Like as possible. To those of you joining us the first time putting a work in welcome and an invitation to explore the wide range of programs we have available here. Now is the perfect time to turn off your cell phones or anything else thatt might make noise during the program. Take you for doing that. We are thrilled tonight to welcome a claimed historian mary beth norton. Author of five books and coeditor of several others and her textbook, a people and nation, survey of u. S. History has been published in ten additions and is sold more than 500,000 copies. Norton is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and was a 2018 president of the american historical association. She is the mary [inaudible] Professor Emeritus at cornell university. Her new book, 1774, is available for purchase and signing following the program. So now, please join me in welcoming marybeth norton. [applause] it is nice to be here. I want to make sure that the quicker is the clicker on . It doesnt seem to be. Oh, there is spirit great. I dont want to show you that one quite yet. That little bottle on it is famous. If you are a colonialist historian, i dont know if anyone here recognizes it but it is in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society and claims on the label on it which has impossible to read alas that is contains he picked up from Boston Harbor on the shore of dorchester 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 that i discovered in the new york journal which a newspaper that coordinated with the sons of new york and it ran in july 1774 and i like to joke that this is the kind of thing that any historian would have to make up if you did not find it. Just read the first two lines. Calm, calm, my brave boys, from i thought you shall hear, that we will crown 74, a most glorious year. That is indeed on my book is doing crowning the 74 most glorious year. Yet, 1734 is commonly been given nshort drift and books on the coming of the revolution. Those of you familiar with this literature know that those books commonly stress instead the events after the end of the seven years war in 1763 starting with the opposition to the stamp act in 17625 through the king street riots otherwise known as the boston massacre in 1770 at which point people jumped to the Boston Tea Party in december 1773 and then lexington and concord battle 16 months later. Why is this . I might answer to that question is that all the books that have been written about this 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 on boston and massachusetts read the story of the coming of the revolution is generally told by historians from the standpoint of the leader of the coming revolution paid these books, i would argue, are the historian authors know how the story comes out and their purpose is to explain why the radicals ultimately one. They dont givehe much attention to the centers of any kind. In fact, in many of these books one is surprised when dissenters appear. No context is ever established for them but i know when ive read books like this and suddenly there is a loyalist who is being persecuted or someone who is arguing about something you have no idea where the 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 1734, the long year of revolution, is quite different. It is to narrate events neutrally and to try to atderstand and interpret whatde happened as contemporaries would have understood it and to give voice, not only to the radicals, but also to their critics whether men and women who were critics were moderate and conservatives supporters of resistance or eventual loyalists. In short what i tried to do in the books present americans dialogues about politics in 1724 evenhandedly. I dont forecast the outcome. In fact, i liked 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 time period from december 1773 with a short preface for october and i will explain that later. Mid april of 1735 and to show how the colonists who all saw themselves as loyal subjects of king george the third and 1773 and part of the empire. I want to underscore that. People in 1733 saw themselves as loyal subjects of the king and of the indian empire. During 1774 those colonists divided themselves into groups. One of those groups persuaded in that loyalty and they eventually began to call themselves loyalists. One of the facts i discovered in the course of researching this book is that term, loyalist, was in fact started in 1774 and then i realized you can have a term loyalist until you have people who are disloyal. You dont come up with a term like loyalists unless there are people who are disloyal. And so, there are those people who began to call themselves loyalists and there are also those people who began to favor independence. Now, in the book idea with all the colonies that eventually joined the United States. I dont well deal with the caribbean or Canadian Maritime but i do deal with all the 13 colonies that eventually joined the United States read the book also focuses intensively on america. Both these things differentiate the books from other books about thiss time period. One because i tried not to focus on boston and massachusetts to any greater extent than one has to but also because i do, i never move the focus across the atlantic to talk about whats happening inma parliament. Many times in a book that talked about the coming of the revolution will switch the focus from the american colonies across the atlantic into london to have a chapter or two about the dialogues that were occurring in the reddish ministry or parliament about what the policies should be. Instead of doing that, i introduced into each chapter a section called advices from usually london in one case somewhere else but almost always london that conveys to the colonists in effect the things that they heard about what was happening in england and this section is called advices from because if any of you are familiar with colonial newspapers that is the heading that the newspapers used when they were talking about material coming in from somewhere else. I introduced the material, the information about what is happening overseas to the colonists themselves as they would have learned it, although not at the timing they learned it at the time it was happening. Obviously, in such a short time this evening i cannot discuss or even summarize all my research so what i will do is provide you with six snapshots and you have a timeline in the handout of developments in this long 1774 that helped to lead to or reveal these developing divisions and the increasing radicalism of parts of the populace. Only one, is partially known, to the public. That is, in fact, the first one. Thats the Boston Tea Party. My first snapshot is not just about the Boston Tea Party but about the tea incident, all the tea incidences of late 70 and three. The story everyone knows is of the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor and that is the way its referred to, by