Indian people(57%Hindus,30%Muslims,12%Christians,1%Others)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi  • Jawaharlal Nehru • Bhagat Singh • C.V.Raman  • Swami Vivekananda • Srinivasa Ramanujan •  • Aryabhata • Rabindranath Tagore  • Narayana murthy • A. P. J. Abdul Kalam • Sachin Tendulkar • A.R.Rahman  • Indira Gandhi • Kiran Bedi • Medha Patkar • Kalpana Chawla
Total population
1,192,000,000 est 17.31% of the world's population Indian diaspora 12,000,000–20,000,000[1][2]
Regions with significant populations
India 1,180,166,000 (2010)
Nepal 4,000,000 [citation needed]  United States 2,843,391 [citation needed]  Malaysia 2,400,000 [citation needed]  Myanmar 2,000,000 [3]  United Arab Emirates 1,500,000 [citation needed]  England 1,414,100 [citation needed]  South Africa 1,160,000 [citation needed]  Canada 1,230,051 [citation needed]  Mauritius 855,000  Kuwait 580,000  Trinidad and Tobago 525,000  Oman 450,000  Australia 405,000  Singapore 400,000  Fiji 340,000  France 330,000  Guyana 327,000  Bahrain 310,000
Languages
Hindi • other Indian languages • English (Indian)
Religion
Hinduism • Islam • Sikhism • Jainism • Roman Catholic and Jewish minorities (see also Religion in India)
Related ethnic groups
Bangladeshi people • Nepali people • Pakistani people • Sri Lankan people • other South Asians • Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian • Indo-Guyanese • British Asian people • Indian-Americans • Indo-Caribbean people • other Non-Resident Indians

Indian people or Indians are people who are citizens of India, which forms a major part of south of Asia, containing 17.31% of the world's population. The Indian nationality is in essence made up of regional ethno-linguistic groups, reflecting the rich and complex history of India. India, in its current boundaries, was formed out of a number of predecessors.

Substantial populations with Indian ancestry, as a result of emigration, exist in many different parts of the world, most notably in Southeast Asia, South Africa, Australia, England, Middle East and North America. Population estimates vary from a conservative 12 million to 20 million diaspora.^[1][2]

Genetics[link]

Basu et al. (2003) emphasize that the combined results from mtDNA, Y-chromosome and autosomal markers suggest that "(1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northwest; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austro-Asiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian tribals were possibly widespread throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European-speaking nomads, but retreated to southern India to avoid dominance; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities."^[4]

Modern anthropologists classify Indians as belonging to one of four major ethno-racial groups, which overlap significantly because of racial admixture: Caucasoids, Australoids, Mongoloids and Negritos. The Caucasoids are largely confined to the north and generally speak Indo-Aryan languages; Australoids are found in the south and generally speak Dravidian languages; Mongoloids are largely confined to the Northeastern region of the country and for the most part, speak Tibeto-Burman languages; and Negritos are found on the Andaman Islands located on the southeastern side of the country. These speak a language known simply as Great Andamanese, a linguistic isolate not related to any known language. And finally, Austro-Asiatic languages are spoken by only tribals or Adivasis, who can be of either Australoid or Mongoloid racial stock.^[5]

According to a major 2009 study published by Reich et al. using over 500,000 biallelic autosomal markers, the modern Indian population is composed of two genetically divergent and heterogeneous populations which mixed in ancient times (about 1,200-3,500 BC), known as Ancestral North Indians (ANI) and Ancestral South Indians (ASI). ASI corresponds to the Dravidian-speaking population of southern India, whereas ANI corresponds to the Indo-Aryan-speaking population of northern India.^[6][7]

Ethnic groups[link]

India has more than two thousand ethnic groups and every major religion is represented, as are five major families of languages (Indo-European, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman) as well as a language isolate (the Nihali language^[8] spoken in parts of Maharashtra). India's ethnic history is extremely complex; nevertheless, distinct racial divisions between peoples still exist as established by modern anthropologists, despite the fact that the national Census of India does not recognize racial or ethnic groups within India,^[9] but recognizes many of the tribal groups as Scheduled Castes and Tribes (see list of Scheduled Tribes in India).

Religion[link]

Close-up of a statue depicting Maitreya at the Thikse Monastery in Ladakh, India. Dharmic religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, are indigenous to India.^[10]

Akshardham is a Hindu temple complex in Delhi, India.

Roman Catholic wedding at the Milagres Church in Mangalore, India

Jama Masjid, Delhi, one of the largest mosques in India

India is the birth place of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, collectively known as Indian religions.^[11] Indian religions, also known as Dharmic religions are a major form of world religions along with Abrahamic ones. Today, Hinduism and Buddhism are the world's third- and fourth-largest religions respectively, with over 2 billion followers altogether,^[12][13][14] and possibly as many as 2.5 or 2.6 billion followers.^[12][15] India is also the birthplace for the Jain, Lingayat, and Ahmadiyya faiths.

India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Religion still plays a central and definitive role in the life of most of its people.

The religion of 80% of the people is Hinduism. Islam is practiced by around 13% of all Indians.^[16] Sikhism, Jainism and especially Buddhism are influential not only in India but across the world. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the Bahá'í Faith are also influential but their numbers are smaller. Despite the strong role of religion in Indian life, atheism and agnostics also have visible influence along with a self-ascribed tolerance to other people.

Religious majorities vary greatly by state. Jammu and Kashmir and Lakshadweep are Muslim majority states; Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya are Christian majority; Punjab is mostly Sikh; It is to be noted that while participants in the Indian census may choose to not declare their religion, there is no mechanism for a person to indicate that he/she does not adhere to any religion. Due to this limitation in the Indian census process, the data for persons not affiliated with any religion may not be accurate. India contains the majority of the world's Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains and Bahá'í. India is also home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. Muslims are the largest religious minority.

Music and dance[link]

Kuchipudi, a traditional Indian dance

The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and, developed over several eras, it remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of spiritual inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment. India is made up of several dozen ethnic groups, speaking their own languages and dialects, having very distinct cultural traditions.

Dance in India covers a wide range of dance and dance theatre forms, from the ancient classical or temple dance to folk and modern styles.

Three best-known hindu deities, Shiva, Kali, Ganesha and Krishna, are typically represented dancing. There are hundreds of Indian folk dances such as Bhangra, Garba and special dances observed in regional festivals. India offers a number of classical Indian dance forms, each of which can be traced to different parts of the country. The presentation of Indian dance styles in film, Bollywood, has exposed the range of dance in India to a global audience.

Caste system[link]

The Indian caste system describes the system of social stratification and social restrictions in India in which social classes are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups, often termed jātis or castes. Within a jāti, there exist exogamous groups known as gotras, the lineage or clan of an individual. In a handful of sub-castes such as Shakadvipi, endogamy within a gotra is permitted and alternative mechanisms of restricting endogamy are used (e.g. banning endogamy within a surname).

The Indian caste system involves four castes and outcasted social groups.^[18] Caste barriers have mostly broken down in large cities,^[19] though they persist in rural areas of the country, where 72% of India's population resides.

National personification[link]

Bharat Mata (Hindi, from Sanskrit भारत माता, Bhārata Mātā), Mother India, or Bhāratāmbā (from अंबा ambā 'mother') is the national personification of India as a mother goddess. She is usually depicted as a woman clad in an orange or saffron sari holding a flag, and sometimes accompanied by a lion.

The image of Bharat Mata formed with the Indian independence movement of the late 19th century. A play by Kiran Chandra Bandyopadhyay, Bhārat Mātā, was first performed in 1873.

Indian diaspora[link]

Population estimates vary from a conservative 12 million to 20 million diaspora.^[1][2]

Britain[link]

The British Indian community had grown to number over one million. According to the 2001 UK Census, 1,053,411 Britons had full Indian ethnicity (representing 1.8% of the UK's population). An overwhelming majority of 99.3% resided in England (in 2008 the figure is thought to be around 97.0%). In the seven year period between 2001 and 2009, the number of Indian-born people in the UK increased in size by 38% from 467,634 to around 647,000 (an increase of approximately 180,000).^[20]

Canada[link]

There are over 1.2 million Indian people in Canada, the majority of which live in Greater Toronto and Vancouver. 3% of the total Canadian population is of Indian ancestry, a figure higher than both the United States and Britain.

South Africa[link]

More than a million people of Indian descent live in South Africa, concerntrated around the city of Durban.

United States[link]

According to the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau, the Asian Indian population in the United States grew from almost 1,679,000 in 2000 to 2,570,000 in 2007: a growth rate of 53%, among the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States.

See also[link]

• List of Indians
• Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin
• Ethnic groups in South Asia
• Ethnic groups in Asia
• South Asia
• India

References[link]

Russell Peters
Russell Peters in 2009
Birth name	Russell Dominic Peters
Born	(1970-09-29) September 29, 1970 (age 41) Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Medium	Stand-up, Television, Film, Radio
Nationality	Canadian
Years active	1989–present
Genres	Satire, Improvisational comedy, Black comedy
Subject(s)	Racism, Race relations, Stereotypes, Multiculturalism, Indian culture
Influences	George Carlin,[1] Steve Martin, Cheech and Chong,[2] Don Rickles,[3] Eddie Murphy
Spouse	Monica Diaz (2010–2012) 1 child
Website	RussellPeters.com

Russell Dominic Peters (born September 29, 1970)^[4] is a Canadian comedian, actor and disc jockey. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and has been nominated for four Gemini Awards.

