Talk:Patriot (American Revolution)

message: Patriots is the name that those who rebelled called themselves. The Loyalists did not call them patriots.
* those who rebelled called themselves: Patriots
* those who rebelled were called by those who remained loyal to the crown: rebels
* those who remained loyal to the crown called themselves: Loyalists
* those who remained loyal to the crown were called by those who rebelled: Tory's.
BradMajors (talk) 22:04, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Names

message: I have removed the tag on this article as further reading has convinced me that Patriot is an acceptable term, althrough one largely used in the United States, and is used as an equivilant of Loyalist to speak of one faction in the American War of Independence/American Revolution. This is part of an ongoing discussion on the Talk page of the "American Revolutionary War" article. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 02:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, as pointed out by Northshoreman, the reason why "Americans" predominantly use it is because American's predominantly write American history.  We tend to accept, unless theres an especially good reason otherwise, the terms used by historians of a specific country since they also tend to write the most scholarly sources upon which to base history off of. Otherwise we end up with a situation where we've neutered the language of an article in an attempt to "internationalize" an article and up losing the point. We use language that has common currency in scholarly publications for a reason; it is often the most precise, the most accurate, and even when its "ambiguous" in relation to the larger world, within the context of its field its meaning is well understood. SiberioS (talk) 05:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed Tag

message: In the interests of Wikipedia good faith and neutral POV, a footnote (and inline quote) is now included within the article from a book about Loyalists published in Canada (i.e. non-POV), referring to the Patriots in colonial pre-war Massachusetts. The article is also expanded to include historical perspective of the patriot terminology in colonial America. 
:Regards, ColWilliam (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Patriot is not POV

message: I just stumbled upon this article, and wondered why the article is semi-protected. There seems to be no discussion on this talk page that calls for any level of protection. Unless someone provides a good reason for the page's protected status, I intend to unprotect the article in the near future. Gentgeen (talk) 04:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I figure it must have simply been forgotten about since the semi-protection was applied on 28 November 2007. You might want to ask  about it since he was the admin who applied the protection. Cheers!—Elipongo (Talk contribs) 05:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Okay, let's see what happens. —WWoods (talk) 15:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you like what's happening? Methinks the vandals never "went away", they (as with other popular articles), just keep at it, given the chance.  (diff between today and September 10, about 250 edits) Magic♪piano 22:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: questioning semi-protected

message: None of the references actually quote anyone in America using the term "patriot" or "patriot party" before the 1770s. Nor does the OED.  The OED (uder "patriot") reports that in England by 1740s the term "patriot" was one of ridicule and derision and no one in England called himself one. When amateur historians refers to people in, say, the 1680s as "patriots" they do not necessarily mean that specific word was used at the time. I have not seen any examples of scholars using the term pre 1770s. So I just erased the sections. No historian has found a pre 1800 group in America named the "American Patriot Party" (whether capitalized or not)--It is the name of a late 20th century group.)   Rjensen (talk) 06:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: While I'm not qualified to comment on whether "Patriot" had notable use in North America before 1760, it seems to me after a brief search that there is a similarity of political thought between the North American Patriot movement and the British Patriot Whigs that should be explored here -- that of questioning and/or resisting the (possibly perceived) elites holding power. Magic♪piano 17:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: the similarities in ideas have been explored by Bernard Bailyn. But the Americans did not use the word "patriot" to describe themselves until the 1770s.  OED gives a Ben Franklin quote from 1773 as the earliest use. Rjensen (talk) 22:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

text: to reiterate, no serious historian or dictionary (like OED) has found any use of the word "patriot" or "patriot party" or "American Patriotic Party" in the 13 colonies before 1770. The citations are by amateur historians who say that such-and-such event was LIKE what the Patriots of the 1770s did.  Yes, but they did not use the term "patriot" or anything like it. There are a few British uses that have nothing to do with the Americans  (for example talk in the 1740s of the British king as a patriot king). Laking verifiable sources the stuff has to go. Rjensen (talk) 18:00, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand your point of view. However, I also believe that the section (which I wrote) was well-referenced. In the interests of Wikipedia objectivity and neutral POV, perhaps we can retain a section on this issue, keeping both my original write-up, but also adding your perspective. -ColWilliam (talk) 18:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

