1.
Cornelis Tromp
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Cornelis Maartenszoon Tromp was a Dutch naval officer. He was the son of Lieutenant Admiral Maarten Tromp and he became Lieutenant Admiral General in the Dutch Navy and briefly Admiral General in the Danish Navy. He fought in the first three Anglo-Dutch Wars and in the Scanian War, Cornelis Maartenszoon Tromp was born on 9 September 1629 in Rotterdam, in the county of Holland, the historically dominant province of the Dutch Republic. He was the son of Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp and Dina Cornelisdochter de Haas. His name Maartenszoon, sometimes abbreviated to Maartensz. is a patronymic and he had two full brothers, Harper and Johan. In 1633, when he was four years old, his mother died. His father remarried in 1634 and again in 1640, the two marriages together brought Tromp four half brothers and five half sisters. His father had made career as an officer for the Admiralty of the Maze, after a conflict with Lieutenant-Admiral Philips van Dorp in 1634 Maarten Tromp left the fleet starting to work as a deacon. After Van Dorp was removed from his position in 1637, his father became Lieutenant Admiral, in 1642, Cornelis Tromp was sent to Harfleur in France to learn to speak French from a Calvinist preacher. On 1 September 1643, he joined his father on his flagship the Aemilia, in September 1645, he was appointed as lieutenant. On 22 August 1649, he was made a full captain, in 1656, he participated in the relief of Gdańsk. In 1658, it was discovered he had used his ships to trade in goods, as a result he was fined. During this war, his flagship was the Gouden Leeuw, of 82 cannon and he was closely involved in the murder of Johan de Witt and Cornelis de Witt in 1672. In 1675 he was created an English baronet and a Dutch erfridder by Charles II of England, on 8 May 1676, he became Admiral-General of the Danish navy and Knight in the Order of the Elephant, in 1677 Count of Sølvesborg. He defeated the Swedish navy in the Battle of Öland, his victory as a fleet commander. On 6 February 1679, he became Lieutenant-Admiral-General of the Republic but never fought in that capacity, having become a liability to the new regime of William III. He died in Amsterdam in 1691, his mind broken by abuse and remorse, still officially commander of the Dutch fleet. Tromp was a very aggressive squadron commander who personally relished the fight, as a result, he had to change ships often, four times at the Four Days Battle, three times at Schooneveld and two times at Texel
2.
Dutch Republic
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It preceded the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and ultimately the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names include the United Provinces, Seven Provinces, Federated Dutch Provinces, most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. This was the start of the Eighty Years War, in 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. In 1582 the United Provinces invited Francis, Duke of Anjou to lead them, but after an attempt to take Antwerp in 1583. After the assassination of William of Orange, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined the offer of sovereignty, however, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England, and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy, the Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by the Spanish Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the Anglo-French war, the territory was divided into groups, the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American and the Orangists. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities, initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, the Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names United Provinces of the Netherlands, on 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890 the King of the Netherlands was also in a union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world, the free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands, the worlds first stock exchange, that of the Dutch East-India Company, went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a city so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles
3.
