6d Road to Revolution Part II

0:02 welcome back this is the last in the series of lectures on the road to revolution and it's part two of the last video so in the last video we covered the series of acts laws that led to increasingly tense relations between the colonies and Parliament we looked at some general factors developing after the French and Indian War okay and we'll pick up today it's pretty much a straightforward chronological survey of these taxes leading into the revolution so I'll remind you that the online lectures go along with the textbook readings that will definitely help as well as the other blackboard readings like from Howard Zinn so the Zinn chapter which is called

0:48 tyranny as tyranny is a really important complement to the lecture and textbook because it talks about the role of class tensions and class grievances and Xena's point as you would have read is basically there were definite class tensions going on between the colonial elite Lee elite the leaders of the revolution and the lower classes and to a large extent the lower classes economic grievances were channeled by the colonial elite away from them the colonial elite you know gentlemen class towards the British the leaders of the independent move independence movement wanted to preserve their elite position

1:34 and they basically used the energy of the mob and working-class economic discrete PSA's and took that energy and directed it towards England as the energy ultimately to preserve their privileged position so generally Zinn is talking about the role of class tensions in the road to revolution and eventually how you know the celebrated Declaration of Independence is notable for its emissions emitting women slaves and of course Indians I'll talk about this okay so back to the chronology last time we covered the series of taxes leading

2:20 to increasingly tense relations we talked about the Sam Stamp Act the Stamp Act Congress the protest the repeal of the Stamp Act but at how the same time Parliament issued the declaratory act so the Stamp Act was repealed as a mistake but basically at the same time Parliament said yes we still do have the authority to make laws and tax the colonies at least as far as intercolonial Commerce was concerned the repeal of the Stamp Act was greeted as a victory by colonists and relations temporarily calmed down nonetheless here's a British cartoon by British conservatives showing how the Stamp Act

3:07 was being buried it was taken to its funeral and it's suggesting that this is a not a good thing that this is was a weak move on the part of the British government in any case the tug of war between colonies and Parliament continues just as in the midst of all of this actually as the celebration of the Stamp Act repeal that's going on there had already been another Act passed meanwhile Parliament had already passed the quartering act which stirred up new controversy according to this act the colonists were required to find quarters living accommodations for British soldiers stationed in America only if

3:53 regular barrack space was not available so colonists were required to house British soldiers in Inns or Barnes or sheds not actually their houses and provide them with basic supplies colonists worship were supposed to supply the soldiers with bedding utensils liquor this was something that was deeply resented by the colonists because they now looked at the British Army as the enemy they no longer needed the protection of the army against the French and basically believe that this army was there to destroy their American liberties and for instance we mentioned this last time it was the British Army

4:40 preventing them from settling the western lands that they still wanted you know that the British Army were helping the Indians not them the settlers all of the colonies resented the quartering act and no colony actually fulfilled it fully they refused to go along with it but New York was particularly rebellious against it and that's because New York was particularly Hardy hard hit by the quartering act New York was the setter center of the British Army meanwhile we would see another series of harsh legislation and taxes the the rejoicing following the news of the Stamp Act repeal was short-lived and soon other

5:26 problems developed in January 1766 the New York Assembly flat-out refused to contribute support for British troops as required by the quartering act not looked at in a positive way by the British government then violent clashes and street fighting erupted between British soldiers and Sons of Liberty in New York City at the urging of the new prime minister named Charles Townsend Parliament went so far as to suspend the legislative power of the New York Assembly that's pretty strong so the his name is Charles Townsend and a new series of Acts would be named from the Townsend accent

6:11 Townsend was the head of the new wig ministry that came to power in August 1766 the Whigs in Britain are the more liberal party who often took a more moderate friendly progressive attitude towards the colonies so Townsend was opposed to further domestic taxes in England England was already overtaxed it had to pay for its national debt but he could not further squeeze the English so Townsend was in the position of needing to raise revenue from the colonies so he cleverly accepted the Americans distinction between it external taxes and internal taxes but

