I have been a writer for years, mainly as a reporter, but I have always enjoyed history, especially non-mainstream stories buried inside old documents. My blog mostly centers around those stories. On occasion, though, I deviate and talk about my dog, vintage toys and what it's like to be middle-aged.
I was both disappointed and thankful when was unable to listen to Holocaust survivor Eva Kor speak at a nearby university. I was attending the event with my niece and her son, and when my niece asked if I thought the auditorium would hold everyone, I said, I can’t see it being sold out (an odd term, I know, for a free event).
But, was I wrong. Not only was the auditorium filled to capacity, bystanders told us the overflow room was also full. When we entered the building, a long line could be seen in the hallway. Even a handful of people were sitting in the lobby, hoping to somehow get in.
So, why would I be thankful?
Since I write and read so much about the American political scene, it is easy to become cynical and start to think that beliefs espoused by demagogues like Donald Trump – whose speeches and ideas, Holocaust survivors say, are eerily similar to Hitler’s – have truly become mainstream. But such a large turnout indicates, to me, that people are still drawn to stories of strength, survival and forgiveness.
Of course the disappointment lies in the fact I did not get to hear Kor speak. Her life is an incredible journey and story. At Auschwitz, Eva and her twin sister, Miriam, were singled out and used as human guinea pigs simply because they were twins. The experiments were conducted under the direction of Dr. Josef Mengele and most of the 3000 children involved died as a result of the ordeal.
Before being subjected to that cruelty, the twins had already experienced emotional pain and upheaval when they were separated from their father and two older sisters. Later their mother was also killed.
In 1978, the twins undertook a quest to locate other surviving twins and six years later, Eva established CANDLES, Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors – in Terre Haute, Indiana. Besides establishing CANDLES, Eva has authored two books.
In the classic 90s comedy Seinfeld, Kramer reprimands Jerry Seinfeld for Jerry’s callous, off-handed remark about ‘those people’ — the dentists. Kramer, misinformed as always, launches into a tirade telling Jerry that ‘those people’ came to this country ‘in search of a dream’ like everyone else.
That ‘search’ is referenced often throughout our country’s history, but in the beginning, for some it was more of a choice between bad or worse. This is especially true for immigrants that landed in the Virginia Colony.
Peter Clavell, 1664
As I have written before, Peter Clavell, the first Claywell in my family tree to live in North America, was an indentured servant. Research by the late Charles Clayville, Jr. offers the following sketch of Peter.
The first reference to Peter Clavell’s arrival in the New World appears on the Certificates and Rights. In 1664 he was an Indentured Servant according to a land patent to Southey Littleton in Accomack County, Virginia. …Peter probably did not arrive directly from England. They transported him from Jamestown, Virginia where Southey had purchased or traded Peter’s headright from a ship’s captain. To pay for his transportation, Peter agreed to work (be indentured) as an unpaid servant to Southey for five years.
What is Indentured Servitude?
Although significantly less harsh, in many ways indentured servitude is similar to slavery. Immigrants typically became indentured because they could not pay for — part or all of — their passage to North America. Most of these servants ended up in the Virginia Colony.
Since the colony was a business venture – and laborers were needed to produce a profit– the Virginia Company of London advertised and marketed extensively in England for recruits. When they failed to secure enough laborers, convicts were accepted and some people, even children, were kidnapped and delivered to Virginia.
But, the company also created the headright system. It was one of the first examples on North American soil of a potentially good idea gone bad. As the Library of Virginia points out,
As a result of the abuses and of the transferable nature of the headrights, the system, which may have been intended initially to promote settlement and ownership of small plots of land by numerous immigrants, resulted in the accumulation of large tracts of land by a small number of merchants, shippers, and early land speculators.
Since the system effectively concentrated two-thirds of the land into the hands of the wealthiest 10 percent, the imbalance of wealth meant indentured servants were near the bottom of the food chain. The bottom being held by slaves. Being so far down the social ladder meant the servants had very limited legal rights.
An indentured servant was legally considered his master’s chattel. This meant the servant could be bought and sold, he could be passed along through an inheritance and he could be rented out. Unlike a slave, though, an indentured servant could own property, but like a slave, he could not vote. The master was legally permitted to beat the servant for certain offenses and the servant could not marry without the master’s permission.
The inability to legally marry (without their master’s consent) led to a societally-imposed celibacy, but also led to a significantly higher rate of children born out of wedlock than in the other colonies.
I’ve Got To Get Out Of This Place
Unmarried women, were publically flogged for bearing a child, but not so much because it was considered morally wrong, but because of the time ‘stolen’ from their master during childbirth and childrearing. Although illegitimacy was high in Virginia, the most common crime committed by indentured servants was running away.
To curtail this situation, an extremely lopsided system of punishment evolved. At first, individuals convicted of running away, would be required to extend their contract by twice the number of days lost. So, if a person escaped for a month, their servitude was lengthened by two months. Eventually, it became so uneven, that in Maryland, the punishment was a 10-to-1 ratio – or 10 months for every month the servant was gone. One unfortunate female servant’s contract was extended by 15 years, according to Hofstadter.
Upward Mobility: The American Dream
One of the tenets of Americanism is that people settled here for a chance to improve their lot in life. The reality, especially in Virginia, was many were forced to emigrate. However, even those who did choose to come as indentured servants faced considerable odds of climbing up out of their impoverished beginnings.
