250 and Counting: February 4, 1775

Cover art for February 4, 1775: the front page of George III's New England Restraining Act

After the Boston Tea Party, Parliament enacted what they called the Coercive Acts and the Colonies called the Intolerable Acts. The Colonists were neither coerced, nor were the acts tolerated (hence the name). And you know that because we’ve told you this already several times.

In October 1774 the Continental Congress composed the “Petition to the King”, and as you’ll learn in greater detail tomorrow, it was pretty clear that the petition crossed an ocean and still managed to go nowhere. In fact…

At about the same time, King George III decided that New England needed some more “convincing” to fall into line. This was the beginning of the New England Restraining Act. As the name suggests, it affected mostly the New England colonies, but people in the other colonies took notice and wondered “Hey, this could happen to us too, couldn’t it?” As a result, everyone continued moving down the path they fervently hoped they wouldn’t travel.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

250 and Counting: February 1, 1775

Cover art for February 1, 1775: Portrait of John Hancock.

Before the shooting started, Boston appeared to be the place which gave King George III the most hassles. But to be fair, Boston is the place that the British seemed to provoke more than the other Colonies, so it kind of evened out in the end.

When the Intolerable Acts dissolved the existing government in Massachusetts, the locals said, “Whatever” and convened anyway that same summer. But there’s no denying the results: they did all the things that a government is supposed to do, and the locals pretty much ignored whatever apparatus was set up by the British.

There were three Provincial Congresses in Massachusetts, but by the time the Third one convened, much of what they did was rendered unnecessary because the war had turned “hot” and other structures were in place to do the job.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

250 and Counting: January 19, 1775

Cover art for January 19, 1775: An image of the Petition to the King.

Most people (we think) have this popular notion of American history involving the British imposing taxes and massacreing people in Boston and the Colonists responding with an indignant “Oh, we need to dump some tea and write a Declaration of Independence and take up arms and shoot those red-coated monsters right now!”

But if you’ve been listening to this show for the past couple of weeks, you already know that wasn’t the case. There were many, many attempts to seek out a peaceful solution to the troubles going on. Some of them were rather covert: backchannel people talking to one another, negotiating quietly, Others, of course, were overt. And today we’ll be talking about one of those. It was an attempt by the First Continental Congress to bring up their issues, ask for relief and simultaneously affirm their allegiance to the King.

(Spoiler Alert: it didn’t work.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

250 and Counting: January 14, 1775

Cover art for January 14, 1775: portratt of Lord Dartmouth

William Legge was the Second Earl of Dartmouth and, just before the hostilities between the Colonists and the British started in earnest, was also the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of Trade.

Lord Dartmouth noticed that people throughout the Colonies appeared to be preparing for all-out war, so he sent a letter to the colonial governors, essentially ordering them to embargo imports of weapons or ammunition. In doing this, he was basically fulfilling his duty to the Crown.

Simultaneously, however, he was trying to employ backdoor diplomacy tactics to negotiate a peace. Benjamin Franklin was among the people with whom he communicated. But it’s tough to argue for peace when your troops are occupying Boston, and his actions ultimately led to the Gunpowder Plot, and the war heating up for good at Lexington and Concord just a few months later.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download