Tag: American History Page 1 of 4

I spend a lot of time studying the period of American history from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, particularly the events and the people surrounding the American Revolution. One of the things I like to do is study portraits of the main characters to try to get a sense of what they may have been like. When you examine portraits from that period, you’ll notice something peculiar: people are constantly pointing at things. I couldn’t help but wonder: “What’s that all about? “

English aristocrats extend their fingers toward their estates, American founding fathers gesture toward constitutional documents, and wealthy merchants direct our attention to symbols of their success. This wasn’t accidental theatrical posing—it was a sophisticated visual language where hand gestures functioned as a kind of shorthand, acting as indicators of the subject’s station, qualities and character.

The pointing gesture had become such a convention by the late 18th century that it almost seemed compulsory. But unlike today’s selfie poses, these carefully orchestrated hand positions required subjects to hold them for hours while painters worked. So why would anyone endure such discomfort just to point at seemingly empty space or distant objects?

Where They Were Pointing—And Why It Mattered

The objects of these pointing gestures reveal what late 18th-century society considered worth advertising. In Gainsborough’s painting of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Andrews, the landscape performs a much more important role than mere background—it depicts the Andrews’ estate and is intended to represent their wealth and status. Mr. Andrews doesn’t just stand near his property; he actively directs the viewer’s attention to it, essentially saying “Look at what I own.”

This was particularly important in England, where portraits became public records of status and position during the 18th century, and images of opulently attired figures were a means to affirm the authority of important individuals. Property ownership defined social standing in ways modern Americans might find difficult to fully appreciate. Your land wasn’t just where you lived—it was your identity, your political power, and your legacy rolled into one.

Sometimes the gesture proved unintentionally ironic. In his 1768 portrait, General Thomas Gage points to imagined military success—an outcome history would later deny him.

American portraiture developed its own flavor of pointing symbolism, though it borrowed heavily from English conventions. After the Revolution, the United States looked for a new identity and history, a capacity for visual communication aimed at all citizens. American subjects often pointed toward documents, books, or symbols of their professional achievements rather than ancestral estates they didn’t possess. A lawyer might gesture toward law books, a scientist toward instruments, a founding father toward constitutional documents. The gesture said, “This is what I’ve accomplished” rather than “This is what I inherited.”

The Multiple Meanings of a Pointed Finger

The act of pointing served several simultaneous purposes in these portraits, which made it remarkably efficient for painters and patrons working within the constraints of canvas and paint. First, it created visual movement and prevented the deadly sin of portrait painting: making your subject look like a corpse propped up in fancy clothes. Long fingers were a sign of elegance and beauty, which signified culture, and hence intelligence, wealth and benevolence in the convention of these pictures.

Second, the gesture connected the subject to their accomplishments and possessions without requiring them all to fit within the frame. A merchant pointing toward a distant ship implied maritime trade; a landowner gesturing toward rolling fields suggested vast holdings beyond what any canvas could contain. The pointed finger became a visual ellipsis, suggesting “and more besides.”

Third, pointing engaged viewers in a way static poses couldn’t. When Thomas Gainsborough’s subjects point at their estates, or when artist Angelica Kauffman depicts herself with art personified pointing the way forward, they’re creating a relationship with anyone looking at the painting. The gesture says, “Let me show you something,” turning passive viewing into a guided tour.

The Curious Case of Pointing at Nothing

Here’s where things get genuinely weird: many portrait subjects from this period appear to be pointing at absolutely nothing of consequence. There’s an abundance of important people pointing at nothing, which most likely has meaning, but it’s impossible to know what. King James II appears in multiple portraits pointing off-canvas at no identifiable object. English courtesans and French aristocrats extend elegant fingers toward empty space. What gives?

Several theories attempt to explain this phenomenon. Some art historians argue these portraits once formed diptychs or larger compositions where the pointing made sense in context. Others suggest the gesture had become so conventionalized that it persisted even without specific referents—it simply meant “I am important enough to be painted pointing at things.” Perhaps the ambiguity was intentional. It invited the viewer to imagine: the future, moral principles, destiny, or duty. This wasn’t symbolism in the modern sense—it was rhetorical suggestion.

Still others propose that the elegant display of hands was itself the point. During the Renaissance and into the 18th century, hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body, and representation of the position of the hands became a decorative element that was almost as important as the face. Showing refined, aristocratic hands in graceful poses demonstrated genteel breeding regardless of where they pointed.

The Anglo-American Divergence

American portraits, by contrast, celebrated individual achievement in a republic supposedly free from hereditary privilege. In the New World, portraits were created by the people, the ordinary settlers and citizens of the developing countries, and portraits began to make a move from a false pretense to almost exact likeness in the 1730s. John Singleton Copley’s American subjects pointed toward symbols of their professions, their intellectual pursuits, or occasionally toward landscapes that represented American natural abundance rather than private ownership.

This difference wasn’t just aesthetic—it reflected fundamentally different answers to the question “What makes someone worth painting?” In England, the answer remained largely “birth and property.” In America, it was increasingly “accomplishment and character,” even if wealthy Americans proved just as eager to commission portraits displaying their property as any English lord.

The Practical and the Symbolic

There were also wonderfully mundane reasons for the pointing convention. With the invention of photography, the pose continued but may have had an additional purpose in preventing blurring by maintaining the sitter’s hand in a single place. Even in painted portraits, giving subjects something to “do” with their hands solved the age-old problem of what to do with idle limbs during hours of sitting still. The pointing gesture was energetic enough to look dynamic but simple enough to hold for extended periods.

Artists also recognized that pointing could subtly advertise their own skills. German artist Albrecht Dürer’s earliest self-portrait, drawn when he was only thirteen, depicts him pointing with his finger, suggesting that even at that age he knew that a pointing finger was an important symbol. The gesture reminded viewers that what they saw was created by an artist’s hand, a commentary woven into the composition itself.

Those pointing fingers weren’t quirks or affectations. They were a shared visual grammar that told viewers how to understand power, intellect, and legitimacy in an Enlightenment world that cared deeply about appearing rational, purposeful, and morally grounded.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it—and you’ll start noticing how modern leaders use subtler versions of the same visual cues today.

Image Sources

Gilbert Stuart – George Washington – Google Art Project.jpg Copy, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

John Singleton Copley – General Thomas Gage – Google Art Project.jpg Copy, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Angelica Kauffmann – Self Portrait of the Artist Hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting; National Trust, Nostell Priory, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Sir Peter Lely – James II and Anne Hyde, Copy, National Trust, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

John Trumbull – Alexander Hamilton, full-length portrait, standing, facing left, left hand on hip, right arm extended outward, books and papers beside him LCCN89706847.jpg Copy, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Text Sources

· Baetjer, Katharine. “Portrait Painting in England, 1600–1800.” Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bpor/hd_bpor.htm

· Gustlin, Katherine and Gustlin, Mark. “Portraits (18th Century).” A World Perspective of Art Appreciation. Humanities LibreTexts. https://human.libretexts.org/Courses/Evergreen_Valley_College/A_World_Perspective_of_Art_Appreciation_(Gustlin_and_Gustlin)/10:_The_New_World_Grows_(1700_CE__1800_CE)/10.2:_Portraits_(18th_Century)

· Lazzeri, D., Nicoli, F., Zhang, Y.X. “Secret hand gestures in paintings.” Acta Biomedica 2019; Vol. 90, N. 4: 526-532. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338457261_Secret_hand_gestures_in_paintings

· “Pointing and Touch.” Every Painter Paints Himself. https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/theme/pointing_and_touch

· “Pointing in portraits.” History Forum. https://historum.com/t/pointing-in-portraits.83092/

· “Portrait painting.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_painting

· “Portraits in the Landscape.” Photo-graph. https://photo-graph.org/2013/01/09/portraits-in-the-landscape/

The Accidental Footnote: Heel Spurs, the Vietnam Draft, and American Inequality

By John Turley

On April 17, 2026

In Commentary, History, Medicine, Politics

If you’ve ever winced taking your first steps out of bed in the morning, you may have already made an involuntary acquaintance with heel spurs — or more precisely, with the condition that often travels with them. The term itself sounds alarming, and for a brief but colorful stretch of American political history, it became something far more charged than a footnote to podiatry. But before we get to the politics, it’s worth understanding what a heel spur actually is, because the medical reality is both more mundane and more complicated than the caricature.

What Exactly Is a Heel Spur?
A heel spur is a small bony outgrowth — technically called a calcaneal spur — that extends from the underside of the heel bone (the calcaneus). It forms at the spot where the plantar fascia — the thick ligament running the length of your foot from heel to toe — attaches to the heel bone. The spur is not, despite what the name implies, a sharp spike. It is typically smooth and rounded, though it can still cause irritation if it presses into surrounding soft tissue.

The image depicts a comparison between a healthy foot and one with a prominent foot ulcer, highlighting the condition's visible effects.

AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Heel spurs affect about 10% of the population, making them one of the more common foot conditions around, though most people who have one don’t know it. The spur develops gradually — usually over months or even years — as the body deposits calcium in response to chronic stress at that heel attachment point. Think of it less as damage and more as your skeleton’s attempt at reinforcement.

What Causes Them?
The underlying driver is repetitive mechanical stress on the foot. Heel spurs are particularly associated with strains on foot muscles and ligaments, stretching of the plantar fascia, and repeated small tears in the membrane covering the heel bone. Athletes who do a lot of running and jumping are especially prone.

But you don’t need to be an elite runner to develop one. Walking gait problems — particularly overpronation, where the foot rolls inward — place uneven stress on the heel with each step. Worn-out or poorly fitted shoes, which fail to absorb shock or support the arch, compound the problem. Obesity increases the mechanical load on the heel. Occupations that require prolonged standing or walking on hard surfaces put the plantar fascia under constant tension. And as people age, tendons and ligaments lose their elasticity, making the tissues more vulnerable to micro-tears and the subsequent bony repair response.

Heel spurs are also closely connected to a condition most people have heard of: plantar fasciitis. The two are related a but not identical. Plantar fasciitis is inflammation of the plantar fascia itself, usually from overuse. A heel spur can develop as a downstream consequence of that inflammation — the body lays down extra bone in response to the ongoing stress at the fascia’s attachment point.

Symptoms — or the Lack Thereof
Here’s the part that surprises most people: the majority of heel spurs cause no symptoms at all, and many are discovered incidentally on X-rays taken for other reasons. Only about 5% of heel spurs are estimated to be symptomatic.