Early life[link]

Russell Peters was born in Brampton, Ontario, Canada to Eric and Maureen Peters. His family is of Anglo-Indian ancestry and is Catholic.^[4] His father was born in Bombay, Maharashtra, India, and worked as a federal meat inspector; he is regularly mentioned and featured in his comedy work.^[5] His mother was born in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He has an older brother named Clayton who was born in Calcutta.^[6] Russell attended Chinguacousy Secondary School for grades 9–10, and North Peel Secondary School for grades 11–12 in Brampton.^[7][8][9]

Career[link]

Peters began performing in Toronto in 1989. Peters' popularity extends to several countries. He has since also performed in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Afghanistan, Sweden, South Africa, India, the Caribbean, Philippines, Vietnam, mainland China, Canada, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, France, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Norway, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Trinidad among other places.

Peters attribute performance he did on the Canadian TV comedy series Comedy Now! that was uploaded onto YouTube and became viral.^[10] While the initial video upload featured his performance in its 45 minute entirety, subsequent videos uploaded by other YouTube users were snippets of that performance, chopped into each of the cultural groups he targeted. According to Peters, those snippets made their way to those specified cultural groups, and were well received by them.^[11]

Notable performances[link]

In Canada, Peters became the first comedian to sell out Toronto's Air Canada Centre,^[12] with more than 16,000 tickets in two days for the single show. He ended up selling over 30,000 tickets nationally over the two-day sales period. A total of over 60,000 tickets were sold across six cities.^{[citation needed]} His show in Sydney, Australia on 15 May 2010 had an audience of 13,880, making it the largest stand-up comedy show in Australian history.^[13] He broke a UK comedy sales record at London's O2 Arena when he sold over 16,000 tickets to his show on 2009.^[14]

He hosted the Canada Day Comedy Festival 2006. Peters participated in a USO tour of Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Africa and Greenland in November 2007 with Wilmer Valderrama and Mayra Veronica.^[15]. Peters also currently produces and stars on the radio situation comedy series, Monsoon House, on CBC Radio One.

Peters was the host of the 2008 Juno Awards televised ceremonies in Calgary on April 6, 2008,^[16] for which he won a Gemini Award for "Best Performance or Host in a Variety Program or Series". The 2008 awards broadcast received the second-highest ratings ever for the program. He was asked to host the Juno Awards for a second year in a row. The 2009 Juno Awards took place in Vancouver on March 29, 2009.

Publications[link]

His comedy special Russell Peters: Outsourced, aired on Comedy Central on August 16, 2006. The DVD version features his uncensored performance. The DVD has been popular, especially in Canada, selling over 100,000 copies. Outsourced remained on the National DVD Chart over one and a half years after release. Peters released a second DVD/CD combo Russell Peters: Red, White, and Brown in Canada in September 2008 and in the US on January 27, 2009. The DVD/CD was recorded on February 2, 2008, at The WAMU Theatre at Madison Square Garden. Peters and his brother, Clayton Peters, who is also his manager, self-produced and financed Red, White and Brown. In May 2011, Peters released Russell Peters: The Green Card Tour a live performance recorded in front of a total audience of 30,000 over a two-night performance at O2 Arena in London, England.^[17]

On October 26, 2010, Peters released his autobiography, Call me Russell, co - written with his brother Clayton and Dannis Koromilas.

Earnings[link]

According to Forbes.com, Peters earned an estimated $15 million between June 2009 and June 2010, continuing his run as one of the highest-paid comedians after earning an estimated $5 million in the prior year's report. He was ranked as the 7th highest paid comedian by Forbes.^[18][19]

Comedic style[link]

Russell Peters' stand-up performances are mostly made up of observational comedy where he uses humour to highlight racial, ethnic, class and cultural stereotypes. He often refers his own life experiences growing up in an Indian family and impersonates various English accents of different groups in his act to poke fun at each group. As Peters told an audience in San Francisco, "I don't make the stereotypes, I just see them."^[20] Russell Peters uses his minority status to allow him to poke fun at different races in his performance, but according to an interview done for The National, he does not intend to put down or offend different races and cultures, but instead tries to raise them up through humour.^[21]

Peters' is widely known for his comedy punchlines "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad" in which he tells a joke about his childhood with a traditional Indian father who would use corporal punishment and “Be a man!" while imitating an Asian trying to get him to pay more for an item at a shop.^[22]

Personal life[link]

Peters proposed to girlfriend Monica Diaz on July 10, 2010, at the Los Angeles International Airport. He announced the engagement via Twitter.^[23][24] The couple married on August 20, 2010 at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. The wedding was attended by about 20 guests, including an Elvis impersonator. Peters and Diaz had their first child, a girl, who was due to be born on February 23, 2011. When announcing the pregnancy, Peters told The Canadian Press, "Did I get married because she was knocked up? I would say that expedited it." His daughter was born two and a half months early (on December 14, 2010), but was healthy as Peters stated on his Twitter. She was given the name Crystianna Marie Peters.

Peters lives in Los Angeles and owns two homes there. He also owns homes in Las Vegas and Vaughan, Ontario.^[25]

Filmography[link]

Television and film appearances[link]

Peters has appeared in a few films, most recently in the 2011 Canadian-Punjabi movie titled Speedy Singhs alongside Camilla Belle, Anupham Kher, and Vinay Virmani. He has also appeared in Senior Skip Day starring Larry Miller, Tara Reid, and Gary Lundy. Besides this, he has also had short appearances in the 1994 film Boozecan as Snake's Friend, the 1999 film Tiger Claws III as Detective Elliott, the 2004 film My Baby's Daddy as the obstetrician, the 2006 film Quarter Life Crisis as Dilip Kumar, the 2007 film The Take as Dr. Sharma, and the 2008 film Senior Skip Day as Uncle Todd.

Peters starred in a Christmas special,A Russell Peters Christmas aired in Canada on 1 December, 2011. Guests included Michael Bublé, Pamela Anderson, Jon Lovitz among others.^[27]

He also acted in Duncan Jones's movie Source Code as Max, an amateur comedian with a bad attitude, and is scheduled to star as "Pervius" in National Lampoon's The Legend of Awesomest Maximus.^[28]

Acting roles – television

• "Comics Without Borders" (2008)
• Russell Peters: Red, White and Brown (2008)
• Senior Skip Day/High School's Day Off (Australia title) (2008)- Uncle Todd
• Bob's Burgers - "Moody Foodie" (Season 2, Episode 7) - Tran

Appearances on television

• "A Russell Peters Christmas" - Himself (1 December 2011)
• "Lopez Tonight" - Himself (2010)
• "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" – Himself (2009)
• "The 9th Annual Canadian Comedy Awards" (2008)- Himself (Winner – Best Large Venue Stand-up)
• "CBC News: The Hour" .... Himself – Episode dated 18 September 2008 (2008) TV episode .... Himself
• "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" – Himself – Episode dated 15 February 2008 (2008)
• "Def Comedy Jam" – Episode #8.4 (2008) TV episode – Himself/Comedian
• "Pulse: The Desi Beat" – Episode #1.9 (2007) TV episode – Himself
• "Video on Trial" – Episode #3.3 (2007) TV episode – Himself
• "Comics Unleashed" – Episode #1.6 (2009) TV episode- Himself
• The 4th Annual Canadian Comedy Awards (2039) – Himself
• The 5th Annual Canadian Comedy Awards (2004) – Nominee (Male Stand-up)
• MTV Cribs (Where he featured on two different episodes)
• "8 out of 10 Cats" (Season 12, Episode 9)

Self

• Heckler (2007)
• Let's All Hate Toronto (2007)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Russell Peters (26 July 2011). Call Me Russell. Random House Digital, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-385-66965-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=Man0-BpnFjkC&pg=PP1. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Russell Peters

• Russell named first Toronto ambassador

Paul Revere
Portrait of Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley, c. 1768–70
Born	(1735-01-01)January 1, 1735 (O.S.: December 21, 1734) Boston (North End)
Died	May 10, 1818(1818-05-10) (aged 83) Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation	silversmith, colonial militia officer
Spouse	Sarah Orne (1757–73) (her death) Rachel Walker (1773–1813) (her death)
Children	8 with Sarah Orne (6 survived) 8 with Rachel Walker (5 survived)

Paul Revere (December 21, 1734 – May 10, 1818)^{[N 1]} was an American silversmith, early industrialist, and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride."

Revere was a prosperous and prominent Boston silversmith, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military. Revere later served as a Massachusetts militia officer, though his service culminated after the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, for which he was absolved of blame. Following the war, Revere returned to his silversmith trade and used the profits from his expanding business to finance his work in iron casting, bronze bell and cannon casting, and the forging of copper bolts and spikes. Finally in 1800 he became the first American to successfully roll copper into sheets for use as sheathing on naval vessels.

Early years[link]

Paul Revere was born in the North End of Boston on December 21, 1734, according to the Old Style calendar then in use, or January 1, 1735, in the modern calendar.^[1] His father, a French Huguenot born Apollos Rivoire, came to Boston at the age of 13 and was apprenticed to the silversmith John Coney.^[2] By the time he married Deborah Hitchborn, a member of a long-standing Boston family that owned a small shipping wharf, in 1729, Rivoire had anglicized his name to Paul Revere. Their son, Paul Revere, was the third of 12 children and eventually the eldest surviving son.^[3] Revere grew up in the environment of the extended Hitchborn family, and never learned his father's native language.^[4] At 13 he left school and became an apprentice to his father. The silversmith trade afforded him connections with a cross-section of Boston society, which would serve him well when he became active in the American Revolution.^[5] As for religion, although his father attended Puritan services, Revere was drawn to the Church of England.^[6] Revere eventually began attending the services of the political and provocative Jonathan Mayhew at the West Church.^[6] His father did not approve, and as a result father and son came to blows on one occasion. Revere relented and returned to his father's church, although he did become friends with Mayhew.^[7]

Revere's dentistry tools

His father died in 1754, and Paul was legally too young to officially be the master of the family silver shop.^[8] In February 1756, during the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War), he enlisted in the provincial army. Possibly he made this decision because of the weak economy, since army service promised consistent pay.^[9] Commissioned a second lieutenant in a provincial artillery regiment, he spent the summer at Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George in New York as part of an abortive plan for the capture of Fort St. Frédéric. He did not stay long in the army, but returned to Boston and assumed control of the silver shop in his own name. On August 4, 1757, he married Sarah Orne (1736–1773); their first child was born eight months later.^[10] He and Sarah had eight children, but three died young, and only one survived, Paul.^[11] Revere would later remarry.

1765–1774: the gathering storm of revolution[link]

Revere's business began to suffer when the British economy entered a recession in the years following the Seven Years' War, and declined further when the Stamp Act of 1765 resulted in a further downturn in the Massachusetts economy.^[12] Business was so poor that an attempt was made to attach his property in late 1765.^[13] To help make ends meet he even took up dentistry, a skill set he was taught by a practicing surgeon who lodged at a friend's house.^[14]

Although Revere was not one of the "Loyal Nine"—organizers of the earliest protests against the Stamp Act—he was well connected with its members, who were laborers and artisans.^[15] Revere did not participate in some of the more raucous protests, such as the attack on the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.^[16] In 1765, a group of militants who would become known as the "Sons of Liberty" formed. Revere was one of them.^[17][18] From 1765 on, in support of the dissident cause, he produced engravings with political themes and other artifacts. Among these engravings are a depiction of the arrival of British troops in 1768 (which he termed "an insolent parade") and a famous depiction of the March 1770 Boston Massacre (see illustration). Although the latter was engraved by Revere and he included the inscription, "Engraved, Printed, & Sold by Paul Revere Boston", it was modeled on a drawing by Henry Pelham, and Revere's engraving of the drawing was colored by a third man and printed by a fourth.^[19] Revere also produced a bowl commemorating the Massachusetts assembly's refusal to retract the Massachusetts Circular Letter. (This letter, adopted in response to the 1767 Townshend Acts, called for united colonial action against the acts. King George III had issued a demand for its retraction.)^[19]

"The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770". Copper engraving by Paul Revere modeled on a drawing by Henry Pelham,^[20] 1770.

In 1770 Revere purchased a house on North Square in Boston's North End. Now a museum, the house provided space for his growing family while he continued to maintain his shop at nearby Clark's Wharf.^[21] Sarah died in 1773, and on October 10 of that year Revere married Rachel Walker (1745–1813). They had eight children, three of whom died young.^[22]

In November 1773 the merchant ship, Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor carrying the first shipment of tea that would be subject to the taxes of the Tea Act. Revere and Warren, as members of the informal "North End Caucus", organized a watch over the Dartmouth to prevent the unloading of the tea. Revere took his turns on guard duty,^[23] and was one of the ringleaders in the Boston Tea Party of December 16, when colonists disguised as Indians dumped tea from the Dartmouth and two other ships into the harbor.^[24]

From December 1773 to November 1775, Revere served as a courier for the Boston Committee of Public Safety, traveling to New York and Philadelphia to report on the political unrest in Boston. Research has documented 18 such rides. Notice of some of them was published in Massachusetts newspapers, and British authorities received further intelligence of them from Loyalist Americans.^[25] In 1774, his cousin John on the island of Guernsey wrote to Paul that John had seen reports of Paul's role as an "express" (courier) in London newspapers.^[26]

In 1774, the military governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, dissolved the provincial assembly on orders from Britain. Governor Gage also closed the port of Boston and all over the city forced private citizens to quarter (provide lodging for) soldiers in their homes.^{[N 2]}

During this time, Revere and a group of 30 "mechanics" began meeting in secret at his favorite haunt, the Green Dragon, to coordinate the gathering and dissemination of intelligence by "watching the Movements of British Soldiers", as he would write in an account of his April 18, 1775 ride. Around this time Revere contributed engravings to the patriot monthly, Royal American Magazine.^[27][28]

He rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in December 1774 upon rumors of an impending landing of British troops there, a journey known in history as the Portsmouth Alarm. Although the rumors were false, his ride sparked a rebel success by provoking locals to raid Fort William and Mary, defended by just six soldiers, for its gunpowder supply.^[29]

"Midnight Ride"[link]

When British Army activity on April 7, 1775, suggested the possibility of troop movements, Joseph Warren sent Revere to warn the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then sitting in Concord, the site of one of the larger caches of Patriot military supplies. After delivering the warning, Concord residents began moving the military supplies away from the town.^[30]

One week later, General Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels, who were known to have hidden weapons in Concord, among other locations, and to imprison the rebellion's leaders, especially Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Dartmouth gave Gage considerable discretion in his commands.^[31][32] Gage issued orders to Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to proceed from Boston "with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy... all Military stores.... But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property." Gage did not issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders, as he feared doing so might spark an uprising.^[33]

