Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791 (Major Problems in American History Series) [3 ed.] 0495913324, 9780495913320

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MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN k HISTORY lOughton Mifflin

Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1

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DOCUMENTS AND ESSAYS EDITED

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Major Problems

Era of the American Revolution, I 760-1 7 U in the

(

MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES GENERAL EDITOR

THOMAS

G.

PATERSON

Major Problems Era of the

in the

American Revolution, 1760-1791

DOCUMENTS AND ESSAYS SECOND

EDIT1

RICHARD r\i\

i

Rsrn

oi

DITION

I

VA

I)

BROWN

1).

onni

i

OMPAOT

HOI GH TON Mil FLINi 'nil

\

(

w

> i

t

ncui

i

'I

k

Editor in Chief: Jean L.

Woy

Senior Associate Editor: Frances Project Editor: Rebecca Bennett

Gay

Associate Production/Design Coordinator: Jodi O'Rourke

Associate Manufacturing Coordinator: Andrea

Wagner

Senior Marketing Manager: Sandra McGuire

Cover Image: John Trumbull, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker June 1775, Yale University Art Gallery, Trumbull Collection.

Hill,

Back Cover Photo: Peter Morenus/UConn

Copyright

© 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in

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MA

Printed in the U.S.A.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-72005

ISBN: 0-395-90344-0

6789-CRS-03

For

my students

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2011

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Com cms

xiii

Preface

CHAPTER Interpreting the

1

American Revolution Page

1

ESSAYS Barbara Clark Smith

E

for

The Revolution Preserved

4

Social Inequality

The Revolution Destroyed Monarch} and Paved the 8 Democracy

Gordons. Wood

Way

•

H. Breen

•

Made

Boycotts

•

the Revolution Radical

CHAPTER Society

and

Politics

on the Eve

13

2

o) the

Revoluti

Page 27

DOCUMENTS 1.

2. 5.

a

John Adams,

College Graduate, Views Rural Massachusetts, 1760

a

Anna Green Winslow, Boston, 1771

4.

a

Earns His

slave-.

Schoolgirl,

I

Jack

S P.

AY

earns Ahmii (,m\\ Ing

p in

37

The Preconditions of the American Revolution

•

R Beeman

•

The! mergenceol Populaj

DO i

I

M

I

i.mk

I

in,

(•/

Benjamin

'..

Ordei

l.

Rev.

in

V

/

i

(

a/

I

17

,v)

Politics

CHAPTER The British

2.

I

^2

S

Greene

Richard

i

reedom, 1729- 1766

I

Philip Vickers Fithian, a Nevt Jersey tutor, Admires the Tidewatei 40 Gentry, 1773 S

/

Connecticut

Venture Smith,

*

mi

TS Devise Albany Plan of Colonial Union

rank 1 in Predicts the Plan ouncil on the Reform

rhomas Barnard

i

ooks

lo

i

ol

ol

the

i

(

nion Will

ustoma

uturc Glories

§

I

i

all

6

Contents

Vlll

ESSAYS Friction

Fred Anderson

•

Regulars

79

P. J.

Marshall

•

Between Colonial Troops and

Britain Defined

by

Its

Empire

British

88

CHAPTER

4

and Colonial Resistance

British Reforms

Page 98

DOCUMENTS 1.

Stamp Act Resolutions, 1765

Virginia

99

2.

Governor Francis Bernard Describes the Boston Riot, 1765

3.

The Declarations

4.

"William Pym" Asserts Parliamentary Supremacy, 1765

5.

The House of Commons Questions Benjamin Franklin, 1766

of the

Stamp Act Congress, 1765

100

102 103

6.

Lord Camden (Charles 1766 110

7.

Parliament Repeals the Stamp Act but Declares 1766 112

8.

John Dickinson Exhorts the Colonists

9.

Charleston Merchants Propose a Plan of Nonimportation, 1769

Pratt)

105

Exhorts Parliament to Change Direction,

Its

Authority,

to Opposition,

1767-1768

113

117

ESSAYS Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan and

Its

Significance

Pauline Maier

•

The Assertion of Parliamentary Control

•

119

The Townshend Acts and the Consolidation

of Colonial

128

Resistance

CHAPTER The Imperial

Crisis:

From

5

the Tea Act to

the Declaration of Independence Page 138

DOCUMENTS 1.

John Adams Reflects on the Boston Tea

2.

Parliament Debates the Coercive Acts, 1774

140

Party, 1773

140

3.

The Coercive

4.

Thomas

5.

Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, 1774

6.

King George Proclaims America

7.

Thomas Paine

8.

The Declaration

Acts, 1774

143

Jefferson Asserts American Rights, 1774

Calls for

146

154

in Rebellion, 1775

Common

Sense, 1776

of Independence, 1776

170

155

152

1\

ESSAYS Thomas M.

Doerflinger

Pauline Maier

•

The Mixed Motives of Merchant Revolutionaries

•

Declaring Independence

173

180

CHAPTER

6

Fighting for Independence Page 189

DOCUMENTS 1.

John Adams Discusses Military Preparations, 1776

2.

General George Washington Asks Congress 194 1776

3.

Congress Calls on States

to

4.

A

Among American

5.

Soldier Views Mutiny

A

7.

Two Views

Remembers

Veteran

,-\n

191

Effective

Troops, 1780

Army Problems

the Battle of Saratoga, 1777

of the Battle of

Army,

Support Continental Army, 1776

General George Washington Explains 1780 200

6.

for

Yorktown, 1781

197 198

anil Calls for Help,

201

202

ESSAYS John W. Shy

•

Hearts and Minds: The Case of "Long Bill" Scott

Don Higginbotham

The Strengths and Weaknesses

•

CHAPTER Outsiders

205

212

of the Militia

7

and Enemies: Native Americans an Page 224

DOCUMENTS 1.

2.

Oneida Indians Declare

John Adams Reports on Congress's Strategy Tow an! 1775 226

3.

Chickasaw Indians Seek Help, L783

4.

Patriots Intimidate a

5.

a

6.

i

i

.

8.

225

Neutrality, 1775

New

Urges Congress

Pairioi

Newspaper Attack on

Thomas Hutchinson


me more than they imagine about teaching and about histOT} through I

their questions, their smiles, their frowns,

the

at

them because they make

it

a

and even

their blank stares.

1

dedicate

pleasure to walk into the classroom.

R

D B

Major Problems

in the

Era of the

American Revolution, 1760-1791

.

CHAPTER 1

Interpreting the

American

Revolution

The meaning of the American Revolution, and even a pn was, can never be established with absolute finality. The dence and tor the creation of the national republic which front about 1 763 to about 1 789 was too rich in its variety it

—

—

in

its

workings, and too heterogeneous in

its

was the crucial event

U .

participant

allow for a single incontestable and definitive the Revolution

n

interpreter.

for the format:,

our current sense of the l 'uited States must always influence the we see and understand the Revolution. Americans, who ha\ thoroughly investigated the Revolution, cannot view it with We can and do learn more about what happened, but we

wee,

s

in :

.

meaning of events permanently. coherent schools ofgeneral re

Yet certain

accepted during the past two centuries

tinuing vitality of some themes in perspective.

It is

reasonable

and to

w

helps

begin with th

was the earliest, most durable viewpoint Hon from the era of its first appearance in The Whig view was initially articulated pendence movement like David Ramst i

\

otis

Warren, the Massachusetts write'

r

.

writings presented the Revel u tie

tyranny

In the

Whig

interpreter,

expression, the historian

am

Revolution as a heron strug* chants andplantei they fashioned a

dem

the rest of the

American nation, beginning of the twent

1

2

Major Problems

in the

Era of the American Revolution

Although the Whig view has never been wholly swept away from popular culit was effectively challenged at the turn of the twentieth century by university scholars such as George Louis Beer and Charles McLean Andrews, who, together with their students, most notably Lawrence Henry Gipson, formulated a new "imperial" interpretation based on British archival sources. They "discovered" that Britain had never intended to impose tyranny in the colonies, and they agreed with eighteenth-century British officials that in fact the colonists were a free people flourishing under imperial rule. Independence, these scholars explained, resulted from transatlantic misunderstandings and bureaucratic and parliamentary mismanagement. Although Britain was generally well intentioned, its system was haphazard, and its officials were clumsy. This interpretation did not erase notions of patriotic idealism or heroics, but it made them incidental. The key to underture,

standing the Revolution, according

to this school,

lay in grasping British political

and the inadequacies of the imperial system for responding to changing issues and demands. About the same time that the imperial school took root among American scholars, a new, critical viewpoint was articulated by political scientists, essayists, and historians, among them Charles A. Beard, CarlM. Becker, and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Their views, which came to be labeled "Progressive, "focused on economic and political self-interest as the central motives propelling the Revolution. Indeed, the dynamic forces that shaped the movement for independence and the formation of state and national government were conflicts between merchants and farmers, easterners and westerners, city dwellers and country folk, aristocrats and democrats, creditors and debtors. Pulling patriotic icons like Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson down from their pedestals, Progressive interpreters maintained that the same kinds offlesh- and-blood political contests characteristic of culture on both sides of the Atlantic

