History by ©Sarah Becker Marijuana – It’s Legal! In 1792, Quaker Edward Stabler borrowed 100 pounds to buy stock for his Alexandria Apothecary Shop. Now a National Historic Landmark, the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Shop’s history dates from 1792 to 1933. Medicinal cannabis was first introduced in the 1850s; on the Leadbeater families’ corporate watch. “Records do not tell us what feelings of uncertainty Edward Stabler may have harbored in relation to his venture,” Eleanor Leadbeater wrote in 1934, “but they do show that his business prospered to such an extent that he was able to return the loan and double his stock of goods during the first year.” Hemp: Cannabis sativa, an industrial crop; a highly profitable fiber crop used in the production of rope and such. The Commonwealth’s latest Industrial Hemp Law was enacted in 2015. Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines Cannabis as “the dried flowering tops of hemp plants which contain the euphoric principles ^1-3,4-trans and ^6-3,4 trans-tetrahydrocannabinol. It is classified as a hallucinogenic and prepared as bhang, ganja, hashish, and marijuana.” Cannabism: “a morbid state produced by the misuse of cannabis.” Marijuana: “a crude preparation of the leaves and flowering tops of [male and female] hemp plants.” “Two recent articles in Blackwood’s Magazine, on the ‘Narcotics we indulge in,’ have attracted more than ordinary attention: tobacco, hops, opium, hemp, &c.,” The New York Daily Times wrote in 1854. “Smokers, the intellectual class of them, especially, think, speak, and write better under its influence; and the mere fact, that they are inferior to themselves without it, is a good reason for supposing that it creates an abnormal condition….” On February 27, 2021, Virginia became the 4th state to legalize marijuana by way of the legislature–in this instance for adult recreation use. The Virginia House of Delegates passed the…
History Written by ©2020 Sarah Becker Copyright ©2020 Sarah Becker August 28th – 57th Anniversary of the March On Washington “The liberty attained by that soul which is converted from evil by the influence of Divine love, is the only liberty which truly deserves the name,” Quaker minister, abolitionist and Alexandria apothecary Edward Stabler wrote in 1825. “The difference between this state, which has been the happy possession of many whose bodies were in bonds,—and mere personal freedom, is so great, that the one may be designated as being of heaven, the other of the earth.” Quakers understood discrimination. In 1656 Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans greeted the first arriving Quakers with imprisonment. More than three hundred years later civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream: “Five score years ago, a great American [Abraham Lincoln], in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation [January 1, 1863]. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice….” “But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free,” Dr. King continued. “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation [Jim Crow] and the chains of discrimination…[W]e have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.” “We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,” Dr. King exclaimed. “No, no we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Justice as defined by The Oxford American Dictionary: “fairness, a fair claim; the…
They’re Burning Down the House! By Sarah Becker ©2018 President Donald Trump (R-NY) has done it again, he’s muddled history. On May 25, in a tetchy telephone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump unthinkingly said it was the Canadians, not the British who burned The White House in 1814. The British assault on Washington was in retaliation for an American attack on Ontario, then a British colony. The President referenced the War of 1812 when asked for what reason he claimed incoming Canadian steel and aluminum “a national security” issue. In the early 1800s the United States became inextricably involved in European affairs. Customs duties funded the federal government; British, French, and Spanish trading policies shaped local economies, and the ongoing commercial war between Great Britain and Napoleon’s France cost neutral American merchants unnecessarily. American merchants were little more than pawns. The North American continent was a showground of imperial competition. The British controlled Canada to the north, Spain controlled lands to the west and south. Both nations provided arms and encouragement to Native Americans, hoping to block American settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains. As for Great Britain and France, “both sought to block the other’s commerce with America: through blockades, port closures, and the imposition of harmful customs duties,” Professor Michael Bottoms explained. “While both nations were equally guilty of abusing their American trading relationships, Americans focused their ire on Britain, partly because of Britain’s [sea-faring] impressment policy. The damage these policies did to the American economy, and to American prestige, led directly to war.” Georgetown resident and Federalist newspaper publisher Alexander Hanson, of Baltimore, described the War of 1812 as “without funds, without an army, navy or adequate fortifications.” Who were the War Hawks and to what extent did Americans support a second war with Great…
For centuries slavery has been common among African tribes. Black slaves, usually taken captive during war, were bought and sold to enhance a leader’s wealth. Bartering for human capital is an age-old practice some African countries still practice today. Portuguese sailors, European sailors brought the first Africans to the New World. The voyage to America was arduous and if the shackled cargo became contaminated, succumbed to smallpox or dysentery, the sick were dumped at sea. Slave history is heart-rending. Roughly 8-15 million Africans reached the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Many of Alexandria’s early trading partners, such as Portugal, Spain and the Caribbean, not only sanctioned slavery but also engaged in its trade. Slave-traders accepted only the best African specimens. In 1740 the Virginia colony declared slaves “chattel [property] personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all intents, construction and purpose whatsoever.” Pioneer farmer George Washington, in 1760, paid ten shillings for runaway slave Boson’s Mount Vernon return. Washington, unlike many contemporaries, freed his slaves upon his death. The slaves’ stories are many. James Armistead, a Virginia planter’s slave, served as a double spy during the Revolutionary War. Armistead infiltrated traitor Benedict Arnold’s camp; then later helped Generals Washington and Lafayette ensure Great Britain’s surrender at Yorktown. An empathetic Marquis de Lafayette asked the Virginia General Assembly to give the “essential” slave “every reward his situation can admit of.” Armistead’s freedom was granted in 1787. George Mason vigorously opposed that portion of the 1787 Constitution which permitted the continued importation of slaves. “We became callous to the Dictates of Humanity….,” Mason wrote in 1773. “Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject & contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the Dignity of Man….” Virginia “laid plans for…