On the tenth of February 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster: their first coming was about sunrising; hearing the noise of some guns, we looked out; several houses were burning, and the smoke ascending to heaven, and There were five persons taken in one house, the father, the mother and a sucking child, they knocked on the head; the other two they took and carried away alive. There were two others, who being out of their garrison upon some occasion were set upon; one was knocked on the head, the other escaped; another there was who running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising them money (as they told me) but they would not hearken to him but knocked him in head, and stripped him naked, and split open his bowels. Another, seeing many of the Indians about his barn, ventured and went out, but was quickly shot down. There were three others belonging to the same garrison who were killed; the Indians getting up upon the roof of the barn, had advantage to shoot down upon them over their fortification. Thus these murderous wretches went on, burning, and destroying before them.

Some in our house were fighting for their lives, others wallowing in their blood, the house on fire over our heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us on the head, if we stirred out. Now might we hear mothers and children crying out for themselves, and one another, "Lord, what shall we do?" Then I took my children (and one of my sisters', hers) to go forth and leave the house: but as soon as we came to the door and appeared, the Indians shot so thick that the bullets rattled against the house, as if one had taken an handful of stones and threw them, so that we were fain to give back.... But out we must go, the fire increasing, and coming along behind us, roaring, and the Indians gaping before us with their guns, spears, and hatchets to devour us.

Visiting an Extraordinary College Graduation with Words, Images, and Music

Booker T. Washington and the Hampton Experience

Out of deference to their southern masters, and perhaps from fear of punishment, they did not openly express their northern sympathies. But their excitement grew with each year of the war. Washington remembered awakening one night in his bed of rags and seeing his mother kneeling over her three children praying for the success of Lincoln’s armies. The yearning for freedom pulsed through the slave quarters. Night after night blacks stayed up late to sing their plantation songs, which contained words about freedom. The slaves had once associated these words—for their master’s benefit—with the next world, but now the songs took on a new, bolder tone; the slaves “were not afraid to let it be known that the ‘freedoms’ in these songs meant freedom of the body in this world.”    

As the school appeared before him, he was struck with wonder. The academic building was an imposing three-story edifice. Undoubtedly he had seen larger buildings in Richmond, but none dedicated to the education of his people. “It seemed to me,” he later recalled, “to be the largest and most beautiful building I had ever seen.”

His three years at the Hampton Institute were spent in rigorous physical and intellectual labor. The students arose at 5:00 a.m. and were inspected for dress and grooming forty-five minutes later. At 6:00 a.m. they had breakfast, then prayers and room inspection. Classes and study hall occupied most of the remainder of the day. The curriculum included reading, geography, history, algebra, government, natural science, and moral philosophy. Hampton was a trade school as well as an academy, and the students worked as waiters, farmers, janitors, carpenters, painters, printers, and shoemakers. 

There was much to like about Hampton and many men and women to admire on the faculty. Above all, there was the head of the school, Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, of whom Washington said, “I never saw a man who so completely lost sight of himself.” Armstrong was a slender, soldierly man who had risen to command as a youth in his twenties during the Civil War. A northern idealist, he had resigned from the army after the war in order to devote his life to the education of the former slaves. As the school’s head he seemed to embody its emphasis on hard work, liberal intelligence, and moral rectitude. The students were so devoted to him that one winter when the men’s dormitory became overcrowded, almost everyone in one class volunteered to sleep outside in tents. Each morning during that cold season the general came by the tents to see how the men were doing, and out of loyalty to him they never admitted their acute discomfort in the canvas dwellings. Armstrong became like a father to Washington, helping the young man with his career and providing a role model for his work as an educator.

Commencement Ceremonies at Hampton Institute, 1875 -- First Glance

The promise and achievement of the Hampton Institute was symbolized by the commencement exercises in June 1875, an impressive event attended by both black and white observers, including journalists from northern newspapers and magazines. Several students recited poetry, and a chorus sang “Farewell My Own True Love” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Seniors read their essays on “Beauty,” “Compulsory Education,” and “The Black Man as a Voter and Citizen.” Washington and another student debated “The Annexation of Cuba,” Washington taking the negative side and impressing several reporters with his forceful oratory and keen logic.

The most engaging performance of all was a lecture on slave music by a student, Joseph B. Towe. A reporter from the Springfield Daily Republican was spellbound by the presentation. “The writer,” he said, “himself brimful of song, a powerful soloist, with a voice of wonderful sweetness, took us back into the past of slavery, and even further back, into Africa itself, for the original sources of this strange music.” Towe described the work songs of his own plantation days “when the fields were full of music.” Slave soloists were especially important, leading the field hands in song. They drew a large price from plantation owners, “for it paid well in the increased amount of work when the air was alive with work songs.” Towe remembered one soloist, John Jones, who could speak an African language.

He recalled the cadences and variations of the work songs. “I will give you an instance,” he said, and a chorus of students began to sing. The music, born in Africa, nourished through generations of slavery, uttered now by a chorus of young emancipated black students, swelled through the auditorium. Towe continued his lecture, pausing again and again while the students illustrated his points with song. The audience was entranced, and even former secessionists congratulated the school for its fine program.

Booker T. Washington’s career at Hampton ended in a celebration of his people’s past achievements, current attainments, and future hopes.... 

It was a historical and illustrated analysis of the plantation music. The writer, himself brimful of song, a powerful soloist, with a voice of wonderful sweetness, took us back into the past of slavery, and even further back, into Africa itself, for the original sources of this strange music. It flowed straight from the invisible fountains of the heart, its joy or sorrow leaping forth into music. 

...on the first day they were available near Walden Pond?

Thoreau: "I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." (Walden, Chapter 1)

-- Response: I wore old blue jeans for my journey to the Natick Mall to purchase my iPhone. Of the roughly 150 other persons in line none appeared to be wearing "new clothes."

Thoreau: Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light." (Walden, Chapter 2)

-- .Response: Acquiring a new smartphone can certainly be occasioned by "aspirations from within." At least that's how it felt to me.

Thoreau: "Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage." (Walden, Chapter 3)

-- Response: And books "stand" too among the digital files on every smartphone -- including a file for Walden, of course. 

Thoreau: "I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself." (Walden, Chapter 5)

-- Response: Surely he was thinking of the "little world" within an iPhone 5s! (See below.)

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." ,,, The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light.

Fort Washington, the last American stronghold on Manhattan, was on a high cliff over the Hudson, surrounded on all but the river side by the British. Washington believed that the position was indefensible but was persuaded by his subordinate, Nathanael Greene, that it could be held. On November 16 he watched in despair from the opposite shore as his fears were realized. The outer works of the fort were too extensive to be held by the 2,800 men left in Manhattan. They were easily overwhelmed, and the defenders retreated into the fort itself. But it was small and impossibly crowded, and at the day’s end the situation was hopeless, and the garrison surrendered. It was the worst defeat of Washington’s career. In addition to losing almost three thousand men, he lost guns, cannon, munitions, and supplies.

Additionally, the loss of Fort Washington was a uniquely personal loss for the general. The episode was not merely a news item he studied in a field report or a remote event on a battlefield he commanded. As the fort was overwhelmed, Washington was on the opposite side of the Hudson River, on the New Jersey Palisades, watching through a telescope. In painful detail he could see Americans overwhelmed, finally surrendering or falling to the sword. Following the losses of the previous months, this was simply too much. Washington turned away and began to weep, in the words of one historian, “with the tenderness of a child.” This was no weakness on the commander’s part; rather it indicates one of his strengths. Washington could care deeply, intimately, about his men, even while dealing with larger, impersonal questions of conducting the war.

On the night of December 25 Washington began to prepare 2,400 men for the crossing of the Delaware. He had assembled a fleet of long, shallow-draft Durham boats, normally used as trading vessels… During the night the temperature dropped and the wind came howling down the valley. Snow fell on the small transports as they made the three-hundred-yard trip across the cold water between hard blocks of ice. But in the early morning of December 26 the army was across and marched over frozen roads to Trenton.

There they surprised the Hessian garrison, sleeping off a Christmas celebration. The enemy tried without success to organize themselves to fend off Washington’s attack, but they surrendered after forty-five minutes. It was a stunning victory. Washington captured a thousand enemy troops and their supplies at the cost of only twelve casualties.

Fearing a British counterattack, Washington took his men and their prisoners back across the Delaware. In a few days his soldiers would complete their one-year enlistments, but Washington persuaded most to stay another six weeks. On December 30 he recrossed the Delaware. This time the British were prepared. General Cornwallis was in the vicinity with six thousand troops. On the night of January 2 the British general camped his men near Washington’s position on Assumpink Creek. Expecting to attack Washington the next day, Cornwallis remarked, “At last we have run down the old fox and will bag him in the morning.”

But his prediction was wrong, for Washington once more eluded the British with a night march. Leaving a few men behind to tend the campfires, the Americans marched past Cornwallis deep into enemy-held territory. On the morning of January 3 they routed the British at Princeton, and Washington watched the retreat with childlike enthusiasm. Sitting astride his horse, he waved his sword and shouted, “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys.”

The victories at Trenton and Princeton gave an enormous boost to American morale. In Europe the New Jersey counterthrust was described by such eminent military experts as Frederick of Prussia as one of the great campaigns of the century. At home in New York, Lydia Minturn Post credited the American success to divine Providence; to “the judgment, skill, and intrepidity” of George Washington; and to the “deep-rooted indignation” of the Patriots who would “do and dare for liberty, or death.” Even an old English observer had to admit that Washington’s successes restored American confidence. “A few days ago,” he said, “they had given up their cause for lost. . . . Now they are all liberty mad again.”

Eleanor made herself more accessible to the public than any previous First Lady. But at the same time she fought to preserve a private realm, where she could simply be herself. She refused to be accompanied on her travels by Secret Service agents and insisted on driving her own car without a police escort. The heads of the Secret Service fretted - kidnappers had recently killed Charles Lindbergh's child, and that winter an assassin in Miami had fatally wounded Chicago's Mayor Cermak as he stood beside Franklin. Nonetheless, Eleanor continued to value privacy above safety, and refused protection. Finally. a frustrated Secret Service agent placed a gun on Louis Howe's desk and told him to make the first Lady carry it. Eleanor took the gun, and with Earl Miller's help she learned to shoot it, but there her compliance ended: she carried it unloaded in her glove compartment.

During the summer of 1933 Eleanor tested the bounds of her liberty, as if to determine just how much of her private life she could preserve in her new position. First she purchased a car: not a staid black Lincoln or Cadillac as might befit the First Lady of the land, but a light blue Buick roadster, a sporty convertible with a rumble seat. The car was a whim, to lose herself in the formal persona of President's wife. As if to proclaim her freedom from convention, Eleanor indulged in other whims. She had always wanted to watch the sunrise from Vermont's Mount Mansfield and drive around the Gaspe Peninsula and spend a night in a tourist home. Why not do these things and more? The children had their own summer plans, the White House social season was over, Eleanor was only forty-nine, and life was still an adventure. In this frame of mind she invited Hick to join her in the roadster for three weeks traveling as "ordinary tourists" through New York, New England, and Eastern Canada. The Secret Service was aghast, fearing that the First Lady would be abducted.

That idea amused Eleanor as she and Hick sped north in the convertible with the wind whistling in their ears. Eleanor was nearly six feet tall and Hick weighed nearly 200 pounds. "Where would they hide us?" Eleanor demanded. "They certainly couldn't cram us into the trunk of a car!" As the sun dipped toward the Adirondacks and dusk fell over the forested countryside, they passed a little house with a sign welcoming tourists. "Let's go back and try it," Eleanor said, "I've always wanted to stay in one of those places." The owners - a young couple with a small-baby - were startled to see Mrs. Roosevelt walk through their door. But Eleanor behaved like an ordinary tourist, and the hostess, regaining her composure, showed the guests to an ordinary room, small but spotless. The hot-water system was not fully installed, she explained, and so there was water for only one bath.

     As the sun dipped toward the Adirondacks and dusk fell over the forested countryside, they passed a little house with a sign welcoming tourists. "Let's go back and try it," Eleanor said, "I've always wanted to stay in one of those places."

Alone, Eleanor and Hick argued over who would use the tub. "You're the First Lady, so you get the first bath," said Hick. Eleanor playfully thrust out her long fingers at her friend as if to tickle her into submission. Hick, ticklish but persistent, finally won, and Eleanor bathed. But with her spartan upbringing, she managed to take her bath cold, and Hick found to her surprise that the tap water was still warm. That night before they went to sleep Eleanor read to Hick from one of her favorite books, Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body.

The next morning they visited John Brown's farm and his grave near Lake Placid. With three weeks to themselves they traveled slowly toward Canada, criss-crossing the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. One evening they found themselves in a small town at the foot of Mount Mansfield. It was pitch black, and the village policeman advised them not to attempt the treacherous mountain road in the dark. But Eleanor was determined to see the sunrise from the top. The roadster whined up the trail in low gear, its headlights falling on trees and then into open space as the car rounded hairpin turns on the way to the Green Mountain Inn and a short night's rest.

A few hours later Eleanor and Hick watched the early morning sunlight that broke over the Atlantic and struck the mountains of northern New England. Atop Mount Mansfield they saw the light catch the mountain peaks and drop slowly into the valleys of the silent wilderness; far to the north they could see Mount Royal in Canada, and to the west Lake Champlain caught the pure light of dawn. To the south, out of sight beyond the horizon, the sun brightened the White House and the Washington Monument, five hundred miles away in space, further still in thought.

The women drove on into Canada, staying at the majestic Chateau Frontenac in the old stone city of Quebec. For the next few days they drove along the south bank of the St. Lawrence on one of the loveliest roads in all of North America. She and Hick ate meals cooked over woodburning stoves, lay under the sun on a warm beach, and swam in the St. Lawrence. America seemed far away, and their anonymity complete. They stopped at a little church by the water, and the village priest invited them to lunch in his rectory. Hearing Eleanor's name he asked her: "Are you any relation to Theodore Roosevelt? I was a great admirer of his."

"Yes," said Eleanor, smiling, "I am his niece."

Eleanor and Hick spent their last night in Canada at a tourist camp in a trim log cabin with a huge stone fireplace. The next day they crossed the border into Maine. For the past few days, Eleanor had delighted in her freedom. She had not been the First Lady of America; she had been an ordinary person - herself. But that must soon end. With the convertible top still down, looking disheveled with white sunburn cream smeared over their faces, they drove into the town of Presque Isle, where to their "horror" a parade awaited them. They were "wind-blown, dusty, and dirty" and Eleanor felt anything but gracious. But she was trapped and fell dutifully into line with the procession that moved slowly down the main street between rows of flag-waving children. A portable traffic standard loomed ahead and a flustered Eleanor clipped it. "Damn," she said. 

     Eleanor had delighted in her freedom. She had not been the First Lady of America; she had been an ordinary person - herself. But that must soon end. With the convertible top still down, looking disheveled with white sunburn cream smeared over their faces, they drove into the town of Presque Isle, where to their "horror" a parade awaited them.

This was the only time Hick ever heard her friend swear. Eleanor may have been surprised at her own profanity, but she managed to drive on through the town. When she realized that a dozen or so cars were still following them, she told Hick, "We've got to get out of this some way." The First Lady then sped around several comers and lost her escort on a country road in the potato fields of Aroostook County. Here they saw a farmhouse with a sign welcoming tourists.

After registering they settled their nerves with a walk and then sat on a porch swing. Soon the farmer appeared and sat on the steps. Eleanor began talking knowledgeably about potato prices and local agricultural conditions. The farmer's wife came out and sat in a rocking chair; as darkness settled over the farm land, the four of them went on talking. Hick sensed the farmer's wowing admiration for Eleanor. At about eleven o'clock they went into the kitchen for a snack of doughnuts and milk. In their room Hick asked Eleanor how she had managed to know so much about farming in Maine. Eleanor explained that she had read a local newspaper; she also gained information from the farmer as she went along: "something I learned to do when I was very young," she said, "to cover my ignorance." She might also have mentioned Franklin's coaching. He had taught her to be a good observer while he was Governor of New York, and he would need her reports even more now that he was President.

After a short visit to Campobello, Eleanor and Hick drove back to Washington. On the night of their return Franklin began a tradition he would observe throughout his Presidency: he dined informally with Eleanor so that she could tell him what she had learned. Hick told him about Eleanor's altercation with the traffic standard, and Franklin's "great, booming laugh" filled the room. Franklin asked about the country they had seen. What was the hunting and fishing like in Quebec, he wondered. How did the people live: what were their houses like, what did they eat, did the Catholic Church control education? And what about Maine: how were the farmers getting along, what had she learned about the Indians? Eleanor answered these questions and others. It was soon apparent to Hick that although Eleanor had relaxed on their vacation, she was constantly registering information for herself and for Franklin, even making mental notes about the state of laundry hanging on clothes lines - any detail that would help them both understand more fully the condition of the nation they served.

In such ways Eleanor brought together her private and her public life, even while touring in a Buick convertible. The vacation had been an escape from Washington, a part of Eleanor's personal life; at the same time it served her public role and her relationship with Franklin. The personal distance between Eleanor and Franklin remained great. He could relax more easily with Missy and Anna than with his wife. In the White House there were rooms enough for the President and First Lady each to have their own suites. When guests came for dinner, they often had cocktails with Franklin or with Eleanor in their separate White House apartments, before coming together for dinner.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs- commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.

"There's going to be a time," she told her grandson, "they're going to come, and they're going to take your horse, they're going to take your land, and they're going to take your home. But Grandson, whatever you want to give from here (indicating her heart), they can't take that away. You can only give it up."

The whole process is to offer prayers through the songs, through the dance and to recharge, reenergize and get rid of a lot of excess baggage or garbage we may pick up during the year. Early morning of that last night before the sunlight, it's an exciting time because everybody knows the sacrifice, if you will, is complete. The songs were sung, the dances were danced, the words were spoken, the prayers were offered. It's really a beautiful, strong spiritual experience. 

Brown Eagle, and many other Indians at Expo '74, were encouraged by the fact that Native American's Earth was their festival. They were calling attention to their presence in the modem world. In that way, it reflected the spirit of the American Indian Movement. "All of a sudden the status quo was changing. 'Hey, I ain't sitting in the back of the bus any more. Hey wait now, either stop the bus or put me in front or let me drive.'''