own era were also operating at the nation 's founding. During the 1930s and 1940s this interpretation became widely established, in both academe through the writings of such scholars as Merrill M. Jensen and popular culture, where the novelist Kenneth Roberts used Progressive ideas in several best-selling novels about the Revolution. This interpretation made the Revolution relevant to contemporary political struggles. Like the older Whig interpretatheir

tion, it has retained vitality and is particularly attractive to critics of national complacency and the status quo. But during the generation following World War 1 1 and in the 1950s especially, it was effectively challenged by scholars such as the political scientist Louis M. Hartz and the historian Richard E. Hofstadter. Their works, influenced by a more global perspective and by a comparison of the American Revolution with the revolutions of France, Russia, and China, emphasized the broad republican consensus that the Revolutionaries shared, their commitment to pragmatic politics, and their affinity for practical compromises. Here there was no significant right-wing party that favored a hereditary system, just as there was no substantial support for social leveling and attacks on private property. American Revolutionaries might argue over tactics, but they were, it was said, generally united around the liberal, Lockean idea of a republic grounded on widespread property ownership and a state committed to fostering individual rights and opportunities. Because a mood of national unity prevailed during the postwar and cold war eras, this "consensus " interpretation had an appeal that made it popular far beyond the campus. As with the older Whig interpretation, it was popular among journalists, politicians, and schoolteachers. During the past generation, starting in the 1960s, various scholars have challenged this consensus view. One group, whose criticism of the consensus interpretation is oblique, has been labeled "neo-Whig. " In the neo-Whig view, both the

ItU:

1

'

and consensu failed to take Revolution Both regarded ideas as secondary, as mere propaganda or ration* to manipulation in a political struggle where th and political advantages were settled by pragmati Progressive

—

whom

Bernard Bailyn has been most inflm material interests and practical politics but emphasize thi Ideas, they maintain, shaped the Revolutionary* thus guided their actions, hike the first Whig interpi Whigs regard its rhetoric as expressing the actual belli the historian

!

a "public relations

"

smokescreen intended

mask

to

their

A second challenge to the consensus school has been targeted the neo-Whigs as well. Labeled 'neo-Pi historian Gary B. Wish has most powerfully articulaU a republican consensus in the Revolutionary era and an But the crux of the Revolution. neo-Progressives rooted in the material interests

first

identify

-

influential

belii

.

When it came to mobilizing common men and women, not suffice. And the movement for republicanism, they m. Jensen.

ongoing battle between democratic and consensus interpretation

too placid

is

rately the blood, sweat, tears,

the

/:.

and hard interests that Wood proposed an in

Cordon S. combined themes

In the 1990s,

that creatively

elitist

and

front both

the

/'

neo-Whig and neo

p relations. His synthesis re-cast the time span of the Re. the IToos to the IS ids. Wood's fw argumentdemocracy was thai longed immediately as being

—

men and

winners. Yet final word,

There to

I

inasmuch as it was constn a measure of \\ ood's achievement

too provincial, it is

it

serves as the point of departure

no agreement about

is

new perspectives,

how

th

'

best to interpret the R

elements of all the earlier interp

xpressedin books, speeches, anddramatu not only information, shape

and judgment,

own

hion their

interpretation of the

documents and essays that

follow.

ESSAYS (

iordon s Wood,

professoi

a

at

Brown

synthesis, The Radicalism oj th praised, bui n has also been

celebrator) vie* ol

.1

University,

won

American

mse,

in the

judgment

revolution thai laid the foundation

history, the

H

eral scholars ol V\

Clark Smith.

from

thai

torian

.1

curatoi

publication

who heads

.11

1

the National

Museum

he tm.il

the Centei foi the

Humanity

fresh interpretation ol the independei

and economic

1

I

criti
of seeing

points out. adopted a radical!)

themselves and their world. Born

men

American Revolution

society that reserved political authority tor

in a

of birth and breeding, the) imagined and dared to embrace the notion that

of humble origins might merit political

Within pages, however, those

rule.

.

.

achievement melts into

patriots'

men

.

Readers learn

air.

Revolution was not republican at all. ... In the aftermath of the Revolution, with the coming o\ the Jacksonian age. Americans faced the limits o( human virtue,

that the

dismissed their Utopian ideals, and accepted the invisible hand of self-interest as the basis for social and political no! republicanism but

life.

The radicalism of

abandonment.

its

.

.

Reserving the term "revolutionaries*' for an essary, for a

gap

at

Wood

the Revolution,

makes

elite

possible, even nec-

it

movement. There is he offers more than the

to leave out significant parts of the resistance

the middle, at the heart.

o\'

his dual revolution. If

A

usual college course on Revolutionary America, he also otters less.

"Revolution" occupies twenty out of 369 pages oi

titled

emerges, was

it

.

text.

section en-

Neither there nor

elsewhere do readers learn substantial amounts about these topics and events: the

Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre: the gathering

Sons of Liberty;

o\

women

mobilizing to disuse tea and lake up the spinning wheel: merchants and artisans negotiating over terms of nonimportation: committees of correspondence feverishl) linking inland villages and seaports; committees

o\'

inspection cementing a cross-

class patriot coalition bv enforcing the Continental Association o\ antitorv

mobs and

tion there i

is

1774: wartime

struggles against monopolists and price gOUgers. In this revolu-

no heroism, delinquency, or treason; no one fought

save George Washington,

who

took no salarv tor

it).

this revolution

Although the federal Consti-

comes in lor discussion, the bulk of what counts many courses and monographs is barelv here.

tution

as

(he Revolution"

in

Readers receive no picture of the unfolding of resistance, the moves and coun-

termoves of different actors, the reluctance of merchants and the energv sans; the tears of indebted slaveholders as thev

unrulv African-American workers.

course of events, and tor therein omitted the

thai

Wood

we might

There political

who

is

tOO

tonus.

doesn't

march us through

the familiar

patriot coalition, a coalition across region. .

.

.

example, about popular ideas

o! hbertv and popular does not consider whether the relative!) humble patriots

here, lor

little

Wood

joined the Revolution activelv shaped the coalition And contributed then

understanding

ol events.

there

II

was something

radical about the eia.

could not be the plebeian capacity lor interracial alliance, up. contesting the law, and others ise

public terrain,

it

capacity to

theii

the soeial scale

there all)

So

arti-

well be grateful, save tor this effect: he has

means bv w Inch the was achieved.

rank, interest, and belief,

ol

faced fervent evangelicals and

was something

presuming then ow

n

toi

it

own

seems, n

running away, rising

competence

radical about patriot leaders,

it

to

occup)

a

could not be

themselves and hence negotiate with those beneath them on

the long

sweep

Jacksonian America, lakes place

at

ot

Wood's Revolution, from colonial

society to

the surface, absent a careful account ol revolu-

tionarv events, absent the agenc) ol artisans, sailois. and foot soldiers, absent the lull

daring

resist

ol

clue patriots,

constituted aul hoi

it

v

who

and

to

staked then

.ill

on then inferiors' competent

commit themselves

io hbeitv

6

Major Problems

in the

Era of the American Revolution

... To accept much of Wood's argument, to follow his use of terms, readers must absorb an imperative: although many things have happened in this history, we allow only some of them to count. Indeed, it is noteworthy that what interests Wood most about African-American slavery is whether that institution was conspicuous to eighteenth-century Euro.

.

.

Most slaveholders and others saw no evil, Wood tells us, as if that to know about them or as if theirs were the only subjectivities that mattered. Surely African- American slavery was conspicuous to some Americans: it depends on who was looking. Americans.

were

.

.

.

we need

all

.

.

We might imagine a radical revolution in the eighteenth century, centered in the vision and the acts of those Americans

—

patriot

and

black and white

tory,

—who

extended the imperatives of liberty from the imperial controversy to relationships

at

home. The radical moment in some Americans' revolution came when they looked anew at slavery. Although some Founding Fathers would still figure as revolutionaries in this story and although the narrative would still unfold in the nineteenth century, its center

One

would

substantially shift outside elite hands

with the impression that Wood's purpose

is left

and

elite vision.

less to discover

is

Ameri-

He

can radicalism than to avoid acknowledging radicalisms of the wrong kind.

down

plays

historical reservations about the

market

to suggest an

relationship between ordinary people and consumption.

.

.

.

unproblematic

Yet in one crucial

decade, from 1765 to 1775, colonists high and low sought liberty by rallying

around a critique of consumption and withdrawing from the British market.

Antebellum Americans were strongly evangelical, that

many looked to religion

reform

—precisely

compass. Instead,

—

.

.

and social

consuming society some moral

resolves the Revolution into a comfortable, democractic

nineteenth-century society that was, after the end, does

.

says, but he does not note

as to trade unionism, political participation,

to give their individualistic,

Wood

Wood

Wood means when

all,

good enough

for everyone.

What,

in

he characterizes the American Revolution as radi-

means that it was adequate. Morgan once noted that most Americans seem to think that the American Revolution was "a good thing." Morgan's characteristic understatement

cal?

At

heart,

Edmund

I

think, he

S.

contains a wealth of insight. freshly.

.

.

.

Few

historians or others approach the Revolution

Revolutionary ideas and events lay claim to Americans' loyalty.

Americans do not have feel implicated in the

to

.

