The Fourth of July
From Caesar's Month to a Question That Still Burns
Julius Caesar's Stolen Month
<cite index="7-1,7-2">July was originally called Quintilis in Latin, meaning the fifth month, until it was renamed during the first century BCE</cite>. <cite index="8-3">The Roman Senate named it in 44 B.C. in honour of Julius Caesar, being the month of his birth</cite>. A mortal became eternal. <cite index="1-4">Caesar was responsible for the year as we know it, having 365 days, and for the existence of a leap year every four years</cite>. Power flows not just from conquest but from controlling time itself.
<cite index="30-32,30-33">In ancient Rome, July hosted the Ludi Apollinares—games in honor of Apollo, first held in 212 BC—and other sacred festivals like the Transvectio equitum, a cavalry procession on the 15th</cite>. The month belonged to ritual, to the gods, to the city. Centuries later, a new nation would claim the same month and fill it with a new god: the god of independence. But names carry ghosts.
Five Men in a Room
<cite index="12-18">On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed the Committee of Five to draft a declaration: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and John Adams of Massachusetts</cite>. <cite index="14-1">Jefferson drafted the statement between June 11 and 28, submitted drafts to Adams and Franklin who made changes, and then presented the draft to Congress following the July 2nd adoption of the independence section of the Lee Resolution</cite>. Two days. Thirteen colonies had voted for independence on the 2nd. But the declaration itself waited.
<cite index="46-15,46-17">Congress made alterations and deletions on July 2, 3, and the morning of the 4th. Late in the morning of July 4, the Declaration was officially adopted</cite>. The parchment went to the printer. <cite index="21-5,21-6,21-7">The following year, the first official Independence Day celebrations took place in Philadelphia. The Evening Post reported: 'the evening was closed with the ringing of bells. At night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.'</cite> A month named for an emperor became the month of a republic—if only in the sky.
Thirteen Rockets, One Question
<cite index="21-9">John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, imagining that a sparkling sky would honor the 13 soon-to-be-independent colonies every year</cite>. He wanted **illuminations**—not just light, but grandeur. <cite index="25-9">Following the first public readings of the Declaration in 1776, the festivities traditionally held for King George III's birthday—including concerts, bonfires, parades, and cannon firings—were adopted for the July 4 celebrations</cite>. The colonists had always known how to celebrate a ruler. Now they turned that ritual inside out.
<cite index="23-3">On July 5, 1777, one year later, a ship's cannon fired a 13-gun salute and the Pennsylvania Evening Post reported: 'at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.' The Sons of Liberty set off fireworks over Boston Common</cite>. **One month, one day, one form of power now claimed by a new people.** But the rituals carried the old world's shape. And in the crowd—or absent from it—were those who had no reason to rejoice.
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
<cite index="50-1,50-2">On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a keynote address at an Independence Day celebration at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, and asked, 'What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?'</cite> <cite index="50-3">It was a scathing speech in which Douglass stated, 'This Fourth of July is yours, not mine, You may rejoice, I must mourn.'</cite> He stood in a white abolitionist hall and told them the truth: **the holiday excludes those it claims to celebrate.** <cite index="50-18,50-19">Douglass acknowledged the nation's founders as great men, but in doing so brought awareness to the hypocrisy of their ideals by the existence of slavery on American soil</cite>.
<cite index="51-2">Douglass answered his own question: 'I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.'</cite> <cite index="50-14">He said: 'The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.'</cite> The fireworks that had lit the sky for seventy-six years suddenly became a **weapon of mockery**—a nation celebrating its own freedom while enslaving millions. The month named for Caesar became the month when the chains tightened.
The 'Merciless Indian Savages' Clause
<cite index="62-5">The Declaration of Independence, thirty lines below 'All men are created equal,' refers to Native Americans as 'merciless Indian savages.'</cite> <cite index="60-1,60-2">The Declaration was a green light initiating a war of genocide against the Indigenous nations. As a result of the July 4th Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution unleashed a flood of rapacious white settlers onto Indigenous lands</cite>. The same month that lit fireworks for freedom also lit the match for **colonial expansion and removal**.
