THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.   Term Paper ID:29409 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Discusses internal struggles. Three groups excluded from freedom, rights and power: African Americans, Native Americans and women. Slavery and conflict between blacks and whites. Actions of the British during the War. Restrictions upon women's politicization. Destruction of structures of Native American communities. Contends Colonists were hypocrites. Paper Introduction: The argument that "The American Revolution was simply about political freedom from Great Britain" is fallacious because it ignores other, significant, internal struggles for freedom and rights on the part of African Americans, Native Americans, and women. The argument may conform to the conventional view of the Revolution, but it ignores the complicated reality of American life at that time, in which these three groups were effectively excluded from the halls of power and freedom. There was much hypocrisy on the part of the white, wealthy, male leaders of the Revolution insofar as they rebelled against the oppression of the British while at the same time oppressing African Americans, women, and Native Americans. With respect to the plight of African Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War, Frey makes clear that they were engaged Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Kerber is cautious in her estimation of the effects of the revolutionon the liberation of women in the immediate historical era of thatrevolution. The American Revolution in Indian Country.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Frey, Sylvia R. The slaves proved to be the only ones fightingfor ideals and principles they believed in. However, the British would prove to be asunconcerned about the freedom of African Americans as the Americansthemselves. Kerber writes that the war itself did speed the integration of women into the civil polity. Not only did slaves revolttime and time again, their rebellion exposed the hypocrisy of the whiterevolutionaries who claimed to be fighting for the highest principles andyet engaged in the most inhumane treatment of other humans based on thecolor of their skins. Most of the revolts examined by Frey took placeafter the war, but they were nevertheless part of the historical processwhereby slaves would eventually gain their freedom. Ironically, the conflict between blacks and whites which wasexacerbated by the British played a part in the Southern states' drive forindependence, which led to the Civil War, which in turn led to theemancipation of the slaves. However, it is clear that their participation in the war didindeed play a role in their eventual inclusion in the political process.There is also no doubt in Kerber's view that women played a vital role inthe revolution itself. Again, they were not even given the vote until the twentiethcentury. The resistance of the slaves to their oppressed state was significantin and of itself, obviously, but that resistance also played an importantpart in the war itself. . , whether they sided with the rebels, redcoats, neither, or both, were doing pretty much the same thing as the American colonists: fighting for their freedom. . How can it be claimed that "political freedom fromGreat Britain" was the guiding force of the revolution when that same forcewas brutally crushed in the evil and inhumane treatment of AfricanAmericans? Calloway notes that unlike blacks and women, Native Americans havebeen given short shrift by historical studies of the revolutionary era:"The national mythology accords Indians a minimal and negative role in thestory of the Revolution: they chose the wrong side and they lost" (Callowayxii-xiii). There was muchhypocrisy on the part of the white, wealthy, male leaders of the Revolutioninsofar as they rebelled against the oppression of the British while at thesame time oppressing African Americans, women, and Native Americans. Women in RevolutionaryAmerica were little more than domestic servants, less educated than theaverage white male, and without political involvement or power. . Still, in both cases, the war can be seen, as stated, as anhistorical force among other forces which slowly but surely wore away thechains which kept both blacks and women out of the halls of politicalfreedom and power. The oppression of woman was not comparable to that of the slaves,unless the woman in question happened to be black, and then her oppressionwas doubled. Overall, however, "The winning ofAmerican independence meant destruction and dependence for many Indianpeople" (Calloway 244). With the presence of whites' claims that the struggle forindependence had its basis in the principles of freedom, slaves began tobelieve that the circumstances were such that they themselves might moreopenly struggle for freedom. If the white Americans had merely based theirrevolution on those practical, economic grounds, they would not haveexposed themselves to charges of the grossest hypocrisy. This complexityresulted in a cultural richness, but it also made it easier for theturbulence of the revolutionary times to undermine the connections holdingthe Native American communities together. As with slaves, the exclusion ofwomen from consideration of equality with white men is another example ofthe hypocrisy of the claim that the revolution was rooted in the ideal,principle, and goal of "political freedom." There were some similarities between slaves and women inrevolutionary America. . . The maleleaders of the country showed their conservative views in the family, thebuilding block of society, in divorce laws which maintained the power ofmen and the subservience of women. Calloway corrects this grossmisconception: Indian people . Here was "asociety of slaveholders proclaiming the concepts of natural rights,equality, and liberty" (Frey 45). . One must be startled by the fact that the ruling whites of Americasought to free themselves from the oppression of the British--primarilyeconomic considerations--while imposing the institutional evil of slaveryon African Americans. After all, the British and Americans were of the same stockwhich saw blacks as inferior, but the