A History of Uruguay, Part 2

URUGUAY PUSHED AROUND (1811-1828) Uruguay's history of being pawned off from Spain to Portugal wasn't over yet. When Argentina gained their independence in 1811 as the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata. While the Uruguayans weren't thrilled to be under Argentine control it was better than Spanish control. Well, almost anything was better than being under Spanish rule. At least now they wouldn't get taxed excessively and have all of their exports stolen by a country that was thousands of miles away, now they would just be stolen by a country tens of miles away... Better, I guess.

Their brief period of independence was just that... brief when Portuguese Brazil attacked in 1816. Portugal saw all of this independence floating around South America and they weren't having any of that so they ordered their most powerful possession Brazil to annex Uruguay as a province of Brazil. This was hard with a Spanish speaking populace that had ties to Argentina and Spain, but they figured they could do it because Uruguay had history as a Portuguese colony, and it was successful by 1824.

Uruguayans were pissed. They had now been traded off three times to different governments and it was getting stressful to have to change the signs, money, national anthem and flag every two years just because some colonial power felt threatened so they decided "enough of this bullshit" and ordered for independence.

I've noticed most declarations of independence can be summed up with "Enough of this bullshit. I'm out".

BURGEONING POLITICAL FREEDOM (1828-1864)
The revolutionaries that called for Uruguay's freedom were called the Thirty-Three Orientals, called this because there were Thirty-Four of them... Good job! These Thirty-Three or Four Orientals were hugely popular as liberators and both formed new political parties: the Blancos and the Colorados.

The parties immediately aligned with their much more powerful neighbor to the south Argentina, but that proved rough when half of the country was exiled during the rule of dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas.

The Blancos aligned with Rosas, while the Colorados aligned with his opposition, most of which had been exiled, conveniently, to Uruguay.

After yet another invasion, this time by Argentina, Uruguay was a bit tired of being constantly invaded so they fought off the invasion and invested in less easily-invaded cities, I would think. 

URUGUAYAN CIVIL WAR & AFTERWARDS (1864-1933)
Uruguay saw what was going on the United States at this time, fighting a huge Civil War and thought "that's a great idea" and set off, not the first, but the second civil war in Uruguay's only 36 year history. Come on guys!

This one was extra-bad because other countries got involved in a proxy-war, that escalated into a full-on real one (Vietnam style). The Blancos were backed by Brazil, while the Colorados were backed by Argentina, so this was less of a Uruguayan civil war and more of an excuse for Brazil to fight Argentina.

This war was less important for Uruguay than it was for Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil as it fucked up the whole area for decades.

After the war the victorious Colorados ruled Uruguay for almost a century. It was a rough time for the country. The Colorados were ideologically split, the Blancos staged several attempted coups and revolts (because they didn't like losing 95 years in a row) and huge number of immigrants from Europe flooded the border. This was back when Europeans immigrated to Latin America, rather than the opposite. (You have to remember that a lot of Western Europe in the late 19th century was really shitty.) 

For the second time in Uruguayan history a problem was solved with cows (and sheep) as the government invested in livestock to reinvigorate the economy. The bank was established and the country was connected with telegraph and major ports and canals.

The industrial revolution didn't miss Latin America and Uruguay reaped many of the benefits of it. 

In 1903 these changes were furthered by president Jose Batlle y Ordonez who set up a system of welfare and introduced universal male suffrage, lowered taxes for the poor, set up schools, gave women the right to divorce, brought Telephone to Uruguay, introduced Unemployment benefits, set up an 8 hour day and 5 day work week and abolished religion in government. This guy was like Uruguayan Bernie Sanders, or maybe FDR, but in 1903!!! 

COUP & DICTATORSHIP (1933-1985)

Of course all of these good things couldn't last. Most world leaders are more Mussolini that Ordonez and in 1933 Mussolini fanboy Gabriel Terra took hold during one of the world economy's worst times: the Great Depression. The Great Depression affected all countries that were connected to the stock market, one of which was Uruguay.

Uruguay was in full insane-spiral. A new constitution was drafted which was so revolting to former president Baltasar Brum that he ran into the central square of Montevideo and shot himself in protest.

In WWII Gabriel Terra broke ties to Germany (because even Hitler was too dictator-y for some dictators). It was neutral in WWII, but supplied food (primarily those cows) to the allies. Uruguay did pretty well economically during the 40s & 50s, even though it was run by Gabriel Terra, a guy who looks like an Indiana Jones villain's slightly more buffoonish brother and his cronies.

In the 60s a group tired of government rule began robbing banks and giving money to the poor like Uruguayan Robin Hood, but unlike real Robin Hood they were immediately quelled by CIA affiliate US OPS who trained the Uruguayan police to use crocodile clamps and car batteries to torture people. Yay America!? 

