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Imperialism, Colonialism, and Slavery
Flopping Aces ^ | 07-03-15 | Skookum

Posted on 07/03/2015 3:18:57 PM PDT by Starman417

Cossacks writing an insulting note to a defeated sultan

While researching material for a historical novel about a Cossack family of the Ukraine and Crimea, I found a remarkable amount of provocative and fascinating material. For instance, the Ukraine and Crimea has been both a fulcrum point and thoroughfare throughout history, but one of the most intriguing aspects of this region is that the cossacks embraced freedom, while the rest of the world was locked in slavery and imperialism. Their idea of freedom was similar to the feeling of galloping a horse over the seemingly endless steppe; they were often illiterate and their concept of freedom might be considered primitive, but their idea of freedom was a beacon to enslaved people from all over the known world.

Now, some white Europeans and Black Americans will be insulted at the idea of referring to the feudalism of Europe, North Africa, Eurasia, and Russia as slavery, but it was slavery. When you own the land and the people on the land, we can call it slavery. The cossacks or more specifically the Zaporizhzha Cossacks (since cossacks included horse cultures of the steppe from Poland to Siberia and there was considerable variation of culture and lifestyle) offered freedom to any escaped slaves from the Islamic Middle East, Europe, Eurasia, or Russia. To be accepted by these cossacks, a runaway slave only needed to accept the Ukrainian Orthodox faith and volunteer for either the cossack cavalry or the infantry.

These egalitarian nomads didn't look at race or ethnicity, they judged men on whether they were willing to fight to preserve their freedom and whether they were willing to accept the Ukrainian Orthodox faith. Consequently, their numbers grew until Russia under Catherine II felt threatened.

It's true, they were mercenaries who fought for whomever was willing to pay the most, but they preferred fighting for Christians. These early horse men lived the concept of freedom, when most of the rest of the world lived in the shackles of slavery

Originally, my project was to focus on the Cossacks, but the geographical area played a major role in producing and nurturing this culture of horse warriors for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years. It is part of the Great Steppe, an area stretching from Poland to Siberia.

The Ukraine and Crimea have been considered the breadbasket of Europe, but it also offers a natural gateway for travel from Europe to Asia and from Russia to the Middle East. Mounted armies could conduct raids and feed horses and men during long marches and through the winter months while staging for invasions. The Huns of Attila and the Mongol Hordes of Genghis Khan found the Ukraine to have excellent pastures and staging areas for conquest.

It is the nature of armies, DNA traces are invariably left behind and sometimes men are left behind as well. This cultural and genetic infusion of different groups surely built a dynamic gene pool, since they have been influential in much of the world’s history. The Huns, Celts, Mongols, Russians, Turks, Germanic tribes, and French all left their mark in the Ukraine; however, one of the more unique and noble aspects of the area and its people were the Zaporizhzhya (translation below or downstream of the rapids) Cossacks of the Dnieper River.

These cossacks were mercenaries; they would prefer to fight for a Christian benefactor, but if the Muslims offered more gold, they would fight for Islam. It was probably this quirk that irritated Catherine the Great; it was simple economics to want these Cossacks under her control as part of her own military. They were expensive, well-trained experienced cavalry who might turn their lances toward Moscow.

In the spring of 1775, a month after a victorious campaign against the Muslims, Catherine ordered her troops and artillery to surround the Zaporizhaha Sich (headquarters and main village) during the night. The cossacks thought the Russians were their friends and were lax with security, they failed to post security. That morning, they were given two hours to surrender, disband, and join the Russian cavalry or the Zaporizhzha Sich would be destroyed with artillery.

The cossack leader asked for time to consider the request and later asked permission for fifty cossacks to go fishing. Since the Cossack Sich numbered over 50,000 warriors, the fifty were allowed to go fishing. However, 5,000 Cossacks picked up their fly rods and left with their families for the lower Danube, where they set up a new sich under the protection of a Muslim Sultan.

