This Connecticut town never forgets a traitor.
Hundreds of people are expected to gather in New London on Saturday for the Benedict Arnold Burning Festival, where a disgraced paper mâché figure of the American Revolution is burned to mark the anniversary of when Arnold led a group of more than 1,600 British soldiers to burn most of the city to the ground on September 1781.
“I like to jokingly refer to it as the original Burning Man festival,” said organizer Derron Wood.
For nearly a century, cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia held annual events that burned traitors, but they died out during the Civil War.
Wood, who also serves as artistic director of New London’s Flock Theatre, revived the festival in 2013.
It became part of the state’s Connecticut Maritime Heritage Festival, and after a hiatus due to the pandemic, returned last year.
A statue of Arnold, who defected to the British during the American Revolution, was burned on the city’s waterfront. AP
The Benedict Arnold Burning Festival is celebrated annually in New London, Connecticut.AP
“This project and in particular the reaction, the kind of hunger for its return, is huge and the interest in it is huge,” said Victor Chiburis, co-organizer of the festival.
The participants, some dressed in period costumes, marched with fife and drum corps down New London’s Bank Street to Waterfront Park, where its mayor, Michael E. Passero, shouted, “Remember New London,” and burned the effigy.
An army officer, Arnold was appointed by then-General George Washington and given command of West Point, where Washington had his headquarters during the war.
Arnold, who died in 1801 aged 60, was from Norwich. Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
However, it was discovered that Arnold, who was from Norwich, was giving information to the British and planned to surrender West Point to the enemy forces.
Arnold launched an attack on New London a month before the British army surrendered at Yorktown to end the major battles of the Revolution.
By Postal Wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