.

.

accord sacred status to the intentions of the Founders to

American Revolution or obligated by

its

commitments and

aspirations. ... In this culture, the Revolution has claims. It is

because of that context,

I

think, that

The Radicalism of the American Revowe look to the Founders and for rad-

lution remains insistent that for Revolutionaries

icalism

we

ultimately look to impersonal demographic and commercial forces.

.

.

.

This book invokes the American Revolution as a powerful legitimating narrative and attaches

more

it

to the

socioeconomic changes of the early nineteenth century. There

to this than harnessing

capitalism,

is

our approval of the Revolution to nineteenth-century

making mobile, competitive, and individualistic elements of the JacksonAmerican Revolutionary, hence worthy of celebra-

ian era not just revolutionary but tion

and deference. .

.

.

.

.

Wood commits himself to overstating the

impact of Revolution, constructing

a unidimensional, fully adequate revolutionary legacy. That the relationship

commitment renders

between the Revolution and the freedom of people not

initially

Interpreting the

included

blessing far too transparent, linear, and simple than

in its

remains. Wood's revolution takes too

who

much

credit.

slights the

It

was and

it

agenc> of those

makes it difficult to comprehend or even "American now recognized that slavery in a

did struggle to end slaver) and

who opposed

credit those

abolition.

republic of workers was an aberration,

Americans were have

to retain

it.

explain and justif)

to

Revolution

and

lutionaries

was

slavery

.

Wood

.

new

and anthropological ways.

racial

who

as those

bit as surel)

a

argument

at

that slaver)

two formations

the hip."

.

Wood

.

.

.

.

[MJaking

a

implied and assumed each

that

does not attend

persists in constructing a Revolution

women of an) liberate women

failed to

But the Revolution was not

later.

less coinci-

ways

to the

that the

eighteenth and earl)

in the late

defense of slaver) necessar) was not the same

In his account,

The Revolution do so

.

and freedom were

defense of slaver) impossible.

Wood all.

the

Revo-

.

silently rejects the

nineteenth centuries.

Yet

The

.

compact with

cast the Constitution as a

bonds of slavery loosened and then tightened again

cient to

.

.

doomed

that

defended slaver) too. Those who believed that were drawing on their Revolutionary

their followers

phenomena "joined

making

an>

if

would

did. they

the North and led ine\orabl\ to the Civil War." But

in

dent, contradictor) growths than other,

Americans eventually

the bedrock of the republic

heritage every the devil.

m

it

peculiar institution.' and that

'a

as southern

motion ideological and social forces

in effect set in

of slavery

institution

as

7

Ann-

womankind. Women's

was

inequality

a

Jacksoman

SOCiet) suffi-

period, he notes, although

in this

a transhistorical

economic,

ing through the ages to bestow

and

circumstance figure largel) as an absence.

m

would

on waiting

social, or political rights

presence

a

it

agent that could go march-

the nineteenth century, and

were ideological versions o\ women's nature that have profoundl) affected female Americans tor over a century. Take women's responsibilit) for present with

\

irtue.

it

As Wood himself

notes. ha\

mg

adopted self-interest as the basis

and society, American culture did not dispense with virtue but placed

women. At

custodial care o\ middle-class

what participation it

in

public

life

under the

that self-interest

was about, women were given

became made

the virtue that

crucial that the) not participate.

Thus neither

women

nor enslaved African Vmericans were

can freedom; both were included sar\ roles.

.

.

.

so

much

the public world, set apart

a narrative ot the

rations, experiences,

sell

the labor the) Controlled 01

Wood.

1

possible

latei

that

it

arguahK

n
.

when

movements

in

tact

it

tenants. mk\

tonus of participation, and

Vmerican-ness without then

.

real, in part as

households, the SUppOSedl) independent

of the nineteenth century, in the

1

from the consciousness

Americans, children,

home, to

who m

tor abolition

tact relied

on

the fields, and the mills

be quibbling, stressing the things

accomplished so much

1

and women's rights -\uk\

current egalitarian thinking." he writes. Others

and

banished

that

thmk. such arguments appeal

the Revolution did not

made

out ot Ameri-

left

a\)^\

and agency. Such omission was necessar) and

dependence

and sometimes even

1

within critical, untree.

African

other poor people, remade the

denial ol the

it

dependence

as a reformulation Ol

constructed

in

This Revolution did not bung "a full-scale assault on dependency*

oi

a

same time

the

o\ politics

it

would suggest

he Revolution

m

that those

thinking ha\e also taken place against the weight of the

fact all

our

movements

8

Major Problems

Era of the American Revolution

in the

the Revolution extended

and contained

liberty. It offered a particular heritage

of par-

ticipation, particular possibilities for public life, but not others ....

The Revolution Destroyed Monarchy and Paved the Way for Democracy GORDON

New

Smith, like other neo-Progressive or

means "substantive change

WOOD

S.

Left historians, believes that radicalism

who were most oppressed,

in the lot of those

subjugated,

or marginal in the society." In her opinion, these most oppressed, subjugated, or

marginal were African-American slaves, women, and other "have-nots" on the very

bottom of American

No one were

in

society.

denies that these groups were oppressed in various ways, as most people

premodern times, and

that black slaves especially

rarely duplicated in the history of the world. ...

gender or of ethnicity. ... To be sure,

I

proper context for fully understanding them challenges the Revolution

made

ing explaining the origins of the

No

.

I

.

.

.

believe

I

.

dozens of monographs on

have

set these issues in their

and have correctly

.

to the position of

first

endured a subjugation

do not ignore issues of slavery and

do not repeat

race and gender over the past few decades, but

tial

I

set forth the essen-

women and to

slavery, includ-

emancipation and the abolition movement.

.

.

.

would have liked or expected on the lot of slaves and women in the Revolution. But I never intended merely to synthesize contemporary scholarship. Of course, my book does rely heavily on the writing of many historians. But it tries to be much more than a simple summing up of existing scholarship; it also aims to say something new and original about the Revolution, to see it from an unconventional, if not unfashionable, perspective which is why "the bulk of what counts as 'the Revolution' in many courses and monographs is barely here." What I hoped to do was press beyond the issues of contemporary scholarship, which often deal with past oppressions of women and blacks in a very presentminded manner, to retrieve a kind of oppression that has been lost to us. There existed in the premodern world another, more general sort of oppression that I believe the Revolution eliminated, a comprehensive oppression that subsumed the oppression of both slaves and women and in which all ordinary people had a stake. doubt

spent less time than Smith

I

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

all common women but white males as well.

comparable

.

.

This oppression involved blacks and

.

ordinary Americans, including not only

This oppression was, of course, scarcely

to the particular degradation suffered

nevertheless,

its

by African- American

slaves;

elimination had to precede the elimination of the oppression of

women. The age-old humiliation felt by all commoners in the premodern by no means as well known today as that experienced by black slaves and women, and for that reason I thought it was worth emphasizing. Because this

blacks and

world

is

.

oppression of

all

ordinary people

gender, and ethnicity are,

From Gordon

S.

it

is

Wood, "Equality and

is

not an issue of our

own

.

.

time in the

way

race,

not easy to get present-minded historians ... to

Social Conflict in the

American Revolution" William and Mary-

Quarterly, 3d Series, Vol. 51, 1994, pp. 703-716. Reprinted by permission.

understand

absorbed

In fact, so

it.

9

American

Interpreting the

present cultural wars are they that

in the

inconceivable to them that any white males

is

it

unless they were sailors or

in the past,

homeless or very poor, could ever have been oppressed or have tell oppressed. The) imply that only those who are oppressed or marginalized in our own time were capable of being oppressed two centuries ago.

and fundamentally change the

ish slavery

have been radical.

lot

words, there

In other

women,

far as

we would behave

ing as

as

fundamental

We cannot

we

men were

all

we understand

What was

blacks and

as well as black,

men were teat since

o\'

created equal to white

it

was

It

my book

equal. ... In

Inequality

I

men

and the contempt

We know

it

did not

(although

it

would

1776 because

radical in

wanted

mean

meant

it

in the

our brief American

So when Smith says

eighteenth century (no

Western

story, or

.

.

.

that

that

past, follow rather rapidly.

developments concerning social leveling are not cen-

I

exclude from my account the Ideals and passions

ordinary Americans, they could not be more mistaken. Central to struggle of ordinary people to

emergence ultimately

their

is

emerge

my account

is

not written out

ing the point ot \iew only of the Revolutionary leaders ing that of in

Revolution

ot the

not merely a reflection ot northeastern aristocrats. They

is

food

common

riots or the

my

story

ot

the

is

consciousness and prominence: indeed,

into

what the radicalism

Contrary to what these critics say.

and

that all

took a lew thousand years of Western history to accomplish), then

history, although not to

my

that

once the

the other claims to equality could follow and. relative to the total span of

tral to

in

his-

time be

in

to get that point clear: tor

white males was established

all

Declaration's ring-

o\ the

were held throughout previous

radical about the Declaration in 1776.'

women were

claim of equality by

mean

1776

in

created equal and had certain inalienable rights

used to justify those equalities too).

white

they are unable to understand a docu-

the earlier presumptions

which ordinary people, white tory.

