Which Side Would You Choose?

October 31, 2005 1:37 PM

Whose side would you choose to be on in the American Revolution? Assume that you are a person of the times and not a time traveler carrying 21st century views on race and society in your baggage. Assume that your focus is on your immediate world and your information does not have the completion that you are familiar with from history. This question comes up from time to time in conversation and I am still on the fence as to which way I would fall. The Unknown American Revolution by Gary B. Nash is a good (and the only) history that I have found that discusses this question. Nash also shows that the Red State/Blue State thought divide has been with us from the beginning. Any other books/texts out there where this is discussed?
posted by Raybun to society & culture (31 comments total)

thanks to Sam Adams, the revolutionaries had the best beer

They must export a different Sam Adams to Europe for it to compare favorably to British beer.

I think I'd be with the colonists: the principles are right (as are the rewards), and the crown would be far enough away that my natural cowardice would be somewhat in check.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:44 PM on October 31, 2005

thanks to Sam Adams, the revolutionaries had the best beer

Yeah, right. The Brits had Hessians on their team.

Really though, how is one supposed to just drop all the 21st century baggage? Your choice of who to fight for (if to even pick a side) would have been situational. Am I the son of the British Colonial Governor? Am I some back-woods trapper? Am I a yeoman farmer in the Carolinas? A plantation owner in Virginia? A skilled tradesman in Boston?

Am I Scottish? English? Irish? Dutch? Native American? French?

If I'm going to be me, now, I'm going to have to go in with all the knowledge I have now.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:51 PM on October 31, 2005

The colonies had little political representation, lived under a tyrranical government and basically at the whim of a monarchy and aristocracy across a sea. Keep in mind the obvious, that this was before communication allowed information or response to propogate at near instantaneous speeds.

The real question is why would you not be on the side of the revolutionaries? Do you believe that the monarch has some divine right? Do you have significant economic and political ties to where it would be more advantageous to you for the current king to remain in power? Do you enjoy wondering if the next king/queen will ban your religion and force you to change or else?

We are inherently bias as we have so many post-modern conceptions of right of self and the illegitmacy of a divine monarchy that none of us could possibly answer this in the way you define.

And the whole red/blue state being around since the US was founded? What's up with that? How can a pre-Industrial agrian society possibly compare politically beyond the "us vs them" mentality of a two-party system (which I don't even think emerged to much later in our history).
posted by geoff. at 1:55 PM on October 31, 2005

geoff, you don't seem to understand the revolutionary era at all. Most colonists had no desire (at first) to separate from Britain; that's not what it was about. They considered themselves British through and through and just wanted to keep the privileges they felt they'd won through several bloody wars with France. All the "down with royalty" stuff came about as a result of the need for propaganda to justify the war that was already under way, much as the anti-slavery stuff we consider at the heart of the Civil War was a late development undertaken in desperation—the war started to prevent secession, not to end slavery.

As for the original question, it makes no sense.

Whose side would you choose to be on in the American Revolution?

is directly contradictory to:

Assume that you are a person of the times and not a time traveler carrying 21st century views on race and society in your baggage.

There is no "you" without "your" 21st-century views. And without the "you," what's left? "What side did people choose in the American Revolution?" Whatever side made sense to them given their circumstances and political views. I wish the poster had thought through the question a little better and asked something with some conceivable answer.
posted by languagehat at 2:04 PM on October 31, 2005

[removed the one line beer comment before realizing everyone had quoted it, sorry]
posted by jessamyn at 2:06 PM on October 31, 2005

I've just started 1776, so I've been asking myself the same question. From what I've gathered, the Continental Army was quite the rabble, and if you were an established person, you probably stood to lose quite a lot economically either way - If the rebels win, who knows what happens, if they lose, who knows what reprisals you'll face. Given the unlikely victory by Washington and his army, and the successful defense of the US from Britain, I would say that I would have likely sided with the loyalists until such a time when the revolutionaries could have presented a far more palatable plan for what would replace British rule. While King George ruled by divine right, his regime was hardly a dictatorship at the time, and probably not too different from the American government that immediately replaced it. In deciding how to deal with American Rebellion, both the House of Lords and the House of Commons voted in favour of stifling it, but only after heated debate. Keeping in mind that most people in the colonies at the time were quite British, it's not altogether unreasonable to agree with them, especially considering that the majority of the rebels were unorganized, dirty, undisciplined soldiers of fortune, for all intents and purposes.

On preview: I agree with languagehat, the "revolution" was not framed as such when the Continental Army was assembled, it was only after the British deemed it to be a rebel army seeking independence that plans for independence started in earnest. Up until the beginning of serious hostilities, American representatives were begging George as loyal subjects to acquiesce to some of the Colony's demands. Even those who spoke against military action in Britain spoke in terms of colonies instead of a free state.
posted by loquax at 2:08 PM on October 31, 2005

Last year, I took a course strictly on the sociopolitical and cultural situation leading up to and away from the Revolutionary War and discovered there was quite a bit I didn't know about the era. I think as others have pointed out, it would be hard to drop my modern baggage and even harder to have a nuanced view of a historical moment which has been distorted considerably for propagandistic purposes throughout our history. That being said, as my family was pioneer Irish in the Virginia / Kentucky / Pennsylvania frontier, I assume I would have been against the British, although more than likely, like most colonists, I wouldn't have cared who was in charge and wanted to be left alone. Presumably, I might have been swept up in the rhetoric surrounding the need to protect the frontier.
posted by Slothrop at 2:22 PM on October 31, 2005

Tory, without a doubt.
posted by madajb at 2:36 PM on October 31, 2005

Neither.
posted by signal at 2:51 PM on October 31, 2005

Honestly? Most colonists were probably very busy trying to get enough food together for the winter and would have kept their heads down until a press gang for whichever side showed up.

Then whoever that was, loyalist or rebel, the choice would have been: sign up or hang as an example to the other side.

So there'd really be no choice at all - One side or the other would draft you (de facto or de jure) and after that you'd be committed.
posted by Crosius at 3:00 PM on October 31, 2005

I also recently started reading 1776. I was particularly struck by the descriptions of the New York islands and their people by the invading British and Hessian troops. Several soldiers wrote of the pastoral beauty of the lands and the elevated quality of life to be had there. As they marched through the bounteous fruit orchards and discovered the wealth of the Long Island farmers, they wondered how these people could be motivated to pick up arms against the crown whose armies had helped secure this way of life.

And of course, many of the wealthy Long Islanders felt the same way and welcomed the British. Like them, I think that I would have bet, as I usually do, on the losing team.
posted by soiled cowboy at 3:06 PM on October 31, 2005

not everyone took sides in that war ... and i have an idea that i would have been one of those bystanders ... assuming that i wasn't an indentured servant and had to support whoever my master told me to
posted by pyramid termite at 3:15 PM on October 31, 2005

I had a great response all written up, then mefi crashed.

geoff: Did you even take a high-school history course? There were clear political parties soon after the revolutionary war, the democratic party was founded in 1792, for example.

The real question is why would you not be on the side of the revolutionaries? Do you believe that the monarch has some divine right? Do you have significant economic and political ties to where it would be more advantageous to you for the current king to remain in power? Do you enjoy wondering if the next king/queen will ban your religion and force you to change or else?

You clearly have no understanding of British government, at the time or today (although most kinds and queens 'know their place').

--

Anyway the British have always had a much better civil rights record, even today. It was the British who wanted end slavery, and the abolitionist movement in the UK was pretty strong. The British would end up using force to oppose slavery even before the civil war (IIRC). Their views towards the Indians were much better then the colonists as well.

There was no risk at all that the King would just up and ban any religion, religious tolerance was (again, IIRC) the law of the land in England, although England did (and still does) have an official church.
posted by delmoi at 3:43 PM on October 31, 2005

not everyone took sides in that war ... and i have an idea that i would have been one of those bystanders ... assuming that i wasn't an indentured servant and had to support whoever my master told me to

Damn straight. If I had any money I'd build a gun factory and sell to both sides :P
posted by delmoi at 3:45 PM on October 31, 2005

I imagine that I would avoid the topic in public and subtley support whichever side looked advantageous to me economically. Then I would throw my support enthusiastically behind a faction as soon as I could discern that they were actually going to win.

A large portion of my family did not do this and they were forced to move to New Brunswick. But the ones who did had to stay in Dorchester. So I guess that you can't win.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:51 PM on October 31, 2005

Well, for this type of question I'm always reminded of the classic retort by an intellectual to a society woman who lamented that "you just couldn't get good help these days" and if only they lived in the 19th century. "Madam: then we would be the servants."

Anyway, positing a version of myself appropriate to the times -- a college-educated quasi-intellectual with liberal attitudes for the day -- I can't see why I wouldn't have been on the side of the rebels from long before the Revolution. Many American colonists, of course, had fled Britain and other European states for reasons of religious liberty, and still others were economic refugees or fleeing other kinds of state authority such as the poor laws and debtor's prisons. This meant that there was a great deal of the "rabble" with an automatic bias against the London government. Myself, I would probably have been connected with a university in some way, and probably could not have avoided military service, say in the French and Indian wars if I were born in 1735). I would have been reluctant to break with Britain, but like the Continental Congress, without much choice. I can justify this simply in terms of the day, not using a modern liberalism, much of which was forged during the 19th century.

I would, I imagine, have had -- being this "me" -- both sympathy and connection with the protest movement and the legislative intermediaries simply seeking a voice at Parliament. Yet as the cause progressed, the opening for that moderation would have closed.

See, for context, the Articles of Association from 1774 -- a precursor to the Declaration of Independence, which disclaimed itself as coming from "His Majesty's most loyal subjects" who were simply frustrated with "a ruinous system of colonial administration". Remember, among the rights to which they had become accustomed were such as that of trial by jury. Imagine if that were taken away in today's USA and you can imagine some of the fury.
posted by dhartung at 4:06 PM on October 31, 2005

Many American colonists, of course, had fled Britain and other European states for reasons of religious liberty, and still others were economic refugees or fleeing other kinds of state authority such as the poor laws and debtor's prisons. This meant that there was a great deal of the "rabble" with an automatic bias against the London government.

The second sentence does not follow from the first. Many colonists did come for religious liberty (ie, the right to oppress others instead of being oppressed themselves) in the 17th century, and they got it; why would they have been against London? London wasn't trying to oppress them, it was leaving them alone. Then London became the support to which colonists turned against their local rapacious governments; many colonists were wholly in favor of the tighter imperial control that followed the Restoration and the revolts of the 1680s. It wasn't until London started with the taxes and the quartering of soldiers after the Seven Years' War that people got pissed off. And it wasn't the "rabble" who started the revolt; it was middling people like Patrick Henry.

Myself, I would probably have been connected with a university in some way

Which wouldn't have made you a modern-style Secular Intellectual. The colleges (not "universities" in those days) were still basically for religious training. It's true that a lot of college students got excited about the political turmoil preceding the Revolution, but that's because they were young and didn't have a job to keep them busy, not because they were the 18th-century equivalent of the Free Speech Movement.
posted by languagehat at 4:52 PM on October 31, 2005 [1 favorite has favorites]

Actualy, I think I would move to France.
posted by delmoi at 5:12 PM on October 31, 2005

Great post. I'd be interested to see this very same question applied to the American Civil War.
posted by poweredbybeard at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2005

Isaacson's bio of Ben Franklin provides some interesting perspective as well on what living in the colonies was like around the time of the Revolution, including his conflicting feelings, and his eventual embrace of a the need for a new government.
posted by desuetude at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2005

I'll just go with my ancestors, opt for the Rebels. Though, since most of mine were back in the mountains, they probably didn't care all that much to begin with.

As is, I've always heard the 1/3 for it, 1/3 against it, and 1/3 didn't really care. I did have a class with a Canadian who's ancestors left the 13 Colonies for Canada at the time of the Revolution. He really hadn't put thought into it until that class when he realized he was descended from Tories.
posted by Atreides at 9:27 PM on October 31, 2005

Gentleman and Ladies, has no one read, really read, the Declaration of Independence lately?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

C'mon, who here does not want to kick some redcoat ass right now? It is the noblest set of principles ever put on paper. Not always followed, no, but pointing in a direction so unquestionably right I can't imagine doubting it. Or read a bit of Paine's Common Sense!

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor.

Languagehat: All the "down with royalty" stuff came about as a result of the need for propaganda to justify the war that was already under way, much as the anti-slavery stuff we consider at the heart of the Civil War was a late development undertaken in desperation—the war started to prevent secession, not to end slavery.

Too cynical by a half, my friend. Certainly the "revolutionaries" of 1775 were looking for a reconciliation that would give them autonomy within the British system, but by 1776 the anti-monarchical element was in the majority, and sincere. Not propaganda, but an evolution of ideas. And it is true that abolitionism came late to the White House in the Civil War, but it was the presence of anti-slavery feeling in the North that caused the war in the first place.

