The 1979 takeover of the Grand Mosque of Mecca by Muslim extremists launched the era of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism across the Middle East and beyond. The Grand Mosque seizure lives in the shadow of that year’s Iranian Revolution, but its legacy and that of the Iranian Revolution are intertwined. The Grand Mosque seizure ushered in a simultaneous era of Sunni extremism, and the Iranian Revolution heralded an era of Shiite extremist terrorism. The two keep fueling each other. It also underscores the problems Middle Eastern society faces, namely, the shock of rapid social change, prompted primarily by the region’s oil wealth, in such a short time. The Grand Mosque seizure was, in many ways, an ultra-conservative reaction to rapid social changes that had occurred during the previous decades. It also reflected anger over the disparity between those who reaped the rewards of newfound wealth. Any susceptible human can be influenced by causes that appeal to pre-existing beliefs. A certain Saudi man, who would become the world’s infamous terrorist, lived near Mecca in 1979 and would describe the perpetrators in a favorable light.

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The Amazon River and Rainforest get their names from an encounter between a group of conquistadors and a warband, seemingly led by women, as they sailed down the river. The expedition’s account was widely circulated at the time; comparisons to the classic epic Odyssey were made, no doubt helped by the encounter with the warrior women. Yet the expedition and its leader, Francisco Orellana, faded quickly from historical memory. There are several reasons for this. One is that, like many other topics we’ve discussed, it took place in the shadow of the Spanish conquest of Peru. Unlike the ventures of Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro, it was not followed by colonial rule over the places it explored. Orellana died in a catastrophic second Amazon exploration attempt. Had he survived or succeeded in his second attempt, the region might have been called the Orellana River and the Orellana Rainforest. What’s most significant about the Amazon Odyssey, a term I invented, is that it provides our only insight into the (almost) pre-Columbian “Amazonian” peoples. They were far from primitive, just very different, almost unique. Like their Inca counterparts, the native peoples of the Amazon River did not have a written language or money, but they did have sophisticated agriculture, ceramics, and woodworking, etc. Unfortunately, we know so little about them compared to the Aztecs or the Incas, largely because archaeology is particularly difficult in the Amazon. Archaeology can be environmentally unfriendly, and in the rainforest, nature does a particularly good job of “removing” traces of human habitation. This essay highlights the expedition and dispels many traditional or romantic misconceptions about “noble savages” who inhabited the Amazon.1 They were human, with all the virtues and flaws of humans everywhere else.

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From 1260 to 1277, Egypt and Syria were ruled by a man known as Baybars Al-Bunduqdari. The life of Baybars (sometimes spelled Baibars) is nothing short of extraordinary. He rose from a slave of Eurasian origin to become ruler of Egypt and Syria. Baybars successfully reconquered almost all the remaining Crusader states in the Levant but, more importantly, he defended Egypt and Syria, among the last epicenters of Islamic civilization, against Mongol invasions. Yet in historical memory, Baybars lives in the shadow of the far more famous Saladin, even though ultimately it was Baybars and the Mamluk warrior class who did more than anyone else to secure the region for Islamic civilization. Part of the reason Baybars and the Mamluks are largely overlooked in historical memory is that they were not of Arab origin, thus not an icon for Arab nationalism. Also, there was no equivalent of Richard the Lionheart who opposed Baybars. Perhaps most of all, the Mamluks were slave soldiers. It’s hard for the modern mindset to understand the logic of arming slaves, let alone slaves becoming something analogous to Medieval knights or Japanese samurai!

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“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” – Mark Twain

In 91 BC, the Roman Republic faced an organized revolt by Rome’s Italian allies, which threatened its hegemony over Italy. This conflict, subsequently known as the Social War, was perhaps one of the most bizarre conflicts in human history, for if Roman historiography is to be believed, the Italians or socii rose not to break Rome’s hegemony over Italy but to become Roman citizens. Even more bizarre is that ultimately, the Roman Republic “won” the war by giving its enemies what they wanted: Roman citizenship. Italy was under Roman hegemony for almost 200 years by that point. Why did the Italians suddenly demand Roman citizenship, and why wasn’t it done sooner? The answers to both are analogous to many of the issues we face today: outdated political processes, shifting dynamics, partisan politics, nativist demagoguery, high stakes of holding office, and a trend toward exclusivity over inclusivity. Ultimately, giving the Italians Roman citizenship opened a brand-new problem: how to integrate them into the political process, something that Rome’s city-state constitution was completely unsuited for. This was probably both the root cause of the social war and the cause of the Republic’s demise less than a century later.

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The history of Sparta is reminiscent of a Greek tragedy: a state that rose from humble beginnings to a world-spanning empire and won the civilized world’s respect, only to fall so shambolically into obscurity that it became irrelevant to the world at large. Sparta’s fall from grace lives in the shadow of the Peloponnesian Wars and the subsequent rise of Alexander the Great. At the same time, Spartan society seems to capture the modern imagination, such as the last stand at Thermopylae. Those who romanticize or idealize historic societies like Sparta tend to ignore its failures and, if they gain power, repeat them. Sparta is a lesson in how a society and system of government that cannot adapt to changing circumstances is doomed to fail. It also shows how xenophobia, exclusivity, mindless conservatism, and ultra-specialization are short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive.

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Charles Darwin is the world’s most famous scientist for his discovery of evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s landmark voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836 is perhaps history’s most influential scientific expedition. However, it’s likely that Darwin already disbelieved the old Aristotelian/Biblical notion that species remained fixed even before he set sail on the Beagle. Darwin was influenced by the work of other men as much as his own: his writings frequently cite the works, observations, and findings of other men, who contributed heavily to modern science. Modern science is built not on the achievements of individual scientists but on the achievements of many. The work of French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, French scholar Georges Cuvier, Scottish geologist James Hutton, Swiss botanist Augustin de Candolle, Scottish geologist Charles Lyell, and Welsh naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace laid the groundwork for Darwin’s theory of evolution in different and important ways.

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The structure most closely associated with China is the so-called Great Wall of China. The wall, arguably, first came to the attention of European visitors in 1792, when a British trade delegation led by Lord George Macartney visited China. The Qianlong Emperor was not in Beijing at the time but at a hunting lodge at Chengde, north of the city, so the delegation traveled there; their route crossed the Gubeikou pass, where they saw a section of the wall. Macartney and his entourage were fascinated by it. Hadrian’s Wall was the closest comparison in their experience. Therefore, by that logic, they assumed that the empire that built it must have been a great ancient civilization comparable to ancient Rome. Thus, the myth of a 2,000-year-old Great Wall of China built by the first emperor Qin Shi Huang was born. The reality is that the wall they saw and the wall we see today was built in the 1560s by the Ming Dynasty. Had Macartney known the true circumstances behind the walls’ existence, he most likely would not have concluded that it was “built by a wise, virtuous empire.” Macartney also wrote that the mandarins (government officials) who escorted him seemed “uncomfortable” with his curiosity.1 The mandarins probably knew the true story of the Great Wall, and it was not something they were proud of. This essay will cover both the Great Wall’s true origins as well as the circumstances that created the myth of a 2,000-year-old wall, which is just as interesting.

