48 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas PaineThe American Crisis
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1776A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Weaponizing Racial Prejudice
Throughout Paine’s pamphlets he weaponizes racial prejudices in order to insult and undermine Tories and British officials. Racism against Black and Indigenous people was common among white colonists and Britons in the late 18th century, and Paine exploits these prejudices to paint his enemies as threatening and barbaric. Paine repeatedly compares the British to “savages,” “Indians,” and “negroes” in an effort to characterize them as wild, improper, and needlessly violent.
When chastising Britain’s foreign policy, he compares Britain’s worldview to that of an Indigenous person, writing, “She considered destruction as the minister of greatness, and conceived that the glory of a nation like that of an [American] Indian, lay in the number of scalps and the miseries which it inflicts” (105). He reiterates his unfavorable comparison to Indigenous people by asking the British that if they protect a murderer “wherein do you differ from Indians either in conduct or character?” (145) Perceiving the British as rejecting the accepted European customs of war, Paine writes that “The history of the most savage Indians does not produce instances exactly of this kind” (144).
He often accuses British leaders of appealing to Indigenous and Black people for help in the war, and shames them for supposedly forging alliances with those communities. He claims that King George III has “stirred up the Indians on one side and the negroes on the other” to counter the revolutionary cause (128). Paine uses this racial hatred and tension to incite more colonist anger towards Britain, claiming that the British have “tampered with Indians and negroes to cut the throats of the freemen of America” (48). He lambasts Britain for not only fighting colonists directly but having “Indians and negroes invited to the slaughter” (84). These incendiary and bigoted remarks served to both insult the British and Tories, and further persuade and incite white colonists to pursue independence.
Idealized Masculinity
Throughout Paine’s essays, he conjures a romantic image of male revolutionaries who embody an idealized manliness. Paine’s imagined male role model fights valiantly for America with courage, fortitude, compassion and sincerity. Paine writes that “Men who are sincere in defending their freedom” will rise from dejection with “additional vigour; the glow of hope, courage and fortitude” (56-57). These descriptions invite Paine’s readers, especially men, to try to embody these characteristics. It was crucial that Paine persuade men in particular, because only they were eligible to volunteer as soldiers in the Continental Army. Paine spurs his male readers to risk their lives for the cause, reassuring them that “I believe most men have more courage than they know of” (21).
Paine scolds colonist men who refuse to fight against the British, writing that “the blood of his children will curse his cowardice,” and praises “the man that can smile in trouble, which can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection” (14). Paine also frequently describes as unmasculine. He describes Lord Howe as “unmanly,” and accuses his forces of hiding amongst women and children (19). He boasts to Lord Howe that America has “greatly exceeded you in point of generalship and bravery of men” (28). The author uses these examples of masculinity to persuade American men to adopt these behaviors, and ultimately, to further propagandize the revolutionary war.
Biblical Imagery to Ascribe Morality
The author frequently draws on biblical imagery in his pamphlets to damage his enemies’ reputations as leaders and Christians. Questioning their morals and conduct, Paine memorably compares British officials to villainous figures in Christianity, such as Judas and the Devil. Paine compares General Howe to Herod, the Roman king who violently ruled over ancient Judea and implemented the genocide of Jewish infants in trying to hinder the prophesied birth of Jesus. Paine casts American colonists as innocent civilians being viciously persecuted by Howe similar to the Jewish infants, writing, “None but a Herod of uncommon malice would have made war upon infancy and innocence: and none but a people of the most finished fortitude, dared under those circumstances, have resisted the tyranny” (70).
Paine also draws parallels between Howe and Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, warning Howe that he, too, could have a notorious and shameful legacy, as “Judas is as much known as John, yet history ascribes their fame to very different actions” (59). Paine conjures an image of betrayal and hopes to dissuade How from his cause using this comparison.
Writing to the people of England, Paine compares Britain with the biblical character Samson, who foolishly revealed that his hair was the source of his strength, and thereby lost his powers. America, Paine claims, is the source of power and charm that Britain has lost through its oppressive conduct. Paine explains to the British that, “Samson only told the secret, but you have performed the operation; you have shaven your own head, and wantonly thrown away the locks. America was the hair from which the charm was drawn that infatuated the world” (96).
Addressing the Earl of Carlisle and General Clinton, Paine lambasts their proposal that colonists who want to fight should go into battle on behalf of the British Empire. To emphasize the outrageous nature of their claim, Paine compares them to Bedlam, an infamous asylum, and Lucifer, another name for the devil in Christianity, as he writes, “Can Bedlam, in concert with Lucifer, form a more mad and devilish request? Were it possible a people could sink into such apostacy they would deserve to be swept from the earth like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah?” (84).
Paine makes another reference to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah when attempting to persuade American Quakers, a pacifist Christian sect, to support the war effort. He compares Britain to the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the Bible claims God destroyed as punishment for their wicked behavior, in order to argue that Quakers would be better pacifists and Christians by fighting for independence from such a sinful and violent nation, citing the casualties of Britain’s colonialism abroad. Paine explains that “by separating ourselves from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, it affords an opportunity never given to man before of carrying their favorite principle of peace into general practice, by establishing governments that shall hereafter exist without wars (39).
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