02: Revolutionary America

You desire to know what I want that may be sent in the same manner-a <span title="piece">peice</span> or two of Holland Apron tape, a pair of silk mitts or Gloves, an Ell or two of Muslin or figured Lawn, and as a little of what <span class="add">you call</span> frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world, Nabby would have me add, a few yard of Black or White Gauze, low priced black or white lace or a few yards of Ribbon but would have <span class="name" title="Abigail (Smith) Adams (1744-1818). Married John Adams in 1764.">Mamma</span> write <span class="add">to <span class="name" title="John Adams (1735-1826)">Pappa</span></span> at the same time that she has no passion for dress further than he would approve of or to appear when she goes from home a little like those of her own age.

So many others will write you the state of <span title="politics">politicks</span> that I believe I shall not touch upon them. I have enclosed Philadelphia papers and journals. Our currency too is a Subject which you must learn from others; if I can procure sufficient to pay my taxes I shall be content, I want no more. I will just mention that the last years tax upon only two acres and half of <span title="Meadow">Medow</span> in Milton was 60 <span title="dollars">dollors</span> and a parish tax for the land you own in the next parish 50 <span title="dollars">dollors</span>. This year <span title="it is">tis</span> impossible to say to what amount they will rise. The tenants are all scared and declare they will quit Farms as <span title="it is">tis</span> impossible for them to pay half the taxes. Mine talked in the same strain but finally concluded to tarry <span title="another">an other</span> year.

nd as a little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world, Nabby would have me add, a few yard of Black or White Gauze, low priced black or white lace or a few yards of Ribbon but would have Mamma write to Pappa at the same time that she has no passion for dress further than he would approve of or to appear when she goes from home a little like those of her own age.

Necessity not only authorizes but seems to require the measure, for should the disorder infect the Army in the natural way and rage with its usual virulence we should have more to dread from it than from the Sword of the Enemy.

The other matter just now hinted at and which I proposd in my last is to join you in attempting to secure some of the most valuable Lands in the Kings part which I think may be accomplished after a while notwithst⟨an⟩ding the Proclamation that restrains it at present &amp; prohibits the Settling of them at all for I can never look upon that Proclamation in any other light (but this I say between ourselves) than as a temporary expedien⟨t⟩ to quiet the Minds of the Indians &amp; must fall of course in a few years esp⟨e⟩cially when those Indians are consenting to our Occupying the Lands. any Person therefore who neglects the present oppertunity of hunting ou⟨t⟩ good Lands &amp; in some measure Marking &amp; distinguishing them for their own (in order to keep others from settling them) will never regain it.

I woud recommend it to you to keep this whole matter a profound Secret

if the Scheme I am now proposing to you was known it might give the alarm to others

They are&nbsp;less a reflection of&nbsp;the&nbsp;current&nbsp;state of&nbsp;historical knowledge than&nbsp;a&nbsp;collection&nbsp;of stories&nbsp;adults think&nbsp;will do children good, the&nbsp;educational&nbsp;equivalent of&nbsp;making the kids eat theirpeas.&nbsp;

What&nbsp;distinguishes&nbsp;one company’s books from another is&nbsp;not&nbsp;the&nbsp;stories&nbsp;they&nbsp;tell, but&nbsp;their&nbsp;“differentials”—the&nbsp;ancillary&nbsp;features&nbsp;that come&nbsp;bundled with&nbsp;a&nbsp;majoradoption: test banks,&nbsp;online&nbsp;primary sources,&nbsp;hefty teacher’s editions,&nbsp;downloadable flashcards,&nbsp;and just about every&nbsp;other&nbsp;shiny object&nbsp;that glistens

It wasn’t until the&nbsp;civil rights movement&nbsp;of the 1960sthat&nbsp;Attucks&nbsp;became&nbsp;a&nbsp;regular&nbsp;feature in&nbsp;textbooks

. Among the first was&nbsp;Henry Graff’s&nbsp;1967&nbsp;The Free and the Brave:&nbsp;“Attucks and his fellow victims had become the first martyrs in the American struggle against Britain.”&nbsp;A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/First-Martyr-Liberty-Crispus-American/dp/0199731616">review</a>&nbsp;of seven textbooks&nbsp;published&nbsp;between&nbsp;2003-2009&nbsp;found that all but one featured&nbsp;Attucks&nbsp;in their narration of the&nbsp;Boston Massacre.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Race-baiting&nbsp;proved&nbsp;a winning strategy. The jury found Captain Preston not guilty, along with six of his soldiers.

