S1E5 The American Revolution: From Loyal Subjects to Rebels | American Yawp Chapter 5 Explained
In Episode 5 of Star-Spangled Studies, Dr. G unpacks Chapter 5 of The American Yawp, tracing the radical shift from proud British subjects (post-1763) to bold American rebels. Topics covered include:
• Aftermath of the Seven Years’ War and imperial debt
• Royal Proclamation of 1763 and colonial backlash
• Stamp Act upheaval and “No Taxation Without Representation”
• Intersection of the Great Awakening & Enlightenment ideas
• Boston Massacre, Tea Party & Intolerable Acts
• Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence
• Key battles, Franco-American alliance & Yorktown victory
• Loyalists, women & the paradox of slavery in a revolution of liberty
**Links & Resources:**
– Textbook: [The American Yawp – Chapter 5: The Revolution](https://www.americanyawp.com/text/05-revolution/)
– Instagram: [@star_spangled_studies](https://www.instagram.com/star_spangled_studies)
– Facebook: [Star-Spangled Studies](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576389415625)
Transcript
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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:Now I want you to picture something.
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:It's 1763.
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:The British Empire is on top of the world.
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:They had just defeated their arch
rival in France and they won the
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:massive global conflict, possibly what
we might call the first World War.
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:The Seven Years War, or the
French and Indian War in America,
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:the colonists are celebrating.
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:A young Philadelphia named Benjamin
Rush visiting parliament saw the king's
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:throne and he said, quote, he felt
as if he walked on sacred ground with
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:emotions that I cannot describe and quote.
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:They, the colonists were proud.
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:To be British.
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:They were British subjects and they
felt that they enjoyed a degree of Li
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:liberty that was simply unknown in the
absolute monarchies of France and Spain.
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:Fast forward, just over a decade, those
same colonists are at war with that same
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:empire declaring their independence and
severing those emotional ties forever.
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:How on earth did this happen?
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:That's our question today and the answer
as future President John Adams would later
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:argue wasn't just about battles and taxes
he wrote, and this may be one of my all
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:time favorite quotes, quote, but what
do we mean by the American Revolution?
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:Do we mean the American War?
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:The revolution was affected
before the war commenced.
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:The revolution was in the
minds and hearts of the people.
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:This radical change in principles,
opinions, sentiments, and affection of the
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:people was the real American Revolution.
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:End quote.
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:I.
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:That was powerful stuff.
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:But today we are going to journey
into those minds and hearts.
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:We're gonna trace the path
from proud British subjects
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:to defiant American rebels.
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:We'll look at the imperial blunders, the
powerful ideas, the riots in the streets,
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:and the quiet revolutions happening in
homes and churches across the colonies.
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:That all eventually led to the
birth of these United States.
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:So grab your Trico hats.
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:The story of the American
Revolution begins now.
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:So let's go.
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:The year 1763 should have been.
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:A monument of triumph
for the British Empire.
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:The Treaty of Paris had just been signed.
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:The seven years war was over.
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:In fact, historian Winston Churchill,
who was later a British Prime Minister,
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:he called this the first World
War Britain had vanquished France.
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:It's.
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:Longtime enemy and it seized vast
territories in North America,
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:including Canada and all land
east of the Mississippi River.
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:The colonists who had fought
alongside the British red coats
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:were jubilant at this situation.
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:Benjamin Franklin, as I had mentioned
episode, wrote to a friend in:
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:about the mood of the colonist quote.
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:No one can rejoice more sincerely than I
do the reduction and the defeat of Canada.
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:And this not merely as I am a colonist,
but as I am a Britain end quote,
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:but victory as it so often does.
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:Came with a massive hangover.
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:The war, as one historian has put, it
had been enormously expensive and the
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:British national debt had nearly doubled.
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:Parliament back in London now faced
the daunting task of governing
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:and defending a much larger and
more complex American empire.
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:Their solution was to keep a standing army
of 10,000 British troops in North America,
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:a decision that would lead to quote.
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:A variety of problems with the colonists
End quote and cost a staggering
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:250,000 pounds sterling per year.
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:The first major policy to emerge from this
new reality was the Royal Proclamation of
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:1763, which I had mentioned last episode.
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:I.
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:Fresh off the brutal Frontier
Conflict, known as Pontiac's War or
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:Pontiac's Rebellion, a pan-Indian
uprising against British policies,
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:the Crown sought to avoid a more
costly war with those on the frontier.