Consequently

in their critiques:

think and tor not behav-

Revolution as the Declaration of Independence.

appreciate the radical significance

ing affirmation that

unless

today.

to the

abol-

1\

eould not possibly

it

expressed

is

it

they indict the Americans of the past tor not thinking as

ment

then

something profoundly anachronistic

is

about their conception of the Revolution, as

the Revolution did not total

It

of

ordinary people because

I

i.U)

about.

is all

assume

and the belter

archives

elite

ot"

that

sort

I

not talk about Jack Tars or

homeless. The only ordinary people they can

really

am

tak-

and ignor-

women

conceive

ot

whom they wrap nostalgic and a ot mantle romantic communalism. Common sentimentalize in artisans, shopkeepers, petty merchants, protobusinessmen those whom farmers,

are those

today

on the \ery bottom

we might

have no

real

label

place

m

ot the society, usually the society's victims,

"lowci-middlc

class'* or

'middle class"

Yet these sorts ot ordinal) people are the majOl actors

actors

the majOl

m m\

talked about are not lor the actions o!

These Jefferson

was

the

StOT)

I

ol

thousands

entities. ot

ot these

I

Ihe\ are merely shorthand terms

among

spokesmen

the Revolutionary

elitt

anyone

else

Hettei than

had. Jefferson articulated out basic

Vmerican ideolog)

equality, oui confidence in education,

and out

people

the Revolution A\\d

these oulinar\ woikada\ people.

people did have spokesmen

most important

m

he demographic and economic forces that

some supeihuman

hundreds

common

these oidinary people

then Consciousness.

faith in the

our belie!

common

Hut Jefferson was not aw ordinary working pcison

in liberty

a\k\

sens

he was

a

slave-owning

Major Problems

1

who

aristocrat

saw

fully

in the

Era of the American Revolution

never really worked a day in his

life

— and consequently he never

what he was saying. His words outran many people became far more money-loving and relig-

the explosive implications of

of his intentions, and his

common

ious than he ever imagined. Certainly, he had

was

nature of the popular forces he

awareness of the commercial

little

leading.

But ordinary people themselves also became spokesmen for their cause, and they spoke with a degree of anger and feeling that the liberal intellectual Jefferson

could never muster.

am

I

thinking of middling

men

Lyon, and William Manning,

to

whom

I

men

William Findley, Matthew

like

my

devote a good deal of attention in

book. These Scots-Irish immigrants, ex-weavers, ex-servants, uneducated farmers,

and

the hundreds of thousands of lowly and middling folk they spoke for

all

these are the real heroes and principal agents of

my

story.

.

.

These men were

.

and tough-minded exponents of the emerging democractic ideology.

telligent

They were

in.

.

.

on the Federalist

the principal actors in Jefferson's democratic assault

establishment and other remnants of an older hierarchical society. These ordinary

people did not need the French Revolution to give their democratic movement

momentum. They had enough indigenous lution without the aid of a foreign model.

rage and resentment to

make

its

their revo-

They were determined to destroy the social Hugh Henry Brackenridge or

pretensions of so-called or would-be aristocrats like

Chipman

Nathaniel

James Bowdoin and

or

their hitherto despised labor. .

.

But Smith

.

.

.

.

.

.

to establish the

moral superiority of

.

can scarcely admit the existence of

and Manning because such white males do not

fit

the

men

modern

like Findley,

definition of oppressed

people. Since the Revolution did not totally abolish black slavery or free

from patriarchal dependency,

it

Lyon,

could not have been radical;

it

women

could only have

been, in Smith's word, "adequate."

How

the Revolution could have

been merely adequate

transformed some-

if it

thing as important as people's sense of equality and self-worth and their conceptions

of property and labor socialist R.

much economic classic

is

not addressed by these

inequality; but

1906 account

Why Is

also

it is

There

There ity

as is

.

The

open and cheerful

marked indeed by

social equality." In his

United States? German econ-

this social equality

by contrasting the American

his

head high, walks with a lissom

stride,

member of the middle class. submissive about him." More important than equal-

in his

nothing oppressed or

British historian and

"is

in the

worker with the European one: "He carries is

.

.

marked by much

No Socialism

omist Werner Sombart illustrated

and

critics.

H. Tawney, for example, realized that America

expression as any

of wealth, says [Mickey] Kaus,

this social equality, this

is

worth and dignity among people, a feeling of equality

equal sense of

self-

that allows people, regardless

of differences of wealth, to look others in the eye and treat them as equals and to expect to be treated as equals in return. Americans generally have had feeling of equality than other peoples, and the Revolution

was

more of

this

crucial in creating

it.

Correspondingly important were changes that the Revolution brought about

in

people's conceptions of property and labor. These changes were linked and were

based on substantial transformations

were eager

to acquire

in the society.

.

.

.

Eighteenth-century gentry

landed property or any other form of property that would

Such wealth was composed of static forms rents from tenof property that generated what we might call "unearned income" sufficient to allow its ants, returns on bonds, interest from money out on loan give

them

the desired independence.

.

.

.

—

—

Interpreting the Ante)

1

1

holders not to have to work for a living so thai they had leisure to assume the burdens

of publie office without expecting high salaries.

.

.

wealth

static proprietary

Their

.

was of eourse very vulnerable to inflation, which is wh> the printing of paper money was so frightening to these gentry: inflation threatened not simply their Livelihood but their very identity and social position.

.

.

.

Not only was this kind oi proprietary wealth very hard to come by in America. where, compared to England, land was so plentiful and rent-paying tenants so rare.

commerce and trade were creating new forms o\ property that gave wealth and to new sorts o( people. The Revolution accelerated the creation of this kind of property. This new property was anything but static: it was risk-taking, entreprewas in fact all the neurial capital not money out on loan, but money borrowed; This was the paper money that enterprising people clamored for m these years. but

power

—

it

.

property of businessmen and protobusinessmen

manufacturers, traders, shopkeepers, and

— of commercial

who

all

labored tor a

Unlike proprietary wealth,

this

new kind of dynamic,

.

produced

Ing and

li\

and exchanged things, no matter how poor or wealthy they might property could not create personal authority or identity;

.

farmers, artisan-

be.

and evanescent

fluid,

was. said Joseph Story,

it

sea.'" Hence it could not be relied on as was understood, then property qualifications

"continually changing like the waves of the

independence. Once

a source of

m

for participation

vance and rapidly

public

tell

life

this

either as voters or as officerholders lost their rele-

away.

This radical change

m

people's idea of property

during the Revolution

linked with similarly radical changes that took place

m

be the wrong kind of radicalism tor

my

But

seems

this

freedom from the need

fined as the

.

.

.

leisure being de-

all

have an occupation

to labor or to

is

conception of labor.

critics.

world where aristocratic leisure was valued above

In a

ol

to

their

the necessit)

earning a livelihood and working directly lor money was traditionally seen as con-

temptible. In fact, this need ol

was what

their hands, history.

lay

common

people

work, particularly

to

to

work with

behind then degraded and oppressed position throughout

Even Native American males had an

contempt for common labor;

aristocratic

the) hunted ami fought and regarded ordinary work as belonging exclusively

women. Before was

culture,

the American Revolution, labor, as

women's experience sure,

associated with

widely

still

ol Childbirth

it

had been

trouble,

toil,

was called labor

in all

lor ages

and pain

m

to their

Western

which

i

European languages

industriousness and the \kx\\ tor a calling were every where extolled

was widely preached

colonies, and the Puritan ethic

why

is

lo be

i.

in

the

but only tor ordinary people.

not for the aristocratic gentry, and only for moral reasons, not foi the sake ol inci ing an individual's prosperity or the society

common trouble.

.

people; .

.

it

lifted

them out

People labored out

in

the

in

air,

Hard work was good

it

was

said,

equality ot

men

much

as thev

condescended

expression

ot tins

tor cent, v

&]

e the

I

Revolution bee.une the occasion tor the w QOlesaU

pression ot the new importance to be granted to equality, so too was lor the lull

foe

them out of

and

and enlightened cighlccnth-ccniui

to exi«>l the value ot labor

Just as the

productivity.

which working people had been held

condescended all

s

idleness and barbarism and kept

ol necessity, out ot poverty,

and poverty bred the contempt Hut changes had long been

Ol

new moral value

Ibis transformation in the

meaning

ol

to

labor

the radicalism ol the Revolution. Suddenly,

all

it

the

be given to laboi is

a

majoi part of what

who worked

foi

.1

li

I

mean

b>

Major Problems

1

in the

Era of the American Revolution

longer willing to put up with their hitherto degraded and oppressed condition. The

Revolution became an important expression of their strenuous and angry struggle to establish their

who

moral superiority over those they labeled leisured aristocrats

work for a living or have occupations, over those whose income came from proprietary wealth, came, in other words, without exertion or manual labor: landed gentry, rentiers, and those we today would call profesover those

Many

sionals.

did not have to

of these leisured aristocrats, having themselves so recently praised

were

the virtues of labor and equality,

in

no position

to resist this assault,

and

in the

North they were overwhelmed. This struggle was what the farmer William Manning and the rich manufacturer Matthew Lyon meant when they said the essential social conflict was between "those that Labour for a Living and those that git a Living without Bodily Labour" or between "the industrious part of the community" and those brought up in "idleness, dissipation, and extravagance." Manning and Lyon are not yet talking about the later nineteenth-century class conflict between a modern proletariat and busi-

nessmen. In the eighteenth century, hard as

men like Lyon with many employees and

may be

it

for us to accept, rich business-

struggling single shoemakers like William

Brewster of Connecticut saw themselves in a similar category as laborers, sharing a

common

resentment of a genteel aristocratic world that had humiliated and dis-

dained them since the beginning of time because of their need to work. Eventually, of course, this

common

category of laborers would break apart into employers and

employees, into manual and nonmanual, and into blue-collar and white-collar workers

—

into, in other

torians like

Smith are more comfortable with.

them from seeing social

that

my book is

and class conflict

They that

words, the modern categories and classes that

all

.

