Episode 482: The Boiling Pot

North America. But the war had been ruinously expensive. Of Britain's national debt had nearly doubled, rising from seventy five million to more than one hundred and thirty million. Interest alone consumed over half of the government's budget. Prime Minister George Grenville and other ministers believed the American colonies, which had gained protection and new economic opportunities from the war,

ought to help pay for the empire's defense. As Grenville later told Parliament, quote, the nation has run itself into an immense expense to give them protection, and now that they are called upon to contribute a small share toward the public expense, they grudge to contribute anything now. Even before the peace was finalized, there were other issues. Of course, Native First nations across the Great Lakes in Ohio Valley resisted sudden British encroachment in what turned into Pontiac's rebellion

in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. Britain's victory brought not only vast new territory, but also a deep unease among the Native nations of the Great Lakes. The removal of France as a colonial power didn't mean peace for them. British traders replaced French ones, but often with higher prices, stricter terms, and less diplomatic generosity for its garrisoned by redcoats, sprang up in Native homelands, while

settlers quickly pressed into lands belonged the Appalachians. Many Native leaders saw this as a threat to their sovereignty and their way of life, and so in seventeen sixty three, an Ottawa war chief named Pontiac emerged as a central figure in uniting disparate tribes the Ottawa, the Delaware, the Shawnee, the Miami, and others in a coordinated effort to expel the British from their newly conquered lands, Pontiac delivered an

impassioned speech urging resistance. Quote it is important to us, my brothers, that we exterminate from our lands this nation, which only seeks to kill us. End quote. His follower, is inspired by both traditional religious visions and political necessity, struck British forts and settlements. In a sudden wave of attacks from May to October seventeen sixty three, Native forces captured or destroyed nine of eleven British forts in the region,

killing or driving off hundreds of settlers. The most famous siege was at Fort Detroit, where Pontiac himself directed months of attacks. While British troops eventually relieved some of the strongholds and counterattacked, the rebellion revealed the fragility of Britain's hold on the interior. In seventeen sixty four, British expeditions pushed west to reassert control, but peace was gradual and incomplete. Formal agreements were reached in seventeen sixty six, but the

conflict left a lasting impact. There were thousands of people who had died as a result of this uprising that had in reality only lasted a year and a half.

Or so, and frontier settlements had been destroyed. British policymakers, who were already dealing with the incredible weight of the war with France, realized that they had to prevent further costly wars, and to do that, what they had to do was restrict colonial expansion, because overall, what all of these first nations wanted was sovereignty, and that meaning that they had to keep English colonists from invading their lands.

It was the only way to try to secure some sort of fragile peace, and as a result, what happened was the passing of the Royal Proclamation of seventeen sixty three. Now, if you are an American history buff you probably learned the Royal Proclamation of seventeen sixty three as the proclamation line, because that's what we call it in US history. But really what this meant was George the Third had issued a proclamation seeing settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains was

now forbidden without royal permission. So this is a direct consequence of Pontiac's rebellion. Now, to British officials, this was simply pragmatic. It prevented another costly frontier war, but For many colonists, it felt like a betrayal. They had fought alongside British troops with the goal of expelling the French

to get access to these lands. George Washington, who had speculated heavily in Western property, lamented privately that the proclamation would quote in effect and null every grant made for these lands end quote. And there was more to come, because, as I mentioned, Grenville and others believed that the colonists needed to shoulder some responsibility for the cost of the French and Indian War in North America the Seven Years' War in Europe, and so his first was a sugar act,

Grenville's Sugar Act of seventeen sixty four. This actually ironically reduced the duty or tax on foreign molasses, but it gave customs officers much greater power to enforce it. Suddenly, colonial merchants saw it less as a tax break and more than an efficient way to catch smugglers. In other words, they were used to paying no tax because they were

getting their molasses illegally. Molasses, by the way, a byproduct of sugar production, which is generally useless, but in this particular case very useful to the colonial economy, because the colonists were using it to create cheap rum, which they could then sell back to participate in the slave trade and all the other ingencies of the Triangle trade, or

the North Atlantic trade as we still call it today. Now, while that was going on, at the same time, Grenville passed what was called a Currency Act, and this restricted the colonies from issuing their own paper money, which worsened an already existing shortage of hard currency. Boston Town leaders were quick to petition Parliament, warning that quote the trade of the province must most inevitably be ruined end quote

if these restrictions were not eased. While opposition was initially economic rather than ideological, the seeds of resistance were clearly being planted. Now this got worse because it was followed up by another act, the infamous Stamp Act of seventeen sixty five. And again I called this episode the boiling pot because I think what you have to imagine is a situation between the British and their American colonists, much like a pot on the stove, and it's getting close

to boiling over. Every once in a while it'll start to go down a little bit, but the heat just keeps getting turned up. Year and year things seem to get a little bit worse. And the Stamp Act of sixty five is a huge part of that because it required now that all newspapers, legal documents, licenses, even playing cards carry a revenue stamp. This was the first direct internal tax Parliament had ever levied on the colonies. And

