1. Minutemen
THE SURVIVAL OF THE PIONEERS OF THE
EARLY USA

2. Table of contents
 Early Minutemen
 Definition
 Context
 Role
 Modern minutemen
 Context
 Role
 Public and civil reactions
 Debate

3. Early minutemen (1)
 ¼ of the militia of the American
colonies.
 Who were they?
 Settlers, farmers, workmen, between
16 and 25 years old
 Where does the name
“minuteman” come from?
 Decompose the word and try to guess!

4. Early Minutemen (2)
 Context
 Indian wars
 French and Indian War
 American Revolutionary War
 Mission
 Skirmishers and sharpshooters :Harassment
of enemy's troops
 Sabotage
 Glory facts
 Battles of Lexington and Concord
 All the other battles of the Revolutionary War

5. Modern minutemen and their mission
 The “Minuteman Project”
 Activist organization created by a group of
private individuals.
 Since April 2005
 Founder Jim Gilchrist ->
 Missions:
 Monitor the United States–Mexico
border's flow of illegal immigrants.
 Attract media attention to illegal
immigration

6. Modern Minutemen: Facts
 Incidents
 Garden Grove incident
 T-shirt incident
 August 2007 fake murder video
 Relations with the US Border Patrol
 Not one single complaint from a rank-and-file agent about the
Minutemen.
 “These people are very supportive of the rank-and-file agents;
they're courteous. Many of them are retired
firefighters, cops, and other professionals, and they're not
causing us any problems whatsoever”

7. Modern Minutemen: Public and civic reaction
 Support
 California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: “They do a
terrific job”
 Council of Conservative Citizens (white nationalism & white
separatism political organization)
 Criticism
 Controversy launched by former Mexican President Vicente
Fox.
 Minutemen are depicted as the villains in the 2010 Robert
Rodriguez film Machete.
 The Latino criminal organization MS13 claimed that it would
target the Minutemen.

8. Debate
 Do you think modern Minutemen respect or betray
the legacy of the early Minutemen?
 Do you mean it is a specific trait of American early
culture or an inappropriate recuperation of a heroic
legacy?

9. Fin
FOR MORE INFORMATIONS:
HTTP://WWW.USHISTORY.ORG/PEOPLE/MINUTEMEN.HTM
HTTP://WWW.MINUTEMANPROJECT.COM/