Congress Argues about the Black Soldiers in the Continental Army

The official record of the Continental Congress on 26 Sept 1775 says:

The Committee appointed to prepare an answer to General [George] Washington’s letters, reported the same, which was read and agreed to.

Ordered, That the same being transcribed be signed by the president and forwarded immediately.

In fact, there was quite a vigorous debate that day, but secretary Charles Thomson (shown above) was suppressing news of any potential rifts among the colonies.

New Jersey delegate Richard Smith kept a private diary of the proceedings, and his entry for that day began:

Tuesday 26 Septr. Comee. brought in a Letter to Gen Washington, in the Course of it E[dward] Rutledge [of South Carolina] moved that the Gen. shall discharge all the Negroes as well Slaves as Freemen in his Army, he (Rutledge) was strongly supported by many of the Southern Delegates but so powerfully opposed that he lost the Point

The presence of black soldiers in the Continental Army remained a potent issue. On 5 October, John Adams wrote to two of Massachusetts’s generals asking for more information. This is what he told William Heath:

It is represented in this City by Some Persons, and it makes an unfriendly Impression upon Some Minds, that in the Massachusetts Regiments, there are great Numbers of Boys, Old Men, and Negroes, Such as are unsuitable for the service, and therefore that the Con­tinent is paying for a much greater Number of Men, than are fit for Action or any Service. I have endeavoured to the Utmost of my Power to rectify these Mistakes as I take them to be, and I hope with some success, but still the Impression is not quite removed.

I would beg the favour of you therefore sir, to inform me Whether there is any Truth at all in this Report, or not.

It is natural to suppose there are some young Men and some old ones and some Negroes in the service, but I should be glad to know if there are more of these in Proportion in the Massachusetts Regiments, than in those of Connecticutt, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, or even among the Rifle Men [from the Middle Colonies].

Presumably Adams wrote much the same thing to Gen. John Thomas, but that letter appears to have gone underground since a sale in 1948. I discussed Heath’s and Thomas’s replies back here.

Gen. Washington himself had grumbled to the Congress back in July about “the Number of Boys, Deserters, & Negroes” in the Massachusetts force. However, only the black men had become such a bone of contention in the Congress. And though Rutledge didn’t carry his point in September, the southerners won the debate the next month: Washington and a three-man Congress committee that included two southern planters agreed to remove all black soldiers from the Continental Army at the end of the year.

But that wasn’t the end of the story, as I’ll describe tomorrow evening in Cambridge.

The Men of Drury’s Company

Looking for documents about African-Americans in the New England ranks before Gen. George Washington’s arrival, I checked the new Harvard database of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Petitions. As I noted before, it contains many documents that don’t touch directly on slavery.

I found this petition to Gen. Artemas Ward signed on 5 June 1775 by more than two dozen men serving under Capt. Thomas Drury (1735-1790) of Framingham. They wrote:

the Subscribers, Soldiers in the Compy. Commanded by Capt. Drury, Humbly showeth—

that your Petitioners With the utmost Concern find themselves Shifted Out of Col. [John] Nixons Regt. into that of Col. [Thomas] Gardners, Contrary to Our Inclination and Repugnant to the promise made us at Our Inlisting

We theirfore Begg that your Excellency Would be Pleased to Continue us in the Regiment We Engaged to serve in—and not to be Removed for the Future Only to Serve the Malevolent Disposition of Our Captain.

New England soldiers viewed their enlistments as contracts to serve under particular officers. It appears that Capt. Drury had promised to serve under both Nixon and Gardner, but he was listed higher on the seniority list in Gardner’s regiment, so that’s the assignment he preferred.

Twenty-eight men didn’t want to make the switch. Maybe they trusted Col. Nixon, who was from their home town of Framingham, more than Col. Gardner from Cambridge. Those men were bold enough not only to go over Drury’s head but also to criticize his “Malevolent Disposition.”

In his Patriots of Color study, George Quintal identified three of the soldiers who signed this petition as men of color: later war records identify Blaney Grusha and Peter Salem as “Negro” and Joseph Paugenit as “Indian.” However, on this document there’s no indication that those soldiers were racially distinct from the other signers. (Salem and Grusha both signed with their marks, but none of the men had genteel, practiced signatures.)

In addition, Quintal’s study identified two more black men in the same company—Cato Hart and Jeffrey Hemenway. They didn’t sign this petition.

In fact, the Committee of Safety found that the company was split. On 14 June it determined:

A number of men belonging to the company of Capt. Drury, having petitioned that they might be permitted to join, some, the regiment commanded by Col. Gardner, and others, the regiment commanded by Col. Nixon; and the committee having considered their several requests, Voted, as the opinion of this committee, that said company be joined to such regiment as it shall appear the major part of said company are in favor of, when called upon for that purpose.

Three days later, Nixon’s and Gardner’s regiments both fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Both colonels were wounded, and Gardner died on 3 July. I don’t know if Drury’s men ever got around to voting, but the company remained in Nixon’s regiment.

Meanwhile, a new commander-in-chief arrived, and in his first report back to the Continental Congress he complained about “the Number of Boys, Deserters, & Negroes which have been listed in the Troops of this Province.” On Thursday I’ll talk about how Washington came to think differently.

The Massachusetts Government on Black Soldiers in the Summer of 1775

On 20 May 1775, one month into the Revolutionary War, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s Committee of Safety made this statement about the war it had undertaken and the troops it would employ:

Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, as the contest now between Great Britain and the colonies respects the liberties and privileges of the latter, which the colonies are determined to maintain, that the admission of any persons, as soldiers, into the army now raising, but only such as are freemen, will be inconsistent with the principles that are to be supported, and reflect dishonor on this colony, and that no slaves be admitted into this army upon any consideration whatever.

That policy barred slave owners from enlisting their human property, who presumably had less stake in the conflict. It preserved the public image, and self-image, of the New England army as freemen fighting for their traditional rights.

On that same day the committee asked that “Nicholas, a black fellow, now under guard,” be brought to Cambridge and jailed for examination. That was Thomas Nichols of Natick. He was accused of trying to entice black slaves to resist their masters, showing that the Patriot leadership was well aware that other people might fight for freedoms as well.

Seven weeks later, on 8 July, the committee proposed a further restriction on the types of soldiers who could enlist in its army:

Resolved, That the instructions to be given to the officers of the regiments, be sent to the council of war, and if approved, be forwarded: they are as follow:

Instructions for the officers of the several regiments of the Massachusetts Bay forces, who are immediately to go upon the recruiting service.

You are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or person suspected of being an enemy to the liberty of America, nor any under eighteen years of age.

As the cause is the best that can engage men of courage and principle to take up arms, so it is expected that none but such will be accepted by the recruiting officer; the pay, provision, &c., being so ample, it is not doubted but the officers sent upon this service, will, without delay, complete their respective corps, and march the men forthwith to camp.