let me explain the clarity. What I mean by that is colonists were used to paying duties, so import dues on things that they got from colonies that belonged to maybe France or Spain, that they had never paid attax on something that went from the colony of New York to the colony of Massachusetts. This was the first time the British Parliament had ever attempted to do such a thing. And we're still from the colonists perspective, they're not even getting anything for it. At least, when you pay a

duty on molasses, you get the molasses. Here, you just have to put a stamp on something that was created in the colonies. So from the colonist perspective, they're not getting jack for this. Patrick Henry, speaking before the Virginia House of Burgesses, electrified the Chamber by declaring Caesar had his brutus, Charles the first, his Cromwell, and George the third Trees and treason, cried several members, according to the records, may profit by their example. If this be treason, make

the most of it. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty, a loose network led by Samuel Adams on effigies of stamp distributors from the Liberty Trees. Andrew Oliver, Massachusetts designated stamp Agent, resigned after his house was quite literally besieged. When delegates from nine colonies met at the Stamp Act Congress in New York, they adopted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, asserting that quote no taxes have ever been, or ever can be constitutionally imposed on them, but by

their respective legislatures. The economic boycott that followed hit Britain hard. London merchants petitioned Parliament to repeal the law, warning of quote the great injury to our trade and loss of our manufacturers end quote. Parliament did repeal the Stamp Act in seventeen sixty six, but it paired it with an important declaratory Act, insisting that it had full power and authority to make laws to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever. And so the pot

continued to boil. And this was all with them good, but it still left to Great Britain in desperate need of tax revenue. And so in seventeen sixty seven a new Chancellor, Charles Townsend, proposed new import duties on glass, lead, paper and tea. He insisted that these were external taxes

and therefore not objectionable. The colonists disagreed. John Dickinson's widely read Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania countered the Parliament unquestionably possesses a legal authority to regulate the trade of Great Britain and her colonies. I have looked at every other statue relating to these colonies, find every one of them founded on this principle. Tell the Stamp Act administration, all duties for the purpose of raising a revenue are illegal.

End quote. Colonial assemblies revived hitherto unused non importation agreements in efforts to boycott British goods and therefore force the mother country into submission. British officials in Boston found the situation so fraught that they had to call for Redcoat reinforcements. In seventeen sixty eight, two regiments of Redcoats marched into the city of Boston, an armed reminder of Imperial power, but the presence of troops in Boston created a tense

powder keg atmosphere. On the evening of March the fifth, seventeen seventy, an argument between a soldier in a wigmaker's apprentice drew a crowd Snowballs gave way to rocks and clubs, and the confusion soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five, including Crispus Attics, a man of both African and Native descent who's often cited as the first casualty of the American Revolution. Paul Revere's engraving, which was widely circulated, depicted

disciplined Redcoats simply firing into an unarmed crowd. Samuel Adams called it a massacre, using the event to rally public opinion. Now, the British captain Thomas Preston insisted that he had not ordered his men to fire future Patriot leader, though John Adams actually defended the British soldiers in court, and he reminded the jury that quote facts are stubborn things end quote, and that the law needed to apply evenly, even to enemies,

that most of the soldiers were in fact acquitted. On that same day, Parliament quietly repealed most of the Townsend duties, retaining only the tax on tea. Oh, if only that were enough. The next flashpoint came with the t Act of seventeen seventy three, designed to aid the struggling British East India Company. It allowed the company to sell tea directly to the colonies, cheaper than smuggled British tea, but

still taxed under the Townsend Acts. In a pamphlet, Samuel Adams warned that quote the monopoly on tea is a very dangerous precedent. If they have a right to tax us without our consent, they have a right to tax us in all things. On December sixteenth, seventeen seventy three, a group of men disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped three hundred and forty two chests of tea into the water. One participant later

recalled quote, we were merry in an undertone. But no one uttered a word above his breath, and no one in the course of the whole transaction appeared to be under any apprehension of danger. Parliament's response to the Boston Tea Party was swift and punitive. The coercive acts, which get called the intolerable acts if you are in America, closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for, which, if you're interested in knowing, the price tag on that

in today's dollars was tens of millions of dollars. They also altered the Massachusetts Charter to limit town meetings. They allowed royal officials accused of crimes to be tried not in the Americas but back in Britain, and they expanded the ordering of British troops. The Quebec Act, passed at the exact same time, extended Quebec's boundaries into the Ohio Valley and recognized Kipolicism as an official religion, which was

deeply upsettling to many Protestant colonists in the Americas. In Virginia, George Washington wrote to a friend that quote, the cause of Boston, the cause of America is now and ever will be considered as the cause of every virtuous American. In September of seventeen seventy four, delegates from twelve colonies met in Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress. They agreed to a colonial boycott of British goods, issued a declaration of rights and grievances, and called on each colony to

prepare its militia. But King George the Third was on move. Before we go any further in this story, let's take a moment and let's go ahead and introduce George the Third, because obviously he's going to be an important character coming forward. George William Frederick was born on June fourth, seventeen thirty eight at Norfolk House in London. He was the son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxy Gotha. As the grandson of George the Second, George was not

initially the heir apparent. His father was young and healthy, in the line of succession seemed secure. George's childhood was shaped by his mother's influence and a sheltered, moralistic upbringing. Augusta instilled in him a sense of duty, frugality, and religious devotion, qualities that would mark his reign as both virtues and sometimes limitations. He was also an unusually diligent student for a royal child, with early tutors noting his

keen interest in science, agriculture and philosophy. When George was twelve, though, tragedy changed his destiny. In seventeen fifty one, his father died unexpectedly from a lung injury, making George the new heir to the throne. His mother, fiercely protective, oversaw his education and surrounded him with advisers that she trusted, most notably a man by the name of John Stuart. He was the Earl of Brute. He would become George's political mentor and of course, one of the most famous political

scientists of the eighteenth century. And so it was that, on the twenty fifth of October in the year seventeen sixty, George the Third ascended the throne at the age of only twenty two, following the death of his grandfather. His coronation marked a break from his Hanoverian predecessors in one crucial respect. He was actually born in Britain, and he spoke English as his first language, the first of the

Hanoveran day and estey to do so. In his first address to Parliament, he famously declared born and educated in this country, a glory in the name of Britain. Now, the early years of his reign, of course, were dominated by the end of the Seven Years' War, which ended in seventeen sixty three, and that, of course, was when under William Pitt the Elder, Britain secured major victories against

France in North America, Indian and on the seas. George, eager to assert royal influence over foreign policy, supported the peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris in seventeen sixty three. While the Treaty, of course expanded Britain's

colonial empire, it also sattled the government with significant war debts. Now, to be fair to George, he believed in upholding Parliament's authority over the empire, so he completely supported the efforts to try to get some tax revenue out of the colonies, including the Sugar Act, the Stamp Acts on and so forth. That being said, George's domestic politics were quite turbulent. He faced accusations of favoring John Stewart and interfering with parliamentary independence.

Factionalism in the House of Commons saw ministries rise and fall with dizzying speed. Between seventeen sixty and seventeen seventy, no fewer than seven different prime ministers served under George the Third. The Boston massacre in that same year seventeen seventy deepened the rift with America, but at that point George still believed that the unrest could be contained through

firmness and gradual conciliation. Now, the early seventeen seventies brought some moments of calm, but as of course we know, the t Act and subsequent Tea Party rekindled crisis, and all of the actions that Parliament took, including the coercive acts aka in tolerable acts, were backed by George, who ordered the imperial authority of Parliament and believed that all of this was necessary to maintain order. And that takes

us up to early seventeen seventy five. In early seventeen seventy five, General Thomas Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts, ordered troops to seize colonial arms at Conquerd in Massachusetts. On the night of April eighteenth, seventeen seventy five, British General Thomas Gage ordered roughly seven hundred regulars to march from Boston to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize colonial military supplies

stored there. Colonial intelligence networks, organized largely by the group the Sons of Liberty, had been watching British movements very closely. When the Redcoats began their march, Boston silversmith and patriot Paul Revere, along with William Dawes and later Samuel Prescott,

set out to warn the countryside. Revere had arranged a pre arranged signal from the Old North Church in Boston two lanterns to indicate the troops were crossing the Charles River, and then rode swiftly to alert John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were stationed in Lexington. Along the way, he stopped at homes and taverns, spreading the alarm the regulars are coming out. Although Revere was detained by a British patrol before he reached Concord, his mission had succeeded. Local militias

were awake and mobilizing before dawn. At sunrise on April eighteen, seventy seventy five British troops arrived in Lexington to find, to their great surprise, seventy militiamen just simply waiting on the village, Green Captain John Parker, facing overwhelming arms against the British regular redcoats, reportedly turned and told to his men, quote stand your ground, don't fire unless fired upon. But if they need to have a war, let it begin

here end quote a shot. Its source is still disputed rang and the British fired a ali killing eight colonists. The troops rushed on to Conquered where they destroyed some supplies, but faced armed resistance at the North Bridge. There, colonial militiamen exchanged fire with British soldiers, forcing them into a retreat. All along the road back to Boston, militiamen fought much like the indigenous peoples they had been fighting against in the woods and across the hills of Massachusetts for years

and decades. They poured fire in from behind stone walls and trees, running away and melting into the woods before the British regulars could form up, and all along inflicted heavy casualties on the retreating British. By the day's end, the British had lost over two hundred and seventy men, and the colonies were effectively at war with their mother country.

The ride of Revere and his companions, and the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord became immortalized as the spark of the American Revolution, what Ralph Waldo Emerson later called the shot heard around the world. In just over a decade, Britain and her colonies had moved from partnership to estrangement, from estrangement to war. The disputes began over taxation and policy, but each act, protest and reprisal deepened the mistrust until

reconciliation seemed impossible. As Thomas Paine would later write in common Sense, quote, the cause of America is, in a great measure the cause of mankind.