America Book

First started reading February 1, 2017 - and finished February 20, 2017

Chock full of detail (a bit too much, sometimes) and informative stories, some alarmingly relevant. Makes me think.

Virginia, as King Charles I put it, was "founded upon smoke." Tobacco production soared during the 17th century. Governor Leonard Calvert in 1629 wrote: In Virginia and Maryland, Tobacco is our Staple is our All, and indeed leaves no room for anything else."

From their early leadership in the production of pine tar from the resin of southern pine trees, North Carolinians would earn the nickname of Tar Heels.

Benjamin Franklin, who served as deputy postmaster for the colonies from 1753-1774, sped up the service with shorter routes and night-traveling post riders.

More reliable mail delivery gave rise to newspapers in the 18th century. Before 1745, 22 newspapers had been started: 7 in New England, 10 in the middle colonies, and 5 in the South. An important landmark in the progress of freedom of the press was John Peter Zenger's trial for publishing criticisms of New York's governor in his newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal. Zenger was imprisoned for 10 months and brought to trial in 1735. English common law held that one might be punished for "libel" or criticism that fostered "an ill opinion of the government." Zenger's lawyer started the court with his claim that the editor had published the truth -- which the judge ruled an unacceptable defense. The jury, however, held the editor not guilty. The libel law remained standing as before, but editors thereafter were emboldened to criticize officials more freely.

Like the European Deists, Ben Franklin came to believe in a God that had created a universe animated by natural laws, laws that inquisitive people could discern through the use of reason.

Franklin and other like-minded thinkers, like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, derived an outlook of hope and optimism from modern science and Enlightenment rationalism. Such enlightened thinking founded on freedom of thought and expression, clashed with the religious assumptions that had shaped Puritan New England in the 17th century. The 18th century Enlightenment thus set in motion intellectual forces in the colonies that challenged the "truthfulness" of revealed religion and the logic of Christian faith. Those modern forces, however, would inspire stern resistance among the defenders of religious orthodoxy.

The Great Awakening implanted in American culture the evangelical impulse and the emotional appeal of revivalism. The movement weakened the status of the old-fashioned clergy and state-supported churches, encouraged believers to exercise their own judgment, and thereby weakened habits of deference generally. By encouraging the proliferation of denominations, it heightened the need for toleration of dissent. Both the Awakening and the Enlightenment, between the urgings of the spirit and the logic of reason, emphasized the power and right of individual decision making, and both aroused millennial hopes that America would become the promised land in which people might attain the perfection of piety or reason, if not both.

The Dominion of New England was scarcely established before the Glorious Revolution erupted in England in 1688. The new British monarchs, William and Mary, were determined to reassert royal control in America. This had significant longterm effects on American history in that the Bill of Rights and the Act of Toleration, passed in England in 1689, influenced attitudes and events in the colonies. Even ore significant, the overthrow of King James II set a precedent for the removal of a hated monarch. The justification for revolution appeared in 1690 when the English philosopher John Locke: published his Two Treatises on Government. This had enormous impact on political thought in the colonies. Locke refuted the prevailing theories of the "divine" right of kings to govern with absolute power. He also insisted that people are endowed with "natural rights"to life, liberty, and property. The need to protect those "natural" rights led people to establish governments. When rulers failed to protect the property and lives of their subjects, Locke argued, the people had the right -- in extreme cases -- to overthrow the monarch and change the government.

[Sound familiar?}

In late 1753, George Washington with an experience guide and a few others, made his way (from Virginia) by horseback, foot, canoe, and raft the 450 miles to Fort Le Boeuf (just south of Lake Erie, in northwest Pennsylvania). He gave the French commander in the French and Indian War a note from the Virginia governor demanding that they withdraw from the Ohio Country. After the French captain rejected the request, Washington trudged home through deepening snow, having accomplished nothing in "as fatiguing a journey as it is possible to conceive."

Additional notes from Jun 2017

The Great Biological Exchange

The exchange of plant life worked an even greater change than the animals (eg, iguana, bison, hummingbirds), a revolution in the diets of both hemispheres. Before, 3 main staples of the modern diet were unknown in the Old World: maize, potatoes (sweet and white), and many kinds of beans (snap, kidney, lima, and others). The white potato, though commonly called "Irish," actually migrated from South America to Europe, and only reached North America with the Scotch-Irish immigrants of the 1700s. New World foods included: manioc (chiefly consumed in the US as tapioca, but soon a staple in tropical Africa), peanuts, squash, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, pineapples, sassafras, papaya, guava, avocado, cacao, and chicle. Europeans introduced rice, wheat, barley, oats, wine grapes, melons, coffee, olives, bananas, "Kentucky" bluegrass, daisies and dandelions.

16th century knowledge of the interior came mostly from would-be conquistadores who sought but found little to plunder in the hinterlands.

Calvinism required a stern moral code, for the outward sign of true faith was correct behavior.

The Spanish galleons could not cope with the smaller and faster English vessels commanded by Drake and others. Defeat of the Spanish Armada marked the beginning of English supremacy on the sea and cleared the way for English colonization. It was the climactic event of Elizabeth's reign, and brought to a crescendo the surging patriotism that had been born of the epic conflict with Spain. The great literature of the Elizabethan age reflected a spirit of confidence and pride. Shakespeare, especially, celebrated the glories of the House of Tudor and linked them to the spirit of the nation: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." England was in the springtime of her power, filled with a youthful zest for new worlds and new wonders that were opening up before the nation.

In the course of their history, the English people have displayed a genius for "muddling through," a gift for the pragmatic compromise that defied logic but in the light of experience somehow worked.

For Washington's arm at Valley Forge, the winter of 1777-8, had been a season of suffering far worse than the previous winter at Morristown. While the great diplomatic achievement was maturing in Paris, the American force, encamped near Philadelphia, endured hunger, cold, and disease. Many deserted or resigned their commissions. Washington had to commandeer foodstuffs. The winter was marked by dissension in Congress and the army, and by an impulse to make Washington the scapegoat for the Patriots' plight. Despite rumors of a movement to replace him, there seems never to have developed any concerted effort to do so.