title: Druze

text: During the Ottoman–Habsburg War (1683–1699), Ahmad Ma'n collaborated in a rebellion against the Ottomans which extended beyond his death. Iltizam rights in Shuf and Kisrawan passed to the rising Shihab family through female-line inheritance.


title: Druze

text: As early as the days of Saladin, and while the Ma'ans were still in complete control over southern Lebanon, the Shihab tribe, originally Hijaz Arabs, but later settled in Ḥawran, advanced from Ḥawran, in 1172, and settled in Wadi al-Taym at the foot of mount Hermon. They soon made an alliance with the Ma'ans and were acknowledged as the Druze chiefs in "Wadi al-Taym". At the end of the 17th century (1697) the Shihabs succeeded the Ma'ans in the feudal leadership of Druze southern Lebanon, although they reportedly professed Sunni Islam, they showed sympathy with Druzism, the religion of the majority of their subjects.


title: Druze

text: The Shihab leadership continued until the middle of the 19th century and culminated in the illustrious governorship of Amir Bashir Shihab II (1788–1840) who, after Fakhr-al-Din, was the most powerful feudal lord Lebanon produced. Though governor of the Druze Mountain, Bashir was a crypto-Christian, and it was he whose aid Napoleon solicited in 1799 during his campaign against Syria.


title: Druze

text: Having consolidated his conquests in Syria (1831–1838), Ibrahim Pasha, son of the viceroy of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, made the fatal mistake of trying to disarm the Christians and Druze of the Lebanon and to draft the latter into his army. This was contrary to the principles of the life of independence which these mountaineers had always lived, and resulted in a general uprising against Egyptian rule. The Druze of Wadi al-Taym and Ḥawran, under the leadership of Shibli al-Aryan, distinguished themselves in their stubborn resistance at their inaccessible headquarters, "al-Laja", lying southeast of Damascus.


title: Druze

text: The conquest of Syria by the Muslim Arabs in the middle of the seventh century introduced into the land two political factions later called the Qaysites and the Yemenites. The Qaysite party represented the Bedouin Arabs who were regarded as inferior by the Yemenites who were earlier and more cultured emigrants into Syria from southern Arabia. Druze and Christians grouped in political, rather than religious, parties; the party lines in Lebanon obliterated ethnic and religious lines and the people grouped themselves into one or the other of these two parties regardless of their religious affiliations. The sanguinary feuds between these two factions depleted, in course of time, the manhood of the Lebanon and ended in the decisive battle of Ain Dara in 1711, which resulted in the utter defeat of the Yemenite party. Many Yemenite Druze thereupon migrated to the Hauran region, laying the foundation of Druze power there.


title: Druze

text: The relationship between the Druze and Christians has been characterized by harmony and coexistence, with amicable relations between the two groups prevailing throughout history, with the exception of some periods, including 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus. In 1840, social disturbance started between Druze and their Christian Maronite neighbors, who had previously been on friendly terms. This culminated in the civil war of 1860.


title: Druze

text: After the Shehab dynasty converted to Christianity, the Druze community and feudal leaders came under attack from the regime with the collaboration of the Maronite Catholic Church, and the Druze lost most of their political and feudal powers. Also, the Druze formed an alliance with Britain and allowed Protestant missionaries to enter Mount Lebanon, creating tension between them and the Catholic Maronites.


title: Druze

text: The Maronite-Druze conflict in 1840–60 was an outgrowth of the Maronite independence movement, directed against the Druze, Druze feudalism, and the Ottoman-Turks. The civil war was not therefore a religious war, except in Damascus, where it spread and where the vastly non-Druze population was anti-Christian. The movement culminated with the 1859–60 massacre and defeat of the Maronites by the Druze. The civil war of 1860 cost the Maronites some ten thousand lives in Damascus, Zahlé, Deir al-Qamar, Hasbaya, and other towns of Lebanon.


title: Druze

text: The European powers then determined to intervene, and authorized the landing in Beirut of a body of French troops under General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, whose inscription can still be seen on the historic rock at the mouth of Nahr al-Kalb. French intervention on behalf of the Maronites did not help the Maronite national movement, since France was restricted in 1860 by the British government, which did not want the Ottoman Empire dismembered. But European intervention pressured the Turks to treat the Maronites more justly. Following the recommendations of the powers, the Ottoman Porte granted Lebanon local autonomy, guaranteed by the powers, under a Maronite governor. This autonomy was maintained until World War I.


title: Druze

text: The Hauran rebellion was a violent Druze uprising against Ottoman authority in the Syrian province, which erupted in May 1909. The rebellion was led by al-Atrash family, originated in local disputes and Druze unwillingness to pay taxes and conscript into the Ottoman Army. The rebellion ended in brutal suppression of the Druze by General Sami Pasha al-Farouqi, significant depopulation of the Hauran region and execution of the Druze leaders in 1910. In the outcome of the revolt, 2,000 Druze were killed, a similar number wounded, and hundreds of Druze fighters imprisoned. Al-Farouqi also disarmed the population, extracted significant taxes, and launched a census of the region.


title: Druze

text: In Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan, the Druzites have official recognition as a separate religious community with its own religious court system. Druzites are known for their loyalty to the countries they reside in, though they have a strong community feeling, in which they identify themselves as related even across borders of countries.


title: Druze

text: Although most Druze no longer consider themselves Muslim, Al Azhar of Egypt recognized them in 1959 as one of the Islamic sects in the Al-Azhar Shia Fatwa due to political reasons, as Gamal Abdel Nasser saw it as a tool to spread his appeal and influence across the entire Arab world.


title: Druze

text: Despite their practice of blending with dominant groups to avoid persecution, and because the Druze religion does not endorse separatist sentiments, but urges blending with the communities they reside in, the Druze have had a history of resistance to occupying powers, and they have at times enjoyed more freedom than most other groups living in the Levant.


title: Druze

text: In Syria, most Druzites live in the Jebel al-Druze, a rugged and mountainous region in the southwest of the country, which is more than 90 percent Druze inhabited; some 120 villages are exclusively so. Other notable communities live in the Harim Mountains, the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, and on the southeast slopes of Mount Hermon. A large Syrian Druze community historically lived in the Golan Heights, but following wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, many of these Druze fled to other parts of Syria; most of those who remained live in a handful of villages in the disputed zone, while only a few live in the narrow remnant of Quneitra Governorate that is still under effective Syrian control.


title: Druze

text: The Druze always played a far more important role in Syrian politics than its comparatively small population would suggest. With a community of little more than 100,000 in 1949, or roughly three percent of the Syrian population, the Druze of Syria's southwestern mountains constituted a potent force in Syrian politics and played a leading role in the nationalist struggle against the French. Under the military leadership of Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, the Druze provided much of the military force behind the Syrian Revolution of 1925–27. In 1945, Amir Hasan al-Atrash, the paramount political leader of the Jebel al-Druze, led the Druze military units in a successful revolt against the French, making the Jebel al-Druze the first and only region in Syria to liberate itself from French rule without British assistance. At independence the Druze, made confident by their successes, expected that Damascus would reward them for their many sacrifices on the battlefield. They demanded to keep their autonomous administration and many political privileges accorded them by the French and sought generous economic assistance from the newly independent government.


title: Druze

text: When a local paper in 1945 reported that President Shukri al-Quwatli (1943–49) had called the Druze a "dangerous minority", Sultan Pasha al-Atrash flew into a rage and demanded a public retraction. If it were not forthcoming, he announced, the Druze would indeed become "dangerous", and a force of 4,000 Druze warriors would "occupy the city of Damascus". Quwwatli could not dismiss Sultan Pasha's threat. The military balance of power in Syria was tilted in favor of the Druze, at least until the military build up during the 1948 War in Palestine. One advisor to the Syrian Defense Department warned in 1946 that the Syrian army was "useless", and that the Druze could "take Damascus and capture the present leaders in a breeze".


title: Druze

text: During the four years of Adib Shishakli's rule in Syria (December 1949 to February 1954) (on 25 August 1952: Adib al-Shishakli created the Arab Liberation Movement (ALM), a progressive party with pan-Arabist and socialist views), the Druze community was subjected to a heavy attack by the Syrian government. Shishakli believed that among his many opponents in Syria, the Druze were the most potentially dangerous, and he was determined to crush them. He frequently proclaimed: "My enemies are like a serpent: The head is the Jebel al-Druze, the stomach Homs, and the tail Aleppo. If I crush the head, the serpent will die." Shishakli dispatched 10,000 regular troops to occupy the Jebel al-Druze. Several towns were bombarded with heavy weapons, killing scores of civilians and destroying many houses. According to Druze accounts, Shishakli encouraged neighboring Bedouin tribes to plunder the defenseless population and allowed his own troops to run amok.


title: Druze

text: Shishakli launched a brutal campaign to defame the Druze for their religion and politics. He accused the entire community of treason, at times claiming they were in the employ of the British and Hashimites, at others that they were fighting for Israel against the Arabs. He even produced a cache of Israeli weapons allegedly discovered in the Jabal. Even more painful for the Druze community was his publication of "falsified Druze religious texts" and false testimonials ascribed to leading Druze sheikhs designed to stir up sectarian hatred. This propaganda also was broadcast in the Arab world, mainly Egypt. Shishakli was assassinated in Brazil on 27 September 1964 by a Druze seeking revenge for Shishakli's bombardment of the Jebel al-Druze.


title: Druze

text: He forcibly integrated minorities into the national Syrian social structure, his "Syrianization" of Alawite and Druze territories had to be accomplished in part using violence. To this end, al-Shishakli encouraged the stigmatization of minorities. He saw minority demands as tantamount to treason. His increasingly chauvinistic notions of Arab nationalism were predicated on the denial that "minorities" existed in Syria.