When a heel spur does produce symptoms, the experience is heavily intertwined with plantar fasciitis. The classic description is a sharp, stabbing pain on the bottom of the foot first thing in the morning, or after any prolonged rest. Many people compare it to stepping on a tack. Paradoxically, this pain often eases somewhat after walking around for a few minutes, only to return after extended time on the feet or after another rest. It’s that “worse in the morning” quality that tends to be the giveaway.

Other symptoms, when present, can include localized swelling, warmth, and tenderness along the front of the heel, as well as increased sensitivity on the underside of the foot. It’s worth noting that the pain associated with a heel spur is not generally thought to come from the bony spur itself, but from the irritation it causes in the surrounding soft tissue — tendons, ligaments, and bursae.

How Is It Diagnosed?
Diagnosis typically begins with a physical exam. Your doctor or podiatrist will ask about when the pain started, what activities preceded it, and what makes it better or worse. They’ll examine your foot for tenderness at specific points, assess your range of motion, and check foot alignment and press on key areas to locate the source of pain.

Imaging confirms the picture. An X-ray can clearly show the bony spur and is the most commonly used test. That said, the size of the spur on an X-ray doesn’t necessarily correspond to how much pain a patient is experiencing — a small spur can be quite painful while a large one may cause no trouble at all. In more complex cases, an MRI may be ordered to assess the soft tissues more closely and evaluate whether plantar fasciitis or another condition is also in play.

Treatment Options
The reassuring news is that the vast majority of cases resolve without surgery. More than 90% of patients improve with nonsurgical treatment. The catch is that conservative management requires patience — improvement typically takes weeks, and more stubborn cases can take months.

The cornerstone of treatment is rest and reducing the activities that provoke pain. This doesn’t necessarily mean completely stopping exercise; low-impact alternatives like swimming, cycling, or rowing allow you to stay active while giving the heel a break from impact. Icing the bottom of the foot after activity helps manage inflammation. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications like ibuprofen or naproxen can provide relief, though they’re intended for short-term use.

Footwear matters enormously. Supportive shoes with good arch support, cushioning, and a slight heel rise reduce the strain on the plantar fascia. Custom orthotics with molded insoles designed to redistribute pressure across the foot are often recommended, particularly for people with gait abnormalities or flat feet. Physical therapy can be part of the treatment plan, focusing on stretching the calf muscles and plantar fascia, strengthening the foot’s intrinsic muscles, and correcting biomechanical issues.

For cases that don’t respond to these initial measures, the next tier of treatment includes corticosteroid injections to reduce inflammation at the spur site, and extracorporeal shockwave therapy — a non-invasive procedure that uses sound waves to stimulate healing in chronically inflamed tissue. Surgery is reserved for the minority of cases where conservative treatment fails after nine to twelve months. Possible complications include nerve pain, infection, scarring, and — with plantar fascia release — the risk of foot instability or stress fracture. Most orthopedic surgeons regard surgery as a last resort.

Are Heel Spurs Debilitating?
For most people, the honest answer is: no. Heel spurs are a common condition with a favorable prognosis, especially with early diagnosis and appropriate management. Many people live with heel spurs for years without ever knowing it, and even those who develop pain typically find substantial relief with conservative treatment within four to eight weeks.
That said, the pain at its worst — particularly in conjunction with plantar fasciitis — can be genuinely disruptive to daily life. Athletes may find their training significantly limited. People who spend long hours on their feet at work may struggle with sustained discomfort. And a small percentage of patients do end up with prolonged, treatment-resistant pain that affects mobility. So, the more accurate framing might be: heel spurs have the potential to be significantly uncomfortable and functionally limiting during flare-ups, but with proper treatment most people recover well and return to normal activity.

Heel Spurs and the Vietnam-Era Draft
Which brings us to an improbable chapter in heel spur history. During the Vietnam War era, heel spurs became — for at least one famous case — a ticket out of military service. Understanding how that worked requires a brief detour into the draft system of the 1960s and 1970s, and what it meant to receive a medical deferment.
According to the National Archives, of the roughly 27 million American men eligible for military service between 1964 and 1973, about 15 million were granted deferments — mostly for education, and some for mental or physical problems — while only 2,215,000 were actually drafted into service—another eight million volunteered. Some of those who later served had previously had deferments. The system was sprawling, complex, and — as was widely acknowledged even at the time — deeply unequal.
Roughly 60% of draft-eligible American men took some sort of action to avoid military conscription. There were many routes: college deferments, fatherhood, conscientious objector status (170,000 men received those alone), National Guard enlistment, and medical exemptions. Medical deferments covered a wide range of conditions — from serious chronic illness to conditions that, in a different context, most people would consider minor. Flat feet, poor eyesight, asthma, and yes, bone spurs all appeared on the list of potentially disqualifying ailments.
The system was known to favor men with access to money, education, and well-connected physicians. American forces in Vietnam were 55% working-class and 25% poor — reflecting those who didn’t have the means to navigate the deferment labyrinth. A working-class kid from rural West Virginia was far more likely to end up in the Mekong Delta than the son of a New York real estate developer.

The Most Famous Heel Spur in American History
Which leads, inevitably, to Donald Trump. As confirmed by Selective Service records obtained and reported by multiple news outlets, Trump received five Vietnam-era draft deferments — four for college attendance at Fordham and the Wharton School, and a fifth in 1968, recorded as a medical deferment for bone spurs in his heels. The medical classification left him disqualified for military service.

The circumstances surrounding the diagnosis have been contested ever since. Reporting by the New York Times included accounts from the daughters of a Queens podiatrist named Larry Braunstein, who alleged that their father had provided or vouched for the diagnosis as a professional favor to Trump’s father, Fred Trump — a landlord to whom Braunstein reportedly owed a debt of gratitude. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen also testified that Trump had admitted to fabricating the injury. Trump himself has maintained that the diagnosis was legitimate, stating that a doctor “gave me a letter — a very strong letter — on the heels.” The underlying medical records that would resolve the dispute are, conveniently, not publicly available; most individual Selective Service medical records from that era were subsequently destroyed.

It’s worth noting that Trump’s pattern — using legal channels, including a medical deferment of questionable validity, to avoid Vietnam service — was not unique to him. Historians have pointed out that numerous prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle received deferments of various kinds, including Joe Biden (asthma), Dick Cheney (student deferments), Bill Clinton (navigated the ROTC system), and George W. Bush (National Guard). The heel spur episode became politically charged in part because of Trump’s later hawkish rhetoric and his outspokenness in questioning the military service of others — most notably Senator John McCain, who spent years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

How Many People Got Heel Spur Deferments?
This is where the historical record hits a hard wall. No reliable statistics exist specifically for heel spur deferments. The Selective Service tracked broad categories — student deferments, hardship deferments, conscientious objector status, medical disqualifications — but it did not publish a breakdown by specific diagnosis, and most individual medical records from that era no longer exist.

What we can say is that bone spurs were a recognized medical disqualifier under Selective Service regulations, that medical deferments broadly were a commonly used — and commonly abused — avenue for avoiding service, and that the process was heavily influenced by access to sympathetic physicians. A man with means, connections, and a cooperative podiatrist had options that a man without those resources did not.

The honest answer, then, is that we don’t know how many men received deferments citing heel spurs specifically, and we almost certainly never will. The data either wasn’t tracked at that level of granularity or was long since destroyed. What we do know is that the condition became, for a time, a lens through which Americans examined something much larger: who serves, who doesn’t, and whether the systems meant to govern those decisions are applied fairly.

For most people, a heel spur is a manageable, if annoying, footnote in the story of their health. For at least one person, it became a footnote in the history of American politics.

Personal Note: I have heel spurs; I wish I’d known about them in 1967.

Images generated by author using AI.

Medical Sources
Cleveland Clinic — Heel Spurs overview
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21965-heel-spurs
WebMD — Heel Spur Causes, Symptoms, Treatments, and Surgery
https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/heel-spurs-pain-causes-symptoms-treatments
Hackensack Meridian Health — Bone Spurs in the Heel: Symptoms and Recovery
https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/en/healthier-you/2024/01/02/bone-spurs-in-the-heel-symptoms-and-recovery
OrthoArkansas — Heel Spurs
https://www.orthoarkansas.com/heel-spurs-orthoarkansas/
EmergeOrtho — Heel Bone Spurs: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment
https://emergeortho.com/news/heel-bone-spurs/
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons — Plantar Fasciitis and Bone Spurs
https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/diseases–conditions/plantar-fasciitis-and-bone-spurs/
Vietnam Draft & Military Service Sources
History.com — 7 Ways Americans Avoided the Draft During the Vietnam War
https://www.history.com/articles/vietnam-war-draft-avoiding
Wikipedia — Draft Evasion in the Vietnam War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_evasion_in_the_Vietnam_War
Wikipedia — Conscription in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States
Students of History — The Draft and the Vietnam War
https://www.studentsofhistory.com/vietnam-war-draft
University of Michigan — The Military Draft During the Vietnam War
https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-
Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 310 — Vietnam War Statistics
https://www.vva310.org/vietnam-war-statistics
Vietnam Veterans of Foreign Wars — Fact vs. Fiction: The Vietnam Veteran
https://www.vvof.org/factsvnv.htm
New York City Vietnam Veterans Plaza — Interesting Facts About Vietnam
https://www.vietnamveteransplaza.com/interesting-facts-about-vietnam/

Medical Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is intended for general educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Always seek the guidance of a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read here.
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.
The author of this article is a licensed physician, but the views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent the official position of any hospital, health system, or medical organization with which the author may be affiliated.

Lady Liberty: The Statue We Think We Know

By John Turley

On April 14, 2026

In Commentary, History, Politics

Collection of the author

Ask most Americans what the Statue of Liberty means and they’ll say the same thing: she welcomes immigrants. She is the “Mother of Exiles,” keeper of the golden door. That image is so deeply woven into the national identity that it has been quoted, protested, and debated for more than a century. The only problem is that it wasn’t what her creators originally intended.

The story begins in 1865, just weeks after the Civil War ended, at a dinner party near Versailles. The host was Édouard de Laboulaye, a French historian and president of the French Anti-Slavery Society. Laboulaye was one of France’s most passionate admirers of American democracy and was deeply moved by both Lincoln’s assassination and the abolition of slavery. He proposed that France present the United States with a colossal monument — one that would celebrate two things at once: the centennial of American independence and the end of slavery.

Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was at that dinner and took the idea and ran with it. Early models from around 1870 show Lady Liberty with her right arm raised — familiar enough — but in her left hand she holds broken shackles, not a tablet. The anti-slavery message was unmistakable.

