#2: Prequel to “Independence Day?”: The Revolutionary War as Invasion in “The Patriot”

With The Patriot, director Roland Emmerich took a break from his usual directing fare (lackluster special-effects-laden action films, such as Independence Day and Godzilla), to try his hand at a new genre: the historical epic. In the resulting film, released in 2000, the underdog human race must band together to save the world from invasion – by the British [1]. The Patriot portrays the Revolutionary War not as a political rebellion, in which people of common origins chose sides, but as a war for survival. Emmerich’s version of history bypasses historical fact in order to force history into the mold of consumable entertainment, turning the war into a good versus evil conflict, thrust upon unwilling victims (the colonists) by the cruelty and aggression of “invaders” (native British).

The Patriot begins with historical omission, simplifying the conflict between British homeland and North American colonies by sidestepping the political issues over which the war began. The protagonist, Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), dismisses taxation issues in one sentence at a town meeting early in the film; after that, legal and political grievances with Britain disappear from the narrative. The rebel characters say they fight for freedom, for revenge, for God, for family – but none of them mentions violations of natural rights, taxation, historical events such as the Boston Massacre, the exhortations of historical figures such as Thomas Paine, or any other non-abstract reasons for taking up arms. In the film, the rebels fight for Good; fighting for a cause driven by the historical context of the war would muddy the black-and-white lines with which The Patriot streamlines itself as an easily-consumed action movie.

The film goes further in its attempt to do away with ambiguities and buy the audience’s easy sympathy for “their” American side: it whitewashes slavery in colonial history. The opening scenes of The Patriot show very happy-looking black men and women working on Benjamin Martin’s farm; the film neglects the question of slavery (are these people slaves, as a viewer with some historical knowledge would likely assume them to be?) for long minutes, finally revealing that these workers are “free men” only when the British arrive and attempt to usher them into conscription. Guilt of slavery falls thus not on Benjamin Martin, the South Carolina farmer, but on the British. The film also never shows a scene of confirmed slaves working or any suggestions of abuse of slaves. The token slave soldier character enters the army of his own free will (he signs the enlistment document voluntarily); gains his freedom, the audience is told, while fighting; and continues to fight of his own free will. His master, shown once, does not show up to protest the loss of his slave to freedom, nor does the film consider what will happen to the ex-slave after the war – will a slaveholding society recognize his freedom? What will his quality of life be? Similarly, Benjamin Martin hides his refugee family from the British in a small village of black men, women, and children; but the film chooses not to explain who these people are and why they accept the white soldiers so easily. Are these people runaway slaves? Are they a community of slaves serving a slaveholder nearby? In the first case, they would be fugitives from white male landowners; in the other, they would be owned by them – yet no tension rises up between the soldiers and the villagers. For all intents and purposes, all the slaves appear to have been freed in The Patriot’s colonies; audiences can cheer for the rebels without worrying about what it means for slaveholders to fight for freedom.

These two omissions – that of politics and that of slavery – illustrate the view of American history which Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot seeks to seduce viewers into sharing: One in which blameless “Americans,” free of selfish motive or moral flaw, defended themselves against the “foreign” British. In such a world, the Revolutionary War becomes inevitable; and an audience may indulge in the violence and nationalism of the film without being held back by complicated questions of hypocrisy or relativity. The British can then be shot down by the underdogs, just as are the aliens in Emmerich’s Independence Day, without any justification offered.

[1] “Roland Emmerich.” The Internet Movie Database. 2007. Amazon.com. 22 Sept. 2007 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000386/.

[2] The Patriot. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Perf. Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, and Chris Cooper. DVD. Columbia, 2000.

#1: Unequal Pay: Different Genders, Different Bounties for Runaway Slaves

(Click here to view the Excel spreadsheet on which this essay is based.)

As a woman running away from slavery in the British North American colonies (and later, the U.S.), you could be fairly certain that your master valued your life far less than his own. However, he might also value your life as worth substantially less than that of the man beside you, the brother or husband with whom you were running to freedom. A comparison of the rewards offered for couples (and several mixed-gender groups) in ads collected at The Geography of Slavery in Virginia* indicates that the value of female slaves may have differed from that of male slaves at some points in history; the reward differences may indicate the differing uses to which slaveholders put men and women or the changing views of the colonial society at large, among many other factors.

This conclusion draws on ads listing runaway couples, allowing the comparison of the price offered for the woman and that offered for the man.** Several early slaveowners offered equal rewards for the return of male and female slaves (one pistole each, in two cases, in 1739 [1] and 1745 [2]). However, only a few years later, others drew clear value distinctions. One 1751 slaveowner offered a half pistole for a young woman and two for a woman and her child, compared to three for a single man [3]; in 1770, 20 shillings served for return of a 19-year-old woman – but double that amount for her brother’s capture [4]. The bounty on another pair of sister-brother escapees, in 1774, came to 20 shillings for the sister, three pounds for the brother [5].

However, in some of the later ads, the ad-placers again offered equal rewards. A 1789 slaveholder took care to note that the reward for capture of a husband and wife was 10 dollars for each [6]. In 1795 and 1797, the separate rewards for “halves” of a couple stood at five dollars (in 1795) and ten dollars (1797) each [7, 8].

If this (very small) sample group is taken to represent a historical trend (equal value followed by lesser value for women followed by a return to equal value), what could the change in rewards indicate? Without a much wider sample group and a deeper study of the context in which they were written, no solid generalizations can be made. However, a reader can still form some ideas. In the early history of slavery, perhaps slaves, being more of a rarity and less readily acquired, were held in equal value for work – a slaveholder might not have the luxury of differentiating between male and female slaves when any slave was difficult to replace. Later, when the colonies were better established and slavery and the slave trade more firmly entrenched, slaveholders might have greater opportunity and financial ability to pick and choose; men could be trained and used for fieldwork, while (at least some) women could be set aside to learn household tasks and provide the colonists with house slaves. Female slaves would then be a consumer convenience; men, an economic necessity. A change in the social climate – following the Revolutionary War and its use of words like “freedom,” “equality,” and “justice” as calls-to-arms – may have led slaveholders to again be more careful of their slaves; opportunities and impetus for escape and hopes of freedom may have increased among slaves and keeping them in check may have become more important. Perhaps also the return to equal rewards reflected unconscious changes in values by the slaveholders and their surrounding society, acknowledging the couples less as livestock than as individuals. Or perhaps the slaveholders were simply afraid that, in this new nation, still to establish itself in trade, slaves might again become less easy to obtain.

Regardless of the exact causes or the representative quality of the sample, this fluctuation in the rewards offered for female slaves may still point to changing economic and social conditions within the North American colonies, as well as to differences in individual slaveholders’ perceptions of slaves. Further exploration and comparison of advertisements might yield more insights into these possible changes.

* Considering the size of The Geography of Slavery in Virginia’s collection of runaway ads, I decided to limit my search of the ads to young women (largely women 20 or younger) and to include examples of pregnant runaways and runaways accompanied by men whenever possible. From 1736-1763, very few ads for escaped women were available, so, for this period, the search criteria were widened to include all ages.

** A number of ads included in the spreadsheet give a set reward for return of a couple, not individual rewards for return of the man and of the woman. Due to space constraints, these are not considered in this post.

[1] Virginia Gazette (Parks), Williamsburg, October 26 to November 2, 1739.
[2] Virginia Gazette (Parks), Williamsburg, From November 14 to November 21, 1745.
[3] Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, May 24, 1751.
[4] Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, December 13, 1770.
[5] Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, June 16, 1774.
[6] Virginia Independent Chronicle (Davis), Richmond, July 15, 1789.
[7] Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, July 29, 1795.
[8] Norfolk Herald (Willett and O’Connor), Norfolk, July 20, 1797.