The American Revolution from Two Perspectives: A Debate

-- Recorded 23 October 2021 at MHS --
Hybrid in-person / zoom event
PLEASE NOTE - Due to technical problems, only audio was captured of Professors Wood and Holton, so throughout the video, stills have been used instead.
Gordon Wood, Brown University; Woody Holton, University of South Carolina
Moderated by Catherine Allgor, MHS
Gordon Wood and Woody Holton are both distinguished scholars of the American Revolution. But they approach the founding very differently, as you can see from their just-published books. Join them as they debate their conflicting interpretations.
"Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution" by Gordon Wood
Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism-the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions. Gordon Wood illuminates critical events in the nation's founding and discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states' rights.
"Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution" by Woody Holton
Using eyewitness accounts, Liberty Is Sweet explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. Woody Holton looks at the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution, always focusing on marginalized Americans-enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters-and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease.

[@IsaacsonSeth]

Early on the discussion is excellent and fair. It is sad that this discussion completely breaks down, and Dr. Wood is not allowed to even barely speak without constant interruption. Why did the moderator never step in?

[@CC-jl7jz]

Because she agreed with Holton. Holton is lecturing and hectoriing Wood. The man is a disgrace.

[@maxricemusic656]

What the hell is the point of a moderator when she does not moderate. She did a horrible job, Wood deserved equal speaking time.

[@johnkelley5560]

A debate? A serious and incredibly knowledgeable American Revolutionary War period historian for over five decades v an extremely obnoxious, interrupting advocate with the apparent main object of shouting down Wood and intimidating Wood. This moderated did nothing to control the outbursts and intimidation tactics of Holton. After listening to Holton and his bullying haranguing tactics with an 88 year old intellect, I can’t imagine the wrath that his unwitting students may have to endure. Hopefully, there is a Phraedrus like student depicted in Persig’s classic awaiting the likes of Professor Holton. Perhaps he will then learn how a true dialectic argument is imparted by a scholar. In the meantime, let him embarrass himself. Enough said of the above, it is time to read a chapter in Gordon’s latest provocative book, The Purpose of the Past.

[@gordonsheaffer1228]

Woody has a book to sell.

[@salvatorecompoccia530]

Horton felt the need to sing a few bars of "The Way We Were". I knew he was going to be an asshole for the rest of the debate once I heard that.

[@JB-uv4hm]

Boo hoo he’s 88. He was schooled.

[@gordonsheaffer1228]

Holton acted like Morton Downey, not a "scholar."

[@atthemoney]

How was this a debate of history when the guy with a smirk basically accused Gordon Wood of inciting violence against Nikole Hannah-Jones for arguing for historical accuracy in an open letter?

[@abettermind]

If you're standing on a faulty foundation poured from an activist perspective, the best way to win a debate is to not let your opponent speak. Exhibit A: This dumpster fire right here.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

It would be better if you made an actual argument. You have failed to do so. I would encourage you to. But if you cannot you should simply refrain from posting.

[@JB-uv4hm]

Horton’s scholarship hold up. Yours?

[@prussia1557]

My Revolutionary Era Professor sent me here when discussing historiography and how views change and historians argue. He's right.

[@royolson909]

Anyone know the name of the book and author Wood cited that argued that the revolution failed because it didn’t end slavery or bring about equality between the sexes? He said it wasn’t Nash and that he would tell Holton later….?

[@timrosenfield5833]

Professor Holton's performance reminded me of the allegation made that Aaron Burr had practiced his marksmanship before meeting Hamilton for their duel. It seemed to me that he really prepped for his debate with the eminent Wood.

[@Pritchardia1]

Too bad Wood didn't bother preparing. His whining gets old really quickly.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

@@Pritchardia1 Wood quite clearly won this debate, I know you personally agree more with Holton but Holton was not very good at getting his points across here and really floundered. Wood's perspective came away looking stronger IMHO.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@noiamnotjohn3351 this is utter nonsense. Only a deep confirmation bias could convince one that Wood looked good in this performance.

