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Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier
In this revisionary look at the eighteenth-century frontier, Michael A. Bellesiles shows us that more than a legendary Revolutionary War hero, Ethan Allen was the leader of a group of frontier subsistence farmers united in their opposition to New York elites and land speculators; the independence Allen and his followers fought for was as much from eastern elites as it was from the British crown. But what makes the story of the Green Mountain frontier so remarkable is that the settlers won. Revolutionary Outlaws is both a biography of Ethan Allen and a social history of the conflict between agrarian commoners and their wealthy adversaries. It explores the roots of popular political commitment to the patriot cause, the significance of rural crowd activity, the character of popular religious culture and dissent, and the origins and structures of an emerging democratic polity.
444 pages, Paperback
First published July 22, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 5, 2021
This is another book that I dipped into when I was working on my Frenemy Nations: Love and Hate Between Neighbo(u)ring States. My idea was to look at pairs of places that are very much alike in some ways, but very different in others, and Vermont and New Hampshire seemed to me to good examples.
At this point New Hampshire (the Granite State whose motto is Live Free or Die) seemed much more reactionary than Vermont (The Green Mountain State one of whose Senators is Bernie Sanders). But Bellesiles's book recounts how Ethan Allan, who rallied the Green Mountain Boys, was a rebel in many, many ways, and might find today's Vermont more than a little too cultivated for his taste. Fine, revisionist history, written with verve.
At this point New Hampshire (the Granite State whose motto is Live Free or Die) seemed much more reactionary than Vermont (The Green Mountain State one of whose Senators is Bernie Sanders). But Bellesiles's book recounts how Ethan Allan, who rallied the Green Mountain Boys, was a rebel in many, many ways, and might find today's Vermont more than a little too cultivated for his taste. Fine, revisionist history, written with verve.
June 18, 2016
I feel like this book should have been less a biography of Ethan Allen and more a history of Revolutionary War Vermont. There was a lot of good stuff in there about the settlement of Vermont, and the whole controversy with competing land claims (some people got land titles from New Hampshire, some got titles from New York, they all fought about it), and the way Vermont played off both the Continental Congress and the British to ensure its independence for a while.
But he kind of just makes it all about Ethan Allen. By the last couple chapters, when he was detailing Allen's particular strain of deism and some book he wrote about religion that no one cared about, I was really ready for the book to end. Also, what about his brothers? He barely mentions that Levi was a loyalist who moved to Canada and had this whole trading thing going with Ira Allen on the lake (which I know about from other books and research). He probably doesn't write about it because it doesn't fit his argument about Ethan Allen, but it does start to seem a little weird as the book goes on and its all Ethan all the time.
Plus, the other thing. Even though questions were never raised about this one, as far as I know, there's the whole thing with Bellesiles's gun book (look it up). So even though it probably isn't fair, it's always there in the back of my mind and I wonder if I can trust this stuff 100%.
But he kind of just makes it all about Ethan Allen. By the last couple chapters, when he was detailing Allen's particular strain of deism and some book he wrote about religion that no one cared about, I was really ready for the book to end. Also, what about his brothers? He barely mentions that Levi was a loyalist who moved to Canada and had this whole trading thing going with Ira Allen on the lake (which I know about from other books and research). He probably doesn't write about it because it doesn't fit his argument about Ethan Allen, but it does start to seem a little weird as the book goes on and its all Ethan all the time.
Plus, the other thing. Even though questions were never raised about this one, as far as I know, there's the whole thing with Bellesiles's gun book (look it up). So even though it probably isn't fair, it's always there in the back of my mind and I wonder if I can trust this stuff 100%.
December 11, 2013
I really enjoyed this book as a cross-over history book. The first 80 pages are actually quite boring but I can hardly believe this happened and I didn't know about it. Inspiring political structure in proto-Vermont
January 26, 2024
Very interesting! An inspiring story of the success of a group of communities in the Green Mountains who combined to overcome New York’s claims of possession and control to create the state of Vermont.
August 17, 2015
This was a truly enjoyable read, and essential to completing my term paper for U.S. History.
May 9, 2023
Before Ethan Allen ossified into the marble form on the cover, and then into irrelevancy, he led one of the most remarkable movements of the American Revolution. Community leader, armed rebel, philosopher, and finally ruler of perhaps the only functioning democracy in North America, he achieved a remarkable legacy that has disappeared into the marginal footnotes of US power history.
In this biography Allen's career as frontier landowner, political and religious theorist, legal reformer and finally rebel against the King is traced step by step. Allen's guerrilla "Green Mountain Boys" became the stuff of legend even in his lifetime. As such they have inspired Victorian novelists, libertarian theorists, and right-wing armed militias, each cutting off the piece they want to chew. Bellesiles captures the real man and his movement in a large, but thoroughly readable, volume.
His rebellion faced multiple fronts: against the British Empire and Canadian assault, the claims of New York, the annoyed bias of the US Congress, and "Yorker" dissent within. With a political skill born of necessity as much as ideals he played all against the other in a non-aligned pirouette that kept his "fledgling democracy" free from friend and foe. In fact he resembles the early Fidel Castro, though partisans of either man might balk at the analogy.
Allen's legacy embodies the ideals of popular democracy espoused in Sunday talk-show rhetoric but routinely stepped on in practice. Allen was aware of, and fought against, such discrepancy all his life. In doing so his movement gained and retained power with a minimum of brutality and repression, though modern ideas of civil liberty even for the "treasonous" had yet to be fine-tuned. Because of the egalitarian consensus of the Vermont frontier, the backlash against Tory Loyalists was less gruesome than in most other revolutionary zones of the 1770s.
In personal terms, author Michael Bellesiles was earlier demonized by NRA networkers for his revisionist take on American gun history, downplaying the armed camp theory of frontier expansion. To this day cowardly pundits and publishers back away from him as a lesson "amateur history" and its pitfalls. Perhaps Bellesiles own treatment gave him the necessary perspective to understand Allen's own travails. But there is nothing amateurish in his frontier gun study; nor in this biography of a true frontier American democrat/prophet buried in official historiography.
In this biography Allen's career as frontier landowner, political and religious theorist, legal reformer and finally rebel against the King is traced step by step. Allen's guerrilla "Green Mountain Boys" became the stuff of legend even in his lifetime. As such they have inspired Victorian novelists, libertarian theorists, and right-wing armed militias, each cutting off the piece they want to chew. Bellesiles captures the real man and his movement in a large, but thoroughly readable, volume.
His rebellion faced multiple fronts: against the British Empire and Canadian assault, the claims of New York, the annoyed bias of the US Congress, and "Yorker" dissent within. With a political skill born of necessity as much as ideals he played all against the other in a non-aligned pirouette that kept his "fledgling democracy" free from friend and foe. In fact he resembles the early Fidel Castro, though partisans of either man might balk at the analogy.
Allen's legacy embodies the ideals of popular democracy espoused in Sunday talk-show rhetoric but routinely stepped on in practice. Allen was aware of, and fought against, such discrepancy all his life. In doing so his movement gained and retained power with a minimum of brutality and repression, though modern ideas of civil liberty even for the "treasonous" had yet to be fine-tuned. Because of the egalitarian consensus of the Vermont frontier, the backlash against Tory Loyalists was less gruesome than in most other revolutionary zones of the 1770s.
In personal terms, author Michael Bellesiles was earlier demonized by NRA networkers for his revisionist take on American gun history, downplaying the armed camp theory of frontier expansion. To this day cowardly pundits and publishers back away from him as a lesson "amateur history" and its pitfalls. Perhaps Bellesiles own treatment gave him the necessary perspective to understand Allen's own travails. But there is nothing amateurish in his frontier gun study; nor in this biography of a true frontier American democrat/prophet buried in official historiography.
July 7, 2021
amazon reviews
Author is suspect
After the fraud Belleisles perpetuated in his Arming America book, I must confess that I read Revolutionary Outlaws with a more than sceptical eye. It is well written, but I find myself wondering if I can trust this author again.
Michael
---
More Bias Than History
I suppose there are only two reasons that a person would write a biography, either to unduly idolize a person or tear them down. This author writes for the first reason.
Writing a historical biography with bias can be forgiven, provided that the bias exists in the context or the moralizing historians can't stop themselves from doing, and stays out of the raw facts.
This book is unforgivable because the author cherry-picks, misrepresents, leaves out, or plain changes the facts in order to support his case that Ethan Allen was a rebellious yet upstanding military leader and statesman akin to George Washington.
His military bungling which led even his Green Mountain Boys to forsake him are described as a string of great achievements with phrases like, "With another military victory under his belt...". His greedy, swindling, land-jobbing is portrayed as an upright business. He is referred to constantly as "General Allen" even though it was only in his own mind that he was a general of anything.
