John Horse
(1812?-1882)


Image Ownership: Public Domain

John Horse, also known as Juan Caballo, John Cowaya, or Gopher John was the dominant personality in Seminole Maroon affairs for half a century. He counseled Seminole leaders, served as an agent of the U. S. government, and became a Mexican Army officer. He served the Seminole Maroons as warrior, diplomat, and patriarch, and represented their interests in Washington, D.C. and Mexico City. He fought against the United States, the French, and Indians and survived three wars, four attempts on his life, and the grasp of slavehunters.

Little is known of John Horse’s early years but by 1826 he was living in his owner’s village near Tampa Bay. During the Second Seminole War, 1835-42, he initially led Maroons against U.S. forces in Florida, but offered the promise of freedom, he agreed to surrender and relocate west with the Seminoles in March 1837. By 1840, John Horse had married Susan July, the daughter of a Seminole Maroon guide and interpreter. Fearing that his family, and his fellow Maroons would be reenslaved, Horse entered into an alliance with disaffected Seminoles and left Indian Territory in November 1849 for northern Mexico.

Naming Horse’s followers Mascogos, the Mexicans in 1852 gave the Maroons, Seminoles, and a band of Southern Kickapoos separate land grants at Nacimiento to establish military colonies. In exchange for land, tools, and livestock, the immigrants agreed to fight against Apache and Comanche raiders. The Mexican authorities viewed John Horse as the undisputed head of the Mascogos and referred to him as El Capitán Juan Caballo.

During the summer of 1870, John Horse and many of the Mascogos returned to the United States and settled near Fort Duncan, Texas. In August, the able-bodied men enrolled in the U.S. Army as a new unit that came to be known as the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. John Horse, however, never served with the scouts. After a failed assassination attempt against him by white Texans, Horse again led the Mascogos into Mexico. He died there in 1882 while on a mission to represent them before Mexican president Porfirio Diaz.


Sources:
Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., Africans and Seminoles: From Removal to Emancipation (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001), and Kevin Mulroy, Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas (College Station: Texas A& M Press, 1993).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E0j8xgxjTY
(Video below) Story starts after the music at 1:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX3ky13VPyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsi8R_d3hzQ?list=PLECC63C2CBA8272B6

I'm not sure how every African from the south along with arrivals from hati who escaped into florida magicaly became "gullah"


but it gets the point across so...

OMG!!! Awesome post RandomAfricanAm! That post by you is so far my most favorite in this thread...Post more.

I never knew about any of those wars. Man...

Kid!! awesome thread.
i see you're putting in work to keep this section alive - well done bro.

@onila, Random and somalia9 awesome contributions.
keep it up...

@random to answer your ??, the gullah people came from all over the caribbean
not just haiti. (i need to watch those videos you posted...)

their language is very similar to patois which is amazing considering
they are from south carolina.

the only reason why haiti and jamaica in particular are
mentioned (via online sources) is because of our links via AnGOLA (the culture)
hence the word "GULLAH".

i don't want to derail this thread
but i can post more info about them if you and kid want.

*Kails*:
Kid!! awesome thread.
i see you're putting in work to keep this section alive - well done bro.

@onila, Random and somalia9 awesome contributions.
keep it up...

THERE YOU ARE MY JAMAICAN SISTER! And thanks.

I've been waiting for you to post some interesting facts on the Jamaican Maroons.

And not to be a jerk...But please do not post any Haitian warrior...I'm saying the best for last.

KidStranglehold:
THERE YOU ARE MY JAMAICAN SISTER! And thanks.

I've been waiting for you to post some interesting facts on the Jamaican Maroons.

And not to be a jerk...But please do not post any Haitian warrior...I'm saying the best for last.

lol ok my Haitian brother. #ZOE.UP!!
You better believe I'll contribute.

I got one of the baddest new world warrior babes in history coming up.
[size=1pt](as soon as i am done doing my hair! )[/size]

*Kails*:


i don't want to derail this thread
but i can post more info about them if you and kid want.

Please do. Sor far I am very interested in the Gullah and the black Seminoles. I did some research on the black Seminoles and they are very real. No offense I thought they were a Afrocentric myth, but they are very REAL.

KidStranglehold:

Please do. Sor far I am very interested in the Gullah and the black Seminoles. I did some research on the black Seminoles and they are very real. No offense I thought they were a Afrocentric myth, but they are very REAL.

lol, ethnic shoppin are we?

[size=28pt]Queen Nanny[/size]


(c. 1685 – unknown, circa 1755 date from wikipedia)

Life and Work

Nanny was born c. 1685 in Ghana, Western Africa, into the Ashanti tribe, and was brought to Jamaica as a slave.[2] It is believed that some of her family members were involved in intertribal conflict and her village was captured. Nanny and several relatives were sold as slaves and sent to Jamaica. Upon arrival in Jamaica, Nanny was likely sold to a plantation in Saint Thomas Parish, just outside of the Port Royal area. Such plantations grew sugarcane as the main crop, and the slaves toiled under extremely harsh conditions.

As a child, Nanny was influenced by other slave leaders and maroons. She and her "brothers", Accompong, Cudjoe, Johnny and Quao ran away from their plantation and hid in the Blue Mountains area of northern Saint Thomas Parish. While in hiding, they split up to organize more Maroon communities across Jamaica: Cudjoe went to Saint James Parish and organized a village, which was later named Cudjoe Town; Accompong settled in Saint Elizabeth Parish, in a community known as Accompong Town; Nanny and Quao founded communities in Portland Parish. She was married to a Maroon named Adou.[2]

Nanny and her brothers became folk heroes. Her most famous brother, Cudjoe, went on to lead several slave rebellions in Jamaica with the aid of her other brothers.[2]

By 1720, Nanny and Quao had settled and controlled an area in the Blue Mountains. It was given the name Nanny Town, and consisted of the 500 acres (2.4 km²) of land granted to the runaway slaves. Nanny Town had a strategic location as it overlooked Stony River via a 900 foot (270 m) ridge making a surprise attack by the British practically impossible.[2] The Maroons at Nanny Town also organized look-outs for such an attack as well as designated warriors who could be summoned by the sound of a horn called an Abeng.

Maroons at Nanny Town and similar communities survived by sending traders to the nearby market towns to exchange food for weapons and cloth. The community raised animals, hunted, and grew crops, and was organized very much like a typical Ashanti tribe in Africa. The Maroons were also known for raiding plantations for weapons and food, burning the plantations, and leading slaves back to their communities.

Nanny was very adept at organizing plans to free slaves. For over 30 years, Nanny freed more than 800 slaves,[2] and helped them to resettle in the Maroon community.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_of_the_Maroons


Nanny, or Granny Nanny as she was affectionately called, was a brilliant military strategist. She was equally adept at being a shrewd military tactician and the spiritual leader of the Windward Maroons, providing the group with military and religious stability. She unified the Maroon alliance and directed an effective resistance movement against the British. Like her predecessors, Queen Nzinga of Angola and Yaa Asantewa of Ghana, she established a formidable resistance against a technologically superior force.

As the leader of the main group of the Windward Maroons, her military genius was unparalleled. Maroon strategies included the use of camouflage, using bush wrapped around their bodies to blend in with the environment. In addition, Asante retentions were utilized in developing communications systems based on the cadences of drums and abengs (horns), which were unintelligible to the enemy. Also, the adherence to their spiritual beliefs presumably involved and invoked supernatural forces. Bolstered by tales of their ferocity, this provided an element of psychological warfare, which struck terror in the hearts of others. Nanny, in particular, was believed to be an obeah woman who used her powers to exercise considerable control over her followers.

In addition to being a brilliant military strategist and fearless leader, Nanny played an important role psychologically by not only instilling confidence and courage in her followers but preserving loyalty by administering oaths of secrecy.

She struck terror in the hearts of the whites to the extent that news of her death was joyously received as a slave, Cuffee, was handsomely rewarded when he declared that he had killed her. This allegation was entirely false as Nanny outlived the First Maroon War, and subsequently received 500 acres of land from the British for herself and her people.

Nanny's spirituality is evidenced by her faith in her Creator God, Nyankypon (Yankypon), and her capacity to receive messages from him has contributed to the Nanny legend. A case in point involves Nanny's prayer to Nyankypon when she and her followers were cut off from their main source of food and facing extinction. Nyankypon appeared to Nanny in a vision and suggested that she plant the pumpkin seeds she had in her pocket. Nanny was then able to feed her troops and reflect on her strategies as the seeds produced a bumper crop of pumpkins almost overnight.

