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Prelude
Teaser for TL I may write when I'm back from mis vacaciones. BTW trigger warnings on all kinds of racism



Oscar Wilde, commenting on "The Death of General Lee", a poem by T.F Dixon.

Those poor confederates, they were so far from God, and so close to Garibaldi. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

John Campbell, address at fundraising meeting in aid of the American League for White Neighbourliness, July 1871, Chicago.

A spectre stalks the Americas. Ragged, ill-shod, hungry, it walks with stumbling yet implacable gait. In hands made rough from the tools of rightful labour - the hoe, pick and shovel - are clasped those fearsome implements of destruction, the rifle and the pamphlet. In a pitch-black face, bloodied teeth grin horribly through thick negro lips, while the cunning eyes of the zambo flicker to-and-fro in search of that which may be defiled; order, law, property or womanhood. The apparition wears torn and sullied breeches, and a blouse dyed scarlet not with carmine, but with the ichor of the white race. It is the spectre of servile insurrection, a promethean Toussaint Louverture raised by those mad necromancers Garibaldi and Engels, who have already loosed its horror upon their erstwhile masters.

[...]

In these Americas, what white Michael will cast down the Satan of equalism? Whence the Columbian George to slay the dragon of Communism? He shall come from here, from these United American States. He shall ride a pale horse, and his name, his name shall be Custer.


Antenor Firmin-Memoire de la guerre mexicaine.


San Miguel de Ixmiquilpan

It was in Ixmiquilpan, in the January of 1868, that we first crossed paths with the Confederados. The town seemed to us Haitians, already nostalgic for the verdant countryside of our homeland, to be in a desert so arid as to make human civilisation impossible. Only later we would learn the true meaning of the word "desert". Ixmiquilpan lies a mere 150km north of the city of Mexico, but most of the country thereabouts remained under the control of the "djab blan". The town had been host to a small infantry garrison at the time of the invasion, which had refused to surrender the plaza to the troops of General Forrest. Given the time and losses which would be required to dislodge an entrenched enemy, and the city's isolated geographical position, the decision was taken to let sleeping dogs lie. Forrest did not foresee that the city would become a focal point in the resistance of the Guerrilla, and so a year later Lee had made the decision to take the town. In this he was successful, but for the ancient church of St Michel, which the Mexicans had made strong and, by the time we arrived, valiantly defended for three months.

We were operating in a combined Brigade, under Engels, with the English and West Indian volunteers and some Colombians and Venezuelans, alongside 60 or so Guerrilla scouts lent to us by Diaz. From these hard and cunning little men, we knew we out-numbered the djab by at least 4 to 1, but that they were in the process setting up 3 artillery pieces that would surely breach the strong walls of the old Spanish mission. Colonel Hippolyte and Engels, who spoke excellent French, quickly discussed our options, and it was agreed that a surprise attack would allow us the best opportunity of taking the guns with minimal losses. We left the infantry behind, and advanced briskly towards the foe. Engels, in those early days, followed Hippolyte's advice on matters of tactics to the word. A cynic might say that once again it is from the black man's genius and labour that the white man's fame is made. But it is also true that it was Engels' energy that raised our troops, and the profits, and eventually the sale, of his factories that armed us.

What a sight we must have seemed to the confederados, black men in the colours of the Negro Republic charging them from behind with swords raised in terrible determination. To be just I must also recognise the white horsemen and the Spaniards showed as much righteous fury against the slave-drivers as we did. They had not the time even to surrender before we were among them slashing, and we would not have wished that they had.

Afterwards the Mexicans came out of the mission, thin and grateful, almost unbelieving. They took our Colonel Hippolyte, a mulatto, and showed him an old mural inside the church. It was the archangel Michael, they said, but he was dressed in the skin of a jaguar, and held the weapons of an Indian brave. His foes, who were at once white men and devils, fell before this coffee-skinned warrior. The resemblance of saint and soldier was truly striking. Around the picture were dozens of candles, one, I later found, for every man in the church. The men were crying. "Te llamamos, y viniste", we called you and you came.

It was that day, I think, that I began to love this America.




Firmin c. 1900

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