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:To do this, it drew a line right down
the spine of the Appalachian Mountains
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:and simply forbade the colonial
settlements from moving west of it.
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:The language was stark ordering any white
settlers to remove themselves immediately.
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:For many colonists, especially
the ambitious Gentry class.
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:Who saw their future
fortunes in the Western land?
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:Speculation.
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:This was a stunning blow.
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:George Washington, a land
speculator himself was furious.
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:He fumed that the proclamation
was discriminatory, preventing
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:colonists from acquiring valuable
lands and paying off personal debts.
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:In a letter to a friend, he revealed
his true feelings dismissing the king's
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:decree as nothing more than a quote.
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:Temporary expedient to quiet
the minds of the Indians.
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:End quote.
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:He urged his friend to ignore it.
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:Quote, any person therefore, who neglects
the present opportunity of hunting
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:out good lands will never regain it.
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:End quote.
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:This reaction shows more than
just economic frustration.
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:It reme reveals if fundamental
breakdown in respect for the
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:king and imperial authority.
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:This ideological shock was
a critical turning point.
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:Before 1763, colonists largely
saw themselves as partners in
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:a glorious British enterprise.
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:They saw themselves as British
subjects with British rights
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:afforded to all British subjects.
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:The proclamation, however,
treated them not as partners in
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:this British enterprise, but.
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:As peoples to be managed and contained.
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:It wasn't just a line on the map,
it was more like a line in the sand.
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:Historians have argued that the
resentment, it caused quote, bonded
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:Americans of varying socioeconomic
backgrounds on a philosophical
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:level, and it marked the beginning
of a clear ideological break with
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:the mother country end quote.
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:It planted the first seeds of
a common American identity and
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:grievance, and it was defined by that
shared grievance against a distant
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:authority that didn't understand
the realities across the Atlantic.
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:With the empire's finances in
shambles, the British Parliament
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:turned to the colonies to help
pay for the war in the Army.
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:Now stationed there, this unleashed a
flurry of legislation that colonists came
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:to call the Alphabet Soup of Taxation,
the Sugar Act of:
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:Act of 1764, and the Townsend Acts of
:
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:the colonies and to raise tax revenue.
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:To pay one for the war, and two for
the continued soldiers that remained.
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:But the one that truly ignited a firestorm
colonies was the stamp Act of:
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:This was the first direct internal
tax levied on the colonists
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:by parliament requiring a paid
stamp on nearly all paper goods.
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:You wanna buy a newspaper,
you're gonna need a stamp.
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:Do you want to get something notarized
or another legal document, like a will?
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:You gotta pay a stamp?
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:Do you wanna buy playing cards?
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:Yeah, those need a stamp.
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:It affected literally everyone.
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:The core of the conflict wasn't
just about the money to be paid,
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:although that was a part of it.
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:It created a profound
constitutional co uh, crisis.
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:The colonists who saw themselves
as possessing all the rights
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:of Englishmen, rallied around
a cry that we all know today.
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:No taxation without representation.
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:They argued that only their own
elected local colonial assemblies,
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:not some distant parliament.
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:Where they had no representatives
had the right to tax them.
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:The British government countered with
a theory and it wasn't a good one.
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:The theory of virtual representation,
claiming that the members of Parliament
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:represented the interests of all
British subjects wherever they lived.
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:This was a fundamental and
ultimately inconceivable and
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:irreconcilable disagreement.
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:And it really turned the head of
many in the colonies about the nature
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:of power, liberty, and the effects,
or at least how far the British
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:Constitution went in protecting them.
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:This growing anger wasn't just happening
in the halls of colonial assemblies.
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:It was being fueled by a revolution
of ideas happening in the colonies.
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:These ideas were being circulated
in churches in taverns and in
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:the inflates of popular press.
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:With each new taxation.
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:With each new setback, the seeds
of revolution started to sprout.
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:Last episode, we had talked about the
Great Awakening, but the Great Awakening
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:is only really possible with another huge
movement that happens at the same time.
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:And that's the enlightenment and I.
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:Even though the Great Awakening and the
Enlightenment are seemingly at odds,
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:the two of them together converged to
create a population in the colonies
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:uniquely primed to question authority
and imagine a different future.
