Christmas Every Day

1520

Massacre at a Mexican Festival

In 1519 the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes had succeeded in invading the Aztec empire of central Mexico and controlling the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, and the capital Tenochtitlan. Relations between the tiny Spanish contingent and the mass of Aztecs was tense and the deeds of this day in 1520 brought things to a boiling point.

Cortes had departed Tenochtitlan to head for the coast where he expected to battle some other Spaniards with orders to arrest him. He had left in charge his unstable deputy Pedro de Alvarado (shown above). During the absence of Cortes, Alvarado was approached by high-ranking Aztecs who wished to hold a festival and sought his permission lest he think they were gathering with hostile intent. Alvarado agreed, provided there would be no human sacrifice involved (a ritual that marked many Aztec festivals). When Alvarado learned that the celebrations would, in fact, include a human sacrifice he acted to halt it and massacred the participants.

That was the Spanish story. Here is the Aztec account:

Here it is told how the Spaniards killed, they murdered the Mexicans who were celebrating the Fiesta of Huitzilopochtli in the place they called The Patio of the Gods

At this time, when everyone was enjoying the celebration, when everyone was already dancing, when everyone was already singing, when song was linked to song and the songs roared like waves, in that precise moment the Spaniards determined to kill people. They came into the patio, armed for battle. They came to close the exits, the steps, the entrances [to the patio]: The Gate of the Eagle in the smallest palace, The Gate of the Canestalk and the Gate of the Snake of Mirrors. And when they had closed them, no one could get out anywhere.

Once they had done this, they entered the Sacred Patio to kill people. They came on foot, carrying swords and wooden and metal shields. Immediately, they surrounded those who danced, then rushed to the place where the drums were played. They attacked the man who was drumming and cut off both his arms. Then they cut off his head [with such a force] that it flew off, falling far away. At that moment, they then attacked all the people, stabbing them, spearing them, wounding them with their swords. They struck some from behind, who fell instantly to the ground with their entrails hanging out [of their bodies]. They cut off the heads of some and smashed the heads of others into little pieces.

They struck others in the shoulders and tore their arms from their bodies. They struck some in the thighs and some in the calves. They slashed others in the abdomen and their entrails fell to the earth. There were some who even ran in vain, but their bowels spilled as they ran; they seemed to get their feet entangled with their own entrails. Eager to flee, they found nowhere to go. Some tried to escape, but the Spaniards murdered them at the gates while they laughed. Others climbed the walls, but they could not save themselves. Others entered the communal house, where they were safe for a while. Others lay down among the victims and pretended to be dead. But if they stood up again they [the Spaniards] would see them and kill them.

The blood of the warriors ran like water as they ran, forming pools, which widened, as the smell of blood and entrails fouled the air. And the Spaniards walked everywhere, searching the communal houses to kill those who were hiding. They ran everywhere, they searched every place.

When [people] outside [the Sacred Patio learned of the massacre], shouting began, “Captains, Mexicas, come here quickly! Come here with all arms, spears, and shields! Our captains have been murdered! Our warriors have been slain! Oh Mexica captains, [our warriors] have been annihilated!”

Then a roar was heard, screams, people wailed, as they beat their palms against their lips. Quickly the captains assembled, as if planned in advance, and carried their spears and shields. Then the battle began. [The Mexicas] attacked them with arrows and even javelins, including small javelins used for hunting birds. They furiously hurled their javelins [at the Spaniards]. It was as if a layer of yellow canes spread over the Spaniards.

This massacre led to a complete breakdown of trust between the Spanish and the Aztec rulers. Rebellion against Cortes broke out and horrible deeds ensued.

1812

The assassination of Prime Minister Perceval

The English-speaking world has a mixed record when it comes to political assassinations. Unlike the more excitable Latin nations who off their leaders with depressing regularity, the Anglosphere is slower on the assassination trigger but even so, there are distinctions to be made. American politicians have a high mortality rate (hello, Presidents Lincoln, Garfield,  Mckinley, and Kennedy; Governors Huey Long, Charles Bent, William Goebel, and Frank Steunenburg; and a host of judges, congressmen, and state officials) and the situation in India and Pakistan is even worse. Only one minor politician has bit the dust in Canada; Australia records only one victim and New Zealand has no assassinated rulers on its watch. Clearly the difference is the presidential system — if you have a constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister, you are pretty safe. With one exception.

