Episode 4

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Published on:

1st Aug 2025

S1E4 Colonial Society in 18th Century America: Consumer Revolution, Slavery & the Road to Revolution | American Yawp Chapter 4 Explained

In Episode 4 of Star-Spangled Studies, Dr. G guides you through Chapter 4 of The American Yawp, tracing how the American colonies matured in the 1700s—even as they grew more “British.” Key topics include:

  • The Consumer Revolution: tea, textiles & credit reshaping colonial culture
  • The Brutality of Slavery and peak of the transatlantic slave trade
  • Slave Resistance: from Stono Rebellion to early Quaker abolition petitions
  • Political Awakening: colonial assemblies, John Peter Zenger & freedom of the press
  • Religious Revival: the Great Awakening’s impact on identity and dissent
  • The French & Indian War and its strain on colonial-British relations
  • Pontiac’s War & the 1763 Proclamation Line as flashpoints for colonial anger
  • The Road to Revolution: debt-fueled taxes collide with colonists’ claims to English liberty

🔗 Resources & Links

Perfect for U.S. history students, educators, and lifelong learners preparing for discussion or exams.

Explore Chapter 4 of The American Yawp in this episode of Star-Spangled Studies: “18th Century America.” Historian Dr. G examines how the Consumer Revolution bound colonists to Britain while slavery and the Great Awakening sowed seeds of dissent. From Stono’s bloodshed to Zenger’s trial, and the French & Indian War to Pontiac’s uprising, discover the conflicts that set the colonies on the path to revolution.

Keywords: 18th Century America podcast, American Yawp Chapter 4 podcast, Consumer Revolution, Stono Rebellion, Great Awakening, Zenger trial, French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War, Proclamation of 1763, road to American Revolution, Dr. G

Transcript
Speaker:

Hello, y'all.

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It's me.

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It's me.

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It's Dr.

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G.

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Welcome back to Star Spangled Studies.

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Last episode, we dove into the

chaotic, violent creative world of

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the 17th century British colonies.

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We saw how the labor systems

were vague in those early years.

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But then they hardened into brutal

race-based chattel slavery, and that would

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become the defining feature of America.

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We watched this turmoil in

Britain, the Civil War, the

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execution of a king and revolution.

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I.

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Sent Shockwaves across the Atlantic and

it forced the colonists to question their

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relationship with the mother country.

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And we witnessed the century of riot

and rebellion from King Philips war to

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Bacon's Rebellion conflicts that reshaped

the colonial landscape and forged new.

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Often brutal social orders.

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Today we move on into the 18th century,

and if the 17th century was about survival

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and settlement, the 18th century, the

17 hundreds was about something else I.

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The maturing of the American colonies.

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By the mid 17 hundreds, a distinctly

American culture was taking shape.

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But here's the great paradox of the era.

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At the very same time that the

colonies were becoming more

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American, in that sense, they

were also becoming more British.

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It's a contradiction that

we're gonna have to unravel.

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How is that possible?

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Well, it happened through a series

of revolutions, not the revolutions

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of guns and soldiers, but the

revolution of ideas of goods and gods.

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A consumer revolution tied the

colonists to Britain through a shared

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love of cultural things like tea.

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Textiles.

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And for some reason, mahogany furniture,

a religious revolution also tied us

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back with the great awakening, which

swept through the colonies, creating

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a shared evangelical experience that

transcended colonial boundaries.

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And a political revolution

happened as well.

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And it was brewing in the colonial

assemblies where colonists B

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first began to assert their

rights as Freeborn Englishmen.

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Even after generations of

living across the ocean.

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But all of this, this dynamic growing,

increasingly complex colonial society

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was about to be thrown into a global

war for empire, A war that in the

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end, would force Americans to decide

once and for all who they really were.

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So let's go

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to understand the 18th century.

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And especially in the colonies, we have

to start in a parlor, not in a church,

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not in a legislature, but in a parlor.

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Because in the parlor among the

teacups, in that mahogany furniture,

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a profound change was taking place.

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This is what historians call

the consumer revolution.

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Thanks to improvements in

manufacturing and transportation,

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and especially the growing

availability of purchasing on credit.

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British consumer goods flooded across

the ocean into American colonies, things

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that had once been luxuries because of

distance and cost of shipping, like sugar,

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tea, fine textiles, mahogany furniture.

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These became common goods.

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These colonists who had once made most

of their own tools and clothes out of

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necessity now could increasingly buy

them because of how quickly and cheaply

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they could be brought to the colonies.

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This created a powerful, tangible link

back to England, drinking tea from

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an English made cup, wearing English

style clothes made in England, or even

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sitting on a chair made of imported

mahogany wood from England, or always

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of participating in a shared British.

