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Strained Relations

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few Americans in the 1750 is are bothered by their connection to the British Empire after all wide opportunities for trade and commerce as well as military protection and political stability and for the most part the English government leads the call solo  when one tries to understand the build-up to the how can Revolution I think it's absolutely crucial to think of this not so much in terms of right and wrong and More in terms off increasingly Divergent conceptions and expectations of what the Imperial relationship will be like Empire between the late seventeenth century and 07 the 1760s really did evolve into a working federal state that is with a very significant division of power and authority between the Central State I and the participating colonies I and it was one that worked quite well but never had any sort of sustaining Audiology or legal or apparatus that could explain high power should be divided the way it was one discovers that they're very different assumptions behind of the way parlance behaving and where the colonist or are behaving the colonist increasingly see themselves as equal to the mother country they become increasingly self-confident I'm in Franklin's expectation that at some point population growth in the colonies would dictate that the capital of the British Empire to North America is I think a sign of just how self-confident colonists were becoming about the place where they lived the Imperial authorities on the other hand assumed that the colonies were very much inferior that the government in London had the right to plate law and policy and taxation of the fact that they had exercised this power very much during the first half of the eighteenth century didn't in any way take away from the fact that they thought they had that power you can go all the way back to the 1630s and fine Englishmen who are saying we got to watch these when you say may just set up on their own one of these days you hardly ever find somebody who's born in the colonies who has fantasies of an independent America any respects the colonists feel stronger ties to England than to each other they rarely work together even when threatened by a common enemy with French Indian allies the Ohio Valley in the 18th century is the area in which you have strong Indian food you have the French and you have the British and the French were primarily interested in for trade the English want to expand they wanted what's the land take it over if you want it you France is quite who are their Partners in trade so the French and English have different interests for much of the 18th century different Indian groups were quite a Droid in playing the French and English laws against each other and extract concessions from them a lying with one side or the other or withholding Alliance at different time you were to extract concessions so there is a kind of balance of power among all three of these groups in the Ohio Valley until really the 1750s between France and England Southwind young Colonel George Washington of Virginia who been a surveyor went out to tell the French not to try and build a fort there the French wouldn't listen to him so he back again or the French buy them were building Fort Duquesne it was not Pittsburgh Washington found out there was a French Patrol there near him he attacked them like most of it out I was shocked when one of his Indian allies basically Tomahawk to death the French commander of that expedition and retaliated and forth Washington to surrender but allowed him to March back to Virginia so his first military encounter is a not at all success and secondly he starts a World War at first the war is fairly contained but in 1756 it explodes into a con International proportions after William Pitt becomes the war minister in 1757 they do decide to make North America their main theater of operations hadn't been true went earlier struggles between France and Britain a new policy by the British Empire to send ships man and Munitions and money as never before to North America and they make their Prime goal the conquest of Canada and colonists found themselves suddenly host very large numbers of British troops and British Sailors and infusion of a lot of British money being spent the colonies I brought the colonists and British officials and British officers together as never before on a much larger scale and they didn't always like they saw horses of Demands coming out of British officials in the middle 1750s parliaments got a tax the colonies and Benjamin Franklin tell them don't do it idea instead it comes up with something they try briefly in the previous war a subsidy system which is by no means paying for all the Vance's the colonies are at for this warm but he set aside a fixed amount of money for the first several years is 200000 lb and then it's a hundred The Colony governments can divide up this money in direct proportion to how much you contribute to this year's worth and the result is the who's pay for over half the cost of their own military effort for the first time the colonists find themselves working together against a common foe New Jersey New York Pennsylvania after about 7:56 and all the New England colonies are very much into this war effort I don't know that anybody ever really do this with my guess would be that there about 60,000 armed Anglo Americans who are closing in on New France which has only 70 75,000 people Buy in Athen that leads to the conquest of New France by 760 and a really is decisive you know it rained us change the face of North America what role does Spain the other major power on the North American continent play in this conflict you should Spain and France have been allies in these wars against Britain Boston decided to remain neutral in the Seven Years War I and four bizarre reasons what were beginning to learn as afraid of the British were also afraid of the French and so Spain decided to sit this one out until about early 1762 after the fall of New France after the friendship lost two of them you sugar Islands to the British just turn their Juggernaut against the Spanish and take Havana and take Manila in the Philippines I am finally on the the the Spanish let's make peace and they do make peace and actually in order to get Havana back they turn Florida over to to the British by the end of the war British things in North America have changed dramatically they picked up half Louisiana they got the half that was on the Eastern Bank of the Mississippi where is the French game Louisiana to their Spanish allies as a consolation prize for having fought with them and lost the British got I think east of the Mississippi and north of the Great Lakes while the French were evicted from North America but of course in the great hard-on North America the great sweep most of this geography the inhabitants were primarily Indians who were not consulted in this peace treaty and who thought of the European presence in their midst few ports few Trading Post has thereby their permission and finds it so the first time in more than 50 years but it's an uncertain peace but it was in large part their success in the Seven Years War that create a lot of problems with them because they they gained a continent or half a continent anyway and it was a continent with a lot of building the Imperial authorities came away from the wall convinced that they needed to solidify their huge investment in Saving the colonists from the French in Canada by asserting a much clearer a control over the colonies colonist on the other hand fell debated given huge amounts of Manpower they had made Financial contributions they they felt that they had earned an equal place within the Empire again if you look at Pitt's subsidy system the old what's now hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds a year well the British after for spending over 400,000 pounds a year on the British Army in artillery and Indian present a hundred 33 would have been something of a bargain it seems to me and it would have encouraged the colonists to participate actively involuntarily in the system instead they demobilized all of the provincial decided to run the only with the British army I I think they have very good intentions at all of this one thing they they assume that the settlers would antagonize the Indian sooner are the lighter what they didn't realize is that the Army was already doing that and so basically the British provoke this massive Indian resistance pontiac's war and 7 64 in which almost every British Garrison in the west is overrun and 763 the thing exceptions were Detroit and Niagara in Fort Pitt and they did manage to hold out primarily the Indians object to Traders and settlers moving onto lands they consider their own the British government attempts to control the situation creation by issuing the Proclamation of 1763 forbidding settlers from advancing into territory west of the Appalachian Mountains please stop people getting up and going if you wanted to go out there and take up squatter's rights you could do it in a lot of people did in fact a lot of people did so in order to leave behind various debts or bad marriages Daniel Boone who becomes famous is the founder of Kentucky was fleeing a sheriff's War for debt in Virginia the sheriff subpoena says you're gone to Kentucky Scott at the Kentucky so actual people going over the mountains stop what Proclamation did do however in this bothered the Planters a lot was invalidate any potential Land Titles so that you cannot open up legally and have a valid claim to it which meant that you couldn't develop that land you couldn't sell it temptation agents and supervisors of the Indian territories to manage settlement in a controlled way to keep antagonisms with the natives building up and in general to assure a tranquil life they're so that they wouldn't have wars to fight in the Borderland and Holyfield I mean there was there was constant uproar in these areas the British government in a time period in which they were trying to exert many kinds of control over North America political and economic as well as control of the territories were failing to maintain control over roly open lands for the cost of administering this new continental Empire that the British begin an acting a series of financial Revenue acts in 17 64 because you're growing rapidly your population doubles every generation eventually should be able to pay all the cost of your difference but for now let's just start with the Sugar Act which is mostly a tax on molasses coming from the French islands in the stamp tax stamp act of 1765 which is mostly attacks on legal documents almost self-enforcing because the access of these these documents will be of no legal Force whatever unless they are turn it on stamp paper as to the Stamp Act the first bad consequences attending it I take to be this our courts of judicature must inevitably be shut up for it is impossible or next of kin to it under our present circumstances that the act of Parliament can be complied with who are we ever so willing to the execution for not to say which alone would be sufficient that we have not money to pay the stamps I fancy the merchants of Great Britain trading to the colonies will not be among the last to wish for a repeal of it and the question was well does pollen have the authority to do all of this and found several we don't see any difference between passing Navigation Acts back in the seventies and free and passing the Sugar Act tax or the Stamp Act tax today and the colonists are saying all this got to be some what Parliament can do when the parliament can't do but I'm a little conceive the follower of power to regulate they trade but they do increasingly say you can't taxes for Revan one reason the British were so baffled by hit the Americans Behavior was this was a people not at all oppressed they were much less heavily tax than the Aston people living in Britain were they had their own self-government they had considerable leeway in all kinds of ways the colonial assemblies had a great deal of power and indeed seem to have games in power over the course of the 18th century and Americans complaining about what to they've got everything they could want and even Americans thought that to to a surprising degree eventually subside not because of resolutions by Colonial assemblies or riots in American cities but because economic pressures Horse England to the northern colonies it appears are endeavoring to adopt this skiing in my opinion it is a good one provided that it can be carried pretty generally into it's the gentlemen in their several counties would be at some pains to explain matters to the people and stimulate them to a cordial agreement to purchase none but certain enumerated art start of any of the stores have to suck a. Not important or purchase any themselves Virginia Planters supported the boycott because here was an excuse not to spend lots of money they didn't have without surrendering the appearance of wealth and gentility in Massachusetts in New England generally also the boycott was was widely supported there was a strong impetus a strong motivation around it in a kind of moral Reformation if Britain was given over to luxury and rice and laziness and Corruption Americans Could Be self-sacrificing Frugal lean and mean in a way and so here we have score for the boycott  for very different reasons were looking at the revolutionist to see Great Britain embarking on what is ultimately self-fulfilling prophecy but Nightmare on almost everything that they're doing after 1763 is driving the colonists to a position with a colonist we're not going on there was a concerted effort to get rid of the duties that were imposed by call the Townsend duties at the end of the 60s then which again brought people together in committees that became Consolidated within certain provinces and then became trance provincial and play me Continental size but the basic force that was at work through these years was a buildup of apprehension of fear playroom being subjected to a familiar kind of political pressure which would end in the destruction of what they prided themselves on as British Liberties and the way the British government managed these apprehensions or rather failed to is one of the key elements in this whole history crisis after another the British the American way the British pull back a little bit going to try something else couple years later the Americans retreat by that everyone is kind of one more nail in the in the faith that Americans have in this particular British Ministry in this particular British cramp  an event in Boston ignites Colonial resentment to a new level of intensity it's a clash between really Working Class People in city of Boston and one of the bodies of British troops that have been brought in to keep order in can one of those disorderly in American cities in the colonies a group of workmen and they were sizeable number of blacks and mulattos mixed Bloods the little black with some white blood confront of body of British troops and again to taunt them for attacking and taking away the Liberties of Americans who should be treated play free English Banana leads to a riot and a clash in which the British troops fire on this group of what they will see as Rebel and they will kill who were either slaves or runaway slaves or recently freed blocks along with free whites and African-Americans from that Mom will say that they were participants at the beginning about struggle for Liberty Crispus Attucks on the lotto who's one of the probably the rowdiest of the Workman is it the first to die and blacks will claim that they shed some of the earliest blood in what now begins to be the fight for freedom from Great Britain although the three years appear relatively Kong was a sinner's just below the surface peaceful areas such as happening Boston in 1768 when they saw a very small episode but which became in their minds very aggravated what is a thought of his the Boston Massacre where five people were shot by the troops where they saw officers clamping down control that hadn't been there before where they saw controls of the judicial system that hadn't been there before where they saw what's would be transplanted to different areas in order to keep away from the pressure of local political groups when they saw many things of this I'm building up over the years it's fitted a pattern of what they considered to be tyranny in free states and the buildup of opposition was Shirley slow but it grew in ways that became more and more Consolidated this was a more Diversified society and a society that wasn't that have significant groups that we're not culturally identified with England scots-irish didn't like the English the Germans clearly were not identified with the English so those are forms of Divergence another problem that arises in the way in which Americans thought about themselves is that the very dynamism in growth American economy and American society there were elements there were aspects of British society and culture that we're no longer good fits City Market on the fact that the American economy and population were growing so quickly and dynamically meant that it was no longer so easily within the British economic system and that the the Navigation Acts were the mercantilist policies the Customs regulations all of these things be the pinch more and more as the American colonies grow what is against is it against paying the duty of three turns per pound on TV cuz burdensome know it is the right only we have all along dispute it I think the parliament of Great Britain have no more right to put their hands into my pocket without my consent then I have to put my hands into yours from money and this being already urged to them in a firm but decent manner all the colonies what reason is there to expect anything from their Justice to jump into 1774 after the bostonians rather than pay the what's on TV the dump these 340 plus chests of tea in the Boston Harbor on and this though happens in December just as piling is coming into session London and so the bridge directions very Swift and the British decide well what are we going to do about this well they have a range of choices and the simplest was alright let's shut down WaterBoss until it is paid for and that laws the first one that passes and there's a gap of several months before they pass the Massachusetts Government Act which basic avoids the Massachusetts second Charter 6091 and imposes a conventional Royal government on Massachusetts in response to these two Intolerable Acts the First Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia at this early stage Congress doesn't think of itself as a government it's trying to develop principal resistance to the so-called Intolerable Acts or what poem called the coercive acts program adopted by the First Continental Congress which was supposed to get Parliament crack of dawn Reese Northeast didn't work the few regiments have now been sent to Boston who was supposed to intimidate the whole Colony what happened was it the colony intimidated the Army and the place where you can find to just Boston so the royal governor general Gage in Boston control Boston and Charleston across the Boston Harbor and nothing else I am the settlers through their various voluntary mechanisms control the rest of the colony general Gage receives orders to assert his authority to gain control of the interior the gauge has a dates with good recently matching supplies at Concord in one where the Navy can't get at them so send it Army awfully by night to go out there and you know take all of those and it possible arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock I am what they find that they're lucky that they are able to British skip the Expedition back to Boston and without sending over a thousand reinforcements which make them in Lexington they probably would have all been wiped out those in the original Expedition so that's what starts the Apollo's effort to take over the internal affairs of a particular colony and they didn't have the resources to do it the buildup of animosity do the years were talking about 1760 1776 over this period of time I came out of a sense of fear largely on the part of political leaders and one has to say leaders because the whole population was not deeply involved at this especially at the start but pull up in public life sensitive to public movements and the possibilities of what would happen in public life increasingly felt apprehension about what they saw the British government was doing British not been so high-handed if the British recognized what they were dealing with had the Americans and the British found ways to compromise because there were a number of these plans sure it could have they could have gotten through the sixties and seventies but I think that there were deeper structural problems that have to do with the free Frozen sophistication of American society that would have made it increasingly difficult and uncomfortable for men to sit calmly with in imperial system is not immediately clear to the British and even too many Americans skirmishes at Lexington and Concord are the first battles of War many see them as simply another example of the tensions that have been plaguing anglo-american relations for years but whether or not they are recognizing the British and Americans have taken a decisive step the war for independence as begun The Unfinished Nation 52 part American history series for more information about this program and accompanying materials call +1-800-576-2988 or visit us online at will you ww.org

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