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:The Great Awakening, as we talked about,
was a massive transatlantic religious
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:revival, and it swept through the colonies
in the decades of the:
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:It was emotional, it was personal.
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:Maybe most important, it
was profoundly democratic.
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:Anybody could be a part of it.
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:These charismatic itinerant preachers
like the Englishman George Whitfield,
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:who traveled from town to town and
giving these fiery sermons to huge
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:crowds, uh, because established
churches wouldn't let him in.
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:His message was simple.
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:Formal religion was not enough.
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:Simply going to church, didn't.
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:Fulfill nor lead you to heaven.
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:Each individual needed to
cultivate a direct as well as
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:emotional conversion experience.
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:They needed a new birth.
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:Even a skeptic like Benjamin
Franklin found himself.
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:Captivated by Whitfield's powerful Oratory
Franklin recounted attending one of his
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:sermons, having decided to beforehand
not to donate to Whitfield's cause.
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:But as the sermon progressed, Franklin
softened first deciding to give him his
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:copper coins, then his silver, and finally
he was so moved that he quote, emptied my
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:pocket wholly into the collector's dish.
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:Golden all End quote.
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:While Whitfield moved hearts with passion
preachers like Jonathan Edwards of
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:Massachusetts moved them with terror.
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:We had talked about sinners
in the hands of an angry God.
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:I.
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:In a time before electricity, these
sermons had the effect of electricity
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:causing people to cry out in fear
and to seek immediate salvation.
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:The emphasis on individual experience
challenged the authority of the
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:established clergy, the old light,
and they were seen as being uninspired
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:and stoic and not really progressive.
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:More importantly as historian Mark
Noel observed, the awakening was quote,
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:America's first truly national event,
and it created a shared cultural and
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:religious experience that connected
colonists from New England to Georgia.
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:Running parallel to this wave of
religious fervor was the enlightenment.
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:The enlightenment was a philosophical
movement that celebrated reason,
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:scientific inquiry, and natural rights.
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:Many famous thinkers like John Locke
argued that individuals possess inherent
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:rights to life, liberty, and property,
and that government was a contract
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:created to protect those rights.
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:This intellectual current fostered a deep
suspicion of unchecked power like kings.
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:This is vividly demonstrated in the
trial of John Peter Zenger in:
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:that we had talked about last episode.
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:Nevertheless, for decades,
historians have debated the real
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:cause of the American revolution.
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:Was it a high-minded intellectual
struggle for liberty or was it
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:driven by the economic and social
grievances of different classes?
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:There are different schools of
thought within this, but maybe the
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:most compelling understanding lies
in the synthesis of several views.
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:As Gary Nash puts it, quote,
everyone has economic interests
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:and everyone has an ideology.
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:End quote, the two are
not mutually exclusive.
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:Economic grievances filled with
philosophical and ideological
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:differences about liberty and natural
rights provided the language and
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:the intellectual framework that
colonists needed to articulate the.
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:They're very real grievances about
economic and social structure.
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:The fear of being reduced to
slavery by British taxation.
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:That's the words the colonists use.
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:And this idea was so potent
precisely because the very real
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:institution of chattel slavery was
a daily reality in their world.
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:So the ideas of the Enlightenment
and the great awakening gave meaning,
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:justification, and a revolutionary power
to the anger that they felt in the docs,
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:in the workshops, and in the farms.
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:Across the colonies, ideas are
powerful, but they don't start
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:a revolution on their own.
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:They need action.
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:And that action came in Boston, a city
simmering already with resentment.
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:Action that was about to
explode onto the streets.
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:The intellectual and religious fervor
of the mid 18th century provided
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:the Tinder, but it was a series of
escalating confrontations centered.
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:The fiery report of Boston
that provided the spark.
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:A key battleground in this conflict
was surprisingly, the marketplace.
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:The colonies had undergone a consumer
revolution becoming enthusiastic
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:buyers of British goods like the tea,
textiles and fine mahogany furniture.
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:This trade tied them culturally and
economically to the Empire themes
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:that we checked out last episode.
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:But when Parliament began imposing
new taxes, colonists weaponized
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:their consumption patterns.
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:They organized non importation agreements.
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:They boycotted British goods in a
powerful display of collective resistance.
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:Wearing home spun cloth instead
of the fine British textiles
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:became a political statement.
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:They.
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:Badge of virtue against what
they saw as British luxury and
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:consumption and British overreach.
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:This economic pressure cooker
was bound to explode, and it did.
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:March 5th, 1770.
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:Tensions between resentful Bostonians
and the British soldiers quartered in
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:their cities erupted into violence.
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:A street confrontation
escalated until panicked.
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:British red coats fired into a
crowd killing five colonists.
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:Patriots like Paul Revere and Sam
Adams immediately seized on the event
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:branding it the Boston Massacre.
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:Revere's famous engravings of
the incident depicted organized
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:British soldiers firing on helpless.
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:Unarmed crowd was a masterpiece of
propaganda that circulated throughout
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:the colonies, flaming the flames
of anti British resentment, but
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:it didn't start the revolution.
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:Three years later, another protest
sent shockwaves across the Atlantic.
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:In 1773, parliament passed the Tea Act.
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:It wasn't a new tax, but it actually gave
the struggling British East India company
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:a monopoly on the American tea trade.
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:I.
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:The colonists saw this as a Trojan
horse, a sneaky attempt to make them
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:accept parliament's right to tax them.
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:On the night of December 16th, 1773,
a group of the Sons of Liberty thinly
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:disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded
three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped
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:342 chests of tea into the water.
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:This act of defiance, which became known
as the Boston Tea Party, was a direct
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:assault on British property and authority.
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:But that didn't start the revolution.
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:Parliament reacted and it was
swift, and boy was it punitive.
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:In 1774, it passed a series of
laws that the colonists dubbed the
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:intolerable Acts or the coercive acts.
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:They were designed to crush
Massachusetts and make an example
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:of it for its disobedience.
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:The most draconian was the Boston
Port Act, which closed the city's
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:harbor to all trade until the
destroyed tea was paid for.
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:It was basically an economic death
sentence, but instead of isolating
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:Massachusetts, the intolerable acts
actually had an opposite effect.
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:The other colonies saw the
punishment of Boston as an attack
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:on the rights of all Americans.
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:Hey, if they could do this to
Boston, they can do this to us in
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:a remarkable display of solidarity.
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:Other colony sent supplies
to the blockade city.
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:This shared threat led to the convening
of the first continental Congress in
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:Philadelphia in 1774, where delegates
from 12 of the 13 colonies met to
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:coordinate a unified resistance.
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:It was a momentous step
to towards nationhood.
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:Yet, even as war callouts are gathering,
most colonists still hesitated at the
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:final radical step of independence.
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:That changed in January, 1776 with the
publication of a 47 page pamphlet that
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:would alter the course of history.
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:I.
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:Common sense by Thomas Payne.
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:Payne was a recent immigrant from England,
and he wrote, not in the lofty language
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:of philosophers, but in the plain,
fiery language of the common person.
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:He attacked the very idea of monarchy as
absurd, and the institution of hereditary
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:succession as an insult to reason.
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:He famously argued, quote.
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:Small islands not capable of protecting
themselves are the proper objects for
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:kingdoms to take under their care.
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:But there is something absurd in
supposing a continent to be perpetually
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:governed by an island end quote.
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:Pain reframed the entire conflict,
elevating it from a dispute over taxes to
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:a world historical struggle for liberty.
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:Declaring quote, the cause of America is
a great measure, the cause of all mankind.
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:Common sense became an instant bestseller.
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:It sold an estimated 150,000 copies
and reached hundreds of thousands of
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:more people through public readings
in taverns and in town squares.
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:It shattered one of the final
psychological barriers to independence
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:and convinced countless Americans that
the complete break with Britain was not
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:just necessary but a moral imperative.
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:Payne's words turned a colonial rebellion.
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:A revolution for a new kind of nation.
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:The final step was to make it official.
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:The Declaration of Independence
and the brutal war that fought to
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:make its war and a reality is next.
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:The War of Independence didn't begin with.
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:A grand declaration, but with the
crack of a musket on a village green.
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:On April 19th, 1775, British
troops marched from Boston to seize
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:colonial arms stored in Concord.
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:They were met by colonial militia
men in Lexington, and the quote, shot
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:heard round the world, ignited a war.
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:The fighting that day, which saw
the British harassed all the way
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:back to Boston by swarms of farmers
and artisans, prove that this would
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:be no easy rebellion to crush.
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:A year later, July 4th, 1776, the
second Continental Congress adopted
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:the Declaration of Independence,
primarily the work of Thomas Jefferson.