text: I checked each quote and NONE of them support the argument. None of them shows the use of the word "patriiot" in any variation by an American before 1770. They fail the "reliable source" criteria: specifically: 
****Murray, Stuart: Smithsonian Q & A: The American Revolution, HarperCollins Publishers by Hydra Publishing (in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution), New York (2006) p. 31 does not give any quote with "patriot" from anyone pre 1770.
****The Outlook, Vol. LXXXVI, May-August 1907, The Outlook Co., New York (1907) p. 61. does seem to say the Virginians used the word, although he quotes no one and mentions no names. The author reprinted the article in a book a few years later and left out the statement, so he no longer believed it. No other historian repeated his mistake until Wiki dug it up just now.
****Ryerson, Egerton: The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. I, Second Edition, William Briggs, Toronto (1880) p. 208. is a popular Canadian textbook that does not quote anyone. 
****Minot, George Richards: Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I, James Whit and Co., Boston (1803) p. 51. is another popular book that does not quote anyone. 
*** the standard historical dictionaries like OED and Mathews Dictionary of Americanism found no quotes either. So to reject the dictionaries and assert the term was used some real evidence is needed.Rjensen (talk) 18:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: examples before 1760?

message: This entire section seems to be based on the notion that opposition to rebellion is somehow a mental illness, or due to a lack of something.  The opposite would seem to have been the case.JohnC (talk) 07:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Historians have long studied the psychology of the participants--asking indeed whether they were paranoid (Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style,”; Hutson, “The Origin of 'the Paranoid Style in American Politics"; Bailyn has stressed the apocalyptic fears, the exaggerated suspiciousness, and the conspiratorial fantasies of the Patriots;) or what? Wiki's job is to report what the scholars say.Rjensen (talk) 17:13, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Psychology

message: Currently there is a sentence that reads:
:"Among the most active of the Patriots group were highly educated and fairly wealthy individuals. However, without the support of the ordinary men and women, such as farmers, lawyers, mechanics, seamstresses, homemakers, shopkeepers, and ministers, the struggle for independence would have failed."
I think what is meant is what was called the "middling sort" represented by the professions such as doctors and lawers, and merchants, and educated artisans, craftsmen, and skilled tradesmen. (It was this class that Richard Baxter described and identified as pivitoal in the success of the Parimentary cause in the English civil War and has since been presented as a factor in the war by many historians.)
If that is what is meant then please explain it as such rather than terms such as "ordinary men and women" and the rather abitary list that follows. -- PBS (talk) 02:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Middling sort

message: I think the central problem here is the presence or absence of a capital letter.
Much confusion exists because the popular media rarely if ever distinguish between 'patriot' and 'Patriot' when writing about the American War of Independence (or First US Civil War, or Rebellion, or Revolution).
It would be useful to point out in this article that any reference to 'patriots' in any medium worldwide about this period of US history should be treated with extreme caution since its use is so often, ideed usually, imprecise.
No doubt this imprecision is aided by the subconscious, and highly questionable, assumption by many in the USA today  that all 'Patriots' were self-evidently also patriots, and vice versa, all being 'patriotic' to the fledgling USA.
All countries have foundation myths, and this 'Patriot/patriot' business seems bound up with US foundation myths as well as the concept of 'American Patriot' in modern 'propaganda'.  (See Plymouth Rock, George Washington's Cherry Tree, Taxation, Representation etc). It is clearly more comforting and better politics-speak to persistantly describe ones founding fathers as 'patriots' rather than 'unpatriotic, disloyal, terrorist revolutionaries, little better than communists' - even though both descriptions can be said to be equally 'true' depending on ones perspective.
My point however is simply that the two meanings are confusingly blurred and it's important to point this out, and explain why.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.97.176 (talk) 12:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: 'Patriot' or 'patriot'.

