Howard Zinn Chapter 5

The American militia was just getting formed, and those who first joined were the hallmarks of respectability or at least of full citizenship in their communities. The ones that were excluded from the militia were the: Indians, free Negroes, White servants, and free white men who had no stable home. They became desperate for more people, so they recruited the less respectable whites, and the military became a place of promise for the poor who might rise in rank, acquire some money, and change their social status. They tried to force a large number of reluctant people to associate themselves with the military, and by the end of the process they would believe in it. They lost the first battles of the war, which included: Bunker Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Harlem Heights, and the Deep South, and they won the following small battles: Trenton, Princeton, and a big battle at Saratoga New York. In Philadelphia there was an inflation in prices one month that rose 45%. There was a mass meeting, which called for price reductions and an investigation on Robert Morris who was accused of holding food from the Market.

The majority of white colonists who had a bit of land, or no property at all were still better off than slaves or indentured servants or Indians and could be happily forced into the government of the revolution. Rich men, linked together in factions and compacts by business and family connections, dominated the Continental Congress, which dominated the colonies through the war. The colonists didn’t like how the congress was running things, so there were many mutinies. Black slaves held twenty five percent of the population. George Washington had denied the requests of the slaves to become free by joining the army. However, Lord Dunmore promised freedom to Virginia slaves who joined his forces and this created consternation, and the fear of slave revolts grew.

The American Revolution is sometimes said to have been the reason for separation of church and state. Christianity had been imbedded into every aspect and institution of America’s life. After the revolution the number of independent farmers grew, but the class structure didn’t change. During the revolution, to mobilize soldiers, the tenants were promised Land. For the Native Americans, the revolutionary war meant getting pushed out of their homeland and getting killed if they refused to do so. After the French and Indian war, the British agreed to establish a line at the Appalachian Mountains, which would be the Indian Territory, and this was known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Slavery in the north began to decrease, but slavery in the south increased with the needs of rice and cotton pickers. The revolution made it so the blacks could begin making demands on the white society. Blacks wanted to be treated equal to whites.

General ideas of what was going to go in the constitution were talked about. The people began questioning and putting to the test the power of the judge and the government. There were many revolts of countrymen and some militiamen who were fighting for justice-shay’s rebellion. The government was a democracy and they found a huge problem in the division of society amongst the rich and poor. They decided to make the government a two-part deal, one side was the democrat-republican, and the other was the federalists. The constitution was comprised of slaveholding interests in the south and moneyed interests in the north. The Bill of rights was created and it was designed to build popular backing for the new government. There was the sedition act, which made it a crime to say or write false, scandalous and malicious against the government. The government put on the Whiskey Tax, which was a problem for small farmers because they grew grain that was converted to whiskey. The farmers took up arms and rebelled against the collection of this tax.