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In 1523, a lone German merchant banker named Jakob Fugger wrote a letter to Charles V of Spain, Austria, and Germany to “request” that Charles order the suspension of a legal case against him. In the letter, Fugger reminded Charles of his inability to pay his debts and reminded the King/Emperor that it was Fugger money that made him Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a position that Charles V’s family, the Habsburgs, would hold until 1812. Fugger was not exaggerating that his money was instrumental in securing Charles election as Holy Roman Emperor; nonetheless, addressing the most powerful man in Europe in such a manner was dangerously close to fatally disrespectful, especially for a commoner. Emperor Charles could have used the case against Fugger as a pretext to void his own debt to Fugger, but instead, he complied. Fugger was nothing if not shrewd. He also had decades of experience doing business with powerful aristocrats. He must have known that he was indispensable to the young Holy Roman Emperor: by unspoken agreement, if a monarch could not pay his debts in money, he would have to repay them in other ways, such as favors. The relationship between Fugger and Charles marks a relative departure from medieval values, in which a person’s importance in society was determined by birth, to one in which wealth determined his place–in other words, a more capitalist society. Fugger’s life also illustrates the ongoing struggle between the haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor, the individual and the common good.

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In 1430, Joan of Arc dictated a letter to the Hussite Movement in Bohemia, threatening to join a crusade against them if they did not return to Orthodoxy. It is unlikely this letter ever reached Bohemia or that it would have made any difference. Who were these Hussites? And why did they garner the attention of Joan of Arc to briefly distract her from the ongoing conflict with England? Why is it so little known outside Eastern Europe? One reason is the fame of the so called 100 years’ war and Joan of Arc. Another reason is that the Habsburg Counter-Reformation of the 17^th century sought to suppress Protestantism and Bohemian nationalism. A century before the Protestant Reformation, a similar moment had emerged in Bohemia in response to the Church’s corrupt practices. It was named after the Czech reformer Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake. Perhaps the most remarkable figure of the Hussite wars is Jan Zizka, undoubtedly one of the most innovative and successful military leaders in the European Middle Ages. The memory of Hus, Zizka, and the Hussites has been suppressed for centuries for political reasons. Also, like most topics covered so far, it is overshadowed by more famous contemporary historical events, yet it is just as fascinating and significant, if not more so.

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Every American schoolchild knows the name Christopher Columbus—the man who first discovered “America.” Strictly speaking, Columbus discovered several Caribbean islands and possibly modern-day Venezuela. He never laid eyes on North America. Another explorer, working for the English crown, named John Cabot discovered North America. Cabot was a contemporary of Columbus, which is one reason why posterity has largely overlooked him. The two men were aware of each other’s existence and may have known each other. John Cabot’s discovery of North America set the stage for England’s eventual colonization of North America and, by extension, the creation of the United States of America. Unfortunately, there are no surviving firsthand accounts of Cabot’s voyages, and even second-hand accounts are rare. The most thorough known research on Cabot was posthumously destroyed before it was published when the researcher passed away. Moreover, in addition to Columbus, European politics overshadowed Cabot’s voyages.

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Few people today, especially in the English-speaking world, are unfamiliar with the Spanish Armada of 1588. Yet very few have ever heard of the “English Armada” of 1589. Like many other topics covered so far, the English Armada lives in the shadow of more famous historical events, specifically the Spanish Armada. The English Armada, to be precise, was an attempted counter-invasion launched by England against Spain and Portugal in 1589. It was a disaster that, in some ways, surpassed the disaster of the Spanish Armada, which helps explain why, despite the Spanish Armada’s defeat, Spain and Portugal retained their overseas possessions. For the next 200 years, England’s overseas Empire remained mild compared to those of Spain and Portugal. The efforts by the English court to conceal the English Armada disaster are one of the most successful propaganda cover-ups in history, as evidenced by the fact that the English Armada is largely forgotten today. The hush up of the English Armada, by extension, buried the ignominy of its commanders, one celebrated Englishman of his time, Francis Drake.

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Henry VIII is England’s most famous monarch. What is not well known is that his father and predecessor, Henry VII, may have had a greater influence on Henry VIII than any other person. Henry VII is best known for the character of the Earl of Richmond, depicted in Shakespeare’s Richard III and Henry VI. Though Henry VII has long been overshadowed by his more famous son, Henry VIII, and granddaughter, Elizabeth I, he was a highly accomplished King in his own right. Henry VII set a relatively successful model of Kingship that his son would fail to emulate. Henry VII wisely kept England out of fruitless continental conflicts. Instead, he focused on filling his coffers, cultivating the economy, and building a navy–a policy that Elizabeth I successfully enacted for much of her reign. At the time of his death in 1509, Henry VII left his son with a full treasury, but Henry VIII squandered it all in a series of fruitless wars during his 38-year reign. Henry VIII ultimately took after his maternal grandfather Edward IV: a man whose reign was as fascinating and controversial as that of his grandson. This essay will cover the little-known background of the men who posthumously influenced both England’s most famous King and the world's most famous playwright, William Shakespeare.

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The two Congo wars of the 1990s live in the shadow of the Rwandan Genocide and the Yugoslav Wars. Yet the Congo wars have resulted in more deaths and atrocities than in Rwanda or Yugoslavia. Altogether, the two Congo wars (three if you count the ongoing conflicts in Eastern Congo) amount to the third bloodiest conflicts since WWII. The events of the Congo wars foreshadow many similar endless conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. America and the West have a very troubled track record with interventions, but the Congo wars were primarily African interventions and were no more successful. In some ways African statesmen act with a mentality akin to that of European colonialists. The legacy of racism born from slavery lives on in subtle ways. The story of the Congo is one of constant pillage by almost everyone, from its politicians, its neighbors, great powers, and individual businessmen seeking profit. The DRC remains mired in conflict and corruption. Perhaps the lesson here is that greed and opportunism are universal, and if left unchecked by state institutions, the results are catastrophic. It can happen anywhere. 

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The Vikings have captured a significant place in popular culture, much like the Buccaneers of the Caribbean. The most successful Viking, Cnut, who conquered modern-day England, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in the 11^th century, is known primarily for the apocryphal story of failing to turn back the tides. Like many other topics covered so far, more famous historical events, such as the Norman conquest of England, overshadow Cnut’s reign. Nonetheless, Cnut played an instrumental role in the history of England, Scandinavia, and possibly the world. Cnut was not the stereotype of a “Viking.” He was not a “raider” but a conqueror and empire builder with a vision that would secure a future for his people. Cnut’s life reveals that there is much more to the Vikings (or Norse, as the inhabitants of Scandinavia presumably called themselves) than the barbarian raiders often depicted in popular culture. The legacy of Cnut, like the legacy of the Norse, lives on in many ways. Cnut’s role in the introduction of the written Norse language ensured that Norse mythology and poetry would survive, and his focus on developing trade, currency, and urbanization set a precedent for both English and  Scandinavian civilizations. Due to his early death, Cnut’s reign is perhaps the most overlooked “what ifs” of history. 

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The year 476 C.E. is traditionally regarded as the year the Roman Empire fell, when a Germanic warlord deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Yet 60 years later, in the year 536, another Army that considered itself “Roman” reached the gates of Rome to reclaim it in the name of the “Roman” Empire. They were led by a General named Belisarius, a military genius who almost reconquered the Western Roman Empire. Belisarius won many victories against the odds, but in the end he could not restore the Roman Empire in large part due to factors beyond his control. Generals, politicians, and the general public must all deal with factors that are beyond our control. How well we can deal with factors beyond our control is a measure of our ability. Belisarius dealt with the unexpected/beyond his control as well as anyone possibly could. 

