Depredation

January 11th, 2013 by admin

Page 2 of 2 | Previous page

Posted in columns, January 2013 | 3 comments

Previous post:
Next post:

3 comments on this post.

  1. Blyden:

    January 16th, 2013 at 9:02 am

    This same phrasing appears in this listing of patriots http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pabcdar/patriots.htm
    and in DAR records here http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alsrcdar/ourpatriots.htm
    and here http://www.marylanddar.org/AnnArundel/patriots.htm
    I wonder if it means that the British looted their belongings and/or brutalized them?

  2. Dr J.R. Cooper:

    July 2nd, 2017 at 11:41 am

    The term includes any prefatory act, from vandalism to murder. I’m a descendant of Revolutionary War & Civil War veterans, the term meant ‘pillage’ at that time & included “literally unspeakable” crimes such as molestation & rape. Remembering verbal history from Native Americans & Civil War ancestors (my great-grandpa, his dad & brothers fought), I remember hearing aunts & aunts using such “codes”. They used them speaking of the unspeakable hurts visited on women of all ages during raids across the Mason-Dixon & in villages of Native People. Much of my family despised any “yankee” well into the 1980s.

  3. Kelly Brown:

    October 31st, 2017 at 11:16 am

    Dear Word Detective:

    In talking with a DAR representative, she advised that “suffering depredation” meant the British forces took my 6 times great grandfather’s property away from him.

    Signed,

    A real word detective

Leave a comment