Sunday Reading - Uncertainty Changes the Landscape

Even though I made a brief post about Justice Scalia's death last night I am going to expand on it some more today.

I don't know anything about the circumstances of his death and at this point I am not going to comment about the many questions that are being brought up across the blogs and news sites.  As many of my long term readers may remember I have long held that the Conservative members of the Supreme Court were the most important Men in the world right now for us and Scalia was at the top of that list. At one point I placed Roberts almost as high until he showed that he could be manipulated.

Also it has been my philosophy since about 2008 that there is little to nothing we can do as responsible Americans to stop the financial train wreck that is coming which includes mass immigration in it as well. There is simply no stopping what the Feminist/Progressive/Multi-Culters have set in motion because too many people now rely on the government cheese plain and simple. Even a large portion of us who do not receive a government check each month still rely on that spending to come down the pipe for our own from private companies or the spending it brings from government employees. There is simply no getting away from it for I estimate 90% of the population at least. However it's more than obvious it is unsustainable so what must end will end.

This is where the Supreme court came in. We cannot set things right, we cannot begin getting the population to become more self sufficient. The ONLY thing we can do is prepare ourselves and defend every inch of political ground we can to stop or slow the advance of Liberal/Feminist ideology and keep them from taking even more of our rights away. The best hope we had was that the economic/financial collapse would happen sooner rather than later and we would still have our 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc and property rights intact when this all goes down.

Now. Well our ability to stall, defend and make em pay for every inch of ground that remains is severely and sorely compromised. Even if (And it's a big if) the Senate managed to delay the vote on whatever lowlife Liberal Feminist Obummer sees fit to appoint to the office until the next President takes over we still have 10 months of being one man short and further hampered by the fact that Scalia was the best legal champion we had. There are in fact several cases coming up before their usual break that Scalia was weighed into heavily and with him gone we will more than likely begin loosing ground almost immediately.

This changes things. It changes them drastically and puts all of us on blogs and forums like this one in a new danger. If the next blow we suffer is a Presidential win by Hillary or Sanders well I don't even want to think about it.

At the very least firearms and ammo have now jumped even higher on the must have list than they were. Site and Life security and anonymity for your web presence is once again looking to be very important. Official government Censorship and repercussions for opinions and ideology are once again looking likely as well. Challenges to government over reach and restrictive laws now could very well be rubber stamped through and the debt clock will begin twirling even faster while the hand of the government will grasp tighter.

Most importantly the hope that this thing comes apart sooner rather than later now rises to a new height. We are vulnerable and hang on the roll of the dice. If the Senate caves and/or a Femocrat wins the next Presidency it's all over but the police state knocking on our doors. I have long hoped the collapse would come before the need for us patriots to stand up and fight our own government and it looked like grid-lock was going to insure that.

I am not so sure anymore.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!

Defending the Boones Lick Country Part II

In yesterday's post I mentioned how the settlers of the Boone's Lick region refused to flee despite the constant pressure of raids by several frontier Indian tribes. Now here is an example of how they situated and set up their mutual defenses in and around the main settlement of Arrow Rock.

In 1812 they built five forts. Cooper's Fort, Kencaid's Fort, Fort Hempstead, Fort Head and Fort Cole. These forts ringed around the settlement with Cole's Fort actually being located on the opposite side of the Missouri River from the other four. Each fort would contain the household of the principal occupant and family while some contained multiple families. Usually the house doubled as the block house and formed one or more corners of the fort.

Inside the ring of forts the settlement's farm land would be located and cultivated in common, with each fort defending from one or more vantage points and entrance ways. Sentinels would be placed in the outlying areas armed and hidden with horns. They would keep watch while the families went about their business and tended the fields. When a raid or incursion was detected the alarm would be sounded and the people of the settlement would enter the forts and prepare to defend them.

This is not some cluster of closely huddled houses. This is an example of how a farming community although small by today's standards, could be spread out enough for production farming and still be able to defend itself against forces 20 or more times it's own size. The defenders were no better armed than the attackers but had the advantage of defending a somewhat prepared position. Which made all of the difference.

