The Sons of Liberty Protest

Tirelessness Today we're bringing you a preview of a brand new show from the Noiser Podcast Network It's called Founding Fathers an American Dream. Hosted by Clarark Peters, it tells the epic Tale of the birth of the United States of America two hundred and fifty years ago Across eight episodes, herear how American patriots overthrew imperial rule and established a radical new nation Follow George Washington into bloody battles. Travel with Benjamin Franklin on crucial missions Here, Alexander Hamilton debate the country's future How was American independence won Who lost out along the way And why does it still matter today featuring contributions from leading historians and descendants of those involved, as well as original music and immersive sound design. If you enjoy this taster episode, search Founding Fathers and American Dream in your podcast app and hit foollow You'll find more episodes waiting for you now We hope you enjoy It's april twenty sixth, seventeen seventy. We're in New York City On Bowling Green at the southern end of Broadway, the great and the good are out on show Pillars of the community make small talk, clergymen, politicians, entrepreneurs. They're all here bustling around the park With an estimated population of twenty five thousand, the city is not yet the big apple No yellow taxis roar up and down Broadway, just carriages, horses, and carts. Even so, in the late eighteenth century, New York is one of the biggest settlements on the continent, a gateway connecting the British colonies of North America with the wide world beyond. Today is a celebration of those global links and a chance to express what is supposedly in the hearts of all true patriots. With the dignitaries in place, the ceremony begins In the distance, a military band plays, the prelude to a succession of speeches Next, a bone jangling thirty two gun salute blasts out. It's all because of a glimmering new addition to the New York landscapeard A giant statue of the most beloved man in the city. His Majesty, King George III of Great Britain For more than one hundred and fifty years, Britain's colonists in America have prided themselves on their devotion to the crown Some say Americans love the monarch more than those in Great Britain itself As New Yorkers toast at King's health, the colony's lieutenant governor looks with wonder at the statue, two tons of gilded lead sparkling in the spring sunshine. Pix the King as a Roman emperor sat on horseback At fifteen feet high, it towers over everyone in its presence. For the lieieutenant governor, its artistic perfection. Nothing could better express America's undying love for King George and the British homeland Fast forward six years. and New York pulses with a very different energy On the night of july ninth, seventeen seventy six, dozens of men enter Bowling green under cover of darkness These are soldiers, part of a new Cental Army, a ragtag fighting force taking on the might of the British Empire Earlier that day, they heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud Forget longong live the King. George III is now public enemy number one The soldiers clamor on top of the monarch's statue They tie long thick ropes around him and pull. Soon, the king is unbalanced The statue comes crashing down His Majesty is cutut limb by limb, his head hacked from his neck Next, the lead is melted down There's enough for forty two thousand musket balls. All will be used to shoot the king's soldiers The mightiest of them all has fallen George III is in the scrapyard. A traitor, a tyrant And the new nation is already building its own pantheon of great patriots In time, they'll be known around the world as the foundounding fathers The instigators of the American Revolution and the creators of the American Republic. The names of the most famous founding fathers echo through history Benjamin Franklin George Washington. Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton These are men of virtue. Their cause is freedom and justice for all That, at least, is how the story goes The truth is more complex In this series, we'll bring you the epic Tale of the Birth of the United States of America Using the foundounding fathers as our guides, we'll travel from the stirrings of revolution to the long and bloody fight for independence This is the heart and soul and guts of the American Revolution. We'll witness the early years of the American Republic, an experiment that changed the world. The concept that a government is by the people for the people was a radical and revolutionary idea in seventeen seventy six. And I think it remains a radical and revolutionary idea Through the eyes of the founding fathers, we'll witness heroism and treachery, virtue, and villainy. We'll bring the earliest years of the USA to life and explode historical myths. A lot of the beliefs about the British government and British policies were simply conspiracy theory Experts will lift the lid on the brutal reality of the Revolution, from which an independent America emerged It wasn't a civil war. It was an unciivil war because it was so hard fought. A vicious local fight that played out for all kinds of reasons. When people hear about the American Revolution, they often think, wait a minute, I didn't know religion mattered in this I didn't know ethnicity mattered in this, but it did We'll discover the real people behind the legends. The founders were an intensely ambitious bunch. John Adams wanted to be remembered by history. Alexander Hamilton wanted power But this isn't simply their story The founding of the United States features a cast of millions, men and women This series will bring you descendants of those involved on various sides There will be tales of high minded idealism that continue to inspire, as well as the ugly legacies of America's origin story Our ancestors were enslaved by Jefferson. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness didn't exist We're hear from those who think the fame of the foundounding fathers obscures the true genius of the United States. We, the people When I hear the term bounding fathers, I wince, this idea that there's a few very special and very wise men who basically determined who we should be as a country, it so simplifies and it so negates who the American people are I'm Clark Peters and from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Founding Fathers in American Dream Our story begins on a street in Boston in the colony of Massachusetts The air is seventeen oh six A biting cold New England winter presses up against the windows of a modest townhouse In an upstairs room, a baby boy fills his lungs for the first time The newborn is wrapped in blankets and passed to his mother, a thirty nine year old woman called Abaya Franklin. Aba has a name for the baby. Benjamin No one can know it yet. But this child The son of a humble soap and candle maker will grow up to be one of the most consequential figures of his age Both Abaya and her husband, Dosiah, are old hands at this Benjamin is her eighth child, his fifteenth They'll welcome a further two babies in the coming years A home overflowing with children is pretty common in early eighteenth century Boston A young bustling city where productivity is always encouraged. Like the Massachusetts colony as a whole Boston is only a few decades old Its founding was dominated by Puritans, Austere Protestants who preach moral strictness and embrace a direct relationship with God, devoid of elaborate ceremony They are, in many ways, spiritual kin with other English settlers of the time. The famous Mayflower pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, for instance Religious radicals searching for land in which to build their vision of a perfect society A buyer is Massachusetts born and raised Her father came here from England when King Charles I began a campaign of anti Puritan persecution in the sixteen thirties Josiah, Benjamin's father, is also an English immigrant Though, like countless others, he came to America more in search of prosperity rather than religious freedom Faith and finances Twin enginines of the American colonies. The origins of British America date back to English led expeditions in the late fifteenth century when Europeans first encountered what they called the New worldorld But it's not until sixteen oh seven that English settlers established their first permanent colony They named it Virginia. in honor of Elizabeth I The so called Virgin quQeen Over the next century, numerous other colonies, including Massachusetts, are founded along the same Atlantic coastline They are a magnet for those who dream of a new way of life, whether it's spiritual fulfillment material riches or freedom from the social strictures of Europe. White settlers frequently wage war on indigenous peoples As the colonies thrive, settlers and governments alike take more and more from native populations. Slave labor also plays a key part in these early colonial years The enslavement of Africans is legal in every colony In some, especially in the South, it's integral to the economy cultivation of crops such as rice, cotton, and tobacco proves immensely lucrative And all are reliant on enslaved people brought over from Africa. In the early years of the eighteenth century, there are roughly thirty thousand slaves in British North America, one in ten of the total colonial population Very often, the freedom the white colonists gain depends upon other people losing theirs Settlers dream of pursuing their own visions of life As a result, each colony has a distinct identity Historian Jane Komenssky is president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Britain's American colonies had developed as many different systems of governance as there were colonies. So we need to think about these almost as different countries The thing that they shared is they had an extraordinary degree of local control and institutions that were accountable to their local populations So there was a sense that when they reached into your pocket for taxation They also looked you in the eye Perhaps the only other thing found in every colony is a love for the British Empire. Professor Alan Taylor is the author of American Revolutions, a Contental History The colonists were very proud members of the British Empire They exulted in the victories of emmpire over the French and the Spanish They celebrated the King's birthday with a fervor that matched anything in Britain So they thought of themselves very much as British people who happened to live in the Americas. And they were proud of belonging to an empire that was so militarily powerful that generated so much