Talk:Evacuation Day (New York)

The frontier lands
The boundary is well defined in the Treaty of Paris (1783):

"And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared, that the following are and shall be their boundaries, viz.;" ... "thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario; through the middle of said lake until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie" ...

By the time of the New York evacuation the British still occupied Fort Oswego and Fort Niagara. BradMajors 04:23, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Border disputes were not a couse of the War of 1812? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shoreranger (talk • contribs) 01:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Boundary disputes were not a major cause of the War of 1812 (Origins of the War of 1812). It is true that the border was in dispute after the Revolutionary War, before the War of 1812 and the disputes continued even after the War of 1812.  But, the relevant point is there were some areas which were not in dispute, which both sides had agreed were part of the United States in 1783, but were still occupied by the British until the 1790's.  (see Jay Treaty).  In Article 2 of Jay Treaty: His Majesty will withdraw all His Troops and Garrisons from all Posts and Places within the Boundary Lines assigned by the Treaty of Peace to the United States. This treaty is not defining a new boundary line rather it is saying the British will withdraw from the frontier forts which they had already agreed were part of the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783). BradMajors 05:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

November 25
November 25 was the day the Americans entered New York City and took over control. The Governor Andrew Elliot, the British commander Guy Carleton, and the last troops left on December 3. BradMajors (talk) 21:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

"Offending symbol of tyrany" to describe the British flag is uncited and inappropriate and also subjective given that the British were evacuating slaves and regugees persecuted under the new amercian regime. Please could someone clean up this article as it seem to have been written by an elementary school student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.0.56.223 (talk) 10:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

"Offending symbol of tyrany"
This phrase is a painfully POV statement. Historical context is irrelevant, as reliable references by either side can easily incorporate national bias – editors should seek to remove such bias when writing articles. The phrase represents the article from an exclusively American point of view, and is the equivalent of a Briton writing "the upstart Americans ungratefully tore down good King George's beautiful flag, cut it up and mailed it to Napoleon Bonaparte with compliments". In the spirit of WP:NPOV, the article should contain as neutral wording as possible, which in this case is to simply state that the Americans tore down the British flag – adding no national viewpoint and just keeping it to what happened, thus giving no bias to either side. -- Sabre (talk) 08:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, the edits made seem to be reasonable, it's of a respectable neutral view point now. However, if got from a quote, it would be a good idea to put it in quote marks and attribute it with an inline citation. -- Sabre (talk) 16:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

NPOV
This article is terribly biased. It is full of weasel words and there are no citations.

One particular note that really irked me, was that the american prisoners on the prison hulks, according to the article, were intentionally allowed to starve to death.

The simple fact was that, as POWs, they were at the bottom of the food chain, during war and great hardship. It was difficult enough finding food and vittels for loyalist troops in a hostile country and include prisoners, too.

But they also died, in great numbers, for the simple reason that Washington refused to undertake parole and prisoner exchanges. In fact, to compound this, the Convention Army was not released as was agreed by John Burgoyne after Saratoga.

It's a sad fact but Washington knew that British regulars were, in military terms, more important than continental militias. He was not prepared to exchange battle-hardened veterans with greenhorn volunteers.

But nevertheless, through pamphleteers and agitators, Washington's intransigence could be used as propoganda to prove British cruelty and oppression as opposed to his own callousness. It should be noted that unlike British POWs who received coin from UK - to buy food and clothing, Washington or the Continental Congress never once offered any purse or provisions to help aid their own imprisoned colonial troops.

It happened again during the Napoleonic Wars, when Bonapart refused to do the same thing. On both sides of the channel, French and English prisoners rotted until hostilities ended!

And this is just one example on how things could be balanced. This article is flawed in many other ways as noted by others above.


 * Additional references added, documenting disease and inhumane conditions, compounding and in addition to "starvation", as well as other torments as described by survivors and other contemporaries. Shoreranger (talk) 20:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

More sources/research to add
User:Pharos/Evacuation Day.--Pharos (talk) 09:42, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

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Featured Article: November 25, 2018!
I hereby state my intention to work to make this the Featured Article for November 25, 2018. I invite you to join me!--Pharos (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Evacuation Day 1783 was at Fort George, not Battery Flagstaff?
I've been looking over the sources, and it seems that a major source of confusion was that although the original events in 1783 were at Fort George / Bowling Green, the commemorations for about 125 years were held further south, at Battery Flagstaff (built 1790) by Castle Clinton, on ground that was newly created landfill. Is that right?--Pharos (talk) 16:59, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think at some point it will make sense to start a Battery Flagstaff article. I have not been able to find documented yet whether the current Marine Flagstaff was put up as a replacement after the park was relandscaped in the 1950s, but it seems quite likely.--Pharos (talk) 23:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Looking again at old maps and photos, I think the last iteration of the Battery Flagstaff appears to have been at the site of the current East Coast Memorial.--Pharos (talk) 14:08, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Flag legends
I wonder if we should have a subsection in 'Event history' about the flag legends, for Van Arsdale, Thomas Johnson and maybe the boarding house proprietor thing. The Van Arsdale thing, often repeated as fact, seems to be something built up over time, based on his participation in some early commemorations.--Pharos (talk) 16:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Late 1783 Evacuation Day flag-raisings
I may be missing some context, but I believe the raising of flags in the year 1783 on Evacuation Day itself (in Brooklyn) and a couple of weeks later (in Queens) to commemorate the exit of the British is highly relevant to this article covering on the commemoration of Evacuation Day, so I disagree with the edit removing this non-trivial historical information.--Pharos (talk) 20:27, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Legendary flag-raising
Looking at the Talk section two above here, and at the article as it now stands, is the section head "Legendary flag-raising" still appropriate? We report it as if it is cited fact, and do not suggest that there's anything dodgy about it ... but I feel the "legendary' bit undermines the credibility. Best to all, DBaK (talk) 20:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The flag-raising probably happened, but John Van Arsdale probably did not participate in it. Most of the stories describe a young man or boy, and he was a middle-aged man at the time.  Instead, he seems to have participated in some of the earlier commemorations because of his position with veterans' groups, and his family later used that as a basis to claim it was their inherited right to raise the flag.  The City Council found that the family's claims were not valid in 1900.--Pharos (talk) 20:13, 8 August 2019 (UTC)