The 981 Project Podcast

By: Tamela Rich
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  • Summary

  • Join Tamela Rich for dispatches from all 981 miles of the Ohio River: people, places, history, culture, and more.

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    Tamela Rich
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Episodes
  • September '24 Trivia!

    September '24 Trivia!
    Sep 27 2024
    Did you know we’re in a bicentennial year? From now until September, 2025, historical sites in the nation’s first 24 states will be commemorating the Marquis de Lafayette’s Farewell Tour. Planned as a three-month tour, Lafayette was celebrated by all as the “Nation’s Guest” for 13 months. Honestly, it amazes me how Lafayette Fever swept the nation in the 1800s, with crowds thronging to catch a glimpse of the French nobleman who aided the American cause against Great Britain. For comparison’s sake, 4000 people greeted The Beatles in NYC but 80,000 turned out for Lafayette there! I’ve come across a few theories to explain this phenomenon, which took place fifty years after the Revolution. One says that Lafayette was the swashbuckling symbol of France’s role in securing independence, and Americans were still deeply grateful. Another holds that Lafayette basked in the American reverence for George Washington as his de facto adopted son. (Lafayette even named his son Georges Louis Gilbert Washington de Motier Marquis de Lafayette). The theory that rings most true for me is that Lafayette’s farewell tour coincided with the vitriolic presidential election of 1824, in which, for the first time, no founding father was running. Perhaps the country was demonstrating a nostalgia and reverence for the past and nervousness about the future, as author Sarah Vowel stated in an interview.If you’re like me, Lafayette’s place in our history is more legendary than factual. The opening paragraph a New Yorker story from 2021 summed up my sketchy understanding:Lafayette, like Betsy Ross and Johnny Appleseed, is so neatly fixed in the American imagination that it is hard to see him as a human being. Betsy sews stars, Johnny plants trees, Lafayette brings French élan to the American Revolution. He is, in the collective imagination, little more than a wooden soldier with a white plume on his cocked hat. In the original production of “Hamilton,” Daveed Diggs portrayed him affectionately, with a comically heavy French accent and an amorous manner—a hero, yes, but of the cartoon kind, a near relation of Pepé le Pew. Allison Epstein wrote a most entertaining sketch of the marquis in her hilarious newsletter, Dirtbags Through the Ages. When Allison can’t criticize someone, take note. I must leave you to dig into Lafayette’s extraordinary international escapades on your own while we focus on his stops along the Ohio River in this month’s trivia. Note to my fabulous new subscribers:Monthly trivia is for sport. It’s not a test. Only the rare person can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.QUESTIONS* When Lafayette visited Old Shawneetown, Illinois, it was simply called Shawneetown. Why do we call it Old Shawneetown today?* Remember Illinois’ salt industry from last month’s trivia? When Congress granted the salines to Illinois, the state ran the operation using the unpaid labor of enslaved workers who lived in what was then-Shawneetown. After the Emancipation Proclamation, these workers fled, making it a ghost town that eventually came to be called Old Shawneetown.* After a 15-foot flood in 1937, only 20 of Shawneetown’s 400 homes were habitable. Most Shawneetown residents moved three miles inland from the Ohio River, and took the name with them. The remaining section of the original settlement was incorporated as Old Shawneetown in 1956. The town operates several historic sites to this day. * As we’ve discussed before, Marietta, Ohio, was named for Queen Marie Antoinette. Did Lafayette personally know her? Choose the BEST answer.* Lafayette’s relationship with the queen was fodder for the French Revolution. The political club known as the Jacobins advocated for the violent overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. There were two factions of Jacobins, and the The Montagnards were the most radical. Their leader, Maximillian Robespierre, published “proof” of a long-running affair between Lafayette and the queen in a series of illustrated pamphlets. * In 1789, revolutionary fever was spreading throughout France. Lafayette was named the commander of the National Guard. On October 5, a hungry Parisian mob descended on the palace of Versailles, demanding bread. As the crowd shouted angrily at the unpopular queen, Lafayette kissed her hand on a balcony. Lafayette's charm may well have saved the king and queen on that day, though they would not, of course, survive the revolution.* Lafayette named his youngest daughter Marie Antoinette Virginie to honor both the French queen and the state of Virginia. He did so at the behest of Thomas Jefferson.* Lafayette’s Farewell Tour included a visit to Marietta on May 8, 1825. Which is true about that visit? More than one may apply.* It was not on his original itinerary.* A...
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    32 mins
  • August '24 Trivia!

