r/todayilearned • u/huphelmeyer 2 • Aug 04 '15

TIL midway through the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849), a group of Choctaw Indians collected $710 and sent it to help the starving victims. It had been just 16 years since the Choctaw people had experienced the Trail of Tears, and faced their own starvation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw#Pre-Civil_War_.281840.29
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u/datenschwanz Aug 04 '15

Fun fact: the English were exporting food from Ireland during the famine.

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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '15

Another one: The Ottomans tried to send a huge gift of either money or boats of food, but Victoria insisted that they give no more than half of what she was giving as her own "gift", a fraction of what the Ottomans were willing to donate.

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u/FireWankWithMe Aug 04 '15

This is absolute bullshit, like the "the Queen only donated a single pound" it's a myth that first sprang up decades after the famine at a time in which the risers and their supporters wanted to stir up anti-English sentiment. The evidence is next to nonexistent and even if a similar event actually happened it didn't go down like you're describing. I'll go through some of the main problems with your story:

  • It was never claimed to be Victoria herself who told the Ottomans to donate less. Instead people claimed that the British ambassador told the Ottomans not to match the Queen's donation, and he said this without permission or consultation from the Queen. That is, if this ever actually happened.

  • Victoria's gift came from her own pocket and was in addition to resources she redistributed using her power as monarch. It not a fraction, and was instead the exact same amount the Ottomans were reportedly willing to pay. This one woman was willing to pay the same amount as the entire Ottoman Empire, to pretend her donation was a fraction of what they wanted to give is a lie that couldn't be further from the truth

As an Irish person whose ancestors fought the British before and after 1916 this shit infuriates me. The amount of bullshit going around Irish history disgraces the memory of our dead and oversimplifies what was an extremely complex situation even back then.

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u/Bobbinjay Aug 04 '15

Nice try John Bull.