the way, at the time it wasnt called the Boston Tea Party until 1826. My colleague at cornell is the one who found out that that is when it began to be referred to as the Boston Tea Party. More cities in boston were involved in this is very little known and the east India Company in fact since ships to north america in 1753, four were dispatched to boston and one to new york, philadelphia and pcharlston. A very brief background here is necessary to explain what was going on. In parliament in the spring of 1733 the members of parliament adopted the tea act, the purpose of the tea act was to get the east India Company out of financial difficulty. The east India Company held the legal monopoly of the British Trade with the far east with china, asia in general and was facing bankruptcy in 1773. Why was it facing bankruptcy . One, mismanagement of the company and to, rampant smuggling brick there was smuggling everywhere. Li into the colonies, into the home e islands and so forth and the british and the east India Company was being undercut in terms of the crisis and the goods it was selling, especially tea by these smugglers. So, it will not surprise you to learn that many members of parliament were stockholders in the east India Company and so therefore they do not want to use the east India Company to go bankrupt wanted to preserve it. American settlers of the time, american economist at the time were known as printed edition and that is a term that was used contemporaneously, prejudice tea drinkers. The problem from the east India Company perspective was that they were mostly drinking smuggled tea. The smuggled tea was known as dutch tea and its always referred to dutch tea even though it did not 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 in particularly through the island of saint you stations but this is a contemporary view of the island of saint you stages. In the northeastern caribbean its in theib lowered islands ad let me point out that i dont have have you ever been there . Its called no not today. Anyone here ever been there . I went there specifically because i had heard so much about it that it was the big smugglers haven in the caribbean and i had to know about it. Its a tiny island, its not on anybodys radar these days because it doesnt have any good beaches and does not have enough water so it cant have a golf course and it cant have a resort but what it does have is this wonderful anchorage. Its protected by these extinct volcanoes which you see her in the background and the extinct volcanoes protected the anchorage on the west or east side of the island from the prevailing winds. As a result literally sometimes we have information about 1000 ships being anchored off this tiny island. What were they doing there . Trading goods and selling goods and buying goods and it was the best known smugglers haven in the caribbean. This thing wasnt driving the east India Company totally crazy. They were losing all their goods or all their money to items that were being smuggled through this island and other places in the guardian but especially this island. The tea act was very complex and its hard to understand. It was very hard for people at the time to understand, i might add, it should not spark people in washington to discover that something written by allege that a body with sometimes complex and difficult to understand but that was certainly true of the tea act. The key aim of the tea act was to lower the tax on legal east India Company tea in the colony to be able to undercut the smugglers. The smuggled tea sold for about half or two thirds the price of the legal tea and so the idea was 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 was expecting the authority of parliament to tax in them. By this time by late 1773 pretty much the colonists were in agreement, even people who were future loyalists bought parliament to not have the power to tax them. I want to point out to you the irony in this that is in current u. S. Politics and our current image ofhe the Boston Tea Partys that it was protesting higher taxes. No, it was protesting lower taxes. It was protesting lower taxes but the problem was lowering the tax of the east India Company tea to make people by legal tea instead of smuggled tea. Now, in october 1773 and this is my preface, when the colonists learned that seven ships were coming to north america with tea directly from the east India Company men in new york city and philadelphia wrote essays and the newspapers suggesting three different tactics to fight the tea ships. One idea was. To persuade and i put that in quotation marks because of course, it meant coerce the merchants to the east India Company tea was to be sent and they were known as consignees to resign their commission, not to accept their tea. The thought was if you dont have consignees or people to accept the stay officially then you cant have an illegal tea therefore it cant be sold therefore we dont need to worry about it. That was one of the arguments against or a way to oppose the appearance of the arrival of the east India Company tea. Another tactic was to promote agreements of merchants and people not to buy or consume the tea and get everyone to sign non importation and non consumption agreements and does not matter if the tea lands all we need to do is not buy it and that was the second argument. The third event which was by Benjamin Rush who became a very wellknown patriot and lloyd was a doctor in philadelphia was he said we have to prevent the tea from landing inn the first place because if it lands it doesnt matter what happens and does not matter how may people have signed an agreement not to buy, it they will buy it and they will drink it. We have to keep them from that by preventing the tea from landing. All three of these 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 these seven ships. We all know about the Boston Tea Party and 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 i will not talk about it now although im happy to answer questions about it later on. I do want to show you one side and this is it looks like its about the tarring and feathering of the sky in the foreground that is somewhat wants to ask me about him later i would be happy to answer it but the Crucial Point isr what happens up there in this corner. That is the closest thing we have two 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 drew itim who had witnessed the Boston Tea Party and we know that because they were testifying before parliament but in any event this is his drawing of what happenedhi with men throwing tea overboard from a ship in the harbor and that is the closest thing we have two a contemporary view of the Boston Tea Party. Now, parliament, as you may remember, retaliated against the Boston Tea Party with the boston heport act. It closed the port of boston until the tea was paid for and officially closed it on the first of june of 1774. The news of that 