title: Druze

text: After the Shishakli's military campaign, the Druze community lost much of its political influence, but many Druze military officers played important roles in the Ba'ath government currently ruling Syria.


title: Druze

text: In 1967, a community of Druze in the Golan Heights came under Israeli control, today numbering 23,000 (in 2019).


title: Druze

text: The Qalb Loze massacre was a reported massacre of Syrian Druze on 10 June 2015 in the village of Qalb Loze in Syria's northwestern Idlib Governorate in which 20–24 Druze were killed. On 25 July 2018, a group of ISIS-affiliated attackers entered the Druze city of As-Suwayda and initiated a series of gunfights and suicide bombings on its streets, killing at least 258 people, the vast majority of them civilians.


title: Druze

text: The Druzite community in Lebanon played an important role in the formation of the modern state of Lebanon, and even though they are a minority they play an important role in the Lebanese political scene. Before and during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), the Druze were in favor of Pan-Arabism and Palestinian resistance represented by the PLO. Most of the community supported the Progressive Socialist Party formed by their leader Kamal Jumblatt and they fought alongside other leftist and Palestinian parties against the Lebanese Front that was mainly constituted of Christians. After the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt on 16 March 1977, his son Walid Jumblatt took the leadership of the party and played an important role in preserving his father's legacy after winning the Mountain War and sustained the existence of the Druze community during the sectarian bloodshed that lasted until 1990.


title: Druze

text: In August 2001, Maronite Catholic Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir toured the predominantly Druze Chouf region of Mount Lebanon and visited Mukhtara, the ancestral stronghold of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. The tumultuous reception that Sfeir received not only signified a historic reconciliation between Maronites and Druze, who fought a bloody war in 1983–1984, but underscored the fact that the banner of Lebanese sovereignty had broad multi-confessional appeal and was a cornerstone for the Cedar Revolution in 2005. Jumblatt's post-2005 position diverged sharply from the tradition of his family. He also accused Damascus of being behind the 1977 assassination of his father, Kamal Jumblatt, expressing for the first time what many knew he privately suspected. The BBC describes Jumblatt as "the leader of Lebanon's most powerful Druze clan and heir to a leftist political dynasty". The second largest political party supported by Druze is the Lebanese Democratic Party led by Prince Talal Arslan, the son of Lebanese independence hero Emir Majid Arslan.


title: Druze

text: The Druzites form a religious minority in Israel of more than 100,000, mostly residing in the north of the country. In 2004, there were 102,000 Druze living in the country. In 2010, the population of Israeli Druze citizens grew to over 125,000. At the end of 2018, there were 143,000 in Israel and the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. Most Israeli Druze identify ethnically as Arabs. Today, thousands of Israeli Druze belong to "Druze Zionist" movements.


title: Druze

text: Some scholars maintain that Israel has tried to separate the Druze from other Arab communities, and that the effort has influenced the way Israel's Druze perceive their modern identity.


title: Druze

text: In 1957, the Israeli government designated the Druze a distinct ethnic community at the request of its communal leaders. The Druze are Arabic-speaking citizens of Israel and serve in the Israel Defense Forces, just as most citizens do in Israel. Members of the community have attained top positions in Israeli politics and public service. The number of Druze parliament members usually exceeds their proportion in the Israeli population, and they are integrated within several political parties.


title: Druze

text: The Druzites form a religious minority in Jordan of around 32,000, mostly residing in the northwestern part of the country.


title: Druze

text: The Druze conception of the deity is declared by them to be one of strict and uncompromising unity. The main Druze doctrine states that God is both transcendent and immanent, in which he is above all attributes, but at the same time, he is present.


title: Druze

text: In their desire to maintain a rigid confession of unity, they stripped from God all attributes ("tanzīh"). In God, there are no attributes distinct from his essence. He is wise, mighty, and just, not by wisdom, might, and justice, but by his own essence. God is "the whole of existence", rather than "above existence" or on his throne, which would make him "limited". There is neither "how", "when", nor "where" about him; he is incomprehensible.


title: Druze

text: In this dogma, they are similar to the semi-philosophical, semi-religious body which flourished under Al-Ma'mun and was known by the name of Mu'tazila and the fraternal order of the Brethren of Purity ("Ikhwan al-Ṣafa").


title: Druze

text: Unlike the "Mu'tazila", and similar to some branches of Sufism, the Druze believe in the concept of "Tajalli" (meaning "theophany"). "Tajalli" is often misunderstood by scholars and writers and is usually confused with the concept of incarnation.


title: Druze

text: Druze sacred texts include the Quran and the Epistles of Wisdom. Other ancient Druze writings include the "Rasa'il al-Hind (Epistles of India)" and the previously lost (or hidden) manuscripts such as "al-Munfarid bi-Dhatihi" and "al-Sharia al-Ruhaniyya" as well as others including didactic and polemic treatises.


title: Druze

text: Reincarnation is a paramount principle in the Druze faith. Reincarnations occur instantly at one's death because there is an eternal duality of the body and the soul and it is impossible for the soul to exist without the body. A human soul will transfer only to a human body, in contrast to the Neoplatonic, Hindu and Buddhist belief systems, according to which souls can transfer to any living creature. Furthermore, a male Druze can be reincarnated only as another male Druze and a female Druze only as another female Druze. A Druze cannot be reincarnated in the body of a non-Druze. Additionally, souls cannot be divided and the number of souls existing in the universe is finite. The cycle of rebirth is continuous and the only way to escape is through successive reincarnations. When this occurs, the soul is united with the Cosmic Mind and achieves the ultimate happiness.


title: Druze

text: The Pact of Time Custodian ("") is considered the entrance to the Druze religion, and they believe that all Druze in their past lives have signed this Charter, and Druze believe that this Charter embodies with human souls after death.


title: Druze

text: I rely on our Moula Al-Hakim the lonely God, the individual, the eternal, who is out of couples and numbers, (someone) the son of (someone) has approved recognition enjoined on himself and on his soul, in a healthy of his mind and his body, permissibility aversive is obedient and not forced, to repudiate from all creeds, articles and all religions and beliefs on the differences varieties, and he does not know something except obedience of almighty Moulana Al-Hakim, and obedience is worship and that it does not engage in worship anyone ever attended or wait, and that he had handed his soul and his body and his money and all he owns to almighty Maulana Al-Hakim.


title: Druze

text: The prayer-houses of the Druze are called "khalwa" or "khalwat". The primary sanctuary of the Druze is at Khalwat al-Bayada.


title: Druze

text: The Druze believe that many teachings given by prophets, religious leaders and holy books have esoteric meanings preserved for those of intellect, in which some teachings are symbolic and allegorical in nature, and divide the understanding of holy books and teachings into three layers.


title: Druze

text: Druze do not believe that the esoteric meaning abrogates or necessarily abolishes the exoteric one. Hamza bin Ali refutes such claims by stating that if the esoteric interpretation of "taharah" (purity) is purity of the heart and soul, it doesn't mean that a person can discard his physical purity, as "salat" (prayer) is useless if a person is untruthful in his speech and that the esoteric and exoteric meanings complement each other.


title: Druze

text: Complicating their identity is the custom of ""—concealing or disguising their beliefs when necessary—that they adopted from Ismailism and the esoteric nature of the faith, in which many teachings are kept secretive. This is done in order to keep the religion from those who are not yet prepared to accept the teachings and therefore could misunderstand it, as well as to protect the community when it is in danger. Some claim to be Muslim or Christian in order to avoid persecution; some do not. Druze in different states can have radically different lifestyles.


title: Druze

text: Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad is considered the founder of the Druze and the primary author of the Druze manuscripts. He proclaimed that God had become human and taken the form of man. Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah is an important figure in the Druze faith whose eponymous founder ad-Darazi proclaimed him as the incarnation of God in 1018.


title: Druze

text: Recognition of prophets in the Druze religion is divided into three sort-of subcategories, the prophet themselves ("natiq"), their disciples ("asas"), and witnesses to their message ("hujjah").


title: Druze

text: The number 5 contains an unstated significance within the Druze faith; it is believed in this area that great prophets come in groups of five. In the time of the ancient Greeks, these five were represented by Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Empedocles. In the first century, the five were represented by Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, and Saint Luke. In the time of the faith's foundation, the five were Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad, Muḥammad ibn Wahb al-Qurashī, Abū'l-Khayr Salama ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Samurri, Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad at-Tamīmī, and Al-Muqtana Baha'uddin.


title: Druze

text: Druze believe that Hamza ibn Ali was a reincarnation of many prophets, including Jesus, Plato, Aristotle. Druze tradition honors and reveres Salman the Persian as "mentor" and "prophet", and believed to be reincarnations of the monotheistic idea.


title: Druze

text: The Druze allow divorce, although it is discouraged, and circumcision is not necessary. When al-Hakim returns, all faithful Druze will join him in his march from China and on to conquer the world. Apostasy is forbidden, and they usually have religious services on Thursday evenings. Druze follow Sunni Hanafi law on issues which their own faith has no particular rulings about.


title: Druze

text: Formal Druze worship is confined to weekly meeting on Thursday evenings, during which all members of community gather together to discuss local issues before those not initiated into the secrets of the faith (the juhhāl, or the ignorant) are dismissed, and those who are "uqqāl" or "enlightened" (those few initiated in the Druze holy books) remain to read and study.


