Part II: The Era of the American Revolution 1760-1800
Copyright © 2010, Henry J. Sage

Introduction. Part two of your course covers the period from 1760 to 1800, the era of the American Revolution. I have said elsewhere that the first half of American history has a plot: a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The beginning of early American history takes us through 1760 (though history rarely divides itself into clear-cut eras), when the colonies were developed to the extent that they had the capacity to become a separate nation.  In fact, the Americans were already a different people by 1760, if for no other reason than through their physical separation from the mother country.

It has been said that contact with a frontier environment changes people and the way they think, and there is much evidence to support that claim for American history well into the 19th century.  Practices that were accepted as normal in the home country did not necessarily work in America, and skills that were undervalued in Europe offered a path to self-sufficiency for many American colonists.  Life in the fields and forests of America was very different from life in the streets and alleys in London as well as in the British countryside.

I have also suggested that there was a difference between the people who came to America, at least those who came voluntarily, and the people who did not. It took a certain character to leave one's hearth and home and family and travel across the ocean on a dangerous voyage into an uncertain future.  The conditions that confronted the colonists when they arrived, especially in the early decades, must have caused them to rethink the way they intended to live their lives.

As we shall see, it is ironic that the Americans who rebelled were in many ways the freest people in the civilized world in 1760.  Until then the hand of government had touched them but lightly; even where British laws sought to control their lives, as with the navigation acts, Americans found it easy to work their way around the legal restrictions imposed by the Empire. In short, the colonists had gotten used to doing things their own way.  When the British decided to change that and attempted to bring the Americans back into the fold, as they saw it from their perspective, the Americans were not so sure they wanted to go. In that sense, the American Revolution was not only about change, but about preserving a way of life to which the hardy colonists had grown accustomed.

The American Revolution: 1763–1800

The American Revolution is one of those events that virtually all Americans celebrate with enthusiasm. As much as anything, Americans value freedom, the liberty to live their lives as they see fit with as little interference as possible from higher authority.  That was the impetus that drove many emigrants from England and other countries to America during the colonial era.  It was that same impulse that triggered feelings of rebellion once the British ceased treating the colonies with more or less benign neglect.  And that same impulse for freedom still drives the thinking of many Americans in the 21st century.  As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis put it, the American people insist on “the right to be left alone.”

1763–1800:  Why Those Dates?

Almost all American historians begin the Revolutionary Era with the year 1763.  The Treaty of Paris of that year ended the Seven Years, or French and Indian War, and Great Britain, standing “astride the globe like a colossus,” turned her attention to her colonies as a means of securing her frontiers and beginning to ease the huge debt that resulted from decades of war.  The tensions between the colonists and the mother country, which had always been present to some degree, began to sharpen, and twelve years later the war broke out.

The ending date of the Revolution is not so easy to ascertain.  The year 1783, which brought the Treaty of Paris and official recognition of American independence, is certainly one possible date.  Many historians have extended the date to 1789, the year in which the Constitution went into effect.  Certainly there is logic in that, for it is clear that the newly created states could not have survived and prospered under the Articles of Confederation, so it is fair to argue that without the Constitution the Revolution would not have been fully complete.

This author will argue that the Revolution was sealed to a great extent in the year 1800 when a Republican president and a Republican Congress replaced the Federalists, who had been in power for twelve years under presidents Washington and Adams.  Thomas Jefferson recognized the significance of 1800 when he called the election of that year a “revolution”; what Jefferson meant was that for the first time in the modern world, political power at the top of a nation had changed hands without the shedding of blood.  There is good reason to endorse Jefferson’s claim and to say that once the democratic process had demonstrated that there could be an orderly transfer of power in United States, then the true goals of the Revolution had been achieved.

Despite the often contentious nature of our modern elections, we take it for granted that power will regularly change hands without bloody rioting.  But in the 1790s that was no certainty, for the country was in perhaps the most agitated political state in which it has ever found itself, with the exception of the Civil War years.  At least one noted historian has argued that had the Republicans not won the election of 1800, the country might well have broken up or resorted to violence.  Although we associate secession with the Civil War era, it was openly discussed even at that earlier time, as the different areas of the country found themselves unable to agree on the proper course of the American nation under a Constitution that had, in some respects, been left deliberately vague.