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. But what about the other cities . I said there were ships sent to charlston, new york and to philadelphia. Well, its not wellknown in fact i did not know it and i taught the history of American Revolution for years but until i started researching this book i did not realize that charlston was dealing with the tea ship in exactly the same time as 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 have not seen it. The crucial thing here is this building right here, it still exists and called the Mercantile Exchange and it plays a major part in the story of the key ship in charleston. It sits between these two churches. What happened in charlston . One of the things i do in the first chapter of the book is to cut back and forth chronologically between what isn happening in the boston was happening in charleston. My readers know what happening in both places but my bostonians did not know what was happening in charlston and the charlestonians did not know what was happening in boston, except in very vague terms and by the end of the process there were a few little bits of information that dribbled along the basically through sea captains going up and down the coast but very little was known so there really wasnt any communication. Both cities were making it up as they went along. Charlston did something very different from boston. Bostonians met and agreed what to do. Charlstons meant met twice in large meetings in that exchange buildinghe and could nt make up their minds what to do. They cannot reach any kind of consensus. And soo t what they did was insd of reaching a consensus they basically punted and what punting in this context meant was facilitating the officer of songbook carolina to come to begin a the tea. That was because at the time there was a role that once a ship entered the harbor they had to pay duty on their cargo within 20 days or else the cargo would be confiscated. In charleston basically they cannot make up their mind so they just let the customs officers to confiscate the tea after 20 days. It was clearly collusive and interestingly i found out that john adams learned that in his essays toward the end of sub or actually in 1735 or he indicates that he knows that what happened in charlston 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. So, they stored the date 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 that [inaudible] but what was left a couple of years later was sold to supporthe the war effort and that information was founded by a colleague of mine who teaches at the university of hong kong and who was working on a project on tea as a political issue in this time 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. So then what happened . Thats what happened in boston and charlston but what happened in philadelphia and new york . Well, because paul revere, the messenger of the boston radicals, rode immediately after the Boston Tea Party to philadelphia, to new york and then to philadelphia by the time the tea ship reached philadelphia coming up the delaware philadelphians knew what happened in boston and they did not know what happened in charleston but knew what happened in boston and so they figured out and they were clever and they figured outut that what we do if we just dont let the tea enter we dont let the tea ship enter the harbor of it if the tea ship does not enter the harbor and were not confronted with this 20 day deadline that confronted the bostonians and the people in charleston. Recently they intercepted the tea ship as he came up the delaware and gave out big handbills to the pilots on the Delaware River with a description of the tea ship and the description of the captain saying whatever you do, dont let this guy come near philadelphia. In fact, the underside of the ship and they persuaded the captain that he was smart not to come into the harbor and he didntto put he resupplied the ship and turned around and headed backed to england. The same thing happened with the ship going to york although it happened much later because the tea ship that was headed to new york was blown off course by north Atlantic Gail and ended up spending the winter in antigua which im sure many people would have liked to do. What it did was it left him and made the tea captain was there in antigua know absolutely what happened in all the areas in north america when 13 ships had come in and so he very cleverly from antigua wrote a letter to new york saying well, im due to come to new york and i will show up but i will not try to enter the harbor and i will merely resupply the ship and head back to england. Thats exactly what he does. He arrives in new jersey and every buddy welcomes him and they know hes not going to enter the harbor and re supplies the ship and theres this wonderful story in the new york newspaper about howry everyone is saying what a wonderful gentleman he is and hes discreet, lovely guy and they all stand on the mark and wave goodbye and wish him a good voyage back to london. Im one of my more favorite stories about this. Thats six ships. What about the seventh ship . Ohere was a force ship that went to boston but it wrecked on cape cod. Some of the tea ships chests were damaged and remained on cape cod while most of the others were sent to the british headquarters in Boston Harbor. I might add that james discovered that he was eventually sold but by the british, not by the 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 50 from iraq, after all, it did not pay a tax, therefore you could buy it without admitting parliaments right to tax you . Other people said no, no, we have to stop everybody from buying the tea because the tea is from the east India Company even if it had not h paid attac. And so 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 we finally to the local authorities allow the tea to be sold by the men who had salvaged it. No one has ever written about this before. The British Ministry and parliament did not much like what was happening in any of these communities but they primarily focused their punishment on boston by adopting the boston court act which i talked about. Mother did was to lead not to defiant unity in boston but rather to deep divisions in the town about what to do and about how to respond to the boston court act and that is my second snapshot which is much briefer but consists of the heated debate in newspapers and in two boston town meetings that occupy a total of three full days in boston in midtolate june when people argued about what boston should do to respond to the port axford its not as though everyone says we divide britain, its not what they said bid they argued a lot about what they should do. O. Bo one newspaper essayist remarked accurately and i told us about because i thought it was so appropriate quote, various of the colors in the rainbow are the opinions of gentlemen in this town, and that did seem to be exactly correct. Some people said lets pay