EXPEDITION AFRICA: STANLEY & LIVINGSTONE -REAL LIFE DANGERS
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Sir Henry Morton Stanley
Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands (28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904), was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Stanley is often remembered for the words uttered to Livingstone upon finding him: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?", although there is some question as to authenticity of this now famous greeting.
Stanley was born in Denbigh, Wales. At the time, his mother, Elizabeth Parry, was 19 years old. According to Stanley himself, his father, John Rowlands, was an alcoholic; there is some doubt as to his true parentage. His parents were unmarried, so his birth certificate refers to him as a bastard and the stigma of illegitimacy weighed heavily upon him all his life. He was brought up by his grandfather until the age of five. When his guardian died, Stanley stayed at first with cousins and nieces for a short time, but was eventually sent to St. Asaph Union Workhouse for the poor, where overcrowding and lack of supervision resulted in frequent abuse by the older boys. When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were. He stayed until the age of 15. After completing an elementary education, he was employed as a pupil teacher in a National School. In 1859, at the age of 18, he made his passage to the United States in search of a new life. Upon arriving in New Orleans, he absconded from his boat. According to his own declarations, he became friendly with a wealthy trader named Stanley, by accident: he saw Stanley sitting on a chair outside his store and asked him if he had any job opening for a person such as himself. However, he did so in the British style, "Do you want a boy, sir?" As it happened, the childless man had indeed been wishing he had a boy of his own, and the inquiry led not only to a job, but to a close relationship. The youth ended up taking Stanley's name. Later, he would write that his adoptive parent had died only two years after their meeting, but in fact the elder Stanley did not die until much later in 1878. In any case, young Stanley assumed a local accent and began to deny being a foreigner.
Stanley participated reluctantly in the American Civil War, first joining the Confederate Army participating in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. After being taken prisoner he promptly deserted and joined the Union. He served in the Navy but eventually deserted again.
Following the Civil War, Stanley began a career as a journalist. As part of this new career, Stanley organised an expedition to the Ottoman Empire that ended catastrophically when Stanley was imprisoned. He eventually talked his way out of jail and even received restitution for damaged expedition equipment. This early expedition may have formed the foundation for his eventual exploration of the Congo region of Africa.
Stanley's graffiti at Persepolis, Iran
In 1867, Stanley was recruited by Colonel Samuel Forster Tappan (a one-time journalist) of the Indian Peace Commission, to serve as a correspondent to cover the work of the Commission for several newspapers. Stanley was soon retained exclusively by James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872), founder of the New York Herald, who was impressed by Stanley's exploits and by his direct style of writing. This early period of his professional life is described in Volume I of his book My Early Travels and Adventures in America and Asia (1895). He became one of the Herald's overseas correspondents and, in 1869, was instructed by Bennett's son to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was known to be in Africa but had not been heard from for some time. According to Stanley's account, he asked James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841-1918), who had succeeded to the paper's management after his father's retirement in 1867, how much he could spend. The reply was "Draw £1,000 now, and when you have gone through that, draw another £1,000, and when that is spent, draw another £1,000, and when you have finished that, draw another £1,000, and so on — BUT FIND LIVINGSTONE!" In actuality, Stanley had lobbied his employer for several years to mount this expedition that would presumably give him fame and fortune.
Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871 and outfitted an expedition with the best of everything, requiring no fewer than 200 porters. This 700-mile expedition through the tropical forest became a nightmare. His thoroughbred stallion died within a few days after a bite from a Tsetse fly, many of his carriers deserted and the rest were decimated by tropical diseases. To keep the expedition going, he had to take stern measures, including flogging deserters. In fairness to Stanley, it should be noted that harsh treatment of carriers was not uncommon. Many missionaries of the day practiced tactics no less brutal than his, and Stanley's diaries show that he had in fact exaggerated the brutal treatment of his carriers in his books to pander to the taste of his Victorian public. Articles examining Stanley's treatment of indigenous porters help refute his reputation as a brutal criminal.
In 1874, the New York Herald, in partnership with Britain's Daily Telegraph, financed Stanley on another expedition to the African continent. One of his missions was to solve a last great mystery of African exploration by tracing the course of the River Congo to the sea. The difficulty of this expedition is hard to overstate. Stanley used sectional boats to pass the great cataracts separating the Congo into distinct tracts. After 999 days, on August 9, 1877, Stanley reached a Portuguese outpost at the mouth of the River Congo. Starting with 356 people, only 114 had survived of which Stanley was the only European.
He wrote about his trials in his book Through the Dark Continent.
Claiming the Congo for the Belgian king
Stanley was approached by the ambitious Belgian king Leopold II, who in 1876 had organised a private holding company disguised as an international scientific and philanthropic association, which he called the International African Society. The king spoke of his intentions to introduce Western civilization and to bring religion to this part of Africa, but didn't mention he wanted to claim the lands. Stanley returned to the Congo, negotiated with tribal chiefs and obtained fair concessions (that were later falsified to his advantage by the king). But Stanley refused to impose treaties on the chiefs that would cede sovereignty over their lands. He built new roads to open the country, but this also gave advantage to the slave traders. When Stanley discovered that the king had other plans, he still remained on his payroll.
In later years, he spent much energy defending himself against charges that his African expeditions had been marked by callous violence and brutality. Stanley's opinion was that "the savage only respects force, power, boldness, and decision." Stanley would eventually be held responsible for a number of deaths and was indirectly responsible for helping establish the rule of Léopold II of Belgium over the Congo Free State. In addition, the spread of African trypanosomiasis across central Africa is attributed to the movements of Stanley's enormous baggage train and the Emin Pasha relief expedition.
Fact : In April 2004 a unknown group cut of the arm of one of the Congolese persons on a monument called "Gratitude Of the Congolese" made to the honour of the Belgium king Leopold II .
They faxed a message to a number of newspapers saying that the arm would be restituted on condition that the inscription beside the statue be replaced by a picture that the atrocities of Leopold II in the Congo shows.
The policy of Leopold II resulted, at least in the core areas of rubber production (including in the north-west along the Congo-stream), from which a terror regime, characterized by forced labor and brutal repression emerged. Workers who did not fulfill the required quota or fled the brutal forced labor were severely punished, often abused - the chopping off of hands to - or even summarily executed.
The brutal disruption of the targeted communities to harvest and hunting in the area of the equatorial forest also led to a sharp decline in birth rate, while the rapid spread of previously local or imported from the West drove up disease mortality. Estimates of the total number of victims vary considerably. The British diplomat Roger Casement has about three million during a period of twelve years. Peter Forbath mentions at least five million. Adam Hochschild speaks of ten million and the Encyclopædia Britannica speaks of a total population decline from twenty to thirty million to eight million. Such figures are impossible to substantiate because data on population in the 19th century Congo largely lacking. Leopold II ruled Belgian Congo for 23 years.
