All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] The.American.Revolution.2025.S01E02.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-RAWR

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Before dawn
on May 10th, 1775--

less than a month after
Lexington and Concord--

some 85 New Englanders
rowed across

the southern end of
Lake Champlain,

keeping silent,
muskets primed.

Their objective
was a dilapidated,

star-shaped fortress
called Ticonderoga,

built by the French
20 years earlier

and now occupied by
50 British soldiers

and 24 women and children.

If they could capture it,
they might be able to stop

British troops from attacking
from the north;

to provide American forces
with a staging area

should they ever choose
to invade Canada;

and to take possession
of dozens of artillery pieces

that the rebel forces ringing
Boston desperately needed.

The men slipped
silently onto the shore.

The British surrendered
without a shot.

So did the 9 redcoats
stationed at Crown Point,

a smaller outpost nearby.

The Americans had
two commanders.

One was Colonel Ethan Allen,

the hard-drinking leader
of the "Green Mountain Boys,"

a band of vigilantes who had
spent years defending

their settlements
in the Vermont region

of northwestern New England

against New Yorkers who also
claimed the land.

The other was a newly promoted
34-year-old

Connecticut militia colonel.

He was descended
from a distinguished

New England family that
had fallen on hard times.

Able but arrogant,
sensitive to slights,

he would become one of
the most important commanders

of the American Revolution.

His name was Benedict Arnold.

William Hogeland:
Once it's a shooting war,

as with Lexington
and Concord, it's a war.

There's no doubt about that.

But independence was not,
in any way, officially

on the table as a goal

of the Americans at that point.

The idea of independence
was still controversial.

The official position
was that the fight was

essentially for redress, for

"Let's get back to the way
things used to be.

Back when things were good,
when you left us alone."

The blood shed
at Lexington and Concord

had deepened the divisions
among Americans

from Georgia to New Hampshire.

"Loyalists," those who
remained faithful to the Crown

and hoped His Majesty's
troops would soon restore

law and order, dismissed those
whose sympathies

lay with the militiamen
surrounding Boston as "rebels."

The "rebels"
called themselves "Patriots"--

or "Whigs" after
British champions

of constitutionally guaranteed
rights--

and vilified their Loyalist
neighbors as "Tories."

Alan Taylor: The term
"Patriot" is a very old one

that pre-exists
the Revolution.

It applies to people
who believe that they are

the defenders of liberty
against power.

Now, "rebel" is a term that
the British will use,

and the Loyalists will use,
to apply to the people

who call themselves
the "Patriots."

So, to be a rebel means
that you are rejecting

the legitimate authority
of your sovereign,

King George III
of the British Empire.

That we are
divorced is to me very clear.

The only question is
concerning the proper time

for making an explicit
declaration in words.

Some people must have time
to look around them,

before, behind, on the
right hand, and on the left,

then to think, and after
all this, to resolve.

Others see at one
intuitive glance

into the past and the future,

and judge with precision
at once.

But remember you can't make
13 clocks

strike precisely alike
at the same second.

John Adams.

I think
the greatest misconception

about the American Revolution
is that it was

something that
unified Americans

and that it was just a war of
Americans against the British.

It leaves out the reality
that it was

a civil war among Americans.

I tremble
at the thoughts of war;

but of all wars, a civil war!

Our all is at stake.

Sarah Mifflin.

In the spring of 1775,

a Philadelphia woman
named Sarah Mifflin

wrote to a British officer
who had been her friend

before the shooting began.

He had suggested
that the whole thing

was just a minor disagreement.

It is not
a quibble in politics.

It is this plain truth, which
the most ignorant peasant knows,

that no man has a right
to take their money

without their consent.

I know this, that as free
I can die but once,

but as a slave I shall not
be worthy of life.

Sarah Mifflin.

Some
20,000 militiamen from towns

all over Massachusetts--and from
Connecticut, New Hampshire,

and Rhode Island as well--

had poured into the series
of impromptu camps

that kept the British
caged in Boston.

They were united in their
anger at the redcoats

but very little else.

They were militiamen,
not professional soldiers,

expected to meet
immediate crises,

not take part
in prolonged campaigns.

Few had uniforms.

Many had never been more than
50 miles from home.

Their first loyalty was to
the towns from which they came

and the neighbors whom they
had elected as their officers.

Once the shooting stopped
and it became clear

that the British were not
going to attack them,

they began drifting home
to plant their crops.

In overall charge of this
dwindling, disorganized force

was General Artemas Ward,

the commander of
the Massachusetts militia.

From his headquarters in
Cambridge, he understood

that if there were to be any
hope of holding their own

against the British, he needed
a paid, recruited army--

and he needed it fast.

Wherever you go,

we will be by your sides.

Our bones shall lie with yours.

We are determined never to
be at peace with the redcoats

while they are
at variance with you.

If we are conquered,
our lands go with yours.

But if we are victorious,
we hope you will help us

to recover our just rights.

Captain Solomon Uhhaunauwaunmut.

Among the troops
who arrived in Cambridge

was a company of
Native Americans

from Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Philip Deloria:
Stockbridge is a community of

multiple tribes,

which has a long history of
surviving colonization,

in part through
adopting Christianity

and adopting certain kinds
of strategic ways of being

in relation with colonists.

They come over
from Western Massachusetts

and they're part of
the Siege of Boston.

Ned Blackhawk: Most Indigenous
powers stay relatively

on the sidelines
of the conflict

during the early years.

But many Native communities,
particularly those

who have lived with settlers
for generations,

come to share loyalties
and sensibilities.

And so, many decide

that it's in their best interest

to join the Revolutionary forces

and take up arms against
the British Empire.

The presence of
the Stockbridge men

among the rebels,
General Thomas Gage,

the commander-in-chief
of the British Army

in North America, said,
freed him to call upon

other Native Americans
to join his forces

and fight for the Crown.

Enslaved New Englanders were
not recruited by either side.

The Massachusetts
Provincial Congress insisted

it was engaged
in a struggle for freedom

from British "slavery."

Enlisting them, it said,
would be "inconsistent."

But free African-Americans
were welcome--

and at least 35 and perhaps
as many as 50 men of color

had fought at
Lexington and Concord

and more would soon be engaged

in the next, far bigger battle
with the British.

Black, White,
and Native American soldiers

would serve in regiments
more integrated

than American forces would be
again for almost two centuries.

What?!
10,000 peasants keep

5,000 King's troops shut up!

Well, let us get in,
and we'll soon find elbow room.

General John Burgoyne.

On May 25th, 1775,
a Royal Navy frigate

threaded its way
into Boston harbor.

Aboard were
British reinforcements

and 3 major generals.

John Burgoyne was the showiest

and the most self-assured
of the three.

A playwright as well as
a soldier,

eager always for advancement,
he was dismissive of the rebels

besieging Boston,
whom he called

a "rabble in arms,
flushed with insolence."

Henry Clinton had spent
6 boyhood years in New York,

where his father had been
the Royal Governor.

He was soft-spoken,
retiring, insecure.

William Howe had once
expressed sympathy

with the American cause,

but he now saw an opportunity

to burnish his reputation
as a soldier.

They had been sent to bolster
General Gage,

whom the King's Ministers
now saw as overly timid.

The commanders all agreed
that if they could seize

the heights at
Dorchester and Charlestown,

they could break
the rebel siege.

Rick Atkinson: There are
two pieces of high ground

that the British
have to worry about.

One is Dorchester Heights.

And the other
is the high ground

on the Charlestown Peninsula,

including Bunker Hill
and Breed's Hill.

If you put cannon on either
the Charlestown Peninsula

or on Dorchester Heights,

you would be able to bombard

British forces in Boston.

The British decide
that they are going to

seize Charlestown first.

The Patriots
got wind of the plan,

and Colonel William Prescott was
ordered to seize and fortify

Bunker's Hill,
the highest prominence

on the Charlestown peninsula.

As Prescott and his men
got there, however,

it was somehow decided
that they should instead

build their fort on the crest
of another, lower hill

that came to be called
Breed's Hill.

But it was within range
of both the warships

in the harbor and a British
battery in Boston's North End.

Prescott's men went to work
with picks and shovels

trying to make as little noise
as possible

so as not to alert the British.

But when dawn broke
on June 17th, 1775,

the redoubt was only
half-finished.

A 20-gun British Navy ship
opened fire on the hilltop.

A cannonball tore the head
off a private named Asa Pollard.

To steady his men,
Prescott leaped onto

the unfinished parapet
and bellowed at the warships,

"Hit me if you can!"

British General Howe was certain

that the hill would
"easily be carried."

As soon as the mid-afternoon
tide came in,

Howe would personally
accompany a large force

to the eastern tip
of the Charlestown Peninsula.

The British stepped up
their cannonade,

the roar so loud it rattled
windows in Braintree,

10 miles away, where
Abigail Adams wondered

whether "the day--perhaps
the decisive day--is come,"

she wrote, "on which the fate
of America depends."

Prescott rushed to strengthen
his left flank,

ordering some of his men
to dig a ditch

and form a 165-foot breastwork

and assigning others
to strengthen

a rail-and-stone fence that ran
all the way down to the bluff

overlooking
the Mystic River beach.

Looking up at
the American positions,

General Howe believed the hill
could be taken

by what was called
a "turning" movement.

While one column assaulted
the redoubt from the left

and another, led by
Howe himself,

attacked the rail fence head-on,

a third would slip along the
undefended Mystic River beach,

get behind the rebels, turn
their line, and destroy them.

Such attacks had worked well

against disciplined armies
in Europe.

