What Caused the American Civil War? – From “Have To” History

October 26, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Stuff You Don’t Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About the Many Causes of the Civil War

Three Big Things:

1. Slavery. While not the only factor, it was by far the largest. Without it, there would have been no war. Seceding southern states issued their own “declarations” explaining the causes which impelled them to the separation. The issue? Slavery, threats to slavery, insufficient protection of slavery, criticisms of slavery. Oh, and slavery.

2. The Election of 1860. Abraham Lincoln’s victory signaled to the South that the system – democracy, compromise, voting – no longer worked. Their voice, it seemed, was no longer even a factor in how the nation was run. Lincoln’s election was the final straw, since he was perceived as a threat to… what else? Slavery.

3. Overconfidence. Few on either side anticipated the possibility of an extended war, or the kinds of death and violence which were to come. Had those making decisions had any hint of what would unfold, one wonders if they’d have pursued other solutions a bit more vigorously.

Slavery

Even before declaring independence in 1776, slavery had been a controversial topic in the American colonies, but it was not a strictly North/South issue. Slavery was legal in most of the original thirteen states, and abolitionists – while not always prominent – spoke out against it up and down the young nation.

Over time, the North became increasingly industrialized while the South grew more and more reliant on large-scale cash crops. Small farmers were still the norm everywhere, but most large cities were in the North, and most plantations were in the South. Slavery ceased to make economic sense in the North, allowing ideological concerns to eventually prohibit it altogether. As the cotton gin made the institution wildly profitable and seemingly essential to the South, slavery was increasingly promoted as a positive good for all involved – including the slaves themselves.

North and South had more in common than not, but basic geography meant they developed into two very different economies and cultures. By the 1820s and 1830s, during the first Age of Reform, abolitionists speaking out against slavery were quick to condemn not only the institution, but those perpetuating it. Not appreciative of being labeled backwards, horrible people – especially by self-righteous Yankees – the South struck back with criticisms of northern corruption and hypocrisy. It was no longer about the economy or even American ideals – it was personal.

Counting Down to Civil War

Westward Expansion: Despite the increasing tensions between the North and South over a variety of things, political compromises held the nation together most of the time. The problem was that the U.S. continued expanding at an unbelievable rate, and each new territory acquired forced anew the question of slavery.

The Missouri Compromise (1820): Missouri, which had slavery, was ready for statehood. This would have thrown off the balance between slave and free states in the Senate (the North held a decisive advantage in the House). Maine was created and admitted at the same time, and an imaginary line drawn west – above it would be forever free, below it not so much. This delayed major conflict over slavery for almost a generation.

Annexation of Texas (1845): When Texas joined the Union, it was a natural slave state, and below the line, but it was huge. There was talk of admitting it as multiple states – maybe as many of five. The resulting war with Mexico was largely supported by pro-slavery folks, with far less enthusiasm emanating from “free-soilers” in the North.

The Compromise of 1850: Thanks to rich soil and the Gold Rush, California filled up quickly. When it was ready to enter the Union, the national scab was picked off yet again. Congress put together a package of five bills hoping to appease both sides. California would be free. Some Texas boundaries were settled. Washington, D.C., would eliminate the slave trade but keep slavery itself. Utah and New Mexico would be organized on the basis of “popular sovereignty” (we’ll come back to that). But the most important part of this compromise was the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Fugitive Slave Act (1850): Technically, slaves escaping to the North were still legally slaves and subject to return (this was even in the U.S. Constitution). But it was rarely enforced, and if you made it North, you were essentially free. The FSA gave this expectation teeth, making it illegal to refuse assistance to authorities or others looking to recapture runaways. The effect was very different than intended – while most Northerners were against slavery, they were generally busy with their daily lives and most did little or nothing about it one way or the other. This law got them involved – mostly by actively assisting runaways or harassing and misleading slave catchers.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852): When President Lincoln met author Harriet Beecher Stowe a decade later, the story goes, he exclaimed something to the effect of “So you’re the little lady who started this great big war!” Whether this actually happened or not, the idea is sound. Uncle Tom’s Cabin did more to galvanize the North against slavery and slave-owners than any other single factor. It took nameless, faceless masses of dark chattel and made them real to readers (think Anne Frank, or that kid in the striped pajamas.)