.

have been conditioned

that they

are featured in

ism, and everyone today

my

story

knows

one has

.

.

.

prevent

just not the

to expect.

Mannings and other ordinary white

were not opposed

that

it is

Left his-

and the radicalism of the Revolution

are unable to see the social conflict

who

Presentist prejudices

about social and class conflict;

describe because the Findleys, Lyons, and

I

males

.

New

to

development of

to the

be opposed

capital-

to capitalism in order to

be truly radical. This assumption that the eighteenth-century proponents and practitioners of capitalism could never have

nism.

.

.

.

There was a time, however,

been radical .

.

.

when

is

the

probably the ultimate anachro-

development of capitalism was

regarded as very radical indeed. But to link the Revolution, which, as Smith says,

was "a good far: this

ism"

is

thing," with capitalism,

which

is

"a bad thing"

—

well, that's going too

"harnessing our approval of the Revolution to nineteenth-century capital-

to

make

"mobile, competitive, and individualistic elements of the Jacksonian

American Revolutionary, hence worthy of celebration realize that what Americans thought about politics and the economy in 1800 is no longer much with us in the late twentieth century. It is quite possible for us to recognize that the Revolution and capitalism were linked and that early nineteenth-century contemporaries considered both to be good things, and yet at the same time for us to believe that capitalism today might need controlrecovering different, ling by the government. That is what doing history is all about lost worlds and showing how they developed into our present. The democratic world of the early nineteenth century that I attempted to describe was not a world only of crass material strivings and obsessive consumers. Throughout the book I was concerned with the different ways people related to one era not just revolutionary but

and deference." Smith needs

to

.

.

.

— .

.

Interp reting the

another.

By

the early nineteenth century,

my

is

it

1

opinion

3

with the general de-

that,

nunciation of the monarchial adhesives of blood, family, and patronage and with the

perceived weakness of republican virtue and sociability as a means of trying people together,

many people had come

on

to rel\

source of attachment between people. This

money

cared only about

This

new

or

interest as the principal

not the

is

consumer goods.

.

.

same

.

ma\ have been held

liberal society of the early nineteenth century

mean

together largely by interest, which was no

and strongest

thing as sa\ing that the)

adhesive, but interest was not the

only adhesive. Not only did the older bonds, both monarchical and republican,

and even into our own da\. but the Re\olu-

linger on into the nineteenth century

tionary explosion of evangelical religious passion

new ways and

my book

to

worked

temper and control the scramble

spends some time on, despite Smith's statement

evangelicals were not

unworldK and

people together

to tie

for pri\ ate wealth

to the contrary.

them on with

their

work

as

it

.

is

disciplined their acquisitive urges, and

it

standards of right and wrong and thus could be trusted .

M

restrained their

gave them confidence that even self-interested individuals subscribed contractual relationships.

in

a point

Quite the contrary: there

anticapitalist.

considerable evidence that religion increased people's energ) as liberty, got

—

to absolute

market exchange and

in

.

In the three decades between the 1760s and the 1790s the religious landscape o\ America was transformed. The older state churches that had dominated colonial

society for a century and a half

were surrounded or supplanted nominations and

denomination in

1760, were

in

sects.

— the Anglican. Congregational, and Presbyterian new and

b)

some cases unheard

in

who had no

the country, and the Methodists,

moving up

o\ religious

1790 the Baptists had already become the largest

B\

last,

soon to outstrip ever) group.

These religions changes represented

.

adherents

.

m

America

.

a radical shift in the

American people's

Because religion (and not the ideas issued from the heights o\ Monticello) was still

social relationships and cultural consciousness.

oi Bacon, Locke, and the

Newton

as

major means h\ which most

startling religious

ordinal")

changes are some

and class-ridden character

Ol the

Boycotts

it

have no doubt

And

was.

Made

the eve ot

(a\mg

Independence,

the colonists

at

it

H

BR]

ill

to

be done,

more we explore discover

just

Parliament aggressively asserted

B) reconstructing the mental framework

.

I

permissioi

a

\\ooA ot British manufactl

.

that

in this case,

H Breen No I, Jul) 1993 Copyright 1993 Reprinted by

.

informed one

ot the central

an elaborate ston

ol

the

what

N

l

about the same tune that

of the mid eighteenth centun

more work

that the

not oxer yet

is

items transformed the American marketplace.

lives

is

of the radicall) social

the Revolution Radical I

b)

I

and cultural histor) of the Revolution, the more we w

radicall) transforming event

On

we have

Revolution. But there

particular!) on this matter o\ religion. social

people made sense of the world, these

of (he best signs

misundersi

a

14

in the

American consumers

— we

ine themselves within an political crisis a

Era of the American E

shall better

i

how the colonists came to imaghow at a moment of extreme

understand

expanding empire of

trade,

bundle of popular ideas and assumptions about commerce sug-

gested specific styles of resistance, and finally,

how

movement organized

a boycott

to

counter British policy allowed scattered colonists to reach out

to

reimagine themselves within an independent commercial empire. In 1763.

no one could have foreseen

merce"" into political protest in

America.

was

It

commercial

radical

We

shall

look

initially at the

evolution of a pop-

and then explore the broad expenential and ideolog-

life

context in which this bizarre account briefly but powerfully flourished.

ical

Com-

community that made the

of liberal

consequences of commercial ideas

Revolution genuinely revolutionary. ular narrative of

new forms

each other and

"Genius of

that the translation of a

would produce

the unintended

to

.

.

The first troubled response appeared in Boston. Although the author of an anonymous pamphlet of 1764 entitled Considerations Upon the Act of Parliament did not proclaim a full-blown conspiracy, he suggested that American themselves bore responsibility for deteriorating relations with England. During the Seven Years*

War, the colonists not only have lived too well but had done so too publicly. Their opulent consumption of British manufactures strongly impressed of the army and others

at

outsiders learned that the

present and lately residing in the maritime towns." These

Americans "spend

The next

year, the

ial crisis in

sumer

pan

habits.

much [on] the much more.*"

full as

imports a> prudence will countenance, and often

fuller definition.

gentlemen

"'the

luxurious British

commercial interpretation of parliamentary taxation acquired

John Dickinson, a respected Pennsylvania lawyer, traced the imperto a

"W "e

stunning misinterpretation in Great Britain of American con-

Dickinson noted

are informed."

in

The Late Regulations, "that an

opinion has been industriously propagated in Great-Britain that the colonies are wal-

lowing

in

wealth and luxury." That conclusion, he insisted, represented a pernicious

misreading of colonial culture.

.

.

.

Americans. Dickinson claimed, were ordinarily

and mostly quite poor. British observers had been misled because the colonists, "having a number of strangers

own

among

us."'

were too generous and hospitable for

good. The Americans had "indulged themselves in

many uncommon

their

expenses."*

This "imprudent excess of kindness" was simply an ill-conceived attempt to impress British visitors.

Other writers took up the narrative of commercial

ments of situated

their

Anglo-American consumption within

Like other colonial authors, the crucial

life,

own. In 1768. for example, an anonymous

moment

in the

New Yorker

adding innovative ele-

New

York pamphleteer

a larger historical

framework.

described the Seven Years"

development of an empire of goods. In

its

War

.

.

.

as the

aftermath. Britain

turned the ingenuity of American consumers into a justification for parliamentary taxation, based on the reports of visitors

ing

a great display of luxury, aris-

from the wealth, which many had suddenly acquired during the wars." In 1*768.

this

"who saw

.

.

.

William Hicks of Philadelphia heightened the conspiratorial element

broad folk discourse.

It

was no accident, he announced,

in

that ordinary English

people accepted inflated estimates of colonial prosperity as

truth,

sources had systematically distorted reports of economic conditions

for

unnamed

in

America.

Hicks protested that "the estimates of our wealth which have been received from ignorant or prejudiced persons, are.

in

every calculation, grossly erroneous. These

Interpreting

Ou

1

5

misrepresentations, which have been so industriousl) propagated, are \er> possibl)

form the best apolog)

the offspring of politieal invention, as the)

us burthens to

which we

was becoming

for

commerce—carried

Hicks as conspirac) of

imposing upon

lor

—what

framework

are altogether unequal."" This interpretive

extremel) sinister

implications for the colonists' happiness within a commercial empire. Boldl> linking

remember exact!) how Parliawealth. Had that bod) not immediate!) imposed new taxes.' Were not these revenue acts an ominous hint of future assaults? Without money, what would the colonists be able to afford.' The plot was obvious. The British wanted to keep the Americans poor, marginal consumers just able to pa) consumption and

ment had

first

Hicks asked Americans

politics.

reacted to the false reports

to

()\

the rising taxes but never "suffered to riot in a SUperfluit) o\ wealth.'