prosperity. and that offered more civil liberties than did any other empire in the world This is the world in which Benjamin Franklin makes his name. Boston, a Franklin's youth is a place that lives to work Sips crowd the harbor and places of worship crowd everywhere else The churches are huge institutions in Boston and throughout New England. And if you look at any engraving of the eighteenth century Boston waterfront, you see steeples rising almost like a forest It's a fractious and disputitious place in ways that descend from Puritanism this culture where people expect a direct relationship not only with their preacher, but with God. And I think even for non religious people, that makes it a highly participatory place The Franklins are not cash rich Benjamin's schooling ends at the age of ten An apprenticeship in publishing follows At seventeen, Benjamin leaves Boston in search of new opportunities He arrives in Philadelphia Pennsylvania Cony The boy is about to come of age in more ways than one Caster is Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis. But he moved to Philadelphia because not only was Philadelphia a bigger city, it was more vibrant Boston was still very much a city under the control by then the kind of fourth generation descendants of the Puritan aristocracy. And he wanted room to move and grow and succeed. and to him, Philadelphia, even though it had had its own aristocracy was this city of opportunity Enlightening Qick time Franklin earns a fortune from publishing At the center of his empire is the Pennsylvania Gazette, which becomes one of the most prominent newspapers in colonial America. ' kind of one of the early self made man stories from that period because he was an incredibly smart printer He knew how to print the English language in ways that were captivating and compelling to his fellow countrymen So when a charismatic visitor from England swoops into town, Franklin immediately spots an opportunity It's november seventeen thirty nine, late in the afternoon. In the center of Philadelphia, Market Street is heaving. Horse drawn carts and wagons line the road. Pedestrians amble alongside, mothers carrying children on their hips, groups of sauntering teenage boys, the elderly moving slowly but purposefully Among them is thirty three year old Benjamin Franklin Franklin moves in and out of the jumble of bodies. He cranes his neck this way and that. The top of head calculation tells them there must be six thousand people here. This is a city of roughly fifteen thousand inhabitants. It's astounding Franklin claims a spot outside the wooden courthouse. If there's one thing he loves, it's an occasion This afternoon promises to be just that. Inside the courthouse, a man dressed head to foot in black robes gazes out on the crowd. He's twenty five, but his flowing white wig makes him look strangely old No doubt, when he speaks, he seems as ancient as Methuslah His powerful voice carries wisdom and authority well beyond his ears Around six PM, he walks out onto the balcony There are gasps Then a reverential silence The young man is George Whitfield In his native England, Whitfield has a reputation as a dazzling preacher of God's Wd No He's the talk of the colonies This past week, he's been preaching in Philadelphia Every day the crowds have gotten bigger and more enthusiastic Woodfield gesticulates and darts his arms into the air In his booming voice, he urges the people of Philadelphia to return to their maker The vast audience listens in rapt silence Whitfields is a strict Calvinist message Embrace the righteousness of Christ Franklin is smitten Not so much with the theology As a man of the Enlightenment, Franklin is all about rationality and skepticism It's Witfield's showmanship that blows him away That and his command of other people's attention Two men form an unlikely friendship In the coming years, Franklin will publish Whitfield's sermons, making them both a tidy prophet Whitfield is at the heart of a spiritual movement that sweeps the American colonies The Great Awakening, as it's known, urges a revival of evangelical passions in ordinary men and women from Georgia to Massachusetts and beyond Many Americans feel it as a kind of homecoming. a rediscovery of the religious zeal upon which many of their communities had been founded. But the great awakening is not only about the refreshment of individual souls It's also a challenge to established elites The norm was that every community would have one church, one faith usually the one favored by the colonial government. In the southern colonies, that meant the Angulican church in the New England colonies and met the congregational church. Now what the evangelicals starting with Whitfield do is they say no, every individual gets to choose his church and the government should not interfere with it So it encourages people with the notion of they don't have to follow community norms They don't have to follow government norms if it violates their individual conscience And you can see how that might be a parallel then when people a generation later, are thinking about rejecting the authority of Britain Not that Benjamin Franklin is thinking very much about rejecting the authority of Britain At least not yet Stump forward. sixixteen years In january, seventeen fifty six Franklin Spence his fiftieth birthday, wet