Academy.)
It makes sense that a historian devoted to crowd action—Paul A. Gilje, an expert on both riots
and
Jack Tars—should say that “rioting” like this “can be fun.” He explains its thrills like a veteran of the crowd: “People can experience a personal sense of liberty; they can scream, shout obscenities with abandon, shatter windows, and stand entranced by the consuming flames of a bonfire. Both adrenaline and alcohol add to the excitement. Rumors spread wildly, and an electric tension fills the air that can only be released, like a bolt of lightning with a greatthunderclap, as the crowd goes into action.” And as Gilje puts it, nobody had more fun than Jack Tar: “the raw material for such social explosions could always be found on the waterfront. There, sailors with too little to do and a penchant for mischief were ready for fisticuffs.” For this same reason, of course, such volatile action wasn’t fun for everyone—certainly not for the victims and innocent bystanders at its business end.
As anarchic as the Knowles riots may have appeared, Jack Tar’s knack for rousing mixed crowds—for inciting them with feelings of liberty—would fuel the early American Revolution. If they hoped to be effective, Patriots had to show restraint, but they also had to fill the sails. And Patriots hated backing down from a fight. They took great joy in the rebel throng—its energy, its conflict, its chaos, its fellowship—for there was the molten core of liberty, but they also had to steer the ship through treacherous social shoal waters. In both cases, of course, this wild work was fun. It wasn’t until the 1760s, however, that Patriots took care to develop durable tactics and ethics that prevented their festivities from crumbling into violence. These measures themselves, when perfected, were among the Patriots’ finest achievements.
The Knowles rioters achieved their objectives—the governor fled and the sailors were released. But the “riot” probably resembled, to the casual observer, the violent mob activities called “skimmington” or “rough music” that had plagued New England since the early 1730s, often involving sexual mutilation and shaming coats of tar and feathers. Whereas these popular carnivals of violence usually did the bidding of magistrates and preachers against outlaws, adulterers, scolds, and witches, the Knowles riots were different. They (1) flouted restraint with playful zeal, (2) turned liberty and civility into brash celebration, and (3) defied the wishes of appointed civic leaders. This kind of partying was altogether new. All the same, as effective and restrained as this upheaval was, the crucible of democracy proved too hot to handle. Boston’s leadership called a town meeting, where they denounced “such Illegal Criminal Proceedings” as the work of “Foreign Seamen Servants Negroes and other Persons of Mean and Vile condition”—even though, as various historians have noted, not one of the rioters arrested by these officials was a servant or an African American.
It was a common enough canard, however. Keen to the growing fearsof democracy, magistrates targeted blacks and various strangers when seeking scapegoats for white Americans’ wild behavior. The practice would flourish in the decades to come, when the convenience of pinning rebellion on “primitives” mingled with the excitement of whites going native.
JOHN ADAMS’S COUSIN Samuel found his political heart in the iffy tactics of the Knowles riots.Samuel Adams had thirteen years on John, and while both men were pear-shaped Puritans with similarly piercing eyes, their temperaments could not have been more different. If John pinched his pennies, Samuel shot his wad. If John was a snob who feared the so-called rabble and put his stock in the rule of law, Samuel answered to the will of the people. And if John was a wallflower who scoffed at dancing, Samuel was more like orneryZab Hayward: his knack was for
It makes sense that a historian devoted to crowd action—Paul A. Gilje, an expert on both riots
and
Jack Tars—should say that “rioting” like this “can be fun.” He explains its thrills like a veteran of the crowd: “People can experience a personal sense of liberty; they can scream, shout obscenities with abandon, shatter windows, and stand entranced by the consuming flames of a bonfire. Both adrenaline and alcohol add to the excitement. Rumors spread wildly, and an electric tension fills the air that can only be released, like a bolt of lightning with a greatthunderclap, as the crowd goes into action.” And as Gilje puts it, nobody had more fun than Jack Tar: “the raw material for such social explosions could always be found on the waterfront. There, sailors with too little to do and a penchant for mischief were ready for fisticuffs.” For this same reason, of course, such volatile action wasn’t fun for everyone—certainly not for the victims and innocent bystanders at its business end.
As anarchic as the Knowles riots may have appeared, Jack Tar’s knack for rousing mixed crowds—for inciting them with feelings of liberty—would fuel the early American Revolution. If they hoped to be effective, Patriots had to show restraint, but they also had to fill the sails. And Patriots hated backing down from a fight. They took great joy in the rebel throng—its energy, its conflict, its chaos, its fellowship—for there was the molten core of liberty, but they also had to steer the ship through treacherous social shoal waters. In both cases, of course, this wild work was fun. It wasn’t until the 1760s, however, that Patriots took care to develop durable tactics and ethics that prevented their festivities from crumbling into violence. These measures themselves, when perfected, were among the Patriots’ finest achievements.
The Knowles rioters achieved their objectives—the governor fled and the sailors were released. But the “riot” probably resembled, to the casual observer, the violent mob activities called “skimmington” or “rough music” that had plagued New England since the early 1730s, often involving sexual mutilation and shaming coats of tar and feathers. Whereas these popular carnivals of violence usually did the bidding of magistrates and preachers against outlaws, adulterers, scolds, and witches, the Knowles riots were different. They (1) flouted restraint with playful zeal, (2) turned liberty and civility into brash celebration, and (3) defied the wishes of appointed civic leaders. This kind of partying was altogether new. All the same, as effective and restrained as this upheaval was, the crucible of democracy proved too hot to handle. Boston’s leadership called a town meeting, where they denounced “such Illegal Criminal Proceedings” as the work of “Foreign Seamen Servants Negroes and other Persons of Mean and Vile condition”—even though, as various historians have noted, not one of the rioters arrested by these officials was a servant or an African American.
It was a common enough canard, however. Keen to the growing fearsof democracy, magistrates targeted blacks and various strangers when seeking scapegoats for white Americans’ wild behavior. The practice would flourish in the decades to come, when the convenience of pinning rebellion on “primitives” mingled with the excitement of whites going native.
JOHN ADAMS’S COUSIN Samuel found his political heart in the iffy tactics of the Knowles riots.Samuel Adams had thirteen years on John, and while both men were pear-shaped Puritans with similarly piercing eyes, their temperaments could not have been more different. If John pinched his pennies, Samuel shot his wad. If John was a snob who feared the so-called rabble and put his stock in the rule of law, Samuel answered to the will of the people. And if John was a wallflower who scoffed at dancing, Samuel was more like orneryZab Hayward: his knack was for
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