Emin Pasha Relief Expedition
In 1886, Stanley led the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to "rescue" Emin Pasha, the governor of Equatoria in the southern Sudan. King Leopold II demanded that Stanley take the longer route, via the Congo river, hoping to acquire more territory and perhaps even Equatoria. After immense hardships and great loss of life, Stanley met Emin in 1888, discovered the Ruwenzori Range and Lake Edward, and emerged from the interior with Emin and his surviving followers at the end of 1890. (Turnbull, 1983) But this expedition tarnished Stanley's name because of the conduct of the other Europeans: British gentlemen and army officers. An army major was shot by a carrier, after behaving with extreme cruelty. James Jameson, heir to an Irish whiskey manufacturer, bought an eleven-year old girl and offered her to cannibals to document and sketch how she was cooked and eaten. Stanley only found out when Jameson had died of fever. Previous expeditions had given Stanley satisfaction, but this one only had caused disaster.
On his return to Europe, he married Welsh artist Dorothy Tennant, and they adopted a child, Denzil. Stanley entered Parliament as Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North, serving from 1895 to 1900. He became Sir Henry Morton Stanley when he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1899, in recognition of his service to the British Empire in Africa. He died in London on 10 May 1904; at his funeral, he was eulogised by Daniel P. Virmar. His grave, in the churchyard of St. Michael's Church in Pirbright, Surrey, is marked by a large piece of granite inscribed with the words "Henry Morton Stanley, Bula Matari, 1841-1904, Africa". (Bula Matari, or "Breaker of Rocks" in Kikongo, was Stanley's name among Africans in Congo.) It can be translated as a term of endearment: for as the leader of Leopold's expedition, he commonly worked with the labourers breaking rocks with which they built the first modern road along the Congo River.
More on Sir Henry Morton Stanley , It is also home to the entire archives of Henry Morton Stanley, which are of great historical value Royal Africa Museum.be
The series expedition Africa retracing the steps of Stanley : Expedition Africa
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Toussaint L'ouverture
François-Dominique Toussaint L'ouverture pronunciation (help·info), also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture (May 20, 1743–April 8, 1803) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born in Saint Domingue, in a long struggle for independence Toussaint led enslaved Africans to victory over Europeans, abolished slavery, and secured native control over the colony in 1797 while nominally governor of the colony. He expelled the French commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, as well as the British armies; invaded Santo Domingo to free the slaves there; and wrote a constitution naming himself governor-for-life that established a new polity for the colony.He was called "The Black George Washington"
Especially between the years 1800 and 1802, Toussaint L'ouverture tried to rebuild the collapsed economy of Haiti and reestablish commercial contacts with the United States and Great Britain. His rule permitted the colony a taste of freedom which, after his death in exile, was gradually destroyed during the successive reigns of a series of despots. Translated from French, his name means "the awakening of all saints" or "all souls rising". His last words were to his son in France, "My boy, you will one day go back to St. Domingo; forget that France murdered your father.”
Toussaint L'Ouverture was born into slavery in the Plaine du Nord of what was then Saint-Domingue. He was born on the Bréda plantation of Bayon de Libertat, near Cap Français. Tradition says that his father was an African named Gaou-Guinou and probably a member of the Arada ethnic group. His father was an African chief. Toussaint Breda was lucky enough to be educated and to be literate. He read widely in French literature of the Enlightenment. He worked as a carriage driver and horse trainer on the plantation. His master freed him at age 33, when Toussaint married Suzanne. He was a fervent Catholic, and a member of high degree of the Masonic Lodge of Saint-Domingue. In 1791 slaves in the Plaine du Nord rose in rebellion. Different forces coalesced under different leaders. Toussaint served with other leaders and rose in responsibility. On April 4, 1792, the French Legislative Assembly extended full rights of citizenship to free people of color or mulattoes (gens de couleur libres) and free blacks. In Saint-Domingue, this policy was resisted by many white colonists, although France sent three Commissioners to enforce it. Among them Sonthonax was the most radical, creating a bureaucracy of mulattoes at Le Cap in the North.
After the execution of Louis XVI, in early 1793 France went to war against Great Britain and Spain. As unrest and racial war continued to disrupt Saint-Domingue's institutions, Toussaint joined the Spanish army of Santo Domingo to find a way to end slavery. In August Sonthonax proclaimed emancipation for slaves in the north, where Toussaint and his allies were fighting; his fellow commissioners announced emancipation of slaves in the West and South, but the invasion by British troops in September overshadowed these changes. In 1793 Toussaint adopted as a surname his nickname of Louverture and used that as his full signature from then on.
By early 1794 Toussaint Louverture was able to organize 4,000 blacks (with some white and mulatto officers) into a band of loyal guerrilla troops, as he was a gifted, although untrained, leader and military strategist, and he used elements of western discipline for his troops. It was not until February 1794 that the French Convention formally abolished slavery. Toussaint negotiated with General Laveaux and changed sides in May 1794. He then fought against the Spanish, recovering all the forts of the Cordon de L'Ouest in less than two weeks and "delivering" the North to the French Republic. He also fought against the English.
By 1795, Toussaint controlled most of two provinces. His two lieutenants Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe were extremely effective. Toussaint's success drove André Rigaud, a man of color leading forces in the southwest, to renew his attacks from where free people of color were concentrated in Port au Prince. Rigaud controlled a force of officers of color and black troops, who controlled the South.
General Maitland meets Toussaint to discuss the secret treatyBy June 1795, the British had been driven back to the coast. In July the Spanish officially withdrew. Although the British continued to fight from coastal towns, Toussaint maintained his control over the North and West of Saint-Domingue. In May 1797 Sonthonax named Toussaint Louverture commander-in-chief of the French republican army in Saint Domingue.
He was also successful in leading his relatively small band of troops (in lightning quick strikes and using diplomacy) to gain strategic defeats and the withdrawal of an army of 10,000 British soldiers. In 1798, the British made a last-ditch attempt to oust Louverture by attacking from the South, sending General Thomas Maitland. Maitland failed and signed a secret treaty to make Toussaint Louverture to leave the ports open to commercial shipping of all nations. The British withdrew from the colony.
The British left Saint-Domingue completely in October 1798, but General Hedouville worked at increasing competition between Rigaud and Toussaint for control. Rigaud did not want to give up portions of the Western Department which he had taken over. Toussaint appointed Jean-Jacques Dessalines to govern the South after his defeat of Rigaud in July 1800. He took extremely severe reprisals against the mulatto population, crushing the resistance and allegedly killing 10,000 men, women and children. After years of warfare and outrages, Dessalines' brutality left bitterness among people of color. By 1800, Toussaint had subordinated all remaining colored forces.
In 1801 the Spanish capitulated to Toussaint Louverture, ceding the remainder of the island to his forces. He proclaimed the abolition of slavery in Santo Domingo. After this in July he proclaimed a new constitution which named him governor for life.
French Revolution and rebellion in Saint-Domingue
News of the French Revolution of 1789 and the message of Liberté, égalité, fraternité reached Saint-Domingue by 1790, and had a powerful impact on the island. French soldiers landing at Port-au-Prince joined blacks and people of color in brotherly union. They announced that the National Assembly in France had declared all men free and equal. It did not take long for the ideas of Enlightenment philosophy to spread through the island. When white planters failed to honor the promises made by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, widespread slave uprisings took place throughout the North.
Toussaint did not participate in the ill-fated campaign organized by Vincent Ogé, a wealthy free man of color. The revolt took place in October 1790 and tried to assert the voting rights of free people of color but it was brutally crushed by colonial forces. The following year in August a slave revolt broke out in the Northern Province. Toussaint found himself wavering. He worked as a servant and carriage driver on the plantation where he had grown up.
Initially, Toussaint was against the widespread destruction and bloodshed which was being unleashed by the rebels. Toussaint spent many months keeping his master’s slaves in order and preventing revolutionary laborers from setting fire to the plantation. It became clear that all white people were threatened. As the insurrection grew, Toussaint helped his master’s family to escape, sent his own family away to a safe spot in Spanish Santo Domingo, and made his way to the camp of rebel slaves. As a mature man near 50, he soon discerned the ineptitude of the rebel leaders and their willingness to compromise with white radicals.
Toussaint's important position as a free-black coachman allowed him to serve as a link between the white plantation masters and the rebelling slaves. He also managed to obtain a pass from the governor which allowed him to travel from plantation to plantation and spread revolutionary ideas (although he was careful to keep his participation hidden from the white authorities).[6] Toussaint's prominence grew among revolutionary leaders until he became the movement's undisputed leader. His famous Declaration of Camp Turel on August 29th, 1793 serves as proof that his ideas would serve as a template for a future independent Saint-Domingue. Specifically, he called for a military state to preserve absolute freedom for all citizens.
Scorning these and using his ample experience in administration and leadership, Toussaint quickly gathered a following and trained his followers in tactics of guerrilla warfare but also insisted on discipline and order. In 1793, he became an aide to Georges Biassou. He rose rapidly in rank. The army of blacks proved successful against the yellow fever-ravaged and poorly led European troops.
After the execution of Louis XVI and the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, when France went to war against Great Britain and Spain, numerous black commanders of the North joined the Spanish-led army of Santo Domingo against the French. Knighted and recognized as a general, Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military ability and attracted renowned warriors such as his nephew Moïse and two future monarchs of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe. It was then that he gained the nickname L'Ouverture ("opening"), which he adopted but always spelled Louverture[8]. He exploited openings in the defenses of the opposition. Later that year, the British gained control of most of the coastal settlements of Saint-Domingue, including Port-au-Prince.
Toussaint Louverture's victories in the North of Saint-Domingue, together with independent successes by people of color in the South and British occupation of the coasts, brought the French close to disaster. In 1793, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel, representatives of the French revolutionary government in Paris, offered freedom to slaves who would join them as they struggled to defeat counter-revolutionaries and fight the foreign invaders. On February 4, 1794, the largely Jacobin National Convention in Paris confirmed the orders of emancipation, which abolished slavery in all territories of the French Republic.
In May of 1794, Toussaint Louverture decided to ally with the French, justifying his decision by the failures of Spain and Britain to free slaves. He declared that he had become a republican (after being a royalist). Toussaint Louverture has been criticized for such treatment of his former allies, as well as for mass slaughter of Spanish troops. Toussaint Louverture’s switch was decisive in France's regaining control over Saint-Domingue.
Étienne Laveaux, the governor of Saint-Domingue, made Toussaint Louverture Général de Brigade. He succeeded in causing the British to suffer severe reverses; and expelled the Spaniards. Under Toussaint Louverture's increasingly influential leadership, the French army of black, mixed-race, and white soldiers defeated the British and Spanish forces. Toussaint Louverture's army won seven battles in one week against the Spanish forces in May of 1794 and recovered the forts of the Cordon de L'Oeust. He also fought against the uprising of Pinchinat, a leader who was a gen de couleur or mulatto.
Toussaint's views toward the French mother country can be regarded as somewhat ambivalent. He was very much alarmed by Napoleon’s plans for the colonies of France. Napoleon had made it clear to the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue that France would draw up a new constitution for its colonies, in which they would be subjected to special laws . Toussaint faced a dilemma. He recognized Napoleon's superior military strength coupled with his ambitions to restore slavery, yet he had sworm to protect the freedom of the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue. Thus he pursued a strategy of appeasement in which he sought to retain connections with France. In Toussaint's Constitution of 1801, Article 3 states: “There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French." . Toussaint was also willing to compromise the dominant Vaudou faith for Catholicism. Article 6 clearly states that “the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman faith shall be the only publicly professed faith.”
Campaign in support of the French Revolution
By 1795, Toussaint Louverture was widely renowned. He was revered by the blacks and appreciated by most whites and people of color for helping restore the economy of Saint-Domingue. He invited many émigré planters to return, as he knew their management and technical expertise was needed to restore the economy and generate revenues. He used military discipline to force former slaves to work as laborers to get the plantations running again. He believed that people were naturally flawed and that discipline was needed to prevent idleness. He no longer permitted the laborers to be whipped. They were legally free and equal, and they shared the profits of the restored plantations. Racial tensions eased because Toussaint preached reconciliation and believed that for the blacks, a majority of whom were native Africans, there were lessons to be learned from whites and people of color, among whom many men had been educated in France and often trained in the military.
The French governor Laveaux left Saint-Domingue in 1796. He was succeeded by Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, an extremist French commissioner who had served on the island before. He allowed Toussaint Louverture to effectively rule and promoted him to Général de Division. Toussaint was repelled by this radical's proposals to exterminate all Europeans. He found Sonthonax's atheism, coarseness, and immorality offensive. After some maneuvering, Toussaint Louverture forced Sonthonax out in 1797.
Next to go were the British, whose losses caused them to negotiate secretly with Toussaint Louverture. Treaties in 1798 and 1799 secured their complete withdrawal. Toussaint Louverture promoted lucrative trade with Great Britain and the United States. In return for arms and goods, Toussaint Louverture sold sugar and promised not to invade Jamaica and the American South. The British offered to recognize him as king of an independent Saint-Domingue. Distrusting the British because they maintained slavery, he refused. The British withdrew from Saint-Domingue in 1798.
Toussaint Louverture soon rid himself of another nominal French superior, Gabriel Hédouville, who arrived in 1798 as representative of the Directoire government of France. Aware that France had no chance of restoring colonialism as long as the war with Great Britain continued, Hédouville tried to pit Toussaint Louverture against André Rigaud, the leader of color who ruled a semi-independent state in the South. Toussaint Louverture, however, figured out his purpose and forced Hédouville to flee.
Hédouville was succeeded by Philippe Roume, who deferred to the black governor. Toussaint Louverture eliminated Rigaud by a bloody campaign in October 1799 that forced him to flee to France. His state led by people of color was conquered. Jean-Jacques Dessalines carried out a purge in the South so brutal that reconciliation with people of color was impossible. Many refugees fled the country, including thousands who went to New Orleans, Louisiana and added to both the free people of color and African populations there.
On May 22, 1799, Toussaint Louverture signed a trading treaty with the British and the Americans. In the United States, Alexander Hamilton was a strong supporter. However, after Thomas Jefferson became President in 1801, he reversed the friendly American policy.
Once he had control over all of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture turned to Spanish Santo Domingo, where slavery persisted. The colony never had the scale of slavery as in St. Domingue, however, and plantation agriculture was not widespread. Ignoring the commands of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had become first consul of France, Toussaint Louverture overran the Spanish settlement in January 1801, officially took control on the 24th, and freed the slaves.
Toussaint Louverture drafted a committee to write a constitution for the united island. This took effect on July 7, 1801 and established his own authority across the whole island of Hispaniola.
Leclerc's campaign and Louverture's captivity
In command of the entire island, Toussaint Louverture dictated a constitution that made him governor-general for life with near absolute powers. Catholicism was made the state religion, and many revolutionary principles received ostensible sanction. There was no provision for officials from France; however, Toussaint Louverture professed himself a Frenchman and strove to convince Bonaparte of his loyalty. He wrote to Napoleon, "From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites." Bonaparte confirmed Toussaint Louverture’s position but considered him an obstacle to the restoration of Saint-Domingue as a profitable colony, which refugee planters had convinced him needed enslaved labor.
Denying that he was trying to reinstate slavery, Napoleon sent his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc with thousands of troops and numerous warships to regain French control of the island in 1802.Napoleon also entrusted him the children of Toussaint, with a letter for their father, in which he assured Toussaint of his respect and praised his previous behaviour: " If the French pavilion, still floats on Santo Domingo, it is to you and to your valiant blacks that he owes it; having called by your talents and the force of circumstances in the first command, you destroyed civil war, restored in honour religion and worship of God, from whom everything emanates; the constitution which you made contains many good things, but it also contains things who are opposite to respectability and to sovereignty of the French people. "
Leclerc landed on the island on January 20 and moved against Toussaint Louverture. Over the following months, Toussaint Louverture's troops fought against the French; but some of his officers defected to join Leclerc. Others joined chief black leaders like Dessalines and Christophe. On May 7, 1802, Toussaint Louverture signed a treaty with the French in Cap-Haïtien, with the condition that there would be no return to slavery.
He retired to his farm in Ennery. After three weeks, Leclerc sent troops to seize Toussaint Louverture and his family. He deported them as captives to France on a warship, claiming that he suspected the former leader of plotting an uprising. They reached France on July 2. On August 25, 1802, Toussaint Louverture was sent to the jail Fort-de-Joux in Doubs.
He was confined there and interrogated repeatedly. He died of pneumonia in April 1803. A plaque in his memory can be found in the Panthéon in Paris.
Historical significance
Toussaint Louverture played a key role in what was the first successful attempt by a slave population in the Americas and the world to throw off the yoke of Western colonialism. He defeated armies of three imperial powers: Spain, France, and Great Britain. The success of the Haitian Revolution had enduring effects on shaking the institution of slavery throughout the New World. Haiti became the second independent republic in the Western Hemisphere.
After being captured by the French general Leclerc, on the ship to France, Toussaint Louverture warned his captors that the rebels would not make his mistake in the following words: "In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty, it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep."
Marriages and children
Toussaint Louverture had 3 children. From his marriage to Suzanne Simone Baptiste Louverture, he had two sons Isaac and Saint-Jean. Toussaint also adopted Seraphin (later known as Placide Louverture), who was the son of Suzanne Louverture.
Seraphin, or Placide Louverture, was Suzanne Louverture's first child, whom she had with the mulatto Seraphim Le Clerc (some sources give the name of Placide's father as Séraphin Clère). Placide was adopted by Toussaint, who always treated him as his own child. Other sources state that Placide was Toussaint's son with Suzanne before their marriage.
Placide and Isaac Louverture were sent to France in 1797 to study and be educated. In a sense they had been demanded as hostages by French officials during the long years of battles. They came back to Saint-Domingue in February 1802, with the troops of the French General Charles Leclerc. Napoleon Bonaparte had given orders to expel the Louverture brothers from France and bring them back to Saint-Domingue.
In 1802 Le Clerc deported Toussaint Louverture, his wife and three sons to France, where they were held in separate areas. Toussaint Louverture was held in prison at Fort de Joux.
April 7th, 1803 (17 germinal a year XI), at half past eleven, the major Amiot, governor of the fort of Joux, found him dead in its cell "Sitting on a chair, near fire, head supported against the chimney, the right arm hanging down."
His family then had to fix its residence to Agen. His third son will die from languour there, and his wife will expire in 1816 there. His son Isaac will die in Bordeaux on September 26th, 1853.
Napoleon, in Saint Helena, will blame himself for having been allowed to draw away by his ministers and by " criailleries of the settlers ". He will regret not having governed the colony " through Toussaint " because, he will say, it " was not a man without deserve ".
About slavery :
Great Brittain : Parliament of the United Kingdom The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 .
France : Slavery was first abolished in France in 1794, then definitively abolished in 1848 .
USA : Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 .
I can't help feeling that Toussaint L'Ouverture opened the eyes of the world to this evil of mankind called "Slavery" he showed that a man no matter what the color of his skin could be the equal of a white man by his acts he deserved a righteous place in history, therefor this rather long entry about him in my eyes he was the best thing that ever happened to Haiti.
And lets never forget the ugly scourge of slavery ,we who take freedom so for granted these days!
Picture showing results of a flogging: "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped;he discharged the overseer. The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture." Baton Rouge, La.,April 2, 1863. Credit: National Archives and Records Administration
Source : Wikipedia
Toussaint L'ouverture and the Haitian Revolution
In Search Of... Amelia Earhart (Part 1 of 3)
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Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937, declared dead January 5, 1939) was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.
During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.
Childhood
Amelia Mary Earhart, daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (March 28, 1867 – 1930) and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart (1869 – 1962), was born in Atchison, Kansas,[9] in the home of her maternal grandfather, Alfred Gideon Otis (1827 – 1912), a former federal judge, president of the Atchison Savings Bank and a leading citizen in Atchison. Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.
Amelia was named, according to family custom, after her two grandmothers (Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton). From an early age Amelia, nicknamed "Meeley" (sometimes "Millie") was the ringleader while younger sister (two years her junior), Grace Muriel Earhart (1899 – 1998), nicknamed "Pidge," acted the dutiful follower. Both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was unconventional since Amy Earhart did not believe in molding her children into "nice little girls." Meanwhile their maternal grandmother disapproved of the "bloomers" worn by Amy's children and although Amelia liked the freedom they provided, she was aware other girls in the neighborhood did not wear them.
While the family's finances seemingly improved with the acquisition of a new house and even the hiring of two servants, it soon became apparent Edwin was an alcoholic. Five years later (in 1914), he was forced to retire, and although he attempted to rehabilitate himself through treatment, he was never reinstated at the Rock Island Railroad. At about this time, Amelia's grandmother Amelia Otis died suddenly, leaving a substantial estate that placed her daughter's share in trust, fearing that Edwin's drinking would drain the funds. The Otis house, and all of its contents, was auctioned; Amelia was heart-broken and later described it as the end of her childhood.
In 1915, after a long search, Amelia's father found work as a clerk at the Great Northern Railway in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Amelia entered Central High School as a junior. Edwin applied for a transfer to Springfield, Missouri, in 1915 but the current claims officer reconsidered his retirement and demanded his job back, leaving the elder Earhart with nowhere to go. Facing another calamitous move, Amy Earhart took her children to Chicago where they lived with friends. Amelia made an unusual condition in the choice of her next schooling; she canvassed nearby high schools in Chicago to find the best science program. She rejected the high school nearest her home when she complained that the chemistry lab was "just like a kitchen sink." She eventually was enrolled in Hyde Park High School but spent a miserable semester where a yearbook caption captured the essence of her unhappiness, "A.E. – the girl in brown who walks alone."
