Jenkins' Ear and The Mose Forts

The War of Jenkins' Ear (1739-1748) pitted the British Empire (and allies) against the Spanish Empire (and allies). On the North American mainland, the Anglo-Americans operating out of Georgia wanted to take out Spanish Florida and vice versa. A Spanish raid on the Georgia coast was repelled and the British incursion into Florida was likewise turned back.

When the Anglo-Americans approached in 1740, Francisco Menendez, the freedman commander of Spanish Fort Mose, withdrew his charges into the immediate defenses of Saint Augustine, which was then put under siege with the aid of British ships of war descending via the Atlantic. Menendez subsequently led a surprise assault to take back Fort Mose, and succeeded, though the fort was set on fire during the fighting. The Anglo-American force of about 170 men at Fort Mose was decimated, the British ships withdrew and the main Anglo-American land forces returned to Georgia, abandoning their siege guns.


A second Fort Mose was completed in 1752 not far from the first, though slightly larger and on higher ground.* It was later abandoned by the Spanish as a result of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian (Seven Years') War and ceded Florida to the British in exchange for retention of Cuba.

The Spanish government relocated the Saint Augustine and Fort Mose population mostly to Cuba; freedman and mestizos developed San Agustín de la Nueve Florida (Ceiba Mocha, Matanzas). For more on that, see the remarkably detailed essay by J[ane] Landers, "An Eighteenth-Century Community in Exile : The 'Floridanos' in Cuba," in: New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 70 (1996), no: 1/2, Leiden, 39-58.

*From what I understand, remains of the first Fort Mose are now preserved under water, while remains of the second are on dry land.

Today's Rune: Protection.  

Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose

In North American slavery days, many in bondage managed to escape and run for their lives. But where to go, how to live in a world so brutally contested? Archaeological evidence in North Carolina suggests the creation of maroon / cimarrón camps or mini-colonies such as at Culpepper Island in the Great Dismal Swamp and in many other remote or semi-remote places, as well. Where feasible, slaves also sought asylum with Native American tribes, who often took them in as tributary auxiliaries.

In Florida beginning officially in 1693, Spanish authorities offered official freedman status to runaway slaves from Anglo North America in exchange for fealty to the Spanish crown, adoption of Catholicism and service in the territorial militia.

Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (Fort Mose / Mosé) was a freedman's fort and community located a couple miles north of Saint Augustine, Florida; it was completed in 1738 and commanded by a self-freed Creole, Francisco Menendez, who'd earlier escaped from South Carolina. 

When Anglo-American forces from Georgia descended on the area during the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1740, Menendez and his Spanish backers were ready for a fight. (To be continued)

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

Soul City, USA

As soon as I learned about Soul City in the late 1970s and could drive, I wanted to see it firsthand. It's a sort of secular utopia that never bloomed into the 50,000-person city originally planned for, but more like Koinonia Farm, Georgia, than Jonestown, Guyana. The idea was for a self-sustaining community undergirded by black-owned businesses that promoted racial harmony, a "brand new shining city" in Manson, North Carolina, USA. Soul City's location is near the Virginia border, not far off the main interstate highways (I-85 and I-95). Definitely worth a look and consideration; after my first glimpse, I go back from time to time to see if anything's changed much.

Soul City was civil rights leader (and lawyer-judge-entrepreneur) Floyd B. McKissick's (1922-1991) baby, though others shared in its birth and have kept the dream going in a more modest form. That is, like the Heidelberg Project in Detroit and despite claims to the contrary, Soul City still exists.

In 1974, James Brown captured the spirit in which Soul City was conceived: 

We got to get together and buy some land
Raise our food just like the man
Save our money, do like the mob
Put up your fight, and own the job
We got to get over before we go under

-- from "Funky President (People It's Bad)"

For more, please see:

McKissick's Three-fifths of a Man (1969).

Floyd B. McKissick Papers #4930, Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the African American Resources Collection of North Carolina Central University.

Christopher Strain, "Soul City, North Carolina: Black Power, utopia, and the African American dream," The Journal of African American History 89.1 (2004): 57+. Gale U.S. History in Context. Web. 19 Aug. 2010.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

The Paranoid Style

Current paranoid topics in the USA include: anything Obama; Immigration; China; the "Clash of Civilizations;" a proposed Islamic Cultural Center "near Ground Zero;" "death panels;" "the Castro Brothers;" Iran; Hugo Chávez; "mandatory door-to-door immunization;" the taking away of guns and liberties; Mexico; Russia; "PC" matters; the "threat" of gay marriage . . .  Is there anything I missed? 

Some of the currency may be changed from past decades, but the style is old hat:

Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent. . .

