Forces under Gen. John French intercepted a 5,000 man party of Boers under Christiaan de Wet on their way towards Prieska
Last edition:
Thursday, February 22, 2001
Wednesday, February 21, 2001
Thursday, February 21, 1901. No expansion in China.
The Eight Nation Alliance agreed that none of its members would acquire additional Chinese territory at the instance of the United States.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 20, 1901. Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and Etta Place depart for Argentina.
Tuesday, February 20, 2001
Wednesday, February 20, 1901. Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and Etta Place depart for Argentina.
Butch Cassidy (Robert Leroy Parker), the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), and Etta Place, departed the United States on board the British steamer the SS Herminius.
They all returned to the United States in 1906, as Place no longer wished to remain in South America. The men, however, went back to Argentina. Nobody knows what became of Place upon her return, and very little is otherwise known of her.
The Sundance Kid and Etta Place.
The Hawaii Territorial Legislature convened for the first time.
Last edition:
Monday, February 18, 1901. Churchill in parliament, Germans in China.
Sunday, February 18, 2001
Monday, February 18, 1901. Churchill in parliament, Germans in China.
Winston Churchill addressed parliament as a member of the House of Commons for the first time. The topic was the treatment of Boer prisoners.
German Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee announced a new military campaigns to secure territory in China. They'd be launched as a series of punitive expeditions.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 16, 1901. Tariff wars.
Friday, February 16, 2001
Saturday, February 16, 1901. Tariff wars.
Russia retaliated on a tariff raise imposed on Russian sugar with a 30% increase on the tariff on American ferric goods.
Hmm. . . seems like I've heard this tune before. . .
We don't think of Russia as a player in sugar today, in no small part due to the Russian Revolution. Before that, however, Russia was a major sugar exporter, being a beneficiary of the German process for refining sugar beets. The U.S. sugar industry is based on the same process.
The U.S. sugar industry was heavily impacted by the Spanish American War, oddly enough, as the U.S. became a major market for Cuban sugar and tobacco. When Cuba went communist in the 1950s, Russia in turn became the market for both of those things. Today, Cuba really doesn't have a market for either. A logical trade policy would open trade back up with Cuba, which is far more likely to liberalize its government than attempting to starve it to death before Marco Rubio convinces Mad King Donny to invade it.
Also in Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Vladimir Lamsdorf presented a revised treaty proposal to China's Ambassador to the Russian Empire, Prince Yang-ju. Under the 12-article treaty, China would retain ownership of Manchuria, but Russian troops would be allowed to occupy the territory to guard the railways there, and China would be forbidden from granting rail or mining privileges to anyone without Russian consent. China wasn't impressed and leaked the details to the Japanese and British.
Most of Alabama's Legislature arrived in Pensacola, Florida, at the invitation of the West Florida Annexation Association, to discuss the possibility of the annexing western Florida.
Macedonian demonstrators in Sofia demanded independence for Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 16: 1901 Governor Richards signed an act that required county commissions to raise taxes for the purpose of building a residence for the governor. Attribution: On This Day.
Wyoming's Sixth State Legislature concluded.
It was a Saturday.
The British journal The Sphere reported on a recent visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II, pictured here wearing a completely absurd helmet, to the UK.
In sharp contrast, The Saturday Evening POst had an illustration of George Washington, no doubt in commemoration of his birthday, on the cover. The attempt at illustrating a bit and bradoon was seriously flawed, however.
I'd be interested in what the article on millionaires not being able to stop making money held. Millionaires at that time would be like billionaires now.\
The progressive movement at the time was attempting to rein millionaires in. The Great Depression, a good thirty years away, would accomplish it. . . for a time.
Last edition:
Thursday, February 15, 2001
Friday, February 15, 1901. Right of way.
The Right-of-Way Act was signed into law by U.S. President William McKinley permitting the Secretary of the Interior to grant rights of way through any federally owned-land, including the Indian reservations and the four national parks then in existence (Yellowstone, Sequoia, Yosemite, and Mount Rainier) if he found it to be "incompatible with the public interest".
Not good.
69 coal miners at the Wellington Colliery Company, near Cumberland, British Columbia, were killed in an explosion. Over half of them were Japanese or Chinese immigrants.
Bluesman James "Kokomo" Arnold may have been born, assuming he wasn't born on this date in 1896. He was famous for his intense slid guitar.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 13, 1901. McKinley wins (officially).
