THE COMMON RESPONSE

 

According to Ray Raphael, there are various general descriptions that summarize how common Americans faced the challenges of the American Revolutionary War.[1]  In total, these descriptors portray a list of very human reactions by those Americans that while heroic in many ways, they seem to be in line with reasonable, self-interests.  The last posting shared the first four of these descriptors.

          Those descriptors are that these average Americans, first, faced workloads that dramatically increased, second, the war was a time that forced them to cut back on the availability of consumer goods, third, that native Americans and African Americans exploited the opportunities the war provided, and, of course, fourth, that they took on the burdens of fighting the war.  The reader is encouraged to look back and read that posting if he/she has not done so, but this posting looks at Raphael’s last four take-aways of his historical study.

          The next point he makes is how quickly the support for the British Crown disappeared among the colonists.  As late as the mid-1700s, it was common among the colonial communities to celebrate the birthday of the monarch – King George III.  But then, as the 1700s wore on and while hesitant to outwardly demonstrate disdain for the monarch, the colonists could and did withhold celebratory demonstrations of support.  In their way, this constituted a denial of overall support for their status within the British empire. 

By the way, initially many slaves and native Americans hoped that they could gain advantages by fleeing or offering support to the British.  This did not work out and as a result many engaged in work slow-downs.  This demonstrates – in how these various groups reacted – that while defiance is not always available, lack of consent is.  By boycotting, “common people as well as leaders withheld support from the royal government.  Whether by acting or declining to act, men and women who were not rich made their presence felt.”[2]

Common in the colonies and then states, was a general testing of how effective the colonial authorities’ power was during the war.  As a recurring mode of behavior, people in subservient positions would “trash talk” their superiors, but as the war began, these Americans progressed from subtlety expressing their opposition to British rule to outward movements of defiance.  And some of these acts were quite violent – a common enough practice was tar and feathering loyalist targets.

And such demonstrations led to a cycle of defiance and then repression by the authorities.  And this take-away is that this back and forth became more intense as both sides approached the outbreak of war.  For example, the British acts led to mob actions in Boston and New York.  In short, the war itself was a reaction to rebellious acts by common people.

These acts of “defiance” took various forms.  For example, plantation owners, the least likely to be lured toward rebellious behavior, found themselves so motivated when they feared the British were attempting to incite their slaves to insurrection.  They of all people became rebellious.  Ironically, once the fighting began, potential fighters among the plantation owners stayed home to look after their slaves and guard against any possibility of them fleeing their captivity.

This led to the last take-away.  That would be that this defiance-repression cycle undermined whatever British authority existed and with it any chance of establishing an aristocracy in America.  “Common people rose up as never before, questioning the special privileges of their ‘betters.’  After a decade of political ferment and eight more years of war, free white Americans ceased to bow.”[3] 

The role that the common people played turned out to be complex.  They were not all united on one side or the other, but generally behaved to further their individual situations.  Surely, many played critical roles in advancing the American cause for independence, but many others found their situation advanced by remaining loyal to the Crown.  One such case occurred when they found their “betters” as patriots – pro-independence – and these lower-class Americans thought of them as oppressive agents in terms of their social and economic conditions.  One such area was the New York’s Hudson River Valley. 

Either way, a general spirit of rebellion prevailed regardless of which side these common folks took.  And in this, little thought was given to the eternal questions of liberty.  Instead, these people were reacting to their immediate conditions; conditions that determined how common people took up their roles on whichever side of the conflict they supported.

In doing so, they took up a vast variety of roles and functions during the years of conflict from as early as 1765 to 1783.  And within the war itself, the level of democratic practice within the American military structure cannot be undervalued from electing noncommissioned officers to refusing to obey orders.  For example, “… try as he might, George Washington was never able to force his men to kick women camp followers out of the wagons.”[4]

To pick up on a question the last posting poses – is Raphael a critical historian? – this blogger feels that while he is attracted to that mode of thinking, he is more of a myth buster.  As such, the judgement here is that he serves a useful role.  Whatever one’s historical vision is, it should be based on truth.  And the truth is that the role average Americans have played has not been given its appropriate level of attention.  Raphael’s work addresses this shortcoming and gives that essential segment of the Revolutionary generation its proper due.