The Russian general was enraged upon hearing of the trick and moved to disarm the remaining 45,000 cossacks. The cossack leader was imprisoned and the lesser leaders were banished from the Russian territory and the sich was burned.

Most of these cossacks were incorporated into the regular cavalry and many were instrumental in defeating Napoleon’s Army during the invasion of 1812. Using a scorched earth strategy, they burned everything in front of the French advance. They also attacked the supply trains trying to reach the French soldiers, and lanced the foragers sent out to find food for the horses and men.

Napoleon expected a quick campaign, with a major battle and a victorious march back to France in a month or two. He left Prussia with over 650,000 men, the largest army ever assembled up to that time, with 250,000 horses.

He lost 10,000 horses the first week to lush spring grass and immature rye in cultivated fields. It was a wet spring and every horseman knows the wet lush grasses of spring are dangerous for horses and spring rains turn dirt roads into quagmires that bog down men, horses and wagons, and the roads become worse with more traffic.

Each man carried 4 days rations in Napoleon’s invention, the rucksack, but by the end of the first week, they were hungry and soon they began to starve. Six months later, only 43,000 soldiers were still alive.

The cossacks waged a continuous guerrilla warfare and the French cavalry was ill-equipped to deal with these marauders and ghosts of the steppe. The cossacks knew the country well and had horses that were used to the countryside. In fact, the only troops who could stand up to the cossack raiders were the Mamelukes. Imported from Egypt, as Napoleon’s personal bodyguards; ironically, they were of the same genetic stock as the cossacks of Ukraine.

It’s a bizarre story: six hundred years earlier, the Egyptians wanted a slave class of professional warriors. They admired the cossack warriors of the steppe.

It was from the dynamic ethnic groups like the Zaporozhians that the Egyptians secured recruits for the Mameluke cavalry and Barbary Pirates, Abducted as small boys, these kids trained as warriors their whole life. The boys were converted to Islam and in the beginning, the purity of the blood was so revered, no son of a Mameluke could be a Mameluke, only abducted Christian boys from Southern Russia could become Mamelukes. Eventually, the slave warriors revolted and gained control of Egypt for 400 years with a strict military society. The Egyptians served as slaves and servants during those 400 years. Even today, blue eyed, blonde haired people can be seen in Egypt’s elite classes.

(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: cossack; history; slavery

1 posted on 07/03/2015 3:18:57 PM PDT by Starman417
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To: Starman417

Interesting. However, the Cossacks weren’t so much in favor of freedom as they were in favor of freedom for Cossacks.


2 posted on 07/03/2015 3:42:25 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Starman417

Not sure how many Mamelukes were ethnic Russians or Ukrainians—those areas are far from Egypt. But Egypt, after the Mamelukes seized control, was one of the few countries to defeat the Mongols, at Ain Jalut in 1260. Afterwards, they eliminated the last of the Crusaders in the Middle East. Even after the Ottomans conquered Egypt as a result of the Battle of Cairo in 1517, they allowed the Mamelukes to run the country until 1811, when Egypt’s Ottoman ruler Muhammad Ali had them massacred.


3 posted on 07/03/2015 4:07:29 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Starman417

“Charge of the Light Brigade”?


4 posted on 07/03/2015 4:23:56 PM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Starman417

I saw a map once as a demonstration of different ways to display info graphically. A large arrow leaving France represented Napoleans Army. Each successive arrow was dated. Over the ensuing 6 months that arrow’s size was impressively diminished.


5 posted on 07/03/2015 4:28:15 PM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Starman417

I saw a map once as a demonstration of different ways to display info graphically. A large arrow leaving France represented Napoleans Army. Each successive arrow was dated. Over the ensuing 6 months that arrow’s size was impressively diminished.

Here it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia#/media/File:Minard.png


6 posted on 07/03/2015 4:31:51 PM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Fiji Hill

The Mamelukes were the equivalent of the Janissaries, slaves imported specifically for military work. Most of them came from the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas.

But most were Circassians or Turks. Few if any were Slavs. The buyers wanted horse and bow nomads.


7 posted on 07/03/2015 6:48:28 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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