<cite index="61-7">For many Indigenous peoples, July 4th signifies the establishment of a nation founded on Native land, frequently through broken treaties, forced removal, genocide, and cultural erasure</cite>. <cite index="75-7,75-8">During the time when Natives could be arrested or worse for practicing ceremonies and dances, the 4th of July was an opportunity to do those things. Many Indigenous people were able to practice certain ceremonies under the guise of celebrating Independence Day</cite>. **The holiday became a cover for survival, a mask worn to keep one's own traditions alive.**
Juneteenth: The Emancipation That Came Late
<cite index="73-3,73-5">Juneteenth is a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. It is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, issued by Major General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, proclaiming freedom for enslaved Africans in Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863</cite>. The news arrived late—not by accident, but because the South had delayed announcing emancipation. **The enslaved had to wait almost three years after Lincoln's order to hear their freedom proclaimed aloud.**
<cite index="76-2,76-3">On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news of the Emancipation Proclamation. Numerous African Americans see Juneteenth as a more authentic Independence Day, symbolizing the delayed but eventual freedom from the bonds of slavery</cite>. <cite index="69-13,69-14">Black Americans, who were enslaved, were not granted independence until 1865 through the Emancipation Proclamation. Nonetheless, American pride is also something that Black people can claim and celebrate in ways we see fit, considering that Black Americans have contributed significantly to the building of this country</cite>. Some chose to reclaim the month entirely—to make their own July, their own Independence.
A Month Named for Power, Claimed for Freedom
July was named for a man who ordered the calendar and ruled an empire. <cite index="13-1">On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence at Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia</cite>—a document that claimed universal rights while omitting slavery from its indictment. That omission was a choice. <cite index="43-10">Congress struck passages blaming King George III for the transatlantic slave trade and those blaming the British people rather than their government</cite>. The birth of a nation, declared in a month inherited from Rome, built on **silences about who was being left behind.**
<cite index="50-3">Frederick Douglass asked in 1852: 'This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.'</cite> <cite index="61-12">For many Indigenous peoples, July 4th is a day to remember ancestors, honor the resilience of nations, and tell the truth—that our nations were here before 1776</cite>. <cite index="76-3">Many African Americans see Juneteenth as a more authentic Independence Day, symbolizing the delayed but eventual freedom from the bonds of slavery</cite>. The 4th of July is not one day. **It is a contested date**, a month that different people have claimed, mourned, and remade according to their own freedom. The question is not whether it should be celebrated. The question is: celebrated by whom, and at what cost?
Sources and research
Etymology: July's Hidden Lineage
## The Name From Rome
**July was originally Quintilis** (the fifth month, in the old Roman calendar that began in March). After Julius Caesar's assassination, the Roman Senate renamed it **Iulius** in 44 BC to honor his birth. The name stuck through the Julian calendar reform (45 BC) and survived the later Gregorian reform (1582 AD). When colonists declared independence on July 4, 1776, they chose a date in a month named not for a god or a principle, but for a dead emperor. The irony: they were declaring independence while using the calendar that empire had imposed.
### What the Month Contained
Ancient Rome celebrated festivals in July: **Ludi Apollinares** (games for Apollo), **Poplifugia** (the flight of the people—possibly a myth about Romulus's disappearance), and **Neptunalia** (for safe water in the hot months). July was a month of ritual, community, and divine favor. When Americans filled July 4 with bells, cannons, and fireworks, they transplanted the language of Roman festivals onto a new declaration.
The Declaration's Missing Words: What Congress Deleted
## Slavery Struck Out
Thomas Jefferson's original draft included a passage blaming King George III for the transatlantic slave trade. **Congress removed it**—not because it was false, but because southern and northern delegates could not agree. The passage was so controversial that compromise meant erasure. The final Declaration never names slavery. It never indicts the king for enslaving Africans. This silence is not accidental. It is an **act of omission**—a founding document that speaks of universal rights while explicitly excluding those rights from millions.