The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854): Legislation by Stephen Douglas (the one who’ll run against Lincoln in a few years) which allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide the slavery issue via “popular sovereignty” – letting the people decide. This sounded very democratic, but in practice it only laid the groundwork for…

“Bleeding Kansas” (1856): People from both sides poured in and took up residence in preparation for the vote. Violence ensued, towns were burned, and there was much name-calling. John Brown showed up with his followers and beheaded several pro-slavery settlers with swords while forcing their families to watch. Things were… tense.

“Bleeding Sumner” (1856): Senator Charles Sumner gave a provocative speech about slavery, calling it a “harlot” to whom various southern politicians were bound. Preston Brooks of South Carolina took exception, and shortly thereafter surprised Sumner at his desk where he proceeded to beat his brains out (almost literally) with his cane. Sumner survived, but was forever impaired. The North was horrified, but Brooks became a hero to the South.

Scott v. Sandford (1857): Would a slave who’d lived in a free state or free territory become legally free as a result? The Supreme Court said NO. The majority opinion by Chief Justice Roger Taney added that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in territories, and Blacks couldn’t bring suit to begin with because they weren’t citizens – any of them. This is considered one of the worst and most unnecessarily over-reaching decisions in all of Supreme Court history.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858): Lincoln and Douglas both wanted the same Senate seat in Illinois. They traveled the state holding outdoor debates, well-attended and quite colorful. Lincoln wasn’t new to politics, but this is when he became a household name saying things like “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry (1859): Brown was back, this time trying to start a full-blown slave revolt in Virginia. He was captured, put on trial, and sentenced to death. This is when he wrote, rather creepily, that he was “now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood…”

The Election of Abraham Lincoln (1860): Four major candidates including Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln won the Electoral College without winning a single southern state. By the time Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, seven southern states had seceded. (Four more left after the actual fighting started.)

You Wanna Sound REALLY Smart? {Extra Stuff}

The Battle of Ft. Sumter (April 12, 1861): As the nation divided, people from or loyal to the North who happened to be in the South made their way home, as did Southerners who happened to be up North. Forts and other military sites located in the South were largely left in the hands of those determined to take up arms for the Confederacy, except for one – Ft. Sumter in Charleston Bay, South Carolina. Major Robert Anderson, despite being low on supplies and having zero chance of military success, held his post.

One of the first things greeting Lincoln upon taking office was a telegraph from Anderson requesting orders – would he be resupplied? If not, he’d be forced to surrender in a few days. Lincoln sought middle ground in his attempt to resupply Anderson. If he gave up the fort, he’d appear weak. If he didn’t, he’d be responsible for starting the war most thought inevitable at this point. He attempted to send in supplies but not additional military aid; P.T. Beauregard and crew opened fire early morning, April 12th.

The battle raged most of the day, mostly cannon fire exchanged to and from the fort. At the end, Anderson surrendered with honor. It was the first real fighting of the Civil War, and… no one died. There were zero serious casualties until a cannon exploded during an honor salute to the flag after the fort had surrendered and two soldiers were killed. This war was going to be weird.

From Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address:

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension… I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so…
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from, have no real existence? … Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? …
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot, remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them…
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time… Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect and defend” it.
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

The “Mourning Wars” – from “Have To” History

October 18, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Stuff You Don’t Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About the “Mourning Wars”

Three Big Things:

1. Eastern Amerindians in colonial times practiced a very different sort of warfare than the large-scale, mass destruction favored by European powers.

2. One of the primary goals of this sort of warfare was to replace lost loved ones with captives taken from enemy tribes.

3. Captives not used as faux family members were generally executed, sometimes after long ritual torture. It was… harsh.

Eastern Amerindian Warfare

The Amerindians whom northern American colonists were most likely to encounter weren’t necessarily more peaceful than Europeans, but the type of warfare in which they most often engaged and the goals of such hostilities were substantially different.

East of the Great Plains, all the way to the Eastern Seaboard, numerous tribes (the Iroquois are the best remembered, but there were dozens of others) were locked into perpetual retaliation, each act of aggression requiring response. Every death of a loved one or tribal member demanded retribution; each raid required a counter. These weren’t the sort of extended, large-scale undertakings common in European conflicts. Tribes struck quickly, inflicted what damage they could, often taking captives and leaving behind a few casualties, then retreated to their own settlements.

