I can understand the mainlands, as you have far more options in trrms of hideouts and where to retreat if needed. It seems the geographic restrictions of being on an island, even a relatively large one like Hispanola, would make it significantly easier for a search & destroy campaign to pin down the Maroons and cut off all avenues of retreat. Ditto for disrupting their food supplies - the farmer can run, but his crops can't.

Why was destroying these communities such a challenge to the colonial powers? What tactics and strategies did Maroon communities use to survive and fight back against their former enslavers?

It seems like no other historical figures from that time period have been made fun of because of their height. Why Napoleon? Just coincidence? I'm also wondering when they began.

They were fighting at two fronts at the same time(fighting multiple countries at the same time), they were crushing russians with 1:5 kill ratio for every soldier lost(if i remember correctly), afaik, WW2 was a close call in general, if not for the cold winter in russia.

See title

In 1066, William of Normandy claimed the English throne and won. From this, English Royal courts and nobility, imported from Normandy, spoke French. From what point did Middle and Modern English begin to replace French as the written and oral language of the Royal and Noble Courts of England?

I'm interested in genealogy and have been trying to track down the graves of my ancestors in Europe. Were graves ever re-used? If so, was this common? I can't imagine how so many generations of people could all be buried in the same little church graveyard.

Would they have had issues with the rise of commoners to wealth through service? Was there a negative or positive stereotype of an officer in the navy at this time? Any literature on the subject, if it exists, would be greatly appreciated.

there has to be a level of competence in any army that can mobilize 1.4million men in such an amazing offensive across such a large swathe of Europe so I'm curious what were the reasons behind the failure of Barbarossa?

I am reading a newspaper from 1914 and it writes how the soldiers made themselves at home in the trenches (couches, pianos and such). What I found interesting and somehow incredible is how they halted assaults when soldiers "had to answer their calls of nature" (which is odd, since they had toilets in the trenches). The newspaper goes (translated from Slovene):

Between noon and 2 o'clock (or other hours, depended on agreement) both sides halted their assaults to allow soldiers to deal with different human needs. If someone wanted to disappear from the trenches, he lifted rifle's butt and the fighting stopped. German soldiers noticed that there are women in French trenches and one day, when one of those pauses started, one of the French soldiers played a lively song on a piano, while said women came out of the trench and danced.

How accurate is this description and how often did those pauses and such mischief happen during the trench fighting? It seems as if war was more of a deadly sport, an arrangement that could be stopped at any moment and resumed when everyone was ready.

How historically accurate is it? What was the controversy behind it?

I know the Sunna are THE way to learn about the life of Muhammad, but for a project I need a somewhat more digested biography of the life of Muhammad, and I don't know what's good - this is several thousand years outside my area of expertise. I'm working specifically on gender issues. Help please?

I'm reading Phantom Warriors by Gary Linderer which is about Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols in Vietnam. Good stuff. I'm only about halfway through but there seems to be a big deal about capturing enemy weapons. One of the team leaders just got chewed out by a G-2 Staff Officer for failing to take the weapons of 3 NVA that they had killed outright (who were the leading end of an NVA patrol). What was the big deal? I realize weapons are a valuable commodity, but to the point of taking the time to strip 3 soldiers who you know are at the front of a much larger force?

Also, I have previously read Slob by Rex Miller in which Daniel Bunkowski (homicidal maniac) is an enormous man and was loaded up with however much weaponry he could carry and was basically just released into the Vietnam jungle for periods of time to kill and wreak as much havoc as possible until he returned. If I remember right, there were other men/teams who were released as well. I think they basically had their identities scrubbed so the gov't didn't have to ever acknowledge they did that.

That's obviously fiction, but is there any real truth to that? Were small teams of soldiers ever just released in Vietnam with no other purpose than to kill?

This culture/civilization is always held up as an example of one of the most peaceful people ever that was taken advantage of by imperialism/expansion, and my understanding is that that part of the world has much more limited history, at that time and before, than say Europe or mainland Asia.

Are there any records showing any legitimate battles, wars, or squabblings among this group of people before the West came over? And if there are not enough records, then perhaps we shouldn't hold them up as such a hallmark example of an ideal/utopian society?

I'm just curious because a civilization that doesn't eventually evolve, branch out, divide, and form differences, whether in language, caste systems, economics, etc., seems totally sociologically illogical to me. Could this culture really have been as morally utopian as my highschool teachers have led me to believe?

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After reading many responses I just want to clarify that I'm not necessarily the one who believes in the fallacies of the "Noble Savage" or the concept of the "other" (though I may to some degree like everyone else), but rather I feel like those concepts have been hidden within the teachings of Native American History in school (though of course that's biased because my schooling was America/Liberal NY). Why and how have they been hidden, well I'm not entirely sure and I'd be interested in how others have been taught this general subject matter as well. But a moral-utopian vibe was present when talking about Thanksgiving, how Americans expanded into those territories unfairly, and just even in the media when people talk of past peaceful cultures. This concept of "white guilt" is definitely rampant in the media in America if you ask me and perhaps Native American peoples are a big example of that. Anyways, love the responses as it was my first time posting in AskHistorians

I've never had an answer for this question, even after visiting the Austrian military museum in Vienna and interviewing immigrants from Austria. When drawing the "iron curtain" line in Europe, the border turns sharply eastward to include Austria and then returns west for Yugoslavia. It seems that Austria was almost forgotten by Stalin! Or maybe he was tired after annexing East Germany.

I've been watching the Tudors lately and noticed with pretty much all decisions, Henry basically just doesn't care one bit, and i was curious as to how much truth is reflected in the show as to his actual input on religious policy.

Edit* punctuation