As for some of his conclusions, he generally seems to represent any federalist motivations – in the form of allegiance common Americans had for federal values – as overstated in most accounts of the war.  The case for their role in spurring the sacrifices of these people needs to be realistic.  And here one needs to be cognizant of the difference between espoused theories and theories-in-use.[5]

Simply stated, the argument Raphael seems to make is that if people do not behave in certain ways, they therefore do not really share in some ideal(s).  And even using his descriptions of what the common folks faced during the war, one can readily understand why those folks did not sustain that level of commitment toward the values that they initially cited at the beginning of the war.  Even Raphael describes these common folks holding initially highly patriotic fervor at that time. 

Who among any population would sustain the level of sacrifice the war extracted from those people and remain so motivated?  Perhaps among fanatics as one is led to believe, for example, the Taliban have.  Surely, even back then, Americans were not known to being so socialized as to adopt and sustain that level of tunnel vision such fanaticism entails.  And does one really want that level of single-mindedness? 

The suggestion here is that one does not.  The reason for that can be the topic for another posting.  But, given the initial response Americans exhibited and their willingness to sustain the effort for so many years, one can judge that among them they shared high levels of federal values.  That was exhibited by their ongoing communal, collaborative, and cooperative dispositions and behaviors that they exhibited for the duration of that long war.

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[1] Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution:  How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence (New York, NY:  Perennial, 2001).

[2] Ibid., 385.

[3] Ibid., 386.

[4] Ibid., 386.

[5] See Kenneth D. Benne, “The Current State of Planned Changing in Persons, Groups, Communities, and Societies” in Planning of Change, eds. Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin (New York, NY:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 68-82.  Espoused theories refers to ideals and theories-in-use is how a person sees and plans to react to the realities the person perceives.  The latter does not undo the former.  Both are important in determining how people behave.

THE PEOPLE’S ROLE

 

Where does a culture lie?  Does one find it among the leaders of a people, or does it predominately reside within the common folks of a society at a given time?  The latter intuitively seems to be a better source.  The culture of ancient Rome, for example, is best answered by collecting information as to how typical Romans lived.  Their daily travails and successes and how they reacted to both reflect what that culture was all about in terms of its values, attitudes, modes of behavior, and what its people strove to accomplish.  Those qualities are the elements of a culture.

          But for historians to be able to delve into that level analysis before the institutionalization of descriptive research that mostly surveys the opinions or views of common people became common, it was quite the challenge.  Upon what could such historians rely on to gather the information that reveals those qualities of those people? 

There are the contemporary commentaries of writers of the time – usually the comments of educated people (mostly elites) – or there are records that reflect common behaviors (e.g., tax records) or found communication artifacts (letters, diaries, journalistic accounts or notes, etc.) or logically based evidence attached to known developments (such as conducting wars that relied on the participation of many from the lower classes).  But all of these sources and their use are subject to bias, not only on the part of those who produced the evidence but on the part of those who choose to analyze it.

Of course, this sort of bias is what led, in part, to political science and the other social sciences to choose behavioral approaches to their studies. But that is of relatively recent vintage and given the availability of limited sources of information, one is left with studies that can proceed only with that sort of potentially biased materials and/or biased analyses.

In the opinion of this blogger, one such study is the very insightful work of Ray Raphael[1] as he looked at such sources in attempting to relay the role the common folk played in the American Revolution.  While one can readily judge that this study is limited as indicated above, one is also readily taken by the detail his work portrays.

The purpose here is not to give a definite critique of this study, but to pass on the major findings Raphael reports – that is:  what can one say, generally, was the role of the common person in that war and how does that behavior give one insight as to the cultural makeup of Americans during those years?  What follows is a rundown of Raphael’s take-aways regarding that role and this blogger’s interpretation as to the significance of each point.

