miberro – Popular Politics in Early America

November 21, 2013

Pursuing Perfection

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I found Shade’s commentary at the end of Beyond the Founders intriguing for a variety of reasons. As AJ mentioned, it was certainly difficult to wade through at first, but I think that noting progress of the historical tradition moving from focusing around only a select group of leaders, to political parties, towards the everyday experiences of common people depicts an interesting series developments in the field of history and reiterates in many ways what our class sought to achieve this semester. The goal of engaging with popular politics, outside of official institutions of political authority, has become the focus of modern research in the field of history and Shade places it into a longer narrative of progress that has sought to achieve a more complete and accurate portrayal of history. A few questions that came to mind when I thought about these developments, namely how with this change in focus affect the memory of these events? Another was that if this is part of a larger process, what is the next step, what else could be better analyzed and what perspectives are we overlooking as historians? And most importantly, what are we going to name that next step, New New New Political History? (I jest, but a little creativity wouldn’t hurt, would it?) I don’t have answers to these questions, but I think they’re important to keep in mind as we write and research.
Regarding the other article on the informed citizenry, the thing that immediately popped into my head was the opening from the Newsroom (which I hopefully succeeded in attaching). While I think that Brown’s article raised a number of fair points on the importance of an informed citizenry and modern concerns of its decline, his analysis of such concerns as a historical phenomenon connect it Shade’s commentary quite well. Specifically, that while fears and shortcomings may be focused upon, a willingness to be critical of oneself is important in progressing towards a more idealized version of your goal, be it an accurate historical representation or a informed citizenry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zqOYBabXmA

November 19, 2013

Competing Memories

A few things jumped out at me after reading David Blight’s account of Fredrick Douglas and the competing historical memories of Civil War. Particularly, I wondered why the Lost Cause narrative became so much more prevalent in in American society than a memory of the Civil War that praised emancipation. There is certainly the possibility that the reintegration was judged to be more valuable than celebrating it as the emancipation of former slaves, but I wonder if part of the reason stemmed from the tactics used some of the early leaders of the emancipation narrative such as Fredrick Douglas. For instance Douglas’s comment, “may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I forget the difference between the parties to that … bloody conflict … I may say if this war is to be forgotten, I ask in the name of all things sacred what shall men remember” (Blight 1160). When read in conjunction with Faust work, The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying, which highlighted the traumatic nature of the conflict and how that trauma extended far beyond limits of the battlefield, Douglas’ decision to remember the war through its horrors and the bloody nature could have lessened his position’s appeal in the American public. As AJ pointed out, Douglas’ failure to participate in the war may have hurt his credibility and I think it goes farther than that. His distance from the conflict may have blinded him to the reality of this trauma not only in the returning soldiers but people throughout American society.

November 6, 2013

Historical Memory and Reality

Historical memory continues to be one of my favorite things to study and learn about in history, and Jenson’s work on the myth of victimization in the Irish community showed how a group’s historical memory does not necessarily correlate to actual historical events. Moreover, I found it interesting that Jenson sought to disprove the existence of Irish economic victimization, and offer possible explanations as to why the social mobility of the Irish was lower than other immigrant groups and proves an interesting contrast to the more traditional historical studies. As AJ and David have already mentioned, Jenson does a superb job of pointing out the fact that the actual existence of documentation suggesting an organized effort of discrimination against the Irish is non-existent.
What I think is missing in this piece was a more detailed observation on how other forms of discrimination, such as dehumanizing images that are plentiful in Kenny’s descriptions in Race, Violence, and Anti-Irish Sentiment in the Nineteenth Century, helped facilitate the perpetuation or creation of this myth of economic discrimination. Jenson alludes to this by saying, “The question is not whether or not the Irish were admired. (They were not)” (9). He continues by offering a quick dismissal of the pervasiveness of all forms of discrimination against the Irish, there is no evidence that more than one in a thousand Americans considered the Irish as racially inferior.” However, Jenson also acknowledges what Kelly’s work shows, namely that the contemporary literature at the time contained and promoted a negative portrayal of the Irish (9). I think an effort to better connect how the discrimination in other aspects of the Irish experience contributed to the myth of economic discrimination would have added to Jenson’s work.

October 28, 2013

Missing the Followthrough

I’d like to echo Max’s critique of Fanning’s evidence and the actions of Haitian officials and the acceptance of Haitian ideology in the black population of the United States. Additionally, given that her first words promised to show that “Haiti played a far greater role in cultural and political activities of northern free blacks than historians previously credited,” I think she failed to connect the actions of northern free blacks and Haiti in an adequate manner. While her examples of attempts to encourage the emigration and selected political activities of northern free blacks offer support to her point, the paper lacked the requisite context needed to situate the importance of those events in the larger political actions of the free black community in the northern United States. Answering simple questions like did free blacks immigrate to other nations in in the 1820s or was Haiti the prime destination of immigration would have helped situate her argument a lot more for those unfamiliar with the specific history surrounding this issue.

