Michael Ayers Trotti’s The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South opens with a short transcription of a newspaper article about an Atlanta hanging. The report is about the 1891 execution of Frank Danforth, a Black man who had been convicted of the murder of his wife. The report mentions preachers saying prayers and singing, Danforth swaying to religious music, his repeated testimony to his belief in his own salvation, and white women who stood on a jailhouse fence to watch his execution. Trotti observes that the report describes Danforth’s execution as private because it was done behind jailhouse walls, even though hundreds of people were in attendance.
Saltwire: Atlantic Canada News Service — Sept. 6, 2023
The Chagos islands, with Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean
Most of the international community regards the Chagos Islands as belonging to Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.
Henry Srebrnik, a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island, provided the following opinion article.
Is the sun about to set on Britain’s control of the Chagos Islands? This archipelago of around 60 islands can be found halfway between East Africa and Southeast Asia. They are over 1,500 kilometres south of India, and even further from Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.
The Chagos group is currently governed by London as the British Indian Ocean Territory, but most of the international community regards it as belonging to Mauritius.
Also at stake is the future of the indigenous population, the Chagossians, who were expelled from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s. For decades, Britain has blocked them from returning to their islands. For what reason? And why has this become the centre of a power struggle between the United States and China?
Lèse-majesté is the ‘crime’ of offending the dignity of the king, and these days it has gone out of fashion. In Britain, you can say anything you like about King Charles the Turd (as an Irish friend calls him), and no one turns a hair. But if you insult King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand, you’re in deep trouble.
By Gwynne Dyer – September 4, 2023
Credits: Unsplash;Author: @jay_5;
Thailand’s Lèse-majesté law decrees specifies a jail term of up to fifteen years for insulting the king, and it is vigorously enforced. Every insult attracts a separate punishment, so the penalties pile up fast.
Mark Meadows was on the infamous call — detailed in the indictment — in which Trump urged state election officials to find the votes he’d need to win. Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman, also traveled to Georgia at one point to try and gain access to a state audit of absentee ballot envelopes. Meadows faces two felony counts in the indictment. Meadows is charged with racketeering and soliciting a violation of an oath by a public officer.
In a June blog post here about virulent persecution of LGBTQ folk in Uganda based on a draconian new “kill the gays” law, a correspondent known to us as “William Leddra” issued a call to Quakers, who have two yearly meetings in Uganda, and affiliations with Friends United Meeting [aka FUM] based in Richmond, Indiana, to take up the work of speaking out and defending LGBTQ persons in Uganda (and other Africa countries where they are also persecuted). The call to Friends and others is also to exert pressure toward the repeal of this dreadful repressive legislation.
“I have no idea who this ‘William Leddra ‘ is or purports to be – I have never heard of him, he has never contacted us, and he seems ignorant of the efforts of more than 40 Quaker Meetings and Churches.”
Leddra, banished and then hanged for the same offense as Dyer, is less known; but he ended up just as dead, only for the offense of being true to his convictions. (“Our” correspondent “Leddra” feels pseudonymity is a prudent security precaution today, as “promoting” LGBTQ life in Uganda is now punishable by a 20-year prison sentence.)
Fortunately, what happened in the wake of the Boston Quaker Martyrs’ sacrifice was turned into memorable verse by the famed Quaker poet Whittier, a later native of Massachusetts, in his poem, The King’s Missive.
We take this opportunity to reprint the poem below, as it seems to us that there are strong contemporary echoes and resonance in it. Last month, FUM held an international conference in Kenya, which included Ugandan Friends. All participants were under strict instructions not to speak about the new law; or if they were LGBTQ, not to be visible or vocal about that reality. (Those keep silence instructions are reprinted in the postscript to “Leddra’s” column.)
UNDER the great hill sloping bare To cove and meadow and Common lot, In his council chamber and oaken chair, Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
John Endicott
A grave, strong man, who knew no peer In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear Of God, not man, and for good or ill Held his trust with an iron will.He had shorn with his sword the cross from out The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, Harried the heathen round about,
And whipped the Quakers from town to town. Earnest and honest, a man at need To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed, He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal The gate of the holy common weal.
His brow was clouded, his eye was stern, With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath; “Woe’s me!” he murmured: “at every turn The pestilent Quakers are in my path!