for the tea. Other people then said but how do we do that. Do we accept money from the wealthy people, i might add, wealthy bostonians had already volunteered to make contributions to pay for the tea. Do we collect from all residents of boston . To be collected from all residents of massachusetts . Do we collect from other colonies so there was a lot of disagreement about even among people who said lets pay for the tea about how will be paid for the tea. Samuel adams who is head of the committee of course mcorrespondence dash here he seen in engraving by paul revere and you might not remember paul revere was an artist as well as being a silversmith and a messenger but he engraved this for the royal american magazine and it appeared in 1774 and 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 but his idea was to Economic Strategy and adopt a strategy of opposing britain by refusing to buy british products. I might add this comes from the americanro of howell important they were to british markets and overseas merchants. They werent 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 and from britain itself they could force the british or force the merchants to thenn try to Lobby Parliament to overturn the act, not just that act but other acts. Now, the Boston Committee then covertly circulated a non consumption agreement to this effect that its trying to get people out in the countryside go sign up not to buy British Goods. Their argument was if no one will buy the stuff that nobody will buy the stuff once its in america and the merchants will not important. Uy they did this however without consulting the boston town meeting first. It caused another controversysy some bostonians then argued vociferously for censuring adams and his committee for acting without authorization from the town. These are the two issues paying for the tea, whether to pay for the tea and if so, how to pay for the tea and whether you censor the Boston Committee or not for what they did without authorization and these are the things that led to those three very contentious town meetings in the middle and late june of 1774. At the end the town voted to support the committee, a substantial minority of the people there, about 25 it said walked out of the meeting and later published their objection to the majority decision in the newspapers and they argued that equity required that the east India Company be compensated for the destroyed tea and that in them that would also free boston from the censures of the boston port act. They may be a minority but its a vocal one. Its a little known fact that americans continue to argue about whether or not to pay for the tea until the first Continental Congress in september 1734. You still have people arguing that the tea should be paid for until september and 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 merchantste had stores full of a and people had larders of a love tea so how to stop people from drinking it even if you stop ite from being bought . For going tea smuggled as well as the east India Company tea came to be seennd as a great symbol of opposition to Great Britain. The arguments became that no one could be sure where the key you were drinking originated and it could be smuggled or legal and so its important to stop drinking all tea to oppose britain. Therefore my third snapshot is the campaign to get people, especially women, stop buying and drinking tea. Now, why women . Women were known to socialize over tea with their friends in the afternoon. Men went to taverns and socialized with their friends over ale and women socialized over tea. It was said. They did actually do that. How do you do that . Well, you go to influencers of the 18th century. Stories in the newspapers are replete with comments about wealthy women pledging not to drink tea in their households. You get stories that they 300 matrons of boston signed a statement saying they would not serve any tea in their household. Notice, you never see those statements that i have no idea whether they existed or not and whether numbers were correct or not but the stories are filled in the newspapers at this time of all kinds of prominent nameless people saying they wont drink any tea. Newspapers also start to carry recipes for tea substitutes, how to make tea out of an american like sassafras or even growing tea . How do you grow tea o bushes in america . There were public burnings of tea to which crowds were invited and crowds attended and of course, what happened at those was that people were burning 30 publicly and were being served booze by the people who were showing off the public tea burnings. There were poems and newspapers and essays about how bad tea was or ones health. Various towns including boundless, maine adopted policy forbidding tea drinking in town and this leads to another favorite anecdote i discovered that john adams was riding the circuit in maine in the summer of 1774 and had been unhorsed back for about 30 miles, pulls into and inwr and maine and asks the landlady quote unquote, can i have any tea that has been honestly smuggled . Thats his phrase. [laughter] the landlady says no, i cant serve you any tea because the town has forbidden the service of tea in town but i will serve you coffee. He drinks coffee and then a few days later the way we know about the story is because a few days later he writes to abigail and says yes, i am now tricking coffee and i am bearing it very well. [laughter] 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, its a tshort pamphlet and hes not a minister but called the pamphlet a sermon on tea. This is a quote from the book. He cited [inaudible] contending that quote, tea rendered habitually will grow fat the constitution for the beverage impact was quote, slow but sure. A slow consuming poison. It was a pandoras box that affected both sexes and tea rendered european shorter and weaker after it was introduced into the european continent a century earlier. Ea obust vascular habit of men to a feminine softness. Thus returning men into women and, women into god knows what. [laughter] i have to say, im a tea drinker so i especially like this. Gretchen specifically to younger women when his attentions and he informed them that drinking tea would make them less attractive to men. It was either confuse your faces with the deadly paleness or what is worse, a hero shallow, making regular consumptions into a ghost like pills state, spector. And he said every mother needed to be concerned about her on board prosperity for he projected the tea drinkers children would diety young. The speedy martyr to her ill judged diet. [laughter]. Gretchen some women called him on that i might add. He was not the only one. Other people argued the same thing that drinking tech team would be terrible for women. There is alsonl opposition of te campaign to sapphire. This is a famous cartoon, from britain, it is known as official title is society of patriotic ladies. And unofficially