Stacy Schiff: No one expects
that a bunch of

country farmers with muskets
are going to hold off

a trained army who have orders

from an actual general
in Boston.

There is a real disbelief that
a bunch of ragtag colonists

are going to manage
to hold their own

against trained soldiers.

When the column on
the left neared Charlestown

and came under fire
from Americans

hidden in abandoned buildings,

British ships
set the town ablaze

with incendiary shells.

Then, at around half past 3,

Howe's redcoats started up
the right side of the hill.

Tall, fearsome grenadiers
formed the first rank;

behind them came
the Foot Infantry.

But the men had to dismantle
wooden fences and stone walls

that blocked their climb.

Their uniforms were woolen.
The sun was hot.

And, like the anxious
New Englanders waiting for them

on the hilltop, some had
never been in battle.

The notion
that the British Army

is this battle-tested,
experienced force, they're good.

There's no doubt about it.
Their officers are good.

They're very disciplined,
for the most part.

But they are as scared
and as new to this

as the Americans are.

As Howe's force
continued their ascent,

British light infantry
on the far right

started their flanking maneuver
along the narrow beach,

bent on getting behind
the American defenses,

sure they could
get there unopposed.

But Colonel John Stark
of New Hampshire

and 60 of his militiamen
were waiting for them.

He had seen that the beach
was open to a flanking attack

and directed his men
to build a barricade.

When the British
got within range,

the Patriots opened fire.

The light infantry
disintegrated.

The New Hampshire men
kept firing

until the stunned survivors

began to retreat
toward their boats.

Behind them lay nearly
100 dead and wounded,

lying, Stark recalled,
"as thick as sheep in a fold."

Meanwhile, at the top of
Breed's Hill,

Prescott and his officers
reassured their men:

the redcoats could never
reach them

if they held their fire
till they came close.

90 yards out, a stone wall
stopped the Grenadiers.

As they laid down their arms

and worked to tear apart
the wall,

the Patriots fired
their muskets.

British officers urged
their men to keep advancing.

Instead, the soldiers
stayed where they were

and tried to shoot back.

The Americans had cover.
The British had none.

The redcoats broke
and retreated down the slope.

General Howe
let his lines regroup,

then ordered them
back up the hill,

in hopes of driving through
the gap between

the breastwork
and the rail fence.

He would go with them.

This time, the Patriots
behind the fence

waited till the Grenadiers
got within 50 yards

before opening fire.

It was hard to miss.
Scores of British soldiers fell,

dead, dying, screaming in pain.

They deliberately target

the British officers
and they can recognize them

in part because they're all
wearing red coats, right,

but the officers are wearing
coats that are almost

vermillion in hue
because they can afford

the more expensive dyes
that make those coats pop.

The British, frankly,
think this is unfair.

Trying to target officers,

there's something unseemly
about it.

But the Americans are not
going to stop

throughout the whole war.

The Americans cheered,

hoping General Howe
had had enough.

Every one of
his staff officers

is killed or wounded.

Howe will come back down
the hill, unharmed, remarkably.

But he's got blood
all over his stockings

from the men who've been shot
on either side of him.

The teenage fifer
John Greenwood

had been away that day.

When he heard the guns,

he hurried back to rejoin
his regiment.

Everything seemed to be

in the greatest
terror and confusion.

I felt very much frightened
and would have given the world

if I had not enlisted
for a soldier.

Then, I saw a Negro man,

wounded in the back of his neck.

I saw the wound very plain

and the blood
running down his back.

I asked him if it hurt him much

as he did not seem to mind it.

He said no, and that he was
only a-going to get

a plaster put on it
and meant to return.

Immediately, you cannot conceive
what encouragement it gave me.

I began to feel from that moment
brave and like a soldier.

John Greenwood.

From the Boston
waterfront, townspeople,

including John Greenwood's
brother Isaac,

watched as British soldiers

rowed wounded regulars
from Charlestown.

They were "obliged," he said,

"to bail the blood out
like water."

And when they started back
toward Charlestown again

with fresh troops,

"the soldiers,"
Isaac remembered,

"looked as pale as death
when they got into the boats,

"for they could plainly see
their brother redcoats

mowed down like grass."

At the bottom of Breed's Hill,
General Howe was determined

to come at the Americans
one more time.

Up above, Colonel Prescott
knew his men had

little powder left and that
many of their muskets

were fouled from so much firing.

This time, in order to make
each shot count,

he insisted his men wait until

their targets were
within 30 yards.

"As fast as the front man
was shot down,

the next stepped forward
into his place,"

one militiaman recalled.

"It was surprising how
they would step over

their dead as though
they had been logs of wood."

"We fired till our ammunition
began to fail,"

another militiaman remembered,

"then our firing
began to slacken--

and at last it went out
like an old candle."

British marines with bayonets

began climbing
over the parapets.

Some Americans hurled rocks

or swung their muskets
like clubs.

Others clawed their way out
of the redoubt and ran.

It was all over
in a matter of minutes.

The Patriots had been
driven from Breed's Hill.

115 Americans had been killed
and another 305 wounded.

The British succeed
in that they drive

the Americans off of
the Charlestown Peninsula.

They take Breed's Hill.
They take Bunker Hill.

But it has been a, a pyrrhic
victory of the first order.

It's 4 of the most awful
hours of combat

in American military history.

There are 1,000 British
casualties that day.

There are 220-some British dead.

Stephen Conway: 40% of
the attacking force

was killed or injured.

40%.

That's horrendously
high casualty rate.

It is the highest casualty
rate for the British Army

until the first day of
the Somme in 1916.

It is unbelievably bloody.

And that has a really
profound impact.

"The loss
we have sustained,"

General Gage admitted,
"is greater than we can bear."

During the final struggle,

two prominent men
had been killed.

As Major John Pitcairn
encouraged his British Marines

to climb over the walls,

he'd been shot through the chest

and fell, dying,
into the arms of his son.

He was so hated
by New Englanders

because he had led the British
troops at Lexington Green

that at least 4 different men
would subsequently claim

to have fired the fatal shot.

Dr. Joseph Warren,
the president

of the Massachusetts
Provincial Congress,

whom the British considered
the most "incendiary"

of all the rebel leaders,

had insisted on joining
the men defending Breed's Hill

and was shot in the head.

The British officer in charge
of the burial detail

boasted that they had
"stuffed the scoundrel

"with another Rebel
into one hole

and there he and his seditious
principles may remain."

Saturday
gave us a dreadful specimen

of the horrors of civil war.

You may easily judge
what distress we were in

to see and hear Englishmen
destroying one another.

God grant the blood
already spilt may suffice.

But this we cannot
reasonably expect.

Reverend Andrew Eliot.

When the news of
the battle--remembered as

the Battle of Bunker Hill--

eventually made its way
to London, the King proclaimed

"The deluded People" of
America were in a state

of "open and avowed rebellion."

Anyone who now aided
their cause was a traitor.

General Gage had been right--
the rebellion would never be

crushed without
overwhelming force.

But Gage was soon called home,
replaced as commander-in-chief

by General William Howe.

For almost 3 years,
Howe would lead the struggle

to try to put down
the rebellion--

and carefully avoid ordering
any more frontal assaults

against entrenched Americans.

Britain, at the expense of

3 millions, has killed
150 Americans this campaign,

which is 20,000 pounds a head.

And at Bunker's Hill,
she gained a mile of ground.

During the same time,
60,000 children

have been born in America.

From these data, calculate
the time and expense

necessary to kill us all,

and conquer our whole territory.

Benjamin Franklin.

Unhappy it is to reflect

that a brother's sword
has been sheathed

in a brother's breast,

and that the once happy
and peaceful plains of America

are either to be drenched with
blood or inhabited by slaves.

Sad alternative!

But can a virtuous man
hesitate in his choice?

George Washington.

On July 2nd, 1775,
Private Phineas Ingalls

of Andover, Massachusetts,
noted in his diary

that it "rained" and that

"a new general
from Philadelphia"

had arrived in Cambridge.

That new general was
George Washington of Virginia,

the commander of
the Continental Army

the Congress in Philadelphia
had just created.

His arrival meant that
the New England war in which

Phineas Ingalls and his
fellow militiamen had joined

was about to become
an American war.

Jane Kamensky: Washington is
a figure toward whom

people naturally turn
for leadership.

It is clear, by the time
the Continental Army

is signed into being
in the late spring of 1775,

that its commander-in-chief
can be nobody else.

There's something about
his presence

that makes him
the inescapable choice.

The Second
Continental Congress

had been meeting since May,

and it was obvious
from the first

that 43-year-old
George Washington

would command its new army.

He had led troops during
the French and Indian War,

and he was from Virginia,

the wealthiest and most
populated colony.

New England delegates,
eager to ensure

that colony's support
for the war,

favored naming a Virginian.

Washington was also
one of America's richest men,

the beneficiary of the work of
scores of indentured servants

and more than 100 enslaved
people at his plantation

on the Potomac River--
Mount Vernon.

They grew tobacco and wheat,
corn and flax and hemp,

milled flour, distilled whiskey,

caught, salted, and sold fish.

And to the West, he had amassed

tens of thousands of acres
of Indian lands.

Washington has
this vision of the future

in which... America's
future is not to the East,

not towards Europe.

It's to the West.

He does see the future
and the next century

as something in which
we should focus on

the consolidation
of the continent.

What defines
his early career

is an amazing focus,
a ruthless and intense focus,

on his own interests,
which makes him exactly like

every other member of his class.

It's just that
he became George Washington.

Washington
considered outward evidence

of ambition unseemly,

but his appearance alone made
him stand out in Philadelphia.

He was about 6'3"
when the average height

of the men he would lead into
battle was around 5'7",

and he alone among the delegates

appeared each day
dressed as a soldier.

Washington will remain,
I think, endlessly fascinating.

Partly because he was
so mysterious,

so reserved in his manner,
frequently,

and didn't give up a lot of
what was going on in his gut.

He was naturally a person

who created space
around himself,

and pity anybody that enters
that space that's not invited.

Martha gets into that space.

Lafayette gets into that space.

Maybe Hamilton
gets into that space.

He has
so much martial dignity

in his deportment that
you would distinguish him

to be a general and a soldier
from among 10,000 people.

There is not a king in Europe
that would not look like

a "valet de chambre"
by his side.

Benjamin Rush.

He's got a brain built
for executive action.

He's willing to
take responsibility.

He's got an adhesive memory.

He is,
according to Thomas Jefferson,

the greatest horseman
of his age.

He's built to lead other men
in the dark of night,

which is a rare and valuable
trait in any commander.

I am now embarked

on a tempestuous ocean,
from whence, perhaps,

no friendly harbor
is to be found.

Washington accepted
that he and his army

would be subordinate to the
civilian control of Congress,

but he did not yet see himself
as a revolutionary.

He still hoped to lead what
he called "a loyal protest,"

as if George III might
somehow overrule Parliament

and restore the rights
of British colonists.

On his way to Cambridge,
he met a dispatch rider

who carried a letter that told
of the terrible bloodletting

that had taken place
on Breed's Hill.

He shows up
in Cambridge

in early July, 1775,

as a Virginian commanding,

almost exclusively,
New England militiamen.

He doesn't
know what to make of them;

they don't know quite
what to make of him.

He has nothing good to say about
New Englanders, privately.

They're almost from
different countries.

But his job is to take
this gaggle,

this cluster of militia forces,

and to form them into
a national army.

Washington thought
he'd be commanding

a 20,000-man force;

in fact, he had fewer than
14,000 men fit for service.

He was assured he would have
15 tons of precious gunpowder;

there were just 5.

On August 6th, a company of
96 riflemen from Virginia

arrived, concrete evidence
that Americans

beyond New England
would volunteer to fight.

They had marched nearly
500 miles in 3 weeks.

Their leader was
Captain Daniel Morgan,

a big, brawling one-time wagoner
whose back bore the scars

of a lashing he'd received
during the French and Indian War

after he'd knocked unconscious

a British officer
who had insulted him.

More riflemen soon followed,
from Pennsylvania and Maryland

as well as more Virginians.

Their rifles were far more
accurate than the smooth-bore

muskets most Patriots used;

their grooved barrels
spun a ball,

making it fly
straighter and truer.

A British soldier would
call them "the most fatal

widow-and-orphan makers
in the world."

But the riflemen were
also frontiersmen.

They sounded different
from New Englanders,

dressed differently, disliked
discipline of any kind.

So what's going
to come out of this Revolution

is attempts to create
an American national identity.

And somebody like
George Washington becomes

quite eloquent in trying
to persuade people,

"You're not Carolinians,"
"You're not New Yorkers,"

"You're not New Englanders."
"We're all Americans."

Always at
Washington's side,

throughout the Revolution,
was William Lee,

the enslaved servant he had

brought with him
from Mount Vernon.

I think we have
to understand Washington

as both the figurehead
without whom

American liberty would not
have survived.

At the same time,
he's an enslaver of

317 men, women, and children.

He acted as an enslaver
in the ways that enslavers did.

He bought and sold people.

He broke up families.

Do not look for gilded
statues of marble men.

They were not that
and neither are we

and neither is anybody at all.

Washington was impatient,

eager to get at the enemy.

In September,
he proposed mounting

a water-borne attack on Boston.

His officers
talked him out of it.

Washington
has got a lot to learn.

Because he's been out of
uniform for 16 years,

there's a lot he does not know.

He knows very little
about artillery.

He knows very little about
fortification.

He knows nothing about
continental logistics.

So, he brings a stack
of books with him.

Nathaniel Philbrick:
Typically, Washington,

before he would
make a big decision,

would canvass his major generals
as to what to do.

And inevitably, he would do

whatever Nathanael Greene
suggested.

General Nathanael
Greene of Rhode Island,

a Quaker who came to see
pacifism as impractical

in the face of what he called
"this business of necessity,"

hoped the British might make
a move so that the Americans,

he said, could "sell them
another hill

at the same price" as they had
paid taking Breed's Hill.

But the British didn't
dare mount an attack

on Washington's forces, either.

The memory of the last battle
was too fresh.

The standoff would continue
for another 6 months.

In Boston, soldiers
and civilians alike suffered.

There was too little firewood:

regulars ripped pews
from churches

and demolished whole houses
trying to keep warm.

Of 40 transport vessels
dispatched from

England and Ireland
to provision the town,

32 never made it--blown
off-course by unfavorable winds

all the way to the West Indies

or seized by Patriots.

What, in God's name,

are ye all about in England?

Have you forgot us?

For we have not had a vessel
for 3 months

with any sort of supplies.

And, therefore, our
miseries are become manifold.

British Officer.

In 1770,
I built a house, dam,

saw, and grist mills on the west
side of the Connecticut River.

Here I was
in easy circumstances,

and as independent
as my mind ever wished.

John Peters.

Before the war,
Yale-educated John Peters

had been the most respected
man in the small settlement

of Moretown in Vermont,
where he lived

with his wife Ann
and their children.

In 1774, his neighbors had
picked him to represent them

in the First
Continental Congress.

But when Peters
got to Philadelphia

and sensed the other delegates

"meant to have
a serious rebellion,"

he refused to take part
and left for home.

On the way back, suspicious
Patriots detained him 4 times--

in Wethersfield,
Hartford, Springfield,

and finally in Moretown itself,

where "another mob
threatened to execute him,"

he remembered,
"as an enemy to Congress."

His own father, a colonel in
Connecticut's rebel militia,

urged his fellow Patriots
to use "severity" on his son

to make him
"a friend to America."

The mob
again and again visited me.

They confined me
to the limits of the town

and threatened me with death

if I transgressed their orders.

Even then,
Peters refused to betray

his "King and Conscience."

Instead, he put his head down

and hoped to stay
out of the fight.

I little
thought the troubles would be

so great, or if they did,

would last so long.

I endeavored to be quiet,
but it would not do.

The madness of the people
was daily growing.

Lake Champlain
is this 90-mile-long teardrop

that extends from
the Canadian border

down almost to the Hudson River.

If you controlled
Lake Champlain, you controlled

the most obvious entry point
into New York from the north,

and into Canada from the south.

Everything else is wilderness.

The Americans
saw an opportunity.

If they could take Montreal,
if they could take Quebec,

and have command of
the St. Lawrence,

they would have the British
right where they wanted them.

In the late summer
of 1775,

some 1,200 New York
and New England troops

assembled on the Ile aux Noix,

just inside
the Province of Quebec.

Their commander
Richard Montgomery had orders

from the Continental Congress
to "take immediate possession"

of the British garrison
at Montreal

and then keep moving north.

The ultimate goal was to
eliminate the province

as a military threat
and perhaps adopt it

as the 14th American Colony.

They did not expect
much opposition:

there were just 700 British
regulars in the whole province.

Now George Washington called
for a complementary expedition

through the forests of the Maine
province of Massachusetts

to surprise and capture
Quebec City

on the St. Lawrence River.

To lead it, Washington chose
Benedict Arnold.

Benedict Arnold
is the finest

tactical commander
on either side

in the first couple of years
of the war.

He's conspicuously gifted
in being able to motivate men,

tactically, under
difficult circumstances,

to do what he wants them to do.

Arnold had emerged
from the capture of

Fort Ticonderoga
with a mixed reputation:

he had quarreled with
rival officers

and become so incensed at having
his expenses questioned

that he simply left the militia
and went home.

But after his wife died,
he left his 3 sons

with his sister and joined
Washington's Continental Army.

"An idle life under my
present circumstances,"

he told a friend, "would be
but a lingering death."

Quebec, Washington believed,
was certain to be

"very easy prey."

But "not a moment's time
is to be lost," he added.

The Americans
were not hostile

to the concept of empire.

On the contrary, they were
great enthusiasts for it.

They called it
the "Continental Army"

and the "Continental Congress"
for a good reason.

They had ambitions to
incorporate Canada, Florida,

and the whole of
the continent of North America.

On September 25th,
from a boatyard

on the Kennebec River in Maine,

Benedict Arnold and his
1,100-man force

set out for Canada.

Failure to punish the people

of the 4 New England governments

for their many rebellious
and piratical acts,

only encouraged them to go
to greater lengths.

I determined to destroy some
of their towns and shipping.

Vice Admiral Samuel Graves.

In October,
Vice Admiral Samuel Graves,

commander-in-chief of
His Majesty's

North American Station,

announced he planned
to lay waste to the ports

of Marblehead, Salem,
Cape Ann, Ipswich,

Newburyport, Portsmouth,
Saco, Falmouth, Machias.

All of them were bases
from which privateers--

Patriot raiders--menaced
British shipping.

Graves dispatched Lieutenant
Henry Mowat and 4 warships

to carry out his orders.

Mowat began with Falmouth--
now Portland, Maine.

Mowat gave the nearly
2,000 townspeople

two hours, he said, to "remove
without delay the Human Species"

before the bombardment began,

then agreed to reconsider
provided the townspeople

turned over all their
arms and gunpowder

by the following morning.

When they didn't,
British ships opened fire.

The cannonade went on
for more than 7 hours,

firing more than
3,000 rounds of shot

and hollow balls filled with
combustible material.