Although Nanny has become the source of many legends, her spirit lives on as she is revered by all present-day Maroons. To the eastern Maroons in particular, she has been a constant source of pride and a living presence for the past two centuries. The Maroons exist as a clan and, in keeping with the Akan concept of lineage and the matrilineal society, Nanny is regarded as the primordial ancestor of present-day Maroons.

In 1977, she was proclaimed a Jamaican National Hero, being the only woman thus honored.
source: http://blackhistorypages.net/pages/nanny-2.php

NOTE: (none of the sources discuss the casualties in the wars she and her brothers led)

KidStranglehold:

Please do. Sor far I am very interested in the Gullah and the black Seminoles. I did some research on the black Seminoles and they are very real. No offense I thought they were a Afrocentric myth, but they are very REAL.

yeah.
they are real..i remember hearing and reading about them in elementary school and then again in my African American studies class in high school (which of course was not considered a credited course so i basically took it just because smh ). It's sad we don't hear much about them, not even in HBCUs smh.

yet we hear about the damn revolutionary war EVERY YEAR in k-12 schools

anyway, i will post more about the Gullah ppl and others later on today.

Awesome post Kails!

*Kails*:


yeah.
they are real..i remember hearing and reading about them in elementary school and then again in my African American studies class in high school (which of course was not considered a credited course so i basically took it just because smh ). It's sad we don't hear much about them, not even in HBCUs smh.

yet we hear about the damn revolutionary war EVERY YEAR in k-12 schools

anyway, i will post more about the Gullah ppl and others later on today.

Agreed and thanks.

Dutty Boukman(Jamaican)


Dutty Boukman was the man who started it all; he was the catalyst that began the slave revolt and literally lit the fire that struck terror into the hearts of slaves and slavemasters alike. He was the real fire-and-brimstone preacher who, late one night in August 1791, held a voodoo ceremony at the Bois Caiman (pronounced "Bwa Kayiman" that gave meaning/life to what became known as the Haitian Revolution, and inspired Toussaint L'Ouverture (known then as Pierre Dominique Toussaint) and others to resist slavery, and to fight for their freedom.

It was believed that Boukman was born in Jamaica and s'old by his British slave-master to a French plantation owner. Though born a slave, he taught himself how to read - Cartier Replica hence, the name Boukman (a literal combination of "book" and "man". During slavery, an educated slave was a dangerous person in the eyes of the slave-master and most educated slaves were inspired by religion. (Most preachers/voodoo priests/religious men got their education through the Bible; in Boukman's case, it was the Qur'an, According to historical records, he was Muslim). The masses of slaves were usually drawn to religious men who had the innate ability to bring groups of slaves together; he was the "shot caller."

Prior to being sold and probably the reason for Boukman being sold by his British master was because the slave-master learned that Boukman was teaching other slaves to read-that was a cardinal sin; that was dirty. And it was very likely that it added "Dutty" to his name. He was transported to France's Pearl full lace wigs of the Antilles, Haiti, by his French master who put him to work first as a slave driver (a headman over other slaves) and then as a coach driver. There were reports that, as a headman, Boukman adopted some of the cruel ways of the slave-masters relative to the treatment of the slaves. However, the master must have recognized that Boukman was a different kind of slave, educated but dangerous; so he kept him close and literally kept his eyes on him. Of course, Boukman had other ideas of his own.

As the headman of the plantation where he served, Boukman was in a catbird seat, ideal for what he had in mind: to foment a slave uprising. So at a voodoo ceremony at the Bois Ca锟絤an, he gathered a group of slaves and called for an uprising like no other. He exhorted them to resist the French rule that profited from slave labor and to take revenge against the French oppressors. "Fight for your freedom was the rallying call!" and according to historical notes and those who described the ritual, Boukman, in the role of A houngan (priest), prophesied of a resistance movement and revolt that would free the slaves of Saint-Domingue (the name of Haiti, at that time).
Source:
http://www.hbhtfood.com/blog/Dutty-Boukman-and-Alexandre-Pe.html

Many people know of Toussaint L’Ouverture and his unique role in fanning a blaze against slavery into a national conflagration from which was forged the historic transformation of Haiti’s enslaved population into a Black self-governing people.

However, many do not know much about another heroic figure: “Dutty” Boukman. If they do, they might know he was a houngan or vodun priest. Or they might even know that it was his anti-slavery activism that sparked an initial revolt of slaves into a full-scale uprising.

In this, Boukman was the historical descendant of Nat Turner, the enslaved Black American who had also sparked a rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831. Prior to the American Civil War, this revolt resulted in the largest number of fatalities then to occur. Turner’s revolt, like Boukman’s, was met with death: Boukman beheaded; Turner lynched.

However, Turner’s courage also inspired the White abolitionist, John Brown, two decades later. In 1859, Brown tried unsuccessfully to seize the federal armoury at Harper’s Ferry. His subsequent trial, conviction and hanging further increased inflammatory racial tensions. These led to Secession, which led to Civil War. One year after he was hung, former Black slaves marched into war singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’ in the grave, but his soul goes marchin’ on…”

So, too, with Boukman. His death did not kill the chantuelles he had taught his followers; chants they sang, fearlessly running into the jaws of death: of cannon, grapeshot and musket fire. Ill-armed, barefoot, hungry, but organized and led by Toussaint, they defeated huge odds: Britain’s armada of 218 ships.

Even fewer people know that Boukman was not Haitian, but Jamaican. A Maroon. And possibly a Muslim. His name is probably derived from the nickname, “bookman”, a term used to describe slaves able to read the Quran.

Boukman had been a slave in Jamaica. There he had been caught, not only being able to read, but also teaching other slaves to read. The moniker, “Dutty” was not complimentary. It summed up how slave owners viewed slaves who were literate. Before being sold off from Jamaica to slave owners in Haiti, he was punished by lashes with thongs to his back.

As cruel as this punishment was, it was nonetheless mild, relative to what could have occurred had he been caught being able to read in Barbados. In the same way gunpowder was rammed into the mouth of a cannon before an attached fuse was lit, so was gunpowder and fuse rammed up the anus of literate slaves; a punishment called, “blowin away the arse of a n_ _ _ _r”.

But who was Boukman? And who, apart from being a Jamaican, a houngan, a Maroon and the slave who lit the fire that blazed into freeing Haiti of slavery, thus hastening the ending of slavery in this hemisphere from the Carolinas to the Cayman Islands; from the Blue Mountains to Cerro Aripo?

He was described as someone huge, imposing, with a volcanic temper, magnetic influence, vast leadership skills, and as courageous as he was fearsome. Bought and brought into Haiti, he had been made slave driver on a plantation. This position gave him room to create secret meetings with the slaves.

What Boukman sparked started at Alligator Swamp, or in Creole, Bois Caiman. What occurred there is now talismanic, epic, mythic. Something not unusual for details magnified when a single action results in such vast and irreversible consequences.

However, what is clear is who called the meeting of slaves, why, and what followed? Boukman demanded that each one present take a blood oath: “end slavery or die”. A date, set for beginning the uprising was moved up because some of the conspirators had been caught. In addition, there were other forces at play, ironically from within Republican France itself. The “metropole” created conditions which would ironically free “property” in the “hinterland”. The fervour of the slaves for freedom had been stirred in particular by the National Constituent Assembly of Republican France adopting “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, on August 26, 1789.

Like the earlier American Declaration of Independence, which stated “All men being created equal and endowed with rights,” the adoption of this Declaration as the fundamental document of the French Revolution had not included “slaves and free people of colour”.

However, as in the U.S., those left outside the widening circumference of freedom, stormed the diameter, ensuring that the centre would not hold. They seized their rightful place. Although today they are perceived as extraordinarily heroic, in their time they were among the wretched of the earth. They knew that while the meek will inherit the planet, they must also be prepared to fight and die for this right.
Source:
http://sharenews.com/who-was-dutty-boukman/

^^^When it comes to revolution history...Boukman is perhaps the most ruthless and brutal man when it comes to revolution. That guy killed many people. His murders/kills were mostly by using his favorite killing style which is poison. Boukman basically pioneered using poison as an assassination, he made many deadly poisons and taught them to the Haitian slaves. Mostly by poising the slave masters food. I forgot what my step father told me how the slaves would not die from the poison, but the slave masters would. Boukman would teach the Haitian slaves a trick to surviving the poison, in case the slave master made the slave's eat the food first. But once the slave master ate the food they would dead in SECONDS. Boukman was a complete killer!