The worst of it is the way the author tries to gloss completely over his traitorous dealings with the british during the Revolutionary War, only mentioning this very important episode a couple of times, and going into no detail other than to say that Ethan Allen was only trying to fool the british into not attacking, which the author claims he did successfully, without mentioning the raids on Barnard, Royalton, and numerous other Vermont towns.
If you want to hear the story of Jedediah Springfield, watch The Simpsons...If you want real history, read something else...Either way, this book is worse than a complete waste of time.
Skyler
---
much more troubling, was his book from 2000
Arming America - wikipedia
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in the Journal of American History.
Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used fabricated research to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century.
Although the book was initially awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees.
---
Emory investigation and resignation
As criticism increased and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory.
Bellesiles failed to provide investigators with his research notes, claiming the notes were destroyed in a flood.
In the initial hardcover edition of the book, Bellesiles did not give the total number of probate records which he had investigated, but the following year, after the "flood," Bellesiles included in the paperback edition the claim that he had investigated 11,170 probate records.
"By his own account," writes Hoffer, "the flood had destroyed all but a few loose papers of his data. It was a mystery how supposedly lost original data could reappear to enable him to add the number of cases to the 2001 paperback edition, then disappear once again when the committee of inquiry sought the data from him."
One critic tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy penciled notes on yellow pads by submerging them in his bathtub, in order to prove that water damage would not have destroyed Bellesiles' notes.
The scholarly investigation confirmed that Bellesiles' work had serious flaws, calling into question both its quality and veracity.
The external report on Bellesiles concluded that "every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."
Bellesiles disputed these findings, claiming to have followed all scholarly standards and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him.
Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing the resignation of his professorship at Emory by year's end.
In 2012 Bellesiles was working as a bartender while continuing to write history.
Author is suspect
After the fraud Belleisles perpetuated in his Arming America book, I must confess that I read Revolutionary Outlaws with a more than sceptical eye. It is well written, but I find myself wondering if I can trust this author again.
Michael
---
More Bias Than History
I suppose there are only two reasons that a person would write a biography, either to unduly idolize a person or tear them down. This author writes for the first reason.
Writing a historical biography with bias can be forgiven, provided that the bias exists in the context or the moralizing historians can't stop themselves from doing, and stays out of the raw facts.
This book is unforgivable because the author cherry-picks, misrepresents, leaves out, or plain changes the facts in order to support his case that Ethan Allen was a rebellious yet upstanding military leader and statesman akin to George Washington.
His military bungling which led even his Green Mountain Boys to forsake him are described as a string of great achievements with phrases like, "With another military victory under his belt...". His greedy, swindling, land-jobbing is portrayed as an upright business. He is referred to constantly as "General Allen" even though it was only in his own mind that he was a general of anything.
The worst of it is the way the author tries to gloss completely over his traitorous dealings with the british during the Revolutionary War, only mentioning this very important episode a couple of times, and going into no detail other than to say that Ethan Allen was only trying to fool the british into not attacking, which the author claims he did successfully, without mentioning the raids on Barnard, Royalton, and numerous other Vermont towns.
If you want to hear the story of Jedediah Springfield, watch The Simpsons...If you want real history, read something else...Either way, this book is worse than a complete waste of time.
Skyler
---
much more troubling, was his book from 2000
Arming America - wikipedia
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in the Journal of American History.
Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used fabricated research to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century.
Although the book was initially awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees.
---
Emory investigation and resignation
As criticism increased and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory.
Bellesiles failed to provide investigators with his research notes, claiming the notes were destroyed in a flood.
In the initial hardcover edition of the book, Bellesiles did not give the total number of probate records which he had investigated, but the following year, after the "flood," Bellesiles included in the paperback edition the claim that he had investigated 11,170 probate records.
"By his own account," writes Hoffer, "the flood had destroyed all but a few loose papers of his data. It was a mystery how supposedly lost original data could reappear to enable him to add the number of cases to the 2001 paperback edition, then disappear once again when the committee of inquiry sought the data from him."
One critic tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy penciled notes on yellow pads by submerging them in his bathtub, in order to prove that water damage would not have destroyed Bellesiles' notes.
The scholarly investigation confirmed that Bellesiles' work had serious flaws, calling into question both its quality and veracity.
The external report on Bellesiles concluded that "every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."
Bellesiles disputed these findings, claiming to have followed all scholarly standards and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him.
Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing the resignation of his professorship at Emory by year's end.
In 2012 Bellesiles was working as a bartender while continuing to write history.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews