Rebels on the Border
Rebels on the Border

Author: Aaron Astor

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0807143006

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Rebels on the Border offers a remarkably compelling and significant study of the Civil War South's highly contested and bloodiest border states: Kentucky and Missouri. By far the most complex examination to date, the book sharply focuses on the "borderland" between the free North and the Confederate South. As a result, Rebels on the Border deepens and enhances understanding of the sectional conflict, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. After slaves in central Kentucky and Missouri gained their emancipation, author Aaron Astor contends, they transformed informal kin and social networks of resistance against slavery into more formalized processes of electoral participation and institution building. At the same time, white politics in Kentucky's Bluegrass and Missouri's Little Dixie underwent an electoral realignment in response to the racial and social revolution caused by the war and its aftermath. Black citizenship and voting rights provoked a violent white reaction and a cultural reinterpretation of white regional identity. After the war, the majority of wartime Unionists in the Bluegrass and Little Dixie joined former Confederate guerrillas in the Democratic Party in an effort to stifle the political ambitions of former slaves. Rebels on the Border is not simply a story of bitter political struggles, partisan guerrilla warfare, and racial violence. Like no other scholarly account of Kentucky and Missouri during the Civil War, it places these two crucial heartland states within the broad context of local, southern, and national politics.

Rebels without Borders
Rebels without Borders

Author: Idean Salehyan

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-07-07

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0801457971

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Rebellion, insurgency, civil war-conflict within a society is customarily treated as a matter of domestic politics and analysts generally focus their attention on local causes. Yet fighting between governments and opposition groups is rarely confined to the domestic arena. "Internal" wars often spill across national boundaries, rebel organizations frequently find sanctuaries in neighboring countries, and insurgencies give rise to disputes between states. In Rebels without Borders, which will appeal to students of international and civil war and those developing policies to contain the regional diffusion of conflict, Idean Salehyan examines transnational rebel organizations in civil conflicts, utilizing cross-national datasets as well as in-depth case studies. He shows how external Contra bases in Honduras and Costa Rica facilitated the Nicaraguan civil war and how the Rwandan civil war spilled over into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fostering a regional war. He also looks at other cross-border insurgencies, such as those of the Kurdish PKK and Taliban fighters in Pakistan. Salehyan reveals that external sanctuaries feature in the political history of more than half of the world's armed insurgencies since 1945, and are also important in fostering state-to-state conflicts. Rebels who are unable to challenge the state on its own turf look for mobilization opportunities abroad. Neighboring states that are too weak to prevent rebel access, states that wish to foster instability in their rivals, and large refugee diasporas provide important opportunities for insurgent groups to establish external bases. Such sanctuaries complicate intelligence gathering, counterinsurgency operations, and efforts at peacemaking. States that host rebels intrude into negotiations between governments and opposition movements and can block progress toward peace when they pursue their own agendas.

Catarino Garza's Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border
Catarino Garza's Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border

Author: Elliott Young

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2004-07-26

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0822386402

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Catarino Garza’s Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border rescues an understudied episode from the footnotes of history. On September 15, 1891, Garza, a Mexican journalist and political activist, led a band of Mexican rebels out of South Texas and across the Rio Grande, declaring a revolution against Mexico’s dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Made up of a broad cross-border alliance of ranchers, merchants, peasants, and disgruntled military men, Garza’s revolution was the largest and longest lasting threat to the Díaz regime up to that point. After two years of sporadic fighting, the combined efforts of the U.S. and Mexican armies, Texas Rangers, and local police finally succeeded in crushing the rebellion. Garza went into exile and was killed in Panama in 1895. Elliott Young provides the first full-length analysis of the revolt and its significance, arguing that Garza’s rebellion is an important and telling chapter in the formation of the border between Mexico and the United States and in the histories of both countries. Throughout the nineteenth century, the borderlands were a relatively coherent region. Young analyzes archival materials, newspapers, travel accounts, and autobiographies from both countries to show that Garza’s revolution was more than just an effort to overthrow Díaz. It was part of the long struggle of borderlands people to maintain their autonomy in the face of two powerful and encroaching nation-states and of Mexicans in particular to protect themselves from being economically and socially displaced by Anglo Americans. By critically examining the different perspectives of military officers, journalists, diplomats, and the Garzistas themselves, Young exposes how nationalism and its preeminent symbol, the border, were manufactured and resisted along the Rio Grande.

Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border
Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border

Author: Donald Gilmore

Publisher: Pelican Publishing

Published: 2005-11-30

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9781455602308

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During the Civil War, the western front was the scene of some of that conflictï¿1/2s bloodiest and most barbaric encounters as Union raiders and Confederate guerrillas pursued each other from farm to farm with equal disregard for civilian casualties. Historical accounts of these events overwhelmingly favor the victorious Union standpoint, characterizing the Southern fighters as wanton, unprincipled savages. But in fact, as the author, himself a descendant of Union soldiers, discovered, the bushwhackersï¿1/2 violent reactions were understandable, given the reign of terror they endured as a result of Lincolnï¿1/2s total war in the West. In reexamining many of the long-held historical assumptions about this period, Gilmore discusses President Lincolnï¿1/2s utmost desire to keep Missouri in the Union by any and all means. As early as 1858, Kansan and Union troops carried out unbridled confiscation or destruction of Missouri private property, until the state became known as "the burnt region." These outrages escalated to include martial law throughout Missouri and finally the infamous General Orders Number 11 of September 1863 in which Union general Thomas Ewing, federal commander of the region, ordered the deportation of the entire population of the border counties. It is no wonder that, faced with the loss of their farms and their livelihoods, Missourians struck back with equal force.

True Love and Bartholomew
True Love and Bartholomew

Author: Jonathan Falla

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-05-18

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9780521399203

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The Karen, one of Burma's many minority peoples, have been waging an increasingly desperate war for autonomy against the Burmese government since 1949. Karen society in Burma has been little studied since the 1920s, and recent writers have been forced (by Burma's "closed door" policies) to concentrate on Karen refugee communities in Thailand. This book is a portrait of an ancient culture remolded to the purposes of ethnic rebellion. The picture is enriched with historical comparisons and is based on portraits of individual Karen as they struggle to defend their way of life and to preserve their belief in their own independence. There are chapters on music, food, love, the patterns of the rebels' forest and river life, on the Karen military hierarchy and its weaponry, on women and on mercenaries, on the language and the symbols of rebel nationalism. Jonathan Falla has led a diverse life. He attended the University of Cambridge and is the founder of the Cambridge Poetry Society. He has worked in Indonesia and Uganda and has written several plays, being named one of Britain's Most Promising Playwrights in 1983. Falla spent an illegal year in Burma living with the Karen rebels. Currently, he lives in Scotland and works as a nurse.

The Patriot War Along the Michigan-Canada Border: Raiders and Rebels
The Patriot War Along the Michigan-Canada Border: Raiders and Rebels

Author: Shaun J. McLaughlin

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2013-09-24

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1625845111

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The soldiers and civilians who participated in the Patriot War, fought between 1837 and 1842, hoped to free Canada from supposed British tyranny, as the United States had done just over half a century before. Despite heavy losses throughout, the American and Canadian "Patriots" refused to give up their noble cause. The Patriots launched at least thirteen raids on Upper Canada from the American border states. The western front, which spanned the British colony from Ohio and Michigan in western Lake Erie and along the Detroit River, saw some of the fiercest fighting, including the failed 1838 Battle of Windsor. In the wake of this engagement, many Canadians were outraged at the retaliatory hangings, while Americans protested the transport of their kin to the Tasmanian penal colony. With stories from both sides of the border, historian Shaun J. McLaughlin recalls the triumphs and sacrifices of the doomed Patriots.