title: Druze

text: The Druze strictly avoid iconography, but use five colors ("Five Limits" ) as a religious symbol: green, red, yellow, blue, and white. The five limits were listed by Ismail at-Tamimi (d. 1030) in the "Epistle of the Candle" (risalat ash-sham'a) as:


title: Druze

text: Each of the colors representing the five limits pertains to a metaphysical power called ", literally "a limit", as in the distinctions that separate humans from animals, or the powers that make humans the animalistic body. Each is color-coded in the following manner:


title: Druze

text: The mind generates qualia and gives consciousness. The soul embodies the mind and is responsible for transmigration and the character of oneself. The word, which is the atom of language, communicates qualia between humans and represents the platonic forms in the sensible world. The and is the ability to perceive and learn from the past and plan for the future and predict it.


title: Druze

text: The colors can be arranged in vertically descending stripes (as a flag), or a five-pointed star. The stripes are a diagrammatic cut of the spheres in neoplatonic philosophy, while the five-pointed star embodies the golden ratio, phi, as a symbol of temperance and a life of moderation.


title: Druze

text: Holy places of the Druze are archaeological sites important to the community and associated with religious holidays; the most notable example being Nabi Shu'ayb, dedicated to Jethro, who is a central figure of the Druze religion. Druze make pilgrimages to this site on the holiday of Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu'ayb.


title: Druze

text: One of the most important features of the Druze village having a central role in social life is the '—a house of prayer, retreat and religious unity. The ' may be known as " in local languages.


title: Druze

text: The second type of religious shrine is one associated with the anniversary of a historic event or death of a prophet. If it is a mausoleum the Druze call it "mazār" and if it is a shrine they call it "maqām". The holy places become more important to the community in times of adversity and calamity. The holy places and shrines of the Druze are scattered in various villages, in places where they are protected and cared for. They are found in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.


title: Druze

text: The Druze do not recognize any religious hierarchy. As such, there is no "Druze clergy". Those few initiated in the Druze holy books are called ʿuqqāl, while the "ignorant", regular members of the group are called juhhāl.


title: Druze

text: Given the strict religious, intellectual and spiritual requirements, most of the Druze are not initiated and might be referred to as ' (), literally "the Ignorant", but in practice referring to the non-initiated Druze. However, that term is seldom used by the Druze. Those Druze are not granted access to the Druze holy literature or allowed to attend the initiated religious meetings of the '. The "juhhāl" are the vast majority of the Druze community. The cohesiveness and frequent inter-community social interaction, however, enables most Druze to have an idea about their broad ethical requirements and have some sense of what their theology consists of (albeit often flawed).


title: Druze

text: The initiated religious group, which includes both men and women (less than 10% of the population), is called ' ( "the Knowledgeable Initiates"). They might or might not dress differently, although most wear a costume that was characteristic of mountain people in previous centuries. Women can opt to wear ', a loose white veil, especially in the presence of other people. They wear ' on their heads to cover their hair and wrap it around their mouths. They wear black shirts and long skirts covering their legs to their ankles. Male ' often grow mustaches, and wear dark Levantine-Turkish traditional dresses, called the ', with white turbans that vary according to the seniority of the '. Traditionally the Druze women have played an important role both socially and religiously inside the community.


title: Druze

text: ' have equal rights to ', but establish a hierarchy of respect based on religious service. The most influential of ' become ', recognized religious leaders, and from this group the spiritual leaders of the Druze are assigned. While the ', which is an official position in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, is elected by the local community and serves as the head of the Druze religious council, judges from the Druze religious courts are usually elected for this position. Unlike the spiritual leaders, the authority of the ' is limited to the country he is elected in, though in some instances spiritual leaders are elected to this position.


title: Druze

text: The Druze believe in the unity of God, and are often known as the "People of Monotheism" or simply "Monotheists". Their theology has a Neo-Platonic view about how God interacts with the world through emanations and is similar to some gnostic and other esoteric sects. Druze philosophy also shows Sufi influences.


title: Druze

text: Druze principles focus on honesty, loyalty, filial piety, altruism, patriotic sacrifice, and monotheism. They reject nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs and often, the consumption of pork (to those Uqqāl and not necessarily to be required by the Juhhāl). Druze reject polygamy, believe in reincarnation, and are not obliged to observe most of the religious rituals. The Druze believe that rituals are symbolic and have an individualistic effect on the person, for which reason Druze are free to perform them, or not. The community does celebrate Eid al-Adha, however, considered their most significant holiday; though their form of observance is different compared to that of most Muslims.


title: Druze

text: The life cycle of the average Druze ("juhhāl") revolves around a very small number of events – birth and circumcision, engagement and marriage, death and burial – and is devoid of special Druze prayers or worship.


title: Druze

text: Marriage outside the Druze faith is forbidden and is strongly discouraged, and if a Druze marries a non-Druze, the Druze may be ostracized and marginalized by their community. Because a non-Druze partner cannot convert to Druze faith, the couple cannot have Druze children, because the Druze faith can only be passed on through birth to two Druze parents.


title: Druze

text: Circumcision is widely practiced by the Druze. The procedure is practiced as a cultural tradition, and has no religious significance in the Druze faith. There is no special date for this act in the Druze faith: male Druze infants are usually circumcised shortly after birth, however some remain uncircumcised until the age of ten or older. Some Druze do not circumcise their male children, and refuse to observe this "common Muslim practice".


title: Druze

text: The mother tongue of Druze in Syria, Lebanon and Israel is Levantine Arabic, except those born and lives in the Druze diaspora such as Venezuela, where Arabic was not taught or spoken at home. The Druze Arabic dialect, especially in the rural areas, is often different from the other regional Arabic dialects. Druze Arabic dialect is distinguished from others by retention of the phoneme /"qāf"/. The use of by Druze is particularly prominent in the mountains and less so in urban areas.


title: Druze

text: The Druze citizens of Israel are Arabic in language and culture, and linguistically speaking, the majority of them are fluently bilingual, speaking both a Central Northern Levantine Arabic dialect and Hebrew. In Druze Arab homes and towns in Israel, the primary language spoken is Arabic, while some Hebrew words have entered the colloquial Arabic dialect. They often use Hebrew characters to write their Arabic dialect online.


title: Druze

text: Druze cuisine is similar to other Levantine cuisines and is rich in grains, meat, potato, cheese, bread, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fresh fish and tomatoes. Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Druze and Levantine cuisine is "meze" including "tabbouleh", "hummus" and "baba ghanoush". "Kibbeh nayyeh" is also a popular mezze among Druzes. Other famous foods among Druzes include falafel, sfiha, shawarma, dolma, kibbeh, kusa mahshi, shishbarak, muhammara, and mujaddara. Druze pita is a Druze-styled pita filled with labneh (thick yoghurt) and topped with olive oil and za’atar, and a very popular bread in Israel. Al-Meleh a popular dish among Druze in Hauran region (As-Suwayda Governorate), cooked in a pressure cooker and served on huge special plates at weddings, holidays, and other special occasions. And consists of bulgur wheat immersed in ghee with lamb and yogurt, and served hot with fried kibbeh and vegetables.


title: Druze

text: For reasons that remain unclear, the Mulukhiyah dish was banned by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah sometime during his reign (996–1021). While the ban was eventually lifted after the end of his reign, the Druze, who hold Al-Hakim in high regard and give him quasi-divine authority, continue to respect the ban, and do not eat Mulukhiyah of any kind to this day.


title: Druze

text: Mate (in Levantine Arabic, /mæte/) is a popular drink consumed by the Druze brought to the Levant by Syrian migrants from Argentina in the 19th century. Mate is made by steeping dried leaves of the South American plant yerba mate in hot water and is served with a metal straw ( "bambīja" or "maṣṣāṣah") from a gourd ( "finjān" or "qarʻah"). Mate is often the first item served when entering a Druze home. It is a social drink and can be shared between multiple participants. After each drinker, the metal straw is cleaned with lemon rind. Traditional snacks eaten with mate include raisins, nuts, dried figs, biscuits, and chips.


title: Druze

text: The Druze faith is often classified as a branch of Isma'ili; although according to various scholars Druze faith "diverge substantially from Islam, both Sunni and Shia". Even though the faith originally developed out of Ismaili Islam, most Druze do not identify as Muslims, and they do not accept the five pillars of Islam. Historian David R. W. Bryer defines the Druzes as "ghulat" of Isma'ilism, since they exaggerated the cult of the caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and considered him divine; he also defines the Druzes as a religion that deviated from Islam. He also added that as a result of this deviation, the Druze faith "seems as different from Islam as Islam is from Christianity or Christianity is from Judaism".


title: Druze

text: Historically the relationship between the Druze and Muslims has been characterized by intense persecution. The Druze have frequently experienced persecution by different Muslim regimes such as the Shia Fatimid Caliphate, Mamluk, Sunni Ottoman Empire, and Egypt Eyalet. The persecution of the Druze included massacres, demolishing Druze prayer houses and holy places, and forced conversion to Islam. Those acts of persecution were meant to eradicate the whole community according to the Druze narrative. Most recently, the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, saw persecution of the Druze at the hands of Islamic extremists.


title: Druze

text: Since Druze emerged from Islam and share certain beliefs with Islam, its position of whether it is a separate religion or a sect of Islam is sometimes controversial among Muslim scholars. Druze are not considered Muslims by those belonging to orthodox Islamic schools of thought. Ibn Taymiyya, a prominent Muslim scholar muhaddith, dismissed the Druze as non-Muslims, and his fatwa cited that Druze: "Are not at the level of ′Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book) nor mushrikin (polytheists). Rather, they are from the most deviant kuffār (Infidel) ... Their women can be taken as slaves and their property can be seized ... they are to be killed whenever they are found and cursed as they described ... It is obligatory to kill their scholars and religious figures so that they do not misguide others", which in that setting would have legitimized violence against them as apostates. The Ottoman Empire often relied on Ibn Taymiyya’s religious ruling to justify their persecution of Druze. In contrast, according to Ibn Abidin, whose work "Radd al-Muhtar 'ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar" is still considered the authoritative text of Hanafi fiqh today, the Druze are neither Muslims nor apostates.


