Full transcript
0:03greetings again
0:04welcome back
0:06so you might remember that last time we
0:09established that even though there were
0:11tensions
0:12between the colonies and the british
0:15empire over events like the boston
0:17massacre that the vast majority of
0:20people
0:21in the early 1770s even into the mid
0:241770s would have still considered
0:27themselves to be british subjects
0:30under the power of king george iii
0:33they would have said that what they were
0:36seeking
0:37was only the restoration of their
0:40inheritance right they wanted to be
0:42treated
0:43like englishmen they wanted to be
0:46um
0:47given their birthright we might say
0:49entitled to all of the rights and
0:52liberties
0:53that
0:54came with being english or british and
0:59so as we move closer to the war and as
1:03war breaks out what we'll see is that
1:06not everybody is fighting over these
1:09kinds of principles uh
1:11and as we'll see people are making
1:13decisions on which side to take in this
1:15war
1:17based on
1:19different factors and motivations and
1:22agendas and so forth
1:24and so
1:28last week or last time in talking about
1:31the revolution
1:32we talked about the colonists and their
1:35ideas behind
1:38their discontent the idea of being
1:42taxed without being represented in
1:44parliament without having a say in those
1:46taxes
1:48and what that could lead to down the
1:50road again this the the taxes that
1:52they're paying are not burdensome for
1:54the most part
1:56um but the fear that by acquiescing now
2:00they're abdicating their rights
2:03and they're opening themselves to more
2:06taxes down the road and even other
2:09arbitrary decisions where people don't
2:12have a say
2:14um so this leads to
2:17growing colonial unity to be sure
2:21but
2:22a question we might pose is are ideas
2:25alone enough to start a revolution
2:28if we think about other revolutions that
2:30you might be familiar with say the
2:32french revolution or the russian
2:34revolution and you
2:36think a little bit about why those
2:38revolutions started well
2:41without going into too much detail we
2:44might suggest that
2:46what we were dealing with in those
2:48locations both in france in the late
2:5118th century and russia in the early
2:5520th century
2:56is that these places were
3:00victims of deep social and political
3:03inequality
3:04um people were starving
3:06people were oppressed
3:08uh and so
3:10this is
3:11something that is
3:13usually a good impetus for revolution
3:17in the colonies
3:19this is a place of relative prosperity
3:21that's not to say that everybody
3:23is um doing well there certainly are
3:26people who are impoverished there are
3:28people who may be living hand to mouth
3:31but
3:32the majority of people are
3:35fine
3:36economically speaking and again you know
3:38one of the major differences here
3:40in the north american colonies is the
3:42abundance of land
3:45so land is wealth land is power
3:49in europe land is mostly taken up
3:52um it's not like you're going to have
3:53the opportunity to become
3:56a land holding person if you're growing
3:59up in very
4:02poor circumstances if you're a member of
4:04the lower class you're probably not
4:06going to have the opportunity
4:08to climb the social ladder well
4:11in the north american colonies that
4:14situation is different um
4:17and so what we could ask ourselves is
4:20if we move past the rhetoric and that's
4:22not to suggest that
4:24those ideas aren't important but if we
4:28move past that are there any underlying
4:30factors that would make people in the
4:32colonies susceptible to this line of
4:35rhetoric
4:36well if we look for instance at
4:40boston in particular and we do tend to
4:42focus on cities when it comes to the
4:44start of the revolution whether it be
4:46boston or new york or philadelphia even
4:48say charleston
4:50um these places northern seaports in
4:52particular
4:54are full of revolutionary crowds this is
4:57a site for radicalism
4:59i mentioned briefly last time
5:02about the sons of liberty and the
5:04intimidation of tax collectors and so
5:06forth we saw you know tarring and
5:08feathering
5:09hanging tax collectors and effigy
5:13if we think about the boston tea party
5:15now again this is another one of these
5:17revolutionary
5:19moments are we supposed to think that
5:21the people who are in this mob are
5:23actually tea drinkers is that what is
5:27motivating them here
5:30probably not
5:31to be sure tea is a drink that's more
5:33accessible than it's ever been before
5:37um but it's
5:39the poor
5:40who are well i guess we should say it's
