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Post by epaul on Apr 1, 2011 13:04:29 GMT -5
I had several relatives during the Revolutionary War. They all thought of themselves as Norwegians, not Americans. Of course, they lived in Norway at the time, so it is understandable.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2011 13:13:06 GMT -5
Certain taxes were definately part of it. But, trying to limit the cause of any war or revolution to a single catch-phrase will provide a grossly inaccurate view. It was different in various regions, and there were, in fact, a plethora of issues that motivated american revolutionaries. Some of the issues now seem absurd or incredible, because we can't fully appreciate the setting.
Some colonists DID bitch about some excise taxes and tarrifs. Other colonists were heavily bitching that the crown was not investing enough money in internal improvements and roads. What the Brits were hearing: "Less taxes, more money for improvements, defense, and direct trade". T'was ever thus...
In the interior of the country, folks were primarily concerned with improvements: roads, bridges, ferry's, etc. Some thought the crown more capable of providing them, while other folks were drawn to the insurgents because they thought that would accellerate improvements. Indians were a huge concern to some white folks in the interior, and there were differing opinions as to whether the Brits or home-boys would take the gloves off, and exterminate indians. As to the British corporations which enjoyed favored status, most american elites were solidly lined up with the revolution. The Hudson Bay Co. and other crown corporations were extremely unpopular with their american counterparts. So much so, that even the formation of corporations was generally forbidden for decades following the revolution. And, until much later in the nineteenth century, all corporations existed purely at the pleasure of state governments, who were authorized to revoke any corporate charter for an entity that was not serving "the public interest". A vague enough term that allowed states to disband corporations for simply being successful, or operating in competition with a local land barron. So, early business entities were typically structured as "trusts" to avoid the corporate death sentence.
But, the average guy in the US at the time was profoundly ambivilant about the whole independence thing. Hard for us to imagine, but they REALLY had more important things on their mind, and were concerned, if at all, about whether the crown or the oligarchs on the east coast could best serve immediate needs of subsistance farming, transportation, and defense against injuns. What the folks struggling to stay alive on the interior were definately NOT thinking about was how much some guy in Boston had to pay for a cup of tea, or whether a wealthy planter in Georgia could ship cotton to europe for direct sale, or had to sell to a crown corporation. And, you will find very damn few contemporaneous complaints from colonists about their freedom of religion, restrictions on speech, or other liberties that subsequent generations suggested were "causes" of the revolution.
Anyway, the 'reasons" motivating a relatively small group of insurgents was all over the place, as were the motivations of the torries. Glad it worked...
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 13:13:25 GMT -5
"My point about the 'myths' versus the 'truth' was that most high-school treatments tend to skip the practical realities and leave kids with these high-faluting ideas of political and moral philosophy, whereas the real motivators were the perceived injuries being inflicted upon the colonists." Then we have no disagreement. The impression I have from my reading is that the colonists were slow to start thinking of themselves as "Americans" out any sense. out addition to thinking of themselves as British, they thought of themselves as Virginians, New Yorkers, etc., and were a bit slow to perceive common interests with the people out the other colonies. Even at the time of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee thought of himself as a Virginian first and an American second, which is why he perceived his loyalties as he did. It's important to distinguish between the colonists thinking of themselves as "Americans" - which they did, in the sense that they were British subjects living in a place called America - and the colonists thinking of themselves as having common interests that could unite them sufficiently to act as one against a common enemy. The annals are full of comments from both colonials and English officials and visitors to the effect that the King need never fear a revolt because the colonies were so disunited. As late as 1774 former Mass. Royal Gov. Thomas Hutchinson was trying to reassure Whitehall that "a union of the colonies is utterly impractical." Some 20 years before the Revolution, Franklin appealed to all the colonies to come together against their French and Indian enemies. He even ran a newspaper cartoon of a dismembered snake, with each segment representing a colony, and the caption, "JOIN or DIE." But the colonies not directly affected by the war were largely unmoved by the French encroachments into the Ohio Valley. Again, the old "whose ox is being gored" syndrome. (The cartoon was recycled during the Revolutionary period, to better effect.) Sorry to be going on about this, but over the past couple of years I've been researching the period for a novel. As always, our history helps explain who we are as a nation.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Apr 1, 2011 13:17:48 GMT -5
Where's the novel?
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Post by epaul on Apr 1, 2011 13:26:35 GMT -5
Say, Chester, be sure to put in a couple chapters about the contributions of early Norwegian settlers to the Revolution. There are some reports that, due to a shortage of cannon balls, dried lutefisk was used in the American cannons at the battle of Yorktown. Not a lot of reports, but some. The English didn't know what hit them.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 13:28:50 GMT -5
Certain taxes were definately part of it. But, trying to limit the cause of any war or revolution to a single catch-phrase will provide a grossly inaccurate view...... Most scholars would agree that the taxation issue was by far the prime motivator. Ranking right behind it was pride, especially among the elites. Virginia Militia Lt. Col. George Washington never got over being outranked by a captain out the regular British army during the Battle of the Monongahela (1755). Nobody liked having their colonial status lorded over them. British military officers and most of the royal governors made no effort to hide their disdain for Americans. A little bit of that would have gone a long way, and they put out a lot of it. EDIT: The only thing more infuriating than a full-of-himself American is a full-of-himself Brit. (MPO)
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 13:36:07 GMT -5
Mostly inside my head, though I do have a 10,000-word outline. It's a whodunnit involving a North Carolina colonial constable toward the end of the French and Indian War. I've gone through more than a hundred books to try to get a feeling for the period. Hoping to park my reader behind the eyeballs of my hero as he navigates his way through a murder mystery, and along the way uncovers a plot against the British government by a turncoat.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 13:38:48 GMT -5
Say, Chester, be sure to put out a couple chapters about the contributions of early Norwegian settlers to the Revolution. .... Wonder if any of them wound down as characters on A Prairie Home Companion. EDIT: This is nonsense down with which I will not put.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 13:58:17 GMT -5
Great! The story about his escape from the British jail reminds me of the song "The Escape of Old John Webb." Yep and being Stephen Douglas Heard I'm eligible to be buried out Heardmont. You're also eligible for membership out the Society of the Cincinnati, the association of descendants of officers of Washington's army. It's named after a Roman general who returned power to the Senate after a great militarya victory and resumed his life as a farmer.
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Post by Doug on Apr 1, 2011 15:27:25 GMT -5
Yep and being Stephen Douglas Heard I'm eligible to be buried out Heardmont. You're also eligible for membership out the Society of the Cincinnati, the association of descendants of officers of Washington's army. It's named after a Roman general who returned power to the Senate after a great militarya victory and resumed his life as a farmer. Yep and one of my sisters is DAR (both could be) my brother is SAR (I was too lazy)
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Post by millring on Apr 1, 2011 15:34:47 GMT -5
Society of the Cincinnati
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Post by Fingerplucked on Apr 1, 2011 15:38:27 GMT -5
Mostly inside my head, though I do have a 10,000-word outline. It's a whodunnit involving a North Carolina colonial constable toward the end of the French and Indian War. I've gone through more than a hundred books to try to get a feeling for the period. Hoping to park my reader behind the eyeballs of my hero as he navigates his way through a murder mystery, and along the way uncovers a plot against the British government by a turncoat. Count me in when it's ready. Kindle format, of course.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Apr 1, 2011 15:39:15 GMT -5
That's count me -in-.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 1, 2011 15:50:01 GMT -5
Didn't know you'd been doing that, Chesapeake. It's a fascinating period, and I think it's hard to get inside the heads of the people who lived then.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 1, 2011 16:12:09 GMT -5
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 16:18:06 GMT -5
It sounds trite to say this, but from the reading I've done, including many journals, I've come to see that they weren't very different from us as far as how they interacted with each other and their world. Their world, of course, was very different. Communities were more isolated by time and distance, their day-to-day rhythms were dictated by the sun and the season, and, as children of the Age of Enlightenment, they were challenged to distinguish between the real and the imagined. The American forest was a dark and haunted place where death could come suddenly at the hands of Indians, or slowly through exposure and starvation. Magic was all around.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 1, 2011 16:20:27 GMT -5
Not unlike conditions inside of Libya.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 1, 2011 16:21:17 GMT -5
Your comments make me think of a terrific book that you may already have read, dealing with the evolving worldview/assumptions during the colonial period. I can't remember titles. I'll try to remember to check when I get home.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Apr 1, 2011 16:36:24 GMT -5
I've been listening to the NYT editorials on my Kindle during the morning drive. Earlier I was trying to decide whether to post Brook's comments or Krugman's. I wound up going with Krugman's. But Brooks is worth reading as well.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 2, 2011 18:54:56 GMT -5
Today's news is not good. In the Egyptian elections, the religious parties dominated. Media are reporting that they're the ones with the organizations, whereas the mostly young demonstrators who brought about regime change are highly disorganized.
This sounds like a plausible outcome for Libya and elsewhere. Far from seeing more democracy in the region, we could be witnessing the birth of a caliphate.
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