I saw a post the other day that listed a number of facts about La Fayette and while I am more than just a bit skeptical with regards to some of these “facts”, I also hate to correct other people in such a manner. Anyway, there was one remark (well, actually two) that made me think in particular.
First, let us all say it together - La Fayette did not come to America disguised as a woman.
With that out of the way – Slavery. Just like in that post, La Fayette is often praised for his stance against slavery and for raising the topic with prominent slaveholders like Washington and Jefferson. And all that is true. La Fayette was against slavery, he spoke up for enslaved individuals, most notably James Armistead Lafayette, and spoke against the institution of slavery in general. He also let actions follow his words. Now, were all of his actions crowned with success – no. Where his ideas and approaches always the best ways to handle the problem – no. But he took an almost lifelong stance at a time when many people were content with saying nothing or even outright profiting from slavery.
Now, here is a point that brings the complexity and that many of these “have some random facts about La Fayette he was so great” posts not quite capture – and to be fair, that is also not what they are aiming for.
Slavery and the participation in the system were for La Fayette not necessarily deal brakers.
What do I mean by that? La Fayette owned land in Louisiana and was one day approached by John Gravier, who owned land nearby and wanted to buy some of La Fayette’s land. He offered La Fayette to pay either in “real” money or in enslaved people. La Fayette was frankly disgusted by the second proposal – and he wrote so in a letter to James Madison, a slaveholder and someone who, most likely, I am not an expert on Madison, also sold and bought enslaved people and maybe even used them as “barging chips” in some form of financial transaction. La Fayette urged Washington to join him in his plantation project because he was keenly aware of the mojo Washington’s participation could have. Washington refused and La Fayette did not seem to hold too many grudges. Was he disappointed? Probably, even likely – but he still looked up to Washington. I do not want to fire up this puppy-love narrative, but the fact remains, that La Fayette, until the end of his life, remembered Washington very fondly, praised, him, considered him a friend, mentor and even father-figure. He certainly was aware of the problem with Washington being a slaveholder, otherwise La Fayette would not have stirred up the topics that he did – but it was in the end no deal breaker for him. Same thing with people like Jefferson, Monroe or Madison. Jefferson is particular interesting since La Fayette wrote Jefferson many letters where he broached this topic. From the way these letters are phrased I often wonder if a) La Fayette thought Jefferson his friend and as such was determined to tell him everything on his mind, regardless of Jefferson’s own opinion on the matter, b) La Fayette believed Jefferson when the latter wrote that he actually was also against slavery, or c) La Fayette knew that he could write about everything and Jefferson could not protest without retracting his own statements.
Anyway, La Fayette could criticize slavery, quite harshly even, he could call enslavers criminals, he could spend a lot of time and money and effort to take actions and proof to the world that it could be done – but he could also call Washington the “patriarch of liberty”, praise Jefferson and assure both of them of his deep and everlasting affection. It also did not stop him from staying at plantations like Mount Vernon or Monticello. While he always travelled with a number of servants who were in his employ, free, and well paid, it is impossible to stay at a place like Mount Vernon, especially for an extended period of time, and not, in some shape or for, profit from the labour of the enslaved workers there. We do not know what La Fayette thought about that, if it maybe even reinforce his views. We do know that he raised the subject of slavery and abolition when he met Jefferson and Washington in person – but when it came to his friends, it was not a deal breaker for him. He definitly used his friendships to be an influence on Washington, Jefferson and the likes and we can not look into his head to see what his motives or thoughts were in regards to this topic. Human relations are often a web of complex emotions.
I do not want to downplay what he did, but we should also not forget that his engagement was not perfect, he was not perfect – and with that I thank you all for listening to my little rant. :-)
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24 Days of La Fayette: Day 5
(I might be really behind schedule, but I will finish what I have started.)
Artist: Thomas Pritchard Rossiter (1818–1871), and Artist: Louis Remy Mignot (American, Charleston, South Carolina 1831–1870 Brighton). Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, 1784 (The Home of Washington after the War). Oil on canvas, 1859. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.18413572. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.
Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, 1784 (The Home of Washington after the War) is probably one of the more famous pieces on this list. It was painted 1859 by Thomas Pritchard Rossiter and Louis Remy Mignot. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association was founded in 1853 and there was a renewed interest in Mount Vernon and its history. That is the reason why the pair decided to set their scene at Washingtons home. Mignot was tasked with painting the house and the landscape – a task he took very seriously, he visited Mount Vernon during a painting trip and talked with older people in the area to get the proverbial full picture. Painting the figures fell to Rossiter and while he certainly also did his research, a closer look at the clothing and styling of the figures reveal that it was indeed not a painting done in 1784. Houdon’s bust of Washington supposedly served as a model for the President while an assortment of paintings from Lee University and Washington University served most likely as inspirations for La Fayette and the Custis children.
While there are definitely worse depictions of La Fayette, there are also better ones. The receding hairline is this one very prominent feature that goes a long way of letting La Fayette “look like” La Fayette – but I also find it a bit “lazy” to rely solely on such features (what is rich, coming from a person who can not paint even if my life were to depend on it.)
The composition, a mix of a historical and a genre painting, was very popular at the time. There are also some variations of this painting, especially in print. Here we see depictions of La Fayette arriving, Washington enthusiastically greeting La Fayette or La Fayette leaving Mount Vernon at the end of his stay. While these are all separated works, the parallels between these pieces and the painting at hand are too stark to dismiss the obvious inspiration that was taken from Mignot’s and Rossiter’s work. The historical elements of the portrait depict La Fayette’s third visit to the United States, just after the end of the War. With peace now prevailing he could enjoy his time as a private gentleman and as a friend of Washington at Mount Vernon, away from the horrors of war that had previously occupied him in America. His trip in 1784 would be the last time he and Washington meet in person. But still, La Fayette’s marks are still there, almost 150 years later. The room he stayed to, although afterwards used by countless other guests, is still commonly referred to as the La Fayette room and a copy of Charles Wilsons famous painting adorns the wall.
Rossiter wrote about the painting during the initial exhibition:
The busy portion of the day is over; and, as the long shadows creep slowly over the lawn, the family portion of the household have congregated under the ample portico. The General and his noble guest have arisen from the chairs, which indicate that they had formed a portion of the group with the ladies, and are standing in colloquy: Washington in the act of speaking, and Lafayette leaning against a pillar, in deferential attitude, holds a newspaper in the hand - suggestive that the discourse is a topic of the times.
N.Y.), M.M. of A. (New Y. (1965) American Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 88-90.
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Play along: Amrev codebreaker!
While browsing through some primary materials reading up about John Laurens’ mission to France as special minister to the court of Versailles, I came across a letter that he wrote to the president of the Continental Congress on 9 April 1871 that included a coded message using a numerical cipher.
I took a shot at deciphering it – here’s the process I followed, and you can play along too!
1. The first step, of course, was to determine which specific encryption was being used. After a bit of digging, I came across the immensely useful United States diplomatic codes and ciphers, 1775-1938 by Ralph E Weber. He explains that the cipher in question was “prepared on separate encode and decode sheets, the latter contained 660 printed numbers, with usually 600 words, syllables, and letters of the alphabet scattered randomly throughout the sheet.” So, for example, the word “congress” is “143”, the syllable “el” is “593” and the letter “r” is “215”. This cipher was an updated and improved version of the one used by Benjamin Tallmadge, and Weber explains that Laurens was the first one to use it. Weber also handily provides the decode table in an appendix.
2. The second step was to design an efficient way to decode the hundreds of numbers Laurens used in his letter, and the obvious answer was my good friend the spreadsheet. I transferred the table from the book to Google Sheets, which was mildly tedious but hugely time-saving later on.
3. Now the fun part! I typed out the numbers from Laurens’ letter, and then used a simple LOOKUP formula to match the number to the decoded text.
The cipher also includes two nuances - an underscore beneath the word means a plural, and an overscore denotes adding an “e” - so I marked these in the cells with pink and green highlights respectively.
4. The final step was correcting a few errors in my table, refining the decoding (some numbers have various iterations to save space, such as 103 which can be any one of “ec/eck/ek” depending on which syllable is needed), and extracting the final text.
It all reads very smoothly, with the singular exception of “ght-f-t”, which is the way Laurens rendered the word “gift”. The obvious explanation for this mangle is that he mis-wrote 340 (ght) instead of 170 (gi).
That’s definitely 340, 304, 196 which decodes as “ght-f-t”.
While it seems like a strange error to make, bear in mind that the encoding sheet (the one Laurens was using to change plaintext into numbers) would have been listed in alphabetical order to make finding the numbers easier (while the person at the other end has the sheet in numerical order, to reverse the process just as easily). And when we sort alphabetically, we can see that 340 and 170 are right next to each other:
A simple slip to make for someone writing coded letters late at night in low candlelight.
