The Story of Samuel and Jonas Belknap
Thoughts on family, the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and American tyranny.
On May 3, 1775 — 250 years ago — Samuel Belknap and his son Jonas traveled to Granby, Massachusetts. Together, they enlisted in the Massachusetts Militia. The first shots of the American Revolutionary War were fired some 15 miles east at Lexington and Concord a few weeks earlier, April 19th 1775.
Jonas must have falsified his age to be accepted for enlistment — he was just 15 years old at the time. Nevertheless, on June 17th, 1775 both Belknaps fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill — the first major action of the Revolutionary War. The British troops “won” the battle, but sustained heavy losses. A total of fifteen hundred men died that day. According to family records, Samuel died the next day. Cause of death: heat prostration. He was 44 years old.
Though his father died, teenage Jonas continued serving in the militia. By August, King George III considered the American colonists in “in a state of open and avowed rebellion.”
Then, in January 1776, Thomas Paine published a history-altering 47-page pamphlet called “Common Sense”. Paine, a British journalist, was living in Philadelphia at the time. His work takes the form of a long letter, “addressed to the inhabitants of America.”
Paine’s letter is full of spicy political commentary. Reflecting on the fight at Lexington and Concord less than a year prior, Paine wrote:
“No man was a warmer wisher for a reconciliation [with the British] than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch, that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.”
Damn. Ok.
His commentary is scathing and occasionally amusing. Take his description of William the Conqueror: “a French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England” (!)
Paine continued, “… So far as we approve of monarchy… in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the Crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.”
According to historian Harlow Giles Unger, “Common Sense became the most widely read work in the western world, after only the Bible.”
While Common Sense took the colonies by storm, Jonas Belknap — 16 by then — reenlisted in the Massachusetts Militia.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence that summer; it was adopted and printed on July 4th, 1776 — 249 years ago today. (Given the anniversary, I encourage everyone to read the full document.)
Before diving in, let’s take a (quick) moment to appreciate the grammar, capitalization, and punctuation — because it reveals a lot. The first sentence alone:
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
It’s a hell of a run-on sentence. I am so intrigued by the capitalization choices. Declaration. Course. united States of America. Very interesting.
I could go on forever about specific word choices — but that’s not the point today, nor do I imagine that would be a particularly fun read.
The final clause of this forever sentence reads, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” It’s a setup for what will follow: a list of 27 grievances against George III.
Before the 27 grievances, though, comes the most well-known assertion of this handwritten document, another wildly long sentence full of creative punctuation:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
It’s pretty radical stuff.
“The Declaration of Independence is a document at odds with itself, projecting two competing visions of America,” observed Seth Cotlar of Willamette University. Indeed — a later statement in the document shows that “Men” isn’t an inclusive term; native people are referred to as “merciless Indian Savages.” It’s quite the paradox.
Let’s get into the colonists’ grievances with King George III — these grievances were used as justification for the revolution.
The Declaration reads, “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Here are ten grievances against the King I found to be particularly relevant. Again, read the full document here.
He has refused his Assent [approval] to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: [sic]
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: [sic]
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: [sic]
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: [sic]
By fall of 1776, Jonas made it to New York where he enlisted in George Washington’s Continental Army. He was wounded on May 30, 1778 — he was 19 by then. Jonas managed to fight and survive the decisive 1981 Battle of Yorktown and was honorably discharged from the Continental Army in 1783, nearly ten years after he enlisted with his father, Samuel.
As for my place in this story, I born just over 200 years after Jonas left the Continental Army. He’s my sixth great-grandfather. It’s worth stating: had he not survived his injury in 1778, or the myriad battles he fought, I would never have been born.
That observation brings me to today, July 4th, 2025, the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We find ourselves in an era in which the President of the United States refers to himself as a “King.” I have to wonder what Samuel and Jonas would think.