That symbolism didn’t entirely disappear from the final design — it just got moved. According to the National Park Service, Bartholdi placed a broken chain and shackle at the statue’s feet, hidden beneath the copper drapery. Most visitors never notice it. The left hand now holds a tablet inscribed with the date of the Declaration of Independence.

Why the change? NYU historian Edward Berenson points to the political climate of the 1880s. By the time the statue was dedicated in October 1886 — more than 20 years after Laboulaye’s dinner — Reconstruction had collapsed, Jim Crow was spreading, and the country was trying to paper over sectional wounds by quietly forgetting the war’s racial roots. Nobody at the dedication mentioned slavery. The abolitionist origins were simply buried.

The statue was formally named Liberty Enlightening the World and the message broadened toward Franco-American friendship and American liberty in general rather than emancipation specifically.

Then came Emma Lazarus, and the second transformation. In 1883, a fundraiser struggling to pay for the statue’s pedestal asked prominent writers to donate works for an auction. Lazarus, a Jewish-American poet, initially declined as she was then deeply involved in aiding Jewish refugees fleeing wide-spread and organized violence in Russia. A friend persuaded her that the statue, sitting at the entrance to New York Harbor, would inevitably be seen as a beacon by arriving immigrants. She wrote “The New Colossus” — fourteen lines that reimagined Lady Liberty entirely, as a “Mother of Exiles” beckoning the world’s tired and poor to America’s golden door.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Strangely, the poem then vanished. It played no role at the statue’s 1886 dedication. Lazarus died in 1887, before Ellis Island even opened. It wasn’t until 1903 that a friend had the entire poem cast onto a bronze plaque that was mounted inside the pedestal——not engraved on the outside as many believe. By then, millions of immigrants had already sailed past the statue on their way to Ellis Island, and the association with immigration had taken hold in the public imagination.

The immigration meaning deepened through the early 20th century as the government used the statue’s image in campaigns to assimilate immigrant children, many of whom lived in ethnic enclaves in large eastern cities. Meanwhile, the abolitionist symbolism that had inspired the project in the first place faded almost entirely from public memory.

The broken shackles are still there, tucked under her robe, mostly invisible. Lady Liberty has been continuously reinterpreted for 160 years — by abolitionists, by a poet responding to a refugee crisis, by politicians, and by millions of people who looked up at that torch from the deck of a ship. Will Lady Liberty and her words continue to offer welcome and hope and be a source of national pride or is her meaning once again being rewritten as a symbol of American identity, dominance, and, perhaps, exclusion?

The Statue’s shackles and feet. National Park Service, Statue of Liberty NM, Public Domain

Sources

National Park Service – Statue of Liberty history: https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/statue-of-liberty.htm Library of Congress – Dedication and speeches: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197394/ Cleveland, Grover. Dedication Address (1886): https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/cleveland.htm Smithsonian Magazine – History of the Statue of Liberty: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/statue-liberty-180970340/

The Art of Rigging Democracy: A Close Look At Gerrymandering

By John Turley

On April 13, 2026

In History, Politics

Wikimedia Commons: Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835) (often falsely attributed to Gilbert Stuart), public domain

Picture this: It’s 1812 in Massachusetts, and Governor Elbridge Gerry has just approved a redistricting plan that creates such a bizarrely shaped legislative district that when a local newspaper editor saw it on a map, he thought it looked like a salamander. The editor sketched wings and claws onto the district, and someone quipped that it looked more like a “Gerry-mander” than a salamander. The term stuck, and more than two centuries later, we’re still dealing with the same problem that inspired that joke.
What Gerrymandering Actually Means
At its core, gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to give one political party or group an unfair advantage over its opponents. It’s a form of political manipulation that allows those in power to essentially choose their voters, rather than letting voters choose their representatives. Think of it as a sophisticated form of gaming the system—perfectly legal in many cases, but profoundly anti-democratic in spirit.
The mechanics are surprisingly straightforward. There are two main techniques: “cracking” and “packing.” Cracking involves splitting up concentrations of opposing voters across multiple districts so they can’t form a majority anywhere. Packing does the opposite—cramming as many opposing voters as possible into a few districts so they waste their votes winning by huge margins in just a couple of places, leaving the rest of the districts safely in your column. These techniques can be deployed together to engineer a decisive partisan advantage.
A History of Creative Mapmaking
The practice didn’t start with Gerry, of course. The Founding Fathers—for all their lofty rhetoric about representative democracy—weren’t above putting their thumbs on the electoral scales. But gerrymandering really came into its own in the 20th century as advances in census data, and statistics combined with the addition of newly available computing power made it possible to draw districts with surgical precision.
The 2010 redistricting cycle marked a watershed moment. Single-party control of the redistricting process gave partisan line drawers free rein to craft some of the most extreme gerrymanders in American history often down to the level of individual city blocks. Republicans, having won control of many state legislatures in the 2010 midterms, used sophisticated computer modeling to create maps that locked in their advantages for a decade. Democrats did the same where they had the power, though Republicans controlled more state legislatures and thus wielded greater gerrymandering capability overall.
The 2024-2025 Gerrymandering Wars
Here’s where things get really interesting—and deeply concerning. The situation has exploded into what some are calling “gerrymandering wars” following the 2020 census and a critical Supreme Court decision in 2019. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering constitutes a non-justiciable “political question” where federal court intervention is unsuitable. Translation: The federal courts won’t stop partisan gerrymandering because they claim there’s no objective standard to measure it.
This opened the floodgates. The Brennan Center estimates that gerrymandering gave Republicans an advantage of around 16 House seats in the 2024 race to control Congress compared to fair maps. But here’s the kicker: we’re not even done with this decade’s redistricting.
In an unprecedented move, President Donald Trump has pushed Republican state lawmakers to further gerrymander their states’ congressional maps, prompting Democratic state lawmakers to respond in kind. In August 2025, during a special session, Texas’s legislature passed a redistricting plan that weakens electoral opportunities for Black and Hispanic voters. California has threatened to respond with its own gerrymander, creating a tit-for-tat dynamic that could spiral out of control.
North Carolina provides perhaps the most dramatic example. After the state supreme court reversed its position on policing partisan gerrymandering, the Republican-controlled legislature redrew the map, and after the 2024 election, three Democratic districts flipped to Republicans—enough to give control of the U.S. House to the GOP by a slim margin.
The situation has gotten so extreme that both parties are now openly engaging in mid-decade redistricting—something that traditionally only happened after each ten-year census. California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah have all adopted new congressional maps in 2025, with new maps also appearing possible in Florida, Maryland and Virginia.
The Racial Dimension
It’s crucial to note that gerrymandering comes in two flavors: partisan and racial. While partisan gerrymandering is currently legal thanks to the Supreme Court, racial gerrymandering—drawing districts specifically to dilute the voting power of racial minorities—violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The line between the two can get blurry, though, since partisan voting patterns often correlate with race.
In May 2025, a federal court ruled that Alabama’s 2023 congressional map not only violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act but was enacted by the Alabama Legislature with racially discriminatory intent. Similar battles are playing out in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other states. The legal landscape here is complex, with courts sometimes walking a tightrope between ensuring fair representation for communities of color and avoiding the creation of what could be challenged as racial gerrymanders.
What Can Be Done About It?
The most popular reform proposal is the creation of independent redistricting commissions—bodies of citizens (not politicians) who draw district maps according to neutral criteria. Currently, several states including Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia use redistricting commissions to draw congressional and state legislative maps, ranging from political commissions with elected officials to completely independent commissions that bar all elected officials from serving as commissioners.
Do they work? The evidence is mixed but generally positive. According to a Redistricting Report Card published with the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, the states that had some form of commission drew “B+” maps on average, while states where partisans controlled the process drew “D+” maps. California’s independent commission is often held up as the gold standard, though it’s not perfect—even fairly drawn maps can produce lopsided results due to how voters cluster geographically.
Another proposal focuses on clear, enforceable criteria: compactness, contiguity, respect for existing political boundaries, and transparency in the mapping process. Advances in statistical analysis also make it possible to compare proposed maps against thousands of neutral alternatives to detect extreme outliers, a method increasingly discussed in academic and legal circles.
Federal legislation has been proposed repeatedly. The Redistricting Reform Act of 2025 would prohibit states from mid-decade redistricting and would require every state to adopt nonpartisan, independent redistricting commissions. Similar provisions were included in the “For the People Act” that Democrats passed in the House in 2021, but it died in the Senate. Getting such legislation through Congress would require bipartisan cooperation, which seems unlikely given that both parties see gerrymandering as a political weapon and they believe they can’t afford to unilaterally disarm.
Some reformers advocate for more radical solutions. Proportional representation systems, where the share of votes equals the share of seats, would end boundary-drawing battles altogether and make democracy more representative. Under such a system, if Democrats win 60% of the vote in a state, they’d get roughly 60% of that state’s congressional seats. It’s intuitive and fair, but it would require a fundamental restructuring of American electoral systems—something that’s probably not politically feasible in the near term.
State courts have emerged as a potential backstop. At least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, even though federal courts won’t touch them. This means that state constitutional provisions against gerrymandering could provide meaningful protection—though as North Carolina demonstrated, state court compositions can change, and with them, their willingness to police gerrymandering.
The Bottom Line
Gerrymandering represents a fundamental tension in American democracy: How do we draw districts fairly when the people drawing them have every incentive to rig the game in their favor? The problem has ancient roots but ultra-modern manifestations, powered by big data and sophisticated computer modeling that would make Elbridge Gerry’s head spin.
The current moment feels particularly precarious. With Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House and midterm elections traditionally being unfavorable for the party in power, the Republicans’ action amounts to a preemptive move to retain control of Congress. The Democrats threatened response could trigger an escalating cycle of partisan map manipulation that further entrenches our political divisions and makes elections less responsive to actual voter preferences.
Independent commissions offer a promising path forward, but they’re not a silver bullet. They work better than partisan control, but they can’t eliminate all the inherent challenges of translating votes into seats through geographic districts. More ambitious reforms like proportional representation could solve the problem more completely, but they face enormous political and practical obstacles.
For now, gerrymandering remains what that newspaper editor saw in 1812: a monstrous distortion of democratic principles, hiding in plain sight on our electoral maps. The question is whether we have the political will to slay the beast, or whether we’ll keep feeding it for another two centuries.