Full Dictator-mode was put into effect once again in 1973 when civil liberties were slowly stripped away and the government was replaced with a Military administration. There were elections in the late 70s and 80s, but the only voters were a shadowy military council, so is it really democracy... The answer is no.

The military administration made heavy use of the Stalinist tactic of dissapearance. This is when you kill someone, and then take incredible, almost insane care to wipe every instance of their existence off of any records: census, destroying anything they've written, destroying records of conversations and even photoshopping them out of photos like Stalin did.

Turning this photo of Stalin with some guys to his left and a young-looking soldier on the right into a photo of Stalin with some guys to his left.


This tactic makes it hard to tell how many were killed by the military regime, because they weren't just killed, they were made to look as if they never existed.

RETURN TO STABILITY (1985-PRESENT)

After the military administration was deposed Uruguay returned to a pattern of democratic voting. In 1989 Luis Alberto Lacalle instituted some new economic reforms. In the 90s primary elections were instituted to make their democracy more closely resemble our broken democracy. Which is an odd choice, but okaaaaaay...

The Colorados which had existed from Uruguays beginning to the present still are in government. You might also know president Jose Mujica who became kind of famous on the internet for being both president of Uruguay and a cute old man. He was called "the poorest president" only recieving a salary of $14,000 a year, after he donated 90% of it to charity. He also drove a rusty Volkswagen Beetle instead of the presidential car. This guy seems pretty legit.

A History of Uruguay

PROFILE

Region: Southern South America

Climate: Seasonal, Humid, Subtropical

Leader(s): Tabare Vazquez, since 2015 (at time of writing)

Population: 3.324.460

Capital: Montevideo

Largest City: Montevideo
Currency: Uruguayan Peso
Languages: Spanish

Independence: 1825, from Brazil
Territories or Colonies: None

THE FACTS

Uruguay, officially the Oriental (Eastern) Republic of Uruguay, (the Western Republic of Uruguay technically being the Entre Rios province of Argentina, as it is on the west bank of the Uruguay River, while Uruguay is on the east.) Uruguay is a relatively small country in South America that is often confused with the other -guay nation, Paraguay.

Uruguay has a high Human Development Index and is advanced when it comes to things like political freedom and clean water. Montevideo, the capital, is rated as the best city in South America to live in based on census and WHO data.

BEFORE AND DURING COLONIZATION (????-1600s)
Uruguay shares a lot of its pre-European history with Brazil, and in fact a lot of its post-European history as well. Uruguay was a province of Brazil for a while and much of its culture as well as customs and cuisine are similar. You may think that because Uruguay was a province of Brazil it speaks Portuguese, but Uruguay speaks its own dialect of Spanish: Uruguayan Spanish, which like Argentine Spanish has some differences from say Mexican Spanish, or Spanish Spanish. It has a large Italian influence, like neighboring Argentina’s Spanish.

The indigenous peoples of the area, were very similar to the indigenous people groups in Southern Brazil. Uruguay was hit especially hard by the arrival of Europeans. Most Central American, South American and Caribbean countries’ populations are made up of people who mostly descend from European settlers and native peoples. These people are called Mestizo, Mestiso, Creole or Kreyol. Uruguay followed a path more similar to that of the United States. The Europeans didn’t really mingle with the native people in Uruguay as they did in other places. The European settlers instead nearly wiped out the native population with disease and constant attack.

Sadly today, there are very few if any native indigenous Uruguayans.

Colonization first began 14 Years after Columbus landed on the continent. The Portuguese wanted a piece of the colonization cake and (as you probably guessed) they got it. Portugal had a fairly expansive colonial empire, if you take into account the fact that it was all based in a country roughly the size of Maine, with only about a million people. Portugal grabbed hold of Eastern South America, while Spain dominated Northern and Western South America.

Uruguay was a sort of keystone, where both empires met and of course this was a problem. Portugal controlled much of Brazil, along the coasts and riverbanks. The inner Amazon had not been explored yet. Spain grabbed almost the entirety of the west, as far south as the glaciers of Chile, and France held pockets in between. Uruguay was on the Atlantic end of a long colonial border between the two giants. Even though Uruguay and Spain had been allies in the fight to colonize all of Latin America, the two were still fiercely competitive.

Uruguay and Paraguay may sound similar but their geographic placement makes them quite different. While Uruguay was very heavily colonized with tons of missions and churches built. Montevideo like most South American cities has an old colonial center. However, Paraguay is in the category of countries that are inland and weren't colonized until later. This is why countries like Bolivia (which was one of the most inaccessible areas) weren't as heavily colonized.

The Portuguese began by building a capital city Colonia do Sacramento. The capital later moved to Montevideo in the early 18th century when Spain got involved. Colonia do Sacramento was designed as a gateway for Portugal to the Southern portion of the continent, but they were never able to colonize farther south because of Spanish influence.