5:42not the poor who are usually engaging in
5:45mid-afternoon
5:46um tea time
5:48so
5:49this is if we kind of look at a wider
5:51context here this is a time of economic
5:54decline in desperation
5:58after the seven years war wars are good
6:00for business and um there's often a
6:03downturn when the fighting concludes
6:06and that appears to be the case
6:08following the seven years war
6:10at the cessation of hostilities between
6:13the british and the in the french
6:15um
6:16you know the the commerce that had taken
6:19place across the ocean dries up to some
6:21extent
6:22seaports then are hit particularly hard
6:25and with the tax policies
6:27that the british government implements
6:30these conditions worsen there's fewer
6:32jobs and with boycotts then
6:35ship owners are feeling the crunch just
6:37the same as sailors and laborers
6:40so even though they may be shouting
6:43something like taxation without
6:44representation
6:46they're also feeling some economic
6:49discomfort as well
6:52and so that's an urban location
6:55what if we
6:57thought about
6:58other locations
7:01what if we thought about
7:03say
7:04you know the people who are living
7:05outside of urban areas
7:08well
7:12they are affected as well
7:15um
7:16we see people
7:18who feel like their traditional
7:20socioeconomic order
7:22is being threatened
7:24and i'm kind of behind here in the
7:26slides so
7:28i'll move ahead here now
7:31and
7:32they feel like you know
7:34they have economic uncertainty in their
7:36future as well and we can look at one
7:39particular town we'll look at a town
7:41called concord massachusetts
7:44and this is an area that has grown
7:47steadily
7:48over the course of about 150 years as we
7:51approach the american revolution
7:54so
7:56for the first hundred years or so
7:59this was a place
8:00a small farming community very
8:03prosperous
8:04plenty of land for farming and so forth
8:07but by the time we reached the mid-18th
8:10century 1750 or so that optimism
8:14is giving way to a bit of anxiety a bit
8:18of pessimism and there's
8:20two important facets to the economic
8:22order in places like this the first
8:25is land you have to have land for
8:28farming
8:30and at this point
8:32the land most of the good land is taken
8:36up
8:37and so families are wondering if they
8:40can kind of continue to engage in the
8:43same lifestyle that they have for so
8:44long the other part of this is the idea
8:48of power within these local communities
8:51within the families the family unit is
8:53the basic unit in new england society
8:56going all the way back to the puritans
8:59and these
9:01families are under patriarchal control
9:04what father says
9:06goes um the father rules like a despot
9:10in most cases
9:12and so
9:13if we consider this
9:16into their early 20s
9:18these are big families remember new
9:20england families often are very large
9:23the expectation would be that sons would
9:26remain on the family farm into their
9:29early twenties
9:30uh
9:31and in exchange the father would provide
9:34for the children's future so that would
9:37mean land good farmable land for the
9:39suns that would mean dowries for the
9:41daughter
9:42uh you know kind of a a purse
9:46that's attached to her in marriage that
9:48she sort of brings to uh the wedding
9:51partnership i guess you could say but
9:54with land being taken up there's an
9:56increasing scarcity of land
9:59for generations now we've seen farms
10:02being divided and at first maybe this is
10:04no big deal you might have somebody who
10:07has several hundred acres
10:09first generation perhaps not so much
10:12uh people
10:14already uh have like i said good size
10:18farms and if you divide up those farms
10:19it's still enough for
10:21their children to make a living on but
10:23by the third
10:25generation with all land bought up
10:28nearby
10:30this becomes more of a problem and so by
10:33the fourth generation then
10:36it's a real crisis what do you do
10:39if there's no more land nearby
10:42um that you could purchase
10:45if even
10:46sometimes this old land
10:48is overworked uh
10:51and because you're coming from a smaller
10:54farm in terms of acreage in the first
10:56place you may not have enough money to
10:58purchase land well
11:01this fourth generation finds itself in a
11:03predicament what are they going to do
11:06well
11:07they could still
11:09listen to father they could stick around
11:11hope for the best
11:13but in a lot of cases they realize that
11:16father is not going to be able to
11:17provide for them and so without that
11:20patriarchal influence
11:22we see
11:24young men and women
11:26marrying earlier