You are not to enlist any person who is not an American-born, unless such person has a wife and family, and is a settled resident in this country.

The persons you enlist, must be provided with good and complete arms.

The new commander-in-chief, Gen. George Washington, and his council evidently did approve that language because it appeared on handbills over the signature of Gen. Horatio Gates two days later.

Back when the war had started on 19 April, the first day’s casualties included Prince Estabrook, still legally a slave and yet in the Lexington militia. Yet a month later, Massachusetts pulled back from enlisting slaves in its army. And in July, the authorities barred enlisting any black men at all. In October, the Continental Army commanders, in consultation with members of the Continental Congress, agreed further to bar any black soldiers already in the ranks from reenlisting in the new year.

The New England authorities almost certainly made those changes under the influence of Gen. Washington, a Virginia plantation owner. They also probably reflected what people thought the Congress that appointed Washington would want. Indeed, the black soldiers already in the ranks became an issue in Philadelphia, as I’ll discuss tomorrow.

I think most Americans see our national history as a story of gradually but unstoppably growing liberties, with equality and legally protected rights spreading from white men of property to poorer white men and then black men and then women and so on. But of course the story isn’t so simple. Progress in achieving individual rights hasn’t always been smooth and one-way. The end of Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow laws are the clearest example of retrograde motion.

This period in 1775 is a smaller example as Massachusetts’s Patriot government deferred to a Virginia slaveowner on the question of the black men already in its army. Had the new summer policy prevailed, the enlisted ranks of the Continental Army would have become racially exclusive. The consequences could have been far-reaching: a smaller, weaker army, to judge by estimates from late in the war of how many American soldiers were black men; and less cultural pressure for abolishing slavery, as happened in New England and Pennsylvania in the 1780s.

On Thursday evening I’ll speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site about how Washington changed his mind at the end of 1775. That talk starts at 6:30 P.M., and the site asks people to reserve seats by calling 617-876-4491.

[The photo above shows the Edmund Fowle House in Watertown, used by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress for committee meetings in 1775 and 1776.]

Stamp Act Approved by Lords

On 27 Feb 1765 the House of Commons gave final approval to the new Stamp Act for North America. The bill then moved on to the House of Lords.

The North American colonies had some friends in the British peerage, or at least men willing to argue against chief minister George Grenville. However, the Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768), a former chief minister, seems to have been mostly retired. The Marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782, shown here) was the rising leader of the Whig opposition, but on this point he was silent.

In another year, Rockingham’s legal ally Charles Pratt (1714-1794) would be Baron Camden, and wartime minister William Pitt (1708-1778) would be the Earl of Chatham. They would advocate for North America in the upper house during the following years, but not yet.

The Lords approved the law on 8 Mar 1765. There was no debate and no vote against.

The Stamp Act went to King George III for final approval. And then it ran into unexpected trouble.

John Green’s View of the Massacre

On 24 Mar 1770, five days after a draft of Boston’s report on the Massacre was submitted to the town meeting, justices of the peace John Ruddock and John Hill quizzed John Green about what he’d seen on the night of the 5th.

I spent some time earlier this week trying to figure out who John Green was, and this is my best guess. He was descended from a line of three Bartholomew Greens. His great-grandfather and grandfather were both newspaper printers, and his uncle John (1731-87) was still in that business as co-publisher of the Boston Post-Boy until 1773. But, as Isaiah Thomas described, John Green’s father had carved out his own niche:

Bartholomew, the eldest [son]…, never had a press of his own. The following peculiarity in his character introduced him to a particular intercourse with the merchants of the town; he made himself so well acquainted with every vessel which sailed out of the port of Boston, as to know each at sight. Perpetually on the watch, as soon as a vessel could be discovered with a spyglass in the harbor, he knew it, and gave immediate information to the owner; and, by the small fees for this kind of information, he principally maintained himself for several years. Afterwards he had some office in the custom house.

John’s ship-spotting father Bartholomew looked after the Customs office on King Street, with his unmarried daughter Ann helping out. The printer John Green also had ties to the Customs service; its officials granted him printing contracts, and his newspaper tended to support the royal government.

The younger John and his brother Hammond, who had been given their grandmother’s maiden name and was legally a “boat-builder,” both went to the Customs office on the evening of 5 Mar 1770, probably to make sure their relatives were all right. This is how John later described his experience to the magistrates in a deposition:

I, John Green, of lawful age, testify and say, that on Monday evening the 5th instant [i.e., of this month], just after nine o’clock, I went into the Custom-house, and saw in the kitchen of said house two boys [Edward Garrick and Bartholomew Broaders] belonging to Mr. [John] Piemont the barber, and also my brother Hammond Green;

upon hearing an huzzaing and the bell ring, I went out, and there were but four or five boys in King street near the sentinel [Pvt. Hugh White], who was muttering and growling, and seemed very mad. I saw Edward Garrick who was crying, and told his fellow-apprentice that the sentinel had struck him.

I then went as far as the Brazen-Head [importer William Jackson’s shop sign], and heard the people huzzaing by Murray’s barrack [rented to the army by James Murray on behalf of his sister Elizabeth Smith], I went down King-street again, as far as the corner of Royal Exchange lane, by the sentry, there being about forty or fifty people, chiefly boys, near the Custom-house, but saw no person insult, or say anything to the sentry; I then said to Bartholomew Broaders, these words, viz.: the sentry (then standing on the steps and loading his gun), is going to fire;

upon which I went to the Custom-house gate and tried to get over the gate, but could not; whilst standing there, I saw [Customs tide waiter] Thomas Greenwood upon the fence, to whom I said, open the gate; he said that he would not let his [own] father in, and then jumped down into the lane and said to the deponent, follow me; upon which I went down the lane with him, and round by the Post-office, to the main-guard;

he went into the guard-house and said, turn out the guard, but the guard was out before, and I heard that a party was gone to the Custom-house; I then heard the guns go off, one after another, and saw three persons fall;

immediately after, a negro drummer [of the 29th regiment] beat to arms, upon that the soldiers drew up in a rank (and I did not see Greenwood again, until the next morning), after that I saw the 29th regiment drawn up in a square, at the south-west corner of the Town-house; soon after I went home; and further I say not

When John Green testified, Boston officials suspected that Customs service employees had killed people in the crowd by firing guns from an upper window of the building. Green’s brother Hammond and Thomas Greenwood were indicted for murder—despite Green putting Greenwood at the guard-house when the shooting started.

At the end of the year those two men stood trial alongside Customs official Edward Manwaring and notary John Munro, all accused on the basis of dubious testimony from a teen-aged servant named Charles Bourgate. They were quickly acquitted.

The statements of John Green, his relatives, and Thomas Greenwood fit well together and also match testimony from other witnesses, unrelated and unindicted. Those accounts helped to inform the script of tonight’s reenactment of the Boston Massacre outside the Old State House.