Narratives o\ commercial

consumption and

—

assemblage

a fluid

.

.

echoed through the colonial newspapers, indicating that American consumers and bemused British visitors. o\ luxui)

changing economy, had become

in a

.

popular notions about

l

GRJ

\l

BRITAIN

Hi-land tailed to

to play: they

\Kl

l

UD

IN

VMERK

win parliamentary concessions,

could go into manufacturing themselves

broad colonial interest before the passage ot a

\

ol the

Mamp

general commercial conversation, n opened up new

Insistence thai Americans were capable ot satisfying the,;

something

easiei loi people to

that

they

would

nol achieve foi

many decades

imagine genuine economic independence

20

Major Problems

Such

in the

Era of the American Revolution

plausible, though exaggerated,

economic claims fed the boycott move-

ment, continuously strengthening the political resolve of individual consumers.

Local associations organized to promote nonimportation and manufacturing represented

initial,

of

in point

often tentative steps toward a radical reconstitution of civil society. For

fact,

Americans of the time were experimenting with new forms of com-

munity, founded not on traditional religious affiliations but on shared commercial

Only those who

interests.

insist that preindustrial capitalism inevitably

structive individualism will be surprised

by popular attempts

sparked de-

to construct interpretive

communities around a temporary withdrawal from an Atlantic marketplace. The truth of the matter is that a liberal market ideology proved capable of

men and women

mobilizing ordinary the

common

.

.

.

into associations unequivocally dedicated to

good. As a "Tradesman" writing for the Pennsylvania Chronicle in

1770 well understood,

civil society in

He

than republicanism.

America could develop from sources other we form a considerable, independent,

explained that "as

and respectable Body of the People, we certainly have an equal Right

to enter into

Agreements and Resolutions with others for the public Good, in a sober, orderly [L]et us determine, for the Manner, becoming Freemen and loyal Subjects. Good of the Whole, to strengthen the Hands of the Patriotic Majority, by agreeing .

Goods" The nonimportation movement

not to purchase British

—exposed

.

.

.

.

.

—

communal experiment

in effect, a

in applied

To consumer market of the mid-eighteenth century was open to almost any white person able to pay the price. Generous credit, paper currency, and newspaper advertisements encouraged broad participation. Usually, free producers were also consumers. And on the eve of Revolution, the success of the colonial boycotts depended on all these consumers temporarily deciding to become nonconsumers. The argument for the liberating possibilities of agency in the new Anglo-American marketplace is not intended to ideology

a radical egalitarian strand within the commercial discourse.

appreciate this development one must

remember

that the

mitigate the exploitative and oppressive effects of eighteenth-century capitalism.

The development of an indentured servants

Atlantic

economy meant

—indeed, unfree people of

der extremely harsh conditions. fering of laborers in

that

all sorts

African-American slaves and

—worked very

New forms of self- fashioning

were

hard, often un-

built

on the

suf-

England and America who made mass consumption possible.

Since in the politicization of private economic choice every free voice counted, it is

not surprising that the promoters of the boycott

their activities

through appeals to the popular

will.

movement

tried to legitimate

They presumed

to

speak for the

however defined. Exclusiveness ran counter to the spirit of this powerful mobilizing. discourse, and it was a happy moment when a town could report as did Norwich, Connecticut, in September 1770-that "there was as full a Town Meeting as [was] ever known when the Town voted, almost unanimously, to adhere Non-Importation Agreement." to their The so-called subscription lists also testify to the egalitarian thrust of eighteenthcentury commercial thought. These instruments extended the boycott movement to large numbers of people who normally would not have had a voice in public affairs. The lists presented individual consumers with a formal declaration of purpose, followed by an oath or pledge. The goal of subscription was in part indoctrination. The forms reviewed a growing catalogue of grievances and announced that in the majority,

—

.

.

.

Interpreting the

21

American Revolution

More signifiThe ordinary consumer

short term only nonimportation could preserve liberty and property.

new

cant, the ritual of signing gave birth to

who

collectivities.

accepted the logic of the argument and signed the paper thereby volunteered

community

to support a

protest.

Surviving subscriptions resonate with religious as well as contractual lan-

A

guage.

Boston agreement drafted

1767 announced

in

and with each other,

we

that

all

"do

signers:

encourage the Use and Onsumption of all Articles manufactured in any of the British American Colonies. Articles purchase and more especially in this Province: and that we will not from abroad." A 1773 South Carolina subscription sounded remarkably similar to promise and engage,

to

that

will

(

.

that o( Boston.

.

.

index of political success.

in

.

.

.

.

the public interest.

Numbers provide

an

.

person's signature seems to have been as desirable an another's.

Boston town

and

.

.

.

The subscription campaign caught

One

.

urged "Persons

officials specifically

come

Ranks"* to

o\' all

1767,

In

forward.

Annapolis. Maryland, people circulating "our Association-Paper" predicted

that colonists o\

"every Degree" would sign

The South-Carolina Gazette even

it.

re-

New York, "The Sense of the People was taken b\ Subscription, and near 800 Names got. about 300 oi' the People without a single Shilling Property" Even more significant, the subscription movement actively involved women. It ported that

was

as

women

in

consumers participating first

margins

new

in

formal protest, so that they

ol

interpretive

women made women drew

the

most of

"We

the

have and now do appear for the public Interest

m

denying ourselves the drinking

that tends to

example,

this opportunity. In 1770. for

thai

deprive the whole

o\

.

.

.

Community

o\

The

next week.

I

10

n

group

a

their o\

in

all

hopes that

is

to frustrate a

valuable

These innovative

to

efforts

it

to

In

I

774, the

to

Plan

Life."

the

women

to the local

very fast."

bring people into the boycott

COnsumer-based actions were inherently more open than were ones accessible only

in

300 "Mistresses of

more names appeared.

of Charleston, South Carolina, formed an association and. according

newspaper, "are subscribing

Boston

o\

\.""

do with Pleasure engage with

foreign lea.

Another Boston subscription gained the signatures Spective families.*"

ical

American

One hundred Daughters of those Patriots who

up an agreement "against drinking foreign

twenty-six "young Ladies'* announced:

them

communities

men amy have pushed women to the had to organize their own subscriptions,

gained a political voice. Although

white males with property

remind us

that

the traditional polit-

Peter Oliver, the Boston

was highly diverting, to see the names & maiks. to the Subset iption, el Porters & Washing Women." Oliver ridiculed SUCh aeti\ Hies How could persons outside polities evei hope to have then opinions on important issues taken seriously? But the poor laborers o! Boston women as well as men knew what they weie doing. Iheu "names & marks*' testify to their membership in a new loyalist

.

volitional

.

.

claimed

that "it

community

that

people of Oliver's status could nevei comprehend.

Subscription should he seen, therefore, as an instrument through which the colonists explored the limits ol democratic participation

mainstream political discourse, the populai elusi\it\. Did the men and women who signed ol

represent the people

'

ii

they did not, then foi

lists

Vppearing on the mai

raised the issue ol politics

the papers, fol

whom

c\amp

did they speak

'

uil\

22

Major Problems

in the

Era of the American Revolution

During the summer of 1770, the

New York boycott movement hotly

thus dropping

tacts

might give competitors

ever

much

the

New

York merchants wanted

in reestablishing

English con-

Boston a huge advantage. But how-

in Philadelphia or

to turn a profit, they

could not bring

themselves unilaterally to break the local nonimportant agreement.

needed

at this

decisive

moment was

such effort conducted in America.

dence

that the public

safe.

The

wanted

If they

—perhaps

to rescind the boycott, the

merchants knew they would

New York

supported a greatly modified boycott that tea.

New York found themselves confronted with a quandary democratic theorists since ancient Greece. How does a minority

radical leaders of

haunted

respond when

was

the first

could demonstrate with quantitative evi-

allowed the merchants to import virtually everything except British that has

they

worked. Polling papers carried though the city wards revealed

tactic

that a majority of the people of

The

What

authorization from the people, and this they de-

termined to obtain through a public opinion poll of consumers

be

duties,

taxes except that on tea, the major import merchants of the city

all

renew trade as soon as possible. Delays

agitated to

debated the

Townshend

issue of democratic participation. After Parliament repealed the

certain that the majority has

it is

to declare the poll a fraud,

made

a mistake?

The obvious ploy

and over several months the supporters of a contin-

boycott did just that. They happened away at the merchants' sham democThe author of "A Protest" in the New-York Mercury argued that the reported numbers were not credible. "It appears from the Ward-Lists," the writer charged, "that only 794 Persons in this populous City, including all Ranks, and both Sexes;

ued

total

racy.

declared for the Affirmative of the Question."

argument

that this writer

one involving complex

by

women

as well as

assumed

It is

particularly significant for

that a true canvass of colonial

political issues

men, the poor

—required

consumers

my

—even

inclusiveness, full participation

as well as the rich.

.

.

