In the 1991 movie Black Robe, Ernest Schellenberg plays an Algonquin leader escorting a Jesuit missionary. One of the best scenes is when the priest demonstrates how writing works.
In 1532, when the Sapa Inca, Atahualpa was awaiting his fate, he would ask that words be written down for him so that he could learn Spanish. Not least so he, a man who knew nothing of writing could observe how the work of a scribe was performed.
Where would we be without paper? He asks typing on a touch sensitive screen, ordering pixelated keys to generate letters that will never be printed.
Like all good true stories The Pharaoh’s Treasure focuses on a something simple and uses it to expose greater truth.
Behind every royal library were scribes, and behind them were the people who made the materials that allowed the library to exist at all.
When so much is a trick of the eye, untouchable, generated and at the same time more accessible than ever the value of paper is all at once enhanced and diminished.
A handwritten note shows you care. It’s also a demonstration of class. What was once a commonplace gesture now speaks in volumes.
Already we think about paper much differently to what we did 70 years ago. Might we conceivably return one day in the distant future to looking at it as prized commodity?
When did it become so time consuming to write something with our own hand? He said ruefully staring at the image on his screen.
Waxing lyrical, or poetic about the timeless qualities of communication has already been done efficiently enough in this book for me to add anything.
Gaudet’s book is well written and full of fascinating detail. Not your average history book and very original. It is primarily concerned with the history of Papyrus. The Pharaoh’s Treasure.
A 4,000 year old history that can be written because of the medium it studies. That is special. It is what Papyrus has done best for longer than parchment & pulp paper put together.
The Pharaoh’s Treasure shows us why Papyrus was so special. It is a mundane but key note. It’s durability, sustainability & simplicity was it’s success.
Because of these key facets of its manufacture and use, Papyrus became a time capsule for the collected knowledge of the centuries.
Previous to its widespread use, information had to be imparted on clay & stone. Though Papyrus was more susceptible to fire it was easier to store in large quantities, so much of what we know is thanks to this treasured paper.
All of the above make up a central point of John Gaudet’s book. This ancient story is at the heart of everything we think, and want to remember.
Think about the last time your laptop crashed, or your phone went dead on you. Sometimes … indeed most of the time, the answer to our problems can be solved by a piece of paper.
Suddenly technology doesn’t seem as friendly as that notebook. Suddenly that long history of paper becomes very relevant. And this is why you’ll enjoy this book.
In reading this book I have learnt a super car game for long journeys, (spot the Viking place/name). And that Tolkein was hopping mad with Hitler for appropriating history.
Professor Tolkein wrote that ‘I have in this War a burning private grudge… against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolph Hitler… ruining, perverting, misapplying, & making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit… which I have ever loved, & tried to present in its true light.’ Beyond the Northlands shaped up well.
The author, Eleanor Rosamond Barraclough is light and engaging. And good at rhyming as well! Her choice of subject matter matches the tone. Who indeed doesn’t like to read the marginal scribbles of scribes who have been working too long?
It strives to understand what Tolkien called ‘that noble northern spirit.’ Creating a readable and understandable work of history that is at the same time uncompromising in its depth.
To do this the author has gone to the sagas and searched them for clues and messages that rebuild the world of the ‘Vikings.’
Understanding the old Norse (and Norwegian rather than other Scandinavian/Viking Countries is the focus here), sagas and voyages within their historical and cultural context is difficult.
With the great enthusiasm across the world for all things Viking and fantastic, this book is an extremely helpful guide to a very complicated and bewildering subject, that is at the same time deeply engrossing and mysterious.
Wonderfully illustrated and authentic to place and time, the author has written perhaps one of the ultimate works for those wishing a deeper insight, as well as those new to the study of medieval Scandinavia.
This is the story of Samuel White and the men who tried to oppose the EIC’s monopoly on trade in the East during the 17th century.
By Josh Provan.
Servant of the Company.
The Capital of Siam.
Samuel White came to Siam by way of Madras as a pilot working for the East India Company (EIC) in 1676. He had left the West Country (where he was likely to have been born in 1650), to chance his fortune. Six years before, his elder brother ,George had traveled east with his business partner a Greek named Constantine Phaulkon and had become “Free Traders” in the Kingdom of Siam.
The Whites were a family deeply rooted in the Protestant Reformation. They disagreed with the EIC’s royally endorsed monopoly over trade in the east. Private enterprise was what they believed in and they weren’t afraid to challenge the Honourable Company to achieve their ends.