One of the things I did enjoy in her paper was her engagement with the merchants and sailors. I thought it was an engaging piece because it showed that even white merchants were pushing for Haitian recognition. However, she fails to connect it to the actions of the northern free black community of the United States. While she provided examples of how American laws were affecting the lives of free blacks such as the case in South Carolina and how Haitian opposition to said laws may have garnered respect, the connection is tentative at best.Additionally, I thought the information presented on Jefferson after he became President and his treatment of Haiti was presented well, but I wish she had taken a stronger stance on the issue. While she provided the opinions of various scholars who described the varying reasons behind Jefferson’s decision, she refused to engage the historiography in a way that challenged the flaws in the position that Jefferson’s treatment of Haiti stemmed from his desire to improve diplomatic relations with France. Instead she offered the exceedingly strong statement, “ But he may have had less generous motives” and proceeds to argue that Jefferson’s attention to the Haitian issue was “a testament to Haiti’s politicization of African Americans.” Without offering an argument against the other historians she cites, her conclusion is invalid. It is not a testament to Haiti’s politicization of African Americans if Jefferson was seeking to appease France. The consistent theme in this paper was a failure to connect the actions of Haitian actors to political manifestations in the northern black community.

October 24, 2013

Not Free Yet

Reid’s analysis provided a far more detailed analysis of a specific incident and area that of Genovese, and successfully navigates and explains the complex political framework that dealt with runaway and freed slaves in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Moreover, while Genovese posits revolution as the ultimate form of resistance in slave communities, Reid explores personal struggles and resistances to slavery in the form seeking freedom by fleeing to free territories. However, as Reid clearly articulates the struggle for freedom did not end upon reaching the north or even being freed by one’s master, the struggle was perpetual and later compounded by the decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. I think her engagement free African-Americans continued experience with slavery provided a different perspective on the issue of slavery and contributes to a more complete assessment of slavery’s far-reaching effects in United States society prior to the Civil War.

While I agree with Wade’s assessment that an additive element of laymen perspective would have made the piece more complete, I don’t think that the goal that Reid sought to accomplish. Rather, I believe her focus revolved around the legislative and judicial history of slavery in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Although there are certainly more aspects to explore in the story that Reid laid out, I did not find the introduction to history of litigation on slavery and its development superfluous and helped paint a more complete picture of what she sought to depict.

October 21, 2013

Resisting Slavery

I think this Tuesday’s readings certainly differed from the readings of the previous week on Cherokee women but each provided valuable information on different aspects of slaves’ experience in the Americas. I’m going to begin with Genovese’s chapter Slave Revolts in Hemispheric Perspective because it is easier to tie into last week’s reading. Genovese does a good job highlighting some of the major differences that allowed for large-scale slave revolutions in some areas of the Atlantic and explaining why such revolutions were not as prominent in other areas. While Genovese certainly approached the issue from a Marxist angle, she engaged other societal constructs in a meaningful manner: the shooting ability of white militias in the United States, the population ratios within a given community, and exploring how varying religious beliefs influenced behavior. Situating slave rebellions within the concept of class struggle sets the stage for rebellion, proceeding to use secondary factors as either additive or subtractive elements towards slaves’ tendency towards revolution made it a more complete piece than I expected when I read the phrase “worldwide capitalist production”(1). My only criticism is the thing that ties Genovese’s work to last week’s readings. My issue is that she focuses almost exclusively on the African influences in slave culture and lacks a discourse on contributions from enslaved Native Americans. Moreover, given the importance of women in Cherokee communities and the enslavement of some Cherokee women, her study also fails to engage gender as a contributing factor in rebellion.

October 2, 2013

Not Enough Proof

The first thing that caught my attention in Linebaugh and Rediker’s work was the decision to explore on two of the groups of slaves and wage laborers. There topic provides an interesting opportunity to reframe many of the topics we’ve discussed which have primarily omitted any mention of interracial collaboration towards political objectives (we’ve talked about slaves accepting offers to fight for their freedom, but I would argue that to be a personal objective).

