{"id":4929,"date":"2020-07-02T14:51:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T18:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?p=4929"},"modified":"2024-12-21T12:07:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T17:07:51","slug":"pulling-down-statues-its-a-tradition-that-dates-back-to-u-s-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/pulling-down-statues-its-a-tradition-that-dates-back-to-u-s-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulling down statues? It\u2019s a tradition that dates back to U.S. independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enthusiasm for the American Revolution led colonists to burn, disfigure, and deface any symbol of Britain and its hated king.<\/h2>\n
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King George III plunges from his plinth in this romanticized version of the July 9, 1776 event in New York City, watched by Native Americans. The actual statue featured the monarch in Roman garb, and Africans Americans may have assisted in its spontaneous destruction. COURTESY OF NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY<\/p><\/div>\n

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Fireworks, bands, and cookouts are essential ingredients of any Fourth of July celebration. What\u2019s usually not on the menu is toppling statues, ripping down signs, or burning portraits. But in the days following the new nation\u2019s declaration of independence, Americans went on a frenzy of destruction that makes\u00a0today\u2019s attacks<\/a>\u00a0on Confederate and other symbols of white supremacy pale by comparison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The most dramatic act took place in New York City on July 9, 1776. Early that evening, General George Washington and his troops, along with hundreds of citizens, crowded into what is now City Hall Park to hear a reading of the document that had just arrived from Philadelphia. The enthusiastic throng then headed for Broadway and the two-ton equestrian statue of King George III on Bowling Green.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This was the same route protestors took in 1765 when New Yorkers demonstrated against the Stamp Act taxing a host of goods. The following year, the colony\u2019s assembly commissioned the statue in recognition of the king\u2019s support in repealing the despised legislation. Modeled on the classical equestrian sculpture of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, it arrived from London in 1770 and was erected with great pomp. When John Adams paid his first visit to New York in 1774, he wrote to his wife Abigail that the king\u2019s statue was \u201cvery large, of solid lead, gilded with gold, standing on a pedestal of marble very high.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two years later, fervent New Yorkers, with the help of Washington\u2019s soldiers, quickly pulled it from its plinth and broke it into pieces. Much of the lead was shipped to Connecticut and melted down to make 42,008 bullets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[The statue] has been pulled down to make musket ball of, so that his troops will probably have melted Majesty fired at them.<\/div>\n
EBENEZER HAZARD,\u00a0<\/span>U.S. POSTMASTER<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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U.S. Postmaster Ebenezer Hazard wrote that the statue \u201chas been pulled down to make musket ball of, so that his troops will probably have melted Majesty fired at them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A British officer who had the decapitated head rescued from a tavern before it reached the furnace noted that the nose was severed, the laurels were awry, and a musket ball was lodged \u201cpart of the way through his head.\u201d He had it shipped back to London \u201cto convince them at home of the infamous disposition of the ungrateful people of this distressed country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Washington wrote that while he didn\u2019t doubt the zeal of those who mutilated the statue, he decried what had \u201cso much the appearance of a riot, and want of order.\u201d He told his soldiers to steer clear of such incidents in the future. (Washington also fought an epidemic during the American Revolution.<\/i><\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And the destruction was just beginning. The British coat of arms in New York\u2019s courthouse was destroyed, a stone pediment with the same image was smashed, and the king\u2019s portrait in the council chamber was \u201cthrown out, broken, torn to pieces, and burnt, of all which the people testified their approbation by repeated huzzas.\u201d Churches were not exempt. A naval ensign wrote that clergy were given \u201cthe honor of taking down\u201d the royal coat of arms. If they refused, \u201cthe people are allowed to proceed in the like manner.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When the British regained control of New York in August, the royal governor reported that \u201cevery vestige of royalty, as far as has been in the power of the rebels, has been done away with.\u201d Even the crowns decorating the wrought-iron fence surrounding the king\u2019s likeness were ripped out.<\/p>\n

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Statues and royal portraits were relatively rare items in the colonies, however, so \u201crevolutionaries eliminated scraps of paper, tokens, anything signaling royal authority,\u201d says Brendan McConville, a Boston University historian. \u201cCrowds attacked tavern signs with the king\u2019s arms or crowns on them. Even coins bearing the king\u2019s likeness were refused or devalued.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After the declaration was first read from the State House in Boston on July 18, \u201cthe cry from the balcony was \u2018God save our American States\u2019 and then three cheers which rent the air,\u201d wrote Abigail Adams, an eyewitness to the event. That evening, according to another patriot, \u201cthe king\u2019s arms, and every sign with any resemblance of it. . .together with every sign that belonged to a Tory, was taken down, and made a general conflagration of in King Street.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Four days later in Worcester, Massachusetts, the paramilitary group called the Sons of Freedom removed the king\u2019s coat of arms from the courthouse and burned it in the street. The ringleaders then went to celebrate \u201cthe commencement of the happy era\u201d in a pub called the King\u2019s Arms. But first they took down the offending sign, \u201cwhich was cheerfully complied with by the innkeeper.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Philadelphia, the king\u2019s coat of arms in the courthouse was paraded through the streets and then cast into a bonfire to the delight of the assembled citizens. Portraits of the king and of members of the royal family in New Hampshire and Delaware were defaced. After the declaration was read in Savannah, Georgia, on August 10, the rebels held a mock funeral and buried an effigy of George III. (Here’s what archaeologists are learning from a colonial toilet.<\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Destroying these symbols was \u201cnot wholly or principally an act of erasure,\u201d argues University of Delaware art historian Wendy Bellion. The Americans were, in fact, following an old English tradition. A year after England\u2019s King Charles I lost his actual head in 1649, Parliament ordered his statue at the Exchange in London \u201cto be demolished, by having the head taken off, and the scepter [taken] out of his hand.\u201d In 1689, Protestant soldiers in Newcastle removed a statue of Catholic King James II and dragged it through the streets before tossing it in the river.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The events of July 9, 1776, recently prompted a meme featuring an image of the British monarch and his horse falling to the ground. \u201cAfter hearing a reading of the newly adopted Declaration of Independence, New Yorkers \u2018Destroy History\u2019 by toppling a statue of King George III,\u201d the tongue-in-cheek caption read. \u201cAnd that’s why no one knows who won the American Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As 18th-century New Yorkers would learn, however, it proved relatively easy to tear down a symbol of oppression, but it took years of struggle to make that era\u2019s entrenched authority reflect the will of the people. \u201cThey could execute the tyrant\u2019s symbol in their towns and villages,\u201d says McConville. \u201cEnding the monarchy within each of them proved more difficult.\u201d The ongoing effort to end racism\u2014and live up to the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence\u2014doubtless will prove just as challenging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enthusiasm for the American Revolution led colonists to burn, disfigure, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-geographic"],"yoast_head":"\nPulling down statues? It\u2019s a tradition that dates back to U.S. independence • Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Enthusiasm for the American Revolution led colonists to burn, disfigure, and deface any symbol of Britain and its hated king. 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