Prince of Orange
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Prince of Orange is a title originally associated with the sovereign Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. Under the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, Frederick William I of Prussia ceded the Principality of Orange to King Louis XIV of France, the title is traditionally borne by the heir apparent of the Dutch monarch. The title descends via absolute primogeniture since 1983, meaning that its holder can be either Prince or Princess of Orange, the Dutch royal dynasty, the House of Orange-Nassau, is not the only family to claim the title. Rival claims to the title have been made by German emperors and kings of the House of Hohenzollern, the current users of the title are Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange suo jure, Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, and Guy, Marquis de Mailly-Nesle. The Principality originated as the County of Orange, a fief in the Holy Roman Empire and his Occitan name is Guilhem, however, as a Frankish lord, he probably knew himself by the old Germanic version of Wilhelm. William also ruled as count of Toulouse, duke of Aquitaine, the chanson appears to incorporate material relating to William of Gellones battle at the Orbieu or Orbiel river near Carcassonne in 793 as well as to his seizure of the town of Orange. As the Empires boundaries retreated from those of the principality, the prince acceded to the rights that the Emperor formerly exercised. Orange ceased to exist as a realm, de facto. Although no longer descended from Louis-Charles, a branch of the Mailly family still claim the title today, in 1714 Louis XIV bestowed the usufruct of the principality on his kinsman, Louis Armand of Bourbon, Prince de Conti. After his death in 1727 the principality was deemed merged in the Crown by 1731, in this way, the territory of the principality lost its feudal and secular privileges and became a part of France. The Treaty of Utrecht allowed the King of Prussia to erect part of the duchy of Gelderland into a new Principality of Orange, the kings of Prussia and the German emperors styled themselves Princes of Orange till 1918. Several of his descendants became stadtholders and they claim the principality of Orange on the basis of agnatic inheritance, similar to that of William the Silent, who had inherited Orange from his cousin René of Châlon. They did however have a claim, albeit distant, to the principality itself due to John William Frisos descent from Louise de Coligny, who was a descendant of the original Princes of Orange. They could also claim descent from the del Balzo, an Italian branch of the des Baux family, via the marriage of Princess Anne to William IV, Prince of Orange. Anne was the eldest daughter of George II of Great Britain, Elizabeth Woodwilles grandmother was Margherita del Balzo, another descendant of Tiburge dOrange. They also claimed on the basis of the testament of Philip William, Maurice, finally, they claimed on the basis that Orange was an independent state whose sovereign had the right to assign his succession according to his will. France never recognized any of this, nor allowed the Orange-Nassaus or the Hohenzollerns to obtain anything of the principality itself, the Oranje-Nassaus nevertheless assumed the title and also erected several of their lordships into a new principality of Orange. They maintain the tradition of William the Silent and the house of Orange-Nassau, only the direct line of descent to Raimond V is shown here
4.
House of Orange-Nassau
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Several members of the house served during this war and after as governor or stadtholder during the Dutch Republic. However, in 1815, after a period as a republic. The dynasty was established as a result of the marriage of Henry III of Nassau-Breda from Germany and their son René inherited in 1530 the independent and sovereign Principality of Orange from his mothers brother, Philibert of Châlon. As the first Nassau to be the Prince of Orange, René could have used Orange-Nassau as his new family name, however, his uncle, in his will, had stipulated that René should continue the use of the name Châlon-Orange. History knows him therefore as René of Châlon, after the death of René in 1544 his cousin William of Nassau-Dillenburg inherited all his lands. This William I of Orange, in English better known as William the Silent, the Castle of Nassau was founded around 1100 by Count Dudo-Henry of Laurenburg, the founder of the House of Nassau. In 1120, Dudo-Henrys sons and successors, Counts Robert I and Arnold I of Laurenburg and they renovated and extended the castle complex in 1124. The first man to be called the count of Nassau was Robert I of Nassau, the Nassau family married into the family of the neighboring Counts of Arnstein. His sons Walram and Otto split the Nassau possessions, the descendants of Walram became known as the Walram Line, which became Dukes of Nassau, and in 1890, the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg. This line also included Adolph of Nassau, who was elected King of the Romans in 1292, the descendants of Otto became known as the Ottonian Line, which inherited parts of Nassau County, and properties in France and the Netherlands. The House of Orange-Nassau stems from the younger Ottonian Line, the first of this line to establish himself in the Netherlands was John I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, who married Margareta of the Marck. The real founder of the Nassau fortunes in the Netherlands was Johns son and he became counsellor to the Burgundian Dukes of Brabant, first to Anton of Burgundy, and later to his son Jan IV of Brabant. He also would later serve Philip the Good, in 1403 he married the Dutch noblewoman Johanna van Polanen, and so inherited lands in the Netherlands, with the Barony of Breda as the core of the Dutch possessions and the family fortune. A nobles power was based on his ownership of vast tracts of land. It also helped that much of the lands that the House of Orange and Nassau controlled sat under one of the commercial and mercantile centers of the world (see below under Lands and Titles. The importance of the Nassaus grew throughout the 15th and 16th centuries as they became councilors, generals, Engelbert II of Nassau served Charles the Bold and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, who had married Charless daughter Mary of Burgundy. In 1496 he was appointed stadtholder of Flanders and by 1498 he had been named President of the Grand Conseil, in 1501, Maximilian named him Lieutenant-General of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. From that point forward, Engelbert was the representative of the Habsburg Empire to the region
5.
