However acceptable punitive raids may have been in the Middle East, analogous actions in post-war Ireland did not impress some Connaught Ranger veterans of the Mesopotamia campaign. Impelled by the British counter-insurgency campaign in Ireland, elements of the 1st Connaught Rangers mutinied in June 1920. The rebels struck the Union flag at their outpost on … Read more
Protestant lecturers such as Alessandro Gavazzi and ‘Baron’ De Camin became minor celebrities and regularly featured in the British press, touring throughout the country. Despite the focus on Rome and papal hierarchy professed by the majority of lecturers, and the apparent concern for the ‘misled’ and ‘abused’ Roman Catholic, public organisation and championing of such … Read more
John Lee (né Fiott) (1783–1866) was the son of London merchant John Fiott and Harriet Lee of Totteridge Park, Hertfordshire. In 1815, the death of his maternal uncle and guardian William Lee Antonie brought a favourable bequest and a stipulation that he take his mother’s surname. Thereafter Lee divided his time between attending to his … Read more
Aside from serving white supremacist agendas, the ‘white slave’ narrative has been equally problematic in its exploitation of the ‘Redlegs’ of Barbados. The ‘poor whites’ that currently reside along the east coast of Barbados have been presented as a living fossil of the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland. Television documentaries, works of fiction and non-fiction, radio … Read more
The reluctance to differentiate between indentured servitude and perpetual chattel slavery in these contexts gives succour to ahistorical types, such as neo-Nazis, 9/11 Truthers and White Nationalists. Their propaganda includes a conspiracy theory claiming that historians avoid calling indentured servants ‘slaves’ for political reasons. They protest that historians are not to be trusted and that … Read more