A Modern Look at Crispus Attucks

The new Digital Public Library of America is now aggregating public-domain material from other websites. I tried a search for “Boston Massacre” and saw this image for the first time.

This image, “Crispus Attucks,” was painted by William H. Johnson (1901-1970) about 1945, which would make it one of his last works before he was institutionalized for mental illness.

It literally reflects the famous 1770 engraving of the Massacre by Henry Pelham with the soldiers lined up and firing together (on the left instead of the right) and the spires behind. But this portrayal emphasizes the civilian reaction to the soldiers, with the three lamenting women.

Johnson put Crispus Attucks alone at the center, gave him a Christ-like beard and pose, and named the painting after him. That reflects the importance of his memory in the African-American struggle for rights.

This painting is now part of the Smithsonian Institution’s collection.

“Snowballs covering stones” at the Massacre

In his 1789 History of the American Revolution, the South Carolina physician and historian David Ramsay (1749-1815, shown here) wrote that the crowd at the Boston Massacre was “armed with clubs, sticks, and snowballs covering stones.”

I believe that’s the first printed statement that Bostonians packed snow around rocks to throw at the soldiers. Earlier I’ve said that the earliest place I’d found that detail stated was in Sgt. Roger Lamb’s Journal, published twenty years later. It appears Lamb picked up the detail from Ramsay.

Or from intervening authors. The “snowballs covering stones” also appeared in Jedidiah Morse’s The American Geography (London: 1794), “History of the Rise and Fall of the British Empire in America” in The Britannic Magazine (1795), and William Winterbotham’s An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States (London: 1795).

The snowballs with stony cores became a standard detail of descriptions of the Massacre in the nineteenth century. Even though that detail can’t be traced back to anyone who was at the event. Following the standards of his time, Ramsay didn’t specify his source, and the many authors who copied his language (at much greater length) didn’t even cite him.

A lot of eyewitnesses to the Massacre left testimony about it, and none described people packing snow around rocks. Lots of people said there was snow and ice on the ground, and in the air. Thomas Hall and Daniel Cornwall testified to seeing people throw oyster shells at the soldiers. An enslaved man named Andrew testified that people threw “pieces of sea coal” (i.e., coal imported from Cape Breton). So there’s better evidence that the locals didn’t even bother padding their stones with snow.

A Civilian Casualty in the Bombardment of Boston

A few months back Boston 1775 reader Boyan Kurtovich sent me a question about whether any civilians were killed or wounded during the American artillery assault on British-occupied Boston in March 1776.

Early in the bombardment, on 3 March, Lt. John Barker of the 4th Regiment wrote, “Very remarkable no hurt was done as the most of their Shot and Shells fell in the Town.” (Back on 23 Sept 1775 Barker had noted Capt. William Pawlett of the 59th being wounded during breakfast.) Likewise, selectman Timothy Newell wrote, “tho’ several houses were damaged and persons in great danger, myself one, no one as I can learn received any hurt.”

But that luck didn’t hold the next day. Newell recorded:

4th March. Monday — soon after candle light, came on a most terrible bombardment and cannonade, on both sides, as if heaven and earth were engaged. Five or six 18 and 24 lb. shot struck Mr. Chardon’s house, Gray’s, Winnetts,—our fence &c.—

Notwithstanding, the excessive fire till morning, can’t learn any of the Inhabitants have been hurt, except a little boy at Mr Leaks, had his leg broke—it is said some of the soldiery suffered.

The merchant Peter Chardon’s house appears to have been on the corner of what became Chardon and Cambridge Streets. (Chardon was reconfigured into New Chardon Street in the Government Center development of the 1960s.) Those cannonballs probably came from the Continental battery at Lechmere’s Point. That house burned down in January 1778.

The next day the merchant John Rowe wrote in his diary:

All night Both sides kept a Continuall Fire. Six men of the 22nd. are wounded in a house at the So. End. One Boy lost his Leg.

That’s probably the same unfortunate boy, and we can hope Rowe heard an exaggerated rumor about the extent of his injury.

In his 1849 history of the siege of Boston, Richard Frothingham wrote that “one shot wounded six men in a regimental guard-house.” He didn’t cite a source for that statement, but it fits with Rowe’s remark and probably referred to the men of the 22nd. Frothingham didn’t mention the boy, and I haven’t found a trace of him elsewhere.

What’s Up with Minute Man Park This Month

Today the North Bridge Visitor Center of Minute Man National Historical Park is scheduled to reopen for the season.

It will be open through the end of the month on Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. In April, with the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord coming up, the park’s facilities will surely open for longer hours.

Meanwhile, the Friends of Minute Man Park is sponsoring two lectures this month.

Sunday, 15 March
“Parker’s Revenge Project: Notes from the Field”
Principal investigator Margaret Watters, Ph.D., will give an update on the Friends initiative to study and interpret the site traditionally associated with the afternoon assault on the withdrawing British army column by Capt. John Parker and his Lexington militiamen.

Sunday, 29 March
“War and Slavery in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1775-1783”
John Hannigan, Rose and Irving Crown Fellow in the History Department at Brandeis, will share his research on how men of color participated in the opening of the American Revolution, and the effects of their activity on the institution of slavery in Massachusetts.

Both talks will take place in Bemis Hall, 15 Bedford Road in Lincoln. They will start at 3:00 P.M., and are free and open to the public.

Talk on Washington’s Black Soldiers in Cambridge, 12 Mar.

On Thursday, 12 March, I’ll again speak at Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge honor of the upcoming Evacuation Day anniversary. This year’s talk is titled “When Washington Changed His Mind: The Question of African-American Soldiers in the Continental Army.”

In his first report back to the Continental Congress after taking command in Boston, Gen. George Washington wrote on 10 July 1775 that they shouldn’t expect quick results. The New England recruiters, he said, had already scraped the bottom of the barrel for soldiers:

Upon finding the Number of Men to fall so far short of the Establishment, & below all Expectation I immediately called a Council of the general Officers whose Opinion as to the Mode of filling up the Regiments; & providing for the present Exigency, . . . From the Number of Boys, Deserters, & Negroes which have been listed in the Troops of this Province, I entertain some Doubts whether the Number required can be raised here…

For a Virginia planter like Washington, whose entire life depended on managing enslaved people of African descent, the sight of black soldiers in fighting regiments wasn’t just a surprise. It was a profound contradiction of the social order.

That day Washington’s hand-picked adjutant general, Horatio Gates, issued recruiting orders that barred “any Stroller, Negro, or Vagabond” from enlisting. The Massachusetts legislature, which had approved all the existing regiments with black soldiers, reversed itself and told officers to stop signing up such men, whether free or enslaved.

