All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E01.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-RAWR

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From a small spark,

kindled in America,

a flame has arisen
not to be extinguished.

Without consuming,
it winds its progress

from nation to nation,

and conquers by
a silent operation.

Man finds himself changed

and discovers that the strength
and powers of despotism

consist wholly in the fear
of resisting it,

and that, in order to be free,

it is sufficient
that he wills it.

Thomas Paine.

We know our lands
are now become more valuable.

The White people think
we do not know their value,

but we are sensible
that the land is everlasting.

Canasatego, Spokesman
for the Six Nations.

Long before
13 British colonies

made themselves into
the United States,

the Six Nations
of the Iroquois Confederacy--

Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga,
Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk--

had created a union
of their own

that they called
the Haudenosaunee--

a democracy that had
flourished for centuries.

We heartily recommend union.

We are a powerful confederacy.

And by your observing
the same methods

our wise forefathers have taken,

you will acquire
fresh strength and power.

Therefore, whatever
befalls you,

never fall out
one with another.

In the spring of 1754,

the celebrated scientist
and writer Benjamin Franklin

proposed that the British
colonies form a similar union.

He printed a cartoon of
a snake cut into pieces

above the dire warning
"Join, or Die."

A few weeks later
at Albany, New York,

Franklin and other delegates
from 7 colonies

agreed to his Plan of Union--

and then went home
to try and sell it.

But when the plan was presented
at the colonial capitals,

each of the individual
legislatures rejected it

because they did not want
to give up their autonomy.

The plan died,
but the idea would survive.

20 years later, "Join, or Die"
would be a rallying cry

in the most consequential
revolution in history.

We are in
the very midst of a revolution

the most complete, unexpected,
and remarkable

of any in the history
of nations.

Objects of the most
stupendous magnitude,

and measures in which
the lives and liberties

of millions yet unborn
are intimately interested,

are now before us.

John Adams.

The American
Revolution was not just

a clash between Englishmen
over Indian land,

taxes, and representation,

but a bloody struggle
that would engage

more than 2 dozen nations,

European as well as
Native American,

that also somehow
came to be about

the noblest aspirations
of humankind.

It was fought in
hundreds of places,

from the forests of Quebec

to the backcountry of Georgia
and the Carolinas;

from the rough seas off
England, France

and in the Caribbean,

to the towns and orchards
of Indian Country.

The fighting would take place
on roads

and in villages and cities;

by woods and fields,

and along waterways
with old American names:

the Susquehanna, the Tennessee,
and the Ohio;

the Oriskany, the Catawba,
and the Chesapeake;

and along waters
with newer names:

the Charles, the Hudson,
and the Schuylkill;

the Brandywine, the Cooper,
and the Ashley;

and finally the York.

The war grew out of
a multitude of grievances

lodged against
the British Parliament

by British subjects

living an ocean away in 13

otherwise disunited colonies.

It was also a savage civil war

that pitted brother
against brother,

neighbor against neighbor,
American against American,

killing tens of thousands
of them.

However great the blessings

to be derived from
a revolution in government,

the scenes of anarchy,
cruelty, and blood,

which usually precede it,

and the difficulty of
uniting a majority

in favor of any system,

are sufficient to make
every person

who has been an eyewitness

recoil at the prospect
of overturning empires.

Abigail Adams.

The American
Revolution was the first war

ever fought proclaiming
the unalienable rights

of all people.

It would change
the course of human events.

It's our creation myth,
our creation story.

It tells us who we are,
where we came from, uh,

what our forebears believed,
and, and,

and what they were
willing to die for.

That's the most
profound question

any people can ask themselves.

What the American Revolution
gave the United States

was an actual idea of
a moment of origin,

which many other countries
in the world don't have.

And it has invested
these particular years

of these particular people
with a set of stakes

that are so far beyond
what any set of events

and any set of people
can plausibly carry

that it has made
the way that Americans

think about this period
very unreal and detached.

One of the most
remarkable aspects

of the Revolutionary War
is that you had

such different places

come together as one nation.

I'm not sure there is
a state, anywhere in the world,

in the late 18th century,
that has as wide variety

of people who inhabit it, um,

and so, it really is
actually kind of remarkable,

the way that that nation
ends up cohering,

not around culture,
not around religion,

not around ancient history.

It was coming together around
a set of purposes and ideals

for one common cause.

Events like these
have seldom,

if ever before, taken place
on the stage of human action.

For who has before seen
a disciplined army

formed from such raw materials?

Who that was not a witness
could imagine that men

who came from the different
parts of the continent,

strongly disposed to despise
and quarrel with each other,

would become but one
patriotic band of brothers?

George Washington.

We have
great reason to believe

you intend to drive us away.

Why do you come to fight
in the land

that God has given us?

Why don't you fight in
the old country and on the sea?

Why do you come
to fight on our land?

Shingas, Lenape Nation.

For several
generations, violent conquest

and Old-World diseases had
decimated Native populations

between the Atlantic Ocean
and the Appalachian Mountains,

where, by the middle
of the 18th century,

13 distinct British colonies
were established

south of French Canada
and north of Spanish Florida.

Now, as land speculators
and settlers

eyed the Ohio River Valley
beyond the Appalachians,

the paramount question became
who would control

the North American interior.

Both Protestant Britain
and Catholic France--

ancient enemies
that had already fought

3 wars in North America--

claimed the region.

So did a host of Indian nations

who had lived and farmed
and hunted there

for hundreds of generations.

In 1754, to solidify
Britain's claim,

the Royal Colony of Virginia
dispatched militia

to protect their interests
in the Ohio Country.

The small force of militiamen
and a handful of Native allies

surrounded a group of
unsuspecting French soldiers...

Fire!

and fired into them.

Nearly half of the Frenchmen
were killed or wounded.

The rest surrendered.

According to one of the
Indians with the Virginians,

the militia's 22-year-old
commander had been the first

to shoot into
the enemy's encampment.

If so, George Washington fired

the very first shot
of a global conflict

that would come to be called
the Seven Years' War

and set the stage
for the American Revolution.

Soon after his surprise attack,

a French and Indian force

surrounded Washington
and his men,

forcing him, for the first
and only time in his life,

to surrender.

A less prominent young man's
military career

might have ended there,

but Washington was given a
second chance the following year

as aide-de-camp to
General Edward Braddock,

the British commander sent
to dislodge the French

at Fort Duquesne.

Braddock was confident his
red-coated British regulars

could easily defeat anyone who
stood between him and the fort.

But on July 9, 1755,

a much smaller French and Indian
force overwhelmed them.

The British panicked.
Braddock was mortally wounded.

The Command fell to Washington.

Two horses were
shot from under him.

Musket balls ripped
through his hat and jacket.

He ordered a retreat and
managed to get most of his men

safely off the battlefield.

Washington learned
two valuable lessons:

British troops
were not invincible,

and there was no shame
in retreating

if you could live
to fight another day.

He was hailed as a hero
and given overall command

of Virginia's militia.

But after his appeal for
a Royal commission

in the British Army
was rejected,

he retired from
military service in 1758

and returned to his plantation
at Mount Vernon,

filled with resentment at how
the British had treated him.

And he comes to view
the people in London

as people who have a
condescending view of Americans.

They think of him as inferior.

They didn't
give him a commission.

I mean, when Washington is told
that he didn't get a commission,

he doesn't think
that means he's inferior.

He thinks that means
the British are really stupid.

There can be
no sufficient reason given

why we, who spend
our blood and treasure

in defense of
the King's Dominions,

are not entitled
to equal preferment.

We can't conceive that being
Americans should deprive us

of the benefits of
British subjects.

The Seven Years' War,
against Britain's

imperial rivals,
France and Spain,

is fought not only
in North America.

It's fought in the Caribbean,
it's fought in Africa,

it's fought in India,
it's fought in the Philippines.

So, even though it starts
in the Ohio backcountry,

with a dispute
between colonists

and the French
and their Indian allies,

it mushrooms into
a global campaign

that touches Europe
and all parts of the world.

The American colonies
are just one piece

on a broad, global
Imperial chessboard

as far as British policymakers
are concerned.

Remembered
in North America

as the French and Indian War,

the fighting went on for years

until a series
of British victories,

won by regulars
and colonial troops,

ended the French Empire's
presence on the continent,

gave Britain Spanish Florida,

and more than tripled the lands
claimed by England's King.

France transfers to Britain

all of its territory
in North America.

But it's a little bit like
the Greek myths, you know,

never wish for
something too much

'cause you might get
what you wished for.

The British, in North America,

have been hoping and praying

for the defeat of the French
for 80 years.

And now they're victorious.
Church bells are ringing.

This is the moment
we've all hoped for.

And then it all begins to
go to hell in a hand basket.

Britishness in America
is just everywhere.

In Boston, the Town House

sits at the center of
Queen and King Streets.

The London Bookshop
was around the corner.

The Crown Coffee House.

The sort of ideal of,
uh, fashion,

of political currency,

of the basis of one's rights

and that sense of home.

They talk about Britain
even when they have

never been there as home.

On Saturday,
December 27, 1760,

a British frigate
anchored in Boston harbor.

It brought with it big news.

King George II
had died in October.

His 22-year-old grandson
now reigned as George III.

Crowds cheered.

Bostonians were proud to be
part of what had become

the most far-flung
empire on Earth.

In the 18th century,
the belief was,

who in the world
has got it right?

Only one people on Earth--
the British.

They have a mixed constitution,
constitutional monarch,

House of Lords,

an elected House of Commons.

You got an element
of democracy,

element of aristocracy,
element of monarchy.

The 3 of them will
check and balance each other

and produce
the perfect combination.

Vincent Brown: We tend to think
of the British Empire in America

as the 13
North American colonies

that became the United States.

But Great Britain actually had
26 colonies in America.

And, by far, the most
important of those,

the most profitable, the most
militarily significant,

and the best politically
connected of those colonies

were those colonies
in the Caribbean.

The territories that tended
to have the most slaves,

and exploit enslaved labor
most intensively,

tended to be the most
profitable colonies.

So, if you look at
North America, for example,

Massachusetts is the least
profitable colony

in North America
and it's got

the smallest percentage of
slaves in its territory.

The most profitable colony
in North America

is South Carolina.

Then, when you get to a place
like Jamaica or Barbados,

where 90% of
the population is enslaved,

then you're really talking.

That's where the money
is being made

and that's also why
that's where

the Royal Navy warships
are concentrated.

But the 13
contiguous colonies

that clung to the Atlantic
seaboard were the most populous.

The colonists' numbers had
doubled every 25 years.

By 1763, the population--
Black and White--

had reached almost 2 million.

Christopher Brown:
And those settlers produce

for the Empire,

but they also consume.

They provide markets.

They purchase goods that
are manufactured in Britain.

It's the fastest-growing
part of the British economy,

is the trades with
North America.

The British Empire
expanded enormously

as a result of
the Seven Years' War.

There's real anxiety
that unless this empire

is tied together more tightly,

by central control
and direction,

it will start to fragment,
in much the same way as the

Roman Empire was assumed
to have collapsed.

For more than
150 years,

London had treated its
North American colonies

with what one
British politician would call

"salutary neglect."

Each colony was part of
the King's dominions,

but in most of them,
legislatures,

elected by propertied White men,

made laws, levied taxes,

and decided
how they'd be spent.

Slavery was legal everywhere,
from New Hampshire to Georgia.

Many of the Black people
living in the colonies

had been born there
or in the Caribbean.

But tens of thousands
were from West Africa--

captured from what is now
Senegal, Gambia, and Gabon;

Angola, Congo,
and the Ivory Coast;

Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ghana.

Christopher Brown: I think
it's easy to underestimate

the sheer diversity and
variety, um, in the colonies.

Close to the majority
of the population

in the southern colonies
are African.

There are French Huguenots;
there are Germans.

There's Scots.
There's Scots-Irish.

There are Native people,
not just on the frontiers,

but actually living in
the heart of the 13 colonies.

Most of the population
of North America is Indigenous.

70%, 80% of the continent
is still controlled

by Indigenous people,
politically,

economically, and militarily.

It's not a separate place,
it's not this timeless space

where Native people are
sort of existing in harmony

with nature and that they
have no interest

in the outside world.

Native people want
the good stuff

that Europeans are bringing.

Europeans want the wealth

that they can get
from Native people.

Native powers are as important
to the global market economy

as a place like Virginia
or a place like New York.

If there
is a country in the world

where concord, according to
common calculation,

would be least expected,
it is America.

Made up as it is of people
from different nations,

speaking different languages,

and more different in their
modes of worship,

it would appear that
the union of such a people

was impracticable.

Thomas Paine.

In Britain,
2% of the population--

lords and lesser gentry--

owned 2/3 of all the land,

and most people
had for centuries

lived "dependent" lives,

either as tenant farmers,

working land belonging
to aristocrats,

or as landless laborers
working for an employer.

For most free White men
in the colonies,

North America
was a land of opportunity.

The people who are
coming from Northern Britain,

as well as a lot of Scots-Irish,

often are bringing the
resentments that they'd been

pushed off their lands
by landlords.

And so,
there's a great sensitivity

about any kind of
financial exaction

that could be a slippery slope

leading to the kinds
of dependence

that they had escaped from.

The colonies were
overwhelmingly agricultural.

Just 3 seaport towns--

Philadelphia, Boston,
and New York--

were home to more than
10,000 people.

And 2 out of 3 farmers
were independent,

proud owners of their land.

Others were
indentured servants,

hoping that once they
fulfilled their contract,

that they, too, could prosper
on their own.

For Americans,
land and liberty

are completely intertwined.

White Americans see their
liberty as being founded

on not being a peasant
on somebody's else's land.

Preserving, promoting that
liberty for White Americans,

to them, means
taking Native land.

There is no other answer.

American colonists
had been looking forward

to the glorious day when the
French and their Indian allies

would be defeated,

and British subjects would

sweep over
the Appalachian Mountains,

looking for land.

Maps at the time
show the colonies

extending well into
the interior.

We often see maps as benign,

as descriptive,
as without argument.

But they're aspirational,
in many ways.

They're an argument
rather than a conclusion.

DuVal: Hundreds of
Native nations

still are completely intact,
completely independent.

In the north, is the powerful
Haudenosaunee League,

the Six Nations, including
the Mohawks and the Senecas.

To their south
are the Shawnees,

who have retaken the Ohio Valley
in recent years

and formed a huge confederacy

that stretches from
the Delawares, or the Lenapes,

in the east
to the powerful nations,

including the Anishinaabe
of the Great Lakes.

South of there are
the Chickasaws, the Cherokees,

the Choctaws, the Creek
Confederacy, or the Muscogees,

and hundreds of other
smaller nations.

These are nations that
fight against each other,

but also that increasingly,
by the late 18th century,

are making some
larger confederacies,

in part to try to fight
against settlers

who have been moving onto
their land in recent years.

Beginning in
the spring of 1763,

in what was called
Pontiac's War,

warriors from at least
a dozen Native nations

overran many of the British
forts along the Great Lakes

and in the Ohio Valley

and raided settlements,

killing or capturing
2,000 colonists

and driving out
some 4,000 more.

Many colonists responded
by killing

any Indian they encountered.

The Brits look
at this situation and say,

"OK, we've just
inherited all of this empire.

"How on earth are we gonna
stop this kind of thing

happening again and again,
and again?"

The British concluded

that Native Americans
and colonists

needed to be separated,
at least for a time,

and so, in 1763,
a Royal Proclamation declared

all the territory
beyond the Appalachians

off-limits to
settlement or speculation.

That prohibits
White settlers

from moving into these
interior worlds,

the same interior worlds
that many colonists

felt like they had
just fought for.

And many settlers
become outraged

that, uh, the British Crown
has any form

of imperial, um, recognition of
these Indigenous populations.

A kind of racial animus
has formed in the aftermath

of the Seven Years' War,
in which many British settlers

come to resent all Indians.

Christopher Brown: It's not
because the British Government

is especially concerned about
Native Americans.

It's because they don't want
Americans spreading out,

where they'll be even
more difficult to control.

Part of British policy is

British settlers will stay
near the coast.

And part of the colonists'
answer is,

"No. Sorry,
we're not doing that."

London hoped
the Proclamation

would pacify the frontier.

Instead, it infuriated
those would-be settlers

poised to move west

and frustrated land speculators

who saw fortunes to be
made there.

And that is
a huge slap in the face

and a blow to those
elite colonial Americans

who've been indulging
in this investment.

Who are these people?

Household names:
Benjamin Franklin,

Thomas Jefferson,
Patrick Henry,

George Washington.

After abandoning
his dream of serving

as an officer
in the British Army,

George Washington had married
an enormously wealthy widow,

Martha Dandridge Custis, and had
made himself still wealthier

speculating in western lands.

He saw no reason to stop.

The law was only
a temporary measure

to "quiet the minds of
the Indians," he said,

and he directed his land agent
to defy the Proclamation

and "secure [for him] some of
the most valuable Lands"

beyond the Appalachians.

I think the American
Revolution was all about land.

It's easy to make the
political kinds of arguments,

but I think underpinning
all of that was

the possibility of expansion,

um, was the conflict
with Indian people.

Now to enforce
the hated law

and to police the frontier,

the British government
resolved to station

an army of 10,000 men
in North America.

The cost would be enormous--

some 360,000 British pounds
a year.

London did not have the money.

Years of war on 4 continents
had doubled the national debt.

Britain was in the midst
of a postwar depression,

and British consumers
were already burdened

with higher taxes
than were the subjects

of any other European monarch.

The average
British subject paid

26 shillings a year in taxes;

the average New Englander
paid just one.

So, some bright spark
has the idea,

"Well, let's tax
the American colonists." Right?

They should pay their share
because, after all,

we fought the war for them,
and this is to defend them.

In 1764, the Prime
Minister, George Grenville,

proposed a series of
3 parliamentary statutes,

all meant to make the colonies

help pay for
their own defense.

The Currency Act,
which forbade the colonists

from issuing their own money,

angered the tobacco-growing
gentry of Virginia,

who were especially hard-hit.

The Sugar Act imposed taxes
on imports from the Caribbean,

and to enforce it, the British
Navy dispatched 44 ships

to stop smuggling,
enraging New Englanders,

whose economy
had long profited from it.

The rest of the colonies
were largely unaffected.

London assumed Americans
were too disunited,

too divided by self-interest,

to ever be able to present
a united front.

But now, Grenville introduced
a third tax--

the Stamp Act.

It would affect nearly every
colonist in every colony.

No one would be able to obtain
a license or a loan,

transfer land or draft a will,

earn a diploma,
purchase a newspaper,

or even buy a deck of cards

unless it was printed or written
on English-made paper

that bore a stamp embossed by
the Royal Treasury,

for which they
would have to pay.

For the very first time,
Parliament planned to tax

the 13 colonies directly.

The Stamp Act was scheduled
to go into effect

on November 1, 1765.

Colonists said,
"No taxation without
representation."

What they meant was,
no taxation except by

our elected Legislature,
here in our particular colony.

These taxes were very small,
but the fear was,

"If we give into
this precedent,

"if we pay the small
Stamp Tax now,

what will they do
in the future?"

In the Virginia
House of Burgesses,

Patrick Henry introduced
a series of resolutions

asserting that only the
General Assembly of that colony

had the "right and power
to lay taxes" on its people.

Henry went on to declare that
just as Julius Caesar

had his assassin Brutus,

George III should understand
that some American resister

was sure "to stand up
in favor of his country."

When some delegates
shouted "Treason!"

others who were present
remembered he responded,

"If this be treason,
make the most of it!"

In Boston, 42-year-old
Samuel Adams

helped rally the opposition

against implementation
of the Stamp Act.

A failure as a brewer and as
a collector of local taxes,

Adams was a master
of propaganda.

His mission, he once explained,

was to "keep the attention of
fellow-citizens

awake to their grievances."

If our trade may be taxed,

why not our lands?

Why not the produce
of our lands

and everything we possess
or make use of?

If taxes are laid upon us
in any shape

without our having
a legal representation

where they are paid,

are we not reduced from
the character of free subjects

to the miserable state of
tributary slaves?

In terms of
masters of communication,

Samuel Adams was
really up there.

He has an amazing ability
to translate a concept

into easily digested words.

And, therefore, to make, um,
what seem--what could seem

like fairly abstract ideas

very vital and very urgent,
and he's tireless.

So, he's able to produce
page after page after page,

new offenses, new crimes,
new injustices.

Pamphleteers
took up the cause,

declaring the Stamp Act
illegitimate.

Most of the colonies'
24 weekly newspapers--

the businesses that would be
hit hardest--followed suit.

Those that didn't
faced being shut down

by their journeymen
and apprentices.

Newspapers
are very important.

The colonial public is more
literate than any other people

in the world
outside of Scandinavia.

There's also word of mouth,
conversation,

absolutely essential.

It became very common
to discuss

how you govern people
and how people are free.

These ideas had filtered
into the general population.

Those ideas now led
to protests in the streets.

In Boston, in August of 1765,
a crowd formed--

made up of men
and a handful of women,

free Blacks and runaway slaves,

poorly paid or unemployed
workers who resented the rich,

and apprentices
in their off-hours,

just looking for trouble.

They hanged in effigy
the local man

designated to become
distributor of stamps

and went on to invade the home
of the lieutenant governor,

destroying everything in sight

and carrying off all of
his furniture

and 900 British pounds in cash.

In Newport, Rhode Island,
another mob surrounded

the stamp distributor,
forced him to resign,

and to lead them in chants of
"Property and Liberty."

In Charleston, South Carolina,
White anti-Stamp Act protestors

marched through the streets
chanting, "Liberty!"

But when enslaved South
Carolinians echoed their cries,

frightened enslavers
called out the militia

to patrol the street.

The Maryland appointee
was driven from Annapolis

with only the clothes
on his back.

By the time the Stamp Act was
supposed to go into effect,

none of the 13 colonies
had an official in place

willing to enforce it.

Part of our
Revolution I think we have

largely sanitized.

I think we've forgotten
much of the street warfare,

of the anarchy, of the
provocations that took place.

A black cloud seems
to hang over us.

It appears to me that
there will be an end

to all government here, for
the people are all running mad.

James Parker.

When a crowd
surrounded the British Army

headquarters in New York City,

General Thomas Gage made sure
his men held their fire,

for fear, he said,
that 50,000 angry colonists

would swarm into the city
and start a civil war.

General Gage was in charge of

all British soldiers
in North America.

He had been sent to maintain
peace on the frontier.

Instead, he had found himself
at loggerheads with colonists

convinced they were
being denied their rights

as Englishmen.

Gage understood
what was happening.

The spirit of democracy

is strong amongst them.

The question is not of the
inexpediency of the Stamp Act

or the inability of
the colonies to pay the tax,

but that it is contrary to
their rights and not subject

to the legislative
power of Great Britain.

Thomas Gage was
married to an American.

He owned land in the colonies.

He was, in many ways,

embedded within
colonial society.

So, he was particularly
reluctant, I think,

to engage in conflict.

In the colonial world
and the European world,

democracy had a bad name.

It was a synonym for "anarchy."

It had a reputation
as being turbulent,

as a system exploited by

ruthless politicians
called "demagogues"--

people who pandered to
the passions of common people

in order to whip them up and get
them to do passionate things,

and to get government
to serve them

and to prey upon the property
of more wealthy people.

So, democracy is not
the aspiration

that creates the Revolution.

The Revolution creates
the conditions for people

to aspire to have a democracy.

Meanwhile,
hundreds of merchants

in New York, Boston,
and Philadelphia

pledged to boycott
British goods

until the Stamp Act
was repealed.

To keep up the opposition,
some lawyers, merchants,

and skilled craftsmen
established an association,

the Sons of Liberty,
and soon had chapters

from Portsmouth, New Hampshire
to Charleston, South Carolina

working together.

The colonies until now
were ever at variance

and foolishly jealous
of each other;

they are now united
for their common defense

against what they believe
to be oppression;

nor will they soon
forget the weight

which this close union
gives them.

Dr. Joseph Warren.

The colonies
now accounted for

1/3 of Britain's trade.

With the boycott,
some manufacturers

were forced to close
their doors.

Thousands of workers
lost their jobs.

The town councils of 27 English
trading and manufacturing towns

pleaded for repeal.

By mid-February 1766,
the British cabinet

was looking for a way
out of the impasse.

It asked Benjamin Franklin,
then living in London

as a lobbyist for Pennsylvania,

to appear before
the House of Commons,

hoping that hearing from
the best-known American

on Earth would help.

Franklin patiently
answered 174 questions.

What had been the colonists'
attitude toward Great Britain

before the Stamp Act
was enacted?

The best in the world.

They had not only a respect

but an affection
for Great Britain;

for its laws, its customs,
its manners,

and even a fondness
for its fashions,

which greatly increased
the commerce.

"Would the colonies
now accept a compromise?"
he was asked.

"No," he answered.
"It was a matter of principle."

"Might a military force compel
the colonists to pay the tax?"

"No," Franklin said.

Suppose a military force

is sent into America.

They will find nobody in arms.

What are they then to do?

They cannot force a man
to take stamps

who chooses to do without them.

They will not find
a rebellion.

They may indeed make one.

8 days after
Franklin's testimony,

the House of Commons voted
to repeal the Stamp Act.

British workers would
return to their factories.

Merchant vessels set sail
again for the colonies.

When the news reached America
in April,

the Sons of Liberty disbanded;

their rights as Englishmen
seemed to have been restored.

New York commissioned
a statue of King George,

wearing a Roman toga, to be
placed on the Bowling Green

at the tip of Manhattan.

But beginning in the summer of
1767, the British government,

still struggling with war debt,

would win passage of 5 new
laws--the Townshend Acts.

One of them especially
angered colonists.

It imposed new taxes on 4 items
manufactured in England--

glass, lead, paper,
and painter's colors--

and on a fifth item,
tea, grown in China

but re-exported from Britain
and loved by the colonists,

rich and poor alike.

Newspaper editors
and pamphleteers

denounced the new taxes.

A revived and more militant
Sons of Liberty

called for a new boycott
of British goods.

Women, who normally played
a subordinate role

in public life and had
almost no legal rights,

joined the resistance
by the thousands

as "Daughters of Liberty."

Crisis changes people.

And it gave women
different ideas

about what they
should be doing.

DuVal: Women were the main
consumers in colonial society

and they were the ones who
made sure the boycotts worked.

Women stopped drinking tea.

Women started making
their own fabric.

Women started making toys
for their children.

And they didn't just
stop buying British things

and start making their own
things; they publicized it.

One of the key forms
of political theater

during the Resistance Movement
would be for a local minister

to invite the women
of the community

to come down to the church

and to spend the day
spinning and weaving cloth.

And it would be a competition
to see which community

could produce
the most homespun.

It would be published
in the newspaper.

And these women
would be praised as

great American Patriots
for having produced

so much homespun cloth.

DuVal: And reporters
would report,

"The ladies of Boston,

"The ladies of New York

"are the most patriotic.

They are at the forefront of
this protest movement."

If women hadn't done that,
the protest movement

and eventually the Revolution
would have gone nowhere.

Let the Daughters of
Liberty nobly arise,

And though we've no voice
but a negative here,

Stand firmly resolved
and bid them to see,

That rather than freedom,
we'll part with our tea.

Hannah Griffitts.

I wish to see America
boast of Empire--

of Empire not established
in the thralldom of nations

but on a more equitable base.

Though such a happy state,
such an equal government,

may be considered by some
as a Utopian dream;

yet, you and I can easily
conceive of nations and states

under more liberal plans.

Mercy Otis Warren.

The political
philosopher and historian

Mercy Otis Warren would
publish plays and poems

that satirized Royal officials

with names like Judge Meagre
and Sir Spendall.

No woman played
a more important role

in promoting resistance.

Tensions with England
continued to grow.

In Boston, in June of 1768,

a ship called the "Liberty"
was seized by the Royal Navy.

Its owner, John Hancock,

was the richest merchant
in the city,

a prominent member of
the Sons of Liberty--

and a practiced smuggler.

A big, angry crowd
formed at the wharf.

The mobs here
are very different

from those in Old England.

These Sons of Violence
are attacking houses,

breaking windows,
beating, stoning, and bruising

several gentlemen
belonging to the Customs.

Ann Hulton.

The town has been under

a kind of
democratical despotism

for a considerable time.

And it has not been safe
for people to act

or speak contrary
to the sentiments

of the ruling demagogues.

Thomas Gage.

On orders from
London, General Gage sent

two regiments of regulars
from Nova Scotia,

not to defend Boston,
but to police it.

Most Bostonians were appalled.

An army during
wartime makes sense.

Of course, you need that.

But an army during peacetime
is a standing army.

And if you have an army
during peacetime,

the thinking is that
its only use

is to turn on poor,
innocent subjects.

To have a standing army!
Good God!

What can be worse to a people
who have tasted

the sweets of liberty?

Things are come to
an unhappy crisis.

All confidence is at an end.

And the moment there is
any bloodshed,

all affection will cease.

Reverend Andrew Eliot.

The spirit
of emigration to America,

which seems to be epidemic
through Great Britain,

is likely to depopulate
the Mother Country,

and leave our ancient kingdom
the resort of owls and dragons,

and other solitary animals,
who shun the light,

and seem displeased
at the human race.

"The Edinburgh Amusement."

The steadily
rising tensions

between England and its
North American colonies

did not slow
the steady stream of

English, Scots-Irish, German,

and a small number of
Jewish immigrants

eager to carve out new lives

within the North American
interior.

Christopher Brown:
Part of what really sets

the North American
experience apart

is just how many
European settlers

are coming to North America.

And they keep coming.
15,000 a year.

A kind of empire
was already in view.

Thousands of
new arrivals

and American-born colonists

poured down
the Great Wagon Road

that ran all the way from
Philadelphia to the Carolinas.

The backcountry there
was already the home

of Native peoples, including
the Catawbas and Cherokees.

Upon the whole,
it is the best

country in the world
for a poor man to go to

and do well.

And the farther they
go back in the country,

the land turns
richer and better.

Here, a man of small substance,

if upon a precarious footing
at home,

can, at once, secure to himself
a handsome, independent living,

and do well for himself
and posterity.

All modes of Christian
worship are here tolerated.

"Scotus Americanus."

Colonial America
is a very Protestant place.

And it's founded when
the norm in Europe was that

whoever your sovereign was
got to set

what the religion should be.

Congregationalism
was the established church

in nearly all
New England colonies.

The official religion
in much of the South

was the Church of England.

But those who belonged
to other faiths

resented being forced by
colonial legislatures

to pay the salaries of clergymen
who did not minister to them.

None were more resentful
than the backcountry settlers

in the Carolinas--

Baptists, Presbyterians,
Lutherans, Methodists.

And what they
hear from their ministers

about whether resisting
their sovereign

or supporting their sovereign

is the right thing to do
as a Christian duty,

that will matter a lot.

I was
born in Boston in America

in the year 1760.

In the time I was at school,
the troubles began to come on.

And I was told the day of
judgment was near at hand,

and the moon would
turn into blood,

and the world would be
set on fire.

John Greenwood.

Shortly before noon
on Saturday, October 1, 1768,

8-year-old John Greenwood
left his home

in Boston's North End

and hurried toward
the waterfront.

There, riding at anchor
in a great arc,

he saw 14 British warships,

their cannon
trained upon the city.

Boats swarmed between the ships
and the end of Long Wharf,

ferrying hundreds of British
red-coated regulars.

General Gage's
occupying army had arrived.

The crowds that
lined the street

were for the most part
silent and sullen.

But it was not the history
being made that impressed

young John Greenwood that day.

It was the irresistible music
played by Afro-Caribbean

men and boys
in colorful uniforms.

I was so fond
of hearing the fife and drum

played by the British
that somehow or another,

I got an old split fife,
and fixed it

by puttying up the crack
to make it sound,

and then learned to play
several tunes.

I believe it was the sole cause

of all my travails
and disasters.

Before long,

the boy was playing well enough

to become a fifer
for a local militia.

"The flag of our company,"
he remembered,

"was an English flag."

They would not be
English forever.

Half the newly arrived troops

were housed in barracks
on Castle Island,

but orders from London
had been clear.

It was "His Majesty's pleasure,"
they said,

that the rest of the troops
"be quartered in that town."

For 17 months,
Boston was an occupied city.

The rattle of drums awakened
residents every morning.

Passersby were routinely
stopped and searched.

Many soldiers had brought
their wives and children;

others courted Boston girls,
or were pursued by them.

40 troops were married
during the occupation,

and more than 100 of their
offspring were baptized.

But some soldiers got drunk,
robbed people,

insulted women,
profaned the Sabbath.

There were brawls, stabbings,
suits and countersuits.

From London, Benjamin Franklin
was concerned.

Some indiscretion on the part

of Boston's warmer people,
or of the soldiery,

may occasion a tumult.

And if blood is once drawn,
there is no foreseeing

how far the mischief
may spread.

On the evening of
March 5, 1770,

there were tussles between
Bostonians and British soldiers

all across the city.

At the Royal Customs House,
a crowd of young men

surrounded a lone sentry
and pelted him with

snowballs and chunks of ice.

Convinced a city-wide uprising
was underway,

Captain Thomas Preston raced

several armed grenadiers
to the scene.

More snowballs and rocks and
oyster shells greeted them.

They fixed bayonets.

Somebody starts ringing
the church bells,

which in Boston
is a sign for fire.

Some people
are bringing buckets

to be part of
a bucket brigade.

Some people are drawn
by the noise.

It's very hard,
in fact impossible,

to know what happened, which is
that somebody yells, "Fire."

All we know really is that
when the smoke cleared,

there are 5 people
dead or dying.

The first
was a tall dock-worker--

part Native-American,
part African-American--

named Crispus Attucks.

The second was a ropemaker
named Samuel Gray,

who was standing
next to Attucks.

The third was James Caldwell,
a sailor who was in town,

it was said, to call upon
the girl he hoped to marry.

The terrified crowd
began to scatter.

John Greenwood's older
brother Isaac was there, too,

and escaped unharmed,
but a ricocheting ball

hit their friend
Samuel Maverick in the back.

He died in agony
the following morning.

Maverick, an apprentice,

had shared a bed
in the Greenwood home

with the now
9-year-old John,

who recalled that after his
friend's death,

he deliberately slept
in pitch-black darkness,

hoping
"to see his spirit."

People start arguing,
already,

even before they
go to bed,

about what happened.

Paul Revere creates probably
the most famous engraving

of the 18th century, which he
titles the "Bloody Massacre."

The British Army is very anxious
to try to spin this

as a story of self-defense...

but the language of massacre
is the one that holds.

A fifth man,

a leathermaker named
Patrick Carr,

would die several days later.

10,000 mourners accompanied
the coffins of the dead

to the Old Granary Cemetery.

The Fatal Fifth of March

can never be forgotten.

The horrors of that
dreadful night

are but too deeply
impressed on our hearts--

when our streets were stained
with the blood of our brethren;

and our eyes were
tormented with the sight

of the mangled bodies
of the dead.

Joseph Warren.

Not everyone
was grieving.

An Anglican clergyman,
Mather Byles,

asked a fellow cleric,
"Which is better,

"to be ruled by one tyrant
3,000 miles away

or by 3,000 tyrants
not a mile away."

Captain Preston was found
not guilty

of ordering his men to fire.

The other 8 soldiers were
put on trial separately.

Samuel Adams'
younger cousin, John Adams,

risking his reputation, served
as the soldiers' attorney.

Most of his clients
were acquitted as well.

Two were found guilty
of manslaughter.

They were branded
on their right thumbs

so that if they were ever
charged with another crime,

they could not make
a claim of innocence again.

The British government
was relieved

by the outcome of the trials.

Most of the regulars were
withdrawn to Castle William--

their harbor fortress.

Once again,
American colonists

had forced the British
to back down

and Parliament had already
repealed all but one

of the Townshend Acts.

Only the duty on tea remained.

Yorktown
stood unrivaled in Virginia;

its commanding view,
its vast expanse of water,

its excellent harbor.

It was the seat
of wealth and elegance,

one of the most delightful
situations in America,

at least, my infantine
imagination painted it so.

Betsy Ambler.

Betsy Ambler was
6 years old in 1771--

the oldest child in a prominent
Yorktown, Virginia family.

A young Thomas Jefferson

had once hoped to marry
her mother, Rebecca,

but she had married
Jacquelin Ambler instead.

He insisted
that all his daughters

get a proper education.

He was a planter and merchant
in Yorktown,

the bustling deepwater port
near Virginia's

colonial capital
at Williamsburg.

On Yorktown docks, enslaved
Africans entered America,

and the tobacco they harvested
went out to the world.

Though Betsy's father was the
Royal Collector of Customs,

he and his family had
grown more and more sympathetic

to their neighbors' calls
for liberty.

Young as I was,

the word "liberty" so constantly
sounding in my ears

seemed to convey an idea
of everything

that was desirable on Earth.

True, that in attaining it,

I was to see every comfort
abandoned.

Thomas Hutchinson,

Governor of Massachusetts:

There is now a disposition
in all the colonies

to let the controversy
with the kingdom subside.

Hancock and most of
the party are quiet

and all of them abate of their
virulence, except Samuel Adams.

For 2 years,
Samuel Adams

kept up a steady stream
of essays,

in which
he warned again and again

that the lull was
only temporary,

that Parliament remained
bent on imposing tyranny.

Those who
have interests

in keeping the political
story alive and growing,

have to really work to keep it
front and center,

to define the problem
as something present

in the minds
of ordinary people.

Why would I care about this
as a--as a woman?

Why would I care
about this as a small farmer?

In 1772,
events beyond Boston

gave Adams the ammunition
he needed

to spread his radical message
throughout the colonies.

In April, when a sawmill owner
in New Hampshire

was charged with
commandeering pine trees

earmarked for the masts of
royal warships,

a mob drove
the British officials

who came to arrest him
out of town.

In June, when the "Gaspée,"

a British customs schooner,

ran aground while
chasing smugglers,

angry Rhode Islanders
set it afire.

And that fall,
Adams learned that

beginning the following year,
the British Treasury

would use the revenue from tea
to pay the salaries

of the most important
Massachusetts officials,

including all
the colony's judges.

The judges' first loyalty
would now be to the Crown,

not the colonists.

There would be no way
to ensure impartial justice.

Adams drafted a fiery response.

Among the natural rights

of the colonists are these:

First, a right to life;
secondly, to liberty;

thirdly to property;
together with the right

to support and defend them
in the best manner they can.

Printed copies
of his writings

were sent to town meetings
throughout the colony.

So-called
Committees of Correspondence

soon linked
advocates of resistance

in more than 100 Massachusetts
towns and districts.

Eventually, their network would
spread into other colonies.

"Committees of Correspondence"

is an effort to
try to bring

all of the colonies
onto the same page,

to make them feel as if they
have a common cause,

words which had
really not been used before.

And it's through those
committees that, essentially,

the Revolutionary spirit
diffuses itself

throughout the colonies.

Let not
the iron hand of tyranny

ravish our laws
and seize the badge of freedom.

Is it not high time for
the people of this country

explicitly to declare whether
they will be freemen or slaves?

Samuel Adams.

I need not
point out the absurdity

of your exertions for liberty,

while you have slaves
in your houses.

If you are sensible that
slavery is, in itself,

and in its consequences,
a great evil,

why will you not pity
and relieve

the poor, distressed,
enslaved Africans?

Caesar Sarter.

Slavery as a metaphor
is in the conversation

from the beginning.

Everywhere there's slavery,

there are people
thinking about freedom.

Nothing shows
the desire for freedom

like the struggles of
subject peoples.

I, young in life,

by seeming cruel fate

Was snatch'd from Afric's
fancy'd happy seat:

What pangs excruciating
must molest,

What sorrows labour
in my parent's breast?

Steel'd was that soul
and by no misery mov'd

That from a father seiz'd
his babe belov'd:

Such, such my case.
And can I then but pray

Others may never feel
tyrannic sway?

Phillis Wheatley.

Phillis Wheatley,
who was stolen from Senegambia

in West Africa and taken to
Massachusetts as a young girl,

was renamed for the slave ship
the "Phillis" that brought her

and the Wheatley family
that bought her.

In Boston, the Wheatleys
saw to her education,

and as a teenager,
still enslaved,

her "Poems on Various Subjects,
Religious and Moral"

won favor on both sides
of the Atlantic.

It was the first
published book

by an
African-American writer.

How well the cry for liberty,

and the reverse disposition

for the exercise of oppressive
power over others agree,

I humbly think
it does not require

the penetration of a philosopher
to determine.

I wish most sincerely

there was not a slave
in the province.

It always appeared
a most iniquitous scheme to me--

fight ourselves for what we are
daily robbing and plundering

from those who have as good
a right to freedom as we have.

You know my mind
upon this subject.

Abigail Adams.

Ye men of sense and virtue--

Ye advocates for
American liberty--

Bear a testimony against a vice
which degrades human nature

and dissolves that
universal tie of benevolence

which should connect all
the children of men together

in one great family.

The plant of liberty is
of so tender a nature

that it cannot thrive long
in the neighborhood of slavery.

Benjamin Rush.

Christopher Brown: Part of what
happens in the years before

the American War is that
liberties are kind of broken out

of a national context.

These are not
English liberties.

These are
transcendent liberties.

These are liberties that
all individuals have

by the nature of being human.

Heave away!

The Americans
have made a discovery,

or think they have made one,
that we mean to oppress them.

We have made a discovery,
or think we have made one,

that they intend to rise
in rebellion.

Our severity has
increased their ill behavior.

We know not how to advance.
They know not how to retreat.

Some party must give way.

Edmund Burke.

In October of 1773,
7 ships set out

from Plymouth, England
for North American ports.

The cargo hold of each
was filled with crates of tea.

It all belonged to the Crown-
chartered East India Company,

which was on the brink of
bankruptcy.

To save the company,
Lord North, the Prime Minister,

had won passage
of a new Tea Act,

designed to undercut smuggling
and reduce the cost of tea.

It seemed to
Parliament like a "Win-Win-Win."

Shore up the East India Company,
take it more in-house

as a governmental organization,

and give Americans cheaper,
non-smuggled tea

at the same time.

But colonial merchants

who had profited handsomely
from smuggling

portrayed the new law
as yet another assault

on American rights.

John Adams wrote that immediate
resistance was necessary

because of its "attack
upon a fundamental principle

of the constitution."

No American had
consented to the tea tax;

therefore, no American
need pay it.

Government-appointed tea agents
were to be persuaded--

or coerced--into refusing
to receive any tea.

In Charleston, South Carolina,

the Sons of Liberty
"convinced" an agent

not to accept the shipment
meant for him.

In Philadelphia,
the Governor of Pennsylvania

talked a ship's captain into
sailing back to Britain.

In Boston, when 3 of the ships
loaded with tea arrived,

thousands of Bostonians and
supporters from outlying towns

gathered at
the Old South Meeting House

and declared that the tea
should remain on board

and be sent back to Britain.

On December 16, 1773,
hundreds looked on from shore

as between 50 and 60 men--
rich as well as poor--

all crudely disguised as
Native Americans,

climbed into boats
and headed for the ships.

They dress like
Indians, kinda.

It's an expression of what it is
to be American.

When you claim
to be Indian,

you're claiming
to be here, aboriginal,

part of this continent.

And you're drawing
a really bright line

between yourself
and the Mother Country.

The men banged open
342 crates

and poured more than
46 tons of tea into the harbor.

No other property
was disturbed.

And when one of
the boarders was seen

filling his coat pockets
with fistfuls of tea,

he received
a "severe bruising."

This is an assault
on the property

of the East India Company,

and it's an assault
upon the pride

and the power of Parliament.

So, it's a very big deal.

Protesting taxes
is one thing.

Destroying private property

worth thousands of pounds
sterling,

that's something else.

In Manhattan,
the King had grown so unpopular

in some quarters that royal
officials thought it prudent

to surround his statue
with an iron fence.

A law warning of the dire
consequences for anyone

who dared deface the statue...

did not prevent one New Yorker

from firing a musket ball
through its cheek...

and another one
through its neck.

The study of the human character

opens at once a beautiful and
a deformed picture of the soul.

We there find a noble principle
implanted in the nature of man.

But when the checks of
conscience are thrown aside,

or the moral sense weakened,
humanity is obscured.

Mercy Otis Warren.

The most shocking cruelty

was exercised
a few nights ago

upon a poor old man
named Malcolm.

There's no law that
knows a punishment

for the greatest crimes beyond
what this is, of cruel torture.

Ann Hulton.

In Boston,
in January of 1774,

a small boy on a sled
accidentally ran into

a minor customs official
named John Malcolm,

who cursed and
threatened to beat him.

When George Hewes, who had
helped dump the tea

into Boston harbor,
tried to intervene,

Malcolm knocked him
unconscious with his cane.

Malcolm was hauled
from his house.

He was stripped nearly naked,

hot tar was poured over him,
scalding his flesh,

and then
he was covered with feathers.

Tarring and feathering
is something that has

come down to us as an almost
kind of comical thing

because you see these people
with chicken feathers on them,

but this is hideous stuff.

Boiling pitch is
poured onto somebody's skin.

The burns are unbelievable.

And it's all part, also, of
a kind of spectacle of violence

that is a really
important part of this.

And this is why the feathers
are put on, in part.

It's that you
are trying to humiliate

and shame the victim.

Hundreds jeered
as Malcolm was pulled

through the freezing streets
for 5 hours.

His assailants stopped
here and there to whip him.

It would be 8 weeks before
he was able to leave his bed.

Boston has
been the ringleader

of all violence and opposition

to the execution of
the laws of this country.

Boston has not only therefore to
answer for its own violence

but for having incited
other places to tumults.

Lord North, Prime Minister.

Lord North hoped,
he said,

to make America lie
"prostrate at his feet."

They "must fear you," he added,
"before they will love you."

Now that they had destroyed
Crown property,

it was clear that much of
America was not afraid.

North would do
his best to change that.

In the process, he would try to
end every vestige of self-rule

prized by the people
of Massachusetts.

First, the Prime Minister
convinced the Parliament

to repeal that colony's
long-standing charter,

then dissolved the elected
assembly again

and limited each town
and village

to just one
town meeting a year.

The port of Boston would be
closed until all its residents

had paid in full for the tea
just 60 of them had destroyed.

That came to nearly
5 British pounds per taxpayer--

more than a craftsman
made in a month.

It means no ships going in,
no ships going out,

no work for sailors,
no work for merchants.

It means hunger in Boston.

British officers
were also now empowered

to commandeer vacant homes
and barns

to quarter
their troops.

Americans would denounce
the new laws

as the "Intolerable Acts."

In England on leave,

General Gage was summoned by
George III.

He told the King
what he wanted to hear.

The people of Massachusetts

pretended to be "lyons,"
he said.

But if England sent in
enough troops,

they would undoubtedly
"prove very meek."

General Gage was given
a new title--

Governor of Massachusetts

in addition to
Commander-in-Chief--

and a new mission:
to enforce the new Acts,

end Boston's resistance,

and demonstrate
to all the colonies

the folly of defying their King
and Parliament.

Gage and 4 fresh regiments
set sail for Boston

in mid-April, 1774.

Christopher Brown: The British
Government sees this

as a police action,

that if they can
punish Boston

and shut down Massachusetts,
contain the rebellion,

that the other colonies would
get the message

and that order could be restored
with some grumbling.

I think the British Government
is genuinely surprised, um,

to see the ways that
the other 12 colonies

rally to
Massachusetts' cause.

You are not gonna have
an American Revolution

unless you have
Virginia onboard.

And the leaders of Massachusetts
understood this.

It was not
going to be easy.

There were deep prejudices
between the two regions

because of the differences
in their ethnic mix

and in the nature
of their cultures.

And they hadn't previously
had any kind of trust

for one another.

But in Virginia,
the House of Burgesses

declared a day of "fasting,
humiliation and prayer"

in solidarity with the people
of Massachusetts.

And when the royal governor
Lord Dunmore

declared the very idea
an insult to the King

and dissolved the assembly,

its members reconvened in
Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern.

The Virginians warned that
"an attack made

"on one of our sister colonies
is an attack made

on all British America"

and called for
a "Continental Congress"

to meet in Philadelphia
in September

to see how the colonies
might resist together.

All the 13 colonies
except Georgia--

where people were afraid to lose
British protection

in the event
of an Indian war--

agreed to take part.

The Prime Minister's effort to
intimidate the other colonies

by punishing Massachusetts

had instead
begun to unite them.

Lebanon, Connecticut.

Yesterday,
the bells of the town

early began
to toll a solemn peal,

and continued the whole day.

The shops in town
were all shut and silent.

Our brethren in Boston
are suffering

for their noble exertions
in the cause of liberty--

the common cause
of all America--

and we are heartily willing
to unite our little powers

for the just rights and
privileges of our country.

Now news
of a new offense

by the King's ministers--
The Quebec Act--

would bind them still
more tightly together.

The British decide
that it would make sense

to grant a degree
of civil liberties

to those French-speaking
Catholics in Quebec

in order to integrate them
into British governance

and make sure that they
have a population

that can sort of
live with British authority.

Protestants,

who equated the Papacy
with despotism,

were outraged.

The Act also extended Quebec's
borders west and south,

adding to the fury
of land speculators

and would-be settlers.

DuVal: To British colonists,
the Quebec Act

was another slap in the face.

The British Government
is looking more and more,

with each of these acts,
like the problem,

instead of the protector
that it's supposed to be.

That summer,

beginning in
Western Massachusetts,

in town after town,
crowds of angry armed men

forced the resignations of
the councilors, judges,

and magistrates appointed
by General Gage.

Juries refused to serve.
Courts closed down.

When Gage learned that rebels
in the towns surrounding Boston

had quietly begun to remove
some of the precious gunpowder

every town was allotted
for its defense,

he sent 250 soldiers to the
stone powder-house

in Charles Town
to confiscate it.

Angry colonists saw the raid
as yet another provocation.

The Massachusetts Assembly

defiantly reconstituted itself
and soon set about

creating a clandestine
provincial fighting force,

tens of thousands strong.

March!

There had been organized
town militias

in New England since
the earliest days

in case of trouble
with Indians.

Every man between the
ages of 16 and 60

was expected to arm himself
and take part.

It was also now suggested
that each town

assign a quarter of its
militiamen to a special company,

ready to act, they said,
at "a minute's warning."

Neighboring colonies followed
the Massachusetts example.

The Connecticut Assembly
urged every town

to double its supply
of gunpowder, ball, and flints.

Rhode Island ordered all
militia officers

to make their men ready to
"march to the assistance

of any Sister Colony"
whenever they were needed.

The line of conduct

seems now chalked out.

The New England governments
are in a state of rebellion.

Blows must decide
whether they are to be subject

to this country or independent.

King George III.

Philadelphia--

The regularity and elegance of
this city are very striking.

It is situated upon a neck of
land about 2 miles wide

between the River Delaware
and the River Schuylkill.

And the uniformity of this city
is disagreeable to some.

I like it.

Front Street is near the river,
then 2nd Street,

3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,
7th, 8th, 9th.

The cross streets are named for
forest and fruit trees--

Pear Street, Apple Street,
Walnut Street,

Chestnut Street, et cetera.

John Adams.

In the autumn
of 1774,

when 12 colonies
sent delegates

to the Continental Congress,

Philadelphia was the logical
place to assemble.

It was home to some
40,000 people

and was the most populous city
in British America--

larger than New York, more than
twice the size of Boston.

The delegates met in the newly
constructed Carpenters' Hall,

hoping to develop
a common means of resistance

while still somehow remaining
within the Empire.

It would not be easy.

Adjacent colonies quarreled
over borders.

Small ones feared domination
by large ones.

And half the delegates
were lawyers, fond of arguing.

This assembly is like

no other
that ever existed.

Every man in it
is a "great man"--

an orator, a critic,
a statesman--and therefore

every man upon every question
must show his oratory,

his criticism, and his
political abilities.

You have a group of men
who have hailed from

essentially
different countries,

who observe different religions,

who conform to
different habits,

who are really meeting each
other for the first time.

No one is really sure
what to do, at first.

Is this meant to be
a negotiation?

Is this meant to
be another boycott effort?

Is this meant to be some
kind of serious rupture

with the Mother Country?

Their plan
is to frighten and intimidate.

But supposing the worst,
you have nothing to fear

from anyone but
the New England provinces.

As for the Southern people,
they talk very high,

but it's nothing more
than words.

Their numerous slaves
in the bowels of their country

and the Indians at their backs
will always keep them quiet.

Thomas Gage.

General Gage
assured London

the Congress was
a "motley crew,"

unlikely to achieve anything.

The "motley crew" included some
of the colonies'

leading political figures--

Samuel and John Adams
from Massachusetts;

John Jay, a young attorney
from New York,

convinced some solution short of
war with the Mother Country

must still be found;

and Patrick Henry, who
argued that ties with Britain

had already been severed.

"The distinctions between
Virginians, Pennsylvanians,

New Yorkers and New Englanders,
are no more," Henry said.

"I am not a Virginian,
but an American."

But a fellow delegate
from Virginia spoke for many.

"Independency"
was not the wish

of any "thinking man
in all North America."

I shall not undertake to say

where the line
between Great Britain

and the colonies
should be drawn,

but I am clearly
of opinion

that one ought to be drawn.

The crisis is arrived
when we must assert our rights

or submit to every imposition
that can be heaped upon us;

till custom and use will make us
as tame and abject slaves

as the Blacks we rule over
with such arbitrary sway.

George Washington.

Most people in 1774
would say they're British.

They wouldn't say
they're Americans.

The change happens in '75, '76,
and the major source of it

is a thing that's created called
the "Continental Association."

The Association is an engine
for creating revolution.

The Continental
Association was not a committee,

but a phased program
that forbade Americans

from importing British goods
as of December 1, 1774,

from consuming British goods
as of March 1, 1775,

and barred them from exporting
American goods to Britain

beginning on September 10th--

if London still had not
given in to their demands.

Among the so-called
"British goods"

the delegates intended
to boycott

were enslaved Africans--

whom they agreed not to import

after December 1, 1775.

The delegates made plans
to hold a second

Continental Congress in
Philadelphia in 6 months.

"We must change our Habits,"
John Adams wrote,

"our Prejudices, our Palates,

"our Taste in Dress,
Furniture,

Equipage, Architecture,
et cetera."

To make sure Americans did so,

every community was expected to
establish its

own Committee of Safety
in order to

"attentively observe
the conduct of all persons."

By the spring of 1775,

some 7,000 men had been elected
to serve on such committees

throughout the colonies,

tasked with spying on their
neighbors, opening their mail,

poring over merchants' records

in search of suspicious
transactions.

Most of those suspected of
failing to observe the boycott

or who were overheard
criticizing resistance

were ostracized, their names
and supposed crimes

printed in the local newspaper,

their neighbors forbidden
even to speak with them.

Every town,
every hamlet, every village

has a Committee of
Safety and Inspection.

And they go house to house.

You have to take
a "Loyalty Oath."

There's millions of
conversations.

And that's when
the change happens.

If we must be enslaved,

let it be by a King
at least,

not by a parcel of
upstart, lawless committeemen.

If I must be devoured,
let me be devoured

by the jaws of a lion,
and not gnawed to death

by rats and vermin.

Reverend Samuel Seabury.

Harassed, shamed,
shunned, censored,

sometimes attacked,
opponents of resistance--

called "Loyalists"--
saw the Committees of Safety

as more tyrannical than
Parliament could ever be.

Nathaniel Philbrick:
There was a sense of brutality

that went with the Patriot cause
that said,

"No, you are wrong,
and we are right."

To be a Loyalist didn't mean
that you were evil.

It just meant that you felt
a great sense of loyalty

to the country that had made
the prosperity

that was the American colonies
at this point possible.

The Loyalists are
essentially the conservatives.

They're the people who
believe in law and order.

They don't like mobs.
They don't like committees

telling them what to do.

They don't see King George III
as a tyrant.

We are preparing for war.

To fight with whom?

Not with France and Spain,

whom we have been used to think
our natural enemies--

but with Great Britain,
our parent country.

My heart recoils
at the thought.

Andrew Eliot.

If a civil war commences

between Great Britain
and her colonies,

either the Mother Country,
by one great exertion,

may ruin both herself
and America,

or the Americans,
by a lingering contest,

will gain an independency.

And in this case and whilst
a new, a flourishing,

and an extensive empire of
freemen is established

on the other side
of the Atlantic,

you will be left to
the bare possession

of your foggy islands.

Catharine Macaulay.

General Gage
now warned London:

"The whole Continent has
embraced the cause

of the town of Boston."

If you think
10,000 men sufficient,

send 20,000.

You will save both blood
and treasure in the end.

A large force will terrify
and engage many to join you.

A middling one will
encourage resistance

and gain no friends.

But General Gage
was sent far fewer men

than he'd hoped for.

And he was ordered
to move decisively

against the rebels
and arrest their leaders.

Samuel Adams and John Hancock
had fled Boston

and found refuge with friends
in Lexington, a small town--

just 750 people and 400 cows--

on the road to the larger
town of Concord,

some 18 miles northwest
of Boston.

Gage planned to send troops

through Lexington to Concord,

where he had been told
arms and provisions

meant for a sizeable rebel army
were hidden.

Success would depend on
the strictest secrecy.

Late on the evening of
April 18, 1775,

700 British regulars
were awakened,

not told where they
were going,

and silently marched through the
dark empty streets of Boston.

A fleet of boats was waiting to
row them across

the Charles River
to the Cambridge marshes.

For all the care
the British had taken

to keep their plans secret,
Dr. Joseph Warren,

one of Boston's leading rebels,
got wind of it.

You don't move 1,000 men
out of Boston

in the middle of the night
without arousing a response.

American rebel leaders
send warning.

Two men, William Dawes and a
silversmith named Paul Revere,

are sent in different routes to
alert Samuel Adams and others

in Lexington that

the British, in fact,
are coming.

Before
the two men left,

Revere saw to it that
2 lanterns appeared

in the belfry of the Old North
Church just long enough

to alert sympathizers on
the mainland that the regulars

were crossing by water
to Cambridge,

not marching overland
through Roxbury.

Time will never erase

the horrors of
that midnight cry,

when we were roused from the
benign slumbers of the season

with the dire alarm,

that 1,000 of the troops of
George III were gone forth

to murder the peaceful
inhabitants

of the surrounding villages.

Hannah Winthrop.

Just after midnight

on the morning of
April 19, 1775,

Revere reached Lexington
and the house

where Adams and Hancock
were hiding.

"The Regulars are
coming out!" he shouted.

The two rebel leaders
fled into the night.

Lexington's militiamen,
summoned from their beds,

dressed, gathered up whatever
weapons they happened to own,

and hurried to the town green.

Their commander was Captain
John Parker, a farmer,

who, like many of his 70 men,
had fought alongside the British

in the French and Indian War.

Then, shortly before dawn,

someone spotted 6 companies
of redcoats--

about 250 men--approaching
at a rapid clip.

On horseback in the lead was
Major John Pitcairn,

a Scottish veteran with nothing
but scorn for colonists.

Captain Parker knew he could
not stop the British,

but he wanted to impress
them with his men's resolve.

Parker told them not
to fire first.

A British officer shouted,
"Throw down your arms,

ye villians, ye rebels,
and disperse."

They begin to disperse.

Many of them turn their backs
and start to walk away.

A shot rings out.

No one knows
where the shot came from.

Fire!

That leads to promiscuous
shooting...

mostly by the British.

It's not a battle.
It's not a skirmish.

It's a massacre.

Now blood has been shed.

Now the man on your left
has been shot through the head.

Your neighbor on the right
has been badly wounded.

You can't put that
genie back in the bottle.

8 militiamen died
on the Lexington Green.

9 more were wounded.
The rest fled.

The fact that
the British have fired on

their own people, which is how
it's viewed by the Americans,

causes an outrage that
takes it to a new level

in terms of resistance,
a feeling that, um...

"They're killing us,
and the only thing

"that we can do in response
is to kill them

as quickly as we can in numbers
as profound as we can."

Charge!

The British resumed
their march toward Concord,

now just 6 1/2 miles away.

Meanwhile, other riders fanned
out across the countryside

to spread word of
what had happened.

Militiamen from nearby towns
rushed toward Concord.

"It seemed as if men came down
from the clouds," one man said.

It was not memories of
the Stamp Act

or the tax on tea
that rallied them.

"We always had governed
ourselves," one man remembered,

"and we always meant to."

In Acton, 6 miles to the west
of Concord,

40 Minutemen gathered at
the home of their commander,

Captain Isaac Davis,
a 30-year-old gunsmith.

My husband said but little

that morning.

He seemed serious
and thoughtful.

As he led the company
from the house,

he turned himself round

and seemed to have something
to communicate.

He only said, "Take good care
of the children,"

and was soon out of sight.

Hannah Davis.

The British
seized 2 bridges

spanning the Concord River

and spread
throughout the town.

They entered houses,

broke into barns
and outbuildings.

Most of the arms and provisions
they'd hoped to find

had either been shifted
elsewhere

or successfully hidden.

But they did smash open
60 barrels of flour

and destroyed several
wooden gun carriages

before setting
it all ablaze.

The decision is
made by the American commanders

on the scene that we're not
gonna fight in Concord.

We will retreat across
the Concord River,

across the North Bridge,

and we will wait for them
on the other side.

By then,
some 450 militiamen

were clustered
together on a hillside

overlooking the North Bridge,

still under strict orders not
to fire upon the King's troops

unless fired upon.

But when they saw smoke
rising from town,

they concluded that
Concord itself was burning.

At North Bridge,
the American soldiers,

the militiamen, see this
and they say to each other,

"They're burning down
our town.

Are we gonna let them
burn down our town?"

And that's when they
march to the bridge.

3 companies of
British regulars

now guarded the bridge.

Isaac Davis,
the gunsmith from Acton,

was picked to head the
column sent towards it.

Suddenly, without orders,
a redcoat fired his musket.

The front line of British troops
followed with a ragged volley.

A musket ball tore through
Isaac Davis' chest,

severing an artery
and spraying blood

on two men coming up
behind him.

Abner Hosmer,
another member of his company,

was shot through the head.

"God damn them,"
a militia captain shouted.

"Fire men, fire!"

At least 8 redcoats were hit,
including 4 officers.

The British began to back
away, then to run.

When one wounded soldier
struggled to his feet

and tried to follow,

a militiaman split his skull
with a hatchet.

The British regulars regrouped
and began the long march

back to Boston.

Before the whole
had quitted the town,

we were fired on from houses
and behind trees.

And before we had gone
half a mile,

we were fired on from all sides,
but mostly from the rear,

where people had hid
themselves in houses

till we had passed
and then fired.

Every step of the way
becomes more intense.

The sound of bullets
winging around them.

The sound of
bullets hitting soldiers,

this deep thud,
as if you're beating a rug...

screams of men who've
been wounded

in the British column.

And it's beginning
to look as though

the column could be destroyed.

The British
were in complete disarray

as they
staggered into Lexington.

But now filling the road ahead
of them

were more than 1,000
much-needed reinforcements.

Two British cannon swept
the Lexington Green,

and one ball smashed through
the wall of the meetinghouse.

Several houses were set on fire,

but the redcoats
were still outnumbered

and under relentless attack.

They resumed their retreat
to Boston.

We retired for 15 miles

under an incessant fire,

which like a moving circle
surrounded us

and followed us
wherever we went.

It was impossible not to
lose a good many men.

General Hugh Percy.

The retreat
from Concord

was a truly horrifying event
for many British soldiers.

It would have been a fairly
traumatic experience,

to put it mildly,
to be shot at from all sides

by people you didn't believe
were going to shoot at you.

In the village
of Monatomy,

the fighting was
house-to-house.

A militiaman named
Amos Farnsworth

remembered entering a home
to find a pool of blood

that half-covered
his shoes.

The bloody field at Monatomy

was strewed
with mangled bodies.

We met one affectionate father
with a cart,

looking for his murderd son,

and picking up his neighbors
who had fallen in battle.

Hannah Winthrop.

In Boston,
crowds watched

as the redcoats
straggled back.

The British had suffered 273
casualties, including 73 dead.

95 Americans had been
hit over the course of the day,

49 of them fatally.

Family members moved along the
road looking for missing sons

and brothers and fathers.

In Acton that evening,
Hannah Davis and her 4 children

looked on as men of her husband
Isaac's militia company

carried his corpse
through her door.

He was placed in my bedroom

till the funeral.

The bodies of Abner Hosmer,
one of the company,

and of James Hayward,
who was killed in Lexington

in the afternoon, were brought
by their friends to the house,

where the funeral of the three
was attended together.

As April 19th drew to
a close, some 14,000 armed men

from 58 Massachusetts towns
and villages

were converging on Boston.

And as the news of the
bloodshed spread,

they would
soon be joined by more men

from Rhode Island,
New Hampshire, and Connecticut,

until a 10-mile semicircle
of hundreds of campfires

stretched from Roxbury to
Chelsea, cutting off Boston.

General Gage ordered his men to
dig in and prepare for a siege.

The British are
pretty secure in Boston

because they have
enough firepower,

they have enough manpower
to prevent the Americans

from pushing them
out of Boston.

And they have the Royal Navy.

But they are,
essentially, surrounded.

It's not a true siege because
they've got passage

in and out of Boston Harbor.

They can bring in supplies.

They can bring in
reinforcements, as need be.

But they can't get outside of
Boston proper.

So, the British Empire,
in New England,

at this point, consists of
about 1 square mile

of Boston itself.

When I reflect and consider

that the fight was between
those whose parents

but a few generations ago
were brothers,

I shudder at the thought.

And there's no knowing where
our calamities will end.

John Andrews.

War never
follows the script

that you have written for it
when you set out to make war.

The British objective is,
first and foremost,

to suppress the rebellion.

It's to teach the rascals
a lesson.

It's to force them
to acknowledge

the primacy of Parliament
and the authority of the King.

And so, now the decision
has been made

that we will use force.

And there's a presumption that
it won't take much...

but it's gonna go on
for 8 years--

8 years, blood, treasure,
catastrophe, really,

for the British Empire.

So, uh, those initial shots
on Lexington Green,

on the morning of
April 19, 1775,

are going to have
profound repercussions.

The whole country
was in a commotion,

and nothing was talked of
but war, liberty, or death.

John Greenwood
was 14 that April.

His father
had sent him away

2 years earlier to Falmouth--
now Portland--Maine

to learn cabinet-making
as an apprentice to an uncle.

But when news of Lexington
and Concord reached him,

he asked to be allowed
to return to Boston

to make sure his parents
and siblings were safe.

He was worried that they "would
all be killed by the British."

It would take him 4 1/2 days to
walk the 100 miles to Boston.

As I stopped at the taverns,

out came my fife,

and I played
them a tune or two.

They used to ask me where
I came from

and where I was a-going to.

I told them I was a-going to
fight for my country.

They were astonished such
a little boy and alone

should have such courage.

When John reached
Charles Town,

he hoped to take
a ferry to Boston,

but a sentry stopped him.

No one was allowed
into the besieged city.

It's terrifying to be
a civilian in Boston,

regardless of your
political affiliation.

Especially women and children
are just looking

for any way out.

Something like 12,000 people
of a town of about 16,000

manage to leave.

Unable to find his
parents among the refugees,

Greenwood was invited
by 2 young militiamen

to share their quarters
in Cambridge--the empty,

looted home of
a Loyalist clergyman

who'd fled to the British.

His friends urged him to enlist
in their company as a fifer,

and he agreed.

They told me
it was only

for eight months,

and that I would have
eight dollars a month,

and that they would quick drive
the British from Boston,

and then I could have
an opportunity

of seeing my parents.

Britain has found means

to unite us.

General Gage drew the sword;
and a war is commenced,

which the youngest of us may
not see the end of.

Benjamin Franklin
returned home from London

in time to attend the
Second Continental Congress

that began meeting at the
Pennsylvania State House

in Philadelphia just 3 weeks
after Lexington and Concord.

Delegates from all
13 colonies now attended,

but they remained split
between those still hoping

for reconciliation and those,
like John Adams,

convinced a revolution
was now inevitable.

The cancer
is too deeply rooted,

and too far spread to
be cured by anything

short of cutting it out entire.

From Boston,
British General Hugh Percy

sent a warning to his superiors
in London.

Whoever
looks upon the Americans

as an irregular mob will find
himself much mistaken.

They have men amongst
them who know

very well what they are about.

You may depend upon it,

that as the rebels have now
had time to prepare,

they are determined to go
through with it.

What a scene
has opened upon us.

If we look back,
we are amazed at what is past.

If we look forward, we must
shudder at the view.

Our only comfort lies in the
justice of our cause.

All our worldly comforts
are now at stake--

our nearest and
dearest connections

are hazarding their lives
and properties.

God give them
wisdom and integrity sufficient

to the great cause
in which they are engaged.

Abigail Adams.