There was little interest in taking over your enemy’s entire land, if such a thing were even possible. What would you do with it? Besides, while the thirst for requital was no doubt genuine, warfare served multiple other roles – a uniting cause for the communities involved, a sense of justice or closure for those mourning loved ones lost to previous conflicts, a road to honor and status for young warriors seeking to establish their manhood, and – depending on the tribe – a supply of victims for whatever ritual tortures and sacrifice were thought to please the gods or placate the beyond.

What’s perhaps most foreign to the western worldview, however, is what else they provided – substitutes for family members taken or killed by the tribe now under attack.

Like, literally.

The “Mourning Wars”

These “mourning wars” – often initiated at the behest of tribal matriarchs still grieving the loss of sons, brothers, or husbands – were particularly focused on taking captives from enemy tribes. Some of these captives would be tortured, many killed, but a significant number would be inserted into the roles left open by previous raids or other misfortune. This was, in fact, often the central motivator – not a certain number of enemy deaths, and certainly not captured or destroyed villages, but warm bodies of roughly the same age and potential of those lost. If they looked similar, well… bonus!

There was thus no shame in avoiding open confrontation whenever possible, as the resulting death toll was counterproductive to the purposes of the attack. Ambushes were far preferable, as were relatively low risk hit-n-runs. While more than willing to face suffering or death, warriors weren’t exactly seeking it out.

The glory of martial self-sacrifice is a culturally constructed phenomenon – it’s not inherent to all times and places. Our veneration for violent death may be laudable, but it’s not universal. To quote the fictional George S. Patton in his ‘Ode to Enormous Flags’… “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”

All these years later and that bit still brings a tear.

This aversion to violent death wasn’t mere cowardice. It was largely spiritual – many tribal belief systems consigned victims of such hostility to wander the earth eternally seeking vengeance, or otherwise unable to find peace. It was intensely practical as well – these were relatively small tribal units in which every member played an essential role. Even should a warrior or two wish to seek status via bravado or reckless tactics, doing so would have been irresponsible and borderline disloyal to the community who would lose his presence and his support as a result.

Which brings us back to the captives – the ‘replacements’, if you will.

Being taken captive could be terrifying, even if you had some idea what to expect. Anyone perceived as potentially more trouble than they were worth – women or children of the wrong age or build, or warriors capable of fighting back even after captured – were more often than not scalped and killed on the spot. Most, though, were bound and led back to the village, where they would be forced to walk among the tribe while being hit, insulted, and otherwise abused. Sometimes they were cut or burned. It sounds nasty.

Captured warriors were likely to face extended torture and public humiliation – often in retribution for similar offenses by their own tribe. They were expected to endure such suffering stoically, which most apparently did, although it’s difficult to discern too many details from surviving records – most of which come down to us through the occasional white folk involved for one reason or another, their very presence no doubt altering the experience. These same accounts suggest it was common to eat the condemned afterwards, which makes a certain amount of symbolic sense, but which might also be the sort of thing added to further ‘other’-ize or demonize native populations.

Surviving women and children were assigned to families based on their general age, appearance, or skill set, as were young men who were found to be particularly handsome or potentially useful. They were given the name of the person they were intended to replace, along with any title or position that person had held, and over time generally ‘became’ that person – to the point of becoming a very real part of their new family, and eventually loyal to their adopted tribe.

This apparently provided a sort of comfort to mourning family members, along with whatever sense of justice or restitution they craved, and the community was reinforced in both numbers and spirit as a result. However foreign it may seem to western norms, it was practical and effective. No one wanted to be on the losing end of these bargains, but there’s no indication that anyone involved protested or found a problem with the system itself. Over time, it maintained balance and numbers among the various tribes – unlike, say, European style warfare, whose entire purpose was to destroy and eliminate the enemy, whatever the cost on both sides.

Upsetting Balance

It’s most likely with this guiding balance in mind that tribal leaders discouraged young men from taking matters into their own hands and initiating raids on their own. While strict hierarchical rule was not in the nature of most Amerindian cultures, community members generally deferred to the wisdom and wishes of those who’d proved themselves capable and wise. In return, leadership avoided anything approaching dictatorial control, steering the community instead by example and clearheaded thinking.

