Tiny History

Seriously, folks. It's about time we made history a little more interesting for the uninitiated, don't you think? I've had enough of hearing about poor high school teachers focusing on who invented the cotton gin. History has always been the great learning tool for later generations to draw inspiration from, and right now, our future leaders aren't learning much of use about the past. I can sum up what most people take out of history throughout their lives: Nazis=bad. What else is there, after all?

A lot. And I think our best bet (and my best bet of luring you unsuspecting readers into my web), is to focus on those fascinating little tidbits, those so-bizarre-they-have-to-be-true moments that make history so much fun.

Instead of memorizing who Eli Whitney was, how about we try this quote that could easily have been ripped from a movie: "Let (Haiti's) Congress understand that the government of the United States intends to uphold it (the Congress), but that it cannot recognize action which does not establish in charge...those whose abilities and dispositions give assurances of putting an end to factual disorders." That's right. That's the U.S. commander of Haiti ordering the Haitian Congress to scrap their finished Constitution and make a new one. Oh, and that new Constitution? We're going to let a certain man by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt write it. And then U.S. Marines made sure every illiterate voter in the countryside voted to support the Constitution. This was 1919.

Sure, that sounds horrible to us now, but transplant yourself back in the day. The Haitians were mixed on the issue. Their country had been ravaged for years due to power struggles and cacos revolts. We can debate the heavy-handed US response all day long but from a pure historians point of view, this is maximum grade entertainment. Earlier, in 1915, the cacos had risen up and besieged the towns and ambushed patrolling Marine units. U.S. Marine Smedly Butler was called in. For those of you who know a little about the Marines, Butler is not a guy you want to run up against. The outnumbered Marines were better trained and equipped, and quickly mopped up the revolt. At one point Butler took a caco fort with a small number of men, bursting one by one through a drain pipe in the wall of the fort. The Haitians for some inexplicable reason threw down their firearms and fought with swords. Bad move.

With stories like this begging to be told, why are we focusing on boring, non-controversial issues? I think a little controversy in our past sucks the reader or student in and would do the history world an invaluable favor.

The stories are out there. Someone has to find them. Might as well be me.

Recommended Reading: The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot.