A People's History of the United States: Persons of Mean and Vile Condition (3)

CHAPTER 3: PERSONS OF MEAN AND VILE CONDITION

Bacon's Rebellion

- In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded & 100 years before it supplies leadership for the American Revolution the colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen joined by slaves and servants, so threatening the governor fled the burning capital of Jamestown and England sent 1000 soldiers, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists.

- Nathaniel Bacon: atheist, melancholy, laws + taxes = oppression.

- The Royal Commission report said of him:

"He seduced the Vulgar and most ignorant people to believe (two thirds of each county being of that Sort) Soc that their whole hearts and hopes were set now upon Bacon. Next he charges the Governour as negligent and wicked, treacherous and incapable, the Lawes and Taxes as unjust and oppressive and cryes up absolute necessity of redress."

- Whites who had been ignored when huge land grants around Jamestown were given away had gone west to find land, and there they encountered Indians.

- They became resentful towards colony's gov in Jamestown for pushing them into Indian territory and then seeming indecisive in fighting Indians.

.'. Bacon's Rebellion = anti-Indian AND anti-aristocrat

- Governor = William Berkeley

- Gov = desperate to suppress rebellion because

1. Divide indians

2. Show Virginians not to rebel

- In 1676 the economy was bad.

- Berkeley wrote that 6/7 of Virginia was poor.

- Bacon came from the upper class. He was enthusiastic about killing Indians. Became a symbol of defiane. Voted in to the House of Burgesses in 1676.

* Aside: Paman Key Indians

- When Bacon insisted on armed detachments outside official control, Berkeley had him captured, whereupon 2000 Virginians marched into Jamestown in support of Bacon.

- Berkeley let him go and Bacon gathered a militia and began raiding Indians.

- Bacon got sick & died in the fall at 29.

- Rebellion shortlined afterwards.

- A ship with 30 guns disarmed the rebel forces.

- 23 rebel leaders were hanged.

- Oppression in Virginia ~ Indians plundered by White Frontiersmen who were taxed by Jamestown Elite, the entire colony was exploited by England.

- A member of the Governor's Council said that Bacon's Rebellion started over Indian Policy but got so much support because of the People's desire for leveling --> equalizing the wealth.

***

- Servants who joined the rebellion were oft part of a large underclass of whites from European cities that wanted to be rid of them.

- In England, capitalism & enclosing of land in the 1500s and 1600s filled cities with poverty. Elizabethan Reign had no sympathy for vagrants and would punish beggars.

- Poor people wanting to go to America became commodities for merchants, captains, etc.

- They signed contracts with masters in exchange for importation. Voyage to the USA -> lamentable conditions.

- Servants -> abused, raped, whipped.

* Aside: Virginia House of Burgesses , born in 1619, was the 1st representative assembly in the USA. Also the year of the 1st importation of black slaves.

- Fear of servant rebellion existed but no large-scale conspiracies succeeded. Escape was easier & more common.

- More than half of the colonists who came to NA in colonial period = servants. Mostly English in 17th century, Irish + German 18th century.

- More and more slaves replaced them but in 1755 10% of Maryland was made up of white servants.

- 8 barons owned 40% of the colony's land

- Class lines hardened throughout colonial period

- Fundamental Constitutions written in the 1660s by John Locke --> philosophical father of Founding Fathers & the American system

* Class Struggle * Colonial America --> VERY rich and very poor

- Ostentatious democracy

- No servants in jury and you needed property to vote

- Town meetings led by merchant aristocrats

- In NY, under Gov. Ben Fletcher, 3/4 of the land belonged to 30 people.

- Colonies grew fast in the 1700s (Irish, Germans, slaves)

- Black slaves --> 21% of the pop in 1770

- Still the rich take everything

- Refer to p49, para 5 for stats

- Cities built poorhouses in the 1730s

- Contending classes often obscured by history by focus on England and the revolution. America was not born free.

-1630s - 1750s, onwards..

- free white workers also faced their ordeals. Some rebelled against working conditions or gov. control of the fees they charged.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/

History of Rhetoric

http://jinnan.com/2009/10/19/a-sophisticated-education/

The earliest mention of oratorical skill occurs in Homer's Iliad, where heroes like Achilles,Hektor, and Odysseus were honored for their ability to advise and exhort their peers and followers (the Laos or army) in wise and appropriate action.

With the rise of the democratic polis (city states), speaking skill was adapted to the needs of the public and political life of cities in Ancient Greece, much of which revolved around the use oforatory as the medium through which political and judicial decisions were made

, and through which philosophical ideas were developed and disseminated.

In Classical times, many of the great thinkers and political leaders performed their works before an audience, usually in the context of a competition or contest for fame, political influence, and cultural capital; in fact, many of them are known only through the texts that their students, followers, or detractors wrote down. As has already been noted, rhetor was the Greek term fororator: A rhetor was a citizen who regularly addressed juries and political assemblies and who was thus understood to have gained some knowledge about public speaking in the process, though in general facility with language was often referred to as logôn techne, "skill with arguments" or "verbal artistry."

Rhetoric thus evolved as an important ART.

Today the term rhetoric can be used at times to refer only to the form of argumentation, as a means of obscuring the truth. Classical philosophers believed the contrary: the skilled use of rhetoric was essential to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying arguments.

The Sophists

Organized thought about public speaking began in Ancient Greece. Empedocles (d. ca. 444 BC) => theories on human knowledge would provide a basis for many future rhetoricians. The first written manual is attributed to Corax and his pupil Tisias. Their work, as well as that of many of the early rhetoricians, grew out of the courts of law; Tisias, for example, is believed to have written judicial speeches that others delivered in the courts. Teaching in oratory was popularized in the 5th century BC by itinerant teachers known as sophists, the best known of whom were Protagoras (c.481-420 BC), Gorgias(c.483-376 BC), and Isocrates (436-338 BC). The Sophists were a disparate group who travelled from city to city, teaching in public places to attract students and offer them an education.

The School of Athens by Raphael

Their central focus was on logos/discourse. They defined parts of speech, analyzed poetry, parsed close synonyms, invented argumentation strategies, and debated the nature of reality. They claimed to better their students/teach them virtue.

They thus claimed that human "excellence" was an art. They were among the first humanists!

They were also among the first agnostics - they questioned the received wisdom about the gods and the Greek culture.

They argued even further that morality or immorality of any action could not be judged outside of the cultural context within which it occurred. The well-known phrase, "Man is the measure of all things" arises from this belief.

One of their most famous, and infamous, doctrines has to do with probability and counter arguments. They taught that every argument could be countered with an opposing argument, that an argument's effectiveness derived from how "likely" it appeared to the audience (its probability of seeming true), and that any probability argument could be countered with an inverted probability argument. Thus, if it seemed likely that a strong, poor man were guilty of robbing a rich, weak man, the strong poor man could argue, on the contrary, that this very likelihood (that he would be a suspect) makes it unlikely that he committed the crime, since he would most likely be apprehended for the crime. They also taught and were known for their ability to make the weaker (or worse) argument the stronger (or better). Aristophanes famously parodies the clever inversions that sophists were known for in his play The Clouds.

The word "sophistry" developed strong negative connotations in ancient Greece that continue today, but in ancient Greece sophists were nevertheless popular and well-paid professionals, widely respected for their abilities but also widely criticized for their excesses.