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Oliver Cromwell- a genocidal maniac?
Did Cromwell really commit genocide in Ireland? If he drove tens of thousands of Irish off their land and resettled them in barren Connaught, what was to stop them just coming back again after he had left? Secondly, in pre-modern times, could Cromwell's soldiers have searched ever dell, mountain or valley by foot in their 9 month stay there to drive all the Irish out? Surely, he was not able to sweep the entire country? And if he did commmit genocide why then should he be so revered in Britain?
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I don't know that our Noll was really into re-settlement as such. He was just concerned with turfing them out. Where they went, if they went and if they survived when they got there wasn't really his problem. The places he 'ethnically cleansed' were places like Drogheda and Wexford, prosperous, fertile and on the East coast. Where the evictees ended up was further West, and stony and infertile by comparison.
He couldn't find everybody, true, but armies don't have to. They simply have to destroy or dislocate all lthe support mechanisms that allow people to live independent lives. If you are a farmer you need the peace and the time and the manpower to harvest your crops and husband your livestock. It doesn't take much interference to make this impossible. Controlling the towns also meant control of commerce, the movement of people and goods, shipping and overseas trade.
Cromwell is not universally revered in the UK - many people see the Cavaliers as much more likeable, if inept. Cromwell is principally respected as someone who upheld the rights of Parliament against Royal dictatorship. The fact that he in turn had his own problems with Parliament is often overlooked.
As to why his reputation should be so bad in Ireland: Scotland and Wales were and still are predominantly Protestant. Ireland was and is predominantly Catholic. There was a religious dimension to his treatment of opposition in Ireland that was (largely), absent from the English Civil War and later actions in Scotland.
He couldn't find everybody, true, but armies don't have to. They simply have to destroy or dislocate all lthe support mechanisms that allow people to live independent lives. If you are a farmer you need the peace and the time and the manpower to harvest your crops and husband your livestock. It doesn't take much interference to make this impossible. Controlling the towns also meant control of commerce, the movement of people and goods, shipping and overseas trade.
Cromwell is not universally revered in the UK - many people see the Cavaliers as much more likeable, if inept. Cromwell is principally respected as someone who upheld the rights of Parliament against Royal dictatorship. The fact that he in turn had his own problems with Parliament is often overlooked.
As to why his reputation should be so bad in Ireland: Scotland and Wales were and still are predominantly Protestant. Ireland was and is predominantly Catholic. There was a religious dimension to his treatment of opposition in Ireland that was (largely), absent from the English Civil War and later actions in Scotland.
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You know Oliver Cromwell is one of those few figures who still provokes very very strong feelings hundreds of years after his death.
First point - you can't always judge a man by todays standards. We look back through the lens of philisophical ideas like the enlightenment. It's like laughing at medieval doctors for not understanding microbes when they didn't have microscopes.
You have to judge a man by the standards that were prevalent in his time. And it was a time of inquisitions, capital punishment for minor crimes and a period just after a vicious war.
Talking of which the accusations of Cromwell always start with his actions in Ireland and never seem assess what caused him to act that way there.
There had been a Catholic rising in 1641 and there were claims of massive loss of life although the 200,000 murdered is likely to have been more than 12,000.
This left an unstable Catholic supporting country on Englands flank with a violent history towards English Puritanism some of whom possibly involved themselves against him in the English Civil war.
Cromwell needed to resolve the Irish issue in one go so that he could concentrate on England.
Also you have to be careful about believing some of the facts and figures about Cromwells campaign just as you do about the rising.
Personally I think he was a man of great concience who's prime concern was always England and he would do absolutely anything to see it right in his eyes.
First point - you can't always judge a man by todays standards. We look back through the lens of philisophical ideas like the enlightenment. It's like laughing at medieval doctors for not understanding microbes when they didn't have microscopes.
You have to judge a man by the standards that were prevalent in his time. And it was a time of inquisitions, capital punishment for minor crimes and a period just after a vicious war.
Talking of which the accusations of Cromwell always start with his actions in Ireland and never seem assess what caused him to act that way there.
There had been a Catholic rising in 1641 and there were claims of massive loss of life although the 200,000 murdered is likely to have been more than 12,000.
This left an unstable Catholic supporting country on Englands flank with a violent history towards English Puritanism some of whom possibly involved themselves against him in the English Civil war.
Cromwell needed to resolve the Irish issue in one go so that he could concentrate on England.
