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Humanities

What role did sports play in societies before the 20th century?
When I finished reading the remarkable first chapter of Dave Zirins
A
Peoples History of Sports in the United States
, I was astonished. I used to think that
a sport was only a game you played with teammates that involved a wide following
and physical skill. However, once I had read through that first chapter, I understood
that sports were never
just
a game.
For centuries, sports have played a major involvement in societies. Sports
have influenced the choices of citizens in society from as early as the 17th century. In
the Book of Sports(1618), King James of England wrote that dancing, Archery for
men, leaping, vaulting, or any such harmlesse, Recreation, nor from having of May
Games, Whitsun Ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and
other sports, are permissible. Influenced by sports and his love for them, he made
the choice of making sports clearly permissible in order to encourage his citizens to
play and go to church, not to the alehouses.
In the colonial era well into the 19th century, whites wanted to differentiate
themselves from the rest of the British. Sports became one of the way the colonies
could succeed at this. They used the most popular, best organized, and most
important American sport -- horse racing. By the eve of the revolution, a group of
well off, northern and southern men, rode on their horse in a series of races ranging
from Leedstown, Virginia, through annapolis, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New
York.
Differentiating themselves from the British wasnt such a priority for slaves,
though, as it was for the whites. Slaves played their games quite differently. The
most common games were races and dances. Some other games were made to
honor deities and some reflected the uncertainty and riskiness of their lives. An
example Dave Zirin gave was if they played dodgeball, then no one would be
eliminated. He said that some historians have attributed this to the desire to escape
the reality that a family member could be eliminated by being sold at random.
During the decades after the Revolution, the country began a to have an
industrial push. Immigrants were added to the populations and the Indians
vanquished. At this time, sports reflected every tension and irritability in the
atmosphere. Games that were played among the workers became more savage
and segregated, than the increasingly wealthy. Terrible games were reborn, like

bull-baiting and rat baiting. Good games and sports, the ones that teach American
values, like Zirin said, were soon to be born.