slaves were naive enough to believethe British would help them. Violence was always close to the surface in Indian-white relations. Women of the Republic. . . Most Indian people knew, and the British reminded those who didn't, that it was also a continuation of the struggle about Indian land and who was to get it. Certainly slavery is a hideous institution which still affects lifein America in many important ways, but blacks have at least graduallyachieved a position since the Revolution which affords them opportunitiesin every sector of American society. With respect to the plight of African Americans at the time of theRevolutionary War, Frey makes clear that they were engaged in a strugglefor freedom from the greatest oppression--slavery-- while their oppressorsprepared to fight and fought against other, far lesser oppression. . The revolutionaries demonstrated theirhypocrisy in keeping women under their political and legal thumb, just asthey did in keeping blacks enslaved after the war and for almost anothercentury. Works CitedCalloway, Colin G. . The truth was far different than this manufactured image of blackswhich whites presented to themselves, however. This was due to the fact thatwhite American males did not fear that a revolt by women would result fromsuch participation, as they did fear such a revolt by slaves. Murder and revenge, not mediation and accommodation, typified relations (Calloway 24). The case of the Native American is the most tragic of the threegroups. The plan was crushed but the seeds of revolt would notbe killed. This mutualinfluence speeded up and intensified during the revolutionary period. Whether a woman was whig or tory, her services in a largely guerilla war were much sought after--as a provider of essential services for troops, as a civilian source of food and shelter, as a contributor of funds and supplies, as a spy (Kerber 8-9). The Revolution was an anticolonial war of liberation for Indian peoples too, but the threat to their freedom often came from colonial neighbors rather than distant capitals, and their colonial experience did not end with American independence (Calloway xiii). Chapel Hill: U of NorthCarolina P, 198 .----------------------- 13 In Georgia, a true but small revolt occurred (the St. Calloway is also concerned withpainting a portrait of Native American society with all its diversity andcomplexity, rather than the usual picture in which Indians are seen asgenerally a monolithic group with different tribal names. Their political clout after the warwas limited to "the personal or collective petition" (Kerber 287), whichwas essentially a way for women to plead with men to be heard. The argument may conform tothe conventional view of the Revolution, but it ignores the complicatedreality of American life at that time, in which these three groups wereeffectively excluded from the halls of power and freedom. Restrictingwomen's politicization was one of a series of conservative choices thatAmericans [read: white male Americans who had the power to enforce suchchoices] made in the postwar years as they avoided the full implications oftheir own revolutionary radicalism" (Kerber 287). This segregation is an aspect of the fact that Native Americans werenever considered a true part of American society, and that prejudice isreflected in history books which ignore or minimize their significance inthe revolutionary era. Native Americans, however, have fared theworst of the three groups. The Revolutioncan be seen as a betrayal of the rights and liberty of the high ideals forwhich the revolutionaries fought, but also of the three groups which wereexcluded from power and freedom before the war--Native Americans, women,and African Americans. That is, they were essentially segregated, and that iswhy Calloway emphasizes "Indian country" and "Indian communities" in hisstudy. In theircase as in the case of blacks, the lie that the war was based on politicalideals is brutally exposed: Having learned from Aristotle that politics was the affair of men, Americans continued to discuss political affairs in terms that largely excluded women, and that reflected the assumption that women were . . Calloway's focus seems to be on the destructive effects of the chaosof the era on the structures of Native American communities and culture.Those structures had already been weakened by earlier anti-Indian forces inthe colonies, but the war speeded up the process eating away at the rootsof that already marginalized culture. Calloway notes that those connections had been weakened before thewar by the cross-pollinization of European and Indian cultures. For the sake of this study, the oppression of women will beseen as the oppression of white women. They did not fight on the battlelines, but theirroles behind the scenes were invaluable to the success of the war againstthe British. The argument that "The American Revolution was simply about politicalfreedom from Great Britain" is fallacious because it ignores other,significant, internal struggles for freedom and rights on the part ofAfrican Americans, Native Americans, and women. In fact, however, Native Americans, like the slaves and like women,were fighting for their own freedom. The major difference between slaves and women was that women wereessentially invited to be participants in the Revolution whereas slaveswere violently excluded from the process. by slaves' combative and aggressive behavior, British military leaders and Crown officials seized upon the idea of intimidating independence-minded white southerners with the threat of a slave rising without, however, actually inciting one (Frey 45). More petitionsfrom more slaves were presented a year later, "offering to fight" for theBritish General "if he would arm them and set them free once victory wasachieved" (Frey 53). . . The overriding fact of this period is that African Americans wereactively engaged in fighting for their freedom (however ineffectivelyagainst overwhelming odds) and thereby exposing the dilemma of a slaveholding society about to embark on a war against tyranny: how to prevent their slaves from imbibing the heady notions of liberty and equality, which had become their own rallying cry in the contest with Britain; how to exploit white fears of a slave rebellion to unite the white population behind the patriot cause and at the same time conceal from a watching world that behind the bewitching rhetoric of liberty was the hideous face of slavery (Frey 54). In 1773 a number of slaves in Boston "presented three petitions forfreedom to the general court" and other British authorities. AndrewParish Revolt), which also played a role in the ultimate freedom of slaves,resulting as it did in "white anxiety" and the adoption of "a set ofantislavery resolutions" (Frey 54). . The cutting off of British power after the warmeant the end of British influence in Indian affairs. Native Americans were accused ofsiding with Britain and therefore were branded as supporters of the tyrannyof the British against Americans. Just as the lives of slaves were restricted to verylimited roles, so were women's. Calloway suggeststhat, whatever the motivation, the British tried earlier to protect some ofthe rights of Native Americans. Inmany areas--religion, economics, community authority--Native Americans werebuffetted by great change, and "the best they could hope for [in terms ofthe war and its aftermath] was damage control, but they could not know theextent of the damage the Revolution would cause. Women were not included because white males saw them as deserving ofthe same political freedom and power they themselves sought from GreatBritain, but rather because those white males saw the practical purpose ofsuch female inclusion: Not until economic boycott became a major mode of resistance to England did it become obvious that women would also have to be pulled out of the privacy of their traditional domain and propelled into the public world of political decisions (Kerber 8). Princeton, NJ: Princeton U P, 1991.Kerber, Linda K. 'idiots in the Greek sense of the word, that is, persons who do not participate in the polis' (Kerber 7- 8). One recalls that women were given the votedecades after that right was given to black males. In fact, despite the legalized oppression, torture, and murder ofAfrican Americans in slavery, those slaves before, during, and after theRevolution themselves actively rebelled again and again against theirhypocritical oppressors. . The cultural aspects of the revolutionary period wereovershadowed by the violence and land-grabbing associated with it, in thecontext of white-Indian relations: When the Revolution broke out, American patriots called it a war for liberty. Of course, in order to deny such hypocrisy, the white Americanrevolutionaries had to dehumanize the African Americans in their own minds,so that oppressing and enslaving them--or allowing such slavery to continue--was seen as the slavery not of human beings but of some sub-human species.However, sub-human species do not rebel or revolt, so part of thedehumanizing process included seeing blacks as passive captors who were tosome degree created to be slaves. Unlike blacks and women, American Indians were not physically a partof colonial society. Specifically, the British, aware of that resistanceamong the slaves, attempted to exploit it in the war against Americans: Influenced . Native Americans, then, were not rewarded with what they werefighting for, just as African Americans and women were not rewarded withthe freedom and political power they sought for themselves. ." (Calloway 24). Water from the Rock. The study of the revolutionary period from such aperspective gives a dark vision of the hypocrisy of the colonists in thisregard, and reveals the revolution as one which sought the "politicalfreedom" of white males alone. In that respect, the rebellious activities ofthe slaves in the Revolutionary War era to some degree led to theirliberation almost a century later. Thecolonists, in effect, threw off the colonial British power only to becomecolonialists themselves with respect to the Native Americans, stealingtheir lands and exploiting them at every turn, and murdering them whennecessary. What took place in the revolution with respect to women, then, wasthat they were essentially used in every way possible by white male leadersof the Revolution, but when the Revolution was over the same heroines wererelegated back to their domestic roles. Frey examines the War in the context of the South and points out thatwhile the major "belligerents" in the war were white--British and American,or, more specifically, two sets of Britishers--there were also four hundredthousand slaves involved as well: The environment in which the revolutionary conflict developed in the South was shaped not only by British policies or white southern initiatives but also by African-American resistance (Frey 45). Itshould be clear that in this exchange between the far more powerful andexpanding white culture and the Native Americans (who still outnumberedwhites but were nevertheless already doomed by the aggressive nature of thewhites), the result would be a white culture with traces of Indianinfluence, mostly superficial (clothing, for example), and Native Americancommunities which were far more profoundly affected by the exchange. With victory, the colonists were free to dowith Indians and Indian land whatever they could get away with. Frey examines oneseries of slaves' actions which is instructive in terms of its exposure ofthe connection between the revolution of Americans against the British andthe slaves' resistance to American oppression. Calloway focuses on individual community experiences during the warto show how despite diversity, Native Americans suffered alike, but he alsonotes that in some rare cases (the Seminoles at Cuscowilla) communalstrength and bonds were increased. Kerber writes that despite these important roles played by women inthe war, the white propertied males who controlled the revolution and theshaping of the political reality afterward did not apply the sameprinciples to women that they applied to themselves: " . They expected freedom to be granted not by theAmericans but by the British. Women have also gained tremendoussuccess and power since the war. . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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