known as the to Ladies Tea Party because it is a response in britain to enter that was reported from america about a meeting women into North Carolina supporting some resistance. Somebody pointed out, and is kind of hard for me to see from here but lilys point to you the details of this. On the far lefthand in the back of the seat clement who are pouring their teeth into a skeptical that people are holding. So they are giving of the tea. But in the far background it seems to be a poll of tea that shes drinking in the background. In the foreground, there is a woman who is absolutely signing a statement presumably not to drink tea but this group of women did not actually say anything about tea. Thats part of the figuration oy this. You have grotesque ladies,ri supervising and in the foreground of the bottom, i point out to you the neglected child being whipped by a dog that is done biologically passing on justin t. So this is full of symbolism about sapphire on this and fight tea campaign in north america. During the summer of 1774, meetings were help throughout the colonies to put it through congress andnd the first Continental Congress these meetings also adopted resolutions about the current controversy. There will like what sufficiently different to show the clearly represent. I wouldve loved to sing minutes of these minutes but they have resolutions that come out of the meetings printed only one of them, explicitly copies another set of resolutions from somebody else. So basically, people in america, argued against these acts not only against the boston support act but also about a couple of other laws they disliked and most particularly something of the administration of justice act which they called the murder act and exalted that because what it provided was that the colonial or a british shoulder soldier shot a communist and the court of maintaining order and that person could be tried in england rather than in the colony. In my opinion, that is a really key piece of legislation the angered colonists. And i have quote in the book from the future who said this is terrible. So in fact this is 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 to c some of these meetings i do quote from them as much as i can. Some, wanted to avoid direct confrontations with britain and instead they sought positions to the king at the first Continental Congress and they met in philadelphia from Early September through midn october and 1774. Some opposed britain but is already too late in my opinion and thats is shown by my fourth and fifth snapshots which will follow each other very quickly. The fourth snapshot is what is known as a powder alarm. Some of you may have heard of that. It was occurred in late september 1774. Historians have written about it. They call it a dress rehearsal for the battle that they conquered. General thomas gage, the military governor of massachusetts ordered government gunpowder taken from a collective magazine in charlestown massachusetts. I will intersperse air that gunpowder tended to be stored in collective magazines because i mean dangerous for people to have her other houses it could explode. So it was started collective places that were properly insulated and so forth for the storage gunpowder. So he had government gunpowder taken out of the collective powder magazine and rumors spread and correct rumors might add that he had also taken private owners gunpowders out of that magazine. Crowds gathered the next day outside the powder magazine in charlestown and then they moved to cambridge and another rumor spread that six men had been killed the soldiers who took gunpowder. This was also not true. Milliman began to come in from the countryside. Huge crowds gathered in cambridge on Cambridge Common right in front of the college now. They mobbed local officials. Meanwhile is to remain as way elsewhere, is spread into connecticut that not only was this happening that not only six men had big been killed, not only had the governor taken private gunpowder out of the powder magazine the boston was now being bombarded by naval vessels from the harbor. So they stillso went viral and e didnt need internet to do it. If you happen even without the internet. It took days and hours rather than just minutes but by the time the story was washed, thousands of men were marching to boston. Then the truth came out that the boston leaders, the boston medical leaders samuel adams and his friends on the committee, they spread the word that this is not true and none of this is happened and finally they stopped all of this. Interestingly enough though he then wrote a very stern letter that had spread the rumor about the bombardment instead dont believe anything unless its official and we willrn tell you that its official and some dont believe any communication from anybody else. So on the web today, look for that agent ttp at the top, dont trust another website. They were in effect telling him the same thing. The snapshots of the exactly same thing and it also shows that it is too late begins at the same time and at the of the summer of 1774 but it and is later in october and november of 1774 because one off my more surprising findings to me, was this evidence the Major Military preparations began in the late summer and as early as august theres actually an extremely interesting example here. This is another paul revere thing. In the royal american magazine in august of 1774. And it accompanies an article about how to make saltpeter. Its an important ingredient in gunpowder. And this is an illustration of how you do it. So to me, this shows how much was already being talked about by the end of august of 1774 in the colonies about possibly approaching hostility. And so my fifth snapshot is the messages, and i said earlier that some of the advices were not from london but from elsewhere in this case in chapter six, therefrom hank, i want to redo you from the book the evidence that even before the first Continental Congress adjourned in late october in 1774, americans were already speaking arms and ammunition in europe and the british were frantically trying to stop them printed dont know my story now begins in the middle of october 1774. Basically for american ships to inhabit got to amsterdam to do what they are doing. I will redo this. They had to of left and eight late august or Early September 1774 printed october 11th, 1774. Sir joseph york, British Ambassador to the dutch republic, context the lord one of the secretaries of state in london. Informing him that americans smugglers have started to purchase arms and ammunition, not just the or other traditional contraband items. Abyssal promote rhode island has come to answer them speaking firearms. Reportedly the snack, captained by one benjamin page, had already taken on board 40 cannons printed this ship as always, smack, i dont know whether that is the name or type of ship called the smack but they always call it the smack so thats what i call it