Waterloo Historical Review

WATERLOO HISTORICAL

REVIEW VOLUME 10, AUTUMN 2021

The Waterloo Historical Review Volume 10, Autumn 2021 Editorial Board: Taylor Jeoffroy Kemal Koyu Abby Ollila Gillian Wagenaar

Special Thanks to: Dr. Steven Bednarski Dr. Caley McCarthy Ellen Siebel-Achenbach Jamie Zettle The DRAGEN Lab St. Jerome’s University The University of Waterloo

THE WATERLOO HISTORICAL REVIEW E-mail: uwhistoricalreview@gmail.com ISSN: 1916-4181 (Print) ISSN: 2369-615X (Online) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form of by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission of the Waterloo Historical Review.

A Note from the Editor After a brief publication hiatus, I am pleased to reintroduce the Waterloo Historical Review for 2021. Historically, the journal has focused on the talents of undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo; this year, the author pool was expanded to include both graduate and undergraduate works from a variety of Canadian academic institutions.

The past year has not been without its challenges – a fact that all involved in the publication process can attest to – but the finished product has been well worth the wait. To echo previous editors of the Review, I hope you continue to pursue opportunities to research and write history. The range in subject and style, both from our selected authors and all those who submitted works, demonstrates a continued interest in understanding the past and its presentation and does credit to its students and teachers alike.

My thanks go to our team of student and staff editors, the support of the DRAGEN Lab at St. Jerome’s University, as well as its members and our authors; there could be no Review without you.

Gillian Wagenaar Co-Editor Waterloo Historical Review November 22, 2021

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Contents Political Influence and German Holocaust Memory: A Historiography .................................... 3 The Intellectual Career of J. L. Granatstein .............................................................................. 19 From Other to Brother: Western Travel Writers and the Remaking of Russia ........................ 33 American-Iranian Relations: A Study of Foreign Policy .......................................................... 51 In Defence of Fair Play: Boycott Campaigns and the 1936 Olympic Games .......................... 75 The Exploitation of Black Labour as Experienced by the Black Loyalist ................................ 99 Wallpaper to Die For .............................................................................................................. 117 Radicals and Revisionists: Examining the Constitutional Crisis of Charles I ........................ 125 The Liberals’ Moment: Book Review .................................................................................... 135 Back Matter: About the Authors ............................................................................................. 139

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Political Influence and German Holocaust Memory: A Historiography Amanda Hooper The way the world remembers the Holocaust has been ever-changing since the end of the Second World War. Throughout Holocaust discourse, the word “memory” takes on many different meanings. From cultural memory to public memory, there are many subcategories that break down the meaning of memory and how it functions as a conceptual lens to understand how societies remember their histories. Memory is used for many different roles including serving the past and the present, and for political interests. With such an all-encompassing topic, its scholarship is certainly brimming with information and ideas amongst scholars of various disciplines. Through their work, they have established endless ways in which memory is utilized and defined for individuals, the public, political actors, for commemoration, and memorialization. This essay analyzes the work of scholars of Holocaust memory in Germany who largely focus on the sites and expressions of memory in Germany’s capital city, Berlin. Scholars such as James E. Young, Jeffrey Blustein, Jan Weiner Müller, Mark Callaghan, Aleida Assmann, Siobhan Kattago, and Jennifer Jordon address the connectiveness of German national identity and political involvement.

They stress that German collective memory related to the construction of national identity in the postwar era and that the erection of Holocaust memorials in Berlin and throughout the country was an attempt to consolidate and address national guilt. As Germany worked to face Nazi history through memorialization, it becomes abundantly clear that there are many layers of heavy political involvement in shaping German memory on both national and international levels.

This article will discuss the work of sixteen books that examine political involvement in memory work in Germany. It is important to note that the paper has used Pierre Nora’s work to define “memory.” Nora states: Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images, and objects; history binds itself strictly to temporal continuities, to progressions and to relations between things.

Memory is absolute, while history can only conceive the relative.1

1

Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations no. 26 (Spring 1989): 9

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Nora’s definition guides the analysis of memory and political involvement in memory throughout the paper. To organize its broad variety of sources, the paper is divided into five eras of Holocaust memory in Germany. This analysis furthers the conversation amongst scholars in determining appropriate assertions of politics in methods of memorializing the Holocaust in Germany. Debates amongst the scholars occur throughout the themes of this analysis and are addressed as they arise, including contentions about memorial designs, memory in divided Germany, and the effects of German reunification on memory.

The Politics of Memory in Germany How has politics affected the rise of memory and identity in Germany? This is a prominent theme throughout the work of German memory scholars. Peter Carrier’s Holocaust Monuments and National Memory: Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: The Origins and Political Function of the V’el’ d’Hiv in Paris and the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin examines commemoratory celebrations of the Second World War and the Holocaust throughout Europe and their claims to political authority. Carrier argues that the significance of these politically charged events largely influences and sustains societal memory.2 Carrier also explains the role of politics in memory by explaining the role of political actors in memory work, noting that “…political strategists continue to delegate monuments and commemorations the moral responsibility to guarantee remembrance.”3 His work examines the role of politics in establishing monuments by investigating various debates about monuments regarding their production and appropriation in the public sphere, and how they interact with historical information, interpretations, and political interests that still face conflict today.4 Carrier’s analysis centres on two widely recognized monuments: the ‘Vél d’Hiv in Paris, France and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany, the latter of which I will focus on here.5

2

Peter Carrier, Holocaust Monuments and National Memory: Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: The Origins and Political Function of the V’el’ d’Hiv in Paris and the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, 1.

3 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 1.

4 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 1.

5 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 2.

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The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has become one of the central points in memorial and memory discussions. Fittingly, Carrier uses the memorial to demonstrate political involvement in memory work. The decision to establish this memorial came with many politically charged questions. Carrier highlights two main questions of the memorial campaign: “What is the most adequate form of monument? And is the monument as a genre… an effective medium of commemoration?”6 Carrier notes that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or the “Holocaust Monument,” as he calls it, was elected to be erected on neutral space in Berlin to present its universality, but this led to further political contention about what the monument should look like to encompass as much German representation as possible.7 By understanding the debates about the memorial prior to its erection, it becomes obvious that there was heavy political involvement from the German government in the creation of the memorial, what it would look like, and what it would represent.

The Memorial Competition As Holocaust memorials gained more popularity in Germany, their location became increasingly relevant. Carrier traces the efforts beginning in 1989 of the activist-like group, Perspektive Berlin, to create a memorial specifically for murdered Jews.8 By 1992, the Berlin Senate approved the site for the monument on the former ministerial gardens of the Prussian military, and in between two popular Berlin sites, the Brandenburg Gate and Leipziger Platz.9 The Bundestag (German government) then launched two architectural competitions in 1995 and 1997 to create a memorial for the murdered Jews on those grounds to establish what kind of artistic form would be used.10 When Chancellor Kohl cancelled the first competition in 1995, claiming there was no true consensus on what design had won, he was faced with accusations of political involvement.11 For example, artist Richard Serra believed that Kohl had cancelled the competition

6

Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 99.

Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 104.

8 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 105.

9 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 105.

10 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 106.

11 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 106.

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to please the right-wing German Christian Democratic Union (CDU).12 Carrier notes that the second 1997 competition was also delayed during the September 1998 elections to avoid turning it into a campaign issue, but when the coalition Social Democratic Party and Green Party won the election, political debates over the competition intensified.13 The individual decisions throughout the competitions saw heavy debating amongst the German political parties, and as a result, Carrier highlights that the ultimate decision of what memorial was to be chosen was left in the hands of the Bundestag in June 1999.14 The contentious discussions around the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe demonstrate the heavy involvement of politics in memory work. It is these circumstances that transition the analysis to the work of Caroline Wiedmer’s research in political involvement in memory and memorials in Germany.

Caroline Alice Wiedmer, in The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France examines the Berlin memorial competition and political influence on Germany memorials and memory. She adds to Carrier’s work by addressing another layer of conflict in the memorial competition: the decision to exclusively memorialize Jews in the case of that memorial.15 Wiedmer argues the following: …the memorial is to mourn the loss of a rich civilization…to mourn the Germans’ loss of ‘their Jews’, not for the sake of the murdered Jews, but for the sake of Germans who had to contend with a fragmented, ‘impoverished’ postwar culture.16 This quote reveals yet another layer of contention surrounding the memorial that political bodies would have to address in the process of erecting the memorial. Exclusively memorializing Jewish people in Berlin despite the multiple marginalized groups including homosexuals and Roma-Sinti also who faced brutal murder during the Holocaust is politically charged in and of itself. This started a new debate about memorialization in Germany: who was to be memorialized and how.

To explain the exclusive memorialization of murdered Jewish people in Berlin, Wiedmer frames the memorial as a type of German reparation.17 She notes that monetary reparation 12

Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 106.

Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 107.

14 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments, 108.

15 Caroline Alice Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France, 140.

16 Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory, 140.

17 Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory, 140.

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payments and memorialization cannot be compared as they are two separate factors, the first a foreign policy concern, and the second being an issue for internal memorial politics.18 She furthers her thoughts on reparations and memorials by separating the two matters into how they create different national and international perceptions of the German government. She argues that reparations are understood as a duty of the German government, whereas the erection of a memorial is perceived as “a public act beyond the call of duty, an act in excess, giving Germany a positive image instead of merely cancelling out a negative one.”19 Wiedmer brings this point to a global stage by emphasizing that Germany’s choices in memorializing the Holocaust and paying reparations were monitored globally, putting even more pressure on Germany to erect an appropriate memorial in Berlin. Jennifer Jordon echoes Wiedmer’s discussion of the pressures that Germany faced on an international level about finding the appropriate way to address Holocaust memory in Germany in her book, Structures of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History. Jordon argues that in understanding cities and their histories, one must acknowledge the resonance of a particular site’s meaning with a larger, often international public.20 Wiedmer, with Jordon’s support, demonstrates that the different perceptions and the international pressure that arose from German reparations, whether they be monetary or memorial, provides yet another layer of political involvement in German memory of the Holocaust.

Similarly to Carrier, Wiedmer and Jordon, James E. Young, a prominent scholar in German Holocaust memory, looks at the memorial competitions in Berlin and the international pressure that the German government felt. In his book, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, Young argues that “memorials and museums constructed to recall the Holocaust remember events according to the hue of national ideals, the cast of political dicta.”21 He notes that memorials are designed at national and local levels in every European country, and throughout every nation’s museums and memorials, “a different Holocaust is remembered,” often as a result of political influence.22 Through Young’s work, he adds to the work Carrier, Wiedmer and Jordon established that all unpack layers of political influence on German memory of the Holocaust.

18

Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory, 141.

Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory, 141.

20 Jennifer A. Jordon, Strcutures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond, 1.

21 James E. Young. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, ix.

22 Young, The Texture of Memory, ix.

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Young’s prominence in German memory of the Holocaust shows. Many authors quote his work to support their own arguments, including Caroline Pearce. Her book, Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy: Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality addresses the controversies in shaping Germany national memory in public sites of memory, such as museums, monuments and memorial sites.23 To frame her analysis of national memory and what she calls ‘cultural remembrance,’ she notes Young’s work to examine how the discourse and activities in memorial work bring the aesthetics of memory to life.24 Young emphasizes the everchanging view of the observer and their impact on political matters, both influencing ‘collected memories.’25 Pearce, with Young’s assistance, still only scratches the surface of the deep political impact on German memory. Nonetheless, she contributes a valuable lens.

Divided Germany and Holocaust Memory It is possible to trace the origins of political involvement in German memory of the Holocaust prior to the memorial competition in Berlin. Unlike Carrier and Wiedmer, Jan-Werner Müller’s work looks at divided Germany and German Holocaust memory. Her book, Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past, compiles chapters about various historians and political scientists who study memory matters. Historian Jeffrey Herf argues that the German political interpretation and memory of the Nazi era started in the 1930s and ends in January 1996 with the establishment of a national day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism.26 Herf suggests that the Allied power made it possible for anti-Nazi German memories of Nazism to arise after the war as post-war German political culture and the memory of the Holocaust rested on Allied power and multiple generations of “non- and anti-Nazi” German politicians who re-entered political life in 1945.27 Herf’s argument also brings this discussion into

23

Caroline Pearce, Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy: Remembrance Politics and the Dialectic of Normality, 119.

24 Pearce, Contemporary Germany, 119.

25 Peace, Contemporary Germany, 119-120.

26 Jeffrey Herf, “The Emergence of Divided Memory: Germany and the Holocaust since 1945,” in Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past, 185.

27 Herf, “The Emergence,” 186.

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the Cold War era in Germany. By tracing the roots of these debates in the Cold War era, Herf temporally expands upon Carrier and Wiedmer’s focus on the memorial competition in Berlin.

Herf’s timeline provides a rich background of the history of memory in divided Germany.

His assessment on the role of West Germany demonstrates the government’s political involvement in Holocaust memory, and how their ideologies had a lasting influence in the years following German reunification that led to the creation of the memorial competition. Herf looks at prominent German politicians of the Cold War Era, noting West German Kurt Schumacher’s emphasis on Germans facing the Nazi past and the mass murder of Jews across Europe.28 Herf also looks at the career of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and argues that he shaped West German policy regarding the Nazi past.29 Herf’s analysis of Schumacher and Adenauer set the stage for Theodor Heuss, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), who strongly advocated for “eloquent memory separated from politically consequential justice.”30 The role of West German politics in shaping unified Germany’s memory of the Holocaust becomes increasingly obvious throughout Herf’s work, and can also be seen in Carrier and Wiedmer’s research. Through Schumacher, Adenauer and Huess, a trend of reparations starts to form just after the Cold War, demonstrating that the beginnings of German Holocaust memory can be tied back to the early postwar years.

Herf is not alone in his findings of West German Holocaust memory. Siobhan Kattago’s Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity, examines the 1980s and 1990s in reunified Germany.31 To contextualize the significance of unified Germany, Kattago dedicates two chapters to respectively examine both West and East Germany. In her introduction, she notes that her work is not an attempt to establish a singular identity, but rather to analyze the various memories of the past that German intellectuals have linked to German memory.32 She sets the tone for the different perspectives that a divided Germany took in approaching Holocaust memory, emphasizing that memory in East Germany was very restrictive – the memories of past were influenced by ideology and left room for little public debate, whereas in West Germany, the topic

28

Herf, “The Emergence,” 187.

Herf, “The Emergence,” 188.

30 Herf, “The Emergence,” 190.

31 Siobhan Kattago, Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity, 2.

32 Kattago, Ambiguous Memory, 2.

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of memory was very public and highly controversial within political culture.

10 33

Keeping Herf’s

findings in the encouragement of Holocaust memory amongst West German politicians in mind, Kattago’s dedicated West Germany chapter expands upon the political debate about German memory that was taking place in the 1970s and 1980s. Kattago argues that both West German politicians and historians were hesitant to publicly acknowledge the Holocaust as they were concerned about their global and national reputations. Their embracing of Holocaust memory in the 1980s demonstrates a shift away from the feelings of guilt and overall avoidance that had been prevalent in the years following the Second World War.34 Distancing from Herf’s analysis of prominent political actors, Kattago displays the ideological shifts taking place in West Germany that would influence how Germany remembered the Holocaust.

Contextualizing his work under divided Germany, Bill Niven examines how German reunification affected German memory. His book, Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich, argues that German unification in 1990 created the opportunity for a more inclusive perception of the National Socialist past in the public realm. This increased understanding amongst today’s Germans of the “true extent and nature of the crimes committed during the 1933-1945 period.”35 With this, Niven agrees with Kattago’s earlier findings that this increased awareness and interaction with Nazi history has led Germans to abandon their habits of self-pitying and victimizing themselves and expands upon it, arguing that this notion helped Germans place Jewish suffering over their own.36 His findings help to further both Herf and Kattago’s analyses of West Germany. Through Herf’s tracing of the German roots of memory to the 1930s and Kattago’s examination of the Cold War era, it becomes clear that German memory has been evolving since the beginning of the Second World War, the collapse of the Nazi regime, the division of Germany, and its reunification, all which are heavily politically charged events.

Niven’s expansion into present-day Germany contextualizes years of political involvement in shaping German memory.

Through his analysis of modern-day Germany, Niven looks at reparation payments. His findings are similar to Wiedmer and Jordon’s, but instead of the keen focus on the influence of

33

Kattago, Ambiguous Memory, 3.

Kattago, Ambiguous Memoy, 71-72.

35 Bill Niven, Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich, 227.

36 Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, 227.

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reparations on German reputation, Niven notes that getting the government to pay out reparations proved to be quite difficult. By March 2001, German firms had paid out three point six billion marks to the reparation fund managed by “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future,” but that this money was not always provided without contention.37 Some firms were pushed by the media who threatened to publish names of companies that previously employed forced labourers.38 Brett Kaplan echoes Niven’s re-emergence of Holocaust memory in the early 2000s, arguing that Germans were embracing a different sensibility.39 Despite occasional contention in paying reparations, Niven argues these payments showed Germany’s willingness to take on financial and moral debts to Nationalist Socialist victims in order to return to ‘normal’ life.40 In the constant change surrounding reparations and what was “normal” amongst German memory and life, Niven shows Germany’s desperation to move away from the past. Fortunately, this does not discourage the German government from acknowledging German responsibility to create a more inclusive world. Niven suggests that reparation payments have been influenced by international conciliation politics, but they are not driven by it.41 The level of internationality between Niven and Wiedmer may differ, but nonetheless, they both acknowledge the role of politics and international influence both play on shaping German memory of the Holocaust.

Fitting into the ongoing theme of the politics of memory, reparations, and international pressures, Amy Sodaro adds to the discussion amongst Wiedmer, Jordon and Niven. Sodaro’s book, Exhibiting Atrocity: Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence, examines the emergence of public apologies, the rise of reparations, and mechanisms that address conflicts and atrocities of the past, such as truth commissions.42 Sodaro’s argument is almost exclusively supported by the work of other scholars, referring to Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider’s research, that expands upon her acknowledgement of reparations. Sodaro uses their argument that the focus on the Germany’s negative past that aided Germans in coming to terms with their history, turning it into a “cosmopolitan memory,” that feeds a transcultural and transnational “memory imperative”

37

Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, 228.

Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, 228.

39 Brett Ashley Kaplan, “Concluding Remarks,” in Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory, 199.

40 Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, 228.

41 Niven, Facing the Nazi Past, 229.

42 Amy Sodaro, Exhibiting Atrocity: Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence, 15.

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that shapes how global societies remember their own violent pasts and those in other countries.43 By incorporating the research of Levy and Sznaider, Sodaro expands upon pressures of German memory on a global stage: the world looks to Germany on how to reconcile their own complicated pasts. This uncovers more pressure on the German government to appropriately address and shape German memory.

Sodaro’s book also touches upon Jeffrey Blustein’s work. She echoes his discussions about the ethics of memory, human rights abuse and how they guided the recognition of victims in memory and the moral response to them.44 In his own book, The Moral Demands of Memory, Blustein expands upon individual and collective pasts from social, moral, and political branches of philosophy.45 With his philosophical background, Blustein poses metaphysical questions that evaluate the reality of how the past establishes memory, if skepticism surrounding memory can be ignored, and if memory creates a concept of the past.46 Sodaro’s selection of Blustein’s work focuses on his research of political involvement in memory, to which she quotes: “’Remembering the victims of wrongdoing may be an essential part of the process of building and sustaining political structures that safeguard against a return to the wrongs of the past.’”47 Sodaro’s interactions with Blustein’s work form an intellectual conversation about framing political involvement and the remembrance of victims in German memory. By casting German memory under this political framework, it reveals another layer of political involvement in guiding what is remembered in the shaping of German memory.

The 1980s Re-Examined Political involvement in German memory addresses the meaning of German national identity. This concept of identity is political in and of itself. Mark Callaghan’s Empathetic Memorials: The Other Designs for the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, takes the connection between national memory and political memory head on by examining Berlin in the 1980s in the memorial competition in Berlin that Carrier, Wiedmer and Young also examined. Callaghan reflects upon 43

Sodaro, Exhibiting Atrocity, 15.

Sodaro, Exhibiting Atrocity, 16.

45 Jeffrey Blustein, The Moral Demands of Memory, 1.

46 Blustein, The Moral Demands, 1.

47 Sodaro, Exhibiting Atrocity, 16.

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Holocaust memorials in political memory directly, using Anna Saunders’ research to examine the impact of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews and its central location in Berlin. She says that its location “’implies that the German nation should incorporate shame into its national memorial landscape, rather than constructing a national identity based on positive historical continuities.”48 Saunders’ research strengthens Callaghan’s argument about political memory and its centrality in Berlin. He also refers to the work of Aledia Assmann. She suggests positive references to the past incorporate ideals of future Germany were embraced, whereas the memories that carried negative connotations were overlooked and forgotten.49 Callaghan’s choice to highlight Assmann’s work interestingly also looks at Berlin as a case-like study. As her work shows her nuanced understanding of memory in Berlin, she outshines Callaghan, essentially carrying his argument about political involvement in Germany. It is only appropriate that I examine her work next.

Assmann’s book, Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity introduces a memorial of a light projection of Auschwitz’s Arbeit Macht Frei gate on the Brandenburg Gate. Horst Hoheisel, who created light projection, chose to use the Brandenburg Gate for significance as a national historical symbol, hoping that it would strengthen his memorialization attempt which is now largely forgotten.50 Assmann uses Bernhard Giesen’s conceptual lens to come to an understanding of why Hoheisel’s memorial has been overlooked, in which she paraphrases Giesen’s argument.51 She states that historical experiences are understood in one of two ways: a high point of a collective self, or a shameful, overwhelming embarrassment.52 Assmann uses this to then contextualize and support her argument that trauma and triumph suppress each another to ensure one is forgotten, despite being strongly entangled in the national memory of Germany.53 Assmann’s concepts of trauma and triumph in national identity demonstrate constructs in memory work and successful memorials in Germany. Using Hoheisel’s light projection as a case study analysis, Assmann highlights one of Germany’s forgotten memorials that has been ignored for the sake of Germany’s self-image. This speaks to the concerns

48

Mark Callaghan, Empathetic Memorials: The Other Designs for the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, 40.

49 Callaghan, Empathetic Memorials, 40.

50 Aleida Assmann, Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity, 2.

51 Assmann, Shadows of Trauma, 3.

52 Assmann, Shadows of Trauma, 3.

53 Assmann, Shadows of Trauma, 3.

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that other authors have shared about constructing German memory for a global stage, including Wiedmer and Kattago.

Berlin and Designing Memorials Assmann’s focus on Hoheisel’s memorial in Berlin brings the city back to the forefront of this analysis of the political influence on memory discourse. Irit Dekel, author of Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin also focuses on Berlin. In his introduction, he notes being inspired

by Assmann’s 2007 work to create a “historical index” of individuals of specific generations and how they experience history. 54 His work focuses on the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, a popular point of discussion throughout this analysis of political memory in Germany and Berlin. Dekel examines the political implications of memory through the memorial itself and how the conversations about Holocaust remembrance in Germany inspire action at the memorial in

55

In viewing the memorial as a tourist-type site, Dekel56 Under this lens, the memorial

demonstrates matters of political influence in shaping German memory. Dekel argues that the construction of a memorial dedicated to European Jewish victims of the Holocaust shows Germany’s critical engagement with its past, and Germany’s present political maturity and responsibility in acknowledging 57 These findings fit within Dekel’s tourist lens, as well as with the findings of other scholars who studied the Berlin memorial and its political implications.

Dekel’s work continues to uncover and emphasize the multifaceted political interests in shaping both past and present German memory.

Another example of political involvement lies within the design of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Given the level of competition seen to build such a critical memorial, it should come as no surprise that the design would be heavily contested. In Ann Rigney’s chapter titled “Scales of Postmemory: Six of Six Million” in Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture, she examines Peter Eisenman, the architect of the winning memorial in Berlin, and the goals of his design. To ensure inclusivity, Eisenman went against any type of political message or reference.

54

Irit Dekel, Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, 9.

Dekel, Mediation, 1.

56 Dekel, Mediation, 2.

57 Dekel, Mediation, 19.

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Instead, Eisenman created a dynamic space that visitors could explore and interact with, going against the traditional forms of representation with an abstract form of memorial instead of figurative.58 In fact, Eisenman denied that the memorial was meant to represent anything at all.59 Eisenman’s blatant lack of representation guides political memory in a direction of resistance that asks its visitors to draw their own conclusions from the memorial itself, although Callaghan notes the Bundestag’s permission to erect Eisenman’s memorial was conditional upon the inclusion of an Information Centre within the memorial to contextualize it.60 In analyzing Eisenman’s intentions with his design, Rigley demonstrates the intention to form individual memory through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, probing further inquiry to the ways in which memorials are designed.

A brief analysis of public art through Biljana Arandelovic and Caroline Pearce’s separate works shows meaningful work in understanding the significance of memorial designs.

Arandelovic’s book, Public Art and Urban Memorials in Berlin naturally analyzes Berlin’s memorials as public art.61 She argues: “Art in a public space has made an increasing impact on German society since the 1980s and primarily reflected the recent Germany history and the social issues resulting from it.”62 Arandelovic believes Berlin is depoliticized, but that the city focuses on sociopolitical actions of citizens, creating security of artistic freedom in memorial designs whilst maintaining cooperation with artists and administration.63 Applying the lens of public art to Berlin’s memorials shows that even the artistic expression in Germany’s memorials are political.

The memorials still need government approval, which secures the government’s political role in shaping German memory.

58

Ann Rigley, “Scales of Postmemory: Six of Six Million” in Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture, 290.

59 Rigley, “Scales of Postmemory,” 290.

60 Callaghan, Empatheic Memorials, vii.

61 Biljana Arandelovic, Public Art and Urban Memorials in Berlin, 34, 62 Arandelovic, Public Art, 34.

63 Arandelovic, Public Art, 34.

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Conclusion As conversations developed through memory research, the selected scholars drew upon both German history and German political climates to determine how Holocaust memory has been shaped in the country. Young, Carrier, Wiedmer, Assmann, Blustein, Kattago, and Niven all make contributions to this analysis of the political influence on German memory. Given the unprecedented nature of the Holocaust and the systematic genocide carried out by the Nazi regime, Germany was presented a unique, challenging situation: to face the past or hide from it.

Throughout the Second World War, the Cold War, and the reunification of Germany, Germany showed resilience in demonstrating their strength as a nation as the world watched them go to battle with their own history. The German government demonstrated great control over establishing memory narratives on a national and international level as tourists come from around the world to visit Germany’s memorials.

Nora’s concept of memory set my analysis up to dive into the depths of the significance of German memory, and it only feels appropriate to end with more of his thoughts. His definition shows how memory and history interact with one another and the limits of each. As this paper comes to a close, it is important to note that Nora also suggests that memory is fluid: “It remains in permanent evolution, open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting…”64 This perspective opens memory up to the possibilities of forever, ever-shifting as new ideas and meanings of memory come to life in Germany and around the world.

The memorial competition that dominated German politics in the 1990s, the German government’s reparation payments, the forgotten memorials, and the celebrated memorials all demonstrate different levels of political influence in the shaping of German memorials and German memory. The construction of various memorials, notably Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe demonstrates permanent, highly visible changes to the cityscape as a dedication to never forgetting the mistakes of the past. By creating the memorial competition, the Bundestag controlled what design was selected and what narrative it would present to its visitors. The political monitoring of what is remembered in Germany protects Germany’s international reputation, which

64

Nora, Between Memory, 8.

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has undergone major reconstruction in light of Germany’s struggle to redefine themselves after both the Second World War, the Cold War and German reunification.

Works Cited Arandelovic, Biljana. Public Art and Urban Memorials in Berlin. Cham: Springer, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73494-1.

Assmann, Aleida. Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016.

Blustein, Jeffrey. The Moral Demands of Memory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1017/CBO9780511818615.

Callaghan, Mark. Empathetic Memorials: The Other Designs for the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

London: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies, 2020.

Carrier, Peter. Holocaust Monuments and National Memory: Cultures in France and Germany Since 1989: The Origins and Political Function of the Vél’ d’Hiv’ in Paris and the Holocaust Monument in Berlin. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2005. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015060840348&view=1up&seq=8.

Dekel, Irit. Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Herf, Jeffrey. “The Emergence of Divided Memory: Germany and the Holocaust since 1945,” in Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past, ed. JanWerner Müller, 184-205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. https://booksscholarsportal-info.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/uri/ebooks/ebooks2/cambridge/2010-0412/2/0511028814.

Jordon, Jennifer A. Structures of Memory: Understanding Urban Change in Berlin and Beyond.

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063359585&view=1up&seq=9.

Kaplan, Brett Ashley. “Concluding Remarks,” in Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory, ed.

Brett Ashley Kaplan, 198-200. New York: Routledge, 2011. https://doiorg.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.4324/9780203842270.

Kattago, Siobhan. Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity. London: Praeger, 2001. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015050771677&view=1up&seq=8.

Niven, Bill. Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy of the Third Reich. London: Routledge, 2003. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/10.4324/9780203402764.

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Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations no. 26 (Spring 1989): 7-24. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/10.2307/2928520 Pearce, Caroline. Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy: Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2008. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015074073936&view=1up&seq=14.

Rigley, Ann. “Scales of Postmemory: Six of Six Million” in Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture, eds. Claudio Fogu, Wulf Kansteiner, and Todd Samuel Presner, 133-128.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016.

Sodaro, Amy. Exhibiting Atrocity: Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1v2xskk.5.

Wiedmer, Caroline Alice. The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Young, James E. The Texture of Memory: Holocaust memorials and Meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

The Intellectual Career of J. L. Granatstein Megan Hamilton Jack L. Granatstein is a senior figure in the field of Canadian historians. A highly respected academic, Granatstein studied the politics, structures of governance, military, leadership, and nationalism of twentieth century Canada. Some have deemed him to be a ‘great man’ historian who focuses on a style of history that examines the world solely through the actions of important individuals. This paper will dispute that claim. His career spanned the transition from academic history as the study of politics and leadership to a reinvented academic history that included the use of constantly modernizing social sciences. Granatstein defines the former as “old” history and the latter as “new” history.1 The fact that he stuck to ‘old history’ for his whole career despite his colleagues increasingly being social historians caused some tension as one side looked at the other from opposite sides of a wide canyon. That should not, however, devalue the work of either side.

The career of Jack L. Granatstein is one of a conservative national historian who remained focused on political and military history from start to finish.

The community of Canadian historians is not a particularly large group. This reality, however, gives room for members to establish long and successful careers. Jack L. Granatstein is an example of this with his first book being published in 1967 and his most recent in October 2020.

Granatstein was born in Toronto in 1939 a city that has remained central to his life. Joining the Canadian Army in 1956, Granatstein completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, before returning to Toronto for his master’s degree. By 1966, Granatstein had completed his PhD at Duke University and ended his time in the army. Fresh from graduate studies, he was hired at York University’s History Department where he would reside until 1995. The building of a new Canadian War Museum was Granatstein’s focus from 1998 until 2000 where he served as both the CEO and Director. This incredible list of credentials continues as he has maintained a constant connection with the War Museum and sat on a number of important committees and commissions. His list of awards is long but is highlighted by the Order of Canada in 1996, the C.P. Stacey Prize in 2010, and seven honorary doctorate degrees from universities across the country. To round off this stellar career of the now eighty-two year old historian, 1

Jack L. Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches: A Military Historian’s Report on the War Between Teaching and Research,” 40.

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Granatstein is a regular voice in the media regarding public affairs on history and national defence.2 Undoubtedly, the achievements of Jack L. Granatstein are highly admirable.

Granatstein’s first book was the publication of his doctoral thesis from Duke University.3 Published in 1967, The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945 is a study of the Conservative Party and its policies during the Second World War. After the failure of the Bennett government to curb the pain of the Depression, the Conservatives, also known as the Tories, fell into an unfortunate state. During the war years they struggled internally to come to a consensus regarding conscription and free enterprise as well as feebly attempting to regain the trust of the voters. Granatstein’s analysis tells “a story of the politics of failure as well as the politics of survival.”4 With ‘old history’ still favoured at this point, the academic community widely accepted The Politics of Survival as a valuable addition to the study of Canadian history and political science. That is not to say that there were not disagreements such as Granatstein’s assignment of blame on the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) for the Conservatives’ failure or the evidence he supplied being of equal strength to match the confidence of his claims. Nonetheless, Granatstein’s thoughtful organization and ability to find valuable yet untouched sources is laudable. His research into the financial records of the Party was considered especially impressive.5 The young historian officially began his professional career on a positive note.