To that end Phaulkon and George somehow managed to insinuate themselves into King Narai’s court at Ayudhya in Siam, largely due to Phaulkon’s previous experience in the EIC.
Here they could be covered from illegally poaching EIC trade routes by working under the flag of Siam, however for his part Phaulkon had other ideas. At that time Siam was the link between Japan and India, a vital mercantile clearing house for luxury goods and firearms. George White and Phaulkon saw “The Siam Trade” as a perfect opportunity to make good.
The only problem was that the commercial interests of Siam were largely controlled by certain Islamic merchants, most of whom had ties to the Kingdom of Golconda, which controlled the spice island of Masulipatam in south eastern India and the port of Mergui in modern Myanmar.
It was a strategic spot that had become a commercial hub for moving goods east of Bengal. At the same time Siam was being courted by the French, yet Phaulkon promised to deliver the “Siam Trade” and it’s valuable ports to the monopoly of the EIC and Samuel White would be vital in his plan to oust the Golconda merchants from the area.
By 1679, despite a pessimistic outlook from the EIC, things were looking hopeful. Phaulkon had manoeuvred his way into a position of influence in Siam, while had Samuel worked hard to increase the EIC’s interest in the area. Then things turned foul.
Unsurprisingly Golconda’s governor in Tenesserim, the province where Mergui was situated, objected to the intrusion and actively tried to thwart and sabotage Samuel’s efforts. The hostility between White and Golconda now grew and would cause unforeseen results in the future.
After several mishaps and a fire that burned down a warehouse (possibly to cover up mismanagement) the EIC began to distance themselves from the project. They were already expanding in India and were becoming dangerously overextended.
This potential crisis was anticipated by Phaulkon, who in 1683 promptly sold out the EIC by successfully getting the King of Siam to oust Golconda’s Muslim traders from Siam and replacing them with mostly European agents loyal to him.
Phaulkon was made a mandarin and put in control of foreign trade. George White had since left for England and therefore did not reap the benefits of this shrewd move but Samuel White was made Customs Official (Shahbunder) of the port of Mergui, and the EIC’s ex factor in Siam, Richard Burnaby was made governor of the town.
This was a change that surprised many Siamese, unused as they were to seeing foreigners in power. White dutifully resigned his post with the EIC, automatically forfeiting his stake in the company by doing so, but he wasn’t too worried as he had a profitable post now with Phaulkon and was making even bigger plans.
The EIC now looked with even more suspicion on Phaulkon and his associates. Despite their cordial congratulations to White, the deliberate posting of ex EIC workers to high commercial posts in Siam started ringing alarm bells in Madras.
Yet they were not inclined to write off Mr. White just yet and hoped to cultivate him in the future. Unfortunately for the EIC and Phaulkon Samuel White was about to show his true colours.
The Pirate King.
The Cunnjng Phaulkon.
Fast forward to 1685 and a dramatic transformation has occurred. Showing extreme ruthlessness, guile and no little vengefulness, Samuel White had first gained permission to force stubborn Golconda to trade with Siam. To that end he “enlisted” two of the many freelance captains hanging around the Indian Ocean hoping to make their fortune into the Siamese navy. Yes, he hired some pirates.
The plan to get revenge on the governor of Masulipatam, Ali Beague, turned sour after White’s permission to interfere was revoked. White nevertheless set out on a convoluted scheme to fraudulently order and then steal some ships from Beague anyway.
White’s hired guns, Captain Coates and Captain Cropley, with a third addition named captain Leslie blockaded the port and pillaged at will.
However this reckless gang did not just rob rice boats, they also looted two ships, one of which belonged to an Armenian merchant from Madras under EIC protection.
Though Coates was forced to give back the stolen goods (less £4,000 of rubies that he conveniently couldn’t find) and Samuel having to palm off Phaulkon with some excuses, his pirates seized a rich cargo lying off Mergui when they returned.
Undeterred, White now embarked on a campaign of organised piracy to extort the merchants of the Indian Ocean. By March 1686 White’s flotilla, which had grown to 4 ships, had taken 7 prizes and their cargos.
The routine was simple; seize a wealthy ship and if necessary imprison its officers in a warehouse in the town without food or water until they promised to sign a paper that cleared “The Shahbunder” of any wrongdoing.
