illustration of the Gaspee incident

Freedom fought for in 1772 and in 2006: then by force, today an 'information war.'

Civil libertarians and others concerned about their country are urging their fellow Americans to ‘wake up!” Those sounding the alarm warn that fundamental American freedoms are challenged, suspended, even eliminated in the name of protecting the populace. Out of fear of terrorism, natural disaster, and bird flu, together with total trust in big government, not a few Americans accept or ignore that almost every one of the Bill of Rights is being dismantled, say not a few independent talk radio show hosts, third party politicians, documentary filmmakers, citizen activists, journalists, ministers, activists, and authors. They say to forget the ‘Left versus Right’ blame game: both sides are doing the dismantling.

Meanwhile: a chorus of people can be heard nationwide singing the same tune: “I have nothing to hide,” these people say. “Well, there have not been anymore attacks,” they reason. ‘We need to be protected” they state, sounding defensive. It is a safe bet that the good people who say these words believe, deep inside themselves, that their freedom would never actually be taken away by government.

Are Americans all too willing to give up the very freedoms – including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom from torture, freedom to own property, freedom from spying, freedom to be secure in one’s own home – for which Patriots of the 18th Century fought or died? History shows Americans are free today because of Patriots of the past people.

Will the US maintain freedom? If liberty were to flee from this land, to what shining beacon of freedom will the oppressed people of the world turn? To where will the people of China and Cuba and other dictatorships look for sanctuary?

On the Fourth of July American hearts swell with patriotic feelings as uniformed bands march in parades down Main Street and colorful fireworks burst in the night sky. Do these fine folks even know why their country is special?

The schools, that should be teaching the basics of history and the significance of the founding the United States, despite using billions of tax payers’ dollars, have failed the young and the country. For example, more than one in three high school students “believes that the First Amendment "goes too far" in the rights it grants and protects, while half of the students surveyed said that newspapers should have to receive government approval before publishing its stories” reported Associated Press in 2005 regarding a survey sponsored by the Knight Foundation.

Are students aware if why private property made the US unique in the history of the world? That individualism does not mean getting pierced or tattooed? That it means the right to live, believe, worship, work, and parent as one chooses, and not as the collective demands. That Americans have inherent worth no matter their color, abilities, orientation, income, or education?

Rhode Islander Tim Goodness of the Constitution Party explains, “Our rights, which are about individualism, not being a member of a collective, are a right given to all of Gods children. That is to say, these rights are ours and only recognized by our Constitution. To say they are given to us by it is to say they are given to us by the ones who wrote it and now they who have the ability to amend it -- Nothing could be further from the truth! To believe this is to resign our rights existing at the grace of others. The men who shaped our Nation, our Constitution knew this, they understood it and this is why the powerful words -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." -- are included in the Declaration of Independence.”

Americans are long-accustomed to freedoms and a standard of living denied in most of the world. However, disserved by a dumbed down educational system and ‘infotainment’ that substitutes for true history, the majority of Americans seem to believe their rugged individualism, like their freedom, will last forever. It is reasonable to state the average citizen -- high school dropout or PhD -- is unaware of what life under the tyranny of British rulers was like for the Colonists. Americans also seem oblivious to how easily governments throughout history have slid into tyranny and totalitarianism.


Tim Goodness says: “...I think the tyranny of the eighteenth century was very different from that we see being exercised today. Today, tyranny here in America is much more insidious. It is cloaked in liberty suppressing legislation like the 'PATRIOT Act' and the 'Presidents New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.' We also see blatant violations of our constitutionally recognized rights with all the recent domestic surveillance policies. It is my belief that so much of this is being allowed to happen for several reasons, not the least of which is the American people’s ignorance of the real values our nation was founded on, or just how revolutionary the Constitution was then, and is today to governing. It's a little like that old story about a frog in a pot, if you slowly turn up the water temperature the frog will never notice it is being boiled. In this case the American people have slowly had their liberties compromised and taken away over the span of decades. This not only makes it less noticeable but with the passing of every generation makes it harder to remember what living with this form of liberty was really like.”