Amelia graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916. Throughout her troubled childhood, she had continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering. She began junior college at Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania but did not complete her program.
During Christmas vacation in 1917, she visited her sister in Toronto. World War I had been raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. After receiving training as a nurse's aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital.Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital's dispensary.
1918 Spanish flu pandemic
When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties including night shifts at the Spadina Military Hospital. She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about two months after he illness had started. Her sinus related symptoms were pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage via the nostrils and throat. In the hospital, in the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the affected maxillary sinus, but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suffered from worsening headache attacks. Her convalescence lasted nearly a year, which she spent at her sister's home in Northampton, Massachusetts. She passed the time by reading poetry, learning to play the banjo and studying mechanics. Chronic sinusitis was to significantly affect Earhart's flying and activities in later life, and sometimes even on the airfield she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube.
Early flying experiences
At about that time, with a young woman friend, Earhart visited an air fair held in conjunction with the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. One of the highlights of the day was a flying exhibition put on by a World War I "ace."The pilot overhead spotted Earhart and her friend, who were watching from an isolated clearing, and dived at them. "I am sure he said to himself, 'Watch me make them scamper,'" she said. Earhart characteristically stood her ground, swept by a mixture of fear and exhilaration. As the aircraft came close, something inside her awakened. "I did not understand it at the time," she said, "but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."
By 1919 Earhart prepared to enter Smith College but changed her mind and enrolled at Columbia University signing up for a course in medical studies among other programs. She quit a year later to be with her parents who had reunited in California.
In Long Beach, on December 28, 1920, she and her father visited an airfield where Frank Hawks (who later gained fame as an air racer) gave her a ride that would forever change Earhart's life. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground," she said, "I knew I had to fly." After that 10-minute flight (that cost her father $10), she immediately became determined to learn to fly. Working at a variety of jobs, as a photographer, truck driver and stenographer at the local telephone company, she managed to save $1,000 for flying lessons. Earhart had her first lessons, beginning on January 3, 1921, at Kinner Field near Long Beach but to reach the airfield Amelia took a bus to the end of the line, then walked four miles (6 km). Her teacher was Anita "Neta" Snook, a pioneer female aviator who used a surplus Curtiss JN-4 "Canuck" for training. Amelia arrived with her father and a singular request, "I want to fly. Will you teach me?"
Amelia's commitment to flying required her to accept the frequently hard work and rudimentary conditions that accompanied early aviation training. She chose a leather jacket but aware that other aviators would be judging her, slept in it for three nights to give the jacket a more "worn" look. To complete her image transformation, she also cropped her hair short in the style of other female flyers. Six months later, Amelia purchased a second-hand bright yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she nicknamed "The Canary." On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for female pilots. On May 15, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman to be issued a pilot's license (#6017) by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI).
Boston
According to the Boston Globe, she was "one of the best women pilots in the United States," although this characterization has been disputed by aviation experts and experienced pilots in the decades since. Amelia was an intelligent and competent pilot but hardly a brilliant aviator, whose early efforts were characterized as inadequate by more seasoned flyers. One serious miscalculation occurred during a record attempt that had ended with her spinning down through a cloud bank, only to emerge at 3,000 ft (910 m). Experienced pilots admonished her, "Suppose the clouds had closed in until they touched the ground?" Earhart was chagrined yet acknowledged her limitations as a pilot and continued to seek out assistance throughout her career from various instructors. By 1927, "Without any serious incident, she had accumulated nearly 500 hours of solo flying – a very respectable achievement."
Throughout this period, her grandmother's inheritance, which was now administered by her mother, was constantly depleted until it finally ran out following a disastrous investment in a failed gypsum mine. Consequently, with no immediate prospects for recouping her investment in flying, Earhart sold the "Canary" as well as a second Kinner and bought a yellow Kissel "Speedster" two-passenger automobile, which she named the "Yellow Peril." Simultaneously, Earhart experienced an exacerbation of her old sinus problem as her pain worsened and in early 1924, she was hospitalized for another sinus operation, which was again unsuccessful. After trying her hand at a number of unusual ventures including setting up a photography company, Amelia set out in a new direction. Following her parents' divorce in 1924, she drove her mother in the "Yellow Peril" on a transcontinental trip from California with stops throughout the West and even a jaunt up to Calgary, Alberta. The meandering tour eventually brought the pair to Boston, Massachusetts where Amelia underwent another sinus procedure, this operation being more successful. After recuperation, she returned for several months to Columbia University but was forced to abandon her studies and any further plans for enrolling at the MIT because her mother could no longer afford the tuition fees and associated costs. Soon after, she found employment first as a teacher, then as a social worker in 1925 at Denison House, living in Medford, Massachusetts.
When she lived in Medford, she flew out of Dennison Airport (later the Naval Air Station Squantum) in Quincy, Massachusetts and helped finance it. She also flew the first official flight out of Dennison Airport in 1927.
Earhart maintained her interest in aviation, becoming a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter, and was eventually elected its vice president. She also invested a small sum of money in the Dennison Airport as well as acting as a sales representative for Kinner airplanes in the Boston area.
She wrote local newspaper columns promoting flying and as her local celebrity grew, she laid out the plans for an organization devoted to female flyers.
1928 transatlantic flight
After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Phipps Guest, (1873-1959), expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean. After deciding the trip was too perilous for her to undertake, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"
The project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam) interviewed Amelia and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger, but with the added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on June 17, 1928, landing at Burry Port (near Llanelli), Wales, United Kingdom, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. Since most of the flight was on "instruments" and Amelia had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. When interviewed after landing, she said, "Stultz did all the flying - had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She added, "...maybe someday I'll try it alone."
While in England, Earhart is reported as receiving a rousing welcome on June 19, 1928, when landing at Woolston in Southampton, England. She flew the Avro Avian 594 Avian III, SN: R3/AV/101 owned by Lady Mary Heath and later purchased the aircraft and had it shipped back to the United States (where it was assigned “unlicensed aircraft identification mark” 7083).
When the Stultz, Gordon and Earhart flight crew returned to the United States they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York followed by a reception with President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.
Celebrity image
Trading on her physical resemblance to Lindbergh, whom the press had dubbed "Lucky Lindy," some newspapers and magazines began referring to Amelia as "Lady Lindy." The United Press was more grandiloquent; to them, Earhart was the reigning "Queen of the Air." Immediately after her return to the United States, she undertook an exhausting lecture tour (1928-29). Meanwhile, Putnam had undertaken to heavily promote her in a campaign including publishing a book she authored, a series of new lecture tours and using pictures of her in mass market endorsements for products including luggage, Lucky Strike cigarettes (this caused image problems for her, with McCall's magazine retracting an offer) and women's clothing and sportswear. The money that she made with "Lucky Strike" had been earmarked for a $1,500 donation to Commander Richard Byrd's imminent South Pole expedition.