This plan was effective, though it can only be proven that he resorted to it once, extorting £3,063 in total, but it is likely he used it a few times.
Reckless he might have been but Samuel seemed to know he couldn’t keep up these activities forever and in doing this he was putting a defence together for a rainy day. It was wise that he did so, as his latest swindle was against yet more merchants from Madras.
The Great Escape.
Fort St George, Madras.
Before he founded the College, Elihu Yale was EIC Governor of Fort St George at Madras. It was he who received the emissaries who reported on Samuel White’s latest deprivation.
An angry letter was sent off to Mergui demanding restitution, but it went unanswered and as it was, despite his anger Yale could do little more than stamp his foot. But he could take comfort that events were already proceeding that would resolve the issue one way or the other.
In a preposterous attempt to coerce the Mughal Emperor Aurungzeb, the head of the board of the EIC, Josiah Childs sent the largest military expedition yet to the east.
Its target was Chittagong, Bengal, and 10 ships and 6,000 men duly went off on a disastrous campaign that ended in 1690 in utter failure with EIC peace commissioners begging Aurangzeb on their knees for peace.
Had this expedition been successful its next goal was to punish Siam for her supposed crimes against the company. White heard about this as he was on his way to Ayudhya to explain his piracy to Phaulkon.
He misread the intention of the company and feared that a recent descent upon the nearby island of Negrais was proof that an attack on Mergui was inevitable.
A small force was sent to Negrais to claim it officially for Siam, and was just as hurriedly recalled by a perplexed Phaulkon early in 1687. The Greek was increasingly losing his grip on political power in Ayudhya and couldn’t shield Samuel’s activities anymore.
A recent revolt by the exiled Makassar’s, sheltering in the kingdom had destabilised things, White’s privateer, Captain Coates had even been killed putting the rebellion down and the Islamic merchants were putting pressure on the king to remove Phaulkon and his cronies.
White saw the writing o the wall and began shrewdly consolidating his holdings and distributing them in places of safety. Further to this he obtained a letter from the provincial council that he was working under orders, backdated 1685.
Before Child’s war ended in disaster, the EIC had saw fit to make preparations for what seemed like the coming war against Siam. Their list of demands would surely lead to conflict.
They had procured a writ from King James II that ordered all English subjects to leave Siamese territory and demanded £65,000 in damages be paid by Phaulkon. In June 1687 two frigates arrived at Mergui to see that it was carried out.
To say the least, things had been going bad for White recently, he had lost one of his ships in the Bay of Bengal and he had been drinking heavily.
He had told his reluctant American Secretary, James Davenport that he intended to cut everyone loose and escape as soon as possible. This option was now removed as EIC Captain Weltden’s ships arrived and blockaded the port.
Luckily for him, Weltden would prove a gullible and indeed rather crooked sort, and a man that tended to press too hard. He apparently so offended the Siamese officials that they opened fire on him and sank one of his frigates.
On a tip from Davenport he then sized White’s largest ship to prevent his escape which prompted White to overreact and try to destroy his house.
The situation was resolved by the Siamese. The people of Mergui became terrified that the Europeans would bombard the port and rioted with the intention of killing all the English.
Captain Weltden only just escaped with his life, Mr. Burnaby was killed along with over 50 other English people and White fled to the Company ship for protection.
White’s run of luck then resumed. Mysteriously he was able to trick or get Weltden to let him sail off in his ship, and surprise surprise he sailed right home to England, with a fortune perhaps in excess of £30-40,000.
It then turned out that his large cache of coerced affidavits effectively blocked the EIC’s levelled charges when he challenged the Company’s hegemony in the east.
Samuel died on 7 April 1689, the case was taken up by his brother in the name of Samuel’s nieces, and due to the great unpopularity of all things associated with the Stuart’s after the Glorious Revolution, it was won in 1694. Ironically in the year of the revolution, 1688, another upheaval rocked Siam which cost the plotting Phaulkon his life.
Though without a doubt Samuel’s activities in Mergui were deeply questionable. When it comes down to it he acted no worse than the EIC did in its own dealings in India, which begs the question was Samuel White, the Free Trading Pirate, really the villain? You decide.
See you again for another adventure in Historyland.
Sources:
The English Gentleman Merchant at Work, Madras and London 1660-1740, Søren Mentz.
The Cambridge History of India, vol III.
Early English Intercourse with Burma, 1587-1743, David George and Edward Hall.
English Intercourse with Siam in the 17th Century, John Anderson.
