CANADA/USA HISTORY YOU MAY NOT KNOW #2
Are you ready for history lesson number two. I wonder how much of
this is taught in any school in North America. You are going to
be angry, disgusted, and inspired.
As given in "Canada - A People's History" - a blockbuster
documentary movie of 30 hours produced by the CBC of Canada.
By the summer of 1776 it is Britain at war with American English
and their declaration of independence. America is divided - some
for independence, some for loyalty to England. The rebels declare
the loyalists as "rebels of American Liberty." Thousands of
families are driven out - exiled before the revolution is over.
The revolution will make 100,000 refugees of loyalists. About
half will go eventually to Canada. Rich, poor, black, white,
Indian. It is one of the greatest migrations of people in North
American history.
Hanna Ingerham is 11 when her family is forced from their farm in
New York State - her grandfather is taken to a rebel prison ship
- her father joins the British red-coat army. She writes:
"We had a comfortable farm - plenty of cows and sheep, but when
the war began and father joined the red-coats, the rebels took it
all away. My father was in the army 7 years - mother was 4 years
without hearing from him, if he was dead or alive - anyone would
be hanged right up if they were caught bringing letters - oh they
were terrible years."
For Hanna, Canada is nearly a year and 1,000 miles away.
Others fled with a price on their heads. The loyalists will form
militia groups that will be the best attack against the rebels
that England has - the "Royal Yorker" "Jusips" "Loyal Americans"
and the most famous "Butler's Rangers." They will raid the rebels
from bases in Canada. One American rebel wrote concerning the
"Butler's Rangers" - "Harder to find than a pack of wolves in the
woods."
The revolution has become a civil war. Being a loyalist to Britain
has been declared a crime, punishable by the whipping post and
the noose. Many hardly survive rotting in rebel prisons, some
written accounts are hard to believe actually happened.
In 1778 the "Butler's Rangers" began raiding their homeland - New
York State - savagery will be met with savagery. Whole
communities go up in smoke as rebel and loyalist make war on each
other.
Back to the winter of 1775. The ship "Adamant" goes to Britain -
on board is a passenger carrying a bold proposition for King
George. Joseph Brant (his English given name) is a chief of the
Mohawk Indian tribe. He will represent the "6 Nations"
confederacy. The white settlers have pushed them from North New
York State. He writes: ".....The Mohawks have been treated very
badly in that country ... we're tired out of making complaints
and getting no address."
He causes quite an uproar in London. He's educated - able to read
and write English. He's a man of two worlds. Journalists clamor
for interviews. He tells them what he mainly admires in England -
the ladies and the horses. He's there to make a deal. And by the
time he sits to be painted on canvas, he's got the deal. Britain
will agree to safe-guard Indian lands in America, in return Brant
will raise the tomahawk against the English rebels. But he
returns home to find his people divided. The "6 Nations" have
been split by the white man's war. FOUR tribes agree to fight for
Britain. TWO tribes choose the rebel's side.
Brant's men become so effective they become the most hated men in
the new world. The rebels set out to destroy their settlements
and capture as many of all ages as possible.
"The immediate objects of total devastation of their settlements
and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as
possible. Parties should be dispatched to lay waste all the
settlements around, with the instructions to do it in the most
effective manner, that their country be not merely overthrown but
destroyed." George WASHINGTON!
In TWO MONTHS Washington's order does more damage to the "6
Nations" than 5 years of war. Indians are driven out - villages
burned - fields and orchards laid waste. Their burial-grounds are
defiled.
Brant watches as his people become refugees on their own land. He
writes:
"....We are inbetween two hells - let us have an expedition early
in Spring - let us not hang our heads between our knees."
Brant's warriors fight on for 2 more years but the tide has
turned - the "6 Nations" will be forced to start again in a new
land.
EXILE
In the fall of 1781 the British suffer their final defeat of
the war. They have to surrender an army of 7,000 men. The war
will drag on for 2 more years, but the loyalists know it is over.