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Sugar, specifically table sugar, is a term we associate with unhealthy foods. Nonetheless, no cuisine anywhere in the world today has not been influenced by sugar to varying degrees. Sugar played an essential role in the colonization and development of the Americas, and the globalization of the world economy was partly fueled by global demand for sugar. Sugar changed economics, cuisines, and cultures worldwide, in both good and bad ways. The “bad” things have less to do with human health. The labor-intensive sugar industry led to the Atlantic slave trade and the unimaginable cruelties associated with it. However, perhaps the most sinister legacy of the sugar industry is how, in some ways, it helped create the idea of white supremacy. Slavery and the cruelties associated with it are one of humanity's oldest practices. What sets the transatlantic slave trade apart from most forms of slavery throughout history is that it was (almost) exclusively focused on people of color. The idea of racial superiority based on skin color is arguably a relatively recent idea that emerged in part to rationalize the exclusive enslavement of Africans, the majority of whom were shipped to the West Indies and Brazil to work in the sugar industry in inhuman conditions. 

The Chemistry of Sugarcane Sugar

Sugar, or sucrose in general, is a carbohydrate chemical. The two types of sugars, glucose and fructose, are vital to all living things because they are the primary means for organic life forms to generate energy. Plants create glucose via photosynthesis. Herbivores get their glucose from plants, and carnivores from the herbivores they consume. Humans belong to a clade of mammals that get glucose from grass plants such as wheat, corn, and rice. The high concentration of glucose in milk originates from grass plants (including wheat and corn). The high glucose concentration in milk is why it is essential for infants, and the popularity of dairy products like cheese and butter, which are derived from the milk of domesticated grass-fed animals, such as cows. The ability to digest milk after infancy is a relatively recent adaptation in evolutionary terms, so some are “lactose intolerant,” meaning that they lose the ability to digest milk after infancy, like most mammals. The sweet taste commonly associated with sugarcane comes primarily from the fructose carbohydrate. Fructose is also produced via photosynthesis, but it is “structured” differently from glucose, making it last much longer, though harder for the body to digest. Fructose gets its name because it's primarily found in fruits and the nectar of fruit-producing plants. Plants primarily use fructose to attract pollinating insects like bees, which feed on plant nectar and/or attract animals that spread the plant seeds in fruit via excretion. The long “lifespan” of fructose inside the body probably compensates for the additional “effort” to turn it into energy. Furthermore, fruits, vegetables, and honey (produced by bees fermenting fructose-rich plant nectar) also provide the body with vitamins, minerals, and fiber that it needs, and again, the fructose helps preserve these nutrients as well. So, ultimately, fructose is also essential to human health.

For simplicity's sake, I will use the term “sugar” to refer to the sugar from sugarcane.  Sugar beets were not cultivated until the 19^th century, so this essay will primarily examine sugarcane. The features that make the sugars from sugarcane (and sugar beets) so popular also make them unhealthy. Sugarcane (and sugar beet sugar) is unique because it contains high concentrations of both Glucose and Fructose, which gives it a particularly delightful taste. In its “natural” form, sugar is brown; white sugar, commonly used in confectionery, gets its white color because almost all the non-fructose parts of it have been removed through refining, which increases the sweet taste while reducing its nutritional value and making it harder to digest. In addition, the stickiness of sugar, which adds to its value as a confectionery, also makes it likely to stick to the teeth, hence its modern-day association with poor dental hygiene. None of that would be discovered until the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, when the consumption of sugar confectionery became widely available and science had advanced enough to recognize the potential health risks associated with sugar. Nonetheless, when sugar is consumed in moderate amounts, combined with a healthy diet, exercise, and hygiene, it does not cause serious health issues. 

The Origins of the Sugar Trade

Sugarcane is a domesticated type of grass, distantly related to bamboo. Wild sugarcane is believed to be indigenous to the island of New Guinea. Many popular spices, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and tea, originate from domesticated plants indigenous to the Southeast Asian islands of modern-day Malaysia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. The tropical climate, combined with millions of years of geographic isolation, likely created conditions for plants of the region to take a somewhat different evolutionary path from those on the mainland. Traders from India probably brought the sugarcane plant and other spices from the Southeast Asian islands sometime between 500 and 100 B.C, where it was first cultivated and refined into crystalline sugar. At some point before or after the rise of Islam in the 700s, sugar began to be cultivated in modern-day Iran and Iraq. Sugar was cultivated in limited amounts throughout the Mediterranean in the 1300s, but the Mediterranean environment is unsuitable for large-scale production.

Demand for sugar and other “spices” is one of the factors that prompted Christopher Columbus's expeditions. Columbus had failed to find any spices or other valuables during his first voyage (1492-1493). On his second voyage, he brought some sugarcane seeds (1493–1496) to extract some profit from the newly established Spanish colony on Hispaniola. The Caribbean's tropical climate, rainfall, and volcanic soil were ideal for growing sugar. By the 1500s, sugar mills had spread throughout the Caribbean. The Portuguese started to cultivate sugar in Brazil. The profits from sugar production attracted the attention of the British, French, and Dutch, who fought the Spanish for control over the Caribbean islands throughout the late 16^th and 17^th centuries. Sugar became a prize as sought after as gold, often called “white gold.” The Caribbean pirates, so popular in legend, often targeted sugar and rum (a liquor derived from sugar), which was a more accessible prize than the gold or silver from the heavily armed Spanish treasure fleets. It was also very easy to sell. 

History often overlooks the importance of Caribbean sugar in favor of the colonization of North America that took place around the same period, yet without Caribbean sugar, there may not have been a colonization of North America in the first place. North America is not rich in gold, silver, “spices” or other commodities that Europeans craved, except for tobacco and furs. The explosion of the sugar industry in British-ruled Jamaica, French-ruled Saint Dominic (Haiti), and Dutch-ruled Barbados fueled the demand for iron, timber, food, and other goods needed to refine sugar. North America provided a vast and much closer source of raw materials than Europe. Not coincidentally, the first European settlers in North America were from England, the Netherlands, and France, the same powers that controlled the main sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean. The labor-intensive process for growing and refining sugar combined with the demand for sugar worldwide also led to an explosion of the slave trade, which resulted in unimaginable suffering. 

The Explosive Demand for Sugar

Coffee beans are indigenous to the Horn of Africa and are one of the world’s earliest beverages. Coffee is arguably the most popular drink today. Yet coffee was never popular outside the Horn of Africa or Arabia until the 1500s, despite being located along the maritime trade route between Egypt and India, which dominated the spice trade since antiquity. Coffee in its original form tasted somewhat bitter (a taste that coffee cultivators have now eliminated). Coffee increased in popularity as sugar began to be cultivated in the region. In the Arabian Peninsula, it became immensely popular with sugar and occasionally milk, which diluted the otherwise bitter taste. Coffee also circumvented the traditional (though rarely enforced) Islamic ban on alcohol consumption. The satisfying (and addictive) caffeine in coffee allowed drinkers to remain sober and alert, a convenient benefit. The word Coffee is a Turkish word for both the coffee bean and the coffee “houses” that served it. The coffee houses that initially emerged on the Arabian Peninsula were the first cafés where people could enjoy a beverage and remain sober, to think or discuss. Coffee houses started to appear in Turkish-ruled parts of the eastern Mediterranean during the 1600s, when sugar was being cultivated in increasing amounts. Coffee houses appeared in Europe in the late 1600s when sugar and coffee production in the Americas reached their zenith. 