title: Druze

text: In 1959, in an ecumenical move driven by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser's effort to broaden his political appeal after the establishment of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria in 1958, the Islamic scholar Mahmud Shaltut at Al Azhar University in Cairo classified the Druze as Muslims, even though most Druze no longer consider themselves Muslim. The "fatwa" declares that the Druze are Muslims because they recite the twofold "Shahada", and believe in the Qur'an and monotheism and do not oppose Islam in word or deed. This "fatwa" was not accepted by all in the Islamic world, many dissenting scholars have argued the Druze recite the "Shahada" as a form of "taqiya"; a precautionary dissimulation or denial of religious belief and practice in the face of persecution. Some sects of Islam, including all Shia denominations, don't recognize the religious authority of Al Azhar University, those that do sometimes challenge the religious legitimacy of Shaltut's fatwa because it was issued for political reasons, as Gamal Abdel Nasser saw it as a tool to spread his appeal and influence across the entire Arab world.


title: Druze

text: In 2012, due to a drift towards Salafism in Al-Azhar, and the ascension of the Muslim Brotherhood into Egyptian political leadership, the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Al-Azhar issued a fatwa strongly opposed to the 1959 fatwa.


title: Druze

text: Both religions venerate Shuaib and Muhammad: Shuaib (Jethro) is revered as the chief prophet in the Druze religion, and in Islam he is considered a prophet of God. Muslims regard Muhammad as the final and paromount prophet sent by God, to the Druze, Muhammad is exalted as one of the seven prophets sent by God in different periods of history.


title: Druze

text: In terms of religious comparison, Islamic schools and branches do not believe in reincarnation, a paramount tenet of the Druze faith. Islam teaches "dawah", whereas the Druze do not accept converts to their faith. Marriage outside the Druze faith is rare and is strongly discouraged. Islamic schools and branches allow for divorce and permit men to be married to multiple women, contrary to the views of the Druze in monogamous marriage and not allowing divorce. Differences between Islamic schools and branches and Druze include their belief in the theophany, Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad is considered the founder of the Druze and the primary author of the Druze manuscripts; he proclaimed that God had become human and taken the form of man, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. Within Islam, however, such a concept of theophany is a denial of monotheism.


title: Druze

text: The Druze faith incorporates some elements of Islam, and other religious beliefs. Druze Sacred texts include the Qur'an and the Epistles of Wisdom ("rasail al-hikma" ) The Druze community does celebrate Eid al-Adha as their most significant holiday; though their form of observance is different compared to that of most Muslims. The Druze faith does not follow Sharia nor any of the Five Pillars of Islam save reciting the "Shahada". Scholars argue that Druze recite the "Shahada" in order to protect their religion and their own safety, and to avoid persecution by Muslims.


title: Druze

text: Christianity and Druze are Abrahamic religions that share a historical traditional connection with some major theological differences. The two faiths share a common place of origin in the Middle East and consider themselves to be monotheistic.


title: Druze

text: The relationship between Druze and Christians has been characterized largely by harmony and peaceful coexistence. Amicable relations between the two groups prevailed throughout most of history, though a few exceptions exist, including the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus. Conversion of Druze to Christianity used to be common practice in the Levant region. Over the centuries, a number of Druze embraced Christianity, such as some of Shihab dynasty members, as well as the Abi-Lamma clan.


title: Druze

text: Contact between Christian communities (members of the Maronites, Eastern Orthodox, Melkite, and other churches) and the Unitarian Druze led to the presence of mixed villages and towns in Mount Lebanon, Chouf, Jabal al-Druze, the Galilee region, Mount Carmel, and Golan Heights. The Maronite Catholic and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in the early Eighteenth Century, through a governing and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate.


title: Druze

text: Druze doctrine teaches that Christianity is to be "esteemed and praised" as the Gospel writers are regarded as "carriers of wisdom". The Druze faith incorporates some elements of Christianity, in addition to adoption of Christian elements on the Epistles of Wisdom. The full Druze canon or Druze scripture (Epistles of Wisdom) includes the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Quran and philosophical works by Plato and those influenced by Socrates among works from other religions and philosophers. The Druze faith shows influence of Christian monasticism, among other religious practices.


title: Druze

text: In terms of religious comparison, mainstream Christian denominations do not believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of the soul, unlike the Druze. Evangelism is widely seen as central to the Christian faith, unlike the Druze who do not accept converts. Marriage outside the Druze faith is rare and is strongly discouraged. Similarities between the Druze and Christians include commonalities in their view of monogamous marriage, as well as the forbidding of divorce and remarriage, in addition to the belief in the oneness of God and theophany.


title: Druze

text: Both mainstream Christian denominations and Druze does not require male circumcision, even though male circumcision is commonly practiced in many predominantly Christian countries and many Christian communities, and in Coptic Christianity and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church as a rite of passage. Male circumcision is also widely practiced by the Druze, but as a cultural tradition, since circumcision has no religious significance in the Druze faith.


title: Druze

text: Both faiths give a prominent place to Jesus: In Christianity, Jesus is the central figure, seen as the messiah. To the Druze, Jesus is an important prophet of God, being among the seven prophets (including Muhammad) who appeared in different periods of history. The Druze revere Jesus "the son of Joseph and Mary" and his four disciples, who wrote the Gospels. According to the Druze manuscripts Jesus is the Greatest Imam and the incarnation of Ultimate Reason ("Akl") on earth and the first cosmic principle ("Hadd"), and regards Jesus and Hamza ibn Ali as the incarnations of one of the five great celestial powers, who form part of their system.


title: Druze

text: Both religions venerate John the Baptist, Saint George, Elijah, Luke the Evangelist, Job and other common figures. Figures in the Old Testament such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jethro are considered important prophets of God in the Druze faith, being among the seven prophets who appeared in different periods of history.


title: Druze

text: The relationship between the Druze and Jews has been controversial, Anti-Jewish bias material is contained in the Druze literature such as the "Epistles of Wisdom"; for example in an epistle ascribed to one of the founders of Druzism, Baha al-Din al-Muqtana, probably written sometime between AD 1027 and AD 1042, accused the Jews of crucifying Jesus. On the other hand, Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveler from the 12th century, pointed out that the Druze maintained good commercial relations with the Jews nearby, and according to him this was because the Druze liked the Jewish people. Yet, the Jews and Druze lived isolated from each other, except in few mixed towns such as Deir al-Qamar and Peki'in. The Deir el Qamar Synagogue was built in 1638, during the Ottoman era in Lebanon, to serve the local Jewish population, some of whom were part of the immediate entourage of the Druze Emir Fakhr-al-Din II.


title: Druze

text: The conflict between Druze and Jews occurs during the Druze power struggle in Mount Lebanon, Jewish settlements of Galilee such as Safad and Tiberias were destroyed by the Druze in 1660. During the Druze revolt against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, the Jewish community in Safad was attacked by Druze rebels in early July 1838, the violence against the Jews included plundering their homes and desecrating their synagogues.


title: Druze

text: During the British Mandate for Palestine, the Druze did not embrace the rising Arab nationalism of the time or participate in violent confrontations with Jewish immigrants. In 1948, many Druze volunteered for the Israeli army and no Druze villages were destroyed or permanently abandoned. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the Druze have demonstrated solidarity with Israel and distanced themselves from Arab and Islamic radicalism. Israeli Druze citizens serve in the Israel Defense Forces. The Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred as "a covenant of blood" (Hebrew: ברית דמים, "brit damim") in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.


title: Druze

text: From 1957, the Israeli government formally recognized the Druze as a separate religious community, and are defined as a distinct ethnic group in the Israeli Ministry of Interior's census registration. Israeli Druze do not consider themselves Muslim, and see their faith as a separate and independent religion. While compared to other Israeli Christians and Muslims, Druze place less emphasis on Arab identity and self-identify more as Israeli. However, they were less ready for personal relationships with Jews compared to Israeli Muslims and Christians.


title: Druze

text: In terms of religious comparison, scholars consider Judaism and the Druze faith as ethnoreligious groups, both practicing endogamy, and both typically do not proselytize. The belief in reincarnation had first existed among Jewish mystics in the Ancient World, among whom differing explanations were given of the afterlife, although with a universal belief in an immortal soul. Figures in the Hebrew Bible such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses are considered important prophets of God in the Druze faith, being among the seven prophets who appeared in different periods of history. Both religions venerate Elijah, Job and other common figures. In the Hebrew Bible, Jethro was Moses' father-in-law, a Kenite shepherd and priest of Midian. Jethro of Midian is considered an ancestor of the Druze who revere him as their spiritual founder and chief prophet.


title: Druze

text: The Druze faith extended to many areas in the Middle East, but most of the modern Druze can trace their origin to the "Wadi al-Taym" in Southern Lebanon, which is named after an Arab tribe Taym Allah (or Taym Allat) which, according to Islamic historian al-Tabari, first came from the Arabian Peninsula into the valley of the Euphrates where they had been Christianized prior to their migration into Lebanon. Many of the Druze feudal families, whose genealogies have been preserved by the two modern Syrian chroniclers Haydar al-Shihabi and Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, seem also to point in the direction of this origin. Arabian tribes emigrated via the Persian Gulf and stopped in Iraq on their route that would later to lead them to Syria. The first feudal Druze family, the Tanukhids, which made for itself a name in fighting the Crusaders was, according to Haydar al-Shihabi, an Arab tribe from Mesopotamia where it occupied the position of a ruling family and apparently was Christianized.


