All language subtitles for The American Revolution S01E01.en

"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.

- NATIVE AMERICAN DRUMBEATS

- "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."

Canassatego, spokesman for the Six
Nations.

- In the spring of 1754,

the celebrated scientist and writer
Benjamin Franklin

printed a cartoon of a snake cut into
pieces

above the dire warning, "Join, or
die".

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

in the most consequential revolution
in history.

GUNFIRE

The American Revolution was not just a
clash between Englishmen

over Indian land, taxes, and
representation,

but a bloody struggle that also
somehow came to be about

the noblest aspirations of humankind.

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.

CANNON FIRE

It was also a savage civil war

that pitted brother against brother,

neighbour against neighbour,

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 favour of any system,

"are sufficient to make every person
who has been an eye witness

"recoil at the prospect of overturning
empires."

Abigail Adams.

- GUNFIRE SHOUTING

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,

what our forebears believed,

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,

and 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.

- "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.

- SHOUTING

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 three 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.

CANNONS

- 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
back country

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.

- 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 King George.

- 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,

cos 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 handbasket.

- On Saturday, December 27th, 1760,

a British frigate anchored in Boston
Harbour.

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.

- 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.

In Britain, 2% of the population,
lords and lesser gentry,

owned two thirds 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 labourers working for
an employer.

- For Americans, land and liberty are
completely intertwined.

White Americans see their liberty

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

Preserving, promoting that liberty for
white Americans, to them,

means taking native land.

There is no other answer.

Hundreds of native nations still

are completely intact, completely
independent.

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've 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 going to 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.

- Many settlers become outraged that
the British crown

has any form of imperial 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.

- 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."

- 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,

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 GBP a year.

London did not have the money.

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

Britain was in the midst of a post-war
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 three
parliamentary statutes,

all meant to make the colonies help
pay for their own defence.

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
licence 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
British-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 1st, 1765.

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 my 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?"

- 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.

- 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.

SHOUTING

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.

- "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.

- 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
defence 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 one
third 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 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."

- Eight 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 five new laws -
the Townshend Acts.

One of them especially angered
colonists.

It imposed new taxes on four items
manufactured in England -

glass, lead, paper, and painters'
colours,

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.

- 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 publicised it.

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 Griffiths.

- Tensions with Britain 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 practised smuggler.

A big, angry crowd formed at the
wharf.

SHOUTING ECHOES

- "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."

Anne 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.

- "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.

- Shortly before noon on Saturday,
October 1st, 1768,

14 British warships rode at anchor in
a great arc,

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 army had arrived.

The crowds that lined the street were,
for the most part,

silent and sullen.

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.

Passers-by 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 baptised.

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."

- DISTANT SHOUTING

On the evening of March 5th, 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
under way,

Captain Thomas Preston raced several
armed grenadiers to the scene.

More snowballs and rocks, and oyster
shells greeted them.

They fixed bayonets.
CHURCH BELL RINGS

- Somebody starts ringing the church
bells -

which in Boston is the 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!"

- GUNFIRE

- All we know, really, is that when
the smoke cleared,

there are five people dead or dying.

- The terrified crowd began to
scatter.

- 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 fatal 5th 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?

GAVEL BANGS SHOUTING

Captain Preston was found not guilty
of ordering his men to fire.

The other eight 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,

and Parliament had already repealed

all but one of the Townshend Acts.

Only the duty on tea remained.

- "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."

- 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 Gaspee, 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 colonies' 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.

- "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 free
men 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.

- "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
behaviour.

"We know not how to advance.

"They know not how to retreat.

"Some party must give way."

Edmund Burke.

- In October of 1773,

seven 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.

John Adams wrote that immediate
resistance was necessary

because of its attack upon a
fundamental principle of

the British 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 Boston, when three 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 16th, 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.

The men banged open 342 crates

and poured more than 46 tonnes of tea
into the harbour.

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.

- 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 five GBP 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 lions," he said,

"but if Britain 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 four fresh regiments set sail
for Boston

in mid-April 1774.

- The British Government sees this as
a police action,

that if they could 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 to see

the ways that the other 12 colonies

rally to Massachusetts's cause.

- 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.

The Prime Minister's effort to
intimidate the other colonies

by punishing Massachusetts had instead
begun to unite them.

BELL TOLLS

- "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."

- That summer, 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 defence,

he sent 250 soldiers to the stone
powderhouse in Charlestown

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.

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.

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.

- "We must change our habits," John
Adams wrote.

"Our prejudices, our palettes,

"our taste in dress, furniture,

"equipage, architecture, etc."

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.

- 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.

- "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.

- "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.

"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 north-west of Boston.

Late on the evening of April 18th,
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 two lanterns
appeared in

the belfry of the Old North Church,

just long enough to alert sympathisers
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 19th, 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.

BELL RINGS

Lexington's militiamen 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 six 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 villains,

"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.

- GUNFIRE

- 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... "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."

- GUNFIRE
- Fire!

The British resumed their march toward
Concord,

now just six and a half miles away.

BELL RINGS

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, six 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 two 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 going to 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.

- At North Bridge, the American
soldiers,

the militiamen see this,

and they say to each other,

"They're burning down our town.

"Are we going to let them burn down
our town?"

And that's when they marched to the
bridge.

- Three companies of British Regulars
now guarded the bridge.

Isaac Davis, the gunsmith,

was picked to head the column sent
towards it.

Suddenly, without orders,

GUNFIRE
a Redcoat fired his musket.

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

A musket ball tore through Isaac
Davis's chest,

severing an artery and spraying blood
on two men

coming up behind him.

"God damn them," a militia captain
shouted.

"Fire, men! Fire!"

GUNFIRE SHOUTING

At least eight Redcoats were hit,
including four 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."

- GUNFIRE

- 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.

- Fire!

- Two British cannons swept the
Lexington Green,

and one ball smashed through the wall
of the meeting house.

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 militia man 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 murdered son

"and picking up his neighbours 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 four 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 ten-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 Harbour.

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 one 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.

- 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.

"Our only comfort lies in the justice
of our cause.

"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.