Chocolate comes from the cocoa plant seed which is indigenous to Central America and was a popular beverage in Mesoamerica. Spanish traders and conquistadors brought chocolate to Europe. Chocolate comes from the fermentation of the cocoa plant seeds. In its original form, chocolate tastes bitter, but mixing it with sugar and other “spices” eliminates the bitter taste. Chocolate mixed with sugar was a popular delicacy for the European aristocracy in the 1600s. Chocolate consumption was limited because the harvesting and fermenting process was long and expensive, so only the rich and powerful could afford it. Setting aside specifics like coffee and chocolate, sugar can be added to almost anything. Europeans also acquired a taste for tea when sugar was added to it. The European coffee houses usually served coffee and tea, which required adding sugar to make it drinkable. Some of the more expensive coffee houses served chocolate. Solid chocolate was invented by an English confectioner in 1847; until then, chocolate was only consumed in liquid form. Today, chocolate is the world’s most popular confectionery.

Sugar can also sweeten fruits, meats, jams, sauces, and more. Consuming sugar products became synonymous with having a high social status in Europe and elsewhere. Until the 19th century, for the common person, the primary source of sugar was the alcoholic beverage rum. Rum is produced by fermenting molasses, a byproduct of crystalline sugar fermentation. Rum may have been fermented in limited quantities wherever sugar was cultivated. Still, it wasn’t until the 1600s, when sugar was cultivated on an unprecedented scale in the Caribbean, that rum production became widespread. Rum from the Caribbean gained significant popularity in colonial North America and Europe. Rum lasts longer than any other alcoholic beverage, contributing to its popularity among sailors on long sea voyages. Rum can also dull physical pain somewhat, making it popular among medical communities. Sugar and rum from the Caribbean were exported as far away as India, China, and Japan. Sugar almost became a universal medium of exchange because it was easy to transport and sell.

The Racism that Emerged from Sugar Industry Slavery

The enormous profits from sugar led to a surge in demand for labor in the Caribbean islands where it is produced. Sugar is a very labor-intensive crop. There were never enough European settlers to fill the labor demand, and Native American populations were susceptible to European diseases like smallpox. Countless warring African tribes, warlords, and kingdoms were willing to trade their captured enemies to European slave traders. The shipping of enslaved people became a highly profitable industry, albeit a risky one as well. The distance between Africa and the Caribbean meant the journey took at least three months. Conditions on very crowded slave ships were inhumane, the term “unhealthy” would be an understatement. Slaves were packed like sardines in a stifling hold. It was said that the stench of a slave ship could be smelled from a mile away! Many slaves died along the way from diseases, violence, or suicide. Unsanitary conditions on slave ships meant that crews were often susceptible to diseases almost as much as their captives. The high risks and rewards of the African slave trade, like the spice trade covered in a previous post, prompted the creation of private shipping companies that were granted monopolies by the governments of Britain, France, and the Netherlands to ship slaves to the Americas. 

Once enslaved peoples reached the Caribbean or Brazilian plantations, conditions got worse. Slaves worked at least 12 hours a day doing backbreaking labor, like cutting sugarcane, carrying manure, and turning the wheels of sugar mills. If slaves became too infirm or weak to work, their owners would usually have them killed. Slaves sometimes collapsed from exhaustion in sugar refineries and fell into piles of boiling sugarcane. And of course, enslaved women were often raped by planters and overseers. In a great many cases, the number of enslaved Africans outnumbered the white slave owners by a wide margin. Slave owners developed all kinds of sadistic forms of punishment to keep their slaves in line and discourage revolt, such as (literally) rubbing salt into the wounds of escaped slaves after whipping them. Revolts happened anyway. Slave revolts were often crushed with merciless savagery by colonial armed forces. The reputed savagery of revolting slaves prompted racial paranoia among slave holders in the Caribbean who ignored their own savagery. The revival of classical learning in the 1600s drew attention to the servile uprisings of Spartacus in ancient Rome. However, this attention overlooked the fact that Spartacus and the majority of his rebelling slaves were white!

Historian Simon Montefiore hypothesizes that the violence associated with slavery in the sugar industry led to the ideology of white supremacy as a means of justifying the cruelty of slavery, not to mention the savagery when putting down slave revolts. I think this theory is sound. Slavery and the cruelties synonymous with it are one of humanity's oldest practices. Almost every ancient society practiced slavery in one form or another. Slavery is usually associated with prisoners of war. The Africans shipped to the Americas were usually taken captive by other African tribes and then sold to European slavers, for example. What sets the Atlantic slave trade apart from most other forms of slavery is the racial component. Slavery may have been widespread, but historically, slaves were usually racially indistinguishable from their owners. Ancient civilizations like ancient Greece and Rome were heavily reliant on slavery, but most of their slaves were white, like their owners. The slaves in ancient Greece and Rome usually came from captured “primitive” European cultures. The Greek word “barbarian,” meaning outsider, was usually used to describe (white) outside peoples in “uncivilized” parts of Europe, so the notion of white supremacy would have been absurd to them. Presumably, where slaves were racially indistinguishable from the rest of society, like in ancient Rome, it would have been easy for freed slaves and their descendants to integrate into society. Black slaves in the Americas were usually denied that opportunity in white majority societies.. 

It would be unfair to place the creation of white supremacy solely on the racially exclusive slavery of the sugar industry. Centuries of religious intolerance and anti-Semitism also played a role in the creation of white supremacy. Columbus set sail for the Americas around the same time that Spain and later Portugal expelled their respective Jewish populations. The Inquisition was founded initially to “investigate” Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism in case they continued to practice in secret. Jews and Muslims at the time were primarily seen as foreign people in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages, a mentality that persisted well into the 19^th century. Anti-Semitism and racial hierarchy found favor with some secular 18^th-century European philosophers like Voltaire and Immanuel Kant (Voltaire denounced slavery but sanctioned anti-Semitism; Kant encouraged both). The idea of racial hierarchy is not a uniquely European phenomenon. Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, who also got most of their slaves from Africa, developed a similar idea about racial hierarchy. Caribbean politician Erick Williams wrote that “Racism did not birth slavery, slavery birthed racism” in his book Slavery and Capitalism. Southern secessionists, like Jefferson Davis, who became wealthy in cotton planting, defended slavery by portraying black people as inferior.

Many factors influenced the creation of white supremacy, from xenophobia (which is universal), religious intolerance/Christian supremacy, anti-Semitism, and age-old notions on the importance of pedigree, but ultimately, perhaps the primary influence was the need to justify the racial exclusivity of the transatlantic slave trade. White supremacy found deep roots in the thirteen British North American colonies, even though slavery there was arguably not as severe as it was in the Caribbean. Of the estimated five million slaves shipped to the Caribbean from Africa between 1500 and 1830, only around 600,000 black people were living in the Caribbean by the time the slave trade started to die out in the 1800s. On the eve of the American Civil War, there were an estimated 3 million enslaved black people, descended from an estimated 200,000 slaves who had been shipped to North America. Despite the arguably less cruel conditions in America, the idea of white supremacy thrived in the wake of the wealth generated by slavery dependent cotton production during the early 1800s. Along with paranoia of slave revolts like those in the Caribbean, conflicts with indigenous peoples contribute to the deep roots of white supremacy in America that continues to haunt us to this day. Also, North American slavery was more effective at erasing African identity than in the Caribbean, where African customs continue to thrive to this day, according to historian David Brion Davis. 