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. . . (Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pages 77-86).

As a whole, the peope of the United States of America are neither very united nor very sane. If anything -- to quote from Iggy "the Prophet" Pop -- We the People are more evidently "united by the glue of our loathesome qualities" than by anything else.  

Reality check: Sarah Palin is a dingbat. The Tea Party is made up of dingbats. "Dr." Laura Schlessinger is a dingbat and -- since it's so important to exercise "free speech," a hag.  Are there any other dingbats who need a good thrashing right about now?

God save this mad parade, indeed . . .

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Television-handed Ghostesses

When I was a small child, definitely under five, there were often ghosts floating up from grills and vents, goblins coming through cracks in walls, and witches roaming. I don't remember how or why, but even then I knew the naming rituals, I knew these apparitions as entitities and manifestations called ghosts, goblins, witches.

That's what I'm reminded of when diving into Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954). It's weird, but seems dead-on as channeled through a child's Gestalt: rationalized as dreams, hallucinations, nightmares and imaginings to the reflective adult, what is real and what is surreal?   

To give some idea of the contents, here are some chapter titles: 

A Cola Saved Me
At a Ghost Mother's Birthday Function
My First Wedding Day in the Bush of Ghosts
On my Way to the 9th Town of Ghosts
Barbing Day in the Town of Short Ghosts 
I meet my Dead Cousin in the 10th Town of Ghosts
Hard to say "No" and Hard to say "Yes"  

About halfway through My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, I fell asleep and when I was awakened several hours later, there was an eerie hush in the air. 

As a child, did you encounter ghosts, goblins, witches or something else entirely?  

Today's Rune: Flow.

Grove Press 1984 edition of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola.

Floria Sigismondi: The Runaways

Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (2010) makes for an ideal companion film in a double feature showing with Chus Gutiérrez's El Calentito (2005). I've thoroughly enjoyed both movies, both about all-women bands, the one set in the mid-to-late 1970s in the USA and Japan, the other set in Spain in the very early 80s.

The story line for The Runaways, based on Cherie Currie's Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway (2010) and fleshed out by Sigismondi, follows the formation of The Runaways, Currie's various conflicts (family dysfunction and guilt, substance challenges, psychological and emotional issues), producer Kim Fowley's machinations, and Joan Jett's tenacious strength.  The whole cast is memorable, including Riley Keough (Elvis and Priscilla's grandaughter, Lisa Marie's daughter) as Marie Currie, Cherie Currie's twin sister. Dakota Fanning is glittery as Cherie, Michael Shannon nails the eccentric Fowley down, and Kristen Stewart is so good channeling Joan Jett I am still amazed, having seen Jett rock out in Charlotte around 1981. 

The soundtrack is hip and effective and includes a salute to Detroit via Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5 and Suzi Quatro.  Let's not forget David Bowie. the actual Runaways and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.  If you dig the 1970s milieu at all, you will have a real cool time checking out The Runaways.

Florida Sigismondi (b. ca. September-October 1965), the strikingly visual director pictured here, seems to have more than a dash of Joan Jett's sensibility and drive herself.

Today's Rune: Strength.

La Movida Madrileña: EL CALENTITO

El Calentito (2005), directed by Chus Gutiérrez (Spanish with subtitles) is a gem of a movie. It revolves around a "girl group" in early post-Franco Spain. The viewer can honestly delight in the exuberance of freedom, observing people as they wriggle free of Spain's fascist legacy. The film also carries a punk ethos; or more precisely, it shows the punk/New Wave music scene refracted through Spanish sensibilities. It's packed with innocent excitement and frenetic energy.

El Cantito (named after the club where the volatile band Las Siux cuts its teeth) has an additional element that other period movies don't: an attempted fascist coup before and during an important gig on February 23, 1981. This historical backdrop gives Gutiérrez's film extra kick.

The "girls" steal the show from the guys as far as viewer attention -- hard to beat their fully outfitted punk charisma. Verónica Sánchez plays protagonist Sara, transforming from sheltered student to vibrant performer; Macarena Gómez plays Leo, the troupe's comedian; Ruth Díaz's Carmen fronts the band (my personal favorite in the movie); Nuria González plays transvestite bar owner Antonio; Lluvia Rojo (Chus) quits the band early but remains on the tightly sprung scene to cause trouble later.

I particularly like how El Cantito avoids the usual Hollywood us vs. them gangs, opting instead to explore the tensions between freedom and play vs. tradition and fear of change. And the atmosphere is pitch perfect -- true in spirit to how the European music scene actually played back in 1981.



Today's Rune: Breakthrough.   (Based on August 15, 2007 post).