For those reasons we assert that the 1790s do belong to the Revolutionary Era, for even after the Constitution was adopted, a certain time was required for the meaning of it all to begin to settle in.  For good reasons strong disagreement as to what was the true meaning of the Revolution—and even of the Constitution—existed for some time.  Thus we set 1800 as the end date of the Revolutionary Era.  In a real sense, however, the American Revolution has never ended, for as we debate our political differences and argue over laws, courts, politicians, and administrators, we continue to define the meaning of the American Revolution and American democracy.

General

We Americans tend to take our Revolution for granted.  We assume that it was inevitable, in more ways than one:  We assume that it had to happen, and that the outcome was more or less foreordained.  Both those assumptions have been challenged and are still worthy of discussion.  We also assume that the event was truly revolutionary, a radical break with the old order and old ideas.  That assumption also bears close scrutiny, for the American Revolution was in some ways conservative in that it did preserve much that was old, much that the colonists feared losing.

Yet historians such as Gordon Wood have argued that the American Revolution was as radical as any in history, an event that has had repercussions well into modern times and into corners of the world that few would connect with the events of 1776.  Our great revolution is in some ways still going on, in some ways still unfinished, but in many ways it continues to be an event that has the power to capture our collective imagination.

The issues surrounding the American Revolution include:

• How, when, and why did the Revolution really begin?
• Was the American Revolutionary War inevitable?
• Were the colonists justified in taking up arms against the Crown?
• How “glorious” was the cause, the war for independence itself?
• How revolutionary was the American Revolution?  What things changed and what remained the same?

BACKGROUND 1764-1774

We have said that the American Revolution is generally dated from 1763, but it can be argued that the Revolution actually began long before that.  We said in the section on colonial America that those who left their homelands to migrate to the new world separated themselves in fundamental ways from those who would not or could not make that journey.  If we assume that the people who chose to come were different, then we can say that the roots of the American Revolution actually go back to the old countries, and that the people who left were in a sense already in a state of rebellion.

Second, it has been argued in other contexts that the frontier experience of America had a leveling effect on people; that is, in a wilderness environment that always existed, at least on the fringes of colonial America, the skills needed for survival were unrelated to a person’s social or cultural background.  America needed and bred working people who were strong enough to withstand the rigors of colonial life, and they were not the sort of people who were likely to take kindly to a superior authority attempting to control their lives.

For the first hundred years of the colonization of North America by the English, from 1607 until early in the 18th century, the colonies were for the most part ignored by the Crown, and very little if any British presence was felt on this side of the Atlantic.  But starting about 1700, world events more and more connected to colonies with the mother country.

The Second Hundred Years’ War

Starting in 1689 a series of wars sometimes known as the Second Hundred Years’ War began on the continent of Europe, and through 1763 each of those wars had a component that was fought out in North America, with much of the fighting being done by British troops.  The causes of the wars in Europe had to do with the dynastic ambitions of France’s Louis XIV and others, and they were extended into the colonial world because colonies were part of the empires struggling for power.

The colonists had their own names for the American component of those European wars, usually the name of the British monarch of the time:

Those colonial wars were part of a European struggle for empire.  Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of much of Central and South America, the other European nations came to believe that in order to compete with Spain and Portugal for power and prestige, they would have to develop colonies as well.  At the same time, the face of Europe was subject to change as the major powers, including Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Russia, Spain, and Sweden competed for domination of the smaller states and sought to extend their boundaries wherever practicable.  Those wars were fought over dynastic, economic, and religious impulses, and as the battlegrounds shifted, so did the alliance structure of the major powers.

We will not attempt to portray here the details of the European portion of those conflicts except where they directly affected colonial America.  Nor can we say that the only armed conflicts that occurred during this era where those listed above; localized quarrels could break out at almost any time.  Yet to some extent the face of Europe remained stabilized, even through this extended period of conflict, by a phenomenon referred to as the “balance of power.”  That term can be misleading in that it suggests a rigid structure somehow held in place by political forces.  But the theory of the balance of power can more accurately be described as a condition in which the European powers understood that if any one of them, or if a coalition of two or three major powers, became so strong as to threaten the interests of the other powers, those would organize to offset the potential aggressors.