The first take-away is that the war meant the average American had to work a lot harder than he/she did before the war and was willing to do so.  The main reason for this extra effort resulted from the interruptions the war created in terms of trade.  One needs to remember that the American economy still depended highly on imported goods since the goods were not produced domestically.  The British instituted an effective blockade that cut off that trade. 

The war forced Americans to begin and sustain the needed production of such goods.  Generally, American “Artisan and laborers made tools and weapons.”[2]  Plus, the corps of workers who usually made what was produced domestically found themselves fighting the war.  So, those new artisan and laborers included the efforts of women, freemen, slaves who stepped in to replace the labor, ingenuity, and skills of the missing soldiers who numbered in the thousands.

Second, the common folk had to do with a lot less in terms of goods and services or to do without them.  This ranged from luxury goods to the bare necessities – food, clothing, housing materials, etc.  For example, salt became highly scarce as the military requisitioned a great portion of what was available.  Of course, such scarcities led to significant price hikes. 

And scarcity was in many cases the least of it as the citizenry was exposed to the ravages one associates with war including rapes, houses being taken over – commandeered – or burned or otherwise destroyed.  While people of means were sparred the more outrageous occurrences of such acts, they did share in significant sacrifices.  And native Americans did not escape negative consequences as many lost their agricultural lands.  Unfortunately, the war seemed to justify white Americans taking over these fields.

And finally, the slave population did not go unaffected.  Fearful their slaves would escape, slave owners clamped down on their slaves to avoid such eventuality and those slaves who did escape often met up with diseases that ended in death.  There were many incidences where large number of blacks met with death such as at Yorktown where they were cast out and ended up between enemy lines.

Third, among whites, the native population, and African Americans, their source of motivation in whatever they did was not spurred on by any allegiance to the British Crown or to some dedication to republican beliefs.  According to Raphael, they were pursuing their self-interest. 

This is not to say that initially they lacked in “patriotic” zeal, but as the pains of war had their effects, the vast majority began to look inward to what was best for each in attempting to get through it with the least cost.  And if afforded with some opportunity, they were prone to take advantage of it.  A better motto became, “charity begins at home.”

Fourth, the fact is the fighting was done by the common folk.  Most of that happened by them joining and remaining as members of militias.  One of George Washington’s adjustments in fighting the war was to accommodate, after some experience, to count not on his standing army, but on the utilization of the more localized militias that existed in the various colonies/states.

Yes, many of the poorer people fought because of not being able to buy their way out of service upon being “called,” a choice available to the rich.  So, many poorer people were paid by the rich to take their places and fight in their respective militias.  Raphael follows, in his overall narrative, the fates of several soldiers who stayed with the struggle through the long war. 

It should be remembered that the war lasted from 1775 to 1783 and Raphael states, “Independence was declared by wealthy merchants, planters, and lawyers; independence was won by poor men and boys while those who were better off gave but grudging assistance.”[3]  As one passes judgements on these discoveries, one is well served to remember the difference between ideals and how people normally do not live up to ideals – especially under stress – something Raphael seems to forget.

This posting will stop here with this book’s list of conclusions.  The next posting will share with the reader the remaining four take-aways the historian claims in his work.  They comment on the various levels of support the war garnered, how the war tested authority, methods of supervision and repression, and how the population rose and rebelled.  It will also share this blogger’s judgement on whether that historian is too critical – perhaps justifying the opinion that he is a critical theorists/historian. 

To give the reader a teaser, this blogger does not believe he is, but the overall judgement is not that easy.  For one thing, Raphael’s book is one of a series edited by Howard Zinn.  Zinn is described by right wing journalists as a socialist.  He died in 2010, but the books in this series have sold over two million copies and seem to be regularly assigned on college campuses.[4]

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[1] Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution:  How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence (New York, NY:  Perennial, 2001).

[2] Ibid., 382.

[3] Ibid., 384.  This quote summarizes Raphael’s main point.  In the next posting, this blogger will comment on this general editorial message.

[4] For example, see Naomi Schaefer Riley, “Reclaiming History from Howard Zinn,” Wall Street Journal (May 17, 2019), accessed July 5, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/reclaiming-history-from-howard-zinn-11558126202 .