The Shot Heard Round the World

 

In 1763 the British emerged victorious from the Seven Year's War with France.  With that Victory Britain expected to benefit as the dominant power in North America. However, the war had been extremely expensive and the British now expected the American colonies to contribute towards the payment of the war debt.  The British after all had defended the colonists from the French and Native Americans during the war (although many colonist had served in the war as well).  This expectation combined with the British belief that the colonies existed to produce wealth for the Crown led to the various tax acts that so infuriated the colonists.

 

Over the years colonial reaction to the acts went from disregard to protest to violent protest.

 

The Boston Massacre

 

March 5, 1770 a large crowd of 50 to 60 sailors, dock workers, servants, and apprentices gathered in Boston to taunt seven soldiers of the 29^th British Regiment.  The colonists yelled and threw snowballs. This was not an uncommon scene in Boston at the time. This time however the scene would be of historical import because it ended in bloodshed. 

 

Crispus Attucks was among the crowd of colonists. He was a former slave who had escaped from slavery 20 years earlier. He was a muscular mulatto with Indian ancestry. Attucks grabbed the bayonet of one of the soldier's rifles and knocked the soldier down. Another soldier fired his gun and Attucks and two others were killed.  Two more were mortally wounded bringing the death toll to 5. 

 

The soldiers were tried for murder. One of their lawyers was John Adams. The soldiers were convicted of manslaughter but released.

 

Attucks became a symbol for Patriots. During the Revolutionary War Attucks Guards were formed and Boston celebrated Attucks Day.

 

In part the Patriots (mobs?) in Boston and other colonists were infuriated by the Writs of Assistance.  Parliament legalized these so customs officials could search the homes, businesses, and ships of colonists.  The British were looking for smuggled goods in order to enforce the Townshend Acts which levied import duties on tea, lead, glass, and colors for paint.  The Writs of Assistance were general search warrants that permitted the British official to look anywhere they pleased.  Many colonial properties were ransacked.  (A more typical search warrant usually specified the place to be searched and the items to be retrieved.)

 

Later, Americans would remember the violations made possible by the Writs of Assistance and provide for protection from unjustified search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

 

The Boston Tea Party

 

Patriots/Mobs had already burned ships and cargo in Annapolis.  In Charleston they purposely stored tea in damp cellars so it would rot. In Philadelphia and New York British ships with tea were refused entry into the harbors.

 

Various colonies made plans to prevent the East India Company from landing its cargoes in colonial ports. In ports other than Boston, agents of the company were "persuaded" to resign, and new shipments of tea were either returned to England or warehoused. In Boston, the agents refused to resign and, with the support of the royal governor, preparations were made to land incoming cargoes regardless of opposition. After failing to turn back the three ships in the harbor, local patriots led by Samuel Adams staged a spectacular drama.

 

On the evening of December 16, 1773, three companies of fifty men each, masquerading as Mohawk Indians, passed through a tremendous crowd of spectators, went aboard the three ships, broke open the tea chests, and heaved them into the harbor. As the electrifying news of the Boston "tea party" spread, other seaports followed the example and staged similar acts of resistance of their own. However, while some approved of the tea party, others were shocked at the destruction of property.

 

The British responded by closing the port of Boston through the Intolerable Acts of 1774.

 

Why did the participants disguise themselves as Indians? Not to fool British that they were Indians. Probably to conceal their identity from British authorities. The image of the Indian could be manipulated for political purposes to symbolize a variety of messages - the savage, the warrior, the pagan, nature, and the land of America itself.

  

 

The First Continental Congress

 

On September 5, 1774 delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia assembled in Philadelphia.

 

Massachusetts took the lead along with Virginia.

 

Men from Virginia and Massachusetts, Boston in particular, factor prominently in the Revolution.

 

The resolutions do not declare independence.  Instead they proclaim the rights of life, liberty, and property, as well as the Rights of Englishmen or English subjects.  They claim the right to have the free and exclusive power of legislation and their own several legislatures.  They also pledged their mutual support for each other and revived the non-importation agreements.

 

Local committees of safety and inspection provided uniform action against the British

 

Lexington and Concord

 

The Atmosphere in Massachusetts by this time was one of rebellion.  Mobs taunted soldiers calling them names such as lobsters, redcoats, and bloody backs.  They threw stones and snowballs.  Loyalists were tarred and feathered.  Homes were burned and people were forced to choose sides if they had not already done so. 

 

Patriots were drilling openly on village greens.  New Englanders were collecting arms and ammunition in preparation for war.

 

British General Gage decided to seize the ammunition the Patriots had stored at Concord and other towns.

 

The British left from Boston on April 18, 1775 under cover of darkness.  They marched towards Concord and rowed across the Charles River. The redcoats were on the march primarily in search of Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were in Lexington.

 

Patriots signaled troop movement by two lanterns in Old North Church window in Boston.  Two if by land, one if by sea. Paul Revere, William Dawes Jr., Dr. Sam Prescot rode on horseback to warn Patriots. As a result of Revere's warnings, the Lexington minutemen were ready the next morning for the arrival of the British and for the historic battle that launched the American Revolution.

 

The British arrived in Lexington at dawn on April 19, 1775.  When they arrived on the village green they met a ragged band of minutemen who took that name because they could ready at a minute’s notice. The British ordered the minutemen to leave the green and abandon their arms.  The minutemen start to leave the green, but with their arms.

 

Someone fired. The British followed and fired. At the end of this short "battle" eight colonists were dead and ten others were wounded. The rest were dispersed.

 

The British moved on to Concord where they cut down a liberty pole, burned down a courthouse, and destroyed ammunition.  They then clashed with some more colonists at Concord's North Bridge.

 

The British began their march back to Boston thinking themselves the victors.

 

The countryside was full of angry colonists who shot from behind stone walls and buildings.  To the British this kind of fighting seemed cowardly and unmanly, but this was a style of fighting the colonists had learned from the Indians.  Seventy-three British were killed, 174 were wounded, and 26 were missing.

 

By the time the British returned to Boston thousands of minutemen had surrounded the city.

 

The Second Continental Congress

 

On May 10, 1775 delegates to the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia.  Delegates to the First Continental Congress had agreed to meet the previous year.

 

Radicals like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry of Virginia called for extreme action.  They favored independence, wanted to seize British officers, and ask France and Spain for help.

 

Conservatives were more moderate.  They were determined to resist tyranny, with force if necessary, but they were not intent on independence.  Their leader was John Dickinson of Pennsylvania.