If you want to play along:
Here’s the code/decode spreadsheet.
And here is the transcribed text (underlines for plurals, asterisk for added “e”). I've given the solution under the cut!
I have employed the most unremitting efforts to obtain a prompt and favorable decision relative to the object of my mission_ 381, 304, 543, 437, 366, 377, 276, 75, 75, 226, 269, 385, 426, 377, 17, 465, 197, 481, 428, 593, 381, 355, 153, 278*, 428, 333, 70, 18, 405, 184, 226, 291, 197, 376, 524, 330, 446, 362, 449, 143
The Count de Vergennes communicated to me yesterday his most Christian Majesty's determination to guarantee 381, 59, 594, 18, 9, 205, 330, 497, 254, 401, 376, 503, 306, 503, 467, 428, 226, 236, 330, 278*, 245, 205, 506, 99, 376, 381, 381, 256, 184, 90, 340, 304, 196
...and the value of the military effects which may be furnished from the Royal Arsenal, 418, 330, 497, 428, 197, 380, 377, 196, 376, 45, 278, 245, 205
I shall use my utmost endeavours to procure an immediate 467, 208, 491, 18, 278*, 9, 205, 45, 278, 42, 381, 230, 215, 355, 18, 237, 330, 497*, 215, 167, 290, 377, 376, 341, 278, 182, 302, 75, 376, 59, 594, and shall renew my solicitations for the 357, 34, 197, 18, 203, 291, 491, 481, 484, 34, 325, 89, 113, 392, 197, 269, 336, 458, 278*, 97, 18, 245, 205 may not be 126, 21, 215, 497, 376, 341, 296, 75, 477, 226, 103, 196, 481, 278*, 483, 215, 553, 75*, 18, 238, 377, 59, 374, 478, the providing this article I fear will be attended with great difficulties and delays as all the 476, 490, 481, 36, 228, 351, 392, 226, 197, 18, 237, are remote from the sea, and there are no 441, 420, 50, 563, 503, 197, 18, 377, 59, 278, suitable to our purposes.
The cargo of the Marquis de la Fayette will I hope arrive safe under the convoy of the Alliance_ 481, 341, 78, 465, 75, 426, 408, 596, 115, 76, 376, 174, 196*, 291, 103, 197, 75, 75, 184, 226, 197, 281, 5, 171, 278*, 428, 593, 381, 355, 492, 194, 236, 376, 45, 574, 408, 504, 366, 381, 506, 197, 197, 193, 213, 75, 197, 199, 291, 377, 197
The Marquis de Castries has engaged to make immediate arrangements for the safe transportation of the pecuniary and the other succours destined for the United States_ 481, 350, 215, 167, 450, 196, 376, 34, 381, 75, 473, 376, 76*, 458, 278*, 72, 208, 449, 577, 114, 89, 405, 486, 497, 197, 113, 126, 34, 361, 376, 269, 278*, 277, 291, 104, 381, 113, 278*, 401, 230, 408, 550, 552, 342, 291
Have fun!
I have employed the most unremitting efforts to obtain a prompt and favorable decision relative to the object of my mission_ after many discussions, difficulties and delays with the details of which it is needless to trouble congress.
The Count de Vergennes communicated to me yesterday his most Christian Majesty's determination to guarantee a loan of ten millions to be opened in Holland in addition to the six millions granted as a gracious gift.
...and the value of the military effects which may be furnished from the Royal Arsenal are to be deducted from the six million.
I shall use my utmost endeavours to procure an immediate advance of the ten millions from the treasury of France to be replaced by the proposed loan,
and shall renew my solicitations for the supplies of the ordinance and military stores on credit that the present of six millions may not be absorbed by thousands objects and the purchase of necessary clothing
the providing this article I fear will be attended with great difficulties and delays as all the wool and manufactories of France are remote from the sea, and there are no
public magazines of cloth suitable to our purposes.
The cargo of the Marquis de la Fayette will I hope arrive safe under the convoy of the Alliance_ and by satisfying our immediate necessities prevent the delays above-mentioned from having any disagreeable consequences
The Marquis de Castries has engaged to make immediate arrangements for the safe transportation of the pecuniary and the other succours destined for the United States_ and has repeatedly assured me that the naval superiority which will be established on the American coast the ensuing campaign
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