On the Other Hand… 

Though the ideology of white supremacy may have been invented in part by the slave owners, not everyone was taken in. The cruelty of the slave trade helped turn many against the idea of slavery. In 1782, a British captain of the slave ship Zong, after discovering that he had overstocked the amount of slaves, decided to toss around 133 of his captives overboard so he could claim the insurance. Incidents like the Zong, not to mention first-hand accounts from slaves themselves, helped turn public opinion against slavery. Men like Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, joined by others who were horrified by the slave trade, campaigned first to abolish the slave trade and then to abolish slavery in the British Empire. The British abolitionist movement succeeded in abolishing the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1838. England profited enormously from the slave trade, yet became the first country to abolish it and developed the technology that would render slavery obsolete. The British abolitionist movement arguably pioneered the practice of peaceful protest, boycotts, and media campaigns. 

The sugar trade significantly enriched the European middle class, particularly in England. Cities like Liverpool grew very wealthy by importing goods such as sugar and cotton, both of which were harvested by slaves. The wealth also prompted investments in new technologies and manufacturing methods that would culminate in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions rendered slavery obsolete. Greed could also lead to more “humane” practices. For example, by the late 1700s, British planters realized that productivity could be increased by offering rewards and eliminating some of the cruelest forms of punishment. Experienced slaves or slaves born on plantations were more productive than those who just came from Africa, giving (more business-minded) planters an incentive to provide their slaves with more decent living conditions, an example that American slave owners would emulate to a degree. The reduced demand for new slaves in the Caribbean, combined with the development of sugar beets that could be grown in temperate climates like Europe as an alternative source of sugar to sugarcane, helped diminish the power of slave owners in England and ultimately led to the eventual abolition of slavery. However, Spanish and Portuguese colonies continued to trade slaves with Africa, as shown in the movie Amistad, which is based on a true story. The film accurately depicts the horrors of the slave trade, which had been going on for over 200 years by the time the events of the film took place. 

A similar situation developed in America, where cotton was the primary cash crop. Cities like New York and Boston, which had profited from exporting cotton grown by slaves, would also become centers of American industry that would ultimately defeat the forces of the pro-slavery South during the American Civil War. In both cases, almost poetically, the profits from the growth of cash crops like sugar and cotton helped create the forces that ultimately brought it down. Though the American slave industry was arguably less cruel than the Caribbean slave industry, the racism used to justify it was just as bad, not to mention hypocritical. On the eve of the Civil War, Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens unapologetically rejected the principle of “all men are created equal” in defense of slavery by dehumanizing black people. Slavery was incompatible with America's founding principles. Though George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slave owners, Washington posthumously freed his slaves, and Jefferson banned the African slave trade in 1808. They and the majority of their contemporaries predicted that slavery would die out as it became increasingly unproductive. They might have been right if not for the cotton boom that created a profitable incentive to maintain it. States unsuitable for growing cotton abolished slavery without much opposition. 

Brazil was the primary market for African slaves, which made it the largest sugar producer outside of the Caribbean. The Portuguese who colonized Brazil also colonized parts of the African coast, leading to the creation of Angola, which provided a steady supply of slaves to feed the Brazilian sugar plantations.  “No Angola, no Brazil” was an old Brazilian saying. Brazil also cultivated other slave-intensive cash crops, including coffee, tobacco, and cotton. Before the British colonized Jamaica and the French colonized the western half of Hispaniola in the mid-17^th century, Brazil provided most of Europe’s sugar. Brazil's plantation industry helped inspire the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, featuring an English planter based in Brazil who is shipwrecked on a deserted island while on a journey to Africa to obtain slaves. (Modern adaptations of Robinson Crusoe have downplayed the role of slavery in the book. The author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, a former merchant, wrote several other novels that explore themes of slavery. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888. The legacy of slavery in Brazil has been understudied compared to the legacy of slavery in the U.S., but Brazil has a somewhat similar record to the U.S. with racism. Charles Darwin, who visited Brazil in 1832, was disgusted by the institution of slavery there and the rationalizations of slave owners (whose primary cash crop was sugar).

Legacy

The sugar trade had both positive and negative impacts on the world. On the one hand, it spawned the colonization of North America, the globalization of the world economy, and the establishment of various cuisines worldwide. On the other hand, it came with a legacy of unimaginable cruelty, but that cruelty was not unprecedented. Slavery in general is synonymous with various forms of cruelty. What set the sugar trade slavery apart was the racial component. Exclusively enslaving black people helped create the very dangerous notion of white supremacy. Xenophobia and tribalism have always existed in one form or another, but historically, xenophobes were usually racially indistinguishable from the outsiders or slaves. It’s a lot easier to be xenophobic against people with easily noticeable physical differences. The notions of white supremacy have their origins, in part, in the need to justify the enslavement of people of African descent. That did more harm than any health consequences of sugar. 

Ultimately, in my view, one of the worst things about the white supremacy of Caribbean and later American slave owners is the hypocrisy of it. For all their rhetoric about the inferiority of black people, they tended to treat white socially downtrodden white people with similar contempt. One of the most hypocritical and despicable notions of slavery was the idea of black people being promiscuous, particularly with black men towards white women. Yet the sexual abuse of black female slaves by white slave owners was widespread! Xenophobia and racism are often synonymous with hypocrisy. English Jamaican judge and planter Edward Long wrote in 1775 that he considered black people “no different from animals” with “bestial manners, stupidity, and vices.” At around the same time, another English Jamaican plantation owner, Thomas Thistlewood, kept a diary describing all kinds of unimaginably cruel and sadistic forms of punishment that would rival a modern horror movie, not to mention countless rapes of underage slave girls. The lynch mobs of the American South, the Ku Klux Klan, etc., all carry with them the legacy of the cruelty and hypocrisy of racism born from the need to rationalize racially exclusive slavery. 

Note: I have briefly discussed evolution and mentioned Darwin’s visit to Brazil. I have heard creationists blame Darwin for things like racism and nazi ideology, but that is untrue, not to mention extremely hypocritical. As I pointed out, Darwin was an abolitionist who wrote, “It was absurd to talk about one animal (species or breed) being superior to another. All species, predator or prey, depend on one another for survival in various ways.” Darwin’s Origin of the Species disproves many of the insinuations of white supremacy by pointing out that humans evolved in Africa. Therefore, the first humans, the ancestors of all humans today, were black! The term “monkey” in a racist context probably has anti-Darwin/evolution origins. Creationist pseudo-science frequently cites “evidence” of Noah’s flood, just as slavers cited “Noah’s curse of Ham” as a justification for the exclusive slavery of Africans. It was centuries of Christian supremacy in Europe and the continued persecution of peoples of non-Christian descent (whether they converted or not) in the Iberian Peninsula that planted the seeds of white supremacy; slavery was the fertilizer. Racism in general is often connected to the practice of religious intolerance and/or religious supremacy. Creationism is synonymous with Christian supremacy.

The Battle of Myeongnyang Strait took place off the coast of Korea in 1597 between the forces of the Korean Navy and the Japanese navy. It resembles a cross between the battles of Thermopylae and of the Spanish Armada. The Korean Navy, under Admiral Yi Sun-sin, with just twelve ships, defeated a Japanese fleet of hundreds. The Battle of Myeongnyang Strait and Japan’s invasions of Korea from 1592 to 1598 (the Imjin War) had significant implications on the history of East Asia. Yi Sun-sin, undoubtedly one of the most brilliant naval commanders in history, fought at least twenty-six naval engagements against numerically superior foes and was victorious in them all. His victories helped shape the course of East Asian history. 