[@salvatorecompoccia530]

Yet Wood still destroyed Holton in the debate. Then again, having the historical facts on your side makes it easier to wina debate. Also, to put it plainly: Holton is full of shit.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@salvatorecompoccia530 You don’t make an argument here. You just make a statement. It is incredibly poorly supported and not convincing.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

I'm not a particularly patriotic person nor do I think events that happened two hundred years ago should be all that important to modern political dialogue, but its clear to me that Wood has the stronger argument here and that Holton is coming at it from a perspective more informed by his modern political ideology than an actual honest investigation into the birth of liberalism in the revolutionary period of 75-89 in the U.S and France. He (Holton) blatantly lies at several segments in this debate & even becomes very sarcastic & aggressive toward Wood over disagreements. Not a good look, Holton's perspective "lost" here, IMO, in the sense that its quite clearly not accurate.

[@stevenhartmann7730]

Holton demonstrates a stark warning of what happens to our sense of reality when empiricism subverts itself to ideology. Scary stuff to see this from a scholar.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

Really is something to see, notice how much he complains and interrupts Wood? He gets loud and emotional because Wood is pretty effortlessly poking holes in many of his historically inaccurate and ridiculous assertions and his only recourse is to yell and sneer. Horton was not convincing at all in this. He doesn't seem to have a true grasp on the period, IMO.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

I can’t believe we are watching the same debate. Ideology? Holton has data: primary source documents. He spends the first part of this debate clearly presenting it and dismantling Wood’s strawman caricature of his position. He only gets “intense” after Wood fails (on purpose?) to grasp the ramifications of the argument Holton is making.

[@stevenhartmann7730]

@@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588You can prop up any thesis cherry picking primary source documents. But what ideology can’t contend with is the more complex context based on larger more extensive sets of primary source material that points in the opposite direction. So Holton has to resort to accusations that Wood is carrying water for the wrong sorts of people. I give Holton credit for abandoning his central claims around the Dunmore Proclamation when faced with the facts Wood presented. But this was what got him all the play in media circles over the last year so I’m surprised he didn’t issue an apology on the spot. The incentive to translocate our current politics into the past is pervasive and exaggerates our biases.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@stevenhartmann7730 I simply cannot agree with your last sentence. It strikes me as a sort of moral relativism. If ethnic cleansing, murder, or theft, or any moral evil is a moral evil then it is always an evil. That is what a rejection of moral relativism demands of me. I cannot say, for instance, that head hunting in South American native populations should be seen as a respectable cultural activity out of some misplaced desire to be impartial. Truth is truth. There were plenty who were opposed to Christopher Columbus’ actions towards the natives, including a priest who accompanied him and wrote about what they saw. These aren’t “new” critiques at all. The abolitionist movement existed. It isn’t like some non existent moral consensus absolved the founders of slavery. We know this because of their own tortured attempts to deal with the moral ramifications and their increasing bitterness in their apologias. I don’t see ideology in Holton here. I see it in Wood. I see a failure to deal with the data. Your assertion that one can spin data anyway based on ideology seems odd. What is more rational? The belief that we should let the primary source documents lead us where they may and that we should not turn off our reasoning, moral and otherwise, while we grapple with the past, or, that we need to put the founders of our country on a pedastal and ignore their faults because of patriotism or nationalism, or because of a failure to invite scholars of color or the perspectives of others to the table?

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@stevenhartmann7730 in short, I think this argument, that Holton is using ideology and is an activist, is entirely a strawman, and perhaps a vicious one. He is making a non ideological argument based on the data that exists while also dealing with the ramifications of the FACT (that has always been true) that black people and native Americans are fully human. I think that this makes his perspective challenging to so many is telling in and of itself.

[@gordonsheaffer1228]

This is beneath Wood. A scholar of equal stature, perhaps Gary Nash(rip), would have been more significant. Holton is attempting to use this "controversy" to sell books, whereas Wood really has nothing to prove.