Sources:
Brennan Center for Justice – Gerrymandering Explained
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerrymandering-explained

Brennan Center for Justice – How Gerrymandering Tilts the 2024 Race for the House
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-gerrymandering-tilts-2024-race-house

American Constitution Society – America’s Gerrymandering Crisis
https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/americas-gerrymandering-crisis-time-for-a-constructive-redistricting-framework/

ACLU – Court Cases on Gerrymandering
https://www.aclu.org/court-cases?issue=gerrymandering

Stateline – State Courts and Gerrymandering
https://stateline.org/2025/12/22/as-supreme-court-pulls-back-on-gerrymandering-state-courts-may-decide-fate-of-maps/

Campaign Legal Center – Do Independent Redistricting Commissions Work?
https://campaignlegal.org/update/do-independent-redistricting-commissions-really-prevent-gerrymandering-yes-they-do

RepresentUs – End Partisan Gerrymandering
https://represent.us/policy-platform/ending-partisan-gerrymandering/

Senator Alex Padilla – Redistricting Reform Act of 2025
https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/watch-padilla-lofgren-introduce-legislation-to-establish-independent-redistricting-commissions-end-mid-decade-redistricting-nationwide/

Protect Democracy – How to End Gerrymandering
https://protectdemocracy.org/work/how-to-end-gerrymandering/

The Easter Bunny: A Surprisingly Serious History

By John Turley

On April 1, 2026

In History

How a German hare hopped its way into American Easter tradition

Every Easter morning, children across America hunt for eggs left by a rabbit. It’s a charming ritual—and a deeply strange one, when you stop to think about it. Rabbits don’t lay eggs. They don’t carry baskets. Yet here we are, every spring, maintaining the fiction with great enthusiasm. Where did this tradition come from? The answer turns out to be a lot more interesting than you might expect.

The story starts in Germany. The earliest documented reference to an Easter Hare—called the “Osterhase” in German—appears in 1678, in a medical text by the physician Georg Franck von Franckenau. In the German tradition, the Osterhase was specifically a hare, not a rabbit, and its job was straightforward: deliver colored eggs to well-behaved children. Naughty children got nothing. This moral dimension—gift delivery tied to good behavior—should sound familiar. The Easter Bunny was, in a sense, an early version of Santa Claus.

The tradition crossed the Atlantic in the 1700s, carried by German Protestant immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania. Their children knew the Osterhase (sometimes rendered as “Oschter Haws” in Pennsylvania Dutch dialect) and kept up the custom of leaving out nests—made from caps and bonnets—for the hare to fill with eggs. Over time, the nests became baskets, the simple colored eggs became candy and chocolate, and the moral judgment quietly dropped away. By the 20th century, the Easter Bunny had transformed from selective gift-giver into universal children’s benefactor.

But why eggs at all? Eggs entered the Easter story long before Germany. For ancient Romans, they symbolized new life and fertility, and the custom of giving dyed eggs as spring gifts predates Christianity. The Christian tradition added another layer: during the Lenten fasting period eggs were a forbidden food. By Easter Sunday, the people were ready to use the accumulated eggs and were ready to celebrate. They cooked, decorated, and shared them. The emergence from the shell became a visual metaphor for resurrection, and the symbolism stuck.

Rabbits and hares had their own long history as symbols of fertility and springtime. Some writers have linked the Easter Bunny to an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostre—from whose name we may get the word “Easter”—and they claim the hare was her sacred animal. It’s a compelling story. It’s also largely unsupported by evidence. The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore notes that the only historical source mentioning Eostre is the medieval scholar Bede, and Bede says nothing about hares. The goddess-and-hare connection appears to be modern folklore dressed up as ancient tradition.

What is better documented is that hares held symbolic significance across many early cultures. Neolithic burial sites in Europe include hares interred alongside humans, suggesting ritual importance. Hares are conspicuous breeders—they produce multiple litters each year and nest above ground, making their reproductive activity visible in a way that rabbits’ underground burrows do not. For pre-modern peoples marking the return of spring, the hare was a living advertisement for new life.

The combination of egg symbolism and hare symbolism wasn’t a deliberate design decision by any single culture or institution. It was a gradual collision—two powerful images of renewal fusing together over centuries of seasonal celebration. The church absorbed local spring customs rather than eliminating them, allowing pagan associations with fertility and rebirth to persist beneath a Christian overlay. The result is the hybrid tradition we have today.

Today’s Easter Bunny is genuinely a global figure, though not always a rabbit. In Australia, the role is played by the Easter Bilby, an endangered marsupial that conservationists have promoted as a local alternative since the 1990s. Switzerland has an Easter Cuckoo. Parts of Germany have an Easter Fox. Each region adapted the basic concept of a spring gift-bringer to fit its own wildlife and folklore.

The commercial Easter Bunny we know—the chocolate molded figure, the pastel basket, the branded plush toy—is largely a product of the late 19th and 20th centuries, shaped by the same forces that turned Saint Nicholas into Santa Claus. Candy manufacturers, greeting card companies, and department stores found in Easter a spring counterpart to the Christmas retail season, and the Easter Bunny was the obvious mascot.

None of that diminishes what the tradition actually does. The Easter Bunny survived precisely because its meaning kept evolving. It began as a moral enforcer in 17th-century Germany, became a community ritual for immigrant families in Pennsylvania, and eventually became a child’s-eye-view celebration of spring available to secular and religious families alike. The rabbit never needed to make logical sense. It only needed to mark the moment the world turns green again—and every civilization, it seems, finds a way to celebrate that.

Illustration generated by author using ChatGPT.

Sources:

Bede, De Temporum Ratione (8th century)
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/bede-reckoning.asp
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Easter holiday origins
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
Catholic Encyclopedia — Lent and fasting traditions
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09152a.htm
Smithsonian Magazine — History of Easter Eggs
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-easter-egg-180971982/
History.com — Easter Symbols and Traditions
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/easter-symbols
Library of Congress — Easter traditions in early America
https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/03/easter-on-the-farm/
National Geographic — Where Did the Easter Bunny Come From?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/easter-bunny-origins

American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/folklife/
National Confectioners Association — Easter candy statistics
https://www.nationalconfectioners.org/blog/seasonal-easter-candy-data/
Smithsonian — How holidays became commercial traditions
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-surprising-history-of-holiday-shopping-180964949/

Oxford Companion to the Year — Ronald Hutton
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-stations-of-the-sun-9780192854483
University of Pennsylvania Religious Studies overview of seasonal festivals
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/easter/

Native Americans in the Revolutionary War: Choosing Sides in a Conflict Not Their Own

By John Turley

On March 19, 2026

In History

The American Revolution wasn’t just a showdown between colonists and the British Crown. For the more than 80 distinct Native American nations living east of the Mississippi River, the conflict posed an existential threat — one that would reshape their world no matter who won. They faced an agonizing choice: stay neutral in what many viewed as a family dispute within the British Empire, or pick a side and hope that alliance might help preserve their lands and sovereignty.

Most tribes that chose a side supported the British, and their reasoning was sound. The Proclamation of 1763 had attempted to block colonial settlement west of the Appalachians, and Native leaders correctly recognized that an independent America, freed from British constraints, would accelerate land seizures at a terrifying pace. As Mohawk leader Joseph Brant warned in 1775, independence for the colonists would likely mean disaster for indigenous peoples across the continent. History would prove him right.

The Patriots’ Native Allies

Still, several tribes made the difficult calculation to support the Revolutionary cause. The most significant were the Oneida and Tuscarora nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, along with the Stockbridge-Mohican people of Massachusetts and New York. Smaller contingents from the Catawba, Delaware, Maliseet, Pequot, Narragansett, Niantics, and Montauks also fought alongside colonial forces.

The Stockbridge-Mohican had a relatively clear-cut situation: surrounded by colonial settlements in western Massachusetts, neutrality was essentially impossible. They had already developed cultural and trade ties with their English neighbors, and they bet that loyalty might protect their remaining land rights in the new nation. They were among the very first Native people to take up arms, with members serving as minutemen at Lexington and Concord in April 1775 and fighting at Bunker Hill that June.

The Oneida’s decision was more complex. Unlike tribes facing immediate frontier pressure, they had some geographic breathing room. Their choice reflected relationships built with colonial missionaries and traders, but also a calculated gamble: that an American victory might better respect their territorial claims than continued British rule. In 1776, Congress formally authorized General Washington to recruit Stockbridge Indians, and the Oneida soon became crucial assets — not just as fighters, but as scouts who knew the terrain intimately, and as diplomats attempting to keep other tribes neutral.

Combat Contributions

Native Americans who fought for the Patriots contributed far beyond their numbers. Historian Pekka Hämäläinen has argued that proportionally more Indians than New Englanders served in Patriot forces during the war. Their most consequential military moment came at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777 — one of the bloodiest engagements of the entire conflict.

At least 60 Oneida warriors fought alongside New York militia against a combined British, Loyalist, and Mohawk force. Warrior Han Yerry, his wife Tyonajanegen, and their son all distinguished themselves that day. According to contemporary accounts, Han Yerry killed nine enemy fighters before a bullet disabled his gun hand, forcing him to continue with his tomahawk; Tyonajanegen fought on horseback with pistols throughout the battle. The engagement fractured the Iroquois Confederacy permanently and helped prevent British forces from reinforcing General Burgoyne before the decisive American victory at Saratoga two months later.

Perhaps the Oneida’s most vital — and least celebrated — contribution came during the winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. When Washington’s army faced starvation, Oneida Chief Shenandoah dispatched warriors carrying several hundred bushels of white corn. An Oneida woman named Polly Cooper made the 200-mile journey from Fort Stanwix and stayed at Valley Forge, teaching the starving soldiers how to properly cook the corn so it was actually digestible. Washington personally met with Oneida leaders to express his gratitude, presenting each with a wampum belt. It was a quiet act of generosity that may have saved the Continental Army.

The Oneida continued fighting throughout the war — at the Battle of Barren Hill in May 1778, where scouts stayed behind to allow Lafayette’s troops to escape a British trap; at the Battle of Monmouth; and in numerous northern campaigns. Ten Oneida soldiers earned officers’ commissions in the Continental Army, one rising to lieutenant colonel. Some even served as spies, gathering intelligence deep in enemy territory at enormous personal risk.

The Bitter Aftermath

And then came the betrayal. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, contained no Native American representatives and made no provisions whatsoever for protecting indigenous lands or sovereignty. Britain simply handed over all territory east of the Mississippi to the new United States — without consulting a single Native nation — treating indigenous homelands as British property to dispose of at will.

Even the tribes that had fought for the American cause found that wartime promises evaporated in peacetime. The Oneida, whose contributions had been genuinely critical, faced immediate pressure to cede their territories. By 1788, New York State had leveraged the Oneida into surrendering approximately 5.5 million acres, leaving them with just 300,000. Between 1785 and 1846, New York forced the Oneida to sign 26 additional treaties, stripping away nearly everything that remained.