The idea of interracial collaboration in riots certainly hints at the potential of larger proletariat identity existing prior to the 1800s but there were things that bothered me in their work. For instance, the use of Sam Adam’s assertion that the mob ‘embodied the fundamental rights of man against which government itself could be judged’ suggests that the legitimate use of mobs and the threat of mob violence was a new phenomenon in early American society (231). While Adam may have been the first to ideologically defend the notion, we’ve already seen that mob violence was a tool employed by communities long before the lead up to the American revolution. Moreover, the inclusion of the Irish Whiteboys as part of 1768 London riot also seemed somewhat out of place. While it does introduce the important notion of striking as a form of political protest and the bridging of ethnic divisions, the desire to place the Irish at the forefront seemed strained and moved away from the theme of interracial rioting. While the authors used four separate instances to try to prove their point, I feel that the width of the study took away from the details needed to prove their assertion. While they offer the idea of general economic oppression being the cause of many of the riots, the sources they use to talk about the events often come from the “bourgeois” side of the event as they describe the complexion of the rioters in a manner that would seek to reflect their desires. Sources from the rioters would either offer specific reasons that these individuals chose to rebel with one another and show an awareness of a larger proletariat identity or the lack thereof.

Moving on to somewhat unrelated things, I’d like to tackle something AJ mentioned in his post which was “Really, after all that led up to the rebellion, only a few frontiersmen went to jail.” This reminded me of something I thought of in class. In my opinion Slaughter provided his readers, mainly historians, with these excessive details in an effort to convince us that the Whiskey rebellion was part of this frontier conflict and the East vs. West divide that was an extremely important in American history. After reading a book as dense as Slaughter’s, I’d certainly like to believe this is the case but the fact that only a few men went to jail and nothing really happened in its aftermath makes me wonder if this conflict is as central as Slaughter attempts to make it. Just something to ponder.

September 26, 2013

There's More than East and West

I think one of the most interesting things I’ve taken from Slaughter’s book is the way that traditional methods of protest and petition carried over from prerevolutionary times. However, I think one thing we’ve oversimplified is the relative unity of the western United States. For instance, Eli’s post references the whiskey rebellion as more of a grassroots movement than the American Revolution and we’ve focused on the Eastern critiques of the West and adapted them into our interpretation of events. What we have seen in the lead up to the Whiskey rebellion is actually more complicated than this. The desire to appear legitimate in the eyes of the East was certainly a facet of the decision making process in western communities when they voted on republican committees to represent their grievances (111). Moreover, comments of Alexander Hamilton and others who felt as that the discontent in the West stemmed from the efforts of a few rogues leading the flock show the perception of the elites having a leading role in the lead up to the rebellion. Whether this was actually the case is unclear, easterners could have been projecting their experience in the American Revolution onto the West. Alternatively, perhaps it stemmed from the disbelief that a movement could succeed without elitist leadership, which is plausible given Hamilton’s belief that popular opinion had no value (123).

While we may have undervalued the influence of the western elite particularly in the early lead up to the rebellion, I think that the grassroots element of this rebellion differentiates it from others. I think the increasing tendency to use extreme violence as a means to intimidate the opposition marks a new development in the types of protest in America. While the reasons this shift can be debated, the most important thing I draw from this change is the growing conflict between elites and the grassroots movement in the West itself. Each group began to differentiate themselves from each other, creating two separate, simultaneous, and competing movements to alleviate their problems. This new group was more willing to use violence as an initial and unrestrained tool rather than as the last link in the chain of a longer process and becoming more like the violence we associate with mobs in the modern world.

September 3, 2013

Repost: The Rise of Democracy

I think one of the most interesting things I took from Jill Lepore’s People Power was the point on democracy’s transformation from “unutterably bad to unassailably good” in the minds of Americans and people around the world. I took two things from this, as a historian it hit home the lesson of contextualizing sources in the proper time period because Jefferson and Jackson were fighting against traditional norms and their plans to expand democracy to “everyone” had no historical precedent. From our society and the values we’ve been given I think many people would say, oh yes, that’s normal, everyone wants democracy. But what Jefferson did and Jackson did were not the same. Imagine if you will, someone today arguing for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in America. What would your response to that be? What would the people’s response to that be? While I’ll leave the debate concerning the causes of democracy’s eventual triumph to Mr. Webster and his colleagues, I think triumph itself, given the challenges it faced, shows how strange this time period in America was and sheds a different light on the men and women who helped push the limits of democracy that we should take into account when reading primary sources written by these men and women. The second point was that I found Noah Webster fascinating. While I take issue with some of his points, I believe honest men can arise in equal measure from the aristocracy and his so called “knaves and fools,” his points on democracy becoming an “unquestionable truth” ring more true today than they did then. On a personal level, I feel that quest to improve the American government has stalled a bit in our present age because of an unwillingness to question and probe its faults because we have been bound by tradition of our democracy. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Tomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, it’s that sometimes breaking tradition can lead to something better.