[A New Year means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll be commemorating this year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five films celebrating their 50th this year!]
On two ways
to add to our memories of an already very familiar history.
Compared
to yesterday’s subject of King Philip’s War, and indeed compared to almost any other
American histories, the battles of
Lexington and Concord figure very, very prominently in our collective
memories. Even as a kid learning about American history in Virginia schools—and
thus occupying an overtly partisan, anti-New England place in
the debate over where the American Revolution and thus the United States of
America itself began—I distinctly remember how much was made of the minutemen at
Lexington and Concord (and of related figures and stories like Paul
Revere’s ride). There’s no version of our revolutionary and founding
histories that doesn’t include these sites and stories in central ways, and thus
commemorating the 250th anniversary
of Lexington and Concord might well feel like a repetition, or at least a
reinforcement, of existing memories.
If you’re
a reader of this blog, though, you already know that I believe we can and should
always expand and add nuance to our collective memories, and that the process is
only that much more important when the histories already feel familiar. I’ve written
previously in this space, in response to Serena Zabin’s phenomenal book The
Boston Massacre: A Family History (2020), about the importance of
thinking of the American Revolution as a civil conflict, rather than a war
between two distinct nations. As Zabin traces, even the British soldiers had become
part of American communities in a variety of ways that made these battles
familial; and if we go beyond the people firing guns at each other at Lexington
and Concord, we can really remember the range of perspectives featured among
colonists themselves on the conflict, on England and America, and on every
aspect of this historical moment. In a very real sense, the shot
heard ‘round the world was more like Fort Sumter, the first shots in a
civil war, than we’ve generally been able to see.
Moreover,
and more complicatedly still, that reference to Fort Sumter can remind us of
another vital and too often forgotten aspect of Massachusetts in 1775—the presence
and practice of slavery in the colony (and in the state once it was created as
well). I’ve made
the case repeatedly, in this space and most everywhere
else, for thinking about enslaved people like Elizabeth
Freeman and Quock Walker as American revolutionary leaders. Seen in that
light, another shot heard ‘round the world (or one that should have been and
still should be, anyway) was the
1777 petition through which Massachusetts enslaved people and their allies
argued for their freedom in a post-Declaration
of Independence world. At the very least, 250th anniversary commemorations
of Lexington and Concord in 2025 should include Massachusetts and American
enslaved people, a recognition of both the limits of revolution and of what
every part of those unfolding histories meant and could mean for these American
communities.
Next
anniversary tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
