A Simple Story of the American Experiment
From @mbateman on X: “It’s the last couple months before the summer where we’ll celebrate the 250th birthday of American Independence. What’s your child’s school doing? What are you doing with your children? Here’s my script for introducing the American Revolution to 5- to 11-year-olds:”
- We’re going back, to 600 years ago.
- This is before computers, before phones, before planes, before cars. And it was before freedom.
- …What do I mean by freedom?…
- Freedom is when you can make your own choices. What to think, what to read, what to believe, what to say, what job you want, who to marry, with whom to be friends, who to love, what to buy, what to build, where to travel.
- 600 years ago, most people weren’t free at all. Most people were serfs, peasants, commoners, servants, or slaves. Even most lords and scholars weren’t allowed to do what they wanted or say what they thought was true.
- 500 years ago, some people in Europe—not most, but some—started to become freer. They used their new freedom to think new thoughts, create new art and inventions and sciences, and explore new places.
- Some of them sailed across the ocean on long journeys.
- They discovered two whole continents that they didn’t know about: North and South America.
- There were people living here already. The Europeans met these Native Americans. They learned about one another, traded with one another, and sometimes fought one another.
- Some Europeans started moving to the Americas.
- Some in France moved to Canada and Louisiana. Some in Spain moved to Florida and Mexico. Some in England moved to Virginia and Massachusetts.
- These people were colonists. They weren’t really making new countries. They were making outposts for old countries.
- The English colonists who landed in Virginia were English, not American. There wasn’t such a country as America yet. They had to obey the King of England, and those who made the laws in England, called Parliament.
- But the King of England and Parliament were very, very far away. And the English who came to America came because they wanted to be free.
- They wanted to be free to own their land, to build their own houses, and go to churches and pray in ways that were against the rules and laws in England.
- The English colonists kept coming to America. More and more, for 150 years. First there were a few hundred English citizens in the American colonies. Then thousands. By 1773, there were over two million.
- The more people came, and the longer they lived here, the more they got used to living freely, making their own choices, setting their own rules and laws.
- Not everyone in America was free. Some were servants and some were slaves. But the Englishmen in America who were free, were freer than anyone in the world. They were freer than the Englishmen living in England!
- In the 1770s, the King and Parliament of England started passing more laws on the American colonies, without asking them. England was making American colonists less free. Some of the laws were taxes, where Americans had to pay more for certain things. Some of them were rules, like the rule that soldiers were allowed to stay in your house, whether you wanted them to or not.
- In the 1770s, the English colonists in America started wondering if they should separate from England. They started wondering if they should start a new country, a truly free country. The first free country in the world.
See also: Thoughts on America, Advice for Young People, Good Ideas