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tv   Lectures in History  CSPAN  March 13, 2023 9:07am-9:51am EDT

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okay. so today i'm going to start by walking through these imperial
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reforms mainly into realms. okay? so one land regulation and the other in terms of taxation, trade policy. from there, we'll cover the colonial grievances are emerge coming out of these reforms, focusing especially on how they get framed. lastly, we're going to kind of dive into the crises of the 1770s as we head toward this movement for independence and the shift toward that movement, specifically for independence. now, if you went to high school in the us, which i think most of you probably some of the story is probably going to seem a bit familiar. you've heard a lot of these policies probably before, but as we move into the american revolution with our class, we're going to be taking kind of a different focus. so we're going to be really looking at things specifically through the lens of empire. okay. so that's going to be our focus here. key terms for today. you've got proclamation of 1763, the stamp act, the enlightenment, which we'll talk about, the declaratory act, the
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townshend duties, the boston massacre, somerset and the coercive acts. okay, so quite a few key terms. this is a period of a lot of policies coming into place, court rulings and these kind of things. so we've got a lot of key terms at play. okay, now last time i suggest did the great britain's biggest victory coming out of the seven years war paved the path for the empire's defeat in north america. and today, i really want to pick up here to explain how this happened. so british victory in the seven years war left the empire with a vastly expanded territory in north america, which you guys can get a sense of in this map, which we looked at last time. so yellow, you've got all this french territo that is ceded to the british. so they have this vastly expanded territory. they also have a huge wa debt coming o othis war. right. so this meant that they not only had debt to repay, but also a costly new area to defend in their imperialoldings.
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now, in the wake of the war, successive british administrators would seek ways to make the colonies pay what they considered their fair share for the maintenance of this big territory and paying off the war debt. now to many of the colonists who were really not used to interventions or taxes coming from britain, these efforts seemed kind of oppressive and unfair. so today i want to introduce some of the complication. these are some more complications into this traditional narrative of the lead up to the american revolution by asking you guys to think about these reforms from multiple perspectives. so from the american perspective. but also from the british perspective and also the perspectives of various groups within the colonies. so we tend to think about the american colonists or talk about them as one unit. as we get to this point in the history. but we would still want to think about the different groups that are active here and think about these reforms from various
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perspectives. so we're not here to answer the question of what was fair or unfair, right? but we do want to think about imperial dynamics and how the logics of empire are shaping these policies and also the reactions to these policies. now, as we've already discussed throughout the semester, the british government tended not to care too much about what was going on in the american colonies and how they kind of operated internally. right. generally, they had kind of a hands off approach. now, there are some exceptions to this right? most notably is the dominion experiment that we talked about last week, which lasted for only a few years. and there was also nagging feeling, which we've talked about as well, among some imperial officials, that the british needed to assert more direct control over the colonies in north america pretty quickly after the founding of a lot of proprietary or charter colonies, the crown began to see a need to kind of clamp down and turn those colonies crown colonies
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direct, under direct control of the government of great britain, which most of them were by the mid 18th century. now the imperial state also really cared regulation of trade and the ability to charge excise taxes on goods flowing to and from the colonies. so that's an area that they do really care about and we've seen that come up again and again through the semester as well. the most notable way we see that come up is with the navigation acts of 1651. right, which requires that all goods going in and out of the colonies are shipped through england where they have to pay these taxes. now, in addition to the navigation acts, there were a number of lesser laws imposed over the next century coming after those that aim to restrict smuggling. so illegal trade and evasion of taxes. and then also restrict any trade that the colonies might have wi other empires. right to keep it within the british empire.
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there are also laws and regulations put in place that are really intended to limit domestic manufacturing in the colonies. right. so last week we looked at a lot of these luxury goods and the british want the colonies to be importing those things from england. they want to keep manufacturing in the home country. right. they don't really want that developing in the colonies. now, truth is that up until the 1760s and after the seven years war colonies frequently ignored a lot of these british regulations, and they just kind of continue to go about their business. so smuggling is very widespread in the 18th century. and so was trade with french and dutch merchants kind of going against these colonial policies. colonial assembly laws. and this is another thing we've kind of talked about. colonial assemblies also gained increasing power going into the 18th century despite british efforts to rein them in. now, you might remember how after the collapse of the dominion, i talked about how colonial assemblies remained
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locally elected while governors generally became appointed by the king back in england. but the assemblies hold on to two key powers. okay, so you have royalty appointed governors in most colonies, but the assemblies are gaining power and part of it is through the two things that they're able to do. one is to approve taxes. okay, so the royal government has to go through colonial assemblies to raise money and get taxes approved in the colonies. and the other is to decide the governor's salary. okay, so colonial assemblies are the ones who are able to do that. and these abilities gave these assemblies a good amount of bargaining power to kind of get what they wanted out of governors and out of the royal government in the late 1740. so, right before the seven years war is kind of coming along, the british government demanded, the colonial laws conform to royal instructions. so they start to try to crack down here too, and they encourage assemblies to
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establish permanent salaries for governors to kind of stop this constant change or bargaining chip that they have. but with the outbreak of fighting in the seven years war, in the 1750s, these demands kind of fall by the wayside. during the war, the british tended to treat the colonies basically as allies in this fight, more as subordinates. and we kind of got into that last time. they start to listen to a lot of colonial forces, adopt some of their strategies or military strategies in fighting, and they're treating the colonies more as allies, though the british are really footing the bill for this war, they are the ones that are mainly paying for that now. after the war, the imperial government really its stance, the government in london focused on an unprocessed level of attention on the colonies and reverted to its pre-war stance of seeing them as suborn this whose main role is really to enrich the empire is to pump money into the empire. imperial officials aimed firstly to make british rule the
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colonies more efficient, more systematic, more structured. secondly, they aim to raise money to help pay off the war and to finance the maintenance of this expanded empire. so to british officials, this is only fair, right? they kind of come out of this. they say it's time for these colonies to pay their fair share. they're the ones living here. they're benefiting from this expansion. they should be paying into this. and taxation had also reached unprecedented heights in great britain itself and the colonies were benefiting from british protection in an expansion. and these officials, well, they should also be paying into this as well. now it's on this basis that the british government, a series of imperial reform arms in the late 1760s, that severely upset the colonists and ultimately pushed them toward independence. so the first of these policies is the one that i mentioned at the end of class. last time. so the proclamation of 1763, which drew this line here down
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the appalachian mountains to prohibit furth west. now, there are two things you neednd of understand about olicy. one is the intent, and the the effect that it had. so the intent is kind of twofold. first, in the midst of pontiac's and we talked about this last time, imperial officials really want to do everything that they can to prevent further warfare with native americans. it's far cheaper, right, for the british to maintain native peoples as allies than to fight all out wars with them and having colonies move to the frontier, as you read about last time, provoked a lot of violence that they're perpetrating on native americans and also native americans. then reacting to defend themselves. imperial officials essentially wanted to one to avoid having to defend settlers. right. and two, avoid having to fight wars against native americans should they retell you in these
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situations. now a second intention, which we haven't really talked about before, is basically to keep the colonies hemmed in along the east, primarily orient to toward the atlantic and easier more manageable for imperial offialto assert control over them. now the effect of the proclamation of 1763, it didn't uperwell with intentions behind it and it really irritated especially an elite subset of colonists. so in reality, the proclamation line did not stop these settlers from moving into western lands and setting up farms so like the reading that you did for today, some historians have called the proclamatiolike little more than a paper barrier. right. that it's something on a map. it officially prohibits settlement, but it's not functionally having that effect. there's no soldiers there stopping people from gng and ving. and in fact, these poorer
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colonies continue to push into the back count, clear land, set up their own homesteads. and as you read about last time this led a lot of this spike in violence. the imperial officials were hoping to avoid. and it also really tested the bounds of imperial law. and because perpetrators of this violence are often able to kind of get away with it and escape any punishment. now these settlers who are going out there and setting up there, effectively living in officially prohibited areas, so they're effectively setting up societies, these beyond the reach of colonial imperial governments, kind of a wild west, if you will. right. an area where there really isn't any government. so not only are they out there kind of murdering native americans, getting in these skirmishes, they're also setting up farms without paying for the land rail and without any title to that property, any guarantee from any kind of government that recognize this that property. now, as read about for today,
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this whole situation angered elite colonists, in particular virginians who had that after the seven years war. al territorys ing to be open up to settlement. that they then intended to sell to these settlers who wanted to move right for a profit. but if the government would not recognize this as their legally owned propertysuing titles tot, they'd essentially made bad investments since they didn't technically the land in any way that was recognized by a sovereign authority. so they can't sell it to other people. now, these men were called land speculators and they included some of the most prominent leaders of the american revolution that was coming. so like young george washington over here, thomas jefferson patrick henry is kind of leading figures are prominent in in these land speculators they're to petition the british government through the virginia
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assembly, the house of burgesses and try to rectify the situation continually failed the continually reject their claims to issue them titles to this property and this really embittered them. the empire. now the reading you did for today points to or details their efforts to open these western to settlement and the responses of imperial officials, culminating in the quebec act and the definitive british rejection of these please and just shutting off of this land to any official recognition which we'll come back to a bit later in the lecture. so sum up the situation with the proclamation line. you had a few tensions created by this policy, right? so you have a general expectation among all american colonies after the end of the seven years war that the land the british gains through the treaty of paris is going to be open for settlement and expand ten of these colonies, but know though france ceded that land to the british in reality native
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americans are the ones controlling that land right and living in these places. and they are intent on resisting this expansion. so as poor white colonies and settlers start to move out of those areas, this violence is breaking out between them and native americans. this leads to tension between british officials right and native americans. but between british imperial officials and colonial governments. who the british blame for failing, punish or stop these settlers from going out there. now, tensions are also really arising within the colonies as the governments and elites, colonists in general are frustrated with these poor settlers right, both for their lawlessness and also because they're functionally squatting right on land. that many of these land speculators claim to own right and wanted to sell to them. and this, in turn, these elite land speculators really angry with british imperial officials for not recognizing land titles and officially opening a
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settlement which would make them money, of course, but which they also think would help control this settlement and erase some of these problems, this violence that is coming up. if it was a more controlled move of people to the area. okay. so now we've covered a lot of these land regulation and the divides that are coming up there. we need to turn our attention to the other main area. right, that the british are enacting reforms in this period, which is in the realm of trade regulation and taxation. so in addition to stopping the development western land. yeah. peter go ahead you so before we move on, did the british expect the proclamation line to be a permanent thing or was it a stopgap until they came up with a better way to regulate or a better way to organize? colonization that land? yeah, that's a great question. i think not necessarily completely permanent, right? they did gain this land, the french, they're trying to incorporate this into their imperial holdings. and it's not necessarily that they view expansion is never going to happen, but they're
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trying to organize, is that right? they want to be leading that process. they don't want colonists in the colonies to be leading that process. and they also recognize that they're just not in a position to fight wars with native americans to do that at this moment. and so whether it's going to be warfare or through diplomat relationships, that has to be kind of pushed down the road. so not necessarily permanent, but for the time being for sure. okay, yeah. so in addition to stopping this development of the western land, imperial officials moved to tighten restrictions on trade and impose new taxes, a bid to help pay off all that war debt. right. okay, so this started in 1764 with a spate of new laws that get introduced by the prime minister, george grenville and passed through parliament, the sugar act of that year reduced the existing tax on imported molasses that's comi fm the french west. okay, so it starts with a tax reduction, but in doing it steps upnfcement to prohibit it
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widespread, widespread smugglg,ight. so to actually try to stop any kind of illegal or tax evasion to do th ia bido counteract the tendency of colonial juries to acquit merchantsf, accusations of smuggling. the act also strengthened miral courts, which are navy naval courts that are going to be set up in the colonies where viats are going to be tried without a jury. okay. so they're removing th power from the colienow taken together, colonies saw the act for for what it really was, whh was not actually a tax reduction really, but an effort to get them to pay a tax that they otherwise might have evaded by by smuggling. okay. now that same year, aarliament also passed the revenue act which added new goods such as wool hides these kind of things to a list of enumerated goods that had to be shipped through england. now taken togeerthese acts seem to threaten the profits of
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colonial mchts and seem su to aggravate a recession that had set in in the colonies following the end of the seven years war, the threat to the economy, further aggravated by the passage of something called the currency act tt same year, which reaffirmed a ban colonial assemblies, printing paper money as legal tender tender. okay so that would be something th they might do when they're facing an economic the bris officially prohibit from from doing that. okay now the next yearhe imperial government a step further here imposing a direct tax on t colonies for the first time, the smp act of 1765. required all printed material produced in colonies to carry a stamp that's gog get purchase from british authorities. now, so far, we've really been talking mostly aut eis so things that merchants are going to pay taxes on goods th they're moving in and out of e colonies. the stamp that is a direct tax that'gog to touch people
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rectly in the colonies. now, the money raised from this is intended to pay for the stiong of british troops in north america without having to go to the colonial aemies to get them to raise money. now, again, unlike the sugar act, this new tax tais tohi the colonies from merchants and out to farmers, artisans and i'm kind of everyone it's especially resented by those who are very engaged in debate in the public sphere. people who produce newspapers, pamphlets. okay. so not generally a group that you want to upset with your policies, right now, the prospect of troops being stationed in the colonies was worrying to many colonists for sure, but they're perhaps more threatened by this direct tax, which was unprecedented. okay, so for the first time, parliament just totally bypasses colonial assemblies and challenges the authority of elites to consent to taxes that are that are getting imposed on them. it's the most significant
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assertion right up to that point of parliamentary sovereignty over the colonies and the colonies. they didn't take it well. to put it simply. any other questions about land regulations or any kind of policies at this point. okay. so as we move into thinking about colonial grievances that come up in response to these imperial reforms, it's important to understand the context in which they're they're kind of being voiced okay. so the colonies had come a long way, as we've seen from their 17th century origins. now, we talked a lot last week about how the british colonies are more tightly connected right to great in the 18th century than ever before. so you have port cities in the colonies that are really part of a cosmopolitan atlantic world at this point, where a lot of goods are being exchanged and moved back and forth between europe and the americas. but also a lot of ideas are going back and forth as well.
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now, this significant in kind of two ways. the first was the enlightenment. okay, so another one of our key terms for today, which was basically an intellectual and kind of cultural movement across rope centered around mainly in france that gave rise to a new way of thinking and a new political ideas. so the was reay characterized by an emphasis on the use of reason and a belief that nature and human relations could be rationally described, studied and shaped by humans that. humans have a lot of agency in determining the that events are gointo take. now it's also characterized by an expansion of thpuic sphere, and this is really marked by more print material being produced higher. literacy rates across europe and the colonies are also really taking part in this movement, albe kd of at the fringes, popular associations and the periodical press also grew throughout t 1h century in the colonies literacy rates are also going uinhe colonies,
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and thiss inging more and more people into the political conversations and into politics. there's also a huge number of taverns and coffee houses, especially in philadelphia is the biggest city inhe colonies in the 18th century. and u can see it's a little bit blurry, but you can see kind ofn example of how people ought about these spaces. 's another political cartoon with ben franklin, with some quakers in a taverin philadelphia. okay, so the public spre is really growing ithe colonies. more and more people are engaging in political discussions and taking part in these discourses. now, the second way that this atlantic annexation was significant was the importation of specifically english political ideas into the colonies. okay, so colonies, after all, they'd never felt so british, right? we talked about this a lot last week. they began to see measures taken by the crown as impositions on their unique rights as englishmen. so they start to take up british political rhetoric english
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political thought and assert their rights. essentially, alec colonies believe that their liberty meant that they could only be taxed with their expressed through representative of their choosing, so they defended their rights as englishmen consent to taxes. they argue that parliament could not tax them because they didn't vote for any members of parliament. they didn't vote and send members there to be part of that process. if we're going to be fair to the most people back, even in england, let alone in scot scotland or wales, they also did not vote for members of parliament, yet they are taxed by that are coming out of their in defending the ability parliament to tax the colonies british. a lot of british thinkers advanced the theory of virtual representation. again, something you might have heard before, especially in high school. basically whathiargued was that all british pplwere represent it in parliament even they did not dectly vote
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for representatives because the representi shared a common interest them and they were meant to go there and, make decisions based on the shared interest. in fact, american colonists start to argue that not only did they not to vote or send members parliament, but representatives in london t share their interests. hey start to say this, really doesn't work for our these policies actually have the same best interest as us at heart, because you have committees, of course, forming to coordinate to the stamp act across the colonies. colonists raising liberty polls. they're having of stamp collectors. there's a lot of popular outcry here. the sons of liberty led by samuel adams. you can see here was one such group in boston where the governor thomas hutchinson's house was attacked, vandalized as part of this movement.