and cold, trudging along a narrow, slippery passath in the blue mountains of Pennsylvania. In a life of constant reinventions, Franklin's latest incarnation is an unlikely one A wartime commander leading one hundred and seventy men on a special mission Eventually, they reach their destination What they discover is a scene of utter devastation corpses strewn throughout a deserted village They bury the dead, then build a fortification They hope this will protect their fellow colonists from the enemy The conflict Franklin is caught up in is the French and Indian War, part of a broader struggle between Britain and France, also known as the Seven Years War Two European powers are battling for control of North America Franklin is firmly on the side of his king on protecting the stability and growth of the British Colonial project Hence, his brief stint as a colonel on active duty, in which he spends time trying to repel attacks from native warriors who have sided with the French. In an attempt to shore up support in the colonies, he publishes a cartoon A snake cut into several portions Each represents a different colony Beneath a simple message Join or die At that time, Franklin was a die hard British subject, and he claimed that the British colonies needed to unite if they were going to successfully respond to the challenges of this war. They needed to unite or they would die. But he wasn't claiming they needed to unite against the British government. It that they needed to unite against their French opponents in this war Professor Andrew O'haughnessy of the University of Virginia is the author of The Men Who Lost America Today we sim as the quintessential American But actually, like a lot of the later patriots He's very pro the empire arguably more than the British ople like Franklin wanted to expand the British Empire. They wanted settlers to move west into Native American territory which the British were against because they realized it would lead to war and expenditure Conflict still raging, the ever adaptable Franklin is on the move again and this time, much further from home In seventeen fifty seven, he's walking the streets of London, filthy wucous, crowds upon crowds After several eventful weeks at sea, during which his ship narrowly avoided colliding with another vessel in thick fog, He arrived here on a diplomatic mission to represent Pennsylvania's interests with the rich and powerful in the heart of the empire London quickly becomes Franklin's home from home In the city's numerous coffee houses, he finds his people scientists and merchants and politicians He even has a brush with royalty When King George II dies in seventeen sixty He succeeded by his grandson, George III The public has high hopes Though British monarchs only reign with the consent of Parliament, they have the power to appoint governments. Young, energetic George is seen as a vehicle for change, a man who could re energize the nation's leadership. On the morning of the New King's coronation, Franklin stands amidst the London masses It's a novel experience for someone from the colonies. Not even George Whitfield in Philadelphia can pull an audience like this At length, King George and his wife, Queen Charlotte, make their way from Stt James's Palace to Westminster Abbey They are carried the whole way on sedan chairs A vast train of invited people walks behind them. Franklin scans the procession. He's looking for a special person his adult son, William, who is now a law student in London Benjamin Franklin, child of a Boston craftsman, has landed his family at the epicenter of imperial power It's a truly astonishing rise Franklin embodies the kind of social mobility and geographic mobility that is quite common for free people in Britain's western colonies and entirely uncommon in Home Islands, Britain By the seventeen sixties, he's become the most famous colonial on the face of the globe He's fetted as an American original all over London and France He is the person whom Parliament calls in to be their America whisperer. What the hell is going on over there? The person you ask is Franklin and whether someone who was born as he was could have had that steep an ascent anywhere else in the world I think the answer is no Franklin is delighted with his new king Most Americans are George III. When he came to power, it was seen as a great breath of fresh air He wanted to introduce a new type of politics. The felt governments had become incredibly corrupted the same people had been in power for ages. And what is interesting is that the caricatures and the press were much less deferential to the monarchy in Britain than the Americans. And they reprinted some of this stuff, but you really don't get criticism of the King in America until seventeen seventy four Franklin shares King George's misgivings about the manen in government He's troubled by conversations with certain elder statesmen One informs Franklin that London calls the shots in the colonies Their little legislatures, their ideas about self government. That's all irrelevant Franklin is stunned as he often is when talking to Londoners about America Britain in the seventeen fifties and sixties was becoming much more nationalistic and jingoistic Franklin complained that the ordinary people in Britain knew nothing about America And he also said that every