.

"A Citizen" produced a pointed defense of open, egalitarian procedures in a politicized consumer marketplace. To appreciate fully his contribution to the liberal discourse, we must remember that A Citizen was disDuring

this contest,

cussing civic responsibility within a commercial public sphere of quite recent invention

—

in other

ning to express

men and

commerce. "Will it

from

traditional institutions of governance.

New York brought theory women better to appreciate

chant canvass of ordinary

words, within a popular political arena that was just begin-

itself apart

it

excuse

The mer-

into contact with events, helping

the interdependence of liberty and

this City to the rest

of the World,"

A Citizen

asked, "if

should appear that a Majority of the Inhabitants concurred in desiring to break

thro' the [nonimportation]

Agreement?" He argued through interrogation, with

hard questions leading to harder ones until the logic of the performance seemed irrefutable.

"Supposing there

is

a Majority, (which

is

not admitted)," he inquired

of the merchants,

was

it

fairly

and properly obtained? Was

that

Opinion given and subscribed with due

Knowledge and Freedom? Or were not

Deliberation,

a very considerable

Number

of

the Subscribers, influenced and determined, by your Persuasions and Representations,

or by submitting their Opinions to be guided by your Advice and superior

Can opinions

or given a Sanction to the Dissolution of an

Importance?

.

Judgment?

so given and obtained, properly be called the Voice of the People,

.

.

Agreement of such immense Weight and

Interpreting the

Americans of

Ame

23

r

backgrounds and regions regularl) insisted

different

that with-

out "virtue" their cause had no chance whatsoever. Virtue was the social glue that

who

kept the newly formed liberal communities from fragmenting. Colonists

signed the subscriptions, supported the boycotts of British goods, and marched the

banners proclaiming "Liberty and Non-ImpOltation" assumed that

streets carrying

their protests

mobilized virtuous people.

Eighteenth-century virtue claims two distinguished genealogies. traces

back

it

to the Florentine

world

Maehiavelh. arguing

o\ \\^l-o\o

G

J

\'

\

that the

sinu-

man whose landed wealth enabled him to rise above the corn.: influences of commerce and therehv preserve the puritv ol republican government. Such historians as Edmund S. Morgan associate eighteenth-centur) virtue with the

ous citizen was

a

so-called Protestant Ethic. While both positions possess merit

— indeed,

political

discourse on the eve of the Revolution seems to have drawn on both traditions

movement was

virtue that resonated through the entire boycott

Home provocatively labels •"bourgeois virtue.*' When advocates o( nonimportation spoke a

A

personal attribute.

virtuous

man

or

of virtue, the) referred

woman was one who

to

{

consumer marketplace. Such behavior represented a desirability of the new manufactured items. But however

denied the

\

I

pnmanlv

voluntanlv

self-restraint in the

No one

— the

closer to what

-

ap:

ing the British imports were, the virtuous person exercised self-control tor the

common

good.

.

.

.

This rather straightforward sense

o\

market

irtue that

v

developed throughout the

colonies before Independence had important implications tor political mohili/..

Anyone who regularly purchased manufactured goods from Great Britain could become virtuous simply by Controlling consumption. The concept thus linked ever', experience and behav ioi w ith a hroadlv shared sense of the comn did with one's monev mattered VCT) much to the entire community, tor in this highlx charged atmosphere, economic self-indulgence became

pub!

a glaring

CincinnatUS, the bourgeois patriot did not reach immediatelv tor the

examined

the

household budget.

a direct all to action:

for v

eloped

their insistence

all

a potentiallv

The H

who

translated market "

save yoill Countrv

on voluntarism, the proponents

coercive understanding

and ignore

Membership

implied responsibilities

it)

Withm

the

to the largei

framework

subscription drives created

mem

in

the

coming

constructed

a

less virtuous to creating

In

what

the

new

the

political abstraction thai

Ann"

mii imagined goods and thUS earned the

the American colonies

new

this

I

space was an arena ol

ol

Iv

in

which

m

bourgeois virtue, organizer

ol a

collects

"public,"

bv renouncing British

pares

nommpe

supported the boveotts. But one therebv surrender

others for the destruction ol political liberty.

nificance

ol

ol political obligat:

his or her tree will

consumer COUld exercise

individual

those

.

"Save yOUI Monev and you

intellectuals

founded Ult

ma

light

a

t

|

-

comn

.

v

like first

irtue into

24

Major Problems

men and women

to liberal

When

critics

addressed a growing audience of

—

name of the public. The public an abstract body assembled was composed of reasonable persons, individuals

that never actually

open

Era of the American Revolution

These independent

the absolutist state. literate

in the

in the

—

argument and hostile

to the arbitrary exercise of

bourgeois virtue that held them accountable, often demanding restitution.

had

cott,

A New York City

.

.

.

merchant, Alexander Robertson,

tened Robertson stated, "As

from

my

that

I

who

was

violated the boy-

have justly incurred the Resentment of

I

it

confession and

A

my

chas-

Fellow

Behaviour, as set forth in an Advertisement, of great Importance

to the Publick, assuring

and promise

full

broadside addressed specifically "To the publick."

to publish a

Citizens,

power.

vicious consumers were caught with British manufactured goods,

them

that

I

am

truly sorry for the Part

I

have acted; declare

never will again attempt an Act contrary to the true Interest and

Resolutions of the People zealous in the Cause of Virtue and Liberty."

He

closed

with a pathetic appeal to "the Publick in general to believe me."

Such

local conversations

—however

encouraged virtuous consumers

was

to

painful for the likes of Robertson

imagine even larger

The process

collectivities.

by self-doubt and mutual recrimination, but during Independence, Americans living in scattered communities managed to

slow, halting, punctuated

the run-up to

reach out convincingly to distant strangers, to persons not directly

assumed

known

development of a new consumer marketplace. The

to share in the

but

initial

boycott experiments of the 1760s persuaded the colonists of the need for broader,

more

effective alliances.

They learned about each other through

the

weekly news-

papers that were themselves both a product and a voice of expanding commerce.

.

.

The collapse of nonimportation in 1770 left Americans in a sour mood. As they assessed the failure to wean themselves from British goods, they momentarily doubted

their

moral

ability to create a truly virtuous state.

Their self-deprecatory

seem to echo the anticommercial rhetoric of republican discourse, persuading some modern historians, at least, that preindustrial capitalism and the public good were in fact incompatible. What, inquired one newspaper essay, can the colonists learn from recent defection from the boycott? statements during this period

That

self-interest is irresistible.

That

liberty

and public good can stand no change among

men when

self-interest is

its rival.

That self-interest recommends the most underhanded schemes

good conscience.

.

.

to every

man's

.

—

—

Such statements and they were common should not be interpreted as evithat Americans rejected either preindustrial capitalism or the consumer marketplace. The renunciation of excess in the market made sense only in a society that took consumption for granted. The challenge for Revolutionary Americans was to negotiate between extreme self-indulgence and primitive simplicity. It involved dence

mediation, not repudiation.

.

.

.

In any case, the cries of the pessimists

were unfounded. They misread the com-

mercial changes sweeping American society and therefore underestimated the capacity

of

men and women

to translate individual

market behavior into mass

political

protest. The delegates to the First Continental Congress did not make that mistake. They appreciated the centrality of consumption in mobilizing persons of different

Interpreting the

On October

regions and social backgrounds.

Association, a broad network

20.

1774. Congress authorized the

enforcement of nonimportation. These bodies became lic safety."

At the moment of decision about ultimate

friends and neighbors were bus)

bourgeois virtue

name

in the

in effect,

total

"'committees of pub-

political loyalties, the colonists'

monitoring commercial behavior and enforcing

the

o\

;

committees entrusted with the

local elected

o\'

American

common

\io(k\.

"We need

only fight our

Own

selves," announced "A Carolinian"' in 1774, "suppress tor a while our Lu\ur> and Corruption, and wield the Arms of Sell Denial in our own Houses, to obtain the tory.

.

.

And

.

the

Man who would

not refuse himself a fine Coat, to save his Country,

deserves to be hanged."

We

have traced a complex flow

ideas into actions, of shared assumptions

o\

about a commercial empire into forms of political resistance. This was most eertaml) not the only route from experience and ideolog) to revolution. Other,

brated political discourses helped Americans

make sense

social

and economic conditions within the British empire.

ration,

however, we have reconstituted

how

example

the great shaping forces o\ histor)

— impinged on

the lives of ordinary

reimagine themselves within

In this particular

that

defined

itself

a larger polity,

-

-commercial capitalism,

woman

interests.

FURTHER READING Bernard Bailyn, Faces

Independence I

.

1

oj

Revolution: Persona

1990)

he Ideological Origins

th

t

Thomas C. Barrow, "The American Revolution dence" William one Richard Hud Jr., "Democracy and

Edwin G Humous and Michael

the

dward I

c

lountr)

/'

man

liegelman, Prodigah

William

M

Jack P

rreene, ed

(

I

ovi ler,

Ji

.

and Walla
:o

~

who saw Penns pointed out the he:

growth By >

the

million inhabit,; ;

were doubling t ust the empii \me\

___

28

>*\ V

Major Problems

Era of the American Revolution

in the

DOCUMENTS

master was gone to ong Island was then at gunning. At first the quarrel began between m\ wile and her mistress

with a

o\ the

.

me

me. for which he lm\c

ol

m\ master purchased m\ w

a half after that lime.

my mistress

Sec.