[@glennfjenkins2702]

Watching this video is very educational on both sides but the question I have is why don’t they show the characters they keep freezing the pictures as if the characters themselves don’t want to be seen live watching this is giving me agony it’s almost as bad as listening to an automated teller but the debate is educational👍

[@MHS1791]

we had technical problems with the video, so only had audio of the speakers, so used still photos to substitute for the video.

[@mitchellfreedman4546]

Woody Holton owes Gordon Wood an apology for what he was doing to Wood, an 88 year old man, at the 40 minute mark and beyond when he four times he misquoted the statement Ms. Hannah-Jones made as "one of the reasons" instead what she actually said: "(O)ne of the PRIMARY reasons...." Holton claimed Wood misquoted her, and it is Holton who did so to frankly defame Wood. It obscures the actual and significant qualification the NYT editor had to make about Ms. Hannah-Jones sweeping conclusion which was the "colonists" primary motivations for the Revolution was to protect slavery as now saying "some" colonists. Holton behaved with an awfulness that struck me as petulant to someone he should have known was not prepared for such a cross examination in that circumstance. So, Woody, I am calling on YOU to apologize to Wood for YOUR misquotation of Ms. Hannah-Jones' original statement, which prompted the five historians' letter to the editor of The NY Times.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

Of course Wood was misquoted by Holton. Men like Holton have no interest in active, genuine and honest historical investigation of the past, they have an interest in creating an ideological narrative that fits their modern conception of politics, and then to protect themselves from accusations of doing just that, they turn around and try to accuse men like Wood (who actually is interested in a real investigation of the period) of doing just that; projection 101. Wood is a historian, Holton is a partisan telling untruths. That's the difference between them.

[@mitchellfreedman4546]

@@noiamnotjohn3351 Check out the latest NYRB where Sean Wilentz goes after Holton's new book.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

An apology? For what? Now Wood is just an “88 year old man.” Wood was happy to get into the debate and mischaracterizd Holton’s position. For the first 40 minutes Holton patiently pointed out the data, made cogent arguments, and constantly referred to areas of agreement, to no avail, despite the strength of his position. At some point Holton had to point out the ramifications of Wood’s actions.

[@mitchellfreedman4546]

@@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588 Not sure what you mean. Answer my point, Dadwillfixit. My point is Woody Holton misread--intentionally--three times the passage from the Hannah-Jones article. He made it appear it was not controversial when it was. That was dishonest. Then, you can explain for all of us how Wood mischaracterized Holton's position.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@mitchellfreedman4546 pretty sure this is obvious. No? I watched the debate. Did you? Wood said that Jones and others argue that slavery was the reason for the revolution. That’s a lie. She said it was one of the reasons. You are acting that the addition of the qualifier “primary” is some sort of weird smoking gun. But I speak and use English, and it isn’t. Saying something is one of the primary reasons (among a number of prime motivators, including anger over the provocation line of 1763 - see the Declaration) for the revoltion, particularly among the southern colonies, is self evidently (for those of us with a mastery of basic English that is) not the same thing as saying it is THE cause. How can you possibly make the argument you are attempting here with a straight face?

[@michaelfeeney9147]

Overall a good and thought provoking debate but woody did interrupt and a bit too much

[@OwenandMario37]

Started off wonderful. Have books by both of these great historians, and learned a lot during their exhanges. But about 3/4 of the way through Dr. Holton flipped the dynamic. He lays in with sarcasm and anger (rarely a good sign during an academic debate) and accuses Dr. Wood of opening the door to intimidation and violence. Dr. Wood barely gets a word in during this repetitions screed that was totally out of character compared to Dr. Holton just 30 minutes prior. It was rude and disrespectful and mean.

[@JB-uv4hm]

Because Holton’s hammer met Wood’s nail. GSW’s comments are being used to censor actual history. Wood’s is naive to the politics of this era and his role.