If not for him, there wouldn't have been a Haitian revolution. He is definitely one of my favorite figures during the Haitian revolution. Sadly neither Jamaicans or Haitians know much about him.

Now why was John horse(1812?-1882) able to go into mexico?
(You have to connect the dots, these aren't isolated events)

[img]http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/images/guerrero_vincente.gif[/img]
Guerrero, Vicente (1783-1831)

---

Vicente Guerrero was born in the small village of Tixla in the state of Guerrero. His parents were Pedro Guerrero, an African Mexican and Guadalupe Saldana, an Indian. Vicente was of humble origins. In his youth he worked as a mule driver on his father’s mule run. His travels took him to different parts of Mexico where he heard of the ideas of independence. Through one of these trips he met rebel General Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon. In November 1810, Guerrero decided to join Morelos. Upon the assassination of Morelos by the Spaniards, Guerrero became Commander in Chief. In that position he made a deal with Spanish General Agustin de Iturbide.

Iturbide joined the independence movement and agreed with Guerrero on a series of measures known as “El plan de Iguala.” This plan gave civil rights to Indians but not to African Mexicans. Guerrero refused to sign the plan unless equal rights were also given to African Mexicans and mulattos. Clause 12 was then incorporated into the plan. It read: “All inhabitants . . . without distinction of their European, African or Indian origins are citizens . . . with full freedom to pursue their livelihoods according to their merits and virtues.”

Subsequently, Guerrero served in a three person “Junta” that governed the then independent Mexico from 1823-24, until the election that brought into power the first president of Mexico Guadalupe Victoria. Guerrero, as head of the “People’s Party,” called for public schools, land title reforms, and other programs of a liberal nature. Guerrero was elected the second president of Mexico in 1829. As president, Guerrero went on to champion the cause not only of the racially oppressed but also of the economically oppressed.

Guerrero formally abolished slavery on September 16, 1829. Shortly thereafter, he was betrayed by a group of reactionaries who drove him out of his house, captured and ultimately executed him. Guerrero’s political discourse was one of civil rights for all, but especially for African Mexicans. Mexicans with hearts full of pride call him the “greatest man of color.”


Sources:
Theodore G. Vincent, The Legacy of Vincente Guerrero: Mexico’s First Black Indian President (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001); Lane Clark, “Guerrero Vicente,” Historical Text Archive. <http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=563 >


When the general Manuel Gómez Pedraza won the election to succeed Guadalupe Victoria as president, Guerrero, with the aid of general Antonio López de Santa Anna and politician Lorenzo de Zavala,[2] staged a coup d'état and took the presidency on 1 April 1829.[3] The most notable achievement of Guerrero's short term as president was ordering an immediate abolition of slavery[4] and emancipation of all slaves. During Guerrero's presidency the Spanish tried to reconquer Mexico however the Spanish failed and were defeated at the Battle of Tampico.


Battle of Tampico

One year after the Battle of Mariel, there was a new attempt at reconquest by Spain, from Cuba, confirming the suspicions of the Mexican authorities. Spain appointed Gen. Isidro Barradas, who left the port with 3,586 soldiers with the name "Spearhead Division" and on July 5, went to Mexico. The fleet consisted of a flagship, called the Sovereign, two frigates, two gunships and 15 transport ships, each commanded by Admiral Laborde.

On July 26, 1829 the fleet arrived in Cabo Rojo, near Tampico (State of Tamaulipas), and from there began its operations on 27 trying to land 750 troops and 25 boats. The expedition began their advance towards Tampico while the boats were moored at the Pánuco River. The Battle of Pueblo Viejo, which developed between 10 and September 11, 1829 marked the end of the Spanish conquest attempts in Mexico. General Isidro Barradas signed the capitulation of Pueblo Viejo, in the presence of generals Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Manuel Mier y Teran and Felipe de la Garza.[10]

Finally On December 28, 1836, Spain recognized the independence of Mexico under the treaty Santa Maria-Calatrava, signed in Madrid by the Mexican Commissioner Miguel Santa Maria and the Spanish state minister Jose Maria Calatrava.[11][12] Mexico was the first former colony whose independence was recognized by Spain; the second was Ecuador on February 16, 1840.

---

After his death, Mexicans loyal to Guerrero revolted, driving Bustamante from his presidency and forcing him to flee for his life. Picaluga, a former friend of Guerrero, who conspired with Bustamante to capture Guerrero, was executed.

Honors were conferred on surviving members of Guerrero's family, and a pension was paid to his widow. In 1842, Vicente Guerrero's body was returned to Mexico City and interred there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCe4K_UeFQ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrzYvLiYO20

KidStranglehold: Dutty Boukman(Jamaican)


Dutty Boukman was the man who started it all; he was the catalyst that began the slave revolt and literally lit the fire that struck terror into the hearts of slaves and slavemasters alike. He was the real fire-and-brimstone preacher who, late one night in August 1791, held a voodoo ceremony at the Bois Caiman (pronounced "Bwa Kayiman" that gave meaning/life to what became known as the Haitian Revolution, and inspired Toussaint L'Ouverture (known then as Pierre Dominique Toussaint) and others to resist slavery, and to fight for their freedom.

It was believed that Boukman was born in Jamaica and s'old by his British slave-master to a French plantation owner. Though born a slave, he taught himself how to read - Cartier Replica hence, the name Boukman (a literal combination of "book" and "man". During slavery, an educated slave was a dangerous person in the eyes of the slave-master and most educated slaves were inspired by religion. (Most preachers/voodoo priests/religious men got their education through the Bible; in Boukman's case, it was the Qur'an, According to historical records, he was Muslim). The masses of slaves were usually drawn to religious men who had the innate ability to bring groups of slaves together; he was the "shot caller."

Prior to being sold and probably the reason for Boukman being sold by his British master was because the slave-master learned that Boukman was teaching other slaves to read-that was a cardinal sin; that was dirty. And it was very likely that it added "Dutty" to his name. He was transported to France's Pearl full lace wigs of the Antilles, Haiti, by his French master who put him to work first as a slave driver (a headman over other slaves) and then as a coach driver. There were reports that, as a headman, Boukman adopted some of the cruel ways of the slave-masters relative to the treatment of the slaves. However, the master must have recognized that Boukman was a different kind of slave, educated but dangerous; so he kept him close and literally kept his eyes on him. Of course, Boukman had other ideas of his own.

As the headman of the plantation where he served, Boukman was in a catbird seat, ideal for what he had in mind: to foment a slave uprising. So at a voodoo ceremony at the Bois Ca锟絤an, he gathered a group of slaves and called for an uprising like no other. He exhorted them to resist the French rule that profited from slave labor and to take revenge against the French oppressors. "Fight for your freedom was the rallying call!" and according to historical notes and those who described the ritual, Boukman, in the role of A houngan (priest), prophesied of a resistance movement and revolt that would free the slaves of Saint-Domingue (the name of Haiti, at that time).
Source:
http://www.hbhtfood.com/blog/Dutty-Boukman-and-Alexandre-Pe.html

Many people know of Toussaint L’Ouverture and his unique role in fanning a blaze against slavery into a national conflagration from which was forged the historic transformation of Haiti’s enslaved population into a Black self-governing people.

However, many do not know much about another heroic figure: “Dutty” Boukman. If they do, they might know he was a houngan or vodun priest. Or they might even know that it was his anti-slavery activism that sparked an initial revolt of slaves into a full-scale uprising.

In this, Boukman was the historical descendant of Nat Turner, the enslaved Black American who had also sparked a rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831. Prior to the American Civil War, this revolt resulted in the largest number of fatalities then to occur. Turner’s revolt, like Boukman’s, was met with death: Boukman beheaded; Turner lynched.

However, Turner’s courage also inspired the White abolitionist, John Brown, two decades later. In 1859, Brown tried unsuccessfully to seize the federal armoury at Harper’s Ferry. His subsequent trial, conviction and hanging further increased inflammatory racial tensions. These led to Secession, which led to Civil War. One year after he was hung, former Black slaves marched into war singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’ in the grave, but his soul goes marchin’ on…”

So, too, with Boukman. His death did not kill the chantuelles he had taught his followers; chants they sang, fearlessly running into the jaws of death: of cannon, grapeshot and musket fire. Ill-armed, barefoot, hungry, but organized and led by Toussaint, they defeated huge odds: Britain’s armada of 218 ships.