Through subtle combinations of gifts or other gestures of goodwill, peace could be established and maintained with some – if not all – neighboring tribes. For tribes who developed trade with one another, peace was not only desirable but likely. And if there were even distant kinship connections, well… besties! Conversely, groups with particularly fierce reputations were able to maintain a degree of peace and security via fear – they simply weren’t worth tangling with. Losses and suffering would outweigh gains and glory.

Despite the seemingly brutal and unforgiving nature of the “mourning wars,” there were rules – however informal. Then, as now, young men out to establish a reputation for themselves did not always defer to the wisdom of their elders. Among the eastern tribes of pre-colonial and colonial times, this was especially unfortunate since the overarching purpose of warfare was to stabilize and preserve one’s own people; unprovoked or reckless raids set off a chain of reprisals which of course did quite the opposite.

As with so many other elements of Native American culture, the arrival of white folks, their weaponry, their land hunger, and of course their arsenal of diseases, completely overturned whatever “stability” had been maintained by these “mourning wars.” Efforts to replace those lost to smallpox or other epidemics quickly destroyed weaker communities, while guns and other technology spread unevenly through the mix, making previous realities unsustainable.

You Wanna Sound REALLY Smart? {Extra Stuff}

If you need to sound thoughtful about the “mourning wars”, consider some comparisons to other systems of maintaining population or community balance which also strike modern western readers as a mite odd.

There are numerous examples of polygamous cultures – from the Latter Day Saints in the 19th century U.S. all the way back to the Old Testament Jews (think King David and such). Multiple wives was one way to promote rapid reproduction and maintain population, especially for marginalized or otherwise endangered groups. It’s a great example of morality being shaped by need and circumstance.

The age at which young women are considered marriable (and thus, appropriate sexual partners) has varied widely from culture to culture over the centuries. The shorter the lifespan and harder the living, the younger the appropriate age tends to be.

One of the most interesting customs related to reproduction was described by Marco Polo as he traveled across Asia. High in the mountains he encountered isolated communities in which he was welcomed into every home and encouraged to stay as long as he liked – in the daughter’s room, in the sister’s room, even in the master bedroom while the husband was suddenly called away on business. Polo feigns moral shock on behalf of his reading audience while exploiting the salaciousness for a page or two before explaining that because these communities were so isolated, they relied on random travelers to inject much-needed variety into their gene pools. Western morality could very well have crippled or destroyed them within a few generations.

The other direction you might consider if called upon to discuss the “mourning wars” is to focus on the contrast between Amerindian warfare and “white guy” warfare. The long traditions of independence – even during battle – among the majority of tribes worked poorly against strict hierarchical military structure of the west. Generations of limited warfare prioritizing glory or capture or territory ran into a military tradition of capture and destroy, with predictable results.

Cutting Up Gum Based On Haircuts

October 19, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I discovered early in the year and quite unexpectedly that the vast majority of my students were familiar with this They Might Be Giants track from 2007. I’m not sure why – they’ve not had World History officially before now – but it was a convenient hook for a time and place otherwise quite tedious and unfamiliar for them and at times rather challenging for me. (My favorite line is the one about how Ashurbanipal isn’t getting any gum because he made fun of the singer’s haircut – who could have seen that coming?)

Several weeks later, we’re blowing through the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of Constantinople as the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Eventually, I tell them, this city will be renamed Istanbul. It was Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul – not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople…

I realize with some surprise and no little dismay that they have no idea why I’m talking this way, though they continue to stare politely. Still, I can’t help but finish.

“Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks!”

Nothing.

Well, in one hour there was a single very excited child, but he’s strange anyway, so who knows what his reaction might have meant. And yes, I kept doing it the same way every hour, deep in my conviction that first hour had to have been an anomaly. And second hour. And third.

They weren’t.

Early in the year I introduced them to the concept of a “Required Viewing” list on YouTube for each unit. I’m not generally going to take class time to show these videos, but by way of introduction I chose a sample from Crash Course History and one from Hip Hughes History – the two big dogs when it comes to saucy, fact-packed legit history on the YouTubes.

Almost every kid in every hour recognized Crash Course as soon as the theme music hit. They hadn’t watched the World History videos, but clearly previous social studies teachers had used these in some way – and good for them. Recognizing this, I expected a comparable reaction to Hughes, but… nothing. They watched – he’s very engaging – but he’s also an acquired taste, and they hadn’t acquired it prior to my preview.