6:56 remember external taxes was like intercolonial commerce internal taxes were taxes designed for revenue revenue so he cleverly accepted the Americans distinction between external and internal taxes and decided to only levy external taxes which even many Patriots accepted as constitutional Townsend took advantage of this distinction between external and internal taxes by loving customs duties external taxes in import taxes in other words on various goods lead paints paper glass silk and tea so various goods that I listed imported

7:43 from Britain so it this included import taxes on British lead paint paper glass silk and tea again this would be to pay for the colonial administration and the cost of the army however by now public sentiment had changed by now many Americans no longer accepted the distinction between internal and external taxes or many Americans really didn't understand it in the first place the Stamp Act Congress made it clear that it objected to any tax that raised revenue in the colonies

8:30 whether external or internal so what I'm trying to suggest is that by now the mood is more radical and many colonists reject both internal and external taxes for instance there was a flurry of radical pamphlets rejecting this one of the most important ones was John Dickinson's letters from a Pennsylvania farmer basically he argued that accepting these arbitrary parliamentary taxes would make Americans into slaves or something like European serfs in the old regime so in

9:16 other words this pamphlet attacked the towns and duties as illegal it emphasized the illegality of collecting taxes as opposed to regulating Commerce the taxes the Townsend acts are also fought against in other ways so in addition to political pamphlets protesting these taxes on the grounds that the colonists weren't represented in Parliament the colonists fought back through economic means at the same time colonists organized boycotts of British goods non importation simply meaning

10:03 refusing to import British goods and this is something organized by consumers themselves and women in many cities mob violence erupted and the public openly defied the customs regulations you know banning smuggling and whatnot so um in response to this non importation and the mob violence against these taxes that developed in various cities particularly Boston and New York this alarmed the the British government it was particularly this violence was

10:50 particularly strong in Boston the violence against the towns and acts alarmed the Massachusetts royal governor to the extent that he set alarming reports to the British government the British government's response was Swift in response the the British government ordered the British commander and chief of the army Sir Thomas Gage to move troops from New York City to Boston and also ordered an additional two regiments to be sent from Great Britain so all of these troops were now sent to be quartered in Boston to keep a close watch on the rebellious people of Boston the troops were greeted not surprisingly with hostility in Boston at the same time that

11:37 Massachusetts legislature was dissolved pretty Swift and drastic response again what proved to be effective in really persuading the British against this was non importation of goods thanks to women thanks to women organized in groups calling themselves the daughters of Liberty because this obviously affected British merchants who weren't able to sell their goods so by the end of 1769 mostly in deference to English merchants who felt the squeeze when the Americans refused to buy and

12:24 import their goods the Parliament the British Parliament decide to repeal the Townshend Acts because you know then the boycotts were powerful however Parliament repealed all of the Townsend acts the tax on paper led all of those things I mentioned except for one thing except for the tax on tea the tea tax was retained as Lord North the new prime minister told Parliament on March 5th 1770 that the tea tax would be quote a mark of the supremacy of Parliament an efficient declaration of their right to govern the colony Lord

13:09 North in 1770 was a new prime minister a Tory a conservative hand-picked by the king and he took a pretty hard line against the colonies I don't expect you to know all these Prime Minister but I'm just mentioning their names so like it was sort of similar to what we saw with the declaratory act right they repealed the Stamp Act but left the principle there that they still had the power to legislate and tax the colonies the same thing here the township towns and acts are removed with the exception of the tax on tea merely to show that the British still had the right to tax the colonies meanwhile things would take a violent turn on the same day that the Townsend Acts were repealed violence

13:59 erupted in Boston and this is something that's covered very well in Howard Zinn's chapter and I'd like you to read about it they are because the Boston Massacre was really really something centered in working-class grievances okay everyday men and women in the big cities Boston New York etc grew increasingly hostile to British policy and visible symbols of British authority like flags royal shields etc and this was especially strong in Patriot hotbeds like Boston Boston was a hotbed of anti-british sentiment and hostility especially since all of these additional soldiers had been stationed in Boston from New York the massacre the Boston

