First about the author. Tad Stoermer is a widely recognized public historian and lecturer in Colonial History, having earned his PhD from the University of Virginia. He also earned fellowships from Harvard, Brown, Yale, and Monticello. He teaches Public History at Johns Hopkins, and is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of Southern Denmark, where he and his family spend some of their time besides Cape Cod. Prior to his writing and academic pursuits, Professor Stoermer was an Army Reconnaissance Scout, and worked in the Democratic political arena.
To those of you who will have the privilege of reading this book when it comes out, please trust me when I tell you that the history you thought you knew well, that your kids perhaps, are getting taught in detail in school—perhaps in college—well, they’re not. And certainly not in any useful detail.
History was, and was always meant to be, a tool for us to use for our benefit in whatever time we’re in and that is what Tad Stoermer has done to great effect with A Resistance History of the United States.
Starting with the first “power plays” between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts and the indigenous tribes that greeted them in the 1620s, headed by the Wampanoag tribe and their sachem Metacomet (aka King Phillip, familiarly to the English) Stoermer begins with the largest war of the 17th century that resulted in the near erasure of the indigenous tribes from New England by the end of that century.
And you thought the Pilgrims came over on the Mayflower just for freedom of religion. King Phillip’s War, as it became known, lasted nearly three years from 1675 to 1678, and ended with Metacomet’s killing in Rhode Island. Thousands of indigenous tribes’ members were vanquished from New England as a result of the war, and many died by disease, and in combat against the British. This pattern of engagement would continue for the next 150 years.
And this is just the beginning of a long, bigoted history of oppression dressed up as patriotic and religious mythology that most of us grew up with from kindergarten through high school. Perhaps even further in college history classes.
This pattern continues in time and geography down to the Jamestown Settlement of Virginia where Nathaniel Bacon was cooking up a grievance filled power grab of his own. Bacon had his own issues with indigenous tribes in his area, and was quite bigoted as one might imagine, The Governor of the colony, a much more temperate man named William Berkeley would have nothing to do with vanquishing the tribes as Bacon demanded, and a rebellion ensued. The rebellion resulted in Bacon’s execution, and Berkeley’s recall to England.
One of the great and connecting themes of this Resistance History is that for every Colonial American lesson, there is at least one useful tool for modern “resisters” to use today in the battle against oppressive powers that will, without hesitation, use that power to build further to define itself however it wishes, using the most monstrous narratives that civilized society would otherwise find repugnant.
Don’t be alarmed at this bit of time travel! There are great lessons to be taken from over 350 years of rebellious behavior, good and bad, that deserve attention whether one is just reading for strictly educational purposes or, as many who victims of the American slave trade at the hands of mythical luminaries like James Madison, George Washington, and others who had a hand in the drafting of our republic’s original Constitution.
The Underground Railroad, for example was a brilliant and long lasting instrument used to get thousands of slaves to Canada using one the best intelligence networks ever devised. Historians today don’t have all the details on how the network operated.
Going back in time to the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s where oppressive power was beaten with the truth of the declared innocence of the accused women, who carried that truth to the gallows with them in order to defeat the oppression of the powerful men who sat in judgment of them.
From the use of slaves and indentured servants in the American Revolution, the constitutional compromises that left slavery in place until after the Civil War (Hint: Lincoln favored leaving it alone to preserve the republic) the lessons are detailed, and filled with blueprints of how historically successful resistance movements operated, as well as unsuccessful movements failed. Included are the characteristics of the people that make up both, with detailed examples throughout time.
Tad Stoermer’s A Resistance History of the United States is a master class of methodology in detail, and not just another history easily obtained anywhere. It is powerfully useful, and demands the reader follow the evidence toward the logical—not always comfortable—conclusion.
I highly recommend A Resistance History of the United States to the student of history, as well as any serious student on the current goings on in the world, obtain this book as soon as it becomes available, and derive the important lessons that will be taken from it, and used if willing.