Even fewer people know that Boukman was not Haitian, but Jamaican. A Maroon. And possibly a Muslim. His name is probably derived from the nickname, “bookman”, a term used to describe slaves able to read the Quran.

Boukman had been a slave in Jamaica. There he had been caught, not only being able to read, but also teaching other slaves to read. The moniker, “Dutty” was not complimentary. It summed up how slave owners viewed slaves who were literate. Before being sold off from Jamaica to slave owners in Haiti, he was punished by lashes with thongs to his back.

As cruel as this punishment was, it was nonetheless mild, relative to what could have occurred had he been caught being able to read in Barbados. In the same way gunpowder was rammed into the mouth of a cannon before an attached fuse was lit, so was gunpowder and fuse rammed up the anus of literate slaves; a punishment called, “blowin away the arse of a n_ _ _ _r”.

But who was Boukman? And who, apart from being a Jamaican, a houngan, a Maroon and the slave who lit the fire that blazed into freeing Haiti of slavery, thus hastening the ending of slavery in this hemisphere from the Carolinas to the Cayman Islands; from the Blue Mountains to Cerro Aripo?

He was described as someone huge, imposing, with a volcanic temper, magnetic influence, vast leadership skills, and as courageous as he was fearsome. Bought and brought into Haiti, he had been made slave driver on a plantation. This position gave him room to create secret meetings with the slaves.

What Boukman sparked started at Alligator Swamp, or in Creole, Bois Caiman. What occurred there is now talismanic, epic, mythic. Something not unusual for details magnified when a single action results in such vast and irreversible consequences.

However, what is clear is who called the meeting of slaves, why, and what followed? Boukman demanded that each one present take a blood oath: “end slavery or die”. A date, set for beginning the uprising was moved up because some of the conspirators had been caught. In addition, there were other forces at play, ironically from within Republican France itself. The “metropole” created conditions which would ironically free “property” in the “hinterland”. The fervour of the slaves for freedom had been stirred in particular by the National Constituent Assembly of Republican France adopting “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, on August 26, 1789.

Like the earlier American Declaration of Independence, which stated “All men being created equal and endowed with rights,” the adoption of this Declaration as the fundamental document of the French Revolution had not included “slaves and free people of colour”.

However, as in the U.S., those left outside the widening circumference of freedom, stormed the diameter, ensuring that the centre would not hold. They seized their rightful place. Although today they are perceived as extraordinarily heroic, in their time they were among the wretched of the earth. They knew that while the meek will inherit the planet, they must also be prepared to fight and die for this right.
Source:
http://sharenews.com/who-was-dutty-boukman/

^^^When it comes to revolution history...Boukman is perhaps the most ruthless and brutal man when it comes to revolution. That guy killed many people. His murders/kills were mostly by using his favorite killing style which is poison. Boukman basically pioneered using poison as an assassination, he made many deadly poisons and taught them to the Haitian slaves. Mostly by poising the slave masters food. I forgot what my step father told me how the slaves would not die from the poison, but the slave masters would. Boukman would teach the Haitian slaves a trick to surviving the poison, in case the slave master made the slave's eat the food first. But once the slave master ate the food they would dead in SECONDS. Boukman was a complete killer!

If not for him, there wouldn't have been a Haitian revolution. He is definitely one of my favorite figures during the Haitian revolution. Sadly neither Jamaicans or Haitians know much about him.

so he was muslim?
he was probably sahelian in origin (fulani perhaps)...i know the fulani were the only "slaves" in Jamaica and Brazil who were literate during that time.

very interesting stuff bro. sadly i never knew of him.

the poison he used..i need to ask my g.mother about that..i know haitians consider us crazy because there is something we eat that is highly poisonous till date . i want to say it's ackee but i think there is another thing..i think it starts with a "b"..i don't remember...anyway i am only mentioning it because it must be the reason why some haitians say we're crazy..might be related to this.

KidStranglehold: Awesome post Kails!

no problem.


[size=18pt]Stono Rebellion[/size]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion

The Stono Rebellion (sometimes called Cato's Conspiracy or Cato's Rebellion) was a slave rebellion that commenced on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution.

One of the earliest known organized rebellions in the present United States, the uprising was led by native Africans who were Catholic and likely from the Kingdom of Kongo, which had been Catholic since 1491. Some of the Kongolese spoke Portuguese. Their leader, Jemmy (referred to in some reports as "Cato", and probably a slave belonging to the Cato, or Cater, family who lived just off the Ashley River and north of the Stono River) was a literate slave who led 20 other enslaved Kongolese, who may have been former soldiers, in an armed march south from the Stono River (for which the rebellion is named).
They recruited nearly 60 other slaves and killed 22–25 whites before being intercepted by the South Carolina militia near the Edisto River. In that battle, 20 whites and 44 slaves were killed, and the rebellion was largely suppressed. A group of slaves escaped and traveled another 30 miles (50 km) before battling a week later with the militia. Most of the captured slaves were executed; a few survived to be sold to the West Indies.
In response to the rebellion, the South Carolina legislature passed the Negro Act of 1740 restricting slave assembly, education, and movement. It also enacted a 10-year moratorium against importing African slaves, and established penalties against slaveholders' harsh treatment of slaves. It required legislative approval for manumissions, which slaveholders had previously been able to arrange privately.


Local factors
Since 1708, the majority of the population of the South Carolina colony were slaves, as importation of laborers from Africa had increased in recent decades with the expansion of cotton and rice cultivation. This was what was called the Plantation Generation by the historian Ira Berlin. Given the dramatic increase in importation, most of the slaves were native Africans and many in South Carolina were from the Kingdom of Kongo. Numerous slaves had first been held in the British West Indies before being brought to South Carolina.

The slaves may have been inspired by several factors to mount their rebellion. Accounts of slaves' gaining freedom by escaping to Spanish-controlled Florida gave the Carolina slaves hope; the Spanish had issued a proclamation and had agents spread the word about giving freedom and land to slaves who got to Florida. Tensions between England and Spain over territory in North America made slaves hopeful of reaching Spanish territory, particularly the free black community of Fort Mose, founded in 1738. In addition, a malaria epidemic had killed many whites in Charleston, weakening the power of slaveholders. Lastly, historians have suggested the slaves organized their revolt to take place on Sunday, when planters would be occupied in church and might be unarmed. The Security Act of 1739 (which required all white males to carry arms even to church on Sundays) had been passed in August but not fully taken effect; penalties were supposed to begin after 29 September.

African background

Jemmy, the leader of the revolt, was a literate slave described in an eyewitness account as "Angolan." Historian John K. Thornton has noted that, because of patterns of trade, he was more likely from the Kingdom of Kongo in west Central Africa, which had long had relations with Portuguese traders. His cohort of 20 slaves were also called "Angolan", and likely also Kongolese. The slaves were described as Catholic, and some spoke Portuguese, learned from the traders operating in the Kongo Empire at the time. The patterns of trade and the fact that the Kongo was a Catholic nation point to their origin there. The kingdom of Kongo had voluntarily converted to Catholicism in 1491; by the 18th century, the religion was a fundamental part of its citizens' identity. The nation had independent relations with Rome.

Portuguese was the language of trade as well as the one of the languages of educated people in Kongo. The Portuguese-speaking slaves in South Carolina were more likely to learn about offers of freedom by Spanish agents. They would also have been attracted to the Catholicism of Florida. Because Kongo had been undergoing civil wars, more people had been captured and sold into slavery in recent years, among them trained soldiers. It is likely that Jemmy and his rebel cohort were such military men, as they fought hard against the militia when they were caught, and were able to kill 20 men.


The events of the revolt

On Sunday, 9 September 1739, Jemmy gathered 20 enslaved Africans near the Stono River, 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Charleston. This date was important to them as the Catholic celebration of the Virgin Mary's nativity; like the religious symbols they used, taking action on this date connected their Catholic past with present purpose.[5] The Africans marched down the roadway with a banner that read "Liberty!", and chanted the same word in unison. They attacked Hutchenson's store at the Stono River Bridge, killing two storekeepers and seizing weapons and ammunition.

Raising a flag, the slaves proceeded south toward Spanish Florida, a well-known refuge for escapees. On the way, they gathered more recruits, sometimes reluctant ones, for a total of 80. They burned seven plantations and killed 20–25 whites along the way. South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor William Bull and four of his friends came across the group while on horseback. They left to warn other slaveholders. Rallying a militia of planters and slaveholders, the colonists traveled to confront Jemmy and his followers.

The next day, the well-armed and mounted militia, numbering 20–100 men, caught up with the group of 80 slaves at the Edisto River. In the ensuing confrontation, 20 whites and 44 slaves were killed. While the slaves lost, they killed proportionately more whites than was the case in later rebellions. The colonists mounted the decapitated heads of the rebels on stakes along major roadways to serve as warning for other slaves who might consider revolt.

The lieutenant governor hired Chickasaw and Catawba Indians and other slaves to track down and capture the slaves who had escaped from the battle. A group of the slaves who escaped fought a pitched battle with a militia a week later approximately 30 miles (50 km) from the site of the first conflict. The colonists executed most of the rebellious slaves; they sold other slaves off to the markets of the West Indies.

Aftermath
Over the next two years, slave uprisings occurred independently in Georgia and South Carolina, perhaps inspired, as colonial officials believed, by the Stono Rebellion. Conditions of slavery were sufficient cause. Planters decided they had to develop a slave population who were native-born, believing they were more content if they grew up enslaved. Attributing the rebellion to the recently imported Africans, planters decided to cut off the supply and enacted a 10-year moratorium on slave importation through Charleston. [size=18pt]After they opened it up to international trade again, they imported slaves from areas other than the Congo-Angolan region.[/size]

In addition, the legislature passed the Negro Act of 1740 to tighten controls: it required a ratio of one white to ten blacks on any plantation. It prohibited slaves from growing their own food, assembling in groups, earning money, or learning to read. In the uncertain world of the colony, several of the law's provisions were based on the assumption that whites could effectively judge black character; for instance, whites were empowered to examine blacks who were traveling outside a plantation without passes, and to take action.[10] The legislature also worked to improve conditions in slavery; it established penalties for masters who demanded excessive work or who brutally punished slaves (these provisions were difficult to enforce, as the law did not allow slave testimony against whites.) They also started a school to teach slaves Christian doctrine.

At the same time, the legislature tried to prevent slaves from being manumitted, as the representatives thought that the presence of free blacks in the colony made slaves restless. It required slaveholders to apply to the legislature for permission for each case of manumission, which had formerly been arranged privately. South Carolina kept these restrictions against manumission until slavery was abolished after the American Civil War.

The legislature's action related to manumissions likely reduced the chances that planters would free the mixed-race children born of their (or their sons') liaisons with enslaved women, as they did not want to subject their sexual lives to public scrutiny.[12] Such relationships continued, as documented in numerous sources. For instance, by 1860 the 200 students at Wilberforce University in Ohio, established for blacks, were mostly mixed-race children of wealthy southern planter fathers.

Now named the Stono River Slave Rebellion Site, the Hutchinson's warehouse site where the revolt began was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. A South Carolina Historical Marker has also been erected at the site.

[img]http://2.bp..com/-kRh_9mcV3Jo/T8EuMF8mxXI/AAAAAAAAA7w/kMhnyI7MpF0/s1600/Henrique%2BDias%252C%2Bo.s.t.%252C%2B80x100cm%252C%2B2012.jpg[/img]
Henrique Dias(1605-1662)
(You have to connect the dots)

---

NEGRO SLAVES, as military leaders, have played an important part in the present political alignment of the New World. Toussaint L’Ouverture and Dessalines weakened the power of France in the Caribbean, and thereby brought about the sale of the Mississippi Valley to the United States; Vicente Guerrero drove the Spaniards from Mexico and his antislavery policy caused Texas to enter the American Union; and Henrique Dias broke the power of the Dutch in South America, thus making easier the rise of the English-speaking peoples in North America.

Dias lived nearly a century and a half before Toussaint L’Ouverture. Though Toussaint probably never heard of him, the great Haitian could well have used him as a model. Also born a slave and of unmixed Negro parentage, Dias, without military training and almost illiterate, defeated two of Holland’s ablest generals trained in the best schools of Europe. One of these was the celebrated Count Maurice of Nassau, brother of Frederick Henry, King of Holland.
Dias was born at Pernambuco, Brazil. Holland was then the World’s leading power. With mastery of the seas, she was crowding out Portugal, her leading rival, from the markets of the world. She had a monopoly on all the trade in the region south of the Tropic of Cancer, that is, Central and South America, Africa, India, the Philippines, and Australia. The English tried to capture some of this trade, but the Dutch defeated them in several battles, even sailing up the Thames and burning shipping.

The Dutch, having secured a foothold in North America in what is now the state of New York, decided to gain another in South America. Selecting Brazil, which had been Portugal’s for more than a century, they landed there with a powerful force under Count Maurice and easily defeated the Portuguese. At Porto Calvo Count Maurice defeated Count de Bonjola, Portuguese commander, and made himself master of all northern Brazil. Portugal dispatched a powerful fleet with a large army to Brazil, but on the voyage across, the plague killed more than 3000 soldiers. The remainder were forced to land in Africa, where still more died. When the expedition arrived in Brazil it was easily beaten by the Dutch. Of the ninety-three ships that started from Portugal only two ever returned. “These victories,” say D’Urban and Mielle, “so inflated the courage of Count Maurice that he began to regard Brazil as a theatre too small for the exercise of his valor.”
The Brazilians, now forced to live under Dutch rule, longed for freedom, and revolted under two of their leaders, Vieyra and Negreiros, but their scanty forces were easily beaten by Count Maurice in every fight. It was at this seemingly hopeless juncture that Dias entered the fight as a leader. Hitherto he had been only a common soldier.
As such he had distinguished himself, however. At Iguarussa early in the struggle, with only thirty-five other black men, he had turned the tide of battle in favor of the Portuguese.

In I635 he had been among the prisoners captured by the Dutch at Fort Buen Jesus, but the Dutch, taking him for a slave of one of the white prisoners, had guarded him loosely and he had escaped. Rejoining the Portuguese, he had again distinguished himself at Porto Calvo, June 9, 1639. In this battle, in which the Portuguese were surrounded by the Dutch, Dias, with only eighty black men, fought his way to liberty through the ranks of the enemy. When the Dutch had captured all of northern Brazil, Dias went south where the Portuguese were still resisting and offered his services to the governor, Mathias de Albuquerque. While here, he saw that the Indians were fighting under their own leader. Why, he asked, should not the blacks do likewise?

He suggested this idea to the governor, who gave him permission to raise a corps of slaves and free Negroes. Enlisting 500 of them, he trained them thoroughly and went off to meet the hitherto victorious Count Maurice. At Arecise he defeated him with great loss. In ten successive battles he repeated this success, inspiring all, white and black, by his example. King Philip IV of Portugal, in recognition of these services, placed him over all the other black men and mulattoes in the colony, and gave him the highest decoration, the Order of Christ, together with a salary sufficient to maintain his rank. Count Maurice was recalled and the leading Dutch commander of that period, Count Sigismond, took his place. Portugal, at the same time, sent out her ablest general, Baretto de Menenes, with a large fleet, but this, like the other, also met disaster. The Dutch destroyed it and captured Menenes.

Count Sigismond, with a greatly strengthened force, assailed Pernambuco and captured it after defeating all the Portuguese leaders, including Dias. Once again, however, Dias rallied the black men, and meeting Count Sigismond in one of the most stubborn engagements of that war of twelve years, defeated him. With his seasoned European troops, Count Sigismond attacked Dias twice with impetuosity and twice Dias beat him off with incredible valor. Dias now besieged the Dutch general in Pernambuco. Sigismond made a sortie, hoping to surprise him, but the latter, ever vigilant, made a counterattack and pursued the Hollanders to the gates of the town, killing nearly all of them.

Dias’ greatest exploit was the capture of Cinco Pontus. This was an apparently impregnable fortress near Pernambuco, which commanded the whole city and neighborhood. It was well provisioned and garrisoned by an army of 50o0 men, and protected by high, massive walls and deep and wide ditches with twelve feet of water. As provisions were supplied by the Dutch ships, it was impossible to reduce the fort by famine. Each attack upon it was immediately punished by a bombardment of the town and the surrounding Brazilian territory. Dias decided to capture this fortress and sent his plan of attack to the commander-in-chief, who thought so well of it that he gave Dias a free hand. ” Tomorrow,” assured Dias, “you shall see our flag waving OVer the fortress of Cinco Pontus.”