The key argument of The Politics of Survival is the fact that the Conservative Party was close to extinction during the Second World War and yet was able to regenerate itself. As a conservative political historian, Granatstein’s research relied on government documents and the papers of important political figures. He used a minimal number of mass media sources such as newspapers and magazines generally showing preference for governmental primary sources.

Granatstein explains that the Tories’ motivation stemmed from the belief that Conservativism had to be ready to offer a solid alternative to a postwar Liberal government which had socialist

2

“Jack Granatstein.” Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, updated July 2016, https://cmss.ucalgary.ca/profiles/jack-granatstein.

3 Jack L. Granatstein, “Conscription and My Politics,” 35.

4 Thomas A. Hockin, review of The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945, 224.

5 Hockin, review of The Politics of Survival, 224-225; Roger Graham, review of The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945, 315-316.

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leanings.6 However, it would take time for the Conservative Party to find stable ground. During the war its biggest source of internal strife was over Canadian conscription. Granatstein’s research demonstrates how deeply distressing this debate was for the Party which struggled to present a united front regarding the subject.7 In his study of the Conservative attitudes towards conscription, Granatstein’s source materials include the papers and letters of Conservative leader Robert James Manion, the Toronto Star, C.P. Stacey’s The Military Problems of Canada, and House of Commons debates.8 Additionally, the Conservatives’ sentiment towards Quebec did not help their cause. The author argues that one of their further failures was a lack of sympathy and consideration for French Canada. Voters in Quebec had their memories of the Bennett government so a Conservative Party which further alienated them by disregarding their uniqueness was not likely to receive their support anytime soon.9 The sources Granatstein employed to come to this conclusion included the papers of General Andrew McNaughton and Conservative politician James Garfield Gardiner, a few French articles regarding public opinion, House of Commons debates, and the Liberal Party’s Reference Handbook and Program for Canada.10 In his book, Granatstein portrays Conservative leader Arthur Meighen as a reactionary figure who impeded other leaders from stabilizing the Party. This was a countermeasure to historian Roger Graham and his more positive portrayal of Meighen. Granatstein also believed that the Conservatives’ failure could be blamed largely on the CCF whose attractive welfare state proposals were increasingly popular across the country. This further division of the vote forced the Tories to reconsider their policies during the wartime years.11 Published just a year after the completion of his doctoral degree, Granatstein’s The Politics of Survival began his establishment in the field of Canadian political history.

The next key work of Granatstein’s is a continuation of his study of Canadian political history during the Second World War. Turning to the rivals of the Conservatives, he published Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945 in 1975. This study

6

Jack L. Granatstein, The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945, 198.

7 Granatstein, The Politics of Survival, 198.

8 Granatstein, The Politics of Survival, 23-24.

9 Hockin, review of The Politics of Survival, 225.

10 Granatstein, The Politics of Survival, 185-186.

11 Hockin, review of The Politics of Survival, 224-225.

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revolved around the Canadian political experience of the war and how the Mackenzie King government dealt with complex situations that arose. The author is clear to say that this was never meant to be a biography of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King but was a look into certain aspects of the national war effort. Granatstein acknowledges that despite his topic focusing on the war years, he did not include the developments from the war’s front lines unless they directly influenced the Canadian government. He makes the written declaration that the theme in Canada’s War is the development of Canadian nationalism during the Second World War.12 He is intentional with his parameters and is sure to share them with the reader.

The scholars of this time period found a respectable piece of work in Granatstein’s 1975 Canada’s War. It is viewed as a revisionist history that reminds the historiography that Mackenzie King was a leftist who with his government set Canada on a specific trajectory for the future.13 Granatstein’s coverage of Canadian relations with the Americans and the British is deemed to be very good as well as his inclusion of several prominent civil servants. By 1975 Granatstein was well-established as an ‘old-school’ historian with Conservative preferences. In light of that, one reviewer gave positive feedback regarding Granatstein’s control of his Conservative bias in order to write a fair analysis of a Liberal government. The same review, however, wished for more complete coverage of Canadian industrialization during the war.14 Overall, Canada’s War was deemed to be a worthy piece of scholarship.

Granatstein argues that the Second World War was a vehicle for transformation in Canada.

Under the Mackenzie King government and through the extraordinary circumstances of the war, Canada moved towards the status of a welfare state, grew its industrial capacity, and stepped out from Britain’s sphere of influence.15 In regard to the last point, Canada was still strongly attached to Britain in the opening stages of the war as demonstrated by the ‘Billion Dollar Gift’ given to the British war effort. Granatstein includes a brief analysis of the Canadian public’s opinion regarding such a substantial gift. The sources he looked at were in line with his usual preference

12

Jack L. Granatstein, Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 19391945, v-vi.

13 John W. Holmes, review of Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945, 802-803.

14 Gordon Dowsley, review of Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945, 206.

15 Dowsley, review of Canada’s War, 206.

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for government documents including the Treasury Records of the Public Records Office and a clipping from the Department of Finance’s records. He topped it off with some evidence from Public Opinion Quarterly.16 The sources used for this work more broadly stick to Granatstein’s previous research as he focused heavily on government documents and papers from key political actors in his narrative. He worked in archives across the country as well as in the US and Britain.

Central to Canada’s War is Granatstein’s respect for Mackenzie King. The author realizes what a complicated situation this was for the government to navigate and while the Prime Minister did not always seem graceful in his wartime actions, hindsight has proven that the Mackenzie King government did well. One reviewer points out that Granatstein portrayed Mackenzie King as more of a hero than previous scholars.17 Granatstein especially stood behind Mackenzie King’s devotion to keeping French and English Canada united and cooperative.18 One only has to look back to the First World War to understand how vital it was to maintain national unity. Also, before the US formally joined the war, Ottawa was especially important as a relay point between the British and the ‘neutral’ Americans.19 Granatstein looks into the personal relationship between Mackenzie King and President Roosevelt as part of the relationship between the two countries. In doing so, his sources included the papers of both Mackenzie King and Roosevelt, Mackenzie King’s diary and letters, Nancy H. Hooker’s The Moffat Papers, and Navigating the Rapids by Beatrice Berle and Travis Jacobs.20 Almost a decade into his professional career, Granatstein seemed to be sticking to the political and national history that he knew and excelled in.

Seven years later, another of Granatstein’s touchstone works emerged. In 1982 he released The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, a collective biography of influential civil servants in Ottawa. Granatstein dubbed them “The Ottawa Men” for their combined power and influence on the federal government from the mid-1930s to the late 1950s, an era full of historically significant events.21 They are studied through a combination of collective biography and policy analysis which is put within historical context.22 Despite the increasing popularity and 16

Granatstein, Canada’s War, 194-195.

Holmes, review of Canada’s War, 802-803.

18 Granatstein, Canada’s War, vii.

19 Dowsley, review of Canada’s War, 206.

20 Granatstein, Canada’s War, 116-118.

21 Jack L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, xi.

22 Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, xi; Thomas H. McLeod, review of The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, 363.

17

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preference for social history at the time this book was published, Granatstein had once again produced a work that was respected by the academic community. His quality of organization and research was considered excellent, a theme that has emerged through the reviews of his books thus far.23 As reviewers must speak to both positive and negative aspects, there were some faults or gaps noted. It was pointed out that there were some subjects that could have used further discussion including the relationship between the administrative and the political that is the public servants and the politicians.24 Granatstein fails to define a ‘mandarin’ and one reviewer is puzzled by his choice of time frame as a third of the public servants discussed joined before 1935.25 Nonetheless, The Ottawa Men was added to the list of Granatstein’s quality publications.

The purpose of this book was to shine light on those influential bureaucrats whose roles tended to be ‘behind the scenes.’ Granatstein explains in his introduction that some citizens did not approve of the mandarins, believing them to be an elitist group that was out of touch with reality. There were others though including Granatstein, who saw them as public servants doing their best to make change for the better. Granatstein’s research found that these mandarins were a tight-knit group who socialized together outside of work, had similar education and training, and were generally open to new ideas.26 From their positions in various offices and agencies, these men set out to remodel Canada and the author argues that they succeeded.27 They were a driven and single-minded group which had the potential for problematically inflexible policies such as in the case of Quebec. There is no doubt that mistakes were made but Granatstein believes that the right intentions were always present.28 Granatstein admits that the argument of the book was influenced by the availability of sources as well as his desire to trace the evolution of bureaucracy.29 As in the two previous works examined, he demonstrates thorough research skills. Granatstein worked in archives across the country in order to get his hands on a variety of papers and manuscripts. As usual, archives in the US and Britain also proved useful to this political historian. To give an example of Granatstein’s 23

McLeod, review of The Ottawa Men, 363.

McLeod, review of The Ottawa Men, 363; Norman Ward, review of The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, 62.

25 Ward, review of The Ottawa Men, 62.

26 Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, xi.

27 Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, xii.

28 Ward, review of The Ottawa Men, 61-63.

29 Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, xii.

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usual employment of evidence, one can look at his discussion regarding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) attempt to bring Lester B. Pearson on board. The author’s focus lay on the papers of Pearson, Alan Plaunt, Walter A. Riddell, Mrs. C.H.A. Armstrong, Mackenzie King, and Vincent Massey, as well as Mackenzie King’s diary and Historical Personnel Records.30 This trend in source usage is continued in his coverage of Canada and the North Atlantic Treaty. The speeches, testimonies, articles, papers and letters of diplomat Escott Reid were heavily employed as well as Department of External Affairs records, the Bank of Canada’s Louis Raminsky papers, and the US Department of State Records.31 One divergence from previous research is the fact that Granatstein began to use oral interviews as evidence. He lists a large number of them in the bibliography of The Ottawa Men. While these would be considered less official than government records, Granatstein obviously saw value in their inclusion.

The early 1990s saw Granatstein researching Second World War politics, structures of governance, and leadership of a different kind: military commanders. He published The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War in 1993 just two years before he would retire from teaching at York University.32 It was similar to The Ottawa Men in the way that it was also a collective biography. Granatstein dove into the personalities of Canada’s top commanders humanizing them by going beyond their accomplishments on the battlefield. The politics and relationships between the various commanders are also covered. The academic community enthusiastically welcomed The Generals. Granatstein was a leading Canadian historian by this point despite studying ‘old history’ amongst fellow scholars who were focused on ‘new history.’ Reviewers of The Generals echoed reviews of his previous books in applauding his research and organization. The strength of the book was felt to be the way that Granatstein portrayed the characters of important men who have often been neglected in historical writing as well as his obvious interest in army politics. It was agreed upon by the reviewers that the book would have been strengthened by the further inclusion of operations, doctrine, and tactics.33 It is

30

Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, 82-84.

Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, 249-252.

32 “Jack Granatstein.” Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, updated July 2016, https://cmss.ucalgary.ca/profiles/jack-granatstein.

33 W.A.B. Douglas, review of The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, 270; Geoffrey Hayes, review of The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, 156.

31

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also noticed that Granatstein subtly shifts away from the pro-McNaughton narrative of official historian C.P. Stacey.34 This being said, The Generals was a book that Granatstein could add to his growing list of well-received publications.

Granatstein’s arguments can be seen to revolve around finding patterns amongst the commanders he studied. There were many common characteristics between the older and more senior generation of commanders and the same was found between the younger and more junior commanders. An overarching similarity was the impact of the First World War. The older men had first-hand experience while the younger men had heard stories from their fathers and uncles.

The bloodshed of the First World War was Canada’s most significant experience with war prior to 1939 so it makes sense that it would influence the actions and decisions of Canadian commanders.

Granatstein argues that it led them to be deliberate and cautious in their decisions for the current war.35 The author also found that with the slight exception of Bert Hoffmeister McNaughton and Frederic F. Worthington, the Canadian commanders lacked vibrant personalities. They strove to emulate the business-like mannerisms of the British military leadership.36 Regarding Granatstein’s research, his sources look similar to those of The Ottawa Men. He focused on the papers and primary documents directly linked to the ‘important’ men he was studying. They came from archives across Canada as well as the US and Britain. Granatstein continued to regard interviews as a valuable source of information as The Generals contains a long list of interviews mostly conducted in 1991 and 1992. When speaking to the lack of charisma in the Canadian leadership roster he cites the memoir of James Alan Roberts. Obviously primary sources would have also been employed but Granatstein does not specify which he used in his endnotes.37 The same situation is present in his discussion of Hoffmeister and Albert B. Matthews.

These two successful commanders were both militia officers in the interwar period who rose quickly through the ranks. Granatstein’s only mentioned reference is a 1991 interview with Elliot Rodger leaving the other primary sources used as unspecified.38 It is likely that Granatstein’s

34

Douglas, review of The Generals, 270.

Jack L. Granatstein, The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, 5-8.

36 Granatstein, The Generals, 3-4.

37 Granatstein, The Generals, 265-266.

38 Granatstein, The Generals, 202-203.

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seniority in the academic community gave him the confidence to leave his primary source use unspecified as he had already built a reputation for solid research and organization.

By 1998 Granatstein left York University and began his role as CEO and Director of the Canadian War Museum.39 He had a successful and respected university career behind him which gave him the credentials to speak to Canada’s disappointing relationship with its national history.

His book Who Killed Canadian History? was released in 1998 and created quite a stir in the academic community. Overall, the book was based on Granatstein’s opinions regarding the poor state of historical teaching in Canada. He felt that Canadians were out of touch with their national history. His chapter on academic history in which Granatstein discussed historical teaching and publishing at universities across the country will be scrutinized.40 It must be remembered that Granatstein was a conservative political historian who held strong national sentiments throughout his career. The chapter in question explains how he is convinced that academic history in general has made many mistakes in the previous few decades as shown by the trajectory it followed in the late 1990s. By the time Granatstein published Who Killed Canadian History? ‘new history’ was the norm. Social and cultural history took a variety of approaches to studying the past much different than those in which Granatstein had been trained. This book was a strong pushback against academic history’s current state and it received a varied set of reviews.

Who Killed Canadian History? was very controversial and had scholars publishing fulllength articles in response. In particular were Ken Osborne, A.B. McKillop, and Bryan D. Palmer.

Osborne’s response was released first and while he respected Granatstein’s determination to rescue history from its current trajectory,he was wary of some of Granatstein’s boldest claims and complaints. Osborne is confident that a blend of social and political historical teaching is needed.

He feels that Granatstein’s “sweeping, and in [his] view overstated, attacks on social history and multiculturalism leave one wondering just how much and what kinds of social history he would include in his new national program.”41 The next significant review was written by McKillop who had many problems with Granatstein’s opinion. McKillop argues that because of Granatstein’s successful career, he “has assumed the role of champion of Canada's true national history.”42 He 39

“Jack Granatstein.” Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, updated July 2016, https://cmss.ucalgary.ca/profiles/jack-granatstein.

40 Jack L. Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 51-78.

41 Ken Osborne, review of Who Killed Canadian History?, 116.

42 A.B. McKillop, review of Who Killed Canadian History?, 1.

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goes on to accuse Granatstein of being unwilling to explore the value of different approaches to history playing it safe by sticking to what he knows.43 Thirdly was the review by Palmer who wrote in reply to McKillop. Palmer argues that “we historians are, in Canada and throughout the world doing very well. If Dr. Granatstein can see no fat, Professor McKillop has no eye for any lean.”44 Palmer says that Who Killed Canadian History? has had a more significant impact on the small Canadian historical community than Granatstein probably intended. The historians who were busy furiously glaring at Granatstein became blind to reflecting on their own work.45 There is no doubt that Granatstein’s opinionated divergence from his usual line of study led to defensive responses from Canadian historians.

Who Killed Canadian History? is an opinion piece as it does not formally reference or cite primary source research. While Granatstein’s opinion is an educated one, he still brings up the works of others to prove his point. For example, when discussing the evolution of women’s and gender history, he references a 1987 study on female content in Canadian textbooks and the Sex Equity Policy of the Ontario Ministry of Education.46 Granatstein declares that academic history has not lost all hope yet and lists historians whose work on national themes of importance he approves. These include Michael Bliss, John English, Desmond Morton, Terry Copp and Doug Owram.47 By 1998 Granatstein was confident enough to criticize the Canadian historical academy a divergence from his previous publications.

In 2001 Granatstein was sixty-two years old. He had stepped back from his role at the Canadian War Museum and was starting to reflect on his career. Perspection often comes with age and maturity and this is certainly the case in Granatstein’s 2001 self-reflective article titled “Conscription and My Politics.” He traces the origins of his interest in political history back to his master’s degree where he ended up writing his thesis on the Conservative Party during the Second World War.48 Granatstein then proceeds to go through his career in terms of the relationship between his politics and his research with his main focus being on the way he viewed conscription.

Until the 1980s Granatstein was strongly sympathetic to the French Canadian anti-conscription

43

McKillop, review of Who Killed Canadian History?, 16.

Bryan D. Palmer, review of Who Killed Canadian History?, 3.

45 Palmer, review of Who Killed Canadian History?, 6-7.

46 Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 61-62.

47 Granatstein, Who Killed Canadian History?, 73.

48 Granatstein, “Conscription and My Politics,” 35.

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sentiment. With a clear sense of humility in his writing, he admits that he had a change of heart.

The early 1980s had Granatstein realizing that Quebec was tearing the nation apart making him less inclined to respect their stubborn attitude. Additionally, the 1984 publication of Tug of War: The Canadian Victory That Opened Antwerp by Denis and Shelagh Whitaker made him realize the importance of conscripts in battle.49 This shift in personal politics affected his writing a change he believes is clearest in The Generals. Granatstein explains that he is not apologizing for this switch as he does not see it as an unacceptable process for a scholar to experience.50 His final thoughts regarding this topic are summarized when he writes, “I believe now as I have always done that the sole task of a historian is to try to understand what happened and why. But I know now that my politics, shifting and changing as I applied my analyses to events as I lived them, shaped what I wrote as a historian.”51 Nine years later, at the age of seventy-one, Granatstein published another self-reflective article. Titled “Thirty Years in the Trenches: A Military Historian’s Report on the War Between Teaching and Research,” Granatstein uses this piece to dig into his teaching and research within the context of his entire career. He begins with his undergraduate degree at the Royal Military College (RMC) and the relationships he built with his professors there. Richard Preston is the mentor Granatstein credits with teaching him to love research. This is key, as Granatstein was known throughout his career for his superb research skills and gaining access to closed archives.52 His other influential RMC professor was Enzio Cappadocia who Granatstein credits with guiding him towards the field of Canadian political history. Granatstein took a leave from the military to move back to Toronto for his master’s degree, a decision that helped the young historian realize that the military was no longer where he wanted to be in the long-term.53 He goes on to narrate his graduation from Duke University with his PhD and swiftly being hired at York University.

Granatstein had not taught in graduate school so the new professor reflected on the teaching qualities he admired in his own professors then attempted to emulate them. A key feature of Granatstein’s professional career was the fact that he both taught and published regularly for close to thirty years. This was unusual for the time and Granatstein goes to great length to explain his 49

Granatstein, “Conscription and My Politics,” 37-38.

Granatstein, “Conscription and My Politics,” 38.

51 Granatstein, “Conscription and My Politics,” 38.

52 Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches,” 37.

53 Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches,” 37.

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frustrations with the judging of university professors by either their teaching or research.54 He then moves on to discuss his problems with ‘old’ versus ‘new’ history and the lack of prioritization of Canadian history. These were very similar ideas to what he wrote about in Who Killed Canadian History? twelve years earlier. Further distance from his time at York allowed Granatstein to approach the matter in a slightly less aggressive manner. Of his clash with social historians at York he writes, “I didn’t object to those who worked on social history topics, so why should they trash me?”55 Perhaps that statement could be contradicted by Who Killed Canadian History?, but Granatstein had fair intentions. He was simply passionate that Canadians know their nation’s history. If one understands that he was a senior historian amongst a generation of younger historians who went and changed the playing field, a greater understanding of his argument can be digested regardless of whether there is agreement or not. Granatstein concludes with his retirement from the university setting saying that thirty years had been long enough – the next generation of historians could take the wheel now.56 History can take many forms and that is part of its fascination for many. While there are trends that the historians of different decades either pioneer or join, there are those who choose to stick to their own course regardless. Granatstein is an example of this as his conservative political history was thought to be old-fashioned as social history took over in the last four decades of the twentieth century. His list of publications is length, but can be highlighted by the works examined in this paper. One can see that he was not a ‘great man’ historian but a researcher of the politics, structures of governance, military, leadership, and nationalism of twentieth century Canada. There is no doubt that the historiography of Canadian history has been impacted by the publications of Jack L. Granatstein.

Works Cited Douglas, W.A.B. Review of The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, by Jack L. Granatstein. American Historical Review 100, no. 1 (February 1995): 270.

54

Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches,” 38-39.

Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches,” 41.

56 Granatstein, “Thirty Years in the Trenches,” 41.

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Dowsley, Gordon. Review of Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 420 (July 1975): 205-206.

Graham, Roger. Review of The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 19391945, by Jack L. Granatstein. International Journal 23, no. 2 (Spring 1968): 315-316.

Granatstein, Jack L. Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 19391945. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1975.

–. “Conscription and My Politics.” Canadian Military History 10, no. 4 (Autumn 2001): 35-38.

–. The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, 1993.

–. The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.

–. The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.

–. “Thirty Years in the Trenches: A Military Historian’s Report on the War Between Teaching and Research.” Canadian Military History 19, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 37-41.

–. Who Killed Canadian History? Toronto: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998.

Hayes, Geoffrey. Review of The Generals: The Canadian Army’s Senior Commanders in the Second World War, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Canadian Historical Review 76, no. 1 (March 1995): 154-156.

Hockin, Thomas A. Review of The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945, by Jack L. Granatstein. Canadian Journal of Political Science 1, no. 2 (June 1968): 224-225.

Holmes, John W. Review of Canada’s War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945, by Jack L. Granatstein. International Journal 30, no. 4 (Autumn 1975): 802804.

McKillop, A.B. Review of Who Killed Canadian History?, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 2 (June 1999): 269-299.

McLeod, Thomas H. Review of The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, by Jack L. Granatstein. Canadian Journal of Political Science 16, no. 2 (June 1983): 363364.

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Osborne, Ken. Review of Who Killed Canadian History?, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 1 (March 1999): 114-118.

Palmer, Bryan D. Review of Who Killed Canadian History?, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Canadian Historical Review 80, no. 4 (December 1999): 676-686.

University of Calgary. “Jack Granatstein.” Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. Updated July 2016. https://cmss.ucalgary.ca/profiles/jack-granatstein.

Ward, Norman. Review of The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957, by Jack L. Granatstein. The Canadian Historical Review 64, no. 1 (March 1983): 61-63.

From Other to Brother: Western Travel Writers and the Remaking of Russia Ryan Snopek Very few Early Modern Europeans who wrote accounts of Russia actually wanted to go to Russia. The famous English explorer Richard Hakluyt and his Tudor contemporaries were trying to find a north-east passage to China and the German Lutheran Adam Olearius was en route to Persia with no other choice but to transit through Russia. Olearius would go so far as to state that “there cannot any thing be more barbarous than that people,” comparing them unfavourably with pagans and indigenous Greenlanders.1 Only the German Catholic Sigismund von Herberstein, who in 1517 began the first eyewitness account of Russia since Ibn Fadlan in the 10th century travelled abroad as a diplomat with the intent of learning about Russia and the Russians – but even he was not particularly pleased about what he found.

Remarkably, these Western European accounts of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russia employ language more notoriously used of contemporaneous European exploration of the New World. Hakluyt recounting the voyage of Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor in 1553 frames it explicitly as a “discovery” of Russia by the Englis, with local Russians whom Hakluyt defines in his own words as “barbarous,” falling on their knees at the sight of the huge English ships.2 This language precisely parallels the same used in first contact narratives of Europeans encountering indigenous peoples on the shores of North and South America including Hakluyt’s own description of Inuit peoples near modern Iqaluit, Nunavut.3 Through these eyewitness accounts Russia was established as a near “Other” and would remain in that category until the reforms of Peter the Great at the turn of the eighteenth century.

These reforms would propel Russia into a close cultural relationship with Western Europe it had 1

Adam Olearius, “The Voyages and Travells of the Ambassadors Sent by Frederick, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia Begun in the Year M.DC.XXXIII. and Finish’d in M.DC.XXXIX: Containing a Compleat History of Muscovy, Tartary, Persia, and Other Adjacent Countries: With Several Publick Transactions Reaching near the Present Times: In VII. Books. Whereto Are Added the Travels of John Albert de Mandelslo (a Gentleman Belonging to the Embassy) from Persia into the East-Indies in III. Books Written Originally by Adam Olearius, Secretary to the Embassy; Faithfully Rendered into English, by John Davies,” 27.

2 Richard Hakluyt, Voyages and Discoveries: The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, 60–63.

3 Hakluyt, 190.

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never experienced before: Peter’s new Russian nobility wore Western fashions, espoused Enlightenment values, and freely intermingled in exclusive German and French aristocratic circles.

As historian Anthony Pagden notes, Early Modern Europeans who encountered new cultures described them in relation to “’natural’ patterns of behaviour” with themselves as the civilised norm and the “discovered” peoples as contrary barbarians.4 In other words, to understand other people they defined them through similarity or dissimilarity to themselves; the fewer points of comparison, the more bewildered Europeans became. Consequently, the more apparent points of comparison, the more the differences stood out. The question arises then: why should ostensibly Christian, near-European Russia have been considered barbarians to fellow Christian Europeans?

The answer lies less in Russia and more in the socio-cultural climate of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Western Europe. By examining not only the accounts of Western travel writers to Europe but the writers themselves I will show how the “discovery” of Russia by Westerners was defined by Early Modern anxieties surrounding religion and society that emerged during the Reformation and Enlightenment. These travel writers especially the Germans Sigismund von Herberstein and Adam Olearius – a Catholic and an Evangelical Lutheran respectively – used Russia as a field on which to argue their own respective views on what an ideal moral society should look like in the process establishing Russia as an antithetical Other. In particular, they criticised Russian men as violent, licentious, and stupid drunks while Russian arranged marriages condemned women to essential slavery locked at home with husbands who expressed love for them only by beating them. In reforming Russian society Peter the Great responded to these exact criticisms, creating a new and outward-looking class of international aristocrats to represent Russia thereby de-othering it in the eyes of their Western European counterparts.

I. The Travellers Sigismund von Herberstein was a sixteenth-century Viennese diplomat whose first journey to Russia coincided with the publishing of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517; Herberstein’s second journey to Russia, in 1526, coincided with the Battle of Mohacs which saw 4

Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology, 13, 15.

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the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire. Herberstein himself was a Catholic, a baron in the Holy Roman Empire, and extremely well-read and educated. As the premier ambassador from Germany to Russia, contemporaries and later German historians went so far as to label him – as Hakluyt did Willoughby – the “discoverer of Russia.”5 His account would act as a key guidebook and reference point to Russia for later travellers both fellow Germans like Adam Olearius and Englishmen like George Turberville.6 Herberstein with a great deal of existing diplomatic experience and a knowledge of Slovenian which allowed him some mutual intelligibility with spoken Russian was an ideal candidate to act as ambassador to Moscow. The nature of his understanding of Slovenian, however, poses another historical problem: both of his visits, and the publication of his Notes Upon Russia, took place before the Slovenian Protestant clergyman (as opposed to the Catholic Herberstein) Primož Trubar published his codification of the Slovene language and alphabet in Germany in 1550.7 By the sixteenth century Slovene and Russian had been separate languages with distinct linguistic and alphabetic influences for centuries though sharing enough similarities in grammar and some vocabulary to render them similar – but not mutually intelligible – today. It is possible that Herberstein hearing linguistic “false friends” and assuming too many similarities between both Slavic languages, may have lost some things in translation.

Geographically, Herberstein is not sure if Moscow – being on the other side of the “Tanais” or Don River, the assumed border of Europe since Strabo defined it as such in his Geographica – should be identified as in Europe or in Asia, perhaps the first reference to Russia’s status within a Eurasian periphery which remains a point of discussion today.8 Herberstein’s account begins first and foremost with the political history of Russia. This makes sense considering his purpose was official diplomatic business. Originally, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I wanted an

5

Sigismund von Herberstein, “Notes upon Russia: Being a Translation of the Earliest Account of That Country, Entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii,” ii.

6 Stéphane Mund, “The Discovery of Muscovite Russia in Tudor England,” 352.

7 Helen Fedor and Taru Spiegel, “Textbooks from Post-Reformation Europe,” Government, The Library of Congress (blog), May 21, 2018, //blogs.loc.gov/internationalcollections/2018/05/textbooks-from-post-reformation-europe/.

8 von Herberstein, “Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii,” vol. 2, p. 4; “Having assumed the Tanaïs [Don] as the boundary of Europe and Asia, we must begin our description in detail from this river.” As per Strabo, “Geography,” trans. H.C. Hamilton, Esq. and W. Falconer, n.d., bk.

11, chap. 2,

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alliance with the Grand Duke of Muscovy against the Poles and Lithuanians which later became a search for a fellow Christian ally against the Ottomans.9 After this, his next area of focus is not so much ethnography as it is an examination of the structure and doctrine of Russian Orthodox Christianity from the coronation ceremony of rulers to the clerical hierarchy to the instructions of religious teachers on specific issues chiefly those which differ from Catholic doctrine. A common theme in this section of his commentary is the conflict between Catholicism and Orthodoxy with excerpts from Papal Bulls praising the conversion of Russians in Lithuania from the Greek to the Latin rite.10 To his credit Herberstein’s own comments here are fairly neutral and again mostly interested in issues of doctrine though he does repeatedly mention the apparent insistence of Russians that they are the only true Christians and their zeal in converting Catholics.11 Naturally, the topic of religion eventually leads to an overview of Russian marriage. He establishes first that Russian marriages are arranged by the respective parents and that the bride and groom are strictly not allowed to meet until the wedding. Here Herberstein becomes more openly critical of Orthodox Christianity. He claims hypocrisy on part of Russian priests that they allow bigamy while scorning it along with allowing divorce while concealing it and knowing it to be “contrary to religion.”12 According to Herberstein there is little love between Russian wives and their husbands, offhandedly remarking that adultery in Russia is only defined as having the wife of another man not an unmarried woman. This also could be the first oblique description of the Russian terem, the historical aristocratic practise of confining women to a single section of a house which Herberstein condemns as a miserable existence apparently worse and more restricted than the similarly cloistered lives of upper class women in the west. On the topic of the treatment of women, he relates the following anecdote from Jordan, a German blacksmith in Moscow, and his wife: “After she had lived some time with her husband [Jordan], she thus once lovingly addressed him: ‘Why is it, my dearest husband, that you do not love me?’ The husband replied: ‘I do love you, passionately.’ ‘I have as yet,’ said she, ‘received no proofs of your love […] you have never beaten

9

von Herberstein, “Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii,” 37–38.

This marks an early reference to Ukrainian Greek Catholics, who would officially enter communion with the Pope in 1596 and later define a large part of modern Ukrainian history; von Herberstein, 75.

11 von Herberstein, 85.

12 von Herberstein, 93.

10

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me.’ ‘Really,’ said the husband, ‘I did not think that blows were proofs of love; but, however, I will not fail even in this respect.’ And so not long after he beat her most cruelly; and confessed to me that after that process his wife showed much greater affection towards him. So he repeated the exercise frequently; and finally, while I was still at Moscow, cut off her head and her legs.”13 The later account of Adam Olearius, published in 1669 mentions this same blacksmith as a point of reference for the treatment of Russian women though Olearius expresses doubt as to its veracity and the idea of women desiring to be beaten.14 It is also probably no coincidence that Herberstein chooses a fellow German as the protagonist of this most likely fictional anecdote.