Also you have to be careful about believing some of the facts and figures about Cromwells campaign just as you do about the rising.
Personally I think he was a man of great concience who's prime concern was always England and he would do absolutely anything to see it right in his eyes.
ctd
But his eyes were a minority, and after he died there was no one ready to step into his shoes and the country just wasn't ready to go it alone and skulked back to the monarchy with it's tails between it's legs. It would be another 120 years before the French revolution.
Actually Pickle Cromwell was pretty tolerant of some other religions. He allowed Jews to return to England - they had been expelled hundreds of years earlier.
He was implacably opposed to changes in social orders which is why he acted against groups like the levellers
But his eyes were a minority, and after he died there was no one ready to step into his shoes and the country just wasn't ready to go it alone and skulked back to the monarchy with it's tails between it's legs. It would be another 120 years before the French revolution.
Actually Pickle Cromwell was pretty tolerant of some other religions. He allowed Jews to return to England - they had been expelled hundreds of years earlier.
He was implacably opposed to changes in social orders which is why he acted against groups like the levellers
Those commercial reasons weren't new yet nobody before him had taken the step.
This is Cromwell on religous tolerence:
That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in, the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others and to the actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts: provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under the profession of Christ, hold forth and practise licentiousness.
You might think that is just words but he shocked his contemporaries by accepting Anabaptists in the Army.
This is not a black and white man - although people love portraying him as such
This is Cromwell on religous tolerence:
That such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ (though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship or discipline publicly held forth) shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in, the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others and to the actual disturbance of the public peace on their parts: provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy, nor to such as, under the profession of Christ, hold forth and practise licentiousness.
You might think that is just words but he shocked his contemporaries by accepting Anabaptists in the Army.
This is not a black and white man - although people love portraying him as such
as someone who lives near one of the towns mentioned, I can tell you that the latest assertion - that the acts of Cromwell were war crimes, not judging by our values but those of his peers - seems correct. He put the population of Wexford and Drogheda to the sword, and that included the Franciscan Friars - hardly a military enemy. Those not killed were sold into slavery. The entire campaign saw 15-20% of the population dead - that's genocide in anyone's language.
The latest BBC documentary of him branded him a criminal. Even now his name is spat with venom in Ireland.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/sep/07/was- cromwell-a-revolutionary-hero-or-a-genocidal-w /
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conqu est_of_Ireland
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:_fNWfCLaB CwJ:www.olivercromwell.org/resources/cromwell_ in_ireland.pdf+cromwell+war+crimes&hl=en&ct=cl nk&cd=5&gl=ie
The latest BBC documentary of him branded him a criminal. Even now his name is spat with venom in Ireland.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/sep/07/was- cromwell-a-revolutionary-hero-or-a-genocidal-w /
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conqu est_of_Ireland
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:_fNWfCLaB CwJ:www.olivercromwell.org/resources/cromwell_ in_ireland.pdf+cromwell+war+crimes&hl=en&ct=cl nk&cd=5&gl=ie
Jake-the-peg, thank you for your informative and academic answer. There are a few things I would like to point out:
1) You mentioned that we should not judge his actions by today's standpoint. "Thou shall not kill" was a commandment written perhaps 3000. years before Cromwell came into this world and is still very much in play today. There are Biblical absolutes applicable to every generation.
2) One point you used sounds very much like "pre-emptive striking" i.e. cut them down before they cut us down. That stance is hard to justify.
3) You said that 12,000 Protestants were slaughtered by the Irish. Are you referring to the earlier plantation that was attempted in Ulster but the Irish had the settlers running to the ports to escape?
4)It has also been asserted that Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was a lot to do with money. The war had worked up a lot of debts and his partisans needed payment i.e. the land on the Eastern seaboard of Ireland.
You're right, it does still get us really angry even though it was so long ago. I was reading about it a few days in the magazine and I was livid by the end of it!
1) You mentioned that we should not judge his actions by today's standpoint. "Thou shall not kill" was a commandment written perhaps 3000. years before Cromwell came into this world and is still very much in play today. There are Biblical absolutes applicable to every generation.
2) One point you used sounds very much like "pre-emptive striking" i.e. cut them down before they cut us down. That stance is hard to justify.
3) You said that 12,000 Protestants were slaughtered by the Irish. Are you referring to the earlier plantation that was attempted in Ulster but the Irish had the settlers running to the ports to escape?