RUSH FOR URUGUAY (1600s-1811)

The Spanish saw the threat of the Portuguese incursion and rushed to build their own settlement and capital city in 1726, calling it Montevideo. It was settled by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala who was a.) named Zabala and was b.) a pirate hunter, so he had a lot going on.

In 1750 the treaty of Madrid was signed by Ferdinand the Sixth and John the Fifth of Spain and Portugal respectively. John wasn't super into Ferdinand on account of his wife being Austrian and Ferdinand inciting a useless war against them based on false information.

Meanwhile the Uruguayan native and mestizo people are being fucked because this constant squabbling between two colonial powers was the cause of trade problems and skirmishes.

It took twenty years for the Spanish to fully gain control of the land by just flooding it with Spanish cows and cowboys and saying "Those are Spanish cows, not Portuguese cows, so get the fuck out". This was back when socio-political conflicts could be solved with cows.

Spain held on to their colonial possession pretty evenly until 1806, when Britain decided it wanted in. Britain hadn't been very present in Latin America except for in Guyana, Honduras & Belize and most people don't think of the British when they're talking about Latin America.

Britain however was present in the region, even conquering the Falkland Islands later. At this time however Spain had taken over the Falklands and this made Britain mad, so it attempted a takeover. This however, as you may have guessed, was a failure, as they don't speak English in Uruguay.

A History of Uzbekistan, Part 2

THE MONGOLS & THE UZBEKS (1200-1800)
After Genghis Khan died his massive empire spanning much of Eurasia was divided up among his four legitimate sons. Technically Genghis Khan probably had nearly a thousand sons, but those didn't count. Unlike the British, whose system of secession was a complete clusterfuck (see CGP Grey's video on the royal family), Mongolia seemed to have things figured out and set up a government where each of the sons was entitled to a different portion of their empire. Chaghatai Khan, one of Genghis' sons recieved Uzbekistan including the prosperous regions south of the Aral Sea (which has nearly dried up now because of intense irrigation in the region, but back then was still a sea and very useful for agriculture).

Eventually, as these Empires tend to, the Mongolian Empire disintegrated into nothingness. All around their huge empire local chieftains and warlords began to seize back land that they couldn't fully rule over under the Mongols and this is what happened in Uzbekistan. Various ethnically Turkic leaders began to take back their land. One, Timur, renowned at the time as a military genius rose above the other tribal leaders and started his own dynasty, the Timurid Dynasty (because why not name your dynasty after yourself?). The Timurid dynasty was a new renaissance for the region that had for the longest time been subjugated by the Khans, as a Khanate (another word for a colony or province of the Mongolian Empire). During this time much of the visual art we associate with the region was produced, these ornate and colorful paintings of great parties and dinners and other events with colorful Arabic script.

Then in 1406, Timur died and so did his Empire. Many Empires in antiquity and the middle ages didn't last much longer than their founder or leader. This has to do with the founder/leader having ineffectual (like in the case of Oliver Cromwell, who you may know better as "Old Ironsides" who seized the British crown, renamed himself Lord Protector and went off on an ill-fated attempt at creating a dynasty, that fell at the first hurdle when his wimpy son Richard proved to be so unpopular that he got the much less cool nickname "Tumbledown Dick") children or just not being able to successfully transfer power from one generation to the next. These are the benefits of having a meritocracy...

The Timurid Dynasty was now in shambles, but the vibrant culture and arts of the region had not died. The culture of the region took on a new cultural identity with the arrival of the Uzbek ethnic group, the namesake of the country today. They set up shop similarly to how Timur had, but this time things weren't working out so well. Firstly their was almost constant religious conflict with Iran, who were Shia Muslim, while the multi-religious populace of Uzbekistan were primarily Sunni Muslim and the trade that brought so much MOOOONEY to the region in previous centuries now wasn't nearly as lucrative. The political instability of much of Central Asia led to an increased need for alternative trade routes to China and India and since Chris Columbus accidentally rammed into a continent he didn't know was there, there needed to be more options and it seemed that the Indian Ocean was where it was at.

The Silk Road was a relic of the past and the various Kingdoms and Dynasties that were once prosperous trading Empires were reduced to small squabbling factions and small feudal kingdoms, while the European Colonies in Maritime India, like Portuguese India (settled by Vasco de Gama in 1498, who unlike Christopher Columbus actually found India) were hugely prosperous as port-towns in Indian Ocean trade.

THE RUSSIANS (1800-1929)
The Russians march east through the impenetrable Siberian wilderness and Central Asian steppe took them from Moscow to Alaska, on the way adding to their vast territorial Empire. This is the reason that Russia is the largest country on Earth today. Their method of colonialism was much more akin to America's. The British or French method is land in some foreign land, claim it for my country and set up outposts there. The British didn't come en masse and live in their colonies (except for British North America, Australia and New Zealand) and these colonies weren't part of Britain, rather they were outer territories. On the other hand, when America manifest destinied the whole West they populated it with White Americans and moved their borders around it, rather than claiming it as some kind of outer territory. America didn't get to doing that until after World War II.