title: Druze

text: Travelers like Niebuhr, and scholars like Max von Oppenheim, undoubtedly echoing the popular Druze belief regarding their own origin, have classified them as Arabs.


title: Druze

text: The 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica states that the Druze are "a mixture of refugee stocks, in which the Arab largely predominates, grafted on to an original mountain population of Aramaic blood".


title: Druze

text: According to Jewish contemporary literature, the Druze, who were visited and described in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, were pictured as descendants of the Itureans, an Ismaelite Arab tribe, which used to reside in the northern parts of the Golan plateau through Hellenistic and Roman periods. The word "Druzes," in an early Hebrew edition of his travels, occurs as "Dogziyin," but it is clear that this is a scribal error.


title: Druze

text: Archaeological assessments of the Druze region have also proposed the possibility of Druze descending from Itureans, who had inhabited Mount Lebanon and Golan Heights in late classic antiquity, but their traces fade in the Middle Ages.


title: Druze

text: In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Israeli Druze people of the Mount Carmel region have among the highest rate of the newly evolved ASPM- Haplogroup D, at 52.2% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele. While it is not yet known exactly what selective advantage is provided by this gene variant, the Haplogroup D allele is thought to be positively selected in populations and to confer some substantial advantage that has caused its frequency to rapidly increase.


title: Druze

text: A 2004 DNA study has shown that Israeli Druze are remarkable for the high frequency (35%) of males who carry the Y-chromosomal haplogroup L, which is otherwise uncommon in the Middle East (Shen et al. 2004). This haplogroup originates from prehistoric South Asia and has spread from Pakistan into southern Iran. A 2008 study done on larger samples showed that L-M20 averages 27% in Mount Carmel Druze, 2% in Galilee Druze, 8% in Lebanese Druze, and it was not found in a sample of 59 Syrian Druze (Slush et al. 2008).


title: Druze

text: Cruciani, in 2007, found E1b1b1a2 (E-V13) [a subclade of E1b1b1a (E-M78)] in high levels (>10% of the male population) in Cypriot and Druze lineages. Recent genetic clustering analyses of ethnic groups are consistent with the close ancestral relationship between the Druze and Cypriots, and also identified similarity to the general Syrian and Lebanese populations, as well as a variety of Jewish groups (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Iraqi, and Moroccan) (Behar et al. 2010).


title: Druze

text: Also, a new study concluded that the Druze harbor a remarkable diversity of mitochondrial DNA lineages that appear to have separated from each other thousands of years ago. But instead of dispersing throughout the world after their separation, the full range of lineages can still be found within the Druze population.


title: Druze

text: The researchers noted that the Druze villages contained a striking range of high frequency and high diversity of the X haplogroup, suggesting that this population provides a glimpse into the past genetic landscape of the Near East at a time when the X haplogroup was more prevalent.


title: Druze

text: These findings are consistent with the Druze oral tradition that claims that the adherents of the faith came from diverse ancestral lineages stretching back tens of thousands of years. The Shroud of Turin analysis shows significant traces of mitochondrial DNA unique to the Druze community.


title: Druze

text: A 2008 study published on the genetic background of Druze communities in Israel showed highly heterogeneous parental origins. A total of 311 Israeli Druze were sampled: 37 from the Golan Heights, 183 from the Galilee, and 35 from Mount Carmel, as well as 27 Druze immigrants from Syria and 29 from Lebanon (Slush et al. 2008). The researchers found the following frequencies of Y-chromosomal and MtDNA haplogroups:


title: Druze

text: According to a 2015 study, Druze have a largely similar genome with Middle Eastern Arabs, but they have not married outside of their clans in 1000 years and Druze families from different regions share a similarity with each other that distinguishes them from other Middle Eastern populations.


title: Druze

text: A 2016 study based on testing samples of Druze in the historic region of Syria, in comparison with ancient humans (including Anatolian and Armenian), and on Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool by converting genetic distances into geographic distances, concluded that Druze might hail from the Zagros Mountains and the surroundings of Lake Van in eastern Anatolia, then they later migrated south to settle in the mountainous regions in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.


title: Druze

text: A 2020 study on remains from Canaanaite (Bronze Age southern Levantine) populations suggests a significant degree of genetic continuity in currently Arabic-speaking Levantine populations (including the Druze, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians), as well as in most Jewish groups (including Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Maghrebi Jews) from the populations of the Bronze Age Levant, suggesting that the aforementioned groups all derive more than half of their overall ancestry (atDNA) from Canaanite / Bronze Age Levantine populations, albeit with varying sources and degrees of admixture from differing host or invading populations depending on each group.


title: Druze

text: In a principal component analysis of a 2014 study, Druze were located between Lebanese people and Mizrahi Jews. In a PCA in a 2021 study, Druze were close to Lebanese people and a part of the larger Levant-Iraq cluster.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero for his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was to preserve the Union. He died 16 months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress and the nation: slavery.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was born into a prominent family of plantation owners who moved westward from Virginia to Louisville, Kentucky, in his youth; he was the last president born before the adoption of the Constitution. He was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army in 1808 and made a name for himself as a captain in the War of 1812. He climbed the ranks of the military, establishing military forts along the Mississippi River and entering the Black Hawk War as a colonel in 1832. His success in the Second Seminole War attracted national attention and earned him the nickname "Old Rough and Ready".


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In 1845, during the annexation of Texas, President James K. Polk dispatched Taylor to the Rio Grande in anticipation of a battle with Mexico over the disputed Texas–Mexico border. The Mexican–American War broke out in April 1846, and Taylor defeated Mexican troops commanded by General Mariano Arista at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, driving Arista's troops out of Texas. Taylor then led his troops into Mexico, where they defeated Mexican troops commanded by Pedro de Ampudia at the Battle of Monterrey. Defying orders, Taylor led his troops further south and, despite being severely outnumbered, dealt a crushing blow to Mexican forces under General Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista. Taylor's troops were transferred to the command of Major General Winfield Scott, but Taylor retained his popularity.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: The Whig Party convinced a reluctant Taylor to lead its ticket in the 1848 presidential election, despite his unclear political tenets and lack of interest in politics. At the 1848 Whig National Convention, Taylor defeated Winfield Scott and former Senator Henry Clay for the party's nomination. He won the general election alongside New York politician Millard Fillmore, defeating Democratic Party nominees Lewis Cass and William Orlando Butler, as well as a third-party effort led by former president Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams Sr. of the Free Soil Party. Taylor became the first president to be elected without having previously held political office. As president, he kept his distance from Congress and his Cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. Debate over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession dominated the national political agenda and led to threats of secession from Southerners. Despite being a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, Taylor did not push for the expansion of slavery, and sought sectional harmony above all other concerns. To avoid the issue of slavery, he urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor died suddenly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850, with his administration having accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Vice President Fillmore assumed the presidency and served the remainder of his term. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U.S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office (16 months), though he has been described as "more a forgettable president than a failed one".


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Zachary Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, on a plantation in Orange County, Virginia, to a prominent family of planters of English ancestry. His birthplace may have been Hare Forest Farm, the home of his maternal grandfather William Strother, but this is uncertain. He was the third of five surviving sons in his family (a sixth died in infancy) and had three younger sisters. His mother was Sarah Dabney (Strother) Taylor. His father, Richard Taylor, served as a lieutenant colonel in the American Revolution.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was a descendant of Elder William Brewster, a Pilgrim leader of the Plymouth Colony, a "Mayflower" immigrant, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact; and Isaac Allerton Jr., a colonial merchant, colonel, and son of "Mayflower" Pilgrim Isaac Allerton and Fear Brewster. Taylor's second cousin through that line was James Madison, the fourth president. He was also a member of the famous Lee family of Virginia, and a third cousin once removed of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: His family forsook its exhausted Virginia land, joined the westward migration and settled near future Louisville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. Taylor grew up in a small woodland cabin until, with increased prosperity, his family moved to a brick house. As a child, he lived in a battleground of the American Indian Wars, later claiming that he had seen Native Americans abduct and scalp his classmates while they were walking down the road together. Louisville's rapid growth was a boon for Taylor's father, who by the start of the 19th century had acquired throughout Kentucky, as well as 26 slaves to cultivate the most developed portion of his holdings. Taylor's formal education was sporadic because Kentucky's education system was just taking shape during his formative years.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor's mother taught him to read and write, and he later attended a school operated by Elisha Ayer, a teacher originally from Connecticut. He also attended a Middletown, Kentucky, academy run by Kean O'Hara, a classically trained scholar from Ireland and the father of Theodore O'Hara. Ayer recalled Taylor as a patient and quick learner, but his early letters showed a weak grasp of spelling and grammar, as well as poor handwriting. All improved over time, but his handwriting remained difficult to read.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In June 1810, Taylor married Margaret Mackall Smith, whom he had met the previous autumn in Louisville. "Peggy" Smith came from a prominent family of Maryland planters—she was the daughter of Major Walter Smith, who had served in the Revolutionary War. The couple had six children:


title: Zachary Taylor

text: On May 3, 1808, Taylor joined the U.S. Army, receiving a commission from President Thomas Jefferson as a first lieutenant of the Kentuckian Seventh Infantry Regiment. He was among the new officers Congress commissioned in response to the "Chesapeake–Leopard" affair, in which the crew of a British Royal Navy warship had boarded a United States Navy frigate, sparking calls for war. Taylor spent much of 1809 in the dilapidated camps of New Orleans and nearby Terre aux Boeufs, in the Territory of Orleans. Under James Wilkinson's command, the soldiers at Terre aux Boeufs suffered greatly from disease and lack of supplies, and Taylor was given an extended leave, returning to Louisville to recover.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was promoted to captain in November 1810. His army duties were limited at this time, and he attended to his personal finances. Over the next several years, he began to purchase a good deal of bank stock in Louisville. He also bought a plantation in Louisville, as well as the Cypress Grove Plantation in Jefferson County, Mississippi Territory. These acquisitions included slaves, rising in number to more than 200.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In July 1811 he was called to the Indiana Territory, where he assumed control of Fort Knox after the commandant fled. In a few weeks, he was able to restore order in the garrison, for which he was lauded by Governor William Henry Harrison. Taylor was temporarily called to Washington to testify for Wilkinson as a witness in a court-martial, and so did not take part in the November 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe against the forces of Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: During the War of 1812, in which U.S. forces battled the British Empire and its Indian allies, Taylor defended Fort Harrison in Indiana Territory from an Indian attack commanded by Tecumseh. The September 1812 battle was the American forces' first land victory of the war, for which Taylor received wide praise, as well as a brevet (temporary) promotion to the rank of major. According to historian John Eisenhower, this was the first brevet awarded in U.S. history. Later that year, Taylor joined General Samuel Hopkins as an aide on two expeditions—one into the Illinois Territory and one to the Tippecanoe battle site, where they were forced to retreat in the Battle of Wild Cat Creek. Taylor moved his growing family to Fort Knox after the violence subsided.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In the spring of 1814, Taylor was called back into action under Brigadier General Benjamin Howard, and after Howard fell sick, Taylor led a 430-man expedition from St. Louis, up the Mississippi River. In the Battle of Credit Island, Taylor defeated Indian forces, but retreated after the Indians were joined by their British allies. That October he supervised the construction of Fort Johnson near present-day Warsaw, Illinois, the last toehold of the U.S. Army in the upper Mississippi River Valley. Upon Howard's death a few weeks later, Taylor was ordered to abandon the fort and retreat to St. Louis. Reduced to the rank of captain when the war ended in 1815, he resigned from the army. He reentered it a year later after gaining a commission as a major.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor commanded Fort Howard at the Green Bay, Michigan Territory settlement for two years, then returned to Louisville and his family. In April 1819 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and dined with President James Monroe and General Andrew Jackson. In late 1820, Taylor took the 7th Infantry to Natchitoches, Louisiana, on the Red River. He subsequently established Fort Selden at the confluence of Sulphur River and Red River. On the orders of General Edmund P. Gaines, he later found a new post more convenient to the Sabine River frontier. By March 1822, Taylor had established Fort Jesup, at the Shield's Spring site southwest of Natchitoches.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: That November (1822), Taylor was transferred to Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where he remained until February 1824. He spent the next few years on recruiting duty. In late 1826, he was called to Washington, D.C., for work on an Army committee to consolidate and improve military organization. In the meantime he acquired his first Louisiana plantation and decided to move with his family to a new home in Baton Rouge.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In May 1828, Taylor was called back to action, commanding Fort Snelling in Michigan Territory (now Minnesota) on the Upper Mississippi River for a year, and then nearby Fort Crawford for a year. After some time on furlough, spent expanding his landholdings, Taylor was promoted to colonel of the 1st Infantry Regiment in April 1832, when the Black Hawk War was beginning in the West. Taylor campaigned under General Henry Atkinson to pursue and later defend against Chief Black Hawk's forces throughout the summer. The end of the war in August 1832 signaled the final Indian resistance to U.S. expansion in the area.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: During this period Taylor opposed the courtship of his 17-year-old daughter Sarah Knox Taylor with Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, the future President of the Confederate States of America. He respected Davis but did not wish his daughter to become a military wife, as he knew it was a hard life for families. Davis and Sarah Taylor married in June 1835 (when she was 21), but she died three months later of malaria contracted on a visit to Davis's sister's home in St. Francisville, Louisiana.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: By 1837, the Second Seminole War was underway when Taylor was directed to Florida. He built Fort Gardiner and Fort Basinger as supply depots and communication centers in support of Major General Thomas S. Jesup’s campaign to penetrate deep into Seminole territory with large forces and trap the Seminoles and their allies in order to force them to fight or surrender. He engaged in battle with the Seminole Indians in the Christmas Day Battle of Lake Okeechobee, among the largest U.S.–Indian battles of the 19th century; as a result, he was promoted to brigadier general. In May 1838, Jesup stepped down and placed Taylor in command of all American troops in Florida, a position he held for two years—his reputation as a military leader was growing and he became known as "Old Rough and Ready." Taylor was criticized for using bloodhounds in order to track Seminole.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: After his long-requested relief was granted, Taylor spent a comfortable year touring the nation with his family and meeting with military leaders. During this period, he began to be interested in politics and corresponded with President William Henry Harrison. He was made commander of the Second Department of the Army's Western Division in May 1841. The sizable territory ran from the Mississippi River westward, south of the 37th parallel north. Stationed in Arkansas, Taylor enjoyed several uneventful years, spending as much time attending to his land speculation as to military matters.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In anticipation of the annexation of the Republic of Texas, which had established independence in 1836, Taylor was sent in April 1844 to Fort Jesup in Louisiana, and ordered to guard against attempts by Mexico to reclaim the territory. More senior generals in the army might have taken this important command, such as Winfield Scott and Edmund P. Gaines. But both were known members of the Whig Party, and Taylor's apolitical reputation and friendly relations with Andrew Jackson made him the choice of President James K. Polk. Polk directed him to deploy into disputed territory in Texas, "on or near the Rio Grande" near Mexico. Taylor chose a spot at Corpus Christi, and his Army of Occupation encamped there until the following spring in anticipation of a Mexican attack.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: When Polk's attempts to negotiate with Mexico failed, Taylor's men advanced to the Rio Grande in March 1846, and war appeared imminent. Violence broke out several weeks later, when Mexican forces attacked some of Captain Seth B. Thornton's men north of the river. Learning of the Thornton Affair, Polk told Congress in May that a war between Mexico and the U.S. had begun.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: That same month, Taylor commanded American forces at the Battle of Palo Alto and the nearby Battle of Resaca de la Palma. Though greatly outnumbered, he defeated the Mexican "Army of the North" commanded by General Mariano Arista, and forced the troops back across the Rio Grande. Taylor was later praised for his humane treatment of the wounded Mexican soldiers before the prisoner exchange with Arista, giving them the same care as was given to American wounded. After tending to the wounded, he performed the last rites for the dead of both the American and Mexican soldiers killed during the battle.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: These victories made him a popular hero, and in May 1846 Taylor received a brevet promotion to major general and a formal commendation from Congress. In June, he was promoted to the full rank of major general. The national press compared him to George Washington and Andrew Jackson, both generals who had ascended to the presidency, but Taylor denied any interest in running for office. "Such an idea never entered my head," he remarked in a letter, "nor is it likely to enter the head of any sane person."


title: Zachary Taylor

text: After crossing the Rio Grande, in September Taylor inflicted heavy casualties upon the Mexicans at the Battle of Monterrey, and captured that city in three days, despite its impregnable repute. Taylor was criticized for signing a "liberal" truce rather than pressing for a large-scale surrender. Polk had hoped that the occupation of Northern Mexico would induce the Mexicans to sell Alta California and New Mexico, but the Mexicans remained unwilling to part with so much territory. Polk sent an army under the command of Winfield Scott to besiege Veracruz, an important Mexican port city, while Taylor was ordered to remain near Monterrey. Many of Taylor's experienced soldiers were placed under Scott's command, leaving Taylor with a smaller and less effective force. Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna intercepted a letter from Scott about Taylor's smaller force, and he moved north, intent on destroying Taylor's force before confronting Scott's army.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Learning of Santa Anna's approach, and refusing to retreat despite the Mexican army's greater numbers, Taylor established a strong defensive position near the town of Saltillo. Santa Anna attacked Taylor with 20,000 men at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847, leaving around 700 Americans dead or wounded at a cost of over 1,500 Mexican casualties. Outmatched, the Mexican forces retreated, ensuring a "far-reaching" victory for the Americans.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In recognition of his victory at Buena Vista, on July 4, 1847, Taylor was elected an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati, the Virginia branch of which included his father as a charter member. Taylor also was made a member of the Aztec Club of 1847, Military Society of the Mexican War. He received three Congressional Gold Medals for his service in the Mexican-American War and remains the only person to have received the medal three times.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor remained at Monterrey until late November 1847, when he set sail for home. While he spent the following year in command of the Army's entire western division, his active military career was effectively over. In December he received a hero's welcome in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, setting the stage for the 1848 presidential election.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Ulysses S. Grant served under Taylor in this war and said of his style of leadership: "A better army, man for man, probably never faced an enemy than the one commanded by General Taylor in the earliest two engagements of the Mexican War."


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In his capacity as a career officer, Taylor had never publicly revealed his political beliefs before 1848 nor voted before that time. He was apolitical and had a negative opinion of most politicians. He thought of himself as an independent, believing in a strong and sound banking system for the country, and thought that President Andrew Jackson should not have allowed the Second Bank of the United States to collapse in 1836. He believed it was impractical to expand slavery into the Western United States, as neither cotton nor sugar (both produced in great quantities as a result of slavery) could be easily grown there through a plantation economy. He was also a firm American nationalist, and due to his experience of seeing many people die as a result of warfare, believed that secession was a bad way to resolve national problems.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Well before the American victory at Buena Vista, political clubs formed that supported Taylor for president. His support was drawn from an unusually broad assortment of political bands, including Whigs and Democrats, Northerners and Southerners, allies and opponents of national leaders such as Polk and Henry Clay. By late 1846, Taylor's opposition to a presidential run had weakened, and it became clear that his principles resembled Whig orthodoxy. Taylor despised both Polk and his policies, while the Whigs were considering nominating another war hero for the presidency after the success of its previous winning nominee, William Henry Harrison, in 1840.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: As support for Taylor's candidacy grew, he continued to keep his distance from both parties, but made clear that he would have voted for Whig Henry Clay in 1844 had he voted. In a widely publicized September 1847 letter, Taylor stated his positions on several issues. He did not favor chartering another national bank, favored a low tariff, and believed that the president should play no role in making laws. Taylor did believe that the president could veto laws, but only when they were clearly unconstitutional.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Many southerners believed that Taylor supported slavery and its expansion into the new territory absorbed from Mexico, and some were angered when Taylor suggested that if elected president he would not veto the Wilmot Proviso, which proposed against such an expansion. This position did not enhance his support from activist antislavery elements in the Northern United States, as they wanted Taylor to speak out strongly in support of the Proviso, not simply fail to veto it. Most abolitionists did not support Taylor, since he was a slave-owner.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In February 1848, Taylor again announced that he would not accept either party's presidential nomination. His reluctance to identify himself as a Whig nearly cost him the party's presidential nomination, but Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky and other supporters finally convinced Taylor to declare himself a Whig. Though Clay retained a strong following among the Whigs, Whig leaders like William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln were eager to support a war hero who could replicate the success of the party's only other successful presidential candidate, William Henry Harrison.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: At the 1848 Whig National Convention, Taylor defeated Clay and Winfield Scott for the presidential nomination. For its vice-presidential nominee the convention chose Millard Fillmore, a prominent New York Whig who had chaired the House Ways and Means Committee and been a contender for the vice-presidential nominee in the 1844 election. Fillmore's selection was largely an attempt at reconciliation with northern Whigs, who were furious at the nomination of a slave-owning southerner; no faction of the party was satisfied with the final ticket. It was initially unclear whether Taylor would accept the nomination because he did not respond to the letters notifying him of the convention's outcome, because he had instructed his local post office not to deliver his mail to avoid postage fees. Taylor continued to minimize his role in the campaign, preferring not to directly meet with voters or correspond about his political views. He did little active campaigning, and may not have voted. His campaign was skillfully directed by Crittenden and bolstered by a late endorsement from Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Democrats were even less unified than the Whigs, as former Democratic President Martin Van Buren broke from the party and led the anti-slavery Free Soil Party's ticket. Van Buren won the support of many Democrats and Whigs who opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, but he took more votes from Democratic nominee Lewis Cass in the crucial state of New York.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Nationally, Taylor defeated Cass and Van Buren, taking 163 of the 290 electoral votes. In the popular vote, he took 47.3%, to Cass's 42.5% and Van Buren's 10.1%. Taylor was the last Whig to be elected president and the last person elected to the presidency from neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party, as well as the last Southerner to win a presidential election until Woodrow Wilson's election in 1912.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: As president-elect, Taylor kept his distance from Washington, not resigning his Western Division command until late January 1849. He spent the months following the election formulating his cabinet selections. He was deliberate and quiet about his decisions, to the frustration of his fellow Whigs. While he despised patronage and political games, he endured a flurry of advances from office-seekers looking to play a role in his administration.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: While he would appoint no Democrats, Taylor wanted his cabinet to reflect the nation's diverse interests, and so apportioned the seats geographically. He also avoided choosing prominent Whigs, sidestepping such obvious selections as Clay. He saw Crittenden as a cornerstone of his administration, offering him the crucial seat of Secretary of State, but Crittenden insisted on serving out the governorship of Kentucky to which he had just been elected. Taylor settled on Senator John M. Clayton of Delaware, a close associate of Crittenden's.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: With Clayton's aid, Taylor chose the six remaining members of his cabinet. One of the incoming Congress's first actions would be to establish the Department of the Interior, so Taylor would be appointing that department's inaugural secretary. Thomas Ewing, who had previously served as a senator from Ohio and as Secretary of the Treasury under William Henry Harrison, accepted the patronage-rich position of Secretary of the Interior. For the position of Postmaster General, also a center of patronage, Taylor chose Congressman Jacob Collamer of Vermont.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: After Horace Binney refused appointment as Secretary of the Treasury, Taylor chose another prominent Philadelphian, William M. Meredith. George W. Crawford, a former governor of Georgia, accepted the position of Secretary of War, while Congressman William B. Preston of Virginia became Secretary of the Navy. Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland accepted appointment as Attorney General, and became one of the most influential members of Taylor's cabinet. Fillmore was not in favor with Taylor, and was largely sidelined throughout Taylor's presidency.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor began his trek to Washington in late January, a journey rife with bad weather, delays, injuries, sickness—and an abduction by a family friend. Taylor finally arrived in the nation's capital on February 24 and soon met with the outgoing President Polk. Polk held a low opinion of Taylor, privately deeming him "without political information" and "wholly unqualified for the station" of president. Taylor spent the next week meeting with political elites, some of whom were unimpressed with his appearance and demeanor. With less than two weeks until his inauguration, he met with Clayton and hastily finalized his cabinet.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor's term as president began on Sunday, March 4, but his inauguration was not held until the next day out of religious concerns. His inauguration speech discussed the many tasks facing the nation, but presented a governing style of deference to Congress and sectional compromise instead of assertive executive action. His speech also emphasized the importance of following President Washington's precedent in avoiding entangling alliances.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: During the period after his inauguration, Taylor made time to meet with numerous office-seekers and other ordinary citizens who desired his attention. He also attended an unusual number of funerals, including services for Polk and Dolley Madison. According to Eisenhower, Taylor coined the phrase "First Lady" in his eulogy for Madison. In the summer of 1849, Taylor toured the Northeastern United States to familiarize himself with a region of which he had seen little. He spent much of the trip plagued by gastrointestinal illness and returned to Washington by September.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: As Taylor took office, Congress faced a battery of questions related to the Mexican Cession, acquired by the U.S. after the Mexican War and divided into military districts. It was unclear which districts would be established into states and which would become federal territories, while the question of their slave status threatened to bitterly divide Congress. Southerners objected to the admission of the California Territory, the New Mexico Territory, and the Utah Territory to the Union as free states despite California's demographic and economic growth. Additionally, Southerners had grown increasingly angry about the aid that Northerners had given to fugitive slaves after "Prigg v. Pennsylvania" allowed slave catchers to capture alleged runaway slaves in free states, and that Northern authorities frequently refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. At the same time, northerners demanded the abolition of the domestic slave trade in Washington DC. Finally, Texas claimed parts of eastern New Mexico and threatened to send its state militia to militarily enforce its territorial claims.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: While a Southern slaveowner himself, Taylor believed that slavery was economically infeasible in the Mexican Cession, and so opposed slavery in those territories as a needless source of controversy. His major goal was sectional peace, preserving the Union through legislative compromise. As the threat of Southern secession grew, he sided increasingly with antislavery Northerners such as Senator William H. Seward of New York, even suggesting that he would sign the Wilmot Proviso to ban slavery in federal territories should such a bill reach his desk.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In Taylor's view, the best way forward was to admit California as a state rather than a federal territory, as it would leave the slavery question out of Congress's hands. The timing for statehood was in Taylor's favor, as the California Gold Rush was well underway at the time of his inauguration, and California's population was exploding. The administration dispatched Representative Thomas Butler King to California, to test the waters and advocate statehood, knowing that Californians were certain to adopt an anti-slavery constitution. King found that a constitutional convention was already underway, and by October 1849, the convention unanimously agreed to join the Union—and to ban slavery within their borders.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: The question of the New Mexico–Texas border was unsettled at the time of Taylor's inauguration. The territory newly won from Mexico was under federal jurisdiction, but the Texans claimed a swath of land north of Santa Fe and were determined to include it within their borders, despite having no significant presence there. Taylor sided with the New Mexicans' claim, initially pushing to keep it as a federal territory, but eventually supported statehood so as to further reduce the slavery debate in Congress. The Texas government, under newly instated governor P. Hansborough Bell, tried to ramp up military action in defense of the territory against the federal government, but was unsuccessful.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: The Latter Day Saint settlers of modern-day Utah had established a provisional State of Deseret, an enormous swath of territory that had little hope of recognition by Congress. The Taylor administration considered combining the California and Utah territories but instead opted to organize the Utah Territory. To alleviate the Mormon population's concerns over religious freedom, Taylor promised they would have relative independence from Congress despite being a federal territory.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor sent his only State of the Union report to Congress in December 1849. He recapped international events and suggested several adjustments to tariff policy and executive organization, but the sectional crisis facing Congress overshadowed such issues. He reported on California's and New Mexico's applications for statehood, and recommended that Congress approve them as written and "should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of a sectional character". The policy report was prosaic and unemotional, but ended with a sharp condemnation of secessionists. It had no effect on Southern legislators, who saw the admission of two free states as an existential threat, and Congress remained stalled.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor and his Secretary of State, John M. Clayton, both lacked diplomatic experience and came into office at a relatively uneventful time in American–international politics. Their shared nationalism allowed Taylor to devolve foreign policy matters to Clayton with minimal oversight, although no decisive foreign policy was established under their administration. As opponents of the autocratic European order, they vocally supported German and Hungarian liberals in the revolutions of 1848, although they offered little in the way of aid.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: A perceived insult from the French minister Guillaume Tell Poussin nearly led to a break in diplomatic relations until Poussin was replaced, and a reparation dispute with Portugal resulted in harsh words from the Taylor administration. In a more positive effort, the administration arranged for two ships to assist in the United Kingdom's search for a team of British explorers, led by John Franklin, who had gotten lost in the Arctic. While previous Whig administrations had emphasized Pacific trade as an economic imperative, the Taylor administration took no major initiative in the Far East.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Throughout 1849 and 1850, they contended with Narciso López, the Venezuelan radical who led repeated filibustering expeditions in an attempt to conquer the Spanish Captaincy General of Cuba. The annexation of Cuba was the object of fascination among many in the South, who saw in Cuba a potential new slave state, and López had several prominent Southern supporters. López made generous offers to United States Armed Forces leaders to support him, but Taylor and Clayton saw the enterprise as illegal. They issued a blockade, and later, authorized a mass arrest of López and his fellows, although the group would eventually be acquitted. They also confronted Spain, which had arrested several Americans on the charge of piracy, but the Spaniards eventually surrendered them to maintain good relations with the U.S.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Arguably the Taylor administration's definitive accomplishment in foreign policy was the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty of 1850, regarding a proposed inter-oceanic canal through Central America. While the U.S. and Britain were on friendly terms, and the construction of such a canal was decades away from reality, the mere possibility put the two nations in an uneasy position. For several years, Britain had been seizing strategic points, particularly the Mosquito Coast on the eastern coast of present-day Nicaragua. Negotiations were held with Britain that resulted in the landmark Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Both nations agreed not to claim control of any canal that might be built in Nicaragua. The treaty promoted the development of an Anglo-American alliance; its completion was Taylor's last action as president.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Clay took a central role as Congress debated slavery. While his positions overlapped somewhat with Taylor's, the president always maintained his distance from Clay. Historians disagree on his motivations for doing so. This caused Taylor to become politically isolated as Southerners disapproved of his preference to appoint the territories of the Mexican Cession as free states while Northerners disapproved of his opposition to Clay's legislative agenda. As a result, Congress increasingly ignored Taylor while drafting a compromise. With assistance from Daniel Webster, Clay developed his landmark proposal, the Compromise of 1850. The proposal allowed statehood for California, giving it independence on the slavery question, while the other territories would remain under federal jurisdiction. This included the disputed parts of New Mexico, although Texas would be reimbursed for the territory.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Slavery would be retained in the District of Columbia, but the slave trade would be banned. Meanwhile, a strict Fugitive Slave Law would be enacted, bypassing northern legislation which had restricted Southerners from retrieving runaway slaves.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Tensions flared as Congress negotiated and secession talks grew, culminating with a threat from Taylor to send troops into New Mexico to protect its border from Texas, with himself leading the army. The crisis escalated after delegates in New Mexico proposed a new state constitution that would have banned slavery and Peter Hansborough Bell won the 1849 Texas gubernatorial election on a pledge to order a militia invasion of New Mexico. Southern senators accused Taylor of secretly sending the U.S. Army to New Mexico; Taylor denied the allegations but emphasized that he would like to. He also said that anyone "taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang ... with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico."