In 1794, Congress did formally acknowledge the service of the Oneida, Tuscarora, and Stockbridge with the Treaty of Canandaigua, providing $5,000, a new church, and some mills. But the treaty also required the tribes to relinquish all other claims for compensation — effectively closing the books on their wartime losses. Historians estimate the Oneida lost nearly a third of their population during and immediately after the war through combat casualties, displacement, and the destruction of their villages and food stores. The Stockbridge-Mohican, similarly dispossessed, largely migrated west to present-day Wisconsin by the early 19th century.

The Larger Picture

British-allied tribes fared no better. When Britain ceded its eastern territories, it abandoned all its Native allies without protection or compensation. Joseph Brant’s Mohawk lost nearly all their land, though the British eventually granted Brant’s followers about 810,000 hectares along the Grand River in present-day Ontario — land where the Six Nations Reserve still exists today.

The pattern was consistent across tribes, regardless of which side they chose: the Revolution was a catastrophe for virtually every Native American nation. Those who supported the Patriots made contributions that were real, substantial, and in some cases decisive. The Oneida at Oriskany, the Stockbridge minutemen at Lexington, Polly Cooper at Valley Forge — these weren’t footnotes. They were participants in the founding of a nation that would spend the next century systematically dispossessing them.

The Revolution shattered longstanding indigenous alliances, set precedents for how the new United States would treat Native peoples, and demonstrated that for Native Americans, the choice between British and American sides was ultimately a choice between two different roads to the same devastating destination: the loss of their lands, their sovereignty, and their way of life. It’s a chapter of the founding era that deserves far more attention than it typically gets.

Illustration generated by the author using ChatGPT.

Sources

Oneida Nation — Revolutionary War contributions: https://www.oneida-nsn.gov/our-ways/history/

Treaty of Canandaigua (1794): https://www.onondaganation.org/history/1794-treaty-of-canandaigua/

Stockbridge-Mohican history: https://www.mohican.com/history/

Battle of Oriskany: https://www.nps.gov/orpi/index.htm

Pekka Hämäläinen — Native American roles in the Revolution: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674248717

Proclamation of 1763: https://www.britannica.com/event/Proclamation-of-1763

Treaty of Paris (1783) and Native lands: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/paris.asp

Six Nations Reserve, Ontario: https://www.sixnations.ca/

Henry Knox vs Joseph Plumb Martin: A Case Study in Officer Privilege After the Revolution

By John Turley

On March 5, 2026

In History

Last week I looked at how poorly revolutionary war veterans were treated in general. This week I’d like to take a look at a specific example —the contrast between how generals like Henry Knox and common soldiers like Joseph Plumb Martin fared after the Revolutionary War. It perfectly illustrates the class divide I discussed in my previous post. These two men served in the same army, helped win the same independence, and endured similar hardships—although Martin endured far greater hardship. Their post-war experiences couldn’t have been more different—and in a bitter twist, Knox’s prosperity came partly at Martin’s expense.
Knox’s Golden Parachute
Henry Knox entered the war as a Boston bookseller of modest means whose military knowledge was gained from reading rather than formal training. He rose to become Washington’s chief of artillery and a major general. When the war ended, Knox received benefits that set him up for life—or should have.
As an officer who served until the war’s end, Knox received the 1783 commutation payment: five years’ full pay in the form of government securities bearing six percent annual interest. This came after Knox himself helped lead the officer corps in pressuring Congress for payment during the near-mutiny known as the Newburgh Conspiracy in early 1783. In total, 2,480 officers received these commutation certificates
But Knox’s real windfall came from his marriage and his government connections. His wife Lucy came from a wealthy Loyalist family—her grandfather was Brigadier General Samuel Waldo, who’d gained control of a massive land patent in Maine in the 1730’s. When Lucy’s family fled to England, she became the sole heir to approximately 576,000 acres known as the Waldo Patent.
Knox used his position as the first Secretary of War (earning $3,000 annually in 1793) and his wartime connections to expand his land holdings and business ventures. He was able to ensure that his wife’s family lands were passed to her, rather than being seized by the government, as the holding of many loyalists were. Knox was firmly positioned on the creditor side of the equation, and his political connections helped shield him from the harsh economic reality faced by common soldiers.
He also acquired additional property in the Ohio Valley and engaged in extensive land speculation. He ran multiple businesses: timber operations, shipbuilding, brick-making, quarrying, and extensive real estate development.
After retiring from government in 1795, he built Montpelier, a magnificent three-story mansion in Thomaston, Maine, described as having “beauty, symmetry and magnificence” unequaled in Massachusetts. (My wife and I visited a reconstruction of his mansion this past summer and I can personally testify as to how elaborate a home it was.)
Martin’s Broken Promises
Joseph Plumb Martin’s story is the experience of the roughly 80,000-90,000 common soldiers who did most of the fighting. Martin enlisted at age 15 in 1776 and served seven years—fighting at Brooklyn, White Plains, Monmouth, surviving Valley Forge, and digging trenches at Yorktown. He rose from private to sergeant.
When Martin mustered out, he received certificates of indebtedness instead of actual pay—IOUs that depreciated rapidly. Unlike Knox, enlisted men received no pension, no commutation payment, nothing beyond those nearly worthless certificates. Martin, like many veterans, sold his certificates to speculators at a fraction of their face value just to survive.
After teaching briefly in New York, Martin settled in Maine in the early 1790s. Based on the promise of a land bounty from Massachusetts, Martin and other “Liberty Men” each claimed 100 acres in Maine, assuming that Loyalist lands would be confiscated and sold cheaply to the current occupants or, perhaps, even treated as vacant lands they could secure by clearing and improving.
Martin married Lucy Clewley in 1794 and started farming. He’d fought for independence and now just wanted to build a modest life in the belief that the country he had fought for would stand by its promises.
When Former Comrades Became Adversaries
Here’s where the story takes a dark turn. In 1794, Henry Knox—Martin’s former commanding general—asserted legal ownership of Martin’s 100-acre farm. Knox claimed the land was part of the Waldo Patent. Martin and other settlers argued they had the right to farm the land they’d improved, especially as it should be payment for their Revolutionary service.
The dispute dragged on for years, with some veterans even forming a guerrilla group called the “White Indians” who attacked Knox’s surveyors. But Knox had wealth, lawyers, and political connections. In 1797, the legal system upheld Knox’s claim. Martin’s farm was appraised at $170—payable over six years in installments.
To put that in perspective, when Martin finally received a pension in 1818—twenty-one years later—it paid only $96 per year. And to get even that meager pension, Martin had to prove he was destitute. The $170 Knox demanded represented nearly two years of the pension Martin wouldn’t receive for another two decades.
Martin begged Knox to let him keep the land. There’s no evidence Knox even acknowledged his letters. By 1811, Martin had lost more than half his farm. By 1818, when he appeared before the Massachusetts General Court with other veterans seeking their long-promised pensions, he owned nothing.
The Irony of “Fair Treatment”
Knox claimed he treated settlers on his Maine lands fairly, though he used intermediaries to evict those who couldn’t pay rent or whom he considered to be squatters. The settlers disagreed so strenuously that they once threatened to burn Montpelier to the ground
The situation’s bitter irony is hard to overstate. Knox had been one of the officers who organized the Society of the Cincinnati in 1783, ostensibly to support widows and orphans of Revolutionary War officers. He’d helped lead the push for officer commutation payments by threatening Congress during the Newburgh affair. Yet when common soldiers like Martin—men who’d literally dug the trenches that won the siege at Yorktown—needed help, Knox showed no mercy.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Let’s compare their situations side by side:
Henry Knox:
              ∙            Officer commutation: Five years’ full pay in securities with 6% interest
              ∙            Secretary of War salary: $3,000 per year (1793)
              ∙            Land holdings: 576,000+ acres in Maine, plus Ohio Valley properties
              ∙            Housing: Three-story mansion with extensive outbuildings
              ∙            Businesses: Multiple ventures in timber, ships, bricks, quarrying, real estate
              ∙            Death: 1806, in debt from failed business ventures but having lived in luxury
Joseph Plumb Martin:
              ∙            Enlisted pay: Mostly unpaid certificates sold at a loss to speculators
              ∙            Pension: None until 1818, then $96 per year (had to be destitute to qualify)
              ∙            Land holdings: Started with 100 acres, lost all most all of it to Knox by 1818
              ∙            Housing: Small farmhouse, struggling to farm 8 of his original 100 acres
              ∙            Income: Subsistence farming, served as town clerk for modest pay
              ∙            Death: 1850 at age 89, having struggled financially his entire post-war life
A Memoir Born of Frustration
In 1830, at age 70, Martin published his memoir anonymously. The full title captured his experience: “A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier.” He published it partly to support other veterans fighting for their promised benefits and possibly hoping to earn some money from sales.
The book didn’t sell. It essentially disappeared until a first edition was rediscovered in the 1950s and republished in 1962. Today it’s considered one of the most valuable primary sources we have for understanding what common soldiers experienced during the Revolution. Historians praise it precisely because it’s not written by someone like Washington, Knox, or Greene—it’s the voice of a regular soldier
When Martin died in 1850, a passing platoon of U.S. Light Infantry stopped at his house and fired a salute to honor the Revolutionary War hero. But that gesture of respect came long after the country should have helped Martin when he needed it.
The Broader Pattern
Knox wasn’t unusual among officers, nor was Martin unusual among enlisted men. This was the pattern: officers with education, connections, and capital leveraged their wartime service into political positions, land grants, and business opportunities. Common soldiers received promises, waited decades for minimal pensions, and often lost what little property they had to the very elites who’d commanded them.
It’s worth noting that Knox’s business ventures eventually failed. He died in debt in 1806, having borrowed extensively to fund his speculations. His widow Lucy had to gradually sell off land to survive. But Knox still lived eleven years in a mansion, engaged in enterprises of his choosing, and died surrounded by family on his comfortable estate. Martin outlived him by forty-four years, spending most of them in poverty.
The story of Knox and Martin isn’t one of villainy versus heroism. Knox was a capable general who genuinely contributed to winning independence. Martin was a dedicated soldier who did the same. But the system they operated within distributed the benefits of that shared victory in profoundly unequal ways, and Knox—whether intentionally or not—used that system to take what little they had from soldiers who’d fought under his command. This was not corruption in the modern sense; it was the predictable outcome of a system that rewarded status, education, and proximity to power. Knox’s experience illustrates a broader truth of the post-Revolutionary period: independence redistributed political sovereignty, but economic security flowed upward, not downward.
When we talk about how Continental Army veterans were treated, this is what it looked like on the ground: the officer who led the charge for officer pensions living in a mansion on 600,000 acres, while the sergeant who dug the trenches at Yorktown lost his 100-acre farm and had to prove he was destitute to get $96 a year, decades too late to matter. This will always be a black mark on American history.