Accounts of the Makassar Revolt, 1686, Michael Smithies.
A History of British India vols I-II Sir William Wilson
NOTE. This article fist appeared in 2016 on the Britannia Magazine Facebook Page
So many books, So little time. I can’t be more original than that. 2018 was a year of reviews. The generosity of publishers and authors allowed me to keep content running to the website while I focused on other projects. Words fail to express my gratitude, both to them and to every visitor. Here are my favourites.
Pursuit of Empire. By Davinder Toor.
An invaluable and important cultural document, ablaze with colour and history. The rare, the well known, the strange and the familiar all easily combine in one of the most lavish and wonderful catalogues of Indian art ever put into binding. Lovers of art and history will love, indeed they will reverence this book.
The book is as compulsive, detailed and human as the most stunning political exposés. Not only that but it offers a surprisingly inspiring and positive story to what increasingly seems to be a jaded and angry world. It will keep you gripped to the final dramatic finish.
Myke Cole has written an accessible, entertaining and detailed narrative of the development of infantry warfare in the ancient world. If as is suggested st the end, a military system is a representation of the society it comes from, then there is a lesson there.
Without an axe to grind nor a trumpet to play, Broers has written a truly even-handed and nuanced second volume. Perhaps it is still a little merciless to a newcomer but it is as gripping and thoughtful as it is interesting.
Along the western frontier of the 13 colonies a shadow war was being fought. While Washington fought the famous battles that won Independence for the United States, men like Daniel Boone were fighting in the wilderness in a much less clear cut war.
Faced by a wide array of Indian tribes, men like Boone and Clark were engaged in a fight on which depended the future of the western border of the new nation.
In dozens of unknown or forgotten ambushes, massacres and battles the border of the frontier that was to be won after independence was secured. Though the British gave what aid the could to these far flung wilderness campaigns, it was predominantly an Indian affair.
Since the beginning of the war the nasty business of bush warfare had been flaring up in the hotbed of the Ohio Valley. Settled by the British colonies after the defeat of the French it was still vulnerable to the Indian tribes who lived to the north and west of it.
Chalawgatha
By 1779, the Indians who were allied with the British, and those who fought the settlers, were raiding with impunity through modern Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois. Not to mention the devastating raids along the New York frontier.
The State government of Virginia feared the depopulation of the Ohio and the onslaught of the hostile tribes. Money and munitions were fed westward into the hands of the legendary frontiersmen to combat them.
Colonel George Rogers Clark decided to lead a strong force of militia, regulars and woodsmen mostly from Kentucky and Illinois through the untamed wilderness to the Indian town of Chalawgatha and destroy it.
Chalawgatha was an infamous base from which some of the most destructive raids of the war in the west had been carried out.
The various Indian leaders were outnumbered and poorly equipped, yet they were masters of wilderness warfare. Clark built a road from the Ohio to Chalawgatha in order to supply his men. Abandoning their town the Indians moved to a spot ten miles north of the town called Peckuwe on the Mad River.
Legends of the Old Frontier.
This was not a turning point in the American Revolution but it was a point of movement for the westward expansion that followed. I suspect that the conflicts of the “old frontier” have not been in such good hands for a long time.
It also played a crucial role in forming the legends of men like Clark, Boone and Girty. As usual John F. Winkler brings methodical research, scholarly and entertaining detail and remarkable clarity to his work.
Illustrated with many fascinating photographs, detailed maps and double page Campaign series illustrations by Peter Dennis, (who has included many portraits into these paintings), this is a solid Osprey Campaign title.
‘unhurried … never boring, always lucid, with some of the most fluid prose imaginable and the most serene voice I’ve encountered, Japan Story is not just a good read, it is a revelation’
It’s difficult to write an original review about a book for which a review has already been written that I completely agree with. But that is how I feel as I set out to type this.
A New Take on a Familiar Story.
As Neil McGregor points out on the back of one of the loveliest dust jacket’s of 2018, there isn’t anything hugely different about this book but at the same time it’s unlike most of the history’s of Japan I’ve encountered before
Japan Story takes you on a familiar journey, but subtly guides you through it with a nonconformist perspective. The journalists who mocked the Meiji elite’s attempt to be more western than the west at the expense of Japan’s unique refinements.
The people who realised that they had not had a revolution but a restoration, agitators and terrorists desperate to find a way to make their voices heard.