message: Patriot Games, The Patriot, Patriot Missile, the Patriot Act of 2001 all seem to feed into the collective US psyche and cultural identity, playing upon and enhancing the lasting perception that the Patriots of the War of Independence were 'pure' patriots rather than members of a political party called the Patriots - a name chosen no doubt in time-homoured political fashion for its perceived spin value rather than any literal truth.
Present day politicians clearly believe in its spin value too. 
Lastly I can't resist adding Samuel Jonhson's famous observation that 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.215.47 (talk) 16:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: the dictionary (Webster 3rd unabridged) has this definition: "one who advocates or promotes the independence of his native soil or people from the country or union of countries of which it is a part (as a colony)." that is the meaning used here. Johnson had a low opinion of Americans--they were almost as disgusting as Scots in his mind.Rjensen (talk) 16:42, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Patriot/patriot II

message: I've tagged the article as confusing because it cites differing percentages for support of the Patriots and Tories without any explanation or attempt to deconflict.  The first percentages leave little to the Tories (45-50% Patriots while half tried to stay out of the matter, that leaves 0-5% Tories), while in the very next paragraph the commonly taught 1/3-1/3-1/3 is cited.  Changing back and forth between numbers for white males and numbers for all is also confusing and seems out of place without saying percentages of non-white males or of white females.  The block quote is useful but the following paragraph speaks as though the quote isn't even there ("In addition, many people remained neutral" - this was just discussed in the block quote, so it's not "in addition").--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:24, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed the problem. the 1/3-1/3-1/3 estimate is rejected by Allen (2010) as false (the text had cited him as endorsing it). The Calhoun quote explicitly says "Historians' best estimates put the proportion of adult white male loyalists somewhere between 15 and 20 percent." and there is nothing there about 0-5%. Rjensen (talk) 23:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing tag 

message: Since Wikipedia brands the Jewish resistance group against British imperialism, the Irgun, as terrorists, it should also brand this American resistance as terrorists.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.127.28.67 (talk) 18:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add [[:Category:American terrorism]] to this article. 

message: Not knowing enough about Wikipedia and this subject, I won't touch the article.  But I was referred to it through a link under John Jay and I don't see him on the list.  76.116.209.139 (talk) 16:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of prominent Patriots 

message: I added Benedict Arnold because he was a general during the American Revolutionary War, and I put him as defected.Allied Rangoon/Anti-VandalBot (talk) 23:01, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: His book on Conservatism has been very well received-- I know of no serious attacks or major  disagreements -- and we have upwards of three thousand citations by historians listed at  https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=CONSERVATISM+%22Leonard+Woods+Labaree%22&num=10   It's the viewpoint that has been accepted by many many scholars in the last 70 years Rjensen (talk) 18:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine, and I have no problems with your recent edits. The section needed improvement; I drew your attention; you improved it. Team effort.  —Dilidor (talk) 12:09, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Labaree is standard history 

message: The Terminology section states that "In Britain at the time, the word "patriot" had a negative connotation and was used as a negative epithet for "a factious disturber of the government", according to Samuel Johnson." The source provided is "'Patriot' in Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed. online 2011)." The 1st edition of the Oxford English Dictionary wasn't published until 1884. A Dictionary of the English Language (which was published by Samuel Johnson himself in 1768) has "patriot" defined as "One whofe [sic] ruling paffion [sic] is the love of his country."
There is no evidence that 'patriot' was a negative term in late-1700s Britain, and the line suggesting so should be removed.
Link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language/03Q7AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Patriot
APA: Johnson, S. (1768). A Dictionary of the English Language.... Ireland: W. G. Jones. 75.63.7.107 (talk) 18:45, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: . I have access to the OED, and can confirm that it's in there. I'll fix up the footnote to be a little clearer. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (talk) 06:46, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 4 July 2021 