At a council of war in October, Washington quizzed his generals on the issue. All but two agreed with the policy of excluding African-Americans from the army. So did the committee of the Continental Congress who met with Washington soon afterwards. Which wasn’t a surprise when the agenda for that meeting expressed the question this way:

Ought not Negroes to be excluded in the New Inlistment? especially such as are Slaves—By a Council of Officers both are.

On 31 October Washington’s general orders put that policy into practice by inviting all American soldiers around Boston to sign up for another year in the army—“(Negroes excepted, which the Congress do not incline to inlist again).”

And yet on 30 Dec 1775 Washington wrote in his general orders that recruiting officers could sign up “Free Negroes.” The next day he took responsibility for that new policy in a letter to the Congress:

I have presumed to depart from the Resolution respecting them, & have given Licence for their being enlisted, if this is disapproved of by Congress, I will put a Stop to it.

As he anticipated, the Congress did not overrule that policy.

In this talk I’ll explore the factors that pressed the commander-in-chief change his mind, and the repercussions of that decision for the Continental Army and for Washington personally.

I’m scheduled to begin speaking at 6:30 P.M. in the Longfellow carriage house. Parking restrictions ease up along Brattle Street to the west at 6:00—not that this winter is making parking easy. This event is free, but because of limited seating the site asks people to make reservations by calling 617-876-4491.

Big Plans for the Massacre in Boston

This is the time of year that Boston 1775 starts pinging the Department of Homeland Security servers by talking about our big plans for the Massacre.

That’s the Boston Massacre, of course, which took place on the 5th of March in 1770. This year the event will be reenacted on the evening of Saturday, 7 March, outside the Bostonian Society’s Old State House Museum—assuming that the snow has been cleared from the area. Here’s the schedule of events for that day.

10:30 A.M.
Little Redcoats and Little Bostonians
This interactive program for children explores what life was like for Bostonians and British soldiers in Boston in the months leading up to the Boston Massacre. Free; in front the Old State House.

11:00 A.M.
Blood on the Snow
Delve into the stark choices that faced the acting governor Thomas Hutchinson in the aftermath of the Massacre as shocked Bostonians demanded immediate action to prevent further bloodshed. Actors will present a scene from Patrick Gabridge’s original drama Blood on the Snow. Free with museum admission; inside the Old State House.

11:30 A.M.
Trial of the Century
Watch lawyers John Adams and Josiah Quincy defend the British soldiers accused of murdering Bostonians. Audience members are invited to act as witnesses and jurors for this celebrated case. For all ages. Free with museum admission, but space is limited; tickets go on sale at 9:00 A.M. at the Old State House Museum front desk.

1:30 P.M.
Little Redcoats and Little Bostonians reprise

2:00 P.M.
Blood on the Snow reprise

2:30 P.M.
Trial of the Century reprise

Weather permitting, volunteers may be recreating other scenes of historical conflict that afternoon outside Faneuil Hall, at the Old State House, or in other public spaces. Keep your eyes open.

7:00 P.M.
Boston Massacre Reenactment
The big event! Witness the argument, riot, and shooting reenacted in front of the Old State House, in the very area where it took place in March 1770. Before the action unfolds, hear from Patriots, Loyalists, and moderates who will talk about the events and attitudes that led to that fateful night. Free; in front of the Old State. (Once again I’ll be there as narrator.)

And if that’s not enough, on Wednesday, 11 March, from 6:00 to 7:30 P.M. the Old South Meeting House will host an event called “The Fifth of March Anniversary Orations–Speak Out!” From 1771 to 1783, the town of Boston invited prominent gentlemen to speak in memory of the Massacre at Old South Meeting House. Among the men thus commemorating the anniversary were James Lovell, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Benjamin Church, and John Hancock. Hear selections from their speeches performed by an intergenerational group. Co-sponsored by the History Department of Suffolk University. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

(And if you are from the Department of Homeland Security, come to these events! You may have some time to fill.)

New Database of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Petitions

Yesterday saw the official debut of the Digital Archive of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions. This online database is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Archives and Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, Center for American Political Studies, and Hutchins Center for African and African American Research.

Two years in the making, the collection offers views of 3,500 documents filed with the Massachusetts General Court from the 1600s to the 1800s. I saw a Twitter message saying that some of those petitions appears to have never been opened before being digitized.

Boston 1775 reader Nicole Topich, who worked on the project, alerted me to a number of items from the database relating to people discussed on this blog. For example, I’ve been passing on news about the identification of a young African-American portrait artist named Prince Demah. His mother Daphne appears in several documents because she was part of the estate confiscated from the Loyalist merchant Henry Barnes.

The state told the men it appointed to administer that estate to pay her from its earnings. The second of those men, Simon Stow, ended up suing his predecessor with the state’s encouragement. In June 1789 Stow complained to the legislature that he was still paying Daphne and thought she could live more cheaply in the countryside, but she was refusing to leave Boston. The legislature excused Stow from that responsibility. Two years later, Daphne petitioned directly, describing herself as having been “born in Africa,” “purchased by Henry Barnes, Esqr.,” and too old to support herself. The legislature authorized Joseph Hosmer to pay for her expenses on the state account.

Similar issues arose in the case of Tony (Anthony) and Cuba (Coby) Vassall, who had been enslaved to different members of the Vassall family in Cambridge. (As a child, Cuba had worked at the Royall House in Medford.) In 1780 the couple petitioned the legislature to be granted land from the John Vassall estate so as to support themselves. Tony stated that since the war began:

he and his family have since that time occupied a small tenement, with three quarters of an Acre of land, part of Mr. John Vassall’s estate in Cambridge and has paid therefor a reasonable rent, and all the taxes that were assessed upon him. . . .

the earlier part & vigour of their lives is spent in the service of their several masters, and the misfortunes of war have deprived them of that care & protection which they might otherwise have expected from them—

the land Your Petitioners now improve is not sufficient to supply them with such vegetables as are necessary for their family use, and their title is so precarious that they can’t depend on a continued possession of the same—

they might however promise themselves a tolerable subsistence by their industry & attention, if this Honble Court would grant them a freehold in the Premises and add one quarter of an acre of adjoining land to that which they now improve.

The following February, the legislature responded by voting Anthony Vassall a £12 annual pension but no more land. After his death, in 1811 the widow “Cuby” requested that the pension continue; her plea eventually succeeded, but she died the next year. Their son Darby, who reportedly met Gen. George Washington when he arrived at the John Vassall house to use it as his headquarters, lived long enough to sign a petition against the Fugitive Slave Law in 1861.

The database also contains digitized documents that don’t appear to have a direct connection with slavery. For instance, there are several petitions from Samuel Adams the wire-worker in the 1850s asking for compensation from the state for losses he sustained in the Shays Rebellion over sixty years before. They show Adams gathering pages of signatures in support of his cause, just as the opponents of the Fugitive Slave Law would do.