The forefathers and mothers of the United States knew history, that any government that grew too big crushed or enslaved its people sooner or later. The Patriots warned the people of the future about this in documents anyone can read on the Internet or at the public library. The tyranny of the British rulers led Patriots to proclaim their Declaration of Independence. Odds greatly against them, they were victorious in the Revolutionary War and established the US Constitution, and its Bill of Rights. Perhaps Congressional representatives should supply every American with free copies of these precious documents, and children should be taught their meaning when in elementary school, and by middle school how to be responsible citizens who help uphold their Constitutional Republic. Today students are not even taught the history of how the United States was established.


Rhode Island and the Gaspee

The story of the tyranny Colonists were forced to endure under British rule is seldom told. One place in the nation where this is remembered each summer is in the smallest state of Rhode Island: the burning of the Gaspee ship. The Gaspee Committee makes sure of that by celebrating and reenacting the event and publishing a Website filled with historical information. “…We need to preserve this event and what it stands for; freedom and liberty for all” stated Elizabeth A. Fournier, President 2004-2006, Gaspee Days Committee. “Gaspee Days stands for much more than just a parade, it also an opportunity for us to remember those brave patriots that did what was necessary to secure freedoms for our country,” explained Fournier on the Website www.gaspee.org

Founded by Reverend Roger Williams as a land of freedom, including religious freedom, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is an apt place to learn the history of freedom.

Years of fear, terror and indignities – tyranny -- the Colonists were forced to endure finally led some to bold action against their oppressors. “The people were banded together by a principle of resistance to tyranny which neither threats nor promises could shake,” we learn from John Frost’s “Popular History of the United States” published in 1876. More, this “bold act of hostility…greatly exasperated the British ministry.” On June 9, 1772 the ragtag group of Rhode Island residents took on the cruel and unjust behavior of British Lieutenant Dudingston, who “had become very obnoxious to the people of that colony, by his extraordinary zeal in the execution of revenue laws.”
The little group of Patriots consisted of: “Mr. John Brown, Captain Abraham Whipple, John B. Hopkins, Samuel Dunn, and five others whose names I have forgotten and John Mawney, Benjamin Page, Joseph Bucklin and Turpin Smith..” wrote member Ephraim Bowen in 1839 at age 86.





We learn from History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent, published in the 1870s and written by George Bancroft:
“Inhabitants of Providence, in Rhode Island, had, in March, 1772, complained to the deputy-governor of Lieutenant Dudingston, commander of the Gaspee. Hopkins, the chief justice, on being consulted, gave the opinion, "that any person who should come into the colony and exercise any authority by force of arms, without showing his commission to the governor, and, if a custom-house officer, without being sworn into his office, was guilty of a trespass, if not piracy." The governor, therefore, sent a sheriff on board the Gaspee, to ascertain by what orders the lieutenant acted.” “Dudingston referred the subject to the admiral, who answered from Boston: "The lieutenant, sir, has done his duty. I shall give the king's officers directions, that they send' every man taken in molesting them to me. As sure as the people of Newport attempt to rescue any vessel, and any of them are taken, I will hang them as pirates." Dudingston, “seconded the insolence of his superior officer, insulted the inhabitants, plundered the islands of sheep and hogs, cut down trees, fired at market-boats, detained vessels without a colorable pretext, and made illegal seizures of goods of which the recovery cost more than they were worth.”

The Colonists would take no more abuse. “On the ninth of June, the Providence packet was returning to Providence, and proud of its speed, went gayly on, heedless of the Gaspee. Dudingston gave chase. The tide being at flood, the packet ventured near shore; the Gaspee, confidently followed; and drawing more water, ran aground on Namquit, a little below Pautuxet. The following night a party of men in six or seven boats, led by John Brown and Joseph Brown of Providence, and Simeon Potter of Bristol, boarded the stranded schooner, after a scuffle in which Dudingston was wounded, took and landed its crew, and then set it on fire…”

It was reported that among the group of dissenter were men of African and Native-American descent.

Significance of Gaspee

From the Hon. William Hunter, writing in The Rhode-Island book: selections in prose and verse, from the writings of Rhode-Island citizens, an 1841 book by Anne C. Lynch Botta, we learn: “…The first blood that was shed in the revolutionary contest, by that very act begun, stained her deck, and it was drawn by a Rhode Island hand. The blood of Lieutenant Dudingston, was the first blood drawn in the American cause. We are obliged to read in our own American books, disquisitions, almost controversial, on the question, "who gave the first impulse to the ball of the revolution," as some in degrading metaphor have chosen to express the thought. I have been compelled to listen upon this topic, to inflated declamation, rather than just argument, from grave senators, on the question, whether Virginia or Massachusetts struck the first and decisive blow. The debate, in feigned mutual difference, and sweet complacency, always proceeded on the thought, that those two most important and meritorious states, solely begun, sustained and accomplished the revolution. That all the other states, had hardly all interest or participation. Rhode Island and the Gaspee it was always convenient to forget. It is from foreign, and impartial historians, that we are reminded of the relative importance of that deed, which first impressed a bloody hue on our proceeding, and doomed its perpetrators, if the virtue of the country could have permitted their detection, to irremissible death. As to the effect produced by this daring act, and its baffled prosecution, the dread of ministerial vengeance, and the deep but calm determination to meet that vengeance, I must depend on tradition, and appeal to the recollections of the few survivors, of that portentous period. The effect was universal. The flames of the Gaspee seem to have been not only seen, but felt throughout the continent. Independence, unqualified independence, was the aim of Rhode-Island, and it proceeded accordingly. In 1774 you did an act, if possible, more positive, daring, and decisive, more unequivocally indicative of your warlike spirit and your determination to be independent. You rose, as the British lawyers said, from common felony to high and atrocious treason. As soon as the proclamation, prohibiting the importation of arms from England, was known here, you dismantled the king's fort at Newport, and took possession of 40 pieces of cannon. All our leading men, not only had at heart, but avowed the same sentiment as that contained in General Greene's letter to Governor Ward, then a member of the first Congress, dated on the 4th of June, 1774, at the camp on Prospect hill. " Permit me," says he then, "to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country's cause, a declaration of independence, and call upon the world and the great God who governs it, to witness the propriety and rectitude thereof." We anticipated Congress in the declaration of independence; for, by a solemn act of our General Assembly, we dissolved all connexion with Great Britain, in the May previous. We withdrew our allegiance from the king, and renounced his government forever, and, in a declaration of independence we put down in a condensed, logical statement, our unanswerable reasons for so doing. I drew my facts from records, nothing is colored or exaggerated…”

The Gaspee incident escalated the tyranny and tension. Author Bancroft further explained: “The whole was conducted on a sudden impulse; yet Sandwich resolved never to leave pursuing the colony of Rhode Island, until its charter should be taken away. "A few punished at Execution dock would be the only effectual preventive of any further attempt," wrote Hutchinson, who wished to see a beginning of punishing American offenders in England. There now existed a statute authorizing such a procedure. Two months before, the king had assented to an act for the better securing dock-yards, ships, and stores, which made death the penalty for destroying even the oar of a cutter's boat, or the head of an empty cask belonging to the fleet, and subjected the accused to a trial in any county in Great Britain; and this act extended to the colonies…”

Modern day Gaspee historian Steven Park, Ph.D. author of the forthcoming book “The Shot Not Heard Round the World: Piracy, Treason, and the Gaspee Affair in Pre-Revolutionary Rhode Island, 1772-1773”, and professor at the Univeristy of Connecticut, tells us: “The historical significance of the Gaspee comes from the colonists' fears surrounding the Royal Commission of Inquiry that followed. The Reverend John Allen, a visiting minister at Second Baptist Church in Boston, was invited to give a Thanksgiving Day sermon by the Sons of Liberty. His incendiary sermon mentioned the Gaspee several times and became one of the best selling pamphlets of the pre-independence period.”
Among other strong words, Reverend John Allen said in his “An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty, Or the Essential Rights of the Americans”: “…ARE not the Liberties of the Americans as dear to them as those of Britons? Suppose your Lordship had broke the Laws of his King, and Country; would not your Lordship be willing to be tried by a Jury of your peers, according to the Laws of the land? How would your Lordship like to be fetter'd with irons, and drag’d three thousand miles, in a hell upon earth? No! But in a HELL upon water (Through a Man of War's crew), to take your trial? Is not this contrary to the spirit of the law, and the rights of

