Quemoy to help defend the communist invasion in 1949. It was the front line defense force against the invasion of the communist troops. Later in 1950, Sun was named the Commander in Chief of the Republic of China Army, while also the commander of the Taiwan Defense Command, and the Army Training Command. Because Sun was well respected by the Americans and rumors had it that the Americans would like to help him into power to replace Chiang Kai-Shek, Chiang and his son Chiang Ching-kuo were eager to remove him from power. Sun was assigned first as the ceremonial chief military adviser to President Chiang Kai-Shek in June 1954, preventing him from directly controlling any troops.

In 1950, Chiang Ching-kuo became director of the secret police, which he remained until 1965. Chiang Ching-kuo, educated in the Soviet Union, initiated Soviet style military organization in the Republic of China Military, reorganizing and Sovietizing the political officer corps, surveillance, and Kuomintang party activities were propagated throughout the military. Opposed to this was Sun Li-jen, who was educated at the American Virginia Military Institute. Chiang orchestrated the controversial court-martial and arrest of General Sun Li-jen in August 1955, allegedly for plotting a coup d’état with the American CIA against his father Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. The CIA allegedly wanted to help Sun take control of Taiwan and declare its independence. He remained under house arrest until exonerated March 20, 1988, shortly after Chiang Ching-kuo’s death. He died in his Taichung home at the age of 89 (91 according to the Chinese calendar). His funeral was in full military honor with the presence of the Secretary of Defense. His reputation was cleared in 2001 after a government investigation into the coup attempt. In January 2011, President Ma Ying-jeou formally apologized to Sun Li-jen’s family and Sun’s house in Taichung was opened as a memorial hall and museum. General Sun is survived by his two sons Sun Tien-ping (孫天平) and Sun An-ping （孫安平）, daughters Sun Chung-ping (孫中平)and Sun Tai-ping (孫太平), and sister Sun Pi-jen (孫璧人).