[@jazzfan7491]

Just wanna mention that the 1619 Project (which I read when it first came out) had what I recall were two very striking claims or statements. One was, as they discuss here, that the American Revolution was fought in order to prevent England from abolishing slavery. I'm hardly an expert in the field (though I majored in history as an undergrad at a fancy university, in the 80s). Personally I found this first claim to be pretty hard to support with the evidence. The second claim I thought was less tendentious and more interesting: that "freedom" had been expanded in the US through the hard work, suffering, and focused organizational skills of Black Americans for decades, arguably hundreds of years. Personally I found that point even more important than point #1, and I still think of it often to this day. The idea was, and is, that the highest American ideals -- of freedom, that all people are created equal -- have been primarily fought for by Black people, and the successes in that arena have been primarily achieved by Black people, for nearly 250 years of our history. That's a very striking way to look at it. In a sense I think you could say that the implicit importance of this 2nd point is that America's great achievements as a society are owing to Black people. That's really something when you think about it.

[@craigb4913]

Stalin said "history is politics applied to the past." Holton and other leftists whole-heartedly agree.

[@elizabeth3143]

Woody Holton was so overbearing, aggressive , disrespectful and rude that it was difficult to watch. He barely allowed Dr. Wood to speak and the moderator was silent while this was going on. This is not worthy of being called a debate.

[@liedersanger1]

Holton scores or tries to score so many small points the bigger disagreement is lost. Geesh.

[@salvatorecompoccia530]

That's what bullshit artists do when they are losing an argument. The problem is this guy is a noted historian. yet for Horton, his modern day activism trumps historical scholarship.

[@jaymills1720]

This is a proxy fight over class. Gordon refers to Virginian elite and woody references the commoner.

[@TroyBrownTV]

No, they are clearly talking about hWite Supremacy.

[@JB-uv4hm]

Wood writes from the perspective of the elite. He’s old school in his approach.

[@lydiaanelson8416]

In fairness The President did ask about the 1619 project An historian should understand the facts without notes especially if the expert wrote a critical letter

[@emagnuson88]

They agreed to discuss the history in the 1619 Project, not current events.

[@Jeff-wj4wy]

To blame Woods for extremists attacking Jones is wrong. He's disputing the accuracy of the project. That's well within his rights as a historian. Woody is defending her revisions too which is weak. Indeed the editor didn't issue an apology either nor will they due to arrogance most likely given that it was the NYTs magazine.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

Holton is right that if Wood is going to demand an apology for mistakes, he should be consistent and apologize for his own.

[@keeppounding1331]

@@beyondaboundary6034 Writing a letter of criticism is not "beyond the pale" as Holton recited over and over. As if writing a letter critiquing a non-historians view of history is out of order. Holton is more a partisan than a historian. His history is conflated, reworded, and cherry picked and possibly the most narrow minded I have heard.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@keeppounding1331 He never said that writing a letter of criticism is "beyond the pale." That's a blatant mischaracterization of what he said.

[@keeppounding1331]

​@@beyondaboundary6034 Are you saying he didn't repeatedly use the "phrase beyond the pale"? Because he did, repeatedly. He was very upset about the critique letter and went on to accuse Wood : "We used to call it an 18th century outlaw rate where you put an outlaw rate on somebody. Anyone can kill them." Holden clearly is more a partisan than a historian. Did you even watch it?

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@keeppounding1331 I didn't say he didn't use the phrase. I said he didn't say writing a letter of criticism is beyond the pale. He was clearly talking about how the likes of Cotton and DeSantis are using the letter Wood signed to push their version of cancel culture, not saying letters of criticism are somehow off limits.