So, the Russians see that the Uzbek tribes are in shambles because the Silk Road isn't as lucrative as it once was and see this as an opportunity to annex some more land in an attempt to own Eurasia (which they got pretty close to). The Russians weren't totally without reason to annex this land (their sailors were getting captured by Uzbek slavers), so Russia decided to react to this by annexing their entire country.

Russia had already annexed Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and were planning on combining Uzbekistan with Turkmenistan into one Republic. (Fun Fact: Kyrgyzstan is the country the least amount of people know about.) Meanwhile the British already in control of Pakistan and India to the south have eyes on Afghanistan, as do the Russians. The British already had colonies in the Middle East (as you may remember from the Yemen post) and the Russians had eyes on the region as well, but they couldn't march their terrifyingly huge army down there unless they could get through Britain. This whole Geo-Political staring-contest turned possible-World War was called the Great Game, and the real losers of the Great Game were the Afghans, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Arabians who all ended up as pawns in a pointless colonial dick-measuring contest.

Now, you may be asking why does Russia want Uzbekistan which as we've established wasn't making any money off of Silk Road trade anymore (as it's the early to mid 1800s and the Suez Canal was being dug as they spoke. Well, Uzbekistan was a source of cheap cotton for Europe, and their were in dire need of cotton.

Their previous source of cotton: the Southern U.S. was in some hot water (the Civil War) and wasn't a reliable source for cheap cotton anymore, so they turned their gaze to Central Asia (primarily Afghanistan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan).
Russia had been in the region since the mid 1840s, after their conquest of modern-day Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, they looked to the north. In the 1870s Russia's influence was incredibly strong in the region. The Uzbek tribes had lost their grip on the land due to tribal in-fighting and conflict with other groups in the region. The Russians weren't overly bothersome of the natives, not meddling in their religion or culture and not changing the economy or government structure that much.

The Russians did try and shake up the Uzbek economy with new agricultural jobs. They wanted to transform the Uzbek society into a Russia-style Agricultural Capitalist one (and I know it's weird to see Russia and Capitalist in the same sentence).

The Russians built railroads, Orthodox-churches and schools that taught the children Russian and as the Russians did with their other territorial possessions tried to slowly encroach Russian culture and ideals into the Uzbek society. The Uzbeks an ethnic group with very little in common with the Russians (the Uzbeks are muslim, while the Russians were Christian and the Uzbek culture is more closely related to Iranian culture, or maybe Turkish culture because of the Turkic influences of the past). As usually happens when a colonizing force tries to quell or replace the culture of the colonized, various movements to reclaim their lost culture were born and were actively targeted by the local Russian government.

What was once a minor economic shift brought on by the Russians became a full on culture clash. The British controlled areas of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India and Singapore, as well as their holdings in Africa at the time had often shifted their agriculture from primarily food production (staples like beans, rice, yams and fruit) to cash crops like tea, coffee, palm oil, etc. and this happened in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan became a highly specialized agricultural territory for Russia as their primary cotton producer and because of this food production was slowed which led to mass-starvation and economic imbalance. This is one of the biggest challenges faced by former colonies today.

In the waning days of the Russian Empire, Uzbek Jadidists (young intellectuals & revolutionaries) saw that the Russian Empire was on the way out. They had just been crucified by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War and they could sense the Tsar was losing popularity.

In 1917 the October Revolution in Russia toppled the Tsar and the Jadidists knew that they could utilize this transition of power to secede from Russia and set up a government in Quqon, a small city in the East of Uzbekistan. This revolution failed, while the Russian one didn't and the newly formed USSR gained control of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (at this point jointly run.)

USSR CONTROL (1929-1991)
Stalin could see that Uzbekistan and other central Asian republics in the USSR were hotbeds of hatred for the government in Moscow and were the sites of many failed revolutions. Stalin decided to split Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan up. He thought that maybe this would help the Uzbek and Turkmen Ethnic Groups feel they had their own identity. This didn't help because the Uzbeks were still under Soviet control and they were pissed.

The Soviets made everything worse. The food shortage caused by the lack of food-based agriculture was never resolved, if anything it was worsened by Stalin. (Stalin was really bad at not killing his people).

Uzbekistan also became the dumping ground for those exiled by Soviet Russia and if you know anything about Soviet Russia it's that they loooooooooved exiling Political Prisoners, unless they just killed them. Uzbekistan was home mostly to Chechens, Azeris, Crimeans, North Koreans and other groups that were from lands Russia conquered and would have some reason to be kind of pissed at Moscow and Russia's government, but obviously grouping together revolutionaries doesn't make the revolutionary problem go away, it worsens it.
Things grew to a boiling point until the rule of Gorbachev kicked in and they could use their newfound privileges as Soviet Citizens given to them by the glasnost and perestroika systems to tell Moscow how much they fucking hated them! 