The battle and Japanese invasion of Korea is not well known outside of the region, partially because there was no territorial change after the war and it took place in a remote location without European involvement. More famous events like the Spanish Armada and Japan’s unification wars have overshadowed it.

Background

I plan to cover the Japanese invasion of Korea in much greater detail in another post, but since the main topic is the Battle of Myeongan Strait and Admiral Yi, I will keep it brief. By 1592, Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hidetoshi had succeeded in unifying Japan after more than a century of civil wars between rival samurai warlords. Hideyoshi planned to use Korea as a stepping stone to conquer China. In a later post I will cover in more detail why Hideyoshi’s vision of a Japanese conquest of China is not as far-fetched as it may seem, but Hideyoshi possessed what was at the time possibly the most battle-hardened and well-armed (with arquebus) military machine in the world. By comparison, the armies of China and Korea were neglected, poorly led, outdated, and undermined. Japanese forces easily outclassed the Koreans and their Chinese allies on land in terms of both equipment and leadership. Nonetheless, no army can ever advance without supplies. One of the reasons naval warfare has played an important role throughout history is because maritime transport is by far the most effective means of large scale logistics. Anyone who controls the sea can ship large amounts of supplies to the forces on land and deny the enemy from doing the same. In the case of the Imjin war, as the Japanese invasion is known in Korea, the man who prevented the Japanese from resupplying their forces was Yi Sun-sin, who by extension altered the entire Japanese war machine.

Yi Sun-sin’s Early Life and Career

Yi Sun-sin was born in Seoul in 1545. It is assumed his family was of modest means since there was no evidence that Yi Sun ever applied for the civil service exams, which required expensive education. So, Yi Sun sought a less glamorous but more accessible military career, for which he was commissioned as an officer at 31. Yi’s relatively advanced age when he started his military career is probably evidence that he had trouble passing the required physical exams. Despite his family’s limited means, Yi likely studied the Chinese military classics whose principles he would apply on the battlefield. He must have also studied accounts of naval warfare by Korean naval commanders. Therefore, it was Yi Sun’s education, not any first-hand experience in naval warfare, which he did not have, that helped forge him into one of history’s most remarkable naval commanders. 

Yi’s first fifteen years of military service were atypical for a naval commander; he commanded various garrison forces on Korea’s northern border, where presumably he saw some action against the Jurchen tribes. By all accounts, Yi refused to engage in cronyism and corruption that was endemic in the Korean army at the time; nonetheless, his competence and, perhaps, more importantly, the patronage of his childhood friend Yu Song-nyong, who had become Prime Minister of Korea, kept him from being dismissed. Yi’s only experience in navy command was a brief stint as a base commander in the province of Cholla-do in 1581. As is often the case with Yi, he ran afoul of his superiors, presumably because he refused to engage in corrupt practices and was outspoken against those of his superiors. Again, Yi’s career was saved thanks to Yu Song-nyong's patronage. Though Yi was deeply critical of the corruption often associated with patronage, his career largely depended on patronage. Patronage in various forms is universal and not always a bad thing. Hideyoshi’s meteoric rise started with the patronage of Oda Nobunaga, for example. Yu Song-nyong was perhaps Korea’s most gifted politician, so his patronage of Yi must have been motivated by practical factors, not friendship. On Yu’s recommendation, Yi was appointed commander of the navy forces of Cholla Province on Korea’s southwestern tip. As soon as Yi arrived, he started to whip (sometimes literally) his forces into shape, repair his badly neglected ships, and build new ships and cannon, all of which would prove decisive in the coming conflict. 

Japan’s Invasion

Yu’s patronage of the highly competent Yi was an exception. Patronage in the Korean military and bureaucracy enabled corruption and incompetence. The ruling dynasty of Korea, the Joseon, was founded by a military commander who seized power in a military coup. To prevent anyone else from doing the same to them, the Joseon Dynasty initiated a policy of keeping high-ranking officers away from the armies they commanded and of mid-ranking officers appointed thanks to connections with civilian officials. This had the desired effect of making sure the Joseon would face no threats from its army, but it severely weakened the latter’s efficiency. The Korean army was undermanned, with poorly trained peasant conscripts armed with archaic weapons led by generals with limited if any experience in actual combat. On the other hand, the Japanese were led by battle-hardened veterans of Japanese wars. Japanese armies by 1591 were primarily composed of peasant conscripts armed with arquebuse muskets and spears. Katanas armed Samaria mainly filled the roles of officers and generals. The corruption in the Korean military extended to the navy as well. When the Japanese invasion began, the commander of the naval forces in Pusan, Won Gyun, panicked and scuttled his fleet of 200 ships without a fight. 

A less able commander than Yi would have panicked or sought to lash out when hearing of the catastrophes that befell Korea in the first months of the Japanese invasion, but Yi kept his cool. He knew that his forces were not ready, and he knew better than to go headlong without any intel. Instead, he focused on training his men, repairing his poorly-managed ships, and gathering intel on the enemy. At the same time, he was gathering as much information as possible on the topography and currents of Korea's western coastline. Commanders who engage the enemy on grounds or waters they are familiar with tend to have the advantage, as was the case with the Spanish Armada. The intel on Korea's coastline would later play an instrumental role in the Battle of Myeongnyang. Yi gathered crucial intel from eyewitness accounts of the Japanese fleet and carefully planned his first foray into battle. Yi probably learned from accounts of naval engagements against Japanese pirates that the Japanese were far behind the Koreans in terms of cannon technology,

Opposing Forces

Before the Industrial Revolution, no two ships were the same size and shape. Shipbuilders had to design individual ships based on the quality, quantity, and shape of the wood they had. Korean and Japanese ship designs were very different from Western European gallons. The primary warship of the Korean arsenal was the Panokson, or roofboard ship. It was about 25 meters long, powered mainly by oars below deck. The upper deck was enclosed by high walls that offered the men some protection and a castle-like structure in the center of the ship, where the captain or admiral could issue commands and have a good vantage point. Korean warships had large-caliber cannons designed to sink enemy warships. Japanese ships at the time were superficially similar in appearance but very different. Japanese warships had no heavy cannon that could penetrate the hulls of Korean warships. It's possible that some Japanese ships may have possessed some light cannon, which could not penetrate a wooden hull except possibly at point-blank range. Japanese ships had one bunch of sculling sails to the Koreans’ two, which gave the latter much more speed and maneuverability. Although ships played a vital role in resupplying Japanese armies, especially during Hidetoshi’s subjugations of Shogaku and Kyushu, naval warfare did not play a prominent role in Japanese warfare. In most cases, it was treated as an extension of land combat, where the intent was to board the enemy and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

 Yi and his chief shipbuilder, Na Tac-young, devised a solution to negate the Japanese advantages in close quarters combat and small arms: the Kobuk son or Turtle Ship. What set the turtle apart from any other ship was that it had a roof over its main deck that prevented it from being boarded and protected its crew from enemy fire. The Koreans first used such ships in the early 15^th century against Japanese pirates. By 1591, they had fallen out of usage. Still, Yi must have learned about them by researching the history of Japanese piracy and correctly recognized how useful it could be against an enemy whose strategy revolved around boarding. The turtle ship has popularly been depicted as iron clad, but that is highly unlikely. It was unnecessary since the Japanese had no cannons and thick wooden hulls to protect against arquebus fire. Yi would have prioritized iron for the construction of cannons and cannon balls (or darts). Turtle Ships probably had iron spikes on their roofs to prevent boarding. The turtle ship's advantage was that its roofed hull protected it from Japanese musket fire and boarding, effectively neutralizing the only way the Japanese knew how to wage war at sea. 

