Rebel of the Regency
I’ve been following Ann Foster around the internet for awhile now. In her popular podcast, Vulgar History, and now in her substack Vulgar History A La Carte, Foster uses wit and impeccable research to shine the light on historical women whose stories have been forgotten or told through a misogynist lens. Obviously this is my cup of lapsang souchang with a scone on the side. So I was delighted to learn she had a book coming out.
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen without a Crown does not disappoint. Foster uses those same combination of wit and research to bring Caroline of Brunswick, the mistreated wife and never-crowned queen of George IV[1] of England back to center stage, where she always belonged. Fond of big wigs, bright make-up and revealing clothing, Caroline was flamboyant, bold, thin-skinned, big-hearted, and determined to fight her husband for the marital rights he was equally determined to deny her. The people of Britain loved her as much her husband hated her. Foster makes the reader love her, too, without downplaying any of the traits that made her a “difficult woman.”
The result is an unfamiliar and unforgettable picture of Georgian England. The Regency England of popular fiction looks pale by comparison.
[1] For those of you who have trouble keeping the Georges straight:
George IV served as Prince Regent from 1811-1820 due to his father’s descent into mental illness and then reigned from 1820 to 1830, though he left most of the work of ruling to others. He is best known for financial extravagance, personal excess, and an illegal clandestine marriage to a commoner, Maria Fitzhugh, well before his official marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. One of his senior aides wrote of him in his diary, “ A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist.” Neither a good king, nor a good man.
Looking for Tiny Broadwick’s Daughter
In my blog post last week about Tiny Broadwick, “First Lady of Parachuting,” I mentioned, with some sadness, that Tiny’s daughter disappears from the narrative.
I am pleased to tell you that my writing friend Nancy Kennedy took up the challenge and went looking for the daughter’s story. Here’s what she found:
The short version is that Verla Jacobs led a more “grounded”[1] life than her mother did, in every sense of the word. In fact, in a 1973 interview in the Durham North Carolina Herald-Sun, Verla shared that she didn’t like to fly.
As we know from Tiny’s biography, Verla was raised by her grandmother—something that wasn’t entirely unusual once you look past the “her mother left to join the circus” element. Poor families at the time often had to send children to live with other relatives for a variety of reasons.
Verla completed the ninth grade, again not that unusual at the time-- plenty of people didn’t make it that far. She married a farmer named Joseph Poythress in 1925, when she was 18. They had six children, thirteen grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. She named one of her daughters Tiny, which suggests she had a positive relationship with her mother, even if it was often at a distance. Tiny Poythress Culler was living in Saudi Arabia when Verla died; perhaps she inherited a portion of her grandmother’s adventurous spirit as well as her name.
Tiny stayed in touch with Verla throughout her life, though she seldom saw her. She wrote to her daughter regularly, emphasizing the importance of education, and sent her money, clothes and toys. We know that Tiny visited Verla for three months in 1972 and they were both guests of the Golden Knights[2] at Fort Bragg that year. Verla's pride in her mother comes through clearly in the 1973 interview.
Verla died in 1985, only seven years after her mother.
Thank you, Nancy, for the reminder that there is always another narrative if you take the time to look.
[1] Sorry. Sometimes I can’t resist.
[2] The U.S. Army’s elite parachute team
Deja Vu All Over Again: The Fort Snelling Concentration Camp, 1862
Benjamin Franklin Upton. 1863. From the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society
Back in August, My Own True Love and I spent a History Nerd Holiday in the Twin Cities. I came back with a lot of stories, but I left an important one for later: the concentration camp the United States government built at Fort Snelling at the end of the U.S. -Dakota War of 1862. I didn’t have a firm grasp on the details of the war itself[1] and, quite frankly, I found it difficult to write about. I think it's time to tell the story.
The U.S. - Dakota War of 1862 was a short-lived, violent conflict between white settlers and the Dakota people in the Minnesota River Valley that was a precursor to the later so-called “Indian Wars” in the west. Tensions between the settlers and the Dakota were already high, as happens when two different peoples claim the same land. Then the U.S. Government failed to keep its treaty obligation to send annuity payments, leaving the Dakota to starve. The attempt by a small band of the Dakota to take some eggs from a homestead escalated into violence and then war. During the six weeks of the war, hundreds of white settlers, American army soldiers, and the Dakota people died.
More Dakota died after the war was over.
After the Dakota surrendered, a military commission tried 392 Dakota men for their participation in the war. They were not allowed legal representation and most of the trials were brief. Some lasted less than five minutes. More than 300 of the defendants were sentenced to death. Even at the time, people questioned the legal authority of the commission and the procedures it used, publicly and loudly.[2] As a result, President Lincoln personally reviewed the convictions. He decided that only those men who had killed civilians should be executed. He allowed the death sentence to stand for 38 of the convicted men. They were executed on December 26, 1862—the largest single execution in American history. The rest of the men received commuted sentences and were interned at Camp Kearney in Iowa for four years.
Meanwhile, almost 1700 Dakota non-combatants—most of whom were women, children and the elderly—were removed to a river bottom below Fort Snelling. Soon after they arrived, the army enclosed the area with a twelve-foot tall wooden stockade, which they patrolled to control movement in and out. Several hundred people died that winter due to disease and harsh conditions.
In February, 1863, Congress passed an act that annulled all existing treaties with the Dakota people and stated that their lands and all annuities still due them were forfeit to the United States. A bill passed in March called for their removal from the area that was their ancestral homeland. The surviving captives at Fort Snelling, along with 2000 members of the Ho Chunk nation, who were not involved in the war, were put on steamers and taken to a desolate reservation in the Dakota Territory. [3]
Today a major immigrant detainment center[4] stands on the site of the camp. In a particularly ugly echo of the past, members of the Lakota nation are reported to have been held there in recent weeks.
[1] A pivotal event in American history that neither My Own True Love or I had heard of prior to our visit to Fort Snelling.
[2] As far as I’m concerned, this is the only point of light in this story. Even in the midst of the Civil War,which presumably took most of America's bandwidth, people stood up and questioned actions of questionable authority taken by men in power.
[3]I wish I could say this was an isolated incident in American history, but we all know that is not true.
[4] The official description, not mine.