The proponents of female suffrage who were at odds with the traditionally promulgated Meiji view that women stood as the ideal of home and society, and tellingly were therefore allegorised as a personification of Japan’s traditional values.
If there had been a revolution the wheel of change had turned as truly a Samurai revolution. An eastern version of the Restoration of 1660, and indeed that is exactly what it was, a restoration. Here Samurai is to be taken literally, it had been a revolution for the already entitled.
There is a common perception that Japan embraced modernity with a wholehearted vigour. That the people followed where the modernisers led without qualm or objection.
Japan Story blurs the edges of this neat perception of Japanese History, and shows us a more messy, conflicted and human background to it all.
Stories are how we Survive.
‘A modest Asian country rises rapidly and purposefully to a parity is sorts with the advanced seafaring empires of the west, briefly it descends into corruption and cruelty & is deservedly crushed; but then it soars again’
That is the nutshell story of Japan, a history that the author challenges. To give an example I will briefly focus on the part that I am most familiar with.
For about nine decades Japan could confidently assume that the eyes of the world are upon her. As a result the county put on the greatest mime show in history, which opened to rave reviews. But with that, the author observes, came a potent self consciousness quite opposed to the traditional view of self confidence.
Meiji reformers could not bear to draw condescending looks from the foreigners they had one made fun of, or in several cases literally tried to murder and burn out of house and home.
I’m more used to reading of Itō Hirobumi when he was a Chōsū rebel during the Bakumatsu. But in 1887 the one time arsonist threw Japan’s first masquerade ball in the lavish Deer Cry Hall (Rokumeikan).
It was a scandalous affair but the government and the upper classes wanted to look their best.
‘The tut-tutting of visitors … mattered. There were anxious calls for curbs on bathing naked in public or urinating in the street’.
Alright, that last one seems fairly sensible, but you get the idea.
These calls came not from outraged foreigners, but from the leaders of Japan. Put in this light, Harding reveals that for the average subjects of the restored emperor, everything was quickly turning transparent.
Japanese culture was simplified and sold to a very receptive international clientele, eager to prove the superiority of the western system.
As a case in point, he points out that the nationally accepted story of japan from the Meiji Era to the present is in itself inherently fabricated. Within that he points to the obvious and most recognisable legacy of Japanese history, the Samurai.
In so doing he points out that even Samurai culture was packaged up and put on show, proudly advertised as a Japanese equivalent of Europe’s chivalric tradition.
To the disappointment of many a documentary filmmaker and pop culture fan, Nitobe Inazō’s bestselling Bushidō: The Soul of Japan (1900) was ‘published in English, for foreign consumption’, but then again, stories are how we survive.
The other side of the coin.
Through this book we can see that, rather than Japan being doily and resigned to its march to the future there was something of a clash of ideas.
While the great and good espoused western fashions and pastimes, traditionalists spoke of the waltz much as Europeans did 80 years before.
A Japanese journalist is even quoted as bemoaning, in excruciating detail, the the wanton effect dancing had on ladies: ‘when a woman reaches such a state, were is the innate modesty of the virtuous maiden’.
Worship and reverence for the emperor was real, but so was the practical side of devotion to a figure the average Japanese person found as almost too legendary to actually be real.
Even then we find that attendance was poor for Meiji era Imperial processions. Allot of work went into encouraging turnouts as a patriotic duty and the short term answer was to ensure children were brought to watch Royal events. Coming from a country that still has a constitutional monarchy, it sounds rather familiar.
Because most of my reading and research has focused on 19th century Japan, it would be of no use to speak deeply of how the author treats the tumultuous events of the 20th century. However the same sense of moment and originality carries through the entire book.
It would be difficult to be certain if the author’s confident opinions will be shared by everyone, such a thing would surely be impossible. However I was unable to take great exception to anything.
I got the impression that instead of opinions, any resolution based thereon was pitched in terms of thoughts and ideas. The reader is free to ponder and accept or reject as they please.
Japan Story also succeeds in begin generally entertaining and is scattered with all sorts of fascinating titbits, a good example being Japan’s overlooked role in WW1.
‘The imperial Japanese navy escorted hundreds of allied ships in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, while injured soldiers on the western front occasionally found themselves being tended to by nurses from the Japanese Red Cross’.
Moved along with an unhurried pace, never boring, always lucid and with some of the most fluid prose and the most serene voice I’ve encountered, Japan Story is not just a good read, it is a revelation.
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