4)It has also been asserted that Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was a lot to do with money. The war had worked up a lot of debts and his partisans needed payment i.e. the land on the Eastern seaboard of Ireland.
You're right, it does still get us really angry even though it was so long ago. I was reading about it a few days in the magazine and I was livid by the end of it!
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1/Thou shalt not kill is a rather tritte angle - I can find you a dozen examples in the Bible of God telling his chosen to smite their enemies and to kill and rape women and murder babies. So let's leave the Bible to one side.
2a/ The example about the rising was to illustrate that his actions were not out of context with the wars of the time
2b/ I don't see why preemptive strikes against an enmy who had already involved itself in your Civil war on the opposing side is hard to justify at all. Especially in the Ethics of the day when individual human life was not valued to the extent that it is today.
3/ Yes I am referring to planters. I'm not defending the colonisation of Ireland here. I'm pointing out the context of religous wars of the period and that wholesale slaughter of a group of people was not limited to Cromwell and that this act is often ignored by Irish History buffs who have an existing agenda to make Cromwell out to be some sort of cardboard cut out villian.
4/ Was there? You'd better find some evidence then - especially for pre-meditation. I dare say it was a handy thing to have but I doubt it came high up the list of original motives. He had enough to do in England after finding himself with a country to run.
In short Cromwell is an immensely complex character and needs way more than a magazine article to get a grip on.
Sounds like one of those rather biased ones too. Please don't tell me you just read it and believed everything without even questioning the reliability of the sources!
Remember much is seen through the lens of a restored monachy Charles II had his body dug up and hung - you don't think things were going to be written andrecorded objectively and dispationately do you?
There are some excellent biographies of the man that paint him "warts and all" I'd recommend Antonia Fraiser's "Our Chief of men".
2a/ The example about the rising was to illustrate that his actions were not out of context with the wars of the time
2b/ I don't see why preemptive strikes against an enmy who had already involved itself in your Civil war on the opposing side is hard to justify at all. Especially in the Ethics of the day when individual human life was not valued to the extent that it is today.
3/ Yes I am referring to planters. I'm not defending the colonisation of Ireland here. I'm pointing out the context of religous wars of the period and that wholesale slaughter of a group of people was not limited to Cromwell and that this act is often ignored by Irish History buffs who have an existing agenda to make Cromwell out to be some sort of cardboard cut out villian.
4/ Was there? You'd better find some evidence then - especially for pre-meditation. I dare say it was a handy thing to have but I doubt it came high up the list of original motives. He had enough to do in England after finding himself with a country to run.
In short Cromwell is an immensely complex character and needs way more than a magazine article to get a grip on.
Sounds like one of those rather biased ones too. Please don't tell me you just read it and believed everything without even questioning the reliability of the sources!
Remember much is seen through the lens of a restored monachy Charles II had his body dug up and hung - you don't think things were going to be written andrecorded objectively and dispationately do you?
There are some excellent biographies of the man that paint him "warts and all" I'd recommend Antonia Fraiser's "Our Chief of men".
"1/Thou shalt not kill is a rather trite angle - I can find you a dozen examples in the Bible of God telling his chosen to smite their enemies and to kill and rape women and murder babies. So let's leave the Bible to one side."
Hi Jake-the-peg. You're right in one way. In Old Testament times God did on occasions (mostly in the Pentateuch I think) cast righteous judgement on people either by striking them down himself or by instructing His chosen people to do so. There is no occasion of God asking someone to violate a woman and God condemned King David for doing so to Bathsheba. But individuals throughout the Bible and throughout history have committed so many atrocious acts falsely proclaiming it to be God's Word or God's judgement. And really it was for their own human agenda. "'Vengeance is mine' says the Lord".
I think with this blogging we'd probably end up hating each other whereas if we met in real life we might even like each other.
Hi Jake-the-peg. You're right in one way. In Old Testament times God did on occasions (mostly in the Pentateuch I think) cast righteous judgement on people either by striking them down himself or by instructing His chosen people to do so. There is no occasion of God asking someone to violate a woman and God condemned King David for doing so to Bathsheba. But individuals throughout the Bible and throughout history have committed so many atrocious acts falsely proclaiming it to be God's Word or God's judgement. And really it was for their own human agenda. "'Vengeance is mine' says the Lord".
I think with this blogging we'd probably end up hating each other whereas if we met in real life we might even like each other.
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