Between 9 and 10 p.m. on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told Revere and William Dawes that the king's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the regulars' movements later that night would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. They did not worry about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord, since the supplies at Concord were safe, but they did think their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns.^[34][35]

In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known. In what is well known today by the phrase "one if by land, two if by sea", one lantern in the steeple would signal the army's choice of the land route while two lanterns would signal the route "by water" across the Charles River.^[36] Revere first gave instructions to send the signal to Charlestown. He then crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour, but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding a British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The Charlestown colonists dispatched additional riders to the north.^[35][37]

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"): His mission depended on secrecy, the countryside was filled with British army patrols, and most of the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in ethnic origin^[38]) still considered themselves British.^{[39] [40]} Revere's warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere's own descriptions, was "The Regulars are coming out."^[41] Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. They met with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were spending the night with Hancock's relatives (in what is now called the Hancock-Clarke House), and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. They believed that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target.^[42] The Lexington men dispatched riders to the surrounding towns, and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord accompanied by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington "returning from a lady friend's house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m."^[35][43]

Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were detained by a British Army patrol in Lincoln at a roadblock on the way to Concord.^[35] Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped into the woods; he eventually reached Concord. Dawes also escaped, though he fell off his horse not long after and did not complete the ride.^[44]

This Paul Revere Statue in North End, Boston was made by Cyrus Dallin and unveiled on September 22, 1940.

Revere was captured and questioned by the British soldiers at gunpoint. He told them of the army's movement from Boston, and that British army troops would be in some danger if they approached Lexington, because of the large number of hostile militia gathered there. He and other captives taken by the patrol were still escorted east toward Lexington, until about a half mile from Lexington they heard a gunshot. The British major demanded Revere explain the gunfire, and Revere replied it was a signal to "alarm the country". As the group drew closer to Lexington, the town bell began to clang rapidly, upon which one of the captives proclaimed to the British soldiers "The bell's a'ringing! The town's alarmed, and you're all dead men!"^[45] The British soldiers gathered and decided not to press further towards Lexington but instead to free the prisoners and head back to warn their commanders.^[46] The British confiscated Revere's horse and rode off to warn the approaching army column. Revere walked to Rev. Jonas Clarke's house, where Hancock and Adams were staying. As the battle on Lexington Green unfolded, Revere assisted John Hancock and his family in their escape from Lexington, helping to carry a trunk of Hancock's papers.^[47]

The ride of the three men triggered a flexible system of "alarm and muster" that had been carefully developed months before, in reaction to the colonists' impotent response to the Powder Alarm of September 1774. This system was an improved version of an old network of widespread notification and fast deployment of local militia forces in times of emergency. The colonists had periodically used this system all the way back to the early years of Indian wars in the colony, before it fell into disuse in the French and Indian War. In addition to other express riders delivering messages, bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires, and a trumpet were used for rapid communication from town to town, notifying the rebels in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages that they should muster their militias because the regulars in numbers greater than 500 were leaving Boston with possible hostile intentions. This system was so effective that people in towns 25 miles (40 km) from Boston were aware of the army's movements while they were still unloading boats in Cambridge.^[48] Unlike in the Powder Alarm, the alarm raised by the three riders successfully allowed the militia to repel the British troops in Concord, after which the British were harried by the growing colonial militia all the way back to Boston.

War years[link]

Because Boston was besieged after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Revere could not return to the city, which was now firmly in British hands. He boarded in Watertown, where he was eventually joined by Rachel and most of his children (Paul Jr., then 15, remained in Boston to mind the family properties).^[49] After he was denied a commission in the Continental Army, he tried to find other ways to be useful to the rebel cause. He was retained by the provincial congress as a courier, and to print local currency, which the congress used to pay the troops around Boston.^[50]

A 12 pence bill printed by Revere in 1776

Since there was a desperate shortage of gunpowder, the provincial congress decided in November 1775 to send him to Philadelphia to study the working of the only powder mill in the colonies, in the hopes that he might be able to build a second one in Massachusetts. Revere called on the mill's owner, Oswald Eve, armed with a letter from Continental Congressmen Robert Morris and John Dickinson asking Eve to "Chearfully & from Public Spirited Motives give Mr. Revere such information as will inable him to Conduct the business on his return home."^[51][52] Eve showed Revere around the mill, but refused to give him detailed drawings unless he was first paid a substantial bribe. Despite this chilly reception, Revere was able to discern useful information from the visit. He also acquired, through the work of Samuel Adams, plans for another powder mill. This information enabled Revere to set up a powder mill at Stoughton (present-day Canton).^[51][53] The mill produced tons of gunpowder for the Patriot cause.^[54]

Revere's friend and compatriot Joseph Warren was killed during the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775.^[55] Because soldiers killed in battle were often buried in mass graves without ceremony, Warren's grave was unmarked. On March 21, 1776, several days after the British army left Boston, Revere, Warren's brothers, and a few friends went to the battlefield and found a grave containing two bodies.^{[citation needed]} After being buried for 10 months, Warren's face was unrecognizable, but Revere was able to identify Warren's body because he had placed a false tooth in Warren's mouth, and recognized the wire he had used for fastening it. Warren was given a proper funeral and reburied in a marked grave.^[56]

Militia service[link]

Upon returning to Boston in 1776, Revere was commissioned a major of infantry in the Massachusetts militia in that April, and transferred to the artillery a month later.^[57] In November he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and was stationed at Castle William, defending Boston harbor. He was generally second or third in the chain of command, and on several occasions he was given command of the fort.^[57] He applied his engineering skills to maintaining the fort's armaments, even designing and building a caliper to accurately measure cannon balls and cannon bore holes.^[57] The service at Castle William was relatively isolated, and personality friction prompted some men to file complaints against Revere.^[58] The boredom was alleviated in late August 1777 when Revere was sent with a troop of soldiers to escort prisoners taken in the Battle of Bennington to Boston, where they were confined on board prison ships,^[59][60] and again in September when he was briefly deployed to Rhode Island.^[61]

In August 1778 Revere's regiment served in a combined Franco-American expedition whose objective was to capture the British base at Newport, Rhode Island.^[62] His regiment was responsible for erecting and maintaining artillery batteries on Aquidneck Island.^[63] The attempt was abandoned by the French when their fleet was scattered in a storm, and Revere's regiment returned to Boston before the British sortied from Newport to force the Battle of Rhode Island.

Penobscot disaster[link]

The British in June 1779 established a new base on Penobscot Bay in present-day Maine (which was then part of Massachusetts).^[64] Massachusetts authorities called out the militia, pressed into service available shipping, and organized a major expedition to dislodge the British.^[65] The expedition was a complete fiasco: its land and naval commanders could not agree on strategy or tactics, and the arrival of British reinforcements led to the destruction of the entire Massachusetts fleet.^[66] Revere commanded the artillery units for the expedition, and was responsible for organizing the artillery train.^[67] He participated in the taking of Bank's Island, from which artillery batteries could reach the British ships anchored before Fort George. He next oversaw the transport of the guns from Bank's Island to a new position on the heights of the Bagaduce Peninsula that commanded the fort. Although Revere was in favor of storming the fort, Brigadier General Solomon Lovell opted for a siege instead. After further inconsequential exchanges, and disagreements on how to proceed between Lovell and fleet commander Dudley Saltonstall, Lovell, a decision supported by Revere, decided to return to the transports on August 12.

Late the next day British sails were spotted. A mad scramble ensued, and on the 14th the fleet was in retreat heading up the Penobscot River. Revere and his men were put ashore with their stores, and their transports destroyed. At one point Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth ordered Revere to send his barge in an attempt to recover a ship drifting toward the enemy position. Revere at first resisted, but eventually complied, and Wadsworth told him to expect formal charges over the affair.^[68] The incident separated Revere from his men. Moving overland, he eventually managed to regroup most of his troops, and returned to Boston on August 26. A variety of charges were made against Revere, some of which were exaggerated assignments of blame^[69] made by enemies he had made in his command at Castle William. The initial hearings on the matter in September 1779 were inconclusive, but he was asked to resign his post.^[69] He repeatedly sought a full court martial to clear his name, but it was not until February 1782 that a court martial heard the issue, exonerating him.^[70][71]

Business and social connections[link]

During the Revolutionary War, Revere continued his efforts to move upwards in society into the gentry. After his failed efforts to become a military officer he attempted to become a merchant, but was hindered by a number of factors: while he was a fairly well-off member of the artisan class, he did not have the resources to afford the goods he would have sold as a merchant, nor were lenders in England willing to lend him the required startup capital. Other American merchants of the time collaborated with colleagues in England. However, Revere's inexperience as a merchant meant that he had not yet established such relationships and wasn’t able to communicate as effectively on unfamiliar matters. Another factor preventing Revere’s success as a merchant was the economic climate of the time period after the war known as the Critical Period; while the colonies had seen a time of economic growth before the war, the colonies experienced a severe post-war depression, constraining the overall success of his business.^[72]

While Revere struggled as a merchant, his success as a silversmith enabled him to pursue and leverage more advanced technological developments for the purposes of mass production. For example, flatting rolling mills greatly improved the productivity of his silver shop and enabled his business to move further away from manufacturing high-end customized products in order to focus instead on the production of a more standardized set of goods.^[73] In the 18th century, the standard of living continuously improved in America, as genteel goods became increasingly available to the masses.^[74] Revere responded particularly well to this trend because his business was not solely manufacturing custom, high end purchases. Rather, smaller products like teaspoons and buckles accounted for the majority of his work, allowing him to reach a wide audience with his works.^[75]

Revere's increased efficiency left financial and human resources available for the exploration of other products, which was essential to overcoming the fluctuating post-war economic climate.^[76] In addition to increasing production, the flatting mill enabled Revere to move towards a more managerial position.^[77] Artisans and other laborers were often unable to rise into the ranks of the gentry since they performed manual labor, in contrast with the gentry's higher emphasis upon intellectual work. But Revere's increasing product line and revenue stream allowed him to explore other materials and products, such as bell making, copper sheeting and creation of spikes, which opened even greater opportunities.