Labels: 1900 Election, 1900s, 1901, Africa, China, Disease, German Army, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, Wyoming
Tuesday, February 13, 2001
Wednesday, February 13, 1901. McKinley wins (officially).
William McKinley was formally declared the winner of the 1900 Presidential election, as a joint session of United States Congress witnessed the formal counting of the electoral votes.
Hmmm. . . seems like that went so smoothly.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: ..1901 Stinkingwater River renamed the Shoshone River.
German troops fired on civilians at Youngqing, China.
African sleeping sickness was first noticed by British missionary doctors J. Howard Cook and Albert Cook.
Last edition:
Sunday, February 10, 1901. Boers invade Cape Colony.
Saturday, February 10, 2001
Sunday, February 10, 1901. Boers invade Cape Colony.
Boer General Christiaan de Wet's troop invaded the Cape Colony.
Last edition:
Friday, February 8, 1901. Russian overreach.
Thursday, February 8, 2001
Friday, February 8, 1901. Russian overreach.
Russia presented China with Russia's conditions for withdrawing from Manchuria.
The conditions were unacceptable to China, and Japan.
Last edition:
Wednesday, June 6, 1901 Joe Boot escapes.
Labels: 1900s, 1901, Angola, Boer Armies, Boer War, China, Crime, Eight Nation Alliance, Personalities, Portuguese West Africa
Tuesday, February 6, 2001
Wednesday, June 6, 1901 Joe Boot escapes.
Boer commandos cut the Delagoa Bay Railroad thirty miles from the Portuguese West Africa capital, Lourenço Marques (Maputo, Angola).
The Eight-Nation Alliance demand that nine Chinese officials be executed for crimes committed during the Boxer Rebellion.
Three were already dead.
Joe Boot, likely a false name, became one of the few prisoners to escape the Yuma Territorial Prison. At the time the prison trustee had served only two years of a thirty year sentence for robbing a stage with female robber Pearl Heart.
He was never found.
Last edition:
Tuesday, February 5, 1901. What we wanted.
Monday, February 5, 2001
Tuesday, February 5, 1901. What we wanted.
The United States Senate voted to declassify all United States Department of State papers relating to the peace negotiations that ended the Spanish–American War.
This revealed to the public that the only territory that the United States originally had wanted Spain to completely give up was Puerto Rico and its surrounding islands.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 2, 1901. Army matters.
Friday, February 2, 2001
Saturday, February 2, 1901. Army matters.
Queen Victoria's funeral took place at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.
The Kings of the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal and Greece, and the future kings of Denmark and Sweden were in attendance.
The post Spanish American War United States Army Reorganization Bill was signed into law by President William McKinley. As part of it:
- The United States Army Nurse Corps was established as a permanent part of the United States Army's Medical Department. Women could enlist in the Army for three year terms, but t hey could not be commissioned.
- The Dental Corps was established.
The Army needed modernization, as di the state militia system, and it was receiving it.
Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the first African-American general in the United States Army, was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. 9th Cavalry.
_circa_1915.jpg)
Davis had enlisted as a private less than two years earlier and been mentored by Major Charles Young, who, at the time, was the only other black officer in the United States Army. He'd be a pivotal figure in the ultimate integration of the U.S. military, as in fact was Young.
It should be noted that this date is somewhat confusing in regard to Davis' career, as he'd been an officer in the Washington D.C. National Guard in 1898. He'd been commissioned again during the Spanish American War in the 8th U.S. Volunteer Infantry. After being mustered out he'd rejoined the Army as a private, showing a remarkable drive for service in the segregated Army of the time.
Davis in 1945.
He was old for an officer during World War Two, but such a seminal figure that he was retained in service. He lived until 1970, dying at age 93, outliving both of his wives who predeceased him. His son by the same name became a general in the U.S. Air Force. The senior Davis was serving at Ft. D. A. Russell at the time of the younger Davis' birth.
Last edition:
Monday, January 29, 2001
Tuesday, January 29, 1901. Farewell speech of Congressman George Henry White.
North Carolina's Congressman George Henry White, at that time the last remaining African-American member of the United States Congress, gave his farewell speech.