11:28sometimes they're marrying less
11:30respectable partners
11:32the women
11:34who are you know part of a household
11:36economy that were overseeing the
11:37operations in the house we might say
11:40the the production of everything the
11:42house needs to get by
11:44from clothes to uh you know butter
11:48milk the growing of vegetables in the
11:49garden and so forth that's all the
11:51women's responsibility
11:53she's overseeing the daughters who were
11:55doing that but now
11:56because times are a little more
11:58difficult
12:00that woman is forced to engage in
12:01domestic work for perhaps another family
12:04who's
12:05better off
12:06so
12:07yes these people are fighting for the
12:09rights of englishmen but they also have
12:12these
12:13deeper social and economic tensions that
12:16are important too
12:18some youth head west
12:20um but they're paying a price for doing
12:22this um there's uncertainty right
12:26there's slipping on the social scale
12:28this is never a good thing we
12:30i think you know to this very day we
12:32like to think of ourselves as an
12:34upwardly mobile society
12:36whether that's true or not
12:38if we think that our children are going
12:40to be worse off than we are
12:43that is something that's going to cause
12:44us um
12:46really to think about the future of our
12:48community perhaps and so
12:52um
12:52the idea of moving west
12:55there are some benefits to that maybe
12:57you're free from taxes
12:59um but still there's a lot of
13:02uncertainty here and so
13:04let's be clear here this these changes
13:07that i'm talking about this sort of
13:10economic anxiety that people are feeling
13:12this decline in social status this
13:15wasn't necessarily something that people
13:17were talking about oh well times are
13:20tough here in concord we should
13:22uh attack the british we should revolt
13:25about
13:26against the british instead it's maybe
13:29something that's a little less
13:30articulated but it continues
13:33um
13:34it's a you know this decaying position
13:38uh it adds to the burden and it shapes
13:40the outlook in the world in which they
13:42live and so
13:44they may be somewhat on the fence but
13:46this helps them
13:48to choose sides
13:50and if we think about this choosing of
13:53sides a lot of the times i think we're
13:56conditioned to think that most people
13:59in the united in what would be the
14:01united states or patriots that they're
14:03fighting on the right side of history so
14:06to speak that they're fighting for
14:08independence
14:09well we know this probably to not be
14:12true now uh historians
14:15in
14:16sort of pouring over newspapers and
14:18records and so forth
14:20think that it was probably
14:22something like 20
14:25of
14:26the people in the colonies were actually
14:28loyalists they were loyal to britain
14:31and probably
14:3330 to 40 percent were patriots
14:37they had chose to fight on the side of
14:39independence and then maybe another
14:4230 or 40 percent constituted what we
14:45might call
14:46the wavering middle
14:48um a silent plurality maybe
14:51and if you stop and think about what
14:53it's often like in wartime
14:56we have people who are not who do not
15:00always have the luxury of choosing
15:02their side based on principles
15:05but they have to choose their side
15:08based out of self preservation or based
15:11on the self-preservation of their family
15:13based on safety based on their
15:15relationships with their peers and their
15:18neighbors
15:19um and so forth
15:21and so loyalists tended to be older
15:23colonists
15:25those with strong ties to england as
15:27well
15:28maybe if you were a more recent
15:30immigrant to the colonies you might
15:32still feel more attachment as opposed if
15:35you're several generations removed and
15:37you've never been to england you've
15:39never seen london but wealthy merchants
15:42and planters people who had business
15:44interests within the empire
15:46they certainly
15:47felt
15:49um connections that they were not always
15:51willing to dispense with
15:54others they were just horrified by the
15:57violence they saw in groups like the
15:59sons of liberty and they feared a
16:01government that was run by extremists
16:04they feared the idea of
16:07this british government which many
16:09people again would have told you was the
16:10best government on the face of the earth
16:13descending into tyranny maybe you're
16:16kind of fond of the idea of giving more
16:18power to the people
16:20but as we'll discuss in more detail
16:22later there was always this fear that
16:24democracy would devolve into some sort
