In 1629, there could be seen in Warrosquyoacke, a settlement across the river from Jamestown, Virginia, a person going about their daily tasks in a mixture of male and female attire. Thomas/ine Hall’s wardrobe was by no means voluntarily chosen, but a mandate of the General Court of Virginia, presided over by the governor himself. The circumstances that put Hall in such clothing were unique to the fledgling English venture. Hall’s body, their alternating gender performances, and the social, medical, and legal inventory of English colonists many weeks and miles removed from the metropole aligned to create a situation, at Hall’s expense, that allows for an examination of early modern gender norms and transgressions.

Social and political life of early modern England hinged in no small part on the adherence to strict gender roles. Labor was divided to ensure women were relegated to the domestic sphere-- the tasks of motherhood, midwifery, cottage industry, etc. The clergy and domestic pamphlets instructed women to remain obedient to their husbands, and for their husbands in turn to ensure they had firm control over their households. In Jacobian England and its colonies, male power at home was an acknowledged metaphor for the absolute authority of the king. By the early 17th century, a concentration of pamphlets likened the household to a little commonwealth, and community efforts to enforce social conformity were encouraged by Parliament.

Similarly, the violations of Thomas/ine Hall’s body by colonial authorities served the purpose of fortifying the retaining walls of male and female spheres of early modern social life. Order along gender lines was considered crucial to the social fabric of a civilized people. As Kathleen Brown writes, “Such inexplicable and uncontrollable forces as time, weather, and creation were considered akin to God’s own powers and necessary for the cosmic order.”

Though legal, religious, and social institutions sought to define and enforce gender distinctions, they were sometimes openly transgressed. Cross-dressing on Elizabethan and Jacobian stages was common, for instance, although some English moralists did indeed rail against it. A surprising example of leniency can be seen with Thomas Salmon, who was dressed in women’s clothing at the behest of the daughter-in-law of a woman in labor. Salmon entered the labor room, was subsequently discovered to be a man, and put on trial. The circumstances are unclear. It could have been a practical joke gone wrong, or any number of things. He was given a mild penance and no other punishments were meted out by the court. While theater traditions may have led to leniency in treating cross-dressing in England, such was not always the case. “Tranvestism” was treated much more harshly than cases determined by early modern authorities to constitute “hermaphroditism.” In the latter instances, the subject of inquiry was often permitted to choose a gender. The former represented a willful challenge to society’s ability to impose gender distinctions.

In North America, the English encountered external challenges to the commonly understood and enforced roles of men and women. Outside the boundaries of their settlements in Virginia, the English encountered divisions of labor that baffled and, in many cases, scandalized them. Proto-ethnographers and moralists often wrote in indignant terms about the work undertaken by Powhatan men and women. According to Gabriel Archer’s observations, while women worked agriculture, men did little more than “hunt and goe at their plesure.” Many English writers found it unforgiveable that in addition to bearing and raising children, women maintained crops and built houses. The women themselves were held in high esteem by these same writers. To be sure, such musings served mainly as justification for what the English saw as much needed civilizing efforts and dramatically misunderstood or misrepresented Powhatan society. These encounters further served to underscore the need for authorities to impose clear distinctions on the roles of men and women, lest men fall prey to the supposedly unproductive habits of the natives beyond their own settlements.

Week 119

 

Once D'Annunzio had entered the city of Fiume, in time for lunch, on September 12^th 1919, it didn't take much longer for the Italian authorities to realize the relative severity of the situation. Already within the first 24 hours, Prime Minister F.S. Nitti was looking at somewhere around 2,000 men – counting volunteers and military personnel – who had established their presence within the city and offered no sign of desisting from their intentions.

From the Government's point of view, and despite Nitti's reassurances that the authorities were ready to “take energetic measures” to force D'Annunzio and his followers out of the occupied town, various elements inspired a cautious attitude. First, while the crisis could perhaps be treated as a further complication of an already difficult, but localized, situation, and managed accordingly, any untimely attempt to regain control by military means was likely to produce incidents, with the legionnaires, or even worse with the local Italian population. A perspective which Nitti was reluctant to consider for both practical, political as well as moral reasons.

