WEBVTT NOTE 43. Rhode Island Joins Nonimportation 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 Volume 3, Chapter 43. Rhode Island joins non-importation. 2 00:00:07.640 --> 00:00:13.460 One by one, the other colonies joined in the boycott movement. The grand jury and then 3 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:19.780 all the freeholders of New Castle County and Delaware followed Philadelphia's lead at the 4 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:26.780 end of August 1769. In New Jersey, the Assembly, in mid-October, passed a vote of thanks to 5 00:00:26.780 --> 00:00:31.700 The vote of thanks to the noble conduct of the merchants and traders of New Jersey, New 6 00:00:31.700 --> 00:00:38.700 York and Pennsylvania for stopping the importing of British goods. Mass meetings in Essex County 7 00:00:39.660 --> 00:00:46.660 and at New Brunswick pledged non-importation and a boycott of all non-signers and violators. 8 00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:54.020 Connecticut merchants heeded the appeals of their fellow merchants from the large port 9 00:00:54.020 --> 00:01:24.020 The merchants in New Haven agreed in mid-July 1769 to purchase no British goods except for certain commodities excluded in the Boston and New York agreements. Violators were to be boycotted as enemies of their country. Merchants at Groton in New London followed suit in August. The farm-dominated Connecticut House in mid-October gave its enthusiastic approval of the non-import agreements. 10 00:01:24.020 --> 00:01:30.460 The boycott was joined by the towns of Weathersfield and Norwich at the end of the year. Merchants 11 00:01:30.460 --> 00:01:38.140 and some other citizens from all over Connecticut met in late February 1770 and drew up a uniform 12 00:01:38.140 --> 00:01:44.980 agreement for the entire colony. Violators were to be boycotted whether they were individual 13 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:49.820 merchants or entire provinces. 14 00:01:49.820 --> 00:01:56.820 Two continuing recalcitrants were Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Of these, Rhode Island, 15 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:03.500 a leading mercantile center, was by far the more important. Rhode Island's merchants 16 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:09.940 took the golden opportunity to reap trade while their fellows were renouncing profits 17 00:02:09.940 --> 00:02:16.940 in behalf of principal. Thus, Rhode Island imports of British goods grew during 1769, 18 00:02:16.940 --> 00:02:23.940 Newport merchants, however, were far more stubborn. Severe pressure descended upon Newport from the other colonies. The Philadelphia Merchants Committee threatened to sever commercial relations. Boston shut off all trade agreements. 19 00:02:46.940 --> 00:02:53.940 of All Trade with Newport, and Charleston was preparing to enter the fray. Even a non-importation 20 00:02:53.940 --> 00:03:02.060 agreement drawn up by Newport merchants at the end of October 1769 proved unsatisfactorily 21 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:09.540 lax and Philadelphia and New York merchants proceeded to boycott Newport. Finally, in 22 00:03:09.540 --> 00:03:18.780 In late January 1770, New Porters surrendered and agreed to a strong non-importation agreement. 23 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:24.620 By no means all Rhode Islanders, it should be noted, lagged behind in the resistance 24 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:33.380 movement. As early as September 1767, an article in the Providence Gazette spoke eloquently 25 00:03:33.380 --> 00:03:40.540 of the Natural Rights of Mankind, declaring it a self-evident truth that all were by nature 26 00:03:40.540 --> 00:03:49.540 equal in rights. The obligation to obey man-made laws rested on the consent of men. Therefore, 27 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:57.000 it concluded, Parliament not only had no right to tax unrepresented Americans, it had no 28 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:03.320 have no right to regulate them either. Leader of these logical advances in libertarian thought 29 00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:10.320 in Rhode Island was Silas Downer, a lawyer and a leader of the Sons of Liberty of Providence. 30 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:17.760 In a speech to the Sons at the Providence Liberty Tree in July 1768, Downer, while 31 00:04:17.760 --> 00:04:24.760 admitting allegiance to George III, denied the right of Parliament to make any laws whatsoever 32 00:04:24.760 --> 00:04:31.240 and so ever to bind us. He went on to apply this principle, denouncing royal post office 33 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:37.960 charges in America as a tax and therefore illegal. Moreover, Downer attacked the British 34 00:04:37.960 --> 00:04:44.960 laws of trade and manufacturing as violations of the natural rights of men. At least one 35 00:04:46.280 --> 00:04:51.640 Rhode Island writer trenchantly called for extending the libertarian doctrine to one 36 00:04:51.640 --> 00:04:59.760 One group often neglected by the Americans, Negro slaves. If the cry for liberty is sincere, 37 00:04:59.760 --> 00:05:05.800 why is not the principle extended to the Negro slaves at home, the writer challenged. The 38 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:11.240 only way to prevent enslavement from abroad, he declared, was to end that hellish practice 39 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:20.040 of enslaving another part of the human species, for Negroes were surely sons of liberty too. 40 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:26.300 New Hampshire's failure to join the resistance had a simpler and far different cause. An 41 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:33.300 agricultural province lacking a large trading town, this small royal colony was a virtual 42 00:05:33.300 --> 00:05:41.040 fife under the thumb of the Wentworth family. As merchants, landowners and top executive 43 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:48.120 officials in the province, this family, uniting formidable political and economic power, was 44 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:53.160 able to dominate the affairs of New Hampshire for decades. 45 00:05:53.160 --> 00:06:00.000 At the apex of this cozy pyramid was Sir John Wentworth, the royal governor and the surveyor 46 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.080 of the King's Woods for all the colonies. 47 00:06:04.080 --> 00:06:10.520 Wentworth astutely named numerous new towns and counties in New Hampshire after his friends 48 00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:18.000 at the British court, for example, Rockingham, Grafton and Hillsborough counties, and founded 49 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:25.240 Created in 1770, a new college that he named after his friend, the Earl of Dartmouth. Also 50 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:31.040 in 1770, eight of the nine members of the appointed council of New Hampshire, as well 51 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:37.960 as a judge and a clerk of the Superior Court, were members of Governor Wentworth's family. 52 00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:44.960 In this situation, no non-import association could be formed in New Hampshire.