The Historian's Perspective
Detail of an engraving of the Boston Massacre,
by Paul Revere, Boston, 1770. (The Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC01868)
Teaching the Revolution
by Carol Berkin
For most Americans, young and old, the history of the American Revolution
can be summed up something like this: In 1776, all the colonists rose
up in unison to rebel against a tyrannical king and the horrible burden
of unfair taxes the British had imposed upon them for over a hundred
years. During the long war that followed, citizen soldiers shivered
in the cold, shared the hardships together, admired George Washington,
and won the war singlehandedly against the most powerful army in the
world. Then they created a democracy and everyone lived happily ever
after.
Except for the part about shivering in the cold, this myth is just that,
a myth. But, like all good teachers, I am resourceful, and so I would
like to use this myth as a starting point for this essay. Let me begin
with the image that the revolution was a spontaneous reaction to decades
of oppression by the British government—especially unfair taxation.
The British, like the French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish, were empire
builders and created imperial policy designed to enrich and empower
the hub of that empire, what Americans would rightly call the Mother
Country. The operating economic theory of the time was mercantilism
and its tenets were simple: a nation’s goal was to be as self
sufficient as possible so that no wealth, primarily gold and silver,
flowed out of its borders and to produce something other nation’s
wanted so that wealth would flow into its treasuries. Like the old 1960s
joke, who ever had the most toys when they died, won the game of life.
To achieve this goal, European nations conquered lands and created colonies—where
new, marketable raw materials and precious metals might be discovered
that could be sold and where staple agricultural products could be produced
that would feed the Mother Country. From the beginning, therefore, the
colonies existed for the sake of the Mother Country--- it was the logic
of this imperial era.
Rules were set to insure that the colonies served the larger goal of
national glory: colonies were forbidden to trade with the enemy—or
to pay heavy import taxes if they did; they were forbidden to ship goods
or produce in enemy ships; they were forbidden to engage in manufacturing
activities that competed with citizens of the Mother Country; they were
forbidden to create laws or institutions that ran counter to the laws
and institutional structures in the Mother Country. In exchange for
loyalty and obedience, the citizens of the British colonies would enjoy
the protection of the British army and navy and the Constitutional guarantees
of the “rights of Englishmen.”
England, however, tried to build its empire on the cheap. Indeed, it
found a million ways to govern in a manner Uncle Scrooge McDuck would
approve. Unlike France or Spain, its Crown was never willing to finance
colonies, either in their settlement or their operating costs. They
left this to trading companies, wealthy patrons, even dissident religious
groups—and by the 18th century, the cost of running each colony
fell squarely upon the residents who were taxed by their local representative
assemblies—assemblies made up of colonists like themselves. From
the building of roads, to the dredging of harbors, to the royal governor’s
salary—the daily costs of the colonies was paid by local taxation
rather than the British treasury. So cheap was the British government
that it failed to enforce its own trade regulations with any vigor;
given a choice between financing customs collectors to prevent smuggling
and a judicial apparatus to try offenders, the Crown preferred to look
the other way at infractions in a policy humorously dubbed “Benign
or Salutary Neglect.”
Colonists—seeing the cookie jar unguarded—did just as we
might suspect. New Englanders, in fact, built a thriving economy on
a mixture of legitimate trade with British West Indian islands and illegitimate
trade with the Caribbean possessions of rival nations. Over decades,
smuggling became respectable practice; John Hancock, Boston’s
richest merchant, was also its most notorious- or admired—smuggler.
And, local assemblies—who had thrust into their hands what 18th
century men called “the power of the purse”, that is, taxing
power—were quick to see this as a benefit not a burden. The elite
colonists who dominated these assemblies shifted as much of the tax
burden to frontier farmers and the middle classes, reaped the benefits
of deciding how surpluses would be spent—and used their authority
to pay—or not pay—the governor’s salary as a wedge
to secure his support on measures he was not supposed to endorse.
