Paleo Profiles: Megalodon

The jaws of megalodon in the American Museum of Natural History

Welcome to our first Paleo Profile! As mentioned in our Introduction I am not a palaeontologist but rather a palaeontology enthusiast so this is not going a more authoritative look at the past. Anyway, with that out of the way we can jump right in. Millions of years ago a monster swam through our oceans which dwarfed the great white shark. This monster was a shark which fed on whales: Megalodon. O. megalodon has become well renowned across the world for its giant size earning it a place in the media whenever a giant shark is needed. As I am currently writing a new blockbuster called The Meg has a megalodon as the creature hunting down and eating swimmers. Often overlooked is that megalodon, despite its immense size, was a real creature, just as real as the great whites and tiger sharks which stalk the world's oceans today.

Discovery and Fossils

A megalodon tooth next to a banana for scale

Megalodon has been somewhat known by people for centuries but not in the way that you would imagine. The giant teeth of megalodon, and other large sharks, would be found by people who assumed that they were the petrified tongues of dragons. This was a regular occurrence with fossils - ammonites at one point were believed to be petrified snakes turned to stone as punishment from God for tricking Adam and Eve, and some less scrupulous individuals would carve snake heads onto them to trick buyers. It would take until 1667 when Danish naturalist Nicolas Steno in The Head of a Shark Dissected correctly identified the teeth as belonging to a large shark, but it would take a lot longer for the shark to be described. By the 1800s palaeontology was emerging as a new field of study as naturalists started realising that some of the skeletons they had been discovering were not just larger variants of extant animals. Sometime before 1837 Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz described the shark who the teeth belonged to, but it took until 1843 for him to formally describe the shark. He named it Carcharodon megalodon - Carcharodon being the genus which the great white belonged to and megalodon meaning 'big tooth'. However, an different naturalist, Edward Charlesworth, in 1837 (citing Agassiz) called it Carcharias megalodon. This will become important later on.

We have a lot of specific fossil evidence of megalodon and most of it happens to be the teeth of the shark. Sharks can go through up to 40,000 teeth throughout their life and megalodon was no exception to that. Naturally we have lots of teeth believed to be from megalodon. It is a misconception though that we only have teeth from the shark, in reality we also have vertebra from megalodon. Unlike the rest of a shark's skeleton, made from 'soft' cartilage, the vertebrate is made of harder calcified cartilage which is more likely to be fossilised.

What type of shark is megalodon?
You may be wondering why within a few years Carcharodon and Carcharias were used for megalodon within a space of a few years. Originally it was believed that megalodon was an extinct larger great white as they were, and are, large predatory sharks and that they had similar teeth. However, the only similarity is that they are triangular and serrated, on closer look you notice more differences. Among these is that great whites have thinner teeth for their size compared to megalodon. As a result palaeontologists started suggesting that megalodon belonged to Carcharias instead where both sharks shared a common ancestor with some palaeontologists also suggesting that megalodon was a transitional fossil between older shark groups and the modern great white. There was some pushback to the transitional fossil theory as great whites lived alongside megalodon but it has been pointed out that transitional fossils can live alongside their later relatives, as shown with the Smilodon (sabre-toothed cat) whose species lived at the same time. However, other megatooth sharks were discovered and in 2012 an extinct relative of great whites was discovered showing a closer relation to makos than megatooths. As a result the megatooths were assigned the genus Carcharias. Our story does not end here. One family of shark yet to be mentioned are the Otodontids (now extinct). The Otodontids, of which Otodus was the most famous genus to comprise it, were closely related to Lamnidae, which the great white belongs to. Through research palaeontologists now believe that Carcharias is no longer a valid genus and that megalodon is really a species of Otodus with great whites sharing a common ancestor, and therefore being more closely related, with the mako shark. The reason for the similarity between great whites and megalodon is believed to be convergent evolution - the same way in how birds and bats fly despite having no shared ancestors. Hence, it is now Otodus megalodon instead of Carcharodon or Carcharias megalodon.

Biology

The size of megalodon from Prehistoric-wildlife.com

The reason why megalodon is so famous is because of its size. The issue is we have no idea how large the megalodon really was with estimates ranging from 15 metres long at its smallest to 20 metres at its largest (just ten metres shorter than the largest blue whales) - in contrast the largest great whites are just under 5 metres and the fictional shark from Jaws is almost 8 metres. Regardless of its size megalodon was a giant. How did they get these sizes though? In 1973 John E. Randall used the height of tooth enamel to give a size of 13 metres which was seen as inaccurate as he based this method on using white shark teeth and although similar they were very different. Even then enamel can have different thickness tooth to tooth never mind between individual animals thanks to wear, (and also preservation). In 1996‭ Michael D.‭ ‬Gottfried,‭ ‬Leonard J.‭ ‬V.‭ ‬Compagno and S.‭ ‬Curtis Bowman decided to measure the length of the cutting length of the tooth which gave an estimate of 19 metres, and in 2002 Clifford Jeremiah used the width of the tooth to find the width of the jaw and from there got an estimate of 15.5 metres. The same year Kenshu Shimada using a tooth from Panama used the tooth crown to get an estimate, seen as fairly accurate, of about 15.1 metres. As a result between 15 and 17 metres is seen as megalodon's length. However, sharks are very muscular so with muscles comes weight which is hard to estimate for an animal only known by teeth and some vertebra. Weight does not increase at a constant with length so we have a very wide range of proposed weights ranging from 47 metric tons for at 15.9 metre long shark to 103 metric tons for a 20 metre long one.

Most reconstructions portray megalodon as a massive great white but recently this has changed among paleoartists at least. Mainly this is due to how we now know that it is unlikely that megalodon was in the same genus as the great white. Some have suggested that they would look like a tiger shark as Otodus is thought to resemble tiger sharks but again this is seen as unlikely. Megalodon lived like a great white so it is quite likely that at a glance they would look similar - animals which evolved to fill similar niches often resemble one another. However, there would be noticeable differences. For example, the jaws would have thicker and the shark overall would appear thicker itself as it would need to be in order to power such a long body. The megalodon would have fairly long fins, particularly the tail fin, in order to reduce drag while swimming and when you look at the fins of whales, tuna and large sharks like whale sharks they are long for this reason. Below is a photo of a whale shark which shows just how big their fins can get.

As you can see on the photo the whale shark is being followed by smaller fish. Today great whites are also followed by smaller fish like remoras so it is likely that they would follow megalodon as well. It has been suggested that barnacles could even grow on elderly megalodon like on some whales. Megalodon could have an entire micro-ecosystem living around it with fish picking up stray bits of flesh from its last meal, parasites feasting on the shark itself, and also other animals eating the parasites. How did megalodon survive as an animal itself? Megalodon had a high metabolism to power its body and was likely mesothermic meaning that it was both cold and warm-blooded much like tuna and white sharks of today. This allowed it to possibly send warm blood to its head allowing its brain and sensory organs work along warm-blooded metabolic levels. The sheer size of the shark would also allow it to be gigantothermic where, thanks to its size, the outer layers of skin and muscles would insulate the shark. Finally, we have the jaws. Like modern sharks it would be able to move its upper jaw when biting and the bite of a megalodon was phenomenal. In 2008 a computer model was made to estimate the bite force of white sharks which was applied to the megalodon they found out just how powerful its bite was. A 16 metre long shark was found to have a bite force of 108,514 Newtons, or around 11 metric tons, while a 20 metre long shark 182,201 Newtons, or over 18.5 metric tons. That meant that the lower size estimate possibly had a bite force greater than that of a Tyrannosaurus rex! Finally, megalodon is believed to be long lived. Great whites can live to be 75 and generally larger animals live longer than smaller ones so megalodon could possibly live to be a century.

When and Where

The shark's distribution on a modern map from Prehistoric-Wildlife.com

Despite being shown in the media megalodon did not live alongside the dinosaurs. Non-avian dinosaurs (basically dinosaurs which aren't modern birds) went extinct around 66 million years ago and megalodon did not appear until around 23 million years ago in the early Miocene. It lasted a very long time with it going extinct in the Late Pliocene, or more specifically c.2.6 million years ago. To put it in perspective the first members of our genus, Homo, evolved 500,000 years after the extinction of this giant shark. Megalodon was truly the apex predator of the oceans with its teeth being found everywhere from Essex in England, to New Zealand's north island, to Peru and Panama. The only place where it was not known to live in were the waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. Global temperatures were warmer than today so it could survive everywhere and likely competed against white sharks. It has been theorised that white sharks and megalodon would migrate to avoid competing against one another. Even the shallows were not out of bounds. Pups occupied the shallows which brings us to our next point...

Birthing a Monster
Like most modern large sharks megalodon gave birth to live young but we don't know if they grew in an egg inside the mother or if they had no egg and received nutrients via an umbilical cord. Mothers didn't give birth anywhere. They gave birth in shallower and safer water in 'nursery grounds' much like modern sharks. We know where nursery grounds are by higher concentrations of smaller teeth and one key area has been identified by Catalina Pimiento, Dana J. Ehret, Bruce J. MacFadden, and Gordon Hubbell in the Gatun Formation in Panama facing the Caribbean. When megalodon swam the seas the Isthmus of Panama did not yet exist with the Central American Seaway instead taking its place. This area created an area, much like the Sea of Cortez where great whites now give birth, of shallow water safe for young megalodon to grow up in peace from larger predators. Most of the individuals from this area measure between 2 to 3 metres but we don't know if they are born that size or grow to be that size later on. In the nursery grounds the pups would eat anything they could get their jaws on ranging from turtles to cephalopods to smaller cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) like the tusked Odobenocetops from the shores of what would become Peru and Chile.

Diet and Hunting

A megalodon tooth in the vertebrate of a whale

Like the great white megalodon ate everything despite the stereotype of it only eating whales. They definitely did eat whales; one vertebrate had a megalodon tooth sticking out of it. However, it would not regularly target the large baleen whales; they could do serious damage to a shark making it undesirable to attack one. The megalodon would most likely target sick large baleen whales when the opportunity arose. Smaller whales, such as the 5 metre long Piscobalaena nana, would be the main food source for the megalodon. An orca would be the perfect size for a megalodon although orcas could potentially kill one being intelligent, social, and potentially dangerous cetaceans. Nothing was really out of bounds for a megalodon. Whales, sharks, sea birds, seals, turtles, and even aquatic sloths were on the menu for megalodon and smaller megalodon also could potentially be eaten. Cannibalism is common in many shark species, including the great white, so megalodon could eat smaller ones; the nursery grounds offered protection from adults as well as other predators. Like many predators megalodon scavenged and hunted. Sharks have an incredible sense of smell being able to smell blood from miles away so scavenging could be very easy for a megalodon in theory; other sharks would also be wanting to scavenge from a dead whale. Megalodon would hunt like a great white striking from below - being dark in colouring it would be hard to see them from above. With its powerful tail it could propel itself through the water like a torpedo striking the prey - we have fossil evidence of whales with damaged vertebrates indicating that they had been hit with some force. In particular they would target the rib cage where their strong teeth and jaws could tear through the ribs to get to the delicate internal organs. Even if the shark could not bite the whale it would stun them allowing the shark to take a bite; whales could escape as some have evidence of their ribs and spine healing. With the larger baleen whales the sharks could either hit them with their very strong tail or simply bite chunks out of the whale. It is thought that megalodon needed between 600 and 1200 kg of food a day to survive so hunting was needed more than scavenging.

Extinction
Megalodon was easily top of the food chain and dominated the world's oceans for around 20 million years, so why did it go extinct? The reason for their extinction is key considering that shark populations are dwindling. Climate change led to their extinction. Today climate change is decimating shark populations although human hunting and pollution is making a steady decline caused by human caused climate change turn into a very steep decline. Around 2.6 million years ago global temperatures dropped thanks to the arrival of the Ice Age. The Isthmus of Panama was formed connecting North and South America but also closing off the giant Seaway. As a result currents shifted changing whale migratory routes which in turn deprived megalodon of their primary food source around a major nursery ground. Although megalodon could have adapted to changing temperatures the whales they hunted could not; baleen whale diversity dropped from over 20 genera to just six extant ones. 36% of large sea life went extinct including 55% of large marine mammals, 9% sharks, 43% sea turtles and 43% sea birds. As a result megalodon lost a lot of its food source which was made worse when whales moved to colder climates where the mega shark could not follow. Nursery grounds needed shallow water, like in Panama, which vanished with the dropping of the sea level leaving pups exposed to predators. This was the primary reason although it has been suggested that increased competition sealed their fate. In the final few million years of the megalodon's existence more toothed whales including the giant sperm whale Livyatan and most importantly orcas evolved. Not only were they more versatile than the giant shark but they could bite back. As the great white's diet did not rely so heavily on whales their diet was less affected and their smaller size let them hunt and have nursery grounds closer to the shore compared to their larger cousins. Through all of this what made megalodon so powerful for twenty million years ended up sealing their fate.

Still Alive?

The infamous 'documentary' providing evidence for the shark's continued existence

The Meg and the book it's based on has the megalodon woken from being frozen in prehistoric ice but there are genuine theories that the megalodon exists to this day. These range from cryptozoologists to Young Earth Creationists. Curator of Palaeobiology at London's Natural History Museum sums it up well: No. It's definitely not alive in the deep oceans, despite what the Discovery Channel has said in the past. Mostly as we would see signs of attack on whales as we do with giant squid and where they could safely hide out are cold which is the exact reason why they went extinct to start off with. In 1873 the crew of the HMS Challenger picked up a megalodon tooth which gave an age of 10,000 years when tested in 1959. Did this mean that megalodon at least managed to last until humans started agriculture? The answer is no. Other than it being the only tooth to be found they had tested the tooth for manganese dioxide which is very unreliable. When it was later carbon dated they found it had too little nitrogen to be dated; this meant it was too unstable to be properly dated so it can't really be used to prove that it was from 10,000 years ago. Most 'sightings' of the shark are really misidentified megamouth sharks and younger looking teeth are due to preservation, not age. In recent years the conspiracy of the existing megalodon roared into existence again thanks to a Discovery Channel mockumentary called Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives. In 2013 Animal Planet made a fake documentary called Mermaids: The Body Found which presented 'evidence' that mermaids existed confirmed by 'scientists' (really just actors) along the lines of What we do in the Shadows or Trollhunter. It was clearly fake but it was convincing - although 17 year old me saw it clearly as being fake I was convinced by some of their evidence - so convincing that people didn't realise it was a fake, especially coming from a respected channel like Animal Planet. Despite criticisms that the channel had not made it clear that it was fake it got many views so their sister channel, Discovery, decided to copy the format. In Mermaids a megalodon was seen eating mermaids 1.6 million years ago (albeit at that time it was thought that the shark existed until 1.8 million years ago) so Discovery chose to use the giant shark for Shark Week. Again featuring actors as scientists it featured a crew being attacked by the shark off the coast of South Africa. Like Mermaids it received criticism for featuring a mockumentary on a factual and reliable channel, and despite disclaimers claiming it was fake those who tuned in late or only saw the advertising thought it was real. Not learning from their mistake the next year the re-aired it with no further disclaimers and even made two more mockumentaries about the shark! Basically, the shark is very much extinct despite best efforts from cryptozoologists, poor dating, and Discovery Channel's marketing team.

Thank you for reading. We now have a list of future Paleo Profiles. The sources I have used are as follows:
-Alberto Collareta, Olivier Lambert, Walter Landini, Claudio Di Celma, Elisa Malinverno, Rafael Varas-Malca, Mario Urbina, and Giovanni Bianucci, 'Did the giant extinct shark Carcharocles megalodon target small prey? Bite marks on marine mammal remains from the late Miocene of Peru', Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 469, (2017), 84-91
-Catalina Pimiento, Dana J. Ehret, Bruce J. MacFadden, and Gordon Hubbell, 'Ancient Nursery Area for the Extinct Giant Shark Megalodon from the Miocene of Panama', PLoS One, 5:5, (2010), 1-9
-Catalina Pimiento and Christopher Clements, 'When did Carcharocles megalodon become extinct? A new analysis of the fossil record', PLoS One, 9:10, (2014), 1-5
-C. megalodon, Prehistoric wildlife.com, Accessed 15/08/2018
-Josh Davis, 'Megalodon: the truth about the largest shark that ever lived', Natural History Museum, (06/08/2018), Accessed 17/08/2018
-Trey the Explainer, 'Paleo Profile - Bunch of Prehistoric Fish', YouTube, (05/12/2017), Accessed 19/08/2018
-Trey the Explainer, 'Paleo Profile - Megalodon', YouTube, (22/06/2015), Accessed 19/08/2018

Thanks again for reading. For future blog updates please catch our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. 

Paleo Profiles: Introduction

For years palaeontology has been one of my great loves; so much so that I came very close in doing it as my degree at university. The creatures of the past have wowed peoples worldwide ranging from the monsters of the silver screen in Jurassic Park, Gojira, and The Valley of Gwangi to real life folklore and myths. With Paleo Profiles we look at different extinct animals ranging from dinosaurs to mammoths to giant bugs in order to understand what they were like when they roamed the Earth. This series will hopefully inform readers of the wonders of prehistory (and some more recently extinct forms of life). I also want to prefix this by saying that I am a historian, not a palaeontologist. This is something which is a hobby to me and not my field of study so I am not an authority on palaeontology. The purpose of Paleo Profiles is for me to engage in one of my great loves; for newcomers to palaeontology to find out some interesting information; and for those with an active interest/actual authority to also find out interesting points. For any Paleo Profiles if you feel that I've got something wrong or left something out please tell me and I will add it in. Palaeontology is a constantly evolving and changing field; just as much as archaeology and history. 

We will be forming a list of Paleo Profiles as they are written which you can find here. Those with an interest in history, comic books, and everything related to them please be sure to check out our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Our first Paleo Profile will focus on a behemoth from the deep...

World History: The American Revolution

When completing his history of the world in The Age of Extremes Eric Hobsbawm placed the Age of Revolution as starting in 1776 with that of the American Revolution, (although he originally placed it in 1789 due to his series starting as a history of Europe). The American Revolution was one of the key events in modern history with it leading to the creation of the USA and helped spawn ideas of liberty. The Revolution was a complex event leaving long-lasting and contradictory legacies which continues to influence the world today. In this post we'll look at the ideological origins of Revolution, the events which set the stage for Revolution, the War of Independence, its impact, results, and legacies. 

Origins

In 1764 the editor of the New-Hampshire Gazette wrote 'By this means the spirited Englishman, the mountainous Welshman, the brave Scotsman,and Irishman, and the loyal American, may be firmly united and mutually resolved to guard the glorious throne of Britannia.' How then, around a decade later, did the colonists of the Thirteen Colonies come to revolt against Britain? As with many events in history we have a series of reasons behind the origins of the Revolution. Last World History post we looked at the Seven Years' War which contributed to the origins of Revolution. The War pushed France out of North America opening former French lands to British settlement and into conflict with Native Americans. A mixture of encroachment into their land and 'pan-Indianism' from a Delaware religious prophet named Neolin, (these two points will become a recurring factor in American-Native American relations in the years to come), caused a war, called Pontiac's War, on May 7 1763 when British troops were attacked by Chippewa warriors at Lake St. Clair, near Detroit. The war would last until 1766 when more land was taken from Native Americans but in 1763 the king, George III, issued a proclamation creating new colonies and forbidding white settlement east of the Appalachian Mountains. The reason for this was because Britain was unwilling to be drawn into a series of border wars, but the American colonists and land speculators saw this as a personal attack. They wanted to settle, or buy, the land although in practice the 'Proclamation Line' was ignored. By 1771 over 10,000 colonists had settled in the Ohio Valley causing massacres of Native Americans, such as in Pennsylvania. In the 1730s and 1740s a Protestant religious revival called the Great Awakening swept over the colonies where even those sceptical of religion, like Benjamin Franklin, became enraptured by religious preachers. Not only did this lay the foundation of Revolution as it encouraged greater social participation and there were calls for the people to choose their ministers, but one particular act passed by Britain fed into this. When Britain took French colonies in Canada this brought into the empire more Catholics. To secure their allegiance in 1774 the Quebec Act expanded the colony of Quebec and emancipated Catholics. The revitalised Protestants saw this as a betrayal of their faith and London strengthening Catholics, and settlers were aggravated as the expanded Quebec ate into land which they could settle. 

A critique of the Stamp Act

The Seven Years' War was very expensive costing Britain around £161 million. Taxes were raised across the empire and especially in the American colonies as it was seen that as Britain had fought the war for them they should pay for it. As a result, a series of taxes were passed which aggravated colonists - we'll get to them soon so we'll discuss the ideology behind opposition to taxes now. A common misconception, which seems to largely be held by aspects of the political Right, was that the protests were over taxation; it is often overlooked that the actual phrase was 'No Taxation without Representation'. A prevailing thought among British politicians at the time was 'virtual representation' as opposed to 'direct representation'. With virtual representation it was believed that those who sat in parliament represented the entire empire; the merchants who sat in parliament therefore represented all merchants across the empire. This idea was highly contested in both Britain and elsewhere in the colonies; it is no lie to say how corrupt this could be, until 1832 Old Sarum with a population of 7 had equal representation in parliament as Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This also linked to ideas of liberty. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution were influenced by the British Enlightenment. When we say Enlightenment we should really say 'Enlightenments' as each region of Europe had their own specific Enlightenment. The British Enlightenment, (we can also say Scottish due to how many Scottish thinkers there were), focused on ideas of individual liberty, property rights and secularism. Of these included the 'Father of Capitalism' Adam Smith and humanists like David Hume. Enlightenment humanism, in contrast to Renaissance humanism, placed emphasis on secularism, the separation of religion and state, and emphasis on logic over superstition. The famous figures of the Revolution including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were deeply inspired by this branch of the Enlightenment. 

Thomas Paine

I want to focus on one particular part of the ideological origins of the American Revolution which inspired people across the US, Britain, and France. This was a short pamphlet written in simple English called Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Written in 1776 John Adams said 'Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.'  Originally from Norfolk in Britain Paine emigrated to Philadelphia in 1774 where he soon became embroiled in the radical politics of the city's artisans. Paine was deeply inspired by liberalism and individualism writing that 'For were the impulses of conscious clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means of protection of the rest.' For a long time the British constitution was seen as being the best granting liberty to people in a world gripped by despotism. Paine disagreed. He viewed the only free and republican aspect of Britain was the parliament which he saw as being corrupted by the monarchy. 'For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever.' Paine argued that through the free market and an independent republic based on a broad franchise, annual assemblies, and a rotating presidency could people find liberty. Common Sense was immensely popular selling over 100,000 in 1776 alone and more people than that knew what was written inside; being written in vernacular English it could be read out in public for those unable to read it themselves. Paine would release future editions responding to critiques and his own views would later become more radical; he became a vocal deist and thanks to his critiques of Christianity only six individuals came to his funeral. Nevertheless, Paine offered the ideological backbone for what Gordon Wood would describe as 'The radicalism of the American Revolution'.

Lead up to Revolution

The Sons of Liberty tarring and feathering someone ignoring the boycott

In 1763 Britain had a deficit of £122 million which the new prime minister, George Grenville, opted to solve by taxing the colonies. If the Seven Years' War had been fought on behalf of the colonies why shouldn't they pay their dues? As this was happening we see the grievances over the Proclamation Line as well. Before 1764 the colonies had been lightly taxed: someone in Massachusetts on average paid a shilling in tax a year compared to a counterpart in Britain who paid twelve. In 1764 Grenville passed the first taxes but saw this as a way to formally establish authority over the lightly ruled colonies; a Royal Governor and local assembly governed each colony largely independent from Westminster. In March 1765 the Stamp Act was passed beginning the Stamp Act Crisis. This was a tax on anything with a stamp and this act also had anything published in the colonies to legally have a stamp on it. This covered everything from newspapers and legal documents to playing cards. Compared to the Sugar Tax from the year prior which regulated trade between the colonies and the rest of the empire it was seen as being illegal as it directly taxed the colonists. Although a light tax, the highest was £10 for attorney licenses, there was a fear acceptance of the Stamp Act would lead to heavy taxes and then entirely shifting the tax burden from Britain to the colonies. We also have the issue of 'No Taxation without Representation'. It was imposed by a body which the colonists had no say in despite Grenville saying they did through virtual representation. At the same time the Quartering Act was passed forcing colonists to house soldiers in their houses if needed which was seen as another tax. In 1765 the Sons of Liberty were formed among New York's labourers, sailors, and craftsmen, and soon similar groups emerged in Boston. In November 1765 a crowd made of sailors, youths, African-Americans, and labourers hurled stones at Fort George in Manhattan, and then destroyed the home of Major Thomas James, a British officer who threatened to force the stamps down the New Yorkers' throats. Virginia condemned the Act and in October 1765 27 delegates from nine colonies formed the Stamp Act Congress in New York to combat the Act. John Adams was seen as being the 'soul of the Congress'. They endorsed Virginia's position, agreed to act together, and vowed the boycott British goods. This was a breakthrough as the colonies started acting together instead of individually and none of the West Indian colonies turned up. As the Thirteen Colonies made up a third of British exports, enforcing the Stamp Act became difficult thanks to American protests, and the Stamp Act was unpopular in Britain as well in 1766 the new government started debating whether to repeal it. Benjamin Franklin even journeyed to London to criticise the Stamp Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but as they did they passed the Declaratory Act; this act confirmed that what London said went. Despite the warning colonists celebrated and the road to Revolution was on its way. Backing down over the Stamp Act showed that British power could be challenged. 

Paul Revere's Boston Massacre engraving

In 1767 the new prime minister, Charles Townshend, created a series of custom duties, called the Townshend Acts, on goods including glass, tea, and paper in order to pay American governors and judges. This affected merchants the hardest and as many merchants were concentrated in Massachusetts that colony became the focal point for resistance to the Townshend Acts. Unlike the earlier Stamp Act boycott the boycotts against the Townshend Acts were less successful due to them being levied on everyday items. One of the key texts illustrating colonial views were the Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania by John Dickinson who published them in a Philadelphia newspaper between 1767 and 1768. Inspired by Enlightenment thought from figures like David Hume it called for Americans to hold the same rights as the British while reconciling with the mother country. Meanwhile, a grassroots and elite opposition to the Townshend Acts emerged where homemade goods were bought instead of British goods. The Sons of Liberty would tar-and-feather those who bought British goods and women got involved. The Daughters of Liberty organised social ostracising of those who continued to buy British goods and wove their own clothes to sell. The landowners and planters of the South, like George Washington, readily took up non-importation in order to pay off debts to British merchants (as well as encourage the sale of their own crops), and urban merchants were grateful for a drop in competition with British merchants. The heavy-handedness of the British in order to establish their authority aggravated the colonists. The navy seized a sloop called Liberty owned by Boston merchant John Hancock believing it was being used for smuggling. Hancock was well respected and riots broke out in 1768 causing soldiers to be stationed in Boston to enforce the law. Quickly Anglo-American relations soured. On March 5 1770 a protesting crowd, including a sailor of mixed Native American-black-white background called Crispus Attucks, started throwing snowballs at British troops. One was hit causing his weapon to discharge and, in turn, causing the other soldiers to fire into the crowd. Three were killed including Attucks who was later remembered as 'the first martyr of the American Revolution'. The commanding officer and eight soldiers were tried and defended strangely by John Adams who saw most of them acquitted. A local member of the Sons of Liberty, Paul Revere, stirred up opposition to the British by issuing a famous engraving print depicting the 'Boston Massacre' despite it being inaccurate. However, by 1770 the non-importation movement was declining as more and more of the elite couldn't do without British goods so a deal was drawn up: the boycott would end in return for removing troops from Boston and repealing all the taxes bar the one on tea. 

The Boston Tea Party

Throughout this time popular but radical journalist John Wilkes caused controversy in Britain and he gained popularity in America; the calls of 'Wilkes and Liberty' was a rallying cry across the Atlantic and for generations after people would name their children after him (including John Wilkes Booth). Meanwhile, the East India Company saw a dip in its stock so the government encouraged selling tea in America to reinvigorate it, and tea soon became widely drunk across all classes in Britain and America. Prime minister Lord North hoped to further reinvigorate sales by offering tax exemptions and rebates enabling it to dump cheap tea into America to undercut Dutch sales which ended up undercutting sales of established merchants and smugglers. Taxing the tea would then defray the costs of the colonial government threatening the assemblies' control over finance. Thus began the most famous protest of this period. On December 16 1773 a group of colonialists disguised as Native Americans boarded tea ships in Boston Harbor a threw 300 chests of tea costing £10,000 (£4 million in today's money). So popular was this that commemorative teapots were made! North was furious. The Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts in the colonies, decided to punish Massachusetts including closing Boston Harbor; restricted town meetings; issued in another Quartering Act; replaced the local government with a military one under Thomas Gage; and Gage imposed martial law. Around this time the earlier mentioned Quebec Act was also passed. In Philadelphia on September 1774 the First Continental Congress saw twelve of the thirteen colonies (Georgia did not attend) represented by political leaders including John Adams and his more radical cousin Samuel for Massachusetts and George Washington and Richard Henry Lee from Virginia. Here the path to independence was laid out with Lee giving a speech stating that 'The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.' He would later say a phrase now synonymous with the Revolution: Give me Liberty, or Give me Death! The Congress opted to lead a new boycott, prepare for a second Congress, transfer power to a new government in each colony, and send letters of invitation to the other colonies in North America. Instead on trying to base their rights on tradition they instead opted to base it on more abstract ideas based off of the Enlightenment. 

Creating Independence

In February 1775 Massachusetts was declared to be in a state of rebellion and troops were ordered to seize the arms of the local militias. This caused the now famous ride of Paul Revere warning the militia leading into the Battle of Lexington and Concord which Ralph Waldo Emmerson would later describe as 'the shot heard 'round the world'. This inspired other militias and armies to form and fight the British; May 1775 saw Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys joined with militia from Connecticut under Benedict Arnold to surround Fort Ticonderoga in New York as Henry Knox took some of the Ticonderoga cannon to help break the siege of Boston. On June 17 1775 the British fought the Americans at Breed's Hill but the battle has since been known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. Technically the British won with Sir William Howe even cutting down the original Liberty Tree but due to higher casualties and how it largely unaffected the colonists it was a hollow victory. Some have even suggested that it is more an American victory over a British one. As this was happening the Second Continental Congress convened with Georgia attending this time. However, a letter was sent to George III saying that they wanted reconciliation and blamed parliament, not him, for the division causing disdain from the radical Thomas Jefferson. Regardless the Congress raised an army and printed money to pay for it. John Adams got Washington to lead the army arguing that a southerner in charge would help bolster unity. Independence was not certain at this point but after debates and actions by the British (which we'll get to), and the publishing of Common Sense, it was decided that independence was their only choice.

The Continental Congress

On July 2 1776, not July 4, Congress formally declared independence and two days later the Declaration of Independence was issued. The Declaration remains a key focal point in the US to this day and is largely the child of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - there were three other drafters including Franklin. The Declaration shows the radicalism of the Revolution and also its limits. Of course there is the most famous line: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. In a world when republics were rare and the ones in existence were more like monarchies the Declaration really was a radical document. Unlike the earlier Olive Branch Petition to George III the Declaration savages the monarch; as parliament was the democratic part of Britain they opted to not criticise parliament despite it issuing the hated taxes. However, it did have its limits. Jefferson was seen as getting too excited and added a criticism of slavery and the slave trade which the other drafters scrubbed out. In 1775 the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation offering freedom to slaves if they fled their rebellious masters which caused the southern states to favour independence. Regardless the Declaration would, and still does, remain a key document in the Revolution before the creation of the Constitution.

The War of Independence

The rebels had to win their independence. The War of Independence, despite the popular image of it, was a brutal civil war. Historians are divided on whether Britain could have won; Francis Cogliano believes that they could have capitalised on their early advantages but made mistakes confirming their defeat whereas Hugh Brogan disagrees arguing that the British never really had a chance. Personally, I side more with Cogliano although Brogan is not inaccurate. Early on John Adams lamented that a third of the population were Patriots, a third were Loyalists, and a third were neutral; in reality it was largely two-fifths were Patriots (of which half actively fought), two-fifths were neutral, and a fifth were Loyalists. You may be wondering why there were Loyalists judging by the events of the 1760s and 1770s? There are no concrete reasons and Loyalists came from all walks of life. Naturally Dunmore's Proclamation encouraged slaves to join the British although more just opted to flee instead - Jefferson lost 10% of his slaves! Some feared the possible lawlessness and unleashing of liberty of the Revolution and others, (lawyers, Anglican ministers, merchants and officials), needed close ties with Britain for work. Religious and ethnic minorities, like Highland Scots in South Carolina, feared majoritarian repression if the rebels won. It is no exaggeration to say that at times the War of Independence was more like a civil war than a regular independence one. Loyalism and Patriotism shifted as well. Benedict Arnold is the most famous example of someone switching sides but it happened regularly. One British officer in Virginia commented that the town which welcomed then would be the first ones to shoot at them when the Patriots came. Also, neutrals who opted out of fighting for various reasons could suffer reprisals. For example, Quakers and Mennonites remained pacifist so saw their lands confiscated.

A depiction of a Hessian

As I mentioned in the post on the Seven Years' War I'm not a military historian so I won't go into too much detail on battles and why they were won/lost. As mentioned earlier despite Washington's skill the rebels were not certain of victory. Benedict Arnold's invasion of Canada in the winter of 1775 failed spectacularly thanks to the British forces and a smallpox outbreak decimating his forces. Washington himself was incredibly skilled lifting the siege of Boston in March 1776 causing General William Howe to head to New York hoping that there would be more Loyalists there. A force of 30,000 managed to take New York and the British would hold it until 1783. Britain also hired mercenaries from Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau,Waldeck, and Brunswick, later referred to as 'Hessians', to fight for them. Throughout the war 30,000 Hessians fought for the British costing over £4.7 million. The British also built an alliance with Native Americans, largely the Iroquois, to fight for them as well. The rebel Continental Army faced defeat after defeat but Howe could never formally wipe out Washington's forces although he came close; initially Washington had 18,000 troops which dropped to 2,000 by winter. Underpaid, when paid at all, the rebels were further demoralised and the sheer amount of desertions caused Washington to have them publicly flogged. The rebels needed a victory or face the disintegration of their army. Washington's famous crossing the Delaware at night saved the remnants of the Continental Army  writing on December 18 'I think the game is pretty near up.' The heavy-handed treatment of Americans by the British and Hessians alienated the locals with plunder and rape happening regularly. Lord Rawdon wrote that 'A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and...of consequence we have the most entertaining court-martial every day.' On Christmas night Washington crossed the Delaware again attacking the Hessian garrison at Trenton capturing nearly 1,000 followed by the defeat of a garrison at Princeton on January 3 1777. These quick victories boosted Patriot moral.

In 1777 the British hoped to splinter in half the rebel cause as General John Burgoyne invaded New England from Canada. At the same time Howe utilised the navy by loading 13,000 troops with their horses and supplies on July 23 and landing them just outside of Philadelphia. Congress fled and Washington's counterattack failed in September. However, the rebels got a reprieve when Burgoyne was defeated. Bogged down by the wilderness they had little support which evaporated when his Iroquois allies attacked local farms. One publicised incident flamed race relations when two Iroquois killed Jane McCrea, a young woman engaged to a Loyalist. Continental general Horatio Gates repeatedly fought Burgoyne finally defeating him at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. This was an important turning point. Early on Benjamin Franklin was sent to Paris to enlist French support going as far as to dress as a Quaker to appear as a bumbling countryman based on the stereotype Europeans had of Americans. France and other powers had been sending weapons to the rebels but Saratoga showed Europe that the rebels had a chance of winning. Despite being bankrupt Louis XVI declared war on Britain and joined the rebels followed by Spain in 1779 and the Netherlands in 1780. Spain never allied themselves with the rebels, they feared that this would encourage their own colonies to rebel. Entry of other powers shifted British attention. In 1778 65% of the British army was in North America which dropped to 29% in 1780. The Caribbean and Europe replaced America as the main area for combat with Britain diverting its navy and army to the mainland in fear of a Franco-Spanish invasion. 