Rather than simply endorsing the products, Amelia actively became involved in the promotions, especially in women's fashions. For a number of years she had sewn her own clothes, but the "active living" lines that were sold in 50 stores such as Macy's in metropolitan areas were an expression of a new Earhart image. Her concept of simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials was the embodiment of a sleek, purposeful but feminine "A.E." (the familiar name she went by with family and friends). The luggage line that she promoted (marketed as Modernaire Earhart Luggage) also bore her unmistakable stamp. She ensured that the luggage met the demands of air travel; it is still being produced today. A wide range of promotional items would appear bearing the Earhart "image" and likewise, modern equivalents are still being marketed to this day. The marketing campaign by G.P. Putnam was successful in establishing the Earhart mystique in the public psyche.
1932 transatlantic solo flight
At the age of 34, on the morning of May 20, 1932 Earhart set off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland with the latest copy of a local newspaper (the dated copy was intended to confirm the date of the flight). She intended to fly to Paris in her single engine Lockheed Vega 5b to emulate Charles Lindbergh's solo flight. Her technical advisor for the flight was famed Norwegian American aviator Bernt Balchen who helped prepare her aircraft. He also played the role of "decoy" for the press as he was ostensibly preparing Earhart's Vega for his own Arctic flight. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes during which she contended with strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems, Earhart landed in a pasture at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. The landing was witnessed by Cecil King and T. Sawyer. When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" Amelia replied, "From America." The site now is the home of a small museum, the Amelia Earhart Centre.
As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic, Earhart received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover. As her fame grew, she developed friendships with many people in high offices, most notably, Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady from 1933-1945. Roosevelt shared many of Earhart's interests and passions, especially women's causes. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt actually obtained a student permit but did not pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently throughout their lives. Another famous flyer, Jacqueline Cochran, who the public considered Amelia's greatest rival, also became a confidante and friend during this period.
1937 world flight
Earhart joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1935 as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and as a technical advisor to the Department of Aeronautics. In July 1936, she took delivery of a Lockheed L-10E Electra financed by Purdue and started planning a round-the-world flight. Not the first to circle the globe, it would be the longest at 29,000 miles (47,000 km), following a grueling equatorial route. Although the Electra was publicized as a "flying laboratory," little useful science was planned and the flight seems to have been arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book. Her first choice as navigator was Captain Harry Manning, who had been the captain of the President Roosevelt, the ship that had brought Amelia back from Europe in 1928.
Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a second navigator because there were significant additional factors which had to be dealt with while using celestial navigation for aircraft. He had vast experience in both marine (he was a licensed ship's captain) and flight navigation. Noonan had recently left Pan Am, where he established most of the company's China Clipper seaplane routes across the Pacific. Noonan had also been responsible for training Pan American's navigators for the route between San Francisco and Manila. The original plans were for Noonan to navigate from Hawaii to Howland Island, a particularly difficult portion of the flight; then Manning would continue with Earhart to Australia and she would proceed on her own for the remainder of the project.
First attempt
On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1937, they flew the first leg from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Earhart and Noonan, Harry Manning and Hollywood stunt pilot Paul Mantz (who was acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board. Due to lubrication and galling problems with the propeller hubs' variable pitch mechanisms, the aircraft needed servicing in Hawaii. Ultimately, the Electra ended up at the United States Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. The flight resumed three days later from Luke Field with Earhart, Noonan and Manning on board, and during the takeoff run, Earhart ground-looped. The circumstances of the ground loop remain controversial. Some witnesses at Luke Field including the Associated Press journalist on the scene said they saw a tire blow. Earhart thought either the Electra's right tire had blown and/or the right landing gear had collapsed. Some sources, including Mantz, cited pilot error.
With the aircraft severely damaged, the flight was called off and the aircraft was shipped by sea to the Lockheed facility in Burbank, California for repairs.
Second attempt
While the Electra was being repaired Earhart and Putnam secured additional funds and prepared for a second attempt. This time flying west to east, the second attempt began with an unpublicized flight from Oakland to Miami, Florida and after arriving there Earhart publicly announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe. The flight's opposite direction was partly the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the planned route since the earlier attempt. Fred Noonan was Earhart's only crew member for the second flight. They departed Miami on June 1 and after numerous stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 29, 1937. At this stage about 22,000 miles (35,000 km) of the journey had been completed. The remaining 7,000 miles (11,000 km) would all be over the Pacific.
Departure from Lae
On July 2, 1937 (midnight GMT) Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae in the heavily loaded Electra. Their intended destination was Howland Island, a flat sliver of land 6,500 ft (2,000 m) long and 1,600 ft (500 m) wide, 10 feet (3 m) high and 2,556 miles (4,113 km) away. Their last known position report was near the Nukumanu Islands, about 800 miles (1,300 km) into the flight. The United States Coast Guard cutter Itasca was on station at Howland, assigned to communicate with Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E and guide them to the island once they arrived in the vicinity.
Final approach to Howland Island
Through a series of misunderstandings or errors (the details of which are still controversial), the final approach to Howland Island using radio navigation wasn't successful. Fred Noonan had earlier written about problems affecting the accuracy of radio direction finding in navigation. Some sources have noted Earhart's apparent lack of understanding of her Bendix direction finding loop antenna, which at the time was very new technology. Another cited cause of possible confusion was that the USCG cutter Itasca and Earhart planned their communication schedule using time systems set a half hour apart (with Earhart using Greenwich Civil Time (GCT) and the Itasca under a Naval time zone designation system).
Motion picture evidence from Lae suggests that an antenna mounted underneath the fuselage may have been torn off from the fuel-heavy Electra during taxi or takeoff from Lae's turf runway, though no antenna was reported found at Lae. Don Dwiggins, in his biography of Paul Mantz (who assisted Earhart and Noonan in their flight planning), noted that the aviators had cut off their long-wire antenna, due to the annoyance of having to crank it back into the aircraft after each use.
Radio signals
During Earhart and Noonan's approach to Howland Island the Itasca received strong and clear voice transmissions from Earhart identifying as KHAQQ but she apparently was unable to hear voice transmissions from the ship. At 7:42 a.m. Earhart radioed "We must be on you, but cannot see you -- but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." Her 7:58 a.m. transmission said she couldn't hear the Itasca and asked them to send voice signals so she could try to take a radio bearing (this transmission was reported by the Itasca as the loudest possible signal, indicating Earhart and Noonan were in the immediate area). They couldn't send voice at the frequency she asked for, so Morse code signals were sent instead. Earhart acknowledged receiving these but said she was unable to determine their direction.
In her last known transmission at 8:43 a.m. Earhart broadcast "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." However, a few moments later she was back on the same frequency (3105 kHz) with a transmission which was logged as a "questionable": "We are running on line north and south." Earhart's transmissions seemed to indicate she and Noonan believed they had reached Howland's charted position, which was incorrect by about five nautical miles (10 km). The Itasca used her oil-fired boilers to generate smoke for a period of time but the fliers apparently did not see it. The many scattered clouds in the area around Howland Island have also been cited as a problem: their dark shadows on the ocean surface may have been almost indistinguishable from the island's subdued and very flat profile.
Whether any post-loss radio signals were received from Earhart and Noonan remains controversial. If transmissions were received from the Electra, most if not all were weak and hopelessly garbled. Earhart's voice transmissions to Howland were on 3105 kHz, a frequency restricted to aviation use in the United States by the FCC. This frequency was not thought to be fit for broadcasts over great distances. When Earhart was at cruising altitude and mid-way between Lae and Howland (over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from each) neither station heard her scheduled transmission at 0815 GCT. Moreover, the 50-watt transmitter used by Earhart was attached to a less-than-optimum-length V-type antenna.
The last voice transmission received on Howland Island from Earhart indicated she and Noonan were flying along a line of position (taken from a "sun line" running on 157-337 degrees) which Noonan would have calculated and drawn on a chart as passing through Howland. After all contact was lost with Howland Island, attempts were made to reach the flyers with both voice and Morse code transmissions. Operators across the Pacific and the United States may have heard signals from the downed Electra but these were unintelligible or weak.
Some of these transmissions were hoaxes but others were deemed authentic. Bearings taken by Pan American Airways stations suggested signals originating from several locations, including Gardner Island. It was noted at the time that if these signals were from Earhart and Noonan, they must have been on land with the aircraft since water would have otherwise shorted out the Electra's electrical system. Sporadic signals were reported for four or five days after the disappearance but none yielded any understandable information. The captain of the USS Colorado later said "There was no doubt many stations were calling the Earhart plane on the plane's frequency, some by voice and others by signals. All of these added to the confusion and doubtfulness of the authenticity of the reports."
Search efforts
Beginning approximately one hour after Earhart's last recorded message, the USCG Itasca undertook an ultimately unsuccessful search north and west of Howland Island based on initial assumptions about transmissions from the aircraft. The United States Navy soon joined the search and over a period of about three days sent available resources to the search area in the vicinity of Howland Island. The initial search by the Itasca involved running up the 157/337 line of position to the NNW from Howland Island. The Itasca then searched the area to the immediate NE of the island, corresponding to the area, yet wider than the area searched to the NW. Based on bearings of several supposed Earhart radio transmissions, some of the search efforts were directed to a specific position 281 degrees NW of Howland Island without finding land or evidence of the flyers. Four days after Earhart's last verified radio transmission, on July 6, 1937 the captain of the battleship Colorado received orders from the Commandant, Fourteenth Naval District to take over all naval and coast guard units to coordinate search efforts.
Later search efforts were directed to the Phoenix Islands south of Howland Island A week after the disappearance naval aircraft from the Colorado flew over several islands in the group including Gardner Island, which had been uninhabited for over 40 years. The subsequent report on Gardner read, "Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there... At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons)... lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or takenoff in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her aircraft in this lagoon and swum or waded ashore." They also found that Gardner's shape and size as recorded on charts were wholly inaccurate. Other Navy search efforts were again directed north, west and southwest of Howland Island, based on a possibility the Electra had ditched in the ocean, was afloat, or that the aviators were in an emergency raft.
The official search efforts lasted until July 19, 1937.At $4 million, the air and sea search by the Navy and Coast Guard was the most costly and intensive in US history up to that time but search and rescue techniques during the era were rudimentary and some of the search was based on erroneous assumptions and flawed information. Official reporting of the search effort was influenced by individuals wary about how their roles in looking for an American hero might be reported by the press. Despite an unprecedented search by the United States Navy and Coast Guard no physical evidence of Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E was found. The United States Navy Lexington aircraft carrier and Colorado battleship, the Itasca (and even two Japanese ships, the oceanographic survey vessel Koshu and auxiliary seaplane tender Kamoi) searched for six-seven days each, covering 150,000 square miles (390,000 km2).
Immediately after the end of the official search, G.P. Putnam financed a private search by local authorities of nearby Pacific islands and waters, concentrating on the Gilberts. In late July 1937 Putnam chartered two small boats and while he remained in the United States, directed a search of the Phoenix Islands, Christmas Island, Fanning Island, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands, but no trace of the Electra or its occupants were found.
Theories on Earhart's disappearance
Many theories emerged after the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan. Two possibilities concerning the flyers' fate have prevailed among researchers and historians.
Crash and sink theory
Many researchers believe the Electra ran out of fuel and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea. Navigator and aeronautical engineer Elgen Long and his wife Marie K. Long devoted 35 years of exhaustive research to the "crash and sink" theory, which is the most widely accepted explanation for the disappearance. Capt. Laurance F. Safford, USN (retired-deceased), who was responsible for the interwar Mid Pacific Strategic Direction Finding Net and decoding of the Japanese PURPLE cipher messages for the attack on Pearl Harbor, began a lengthy analysis of the Earhart flight during the 1970s, including the intricate radio transmission documentation, and came to the conclusion, "poor planning, worse execution." Rear Admiral Richard R. Black, USN (retired-deceased), who was in administrative charge of the Howland Island airstrip and was present in the radio room on the Itasca, asserted in 1982 that "the Electra went into the sea about 10 am, July 2, 1937 not far from Howland".British aviation historian Roy Nesbit interpreted evidence in contemporary accounts and Putnam's correspondence and concluded Earhart's Electra was not fully fueled at Lae. William L. Polhemous, the navigator on Ann Pellegreno's 1967 flight which followed Earhart and Noonan's original flight path, studied navigational tables for July 2, 1937 and thought Noonan may have miscalculated the "single line approach" intended to "hit" Howland.
David Jourdan, a former Navy submariner and ocean engineer specializing in deep-sea recoveries, has claimed any transmissions attributed to Gardner Island were false. Through his company Nauticos he extensively searched a 1,200-square-mile (3,100 km2) quadrant north and west of Howland Island during two deep-sea sonar expeditions (2002 and 2006, total cost $4.5 million) and found nothing. The search locations were derived from the line of position (157-337) broadcast by Earhart on July 2, 1937. Nevertheless, Elgen Long's interpretations have led Jourdan to conclude, "The analysis of all the data we have – the fuel analysis, the radio calls, other things – tells me she went into the water off Howland." Earhart's stepson George Palmer Putnam Jr. has been quoted as saying he believes "the plane just ran out of gas." Thomas Crouch, Senior Curator of the National Air and Space Museum, has said the Earhart/Noonan Electra is "18,000 ft. down" and may even yield a range of artifacts that could rival the finds of the Titanic, adding, "...the mystery is part of what keeps us interested. In part, we remember her because she's our favorite missing person.
Gardner Island hypothesis
Immediately after Earhart and Noonan's disappearance, the United States Navy, Paul Mantz and Earhart's mother (who convinced G.P. Putnam to undertake a search in the Gardner Group) all expressed belief the flight had ended in the Phoenix Islands (now part of Kiribati), some 350 miles (560 km) southeast of Howland Island.
The Gardner Island hypothesis has been characterized as the "most confirmed" explanation for Earhart's disappearance. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) has suggested Earhart and Noonan may have flown without further radio transmissions for two-and-a-half hours along the line of position Earhart noted in her last transmission received at Howland, arrived at then-uninhabited Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) in the Phoenix group, landed on an extensive reef-flat near the wreck of a large freighter and ultimately perished.