14:45 Massacre was something that was triggered by working-class discontent as Howard Zinn covers very well the massacre the Boston Massacre occurred on March 5th 1770 that's March 5th 1770 and the massacre was triggered by the fact that these off-duty British soldiers basically began to compete with working-class Bostonians for odd jobs when they were not on duty as soldiers they picked up odd jobs as manual laborers working the docks working as rope makers working as various artisanal trades and this is what really started

15:30 it on March 5th 1770 mob of working-class men began to harass the British guard who were standing sentry at the Customs House a captain in the British Army Captain Thomas Preston gathered more soldiers and came to the aid of the century the century however the mob continued to pellet the soldiers with missiles and you know through stones and whatnot at them suddenly someone yelled fire and the soldiers began to shoot into the mob Christmas Atticus who was a black seaman may have

16:16 actually hit a British soldier he was killed and four others were killed so around four Americans were killed in this scuffled again the the Boston Massacre was something that erupted due to working-class violence and tension between working-class Bostonians who or jealous hated the British soldiers and also jealous of the way that the British soldiers were taking up their part-time jobs it was something that attracted huge popular attention a huge mass of everyday Bostonians attended the funeral for the for the Americans who were killed in this Boston Massacre again

17:05 however after the Boston after this Boston Massacre relations temporarily calm down just like before so the Boston Massacre occurred in March 1770 and just like as before after these other crises after the stand back etc relations calm down British American trade actually revived and thrived things sort of went back to normal however radical patriot politicians never forgot the Boston Massacre and publicized in Justices through pamphlets political pamphlets and through committees of Correspondence committees it's correspondents were basically

17:51 letter-writing chains of the 18th century elite lawyers merchants wrote each other letters to keep people informed of the events it's the closest to social media you might have in a century meanwhile however the tax on tea still remained as part of the Townsend acts but Americans widely evaded the tax on tea on British teeth by smuggling in tea from Dutch and French sources one final act however would once again heat up tensions between British British and American so let's talk about the next act which was called the Tea Act

18:37 okay the Tea Act of 1773 if you remember all of the Townsend acts were repealed with the exception of the tax on tea and things calm down however the period of calm came to a sudden end in 1773 with the Tea Act the new prime minister in 1770 was lured north he was a Tory he was a conservative he was hand a plagued by the king and took a bit of a harder line on the colonies then the Liberals nonetheless Lord North tried to pursue a policy of conciliation cooperation with the colonies that would please both the British merchants and hopefully also the

19:23 Troublesome rebellious colonists okay here is his plan he wanted to help the financial problems of the struggling East India Company a British joint stock company he wanted to help the financial problems of the East India Company by allowing it to export tea to the colonies without paying usual customs duties and the company's tea would actually be cheaper then Dutch tea smuggled into the colonies so let me explain the details of this plan with the Tea Act you should understand by the time I'm done talking about it that Lord North intended this to be a good deal to the

20:09 colonists and I'll tell you why so the East India Company was a joint stock company but it stood on the verge of bankruptcy at this time due to fraud mismanagement and corruption on the verge of bankruptcy its last remaining asset was like a quantity of about eighteen million pounds of tea but the tea could not be easily sold in America or or Britain because taxes on the English he made smuggled Dutch or French team much cheaper right so to help the company the British government decided under the Tea Act that the export duties

20:56 on British tea would be eliminated so to help the company the British government eliminated the export tax on British tea and at the same time maintain the existing three pence a pound import duty on tea brought to America so that's a little bit complicated and tricky but basically the the agreement reached with this tea act meant that the East India Company's tea would actually be cheaper than foreign tea and that the East India Company could under sell American merchants who sold smuggled French or

21:41 Dutch tea so once again the the tea the tea act maintained the import duty on British tea brought to America but it eliminated the export duty that the British merchants had to pay when they exported it what that basically meant was that East India Company tea was cheaper to consumers than the Dutch and French team that was illegal and smuggled in the first pace first place so Lord north thought that he was getting the best of both worlds he was helping the East India Company get back on its feet and he was also offering Americans a way of fair taxation because the tax on tea was actually less than before and cheaper

