Select Errors in Michael Bellesiles's Arming America

by James Lindgren

Mr. Lindgren is Stanford Clinton Sr. Research Professor at Northwestern University School of Law.

APPENDIX:

SELECTED ERRORS IN ARMING AMERICA

This Appendix catalogues over 200 documents that Michael Bellesiles misread or misinterpreted in basic ways in the first edition of Arming America. Some of the most serious problems are included; some are not. Some touch the thesis of Arming America in fundamental ways; some do not. Most of the book’s errors do not lend themselves to presentation in an appendix such as this. For example, where claims in the book are based on sources that no longer exist or never existed, there may be no sources with which to juxtapose the claims. Together, the sources on this list comprise many of the classes of error that scholars have discovered in trying to verify the book.213

A. The First Gun Count

Arming America:

Through most of the seventeenth century the New England settlers were desperate for firearms and powder. . . . In 1630 the Massachusetts Bay Company reported in their possession: “80 bastard muskets . . . ; 6 long Fowlinge peeces . . . 6 foote longe; 4 longe Fowlinge peeces . . . 5-1/2 foote longe; . . . 10 Full musketts . . . .” There were thus exactly one hundred firearms for use among seven towns with a population of about one thousand.214

Cited Source:

26 February, 1628. Necessaries conseaued meete for or intended voiadge for Newe England to bee prepared forthwth. . . . .