Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument

Happy Evacuation Day!  On this day in 1783, the last shot of the American revolution was fired by a gunner on a departing Royal Navy ship at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor. The shot went wide, missing its target.  Sir Guy Carleton had ordered his troops to sail at noon on November 25th.  George Washington and an honor guard from the Continental Army marched in shortly thereafter. Before Washington could arrive, officially ending the seven year occupation of New York, the British flag, which had been nailed to a greased flag pole at the Battery, needed to be taken down. John Van Arsdale, a survivor of a British prison ship,  climbed the pole, ripped down the Union Jack and nailed up the Stars and Stripes.  For years, greased pole climbing contests were popular in celebrations of Evacuation Day in New York.

The British occupation of New York had been brutal. In 1783, the city had roughly 12,000 inhabitants. During the occupation, over 11,000 American prisoners had died from intentional neglect aboard sixteen British prison ships anchored in Wallabout Bay in New York’s East River.  The total number of Americans who died in combat during the seven-year war was roughly 6,800, which is to say that more Americans died from hunger and disease on these ships than died in every battle of the war, combined.

Evacuation Day has largely been superseded by Thanksgiving, which typically falls within a day or two of November 25th.  The Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Fort Greene Park, in Brooklyn, New York memorializes those who died in the prison ships. Sadly like Evacuation Day, the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument has also been largely forgotten.

Two years ago, Sara Vowel on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” made the case for American’s celebrating Evacuation Day rather than Thanksgiving.  (For our friends on the other side of the pond, we are sure that when Ms. Vowel refers to the British as “big, bad Limey bastards” she means it in only the best of senses.)

Happy Evacuation Day

Sarah Vowell thinks that Americans should be thanking the 11,000 loyal patriots who perished on British prison ships instead of some Mayflower-cruising Jesus-freak corn-rustlers.