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antoine-roquentin · 1 year

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This series is shaping up to be about covert attempts by institutional power structures to undermine the health and safety of the international working class. The previous part, Part 4, is here. You can find a cool easter egg by seeing who the magazine in the bottom right image was delivered to.

The above is a dossier compiled by a right wing business intelligence group and purchased by the CIA not long after the events I’m about to share occurred. It is hosted on the CIA’s website for declassified files, the Reading Room. It was prepared by Fulton Lewis III, an outspoken supporter of the Rhodesian government and the son of a Hearst-sponsored anti-communist radio broadcaster, sort of the Tucker Carlson of the 40s and 50s. We don’t have the CIA’s own assessments because those are still classified.

When we last left the crew of the spaceship Ramparts, they were dealing with infiltration, incompetence, hedonism, an inability to secure funding, and the heady addiction of fame. Things were about to get worse as their own interpersonal disputes had come to the fore. Keating had seen his power at the magazine get whittled away as incentives in the form of shares for other backers became necessary. At the time, Hinckle counted among his friends Howard Gossage, an advertising whiz kid who helped popularize Marshall McLuhan and did the Sierra Club's first campaign. He frequently went to Gossage for advice. The two came up with a plan to push Keating into the 1966 Democratic primaries for the 11th district of California (later held by Leo Ryan, a CIA critic killed at Jonestown, and now held by Nancy Pelosi) as a way of reducing his influence on the day to day operations of Ramparts. In the midst of a meeting, they had two staff members slip away and come back with signs that said "Keating for Congress" and "Keating the people's choice".

By the start of 1966, however, the election bug had spread through the offices, both because it allowed Ramparts to make the news it reported on as salacious as possible, and because the Democratic Party had largely denied ballot access to anybody who was anti-Vietnam War. Bob Scheer, the foreign editor, ran in Oakland, and Stanley Sheinbaum, the Michigan State University professor who'd exposed the CIA's role on campus, ran in Santa Barbara. All gained 40-45% of the vote, mainly by cohering those opposed to the war. One thing in particular all three did was bring together the black vote (for instance, Julian Bond, mentioned previously in the series, campaigned for Scheer). Their campaigns were run by a coterie of Ramparts staffers, namely CPUSA member Carl Bloice as well as Berekeley lecturer Peter Collier, and were endorsed by a combination of black and Hollywood luminaries, for instance Dick Gregory, the civil rights activist and stand-up comedian, and Robert Vaughan, Napoleon Solo on the Man from Uncle and both a murderer and a victim on Columbo (see him argue about Vietnam on Firing Line with William Buckley here). Some of the opposition research on the three came directly from CIA files and was given to the establishment candidates by LBJ's press secretary Bill Moyers.

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With the elections lost, Ramparts needed a new spin on things to bring back all the anti-electoral politics radicals. Fortunately, in nearby Oakland, a new group had just been founded called the Black Panther Party. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale like to portray their group as their own innovation, two upwardly mobile college kids shooting the shit late at night. The group they'd been part of prior to the BPP, the Maoist Revolutionary Action Movement, described them as "adventurists" for their desire to put theory to practice and finally organize in the community instead of just talking about it. Whatever the case, Newton learned from Robert Williams' Negroes with Guns that California law, influenced by white supremacist vigilanteism, allowed anyone to openly carry a weapon even in the presence of police. He went to Chinatown, bought copies of Mao's Little Red Book for cents, and sold them for dollars in Oakland as part of a course in organized self-defence, then used the money to buy shotguns and M-16s for use by graduates of the course. By February 1967, Ramparts staff writer Eldridge Cleaver had made contact at a speaking event for Malcolm X's widow Betty Shabazz, where the Black Panther Party founders and their cohort were the only ones armed. Cleaver invited them to the Ramparts offices for a sit down.

Remember the bit from the last part about Shabazz' bodyguards? That was Seale, Newton, and Co. Their arrival caused Hinckle's police buddies to get worried, and they put out an APB and surrounded the building, much to Newton's consternation. Hinckle suggested they go out for a drink, but nobody was buying it. Newton stared down a cop, who undid his holster. Seale put his hand on Newton, who told him off. "Don't hold my hand, brother." Seale released it, because that was his shooting hand. Newton taunted the officer. "You got an itchy trigger finger?... OK, you big, fat, racist pig, draw your gun!" All the Ramparts' staffers who'd come to watch as well as the officers' backup got the hell out of Dodge. Eventually, even the officer backed down. It was the first time the BPP had ever gotten the police to back down. It brought admiration from the entire Ramparts staff, who soon made the magazine the semi-official outlet of the BPP. And it brought Cleaver into their fold. They appointed him spokesman/Minister of Information within weeks. The following is the only news footage from that day shot after the incident, the rest having been lost, with Scheer in the background at one point:

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And that wasn't even the most shocking thing going on at Ramparts. This series has previously mentioned the National Student Association as a bunch of debate nerds who essentially trained to have public speaking and organizing on their resume for future employers. The thing about the NSA was, it was a CIA front, and generally suspected as such. In 1947, there was an implosion of student politics' international facing groups. Those who had seen the Soviets fight in the Second World War generally accepted their claims to want world peace on their face, while the groups aligned with the Catholic Church teamed up with disparate right wing WASPs and Jews to fight back. The CIA had taken these students (to note, these were largely men in their late 20s or early 30s, grad rather than undergrad) under their wing and organized them into a front group that could report back on invitational events held in Eastern Europe. In turn, the top echelons of the NSA had to be sworn into legal secrecy as a prerequisite of participation, with the reward being entry into the old boys network of politicians and bureaucrats which virtually guaranteed a job.