as well. That is the 11th of october. The 18th of october, seven days later after the dispatch has received, the lord secretary of state from america asks the admiral to dispatch a cutter to amsterdam immediately to investigate the reports and if possible, to stop the smack from leaving port. October 19th, 1 day after lord requests to the admiral, king george the third, issues an order in council prohibiting the exportation of any arms, and ammunition from Great Britain for the next six months. So that is not a direct hit spot but it certainly expresses that the British American getting worried about americans buying guns and ammunition. October 19th, keep that in mind. Because it will up in the next snapshot as well. November 18, and a series of detailed letters, dispatched every few days, they report to the lord on his efforts and those of the british coast guard cutters, first to ascertain whether the rumors about the cargo of the smack are correct. And then to prevent captain to departure of the cargo. The confidential forces informed him that pages of gunpowder to canon and hope. And has concealed it under other items. The two ships maneuvering a game of cat and mouse in the waterways surrounding amsterdam until finally paige decides to unload his vessel and winter there rather than to risk failing or sailing into the north sea andee directly confronting the whales. But it seems like the british have been successful. But theres a coda. December 9, and for york that he is lord to his chagrin that he doesnt say how, the smack cargo has been reshipped on a duck vessel which along with two other deck ships, are preparing to depart for you know where, soon pretty they are carrying, gunpowder and 25 cannons. They are in route induction from a hospital to the british and they cant stop it. So that is my snapshot. So going under snapshot, consist of what happened when news of the george the Third Council of october 19, reaches the colonies. In that news for bidding the arms and ammunition, arrived in providence, rhode island on december 8. It isca accompanied by an order that the governors secure all powder that the americans were s attempting to import from emwherever. Many Immediate Response in three colonies, should have dramatically and how very dramatically that the relationship between the colonies andy britain, had responded. Each of them, the order in council soft attack task by colonial t crowds. First rhode island residents attacked in the 14 inc. The news came to rhode island first and they were the first to respond. In the attacks the fort in newport. They carried up 44 cannons in it took 36 hours. It mustve been an incredible job, i have annoyed to how they did that. Defendant a couple days later connecticut, crowds are reacted in the same way. The mood of the cannons from those stories begins in three widely scattered locations. About rhode island and connecticut had locally elected governors under the 17th centuryth charters. They were different from the other colonies printed in New Hampshire, the story was different. Because it was a royal governor and they teammates set up different. Paul revere arrived from boston with the news of the order in council. Thats how New Hampshire found out about it from paul revere pretty false rumors spread general gauge was sitting troops to take over the fort. The scope fortop william. A crowd decided to attack the port and take the cannon and musket and ammunition that was stored there. Between 30400 men over and the fort. There only five soldiers. They could not be defendant so it took downhe the british flag and compensated 100 barrels of gunpowder. This left governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire very upset. He wrote to the lord saying the spring of government failed to me. He had tried to muster the militia, to oppose thehe takingf the fort but guess what, the people taking the fort for the militia members so they would not have them. And he said that no one would help him right and he was very definitely affected by the insult by the british flag that was hauled down. He issued a proclamation against the men who insult the parts. He urged other residents to help identify and address arrest the agperpetrators and return the kings arms because otherwise it would taste dreadful the moste, certain consequences for yourselves andco posterity. But of course, nothing happened. He was never able to arrest those responsible for the oak salt on the fort and he was never able to restore t kings as and he was right. The springs of government had failed him. So after that, after those attacks on the new england forts, everyone expected war in the spring. Everybodyy did. Everybody in america. Maybe not in england. In the right right is the book in this with a transcription of general gauges order to the trips to go to try to destroy supplies that americans had cashed their and of course the e was april 19th, 1775. And that is how the book and is printed and thats how my talk a ends and i am happy to answer any questions. [applause]. So please questions in the cspan is here so they will bring the microphone around. What about the story about the man. Speak up one of the guy who was tarred and feathered. He was john Malcolm Brenda from maine andr had compensated a ship that had been smuggling stiff, not necessarily team but of the things so people were mad and they called in they tarred and feathered him so he went boston to try to get support because maine at that time was part of massachusetts and he went toet e governor of massachusetts to ask for assistance and people got mad at him and tarred and feathered again in boston. As of the upshot was that his story, became, it turns out that it went viral in london. There were a lot of people i discovered who talked about it in london and affect some americans go back and said, what are you doing bostonians, this is leading people to get more upset with us and they were already because of the terrible you your are treating him. There are actually two differene impinges of john malcolm being tarred and feathered. It is difficult when the book. Okay other questions. Wait for the microphone. At the time did parliament have most of the power in england or did the king have the power. Guest and what did the parliament say. Gretchen what was the situation in england and how much was the power of the king versus parliament parted it was more than it was today. The king, or than symbolic but nevertheless, parliament had in the revolution of 1689, the glorious rut revolution, seized much more power from the king but the king was a real player in the story. And in fact, george the third, was just like when he issued his order in council, he was a major player in what was going on. Yes. Guest it seems like there might be a relationship between these colonists reaction to the crowd taking of their farms and Second Amendment rights with the constitution. It. Gretchen i would not say that. There is a