Jordan, in his reluctance, frames his wife’s request as alien to his (good) sensibilities regarding proper marital relations. Olearius notes in his recounting of the story that another visitor to Russia, one Petreius, cast his own “Jordan” as Italian.15 In other family matters, Herberstein says that fathers have a custom of selling their sons into slavery often repeatedly because in his words the Russians “enjoy slavery more than freedom.”16 On slavery, he also claims that Russian labourers only work hard when they are beaten and if they are not they fear that they have displeased their master. Meanwhile, men in the military he stereotypes as cowardly and often lose in battle as opposed to Tatars who make much more resolute soldiers. He claims that usury is commonplace in Russia despite everyone knowing that it is a sin and he condemns the Muscovites as “more cunning and deceitful than all others.”17 Herberstein also relates stories not unlike those of European explorers in the New World of humanoid fish and men with the heads of dogs albeit personally considering them unbelievable.18 For Western Europeans, both places represented a sort of terra incognita in which seemingly anything was possible. While Russia did exist as a conceptual space, neither its bounds nor its contents were precisely known in contrast to “known” Europe. This is reflected well in the 1496 Nuremberg Chronicle map in which “Russia” appears in a blank space at the top of the map

13

von Herberstein, 94–95.

Olearius, “The Voyages and Travells of Adam Olearius,” 70.

15 Olearius,70.

16 von Herberstein, “Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii,” 95.

17 von Herberstein, vol. 2, p. 7.

18 von Herberstein, vol. 2, 41–42.

14

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as well as the famous Waldseemuller map in which Russia does not appear at all and in its place are ancient references like Tanais (the Don river), Sarmatia, and Hyperborea.19 16th century Europeans then defined Russia by its exotic and distant nature and by its poor Christianity. In addition to calling them outright “barbarous” Hakluyt would consider them not “good Christians” and cruel even to their own people let alone others.20 Those on Russia’s borders in Poland and Livonia went even farther in their invective declaring Russians to be infidels and not Christians at all.21 Russia was a truly foreign place perfect for what Marshall Poe describes as the “inverted image” that these travellers projected onto it arguing for and defending their own idealised society against a Russia interpreted to be its antithesis but likely resembled their own medieval past.22 This is a trend that would be continued and amplified in the 17th century as conflict in Western Europe over moral authority intensified and travellers became more familiar with Russian life.

Adam Olearius epitomises the 17th century travel writer concerned with socio-cultural behaviours and morals as much as with ideal government and religion. Olearius from Holstein was an Evangelical Lutheran and his journey to Persia via Russia in 1633 would have taken place in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War. It is worth noting how, even one hundred years after Herberstein, a voyage to Russia was considered worthy of an ethnographic travelogue. At this point this type of writing was usually the domain of travellers to the Americas or the “Orient” of the European imagination delineated by Turkey and the Balkans. Russia was as much the Other in the seventeenth century perhaps even more so than it had been in the sixteenth century.

Much like Herberstein, Olearius was also sent as an ambassador to this far-off land. In contrast to Herberstein, Olearius’ ethnography discusses religious rituals and doctrine only after his long section on the apparent morals and culture of the locals explicitly building off of Herberstein’s account from the outset.23 Where Herberstein mostly interacts with the wealthy

19

Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle World Map (Nuremberg: Liber Chronicarum, 1496), https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:3293718; Martin Waldseemuller, Waldseemuller Map, 1507, 1507, https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/waldexh.html.

20 Hakluyt, Voyages and Discoveries, 79.

21 Marshall Poe, A People Born to Slavery: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748, 19–20.

22 Poe, 81.

23 Olearius, “The Voyages and Travells of Adam Olearius,” bk. 2, 37.

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aristocratic and merchant class, Olearius frequently describes peasants and the urban poor though in less detail than the same upper class society with whom Herberstein mingled.

The increased detail and familiarity with Russian culture in Olearius’ account is not accompanied with open-minded curiosity but with consistent and specific invective directed exclusively against Russians. This parallels another ethnographic subject of his time in Russia indigenous pagan Greenlanders. The Greenlanders are defined as savages while as for the Russians he declares “there cannot any thing be more barbarous than that people.”24 The Russians he says pretend to be descended from ancient Greeks but with none of their virtues. Olearius, it seems, was unaware of the depth of influence of the Medieval Greek Byzantines on Russia a major oversight.

Many of Olearius’ criticisms of Russians echo those of Herberstein. Marriages are arranged, loveless, and consequently adulterous, women are regularly beaten and are confined to their homes, men are violent and drunk, and Russians in general are deceitful, superstitious, naturally inclined to slavery, and hate foreigners. Olearius further adds to these by noting that women wear too much makeup and dress like men and that Russians are ignorant and do not study the arts or sciences as Westerners do. He relates a particular incident - which he calls “the highest act of Muscovite civility” – with a nobleman who invited him to his house. This nobleman showed off his wife and insisted that Olearius kiss her on the mouth, something that bewildered the author for whom kissing a lady’s hand was gentlemanly etiquette.25 This physicality similarly to the Russian practise of nude mixed bathing he later describes is more a reflection of his Lutheran view on sexuality and the body than proof of Russian loose morals.

Complementary to that, as opposed to Herberstein, Olearius seems to largely approve of Russian Orthodox Christianity especially its hostility towards Catholicism and relative neutrality towards Lutheranism.26 However, when he opens his section on Orthodoxy, he again brings up the question of whether Russians are true Christians without any immediate conclusion of his own.

Even in 1633, when Olearius visited Russia and in 1669 when he published his travelogue, Russia was still an Other to Europe despite (or because of?) its seeming Christianity which Olearius mentions was problematic and dubious to Lutherans, despite misgivings about their

24

Olearius, bk. 3, 57.

Olearius, bk. 3, 66.

26 Olearius, bk. 3, 108.

25

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“abominable” corruption of Biblical stories he at least respects them as true Christians.27 As a society more broadly, however, at the time of the Enlightenment the Russians would have seemed even more backwards given Olearius’ impression that they have no interest in art, science, or personal liberty. In other words, the Russians of the seventeenth century that Olearius and others observed barely seemed to resemble what they would have considered a “civilised” society, their differences social, cultural, and physical. To de-other Russia, then, Peter the Great not only had to introduce aesthetic change but change the behaviour of (noble, wealthy) Russians entirely to make them resemble their Western counterparts.

II. The Russian Perspective Ultimately, foreign accounts could have only been so important. In order for Peter to need to reform Russia into a culturally Western state, the criticisms of Herberstein, Olearius and others had to have some basis in reality. At this point, we need to examine Russian sources and scholarship of history at the time to see how accurately foreign ethnographers depicted pre-Petrine Russian life particularly in the realms of gender and marriage.

The Domostroi, a text from the 1550s on elite household management, provides a view into what was expected of men as heads of a house as well as their women and children. Its priorities are far different from those of Herberstein or Olearius. The Domostroi has a few references to beating one’s wife but those mentions are largely in reference to punishment for consorting with sorcerers and old crones a social problem mentioned many times in the book.28 Travel writers do not seem to mention this Russian concern with gossipy, suspicious old women and pagans, even when writing about Russian superstitions and the questionable veracity of their Christianity as per Olearius. However, beating as punishment is extremely casual in the Domostroi as a whole with regular references to punishing servants and especially children to inspire fear and obedience in them. Deference to the father is inherently assumed though women are not framed as slaves and were responsible for their servants. Women in Russia were viewed as morally good and

27

Olearius, bk. 3, 93, 99.

Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, The “Domostroi”: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible, 109, 182.

28

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not evil or inherently suspicious.29 There is no reference to selling sons into slavery either despite foreign accounts insisting on this being a common practise but fathers are exhorted to “discipline them and break them in.”30 Though wives were supposed to be “severely whipped” if they were disobedient, this is no different from how children and servants were expected to be treated.31 The quotidian nature of beatings-as-punishment in Russia, combined with open slavery and the marriage ceremony of a father whipping his daughter and then passing the whip to his sonin-law – something foreign accounts detail with horror – coloured Western perspectives of Russian marriage as a whole.32 In their eyes slavery became something that pervaded Russian society as a whole including the sacred space of marriage. For Lutherans like Olearius while women were to be deferential to their husbands, a marriage was meant to be loving and in some respects equal – “companionate” is the specific term used.33 This, however, was an ideal and not necessarily reality.

Violence was as much an “inherent characteristic” of marriage in the rest of Medieval and Early Modern Europe as it was in Russia.34 However, Russian marriage was decidedly unromantic. For pre-Petrine Russians sex did not equal love and the purpose of marriage was alliance and childbearing and not emotional partnership similar to Medieval Western Europe.35 Another aspect of marriage, the seclusion of women in the terem, is described with relative accuracy by Western ethnographers. In modern historiography it is doubted that the terem as an institution is dated to no earlier than the beginning of the seventeenth century but it is possible earlier writers like Herberstein saw a similar antecedent practise – one that may ultimately not have been too much different from the relegation of Western women to the private sphere.36 Its arrival in Russia may have been the product of years of civil strife and uncertainty at the turn of the seventeenth century, traditional Orthodox values that promoted women’s virginity and asceticism or both.37 Western writers were also accurate about women’s fashion. “Heavy” makeup

29

Pouncy, 28.

Pouncy, 95–96.

31 Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World, 32.

32 Marshall Poe, “The Sexual Life of Muscovites: Evidence From the Foreign Accounts,”412.

33 Katherine Crawford, European Sexualities: 1400-1800), 18.

34 Marianna Muravyeva, “‘Till Death Us Do Part’: Spousal Homicide in Early Modern Russia,” 307.

35 Poe, “The Sexual Life of Muscovites: Evidence From the Foreign Accounts,” 409.

36 Natalia Pushkareva, Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century, 83.

37 Pushkareva, 92; Pouncy, The “Domostroi,” 1–2.

30

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by the standards of Westerners was considered the appropriate feminine norm and both men and women wore the traditional, dress-like kaftan, in part because in the seventeenth century Western dress was either banned (for men) or seen as outrageously bold (for women).38 The pre-Petrine masculine ideal was similarly foreign to Western especially Protestant outsiders but ultimately in keeping with Orthodox values. Olearius describes the most respected Russian men as being corpulent – like their women – and heavily bearded with shaved heads for major aristocrats and lesser or disgraced nobles growing their hair long.39 Beards were a sign of virility in men and the ideal Orthodox Russian man was pious, humble (in deeds and appearance), and most of all devoted and orderly.40 Sobriety was also a key virtue but if Olearius and others are to be believed the Russians were at the time the most drunken people in the world.

This overview of the Russian perspective on issues of gender and marriage shows that for the most part what Western writers claimed were normal Russian behaviours did indeed happen but the biases of these writers coloured their interpretation. In some cases, Russians were not so different fundamentally from their Western counterparts. One can imagine an earlier Medieval German writer, had they seen seventeenth-century Russia, might have seen many similarities.

Indeed, it is perhaps those same similarities to Europe’s Medieval past that writers like Olearius and Herberstein saw and found so objectionable. Russia was an Other not because it was extraordinarily different but because it was uncomfortably similar to a relatively recent past.

III. The Rehabilitation of Russia’s Image If the Domostroi of the sixteenth century embodied the ideal image of Medieval Russian society, The Honorable Mirror of Youth was its eighteenth-century equivalent for a new, reformed society. It was intended as a moral handbook for young men and women to educate them in modern “civility.” It advises men to be “vigorous, work-loving, diligent, and energetic,” in part to similarly inspire one’s servants and also to study “languages, horseback riding, dancing, fencing and… good

38

Lindsay Hughes, “From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women During the Reign of Peter the Great,” 17–28.

39 Olearius, “The Voyages and Travells of Adam Olearius,” bk. 3, 56.

40 Marianna Muravyeva, “Personalizing Homosexuality and Masculinity in Early Modern Russia,” in Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 217; Poe, “The Sexual Life of Muscovites: Evidence From the Foreign Accounts,” 417.

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conversation.”41 It admonishes such behaviour as “living obesely in laziness” as well as nosepicking, swearing, drinking, gambling, sexual impropriety, and – much like the Domostroi – gossiping.42 It hits similar notes of piety and familial respect as the Domostroi as well, but its other emphases – taking an interest in foreign cultures, courage and daring, reading, eagerness – are completely new. Before Peter, the home of married adults was the centre of social life. After, this centre shifted to youthful courtly life. The Honorable Mirror has very little to say about managing a household or even an estate and is above all concerned with personal behaviour and decorum.

However, where the Honorable Mirror recasts men as “cavaliers” instead of “masters,” women are still expected to be “crowns.”43 Its advice for women closely resembles the Domostroi with a focus on Christian virtue utilising the very same repetition of Biblical allusions as the Domostroi – something completely lacking in its advice for men. At the same time, it diverges from the medieval tradition in a very typically Enlightenment fashion by citing classical Greek and Roman precedents of virtue as well as Martin Luther with equal validity.44 Particular virtues given for young women – who now, unlike before, would have been more freely able to interact with men outside the home – are chastity, humility, shame, and silence. Though these virtues resemble those given in the Domostroi, they now exist in the newly-minted category of public etiquette as opposed to marital household duty. It cannot be understated how fundamental a shift it was for Peter the Great to encourage aristocratic women to join public life and even more than that get an education.

During Peter the Great’s reign, it was in fact his mother, Natalia, who brought down the terem that bound aristocratic women in the home. In 1690 she left the imperial residence in a curtainless carriage allowing common people to see the face of a noblewoman for perhaps the first time in their lives.45 Other women quickly followed suit, eagerly embracing public, mixed-gender life and all the German and French cultural trappings that came with it particularly education and personal fashion.46 When in 1700 all women were ordered to wear Western dress for aristocratic women this was probably just a confirmation of what they were already doing. For ordinary

41

Nancy S. Kollmann, “Etiquette For Peter’s Time: The Honorable Mirror of Youth,” 65–66.

Kollmann, 65, 67.

43 Kollmann, 74.

44 Kollmann, 78–79.

45 Pushkareva, Women in Russian History, 123.

46 Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World, 810.

42

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women, it was probably as deeply traumatic as the enforced shaving of beards was for ordinary men.47 In 1702 Peter the Great banned arranged marriages allowing prospective partners to meet each other and had no compulsion to marry with either man or woman free to reject the other making marriage closer to the Protestant companionate ideal.48 Perhaps even more importantly from the perspective of foreign visitors, Peter also replaced the traditional passing of the whip at weddings with a kiss. In one stroke, he not only removed the master-slave imagery from marriage but made romantic love central to marital partnership and as if to answer Olearius’ awkward gentlemanly encounter with the nobleman’s wife made kissing a fundamentally spousal act.

New education and fashion of course were not limited to women. As shown in the Honorable Mirror, young noblemen were also expected to be educated especially in foreign languages. Perhaps the most well-known of Peter the Great’s reforms is the beard ban which along with uniforms brought well-to-do men’s fashion in line with Western trends as epitomised by Peter himself in all of his portraits. The shaving of beards across society was transformative for Russian masculinity. The beard which had been as Olearius noted a symbol of virility and even a symbol of Christian piety was seen by Peter as something which made Russia uncivilised.49 Though fashion as is always the case changed after Peter’s reign and beards became trendy and acceptable again in the nineteenth century, they no longer carried universal symbolism of Orthodox manhood.

The mature, adult patriarch was no longer the masculine ideal of Russia. That role had now passed to the beardless, energetic youth embodied by the young Tsar himself.

Following soon after his decree on beards, in January 1700 Peter commanded that Russian men – boyars, bureaucrats, and landowners – were to wear a uniform of his own devising based on French, German, and Hungarian models.50 Aristocratic women too were required to don Western dress but they did so more readily and without the inherent military context of the men.

If these reforms seem not only Western, but remarkably Protestant, there is good reason.

Peter’s chief influences came from England and the Netherlands the two countries he visited during his Grand Embassy to explore Western culture. One of the chief teachers in Peter’s court 47

Hughes, “From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women During the Reign of Peter the Great,” 18.

48 Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World, 390–91.

49 Massie, 235.

50 Massie, 238–39.

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was Pastor Johann Gluck, a Lutheran, who was the adoptive father of Peter’s wife, Catherine, and the founder of Moscow’s new School of Ancient and Modern Languages.51 He was appointed to train Russian diplomats in all the arts required of them especially those outlined in the Honorable Mirror.

Not only did Peter intend for Westerners to see a changed Russia, he also explicitly intended for educated Russians to understand how foreigners had seen Russia in the past. He ordered translations into Russian of foreign books about Russia – perhaps those by Herberstein and Olearius – even if they were unflattering to Russia and its people.52 Indeed, one can look at almost any observation about Russians made by Olearius in his 1669 ethnography and see a reform

by Peter only about thirty years later answering it. Beyond changes to fashion, education, and marriage, Olearius’ complaints about Russian propensity for swearing, dislike of tobacco, and slavery were all answered by Peter’s reforms;53 while slavery (in the sense of the specific term used by Herberstein and Olearius, kholops) was never technically abolished, all slaves were by 1725 effectively converted into serfs though the status of serfs as slaves is itself debatable.54 The most succinct way to show the vast transformation that Russian marriage and gender roles underwent is to examine historical portraiture. In an 1896 painting by Andrei Ryabushkin, intended to be representative of a seventeenth-century, pre-Petrine merchant family in Russia, we can see the old social order: a bearded, aged man in the centre of the family, seated, with his heavily dressed and made-up wife to his right and his children, seated and standing, to his left.55 All are severe and the painting along with its subjects gravitates towards the father at the centre. Contrast the 1635 “Family Portrait” painting by Dutch artist Frans Hals which depicts a genial, affectionate family: the wife is seated, close to the children who are holding hands with the father standing off to the left looking at his wife who smiles warmly at the viewer.56 Both paintings represent families

51

Massie, 391.

Massie, 391–92.

53 Olearius, “The Voyages and Travells of Adam Olearius,” bk. 3, p62; Massie, Peter the Great, His Life and World, 211–12.

54 Richard Hellie, Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725, 698–99.

55 Andrei Petrovich Ryabushkin, Russian Merchant Family in the 17th Century, 1896, Oil on canvas, 1896, https://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/Russian-Merchant-Family-in-the-17thcentury-2UMDHUW4WO87.html.

56 Frans Hals, Family Portrait, c 1635, Oil on canvas, 113 x 93.4cm, c 1635, https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/h/hals/frans/05-1638/49family.html.

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from the same era but they could hardly be more different. The Ryabushkin painting shows no familial affection least of all between wife and husband while the Hals portrait presents an openly affectionate, much more relaxed and at ease – for the time – family. In portraiture made after Peter the Great’s reforms, we see a complete change in family dynamics seen clearly in Andrei Matveyev’s self-portrait with his wife.57 Matveyev has his arm lovingly around his wife’s shoulders and they are holding hands, youthful and dressed in Western fashion – Matveyev, of course, without a beard – and their smiles though slight are there. Compared to the 17th century merchant family, they seem to be from a completely different country – and in many senses, they are.

When Western travel writers ventured to (or, more accurately, through) Russia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they found a country so exotic to them they saw themselves as having “discovered” it, its people and customs so different yet uncomfortably familiar that they immediately labelled them as barbaric. This marked the establishment of Russia as the “Other” in Early Modern Europe a status that did not change even after great social, religious, and political upheavals in the West. Most of all, these Western commentators were repulsed by Russian attitudes towards marriage and sexuality seeing their women as manly yet offensively painted with makeup and their men as violent, bearded drunks who embodied the notion of the uncivilised.

Peter the Great’s transformation of Russia changed many aspects of the country from its military to its administration but some of his greatest changes were to the social fabric of the nobility and the wealthy. Led by his mother, he oversaw the abolition of the reclusive terem and he also introduced romance and choice to marriage along with the physical sexuality of kissing.

Russian men and women were wholly reformed wearing Western uniforms and dresses, adopting Western education and a Western love of arts and sciences, as well as following new codes of public etiquette aligned with Western moral values and Enlightenment ideals. Perhaps most importantly of all, Western observers like the Dutch painter Cornelius de Bruyn wholeheartedly approved of this new Russia hoping that new fashions would “in time blot out the remembrance of the ancient dress.”58 Russia or at least its elite was at last accepted by the West into its exclusive

57

Andrei Matveyev, Self-Portrait with Wife, 1729, Oil on canvas, 75.5 × 90.5cm, 1729, https://rusmuseumvrm.ru/data/collections/painting/18_19/zh_4913/index.php?lang=en.

58 Hughes, “From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women During the Reign of Peter the Great,” 17.

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aristocratic haute couture – the Other no more. While the top-down nature of these reforms made them enticing and enriching to Russian elites, for ordinary people this sudden break with lived traditions must have been incredibly confusing and traumatic – a social conflict that would define Russia’s 19th century.

To give a whole account of how Peter the Great changed Russian society even in the realm of gender and sexuality alone deserves far more research, especially into its far-reaching consequences that we could perhaps observe today. Additionally, though it has been a topic of some intense intellectual thought in the past few decades, more research could be done into the nature of Russia as Western Europe’s “Other,” and how this status has been established, disestablished, and arguably re-established once more.

With all this said, however, it would be wrong to assume that after Peter the Great Russian society and sexuality in no way resembled its Medieval past. Though much of the cultural practises and morals of the elites trickled down over the decades and centuries to the common people, much still remains even from Olearius’ observations that can be seen today. For modern Russians, nudity in the sauna – though not mixed any more – is still common and Russians still have a strong tendency towards non-sexual, same-gender physical intimacy including handholding and kissing with those close to them.

Works Cited Crawford, Katherine. European Sexualities: 1400-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Fedor, Helen, and Taru Spiegel. “Textbooks from Post-Reformation Europe.” Government. The Library of Congress (blog), May 21, 2018. //blogs.loc.gov/internationalcollections/2018/05/textbooks-from-post-reformation-europe/.

Hakluyt, Richard. Voyages and Discoveries : The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1589. http://archive.org/details/voyagesdiscoveri0000hakl.

Hals, Frans. Family Portrait. c 1635. Oil on canvas, 113 x 93.4cm. https://www.wga.hu/framese.html?/html/h/hals/frans/05-1638/49family.html.

Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia, 1450-1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. http://archive.org/details/slaveryinrussia10000hell.

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Herberstein, Sigismund von. “Notes upon Russia: Being a Translation of the Earliest Account of That Country, Entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii.” Translated by R.H. Major, 1549. http://international.loc.gov/cgibin/query/h?intldl/mtfront:@OR(@field(NUMBER+@band(mtfxtx+g340002190a))).

Hughes, Lindsay. “From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women During the Reign of Peter the Great.” In Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilisation, edited by Peter I. Barta, 17–28. London: Routledge, 2001.

Kollmann, Nancy S. “Etiquette For Peter’s Time: The Honorable Mirror of Youth.” Russian History/Histoire Russe 35, no. 1–2 (2008): 63–83.

Massie, Robert K. Peter the Great, His Life and World. New York: Knopf, 1980.

Matveyev, Andrei. Self-Portrait with Wife. 1729. Oil on canvas, 75.5 × 90.5cm. https://rusmuseumvrm.ru/data/collections/painting/18_19/zh_4913/index.php?lang=en.

Mund, Stéphane. “The Discovery of Muscovite Russia in Tudor England.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 86, no. 2 (2008): 351–73. https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.2008.7474.

Muravyeva, Marianna. “Personalizing Homosexuality and Masculinity in Early Modern Russia.”

In Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Raisa Maria Toivo and Marianna Muravyeva. Routledge, 2013.

———. “‘Till Death Us Do Part’: Spousal Homicide in Early Modern Russia.” The History of the Family 18, no. 3 (August 1, 2013): 306–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2013.827130.

Olearius, Adam. “The Voyages and Travells of the Ambassadors Sent by Frederick, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia Begun in the Year M.DC.XXXIII. and Finish’d in M.DC.XXXIX: Containing a Compleat History of Muscovy, Tartary, Persia, and Other Adjacent Countries: With Several Publick Transactions Reaching near the Present Times: In VII. Books. Whereto Are Added the Travels of John Albert de Mandelslo (a Gentleman Belonging to the Embassy) from Persia into the East-Indies in III. Books Written Originally by Adam Olearius, Secretary to the Embassy; Faithfully Rendered into English, by John Davies.” Translated by John Davies, 1669. http://search.proquest.com/docview/2240854014/11467216?accountid=14906.

Pagden, Anthony. The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. http://archive.org/details/fallofnaturalman0000pagd.

Poe, Marshall. A People Born to Slavery : Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2000. http://archive.org/details/peopleborntoslav00poem.

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———. “The Sexual Life of Muscovites: Evidence From the Foreign Accounts.” Russian History 35, no. 3–4 (2008): 409–27.

Pouncy, Carolyn Johnston. The “Domostroi” : Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994. http://archive.org/details/domostroirulesfo00unse.

Pushkareva, Natalia. Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century.

Translated by Eve Levin. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uva.x004103396.

Ryabushkin, Andrei Petrovich. Russian Merchant Family in the 17th Century. 1896. Oil on canvas. https://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/Russian-Merchant-Family-in-the-17thcentury-2UMDHUW4WO87.html.

Schedel, Hartmann. “Nuremberg Chronicle World Map.” Nuremberg: Liber Chronicarum, 1496. https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:3293718.

Strabo. “Geography.” Translated by H.C. Hamilton, Esq. and W. Falconer, n.d. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Aboo k%3D11%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D1.

Waldseemuller, Martin. “Waldseemuller Map.” 1507. https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/waldexh.html.

American-Iranian Relations: A Study of Foreign Policy Emily Pazuk In 1977, US President Jimmy Carter toasted the Shah of Iran and said: "Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world".1 Little did he know that less than two years later the Shah would be living in exile and the US would lose its foothold in the Middle East. The Islamic revolution of 1979 profoundly damaged relations between the US and Iran and set the stage for major events such as the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iran-Contra scandal. The strained relationship with Iran changed the way that the US approached foreign policy especially regarding the Middle East. After his speech, Carter would watch the US-Iran relationship slowly come unravelled until 1980 when he decided to sever diplomatic ties. Iran was the American foothold in the Middle East and gave the US access to relations with other more volatile countries.

This research essay outlines three major events in the US-Iran relationship deterioration including the 1979 Islamic revolution, the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iran-Contra scandal. I focus on how these three events shaped US foreign policy decisions towards Iran and why they were key to the narrative at the time. To do this, one must have an understanding of each of the events as well as a brief background of additional constraints during each event. Overall, each of the three events outlined serves to prove that an inflexible government approach to foreign policy is not the answer specifically when dealing with a very volatile country.

American foreign policy is an oft-studied topic for political science and history scholars alike. Individuals are continuously publishing new works as additional information becomes declassified and major events occur in the world. In the study of the Iranian-American relationship, there are several key works. Many texts primarily focus on the relationship following the Iranian Revolution and the relationship preceding that is more often woven into other more general texts on American foreign policy. One of these broader texts is Us Diplomacy Since 1900 by Robert Schulzinger. Schulzinger is recognized as a leading scholar on American history and professors use his texts as course material for numerous courses. Schulzinger does not specifically focus on Iran but rather as the title suggests, walks the reader through a timeline of foreign policy. The first

1

"Jimmy Carter Toasts the Shah | 31 December 1977," Voices & Visions, accessed 2 Nov 2020.

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edition of this text was published in 1998 has been edited and most recently the sixth edition was published in 2008.

Focusing on American-Iranian relations, one of the most prominent scholars was James A. Bill. He had published numerous books on the bilateral relationship as well as cultivating connections with key players. His text The Eagle and the Lion published in 1988 is a leading text on the Iranian revolution. The text, however, does provide a more comprehensive look at the history of diplomatic relations and stretches back to trace a basic history since 1830. Bill looks indepth at many entanglements between the US and Iran and finishes with a critique of the relationship discussing how tensions have risen and how often American diplomats do not have the correct language and culture training before going to Iran.

When the American government began to declassify documents starting in the early 2000s, several texts analyzing the American-Iranian relationship came to light. Donette Murray published US Foreign Policy and Iran in 2010, Christian Emery published US Foreign Policy and Iran in 2013 and Javier Gil Guerrero published The Carter Administration and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty in 2016. Each of these texts provides a unique analysis of the relationship and provides different insights into the diplomatic relationship of the US and Iran.

For example, Murray's text explores the rationale, effectiveness, and consequences of American foreign policy regarding Iran. She explores how Iran has been both a key ally as well as a loose cannon in American political history. Emery's text takes a different perspective and looks at the US-Iran relationship through the lens of the Cold War. He examines how American policy had to change considering three major crises that came after the 1979 revolution: the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. Next, Gil Guerrero's text focuses primarily on pre-revolution Iran and how the buildup occurred. He explores Carter's actions during the end of the Shah's reign and presents his thoughts about how the outcome could have changed with more action from the US. Each of the three texts outlined here presents different perspectives on the US-Iran relationship and each provides a look into a different dynamic of key events.

Alongside these secondary source texts, there are hundreds of journal articles as well as primary sources to consult when researching the US-Iran relationship. Primary sources come in the form of declassified American documents as well as books written by individuals involved in the US government during the time. Some examples of these include White House Diary by Jimmy

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Carter, The Reagan Diaries and An American Life by Ronald Reagan and American Hostages in Iran by Warren Christopher et al. Though there are many more primary source texts, the aforementioned were key in developing an analysis of the situation which unfolded between the US and Iran and gaining an understanding of the pressures facing the individuals involved.

Carter's Approach to Foreign Policy The Carter administration's main goals of foreign policy were to address human rights abuses, democratic values, encourage nuclear non-proliferation, and fight global poverty.2 The Carter administration focused on diplomacy and wanted to smooth ties with their allies. They took a harder stance on human rights abuses ending military aid to several countries, for example Nicaragua, Chile, and Argentina.3 Carter did shift his stance on the USSR part way through his presidency moving from détente to confrontation but generally pursued a peaceful resolution to conflicts he faced. The Carter administration can be criticized for not prioritizing initiatives which led to confusion and the appearance of disorganization to the public.4 Overall, this leadership team focused on maintaining relationships and trying to improve lives around the world.

The Iranian Revolution and the Fall of the Shah Public demonstrations against the Shah began in October 1977 in Tehran by students and then spread throughout the country supported by various Islamic leftist organizations and more student movements. The protests escalated rapidly and developed into a civil resistance campaign eventually culminating in terrorists barring the doors and setting a full cinema on fire in 1978.5 Over 400 people died and historians consider the event as the catalyst for the Islamic Revolution.6 After the attack, various factions blamed each other including placing blame on the Iranian secret

2

David F. Schmitz and Vanessa Walker, "Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy," 113.

3 Schmitz and Walker, "Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights," 137.

4 Schmitz and Walker, "Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights," 114-115.

5 Javier Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty: US-Iran Relations on the Brink of the 1979 Revolution, 95.

6 Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty, 95.

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police, so-called 'Islamic Marxists' and Islamic militants.7 Protests and strikes shook the country in the second half of 1978 and the Shah left the country in November of that year and was officially exiled on 16 January 1979. He left his duties to a regency council. The council invited the Shah's main political opponent, Ayatollah Khomeini, back to Iran from his exile where several thousand Iranians greeted him. The reign of the Iranian monarchy officially collapsed shortly after when rebel troops and guerillas overwhelmed those still loyal to the Shah and brought Khomeini to power. Iran then held a national referendum on 1 April 1979 to make it an Islamic republic.

Additionally, the overthrow was nearly non-violent which was also extremely unusual. The shock to the rest of the world especially the US, stemmed from the speed with which the revolution turned from strikes and demonstrations to the collapse of a long royal rule. In just over a year Iran went from some student and leftist demonstrations to a national referendum to change the country to an Islamic republic.

The American president at the time was President Jimmy Carter and he was shocked by the situation unfolding in Iran. Iran was a strategically important country to the US due to their support of American military campaigns during the Cold War and their strategic geographical position in the Middle East. Despite signs that the Shah's reign was failing, Carter hung onto the hope that the US support would continue to prop up the Shah as it had done for years prior. As he remarks in his memoir White House Diary, while discussing the Shah and Iran's strict views on Communists who were illegal in Iran "It seems, in retrospect, that this was the beginning of his downfall."8 Carter and his advisors were certainly aware of the growing dissent against the Shah as protestors had made their aims very clear, however, the world did not expect the overthrow as it did not follow the conventional 'recipe' for a revolution. As Dr. Jack Goldstone, a sociology, political science and history professor at George Mason University in Virginia, states: "There are five elements that create an unstable social equilibrium: economic or fiscal strain, alienation and opposition among the elites, widespread popular anger at injustice, a persuasive shared narrative of resistance and favorable international relations."9 The overthrow of the Iranian Shah surprised President Carter as Iran was not facing many of these elements at the time. Iran enjoyed relative economic prosperity, had an average amount of opposition among elites, and did not have a

7

Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty, 94.

