A letter to King Louis XIV from a French Huguenot

For context, this is a fictional letter from a french protestant (or Huguenot) to King Louis XIV during the 17th century. King Louis XIV was notorious for his persecution of French Protestants, and this letter is supposed to be written by one such protestant as a petition to Louis XIV to stop the persecution.


Dear “Honorable and Majestic” King Louis XIV of France and Navarre,

My name is Pierre Bouille of Normandy. A French protestant, or Huguenot as we are known, me and others of my faith have felt it necessary to send you a petition in regards to our treatment under the policies and positions you have enacted during your reign.

Many of us have died, been imprisoned, chased away, harassed, tortured and otherwise suffered greatly due to recent anti-Huguenot policies. Those of us who left the country in order to evade such horrors were forced to leave behind our friends, family, livelihood, homeland and nearly all our earthly possessions. We have been shunned by the nation we love, the throne that but two generations ago enacted policies of tolerance and understanding between Catholics and Huguenots. But alas, now those days seem forgotten and dead, making way for hatred, animosity, and ruin.

If you could only see our suffering, our plight. Would you continue your violent persecution if you could witness the immeasurable anguish you have brought upon us? Families fleeing desperately in the night, with naught an earthly possession but the clothing on their backs as their homes burn down behind them. Huguenot churches smashed, as the blood of dead pastors stain the cold stone. Fathers ripped from their families, locked up and doomed to a short existence suffering in a filthy cell. People anguishing, as the throne of a country they loved and were proud of turned against them. Would you be able to stomach these scenes? Could you continue to sleep at night? Can you acknowledge that YOU caused all this? Look deep inside yourself, and ask “What am I doing, what am I causing to happen?”.

And you must also ask yourself “Why am I doing this?”. Is it because you feared we would overthrow you? I will have you know that there were never more honorable or loyal citizens in your entire realm than the Huguenots. We would have gladly taken up arms for the glory and well-being of our nation and countrymen just as much as any catholic would. By God, we may have been even more loyal. For tell me, which denomination is ruled and told how to act and what to obey by a pope in a different land? The Catholics. Which denomination has a church that demands submission and obedience by any sovereign nation? The Catholics. Which denomination refuses to believe that a king could rank higher in closeness to God than the pope? The Catholics. Us Huguenots owe no such loyalty to the papacy, our one and sovereign ruler is that of France.

But why must we fight? Why must we come to conflict? The policies enacted under your grandfather were those of tolerance and understanding between Huguenots and Catholics. France flourished under these policies. But now, strife and ruin wrack much of your dominion. And economic ruin came with it. You see, many if not most, of those Huguenots you drove away were skilled laborers, craftsmen, architects, scholars, soldiers, merchants, bankers and bureaucrats. But when we left, a hole appeared in the positions we once filled. And there are not enough Catholics who possessed all the same skills and the same expertise that we had, leading to economic collapse. You need us more than we need you.

All your subjects have suffered because of these laws, whether they realize it or not. So for the good of the entirety of France, I beseech you to reconsider your anti-Huguenot positions. I can only hope my appeals to your both your human empathy and your desire for the success of France have succeeded, for if they have not, all of us will feel the repercussions. 

Regards,
Pieree Bouille,
Huguenot, Refugee, Proud Frenchman

A Day in the Life of a 17th Century English Vagrant

It is a Thursday morning in London, England on the 27th of March, 1667.  My name is Edward Francis Little, the town vagrant. Not exactly a position of high prestige, I know, but somebody's got to fill the role, may as well be me. I slum around a sizable township just a dozen and six hours outside of London. It was a late morning as I stare around my small shack I call a home. My abode is absolutely filthy, more filthy than an average home at least. I kick various bottles of alcohol out of my way, pick up the ragged lumps of leather I call footwear, and make my way to town, hoping to scrounge up some free food one way or another. Unfortunately, men such as I, who delve into a vagrant holds-no-morals attitude are seen as the absolute scum of society. Even the common folk are uptight about everything, but the puritans are far, far worse. Self-righteous fools if I've ever seen 'em. Always crying about the immorality of drinking, fornicating, dancing, napping, laughing, everything. Even Christmas. You'd think the most religious folk ever would celebrate Christmas, for Christs sake.