The CIA fucked up. In 1965, the elected president of the NSA was Philip Sherburne. He was sworn into secrecy on the source of funding for their new HQ and general operations, as was normal for the group. But he disliked that they had only one source of funding, and he wanted the NSA to be independent. At the time, the grassroots in the organization who followed international politics and hewed to the left had managed to get some of their membership into power, but they had felt straitjacketed by the CIA's complete control of NSA finances. Many wanted to join in on the anti-war marches. Sherburne and others, spurred on by abrogation of Juan Bosch's regime in the Dominican Republic and the electoral fraud that brought the American-backed opposition to power, worked to find alternative sources of funding. They sent one an NSA man as part of the operation, but he got cold feet and worked with Sherburne to expose it. In response, the CIA had a number of top NSA men declared eligible for the draft in Vietnam. Bureaucratic fights ensued, involving the lives of students in America, Spain, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Finally, Sherburne went above the CIA's head to vice president Hubert Humprhey. In response, the CIA went and cut all of Sherburne's independent lines of funding. Unbenkownst to them, Sherburne had made a relatively radical student named Michael Wood his outside line to donors. He'd told Wood not to approach certain groups because they were backed by "certain government agencies". Wood had surmised that this meant the CIA and gone and picked up the only book out on the Agency: The Invisible Government, by David Wise and Thomas Ross. When he saw that the NSA's funding for 1966 had the same donor groups backed by the CIA, he realized Sherburne had lost and stole the files.

Twice the New York Times had published articles critical of the CIA in some form. In 1965, Texas congressman Wright Patman, initially elected on his support of the Bonus Army and ever a thorn in the establishment's side, had investigated 8 charitable foundations and found them to be CIA cutouts. The NYT had written an article on this as well as replies from the funded orgs (Encounter Magazine and the Congress for Cultural Freedom). In 1966, spurred by Ramparts' articles on MSU, NYT reporter Tom Wicker wrote of the allegations and added details of other botched operations around the world he'd heard from sources over the years. This brought the ire of the agency. In 1961, in response to details of the Bay of Pigs invasion being published in The Nation before it occurred, President Kennedy told his aides to bother him when details showed up in the New York Times because it otherwise did not matter. The CIA had actually worked hard to kill the very same story before the NYT could publish it so by the time the invasion failed, Kennedy apparently exclaimed that he wished more details had been published in the NYT so that the invasion would have been stopped. CIA agent Cord Meyer made the postscript of Part 3 of this series as the handler of much of the CIA's work through cutouts and allied groups like AFL-CIO, especially in in regards to the effort to influence the media known as Operation Mockingbird. Meyer and his wife, Mary Pinchot, were next door neighbours to the Kennedy's before JFK became president. Pinchot divorced Meyer after their child was killed in a car accident in 1957. She moved in with her brother-in-law, Ben Bradlee, later of Pentagon Papers and Watergate fame and played by Tom Hanks in the Steven Spielberg film The Post. In 1961, James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence at the CIA, tapped her phone and discovered she was in a sexual relationship with JFK, including visits at the White House. When Pinchot was murdered in October 1964 in what was termed a robbery (a black man was arrested but acquitted), a friend of the family heard (he said) about the murder on the radio and phoned Bradlee first and Meyer second. Bradlee went to go find her diary and found Angleton sitting in her house (his garage) reading it. They later destroyed it. After that, Meyer became an alcoholic and compiled an enemies list of the CIA that included the Vice President. He was already fearful of a leak and told his subordinates to go after NSA staff but did not determine who Sherburne had told until his wiretaps of Ramparts phone lines informed him.

Ramparts, of course, knew that they had been tapped and kept phone calls brief. Scheer phoned Judith Coburn of the Village Voice and asked for her discretion. Wanting to break into a field dominated by men, Coburn felt like she was being called by a rock star, but nonetheless found it absurd that Scheer believed his calls to be tapped. She knew the CIA to be involved in assassinations like Lumumba's and thought their dealings with a minor org like the NSA were absurd. Ultimately, she helped by confronting a number of figures on their work. Eventually, a young WASP Harvard undergraduate who was on retainer from Ramparts named Michael Ansara got the call. His blog about it is excellent reading, located here. I quote:

One evening in the cold months of early 1967, my phone rang. A strange voice, obviously from New York asked, “Is this Michael Ansara?”

“Yes.”

“This is Sol Stern from Ramparts. Bob Scheer says you are our man in Boston.”

“Well . . . OK.”

“Listen I need you to do some work for us right away. I cannot tell you what it is about. I am calling you from a phone booth. Will you do it?”

“Well, what kind of work and are you willing to pay me for it?”

“It is research into two Boston based foundations. We will pay you $500.” 500 dollars was a lot of money. I had no idea how to research foundations, but I thought, what the hell. I could really use the money.

