A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence
Ray Raphael
A mind experiment I frequently used in college was this: “Knowing what you know now, could you earn a living in ancient Greece?” More recently, considering election cycles, my question is altered: “Alright, you are a family doctor with a wife and two daughters. You are succesful. You live in Berlin and it is 1932. You don’t like what you are seeing in your country. What are you going to do?” I am pretty sure in that scenario, I would not have emigrated; I would have hunkered down.
Bad move……
Regardless, any diaries or thoughts I might have had under the storm that was World War II would undoubtedly have been burned or destroyed and my story would not be known. This is partially a theme of the book about the American Revolution by Ray Raphael: he researches primary sources and provides us with the voice of “common people” and the decisions they faced in the thirteen colonies during the revolutionary war.
If the victorious write the histories, they are typically people or are associated with those with power, prestige, and the bully pulpit. He rightfully points out that this gives us an impression and it is often a foundational impression when being taught as “our” history. Interpretations over time allow for perspectives: the Revolution to modern conservatives was a noble struggle against an intrusive government, a precedent for their own antigovernment leanings today. Liberals see the Revolution as a critical step towards political democracy and social equality. Lefty Radicals see it as a failure to achieve the liberal objectives, especially with respect to women, African Americans, and Native Americans. He points out that everywhere, not just in North America, wars ultimately reflect power and its application from the very top to the very bottom of society.
The Boston Tea Party reflected a very American trend and is unique in that it coordinated the aims and feelings of an educated elite— Sam Adams, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson among others—but the actual players in the seizure and destruction of the tea were “common people” (Ordinary people lacking rank distinction, notable social status or special attributes) who by and large could not afford to buy the tea in the first place. England’s society was one of class distinctions and that system and culture were imported to the Colonies. However, the distance from the hub of that wheel led to the American upper class considering that they could do it (govern) alone and the lower classes came to demonstrate that no one was by default any better than anyone else. Prior to the revolution, social norms were changing: theaters were destroyed (something only the wealthy enjoyed) in riots by “commoners” and as we know, tea thrown into the sea. Tea merchants who only sold tea for the highest price were “taken down” with the intimidation and violence by crowds resenting this symbol of wealth. Indeed, masses of “common men” confronted people of authority—usually associated with the colonial administration under the king, and they were intimidated into not doing their jobs, leaving, being physically abused (tarred and feathered was a common, mostly non-lethal form of this), humiliated (stripped naked publicly before the tarring), and their homes often destroyed to the timber-joists. So, in New England, appointed judges no longer heard cases, tax collectors failed to report for duty, and governors fled their homes—this all before Lexington and Concord.
The modern tea party is aptly named.
The question of how many people were Loyalists (Whigs) and how many were Revolutionary (Tories) is raised. A traditional guess has been around for a long time: one third loyalist and one third revolutionary with the remain attempting neutrality. The author points out there are no good records to clearly identify this as through the writings of many, it is clear that there were plenty who were not sure where they stood. But there was pressure to commit. And if only 20% of the population was loyalists, that made for a civil war within the our revolutionary war. And that, like now, did not reflect geography but was spread through each colony.
This elevated and principled idea that the revolutionaries were throwing off the yoke of oppressive government found the very same people taxing citizens (without their consent) to contribute in money, farm goods, clothing, and soldiers for the cause. People with wealth being told to report to the army were able to pay a tax to avoid this or they could send an indentured servant in their place or they could go to jail. The option for the poor was join or go to jail. The loyalty and resistance of the citizenry influenced which options actually played out, community by community. An irony then is that the common man, was fighting the war with very lean resources (think Valley Forge) while their "betters" at home were known as the “rebels” leading the cause.
The British army paved the way for many of our own modern (American) misadventures. They assumed that everyone was a rebel and treated them accordingly. They helped the neutrals to convert to being rebels as they took resources and refused to negotiate wrongs brought to officers by civilians. They proved to be their own worse enemies if holding the colonies was the goal. Fencing was used as firewood, livestock free to roam, and be collected for feeding the army. Crops were damaged. People were intimidated and mistreated. As the war evolved, stronger and stronger measures were taken institutionally (towns bombarded indiscriminately, housing burned) and on the battlefield (where soldiers who had surrendered were killed, often as a reprisal for the similar activities by the rebels).
As people with some wealth were now poor, the need for revenge is understandable when “loyalist” were suspected in their midst. Property was confiscated and families thrown out with only the clothes on their back in mid-winter. Likewise, letters are presented from women (sent to their husbands in the colonial army) left to manage the home and farm without their husbands, begging for relief as there was no food or ability to make enough food or pay the bills.
A neutral citizen noted, “They call me a brainless Tory; but tell me, my young friend, which is better—to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away, or by three thousand tyrants not a mile away?” The Revolution had very local parochial faces.