K

near twenty-one pounds York currency, m\ mas

to

Robert Stanton, hired

one year and

and b\

spells.

money amounting

All this

ter's brother.

five

got b> cleaning gentlemen's shoes a\k\ drawing

by catching muskrats and minks, raising potatoes and carrots. the night,

two Johannes, pounds of m\

late master's,

two thousand of coppers, besides

three old Spanish dollars, and

1

.

I

work

the barn,

in

and hearing

what had broken passion with thai

m\ w

out.

quested mj w

ife to

m\

a racket I

m

mistress to the

beg pardon

ot

me

the house, induced

entered the house.

what she informed

ife, lor

forbear to put

I

When

me was

shame

her mistress

ot

to run there an,

m

found m\ mistress

I

a

meie

having

it

sake

fo] the

trifle;

such

known

I

a

.

earnestly

5VCn

ol

a violent

small

it

she

was thus saying* m) mistress turned given no jusi occasion foi offence But whilst w to me She took down her horsewhip. ile the blows which she was repeating on m\ I

ami while she was glutting raised

head,

it

I

hen

I

oi the

fur)

with

ot ihe

mastet

piesent he

tome Some days

re turned

seemed

horn the

lo lake ii"

after his return, in the

harm from an) m\ head u nh a club tv. blow ven badl\ wounded in\ head, and

I

reached out m\ great black it

to the

which

> ol

il.

morning

I

him

ol the alia

was

nil

1

1

pi

most violent

n Ol

I

m\

I

and mentis as

I

devout

island, his uile told

noiu

place, not suspecting

eiow

n.

whip on

immediatel) committed the whip

When m\ I

hei

up and received the blows

.'mains to this

n

the

30

Major Problems

my

blow made me have renew it, I snatched

my

He

it

him, but

finally advised

what he treated

for

great violence. laid

I

after this

I

my

master, took

and

master, and live

my

master, he and his brother set out

their respective horses,

became enraged

and unjustly, and told him

he continued the same treatment towards me.

When and

my

they had

fell to

come

beating

me

to a

with

and immediately turned them both under

at this

one of them across the other, and stamped both with

This occasioned

left

my

to return to

home, one before and the other behind me.

bye place, they both dismounted me,

me

his slave thus hastily if

After the Justice had ended his discourse with

me

presently

set out for

I

what would be the consequence with

I

to a neighboring Justice of the Peace,

me again, and then complain. I consented to do my master's, up he come and his brother Robert improved this convenient opportunity to caution my master.

me. The Justice for

assist

he abused

till

accordingly. But before after

come and

with, carried

master.

contented with him

He asked him

suppose, for as soon as he went to and dragged him out of the door. He

the club out of his hands

wounded me

complained of

me you may

wits about

then sent for his brother to the club he

Era of the American Revolution

in the

my

feet

what

I

would.

him to put me off. A short time constable and two men. They carried me to a blacksmith's

master's brother to advise

was taken by a

her waiters, whether Venture was handcuffed.

home my mistress enquired much of When she was informed that I was, she

much

transported with the news. In the midst

shop and had appeared

to

me

When

handcuffed.

I

returned

be very contented and was

my mistress, showed her my handmy master commanded a negro of his to fetch him a large ox chain. This my master locked on my legs with two padlocks. I continued to wear the chain peaceably for two or three days, when my master asked me with contemptuous hard names whether I had not better be freed from my of this content and joy, cuffs,

I

presented myself before

my

and gave her thanks for

gold rings. For this

I answered him, No. Well then, said he, I will send you to West Indies or banish you, for I am resolved not to keep you. I answered him I crossed the waters to come here, and I am willing to cross them to return. For a day or two after this not any one said much to me, until one Hempste d Mi ner, of Stonington, asked me if I would live with h^m I answered him that I would. He then requested me to make myself discontented and to appear as unreconciled to my master as I could before that he bargained with him for me; and that in return he would give me a good chance to gain my freedom when I came to live with him. I did as he requested me. Not long after Hempsted Miner purchased me of my master for fifty six pounds lawful. He took the chain and padlocks from

chains and go to work. the

.

off

me

A me

to

immediately

after.

short time after

my

.

.

.

one William Hooker of

My

master next offered

not purchasing me,

my

me

Stonington. After

some

me. He put

trial

to

at his

house

wine and other

.

.

to Hartford,

and

first

proposed

me

to sell

.

Daniel Edwards. Esq. of Hartford, for

sal e.

But

him for ten pounds, and returned to honesty, Mr. Edwards placed considerable trust

my me to

of

was company to fetch

that place.

master pawned

and confidence

in

me

master carried

to

serve as his cupbearer and waiter.

house, he would send

me

into the cellar

articles occasionally for

them.

When

there

and other parts of

When had I

his

been with

me why my master wished to part with such an honest negro, and why he did not keep me himself. I replied that I could not give him the reason, unless it was to convert me into cash, and speculate with me as with other him some

time, he asked

}

commodities.

hope

I

me

willing to keep

can never justl) sa)

that he

me

duct that he did not keep

was OH account

it

Edwards he would never

himself. Mr.

himself, and that

m\

o\

1

con-

ill

me that he should he very me go from him to live,

told lei

it

it

was not unreasonable and inconvenient tor me to he parted from m> wife and children; therefore he would furnish me with a horse to return to Stonmgton. it had a mind for it. As Miner did not appear to redeem me went, and called at m\ old master Stanton's first to see m\ wife, who was then owned h\ him. As m\ old I

I

I

ter

appeared much ruffled

m\ being

at

considerable time with her. and went

to

for

Col. Smith a

me. These

sale o\

that

should

1

Colonel

(

).

had spent an>

I

Smith's. Miner had not as yel

men once met

should hold me, and upon m\ expressing

was agreed

m\ wife before

lett

I

me. and had before m\ return from Hartford given

wholly settled with Stanton bill o\'

there.

a desire to

determine which of them

to

owned

be

b\ Col. Smith. ...

m>

live with Col. Smith. This was the third time ol

it

fcx

was then thirty-one years old 1760J. As never had an opportunit) ol redeeming myself whilst was owned b\ Miner, though he promised to give me a chance. was then very ambitious of obtaining it. asked m\ master one time if he and

sold,

I

I

1

I

I

I

would consent

to

then very happy,

me

have

knowing

my

purchase that

1

was

freedom. He replied

he would.

that

I

time able to pa) part ol the purchase

at that

money, by means of the money which some time since buried. This took out y^\ and tendered to m\ master, having previousl) engaged a free negro man I

I

the earth

to take his security for

it.

as

I

was

master agreed

work

my

note to

on

to wait

for Col. Smith.

me

^

for. until

1

could procure

There was continually some

friend the free negro

some besides which

m> master, and therefore could What was wanting in redeeming myself, m>

the propert) of

not safely take his obligation myself.

1

got b\

it

for him.

man above named, which

fishing.

I

I

still

interest accruing

laid out in land

I

continue

on

ma-

ins

received, and with

adjoining

m\

old

n.

land with the greatest diligence and econon

By cultivating when m\ master did not require m> labor, in two years laid up ten pounds This m\ friend tendered m\ master lor myself, and received his note foi Stanton's.

this

times

Being encouraged b\_ the success which \

s

olicited

j

m\ master

timber chance

for a

ol

I

had met

in

completing

I

it

redeeming

it

I

mwt »

1

to him was that of going out to work the ensuing w inu condition that would give him one quartet ol m> earnings Hi these terms the follow ing w inter, and earned loin pounds sixteen shillings. one qu went to m\ master for the privilege, and the rest was paid him on ni\

solicited

Ilus

added

payments made up fort) foul pounds, eight own account was then about thut\ h\e years old summei again desired he

tO the other \n\

The next

it

chance

a

the past winter. to

leave

this uh.it ii

i

I

when work hue mysell oul would give him foi

wholl) with his ov

month Well

then, said he.

the least he

would take

I

thai

he must have

replied thai

I

m\

laboi this

considered u as hard

dial

1

i

the season became advant.

out

onl\ be permitted to aftei

shillings, wl

I

!

have

this

I

work Bui he refused and answered did not have

i

I

on


am much more knowing cithei cannot Satisf) m\ sell that Books, or Men. from this Chamber, or the World, than was al least a N Most ot my lime has been spent in Rambling a\)A Dissipatio n Riding, and Smoking Pipes and Spending Evenings, consume a vasl Proportion ot my Vnother Year

is

I

I

Plans of study.

I

I

I

I

I

the

(ares and \n\icticsol Business,

must

more

stay

home

al

Instrument, to h\

leni

beginning

a

new

a

and commit mote

Mans Attention and

literal) Year,

with the 26th

1760 I

l

am

iust

aw, and

entered on the 26th Yeaj l

think

foi I

high

Vnimal

25 Years ol the

and foul Years,

is

il

v 1

1

1

-

aw

I

el

me keep

I

ime

ife

I

Space

no more Knowledge

damp m)

thai

in the

an exa