“Sure. What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I can’t tell you anything more than to find everything you can on the Sidney & Esther Rabb Foundation and Independence Foundation. They are based in Boston. I will call you in several days. You cannot call me. You cannot tell anyone what you are doing. You cannot mention the name Ramparts. Can I count on you?”

“I guess so. Sure. Yes.”

Ansara knew a much older man, an economist and lawyer who had sway in the Democratic Party named George Sommaripa. Sommaripa suggested Ansara go to a guy he knew at the IRS. Ansara did, and was told that under no circumstances could he have access to the files on two CIA cutout foundations. Chastened, Ansara complained to Sommaripa, who'd gotten the IRS clerk his job. A few days later, Ansara went back. The IRS clerk told him he could have any box he wanted, provided he did not go past the 990 form on the cover. He went past for the first two foundations and found that money came from an anonymous donor and in equal amounts went right out to the NSA. Ultimately, he pulled the files for 110 foundations, every single known group that the CIA used. He would look at the incorporation files for the foundations, see a lawyers' name, and look him up. Every time, the lawyer was an OSS operative during WW2, the predecessor org of the CIA. One of the lawyers had founded a firm with Sommaripa, a man named David Bird. Ansara confronted Bird, and Bird did not even stop to hang up on Ansara before phoning a contact at the CIA.

Left to right: Hinckle, Stern, Scheer.

A major corroboration of the story came from three students in New York who were disgusted by American foreign policy in Latin America. One in particular, Fred Goff, had been sent to the Dominican Republic with Allard Lowenstein (part 3) to observe the election of the pro-American candidate over the anti-American one. Goff had discovered that a man that Lowenstein had said he trusted on the country was actually a CIA agent, Sacha Volman. Another, Michael Locker, had done a paper about the CIA based on the NYT articles. Together, they walked in the doors of the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development and asked directly about the CIA, prompting a crashing sound and the institute's director, Thomas Kahn, planner of the 1963 March on Washington and the long-term romantic partner of Bayard Rustin, to scream at them.

The problem was when it came time to do the story. Sometimes, the researchers were paid by Ramparts. Other times, they received cheques from the Interchurch Center, a strange agency that serves as a front for charitable giving from the Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, and United Churches in America. James Forman, mentioned in previous parts, once led a picket in favour of reparations from them. Ramparts staff demanded they talk to them by picking up pay phones that would ring at designated times, a dismal failure. Other times, Hinckle, Scheer, and Sol Stern would fly in, book rooms at the Algonquin, and order massive amounts of takeout and booze. 15 to 20 people would be in a hotel room trying to negotiate who would be writing the story by continent, or by year, or by foundation. At one point, Coburn broke into the NSA HQ and unwittingly stole the original deed to their land, where it remained undiscovered in Ramparts' files till the 2010s.

On New Year's Eve, 1966, Lowenstein was hanging out with the new members of the NSA leadership when he informed them that Ramparts was writing about their relationship with the CIA. "The usual sloppy Ramparts piece, lots of flash, little substance," he said. The CIA had known since at least Thanksgiving. A lower level NSA official who'd just been sworn in went to meet with Hinckle and Scheer. The duo, while nonchalantly throwing darts, offered the Ramparts donor list as an incentive to tell all, but he refused. Sherburne attempted to find counsel in a lawyer who'd once opposed the CIA's new Langley HQ on NIMBY grounds. Meyer had threatened the lawyer's brother, working in Bogota with USAID, but the lawyer persisted. Undaunted, Meyer got word to Douglass Cater, the first president of the NSA and now an advisor to LBJ. LBJ bumped it to Lowenstein and the CIA to develop a response, which was to hold a press conference with an article in Henry Luce's (the man, not the monkey) Time Magazine that this was all well known since the 1965 congressional hearings, that the money was not that impressive, that the Soviets had done much more, etc.

This could have killed Ramparts. The IRS was already looking for any sign of foreign influence as an excuse to shut down the magazine. It needed some sort of relationship with the establishment press in a way that would let it gain influence without keeping it from the areas it wanted to report on. At the very same time, both Time and the NYT were reporting on the survival of Ramparts: Keating had attempted a coup and lost a board vote 13-1, with Mitford and other backers providing anonymous quotes that while they disliked the "Animal Farm-ish" nature of the issue, they needed Ramparts to stave off a fascist dictatorship in America. Hinckle followed by setting up an astounding agreement with the New York Times and Washington Post: they would get full access to Ramparts' files on the CIA right now, before the White House could set up a press conference, in exchange for letting them run full page ads for days for their next issue.

The day the Times went to press, February 13, 1963, was termed by former CIA director Richard Helms in his memoirs as "one of my darkest days". The press pushed, smelling blood. President Johnson ordered a suspension and review of CIA funding for outside orgs. The CIA initially tried to find a way to blame a dead president, Truman, but realized that its own documentation on the program, written by Cord Meyer, claimed that then-director Allen Dulles did not have any responsibility to inform the president of what he had ordered. Switching tactics, they turned on their press weapon, known as the Mighty Wurlitzer, and claimed that the CIA would have been remiss to not conduct these operations. "I'm glad the CIA is immoral" was the headline of an article by Meyer's boss, Thomas Braden. He described $250 million a year the CIA believed to be spent by the Soviet Union on cultural subversion, to which a mere handful of dollars from the CIA could not compare. No evidence for the accusations was provided, of course. Finally, Helms pulled in a favour from Robert Kennedy and had him testify to the press that his brother had authorized the funding, carried over from the days of Eisenhower. 12 former NSA presidents (including Lowenstein) came out and said the relationship was above board. All had worked for the CIA at least once after they'd left the NSA, but that was not revealed in their letter.

The strategy was a half-success. All the foundations funded by the CIA fell apart and students around the world became suspicious of CIA infiltration. Much of what Ramparts found was investigated by Congress repeatedly over the next decade, culminating in the reforms that came out of the Church Committee, which Helms claimed in his memoirs was sparked by Ramparts and Watergate. Certainly press readership was high, and many stories were published in the NYT and WaPo confirming and furthering the work done. At the same time, the CIA escaped with only a few new rules on its behaviour. President Johnson was a paranoic and was more concerned about using the CIA as a tool against his domestic enemies. He authorized a much larger role for MHCHAOS in punishing his enemies (remember the cryptonyms? MH was the most illegal, as it meant the USA). Many of those fingered were considered liberals in good standing and were part of the labour movement, particularly AFL-CIO higher-ups. They fell in line with the rhetoric about communist subversion because they knew they'd be the ones punished if things went further.

Interestingly, a few months later, the NSA held a vote on integrating an anti-Vietnam War and anti-draft stance into its platform. Traditionally, the CIA had worked from the shadows to suppress these votes. This time, Allard Lowenstein whipped in favour of the anti- stance and it won. Lowenstein soon became a fixture in the anti-LBJ movement, leading the call to bring Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy into the Democratic presidential primaries. To a large extent, the organizations that were closed to the CIA had been products of decades-old relationships and worked in ways that nobody had bothered to improve. Within the CIA, a tension had always existed between bureaucrats with their own fiefdoms and up and comers with new ways of doing things. To a large extent, this scandal simply pushed the former out and made room for the latter, who would not do things like create financial records with the exact same dollar amounts going in and out, or act so bluntly when it came to manipulating staff. While the CIA may have suffered a little in the short term, it was an act of "creative destruction" that improved how the CIA did business. For Ramparts, on the other hand, things were going to get much worse now that they had drawn the ire of the intelligence community. While the magazine reached its peak distribution of 250,000 copies a month, it still did not bring in enough money to cover its expenses, and it was about to be faced with a much larger funding crisis: the Six Day War.

AFTER ALLEN DULLES RETIRED, the director bragged about the NSA operation. “We got everything we wanted. I think what we did was worth every penny. If we turned back the communists and made them milder and easier to live with, it was because we stopped them in certain areas, and the student area was one of them.”... Edward Garvey, who also worked at CIA headquarters, puts it more dramatically: “My God, did we finger people for the Shah?”... Stephen Robbins, despite his limited CIA involvement during his year as president, echoes Garvey’s concern: “It’s South Africa that keeps me up at night.”

#i am finding that i am including way too much information yet the details haunt me enough to make me put it in #i guess ramparts gets yet another part

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pub-lius · 2 years

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John and Henry Laurens for @thereallvrb0y

i hope you don't have trauma bc this is gonna be an emotional rollercoaster

tw: sewerslidal ideation, childhood neglect, shitty parenting, and like really blatant racism, oh and also discussion of homophobia and shit so be prepared

my sources for this are mainly the US National Park Service, but also Gregory D. Massey's John Laurens and the American Revolution. other good resources available online are the South Carolina archives, American Battlefield Trust, Britannica, George Washington's Mount Vernon, and this john laurens blog here on tumblr. now this isn't EVERYTHING i know about laurens, because like ive been fixating on him for a while and i can't put massey's whole book in here, but you'll definitely get a good understanding of him because this is a long one.

Henry Laurens

getting the boring one out the way. Herny Lauren (i don't like him having the same name as me) was born in Charleston (i will occasionally be calling it Charles Town in the names of shit) in 1724. His grandparents were French Huguenot immigrants. They were members of the Reformed Church, and fled to England and then Ireland after the Treaty of Nantes was revoked. Then they went to NYC then Charleston when they got rich as fuck.

Hreny was the first son, and was educated in Charleston, and later in England. He worked in a local counting house and worked under a prominent British merchant.

He returned to South Carolina in 1747. Charleston was really sick bc you could ship directly to Spain from there, and it was the busiest port in America for a little while. So, obviously, Homophobic Laureli had to get in on this and opened an import-export business (aka a mercantile) called Austin and Laurens. They imported rum and British mercantile goods like beans on toast, also trading in Carolina Gold rice, indigo, deerskins, tar, pitch, silver, and gold. They exported Colonial merchandise to England on returning ships.

Here's the slavery party. Huckleberry Laugens entered the slave trade with Grant, Oswald & Company, another mercantile that controlled the slave outpost Bunce Castle located in Sierra Leone. The company was contracted to receive, catalog, and market human cargo by conducting public auctions in Charleston. They handled the sale of over 8,000 people, receiving a 10% commission. Expenses incurred during the transportation of people were the responsibility of Austin and Ally (Laurens).

Now Laurens had some hot takes on slavery. He was an "abolitionist", which at the time usually meant a rich, white, slaveowner who made excuses. For example, this is how Fugly Laurens described to another business, Smith & Clifton, what slaveowners looked for in slaves.

“very likely healthy People, Two thirds at least Men from 18-25 Years old, the other young Women from 14-18 the cost not to exceed Twenty five Pounds Sterling per head… There must not be a Callabar (sic) amongst them. Gold Coast and Gambias are best, next to them the Winward Coast are prefer’d to Angolas. We would not choose them sent in the Hurricane Season but rather to come in the months of October or November. Pray observe that our people like tall Slaves best for our business and strong withall. Such as small, meager or other ways ordinary won’t sell better here than with you. The difference in price between Men and Women is never less than £3 per head, sometimes £6.” -Henry Laurens 1755

How disgusting is that. I fucking.

But its okay. Here's his list of excuses for why he can own slaves.

“I told you in my last that I was going to Georgia… My negroes there, are all to a man, are strongly attached to me – so are all of mine in this country [SC]; hitherto not one of them has attempted to desert; on the contrary, those who are more exposed hold themselves always ready to fly from the enemy in case of a sudden descent… You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British kings and parliaments, as well as by the laws of that country ages before my existence. I found the Christian religion and slavery growing under the same authority and cultivation. I nevertheless disliked it… I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to English for that favour (sic); nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery. Great powers oppose me – the laws and customs of my country, my own and the avarice of my countrymen.” -Henry Laurens to John Laurens 1776

Okay, let's break this down. 1.) all of the people I enslave are so happy because I'm such a good slaveowner that they don't want to leave! 2.) other people's slaves are sad, so I'm better than them 3.) its the British government's fault that I HAVE to own slaves 4.) I'm a Christian 5.) I'm gonna free them eventually but like I don't want people to be mad at me 6.) I'm saying I hate it, but I'm doing nothing to stop the spread of the institution, but that's not important because I SAY i hate it. 99% of people who owned slaves at this time used at least one of these excuses.

Henry Laurens never publicly spoke out against slavery.

Dumbass married Eleanor Ball on June 24, 1750. She was pregnant a total of twelve times, but only four children lived to adulthood.

Hairless Laurens became a member of the Commons of House of Assembly in 1757. He was a member of every session until the American Revolution, so that's... something ig. The Assembly was the dominant institution in Colonial South Carolina, like the Virginia House of Burgesses or however you spell it.

Heterochromia held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the South Carolina Militia from 1757-1761, and engaged in many campaigns against the Cherokee natives and also in the French and Indian War, so don't worry, he wasn't just racist to black people. His business contributed £7,000 towards the war against the Cherokee. He kept a diary which is in the South Carolina Archives (cited above).

Hypnotizability Laurens was appointed to oversee Charleston's defenses in 1758 as "Commissioner of Fortification." I don't know why that's in quotes, that was his title.

Then, Hypopharynxes was designated to accompany the Cherokee to the capital for a peace treaty in 1761, which was probably a scam bc yk. Europeans be Europeaning.

Uh oh. Austin and Laurens dissolved in 1762. But it wasn't really a big deal.

Hamburger Laurens purchased a big ass plantation called Mepkin in 1762. It was 3,000 acres, 30 miles from Charleston, and cost £8,000, which was, to put it in modern financial terms, a shit ton. Mepkin housed fifty enslaved people, and generated corn, indigo, and wheat. Then, Habitual Laurens got like addicted to buying rice and indigo plantations, and ended up having around 20,000 acres. By 1766, he owned 227 enslaved people, yk, because he hates slavery.

He was offered appointments to the King's Council in Carolina in 1764 and in 1768, and denied both of them, because he was starting to separate himself from British politics.

He didn't do that fast enough bc in 1765, the Stamp Act happened. The Act was opposed by colonists, obviously, because it sucked. The stamps that arrived in Charleston were deposited at Fort Johnson and people were like rampaging the city looking for them.

Now, Hemorrhoid wasn't exactly known for his revolutionary thinking. He urged peaceful compliance until the law could be repealed, and viewed the Sons of Liberty as illegal, extreme, and likely to encourage harsher measures from Parliament. So, a rumor spread that the stamps were hidden in his house and a fucking mob stormed their house on October 25. There was no damage to the house, and Henry was really happy with that so. It traumatized his wife and kids but like. at least the house wasn't damaged lol.

where am i. oh okay. So after that, since he wasn't one of the family members traumatized, he was critical of British involvement in the Colonial economy, but that was mostly because he was a merchant and he had a lot of beef with customs agents.

Oh and then his wife died in spring of 1770. We'll talk more about that with John (foreshadowing)

HHHHHHG was appointed to the Safety Council, where he acted as president. Then he became Chairman of the Charles Town General Committee and President of Provincial Congress. He was also in SC's mini constitutional convention. He was elected VP after SC adopted their new constitution on March 26, 1776.

Then, Hyperthyroidism represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress from July 1777 until 1779. He replaced John Handcock as president in 1777. He served on the Commerce Committee and the Treasury Board. He also had really bad gout had to work from bed at one point in time. He tried to retire but they didn't let him.

He was elected on November 1, 1779 to negotiate a treaty of amity and bullshit with the Netherlands, but he got caught by British narks and was charged with suspicion of high treason and got locked up in the Tower of London. He was the only American held prisoner there, and it sucked ass. Family could only visit every ten days to two weeks and he wasn't allowed to leave his room for a while. He was imprisoned for two weeks, writing articles for a rebel newspaper secretly, until he was exchanged for Burgoyne, and fully released on April 27, 1782.

He went back to America and was like "fuck my 16 year old daughter is trying to marry this 29 year old asshole that I have beef with" and he didn't let them get married for two years, which like, why'd you give up bitch, don't let that creep near her!!!!

Hexylresorcinol served on the SC ratification committee and was the Presidential Elector for SC in the first election, and voted for Washington, bc obviously.

He retired officially from all politics and spent the rest of his life at Mepkin concentrating on agriculture.

He was really sick, and was also scared of being buried alive so when he died on December 8, 1792 because of heart problems, he was cremated bc he was definitely dead. This was the first cremation of a major political figure in the US bc he just HAS to be the first for everything. His ashes were buried next to John. Speaking of.

John Laurens

alright this is gonna get long, and there's a lot of quotes, but i don't feel like making separate posts bc this is what you signed up for, richie. everyone point and laugh at richie (jk ily bro)

John was born on October 28, 1754 in Charleston, South Carolina.

His mom died when he was sixteen. This was right before he and Da Boys were supposed to leave for England, and John was really upset that the trip would be delayed, more so than that his mom had died. Now, this is probably because he was in the denial stage of grief, but because he wasn't mourning his mother's death as openly as the rest of his family, he developed an insecurity that he was selfish and a bad person. This comes up later.

He, his father, and two brothers, Harry and Jemmy, went to England and John attended prestigious ass schools.

He wasn't really sure which course of study he wanted to pursue, stuck between ministry, medicine, and law.

“For my own part, I find it exceedingly difficult, even at this time, to determine, in which of the learned Profesesions I shall list myself… Thus I am agitated. ‘Tis beond far beyond the Power of one Man to shine conspicuous in all these Characters. One must be determined upon, and I am almost persuaded that it would be that of the Divine [clergy], if this did not preclude me from bearing Arms in Defence of my Country… No particular Profession is in itself disagreeable to me; each promises some Share of Fame.”

What he did know, was that he DID NOT want to be a merchant, which is what his dad wanted him to do. He thought it sucked absolute ass. Eventually, he chose law, because that was his dad's second choice.

"I have weighed the matter very seriously & considering that my Dear Papa & the majority of our judicious friends give a preference to my studying Law... I ought not abandon myself wholly to my own inclinations, but persue (sic)... which it is generally thought will render me most useful. I leave my favorite Physick, grieved to the Heart, that it is not to embrace that which I know would give my Dear Papa the most pleasure."

Also they moved to Geneva, Switzerland for a little while, bc it was cool, and his dad left John and Harry unattended, which turned out to be a bad idea, because John was gay! and he got a boyfriend

This boyfriend's name was Francis Kinloch. Now the whole gay thing is disputed bc historians are homophobic (*cough* massey *cough*), but like. if you think gay people are real, John was gay.

So Francis and John were in similar courses, with John studying French, Latin, Greek, and drawing along with the classics bc this is the 1700s, and Francis would be studying similar things. John and Francis exchanged letters that have a lot of romantic undertones, similar to John's letters to Hamilton.

John also might have had a relationship with a Frenchman named L. de Vegobre, who he tutored in English. The two of them bonded over studying law despite their passions for science.

"I can think of nothing more sadly insipid than to live without any affections of the heart." -Vegobre to John Laurens

Anyway, back to Laurloch. Tensions rose between the two of them later on (after John returned to London) with the developing American Revolution. Kinloch was a bitchass pussy Tory and Laurens was normal (kidding, Kinloch thought independence was dangerous for all the reasonable reasons, and John thought independence was necessary for all the reasonable reasons).

"My Ambition Kinloch is to live under a Republican Government. I hate the Name of King."

Also, Kinloch started pre-courting a girl, and John was really upset (foreshadowing).

This led to a messy break up, and, combined with John's religious and filial guilt, this could have led to John's one-night-stand with Martha Manning. If you don't know the story to that, John and Martha banged once, Martha got pregnant, and they got married out of necessity. Their daughter was named Frances, which. is awkward.

Okay, back to Geneva (sorry my timeline is messed up but these things kinda extend through different points in John's life). So Geneva was a pretty secular place, meaning there wasn't a really large religious population as much as there was in other parts of Europe at the time. John never really seemed to be more religious than the average dude in Geneva, and barely mentioned religion in his writing, but he did have some thoughts on Voltaire's takes on religion.

"...with respect to the Christian Religion, I believe Voltaire has done more Injury to it, than any modern Author; for I believe it is greatly owing to him that Deism has crept in even among the younger Branches of the Clergy here... but happily Instances of this are rare... [when such beliefs prevail] each Man supposes the existence of such a God as best suits his Purpose."

Now, you've probably heard some things about Henry Laurens being an abusive parent in fics or just people talking shit about him. I think this should be clarified as emotionally neglectful, which is still abuse, but not the definition that usually comes to mind.

So, in Geneva, John not only had to take care of his younger brother, he also had to take care of two other dudes, Jacky Petrie and Billy Smith. He said a few things about suicide in his letters to his father. John was also the eldest son, had already lost his mother, and was already showing he had a very low self esteem. So, not a great starting point for what I'm about to add onto that.