Florida Fiasco
Florida Fiasco

Author: Rembert W. Patrick

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0820335495

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Published in 1954, Rembert Patrick's Florida Fiasco details the aggressive schemes developed by President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe in the attempted acquisition of Florida. Patrick shows that George Matthews's influence over General John McIntosh inspired him to plan a revolt in east Florida in the hopes of turning the conquered territory over to Matthews. The plot was thwarted when Spanish minister Luis de Onis heard of the coming attack and appealed to the British. Thus begins the five-year attempt which was led in succession by George Matthews, David Mitchell, and Thomas A. Mitchell. Patrick's account includes the plotting of undercover agents, manipulation of discontented nationals, denials by high officials, and adventurers seeking rich rewards.

The Civil War of 1812
The Civil War of 1812

Author: Alan Taylor

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 0679776737

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In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution, leading to a second confrontation that redefined North America. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor’s vivid narrative tells the riveting story of the soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians who fought to determine the fate of a continent. Would revolutionary republicanism sweep the British from Canada? Or would the British contain, divide, and ruin the shaky republic? In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porous boundaries, the leaders of the republic and of the empire struggled to control their own diverse peoples. The border divided Americans—former Loyalists and Patriots—who fought on both sides in the new war, as did native peoples defending their homelands. And dissident Americans flirted with secession while aiding the British as smugglers and spies. During the war, both sides struggled to sustain armies in a northern land of immense forests, vast lakes, and stark seasonal swings in the weather. After fighting each other to a standstill, the Americans and the British concluded that they could safely share the continent along a border that favored the United States at the expense of Canadians and Indians. Moving beyond national histories to examine the lives of common men and women, The Civil War of 1812 reveals an often brutal (sometimes comic) war and illuminates the tangled origins of the United States and Canada. Moving beyond national histories to examine the lives of common men and women, The Civil War of 1812 reveals an often brutal (sometimes comic) war and illuminates the tangled origins of the United States and Canada.

The Rivers Ran Backward
The Rivers Ran Backward

Author: Christopher Phillips

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 0195187237

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Most Americans imagine the Civil War in terms of clear and defined boundaries of freedom and slavery: a straightforward division between the slave states of Kentucky and Missouri and the free states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kansas. However, residents of these western border states, Abraham Lincoln's home region, had far more ambiguous identities-and contested political loyalties-than we commonly assume. In The Rivers Ran Backward, Christopher Phillips sheds light on the fluid political cultures of the "Middle Border" states during the Civil War era. Far from forming a fixed and static boundary between the North and South, the border states experienced fierce internal conflicts over their political and social loyalties. White supremacy and widespread support for the existence of slavery pervaded the "free" states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which had much closer economic and cultural ties to the South, while those in Kentucky and Missouri held little identification with the South except over slavery. Debates raged at every level, from the individual to the state, in parlors, churches, schools, and public meeting places, among families, neighbors, and friends. Ultimately, the pervasive violence of the Civil War and the cultural politics that raged in its aftermath proved to be the strongest determining factor in shaping these states' regional identities, leaving an indelible imprint on the way in which Americans think of themselves and others in the nation. The Rivers Ran Backward reveals the complex history of the western border states as they struggled with questions of nationalism, racial politics, secession, neutrality, loyalty, and even place-as the Civil War tore the nation, and themselves, apart. In this major work, Phillips shows that the Civil War was more than a conflict pitting the North against the South, but one within the West that permanently reshaped American regions.

The Pig War
The Pig War

Author: Rosemary Neering

Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Co

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1926936019

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On May 15, 1859, an American settler on San Juan Island shot a pig belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company. This seemingly insignificant act was the spark that almost set aflame the strangest of many confrontations between Britain and the United States on the northwest coast of North America. On one side of the border dispute over the strategically located San Juan Islands was Governor James Douglas, determined to protect the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company and prove the military superiority of Britain. On the other side was General William Selby Harney, spoiling for a fight and believing in America's manifest destiny to rule the continent. In this lively account of the conflict that became known as the Pig War, Rosemary Neering traces the events that led to the standoff in the San Juans and brings to life the memorable characters who played leading roles in the drama. The book is an excellent travel companion to anyone visiting the San Juans and the original American and British camps that are open to the public.