Some we have scourged, and banished some, Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come . . .
William Leddra, a Quaker banished on pain of death from Boston for “heresy.” He returned to the city and was hanged on Boston Common in May of 1661.
Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in, Sowing their heresy’s seed of sin.
“Did we count on this? Did we leave behind The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease Of our English hearths and homes, to find Troublers of Israel such as these?
Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid! I will do as the prophet to Agag did They come to poison the wells of the Word, I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!”
The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk Entered, and whispered under breath, “There waits below for the hangman’s work A fellow banished on pain of death– Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip, Brought over in Master Goldsmith’s ship At anchor here in a Christian port, With freight of the devil and all his sort!”
Twice and thrice on the chamber floor Striding fiercely from wall to wall, “The Lord do so to me and more,” The Governor cried, “if I hang not all! Bring hither the Quaker.” Calm, sedate, With the look of a man at ease with fate, Into that presence grim and dread Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.
“Off with the knave’s hat!” An angry hand Smote down the offence; but the wearer said, With a quiet smile, “By the king’s command I bear his message and stand in his stead.” In the Governor’s hand a missive he laid With the royal arms on its seal displayed, And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat, Uncovering, “Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.”
He turned to the Quaker, bowing low,– “The king commandeth your friends’ release; Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although To his subjects’ sorrow and sin’s increase. What he here enjoineth, John Endicott, His loyal servant, questioneth not. You are free! God grant the spirit you own May take you from us to parts unknown.”
So the door of the jail was open cast, And, like Daniel, out of the lion’s den Tender youth and girlhood passed, With age-bowed women and gray-locked men. And the voice of one appointed to die Was lifted in praise and thanks on high, And the little maid from New Netherlands Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man’s hands.
And one, whose call was to minister To the souls in prison, beside him went, An ancient woman, bearing with her The linen shroud for his burial meant. For she, not counting her own life dear, In the strength of a love that cast out fear, Had watched and served where her brethren died, Like those who waited the cross beside.
One moment they paused on their way to look On the martyr graves by the Common side, And much scourged Wharton of Salem took His burden of prophecy up and cried “Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain Have ye borne the Master’s cross of pain; Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned, With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!”
The autumn haze lay soft and still On wood and meadow and upland farms; On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill Slowly and lazily swung its arms;
Windmills on Old Boston Harbor
Broad in the sunshine stretched away, With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay; And over water and dusk of pines Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. . . .
But as they who see not, the Quakers saw The world about them; they only thought With deep thanksgiving and pious awe On the great deliverance God had wrought. Through lane and alley the gazing town Noisily followed them up and down; Some with scoffing and brutal jeer, Some with pity and words of cheer.
One brave voice rose above the din. Upsall, gray with his length of days, Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn “Men of Boston, give God the praise No more shall innocent blood call down
The bolts of wrath on your guilty town. The freedom of worship, dear to you, Is dear to all, and to all is due.
“I see the vision of days to come, When your beautiful City of the Bay Shall be Christian liberty’s chosen home, And none shall his neighbor’s rights gainsay. The varying notes of worship shall blend And as one great prayer to God ascend, And hands of mutual charity raise Walls of salvation and gates of praise.”
So passed the Quakers through Boston town, Whose painful ministers sighed to see The walls of their sheep-fold falling down, And wolves of heresy prowling free. But the years went on, and brought no wrong; With milder counsels the State grew strong, As outward Letter and inward Light Kept the balance of truth aright.
The Puritan spirit perishing not, To Concord’s yeomen the signal sent, And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot That severed the chains of a continent. With its gentler mission of peace and good-will The thought of the Quaker is living still, And the freedom of soul he prophesied Is gospel and law where the martyrs died.
Uganda, tragic home of many martyrs of today . . . Will Friends now raise their voice to help to drive this plague away?
Michael Ayers Trotti’s The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South opens with a short transcription of a newspaper article about an Atlanta hanging. The report is about the 1891 execution of Frank Danforth, a Black man who had been convicted of the murder of his wife. The report mentions preachers saying prayers and singing, Danforth swaying to religious music, his repeated testimony to his belief in his own salvation, and white women who stood on a jailhouse fence to watch his execution. Trotti observes that the report describes Danforth’s execution as private because it was done behind jailhouse walls, even though hundreds of people were in attendance.