16:26of dictatorship or
16:30situation with a tyrannical ruler and of
16:32course this divides a lot of families
16:34maybe the most famous example benjamin
16:37franklin himself
16:39franklin signs the declaration of
16:41independence but his son william
16:44is
16:46the governor of new jersey and he
16:47supported the king
16:49and this really
16:51kind of
16:52ruined the lives of
16:54ruin the relationship of franklin and
16:57his son for the rest of their lives
17:00other people they're on the fence
17:02they're taking a wait and see kind of
17:04attitude they don't want to be pressured
17:06to commit to one side or another
17:10and so
17:12um
17:14there's some there's often a committed
17:16organized minority that's leading the
17:19way and demanding that others follow and
17:22if you don't
17:23you might be punished we see the
17:26organization
17:27of committees of safety in some cases
17:30these are basically vigilantes
17:34who
17:35are asking
17:37them to renounce allegiance asking
17:40people to renounce allegiance to the
17:42king
17:43if you refused
17:45then maybe you would be tarred and
17:47feathered maybe you would receive a
17:50coating of what was kind of
17:52euphemistically called hillsborough
17:55paint at the time that would be
17:57your house would be smattered in manure
18:00so these
18:02tactics of coercion
18:04um you know again lead to questions of
18:07is this a revolution that's conducted on
18:10on behalf of principles
18:12or is this more a mob looking to bully
18:15people into seeing things how they wish
18:19um
18:20can it be both do
18:23the ends justify the means we might ask
18:26right if the end goal is independence an
18:29end to british tyranny
18:32then
18:33how far should people be willing to go
18:36so in the end
18:38many loyalists they just leave america
18:40probably about 80 000 people flee to
18:43canada or to britain
18:46after the war um some of them are sad to
18:48do that to be sure
18:51what you see here is an oath of
18:53allegiance form kind of what i talked
18:55about but in this particular case this
18:56would be somebody
18:58swearing an oath of allegiance to king
19:00george you might also find the same
19:03thing
19:04uh
19:05where you're actually renouncing your
19:07allegiance to king george
19:10others were made to make
19:13public denials in the newspaper
19:16uh
19:17in this case i think what you see are
19:20two
19:22people who are being made to publicly
19:24denounce their earlier support for
19:26governor hutchinson you might remember
19:28governor hutchinson
19:30was the poor guy who had his house
19:33ransacked by mobs and so
19:35uh he was certainly a loyalist and these
19:38people were
19:39expressing sympathy with him more than
19:42any sort of
19:44die-hard political opinion but their
19:46neighbors didn't like that and so they
19:48were made to issue
19:49public apologies public denials of their
19:52earlier statements
19:55what about african americans
19:57many of them faced
20:00a particularly unique
20:03dilemma
20:04on the eve of the revolution
20:07there were probably about half a million
20:10african americans in the colonies in the
20:12mainland colonies and this would have
20:14been about 20 of the colonial population
20:16overall but 99 of them are enslaved
20:21and the british went so far as to
20:23actively
20:24recruit
20:26former slaves
20:28who belonged to patriot masters they
20:30were hoping to disrupt
20:33the colonial economy
20:36and so as a result we see lots
20:40of
20:41slaves sort of weighing the choice of
20:46freedom or slavery for themselves there
20:48would be plenty of americans who might
20:49have thought metaphorically in that way
20:52are we fighting for the freedom of
20:53independence or the continued slavery
20:55under great britain um but slaves
20:58thought of this perhaps on a more
21:00personal level to be sure
21:02and in the case of virginia
21:04um the loyalist governor his name was
21:07lord dunmore he issued a proclamation
21:10and he said
21:12if you're willing to fight for the crown
21:15for the british
21:17any male slave can have his freedom and
21:20so as a result
21:22probably
21:23something like 30 to 40 000 slaves
21:26escaped to british law
21:28to british lines
21:30um and they armed themselves
21:33uh in one particularly
21:36notorious case we have a man who was
21:39known as titus
21:41he lived in monmouth county new jersey
21:44and he
21:46changed his name and became sort of
21:48infamously known as
21:51captain tai
21:53he
21:55conducted raids he practiced
21:58guerrilla-like tactics he ambushed
22:00patriots
22:02he launched raids on towns and carried