On occasion, the British government woke from its long imperial nap
and tried to rationalize its management of the colonies. In the 17th
century, James II created the Dominion of New England, merging New York
and the New England colonies into one administrative unit. But English
politics was none to stable; James was driven into exile, his Dominion
governor was promptly imprisoned by the colonists, and the megacolony
was dissolved. The heavy hand of the Crown sometimes came down on particular
legislation, usually involving currency or banks, but on the whole Salutary
Neglect was the preferred relationship of the 18th century. Small wonder
that America’s leadership toasted the glories of membership in
the British empire.
The French and Indian War changed all this, as you know. This was the
first Great War for Empire—rivaled only by the struggle against
Napoleon over a half century later—and Britain drained its every
financial resource to defeat its enemy. In the end, Britain won—and
found it a pyrrhic victory. It’s treasury was empty; it owed money
to creditors; and its budget for the military was growing rather than
declining for it had to protect its position against a new French challenge.
On the streets of London, citizens rioted to see wartime taxes reduced.
The new young King had a crisis on his hands.
We all know what followed: salutary neglect was replaced by concerted,
though clumsy efforts to tighten control over American trade, new taxes
– and the first direct tax--were imposed by Parliament, smugglers
were arrested and tried…..and the claim of tyranny emerged.
But was there tyranny? Consider this: the Sugar Act did not increase
the duty on foreign molasses, it lowered it, slashed it in half in fact;
the real shock to the New England smugglers was that the government
declared its intention to enforce the import tax and to prosecute smugglers.
What happened to those smugglers? The British government allowed local
juries of their peers to try them—and those peers promptly declare
them all innocent. John Hancock, caught red handed, was not only found
innocent but celebrated as a hero after the trial. Did the British government
retaliate? Only mildly. Frustrated after multiple trials of this sort,
it created Vice Admiralty courts, perfectly legal, to try the offenders
in a less friendly environment.
But the biggest hue and cry of tyranny arose because of the Stamp Act
and the Townsend Acts. The Stamp Act was an innovation; not an infringement
of rights, but an assertion of authority that had long lay dormant—and
thus lost its potency. When Americans protested; when they harassed
stamp officials, physically attacked customs men, destroyed stamps---the
British ‘tyrants’ responded by repealing the hated act.
They chose the same path with the Townshend Acts, which were also an
innovation – and a dicier one—because they laid import taxes
on British goods. Almost no revenue was collected from these taxes—and
the colonists continued to reach into their pockets not to pay the Crown
but their own local legislatures’ taxes.
How did the British handle the protests, the violence, the organized
resistance led by colonial legislators? Did they arrest the ringleaders
of resistance? No. Did they close down the newspapers that carried diatribes
and learned discourses against British policies? No. Did they restructure
the colonial governments? No. Did they arrest the men who met in illegal
political bodies such as the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental
Congress, or declare them ineligible to serve in local offices? No.
Their response was to ignore petitions, refuse to engage in negotiations
or discussions-- and to generally display a bewilderment at the colonists’
failure to understand how an empire worked.
Not until thousands of dollars worth of property was destroyed in Boston
harbor did the government [many of its members were investors in the
East India Tea Company] retaliate. For the British, as it would be for
the founding fathers of the United States, the sanctity of private property
was worth protecting.
It is amazing to me how patient and tolerant British officials remained
over the turbulent 1760s and 70s. It was not until 1775, when British
troops marched toward Lexington and Concord, that orders were given
to arrest the two men considered to be prime ringleaders of rebellion,
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Patrick Henry was not arrested for declaring
“give me liberty or give me death”; Common Sense was not
confiscated nor was the press that printed it shut down. Arrogant, foolish,
self-interested the members of Parliament and the King might be—but
they were victims of their own commitment to the British constitution
and its guarantee of rights. In the end, the tyranny revolutionaries
decried was the imperial system itself, that is, the notion that colonies
existed for the welfare of the Mother Country.
