On the less than noble side to one of the Revolution’s folk heroes.
This is a tough post for me to write: Ethan Allen
and the Green
Mountain Boys might not have the national reputation of the Concord
Minutemen, but in their native Vermont and throughout New England they’re
definitely folk
heroes; and I know that my Mom grew up (just outside of Boston) as a big
fan. And there’s no question that their May 1775 surprise capture
of Fort Ticonderoga represented one of the Revolution’s most significant
victories, not only tactically but also symbolically (only a month after
Lexington and Concord, with the very status of the Revolution still up in the
air, the victory made clear that America’s war effort was to be a serious and
ongoing one).
I’m not here to challenge those histories (as far as I know Ticonderoga was
all that and more)—but the Green Mountain Boys didn’t come into existence in
1775, and the details of their founding and virtually all of their other
actions are far less admirable. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Boys
were a local goon squad, organized
by Allen and compatriots in 1770 to intimidate New York landowners into
leaving the area (then part of New Hampshire) and ceding the so-called “Wentworth” land grants
to locals. As far as I can tell the Boys didn’t generally take violent action,
preferring threats and intimidation, but at least one violent event (the 1775 “Westminster
massacre,” in which apparently only one or two landowners died but many
more were affected) resulted from these conflicts. Moreover, the Boys didn’t
graduate from these local acts to Revolutionary ones so much as temporarily
pause for the latter—as early as 1778 Allen
and company were back in Vermont and focused once again on the land grant
battles (as well as the possibility of becoming a separate British province!).
So what would it mean if we remembered these different sides to Allen?
Those who critique “revisionist history” would argue that I’m seeking to
undermine his heroism, to tear down an American icon, and so on. Part of my
response would be that both elements must be included in any accurate history
of the man, his military importance to the Revolution as well as his more shady
local endeavors. But another and more significant part would be that Allen
offers a far more historically meaningful portrait of the Revolutionary era, a
moment in which hugely defining and world-altering events existed side by side
with the most petty and minor (and at times, indeed, ugly and divisive) conflicts.
If anything, an awareness of that history makes the defining events that much
more impressive still—in 1775, the 18th century equivalent of the Sons of Anarchy biker
gang played an instrumental role in a victory without which there might not
be a United States.
Next Revolutionary reality tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Other
Revolutionary histories or stories you’d highlight?
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