INDEPENDENCE (1991-PRESENT)
The USSR officially dissolved in December of 1991, exactly one year before the release of the Chronic by Dr. Dre and Uzbekistan was glad. They held an independence referendum which seemed like a formality at that point and it passed with 98% percent of the vote (2% of the population accidentally scribbled in the wrong box at the polling place) and Uzbekistan officially became a nation adopting the very chic and trendy "stan" suffix that all the other cool kids were using.

The first years of independence were rocky (like most countries) as the country was rife with terrorism, especially in its new capital of Tashkent and their newly elected president Islom Karimov was almost killed. This might have been good though because Karimov's establishment worsened and worsened until he was named the most ruthless dictator in Central Asia. He's been the first and only president of Uzbekistan since the early 90s and probably will stay that way until he's dead.

Life in Uzbekistan is still rough. One could compare it to living in China. Political freedom is very limited with no right to free speech, very limited democracy (most elections are rigged or postponed and Karimov signed a controversial bill to abolish term limits. Immediate Dictator red-flag), air-quality is poor from the unregulated industry in many of Uzbekistans cities and the quality of life is on the low end of the former Soviet states.

FUN FACTS
Uzbekistan the largest doubly-landlocked country. Not only is it landlocked, but all countries bordering it are landlocked.
Tashkent's Metro stations are elaborately designed with carvings and other Soviet-era architectural flourishes.
It is unacceptable to handshake a woman if you are a man in Uzbekistan.
It is Uzbek tradition that if somebody is going away for a really long time they are to eat some bread, then the loaf is hidden until they return.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.travelingeast.com/asia/uzbekistan/ten-interesting-facts-about-uzbekistan/
http://www.uzbekistan.org/uzbekistan/history/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16218972

A History of Uzbekistan, Part 1

PROFILE

Region: Central Asia

Climate: Continental, Seasonal, Incredibly Cold at Times

Leader(s): Shavkat Mirziyoyev, since 2003 (at time of writing)

Population: 31.576.400

Capital: Tashkent

Largest City: Tashkent
Currency: Uzbekistan Som
Languages: Uzbek, Karakalpak, Russian

Independence: 1991, from the Soviet Union
Territories or Colonies: None

THE FACTS Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (of course), is a country in Central Asia. It's one of the "stans" which besides Pakistan and Afghanistan are incredibly obscure countries most people haven't heard of, like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ugrigstan and Kyrgyzstan. One of those is fake, but you probably don't know which one is.

Uzbekistan is culturally similar to Central Russia, as they were part of the USSR, and Uzbek people come from several different ethnic groups. The country is about as big as California, with about as many people as California and has a pretty low standard of living.

EARLY HISTORY (????-700s)

Uzbekistan has been an important country since the time of Rome. Before then the land was settled by nomads that moved east from Mesopotamia (also called the cradle of civilization), which I guess makes the "stans" the "awkward teenage years of civilization". Uzbekistan, like Yemen benefited greatly from its position in the world. Central Asia is so central it literally has the word Central in its name, just like the MIDDLE East. Central Asian civilizations like the city state of Samarqand, for examponnected different people from China, to Java to Kenya to Rome. This fostered the specializale, benefitted greatly from the Silk Road. The Silk Road is the network of trade routes in Asia, Europe, Africa and Indonesia. It wasn't necessarily a single road, but a sort of ancient interstate that ction of industry in different countries. India and Java sold Spices to China and Rome, while China sold silk to the Romans.

Central Asia, however, took a different approach. They basically entered into the hotel business. All across Central Asia, in Uzbekistan and surrounding countries stopping places popped up. They were sort of proto-truckstops. They had places to sleep, food, often mosques or churches and even an Ancient Cinnabon. If you were a trader crossing the vast steppe of Uzbekistan you'd fucking cry tears of joy if you saw a place to stop after walking for months across arid, desolate nothingness.

In the 400s BCE, the Persians saw the profit that could be gained in annexing all of this land, so the Persians walked north a bit and easily conquered the land. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan both spoke dialects of Persian and were culturally similar, since they had migrated mostly from what is now Iraq and Iran. Persia finally annexed Transoxiana (read Central Asia) to their increasingly large list of things they wanted.

Transoxiana's prime location was perfect for trade between Persia, China, Rome, Indonesia and Africa, and therefore was one of the most vital Persian colonies. It was constantly attacked because when your colony is in such a prime location, it's almost taunting other Empires that they can't rake in the wealth from it. 

Uzbekistan's early pre-Islamic history is marked with people coming up to it and being like "hey Uzbekistan, we're gonna, like, colonize you and take all of your trade money" and Uzbekistan was like "dammit, not again." Uzbekistan has been conquered by the likes of the Mongols, the Persians, Alexander the Great and the Arabs, in a relatively short period of time. 

