Surveillance Special: Behind the American Revolution

as well. Russell short Of has written The Jewel of this Fourth July Revolution song, a story of American freedom. It is about six people involved in our revolutionary war, and we are thrilled we're joining Russell short Off and Brown University. Gordon Would is well. Wonderful that both of you on. Russell, let me give you first word, although I'm sure you'd like to hear from Professor Would and as well. Russell, you have six different, different different people

in your book. How did you choose them? Well? First of all, thank you very much Tom for having me on. And I have to say what an honor it is to be sharing your microphone with a great Professor Would, whose work I have admired forever and I also want to just get in a quick thank you to him for doing me the honor of blurb ing the book, which I'm sure made a lot of people who otherwise

wouldn't have given it the time of day. Um Uh, take a look at it, short, Short has taken the lives of six very different figures and woven them seamlessly together into an engaging, readable, and surprisingly complete account. I'll add lib here Russell of the emotion, the passion, the gore, the anger in the fragility of our American Revolution, Professor Wood says a tour to force Russell, how did you

pick the six people? Um? That the whole idea was to pick people from different walks of life, because of course, uh, it's it's the revolution was about everyone. And yet we tend to get the perspective of of the men in the powdered wigs. So I wanted to and their perspective

is important, and I wanted to include uh them as well. Um. But I did it over a long period of time because, as it turns out, unless you were one of those powdered wig people, um, it was it's difficult to find people whose lives are well documented a slave Native American. These people's lives were not, by and large well documented, So it took me a couple of years of kind

of auditioning people for roles in the book. And I had to find people who were from diverse backgrounds, whose lives were well documented, who I cared about um and who you know. The trickiest part is I wanted to find people who, in some way or another cross paths with each other, so that because I care about writing narrative and I want to care about the reading experience, and I wanted it to read as as one as one narrative. Gordon would, I walked across George Washington with

James Thomas Flexner of Another time and Place. You are our arch expert of the core research of the Revolution, including your work on Benjamin Franklin. I was thunderstruck early in Revolution song professor would of how fragile in what a failure George Washington was discussed that Gordon would, Why was George Washington such a failure early in the war. Well, he he was facing the greatest power in the world with a rag tag army that had very little experience.

It's amazing that he did as well as he did. But uh, it's just extraordinary that he learned how to how to fight the British in the course of losing those battles. You're thinking particularly of the Battle of Long Island, which was a near disaster. Uh, and he escaped by the skin of his teeth and very lucky. Uh So he The first year of the war was terrible for the Americans, and it looked like they might just fail,

but they didn't. And he uh he managed the uh the Battle of Trenton, and and that that brought back the uh, the morale of Americans at that crucial time. Russell, you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and you pull down their perfect restoration of Washington crossing the Delaware with James Monroe on the boat. It's all that you know. It's whether it's Stan Freeberg comedy or it's what we learned in school. It's not reality, is it. I mean, how did they, Russell Shorto, how did they really cross

the Delaware? Uh? Well it wasn't. I mean, if you if you're you're taking the famous painting which was on the cover as as that's your reference. Um, if there are several things wrong with that painting. For one thing, they haven't as I recalled, there's an American flag that they're holding, which didn't exist yet in the painting. Um. And Uh, they were crossing at night, so if you you know, if they if you were being literal about it, you probably wouldn't be able to see that, to see

the figures. So it was and it was actually the recrossing coming back that was the that was the surprise. I mean he that was Washington's brilliant maneuver to cross back and surprise them. Uh. And that again is one of these skin of the teeth moments where he pulls Um pulls victory out of the jaws of defeat. The fragility of the revolution, professor would was this because the politicians didn't they have their back? I mean, you are

are expert and Benjamin Franklin. Do we blame the early years of the revolution on John Adams and Benjamin Franklin the others? Did they Did they get what was going on out in the battlefields? Oh? I think they did. I think they they What's incredible is the confidence they had that they would win. I find that, you know the fact that they were taking on the greatest power in the world with with no experience, very little military help,

and and constant problems. Nonetheless, they had this confidence right from the beginning that they were going to win. In in in some sense they were right. I think the British had an almost impossible task. I know that's difficult to appreciate in the in retrospect, but I think they had an impossible task to put down rebellion three thousand miles away.

We found that difficulty in Vietnam, and any nation that tries to UH to deal with it with an uprising thousands of miles away, UH has has a real has a real problem, and a British face that right from the beginning. You know, I look at this Russell, and just to finish up here and we'll come back with my colleague Pim Fox. Is what Russell? You have a scene and this is so great for those of you coast to coast. Russell Shorto takes you to Parliament where

Edmund Burke and the Whigs. Basically, Russell explained to the elites of Britain, you're not going to win this thing. Tell us about the courage of the Whigs to stand up in Parliament and say to Lord North and the rest this isn't gonna work. Well, what I think is fascinating about the situation in England, and one that was one reason I wanted to have one of my six people be a British in this case the George Germain,

the men who really ran the war for Britain. Is that then you get the sense of how divided Britten was. The leadership was where you had a lot of Whigs in Parliament basically saying, wait a second, we invented this Enlightenment stuff and now they're using it against us and guess what they're right? So, uh, you know, when you have that kind of almost split personality among the British Parliament,

that adds to the difficulties in England. Faith to professor would if I could, first, Gordon, would you invented and demanded with great courage in the sixties that we go back to the original research of the revolution, take us back there to what it was like to actually go into the actual documents and archives of the revolution that have been forgotten by so many scholars. Well, I'm not sure that it's been forgotten, because it is the most

important event in American history. Your bar none, uh and not only legally created the United States the Revolution, but it infused into our culture almost everything we believe in our highest inspirations at noblest ideals. So the Revolution has

always been um an important event for Americans. And even though we may think of July four just a time to have a barbecue, we should not forget that this is the most important day in the history of the United States, and since the United States has become the greatest power of the world has ever known, it's probably not only important day for us, but maybe important day

for the world as well. Kim Well, I just would like to put to both of these scholars the question that you know, we study the Revolution, we praise the revolution. I wonder if we've learned from the revolution, because we always seem to be, at least in modern times, not necessarily on the side of other revolutionary movements around the world. And I believe your referenced Vietnam just a moment ago.