The Navy Strikes Back

Yi engaged and destroyed several Japanese fleets off the islands of Geoje and Hansando with almost no losses on his side. Yi’s preferred tactic was the “crane wing formation,” which involved enveloping the enemy fleet in a semicircle to be felled by cannon fire. Yi preferred to engage the Japanese in waters close to islands; that way, any Japanese sailors that were ashore would have no means of escape and could be slaughtered on land. This was standard practice at the time; the English treated shipwrecked Spanish sailors the same way ten years earlier. In one instance Yi was wounded by land-based musket fire. Even wounded, Yi continued to fight, which galvanized his men even further. Yi cultivated what would perhaps become his most important weapon: his reputation. 

Yi’ success threw all of Hidetoshi’s plans into turmoil. The Japanese needed access to the Yellow Sea to keep their advancing armies supplied. Without supplies, the Japanese could not sustain their advance. The Japanese response was hampered because they had no unified command system. The Japanese “navy,” like its army, was a feudal force consisting of ships under the command of various Daimyo (feudal lords), mainly from Kyushu, many of whom were former pirates or the literal descendants of pirates. There was little to no cooperation between them or with the Japanese armies on land, who could have attacked Yi bases but did not attempt to do so until it was too late. Hidetoshi was the only person with authority over all Japanese commanders, who could not leave Japan for political reasons. In contrast, Yi had command over all Korean navy ships in the Yellow Sea. The news of the Yi-Sun’s success boosted the morale of the Korean royal court, which was hovering on the edge of despair after being forced to abandon the royal capital of Seoul. On the other hand, though Yi was undeniably a skilled military commander, he was no courtier. Yi’s outspoken criticism of the faults of his superiors, though justified, made him undue enemies that made it hard for the court to reward him or listen to his advice. It also made him enemies of politically influential men who could harm him.

Stalemate

Although Yi-Sun's successful defense of the Yellow Sea made a Japanese advance unfeasible, the Japanese armies managed to make it as far as Pyongyang. The royal court asked the Ming Dynasty for assistance. The Ming court decided to send an expeditionary force to Korea’s aid, though its military was suffering from the same deficiencies as the Koreans’. Despite outnumbering the Japanese by a factor of three, the Chinese were unable to dislodge the Japanese forces from Pyongyang. The Japanese commander, Konishi, only withdrew because he did not have enough provinces to survive a winter and because no supplies were coming, thanks to Yi. The Japanese encountered another unexpected problem. Hideyoshi’s strategy was to subdue an enemy with overwhelming force, then recruit the beaten foe into his hegemony. That strategy worked well against the warlords of Japan, but there were no warlords in Korea to subdue. Furthermore, few Japanese spoke Korean and vice versa, so the quality of collaborators was very limited. Many Korean scholar-officials organized guerrilla bands to prey on Japanese supplies. By the time the Japanese decided to attack Yi’s base, the Koreans fortified the mountain passes leading into Cholla province, which the Japanese could not overcome. 

Yi’s final action in 1591 was to launch an assault on the Japanese base at Pusan. On the way to Pusan, he destroyed several Japanese fleets at Okpo, Tangpo, Tanghangpo, Anglopo, and Hansan Island; by the time they reached Pusan harbor, at least 400 Japanese ships were at anchor. The ships left were mostly transport ships. Furthermore, the Japanese were by now terrified of Yi and refused to set sail. The only resistance in Pusan came from land-based forces, which, as usual, were ineffective against ships out at sea.  Yi succeeded in destroying at least a quarter of the Japanese ships at anchor and losing none of his own. Yi decided against destroying the enemy fleet because he probably did not have enough ammunition, and he wanted the Japanese to leave Korea, not remain trapped in Korea. If Yi cut off the Japanese from Japan completely, they would ravage the parts of Korea that had not been affected by the invasion so far.  

Japanese commanders decided to abandon Seoul rather than try to defend it against the combined Chinese and Korean army, presumably due to supply issues. Denied access to a supply route by sea and faced with guerrilla attack overland, the Japanese withdrew to Busan by 1593, where they would be better supplied and better defended against Korean and Chinese counterattacks. The Korean forces, including Yi’s navy, also suffered from supply shortages despite aid from Ming China. The Japanese invasion had shattered Korea’s economy. The invasion devastated or cut off many rice-producing areas in Korea. Yi had to disband at least half of his forces so that they would return to the rice fields to stave off famine in Cholla province.

Failed Negotiations, Factional Infighting, and Disaster

Once reestablished in the ruins of Seoul, the Korean government returned to factional infighting. In Japan, Hideyoshi, seeming to realize that a conquest of Korea, let alone China, was no longer feasible, decided to negotiate a face-saving agreement to end the war. The Chinese and the Koreans wanted the same, but each side’s version of a face-saving measure was incompatible with what the other had in mind, leading to a complete breakdown in negotiations by 1597. Hidetoshi decided to launch a second invasion, presumably with the more modest goal of securing Korea’s southern provinces for Japan, so that Hideyoshi could reward his followers. The Korean court was informed of the Japanese invasion fleet and ordered Yi to attack it before it reached Korea. For reasons that remain obscure, Yi failed to carry out the order to attack the invading Japanese fleet. He possibly believed it was a trap, or that his forces were depleted by disease, or a combination of both. Whatever the reason for Yi’s disobedience, it galvanized his enemies at court, who pressured the King to relieve him of command. The man chosen to replace Yi was the worst possible candidate: Won Gyun, the admiral who scuttled his fleet without a fight at the start of the war. 

Won was Yi’s opposite in almost every war. Yi was disciplined and resourceful, though not a politician. Won was cowardly and erratic but a cunning politician who used factionalism at court to defend his position. Unsurprisingly, discipline broke down as soon as Won took command; his erratic behavior and alcoholism made matters worse. While the Korean navy was deteriorating,  the Japanese were improving. Hideyoshi reorganized his fleet under a single commander to avoid the rivalries between the former pirate lords that had paralyzed it during the first invasions. The commander of the Japanese forces, Konishi Yukitata, organized an ambush. Konishi lured the Korean fleet to Kadoc island; when the Koreans went ashore to fetch water, they were ambushed and slaughtered by land forces lying in wait. The incident further destroyed the Korean fleet’s morale. Won then led his fleet to the Strait of Choeollyang, where he descended into alcoholism. While their commander’s incompetence paralyzed the Koreans, the Japanese navy launched a well-coordinated assault in dark of night on the unprepared Koreans, boarding ships and slaughtering anyone who washed ashore. Won was certainly killed in battle, though the manner of his death is uncertain. By the end of the day, only twelve Korean ships had remained.

Overwhelming Odds

News of the disaster dismayed the Korean government. It was all the more shameful because Won’s incompetence was already well-known before he was given command. The court did the only practical thing and restored Yi to his former command. Yi returned to his old post in September 1597 to find that his command was only twelve ships against at least two hundred Japanese ships, some of which were armed with captured cannons. The odds would have been impossible for most, but Yi was not like most. First, Yi worked to restore the morale of his badly shaken forces. It may be remembered that Yi faced a similar situation at the start of the war; he had experience lifting morale. Yi’s small fleet was able to move much more quickly than the much larger Japanese fleet, especially among the small islands of Korea’s southwest coast. Avoiding the Japanese main fleet at first, Yi engaged some Japanese scout ships in a series of inconclusive engagements until he found the Strait of Myeongnyan.