Illustrations generated by author using ChatGPT.

Personal note: I spent 12 years on active duty, both as an officer and an enlisted man. I’m proud of my service and I’m proud of the people who have served our country. I do not write this in order to condemn our history. I write it in order to make us aware that we need to always support the common people who contribute vitally to our national success and are seldom recognized.

Sources
Martin, Joseph Plumb. “A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin”
Originally published anonymously in 1830 at Hallowell, Maine as “A narrative of some of the adventures, dangers, and sufferings of a Revolutionary soldier, interspersed with anecdotes of incidents that occurred within his own observation.” The memoir fell into obscurity until a first edition copy was discovered in the 1950s and donated to Morristown National Historical Park. Republished by Little, Brown in 1962 under the title “Private Yankee Doodle” (edited by George F. Scheer). Current edition published 2001. This firsthand account by a Continental Army private who served seven years provides invaluable insight into the common soldier’s experience during the war and the struggles veterans faced afterward, including Martin’s own land dispute with Henry Knox. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in ordinary people and their role in history.

American Battlefield Trust – The Newburgh Conspiracy
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/newburgh-conspiracy

Maine Memory Network – Henry Knox: Land Dealings
https://thomaston.mainememory.net/page/735/display.html

World History Encyclopedia – Henry Knox
https://www.worldhistory.org/Henry_Knox/

Maine: An Encyclopedia – Knox, Henry
https://maineanencyclopedia.com/knox-henry/

American Battlefield Trust – Joseph Plumb Martin: Voice of the Common American Soldier
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/joseph-plumb-martin

Wikipedia – Joseph Plumb Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plumb_Martin

Note on Additional Context: While these were the primary sources directly used in this article, the discussion also drew on information from my earlier Revolutionary War veterans article about the general treatment of enlisted soldiers, pension systems, and the class disparities in how benefits were distributed after the war.

The Broken Promises: How America Treated Its Revolutionary War Veterans

By John Turley

On February 27, 2026

In Uncategorized

The story of how the Continental Army’s veterans were treated after winning independence reads like a betrayal. These men had endured Valley Forge, fought without pay — — often without food or clothing — risking everything for a revolution that promised liberty and opportunity. What many received instead was financial ruin, confiscated land, and a harsh lesson in how political power and economic class determined who really benefited from their shared sacrifice.

The Pay That Never Came

Let me start with the most basic broken promise — pay. Continental soldiers were supposed to receive regular wages, but the Continental Congress lacked the power to tax and relied on increasingly worthless paper money. By war’s end, many soldiers hadn’t been paid in months or even years. When they finally returned home, they carried IOUs called “certificates of indebtedness” rather than actual money.

The wealthy and well-connected quickly figured out how to profit from this situation. Speculators traveled through rural areas buying up these certificates from desperate veterans at pennies on the dollar. The soldiers, facing immediate debts and no income, often had no choice but to sell. When the federal government eventually redeemed these certificates at full value under Alexander Hamilton’s financial plan in the 1790s, it was the speculators who made fortunes, not the men who’d earned the money, suffered and won the revolution.

Pensions: Promised to Officers, Denied to Enlisted Men

The pension situation revealed the class divisions even more starkly. In 1780, Congress promised officers who served until the war’s end a pension of half-pay for life. Common soldiers received no such promise. When the officers’ pensions proved controversial and expensive, Congress “commuted” them in 1783 to a one-time payment of five years’ full pay — still nothing for the enlisted men who’d done most of the fighting and dying.

It wasn’t until 1818 that Congress finally created a pension for Continental Army privates, and even then, only for those in “reduced circumstances” — meaning you had to prove you were poor to get it. The maximum annual pension was $96, hardly generous compensation for years of service. Soldiers who had served in militia units were generally excluded. By contrast, officers had already received their commutations decades earlier and often held positions of economic and political power.

Land Bounties: Another Empty Promise

Land bounties represented another avenue where common soldiers got shortchanged. Various colonies and Congress promised land grants to encourage enlistment — typically 100 acres for privates, scaling up to 500+ acres for officers and thousands of acres for generals. But there were problems from the start.

First, much of the promised land was in frontier territories like the Ohio Country, which remained dangerous and largely unsurveyed for years after the war. Second, the process of claiming your land required navigating bureaucratic systems, paying surveying fees, and sometimes traveling hundreds of miles. Third, the land often turned out to be of poor quality or in disputed areas. The average veteran with little education, almost no money and absolutely no political influence was seldom ever able to take advantage of the land bounty.

Predictably, speculators moved in. They bought up land bounty warrants from soldiers who lacked the resources or knowledge to claim them directly. One study found that in Virginia, which promised the most generous bounties, speculators ultimately controlled vast tracts while many veterans received little or nothing.

The Tax Collector Cometh

Here’s where the story gets particularly cruel. While veterans struggled with unpaid wages and unredeemed promises, the new state governments faced their own financial crises. They’d accumulated massive war debts and needed revenue. Their solution? Property taxes.

In Massachusetts, the legislature imposed heavy taxes payable in hard currency — gold or silver — which almost nobody in rural areas possessed. The same certificates of indebtedness that soldiers were given by the government weren’t accepted for tax payments, even though the state owed them that money. Veterans who’d sold their certificates for a fraction of their value to pay immediate debts now faced tax bills they couldn’t pay. These policies were not accidental side effects; they reflected the priorities of creditor classes concentrated in coastal towns, who preferred regressive property taxes over inflation or debt relief for veterans.

When farmers and veterans couldn’t pay these taxes, local sheriffs seized and auctioned their property. In many cases, the buyers at these auctions were the same merchant elites and speculators who’d bought up the certificates. This wasn’t accidental — it was a systematic transfer of wealth and property from those who’d fought the war to those who’d financed it, avoided personal risk and now controlled state governments. Elites did not overtly confiscate veterans’ land through direct political targeting; instead, they relied on neutral-looking fiscal policy — strict tax collection, aggressive debt enforcement, and courts unsympathetic to insolvency — to transfer property legally. The effect was unmistakable; veterans who fought for independence lost their farms to satisfy debts incurred during or immediately after their service, while wealthier investors accumulated land and made financial gains.

The Massachusetts situation became particularly egregious. Between 1784 and 1786, thousands of foreclosure proceedings were filed. Veterans who’d survived the war returned to find themselves losing their farms and, in some cases, being thrown into debtors’ prison.

Shays’ Rebellion: When Veterans Fought Back

The breaking point came in 1786 with Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts. Daniel Shays, a former Continental Army captain, led hundreds of veterans and farmers in an armed uprising against foreclosures and debt courts. They physically prevented courts from sitting, trying to halt the cascade of farm seizures. They represented the soldiers who’d won independence and felt the new government had betrayed them.

The rebellion was suppressed by a militia funded by wealthy Boston merchants and creditors as the state treasury lacked ready cash to pay troops. This was a clear demonstration of how thoroughly economic power had concentrated among elites and sent shockwaves through the political establishment. To many rural farmers the suppression looked like creditors hiring an army to enforce unjust laws against impoverished veterans.

Interestingly, most of the rebels received pardons, and Massachusetts did eventually reduce some taxes and reform debtor laws. But the damage was done, and the pattern had been established.

The Class Divide in Revolutionary Benefits

The broader pattern is unmistakable. Officers, who were generally drawn from propertied classes, received pensions and larger land bounties, had the education and connections to navigate bureaucratic systems, and often held the political power to protect their interests. Common soldiers, usually farmers or laborers, received certificates they had to sell at a loss, faced tax collectors seizing their property, and had little political voice. They disproportionately bore the costs of the new fiscal order through unpaid or depreciated wages, lack of early pension support, and vulnerability to foreclosure, while many of the tangible financial benefits of their service migrated to wealthier elites.

Some historians argue this wasn’t conspiracy but circumstance — that the new nation genuinely lacked resources and that markets naturally concentrated certificates in wealthier hands. There’s some truth to this. The Continental Congress was genuinely broke, and state governments faced real fiscal crises.

But the specific policy choices — redeeming certificates from speculators at full value while rejecting them for tax payments, creating pensions for officers but not enlisted men, setting tax policies that required hard currency that poor farmers didn’t have — these weren’t inevitable, they were a choice. They reflected the interests of those who held power in state legislatures and the Continental Congress.

The Long Echo

The treatment of Continental Army veterans established patterns that would echo through American history: promises made during wartime, broken during peace; benefits flowing more generously to officers than enlisted men. Economic and political elites using legal mechanisms to transfer wealth from those who fought the revolution to those who financed it.

The first genuinely “service‑based” pension law that broadly covered surviving Continental soldiers — regardless of disability — did not arrive until 1818, three decades after the war, and it initially required proof of indigence, effectively screening out better‑off veterans and stigmatizing poorer ones. Not until the 1832 act did Congress move toward full pay for life for many surviving officers and enlisted men — including militia — based on length of service alone. But large numbers of veterans had already lost their farms, spent years in poverty, or died. The benefits came too late and too meagerly to undo decades of hardship. They were owed better.

Illustrations generated by author using ChatGPT.

Sources:

Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia — Veterans of the Revolutionary War https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/veterans-of-the-revolutionary-war/

This George Washington Presidential Library resource provides an overview of how Continental Army veterans were treated, including details on certificate speculation, payment issues, and the general economic struggles veterans faced after the war.

National Archives — Revolutionary War Pension Files https://www.archives.gov/research/military/war-of-1812/pension-files

While this link references War of 1812 pensions, the National Archives maintains extensive documentation on Revolutionary War pensions as well. The site explains the evolution of pension systems and eligibility requirements, including the 1818 act that finally provided pensions to enlisted men who could prove poverty.

Encyclopedia Virginia — Military Bounty Lands https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/military-bounty-lands/

This scholarly resource details Virginia’s land bounty system, which was among the most extensive. It documents how these bounties were promised, the challenges veterans faced in claiming them, and how speculators ultimately acquired much of the promised land.

American Battlefield Trust — Shays’ Rebellion https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/shays-rebellion

This article provides context on the 1786–1787 uprising in Massachusetts, explaining the economic conditions that drove veterans to armed resistance, the foreclosure crisis, and the rebellion’s impact on constitutional debates.