It was weird – like they all knew how to add and multiply but had never even heard of subtracting or dividing. I’m positive that were I to try the same thing in next district over, the reactions could very well be reversed.

Other times it’s far less consistent. We’ll be discussing something in class which I’d learned maybe three days before (not that I always tell them that) and a hand will go up:

“Mr. Cereal, I thought the Nubians essentially developed out of Kush… weren’t they the envy of eastern Africa as far back as the days of Abraham?”

I know what you’re thinking – smart aleck kid trying to show off, right? But no – just someone genuinely confused by the way I’ve presented something and how it seems to conflict with their oddly specific knowledge of ancient history.

In that same hour, of course, I can ask the entire class which way is east on a map of Africa and nearly spark panic because they hadn’t realized there would be a “quiz” over this particular topic. They’re brilliant and ignorant, interested and bored, richly steeped in the strangest historical folderol and lacking critical foundations for basic historical understanding.

Because they’re real people. Americans, and teenagers – either factor sufficient to guarantee that you can never quite know what to expect.

What’s my point? I’m not complaining, I assure you. I have great kids – the kind you don’t have to work that hard to love most days. But after nearly twenty years in the classroom, they’re still so unpredictable sometimes. I knew a new district in a new state would mean some changes, but so much of what’s different is intangible. Random, almost.

And yet, when I stop to think about it, this happened from year to year when I was in the same district forever. Sometimes it happens from hour to hour. What they know. How they act. What they’ll do. When I can push them. When I shouldn’t.

I don’t always adjust as well as I’d like. Sometimes I miss things, and other times I’m simply not sure what to do differently. But I know that it matters from student to student, hour to hour, year to year that I try. I know that nothing in this gig is static or predictable. It’s not even entirely rational.

Sure, my planning is important, and the standards are important, and there’s a big ol’ test or two coming up at the end of the year which is super-duper-portant, too. There are tight limits on just how much I can alter “the plan” – that’s the nature of the sort of class I teach. But there’s a reason most versions of most courses have a semi-professional human (with a degree and everything!) running the show.

Even if all we care about are the standards and the exams and the skills and the content, the best way to make that medicine is with motivated, supported educators well-aware of expectations but with substantial autonomy to adopt and adapt as they see fit based on the kids in front of them and the unique reality they radiate. I’m not saying there’s no role for online courses or commonly agreed upon curriculum across your departments, but setting aside the ethics of treating students as interchangeable receptacles, the vast majority of the time it simply doesn’t work.

Because they’re not.

I’m not talking here about their feelings and idiosyncratic needs and such – those things are important and should be reason enough not to run schools like green bean canneries, but I don’t think we have to even argue the humanity of the individual on this one. (It’s just as well; I grow tired of such basics being forever up for debate.)

We can stand safely on the rhetorical ground (Accountability! Measurement! Standards!) of the ideological opposition and still have every reason to insist that real teachers, with real qualifications and experiences, are the best way forward – even if you have to, like, pay them and stuff. Why? Because to date, no algorithm or script can accommodate or adjust to so much weirdness and unpredictability from kid to kid, room to room, city to city, or year to year. No combination of technologies, theories, or pedagogies can gauge better than that professional human when to push, when to listen, when to insist, or when to back off ever-so-slightly.

And friends outside the classroom, I hate to break this to you, but most kids don’t walk in every day driven to learn. Most aren’t motivated by the options a solid education might provide for them in three years when they graduate, or the fulfilling careers made possible in about a decade if only they’d suck it up and do the damn activity over Chapter Three. Some operate out of fear, others out of habit, and some are simply mindless zombies serving the system… but many many many of them, whether you like it or not or want it to work this way or not, operate out of relationship. Because a teacher “gets” them, or provides structure they don’t have at home, or makes them laugh, or listens to their stories, or some other impossible-to-quite-package-or-even-quite-explain connection. We’re far from perfect at it – most days I fail more than I succeed – but remove that element and suddenly we have way more kids who aren’t going to be “college and career ready” come their 19th birthday.