[@keeppounding1331]

Holton: "Jefferson wrote in December of 1780 about how are we going to exterminate the Indians in order to create an empire of liberty." There are many falsehoods in this one statement. First some context. The letter Woody Holton is referring to was written DURING the revolutionary war to George Rogers Clark who was fighting in the Illinois campaign where Indian tribes had aligned themselves with the British and had "harrassed us with eternal hostilities, and whom experience has shewn to be incapable of reconciliation" according to the letter. A couple points: a)The letter makes no mention of the "empire of liberty" as Holton claims. This part is FALSE on its FACE. I'm not sure how you make the statement Holton made with a straight face. b)It doesn't say "we are going to exterminate" all the Indians to make way for expansion either, as Holton knowingly implies. The letter is giving Clark 2 choices: Head to Detroit or fight the the British aligned Indian forces. Jefferson did however, use the term "extermination". It would be logical to assume he was referring to these specific Indian warriors, since it was a time of war and Jefferson uses the term "these". Additionally it could be argued that Jefferson clarifies what extermination means afterward stating "or removal beyond the Illinois river." Jefferson wasn't advocating genocide as a means to build an empire as Holton states. Read the letter yourself here and see if you reach the same conclusion, that Jefferson is genocidal, power hungry maniac, as Holton implies or someone giving options to a military leader in a time of war : founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-03-02-0289

[@beyondaboundary6034]

Can you give a time stamp for that exact quote from Holton? He did show that Wood made a false claim about Jefferson.

[@keeppounding1331]

@@beyondaboundary6034 11:22

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@keeppounding1331 @Keep Pounding I looked it up, and you clearly misrepresent the letter and misquote Holton. Holton is obviously referring to Jefferson's letter to George Clark on December 25, 1780, in which Jefferson explicitly calls for an "empire of liberty." You also clearly misquoted Holton. In your comment, you place the following statement in quotation marks and attribute it to Holton: "Jefferson wrote in December of 1780 about how are we going to exterminate the Indians in order to create an empire of liberty." Nonsense. At the timestamp you provided, Holton said: "You know, but not everybody watching knows, that you got that title [Empire of Liberty] from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in December of 1780 about how are we going to exterminate the Indians." Notice he doesn't say that Jefferson "wrote" the words "exterminate" and "empire of liberty" in the same letter. Jefferson explicitly endorsed the "extermination" of specific Native American tribes in a letter to Clark in January 1780, and in a December 1780 letter to the same man, he called for making an Empire of Liberty that would include the lands of tribes whose "extermination" he supported that January. Holton is obviously making an argument that the empire of liberty was based on an exterminationist policy that cleared land for white settlement, not claiming Jefferson used both exact phrases in the same letter, as you falsely imply with your incorrect quote. Also, Wood absurdly denies that Jefferson supported a policy of extermination toward Native Americans, when he explicitly did. To summarize, you misquote Holton, and the December 25 letter to Clark does in fact use the phrase "empire of liberty."

[@keeppounding1331]

​@@beyondaboundary6034 My quote is spot on. You cut off his quote INTENTIONALLY and anybody can go to 11:17 and hear it. Holton. Clearly. Said it. "Not everybody watching knows that you got that title from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote in December of 1780 about how are we going to exterminate the Indians IN ORDER TO CREATE AN EMPIRE OF LIBERTY." Emphasis added. Jefferson said no such thing as I explained in my initial post. I am interested in the letter that you are referring to. Link please.

[@lorriehinton1616]

Wow. It’s disingenuous and inflammatory statements like this that stick...and my hunch was that he knew that. Most people won’t take the time to confirm.

[@TroyBrownTV]

I was having this exact same debate with somebody yesterday. Is crazy that this was posted only five days ago. The more i study the history of the world The more the American war for independence sounds like a counter Revolution

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

Except it wasn't. A counter-revolution is a reaction to an ongoing revolution; there was no ongoing revolution prior to the Patriots creating one. The Patriots were the revolutionary force, in the sense that they were fighting for a broader sort of liberalism as opposed to what existed in the U.K. Even the ultra-left, Marx and Lenin, both agreed with this interpretation of the American revolutionaries being a revolutionary faction. This whole "counter-revolution" non-sense is a weird bit of historical denialism and revisionism that has no connection with reality.

