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Election Day began with Dixville Notch, NH, reporting just after midnight for George Bush (as expected--when a Republican doesn't carry Dixville Notch, it's a long day ahead); and then, at 1.45am, a federal judge in South Dakota issuing a temporary injunction against GOP"poll watchers" on Indian reservations. In the 2002 SD Senate race, Democrat Tim Johnson was re-elected only by carrying a huge margin (upwards of 90%) in the Indian counties; Tom Daschle is counting on a similar performance tonight. And so the John Thune campaign launched a poll watching initiative of writing down license plate numbers of cars that drove Native Americans to the polls for early voting, and following Native Americans from polling.
This is a classic intimidation tactic against minorities, one that Lyndon Johnson experienced first-hand in 1964. For a sense of how some things have remained constant in American politics, the Miller Center has put together an audio exhibit of Johnson's reactions to such tactics in 1964.
RE Nganga: For Richard H. Morgan.
Your information on cimarron leader Nganga in Brazil peaks my interest, in that I have been writing about Gaspar Yanga, who led a maroon colony in Mexico 1570-1609 plus, and who has a city and county in his name today. It appears pretty certain that Yanga, aka, Nanga (with tilde on N), aka Nyanga, aka Yanga (with tilde on the Y) aka Naga (with tilde on the N), was from the Kingdom of Nyanga, that is mostly in present day Gabon, with a quarter in present day Congo. You mention that in the old Congo a Nganga a Nzumba was head of the billy goat cult, and that a Nganaga a Nzumbi was priest in charge of spiritual purity. Question: Would you know of a cult, or God, or priest position for someone named Yanga (or variation thereof) from the Gabon/Congo region of Nyanga?
I hope the answer is yes. That could enrich my mansucript "Gaspar Yanga and his Black Mexican Republic."
I am author of "The Legacy of Vicente Guerrero: Mexico's First Black Indian President" (University Press of Florida, 2001) and earlier works.
for more on Yanga you might check the large section on him in my web page http://members.aol.com/fsln
Theodore Vincent
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
And I too would go with KC, for similar reasons, without going so far as to claim to know that his knowledge is superior. That's my gripe. In academia, some residents of that place take on some aspects of an isolated primitive village. Cosmopolitanism doesn't reign, parochialism does. People offer assessments of others' states of knowledge without assessing it directly. Stillman Drake was not a trained historian, but even before he published a thing it would have been a mistake to claim to know that somebody knew more about Galileo than he did (his field had been insurance).
Same too with Peter Swales on Freud. And Wachterhauser the patent lawyer on the pyrite theory of the origin of life. Their biographies are irrelevant to an assessment of their knowledge, which can only be evaluated directly, and not by the proxy of publication. Anybody who claims the ability to evaluate a state of a persons' knowledge a priori has abandoned a key plank of the Enlightenment, and is batting his gums to no good purpose at all. I would simply add that by your criterion Garry Wills is a preferred source on the Second Amendment (testified to by any number of scholars in the Chicago-Kent publication), when in fact Wills doesn't know squat about guns, military history, or the Second Amendment. But betting on Wills would be the smart bet, without going so far as to claim to know that he knows more about the Second Amendment than your garbageman.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/2/2004
Richard, There's just no point in your getting yourself all worked up over this. I'm prepared to grant that you may know more than anyone else in the universe about Palmares. I could be wrong about that, but I'm not prepared to argue with you about whether it is true or not. The fact is that KC has a considerable reputation as a 20th century American political historian and has put that reputation at stake in publications. You haven't. I'll go with the published record in his case. You're just batting your gums on this one.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
And I refer you to the publications of Stuart Schwartz and Martin Klein touching on Palmares. Schwartz holds an endowed chair at Yale, and Klein a professor emeritus at Toronto, voted Africanist of the Year in 2001.