The second element of the myth is the unanimity of support for the
revolution. Did all Americans-- north and south, white, red and black,
female and male, rich and poor—greet the Declaration of Independence
with uniform enthusiasm? After the divisive experiences of the Vietnam
war and the current divisions over the war in Iraq, it is appealing
to think that there was an overwhelming consensus for Independence.
But it was not so. John Adams famously said that “one third supported
the war, one third opposed it, and one third had no opinion.”
But here, as in many cases, Adams exaggerated. It is far more likely
that, at the beginning of the struggle, many more than one third of
the colonists hoped desperately to remain neutral in a battle between
Mother country and rebellious Americans. Their assumption was that,
no matter who was in power, they would have to pay taxes—why risk
their lives over who that would be? Many a farmer equipped his home
with two flags, the British and the American, and prepared to raise
the appropriate one as an army marched by. As the war progressed many
of these neutral colonists did join the American cause, but this, as
John Shy and Charles Royster have shown, was not an ideological or political
choice: the British army behaved so badly everywhere it went, looting,
raping, destroying, that it literally drove colonists into the revolutionary
camp.
But let us take a closer look at those who supported, and those who
opposed, the movement for independence. To do this, I would like you
to imagine the Revolution as a prism—with many sides, and I would
like to focus on what we would call ‘self-interested’ motives.
This is not to say that men and women chose their sides in the war solely
for economic reasons or to satisfy ambitions. Ideas also influenced
Americans—and ideas shaped how Americans articulated their choice
for rebellion or loyalty and how they understood that choice to reflect
their values and ethics. Bernard Bailyn has shown us that by 1776, most
of the revolution’s leadership believed that the British Government
had sunk deeply into decadence and tyranny and had broken the contract
between governors and the governed that John Locke had so eloquently
described as the only basis for legitimate government. And, we also
know that leading Loyalists, who opposed independence, believed the
revolution was the creation of demagogues and men with thwarted ambitions;
to them, the renunciation of the Crown and “the greatest constitutional
government the world had ever known” was wholly unjustified. But
the critical choice to rebel or remain loyal depended greatly upon where
one stood in relation to others within the society, upon the material
realities that shaped one’s perspective.
Who then were more likely to become revolutionaries? Let me suggest
four broad groups: smugglers and urban workers, planters, legislators,
and African Americans, both slave and free. Let’s start with the
most obvious: smugglers. As you know, British policies after 1763 struck
hardest at the New England colonies. With little of value to trade directly
to England—no rice, no wheat, little tobacco—New England’s
leading citizens made their profits by competing with the Mother Country
in the shipping trade. The post 1763 policies like the Sugar Act of
1764 carried the threat of more regulation, more restrictions, and eventual
economic disaster. Merchants like Hancock found ready allies in those
urban workers, distillers, lumber jacks and shipbuilders whose livelihoods
also depended upon the smuggling made possible by salutary neglect.
Not surprisingly, Boston became the center of protest, of reprisals,
and of rebellion.
What about planters? Again, legend has it that tidewater planters led
the way in calling for independence. Yet, current historiography suggests
that, in Virginia at least, the Virginians we think of as founding fathers
were reluctant rather than eager revolutionaries. Three things propelled
them into the revolutionary camp: first, the great burden of debt they
owed English and Scottish merchants who provided credit for the purchase
of land, slaves and especially luxury goods that men like Jefferson
craved. Secondly, pressure from ordinary farmers and backcountry settlers
who wanted the right to move onto Indian lands—a right denied
by the Proclamation Line of 1763. As the protest against Great Britain
grew during the 1770s, as the tension mounted, wealthy tidewater planters
feared that a war was inevitable and, as they put it in letters to one
another, they could either lead it or be trampled under the feet of
patriots in the western counties. Thirdly, the provocative policies
of Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunsmore, who’s proclamation
offering freedom to the slaves of ‘traitors’ raised the
spectre of slave revolt and race war.