Myeongnyang Strait is a thin passage between Chin Island and the mainland, twenty-five meters at its narrowest point, which the Japanese fleet would have to pass through if it was to reach the Yellow Sea. In that era, oceanic navigation was still in its infancy, and errors in navigation were widespread during long sea voyages. For example, in 1628, the Dutch merchant Ship Batavia, heading for a Dutch trading post (also named Batavia), now the modern city of Jakarta, ended up shipwrecked on the coast of Western Australia 2,577 km south of its destination. The Japanese fleet may have been able to cross from Kyushu to Busan, but coordinating a large fleet across the ocean for a prolonged period would have been impossible. Therefore, the only route into the Yellow Sea for the Japanese fleet was off the coast of Korea, through Yi San-Sen and the strait.  On the surface, the situation was similar to that of the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae 2,077 years earlier, where the Spartans and their allies held out thanks to the narrow pass until the Persians found a way around them. Yi was not interested in making a last stand; he was fighting to win. 

Yi-San had no doubt never heard of Thermopylae. Still, the Chinese classics mention the advantage of fighting a numerically superior foe in areas where the local topography prevents the enemy from surrounding you. Yi noticed that at certain times of day, the waters in the strait rushed outwards with considerable force. Yi planned to engage in the narrow strait where the Japanese could not deploy their entire fleet against him when the tides pushed with full force. The night before the battle, Yi paraphrased a quote from ancient Chinese military scholar Wu Qi to his captains, “He who seeks his death shall live, he who seeks his life shall die, If one defender stands watch over the gateway can strike terror into the heart of the enemy of ten thousand.’ Yi may have hoped that his men would find the morale to fight and win if they had their backs against the wall. It is also extremely likely that he counted on his own repudiation to affect the morale of the Japanese. Yi-San remained undefeated with a track record of defeating numerically superior foes. There is every reason to believe that the Japanese remained in awe of him, and Yi would prove they were right to be.

The Battle

When the Japanese fleet arrived on October 25, 1597, Yi enticed his foes with a lone flagship. He lured the Japanese fleet into a position where their superior numbers became a liability in the narrow strait, severely restricting their mobility as Yi planned. His “Turtle” flagship led the handful of Korean ships out of a hidden cove to engage the Japanese fleet. As Yi had hoped, the desperate situation galvanized his men to fight with near superhuman resolve, blasting at Japanese ships at point black range. The Japanese had been taken completely by surprise, and though they had experienced ambushes before, they did not think that twelve ships could be a meaningful threat. One of the first Japanese ships to fall was the flagship and the Japanese fleet commander Kurushima Michifusa; his corpse was discovered floating near Yi’s flagship and was identified by an ex-Japanese sailor who now fought for the Koreans. Yi, realizing the psychological value he was given, ordered the corpse decapitated and the head placed at the front of his ship to demoralize the Japanese even further. Finally, the (literal) tide turned in the Korean’s favor, forcing the Japanese fleet back from where they came and amplifying the striking power of the Korean ships. The morale of the Japanese fleet broke, and they turned around to flee into the open sea; Koreans pursued until exhaustion and Yi cautiously halted them. Yi knew better than to push his luck. Thirty-one Japanese ships had been destroyed, many more were damaged, without the loss of a single Korean ship. 

Though Yi had to withdraw from the Strait soon after, Yi had accomplished his strategic objective. The Japanese never attempted to sail into the Yellow Sea again and, by extension, gave up any hope of advancing north. The battle secured Yi’s place, albeit one overlooked in Western historiography, as one of history's most formidable naval commanders. His courage, resourcefulness, and charisma managed to turn a desperate situation around. Luck and psychological warfare also played their part. If the twelve ships had not escaped Cheolyong, Yi would have had no ships to fight with. The Japanese remained far behind the Koreans in cannon warfare despite their efforts to introduce heavy-caliber cannons onto their ships. Yi managed to ambush the Japanese, quickly destroying several Japanese ships at point-blank range, including the Japanese flagship and its commander. The loss of their commander, the ferocity of the Koreans, the force of the tides, and the awe the Japanese still felt toward Yi broke their resolve. Had the Japanese kept their nerve or tried to attack again when the tides turned, Yi’s forces would have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It’s not something anyone would want to emulate except as a last resort, which it was. 

A month after the battle, an incident revealed a dark side of Yi-Sun Sin. Yi received word that his youngest son, Myon, had been killed in a Japanese raid at his family home. This news sent the admiral into a deep depression; he began to have dreams of his son crying out for vengeance. (The official record says Yi started having dreams before word of the raid reached him, but I think that’s apocryphal.) Dreams were considered essential portents in Korean society at the time. Yi’s officers, desperate to restore their commander’s spirits, had a Japanese prisoner brought before him, claiming this must have been the man who killed Yi’s son (200 kilometers away). Yi had the unfortunate man tortured until he confessed. It is common sense universally that a confession obtained under torture is unreliable; this would have been obvious to an intelligent, educated man like Yi. Nonetheless, Yi had the unfortunate prisoner skinned alive. For all his many accomplishments, Yi was still a human being with a very human need to hold someone responsible for the harm that was done to him personally. It should also be noted that cruel and sadistic forms of punishment were universal at the time.

Aftermath

Yi-Sun Sin spent the next few months rebuilding his fleet to launch offensive operations alongside the Ming Chinese Navy. Despite the combined Chinese-Korean forces on land and sea, they failed to dislodge the Japanese from southern Korea. Different priorities between the Chinese and Korean commanders hampered the Sino-Korean war effort. Hideyoshi died on September 18, 1598. On his deathbed, Hideyoshi ordered his armies to withdraw from Korea. The Chinese were content to let the Japanese do so; the Koreans wanted to inflict as much damage as possible. Yi San Sin died after being hit with a stray musket ball in one final battle against the withdrawing Japanese in the Noryang Strait. It is perhaps fortunate that Yi died when he did. Once the Japanese withdrew, there would have been nothing to protect Yi from his enemies at the Royal Court. His friend and patron, Prime Minister Yu, was removed from his post shortly before. In death, Yi received far more recognition from the Royal court than he ever had in life. 

Impact and legacy

Hideyoshi probably did not start the second invasion to conquer Korea as he had his first. He intended to “punish” the Koreans for not accepting his conditions for a truce and gain more territory to bargain with. Even if Hideyoshi had accomplished the goals of his second invasion, the Japanese would have likely withdrawn from Korea eventually. Nonetheless, the eventual withdrawal would have been more time-consuming and with a more significant loss of life on both sides. Yi-San’s earlier battles during the first two years of the war saved Korea. The Battle of Myeongnyan Strait probably did not alter the outcome of a Japanese withdrawal from Korea. Still, it helped prevent further loss of life. 

Yi is not well known outside of Korea due to the relative obscurity of Japan's invasion of Korea. In both North and South Korea, Yi is considered a national hero and symbol of Korean independence; numerous memorials and films have been made around him. Ironically, Yi is most venerated outside of the two Koreas by Japan. Japanese admiral Togo Heihachirō, hero of the Battle of Tsushima, once responded to a reporter’s comment that comparing him to Admiral Nelson and Yi Sun-sin by saying that no man could ever compare to Yi Sun-sin. Togo belonged to an old Samurai family that served the Shimazu clan, whose ships and warriors clashed with Yi San-Sin. More than 300 years after Yi’s death, he was still held in awe by his old foes.