With the&nbsp;Kaplans’ text in hand,&nbsp;the authors of&nbsp;<strong>The</strong> <strong>Americans</strong>&nbsp;made a choice.&nbsp;Instead of&nbsp;helping young Americans see&nbsp;how a&nbsp;Black&nbsp;(or mixed race)&nbsp;body wasstamped from&nbsp;the beginning, to&nbsp;invoke&nbsp;Ibram&nbsp;X.Kendi’s phrase,&nbsp;and&nbsp;thereby&nbsp;prompt&nbsp;an&nbsp;examination ofthe hoary legacy of race-baiting,&nbsp;stretching fromCrispus&nbsp;Attucks to&nbsp;the&nbsp;Scottsboro&nbsp;boys to&nbsp;<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/11/darren-wilsons-racial-portrayal-of-michael-brown-as-a-superhuman-demon-the-ferguson-police-officers-account-is-a-common-projection-of-racial-fears.html">Michael Brown</a>,&nbsp;they&nbsp;performed laser surgery on&nbsp;Adams’&nbsp;words in an act that would do Winston Smith proud.&nbsp;As Farah Peterson&nbsp;notes, Black people are allowed onto the stage of American history&nbsp;only if they satisfy&nbsp;certain conditions:&nbsp;“when they intersect with the triumphal tale of the creation of a white American republic.”

“We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms” and teach our children&nbsp;a kind of history&nbsp;that will make them&nbsp;“love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.”&nbsp;

History&nbsp;that&nbsp;impels&nbsp;us to&nbsp;look&nbsp;at the past,&nbsp;unflinchingly and cleareyed,&nbsp;doesnot diminish&nbsp;us&nbsp;or make us less patriotic.&nbsp;The&nbsp;oppositeis true:&nbsp;It makes us grow up.&nbsp;Understanding&nbsp;who we were&nbsp;allows us to&nbsp;understand who we&nbsp;are&nbsp;now.&nbsp;Only&nbsp;then&nbsp;can we commit to doing something about&nbsp;it.&nbsp;That should be the goal of history education.&nbsp;

elected him its governor

Ever more threatening demonstrations against the Stamp Act in New York broke out on November 1, 1765, into full-scale urban rioting.

<p>Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. </p> <p></p>

For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his majesty's negative: Thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few African corsairs to the lasting interests of the American states, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. Nay, the single interposition of an interested individual against a law was scarcely ever known to fail of success, though in the opposite scale were placed the interests of a whole country. That this is so shameful an abuse of a power trusted with his majesty for other purposes, as if not reformed, would call for some legal restrictions.

As reviewers and readers noticed immediately, I take issue with how Chernow handles women and slavery in his own biography of the first president. In the introduction, I tally up the various problematic words he uses to describe Mary, Washington’s mother—<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ucifDwAAQBAJ&amp;newbks=1&amp;newbks_redir=0&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;dq=you%20never%20forget%20your%20first&amp;pg=PR36#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">26 of them</a>, including “crusty” and “shrewish”—and try to set the record straight on family dramas he just plain invented. And I note that as hard as Chernow is on Mary, he is remarkably soft on Washington, a man who owned hundreds of people and did not free one during his lifetime.&nbsp;

Jessie Serfilippi, a 27-year-old part-time interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York.&nbsp;

In his biography, he writes that “the memories of his West Indian childhood left Hamilton with a settled antipathy to slavery.” In her paper, Serfilippi counters that “there is no indication, either in documents from Hamiton’s childhood or adulthood, that the horrors of slavery he witnessed on St. Croix turned him into an abolitionist.”&nbsp;

My own explanation: George Washington may have won Ron Chernow the Pulitzer, but Alexander Hamilton defines his legacy. Serfilippi’s paper was a direct challenge to the man he’d sold as an “uncompromising abolitionist.”&nbsp;