Maybe the “real world” won’t care about their feelings or individual learning styles – that’s fine – but unless we end up back in a 19th century factory system sometime soon, successful companies will continue to tweak their policies based on the wants and needs of their best employees. Successful careers will continue to demand enough empathy and perception that managers learn how to get the most and/or best out of their people by understanding which things are non-negotiable and which things can be fudged, adjusted, or approached in some other way. Employees will continue to learn that while the posted policies and expectations matter, so do those intangibles which make their peers and superiors feel better about them as co-worker or employee. From thence come happier workplaces, productivity, and promotions – the sorts of things we insist we’re trying to prepare them for by forcing them to be here in the first place.

That’s not coddling, snowflake; that’s just going to the trouble to do it better.

So my kids are weird and still surprise me with what they feel and want and know and can do. I do my best to grab those moments when they come and build on them – often back towards where we needed to go anyway. I didn’t get it done in time to use this year, but I devoted the first four world history-themed posts in “Have To” History to “The Mesopotamians” – Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh. The individuals are fascinating (even the fictional one), yes – but there’s very real history woven into their tales as well. If things unfold in a similar fashion next year, I’ll be ready.

More importantly, though, I’m going to try to be ready even if they don’t.

RELATED POST: Why Don’t You Just MAKE Them?

Sargon and Eve

August 30, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Do you ever start off intending to write about one thing and no matter how much you try to stay on target, you keep shooting off an entirely different direction like a blog grocery cart full of one item and with a bad wheel (*squeak lurch squeak squeak lurch*) and although you’re desperately trying to steer back to what you set out to write about, you just… can’t – at least not until you’re so close to your max word count that there’s no point?

No?

Just me, then?

*sigh*

Figures.