By the way, for a great book on the early part of the revolution, David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing is a stunning work of history.
posted by LarryC at 10:00 PM on October 31, 2005

C'mon, who here does not want to kick some redcoat ass right now? It is the noblest set of principles ever put on paper. Not always followed, no, but pointing in a direction so unquestionably right I can't imagine doubting it.

what if you thought that the king and parliament were already granting you the liberty and freedom you required for a good life? ... even more relevant, what if you thought that the leaders of those rebels simply meant to replace one set of unresponsive rulers with another?

there's a reason a lot of americans lit out for the west ... it was their own little way of declaring independence ... and although eventually the rhetoric of the declaration was close to being fulfilled by the government, there's no way that the average person of that time could know that or would believe it ... which is why many just sat and didn't participate

let's face it, the canadians didn't rebel and they didn't exactly have a horrible time because of it, did they? ... and after 1812, the u s and britain have managed to get along reasonably well

it was really more of a squabble about how the colonies should be represented in a fair way under a more or less traditional system ... the british weren't reasonable about it, so there was a revolution ...
posted by pyramid termite at 10:41 PM on October 31, 2005

Idealogically I would probably side with the rebels, but for practical purposes I would definitely be a tory. Come on, how the hell could anyone expect these backwater rebels to actually win against the fucking British Empire?
posted by deafmute at 10:59 PM on October 31, 2005

Myself, I would probably have been connected with a university in some way

Which wouldn't have made you a modern-style Secular Intellectual.

True, oh hatted one, but then I imagine I would have been a Deist, like many of the Founders. (I didn't say secular.) I also didn't mean it as a hippie-protest motif -- I meant more in terms of being connected to the philosophical movements of the day. I was just trying to imagine what kind of role I would have in society that would be closest to being "me" today.

Many colonists did come for religious liberty (ie, the right to oppress others instead of being oppressed themselves) in the 17th century, and they got it; why would they have been against London?

C'mon, there was plenty of suspicion of the Anglican church. Don't forget that there had been tussles over the religious nature of especially the New England colonies. But I was probably thinking more of the Great Awakening.
posted by dhartung at 2:28 AM on November 1, 2005

Colonies? Crown? British? Screw that. Farming rye gets boring, but at least the results were nice (family in the whiskey business, Bucks County, PA). All this rebellion talk could only lead to trouble. I'd say Ohio and points west must have been looking rather interesting.

My ancestors ended up in the rich farmlands of Ontario. LOL! Moved back to the States latter. Hey, Mayor Curley, what'd your family do to get New Brunswick? Mine may have been loyalists, or they may have departed in the Whiskey rebellion. Either way, they were Swiss Anabaptists (Mennonite variety, not Amish), not British.

Me being me, I would have run off, one direction or the other. Either to help fight the authority of the Crown, or to escape the new authority.
posted by Goofyy at 3:41 AM on November 1, 2005

Hey, Mayor Curley, what'd your family do to get New Brunswick?

They collaborated with the British soldiers occupying Dorchester Heights during the siege of Boston. The family had lived on the spot 140 years at that point, but that one choice sent them packing to Saint John.

(These are actually distant cousins-- my side of the family was already laying low in what is now the Metro West, presumably because Dorchester had become too crowded many years earlier.)
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:25 AM on November 1, 2005

I would root for the people that want to be free every time.
posted by jaded at 5:45 AM on November 1, 2005

If by "be free" you mean "keep slaves and massacre Indians," of course.

C'mon, there was plenty of suspicion of the Anglican church.

Sure, that's why they came here to get away from the Anglicans. My point is that they succeeded; the Anglican Church was basically nonexistent in 17th-century New England. They had achieved their goals and had no reason to resent London—especially when Cromwell & Co. got rid of both the king and the established church. By the time the Restoration brought closer control and a reimportation of Anglicanism (which affected mainly the more southern colonies), the people who had fled for religious freedom were history; the dissenting churches didn't care for the Anglicans in their midst (and vice versa) but there wasn't the kind of bitterness there had been a couple of generations earlier. And the Great Revival cut across denominational lines; there were New Lights and Old Lights in every congregation.

This is a great discussion.
posted by languagehat at 5:59 AM on November 1, 2005

The positions of Africans and Indians in colonial North America makes this question unaskable for a person who cannot step outside of who they are in this world and ignore the advantage of being able to see into the futures of these people. Stepping into a time machine and making a choice on who I am now would make me an instant Tory.
posted by Raybun at 7:18 AM on November 1, 2005

As a french, the answer is obvious...
posted by luis huiton at 4:50 AM on November 2, 2005