Henry Laurens had several parenting techniques, so I'm going to go through some of those.

He often used other people's sins as examples of what not to do, and honestly he seemed unnecessarily judgmental. He especially focused on sexual deviancy, and taught John that sexual deviancy was a sign of poor self control, which was unacceptable. John had a duty to his family and to society, which required him to have control of himself, and his natural urges. "A life of Indolence," Henry said, was, "the Source of all Evil."

A big theme with him is the concept of conditional love. It's clear Henry loved his kids unconditionally, but the things he said to them seemed like his love WAS conditional. For example, Henry said things to John like, "...you know how to please your Papa & at the same time... you love to please him," or "I shall recieve vast Pleasure if you continue to live in Temperance & Regularity, an example worthy the Imitation of your Father."

John's feelings about this are made clear in his letters to his Uncle James. (tw for discussions of suicide and self harm)

"My Father repeats to me his Commands relative to my Studies, and adds some such Expressions as make my Heart bleed. My good and Dear Uncle what shall I do. Is it not dishonour (sic) to stay [in London and not join the war]; and how can I disobey such good a Father[?]"

"I am ashamed to own that I am an American. Young and free from bodily Infirmities, in England, as a dear Father's Command[s] oblige me to remain in the humiliating Situation being pointed at others, and almost think[ing m]eanly of myself."

I have several concerns with these quotes. First of all, "adds some such Expressions as make my Heart bleed." There's several instances where John says his father's letters have severely distressed him to the point of despair (definitely more on that later), so this phrase sounds like a milder instance of that. Then there's him "almost thinking meanly" of himself, which, given the previous expressions in that quote, imply demeaning thoughts about himself and his abilities. Also, the "free from bodily Infirmities" being a specific thing he notes appears to me like thoughts of self harm. A lot of the time, people with suicidal tendencies will have self destructive thoughts indirectly or in ways that don't immediately stand out as "I want to hurt myself" or "I feel like I deserve pain". I believe this is an example of that.

John had an active social life, and ended up spending a lot of money, and was scared it would make Henry angry. John freaked out about this because Henry really drilled in that over-spending and wastefulness was really bad.

"An Industrious Man may gain near 12 Months in a Year over the bulk of his contemporaries. How much Time is lost in what is commonly stiled Pleasure, but deserves no better peithet than barbarous dissipation. Sleep & Indulgence unites in stealing another large Portion of Time from the Sons & Voltaires of Pleasure." -Henry Laurens

Henry also added on the weight of other people's expectations.

"Your friends on both Sides of the Water will expect to See in Jack Laurens the Man of Honour, Modesty, & prudence, the Scholar, the Christian, the Gentleman. Surely no endeavors on your part will be wanting to answer their utmost wishes & expectations." -Henry Laurens to John Laurens

John eventually returned to England, and there was. an incident. Basically, there was a party at Cambridge that a bunch of John's friends want to, and Henry really didn't like John's friends, and he really didn't want John to go to the party.

John said he didn't go to the party, but Henry didn't believe him. He basically tore into him for having bad friends, that he told John that John didn't really like his own friends, and asked if he immediately started being a slut (my word, not his) after Henry returned to the states. He told him, "...the Eyes of your friends & of your Country are upon you, they are in expectation & think themselves in view of a valuable Casket, for your own sake, for theirs & for the sake of posterity disappoint them not by becoming a bundle of Carolina Rushes."

Now, John's response letters is one of the most heartbreaking letters I've ever read, up there with Lafayette finding out his daughter died across the Atlantic and Hamilton's final letters to Eliza (spoilers lol), so I feel like paraphrasing it won't really get the full picture of just how emotionally destroyed John was by this.

"I feel my Mind a little eased, tho’ it will not be free from Pain and Anxiety, ‘till it receive some words of Comfort from you. And I am persuaded that however greatly I have offended, you would pity me, could you conceive the Tort[ur]e of Mind that I have undergone this day. I have experienced the same distressful Sensation in putting Pen to Paper to address you, that an offender does in lifting his Eyes, which Shame had cast down; to meet those of his injured Friend. Oh such a Letter from you my Father, and I, distracting Thought, to have given occasion for it. But your Words are a Seasonable, tho’ most severe, and trying Medicine. Yes you have shewn me myself. I was very well satisfied, before your terrible Letter gave the Alarm and call’d me home to Self-examination. You have shewn me such a Man as I almost hate. The more I look into my past Conduct, the more I despise what I was, the more I wish that a long Series of such Deportmant, as I now, dares such an irresolute man, say, resolve upon, were already past, and had regained your Confidence. The Remorse I have felt is known to none, but myself, and can only be conceived by one, who has been so unhappy, as to sink in his own, and the Esteem of his best Friend. I supplicate Your Pardon, and Pity, how dare I ask to restore your Esteem, Your Unworthy, tho much afflicted and pentient Son John Laurens.” -JL to HL, 29 March 1775

So, to summarize all of this, Henry taught his children to avoid being arrogant, hedonistic, selfish, atheist, dishonorable, degenerates, and that his definition of that was someone who overindulged in pleasures, who did not care what people thought of them, and did not control themself. In John's mind, he fit this description. He wasn't very religious, he was attracted to men, he had a child out of wedlock, and he had no real desire to study law. This would only get worse with time.