## The Timeline of Deletion
- **June 11–28, 1776**: Jefferson drafts the Declaration and submits it to Adams and Franklin
- **June 28**: Committee presents draft to Congress
- **July 2–4**: Congress debates and edits; **slavery passage removed** (along with language blaming the British people rather than the King)
- **July 4, afternoon**: Final version approved
Frederick Douglass's 1852 Speech: The Turning Point
## The Question Asked Aloud
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass—a formerly enslaved man who had become one of America's greatest orators—delivered a speech to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society that posed a question the nation had been avoiding: **'What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?'**
### His Answer
Douglass answered: *'I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.'* He acknowledged the Founding Fathers' commitment to ideals of liberty, but pointed out that those ideals had **never been extended to enslaved people**. The July Fourth fireworks, he said, were a mockery—a nation celebrating its own freedom while forcing millions into bondage.
### The Lasting Impact
Douglass's speech has become the central text for understanding the hypocrisy at the heart of American Independence Day. It is taught in schools, quoted in essays, and performed aloud every July. Yet the speech also contained something more: a belief that the Declaration's principles—if truly lived—could still redeem the nation. He urged his audience not to abandon the Declaration, but to demand that the nation finally live up to it.
Indigenous Peoples and July 4: 'Still Here'
## Before 1776
Indigenous nations had existed on the lands of what would become the United States for thousands of years. They were not subjects seeking independence; they were **already independent**, with their own governments, laws, and territories.
## The Declaration's Language
The Declaration refers to Native Americans as **'merciless Indian Savages'**—the only group explicitly named as savage in the document. This language justified westward expansion and the removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands. The July 4, 1776 declaration was, from the Indigenous perspective, **a declaration of war**.
## Contemporary Reclamations
Some Indigenous nations use July 4 for their own ceremonies and gatherings—not to celebrate American independence, but to **assert their own continuance**. The Lakota of South Dakota hold Sun Dances near July 4 to coincide with their New Year. Others hold pow-wows, ceremonies, and gatherings that existed long before 1776 and will exist long after. As many Indigenous voices say: **'We were here before 1776. We are still here.'**
Juneteenth: The Alternative Independence Day
## The Date That Mattered Most
On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3. The order proclaimed that all enslaved people in Texas were free. This was nearly **two and a half years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation** (January 1, 1863). The delay was not accidental—enslavers had hidden the news from enslaved people to keep them working.
## Juneteenth as Reclamation
Former enslaved people immediately began celebrating June 19 as their own independence day. **Juneteenth**, combining 'June' and 'nineteenth,' became a federal holiday in 2021. For many Black Americans, Juneteenth is the true American independence day—not because it came first, but because it is the date **when their freedom was finally, officially proclaimed**. Unlike July 4, which came at the cost of others' bondage, June 19 represents the long-delayed freedom that belonged to them alone.
## Contemporary Celebrations
Juneteenth celebrations include parades, festivals, church services, and family gatherings. Some African Americans choose to celebrate Juneteenth instead of or alongside July 4. Others use July 4 as an opportunity to educate about the incomplete nature of American independence—that freedom declared in 1776 did not extend to all people until 1865, and the struggle for full equality continues.
The Contested Holiday: Who Celebrates, Who Mourns
## A Day That Means Different Things
The Fourth of July exists in at least four versions simultaneously:
### 1. **Official Patriotism**
The government and mainstream celebration: fireworks, parades, flag-waving, barbecues. Pride in American independence and democratic ideals.
### 2. **Douglass's Critique**
The recognition that the holiday masks ongoing inequality and celebrates a freedom that was never universal. This perspective asks: How can we celebrate independence while racism and oppression persist?
### 3. **Indigenous Resistance**
A day that marks the beginning of colonization and genocide. Some Indigenous peoples use July 4 for their own ceremonies and survival celebrations, reclaiming the date rather than accepting it.
### 4. **The Juneteenth Alternative**
A shift toward celebrating June 19 instead—the date when enslaved people were finally freed. This reclamation says: Our freedom was delayed. Our independence day is June 19.
## The Ongoing Tension
These versions do not resolve into one unified meaning. They coexist, contested and unresolved, every July. The Fourth of July remains a date on which different Americans experience radically different truths. The question is not whether to celebrate. The question is: Whose freedom is being celebrated, and who pays the price?