WEBVTT NOTE 67. Massachusetts: Nearing the Final Conflict 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.520 Volume 3, Chapter 67, Massachusetts, Nearing the Final Conflict 2 00:00:07.520 --> 00:00:13.680 The continental association and the mass boycott were all very well. These measures served 3 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:19.560 to radicalize the entire continent and to build an intricate network of spontaneous 4 00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:27.440 grass-roots, revolutionary institutions, often virtually replacing constituted authority 5 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:34.000 with quasi-anarchic leadership. But none of these measures dealt directly with the really 6 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:41.360 acute focus of conflict, Boston. It was Boston, and Massachusetts, after all, that were being 7 00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:48.400 punished, oppressed, and militarily occupied. Massachusetts necessarily had to be the focal 8 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:55.240 center of struggle. The moral and material support of the other provinces was most welcome. 9 00:00:55.240 --> 00:01:01.340 But would they join if armed support were necessary? 10 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:07.640 At the Congress, Christopher Gadsden had urged initiating armed struggle against the British 11 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:14.440 troops in Boston, but it was clear to the sagacious radical strategist of Massachusetts 12 00:01:14.440 --> 00:01:19.320 that the rest of America would not support such an effort. 13 00:01:19.320 --> 00:01:25.800 As the Continental Congress made clear, only defensive efforts would be supported against 14 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:32.640 outright aggression by British troops. Furthermore, most of the radicals naively thought that 15 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:38.960 the Continental Association would suffice to bring Britain to reason. They did not see 16 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:46.220 as clearly as the Adamses and the Massachusetts radicals that Britain would not be deflected 17 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:52.980 from All-Out Suppression. They would soon learn. Meanwhile, the radicals could only 18 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:59.620 wait for that lesson and tell each other in the words of John Adams, I expect no redress 19 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:07.220 but increased resentment and double vengeance. We must fight. Even those who expected armed 20 00:02:07.220 --> 00:02:15.520 conflict did not go so far as to anticipate actual American independence. Conflict was 21 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:23.200 to induce Britain to back down from its coercive imperialist policy. Indeed, the Massachusetts 22 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:29.360 delegation to the Congress had to reassure even the Virginians that their aim was not 23 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:36.560 independence. All the delegation, that is, except for Sam Adams, whose silence on the 24 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:43.640 matter was eloquent in itself. Soon after the opening of the Continental Congress, the 25 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:48.880 Provincial Congress of Massachusetts assembled in a fateful meeting. 26 00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:54.460 General Gage had called for a meeting of the General Court in early October, but dared 27 00:02:54.460 --> 00:03:02.100 not lead the newly appointed mandamus counselors out from under the wings of the British troops. 28 00:03:02.100 --> 00:03:07.760 It was, furthermore, clear from town instructions to their representatives that the assembly 29 00:03:07.760 --> 00:03:13.360 would hardly agree to the changes imposed by the Massachusetts Government Act. 30 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:20.440 The most radical and frantically revolutionary were the instructions from the town of Worcester. 31 00:03:20.440 --> 00:03:26.520 These counseled the immediate return to the old Massachusetts Charter of the 17th century, 32 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:33.720 the presumably forcible opening of the port and removal of British troops, and a trial 33 00:03:33.720 --> 00:03:40.260 of the mandamus councillors for treason. In the light of this atmosphere of militancy, 34 00:03:40.260 --> 00:03:46.580 George Gage called off the meeting of the General Court, but the Americans were prepared, 35 00:03:46.580 --> 00:03:53.160 and towns sent delegates to the extralegal Provincial Congress that met at Concord on 36 00:03:53.160 --> 00:04:01.100 October 11, and later in the month at Watertown, the delegates faced a province without ports 37 00:04:01.100 --> 00:04:06.400 or judges or executives or legislature. 38 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:12.560 One daunted, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress made as its operating executive John 39 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:18.720 Hancock President, and created a steering committee of fifteen, the Committee on the 40 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:25.120 State of the Province, which included Hancock, Dr. Joseph Warren, and such leading radicals 41 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:32.120 as Joseph Hawley of Northampton, James Warren of Plymouth, and Elbridge Jerry of Marblehead. 42 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:38.100 Later, the four Massachusetts delegates to the Continental Congress were added to the 43 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:41.140 province's steering committee. 44 00:04:41.140 --> 00:04:47.280 As a continuing operating organization, the provincial congress selected a smaller 11-man 45 00:04:47.280 --> 00:04:54.680 committee of safety, with John Hancock, chairman, and Dr. Joseph Warren among its members. 