Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic

1. Resistance, Revolution, and Nationhood: The Origins of a National Popular Political Culture

Resistance, Revolution, and Nationhood: The Origins of a National Popular Political Culture PEOPLE FROM THREE CONTINENTS CREATED the new societies of mainland British North America, bringing a wide array of beliefs and traditions to the communities that spanned out from Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware and Hudson River Valleys, and the rugged coastlines of New England.Yet while ethnic and racial diversitywere defining characteristicsof this world, in vital ways it was the cultural heritage of the English that dominated in British North America. It was English culture that played the principal role in the formation of an Americanpopular politicalculture.1 This is not to say that the political culture of England remained of abiding interest to those who inhabited the New World. Once in America settlers were confronted by the sweltering heat of the Carolinas, theheavily wooded and dangerous backcountry, and the cold and harsh terrain of New England. The Old World seemed far away, and many colonists had neither the time nor the means to maintain an active interest in English politics and political culture. Descriptions of English celebrations of the monarch's birthday or the birth of a new member of the royal family, accounts of London's Whig celebrations during November, depictions of the Liberty Cap and similar popular radical symbols, and references to avariety of English and Scottish crowd actions all appeared in colonial newspapers, but on such an infrequent basisthat it isclearthat the festive rites mounted in England were no longer a part of everyday life in the colonies.2 While the colonists may have displayed little interest in the political world of parades, feasts, and crowd actions of a distant land, their lives remained informed by an English political culturalheritage that they transformed to suit local needs. In the process these colonists developed new, I 12 Chapter I local political cultures, informed by English traditions yet very much a part of local identity in the New World. Perhaps because of the significant differences among New England, the Middle Atlantic region, the Chesapeake Baycolonies, the deep South, and the backcountry, and because of the lack of regular communication between these disparate regions, by the middle of the eighteenth century a varietyof different political cultures had emerged in the mainland colonies, although all had some common elements of English festive culture. During the French and Indian War there appeared the first signs of a unification of these divergent regional political cultures as different colonists participated in strikingly similar rites of celebration and commemoration . The ensuing two decades of political crisis escalated this process: the experiences of the resistance movement, the politicization of ordinary folk, and the bringing into the polity—albeit to a limited degree—of white women and black Americans combined to create a unified discourse of political activity. Drawing on English and regional American traditions of crowd actions and festive and commemorative rites, all manner of Americans from Maine to Georgia participated in the politics of resistance, rebellion , and then nation-building. In fact success in the struggle to create an independent nation was in part contingent on the creation of a unified popular political culture that allowed Americans to act in concert. A brief resurgence of provincialism in the aftermath of success in the war for independence temporarily weakened the move toward a national discourse of popular politics and political activity, but the chaos of the 17805 and the centralizing impulses that culminated in the Federal Constitution revitalized the move toward a national popular politicalculture. Allegiance to the Crown united all the settlers in colonial British North America (in theory if not in fact), and there were celebrations of the birthdays of the monarch and of leading members of the royal family in all the colonies. These events were, however, neither aswidespread nor as enthusiastic as those mounted in Britain,and there appears to have been little in the way of widespread commemoration beyond the coastal towns and cities. Moreover, since these festivals were not conducted in the partisan context of Hanoverian politics, they were quite unlike the highly politicized British celebrations which provided political parties with opportunities to rally popular support. Colonial celebrations generally were Resistance, Revolution, and Nationhood 13 organized by and for members of the local ruling elite, who drew some portion of their power and success from the monarch they celebrated. As such they may well have played a role in the process of Anglicization, wherein members of...