Alexander the Great is noted to have one of the largest empires in the world and I will discuss him in greater detail in the Greece post. Coinage from his empire has been found as far east as Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, and remember he traveled all that way from Northern Greece.

As BCE turned to CE, Uzbekistan was enjoying the fruits of its lucky location, as well as dealing with the negative things that come with that, like constant invasion. In 200 BCE to 100 BCE the market for Chinese Silk in Greece and Rome was growing, after all what are you gonna make Togas out of, so the Chinese needed a way of shipping their valuables: Silk and Porcelain to Europe. They used something called the Silk Road, which is a network of trade routes that zig-zag around Eurasia. If you include Indian Ocean Trade Routes, the Silk Road stretched from the two ends of the known world. From Rome in the west, to Manila in the east, to Zanzibar in the south, and at the center was the Persian Empire and its star province Transoxiana.

When you're the center of trade, you invariably become the center of arts and culture, ask London, Istanbul and New York, among many others, and Transoxiana was no different. It became a crossroads for religion, and culture. The culture of the region blended east with west, with the indigenous culture of the Central Asian steppe. You had Chinese influence (many residents were Buddhist), Persian influence (many residents were Zoroastrian, the monotheistic religion of the Persians) and Christianity from the Levant was present. 

MUSLIM CONQUEST TO THE KHANS(700s-1200)

This changed in the 700s CE though when the new Caliphates of Arabia, based on the new religion of Islam, which at this point was only about seventy years old. Think of it like how Scientology is perceived today. Throughout the Eighth Century the various Caliphates, especially the Umayyad Caliphate led by Qutaybah ibn Muslim (who is so Muslim, his name is Muslim) arrived in Transoxiana, after crossing the treacherous deserts of Iraq, Iran and the southern steppe of Central Asia. 

The Muslims main goal was to transform the religiously diverse population into Muslims. There were already some Muslims, primarily from Persia in the south which had converted years prior.

The Muslims, probably more importantly were after that Cash Money, and Transoxiana was still flush with Cash Money. The Silk Road was still the primary system of transporting goods across Eurasia all the way until the early 13th Century, when the Crusades turned this relatively stable and holy-war-free zone into a battlefield. Darn Crusades!

But in the 8th Century the Silk Road was still the bees knees, and the Muslims knew this and wanted to capitalize on it, but this period of success wasn't meant to last and in less than 150 years the Caliphates lost control of the region. Their religious footprint remained, but their political control didn't. In fact, Muslims are still the dominant religion today, with 90% of the population identifying as Muslim.

Until the 1200s when the Mongols happened, the region was controlled by a series of ethnically Turkish dynasties and sultanates and empires that traveled east to the region. 

This time was a time of relative stability. There was some fighting between the Turkish empires, as to who would rule the region but the steady influx of money from China and the East, as well as Europe and Africa brought immense wealth to the region.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16218972

http://www.uzbekistan.org/uzbekistan/history/

A History of Vanuatu

PROFILE

Region: Oceania

Climate: Wet, Tropical, Humid

Leader(s): Baldwin Lonsdale, since 2014 (at time of writing)

Population: 272.264

Capital: Port Vila

Largest City: Port Vila
Currency: Vanuatu Vatu
Languages: Bislama, French, English

Independence: 1980, from France and the United Kingdom
Territories or Colonies: None

HISTORY OF VANUATU

THE FACTS

Vanuatu is a small island country in the Melanesian region of Oceania. The Melanesian region, which also includes the sovereign states of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, as well as the French territory New Caledonia. Vanuatu is made up of many islands stretched across the South Pacific.

The residents of Vanuatu speak English, French and an English creole called Bislama. A creole is a language that uses much of the vocabulary and maybe a bit of the grammar of a different language (usually a colonial language like Dutch, English, French or Spanish). These languages come about when often disenfranchised groups that are unified under colonial rule have to communicate with one another. What makes creoles different from pidgins is that creoles continue to be spoken as a first language for many generations and may even become the official language as in the case of Vanuatu or more famously Haiti. There are no pidgin languages that are official languages.

BEFORE EUROPEAN CONTACT (2000 BCE-1606)
Usually the first time period I cover starts with ???? because it’s unclear when people settled in that exact region. Archaeologists know, but I don’t think that’s super important to the history. However, Vanuatu is a special case because the Melanesian region is the youngest region on Earth. People began in Africa and slowly moved to Eurasia, the second oldest continent. Then people crossed the land bridge into the new world, the third oldest continent, but it wasn’t until pretty late in the game (I mean like five or six thousand years ago that people moved into Australia through another land bridge that connected many of the Indonesian islands. Then a bit later the many islands of the pacific were settled by the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples.

As history is only history when the written word comes into things, this first section will get a bit archaeological.

Archaeologists have found pottery and other signs of human life like burial mounds, as well as stories spoken by the native people that have pointed to the islands of Vanuatu being populated in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE, around the time of Ancient Egypt, for a chronological marker.