The revolution has triggered the first MASS escape in American
SLAVERY! Tens of thousands of black slaves flee to New York city,
hoping the British army can still protect them. But even here
they are hunted down - the whites coming from places like
Carolina and Virginia to find and bring back their slaves from
New York city, even dragging some out of their beds.
By 1783 New York city is teaming with loyalist refugees, about
70,000 in all including the British army. Those who tried to go
home, back to what they once owned, were threatened with death
from even previous friends.
In the summer of 1783 there were about 200 British ships in New
York harbor. Loyalists are leaving each day. Many loyalists of
the South have already gone to Jamaica, and the West Indies. Some
have gone back to Britain. But about 35,000 choose to go to the
rocky North Atlantic - Nova Scotia!
Hanna Ingerham is now re-united with her father. They are some of
the last to leave. Nova Scotia is born as it were overnight.
"It is I think the roughest land I ever saw. This is to be our
city they say" - Sarah Frost.
(Of course she is talking about the coast-line, as Nova Scotia
is beautiful and very fertile - Keith Hunt)
The population of Nova Scotia nearly triples overnight. Town
sites and homesteads spring up. It is hard, hard, for the first
few years. More come and spread into what is to become the
Province of New Brunswick. Hanna's family settles in Fredericton,
New Brunswick. She writes about their home:
"There was no floor laid, no windows, no door, but we had a roof
at least. A good fire was blazing and mother had boiled a kettle
of water. We all sat at our breakfast that morning, mother said,
'Thank God we are no longer in danger of having shots fired
through our house.' This is the sweetest meal I ever tasted."
Hanna never married, never left Fredericton, never left New
Brunswick. She lived to be 97, long enough to see the beginning
of the age of photography. We have her picture.
More and more came to that part of Canada. The largest black
settlement had begun. They had trouble finding jobs. They had
escaped one slavery only to face another kind of slavery. Some
sell themselves to work for 3 or 4 or 6 years. Some die from
hunger. Some killed their dogs and cats and ate them. In January
1792 many set sail for a colony of free blacks in West Africa,
but they continued to call themselves Nova Scotians.
But MOST black loyalists chose to stay, to put down roots, former
slaves became land owners, and builders. It was another 40 years
before slavery was abolished in British North America. By then a
generation of black loyalist descendants had grown up in Nova
Scotia as FREE men and women.
......
What horrible things humans do to humans, in the course of making
history. And many think they please God while doing it, while
others have no though of God and just let their heart become cold
and influenced by Satan the Devil and demons. What about GEORGE
WASHINGTON? Never really studied the guy, but from the little I'm
learning about him, my respect for him is about as low as you can
get. Not wanting to offend anyone in the USA, but he was a "scum-
bag" for some of the things he peretrated, who will need to do
much repenting when he comes up in the resurrection. Then again
there were many scum-bags in the founding of the "new world" and
the United States of America. It could have all been done without
hate and bloodshed, IF the people and leaders had really put
themselves to seeking God with all their heart and mind. The
claiming that the new world was founded upon God, and "In God We
Trust" is a whole bunch of window dressing. The new world was
never founded upon real true faith, love, and trust in God. It's
leaders have never been men of true faith, they have always been
deceived in many different ways, just as they are today, and raw
violence is still with us, albeit in different forms, like
abortion on demand, and the raw violence on prime time TV.
Then we see the inspiration of people like the blacks of that day
in desiring freedom, to just live, work, and play in peace, who
set out within the context of war and violence, to find freedom
and peace. It's heart-breaking to know about the children who did
not make it, who died along the way. Then it's inspiring to know
many children did make it, and went on to live rich and full
lives.
The tears we can shed over history, the sin, the wickedness, the
sorrow of history. We can look forward to when such tears will be
no more:
"...Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell
with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be
with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the
former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:3-4).
Keith Hunt
March 2010
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