Category Archives: History

Bible study, Christianity, History

Book Review: The Rise of Babylon

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Or interest due to our time living in the region, but not a keeper.

As I mentioned in a prior post, my wife and I don’t read many of the same books. I rarely recommend a book I’ve read to her, and when I do, she rarely reads it. She recommends books to me more often, and when she does, I seldom read it. One she did recently and that I read was The Rise of Babylon: Signs of the End Times by Charles H. Dyer with Angela Elwell Hunt (1991, updated 2003). First, a little about how we happened to have this book.

My sister Norma sent this to our dad in March 1991. It was one her church in Indiana was studying. Lynda and I were relatively newly returned from Kuwait (in July 1990), Iraq had invaded Kuwait (Aug 2, 1990), and the USA had led the coalition that liberated Kuwait (Jan-Feb 1991). Hence, the book had family interest. We must have taken this from Dad’s house upon his death in 1997, but tucked inside it was a letter from Norma to Dad transmitting the book, along with a photo of Norma. I have no way of knowing if Dad ever read the book or not. Since Lynda read the paperback before me, it had the signs of having been used.

I read this over about a 10-15 day period ending a week or so ago. I found it to be an easy read, helped along by excellent layout and typesetting. Dyer wrote this between the waning days of the Iran-Iraq war (which was 1980-88) and the invasion of Kuwait on 2 Aug 1990, although with a few changes to reflect its publication in Jan 1991. Dyer had, on several occasions, been in Iraq in the second half of the 80s as a guest of the government to witness how Iraq, at the instigation of then-leader Sadaam Hussein, was working on rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon. I believe Dyer’s intention was to demonstrate how Hussein’s intentions for Babylon were a movement to the end times as predicted in the Bible.

While the book is informative and interesting, I don’t think Dyer achieved that aim. He tried to do too much in one small-ish book. He started with the pre-biblical history of Babylon from various extra-biblical sources. That was well done, though a bit short of detail for my historically minded mind. He also failed to give a simple list of the ancient sources, forcing his readers to make their own list from the handful of footnotes and other research. But what the book contains, assuming it is a faithful extraction from the ancient chronicles, is good.

Dyer then gets into the Old Testament era, dealing with people groups and mentions in the historical and prophetic books. Once again, there is almost too much there for a book of this length. I felt that the treatment was shallower than I wanted.

The last part of the book was based on mentions in Revelation, and how judgment will yet fall on Babylon, how the ancient ruins Hussein was desperately wanting to rebuild to his own glory, touting himself to be the new Nebuchadnezzar, would be annihilated before the return of Jesus foretold in Revelation. Once again, I felt that this part of the book was shallow. Dyer presents his case (interpretation of the prophecies) well, but not in enough depth to allow me to really sink my teeth into it.

I read the 1991 version of the book, which must have been written mostly before the events of 1990. The 2003 updates might be interesting to read. But, I repeat that the book is trying to accomplish too much in too little space. Either a larger book or two volumes or more references to other sources would have been most helpful. I must say though that the book has spurred me on to want to do more research, so in this sense it succeeds.

Yet, from me it has earned only 3-stars. It is already in the donation box, and our over-stuffed bookshelves are just a little thinner.

 

book reviews, History

Book Review: Imperial Highness

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Catherine and Peter never should have married. This is the story of how Catherine dealt with it.

My wife and I don’t read many of the same books. Even our Bible study and devotional books are different. That’s one of the reasons our home library is so large. I’m trying to pay more attention to what she’s reading (to be a dutiful husband) and at least consider reading books she recommends to me. One of those was Imperial Highness by Evelyn Anthony.

This historical novel, first published in 1983, is closer to a biography than a novel; yet it meets the technical definition of a novel. It’s about Princess Catherine, of a somewhat lesser German principality, who at age 16 married the future tzar of Russia. It was an unhappy marriage, as the tsarevitch was hard to get along with and the two teenagers were ill-suited for each other.

Anthony paints a very unhappy picture of Catherine’s life. Both partners found love in the arms of others and rarely saw each other except at official court functions. Spoiler alert: Catherine does a better job of winning public opinion to her and winds up as empress, deposing her husband after his mother’s death.

This is a good, relatively short read. It’s difficult for me to pigeonhole it as to genre. Consider it biography masquerading as historical fiction. It’s worth reading if you like that kind of book.

I give it 4-stars. I’ll never read it again, but I might do some other research on Catherine. It’s not a keeper, however, and I rise from my office chair right now to put it in the donation box.

books, History, Writing

Author Lauri Cruver Cherian

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Lauri and her fourth book

A few days ago, we were in Lake Jackson, Texas, visiting our daughter and her family. On previous trips, I took some of the grandkids to the planetarium as a small outing. The lady working the planetarium on the first of those outings was Lauri Cruver Cherian. We conversed a while, learned we were both authors as second careers, both members of local writers groups, and that neither of us lived in our native state. We connected on Facebook, and have kept abreast of each other since then.

So when I found out Lauri had scheduled a book launch event for her newest book, to be held in Lake Jackson at the same time we were planning to be there, I built my local schedule to have time to attend. While I’ve attended author events before, this was my first time to attend an official book launch. My reasons for attending were to support Lauri, also to get some ideas on how to do a book launch should I ever decide to do one for one of my books.

Reading from the book at the book launch

It was held at the Lake Jackson Historical Museum in the downtown area. I arrived about 25 minutes early, and was the first one there other than Lauri and a couple of workers. That gave me time to make a quick circuit of the first floor of the museum. It included well-presented displays, and I marked it as a place to come back to on a future trip for a full tour.

The book Lauri presented was Come On In, Don’t Be Lonesome [available at Book Baby and to be released 10/31/2025 at Amazon]. It’s a story based on events in her family history. Her grandfather ran a rooming house in the Seattle area (so she’s a transplant to Texas). Lauri read from the first chapter, and it’s obvious the book is seasoned both with salt and humor. It looks like it will be a good read.

I counted about 35 people in attendance, though it might have been a few more. I think she sold a good number of books, and was kept busy signing copies, her husband helping with the selling. Alas for her, I didn’t buy a copy. Our decumulation effort has resulted in my paperback book buying budget being $0. We have to see things leave the house, not come in. Possibly I’ll get an e-book copy.

Check out Lauri’s website. It has more information about her and all four of her books.

As for the book launch, it was extremely well done. Advertising by her and the museum no doubt generated the good attendance. Looking at the infrastructure she set up (four tables, one for selling, one for signing, two for food); banners; podium; sound system; computer with slide show going) made it all look rather daunting just thinking about all the work involved. I think I’ll still go with publishing my books without formally launching them.

Bible study, History, letters

Working

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Slowly making progress transcribing these.

Taking a break today from my last series of posts (on the Goldilocks Zone) to report on my recent doings.

Today is a rain day. No chance to work outside unless the rain clears this afternoon.  So I’m working indoors. Also, since this is a Saturday, the only stock market work I had was wrapping up my weekly spreadsheet. I greatly simplified my spreadsheet in June when I resumed trading activities, so that spreadsheet updating now takes all of ten minutes.

I transcribed four of my father-in-law’s WW2 letters. I’m now up to 65 complete. It looks like well over 100, maybe as many as 200 yet to go. I never said it would be quick or easy.

Yesterday I finished the second editorial pass (the first pass having been two years ago) on Vol 6 in the A Walk Through Holy Week study. I think two more quick passes and I’ll be ready to publish.

Typical rainy day activities for me are filing papers and updating the check book. Not really feeling like doing either one today, but we’ll see. For sure I’ll get in an hour or more of reading. Oh, yeah, I’ll have to prepare supper, and perhaps vacuum.

The fun days of retirement.

 

Decumulation, family, Genealogy, History

The Burden of Photos

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The infamous “Jacob’s Well photo”. One copy should be sufficient. The next generation will most likely toss it.

Of the many things our parents left us, or came to us in other ways, I think the most burdensome is photos.

Photos? Yes, photos. Those pesky little glossy things, or some matte finish, depicting people of long ago, houses once owned or lived in, vehicles once driven, and landscapes visited. No doubt those who left them to us thought, “What a treasure this is for our children (or grandchildren), to see great-aunt Matilda all dressed up for the derby. Oh how they will cherish them.”

No idea who these people are. Cool car, though.

Except nobody now alive ever met great-aunt Matilda. Only those who studied the family genealogy knows who she was and how she fits into the family relationships. And only those who ever will study genealogy will ever care.

This was the situation after a week’s worth of work on the 5,000.

Photos tend to add up. Just looking at the photos on Lynda’s side of the family, I estimate that we have 8,000 photos. No, I’m not exaggerating. That’s probably 3,000 from her dad’s side and 5,000 from her mom’s side. Just looking at her dad’s side, he was something of a hobbyist photographer. He inherited various family photos from his parents, who got at least some of them from their parents. He looked at those old photos, some as tiny at 2×3 inches, and had enlargements made; then multiple copies of the enlargements; then smaller copies having the developer play around with the tint and border and resolution. So one tiny old photo marked “Jacob’s Well” on the back was shown to be a photo of his grandfather’s family, showing two older men, one older woman, and seven children (the youngest not yet born)—some on horses, some standing on the rocky landscape.

Jacob’s Well is a feature in Clark County, Kansas, now incorporated into a park. Except we’ve visited the park—not every square inch of it, mind you—the landscape looks more like what you see at the family ranch in Logan Township, Meade County, Kansas. I could believe the photo is mis-labeled, except another family member in another branch that didn’t even know each other until 2015 has a copy of the exact same 2×3 photo and it is also labeled “Jacob’s Well.” What to do?

Is this photo a keeper? Surely it’s the Cheney family, but how do you identify the people? One of the older men is the father, Seth. The other is uncle Frank Best (most likely). The older woman is mother Sarah, the youngest child Rose, the older girl Cora. But which of the others are William, Clarence, James, and Walter? We can make an educated guess, based on size. But these people were all standing at least 20 yards away from the cameraman. There’s really no way of knowing who’s who.

The photo is from 1898, based on Charlie, the youngest child, being born in 1899. The question becomes: how important is it to keep this photo? And the multiple copies of the enlargement? And the multiple copies of different tints, borders, and resolutions?

This has come up now because another family member, who didn’t want the photos when Lynda’s dad died in 1996, has accused us of hoarding them because we didn’t drag them out every Thanksgiving and Christmas so that we could look at them “as a family.” Now he wants to look at them, divvy them up, and do so at a high school reunion in July. Even though we would have to impose on a relative for a venue. Even though Lynda was thinking she didn’t particularly want to go to the reunion. And actually, the demand to go through the photos included the 5,000 from the other side of the family. It is physically impossible. Reunions are times to see friends, swap stories, share meals. How will it be possible to sort through these photos and make decisions on their final resting place on a reunion weekend, even if you layover a couple of extra days? You can’t; it’s impossible. And some day, we’ll have to do the same with all the photos we took over the years.

So we are going through them. Album by album, box by box, folder by folder. After three weeks, we can see a little light at the end of the tunnel on the 3,000 (estimated) from the dad’s side, and have made some progress, at least to the point of knowing what we have, on the mom’s side. Duplicates have been identified and those we want removed from the overall collection as keepers. The albums have been checked and are currently being re-checked. Four other albums have been consolidated into two and are ready for re-checking. We are very close to boxing the non-keepers and shipping them to this family member with a note saying, “We’re so done with these; keep what you want, destroy the rest.” The other 5,000 will hopefully follow in about two more weeks.

Yes, destroy them. Our kids won’t want them. We don’t know anyone else’s kids that want them or even want to see them.

What was meant to be a blessing, and what served as a blessing to three or four generations and maybe 100 people, are now a burden. Let them die a peaceful death.

America, book reviews, History, memories

Book Review: The Yellowstone Story

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Volume 1 went from boring to overbearing, but managed to get the story across.

It was probably in 2008, during our last trip to Yellowstone National Park, that I dropped in a bookstore outside the park and bought two books, The Yellowstone Story, Volumes 1 and 2. I read the first chapter of Volume 1 right away, got busy with other things, and set it aside. When we got home I picked it up again, read the next four chapters, and laid it aside, wondering if I’d wasted my money.

You see, the first five chapters were, to the best of my recollection, boring. They were about the years before the creation of the park, and were essentially: This party came to Yellowstone from this direction, saw this and that, and left by that direction. Chapter after chapter. No wonder I put it down.

But several months ago, I was in The Dungeon, looking for things to get rid of, and my eyes landed on a short stack of books that had been damaged by water maybe fifteen years ago. I figured I would read these (if the water hadn’t rendered them unreadable), then sell or donate them. One was The Potter’s Wheel—it was very readable. Another was Christ and the Inheritance of the Saints—it was more badly damaged and deteriorated by age, and unreadable. Two others were the two volumes of The Yellowstone Story.

Volume 1 is lightly damaged, whereas Vol 2 severely damaged. Remembering how boring Vol 1 was at the start, I still decided to read it so that I could discard it. So after finishing What If Jesus Was Serious, I opened Vol 1 to chapter 6, about 1/3 into the 326 page book, and began reading. It was the story of the formation of the park. And the story was quite interesting—for a while.

As the story of the early years of the park unfolded, the book bombards the reader with names of people and places. I found keeping them straight was impossible. Buckskin Jim, Yellowstone John. Bill the Hunter. Whatever they were, they all ran together very quickly.

If you could get through the names, the story was good enough. This was the USA’s first national park, and no one really knew how it should be run. Local folks from nearby Montana and Wyoming began poaching game and stealing timber. The railroads fought over which one could run a spur into the park. Visitors had poor accommodations and brought bad reports home. But somehow, the park survived the encroachments and ineffective leaders.

Volume 1 ended with the ending of civilian leadership, around 1885, thirteen years after the park was formed. Volume 2 must start with the first government leaders. I finished Vol 1 yesterday, but will hold off on Vol 2 (if it is sufficiently readable) a couple of weeks while family things are front and center. Vol 1 was extremely well researched, with numerous endnotes making reference to park records, letters, newspapers, Congressional and Territorial records. I started reading them but quickly gave up as being too time consuming. The book is truly written on a scholarly level. It is far from the typical souvenir book you buy at tourist sites.

So how do I rate this book, will I ever read it again, and what do I do with it? Despite the boredom of the early chapters and name bombardment from cover to cover, I give it 4-stars. I don’t think I will ever read it again, unless I read some in the early chapters to see if my seventeen-year-old judgement is the same. I’ll hang on to it until I get past however much of Vol 2 I can read, then I will dispose of them in whatever way seems best.

book reviews, History

More On The Bounty Trilogy: It’s A Lie

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1790 depiction of the Bounty’s launch being cast off with Bligh and those loyal to him.

As I said in my last post, I really enjoyed reading The Bounty Trilogy, especially reading it as I did, switching between the three volumes to get the story chronologically. I liked the way the story in Volume 1, Mutiny On The Bounty, agreed with my memories of seeing the 1962 movie and the comic book (graphic novel) I had. That book followed the story of Roger Byam, an upper class Brit who shipped on the Bounty for the purpose of putting together a grammar/dictionary of the Tahitian language.

Byam took no part in the mutiny, but did not leave the ship with Captain Bligh due to the Bounty‘s launch being overloaded. He was one of a dozen or so non-mutineers who went back to Tahiti on the ship and were left there when the Bounty sailed on in search of a hiding place. Byam and the others were captured a couple of years later when the Brits sent a ship to hunt down the mutineers. He faced a court martial and was found guilty, in part due to a certain sailor’s absence, a sailor who had witnessed a conversation that worked against his defense. That witnessed finally arrived back in Britain, testified on Byam’s behalf, and the conviction was reversed.

I enjoyed the book so much I wanted to read more. I went first to Wikipedia and read there, but I still wanted more. One problem with the Wikipedia article is that Byam was not listed as being part of the ship’s crew. I searched some more and found several items at JStor, a site I’ve registered at to have access to scholarly articles. The first article I read was “Nordhoff and Hall’s Mutiny on the Bounty: A Piece of Colonial Historical Fiction”. Charles Nordhoff
and James Norman Hall wrote The Bounty Trilogy. The article was written by Sylvie Largeaud-Ortega, of the University of French Polynesia. It’s not really an article, but rather a chapter in a 2018 book titled The Bounty from the Beach: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Essays. Here’s what I learned from reading that:

It’s all a lie! The one book Mutiny on the Bounty can barely be considered historical fiction, and it certainly isn’t history. The point-of-view character, Byam, is fictional. No such man shipped on the Bounty, there was no linguistic mission on the voyage. The book, alleged to have been taken from Byam’s recollection, had no such recollection to draw from.

Oh, I am so angry about this! Ms Largeaud-Ortega has destroyed, for me, a 60 year-old memory and ruined a recent pleasurable read. I’ll have more to say about her article/chapter in my next post.

I suppose I should have known that it’s likely that a novel, and a movie made from the novel, might not be faithful to history, but in my interaction with Bounty dramatization it never occurred. And now I’m disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed reading the book and I’m not sorry I devoted the time to it. The movie was good. The old graphic novel was good. But, man, I sure was taken in thinking it was history.

book reviews, History

Book Review: The Bounty Trilogy

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I’m really glad I found this on the shelf of legacy books of my family.

