Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention) (19) Empire of Joshua Norton

Emperor Norton in full dress uniform and military regalia, his hand on the hilt of a ceremonial sabre, 1875

 

(19) EMPIRE OF JOSHUA NORTON (1859-1880)

 

Emperor Norton I – Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.

Joshua Norton – the man who essentially memed himself into being the first and last Emperor of the United States.

No – he’s not fictional but a real historical figure, albeit somewhat obscure these days but one of San Francisco’s most prominent citizens in the nineteenth century and has fascinated me since I first read about him (in the Illuminatus Trilogy).

And his empire…was not entirely fictional either. Sure – the consensus seems to be that he had a complete mental breakdown after he lost his fortune from commodities trading and real estate speculation, which had elevated him to one of San Francisco’s richest citizens, from being financially ruined by a deal gone bad.

And so he declared himself emperor of the United States by imperial proclamation in a letter to the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin newspaper in 1859 – which they published because they thought it was funny. Which it was.

How did the city of San Francisco receive it? That’s the funniest thing – they played along. Restaurants and businesses accepted his self-issued imperial currency, effectively providing their services free of charge in return for being able to proclaim his imperial patronage, as he went about his “duty” inspecting the city. The city did a thriving trade in souvenirs from his eccentric celebrity – even donating him a new imperial uniform to replace his old one, given to him by army officers.

At one point, an overzealous police officer arrested him to commit him for involuntary treatment for a mental disorder. What followed was a massive uproar from the public and newspapers – “let him be emperor if he wants to be” was the public outcry. One paper wrote “that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line”.

The Police Chief ordered him released, with a formal apology – which Emperor Norton graciously accepted by way of an imperial pardon for the officer – and thereafter police officers saluted him in the street.

He also used his imperial powers for good. One story told of him was that he had stopped a violently anti-Chinese race riot by interposing himself between the rioters and the hapless Chinese, praying the Lord’s Prayer. The story went that the rioters were so ashamed or embarrassed that they dispersed – and thereafter the residents of Chinatown were among his most loyal subjects.

After a “reign” of 21 years, he collapsed and died on the street. Despite legends of a hidden imperial fortune, he died in complete poverty – but one of the city’s clubs donated a fund for a casket and funeral procession, which was reported to have lined the streets with thousands of the city’s citizens.

I can only hope that my own breakdowns are accompanied by such imperial delusions of grandeur, published and received so warmly. Of course, it helped that Norton carried himself with a sense of genteel grace and nobility, more than a century removed from the city’s contemporary itinerant street figures – and that he lived modestly within his imperial means donated to him rather than some grift.

One of my favorite adaptations of Joshua Norton was in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman – where Dream gives Norton his imperial dream to ward off Despair and Desire. And as it turns out, Delirium, who observes to Dream “He’s not one of mine, is he? His madness keeps him sane”. Death is similarly charmed by him, telling him that out of all the kings and queens she had met (and she has met all of them), he is the one she liked best.

And to end on a personal note, when I visited Los Angeles and San Francisco, I gave myself a quest in each city, with my quest for the latter to seek out the tomb of Emperor Norton.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (18) Germany

 

(18) GERMANY?

 

Similarly to Austria, Germany picked up the Holy Roman Empire ball and ran with it when unified under the Prussian monarchy as the German Empire in 1871, styled as the Second Reich after the Holy Roman Empire’s First Reich and with the same imperial title of kaiser derived from Caesar.

Hence the title of Third Reich for Germany’s subsequent and most infamous regime, also touted to last a thousand years like the First Reich (spoiler – it lasted only twelve) – although apparently that was downplayed later as the Holy Roman association was a little too cosmopolitan and not quite, well, German enough.

In fairness, that last Reich did technically meet my high-tier ranking criterion by occupying Rome, if only for less than a year. It also had one of the most recognizable eagle standards, adapted from the Reichsadler of its imperial predecessors.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention) (18) Central African Empire

Coronation of Bokassa – by way of fair use as it appears to be one of the few images or only image (by unknown photographer) to depict his coronation (with its Napoleonic inspiration), also referenced as such in J.M. Roberts The Triumph of the West

 

(18) CENTRAL AFRICAN EMPIRE (1976-1979)

History’s most ridiculous empire.

Also the last empire in Africa, subsequent to the fall of the Ethiopian Empire – and indeed the penultimate country in the world to have a head of state with the title of Emperor, leaving Japan as the last country standing with an Emperor.

