An Awesome Essay

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Brady DillMr. LeeENG Honors 1126 November 2013

Rebellion Chorus

Revolutionary Americas Thomas Paine fanned the burgeoning flames of rebellion

against British taxation with his pamphlet Common Sense , the sales of which ultimatel y

reached half a million copies (438), and which functi oned as a landflood that [swept] all before

it[sweeping aside] much of the lingering allegiance to King George III [and] paving the way

for the Declaration of Independence ( Ibid). As the embers of one fire often start another,

Paines writings birthed (or closely coincided with) written threats of rebellion on behalf of

womens rights from Abigail Adams and Hannah Griffitts, the anti-slavery movement from

Thomas Jefferson and Absalom Jones, and religious freedom from Tecumseh and George

Washington.

Adams and Griffitts were two of the primary womens -rights figures of the 18 th century

and their writings expressed a dream for gender equality. In a letter to her husband, John Adams,

prior to the completion of the Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams beseeched him to

Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors,

(443), in constructing the new Code of Laws, (443). Indeed, Abigail Adams went so far as

to express sexist views against men, portraying them as having pusillanimity and cowardise,

(Ibid ), and stating that all Men would be tyrants if they could, (Ibid ). She finishes with a

threat: If [particular] care and attention is not paid to the [ladies] we are determined to foment a

[rebellion], and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or

Representation, (Ibid ). Griffitts, a female poet, more subtly expresses her feminist views in

The Female Patriots. Since the Menare keptso quietly downLet the Daughters of


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Liberty nobly arisetrust me a Woman , by honest Invention, / Might give [America] a Dose of

Prevention, (436-7). Men were off fighting the Revolutionary War; in their absence, women

took over and ran their farms and businesses. In The Female Patriots, Griffitts expresses

disdain for the mens failure in the war (how they are keptso quietly down) and praises

womens role in the war, saying that they can do a better job than their husbands. Griffitts drives

her point home when she signs her alias as A Female before publishing the poem in the

Pennsylvania Chronicle (436).

Jefferson and Jones were major voices for the pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement.

Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, which was then revised byCongress before being signed. Congress astonished Jefferson by removing his substantial anti-

slavery section: [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its

most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,

captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphereDetermined to keep open a

market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing

every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce, (451). Jefferson

believed that Congress had mangled his draft, (448), by removing his tirade against slavery in

the Declaration of Independence. Jones, a freed black slave, wrote a Petition of the People of

Colour to the President, Senate, and House of Representatives, (462) , seeking anti-slavery

measures in the Declaration . He stated that [we] humbly desire you [the writers of the

Declaration of Independence] may exert every means in your power to undo the heavy burdens,

and prepare the way for the oppressed to go free, that every yoke may be broken, (463), for the

solemn compact, (462), of the Constitution is violated, by a trade carried on in a

clandestine mannerthose poor helpless [slaves], like droves of cattle, are seized, fettered, and


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hurried into places provided for this most horrid trafficleft to deplore th e sad separation of the

dearest ties in nature, husband from wife, and parents from children; thus packed together, they

areinhumanly exposed to sale, (Ibid ). Both Jones and Jefferson sought anti-slavery reforms in

the Declaration, and their labor came to fruition nearly a century later with the passing of the

Thirteenth Amendment.

Both Tecumseh and Washington, the one a Native American and the other the head of the

government crushing Native society, fought for religious freedom in their writings and their

actions. F rightened by United States seizures of three million acres of [Native American] land,

(464), Tecumseh foresaw the later suppression of Indian culture and religion, which includedcutting mens hair, forcibly breaking up religious ceremonie s, and banning traditional rituals and

marital practices, (Maier, 546). [Inspired by] the Great Spirit, (465, Belasco), Tecumseh

threatened to kill American conspirators among the Native chieftains (Ibid) if they didnt

discontinue their war against Native land and society. Newly elected as President, Washington

responded to fears of Jewish prosecution with the promise that the Government of the United

States [would give] to bigotry no sanction [and] to persecution no assistance, (460), and the

wish t hat the Children of the Stock of Abrahamcontinue to merit and enjoy the good will

of the other inhabitantsand there shall be none to make him afraid, (Ibid).

Rebellions abounded in the Revolutionary era: Washington and Tecumseh sought

religious freedom, Jones and Jefferson pled against slavery, and Griffitts and Abigail Adams

fought for womens rights. The Declaration of Independence served as the beginning of a new

America, and these turmoils reflected different groups visions for the country as it was forged in

its war of separation.


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Works Cited:

Belasco, Susan, et al. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume One:

Beginnings to 1865 . Print. St. Martins: 2008. 18 Sept. 2013.

Maier, Pauline, et al. Inventing America: A History of the United States . 2nd Edition.

Print. W. W. Norton & Company: 2006. November 2013.

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