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Culture.

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This desire to emulate British style

was most visible among the colonial

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elites and gentry, that wealthy planter

class, especially in the south, as well

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as the merchant elites in the north.

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These would who we would be referring

to as the gentry, and the gentry wanted

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to act genteel, which meant to be.

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Refined to be free of the

rudeness of the common people.

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And the gentry then modeled themselves

on the English aristocracy and elites.

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They built grand mansions.

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They often lived on hilltops to

dominate the landscape, and they filled

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these mansions with imported goods

to advertise their status and power.

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Only a truly rich person.

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Would have English, mahogany, wood

furniture imported directly from England,

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or the latest craze as soon as they came

out the keeping up with the Jones' idea.

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So we can get a fascinating glimpse then

into these homes of the rich and the

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genteel through the probate inventories.

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A probate inventory was a detailed

list of possessions that a

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person had that they had to give.

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At their death.

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So that way a will could be then

distributing those goods and so forth.

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So let's take the inventory

of a man named William Trent.

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He was a wealthy merchant

who died in:

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His house was filled with

items that signaled his status.

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Quote, two large peer

glasses was popped shells.

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Kilt with gold.

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There were also numerous kitchen

implements suggesting lavish entertainment

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and a large supply of table silver.

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But this consumer frenzy

wasn't just for the elite.

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The availability of credit allowed

families of just even modern and

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modest means to purchase items once

reserved, only for the wealthy.

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A farmer might own a single silver

teaspoon or a set of teacups, small in

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our eyes maybe, but it was significant

symbols of their aspirations to gentility.

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This cheap consumption allowed colonists

to feel connected to the trends and

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the tastes of the British empire.

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Remember, to consume something is

not simply just to eat something

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that is one way to consume,

but to actually use a good.

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Is to consume that good, to

purchase it and to use it like

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a screwdriver, for instance.

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So the consumer revolution

was a double-edged sword.

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It bound the colonies closer to Britain

through this shared material culture,

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but it also created economic tensions.

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A system of debt that would have

major political consequences.

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When Britain later tried to tax these

very goods that they were hooking

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their American colonists on sugar

paper tea, the colonists would use

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their power as consumers as a political

weapon, organizing boycotts and non

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importation agreements that struck at

the very heart of the imperial economy.

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But more on that.

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In a few.

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This bustling Atlantic economy with its

ships full of mahogany wood and tea was

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built on a foundation of unimaginable

brutality because of course, it was the

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most lucrative exchange of all, of all

the goods crossing the Atlantic was.

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The slaves in the transatlantic slave

trade, which reached its peak in the

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18th century, the journey across the

Atlantic, the middle passage still

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remains one of the most horrific

chapters in human history, and we have

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powerful firsthand accounts of this,

like we talked about last episode, like

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allowed ano who was kidnapped, if you

forget from his home in West Africa as

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a boy and forced aboard a slave ship.

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This system fed the insatiable

demand for labor and the colonies.

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Labor demands, especially in the south,

only grew as cash crops intensified.

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In South Carolina, a black

majority emerged toiling on the

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vast rice and indigo plantations.

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The ever present fear of this

enslaved population, which greatly

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out nor outnumbered whites, led to.

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Ever harsher slave codes to make

something of a rebellion impossible,

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but it didn't stop rebellions.

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It just made them more violent.

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In the stoner rebellion of

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in the mainland colonies.

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This event sent a shockwave of

terror through the white population

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led by Angolan named Gem.

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A group of about 20 enslaved

people broke into a store.

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They seized weapons

and they marched south.

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From just outside what today would be

Charleston towards Spanish, Florida where

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they have been promised their freedom.

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Their numbers swelled to nearly

a hundred as they marched

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with banners crying Liberty.

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The rebellion was brutally crushed

by the colonial militia in its wake.

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South Carolina passed the Negro Act

of:

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slave codes in North America.

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It made it illegal for slave people

to assemble in groups illegal to

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earn money, to grow their own food,

or to learn to read and write all

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things that they think contributed

to the:

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We had talked about last episode of

just how important it was to create laws

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to solidify race and slavery into one,

but that only created more problems.

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As I said, resistance never went away.

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Resistance was a continuous feature of

the slave system, but the legal frameworks

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designed by the different colonies.

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We're designed to crush any

hope of a future successful

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resistance to the system.

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And yet, even as the institution

of slavery became more entrenched,

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more codified, and more violent,

more brutal, the first stirrings of

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an organized anti-slavery movement

began to emerge in the colonies.

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The earliest and most persistent voices

against slavery came from the Quakers.