I wonder, too, what my fellow modern Americans make of the colonists’ grievances against the King they labelled tyrannical — many of which could serve as grievances against our current president.
I wonder what it means to celebrate the 4th of July, or honor my ancestors, at a time when the president persistently attacks the Constitution, the press, civil society, democracy, elections, basic facts, the rule of law, and basic human rights.
The thing that troubles me most of all — truly, the reason I had the manic energy to review our founding documents — is the hideous legislation passed by the House of Representatives yesterday, and sent to the president’s desk in honor of the Declaration of Independence.
The absurdly titled “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” makes deep cuts to social safety net programs that offer health care and food assistance to poor Americans. Even more grotesque, this “beautiful bill” dumps an unprecedented amount of taxpayer money into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): an agency actively terrorizing our community members.
In total, $45 billion in taxpayer dollars will go towards immigration detention centers and another $30 billion will be used to hire more ICE agents.
In the Trump Administration’s telling, these investments in incarceration will protect Americans from an “invasion” of “aliens” who commit “vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans.” Personally — when I read the word “alien” I’m reminded of “merciless Indian savages.” Both terms suggest the individuals described are less than human — therefore undeserving of human rights. This type of language often precedes the darkest episodes in human history. It’s frightening to hear in 2025.
News reports demonstrate that many immigrants incarcerated by the Trump Administration have no criminal record whatsoever. I see this as deeply dangerous racial profiling campaign justified by lies and dehumanization.
Here comes that paradox at the heart of this nation, once again. Exactly which “Men” are created equal? Who, exactly, is entitled to “unalienable Rights.”?
I want to close with two more observations, first from Suffolk University professor Robert Allison.
“The Declaration is a reminder of government’s purpose — to secure rights. That the British government — the world’s freest in 1776 — acted tyrannically, was the Declaration’s most somber warning.”
Indeed.
Finally, I want to highlight the words of Frederick Douglass in 1852. (I encourage reading the full speech)
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
I must ask: what, to an unlawfully deported and incarcerated immigrant, is our 4th of July?
Thank you, as always, for spending time with me.
I recognize that some readers may not agree with my opinions; that’s ok — I invite you to argue with me in the comments! My patriotism is based on an expansive understanding, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I’m serious about that.
Andra:
Thank you for this. Without going into too much detail the first Thachers arrived on these shores from Wiltshire area in the mid 1600’s to escape religious persecution and within a generation or two, one Thomas Thacher became the first pastor of the Old South Meeting House in Boston, said structure from which such worthies as Samuel Adam’s et al. ambled forth as faux ‘merciless natives’ to dump British goods overboard rather than pay the duty on them.
And if you look at Trumbull’s reworked picture on the back of the $2 bill, the tall gentleman standing under the first T of ‘STATES’ you are looking at Roger Sherman of Connecticut who along with the other four standies cobbled together the Declaration. (No question that Thomas Jefferson from the slave state of Virginia was the best wordsmith of the group in getting it down.)
More generations to get to Professor Thomas Anthony Thacher of Yale and his second wife Elizabeth Sherman who produced my grandfather who came to Ojai in 1887, first to farm and then to teach.
Lots of other New England connections, John Alden,
and those first pilgrims, Thacher Island off Cape Anne, Col. James Thacher, MD with Washington at Valley Forge, who knows we may be related to Belknaps here and there.
And I was always rather proud that Eldridge and Sherman, the signers from Connecticut, were not slave owners, that is if you don’t look too closely at what an indentured servant was or follow up on the ship builders of New England who continued the slave trade after it was made illegal in England and these United States, plying the waters from Africa and Cuba.
And now in spite of being a nation of immigrants, we seem to be willing to live complacently under the thumb of greedy people with no regard for Thomas Paine’s common sense.
Finally, on this July 4th, I do wonder how many of us will first look to see what scraps and gristle are thrown our way in the BBB without regard as to how future generations will fare from the burdens we leave for them.
Tony