People's History, Founding Myths, and the American Revolution
Ray Raphael - People's Historian

 

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A History of US, Book 3: From Colonies to Nation
Joy Hakim
Oxford University Press, 2003
Elementary and middle school

Myths Perpetuated:

56-59: “Sam” Adams (not Samuel), a “rabble-rouser” and “agitator,” started groups all on his own. See Founding Myths, chapter 3.

62: Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech. See Founding Myths, chapter 8.

72-73: Paul Revere waited for the signal lanterns. (This is the only recent text to pass on Longfellow’s most blatant distortion.) See Founding Myths, chapter 1.

73: Emerson’s “shot heard round the world” was fired at Lexington. See Founding Myths, chapter 4.

90: “Wait until you see the whites of their eyes.” See Founding Myths, chapter 9.

98-99: John Adams told Jefferson to write Declaration of Independence (repeated three times). See Founding Myths, chapter 6.

100: Lincoln’s distortion of Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence: “Jefferson’s Declaration … has grown even greater with the passage of time.” See Founding Myths, chapter 6.

102: Jefferson as advocate of racial equality. See Founding Myths, chapter 6.

106-107: “Molly Pitcher” was a real person. See Founding Myths, chapter 2.

130-132: Valley Forge: Come spring, the soldiers’ hardships ceased. See Founding Myths, chapter 5.

133: George Rogers Clark as “the Washington of the West.” See Founding Myths, chapter 13.

146: Yorktown marked the end of the Revolutionary War. “David had licked Goliath. A superpower had been defeated by an upstart colony." See Founding Myths, chapter 12.

Critical items neglected, which change our understanding of the Revolution:

The first seizure of political and military authority from the British — Massachusetts, 1774. See Founding Myths, chapter 4.

Over ninety state and local declarations of independence, which set the stage for the congressional declaration. See Founding Myths, chapter 6.

General Sullivan’s genocidal expedition against the Iroquois, the only significant American campaign of 1779. See Founding Myths, chapter 13.

The winter the Continental Army spent at Morristown — far colder than that spent at Valley Forge, and the harshest in 400 years. See Founding Myths, chapter 5.

The global context for the American Revolution — why the war continued after Yorktown. See Founding Myths, chapter 12.

 
 
 
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