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ISR Issue 54, July–August 2007
REVIEWS
Wars of independence
Alfred F. Young
Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution
New York University Press, 2006
372 pages $22
Review by SUSAN DWYER
IMAGINE HOW inconvenient it would be for the present U.S. government if the soldiers in Iraq had been, from grade school, taught the real story of Valley Forge. What if the starvation and the lack of shoes and other clothing in the middle of one of the coldest winters in memory were commonly known and commonly taught. What if the soldiers’ strikes and desertions were as well known as George Washington’s fabled cherry tree? What if it were well known that Congress did not do anything for the veterans of the Continental Army until 1818, and then only halfheartedly? So much for promises, so much for history.
The American Revolution is generally taught as though there were a consensus for independence among all colonials, followed by a short struggle involving some Minutemen popping up from behind bushes and walls to defeat the mighty British army at the behest of a few great men with great ideas. There were Minutemen and ruling-class men with great ideas, to be sure, but where consensus existed it was hard-won and never absolute. The British, moreover, were defeated by a combination of large field armies and popular struggles against an oppressive colonial power.
In his new book, Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution, the historian Alfred Young allows us a fascinating glimpse of what the long revolutionary period was like for all levels of colonial society. The book, a collection of essays written over a twenty-year period manages to make even the familiar new and interesting. Alfred Young’s understanding of his sources, everything from scrimshaw carvings to artisan banners and tax rolls, opens the history of the revolutionary period in a manner that many full-scale treatments lack.
Young uses a description common in the period to describe the struggles of elites, “men in doors,” and ordinary people, “men out of doors.” Neither group, according to Young, was a single entity with clear leaders. To cite a passage from the introduction:
[The] many groups on the stage were decidedly not in harmony with one another: the cast did not all assemble at the finale to sing a chorus of “Yankee Doodle,” the national anthem of the Revolution. The Revolution was more multisided and multicolored than has been generally allowed, which is why it could be at the same time more radical and yet more conservative. If we in the audience two hundred years later allow ourselves to respond emotionally to the drama, we may see that the Revolution was more inspiring and more heartbreaking than most Americans ever imagined.
Young investigates the sources with an eye to how ordinary colonists had both an effect on and an interest in the workings of their economy and their government. More important, Young understands that ordinary people are a motive force in history—showing how the idea and promise of independence inspired the men out of doors to struggle for economic and social justice as well as political independence.
Every aspect of the social order was in turmoil as ordinary men and women, both slave and free, related the idea of political independence from Britain to their own social position and power. As Young shows, ideas of independence and democracy, discussed in every tavern and workshop, quickly called into question social rank and power:
After an Anglican clergyman derided “every silly clown and illiterate mechanic” for presuming to censure his rulers, he faced an uproar. “Crispin Heeltap” replied in the local paper that “a good Cobbler is better entitled to Respect than a bad Preacher,” and his congregation dismissed him. A correspondent in a Rhode Island paper held that “all such divines should be taught to know that mechanics and country clowns” were “the real absolute masters of kings, lords, commons and priests.” But he added revealingly, “though (with shame it be spoken) they too often suffer their servants to get upon their backs and ride them most barbarously.”
In the essay titled “How radical was the American Revolution?” Young describes “multiple radicalisms,” many of which come from the aspirations of the lower ranks. Each social group had different aims and different needs. The language of independence from Britain—liberty, representation, tyranny, and injustice—when applied by individuals and groups to their own situation frightened the colonial elite. For instance, after reading Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, Abigail Adams wanted a good deal more radicalism, her husband John a good deal less.
Young proposes that the radicalism of the revolutionary period be looked at as a series of ongoing negotiations between “coalitions of nascent ‘classes’ in both cooperative and antagonistic relationships.” He argues, “One of the best tests of the success of radical movements is their impact on the elites.” This approach works as an investigative tool, and is a tremendous help in understanding how working people, women, Blacks, and the poor affected the push for independence and the compromises of the Constitution. But negotiations imply roughly equal power, and that is something ordinary people were never able to maintain. Politically, most colonial people were better off after Britain’s exit. But it is also true that materially little had changed and was often made worse, especially for veterans, women, and small farmers. Slavery, of course, became much worse.
Liberty Tree is an excellent resource for those who want to understand the radical tradition and history of the United States. “Radical action,” Young writes, “requires hope and the knowledge of alternatives, not merely desperation.” The book is a grand example of how ordinary people are transformed through struggle. Liberty Tree should be read by all of us, not only to better understand our own history, but also to understand how to rise to the occasion and continue the fight.
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