title: Zachary Taylor

text: The omnibus law was a major step forward on these issues but ultimately could not pass, due to extremists on both sides and Taylor's opposition. At this point, Taylor began to receive disapproval from even his own political allies. Secretary of War Crawford warned Taylor he would not approve a military deployment to New Mexico, although Taylor said he would give the order himself. Taylor's close advisors Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens, both Southern Whigs who later served as officials in the Confederate States of America, warned him that his rhetoric on New Mexico would drive Southerners out of the party.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: No great compromise reached Taylor's desk during his presidency; instead, his last days were overshadowed by the Galphin affair. Before joining the Taylor cabinet, Crawford had served as a lawyer. He had been involved in a 15-year case, representing the descendants of a colonial trader whose services to the British crown had not been repaid at the time of the American Revolution. The British debt to George Galphin was to be assumed by the federal government, but Galphin's heirs received payment on the debt's principal only after years of litigation, and were unable to win an interest payment from the Polk administration.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Treasury Secretary Meredith, with the support of Attorney General Johnson, finally signed off on the payment in April 1850. To Taylor's embarrassment, the payment included a legal compensation of nearly $100,000 to Crawford; two cabinet members had effectively offered a tremendous chunk of the public treasury to another. A House investigation cleared Crawford of any legal wrongdoing, but nonetheless expressed disapproval of his accepting the payment. Taylor, who had already been sketching a reorganization of his cabinet, now had an unfolding scandal to complicate the situation. The House of Representatives voted to censure Taylor, and newspapers of both parties began calling for his impeachment.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: On July 4, 1850, Taylor reportedly consumed copious amounts of cherries and iced milk while attending holiday celebrations during a fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction. Over the course of several days, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment initially resembling acute gastroenteritis. The illness initially seemed mild, and on the first day Taylor felt well enough to continue working. His condition worsened thereafter. His Army physician Alexander S. Wotherspoon "diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus, a flexible mid-nineteenth-century term for intestinal ailments as diverse as diarrhea and dysentery but not related to Asiatic cholera", the latter a widespread epidemic prevalent in Washington DC at the time of Taylor's death. The identity and source of Taylor's illness are the subject of historical speculation , although it is known that several of his cabinet members had come down with a similar illness.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Fever ensued and Taylor's chance of recovery was small. On July 8, Taylor remarked to a medical attendant:


title: Zachary Taylor

text: I should not be surprised if this were to terminate in my death. I did not expect to encounter what has beset me since my elevation to the Presidency. God knows I have endeavored to fulfill what I conceived to be an honest duty. But I have been mistaken. My motives have been misconstrued, and my feelings most grossly outraged.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor died at 10:35 p.m. on July 9, 1850. He was 65 years old. After his death, Vice President Fillmore assumed the presidency and completed Taylor's term, which ended on March 4, 1853. Soon after taking office, Fillmore signed into law the Compromise of 1850, which settled many of the issues the Taylor administration faced.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: A Joint Special Committee was appointed by the Common Council of the city of New York to make the arrangements for Taylor's funeral, which took place in New York City on July 23, 1850. A procession moved from the Park and proceeded down Broadway, to Chatham Street to the Bowery; down to Union Square; and then in front of the City Hall. The procession included the firing of three volleys by the 7th National Guard Regiment. There were 30 pallbearers, which was the number of states in the Union at that time.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was buried in an air-tight Fisk metallic burial case with a glass window plate for viewing the face of the deceased.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was interred in the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., from July 13, 1850, to October 25, 1850 (which was built in 1835 to hold remains of notables until either the grave site could be prepared or transportation arranged to another city). His body was transported to the Taylor family plot where his parents were buried on the old Taylor homestead plantation known as "Springfield" in Louisville, Kentucky.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Because of his short tenure, Taylor is not considered to have strongly influenced the office of the presidency or the United States. Some historians believe that he was too inexperienced with politics at a time when officials needed close ties with political operatives. Despite his shortcomings, the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty affecting relations with Great Britain in Central America is "recognized as an important step in scaling down the nation's commitment to Manifest Destiny as a policy." Although historical rankings of presidents of the United States have generally placed Taylor in the bottom quarter, most surveys tend to rank him as the most effective of the four presidents from the Whig Party.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Taylor was the last president to own slaves while in office. He was the third of four Whig presidents, the last being Fillmore, his successor. Taylor was also the second president to die in office, preceded by William Henry Harrison, who died while serving as president nine years earlier.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: In 1883, the Commonwealth of Kentucky placed a 50-foot monument topped by a life-sized statue of Taylor near his grave. By the 1920s, the Taylor family initiated the effort to turn the Taylor burial grounds into a national cemetery. The Commonwealth of Kentucky donated two adjacent parcels of land for the project, turning the half-acre Taylor family cemetery into . On May 5, 1926, the remains of Taylor and his wife (who died in 1852) were moved to the newly constructed Taylor mausoleum, made of limestone with a granite base and marble interior, nearby. The cemetery property was designated as the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery by Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis on March 12, 1928.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: The US Post Office released the first postage stamp issue honoring Taylor on June 21, 1875, 25 years after his death. In 1938, Taylor again appeared on a US postage stamp, this time the 12-cent Presidential Issue of 1938. His last appearance (to date, 2010) on a US postage stamp occurred in 1986, when he was honored on the AMERIPEX presidential issue. After Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln, Taylor was the fifth American president to appear on US postage.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Almost immediately after his death, rumors began to circulate that Taylor had been poisoned by pro-slavery Southerners or Catholics, and similar theories persisted into the 21st century. A few weeks after Taylor's death, Fillmore received a letter alleging that Taylor had been poisoned by a Jesuit lay official. In 1978, Hamilton Smith based his assassination theory on the timing of drugs, the lack of confirmed cholera outbreaks, and other material. Theories that Taylor had been murdered grew after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In 1881, John Bingham, well known for serving as the Judge Advocate General at the Lincoln assassination trial, wrote an editorial in "The New York Times" alleging that Jefferson Davis had poisoned Taylor. In the late 1980s, Clara Rising, a former professor at the University of Florida, persuaded Taylor's closest living relative to agree to an exhumation so that his remains could be tested. The remains were exhumed and transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner on June 17, 1991. Samples of hair, fingernail, and other tissues were removed, and radiological studies were conducted. The remains were returned to the cemetery and reinterred, with appropriate honors, in the mausoleum.


title: Zachary Taylor

text: Neutron activation analysis conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory revealed no evidence of poisoning, as arsenic levels were too low. The analysis concluded Taylor had contracted "cholera morbus, or acute gastroenteritis", as Washington had open sewers, and his food or drink may have been contaminated. Any potential for recovery was overwhelmed by his doctors, who treated him with "ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine" at 40 grains per dose (approximately 2.6 grams), and "bled and blistered him too."