Bidding his men take only’ their knives and pistols and a tightly-bound bundle of wood each, he left for thc fort at two o’clock in the morning. In the dark the}’ arrived at their destina. tion undisturbed. Silently’ and rapidly’ they threw the wood in to the deep trench, making an easy passage over the water, then with this same wood piled against the wall, they climbed over easily into the fort, Dias leading. The garrison was asleep. Before it could be aroused Dias had gained the greater part of the fortress.

The Dutch, rallying, resisted desperately. Dias received a wound, which shattered the bones of his left arm above the wrist. Learning that it would take some time to adjust the bones and arrange the dressing, he bade the surgeon cut off the hand. “It is of less consequence to me than a few moments’ time just now,” he said, laughing grimly. “The five fingers on this other hand will be worth that many hands.” This done, he rushed into the thickest of the fight, and although the Dutch had the advantage of artillery and rifles, he defeated them, capturing the garrison with its stores of provisions and ammunition. When the smoke cleared the Portuguese flag was floating over the battlements, as Dias had promised. Menenes, the commander-in-chief, could hardly believe the good news. Seeking out Dias, who was lying on a camp bed weak from loss of blood, he overwhelmed him with praise. Dias was taken to Portugal at the command of King John IV, who received him with great distinction and bade him ask for anything he wished. Dias, thinking of his men first, asked that the regiment be perpetuated and that pensions be given his soldiers. Later a town called Estancia was built near Pernambuco for them at the king’s orders. In addition, hc raised Dias to the nobility and struck a medal depicting the capture of the fortress in his honor.

Driven out of Pernambuco, the Dutch finally yielded, with peace restored, Dias, who was as modest as he was brave, kept in the background. Others pushed themselves forward and he and his brave men were soon forgotten. Worse, Brazil, impoverished by’ the long war, reduced them to slavery’ again on an even more oppressive scale. The Indians, who had also played a very important role in victory, were treated even worse and were once again raided by slave hunters.
Dias lived seventeen years longer and died in neglect and poverty at Pernambuco June 8, 1662. His memory, however, was perpetuated in a regiment composed entirely of Negroes, which lasted until the Brazilian Civil War of 1835. It was commanded by the descendants of Dias and up to that time did not “ally itself with the whites, wishing thus to perpetuate the memory of a race which is honored in the colony.”

French, Spanish, and Portuguese encyclopedias speak in highest terms of Dias. Pinheiro Chagas has written a short sketch of his life. Several Italian writers of the seventeenth century have also praised his bravery and his military skill, among them Brandano, who has devoted considerable space to him.

According to the Abbd Gregoire:
To cleverness in military tactics and in strategy, he joined the most audacious courage and disconcerted the Dutch generals. In a battle -when the superiority of some of his soldiers began to fail, he threw himself into the midst of them, shouting: “Are these the valiant companions of Henrique Dias?” His speech and his example infused them with new vigor, and the enemy that already believed itself victorious he charged with an impetuosity that forced it to turn back and dash precipitately for the town. Dias forced Arrecife to capitulate; Pernambuco to yield, and destroyed entirely the Dutch army.

The American Brigadier-General A. S. Burt, in his appraisal of the Negro as a soldier, says:
The story of Dias’ organization of a black regiment ofiicered entirely by men of his own race, his brilliant campaigns against the Butch, make one of the important chapters in the history of the Western hemisphere; for this man emancipated his country from the hard hand of a stubborn, masterful race; and his countrymen have deservedly placed him in the class with Bolivar. Washington and Toussaint L’Ouverture, the great liberators and founders of states in the Western world.

In resources, Brazil is one of tile richest and most highly favored countries. It is as large as the United States and France combined. Had this immense territory remained in the power of Holland, the Dutch might have been strong enough to retain New York and other parts of New England. In short, but for Dias there might not have been a United States, or, at best, a less powerful one. (ConnectING the dots)

REFERENCES

Another important Negro leader against the Dutch in this strugle was General Luiz Barbalho Bezerra, who for his services was made Governor of Rio de Janeiro by the King of Spain. Barbalho fared better than Dias, very likely because he was born in Portugal, and though a Negro, was looked on as white. He died in 1644.

Source: "Worlds great men of color" volume 2 page171-176

[img]http://1.bp..com/_iVWwo-SrylE/TMW_R_-aVaI/AAAAAAAAAP4/n1SFG6LlUxk/s1600/henrique+dias.JPG[/img]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0FX3vbSA8

*Kails*:
Kid!! awesome thread.
i see you're putting in work to keep this section alive - well done bro.

@onila, Random and somalia9 awesome contributions.
keep it up...

Kalis kissing somali a$$ as usual...
lol @ "awesome contribution"

Hey, why dont you send him some more pics so we liven this section up?

Awesome posts RandomAfricanAm. Thanks for the contribution to this thread. You are really educating me. Again thanks!

*Kails*:


so he was muslim?
he was probably sahelian in origin (fulani perhaps)...i know the fulani were the only "slaves" in Jamaica and Brazil who were literate during that time.

very interesting stuff bro. sadly i never knew of him.

the poison he used..i need to ask my g.mother about that..i know haitians consider us crazy because there is something we eat that is highly poisonous till date . i want to say it's ackee but i think there is another thing..i think it starts with a "b"..i don't remember...anyway i am only mentioning it because it must be the reason why some haitians say we're crazy..might be related to this.

LMAO!!! Yeah you Jamaicans are crazy!

Remember the baddest slaves went to Jamaica...Boukman was a killer! My step father would know the poison he used, but I don't speak to him anymore.

pleep:

Kalis kissing somali a$$ as usual...
lol @ "awesome contribution"

Hey, why dont you send him some more pics so we liven this section up?

following me around AS USUAL. NL's biggest dick ryder having the BALLS to chat shyt to me? LOL pleep!! don't try me.

In fact, Would you prefer I post your mug to keep the section going?
you know the one with the coke bottle and you looking like a hot azz mess?

oh ok.

KidStranglehold:


LMAO!!! Yeah you Jamaicans are crazy!

Remember the baddest slaves went to Jamaica...Boukman was a killer! My step father would know the poison he used, but I don't speak to him anymore.

I will try to find out the name for you.
I forgot to ask lol.

MsDarkSkin:



I will try to find out the name for you.
I forgot to ask lol.

Cool.

Thutmosis III(Kemetian)
[img]http://www.personal.psu.edu/cdg5049/assignment6/3013.jpg[/img]

Thutmose III's initial campaign is the by far the best documented and widest spread chronicle of Egypt's eighteenth dynasty. It's primarily recoding in the Annals in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, Thebes, were first historical documented around 1824 by James Burton. Thutmosis III's introduction describes him as "the strong bull, who has appeared in Thebes", "King-of-Upper and Lower-Egypt", and "Lord of the Two Lands". These comments give insight into the affairs in Egypt of the time. They state the power of the pharaoh still resides in Thebes. This is important to note because it lines up with the religious and cultural changes going on within Egypt. Entering the New Kingdom, Egypt underwent a religious change in which the High God of Upper Egypt, Amun, was merged with the northern God, Re, creating "an all-powerful deity", Amun-Re. The merger of Gods was executed to help settle rivalry between Upper and Lower Egypt by uniting them under a single God. Amun-Re's Temple at Karnak, Thebes, strategically located where the Pharaoh resides, climbed to never before seen power. Having the all powerful God's temple located where the King of both Upper and Lower Egypt was key in securing the nation internally, so when Thutmosis III reign started, he could focus on threats and possibilities outside the motherland.
The timeframe of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom (c. 1500 B.C.) was still centuries before war epics and pomes. As imaginable, the primary wealth of knowledge of what ensued in Thutmosis III's campaigns was not preserved as war stories, but as stories promoting the Pharaoh and his rule. His first campaign, which included a major and historical account of the battle and siege of Megiddo, painted Thutmose III as a man needing to prove his worth after being overshadowed by a female ruler that circumvented his rise to power. However there are multiple factors for entering such an engagement, and it is believed that several reasons, which are still being examined, lead Thutmosis III away from Thebes into Levant.

