Peter Linebaugh on US Independence Day. Historical Complexities beyond flag waving
July 4th is of course US Independence Day and a significant moment in world history (and of the many significant moments one that is better remembered than many..)
Were there an equivalent in Britain no doubt Keir Starmer & co would be out waving flags.
The reality is, as Peter Linebaugh underlines at the link below, is much more complex when it comes to July 4th.
Linebaugh is a socialist historian who studied with E P Thompson at Warwick in the late 1960s and has produced landmark work on the struggles of ordinary people from below- the Many Headed Hydra (with Marcus Rediker) being amongst the best known. It looks at the links between the Atlantic slave trade, US and UK capital and how people fought them- the revolutionary Atlantic.
For Linebaugh US Independence Day marked a key moment in the battle of the colonialists against the London monarchy- political republicanism.
They objected to paying taxes to fund wars in which they had no say (no taxation without representation). They also wanted to further colonise parts of North America which the London Government did not. This wasn’t of course because it was against the principle but simply on a cost basis.
It was as Linebaugh argues, independence for some, but not for slaves who had centuries further to fight for their independence.
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