Massachusetts Historical Society — Shays’ Rebellion https://www.masshist.org/features/shays/

Black Soldiers on Both Sides: The Complex Story of African Americans in the Revolutionary War

By John Turley

On February 20, 2026

In History

When we picture the American Revolution, we often imagine Continental soldiers in blue coats facing off against British redcoats—but this image leaves out thousands of crucial participants. Between 5,000 and 8,000 Black men fought for the Patriot cause, while an estimated 20,000 joined the British forces. Their stories reveal the war’s profound contradictions and the complex choices Black Americans faced when white colonists fought for “liberty” while holding hundreds of thousands of people in bondage. Their participation reflected the Revolution’s central paradox: a war waged in the name of liberty within a society deeply dependent on slavery.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone at the time. As Abigail Adams wrote in 1774, “it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have”.

For most Black participants, the key question was which side offered the clearest path out of bondage rather than abstract allegiance to King or Congress. The tension between revolutionary rhetoric and the reality of slavery shaped every decision Black Americans made about which side to support. This dynamic meant that enslaved people frequently escaped to British forces, while free Blacks (especially in New England) were more likely, though not exclusively, to enlist with the Patriots where they already had tenuous civic footholds

The British Offer: “Liberty to Slaves”

In November 1775, Virginia’s royal governor Lord Dunmore made a move that sent shockwaves through the colonies. With his military position deteriorating and losing men under his command, Dunmore issued a proclamation offering freedom to any enslaved person who abandoned their Patriot masters and joined British forces. The proclamation declared “all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms”.

The response was immediate. Within a month, an estimated 300 Black men had enlisted in what Dunmore called the “Royal Ethiopian Regiment,” eventually growing to about 800 men. Their uniforms were emblazoned with the provocative words “Liberty to Slaves.” The name “Ethiopian” wasn’t random—it referenced ancient associations of Ethiopia with wisdom and nobility. These soldiers saw action at the Battle of Kemp’s Landing, where—in a moment rich with symbolic meaning—one previously enslaved soldier captured his former master, militia colonel Joseph Hutchings.

Dunmore’s promise came with devastating costs. The regiment’s only other major battle was the disastrous British defeat at Great Bridge in December 1775. Far worse was the disease that ravaged the Black soldiers’ ranks. As the Virginia Gazette reported in March 1776, “the jail distemper rages with great violence on board Lord Dunmore’s fleet, particularly among the negro forces”. Disease ultimately killed more of Dunmore’s recruits than combat, as was common among all armies of the time. By 1776, Dunmore was forced to flee Virginia, taking only about 300 survivors with him.

The Patriot Response: Reluctant Acceptance

The Continental Army’s relationship with Black soldiers was complicated from the start. Black men fought at Lexington and Concord. They also distinguished themselves at Bunker Hill, where Black patriot Salem Poor performed so heroically that fourteen officers petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to recognize his “brave and gallant” service.

But in November 1775, just days after Dunmore’s Proclamation, George Washington—himself a Virginia slaveholder—banned the recruitment of all Black men. The ban didn’t last long. The British continued recruiting Black soldiers, and Washington faced a simple reality: he desperately needed troops. By early 1778, after the brutal winter at Valley Forge had decimated his forces, Washington grudgingly allowed states to enlist Black soldiers. Rhode Island led the way with legislation that promised immediate freedom to any “able-bodied negro, mulatto, or Indian man slave” who enlisted, with the state compensating slaveholders for their “property”.

The result was the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which became known as the “Black Regiment.” Of its roughly 225 soldiers, about 140 were Black or Native American men. The regiment fought at the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778, where they held their position against repeated British and Hessian charges—a performance that earned them, according to Major General John Sullivan, “a proper share of the day’s honors”. They went on to fight at Yorktown, where they stood alongside southern militiamen whose peacetime job had been hunting runaway slaves.

Throughout the Continental Army, Black soldiers generally served in integrated units. One French officer estimated that a quarter of Washington’s army was Black—though historians believe 10 to 15 percent is more accurate. As one historian noted, “In the rest of the Army, the few blacks who served with each company were fully integrated: They fought, drilled, marched, ate and slept alongside their white counterparts.”

Naval service—on both sides—was often more racially integrated than the army. Black men served as sailors, gunners, and marines in the Royal Navy and the Continental Navy. Maritime labor traditions had long been more flexible on race, and skill mattered more than status.

Free Blacks in northern towns could enlist much like white common citizens, sometimes motivated by pay, local patriotism, and the hope that visible service would strengthen claims to equal rights after the war. Enslaved men rarely chose independently; Patriot masters often enlisted them as substitutes to avoid service, while Loyalist masters sometimes allowed or forced them to join British units. In both cases emancipation promises were unevenly honored.

Some enslavers freed men in advance of service, others promised manumission afterward and reneged, while still others simply collected bounties or commutation while trying to retain control over Black veterans. On the British side, imperial policy also vacillated, with some officers fully supporting freedom for Black refugees tied to rebel masters, and others quietly returning runaways to Loyalist owners or exploiting them as unpaid labor.

The Promise and the Betrayal

As the war ended, the gulf between British and American treatment of their Black allies became stark. In 1783, as British forces prepared to evacuate New York, General George Washington demanded the return of all formerly enslaved people as “property” under the Treaty of Paris. British commander Sir Guy Carleton refused. Instead, he created the “Book of Negroes”—a ledger documenting about 3,000 Black Loyalists who were granted certificates of freedom and evacuated to Nova Scotia, England, Germany, and British territories.

The Book provides glimpses of individual journeys. Boston King, who had escaped slavery in South Carolina to join the British, was evacuated with his wife Violet to Nova Scotia. Their entry simply notes Violet as a “stout wench”—a reminder that even their liberators viewed them through racist lenses. Harry Washington, who had escaped from George Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation, also reached Nova Scotia and later became a leader in the resettlement to Sierra Leone.

Nova Scotia proved no paradise. Black Loyalists received inferior land—rocky and infertile compared to what white Loyalists received. They faced discrimination, exploitation, and broken promises about land grants. By 1792, nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists—about half of those in Nova Scotia—accepted an offer to resettle in Sierra Leone, where they founded Freetown.

For Black Patriots, the outcome was often worse. While some white soldiers received up to 100 acres of land and military pensions from Congress, Black soldiers who had been promised freedom often received nothing beyond freedom—and some didn’t even get that. As one historian put it, they were “dumped back into civilian society”. In June 1784, thirteen veterans of the Rhode Island Regiment had to hire a lawyer just to petition for their back pay. The state responded with an act that classified them as “paupers, who heretofore were slaves” and ordered towns to provide charity.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Olney, who commanded the Rhode Island Regiment after Christopher Greene’s death, spent years advocating for his former soldiers—fighting attempts to re-enslave them and supporting their pension claims. Some soldiers, like Jack Sisson, finally received pensions decades later in 1818—forty years after they’d enlisted, and often too late. Many died before seeing any recognition.

Even more cruelly, many Black soldiers who had been promised freedom by their masters were returned to slavery after the war. Some remained enslaved for a few years until their owners honored their promises; others remained enslaved permanently, having fought for a freedom they would never experience.

It is plausible that the widespread participation of Black soldiers subtly accelerated Northern emancipation by making slavery harder to justify ideologically, even as Southern resistance hardened.

The Larger Meaning

The American Revolution was the last time the U.S. military would be significantly integrated until President Truman’s Executive Order 9981 in 1948. In 1792, Congress passed legislation limiting military service to “free, able-bodied, white male citizens”—a restriction that would last for generations.

Yet the Revolutionary War period saw more enslaved people gain their freedom than any other time before the Civil War. Historian Gary Nash estimates that between 80,000 and 100,000 enslaved people escaped throughout the thirteen colonies during the war—not all joined the military, but the war created opportunities for flight that many seized.

As historian Edward Countryman notes, the Revolution forced Americans to confront a question that Black Americans had been raising all along: “What does the revolutionary promise of freedom and democracy mean for African Americans?” The white founders failed to answer that question satisfactorily, but the thousands of Black soldiers who fought—on both sides—had already answered it with their lives. They understood that liberty was worth fighting for, even when the people promising it had no intention of extending it to everyone.

Image generated by author using ChatGPT.

Sources

“African Americans in the Revolutionary War,” Wikipedia.
Museum of the American Revolution, “Black Patriots and Loyalists” and “Black Founders: Black Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War.”
Gilder Lehrman Institute, “African American Patriots in the Revolution.”
National Archives blog, “African Americans and the American War for Independence.”

Douglas R. Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (individual stories on both Patriot and Loyalist sides).
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution.
Gary B. Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution.
Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence.
DAR, Forgotten Patriots – African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War: A Guide to Service, Sources, and Studies).

NYPL LibGuide, “Black Experience of the American Revolution”
American Battlefield Trust, “10 Facts: Black Patriots in the American Revolution.”
Massachusetts Historical Society, “Revolutionary Participation: African Americans in the American Revolution.”
Fraunces Tavern Museum, “Enlistment of Freed and Enslaved Blacks in the Continental Army.”
American Independence Museum, “African-American Soldiers’ Service During the Revolutionary War.”

Encyclopedia Virginia, “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment.”
Mount Vernon, “Dunmore’s Proclamation and Black Loyalists” and “The Ethiopian Regiment.”

