"The History of the Stamp Act Shows How Indians..." Topic

… Led to the American Revolution.

"Jonathan Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence is a classic depiction of history being made. From John Adams to Benjamin Franklin, all the key players appear to be in attendance. But are they?

In depicting only well-to-do white men, Trumbull ignored something like 95 percent of the people who participated in the American Revolution. Indians, slaves, small farmers, and women of all ranks played important roles when American colonists broke free of British control. In some cases, ordinary Americans very directly influenced the actions of the Founding Fathers. One little-known example involves a law Parliament passed two hundred fifty years ago. The Stamp Act, which took effect on November 1, 1765, was one of Britain's most famous encroachments on colonial freemen's rights. Its purpose, however, is little understood.

Contrary to popular myth, which has the British government adopting the Stamp Act to force Americans to pay down their share of its staggering debt, the real reason for the Stamp Act was to help fund a garrison of ten thousand British soldiers who remained in North America at the conclusion of an Anglo-French war in 1763. This was a sizable force: about the same number of troops Washington would have at Valley Forge fifteen years later…"
Full text here
link

Amicalement
Armand

The author making the statement regarding Trumbull depicting only well to do white men, that's what attended the Continental Congress to write the Declaration of Independence. What does the author want Trumbell to have done, paint in people who weren't there, and didn't participate in it's writing? The author didn't need to use Trumbell's painting to make his other point(s).

Is there anything new in that article?

Gamespoet wrote;
" What does the author want Trumbell to have done, paint in people who weren't there"

Have you looked at the pictures in your child's or grand child's current history book? That Sir, is exactly what publishers are doing. Why wouldn't this author expect such?

Contrary to modern "thinkers", things like this used to be taught when I was little (ages ago). The man in the front is Crispus Attucks:

This one shows the same Patriot already down:

The problem is that now those are the ONLY things allowed to be taught as factual!

Dan
PS. I take offense then at the lack of canids depicted in Revolutionary War battles. The original (bottom) picture shows there was at least one such 4-legged Patriot! Wait. Looks like he had 3 legs. Let's have required graduate courses on handicapped canine Patriots who fought in the Revolutionary War.

The authors also bring up the old chestnut about the Stamp Act being to finance British forces on the frontiers to protect the colonies from the Indians. The problem being that the soldiers were stationed in Boston, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and (over 70%) in Quebec, Halifax, and Montreal.

The Stamp Act was an attempted end run on the colonial assemblies' charter-given powers of taxation. And it might have succeeded had not the morons in Westminster wrote into the act that the stamps had to be paid for in hard currency, and British hard currency at that. Hard currency made up only about one-third of the money supply in the colonies and British currency less than a third of that (most was Spanish, French, and Austrian). As a result, British money traded at a high premium, making the cost exorbitant to the average colonist.

There's a series of maps in John Shy's book "Towards Lexington: the role of the British Army in the coming of the American Revolution" that show the size of the garrisons in the various military posts, and how the "weight" of the Army in North America shifts eastward from the frontier, and southwards from Canada, as tensions rise between London and the Colonies. It becomes obvious that the role of the troops in America is changing from protecting the Colonists from the Indians, to protecting the Indians from the Colonists.

I'm not opposed to someone writing an article to provide information and viewpoint, even if it's been written by others or even if some might not agree with it. However, in this case using the Trumbull intro chosen and saying the the artist ignored 95% of the people who participated in the American Revolution, and then following that up with the statement regarding Indians, slaves, small farmers, and women, and then following that up with the rest of the article on the Stamp Act and it's relation to the Indian interactions, doesn't really seem like a smooth transition from one topic to the next. It brings the question to mind that I wrote further up, and if the answer is no (yes, being relatively ridiculous), then as I think further, is it being argued that Trumbull shouldn't have painted a picture of those signing the Declaration of Independence, but instead something else regarding Indians, slaves, small, farmers and women, or maybe painted something about the Stamp Act and it's relation to the rest of the times? It seems ok for someone to provide information regarding the various roles of different members in the colonial society at the time (although there doesn't seem much tie in to most of those listed by the author except for the Indians), and a viewpoint on why things happened with the Stamp Act, yet bringing the Trumbull painting into those topics isn't working for me. Maybe there was more to this article and it got edited out? The American Revolutionary War has plenty of reasons to provide fascinating stories and perspectives, without providing such lead ins as given in this article, and then providing the body of the article that was. Perhaps it is not the author's intent to have the content shown as it has been, and the Humanities magazine's website is really the party missing the boat.

It is my understanding that all the signers of the Declaration of Independence were white, wealthy and male. Hardly remarkable for the 1770s.

I agree with GamesPoet. The whole article is a massive non sequitur.
First the massive salute to all the oppressed PC bilge. What? No LGBT ignored heroes of the Revolution?
You don't really need to do that with a revisionist viewpoint article. Well, maybe you do if it's only semi revisionist.
As the joke headline goes, "World to end tomorrow! Women and minorities hardest hit!"