Thread by @pptsapper

It's Friday damn night and I've had some wine and I've had some gin, and you know, I've got to thinking

Like

Ethan Allen. How did a dude who was basically a crazed religious land pirate get remembered as this upstanding father of the American revolution?

Obvs I'm gonna tell yu

Ok, so whaddwe know about good ol Ethan. We know he does shit in Vermont. He's got Green Mountain Boys. There's some fort Ticonderoga. And then...well, not much past that. Which is good because land pirrate.

Like, it doesn't start out good for him. He's born on Connecticut. Bad

I mean, IN CONNECTICUT, although also possibly on. I dunno, I wasn't there. That's the problem with the history shit. Ok. Um. Yes. Ethan's dad is SUPER DUPER religious. He gets borned just around the time when everyone's been having Great Awakenings and shit. Puritans gone wild

Ethan's dad loves the Bible so much that he names his kids Ethan, Herman, Heber, Levi, ZIMRI, GODDAM ZIMRI, Ira, and somehow sensibly named Lydia and Lucy, who I gotta imagine are probably the only chill people in this weird ass old testament imminent god family

Anyways, Ethan is on track to be a minister but can't get into Yale, which is basically where they made ministers back then. But then his dad died and he got the family farm with his OT brothers. Then the French and Indian War happens and Allen marches off with his militia unit

Buuuut Fort William Henry, which they're marching against, gets taken before he even gets there and the unit turns back. Wicked bummer. This is ALL of Allen's military experience. So he gets back, gets married, and the discovers philosophy

Yeah, it happens to the best of us

So look. Allen is all filled with Great Awakening spirit, which is what happens when rigid Puritans discover free-thinking. And THEN a friend introduces him to SPINOZA. Of all the pantheistic deist rationalists in all the world, this Puritan gone wild gets hooked on SPINOZA

Oy

It's around this time that Allen writes his polemic that he'll later publish, called "reason the only Oracle of man, or a compendious system of natural religion, alternately adorned with confutations of a variety of doctrines incompatible to it; deduced from the most exalted...

...ideas which we are able to form to divine and human characters, and from the universe in general."

So. You know. This dude's a fucking nutter.

There's other signs too. Like. His first run-ins with the law, involving pigs. And smallpox. He acts as his own lawyer

And fails

So you're probably wondering "where the fuck is Vermont in all this and the Green Mountains children or whatever" and look, this shit is about to get complex as fuck because it's all about land rights in northern New England in the 1700s and fuck, I dunno, this is gonna be tough

Ok. So. There's no Vermont. There's New York. And New Hampshire. They're colonoes. Conjws. Dammit. COLONIES. So the space in between. New York is like "we own it." But the governor of New Hampshire has grants to it from the crown and sells parcels to make those sweet sweet moneys

And you're like, but, uh, that can't be. And I'm like, uh, yeah, it can be. Land rights on northern NE are fucking fucked. It's a mess. Don't ask me. Go talk to smart people. I'm just gonna drink more gin and trust that will sorta take care of things. Anyways.

Ethan.

Allen.

He ends up in the New Hampshire Grants, which is what this area is being called, with his buddies, Seth Warner and Remember Baker. His name is REMEMBER BAKER. can't make this shit up

Well, they don't like NY officials coming through and regulating things. Ticks them right off

Everyone is more or less cheesed but then Ethan is like HEY. WHAT IF WE FORM A COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, RUN BY ME, TO AUTHORIZE ARMED PEOPLE, RUN BY ME, TO RUN OFF THESE NEW YORKERS

and Seth and Remember are like "yeah we'll help" and so they become land pirates

Allen forms some militia companies around Bennington and calls them the Green Mountain Boys, and then they begin intimidating settlers and tax collectors and basically anyone from NY, and Allen mocks their government, because remember, he's all about Spinoza and shit

Allen spends the early 1770s basically in a straight up war with New York. He gets a price on his head and everything. And of course he's gotta write something: "a brief narrative of the proceedings of the government of NY relative to their obtaining the jurisdiction of that..."

...large district of land to the westward of the Connecticut river." Brief, my ass. TWO HUNDRED PAGES. He self publishes it and then tries to sell it but has to give away most of the copies. That's what happens, bro. Perils of self publishing. Brutal.

Ok. So. By now it's 1775 and Lexington and Concord kick off and Ethan is like, "oh hey, this patriot thing could help against NY, HI GIYZ, IM A PATRIOT NOW" and gets the GMB together to go do shit against the 12 or whatever British manning Fort Ticonderoga.

Right before they're about to attack in May of 1775, Benny Arnold shows up and is like "hey, I had the same idea, oh, and check out my commission from Massachusetts, I'm on charge here" and Allen is like "UHHHHH But I'm in charge"

The egomaniacs argue and then finally agree

They make their expedition across Lake Champlain and holy fuck, it's all tits up. They have to find boats. When they get them, they only get like 80 something dudes across

Doesn't matter tho, there's 12 dudes. They surrender. SO MANY CANNON AND MUCH POWDER. so that's wicked cool

Then Allen and the GMB go snag Crown Point from the 9 British soldiers there. Yes. 9. With more cannon. So they're like, this is totes easy.

Then they invade Canada and try to take Montreal.

NOPE NOT EASY. Allen gets his ass captured because he tries to take Montreal w 100 men

Now look. Allen is captive till 1778. By the time he gets paroled, the whole shit has changed. Vermont is a damn independent republic. Allen does what anyone would. Writes some damn pamphlets with long ass titles. And then negotiates with the British about being a colony

Oh, what's that? yeah, that's right - NEGOTIATES WITH THE BRITISH ABOUT BEING A BRITISH COLONY.

Shit they don't like to talk about.

Luckily for Allen, the war ends, Vermont becomes 14th state, and they're like "dude you're an embarrassment, just walk off"

So Allen goes into retirement, publishes "reason: the only Oracle of man" - panned as "crude and vulgar" - gets married again, and begins work on "an essay on the universal plenitude of being" which is transcenedal as fuck all

Then he dies in 1789 of an apoplectic fit

So yeah, Ethan Allen. Land pirate. Spinoza-induced Great Awakening dude. He's like the philosophy grad student that discovers armed force and political science.

But

His greatest legacy is a furniture company

Which is fucking hilarious
Goddam
#drunjhistory

No, he didn't have shit to do with the furniture company

It is actually sad

Just like how my G&T is empty

UNIVERSE, BRING ME MOAR GIN

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