The site provides a collection of public documents, available courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society, to anyone with a computer and internet access.
Paul Revere's spelling is abysmal and his handwriting, illegible. That's what the transcription is for. Check it out for yourself.
As Politiku is now on Tumblr, I was looking for relevant content to reblog and stumbled upon "Poor Richard's News Post", which posited that Palin's version of the story wasn't so off the mark. The source, however, seemed prohibitively biased. Confident in the certainaty that there were not gunshots or bells, I decided further investigation was not waranted.
Then a tweet from Roger Ebert pointed to a Legal Insurrection post citing original documents along with "Paul Revere's Ride" by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press 1994).
Concerned, I forwarded the links with citations to a historian I'm friends with. He confirmed that "Fischer's account of the ride is the current standard and best" and pointed me to an article posted in
The International Business Times . An international publication had addressed the historical veracity of Palin's story more rigorously than the US big city dailies had. Then, Monday right before the crack of dawn, The LA Times validated.
I began blogging in 2008 and several of my anagural posts were about Palin. When Palin quit her job 2009, I cross post Sarah Palin Swan Song Politiku here, on Huffington and initially delighted that her latest Katie Couric moment might well alienate her pointy hat supporter base.
It should go without saying that I am not thrilled about having to admit that I was wrong and Sarah Palin was right about something. I could have done this research before posting
the pre-fact-checked illustrated album of Palin's Revere Politiku
and I'm not the only one who should have fact checked.Here is the amended clause of the previously posted Politiku:
Susanna Speier's Fact Check Politiku
There were warning shots.
I don't like it that she's right...
...but they rang bells, too.
Follow Susanna Speier on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Politiku
I'm sorry, but any statement that requires THIS much deciphering and after-the-fact adjustment to make sense of it, is most assuredly a textbook case of someone-totally-talking-out-of-their-Butt.
Problem is though, that when I went through this same exercise with a clip of one of my chickens having a long drawn-out Cackle, the result was strikingly similar. I'm thinking of submitting it to be checked for Factual Content.
The question asked of her was "What have you seen so far today [in Boston], and what are you going to take away from your visit?" I believe she has yet to answer the question directly. She rarely does, but chooses to string together soundbites and colloquialisms and, uh, words, uh, that don't make sense. If she thinks she can visit America's historic souvenir sites and regurgitate rewritten history and still prove that she is capable of leading after she QUIT being a leader, well, she has another think coming, don't ya know?
(*I swear it's not a publicity tour!)
to be a Pistol. Then I could distinguish two Guns, & then a Continual roar of Musquetry; When we made off with the Trunk."
Sounds like a report of warning shots (and all kinds of "musquetry") to me.
Mrs. Palin's words were:
"He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."
Nor does it say that Mr. Revere fired any of those shots.
Additionally, there's nothing said to indicate that part of his mission was to warn the British that the colonists were armed.
This is what Mrs. Palin said:
"He who warned uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."
I read through all eight painful pages and it is a long stretch to say this document validates and confirms Ms. Palin's words or her back up commentary on Fox. I seriously doubt Ms. Palin read or had previous knowledge of this document and it will just as painful to watch and listen to both sides pick apart her words and these words to justify their stand.
My quick take on this - Her exact words were:"Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that 'hey, you're not going to take American arms, you are not going to beat our own well-armed persons individual private militia that we have'." In his text, Mr. Revere was captured by the British before he said anything to them - I seriously doubt he set out ("Part of his ride was to...") to be captured and have a pistol placed against his head before he spilled his guts.
I pulled up the transcript as you suggested and did a word search for the words "bell(s)" and "warning shots" and there was nothing there.
A word search for "fired" and "weapons", "guns" do not reveal that Paul Revere firing any shots.
Did you even read this letter?
Did YOU read it? Or did you just do your little word search. I glanced over it for under 3 minutes and found that sentence. How is it you are a moderator and do not check facts yourself before weighing in?
There is alarm (scare) and alarm (warn). From this context, it looks like "scare".