long time between this and the adoption of the Second Amendment and the arms, they wanted the arms because they did not want to furnish to help improve local clinic came down to. They were not thinking about the arms for themselves ass they wee thinking of if we let this happen, the british will turn these guns on us. And that is very explicit some of the other incident that happened in the wake of the order also but i did not talk about. Very explicit for example in new york, there is a ship that arrives on this very thing, it is a ship that arrives just before the order in council became known. So the customs officers in new york actually compensated material from in the local ruled and uno, this is going to be turned against us so we want itr but they could not hold on to the guns and ammunition. They were held by the officers. So was really concerned for her if that guns would be turned against them. That is what it must. What are you going to do with the cannon. Especially that. If youre an army, you buy a canyon. Guest you mentioned the term loyal and beginning and i was wondering, is that just a term or was becoming something that people organized themselves around it and join groups and organizations. Speech of people hear that. Basically the question was, did loyalists become organized start to use the term as a group. Does that really translate your question adequately. Okay yes and began to be one of the things that happened especially when it became clear and became clear january of 75, there was a group of people who called themselves loyalists in massachusetts to organize and to try to set up a loyal militia to oppose what was happening in in the president ial congress in massachusetts. Mostly it was people who started or called themselves loyalists. Nature on it becomes very clear during the war there are loyal lesions and so forth. He began at this. And they did indeed start to organize. Other questions. Guest [screaming]. Can you give more detail the relationship between daniel adams and importation of tea. Gretchen he was reputed to be a major smuggler, you might have to wait, to get a complete answer to that question. Certainly hancock was an important leader of the boston radicals and he was wellknown even though he was very powerful and wealthy, very prosperous guy, he was an ally of samuel adams is not a member of the committee but he did give a very famous information on the anniversary of the boston massacre. It was one that john adams said that everybody in the audience, it was so pathetic about that terrible things that happened in boston during the boston massacre sue is definitely an ally in the committee of course, he was also a smuggler or much of that smuggling was tea, i do not know. He was well known for smuggling of madera. It was a wellknown wine smuggler but whether he was a t smuggler date would have to say i do not know. Other questions. Guest balcony. Gretchen i cannot see you at all. How did thehe other colonies ret to the royal navy after this in 1774. Gretchen they didnt really react to so much to the buildup the troops as they reacted to the closing of Boston Harbor. They definitely reacted to the boston, they sent money and they sent supplies and some people in connecticut sent a herd of sheep that were driven into boston. So they can be slaughtered in the mountain. Incoming boston assistance, and the blockade, they did not really or was it really so much about troops as it was assistance to boston which really needed the assistance. My dad however the became somewhat controversial because this is a period of great rumors. There is a big bear. That boston at least, were using and warming onto the money that is being sent to them from other colonies. And they were using it for their own purposes. In hiring locals markers on their properties instead of doing public work or something with that. It became rather controversial the Boston Committee did in fact, hire people who are out of work because of blockade of the parker and because all shipbuilding and sees and shipbuilding was a major sorted they did they hired these guys to do public artworks pursue people complain they said theyre getting benefits and we are trying y to give people assistance without strings and said the bostonians decide that well is it better for people to work the not to work. So theyre a bunch of public work projects that happened in boston during this and was paid for by many became in from other places. Guest what was it about the colonists they are, the movement that they reacted they were the ones that quote the action of the revolutionary war. Gretchen while boston is most radical. One argument that i would make is that charleston couldnt make up their minds. Bostonians were accustomed to town meetings the only place in the colony or people were accustomed to getting together in large groups having to face and discussing and coming to a consensus. I dont think there has ever been anything like a town meeting in person before the certainly havent been in philadelphia and certainly not in new york knows meetings are pretentious pretty didnt talk about thatou they are in the ons in boston so i think it had a lot to do with the fact the bostonians were accustomed to listening to each other and to talking to each other and having the sort of political discourse and then coming to an agreement. So they are able to come to an agreement. Guest do they reflect the religious beliefs. Gretchen a lot of them are congregationalist but by this time they are long past that. Some of them, early diversity. People who went to congregational churches were accustomed to Church Meetings where these kinds of dialogs occurred printed that is entirely possible. There are all kinds of churches. So it is not clear. It is certainly true politically that they had a sense of how to get along. And reach a consensus. And i dont think you see this in any of the other colonies, in any of the cities. Gretchen the only thing that was relevant. By the way that was inaudible back on the microphone. Gretchen where in fact, this was effective. It was not turned away. So no, they simply were not involved. So they were involved back in the opposition in 1765, they were not involved in 1774. Questions over here. Guest i dont over the microphone is. Gretchen just a minute, ill get to you in a moment. Take someone in the back. We cant hear them. Sorry. Can heavy just a minute. Kenny have the microphone appear pretty go ahead. Guest 1774 being the pivotal year that you write about. How pivotal were the arguments and associations. Gretchen okay the question asked how critical when the articles of the association. Critical. In fact very basically the association which was adopted by the first Continental Congress, in just before the injured in october, they called for the creation of local communities in every county city town and that is the phrase. To enforce the association and the association is the economic boycott