Many of the traditions and customs of the islands have been observed by Europeans, who accurately guessed these things had been going on for quite some time. An interesting example is the land diving tradition on Pentecost Island in the country, which many believe is the precursor of Bungee jumping. The tradition is that young boys would prove their manliness by jumping off a hundred foot scaffolding with a rope made of reeds into a dirt slope. The rope would catch him and he wouldn’t die.

It’s basically super legit bungee jumping with a taut cord that could break if too dry and a rickety 100 foot climb. The Islanders actually sued the inventor of Bungee jumping for royalties, but lost.

I’m kind of frustrated that most of these posts start when the Europeans arrive and bring written history into the mix, but their usually isn’t enough information pre-arrival to say a lot. Obviously these countries had a rich history before colonization, but the definition of history, the study of the past, becomes a lot easier when people wrote things down.

EUROPEAN ARRIVAL (1606-1882)
In 1768 everything changed for the people of Vanuatu, as did for the people of most countries visited by Europeans. Oceania was in an interesting position as the last inhabited continent to be discovered by Europeans. Most European maps of the world just showed Australia as an amorphous blobby part of Antarctica that was escaping and the islands of the pacific were either not there or just guessed dots.

In 1606 Europeans finally explored Australia by sea, and eventually made their way out into the pacific. Explorers charting Australia saw some of Vanuatu but didn’t think to check it out. The islands were rediscovered in 1768, an impossibly late year might I add to still be discovering new land. For some perspective, in nine years the US would come into existence.

In 1768, frenchly-named Louis Antoine de Bougainville charted them from afar in his ship but didn’t land on their shores because of…, well I’m not sure, perhaps apathy.

In 1774, British Captain Cook arrived. You may know his name if you’re familiar with Hawaiian history (as he visited there many times and eventually died after he accidentally crashed into their harbor a couple too many times. I guess too many Cooks spoiled their broth, and by too many I mean “one”. The Hawaiians stabbed him to death many times, which is now honored by a monument near the town of Captain Cook, Hawaii. That’s kind of fucked up right. He obviously angered the Hawaiians enough to stab him, but he gets a town named after him on the island. Okay.

Well, five years before his death Captain Cook was fucking around the South Pacific when he spotted the islands Bougainville had spotted and named them the New Hebrides, after the (Old) Hebrides, an island group in Scotland.  

But still at this time European interest in the South Pacific wasn’t really all that high, except for Australia which proved to be a convenient, massive landmass to keep all of their prisoners.

In 1789 The Bounty stopped by en route to Tahiti, after mutinizing (I know that’s not a word, sadly) their captain, Captain Bligh (who is such a fucking badass. He was cast adrift in a life raft and sailed 3600 miles to Indonesia with little food and no sails. Damn.) The mutineers decided to screw their boring mission of shipping some goods from Point A to Point B and instead decided to romp around the South Pacific stopping by Vanuatu on their way to have sex with people in Tahiti, and live there forever, except for a group of them who founded the colony of the Pitcairn islands, a british dependency with 47 people now that is utterly fascinating and I encourage you to read about.

Europeans left the islands relatively alone for a while longer until in 1839 British missionaries (that’s where the name Pentecost Island comes from) arrived on Erromango Island, an island abundant with Sandalwood trees and voted “Best Smelling Island in 1839”. The missionaries were greeted in one of the two ways missionaries are usually greeted.

Greeting #1: Oh, hello white people. I hear you want to build a settlement on our land. As long as we share the resources and you are kind to our culture, you’re welcome to. You have a crazy religion that makes no sense, but hey, I’m open minded. I’ll give this a try.

Greeting #2: Get out. We don’t want you here.

They got the second one, but persisted and persisted until they forcefully introduced Presbyterianism to the islanders. The missionaries banned many of their fun sounding rituals including smoking, getting drunk, polygamy, performing ancestral ceremonies and gaining social currency by killing pigs. They also banned dancing because I guess Vanuatu was some sort of colonial Footloose.

One of the few things I can understand them banning was the practice of eating people, which wasn’t just a racist thing that the English pretended the natives did. They actually did that.

The English, always bastions of cultural tolerance, banned most of these things because they were weird, but to be fair certain English customs of the time were weird like wearing powdered wigs and dancing around Maypoles.

The missionaries slowly started realizing the profit to be had in an island paradise with sandalwood and mangos and other tropical commodities the west wanted.

The westerners began setting up cotton plantations, as well as other commodities when cotton’s price plummeted.

Now, Vanuatu was an interesting case in that there were two colonial powers. The British who had mostly come from Britain’s penal colony in Australia had began populating the island, but the French catholic missionaries had started to outnumber the Brits.

The islanders didn’t care and wanted everybody to leave, but that wouldn’t happen for another hundred years.