The Central African Empire was achieved by the simple expedient of President Bokassa, military dictator of the Central African Republic, declaring himself Emperor and the republic an empire from 4 December 1976 to 21 September 1979.

Sadly, as head of state, he was able to conscript his hapless citizens in his imperial delusions. Also his state’s treasury, as he blew the equivalent of $20 million, a third of the country’s government income, on his coronation ceremony – modelled, like his imperial regalia and regime, on that of Napoleon Bonaparte.

His self-proclaimed empires relied on people playing along with it – not so much his own nation which had little choice about it, but the nation that had actually ruled it as an empire, France. Although that was primarily French President Giscard d’Estaing, who was bafflingly chummy with Bokassa. Of course, that may have had something to do with the diamonds and other gifts Bokassa gave him, ultimately resulting in scandal and election loss for Giscard d’Estaing.

Bokassa proved too embarrassing even for France when school riots led to massacres of civilians, prompting France to withdraw support and Bokassa cosied up to Gaddafi’s Libya instead – France then overthrew Bokassa in what has been called France’s last colonial expedition, Operation Barracuda.

Similarly, there were French and Napoleonic connections to two close runners-up for history’s most ridiculous empires, in the Americas in the nineteenth century rather than Africa in the twentieth – the short-lived Mexican and Haitian Empires.

There are actually two Mexican Empires – the First and Second Mexican Empire. The first is not so ridiculous, although it was short-lived and unique among former Spanish colonies winning independence – a brief monarchy from 1821 to 1823 after Mexico won its war of independence with the Spanish Empire, prompted by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain.

The second occurred from 1864 to 1867 when another Napoleon took another swing at it – this time by Napoleon’s less talented nephew, Napoleon III, who intervened in Mexico (in the Second French Intervention in Mexico) to install a puppet emperor.

These Mexican Empires echoed the earlier Haitian Empires – the first Haitian Empire, briefly created from 1804 to 1806 in its war on independence against Napoleon Bonaparte’s France, and the second from 1849 to 1859, with yet another President inspired by Napoleon declaring himself an emperor. Although at least the Second Haitian Empire did something imperial, invading the Dominican Republic – which had declared independence from Haiti in 1844 – in unsuccessful attempts to reconquer it.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (17) Greece

 

(17) GREECE?

 

Probably not too surprising that modern Greece would claim the mantle of the eastern Roman Empire as its former heartland.

Indeed, after Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, it developed the “Megali Idea” or Great Idea “of recreating the Byzantine Empire, understood as an ethnic-Greek polity with capital in Constantinople”, or the “Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas” (Europe and Asia, the Ionian, Aegean, Marmara, Black and Libyan seas, respectively)”.

Apparently, the idea popped up in political debates in 1844, although of course it had older roots. And Greece took a swing at it in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 when the opportunity seemed to present itself with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. That didn’t work out too well for them, as while the Ottoman Empire was gone, the new republic of Turkey was not as down and out as everyone had first thought.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention) (17) Comanche Empire & Lakota America

 

(17) COMANCHE EMPIRE & LAKOTA AMERICA

 

Yes, yes – they are literally book titles by Pekka Hämäläinen, specialist historian of native North Americans but arguably also empires as historical ideas or at least arguments, although I think that overstates both.

Of the two, the Comanche are the clearer imperial candidate. The Comanche tribal nation occupied territory – known to history as Comancheria – in New Mexico, west Texas and surrounding areas. The argument is that Comancheria, at the peak of its power from the 1750s to the 1850s, comprised an empire or form of imperialism while on the periphery of Spanish, Mexican and American power as well as avoiding the diseases that ravaged other native American tribes.

The game-changer was horses, as it was for the Eurasian nomadic tribes or empires before them, which increased their hunting range for buffalo and mobility for military power.

Eventually disease caught up with them and power of other nations, particularly the United States, moved closer to overwhelm them

The Comanche were not an isolated example as other native American tribes, such as the Lakota in the Great Plains, were able to adapt to the literal use of horsepower to similar effect of the Eurasian nomadic tribes or empires.

It is tempting to imagine a counterfactual where such tribes or tribal confederations swept across the North American plains like latter-day Mongols, but even with their adaptation to horses they were too little and too late in the face of the growing industrial power and population of the United States.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (16) Austria

 

Imperial coat of Arms for Austrian Empire – by Sodacan for Wikipedia “Austrian Empire” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

(16) AUSTRIA?