“God Save the People!” Exhibit Opens in Boston

Today the Massachusetts Historical Society opens its “God Save the People!” exhibit about the political conflict in Boston that grew from 1765 to 1775 and exploded into war. Last night I attended a preview, and can happily recommend a visit for anyone interested in American history. The exhibit will be up through the “So Sudden an Alteration” conference and into September. It’s open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M., and free.

In designing an exhibit worthy of the sestercentennial, the M.H.S. staff tackled a few challenges. One is the size of the exhibit space: three rooms (though one can also peek into the Treasures Room with its semi-permanent display of portraits of James Bowdoin, George Washington, young John and Abigail Adams, and old Lafayette). Any exhibit is a fraction of the available material, but, given the size of the M.H.S. holdings, this exhibit had to show a very small selection indeed.

Another challenge was that the society chose long ago to focus on documentary material. Most of its holdings are letters, diaries, and other writings. Multiple pages plucked from the John Rowe’s extensive (if suspiciously incomplete) diary and Harbottle Dorr’s newspaper collection provide continuity over the decade. But such writings are best read while sitting down at length instead of gazed at.

To enhance the exhibit’s visual dimension, the society has drawn on its fine collection of portraits—though those of course show only the very top of society. The engravings of Paul Revere and other cartoonists, usually shown both in original form and enlarged for easier examination, illustrate stages of the conflict. And we get to see some of the grab-bag of artifacts that the society has accumulated over the years, such as:

• a collection of tax stamps of different denominations
• a scrap of Liberty Tree’s root
• the two bullets that hit Edward Payne’s arm and doorway at the Boston Massacre
• the punch bowl that Peter Edes recalled filling before the Boston Tea Party
• crossed swords from officers on opposite sides of the Battle of Bunker Hill, united by their descendants’ intermarriage

The family of those officers also loaned other items to illustrate the courtship of Capt. John Linzee of the Royal Navy and local miss Sukey Inman.

The tent poles of the exhibit are the most famous Boston events: the Stamp Act protests, the conflict over non-importation leading up to the Massacre and succeeding trials, the Tea Party, and Bunker Hill. Ironically, conflicts that were played out largely in documents, such as the argument over judicial salaries, are less visible.

There was, of course, a parallel struggle for liberty in those years, by blacks both free and enslaved. The exhibit represents that history through the figure of Phillis Wheatley; it shows her portrait, one of the few surviving documents in her own handwriting, and her writing desk. Beside them is the Bucks of America medal, though I think that’s really a relic of the African-American community’s strive for acceptance in the early republic of the 1780s rather than of the Revolutionary War.

Among the exhibit’s strengths is being able to see some of the same figures at different times. Thus, one of the first items is shopkeeper Cyrus Baldwin’s 15 Aug 1765 letter to his brother Loammi describing “an effigy of the honorable stamp master of this province” hanging from a big tree in the South End. (That was weeks before that tree was designated Liberty Tree.) Among the later items is Cyrus Baldwin’s complaint about losing a chest of tea to Charlestown Patriots, as Chris Hurley narrated earlier this year. We see Samuel Quincy telling his legal colleague Robert Treat Paine that prosecuting Customs official Edward Manwaring for the Massacre will be “another Windmill adventure,” and later Quincy exchanging letters with his dying Patriot brother Josiah.

Perforce, the exhibit focuses on the top of society, the class involved in formal politics, the class most likely to save their papers. That stratum offers a variety of stories—even, in the portrait of Customs commissioner Charles Paxton, a silent bit of queer history.

The dimension of pre-Revolutionary Boston I think this exhibit can’t capture so easily is the everyday life of most Bostonians and how that intersected with the political developments. But there are glimpses—in, for example, Isaac Vibird’s newspaper protest that his wife had visited a proscribed importer’s shop just to pick up some locally made shoes. So when you go, take some extra minutes to read the newspaper pages and see what else was going on.

Peter Oliver Explains the “Black Regiment”

Peter Oliver was the last Chief Justice of Massachusetts under royal rule. His brother was Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver, and their family was connected by marriage to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson.

Massachusetts Whigs saw the Hutchinson-Oliver faction as apologists for the London government, far too quick to excuse encroachments on the colony’s traditional freedoms in exchange for lucrative appointments. Later the Whigs accused those men as having actually encouraged the ministry in its policies through recommendations and lies.

For his part, after the siege of Boston Oliver went into exile in England and spent the war writing an account of the political conflict in Massachusetts that he titled “The Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion.” It was finally published in 1961, and I don’t think it’s been out of print since. It’s a delightfully nasty, sarcastic, gossipy, and ad hominem narration of the years from 1760 to 1775.

Oliver and Hutchinson dated the start of their troubles from James Otis, Jr.’s break with the royal patronage system, and they blamed him for fomenting the unrest against them. Among other things, Oliver accused Otis of politicizing much of the Massachusetts clergy, as he laid out in a section titled “The Black Regiment”:

It may now be amiss, now, to reconnoitre Mr. Otis’s Black Regiment, the dissenting Clergy, who took so active a Part in the Rebellion. The congregational perswasion of Religion might be properly termed the established Religion of the Massachusetts, as well as of some other of the New England Colonies; as the Laws were peculiarly adapted to secure ye Rights of this Sect; although all other Religions were tolerated, except the Romish.

This Sect inherited from the Ancestors an Aversion to Episcopacy; & I much question, had it not been for the Supremacy of the British Government over them, which they dared not openly deny, whether Episcopacy itself would have been tolerated; at least it would have been more discountenanced than it was & here I cannot but remark a great Mistake of the Governors of the Church of England, in proposing to the Colonies to have their consent to a Bishop residing among them for ye purpose of Ordination. It was the direct Step to a Refusal for all such Proposals from the Parent State, whether of a civil or a Religious Nature, were construed into Timidity by the Colonists & were sure of meeting with a Repulse.

The Clergy of this Province were, in general, a Set of very weak Men; & it could not be expected that they should be otherwise as many of them were just relieved, some from the Burthen of the Satchel; & others from hard Labor; & by a Transition from Occupations to mounting a Desk, from whence they could look the principal Part of the Congregations, they, by that acquired a supreme Self Importance; which was too apparent in their Manners. Some of them were Men of Sense, and would have done Honor to a Country which shone in Literature; but there were few of these; & among these, but very few who were not strongly tinctured with Republicanism.

The Town of Boston being a Metropolis, it was also the Metropolis of Sedition; and hence it was that their Clergy being dependent on the People for their daily Bread; by having frequent Intercourse with the People, imbibed their Principles. In this Town was an annual Convention of Clergy of the Province, the Day after the Election of his Majestys Charter Council; and at those Meetings were settled the religious Affairs of the Province; & as the Boston Clergy were esteemed the others an Order of Deities, so they were greatly influenced by them.