TIGHAR's research has produced a range of documented archaeological and anecdotal evidence supporting this hypothesis. For example, in 1940, Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer and licensed pilot, radioed his superiors to inform them that he had found a "skeleton... possibly that of a woman", along with an old-fashioned sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. He was ordered to send the remains to Fiji, where in 1941, British colonial authorities took detailed measurements of the bones and concluded they were from a stocky male. However, in 1998 an analysis of the measurement data by forensic anthropologists indicated the skeleton had belonged to a "tall white female of northern European ancestry." The bones themselves were misplaced in Fiji long ago.
Artifacts discovered by TIGHAR on Nikumaroro have included improvised tools, an aluminum panel (possibly from an Electra), an oddly cut piece of clear Plexiglas which is the exact thickness and curvature of an Electra window, and a size 9 Cat's Paw heel dating from the 1930s which resembles Earhart's footwear in world flight photos. The evidence remains circumstantial but Earhart's surviving stepson, George Putnam Jr., has expressed enthusiasm for TIGHAR's research.
A 15-member TIGHAR expedition visited Nikumaroro from July 21 to August 2, 2007, searching for unambiguously identifiable aircraft artifacts and DNA. The group included engineers, environmentalists, a land developer, archaeologists, a sailboat designer, a team doctor and a videographer. They were reported to have found additional artifacts of as yet uncertain origin on the weather-ravaged atoll, including bronze bearings which may have belonged to Earhart's aircraft and a zipper pull which might have come from her flight suit.
Records and achievements
Woman's world altitude record: 14,000 ft (1922)
First woman to fly the Atlantic (1928)
August 1929 - Placed third in the First Women's Air Derby, aka the Powder Puff Derby; upgraded from her Avian to a Lockheed Vega
Fall 1929- Elected as an official for National Aeronautic Association and encouraged the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) to establish separate world altitude, speed and endurance records for women June 25, 1930 - Set women's speed record for 100 kilometers with no load, and with a load of 500 kilograms July 5, 1930 - Set speed record for of 181.18mph over a 3K course
First woman to fly an autogyro (1931)
Altitude record for autogyros: 15,000 ft (1931)
First person to cross the U.S. in an autogyro (1932)
First woman to fly the Atlantic solo (1932)
First person to fly the Atlantic twice (1932)
First woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross (1932)
Fall 1932 - Elected president of the Ninety Nines, a new women's aviation club which she helped to form
First woman to fly non-stop, coast-to-coast across the U.S. (1933)
Woman's speed transcontinental record (1933)
First person to fly solo between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, California (1935)
First person to fly solo from Los Angeles, California to Mexico City, Mexico (1935)
First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City, Mexico to Newark, New Jersey (1935)
Speed record for east-to-west flight from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Hawaii (1937
Other honors
Amelia Earhart Centre And Wildlife Sanctuary was established at the site of her 1932 landing in Northern Ireland, Ballyarnet Country Park, Derry.
The "Earhart Tree" on Banyan Drive in Hilo, Hawaii was planted by Amelia Earhart in 1935.
The Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship Awards were established in 1938.
"Earhart Light" on Howland Island in August 2008Earhart Light (also known as the Amelia Earhart Light), a navigational day beacon on Howland Island (has not been maintained and is crumbling) .
The Amelia Earhart Memorial Scholarships (established in 1939 by The Ninety-Nines), provides scholarships to women for advanced pilot certificates and ratings, jet type ratings, college degrees and technical training.
In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named SS Amelia Earhart was launched (it was wrecked in 1948).
Amelia Earhart Field (1947), formerly Masters Field and Miami Municipal Airport, after closure in 1959, the Amelia Earhart Regional Park was dedicated in an area of undeveloped federal government land located north and west of the former Miami Municipal Airport and immediately south of Opa-locka Airport.
The Purdue University Amelia Earhart Scholarship is based on academic merit and leadership and is open to juniors and seniors enrolled in any school at the West Lafayette campus. After being discontinued in the 1970s, a donor resurrected the award in 1999.
Amelia Earhart Commemorative Stamp (8¢ airmail postage) was issued in 1963 by the United States Postmaster-General.
The Civil Air Patrol Amelia Earhart Award (since 1964) is awarded to cadets who have completed the first 11 achievements of the cadet program along with receipt of the General Billy Mitchell Award.
Member of National Women's Hall of Fame (1973).
The Amelia Earhart Birthplace, Atchison, Kansas (a museum and National Historic Site, owned and maintained by The Ninety-Nines).
Amelia Earhart Airport, located in Atchison, Kansas.
Amelia Earhart Bridge, located in Atchison, Kansas.
Schools named after Amelia Earhart are found throughout the United States including the Amelia Earhart Elementary School, in Alameda, California, Amelia Earhart Elementary School, in Hialeah, Florida, Amelia Earhart Middle School, Riverside, California and Amelia Earhart International Baccalaureate World School, in Indio, California.
Amelia Earhart Hotel, located in Wiesbaden, Germany, originally used as a hotel for women, then as temporary military housing is now operated as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District Headquarters with offices for the Army Contracting Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency.
Earhart Tribute at Portal of the Folded Wing; note error in birthdate.Amelia Earhart Road, located in Oklahoma City (headquarters of The Ninety-Nines), Oklahoma.
Earhart Road, located next to the Oakland International Airport North Field in Oakland, California.
Crittenton Women’s Union (Boston) Amelia Earhart Award recognizes a woman who continues Earhart’s pioneering spirit, and who has significantly contributed to the expansion of opportunities for women. (since 1982)
UCI Irvine Amelia Earhart Award (since 1990).
Amelia Earhart Intermediate School, located in Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.
Member of Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1992).
Earhart Foundation, located in Ann Arbor, MI. Established in 1995, the foundation funds research and scholarship through a network of 50 "Earhart professors" across the United States.
Amelia Earhart Festival (annual event since 1996), located in Atchison, Kansas.
Amelia Earhart Pioneering Achievement Award, Atchison, Kansas: Since 1996, the Cloud L. Cray Foundation provides a $10,000 women’s scholarship to the educational institution of the honoree’s choice.
Amelia Earhart Earthwork in Warnock Lake Park, Atchison, Kansas. Stan Herd created the 1-acre (4,000 m2) landscape mural from permanent plantings and stone to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Earhart's birth. Located at 39°32′15″N 95°08′43″W / 39.537621°N 95.145158°W / 39.537621; -95.145158 and best viewed from the air.
Earhart Corona, a corona on Venus was named by the (IAU).
Greater Miami Aviation Association Amelia Earhart Award for outstanding achievement (2006); first recipient: noted flyer Patricia "Patty" Wagstaff.
On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Amelia Earhart into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.
USNS Amelia Earhart (T-AKE-6) was named in her honor in May 2007.
Amelia Earhart full size bronze statue was placed at the Spirit of Flight Center located in Lafayette, Colorado in 2008.
Other websites about Amelia Earheart : Official website
A must read Alternative theory about Amelia's disappearance : progressiveu
Source : Wikipedia
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