Citizens unhappy with what they were seeing faced unpleasant decisions: Using Hamlet as a template:
To sign or not to sign! That is the question:
Whether ‘rower better for an honest man
To sign-and so be safe; or to resolve,
Betide what will against “associations,”
And, by retreating, shun them. To fly-I reck
Not where—and, by that flight, t’escape
Feathers and tar, and thousand other ills
That Loyalty is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To fly—to want—
To want? Perchance to starve! Ay, there’s the rub
For, in that chance of want, what ills may come
To Patriot rage, when I have left my all,
Must give me pause! There’s the respect
That makes us trim, and bow to men we hate.
The second half of the book lays out the complexity of our history and the effects of the war on selected populations:
Catholic indentured servants in Maryland worked for a loyalist. They were originally from Scotland. They had no reason to side with England (remember Rob Roy) and yet, being a Catholic in many of the colonies put one at risk given religious prejudices and the depth of feeling that went with them. They stayed a coherent group working for their patron.
Women participated in the war. While he points out the traditional stories of Molly Pitcher and other women who fought as soldiers, he lets us know this is beside the point. In the early revolution, women organized and made cloth for uniforms stepping up to serve the army as producers of needed goods, cloth, crops, and maintenance and provision of the children for soldiers in the field. They worked overtime and like their husbands, with very few resources, recognition, or compensation. Women did not physically fight but the war could not be won without their contributions.
Native Americans were a variable both sides sought to ally with. The British had it right though—-they by treaty agreed on restricting westward emigration and the colonist no matter who made such treaties (the new US government or the King’s government) were going west and taking out the natives as they did so. Most tribes had this sorted and sided with the British. This legacy added to the passions of what transpired culminating with the Trail of Tears in 1831- some 48 years after the end of the Revolutionary war.
The treaty that ended the war called for many principled settlements: rights of Loyalists to collect their property and compensation for wrongs done them. There was a grace period for loyalists to return and not be harmed before emigrating. The Congress ratified this treaty but had no power to enforce it—and usually, loyalists had no options but to accept their losses and leave. The loyalists fared no better than native Americans with respect to treaties protecting their rights.
I had thought that blacks in the South had been offered freedom if they sided with the British during the war. This was broadcast widely though it was not technically true. Britain still had legal slavery in the 1770’s and blacks who crossed to British Lines were mostly considered property and used accordingly. There were exceptional times when blacks fostered good will and opportunities but at the close of the war, those leaving with the British forces had bleak options: going to the Caribbean where their future was grim or to Canada, typically to barren and cold areas not yet fully settled. Many of the Canadian-bound eventually emigrated to Sierra Leone in Africa. Those who stayed and were retaken by their owners suffered greatly. Of interest, the rumor of freeing the slaves did more to move Southern Aristocrats into Rebel arms than any general issues with the British Government. Those blacks who fought for the United States remained second class citizens if they were citizens at all; many black soldiers with good military records went to court to prevent being seized by slaveholders but their freedom was very dependent on the judgement of a local judge regardless of the testimony on behalf of such a soldier.
Summary:
Common people—men and women without privilege afforded by wealth or prestige of political authority are a part of the historical process. They often leave few records that reach us. These people worked—hard. They bore the brunt of it when things went wrong. To protect themselves in the moment, they manipulated the system as best they can. They fought the wars. They tested authority. This was as true during the wars in Europe as it was here in North America.
People with wealth had options to fall back on regardless of their loyalty. The rich were less likely to suffer from disease. They lived to tell their tales. Loyalists with money went to England or other colonies. The impoverished loyalist who stayed was labeled and suffered for a generation.
Economic collapse followed the end of the war. This was not just about speculation as a political conspiracy theory might elaborate—it resulted from common people looking after themselves in a hostile environment. Charity started at home and this self sufficiency regardless of the needs of others was the immediate focus for many after the war.
The revolution did change the traditional accepted norms that characterized English culture in North America. A worker on the sidewalk no longer stepped into the street to accommodate a lawyer or a merchant. Egalitarianism became the norm in the US unless you were a minority ie female or with colored skin. Our sense of equality today is a very different thing from the time of the Revolution. Today we use the term often when trying to protect the rights of minorities. In the time of the nation’s birth, that was not at all the issue—it was about protecting the rights of the majority—with no apologies made. When one is used to having protected rights and then called on to provide equality to minorities, it can feel like oppression…….
An interesting last point: the Bill of Rights is commonly thought to reflect a righting of the wrongs under the Colonial administrations. In fact, many of the provisions reflect a need to protect citizens from the forms of “justice” provided by fellow citizens during and just after the war in many communities of the United States where your religion or apparent loyalty during the war could decide your legal fate regardless of the traditional judicial processes. These processes had been blown up the year before Concord and Lexington in New England by “common people.” The Bill of Rights was brought to us by the educated, now-in-control class a la James Madison.
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