In mid-afternoon,
landing parties rowed ashore.

They hurled torches
into the doors and windows

of homes and shops.

News of Falmouth's
destruction spread fast.

Ports up and down the coast
braced for the next attack.

Washington and Congress
had both already begun

arming ships to seize enemy
cargoes to supply the army.

Now Congress voted
to commission 13 frigates

for a new Continental Navy.

To have a navy
in the late 18th century

was to have a fleet of ships
that were the most

sophisticated machines
in the world at that time.

They were very expensive.
And they required all sorts of

economic power and technology
to create.

Great Britain had that.
The colonies really didn't.

And, so, to go against
this huge naval power

was kind of an insane task
to even contemplate.

The most successful
Patriot commander

was John Manley, a sea captain
from Marblehead.

He managed to seize
7 British vessels

before the end of the year,

including an ordnance ship,
its hold filled

with 100,000 flints,
2,000 muskets,

and 30,000 cannonballs--

all of it badly needed
by the Continental Army.

British Admiral Graves
ultimately decided against

attacking any more ports.

But the damage was done.

The savage and brutal
barbarity of our enemies

is a full demonstration
that there is not

the least remains of virtue,

wisdom, or humanity
in the British.

Therefore, we expect soon
to break off

all kind of connection
with Britain,

and form into a Grand Republic
of the American United colonies.

"The New England Chronicle."

In every human breast,

God has implanted a principle,
which we call love of freedom.

It is impatient of oppression,
and pants for deliverance.

I will assert, that the
same principle lives in us.

Phillis Wheatley.

George Washington made his

Cambridge headquarters
in the handsome home

of a Loyalist who had
fled to England.

One morning, not long
after he had moved in,

he noticed a 6-year-old
African-American

named Darby Vassall
swinging on the gate.

Vassall remembered saying he had
been born in the house

and his parents
had worked there.

Washington urged him
to come inside

and get something to eat;

he had plenty of chores
for him to do.

When Darby asked what sort
of wages he could expect,

Washington thought
the question impertinent

and "unreasonable."

Darby Vassall lived to be
a very old man

and, when asked, he liked to say
that in his experience,

George Washington
"was no gentleman,"

since he'd expected a boy
to work for free.

Washington was also shocked
to see Black soldiers

encamped alongside
their White neighbors.

Unconvinced they could ever
make good soldiers,

Washington persuaded
the Massachusetts
Provincial Congress

to enlist no more of them,

though dozens had fought
on Breed's Hill.

Christopher Brown: I think
that Washington was concerned

about what it might mean

for slavery and slaveholding.

I think he was alert to the ways

that it could end up
eroding the institution.

Enslaved
African-Americans constituted

just 2% percent of
the population of New England,

but 40% of Virginians
were held as slaves,

and planters like Washington
lived in constant fear

that they would rise up
against them--

as enslaved people had risen up

on the British island of Jamaica

3 times in the last 15 years.

When you make men slaves

you deprive them of
half their virtue,

and compel them to live with you
in a state of war.

Are there no dangers attending
this mode of treatment?

Are you not hourly in dread
of an insurrection?

Olaudah Equiano.

The growing talk
of "liberty"

had appealed to those
who had the least of it

and craved it most.

From New England to
South Carolina, enslaved people

offered to help the British
if they were granted freedom.

In November of 1775,
Virginia's Royal Governor

Lord Dunmore, who had been
forced to flee

with some 300 soldiers,
sailors, and Loyalists

to ships anchored
in the Chesapeake Bay,

issued a Proclamation
that seemed to confirm

the slaveholders'
worst nightmares.

It promised freedom to any
enslaved man owned by a rebel

who was willing
to take up arms

and help suppress the uprising.

Britain is the biggest

slave-trading nation on earth.

Nevertheless, the British
believe that if they can

convince enough slaves
to abandon their masters

in the South,
to take up arms against

the American rebels,
that this is a manpower pool

that can also
derange the economies

of the Southern states.

It's not that the British
are anti-slavery,

by any means,
in the 1770s, right?

Their colonies in the Caribbean

are their most profitable
colonies in the Americas.

They are firmly
committed to slavery.

But, opportunistically,
when they think that they can

encourage slaves to rise up
against rebelling colonists,

they'll do so.

Annette Gordon-Reed:
For enslaved people,

this was a way of getting
out of a situation

that seemed intractable.

And it gave them an impetus
to get involved in all of this.

In the sort of chaos of war,
they found an opportunity,

a way to escape their situation.

"The Virginia Gazette."

Be not then, ye Negroes,

tempted by this proclamation
to ruin yourselves.

Whether you will profit
by my advice, I cannot tell.

But this I know, that whether
we suffer or not,

if you desert us,
you most certainly will.

Dunmore's
Proclamation helped drive

Southern slaveholders to
the side of the revolutionaries.

Edward Rutledge of
South Carolina spoke for many:

Lord Dunmore's proclamation
tends "in my judgment,

"more effectually to work
an eternal separation

"between Great Britain
and the Colonies

than any other expedient."

Dunmore says that he only wants

the slaves of rebels
to join him.

Not clear exactly how
you can tell them apart,

or whether there's
any kind of census going on

of who do you belong to.

Dunmore was not
an abolitionist;

he did not free any of
the 57 human beings

he held in slavery himself;

the Patriots would
capture them all

and sell them to fund
their cause.

Wednesday.

Last night after going to bed,
Moses, my son's man,

Joe, Billy, Postillion, John,

Mulatto Peter, Tom, Panticore,

Manuel, and Lancaster Sam

all ran away to Lord Dunmore.

Landon Carter.

Now runaways streamed
to the governor's ships,

silently slipping along
the rivers and tidal creeks

that opened into
the Chesapeake Bay.

87 men, women, and children

from a single Virginia
plantation fled to Dunmore.

Ran off last night
from the subscriber:

a Negro man named Charles,

who is a very shrewd,
sensible fellow,

and can both read and write.

There is reason to believe
he intends an attempt

to get to Lord Dunmore.

His elopement was from
no cause of complaint,

or dread of whipping

but from a determined resolution
to get liberty, as he conceived.

"The Virginia Gazette."

"There is not
a man among them,"

George Washington's
farm manager warned him,

"but would leave us
if they believed

"they could make their escape.

Liberty is sweet."

He was right.

The first enslaved person

to escape Mount Vernon

was named Harry Washington.

Born somewhere near
the Gambia River in West Africa,

he was captured,
carried across the ocean,

and, in 1763, purchased by
George Washington.

Freedom was
never far from his mind.

In 1771, he had tried to escape

but was caught and brought back.

4 years later,
he saw his chance.

Erica Dunbar: Following
Lord Dunmore's proclamation,

Harry Washington knew that
this would be an opportunity,

and he joined the British

against the people
who had once owned him.

George Washington
called Lord Dunmore

a "Monster,"
and an "arch-traitor

to the rights of humanity."

If that man is not crushed

before spring, he will become

the most formidable enemy
America has.

His strength will increase,
as a snowball,

by rolling, and faster.

Nothing less than depriving
him of life or liberty

will secure peace to Virginia.

George Washington.

Scores of runaways
were caught

and brutally punished;

some were killed,
others sold off

to compensate their enslavers.

But some 800 men would make it
to Dunmore's growing fleet,

along with roughly the same
number of women and children.

Men found fit for duty were
enlisted in a special unit

called "Dunmore's
Ethiopian Regiment."

They were commanded by
White officers but paid a wage

for the first time
in their lives.

The proclamation has had
a wonderful effect.

The Negroes are flocking in
from all quarters.

And had I but
a few more men here,

I would march immediately
to Williamsburg,

by which I should soon compel
the whole colony to submit.

Lord Dunmore.

Bolstered by
reinforcements,

Dunmore occupied Norfolk
and ordered a stockade built

at the Great Bridge
over the Elizabeth River

to block the only road to town
from the South.

Some 700 Patriots
dug in across the river,

and on December 9, 1775,

when Dunmore's troops
charged across the bridge

to dislodge them,

more than 100 of his men,
Black and White, were killed.

"They fought, bled,
and died like Englishmen,"

one man remembered.

Dunmore's makeshift army--
including what was left

of the Ethiopian regiment--

fled back to sea.

With them went scores of
Loyalist families

from in and around Norfolk,

most of them
Dunmore's fellow Scots.

He now commanded a floating
city--including rafts

on which the poorest
struggled to survive.

Dunmore's Proclamation

turns the conflict, in Virginia,
into a genuine crisis.

But it does help
clarify differences, right?

It establishes that there is
one side of this conflict

that is unevenly
committed to slavery.

And then there's
another side, our side,

which is fully committed to it.

And for some Patriots,
that's all they need to know.

It creates a sense that this
is an existential conflict

in a way that it had not before.

These lords of themselves,

these kings of me, these
demigods of independence.

It has been proposed that
the slaves should be set free,

an act which, surely,
the lovers of liberty

cannot but commend.

How is it that we hear
the loudest yelps for liberty

among the drivers of Negroes?

Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Connecticut wants no
Massachusetts man in her corps;

Massachusetts thinks there is no
necessity for a Rhode Islander

to be introduced into hers.

Could I have foreseen
what I have,

and am like to experience,

no consideration upon earth

should have induced me
to accept this command.

Now
George Washington faced

for the first time the problem

that would haunt him
again and again:

when enlistments expired
at the end of the year,

most of his army was simply
going to melt away.

To fill out his ranks,
Washington persuaded

the governors of
Massachusetts and New Hampshire

to send him a total
of 5,000 militiamen.

The newcomers were so sullen,
veteran soldiers called them

the "Long-Faced People."

Washington asked Congress
if Indian units

could serve in his army.

While they debated the issue,

many Native people
did join the ranks.

5 sons of a Mohegan woman
named Rebecca Tanner

would die fighting
for the Patriots

over the course of the war.

In December,
Washington changed his mind

about enlisting
African-Americans.

His desperate need
for men was part of it.

But there were also appeals
from Black veterans themselves

or from their officers.

"It has been represented
to me," Washington wrote

to the Continental Congress,
"that the free Negroes who have

"served in this Army
are very much dissatisfied

at being discarded."

They could now re-enlist.

Washington brings to Cambridge

the "hard no"
of a Virginia planter.

But he is also willing
to revise himself.

To think about the whole of
the potential fighting force

and whether Black men
can play a role within it.

I think many people,
most people from his station,

would have started
where he started

and have gone no further.

So, I think he does have
a sort of flexibility

as a commander,
which is the only thing

that the commander of an
insurrectionary force can have.

Though the decision
remained unpopular,

by the end of the war,
some 5,000 African-Americans

had served in
the Continental Army.

A lot of these decisions
about who to fight for,

who to align with,
are deeply, deeply local.

They're not necessarily about
high ideals at all, right?

So, when people think
there's an opportunity

with the British,
they may align with

and run off to British lines.

But when the Patriot Army
kind of opens its ranks

to Black people, there are
lots of Black people

who think they can gain
advantage, concession,

and even, one day, some status
from fighting for the Patriots.

It's not a question of
who the good guys are

and who the bad guys are.

It's what can I get from
making this decision,

right now, in this place, at
this time, among these people.

Washington's
new army--an ill-assorted

mix of soldiers who'd decided
to stay on, raw recruits,

and short-term militiamen--
now numbered around 8,000 men.

But only 2/3 were fit for duty.

Those men were still cold,
still poorly armed,

still poorly paid--
but also still able

to keep the British
trapped in Boston.

It
is not in the pages of history

perhaps to furnish
a case like ours.

To maintain a post within
musket shot of the enemy

for 6 months together,
without powder,

and at the same time to disband
one Army and recruit another,

within that distance of
20-odd British regiments,

is more than probably
ever was attempted.

At the most
moderate computation,

this rebellion will cost
Great Britain

10 millions of treasure
and 20,000 lives.

What then,
in the name of wonder,

is the object of the war?

Are we to throw away so much
treasure and so many lives

to gain a point
which, when gained,

is not worth 1% on our money?

The "Public Advertiser."

Maya Jasanoff: In the British
Parliament, there are

debates taking place.

There are people
lining up on one side

who say, "You know,
we ought to actually

"grant the colonies
more autonomy.

"We ought to loosen
the strictures

"that we've placed on them.

"We ought to think about ways

that they might be represented."

The war
in North America

was not universally popular
in England.

The colonies were
3,000 miles away.

The theater of war
would be far larger

than any the British Army
had ever encountered before.

It was sure to be
costly and bloody

and likely to be prolonged.

The Army chief and England's

most distinguished
naval commander

would both refuse
to take part in the war.

The Lord Mayor and aldermen
of the City of London

appealed to the King
to reconsider.

It was far better to give
the Americans

their "rights and liberties,"
they said,

than impose "the dreadful
operations of your armaments."

But the new
Secretary of State for America,

Lord George Germain,

remained determined
to crush the rebellion--

and to do it with
a single, all-out campaign.

If the war dragged on,
King George himself feared

that Britain's old Catholic
enemies, France and Spain,

might be persuaded
to support the rebel cause.

The rebellious war now levied

is become more general,
and is manifestly

carried on for the purpose
of establishing

an independent empire.

The object is too important,

the spirit of the British nation
too high,

the resources with which God
hath blessed her too numerous,

to give up so many colonies

which she has planted
with great industry,

nursed with great tenderness,
and protected and defended

at much expense of
blood and treasure.

King George
was not an ogre.

He was not a tyrant.

Contrary to the stereotype
that most Americans have of him,

he's actually a pretty
extraordinary man.

He was a very great
constitutional monarch.

In fact, in 1775, he declares,

"I'm fighting the war
of the legislature."

In other words, he's fighting
for Parliament's rights

over the American colonies.

Not his own rights,
Parliament's rights.

But once the war starts,
he sees himself

as the commander-in-chief with
a responsibility to make sure

the war is run efficiently
and effectively.

The British Navy
was the largest on earth,

but the all-volunteer British
Army numbered fewer than

50,000 officers and men
on paper.

And it was still smaller
in reality,

just 1/3 of the size
of the French Army,

and scattered across the world
from Ireland to India,

the Mediterranean
to the Caribbean.

"Unless it rains men in
red coats," one official warned,

"I know not where we are
to get all we shall want."

The British
should have recognized that

this was going to be
extremely difficult

and perhaps unwinnable conflict.

They were confident
of two things.

They had invincible
military power.

And, therefore, there was no
need for them to compromise.

And secondly, that any
compromise of Sovereignty,

of Parliament's Sovereignty,
was going to encourage

independence on
the part of the Americans.

They had a kind of
"Domino" theory:

if we lose American colonies,
then we lose Canada,

then we lose the Caribbean.

So that George III and his
Ministers really believe

that nothing less than
the future of the British Empire

is at stake.

Our commander, Arnold,

was of a remarkable character.

Brave and beloved
by the soldiery,

he possessed great
powers of persuasion.

Private John Joseph Henry.

Benedict Arnold
and his men had made

slow progress on their way
up the Kennebec River

as part of the American invasion
of Canada.

Their provisions had been
packed into 220 flat-bottomed

"bateaux," built for them
at George Washington's orders.

All Arnold knew
about the forests

his men were about to penetrate

came from a crude
15-year-old British map

that seemed to suggest
Quebec City was 180 miles away

and could be reached
in just 20 days.

The real distance
turned out to be 270 miles.

Nothing could have prepared
Arnold for the ordeal

he and his men
were about to endure.

The Kennebec turned out
to be punctuated

by waterfalls and rapids.

Submerged rocks tore
the bottoms of their boats.

Within 72 hours,
1/4 of their provisions

were lost or ruined.

In the mornings, wet clothes
were glazed with ice,

one man wrote,
thick as a pane of glass.

On the 10th day, Arnold began
rationing the remaining food--

just salt pork and flour.

It snowed on the 19th day

and rained relentlessly
for days afterwards.

Then, it snowed again.

America is
this huge continent.

There's tornadoes,
there's hurricanes,

there's winter storms.

Turns of weather that we know
are coming for weeks on end

hit the people of
the 18th century

completely by surprise.

They're not just
fighting each other.

In a profound way,
they are fighting

the American climate
and geography and topography.

This is a difficult place
to conduct a war.

After a month
of hardship,

the officer leading
the battalion that had been

bringing up the rear
declared the mission suicidal,

turned his 300 men around,

and started for home with many
of the remaining provisions.

Arnold's men were now forced
to subsist on candles,

tree bark, and soup
made by boiling rawhide.

One company killed and ate

their captain's
Newfoundland dog.

Of the 1,100 men
who set out from Cambridge,

more than 1/3 had turned back,
been escorted home as invalids,

or died along the way.

Finally, 45 days after
setting off--not 20--

Arnold's men saw the spires
and walls of Quebec City

looming across
the St. Lawrence River.

No one,
particularly the British,

can believe that suddenly
they are there.

Arnold, because of this,
would have a reputation now.

He would be known as
the "American Hannibal"

for his ability to move men
over mountains,

to achieve seemingly
impossible things.

Meanwhile,
American forces led by

General Montgomery
had easily taken Montreal.

Then, with 300 of his men,

Montgomery set out
along the St. Lawrence

to meet up with Arnold.

Together, they planned their
assault on Quebec City.

They realize that they've got
a hard decision to make.

We either attack now, or many
of our men are going to leave.

Their enlistments are up.
They're cold.

It's mid-winter in Canada.

There were only
some 300 British regulars

stationed in the fortified city.

So, General Guy Carleton,
the royal governor of Canada,

ordered every able-bodied man
within its walls

to prepare for battle.

Anyone who refused had to leave
or be prosecuted as a spy.

The city's ramparts were soon
guarded by some 1,800 men.

The American plan called for
two small, noisy

diversionary feints
to draw defenders away

from the attack's real targets.

Meanwhile, Arnold and his men
would circle around

Quebec City from the north,

while General Montgomery
would approach from the south.

Together, they would storm
the citadel's steep walls.

Dear Father, if you receive

this letter,
it will be the last

this hand will ever write you.

Heaven only knows
what will be my fate.

But whatever it may be,
I cannot resist

the inclination I feel to
assure you that in this cause

I feel no reluctance
to venture a life,

which I consider
as only lent to be used

when my country demands it.

Your very affectionate son,
John Macpherson.

The storm was outrageous.

Covering the locks of our guns
with the lapels of our coats

and holding down our heads...

we ran in single file.

John Joseph Henry.

The Americans
launched their attack

at 4 in the morning
on December 31st, 1775,

under the cover
of a howling blizzard.

Many men had pinned
to their hats slips of paper

with the words,
"Liberty or Death."

Everything went wrong.

The diversionary attacks
fooled no one.

Arnold's men came under
merciless fire

from the ramparts above--
and the enemy had placed

formidable barricades
in their way.

When a ricocheting
bullet fragment tore through

Arnold's left leg, he had to be
carried back to camp.

Captain Daniel Morgan
of Virginia took over.

He managed to lead his men
past one barricade

only to be blocked by another.

He tried 4 times to scale it,
then decided to wait

for Montgomery and his men
to break through.

