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.
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
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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?
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.
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