[Peace-discuss] Oh, Canada...

[Ricky Baldwin]

So where does the legendary Crispus Attucks fit in?  That was earlier in the Boston Massacre, right?

Ricky

"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn

--- On Thu, 9/17/09, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:


From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Oh, Canada...
To: "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
Cc: "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009, 7:23 AM


Other way 'round. The shot "heard round the world" was fired by "embattled
farmers" (note often misunderstood word "embattled") by the Concord bridge,
against the forces of a government that, the farmers feared, wanted to take
their guns away.  (And that's what they did want.)

Earlier in the day (April 19, 1775) there was an exchange of shots on Lexington
Green, and one Prince Estabrook, a member of the Lexington militia, took a round
in the leg, according to contemporary accounts (a broadside printed immediately
after the action) -- so I contend that he was the first man wounded in the
Revolution...

With local militias, he became part of the Continental army (altho' the
Southerner Geo. Washington tried to have Prince and other black soldiers removed
when he took command in Cambridge) and fought through the war, after which he
retired to a farm in Massachusetts.  His application for a pension is in the
National Archives (or so I'm told by the leading historian of these events,
David Hackett Fischer).

"Concord Hymn, Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836"

    BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
      Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
    Here once the embattled farmers stood,
      And fired the shot heard round the world.

    The foe long since in silence slept;
      Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
    And Time the ruined bridge has swept
      Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

    On this green bank, by this soft stream,
      We set to-day a votive stone;
    That memory may their deed redeem,
      When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

    Spirit, that made those heroes dare
      To die, and leave their children free,
    Bid Time and Nature gently spare
      The shaft we raise to them and thee.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82)


John W. wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:02 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
> 
> The history of political migration from the US to Canada is significant for
> both polities -- war opponents in the 1770s*, escaped slaves before the Civil
> War, the farmers you mention here, war opponents in the 1960s. There are
> undoubtedly others who noticed the contrast between theory and practice in
> the Land of the Free... ____ *Including relatives of mine: half the family
> went to Nova Scotia after the unpleasantness at Lexington and Concord (where
> the first man wounded in what came to be called the American Revolution was a
>  member of my family, a slave called Prince Estabrook).
> 
> 
> So Prince Estabrook took the slug from the "shot heard 'round the world?"
> That's extremely interesting, Carl.
> 

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