Freedom Fighters
By I haven’t yet read Thaddeus Russell‘s A Renegade History of the United States but based on this review in the Huffington Post, I’m definitely going to.
During the War of Independence a culture of pleasure and freedom blossomed in American cities. Non-marital sex, including adultery and relations between whites and blacks, was ubiquitous and rarely punished. Because divorce was unregulated, it was easily and frequently obtained, often by women. Brothels were legal and abundant and prostitutes were rarely prosecuted. Black slaves, Irish indentured servants, Native Americans, and free whites of all classes commingled extensively in saloons and in the streets. Pirates who settled in the port cities brought with them a way of life that embraced both general revelry and homosexuality. On nearly every block in every 18th-century American city, there was a public place where one could drink, sing, dance, have sex, argue politics, gamble, play games, or generally carouse with men, women, children, whites, blacks, Indians, the rich, the poor, and the middling. Rarely have Americans had more fun. And never have America’s leaders been less pleased by it.
Click here for “11 Freedoms That Drunks, Slackers, Prostitutes and Pirates Pioneered And The Founding Fathers Opposed.”