Etienne Perier Quotes
Fifteen Negroes in whose hands we had put weapons, performed prodigies of valor. If the blacks did not cost so much, and if their labors were not so necessary to the colony, it would be better to turn them into soldiers, and to dismiss those we have, who are so bad and so cowardly that they seem to have been manufactured purposely for this colony
In 1729 the French colony of Louisiana was under attack by Indians resentful of the whites making plantations on their traditional land. The Governor armed 15 Negro slaves who were marvelous soldiers and were material in the defense of the colony—better than many of the whites. Ironically, the price of slaves was so high at the time otherwise the government would buy them for a professional militia. Later in Louisiana and throughs the South the intellectual box that the racism of Southern slavery produced would not allow the possibility that Negroes could be good soldiers, and even when the South was desperate for military manpower in the civil War, they would not accept a proposal from Robert E. Lee and others that slaves by armed and allowed to fight for the South in exchange for their freedom.
Étienne Périer Report, 1729
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Contrast this view with that of Union General Ulysses S. Grant.
Despite the critical need of the war, racism was so extensive in the WWII military that Blacks were relegated to menial duty of cooking, truck driving and construction but were actually not allowed to fight at the beginning despite the fact that many had volunteered. Many whites—especially the southerners—were convinced that Negroes could not fight, that they lacked the courage and commitment. The need for troops in the Pacific theater was so great that in the invasion of Saipan that was so difficult, Black troops were committed to the fight and performed brilliantly. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Vandergrift was not only the first Marine 4 star general who was on active duty, but he personally was a recipient of the Medal of Honor. When he spoke, all marines and many others in the service listened. This was the break-though. Negroes in combat was no longer some kind of social experiment for most Marines except the most vitriolic rascists.
Miller was the first Black American admitted to a Graduate Program—Johns Hopkins—in Mathematics
The President often referred to this statement as an example of his wife’s acumen. She had been born to a Southern plantation and inherited the land and the slaves. Her view, and his, were typical of the Southern point of view in early America.
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
Negro volunteers were actually preferred under the theory that their ancestry made them more immune to malaria and other tropical diseases in Cuba.
Perhaps there is no more dramatic quotation illustrating MacArthur’s arrogance where his own views and decisions should obviously prevail regardless of the policies of his superiors and his commander-in-chief. The army had been officially integrated by President Truman, The reality was that the general honestly believed that he had no superiors among the military, that civilians should not control the military, and in any event that the President—Truman—was not fit to be Commander-in-Chief.
_0_thumbnail_400x500.webp "Etienne de Perier, governor of French Louisiana.")
Étienne de Perier was the fifth governor of the Louisiana colony. Born in 1687 in Dunkirk, he comes from the de Perier family. He became governor in 1727. His governorship was marked by the arrival of the first Ursuline nuns in New Orleans in 1727 to establish the first convent within the limits of what was to become the United States as well as a war against the Natchez Indians due to bad relations with the Sieur de Chépart, the commander at Fort Rosalie. After agitating the Indians by demanding that they give up either their village or their land, the Indians launched an attack on November 29, 1729, and killed nearly three hundred persons at Fort Rosalie. The French retaliated and by 1731 had killed or captured most of the Indians. The captured Indians were sent as slaves to Santo Domingo, and the few remaining free moved further westward and joined the Chickasaw Indians. This marked the end of the Natchez Indian nation. In the same year, the Company of the Indies petitioned the King of France to take back their charter, thus ending their control of the colony. Étienne de Perier remained governor for two years after Louisiana was returned to the Crown but became frustrated with deteriorating relations with the Chickasaws and lost interest in the colony. He resigned, and Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville was chosen to yet again serve as governor of the colony.