Englishman feels themselves to be governor of America Britain's ideas about itself and its empire are crucial our story. We shouldn't just be looking at changes in America but also in Britain that helped make a clash almost inevitable. One is the rise of Britain as what some people have called a fiscal military state British finances were transformed in the eighteenth century by the creation of the Bank of England, and what that allowed Britain to do was to fight wars and to keep a very expensive navy. And it was the Navy that really enabled the British to have a far flung empire But superpower status doesn't come cheap. Many Britons are alarmed by the spiraling costs. particularly when the empire is seeing little return on its investments Britain was maintaining this empire at great expense but it wasn't paying for the cost of its administration. The customs officers in America didn't actually obtain enough revenue even to cover their salaries In seventeen sixty three, the French and Indian warar officially comes to an end Britain is victorious Defeating France has only piled on the debt People living in Great Britain are already among the most taxed in the world. attempts to attack them further lead to rioting. teenth century Britain, the monarch plays an important role in politics But it's up to Parliament passed laws Colonists aren't represented in parliament. That's for the people of Great Britain only. Parliament now decides it's time for the colonies to cough up A tax on sugar is introduced. Then the stamp act A duty on various paper goods. When news of the Stamp Act reaches America in the spring of seventeen sixty five, it triggers outrage Colonies can't stomach being taxed by a body that they have no stake in They feel their rights as subjects of the British crown are being violated In Massachusetts, the anger is red hot. Hi listeners, if you're enjoying this tastaster episode, then search Founding Fathers and American Dream in your podcast app and hit foollow You can listen to more episodes of Founding Fathers straight after this one We're back in Franklin's hometown of Boston. A forty three year old man stomps his way, heavy footed down the street He's headed for an elm tree that everybody in town is talking about. Rooted at the corner of Essex Street and Orange Street, the tree was planted by settlers more than a century earlier A living symbol of the colonies past and present The man is short, stocky. You might say he has a look of an English bulldog about him. He's scruffy too. His jacket ill fitting as though he's wearing someone else's by mistake This is Samuel Adams. A prominent player in Boston politics Like Benjamin Franklin, he's also a newspaper man. In the pages of the Boston Gazette, he insists that American colonists have the same rights as all British subjects. Sixteen years younger than Franklin Adams is one of many of his generation marked by the great Awakening powered by an evangelical passion to him Parliament's taxes are not only unjust, They are ungodly I think Samuel Adams had a kind of almost oracular voice, and he was hotheed He's impious, he's impolitic. He calls them as he sees them with a plain Clear voice like a bell Today on an August afternoon, seventeen sixty five, he gazes up into the branches of the ellm tree. Directly above him, a figure dangles limply in the sunlight It's not a dead body, but a dummy, an effigy of the government official responsible for overseeing the Stamp A in Massachusetts It's been placed there by activists connected to Aoms One of them is Ebeneza Mcintosh Locally, Mcintntosh is known as a bullish tough guy Often seen leading his south end gang in fights versus the rival North end gang Dust stubs in Boston are no rare thing. As the sun fades, the effigy is cut down from the tree, but not laid to rest Ebeneza McIintosh arrives. A huge crowd gathers around him Eigy is held aloft and paraded through the streets They beheaded Then burn it When they reach the official's house, windows are smashed. Some of the crowd break in and raid the wine cellar The message is pure Boston bold direct statement of resentment and rage It's not the wealthiest people who are showing up in this mob There are a lot of sailors, artisans, shipbuilders It is the working people of Boston who have been worked up by Sam Adams' publications against the stamp tags and against any colonist who has spoken out in favor of the stamp tags. It's unclear whether or not Samuel Adams has direct involvement in planning this protest But in the Boston Gazette, he later refers to those involved as the sons of Liberty August twenty sixth, seventeen sixty five. Eing Boston Daylight slinks away In his elegant three story mansion, the Lieutenant goovernor of Massachusetts is settling down to dinner At fifty three, Thomas Hutchison occupies a rarefied position in his hometown Descended from early settlers, he's part of the Massachusetts elite. Harvard educated, well connected, and very wealthy In Boston, he's a go to man of influence As it happens, his brother in law is the government official who was recently targeted by Ebeneza Mcintosh. Rumor is the man only had his job because of Hutchison To many in Boston, it seems that far too much power is held by far too few people Life of Hutchison is as indulgent as it gets in Dowower, New England There are no theaters