Jimmy Carter, White House Diary, 137.

9 Jack A. Goldstone, Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction, 10.

8

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persuasive shared narrative of resistance. There was some widespread popular anger at some of the Shah's decisions but this was primarily limited to the student and younger population and there were favourable international relations but they were supporting the Shah not the revolutionaries.

Based on these factors alone, President Carter did not see the path to the Iranian revolution as it was somewhat unclear.

A shock to the American government also came when the Shah's administration informed them that the Shah was battling cancer and had been for the previous four years. His condition was hindering the government as he was the key decision-maker and some days he was unable to attend meetings or make decisions due to the medication for his treatment.10 His condition did nothing to soothe Iranian anxieties about his capabilities as a leader.

On 2 November 1978, President Carter wrote in his diary: "The shah expressed deep concern about whether to set up an interim government, a military government or perhaps even to abdicate. We encouraged him to hang firm and count on our backing."11 At this point, Iran had been paralyzed by strikes and was struggling to meet international agreements especially for oil.

After the so-called Black Friday on 8 September 1978, where police fired into a massive crowd of protestors, it was the beginning of the end for the Shah. However as proven through President Carter's diary entry, the Americans still believed that they had a chance to turn the situation in their favour. As Iran was a key country in the American Middle Eastern Cold War strategy and served as a pro-American buffer between the USSR and pro-Soviet Iraq, the US focused on how they could support the current regime rather than preparing for a potential collapse. The above entry from President Carter outlined that he would support the Shah in whatever action he took including setting up a military government.12 Carter concluded that the Shah was not a strong leader and was unsure of himself.13 Even at this point, there was little thought from the US that there would be dramatic action in Iran. Carter further remarked on 21 November 1978 that the Shah was increasingly isolated having no public relations or political structure and the revolutionaries opposing him were extremely unpredictable.14 As such, Carter decided to support the Shah as

10

Carter, White House Diary, 364.

Carter, White House Diary, 257.

12 Carter, White House Diary, 257.

13 Carter, White House Diary, 258.

14 Carter, White House Diary, 261. As an editor's note, Carter comments that the Shah had been depended on by the six preceding presidents and he had hoped to continue that pattern.

11

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much as possible without being directly involved in the internal affairs of Iran.15 This support was primarily in the form of words rather than actions but it was support nonetheless. The remaining comments regarding the Shah from 1978 include Carter discussing his thoughts that the Shah was handling the situation extremely poorly and was simply being indecisive which was exacerbating the situation. Carter commented on 23 December 1978 that they are 'walking a tightrope with Iran' which was certainly true as the Shah left Iran in exile less than a month later.16 Each of the comments that Carter made in his diary demonstrated the concern that he held over the developing situation in Iran as he was aware of the fallout if the Shah's reign ended which demonstrated how politically important Iran was to the US. Overall, Carter had a prescribed approach to his reaction to the fall of the Shah. He chose not to deviate from his initial demonstrations of support namely by not offering physical support or any visible show of strength. He maintained the same strategy even as the situation in Iran continued to develop.

The Importance of the Iranian Revolution and the Fall of the Shah With the fall of the Shah, several key issues emerged and affected the US. First, the Iranian revolution began the process of completely severing ties between Iran and the US. There continues to be no official diplomatic relations between the two countries to this day. Since the fall of the Shah, there have been many disputes between the two countries including the Iranian hostage crisis and the ongoing nuclear disagreements as two key examples. Next, the US lost an integral foothold in the Middle East during the Cold War. Not only did this expose weaknesses to its main opponent the Soviet Union (USSR) but it was also a strategic loss for the US as well as now facing a regime that was extremely hostile towards them. Finally, the fallout from the Iranian revolution starkly highlighted the weaknesses of the Carter administration. Not only did they have to admit that the Shah had been in America for both medical treatment and protection but the lack of action on behalf of the US truly demonstrated that the administration was not that dedicated to acting on pressing issues. Overall, the Iranian revolution was a key event in American foreign policy history as it caused long-lasting impacts that are still seen today.

15 16

Carter, White House Diary, 261.

Carter, White House Diary, 268.

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By the time Carter came to power, the US government was generally disapproving of US policies toward Iran saying that they were too open and the US was too willing to do anything in return for Iran's cooperation.17 The collapse of the Iranian regime affected the US as they were extremely dependent on Iran as a foothold in the Middle East. Almost overnight the US had lost a major doorway into the Middle East in the middle of the Cold War with the USSR. While the US also had connections in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Iran was the key country as it supported the US goals in the Horn of Africa as well as being a strong buffer between the USSR and proSoviet Iraq.18 In a study of the Carter administration and their role in the fall of the Shah, authors Michael Leeden and William Lewis said: "The geopolitical consequences are [...] apparent: the loss of Iran as a reliable Western ally almost certainly emboldened the Soviet Union when contemplating [...] the invasion of Afghanistan; [and] the United States has suddenly been compelled to reconsider its strategic position in the Persian Gulf [...]."19 The Iranian revolution certainly impacted Iranian-American relations but it also caused waves in the American strategy during the Cold War. Iran had served as a buffer between the USSR and other pro-Soviet countries such as Iraq as much of the Middle East was sympathetic to the Soviets. As stated in US Foreign Policy and Iran by Donette Murray: "The Shah's usefulness was demonstrated in numerous ways: the counter-insurgency assistance he provided in Oman, his active support for US goals in the Horn of Africa and in the buffer that Iran offered against the Soviet Union and a pro-Soviet Iraq. [...] As one senior official put it, he was 'sitting on an area of the world we consider necessary for our own national security'."20 Murray highlights the importance of Iran for the US. It was no small matter that their relationship deteriorated, especially during the Cold War. Having the Shah on the side of the US provided a great deal of security during this period. Not only could the US count on Iran for some military assistance but the location of the country also served as a buffer between key Soviet allies and the USSR itself. Through this analysis, Iran was a significant player in the

17

Christian Emery, US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance, 32.

18 Donette Murray, US Foreign Policy and Iran: American-Iranian Revolutions Since the Islamic Revolution, 16.

19 Michael A. Ledeen & William H. Lewis, "Carter and the Fall of the Shah: The Inside Story," 38.

20 Donette Murray, US Foreign Policy and Iran, 16.

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American strategy during the Cold War and the loss of the relationship was a heavy blow for the Americans.

Moreover, after the fall of the Shah, the Carter administration placed their trust in the newly named Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan. Bazargan was also a weak leader who did not have popular support behind him, however, the US thought that they had no choice as the other contender was the 'anti-American' Ayatollah Khomeini. As Washington lost its grip on the situation, there was room for Khomeini to rise to power. As an analysis of the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty by Javier Gil Guerrero states: "Ultimately, those missteps would be seized by Khomeini to break relations with the United States and accelerate the downfall of Bazargan's government with the hostage crisis."21 The Iranians rallied around Khomeini and were happy to push the American influence out of Iran. The actions or perhaps lack of action taken by the Carter administration and President Carter himself highlighted the weaknesses of the government. As Carter wrote in his memoir: "We encouraged [the Shah] to hang firm and count on our backing," and "After much thought and discussion, I decided to give [the Shah] as much support as possible without directly interfering in the internal affairs of Iran."22 Both these comments demonstrate that Carter was hesitant to take action to help the Shah and rather simply hoped that the Shah would be able to sort out the issues for himself. In Gil Guerrero's text, he adds that "Yet, the problem was that [...] Carter repeatedly refused to commit the resources and determination necessary to achieve those goals."23 As Professor Simon Sefarty has explained, Carter's inability to make a firm decision "made the administration move from one worst option to another."24 By continuing to switch tactics so often, Carter did not allow a situation to play out before he changed his mind. Each of the quotations references above demonstrated that the Carter administration was unwilling to use their position to take direct action as well as indecision from the President himself.25 Overall, the fall of the Shah and the Iranian revolution helped to expose some of the major flaws of the Carter administration and Carter himself.

So, the Iranian revolution was a critical event in US foreign policy history as it had a longlasting impact on diplomatic relations between the two countries. First, the US began to completely 21

Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty, 191.

Carter, White House Diary, 257; Carter, White House Diary, 261.

23 Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty, xviii.

24 Gil Guerrero, The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty, xviii.

25 Murray, US Foreign Policy and Iran, 18.

22

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sever ties with Iran. While ties were officially severed slightly later, the revolution was a turning point for the relationship where the pro-American Shah was deposed and an anti-American leader Ayatollah Khomeini installed instead. Next, the US lost Iran as a strategic ally in the Cold War. Iran under the Shah served as a buffer between pro-Soviet Iraq and the USSR itself as well as providing military assistance in the region when called upon. With the Shah out of power, the US lost one important ally in the Middle East and lost face in the conflict against the USSR. The Iranian revolution left a hole in the American strategy in the Middle East and gave them yet another hostile enemy to deal with in that region. Though there was little that the Americans could have done to prevent the revolution, it appeared as though they verbally pledged support but were unprepared to act. The Shah maintained that the American's were working against him to topple his regime, proving that he believed this as well. Overall, the inflexible approach to the crisis that Carter decided on was not effective. His lack of adaptability to the situation and slow decisionmaking allowed the situation to get out of hand. While it is highly unlikely that he could have prevented the fall of the Shah, there was some room to mitigate the effects of the revolution.

The Iranian Hostage Crisis The Iranian hostage crisis followed after the Shah entered America for cancer treatment in November 1978 but before Ayatollah Khomeini officially came to power in Iran. On 4 November 1979, student protestors stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 American diplomats and citizens for 444 days.26 Ayatollah Khomeini supported the students' actions and the Iranian leaders refused to bargain with the US to release the hostages. The US attempted several different measures such as threatening to strangle international trad, to ensure the safety and secure the safe release of the hostages but they were consistently unsuccessful. From trade threats to seeking direct negotiations, President Carter continued working on the situation until his presidency ended.27 From the Iranian point of view, the hostage-taking was a direct action against the United States. They believed that the US and specifically President Carter had played a large

26

Constance Duncombe, "Representation, Recognition & Foreign Policy in the Iran-US Relationship," 632.

27 Carter, White House Diary, 517.

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role in attempting to undermine the Iranian revolution by aiding the Shah.28 Iranians thought that the US tried to prolong a reign in Iran that was beneficial to the US but did not consider Iranian citizens' welfare as they generally disliked the Shah especially as the new Iranian government charged him with committing war crimes. After the Shah was admitted to the US for cancer treatment, Iran demanded that he return to stand trial for his accused crimes from his reign specifically against Iranian citizens with aid from the secret police. The US refused which Iranians saw as the US admitting their complicity in these crimes and also raised fears that the US would repeat their actions from 1953,which was when they assisted in placing the Shah on the throne.29 As State Department Director of Iranian Affairs Henry Precht wrote in retrospect: "No government, no force in Iran, could support the United State when a question of the Shah was involved."30 Iranian students took matters into their own hands and decided to get even with the US by holding diplomats and US citizens hostage. The students saw it as retribution for all that the US had put them through while Americans saw it as a breach of international laws such as the Vienna Convention which allowed diplomatic immunity from arrest.31 Students held the 52 hostages for 444 days until moments after President Reagan was sworn in.32 It is clear that the hostage crisis was in direct retaliation to President Carter and to the decisions he made while in office. It is also interesting to note that Carter would not allow the return of the Shah to face human rights abuse allegations as one of the key pillars of his foreign policy was protecting human rights.

Carter continued to maintain the execution of his original decisions despite having the situation with Iran continually changing.

There was a great deal of American action during the Iranian hostage crisis ranging from diplomatic missions to US-imposed sanctions. At the onset of the crisis, Carter attempted to negotiate with Ayatollah Khomeini, however, he was met with silence. Khomeini was uninterested in working with the US as they were viewed as the enemy. Carter appointed two former federal officials to negotiate the release of the hostages in early November 1979 but Khomeini refused to

28

Warren Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, 201.

Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 43.

30 Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 43.

31 Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 11.

32 Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 35.

29

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see them.33 In January 1980, Carter tried a new approach working with Canada to secure the release of the hostages. This was somewhat successful as six diplomats escaped using Canadian passports.34 In April of 1980 Carter officially severed diplomatic relations with Iran and placed a trade embargo on the country hoping that the harsh retaliation would demonstrate how serious the US was and the power they held over Iran.35 Following this, the US continued to refuse to capitulate to Iranian demands which ranged from returning the Shah to Iran to releasing all his currency assets back to Iran after his death.36 After Reagan won the 1980 election, the US Deputy Secretary of State worked with the Algerian government and a representative from the Iranian government to sign an agreement to release the hostages.37 It is important to note the timing of this. After the US announced that Carter would not be staying for a second term as president, the Iranian government was significantly more willing to cooperate and sent a representative to negotiate with the Americans and Algerians.

Finally, 20 minutes after Reagan was sworn into office the Iranians released the hostages who were then flown home. Through the brief timeline of American activities during the hostage crisis, there was little room for Carter to work with Iran directly. As the Carter administration's general attitude towards foreign policy was a very diplomatic one which sought to smooth ties rather than use military might, the Iranian leaders were not convinced that Carter would act against them.

Carter attempted to pressure Iran in reacting and releasing the hostages with the severing of diplomatic ties and trade embargos, however, this was unsuccessful as there was no convincing action as a show of strength. The Iranian government held Carter in contempt and was unwilling to work with him or his administration. Overall, the Iranian hostage crisis highlighted the cracks in American foreign policy concerning Iran. Carter's decision to stick to his initial idea of how to handle the conflict demonstrates that the administration was unwilling to change its strategy. While the US attempted different tactics including working with other countries, sanctions etc., all these tactics fit under Carter's broad idea of foreign policy namely trying to smooth ties rather than use military might.

33

Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division, Iran Hostage Crisis: A Chronology of Daily Developments, 36.

34 Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division, Iran Hostage Crisis, 95.

35 Carter, White House Diary, 415.

36 Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 208.

37 Christopher et al., American Hostages in Iran, 208.

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The Impact of the Iranian Hostage Crisis The hostage crisis had many key impacts on the US and President Carter himself. First, the hostage crisis and decline in US-Iranian relations were one of the key reasons for President Carter's landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential elections.

To expand, the Iranian hostage crisis was the catalyst that was the reason for President Carter's landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election. President Carter won only seven states during the election which gave him a total of 49 electoral votes and 35,480,948 popular votes.38 By comparison, Reagan received 489 electoral votes and 43,642,639 popular votes.39 One of the major issues which hurt President Carter was his handling of the Iranian-US relationship and specifically the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter promised, "first, to protect the present and long-range interests of the United States; secondly, to preserve the lives of the hostages and to secure as quickly as possible, their safe release [...]."40 He made this remark during a speech on 23 January 1980. The hostages were not released until nearly a year later on 20 January 1981.

During this time, the American people lost faith in his ability to negotiate with Iran for the safe return of the diplomats. This reaction grew even stronger after the failed Operation Eagle Claw in April 1980. Not only was the operation designed to rescue the 52 diplomats held hostage a complete failure but it also killed five air force personnel and three marines. Popular support decreased dramatically for Carter and his actions and mismanagement with the Iranian hostage crisis led to his failure in the 1980 election. Overall, the Iranian hostage crisis was one of the key factors in Carter losing the presidential election of 1980.

Next, the Iranian people and leader Ayatollah Khomeini wanted the Shah to return to Iran so he could face charges for war crimes against the citizens of Iran.41 However, Carter denied this request citing the Shah's poor health. Iranians took this to mean that the US had been fully aware of the war crimes if they had not actively participated in the crimes themselves. There was outrage in Iran due to this realization which eventually led to the storming of the American embassy.

38

Michael Levy, "Results of the 1980 Election," United States Presidential Election of 1980, Encyclopaedia Britannica, last modified 28 October 2020.

39 Levy, "Results of the 1980 Election".

40 Jimmy Carter, "State of the Union Address 1980" (Speech, Washington, DC 23 January 1980), The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

41 Carter, White House Diary, 288.

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Additionally, Iranian leaders refused to negotiate with Carter. They would not deal with the US which was why other countries, such as Canada and Algeria, became involved. The complete refusal to negotiate with Iran demonstrated the antipathy that had built up between the two countries. Iran was also aware that diplomacy was one of the key pillars of Carter's approach to foreign policy meaning that if they completely ignored his attempts at diplomacy, they were taking away one of the key strengths that the government was willing to use.

There was an important lesson here for the US government - namely that they had become complacent and placed too much reliance on a weak dictator. The Iranians released the hostages within minutes of Ronald Reagan's appointment to the presidency on 20 January 1981. While there was a complicated agreement in play, it was the termination of Carter's presidency which was a decisive factor in both the acceptance of the agreement and the actual release of the hostages. The American people understood that the release was a victory, however, it was a defeat for American foreign policy which had long-reaching effects.42 As a renowned scholar on Iran, James Bill writes: "The hostage incident left a legacy of distrust, misunderstanding and hatred that will plague Iranian-American relations for years. In this sense, both sides are losers."43 Bill then points out how the hostage crisis laid the foundation for future hostage-takings which resulted in the ill-fated Iran-Contra scandal. Overall, the taking of the American diplomats demonstrated the act of vengeance against a specific American leader and showed how much relations could deteriorate if the wrong person were left in charge of a situation.

Comparatively, President Carter officially severed the diplomatic relationship as of April 1980 between the two countries.44 He felt that there was no hope left for negotiating with Iran and on 7 April 1980 decided to "break diplomatic relations; expel all Iranian diplomats; declare an embargo against the shipment of any goods to Iran except food and medicine; make a census of claims against Iranian assets which we hold; and expedite through legislation a conclusion of those claims."45 It was clear that Carter was set on his actions against Iran and he believed that these strict decisions would add pressure to moving Iran toward releasing the hostages. Unfortunately,

42

James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations, 302.

Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 302.

44 Carter, White House Diary, 415.

45 Carter, White House Diary, 415.

43

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the decision to break diplomatic relationships and enforce a trade embargo did not help in the return of the hostages at all. Iran firmly held onto its advantage over the US. The severing of diplomatic ties was a serious decision that has had long-standing impacts.

The two countries have not reinstated the relationship to date. Additionally, since the severing of ties, Iran has been continually subject to sanctions primarily from the US but also from other American allies. For more than three decades Iran has faced sanctions from the White House for various reasons but the first ones stemmed from retaliation for the hostage crisis.46 These sanctions have been in place for the same reasons as President Carter enforced them - to demonstrate American displeasure with Iran while avoiding military intervention. It was clear to see why the Iranian hostage crisis was a consequential event for both the US and Iran as it precipitated the severing of relations and began a long series of sanctions on Iran and proved that the Carter administration was willing to prolong a serious event if they could continue to adhere to their foreign policy values with no deviation.

Reagan's Approach to Foreign Policy With the introduction of a new government came a shift in approach to foreign policy. Not only was there a new administration but also a shift from a Democratic Party leader to a Republican Party leader. There was a clear divide between the Carter approach to foreign policy and the new Reagan approach.

The Reagan administration's approach was markedly different. Some of their main targets were winning the Cold War and rolling back Communism around the globe.47 Reagan did not focus on improving individual lives but rather waged a war against Communism with the Reagan Doctrine. Reagan funded many anti-communist organizations in Central Europe and took a hardline approach against Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere with left-wing governments.48 Reagan and his advisors escalated the Cold War by starting a significant military buildup as well

46

Sarah Bazoobandi et al., "Sanctions Against Iran: Winners and Losers," in On Target?: EU Sanctions as Security Policy Tools, 57.

47 Morris H. Morley, Crisis and Confrontation: Ronald Reagan's Foreign Policy, 1.

47 Morley, Crisis and Confrontation, 1-2.

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as through Reagan's charged speeches.49 However, Reagan was also an excellent diplomat as he recognized Gorbachev's willingness to change Soviet policies despite some of his advisors disagreeing. Reagan and Gorbachev became close allies and worked through the end of the Cold War together.

Overall, there is a marked difference between the way that the Carter and Reagan administrations approached foreign policy decisions. Carter looked to smooth tensions and work with others to improve living conditions around the globe. He did not make quick decisions or take drastic measures against other countries even those he strongly disagreed with. Conversely, Reagan took a hard-line approach against opposing countries. He was willing to take drastic measures to make resolutions come about faster. This swift decision making sometimes led to under-researched decisions as can be seen through the following section regarding the Iran-Contra affair.

The Iran-Contra Affair The Iran-Contra affair was a political scandal between the US and Iran occurring in President Reagan's second term from August 1985 to March 1987. During this scandal, senior administrators of the Reagan Administration were secretly facilitating the sale of arms to the Khomeini government in Iran.50 Iran at the time was under an arms embargo from the United States thus making the sale not only immoral as they were supporting a violent regime but also illegal.

The US was the main source of arms before the Iran hostage crisis, however, during the crisis President Carter declared an embargo which President Reagan vowed to uphold after he took office. The US then sent the money gained from the arms sales to fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

The Contras were different right-wing rebel groups opposing the sitting government in Nicaragua, which the US-funded and supported for many years. This funding was illegal as the US had signed the Boland Amendment in December 1982 which prohibited the continued funding of the Contra's by the US.51 48

Reagan gave a speech in which he called the Soviet Union an 'evil empire'; Ronald Reagan, "Evil Empire" (speech, Orlando, Florida, 8 March 1983), Voices of Democracy.

49 C.J Mixter, "Memoranda on Criminal Liability of Former President Reagan and of President Bush," Office of the Independent Council, 21 March 1991, 3-4.

50 Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 453.

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The official justification for the sale was very different. It was a narrative that declared the shipments were part of a rescue operation for seven American hostages who were being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah which was a paramilitary group with Iranian ties.52 Unfortunately, this narrative fails as the US authorised the first arms sales in 1981 which was before Hezbollah took the hostages. While the discussion about rescuing the hostages was intertwined with the sales agreements, it did not explain why the US should send money to the Contras or why the US would jump to an arms-for-hostages agreement rather than attempting negotiations.

In the spring of 1983, the US launched Operation Staunch which lectured other countries about how morally wrong it was to sell arms to Iran. This operation was part of the major humiliation that the US faced when their deeds were uncovered - they had been preaching about not selling arms but then senior officials were doing just that.

The Iranians uncovered the scandal when a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exposed the deals to a Lebanese magazine.53 This was the first public record of the armsfor-hostages deal and the Iranian government confirmed the story just days after new outlets published it. Reagan attempted to explain his actions and the situation through several public addresses, however, he maintained that he was unaware of the arms sales that had been taking place.54 The scandal only compounded when Oliver North a military aide was found to have shredded and destroyed pertinent documents. Reagan elected a group of three men to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal and they determined that Reagan did not know the extent of the program though the council also pointed out that he should have had better control over his staff. Reagan, however, had released contradictory statements regarding his involvement which indicated he likely knew much more than he either told the commission or that they published.

The American public was displeased. Reagan made a speech on 4 March 1987 saying that he: "take[s] full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities."55 Though Reagan claimed he was unaware of the entire thing, he did sign off on the

51

Ronald Reagan, An American Life, 520-521.

Reagan, An American Life, 527.

53 Reagan, An American Life, 529.

54 Ronald Reagan, "Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy" (Speech, Washington, DC 4 March 1987), The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

52

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Presidential Finding on 17 January 1986.56 This document directly outlined the plan to sell arms to Iran routed through the Israelis and undermined Reagans' attempts to hide his involvement. At the time, the Presidential Finding was classified material which meant that the public had no way of knowing about it. The finding was a key piece of evidence as it supported the description of Reagan's quick decision-making.

The affair caused a massive drop in Reagan's approval ratings.57 His polls dropped from 67% to 46% in November 1986 eventually recovering.58 The public lost faith that Reagan had control over his administration as there was an exorbitant number of individuals who the US indicted for being involved in the scandal. The American government charged a total of eleven individuals ranging from top CIA officers to a businessman and the government investigated several dozen more.

The Importance of the Iran-Contra Scandal on American Foreign Policy The Iran-Contra scandal had some far-reaching impacts on American foreign policy and though largely forgotten by the public taught future administrations several lessons. First, the IranContra was a key event as it precipitated a large drop in Reagan's public approval rating demonstrating the displeasure that the American people had with the scandal. Next, the event set a precedent and a message to other anti-American countries. The scandal showed how willing the US government was to bend the laws they had created if it meant a faster resolution to their problem. Finally, the Iran-Contra undermined American credibility when criticizing other countries. This was largely due to the contradictory actions of the Iran-Contra scandal whilst Operation Staunch was in play. Overall, the Iran-Contra scandal undermined Reagan's position and the credibility of the American government as well as demonstrating that Iran was willing to participate in immoral activities if it allowed them to be successful. The Iran-Contra added additional strain to already tense relations between the two countries and caused a great deal of disarray with the American government.

55

Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter, "Covert Action Finding Regarding Iran," Memorandum for the President, 17 January 1986, 6.

56 Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 455.

57 Adam Clymer, "Analyzing the Drop in Reagan's Ratings," The New York Times, 7 December 1986.

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To begin, the American people lost faith and trust in President Reagan. When the scandal was leaked to the press, there was a public outcry. Reagan had not addressed this issue in any speeches for many months and when he did he cited the reason for the delay as he “felt it was improper to come to [the public] with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements [...].”59 As stated above, Reagan's approval rating fell steeply a further demonstration of the displeasure of the American people.

Next, the Iran-Contra scandal revealed to countries that hostage-taking was an effective measure to have the US government capitulate to demands. President Reagan said in a private meeting in response to accusations about his complicity in the crime: “he could answer charges of illegality but he couldn't answer charges that ‘big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free hostages’.”60 This quotation demonstrated the willingness that Reagan showed to break the law if it meant the potential of the release of hostages. Additionally, it demonstrated the significant change in attitude from the Carter administration to the Reagan one. Carter held out on giving in to Iranian demands to release hostages for 444 days. He refused to send back the Shah and give into financial demands. In short, Carter took a more hardline approach to deal with hostage negotiations. In comparison, Reagan and his administration wasted no time in not only giving the Iranian leadership what they wanted but also breaking American and international laws to do it.

Neither approach proved particularly successful as Carter took over a year to secure the release of the hostages and Reagan embarrassed the US on an international scale. The actions taken by the governments of both the US and Iran added tension to the already strained ties as the sale of prohibited arms demonstrated that the US government was in disarray and that the Iranian leaders were fully capable and willing to take advantage of this if it gave them what they wanted.

The Iran-Contra scandal undermined American credibility to criticize other nations. Their criticism on transparency, hostage negotiations, arms deals, terror financing, and more suddenly carried little to no weight as they had been caught breaking their own rules against each of these issues. The US had launched Operation Staunch in the spring of 1983 to encourage other nations not to sell arms to Iran.61 The US targeted countries including South Korea, Italy, Spain and Portugal, alongside some Arab countries. The US added pressure to the already uneasy relationship

58

Reagan, "Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy".

Caspar W. Weinberger, December 7 Notes, 7 December 1985.

61 Michael Eisenstadt, "Can the United States Influence the WMD Policies of Iraq and Iran?," 67.

59

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with Iran by cutting off other potential arms suppliers but Iranian officials were able to exploit weaknesses in the American government by providing the correct leverage to fulfill their arms needs from the US. Another factor was when President Reagan announced that he did not know about the events that had been taking place. While he signed off on a confidential report which outlined the plan to sell arms, he still publicly denied his role.62 His denial of association with the crime demonstrated how little control he had over his administration. The fact that key ministers and points of contact could undertake an operation such as the Iran-Contra scandal supposedly without the President's knowledge was a sign of weakness and disorganization of the government.63 There had already been public criticisms against Reagan to this nature and his announcement only solidified these thoughts. The biggest takeaway was the effect that the Iran-Contra had on American-Iranian relations. After the Iran-Contra, what little diplomacy and trust the US had gained was wiped away. The US was embarrassed with their failings as well as with the public outcry regarding selling arms to a hostile country and Iran had been caught exploiting an extremely powerful leading country which placed them in a poor position for dealing with other American allies. Overall, Reagan proved that he was able to make swift decisions that could have helped bring about a satisfactory conclusion but he also did not fully contemplate the outcome of his decisions.

Conclusion Overall, 1979 to 1987 was a key timeframe for events that significantly affected US foreign policy with Iran. Both Presidents Carter and Reagan mismanaged the relationship and both men managed to make irreparable mistakes.

First, the Iranian Revolution occurred in 1979. While the revolution itself was not directly due to President Carter, his inaction was certainly a contributing factor. Carter promised that the US would back the Shah, however, he never took any action to demonstrate the support. The fallout from the 1979 revolution included the beginning of a severing of ties between the US and Iran as well as the US losing a major foothold in the Middle East. Iran was important geographically as it 60 61

North and Poindexter, "Covert Action Finding Regarding Iran".

Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 411.

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served as a buffer between Soviet Russia and pro-Russia Iraq during the Cold War. Last, the Iranian Revolution exposed some of President Carter's major weaknesses as a leader namely his lack of action to support his declarations.

Next, the Iranian hostage crisis occurred throughout 1979-1981. This event also occurred during President Carter's time in office and was a major turning point in the relationship, or lack thereof, between the US and Iran. The hostage crisis was one of the main contributing factors to Carter's landslide loss to Reagan at the 1980 presidential elections. The public was unimpressed with the way that Carter handled the hostage situation and demonstrated this by not electing him back to the office. Additionally, the hostage crisis showed how poorly Carter handled the Iranian Revolution from the perspective of the Iranian people and government. They were displeased that Carter chose to protect the Shah and was extremely suspicious that the US had participated in the war crimes that the Shah was accused of as well. The taking of the 52 hostages and the complete refusal to deal directly with Carter reflect the sentiments of Iran quite clearly. Lastly, the hostage crisis was the proverbial last straw in the relationship between the US and Iran. President Carter called for a complete severing of diplomatic ties, a trade embargo, and an embargo on arms sales.

This was a significant decision that has had a long-reaching impact as there are still no official diplomatic relations between the two countries to date.

Finally, there was the Iran-Contra scandal during President Reagan's time in office. This scandal exposed weaknesses in the American government and brought humiliation to the Reagan administration and Reagan himself. First, the scandal caused the public to lose faith in the President. Reagan's approval ratings dropped and he lost their trust. Next, the fact that the Americans gave in to Iranian demands demonstrated the success of hostage-taking under a new administration and anti-American countries were shown that this was a successful tool to use as leverage. Reagan's administration demonstrated they were significantly more willing to capitulate to demands as compared to the Carter administration. Finally, the Iran-Contra scandal undermined American credibility primarily due to the discovery at the same time as the US was undertaking Operation Staunch to encourage other key countries not to sell arms to Iran. Additionally, the scandal demonstrated Reagan's lack of control over his government which weakened the stance of the US on the international scale.

Overall, the decisions made by both Carter and Reagan highlighted how starkly different their approaches to foreign policy were but also how inflexible both men were. Carter sought to

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smooth relationships and was only interested in using diplomatic measures rather than military force or any clear show of strength. On the flip side, Reagan was all too happy to use military strength and did not use diplomacy often enough. Both men demonstrated inflexibility in their strategy to approach the Iranian-American relationship and the consequences were apparent through the events occurring in each of their presidencies.

Works Cited Primary Sources Carter, Jimmy. "State of the Union Address 1980." Speech, Washington, DC, 23 January 1980. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/assets/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml Carter, Jimmy. White House Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

Christopher, Warren, Harold H. Saunders, Gary Sick, Robert Carswell, Richard J. Davis, John E. Hoffman Jr and Roberts B. Owen. American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division. Iran Hostage Crisis: A Chronology of Daily Developments. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1981.

"Jimmy Carter Toasts the Shah | 31 December 1977," Voices & Visions, accessed 2 Nov 2020. http://vandvreader.org/jimmy-carter-toasts-the-shah-31-december-1977/ Mixter, C.J ."Memoranda on Criminal Liability of Former President Reagan and of President Bush." Office of the Independent Council. 21 March 1991. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB365/Reagan%20-%20Criminal%20li ability%20(1).pdf North, Oliver L. and Poindexter, John M. "Covert Action Finding Regarding Iran."

Memorandum for the President. 17 January 1986.

Reagan, Ronald. "Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy."

Speech, Washington, DC 4 March 1987. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-nation-iran-arms-and-contra-a id-controversy-0 Reagan, Ronald. An American Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Reagan, Ronald. "Evil Empire" Speech, Orlando, Florida, 8 March 1983. Voices of

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Democracy. https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/reagan-evil-empire-speech-text/ Reagan, Ronald. The Reagan Diaries. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.

Weinberger, Caspar W. "December 7 Notes." NSA Archive. 7 December 1985. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=3224972-03-Caspar-Weinberger-handwritten-n otes-of Secondary Sources Bazoobandi, Sarah, Thomas Biersteker, Richard Connolly, Francesco Giumelli, Clara Portela, Stanislav Secrieru, Peter Seeberg and Peter A.G. van Bergeijk. "Sanctions Against Iran: Winners and Losers." In On Target?: EU Sanctions as Security Policy Tools, edited by Iana Dreyer and José Luengo-Cabrera, 57-66. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2015.

Bill, James A. The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

Clymer, Adam. "Analyzing the Drop in Reagan's Ratings." The New York Times. 7 December 1986. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/07/weekinreview/analyzing-the-drop-in-reagan-s-r atings.html Duncombe, Constance. "Representation, Recognition & Foreign Policy in the Iran-US Relationship." European Journal of International Relations 22, no. 3 (September 2015): 622-645.

Eisenstadt, Michael. "Can the United States Influence the WMD Policies of Iraq and Iran?."

The Nonproliferation Review 7, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 63-76.

Emery, Christian. US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.

Gil Guerrero, Javier. The Carter Administration & the Fall of Iran's Pahlavi Dynasty: US-Iran Relations on the Brink of the 1979 Revolution. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.

Goldstone, Jack A. Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780199858507.001.0 001/actrade-9780199858507-chapter-2 Ledeen, Michael A. and Lewis, William H. "Carter and the Fall of the Shah: The Inside Story." Washington Quarterly 3, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 3-40.

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Levy, Michael. "Results of the 1980 Election." United States Presidential Election of 1980.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Last modified 28 October 2020. https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1980/Genera l-election-campaign#ref285420 Morley, Morris H. Crisis and Confrontation: Ronald Reagan's Foreign Policy. New Jersey: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988.

Murray, Donette. US Foreign Policy and Iran: American-Iranian Revolutions Since the Islamic Revolution. New York: Routledge, 2010.

Schmitz, David F. and Vanessa Walker. "Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy." Diplomatic History 28 no. 1 (January 2004), 113-144.

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In Defence of Fair Play: Boycott Campaigns and the 1936 Olympic Games Evan Cater From their beginning, international sporting events and politics have been intertwined; this has never been more apparent than with the modern Olympic Games. Since the start of the modern Olympic movement in the 1890s, the goal of the winter and summer Games has been to promote the values of sport from amateurism to fair play on the world stage. The Olympics were created with the explicit goal of being above politics bringing people together from around the world through participation in and the spectatorship of sport. The Berlin Olympic Games of 1936 (and the Winter Games of Garmisch-Partenkirchen) represent the first significant challenge to this core Olympic principle where politics and sport were pulled together on a scale not previously witnessed. This has left the reputation of the 1936 Games as a dark mark on the Olympic movement and rightfully so. The event was twisted into a massive propaganda tool by Adolf Hitler aimed at presenting the new and resurgent Third Reich to the global community.

Histories of the 1936 Olympic Games tend to brush past the international boycott campaign which preceded it. Certainly, the American debate has received attention at some length in major works on the subject such as in Allen Guttmann’s The Games Must Go On (1984) and David Large’s Nazi Games (2007). Scholarship surrounding the Games has devoted little attention to the international scope of the boycott debate and what has been noted is American-centric with little mention of campaigns held across the democratic world. This article argues that both histories of the 1936 Olympics and the interwar period need to examine the international scope of the boycott discussions in the run-up to the Games. The American debate was an important part of a much broader international conversation that discussed how best to ensure fair play for all athletes and its failure laid the groundwork for a culture of appeasement. The question of participation at Berlin created a focal point where democratic societies were forced to acknowledge the dangers of the Nazi regime and their appropriate response years before German militarism and anti-Semitism reached their peak. By examining the boycott discussions in America, Great Britain, France, and Canada, it is possible to see not only why the first attempts to boycott an Olympic Games failed but also acknowledge the serious grassroots opposition in the democratic world that challenged the rise of Nazism.

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When Germany won the opportunity to host the 1936 Olympic Games, the country was still a liberal democracy. The Weimar government had begun its campaign for Berlin’s hosting of the Games in April 1927 presumably as a means of improving its postwar image in the global community. This was a significant move as at the time the process for selecting a host city began in 1930 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was faced with three possible locations: Rome, Barcelona, and Berlin.1 Italy at this time was a fascist state under the rule of Benito Mussolini and many of the leading members of the IOC were opposed to his government’s domination of Italian sport.2 Barcelona was ruled out in a vote just after the Second Spanish Republic was declared and the stability of the country was thrown into question. Many of the IOC delegates who voted for Berlin as the host city in 1931 did so because they wanted to show support for Germany’s democratic government then threatened by left and right-wing extremists.3 Overall, the IOC had few options when deciding on who should host the 1936 Games ultimately choosing a liberal democratic state. The matter appeared to be settled until the Nazi party seized power in 1933.

At first, the political transition in Germany concerned the IOC but did not prompt it to take any significant action. They were willing to work with the new government as long as the Games were not impeded in any way.4 This was primarily due to the supportive stance the Nazis took towards international sport. In contrast to their clear opposition to international organizations such as the League of Nations, the Nazis understood the great political opportunity sport provided.

Popular events like football, boxing, and the Olympic Games offered Germany the ability to assert national power while also influencing internationalist ideas and values.5 This theme will be further explored in the British context with the famous Anglo-German football match of December 1935 where Germany used sport as a means of improving its foreign relations.

Due to this initially positive German response, the IOC was only forced to reconsider its position when faced with a stiff reaction from the United States towards the Nazis’ anti-Semitic attitudes and policies. This point is made clear in the 18 April 1933 issue of the New York Times

1

The 1936 Olympic Games were the last time that the Winter and Summer Games were both hosted in the same country in the same year.

2 David Large, Nazi Games, 51.

3 Ibid, 52.

4 Arnd Kruger, Global Olympics, 45.

5 Barbara Keyes, Globalizing Sport, 116.

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that headlined “Berlin Faces Loss of Olympic Games.” The article presented to the public a strong sense that the Games might be relocated or even cancelled: The possibilities which confront those responsible for the games are: First, the venue of the games may be changed from Berlin to Rome or Tokyo, the two cities that have expressed an eagerness to handle the Olympics should they be taken away from Germany. Second, the games may be cancelled as they were in 1916 when it was Berlin, strangely enough, that had been picked as the Olympic city. The World War caused this. Third, the various nations may refuse to send athletes to the meet.

And as a corollary to the last item there is the possibility that the United States would not participate even if the other nations did.6 This clearly outlined the possible options that the American Olympic Committee (AOC) had to consider when talking with the IOC about the fate of the 1936 Games. There was a strong public reaction in the United States to the threat of Germany barring Jewish athletes on foreign teams from competing and a concern that Hitler would violate the Olympic Charter by not allowing German Jews to compete on the German Olympic Team. The first voices calling for the AOC to launch a complaint to the IOC came from the American Jewish community. In May 1933, the American Jewish Committee called for a boycott of the Games based on the Nazis’ racist and restrictive policy towards Jews. This first public call gained traction when K. A. Miller, the managing editor of The Jewish Times of Baltimore, telegraphed Avery Brundage, President of the AOC urging him to take the matter to the IOC at their meeting in Vienna set for June 1933.7 The Vienna Congress of the IOC held from 7 to 9 of June 1933 provided the first venue for members to discuss possible action to take against the Nazis’ hosting of the Olympic Games.

It was here that the American delegation took the lead in shaping the demands placed on the German Olympic Committee if they wished to keep the Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berlin. General Charles Sherrill, one of the three American members of the IOC, took the lead in advocating that the German government must guarantee that Jewish athletes would be allowed to take part in the trials for the German Olympic Team.8 Without such a guarantee, it was likely that the Games would be cancelled or moved. This was a major step as it was the first time the IOC had interfered in the internal affairs of a host country.9 After some protest, the German Olympic 6

Arthur Daley, “Berlin Faces Loss of Olympic Games,” The New York Times, April 18, 1933.

Daley, “Berlin Faces Loss of Olympic Games.”

8 David Kanin, A Political History of the Olympic Games, 33.

9 Arnd Kruger, “The Nazi Olympics of 1936,” 47.

7

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Committee got the assurance the IOC wanted with a written pledge that accepted the American demands. In the United States, the press viewed this acceptance as a victory that could allow the Games to go forward.10 Yet this agreement did not stifle calls for a boycott of the Games. After the IOC concluded its review in May 1934, it declared satisfaction with the German management and planning for the Games. This was not enough for the AOC who faced continued protest in the United States from the American Federation of Labor, The Jewish Labor Committee, various Catholic and Protestant organizations, and some 1932 Olympic medalists such as Helen Madison and James Bausch.11 Public pressure from these groups forced the AOC to take significant action. It was decided that Brundage acting in his role as AOC President would inspect the German situation in person. While there, he would have the authority to accept or reject American participation on the spot.12 As the AOC outline clearly in Proposed Resolution Relative to Acceptance of Invitation of German Olympic Committee, Brundage was to ascertain: That Germany has reaffirmed its position that all nations, all races, and all religions will be welcome to Berlin at the Games of the XIth Olympiad and the IVth Olympic Winter Games, and also that any and all disabilities which have or may have existed against Jews of German race or nationality have been and will continue to be removed, and that therefore any Jew of sufficient athletic ability to make any German Olympic Team will have a fair, safe and proper opportunity to do so.13 The fact that the AOC showed great determination to hold the Germans to these standards showed that they took the boycott movement seriously and believed it could impact the quality of the 1936 Games. Brundage, however, had already made up his mind on how he would rule on the matter long before he set foot in Germany. As historian Carolyn Marvin explains “In a statement published on the eve of his departure to Europe, he exhorted American youth to prepare for the

10

Ibid.

Mario Kessler, “Only Nazi Games? Berlin 1936: The Olympic Games between Sports and Politics,” 130.

12 Carolyn Marvin, “Avery Brundage and American Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games,” 86.

13 Proposed Resolution Relative to Acceptance of Invitation of German Olympic Committee, June 3, 1934. University of Illinois University Archives, Bundesinstitut Für Sportwissenschaft, and International Olympic Committee. Avery Brundage Collection, 1908-1975.

11

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coming Games and left little doubt that he expected to find the German house of sport in order.”14 This biased start to the trip meant that Brundage had little interest in questioning the information presented on his tour of German sporting venues. Brundage’s limited knowledge of the German language also hampered the situation as he had to rely on the facts given to him by Nazi-appointed translators and all the information given to them was from Brundage’s German sports colleagues.15 The result was that Brundage saw what the Nazis wanted him to see and ignored evidence of their exclusionary practices towards German Jewish athletes. In the end, Brundage’s recommendation to greenlight American participation in the games allowed the AOC to give their approval on 26 September 1934. This act failed to satiate supporters of a boycott and remains a contested issue within the scholarship of the 1936 Games. Some have suggested Brundage was hostile to a boycott as it represented a significant threat to the apolitical and amateur tradition that were pillars of the modern Olympics.16 Others such as Allen Guttmann and David Large have argued that Brundage also exhibited strong anti-communist and anti-Semitic views particularly in the 1930s which led to his dismissal of rejections to attending the Games. Guttmann in particular has asserted that Brundage believed his rivals were attempting to use the Olympic Games for their own political purposes and that, as the campaign intensified, he developed an anti-Semitic attitude.17 By the start of 1935, the boycott campaign gained significant momentum and was sparking a deep divide in public opinion. While Brundage continued to view the debate as thoroughly concluded by the IOC, other important members of America’s athletic bodies took action against him. One of the most significant leaders to oppose Brundage was the President of the American Athletic Union (AAU) former New York Supreme Court Justice Jeremiah Mahoney. A Democrat of Irish Catholic descent, Mahoney was interested in a continued active role in public life with mayoral ambitions in New York City. In response to Brundage’s conclusions from his inspection tour of Germany, Mahoney publicly spoke out against him arguing he went there with the intention of keeping his eyes closed.18 After failing to make progress in his correspondence with members of the German Olympic Committee who refused to open up access for Jewish athletes to join the

14

Carolyn Marvin, “Avery Brundage and American Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games,” 87.

15 David Large, Nazi Games, 79.

16 Richard Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, 73.

17 Allen Guttmann, The Games Must Go On, 72.

18 Christopher Hilton, Hitler’s Olympics, 36.

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German team, Mahoney actively campaigned for a boycott. Brundage’s response to these moves was apparent in the 27 July issue of The New York Times: I have not heard of anything to indicate discrimination against athletes of any race or religion since last year, when there were reports that Jewish athletes may not be permitted to represent Germany in the games. That question was answered by assurances from German political and sports leaders that there would be no racial, religious or political interference of any kind. I know no reason for questioning these guarantees […] The fact that no Jews have been named so far to compete for Germany doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been discriminated against on that score. In forty years of Olympic history, I doubt if the number of Jewish athletes competing from all nations totaled 1 percent of those in the games. In fact, I believe one-half of 1 percent would be a high percentage.19 Brundage’s response came to represent the position of those who supported American attendance of the Games. If there were few Jewish athletes to begin with, it was of little concern that no Jewish athletes were competing on the German team. This fact did not deter Mahoney who continued to lobby for a boycott gradually increasing the pressure on the AOC in October 1935 after the passage of the oppressive Nuremberg Laws a few weeks earlier. The new laws brought sweeping changes to the civil rights German Jews were granted. This included provisions to protect the purity of German blood by banning marriages between Jews and non-Jews, revoking Jewish-German citizenship and forcing them to display clear Jewish symbols such as the Star of David to easily differentiate them from the rest of the German population. The enacting of these laws presented a clear threat to earlier guarantees that German Jews would be allowed to participate as part of the German Olympic Team.

With this violation made clear, Mahoney launched his own investigation into cases of German discrimination in his role as president of the AAU. He came to the conclusion that there was an extremely apparent bias on the part of Nazi officials towards German Jewish athletes.

Mahoney’s words were damning: The present German government has injected race, religion and politics into sports in general and into the Olympics in particular, and has destroyed their free and independent character. And if Germany today has no Jews of Olympic caliber, it is because she has

19

“Brundage Favours Berlin Olympics,” The New York Times, July 27, 1935.

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denied them adequate facilities for training and competition and has forced them into exile or suicide.20 Mahoney went on to explain that the level of discrimination in German sports went far beyond the exclusive targeting of Jews. Catholics, Protestants, Communists, and Social Democrats were also under attack. This occurred through the process of Gleichschaltung, or Nazification of German sport towards a centralized, state-controlled system.21 The result was a systematic removal of the old Weimar-era sporting federations often affiliated with Workers groups, Catholic or Protestant organizations, and regional sporting societies. Each of these groups was shut down or brought under the supervision of Nazi officials. This sparked an outcry from pro-boycott Americans who saw potential supporters in local Catholic and Protestant communities watching their German counterparts come under attack. This is precisely what occurred when notable personalities La Guardia, Al Smith, and Governor James Curley of Massachusetts joined the cause adding a critical Catholic component to the core Jewish roots of the boycott campaign.22 This growth in Catholic support was all the more apparent when Commonweal, one of the most influential Catholic organizations in the country, came out solidly against American participation in the Games.23 At the same time, Mahoney and other leading groups in the boycott movement attempted to gain the support of the African American population also facing discrimination under Nazi ideology. This had mixed results. While significant black rights groups such as the NAACP joined the movement in November 1935, many black athletes did not participate hoping to compete in the Games.24 No doubt the irony of the situation was obvious to most black athletes encouraged to protest discrimination abroad while facing similar treatment at home. Nonetheless, Mahoney was able to establish a strong coalition in support of a boycott and had the support of a significant portion of the American population. A Gallup poll taken in March 1935 registered 43% in favour of a boycott and 57% against.25 Undoubtedly, this position continued to change throughout 1935 as more organizations joined the pro and anti-boycott campaigns.

20

“Nazi Bias on Olympics Proved, Mahoney Says, Insisting on Ban,” The New York Times, October 21, 1935.

21 Barbara Keyes, Globalizing Sport, 125.

22 David Large, Nazi Games, 82.

23 Ibid.

24 David Large, Nazi Games, 88.

25 David Large, Nazi Games, 83.

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Even the main source for America’s Olympic athletes, the colleges were split over the boycott campaign. As a letter from the Cornell University Athletic Association to Avery Brundage makes clear, “So far, the University of Cincinnati and the University of California at Los Angeles have indicated that they favoured American withdrawal from the Games […] Against that, Yale, University of Wisconsin, Western Reserve, Amherst, University of Vermont, Union, and University of Michigan have all expressed a strong contrary view.”26 The letter argued most of the schools that had decided to oppose participation in the Games did so because of continued pressure from the boycott campaign rather than for moral reasons.27 Most importantly, this letter makes clear that the debate over boycotting the Olympics was tearing apart the American athletic system.

Athletes, feeder institutions, and leading sports agencies were dramatically split over opposing or tacitly accepting the Nazi policy that would be enforced at the Games.

As both sides became further entrenched in their positions, the campaigns looked for support from the Federal Government, specifically President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The President had been kept informed of the boycott debate since its beginnings in 1933 but had remained quiet on the subject in the public sphere. As early as the end of 1933, he was counselled to avoid involvement in the Olympic discussions.28 This is not to say that other figures in the Federal Government were not vocal in their concerns with the Nazi regime hosting the Games. William Dodd the American ambassador to Germany was determined to keep American athletes from attending the Games. He kept Secretary of State Cordell Hull well informed on the discrimination against Jewish athletes with the intent of ensuring they were unable to qualify for the German Olympic Team.

29

Yet Hull largely remained silent about these reports so as not to damage

American-German relations. Roosevelt himself was kept informed but was hamstrung by two key factors. Firstly by the middle of 1935, the United States was embracing a policy of neutrality with Congress passing the Neutrality Act of 1935 right at the moment the boycott campaign reached its

26

Cornell University Athletic Association, Letter to Avery Brundage, November 20, 1935.

University of Illinois University Archives, Bundesinstitut Für Sportwissenschaft, and International Olympic Committee. Avery Brundage Collection, 1908-1975.

27 Ibid.

28 Brennan Berg, Seth Kessler & Thomas Hunt, “A Realist Perspective of Sport Management Program and the HJ. Lutcher Stark Governmental Perceptions of Olympic Boycott Movements 1936-2008,” 311.

29 David Large, Nazi Games, 97.

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peak in support.30 This law banned munitions exports to belligerents and restricted American travel on ships of belligerent nations. Although it was framed as a move to hinder Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, it became the first in a series of neutrality legislation that reflected America’s isolationist embrace. Secondly, the President was aware that a pro-boycott stance could be costly in terms of public image as his administration was already known as being too “Jew friendly.”31 This was due to the inclusion of some Jews in Roosevelt’s administration such as Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. At the same time, the President was advised that a boycott might exacerbate Nazi persecution of German Jews and other undesirables.32 In the end, the President’s silence on the issue had its own impact as it was not equally damaging to both sides. The proboycott movement suffered more for the lack of the President’s endorsement as it faced an uphill battle against Brundage.33 A public statement of support for a boycott would have given greater legitimacy to Mahoney’s movement but also would have been an immense political risk at a time when the passage of New Deal domestic policy was far more pressing.

The showdown for the American boycott campaign came between 6 and 8 December 1935 with a meeting of the AAU in New York City. There the members of the AAU debated a resolution for the boycott. This was a long and bitter affair full of tricks, lies, compromises, and doublecrossing.34 The two sides were led by Mahoney and Brundage with each determined to achieve victory. Brundage, however, resorted to dubious methods to defeat his rival with claims to the press that a boycott would stimulate anti-Semitism in the United States.35 When the vote was finally taken, Mahoney narrowly lost 58 to 56. This defeat ended the boycott movement and Mahoney was forced to resign as head of the AAU.36 Brundage was unanimously elected as Mahoney’s replacement. Brundage would go on to devote all resources in the AAU and AOC to getting the American team to Berlin decisively ending the American boycott debate.

30

Berg, Kessler and Hunt, “Olympic Boycott Movements, 1936-2008,” 312.

Ibid, 312.

32 Ibid. This belief in increased persecution of German Jews was a line also shared by Avery Brundage and his supporters who opposed a boycott.

33 David Large, Nazi Games, 98.

34 Christopher Hilton, Hitler’s Olympics, 41.

35 David Large, Nazi Games, 99. Whilst this argument is questionable, there was no doubt that the German American community was very much in favour of the Games going forward and would likely have an adverse reaction to a boycott.

36 Ibid.

31

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British boycott discussions took an interesting tone compared to those of the Americans.

The British had a long tradition of keeping sports and politics strictly separated. Yet the opposition that developed over the Nazi hosting of the Olympic Games became closely drawn into the wider British political debate regarding how best to deal with the new Germany. When the first talks of opposition to the Games began in the United States, it did not take long for a similar discussion to occur amongst members of the British Olympic Association (BOA). The BOA made their views public in response to the American AAU’s decision in November 1933 to postpone the certification of their athletes for the 1936 Games. The organization made clear to the British populace that they had doubts about the Nazi hosts and as such would delay their decision to determine if British athletes would attend the Games.37 Although the BOA remained in close contact with the AAU and paid careful attention to the outcome of the Vienna Conference, there remained a strong sense of concern in British circles that the Germans were not honouring the promises made to the IOC. Lord Aberdare, head of the BOA, promised that he would stand by the Americans should they decide to boycott the Games for any violation of IOC rules.38 It appears that Aberdare took this position quite seriously. In 1934, he wrote to the German Olympic Committee to inquire about the fate of three athletic officials who had according to reports received

by Aberdare been removed from their positions based on their Jewish backgrounds or leftist political views.39 He also sought clarification regarding the bans against some prominent German Jewish athletes from competing on German sporting teams. The decision to seek clarification on these issues is surprising as it was no secret that German Jews were being excluded from sporting activities including being banned from public pools, non-Jewish sports clubs, and horseback riding.40 Faced with this reality, it appears that Aberdare’s actions were done to satiate dissent as he never again pursued the plight of Jewish athletes. Rather, he continued to publicly call upon the Germans to provide gestures of goodwill so he could better sell the case of British participation in the Games.41 It appears from this that Aberdare did not have a change of heart but instead came to believe the assurances the Germans provided regarding good conduct and a staunch following of Olympic rules.

37

David Large, Nazi Games, 101.

Arnd Kruger, “United States of America: A Crucial Battle,” 51.

39 David Large, Nazi Games, 101.

40 Barbara Keyes, Globalizing Sport, 137.

41 David Large, Nazi Games, 102.

38

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At this early stage between 1933 and 1934, the Foreign Office was carefully monitoring the discussions in the United States and the response the German government had to them. One example of this came from a report made by the British Embassy in Berlin to the Foreign Office which noted that the threat of an American withdrawal from the Games was putting “the fear of God” into the German government.42 Although British officials were watching carefully how the American discussions would play out, there was little direct action taken by the government.

Several senior figures in the Foreign Office such as Sir Robert Vansittart the permanent secretary and Orme Sargent who handled German relations were very suspicious of Germany.43 Yet, political leaders were disinterested in criticizing Germany in its handling of a sporting event. Any perception of sport being weaponized for political gain went against the grain of their own publicschool traditions and was generally unpopular in Parliament and the press.44 The national government of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was determined to avoid causing problems with the new German regime as it would provide little advantage for Britain. This was of particular importance when the British boycott campaign gained notoriety in 1935. Baldwin wanted to develop a bilateral understanding with Hitler’s Germany of which the final product would become Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. The signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in June 1935 was an important step in this process aiming to show British willingness to work with Germany even at the expense of French security. The deal meant to keep German naval expansion in check by limiting the aggregate tonnage of the German fleet to 35% of that of the Royal Navy. This was a significant concession as it provided a clear acceptance of German violation of the Treaty of Versailles and demonstrated London’s resolve to foster improved relations with Hitler. For this reason, the government could not become entangled in any boycott discussion. It would jeopardize the entire effort underway to improve Anglo-German relations.

Nonetheless, there was a concerted effort by several British leftist and Jewish groups to encourage a boycott of the Games by the fall of 1935. This was predominantly in response to the recent enactment in Germany of the Nuremberg Laws which stripped German Jews of their rights and also saw the elimination of independent and church-run sporting organizations. Many Jewish groups called for a cutting of sports contacts with Germany finding support from the Trade Union

42

David Large, Nazi Games, 101.

Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition,” in Nazi Olympics, 72.

44 Ibid.

43

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Council and its leader Walter Citrine who publicly denounced German sport in defence of British fair play.45 Another important leftist figure to show support for a boycott was Philip Noel-Baker.

He had been captain of the British Olympic Team at Antwerp in 1920 and was a rising star in the British Labour Party. He had long advocated for viewing sport and the Olympic Games as a mechanism to foster peace among nations. In late 1935, he outlined his view for a complete British withdrawal from the Games in a letter to the Manchester Guardian entitled, “Germany and the Olympic Games: A Vital Principle at Stake.” In Noel-Baker’s eyes, the Nazis were presenting the greatest challenge towards athletic equality the Olympic movement had ever faced: They [Nazis] have injected ‘politics’ in their most odious form into the organisation of every kind of game. They have done what lies in their power to falsify the values of sport in the minds of their peoples […] It has been carried to the point where it revolts foreign observers and where in Germany itself it is the laughing-stock of those who understand what sportsmanship involves. Its most execrable manifestation is in the Nazi Party’s treatment of the Jews.46 This powerful call had little effect as the Labour Party remained silent on the issue of the Games.

This was likely this was due to the party’s focus on rebuilding after its great schism of 1931 and its non-interventionist attitude. As a result, the chief voice of the left in Britain was silent damaging efforts to foster political support for a boycott.

Even without the support of the Labour Party, attempts were still made in late 1935 to garner government action on the issue of British participation in international sporting events in which German teams participated. The lead-up to the famous England versus Germany football game of December 1935 became the focus of pro and anti-boycott activist attentions. The match was arranged by England’s football authorities as part of an effort to enter into the international arena after thirty years of limited involvement.47 To them, the match with Germany was merely a football game unrelated to the politics of either competing nation. Communists, Trade Union branches, and Jewish groups on the other hand clearly understood the propaganda value the match would provide for Germany and organized protests against it. This forced both the Home Office

45

Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition,” 72.

Philip Noel-Baker, “Germany and the Olympic Games: A Vital Principle at Stake,” Manchester Guardian, December 7, 1935.

47 Brian Stoddart, “Sport, Cultural Politics and International Relations: England versus Germany, 1935,” 33.

46

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and the Foreign Office to discuss possible action. Suggestions ranged from limiting the number of German supporters accompanying the team to placing pressure on Unions to view the match as a private affair.48 The Home Secretary John Simon personally believed that the event was intended for use as a piece of political propaganda by the Nazis. He brought the matter to the cabinet but never pursued a cancellation of the match.49 Yet, Simon did meet with Trade Union leaders such as Walter Citrine who opposed the match but the talks had little impact as clear divisions arose between Union leadership over the mixing of sports and politics. The creation of this rift in antiNazi Trade Unions signalled serious problems for the final attempts to orchestrate a British boycott of the Olympic Games. The determination both in the government and in some left-wing groups to see sport and politics as distinctly separate over the issue of the 1935 football match was a prelude to the final defeat of the Olympic boycott movement.

In the end, it was decided that Britain would send their athletes to the games. This was achieved through a clear public statement that British athletes would not be hindered by racist German policy. As a letter the BOA had printed in the 7 March 1936 issue of The Times declared: Great Britain’s team will be chosen without any regard whatsoever to the origin, religious belief, or political creed of the competitors. The team which we shall send to Germany will be a united one representing the British people, and no Briton of whatever origin or persuasion need have any hesitation in approving the support given by the British Olympic Council to the games. The Council had the full assurance of those responsible for organizing the games that there will be no demonstrations or discriminations against any competitors.50 This statement is largely representative of the picture painted by the mainstream British press.

Some papers such as The Manchester Guardian had been sympathetic to opposition towards the Games but few came out in favour of a boycott.51 In the end, the British boycott movement died a quiet death for three reasons. The British press was not in favour of a boycott hampering their ability to sway public opinion. There was also no powerful Jewish lobby with a clear agenda or a significant black minority to be concerned with.52 Both of these were important considerations in

48

Ibid, 37.

Ibid.

50 Portal, Burghley, Aberdare and Noel Curtis-Bennett, “British team for Berlin: Plea for Adequate Representation,” The Times, March 7, 1936.

51 Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition,” 72.

52 Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition,” 76.

49

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the United States but had little impact in Britain. The last and arguably most decisive factor was the lack of government support for a boycott. The political climate favoured encouraging positive relations with Germany and it was believed that if the British did boycott the Games, it would appear that they and not the Germans were mixing sport and politics doing significant damage to Britain’s international standing.53 As in the British case, the French boycott debate came to fit neatly into the broader French discourse over how to deal with the new German regime that had emerged to reclaim national greatness. By the 1930s, France was still suffering from the impact of the First World War and was conscious of the danger that the Nazi regime posed to French security. French sporting and physical culture had also gone through a dramatic transition in the postwar years. Although concerns of a decline in French masculinity had been discussed since the painful defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, it was a declining birthrate and the poor quality of army recruits in the interwar years that forced the government to improve male fitness to rebuild national strength.54 French debates over the challenge of having the Nazis host the Olympic Games were slow to materialize compared to those in the United States and Great Britain. This was in part due to domestic issues which took precedence over the small issue of a foreign sporting event. The country had been badly shaken by the failed 1934 fascist coup that sought to overthrow the Third Republic. The early protests raised by those in the French sporting community in 1933 were never organized to any efficient degree in comparison to the Americans. The main reason for this failure was due to the inability of French sporting organizations to stand together. Instead, they quickly fell back into old divisions between working-class and bourgeois sports bodies.55 For this reason, it was not until the middle of 1935 that even committed anti-fascists began to enter into the boycott debate following the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in Germany.56 This was where the French debate took on a particularly unique character as both the right and left were largely united in criticizing the Games.

Opposition came in the months leading up to the start of the Summer Games in Berlin.

There was little resistance to French participation in the Winter Games with only isolated cases of 53

Richard Holt, “Great Britain: The Amateur Tradition,” 77.

Joan Tumblety, “The Soccer World Cup of 1938: Politics, Spectacles, and la Culture Physique in Interwar France,” 93.

55 David Large, Nazi Games, 104.

56 William Murray, “France: Liberty, Equality, and the Pursuit of Fraternity,”91.

54

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criticism from right-wing sources.57 The more vocal and organized opposition to the Summer Games grew out of a surge in right-wing anti-Semitism and political power for the French left in 1936. Anti-Semitic tensions were heightened in February 1936 when a group of youth members of the royalist league Action Français dragged the leader of the French Socialist Party Léon Blum the most prominent Jew in French politics from his car and nearly beat him to death.58 The attack angered French Jews and prompted the government to forcibly disband anti-Semitic groups including Action Français. This was followed up with the creation of the Popular Front government led by Léon Blum and the German remilitarization of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936.59 The decision by Hitler to put German troops in the Rhineland was a direct violation of both the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaty which banned Germany from having any armed forces in the territory. As a serious threat to French security, the failure of either the British or French governments to firmly resist the move opened the door for further German expansion. There was a suspicion by some leading French statesmen that the intense coverage the Germans provided for the Winter Games had been done for nefarious purposes. Claude Farrére a leading French social commentator in the 1930s went so far as to say that the Winter Games had been used as a cover for Germany to breach its international obligations with illegal actions taken in the Rhineland.60 Talk like this, however, failed to generate a strong will to act among the French political and sporting elite. The position of the French government was outlined by the opinions of the French ambassador to Germany François Poncet. He understood the importance the Nazis had placed on the hosting of the Olympics as a powerful propaganda tool but firmly believed that the French should still participate.61 Poncet was not supportive of the fascist regime but felt that the moment for protest had passed. Taking a firm stand on the Olympics would not match the tepid response to German military maneuvers.62 In the weeks that followed the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the French political landscape was dramatically transformed when all the parties on the left came together to form the

57

Murray, Nazi Olympics, 93.