The famous painting of Cornwallis' surrender

Despite victories rebel victory was still no certain. The Continental Army was struggling with moral and paying troops, some of Washington's commanders were useless, and Arnold switched sides in 1780. The Patriots won back Philadelphia in 1778 following the Battle of Monmouth Court House but only because Washington overrode his subordinate, Charles Lee, who called for a retreat. With the loss of Philadelphia the British moved to the South believing that there would be Loyalists there. In December 1778 Savannah fell bringing the Georgian coastline under British rule and a second invasion in 1780 saw Charleston fall. There were few Loyalists and the Patriots resorted to guerrilla warfare which crippled the British army. Under Cornwallis the British continued fighting to no avail so he ordered a retreat to Yorktown, Virginia hoping to be picked up by the Royal Navy in 1781. However, the Battle of Chesapeake saw the French navy destroying the British navy and Cornwallis was soon trapped. In October Cornwallis surrendered ending the fighting despite the British still occupying New York, Savannah and Charleston. The 1783 Treaty of Paris would end the war and see the Americans finally become independent.

African-Americans and Revolution

A later painting of Crispus Attucks

Throughout the colonial period slavery was a big issue in the colonies where some states, like Georgia, slaves made up a greater part of the population than people who were free. Some colonists described the British taxes as reverting them to slavery despite the fact many owned slaves themselves; this was not lost on commentators, the creator of the dictionary Samuel Johnson wrote 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' The drive for revolution were entwined with slavery and freedom. Earlier we mentioned Dunmore's Proclamation which caused the South to support independence but this started earlier in 1772. In Britain a slave, James Somerset, managed to win his freedom when a judge ruled that slavery went against English Common Law. A conspiracy emerged that this would lead to the end of slavery. Many of the revolutionaries, including Jefferson and Washington, held slaves so it was hard to reconcile equality of men and property rights when men were property. Some colonies saw the hypocrisy and started gradual emancipation where in 1774 Rhode Island and Connecticut forbade the slave trade; 1776 the Quakers forbade slavery; 1777 the Vermont Constitution banned slavery; and 1780 Pennsylvania adopted gradual emancipation as some examples. African-Americans also utilised the Revolution to end slavery. Between 1773 and 1775 five petitions using the rhetoric of the Revolution were made by Freemen to the Massachusetts government demanding emancipation. A slave would be the one to end slavery in Massachusetts though. Elizabeth Freeman was hit by her mistress in 1780 with a burning shovel and she went to lawyer Theodore Sedgewick saying this went against the new Bill of Rights. The lawsuit ended up ending slavery in Massachusetts. Despite Washington barring African-Americans from being in the Continental Army several colonies in the North allowed them to enlist. Slavery would, however, persist in the South. In Virginia when Patriots were chanting 'Liberty' nearby slaves chanted it as well causing the local police to shoot them. Here we see both the radicalism and limits of the Revolution: it managed to grant liberty but not to all.

Native Americans and Revolution

The Revolution greatly affected Native Americans. Some tribes sided with the British (like the Iroquois), others sided with the Patriots (like the Passamaquoddy), and others were divided. The Cherokee faced a split as the young sided with the British and elders sided with the Patriots. However, most tribes ended up siding with the British seeing them the lesser of two evils. After all the Declaration of Independence directly attacked the British seeking alliance with Native Americans. War lasted longer than 1775 and 1783 with the Native Americans. Lord Dunmore himself had been at war with the Shawnee and Mingos in the Ohio Valley which involved massacres of innocent people at the Yellow Creek Massacre. Smallpox is even believed to be used as a biological weapon during this war. Throughout the Revolutionary War Native Americans could be targeted, such as how Washington ordered that the Iroquois should not only be 'merely overrun but destroyed' in retaliation for their alliance with the British resulting in a civil war among the Iroquois. The famous scene in The Patriot where the British burn down a church with people inside did happen except it was Patriots burning down a church with ten Christian Native Americans inside. Fighting didn't end after the war. After 1783 the Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Chippewas, Ottawas, and Potawatomis formed an alliance called the Western Confederacy, (covertly armed by the British), to do as Pontiac did two decades earlier and resist Euro-American settlement. This continued conflict went badly for the newly formed USA with the Confederacy destroying American armies along the present border of Ohio and Indiana in 1790 and 1791. A Miami war chief, Little Turtle, and Shawnee, Blue Jacket, managed to defeat Arthur St. Clair so thoroughly that he saw 632 of his men dead and 264 wounded while Little Turtle just lost 66. To put it into perspective St. Clair lost lost three times more men than Custer did at the Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1795 the Western Confederacy was defeated and they lost their land. When the British invaded during the War of 1812 another pan-Indian confederacy fought the Americans again. These conflicts would be repeated across US expansion over the rest of the continent which would tragically end in genocide. 

Women

Abigail Adams

As shown earlier women were integral in enforcing support for the boycotts and they remained important throughout the Revolution and after. Some women even did enlist and fight but this was exceedingly rare. It was more common for women to be camp followers where they would follow the Continental Army and act as nurses, cooks, and cleaners in order to support the Revolution. African-American women also took part in this seeing the Revolution as a way to get racial and gender emancipation. Women were also used in propaganda either being portrayed as martyrs, like Jane McCrea, or supporting their husbands, brothers and fathers fighting. A well known poem of the Revolution is by sixteen year old Ruth Bryant from Massachusetts who in The American Maid's Choice saying that her ideal man was a valiant Patriot. As you can probably tell women's roles were seen as being linked to servitude and domesticity. Despite Abigail Adams telling John to 'remember the Ladies' they were often sidelined or forced into the home. Following the Revolution the patriarchal society ideas of Republican Motherhood were stressed. This idea was that the new republic had to have a new generation be taught about the virtues of being republicans, and it was women's roles to teach this new generation. They had to keep their husbands on the straight and narrow, teach their children to read and have lots of children in order to benefit the future generations, (if you see a parallel with The Handmaid's Tale there is a reason why). Despite the reinforcing of traditional roles it did allow a reinforcement of educating women as well as men which would allow women to capitalise on this later. Women, just like African-Americans, used the language of the Revolution to critique their role in society and some even exploited a loophole in New Jersey. The 1776 Constitution was worded in a way which said that 'all inhabitants' who owned property could vote. Widowed and unmarried women used this to vote for but unfortunately by 1807 they had changed the law to exclude women. Nevertheless, the Revolution inspired women and it is no mistake that Susan B. Anthony would later use the language to critique sexism and slavery.

Constitution and Aftermath

The Treaty of Paris gave the colonies their independence, Florida to Spain, and land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi to the new republic. The reason for this was because Britain wanted to stop French expansion and they thought the new republic would collapse returning the land to them. The US was on a shaky start: bankrupt, no allies, little legitimacy, and the British still occupied forts until 1795 supplying the Western Confederacy. Debates over an American Constitution split the political elite. The people were also disappointed. John Adams in 1776 wrote: We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government elsewhere. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient - that schools and colleges were growing turbulent - that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters... There will be no End of it. New Claims will arise. Women will demand a Vote. Lads from 12 to 21 will think their Rights not enough attended to...It tends to confound and destroy all Distinctions, and prostrate all Ranks, to one common Levell.' In 1786 farmers hit hard by debt under Daniel Shay rose up in Massachusetts demanding an end to their debts and a government elected directly. In response Boston raised an army putting down the rebellion. Washington supported the crushing of it while Jefferson sided with the rebels. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 tried to form a Constitution and as Washington took part this gave it legitimacy. There were conflicting debates over the Constitution and despite Washington's opposition to it partisanship emerged. On one side represented by figures like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were the Federalists who supported a federal republic against the Anti-Federalists, (also called the Democrats, Republicans and Democratic-Republicans), who opposed this including Thomas Jefferson. In private Washington sided with the Federalists. The drafters of the Constitution wanted representation but not democracy seeing it as mob rule. Hence, why now the president decides the Supreme Court judges and the Electoral College exists - the College initially was meant to be made of people who knew politics so could decide if the public voted the right way. Slavery was also an issue. Slave states wanted slaves to be counted as it would give them greater representation while non-slave states opposed this. The 3/5 Compromise emerged as a result: three out of every five slaves would be counted in a state's representation. The ease the minds of Anti-Federalists a Bill of Rights was drafted which exists to this day. Eventually the Constitution was ratified and in 1789 Washington became the USA's first president.

Conclusion

The veneration of the Revolution: on Washington's death this was painted showing him being guided to Heaven by angels as Lady Liberty and a Native American woman weeps

The American Revolution has since been very influential with it continuing to shape the US to this day. However, the limitations of the new Constitution meant that it has since been amended various times, including abolishing slavery, banning alcohol and bringing it back, and granting women the right to vote. We have to think though: how radical was the Revolution? Gordon Wood has insisted that it is in fact radical - the ideas of equality, republicanism and property rights being legally protected in a state's constitution was radical for the time. Some thinkers even started advocating shared for communal property rights in a precursor to Marx. Although it did exclude African-Americans, women and other groups it did start a precedent for future emancipation. The secular aspects also allowed emancipation of all Christian denominations, and even Jews, which caused America to see a greater amount of Church goers than their European counterparts. However, it certainly was limited. Initially revolutions in France, Haiti, and Latin America were welcomed but they quickly soured (especially with Haiti). Thomas Paine was seen as a radical for his deism, increased calls for equality, and possible abolitionism but when he went to France he was seen as a moderate. Paine would become critical of Washington, (although that may be due to the president letting him rot in a French prison), abolitionists in the 1840s would condemn the Constitution for allowing slavery, and anarchists in the 1880s/90s would call themselves 'unrepentant Jeffersonians'. The legacy of the American Revolution really depends on whether you place ideas over actions or vice versa.

Thank you for reading. The next few World History posts will be looking at the 'Age of Revolution' and we'll be focusing next on the French Revolution. For other World History posts please see our list, and for future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, (New York, NY, Alfred K. Knopf: 1992)

-Thomas Paine, Common Sense, (London, Penguin Books: 1776, Penguin edition 1986)

-The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution

-Lance Banning, 'Republican Ideology and the Triumph of the Constitution, 1789-1793', William and Mary Quarterly, 31:2, (1974), 167-88

-Colin Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities, (New York, NY: 1995)

-Hugh Brogan, The Penguin History of the USA, Second Edition, (London, Penguin Books: 1999)

-Eric Foner, Give me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY, W.W. Norton: 2014)

-Francis Cogliano, Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History, Second Edition, (New York, NY, Routledge: 2009)

-Alan Taylor, American Revolutions, (New York, NY, W.W. Norton: 2016)

Comics Explained: Batwoman

Batwoman, a.k.a Kate Kane, is one of DC's biggest heroes at the moment headlining her own series for several years. Batwoman has been praised due to her being lesbian making her one of the most popular LGBTQ+ characters in the comic book industry at the moment. She is so popular that a Batwoman TV series is going to be made soon. Two people have held the mantle of Batwoman with two similar names - Kathy Kane and Kate Kane - thanks to DC's publication history which incidentally linked to LGBTQ+ issues. This current version of Batwoman is an integral part of the DC universe but before we look at her we have to look at her predecessor: Kathy Kane. 

Moral Panic and Batwoman

Batwoman's origin lies in a moral panic. During the early-1950s the US was obsessed with possible leftist subversion in what is known as the 'Red Scare'. This in turn fed into fears over morality where every bit of media ranging from plays to books were scrutinised. For example, movies were barred from allowing villains or morally grey people to win which is why a key plot point was changed in the adaptation of Rebecca. Psychologist Fredric Wertham was concerned about possible normalisation of sex and violence in comics and he published his research in 1954 in a book called Seduction of the Innocent. This book caused waves and the moral panic it generated led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority which rigidly delineated what could or could not be published in comics which was a small tragedy in of itself. The Authority killed off the Silver Age horror comics and set back LGBT representation in comics for a reason I'll get onto later. However, Wertham's approach was far from scientific. Stan Lee of Marvel described him saying that he 'said things that impressed the public, and it was like shouting fire in a theater, but there was little scientific validity to it. And yet because he had the name doctor people took what he said seriously, and it started a whole crusade against comics.' Wertham falsified some of his evidence like saying that a Captain Marvel comic featured a decapitation when it was clear in the comic that Captain Marvel had invisible ink spilt on  his head; had a very small, and cherry picked, sample size; exaggerated his results, like a comic book fan said that he 'sometimes' stole comics but Wertham wrote that he 'often' stole; and simply made ludicrous claims like Wonder Woman being strong meant that she was a lesbian. LGBTQ+ rights were appalling in 1950s America, and to an extent it still is, so homosexuality was seen as being depraved. In his book Wertham accused Batman and Robin of being gay. In 1956 Batwoman was introduced as Batman's love interest to dispel this accusation.

The First Batwoman

Batwoman's debut

During the moral panic Batwoman was introduced in 1956's Detective Comics #233 as a female love interest for Batman. Kathy Kane as Batwoman in that comic managed to beat some criminals before the arrival of the Dynamic Duo before teaming up and eventually discovering the secret identities of their counterparts. The comic proudly declared: 

There's only one Batman! That's been said many times and has always been true, for no other man has ever rivaled Batman as a champion of the law, nor matched his superb acrobatic skill, his scientific keenness, his mastery of disguise and detective skill! But now, in one suspenseful surprise after another, Batman finds he has a great rival in the mysterious and glamorous girl...The Batwoman!

The 1950s were very sexist, Second Wave feminism is often seen as starting in the 1960s, and Batwoman exemplified this. Instead of a utility belt she had a utility purse full of lipstick, hair nets, and makeup. When she was inducted into the Bat Family Batman even said to her 'Now look, Kathy - one crime-fighter in the family is enough! A wife's place is in the home.' Batwoman often tagged along with Batman and Robin during their fights with villains including Firefly and Lex Luthor becoming very popular with the fans. In Batman #139 she even got her own sidekick in the form of Bat-Girl. Kathy's niece came to visit and learnt of her aunt's identity, and then wanted to become a vigilante as well. Kathy agreed thinking that it would then put the girl off but she loved it and helped Batwoman fight a gang with Batman and Robin. She stayed around becoming the first Bat-Girl.

In the mid-1960s DC was rebooting its comics such as introducing the new Green Lantern and Flash. Batman-editor Julius Schwartz wanted to bring Batman back to his roots and thought the sillier aspects of the comic, including Ace the Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite, had to go. Despite their popularity Schwartz decided that Batwoman and Bat-Girl were too unrealistic to continue so scrapped them. When asked to bring in another female member of the Bat Family to entice a greater female audience towards the Batman TV series despite fan requests Schwartz opted to create a new character. In Detective Comics #359 Barbara Gordon was introduced as the new Batgirl. Unlike Kathy Barbara was a career person (reflecting how a new wave of feminism had shifted views since Kathy's debut) with a PH.d. and was in charge of Gotham Public Library. Batgirl quickly became far more popular than Batwoman would ever be. This would not be the end for Batwoman. Batman Family #10 saw Batgirl struggling against Cavalier and Killer Moth so Batwoman came out of retirement to help fight them. Her return only lasted two years. In 1979's Detective Comics #485 she would be killed on Ra's al Ghul's orders by a manipulated League of Assassins. 

Batgirl and Batwoman fighting together

Kathy would have some other appearances. When she was Batwoman there were a few issues of Batman where Alfred wrote 'what-if?' scenarios where she and Batman married, retired and their son became the new Robin after Robin became Batman. Grant Morrison in Batman Incorporated #4 reintroduced Kathy Kane. Morrison was very into bringing back aspects of Silver Age Batman but his writing was very hit and miss - it was Morrison where we got the lines 'Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman.' In this story we find out that Kathy Kane is Bruce's aunt via marriage who initially helps him fight crime, they briefly become loves (Morrison's run was bad at times) before dying which turns out to be false with her really being an assassin.

Kate Kane - Origins

52 #11, Batwoman's debut

Now we get to the current Batwoman - Kate Kane. Those new to DC will need to know about Crisis on Infinite Earths. This comic saw the destruction of every DC universe and a new one being created so Kathy Kane ceased to exist until Morrison brought her back. Kate debuted in 52 #7 as DC wanted to revitalise its female heroes in the Bat Family after seeing a drawing of Batgirl by Alex Ross. Originally Barbara Gordon was chosen but as she was paraplegic in her role as Oracle they decided to not go with her in order to have disabled representation. It was decided that Batwoman should be brought back and it was decided that she should be lesbian as by now the Comics Code Authority had largely been ignored for a longtime. Immediately the LGBTQ+ community, including the magazine Out, praised the decision. Kate Kane would debut in 52 #7 but it would take until 52 #11 for her to appear as Batwoman.

Kate Kane's origins have been shown through several comics including Detective Comics #858 and #859. Born into a Jewish and military family Kate and her twin sister Elizabeth were on the move a lot. While working with NATO and stationed in Brussels an Illuminati-esque group called the Religion of Crime kidnapped Kate, her sister, and mother as her father led the squad to rescue them. Unfortunately her mother and sister were executed traumatising the young Kate. To impress her father she entered the Marines but was dishonourably discharged when her relationship with another female Marine was outed. By that time Kate's father had married a wealthy heiress so Kate became a socialite like her pre-Crisis counterpart. She was pulled over one night by officer Renee Montoya and the two formed a relationship but Montoya split with her thanks to Kate just drifting through life. However, one night gave her reason. A mugger tried to attack her but she managed to defend herself just as Batman arrived. Impressed by her skills he commended her but advised her not to make a habit out of it. The thrill of defending herself and seeing Batman in person convinced her to become a vigilante. With her father's help and fortune she trained for three years before becoming a new crime fighter: the Batwoman.

Intergang and Religion of Crime

Batwoman soon became a crime fighter and encountered Renee again who had become the new Question after the death of the previous one. Together they were following a group called Intergang who was funnelling advanced weaponry into Gotham. At this time they also rekindled their relationship. During the investigation she found a sacred text to Intergang, called the Book of Crime, had a prophecy foretelling the brutal murder of 'the twice named daughter of Cain'. They would also be joined by Dick Grayson (Nightwing) who became infatuated with her, likely because of her similarity to Batgirl. Also, my favourite moment in the Intergang story is Renee spending Hanukkah with Kate. It was a cute little side moment showing their growing relationship.

Kate and Renee together on Hanukkah

Anyway Intergang believed that Kate was the prophecised 'daughter of Cain' whose death would leave Gotham in flames and sent assassins to kill her. They almost succeeded leaving Kate badly injured. Between Detective Comics #854 and 863 a new battle with Intergang and the Religion of Crime took place. The Religion had been revived under a woman named Alice who spoke in Alice in Wonderland quotes who used hallucinogenics to fight with. Alice used Kate's opposition to killing against her spitting a hallucinogenic covered razor blade at Kate's face when she was dangling her over the side of a building for information like Batman does in Batman Begins. Eventually Kate learns that Alice plans to destroy Gotham by spraying toxic gas over the city. She went to fight Alice and went to grab the woman who finally said something not originally written by Lewis Carroll 'You have our father's eyes'. Alice then stabbed Kate in the arm causing her to let go with the knowledge that she had just let her sister fall to her death.

Batwoman and Alice

Gotham after Batman

Batman would die in 2008's Final Crisis so Batwoman would be one of Gotham's heroes to fill in for him. She joined the Network which was a group of Gotham's heroes who agreed to protect Gotham together now that Batman had died. We see her in the miniseries Cry for Justice where it is implied that she has become Gotham's main protector and to show her importance she was meant to join the splintered Justice League. In Cry for Justice Green Arrow and Green Lantern broke off to form their own Justice League angered by the inaction of the League and were joined by several other heroes including Supergirl, Congorilla, and Captain Marvel Jr. Batwoman was originally meant to join this team as well but when it got bumped down to miniseries from a full series this was abandoned. Bruce Wayne, obviously, returned and she would fight alongside him again. 

Flashpoint and Rebirth

DC destroyed its realities and started again following 2011's Flashpoint forming the New 52. So far DC has been vague with what is canon from the pre-Flashpoint universe and what is not - largely its based on what fans like. Kate Kane, as one of DC's most popular character, was quickly brought back and her origins have been revisited for new readers in Secret Origins Vol.3 #3 and Batwoman Vol.2 #0. Her origins are the same as her pre-Flashpoint version except instead of her family being murdered by the Religion of Crime they were murdered by generic terrorists. Also, the time between her fighting off a mugger and meeting Batman and later becoming Batwoman has been shortened. However, Batwoman Vol. 3 has shown that something else had happened after being discharged and meeting Batman. Now Kate went on a spiritual journey arriving in the Mediterranean where she bumped her head on some coral, going unconscious and later being saved by the leader of a secret island near Malta called Coryana. Kate and the island's leader, Safiyah, developed a romance much to the chagrin of Safiyah's lover Tahani. Suddenly a bacteria started killing off Coryana's foxes and Kate suspected one of the warlords whom Safiyah immediately had executed despite Kate's opposition to it. Kate then found out that the bacteria was from the coral she had bumped into and Safiyah knew and lied to protect her. Angered that Safiyah killed someone to protect a lie she left Coryana. 

Against the Weeping Woman

I will go over one of the most interesting Batwoman stories, one from Batwoman Vol. 2. Gotham's Latino community was shocked when women were being kidnapped and drowned by a ghost named the Weeping Woman. Both Batwoman and her partner, Detective Maggie Sawyer, decided to investigate as Kate started reluctantly training her cousin, Bette. During this she was also approached by Batman to work with him but she declined. The US government had formed the Department of Extranormal Affairs (DEO) to investigate metahumans and their attention had turned to Gotham believing that the vigilantes could be metahumans. Agent Cameron Chase hoped to find out Batwoman's identity with the intention of getting Batman's through her. He originally thought Batwoman could be Maggie until she found the vigilante going through her files. Batwoman managed to tracked the ghost to a boat house where the spirit almost drowns her. Traumatised Kate decides to hold off from training her cousin who is attacked by an unknown metahuman. Meanwhile, Kate learnt the origin of the Weeping Woman: a mother whose children were taken away from her she drowned herself. To counteract the ghost's water magic Kate set fire to the boat house and as the ghost was evaporating she revealed that she had been manipulated by something, or someone, called Medusa. As Kate evaporated the ghost Chase used Bette's condition to get information about Kate's identity. Despite Batman's warning Kate agrees to help the DEO take down Medusa in return for Bette. Since then Batwoman has had several other interesting story lines.

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