Misconceptions About Colonial America | Mental Floss

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In the dead of night on April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere leapt onto his trusty steed and flew through the town of Lexington, shouting
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The British are coming! The British are coming! at the top of his lungs! Having successfully warned the patriots that the American Revolution was about to go down
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our dashing hero just rode off into the... night? Or something? How does that end
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Wait a second, who even was that guy? Okay, maybe some of us are a little hazy on the details of Revere's life pre- and post-midnight ride
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but we can all agree that his claim to fame was, in fact, yelling
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the British are coming across Massachusetts, right? Because U.S. history teachers wouldn't have instilled those four words into millions of young minds
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without being absolutely sure Revere actually said them. Right? Hi, I'm Justin Dodd. Welcome to Misconceptions. Today we're tackling some widely known tales from
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colonial America that don't ring quite as true as the Liberty Bell. Which, by the way, doesn't
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even ring at all anymore. Its clapper was frozen in 1915 to prevent the crack from widening any
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further, but that's a different story. The first misconception is that Paul Revere never shouted
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his own signature catchphrase, and it wouldn't have made much sense if he did. Not only did some
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Some of the Massachusetts population still considered themselves British in 1775, but
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Revere's assignment was very much a covert operation. British soldiers were patrolling the area that night, and Revere would have made the
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world's worst secret messenger if he had just torn through the town screaming his head off
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After going house by house to alert people in the towns of Medford and Mononymy, Revere
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made his way to the Lexington Parsonage where Samuel Adams and John Hancock were staying
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Upon Revere's arrival, a guard named William Monroe told him the residents had already turned
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in for the night and had asked that they might not be disturbed by any noise about the house
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According to Monroe's later testimony, Revere replied, Noise? You'll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out
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So I guess at that point, Revere wasn't too concerned with being as quiet as a church mouse
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in the church house, but how did the regulars are coming out could turn into the far catchier
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the British are coming? There's no conclusive answer to that question, but there are accounts
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of someone else shouting that phrase at the time. In an 1854 issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, a Bostonian named
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William H. Sumner recounted the story of the Battle of Lexington as told the hymn by John
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Hancock's widow Dorothy Scott. According to Sumner, Scott remembered another man arriving the day after Revere's midnight
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riot to report that the British troops had left Concord and were on their way seemingly
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to where Hancock and Samuel Adams were hiding. Half frightened to death, he exclaimed
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the British are coming, the British are coming. And the wildest part, that man was my ancestor
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Nah, I'm just kidding, we don't know who that guy was. The colonies first declared independence from Britain
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on July 4th, 1776. On the 4th of July, we celebrate the day
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America ended its toxic relationship with King George III by lighting fireworks, guzzling cheap beer
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and eating as many hot dogs as possible, which incidentally is what I do after a breakup too
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But the day we actually declared independence from Britain was a little bit earlier than July 4th
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On June 7th, 1776, more than a year after the fighting broke out
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the Second Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia where Virginia's Richard Henry Lee introduced the resolution declaring
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that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states
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that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain
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and is and ought to be totally dissolved. If you're thinking that Lee's resolution
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doesn roll off the tongue quite as well as that life liberty and pursuit of happiness stuff well you not the only one Several colonies straight up opposed breaking away from Britain so Congress decided to delay the vote
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while Thomas Jefferson and a few other dudes drafted a better, more detailed justification for independence
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Jefferson and company turned in their homework on June 28th, and it ended up being one of the best argumentative essays ever written
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When Congress voted on July 2nd, 12 out of 13 colonial delegations voted in favor of declaring independence
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and the resolution was officially passed. New York abstained, but only because the delegates were waiting for their state legislature
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to let them know how to vote, and back then, just circling back about something might involve
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several days' ride on horseback. But they finally got word later that week and approved the resolution on July 9th
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Anyway, on July 4th, Congress formally okayed an edited version of Jefferson's Declaration
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of Independence, but the delegates didn't whip out their feather quills just yet
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Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin claimed that it was signed on the 4th, but most modern
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historians doubt those accounts. The consensus is that, at most, Congressional President John
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Hancock and the Congressional Secretary signed the document that day, but some even dispute the
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timing of those signatures. Though we probably celebrate July 4th as Independence Day because
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that's when the general public first started finding out about the declaration, some people
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did think that the 2nd of July should have been the official holiday. In a letter to his wife
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Abigail, John Adams wrote that, the second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoca in
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in the history of America. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade
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with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations. He hit the nail on the head with a bit about pomp and parade
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but Adams missed the mark when it came to naming the date. Practically nobody remembers
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that anything happened on July 2nd, and to add injury to insult
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John Adams actually died on the 4th of July in 1826. Thomas Jefferson died on the exact same day
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Fate, she has a cruel hand, but a good sense of humor
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Also, a killer serve in tennis. They don't tell you about that one. George Washington's dentures were made of wood
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How on earth the contents of George Washington's mouth became a bonafide historical fun fact is beyond me
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but for some reason, most of us have heard that the venerated general had a face full of wooden teeth
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Look, there's no doubt that Washington was plagued with dental issues for most of his adult life
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He had his first tooth extracted at age 24. By the time he was inaugurated as president at age 57
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His mouth was home to one lone homegrown not-so-pearly white, which, for the record, also eventually left the building
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He mentioned these problems pretty often in his correspondence. In a letter from 1783, for example
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Washington asked his aide William Stephen Smith to check out a certain dentist for him
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Having some teeth which are very troublesome to me at times and of which I wish to be eased
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I would thank you for making a private investigation of this man's character
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Considering that Washington made it a point of saying that he would not wish that this matter should be made a parade of
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he'd probably be mortified to find out that a set of his dentures are currently on display
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at Mount Vernon. Throughout his life, Washington wore false teeth formed from a variety of materials
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including elephant and hippopotamus ivory, horse and cow teeth, and even human teeth
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And yeah, it gets worse. According to a note from his ledger dated May 8th, 1784
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Washington paid, and I'm gonna quote Washington using a word we now consider a slur
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6 pounds, 2 shillings, to Negroes for 9 teeth on account of
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Dr. Lemoy. Dr. Lemoy is agreed by historians to be Dr. Jean-Pierre
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Lemoyeur, who was a dentist at the time and an expert in teeth transplants
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He also advertised for human teeth in the newspaper. For instance, a 1784 Pennsylvania
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paper had the ad, Any person disposed to sell their front teeth
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or any of them may call on Dr. Lemoyeur and receive 2 guineas for each tooth
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So, quick math, 9 teeth times 2 guineas equals 18 guineas which converts to 18 pounds 18 shillings Washington seems to have paid far below market value Whether the teeth were destined for dentures or an attempt at an implantation is unknown but because he paid so little for them
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it's generally believed that he took the teeth from people who didn't have an option to refuse
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enslaved people at Mount Vernon. But that still doesn't explain where we got the idea
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that Washington had wooden teeth. The leading theory is that the dark wine
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he was so fond of drinking stained his dentures, giving the ivory teeth a grainy, wooden appearance
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In 1798, Washington's dentist, John Greenwood, even advised him to clean them more often to prevent the discoloration
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The set you sent me from Philadelphia was very black, occasioned either by your soaking them in port wine or by your drinking it
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Ooh, burned the president! Whoever said colonial dentists weren't funny? Nobody, probably
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Pocahontas and John Smith were in love. If you had the good sense to watch Disney's 1995 film
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without actually believing that Pocahontas and John Smith had a whirlwind fling in a magical forest
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that somehow allowed them to communicate in the King's English? Congratulations, you probably weren't three years old when the movie came out
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But regardless of when, or if, you realize that the Disney version of Vents was more fairytale than history
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you might not know exactly what went down. Unfortunately, nobody really does, and it's not because we don't have any written accounts
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Though John Smith wrote extensively on his adventures in Jamestown, the man himself had developed a reputation as a pretty unreliable narrator. During his life
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he was known as kind of a shameless braggart. Welsh writer David Lloyd actually satirized him in a
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poem called The Legend of Captain Jones, published in 1631. They just don't make biting satirical
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poems like they used to. What we do know is that Pocahontas and John Smith definitely did know each
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other, and their relationship definitely was not romantic. Pocahontas was born around 1595
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which would have made her 11 or 12 years old when John Smith showed up in Jamestown
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By the way, her real name was Amonute, and she was also known as Matoaka. Some people, John Smith included, called her Pocahontas, meaning Little Playful One or Little Mischief
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but that was just a childhood nickname. She even used to goof around doing cartwheels with the British kids in the settlement
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One hotly contested passage from Smith's 1624 book, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles
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is the story of how Pocahontas saved him from being killed by her father Powhatan
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who governed an alliance of about 30 Native American tribes. Smith claimed that after he was captured, a mob of people dragged him before Powhatan
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laid his head on two great stones, and stood ready with their clubs to beat out his brains