There is a lesson to be learned from these early settlers. Many lessons to be frank. The one that sticks out most to me however is how much easier it is to defend than attack and how much an individual or family can increase their chances of survival in hostile territory by working with their neighbors. Another important factor in this example is that even if a fort were to fall to raiders the victors would be in no position to enjoy their spoils for long as it would be in easy harassment range of one of the other forts. There would be no time for the raiders to rest, regroup or pick through their loot before suffering a counter attack of some kind.

Just a little food for thought about homestead and community defense.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!

Defending the Boone's Lick Country 1812 - 1815

During the last decade of the 1700's and the years just before the War of 1812 the furthest Westward settlements of the United States were in an area known then as the Boone's Lick country. Daniel Boone had pushed West along the Missouri River and discovered a salt spring near present day New Franklin, Missouri and established a salt mining operation. By about 1810 some 200-odd families had settled in the area mostly coming up out of Kentucky. One must remember the "settlement" spanned several present day counties in Mid Missouri along what was known then as the Boone's Lick trail which wound it's way North of the Missouri river where the Northern Plains meet the Ozark Highland geological features.

Why is this important enough for me to mention it on a homesteading/sustaining blog you might ask? Well because of the circumstances that those early settlers had to face especially during the War of 1812 situated on the furthest Western frontier as they were. The situation was grim and desperate to say the least. The governor of the territory at the time suggested the settlers of the area abandon their homesteads and retreat to the relative safety of St. Louis. To which the earliest military commander of the area at the time, Col. Cooper replied.

“We have made our homes here and all we have is here and it would ruin us to leave now. We be all good Americans, not a Tory or one of his Pups among us, and we have 2 hundred Man and Boys that will fight to the last and have 100 Women and Girls that will take their places with. Makes a good force So we can defend the settlement. With God’s Help we will do.”

What were these early settlers facing? Well the British were stirring up as many of the Indian tribes as possible to attack the frontier. Also Tecumseh and his brother Tenskawatawa were uniting the various tribes from the Great Lakes down into the Texas area into a confederation to attack all along the frontier area and it was a good bet the Boone's Lick settlements would be top on their target list.

Basically these early settlers were spaced few and far between, likely to be attacked by raiders and no hope of any official military help. In fact several hundred of their own had already been taken into Federal service and formed into a couple of Ranger companies and were being used in the North in present day Wisconsin.

How did these early settlers adapt and defend their homes? Well they built small forts literally everywhere. From single family strongholds to multiple family forts. There are many old maps that show the locations of these small family frontier forts dotting the countryside. If you go there today in most cases nothing remains but some few will still show tooled stones strewn around.

Samuel McMahan from Arrow Rock reminisced about the family forts of the era.

“The forts were simply strong log houses, with a projecting upper story, and with loop holes for musketry.” Some of these family forts had stockades while others did not. The larger forts, such as Coopers Fort and Fort Hempstead probably fit the vision we normally have of forts stockade pickets and a blockhouse at one or more corners of the fort. 

As it turned out the massed Indian raids did in fact come to the area only a bit later than feared which gave the US government and the local settlers a bit of a false feeling of security. Yet when the attacks did come these small forts proved invaluable to defending the area.

I have the honor of being a direct descendant of one of these early families which originally settled on a piece of land not but about five miles from the Small-Hold today. All that remains of the old settlement, which still bears my surname, is a one room school house that was restored as it is now on national park land and a small creek that empties out into Cedar creek which was later to become the Western boundary between the Boone's Lick and St. Charles counties. The settlement was excavated at some point and the foundations of the old family fort and houses within were marked but that's about it.

Still these simple fortifications did their job. Many families around here today can attest to that as the names are still here. The provision rolls of that time period mentioned "Bear Bacon and Coon sausage" as staples after the period of the great raids because all the stock had been killed and the fields burned but a few simple fortifications and the will to defend your own won out.

Something to keep in mind as Thanksgiving day comes to a close.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!