Yet both assert (or assume) that the Ganga Zumba of Palmares (and in the original sources) is in fact a corruption of the Imbangala priest from Angola, nganga a nzumbi [note the change in the trailing vowel], amd therefore (without noting their change from the original documents, or explaining why) they have Ganga Zumba transformed into Ganga Zumbi. That the posited corruption is unpatterned linguistically and is therefore unlikely is established by the fact that that other character, Zumbi (a distinct person), remains unchanged in spelling. Schwartz (in his book from Cambridge University Press, with Lockhart -- Early Latin America, p. 221) even goes so far as to call Ganga Zumbi the last leader of Palmares against the Portuguese -- a strange assertion since there is today in Brazil a National Day of Black Consciousness, which falls on the anniversary of the death of Zumbi, the last leader of Palmares (the date of Ganga Zumba's or Ganga Zumbi's death is unknown).
Now in the academic universe the evaluation of these rival claims would be decided, in the absence of any real knowledge about the subject (sort of like a claim to know my state of knowledge of LBJ's character), by histories of prior publication, and I have not published on Palmares.
Yet Schwartz's and Klein's error (Klein apparently relying on Schwartz) is easy enough to understand. Schwartz never dug deeper than Joseph Miller's study of the Imbangala, which mentions only the nganga a nzumbi. Had either read Cavazzi de Montecuccolo's Istorica Descrittione de Tre Regni Congo, Matamba e Angola (1687-90), upon which Miller in part draws, they would know there is a separate Imbangala priest, the nganga a nzumba (head of the billy-goat cult) to go along with the nganaga a nzumbi, the priest in charge of spiritual purity. Alas, they did not. And any number of people, relying on their credentials and publication history (and they are both good scholars, as far as I can tell), would bet they are right and believe them.
Or perhaps there are some who think Schwartz can draw strength from Reijmbach's expedition of 1645, which describes a king who kills witches (nganga a nzumbi?). But Ganga Zumba doesn't appear in the records until a document from the 1670's, so we can't know he was ruling in the 1640's, can we? Moreover, that document has Ganga Zumba living in the capital city, while the 1645 document has the un-named king living outside.
Certainly we know the Imbangala leader lived in the capital, though, which would seem to count against the 1645 document as establishing Imbangala rule or describing the nganga a nzumbi. And we don't know when the Imbangala arrived in Brazil -- there being no evidence dating to before the 1670's document mentioning Ganga Zumba.
Or do we? It has been a mystery, unsolved even by Schwartz, who had the good sense to see the relevance of Miller's work. Oops. Buried there in the footnotes in Miller is reference to a document establishing that Imbangala were shipped off to Brazil in 1655 -- too late for the 1645 expedition (another mystery that is unsolved in the literature because of quick reading and inattention to detail on a subject not central to the author's area -- a forgiveable error, in other words). On other matters, however, I find Schwartz excellent.
The capital of Palmares was named Macoco. R.K. Kent correctly traces Macoco to Makoko, from Loango. But he doesn't point out that Makoko was the Loango name for the king of the Tio (who called their king Moko-o), who supplied a majority of slaves to the Portuguese from the Malebo Pool area only perhaps through the 1550's. Interestingly, the Tio (if Jan Vansina is read and believed) had a king chosen on the basis of his power over witches (consistent with the 1645 document), who lived outside the Tio capital (!!). And Brazil had African slaves since at least the 1530's, and maroon societies generally popped up on the edges of plantation societies within 20 years of the introduction of slaves. The evidence points back to an origin of Palmares at least as far back as the 1550's (as Ennes nearly speculated), rather than the 1605 date preferred by Klein and Kent (relying, as they did, on explicit mention in the sources).
Now I would submit that isn't God you're sitting next to. If it were, you wouldn't have to rely on publication history to determine my level of knowledge on any subject, even LBJ. But if you persist in that view, I suggest you (and Tim Lambert) put your money where your mouthes are, and bet me that I can't possibly know more on a subject than a professor emeritus from the University of Toronto, and the holder of an endowed chair from Yale -- I'm similarly unpublished in that area, and two distinguished scholars would seem to trump even KC's presumptive superiority of knowledge. To play off of Dirty Harry: "Do you feel lucky?" Or should I say, "Do you feel divine"?
