We are thrilled to welcome a claim historian mary beth norton. She is the author of five books and coeditor of several others at her textbook of people and a nation a survey of u. S. History. Her new book 1774 the long year of revolution is available per purchase following the program. Please join me in welcoming mary beth norton. [applause]. Its really nice to be here. I want to make sure the clicker is on. It doesnt seem to be. I dont want to show that one quite yet. I want to show you the cover of the book briefly because the little bottle on it is famous if youre colonial historian. Its in the collections of the map of the society and it claims on the label on it which is impossible to read alas that is contains t picked up from Boston Harbor or the day after the tea party. Its a quite wellknown object in the colonial america. I wanted to start with this verse from a poem i discovered in the new york journal which is a newspaper that coordinated with the sons of liberty in new york and it ran in july 1774 i like to joke that this is the kind of thing that a historian would have to make up if you didnt find it. Just read the first two lines come, my brave boys from my song you shall hear that we will crown 74 a most glorious year. Thats indeed what my book is doing crowning 74 a most glorious year. Yet 1774 is commonly been given short shrift in books of the coming revolution those of you familiar with this literature no that those books commonly stress instead the events after the end of the sevenyear war in 1763 starting with the opposition to the stamp act in 1765 through the king street right otherwise known as the boston massacre in 1770. At which point people jump to the Boston Tea Party ends december 1773 and then lexington and concord battle 16 months later. Why is this . My answer to that question is that all the books that had been written about this period except mine focus on radical leaders and their actions whether explicitly or not. That means a primary almost exclusive focus is taken in these books boston and massachusetts. The story of the coming of the revolution is generally told by historians from the standpoint of the leaders of the coming revolution i would argue are a athe historian authors know how the story comes out and their purpose is to explain why the radicals ultimately won. They dont give much attention to the center of any kind. In fact, in many of these books one is abno context is ever established. I know what i been reading books like this and suddenly there is a person loyalist being persecuted, you have no idea where that person is coming from or why that person is saying what they are saying. Because youve been given no background for it. My purpose in 1774 is quite different. To narrate events neutrally to try to understand and interpret what happened as contemporaries wouldve understood it and to give voice not only to the radicals but also to their critics one of those men and women critics or radicals were moderate and conservative supporters of resistance or eventual loyalists. In short, what i try to do in the book is present american dialogue about politics in 1774 evenhandedly and i dont forecast the outcome. In fact, i would like readers of the book to forget that they know how the story comes out when they are reading the book. To that end, i narrate in detail the events of what i call the long 1774 which is the period the 16 month period from december 1773 with a short preface for october and i will explain that later. In mid april 1775 to show how the colonists who all saw themselves as loyal subjects of king george iii in 1773 and part of the empire. I want to just underscore that, people in 1773 saw themselves as loyal subjects of the king and the empire. Yet during 1774 those colonists divided themselves into groups, one of those groups persuaded in the loyalty and they eventually began to call themselves loyalists. In fact, one of the things i discovered in the course of researching this book is that term loyalist was in fact started in 1774 and then i realized you cant have a term loyalist until youve had people who are disloyal. You dont come up with a term like loyalist until or unless there are people who are disloyal. There are those people who begin to call themselves loyalists and there are also those people who again to favor independence. In the book i deal with all the colonies that eventually joined the united states. I dont deal with the caribbean, i dont deal with the canadian maritimes but i do deal with all the 13 colonies who eventually joined the united states. The book also focuses intensively on america. Both these things differentiate the book from other books about this period, we because i try not to focus on boston and massachusetts to any greater extent than what has to it also because i never move the focus across the atlantic to talk about whats happening in parliament. Many times in the book that talks about the coming of the revolution will switch the focus from the american colonies across to london to have a chapter or two about the dialogues in the British Ministry of the poem it about what the policy should be. Instead of doing that, i introduce in each chapter a section called advices from usually london in one case somewhere else. Almost always london. That 10 days of the colonists the things they heard about what was happening in england. The section is called advices from because if any of you are familiar with colonial newspapers, thats the heading that the newspapers use when they were talking about material coming in from somewhere else. I introduce the material, the information about whats happening overseas to the colonists themselves as they would have learned it. Although not at the time they wouldve learned it, at the time that it was happening. Obviously in such a short time this evening i cannot discuss or summarize all my research. What im going to do is provide you with six snapshots and you have a timeline in hand out of developments in this long 1774 that help to lead to or reveal these developing divisions and the increasing radicalism of parts of the populace. Only one of these if personally known to the public and that is in fact the first one in the Boston Tea Party. My first snapshot, not just about the Boston Tea Party, it is about the t incidents all the t incidents of late 1773. The story everyone knows is of the destruction of the t in Boston Harbor, thats the way it was always referred to at the time it wasnt called the Boston Tea Party until 1826, my colleague at cornell lori ab Larry Glickman found out is that when it would be referred to as the Boston Tea Party. More cities than boston were involved. The east India Company sent 7t ships to north america in 1733. Four were dispatched to boston and one each to new york, philadelphia and charleston. A brief background here is necessary to explain what was going on. In parliament the spring of 1773 the members of parliament adopted the tea act. The purpose was to get the east India Company out of financial difficulty. The east India Company held a legal monopoly of British Trade with the far east with china, asia, in general, it was facing bankruptcy in 1773. Why was it facing bankruptcy . For two reasons, one was mismanagement of the company and two was rapid smuggling. They were smuggling everywhere. Into the colonies come into the home islands and so forth and the british and the east India Company was being undercut in terms of the price of the goods it was selling especially t by these smugglers. It will not surprise you to learn that many members of parliament were stockholders in the east India Company. Therefore they didnt want the east India Company abthey wanted to preserve it financially. American settlers at the time american colonists at the time were known as prodigious, a term that was used contemporaneously. Prodigious tea drinkers. The problem from the east India Companys perspective was that they were mostly drinking smuggled tea. The smuggled tea was known as dutch tea. Even though it didnt always come from the dutch east India Company, holland or the Dutch Caribbean islands. It was always called dutch tea. It made its way into the colonies in many ways and productively through the island of saint the stations. This is a contemporary view of the island of saint you stacias in the northeastern caribbean. Its in the leeward islands. Have any of you ever been there . Its called stacia today. I went there specifically because i had heard so much about it that it was a big smuggler place in the caribbean. Its a tiny island. Its not on anybodys radar this days. It doesnt have any good beaches, it doesnt have enough water so it can have a golf course. It cant have a resort but what it does have is this wonderful anchorage. Which is protected by these extinct volcanoes you see in the background. The extinct volcanoes protected the anchorage on the east side of the island from the prevailing winds. As a result, literally sometimes we have information about a thousand ships being anchored off this tiny island and were they doing there . They were trading goods, selling goods, buying goods and it was the best known smugglers haven in the caribbean. This sort of thing was driving east India Company totally crazy. They were losing all their goods or all their money to items that were being smuggled in other places in the caribbean. Especially seca stations. The tea act was very complex, its hard to understand. It was very hard for people at the time to understand, it should not surprise people in washington to discover that something written by a legislative body was sometimes complex and difficult to understand. That was certainly true. The key aim of the tea act was to lower the tax on legal east India Company tea in the colonies to be able to undercut the smugglers. The smuggled tea sold for about half or two thirds of the price of legal tea so if you lowered the tax that had to be paid on this tea then it could at least approach the cost that was being charged by the smugglers. The americans key objection to the tea act was the symbolism of the tax. They argue that accepting the tea act would be accepting the authority of parliament to tax them. By this time by late 1773 pretty much the colonists were in agreement. Even people who are future loyalists that parliament should not have the power to tax them. I want to point out to you the irony in this that in current u. S. Politics and our current image of the Boston Tea Party is that it was protesting higher taxes. It was protesting lower taxes. It was protesting lower taxes. The problem was lowering the tax of east India Company tea to make people by legal tea instead of smuggled tea. In october 1773, this is my preface, when the colonists learned that seven ships were coming to north america with tea directly from the east India Company man in new york city and philadelphia wrote essays in the newspapers suggesting three different tactics to fight the tea ships. One idea was to persuade and i put that into quotation marks because i met coerced. The merchants who the east India Company tea was to be sent they were known as confine these, to resign the position and not accept the tea. The thought is if you dont have people to accept this tea officially then you cant have legal tea therefore it cant be sold therefore we dont need to worry about it. That was one of the arguments against abas a way to oppose the appearance or arrival of the east India Company tea. Another tactic was to promote the agreements of merchants and people not to buy or consume the tea. Get everybody to sign nonconsumption agreements and it doesnt matter if the tea lands, all we need to do is not buy it. Then third argument, which was by Benjamin Rush who became a very wellknown patriot and beloved doctor in philadelphia was he said we have to prevent the tea from landing in the first place because of it lands it doesnt matter what happens. It doesnt matter how many people have signed an agreement not to buy it, they will buy it and drink it. We have to keep them from that by preventing the team from landing. All three tactics were tried in 1773 and throughout 1774 in various locations because its not widely known, east India Company tea kept coming to the colonies after the seven ships. We all know about the Boston Tea Party when the landing of the tea was opposed by its destruction from the three ships in Boston Harbor. I talk about that in the book, in the first chapter, but im not gonna talk about it now although im happy to answer questions about it later on. I do want to show you one slide and this is, it looks like its about the furthering of this guy in the foreground. If abthe Crucial Point is what happens up there in this corner. Thats the closest thing we have to a contemporary illustration of what happened in the Boston Tea Party. We dont know whether the artist of this new people, there were people in london by the time he jewett who had witnessed the Boston Tea Party, we know that because they were testifying before parliament, in any event this is his drawing of what happened with men throwing tea overboard from a ship in the harbor. Thats the closest thing we have to a contemporary view of the Boston Tea Party. Parliament, as you may remember, retaliated against the Boston Tea Party with the boston port act, which closed the port of boston until the tea was paid for and officially closed it on 1 june of 1774. The news of the act, i might add, did not arrive in north america until may 10, 1774 so bostonians and the rest of america had very little opportunity to get accustomed to the idea before the port was officially closed. What about the other cities . I said they were tea ships sent to other cities, charleston, new york, philadelphia, its not wellknown, in fact, i didnt know it. I thought the history of the American Revolution for years but until i started researching this book i did not realize that charleston was dealing with the tea ship at exactly the same time that boston was. I have a slide of Charleston Harbor showing a ship arriving in Charleston Harbor, which is a magnificent harbor by the way if you havent seen it, the crucial thing here is that this building right here, it still exists, its called the Mercantile Exchange and it plays a major part in the story in the tea ship in charleston. It sits between these two churches. What happened in charleston . One of the things i do in the first chapter of the book is to cut back and forth chronologically between whats happening in boston and whats happening in charleston. My readers know what happening in both places but the bostonians didnt know what was happening in charleston, and the charlestonians didnt know what was happening in boston. Except in very vague terms. By the end of the process there were a few little bits of information that dribbled along through basically to sea captains going up and down the coast. Very little was known. There wasnt any communications. Both were making it up as they went along. Charleston did something very different from boston. Bostonians met and agreed what to do, charlestonians met twice in large meetings, in that exchange building, and cannot make up their minds what to do. They could not reach any consensus. What they did was instead of reaching a consensus they basically punted and what punting in this context meant facilitating the customs officers of South Carolina to confiscate the tea. That was because at the time there was a rule that once ships had entered the harbor they had to pay duty on their current role within 20 days or else the cargo would be confiscated. In charleston basically they couldnt make up their mind what to do so they let the customs officers to confiscate the tea after 20 days. It was clearly collusive. Interestingly i found out that john adams learned that in his no big list essays toward the end of 17 abin 1775 he indicates that he knows that what happened in charleston was collusive between the locals and the customs officers. He probably learned that at the Continental Congress when he was there in the fall of 1774. They stored in the tea that was confiscated in the basement of the exchange building, not the driest place to store tea and some of it is reported to have been destroyed by the damp but what was left a couple years later was sold to support the war effort and the information was found by a colleague of mine james victor who teaches at the university of hong kong and who was working on a project on tea as a political issue in this period. I dont claim to have found that out but he found the crucial advertisement in the South Carolina newspaper indicating that the sale of the tea was imminent. Then what happened, thats what happened in boston in charleston. What happened in philadelphia and new york . Because paul revere, the messenger of the boston radicals, wrote immediately after the Boston Tea Party to philadelphia, to new york and then philadelphia, by the time the tea ship reached philadelphia coming up to delaware the philadelphians knew what had happened in boston. They didnt know what happened in charleston but they knew what happened in boston. They figured out, they were clever, they figured out that what we do is we just dont let the tea enter, we dont want that tea ship enter the harbor. If it doesnt enter the harbor were not confronted with this 20 day deadline that confronted the bostonians and then people in charleston. Basically they intercepted the tea ship as it come to delaware they put out big handbells to the pilots on the Delaware River sing with the description of the tea ship and description of the captain saying whatever you do dont let this guy come near philadelphia. The intercepted the ship, they persuaded the captain that he was smart not to come into the harbor and he did it. He resupplied the ship and turned around and headed back to england. The same thing happened with the ship going to new york although it happened much later because the tea ship headed to new york was blown off course by a north Atlantic Gail and ended up spending the winter in nt god, which i am sure many people would like to do then. What it did was it left abit made the tea captain there in nt god know absolutely what had happened and all the areas north america when there tea ships came in. He very cleverly from antigo wrote a letter to new york saying, im due to come to new york, i will show up but i will not try to enter the harbor. I will merely resupply the ship and head back to england. So thats exactly what he does. He arrives first new jersey, everybody welcomes him, they know hes not gonna try to enter the harbor. He resupplied the ship and theres this wonderful story in the new york newspaper about how everyone is saying what a wonderful gentleman he is, hes a discreet lovely guy they all stand on the wave goodbye and wish him a good voyage back to london. But thats the sixth ship, what about the seventh ship . If you look at the timeline i gave you, there was a fourth ship that went to boston but wrecked on cape cod. Some of the tea chests were damaged and remained on cape cod well most of the others were sent to the british headquarters in Boston Harbor. I might add that james victor discovered that tea was eventually sold but by the british not americans. I discuss what happened on the cape in the book. In short what happened was chaos. On the cape some people wanted to buy the tea from the west. After all it did it pay a tax therefore you could buy it without admitting parliaments right to tax you. Other people said no, we have to stop everybody from buying the tea because the tea is from the east India Company even if it hadnt paid a tax. What ended up on the cape which i talk about in the book is there are competing town meetings that vote in different ways. There are months of disagreement that lead finally to the local authorities along the tea to be sold by the men who had salvaged it. Its a very chaotic scene on cape cod. Which no one has every written about before. The British Ministry in parliament didnt much like what was happening any of these communities but they primarily focused their punishment on boston by adopting the boston port act which i already talked about. What that did was to leave not to defiant unity in boston but rather deep deficiency in the town about what to do about how to respond to the boston port act and thats my second snapshot which is much briefer but consists of the heated debate in newspapers and in two boston town meetings that occupied a total of three full days in boston midtolate june when people argued about what boston should do to respond to the port act. Its not as though everybody says we do fibrin. They argued a lot about what they should do. One newspaper essay remarked accurately. Various as the colors of the rainbow are the opinions of gentlemen in this town. That did seem to be exactly correct. Some people said lets pay for the tea. Other people then said, how do we do that . Do we accept money from the wealthy people i might add some wealthy bostonians were already volunteered to make contributions to pay for the tea. Do we collect from all residents of boston . Do we collect from all residents of massachusetts . Do we collect from other colonies . There was a lot of disagreement about among the people who said lets pay for the tea about how are we going to pay for the tea . Samuel adams, the head of the committee of correspondence, seen here and engraving by paul revere, you might not realize paul revere was an artist as well as the silversmiths and messenger but he engraved this for the royal american magazine and appeared in 1774. Samuel adams proposed a different response. He said lets begin a boycott of all British Goods not just tea, first we will start with massachusetts and then we will spread to other colonies. So the Economic Strategy lets adopt a strategy of opposing britain by refusing to buy british products. I might add, this comes from the american sense of how important they were to british markets to british overseas merchants. They werent really as important as they thought they were but they thought that what they could do is if they boycotted all British Goods including those from the east India Company but also anything from britain itself they could force the british or force the merchants to then try to Lobby Parliament to overturn the act, not just the act but other acts. The Boston Committee then covertly circulated and nonconsumption agreement to this effect that trying to get people out in the countryside to sign up not to buy British Goods. Their argument was if nobody will buy this stuff then nobody will buy the stuff once its in america the merchants will not import it. They did this without consulting the boston town meeting first, which caused another controversy for some bostonians then argued vociferously for censuring adams and his committee for asking without authorization from the town. These are the two issues paying for the tea, whether to pay for the tea, how to pay for the tea and whether you center the Boston Committee or not for what they did without authorization. These are the things that led to those three very contentious town meetings in the middle and late june 1774. At the end the town voted to support the committee. A substantial minority of the people there about 25 said walked out of the meeting and later published their objections to the majoritys decision in the newspapers. They argued that equity required the east India Company be compensated for the destroyed tea and also free boston from the boston port act. They were minority but very vocal one. Its a littleknown fact that americans continue to argue about whether or not to pay for the tea until the first Continental Congress in september 1774. He still had people arguing that the tea should be paid for until september until the first Continental Congress finally decided its not a good idea to do that. What happened on the cape showed exactly how hard it would be to persuade people to stop drinking tea. Even if you stop buying it, then merchants had stores full of tea about people had afull of tea. How do you stop people from drinking it even if you stop them from buying it . Foregoing tea smuggles as well as east India Company tea came to be seen at the great symbol of opposition to Great Britain. The argument became that no one could be sure where the tea you are drinking originated, could be smuggled or legal must so its important to stop drinking all tea to oppose britain. Therefore, my search snapshot is a campaign to get people, especially women, to stop buying and drinking tea. This abwhy women . Women were known to socialize over tea with their friends in the afternoons. Men went to taverns and socialize with their friends over ale. Women socialize over tea. So how do you do this . You go to influencers of the 19th century. Stories in newspapers are replete with comments about wealthy women pledging not to drink tea in their households. You get stories that say 300 matrons a boston sign a statement saying they would not serve any tea in their households. Notice you never see those statements. I have no idea if they actually existed or not whether the numbers were correct or not but the stories are filled the newspapers at this time of all kinds of and prominent nameless people saying they wont drink any tea. Newspapers also start to carry recipes for tea substitutes. How do you make tea out of american thing like sassafras. Or even growing tea. How do you grow tea bushes in america. There were public burnings of tea to which crowds were invited and crowds attended and of course what what happened at those when the people were burning there tea publicly they were being served booze by the people who were showing off the public tea burnings. There were poems in newspapers, essays about how bad tea was for ones health. Various towns including abfor bated tea drinking in town. This leads to another favorite anecdote, john adams was riding the circuit in maine in the summer of 1774 he had been on house or spec for 30 miles pulled into it maccan i have it tea thats been honestly smuggled. The landlady said i cant serve you any tea because the town has forbidden the service of tea in town but i will serve you copy. So he drinks coffee and a few days later he writes to abigail and says, yes i am now Drinking Coffee and im burying it very well. I wanted to read to you from one of the essays about why you shouldnt drink tea. This is written by a doctor who wrote a sermon on tea a short pamphlet, hes not a mystery is called the pamphlet a sermon on tea. This is a quote from the book, he cited abother medical authorities contending that tea rendered habitual gradually facts the constitution. The beverage is impact was slow but sure, a slow consuming poison. It was a pandoras box that affected both sexes. Tea rendered europeans shorter and weaker effort or is introduced into the european continent a century earlier. Indeed he said the beverage has reduce the robust masculine habit of men to a feminine softness. Thus turning men into women and women into god knows what. [laughter] i have to say im a tea drinker so i specially like all this. Directing his attention specifically to younger women he informed them that drinking tea would make them less attractive to men. It would either suffuse your faces with a deadly paleness or what is worse, a fellow he knew, making regular consumption abmaking a regular consumer into a ghostlike paleface factor and he said every mother needed to be concerned about her unborn posterity he predicted it tea drinkers children would die young a speedy murder to her ill judged diet. Some women called him on that, i might add, but he did abhe was not the only one. There were other people who argued the same thing that drinking tea would be terrible for women. There was also opposition to the campaign through satire and this is a famous cartoon from britain called its known as official title is society of patriotic ladies but unofficially known as the eating 10 Ladies Tea Party because its a responsive britain to a letter that reported from america about a meeting of women in edenton North Carolina supporting resistance. Im not going to use the laser its kind of hard for me to see it from here. On the far lefthand in the back you see women who are pouring their tea into receptacles that people are holding. They are giving up their tea but in the far back room theres a woman drinking from a bowl it seems to be a bowl of tea in the foreground you got a woman actually signing a statement presumably not to drink tea although this group of women do not actually say anything about tea thats part of the figuration of this. You have grotesque ladies, supervising and in the foreground at the bottom i point out to you the neglected child being licked by a dog that is symbolically pacing on a chest of tea. So this is just phone of about satire from britain of this antiauntran7a campaign in north america. During the summer of 1774 meetings were held throughout the colonies to help delegates to provincial congress and the first Continental Congress. These meetings also adopted resolutions about the current controversy. They are alike but sufficiently different to show they clearly represented local discussions, in my opinion. We dont have any minutes of these meetings alas i wouldve loved to seen minutes of these meetings but we have the resolutions that come out of the meetings and only one of them explicitly copies another set of resolutions from somebody else. Basically people in america argued against the coercive acts, argue not only against the boston port act but a couple of other laws they disliked and most particularly something called the administration of justice act which they called the murder act and they called it that because what it provided was that if a colonial official or british soldier shot a communist in the course of maintaining order, that person could be tried in england rather than the ain my opinion thats really key piece of legislation that angered colonists including future loyalists. I have a quote in the book from the future loyalists who said this is terrible. In fact, this was an act that really antagonize people in the colonies more than others. We do have a few people who commented in correspondence about what happened some of these meetings and i do quote from them as much as i can. Some wanted to avoid direct confrontations with written and instead sought petitions to the king at the first Continental Congress met in philadelphia from Early September through mid october in 1774 some colonists wrote a pamphlet supporting britain opposing resistance but it was in my opinion already too late and that shown by my fourth and fifth snapshot which will follow each other very quickly. The fourth snapshot is whats known as the powder alarm some of you may have heard of that it occurred in late september 1774 historians who written about it call it a dress rehearsal for the battles that lexington and concord. The triggering of that was general thomas gage the military governor of massachusetts ordered government gunpowder taken from a collective magazine in charlestown massachusetts. I might intersperse here that gunpowder tended to be stored in collective magazine because it was so dangerous for people to have it around their house it could explode. These were stored in collective places that were properly insulated and so forth for the storage of gunpowder. He had the government gunpowder taken out of the collective powder magazine. Rumors spread incorrect rumors that he had taken private owners gunpowders out of that magazine. Crowds gather the next day outside the powder magazine in charlestown and moved to cambridge and another rumor spread that six men had been killed by the soldiers who took the gunpowder. This was also not true. Minutemen began to come in from the countryside, huge crowds gathered in cambridge on Cambridge Common in front of radcliffe college. They mobbed local officials. Meanwhile, as the story made its way elsewhere it spread into connecticut that not only was this happening that if not only had six men been killed not only had the governor taken private gunpowder out of the powder magazine that boston was now being bombarded by naval vessels from the harbor. This went viral and didnt need the internet to do it. It could happen even without the internet. It took days and hours rather than just minutes. By the time the story was quashed, thousands of men were marching to boston. Then the truth came out the boston leaders the boston radical leaders samuel adams and his friends on the committee spread the word this is not true none of this happened and finally they stopped all of this but interestingly enough they then wrote a very stern letter to the guy in connecticut who had spread the rumor about the bombardment and said dont believe anything unless its official and we will tell you its official. Its sort of like, on the web today look for that ht as at the top, dont trust another website. They were in effect telling him the same thing. My fifth snapshot says exactly the same thing. It also shows it begins at the same time that at the end of the summer of 1774 but ends later in october and november 1774 because one of my more surprising findings to me was the evidence Major Military preparations began in the late summer as early indeed as august and theres actually an extremely interesting example here. There it is. This is another paul revere engraving. It comes from the royal american magazine in august 1774 and it accompanies an article about how to make salt feeder. Why is this important . Its an important ingredient in gunpowder. This is an illustration of how you do it. To me this shows how much was already being talked about by the end of august 1774 in the colonies about possibly approaching hostilities. My fifth snapshot is then messages from the head. I said earlier that some advices were not from london but from elsewhere and in this case in chapter 6 they are from the head. I want to reach you from the book the evidence that even before the first Continental Congress adjourned in late october 1774 americans were already seeking arms and ammunition in europe and the british were frantically trying to stop them. My story here begins in the middle of october 1774 basically for american ships to have gotten to amsterdam to do what they are doing, im going to read you, they had to of left in late august or Early September 1774. October 11, 1774 sir jones of york edition bassett or to the dutch republic. Whether thats its name or there is a type of ship called the smack so i dont know but they always call it the smack. I call it the smack as though thats its name. Theft the 11th of october. The 18th of october, seven days later, after that dispatch is received from the hague, lord dartmouth, secretary of state for america, investigating a report and if possible to stop the smack from leaving port. October 19th, one day after lord dartmouths request to the admiralty, king george iii issues an order prohibiting the export addition of any arms and ammunition prom Great Britain for the next six months. Thats not a direct response to the dealing with he hague but suggests the British Government has gotten extremely worried but americans trying to buy guns and ammunition in england, and keep that date, october 19th in mine because its going to come up again. October 21 to november 18th. A series of detailed letters dispatched every few days, york reports the lord suffolk, whether the rumors of the cargo of the smack are correct and then to prevent captain pages departure with the cargo. Yorks sources inform him that payment hassed a ed gunpowder to can no in the hold and concealed it under other items. The two ships a mother no a game of cat and mouls, and the extensive waterways surrounding amsterdam, until finally paige decides to unload his vessel and winter there, rather than to risk sailing into the north sea and directly confronting the wells. But seems like the british head been successful. But theres a coda. December 9th, suffolk informs york he learned to his chagrin doesnt say how the smacks cargo has been reshipped on a dutch vessel, which along with no other dutch ships are preparing to depart for, you know where, st. Ustays sis. Carrying tea, gunpowder and 25 cannon, on route to in a dutch schupp from a dutch harbor so the british cant stop it. , the nix snapshot in october october 19th when. That news of george iii forbidding the expert of arms and ammunition arrives in north america in providence, rhode island, on december 8th. It was accompanied by an order from lord dartmouth that governors secure all arms and powder that the americans were attempting to import from wherever. The Immediate Response in three colonies showed how dramatically how very dramatically the relationship between the colonies and britain had deteriorated in recent months inch each of them, the order and counsel set off attacks on local forts by colonial crowds. First rhode island residents attacked the fort in newport. News came to rhode island first. Rhode island residents were the first to. Attacked the fort in newport, carried off 44 cannon in just 36 hours. I have no idea how. Incredible. And a couple days later in new london, connecticut, crowds reacting in the same way. Move the cannon from the fort, storing the big guns in three widely scattered locations. Both rhode island and connecticut had locally elected fors under their 17th century charters. Different from the other colonies. In New Hampshire, the story was different because there was a royal governor and there he made things different. Paul revere arrived from boston with the news of the order and counsel. False rumors spread that general gauge was sending troops to take over the fort, called fort william mary. A crowd decides to attack the fort and take the cannon and muskets and am mission that was stored there between 300 and 400 men overran the fort, imprisoned the soldiers only five soldiers took down the british flag and confiscated 10. Leaving thegovernor fullly and very upset, he wrote to lord dartmouth, quote, the springs of government failed me. He had tried to muster the millly lit ya to oppose the taking of the fort but, guess what. The people taking the fort were the militia members so they wouldnt help him. And he said in one would help hem, him and he was very deeply affected by the insult on the brigging in hauled down. Her issued a proclamation against in the whan to assaulted see fort and urged other New Hampshire residents to help identify and arrest the perpetrators and return the kings arms because otherwise thaw would face, quote, dreadful but most certain consequences for yourselves and posterity, end quote. But of course, nothing happened. Zero. He was never able to arrest those responsible for the assault on the fort. He was never able to restore the kings arms and he was right, the springs of government has failed him. After that, after those attacks on the new england forts, everyone expected war in the spring. Everybody. That is everybody in america, maybe not in england. And they were right. The book ends with a transcription o general garages order to at the troop goes to con toward try to destroy armaments and supplies that americans had cache thread and the date was april 19, 1775. And thats how the book ins and thats howl my talk ends and im happy to answer any questions. [applause] chance is here so theyre go to bring a microoffend around. The story about the man in the painting. The man who was tarred and feathered. The question is what about the guy who was tarred and feather. His name was john malcolm. A customs collect youre for maine and he had confiscated a ship that had been smuggling stuff, not necessarily just tea but other things, and so people were mad and tarred and feather him so he went to about to get support because maine was a part of massachusetts. He went the governor of massachusetts to ask for assistance. People got mad at him and tarred and feather he him again in about and so the upshot was that his story became it turns it went viral in london. A lot of people i discovered who talked about it in london, and in fact some americans in london wrote back and said, what are you doing, bostonnans in this is leading people to get more upset than they were already because of the terrible way youre treating john malcolm. And theres two different images of john malcolm being tarred and feathered, and thats one of them. Thats not the one in the book. I have a different one in the become. Other questions. In the middle there. Wait for the microphone. Thanks. At that time did was it like today with parliament had most of the power in england or was the king have the power and what was the role of parliament then . Can people hear the question it . Was, what was the situation in england, how much was the power of the king versus parliament. Well, it was more than it is today. That is the king was more than symbolic, but nevertheless, parliament had in the revolution of 1689, the glorious revolution, seeded much more power from the king than had been the case before. The monarchy than had been the case before. The king was a real player in the story and george iii was just like he was a major player in what was going on. Yes. Seems like there might be a relationship between the colonists reaction to the crowns taking of their arms and the Second Amendment rights that are written into the constitution. Well, i dont know. Wouldnt say that. Its a long theres a long time between this and the adoption of the Second Amendment, and the arms they wanted the arms because they did not want the british to have them is basically what imcame down. To werent thinking of arms for themselves. They were thinking of if we let this happen, the british will turn these guns on us. And thats very explicit in the other incidents that happened in the wake of the order and council i didnt talk but. Very explicit. For example in new york, where theres a ship that arrived. Its very interesting. Its a ship that arrived just before the order and council became known, and so the customs officers in new york actually confiscated material from it and local people said, no, no, this we be turn against us and we want it but they cooped hold on to the guns and ammunition. They were held by the customer officers. So it was really a concern for that guns would be turn against them. Thats what it was. Especially cannon. What are you going to do with a cannon if youre a colonist . If youre an army you want a cannon. You mentioned in the beginning about the term loyalist, and i was wondering is that just a term or becoming something that people organized themselves around and joined groups and joined organizes. The people hear that . Maybe not. Basically the question was did loyalists become organized and start to use that term as a group. Is that really translate your question adequately . Yes, there began to be one thing that happened after especially when it became clear that there was going to be war, which became clear to people in december 74. January 75. A group of people who called themselves loyalists, in massachusetts, who organized and tried to set up a loyal militia to oppose what was happening in the provincial congress in massachusetts. But mostly it was people who started to talk call themselves loyalists. Later on it becomes very clear during the war, loyal legions and so forth, but it just began at this period. And they did indeed start to organize. Other questions . Balcony. Balcony. All right. I cant see up there at all. Okay. I have a loud voice. Pries describe at built more detail the relationship between daniel adams and john hancock and the import addition of tea. Well, daniel adams didnt import tea himself. John hancock was reputed to be a major smuggler. Ive not done that research myself. Might have to way for the back to get a complete answer to that question. Certainly hancock was an important leader of the boston radicals, and he was well known even though he was very powerful and wealthy, very prosperous guy can he was an ally of sal all samuel adams and give a famous oration in boston on the anniversary of the boston massacre. It was one that john adams said left everyone in the audience weeping so pathetic but the terrible things that happened to boston during the boston massacre. So, hancock was definitely an ally of samuel adams and the committee of correspondents. Also a smuggler, but how much of that smuggling was tea, i dont know. He was wellknown for smuggling madeira. He was a wellknown wine smuggler but whether he was a tea smuggler or not, im not sure. Other questions. Balcony. I cannot see you at all. Im. Im over here. I still cant see you. How did the other colonies react to the buildup of british troops in royal navy in boston after june of 74. They didnt react so much to the buildup of troops as they reacted to the closing of Boston Harbor. They definitely reacted to the blockade of boston. They sent money, they sent supplies. Some people in connecticut sent a herd of sheep that were driven into boston so that people they could be slaughtered and people could eat mutton. They were other colonies were very helpful in helping giving boston assistance. In the blockade wasnt so much about a buildup of troops as it was assistance to boston which really needed assistance of. I might add, however, it became somewhat controversial because rumors spread a period of great rumors. We think rumors are big today but theyre also big there that boston elites were using were glomming on to the money being sent to them from other colonies and were using it for their own purposes, that is they were hiring local workers to work on their properties instead of doing public works or Something Like that. It became rare rather controversial. The Boston Committee hired people who were treason out of work because of the blockade of the harbor, because all shipbuilding had to cease and shipbuilding was major player in the boston economy. So what third they do . The hired guys to do public works and people complained and said youre getting benefits and were trying to give people assistance without strings, and so the bostonians rerepliedsen it better for people to work than not to work . So a bunch of public works projected that happened in about during the black okayed of boston, paid for by money that came in from other places. Other questions. Why was it that boston rather than other of the port cities, all you mentioned a couple why were what was it about the colonists there that they were the ones where the, quote, action of the revolutionary war began. Why boston was the most radical . One argument i would make is that remember i said that charleston residents cooperate make up their minds . Bostonians are accustomed to town meetings. The only place in the colony where people were accustomed to getting together in large groups, having debates, discussing and coming to a consensus. I dont think thered ever been anything like a town meeting in charleston before. Certainly hadnt been in philadelphia. Certainly hadnt been in new york and those meetings are far more contentious. Than the ones in boston. So i think it had a lot to do with the fact that wontan bostonnans were accustom to talking to each other and having political discourse and then coming to an agreement. So they are able to come to an agreement. Follow up to that is, does that relate to in any way as you see it or reflect their religious beliefs . Well, i yes and no. Yes, it is true that lot of them are congregationalist but at this time theyre long past puritanism. They are some of them are anglicans. There is a religious diverse any boston by this period so maybe because the people who went to congregational churches were accustomed to church meetings, where these kinds of dialogue occurred. Thats entirely possible. But of course, there were all kinds of different churches so its not clear. But its certainly true politically that they had a sense of how to get along, how to reach how to reach a consensus that you dont see in any other colony, any big city. Balcony. You made reverence to maritime. The question is [inaudible question] or otherwise no. In a word. The only thing that was relevant was that sometimes tea that was turned away from ports in New Hampshire were sent to halifax. Where in fact it was accepted. It was not turned away. So, no, the marry types were simply not the maritimes were not involved. They were involved in the opposition to the stamp act in 1765 but not involved in 1774. Questions over here. Dont know where the mic is. Just a minute. Ill get to you in a minute. 1774 sorry. Can you have the mic up here . Just a minute. Okay. Go ahead. 1774 being the pivotal year that you write about, how pivotal were the article of association. How the question is, how critical were the articles of association . They were in fact very critical. They were because basically the association, which was adopt by the first Continental Congress just before the adjourned in october, the association called for the creation of local committees in every county, city and up to, their phrase to enforce the association, and the association is the economic boycott against britain. Those locally elected committees become crucial in the next months because they become in effect the government of the colonies, people obey what they say, and people basically vote with their feet. They stop obeying the colonial governments and they start obeying the local committees. This is very frustrating to colonial governors. Its not just john wentworth. All the governors write letters to lord dartmouth saying i cannot get people to obey what im saying and so therefore ive just decided to stop trying because it would only expose the impotence of the government. Show to articles of association are very critical in the fact that they called for the election of committees. I might add that the explicitly said that the people who are allowed or who are able to vote for the committees are already qualified voters so they did not expand the voting population for doing for electing the committees but insisted that people who were qualified to vote for the assembly, would be the people who would vote for the association committees, and that was critical. It was in effect tried to give legitimacy to groups, even though you couldnt get the assembly to say something, you could get the people who voted for the assembly to say something, that is, to followup. Lincoln later called the articles, the first constitution of the united states. Would you go that far. I absolute live agree. If you were in one of my classes you would hear me lecture but that. I certainly agree with lincoln on that point. Absolutely. In what sense. They in effect set up the First American government. The local committee ares the First American government and i would say many areas of if the colonies had never elected anybody before. That is, other than the people to be assembly. Never elected local people. For example, in virginia, parishes people didnt vote for the vestries. They didnt have a general rote for vestry members and didnt vote for local officials. These were the first times that people were able to vote for members of the committee. I absolutely agree with lincoln and if you came to one of my lectures you would have heard that. Describing lot of government but the Continental Congress in philadelphia was that considered the National Government . Yes. Yes. The question is was the continent tall congress in philadelphia considered the National Government. Yes, the best thing anybody had at that point and loyalists complained and governors complained that people were saying, were referring to the laws of the Continental Congress, even though as far as the people who were saying this, the people making the complaints, said these arent laws, theyre just statements of opinion but local people were calling them the laws, saying well obey the laws of the Continental Congress. Ball copy. Yes. One of the first things you talk about was the lowering of the taxes caused consternation among the colonists. There was already a preexisting tax which was lowered, why did that spark the ire of the was it that the british were becoming more effective at interdicting. Enforcing it . Well, what happened was i left out a lot of the story. Its very complex. When the tax was first imposed, which was in 17671768 there was in fact a massive boycott of the wasnt just a tax on tea. It was a tax on other goods like glass, other imported goods. And so the colonist engaged in a major boycott. Parliament repealed all aspects of that law except for the tea tax. They left the tea tax intact as a symbol of british authority. Fastforward. One thing that happened was after the other taxes were repealed, people started to actually he import legal tea again and again to pay that tax which this happened in about. I might add that other colonist got really mad the wontans because they were now a big the tea tax. This all pre1773. And so they started to write in their newspapers and so forth against boston and this actually happened came to the foragain in 73 and74 when the bostonnans destroyed the tea and people said, look, boston was paying the tax, and we werent, because there were a number of people who were in fact continuing to boycott and thats one ron why the smuggled tea was doing so well in other ports. They gap to complain against the bostonians and complained did quite trust at the bostonians even when the bostonons threw the tea in the harbor. A very complicated story. This young man has his hand up forever. I cant see. Can only see certain places. Okay. So, you mentioned before that there are four attempts to have the east India Company pay heed to the colonies, any other attempts to follow that up after the children. They were not official tea ships sent by the east India Company. One issue was, as i said a very complicated story. One of the issues was could individual tea merchants still buy tea from the east India Company and import that under their own names rather than as official east India Company tee imports . Some people who tried to do that. They soon found thats colonists were opposed to that, too, and in fact some tea that was thrown in other harbors later was that kind of tea. It was privately imported, east India Company tea rather than east India Company tea directly from the company. So, it was a very muddled situation. And let me just say that one of the issues, one of the big issues always was between the merchants who sold legal tea and the merchants who showed smuggled tea, and in charleston, one way in which they get consensus was by saying, okay, well boycott all tea. Doesnt matter whether its smuggled or whether its legal, because if its because if we only boycott legal tea, then all the smuggling all the merchants who something i make out like bandits and we dont want that to happen. This was a policy of the any Charleston Chamber of commerce which was founded specifically to solve this problem. One more question. I can answer questions individually later. One right in the back there. Since part of the whole issue was the taxes the colonists were complaining but no taxation without representations was there ever any thought in parliament to giving them representation . No. It was not there were people who argued it should be but never got anywhere with parliament inch fact when the colonist said no tax racing without representation which is more of an argument in 11765 than 1774 but they didnt mean we want representatives in parliament because they knew whatever representatives they sent would be outvoted. What the meant was we only want to be taked by people for whom we have vote, that is, our open assembly. Thats what the meant. Well, thank you all very much. Its been great. [applause]