{"id":272411,"date":"2017-03-04T15:07:38","date_gmt":"2017-03-04T20:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=272411"},"modified":"2020-08-30T15:14:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-30T19:14:16","slug":"devils-punchbowl-an-american-concentration-camp-so-horrific-it-was-erased-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/devils-punchbowl-an-american-concentration-camp-so-horrific-it-was-erased-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Devil\u2019s Punchbowl \u2013 An American concentration camp so horrific it was erased from history"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
Another shame in the most criminal nation on Earth: the USA. The only country that used the atomic bomb on a civilian population.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Say the words concentration camps, and most will surmise the topic surrounds World War II and the Nazis; but the hard labor, constant threat of death, and barbarism these microcosmic hells presented weren\u2019t unique to Adolf Hitler \u2014 in just one year, around 20,000 freed slaves\u00a0perished\u00a0in the Devil\u2019s Punchbowl \u2014 in Natchez, Mississippi, U.S.A.<\/p>\n

After the Civil War, a massive exodus of former slaves from Southern plantations trekked northward in hopes of reaching a location of true freedom; but embittered soldiers, resentful the people considered property were now free, had other plans.<\/p>\n

One tiny town\u2019s population mushroomed twelvefold from the influx, as researcher Paula Westbrook, who has extensively studied Devil\u2019s Punchbowl,noted,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the slaves were released from the plantations during the occupation they overran Natchez. And the population went from about 10,000 to 120,000 overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to grapple with an instant population swell, the city turned to Union troops still lingering after the war to devise a merciless, impenitent solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they decided to build an encampment for \u2019em at Devil\u2019s Punchbowl which they walled off and wouldn\u2019t let \u2019em out,\u201d former director of the Natchez City Cemetery, Don Estes, explained.<\/p>\n

Devil\u2019s Punchbowl is so named for a cavernous, bowl-shaped gulch walled off by tree-topped cliffs \u2014 an area unintentionally made perfect for a hellacious prison by nature, herself.<\/p>\n

A tangle of lush green now tops bluffs near the Mississippi River in Natchez, hiding past atrocities that took place when Union Army soldiers corralled and captured those freed slaves \u2014 in worse conditions than they\u2019d endured previously as slaves on sprawling plantations.<\/p>\n

In the unrelenting heat and humidity of the deep South, African American men toiled at hard labor clearing thickets of brush, while women and children \u2014 not seen as a viable workforce for the task \u2014 languished without food or water behind the locked concrete walls of the camp to die of starvation.<\/p>\n

Barbarous treatment didn\u2019t even end when someone died.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Union Army did not allow them to remove the bodies from the camp,\u201d Westbrook explained. \u201cThey just gave \u2019em shovels and said bury \u2019em where they drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/steemit.com\/news\/@tftproject\/devil-s-punchbowl-an-american-concentration-camp-so-horrific-it-was-erased-from-history<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: Another shame in the most criminal nation on Earth: the USA. The only country that used the atomic bomb on a civilian population.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":272412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}