As the dust of the Stamp Act situation settled after 1765, one important fact to note is that, in reality, the concerns of our American patriots were never really about representation. Or, to say it another way, the colonists were in the process of redefining ideas and concepts about life. More and more Americans were coming to realize this change. Not only were they redefining what representation meant in a free society, they were also redefining the concept of trade. No longer were they content to accept the ideas of mercantilism, the prevailing economic theory of Europe, but were embracing free trade, early capitalism.
Those words are from the seventh installment (find the earlier sections here) about my recent book, one that I am very excited about—Tracking the Storm. An excerpt from Chapter 7 follows below. You can download a pdf if you enjoy reading on your computer or also purchase a printed copy of the book.
Unfortunately for England, no one in the government could really comprehend what was happening in the months after the Stamp Act crisis. In fact, King George would struggle with 3 different Prime Ministers in the next 4 years and none of them would come close to understanding what was happening. In an attempt to still solve the debt problem, and to call Ben Franklin’s ideas about economics into question, the next Chancellor of the Exchequer would pass tariffs on a multitude of items. This, not surprisingly, did not make anyone happy, though for the next 2 years the issue would only rumble under the surface.
Partially, the complaints stayed somewhat muted because there still was a majority of citizens who were perfectly happy as British citizens. To protect those citizens from the terrorist groups trying to inflame the situation, the government pulled many of the frontier troops back into the towns. While the logic of this is easy to see, to the patriot rebels, this was more evidence that the Crown was determined to limit their freedoms. Thus, in 1770, Sam Adams was able to manufacture yet another crisis, the infamous Boston Massacre.
By early 1770, Adams had, along with John Hancock and Paul Revere, helped build tensions between the soldiers to an all-time high. In March, an incident between a mob and a single sentry turned violent as the crowd grew, so a small squad of reinforcements came to the aid of their fellow soldier. Eventually, in the shouting chaos of curses and rocks being thrown, a shot rang out and five Bostonians were killed. While the event certainly was a tragedy, as I tell my students, only one of those two words in the title is accurate . . . and the issue did happen in Boston. This was no deliberate massacre.
Yet, Paul Revere would quickly capitalize by producing a propaganda piece that told the colonists’ side of the story and, before anyone in London ever heard of the event, all 13 colonies were in uproar over “the massacre.” From Revere’s account, the British had a full complement of soldiers, including snipers in windows, to attack a mostly peaceful demonstration. Back in London, when news came, yet another government fell and again, Parliament would repeal the various Townshend Acts. The complaining of the “children” in the 13 colonies had worked again.
King George turned to yet another new Prime Minister, Lord North, who did successfully gain 3 years of peace, of silence, of no controversy. Then, just as with the sudden death of King Charles II in 1685, a surprising event sent events spiraling out of control. In 1773, Lord North decided to introduce a new Tea Act. His reasoning had nothing to do with the colonies, but rather the young East India Tea Company that was working to consolidate control on the subcontinent that England had taken at the end of the Seven Years War. Now, some ten years later, the Company was in dire shape economically and British control could be in peril, so North decided to act.
In an effort to help the Company cut their costs, he was going to allow them to ship tea directly to locations like the colonies and in the process, cut down the tariff costs. Previously, by landing first in England, the Company had to raise their prices to cover the tariffs. In North’s mind, this would take care of many issues. First, it would lower prices for the Company, and thus be cheaper for consumers. Second, with the lower price, the tea should appeal even more to American colonists, thus securing their acquiescence to the idea of the British Parliament’s control in government. Third, the lower price would undercut smugglers in America, which were also hurting the British idea of mercantilism. North had no idea how far he misread the effect of these actions.
In the fall of 1773, ships made their way for the main harbors in America, including Charles Town (modern Charleston), Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Up and down the seaboard, Adams had raised the Sons of Liberty and other protest groups again, bringing quick threats to the port cities. In every location, royal governors quickly decided to turn the ships away rather than risk open rebellion. Every location, that is, but Boston. There, royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson was determined to make Lord North’s point.
As you probably remember from school, what happened next became one of the most famous moments in US history. Dozens of men, dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded the British ships and threw the tea overboard. From this moment on, the conflict with the King was inevitable.
Parliament reacted with a measured, though predictable, series of acts to punish Boston. However, the colonists understood the Coercive Acts as aimed at all of them and determined to reject what they called the Intolerable Acts. Representatives from the colonies met in Philadelphia in the First Continental Congress in 1774. Meanwhile British General Thomas Gage was determined to keep the peace in Boston, so he began to track down where the rebels had stored up weapons and ammunition. One of these locations was determined to be in Concord, 20 miles outside of Boston, so in the spring of 1775, he sent troops to find the weapons.
The resulting conflict was in reality the first battle of what would be known later as the War for American Independence or the America Revolution. Gage’s troops would find no weapons, since spies (including Gage’s own American wife) had reported the troop movement. Hundreds of militiamen would descend on Boston, effectively trapping Gage in the city. Meanwhile, down in Philadelphia, a second gathering of colonial representatives met in the Second Continental Congress. This group would vote in June of 1775 to create an army under the command of the same Virginian whose actions had kicked off this “road to revolution” some 21 years earlier. In January of 1776, a little known writer named Thomas Paine published a blockbuster called Common Sense that critically shaped public opinion. Then, in the summer of ’76, while George Washington prepared to fend off a British invasion in New York, the Congress would pass their legal explanation of their actions, the Declaration of Independence.
Just as in London 90 years before, revolutionary leaders had reached their breaking point and actions had been taken from which there was no turning back. Unlike the 1680s though, not everyone was in agreement with the actions of rebels like Sam Adams and many Loyalists would fight in this “civil war” against their patriot neighbors. The next five years would be brutal in fighting; England would ultimately determine that they were bogged down in an unwinnable war and would accept the inevitable. At the same time, political leaders were soon coming to find out that though they agreed with getting rid of the King, they did not agree with what exactly they wanted to do to govern the new country. In fact, they weren’t exactly in agreement to what kind of “new world” they wanted to create. Were they creating a new single nation, or merely getting rid of one overlord in order to have thirteen separate nations merely confederated together?
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You can read the rest of chapter 7 in Tracking the Storm; the book provides powerful clues about what is coming, rapidly, to the United States. There is little doubt that a storm is approaching the country, the outer edges of the winds already swirling around us. What does that portend for the nation? Through the clues of history, we can find direction and steps to undertake to prepare. Many believe there won’t be a storm, or maybe that the worst is over. With history as a guide, I demonstrate that we haven’t yet even reached the Great Crisis.
Gripping and “a scary yet necessary read,” Tracking the Storm moves through the past 400 years of Anglo-American history to illustrate the various clues provided that show the steps to the coming crisis. I will tell the story of political instability, economic distress, rapid technological changes and a growing philosophical divide that challenged previous generations. At the end of each Great Crisis, the nation had been radically changed. Pick up your copy of Tracking the Storm today!