And I'm wondering if you can each give us your thoughts about whether there's a contradiction in the way that we look at the revolution and apply it to our current situation in the world. Professor Gordon Well, I think that we have become since, especially since nineteen forty, a status quo power that is trying to maintain the order in the world. So we're not looking for revolutions. Although we were very supportive of the Arab Spring, perhaps prematurely

since it didn't amount too much. Uh. It was it was a fear of communism in in ninety that led us into career and then into Vietnam. The fear that the Communist Revolution, which was a rival to our own ideological rival to our own that that we feared that they might be taking over the world. Now we're no longer fearing that kind of that kind of threat, but we're worried about terrorism and and disturbances elsewhere. So we are in that sense as status quo power, trying to

maintain the order in the world. Russell short of your thoughts, Yeah, well, the fact that we thought a revolution doesn't necessarily mean that we should support every revolution. The revolution was fought over UH, certain beliefs and ideals about individuals and individual liberty and therefore society that in a government that would

maintain those uh. And that goes back to into the sixteen hundreds, that that building wave of awareness and the American Revolution in the late seventeen hundreds was that was a great explosion or of of a feeling and of collective will in that regard. Uh And ever since then, I think we've been trying to make good on it. I mean, the revolution was h was about certain things, and it succeeded and it failed in in in making those freedoms possible. And ever since then we've been trying

to make good on it. So we have the fight over slavery, the fights over civil rights. I think that's why I am said early in my book that I think the revolution, the American Revolution is is ongoing and we're still fighting the granularity. Russell Shorter of your book

of the Six People. In your book, whether it is an Indian spanning the Seneca of western New York over to the Mohawk and the Eastern New York and how they go back and forth of the British is profoundly focused on a black man on the Islands of New York who ends up in Connecticut. Tell us a little bit about his path from Africa and how he became

free and independent. Yeah, he was born brotier Furo in West Africa and his village was invaded by an African army, and they took him prisoner and took him to the coast and sold him into slavery to a ship that happened to be from Newport, Rhode Island. So he ended up having living out his life in New York end in Connecticut, and um and uh that he became. His

name was changed to Venture Smith and UM. It's a remarkable story because, for one thing, his story is fairly complete, uh, going back to the problem of sources, um, from beginning to end, and it is this continual search for freedom for himself. Un once he's enslaved, he does everything he can to work for freedom and for himself and his family eventually buys himself out and his family out of slavery.

But it's transpiring against the backdrop of the American fight for freedom with within this Gordon Wood is when we walked away from the revolutionary ward James McGregor burns the giant of Williams College marks that day where Jefferson and Adams died. But did it happen before that? When did we move on from Russell Shorto's revolution song? Oh? Well, I think from the very moment that the Declaration of Independence.

I think it marked a major turning point, not only in the U s history, but in the history of the world. We have to understand and I think it's it's a problem for us today because we look back and these founding fathers, many of whom were slaveholders. Slavery existed at the time of the Revolution, and it seems embarrassing that they didn't do anything about it. But I think we have to get the context correct. Until the Revolution, the American Revolution, slavery was largely taken for granted by

the world. It existed for thousands of years, went back to antiquity, and now it becomes a problem. It coincides with the American Revolution. The first anti slavery convention in the history of the world is held in Philadelphia in seventeen seventy five. That's not a coincidence. So we have to understand that the American Revolution coincided the questioning of

slavery and the opposition to slavery. Now, it takes a civil war for us to eliminate slavery, but certainly the Revolution, as Lincoln understood better than anyone, it was the revolution that lay behind the Civil War and the and the and the inconsistency of slavery. Uh, it's incompatibility with American values. Russell one final question on revolution song. Bloomberg will celebrate the fourth of July and the shores of the Charles

River up in Boston. And one of the great hallmarks of your book is the distance from Boston to New York. There was a cultural divide. It wasn't the Hudson River. I'll let you decide. Maybe it was the Connecticut River. But but it was amazing the distance of New England from the rest of the country in the time of your book. Well, that was the speaking of the Hudson River.

That was the British initial British strategy was if you take control of the Hudson River, then you are They thought that New England was the hotbed of the rebellion and that that would sort of cut New England off from the rest of the colonies. So there was that that sense, But there was also I think a different sensibility in New England and in New York, and I think New York that goes back to the Dutch period.

New York was always there. He gets his second book in there, see how he's Russell's Russell selling both Russell selling both books today. Professor would if if we're selling books that I I would like to give a shout out to Professor Wood's latest book as well, Friends Divided, which all the period of the revolution uh in a biographic and it's in Goodwill Hunting. I'll let you know it is. You should watch that movie and check out and find those moments when they speak about Professor Woods.

We will do that. Gordon would thank you so much from Brown University into Russell Short. Thank you. It is always I can't say enough folks about Revolution Song, a story of American Freedom. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm on Twitter at Tom Keene before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio