COURT MARTIAL AND CONTRABAND IN 19TH CENTURY YUCATÁN. THE CASE OF BOAT “FOUR SISTERS”

2021 ◽  
pp. 76-86
Author(s):  
Ivan N. Kosichenko ◽  

This article deals with an issue of the court-martial functioning in Mexican state of Yucatán in the middle of the 19th century. The political violence, a very characteristic of the epoch, in Yucatán scaled up with a start of the ethno-social conflict between the government and predominantly Indian population of southeastern part of the state – the Caste War (1847–1901). For the juridical practices the constant political conflicts, domination of the Army and military men in public life meant broad simplification of judicial procedures, often executed by officer corps. One special place for the middle of the 19th century was the fortress of Bacalar, which controlled the border with British dominions in Belize. It was one of the crucial points for importation of contraband into Yucatán peninsula, and if before 1847 it had been mostly civil goods, with the start of the Caste War, Belizean entrepreneurs actively participated in supply of rebels with armament and munitions. They were contrabandists of such kind who were captured on September 13 of 1849 in the border outpost in Chaac upon the Río Hondo.They left behind themselves the “Four Sisters” boat case – the document that shed light not only on the details of simplified court procedures in the 19th century Mexico but also on various details of wartime daily life in that remote fortress.

Author(s):  
Liubomyr Ilyn

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to analyze and systematize the views of social and political thinkers of Galicia in the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. on the right and manner of organizing a nation-state as a cathedral. Method. The methodology includes a set of general scientific, special legal, special historical and philosophical methods of scientific knowledge, as well as the principles of objectivity, historicism, systematic and comprehensive. The problem-chronological approach made it possible to identify the main stages of the evolution of the content of the idea of catholicity in Galicia's legal thought of the 19th century. Results. It is established that the idea of catholicity, which was borrowed from church terminology, during the nineteenth century. acquired clear legal and philosophical features that turned it into an effective principle of achieving state unity and integrity. For the Ukrainian statesmen of the 19th century. the idea of catholicity became fundamental in view of the separation of Ukrainians between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. The idea of unity of Ukrainians of Galicia and the Dnieper region, formulated for the first time by the members of the Russian Trinity, underwent a long evolution and received theoretical reflection in the work of Bachynsky's «Ukraine irredenta». It is established that catholicity should be understood as a legal principle, according to which decisions are made in dialogue, by consensus, and thus able to satisfy the absolute majority of citizens of the state. For Galician Ukrainians, the principle of unity in the nineteenth century. implemented through the prism of «state» and «international» approaches. Scientific novelty. The main stages of formation and development of the idea of catholicity in the views of social and political figures of Halychyna of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries are highlighted in the work. and highlighting the distinctive features of «national statehood» that they promoted and understood as possible in the process of unification of Ukrainian lands into one state. Practical significance. The results of the study can be used in further historical and legal studies, preparation of special courses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 161-168
Author(s):  
Alexander D. Gronsky

The article examines the relationship between Western Russianism (Zapadnorusizm) and Byelorussian nationalism. Byelorussian nationalism is much younger than Western Russianism, finally shaping only in the end of the 19th century. Before 1917 revolution Byelorussian nationalism could not compete with Western Russianism. The national policy of the Bolsheviks contributed to the decline of Western Russianism and helped Byelorussian nationalism to gain stronger positions. However, Byelorussian nationalists actively cooperated with the occupation authorities during the Great Patriotic war. That caused distinctly negative attitude of Byelorussians towards the movement and collaborators. Currently, Byelorussian nationalism is supported both by the opposition and by the government. Western Russianism has no political representation, but is supported by the majority of Byelorussian population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 293-317
Author(s):  
Protopriest Alexander Romanchuk

The article studies the system of pre-conditions that caused the onset of the uniat clergy’s movement towards Orthodoxy in the Russian Empire in the beginning of the 19th century. The author comes to the conclusion that the tendency of the uniat clergy going back to Orthodoxy was the result of certain historic conditions, such as: 1) constant changes in the government policy during the reign of Emperor Pavel I and Emperor Alexander I; 2) increasing latinization of the uniat church service after 1797 and Latin proselytism that were the result of the distrust of the uniats on the part of Roman curia and representatives of Polish Catholic Church of Latin church service; 3) ecclesiastical contradictions made at the Brest Church Union conclusion; 4) division of the uniat clergy into discordant groups and the increase of their opposition to each other on the issue of latinization in the first decades of the 19th century. The combination of those conditions was a unique phenomenon that never repeated itself anywhere.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110131
Author(s):  
Michael Billig

This paper examines how the British government has used statistics about COVID-19 for political ends. A distinction is made between precise and round numbers. Historically, using round numbers to estimate the spread of disease gave way in the 19th century to the sort precise, but not necessarily accurate, statistics that are now being used to record COVID-19. However, round numbers have continued to exert rhetorical, ‘semi-magical’ power by simultaneously conveying both quantity and quality. This is demonstrated in examples from the British government’s claims about COVID-19. The paper illustrates how senior members of the UK government use ‘good’ round numbers to frame their COVID-19 goals and to announce apparent achievements. These round numbers can provide political incentives to manipulate the production of precise number; again examples from the UK government are given.


1977 ◽  
Vol 17 (192) ◽  
pp. 111-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Zorgbibe

“Whenever a large organized group believes it has the right to resist the sovereign power and considers itself capable of resorting to arms, war between the two parties should take place in the same manner as between nations…” This statement by de Vattel in the 19th century seemed destined to take its place as a part of positive law, constituting part of what was known as recognition of belligerency, tantamount to the recognition by the established government of an equal status for insurgents and regular belligerents. When a civil war became extensive enough, the State attacked would understand that it was wisest to acknowledge the existence of a state of war with part of the population. This would, at the same time, allow the conflict to be seen in a truer light. The unilateral action of the legal government in recognizing belligerency would be the condition for granting belligerent rights to the parties. It would constitute a demonstration of humanity on the part of the government of the State attacked and would also provide that government with prospects for effective pursuit of the war. By admitting that it was forced to resort to war, it would at least have its hands free to make war seriously.


Author(s):  
John Wright

Perspectives on southern Africa’s past in the eras before the establishment of European colonial rule have been heavily shaped by political conflicts rooted in South Africa’s history as a society of colonial settlement. The archive of available evidence—archaeological finds, recorded oral materials, and colonial documents—together with the concepts used to give them meaning are themselves products of heavily contested historical processes. Archaeological evidence indicates that Homo sapiens, descended from earlier forms of hominin, was present in southern Africa at least 200,000 years ago, but many members of the South African public reject evolutionary notions of the past. From about 200 bce onward, groups of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and farmers were in constant contact in southern Africa. A widespread European settlerist view, based on deep-seated stereotypes of warring races and “tribes,” is that they were permanently in conflict: historical evidence shows that in fact they interacted and intermingled in a range of different ways. Interactions became yet more complex from the mid-17th century as settlers from Europe gradually encroached from the southwest Cape Colony into most of southern Africa. In some areas, settler graziers sought to wipe out groups of hunter-gatherers, and to break up pastoralist groups and enserf their members; in other areas, particularly in the shifting colonial frontier zone, mixed groups, including settlers, made a living from raiding and trading. In the 19th century, groups of settler farmers sought to subjugate African farmers, and seize their land and labor. Contrary to a common view, they had only limited success until, in the later 19th century, Britain, the major colonial power in the region, threw its weight decisively behind British settler expansion. Other Europeans—traders and missionaries in particular—worked with Africans to make profits and save souls. Some Africans sought to resist loss of land and sovereignty; others sought to take advantage of the colonial presence to seek new political allies, loosen ties to chiefs, find wage work, produce for the market, join churches, seek a book education, and incorporate Christian ideas into their politics. Even before they came under colonial domination, many chiefs sought to move from a long-established politics based on alliance making to a politics based on what Europeans called “tribal” rule.


Author(s):  
Richard Graham

Although the slave trade to Brazil did not end until 1850, and slavery itself lasted until 1888, the practice of freeing slaves had been common from the time of first colonization by the Portuguese in the 16th century, and the children of freed women were born free. The result was that, by the time of a national census in 1872, there were 4.25 million free blacks and mulattos in the country, accounting for over three quarters of all those of African descent and two fifths of Brazil’s total population. To understand the willingness of Brazilian slave owners to free so many one must first consider the general nature of Brazil’s social structure and the paradigms that ordered it. For most, society was not thought of as being made up of individuals equally protected in their rights and mobile in relationship to one another, but by castes, ranks, corporations, guilds, and brotherhoods, layered one atop another or arranged side by side. Almost everyone could feel superior to someone else, even if inferior to others. The nuanced distinctions of ranks somewhat restrained the threat to social order that free and freed blacks might otherwise have been thought to pose. “Free-and-equal” was not a phrase heard in Brazil. There is overwhelming evidence that race was an important variable affecting one’s position, and discrimination against blacks was widespread and constant. The government reinforced the prejudices of white Brazilians, acquiesced in maintaining a hierarchy based on color, and presented obstacles to the ambitions of free African Brazilians. Civil service positions were usually denied to them, regardless of their qualifications. Recruitment for the army was focused on the poor, that is, on African Brazilians. Yet, it is also true that many individuals found their way around those obstacles and rose to positions of some importance, for skin color was just one of the many characteristics to be considered. There are multiple examples of freeborn mulattos (and some freed and freeborn blacks) who succeeded in 19th-century Brazil. Some became doctors, pharmacists, journalists, and teachers. Others entered politics and rose to positions of real power. A few worked energetically to bring about the end of slavery.


Author(s):  
Roman Yu. Pochekaev

Mikhail Speranskiy, an outstanding Russian statesman and legislator of the first half of the 19th century, was Governor-General of Siberia from 1819 to 1821. The main result of this moment in his career was the government reform in Asiatic Russia as well as the formulation in 1822 of a set of codes – rules and regulations – for Siberia and its peoples. Speranskiy tried to incorporate his theories on state and law into these codifications. One of these codes was the Rules on the Siberian Kirghiz which provided for a reform of the government system of the Kazakhs (‘Kirghiz’ in the Russian pre-revolutionary tradition) of the Middle Horde, who were under the control of Siberian regional authorities. The Middle Horde became a place where Speranskiy could experiment with his ideas. Previous researchers have paid more attention to the consequences of the promulgation of the ‘Rules on the Siberian Kirghiz’ for the later history of Kazakhstan. This paper clarifies which specific ideas of Speranskiy on state and law the Rules on the Siberian Kirghiz reflect, and answers the question of whether they had practical importance. A substantial part of the ‘Rules on the Siberian Kirghiz’ was, in fact, ineffective and would not be used in practice because of Speranskiy’s lack of knowledge of the Kazakhs, and his underrating of their political and legal level. At the same time, the authority of Speranskiy in 19th century Russia as legislator and reformer was so high that his Rules on the Siberian Kirghiz remained in force until the 1860’s, when the next substantial administrative reforms of the Kazakh steppe took place.



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