2 APRIL

BRITISH NEWSPAPER – AMERICAN WOMEN RAPED BY OUR REDCOATS ARE ‘FORTUNATE’

[ 2 April 1777 ]

During the American Revolution, tens of thousands of Redcoats were shipped to the American colonies to crush rebel forces. American women frequently became victims of their sexual violence, not just near the front lines, but also in and around New York, which was the main base for the British army for much of the war. Lord Rawdon, adjutant to General Sir Henry Clinton commanding British forces, blamed the victims for such incidents, claiming that they foolishly resisted ‘our men’ who were ‘as riotous as satyrs.’

He explained that ,’a girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have the most entertaining courts-martial every day.’ London’s Morning Chronicle advanced an even more perverse view, though no doubt reflecting the general attitude of the British elite at the time, publishing an article on 2 April 1777, which declared that a series of rapes in New Jersey was ‘a most fortunate stroke for the Yankees in mending the breed.’¹

1911 CENSUS SHOWS HUGE DISPARITY IN DEATH RATE BETWEEN LONDON AND DUBLIN

[ 2 April 1911 ]

The census surveys for Ireland, then entirely ruled from London as a virtual colony, and Great Britain were both conducted on the same day, 2 April 1911. They showed that while the death rate in London was 15.6 per 1000, in Dublin it was about fifty per cent higher at 22.3 per 1000.  Even these figures hid huge disparities between a tiny wealthy elite in Dublin and the extensive slums where every room was crowded with people, such as Henrietta Street where  835 people were resident in just fifteen houses.²

SECRET MEMO ARGUES ECONOMIC INTERESTS SHOULD TRUMP CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

[ 2 April 1949 ]

On 2 April 1949, a secret Foreign Office memorandum on Malaya highlighted the British concern to prevent the people of the country being handed control over their own rich tin and rubber resources.

COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT AGAINST KENYAN VILLAGES DEEMED TO BE “HOSTILE”.

On 2 April 1952, the Collective Punishments Ordinance was passed by Kenya’s British run colonial government. It allowed the governor to authorize fines as well as the requisition of cattle, crops and property on already impoverished populations “where a tribe or group has been (deemed to be) openly hostile to the authorities.”³

FOOTNOTES

1. Holger Hoock, Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth, Crown, New York, 2017, pp. 170-171.
2. Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble, Profile Books Ltd., 2015, p. 104.
3. ‘Reveal The Thugs,’ The Daily Express, 25 November 1952 p. 2

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