22:27 than foreign sources of tea so Lord darts expected the Americans to appreciate the bargain but he was wrong opposition to the Tea Act United constitutional principle and economic interest the mericans didn't care if the East India Company tea he was actually cheaper on the part of the consumers and for merchants it didn't work at all merchants already had large supplies of foreign tea and they were out of luck they face ruined and they viewed this policy as a sort of monopolistic competition in addition accepting the Tea Tax would legitimate Parliament's claim that it had the right to tax and by now most Americans now reject this distinction between an

23:13 external and internal taxes so in response once again there were economic boycotts and use of substitute items women daughters of Liberty began serving liberty tea of dried raspberries kerbin currants other herbs or big drank coffee so most of the ships of the East India Company arrived in ports and the big commercial cities but merchants refused to sell it the company was forced to return the tea without being told sold however the royal governors of some of the colonies like Massachusetts the

23:59 Massachusetts royal governor determined that this that de TB unloaded and sold but radicals like Samuel Adams and his followers in the Sons of Liberty they banded together and determined that the tea not be sold so once again the merchants refused to comply refused to have the tea sold of course we're coming to a discussion of the famous Boston Tea Party on December 16 1773 a group of 60 men gathered at Fulton's carpenter's shop in Boston mrs. Fulton disguised them as Mohawk Indians and these quote-unquote Indians

24:46 boarded three East India Company ships and dumped a huge amount of tea into the Boston Harbor they dumped about ten thousand pounds of tea into the harbor which would have been a huge sum of money the the owner of the shop Sarah fullen is regarded as the mother of the Boston Tea Party she provided the costumes disguises really allowed this to happen hundreds of men and women watched this Boston Tea Party from the harbor so it was a protest of the Tea Act of course what was the reaction to this Boston Tea Party the reaction was

25:31 violent and immediate and swift by the British government Lord North the conservative Tory Prime Minister wanted to punish the Bostonians at first he wanted to prosecute only those directly involved but that group proved impossible a tricky and difficult because of the disguises and whatnot so um Lord North actually decided to punish the entire city of Boston and Massachusetts this decision to punish the people of Boston was controversial it went against liberals William Pitt warned against it at this as well as Edmund Burke who warned that this punishment of Boston would only further

26:16 unite the colonies to Massachusetts South Side and it did so the result the punishment for the people of Boston and Massachusetts were the so called Intolerable Acts this was a nickname the Americans gave them past in 1774 so the intolerable tolerable Acts or a series of laws passed by Parliament to punish Massachusetts and the Bostonians for their insouciant rebellious illegal behavior the Intolerable Acts had many provisions first the port of Boston was to be closed off except for a few food and fuel all other goods were barred the port of Boston was to be closed except

27:03 for the trading of food and fuel until the East India Company was paid back the East India Company was to be paid back for the damages in the tea party second was the Massachusetts governor government Act the Massachusetts Government Government Act the Massachusetts Government Act amended the charter of Massachusetts and made it less democratic it took the power of selecting the colonial council away from the assembly and gave it to the governor the royal governor appointed by the king was given the power to appoint and remove judges sheriffs and other law for enforcement officials and limited town hall meetings to occurring once a year

27:49 so in effect the government act was a Royal Fiat that stripped Massachusetts of its democratic self-government fourth Massachusetts got a new governor who was General Thomas Gage commander-in-chief of the British forces in America and it was a sort of military governor sort of martial law type state imposed by gage there was also revisions the quartering act even more troops or stationed in Massachusetts and Boston and that's the gist of the Intolerable Acts it also

28:35 gave officials who helped the British to the chance to have fair trials in England if they weren't available in the colonies the Intolerable Acts were widely hated by the Bostonians and the call honest in general the Intolerable Acts rally the other colonies to support the people of Massachusetts food shortages occurred because of the way the port was closed and food was transported to Boston to help the people and there were other charitable campaigns one other thing that happens at this time in 1774 was the Quebec Act the Quebec Act extended the border of Quebec in the south to the Ohio River and West to the

29:22 Mississippi and the important thing the border of Quebec is extended but the area of Quebec would be ruled by a governor and a council appointed by the king in this new province of Quebec there would be no representative assembly Catholics would enjoy full civil rights why are we discussing this now well basically to the English colonists to Patriots the Quebec acts seemed to be part of a malicious anti-democratic plot it's like in the same category as the Intolerable Acts and basically it's seen in the same anti-democratic repressive vein as the Intolerable Acts the new problems would

30:09 have a royal royal governor no assembly and they see it all in the same vein the Quebec Act seemed part of a malicious anti-democratic plot designed to prevent them from settling on Western lands and instead the lands would be people with Catholics and people who supported absolutism and British despotism not the freedom-loving colonists okay this brings us to the First Continental Congress so this was an inter inter colonial meeting called in 1774 to discuss how to deal with these punitive harsh pause policies like the Intolerable Act

30:57 definitely the First Continental Congress which met in Philadelphia evidence the opposition to British colonial policy most delegates now at the Continental Congress believed that Parliament was guilty of exceeding its authority over the colonies so the the the Continental Congress consisted of delegates from all of the colonies with the exception of Georgia and there were many different proposals and ideas floated around for instance delegates proposed that British authorities grant America its own legislature the legislature would be elected by the individual colonial assemblies and it would be presided over by a president

31:43 General appointed by the king after this all measures affecting American affairs would have to be approved both by parliament in England and this American Parliament so this plan was a plan of Union to basically make the British Empire into a federal Empire America would get its own legislature and would sort of be a parallel to Parliament but this federal plan was really never taken seriously or supported by a majority of delegates relations had deteriorated to the point where most delegates no longer were willing to accept this federal solution so much parliamentary control

32:29 over the colonies that this plan required more radical delegates favorite a different plan the so called supple resolves the Suffolk resolves the Suffolk resolves were Geoff were drafted by Massachusetts politicians the Suffolk resolves condemned the Intolerable Act and urged the people of Massachusetts and the colonies not to import export or consume British goods in any form and also withhold payment of taxes to Great Britain it also called for a force of citizen militiamen to protect the colonists rights by force so this was obviously a much more radical measure than the first proposal I went over

33:17 however while the cephalic resolved attacks attacked Parliament's attempts to unjustly tax them and it questioned the Intolerable Acts they did not actually question Parliament's right to regulate external commerce what was the response of the British government Lord North the Prime Minister the Tory Prime Minister followed the Kings advice and declared that the colonies quote must either submit or triumph and took a hard line Lord North made a last-ditch effort to compromise he offered to the colonies that if they made a voluntary Sun every year to pay for a colonial administration and defense then Parliament would not tax them they would

34:02 also be required to send reinforcements to the regular British army so he sends them this is this compromise plan meanwhile however events began to spiral out of control meanwhile British the British ordered troops to Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts to destroy the military stores the munitions guns being collected by the Colonials in preparation for this citizen militia Patriots like William Dawes and Paul Revere soon spread the word that the British troops were trying to seize the colonial military stores and a handful of Minutemen that is to say citizen

34:49 volunteers American citizen volunteers met the British at Lexington in Massachusetts on April 19th 1775 at Lexington so at Lexington on April 19 1775 shots were fired the Minutemen withdrew and the British then moved on nearby to Concord where another skirmish took place between the British and American soldiers now so this is the first battle of the American Revolution the Battle of Lexington and Concord however by the time they returned to Boston Americans had picked off about 70

35:34 British soldiers killing 70 and wounded another 170 and so that is the very first battle in the American Revolution which was followed by the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 in the battle the Americans seized breeds Hill overlooking Boston British troops arrived about 2,500 British troops attempted to take the hill but were beaten back twice by the Americans only when the Americans ran short of ammunition did they make an orderly retreat to Bunker Hill giving up breeds Hill overlooking Boston British

36:22 casualties were around thousand Americans were four hundred at the Battle of Bunker Hill the hill was taken by the British but I'm mentioning it now the point is that we're Americans Americans were encouraged by Bunker Hill because it proved they could hold their own against the British so the Americans did have far less casualties than the British and these were the first shots the first battles of the American Revolution meanwhile we're not going through a military play-by-play of the American Revolution that's tedious meanwhile more on the ideological underpinnings the Second Continental Congress 1775 276 had a very different