there, the pureitanical establishment banned those years ago. But an Anglo American's home is his castle, and Hutchison's overflows with oil paintings, exquisite furniture, and fine fabrics Tonight, he takes a seat at his highly polished dining table. Surrounding him are several of his children From his kitchens, servants deliver trays of rich delicacies. bottles of delicious French wine are brought from the cellar But before Hutchinson can fill his belly, a servant hurries in There's an urgent message A mob is on its way led by the pugnacious Ebeneza Macintosh Hutchison needs no further explanation These last few weeks have unleashed a popular fury From his perspective, it's an outbreak of mass insanity A hive minded carnival of violence, fueled by overheated rhetoric and deranged conspiracy theories. Hutchison orders his children to get out of the house, anyywhere will do, just as long as it's away from the advancing mob The house must be secured. Hutchison tears around the place. Doors are locked. Windows shut fast He flees for the safety of a neighbor's house. Soon thousands of Bostonians descend, all intent on popular justice In a chorus of smashing glass and splintering wood, Mcintntosh's followers break in Looting and destruction ensues. The antique furniture is tossed into the street and set alight. Wooden paneling is stripped out. Walls are knocked through Everything that's not nailed down is either ruined or stolen. Even the servant's clothes are pilfered By sunrise, the rioters have made their exit Hutchison stands in front of the rubble It is, he says, the rage of devils that has come to Boston The trashing of Hutinson's house is mimicked throughout the colonies. Tax collectors everywhere are in a state of panic Many quit their posts in the hope that it'll save them from the mob To harness and control this energy, the colony's political elites attempt to make common cause Leaders from nine colonies decide to gather in New York City At the meeting, delegates draw up a Delaration of rightights and grievances. It adds an official air to the events. There's no doubt This is not just the belly aching of a few amped up Bostonians Across the ocean, Benjamin Franklin grows agitated Initially he's somewhat detached from the real view of Americans. He opposed the Stamp pact. But once he thought it was going to go into effect anyway, he arranged for one of his friends to become the stamp collllector in Pennsylvania He was very calculating, but I think it is also a testimony to his fondness for Britain m it. A place almost as rowdy as Boston There's more than a little sympathy for the colonies In january seventeen sixty six Franklin buys a pamphlet. He turns his pages eagerly inside is the text of a speech just delivered by William Pitt. a leading figure in the Whig partarty. pushes the interests of Parliament over those of the monarch Through his round framed glasses, Franklin reads Pitt's latest speech. a rebuke of the stampack After a few weeks, Franklin echoes the sentiment when he's called to parliament himself It's the closest Americans will ever get to their demand of representation in this body that seeks to tax them Before a committee of MPs, Franklin puts on a show Over four hours he fies one hundred and seventy four questions Each answer presses the colony's case with wit, knowledge, and sound logic He's asked whether soldiers should be sent to quell the growing rebellion. The military patrolling American streets Franklin rolls his eyes at that one They will not find a rebellion, he says but they may indeed make one. A few weeks after Franklin's testimony, the Stamp Act is repealed Colnays rejoice. In New York, the local government commissions the Grand Equestrian statue of George III, an expression of loyalty to his Majesty But a second statue is also commissioned This one is of William Pitt parliamentarian who led British criticism of the new taxes It will stand on Wall Street less than half a mile from the statue of George It's a telling expression of American sentiments God save the king and don't tread on me and two chunks of gilded lead. The British haven't learned their lesson Just a year later, a wave of new taxes are introduced by Charles Townsend. Chancellor of the Exchquer in a new government What began as an effort to balance the books is now a point of principle. On Pitt really denied the right of Britain to tax America The others argued you have the right to tax America, but it's not expedient to do so The government was determined to assert a token authority So called townsnd duties were import duties to America. They could easily have just been levied in Britain. There's almost no need to do it So it's a very symbolic Boston rises again. In the Boston Gazette. Samuel Adams hits out against the British government. T test the import duties, boycotts of British goods begin Many in Boston refuse to buy or sell any materials shipped in from the mother countountry This includes British cloth The only alternative is to buy American It difficult when the colonies are virtually untouched by the indndustrial Revolution. But America's women have the solution Professor Cal Birkin is the author of Revolutionary Mothers Gender rules were that women were in charge of the dairy, the garden, the household. and turning raw materials into usable manufactured goods So now they set up spinning wheels and they spin cloth And they call themselves the daughters of Liberty political identity People often ask me, what were the most radical things in the American Revolution And I say, well, one of them was the politization of women It happened virtually overnight. Of course, for the hundreds of thousands of enslaved women in the colonies Their lives remain unaffected But free women now find themselves at the center of public life Suddenly, the newspapers have to address women and say, no, no, no, we were wrong about saying you don't have political opinions and we value your political opinions and we need you to produce more cloth. And women start to then express themselves more openly and some of them start to write in the newspapers to rally other women to this cause ing the boycot It's not only city folk who are politically active Most Americans live in rural communities, and opposition to parliament's taxes is widespread there too. Jim Filbrick is a direct descendant of David Howell, whose story will follow in later episodes In seventeen sixty six, David is only ten years old and living in rural Massachusetts, but eventually arms against the British Empire. David was born and raised on a farm in Mathhewin, Massachusetts His father was born there from what I could tell, and they had lived there for several generations That whole part of the family was from New England going back into the sixteen hundreds with some of the first groups that came over David and I both descend from Elizabeth Jackson Howe, who is hanged as one of the witches in Salem in June of sixteen ninety two It was rural, It was hilly hardwood forests with open meadows and lots of running streams and water very ideal place to set up a homestead. It would take a day to get to Boston from where they were living O lament was across the ocean and they started to get a little unhappy with some of the things that were being asked of them to send us money for what reason? I don't understand. You're telling us to do these things and I could definitely see where the king started to seem much further away in the fields and farmlands, to the streets and the shipyards Anger is rising tests continue cololonists dig in. as does the British government A thousand soldiers are sent to Boston Before the Seven yearsars War There were almost no British troops in North America So for British troops to be sent into an American seaport seity, Boston in large numbers to occupy the city. and essentially to enforce the laws of Parliament in the most militant, radical, resisting city in the colonies It's a major escalation. October the first, seventeen sixty eight The first of the soldiers stream of British ships From his family home near the Dcks, Samuel Adams is able to see the new arrivals at close quarters. They are far from inconspicuous. Every one of them is decked outed in a bright red coat. If there's any intention of blending into the background It's not going to happen Inexplicably, no proper arrangements have been made for housing the Redcoats in Boston. Soldiers are forced to cram themselves into government buildings, attempting to sleep in gaps between the furniture They've even spill onto Boston Con When Adams takes a walk in the center of town, there they are, an entire regiment camping out in the autumn chill. Eventually, someone has the bright idea of commandeering manufactory house It's a large vacant building, adequate for billeting soldiers. But Adams and his gang are one step ahead. When the local sheriff arrives, he discovers a place full of people. The doors are triple bolted, the windows barred and boarded. Boston's message is clear. The soldiers are not getting in In the early afternoon of october the twentieth, the sheriff returns with his deputy and a plan He's been tipped off that some residents are sneaking in and out of manufactory house via a small basement window It's shut tight right now. So he waits. Eventually, the window opens. A young man climbs through it. The sheriff hurries over As the young man goes to close the window behind him, the sheriff jams his fingers beneath the sash. The two wrestle over the frame At sixty five, the sheriff would be forgiven for thinking he's too old for this nonsense Instead, he draws a sword. Sensibly enough, the young man flees The sheriff pries the window open. He and his deputy clamber inside manufactory house In the basement, they encounter another resident. A fight breaks out What happens next is contested. By one account, the sheriff thrusts and parries like Erll Flynn. According to another, the sheriff and his deputy are overpowered and briefly taken hostage. Either way, the sheriff soon emerges in one piece, but the building is still full Time for a different tactic Soldiers now gather and surround the building. Nobody and nothing is to enter The occupants will be starved out But this new plan proves no more effective than the last one Standing outside the building, townspeople literally chance their arms and fling loaves of bread at those leaning out of windows on the upper floors. Chairs go up every time a loaf is caught The redcoats stand still as mannequins, powerless to intervene When the Massachusetts governor hears of this, he decides to end the circus The soldiers give up our manufactory house Alternative accommodation is