The Patriot, a movie loosely based on Colonel Francis Marion and the Revolutionary War, was released in the year 2000. The film was written about a war-time hero, Francis Marion - called Benjamin Martin in the movie and played by Mel Gibson - who initially declines going or sending others to fight in the war. He quickly changes his mind though when his son is killed by a ruthless British officer. The Patriot is an interesting watch, as it contains well written script and exciting battle scenes. It is fairly correct about the time period, though the creative license given to Hollywood allowed multiple historical inaccuracies, including details of slavery during the time period, the main character's life, specific battles and the French's participation.
As mentioned, the movie is loosely based on Francis Marion, a war time hero. The movie shows him as a widower with seven children, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army and a Brigadier General of the militia.
Marion & Warrick Brownlow-Pike - Mongrels
Map of campaigns in the Revolutionary War
The British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Painting b...In fact, Marion did not marry until after the war - to his cousin - and had no children. He was also a Colonel in the Continental Army (American Revolution).
From the beginning of the movie, you find African-American slaves working for Marion. The male slaves, along with the male figures in the family, are in the field doing physical labor as the females remain inside and tend to the household duties. Young girls assisted each other in learning the alphabet on the porch, as schoolwork and learning were paramount. Later in the movie, in response to Colonel William Tavingon's - real-life Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton - request for him to join the war, a black slave responds by saying he was working on the farm on his own free will. In multiple written accounts, it shows...
"The Patriot" -- Fiction, and bad fiction at that.
I almost feel that I watched a different movie, because I found "The Patriot" to be one of the poorest films I have ever seen on the American Revolution. It contained any number of historical inaccuracies, along with a number of pointlessly overdone set pieces that did little more than prove that Mel Gibson considers himself something of a messianic figure, trying to show how goody-two-shoes he can be. The film is sufficiently heavy handed that I found it embarrassing and nearly unwatchable. It reduces the British to comic book villains, stupid, cloddish, lazy, and evil, oh so evil, while Gibson and the good guys constantly labor under unbearable burdens. This is all very sad because the campaigns in the South during the American Revolution have a chilling relevance for the United States today. Like the Americans now in Iraq, the British entered with the notion that they would be welcomed as liberators, over-extended themselves, used brute force against people who had little quarrel with them, and were eventually smashed by ill-trained but resourceful irregulars. Sadly, modern Americans learn bad history, and then repeated the mistakes.
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