Legislators – those men who ran the assemblies in each colony—had
good reason to join the revolution by 1775. There were two routes to
power and status in the colonial political world: appointment to office
by the king or his representative the governor, and election to office
in the colonial assembly by the white male property owners who enjoyed
the right to vote. Historians know that the same wealthy families dominated
these assemblies, with fathers passing down to sons the duty—and
privilege—of serving. Many were lawyers or had legal training;
most had an education far superior to the ordinary colonist; and, through
marriage, many were part of interlocking families. By mid-century the
assembly was the de facto supreme power in most colonies; British policy
trends after 1763, threatened this supremacy. As Britain realized that
the assemblies had evolved into mini-parliaments, assuming extensive
rights, efforts were made to reassert the authority and sovereignty
of the English Parliament. In the end—and far too late—the
King authorized independent salaries for governors and judges, removing
the bargaining power that the assembly had used effectively to force
the governors to bend to their will. Each effort on Britain’s
part—independent salaries and the especially the reorganization
of the Massachusetts government as part of the Coercive Acts—threatened
the position of this colonial political elite. And, it drove many of
them into rebellion.
Finally many enslaved and free blacks supported the revolution. The
rhetoric of the revolution—“liberty and equality”—gave
hope to free African Americans that they might receive better treatment
within their communities. For the enslaved, rhetoric mattered less than
the fact that service in the military, offered late and unenthusiastically
by the revolutionaries, provided a route to freedom for many.
Who opposed the war for independence? Loyalists might be considered
in five groups: royal office holders, merchants who traded directly
with England, slaves, backcountry farmers of the Lower South, and Native
Americans.
Let’s begin with office holders. Winning appointment to a royal
office was the second route to political power. These posts included
governorships, lieutenant governorships, attorney generals, and judges
of the vice admiralty courts. Salaries were generous; status was high;
and one did not have to stand for office and woo voters. Most royal
officers remained loyal, not simply because of their pocketbooks but
because their positions gave them a different perspective on Britain’s
problems and policies. And, because in the 18th century, taking an oath
of loyalty, as they did for their offices, meant something almost sacred.
Merchants: while many New England merchants depended upon the Caribbean
trade, there were others, both here and in New York and Philadelphia,
who made their livings from the sale of British manufactured goods.
Family connections, religious ties, or simple good fortune made these
men able to establish credit with major British manufacturers or middle
men. Their warehouses were stocked with everything from carriages to
panes of glass to iron tools and bolts of cloth. These men would be
bankrupt if the trade were cut off by war or disrupted by independence.
Enslaved African Americans appear in both categories, patriot and Loyalist.
And, their presence on both sides of the war remind us dramatically
that the Revolution was not one revolution but many. While Patrick Henry
declared that he would prefer death to slavery, his own slaves shared
his sentiment. But their war was not against unfair taxation or royal
tyranny; it was against the more immediate tyranny of the lash. For
slaves, the old Arab proverb surely applied: the enemy of my enemy is
my friend. The formula was usually reasonably simple: if a master was
a Loyalist, the slave was a revolutionary; if the master was a patriot,
the slave made his or her way whenever possible to the welcoming arms
of the British army.
The revolution was different for Indians, or Native Americans, as well.
Most understood that the colonists were land hungry and would not honor
tribal claims if they stood in the way of westward settlement. The British
had shown their willingness to search for diplomatic resolutions to
territorial disputes; the Proclamation Line was, in fact, one of the
few truly statesmanlike decisions of the post French and Indian war
era. Given a choice between the two, Cherokee and Mohawk, and most of
the Iroquis confederation, threw in their lot with the British. Thus
they were fighting their own war for independence—a war far different
from that of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin.
By far the largest group of active Loyalists were the white colonists
of the Carolina and Georgia backcountry. It is this group that gives
the Revolution yet another dimension: civil war. And it adds irony as
well. The tidewater patriots took up arms against the British claiming
“no taxation without representation” and yet, for decades
they had refused to allow backcountry farmers to organize counties,
and thus denied them representation in the colonial assembly. Having
no political voice, these farmers found themselves denied any benefits
of tax revenues: no decent roads were built linking them with the coast;
no courthouses were constructed. The only colonial official they saw
regularly was the tax collector! After years of petitioning, these frustrated
citizens took matters into their own hands and in 1775—the same
year as Lexington and Concord – North Carolina farmers armed themselves
and marched on the tidewater government. This Regulator Movement was
easily defeated—but the following year, as news of independence
spread, the farmers armed themselves again and signed up to fight for
the British. The war that ensued in the lower south was violent and
brutal; colonist killed colonist, sparing neither women nor children.
So, the unanimous uprising of colonists against a tyrannical Britain
proves to be a myth. In its place, a complex event, a multitude of wars
for independence and liberty rather than a single one. This is a more
interesting story—and one that acknowledges the way in which race
and class complicated colonial society even as it complicates American
society today.
But there is more to deconstruct in the myth that began this talk.
Did Americans win the war on their own—did grit, determination,
patriotism and a righteous cause prove enough? Of course, the answer
is no. Americans armed themselves and outfitted their troops with money
borrowed from France, Holland and Spain. The recognition of the United
States by France transformed a rebellion into a war of national liberation
and the entrance of France into the war forced the English to fight
on two fronts rather than one. Finally, it was the French navy that
provided the vital strategic and tactic support for the American effort.
Yorktown would not have played out as it did French ships blocking Cornwallis’s
retreat to safety.
The reliance on European allies does not diminish the American victory.
It does add a global dimension to the struggle and it requires us—and
our students—to remember the imperial context in which the revolution
took place.
The last element of the myth is that the revolutionaries promptly
created a democracy. Such a political system would have appalled all
but the most radical of the revolutionary leadership. To men like John
Adams, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, democracy equated to
‘mob rule’; they had joined a revolution to create a republic,
that is, a government based on the sovereignty of the people, whose
laws were made by an elected representative legislature. This in itself
was enough to mark them as radicals; but they were men of the 18th century
not the 21st. They believed that an active political voice was a privilege
not a right; it belonged only to adult white males who had “a
stake in society,” --- that stake was property. The logic of their
restriction made perfect sense to them: only a citizen who had something
to lose could be counted on to vote for candidates, make or administer
laws, or adjudicate disputes responsibly and without destructive whim
or passions. For the founding fathers, democracy was one of the three
great threats to the survival of a republic, one of three paths to tyranny:
the tyranny of the one [a king or dictator], the tyranny of the few
[an oligarchy], and the tyranny of the many [democracy]. It would be
almost fifty years before the credo of egalitarianism developed a firm
foothold in American culture, producing universal white male suffrage,
the abolition movement and a host of humanitarian reforms.
Why is this such an important element of the myth to debunk? Because
it leaves the struggles, defeats, and victories of ordinary white men,
of African Americans, and of women during the over two hundred years
since the constitution was written without historical context. If indeed
the nation began as a democracy, how do we explain to our students the
necessity of the abolition movement, a war to end to slavery, and the
20th century granting of the franchise to women? By accepting the revolutionary
leaders and the framers of the constitution as men of their time we
can lay the groundwork for teaching the struggle to create democracy
that is the engine of so much of our national history.
All nations have birth myths; the United States is not alone in this.
But in most cases, as in this one, the reality of the birth of that
nation is far more interesting, and indeed more powerful than the myth.
As historians and teachers of American history, we have the enviable
duty of presenting our students with that reality. Who could ask for
a better job?
Carol Berkin is Presidential Professor of History
at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
She is the author of several books including Jonathan Sewall:
Odyssey of an American Conservative, First Generations:
Women in Colonial America, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing
the American Constitution, and Revolutionary Mothers:
Women in the Struggle for America's Independence.
HOME