There was also another annual Meeting of the Clergy at Cambridge, on the Commencement for graduating the Scholars of Harvard College; at these two Conventions, if much Good was effectuated, so there was much Evil. And some of the Boston Clergy, as they were capable of the Latter, so they missed no Opportunities of accomplishing their Purposes.

Oliver proceeded to name some ministers who he thought had been particularly useful to Otis and his allies: “Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, Dr. Charles Chauncy & Dr. Samuel Cooper.”

The Olivers and Hutchinson weren’t members of those men’s meetings, but they were Congregationalists from families who came to Massachusetts in the early Puritan migration. They ended up finding disproportionate support from Massachusetts Anglicans whose families had arrived after the 1600s. However, the Congregationalist minister Mather Byles, Sr., was another Loyalist. In short, religion was a political dividing-line among the clergy, but not a neat one.

Oliver had some more to say about the “black Regiment,” which I’ll quote and analyze after catching up with events. [Finally, the discussion continues here.]

The Roots of the “Black Robed Regiment” in 2010

Yesterday’s look at Oklahoma legislator and minister Dan Fisher showed how he’s active in the “Black Robed Regiment,” a movement among some Christian pastors to be more militantly involved in politics.

I’m sure the “Black Robe(d) Regiment” phenomenon is worthy of deeper study. The short version, as summarized at Media Matters and at Wikipedia, is that it arose from a conversation between author David Barton and broadcaster Glenn Beck (shown here) in 2010 and was quickly picked up by like-minded ministers eager to become more involved in political affairs.

Barton’s Wallbuilders site includes an page promoting the movement while the National Black Robe Regiment website includes an article by Barton it titles “The Original Black Robe Regiment.” This being the internet, there are other domains using the “Black Robe” trope and no way to tell if some are more “official” than others.

Barton has become notorious for distorting historical evidence to support his Christianist view of the American Revolution and early republic. Given the place of religion in eighteenth-century society, especially in New England, it should be hard to overstate its importance, but Barton has done so habitually. He’s also ventured into topics unrelated to Christianity but embedded in modern right-wing politics, such as gun ownership, and proved equally unreliable.

Barton’s article on the “Original Black Robe Regiment” appears to be typical of his approach. It proffers an impressive number of footnotes—101 in all. On closer examination, however, those citations don’t add up to so much.

Footnote 66, for example, is simply a repetition of footnote 1 when Barton returns to the phrase “black regiment.” But that set of sources doesn’t actually offer evidence for the essay’s first sentence:

The Black Robed Regiment was the name that the British placed on the courageous and patriotic American clergy during the Founding Era (a backhanded reference to the black robes they wore). [1]

In fact, Google Books can’t find the phrase “black robed regiment” from any source prior to this century. It appears that Barton made it up, inadvertently or on purpose, based on the actual period phrase “Black Regiment,” which I’ll discuss tomorrow.

My favorite footnote in the article is attached to this passage:

When Paul Revere set off on his famous ride, it was to the home of the Rev. [Jonas] Clark in Lexington that he rode. Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams were lodging (as they often did) with the Rev. Clark. After learning of the approaching British forces, Hancock and Adams turned to Pastor Clark and inquired of him whether the people were ready to fight. Clark unhesitatingly replied, “I have trained them for this very hour!” [47]

The note:

[47] Franklin Cole, They Preached Liberty (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1941), p. 34. Only source we can locate is Cole’s.

I doubt that second sentence was meant to be left for us to see. It indicates that Barton and his research team had enough questions about whether “Pastor Clark” really said those words to look for a better source than a book published by a Christian evangelical press 166 years after the event. But they failed to find any other source to support Cole’s quotation, despite the many accounts and histories of the Lexington alarm—which should have made them skeptical about that book. Instead, Barton cited it in this essay seven more times.

In those hundred footnotes I count seven primary sources from the eighteenth century: Peter Oliver’s account of the Revolution from shortly after the war, two citations of 1770s Boston newspapers taken from a note in the 1961 edition of Oliver, letters of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, a 1789 newspaper report, and a collection of sermons.

Some other contemporaneous writing no doubt appears in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century books that provide the bulk of the citations and quotations, but those books also contain unsupported traditions and fables like the one quoted above. That’s why I think it’s important to go back to the earliest documents, consider them fully and skeptically, and not just quote what I like uncritically because I can’t find anything more solid.

It’s easy to find primary sources on eighteenth-century American religion. The problem is that those sources present a much more complex, multi-faceted, and unfamiliar picture of religious life and thought than the Black Robe(d) Regiment would apparently like.

COMING UP: What Peter Oliver really wrote.

“Fisher is pushing for Christian-based governance”

The Oklahoma legislator who introduced the bill I quoted at such length yesterday is the Rev. Dan Fisher, pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in the city of Yukon.

The Tulsa World newspaper provided more background on how Fisher views the intersection of politics and religion:

As a member of the Black Robe Regiment, Fisher is pushing for Christian-based governance and challenging religious leaders to get political in the pulpit. The group also promotes Christian themes in education, including in history, civics and economics classes.

For years, Fisher has been giving public presentations in costume with his version of American history, which centers on the role ministers played in American independence. He wears an 18th century pastor’s black robe, then takes it off to finish the speech wearing an American Revolution military uniform. A musket and pistols are used as props.

That bit of business appears to be based on a legend of the Rev. Peter Muhlenberg first published in 1849—a literalization of how Muhlenberg left his pulpit to lead a Virginia regiment. After the war, he served in political and governmental offices.

The newspaper continues:

In a 35-minute presentation found online, Fisher uses quotes from preachers of the time to argue that America’s founding was based on Judeo-Christian principles.

On Fisher’s website — called “Bringing Back the Black Robed Regiment” — he argues that “without a resurgence of biblical patriotism in the pulpit, America cannot survive much longer.” . . .

In Fisher’s online presentation, he recommends “The Patriot Preachers of the American Revolution” by Frank Moore, published in 1862, and the 1860 book “The Pulpit of the American Revolution” by John Wingate Thornton.

“If you really want to read about the true history of America, you generally can’t read modern books,” he says on the video. “You have to go back many years.”

On that last point I agree, but Fisher stops nearly a century after the Revolution with books that focus on only one side of that conflict. Reading more widely and deeply reveals how ministers preached on both sides of the political and military divide.

Fisher’s website also includes a page titled “Black Robed Regiment Museum.” It’s full of weaponry. Among the few documents is a pamphlet from Boston labeled “Sermon by Thomas Powell October 16th, 1759,” though, as its title page clearly states, it was preached before Gov. Pownall by the Rev. Samuel Cooper. Why does that look like a metaphor for the overeager mix-up of politics and religion?

TOMORROW: The roots of the “Black Robe(d) Regiment.”