[@TroyBrownTV]

@@noiamnotjohn3351 the slaves constantly attempting to free themselves was the ongoing revolution. The so called patriots were not revolutionaries originally. they sought reconciliation with Britain. It wasn’t until lord dunmore made a pathway to freedom available to the slaves that the Americans declared independence.

[@TroyBrownTV]

@@noiamnotjohn3351 and Thomas Jefferson said so in the original Declaration of Independence. But the other framers of the US government thought it was too damning to admit that they were only forming The United States in order to preserve slavery. So they edited it out. But a number of them expressed the same sentiments verbally and in some of their other writings

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

@@TroyBrownTV The notion that the American framers declared independence over the preservation of slavery is so hilariously delusional and historically inaccurate that a lie on such a scale doesn't even really deserve a response or recognition in any form. The British were not, at that period, a force acting against slavery in the New World. In fact, the British did not abolish slavery in their over-seas Caribbean American colonies UNTIL 1833. Lord Dunmore was a SLAVE OWNER HIMSELF. The American War of Independence had nothing to do with abolitionism on either side, it was a war over the establishment of liberal democracy started via the Coercive Acts & British intransigence toward colonial parliaments. Had the Americans lost to the British, slavery would still have existed in North America well into the 1800s, not the least of which because some of the most extreme Loyalists were wealthy southern slave owners.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

@@TroyBrownTV No he did not. This is where you reveal you're a partisan fraud and charlatan, not interested in historical truth but in spreading a lie and misinformation. In the interest of posterity, for those who want actual knowledge, Jefferson wrote an ANTI-SLAVERY clause into the original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Not a pro-slavery one. He claimed it was an institution inherited by the colonials from the King & Royal African Company in London. Hypocritical on his part? Sure, but still true, he never once wrote in defense of the institution of slavery. Next time you want to make an argument about a historical event, at least actually have the minimal amount of accurate knowledge about said event; all you're doing here is spreading a lie because you prefer historical untruth as it fits your modern political ideology better than historical truth. You're no better or different than a Neo-Confederate Lost Causer.

[@engadvantage]

Wow, woody is definitely an activist historian, he's hard to listen to with all of the pandering to leftist talking points.

[@mindaphid]

Holton may have some points. I'm not qualified to comment. However, his analogies are really nasty. Likening criticism of historical accuracy to chasing someone out of an Afghanistan airforce base to be killed by the Taliban?

[@gloriasesso2184]

I agree with Keith. Woody Holton is rude and inaccurate. Gordon Wood is a professional, a gentleman and a great historian. The 1619 Project was bad history. Jones did not change the narrative,. The NY Times did because of the outrage

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@gloriasesso2184 Rude or not, he was more accurate than Wood in multiple instances during this debate. Personally I care more about historians being factually correct than being polite.

[@mindaphid]

@@beyondaboundary6034 the Taliban doesn’t care much for polite disagreement either

[@U47ik8jKT]

@@beyondaboundary6034 Holton was not factually correct in saying Jefferson called for the extermination of Indians [leaving the impression it was all Indians on the continent] in his 1780 letter. He called for the exterminiation (as one option) of particular Indians we were at war with in the Detroit area.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

@@beyondaboundary6034 He was not more accurate. In fact, he blatantly misquoted and misrepresented Wood and did the same with his "historical evidence" vis a vis Jefferson. He was not factually correct and he knows it; Holton is a partisan trying to fit the evidence into his narrative, not a historian letting the evidence speak on its own. His partisan beliefs create actively inaccurate, bad historiography, just like Jones in her work of untruth and blatant lies.

[@tomf6832]

How could Wood not think 1619 project would be discussed? It’s the whole impetus of the rift between these two. Holton had him dead to rights and Wood was squirming.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

This is definitely my take too.

[@Westernman1415]

Because the 1619 project was written by someone who had no background in history

[@beyondaboundary6034]

Wood's denial that Jefferson had exterminationist views toward Native Americans was weak. Holton made him look foolish by citing Jefferson's own explicit language. He also shows that Wood misquoted Jefferson to make him sound more pro-emancipation than he was.