    August '24 Trivia!
    Aug 30 2024
    I hope you’ve already read my last newsletter about Illinois’ Little Egypt, because this one builds upon it. We’re going to explore the region’s history with legalized slavery. As a reminder, Illinois and Indiana were once called the Illinois Country when first settled by the French, and it was the French who brought the first enslaved African workers there in 1720. The Illinois Country became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787, which meant it was bound by Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance: There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. But slaveholders in the old Illinois Country (Illinois and Indiana) were exempted from the new law. Grandfathered, if you will.Through the next ten questions, we’ll explore the history of slavery north of the Ohio River in what’s now Illinois and Indiana. Note to my fabulous new subscribers:It’s the rare person who can answer all ten trivia questions without any prep. I couldn’t answer them without a significant amount of research, either! Do your best and enjoy learning something new. Answers in the footnotes.QUESTIONS* The French brought the first enslaved Africans to the Midwest around 1720 to work the mines along the Mississippi. The Illinois Country east of the Mississippi River became part of the Northwest Territory sixty-seven years later. Why didn’t Article VI end the practice of human bondage in the Illinois Country? In other words, on what grounds were the French enslavers granted an exemption from Article VI? More than one may apply. * Slavery was never defined in Article VI. * Article VI didn’t contain an enforcement clause.* Article VI didn’t specify how to unwind slavery in places where it had taken root before the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.* The French enslavers cut a deal with Congress that they would phase out slavery within two generations using a plan modeled after Pennsylvania’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.* In 1800, the Indiana Territory (which included Illinois) received its second territorial governor, William Henry Harrison. He had served as secretary of the Northwest Territory and was elected a territorial delegate to Congress, which means he knew that Article VI banned slavery. What action(s) did Harrison take in contradiction of Article VI? More than one may apply.* He brought seven of his enslaved workers with him from Virginia to build his residence and gubernatorial office in Vincennes.* He enslaved Shawnee women to help run his household.* He purchased enslaved workers from French owners who had been in the territory. They built his residence and gubernatorial office in Vincennes.* After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (which involved land west of the Mississippi River), French slaveholders living in Illinois asked Congress to separate Illinois from the Indiana Territory and attach it to Louisiana, where they would have greater protection for their practice of human bondage. The French did not prevail. That same year, the Indiana Territory invented the loophole for prospective enslavers to bring their human property into the state using a practice known as chattel servitude. Instead of calling their human property “slaves” they called them “indentured workers.” Which of these is true about the “indentured servitude”contracts used in the Indiana Territory? More than one may apply.* Indentured contracts could last for 90 years.* Holders of indenture contracts could sell the service contract, along with the worker, to another holder.* Children of indentured mothers were also considered indentured.* Enslaved workers who didn’t sign an indenture contract would be sold into bondage in slave states. * In 1803, “A Law concerning Servants,” in the Northwest Territory established some minimal requirements of masters toward their servants and formed the basis for regulating all slavery and involuntary servitude in the territory. Territorial Governor Harrison and the other white settlers conveniently assumed that all Black people entering the territory were voluntarily indentured before they arrived. This means they assumed that the states from whence the Black workers came had properly supervised these indenture contracts. Ha. How did Harrison et al justify the institution of slavery when appealing to Congress to override Article VI and allow outright slavery in the Territory? More than one may apply.* Slavery would benefit the territory’s economy by stimulating settlement and increasing land values.* Allowing slavery in the Indiana Territory would keep slaveowners living in the Territory from moving west of the Mississippi River, where slavery was permitted by the French and Spanish. * Spreading the practice of enslaved labor throughout the West would benefit the captives themselves as well as the nation's white population, a belief known as diffusion.* A ...
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    36 mins
  • Where's "Little Egypt," Illinois?

