All life is competitive. The plant or the tree competes with its neighbor for light and moisture, the successful one becoming a perfect specimen, while the less successful one languishes and dies.
In animal life, one species or individual competes with another for a place to live and for the means of existence. People do so not only for the right to exist and the means of existence but because their instinctive competition includes the intellectual field possessed in all life by man alone.
People record what they have done, and why they did it, in order that their experiences can serve as a guide for emulation or avoidance in the future.
Nietzsche's famous maxim, "That, which does not destroy me, makes me stronger."
The economist Albert O. Hirschman said, "This sentence admirably epitomizes several of the histories of economic development projects in recent decades. We are now told that the presence of war-like Indians in North America and the permanent conflict between them and the Anglo-Saxon settlers was a great advantage, because it made necessary methodical, well-planned, and gradual advances toward an interior which always remained in close logistic and cultural contact with the established communities to the East."
The leadership lesson is: Developing organizations, communities and countries require more than capital and innovation. Leaders need to learn from the past and practice in making difficult decisions. Economic and social progress is the product of successful habits--and there is no better teacher than competition and adversity.
As religious and cultural wars across the Middle East spread today, most Americans don’t recognize that their own country’s deadly competition for freedom took four wars over 111 years (1754-1865) to begin to get it right.
Yet, most Americans know too little of the doings of the people of past generations who lived their lives competing in our several localities. Early settlers fought wars with their kinsmen here and across the seas to establish their right to live their own lives in their own way. They made a new government that has served as a model for the entire world since.
In the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Major General William Johnson had gained influence with the Indians and in 1754, at the outbreak of King George's War, he kept the Iroquois from allying with the French. As a major general, with 2,000 militia and 200 Indians, he defeated the French and Indians forces at Crown Point in September 1755. Although failing to take Crown Point, Johnson built a fort at Lake George and won acclaim for blunting the French threat.
In November 1755, Johnson was made a baronet and appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for the colonies. For the next three years he concerned himself with Indian affairs and the defense of the northern frontier. At his death on July 11, 1774, a year before Lexington and Bunker Hill, Sir William was far and away the most distinguished soldier in the colonies and was the largest landowner in New York and probably in all the colonies.
In the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), General Benedict Arnold, after joining the growing army outside Boston, distinguished himself through acts of intelligence and bravery. His actions included the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, defensive and delaying tactics despite losing the Battle of Valour Island on Lake Champlain in 1776, the Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut (after which he was promoted to major general), operations in relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix and key actions during the pivotal Battles of Saratoga in 1777, in which he suffered leg injuries that ended his combat career for several years. A statue of General Arnold's wound remains on the battlefield at Saratoga.
In the "Trappers of New York" by Jeptha Root Simms: "General Arnold was by many thought the master spirit of the American officer engaged [before] an altercation took place between him and General Gates, supposed by some on account of envy entertained towards the former, either by Gen. Wilkinson or Gen. Gates, and possibly both, which resulted in his being deprived of his command.
Consequently, in the sanguinary battle which took place on Bemis's Heights [at Saratoga], October 7th, Gen. Arnold had no authority for the glorious deeds he there performed. During the evening of that day, this daring chief led a body of troops into the very heart of the Hessian camp; carrying dismay along the whole British line. In this impetuous onset, he was shot through the leg and that fearless and reckless leader, who, up to that hour had been one of Liberty's boldest champions, could have sealed with his life-blood his former deeds of glory! But alas! alas! a somber destiny awaited him."
It was the Battle of Saratoga that was the turning point of the Revolutionary War.
However, George Washington is the only "hero" that most people today recognize in a war where 1/3 of the people in the colonies supported the King of England, 1/3 were neutral and 1/3 revolted against the mother country. And the French, remembering their defeat in the French and Indian War twelve years earlier, were willing to support the patriotic citizenry against England by providing weapons, soldiers and military leadership.
In the book, “Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks,” author Cyrus Durey, tells about the difficulties experienced by neighbors who had been friends before the Revolutionary War broke out. No section of the colonies suffered like this one where thousands were killed.
After fighting a war with their kinsmen across the seas to establish their right to live their own lives without interference from the homeland, twenty nine years later in the War of 1812, England once again competed with this new country to regain control of North America.
Internally in 1861, the American Civil War broke out in a competition between the Northern and Southern States that had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery. After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, slavery was abolished.
Today, we in the United States of America are still competing to “get it right” in the freedom and equality of our citizens.
The "Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks" features three early leaders of North America who competitively shaped this new country; an American Baron, a Trapper and Continental Army soldier and a United States Senator. The author, Cyrus Durey served his country as an Adirondack lumber manufacturer, postmaster, United States Congressman and the collector of internal revenue until his death on January 4, 1933 in Albany, NY. The life stories of these early colonial and national leaders illustrate the competitive nature our forefathers who set out to build the foundation of the United States of America. And through the author's interest in history, we today can learn a little more about New York's Fulton County, situated between the Adirondack Mountains and the Mohawk Valley.
This newly published historical book is available at local booksellers, like Mysteries on Main Street in Johnstown, NY and other Upstate New York communities, or online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Cyrus Durey: Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America (ebook and paperback editions)
Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America [NOOK Book] (ebook and paperback editions)
