I have been posting a lot of Genealogy based videos, today we are going to be diving into a little bit of history...so strap in and get ready to be transported to the past. A little information about the content….I will be doing a series on American History to start. I feel as a Genealogist and a Historian it’s important to know the time in which your ancestors lived. Why? Because, Political Climate, War, Natural Events etc all take a part in shaping decisions, lifestyle, location etc. These events will help you get a better understanding of your ancestors and maybe help you understand their stories better.
So I feel the best place to start a series like this is at the beginning of American History, the Revolutionary War. Why did it start? Could it have been averted? What actions were taken? Etc In this part one video we will be talking about the Politics of this time (don’t worry I will be talking about Battles and Important People in later posts).
To understand why the Revolution began, we have to go back a few years to the French and Indian War. This war was fought from 1754 to 1763, and it pitted the British Americas against those of New France, and both sides were supported by the military of their parent country and by Native American allies on either side. This was a war for territory. At the time both the British and the French wanted to expand their territory west of the Appalachian Mountains known then as the Ohio Territory. While they both had fur traders and pioneers already living and trading with Native Americans there the French believed they had claim over the land since their explorers had been there first.
I won’t get much into the French and Indian War (I will come back to that during my Colonial America Segment) but as you can guess the war was costly. Britain had racked up a large debt to pay for the war so the Parliament imposed new taxes on the American Colonists such as the Stamp Act (1765) and Sugar Tax (1764) and more to cover these costs. What upset the American people however is that the taxes were only imposed on them, they were not imposed on the British subjects in Britain itself. Parliament said that they were in the right to tax the American people as they had just waged for a long and costly war against the French and that it was the colonists duty to assist in the payment of said war.
The other cause for discontent is that the Parliament was elected by people living in England, not by the British subjects living in the American colonies. The colonists felt that the people making laws could not comprehend the needs of the people in the American colonies without proper representation in the English Parliament. This is where the saying ‘No taxation without representation’ came from and it became a rally cry for the American colonists as they believed the Parliament didn’t have a right to impose taxes and other laws on them without the Colonies being represented properly in Parliament.
Beneath the animosity signs of rebellion brewed. In 1771 a group of farmers from Tar Heel, North Carolina (called Regulators) had rose and led a rebellion (the largest in the English colonies yet). They wanted to ‘regulate’ (hence the name Regulators) the corrupt local officials of the governor. The royal governor, who at the time was William Tryon, and his officials were charging exorbitant fees and seizing property from the locals who couldn’t pay the price. A Battle took place at Great Alamance Creek when 2,000 of these regulators clashed with William Tryon and his militia (about 1,000) in a rebellion now known as the Battle of Alamance. The Regulators lost the battle though they held their own for a considerably long time. 7 of the Regulators would later be executed for treason and made an example of for others who thought to rebel.
Another act of rebellion came in December of 1773 in Boston Harbor. Colonists had decided to throw shipments of tea into the harbor rather than pay the taxes that Parliament had put on the commodity. This is act of defiance today is known as The Boston Tea Party and it fanned the flames in all of the colonies against the British Parliament, which continued to scorn the colonists wishes for active representation in the government. This was one of the last major acts of rebellion by the American Colonists against British Rule before the war itself began.
In September of 1774 to October of 1774 the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a place called Carpenter’s Hall. It was made up of 56 delegates from twelve of the thirteen American Colonies. Some of the notable delegates to be mentioned were none other than George Washington, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Peyton Randolph etc. Benjamin Franklin had suggested the idea of a meeting between the colonies in 1773 but was not able to convince the colonies of its necessity until the British blockade was set in the port of Boston that was a response to the Boston Tea Party.
The meeting convened as a response to the ‘Intolerable Acts’ that were being passed by the British Parliament in 1774 which were a direct response to the acts of the colonists for the Boston Tea Party. The British Parliament hoped that these punitive measures would make an example of Massachusetts and reverse the colonial resistance so they would give way to parliamentary authority once again.
The Intolerable Acts also known as the Coercive Acts in Britain, were as follows:
Boston Port Act: this law closed off the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the destroyed tea and the King (King George III) was satisfied that British order of the American Colonists had been restored.
Massachusetts Government Act: under the terms of this act almost all positions in the colonial government were to be appointed by the governor, Parliament, or King. This act also severely limited town meetings in Massachusetts allowing only one per year unless called for by the Governor. Further restricting the rights of the colonists to have a say in the way they are governed.
Administration of Justice Act: this act allowed the Royal Governor to order trials of accused royal officials to take place in Great Britain or elsewhere in the Empire if he felt that the defendant could not get a fair trial in Massachusetts. Even though the act stipulated that witnesses could travel at their own expense to testify at the trial and be reimbursed later it only took into account the passage not the time in which they would be unable to work causing loss in earnings, this left many not being able to testify which mean that British Officials accused of wrongdoing were set free. George Washington called it the ‘Murder Act’ because British Officials could harass Americans and then escape justice.
Quartering Act: This act applied to all of the colonies and was made to create a more effective method of housing for the British Troops in America. Sources claimed that the Quartering Act allowed troops to be housed in the occupied private homes of the American Colonists.
Many colonists who were already angered by the excessive taxing felt that these Coercive Acts were a violation of their Constitutional Rights, their Natural Rights, and their Colonial Charters and as a result of these acts the colonists turned against British rule.
In April of 1775 British Soldiers and the Colonist Militia (aka Lobsterbacks for their redcoats and minutemen the American Militia) exchanged gunfire at both Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. This exchange would be known as ‘the shot heard round the world’ and was the event that signaled the start of the American Revolution.
Could the Revolution been averted? Potentially, we can only speculated but while there were many colonists that were angered by the British rules and taxes that were being imposed on them there were still many loyalists and the Continental Congress was new and made up of both sympathizers to the American cause and Loyalists to the crown. If the crown had appealed to the Loyalists and released some of their stranglehold on the colonists and simply let the Congress implode on itself without giving them more fuel to fan the flames of rebellion it’s a possibility that Lexington and Concord could have been the beginning and the end of the Rebellion. But that’s not how it happened.
Instead King George III issued a Proclamation of Rebellion which stated that the American Colonies were in a state of ‘open and avowed rebellion’ and ordered British officials to ‘use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion’. The Proclamation also encouraged subjects throughout the Empire including those in Great Britain to report anyone carrying out ‘traitorous correspondence’ with the rebels so they could be punished appropriately. All this did was strengthen the colonist resolve and the congresses commitment to liberty. And made the fight for succession all the more important.