[@U47ik8jKT]

Holton was not factually correct in saying Jefferson called for the extermination of Indians [leaving the impression it was all Indians on the continent] in his 1780 letter. He called for the exterminiation (as one option) of particular Indians we were at war with in the Detroit area.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@U47ik8jKT Supporting the extermination of "the Shawanese, Mingoes, Munsies, and the nearer Wiandots" as Jefferson put it, was calling for killing off entire Native American groups, just not all Native Americans. Holton didn't say Jefferson said "all." Maybe Holton should have said "some Indians," but Wood's claim that Jefferson never supported extermination is clearly contradicted by the evidence. There is no denying that supporting wiping out entire tribes (by definition including men, women, and children) is genocidal.

[@U47ik8jKT]

@@beyondaboundary6034 These were a band of Native Americans we were at war with, so "extermination" is the correct terminology for Jefferson's correspondence. There was no genocide. War was conducted in the same manner that the Native populations used against each other prior to Europeans coming upon the continent. Hyperbolic language has no place in historical accuracy.

[@beyondaboundary6034]

@@U47ik8jKT 1) Calling for the extermination of entire tribes was genocidal in any reasonable definition of the term. Being at war doesn't negate the evil of calling for entire groups to be wiped out including women and children. 2) It was not just rhetoric. White settlers and government officials repeatedly practiced forced removal and mass killings of Native tribes in the Great Lakes region, as in other regions, before and after independence from Great Britain, and repeatedly used the rhetoric of "extirpation" and "extermination" between the 1750s and 1810s (genocide would not be coined until 1943, but who can deny the phenomenon predated the word?); 3) Jefferson himself used genocidal rhetoric long after 1780, as when he wrote to Michigan Territorial Governor William Hull in 1807, "if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi,” and added that if Indians go to war, “they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them." This is documented in dozens of books, with a good recent source being Jeffrey Ostler, Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas (Yale University Press, 2019).

[@U47ik8jKT]

@@beyondaboundary6034 The behavior is no different than the way native cultures behaved toward one another prior to European settlers. What happened to the Mayan civilization?...and a number of others on this continent in the millena prior. Where is Clovis Man?

[@TroyBrownTV]

@36:30 black people are participating in society in a way that they never have before? How? Black Americans built the society. #Reparations

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

This is just one of many statements that seem to reveal Wood’s implicit biases.

[@TroyBrownTV]

@@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588 he has an implicit hwite Supremacist bias. Fredrick Douglass was the most photographed man of the 1800s. He thinks ADOS just started being in photos. He says Being on magazine covers makes us just like hwite people in America. He doesn’t mention who owns the magazine, The printing company, The photo company, the companies that advertise in the magazine, The retailer that sells the magazine, The distribution company, etc. All of that is owned by hWite people, I’m sure. HWite people put 20 something year old black millionaires enriched by hWite capital in hwite owned media, And then tells the lie that a freak 7 foot 280 pound high school athlete like Lebron is representative of all of the rest of us, And that we are doing well because he is doing well. But we don’t play for the lakers, only he does.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@TroyBrownTV these are absolutely fair comments. I think what blinds people is class. Race is incredibly important, but white people who grew up around people of color, the data shows, are less likely to fall into these errors of faulty reasoning. I don’t buy into a “privilege” paradigm really. I think black people especially have had to dealt with forms of economic warfare being waged on them though, and that has clear ramifications across generations. I also think reparations would enrich the black community sure, and this would help the whole country, so I absolutely support that. But that’s a side argument. I agree that, in the way we use the term today, Wood’s position tends to prop up white supremacy. That term is fraught for white readers, who see that and think people in hoods, and who simply cannot grok that there are racist systems in the US that need reforming. It is so odd to me that any of this is controversial. But it is.

[@tap_water872]

HOLTON FTW! Its about time the history of black Americans was told ACCURATELY.