Hofstadter notes,
The Horatio Alger mythology has long since been torn to bits by students of American social mobility, and it will surprise no one to learn that the chance of emergence from indentured servitude to a position of wealth or renown was statistically negligible…. For a great many the journey across the Atlantic proved in the end to have been only an epitome of their journey through life. …They had so often left a scene of turbulence, crime, exploitation and misery that there could not have been much hope in most of them…few could have expected very much from American life.
Beating The Odds
Peter, based on Clayville’s findings, was one of the lucky ones that did enjoy some upward mobility. It appears he was granted 50 acres of land after his contract was fulfilled (which was customary) and Peter went on to purchase a couple hundred acres. Clayville’s research also states,
Sometime around 1682, Peter married Elizabeth Selby, a daughter of a large landowner Thomas Selby, Sr. Thomas in 1666, patented 1250 acres in the Bogerernorton Hundred which is now part of Worcester County, Maryland.
Ten years later, in February, 1692, Peter died and bequeathed the land to Elizabeth. The land was eventually divided among their three sons: Peter, Selby and Thomas.
A Christian Nation And Slavery
One of the blights on our country’s past is slavery. It was introduced in the Virginia Colony more than 40 years before Peter arrived. In all likelihood, Peter work side-by-side with slaves in the tobacco fields.
Despite claims that America began as a Christian nation, the ‘we are all brothers’ precepts of Jesus did not apply to slaves. During this era, in England, slaves who converted to Christianity could be freed, but that idea just didn’t fly here. To keep recently converted slaves under their master’s control, beginning in 1664, the year Peter arrived, the Colonies passed laws preventing emancipation even for the converted.
Getting an accurate source of information is difficult in the United States. Although news organizations seldom hide their political slant anymore parsing out the truth from the various agencies is, even for the most diligent viewer, a difficult task. Some even claim fact-checking sites are biased.
But it was a singular TV event that launched our modern world of pundit TV – the concept of bringing on two guests with opposing viewpoints onto a show — and then asking questions designed to create to lively debate. It makes for great TV since the guests are usually entertaining.
The beginning of this modern news approach is captured in the film Best of Enemies. The film is currently available on Netflix.
A Year Of Turmoil
The year is 1968 – one of the most critical, turning points in modern American history – and the players on the stage are two intellectual men – one from the left, author Gore Vidal, and one from the right, William Buckley Jr., founder and editor of the National Review.
Setting The Stage
The film is built around a series of debates that ABC news held during the GOP and Democrat presidential conventions in 1968. ABC was the third ranking TV company in the country – and a very low-ranking third at best. Since they could not compete with CBS or NBC – they decided to abort the standard approach of gavel-to-gavel convention coverage and try something new. They invited Buckley and Vidal to commentate on the conventions. What unfolded on camera was the increasing disgust the men felt for each other.
Behind The Scenes
If the film only covered the debates, it would quickly mire in a he said-he said event that most Americans have grown accustomed to. But the film also pulls in the events of 1968 – like the police brutality in Chicago and the changing rhetoric and language concerning race – and provides biographical sketches of the two men. Buckley, of course, largely through his publication is credited with creating the Ronald Reagan constituency while Vidal became one of the most provocative and successful novelists of his generation. Both men were well-connected with high ranking politicians including presidents. Both men viewed the other as the personification of everything that was wrong in the United States.
Hatred Explodes On Air
The climax of the film is the final debate between the two men. An exchange becomes very heated during a discussion concerning the police brutality in Chicago. The confrontation quickly moves from politics to personal when Vidal calls Buckley a crypto-Nazi and Buckley comes unglued. After calling Vidal a [expletive] queer Buckley threatens to punch Vidal. All of this unfolds on live TV – relatively tame by today’s standards.
In The End
The men continued to spar publically after the incident — both writing print pieces about the meltdown — and Buckley filed a defamation suit against Vidal over Vidal’s article. Vidal filed a countersuit. After the event, Buckley launched a successful TV show and Vidal continued to write — although his fame began to falter in the 1980s.
Who Should Watch It?
If you are not interested in political theory and the forces that create it, then don’t watch the film. However, if you are interested in how TV news became pundit-based, it’s worth watching. The film looks at how a ABS’s desire to improve ratings forever changed the way Americans received their news.
Rated 4 out of 5
Although I am not a Buckley fan, I did feel that the film was slanted somewhat against him and his position. But, in the film’s defense, Buckley is not necessarily a likeable person. In live footage, he comes across as arrogant, conceited and, in general, very unpleasant with a condescending attitude. Vidal, on the other hand, in the live footage is more polished, but it did appear (I did not count minutes) that Vidal was given more time (via interviews) to expound on his belief that Buckley’s ideology was undermining and destroying the democratic process in America.
Although this site began as a repository for American history stories, over time it essentially became a 'brain dump.' For more than a year, I've used the site to work through my beliefs and opinions in this post-truth era of political illiteracy.
I was both disappointed and thankful when was unable to listen to Holocaust survivor Eva Kor speak at a nearby university. I was attending the event with my niece and her son, and when my niece asked if I thought the auditorium would hold everyone, I said, I can’t see it being sold out (an odd term, I know, for a free event).
Richard Hofstadter explains what it meant to be an indentured servant.
Charlie R. Claywell 