American Battlefield Trust, “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment”
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775), in transcription with context at Gilder Lehrman, Encyclopedia Virginia, and Mount Vernon.
“Book of Negroes” (1783 evacuation ledger of Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia; digital copies and discussions via BlackPast and Dictionary of Canadian Biography).
Boston King, “Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher,” Methodist Magazine (1798)
NYPL “Black Experience of the American Revolution”
1st Rhode Island Regiment, World History Encyclopedia

Russel Vought and the War on the Environment

By John Turley

On February 16, 2026

In Commentary, History, Politics, Science

Recently, there’s been a a lot of attention given to RFK Jr. and his war on vaccines. More potentially devastating than that is Russel Vought and his war on environmental science.
Russell Vought hasn’t exactly been working in the shadows. As the director of the Office of Management and Budget since February 2025, he’s been methodically implementing what he outlined years earlier in Project 2025—a blueprint that treats climate science not as settled fact, but as what he calls “climate fanaticism.” The result is undeniably the most aggressive dismantling of environmental protections in American history.
The Man Behind the Plan
Vought’s resume tells you everything you need to know about his approach. He served as OMB director during Trump’s first term, wrote a key chapter of Project 2025 focusing on consolidating presidential power, and has openly stated his goal is to make federal bureaucrats feel “traumatized” when they come to work. His philosophy on climate policy specifically? He’s called climate change a side effect of building the modern world—something to manage through deregulation rather than prevention.
Attacking the Foundation: The Endangerment Finding
The centerpiece of Vought’s climate strategy targets what EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has called “the holy grail of the climate change religion”—the 2009 Endangerment Finding. This Obama-era scientific determination concluded that six greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride) endanger public health and welfare. It sounds technical, but it’s the legal foundation for virtually every federal climate regulation enacted over the past fifteen years.
Just last week EPA Administrator Zeldin announced that the Trump administration has repealed this finding. This action strips EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act—meaning no more federal limits on power plant emissions, no vehicle fuel economy standards tied to climate concerns, and no requirement for industries to measure or report their emissions. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this action “will be the largest deregulatory action in American history.”
More than 1,000 scientists warned Zeldin not to take this step, and the Environmental Protection Network cautioned last year that repealing the finding would cause “tens of thousands of additional premature deaths due to pollution exposure” and would spark “accelerated climate destabilization.” Abigail Dillen president of the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice said “there is no way to reconcile EPA’s decision with the law, the science and the reality of the disasters that are hitting us harder every year.” She further said they expect to see the Trump administration in court. Obviously, the science is less important to Trump, Zeldin and Vought than the politics.
The Thirty-One Targets
In March 2025, Zeldin announced what he proudly called “the greatest day of deregulation in American history”—a plan to roll back or reconsider 31 key environmental rules covering everything from clean air to water quality. The list reads like a regulatory hit parade, including vehicle emission standards (designed to encourage electric vehicles), power plant pollution limits, methane regulations for oil and gas operations, and even particulate matter standards that protect against respiratory disease.
The vehicle standards are particularly revealing. The transportation sector is America’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden-era rules were crafted to nudge automakers toward producing more electric vehicles. At Vought’s direction, the EPA is now reconsidering these, with Zeldin arguing they “regulate out of existence” segments of the economy and cost Americans “a lot of money.”
Gutting the Science Infrastructure
Vought’s agenda extends beyond specific regulations to the institutions that produce climate science itself. In Project 2025, he proposed abolishing the Office of Domestic Climate Policy and suggested the president should refuse to accept federal scientific research like the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA). The NCA, published every few years, involves hundreds of scientists examining how climate change is transforming the United States—research that informs everything from building codes to insurance policies.
According to reporting from E&E News in January, Vought wants the White House to exert tighter control over the next NCA, potentially elevating perspectives from climate deniers and industry representatives while excluding contributions made during the Biden administration. This is a plan that has been in the works for years. Vought reportedly participated in a White House meeting during Trump’s first term where officials discussed firing the scientists working on the assessment.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also been targeted. In February 2025, about 800 NOAA employees—responsible for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, fisheries management, and marine research were fired. Project 2025 had proposed breaking up NOAA entirely, and concerned staff members have already begun a scramble to preserve massive amounts of climate data in case the agency is dismantled.
Budget Cuts as Policy
Vought’s Center for Renewing America has proposed eliminating the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the EPA’s environmental justice fund, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. During the first Trump administration, Vought oversaw budgets proposing EPA cuts as steep as 31%—reducing the agency to funding levels not seen in decades. In a 2023 speech, he explained the logic bluntly: “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.”
This isn’t just about climate, it is also about fairness and the recognition that environmental policies have had a predominately negative effect on low income areas. EPA has cancelled 400 environmental justice grants, closed environmental justice offices at all 10 regional offices, and put the director of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund on administrative leave. The fund had been financing local economic development projects aimed at lowering energy prices and reducing emissions.
Eliminating Climate Considerations from Government
Perhaps more insidious than the high-profile rollbacks are the procedural changes that make climate considerations disappear from federal decision-making. In February, Jeffrey Clark—acting administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) under Vought’s OMB—directed federal agencies to stop using the “social cost of carbon” in their analyses. This metric calculates the dollar value of damage caused by one ton of carbon pollution, allowing agencies to accurately assess whether regulations produce net benefits or defects for society.
Vought has also directed agencies to establish sunset dates for environmental regulations—essentially automatic expiration dates after which rules stop being enforced unless renewed. For existing regulations, the sunset comes after one year; for new ones, within five years. The stated goal is forcing agencies to continuously justify their rules, but the practical effect is creating a perpetual cycle of regulatory uncertainty.
The Real-World Stakes
The timing of these rollbacks offers a grim irony. As Vought was pushing to weaken the National Climate Assessment in January 2025, the Eaton and Palisades fires were devastating Los Angeles—exactly the type of climate-intensified disaster the assessment is designed to help communities prepare for. The administration’s response? Energy Secretary Chris Wright described climate change as “a side effect of building the modern world” at an industry conference.
An analysis by Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, found that Project 2025’s proposals to gut federal policies encouraging renewable electricity and electric vehicles would increase U.S. household spending on fuel and utilities by about $240 per year over the next five years. That’s before accounting for the health costs of increased air pollution or the economic damage from unmitigated climate change.
Environmental groups have vowed to challenge these changes in court, and the legal battles will likely stretch on for years. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear many cases initially, though the Supreme Court will probably issue final decisions. Legal experts note that while Trump’s EPA moved with unprecedented speed on proposals in 2025, finalizing these rules through the required regulatory process will take much longer. As of December, none of the major climate rule repeals had been submitted to OMB for final review, partly due to what EPA called a 43-day government shutdown (which EPA blamed on Democrats, though the characterization is widely disputed).
What Makes This Different
Previous administrations have certainly rolled back environmental regulations, but Vought’s approach differs in both scope and philosophy. Rather than tweaking specific rules or relaxing enforcement, he’s systematically attacking the scientific and legal foundations that make climate regulation possible. It’s the difference between turning down the thermostat and ripping out the entire heating system.
The Environmental Defense Fund, which rarely comments on political appointees, strongly opposed Vought’s confirmation, with Executive Director Amanda Leland stating: “Russ Vought has made clear his contempt for the people working every day to ensure their fellow Americans have clean air, clean water and a safer climate.”
Looking Forward
Whether Vought’s vision becomes permanent depends largely on how courts rule on these changes. The 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA established that the agency has authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act—the very authority Vought is now trying to eliminate. Overturning established precedent is difficult, though the current Supreme Court’s composition makes the outcome possible, if not likely.
What we’re witnessing is essentially a test of whether one administration can permanently disable the federal government’s capacity to address climate change, or if these changes represent a temporary setback that future administrations can reverse. The stakes couldn’t be higher: atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue rising, global temperatures are breaking records, and climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent and severe. Nothing less than the future of our way of life is at stake. We must take action now.

Full disclosure: my undergraduate degree is in meteorology, but I would never call myself a meteorologist since I have never worked in the field. But I still maintain an interest, from both a meteorological and a medical perspective. The Grump Doc is never lacking in opinions.

Illustration generated by author using Midjourney.

Sources:
Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow, “Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation,” New York Times, Feb. 9, 2026.[nytimes +1]
Lisa Friedman, “The Conservative Activists Behind One of Trump’s Biggest Climate Moves,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2026.[nytimes +1]
Bob Sussman, “The Anti-Climate Fanaticism of the Second Trump Term (Part 1: The Purge of Climate from All Federal Programs),” Environmental Law Institute, May 7, 2025.[eli]
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Trump EPA Kicks Off Formal Reconsideration of Endangerment Finding,” EPA News Release, Mar. 13, 2025.[epa]
Trump’s Climate and Clean Energy Rollback Tracker, Act On Climate/NRDC coalition, updated Jan. 11, 2026.[actonclimate]
“Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 9, 2026.[wsj]
Valerie Volcovici, “Trump Set to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback,” Reuters, Feb. 9, 2026.[reuters]
Alex Guillén, “Trump EPA to Take Its Biggest Swing Yet Against Climate Change Rules,” Politico, Feb. 10, 2026.[politico]
“EPA Urges White House to Strike Down Landmark Climate Finding,” Washington Post, Feb. 26, 2025.[washingtonpost]
“Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation,” Seattle Times reprint, Feb. 10, 2026.[seattletimes]
“Trump Wants to Dismantle Key Climate Research Hub in Colorado,” Earth.org, Dec. 17, 2025.[earth]
“Vought Says National Science Foundation to Break Up Federal Climate Research Center,” The Hill, Dec. 17, 2025.[thehill]
Rachel Cleetus, “One Year of the Trump Administration’s All-Out Assault on Climate and Clean Energy,” Union of Concerned Scientists, Jan. 13, 2026.[ucs]
Environmental Protection Network, “Environmental Protection Network Speaks Out Against Vought Cabinet Consideration,” Nov. 20, 2024.[environmentalprotectionnetwork]
“From Disavowal to Delivery: The Trump Administration’s Rapid Implementation of Project 2025 on Public Lands,” Center for Western Priorities, Jan. 28, 2026.[westernpriorities]
“Russ Vought Nominated for Office of Management and Budget Director,” Environmental Defense Fund statement, Mar. 6, 2025.[edf]
“Project 2025,” Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 backgrounder (as summarized in the Project 2025 Wikipedia entry).[wikipedia]
“EPA to repeal finding that serves as basis for climate change,” The Associated Press, Matthew Daly
https://vitalsigns.edf.org/story/trump-nominee-and-project-2025-architect-russell-vought-has-drastic-plans-reshape-america
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Vought
https://www.commondreams.org/news/warnings-of-permanent-damage-to-people-and-planet-as-trump-epa-set-to-repeal-key-climate-rule
https://www.eenews.net/articles/trump-team-takes-aim-at-crown-jewel-of-us-climate-research/
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-administration-moves-to-repeal-epa-rule-that-allows-climate-regulation
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-epa-unveils-aggressive-plans-to-dismantle-climate-regulation/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-10/trump-s-epa-to-scrap-landmark-emissions-policy-in-major-rollback

Grumpy opinions about everything.

Tag: American History Page 1 of 4

The Curious Art of Pointing: Late 18th-Century Portraiture and the Language of Gestures

The Accidental Footnote: Heel Spurs, the Vietnam Draft, and American Inequality

Lady Liberty: The Statue We Think We Know

The Art of Rigging Democracy: A Close Look At Gerrymandering

The Easter Bunny: A Surprisingly Serious History

Native Americans in the Revolutionary War: Choosing Sides in a Conflict Not Their Own

The Patriots’ Native Allies

Combat Contributions

The Bitter Aftermath

The Larger Picture

Henry Knox vs Joseph Plumb Martin: A Case Study in Officer Privilege After the Revolution

The Broken Promises: How America Treated Its Revolutionary War Veterans

Black Soldiers on Both Sides: The Complex Story of African Americans in the Revolutionary War

Russel Vought and the War on the Environment