against britain. They become crucial in the next month because they become in effect the government of the colonies and people obey what they say. And people basically vote with their feet. They stop obeying the colonial governments in the start of a local committees. All of the governors, the right letters to the lord saying that i cannot get people to obey for the insane. It would only expose the impotence of the government if i did that previously is the articles of the association are very critical in the fact that they call for the election of these committees. And i might add, they explicitly said that the people who are allowed or able to vote for the committee, are already qualified voters. So they did not expand the voting population for electing the committees that they insisted people are qualified for the Colonial Assembly should be that people who would vote for the association committee. That was critical and try to give legitimacy to these groups. Even though he cannot get the assembly to Say Something you can get the people who voted for the assembly to Say Something. Do you have another question. Guest [inaudible]. The first constitution of the United States. Lincoln called the articles. Gretchen i absolutely agree. In my classes, you would hear me lecture on that. I certainly agree with lincoln on that point. Absolutely. In effect they set up the First American government. The committee, the local committees of the First American governments. Many of the areas of the colonies have never electing anybody before. At other than the people in the assembly, for example in virginia parishes, people do not vote for them printed they do not have a general vote and they did not vote for their local officials in any sort. These were the first times that people were able to vote for local officials. So i absolutely agree with lincoln and as i said, im sorry once. Guest the question is was the Continental Congress in philadelphia considered yes that was the best thing going on. And in fact, loyalists complained, and governors complained, that people were saying and referring to the laws of the Continental Congress. Even though as far as the people who were saying this, and of the people who are making the complaints said these are not laws, theres this statements of opinion. Political people were calling them the laws, saying we will obey the laws of the Continental Congress. Guest one of the first things you talked about. [inaudible]. The lowering of the taxes, caused if there was already preexisting tax which was lowered why did that spark the owner or was it the citizen becoming more effective and injured or inversely. [inaudible]. Gretchen is very complex, left out some of the story. When the tax were first imposed which was in 1767, and 1768, there was in fact a massive boycott. Was not just a tax on that, it was other goods as well. Glass and other imported goods. So the colonists, they in a major boycott, the parliament repealed all aspects of that law except for the tea. They left the tea tax intact. As a symbol of british authority. Fastforward, and one of the things that happened was after the other work repealed, people started to actually enforce legal team again and began to pay that tax had not been doing. And it especially happened in boston and i might add that other colonists got really mad at the bostonians because they were now paying the tea tax. This is all priests sending 73. So they started to write in the newspapers and so forth, to boston. And it came to the floor again and 73 and in 74 when bostonians destroyed the tea and peopleo said well, look boston was paying the tax and we were not because of the number of people who in fact continuing to boycott and is one of the reasons why theyre doing so well in other parts. Sso the began to complain agait the bostonians in the complaint even, they did not quite trust them even when bostonians through the tea in the harbor. So is a very complicated story. Guest inaudible. Gretchen i can only see in certain places. Guest you mentioned before they were four attempts to have the east India Company give tea to the colonies were there any other attempts to follow that up after the closing. Gretchen nonofficial tea ships sinned by the east India Company. One of these issues was as i sad its very complicated story. One of the issues was put individual tea merchants by the tea from east India Companies and forth that under their own names rather than as an official east India Company tea imports. In some there were some people who tried to do that. And they soon found that the colonists were opposed to that too. And affect some of the tea that got thrown into the harbor later, was that kind of tea. That was privately imported. It was not directly from the company. So it was a very mottled situation. Let me just say that one of the issues always was, between the merchants who sold the guilty in the merchants who sold smuggled tea. An interesting, one of the ways in which charlestoniansf got consensus was like saying okay we will boycott all tina does not matter whether it is smuggled or legal, because if we only boycott legal tea, then will the smuggling for the merchants to smuggler are going to make out what went bandits. So this was a policy of the now Charleston Chamber of commerce which was founded specifically to solve thisll problem. Fie question and i can answer questions individually later. Guest the colonists were complaining about the no taxation without representation. Was there ever any thought in parliament to give them representation. Speech of no. [laughter]. It was people that were argued that should be but it never got anywhere. And in fact, when the colonists said, no taxes without representation, was more of an argument in 1755 in 1774 pretty when they said that, he did not mean, we want rep. In parliament because anew whatever representatives the sentence would immediately be outvoted. With them it was we only want to be taxed by whom we have voted. Our own p family. Thank you all very much. [applause]. Weeknights this month, we are featuring book tv programs showcasing what is available every weekend here in cspan two. Tonight, we feature authors of history books, starting with professors on the 1770 boston massacre. In its history professor benjamin part who wrote about the founding of illinois by mormon leader joseph smith in 1839, that is followed by gretchen on her book, driving while black i know the automobile impacted the lives of africanamericans. Book tv, all this weekend and every weekend here in cspan two. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but her mission continues. To provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we have brought you a primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television. Online or listen our free radio app. And be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily washington general program. Or through our social media feed. Cspan, created