22:04away
22:05clothing and furniture and horses
22:08and
22:09he became sort of widely known
22:13as
22:14you know somebody who would plunder the
22:16homes of patriots and then
22:18using his knowledge of the local swamp
22:21swamps and rivers sort of disappear
22:23quickly before anybody could catch him
22:27the british army had what was known as
22:29an ethiopian resid
22:31regiment these were
22:33not people from ethiopia but instead
22:36people who
22:38uh you know we're
22:41former slaves and who are now fighting
22:43in the british army at the bottom of
22:45your screen here what you see
22:47is basically a reward for captain tai or
22:52titus as he's referred to there
22:54because of the disruption that he has
22:58caused
22:59so
23:00in the end
23:02uh well i guess first i should say
23:05what does dunmore's proclamation do if
23:08you're actually say a southern planter
23:11who possesses a lot of slaves and maybe
23:13before you were on the fence
23:15well this might change your point of
23:18view
23:18about
23:20joining the patriot cause right if the
23:22british are going to disrupt your way of
23:24life if they're going to basically
23:26encourage your property to run away
23:29um then this might push you onto the
23:31side
23:32of colin of the of the fight for
23:36independence and that's seemingly what
23:38happens some people who are ambivalent
23:40about the cause
23:41afterwards embrace it after the british
23:45seemingly rescind one of their most
23:47cherished liberties the right to own
23:50property in other human beings
23:53how does this turn out for those former
23:55slaves well
23:57certainly some of them are able to
23:58obtain their freedom but probably for
24:00the vast majority
24:03um it doesn't go so well many of them
24:05end up in slavery in the caribbean
24:08of course the british
24:10lose and when they leave
24:13in places like charleston in savannah
24:16many of these former slaves who fought
24:18alongside the british want to leave with
24:20them because they know what their future
24:22holds in a new united states
24:25and so
24:27they
24:28try to leave and there are accounts that
24:32talk about
24:33um in the case of charleston south
24:35carolina in particular
24:37former
24:38uh african-american soldiers swimming
24:41out to boats as the british retreated
24:43trying to get on these boats and the
24:45british hacking away at them with their
24:48uh their swords
24:50to keep them from following them so this
24:53is a very
24:54tragic situation to be sure
24:58and then we can consider
25:00native americans as well what is their
25:03stake
25:04in this war
25:06at the beginning of the war
25:08those who were fighting for independence
25:10are trying to ensure indian neutrality
25:13they want
25:14native americans to sit out this war
25:17um
25:18because they know
25:20that native americans could provide
25:23really perhaps decisive military
25:25assistance if need be
25:27however if you're a native person
25:30um what becomes clear to most native
25:34groups and i guess we should preface
25:36this by saying
25:37these groups are making choices
25:39individually right this is not
25:41we can't say that all of indian country
25:43is making a choice for
25:46the whole
25:47native population of north america
25:50instead you know iroquois cherokee
25:54choctaws creeks the seminoles all of
25:57these peoples are making decisions in
25:59their own best interest and a lot of
26:02them for a lot of them
26:04it becomes clear that
26:07a united states an independent america
26:11poses a far greater threat to their
26:13interest than the british empire and
26:16again we could think back to that
26:17proclamation line of 1763 i mentioned
26:20last time the british at least seemed to
26:23have
26:24some willingness to restrain settlers
26:27from moving westward
26:30with americans
26:32that's not quite as clear and if you
26:34know anything about where american
26:36history is headed we know
26:38that
26:39americans aggressively and voraciously
26:44uh took up land west they were forever
26:47moving westward not really respecting
26:50traditional boundaries and so forth and
26:52so
26:54the cherokee the cherokee the creeks um
26:58choose to fight for the british
27:01um in other cases
27:03though
27:04the situation is divided the iroquois
27:06who we talked about a little bit before
27:09very prominent tribe um
27:12in the northeast
27:14in what would be today upstate new york
27:17but also
27:18farther south to some extent too the
27:20iroquois nation is made up of six
27:24different
27:24tribes and
27:26um four of them choose to support the
27:30british their leader's name was joseph
27:32brandt he was actually
27:35of mixed ancestry i i think he had
27:39uh
27:41an indian mother and a white father
27:45although i'm not 100 sure of that
27:47but
27:48um he directed troops against
27:53colonial forces
27:55and um
27:57wreaked a lot of havoc in western new
27:59york and pennsylvania early on in the
28:02war
28:03general washington
28:05was forced to engage warriors in battle
28:08but also to destroy indian towns and
28:10crops as a way to kind of limit the
28:13military threat posed by the british
28:16indian alliance to be sure
28:19other members of the mohawk nation or
28:22other members of the iroquois nation um
28:25the oneidas for instance they lean
28:28towards the colonists they had in their
28:30midst
28:31missionaries and these missionaries
28:34prevailed upon them
28:36um
28:38to
28:39you know
28:40back the colonists and so the oneida one
28:42of the six iroquois tribes fought
28:45alongside
28:46the americans while for instance the
28:49mohawks and the senecas uh their
28:51neighbors fought with the british and so
28:53this is a really devastating development
28:56for
28:57iroquois society
28:59this is a tight-knit society that's
29:02built around kinship ties and so forth
29:04and now you really literally have
29:07um people who are closely related
29:10fighting against one another
29:13so
29:15we know how it turns out in the end um
29:18and it seems just
29:20as in the case of those african-american
29:23former slaves
29:24that native americans also in some
29:27instance picked the wrong side as well
29:30when the british surrendered
29:33in the
29:35new united states sits down to sign a
29:38treaty with the
29:39british at the treaty of paris in 1783
29:42there are no native american
29:44representatives there and even though
29:48the iroquois never surrendered
29:50they they had never suffered a final
29:52military defeat
29:55they
29:56were forced to cede lands to the united
29:59states
30:01and so
30:03this is not
30:05a good outcome for them of course
30:09and even for groups like the oneida who
30:12did side with the americans they were
30:15not necessarily rewarded
30:18in the end either so the british still
30:21retain
30:22some lands in north america as a result
30:25of the treaty areas north and west of
30:27the great lakes obviously what's canada
30:30parts of canada today
30:32but all of that land between the
30:35appalachian mountains and the
30:36mississippi river
30:38is left to the new united states and
30:42this land is largely unsettled by whites
30:45and mostly still inhabited by native
30:48americans even so
30:51this is land that is turned over
30:54to
30:55uh the united states without
30:57consultation
31:00and so
31:01what can we say then finally about this
31:04war
31:06this is a war where people have
31:08different agendas
31:10people who are fighting perhaps for
31:13different causes who have different
31:15interests
31:16um
31:18this is to some extent a principled war
31:21uh probably the war
31:23that many of you
31:25grew up hearing about the war over
31:27taxation
31:29without representation the war over
31:31british tyranny
31:33um it is that
31:35but it's also as we talked about in
31:37concord a war
31:39that is maybe pushes some people in the
31:42direction
31:43of economic uncertainty and pushes them
31:46in the direction of war as well it's a
31:49civil war as well
31:51some families
31:52broken up some siding with the british
31:55the tories the loyalists
31:58others
31:59choosing to fight for american
32:01independence
32:03if you're an african-american slave
32:06well perhaps it's just your opportunity
32:09to earn your freedom
32:11or if you're a native american perhaps
32:13this war
32:14could mean autonomy for you
32:18down the road
32:19um
32:21so
32:22lots of different motivations here
32:26and so
32:27we're going to stop here for today and
32:30as we move forward what we want to
32:32consider is
32:34the outcome
32:36and it goes back again to those words
32:38that we have in the declaration of
32:40independence all men are created equal
32:43how are
32:45various
32:46groups in the united states in the new
32:49united states going to take that
32:50language and make it their own what does
32:53it mean
32:54for slaves can we have slavery in a
32:57country where we
32:59uh basically
33:01uh
33:02pay homage to those words can
33:05we
33:06disenfranchise women can we continue to
33:09take land from native americans
33:12how do we balance the reality of this
33:14new nation
33:15with its aspirations
33:18so
33:20we'll stop there for now
33:22and i will talk to you again soon
33:25be well