“M. Blum Attacked,” The Halifax Daily Courier and Guardian, 13 February 1936, 8.

59 The Popular Front was an alliance of the French Left, Communists and Socialists coming together to protect the country from the threat of the far Right.

60 William Murray, Nazi Olympics, 94.

61 Ibid, 97.

62 Ibid.

58

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Popular Front. Although the new government was supportive of French athletes participating in the Summer Games, they faced significant pressure from the press to ensure French athletic success. Right-wing papers were torn over this hating the Popular Front and approving of German fascist methods while remaining predominantly anti-German. As such, the left was the driving force behind anti-fascist policy including sporting ventures. There was, however, common ground to be found in what the Popular Front needed to do with French sport. The press was in agreement that the Winter Games had shown how urgent it was for the government to inaugurate a full-scale reform program in health and physical education that would offer a fresh opportunity for French youth.63 The government also sought to maintain its earlier funding to support athlete’s participation in the Summer Games. Yet by the spring of 1936, this move was not straightforward as pressure increased to support athletes that wished to participate in the left-wing countermovement known as the Popular Olympics which had been set to start in Spain in July 1936. These games were meant to be an alternative to the so-called fascist event in Germany and gained the interest of a large number of French Communists. Instead of deciding to favour one event over the other, Prime Minister Léon Blum presented a compromise deal. The government would provide funding for athletes attending both events with one million francs to the Olympic team and six hundred thousand to the Popular Olympics in Barcelona.64 This compromise angered the right and left in France but was eventually enacted.

In the end, French opposition to the Berlin Games failed as only the Communists and a few Jewish groups adamantly opposed participation in them. Unlike the British case, there was a large Jewish minority in France but they failed to organize effectively to oppose French participation.

Weak opposition was largely due to the fact that the French Jewish community mostly identified with the Bourgeois sporting groups and political parties which in turn were determined to not be lumped together with the left in the eyes of the French public.65 The effects of the Dreyfus Affair still remained a divisive aspect of French culture with the middle class deeply split over the acceptance of Jews. This was not helped by the fact that half of the French Jewish population in the 1930s was born outside of France and Jewish immigrants were seen as particularly

63

William Murray, “France, Coubertin, and the Nazi Olympics: The Response,” 115.

William Murray, The Nazi Olympics, 98.

65 David Large, Nazi Games, 105.

64

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undesirable.66 Therefore, the French Jewish community had to pick its battles carefully. Domestic concerns naturally took precedence over foreign affairs. This failure to effectively mobilize meant that once the French socialists had decided a boycott of the Games would achieve little. The movement stopped dead in its tracks. Those who were determined to continue to oppose the Games merely shifted their support and participation to the event in Barcelona. In the end, though, this amounted to nothing - the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War ended the Peoples Olympics indefinitely.

The Canadian boycott movement occurred on a much smaller scale than was experienced in other major democratic states. The Canadian campaign grew out of discussions in the neighbouring United States. By 4 November 1933, the President of the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAU of C) P. J. Mulqueen, reviewed the organization’s position in an interview with The Toronto Daily Star, Canada’s Olympic Committee is much interested in the proposition to withdraw the Games from Berlin and Germany. In fact, it would not surprise me to see the AAU of C, at its annual meeting in Winnipeg, pronounce in favour of the withdrawal of the Games from Germany. The acute political situation which now exists in Germany and European affairs together with the discrimination in Germany against the Jews might be sufficient reason for Canada supporting any move to withdraw the Games.67 Mulqueen outlined the viewpoint that a number of Canadian athletic leaders brought to the meeting in Winnipeg. There are no records, however, of such a discussion taking place during the actual meeting.68 The Alberta branch of the AAU of C did ask for an assurance that no athlete who competed in the Games be discriminated against but the motion was dropped after the leadership determined that there were sufficient guarantees made by the German government in response to the similar American demands.69 As in the case of the United States, discussion of the decision to accept German guarantees of rights for Jewish athletes to compete in the Games had led to a decline in public discourse surrounding opposition to the event.

66

Vicki Caron, “The Anti-Semitic Revival in France in the 1930s: The Socio-Economic Dimension Reconsidered,” 71.

67 Lou Marsh, “Interview with P. J. Mulqueen,” The Toronto Daily Star, November 4, 1933, quoted in Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 426.

68 Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 426.

69 Allen Guttmann, “The Nazi Olympics and the American Boycott Controversy,” in Sport and International Politics, ed. P. Arnaud and J. Riodan, London: E&FN Spon, 1998.

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This changed in 1935 when discussion of a possible Olympic boycott gained traction both in Canada and the United States. In Canada, the movement was led by Communists and Jewish groups such as the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) with the Communists largely taking the lead.70 It was the Communist Party and its Toronto newspaper, The Worker, which first actively campaigned for an Olympic boycott by Canadians. The campaign against the Olympics was part of its overall fight against fascism.71 The Communists viewed Nazism as a significant threat to the principles of sportsmanship something that included peace and respect for human rights which was under attack in Germany.72 With this view in mind, Canadian Communists called for a renewed discussion of relocating the Games to another country in response to a growing anti-boycott counter-movement in the United States. As explained in an issue of The Worker for 7 November 1935, There is every reason why the Olympics should not be held in Berlin. The prospect of this revolts every decent-minded citizen and every true sportsman. There is as much rhyme or reason to hold the world sports meet in the country of fascist barbarism as there would be to hold a peace congress in Rome under the chairmanship of bloody Mussolini.73 This final statement related to Mussolini points to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia begun a month earlier in violation of international law. In this way, the Communists clearly viewed opposition to Germany hosting the Olympics as a small part of a much broader anti-fascist movement that aimed to counter a serious global threat. The problem for those supporting a Canadian boycott was that it was difficult to win over the support of a large portion of the population.

In the early 1930s, the Canadian Communist Party (CPC) faced serious obstacles with a small membership and limited public support. The Federal Government was deeply concerned with the threat Communism posed as the economic impact of The Great Depression spread to Canada. In 1931, a significant crackdown was placed on Communists when the party was branded an illegal organization. Membership dropped rapidly from 4,500 to 1,300 culminating in the arrest

70

Allen Guttmann, The Games Must Go On, 40.

Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 426.

72 Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 427.

73 The Worker, November 7, 1935. In Kidd.

71

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of CPC General Secretary Tim Buck and six other leaders all charged with sedition.74 By 1935, however, the party was again on the rise> membership surged by the middle of 1936 to 10,000 and the organization regained its legality by the beginning of July.75 This came to pass long after the boycott issue was settled. Throughout the boycott campaign, the party operated underground so it fell to Canadian Jewish groups to organize broad public support against the Games.

The Canadian Jewish community suffered from similar issues to their French counterparts.

They represented only 1.5% of the Canadian population at 155,000 with the majority being immigrants or first-generation Canadians.76 This left the Canadian Jewish community as a more distinct element of Canadian society compared to the Anglo-Canadian majority. Nonetheless, Canadian Jewish organizations took the threat of Nazism seriously and supported efforts to denounce and challenge the regime through economic boycotts and other measures. The Nazi hosting of the Olympic Games was seen as another area in which Canadian Jews could draw attention to the public about the increasingly brutal racial policies being implemented in Germany.

British Jewish organizations were some of the earliest to attempt to organize boycott campaigns around the Empire and Dominions. In the summer of 1934, the London Jewish Council wrote to their Canadian counterparts in Montreal warning that the Olympics were more than just games and would be used to showcase Nazi racism and anti-Semitism calling upon them to put pressure on the AAU of C to boycott.77 In response, the CJC began working with the Canadian Youth Congress and Communist Party to promote a boycott. After the passage of the Nuremberg Laws, the CJC reached out to Labour groups such as the Trades and Labour Congress for support. The Trades Labour Congress was receptive and was largely successful in encouraging its local affiliates to follow suit.78 At the same time, the CJC organized a campaign to garner support from the Canadian press for a boycott or at the very least highlight the inherent risks that the Nazi regime represented to the protection of Olympic principles.

74

John Manley, “Communists Love Canada! The Communist Party of Canada, the People and the Popular Front, 1933 -1939,” 61.

75 Ibid, 74.

76 Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, More Than Just Games: Canada and the 1936 Olympics, 27.

77 Ibid, 56.

78 Menkis and Troper, More Than Just Games, 85.

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The mainstream Canadian press was largely supportive of having Canada participate in the Games based on the guarantees from Germany the IOC had received. This was particularly true in the cases of The Toronto Star and the Winnipeg Free Press both of which were adamantly antiNazi but felt reassured by the IOCs’ efforts.79 For this reason, the boycott advocates had to encourage public discourse through other means. This included a direct discussion with major politicians and social leaders. One powerful supporter that the pro-boycott camp was able to win over was the leftist mayor of Toronto James Simpson who pledged that Toronto would not contribute a single cent to the financing of the Games in Germany.80 Although the pro-boycott campaign was able to gather support from a number of politicians and union leaders, public opinion was not significantly swayed. Eventually, the AAU of C determined that they would follow the decision of the British Olympic Committee. If they were to boycott then Canada would follow suit. Otherwise, Canadians would participate in the 1936 Games. 81 The final blow came soon after with Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the newly elected Mayor of Toronto Sam McBride advocating their support for getting Canada’s athletes to Germany.82 In the end, those that were most adamant in their opposition to the Games turned instead to taking part in the People’s Olympics in Barcelona. The movement failed to gain popular appeal in the realm of public opinion. This was partly due to the oversaturation of the coverage of the American boycott debate by the Canadian press as the Canadian debate was largely relegated to sports pages and letters to the editor.83 The situation was not helped by the fact that the CJC and its subsidiary the Unity and Goodwill Association emphasized American pro-boycott material in both its own publications and lobbying resources distributed to Canadian newspapers. This created a clear perception that a Canadian boycott was not of significant consequence and that the only debate that mattered was the one going on south of the border. The Canadian boycott movement provided a significant starting point for anti-Nazi activists to rally around but its ultimate demise signalled a lack of leadership in the Canadian sporting community. The AAU of C deferred to the British and American sporting agencies to participate in the Olympic Games with almost no

79

Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, “Racial Laws vs. Olympic Aspirations in the AngloCanadian Press of Fall 1935,” 58.

80 Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 431.

81 Ibid.

82 Bruce Kidd, “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany,” 431.

83 Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, Nazi Germany: Canadian Responses, 70.

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internal discussion even when the Nuremberg Laws made clear the brutal actions the Nazi regime was embracing.

Overall, the common thread among all boycott discussions that took place on the eve of the 1936 Olympics was their failure. The Winter and Summer Games were massive propaganda victories for the Nazi regime and all the countries that had originally planned to attend the Games did so. Although each boycott campaign failed within its national contexts, there are some broad connections between them all. In each state, the first discussions of a boycott came from the Jewish and far-left groups most threatened by policies of the Third Reich. The problem lay in the failure of these groups to generate mass public support for a boycott. Only with that could governments be forced to step in and take substantial action. This proved difficult as the press was largely in favour of participation in the Games either in a sense of fairness to their nations’ athletes or because those actively calling for a boycott were viewed as undesirables. Many may have opposed Nazi policy but believed opposition could be best demonstrated by having athletes compete and beat those who held Nazi ideas of racial superiority. Such views were particularly prevalent in the African American athletic community determined to compete in Germany. Most significantly, though, the greatest concern over participation in the Games was assuaged when Germany publicly pledged to uphold the Olympic Charter. Even if the Nazis failed to follow through on this promise, it provided an out for those who did not feel particular concern for the plight of German Jews and merely wished to get on with the Games.

These reasons fall short of explaining why the boycotts failed to materialize in 1936 but were successful in the 1980s. The rigid ideological divide from the Cold War meant that when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the United States sought to demonstrate clear condemnation to the global community. President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott the 1980 Summer Games hosted in Moscow and much of the capitalist West followed suit. The response of the Soviet Union and the communist east was to boycott the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. Both campaigns proved effective at damaging the Olympic Games by preventing large swaths of the world’s athletes from participating. Explaining why the 1936 Olympics went ahead requires academic discourse of the Games to avoid skipping over a significant examination of the Olympic counterculture promoted by the Communists. This needs to be addressed in future work as the People’s Olympics in Barcelona provided a significant alternative for athletes who wished to compete on the world stage while still protesting the Nazi regime. By the 1980s, the Olympic Games had won

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out as the top global sporting event making the stakes for a boycott higher as no alternate event existed to siphon support. In the 1930s, both athletes and some states such as France treated the Peoples Olympics with the same level of importance as the event in Germany. Lastly, the most critical factor behind the failure of the boycott efforts in 1936 was the lack of government intervention. This was the product of a growing culture of appeasement in the 1930s. Each of the states examined in this essay was interested in fostering positive relations with the new Germany.

Beyond that, there existed a longstanding presumption that sport and politics should remain distinctly separate. In the boycott debate leading up to the 1936 Games, this principle was certainly challenged but not cast aside. It was only after the Second World War that politics and sport became interwoven with governments devoting immense resources to fostering athletic success.

With this connection to sport and a global political culture that opposed appeasement, boycotting the Olympic Games could be viewed as a viable form of political protest.

Works Cited Arnaud, Pierre and James Riordan. Sport and International Politics. New York: E&FN Spon, 1998.

Berg, Brennan, Seth Kessler, and Thomas Hunt. “Olympic Boycott Movements, 1936-2008.”

International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 4, No. 3 (2012): 307-320.

Brundage, Avery. University of Illinois University Archives, Bundesinstitut Für Sportwissenschaft, and International Olympic Committee. Avery Brundage Collection, 1908-1975. Urbana, Ill.]: Microfilmed by the University of Illinois Library for the Bundesinstitut Für Sportwissenschaft, Cologne, Federal Republic of Germany, 1978.

“Brundage Favours Berlin Olympics.” The New York Times, July 27, 1935.

Caron, Vicki. “The Anti-Semitic Revival in France in the 1930s: The Socio-Economic Dimension Reconsidered.” The Journal of Modern History 70, No. 1 (1998): 24-73.

Cornell University Athletic Association. Letter to Avery Brundage, November 20, 1935. Avery Brundage Collection.

Daley, Arthur. “Berlin Faces Loss of Olympic Games.” The New York Times, April 18, 1933.

Guttmann, Allen. The Games Must Go On. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Guttmann, Allen. “The Nazi Olympics and the American Boycott Controversy.” In Sport and International Politics. Edited by P. Arnaud and J. Riodan, London: E. & F.N. Spon, 1998.

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Hilton, Christopher. Hitler’s Olympics. Stroud: Sutton, 2006.

Kanin, David. Political History of the Olympic Games. Boulder Colorado: Westview Press, 1981.

Kessler, Mario. “Only Nazi Games? Berlin 1936: The Olympic Games between Sports and Politics.” Socialism and Democracy 25, No. 2 (2011): 125-143.

Keyes, Barbara. Globalizing Sport. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Kidd, Bruce. “Canadian Opposition to the 1936 Olympics in Germany.” Sport in Society 16, No. 4 (2013): 425-438.

Krüger, Arnd. “The Nazi Olympics of 1936.” In Global Olympics: Historical and Sociological Studies of the Modern Games. Edited by Kevin Young and Kevin. Wamsley. London: Elsevier, 2005.

Krüger, Arnd and William Murray. The Nazi Olympics. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Large, David. Nazi Games. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.

“M. Blum Attacked.” The Halifax Daily Courier and Guardian, 13 February 1936, 8.

Mandell, Richard. The Nazi Olympics. New York: Macmillan, 1971.

Manley, John. “Communists Love Canada! The Communist Party of Canada, the People and the Popular Front, 1933 -1939.” Journal of Canadian Studies 36, No. 4 (2002): 59-83.

Marvin, Carolyn. “Avery Brundage and American Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games.”

Journal of American Studies 16, No. 1 (1982): 81-105.

Menkis, Richard and Harold Troper. More Than Just Games: Canada and the 1936 Olympics.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Menkis, Richard and Harold Troper. “Racial Laws vs. Olympic Aspirations in the AngloCanadian Press of Fall 1935.” In Nazi Germany: Canadian Responses, edited by, L. Ruth Klein. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012.

Murray, William. “France, Coubertin, and the Nazi Olympics: The Response.” In Rethinking the Olympics, edited by Robert Barney. Morgantown: West Virginia University, 2010.

“Nazi Bias on Olympics Proved, Mahoney Says, Insisting on Ban.” The New York Times, October 21, 1935.

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Noel-Baker, Philip. “Germany and the Olympic Games: A Vital Principle at Stake.

Manchester Guardian, December 7, 1935.

Proposed Resolution Relative to Acceptance of Invitation of German Olympic Committee, June 3, 1934. Avery Brundage Collection.

Portal, Burghley, Aberdare and Noel-Curtis-Bennett, “British Team for Berlin: Plea for Adequate Representation.” The Times, March 7, 1936.

Stoddart, Brian. “Sport, Cultural Politics and International Relations: England versus Germany, 1935.” Soccer and Society 7, No. 1 (2006): 29-50.

Tumblety, Joan. “The Soccer World Cup of 1938: Politics, Spectacles, and la Culture Physique in Interwar France.” French Historical Studies 31 No.1 (2008): 77-116.

The Exploitation of Black Labour as Experienced by the Black Loyalist Nyatike Chuol Examining the history of the Black Loyalists is essential to Black Canadian history. More significantly is examining the social inequality the Black Loyalists faced in the past. Much of the early history of the Black Loyalists is shaped by the institution of slavery. The institution of slavery is maintained by ideologies and traditions that justify another race’s enslavement. At the heart of these justifications is anti-black racism. Racism weaved throughout the fabric of white society and resulted from hundreds of years of imperialism, subjugation, and racist dogma. Black individuals had no legal safeguard for themselves nor any political power. This essay intends to argue that the Black Loyalists’ experience illustrates the racist attitudes held by white society. This paper will focus on the preconception that Black people’s value came from their usefulness in service to white people. The maintenance of anti-black racism will be examined through three generalizations. The different motivations and experiences between white and Black Loyalists, the overlap between freed and enslaved Black people living in Nova Scotia, and the continual exploitation of Black labour for white people’s sole benefit.

The story of the Black Loyalists has been covered considerably by many different historians. James W. St. G. Walker was the first to explore the historical archives about the Black Loyalists. His book, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870, covers the history of the free and enslaved Black Americans who came to Nova Scotia with the British after the Revolutionary War and the eventual exodus of some to Sierra Leone. Throughout his book, his descriptions of the Black Loyalists' experience illustrate why so many Black Loyalists decided to leave. The reality of colonial discrimination dashed their hope of gaining social and political equality. Robin W. Winks’ book, The Blacks in Canada: A History, supplies an overview of the history of Black Canadians. His book explores the early history of slavery in New France and the eventual transformation of slavery in the British colonies.

Important to the study of Black Loyalists, Winks ties together the distinct experiences of white Loyalists, Black Loyalists, and enslaved Black people. Black and white Loyalists had a strained relationship as they were living close together in areas such as Halifax and Annapolis or segregated in Birchtown and Digby. The existence of slavery added more animosity as free and enslaved Black people living side by side challenged the notions of Black servitude. Harvey Amani

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Whitfield's book, North to Bondage: Loyalists Slavery in the Maritimes, illustrates the dying system of slavery in the maritime colonies. There is a clear distinction between the white Loyalists, the Black Loyalists, and the enslaved black people. Whitfield’s book surveys how the white Loyalists brought their slaves into the new settlement of Nova Scotia which transformed the already established tradition of slavery in the province. The maintenance of slavery by white Loyalists had profound impacts on the free Black Loyalists while simultaneously creating a rift between free and enslaved Black people. These authors supply a foundation for the transition of exploiting Black slaves' labour to the exploitation of free Black labour. By examining the period from 1783 to 1792 and the Loyalists’ settlements in Nova Scotia, one can gather insight into the racist experiences of the Black Loyalists. Set to the background of the American War of Independence, the newly freed slaves set out to carve a new settlement and identity in the British Empire.

With the British defeat in 1783, those who claimed loyalty to the British Crown emigrated from America to England or other British colonies including Canada. Of the estimated 60,000 total Loyalists, about 14,000 were Black.1 Although the number is unclear, the largest settlement in the Canadian Maritimes was in Nova Scotia. Of the total number of Loyalist settling in Nova Scotia, ten percent were free Black Loyalists and enslaved Blacks following their masters.2 Land was promised to both Black and white Loyalists for services and loyalty to the British military during the Revolutionary War. Black and white Loyalists had differing interpretations of loyalty which divided their experiences as Loyalist. In 1775, Lord Dunmore the Colonial Governor of Virginia proclaimed that “I do herby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able to and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be.”3 Shortly after its publication, around 300 black men joined the Ethiopian Regiment led by

1

Clarkson, John. “Journal Account of Lydia Jackson”. Nova Scotia. 30 November 1791. Archives MG 1 vol. 219 pp. 197-201; published in Clarkson's Mission to America, 17911792 p. 89-90 (Public Archives of Nova Scotia Publication no. 11, 1971) (F90 /N85/ Ar2P no.

11). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=45&Page=200402064 2 James W. St. G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870, 12.

3 R. Johnson, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775. Document. (Virginia: United States). https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/lord-dunmore-s-proclamation-1775/

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Dunmore himself.4 As the war raged on, the Commander in Chief of the British Army in The Thirteen Colonies Sir Guy Carleton promised that all Black slaves would be free once they crossed British lines and declared their loyalty.5 Therefore, some Black people freely swore their allegiance to the British Crown and supplied their services in anticipation that all Blacks would be emancipated once the British won the war.6 The consequences Black runaways would face if caught by the revolutionary army was severe. In response to the Dunmore proclamation, the Virginia Assembly declared: “[It] is enacted that all negro or other slaves, conspiring to rebel or make insurrection, shall suffer death, and be excluded all benefit of clergy: We think it proper to declare, that all slaves who have been, or shall be seduced, by his lordship's proclamation, or other arts, to desert their masters' service, and take up arms against the inhabitants of this colony, shall be liable to such punishment as shall hereafter be directed by the General Convention. And to that end all such, who have taken this unlawful and wicked step, may return in safety to their duty, and escape the punishment due to their crimes, we hereby promise pardon to them, they surrendering themselves to Col. William Woodford, or any other commander of our troops, and not appearing in arms after the publication hereof.”7 This response illustrates two key points. First, that those who run away and deliberately take up arms against their masters will face severe punishment likely death by the American militias if captured. Second, if a slave does come back freely and declare themselves unarmed, they would be pardoned. There is no mention of freedom. Thus in the context of the state of Virginia, the runaway slaves had two options: death or continual enslavement. As the numbers recorded by the British military showcase, many enslaved Blacks chose to risk this punishment and cross into British lines.

Likewise, although they never faced the punishment of enslavement, many white Loyalists faced severe repercussions for their expressed loyalty. The story of Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles illustrates this. As a delegate from Massachusetts and President of the First Colonial Congress, Ruggles was a prominent political figure in the thirteen colonies. Despite the political

4

James W. St. G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870,, 1.

5 Robin Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History, 31.

6 James W. St. G. Walker. The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870,, 5.

7 “A Declaration” Virginia Assembly’s Response 1775. Retrieved from Digital History, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/virginia_assembly.cfm

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power and prestige afforded to him as a citizen of the colonies, he openly refused to sign the document addressed to the King to exempt the Americans from the new Stamp Tax. This open refusal resulted first in Ruggles’s dismissal and then to his property’s confiscation and looting as he was forced out of his estate by angry citizens. Ruggles managed to get to Boston in 1774 and became involved with the Loyalist troops. He provides a detailed explanation as to why a white citizen might adhere their loyalty to the crown.

As Historian Katie Cottreau-Robins argues, this defiance “positioned Ruggles early on among Loyalists who envisioned an Anglo-American empire in which the mother country and her colonies would work together to improve economically, politically and culturally.”8 Ruggles and many other white Loyalists saw the advantage of British rule and were willing to fight for that continued existence. Once declaring their loyalty to the British and following the collapse of British power, the white Loyalists lost their homes, political status, and citizenship. After the war, however, the British planned to compensate them for their losses and promised land and security in their other colonies. On the contrary, the status of Black Loyalists was uncertain as the terms of an agreement between the British and Americans came together. As they waited, many ex-slaves lived in fear of being sent back to their masters and the subsequent punishment they would face.9 For white Loyalists, loyalty to the crown was a personal and political choice while for Black Loyalists, the choice was either continued enslavement or service to the British. This distinction is significant because it showcases the emphasis on Black labour. White Loyalists chose to exist as citizens of the newly formed America or as citizens of the British Empire. Black Loyalists were fighting for an existence separate from slavery.

Dunmore and Carleton clarified that an expression of loyalty and service to the British army could grant Black people’s their freedom. It is arguable that for white military and political personnel, the Black American’s emancipation was never truly about granting freedom and justice for the countless years of misery, bondage, and suffering Black people faced. Instead, emancipation was a military tool used as a desperate measure. No new laws legally recognized Black Americans as citizens nor were there federal laws that abolished slavery. Therefore, it can be deduced that some Black Americans’ emancipation was an opportunity taken by some military

8 Katie Cottreau-Robins, “The Loyalists Plantation: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Informing Early African-Nova Scotian Settlement,” 37.

9 Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 31.

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leaders rather than an attempt to make the lives of Black Americans better. The acceptance of Black soldiers and service men into the British army signifies the transition to free Black labour rather than a transition to more tolerable attitudes. In the late 18th century British colonial society, Black lives were conditional and came at the expense of white people’s own goals and ambitions.

Eventually, both America and Britain agreed that the Black people who fled to the British lines became free as soon as they did and were thus allowed to leave American soil with the other white Loyalists.10 Despite both groups proving their loyalty to the Crown, the Black Loyalists faced disadvantages in Nova Scotia. This mistreatment of the Black Loyalists who settled in Nova Scotia speaks to the more significant phenomenon of social inequality that continued in Nova Scotia. The reality for the British personnel in charge of surveying and resettling the thousands of Loyalists was that they were extremely overwhelmed and underestimated the sheer number of new people. This administrative issue resulted in the neglect of Black Loyalists who often received little to no land. If they did receive the land grants, the land “contained some of the provinces' worst soil and was often located so far from major settlements that establishing a viable farm upon it or even visiting it was extremely difficult.”11 Some Black Loyalists did receive land and Birchtown, Brindley Town and Little Tracadie became the only all-Black Loyalists communities.12 The largest settlement of Black Loyalists was Birchtown on the outskirts of Shelburne.13 This visible segregation would further amplify the animosity between the white and Black Loyalists. Similarly, many Black Loyalists stayed in Halifax14 which caused further proximity to white Loyalists through employment in the urban city. This proximity to one another only seemed to highlight their different treatment. According to Robin W. Winks, there were 486 land grants eventually given to the Black Loyalists. The Black Pioneers living in Annapolis Valley received most of these grants. They also received more respect from the white Loyalist than any other Black settlers.15 The treatment of the Black Pioneers in comparison to other Black Loyalists is another example of the perception of Black labour in white society. The members of the Black Pioneers were a visible example of military service performed under the British. Those who served in the

10

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 32.

Walker, The Black Loyalists, pp 18.

12 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 28.

13 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 22.

14 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 30.

15 Winks. The Blacks in Canada: A History, 41.

11

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military were recognized as more deserving of their land titles compared to the many other Black Loyalists who performed different tasks for the military.

Like the allocation of land, the provisions promised by the Government prioritized white Loyalists.16 Although the white Loyalists also had to deal with poverty and scarcity in these communities, Black Loyalists fared worse.17 William Dyott, an eyewitness in 1788 at Birchtown, describes this reality: [Dyott and fellow officers] walked through the woods about two miles from the barracks to a negro town called Birch Town. At the evacuation of New York there were a great number of these poor devils given lands and settled here- The place is beyond description wretched, situated on the coast in the middle of barren rocks, and partly surrounded by a thick impenetrable wood - Their huts miserable to guard against the inclemency of a Nova Scotia winter, and their existence almost depending on what they could lay up in summer. I think I never saw wretchedness and poverty so strongly perceptible in the garb and the countenance of the human species as in these miserable outcasts. I cannot say I was sorry to quit so melancholy a dwelling.”18 This passage informs us that there was some land given in Birchtown. The conditions, however, of the people living there are desperate. In the immediate years of resettlement, Black Loyalists made very little progress. Even when given land, they had little ability to cultivate it or build shelters that would suffice. Further emphasizing Black Loyalists desperation is the white town of Shelburne. A letter by Benjamin Marston, describes that: The new settlers here have suffered no other hardships and difficulties than are commonly incident to the settling of a new country -- a proof of which is the universal state of good health enjoyed in this place, no other disorders having prevailed than such as are usual in the country in general, and if some tender worn out constitutions have fallen a sacrifice, more have been bettered by the change of climate from N. York to N. Scotia. The greatest difficulty they have had to encounter has, in my opinion, been the living in less roomy and commodious habitations than some had been heretofore used to, but that is every day growing better. We have been well served with the King's provisions, which have been very good of their kind, particularly the bread. There has been likewise a distribution of clothing, working tools, some boards, &c., but in what proportion I do not know, those matters being out of my line.19 16

Walker, The Black Loyalists, 43 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 45.

18 “Excerpts from William Dyott’s Diary”, Sunday, October 1788. https://blackLoyalists.com/cdc/documents/diaries/dyott_excerpt.htm 19 “Marston Describes Shelburne”, 1785. https://blackLoyalists.com/cdc/documents/diaries/marston_journal.htm 17

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According to this letter, unlike the Black Loyalists the white Loyalists faced little hardship besides adapting to a new country. Although this letter may exaggerate superiors, the difference between the two towns is evident. Even more noticeable, the town received provisions from the government. This advantage is a sharp contrast to the poverty the Black Loyalists in Birchtown faced. The desperation that many Black Loyalists faced was not for lack of trying. Although this description of Shelburne is not representative of all white Loyalists’ experience as there are records of white poverty, it still highlights the difference between white and Black Loyalists.

The fear of starvation pushed many free Blacks into conditions that they did not envision when promised their freedom. In the more rural communities desperate for work, some Blacks joined the system of ’share-cropping.’ A very exploitative system, the tenants of the land were tied to it while the landowner took a percentage from the tenant’s harvest. This system ultimately would keep the tenant bound with no hopes of gathering enough savings to purchase land of their own.20 Indentured servitude was another exploitative system. Slightly above actual enslavement, free blacks would lease their labour for an extended period in hopes of avoiding starvation and homelessness.21 Some Black parents were desperate enough to lease out their children.

Sometimes, however, white masters would claim the child as a slave or extort the parent for their children's return.22 The privilege that some white Loyalists had compared to the Black Loyalists created the circumstances where Blacks had to revert to a similar form of slavery they desperately fought to escape. Despite their egregious experiences, they were still a bit above the Blacks who were slaves.

The practice of slavery occurred before the Loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia. Although it was not as institutionalized as the Southern States, the maintenance of slavery and the usage of slaves in the North informs significant understandings of the maritime society. A newspaper advertisement for a runaway slave in 1772 provides context for Nova Scotia’s attitudes before the arrival of the Loyalists in 1783. Describing the runaway girl’s appearance and naming her Thursday, the newspaper advertisement states:

20

Walker, The Black Loyalists, 46.

Walker, The Black Loyalists, 49.

22 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 50.

