Death and Taxes... and Debt

In defining, or at least trying to outline, what the American identity consists of, we have spoken about numerous characteristics that have endured time and which still define America and it's citizens. But aside from the broader commonalities like patriotism, democracy, equality, issues of immigration and government, which distinguish many nations and cultures, there are few visages that define Americans as they were defined 240 years ago. There were no McDonalds, no beauty pageants, advertising was in it's infancy and communication came in on horseback. America for the most part looks very little like it when Bejamin Franklin penned his famed Poor Richard's Almanac. But one thing in particular he wrote of in 1757 might characterize America best of all.
"If you would know the Value of money, go and try and borrow some; for, he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing... think what you do when you run in Debt; You give another power over your liberty." (Reading the American Past, pgs. 82-83)
I can think of few examples that characterize American society and culture better than the accumulation of debt. Benjamin Franklin warned of it in 1757 and his words ring true today as Americans and ther government rack up debt in the trillions. It's unfortunate that American consumerism has taken such a stranglehold on it's checkbook. But if we revisit how important commerical independence from Britain was following tax laws after the Seven Year's War, we can see there has always been an attraction to outlandish consumerism in America. Colonists were concerned with being able to freely purchase and trade goods. They would eventually secure that right but they were unaware of the consequences of poor credit.
As the story from Poor Richard's Almanac says, the people "began to buy extravagantly, not withstanding all his cautions." Consumerism might have brought folks together, but it definitely drove them into debt.

Taxes for All

I really never thought about how tax was introduced or started. I was impressed that the the colonists stood up for "Taxation without representation". I thought the colonitst were kinda like puppets, listening to everything the British said. But this proved me wrong. This is what people should be commended for. Standing up for themselves.
I never knew that Women had a say back then. I had always heard that they really had no voice until they were able to vote. Women had control on what they bought and used. Women decided to make clothes and wore them to show that they did not need the clothes for Europe.

The Quebec Act and Women

I found it interesting that the British gave the colonist in Quebec more freedoms than the colonists in America. The Quebec Act of 1774 permitted the colonists in Canada to maintain their French style government. The Canadians were given certain rights from the British that were denied to the other colonists in America. They were also allowed to maintain their religious beliefs and they were permitted to self govern themselves. Why were the British more lenient with the Canadians than they were with the other colonies? Is it because the Canadians didn’t provide as much profit for Britain as the other colonies did?

Also, from the lectures in class we learned that women got involved in boycotting. Women played a large role in buying British goods for their families and their participation in the boycotting of the Townshend Revenue Act helped get it repealed. I found this interesting because not much female patriotism is mentioned before this time. If women helped so much by boycotting the British how come they were denied the same rights as men?

American Culture

I found our disscussion yesterday on American Culture very shocking and almost appalling. If you look at the list of things that we described it really makes you think about what America stands for. You look at countries all around us and when you think of their cultures you think of traditions, rituals and yes while they have many negative things in their culture I feel like a lot of that is influenced but our "American culture" For example food chains have become very popular over seas and in our neighboring countries. Reality t.v., while in my geog class the other day some of the things we have talked about actually overlap those lectures and my professor was talking about while he was in I believe it was Italy his wife was watching The Newlyweds, and he has conducted numerous studies and done research on things like this and he found that MTV intl or whatever the version of MTV is, it's like the second watch thing in their countries. I just found that astonishing.
As our country continues to grow we will produce more characteristics of this "American Culture" and the more I think about it, is that honestly what we want. Do we want these other countries to adapt such ridiculous ideas. To me it feels like our country is in a downfall because of these ideas and they continue to grow more and more everyday, taking less emphasis off morals, values, integrity and pride and putting more emphasis on entertainment.

Are We Rome?: Cultural Impacts on the Early America

We're at least as good as the "Roman" soccer team. Am I right? As you can see, we got royally robbed in that match and the author is still bitter about it.

Anyways, a recent New York Times bestseller has stirred up a little bit of a cultural debate, and that book is Cullen Murphy's "Are We Rome?" (I know it's supposed to be underlined, I have a mac and you can't change the font style, I blame this on Google). "Are We Rome?" is a metaphorical look at our culture compared to the ancient Romans', specifically our military and our paranoia concerning our borders. As it is only runs about 205 pages, it doesn't really discuss anything too deeply or overturn figurative boulders, it's a thought provoking subject, even if the book is grounded in more of a metaphorical basis, rather than a strict observation of facts and trends.

Britain was originally a Roman colony, conquered by Caesar, and set up in the Roman frame of mind. Is it possible that many of these Roman ways of life and prevalent political structure were reflected in the early roots of the British Empire? Absolutely. Time passes. Rome falls, too large to sustain as a democracy, and too turbulent at the top to be a republic. But, some of these ideals lived on in Britain. Enter America. The British, whose prominent writers emphasized the freedom of economic choice, "successfully" colonized America. So, if British culture was influenced by Rome, and American culture was influenced by the culture of the British, it is likely that some of these Roman cultural standards, in an indirect and diluted way, made their way accross the Atlantic.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is nobody is free from influence. Each independent society is not truly so; they are imprinted with the societies that made their own nation possible. Since I am not somebody who believes that man knew (by nature) exactly how to conduct oneself strictly by having a mind and a God-given set of moral standards, freedom of outside influence is impossible. So history is a dynamic process, impalpable, and difficult to describe without considering dozens of variables and factors. It's like in economics, or math, when you hold variables constant--you do these for the ease of the representation of the other factors you are trying to represent. Nothing is ever truly "constant."