37:11 climate than the first Congress this time all 13 colonies were present if you remember Georgia was not present at the First Continental Congress at the Congress the Congress voted to raise funds for an army with George Washington as its head still while the Congress voted to take arms to take up arms against the British they still viewed the conflict as a civil war between Britons and denied that it was an independence struggle they still wanted to reconcile they still wanted to be British citizens they sent the King the so-called Olive Branch petition which begged him to make some

37:57 sort of reconciliation that might make the American colonists again happy and affectionate subjects however as early as the Stamp Act many radical politicians believed that Parliament no longer had legislative authority over the colonies and now by the time of the Second Continental Congress the majority of delegates endorsed this the majority of delegates considered their only link to Great Britain really being in loyalty to the person of the king however the king decided to ignore the Olive Branch petition this changed their sentiments

38:43 when the king not only ignored the Olive Branch petition but declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion and distaff dispatched additional troops to the colonies this drastically altered their opinions and independence was definitely now on the table a critical pamphlet that comes out at this time was Thomas Paine's Commons sense it's published in January 1776 it was definitely one of the most widely read pamphlets of this period and was written in a clear and accessible way that everyday people could understand if people hadn't actually read it themselves they probably would have heard of the ideas from others in common

39:32 sense Thomas Paine basically argued that independence was only common sense American independence was necessary and attainable he directly blamed the colonies problems and plight on the king and denounces the policies of the British government as absolutist and sort of reflecting divine right monarch he denounces the king as a pharaoh and condemns the the state of affairs of the present relations between Britain and America as reflecting a slavish relationship he provides a history of the British monarchy that went way back

40:20 to the time of the Norman Conquest and really does everything he can to discredit monarchy and argue that that it was time to part and that independence was necessary like I said it was a best-seller it went through multiple editions and again what's written in a way to be accessible to the common man and really made a tremendous impact on Americans and many were convinced by Thomas Paine's theory that England had this conspiracy to reduce Americans to a state of slavery meanwhile speaking of slavery racial violence was definitely a

41:08 part of the revolution and for instance happened in Virginia at this time in 1775 Lord Dunmore the royal governor of Virginia was a loyalist and in 1775 Lord Dunmore the governor of Virginia incited racial violence pitting slaves against masters when basically he granted freedom to slaves whose masters rose in revolt against Great Britain so if you declared yourself to be a patriot supporting independence basically he's pitting your slaves against you granting those slaves freedom this was something that was very controversial and something that Jefferson is concerned

41:54 with we'll talk about this later in any case in summer 1776 the Continental Congress decided that it was going to move for independence it was first proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia who said that quote these United colonies are and of right ought be free and independent states a committee consisted of robert Livingston from New York Roger Sherman from Connecticut Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania and John John Adams from Massachusetts was tear shed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and this committee chaired by Thomas Jefferson was charged with drafting a document explaining why

42:42 colonial independence was justified now we're not gonna really go into the ideology of this right now I'm gonna save this for next week but suffice it to say that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th 1776 Jefferson was very much influenced by John Locke and his idea of the consent of the government of the government I'm sorry Locke was very influential to Jefferson and Locke's idea of the government resting on the consent of the government govern and when the authority of the king degenerated into a state of tyranny it was the right and duty of the

43:29 people to overthrow that government the Declaration listed 39 examples of the Kings despotism I'm going to cover the influence of Locke on Jefferson next week and really get into the etiology more but suffice it to say for now the Declaration is issued on July 4th 1776 which now gave ideological underpinning to this war and conflict the more interesting question about the American Revolution is what were the stakes of the American Revolution who was it for who was it not for and who was it left out and obviously the Declaration of Independence as important as it was was something that did not necessarily apply

44:16 to black slaves women or Native Americans and the American Revolution was not a revolution of class or racial or gender relations so I'm gonna leave you with that thought this lecture was pretty much a straightforward you know chronology of events and we'll return to talking about the ideology of the American Revolution next week thank you very much for your attention