Ralph E. Luker -
11/2/2004
The altitude is high, I admit, but the company is splendid. I refer you to KC's publications which you can find listed on his webpage which is linked at the top of Cliopatria's masthead.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
I apologize, as I obviously missed your even-handed treatment of allegations. On the other hand, I still haven't figured out the source of confidence you seem to place in your ability to divine my reading. It has proven wrong so often in the past, yet your confidence continues unabated, as if immune to evidence -- or rather, perhaps, evidence is irrelevant.
As far as I can tell, the TRO is laughable. The judge formerly represented the plaintiff, and was nominated to the federal bench by the plaintiff, and he heard only one witness for the plaintiff -- a witness who construed a rolling of the eyes as an act of intimidation. In any other circumstances, the judge would be instantly recognized as Daschle's pet on a leash. But above the assertion of license plate recording is reported as though established, so you can understand perhaps my desire to augment the record with those messy pesky facts that don't accord with the story line chosen for the day.
I can't tell you just how unimpressed I am by your assertion that KC knows more than I do about LBJ's character. Do you get ever get nosebleeds sitting so high up at the right hand of God?
Ralph E. Luker -
11/2/2004
If you bothered yourself to read what is posted here, rather than dutifully report back to us what you find out over at Freeperville, you'd know that I cautioned several of my colleagues about taking reports of voter intimidation uncritically and you'd know that KC Johnson actually knows considerably more than you do about the peculiar flaws in Lyndon Johnson's character.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
PS
BTW, your time frame is off, once again. I posted the Philadelphia story before it was reported that Abraham had investigated. I then posted that she had investigated. I call that intellectual honesty. If you aspire to that, you might check time signatures in the future before casting aspersions.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
Just as contributors to this site can link to unsubstantiated charges against Republicans -- curiously without any sign of disapproval from you. What I most appreciate is the richness of LBJ on election irregularities. Apart from the fact that he was a crook and a pathological liar, I don't think I'd be quoting LBJ on voting irregularities unless I was writing a How To book.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/2/2004
But you can keep on repeating it.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
I don't think so. In fact, as we speak, Karl Rove is working on a project to clone Adolph Hitler in preparation for running him as a GOP candidate (seems as plausible as Rove engineering the Bin Laden tape).
BTW, Lynn Abraham, the Philadelphia DA has already declared the Philadelphia story a non-story. She could be right. Then again, she refused to prosecute Teamster thugs for beating up a Republican (it was all caught on tape) -- and then turned around and prosecuted the victim for attacking a group of Teamster thugs (yeah, that's the ticket -- this 165lb guy decided to take on a group of Teamster knuckledraggers). You can't make this stuff up.
Ralph E. Luker -
11/2/2004
Jeez, Richard, us Republicans are just paragons of virtue by comparison with these dirty Democrats, ain't we.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
PS
There's an interesting story over at Drudge. Seems that voting machines in Philadelphia had close to 2000 votes already planted on them when polls opened this morning. Those evil Republicans. If Walter Cronkite is right and Karl Rove engineered the latest Bin Laden tape, then surely he is behind this too.
Richard Henry Morgan -
11/2/2004
Through instapundit there is a link to a site reporting on Daschle v. Thune. Seems Daschle couldn't produce a single Indian to testify he was intimidated. Intead, they provided a Howard Dean lawyer from Iowa who was parachuted in. He complained that observers "rolled their eyes", and this was intimidation. There was no report whether loud noises made him pee his pants.
Seems the judge in the case represented Daschle some time back in an election case, and Daschle promoted his prospects for the bench. BTW, an appeals court in Ohio has apparently reversed the overreaching federal district judges.