But I quickly push my silent complaining out of my head. Some poor bloke was about to be executed in town square for doing something or other. I think it was murder. As I walked into town square a large crowd had already formed around the raised platform from which the noose hung. The crowd was made up of all sorts, wealthier ladies and gentlemen with corsets, waistcoats, wigs, stockings, and lead makeup slathered along their smug faces along with the lower classes, lice in their hair and body odor almost as bad as mine wafting into the air. I  pushed my way through the crowd to get a better look, which was easy enough as not to many people wanted to be anywhere near one as lowly in both appearance and repute as I. The crowd was pretty large. A lot of people usually turned up to these sorts of things, after all who doesn't like free entertainment? Even the richer types came when they didn't feel like seeing a play or patronizing the coffee houses.

They brought the poor bastard that was to be hung up onto the platform, flanked by guards on both sides and arms and legs secured in wrought iron chains. The crowd let out a cheer and shouted insults and jeers at the man. His head hung low, defeated yet still proud. They put him up above the trapdoor and fitted the noose around his neck. They gave him a moment to say a few last words like they normally do with these things, I guess its more dramatic that way. Not content to be a crowd pleaser however, he just bitterly spat out a few insults about our mothers, which is greeted by a series of boos from the crowd. The executioner pulled the lever to the trap door and the man fell a few feet by his neck. I guess the force of the fall wasn't strong enough to snap his neck, because he spent a few moments struggling, futiliy gasping for air before succumbing to choking grip of the rope. Dead with a rather grotesque expression on his face, the crowd cheered and yipped louder than ever before. "Justice" was served and the crowd dispersed soon afterwards.

I lost my appetite during the course of the "festivities", I was content to see if I could swipe some weak beer from the tavern. Walking off in that direction, I wondered if I could be the next one to swing from the hangman's noose. Welp, I doubt I would have anything better to do, so I shouldn't really worry about it.

A Review of Mayflower

In class and at home, we read The Book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. The book is nonfiction and covers the story of the Mayflower ship, the early years of the Plymouth  colony, and it’s inhabitants. We read chapters five and six in the book, pages 79 to 101 which covered the history of Plymouth shortly after the Mayflower left. We came about reading it in class for a project where we were to have assigned roles such as historian, etc, and annotate and look over the reading so we could get a better understanding of life in Plymouth and to take notes on parts and phrases of the book pertaining to our assigned role.

                              

Overall, I think Mayflower was a pretty good read. The main subject matter of this section, the early days of Plymouth colony, was presented in a interesting way that managed to hold my attention quite well. I think the authors writing style was what made the reading stand out especially. It read similarly to a novel, which I think helps the reader engage and better comprehend the time period and setting more than just reading about it in a textbook would. But I also feel there is a small problem with his style of writing too. Due to it’s novel-like format, the reading doesn’t really display the information and facts as clearly or easily as, say, a textbook would. Despite that, I would overall recommend this book to people. Especially to those who are looking for a more accessible and engaging way to read about the history of Mayflower, Plymouth, and the pilgrims. But to those who are looking for something to read for hard research, there are probably somewhat better places to look, but this book is not without it’s merits. I would overall rate this book a 4 out of five stars.

The Use of Slavery in Modern Day Industries

The Use of Slavery in  Modern Day Industries

The purpose of my PSA was to talk about the industries involved in modern day slavery. Throughout the world, countless industries from cocoa to cotton to carpet-making use slavery, in one form or the other. Many of the products we use daily come from the horrid practices in these industries. It was important to draw attentions to these very serious issues. Issues that many people are quite unfortunately unaware of. If more people knew about the industries that use slave labor, there would be more of an effort to stop it. That is the purpose of this video, to tell people about these issues.

www.endingmoderndayslaveryatrmhs.wikispaces.com

European Colonial Territories in North America circa 1700 A.D.

European  Colonial Territories in North America circa 1700 A.D.

Our map is European land claims in north america circa 1700. Its purpose was, appropriately enough, to display the land holdings of the major European powers roughly in the year 1700 A.D.. The nations of France, Great Britain, Spain and The Netherlands all had land claims in America at this point. Yet they were far from covering the entire continent at this point in time, and even much of the areas the did hold were largely uncontrolled and ungoverned, as well as unsettled by the europeans.

This map outlines the Land Claims made by European countries in the Americas during the early 1700s. Spain had control over all of the West coast at this time, and had power over more of the Americas than any other European country. In North America, England was at work establishing the 13 Colonies along the East coast. Many of the land claims bordered large rivers, such as the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers, both for transport and for potable water. Colonies from different countries also fought over borders, especially in eastern North America, where France, England, and Spain all had had territories bordering each other. The colonies were an important source of many different goods to their mother countries.goods to their mother countries.