The American Revolution

We just finished watching the PBS 12-hour documentary on The American Revolution, by Ken Burns and his colleagues. I urge everyone to view it and talk about it with others, regardless of their political or cultural persuasion. Ten years in the making, it lands just ahead of the years-long bloviation and flim-flam that is bound to accompany our forthcoming celebrations of this war that gave the American republic its birth. You will come away with your own impressions, but here are five points that stick in my mind.

            The series begins with recognition of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the seven natïve tribes between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River. Their formation of a confederal alliance sets the tone for the succeeding invocations of the radical plurality out of which the colonists forged a workable unity. The struggle for unity amidst a creative pluralism runs through every episode, with voices from Native Americans, young men and old, women, enslaved and free descendants of Africans, Loyalists and Patriots, and the tongues of Europe’s various nations. It is a wider canvas than most of us heard about in our early education. It is a project threatened once again by the white nationalism of the present US administration.

            This pluralism speaks of the often tragically twisted motives of those who initiated the conflict as well as those who bore its consequences. It was, indeed, a civil war, not only in the colonies but in Great Britan itself, as monarchists and the Whigs of the gentry strove to advance or defend their beliefs and positions. I was reminded of some of my own ancestors, the Freemans and the Wades, who fled to Nova Scotia, some of them remaining to this day, others who I believe returned. And, of course, we are continually reminded of the twisted motives of those benefitting from slavery, who were defending their right to their own liberty to enslave others. This was often melded with their very open desire to kill the native inhabitants west of the Appalachians and take their land. Many of the Colonial soldiers, Sylvia’s ancestors among them, were paid with land taken from the Cherokee and Creeks. This is, for many of us, a very personal story.

            But this was not merely a North American and English conflict. It was situated in the imperial warfare between England, Spain, and France for control of the New World. It was this imperial conflict, with France’s entry on the side of the Colonials, that was decisive for the Patriots’ victory at Yorktown. We were not the only players in this drama. 

            Equally critical was Nature’s role, both as pestilence and as weather. People on all sides died in great numbers from disease, heat prostration, and freezing cold. Valley Forge was far from the only manifestation of this crucible of suffering that shaped the war and its outcome.

Yet in all this ambiguity, suffering, and twisted motivations, a seed was planted. For Ken Burns and his associates, it is The American Project. The Unfinished Revolution. At its heart is Jefferson’s wild claim that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This slave-holding Virginian evoked a seed of ideals that contradicted his own life, and he knew it, though he did not change it. The American Revolution presents us with a graphic portrayal of human conflict and struggle, but it also lifts up a vision about the meaning of these chaotic events, a set of ideals that still reverberate around the world. Among them are a vision of a federal republic grounded in public persuasion and participation, an ideal that has shaped my own work for decades. Viewers will find others tucked into the fabric of this narrative. 

Today, we sense a kind of Valley Forge experience, a time when the Benedict Arnolds of our public life have betrayed their trust, when even our own seeming nobility is skewed by raw self-interest and the myopia of unwarranted privilege. The American Revolution offers us an opportunity to refurbish, improve, and commit ourselves to these lofty ideals. It is an opportunity for both repentance and renewal.

            This is not a portrayal that can even claim to “get it right,” as if history is ever a dead insect pinned unmoving under our microscope. It is a re-awakening of the project that is literally “thrown forward” from our inherited world. Whether we choose to catch it and throw it forward is up to us. We, too, are under the judgment we so easily pass on those who have gone before. And we are also capable of rising to the lure cast before us by these very frail and valiant human beings.

            See it.