and property holders, Indians and white.
As many as half the people were not even considered by the Founding Fathers. They were not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, they were absent in the Constitution, they were invisible in the new political democracy. They were the women of early America.
Exercises
1. How much colonial opposition was there to British rule in 1776?
2. What motivated the colonial poor to fight the British?
3. Zinn argues that the American Revolutionary “War was making the ruling elite more secure against internal trouble” (p. 62). What evidence does Zinn provide to support this assertion?
4. The Battle of Saratoga (1777) brought the French into the war on the side of the Americans. Why was this result significant enough to make the Battle of Saratoga the “turning point” of the war?
5. Which of the following is the most appropriate thesis for this chapter:
a. The Americans won the war only with help from the French.
b. The war was a struggle for power between members of an upper class.
c. Rich men ran the war.
d. General enthusiasm for the war was not strong.
Defend your choice and give your reasons for having eliminated the rest.
6. What were the grievances of the American troops who mutinied or rebelled during the American Revolution?
7. What were the methods of control used by the Revolutionary elite to control disobedient and rebellious colonists?
8. How did farmers resist impoverishment?
9. Why did the Indians fight with the British against the colonial rebels?
10. How did blacks respond to the opportunities presented by the Revolutionary War? How effective were their responses?
11. Why did the author of “All men are created equal,” Thomas Jefferson, remain a slaveholder all his life?
12. The U.S. Constitution was: (Defend your choice with detail.)
a. “a work of genius put together by wise, humane men who created a legal framework for democracy and equality”
b. a work of genius put together by rich men to benefit their economic interests
c. a work of genius which balances the interests of slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property, and men with property
d. a compromise between slaveholding interests of the South and monied interests of the North
e. all of the above
13. Who benefits most from a strong central government? How?
14. In the months preceding Shays’ Rebellion, what were the grievances of western Massachusetts farmers? What were the state government’s responses (both judicial and legislative) to the grievances of these farmers? What were the Boston merchants’ responses to Shays’ resistance?
15. Did Shays’ Rebellion have the salutary effect of “refreshing the tree of liberty”? Explain your response.
16. Explain the difference between Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s attitudes toward popular participation in the decision-making process. If one were to look only at Federalist Paper #10, does Madison agree with Hamilton or Jefferson on this issue?
17. Did the U.S. Constitution define a democratic government? Is a democratic government possible in an economically polarized society?
18. Why did city mechanics in New York support wealthy conservatives in promoting the ratification of the U.S. Constitution? Is it surprising that they did?
19. Many historians argue that the U.S. Constitution creates a neutral, level playing field on which contestants prove their worth (that any inequality in wealth is not due to unfair rules but to unequal abilities). For what reasons does Zinn disagree with this interpretation?
20. Why did Congress pass the Whiskey Tax? How did small farmers who manufactured whiskey respond? What is the difference between the means by which Shays’ Rebellion was defeated and the Whiskey Rebellion was defeated? What is the significance of the answer to the previous question?
21. Draw a map that includes the following: Boston; Springfield; Massachusetts; New York City; New York; Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania; Saratoga; Yorktown; Philadelphia; Hudson River; Proclamation Line of 1763.
It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.
In this invisibility they were something like black slaves (and thus slave women faced a double oppression). The biological uniqueness of women, like skin color and facial characteristics for Negroes, became a basis for treating them as inferiors. It seems that their physical characteristics became a convenience for men, who could use, exploit, and cherish someone who was at the same time servant, sex mate, companion, and bearer-teacher-warden of his children.
Because of that intimacy and long-term connection with children, there was a special patronization, which on occasion, especially in the face of a show of strength, could slip over into treatment as an equal. An oppression so private would turn out hard to uproot.
Earlier societies—in America and elsewhere—in which property was held in common and families were extensive and complicated, with aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers all living together, seemed to treat women more as equals than did the white societies that later overran them, bringing “civilization” and private property.
In the Zuñi tribes of the Southwest, for instance, extended families—large clans—were based on the woman, whose husband came to live with her family. It was assumed that women owned the houses, and the fields belonged to the clans, and the women had equal rights to what was produced. A woman was more secure because she was with her own family, and she could divorce the man when she wanted to, keeping their property.
It would be an exaggeration to say that women were treated equally with men; but they were treated with respect, and the communal nature of the society gave them a more important place. The puberty ceremony of the Sioux was such as to give pride to a young Sioux maiden:
Walk the good road, my daughter, and the buffalo herds wide and dark as cloud shadows moving over the prairie will follow you…. Be dutiful, respectful, gentle and modest, my daughter. And proud walking. If the pride and the virtue of the women are lost, the spring will come but the buffalo trails will turn to grass. Be strong, with the warm, strong heart of the earth. No people goes down until their women are weak and dishonored.…
The conditions under which white settlers