Many years ago I saw the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard. Young as I was at the time, I thought it was a great movie. I remember that I also had a comic book (a graphic novel?) of the Bounty story. But it followed a different story with a different end. I have good memories of both the movie and the comic book, remembering details of what the characters did and what happened to them.

On our living room bookshelf was a book The Bounty Trilogy, containing three novels in one book. I knew it had to be about the Bounty adventure, but didn’t know what it contained. Once I started listing our legacy books for sale, I saw The Bounty Trilogy on the shelf, listed it on Facebook Marketplace, and wished I could read it before it sold. I finished whatever book I was reading sometime last month, and decided, “Why not start it?” At an advertised price of $20, I figured it might not sell quickly. if I could read 10 pages a day, it would take me over two months to finish. I took the book from the sale shelf and started, not being sure whether I hoped it sold or didn’t.

I suppose I’m a sucker for sea exploration stories.

The three novels are

  • Mutiny on the Bounty, covering the Bounty‘s sail from England, landing at Tahiti, start of the return trip, the mutiny, the lives of some of the men who went back to Tahiti, including the capture of some and their court martial in England. It is told from the point of view of Roger Byam, an educated man who sailed for the purpose of putting together a grammar and dictionary of the Tahitian language. This is the POV that was in my graphic novel so many years ago.
  • Men Against the Sea, telling the story of those sailors loyal to Captain Bligh that were put in the Bounty‘s launch to fend for themselves. Rather than land at some nearby island that was inhabited by people hostile to European boats, Blight sailed the open boat 3,600 miles to the island of Timor, where he knew there was a European colony.
  • Pitcairn’s Island. This is where a large number of the mutineers, including Fletcher Christian (2nd in command who led the mutiny), landed to hide out. The island was mis-charted on all British maps. It was almost 20 years before an American boat found them, and another six years before a British ship. By that time all but one of mutineers had died at the hands of others.
5-Stars for this sea story. Multiple points of view were not hard to follow.

The mutiny took place on pages 98-112 of the book. I reached that point after about eight days of reading. The cast of characters split into two points of view: the mutineers and a few loyal men sailing east in the Bounty’s launch sailing west. I decided to read the two POVs simultaneously. That was easy enough, as the open launch reached Timor a couple months, and the Bounty’s contingent reached Tahiti in a similar time frame. It was only a month before those people split up, some remaining on Tahiti and taking their chance that no British ship would visit there soon, and some sailing in the Bounty in search of an isolated place to hide. At that point, I began reading in three places in the volume. That got somewhat complicated, but I think I was able to keep the three POVs straight and chronological.

The book included a few color plates.

The book was exceedingly well written. Maybe I’m a sucker for sea exploration, but I devoured this book, finishing it in less than a month. I found the story of Byam’s life faithful to the comic book. Every detail I remembered from all those years ago were in the first book, do that pleased me. Except they talked a lot more about Byam’s dictionary and grammar than I remembered.

One sad part of the book was the death of Byam’s mother, perhaps brought on by an ugly letter Bligh wrote her. She died while Byam was enroute to England to face a court martial.

Toward the end, I was reading at the rate of 50 pages a day. It’s been a long time since I’ve found a book interesting enough to devote this much time to reading. I give the book 5-stars. But is it a keeper? Alas, no. I’ll keep it listed for sale. I hope it goes to someone who really wants to read it.

But, having said all of this, look for my next post, which is a follow-up to this, telling more that I’ve learned.

Bible study, Documenting America, History, letters, poetry

A Quiet Week?

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Initial sales of Run Up To Revolution are not bad. That’s not bad for me. Which means next to nothing as opposed to nothing.

Last week was busy. Two medical tests. Three doctor appointments. Two writer meetings. Plus a private meeting with a writer in one group. All of these appointments save one were in Rogers, a twenty mile drive each way. A couple of appointments I was able to have somewhat close together, but with some “layover” time between them. I had time to spend in Barnes and Noble and the Rogers Library.

I did almost no writing last week. Instead, I worked on the two special projects I have going on. That took up much of my time, but I made major progress on both the letters transcription and the critiques scanning and saving. I can see light at the end of both of those tunnels.

But on Friday I did some editing of A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 8. Just the first chapter, through Word’s text-to-speech function. After having left this alone for a while, it felt good to be back at it. I’d like to edit a chapter a day using this word processor feature. That would have me finishing the editing pass during the first few days of May.

