ABOUT things that we take for granted and of which we know little to nothing. They’re all around us. The Statue of Liberty stands on an island that used to be called Grote Oester Eylant, for a reason that quickly becomes obvious when in Manhattan you dig thirty, sixty feet deep and find the thick layers of oyster shells. Generations of New Yorkers ate oysters as if they were burgers. Another one: Bozeman, Montana is named after gold rusher John Bozeman who founded the town. But nobody tells you that it really ought to be Bosman, for the Amsterdam family that he came from.
Fort Bragg. Fort Hood. All we know, and always have known, is that they were out there, but most of us never realized until recently that both were named after generals who fought to preserve slavery. Braxton Bragg, as a general, didn’t amount to much at all, yet the largest military post in the world became dedicated to him, in North Carolina. Now it’s renamed Fort Liberty. John Hood suffered from the Peter Principle, which says that people in an organization tend to be promoted to a level that they are incompetent for. Nevertheless, the world’s most populous military base was named after him, in Texas, 53,000 troops, until a year ago when it became Fort Cavazos.
THE NAME Hood: that’s Elvis’ grandmother’s last name too, the woman who rest at Graceland beside her grandson, Minnie Mae Hood, descendant of Jan Hoed from Bunschoten-Spakenburg. John Bell Hood also descended from a Jan Hoed, not the same guy, but one from Amsterdam. He was married to Katrien Jaspers and they started a family line that dropped names like Lucas, Aafje, Jannetje, Sabijn, Laurens, Kees and Dries upon America. The general’s grandfather was Luycas Hoed, a spelling that still showed the hand of the fathers.
Fort Hood was named after the Hoeds from Amsterdam, which in this case unfortunately was no cause for pride. It is one of those military bases that were built in America’s south between the two world wars. Often in areas that had to be fully or partially expropriated, eminent domain, something that the local population didn’t much care for. But it had to be done, there was not much in the way of alternatives, there was a deep economic depression going on that necessitated construction jobs, and moreover the nation did not want to be caught militarily unprepared again, like it was in the run-up to the First World War. To sugarcoat things, the government conjured up a bunch of locally acceptable base names that today it wouldn’t possibly get away with.
BEAUREGARD in Louisiana, Benning in Georgia, Lee in Virginia, Rucker in Alabama, Bragg in North Carolina. And Hood in Texas. The general was a madcap, ventured risks that no one else dared. That initially got General Lee’s attention, who promoted him, but the higher his rank, the more reckless his actions. It cost him an arm first, then a leg, and finally his job.
John Hood ended up impoverished, trying to sell health insurance when the yellow fever was rampant, but he died of it himself, uninsured. He left behind ten destitute orphans.
