Staff from the Orange County Regional History Center have been working from home in order to self isolate and flatten the curve of the Covid-19 virus. They meet each morning to plan the day’s work and to check up on each other. Work continues on an Ocoee exhibit that might, virus allowing, open August 29, 2020. The exhibit called, Yesterday, This Was Home: The Ocoee Massacre of 1920, is about the election day race riot that remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.
Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S.
citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was
turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came
to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman.
Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually
lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered,
and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the
black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.
Suddenly having the staff working from home created challenges. Everyone had to adjust to video conference calls on Zoom. Some staff love the one on one interactions that can be found in the workplace. To help staff adjust to this digital divide, Lesleyanne Drake, the curator of collections initiated a once a week Happy Hour. Staff get to meet on Zoom and share a drink and stories. It is not about work but instead a chance to socialize. Pam Schwartz, the Chief Curator, suggested that each week someone might come up with a short presentation and she volunteered to give the first such presentation. I sketched while she told her story to her staff while sipping a prosecco.
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Her mildly nearly drinking history was about Queen Boudica (Boo-di-cah) of the British Celtic Tribe the Iceni. She was a badass. She was described as having tawny hair down below her waist, a harsh voice and a piercing glare. She habitually wore a large golden necklace, a colorful tunic, and a thick cloak fastened by a brooch.
She married Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni people (now the Norfolk area of England) and they had two daughters. They ruled as an independent ally of Rome and when the King died, he left his kingdom to their children. However, his will was ignored by Rome who went ahead and took all his stuff. The Romans and their slaves flogged Boudica and raped she and her daughters.
In 60 or 61 AD when the Roman Governor Paulinus was campaigning on the island of Mona off of Wales (a refuge for British rebels and a Druid stronghold), there was ongoing mistreatment of Britons by the Romans, even those that were allied to them. Boudicca, led a revolt of the Iceni, Trinovantes, and other tribes. They destroyed Camulodunum (Colchester), a settlement of discharged Roman soldiers.
The Roman Governor hurried on down to Londinium (London) and realized he was up the creek without a paddle without enough men to fight this lady who was headed that way. Tacitus, a scholar of the subject, wrote, “Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy.” He took whoever would join him and fled.
Boudica led her now large army, including random farmers who joined along the way, and burned Londinium to the ground. It is estimated that some 80,000 Romans and Brits were killed in the 3 cities conquered by Boudica, many were tortured. Cassius Dio, another scholar, said the most noble of women were impaled on spikes and had their breasts cut off and sewn to their mouths.
Roman Emperor Nero basically panicked over all of this and almost pulled all of his Roman troops out of England. Boudica led her growing troops from her chariot. The Roman Governor regrouped, put together a whole new legion, and posted up, waiting along a Roman Road now known as Watling Street. Though greatly outnumbered, they moved into a wedge formation with auxiliaries on their flanks atop a defile. They charged in, lances set, many of Boudica’s common folk, unskilled in battle, went to flee, but their women and children who had come to watch what they assumed would be a sweeping win, lined the rear of their battleground with wagons, making it impossible for anybody to escape and her troops were slaughtered.
It’s not 100% certain how Boudica died, but, after the battle she may have taken poison, as well as given it to her daughters, to kill them all rather than go through being beaten, raped, and tortured again. She died c. 60 or 61 AD.
After this brutal tale the staff continued to socialize. Welcome to the new age of digital storytelling as we sacrifice through social distancing to try and stop the spread of Covid-19.