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Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

aeon.co

21–30 of 102 posts

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#21
post #7

One of my great-grandfather's stories was that soon after immigrating from Poland he and his father found work mining coal in Indian Country (soon to become Oklahoma). The family lived in a shack abutting the local tavern. Everybody (including at least 3 children) slept on the floor due to the frequent bullets coming from the tavern.

TBH in many places in the US you still have regular shootings, and bullets also do get into homes. Residential homes are also built way more crappily now than the log cabins of old times. So nothing much changed about the shooting part. Compare it to Europe which has deweaponized itself.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#22

Incidentally, if you think all this moralistic hand-wringing was centuries ago, famed SF nightclub DNA Lounge was in 2009 charged with, and I quote, "running a disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals". https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2009/02/13.html (Note: jwz doesn't like HN referrers, so c&p into a separate tab)

> famed SF nightclub DNA Lounge

For those not familiar with the DNA Lounge story:

- jwz was an early programmer at Netscape who made several million

- he wanted to get into entertainment, but when you buy a bar in SF, it comes without any permits, so you essentially have to rebuild and re-permit everything

- the SF Police doesn't want to bother policing bars, so the Chief fights you tooth and nail at every city council meeting. Because lazy.

- meanwhile, the property is in an industrial area, so the early closing times and noise ordinances are specious.

You can read his web site for the full story, but after reading it you will never want to open a business in SF.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#23

> By 1775, however, sporadic rioting and violence in and around taverns transitioned into outright war when a group of ‘minute men’ gathered at the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775, just before murdering more than 70 British troops. Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The author appears to be scraping. Is the assertion that the taverns caused publ…

> As is still so often the case when white, powerful men felt threatened, they banded together to create, and separate, the other . What, this is a behavior specific to white, powerful men? What went down in and around Lexington and Concord was a more serious crime than murder, it was an act of rebellion. The author appears committed to a particular affect which seems out of context with the history he presents.

Maybe a better qualifier is dominant culture men in a society because I’ve seen that across the world. Rarely do non dominant cultures band together effectively. But this is all anecdote and conjecture on my part.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#25

> By 1775, however, sporadic rioting and violence in and around taverns transitioned into outright war when a group of ‘minute men’ gathered at the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775, just before murdering more than 70 British troops. Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The author appears to be scraping. Is the assertion that the taverns caused publ…

Agree. Remember the British were already under order to raid the towns for supplies ('powder and ball'). In Lexington, the militia had made a show of force, following which gunfire was exchanged, and the British officers authorized a "huzzah" in celebration of the death of several militia members.

Quite a stretch to call resisting an army under orders to seize munitions by force "murder" per say, this was a clear act of self defense.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#27

> By 1775, however, sporadic rioting and violence in and around taverns transitioned into outright war when a group of ‘minute men’ gathered at the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775, just before murdering more than 70 British troops. Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The author appears to be scraping. Is the assertion that the taverns caused publ…

> Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord.

The outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 can fairly be called an act of violence. The American colonies in the early days of the conflict were pretty evenly split between loyalists and revolutionaries. The latter ultimately won the day in large part by burning down loyalists’ houses or tarring and feathering them, sending some of the loyalists into exile in Canada or the Caribbean and encouraging others to stay low lest they be attacked, too.

These facts don’t get talked about much in the American school system, because like in most countries the public school system seeks to perpetuate a national mythology for the sake of civic unity. However, revolutions anywhere in the world tend to initially play out as a civil war of sorts among the country’s own people, and the American Revolution was no exception.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#29

> By 1775, however, sporadic rioting and violence in and around taverns transitioned into outright war when a group of ‘minute men’ gathered at the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775, just before murdering more than 70 British troops. Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The author appears to be scraping. Is the assertion that the taverns caused publ…

> Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 can fairly be called an act of violence. The American colonies in the early days of the conflict were pretty evenly split between loyalists and revolutionaries. The latter ultimately won the day in large part by burning down loyalists’ houses or tarring and feathering them, sending some of…

They were presented in my education, though mine wasn't a public education.

Re: Violent, lively and brash, taverns were everywhere in early colonial America

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As is still so often the case when white, powerful men felt threatened, they banded together to create, and separate, the other . What, this is a behavior specific to white, powerful men? What went down in and around Lexington and Concord was a more serious crime than murder, it was an act of rebellion. The author appears committed to a particular affect which seems out of context with the history he presents.

It’s not. In Bangladesh, we precisely identify the town or village ethnic Bangladeshis come from, but have a single word to refer to all non-Bangladeshis (“bideshi,” meaning “foreigner”). The article reads like the author wrote it, and then sprinkled in “white men” randomly wherever it fit grammatically. Maybe it helped get the thing published.

I once described the caste system as “racism invented by people who look alike” and my girlfriend from Madya Pradesh (Central Indian Province) thought that was very apt.

Humans are great, until you let them form groups, once that happens you’ll get tribalism and prejudice almost every time as far as I can tell.

Even sports’ fans will beat eachother up sometimes.

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