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As early as 1688, a group of Quakers

in Germantown, Pennsylvania issued

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a remarkable petition against

slavery, and it is one of the first

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documents in American history to

argue for universal human rights.

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Something I talked about last episode, I.

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The Germantown position, as I said,

was a, a radical petition for its time.

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The Quaker leadership finding the matter

so weighty to use their words effectively

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tabled it, but the seed had been planted.

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And throughout the 18th century, Quaker

activists like John Woolman and Anthony

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Bet continued to agitate against slavery.

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And in 1775, Quakers helped organize

the first abolitionist society.

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In Philadelphia, this growing

moral unease with slavery existing

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alongside the colonies, deep

economic dependence on it, creating

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a profound and enduring contradiction

at the heart of American society.

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I.

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Spoiler alert, it would eventually lead

the society on the path to civil war.

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It's one of the great contradictions

of these United States.

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The same time as colonists, were

wrestling with the contradictions of

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slavery and codifying it, making it more

brutal, more violent, more entrenched.

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They were also engaging in other

debates, passionate debates

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about the nature of freedom.

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It's a contradiction, but this freedom,

whether it was political, religious, or

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individual, was a very important debate.

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In the 18th century, two movements

were central to this evolving debate

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about freedom, the rise of colonial

assemblies, allowing colonialists to

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have their own voices and political

autonomy, as well as the religious

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revival known as the Great Awakening.

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So throughout the 18th century, a

quiet power struggle was playing

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out in every colonial capital.

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All of them on one side

were the royal governors.

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These were men appointed by the

king and tasked with enforcing

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British policy across the ocean.

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On the other hand were

these colonial assemblies.

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They differed in each colony, but they all

pretty much did the same sort of thing.

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They elected property owning

colonists, and they were fiercely

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protective of their local AU autonomy.

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So you can see how this would be a power

struggle between the King's representative

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and those living on the ground.

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These assembly saw themselves as

little versions of the parliament.

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Back home in England and they felt

that they had the right to control

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local matters like taxation and

spending what's known as well, what

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we would call the power of the purse.

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They use this power to check

the authority of the governor,

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sometimes even withholding a

governor's salary to get their way.

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A pivotal moment in this struggle for

Liberty came in:

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of John Peter Zenger, a New York

printer ER's newspaper, had published

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articles criticizing the corrupt royal

governor of the time, William Cosby.

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I.

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Zenger was charged with seditious

libel under English law at the time.

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The truth of the statements

was not a defense.

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In fact, it could make the libel worse.

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The jury's only job was to

determine if Zenger had published

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the articles, which he had.

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I.

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Zen's lawyer, the brilliant

Philadelphian, Andrew Hamilton, made a

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radical argument directly to the jury.

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He argued that they had the right

to judge not just the facts,

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but the law itself, and that

speaking the truth about a corrupt

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government was a fundamental right.

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Of free men.

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It is not the cause of one

poor printer nor of New York

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alone, which you are now trying.

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No.

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It may, in its consequence

affect every free man that lives

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under a British government.

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On the main of America,

it is the best cause.

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It is the cause of liberty.

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The liberty both of exposing and opposing

arbitrary power by speaking and writing.

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Truth, the jury in a bold act

of defiance, ignored the judge's

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instructions and found zenger not guilty.

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This trial was a landmark victory

for the freedom of the press and the

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powerful assertion of the colonist

right to challenge authority.

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While these political and legal battles

were being fought in the state houses

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and courtrooms, a spiritual fire.

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Was sweeping through the colonies.

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This was the great awakening, and this

was a transatlantic religious revival

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that emphasized an emotional, personal

relationship with God, challenging

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the formal stayed religion of the

established churches of the time.

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The movement was fueled by itinerant

preachers who traveled from town to

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town holding massive outdoor revivals.

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The most famous of these was the

English evangelist, George Whitfield.

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He was a superstar.

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He was probably one of the first

superstars, a charismatic preacher

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who sermons drew thousands.

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Nathan Cole.

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A Connecticut farmer left a vivid

account of the day that he heard

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Whitfield was coming to preach.

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I was in my field at work.

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I dropped my tool and ran home

to my wife and told her to hurry.

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My wife and I rode my horse as fast

as I thought the horse could bear.

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When we neared Middleton.

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I heard a noise, like a low

rumbling thunder, and saw that

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it was the noise of horses' feet.

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As I came closer, it seemed like a

steady stream of horses and their riders,

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all of a lather and foam with sweat.

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Every horse seemed to go with

all his might to carry his rider

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to hear the news from heaven.

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The saving of souls, the messages

of preachers like Whitfield

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and the New England theologian.

