The first chapter book I read was about Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. My 6th grade teacher encouraged us to read that was a competition that I was good at. It was the start of a lifelong love of history books. I have read hundreds of history books since then. I noticed that Jan. 21, 1738 is his birthday, so I decided to research him. Here is what I found.
Ethan Allen was born the son of a farmer in Connecticut on Jan. 21, 1738. He was destined for Yale, but his father passing away left his oldest son to run the farm. Ethan accepted this. He got involved in land speculation in the area west of New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Grants were disputed between New York and New Hampshire. Allen created a militia unit called the Green Mountain Boys. Their goal was to keep Yorkers out of the area. They used intimidation and destruction of property to scare New York settlers. In May of 1775, the Green Mountain Boys got to apply their talents to the American Revolution by attacking the British Fort Ticonderoga. Allen shared leadership of the attack with Col. Benedict Arnold. The Green Mountain Boys easily entered the sleeping fort and Allen got the first great quote of the Revolution when he banged on the door of the fort’s commander to demand “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress” that he surrender. He did so and the fort fell without a shot fired. The fort was in a strategic location, but more importantly it had a lot of cannons. Henry Knox, the Continental Army’s commander of artillery, came to get the guns and took them to Boston, where Washington was besieging Boston. The cannons were emplaced on Dorchester Heights overlooking the city. The British were forced to evacuate the city. Allen followed up Fort Ticonderoga with a foolhardy attempt to capture Montreal. He was captured and spent three years in captivity, some of it on infamous prison ships. He was freed in a prisoner exchange in 1778. The Green Mountain Boys were designated a regiment, but Allen was not given command. His war was over, partly because he was hard to work with. He got involved in politics. As a judge, he worked to identify Tories and confiscated their property. He even targeted his own brother. Vermont was proclaimed a republic and when the new government of the U.S. was slow in accepting it as the 14th state, he secretly negotiated with the British about becoming a province of Great Britain. Allen created quite a stir when he published a book entitled “Reason: the Only Oracle of Man”. Allen was deist which means he believed in God, but not in revelations. Instead the book encouraged people to use logic, reason, and science. The book was critical of the Bible, churches, and the priesthood. It did not sell well. When he died in 1789, some newspapers wrote that he had gone to Hell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ethan-allen-is-born
https://www.biography.com/political-figure/ethan-allen
1 Comment
17thcenturyengland · January 21, 2023 at 7:45 pm
“Allen was deist which means he believed in God, but not in revelations. Instead the book encouraged people to use logic, reason, and science. The book was critical of the Bible, churches, and the priesthood.”
Allen was a man of the Enlightenment who must have read Machiavelli, Hobbes, Harrison, Pufendorf, Bodin, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Spinoza, Diderot, Montaigne, Grotius, etc.
America was based on the writings of these men — our Founding Fathers were Deists. Our Constitution is a Deist document. It’s sad our educators have not read these great works for themselves and almost by rote instead teach that Allen, Washington, etc. were different from us, and imply they were misled (I can’t think of a better word) because they were critical of the Bible, church and priesthood.
If we read the philosophy, we see they had good reason to distrust churches and priests, who had.plunged Europe into 200 years of religious wars. The Founding Fathers were men of science and mathematics, not magical thinking.
We need more of our schoolchildren to be enthusiastic about math and science, and not magical mushroom and pill thinking.
Allen was a man of his times. Being a Deist built America. They gave the power back to God. Since 56 percent of Americans seldom or never go to church/mosque/synagog/etc today, I suspect we are still basically a Deist nation.
Don’t be afraid of our history. Read the philosophy. Find inspiration and liberation in the Enlightenment. It’s exciting stuff.
Teaching reality might inspire our children to become part of that excitment?
Maybe Allen’s book didn’t sell because it was boring, badly written, or too expensive for the average Joe to buy?
Blaming the Enlightenment makes no sense.