July 4th was the day that the delegates met for the Second Continental Congress and adopted the Declaration of Independence. They came together to fight back against the British because they believed that they were subject to tyranny.
This cause for freedom, for liberty, sprang both from the powerful impact of the Great Awakening – the religious revival that swept the nation – and from rationalism – a movement that lifted up reason as the path to truth, the strength of the mind over the privilege of wealth and class. Distaste for taxation and stricter policies from the British was widespread in the colonies and so the people came together to fight as one – for the freedom to be a new kind of nation.
As we look back at the heroes of our history, it can be easy to romanticize things – to make the course of events seem easy or inevitable. But though they felt called to freedom, things were by no means certain. There were 2.5 million people living in the colonies during the revolution and about 500,000 African Americans. Historians estimate that among white citizens, between 15-20% were loyalists who supported the British in the war. That’s 300,000 to 400,000 people! And even among the patriots, many of them had more that was different from one another than they had in common. They were rich and poor, men and women, country folk and city folk, farmers and merchants, white and black. There were 9,000 free blacks who fought with the Patriots, about 100 Jews, and a handful of Muslims who have been recorded in lists of revolutionary soldiers. And even among Christians there was rarely easy agreement. Back then, it was a lot more common to believe that people who were not the same denomination as you were doomed to hell. And yet, the Declaration was adopted and signed by Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Unitarians, Deists, and one Catholic. Even today it’s hard to imagine what that group would perfectly agree on…
I’ll stop with the details. I’m going a long way to make a short point: the people who fought for our freedom rose above just about every division imaginable in their day to do what they thought was right. In different ways, with different roles and focuses, they came together despite class, wealth, gender, race, religion, place of origin, and on and on.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution & https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/12/boston-tea-party.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CGreat%20Britain%20had%208%20million,and%20the%20American%20Civil%20War. & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_Revolutionary_War & https://www.decaloguesociety.org/assets/docs/Tablets/Spring2022/Jewish%20Heroes%20in%20the%20Revolutionary%20War.pdf & https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/african-muslims-early-america#:~:text=African%20Muslims%20also%20fought%20alongside,Benhaley)%2C%20and%20Joseph%20Saba. & https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2019/07/04/professing-faith-the-religious-foundations-that-bolstered-the-declaration-of-independence/