PSA: Illicit fireworks rattle NYC. I know it's American tradition, and we're all desperate for some jubilation, but if folks knew the grim colonial-racist history, they'd be less inclined to see fireworks as celebratory. Remedial history with a dash of science below. #4thofJuly
(2) The primary gunpowder in fireworks is potassium nitrate, commonly known as saltpeter. In the young United States, saltpeter was imported from the British India colonies.
(3) During the Civil War, after the Trent Affair, the British government suspended the saltpeter supply to the U.S. It was eventually restored, but the Union blocked the Confederacy from access to the (im)ports.
(4) Unable to fight the war without gunpowder, the South began mining local caves. It was dangerous and labor-intensive. Unsurprisingly, they first put slaves to the task. But the Union army began raiding caves along the saltpeter trail, taking the laboring slaves into freedom.
(5) It became too costly to keep losing slaves, so the cheapest laborers around were enlisted: children. Boys under the conscription age. Kids as young as 7. They worked in the dark, going under before daybreak, home after nightfall. These kids became known as “peter monkeys.”
(6) So can we please dial down the fireworks, folks?
