17th century, Samuel Sewall wrote: ‘Meeting with the Sachem (Indian chiefs), they came to an agreement and buried two axes in the ground, which ceremony to them is more significant and binding than all the Articles of Peace, the hatchet being the principal weapon.’
Category: Everyday
everyday life
Not surprisingly, the first blackmailers were corrupt politicians, 17th century Scottish chieftains who demanded protection money from local farmers, who refused only at the risk of having their crops destroyed. The ‘mail,’ or payment, was said to be ‘black’ probably because the color black had long been associated with darkness and evil, but it might also have been because payment was usually made in livestock, rather than in silver (which was known as ‘white money’).
The ‘give me two cows or I’ll burn down your farm’ kind of blackmail first appeared in English around 1552, but by the early 1800’s we were using ‘blackmail’ to mean just about any sort of extortion, especially using threats to reveal secrets.
Sir Philip Sidney (1590).
The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia. ‘My deare, my deare, my better half, I find that I must now leave thee.’
‘She thinks I must always be at her beck and call.’ Earl of Worcester (1470).
The original meaning of beck:
Julius Caesars Commentaryes – ‘It should be ready at a beck.’ (A beck was a silent signal, like the nod of the head).
Originally referred to hunting raccoons. The raccoon would usually take to a tree, the dogs used to hunt them would on occasion be barking up the wrong tree and the hunter would lose his prey.
Davy Crockett (1833). Sketches and Eccentricities. ‘I told him…..that he reminded me of the meanest thing on God’s earth, and old coon dog barking up the wrong tree.”‘