21

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Whoever may harbour said Negro Girl or encourage her to stay away from her said Master, may depend on being prosecuted according as the Law shall direct. And whosever may be so kind to take her up and send her home to her said Master, shall be paid all Cots and Charges, together with TWO DOLLARS Reward for their Trouble23.

Similarly, another advertisement in 1781 from the same magazine Nova Scotia Gazette has a similar advertisement for a runaway slave boy named James: Whoever will apprehend and secure the said Negro in any of His Majesty’s Goals so that his Master may have him again, shall be entitled to Five Pounds Reward and all necessary charges paid. Masters of Vessels and others are cation’d not to Harbur, concel or carry said Negro. If the said James, will return to his Master he shall be forgiven.24 These advertisements both give insight into the practice of slavery in Nova Scotia. Written almost ten years apart, they both share a very similar formulation. There is the name of the runaway, the description of their appearance and clothing, the cautioning of anyone who might be harbouring them, and a reward for their return. These descriptions signifies that there may have been an issue with runaway slaves. Also, it is essential to note the reward which would have encouraged assistance from the public. Slavery was public knowledge and the owners of the slaves were not embarrassed to discuss their issues about their slaves. Whitfield further supports this concept by arguing that slavery was a wildly accepted practice in Nova Scotia.25 Entering Nova Scotia in 1783, freed Black Loyalists were quickly disillusioned to the idea of all Black emancipation.

With the arrival of white Loyalists, there was also an influx of new slaves into the colony.

According to Walker, about 1,232 slaves or ‘servants’ entered Nova Scotia with their white masters. Shelburne, which had the largest settlement of Loyalists also introduced many new slaves along with the new number of free Black Loyalists.26 It is important to note that the distinction between 'servant' and 'slave' was very grey. Many records referred to many of the Blacks

23

“Fugitive Slave Advertisement”, Nova Scotia Archives. Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle 01 September 1772 p. 3 (microfilm no. 8155). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=10 24

“Runaway slave advertisement for ‘James’, property of Abel Michener of Falmouth”, Nova Scotia Archives. Nova Scotia Gazette, 22 May 1781 p. 3 (microfilm no. 8159). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=16 25 Harvey Amani Whitfield, North to Bondage: Loyalists Slavery in the Maritimes. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016), 36.

26 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 40.

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accompanying the white Loyalists as their servants. What is significant is that the two terms' variability highlights a growing sensitivity to the term 'slavery'.

27

Regardless of the movement

away from the term 'slavery,’ the practice continued. As many of the Loyalists came from the northern colonies such as New England, they brought the already entrenched practice of slavery.

This form of slavery differed from the middle colonies as it shifted from chattel slavery with large plantations to an emphasis on skilled labour28. The proximity between owners and their slaves was an attractive trait of the northern colonies and continued in Nova Scotia. The slaves also tended to be smaller in number and were used in various occupations "including baking, butchering, carting, carpentry, shipbuilding, and seafaring.”29 Regardless of the differences between Northern and Southern systems of slavery, the system itself still relied on the exploitation of Black labour.

After the Revolutionary War, white Loyalists could bring whatever property with them including their slaves.30 The continuation of slavery leads to two conclusions. First, enslaved Blacks who had Loyalist masters were not given the same opportunity for freedom as runaways slaves from rebel masters. Second, assuming that the slaves of Loyalists continued to work as slaves for their masters during the war, they technically fulfilled the first conditions of the Dunmore proclamation. Like other Black people who were declared free, their service for the British ranged from “cooks, orderlies and waiters in the British regiments, or were assigned as personal servants to the officers.”31 Their service to their masters did not indicate the same conditions that gave emancipation to slaves of Rebel masters. This discrepancy can be explained by understanding that Black labour was conditional to the priority of white goals. For the British, emancipating the slaves during the war was a tactic that was perceived to benefit the British. By not extending this grace to the slaves of Loyalists, the British showcased more concern for white people and their 'property' than the enslavement of Black people. For white Loyalists, their ability to bring their slaves with them to Nova Scotia assumes that the attitudes towards Black people did not change. Instead, it merely shifted to benefit white society.

Furthermore, the practice of slavery is significant to both the enslaved and free Black Loyalists. As mentioned above, those Black people who crossed British lines anticipated not only 27

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 45.

Whitfield, North to Bondage, 21 29 Whitfield, North to Bondage, 21.

30 Whitfield, North to Bondage, 42.

31 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 5.

28

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their release but the emancipation of all Black people. They assumed that once the British won, then all Black people would finally be free. Instead, the Black people who fought for their freedom lived alongside enslaved Black people. White Loyalists who owned slaves had to contend with the visibility of free Black people. The presence of free Black people contradicted the notion that Blacks deserved their enslavement. For communities with a large free Black population such as Birchtown, white masters could not avoid the interaction between free and enslaved Black people.

Birchtown even became a place of protection for runaway Black slaves whose masters would be unsuccessful at retrieving them.32 As the advertisements for runaway slaves expressed a monetary reward, it is reasonable to assume that this had no impact on free Black people's willingness to shelter runaways. They themselves were only free because they risked the uncertainty of running away. Thus, the few dollars they would receive in return for putting a fellow Black person back into bondage would have been an unforgivable act. The free Black people also had to live with the fear that if society practiced slavery, there was a chance that white people would force them back into slavery.

While it was not common, there are documented cases of freed Black people resold into slavery. The 1791 court case of R v. Gray highlights the instability of freedom for Blacks in Nova Scotia. Jesse Gray a white Loyalist had no qualms about selling his mistress Mary Postell (confirmed by herself in the court documents) in exchange for 100 bushels of potatoes. He also tried to sell her children. As the court document shows, Gray was tried but the court acquitted him of any criminal activity and thus Postell was forced to remain in slavery.33 This case indicated two things. One, even though there was no clear legislation as Nova Scotia never had a Statute Law relating to slavery34 the local white officials had the authority to allow Black people to continue in servitude. Also, the court case informs us that buying and selling slaves by white Loyalists continued. The British colony allowed white Loyalists to bring slaves into Nova Scotia as part of their compensation and allowed them to participate in the trade within the community.

Similarly, the court proceedings of Elizabeth Watson further attest to the likelihood of white officials sympathizing with white Loyalists and not with the plight of Black slaves. Born free in 32

Walker, The Black Loyalists, 41.

R. v. Gray. Shelburne County Court of General Sessions of the Peace. April-November 1791.

Nova Scotia Archives RG 60 Shelburne County vol. 1 file 49-4. https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=46 34 Whitfield, North to Bondage, 85.

33

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America, Watson was forced into slavery and brought to Nova Scotia. She sued her master in 1779 for having no legal grounds to keep her enslaved and wanted reparations for the severe abuse she suffered under his captivity. The judgement, however, was passed down in her master’s favour: “Therefore it is considered that the said William Proud do secure and hold the said Negro Woman Phillis, previously calling herself Elizabeth Watson, as the property and slaves of him the said William Proud.”35 This judgment further showcases the prioritizing of white Loyalists. Even though Watson claimed that he was abusing her, the courts still allowed Proud to continue to keep her enslaved. Even though Watson had a witness testify that they knew Watson in America as a free person, the courts still allowed her continual enslavement.

Furthermore, Lydia Jackson’s story illustrates how easy white ‘employers’ could and did exploit the circumstances of desperate Black Loyalists for their gain. As a free Black Loyalist, Jackson indentured herself to a white Loyalist. Taking advantage, he tricked her into signing an agreement that kept her bound for longer than the year to which she agreed. Eventually, he sold her to another white loyalist who abused her for another three years. Jackson, however, was able to find freedom by escaping to Halifax.36 Her testimony indicates that many Black Loyalists had very little legal recourse for contesting their enslavement. It also indicates that white Loyalists were just as willing and able to be violent towards their slaves. This notion of the northern slaves being well treated and less likely to face brutality37 is unconvincing. As Whitfield argues: “despite their pseudo-pious expressions of concern for their “slave family,” owners reinforced the racial hierarchy of slavery and extracted as much labour as possible by regularly resorting to brutal punishments and to separating families by selling the children.”38 Slavery had nuances but if people legally own other people the owner always had discretion. Therefore, the very existence of slavery in Nova Scotia reminded both the enslaved and free Black people that their labour was their only value. For enslaved, indentured, and free Black people their labour had a particular

35

Watson alias Phillis v. Proud (judgement). Supreme Court of Nova Scotia — Halifax County judgement books. Nova Scotia Archives. RG 39 J Halifax County vol. 6 p. 103. 1779. https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=14 36 John Clarkson. “Journal Account of Lydia Jackson”. Nova Scotia. 30 November 1791.

Archives MG 1 vol. 219 pp. 197-201; published in Clarkson's Mission to America, 1791-1792 p.

89-90 (Public Archives of Nova Scotia Publication no. 11, 1971) (F90 /N85/ Ar2P no. 11). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=45&Page=200402064 37 Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 50.

38 Whitfield, North to Bondage, 62.

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expectation. They rarely got to see the fruits of their labour and were constantly at the mercy of white society.

Moreover, like slavery, the transportation of racist attitudes was further developed in Nova Scotia. Even though slavery was slowly dying down by the end of the 18th century as white people looked more and more to free Black labour, the racism that instituted Black people being inferior to whites continued. The Black Loyalists faced continuous examples of discrimination. This paper has already stated many examples: the lack of provisions, lack of land, and the inability to maintain large communities. These examples are by-products of the racist system. A prioritization of white communities left Black communities to receive much less of the available resources. This prioritization can be attributed to the systemic racism that provided fewer opportunities to Black Loyalists making them more likely to experience poverty and desperation. There are, however, multiple examples of overt racism directed towards the Black Loyalists from other white Loyalists.

The most notable example of explicit racism performed by some white Loyalists against free Black Loyalists is the Shelburne riot of 1784. Although many free Black people continued to stay in Birchtown, some moved to Shelburne as there were more job opportunities. This increased presence in Shelburne of free Black people was a tangible target for the discontented white Loyalists who found themselves unemployed.39 Two passages from Benjamin Marston, who was sent to Shelburne to help develop the land for the new settlers, gives an ominous insight into the riots: Monday, 26. Great Riot today. The disbanded soldiers have risen against the Free negroes to drive them out of Town because they labour cheaper than they -- the soldiers. Tuesday, 27. Riot continues. The soldiers force the free negroes to quit the Town -- pulled down about 20 of their houses.40 This account is brief but provides context for the white violence that targeted free Black people.

First, these were previous soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War so they believed they were entitled to a comfortable life in exchange for their services. Second, the white Loyalists were somewhat successful in riding the free Black people out of the town. Present here is the irony of white entitlement. The white Loyalists' animosity towards Black Loyalists was rooted in their

39

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 39.

“Benjamin Marston’s Journal”, 1783 to 1784. https://blackLoyalists.com/cdc/documents/diaries/marston_journal.htm 40

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perceived superiority to Black people. They lived under the assumption that they always came before Black people. Thus witnessing that they were not getting the jobs to which they believed they were entitled, they attacked the Black community hoping to cause enough fear for the Blacks living in Shelburne to leave. Instead of recognizing that white employers hired Black employees because of economic circumstances, the white Loyalists used violence against the Black Loyalists to assert their racial superiority. Even when Black people had no control over the economic situation and were only conceding to the exploitative wages because it was the choice between that and starving, the whites still blamed Black people. The racist ideology that white people always came first culminated into a violent riot.

Similarly, David George a Black preacher who accompanied the Black and white Loyalists to Nova Scotia after the Revolutionary War also describes his own experience with the Shelburne riots: Soon after this the persecution Increased, and became so great, that it did not seem possible to preach, and I thought I must leave Shelburne. Several of the black people had houses upon my lot, but forty (40) or fifty (50) disbanded soldiers were employed, who came with the tackle of ships, and turned my dwelling house, and every one of their houses, quite over, and the meeting house they would have burned down, had not the ringleader of the mob himself prevented it. But I continued to preaching it till they came one night, and stood before the pulpit, and swore how they would treat me If I preached again. But I stayed and preached, and the next day they came and beat me with sticks and drove me into the swamp. I returned in the evening, and took my wife and children over to the river to Birchtown, where some black people were settled, and there seemed a greater prospect of doing good then at Shelburne. I preached at Birchtown from the fall until the mid of December.41 This account is significant because it confirms that white Loyalists did tear down Black houses and tried to instil a fear that would force many Blacks to leave Shelburne. It is also important because it shows that the white Loyalists were not selective of whom they targeted. The white Loyalists’ motivation for attacking the Black homes was their anger against their employment yet they still attacked the house of a preacher. George’s presence would not have interfered with white Loyalists’ job prospects. This account speaks to the generalized racism that the white Loyalists felt. They perceived all free Black people as a threat to their security and prospect. In the context

41

“An Account of Life of Mr. David George from S. L. A. given by himself.” 1792. https://blackLoyalists.com/cdc/documents/diaries/george_a_life.htm#riot

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of the Black Loyalists, their presence and cheap labour had an enormous impact on the communities in which they dwelled. White people had to contend with a large presence of free Black people which sometimes manifested in racism and discrimination.

The Shelburne riot is just one example that illustrates the racism in Nova Scotia. As free Black people were continuously excluded from participating fully in society, many other forms of racism manifested themselves. For example, access to education was next to none. The only forms of schools that Black people could attend were schools for children which taught the children of both free and enslaved Black people. These schools, however, tended to be small and few and far between42. Similarly, Government policies continued to exclude Black people from gaining any sense of citizenship and the benefits that come with it. For example, free Black people did not have the right to vote in legislation nor did they have the right to participate in a jury.43 This last part is significant because of the court cases as mentioned above that always favoured the white Loyalists.

Even in a court of law, free Black Loyalists had no representation nor government support. Racism was present in every aspect of the Black Loyalists’ life. Although not enslaved, free Black people still missed out on the benefits that freedom was supposed to guarantee. The society in which Black Loyalists lived in the late 18th century facilitated a system which perceived Black people as inferior to white people. The actions of many whites and the poor conditions of Black Loyalists demonstrate this. The Black Loyalists did not have the same privilege in society as the white Loyalists yet contributed their labour for the benefit of white society.

The ongoing shift between the practices of slavery to exploiting Black labour is rooted in the same ideology of racism. The same racism that justified the enslavement, trading, and mistreatment of Black people for centuries morphed so that Black labour exploitation flourished.

The first indication of this is where the Black Loyalists' story began with the Dunmore Proclamation. To reiterate, it would seem that the Colonial Governor of Virginia was an abolitionist. This is untrue as he later became the Governor of the Bahamas for a short period and purchased slaves.44 Thus, we can assume that the Proclamation was not rooted in the Abolition’s goal but rather an opportunity for the British. The public call for enslaved Black people to take up

42

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 58.

Walker, The Black Loyalists, 45.

44 Tony Pace, “Lord Dunmore,” accessed November 12, 2020, https://blackLoyalists.com/cdc/people/influential/dunmore.htm.

43

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arms worked two-fold. It gave the British an influx of potential soldiers and more likely an influx of new labourers. Similarly, a large number of slaves leaving their rebel masters was hoped to cripple the southern economy and scare the Americans into conceding.45 The latter plan was not successful but the British still got an influx of new labourers. During the war, Black Loyalists worked as “boatmen, woodsmen, general laborers, buglers and musicians.”46 Free Black people and the enslaved Black people of white Loyalists were both employed to service the British army.

The free Black people had no choice but to give their labour freely to the British or else they would lose their protection against enslavement.

Even after the War, the British still had the expectation to extract labour and service from Black Loyalists. For example, in the early months of the resettlement of Nova Scotia, the government employed members of the disbanded Black Pioneer regiment to construct the town of Shelburne.47 The top priority for resettlement was the white Loyalists. Using the services of the Black soldiers allowed those in charge of resettling the incoming Loyalists easy access to labour.

Similarly, as the settlement of Nova Scotia continued, Black labour was prioritized over white labour. This prioritization is not because of some desire to support Black communities. Instead, it was a seizure of an opportunity. Because of the systemic racism, white employers could pay Black labourers less and without solid political or social capital many Black labourers had to take what they could get.

Indeed, their labour was further exploited in conditions that they could not avoid. For example, a requirement of the Black Loyalists living in Digby was to work for free in exchange for government provision.48 This condition was not an expectation put on white Loyalists who received prevision much longer and without the stipulation that the Black Loyalists faced.

Similarly during a particularly rough winter, the Black Loyalists were refused supplies to build their homes unless they worked on the roads in white communities.49 This example is one of many in which white people coerced Black people into performing free labour. Sharecropping is another example of this exploitation. As previously mentioned, Black Loyalists were less likely to receive land and so sharecropping or tenant farming was their only possibility at having access to some 45

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 29.

Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 31.

47 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 30.

48 Walker, The Black Loyalists, 42.

49 Winks, The Blacks in Canada, 43.

46

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land.50 The unlikelihood that Black tenants could one day purchase land forever tied them to White-owned land. Thus, Black tenants had to work on their harvest and provide service and crop yields to the white landowner. These examples illustrate that white officials recognized that they could exploit Black people's labour without any argument. The racism that permeated everyday society informed this understanding. These examples are evidence of the continuous pattern of the exploitation of Black labour. Even when Black people were no longer held in bondage by white owners, Black people’s labour was still tightly held. Even though the Black Loyalists were crucial to the development of Nova Scotia’s colony, they still received less of the benefits than their fellow white Loyalists. Like the history of slavery, the fruits of Black labour rarely were distributed accordingly.

In conclusion, the emancipation of Black slaves during the revolutionary war would seem to speak to the trend that would eventually lead to the abolishing of the slave trade in the British Empire. A closer look, however, at the Black Loyalists’ experience during the war and their resettlement into the colonies illustrate the continuation of racist attitudes. The contrast between white and Black Loyalists, the continual existence of slavery in the new colony, and the exploitation of Black labour illuminate the racism that allowed Black people to be physically free but bound to the white mandate. The story of the Black Loyalists speaks to the truth of Canadian history and their support of the system of slavery. Acknowledging that the early Canadian colonies were just as complicit in Black people’s oppression is the first step in rectifying the current state of white hegemony. This complacency is not to say that every single white person in the British colony of Nova Scotia harboured the intent to keep slaves nor believed in the morality of slavery.

Like any oppressive system, some individuals do not conform fully to cultural attitudes. This essay and the historical research done before on the topic of Black Loyalists supplies the stepping stones toward recognizing that Canadian society today still echoes the racist attitudes that place Black Canadians in unfavourable conditions. Racism and prejudice still exist and by untangling the complex web that racism creates Black Canadians can hope to heal.

50

Whitfield, North to Bondage, 58.

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Works Cited Ali, Linda and John Siblon. “Black Loyalist.” The National Archives. Accessed November 12, 2020. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/loyali sts.htm.

Clarkson, John. “Journal Account of Lydia Jackson”. Nova Scotia. 30 November 1791. Archives MG 1 vol. 219 pp. 197-201; published in Clarkson's Mission to America, 1791-1792 p. 89-90 (Public Archives of Nova Scotia Publication no. 11, 1971) (F90 /N85/ Ar2P no.

11). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=45&Page=200402064 Cottreau-Robins, Katie. “The Loyalist Plantation: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Informing Early African-Nova Scotian Settlement.” Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 17 (January 1, 2014): 32–56.

Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863; Presidential Proclamations, 1791-1991; Record Group 11; General Records of the United States Government; National Archives. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=34 Dyott, William. “Excerpts from William Dyott’s Diary”, Sunday, October 1788. https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/documents/diaries/dyott_excerpt.htm George, David. “An Account of Life of Mr. David George from S. L. A. given by himself.”, 1792. https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/documents/diaries/george_a_life.htm#riot Johnson, R. Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation of 1775. Document. Virginia: United States. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/lord-dunmore-s-proclamation1775/ (accessed October 2020).

Marston, Benjamin. “Benjamin Marston’s Journal”, Canada’s Digital Archives. 1783 to 1784. https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/documents/diaries/marston_journal.htm Marston, Benjamin. "Marston Describes Shelburne”, Canada’s Digital Archives.

1785. https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/documents/diaries/marston_journal.htm Pendleton, Edmund. “A Declaration” Virginia Assembly’s Response 1775. Retrieved from Digital History, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/virginia_assembl y.cfm R. v. Gray. Shelburne County Court of General Sessions of the Peace. April-November 1791.

Nova Scotia Archives RG 60 Shelburne County vol. 1 file 49-4. https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=46

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Rock, John. Fugitive Slave Advertisement”, Nova Scotia Archives. Nova Scotia Gazette and Weekly Chronicle 01 September 1772 p. 3 (microfilm no. 8155). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=10 “Runaway slave advertisement for ‘James’, property of Abel Michener of Falmouth”, Nova Scotia Archives. Nova Scotia Gazette, 22 May 1781 p. 3 (microfilm no. 8159). https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=16 “Thirty-Seventh Congress. Sess. II. CH. 201.” Militia Act of 1862. U.S Congress. Washington.

17 July 1862, pp, 597-600. Courtesy of Library of Congress. https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/africanamericans-and-civil-war/militia-act Tony Pace, “Lord Dunmore,” accessed November 12, 2020, https://blackloyalist.com/cdc/people/influential/dunmore.htm.

Walker, James W. St. G. The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870. University of Toronto Press, 1992.

Watson alias Phillis v. Proud (judgement). Supreme Court of Nova Scotia — Halifax County judgement books. Nova Scotia Archives. RG 39 J Halifax County vol. 6 p. 103. 1779. https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/archives/?ID=14 Whitfield, Harvey Amani. North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016.

Winks, Robin. The Blacks in Canada: A History. Montreal, CA: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.

Wallpaper to Die For Angelika Rohrbaher The Victorian home is often portrayed in literature and art as one of beauty, comfort, and warmth whether it be in the sumptuous mansions of the aristocrats, the less ostentatious homes of the middle class or the cozy cottage dwellings of the working class. These representations are a façade for behind the walls of many of these houses of the nineteenth century lurked a quiet and slowly poisoning agent that produced a sickening and often lethal environment. The culprit was arsenic and its use to provide the vibrant colours in wallpapers greatly sought by the consumers resulted in numerous illnesses and death. Little was done by Parliament curtailing the use of arsenic as economics and trade outweighed their concerns for the health of the nation. It was the consumers determination aided by the health and medical officials and the press that forced the manufacturers to cease production of wallpaper containing arsenic and thereby exercising a dynamic influence on consumerism in the late Victorian Era. The prevalence, the use, and the accessibility of arsenic was astounding.

It was

everywhere, available to anyone, and found in a vast array of products which included food, toys, candles, clothing, paper products, and rat poison. It was used as a cure for a variety of ailments.

“During the nineteenth century, arsenic became fashionable as an ingredient of cure-all tonics.

This infatuation led to the mass poisoning of the Victorian world through medication, adding to the mass poisoning from interior décor.”1 The use of arsenic as a healthy dietary supplement was published by The British Medical Journal in 1862, referring to the arsenic eaters of Styria, a mountainous region located in southeast Austria: Arsenic-eaters are robust persons . . . Men who commence at 18 have been known to live to 76. They take arsenic because they wish to be “strong and healthy,” and preserve themselves against all kinds of diseases. Persons out of health rarely take arsenic . . . Arsenic-eaters it is evident, belong to a healthy class of individuals.2

1

Andrew A. Meharg, Venomous Earth (New York: Macmillan, 2005), 94.

“Arsenic Eating”. The British Medical Journal 1, no. 55 (1862): 68-69. www.jstor.org/stable/25230037.

2

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Added to this prolific use of arsenic as a product in daily life, accidental poisonings were not uncommon especially in children such as the case noted in The Times of two young boys who had consumed household ornaments: Last week an inquest was held at Ashford on two brothers who were poisoned by eating ornaments of a twelfth cake. Professor Taylor said that upon making an analysis of the stomachs of the deceased children, he found there a large quantity of arsenic which, had caused death. During the last two years he had met with ten fatal cases of children eating these ornaments.3 Arsenic poisoning as a method for murder was not new and had existed for centuries. With its availability, lax restrictions, and limited forensic science to determine deliberate action on the part of the poisoner, it was viewed by those so inclined as a perfect method to ensure the demise of any person or persons one wished to dispose of.

The fact that arsenic was used in so many products, was sold by any vendor, and cases of poisoning on the rise, medical associations put pressure on the government to regulate arsenic sales: At the prompting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association (the forerunner of the BMA) and the Pharmaceutical Society, both of which bodies were at least as much concerned with securing professional advantage as with safeguarding the public, government legislation was introduced.4 The Arsenic Act of 1851 put in place regulations on the sale of arsenic, “by confining sales to adults and compelling them to record their identities, in the presence of witnesses, in a ‘poison book’ kept by the vendor.”5 A further step was taken to protect the public with the Pharmacy Act of 1868 which limited the sale of arsenic and placed it solely in the hands of the Pharmaceutical Society. The Arsenic Act did little to regulate and restrict the use of arsenic on a national scale: The Act tackled only the counter trade in pure arsenic; commercial users were unaffected by the legislation . . . an unknown degree of chronic arsenic poisoning occurred as the result of exposure to the wide range of arsenically coloured products 3

“Caution to Parents", Times, 29 Jan. 1853, p. 7. The Times Digital Archive, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CFRaa6.

4 P.W.J. Bartrip, “How Green Was My Valance?: Environmental Arsenic Poisoning and the Victorian Domestic Ideal”, The English Historical Review 109, no.433 (1994): 893.

5 Bartrip, The English Historical Review, 893.

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in regular domestic use.6 What was not known in the mid nineteenth century was the very real and very dangerous use of arsenic in wallpaper. This was a much more onerous hazard and many illnesses and deaths from arsenic in the wallpaper were misdiagnosed as cases of diphtheria, cholera, dysentery, and in some cases ‘mysterious illnesses’. Wallpaper had been in use for centuries mainly as luxury items using colours derived from plant pigments and creating the desired green wallpaper by combining blues and yellows which was a highly sought after product. Popularity and affordability increased “… when the Industrial Revolution and increasing urbanization greatly expanded the ranks of homeowners who could afford such luxuries.”7 In 1775, the German chemist Karl Scheele discovered arsenic acid and with further experimentation produced a dangerous toxic green colour known as Scheele’s green. Others also began producing man-made arsenical pigments. “With the onset of mass production, man-made pigments were needed to meet an ever-growing market clamouring for new and exciting products.”8 The cost of wallpaper was no longer prohibitive to the general public as it was being mass produced early in the nineteenth century due to new technology, the abolition of taxes and duties on paper, and an unlimited supply of imported wood pulp. These factors all combined to drive the cost of wallpaper lower for the consumer. Lighting within the home also drove the demand for wallpaper. “As homes got lighter, the need for reflective wallpaper decreased, and wallpapers darkened. Deep reds and greens came to dominate the Victorian interior, the green supplied by copper arsenic salts.”9 In 1839 the German chemist Leopold Gmelin “…noted that damp rooms with green wallpaper often possessed a mouse-like odour, which he attributed to the production of dimethyl arsenic acid within the wallpaper.”10 The wallpaper he was referring to was Scheele’s green and he voiced his concerns in the Karlsruhe Zeitung, hoping to alert the public to the possibility of a

6

Peter Bartrip. “A ‘Pennurth of Arsenic for Rat Poison’: The Arsenic Act, 1851 and the Prevention of Secret Poisoning.” Medical History 36, no. 1 (1992): 53–69. doi:10.1017/S0025727300054624.

7 James C. Whorton. The Arsenic Century. (Oxford: Oxford Press, 2010), 205.

8 Meharg, Venomous Earth, 66.

9 Ibid., 67.

10 Jessica Haslam, “Deadly Décor: A Short History of Arsenic Poisoning in the Nineteenth Century,” Res Medica 21 no.1 (2013): 76, https://doi.org/10.2218/resmedica.v21i1.182.

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serious health hazard. In Britain cases of poisoning were becoming more prevalent. Dr. Thomas Orton a Medical Officer of Health established that the death of all four children of a family in the Limehouse District of London in 1862 was caused by the arsenic in the wallpaper known as Scheele’s green. More cases of illness and death were being reported and all were attributed to wallpaper. In 1857 Dr. William Hinds of Birmingham reported symptoms of illness experienced by himself in his own home years earlier. His sickness was acute whilst in his study but disappeared when he removed himself from that location. He made his findings public only after the same symptoms were reported by others. An analysis “…of the green pigment in the paper . . . found it full of arsenic, and promptly had the paper removed.”11 Articles raising red flags about the wallpaper appeared in medical journals more and more.

The Lancet printed a letter from Dr. Thomas Orton in 1862 who had treated numerous adults and children for arsenic poisoning and came to the conclusion that “[n]umerous correspondents from all parts of England made complaints of illness, enclosing green arsenical paper, and I replied. In all cases I received a letter of thanks, acknowledging that in carrying out my instructions they were well.”12 In 1871 a lengthy letter was written by a person not a member of the medical profession and printed in The British Medical Journal regarding the danger of arsenic in green wallpaper and in order to improve public health both the medical profession and the general public needed to act: Hitherto it has been generally supposed that only papers entirely green, and of a very bright shed of green, were arsenical; but the fact is, as proved by the analysis of eminent chemists, that every paper which contains any green in the pattern, no matter how little, or of what shade, as a general rule contains arsenic, and is, therefore injurious to health.13 By 1877 the poisoning of the public had not abated. “The Times printed scores of hard-hitting articles about arsenic keeping stories of human misery and poisoning in the public eye.”14

11

Whorton, The Arsenic Century, 206.

Thomas Orton, "On Poisoning By Green Wall-Paper," The Lancet 80 (1862): 517, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)41836-3.

13 "Arsenic In Wall-Papers," The British Medical Journal 2, no. 551 (1871): 101, www.jstor.org/stable/25230037.

14 Lucinda Hawksley, Bitten By Witch Fever, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2016), 159.

12

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Newspapers such as The Times of London with a wide readership a received steady stream of letters to the editors: How can arsenic be detected in wallpaper? Many readers of “Londoners” valuable paper in The Times of Friday would be glad to know if there be any method of testing which can be easily used by householders either when buying paper or after it is on their walls.15 By the 1880’s consumers’ health and safety concerns were voiced in the lay press, reports were published by the medical profession and The National Health Society organization ensured national awareness of the arsenic threat: As more and more physicians were bearing witness to such cases, a movement to ban the use of copper arsenite in the manufacture of home goods was gathering momentum. . . in its way stood an equal body of industrialists dismissing the claims as fanciful.16 The wallpaper manufacturers were in denial. Green wallpaper production was big business and the industrialists involved in its production had no intention of losing profits. They brushed off claims of injury and death as accidental poisonings, suicides, and homicide. “They were hardly medical experts and their judgement was necessarily influenced by their economic interests.”17 The most prominent wallpaper designer of the period was William Morris. His creations and designs were beautiful, in great demand, and filled with arsenic. He was quick to rebut any reports that his wallpaper was dangerous and as late as 1885 his correspondence to an acquaintance clearly stated his opinion: As to the arsenic scare a greater folly it is hardly possible to imagine: the doctors were bitten by the witch fever … My belief about it all is that doctors find their patients ailing, don’t know what’s the matter with them, and in despair put it down to the wall papers when they probably ought to put it down to the water closet, which I believe to be the source of all illness.18

15

W Wilson, "Mysterious Illnesses," Times, January 13, 1885, The Times Digital Archive, http://tinyurl.gale.com.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/tinyurl/CFncrX. 16 Haslam, “Deadly Décor: A Short History of Arsenic Poisoning in the Nineteenth Century,” 77.

17 Whorton, The Arsenic Century, 208.

18 William Morris Letter to Thomas Wordle, 1885 in Bitten by Witch Fever, Hawksley, 164.

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As a director of the Devon Great Consols mining company which produced a huge amount of arsenic, his disbelief may well have been profit based. In that regard Morris certainly had a capitalist bent but portrayed himself in the political sphere as a socialist: . . . developing into Britain’s most famous Marxist. As a campaigner against industrial pollution he was the progenitor of the 20th century Green movement. . . . For a Marxist and environmental activist though, he had a remarkable association with arsenic.19 Public demand for arsenic-free wallpaper did eventually force Morris to create wallpaper using pigments produced from vegetable dyes.

Leaning heavily on the side of the industrialists and manufacturers was the British Parliament.

