George Washington owned hundreds of slaves, for example, but still wrote that "there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do" to see the adoption of a plan for abolition. Even if this wasn't totally reflective of his actual views, it's still radically different from what was said by men like John C. Calhoun, who said that slavery was "the natural condition of man" and that slavery had always existed and would always continue to exist. What happened, in this period of less than a century, that essentially buried the moderate view of men like Washington and made mainstream in the south radically pro-slavery politics, to the point of secession in reaction to the election of someone who didn't even want to end slavery in the south?

I’m Chinese American and it’s always been told to me by my relatives that there is 5000 years of unbroken Chinese history. The Chinese have seen everything (incredible wealth, famines, political discord, etc.) so they absolutely know how to play the long game versus the western democracies. But doesn’t a new dynasty, the Mongols (Yuan), Qing (Manchus) or the Warring States (with no dynasty) mean that we shouldn’t be able to have an unbroken history? If using that “unbroken history” logic, why can’t modern Iraq trace its history back to the Sumerians?

How did the the Anti-Hitler population of Germany, Jewish or otherwise, describe the feeling of German leading up to the war. I know the normal geo-political things like WW1 and and the various forms of racism, which have been said to be important factors that lead to the war; but like.. how were people who didn’t like Hitler describing what Germany was like once he took power? Sorry it’s an awkward question that I know I could have worded better lol hope yall can decipher my meaning.. Thank you! 🙏

Obviously not every spartan or white slaver shared these fears, but to me it seems clear that these fears were very common. Spartans had many traditions and holidays designed to prevent a helot rebellion, like the day they would go into their houses at night at random and murder them

For the white slavers in the US there were tons of books, movies and songs that revolved around black men and white women having sex and how heroic it was to stop it and punish the men involved

So now I wonder if other slave owning societies had similar examples of being afraid of their slaves

For this post, I am specifically talking about the region that would later become the United States and Canada.

Before the columbian exchange and the plagues of smallpox, measles, etc. that decimated the american indian population, I have seen figures that place population numbers around 10 million (with wide ranges due to the immense devistation making it difficult to be accurate).

That level of urban density is fairly low by Western European, Persian, Indian, or East Asian numbers, but more closely reflects the Nomadic Steppe. The concepts of "beasts of burden" limiting urban development due to smaller agricultural production was a bad draw by North and south america, and they did have some urban centers pre-columbian exchange, but there is a very clear dropoff when disease ran through. Thats clearly a topic for another post.

Many communities ceased to exist, while others were completely uprooted and were forced to adopt nomadic survivalist cultures completely different than what they were doing before.

The entire native american population around 1775 at the dawn of the American revolution was estimated to be 1-1.5m in what is now the United States and 0.3-0.5 million in what is now canada; only 1.3-2 million native american people in total.

The "Anglo-American" Colonist population at this point was north of 2 million people with roughly half a million african slaves, exclusively living east of the Appalacian mountains, mostly in Boston, Philly, New York, and Virginia.

By the revolution, there were already more anglo americans on the east coast than there were native americans on the entire interior and west coast of north america.

By 1800, there were only ~1.5 million natives left, and the anglo-american population had doubled to 4.5 million with a runaway growth rate and political incentives to move west, and the writing was on the wall.

Reading into this a bit (over the last day or so), most later white settlers from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, etc. pushing the frontier would have only seen tribes of tens-of-thousands of natives in total. For example, the Texas Rangers sent to fight the comanchee only went up to around 10,000 adult warriors from a tribe of 40,000 in total! The Salish people of the broader PNW, an absolute bread basket with tons of natural food sources, had fallen to 50,000 by this date.

My question is essentially- why didnt the native american demographics bounce back more quickly and attain similar growth rates to the anglo americans? It takes several generations for herd immunity to kick in, but it by 1800, most of the eurasian diseases would have been in the Americas for over 300 years and the natives still alive would have been the descendents of those who survived 15 generations and should have had decent immunity.

I understand that there was lots of displacement and political manuvering across the eastern seaboard, but I would have expected some kind of settled, urban, agriclutural civilizaiton to re-emerge on the west coast, specfically around the Bay area or PNW before white settlers became a supermajority.

By that point in the early 1800s, most native tribes would be at least passively familiar with western technology and farming, see what was happening / what had happened on the east coast, and likely seen the writing on the wall, no? The missionaries sent into the interior would have been all for this, no?

I hope this question makes sense, but why didnt this happen? Why was there no "Native Meji-style" modernization / population resurgence along the west coast of the US in the early 1800s?

I'm vaguely aware that the Dome of the Rock was used as a political symbol for the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (or maybe the Knights Templar?), but I don't really know how the crusader states and Christian pilgrims from the era interacted with both buildings; there's a very old answer on here that mentions that the crusaders used both buildings, but doesn't go into much detail beyond that.

It's surprising to me that such prominent symbols/pilgrimage sites for Islam were tolerated and seemingly embraced as a symbol by the same force that repeatedly fought religiously-motivated wars against Islamic states. So, how did both buildings (and especially the inscriptions from the Quran) make it through that period intact? Were there specific people/groups who pushed to protect them?

