WEBVTT NOTE 62. Resistance in Massachusetts 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.920 Volume 3, Chapter 62. Resistance in Massachusetts. While the Congress prepared to meet, revolutionary 2 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:15.700 struggles were greatly intensifying in Massachusetts. General Gage had reoccupied Boston with four 3 00:00:15.700 --> 00:00:21.600 regiments of British troops sent from Ireland. Additional regiments were also transferred 4 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:28.280 to Boston. The people of Boston did not attempt to meet the troops head on. Instead, they 5 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:36.400 They engaged in a thorough going campaign of mass non-cooperation, of non-violent resistance 6 00:00:36.400 --> 00:00:43.320 to the British troops. First, the town refused to provide barracks for the soldiery, obliging 7 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:50.920 them to camp out on Boston Common for the remainder of 1774. A voluntary boycott was 8 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:57.400 instituted against the British. The Boston Committee of Correspondence ordered carpenters 9 00:00:57.400 --> 00:01:04.000 not to help erect barracks, lumber was cut off, and merchants refused to sell the British 10 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:12.640 tools or supplies of any kind. Sabotage of materials also disrupted Gage's plans. Gage 11 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:18.120 was forced to bring construction workers from Nova Scotia to build the barracks. All in 12 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:23.760 all the British soldiers were surrounded with a wall of hostility, and the liberal press 13 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:30.040 Mass kept up a drumfire of propaganda about the rapes and robberies committed by the bloody 14 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:37.920 soldiery. Mass resistance in Massachusetts also extended to the body of the coercive acts. 15 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:45.280 In August, Gage published a list of 36 new royally appointed mandamus counselors who 16 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:50.980 succeeded the old counselors in accordance with the Massachusetts Government Act. A meeting 17 00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:57.300 The decision of delegates from the towns declared them unconstitutional and suggested a new 18 00:01:57.300 --> 00:02:03.460 revolutionary provincial congress to become the new government of Massachusetts. 19 00:02:03.460 --> 00:02:11.260 The knot of notorious Tories chosen for the new council was subjected to intense mob pressure, 20 00:02:11.260 --> 00:02:16.820 which forced the councillors either to resign or to take refuge in the arms of British troops 21 00:02:16.820 --> 00:02:17.820 in Boston. 22 00:02:17.820 --> 00:02:29.820 Abidja Williams, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver, Justice Peter Oliver, Foster Hutchinson and eleven others were forced to resign. 23 00:02:29.820 --> 00:02:41.820 So extensive was the use of Boston as a place of refuge for Tory officials that the Whig leader Edmund Burke caustically taunted the British in Parliament saying 24 00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:51.820 He had often heard of such places for thieves, rogues and female orphans, but it was the first time he ever heard of an asylum for magistrates. 25 00:02:51.820 --> 00:02:59.820 General Gage contemplated sending troops into the countryside to protect counselors and judges from popular wrath, 26 00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:05.820 but threw up his hands at the universality of opposition to these appointees. 27 00:03:05.820 --> 00:03:12.020 The royal courts were also subject to harassment now that judges were removable at pleasure 28 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:14.540 rather than for ill behavior. 29 00:03:14.540 --> 00:03:22.380 The Pittsfield town meeting urged the people to resist the coercive acts to the last extremity 30 00:03:22.380 --> 00:03:29.020 and resolved that no courts should sit until the Massachusetts Government Act was repealed. 31 00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:35.660 Indeed, all courts were stopped throughout Massachusetts by methods ranging from persuasion 32 00:03:35.660 --> 00:03:42.460 to Outright Coercion. In Boston, the Chief Justice and sheriffs were unable to find a 33 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:50.460 juror who would be sworn so that the superior court could meet. To settle its special problems 34 00:03:50.460 --> 00:03:56.620 as the center of conflict with Great Britain, Massachusetts, during the summer, was preparing 35 00:03:56.620 --> 00:04:02.860 for an extra-legal provincial congress in the autumn. County conventions overwhelmingly 36 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:09.420 They protested the coercive acts and attacked the appointment of officials at royal pleasure, 37 00:04:09.420 --> 00:04:14.740 the destruction of trial by jury, and the payment of government salaries apart from 38 00:04:14.740 --> 00:04:19.060 any control by the representatives of the people. 39 00:04:19.060 --> 00:04:26.060 All implied that even armed resistance would be justified to prevent enforcement of the 40 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:33.180 the Coercive Acts and called for a provincial congress to organize the opposition. 41 00:04:33.180 --> 00:04:38.620 Town meetings did the same and ratified the county conventions and Brookline voted to 42 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:45.980 indemnify any town official for any penalty incurred from violating the Coercive Acts. 43 00:04:45.980 --> 00:04:52.980 As Massachusetts resistance grew and deepened and a wall of resistance, nonviolent at least 44 00:04:52.980 --> 00:05:22.980 General Gage became increasingly frightened and trigger-happy. He was under increasing pressure by his superiors to reflect the chauvinist contempt of the British for the Americans. The British leaders held that a mere show of force, a mere cleaving to a hard line, and eschewing the temptation to appeasement, would quickly drive the British government to a standstill. 45 00:05:22.980 --> 00:05:29.380 From the numerous but craven Colonials into line, the military men were eager to crush 46 00:05:29.380 --> 00:05:36.140 the Americans and believed, with the narrowness and vainglory of the military mind, that this 47 00:05:36.140 --> 00:05:43.060 could be accomplished easily. Gage began to follow the classic and fateful path of a minority 48 00:05:43.060 --> 00:05:51.060 in power that is faced with a determined and largely non-violent resistance of the majority. 49 00:05:51.060 --> 00:05:56.620 Decourse to Aggressive Use of State Violence Against the People 50 00:05:56.620 --> 00:06:03.060 Thus Gage tried to use troops to prevent a Salem town meeting called to select delegates 51 00:06:03.060 --> 00:06:08.060 to a county convention of protest. His attempt failed. 52 00:06:08.060 --> 00:06:15.100 Later, on September 1, Gage sent troops into Charlestown and Cambridge to seize cannon 53 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:21.620 and Ammunition Belonging to the Province of Massachusetts, 20,000 men of the western towns 54 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:27.580 of Massachusetts quickly gathered in Cambridge to march on Boston, but were persuaded to 55 00:06:27.580 --> 00:06:34.540 turn back by cooler heads who realized that American unity had not yet been sufficiently 56 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:40.980 forged to back up such a direct attack on the armed forces of Great Britain. 57 00:06:40.980 --> 00:06:47.260 But meanwhile, town meetings and county conventions in Massachusetts were calling for more military 58 00:06:47.260 --> 00:06:53.700 training for its militia in preparation for possible armed resistance. 59 00:06:53.700 --> 00:06:59.780 Despite General Gage's increasing reliance on aggressiveness and bluster, he recognized 60 00:06:59.780 --> 00:07:04.820 that his concrete military situation was precarious. 61 00:07:04.820 --> 00:07:11.060 He urged Britain to send reinforcements and decided in early September to fortify Boston 62 00:07:11.060 --> 00:07:12.420 Neck. 63 00:07:12.420 --> 00:07:18.260 Reacting to the latter plan, Boston workers boycotted the project and refused to help 64 00:07:18.260 --> 00:07:21.020 build the fortifications. 65 00:07:21.020 --> 00:07:26.140 Learning that gauge would apply at New York, Boston's Committee of Mechanics successfully 66 00:07:26.140 --> 00:07:30.500 warned the New Yorkers not to export carpenters to Boston.