 

Yeah, Austria picked up the Roman succession ball through the Holy Roman Empire, which had essentially become a title held by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy while everyone else played along with it.

That is, until Napoleon Bonaparte came along and told them to drop it in 1806 – but the Austrians still ran with it for their own empire, borrowing from the imagery and symbolism of the Holy Roman Empire, not least with the imperial eagle as symbol, even after Austria became a republic.

That’s it, though – but arguably still not the wildest or most tenuous of my wild-tier special mentions.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (15) France

Imperial Coat of the Arms of the French First Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte – reproduced by Sodacan for Wikipedia “Emperor of the French” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

 

(15) FRANCE?

 

Well, the French monarchy did snap up the title of Emperor of Constantinople from Andreas Palaiologos in his imperial title garage sale to Charles VIII in 1494 prior to him bequeathing it to Spain, for what it was worth.

Spoiler alert – it was worth nothing, although surprisingly the French monarchy apparently used the title until Charles IX could no longer keep a straight face about it in 1566.

And there it lay, until Napoleon Bonaparte, never one to lack for audacity, claimed the mantle of the Roman Empire at his imperial coronation as Emperor of the French in 1804 – albeit through the heritage of the Frankish and Carolingian Empires, as the founders of the Holy Roman Empire.

He imitated Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, down to having Pope Pius VII at the ceremony. Although unlike that pansy Charlemagne, Napoleon crowned himself rather than having the pope crown him (embellished in historical legend as Napoleon snatching the crown from the Pope).

In fairness, Napoleon did at least achieve what is otherwise my high-tier ranking criterion of occupying Rome itself, which places his claim somewhat above other wild tier claims.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (14) Spain

 

Coat of Arms of Charles I of Spain – reproduced by Heralder for Wikipedia “Succession of the Roman Empire” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 

 

(14) SPAIN?

 

Hola, Caesar! Or is that ole, Caesar!

Here we are, starting my wild tier successors to Rome, those states that tenuously staked their claims more to the myth or metaphor of Rome in nationalist terms rather than any continuity with the Empire. We’re at the bottom of the Roman succession iceberg here, people.

Of these wild and tenuous claims, I was surprised to find Spain has the most depth to theirs, arguably making it the least wild and tenuous of these wild tier claims (or higher up the iceberg). Don’t worry – we’ll get increasingly wild and tenuous as we go.

If nothing else, at least Spain gave us the term Latin as a substantial label for ethnicity – as well as for geography with Latin America, claiming one continent and a large part of another.

Firstly, there was its loose dynastic claim of succession, starting with Spain’s succession from the Visigothic monarchy as heirs or successors to the Roman Empire in Spain. Subsequent Spanish monarchs apparently used the title Imperator totius Hispaniae to assert equality with the eastern and Holy Roman Empires.

Those claims of succession became a little more concrete firstly when “the last titular holder heir to the rank of Eastern Roman emperor, Andreas Palaiologos” purported to bequeath what he saw as his imperial title and domains in Greece, themselves pretty tenuous claims on his part (particularly as he’d already purported to sell them to another special mention entry), to the ‘Catholic Monarchs’ of the now unified Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, by his will written in 1502.

It gets a lot messier than that – with dynastic claims to the Crusader vassal states to the Latin Empire in Greece and the Spanish crown’s territories in Italy thrown in to the mix. Preempting something of a recurring meme in history, Andreas apparently had grandiose dreams of a Spanish crown crusade from its territories in Italy to reconquer the imperial claims in Greece and ultimately Constantinople itself. Sadly however, the Spanish monarchy ignored “its Byzantine imperial titles”, although it did gain the title of “King of Jerusalem” from the pope and square off in war with that other claimant of Roman succession, the Ottoman Empire.

With Charles I, the Spanish monarchy also succeeded to the title of Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 – “the first time, since the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, in which the Romano-Germanic and Byzantine crowns coincided in the same person”, albeit that seems to me more like historical sleight of hand for both Charles and Charlemagne.

Anyway, Spanish claims to the succession of the Roman empire go on from these dynastic claims to include more broadly geopolitical and cultural claims – dare I say it, themes and memes of Roman empire – including the Spanish empire in the Americas.

“With all of this history in the Spanish Monarchy, Spanish nationalism claims that there is a legitimate ideological-dynastic (titles of Emperor of Constantinople and King of Jerusalem in the Spanish Crown, also in the past have been Holy Roman Emperor), geostrategic (kingdom of Naples and Sicily together, the conquests of North African plazas in Barbary, like Melilla, Ceuta, Mazalquivir, Oran, Bugia and Peñón of Algiers) and cultural basis (being a Latin country) to claim the inheritance of the Roman Empire.”

“This claim is also reinforced by the history of Spanish colonization of the Americas, which a lot of Hispanists claim is the definitive proof that Spain is the most accurate heir of Rome’s imperial legacy, as Spain was important for the culture of a continent, America (the New World), like Rome was to Europe (the Old World), some even claim that Spain surpassed Rome, since it also knew how to unify diverse peoples for centuries and maintaining cultural unity despite the imperial collapse. Even today there are opinions in which Philip VI of Spain is considered the nearest heir of Rome.”

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Roman Empires (Special Mention) (13) Serbian Empire

 

 

 

(13) SERBIAN EMPIRE (1346-1371 AD)

 

Okay, this empire and its claim to the Roman Empire came down to the man who made both, the Serbian emperor (Stefan) Dusan the Mighty. He was succeeded by his son Usok the Weak, but you can guess how well it all went after that by comparing their two epithets.

Dusan proclaimed himself Emperor – once again Tsar from Caesar – not only of the Serbs but of the Greeks or Romans as well, a title signifying a claim to the succession of the Byzantine Empire, then in the last century or so of its existence.

In fairness, he did put his money where his mouth was, having “expanded his state to cover half of the Balkans, more territory than either the Byzantine Empire or the Second Bulgarian Empire in that time” – including substantial territory conquered from the former in Greece.

Like the Bulgarian Empire or the Sultanate of Rum, it did not achieve my foremost high-tier ranking criterion of occupying Constantinople, but came close enough in the conquests for its claim to rank in high tier. And also like them, at least it staked its claim while the empire was still alive, albeit in its last century or so of life – ranking it above my wild-tier special mention entries who staked their claim to the empire’s corpse in the West…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention) (16) Aztec & Inca Empires

 

(16) AZTEC & INCA EMPIRES

 

The preeminent empires of pre-Columbian America, although sadly best known to history (and myself) as foils to the Spanish Empire – albeit because of defeats unparalleled in history for just how few Spanish forces conquered such populous empires in so short a span of time.

I have more knowledge of the Aztec Empire prior to the Spanish Conquest – if only for the lurid horror stories of its imperial religion of human sacrifice on a scale unprecedented in the region, or anywhere else for that matter. However, the nature and extent of Aztec human sacrifice is often disputed as historical propaganda – as indeed is the so-called Black Legend of anti-Spanish history when it comes to the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire – with some fairness on both sides.

The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Colombian America, almost ten times larger than the Aztec Empire and perhaps two or three times as populous but not as brutal. The size of the Inca Empire is quite striking for an empire predominantly in mountainous highlands – “one of the greatest imperial states in human history” created and maintained “without the use of the wheel, draft animals, knowledge of iron or steel, or even a system of writing”. Or largely without money or markets apparently, like Star Trek but without the post-scarcity. Also one without the more characteristic grain cultivation of other agricultural states – instead cultivating potatoes.

Which makes its defeat even more striking than that of the Aztecs, particularly as the Spanish leader Francisco Pizarro started with about a third of the forces of his counterpart Cortes against the Aztecs – a mere 168 soldiers – and was over 60 years of age at the time. Now that’s how to spend your retirement years!

Although Pizarro was perhaps luckier in his timing with a civil war of succession to the Inca imperial throne – as well as capturing and holding the reigning Inca ruler hostage.

Of course, the primary factor for the fall of both empires was the disease or diseases spread ahead of the Spanish who brought them – and which ravaged the native American populations who had no acquired resistance to them. While that would seem to be the greatest scale for the role disease has played in the fall of empires, disease has played a recurring role in the decline or fall of other empires, including the Roman Empire – as is the subject of Plagues and Peoples by historian William H. McNeill.

I have less knowledge of the Inca Empire prior to Spanish Conquest, although that seems apt as it’s an empire that has a quality of mystery or at least mystique to it. That includes the legendary “lost cities of the Incas” to which they retreated as a vestigial empire – the neo-Inca state – as well as “periodic attempts by indigenous leaders to expel the Spanish colonists and re-create the Inca Empire until the late 18th century”.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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