“‘As Odious and Immoral a Thing’” that most historians have long considered factual: Hamilton bought and sold people. He accepted money in exchange for labor performed by an enslaved person belonging to his household. Here’s what Serfilippi found: At the time of Hamilton’s death, his estate included enslaved servants valued at 400 pounds. “There’s just no denying it after seeing that specific piece of evidence,” she wrote to me in an email. “There’s no debating that he enslaved people. To say he didn’t is to erase them, and I will not let that happen.”&nbsp;

But let’s be realistic here. This is a historic site in Albany, New York, and no matter how many visitors the Schuyler Mansion gets, it’ll never come close to matching the number of people who have purchased Chernow’s book or memorized the <em>Hamilton</em> soundtrack. Every new edition of <em>Alexander Hamilton</em> will continue to state that Hamilton <em>may </em>have enslaved people, omitting evidence that shows he did. That narrative will dominate the conversation—for now. There’s a long game to be played here, and that’s exactly what the Schuyler Mansion is doing by supporting work like Serfilippi’s.&nbsp;

that paupers ought not to be assessed for the support of government;

That the House of Delegates shall be chosen in the following manner: All freemen, above twenty-one years of age, having a freehold of fifty acres of land, in the county in which they offer to vote, and residing therein-and all freemen, having property in this State above the value of thirty pounds current money, and having resided in the county, in which they offer to vote, one whole year next preceding the election, shall have a right of suffrage, i

real or personal property above the value of five hundred pounds current money

men of the most wisdom, experience and virtue, above twenty-five years of age, residents of the State above three whole years next preceding the election, and having real and personal property above the value of one thousand pounds current money

That a person of wisdom, experience, and virtue, shall be chosen Governor,

he most sensible, discreet, and experienced men, above twenty-five years of age, residents in the State above three years next preceding the election, and having therein a freehold of lands and tenements, above the value of one thousand pounds current money, to be the Council to the Governor,

That no person, unless above twenty-one years of age, and a resident in the State more than five years next preceding the election, and having real and personal estate in this State above the value of one thousand pounds current money, shall be eligible to sit in Congress.

That no person, unless above twenty-five years of age, a resident in this State above five years next preceding the election- and having in the State real and personal property, above the value of five thousand pounds, current money, (one thousand pounds whereof, at least, to be freehold estate) shall be eligible as governor.

“I saw about twenty or five and twenty boys that is young shavers.”—

We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob.—Some call them shavers, some call them genius’s.—The plain English is gentlemen, most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues<a class="ptr" id="LJA03d031n49-ptr" href="#LJA03d031n49" title="jump to note 49">49</a> and out landish jack tarrs

The plain English is gentlemen, most probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues<a class="ptr" id="LJA03d031n49-ptr" href="#LJA03d031n49" title="jump to note 49">49</a> and out landish jack tarrs.—And why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can’t conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them:

When the multitude was shouting and huzzaing, and threatning life, the bells all ringing, the mob whistle screaming and rending like an Indian yell, the people from all quarters throwing every species of rubbish they could pick up in the street, and some who were quite on the other side of the street throwing clubs at the whole party

Saw the Molatto seven or eight minutes before the firing, at the head of twenty or thirty sailors in <span style="font-style: italic">Corn-hill,</span> and he had a large cordwood stick.

It is plain the soldiers did not leave <a id="ADMS-05-03-02-pb-0269"></a>their station, but cried to the people, stand off: now to have this reinforcement coming down under the command of a stout Molatto fellow, whose very looks, was enough to terrify any person, what had not the soldiers then to fear?

This was the behaviour of <span style="font-style: italic">Attucks;—</span> to whose mad behaviour, in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night, is chiefly to be ascribed.

He had hardiness enough to fall in upon them, and with one hand took hold of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down:

It is plain the soldiers did not leave their station, but cried to the people, stand off: now to have this reinforcement coming down under the command of a stout Molatto fellow, whose very looks, was enough to terrify any person, what had not the soldiers then to fear? He had hardiness enough to fall in upon them, and with one hand took hold of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down: This was the behaviour of Attucks;— to whose mad behaviour, in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night, is chiefly to be ascribed. And it is in this manner, this town has been often treated; a Carr from Ireland, and an Attucks from Framingham, happening to be here, shall sally out upon their thoughtless enterprizes, at the head of such a rabble of Negroes, &c. as they can collect together, and then there are not wanting, persons to ascribe all their doings to the good people of the town.