But Montgomery never made it.

Within moments of making
his way into the city,

he, John Macpherson,
and 11 others were killed.

The enemy, having the advantage

of the ground in front,
a vast superiority of numbers,

and dry and better arms,

gave them an irresistible power.

About 9:00 a.m., it was
apparent to all of us

that we must surrender.

John Joseph Henry.

30 Americans lay dead.

389 were taken prisoner,
including Daniel Morgan.

Arnold, though badly wounded,
was not captured

and vowed to try to take
the city again

before it could be reinforced.

I have no thoughts of leaving

this proud town, until I first

enter it in triumph.

Providence which has carried
me through so many dangers,

is still my protection.

Benedict Arnold.

I am more and more convinced

that man is
a dangerous creature,

and that power, whether vested
in many or a few,

is ever grasping, and like
the grave cries give, give.

You tell me of degrees of
perfection to which

humane nature is capable of
arriving, and I believe it,

but at the same time lament that
our admiration should arise

from the scarcity
of the instances.

When I consider these things,
I feel anxious for the fate

of our monarchy, or democracy,
or whatever is to take place.

Abigail Adams.

On New Year's Day,
1776, George Washington

ordered a new
"Continental Union" flag

raised atop Prospect Hill
overlooking occupied Boston.

The British Union Jack
still filled

its upper left-hand corner.

But its 13 red and white
stripes, he said,

were intended as a "compliment
to the United Colonies."

With the exception of
the city of Boston,

Patriots now controlled
each of the 13 colonies.

Several other royal governors
had, like Dunmore,

fled to ships offshore.

But people within the colonies
remained deeply divided.

Some of the free population
favored independence.

Others were appalled
at the thought of

breaking with the King.

Abandoning Britain,
one Virginian wrote,

would "dissolve the bands of
religion, of oaths, of laws,

"of language, of blood,
which hold us united

under the influence of
the common parent."

Still others remained
"disaffected,"

favoring neither side,
hoping somehow to carry on

with their lives while
their fellow-Americans--

suspicious of their neutrality--
fought things out.

But events were changing minds.

Gordon-Reed:
What happened in the run-up

to all of this
gave people a sense

that they might be able
to make it on their own.

They were different from
the people in Great Britain.

They realized that
they were moving apart.

If we must erect
an independent

government in America,

a republic will produce
strength, hardiness, activity,

courage, fortitude,
and enterprise.

But there is so much
rascality, so much

venality and corruption,
so much avarice and ambition,

such a rage for
profit and commerce

among all ranks and degrees of
men, even in America,

that I sometimes doubt whether
there is public virtue enough

to support a republic.

John Adams.

The leaders of
the American Revolution

need popular support.

The leaders of
the American Revolution

are going to have to
make promises

that there's going to be
greater social mobility;

there's going to be greater
respect for common people;

there is going to be broader
political participation

in the future than there has
been in the colonial past

by loosening up
structures of authority,

including structures of
religious authority.

If you're making this
Revolution and you need

the support of thousands of
common people, men and women,

what's in it for them?

Gordon Wood: Up to the 18th
century, people assumed that

everything will
always remain the same.

But the idea that
you could take charge

and change your culture,

that's what--that's
the fundamental basis

of the Enlightenment,
that man can be changed.

The sun never shined
on a cause of greater worth.

'Tis not the affair of
a city, a country,

a province, or a kingdom,
but of a continent.

Everything that is right or
natural pleads for separation.

Every spot of the old world
is overrun with oppression.

Freedom hath been
hunted round the globe.

O! receive the fugitive,
and prepare in time

an asylum for mankind.

We have it in our power to
begin the world over again.

A situation similar to
the present hath not happened

since the days of Noah
until now.

The birthday of
a new world is at hand.

Thomas Paine.

On January 9th,
1776, a slender pamphlet titled

"Common Sense" was published
in Philadelphia--

the most important pamphlet
in American history.

It was signed simply
"an Englishman."

Its author, a recent newcomer
to America,

was 38-year-old Thomas Paine.

The son of a Quaker corset-maker
and his Anglican wife,

Paine had failed at his
father's profession,

lost his first wife and their
child in childbirth,

been fired from his post
as tax collector,

endured the collapse of
a second childless marriage,

and had seen his possessions
auctioned off to pay his debts.

During his 8-week voyage
from Britain,

he'd contracted typhus, and when
his ship reached Philadelphia,

he had to be carried off,
half-dead.

But Paine was
a master with words,

skillfully weaving the latest
Enlightenment philosophy

with biblical references
that everyone knew.

And he was a violent foe of
aristocracy and monarchy.

It's a much more
radical document

than anything
that had preceded it.

"Common Sense" takes off

like an accelerant
through the colonies.

Everyone reads it.

Excerpts from
"Common Sense" appeared

in newspapers throughout
the colonies.

The pamphlet would sell
tens of thousands of copies.

It is
an unprecedented bestseller.

With the exception of
the Bible in the colonies,

no book has been read
as widely as "Common Sense" is.

Bernard Bailyn:
It was a wholesale attack

on the entire world of Britain,
political, cultural.

And it's in slam-bang prose.

No American pamphleteer
wrote that kind of

really tough extreme language.

It just
made people listen

and made people think
at a time when the Congress

would never have thought of
attacking the King, personally,

King George III,
the "Crown of England."

They were always like, "Oh,
he's not really getting it.

"It's Parliament
that's our problem.

The King needs to help us."

He just called the King
a "beast," in print.

He was
the working-class intellectual.

His politics were radically
democratic, in many ways.

And that made him different
from the other famous Founders.

Hereditary succession

is an insult
and an imposition on posterity.

For all men being originally
equals, no one by birth

could have a right
to set up his own family

in perpetual preference
to all others forever.

One of the strongest
natural proofs

of the folly of
hereditary right in kings

is that nature disapproves it,

otherwise she would not so
frequently turn it into ridicule

by giving mankind an ass
for a lion.

Thomas Paine.

That pamphlet
did stir people's minds

about the possibility of
a different kind of world.

"Common Sense" struck a string

which required a touch
to make it vibrate.

The country was ripe for
independence, and only needed

somebody to tell the people so.

Private Ashbel Green.

Some of
the Founders, and others,

thought this is the moment
we can start over again.

We can actually
begin the world anew.

And it must have been, you know,
wildly exciting at the time.

And I think it still
excites us, that we are

the product
of a revolutionary moment

where the world
turned upside down.

My countrymen will come

reluctantly into the idea
of independency.

I find "Common Sense" is
working a wonderful change

in the minds of many men.

George Washington.

Not all minds were changed.

Hannah Griffitts,
the Philadelphia poet

who in 1768
had urged American women

to boycott British goods,
was horrified.

The idea
that to reform the Empire

by not buying tea
or imported cloth

would lead to this crazy
question of independence

was an impossible thing
for her to countenance.

Paine is where a lot of people
get on the revolutionary road.

It's where she gets off.

For some Americans,
"Common Sense" confirmed

their worst fears.

Vermont Loyalist John Peters,
who continued to receive

death threats from
his Patriot neighbors,

had reached a breaking point.

Often mobbed
and once imprisoned

by the malcontents, I quitted

my family, property,
and offices,

and fled to Canada,
to avoid personal danger

and to support the British cause
against its enemies.

The want of guns is so great

that no trouble or expense
must be spared to obtain them.

Washington
has got Boston surrounded.

The problem is, he doesn't
have the big guns necessary

to make the British in Boston
really feel threatened.

He's got some artillery,
but not enough.

They tend to be
smaller field guns.

He knows that at Ticonderoga,

which is several hundred
miles away,

there are more than 80 British
guns that have been captured by

Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen.

And he tells Henry Knox,
"Go to Ticonderoga,

bring back whatever you can."

Henry Knox was
a big, amiable, 25-year-old

Boston bookseller
who had learned all he knew

about artillery
and military engineering

from volumes he'd stocked
in his shop

and from his service
in the Boston militia.

He'd earned Washington's
admiration for overseeing

the construction of
fortifications at Roxbury.

Washington,
who's got a very good eye

for subordinate talent,
recognizes that this guy,

he doesn't even have
a uniform at the time,

has something about him that
Washington finds appealing,

and the potential that
Henry Knox evinces

is something that Washington
recognizes immediately.

Before setting out,
Knox wrote a letter

to his pregnant wife Lucy,
who had fled Boston,

leaving her Loyalist parents
and siblings behind.

Keep up
your spirits, my dear girl,

and don't be alarmed when I
tell you that the General

has ordered me to go
to the westward

as far as Ticonderoga.

Don't be afraid, there is
no fighting in the case.

I am going upon business only.

Henry Knox.

Knox made his way
to the captured forts

and found 55 guns
worth transporting--

39 field pieces, 14 mortars,
and two howitzers--

all weighing more than 64 tons.

Knox's task was
somehow to move them

300 miles down into
the Hudson Valley,

across the Berkshires,
and all the way to Boston.

He had horses and ox teams
haul the guns overland

to the northern end
of Lake George.

From there, a small fleet of
barges and boats

ferried them more than 30 miles
against howling winds

to Fort George
at the southern end.

I have
made 42 exceeding strong sleds

and have provided
80 yoke of oxen

to drag them
as far as Springfield,

where I shall get fresh cattle
to carry them to camp.

We shall have a fine fall
of snow,

which will make
the carriage easy.

Henry Knox.

The snow
for which Knox hoped

proved unpredictable,
sometimes too light

for his sleds to glide over,

sometimes too heavy
for them to move at all.

Crossing the Berkshires,
oxen hauled the cannon

up and over mountains so tall
that from their summits,

Knox remembered,
"We might almost have seen

all the kingdoms of the earth."

Wherever they went,
farmers and townspeople

turned out to see them.

We reached
Westfield, Massachusetts,

and found that very few, even
among the oldest inhabitants,

had ever seen a cannon.

We were great gainers
by this curiosity.

For while they were employed
in remarking upon our guns,

we were with equal pleasure
discussing the qualities

of their cider and whiskey.

John P. Becker.

As the ox train
lumbered on,

Knox hurried ahead alone
to Cambridge.

He reported to Washington
that over the next few weeks,

all the artillery
he'd been promised

would be at his disposal.

When the last of Knox's cannon
reached Washington's army,

England's hold
on Boston was doomed.

It's one of the
most extraordinary expeditions

in American military history.

He appears back in Cambridge,
says, "Boss, I'm here.

"I've brought back 50 guns.

"They're parked
right outside of town.

They're available
whenever you need them."

Washington says,
"You're my man."

And he puts Knox in charge
of Continental Artillery.

On the night of
March 4th, 1776,

some 3,000 men and 300 teams

worked to put
20 or more heavy guns

in place on Dorchester Heights.

March 5th.

This morning at daybreak,
we discovered two redoubts

on the hills
on Dorchester Point,

and two smaller works
on their flanks.

They were all raised
during the night,

with an expedition equal to
that of the genie

belonging to Aladdin's
wonderful lamp.

From these hills they
commanded the whole town,

so that we must drive them
from their post,

or desert the place.

Unwilling to
sacrifice any more men,

General Howe decided
to leave Boston

for Halifax in Nova Scotia,
where he hoped to regroup.

With him went 10,000 soldiers
and their dependents

as well as 1,100 Loyalist
men, women, and children

who would have to build
new lives in a new place.

Among them were
Henry Knox's in-laws.

"I have lost,"
his wife Lucy wrote,

"my father, mother,
brother, and sisters."

How horrid is this war?

Brother against brother and
the parent against the child.

Who were the first
promoters of it, I know not.

But God knows.

And I fear they will feel
the weight of His vengeance.

Tis pity, the little time we
have to spend in this world,

we cannot enjoy ourselves
and our friends,

but must be devising means
to destroy each other.

Lucy Knox.

With the evacuation
of Boston, no British garrison

now remained anywhere
in the rebellious colonies.

Serena Zabin: I think
it surprises everybody

that the Patriots are
having some successes.

So much so that everyone's
convinced that it's either

the support of God
or the virtue of the cause

that is helping them win.

One of their favorite metaphors
is the Battle of Jericho.

They're sure that all it takes

is for this army that has
right on its side

to show up and blow a trumpet,

and the walls are just
going to fall down.

Some Americans
believed the war was over.

The Massachusetts legislature
thanked George Washington

for his service
and wished him

"Peace and Satisfaction of Mind"
in his retirement.

But Washington knew better.

He informed Congress
that he would

"immediately repair to New York,
with the remainder of the Army."

He was sure that Howe's
next move would be to attack

that strategically
important port.

By mid-April, 1776,
he and his wife Martha,

and several members
of their household,

were in residence there.

Meanwhile, Congress sent
a Connecticut businessman

named Silas Deane to Paris

to secretly buy
munitions and supplies--

and to look into the possibility

of forging an alliance
with France.

Two questions, really,
conjoin at this point.

One question is,
if we're going to

make ourselves independent,

if we're going to
somehow create a nation,

which is a truly novel
and destabilizing concept,

how are we going to do that?
We have absolutely

no means with which to do so.

So, we will have to enlist
the aid of a foreign power.

And then comes the question
of a Declaration.

And the question is,
which needs to happen first.

Independence is the only bond

that can
tie and keep us together.

Every day convinces us
of its necessity.

Instead of gazing at each other

with suspicious or
doubtful curiosity,

let each of us hold out
to his neighbor

the hearty hand of friendship.

And let no other name be
heard among us, than those of

a good citizen;
an open and resolute friend;

and a virtuous supporter
of the Rights of Mankind,

and of the Free and
Independent States of America.

Thomas Paine.

Language cannot describe,

nor imagination paint,
the scenes of misery

the soldiery endure,

continually groaning and calling
for relief, but in vain.

The most shocking
of all spectacles

was to see a large barn crowded
full of men with this disorder,

many of which could not
see, speak, or walk.

Dr. Lewis Beebe.

That spring,
colonists on both sides

of the fighting were ravaged
by a common enemy:

"Variola major"--smallpox.

Highly infectious,
the virus had scarred,

blinded, or killed hundreds of
thousands in North America

over the past 2 1/2 centuries.

The American Revolution
coincided

with a continent-wide epidemic
that would last for 7 years

and take some 100,000
more lives--Black, White,

as well as Native American.

Colin Calloway: When armies
are marching back and forth,

this is prime environment
for the spread of diseases.

And one of the largest,

or at least best documented,
smallpox epidemics,

and it may be epidemics, plural,

happens at the time
of the American Revolution.

Smallpox was the dread
disease of humanity.

There were just
two weapons against smallpox:

isolating its victims to keep
them from infecting others

or inoculating the still
unaffected by deliberately

implanting live virus
into an incision

in hopes that the infection
they contracted

would neither prove fatal
nor infect anyone else

before it conferred immunity.

George Washington knew
the disease firsthand;

he'd been permanently scarred
by it as a young man.

But he initially rejected
inoculation for his soldiers:

if he imposed it universally,
his whole army

would have been
incapacitated for weeks;

if he employed it piecemeal

and just one still-infectious
inoculated soldier

was released too early,

he might infect
his whole company.

Instead, anyone showing
smallpox symptoms

was isolated
in a special hospital

with guards posted
to keep visitors out.

Meanwhile, aboard Lord Dunmore's

floating city
in the Chesapeake Bay,

the men of his Ethiopian
Regiment and their families,

packed together on
small, segregated vessels,

were without immunity
and not inoculated

until the disease was already
raging among them.

So was typhus.

The fever
has proved a very malignant one

and has carried off
an incredible number

of our people,
especially the Blacks.

Had it not been for
this horrid disorder,

I am satisfied
I should have had 2,000 Blacks

with whom I should have
had no doubt

of penetrating into the heart
of this colony.

Lord Dunmore.

In late May, Dunmore
moved his ramshackle fleet

north to Gwynn's Island,
lured there by the presence

of some 400 cows
with which he hoped

to help feed his followers.

But smallpox and typhus
came with him.

Runaways continued to find
their way to Dunmore,

6 or 8 a day--and died
almost as fast.

Eventually, under fire from

Virginia militiamen onshore,

Dunmore and his fleet
would be forced

to sail away from the island.

They left behind hundreds

of sick African-American
men, women, and children.

A Virginian who reached
the island a day or two later

never forgot what he saw.

On our arrival,

we were struck with horror

at the number of dead bodies,

in a state of putrefaction,

without a shovelful of earth
upon them;

others gasping for life;

and some had crawled
to the water's edge,

who could only make known their
distress by beckoning to us.

Such a scene of cruelty
my eyes never beheld;

for which the authors never can
make atonement in this world.

Dunmore's experiment
in emancipation

had ended in disaster.

But over the 7 years of
fighting that followed,

tens of thousands
of enslaved people

would flee to the British,

believing that
the King's representatives

were more likely than
the Revolutionaries

to fulfill their hopes
for liberty.

Gordon-Reed: Opting
for freedom is a gamble.

And it makes people
take all kinds of risks.

The notion that you would
be in a situation

where your children,
and your children's children,

and your children's children's
children would be enslaved,

I can understand wanting
to risk death to prevent that.

That same spring,
smallpox would end

the American dream of
capturing Canada, as well.

For more than 4 months,

Benedict Arnold,
now promoted to general,

had continued to blockade
Quebec City,

hoping he could mount
a successful second assault

before spring temperatures
thawed the ice

blocking the St. Lawrence,

and the British
could land reinforcements.

But by May, nearly
half of those Americans

who remained were sick.

Then, Royal Navy warships
and transports arrived,

filled with
thousands of fresh troops--

and thousands more
were on the way.

The Americans took flight.

British forces, led by
General Guy Carleton

and General John Burgoyne,
pursued them--

soon supported by
Native American allies.

Darren Bonaparte:
For us, my people

living on the St. Lawrence,

the British rallied us and said,

"We've got Americans invading.

They're going to
kill all of you."

We sent 100 of our warriors
to help the British

drive the Americans out of
the Montreal area.

One by one,
the Americans

abandoned their outposts.

Reinforcements added to
their numbers,

but 3/4 of the newcomers
had no immunity to smallpox.

The road ran alongside

of the river opposite
the city of Montreal,

and we could plainly see
the red-coated

British soldiers
on the other shore.

So close were they upon us
that if we had not retreated

as we did, all would have
been prisoners,

for they were in numbers
as 6-to-our-one,

and we, moreover,
nearly half-dead

with sickness and fatigue
and lack of clothing.

John Greenwood.

The young fifer
John Greenwood

was among those reinforcements

when Arnold ordered his men
to abandon Montreal.

Nearly 2,000 fell ill.

Eventually they crowded onto
Ile aux Noix,

waiting their turn to be ferried
south on Lake Champlain

to Crown Point and Ticonderoga.

20 to 60 men fell ill
every day, and 15 to 20 died.

Two great pits were dug

in which the dead were heaped
each evening,

one man recalled,

"with no other covering but
the rags in which they died."

By the end of June, 10 months

after the American invasion
of Canada began,

it was over.

12,000 Americans had taken part.

Some 5,000 of them
had been killed,

wounded, taken prisoner,

died of disease, or deserted.

The survivors were now encamped

back on the shores
of Lake Champlain

where the campaign had started.

Our army at Crown Point

is an object of wretchedness

to fill a human mind
with horror.

Our misfortunes in Canada
are enough

to melt a heart of stone.

The smallpox is 10 times
more terrible

than Britons, Canadians,
and Indians together.

John Adams.

"Our affairs
are hastening to a crisis,"

John Hancock, the president
of the Continental Congress

warned, "and the
approaching campaign

"will in all probability

determine forever
the fate of America."

France had by now
quietly pledged

to provide some arms and money--

but open support
would require the Congress

to cut all ties to Britain.

"Every day," John Adams
wrote to a friend,

independence "rolls in
upon us like a torrent."

On May 15th, Congress
called upon all 13 colonies

to form their own governments.

By adopting new constitutions,
the colonies would

turn themselves into
sovereign States.

The next day, delegates
learned that the British,

desperate and without
European allies,

had hired thousands of
foreign troops

to help crush the rebellion.

Some German princes had agreed
to provide them--for a price.

Most came from Hessen-Kassel
and Hessen-Hanau,

so the Americans would
call them all "Hessians."

"O Britons," one
Rhode Islander lamented,

"how art you fallen
that you hire foreigners

to cut your children's throats."

The British nation
have proceeded

to the last extremity.

And we should expect
a severe trial this summer,

with Britons, Hessians,
Indians, Negroes,

and every other butcher
the gracious King of Britain

can hire against us.

Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire.

Friederike Baer:
The Americans are using

the British Government's
decision

to hire foreign soldiers

in the war
against British subjects,

if they look at this as
a civil war to some extent.

They're using this as a tool

to rile up
resistance against Britain,

to mobilize men to, basically,

take up arms
against these invaders,

and ultimately
to support independence.

On June 7th,
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia

introduced resolutions
in Congress declaring that

"these United Colonies
are & of right

"ought to be
free & independent States

absolved from all allegiance
to the British Crown."

Meanwhile, a letter to
a Pennsylvania newspaper

signed only "Republicus"

declared that it was time
for independent Americans

"to call themselves
by some name"--

and proposed
the "United States of America."

A 5-man committee was named
to produce a document

setting forth
the reasons for making

such a momentous decision.

33-year-old Thomas Jefferson
of Virginia

was assigned to write
the first draft.

He would draw from Aristotle,
Cicero, John Locke,

and the Virginia
Declaration of Rights,

written by his friend
George Mason.

But his goal, he said, was
to distill what he called

"an expression
of the American mind."

He worked in a rented room
on Market Street,

fueled by cups of tea
brought to him

by his 14-year-old valet,
Robert Hemings--

the son of an enslaved servant,
Elizabeth Hemings,

and Jefferson's father-in-law.

When in the course
of human events,

it becomes necessary
for one people

to dissolve the political bands

which have connected them
with another,

and to assume among
the powers of the earth

the separate and equal station

to which the laws of nature

and of nature's God
entitle them,

a decent respect to
the opinions of mankind

requires that they should
declare the causes

which impel them
to the separation.

We hold these truths
to be self-evident:

that all men are created equal;

that they are endowed
by their Creator

with certain inalienable rights;

that among these
are life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness.

Everything
that we believe in

comes out of the Revolution.

Our ideas of liberty, equality,

it's the defining event
of our history.

"All men are created equal."

That is the most famous
and important phrase

in our history.

If we don't celebrate it,
we have

no reason to be a people.

And Lincoln knew that.

And that's why he says,

"All honor to Jefferson."

Thomas Jefferson
was proposing something

altogether new and radical
in the world.

It was the American people's
"right," he argued,

it was "their duty"--
to "throw off" tyranny

and learn to govern themselves.

That to secure these rights,

governments are instituted
among men,

deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed,

that whenever
any form of government

becomes destructive
of these ends,

it is the right of the people
to alter or to abolish it,

and to institute new government,

laying its foundation
on such principles

and organizing its powers
in such form,

as to them shall seem
most likely

to effect their safety
and happiness.

Since no one had
authority over anyone else

by birthright,
Jefferson was affirming

that all legitimate power came
from the people themselves--

even if he, the owner of
hundreds of human beings,

could never make that truth
a reality in his own life.

Gordon-Reed:
His relationship to slavery

is foundational.

From the beginning to the end,
this institution

bounded his life, even though
he knew it was wrong.

How could you know something
is wrong and still do it?

Well, that is the human
question for all of us.

The Declaration
of Independence,

we remember it, primarily,

from its opening preamble,

the most famous sentences
in our history,

quoted ever since as a mandate

for expanding liberty
for other people.

But most of the document
is something else.

It is a list of crimes

allegedly committed by the King.

That means that
when the Patriot leaders

decide that they
want independence,

then they must persuade
their people in the colonies,

now states, that the King has
forfeited his just authority.

The purpose of the
Declaration of Independence

is to declare the King is
no longer sovereign.

Throughout history,
most people

had been subjects,

living under authoritarian rule.

"All experience hath shewn,"
Jefferson wrote,

"that mankind are
more disposed to suffer,

while evils are sufferable."

George III himself, not the
Parliament, was now the enemy.

The Declaration denounced him

as "unfit to be the ruler
of a free people,"

guilty of 18
"injuries and usurpations,"

all meant to establish,
it read, "absolute tyranny."

It charged that he had invaded
"the rights of the people,"

sent "swarms of officers
to harass" them,

imposed a standing army
in peacetime,

levied taxes without
the colonists' consent,

and was now
waging war against them.

Dunmore's Proclamation
had deepened fears

of slave uprisings,

and reports that
the governor of Canada

had enlisted Native people
to resist the invasion there

further inflamed Congress.

In the 18th and final charge
against the King,

Jefferson did all he could
to exploit their fury.

He has excited

domestic insurrections
amongst us

and has endeavored to bring on

the inhabitants
of our frontiers,

the merciless Indian Savages,

whose known rule of warfare

is an undistinguished
destruction

of all ages, sexes,
and conditions.

Proclaiming
the equality of "all men"

was a genuinely
revolutionary idea,

but that equality was not yet
extended to Native Americans,

enslaved or free Blacks,
the poor, or any woman.

Jefferson's original list of
"injuries" had also included

the charge that George III
was somehow responsible

for the Atlantic slave trade.

He called it "cruel war
against human nature itself."

The other delegates refused
to adopt that charge.

The Declaration of
Independence was formally

ratified on July 4th, 1776--

just 1,337 words
that ended with the phrase,

"We mutually pledge
to each other

our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor."

When Rhode Island delegate
Stephen Hopkins,

who had palsy,
signed the document,

he is said to have remarked,

"My hand trembles,
but my heart does not."

It was first read aloud
to a cheering crowd

in the State House yard
at Philadelphia on July 8th.

It was soon published
in 29 newspapers,

and greeted by parades and
celebratory volleys of gunfire

throughout the newly
United States.

Boston, Massachusetts--

when Colonel Crafts
read the proclamation,

great attention was given
to every word,

and every face appeared joyful.

The King's arms were taken
down from the State House

and every vestige of him
from every place

in which it appeared
and burned in King Street.

Thus ends royal authority
in this state,

and all the people
shall say, "Amen."

Abigail Adams.

On July 9th,
in New York,

General Washington ordered the
Declaration read to his troops.

Hearing the list of
George III's alleged crimes

so angered the men
that a number of them

raced down Broadway
to Bowling Green,

tied ropes to the statue
of the King,

and pulled it to the ground.

Pieces of the shattered statue
were dispatched by wagon

to Litchfield, Connecticut,
where Patriots melted

the gilded lead into bullets--
42,088 of them.

Far to the north
at Fort Ticonderoga,

the battered survivors of
the failed invasion of Canada

were assembled
so that the Declaration

could be read to them.

When it was over,
an eyewitness said,

"The language of every man's
countenance was,

"Now we are a people;

we have a name among
the states of the world."

Among those who heard
the Declaration

read at Ticonderoga was
private Lemuel Haynes,

a free African-American from
Granville, Massachusetts.

He understood right away
what it might mean

for people like him--and wrote
an essay entitled:

"Liberty Further Extended."

Liberty is a jewel

which was handed down to man

from the cabinet of heaven.

It hath pleased God to make
"of one blood all nations

of men for to dwell upon
the face of the earth."

And as all are of one species,
therefore, we may

reasonably conclude that liberty
is equally as precious

to a Black man as it is
to a White one,

and bondage
equally as intolerable

to the one as it is
to the other.

Maggie Blackhawk: The
Declaration of Independence

was deeply significant
to people at the margins.

It gave them a space
of moral argument.

It gave them
a space of legal argument

that could be leveraged to
reshape United States democracy

and become a part of it.

And we are going to push
every lever we had

to be able to make
this democracy real,

and to make these visions,
these values,

real rather than hypocritical.

London,
"The Gentleman's Magazine."

The American Declaration
reflects no honor

upon either the erudition
or honesty of its authors.

"We hold," they say, "these
truths to be self-evident.

That all men are created equal"?

Every plowman knows that
they are not created equal.

It certainly is no reason
why the Americans

should turn rebels.

King George was
determined that the Americans

not be permitted to break away.

He believes, and his
senior ministers believe,

that this slippery slope
of an American insurrection

will only lead to

the dissolution of
the British Empire.

The sun never sets on
the British Empire.

That phrase was coined in 1773.

And George is determined
it's never going to set

as long as he is the monarch.

And the King
had sent a great fleet

to New York--with
thousands of troops--

to prevent that
from ever happening.