I recently decided to do a series of brief bios on BlueCerealEducation.net (my effort to go semi-legit and post solely about history and pedagogy and such, minus all the swear words and political rants). There would be four, all drawn from the same They Might Be Giants song. In fact, that’s how I decided to open the first draft:

~~~~~~~

Then they wouldn’t understand a word we say, so we’ll scratch it all down into the clay, half-believing there will sometime come a day someone gives a damn – maybe when the concrete has crumbled to sand. We’re the Mesopotamians – Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh!
The Mesopotamish sun is beating down and making cracks in the ground, but there’s nowhere else to stand in Mesopotamia – the kingdom where we secretly reign, the land where we invisibly rule as the Mesopotamians – Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh!
“The Mesopotamians” (They Might Be Giants, 2007)

Mesopotamia is generally considered to be the birthplace of civilization. It’s where our ancestors first transitioned from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more settled, agriculturally-based sort of living. The area roughly corresponds with modern Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Israel, forming a sort of “Fertile Crescent.” If there was a literal Garden of Eden, it was most likely located in Mesopotamia.

A case could, in fact, be made that the story of Adam and Eve, in addition to whatever spiritual lessons it conveys, is an allegory for the Neolithic Revolution – a fancy name historians use for the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and the subsequent development of early civilizations, partly because it’s shorter than saying all of that other stuff but mostly because it sounds WAY smarter and elitist and ancient history gets little enough respect as it is.

Adam, literally translated, means “man,” a word with its roots in either “red,” “to be made,” or both. In Hebrew, it’s an intentional bit of divine wordplay on the words for “earth” or “red dirt,” which doesn’t really prove anything regarding whether or not Adam was an actual dude, but makes for interesting speculation. “Eve” means “life” or “life-giver,” presumably referring to woman’s ability to crank out those adorable spawn.

According to the account in the second chapter of Genesis, the “Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” A few verses later, we’re told that “the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.”

Because this was apparently not quite as fulfilling for Adam as God had hoped, he then went ahead and created Eve. Who would have guessed a working man would prefer a naked woman to figuring out what to call the platypus?

Setting aside the whole snake and fruit thing for a moment, it’s not much of a stretch to suspect this account in some way echoes a more general settling down of sorts. The whole concept of man and woman together hints of family and a less freewheeling lifestyle – that’s fairly universal throughout time. There’s no suggestion Adam hunted any of the critters he so lovingly named, although some are referred to as “livestock” – a concept tied to settled civilization. (The same folks who came up with “Neolithic Revolution” refer to the domestication of animals and the ongoing use of them for food, clothing, labor, etc., as “Pastoralism,” which not only sounds super-educated but a tad poetic.)

Once they’d disposed of the common enemy of nomadic hunter-gatherers (or made friends with them through trading), the gardening folks and the animal husbandry folks didn’t always get along. You may recall that the reported issue between Cain and Abel involved the former offering up agricultural offerings while the latter offered meat, and blood, from his livestock. God was not impressed by Cain’s efforts, leading to all sorts of subsequent efforts to explain exactly what exactly Cain did wrong, since food offerings had worked for plenty of other gods throughout human existence.

The issue continued in various forms all the way up to modern times, unresolved until the Oklahoma! concord of the early 20th century, when Aunt Eller famously reconciled both sides by firing her shotgun in the air. By the end of the square dance, the farmer and the cowman were, in fact, friends.

But whether or not Adam with his mad naming skills, Eve with her forbidden fruit, Cain with his inadequate grains, or Abel with his sanctified veal, were literal individuals or not, they have some competition in the “earliest folks in history” department. That’s where the Mesopotamians come in – at least one of them, anyway.

Sargon of Akkad. Or, as he seemed to prefer, “Sargon the Great.”

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Notice anything problematic with that draft? Yeah, it was over a thousand words before I got to my supposed topic. I’m not the most regimented guy in the blogosphere, but that’s far from ideal in the ‘structuring and focus’ department.

But at least we’re there, now – right? But that wheel (*squeak lurch squeak squeak lurch*) kept yanking me to Aisle 2…

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Traditional historians – the same ones who coin terms like “Neolithic revolution” and prefer to use B.C.E. (Before Common Era) in place of B.C. (Before Christ) and C.E. (Common Era) in place of A.D. (Anno Domino, or “in the year of the Lord), even though both systems still base all of historical time-keeping on the birth of the same Baby Jesus SO WHY GET ALL WEIRD ABOUT WHAT YOU CALL IT?! – consider Sargon the first individual clearly identified in all of written history. By their reckoning, the oldest surviving written records of the Genesis account are less than 3,000 years old, while the first references to Sargon are pushing 4,000 years old. That spares them the dilemma of arguing over just how literally to take the whole Adam and Eve thing – at least in reference to this particular topic.

On the other hand, while there does seem to have been a literal Sargon kinging over a literal kingdom, much of what was recorded about him back in the day was very likely exaggerated. Perhaps downright mythical.

What the modern reader must keep in mind, though, is that the line between “literal” and “mythical” wasn’t nearly as defined a few thousand years ago. This wasn’t because everyone alive back then were stupid primitive ooga-booga types, hunched and hairy and dragging women around by their hair. It’s that stories – even histories – had very different roles than they do today. Their priorities were different.

Legends and mythology persist in stories and art because they hold value, and proclaim truths other than the merely factual. That’s why many devout Christians aren’t particularly tied to a literal interpretation of many Old Testament tales – they consider the Bible to be a guide to man’s relationship to God more than a badly organized science or history textbook of some sort. Historians, on the other hand, would very much like to be better able to unravel the legendary from the literal with figures like Sargon – and go to great lengths trying to do so.

Here’s what seems fairly certain:

Sargon was the first ruler of the Akkadian empire, which conquered the early Sumerian city-states around 2340 B.C. His kingdom included most of Mesopotamia and parts of surrounding areas as well…

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As I tried unsuccessfully to force myself to cut out the all-consuming intro and just talk about Sargon, I realized something else was bugging me, besides the post not being about what the post was about. Worse… it was potentially theological.

I think I wanted to write about us missing the point of the Adam & Eve account, at least in regards to that fruit we’ve always been told was an apple (the first of many things we’ve read into scripture over time which simply aren’t there).

I wanted to talk about blame and accusation and alienation from one another, starting with our withdrawal from the Almighty. I wanted to talk about “knowledge of good and evil” being less about promoting naivete and more about condemning judgement of others. I wanted to connect Adam’s defensiveness and willingness to sacrifice Eve and her efforts to deflect that betrayal on to the Serpent to Cain’s decision to slay Abel rather than ask his God what he could be doing better in the “pleasing offerings” department.

I wanted to connect it all to modern realities and the corruption of our faith.

But it’s not that kind of blog, and when I’ve tried similar approaches in the past, I’m not convinced they resonate with anyone but me. And besides, poor Sargon! He deserved a proper post of his own.

So I cut most of the other stuff out, and I fixed that wheel. At least until now…

*squeak lurch squeak squeak lurch*