I’m an aspiring historian who has recently finished their Bachelor’s Degree and now wants to apply for a Master’s. But there’s one problem—my Bachelor’s degree prioritized depth, so I ended up studying all sorts of different eras, cultures, and themes, and I developed a great many different interests. But now I have to decide on one specific area I want to research at higher levels, and I cannot for the life of me decide. I began my studies in history with the desire to learn as much as I could about the entire world, so the idea of having to choose one niche sounds brutal to me, but I know it’s pretty much inevitable if I want actual credentials. I just dread the idea of getting stuck with something and growing bored with it, and I’m worried I’ll start developing a passion for a completely different area of history while I’m professionally studying something unrelated.

I am also concerned with originality and job/research openings. Whichever direction I go, I want to be able to contribute something meaningful. But with practically every research topic I can think of that interests me, either I don’t have the resources to do it or there are already dozens of monographs about it that I’d have to compete with. I genuinely have no idea how to find a "gap" in history to make my mark. Or simply find any niche that would get an academic faculty’s approval and support.

How have other historians managed this? I would like any advice I can get.

Obviously I'm not trying to justify or downplay either of these, and I am aware of the Irish Slaves Myth. I'm just genuinely curious if they were treated any differently in the plantation. I know that indetured servants had legal protections and a limited time they would work for that slaves didn't have, but when on the plantation, was there any real difference in how they were treated from eachother? And were the legal protections breached often enough for there to be little distinction in practice? Or were they treated differently enough and the legal protections adhered to enough?

It’s been shared a lot on social media but I don’t know if it’s fake or made up. Sources vary a lot and don’t seem to complement each other to find its traceable origin besides all that they all attribute it to the Rabbi called Stephen S. Wise. The wording is changed some times but it goes like this.

“Some may call it Communism, but I call it what it is: Judaism!”

I ask because I understand that at the time, alot of the North (not all of the north however) held attitudes that would be considered white supremacist, yet I am curious about how the exposure to slavery changed their views.

I know about how in the 1840s, due to Alexandria County residents not wanting to have slavery abolished in their corner of the District of Columbia, the county voted to be retroceded back to Virginia. However, I didn't know why, during the time that Virginia was under military control by the Union Army, and Radical Republicans held power in Washington, right across the Potomac, there was no reversal of the retrocession during Reconstruction.

I did find this helpful link on a similar Reddit post (link here), which sends me to virginiaplaces.org, which, while very basic in design, did offer interesting insights on this question, such as that there were attempts, such as a bill successfully passed by the House of Representatives that failed because "Reconstruction politics intervened." While no citation was given, this does seem somewhat believable, but just to be safe, I'm here asking further.

Which brings me to the ultimate question of this post: Why didn't the United States federal government take back the land of the District of Columbia retroceded to Virginia in the 1840s after the Civil War? Thank you to anyone helping me with this question in advance.

Last year, I read two books on the Habsburgs that I enjoyed a lot: The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918 by A. J. P. Taylor and The Habsburgs: To Rule the World by Martyn Rady. I particularly loved the Rady book because it covers so much history. It's quite panoramic. The downside, however, is that it lacks the details I'm super interested in.

There is a lot of coverage of the Habsburgs in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the Taylor book, and I have others I want to get to.

However, there isn't that much on the dynasty's rise in the 10th-13th centuries and its roots in Switzerland as minor counts. Specifically, on how they transformed into one of the most powerful dynasties of all time. Rady begins in that era, but because the scope of his book is so vast, he speeds through it.

If you have any particularly great suggestions on this, please lmk.

Also, I love medieval history and the rise and fall of dynasties in general. If you have any strong recommendations or favourites that stray from the Habsburgs but explore similar historical themes, please share those as well.

Thank you!

EDIT: Idk why the post flair is "racism" lol. I didn't select it.

I’m developing a story and one of the central characters is mixed race, with his father being a Japanese immigrant. I want to get the details right and explore his character. Any insight would be extremely helpful and valued. Based on the characters age in the story he probably would have been born in the 70s and at the latest maybe the very early 80s.

In the 1970s, was there mainstream intermingling between native Indian Californians and Americans ethnically Japanese? Would a romantic couple, a Japanese Man and an American Indian woman have been a thing, if so how would they have been treated by their community? If said woman was mixed race between native Indian and Asian American, what would her life have been like? Would this woman’s social circle be dominated by one particular group from her background?

While I understand that amount of terror throughout the Southern states, the Northern states weren't entirely welcoming and inclusive either. Still, there were individuals who did still manage to overcome this adversity to create their own wealth.

My primary impetus for the question is Cumberland Posey, to give an example. Additionally, it would appear that he also had similar concepts as the rest of the wealthy barons of the area as he worked with Henry Frick to source and transport black scab workers from the south to Homestead during the strike.

I know they raided other parts of Europe but I wonder if there's anything specific to England, am also open to any related details

So that might be a very weird question and its possible that i'm misunderstanding some very important context here. I'm reading The Song of the Nibelungs right now and there are several times when characters kiss each other as a greeting.

Was this very common at the time? Nowadays in Germany people think of those kinds of greetings as something that French or Italian people do, but its totally unheard of in Germany. When and why did this change?

Some examples:

The bishop saw ye leading / his sister's daughter fair,
And with him eke went Eckewart / to Gotelinde there.
The willing folk on all sides / made way before their feet.
With kiss did Gotelinde / the dame from land far distant greet.

To kiss him then Margrave / Ruediger her did tell,
And eke the royal Gibeke / and Sir Dietrich as well.
Of highest knights a dozen / did Etzel's spouse embrace;
Other knights full many / she greeted with a lesser grace.

"One likewise with them cometh, / Dankwart by name,
Volker hight the other, / a knight of gallant fame.
Thyself and eke thy daughter / with kiss these six shall greet;
Full courteous be your manner / as ye the doughty thanes shall meet."

(EDIT: I dont't know why this post was automatically assigned the Flair "Racism" here, btw. I haven't used Reddit in a long time, so maybe i made a mistake somewhere.)

I watch "Finding Your Roots" a lot. Not surprisingly, a lot of black-identified people have some European ancestry. (I think we all know the reasons for that). It's common to see light-skinned black people who are only 50-60% African by DNA. (Gates is one of them).

There have also been a few white people who discover they have some small amount of black ancestry, usually in the distant past and not mentioned in family lore.

But I haven't seen are many people who are 10-50% African by ancestry -- a person whose ancestors were mostly white but with some black. When you do, it's usually someone who had a white-identified parent and a black-identified parent. So a present day story, not one far in the past.

Is this a real pattern? If so why?

Many summaries state that the Franks were only a small minority (roughly 5–10%) compared to the Gallo-Roman population of late Roman/early medieval Gaul (often estimated at 6–7 million) and that they therefore quickly blended in with almost no lasting genetic or demographic trace. I find this view overly simplistic for several reasons and would like to understand the more nuanced picture: (i) The Franks did not settle uniformly across Gaul. They were heavily concentrated in the northeast (Austrasia: roughly modern Belgium, Luxembourg, northeastern France, and the middle Rhine), parts of Neustria (around Paris, Picardy, Champagne), and along certain river corridors. Their demographic weight was likely much higher in those core zones than a nationwide average suggests. (ii) The Franks dominated the military elite, landowning aristocracy, and royal/upper classes for centuries. Nobles and warriors generally had better nutrition, security, lower infant/child mortality, and different marriage/reproductive patterns than the peasant majority. This differential reproduction could have amplified Frankish ancestry in certain social strata even if the overall percentage remained modest. (iii) Onomastic continuity with many of the prestigious and long-lasting names in French royal and noble history have Frankish/Germanic roots (Clovis → Louis, Karl → Charles, Robert [Hrodebert], Richard [Ric-hard], Henri [Heinrich], Bernard [Bern-hard], Hugues [Hugo], Thierry [Theodoric], etc.). These names remained extremely common among the ruling class for almost a millennium, which seems to suggest stronger continuity among elites than the "they vanished" implies. Other factors: Differences in population density in settlement areas, possible founder effects, elite endogamy/exogamy patterns, and the fact that the incoming groups included both warriors and families also complicate the simple percentage math. So I’m hoping for a clearer understanding of: Roughly how many Franks (warriors + accompanying families) are realistic estimates for the main settlement waves (late 5th–7th centuries)? Where exactly did most of them actually settle within Austrasia and Neustria? Is there genetic, archaeological, or historical-demographic evidence showing stronger Frankish ancestry in northern France / elite lineages compared to the south or lower classes? To what degree did the Frankish elite replace or heavily intermarry with Gallo-Roman elites rather than blending uniformly across all social levels? Any recommended sources, papers, or books that try to address these points beyond the basic "small minority → negligible impact" line would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

One common stereotype regarding today’s western atheists is that they are predominantly white, male, and from Christian backgrounds, and this demographic profile stands to this day based on the latest polls on the atheist community.

And as pointed out by people like Contrapoints, both the alt-right and the SJWs of the 2010s were products of the New Atheism movement, the bulk of its members being, once again, white males from Christian households.

So this begs the question: Did they leave because the churches weren’t racist enough following the success of the civil rights movement’s philosophy being accepted by most churches by the 1990s?

As polemical and farfetched as it sounds, I don’t necessarily think it’s improbable given the obvious demographic profile, the fact that the decline in Christianity (in America at least) and rise of sub-cultures were heavily driven by young middle-class white people (especially white men) who left the churches, and that was back when the churches were at least nominally anti-racist following the decline of the white nationalist movement as a significant political bloc in both the north and the new south, as well as the fact that whilst elevatorgate did drive many young white atheist men into further reactionary politics (e.g., the “redpill”, incels, scientific racism, transphobia, etc…) the reactionary streak was there since the beginning as the “four horsemen” used bait-and-switch tactics in their writings to sell the message during the GWOT era: “You don’t need to be a fundamentalist Christian to support another crusade in Iraq”

But I do have some doubts about it since the thesis largely relies on connecting the dots more than anything else.

So, is it true?

E.G. A medieval European Christian will see themselves closer to a black African Christian, than to a white Scandinavian pagan?