Thus the War of the League of Augsburg was fought by a coalition designed to offset the wealth, power, and expansive actions of King Louis XIV of France.  When the Spanish monarch King Charles II expired in 1700 and left his throne to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV, the natural alliance thus created triggered another war called the War of Spanish Succession, designed to thwart the combined power of two very strong Catholic monarchs.  Similarly, when Frederick II, the “Great,” took advantage of the accession to the throne of Maria Teresa of Austria to invade the province of Silesia, the opponents of Prussia rallied round to defend themselves against Frederick’s military adventurism.

Because colonies were seen as sources of strength, the European conflicts were naturally extended into the colonial world, because the assumption was that gains on the colonial front could weaken the enemy and thus lead to a more favorable conclusion in the larger conflict.  From the perspective of the colonials, however, they were concerned chiefly with the safety and security of their colonial homes; thus they were willing to contribute to the imperial wars for their own sake, as well as for the fact that it was considered to be their duty as subjects of the Crown.

In the American colonies the wars were fought mostly on the northern and southern fringes, where the French in Canada and the Spanish in Florida employed Indian allies against the British colonists.  The precarious nature of life on the frontier meant that outlying towns and villages had to be prepared to defend themselves against a sudden attack.  During Queen Anne’s War an event known as the Deerfield Massacre occurred, when joint French and Indian forces struck the Massachusetts settlement at dawn in February of 1704.  Fifty-six colonists were killed, and the village was razed.  Approximately one hundred survivors were taken as prisoners back to Canada.  When the war was ended by treaty in 1713, the colonists remained frustrated, because the British had failed to defend them adequately against the French and Spanish and their Indian allies.

The Yemassee War of 1715 involved settlers in South Carolina fighting against a coalition of Yemassee, Creek, and other Indian tribes supported by the Spanish and French.  The conflict was part of the reason for the creation of the Georgia colony as a buffer against further Spanish encroachment.  Animosity toward the Spanish and French continued in the southern border colonies.

In the northern colonies, it was the French and their Indian allies who kept the British American colonists on their guard.  Their animosity was heightened by the fact that French Canada was Catholic.  In particular merchants of New England felt threatened by a base for privateers located at Louisburg in Nova Scotia, the former French territory of Acadia awarded to the British at the end of Queen Anne’s War.

The War of Jenkins’ Ear, named for an incident at sea when a Spanish officer cut off the ear of British Captain William Jenkins, which was later displayed in Parliament to the outrage of members, evolved into the War of Austrian Succession, which again involves all the major powers during the 1740s.  The American colonists were once again involved in their own component of yet another imperial war.
In 1745 a Maine merchant, William Pepperrell, organized an expedition of several thousand men from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to assault the fortress at Louisburg, which they successfully captured.  French attempts to recapture the fortress were thwarted, but with the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Louisburg was returned to the French, which nullified the most significant victory ever won by the American colonists.  In order to assuage colonial anger, parliament reimbursed the colonial governments for expenditures during the war.  It was neither the first nor the last that the colonists would feel betrayed by the mother country.

The French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War)

The last of the great wars for empire actually began in America.  By 1754 the French had made great inroads in North America, extending their control from Canada through the Ohio Valley and down the Mississippi to New Orleans.  The British found themselves constrained to the territory between the Atlantic coast and the Appalachian Mountains. British colonial governors were ever on guard against further encroachments by the hated French “papists” (Catholics), and in 1754 Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent young Lieutenant Colonel George Washington on a mission to warn the French.  When Washington reported that the French had no intentions of removing themselves, Dinwiddie ordered construction of a fort on the site of present-day Pittsburgh, but the French captured the site and built Fort Duquesne.  Washington’s attempt to retake Fort Duquesne with Virginia militia was unsuccessful.