eventually found With no blood spilled, ordinary Bostonians have defeated the world's most powerful military Samuel Adams Wites repeport of the drama These days, not much of importance happens in Bostson without it being captured by his pen. At Purcha Street, he works late into the night. cocooned in the soft glow of candlelight, he writes and writes The Protestant work ethic never dims With the arrival of the Redcoats, Adams publishes a torrent of critical pieces. Each is written under an assumed name. Tonight, as his wife hears the scratching of his pen on the page, he's at work on a new venture This one is called The Journal of Occurrences It details the most sickening, hateful abuses committed by the bidders against the innocents of Boston Much of the content is exaggerated or simply made up The Redcoats are accused of every sin imaginable According to Adam's account, Sadism comes as naturally to them as breathing accccuracy isn't the point This is pure propaganda Adams intends only to underscore the outrage of placing British soldiers on American streets His words spread like lightning through the colonies The revolutionaries were able to mobilize support because they produced all this printed material And it was totally over the top would levy the most extreme accusations against the British government, but it moved very quickly It also helps to explain how a small series of protests became a national revolution And one of the things we see is that the Northern colonies joined the movement more quickly. The southern colonies joined more slowly One of the reasons is there are fewer printing presses So the news didn't circulate as quickly These pamphlets were also read aloud. so people didn't just read them, they heard them. Some of Boston's tales travel all the way to London Benjamin Franklin can barely believe how things have developed. In just the last five years. To many Americans, Franklin seems like the colony's best hope of making the British see sense Already an agent for Pennsylvania, in seventeen sixty eight, Georgia recruits him to represent them in London too New Jersey and Massachusetts follow soon after Franklin himself, however, is unsure of where things are heading In early seventeen sixty nine, he confides to a friend that Things daily wear a worse aspect and tend more to a breach and final separation. Meanwhile With his pen, Samuel Adams keeps alive the spirit and the language of protest The word patriot becomes loaded Many use it now to describe those who pick a fight with Parliament, not those who celebrate the empire Boston is a city where individual thought is prized When it comes to relations with Britain, there's plenty of disagreement everyone, for instance, aligns with the boycott of British goods ironically because they were patriotic. They were British subjects. They felt an attachment to the king. Some of them had been born in the British Isles or their parents had been, they felt a strong connection there They were worried. They knew that the British Empire had done a lot for them. The British Empire was the root of the economy So that is the political argument. That is the economic argument All these benefits they'd gotten from the British Empire, why would you give any of that up The longer the British Rdcoats roam the streets of Boston the less patience there is with the boycott holdouts. early seventeen seventy The threat of violence feels ever present. Protests form outside the homes of local merchants who continue to import British goods Windows are smashed. Walls caked in manure On february twenty second, a group of boys and young men arrive outside a merchant's shop There's a hundred of them, maybe more They erect a sign It simply says important An indignant neighbor named Ebeneza Richardson attempts to knock the pole to the ground. He drives a horse and cart straight at him But it won't perch crowd turns, They harass Richardson, who runs to the safety of his house. Insults are hurled, then sticks and stones. The windows of Richardson's house are smashed. Through a shattered pane of glass, Richardson pokes the barrel of a gun He fires over shot And in doing so, It's Christopher Sider An eleven year old boy Protest over unfair taxation has spiraled to this death of a child on the streets he called home But there are no British soldiers involved in this tragedy This is American versus American The first shot of a civil war that will become a global conflict and the first casualty of a revolution that even now, almost nobody can see coming Next time on Founding Fathers, an American Dream, Boston is rocked. Unrest grows An exchange of insults snowballs into a bloody clash between locals and redcoats. A young lawyer named John Adams steps up to do the least popular job in the city Defending British soldiers accused of perpetrating a massacre As Parliament attempts to reassert its authority, a dispute over tea imports results in one of history's most memorable acts of defiance. And as columnists gather in their first ever Congress, we meet a tall, composed war veteran from Virginia, who will go on to become quite possibly the most famous founding father of them all. That's next time. Thanks for listening To hear more episodes of Founding Fathers and American Dream right now, find the show in your podcast app and hit foollow or listen at noiser. com