Commuting is old as the hills….

Well, OK, maybe not quite as old as the hills.

But "commuting" has a very American history, all the way back to the 1830s in Boston.

Throughout modern human history (last 1,500 years or so), folks who weren't doing farming or "cottage industry" work purposefully tended to live within an hour's walk (or hour's travel time) from the place where they worked. That makes sense, especially centuries ago, when there was no public lighting and darkness tended to shut down a lot of activity, and so spending no more than a couple hours a day getting to and from work seemed like a really smart thing to do….and, of course, a lot of folks lived a lot closer than that to their workplace.

In the 1830s, Boston investors and entrepreneurs started building the railroad infrastructure that would create "spokes" of rail lines leading from the central city "hub" to sparsely populated places that would become Newton, Providence, Worcester, Lowell, Salem, Newburyport, Plymouth, Fitchburg….

Now, here's the thing: these railroad pioneers built their lines to handle freight. Gradually it dawned on them that they could profitably carry people. Add in a little real estate speculation, and some homebuilding, and upper class folks who wanted to get out of the city, and Voila! The first approximation of suburbs appeared along the tracks extending outward from Boston.

The owners of the Eastern Railroad running to Newburyport, and the folks at Boston & Worcester R.R. serving Newton, started offering reduced price "season tickets" to regular users of their lines, that is, the folks who lived outside Boston and went in to the city to work or do business regularly. These tickets were said to have "commuted" prices—an old-fashioned meaning of "commute" is "to change or reduce."

So these early suburban travelers taking advantage of the "commuted" tickets came to be called "commuters." They could live outside Boston and still have an hour or less travel time to their work.

By 1849, there were 105 commuter trains arriving in Boston every weekday….and, y'know, they didn't have any traffic jams on the rail lines. We could use more rail lines today.

My sources for this historical tidbit:
Henry C. Binford, The First Suburbs: Residential Communities on the Boston Periphery, 1815-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 95.
James C. O'Connell, The Hub's Development: Greater Boston's Development from Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 42.

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2014/01/more-on-british-resources-and.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/when-did-first-people-realize-what-was.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-hard-did-british-try-to-win.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/book-review-1491-new-revelations-of.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/book-review-joseph-brant-and-his-world.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/trash-talk-to-king-george.html

More on British resources and commitment in Revolutionary War

There are some interesting details, about British capability and will to win the Revolutionary War, in a recent discussion thread in the American Historical Association group on LinkedIn.

It's clear that there are substantial economic and military considerations in any assessment of the relative value to the British of the North American colonies and the West Indies "sugar islands." As I've mentioned before, I infer from my reading that the British did not have enough troops and ships to simultaneously suppress the North American rebellion and also defend the sugar islands against French and Spanish predators. It seems to me that this suggests an interesting question: how hard did the British try to win the Revolutionary War?

I don't know the answer, but I'm working on learning more about the circumstances and expectations that shaped 18^th century diplomacy and military initiatives by the British.

The Journal of the American Revolution looks like an interesting site.

How hard did the British try to win?

When did the First People start to realize....

Review of Charles Mann's "1491"

When did the First People realize what was happening?

I have a lot to learn. Therefore, with due humility, I ask:  When did the First People in North America fully realize what the Europeans were doing to them?

It's a research topic that intrigues me. I'm using the question to guide my reading. I'm careful to remind myself, often, that I don't know the answer.

We know now the outcome of the permanent European intrusion in North America, beginning in 1492. Neither the Native Americans who experienced the first contacts, nor the first travelers who arrived from Europe in the 16^th century, knew what their future would be. Before colonists starting arriving in growing numbers in the 17^th century, perhaps the First Peoples had no explicit expectation that they would be decimated, displaced and dispersed from their homelands.

At some point, the growing numbers of Europeans and their demand for control of more and more land and resources must have made it plain to growing numbers of Native Americans that their lifestyle could not be sustained on the lands and in the hunting grounds they cherished.

Generally, Native Americans left no substantial written records. The documentary record we have was written principally by Europeans. It will be difficult to establish a verifiable understanding of the evolving awareness and outlook of Native Americans in their interaction with Europeans, and in their response to European aggrandizement. Nevertheless, I think it is important to try to understand the Native Americans' changing state of mind as we assess details and the patterns of European colonial expansion and the resistance of the First Peoples. Doubtless, Native Americans did not want to abandon or lose their way of life. When did they begin to understand what the Europeans were doing to them?

Obviously, the full realization occurred at different times for Native Americans who comprised many different cultural groups throughout North America. I'm not looking for a simple answer. I'm interested, first, in understanding the meaningful frames of reference for considering the question.

Another question: how hard did the British try to win?

Another thought....

Some sources:

Johnson, William. The Papers of Sir William Johnson. Albany, NY: New York State Library, University of the State of New York, 2008.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2nd ed. New York City: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House Inc., 2011.

Calloway, Colin G. New Worlds For All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Cronon, William. Changes In The Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.

Dobyns, Henry F. Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

Dowd, Gregory Evans. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Fenton, William. American Indian and White Relations to 1830: Needs & Opportunities for Study. New York: Russell & Russell, A Division of Atheneum Publishers, Inc, 1971. First published in 1957 by University of North Carolina Press.

Haan, Richard L. "Covenant and Consensus: Iroquois and English, 1676-1760." In Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600-1800, eds. Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.

Hamalainen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Johnson, William. The Papers of Sir William Johnson. Albany, NY: New York State Library, University of the State of New York, 2008.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2nd ed. New York City: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House Inc., 2011.

Merrell, James H. "Indian History During the English Colonial Era." In A Companion to Colonial America, edited by Daniel Vickers, 118-37. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Trigger, Bruce G., "Early Native North American Responses to European Contact: Romantic versus Rationalistic Interpretations," The Journal of American History 77, no. 4 (1991): 1195-1215.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

How hard did the British try to win?

I have a lot to learn. Therefore, with due humility, I ask: how hard did the British try to win the American Revolutionary War?

It's a research topic that intrigues me. I'm using the question to guide my reading. I'm careful to remind myself, often, that I don't know the answer.

I think I know enough to indicate the validity of the question. Britain had substantial economic engagement with the North American colonies in the latter part of the 18^th century. The British West Indies—the Caribbean "sugar islands"—also were an important component of the British Atlantic colonial world. Britain had additional commitments in Florida, as well as military outposts, trading posts and other dependencies in Ireland, the Mediterranean, India, Africa, Central America, the Bahamas, the Bermudas, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Hudson's Bay. Britain was intensely engaged in diplomacy and threatening entanglements with France, Spain and other European powers. Britain was an economic power, not a military titan.

King George and the British government did not have unlimited military resources. Army and naval forces were allocated to the rebellious American colonies, just as they were to the West Indies and other areas of vital interest. French and Spanish forces continually threatened the British Caribbean islands, an economic bastion of the British monarchy. There were not enough British ships and troops to establish compelling military superiority in every arena of British interest.

Ultimately, British admirals could not prevent a localized French naval superiority in the Chesapeake Bay that forced Cornwallis to surrender his under-sized army to Washington and Rochambeau at Yorktown in October, 1781.

Did the British government send enough troops and ships to North America to get the job done when the rebellion broke out? Was winning the war a pre-eminent priority for King George and his ministers? Doubtless the British wanted to win. How hard did they try?

I'm not looking for a simple answer. I'm interested, first, in understanding the meaningful frames of reference for considering the question.

Trash talk to King George....

Sources:

Bowler, R. Arthur.  Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in American, 1775-1783. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Corwin, Edward S. French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778. 1916. Reprint, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1962.

Duffy, Michael. Soldiers, Sugar and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War Against Revolutionary France. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

Gipson, Lawrence Henry. The Triumphant Empire: The Empire Beyond the Storm, 1770-1776, vol. 13 of The British Empire Before The American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1967.

O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

Seton-Watson, Robert William. Britain In Europe: 1789-1914, A Survey of Foreign Policy. 1937. Reprint, Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1955.

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2013 All rights reserved.

Book review: Charles Mann's 1491

Book review: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann

New York: Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 2011 (2^nd edition)

553 pages                   

Everything you never knew about civilized people in the Americas before the Europeans arrived and killed most of them (OK, many died in battle, but it was European diseases, mostly). Maybe close to 100 million "native" people died within 100 years or so of the "discovery" by Columbus…..but hold on, this book is not a Wounded Knee-type critique, nor is it ex post facto self-flagellation.

Mann beautifully describes the marvelous sophistication of cultures, cities, agriculture, arts and science that blossomed in North America, Central America, and South America thousands of years ago, in many cases predating achievements and growth and civilization in Europe. Yes, the Incas never used the wheel except for children's toys. And yes, the Mississippian city of Cahokia was a bustling port and a trading center with population equal to Paris in France---and that was 500 years before Columbus sailed. And yes, there were grand cities in the Americas before there was pyramid-building in Egypt. And yes, the Olmec culture in what is now Mexico invented the zero whole centuries before mathematicians in India did the same.

My recollection of learning about the history of the Americas is that the dates and events were tied to discovery and conquest and colonization by Europeans. The implication was that, before the white men with guns, germs and steel arrived,  nothing much was going on in whole continents characterized more by "virgin land" and "endless wilderness" than by people who had agriculture, city life, art, trade, commerce, religion, science, kings and philosophers.

For me, the joy of reading this book is learning about the multiplicity of cultures that flourished in the Americas, and learning how they tamed and managed and very greenly conserved their environment…and for me, the sad revelation of this book is understanding that the peoples of the Americas were human beings whose achievements were noble and notable, and yet, lamentably, their legacies are largely lost and the losses are barely mourned.

In 1533 Pizarro and his conquistadors at Cuzco precipitated the decline of the 300-year-old Inca empire in Peru. Fifty years later, the Spanish colonial administrators in Peru ordered the burning of all the Incan "khipu" knotted string records because they were "idolatrous objects." Khipu were the Incas' only form of writing. The smoke from the burning of the books gets in your eyes, forever and ever.

Charles Mann's website:

http://www.charlesmann.org/Book-index.htm

 http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/book-review-joseph-brant-and-his-world.html

http://historybottomlines.blogspot.com/2013/12/trash-talk-to-king-george.html

http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/2011/11/book-review-1491-by-charles-c-mann.html

The life of Joseph Brant

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Book review: Joseph Brant and His World

A Mohawk leader who helped shape the world shared by his people and colonists in the 18^th century….

This post has been moved to my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/book-review-joseph-brant-and-his-world/