In 1755 British General Edward Braddock once again led an expedition of British forces and colonials under Colonel Washington to Fort Duquesne.  Braddock was mortally wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness, and Washington organized and led the retreat of the defeated army.  Disgusted with Braddock’s performance and frustrated with his subordinate position, Washington’s animosity toward the British began to take shape.  (Washington’s frustration was heightened by the fact that British regular officers of any rank, down to the lowliest lieutenants, outranked all colonial officers.)
In 1756 the war spread to Europe where it became the Seven Years’ War, sometimes called the “Great War for Empire.”  In 1757 the French Marquis de Montcalm moved from Canada down through Lake Champlain and Lake George and captured Fort William Henry, the battle in which survivors under British Colonel Munro were attacked by Indians frustrated that Montcalm had allowed the British a peaceful retreat, denying them their promised plunder. (The Battle of Ft. William Henry is depicted in Michael Mann’s film Last of the Mohicans.)

The war seemed to be going badly for the British when William Pitt took over as prime minister and began directing the war by sending substantial reinforcements to America.  Under the leadership of Generals Jeffrey Amherst and James Wolfe, the British in 1759 turned the tables in what became known as the “year of miracles.”  In a brilliant amphibious operation, General Wolfe crossed the St. Lawrence River, moved his force stealthily up onto the Plains of Abraham, drew the French army into battle, and captured the city of Québec.  When Lord Jeffrey Amherst subsequently captured the city of Montréal, the French governor surrendered the entire province of Canada.

The Treaty of Paris in 1763 formally ended the last of these colonial-imperial wars, and Great Britain was clearly triumphant.  France ceded all of Canada to the British as well as all territory east of the Mississippi except the city of New Orleans.  East and West Florida were also awarded by Spain to the British, who now controlled virtually all of eastern North America.

Two events that took place during the French and Indian War are worthy of note.  In 1754 a Congress was organized in Albany in order to solidify British alliances with some of the friendly Indian tribes.  During this Congress Benjamin Franklin introduced what became known as the Albany Plan of Union, which would have organized the colonies into a defensive alliance for their collective benefit.  Colonial leaders, however, were reluctant to cede any of their authority, and the plan was never realized.  The Americans were not yet ready to form any sort of union.

The second event was the British-forced evacuation of the old French province of Acadia, which had been renamed Nova Scotia.  The Acadians were French Catholics who had settled there, and when forced to leave, they scattered among the other American colonies and into the Caribbean.  Some even returned to France.  Later, many of them migrated into Spanish Louisiana in the New Orleans area, where they were welcomed.  The name Acadian was eventually transformed into “Cajun,” and the area in Louisiana where they settled and where their descendants still reside has been officially designated by the state as the region of Acadiana.  The Cajuns, who still speak a French dialect, form one of the rich subcultures of America; their motto is laissez les bons temps rouler!

Summary of Conditions in 1763

In 1763 the British empire stretched around the world, from North America to India and points in between.  The casual, haphazard system of colonial governance would no longer be sufficient.  The mighty empire required administration and leadership far beyond that to which the colonies had become accustomed.  Furthermore, the long series of wars had left the British deeply in debt, and Britain’s far-flung possessions would be costly to manage.  All the same, Great Britain was a wealthy nation, though a great portion of the wealth lay in private hands.

British officers who had served in America returned home to report a prosperous colonial enterprise, whose cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, although perhaps not quite up to the standards of London or Paris, nevertheless contained a population many of whom were quite well off.  With a population of approximately 1.5 million, America was now too large to be ignored and wealthy enough to be exploited.

The influence of the Enlightenment had touched America, and radically new ideas of government including that of republicanism had reached across the Atlantic.  Because of such things as the Puritan emphasis on reading and the general prosperity of the average citizen, Americans were quite familiar with the new ideas being propounded by the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and other philosophes of the French salons and were well versed in political philosophy from reading John Locke.  American ideology also emphasized the idea of “virtue” as a necessary component of political structure—an idea from the Enlightenment.

Of all the shortcomings of British management of their American cousins, their failure to perceive the political sophistication of the colonists was a crucial flaw.  (Failures caused by not understanding one’s potential adversaries have, of course, by no means been limited to the British in 1760.)  A second major misunderstanding lay in the British perception that although they had neglected to enforce various import and export restrictions for decades, the colonists would understand their responsibilities as parts of the empire and readily conform to new and stricter controls.

By 1760 smuggling had become a major American enterprise.  Given that it was expensive to maintain revenue cutters and other patrol vessels along a thinly populated American coast filled with many bays, inlets, and rivers in which vessels could hide themselves, the British had found it far from cost-effective to try to enforce navigation laws.  In 1761 the British began to reinforce writs of assistance, laws that granted customs officials the authority to conduct random searches of property to seek out goods on which required duties had not been paid, not only in public establishments but in private homes.  Representing New England’s merchants, attorney James Otis protested against these general warrants, claiming that “a man’s house is his castle,” and that violating its sanctity was a “wanton exercise” of power.

In 1763 the British took another fateful step.  Understandably wishing to reduce the cost of maintaining its empire, the British felt that if the North Americans would not interfere with the Indians, guarding of the frontiers would be much less demanding and less costly.  Thus in 1763 a royal proclamation was issued that reserved all of the western territory between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi for use by the Indians.  The colonists, now that the French were no longer present to rile and equip the Indians, saw the vast open reaches beyond the mountains as greener pastures to which they were entitled.  The proclamation was thus seen as high-handed and uncalled for.

1764.  The North American Revenue (Sugar) Act and the Currency Act.

The next step was the “Sugar” Act of 1764, and it quickly became apparent that the purpose of the act was to extract revenue from America.  The Molasses Act of 1733 had placed a tax of six pence per gallon on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies.  In 1764 the British lowered the tax to three pence, but now decided to enforce it.  In addition, taxes were to be placed on other items such as wines, coffee, and textile products, and other restrictions were applied.  The Act authorized Vice Admiralty Courts, which took the place of jury trials; judges terms were changed to “at the pleasure of the Crown”; and so on.

The Currency Act of 1764 prohibited “legal tender” paper in Virginia, which reduced the circulation of paper money in America, further burdening the colonies, which were always short of hard currency.  The British enforcement of the “Sugar” or “Molasses” Act quickly cut into the economic welfare of the colonies by causing a slump in the production of rum.  Americans were becoming increasingly leery of what they perceived as British attempts to milk more profits from the colonies.  Meetings were called to protest the law, and the idea of “taxation without representation” began to take shape.

The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.” —John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

Although the American colonists were unhappy with the restrictions on trade and various import and export duties, they were not necessarily philosophically opposed to the right of the British to control trade, especially as they found it easy to avoid the attendant duties.  The Stamp Act of 1765, however, opened a new door.  John Adams and others believed that the Stamp Act was the point at which the real American Revolution began, in “the hearts and minds” of the people, as Adams put it.  The Stamp Act caused a furious storm in the streets of New York, Boston, Richmond, and elsewhere.

The Act required that revenue stamps be placed on all newspapers, pamphlets, licenses, leases, and other legal documents, and even on such innocuous items as playing cards.  The revenue from the act, which was to be collected by colonial American customs agents, was intended for “defending, protecting and securing” the colonies.  The use of the revenue did not bother anyone; the fact that it was being collected solely for revenue purposes without the consent of the colonies bothered all kinds of people, especially those who conducted business of any kind.  Those who objected to the act included journalists, lawyers, merchants, and other businessmen, men likely to be community leaders, and well-known public figures such as James Otis, John Adams, and wealthy businessman John Hancock.

The protests soon moved beyond the mere voices of opposition.  Men selected to be collectors of the new taxes were openly threatened with violence, and many resigned their posts before they had collected anything.  Associations were formed to encourage nonimportation (boycotts) of British goods.  Colonial legislatures nullified the act, and shipments of stamps were destroyed.  Sons of Liberty organizations and committees of correspondence were formed to create a feeling of solidarity among the afflicted.

In Virginia, resolutions were adopted denouncing taxation without representation.  The colonists were not denying their status as British citizens subject to the Crown, but rather were expressing their rights as British citizens not to be taxed without their consent through duly appointed or elected representatives.  The Massachusetts Assembly called a Stamp Act Congress for October 1765 in New York City.  Among the resolutions passed by the Congress were the following:

• That His Majesty’s subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great Britain.
• That His Majesty’s liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain.
• That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.
• That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.
• That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.

Although the British realized that they had blundered into a minefield, they still sought to assert the right of the British government to govern the colonies as it saw fit.  The British   followed a principle of “virtual representation,” which meant that Parliament governed for the entire empire and noted that there were areas of England itself that were not represented in Parliament (to which the colonists replied that they should be).  The theory was that “what’s good for the British empire is good for all its parts.”

In truth the colonists benefited greatly from being part of the British Empire.  They could trade freely within the entire British colonial system, which meant worldwide ports were open to them.  Furthermore, when they traveled outside the trade routes of the empire itself, they were always protected by the mighty Royal Navy.  Flying the British flag, the colonists knew that they had a staunch protector when they ventured into foreign waters.  Unfortunately, the British focused their attention on the duties of the colonists rather than on the benefits they enjoyed from their position within the British Empire.
Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, in part because their constituents in England quickly perceived that if Parliament could extract revenue from the colonists with a free hand, they could also do so at home.  But as a warning to the colonies, they passed the Declaratory Act of 1766 on the same day.  The Act stated that Parliament had the right to rule the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” Although the Americans had won something of a victory in the repeal of the Stamp Act, they were soon to find that the British attempts to raise revenue would not cease. 

In 1767 Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend decided that because the colonists had raised objections to the Stamp Act, he would reassert Great Britain’s right to impose new taxes on imported goods.  The Townshend duties placed taxes on glass, lead, tea, and paper.  He also imposed rules intended to tighten collection of customs duties in America.

In response, John Dickinson wrote the following in his Letters from an American Farmer.  Referring to claims of a material difference between the Stamp Act and the Townshend Duties and that the new taxes were therefore justified, Dickinson said:  “That we may be legally bound to pay any general duties on these commodities relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by the laws to take from Great-Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes, upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act.”
Dickinson’s point was followed by a new round of actions by the colonials to thwart British intentions.  For some time among the more prosperous folk of American cities, it had been fashionable for women to support the latest fashion from London.  Now politics intruded upon the fashion world, as the wearing of homespun became de rigueur.  To show one’s patriotism, in other words, women were to take the lead in providing clothing that was American made, not British made, a small but significant step in introducing American women into the political system. In Boston, agents attempting to collect the new duties were met with physical opposition, which led to the dispatching of two British regiments to Boston to maintain law and order.

The “Boston Massacre”

The presence of Redcoats in Boston, rather than calming the troubled waters, only roiled them further.  The typical British soldier of the time was a rough-hewn sort accustomed to taking advantage of his position to further his personal fortunes.  British soldiers sought employment during their off-duty hours and being unmarried males, they were accustomed to free-spirited entertainments.  The citizens of Boston often exchanged taunts and insults with the hated soldiers, and on the evening of March 5, 1770, violence erupted.

It began with a more or less rowdy mob taunting a group of soldiers guarding the Customs House.  Then the men began throwing snowballs, some containing  rocks, at the unfortunate soldiers, and threatening the Redcoats with clubs.  An officer, Captain Preston, appeared and read the Riot Act (an actual document) to those causing the disturbance, ordering them to disperse.  Tensions escalated, however, and someone shouted “Fire!”  Weapons were discharged, and five Bostonians were killed, including Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave.

Captain Preston and the eight soldiers were tried for murder, and their defender was none other than future American president John Adams.  Adams made a lengthy summary speech addressing the testimony of eyewitnesses, after which he concluded:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: . . . if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence.”

Captain Preston and most of the soldiers were acquitted.

The so-called Boston Massacre was the worst violence that had occurred so far in the British attempt to cool things down by repealing the Townshend taxes except for the duty on tea.  Things remained relatively quiet until 1772 when another event occurred in Rhode Island, known as the “Gaspee Affair.”  The Gaspee, a revenue cutter whose captain had successfully hunted down a number of smugglers, ran aground in Narragansett Bay, and during the night some locals sailed out, captured the crew, set fire and burned the schooner to the keel.  When British authorities made inquiries among nearby residents, they were met with stony silence.

The Boston Tea Party

The next event in the drama, not surprisingly, once again took place in Boston under the leadership of Samuel Adams, a cousin of John Adams who was even more revolutionary than his more famous relative.  The British East India Company found itself in dire financial straits and asked the government to issue a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies.  The company was also allowed to sell tea directly, bypassing merchants.  Perceiving that the British actions were directed against them, the colonists again resented the interference with their economic well-being. On top of everything else that had happened, the act seemed one more example of British indifference to colonial interests, which indeed it was.

All up and down the coast ships bearing East India Company tea were turned back, but in Boston the royal governor saw to it that the tea arrived in the harbor. Then, on the night of December 16, 1773, a band of colonials disguised in Indian dress, led by Sam Adams, boarded the British ships and dumped thousands of pounds of tea into Boston harbor.  Regardless of the motivations on either side, it was clear that the act involved destruction of property, an act that the British could not afford to allow to go unpunished. The Tea Party was intended to provoke the British, and it did. 

The Coercive Acts

Parliament’s response to the Boston Tea Party was five new laws—the “Coercive Acts”—that soon became known as the “Intolerable Acts,” which included the following:

• The Boston Port Bill closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for, a questionable tactic as commerce in the city would become paralyzed.
• The Administration of Justice Act abolished local administration of justice and provided that the governor of Massachusetts could cause all trials to be conducted in that colony to be removed to Great Britain and heard under a British judge so that the result would favor the British.
• The Massachusetts Government Act virtually suspended the right of self-government in the Massachusetts colony by ensuring that the governor and all public officials would serve “at the pleasure of his Majesty.”
• The Quartering Act, which required that troops be housed not only in commercial and empty buildings but in occupied dwellings such as homes as well.
• The Quebec Act extended the boundaries of Quebec and guaranteed religious freedom to Canadians.  Though not intended to be punitive, the measure fed into anti-Catholic sentiments.

The First Continental Congress

If the British thought that the course of acts would isolate the rebellious colony of Massachusetts and temper feelings elsewhere, they were sadly mistaken.  Throughout the colonies the feeling was widespread that whatever the British did in Boston could be done anywhere.  The Virginia House of burgesses suggested a meeting of colonial representatives that finally took place in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, “to consult upon the present unhappy state of the Colonies.”  Every colony except Georgia was represented among the fifty-five men present, who conducted lengthy debates.  Realizing that the rebellion had now reached a critical point, if not a point of no return, the delegates understood that unity would be necessary for the colonists to resist British actions.  Representatives included Samuel and John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and George Washington and Patrick Henry of Virginia.

The Congress resolved that the colonies were not obliged to obey the coercive acts, adopted a set of resolutions, and agreed to form a “Continental Association” designed to organize anti-British trade policies across all the colonies.  Their resolutions asserted that the colonists were “entitled to life, liberty and property” and would never give up any without their own consent.  They claimed their rights as British citizens, arguing that neither they nor their ancestors had forfeited any of those rights by being removed to the colonies.  They asserted their right to participate in the legislative process and argued that for practical reasons their participation in the British Parliament was not possible.  They rejected the right of any form of taxation on colonial subjects without their own consent.  They also declared that keeping standing armies in the colonies in time of peace was against the law.

The colonists were divided among those who are prepared to fight for their rights; those who favored discussion, negotiation, and compromise and were essentially loyal to the Crown; and the ever-present middle group who would wait to see how things progressed.  If King George and the leaders of Parliament had been more circumspect, they might in fact have appealed to the more moderate factions by attempting to lower the temperature and set things right.  But King George rejected a petition sent by Philadelphia Quakers and wrote, “The die is now cast, the Colonies must either submit or triumph,” thus dealing a blow to those of a loyalist or even moderate disposition.

It should be noted that in 1774 few Americans had the idea of independence in mind.  In fact George Washington wrote to a friend in that year that independence was the last thing any thinking man in North America could wish for.  But the colonists were determined to assert their rights, and the citizens around Boston began organizing militia groups known as “Minutemen” and assembling weapons and munitions in the event of possible action of a military nature. The pot was simmering and ready to boil.

The Next Step: The Shots Heard 'Round the World

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