message: Was reading the Wikipedia entry on George Washington and came across the linked entry for “Patriot.” But, other than the small portion of the article noting how the rebelling colonists used the term for themselves, the entire rest of the article is ACTUALLY ABOUT attitudes towards the Revolution itself, the people who participated in it, etc. Hence the question: WHY does this article even exist? 
If a NEUTRAL POV is applied to it, there appears no reason for its stand-alone existence. The portion of the article discussing the HISTORICAL use of the term “Patriot” might easily be absorbed into the main article on the American Revolution. At the risk of being indelicate, I believe the recent (modern, not contemporaneous) resurgence in the use and/or co-opting of the term for modern political purposes is the only reason this article exists. I hope fellow Wikipedians will consider condensing its info into the main Revolutionary War topic(s) as applicable?
BTW: Even if there is consensus with my opinion here, I won’t be making such changes myself — my Wikipedia editing skills are too old/out of date! But I’m hoping someone is brave enough to step up? Thanks for your consideration, everyone. 
  Signed, Grammar Nazi & Paper Patriot .... lol  =) Cynthisa (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why does this “article” even exist? 

message: The Gale company has shut down its Questia service, so the "online versions" don't work.  All the references need to be converted to full citations. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 17:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Failed citations 

message: I found my way to this article wanting to know when the term "Patriot" came into use during the revolution. The infobox, a very recent addition, gives specific dates for the existence of a patriot party, but no source is given. It even mentions predecessor and successor parties. However, no Patriot party is mentioned in the article Politics of the United States. The article List of Political Parties in the United States mentions two patriot parties, but they are both modern. The article American Revolution uses the term freely from the outset, without giving a source.
I have looked at some of the early discussion of the name for this article. I don't want to revisit that. But it would be nice to know when and how the term came into use, especially since Johnson purportedly said it had negative connotations. In Origins Of The American Revolution, Miller dives right into using the word without tackling its origin. There are two instances of "patriot" in quotation marks early in the book, but Miller gives no source for the quotes. Bailyn only uses the word when referring to modern patriot historians in The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. (This reference is absent from the Wikipedia article.)
NGram Viewer shows the capitalised word Patriot peaking in 1753, then declining quickly into the early 1800s. Small bumps are shown in the early 1940s and early 1990s. Without a capital letter, there are peaks in 1768, 1780, 1803, then a long decline to the present. Combined, usage is greatest between 1733 and 1754, after which it declines rapidly.
And so, that brings me to my last resource, the big Oxford English Dictionary. It informs me that "The name has been at various times borne or assumed by persons or parties whose claim to it has been disputed, denied, or ridiculed by others. Hence the name itself fell into discredit in the earlier half of the 18th century, being used, according to Dr Johnson, ironically for "a fractious disturber of the government". So, sometimes, at a later date, "Irish Patriot". The OED would likely place American patriots in that category as well!
Macauley wrote "the name of Patriot had become, about 1744, a byword of derision." And further "Horace Walpole scarcely exaggerated when he said that… the most popular declaration which a candidate could make on the hustings was that he had never been and never would be a patriot". All the definitions and usages apply to what I would call lower-case patriots; in other words not as a label for a faction of the American colonists.
Nevertheless, the OED redeems itself in the supplement, which adds a third meaning: "Patriots day US April 19, the anniversary of the initial skirmishes in the American war of independence at Lexington and Concord in the state of Massachusetts." The 1909 source is given as the Springfield Weekly Republic referring to 22nd of April 1911 "...the celebration of Patriots' Day, the 134th anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord. The day is a legal holiday in Massachusetts and Maine."
What does it all mean? I suspect that usage of the word Patriot, in its modern American sense of a label, began with growing nationalism in the second half of the 19th century. It can't be pinned down because it undoubtedly began to be used in many places about the same time. But it seems reasonable that common usage began following the Civil War and in the lead-up to the hundredth anniversary. 
I can't add my own work to the article. But if anyone knows of a source that resolves the question, it would be a worthwhile addition. I would particularly like to know when Patriots' Day became a legal holiday in Massachusetts and Maine. That should be easy for people who know their way around government records. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contemporary usage of the word Patriot 

message: I feel this whole page should have a re-look. 
There are some things written here that seem to be new analysis based off multiple sources, but the citations are just books without paragraph or page numbers, and most of the hyperlinks don't work. 2600:4040:2081:3C00:784A:341B:622C:96CE (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. RudolfRed (talk) 00:50, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 14 September 2023