Americanism Redux
November 6, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775
You’ve got today, right now, the actual minute you’re reading this.
Then you’ve got four months ago. Since we’re in early November, that would put it around the time of early July.
Today, now. Early July, then. A gap of four months between now and then.
Does anything about what you’re doing right now loop back to what you recall about four months ago in early July?
Still thinking? Don’t worry about it. Let’s proceed into their “now” of today 250 years ago.
* * * * * * *
(from four months ago)
It’s this week that delegates in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia learn the “bad/not-so-bad”; “expected/unexpected”; “Good-Lord-now-what/the-hell-with-them-who-cares” (you pick) news from England.
The so-called Olive Branch petition drafted, edited, and adopted by the Continental Congress in early July and sent to British King George III has been ignored, rejected, dismissed. It was intended to open the door to negotiation and settlement of the imperial-colonial crisis. Now, four months later, the word arrives at the Pennsylvania State House that it’s dead and, worse, the British King has declared the colonies in a state of open rebellion.
Yep, the entire effort to, first, reach out (can we make up?) from the west side of the Atlantic to the east side of the Atlantic and, second, to get an answer back (no, we cannot) from the east side of the Atlantic to the west side of the Atlantic had taken FOUR MONTHS FROM EARLY JULY TO EARLY NOVEMBER.
And so the circle seals up and the cycle ends. This loop-closing gap of time coincides with now’s real-time moment of…
* * * * * * *
…a committee in the Continental Congress receiving authority to draw on up to $100,000 in building, outfitting, and staffing the agreed-upon four ships that will comprise the new Continental Navy. Nothing like it had existed in anyone’s mind four months ago…
* * * * * * *
(John Langdon)
…a fact that gives Continental Congress delegate John Langdon of New Hampshire a basis for saying that, now, “the Colonies Seem more and more united and Determined to make a vigorous Defense.” Such an endorsement stands to him as proof of real gains from a disunited condition four months ago…
* * * * * * *
(Robert Treat Paine)
…although Langdon’s fellow Continental Congress delegate Robert Treat Paine of Massachusetts is scathingly critical of colonies for awful follow-through. Paine blasts two colonies in particular for having failed to do the necessary work to manufacture the salt petre necessary in producing gunpowder for the Continental Army. The issue was a problem four months ago and it’s even more of a problem four months later with the British Redcoats’ occupation of Boston and threat to strike out at the poorly armed Continental soldiers surrounding them. And if you stack on another four months like this? Who knows the outcome…
* * * * * * *
(Andre’s sketch of himself before his execution, five years from now)
…in the far north toward Canada, John Andre is among the 600 Redcoat soldiers and others allied with them who, a few days ago, surrendered the British fort St. Jean on the Richelieu River to a Continental Army force led by General Richard Montgomery. Andre will later be a key British figure in the accidental discovery of Benedict Arnold’s treason and betrayal of the American cause. As of now, Andre looks back to the early summer when his British comrades at Fort St. Jean were technically still at peace with the colonial-rights supporters. Four months ago, Andre was in Quebec with Redcoat General Guy Carleton, and the two of them monitored events…
* * * * * * *
(Elizabeth, of the Cambridge Murrays)
…like the Murray family had done, some of whom live in Redcoat-occupied Boston and others in Continental-controlled Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Murrays share Andre and Carleton’s loyalty toward and deep affection for England, King George III, and British imperial rule. But now the Cambridge part of the Murray family and the Boston part of the Murray family walk a razor-thin line to avoid capture and violence at the hands of the Continental Army surrounding Boston. The Murrays of Boston and Cambridge exchange letters about only the most harmless and inoffensive things. Otherwise, they’re at serious risk of punishment and imprisonment by Continental soldiers as spies and covert operatives. They’ve been living a split-world ordeal that began four months ago with no end in sight…
* * * * * * *
(a Guy Fawkes mask, still used today, by anarchists)
…because, in part, operating out of his headquarters in Cambridge, General George Washington spends every waking hour, and many non-waking ones, trying to strengthen the effectiveness of the Continental Army that surrounds the British in Boston. Today, Washington is still angry with Continental soldiers who have kept celebrating a local tradition called Guy Fawkes Day. It’s a day that marks a failed attempt by a Catholic activist to explode a bomb in Parliament and enable a Catholic monarch to seize the British throne. Washington fears the wildly anti-Catholic occasion will offend French-Catholic residents in Canada he’s hoping to recruit to the colonial-rights cause. In addition, Washington worries that soldiers are damaging local farms by cutting down fruit trees; every mauled tree risks weakening community support. Finally, Washington politely rejects the suggestion of an influential local resident who wants an amphibious assault on Boston, asks his core team of generals to debate whether to burn Boston outright, and sketches his plan for selecting officers in his “new army” that will emerge during the winter.