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Then Pocahontas got his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death
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After that, Powhatan spared Smith's life, said they were now buds, and sent him on his merry way back to Jamestown
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which seems like a suspicious 180. Some historians don't think Smith's life was ever in danger
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and that Powhatan may have actually been holding a kind of adoption ceremony from the get-go
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After all, nobody said, hey, we're gonna beat out your brains with these clubs
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Plus, as historian Camilla Townsend explained to History.com, the powerful chief probably wouldn't have changed his plans for a prisoner of war
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just because a little kid happened to like him, even if that little kid was his daughter
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And that's assuming that the chief's young daughter would have been present at such a ceremony in the first place, which is also unlikely
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Other experts think John Smith completely made up the story, especially since it's missing
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from his earlier accounts of his time in Jamestown. When he did finally write about it, Palpatine and Pocahontas had both already died, so chances
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of someone disputing a story were basically zilch. Pretty shady stuff from a guy who made himself out to be the hero in every way, though I
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suppose we should have seen it coming from a guy named John Smith, which is just the go-to fake name for all bad liars
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Huh. The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Every year about a million people journey to Plymouth Massachusetts and pay a visit to the most famous pet rock of all time It even contained in what looks like a zoo cage Plymouth Rock has long been considered the place where the Pilgrims first set foot in the New World after arriving on
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the Mayflower in 1620, but there are two first-hand accounts of that event, and neither one discussed
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landing at a rock. The first time anyone mentioned it in relation to Pilgrims was in 1741, a
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full 121 years after the Pilgrims pulled up. City officials were planning to build a new
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wharf and a 94 year old resident named Thomas Fonce expressed worry that they'd end up destroying
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the rock that the pilgrims first stepped on. Fonce's father had come to the colonies three
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years after the Mayflower's arrival and Fonce remembered some of the original settlers
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showing it to him. So a few kindly citizens carried the elderly man down to the shore in a chair and
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he was able to identify the Plymouth Rock from all the other Plymouth Rocks. It quickly became
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a point of pride for the townspeople though they did accidentally split it into two when relocating
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it to the town square in 1774. Instead of just aborting the mission, they took half into town and left the other half
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at the harbor. Forget Hamilton, I think we need a Broadway musical about the colonists who tried to carry
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a giant granite slab into town, broke it, and they decided that half was good enough
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Anyway, in 1880, the two halves were cemented together and engraved with 1620, and they've
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been in their original spot on the shore ever since. Renovations excluded. Several pieces did get broken off in the interim, though
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The Smithsonian has two of these chunks, and there's a 40-pound block in the Plymouth
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Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights. At this point, it's estimated that the dinner table-sized Plymouth Rock
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is only one-third to one-half of its original size. Even if the rock is more of a symbolic landing place than a real one
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at least Plymouth has the distinction of being the first place the pilgrims landed, right
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Also, not right. The Mayflower first anchored at Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod
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which is where the passengers signed the Mayflower Compact. But William Bradford called the area hideous and desolate
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The Pilgrims moved on to Plymouth and that's where they stayed. Now that you have a more accurate understanding of the era's most important dentures, rocks, and revolutionary catchphrases
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I'm going to wrap up this episode with a few rapid-fire facts about the good old daily life in the colonies
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For one, men didn't all walk around in floofy white wigs. No, those cascading curls were reserved for the elite
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leaving everyone else to embrace their receding hairlines and bald spots, or cover them up with a nice tricorn hat
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And if a colonist complained aloud about the blisters from his new boots, he wouldn't have sounded like a BBC broadcaster
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That posh, R-less accent we associate with England is technically called received pronunciation
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and it didn't become widespread until the early 1800s. In other words, Americans didn't start pronouncing hard R's after being in America for a while, they had just always pronounced them
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Of course, they did begin to develop regional accents as time wore on, which were influenced by other nearby settlers like the Dutch, Swedish, French, and Spanish
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Some even adopted received pronunciation as a sort of status symbol This was more common in port cities who did a lot of trade with Britain
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Which might explain Boston's whole park your car in Harvard Yard thing. I have to do it in the voice. Are you serious? Okay
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Park your car in Harvard Yard It's insulting Speaking of trade colonists had to import quite a few goods that weren't easy to produce in the New World
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Two of these were wine and beer since grapes and barley didn't grow well on American soil
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Apple orchards, on the other hand, were absolutely everywhere, so hard cider became the de facto drink of choice
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for most colonists. Even upper-class citizens who could probably shell out for another kind of alcohol favored cider
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John Adams is said to have drunk a glass every morning, and Thomas Jefferson loved his homemade cider
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almost as much, if not more, than he loved France. I mean, is this even colonial
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