I think this impacts what we are studying currently (specifically the Seven Years War and the Continental Congress) because there are a lot of viewpoints being represented in these debates/conflicts. America is becoming more and more of a class society, and the gaps between classes are growing, and people are beginning to loathe the underrepresentation--this representation is their right. They believe this for a reason.

So is America Rome? I don't believe so, but it's interesting to think of the influences that generated our nation. In America, we have many subsets of a larger culture that all need to be considered and not lumped together (like we talked about last week). However, it is also of great personal importance to know why I believe what I do and how that came to be. This is a large reason why many study history; to give their own lives some context.

"Missionaries Report on California Missions"

There is a document in chapter 7 of the book that I found very interesting. It is titled “Missionaries Report on California Missions.” The Catholic missionaries sent regular news and information to their superiors in Mexico City, New Spain’s capital city. These reports described what the missionaries considered success in converting Natives into good Catholics, as well as the troubles caused by the behavior of the Spaniards and the Natives. The document was written by Father Luis Jayme which discusses how he wishes to could report that great progress has been made in converting the Natives but there is no food to offer them and the soldiers aren’t setting a good example. He states that they can not offer them any food because the have not receive enough to last them half a year and he blames this for the little improvement that has been made.
He then talks about the behavior of the soldiers stating that some of them are good examples but some of them deserve to be hanged. The soldiers were raping women he states “they [ the soldiers] are committing a thousand evils, particularly of sexual nature.” He talks about how the soldiers are going the villages around the mission and are raping the Native women. I just found this passage interesting and though I would share.

Racism and Shock Culure

In response to the chicken and the egg discussion in class; I believe the slavery came much earlier than racism. I don't think that full blown racism was directed at African Americans until the abolition voice become strong enough to threaten the legalized slave trading. In order to keep slaves on the plantation, slave owners spread inferiority propaganda in an attempt to sway popular opinion that slaves are in fact less intelligent than their white owners and that they should remain slaves for their own good. The minstrel shows of the the 1800's are a good example of this as it portrayed free African-Americans as lazy and incompetent people. Minstrel shows became incredibly popular, and fueled the stereotype for African Americans leading into the mid 1900's.

One aspect of American culture that we did not discuss in class was shock culture. Shock culture is dominating the lives of Americans, particularly the younger generation. If you look at the TV shows, movies, and music that young people enjoy it is filled material that pushes and often exceeds the limit of what is socially acceptable. An example of this trend is Paris Hilton. She has won the attention of America through antics that are considered trashy and disgraceful to older generations. However, young people are enthralled with her allowing her to turn a DUI into a publicity stunt in which her face is on every news syndicate nearly four times a day.

Boston Tea Party and American Heros

The Boston Tea Party is probably the most commonly associated event with the American Revolutionary War. Images of New Englanders secretly dressing up as Native Americans throwing Tea into the Boston harbor are traditionally used for the event. However, the Boston Tea Party is a great example of how traditional views are incorrect and the reality of the situation is far less romantic than how high school textbooks portray the situation. 1st Misconception – Bostonians were very well disguised and the perpetrators were never caught. Reality – everyone knew who the men were, they were not well disguised, and dressing up as Indians was more to mock the British than to disguise the Bostonians. 2nd Misconception – the Bostonians attacked at night and surprised the British. Reality – they walked up to the harbor in daylight, in full view of spectators that were aware of the pending event, and British warships sat by as the tea was destroyed. 3rd Misconception – 1773 Boston Tea Party was galvanizing event that started American Revolution. Reality – tension had been building between colonists and British since the Stamp Acts of 1765 and fighting did not start until Lexington/Concord in 1775.

Again, the Boston Tea Party is a great example of how historical reality can get condensed, edited, and pre-packaged into a simple, easy-to-remember idea, but is hardly accurate. Moral of the story – look into ideas, concepts, events for yourself! As the great Ronald Reagan said, "Trust.., but verify"

At times I find our class discussions depressing and too focused on the negative aspects of American history. Therefore, I am going to attempt to post a positive paragraph each week from here on out. Battle of Trenton - George Washington started with roughly 20,000 men in the Colonial Army at the beginning of the war. By winter 1776 he was down to 2400 sick, tired, and ragged soldiers. Taking the future of the country into his own hands he decided to attack some 1400 Hessians, who were considered some of the best soldiers in the world at the time, in Trenton, NJ. He crossed the half frozen Delaware River on December 26th, from 1100pm to 3am during a snowstorm and marched about 18 miles in daylight to attack the Hessians at 8am. The Hessians were completed surprised and lost 26 men, had 93 wounded, and 900 were taken prisoner. Washington only had 2 die during the march to Trenton and 4 wounded. This amazing victory is more amazing when you consider that the enlistments of most of his soldiers were up on Jan. 1st, he had to cross a frozen river at night with 2400 men, and the Hessians were greatly feared by his men because they had killed 500 of his soldiers that tried to surrender in a previous battle. Yeah History - Go GW!