an Englishman? Yet thus you have given direction, as the King's Agent, or the agent of the Ministry, to destroy the rights and laws of the Americans. How your Lordship can answer for this agency or injustice before GOD, and Man, will be very difficult: However, if great men, and good men, and Christians can dare to do such thing's as these (when in power,) Heaven grant that I may have no acquaintance with them in this world; or if they have any power in Heaven, not in the world to come; for I think, my Lord, that such men, who will take away the Rights of any people, are neither fit for Heaven, nor Earth, either fit for the Land or the Dunghil.”
“YOUR Lordship let us know that the case of the burning the Gaspee Schooner has been laid before the law servants of the Crown, and that they make the crime of a deeper die than piracy namely, an act of high treason, and levying a war against the King.”
“WELL my Lord, and supposing this to be the case, are not the Rhode Islanders subjects to the King of Great Britain? Has not the King his attorney, his courts of judicatory to decide matters between the King and the subjects? Why then must there be New Courts of admiralty erected to appoint and order the inhabitants to be confin'd, and drag'd away three thousand miles, from their families, laws, rights and liberties, to be tried by their enemies? Do you think my Lord, this is right in the fight of God and Man? I think if the Rhode Islanders suffer this infringement of their liberties, granted them by their Charter, from the King of England, any place out of Hell is good enough for them, for was there ever such cruelty, injustice and barbarity ever united against a free people before, and my Lord Dartmouth to have an hand in it, from whom we might rather have expected mildness, mercy, and the rights of the people supported…”
Is there a difference between Rhode Islanders of the past and of today regarding understanding of tyranny, and the importance of citizen participation government to maintain freedom?
Historian Parks explains: “Of course, the historical irony here is that America’s English Colonists were among the freest and the most lightly-taxed in the world. Most everything that they knew about liberty they learned from British thinkers and parliamentary rule. After the colonists “threw off British tyranny” they implemented many of the same institutions and policies they claimed to have abhorred a decade earlier. Of course this is counter-factual; but it could be argued that Native American Indians and Black slaves might have fared better, historically, had the 13 mainland colonies remained under British rule. Unchecked majoritarianism did not always look after the interest of minority populations.”
The burning of the Gaspee is obviously important in the history of the United States; therefore, should not American schools teach it?
Professor Parks: “when After April of 1995 (Oklahoma City), this becomes a much more ambiguous question for teaching children about colonial history. We were not at war with London’s government. They were collecting taxes and enforcing customs regulations, legitimate government activities. They were merely trying to get the colonists to contribute more revenue to their own defense. Shooting a Naval Officer on station (who almost died) and burning government property to the waterline is not how we want to teach children to change policies that they don’t agree with.”
Rhode Island Today

Hide history from young Americans? The young around the world know more about the history of the founding of the United States than do its own young people. However, there are exceptions. No doubt, if taught the actual history of their own nation children would all be interested; for example, the gritty Mel Gibson film The Patriot was popular with young and old. Malari Martin, an eight grade student at Winman Junior High School in Rhode Island, has learned about Gaspee; in fact the young scholar was this year’s winner of the Gaspee Days essay contest. The child , as ‘Investigator Martin’ to “His Majesty King George III” wrote “The Royal Commission Report of the Burning of the Gaspee .”
Martin reported the facts of that fateful day, and that the Patriot’s adversary “Dudingston did receive medical attention from one of the intruders…”
Though the Spirit of 76 seems like a dim memory, the flames of patriotism still burn in an increasing percent of the US population that points out perilous parallels between those days and the present. “This government is more tyrannical than ever before,” says Rick Adams, a Rhode Island native who hosts a nightly syndicated talk radio show “Uncensored Radio Free America” on the Republic Broadcasting Network (www.rbnlive.com), that also has shows hosted by former General Janis Karpinski -Abu Ghraib prison whistleblower - and authors Dr. Nick Begich, Webster Tarpley, and Professor Jim Fetzer of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (st911.org).