Now that was a lot of really sad things, so I will follow it up with something just as bad because John didn't get a break, so neither will we.

John moved back to London to get his law education but also to look after his younger brothers. His younger brother, Jemmy, he placed in a school in Greenwich. After he made the decision, he rushed home to inform his father and William Manning, his future wife's father. There, he ran into Manning's clerk, who informed him that Jemmy had suffered a critical injury. He had attempted to do parkour, but he was not hardcore, so he fell and hit his head. Doctors determined the injuries were too severe. John stayed by Jemmy's bedside until he die the following night. John described the situation in the following quotes to his uncle and his father.

"At some Intervals he had his Senses, so far as to be able to answer single Questions, to beckon to me, and to form his Lips to kiss me, but for the most part he was delirious, and frequently unable to articulate. Puking, Convulsions never very violent, an latterly so gentle as scarcely to be perceived, or deserve the Name, ensued, and Nature yielded." -JL to James Laurens

"what unexpected Cruel Misfortunes await us, of what can we promise ourselves any lasting possession[?]" -JL to JL

"What is there most dear to us in this world, that we are not liable at every moment to lose by some unforeseen Accident?" -JL to JL

"Suffer not one moment to be spent in useless moans for the Dead, which might be employed to the Service of the Living. You have great and important Duties to perform upon the Earth. Your Family your Country looks to you with Confidence." -JL to HL

So, add that to the list of shit John went through. His younger brother died under his care, and while it wasn't his fault, you know he thought that it was.

Anyway! John returned to America in 1777 and joined Washington's office as an extra aide-de-camp, then as as official one, because he finally snapped after he had to marry a girl he accidentally got pregnant, and his dad made him get an administration job instead of enlisting. He was present at all of Washington's major battles during his time in his office. His personal bravery/rashness was noted by his bros.

"It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded; he did everything that was necessary to procure one or t'other." -Marquis de Lafayette after the Battle of Brandywine

That quote is really concerning considering what we just discussed but im too tired to unpack that.

Oh, and then there was the Lee Scandal. Laurens testified against Lee at his court martial after Monmouth, and absolutely fucking roasted him. Afterwards, Lee insulted Hamilton and Laurens- "those dirty earwigs who will forever insinuate themselves near persons in high office." Which like. he was right but he was rude about it.

So yeah Laurens challenged him to a duel on December 23, 1778. Lee proposed a deviation from the standard practice, where instead of being normal they would stand at a "proper distance" (roughly six paces), face each other, and shoot simultaneously. Lee's shot was errant, but Laurens shot him in the side. Contrary to what Lin Manuel Miranda wants you to believe, Laurens was not satisfied, and he and Lee wanted another round, but their seconds (Evan Edwards and Hamilton, respectively) wouldn't let them.

John returned to South Carolina in early 1779 to defend his state when the British turned their attention to the Southern states. He also went there to gain support for his manumission plan.

In March 1779, the Continental Congress authorized a payment up to $1,000 to the slaveholders of Georgia and South Carolina for each slave who enlisted in the army, and promised emancipation for those slaves who served until the end of the war. These "black battalions" should be raised and led by white officers. This plan found little support at the time in the southern American army (similar plans were put in place in the British armies and also in Rhode Island), but would have a development during the Civil War. John would continue trying to get this to work until his death.

Oh, oops, John was captured during the fall of Charleston in May 1780. He was transferred back to the Americans as part of a prisoner exchange in November of that year.

Then, he was selected to serve as a special envoy to King Louis XVI of France. He was almost crushed by an iceberg on the way there, and also Thomas Paine went with him. He appealed for supplies for the relief of the American armies. The active cooperation of the French fleets in Virginia that led to Yorktown was one result of his mission. It was technically a failure because he trusted some guy to transfer the goods and everything went to shit but like he technically did it. He wasn't known for his diplomatic skills I don't know why they picked him.

John rejoined the army and was at the head of the American storming party (along with Hamilton) of Redoubt 10 at Yorktown. Then, Washington designated him along with Louis-Marie, Viscount de Noailles to arrange the terms of surrender, and John was petty as shit about it.

John Laurens was killed in a skirmish on August 27, 1782 on the Combahee River in South Carolina before peace was formally concluded. He was shot multiple times off his horse after he ordered his men to attack despite orders not too. His men left and later returned to retrieve his body, leaving a gap in time in which Laurens likely bled to death, alone.

John was known to attack despite orders not too, being rash on the battlefield. It is possible that these were attempts at third-party suicide, so that he would die an honorable death, but die nevertheless.

This is really long, so I'm not going to go into lams and other things like that. If you have any further questions, absolutely feel free to ask! I personally feel like these are the most important things to understand about John's motivations and behaviors. Also I didn't think I would go into that much detail about Henry, but the National Park Service really is holding up the weight of the entire US government.

Anyway I hope that was helpful, even if it was very emotional. I thoroughly believe that mental health really needs to be a big discussion when it comes to John, even if it means putting myself through the ringer. anyway, love ya, @thereallvrb0y

#john laurens #historical john laurens #henry laurens #history #amrev #american revolution #american history #american revolutionary war #im so tired

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