Four months ago, not a single one of these actions by Washington were underway…
* * * * * * *
…while in Washington’s home colony of Virginia, John Pendleton Jr and his fellow members of the Committee of Safety meeting in Williamsburg have decided to lockdown the port towns of Norfolk and Portsmouth along with the surrounding county—no one goes in or out until further notice. The reason for the drastic approach is that Virginia’s Governor Lord Dunmore, an ardent supporter of England, is offshore and working with several British naval vessels in launching small attacks with targeted landings. The entire Tidewater coastal region is in chaos over violence, rumored violence, enemy assaults, rumored enemy assaults, and more. Pendleton and his colleagues are shutting everything down in order to control the situation, including among enslaved black men and women eager to respond to Dunmore’s call to action. Four months ago, and the people who hate Dunmore now, were not that far removed from calling him a hero then for having seized Ohio River valley lands from Native Shawnee warriors…
* * * * * * *
(the brother’s site)
…Native Cherokee warriors in South Carolina are intended recipients of a gunpowder shipment, a thousand pounds of it, approved and dispatched by Henry Laurens, the president of the pro-colonial rights Assembly of South Carolina. The idea is the gunpowder would entice Cherokee leaders to join with the colonial cause—or at least stay neutral and not join the anti-colonial side. However, that plan and the tenuous Treaty of Fort Ninety-Six that had called for a political truce both collapsed when Patrick Cunningham learned his brother Robert had been put in jail for opposing Laurens and the colonial-rights enthusiasts. Patrick organized sixty neighbors and together they seized the wagons carrying the shipment as they crossed Mine Creek. Brother seeks the rescue of brother, a personal quest wrapped and woven inside imperial-colonial crisis. Four months ago, well before the broken treaty and failed plan, the Cunninghams were at home together…
* * * * * * *
…and living a life far different from now, as so many people are still struggling to do. In Philadelphia, Dr. William Shippen Jr will begin offering tonight his standard lectures on surgery and anatomy, while John Spering plans to commence a weekly postal ride from Philadelphia to surrounding towns. From medicine to mail, Shippen and Spering see a life of work, purpose, and calling ahead as more of their world collapses into war.
* * * * * * *
In the altitude of life, four months mark the cycle of, on one hand, finishing the Olive Branch Petition in the Continental Congress and then, on the other, the return of the British government’s decision to ignore the document and declare the colonies in rebellion. But on this day and week at the four-months’ end, people have acted, decided, and chosen where they live, on the ground, far below the contrails of the high-flying cycle.
Also
(North)
Lord North, prime minister in the British imperial government, has been busy stoking support for King George III’s recent declaration of war against the colonists. North has sent messages to influential groups throughout England and Scotland: meet, draft resolutions of endorsement of the monarch’s position, and send them to London. Waste no time in letting the king know you support him.
* * * * * * *
(on the street of the Society)
The Dublin Society meets this week on Grafton Street in Ireland’s largest city, though it’s not to respond to North’s request. They’ll do what they always do—probing into the microscopic details of economic projects that interest them. They’ll discussing reports on scribbing, spinning, silk production, and land management techniques for reclaiming bogs, moors, and mountains.
* * * * * * *
The British imperial governor of Jamaica writes to British imperial officials that French agents in Hispaniola (modern Haiti and Dominican Republic) are supplying rebellious colonists in America with all sorts of war materials.
For You Now
(Tide-writer)
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,” wrote William Shakespeare.
So it seems.
In our story, the length of the tide is four months—four months for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to send a request for peace to the British imperial government in London and then to receive a rejection and a counter-statement of declared war.
Quite a tide. How quaint.
But look at what we’ve been encountering in Redux these past several weeks. War is already here, already spreading north to Canada, encircling Boston, hop-scotching up and down the coast into port communities, and pushing west into interior regions.
We’re seeing the presence of hundreds and hundreds of smaller waves within the tide. Each wave carries thoughts, decisions, and actions by people who aren’t waiting for the tide to bring the next big piece of data. They’re filling the gaps.
Information, it turns out, can flow at different levels. It’s not simply a question of speed—although motion’s pace and rate are important—as much as it is also the extent of levels and channels by which information flows. King George III’s reception of the Olive Branch Petition and his subsequent reaction-decision to do the exact opposite were, to a great degree, old news and lagging views.
My encouragement to you is to not throw up your hands in 2025 at the flood of information. And also, don’t expect the vast extent of information to make decisions for you. Instead, take a moment to realize that within the tide, information breaks apart and moves in separate and distinct streams and pathways. Within those smaller flows of data, plenty of space exists for your thoughts, your decisions, your actions.
Train your eyes to see inside the tide, inside the waves, inside the water.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: what was on your mind in early July? And is it still in today’s wave?
(Your River)
