What is the importance of Paul Revere's history?

Answer 1

Actually, the man Paul Revere isn't all that important. The only reason we know about him is because of the Longfellow poem "The Ride of Paul Revere" which was written a 100 years AFTER Revere. Revere didn't finish his ride to Concord and he was arrested by a British patrol. I suspect that he was used by Longfellow because his name was easy to rhyme. The act was the important part and it showed that the colonial people were ready to resist the British rule. No one expected the war to start that morning because essentially they all thought of themselves as "British", so Revere also wouldn't have ridden through the area yelling "The British are coming". A young man by the name of Bissel actually rode longer and further than Revere that night. Revere was very active as one of the Son's of Liberty and is the artist of the Boston Massacre drawing in Boston papers used to sway opinion against the British troops. Today we know that much of the picture is pure Propaganda by Revere.

Answer 2

The fable of Revere comes from a Longfellow poem written in 1861 and in reality he didn't ride through the night yelling about the British coming.