Twelve Years' Truce
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The Twelve Years Truce was the name given to the cessation of hostilities between the Habsburg rulers of Spain and the Southern Netherlands and the Dutch Republic as agreed in Antwerp on 9 April 1609. It was a watershed in the Eighty Years War, marking the point from which the independence of the United Provinces received formal recognition by outside powers. The Archdukes Albert and Isabella used the years of the Truce to consolidate Habsburg rule, the war in the Low Countries reached a stalemate in the 1590s. In the following years the Army of Flanders was entirely on the defensive, unable to sustain the cost of a war on three fronts, Philip II was forced to declare a suspension of payments in 1596. Spains predicament was adroitly used by Stadtholder Maurice, in a series of campaigns, the Republics army surprised Breda in 1590, took Deventer, Hulst and Nijmegen the following year and captured Groningen in 1594. By that stage the Army of Flanders had lost almost all its positions north of the great rivers. After the accession of Philip III in Spain and of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in the Habsburg Netherlands in 1598, the Army of Flanders tried to regain the offensive against the Dutch Republic. While it met with a defeat in the Battle of Nieuwpoort on 2 July 1600. The lengthy Siege of Ostend amply demonstrated the balance of power, both sides poured enormous resources into the besieging or defending a town that was reduced to rubble. Ambrogio Spinola, who had succeeded Archduke Albert as commander in the field, eventually captured the town on 22 September 1604, the following year, Spinola seized the initiative, bringing the war north of the great rivers for the first time since 1594. Suddenly the Dutch Republic had the enemy threatening its heartland, by 1606, the Spanish army had captured Oldenzaal, Lochem, Lingen, Rijnberk and Groenlo despite the efforts of Maurice of Nassau. Meanwhile, Habsburg diplomacy had managed to disengage from two fronts, in 1598 Henry IV and Philip II had ended the Franco-Spanish War with the Peace of Vervins. Six years later, James I, Philip III and the Archdukes concluded the Anglo-Spanish War with the Treaty of London, together, these treaties allowed the Habsburgs to concentrate their resources on the war against the Dutch. They did not, however, keep the Republics allies from continuing their material support, moreover, Habsburg successes in the Low Countries came at a heavy price. In 1605 the Dutch East India Company made serious inroads into the Portuguese spice trade and these advances signaled a serious threat that the conflict might spread further in the Spanish overseas empire. The scale of Spinolas campaigns had, furthermore, exhausted the Spanish treasury, on 9 November 1607 Philip III announced a suspension of payments. The balance of power had led to a balance of exhaustion, after decades of war, both sides were finally prepared to open negotiations. The two opposing sides started putting out discrete overtures early in the season of 1606
6.
Hugo Grotius
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Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Groot or Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch jurist. Along with the works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, Grotius laid the foundations for international law. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was imprisoned for his involvement in the intra-Calvinist disputes of the Dutch Republic and he wrote most of his major works in exile in France. Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is considered an economic theologist. Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot, a prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden when he was just eleven years old. There he studied some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger. Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug, in Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and then as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601. The Dutch were at war with Spain and Portugal when the merchant ship Santa Catarina. The scandal led to a judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public opinion. It was in this context that representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of the seizure. The result of Grotius efforts in 1604/05 was a long, theory-laden treatise that he provisionally entitled De Indis, Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand, his interest was in the source, the treatise was never published in full during Grotius lifetime, perhaps because the court ruling in favor of the Company preempted the need to garner public support. In The Free Sea Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, Grotius, by claiming free seas, provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up of various trade monopolies through its formidable naval power. In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersbergen, with whom he would have eight children and who would be invaluable in helping him and the family to weather the storm to come. The domestic dissension resulting over Arminius professorship was overshadowed by the war with Spain. The new peace would move the focus to the controversy. The controversy expanded when the Remonstrant theologian Conrad Vorstius was appointed to replace Jacobus Arminius as the chair at Leiden. Vorstius was soon seen by Counter-Remonstrants as moving beyond the teachings of Arminius into Socinianism, leading the call for Vorstius removal was theology professor Sibrandus Lubbertus
7.