While the vast majority of the political world had, in the immediate aftermath of the events, offered their somewhat sympathetic look on the Government's misfortunes, an equal, if not greater sympathy had been reserved for the volunteers themselves – a sentiment, this one, which soon enough begun to appear more attuned to the actual feelings of the population than the official manifestations of the Parliament; a fact which had compelled Nitti to adjust his tone after his “excessive” declarations of September 13^th and to take a more moderate stance. Attitude of the public aside, Nitti was aware – and indeed, often appeared over-reliant on this explanation – that D'Annunzio's initiative had a less than spontaneous component as well, that a portion of the Italian establishment could conceive the march as the first step to force the Italian Prime Minister to resign (and on a similar note there may have been portions of the Military which aspired to provoke a small scale conflict allowing for a military resolution of the Adriatic matters, before the advancing demobilization made this alternative no longer viable) and as a prelude to the constitution of a “national” government willing to declare the annexation of Fiume. We know from Giuriati's memoirs that the president of the Trento e Trieste had in fact begun examining the concrete perspective of a peripheral initiative in Fiume, together with D'Annunzio, during their stay in Rome in late June and early July, after the realization that the manifestations of the “radical” opposition and the concurring price riots were not sufficient to cause a collapse of Nitti's new Ministry.

But neither Giuriati's intentions (which, anyways, were exposed at a time where such intentions had secured an official sanctioning as expression of the true will of the nation) nor Nitti's suspicions should be taken as evidence of a predominant public and political movement, nor the apparent state of discretionary discipline within the Army ranks lead one to immediately ascribe the events to the coherent influence of a military conspiracy. Indeed, it's exactly this widespread sympathy for an initiative which, on practical grounds, was hard to qualify much differently from what Nitti himself had done (and which appeared at times to catch even the military commands off guard, with inability and unwillingness to prevent and repress it merging and compounding on each other), as well as a general reluctance to heed the government's advice, or rather, an inclination to regard the Government's instructions as subject to a process of negotiation, which appear to constitute one of the early signs of the progressive deterioration of the authority of the liberal State and, at the same time, highlight the practical difficulties intrinsic to any other action but one of compromise and containment directed to neutralize the most dangerous possible immediate repercussions of D'Annunzio's occupation but ultimately unable to neutralize its long term effects. In military terms, despite the relative failure of D'Annunzio's action to produce its supposed strategic goals, Nitti was forced to realize that any attempt to mount an immediate counteroffensive might have led to a disastrous outcome, and that the first priority of the Government was therefore that of consolidating its defensive position.

 

Furthermore, even if having a clear picture of the process from within the State's apparatus could be quite difficult, Nitti must have realized how this state of things further impacted the ambiguity of the relations between the various organisms of the State's institutions. In his communication of September 13^th (15.00 pm) the commander of the VIII Army, gen. Di Robilant – who had been in relatively close contact with Nitti and should have been well informed of the Government's intention on the matters of Fiume (if only because he had been the Italian representative to the inter-Allied commission drafting the deliberations the execution of which had been interrupted by D'Annunzio's march) – had felt the need to ask the Prime Minister “whether the Government is aware and approves; if not, I ask for the means to proceed with maximum energy”.

Yet, apparently, only half an hour earlier Di Robilant had informed the High Command that he had instructed gen. Pittaluga (the commander of the Italian occupation force in Fiume) to “apprehend D'Annunzio” - an order which, according to Pittaluga's own memoirs, he had never received, nor could be reasonably expected to carry off had he received it. At 14.30 pm, D'Annunzio had already entered the city, with the Italian (and inter-Allied) commander allowed to lead the way in order to prevent incidents and as a special regard for his official status; and indeed, Pittaluga's own communications to Nitti appear – at least if we regard Nitti's hours as accurate (which they might not be) – to have been sent after D'Annunzio had broken through what little resistance the Italian Commands had been able to place on his way.

Later that day, following up to a telegram from Nitti which clarified the Government's attitude on the matter, Di Robilant highlighted the various compounding factors which, according to his perspective, justified his doubts or at least warranted his request for precise instructions.

a) the fact that D'Annunzio wasn't under surveillance after his last few speeches and in consideration of the way he had left the army

b) the manifestations of grenadiers arranged and promoted by gen. Grazioli at the moment of their departure from Fiume, which were praised on the press without their main responsible being subject to any reproach

c) the assignation of the grenadiers to the XXVI Corp, which is the one closest to Fiume, made by the High Command

d) the usual indisicipline of the arditi

e) the form in which the deliberations of the inquest Committee were carried off. It's obvious in fact that, if I accepted the institution of a surveillance committee and of an Anglo-American police, the purpose was that of avoiding any Italian responsibility in the episodes of unrest which were inevitably going to happen at the departure of our troops. Now, since the latter has been executed while the former were yet to be instituted, one is left with a measure which antagonizes the annexationists without the practical advantages it was supposed to produce.

The complex of these facts, going against my opinions on the matter and deliberated without ever consulting with me, led me to question whether, unbeknownst to me and for reasons I ignored, something had been arranged by the Government for purposes that I could not imagine by myself alone and that I would not have wished to create an obstacle to. Hence the question in my telegram of hours 15.30 pm, current day […] The clear and precise reply of V.E. has reassured me and I'll do my best to provide accordingly to what is asked of me.