colonial rule — Bunk History

Forest of pine trees.

Tree of Peace, Spark of War

The white pines of New England may have done more than any leaf of tea to kick off the American Revolution.

by Ian Rose via JSTOR Daily on September 4, 2024

Louis Congo: Ex-Slave and Executioner of Louisiana

Although freed from slavery, Louis Congo's job as public executioner ensured him a life as a pawn of French officials and retaliation from those he disciplined.

by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on January 25, 2023

Line of TV vans on road preparing to broadcast the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

We Learned of The Queen’s Death Instantly. That Wasn’t The Case in 1760.

Back when monarchs had much more power—and news was far from instantaneous—it had major implications in the American colonies.

by Helena Yoo Roth via Made By History on September 19, 2022

Map of Nova Scotia

Imagining Nova Scotia: The Limits of an Eighteenth-Century Imperial Fantasy

Colonial planners saw Nova Scotia as a blank space ripe for transformation.

by Alexandra L. Montgomery via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on July 12, 2021

US military boarding a plan

History's Warning for the U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan

History suggests that a more discreet American presence in Afghanistan will be a provocation rather than a source of security.

by Priya Satia via TIME on April 27, 2021

A cartoon of Boston colonists in a cage.

How Did the Colonies Unite?

The drive for American independence coalesced in only a few years of rapidly accelerating political change.

by T. H. Breen via New York Review of Books on March 1, 2021

How American Samoa Kept a Pandemic at Bay

A story of quarantine.

by James Stout via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 2, 2020

Policing the Colony: From the American Revolution to Ferguson

King George's tax collectors abused police powers to fill his coffers. Sound familiar?

by Chris Hayes via The Nation on March 29, 2017

Illustration of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur writing.

The American Beginning

The dark side of Crèvecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer."

by Alan Taylor via The New Republic on July 19, 2013

"Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," a painting by Benjamin West (ca. 1816).

Electricity and Allegiance

Benjamin Franklin introduced the magical picture, an experiment that played on the king's beloved image and his deadly force.

by Anna S. Barnett via Cabinet on March 1, 2006

F. D. R. looks intently across a table at Brazilian President Getulio Vargas during a meal.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Christy Thornton and Greg Grandin discuss his new book, “America, América,” and the intertwined histories of the U.S. and Latin America.

by Greg Grandin, Christy Thornton via The Baffler on May 30, 2025

A New Method of Macarony Making, as practised at Boston,” Carrington Bowles, London, October 12, 1774. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

Ruling Rebels

How the Sons of Liberty became colonial power-brokers.

by Daniel Carrigy via Journal of the American Revolution on May 29, 2025

Collage of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and patriotic imagery.

Revolution and Progress on Lexington Green

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.

by Richard Samuelson via Law & Liberty on April 25, 2025

Painting of Troops, an American Flag and Eagle.

Echoes of Lexington and Concord

The 250th anniversary of "the shot heard round the world" is a reminder of the rights the Patriots fought for.

by Richard Alan Ryerson via Law & Liberty on April 1, 2025

A Ford truck is loaded with ivory tusks in Essex, Connecticut.

The Blood on the Keyboard

The history of ivory-topped piano keys and the invisible human suffering caused by our cultural commodities.

by Marina Manoukian via HNN on March 25, 2025

Donald Trump with a crown on his head.

Donald Trump Is Trying to Take American Law Back to 1641

Understand that if Trump succeeds the result will not be the harmless resurrection of a quaint jurisprudential artifact.

by Frank O. Bowman III via Slate on February 26, 2025

Painting titled "Repulse of Leslie at the North Bridge".

Was This Little-Known Standoff the Real Start of the American Revolution?

On February 26, 1775, residents of Salem, Massachusetts, banded together to force the British to withdraw from their town in Leslie’s Retreat.

by Robert Pushkar via Smithsonian on February 26, 2025

Protestors at Oxford University, with one holding a sign that reads "End Racism Now."

What Is Decolonisation?

There’s more talk of decolonisation than ever, while true independence for former colonies has faded from view. Why?

by Lydia Walker via Aeon on November 21, 2024

Two images: Lajpat Rai (left) and W.E.B. Du Bois (right).

Black Freedom and Indian Independence

Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.

by Livia Gershon, Andrea M. Slater via JSTOR Daily on July 5, 2024

Engraving of the Battle of Lexington After Alonzo Chappel: American colonists and British soldiers exchange fire at the Battle of Lexington, the first skirmish in the US War of Independence.

Taking Up the American Revolution’s Egalitarian Legacy

Despite its failures and limitations, the American Revolution unleashed popular aspirations to throw off tyranny of all kinds.

by Taylor Clark via Jacobin on July 4, 2024

The first Congress in prayer.

The Bible in Revolutionary America

While Enlightenment philosophy may have influenced the wealthy Revolutionary elites, it was the Biblical worldview that prompted widespread resistance.

by Guy Chet via Starting Points on June 3, 2024

Destruction of tea in the harbor and text protesting the Tea Act.

The Many Myths of the Boston Tea Party

Contrary to popular belief, the 1773 protest opposed a tax break, not a tax hike. And it didn't immediately unify the colonies against the British.

by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on December 15, 2023

John Brown.

A Plea for Genuine Peace in Liberation

To address these atrocities and treat Jewish victims, survivors, and families with dignity, we must confront Israel’s subjugation of Palestine.

by William Horne via In Case Of Emergency on October 12, 2023

From left: A red and white sign protesting Critical Race Theory, groups of people stand in a parking lot

(White) Christian Roots of Slavery, Native American Genocide, and Ongoing Efforts to Erase History

15th century dogma connects the genocide and land dispossession of Native Americans with the enslavement and oppression of African Americans throughout history.

by Robert P. Jones, Bradley Onish via Religion Dispatches on October 2, 2023

Tuskegee Airmen, Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945; photograph by Toni Frissell. From left to right: Richard S. ‘Rip’ Harder, unidentified airman, Thurston L. Gaines Jr., Newman C. Golden, and Wendell M. Lucas.

‘We Return Fighting’

The ambivalence many Black soldiers felt toward the U.S. in WWII was matched only by the ambivalence the U.S. showed toward principles on which WWII was fought.

by Gary Younge via New York Review of Books on September 28, 2023

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina.

"If America Doesn't Become America": Outlander and the American Revolution

"Outlander" challenges the myth of American exceptionalism at the root of much U.S. popular culture.

by Michelle Orihel via Age of Revolutions on July 3, 2023

The Middle Hutchinson: Elisha, 1641-1717

By leading the risky but eventually successful financial operation, Elisha justified his name.

by Dror Goldberg via Commonplace on April 4, 2023

Map of Jamaica.

Revisiting Restoration

Women’s economic labor was essential to state function.

by Jonah Estess via Commonplace on March 1, 2023

Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.

by Erica Johnson Edwards via Age of Revolutions on January 30, 2023

Left: cover of "The New Yorkers," a book by Sam Roberts, featuring a collage of black and white photographs of different people. Right: 1884 illustration of British soldiers in long coats fighting with New York men

Isaac Sears and the Roots of America in New York

Like so many other reluctant revolutionaries in New York, he seemed the antithesis of the rabble in arms that the British identified with the mobocracy.

by Sam Roberts via HNN on October 23, 2022

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