New York City Was the Central Stage of the American Revolution

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0:23 of celebrating together. Plan your trip at flockhule dot Ie, organized by Cultis and Belfa City Council.

0:30 Speaker 2 Well, it’s Memorial Day weekend. History, Well, America has history, well a few hundred years, unlike Rome, thousands of years, unlike Egypt tens of thousands of years. Well with us today is Peter Agder, and he is the director of the Gotham Center for New York City History. Does that mean you know where all the bodies are from the

0:55 sixteenth century on?

0:59 Speaker 3 I know we’re about of them?

1:00 Speaker 2 Are you? Well? Tell us about what you do and give us some interesting Memorial Day weekend. Give us some interesting stories about things that will I guess make people scratch their heads.

1:15 Speaker 3 Well, speaking of well, speaking of Memorial Day and bodies. One thing I’ll say at the outset. So I run the only academic center towards the New York’s c history. New York, because of its scale its population, has probably contributed more people to more of America’s wars than any other city by a long shot. The main reason we

1:39 should be thinking about New York City this Memorial Day is that we are just a few weeks out from the anniversary of the nation’s founding, really is seventeen seventy six. And you know, for a long time still today we think of Boston, we think of Philadelphia. We don’t think of New York when we think of the Revolution. That

2:00 is one hundred percent wrong. New York is the city at the center of that story. And then, speaking of bodies, the vast majority of people who fought and died for this country’s creation are buried here in New York City.

2:12 Those are the victims of the American Revolution who died as POW’s under the Prince at two and a half times the number of the battlefield dead.

2:21 Speaker 2 Now, I remember when I never knew growing up that Federal Hall existed. I never knew it was the first capital of the United States of America. And about ten fifteen years ago, we had some kind of event and newk Ngwige came the former Speaker, and we had a wonderful event recognizing the Federal Hall was the first capital

2:49 of the United States of America. And I made everybody get up and saying, God bless America.

2:56 Speaker 3 I just should. I mean, you know, it’s wild how utterly ignorant I mean, the whole country, but especially New Yorkers are about this history. You know, we’re always focused on tomorrow here in the city, which means that we forget just how much of the country’s history is right here in the Five Boroughs.

3:16 Speaker 2 You know.

3:16 Speaker 3 I joke that it’s the only place where you can imagine a building as beautiful and expensive as the old Panzation could be torn down. Federal Hall, what’s there now? It’s not the original iteration, but that was the Capitol Building at first Capital Buildings, where Washington’s sworn in as the first president. When New York is the first capital

3:34 for five years, all the major debate about the Constitution that all happens here, and all those famous founding fathers that you were taught about, they all walk these street.

3:45 Speaker 2 Wow, you know you know, you go to Europe, you go to Rome, and you know, you go to London, and you go to Paris, and people there have histories for thousands of years, and it’s strange, and it’s strange that you know, here in New York or here in the United States, it’s only a couple of hundred years old. Now,

4:09 give us a couple of examples of things when you learned about them that that you said, wow, I didn’t know that.

4:17 Speaker 3 Well, I mean, for the for the you know, I mean, the war literally begins and ends in New York. Right, So the biggest invasion, the biggest battle of the war, and the formal like the first major battle of the war is here in New York. And the summer seventy six, the British sent thirty two thousand soldiers on four hundred

4:37 and twenty one vessels into the harbor at a time when the population of New York proper, which is basically just everything below City Hall Park, is twenty five thousand. Right. The famous quote from the period is it looked like all of London was aflow.

4:52 Speaker 2 You know.

4:53 Speaker 3 That remains the biggest battle of the war, and it almost ended several times, just weeks after the Declaration of Independence here in New York City. I don’t think people know that. I think people also don’t know, for example, that the first bloodshed in the American Revolution happens here in New York City. It’s a thing called the Battle

5:09 of Golden Hill. People everybody knows about the Boston massacre. The Boston massacre happens weeks later. It’s a protest that’s held in solidarity with this, you know, the first exchange of weapons between British soldiers and American colonials. It’s a miracle that no one died. And mostly I think because no one died, it didn’t get into the history books.

5:31 But you know, we should remember that history. There’s no plaque there either. It’s literally an alley way today used for garbage.

5:38 Speaker 2 And I remember, I’m going to tell you when I went to PS one ninety two and one hundred and thirty seventh Street opposite City College in Lewison Stadium. I remember a lot of things that and they taught me.

5:54 They taught me about New York history. And I never know that Henry Hudson went up the Hudson River. I mean, it wasn’t called the Hudson river at that time, in the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, and it was you know, in later on in life when a friend of mine loaned me his speedboat and I went

6:18 up to Hudson, I was thinking about that, that that Henry Hudson four hundred Well he did it, and oh my god, and in sixteen o eight. I’m not sure if I’m right, but that’s four hundred years fifty four hundred years before that and four hundred years in the overall history of the of the world.

6:40 Speaker 3 Is not a lot, it’s not a lot. But you know, the the you know, for the British, the loss of the American colonists, which were by far the biggest part of their empire, it wasn’t such a big deal. But for the British to you know, the you know, they go on to create like you know, they already were

6:56 the biggest empire at that time, but it’s their quote first global empire. But you know, by the by century later, they’ve got control of fifty five countries and that’s just kind of their formal territorial control.

7:08 Speaker 2 What was the reputation the British had they ruled the.

7:11 Speaker 3 Seven Seas exactly.

7:13 Speaker 2 And now I understand from President Trump that was on a couple of weeks ago. He said that they used to the British had fifty fifty ships, and now they’re down to seventeen. They only have what is it, one aircraft carrier.

7:33 Speaker 3 Well, I mean, world War One and World War Two just knocked them out right in the rise of the United States as well as you know, other powers like the Japanese and the Germans just diminished that there, you know, they diminished the scope and might of the British Empire.

7:51 Speaker 2 Yep, well, Peter, thank you so much, Peter Alan. Let me say you write your name right Peter in there. Uh Aner.

8:03 Speaker 3 Peter Aner, Director.

8:04 Speaker 2 Director of the Gotham Center for New York City History. Let’s do it again real soon. Maybe we’ll do it on fourth of July.

8:12 Speaker 3 Let’s do it.

8:13 Speaker 2 Thank you so much, so much,