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now, at this point in the a lot of elites in the colonies start to get caught off guard by. how widespread this kind of resistance to british taxation and an anger that's coming out and it's starting to kind of cross class lines at this point. and elites get a little concerned. so the british are kind of seeing this in 17th of 66 or just the next year. they actually back down. they repeal the stamp act. and here you can see a political cartoon depicting a funeral for the stamp act. so this gets celebrated as a major victory in the colonies. but even as they do this, parliament issues the decorative act, which you guys ador today, which the americans claims they couldn'beaxed by parliament so the declaratory act comes on the heels of the stamp act. they backed down on, but they come back and they say that parliament, the ability to pass laws for the colonies anth
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people, era in all cases whatsoever. so the colie win battle here inetting the specific tax repealed, but they don't win the war. the larg pnciple here, parliament comes and says, no, no, no, we're not conceding that point. now, sure enough, the nt year in 1767, parliament passed the townshend duties, named after the chancellor of the exchequer, charles townshend, who who proposed know these were taxes are imposed on imported that were going to be colleed by newly customs commissioners, who would also work to suppress smuggling. so to stop any kind of tax evasion or illegal trade which is how a lot of merchants in the colonies are making their money now even more galling to to the colonists about the reven from these taxes was intended to pay the salaries of colonial and judges removed that ability from the assemblies. so just streamlining that coming through the royal government
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colonies colonies again with outrage believing the new taxes represented another violation of their rights as englishmen to consent to their taxes and to control the pay of their officials in the colonies. leaders in several colonies start to call for a boycott of british goods in response to. this so here we have the non importation movement that begins as a way to encourage americans to disavow british luxury and by american made things especially like clothing. now you have virginia planters. they start to support this movement because they found themselves at this point in a lot of debt for the luxury items, a lot things we were looking at last week that they had been purchased seeing from england, and they saw this movement as kind of a way to cut back their own spending to kind of reduce debt that they had with british merchan. now, of course, urban artisans who are in they welcome this non importation movementecause it creates business opportunities
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for them right. it gives them an oortunity to boost manufacture and sell their own goods. merchants in port cities, they're aittle more reluctant, but most of them eventually kind of agree take part in this movement. so then you ha these kind of extralegal local committees formed and communities across the colonies to enforce this boycott. so it's essentially a system of neighbors policing neighbors to kind of hold the line against british goods, send this message to imperial officials and it proved especially effective at creating sense of a common cause among the colonists. so in this heated atmosphere, tensions are simmering just beneath the surface, especially in boston, where royal troops had been stationed in 1768 after some rioting had broken out when the british had seized a ship for smuggling. so this kind of culminates march 5th, 1770, as a fight breaks out between between colonists who
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are wielding snowballs and rocks, and british soldiers. and this breaks out in the center of the city, leaving five colonists dead, though o soldiers were put who were put on trial, were convicted for manslaughter. in the wake of this, the incident was far from an event of mass violence and is a little bit more ambiguous. these kind of depictions convey so still confrontation came to benown as the boston. it gets really up in the colonies partly through prints like this created by paul revere, which really portray this scene of soldiers who very well organized, armed against colonists who seem to be very much hiding unarmed, not engaging with them. this is slightly inaccurate. okay. the colonists were provoking these soldiers were throwing things at them. there was kind of more of a fight going on. so this is kind of an early example of some fake news you might say are kind of a piece of propaganda that gets circulated
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widely to create this into a major event that is going to drive things now, even if the event was not portrayed entirely accurately, this kind of piece was very successful, and it did set the tone for tensions going into the 1770 days of crime, which is where we're going to head now. any any questions at this point about any of the british taxation or response that, yeah, here in this point, did the colonists want to go to full scale revolution? or were they intending to do that, or was it just trying to get rid of the taxes, the politicians? yeah, that's a great question they are very much not wanting to revolt. they're very focused on just getting rid of these taxes and these policies and they're very much making their case through a claim that if you respect rights as english citizens, you cannot impose these taxes. and that's all we want, right? they're not talking about breaking away from the empire. they're just talking about wanting to be treated as as equals in, the empire and
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claiming those rights. so very specifically focused on policies, not on any kind, movement for independence, for sure. other questions? yeah, peter, is the declaratory act seen as kind of a like a rebuff of? what was it call you said that the idea that all members of the british empire represented in parliament because it basically says, no, we don't have your best interests at heart, we are going to legislate to you what we think is best. yeah. as a colony that's, that's a great question. so the declaration act is really kind of a reassertion of that idea of virtual representation. it's kind of saying, you don't have to vote for us or anything that but you do have to respect the laws that we make because we are the sovereign authority in this empire. and they but you're getting to an important that the colonies start to make, which is well, what does it mean to represent our interests? don't we have to tell you what it is for you to do that and you
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do have parliaments. many in parliaments start to make an argument that no, in fact, it is our job to determine what is the best interest. we will tell that to you and you follow those rules. okay. so yeah, that is the origins of a of that kind of argument about, how political representation in general should work and that's going to keep coming as the americans also found their own governments try to figure that out for themselves. yeah well there's. so heading into the 1770s, you have tensions that were very high right between the colonists and the british government. so only seven years after their greatest victory in the seven years war, a series of imperial reforms had provoked massive backlash among american colonists who were asserting their rights as englishmen in this bid to retain their autonomy and retain this kind of voice in, the empire. so at the dawn of this new decade, things continue to really go downhill, which moves us away from a focus on specific
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policies toward this movement for independence starts kind of coalesce now before get into the incidents of violence actually start to break out in and the imperial response to those in the 1770s. i want to briefly address the ways slavery fits into the all these imperial reforms and the colonial grievances that are coming out in this period. so you guyt remember from the piece we reaabt the 1619 project that one of the most controversial clms nikole haah-jones made in the opening was that one of the reasons e colonies fought th revolutionary w was to uphold slavery, and in response to a request signed some prominent stians. you had the new yk times kind of clarifying the statement to say that some of the colonists fought t rolionary war to uphold slavery. now, part of the reason this claim wa controversi hschel is because it's aatr of interpretations that not all history ends agree upon. soome who hannah-jones was really building on think the
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colonists in this period we ve wried about the british threatening the system chattel slavery inhe colonies or attempting to turn enslaved people againsthein any kind suggle that they might have now you have other historians who who ki o argue the colonists, elite colonists were not necessarily that worried about this the time a lot of the debate over this and how a role this is playing or how of mind this is for early colonists centers on british court ruling that's issued. 1772 referred to as somerset in which a judge sidesith an enslaved person. james somerset, who sues for his eedom after being brought into england by a customs official who, quote, owns him in boston. now,n the ruling, which technically applied only to this one person in question, right, not wider, the judge concludes that slavery has no basis natural law and has no basis in english common law.
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so in der to be upheld in england that, there would need to be a law passed by parliament make it something that existed in england or else it cannot be presumed to exist now and jas somerset wins his freedom as an outcome of this case. again, though ruling applied to only this one individual news traveled fast and it was broadly interpreted as establishing the idea that an enslaved person would be free when setting foot into england so that slavery is not going to exist in england. now, some historians think that this white colonists in the americas who were worried that like taxes or land policies, the british might suddenly decide to interfere with the system of slavery. other historians argue that this was not so widely talked about maybe and wasn't a central concern for elites, the colonies. okay, so there's some disagreement on the the effect that this had in the but this did happen.
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there is coverage of this and this is out there. another thing that is very sure coming out of this is, that white colonists are using the language of slavery to describe the threat. they believe british policy fees and taxes are posing to their autonomy me to their liberty that liberty notion of liberty was rooted for them in secure property rights. so the right to buy and own land and the ability to prove taxes is being top, top of mind. there. now, this was the society, at which point considered an enslaved african as a form of property to, the degree to which white also had this in mind when they're expressing their concerns, that's still kind of open for debate, but that's what's kind of on the table now for black americans in the colonies and british critics of the americans. the hypocrisies very clear here. okay. so calling for liberty while maintaining slavery was
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inconsistent. many black people and anti-slavery advocates, poet phillis wheatley, who is writing in the colonies they adopt the language of this imperial struggle to point out this inconsistency and to make a case for their freedom and a case to end slavery. and we're going to be tracing the way that this dynamic develops as the movement for independence grows and fighting actually breaks in the revolutionary war. okay. so we have kind of that's of the way slavery is fitting into this this and we can talk more about that as go forward shifting back to moments of direct conflict, the next major incident between the colonists and british that comes up after the boston massacre also happens again in boston. in 1773 when a group of colony us who are disgued as native amerans, interestingly, boarded three ships in the harbor where they threw more th 300 chests of tea into the water, resulting in the loss of
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10,000 gbp worth of property, which in day's dollars is roughly $4 million worth. okay, so a lot of property loss there. this is known today as the boston tea party. and the destruction s in response to a tea tax that had been imposed and which the colonists rejected ayet another violation of their right to consent to the british respond quickly and very harshly to what they see as a big here. the new prime minister, lord north, he declares that it was time to really put to the test whether the british had real authority the colonies to kind of go there and demonstrate that were in control or else figure out if they weren't. now the result of this was the imposition of what the americans called the coercive or intolerable acts of the boston port was closed until the tea would be paid for by the colonists. parliament empowered military commanders to lodge soldiers in private houses and the colonies.
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founding charter was significantly undercut by town meetings being curtailed and authorized and governments to appoint some positions that had previously been elected. now, some of these measures might remind you again of the dominion at point the british had tried and to impose some of these similar changes now around the same time the british government issued the quebec act, which you also read for today, which granted toleration to catholic x and the previously french province bordered the new england colonies, which had now been integrated into the british empire. it provided for an appointed legislature in this new colony. so there the assembly was not to be elected. the king was going to appoint members to that legislature. and it also incorporated all the lands seized by the british, ceded by the french. after the end of the war into one new province of quebec.
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and that effectively shuts down any individual colonies or land speculators along the east coast from being able to expand westward into that area. now, taken together the colonies see, this act as a major threat to their political autonomy. they see that as hemming them and they also see it as a threat to protestantism right. this acceptance and toleration for catholics and the acceptance of bishops, for example, holding political power in this region. now, the intolerable acts paired with the quebec here, we're sort of a turning point for the colonial resistance movement. it became even more widespread, even more intense, and even more organized. but i want to emphasize that even in 1774, 1775, there's almost no still of independence that's just not really coming to mind for colonists. the idea of breaking with the british empire is pretty much
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unthinkable to most colonists. instead, they're really still emphasizing their rights as english subjects. they the writing of liberal reformers back in england who pointed to corruption in the executive ministry, in the government and, called for the reform of parliament to make it more representative. they insisted that they remained loyal to the king and they were merely seeking to be considered equal part of this empire rather than subordinate to the metropole. now, despite this, things were still getting pretty heated and it's in 1774 that we have the first continental congress convening in philadelphia, which is where we're going to be picking up next week as we move toward independence. so as we look ahead, as you read for next time, i'd like you guys to take the opportunity to reflect on the declaration of indepeen, which will be reading in coordination with the ronin article, which you'll also read to ask youelkind of these questions. okay, so were the americans
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rejecting empire and imperiali in 1776, or were they just rejecting some parts of the british empire? anifo, which parts are they rejecting? which parts are they not? one. how do we account independence afr a century of tightening ties with the british empire? what is ithaleads to this dden here between the colonies and great britain? d then lastly, i want you ys to really think about how does american independence reshape the power in nohmerica, specifically from the vantage point of native americans and alsonslaved people within the colonies. okay. so that's where we'll be picking up, moving ahead. thank you all so
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