I want to enter a plea for the colored man, the colored woman, the colored boy, and the colored girl of this country. I would not thus digress from the question at issue and detain the House in a discussion of the interests of this particular people at this time but for the constant and the persistent efforts of certain gentlemen upon this floor to mold and rivet public sentiment against us as a people and to lose no opportunity to hold up the unfortunate few who commit crimes and depredations and lead lives of infamy and shame, as other races do, as fair specimens of representatives of the entire colored race...
In the catalogue of members of Congress in this House perhaps none have been more persistent in their determination to bring the black man into disrepute and, with a labored effort, to show that he was unworthy of the right of citizenship than my colleague from North Carolina, Mr. Kitchin. During the first session of this Congress, while the constitutional amendment was pending in North Carolina, he labored long and hard to show that the white race was at all times and under all circumstances superior to the Negro by inheritance if not otherwise, and the excuse for his party supporting that amendment, which has since been adopted, was that an illiterate Negro was unfit to participate in making the laws of a sovereign state and the administration and execution of them; but an illiterate white man living by his side, with no more or perhaps not as much property, with no more exalted character, no higher thoughts of civilization, no more knowledge of the handicraft of government, had by birth, because he was white, inherited some peculiar qualification...
In the town where this young gentleman was born, at the general election last August for the adoption of the constitutional amendment, and the general election for state and county officers, Scotland Neck had a registered white vote of 395, most of whom, of course, were Democrats, and a registered colored vote of 534, virtually if not all of whom were Republicans, and so voted. When the count was announced, however, there were 831 Democrats to 75 Republicans; but in the town of Halifax, same county, the result was much more pronounced. In that town the registered Republican vote was 345, and the total registered vote of the township was 539, but when the count was announced it stood 990 Democrats to 41 Republicans, or 492 more Democratic votes counted than were registered votes in the township. Comment here is unnecessary, nor do I think it necessary for anyone to wonder at the peculiar notion my colleague has with reference to the manner of voting and the method of counting these votes, nor is it to be a wonder that he is a member of this Congress, having been brought up and educated in such wonderful notions of dealing out fair-handed justice to his fellow man.
t would be unfair, however, for me to leave the inference upon the minds of those who hear me that all of the white people of the State of North Carolina hold views with Mr. Kitchin and think as he does. Thank God there are many noble exceptions to the example he sets, that, too, in the Democratic party; men who have never been afraid that one uneducated, poor, depressed Negro could put to flight and chase into degradation two educated, wealthy, thrifty white men. There never has been, nor ever will be, any Negro domination in that state, and no one knows it any better than the Democratic party. It is a convenient howl, however, often resorted to in order to consummate a diabolical purpose by scaring the weak and gullible whites into support of measures and men suitable to the demagogue and the ambitious office seeker, whose crave for office overshadows and puts to flight all other considerations, fair or unfair...
I wish to quote from another Southern gentleman, not so young as my other friends, and who always commands attention in this House by his wit and humor, even though his speeches may not be edifying and instructive. I refer to Mr. Otey, of Virginia, and quote from him in a recent speech on this floor, as follows:
Justice is merely relative. It can exist between equals. It can exist among homogeneous people...It can exist among lions, but between lions and lambs, never! If justice were absolute, lions must of necessity perish. Open his ponderous jaws and find the strong teeth which God has made expressly to chew lambs flesh! When the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shall overcome this difficulty, men may hope to settle the race question along sentimental lines, not sooner.I am wholly at sea as to just what Mr. Otey had in view in advancing the thoughts contained in the above quotation, unless he wishes to extend the simile and apply the lion as a white man and the Negro as a lamb. In that case we will gladly accept the comparison, for of all animals known in God's creation the lamb is the most inoffensive, and has been in all ages held up as a badge of innocence. But what will my good friend of Virginia do with the Bible, for God says that He created all men of one flesh and blood...