Less than three months after coming to power, Thutmose III marched his army Northern into Syria. His army that would fight in the legendary battle of Megiddo consisted of over ten thousand men. No Pharaoh would have the resources and means to muster such a substantial force so swiftly without their being troops and processes in place ahead of time. The preparation for the campaign alone would take the three-month span between Thutmose III’s rise to power and leading his forces to battle.

With the knowledge that Thutmose III was raring to set off in a Northern campaign as soon as he rose to power, it's clear that he was probably planning this campaign prior to becoming Pharaoh. Due to the fact Hatshepsut stole Thutmose III’s crown, it is believed that he was put in charge of Lower Egypt's army. Having command of the Egyptian army, but not having the authority to actually wage war allowed Thutmose III to arrange and prepare his army to benefit his campaign when he would arise as Pharaoh. By the time Hatshepsut died, Thutmose III was able to rally his troops with extreme expediency.
Thutmose III’s speed may not have been for greed of self worth and self-fulfillment, but rather that of necessity. Arriving at Megiddo, Thutmose III faced an onslaught of men that matched in number of that of his own. Gathered from all of Canaan, over three hundred established towns, villages and cities that had standing armies, lead by their kings, ascended against the invading Egyptian forces. This number of forces in such juxtaposition better iterates the threat of the Canaanite forces. For such a large gathering of troops across multiple nations to stand against Egyptian shows the underlying threat of rebellion by the Canaanites. While Hatshepsut was busy building temples, Mitanni was stirring trouble for Egypt in Syria.
It is possible to conclude from this evidence that Thutmose III was compelled to either take on rebellion in Canaan or stop a possible attack from the Canaanites coordinated by Mitanni. This would insinuate that both the lands of Egypt and Canaan had pre-conceived notions of war prior to Thutmose III’s reign. While Thutmose III was in command of Lower Egypt's army he witnessed Canaan’s abstinence from paying taxes or tribute to Egypt during Hatshepsut’s rule. This possibly had lead to hostilities. At least Egypt and Syria knew that there would be hostilities once Thutmose III came to power.
The preconceived notion about Thutmose III’s reason for invading Syria due to feeling the need to prove himself after being overshadowed by a female Pharaoh were embraced due to the Annals at the Temple of Amun at Karnak. In the anecdote describing Thutmose III consulting his wise men about which path to take, he over rules them and chooses the middle road claiming "'Behold', they will say, these enemies who Re abominates, 'has his majesty set out on another road because he has become afraid of us?' - so they will speak". This is often over interpreted as the means to justify Thutmose III’s reason to go war with the Canaanite's as a need to prove himself. This notion however is not reasonable to bear in mind when other much more tangible theories are in place. This leaves the more robust argument of brewing conflict between Egypt and Syria due to Mitanni's influence as a basis for the reason of war between the nations.

TACTICS
Thutmose III's cutthroat tactics were even employed in the marching of his troops. Considered "the Napoleon of Egypt" he drove the army to cover up to 15 miles a day with minimal food for man and beast. On his march into Levant, Thutmose III took control of a few towns controlled by Canaanites, however with minimal resistance due to Mitanni backing most of Syria to head off an offense that they would meet up with in Megiddo. The most logical explanation for both armies to meet in Megiddo is messengers between the Kings. As Mitanni's influence spread throughout Syria, Thutmose III could have reasoned to challenge the "Chief of Qadesh" in an open field battle for a decisive victory of who controls Syria. The "Chief of Qadesh" would easily accept this challenge considering he would be able to meet on his terms to battle a traveling army on a home playing field.

Upon coming to the three paths that lead into Megiddo, the Pharaoh called upon a war council. The inconclusiveness between scholars of who comprised the war council indicates that the shear nature of a war council being held by a Pharaoh could mean multiple things. It could be either him talking to the army itself, or simply a representation and not actually having one. Either way, the conversations is one of the best-known war anecdotes from Egypt. The story on the Annals in the Temple of Amun at Karnak outlays the scene of the whole of the Egyptian army coming to a split of three possible roads to Megiddo. A northern road, headed towards Djefti, a southern road towards Ta'anah, and a small mountain pass through the Carmel Ridge directly too Megiddo, called the Aruna Road. The much debated council gives sound advice to travel on the road to Ta'anah and avoid the small mountain pass which has been repeatedly quoted as small enough they would have to travel as "...the horses being in single file and [the victorious king] at [the head of his] army" The Pharaoh decision is a supposed act of bravery and to not stain his reputation decided against the council's plan and chose the mountain road; however a new analysis has given more of an alternative view to reasoning for this maneuver. Thutmose III was in control of the Northern Egypt army for over half a decade, compiled with previous knowledge of others nations strategies could have given insight to the Pharaoh that went previously unconsidered. Either through reconnaissance of spies or his previous knowledge of Syrian tactics, Pharaoh estimated that the enemy would have a contingency waiting at Ta'anah to ambush the army. Ambushing the army after a full day's walk would have easily devastated the Egyptians forces and ending in an early defeat for Egypt. However, by piling out into the valley of Qeneh and catching the opposing forces off guard, Thutmose III received his first break he had since Hatshepsut's death.
The passage through the Carmel Ridge took the army three days to emerge, but lead them into the valley of Qeneh unnoticed, only hundreds of meters from the Enemy's camp at Megiddo. There they set their own camp, preparing for battle at daybreak.
The whole of the Canaanite force was spread out between Ta'anah and Djefti, waiting for the Egyptians to come along one of the main roads, the forces left stationed to protect Megiddo itself were not prepared for open battle with Thutmose III. It is presumable that these forces were waiting for the remainder of the army to come to their aid. At this point, they forces that faced Thutmose III were flabbergasted, not ready for battle and simply stuck waiting for additional forces. This gave the impression that the Syrians did nothing to prepare for the battle; In reality, They had forces surrounding Megiddo on all sides and were simply unready for an attack from the Aruna Road. Leaving this small force no choice but to stand and fight, but were most likely hoping that Thutmose III would wait until all the forces were gathered for the agreed upon battle. This was not to be however, Thutmose III already gave into the "Chief of Qadesh"'s terms of where and how to meet, and he attacked at dawn of the following day. The actual battle did not last long, Thutmose III's initial attack left the enemy running for the shelter of Megiddo's walls. There was mass confusion, on that day all of Syria's forces tried to congregate together to defend Megiddo, but as they were arriving to the battlefield the Egyptian's were already mowing down the troops stationed at Megiddo. This disarray spiked panic within the troops making them all hurry into Megiddo itself, leaving their chariots, animals and equipment behind, "the enemy quailed, feeling headlong to their town..." Even though this gave Egyptians the battle, it caused the Egyptian troops to loot the camp and grab the spoils of war instead of spear heading the remaining forces, which could have allowed them to conquer Megiddo that day. It appeared as a victory to the troops, however Thutmose III was in disgust that they were unable to destroy the entirety of the enemy. "Every rebel chief was in Megiddo, and its capture would have been worth more than the capture of a thousand other cities, for [Thutmose III] could have slain all the rebel chiefs, and the revolt would have collapsed completely."
Most the Syrian forces were able to make it safely into the walled city, including the "Chief of Qadesh" who apparently was one of the many who was locked out too soon due to the fear of Egyptian forces and had to be dragged over the wall by his clothes. This lead to the Egyptians winning a battle at the end of the day, but would leave them have to try and conquer the walled city of Megiddo itself. What was planned to be a decisive battle turned into a seven-moth siege. The "Chief of Qadesh" knew Egypt did not have the resources to lay waste to the city, but also knew his people would suffer if an agreement was not reached.
Source:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/cdg5049/assignment6/index.html

Hidden history.

coolzeal: Hidden history.

Yep...