Says Adams of Americans today: “But we lost our spirit of independence. People are willing to give up freedom if someone will come along and take care of you. …politicians know that people are dumbed down.” The times have changed, and we have Americans sitting by while the government tramples the Constitution, says Adams.

However, people like Adams, who is called “the Paul Revere of talk radio”, are not sitting or asleep. But you won’t find Adams or other freedom-minded individuals storming Navy ships. Using the power of the radio and the Internet, these latter-day patriots are waging an ‘information war’ by alerting the public to the accelerating loss of freedom.

It is a nonviolent war that has attracted people by the millions. The mainstream media ignores or ridicules the movement; nevertheless it is ‘on fire.’ Unofficially led by independent talk radio show hosts such as Adams, others on RBNLive, as well as hosts on Genesis Commuinications Network (GCNLIve.com) like Alex Jones of infowars.com, who organized the conference “9/11 & the NeoCon Agenda” and made the documentary “TerrorStorm”. Jones and Adams, unlike their counterparts in mainstream media, are not beholden to or restricted by corporations or even foundations. These Truth Movement leaders are not clones; they each have their own perspectives and ideas. Adams believes: “ We have to get back to our Christian roots. This is a spiritual battle.”

Some Truth Movement people believe third political parties will release the nation from what they perceive as a quagmire or paradigm of two major parties virtually indistinguishable at the federal level regarding such issues as the Iraq war, forthcoming national ID card, border control, and surveillance of citizens.

Tim Goodness of Rhode Island states: “The Constitution Party follows the true theme of Liberty and Freedom this Nation was founded on simply because it is the only party in our nation with a platform that calls for the reinstatement of the Constitution as the boundaries the federal government is to operate within. This was the intent of the men who wrote it and fought for its ratification,” says Tim Goodness.

Is America still a free country? Goodness says: “This question, like so many depend on one’s perspective. If you were to speak to a person who lived in the former Soviet Union, as I have they would probably answer yes! If you were to ask a seventeen year old who has just acquired his drivers license and has been educated by the public school system, thus the unconstitutional U.S. department of Education, again I believe the answer would be yes. However, this is not my answer, nor is it the answer I have heard from many people who like me grew up in a different America and still remember what it was like. Nor would this be the answer of any true Patriot to our constitution who really understands the principles of liberty and freedom our nation was founded on. So my answer is no and in a few years we will look back and realize this even more.”

“The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau of Concord, Massachusetts, in his famous book Walden of 1854. Fear of terrorism, natural disaster, and epidemics may lead some Americans to retreat into television programming or put their faith into big government – or it may lead them to the nonviolent, grassroots Truth Movement.

As historian Edward Peterson wrote in 1853 in The History of Rhode Island…: “We are aware that the idea has become prevalent in the minds of a certain class, that the masses are unfit to govern; but we apprehend no danger, where the people are intelligent, and educated to believe that they are men-not merely in form, but intellectually and morally so-and bound to love the institutions of their beloved country, and to aid in their preservation. Deny to them this right, and you at once generate a band of villains, the counterparts of the Ishmaelites, "' who will be against every man, and every man against them." It behooves us, then, to see to it that education is imparted to all, irrespective of rank or condition, and to be careful that honest poverty, where all the other requisite qualifications are possessed, is not overlooked, and that wealth be not allowed a complete monopoly in all things. The notion of the incompetency of the people to govern themselves, has had its origin on the other side of the water; and its baneful influence and demoralizing effects have been severely felt, sufficient to alarm every true patriot and friend of human rights, and should act as an incentive to vigilance in guarding our liberties-the birth-right of high heaven-and never, never suffer them to be wrested from us by the rapacious cruelty and injustice of designing men, who take delight in lording it over the consciences of men. Oppression is contrary to the very nature of man's being. God created the mind originally free; and it is an act of usurpation which should be frowned down most indignantly, whenever our natural rights are invaded. The original settlers of the Island possessed, in a very high degree, the principles of civil and religious liberty…”


Notes:
1) Illustration from “Providence: The Southern Gateway of New England” (1926) courtesy Gaspee Committee www.gaspee.com
2) A special “Thank you!” to Making of America  http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/ -- a United States treasure in the form of “a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.”

e-mail:: vegusa@cox.net

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