I regard his borrowed thoughts...as very inaptly applied. However,...I fear I am giving too much time in the consideration of these personal comments of members of Congress, but I trust I will be pardoned for making a passing reference to one more gentleman -- Mr. Wilson of South Carolina -- who, in the early part of this month, made a speech, some parts of which did great credit to him, showing, as it did, capacity for collating, arranging, and advancing thoughts of others and of making a pretty strong argument out of a very poor case. If he had stopped there, while not agreeing with him, many of us would have been forced to admit that he had done well. But his purpose was incomplete until he dragged in the Reconstruction days and held up to scorn and ridicule the few ignorant, gullible, and perhaps purchasable Negroes who served in the state legislature of South Carolina over thirty years ago. Not a word did he say about the unscrupulous white men, in the main bummers who followed in the wake of the Federal Army and settled themselves in the Southern states, and preyed upon the ignorant and unskilled minds of the colored people, looted the states of their wealth, brought into lowest disrepute the ignorant colored people, then hied away to their Northern homes for ease and comfort the balance of their lives, or joined the Democratic party to obtain social recognition, and have greatly aided in depressing and further degrading those whom they had used as tools to accomplish a diabolical purpose.
These few ignorant men who chanced at that time to hold office are given as a reason why the black man should not be permitted to participate in the affairs of the government which he is forced to pay taxes to support. [Rep. Wilson] insists that they, the Southern whites, are the black man's best friend, and that they are taking him by the hand and trying to lift him up; that they are educating him. For all that he and all Southern people have done in this regard, I wish in behalf of the colored people of the South to extend our thanks. We are not ungrateful to friends, but feel that our toil has made our friends able to contribute the stinty pittance which we have received at their hands. I read in a Democratic paper a few days ago, The Washington Times, an extract [which] showed that the money for each white child in the State ranged from three to five times as much per-capita as was given to each colored child. This is helping us some, but not to the extent that one would infer from the gentleman's speech.
If the gentleman to whom I have referred will pardon me, I would like to advance the statement that the musty records of 1868, filed away in the archives of Southern capitols, as to what the Negro was thirty-two years ago, is not a proper standard by which the Negro living on the threshold of the twentieth century should be measured.
Since that time we have reduced the illiteracy of the race at least 45 percent. We have written and published nearly 500 books. We have nearly 800 newspapers, three of which are dailies. We have now in practice over 2,000 lawyers, and a corresponding number of doctors. We have accumulated over $12,000,000 worth of school property and about $40,000,000 worth of church property. We have about 140,000 farms and homes, valued in the neighborhood of $750,000,000, and personal property valued about $170,000,000. We have raised about $11,000,000 for educational purposes, and the property per-capita for every colored man, woman and child in the United States is estimated at $75. We are operating successfully several banks, commercial enterprises among our people in the South land, including one silk mill and one cotton factory. We have 32,000 teachers in the schools of the country; we have built, with the aid of our friends, about 20,000 churches, and support 7 colleges, 17 academies, 50 high schools, 5 law schools, 5 medical schools and 25 theological seminaries. We have over 600,000 acres of land in the South alone. The cotton produced, mainly by black labor, has increased from 4,669,770 bales in 1860 to 11,235,000 in 1899. All this was done under the most adverse circumstances.
We have done it in the face of lynching, burning at the stake, with the humiliation of "Jim Crow" laws, the disfranchisement of our male citizens, slander and degradation of our women, with the factories closed against us, no Negro permitted to be conductor on the railway cars, whether run through the streets of our cities or across the prairies of our great country, no Negro permitted to run as engineer on a locomotive, most of the mines closed against us. Labor unions--carpenters, painters, brick masons, machinists, hackmen and those supplying nearly every conceivable avocation for livelihood--have banded themselves together to better their condition, but, with few exceptions, the black face has been left out. The Negroes are seldom employed in our mercantile stores. At this we do not wonder. Some day we hope to have them employed in our own stores. With all these odds against us, we are forging our way ahead, slowly, perhaps, but surely. You may tie us and then taunt us for a lack of bravery, but one day we will break the bonds. You may use our labor for two and a half centuries and then taunt us for our poverty, but let me remind you we will not always remain poor! You may withhold even the knowledge of how to read God's word and learn the way from earth to glory and then taunt us for our ignorance, but we would remind you that there is plenty of room at the top, and we are climbing!
After enforced debauchery with many kindred horrors incident to slavery, it comes with ill grace from the perpetrators of these deeds to hold up the shortcomings of some of our race to ridicule and scorn.
Mr. Chairman, permit me to digress for a few moments for the purpose of calling the attention of the House to a bill which I regard as important, introduced by me in the early part of the first session of this Congress.
[It was intended] to give the United States control and entire jurisdiction over all cases of lynching and death by mob violence. During the last session of this Congress I took occasion to address myself in detail to this particular measure, but with all my efforts, the bill still sweetly sleeps in the room of the committee to which it was referred. The necessity of legislation along this line is daily being demonstrated. The arena of the lyncher no longer is confined to Southern climes, but is stretching its hydra head over all parts of the Union.