46 00:04:54.680 --> 00:05:00.200 The committee was authorized to call out the provincial militia and to collect munitions 47 00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:07.760 and Supplies in Preparation for Meeting Any Future Aggression by the British Armed Forces. 48 00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:13.880 Concord and Worcester were selected as the principal depots for military supplies. 49 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:20.760 The militia officers, furthermore, were directed to recruit the best-qualified 25 percent of 50 00:05:20.760 --> 00:05:26.680 the militia, mainly veterans of the French and Indian War, into a ginger group known 51 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:32.580 known as MINUTEMEN, so called because they were expected to answer the committee's call 52 00:05:32.580 --> 00:05:34.960 at a moment's notice. 53 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:41.680 The MINUTEMEN were formed into emergency companies of 15 men each, and the men of each company 54 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:47.420 had the power of freely electing their own officers, subject to the overall direction 55 00:05:47.420 --> 00:05:49.520 of the Committee of Safety. 56 00:05:49.520 --> 00:05:55.380 This project was based on the precedent of emergency units used as early as King Philip's 57 00:05:55.380 --> 00:06:02.980 War in the mid-1670s. The Committee of Safety proceeded with dispatch and efficiency to 58 00:06:02.980 --> 00:06:10.520 organized and armed militia to repel any aggressive acts of the British troops. The aim was to 59 00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:18.780 raise a potential army of 12,000 men in Massachusetts and 20,000 additional troops at the ready 60 00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:24.920 were requested from the other colonies in New England. Officers were to be democratically 61 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:33.440 The Militia Trained Hard This time in contrast to their unpreparedness 62 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:39.280 when British troops earlier occupied Boston, the people of Massachusetts would be ready 63 00:06:39.280 --> 00:06:42.520 to counter any further invasion. 64 00:06:42.520 --> 00:06:48.920 All the militia of the colony were soon directed to train according to Colonel Timothy Pickering's 65 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:55.140 New Book, Easy Plan of Discipline for a Militia, 1775. 66 00:06:55.140 --> 00:07:01.240 From Salem, Pickering imaginatively simplified the stodgy and ritualistic rules of British 67 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:09.020 Army drill and emphasized the American woodsman's habit of individual marksmanship, a practice 68 00:07:09.020 --> 00:07:14.100 particularly suited to an armed people's guerrilla war. 69 00:07:14.100 --> 00:07:20.460 Special philosophy and military tactics blended as one, for Pickering stressed that the American 70 00:07:20.460 --> 00:07:27.680 soldier was an individualist, a freeman, and a property owner, in contrast to professional 71 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:35.260 European soldiers trained as obedient machines. Pickering wrote that men must see the reason 72 00:07:35.260 --> 00:07:40.780 and the use of any action or movement, tis the boast of European commanders that their 73 00:07:40.780 --> 00:07:53.100 A circular letter sent throughout the colony by the Committee of Safety asked the clergy 74 00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:59.820 to help raise a volunteer army. The committee, an anarchistic institution without coercive 75 00:07:59.820 --> 00:08:07.780 governmental powers to tax or to conscript militia, had to rely on volunteers and voluntary 76 00:08:07.780 --> 00:08:36.660 The Second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, meeting at Cambridge on February 1, 1775, 77 00:08:36.660 --> 00:08:42.600 rapidly advanced these measures of defense. It also authorized the militia to collect 78 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:49.660 military stores rapidly, either by purchase or by assuming jurisdiction over the stores 79 00:08:49.660 --> 00:08:56.360 of the Massachusetts government. Consequently, during March and early April, large stores 80 00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:02.900 were collected by the Americans at Concord. The Congress, consistent with its devotion 81 00:09:02.900 --> 00:09:11.100 to Liberty refused to levy taxes on the people. It recommended that they voluntarily pay the 82 00:09:11.100 --> 00:09:19.440 provincial tax to the new revolutionary institutions instead. Addressing the citizens of Massachusetts, 83 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:27.100 the Congress exhorted, resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each 84 00:09:27.100 --> 00:09:33.660 individual, fleets, troops and every implement of war are sent into the province to rest 85 00:09:33.660 --> 00:09:41.060 from you that freedom which it is your duty even at the risk of your lives to hand in 86 00:09:41.060 --> 00:09:49.100 violet to posterity. Continue steadfast and defend those rights which heaven gave and 87 00:09:49.100 --> 00:09:56.280 no man ought to take from us. The Congregational Ministry of Massachusetts was eager to take 88 00:09:56.280 --> 00:10:01.040 make up the task offered it by the Provincial Congress. 89 00:10:01.040 --> 00:10:06.120 Eminent ministers like the veteran Charles Chauncey, William Gordon, and Peter Thatcher 90 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:12.880 of Boston, Peter Whitney of Northborough, and Timothy Hilliard of Barnstable led the 91 00:10:12.880 --> 00:10:17.720 clergy in exhorting the right of resistance to the British. 92 00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:23.620 Eloquent were the calls to rise up and wield the sword of the Lord against oppression and 93 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:30.780 and Slavery in Militia Mustering Sermons. In Boothbay, now Maine, the Reverend John 94 00:10:30.780 --> 00:10:38.100 Murray, a Presbyterian, urged the right and duty of resistance to defend natural, God-given 95 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:45.620 and constitutional rights. The Reverend Samuel Eaton of Harpswell, Maine, went so far as 96 00:10:45.620 --> 00:10:53.500 to declaim at a militia muster, Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. 97 00:10:53.500 --> 00:10:58.840 One of the most important expressions of congregational support for the rebel cause came at a convention 98 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:07.280 in radical Worcester County in the interior of Massachusetts in late March 1775. 99 00:11:07.280 --> 00:11:13.720 At this meeting a delegate, the Reverend Ebenezer Chaplain of Sutton, pleaded for liberty and 100 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:16.540 separation of church and state. 101 00:11:16.540 --> 00:11:22.700 And in a widely printed and distributed speech, the Reverend Elisha Fish of Upton defended 102 00:11:22.700 --> 00:11:29.320 With the right of property as unalienable by man, the right of each individual to enjoy 103 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:38.320 his own earnings, Fisch declared, was a corollary of his God-given rights of life and liberty. 104 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:43.320 Similar preachments were made by Congregational ministers throughout New England, especially 105 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:49.940 New Hampshire and Eastern Connecticut. Termed by Lieutenant Governor Oliver, gutters of 106 00:11:49.940 --> 00:11:55.820 of Sedition, The Congregational Clergy of New England led the revolutionary cause and 107 00:11:55.820 --> 00:12:03.340 provided a stark contrast to the relatively non-political clergy of New York and Philadelphia, 108 00:12:03.340 --> 00:12:09.600 the lukewarm support of the Baptists and the Tory views of the Anglican clergy. 109 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:15.020 As tension mounted between the British troops and the swiftly preparing people of Massachusetts 110 00:12:15.020 --> 00:12:24.380 During the winter of 1774-75, several incidents brought the two sides inextricably closer 111 00:12:24.380 --> 00:12:27.860 to overt military conflict. 112 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:34.740 On December 13, the noted courier and messenger of the Boston leadership, Paul Revere, warned 113 00:12:34.740 --> 00:12:41.140 the New Hampshire radicals of a British plan to garrison troops at Portsmouth. 114 00:12:41.140 --> 00:12:46.740 The very next day, a band of troops led by the prominent young lawyer Major John Sullivan 115 00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:52.620 and the young merchant John Langdon swooped down on the British fort at Portsmouth and 116 00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:59.620 carried away cannons, small arms and a hundred barrels of powder. Sullivan, a delegate to 117 00:12:59.620 --> 00:13:05.660 the Continental Congress, was now the major political figure in New Hampshire and leader 118 00:13:05.660 --> 00:13:11.460 of the Popular Radical Forces there. Soon after the raid, Sullivan and Langdon were 119 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:17.600 chosen by the Provincial Congress to be New Hampshire's delegates to the Second Continental 120 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:22.280 Congress. The next clash also inflicted humiliation 121 00:13:22.280 --> 00:13:28.200 upon the proud British troops. On February 26, several hundred British soldiers were 122 00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:36.240 were shipped clandestinely to Salem to seize military stores from the Americans. Not finding 123 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:43.000 them there, the British marched to the stores at Danvers, but there they were forced by 124 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:49.480 a larger number of Americans to wait while the stores were removed and then to retreat 125 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:57.320 back to their ships. In Boston, another clash occurred soon afterward when Dr. Joseph Warren 126 00:13:57.320 --> 00:14:04.820 Warren delivered the annual oration in commemoration of the Boston Massacre. 127 00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:11.360 Gathered illegally at a town meeting moderated by Sam Adams, the townspeople heard Warren 128 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:18.600 eloquently champion the liberty of Americans and Englishmen and attack the sending of British 129 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:22.000 troops to occupy Boston. 130 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:29.720 Then Warren declared, An independence of Great Britain is not our aim, but if pacific measures 131 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:35.720 are ineffectual and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, 132 00:14:35.720 --> 00:14:45.220 I know you will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden underfoot. 133 00:14:45.220 --> 00:14:51.240 As Warren concluded, British officers who had been courteously welcomed to the meeting 134 00:14:51.240 --> 00:14:57.720 began to hiss. In an obvious attempt to provoke the Americans into physical attack, which 135 00:14:57.720 --> 00:15:04.160 might not carry the support of the other colonies, the troops arrested a man for illegally buying 136 00:15:04.160 --> 00:15:11.260 a firearm offered by a British soldier. The next day the British arrogantly tarred and 137 00:15:11.260 --> 00:15:18.260 feathered the man, pinned on his back the label American Liberty or Specimen of Democracy, 138 00:15:18.260 --> 00:15:25.260 and paraded him through the streets of Boston with an armed guard and military band.