“The strength of laissez-faire ideology discouraged social reform except in

circumstances of loud and insistent demand, where resistance threatened the government’s hold on power.”20 The government was strong under the leadership of Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone and the pressure groups were weak and unable to form a cohesive front as a lack of understanding of both the scientific and medical data and findings remained inconclusive and open to debate: How could arsenical wallpaper generate health problems when the medical Profession safely prescribed arsenic in the treatment of a number of ailments and there were well-attested examples of arsenic eaters remaining fit and healthy Since these questions elicited no satisfactory answers until the 1890’s, there was always doubt about the justice and wisdom of bans and proscriptions.21 Across much of Europe most governments had banned the use of arsenic in homes but the British government was not prepared to take any steps to interfere with the marketplace. “Why Britain was so reluctant to follow these examples remains something of a mystery, but general political lassitude, an impulse not to restrict British manufacturing growth and the considerable profits from arsenic mining doubtless played a part.22 With no laws in place and a general unease,

19

Meharg, Venomous Earth, 75.

P.W.J. Bartrip, “How Green Was My Valance?: Environmental Arsenic Poisoning and the Victorian Domestic Ideal”, The English Historical Review 109, no.433 (1994): 910.

21 Bartrip, The English Historical Review, 911.

22 Hawksley, Bitten By Witch Fever, 223.

20

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“. . . consumers took a vote against the poison . . . they voted with their feet, taking their business to manufacturers who guaranteed non-arsenical products.23 Monies were no longer going into the pockets of those unwilling to produce safer products and by the end of the nineteenth century production of arsenical wallpaper had ceased. A Home Office report in 1896 reported, “. . . that the industry had by then largely reformed itself and had substituted vegetable dyes for arsenic ones.”24 The consumers’ efforts had a profound effect on the manufacturing and selling of wallpaper loaded with arsenic, an issue that the British government was aware of but did nothing to regulate to ensure the safety of the public. An astute public decided how their money would be spent and on what, garnered results “. . . achieved, not by legislation, codes of regulation and a system of government inspection, but by the power of the press, the operation of the market-place and the exercise of consumer preference.25 A new power had evolved in the Victorian Era the power of consumers whose purchasing power applied pressure for change. Regulations and restrictions on the use of arsenic in wallpaper were never enacted through parliamentary reforms but the later nineteenth century consumers in Britain advocated, pushed, and demanded protection and succeeded. It allowed them to inhabit homes that provided them with safer living conditions at least in the walls that surrounded them.

Works Cited “Arsenic In Wall-Papers.” The British Medical Journal 551 (1871) 101-102. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25230037.

“Arsenic-Eating.” The British Medical Journal 55 (1862): 68-69. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25198423.

Bartrip, P.W.J. “How Green Was My Valance?: Environmental Arsenic Poisoning and the Victorian Domestic Ideal.” The English Historical Review 109, no. 433 (Sept. 1994): 891-913. www.jstor.org/stable/574537.

Bartrip, Peter. “A “Pennurth of Arsenic for Rat Poison”: The Arsenic Act, 1851 and the Prevention of Secret Poisoning.” Medical History 36, no. 1 (1992): 53-69. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300054624.

23

Whorton, The Arsenic Century, 221.

Meharg, Venomous Earth, 91.

25 Bartrip, The English Historical Review, 913.

24

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“Caution to Parents." The Times, January 29, 1853, p. 7. The Times Digital Archive, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CFRaa6.

Dyer, Bernard. “Arsenical Wall Papers,” The Times, 31 May, 1879, p. 13. The Times Digital Archive http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CFnb5.

Haslam, Jessica. “Deadly décor: a short history of arsenic poisoning in the nineteenth Century.” Res Medica 21, no. 1 (2013): 76-81. doi:10.2218/resmedica.v21i1.182.

Hawksley, Lucinda. Bitten By Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Victorian Home.

London: Thames & Hudson, 2016.

Meharg, Andrew A. Venomous Earth: How arsenic caused the world’s worst mass poisoning.

New York: Macmillan, 2005.

“Poisoned Pear.” The Lancet 112 (1877) 144. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.d0000772947&view=2up&seq=144.

Whorton, James C. The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Wilson, W. "Mysterious Illnesses." The Times, January 13, 1885, p. 7. The Times Digital Archive, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CFncrX.

Radicals and Revisionists: Examining the Constitutional Crisis of Charles I Nicholas Morrison On January 30th, 1649, Charles I stepped out of his decadent Banqueting House in Whitehall onto a makeshift scaffold before a crowd of silent onlookers. His execution was the culmination of years of warfare and division that consumed England and her territories. Others view the crisis as having links to England’s storied legal past. Some viewed it as a violation of the “ancient constitution” and connected Charles’ reign to that of the Norman kings of the Middle Ages. This paper seeks to answer the question if the constitutional crisis of Charles’ I reign has precedent in England’s legal past. It will argue that contemporaries of the period did see Charles’ actions as a violation of their constitutional rights as free men of England. This view is not carried by most historians and legal scholars who often discount this notion as being dated or “whiggish.”

First, this paper will examine the views of contemporaries from the radical Levellers to those of MPs in Parliament. It will be followed by an examination of the historiography covering the period which will weigh the opinions and arguments of historians and legal scholars.

Perhaps one of the most critical voices of Charles I’s reign was the English writer William Prynne. A scholar of English law, Prynne wrote several tracts denouncing the actions of Charles I.1 In many of his tracts, Prynne saw Charles I’s actions as direct attacks on the rights of Englishmen as ascribed to them through their constitution. In his tract discussing the levying of ship money, Prynne cites several ways in which the tax violates the rights of Englishmen. Prynne argues that a ruler must maintain the ancient and just rights of their subjects and cannot violate them.2 He comments on the role of Parliament in the English legal system and states that no law can be made without the full consent of parliament.3 Furthermore, Prynne uses the Magna Carta to support his argument suggesting that citizens should not have to pay the tax due to the rights ascribed to them by the Magna Carta.4 Prynne also connects Charles I to the concept of the “body politic” and links it back to the English tradition of Parliament suggesting that “head” cannot survive without support of the “body.”5 1

David Como, Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War, 47.

William Prynne, A Humble Remonstrance to His Majesty Against the Tax, 3.

3 Ibid, 11.

4 Ibid, 12.

5 Ibid, 13.

2

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In the latter half of his tract, Prynne’s language begins to differ. He portrays Charles I and his actions to that of a feudal king. Instead of using the term “free born Englishman” Prynne uses words such as “villeins” to describe commoners a term used to describe the feudal peasantry which connects Charles’ actions to those of Norman kings.6 Prynne claims that Charles’ actions are restricted by the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right which Charles lawfully agreed to so he must uphold. Prynne again argues that Magna Carta is crucial to England’s legal heritage and must be upheld by kings.7 Prynne concludes by restating his thesis declaring Charles’ actions as a violation of the “ancient constitution” which all free Englishmen are bound to.8 Prynne’s tract demonstrates that he viewed Charles I’s actions as violations of England’s constitution and other precedents from the past. Prynne demonstrates this notion by citing several examples of English legal history such as the Magna Carta, the Norman feudal past, and the important role of Parliament.

Sir Edward Coke was one of England’s most notable barristers. Coke had always opposed what he saw as abuse of prerogative from Charles’ father James I and battled against the encroachments of royalty through masterful litigation. Although his career was concluding during the reign of Charles I, Coke still fought to limit the power of Charles. The Petition of Right enacted in 1628 by Parliament attempted to put an end to Charles’ martial rule and forceful taxation.

Although it was drafted by several authors, Coke headed the draft committee and is credited as the principal author.9 The Petition carries with it all the hallmarks of Coke’s writing and can be used indirectly to view his opinion. Within the document, there are a number of references to England’s legal past. At the start, Coke and his coauthors reference the “Great Charter of Liberties of England.”10 The authors use the famed Lines 39 and 40 to claim that Charles’ decision to detain the five MPs is contrary to their rights upheld within the Magna Carta.11 By evoking the Magna Carta, it is clear that Coke and his coauthors viewed Charles’ actions as a violation of their constitutional rights upheld in the Magna Carta.

6

Ibid, 15.

Ibid, 14.

8 Ibid, 16.

9 Harry Potter, Law, Liberty, and the Constitution: A Brief History of Common Law, 117.

10 John Browne, Petition to Right, 1.

11 Ibid, 1.

7

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In order to reinforce their claim, Coke and his fellow authors cite the history of the Magna Carta. There are several references to Edward III’s renewal of the Magna Carta and the authors emphasize the renewal being conducted through Parliamentary procedure. The authors also discuss the concept of habeas corpus stating that those detained must be brought before a court.12 The authors again support their argument by citing that Edward III had renewed their rights as mentioned in the Magna Carta twice in his reign lawfully with the consent of Parliament.13 In examining the Petition of Right, it is clear that Coke and his coauthors viewed Charles’ actions as a constitutional crisis that was rooted in England’s long developed legal system. This is evident through the several mentions of the Magna Carta and its renewal under Edward III and his Parliament.

John Liliburne was a prominent litigant and Leveller of the Caroline and Interregnum periods. Due to numerous encounters with the English legal system, Liliburne was skilled and knowledgeable of England’s legal heritage and often used it to his advantage when defending himself in court. During his personal defense after being detained for seditious libel against Charles I, Liliburne cited several examples of English legal history in order to mount an effective defense.

Liliburne cited the Magna Carta, calling himself a free man and stating that he was entitled to freedom through his birthright.14 Liliburne also lashed back at his detainers comparing the judges to brutish Norman kings.15 In examining his arguments, it is clear Liliburne viewed Charles’ actions as having connections to England’s past. This can be seen through his use of language describing the judges of the court as Norman and him an Englishman. In his defense, Liliburne draws on elements of English history to oppose the actions of Charles and his judges. This demonstrates that Liliburne saw Charles’ actions as having a connection to the long-term developments in the English legal system.

Opposition to Charles’ actions were not only secular. Charles’ choice to enforce the Arminian faith through Archbishop William Laud caused a disturbance within the ranks of the Anglican Church. Many openly protested against the Arminian faith in their sermons deeming it a “popish” faith. One of the more outspoken protesters was Henry Burton the rector of St. Matthew

12

Ibid 2.

Ibid, 2.

14 Potter, Law, Liberty, and the Constitution, 150.

15 Ibid, 152.

13

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Friday Street in London. In his sermons, Burton openly protested Charles’ Arminian innovations.

He stated that innovation in worship was dangerous and began to clash with state officials over the concept of Arminianism.16 In addition to comments on innovations in religion Burton also discussed innovations in the state itself. Burton viewed Charles’ tyranny as threatening both spiritually and secularly. He would comment on matters of the state in his sermons such as the Forced Loan and arbitrary imprisonments.17 Although Burton viewed Charles’ rule as tyranny, he did not see it as having root in England’s past. In a short tract about encroachments of the state, he describes himself as “freeborn” and a subject that prizes his “just liberty” but does not connect it to any concepts or items from the past.18 Burton demonstrates that not all contemporaries viewed Charles’ actions as constitutional violations that can be linked to traditions from England’s past. When analyzed, Burton’s sermons reveal a feeling of solidarity for those who opposed the actions of Charles I both secular and spiritual. Burton does not explicitly link Charles’ actions to legal documents or items from the past demonstrating that not all carried a similar view to that of Coke and Prynne.

In 1628, Charles I detained five MPs in the Famous Five Knights Case. Many MPs within Parliament opposed this action. Richard Cresheld and William Saunders were present in Parliament when Charles I detained the five men. In their accounts describing their reactions to the incident, Saunders and Cresheld share similar views. They comment on how all Englishmen are entitled to liberty and that it is the King’s duty to uphold it.19 They also comment on habeas corpus showing concern for the “safety of their bodies.”20 Furthermore, Saunders and Cresheld suggest that no one be imprisoned without a defiant cause and that it violates “the laws of nature.”21 Although it is not explicitly stated, their view discusses some of the key points of the Magna Carta.

The mention of the men being imprisoned against one’s will is a clear reference to the Magna Carta particularly Lines 39 and 40.22 It is important to note that Saunders and Cresheld do not root Charles’ actions in England’s deep legal past. Instead, they make concise allusions to the Magna 16

Como, Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War, 25.

Ibid, 25.

18 Ibid, 26.

19 Sarah Willms, “The Five Knights’ Case and Debates in the Parliament of 1628: Division and Suspicion under King Charles I,” 95.

20 Ibid, 95.

21 Ibid, 95.

22 Potter, Law, Liberty, and the Constitution, 72.

17

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Carta. Their views strike comparisons with those of Burton’s who did see Charles’ actions as concerning but not as deeply rooted in England’s past as Coke and Prynne. When their accounts are examined, Saunders and Cresheld show concern for Charles’ actions which they believe are rooted in the Magna Carta. Both MPs do not view it as deeply as Prynne and Coke do in their works.

When analyzing a legal case, it is important to look at both sides. Henry Sherfield was an MP during the arrest of the Five Knights in 1628. Unlike his peers, Sherfield supported Charles’ actions. In his account describing the event, Sherfield stated that the King should be entitled to a certain level of prerogative over the Parliament.23 Sherfield then adds to his statement stating that the King is a strong and pious individual who should be allowed as much freedom as his subjects hold, especially when deciding matters of the state.24 Sherfield then solidifies his argument by touching on the subject of rex vs. lex. He insists that the King is the one who makes the law and it is not the laws who make the king.25 Sherfield’s views harken to ideas of absolutism and not that of a constitutional monarchy. His views are not rooted in England’s legal past. Instead, he merely comments on Charles’ rights as King of England. By examining his opinion Sherfield a royalist does not see any fault in Charles’ actions nor does he see it as having any constitutional connections to England’s legal past.

The debate over the constitutional crisis of Charles I’s reign has carried well into modernity. Instead of Levellers and MPs, historians and legal scholars now contest over the nature of Charles’ reign. Harry Potter an English legal historian analyzed Charles’ reign in his book Law, Liberty, and the Constitution. In his chapters detailing the constitutional crisis, Potter shares similar views to those of William Prynne and John Liliburne. Potter argues that the concept of the “Norman Yoke” where supposedly brutal Norman kings oppressed the Anglo-Saxon majority population resonated with many in the 17th century and was at the forefront of English legal thought.26 By insisting that Charles’ reign had connections to the Norman kings of the 11th and 12th centuries, Potter agrees with the notion that Charles’ reign has connection to England’s constitutional legal past.

23

Sarah Willms, “The Five Knights’ Case and Debates in the Parliament of 1628: Division and Suspicion under King Charles I,” 94.

24 Ibid, 94.

25 Ibid, 94.

26 Potter, Law, Liberty, and the Constitution, 135.

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Potter supports his argument by citing indirect examples of how England’s legal legacy led to the budding of rebellion in the 17th century. He insists that the “ancient freedoms” provided by England’s constitution may have been repressed by oppressive kings but have survived in the hearts and minds of the English people.27 Potter also discussed the Petition of Right and he deems it the final culmination of years of development and interpretation of the Magna Carta.28 These arguments prove to be exaggerated and vague when proving his claim. Through his discussion of a glorified legal past steeped in undying tradition, Potter represents a Whiggish interpretation of the mid-seventeenth century. This view is often discounted by most modern historians who see it as far-fetched and outdated.29 In his work, Potter presents a Whiggish vision of Charles I’s reign.

He solidifies his argument by comparing Charles I’s rule to those of oppressive Norman Kings which confirms the notion of a constitutional crisis deeply seated in England’s legal past.

Although modern works covering the Caroline era often discount Whiggish interpretations, some historians still latch to this view. David Como, a specialist in radical politics of the Caroline period, also carries a Whiggish interpretation of the period. In his book covering political discourse in the 17th century, Como agrees with the Whiggish interpretation carried by Potter. He attacks the revisionist consensus on the period and argues that the period saw a great number of individuals advocating for their political rights and liberties as prescribed to them through England’s rich legal history.30 When discussing the causes of the Civil War, Como attributes popular debate over “ancient constitutional” laws and political structures as one the prime causations of the conflict.31 Furthermore, he asserts that period led to a flowering of legal knowledge with greater analysis focused examining the “ancient constitution” and the development of tyranny.32 David Como’s analysis of the reign of Charles I bears similarity to the Whiggish notions presented by Potter in his analysis. This is evident in his discussion of Englishmen recognizing their ancient constitutional rights and using them to discredit royal prerogative.

Many revisionist historians have challenged the Whiggish interpretation of the early 17th century and argue that England was not on a direct path to civil war. In her chapter about the legal

27

Ibid, 135.

Ibid, 117.

29 Graham Seel, The English Wars and Republic, 1637-1660, 14.

30 Como, Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War, 426.

31 Ibid, 429.

32 Ibid, 430.

28

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and political use of the Magna Carta, historian Rachel Foxley argues that Caroline England experienced more ideological conflict then most revisionists agree on.33 In order to highlight what she calls her “post-revisionist argument,” Foxley utilizes the Magna Carta and analyzes its place in the legal debates of the Caroline era.34 Foxley argues that the Magna Carta and only the Magna Carta served as a prime legal tool for the Parliament to utilize when arguing against Charles I’s prerogative.35 She insists that the Magna Carta possessed the most significant precedent that could be used to counter Charles through its numerous lines covering unnecessary taxation and imprisonment without cause.36 Like Coke, Foxley explains the legacy of the Magna Carta and suggests that it has been upheld by several of England’s kings dating back to the 13th century.37 In her concluding arguments, Foxley discusses the impact the Magna Carta had on the ideas of the Levellers. She suggests that the Magna Carta served as the main inspiration for Leveller tracts that put forth ideas of freedom and democracy.38 Foxley’s arguments bear similarity to those of Como and Potter. Instead of focusing on the longstanding developments, she places weight on the Magna Carta as the key item that the constitutional crisis centered around. Foxley’s piece on the Magna Carta and its role in seventeenth-century legal and political discourse challenges the conventional Whiggish notion that the constitutional crisis can only be understood by examining the longstanding legal developments. Instead, she centers solely on the Magna Carta as the most important motive for change and unrest.

Many Whiggish and post-revisionist historians view the period as a moment when long standing legal developments flowered into popular rebellion. Legal scholars view the period differently and tend not to characterize it as “constitutional crisis.” David Vande Zande, a legal scholar, argues that the causes of the rebellion of Parliament were contemporary to the period.

Vande Zande insists that many litigants and Parliament MPs joined together to push for due process and a recognition of individual liberties and rights.39 He does agree that these sentiments 33

Rachel Foxley, “More Precious in Your Esteem Than It Deserveth? Magna Carta in Seventeenth Century Politics,” 64.

34 Ibid, 64.

35 Ibid, 65.

36 Ibid, 67.

37 Ibid, 69.

38 Ibid, 75.

39 Daniel Vande Zande, “Coercive Power and the Demise of Star Chamber,” 338.

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were built on by past legal traditions, but he suggests that these beliefs were less than half of the cause.40 Instead, Vande Zande centers his argument around unfair trials and abuse of defendants in Star Chamber. He claims that many of the lawyers and judges of the period began to realize the abuses of Charles’ prerogative in the court of Star Chamber which eroded its legitimacy as a court of law.41 Vande Zande connects this attack on the court as an attack on Charles I’s reign as a whole and the legitimacy of his absolute regime.42 Vande Zande’s article presents an argument that counters the Whiggish interpretation of the period. Unlike Potter and Como, Vande Zande argues that much of the opposition was contemporary and can be understood by examining the opposition of lawyers and judges to the encroaching abuses of Charles I. In his article covering the Trial of Charles I, legal scholar Sean Kelsey takes in both perspectives when analyzing the prosecution's arguments against Charles I. Kelsey agrees that by trying the King England was experiencing a constitutional revolution. He argues that prosecutors were adamant about sovereignty from royal oppression and the ability for the monarchy to uphold their liberties.43 Through his examination of prosecutor John Cook’s notes, Kelsey does not explicitly link the constitutional revolution as having long standing connections to England’s past.

Instead, he highlights how Cook linked his case against Charles to more contemporary events.44 He explains how Cook often cited cases that highlighted Henry VIII’s tyrannous actions and neglected to highlight the issues of Charles’ father James I.45 Kelsey also explains how Cook in his case painted Charles as a tyrant who was bent on controlling and subduing the English people.

Kelsey links Charles numerous charges of illegal taxes and unlawful imprisonments but does not compare Charles to a Norman king or discuss the Magna Carta.46 Kelsey’s piece on the Trial of Charles takes into account both Whiggish and revisionist perspectives. However, he does not agree with the notion that the mid-seventeenth century constitutional crisis can be understood due to long standing traditions and instead links the causes of the crisis to issues contemporary to the period.

40

Ibid, 338.

Ibid, 340.

42 Ibid, 346.

43 Sean Kelsey, “King Charles and His Case: The Intended Prosecution of Charles I,” 61.

44 Ibid, 71.

45 Ibid, 63.

46 Ibid, 71.

41

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The constitutional crisis of 1625-1649 can only be understood by examining England’s long term legal developments from the Anglo-Saxon period to the reign of James I. Contemporary accounts of the period support this notion with some harkening back to Anglo-Saxon and Norman rule. Radical Levellers like John Liliburne and William Prynne support this notion in their tracts against Charles’ absolutist actions. In drafting the Petition of Right, Coke too looked back to the Magna Carta and its constant revisions under numerous medieval kings to solidify Parliament’s claim against Charles. This view was not shared in solidarity with other Englishmen. MPs Richard Saunders and William Cresheld believed Charles’ actions were a simple overstep of his prerogative and violations of habeas corpus. When examined, the views of Charles’ supporters link his rule to the divine right of kings and support the notion of the King as the great lawmaker.

Historians view Charles’ constitutional crisis in several interpretations. The Whiggish perspective carries with it many of the same radical views as Prynne and Liliburne by arguing that it only can be understood by taking in tNiche long-standing developments in England’s legal system. Historians like Como and Potter paint images of a longstanding resentment of oppressive monarchs by the English populace and argue that the period was the flowering of legal thought and debate. Legal scholars take a more revisionist perspective when compared to the views of Whiggish historians. They argue that Charles’ constitutional crisis can be understood by simply looking at the period itself and the various abuses of Charles’ reign. Both Kelsey and Zande place emphasis on issues contemporary to the period such as unlawful detainment and illegal taxation.

They insist that these issues have no long-standing connections to events of the past. Although the legal debates of the Caroline era are long over, many constitutional battles are still fought between radicals and revisionists.

Works Cited Browne John. Petition of Right, London: John Gyles Press, 1642.

Como, David. Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Foxley, Rachel. “More Precious in Your Esteem Than It Deserveth? Magna Carta in Seventeenth Century Politics.” in Magna Carta: History, Context, and Influence edited by Lawrence Goldman, 61-78. London: University of London Press, 2018.

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Kelsey, Sean. “King Charles and His Case: The Intended Prosecution of Charles I,” The Journal of Legal History, 39:1 (2018): 58-87.

Potter, Harry. Law, Liberty, and the Constitution: A Brief History of Common Law. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2015.

Prynne William. A Humble Remonstrance to His Majesty Against the Tax. 1641.

Seel, Graham. The English Wars and Republic, 1637-1660. London: Routledge Press, 2005.

Vande Zande, Daniel. “Coercive Power and the Demise of Star Chamber.” American Journal of Legal History, 50:3 (2008): 326-349.

Willms, Sarah. “The Five Knights’ Case and Debates in the Parliament of 1628: Division and Suspicion Under King Charles I.” Constructing the Past, 7:1 (2006): 92-100.

The Liberals’ Moment: Book Review Amanda Hooper The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party by Bruce Miroff critically examines George McGovern’s emergence in the American Democratic Party, his influence on the party itself, and contextualizes McGovern’s bid for the presidency with that of his opponent Republican President Richard Nixon. Miroff explores McGovern’s role and impact in the Democratic Party by utilizing primary sources including pictures from the era and a plethora of interviews with McGovern’s former aides that Miroff himself conducted. Miroff explicitly states the intentions of his book in the preface: “…highlight the ambiguities of the McGovern insurgency and its paradoxical implications for our own times.”1 Miroff builds upon this in his introduction broadening the context of McGovern’s impact on American politics attempting to clarify his argument: “Liberal politics since 1972 cannot be understood apart from the repercussions of the McGovern campaign. It is a key to enduring the identity crisis of Democratic leaders and activists.”2 By examining McGovern’s impact through this dreamy, futuristic lens, Miroff commits to a lengthy political discourse history in which he often strays away from his main argument.

Despite the book’s misgivings, Miroff’s work demonstrates a worthy addition to the historiography of McGovern and the modern history of the Democratic Party. Miroff highlights the niche in this particular historiography calling attention to the fact that his book is the first one written about the campaign since the 1970s.3 He also notes that his work lacks a distinguished thesis. He does mention in his preface that his full intention is to look at how McGovern’s campaign shaped and continues to shape the Democratic Party and that understanding it is impossible without recognition of his efforts.4 The theme of recognizing McGovern’s impact and legacy is evident throughout the book but unfortunately, it comes up short in between the wishful thinking of where he went wrong in his campaign and what McGovern could have done for America if he had won the 1972 election.

1

Bruce Miroff, The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, ix.

2 Miroff, The Liberals’ Moment, 1.

3 Miroff, The Liberals’ Moment, 2.

4 Miroff, The Liberals’ Moment, x.

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One of the more unfortunate missed opportunities was Miroff’s attempt to connect Bill Clinton to the McGovern campaign and the influence that it had over his presidency. Miroff takes time to discuss that Clinton supported McGovern and analyzes what Clinton took from him to apply to his own campaign and presidency. The significance of this and its exact evidence is not clearly executed. Miroff’s argument about McGovern’s legacy in the Democratic Party suffers because of it. Had he dedicated a chapter or a clearly defined subsection in one of the concluding chapters of the book about Clinton’s connections to McGovern he would have solidified his argument, tied it to the modern day, and to the future of Democratic politics.

To argue the impact of McGovern’s campaign, Miroff presents secondary source research consistently reinforced with primary source interviews. In one of his most interesting chapters, Chapter Four, he clearly defines the chronology of the campaign and where it started to fail. It began with the appointment of Senator Thomas Eagleton as his Vice-Presidential nominee and running mate. Miroff takes the opportunity to include quotes from McGovern himself in which he expresses feelings of fatigue and the belief that if the campaign staff had a month of leisure time, they would have had a much better outcome in the election.5 Miroff sets up the McGovern campaign’s slow demise marking its start with the appointment of Eagleton and goes on to provide more reasons throughout his work such as severe campaign disorganization, not keeping any standard of privacy or secrecy from the media, and Nixon’s attack politics. These points do not lack scholarly support on Miroff’s account but he does develop a tendency to ramble and drag out his argument which ultimately dims the impact of his already lacking thesis.

Miroff’s work demonstrates a lesser-known area of modern American history and he does an excellent job of recalling the period and educating his readers. He presents McGovern as a kind, sympathetic, progressive man (at the time) who immersed himself in many different social causes including the Civil Rights movement, feminism, and gay rights through supporting grassroots organizations. Miroff demonstrates the impact of McGovern’s campaign through these matters highlighting how McGovern handled them arguing that he set a precedent for the future of the Democratic Party on these issues circling back to them multiple times throughout his work.

McGovern’s campaign is often overlooked as Miroff points out in the gap of literature about it but

5

Miroff, The Liberals’ Moment, 73.

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Miroff successfully makes a case for the importance of McGovern’s campaign and pens a fascinating history of McGovern.

Miroff is a political scientist and professor at the University at Albany.6 His background in political science and as an educator allows him to critically analyze McGovern’s history from a professional political lens. This allowed him to successfully write an educational book that can be used to identify McGovern, his biography, his campaign, and his impact on American politics.

Miroff does not remain an unbiased educator in his work. He sympathizes with McGovern and writes his book from that perspective. His work poses the question of what America could have had if McGovern had won the election. This does not necessarily take away from Miroff’s argument but it did leave out a lot about Nixon. Having a stronger, more consistent analysis of Nixon throughout the book would have been beneficial to contextualize how the 1972 campaign party ideas differed to push McGovern’s progressive ideas and their significance to the time period and also the years to come.

Despite Miroff’s thesis being admittedly weak, the argument is present throughout his work and becomes increasingly obvious as the book progresses. Highlighting the progressive issues that McGovern and his campaign began to tackle on behalf of the Democratic Party proves to be a timeless argument. Miroff’s book published in 2007 is still applicable to the present day through the analysis of grassroots organizations and the call for social rights that have remained prominent topics in American politics since their emergence during the McGovern campaign. By setting McGovern up as a starting point for real change in Democratic Party ideology, Miroff sets his work up for a timeless argument that goes beyond his publication date and resonates with modern day politics.

Works Cited Miroff, Bruce. The Liberals’ Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party. Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015070731172&view=1up&seq=7.

University at Albany. “Bruce Miroff.” Accessed October 17, 2020. https://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/faculty/bruce-miroff.

6

“Bruce Miroff,” University at Albany, accessed October 17, 2020, https://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/faculty/bruce-miroff.

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Back Matter: About the Authors Evan Cater Evan is a fourth year PhD Candidate in History at the University of Waterloo. He specialises in the history of Modern Britain, specifically the era from 1914 to 1945. His areas of research interest are the history of the British Labour Party, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, and Britain’s military campaigns of the two world wars. His dissertation examines the Labour Party’s split between pacifist and pragmatic responses to British rearmament and the rise of fascism in the 1930s. He is currently Co-Teaching: Bond, Bowie, and Brexit, A History of Britain from 1945 to the New Millennium, at the University of Waterloo.

Nyatike Chuol My name is Nyatike Chuol and I have just finished my Bachelor of Arts Degree at the University of Waterloo. My major is history and I have always been drawn to researching the stories of marginalized people. I was always under the impression that much of the historical sources only contained the narratives of the literate elite. My study of the Black Loyalists has shown that the sources are there, they are just waiting for someone with enough patience to examine them.

Megan Hamilton Megan Hamilton is a SSHRC-funded graduate student in the Master of Arts program at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on Canadian war and society, particularly the Canadian experience of the Second World War. In 2021, she completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in history at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she was also a research assistant at the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic, and Disarmament Studies. She completed the first two years of her undergraduate degree at Okanagan College, in her hometown of Vernon, British Columbia. Aside from her academic pursuits, she is a group fitness instructor, a former National Team rhythmic gymnast, and an avid traveler.

Amanda Hooper Amanda graduated from Ryerson University in June 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in History. While at Ryerson, Amanda was awarded a Santander Universitäten Scholarship to study Nazi Germany at the Free University of Berlin. Amanda’s current research as a MA student focuses on Holocaust memory in Berlin, including memoirs, memorials and sites, as well as Holocaust education efforts in Berlin since the city’s reunification in 1990.

Amanda is presently writing her Major Research Paper at the University of Waterloo and returns to the university in the fall to begin her Doctoral Studies.

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Nicholas Morrison Nicholas Morrison has just completed his third year of his Honours Bachelor of Arts degree at Wilfrid Laurier University with majors in History and Medieval Studies. His main areas of interest are in the social and cultural history of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe post-1945.

He also enjoys learning about crime and culture in eighteenth-century Britain.

Emily Pazuk I have just graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Business, including a Revolution, War and Upheaval Studies specialization. Through my time at the university, I had the opportunity to work with several excellent professors who encouraged me and helped me discover a passion in studying WWII Nazi Germany as well as American Cold War culture.

Angelika Rohrbaher Graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, With Distinction – Dean’s Honour Roll, June 2020 Major: History A goal set many years ago with a few starts and stops along the way while raising a family of four, working full time and combining studies with theatre, ballroom dancing and in general a busy life with all the trials, tribulations and triumphs life has to offer. Never losing sight that learning is a life-long journey.

Ryan Snopek Until this past term (Winter 2021), I was an undergraduate in History at the University of Waterloo, with minors in Russian and East European Studies and Classical Studies. As of September, I will still be studying History at the University of Waterloo, but in the MA program.

My chief interests are Russian language, culture, and history, though for my Masters thesis I will be lifting my eyes to the stars and researching the evolution of American as well as Russian perceptions of outer space and the future. With any luck, I will be finished my research before astronauts land on the Moon again.