Later years: Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing, and Politics[link]

1813 portrait of Revere by Gilbert Stuart

After the war, Revere opened a hardware and home goods store and later became interested in metal work beyond gold and silver. By 1788 he had invested some of the profits from his expanding silverworking trade in the construction of a large furnace. He soon opened an iron foundry in Boston's North End that produced utilitarian cast iron items such as stove backs and window weights, marketed to a broad segment of Boston's population.^[78] After mastering the iron casting process and realizing greater profits from this new product line, he identified a burgeoning market for church bells in the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening that followed the war. Beginning in 1792 he became one of America's best-known bell casters, working with sons Paul Jr. and Joseph Warren Revere in the firm Paul Revere & Sons. This firm cast the first bell made in Boston and ultimately produced hundreds of bells, a number of which remain in operation to this day.^[79]

In 1794, Revere decided to take the next step in the evolution of his business, again finding a novel use for his furnace that could create a new product line and reach another untapped market for manufactured goods. Revere expanded his bronze casting work by casting cannon for the federal government, state governments, and private clients. Although the government often had trouble paying him on time, its large orders inspired him to deepen his contracting and seek additional product lines of interest to the military.^[80] By 1795, a growing percentage of his foundry's business came from a new product, copper bolts, spikes, and other fittings that he sold to merchants and the Boston naval yard for ship construction. In 1801, Revere became a pioneer in the production of rolled copper, opening North America's first copper mill south of Boston in Canton. Copper from the Revere Copper Company was used to cover the original wooden dome of the Massachusetts State House in 1802. His copper and brass works eventually grew, through sale and corporate merger, into a large corporation, Revere Copper and Brass, Inc.^[81]

Revere remained politically active throughout his life. Revere's business plans in the late 1780s were often stymied by a shortage of adequate money in circulation. Alexander Hamilton's national policies regarding banks and industrialization exactly matched his dreams, and he became an ardent Federalist committed to building a robust economy and a powerful nation. He continued to participate in local discussions of political issues even after his retirement in 1811, and in 1814 circulated a petition offering the government the services of Boston's artisans in protecting Boston during the War of 1812.^[82] Revere died on May 10, 1818, at the age of 83, at his home on Charter Street in Boston.^[83] He is buried in the Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street.^[84]

Legacy[link]

Revere on 1958 U.S. stamp.

Paul Revere's grave site in the Granary Burying Ground

After Paul Revere's death, the family business was taken over by his oldest surviving son, Joseph Warren Revere.^[85] The copper works founded in 1801 continues today as the Revere Copper Company, with manufacturing divisions in Rome, New York and New Bedford, Massachusetts.^[86]

A 25-cent 1958 U.S. postage stamp in the Liberty Series honors Paul Revere, featuring the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. He also appears on the $5,000 Series EE U.S. Savings Bond.^[87]

Revere's original silverware, engravings, and other works are highly regarded today, and can be found on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston^[88] and other museums.

The communities of Revere, Massachusetts^[89] and Revere, Minnesota^[90] bear his name, as do Revere Beach^[89] in Revere, Massachusetts, Revere Avenue in The Bronx, New York City,^[91] and Paul Revere Road in Arlington Heights in Arlington, Massachusetts.^[92]

Ride[link]

In 1861, over 40 years after Revere's death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the midnight ride the subject of his poem "Paul Revere's Ride," which opens:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year

Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate, but his "mistakes" were deliberate. He had researched the historical event, using such works as George Bancroft's History of the United States, but he manipulated the facts for poetic effect.^[93] He was purposely trying to create American legends, much as he did with works like The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).^[94] Longfellow was successful in creating a legend: Revere's stature rose significantly in the years following the poem's publication.^[95]

Parts of the ride route in Massachusetts are now posted with signs marked "Revere's Ride". The route follows Main Street in Charlestown, Broadway and Main Street in Somerville, Main Street and High Street in Medford, Medford Street to Arlington center, and Massachusetts Avenue the rest of the way through Lexington and into Lincoln. Revere's ride is reenacted annually.^[92]

See also[link]

• Israel Bissell, who rode to Philadelphia to warn the colonists there
• Sybil Ludington, who performed a similar ride in New York
• Jack Jouett, rode to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of a British raid
• Laura Secord, "Canada's Paul Revere" in the War of 1812
• Revere Bells, one of Revere's highest profile products
• Revere Copper Company, the business founded by Paul Revere and later managed by his son and grandsons
• Johnny Tremain, 1943 children's novel by Esther Forbes set in Boston prior to and during the outbreak of the Revolution

References[link]

Notes[link]

Citations[link]