The fact that the British and French couldn’t decide who was in charge became increasingly problematic. British marriages weren’t recognized, while French marriages weren’t recognized. They had seperate supply ships and mail ships, and everything was really inconvenient. When the car was invented they drove on different sides of the road. The Brits drove on the left, while the French drove on the right, which ended in many a collision I would expect.

Before then, in 1889, the town of Franceville (now Port Vila) decided it had enough and declared independence from France and Britain. This came after the French and the British tried to establish the colony as a joint-venture, but that fell through. Franceville had enough and elected their own president. They also allowed anyone over 18 to vote (including women and natives) which was rare. Black people couldn’t vote in South Africa until 1994!

DUAL OWNERSHIP (1882-1960s)

In 1906, France and Britain decided they’d had enough too, and decided to change their colony into something called a condominium, which was a colony run by two colonial powers, that would share power in courts and legislative stuff. There was a lot of arguing about who should have more power France or Britain, but they finally figured out in 1922.

This system of government turned out to be a huge failure. The natives were shit outta luck, because they’re citizenship of France and Britain were revoked and they technically didn’t live anywhere. Laws passed by the French weren’t enforced by British cops and vice versa. Half the country was on the France, while the other half on the Pound. Everything was still a mess and the condominium just opened up another floodgate for the Europeans to squabble about power.

The French seemed to have the upper hand in the struggle for power, as they were working more and more of the land using workers from Vietnam, while the natives seemed to side more with the british because they didn’t like how the French were just bringing in foreigners to their land.

World War II came to the islands and some really bizarre stuff happened. The American army held the islands during the war and many interesting customs came of this. An island in Vanuatu created a religion based on the idea that a god masquerading as an American soldier. This is a prime example of what is called a Cargo Cult. Cargo Cults are basically when an isolated population takes some sort of western item (cargo) as some sign from god. An example of this would be the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, where a tribe of !Kung find a coke bottle dropped from a plane overhead. Cargo Cults however, are most prevalent in the south pacific. In Vanuatu, the island of Tanna is home to a Cargo Cult where Prince Philip is worshipped.

An example in fiction is the video game Far Cry 3, where the fictional South Pacific Rook Islands are overrun with pirates and the natives of the islands, the Rakyat, believe a warrior from “the northern kingdom” would come and defeat the evils of the island. The main character from Los Angeles comes to the island and lives out the prophecy.

By the 1950s, the British and French had stopped totally governing the island and were acting more as a majority owner of the land. They just wanted the money from the cash crops like Coconuts and Pineapples (see Lana’i Plantation in Hawai’i) and weren’t as interested in governing the islands.

In the 60s, the British wanted to leave the islands. They felt their colonial period was over and wanted to focus on other problems back home, but the French were like “no, why?” They had colonial holdings all over the pacific and they were worried that giving up the New Hebrides would make other islands want to have independence like French Polynesia and New Caledonia (which France still owns). The British eventually got their way. They backed the Vanua’aku Party who wanted independence.

INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT AND SUCCESS (1960s-PRESENT)
The Vanua’aku Party told the European landowners to git, and they obliged (the French begrudgingly). The Vanua’aku Party could now fully govern the group of islands. Independence wasn’t as smooth as I made it sound though.

Jimmy Stevens, Nagriamel Leader

The problem with island nations like Vanuatu is that governing them can be a chore. Take say, Germany. Germany isn’t too big, a bit smaller than California. If you want to go Dusseldorf in the west to Dresden in the north, that’s not too much of a chore. Even island nations like Barbados, things aren’t complicated because Barbados is limited to just the Island of Barbados, so getting around is pretty easy. Countries like Vanuatu have it rough though. Many of the islands are cut off from the central government at Port Vila, so independence movements are much easier.

This happened during the time of independence. The island of Tanna, the one from before who has worshippers of Prince Philip, as well as the largest island Espiritu Santo both tried to either become independent countries (which would be rough considering Tanna has only about 28,000 people, the population of some neighborhoods), or become colonies again.

Finally, in 1980 Vanuatu became a country, independent from France and England. This is where the story ends, but Vanuatu is still going strong. They’ve had their fair share of problems, as any former colony has, but increased tourism and infrastructure creation is helping the country become a western tourism destination.

VANUATU FACTS

-Pentecost Island is home to the practice of Land Diving, similar to bungee jumping.

-Tanna Island is home to a Cargo Cult that worships Prince Philip.

-Only the government and kastom owners (which is a pidgin word meaning “custom”. Basically these owners are religious officials) can own land. If you aren’t a kastom owner or the government you’re only allowed to lease land for “the productive lifespan of a coconut palm” which is about 75 years.

-Vanuatu’s olympic team could fit in a small sedan, at just five people.

https://books.google.com/books?id=wjuxcXTEJ_sC&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.portvilavanuatu.com/vanuatu-history.php

http://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/vanuatu/history