[@GeneTakovic8]

Cap

[@gordonsheaffer1228]

Holton sells a few more books to impressionable undergrads- total winning! (eye roll)

[@CC-jl7jz]

Yes and let's not forget the part that free blacks and Indians owned slaves and Africans sold their own people into slavery. There are still millions of slaves today who are enslaved primarily in Africa.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

Wood is very disappointing here. Holton seems far less “ideological” in that he is driven by actual data: he has far more primary source documents at his disposal and his arguments are more rigorous. Wood seems political, and is intent on strawmanning the scholars to come up after him. Holton bends over backwards for the first part of the debate, pointing out areas of agreement while using copious sources to back up his claims, while Wood is on the attack from the start. Wood is threatened by scholars who understand that race and class matter. It’s sad. As someone who was deeply influenced by Wood (having read TROTAR in graduate school) I am walking away disappointed in him.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

Shouldn’t scholars be committed to leading where the data takes them. Why does Wood seem threatened by data? It’s like watching a poor scientist dealing with data that contradicts his hypothesis. I never thought of Wood as having poor habits like that. Till now.

[@U47ik8jKT]

@@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588 Data like small pox blankets? When you misrepresent and misinterpret data and falsify the presentation of facts you serve neither the interests of human decency or moral honesty. What is TRUTH?

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@U47ik8jKT the truth my racist interlocutor is that Jeffrey Amherst engaged in germ warfare in an attempt to commit genocide. You defend him out of some sick repugnant tribalism that is beneath human contempt.

[@U47ik8jKT]

@@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588 Once again, your opinions without facts [Dad has still not fixed it.]. I will repeat for the benefit of others who read comments and may have skipped our previous comments. "As detestable as Amherst's actions were, there is no evidence that it was the small pox blankets, a poor conveyor for transmitting small pox, was the culprit. It is much more likely that small pox was transmitted as an airborne contact between infected individuals coming into contact. It is even possible that infected Indians could have been the spreader of the small pox, because there is evidence that small pox was present in the community before the Amherst incident. My suggestion to you is that you read Paul Kelton's take on this as well as Elizabeth Fenn or Philip Ranlet. Your research is quite lacking in rigor to meet academic standards. Decency and morality aside, I do have standards for accuracy in reporting events before I become accusatory. Once again, What is TRUTH?" I will refer anyone who is interested in the subject to read Paul Kelton (you can do a search on C-SPAN's site for his presentation), Elizabeth Fenn, and Philip Ranlet. I believe the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Frederick Maryland has researched this subject, specifically about the Fort Pitt incident, and about the transmission of small pox by clothing versus airborne contact. If you go to the Wikipedia page on this incident there are many references given that refute your argument that small pox blankets would be a transmitter of the disease. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt. So once again I say as detestable as Amherst's actions were, regardless of his intent, or the intent of anybody else using small pox blankets, this is not the cause for the decimation of the Native American population on the whole (North, South, and Central) continent. The "genocide", a 20th Century term that gets backdated in history, of our Native American population in North America occurred over a three hundred year period (approximately 1600 to 1900), not within ten or twenty years, or one or two years, as most genocides, with a definition of "nation" or "ethnic group" being defined without specificity for the various Native American groupings. The only human contempt I notice is your diatribe in dealing with facts and truth, which only exhibits your lack of human decency or moral honesty.

[@dadwillfixitdadwillfixit8588]

@@U47ik8jKT Let me make your immoral post plain. It OBVIOUSLY doesn’t matter (to the moral and good) that Amherst’s blankets (may have) failed. What matters is that he tried. How dare you stoop this low? On what planet does a sane person who is not a moral relativist and has a background in morality and ethics and philosophy let the would be committer of genocide off the hook simply because he failed? I don’t know what’s worse. Your clear lack of moral competence or your inability to use basic reason or adhere to basic rules of moral conduct. Your post is BENEATH contempt. Why? Because it doesn’t matter that Amherst may have failed. It matters that he tried.