In 1812 John Bellingham (1769-1812), a failed businessman who believed that the British government had not recompensed him for bad treatment at the hands of Russians, shot Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1762-1812). At his trial he made the following speech in his defence:

“Recollect, Gentlemen, what was my situation. Recollect that my family was ruined and myself destroyed, merely because it was Mr Perceval’s pleasure that justice should not be granted; sheltering himself behind the imagined security of his station, and trampling upon law and right in the belief that no retribution could reach him. I demand only my right, and not a favour; I demand what is the birthright and privilege of every Englishman.

Gentlemen, when a minister sets himself above the laws, as Mr Perceval did, he does it as his own personal risk. If this were not so, the mere will of the minister would become the law, and what would then become of your liberties?

I trust that this serious lesson will operate as a warning to all future ministers, and that they will henceforth do the thing that is right, for if the upper ranks of society are permitted to act wrong with impunity, the inferior ramifications will soon become wholly corrupted.

Gentlemen, my life is in your hands, I rely confidently in your justice.”

Bellingham was found guilty and hanged three days later.

1943

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is crushed

As a prelude to mass deportations and extermination, the German government in occupied Poland moved the Jewish population into packed and disease-ridden urban ghettos. From there they were told they would be put on trains to labour camps in the East but in fact, these journeys led only to places whose names live on in infamy: Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz and Majdanek.

By early 1943 the remaining Jews of the ghetto in Warsaw knew what their fates would be — about 200,000 had already been deported — and began to resist sporadically. When German forces entered the ghetto in strength on Passover in April large-scale fighting began to take place. Various Jewish groups, separated by ideology but united in determination to go down fighting, had collected weapons, built strong-points and bunkers, and made alliances with Polish resistance fighters outside the ghetto.

For weeks they prevented the SS and Gestapo units aided by Jewish ghetto police and Polish police  from proceeding with the deportations until finally the Nazis resorted to burning down the ghetto, building by building. Some fighters escaped through tunnels to the outside where they joined the larger anti-German resistance, some committed suicide, and some surrendered. On May 16, the SS commander Jürgen Stroop (later executed for war crimes) announced the end of the uprising, marked by demolition of the synagogue, though minor incidents continued for weeks. German casualties were light but 13,000 Jews perished and a further 57,000 were deported. Stroop, who would late write a lengthy account of the battle praised the Jewish fighters. “The Jews surprised me and my officers with their determination in battle. And believe me, as veterans of World War I and SS members, we knew what determination in battle was all about. The tenacity of your Warsaw Jews took us completely by surprise. That’s the real reason the Großaktion lasted as long as it did.”

The next year, Warsaw would rise again in rebellion and again the Nazis would crush the resistance.

1948 Arab-Israeli War begins

The collapse of the Turkish Ottoman empire after World War I led to much of the Arab world being governed by Britain and France as “mandates”: the British were given Palestine and Iraq to supervise, while France took over ruling Syria and Lebanon. The most problematic of these territories was Palestine where the local Arab population resented Jewish immigration and where a number of radical Jewish groups wished to expel the British and establish an independent Jewish state. Terrorism and atrocities were the order of the day for both sides.

After the Second World War, Britain was desperate to be rid of its Palestinian mandate, having tried to keep the peace but ending up unpopular with both Arabs and Jews. In late 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition of the territory, allotting land for both a Jewish and an Arab state while maintaining Jerusalem and Bethlehem under an international regime. Both Arabs and Jews prepared for conflict, gathering troops, establishing fortifications and buying weapons abroad. Sporadic fighting broke out and terrorist attacks were undertaken. When the partition was to take effect and the republic of Israel was declared, war erupted on May 15. Irregular forces of Muslim volunteers from the Holy War Army and the Arab Liberation Army, the Arab Legion of Jordan, and the armies of Egypt, Syria and Iraq descended upon Jewish-held territories; fighting lasted over 9 months. When the smoke cleared the Israeli state had survived and expanded its territory, Jordan had seized the West Bank, and a massive relocation of refugees begun. Seventy-four years later, the wounds have not healed.

1878

America’s last witchcraft trial

It was, appropriately enough, in Salem, Massachusetts that what came to be known as the last American witchcraft trial took place.

Lucretia Brown was a 50-year old spinster, who had been an invalid since she injured her spine in a childhood accident, when she  became a disciple of  Mary Baker Eddy. She became convinced that Christian Science had healed her but when she suffered a “relapse” in 1875, Mrs. Eddy convinced her that Daniel Spofford of Newburyport, whom Mrs. Eddy had recently excommunicated for “immorality”, was exercising mesmeric powers upon her. Eddy’s term for these powers was “Malicious Animal Magnetism”.

Mrs. Eddy believed that Spofford was an enemy of her church and tried unsuccessfully to publish an attack against him in papers throughout the county. She directed twelve of her students to spend two hours each every day around the clock in concentrated thought against Mr. Spofford to prevent him from doing further harm to her patients. She had her lawyer in Lynn draw up a bill of complaint in Lucretia Brown’s name, setting forth the injuries that Spofford had supposedly inflicted and petitioning the court to restrain him from exercising his powers against her. The text stated that “the defendant practices the art of mesmerism and by his said art and the power of his mind influences and controls the minds and bodies of other persons for the purpose of injuring the persons and property and social relations of others”.

Mrs Eddy’s attorney refused to argue the case in court, so she ordered her student Edward Arens to do so and twenty of her followers to stand as witnesses. On June 3, 1875 they assembled at the railway station in Lynn for the train to Salem. The Boston Globe reported that one of the appointed witnesses approached Mrs. Eddy to complain that he knew nothing whatever about the case and would not know what to say, whereupon she assured him that he would be told what to say. At the courthouse in Salem, nearly two centuries after the witchcraft hysteria, the last charge of witchcraft in this country was brought to trial. Mr. Spofford did not bother to appear. When Mr. Arens rose before Judge Horace Gray and presented the bill of complaint, Mr. Spofford’s attorney Mr. Noyes objected. Judge Gray declared that it was not within the power of the Court to control Mr. Spofford’s mind, even if he were to be jailed. Mrs Eddy was not given any opportunity to argue that disease could be the work of mesmeric powers, and the case was dismissed due to “defects in the writ.”

Lucretia Brown lived out her life still convinced of her Christian Science beliefs, dying in 1883 of pneumonia after refusing medical care.

1878

America’s last witchcraft trial

It was, appropriately enough, in Salem, Massachusetts that what came to be known as the last American witchcraft trial took place.

Lucretia Brown was a 50-year old spinster, who had been an invalid since she injured her spine in a childhood accident, when she  became a disciple of  Mary Baker Eddy. She became convinced that Christian Science had healed her but, when she suffered a “relapse” in 1875, Mrs. Eddy convinced her that Daniel Spofford of Newburyport (pictured above), whom Mrs. Eddy had recently excommunicated for “immorality”, was exercising mesmeric powers upon her. Eddy’s term for these powers was “Malicious Animal Magnetism”.

Mrs. Eddy believed that Spofford was an enemy of her church and tried unsuccessfully to publish an attack against him in papers throughout the county. She directed twelve of her students to spend two hours each every day around the clock in concentrated thought against Mr. Spofford to prevent him from doing further harm to her patients. She had her lawyer in Lynn draw up a bill of complaint in Lucretia Brown’s name, setting forth the injuries that Spofford had supposedly inflicted and petitioning the court to restrain him from exercising his powers against her. The text stated that “the defendant practices the art of mesmerism and by his said art and the power of his mind influences and controls the minds and bodies of other persons for the purpose of injuring the persons and property and social relations of others”.

Mrs Eddy’s attorney refused to argue the case in court, so she ordered her student Edward Arens to do so and twenty of her followers to stand as witnesses. On June 3, 1875 they assembled at the railway station in Lynn for the train to Salem. The Boston Globe reported that one of the appointed witnesses approached Mrs. Eddy to complain that he knew nothing whatever about the case and would not know what to say, whereupon she assured him that he would be told what to say. At the courthouse in Salem, nearly two centuries after the witchcraft hysteria, the last charge of witchcraft in this country was brought to trial. Mr. Spofford did not bother to appear. When Mr. Arens rose before Judge Horace Gray and presented the bill of complaint, Mr. Spofford’s attorney, Mr. Noyes, objected. Judge Gray declared that it was not within the power of the Court to control Mr. Spofford’s mind, even if he were to be jailed. Mrs Eddy was not given any opportunity to argue that disease could be the work of mesmeric powers, and the case was dismissed due to “defects in the writ.”

Lucretia Brown lived out her life still convinced of her Christian Science beliefs, dying in 1883 of pneumonia after refusing medical care.