In my previous blog post, I wrote about the practical reasons for choosing to set my novel during the American Revolution. In this post, I’m writing about the passion behind the practical. This is also my reasoning for why you should care about—and want to learn more about—the American Revolution.
I was not always passionate about the American Revolution. I have always liked history, enjoyed learning it and reading about it, but I don’t know that I had any passion about this particular era until I started teaching—and by extent researching—the American Revolution. One you start learning more about something, it’s hard not to become passionate about it.
(As I write this, I am also finding that when you are excited about something, it is difficult to organize your thoughts about why you are excited in a coherent manner so as not to go off on random tangential rants/effusive lectures. So I am going to apologize in advance if what follows rambles.)
You’ve probably heard the adage: those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it—which I think is true (just look at the world around us today)—but perhaps, just as important, if we don’t learn our history we don’t know where we came from, what we’re built on, and we don’t know how we got to where we are today or the fact that we are repeating the mistakes of the past. The American Revolution—and the 10-15 years to either side of it—is where we as a country begin. If we are to understand ourselves as Americans, this is where we need to begin looking.
Many of us probably think we understand this period because we know the outcome, but so much of our history is taught in broad strokes, whittled down to a list of names and dates to be memorized—and this is not the fault of our educators, but of a system that places importance on the ability to answer multiple choice questions correctly instead of showing a deeper understanding and appreciation of any given subject.
Through this process of whittling down, the nuances, the humanness, the relatability, the story of history is lost. If there is no humanness, no story, it is very hard to care about or be passionate about something. And if you can’t see how one event is inexorably linked to another—a chain of dominoes stretching through time—it is extremely difficult to understand the history—you need the story, the whole story, for it to make sense.
When I’m researching, I love stumbling across a fact or story or name I didn’t know before, especially when I see how that fact/story/name fits into the broader tapestry of our history—or when that same name pops up later in American history, and I know where it came from and can see some of the motivations that might have been driving that individual/family. To dig in and find those forgotten stories, to bring life to the conflicted, imperfect people who laid the foundations for our country, so many of whom have been forgotten, is slightly addicting. You would not believe how tempting it is to find or buy every biography of Benedict Arnold to see if this time, this author found a new piece of information that might shed new light on his decisions and actions.
To examine the conflicts and contradictions that existed in the 1770s and to see them echoed in our own time is both fascinating and frightening. In some ways, we have come so far, but in others, we are struggling with the same issues that plagued our country’s founders. Race, gender, economy, rights, the politics of power—all of it has been part of our country from the very beginning, none of it is new.
Another thing that draws me in is discovering (or maybe remembering is more accurate) that those who founded our country were human, with the same feelings and doubts and failings that we have. Once you start reading the letters and diary entries and papers, these men and women, who have been stoic oil paintings or just names in a history text book for so long, come to life. George Washington is an excellent example. He wrote of his feelings of inadequacy several times. Just after he was appointed the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, he wrote to his wife, Martha,
“I am now set down to write you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern […] It has been determined in Congress, that the whole Army raised for the defence of the American Cause shall be put under my care […] I assure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment I have used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the Family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my Capacity” (all spelling original; https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-01-02-0003).
These same thoughts are echoed in a letter Washington wrote to Burwell Bassett the day after he wrote Martha, June 19, 1775. A year later, in September 1776, Washington wrote Lund Washington,
“I see the impossibility of serving with reputation, or doing any essential service to the cause by continuing in command, and yet I am told that if I quit the command inevitable ruin will follow from the distraction that will ensue. In confidence I tell you that I never was in such an unhappy, divided state since I was born” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-06-02-0341).
Who can’t relate to such feelings, such doubts? Granted, most of us do not have the fate of an army or a country resting on our shoulders, but still. Learning things like this break the illusion of great or perfect people fighting in a glorious cause where the outcome was certain—it was anything but.
I recently read The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (which has nothing to do with the American Revolution), and in it one of her characters, Nora, speaking of the Declaration, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, encapsulates the idea of not being perfect but trying anyway:
“We can always do better. These papers acknowledged from the beginning that we weren’t good enough yet. ‘A more perfect union’—it’s right there in our foundations that we aren’t perfect, that we have more to strive for. […] Most kingdoms or nations just say, ‘we rule because we’re stronger’ or ‘we rule because a god threw a thunderbolt and willed it so.’ We’re the country who said, ‘Here we are; let’s live by these principles and keep getting better at living up to them’” (p. 76-77).
Keep getting better at living up to them. That’s what they were doing then and what we are still trying to do now—although I must admit that has felt very difficult in recent days. In his first inaugural address, President Washington said, “And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people” (https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw2.025/?sp=28&st=text). We are part of that experiment, it has been entrusted to us, and we are connected by nearly 250 years of trial and error to the very beginnings of this country. It is up to us, today, to stand up for those rights, those ideals, and ensure that we continue to be a country that keeps “getting better at living up to them.”
The Briar Club’s Nora (capturing so well my own thoughts) goes on to think, “She’d never quite been able to explain that patriotism should be more than just a simple wave of the flag without a thought behind it” (p.77). Patriotism without knowledge, without understanding is dangerous—especially when there are so many people today claiming they know what our founders intended. John Adams wrote, “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” And Thomas Paine: “When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”
When we cease to think, we are no longer free.
What a powerful thought that is in our world today when we are so often asked to believe without thinking, without fact checking, without questioning, is this right? Is this just? Is this what we stand for? We are challenged to think, to learn, to know, and if we are to truly understand what waving our flag—or promoting any patriotic symbol—means, we must understand its origins and the intent behind it.
In addition to all of this, the fact that the American cause not only survived but was eventually victorious is an amazing story. Go beyond the names and dates to what exactly was survived and how it was survived, and you will discover there is so much more to the story. I can only hope that my novel, in some small way, tells this story.