← Titanic: Ship of Dreams
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- [00:02]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
It's March 5, 1770. A cold night outside the Boston Custom House. On King Street, a soldier stands sentry. There are no street lamps here, but the moon is bright. Its light reflects off piles of snow that line the street, illuminating the soldier's freezing face. These last few days, the city has been on edge. Two weeks ago, Boston was rocked by the death of a local boy. He was killed by a fellow Bostonian, one identified as a supporter of the British regime. The child's death adds to the atmosphere of resentment. The populace seethes at elite privilege, Parliament's taxes and the presence of the King's soldiers.
- [00:58]
Narrator/Commentator
The tension between officers and civilians is palpable. Around the city, dirty looks turn into insults. Insults turn into threats. Threats turn into skirmishes. Now on King Street, a group of adolescents gathering. They taunt and heckle the soldier on duty. They call him a scoundrel. Lobster, son of a bitch. Lobsters is what Bostonians routinely call the red coated British troops who patrol their streets. The boys throw snowballs hardened with chunks of ice. More people join the crowd. Some of them have sticks. Witnesses will later swear that there are clubs and swords too. Further down the street, a watching officer grows alarmed. He orders seven other soldiers to march down King street and usher their colleague away. The redcoats push their way through the crowd. Angry faces, only half visible surround them.
- [02:10]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
More snow and ice is tossed their way. A voice screams, kill them. The situation is now off the rails.
- [02:21]
Narrator/Commentator
One of the soldiers is struck on the head. He loses his footing on the ice. When he regains his balance, he fires. Chaos descends.
- [02:38]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Other soldiers begin shooting.
- [02:41]
Narrator/Commentator
Several people are hit. They slump to the ground. It is what will be remembered as the Boston Massacre. The world is turning upside down.
- [03:02]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
I'm clark peters from the noiser podcast network. This is part two of founding an american dream.
- [03:29]
Narrator/Commentator
We ended our first episode with the tragic death of 11 year old Christopher Sider, shot and killed during a clash over the imposition of British taxes. Several days later, it's the morning of the boy's funeral. We're with Samuel Adams, the leading light of Boston's protests against the imperial government. As snow falls, he joins a slow moving sea of mourners walking towards the church. Leading the way are 500 schoolboys all dressed in black. Behind them, six pallbearers carrying Christopher Sider's coffin. Then come 2,000 locals, Adams among them.
- [04:22]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
All around him are the Sons of Liberty, the name adopted by a network of zealous patriots.
- [04:30]
Narrator/Commentator
These last few days have kept Adams busy. For the Boston Gazette, he wrote an account of Christopher's final moments. He describes the child's bravery and dignity. An angel cruelly slaughtered on his way home from school.
- [04:51]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Adams and his fellow activists have also been involved in arranging the funeral.
- [04:56]
Narrator/Commentator
Christopher's coffin is adorned with Latin inscriptions. One reads, innocence is nowhere safe. The innocents referred to is not just one young boy, but a way of life. Christopher Saida has become a martyr for American liberty.
- [05:21]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Adams, perhaps selected the inscription himself. Expressing populous rage in classical Latin is very much on brand. Historian and author Ray Raphael.
- [05:34]
Historian/Expert
Samuel Adams was quite gifted because he could operate on two planes. At that time, they had two indoors and without doors, and indoors. They're talking politics behind closed doors, in chambers. And he understood that he knew how to do that and he could also operate out of doors. He was a man of the people. He got it. He got the people. He could communicate with them. So being able to operate on these two planes really positioned him well to get both planes kind of working in sync.
- [06:12]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
The death of Christopher Cider unites the two plains of Boston and ratchets up the tension between the people and the occupying redcoats. For two weeks, the city simmers.
- [06:25]
Narrator/Commentator
Then, on March 5, Boston is the site of a mass killing. The chaotic scene which began this episode. Three people are killed right there on King Street. Two others will eventually die of their wounds. Boston's propagandists set to work. Adams is the first to publicly describe the event as a massacre. A tale of wicked, calculating brutality.
- [06:57]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
The flood of words is accompanied by images. Paul Revere is one of the city's finest silversmiths. In his workshop, he labors over an engraving. In some ways, it captures the truth of that infamous night. In the bottom left of the engraving is a dark skinned man.
- [07:17]
Narrator/Commentator
This is Crispus Attucks, of African and Native American descent, the first casualty of British fire.
- [07:27]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Otherwise, Revere uses more than a little artistic license. He depicts an orderly line of redcoats
- [07:35]
Narrator/Commentator
firing into a crowd of helpless onlookers in broad daylight. Nevertheless, the imagery is immensely powerful. Historian Jane Kaminsky, president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
- [07:52]
Historian/Expert
This gives the Imperial Crisis its first printable martyrs. The Boston newspapers have an iconography for this event, showing five coffins on the top of the papers. Revere calls it the Boston Massacre, with a print that is seared into the mind's eye of people on both sides of the Atlantic. You can buy it hand colored and see the red coats and the blood spilled spilling into the crowd. And calling it the Boston Massacre really turns a skirmish into an act. Of war.
- [08:30]
Narrator/Commentator
News spreads quickly to Britain. A jumble of conflicting reports compete for attention in government circles. There's support for the British soldiers and incomprehension at the behavior of these upstart colonials.
- [08:47]
Historian/Expert
New England is the seat of the rebellion in ways that must be entirely mystifying to the crown, because it's just not that important to the balance sheet of empire. It's noisy, it's accomplished, but economically it doesn't provide much. So if you read parliamentary debates and records of George iii, there's almost a sense of surprise of how can we have to be devoting so much governmental attention to this thing over there, which has grown just entirely feral with its own institutions.
- [09:29]
Narrator/Commentator
When George III came to the throne a decade ago, he was fated.
- [09:33]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Now he's knee deep in problems.
- [09:36]
Narrator/Commentator
He becomes associated with corrupt and incompetent advisors. The crown has giant debts which Parliament is forced to settle. And problems with the American colonies are careening out of control. In January 1770, the king appoints Lord north his sixth prime minister in a decade. The Boston massacre comes just weeks into North's tenure.
- [10:07]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
The news is horribly familiar.
- [10:10]
Narrator/Commentator
Professor Andrew o' Shaughnessy of the University
- [10:13]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
of Virginia, many of the people who
- [10:16]
Historian/Expert
opposed the American policies were very critical of the Boston massacre, But it coincided with a similar shooting in Britain called the St. George's Field Massacre. And so it felt, fed into a narrative both in Britain and America, that you basically had a government that was determined to subvert liberties. A government that they suspected had become corrupted by patronage.
- [10:49]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
On April 12, 1770, six weeks after the violence in Boston, the British government scrapped some of the taxes that caused this mayhem. The duty on tea, however, remains a reminder to the colonies that Britain reserves the right to tax America as it sees fit. But justice must also be done. In Boston's courts of law. Responsibility for that falls to Adams, Not Samuel, but his lawyer cousin, John. As with Samuel, the 34 year old John is a Whig, the political faction demanding reform in the colonies. More than anything, though, he believes in the principle that all men are equal before the law. The very day after the killings on King Street, John Adams agrees to take on the least wanted job in Boston, Joining the defense team for the nine soldiers charged with perpetrating a massacre of the innocents. When he tells his wife Abigail of his decision, she bursts into tears.
- [12:03]
Narrator/Commentator
Lately, the Adams household has been a somber place. Only a few weeks ago, John and Abigail buried their baby daughter. Now this new anxiety, One that will potentially make the whole family targets of abuse. But Abigail knows the fact that nobody wants to take the case is precisely the reason her husband must. Like him, she believes in protecting colonial rights. Like him, she also wants the world to see that Boston is committed to the rule of law. Whatever the risks, Abigail accepts John must do it.
- [12:48]
Historian/Expert
There's clearly a lot of give and take between them. Men and women are not equal in New England, but they are perhaps more equal than they are anywhere else because that sort of broad fabric of Puritan culture gives women an exemplary role in instructing their households. She gives as good as she gets. And I think having somebody who is a household partner in the way that Abigail Adams is shapes everything about the way John Adams shows up in the world. I think she's also one of the few people who can tell him to modulate himself, which is something he has quite a bit of trouble doing.
- [13:32]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Lindsay Chavinsky is executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library.
- [13:39]
Historian/Expert
John Adams, well, he was certainly sincere. He was unbelievably earnest. He was often way too honest. He didn't always know when to keep his mouth shut. He was unbelievably brilliant. But he also had a great sense of humor. He had a lightness to him that I think most people miss. He adored his wife and thought incredibly highly of her intellect. Her judge of character was superb. And as a result, she was a phenomenal partner and advisor to her husband. Many of his critics sometimes referred to her as his cabinet of one and is the most accurate criticism that anyone has ever levied against John Adams because she was his most important advisor and generally gave him very good advice.
- [14:33]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
It's October 27, 1770, in central Boston. The courthouse is filling with spectators. They're here for the trial of Captain Thomas Preston. He's accused of giving the order to fire that precipitated the Boston Massacre or the affray on King street, depending on where your allegiances lie. Today is the fourth day of Preston's trial, the longest in Boston's history. The first two days had been reserved for jury selection. Then the prosecution's case under cross examination. The witness evidence is confusing and contradictory, pretty much like the night itself. Now it's the turn of the defense. John Adams sits quietly at the front of the room. He rifles through his sheaths of paper. Last minute preparations for the most significant moment of his career to date. It's already been an eventful week for the young lawyer.
- [15:42]
Narrator/Commentator
Just yesterday, he and a colleague had an audible argument in court. They disagree about a line of questioning. Voices are raised. It gets so heated that Adams Threatens to resign. Captain Preston is facing the gallows. He can't afford a brawl amongst his own council. Eventually, Adams prevails. He stands his ground bullishly, as he always does now. A day later, the judge calls upon the defense to continue its case. Adams clears his throat. He rises to his feet, not a big man, but with the gift of presence. Addressing the court, he makes his argument. He doesn't question the integrity of the witnesses. He doesn't draw attention to the violence of the mob. He doesn't even say much about the character of his client. Instead, he insists that no honest person could convict Thomas Preston. The facts of the case are too contested, the witness statements too inconsistent. It's impossible to say for certain who, if anyone, gave the order to fire. Adams retakes his seat. The existence of reasonable doubt seems undeniable. Three days later, the jury delivers its verdict. Thomas Preston is found not guilty. Less than a fortnight after that, Adams is back in court, this time to defend the other eight soldiers. In his closing argument, he paints a vivid picture of the night of March 5th. The menacing crowds, the death threats, the missiles flying through the darkness.
- [17:54]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Adams gets the job done. Six of the soldiers are acquitted. Two are convicted of manslaughter.
- [18:01]
Narrator/Commentator
Their thumbs are branded with hot irons in punishment.
- [18:05]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
But all of them escape the death penalty. The end of the second trial feels like a moment of resolution. By this point, nine months after March 5, most of the new taxes that have produced so much controversy have been
- [18:25]
Narrator/Commentator
removed, as have a lot of the redcoats. And New England's reputation is enhanced with prominent Whigs securing the acquittal of British soldiers. Nobody can accuse Boston of being a place ruled by mob justice. And this is precisely what worries Samuel Adams. While his cousin John has been victorious
- [18:49]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
in court, Samuel worries that Boston is
- [18:52]
Narrator/Commentator
too eager to move on.
- [18:57]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
He meets in taverns with the Sons of Liberty. Over beer and roast beef, they agree on the need to remind Americans that this isn't over. Just look at the remaining duty on imported tea. If Parliament insists it has a right to tax the colonies, it leaves the door open for all kinds of other abuses. Taxation without representation is the thin end of the wedge. American liberties must be protected. The colonies need to wake up.
- [19:34]
Historian/Expert
Sam Adams, early on announces himself as one of the people who is really willing to generalize about the condition of the colonies from the fate of Massachusetts and is very canny about the need to keep the drumbeat going in times of peace. So Americans tend to think of the road to revolution as flat and wide and without off ramps or pebbles along the way. In fact, the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s has a lot of prolonged pauses. The troops land in 1768 and culminate with a so called Boston Massacre In March of 1770, a huge peak in hostility. But then things get very quiet between 1771 and 1773. Sam Adams is one of those coordinators of rebellion that says, people are losing interest. We've got to keep this thing alive. He's very sensitive to the power of the press and the ability of printers and editors to spread a story all up and down the eastern seaboard, making common cause out of Boston's cause. And he uses that tactic quite deliberately. So I think the crisis starts as being quite reactive to crown and parliamentary policies. Sam Adams is one of those who's sure to stay ahead of public opinion and to form it.
- [21:19]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
At this stage, Samuel Adams is advocating reform, not independence. He wants to shift power away from the imperial elite and towards the colonists, to safeguard colonial rights. One way he does this is by keeping the memory of the Boston massacre alive. On March 5, 1771, Adams is busy with events to commemorate its first anniversary. At noon, every church bell in the city tolls for an hour. There are solemn speeches and moments of Mass reflection. Later that day, thousands turn out to view a triptych created by silversmith Paul Revere. One panel shows the death of Christopher Cider. In another, redcoats open fire on civilians. The final image is a female personification of America trampling a British soldier.
- [22:22]
Narrator/Commentator
The colony's struggle has its first fallen heroes, a powerful bank of imagery and an emerging calendar of revolutionary anniversaries. Every year for the next 12 years, the date of the massacre, March 5, will be commemorated in Boston. It will only recede when the July 4th holiday of independence Day comes along. But at this point, hardly anyone's imagining
- [22:53]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
things could ever reach that point. At her home in Boston, Abigail Adams takes her first sip of tea of the day. Like most people in the British world, she's an habitual drinker of bui, a type of black tea from China. It's a strong brew, one she and the colonists cannot go without. Yet these days, every cup is a reminder of the remaining duty on tea, something the Adamses and their fellow Whigs see as tyranny. Smugglers make a killing on tea that evades customs. The smugglers include John Hancock, a flash young protege of Samuel Adams.
- [23:46]
Narrator/Commentator
They allow Americans to still enjoy their morning tea and strike a blow for liberty at the same time. Across the water, Prime Minister north isn't thinking much about America. His attention is fixed on faraway India. There, much of Britain's interest is represented by the East India Company, a joint stock enterprise whose ruthless practices have made Britain a major power in South Asia. Yet in recent times, that once booming organization has run into problems. By 1773, it finds itself with a gigantic surplus of tea and no market to sell it to.
- [24:36]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
So an idea is sparked in London. Why not sell that tea at a huge discount to the caffeine lovers in America? The East India Company will recoup its losses, the British government will raise revenues and American consumers will get an affordable, high quality version of their favorite luxury.
- [24:58]
Narrator/Commentator
What's more, the price will be so low it will even undercut smugglers evading Parliament's duties. On the surface, it's a genius idea. Several problems will be solved simultaneously. Except they won't. Lord north couldn't have come up with anything better designed to annoy the colonies. To them it seems like just another tax imposed upon them by the Parliament in London, a body in which they are still not represented.
- [25:33]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
And once again the focus of protests is wild, self reliant Boston. In early December, Samuel Adams walks back and forth along a wharf in Boston Harbor. He's accompanied by John Hancock and other self declared patriots. In their hands they carry muskets and bayonets. They're here to stave off the threat of invasion, not of more redcoats, but of black tea. For weeks now, three ships containing East India Company tea have been sat in the harbor. But Adams has led a campaign against it. Not a single leaf is allowed to come ashore. There have been town meetings and screaming matches with government officials, insults, damnations and threats. And every evening the Sons of Liberty patrol the wharf. To these men, the consignment is caffeinated wickedness, an assault on liberty and an insult to God.
- [26:50]
Narrator/Commentator
Rumors swirl that the Sons of Liberty will destroy the ships. To those who support the British government, it seems like an outbreak of contagious insanity instigated by Samuel Adams. But some think there's too much focus on Adams and that this distracts attention from the so called Boston mob, the ordinary men and women who want their grievances heard.
- [27:18]
Historian/Expert
The whole point of the whole revolutionary period was to broaden the base of who the people were. Popular sovereignty. That's what the whole thing is about. Boston's a seaport teeming with rough and tumble guys and it's not a gentle place. And these people are kind of rowdy and they drink a lot and they carouse and when you actually get political engagements, they're much more prone to using violence. So ironically, you have this popular image that Samuel Adams was revving up the crowd to do their thing. And it was exactly the reverse. The leadership is trying to calm them down because they say, this isn't going to get us anywhere.
- [28:04]
Narrator/Commentator
There are those whose beef with the
- [28:06]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Redcoats is more personal than political. In some cases, they're disgruntled that soldiers are moonlighting, hustling for work in their spare time, taking jobs from local people. But the Boston Massacre radicalizes many ordinary people. Among them is the unusually named George Robert Twelves Hughes. He was in the crowd that night. He claims to have known four of the five killed. A shoemaker with a troubled past, Hughes is one of life's underdogs.
- [28:45]
Historian/Expert
First thing you have to know about Hughes is he's very short. He's 5ft 1. He tries to enlist in the Seven Years War, but he's too short. They had a 5 foot 2 limit. He's kind of a street kid, basically. When the British occupy the city, this saucy youngster has several run ins with him, you know, because he's not taking any stuff from these guys. So he has no warm feelings in his heart for the British soldiers. He's also a very charismatic fellow, apparently, and he has a special skill which he's a good whistler.
- [29:19]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
In ordinary times, whistling might not be a highly prized skill. But Hughes is not living in ordinary times. It's the evening of December 16, 1773, at the Old South Meeting House. Boston is doing what Boston does best, making itself heard
- [29:52]
Narrator/Commentator
inside. Six thousand people occupy every square inch of the place. Most have been here since morning. Speeches and arguments have filled the day. Fractures. Tired Bostonians are waiting for something to happen.
- [30:11]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Samuel Adams stands in front of the audience. He explains that repeated efforts have been made to peacefully end the dispute. But the British government will not respect the rights of the people, especially their right to be taxed only by bodies in which they are represented. Suddenly, strange noises drift in from outside. YELPS and cries something alien. Adams keeps going, but he's lost his audience. Men and women look towards the exit almost as one. Hundreds of them squeeze and jostle their way outside. Awaiting them on the street is a peculiar sight. A group of men dressed as crude parodies of Native Americans with feathered headdresses and tomahawk axes. The mob is loud, demonstrative. Maybe they're trying to show that they are as formidable as Native American warriors. Whatever the case, if it's intended to be a disguise, it's not a great one. Boston isn't a vast city. It's pretty easy to work out who's who. One of them is Hughes. His short stature is a clear giveaway. The men quickly make their way towards the three tea ships in the nearby wharf. They split into groups, each boarding a different vessel. Hughes is the leader of the group that boards the Dartmouth. So he will later claim his whistling prowess allows him to communicate with his co conspirators in the dark. He demands the keys from the startled captain. The men clamber down to the hold where the tea is stored. They haul chests of the stuff up on deck. Now they hack the chests open.
- [32:20]
Narrator/Commentator
Masses of tea leaves are tossed into the water. They clog together on the surface like knots of seaweed.
- [32:29]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
The destruction goes on for a further two hours.
- [32:33]
Narrator/Commentator
Ultimately, the contents of 342 tea chests
- [32:37]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
are consigned to Boston Harbor. The tea standoff has come to an astonishing conclusion. And this isn't an isolated event. In other cities, colonists are doing the same thing. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey and South Carolina, white settlers are dressing as native people before staging similar raids on British tea.
- [33:06]
Narrator/Commentator
But because this one is in the
- [33:08]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
tinder box of Boston, it captures worldwide attention. The latest news from Boston spills out into the world and soon acquires the name the Boston Tea Party.
- [33:23]
Narrator/Commentator
And it happens because of Hughes and
- [33:25]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
his buddies, men on the margins who
- [33:28]
Narrator/Commentator
suddenly seize center stage.
- [33:31]
Historian/Expert
The unique power of the Boston Tea Party was. That was really the first time that the interests of the Boston leadership and the Boston mob, the people, coincided. They're saying to Parliament, there's no more back and forth. You send stuff here that we don't like. We're going to destroy it. It's that one point of uniting the merchant class and the working class.
- [33:58]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Yet at the time, there are fears that the Boston Tea Party has damaged both causes. In London, Benjamin Franklin is embarrassed and perturbed. He does not condone destruction of private property. He suggests the colonists should reimburse the East India Company for its losses. Others in London agree. Professor Benjamin Karp is the author of Defiance of the the Boston Tea Party and the Making of America.
- [34:30]
Historian/Expert
When Parliament hears about this, they are furious. So they pass a series of laws known as the Coercive Acts, later remembered by Americans as the Intolerable Acts. The first one is the Boston Port act, which specifically references the Boston Tea Party and says, we are going to close Boston to most commercial traffic. In other words, we're going to throw everyone out of work until the town of Boston repays the East India Company for its losses. Now the Bostonians say, wait a minute, this wasn't a town meeting that ordered this. How can you blame the official town of Boston for the acts of these random guys in disguises? We don't know who they were. Of course, everyone knew who they were, but they have this fiction. And what Parliament is hoping is that Boston will be isolated by this punishment and it will set an example, and the other colonists will be like, oh, we better not protest like this. But the other colonists actually send food and supplies to Boston and end up rallying around its support.
- [35:22]
Narrator/Commentator
The British also restrict political rights.
- [35:25]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Massachusetts has its colonial charter suspended. Elected officials are replaced by Crown appointees. Perhaps most shocking, town meetings, the lifeblood
- [35:37]
Narrator/Commentator
of Massachusetts self government, are abolished.
- [35:42]
Historian/Expert
A lot of Americans nowadays say, oh, the Tea Party was so inspiring that it encouraged the colonies to get together and begin plotting for independence. No, no, no, no. It's not the Tea Party itself, but it's once they hear about Parliament's reaction and how far Parliament is willing to go to punish the Americans. This is what leads Americans on the path eventually to war and independence in the years of 1775 to 1776.
- [36:05]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
If the Boston Tea Party is an inflection point for Americans, the same is true for Britons, including one vip.
- [36:15]
Historian/Expert
George III didn't take a great deal of interest in America initially, and it's really only with the Boston Tea Party that his attitude changes, that he becomes a leading war hawk even before the war has broken out. He thinks that if you try to appease the Americans, it'll only encourage them to make more demands. So it's really the opposite to the Munich idea. We often criticize people for compromises, for appeasement, and liken them to Neville Chamberlain. This was quite Churchillian, but of course, it backfired. And during the war, in many ways, he helped hold the government together and kept out opposition leaders who would have ended the war much earlier.
- [37:11]
Narrator/Commentator
Until now, American anger has been trained on Parliament and royal advisors, not on the King himself.
- [37:19]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
But the relationship between the sovereign and his colonial subjects is beginning to change. The people of Massachusetts figure that if they're to be prevented from assembling, they should prevent the Crown authorities from doing the same. In their sights are county courts. What better place to deliver some popular justice?
- [37:45]
Historian/Expert
So here's what they did. They decided that the next session of the county court in each town, we will close the courts. We will not allow the Crown to exert authority locally. And so every time the court was scheduled to meet, great hordes of people gathered together and prevented it from doing so. Oh, and by the way, this is happening every county seat throughout Massachusetts.
- [38:18]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
It's September 6, 1774. As dawn creeps in, this, the town of Worcester, Massachusetts, is half asleep. 45 miles from Boston, Worcester is the nodal point between the colony's biggest city and the vast stretch of countryside to its west. Life here is rarely eventful, but today is different. On Main Street, a handful of men walk up to the courthouse. They force entry.
- [38:55]
Narrator/Commentator
Once inside, they barricade themselves, then wait. A little while later, more men appear at the top of Main Street. Not just a handful this time, thousands.
- [39:13]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
They're not an army, exactly, although a minority do have weapons. Some are blacksmiths. Others are coopers and masons. A lot of them are farmers. This is the local militia, here to provide backup to the men inside the courthouse. They line either side of Main street from one end to the other. Before long, a third group arrives. Court officials, 25 of them in town to begin a new judicial session. When the officials arrive at the courthouse, they're apprehended by the men hidden inside. Each is presented with a Renounce your position on the court or experience country justice as dispensed by the people.
- [40:12]
Narrator/Commentator
These officials know all too well what happens to members of the elite who displease the populace. The painful humiliation of tarring and feathering. They want to avoid that at all costs. So one by one, the two dozen officials are taken out into the daylight.
- [40:35]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
To their left and right are long lines of militiamen, holding their hats and bowing their heads. Each official must now go down the middle of the street.
- [40:48]
Narrator/Commentator
As they walk, they recite a recantation of their status and a disavowal of the Crown's authority. But there's so many militiamen present, it's
- [40:59]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
impossible for them to all hear what's being said.
- [41:03]
Narrator/Commentator
So the officials are told to repeat themselves over and over again until every man present has heard it. No guns are raised, no shots are fired.
- [41:22]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
There's no cruel and unusual physical punishment.
- [41:26]
Narrator/Commentator
Still, this is public ritual humiliation and
- [41:31]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
a truly historic moment.
- [41:37]
Historian/Expert
That's the end of British authority in Worcester, Massachusetts. I mean, that's it. There's this idea that a few very special and very wise men, Founding fathers who basically determined who we should be as a country. Is this a handful of founding fathers? It's half the adult male population of the rural county saying, no way. We will not do this. This is the heart and Soul and guts of the American Revolution. Where is that in our national narrative?