    Where's "Little Egypt," Illinois?
    Aug 15 2024
    Southern Illinois is where we find Egyptian city names like Carmi, Cairo, Thebes, Karnak, Goshen, and Dongola. Why? Because llinoisans call the lower 16-17 counties “Little Egypt” (see map below). Americans have been very creative in naming places, but I’m certain that no one who claimed Southern Illinois resembled Egypt had ever been to North Africa beforehand. I went in search of plausible answers for how the region got this unusual name and what made it stick.Checking with official sources in Illinois, including Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Southeastern Illinois College, there seems to be a consensus that the Mississippi River called to mind the Nile, while the expansive Native American mounds at Cahokia were (kinda) like some of Egypt’s (lesser) pyramids. I can accept that today, but how would settlers scratching out a living in the old Illinois Country have known to compare the Mississippi to the Nile, and the Cahokia mounds to the pyramids? We can probably thank Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Egypt in 1798 spurred news coverage all the way to North America. According to the Illinois Periodicals Online (IPO) Project: Although newspapers were scarce in the Illinois Country, the Kentucky papers covered the leading events of the day, including Napoleon's invasion of old Egypt the previous year…Even at that early day many Americans would have noted the two best-known features of Egypt, the Nile River and the pyramids, particularly those at Giza. The IPO Project claims that a Baptist missionary, John Badgley, dubbed the area Little Egypt while riding along the bluffs that overlooked the American Bottoms. From there, he would have easily seen the Mississippi River and Cahokia Mounds, maybe recalled a newspaper picture of Napoleon in Egypt, and thought, “Aha!” This gets even more interesting when you compare Southern Illinois to the Nile Delta in agricultural legacy, which brings us to a Bible story we know today as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As a refresher, it tells us how Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery. After many years, Joseph rose from enslavement to becoming Egypt’s governor and, foreseeing a famine, wisely rationed the country's produce for seven years in preparation. When the famine took hold, Joseph’s estranged family came to Egypt desperate for food. In time, all was forgiven and they were united in that land. (Longer version in Genesis 37, 39-45). To bring it all home, residents in Northern Illinois traveled south to buy grain after a series of dreadful winters and droughts. In light of that, doesn’t “Little Egypt” make sense now? Baptist missionary Badgley would have known the story of Joseph and the famine, so I can see why he chose the name Little Egypt from high atop the bluffs of the American Bottoms.Enslavement in Little EgyptAs longtime readers are aware, I’m writing a book on the racial legacy of the Ohio River as the country’s longest slavery border. Of the six states along the Ohio River, Illinois has the most complicated history with legal slavery, and Little Egypt was where most of it took place. You might be thinking, “What? Slavery in the Land of Lincoln?” Yep. If you’re the product of Illinois public schools, please tell me if this was part of your history curriculum. Heads up: if you want to get a leg up on this month’s trivia quiz, here’s the book that opened my eyes (and made me want to pour bleach into them). Bondage in Egypt: Slavery in Southern Illinois may only be available in your area via ebook. Next time I travel to Little Egypt I’m going to try to find a physical copy. Author Darrel Dexter has a new book out about the KKK in Southern Illinois, too.I look forward to August Trivia in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, would you share this with someone who might enjoy it? Bonus video: The Cahokia MoundsI was in Cahokia this year with the Filson Society. Cahokia was the largest city north of Mexico in its heyday.Bonus video: Napoleon in EgyptHere’s an engaging presentation on Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign from Dr. William B. Ashworth, Jr., Associate Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. See you next time for August Trivia! Get full access to The 981 Project at the981project.com/subscribe
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    8 mins
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