Then, what? I’ll either have finished of just be finishing my two special projects at that time. It will be the start of another busy time, something I’ll explain later. My plan has been to start on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week, hoping to finish it (first draft) in about ten weeks. That would be followed by editing and publishing Vol 2 and moving on to Vol. 3. Completing Vol 3 will let me move ahead with publishing all eight volumes.

But I’ve started to brainstorm what to do with the Documenting America series. This is my highest selling series (can’t say best-selling, because it’s not even close to that level). Perhaps it makes sense to write the next book in that series.

But what will it be? I had intended to write next about the abolition movement in America—something I’ve read some on, but which I’d like to know much more about. I have plenty of documents available to read, but I believe I’ll have to find more than I have to make a full book.

Lately, however, I’ve been reading in Thomas Paine’s writing. I already read Common Sense, which is about the American Revolution. A couple if shorter writings dealt with America under the Articles of Confederation. I’ve now moved into his Rights Of Man. To my surprise, the first twenty pages are all about Paine’s thoughts on the French Revolution and his countering the arguments of Edmund Burke. It’s not, so far, a treatise on the rights of man.

But this got me to thinking. Maybe the next volume I write in this series should be on the government of the colonies before the adopting of the Constitution. This was the time of the chaos of the Articles of Confederation, which defined our government during the Revolution and the six years after it. I have some sources for this period, though I think that, just as with abolition, I would have to find others.

Which would be better? Abolition captures my interest, but the Articles of Confederation, what I’m tempted to call the First American Government, seems to be something that has been written about much written about it. If I can find enough source material, it might be something that will stand out and will be more interesting than writing about the Revolution.

If I stick with my writing plans, I won’t wrote the next DA book until sometime in 2025. But that means I should start now to identify and start reading sources. I know that for Abolition I will have plenty of sources to choose from, but I’m not sure that will be he case for the Articles.  So I think some of my work this week, if the time materializes, if to start listing sources for both of these.

Why both?  Because whichever of these is next, the other will be after that, Therefore none of my research and reading will be lost. It might just be delayed for writing a book.

American Colonial History, Documenting America, History

The Slavery Blind Spot

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I love studying history and learning things they never taught in history class.

In my U.S. history studies, I discovered James Otis Jr. and his writings early in the growing dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies. In his The Rights of British of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved in 1764, he wrote this.

That the colonists, black and white, born here, are free born British subjects, and entitled to all the essential civil rights of such, is a truth not only manifest from the provincial charters, from the principles of the common law, and acts of parliament; but from the British constitution, which was reestablished at the revolution [of 1688], with a professed design to lecture the liberties of all the subjects to all generations.

Well, so far so good. Rights are for both blacks and whites. Otis was far, far ahead of most leaders in the colonies in being against slavery,  in believing whites and blacks had the same rights. I’m not 100 percent sure he meant this for all blacks as opposed to free blacks, but he definitely was against slavery.

But Otis also exhibited what I call a colonial blind spot concerning slavery, for he also wrote this:

We all think ourselves happy under Great Britain. We love, esteem and reverence our mother country, and adore our King. And could the choice of independency be offered the colonies, or subjection to Great Britain upon any terms above absolute slavery, I am convinced they would accept the latter.

Per Otis, Great Britain could do almost anything to the colonies in the way of short of “absolute slavery” and the colonies would stay with Britain. But he falls into the trap of equating lack of representation in Parliament with slavery. Here’s how I explained it in Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution:

But I think Otis, to some extent, falls into a trap so many of the Founders did when he wrote that the colonists would be willing to accept more British control “upon any terms above absolute slavery.” I find this echoed in the writings of many of the Founders. Taxation without representation equals slavery is a common theme. They go on to say, We won’t be slaves, and a revolution resulted. They are essentially saying, Slavery is a bad thing. Yet many saying that owned slaves and treated them like a commodity, to be used up until they died then buy some more.

If you carry the logic out, were they not saying, Slavery is acceptable for Africans but not for Europeans. Or, Slavery is acceptable for people with black skin but not for those with white? Why was it not acceptable for whites? Because it was evil. So they were really admitting, We will treat black-skinned people in an evil manner, but we will not let others treat us white people that way. Yes, it was racism.

Fortunately, we have come a long way since then. We don’t think that government oppression, however we might define that, is slavery. No, slavery—especially the race-based slavery of the 1700s—was something much, much worse. Those that hated what Parliament was doing and said it made them slaves, didn’t understand what slavery really was.

So the way the leaders in America brought forth the arguments that led to the American Revolution were blind as far as slavery went. Surprise, surprise.