Rampjaar
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In Dutch history, the year 1672 was known as the rampjaar, the disaster year. The invading armies quickly defeated the Dutch States Army and conquered part of the Republic, a famous Dutch saying coined that year describes the Dutch people redeloos, its government radeloos, and the country reddeloos, irrational, desperate, and beyond rescue, respectively. Despite the initial shock and successful invasion of the eastern Dutch Republic, the English were defeated by the navy under Michiel de Ruyter in 1674, resulting in the Treaty of Westminster and eventually leading to the Glorious Revolution. The French were pushed back with the help of the Spanish forces in the Spanish Netherlands, the conflict eventually ended with the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678-9. These tensions had escalated in 1650 when William II, Prince of Orange had tried to conquer Amsterdam, after negotiations he succeeded in removing a number of his adversaries from office. When William died from smallpox later that year, the party came back into power. Johan de Witt was appointed Grand Pensionary of Holland and led the States of Holland, to appease the Orangists, and because of their own business interests, the Dutch Regents tried to keep the peace within Europe. When the Republic fought for its independence from Spain, it had allied with France, in 1648, as part of the Peace of Westphalia, the Republic made peace with Austria and Spain. France had only made peace with Austria and continued fighting Spain until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, a condition of that peace was that Louis XIV would marry Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV of Spain. Maria Theresa would also renounce her share of the inheritance in exchange for a large dowry, the dowry, however, was never paid by the Spanish. During the 1650s and 1660s the existing tensions between Dutch trade interests and English trade interests grew, the First Anglo-Dutch War was fought between the republics, resulting in a victory for the English. Oliver Cromwell, who was Lord Protector of England at that time, an English attempt to take over Dutch trade and colonies led to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. After the previous war Johan de Witt had supervised the expansion, First Münster and then England were forced to make peace. While France had helped to put pressure on England and Münster they had not committed a major part of their army or fleet, after the death of Philip IV, Louis XIV claimed part of the inheritance for his wife. According to local law in parts of the Spanish Netherlands daughters of a marriage took precedence before the sons of a later marriage. The way Louis XIV explained this, Maria Theresa, daughter of the first marriage of Philip IV, should inherit the Spanish Netherlands because Philips son and this went against the interests of the Dutch Republic, who preferred having a weak state as their neighbour to the south. Because of this, Johan de Witt allied with the defeated English and Sweden, in secret clauses of the treaty they agreed to use force if Louis XIV would not come to terms with Spain. France made peace with Spain, but because the secret clauses of the Triple Alliance were soon made public, Louis XIV felt insulted by the perfidious Dutch, immediately after the peace agreement, France took steps to isolate the Republic
8.
Johan de Witt
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As a republican he opposed the House of Orange. He was also strongly liberal, preferring lesser power to the central government, however, his negligence of the Dutch land army proved disastrous when the Dutch Republic suffered numerous early defeats in the Rampjaar. The rioters were never prosecuted, and historians have argued that William of Orange may have incited them, Johan de Witt was a member of the old Dutch patrician family De Witt. Johan and Cornelis both attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, which imbued both brothers with the values of the Roman Republic, after having attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, he studied at the University of Leiden, where he excelled at mathematics and law. He received his doctorate from the University of Angers in 1645 and he practiced law as an attorney in The Hague as an associate with the firm of Frans van Schooten. In 1650 he was appointed leader of the deputation of Dordrecht to the States of Holland, in December 1650, De Witt became the pensionary of Dordrecht. Once during the year 1652 in the city of Flushing, Johan De Witt found himself faced with a mob of angry demonstrators of sailors, however, even at the young age of 27 years, it was Johans coolheadedness that calmed the situation. Many people older than Johan began to see greatness in Johan dating from that experience, Johan de Witt married on 16 February 1655 Wendela Bicker, the daughter of Jan Bicker, an influential patrician from Amsterdam, and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek. Jan Bicker served as mayor of Amsterdam in 1653, De Witt became a relative to the strong republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and to Andries Bicker. Heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard and IJsselveere, married to Wilhelmina de Witt and he was secretary of the city of Dordrecht After De Witts death, his brother in law Pieter de Graeff became a guardian over his children. In 1653, the States of Holland elected De Witt councilor pensionary, the raadpensionaris of Holland was often referred to as the Grand Pensionary by foreigners as he represented the preponderant province in the Union of the Dutch Republic. He was a servant who lead the States of province by his experience, tenure, familiarity with the issues and he was in no manner equivalent to a modern Prime Minister. · Representing the province of Holland, Johan De Witt tended to identify with the interests of the shipping and trading interests in the United Provinces. These interests were largely concentrated in the province of Holland, not surprisingly, Johan de Witt also held views of toleration of religious beliefs. De Witts power base was the merchant class into which he was born. This class broadly coincided politically with the States faction, stressing Protestant religious moderation, William II of Orange was a prime example of this tendency among the leaders of the House of Orange to support Calvinism. William II was elected Stadholder in 1647 and continued to serve until his death in November,1650, eight days after his death, William IIs wife delivered a male heir--William III of Orange. Many citizens of the United Provinces urged the election of the infant William III as stadholder under a regency until he came of age, however, the Provinces, under the dominance of the province of Holland did not fill the office of Stadholder
9.
Oliver Cromwell
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Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell was born into the gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIIIs minister Thomas Cromwell. Little is known of the first 40 years of his life as only four of his letters survive alongside a summary of a speech he delivered in 1628. He became an Independent Puritan after undergoing a conversion in the 1630s. He was a religious man, a self-styled Puritan Moses. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short and he entered the English Civil War on the side of the Roundheads or Parliamentarians. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles Is death warrant in 1649 and he was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649–1650. Cromwells forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, during this period, a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics, and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651, as a ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. He died from natural causes in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the Royalists returned to power in 1660, and they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded. In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell, sponsored by military historian Richard Holmes was selected as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time. However, his measures against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal, Cromwell was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599 to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. Katherine married Morgan ap William, son of William ap Yevan of Wales, Henry suggested to Sir Richard Williams, who was the first to use a surname in his family, that he use Cromwell, in honour of his uncle Thomas Cromwell. They had ten children, but Oliver, the child, was the only boy to survive infancy. Jasper was the uncle of Henry VII and great uncle of Henry VIII, Cromwells paternal grandfather Sir Henry Williams was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Cromwells father Robert was of modest means but still a part of the gentry class, as a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes, Cromwell himself in 1654 said, I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity. He was baptised on 29 April 1599 at St Johns Church and he went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos
10.
Lynching
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Lynching is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is most often used to characterise informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a group. It is a form of informal group social control such as charivari, skimmington, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering. Lynchings have been frequent in times of social and economic tension. However, it has resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice. Indeed, instances of it can be found in societies long antedating European settlement of North America, the legal and cultural antecedents of American lynching were carried across the Atlantic by migrants from the British Isles to colonial North America. Collective violence was an aspect of the early modern Anglo-American legal landscape. In the United States, during the decades before the Civil War, assertive free-Blacks, Latinos in the South West, Violence rose even more at the end of the 19th century, after southern white Democrats regained their political power in the South in the 1870s. Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920, the origins of the word lynch are obscure, but it likely originated during the American revolution. The verb comes from the phrase Lynch Law, a term for a punishment without trial, two Americans during this era are generally credited for the phrase, Charles Lynch and William Lynch, who both lived in Virginia in the 1780s. Charles Lynch has the claim, as he was known to have used the term in 1782. There is no evidence that death was imposed as a punishment by either of the two men, in 1782, Charles Lynch wrote that his assistant had administered Lynchs law to Tories for Dealing with negroes, &c. In the United States, the origin of the terms lynching, Charles Lynch was a Virginia planter and American Revolutionary who headed a county court in Virginia which incarcerated Loyalist supporters of the British for up to one year during the war. While he lacked proper jurisdiction, he claimed this right by arguing wartime necessity, subsequently, he prevailed upon his friends in the Congress of the Confederation to pass a law which specifically exonerated him and his associates from wrongdoing. He was concerned that he might face legal action from one or more of those so incarcerated, Lynch was not accused of racist bias, and indeed acquitted blacks accused of murder on three separate occasions, as dictated by the facts brought before him. He was accused, however, of ethnic prejudice in his abuse of Welsh miners, William Lynch from Virginia claimed that the phrase was first used for a 1780 compact signed by him and his neighbors in Pittsylvania County. While Edgar Allan Poe claimed that he found this document, this was likely a hoax, however, linguistic evidence is strongly against it, and the story was likely invented in the 19th century. Racist extremism with an eye to viciousness and public spectacle was frequently evident, in the South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were usually targets of lynch mob violence before the Civil War