- [42:17]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
While Massachusetts rises up, John Adams spends long, high hot summer days in the back of a carriage. Alongside him are his cousin Samuel and two other senior Whigs from Boston. The sun beats down. The air inside the carriage thickens. Dust from the unpaved roads gets everywhere. With every bump and divot, the passengers are tossed like fishing boats on the highway seas. They're making their uncomfortable way to Philadelphia. An unprecedented event is taking place. Delegates from 12American colonies are convening for the First Continental Congress. The objective is to coordinate a unified response to the coercive acts. Along the way, the delegates from Massachusetts spend six days in New York. John Adams drinks. In every moment, he fills his diary with observations about the place, large and small. He won't be the last visitor to find New Yorkers a little much.
- [43:29]
Narrator/Commentator
As he tells his diary, there is no modesty. They talk very loud, very fast, and all together. If they ask you a question, before you can utter three words of your answer, they will break out upon you again and talk away. He writes of New York as though it's some far distant country, which in
- [43:53]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
some ways it is.
- [43:55]
Narrator/Commentator
These are a dozen colonies wedded to Britain, not to each other.
- [44:01]
Historian/Expert
When the delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in 1774, more delegates had been to London than had been to Philadelphia. And that demonstrates that there were no emotional ties really between the colonies. There were very few economic ties between the colonies. They didn't see themselves as a cohesive unit. They saw themselves as attached to the homeland.
- [44:30]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
The differences between the delegates are glaring. Those from New England, such as the Adams cousins, take pride in being straight talkers, direct and argumentative, as plain and impassioned as Puritan preachers. The Southerners, well, they're a whole other thing. Their manners, outlook and experiences are a long way from those of Boston.
- [44:58]
Narrator/Commentator
That's especially the case for the the Virginians. Arguably, they are the vital influence when Congress begins in September 1774.
- [45:11]
Historian/Expert
So Massachusetts is intellectually prominent. Virginia is economically and culturally prominent. Of all the British colonies, it has the highest balance of import and export. It has a large population, and nearly half is enslaved. Of the approximately 500,000 people that are enslaved on the Eastern Seaboard, 200,000 of them live in Virginia. It's a place where free people have what's later referred to as a cavalier culture, an honor culture, invested in horse racing and high style fine dining. Because of the prevalence of slavery in Virginia, wealthy white men who rule the colony pay A quite exceptional degree of attention to poor white men because they want to make sure that the common cause is organized along a racial rather than a class axis. Right? It's the kind of society where if all the poor people, regardless of color, got together, their numbers would overwhelm the tiny elite horse riding strata at the top. So Virginia just economically, is the indispensable colony.
- [46:33]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Among the Virginian delegates, one stands out. Tall, red haired and conspicuously quiet, George Washington makes an instant impression. Unlike the Adams cousins, Washington has a military background. He's a veteran of the French and Indian war.
- [46:57]
Narrator/Commentator
Also unlike the Adamses, who oppose slavery,
- [47:00]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
he owns about 200 enslaved people. It's their labor that keeps his vast plantation running.
- [47:10]
Narrator/Commentator
What Washington and the New Englanders have in common is, is a desire to push back hard against the British government. Over dinners in Philadelphia taverns, John Adams and George Washington get to know each other. Adams does most of the talking, Washington most of the listening. That tends to be how conversation with either of them goes.
- [47:35]
Historian/Expert
I think it's very hard to discover Washington's intuition, interior life at all. There's no correspondence like the correspondence of John and Abigail where you see him disclosing himself and wrestling with his own personality and heart. On the page, Washington, he's incredibly practiced at perfecting the mask of a leader. One of the things that makes him a great general is that he's kind of gnomic in public, right? He shows up standing nearly 6 foot 4, right. Looming above everybody and having been a good enough Britain that he's read all the manuals of deportment and politeness in the formal British sense. But I find him very hard to truly know in the way that Adams, for example, John Adams, you know so well that you feel like you would recognize him in a puppy.
