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David Kettlewell writes:
Is what occurred in
the church historically accurate, or not? Is there a documented instance of
British soldiers actually placing citizens in a church and burning it to the
ground during the Revolutionary War?
I have read that this occurred in
Poland with Jews placed in Synagogues by German troops in WWII, but I was not
aware of such an act by our British forebears.
It may be fun to ask the producers if
they feel that artistic license was well served on this point? If they do not
have such documentation, then clearly an apology is due our British neighbors.
It is a given that historical films
retain a semblance of historical accuracy, unless otherwise stated. The extreme
grievous nature of this act in the church seems to make this issue one which
should be addressed directly by the producers.
Wayne Long writes:
The British during
our Revolution were not as "gentlemanly" as you would have them be in
your commentary. They DID hang us, and frequently, during the war - especially
our guerrillas. I would reckon that on occasion, they shot wounded prisoners.
They certainly burned our homes, and raped and pillaged their way through the
Carolinas - thereby driving a divided Colonial constituency together,
particularly in Charlotte - resulting in a sniper filled city called the
"hornet's nest" by the Redcoats (and from that, the nickname of the
NBA Hornets).
Issac's
part is loosely based upon a British Calvary officer named Tarleton - a very
nasty piece of work whose operations in the South and whose personal
relationship with General Lord Howe were both very much as depicted in the
movie. By today's standards, Tarleton would have been tried as a war criminal.
Burning people in churches? Well, maybe not, but it could have been. It would be
interesting to research.
Our
English "cousins" were not then, and are not now much given to
challenges to their intellectual and social "superiority". They turned
a deaf ear to our arguments against taxing and conscripting us, THEIR citizens
(as we were then), while denying us a say in what should have been OUR
parliament - a violation of THEIR laws governing the rule of Englishmen. They
forced their exports on us while taxing us heavily for the privilege of their
use. They did all this because they considered themselves superior to us, their
colonial underlings.
As
for the depiction of the Americans, Gibson's part is loosely based on Francis
Marion, an American Guerrilla who was a thorn in Howe's side, and who DID have
freed slaves working for him on his farms. As properly shown in the movie, the
Americans were very divided on the issue of independence. The colonial
authorities did guarantee freedom for any black slave fighting for the cause -
this is a fact. You will find that one of the first patriots to fall in battle
was a free black man leading some of his white companions in a fight against
Redcoats in Philadelphia in 1775.
Black
exploitation - agreed, 100% agreed. A dreadful and awful blight on the American
dream - but those were the mores and economics of the period. Even the UK had
not yet passed on slavery - that came in the 19th century. Both sides offered
freedom to slaves who would fight, although that was a late development on the
British side. Except in Hollywood, there is no such thing as "Happily ever
After". Social history, as opposed to political history, is really only
affected by evolutionary processes. Also, there really has recently been a lot
of revisionist interpretation of historical fact so as to fit them into today's
issues. Frankly, when it comes to the interpretation of the Black condition, I
prefer the objective analysis of a Keith Richburg to the wild hysterical
rantings of Spike Lee.
Poetic
license and dramatic emphasis - try comparing ANY of Shakespeare's history plays
against the reality of events as they happened. Those pieces were really
propaganda for the princes of the kingdom. His royal mentors were using him to
do image spin making on the stage of the Globe for consumption by their
oppressed people on the floor of the theatre. By that standard, and given who
Isaac’s character really was, I think the depiction is OK. When I next return
to the States, I will go down to some military history centers and see if
Tarleton or others on their side ordered any church burnings.
All
in all, "The Patriot" was a well acted film, with some poetic license,
but generally well grounded in fact. Most of all, it was a timely celebration of
the American spirit in the face of tyranny.
Larry Bailey, USA writes:
I’m certain that
Ben Martin's prototype, Colonel Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox) was as vicious in
his own way as Ben had been during the French-and-Indian War. Altogether,
though, I think the Martin-Marion parallel was legitimate (artistic license
aside).
The
church-burning scene was, in a word, gratuitous. It certainly detracted from the
credibility of the movie as historical fiction. Without it, "Patriot"
would have certainly been rated "Gold." I have never heard of any such
event, but, to tell the truth, I'm not too checked out on the South Carolina
campaign, so I did a little research and ran across the following.
I'm
SURE that there were no patriots in the church, but at least ONE church was
burnt by Tarleton's men.
"Banastre Tarleton, in his
memoirs of the campaigns in the South in 1780 and 1781, makes mention of a
"short expedition [by Colonel Lord Rawdon in June 1780] into a settlement
of Irish, situated in the Waxhaws." When Rawdon left the settlement the
church had been burned because, "All Presbyterian churches are shops of
sedition," as he put it. (27) Tarleton further made reference to the
Scotch-Irish when he wrote, ". . . the Irish were the most averse of all
other settlers to the British government in America." (28) A British
Lieutenant captured after Kings Mountain and marched into North Carolina as a
prisoner also made comment concerning the outlandish beliefs of the Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians. "Here we heard a Presbyterian sermon, truly adapted to their
principles and the times; or rather, stuffed as full of Republicanism as their
camp is of horse thieves." (quoted from http://www.yorkcounty.org/brattonsville/1780-Huck.html)
The Tory-patriot
conflict in SC was a terrible one, to be sure, and "ThePatriot" more
or less accurately depicts its inhumanity to man.
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