Revolutionary War Historical Article
The American Revolution Month-by-Month November 1774
Setting the Stage for Armed Conflict
By Compatriot Andrew "Andy" Stough
Gold Country Chapter No. 7 of the CSSAR
Editor's Note: This article was reprinted by Permission of the Gold Country Chapter No. 7 of the CSSAR
To understand the American Revolutionary war we must remember that what most people think of as The American Revolution was already over. It had occurred gradually in the minds of the inhabitants who had accepted the tenets of revolt. The actual war being only the last phase of that Revolution and is, as Ward says in his work "The War, of the Revolution" and Higginbotham writes of as the "The War, of American Independence."
To understand the total story we need to go back to the days of the establishment of the colonies, In the beginning, with the exception of Georgia, settlement of the American seaboard was primarily to open profitable colonies for English companies and to establish the Crown's title to the new and unclaimed territory east of the long chain of mountains which separated the seaboard from the interior. France in an aggressive North American policy of expansion already claimed all of what is today Canada and the entire area west of the Appalachian chain of mountains. An area stretching, from Detroit to New Orleans.
Due to the wars in Europe and the more profitable Sugar Islands and the riches of India, Britain neglected the North American colonies leaving governance to the colonies Board of Governors back in England. In most cases the total burden eventually fell on the settlers. This increasingly instilled a desire for self-govern- ment.
The leading players in our drama are two colonies in America, one in Massachusetts and the other in Virginia. Pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Colony intended to land in Virginia but due to various factors and a shortage of beer* for the return voyage to England the Pilgrims were landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Pilgrim's and the following Puritan migration produced a society based on religion and other freedoms. The Massachusetts Bay Colony with it's harsh climate and rocky geography produced a society where citizens considered themselves as equals in all things. Religion was important, but also was the making of a profit that developed an economy based on sea borne trade, merchants and small landholders. Ventures that inevitably leads to a desire for freedom and more freedom.
The Virginia Colony was more conducive to the plantation concept and developed as a colony of large plantations. The owners were also the leading political figures. While the cultures were different, both were displeased with London's interference in their self-government and trade. If not by design, both they and the eleven other colonies were not established as an extension of the British Empire, but as outposts for commercial ventures. Once arrived, settlers were left on their own to survive. Immigration to America had been by people willing to venture their lives and fortunes to seek freedom in various forms
Hardship either strengthens men and governments or they fail to survive as viable entities. Left alone to care and govern themselves the colonies did an admirable job. Left alone in the early days to do or die, the urge for freedom had grown, along with a feeling that they were not considered by Parliament or the British populace to be as British as those who lived in the British Isles.
The initial urge to differ with the Home Government was the imposition of a series of laws that caused the colonies to become a cash cow for English merchants. This was accomplished by Bills of Trade requiring all trade and commerce with and by the American colonies to be routed through English ports.
Why would people in their right mind want to continue colonization with such a system? Because the England of that day and time was tipped in favor of the upper and middle (Merchant) classes. The mass of the people lived under abominable conditions; lower even than that afforded by a landowner for his horses or cattle. For those poor wretches it was a life of poverty under a brutal legal system that could execute a starving man, or woman, for stealing a loaf of bread. Recruitment for the lower ranks of either the army or navy was filled primarily by the lower class, they usually were taken by force and served a life sentence in the service. Fear was the governing factor, if a community did not come to heel, then would follow wholesale arrests and burning of the community. The meaning of "Respect" to the governing class appears to have been based on fear of them by the lower classes instead of admiration.
Almost anything would be better than living under such a system. As the colonies developed there was a need for people to do the work and to expand the borders of the colony. Colonists welcomed the arrival of immigrants who served two needs, cheap labor and extension of the so-called civilized areas forming a greater a buffer against Indian attacks. The government in London appears not to have been concerned with who immigrants were, regardless of origin, as long as they swore allegiance to the King.
Wars between England and long time enemy France spread to North America. The wars, in and of themselves, were not for the benefit or protection of either Canadian or American colonists but to extend territorial limits of the parent nations. King George and his ministers absorbed in war had stretched the limits of the British Treasury. Now that there was peace and no danger from Canada, Americans thought the red-coated troops would be removed. Not only did the troops not disappear but the cost of their maintenance was imposed on the American colonies. Additionally, America in its prosperity not only felt no responsibility for support of the troops nor to pay taxes levied without the colonists representation to pay for wartime and current expenses set by the government in London.
With payments to what were considered Intolerable Taxes (to the Crown) came a belligerency toward Britain in any and all of its forms in all of the thirteen colonies. From ill feelings toward the Crown, flowed, first by mild civil disobedience, then slight harassment of troops and the civil authorities appointed by the Crown, followed by retaliation and retribution by the Crown. At this point, unhappiness with the parent country turned into a growth of armed preparedness in all of the colonies, but more so in Massachusetts than any other colony. Creation of an active militia, and the storing of powder, guns and ammunition in Concord, Massachusetts aroused the ire of the King, his ministers and military representatives. Orders were given to destroy the stores. This led to the first organized military confrontation between the mother country and the colonies. While neither would recognize it as such, this one action would precipitate a brutal war lasting as an active component from April 19th , 1775 at Concord to the fall of Yorktown in October 1781 that ended major military actions by armies, but not frontier raids.
Even the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 did not end confrontations and retention by Britain of certain military posts and areas granted to the United States by the 1783 Treaty of Paris. On the high seas the Royal navy never stopped the harassment of American shipping and the impressment of American seamen. Britain's continued actions on the sea eventually led to the War of 1812.
Note: * Water could not be maintained in a potable state for the duration of months long ocean voyages; beer could be maintained as a substitute liquid to sustain sailors. Therefore the maintenance of a supply of beer was necessary to complete the long voyage back to England. Beer in fact was not only a substitute for water but was more nourishing and shall we say maintained spirits of the sailor better than water.
References: Bruce and William B. Catton's "The Bold And Magnificent Dream"; Robert Leckie's "The Wars Of America"; Edmund S. Morgan's "The Birth Of The Republic."; TV's "The War of 1812 - The First Invasion."
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