"Sow the seed of a tarnished name-- You sow the seed of eternal shame!" It is needless to ask what the harvest will be. You may dodge this question now; you may defer it to a more seasonable day; you may, as the gentleman from Maine, Littlefield puts it:
"Waddle in and waddle out, Until the mind was left in doubt, Whether the snake that made the track Was going south or coming back."
This evil peculiar to America, yes, to the United States, must be met somehow, some day...
Mr. Chairman, before concluding my remarks I want to submit a brief recipe for the solution of the so-called "American Negro problem." He asks no special favors, but simply demands that he be given the same chance for existence, for earning a livelihood, for raising himself in the scales of manhood and womanhood, that are accorded to kindred nationalities. Treat him as a man; go into his home and learn of his social conditions; learn of his cares, his troubles and his hopes for the future; gain his confidence; open the doors of industry to him; let the word "Negro," "colored," and "black" be stricken from all the organizations enumerated in the federation of labor. Help him to overcome his weaknesses, punish the crime-committing class by the courts of the land, measure the standard of the race by its best material, cease to mold prejudicial and unjust public sentiment against him, and, my word for it, he will learn to support, hold up the hands of, and join in with that political party, that institution, whether secular or religious, in every community where he lives, which is destined to do the greatest good for the greatest number. Obliterate race hatred, party prejudice, and help us to achieve nobler ends, greater results and become satisfactory citizens to our brother in white.
This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress; but let me say, phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heartbroken, bruised, and bleeding, but God-fearing people, faithful, industrious, loyal people-rising people, full of potential force.
Mr. Chairman, in the trial of Lord Bacon, when the court disturbed the counsel for the defendant, Sir Walter Raleigh raised himself up to his full height and, addressing the court, said, "Sir, I am pleading for the life of a human being."
The only apology that I have to make for the earnestness with which I have spoken is that I am pleading for the life, the liberty, the future happiness, and manhood suffrage for one-eighth of the entire population of the United States.
White was a lawyer and was leaving Congress as he had decided to leave North Carolina after it passed a bill disenfranchising blacks. He opened a law practice in Washington D.C. and then later in Pennsylvania, where he actually stood for election again, albeit unsuccessfully.
Last edition:
Monday, January 28, 1901. American League
Sunday, January 28, 2001
Monday, January 28, 1901. American League
A large-scale offensive was commenced by the British in the Boer War into the Orange Free State.
Farrier Sergeant Major.William Hardham became the first New Zealand-born recipient of the Victoria Cross.
On 28 January 1901, near Naauwpoort, this Non-Commissioned Officer was with a section which was extended and hotly engaged with a party of about 20 Boers. Just before the force commenced to retire Trooper McCrae was wounded and his horse killed. Farrier- Major Hardham at once went under a heavy fire to his assistance, dismounted and placed him on his own horse, and ran alongside until he had guided him to a place of safety.
The London Gazette, No. 27362, 4 October 1901.
Hardham went on to be commissioned in 1902, and returned to his civilian occupation as a blacksmith after the war, while also serving in the militia. He fought again in World War One, rising to the rank of Captain. He was fairly severely wounded during the war, which kept him from becoming a full time officer after the war. He died in 1928 at age 51 of stomach cancer.
The American League was organized.
Last edition:
Sunday, January 27, 1901. Muscogee uprising.
Saturday, January 27, 2001
Sunday, January 27, 1901. Muscogee uprising.
Muscogee Chief Chitto Harjo, a Muscogee of the Creek tribe, surrendered to Lieutenant. H. B. Dixon of the Eighth U.S. Cavalry in Oklahoma after attempting to create a government separate from the Creek Nation in order to resist the forcible acquisition of Creek lands by the federal government. His followers had engaged in a firefight with U.S. Marshal's three days prior.
January 27, 1901 -- Chicago Wolves Just about Gone
Kaiser Wilhelm was appointed an honorary Field Marshal of the British Army on the occasion of his 42nd birthday.
King Alexander of Serbia acquired the rank of field marshal.
Giuseppe Verdi died at age 82.
Last edition:
Saturday, January 26, 1901. Deported to Guam.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)