History's Myths

Seated upon flat wooden benches and huddled into every corner of the crowded meeting house, dozens of people stood and sat transfixed on the words of a great man. This man’s name will remain in the collective memory of millions of people in every generation throughout the rest of recorded history for this one moment of brilliance and spirit. As Patrick Henry completed his stirring speech that inspired all there to rise up and fight for their freedom, he spoke the words for which he will be remembered forever, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Henry’s legacy is one of leadership and brilliance, tarnished only by the fact that the act for which he is best remembered never actually occurred. This story that we have all been taught since childhood is likely a fiction, as it was written by William Writ in 1817, 42 years after this alleged speech. This is only one of countless examples of stories we accept as fact because it was in a reputable source; a history textbook. But sadly, many of the stories from our nation’s heritage that inspire us and give us so much pride are in fact works of fiction or distorted truth.

Historic accounts of the American Revolution in particular are full of inspirational stories of heroism and perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. It is arguably one of the greatest periods in world history with the greatest impact on the future of the world. And it is the source of great national pride and the very definition of what it means to be an American. There are countless inspirational stories and heroes deified from that period. We exaggerate or even fabricate our heroes’ accomplishments and ignore their faults and weaknesses that make them human.

Paul Revere was one of the greatest icons of the revolution, known best for his midnight rides through the countryside shouting, “the British are coming!” to awake otherwise unsuspecting farmers and villagers from their slumber to take arms and rise up against the approaching imperial oppressors. Without his efforts, our militia men may have been caught off guard and the war may have been over before it even began. In reality, however, Revere was not the only midnight rider to arouse our makeshift soldiers into action. This is a fact ignored in the popular account of the event, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1861, which also distorted every other fact about the legend to make the story more interesting for his book. Though many historians know this account to be largely fictional, it is still included in most textbooks, probably because it is more interesting than the truth. In 1996, David Hackett Fischer published a book about Revere’s ride that gave a more accurate account. Fischer wrote that Revere was in fact one of several volunteers who rode out and rang bells, shooting their guns into the air and doing whatever else was necessary to awake and alert the militia men. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott are two other patriots that history book authors have begun to include in recent texts. It is also unlikely that the volunteer soldiers were caught off guard. This incursion of British troops was a move they had been anticipating and for which they had been preparing for months prior and they were ready to go when the call came. But Longfellow’s portrait of prose depicting Revere as a solitary hero is dramatic and thus has persevered for well over a century.

Another folkloric hero from the Revolutionary War was the woman known as Molly Pitcher. Molly was the wife of an artillery gunner. Molly and her husband served in the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778, which was fought in sweltering heat. Many of the soldiers were collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration brought on by the intense heat and aggravated by their heavy woolen uniforms. Molly ran and fetched pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water for the soldiers to keep them going and cooled the guns so they could continue operation. At some point her husband fell wounded and his canon was going to be pulled from battle because there was simply no one to operate it. So Molly manned the gun herself and kept it firing on the British troops. She is also said to have carried a wounded soldier on her back off the battle field and away from approaching British soldiers. For her heroics, General Washington made her a non-commissioned officer and she became known as Sergeant Molly. Text books say Molly’s name was Mary Hayes or Mary Hays McCauly but this name was only given to the legend in 1876 at the centennial celebration and only on the word of an event promoter from Carlisle, Pennsylvania where Hayes was from. Paintings of Molly Pitcher were painted in the 19th century, not the product of a first hand account. So the validity of this legend is no more certain than any other folk legend.

Another female hero from the American Revolution is Betsy Ross. As history tells us, she received a visit in June, 1776 from George Washington, Robert Morris and Betsy’s uncle George Ross. She demonstrated how to cut a star out of fabric with one snip of the scissors if the fabric is folded right. She was asked to design and stitch the first American flag. She is also idolized for her perseverance despite losing more than one spouse to battle in the fight against the British and her business savvy. She is considered one of the earliest and greatest independent women who led an exemplary life and demonstrated what women are capable of. Though much of her legacy is truthful and she is deserving of the respect she has been paid, and she was a flag maker, most historians now doubt that she sewed the first flag. Betsy’s grandson was the first to credit her with stitching the flag. He told this story in 1870 and even he was unsure of the story’s validity. It is also rarely mentioned that whether or not Betsy sewed the stars and stripes, it was not the first American flag. There were several flags that militia men and other colonials waved as they marched into battle before the current design was universally accepted.

Even objects and locales have been placed upon a pedestal under false pretenses. The very symbol of freedom, the Liberty Bell, has been deified based on fictitious stories. We were taught as children that when the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the Liberty Bell in the steeple of Independence Hall (then called the State House) was rung to mark the event. As the story goes, there was an elderly bellman in the steeple waiting for word of the Continental Congress’ declaration. Secretly he began to lose faith that Congress would act. When at last word came, the man’s grandson shouted “ring, grandfather, ring!” and as the old man rang the bell, the townspeople all came to the State House to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. The people rejoiced the creation of a new nation. Although I was not able to find any texts attributing the famous crack to this event, I was taught in school that the bell cracked at this occasion and never rang again. But this tale was a fictional short story written by George Lippard for The Saturday Currier in 1847. Though there is some debate about when the crack first appeared, the final crack that rendered it unusable occurred in 1846 when a group of abolitionists rang it to protest slavery. In fact the very title of Liberty Bell was bestowed upon it by the abolitionist movement, who began using it as a symbol in their anti slavery pamphlets in the early half of the 19th century. Even the idea of July 4 as our nation’s birthday is somewhat arbitrary for several reasons. First, there were some 90 other declarations of independence the year before that were drafted and adopted in various colonies. Second, several counties had already ousted British rule and were already governing themselves. Third, the Declaration of Independence had to travel around to some of the people who signed it and that took months. Finally, the colonists still had to win the war so it could be argued that the nation was not truly born until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 or when the Continental Congress ratified it on January 14, 1784.

Aside from idolizing false heroes and worshipping at the altars of false icons, history books also deliberately exclude or falsify accounts of events that are embarrassing to our heritage. To this day, a monument still stands in lower Manhattan that depicts a rather sinister looking Dutchman passing a handful of beads to a Native American. The engraving describes this event in 1626 when the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the Canarsies for $24 worth of beads. However, the Dutch traded $2400 worth of kettles, axes, guns, blankets and other valuable goods to the tribe for the right to settle there. But the Canarsies did not own the island and had no claim to it. They lived only on the northern tip of it. The island was inhabited by the Weckquaesgeek tribe and they were not consulted before this deal was made. Rather than spend more on this transaction, the Dutch simply began a genocide campaign with the help of the Canarsies. By the 1640’s when the Dutch had nearly exterminated the Weckquaesgeeks, they finally cut the survivors in on the deal and paid them too. It is far easier to depict the natives as gullible and foolish than to depict the white settlers as the savage killers they were.
It is likely that a large percentage of information in history books is mostly accurate. However, these examples make it ever more evident that the primary lesson we can learn from our textbooks is less the material in them and more a lesson in life. That is that we cannot afford to take anything we read in any source of printed material, nor anything we hear, as fact no matter how reputable the source. It teaches us to search for answers ourselves and to always question authority. All information originates from a flawed human.