Abu Bakr ibn Umar(Almoravid)

Abu Bakr ibn Umar was a member of the Banu Turgut, a clan of the Lamtuna Berbers of the western Sahara. His brother, Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni was the chieftain of the Lamtuna who invited the Maliki teacher Abdallah ibn Yasin, and together launched the Almoravid (murabitūn) movement in the early 1050s.
Upon the death of Yahya ibn Umar in the Spring of 1056 at the Battle of Tabfarilla, the spiritual leader Abdallah ibn Yasin appointed Abu Bakr as the new military commander of the Almoravids. That same year, Abu Bakr recaptured Sijilmassa from the Maghrawa of the Zenata confederation. The city had been taken earlier by Yahya, but subsequently lost; Abu Bakr recaptured it definitively for the Almoravids in late 1056.
In order to ensure they did not lose Sijilmassa again, Abu Bakr launched a campaign to secure the roads and valleys of southern Morocco. He immediately captured the Draa valley, then moved along the Wadi Nul (along the edge of the Anti-Atlas, picking up the adherence of the Sanhaja tribes of the Lamta and the Gazzula (Jazzula) to the Almoravid movement. Abu Bakr led the conquest of the Sous valley of southern Morocco, seizing the local capital of Taroudant in 1057. By negotiation, Abdallah ibn Yasin secured an alliance with the Masmuda Berbers of the High Atlas, which allowed the Almoravids to cross the mountain range with little incident and seize the critical Zenata-ruled citadel of Aghmat in 1058 with little opposition. Delighted at the apparent ease of their advance, Abdallah ibn Yasin, ventured into the lands of the Berghwata of western Morocco with only a light escort and was promptly killed. Abu Bakr, who was them mopping up the area north of Aghmat, wheeled the Almoravid army and conquered the Berghwata in a brutal campaign of revenge.
The death of the spiritual leader Abdallah ibn Yasin left the Almoravids under the sole command of Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr continued carrying out the Almoravid program without assuming the pretence of religious authority in himself. Abu Bakr, like later Almoravid rulers, took up the comparatively modest title of amir al-Muslimin ("Prince of the Muslims", rather than the caliphal amir al-Mu'minin ("Commander of the Faithful".
Abu Bakr married the wealthiest woman in Aghmat, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat, who helped him navigate the complicated politics of southern Morocco. But Abu Bakr, a rustic desert warrior, found crowded Aghmat and its courtly life stifling. In 1060/61, Abu Bakr and his Sanhaja lieutenants left the city and pitched their tents on the pastures along the Tensift River, setting up an encampment for their headquarters, as if they were back in the Sahara desert. Stone buildings would eventually replace the tents, and the encampment would become the city of Marrakesh, an unusual-seeming city for the time, evocative of desert life with planted palms and an oasis-like feel.
Abu Bakr placed his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin in charge of Aghmat, and assigned him the responsibility of maintaining the front against the Zenata to the north. In a series of campaigns through the 1060s, while Abu Bakr held court in Marrakesh, Yusuf directed Almoravid armies against northern Morocco, reducing Zenata strongholds one by one. In 1070, the Moroccan capital of Fez finally fell to the Almoravids. Discontent, however, had arisen in the Almoravid ranks, particularly among the desert clans back in the Sahara, who regarded these distant northern campaigns as expensive and pointless. The Guddala tribe, who had earlier broken away from the Almoravid coalition, began urging other desert tribes to follow suit. After the fall of Fez, feeling Morocco was now secure, Abu Bakr decided it was time to return to the Sahara and quell the dissension in the desert homelands. He placed Yusuf ibn Tashfin in charge of Morocco in his absence. As was common among the Sanhaja tribes before extended military campaigns, Abu Bakr divorced Zaynab before he left, advising her to marry Yusuf if she needed protection.
Having quelled the discontent back in the Sahara, Abu Bakr returned north to Morocco in 1072. But Yusuf ibn Tashfin had enjoyed his taste of power, and was reluctant to give it up. Pushed by his new wife, Zaynab, Yusuf met Abu Bakr in the plain of Burnoose (between Marrakesh and Aghmat) and, by negotiation (rather than force), persuaded him to abdicate the northern dominions to him. As a courtesy to his former leader, Yusuf kept Abu-Bakr's name on the Almoravid coinage until his death.
Abu Bakr returned to the Sahara desert to command the southern wing of the Almoravids. He launched a new set of campaigns against the dominions of the Ghana Empire in 1076 and is often credited with initiating the spread of Islam on the southern periphery of the Sahara. His campaigns are said to have gone as far as Mali and Gao.
Abu Bakr ibn Umar died in 1087, and his dominions were partitioned among his sons and nephews (the sons of Yahya) after his death.
Mauritanian oral tradition claims Abu Bakr was killed in a clash with the "Gangara" (Soninke Wangara of the Tagant Region of southern Mauritania), relating that he was struck down by an arrow from an old, blind Gangara chieftain in the pass of Khma (between the Tagant and Assab mountains, en route to Ghana). According to Wolof oral tradition, a Serer bowman named Amar Godomat killed him with his bow near lake Rzik (just north of the Senegal) (Godomat's name apparently originates with this death). It goes on to note that Abu Bakr left a pregnant Fula wife, Fâtimata Sal, who gave birth to a son, the legendary Amadou Boubakar ibn Omar, better known as Ndiadiane Ndiaye, who went on to found the Wolof kingdom of Waalo in the lower Senegal river.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_ibn_Umar

Sounds like fairy tales

CAMEROONPRIDE: Sounds like fairy tales

What?

The last "warriors"

St. Maurice
[img]http://www.ucc.ie/milmart/maurice1sm.jpg[/img]
Saint Maurice (also known as Moritz, Morris, or Mauritius) was the leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion in the 3rd century during the reign of Emperor Maximian Herculius. Maximian sent an army to control an uprising of the Gauls throughout central Europe. One of the units in the army was recruited from Thebes in southern Egypt on the African continent. This legion was comprised of 6600 Christian soldiers. In order to give thanks for the success of their campaign, the soldiers were expected to offer a sacrifice to the gods. Since this included the killing of Christians, the legion of Thebes refused to comply with this order. When Maximian was unable to get the legion to obey, he ordered that they be decimated. Decimation was a military punishment where every tenth man was put to death. Saint Maurice was the legion’s leader and inspirer. When the soldiers still refused the emperor’s demands, a second decimation was ordered. Maximian threatened that if they continued then none of them would escape. Saint Maurice and the other soldiers could not renounce their God and chose to die innocent rather than live knowing they had killed other Christians. Upon hearing news of their continued resistance to obey orders, Maximian proceeded to order the slaughter of the rest of the legion. The place in Switzerland where this occurred, known as Agaunum, is now Saint Maurice-en-Valais, site of the Abbey of Saint Maurice-en-Valais. Besides Aguanum, the other sites where the soldiers were slain were Zurich, Soluthum and Zursach in Switzerland; Bergamo, Turin, Piacenza, the Cottian Alps, Pinerolo, Milan, Ventimilia in Italy; and Terier, Bonn, Cologne, and Xanten in Germany.

Saint Maurice became a patron saint of the Holy Roman Emperors. In 926, Henry I (919–936), even ceded the present Swiss canton of Aargau to the abbey, in return for the sacred lance of the Saint's. The Sword of Saint Maurice was part of the regalia used at coronations of the Austro-Hungarian Emperors until 1916. In 929, Henry I the Fowler held a royal court gathering (Reichsversammlung) at Magdeburg. At the same time the Mauritius Kloster in honor of Saint Maurice was founded. In 961, Otto I was building and enriching the cathedral at Magdeburg, which he intended for his own tomb. In the twenty-fifth year of his reign, in the presence of all of the nobility, the body of St. Maurice was conveyed to him at Regensburg along with the bodies of some of the Saint's companions. These relics were received with great honour at Magdeburg by a gathering of the entire city and of their fellow countrymen.

Saint Maurice is traditionally depicted in full armor, in Italy emblazoned with a red cross. He is often shown as a Moor, especially in the Magdeburg sculpture and other eastern German depictions. In folk culture, he has become connected with the legend of the Spear of Destiny, which he is supposed to have carried into battle. His name is engraved on the Holy Lance of Vienna, one of several relics claimed as the spear that pierced Jesus' side on the cross. Saint Maurice gives his name to the town St. Moritz as well as to numerous places called Saint-Maurice in French speaking countries. For over 500 years, a 24-hour vigil called Coptic Tasbeha has taken place in the monastery of St. Maurice in Switzerland.

Saint Maurice is also the patron saint of a Catholic parish and church in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and including part of the town of Arabi in the St. Bernard parish. The church was constructed in 1856, making it on of the oldest churches in the area. Unfortunately, the church suffered wind damage and flood damage from Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005. The church steeple was torn off and 5 feet of water entered the building; and the statue of St. Maurice was stolen by looters following the storm.

Although Saint Maurice and his companions faced imminent death, they held on to their beliefs. Over seventy European towns carry the name of Saint Maurice. Churches, statues, classical art masterpieces, and towns all over the world give homage to Saint Maurice and his faithful companions.
Source:
http://www.tributetoafrica.com/learning/bios/stmaurice.html