The Oklahoma Checklist of U.S. History Documents

Yesterday I described how the Oklahoma legislature was considering a bill to replace the Advanced Placement U.S. History framework with legal requirements more to its members’ liking (P.D.F. download). Here are the specifics of that proposal with my commentary.

The first clause states the state government will design a course “in lieu of the Advanced Placement United States History course and test offered by the College Board.” After the committee passed the bill, the story that Oklahoma was planning to ban the A.P. course in favor of its own curriculum became national news. The bill’s chief sponsor then insisted he was actually a supporter of the A.P. course (on his terms, presumably) and planned to revise the language to make that clear. So the bill might change significantly.

Right now the bill states:

The following foundational and historical documents shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in schools in the state, including Honors and Advanced Placement courses, and all United States History courses shall include appropriate grade-level study of the documents.

Thus, the bill starts out addressing only an Advanced Placement test—i.e., only for high-school students studying at what’s supposed to be collegiate level. But it then expands to cover “all United States History courses” in Oklahoma and refers to different grade levels, suggesting that its approach to American history could even be mandated in elementary schools.

Teachers may structure, organize, deliver and teach each document in a manner and order to facilitate student learning. In addition teachers may include other foundational and historical documents, readings and curriculum materials in the course instruction.

The College Board framework is likewise clear that teachers can include topics and materials not explicitly mentioned in its pages and teach the stated themes in various ways. But that hasn’t stopped critics of the framework from insisting that the framework skips over any topic or person it doesn’t mention by name.

That framework doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive list of topics, but this bill does define its list as the “foundational and historical documents…for all United States History courses.” The legislators’ choices and omissions thus become more significant and worthy of analysis.

The foundational and historical documents are:

1. The actual content of the organic documents from the pre-Colonial, Colonial, Revolutionary, Federalist and post-Federalist eras of the United States;

The term “organic documents” seems to come from corporate law, referring to documents that set up an organization. The list that follows goes well beyond such charters, however.

The word “pre-Colonial” was probably inserted to allow the inclusion of such documents as the Ten Commandments and Magna Carta. It’s not clear what period “post-Federalist” covers, whether only the early republic or through today.

2. The major principles in the Federalist Papers;

3. The writings, speeches, documents and proclamations of the Founders and Presidents of the United States;

4. Founding documents of the United States that contributed to the foundation or maintenance of the representative form of limited government, the free-market economic system and American exceptionalism;

The sponsors’ conservative politics become clear in the second half of that clause.

5. Objects of historical significance that have formed and influenced the United States legal or governmental system and that exemplify the development of the rule of law including, but not limited to, the Magna Carta, a complete overview of the “Two Treatises of Government” written by John Locke, the Ten Commandments and the Justinian Code;

The word “objects” seems odd. Perhaps it’s there for people who’d object to the Ten Commandments being called a document instead of stone tablets directly from God. Which translation or interpretation of the Ten Commandments is left unstated.

That clause originally included the mythical “Mecklenburg Declaration” as well, though why it was listed there instead of among the Revolutionary writings is a mystery.

6. United States Supreme Court decisions;

7. Acts of the United States Congress, including the published text of the Congressional Record;

8. United States treaties; and

And since that’s still not specific enough…

9. Other documents, writings, speeches, proclamations and recordings related to the history, heritage and foundation of the United States, including:
a. the Declaration of Independence,
b. the United States Constitution and its amendments,
c. the Mayflower Compact,
d. the Bill of Rights,
e. the Articles of Confederation,
f. the Virginia Plan,
g. the Northwest Ordinance,
h. the national motto,

Presumably the one adopted in 1956 and not the one chosen by the Continental Congress in 1782, shown in the seal above. Note how the chronology has broken down as the bill’s authors throw in anything they think is important.

i. the national anthem,
j. the sermon known as “A Model of Christian Charity” by John Winthrop,
k. the sermon known as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards,
l. the Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech made by Patrick Henry,

Nothing from the Stamp Act Congress, Dickinson’s Farmer Letters, or other documents from the long debate leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Congress’s crucial “Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms” doesn’t make the cut. But with so much from the founding era included, I shouldn’t complain.

m. the letter known as “Remember the Ladies” by Abigail Adams,
n. the writing titled “Common Sense, Section III: Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs” by Thomas Paine,
o. the essay “Federalist No. 10” by James Madison,

That essay already falls under the “major principles in the Federalist Papers,” “The writings, speeches, documents and proclamations of the Founders and Presidents of the United States,” and “Founding documents of the United States that contributed to the foundation or maintenance of the representative form of limited government.” But I guess it’s much more important that any other Publius essay. And much more important than any writings against the new Constitution.

p. the Farewell Address made by George Washington,

Among the omitted documents from the early republic are Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Washington’s address to the Jewish community of Newport, and Jefferson’s “wall of separation” letter to the New England Baptists, all strong statements of religious tolerance and equality. Combined with the inclusion of the Ten Commandments and two Massachusetts sermons, that makes the law’s Christianist leanings obvious.

Also passed over in this period are the McCulloch v. Maryland decision, the debate over the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and any documents related to the Louisiana Purchase.

q. the Monroe Doctrine statement made by James Monroe,

Nothing from the very influential administration of Andrew Jackson, including the debates over tariffs and nullification. Nothing of the significant compromise laws of the ante-bellum period. And, most curiously for Oklahoma, no mention of the Indian Removal Act that created the Indian Territory.

r. the overview of the book titled “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville,
s. the document known as the “Declaration of Sentiments” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
t. the Independence Day speech made by Frederick Douglass at Rochester, New York,
u. the House Divided speech made by Abraham Lincoln,

No other Abolitionist literature is included, nor the Emancipation Proclamation. The Homestead Act is not mentioned.

v. the Gettysburg Address made by Abraham Lincoln,
w. the Second Inaugural address made by Abraham Lincoln,

Nothing from Reconstruction, its end, and the aftermath.

x. the surrender speech made by Chief Joseph,
y. the poem titled “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus,

Alongside this paean to immigration, students don’t have to read any of the exclusionary immigration laws. From the same period, Francis Bellamy’s original pledge of allegiance doesn’t make the cut.

z. the article titled “The Gospel of Wealth” by Andrew Carnegie,

Though not Franklin’s earlier “Way to Wealth.” Of course, no pro-labor, anti-capitalist, or reformist writing from the Gilded Age.

aa. the essay titled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” by Frederick Jackson Turner,

This strikes me as the oddest inclusion—not an “organic document” or a political statement like the “manifest destiny” writings but a historical thesis now widely considered passé. No other long-lived historical thesis—not Tracy’s Great Awakening cycles, not the Beards’ economic interpretation of the Constitutional Convention—makes the cut.

bb. the Atlanta Compromise speech made by Booker T. Washington,

But nothing from W. E. B. DuBois.