- [48:39]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Congress gets underway. The venue is carpenter's hall, a new red brick building designed as headquarters for the local carpenter's guild. While Samuel Adams might have been a key instigator in Boston, in Philadelphia, his presence is less pronounced. He's just one of numerous loud voices. He likes it this way. It staves off accusations that he's a dangerous extremist intent on deepening the conflict with Britain. From his seat in the hall, he watches others denounce parliament. Patrick Henry of Virginia is the most radical. In Henry's eyes, war with Britain is inevitable. It's time to rethink everything, including the core identity of the colonies. I am not a Virginian, he says, but an American.
- [49:40]
Narrator/Commentator
Professor.
- [49:41]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Peter Castor, Washington University in St. Louis.
- [49:45]
Historian/Expert
Patrick Henry was one of the most compelling orators of his generation. And he's a Virginian. He's surrounded by a lot of famous guys. He's a rough contemporary of Washington and Jefferson and Madison, but he could talk rings around them. He was an incredibly effective communicator. He gave voice to an emerging political language that said this isn't just a conflict between some settlers in the home country. It's not just about tax policy. It's about something much bigger. It's about liberty, which is a concept. And he believed it. He wasn't just taking advantage of it. The American Revolution was about a set of high minded ideals. And one thing that Henry was doing was finding a way to say that in a way that would mobilize and motivate people.
- [50:37]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
This all terrifies the Tories. The term that by 1774 has come to define the people who support British policies. Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania is one of them. He pitches something that he hopes will end the radical talk of men such as Patrick Henry. At its heart is an American parliament made up of representatives from each colony. This body would make its own laws and veto those imposed from Britain. The plan is taken seriously. Perhaps it's the solution everyone's been looking for. Or nearly everyone. Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry are dismissive. Their minds seem made up. The colonies must stand their ground and prepare for war. A vote is called. Each colony will get to say yes or no to Galloway's plan of union. The colony of Rhode island has just two delegates. They disagree about the plan, canceling each other out.
- [51:46]
Narrator/Commentator
That leaves 11 colonies to vote one way or the other. The votes are tallied. Five colonies vote in favor, but six vote against. The plan is defeated by the narrowest of margins to Tories at the time, it seems like a missed opportunity. In years to come, it seems like a moment that could have rewritten history.
- [52:15]
Historian/Expert
When Galloway proposed that he, like a lot of other folks at the Continental Congress, were all imagining themselves as British subjects, advocating for their rights as Englishmen. That's really what they were advocating for. People wouldn't accept Galloway's plan because it didn't go far enough. They said this won't guarantee our rights as Englishman. They increasingly came to conclude that both Parliament and increasingly the King were unredeemably corrupt. That there was no way they were going to modify their behavior in a way that guaranteed the rights of British settlers. And it's really that change, that change in mindset that leads to the Declaration of Independence.
- [53:02]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
With the plan rejected, the Congress moves forward a formal pact to boycott all British goods is agreed upon. As part of this, it is resolved that the colonies will phase out slavery.
- [53:17]
Narrator/Commentator
The slavery provision, of course, is later discarded, but it demonstrates how at least some delegates are thinking.
- [53:25]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Stubborn, open ideas are being challenged. The Congress also makes a direct appeal to the King. A petition is sent requesting that His Majesty's government repeal the Coercive Acts, one last public plea for unity and reconciliation. But George III looks the other way. To intercede, he says, would be to trample on the rights of Parliament. And that really would be tyranny. As the petition is making its creakingly slow way across the waves, a customs official in Rhode island also contacts London. He notes that the assembly in his colony has recently passed some startling legislation purchases that the King himself should know about. Four cannons and 300 barrels of gunpowder. Similar moves are being made everywhere in America. The first Continental Congress has urged all colonies to bolster their militias. As 1774 comes to a close, George III is absorbed in a report, a survey of the Royal Navy's current capacity for conflict.
- [54:48]
Narrator/Commentator
On both sides of the Atlantic, the unthinkable is fast becoming the only thing anyone's thinking about. War is looming.
- [55:06]
Narrator (Clark Peters)
Next time on Founding Fathers. An American Dream. More and more militias begin forming across the the colonies. As America prepares for battle, the British bite back. Two forces come head to head in the town of Lexington, and the first shot of the Revolutionary War is fired. But by who? George Washington is chosen as commander in chief of the brand new Continental Army. But as the general inspects his troops for the first time, there's a bleak wakeup call. He needs to turn a misfit band of poorly armed and poorly organized rebels into a force capable of going toe to toe with the biggest military on earth. That's next. You can listen to the next two
- [56:14]
Narrator/Commentator
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