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A man named Jonathan Edwards was one

of the human, uh, sinfulness and of

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the absolute need for God's grace.

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Edwards had a most famous servant, you may

have heard of it, sinners in the hands of

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an angry God, and it painted a terrifying

picture of the damn nation that awaited.

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Those who did not repent, quote, the

God that holds you over the pit of hell.

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Much as one holds a spider or some

loathsome insect over a fire AB bores

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you and is dreadfully provoked his

wrath towards you, burns like fire.

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He looks upon you as worthy of nothing

else but to be cast into the fire.

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You hang by a slender thread with the

flames of divine wrath flashing about it.

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And ready every moment to

sin it and burn it Asunder.

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End quote.

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The awakening was deeply divisive.

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It split congregations into new lights who

embraced the revival and old lights who

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condemned its emotional excessiveness, but

it also had a powerful unifying effect.

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This was the first truly

intercolonial event.

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It created possibly the first shared

American experience and buying.

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Encouraging people to challenge the

authority of established ministers

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and to trust their own experiences,

personal experiences of God.

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Historians argue that it fostered a

spirit of individualism as well as

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anti-authoritarianism that would fuel.

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The American Revolution,

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all of these developments, the growing

consumer economy, the deepening of

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slavery, the awakening of religious

and political consciousness were

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taking place in the shadow of a global

rivalry between Britain and France.

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And in 1754, that rivalry exploded into

a full blown war, a conflict that began

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in the back country of Pennsylvania

and would spread across the globe.

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We call it the Seven Years War,

or the French and Indian War.

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It just depends on where you live.

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I.

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The war started over competing

claims to the Ohio River Valley.

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Virginia's governor sent a young,

ambitious militia officer, you might have

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heard of him, George Washington, to warn

the French to back outta the territory.

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The mission ended in a skirmish that

left a French officer dead, and the

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first shots of a World War were fired.

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The early years of the war were a disaster

for the British General Edward Braddock's

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expedition to capture Fort Duquesne.

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In modern day, Pittsburgh

was ambushed and annihilated.

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The fighting was often brutal and chaotic.

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A soldier named Robert Moses describes

one battle in his diary quote,

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the enemy pursued them very boldly

with their fire locks, shouldered,

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and their bayonets fixed to them.

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Marched.

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And towards the front of our army,

the Indians on the left wing were so

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ambitious that they would fein enter

into yeee artillery ground, one of

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which being fired on them, swept away.

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16, which put the rest in such a terror

that they draw off as quick as possible.

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End quote.

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The war exposed a deep cultural shift

between the professional British army and

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the less professional colonial militias.

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The British officers being smug looked

down on the colonists as undisciplined

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provincials while the colonists, while

they just chafed under the brutal

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discipline of the British regulars.

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This friction is clear.

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In a 1757 letter from George Washington

to Governor Dinwitty complaining

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that he and his fellow Virginia

officers were being denied the rights

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and respect of British subjects, I.

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Quote, we cannot conceive that

being Americans should deprive us

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of the benefits of British subjects.

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And we are very certain that no

body of regular troops ever before

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served three bloody campaigns

without attracting royal notice.

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End quote.

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I.

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Despite these early struggles, the tide

rned in Britain's favor after:

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Thanks to a massive infusion of British

money and troops, British Fores captured

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Quebec in French Canada in 1759 and

Montreal in:

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ending French power in North America.

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The Treaty of Paris signed in 1763 was a

stunning victory for the British Empire.

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France seceded, all of Canada

and its territory east of the

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Mississippi to Britain, the colonists.

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Ecstatic.

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They celebrated as Britain's

proud to be, Britain's proud to

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be parts as British subjects of

this victorious Protestant empire

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against those evil French Catholics.

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Benjamin Franklin captured the mood.

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He wrote, quote, no one can

rejoice more sincerely than

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I do the reduction of Canada.

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And this not merely as

I am a colonist, but.

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As I am a Britain end quote,

but this moment of imperial

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unity would be short-lived.

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The war had been enormously expensive

for Britain, and it left Britain

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with a vast new territory to govern.

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I.

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It also gave them a mountain of debt.

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The question of who would pay for

it and who would control these new

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lands would shatter the very empire

that had just been victorious.

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The Treaty of Paris is signed in

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a brutal conflict erupted on the

frontier with the French gone.

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Native American nations in the Great

Lakes in Ohio Valley found themselves

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facing a British empire that was

far more arrogant and aggressive

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than their French allies had been.

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The British Commander Jeffrey Amherst,

cut off the traditional practice

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of gift giving, which was essential

to diplomacy, and he treated Native

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American leaders with contempt.

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He summed up the prevailing British

attitudes when he called Native Americans.

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Quote.

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The viruses race of beings

that ever infested the earth.

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End quote.

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This new reality was not lost on

he Native American leaders in:

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Inspired by the teachings of a Delaware

prophet named Neilly, who called for a

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rejection of European ways, an Ottawa war

chief named Pontiac forged a pan-Indian

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alliance to drive the British out.

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In a powerful speech, Pontiac

laid out his people's grievances.

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Quote, the English cell.

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US goods twice as dear as the

French do and their goods do not.

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Last when I go to see the English

commander and say to him that some

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of our comrades are dead, instead of

be wailing their death as our French

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brothers do, he laughs at me and at you.

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From all of this, you can see

that they are seeking our ruin.

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Therefore, my brothers, we must

all swear their destruction

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and wait no longer end quote.

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Pontiac's war was a stunning success.

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At first, his forces captured nine of the

12 British forts west of the Appalachians.

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The British response was brutal.

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Amherst in famously suggested using

smallpox as a biological weapon, ordering

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his officers to distribute infected

blankets to the besieging tribes.

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The war eventually ended in a

stalemate, but it forced the British

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to rethink their frontier policy to

prevent future conflicts into control.

373

:

The cost of defending the frontier.

374

:

King George III issued

the Proclamation of:

375

:

This royal decree drew a line down

the crest of the Appalachian mountains

376

:

and forbade any colonial settlement

west of the Appalachian line.

377

:

It ordered any settlers already there

to quote forthwith to remove themselves.

378

:

End quote, the proclamation

so close to after just the war

379

:

ending infuriated the colonists.

380

:

Land speculators like George Washington,

who had invested heavily in western

381

:

lands, saw their profits vanish.

382

:

Ordinary farmers and veterans who

had fought in the war felt that

383

:

they were being denied the spoils.

384

:

I.

385

:

Of the victory while intended

to pacify Native Americans.

386

:

The proclamation was seen by many

colonists as a tyrannical overreach of the

387

:

king, a sign that the British government

was more interested in controlling

388

:

the colonists than protecting them.

389

:

As one historian notes quote.

390

:

It marked the beginning of a clear

ideological break with the mother country,

391

:

and so by 1763, the stage was set

for a new and even greater conflict.

392

:

The 18th century had been seen the

American colonies become more populous.

393

:

More prosperous and in many ways, more

British than they had ever been before.

394

:

The shared consumer culture, a

shared religious awakening and

395

:

a shared victory in a global

war had tied them to the empire.

396

:

I.

397

:

But these same forces had also

sown the seeds of Division.

398

:

The consumer Revolution

created debt and dependence.

399

:

The Great Awakening fostered

a spirit of individualism and

400

:

a distrust of the established

authority and the seven years war.

401

:

The moment of greatest imperial

triumph left Britain with a staggering

402

:

debt and a host of new problems.

403

:

Their solution then.

404

:

Would be to tax the colonies

and to tighten their control.

405

:

And this would run headlong into

a colonial society that was more

406

:

confident than ever in its rights

and liberties as Englishmen.

407

:

By 1763, as our textbook notes, colonists

felt that they were not being treated

408

:

as full British subjects, and they saw

the new imperial reforms and taxation.

409

:

As direct threats to the very liberties

that they believed were their birthright.

410

:

The victory celebrations had hardly

ended when Parliament began to pass

411

:

a series of new laws designed to

make the colonies pay their share.

412

:

These include the Sugar Act and

the Stamp Act, and we'll get to

413

:

all of those in the next episode.

414

:

These weren't, however,

just taxes to the colonists.

415

:

They were a direct

assault on their freedom.

416

:

Next time on Star Spangled studies the

arguments over T and taxes becomes a

417

:

battle over liberty and representation.

418

:

The road to Revolution begins and will

to pick up the road in our next episode.

419

:

I'm Dr.

420

:

G, and I'll see y'all in the past.

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About the Podcast

Star-Spangled Studies
Star-Spangled Studies is a college-level U.S. history podcast created by professional historian Dr. G—built for students, teachers, and curious listeners alike. Season 1 covers the era from 1865 to the present, using The American Yawp, a free and open educational resource (OER) textbook, as its guide. Each episode unpacks key events, movements, and ideas that shaped the modern United States—through rich narrative, scholarly insight, and accessible storytelling.

Whether you're enrolled in a course or exploring history on your own, you’ll get clear, engaging episodes that follow the chapters of The American Yawp. Bring your curiosity, download the textbook, and join Dr. G for a star-spangled journey through American history.

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