02: Revolutionary America

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.

Financed and approved by the state, history textbooks are less a reflection of the current state of historical knowledge than a collection of stories adults think will do children good, the educational equivalent of making the kids eat their peas.

Attucks’ appearance in textbooks is a relatively recent phenomenon. Eclipsed from memory from the 1770s well into the 19th century, he was resurrected in 1851 by William Cooper Nell, an African American journalist and historian, author of the <em>Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812</em>.

It wasn’t until the civil rights movement of the 1960s that Attucks became a regular feature in textbooks.

A review of seven textbooks published between 2003 and 2009 found that all but one featured Attucks in their narration of the Boston Massacre (Kachun, 2017).

I have to imagine that in editing John Adams’ words, <em>The Americans’</em> authors thought they were doing something noble: giving American children of all hues a hero who is a person of color. But the sly three dots of an ellipsis cannot erase the stain of racism any more than a bathroom spray can eliminate the stench of a skunk. Editorial subterfuge only forestalls a reckoning.

The goal of historical study is to cultivate neither love nor hate. Its goal must be to acquaint us with the dizzying spectrum of our humanity: lofty moments of nobility mixed in with ignominious descents into knavery. When history’s mirror intones a single phrase — that we’re the fairest of them all — it freezes us in childhood and stunts our growth. History that impels us to look at the past, unflinchingly and clear-eyed, does not diminish us or make us less patriotic. The opposite, in fact, is true: It makes us grow up. Understanding who we were allows us to understand who we are now. Only then can we commit to doing something about it.