cc. the Cross of Gold speech made by William Jennings Bryan,

A famous oration, but for a political campaign that went nowhere. Meanwhile, the list includes no temperance or prohibition literature despite that movement being successful enough to amend the Constitution.

dd. the Roosevelt Corollary made by Theodore Roosevelt,
ee. the New Nationalism speech made by Theodore Roosevelt,
ff. the Peace Without Victory speech made by Woodrow Wilson,

Needless to say, no Margaret Sanger.

gg. the First Inaugural address made by Franklin D. Roosevelt,
hh. portions of the book titled “The Grapes of Wrath” written by John Steinbeck,
ii. the Four Freedoms speech made by Franklin D. Roosevelt,
jj. the Day of Infamy speech made by Franklin D. Roosevelt,
kk. the article titled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” by George Kennan,
ll. the address that became known as the Truman Doctrine made by Harry S. Truman,
mm. the Address on Little Rock, Arkansas made by Dwight Eisenhower,
nn. the Farewell Address made by Dwight Eisenhower,
oo. the Inaugural address made by John F. Kennedy,
pp. the Decision to Go to the Moon speech made by John F. Kennedy,
qq. the letter known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” written by Martin Luther King, Jr.,
rr. the I Have a Dream speech made by Martin Luther King, Jr.,
ss. the Ballot or the Bullet speech made by Malcolm X,
tt. the Great Society speech made by Lyndon B. Johnson,
uu. the American Promise speech made by Lyndon B. Johnson,

Who would expect a right-wing Republican legislator to mandate the teaching of Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” warning, Johnson’s “Great Society” push, or anything by Malcolm X? Clearly the bill’s author was trying to reflect some of the changes of the 1960s. On the other hand, there’s no second-wave feminist literature and nothing from the big constitutional crisis we call Watergate.

vv. the First Inaugural address made by Ronald Reagan,
ww. the 40th Anniversary of D-Day speech made by Ronald Reagan,
xx. the Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate speech made by Ronald Reagan, and
yy. the Address to the Nation speech made by George W. Bush on September 11, 2001.

Those last items tilt decidedly to the right, as critics immediately noticed, but let’s be honest—most history classes wouldn’t get that far in the school year.

I wondered if the authors of this list had drawn on some preceding assemblage, the way a proposal from Jefferson County, Colorado, copied language from Texas and the current bill from Georgia took language from the Republican National Committee. However, I couldn’t find a source through an online search for several of the more idiosyncratic phrases. This language seems to be particular to this bill.

The proposal’s emphasis on “documents,” most of them primary sources, is striking. That mirrors how the A.P. test presents students with historical sources to analyze as practice for historical research. Much as I enjoy closely reading documents myself, I think it also reflects the thinking behind originalism, the idea that the nation’s earliest documents contain better answers than any later consensus or expertise.

In addition, the emphasis on studying famous orations bespeaks an old-fashioned outlook toward education. There are many other types of historical sources, after all. Starting in the mid-1900s, for example, we have audio and then video recordings of major addresses and other significant events—battles, civil rights marches, campaign debates, space missions, Bush’s classroom visit through the 2001 attack, and so on.

TOMORROW: The bill’s sponsor.

The Ongoing Battle over Advanced Placement U.S. History

To continue this series of postings on controversial intersections of early American history and current American politics, here’s an update on the conservative attack on the new Advanced Placement U.S. History (“APUSH”) framework.

As I noted last fall, the school board in Jefferson County, Colorado, voted to create a special committee to review U.S. History classes. This month, however, the board decided the existing curriculum review process could do the job just fine.

In other parts of the country, state legislatures have taken up the anti-A.P. cause. There’s a bill in the Georgia senate that’s closely modeled on the Republican National Committee’s resolution from August. Both claim the new framework

minimizes discussion of America’s Founding Fathers, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the religious influences on our nation’s history, and many other critical topics that have long been part of the APUSH course.

As I’ve documented, the new framework explicitly includes the founders and the Declaration, and it mentions religion more often than the previous course guidelines.

The Georgia bill drops the R.N.C.’s easily disproven claim that the framework “excludes discussion of the U.S. military.” It adds “the nature of the American free enterprise system, [and] the course and resolution of the Great Depression” to a list of topics that the framework supposedly misrepresents. (I doubt the bill’s sponsors would be happy with the evidence that the Great Depression was resolved with greater government involvement in the economy.)

The Oklahoma legislature has taken up a different sort of anti-framework bill. Politico noted:

Oklahoma is an unlikely site for the battle over AP U.S. History: Fewer than 3,500 of the 460,000 students who took the exam last year did so in the state — and only 40 percent of those students were deemed “qualified” for college credit after taking the test, compared with more than 50 percent of all those who took it.

Oklahoma accounts for 1.22% of the U.S. population but only for .7% of the students taking the A.P. exam. When a smaller group of students feels qualified to take the test, and those students perform worse than the national average, that suggests the teaching of U.S. history in Oklahoma may need improvement.

The Oklahoma bill differs from the R.N.C. and Georgia resolutions by spelling out what students should study in U.S. history classes. The original bill (P.D.F. download), as Talking Points Memo reported, included the mythical “Mecklenburg Declaration” among that material. The bill as it came out of committee (P.D.F. download) did not. And the Tulsa World is now reporting that the bill’s sponsor plans further rewrites because he feels it wasn’t clear enough.

Politico reported that sponsor had “solicited testimony from Larry Krieger,” the author/publisher of test prep books who was one of the early critics of the new framework. As I wrote back here, Krieger’s business gives him an economic incentive to keep the test as it was, or at least to obtain samples of the test (as the R.N.C. included in its demands). Actually shutting down the exam, on the other hand, would be against his interests.

Both state bills are explicit in demanding that history classes teach about American specialness. The Georgia bill refers to “the uniqueness of America’s place in the world.” The Oklahoma bill mandates study of “American exceptionalism.” But of course champions of that notion don’t just want to hear that the U.S. of A. is distinct from other countries—it must also be a Good Thing and/or The Best.

As Andrew Hartman wrote about the framework controversy at The American Historian, “One prominent front in the culture wars has been the struggle over whether the purpose of American history is to make Americans proud of the nation’s glorious past or to encourage citizens to reflect on its complexities and even its moral failings.”

Critics of the A.P. framework say it “reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” (That’s a line from the R.N.C. copied into the Georgia bill.) Their opponents say those critics are the ones skewing history because they want to minimize negative aspects of the past and emphasize positive ones. And of course the perception of how much negativity or positivity is too much is subjective, tinged by one’s politics. Based on how the framework’s critics continue to misrepresent the framework, however, I’m not convinced by their claims of being more accurate.

TOMORROW: The Oklahoma reading list.

[The picture above shows the Oklahoma state house, from this N.P.R. story on an oil and gas bill from last year.]