He was successful enough to purchase his own plantation, Pond Bluff, in 1773. In 1761, after his militia had defeated the area Cherokees, Marion returned to farming. Two decades later, Marion would apply these tactics against the British. The Cherokee used the landscape to their advantage, Marion found they concealed themselves in the Carolina backwoods and mounted devastating ambushes. While not noble by today's standards, Marion's experience in the French and Indian War prepared him for more admirable service. Most heroes of the Revolution were not the saints that biographers like Parson Weems would have them be, and Francis Marion was a man of his times: he owned slaves, and he fought in a brutal campaign against the Cherokee Indians. After the shipwreck, Marion decided to stick to land, managing his family's plantation until he joined the South Carolina militia at 25 to fight in the French and Indian War. The seven-man crew escaped in a lifeboat and spent a week at sea before they drifted ashore. During Marion's first voyage, the ship sank, supposedly after a whale rammed it. The family's youngest son, Francis was a small boy with malformed legs, but he was restless, and at about 15 years old he joined the crew of a ship and sailed to the West Indies. Marion was born at his family's plantation in Berkeley County, South Carolina, probably in 1732. Based on the facts alone, "Marion deserves to be remembered as one of the heroes of the War for Independence," says Busick, who has written the introduction to a new edition of Simms' The Life of Francis Marion, out in June 2007. Marion's life received similar embellishment.įortunately, the real Francis Marion has not been entirely obscured by his legend-historians including William Gilmore Simms and Hugh Rankin have written accurate biographies. Weems had also authored an extremely popular biography of George Washington in 1800, and it was he who invented the apocryphal cherry tree story. Marion into the garb and dress of a military romance," Weems wrote in 1807 to Peter Horry, the South Carolina officer on whose memoir the book was based. "I have endeavored to throw some ideas and facts about Genl. "Parson" Weems, coauthor of the first Marion biography, The Life of General Francis Marion. Many of the legends that surround the life and exploits of Brigadier General Francis Marion were introduced by M. "One of the silliest things the movie did," says Sean Busick, a professor of American history at Athens State University in Alabama, "was to make Marion into an 18th century Rambo." Although Francis Marion led surprise attacks against the British, and was known for his cunning and resourcefulness, Mel Gibson played The Patriot's Marion-inspired protagonist as an action hero. The 2000 movie The Patriot exaggerated the Swamp Fox legend for a whole new generation. In his version, the primly attired Redcoat seems uncomfortable with Marion's ragtag band, who glare at him suspiciously from the shadows of a South Carolina swamp. Around 1820, John Blake White depicted the scene in an oil painting that now hangs in the United States Capitol. According to a legend that grew out of the much-repeated anecdote, the British officer was so inspired by the Americans' resourcefulness and dedication to the cause-despite their lack of adequate provisions, supplies or proper uniforms-that he promptly switched sides and supported American independence. As one militiaman recalled years later, a breakfast of sweet potatoes was roasting in the fire, and after the negotiations Marion, known as the "Swamp Fox," invited the British soldier to share breakfast. In early 1781, Revolutionary War militia leader Francis Marion and his men were camping on Snow's Island, South Carolina, when a British officer arrived to discuss a prisoner exchange.
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