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:This document was far more than
a political breakup letter.
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:It was a profound philosophical statement
In an indictment of King George III,
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:laying out a list of grievances to
justify the rebellion to the world.
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:Its most endearing and enduring
passage, of course, proclaimed
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:a new basis of government.
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:Quote.
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:We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal, that
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:they are endowed by their creator
with certain unalienable rights,
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:that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
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:This language of universal rights
would become the American creed.
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:A promise the New nation would
spend the next two centuries.
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:Struggling to live up to.
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:On paper, the fight was
a colossal mismatch.
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:The colonists were taking on
the 18th century equivalent.
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:Of a superpower.
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:The life of a common soldier
in the continental Army was
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:one of incredible hardship.
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:We can see this in their own words.
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:They faced brutal winters, chronic
shortages of food, clothing, and pay.
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:General Washington sharing in their
suffering of Valley Forge constantly
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:pleaded with Congress for support
amidst the immense public burden.
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:The personal toll was also heavy.
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:A letter to his wife, Martha, during
the war Washington wrote, I retain
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:an unalterable affection for you,
which neither time nor distance
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:can change a point and reminder
of the human cost of the conflict.
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:So how did the Patriots win?
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:Well, the turning point came in 1777
with the stunning American victory at the
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:Battle of Saratoga in upstate New York.
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:This victory was monumental because
it convinced France that the American
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:cause was not a hopeless one.
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:Benjamin Franklin, the diplomatic genius,
leveraged the victory to secure a formal
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:alliance with Britain's old rival.
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:The entry of France into the war
transformed the conflict from a colonial
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:rebellion into another global war.
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:Suddenly, Britain had to defend its empire
in the Caribbean, in Europe, and in India.
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:The French provided the
Americans with money, weapons,
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:soldiers, and most crucially.
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:A Navy.
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:That Navy proved decisive in the
fall of:
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:The French fleet under Admiral Degrass
blockaded the Chesapeake Bay cutting off
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:any chance of escape or reinforcement
for the main British army under Lauren
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:Corn Wallace trapped in the peninsula.
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:Kowa was besieged by a combined force
of American and French troops led by
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:Washington and the Compte RoCE Bo.
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:On October 19th, 1781, Kowa surrendered.
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:The world was quite literally, I.
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:Turned upside down.
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:The war was effectively over.
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:The war was won, independence was
secured, but the revolution was
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:not just a war against Britain.
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:It was a war that tore
American society apart.
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:So who truly won and who lost?
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:Well, that's what we'll talk about next.
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:The American Revolution was, in many
ways, America's first civil war.
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:The society was deeply divided.
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:While Patriots fought for independence,
an estimated 20% of the colonial
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:population remained loyalist, those
faithful to the British crown.
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:These were often the royal
officials, Anglican clergymen, or
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:merchants whose livelihood depended
on the trade with the empire.
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:They faced harassment, they had their
property confiscated, and many were
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:forced into exile, becoming refugees,
many of which fled to Canada or England.
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:Their voices offer a powerful counter
narrative to the triumphant patriot story.
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:The loyalist writer James Chalmers, in his
pamphlet Plain Truth argued that a break
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:with Britain would lead to chaos, claiming
that for the colonies, quote, independence
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:and slavery are synonymous terms.
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:End quote.
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:Governor William Franklin of New Jersey,
Benjamin Franklin's own son warned the
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:rebels that they were choosing a road
that would lead to anarchy, misery,
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:and all the horrors of a civil war.
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:End quote, the revolutionary fervent.
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:Also stirred women to question
their place in society.
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:They had been central to the resistance
during and before and during the war.
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:They organized boycotts and they
managed farms and businesses.
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:In the absence of men, the rhetoric
of liberty was not lost on them,
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:and the most famous expression
of which came from Abigail Adams.
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:In a letter to her husband, John Adams,
in March of:
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:founders were contemplating independence,
she issued a powerful plea quote.
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:I desire you would remember the
ladies and be more generous and
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:favorable to them than your ancestors.
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:Do not put such unlimited power
into the hands of their husbands.
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:End quote.
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:Then came the famous warning quote, if
particular care and attention is not
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:paid to the ladies, we are determined
to foment a rebellion and will not hold
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:ourselves bound by any laws in which
we have no voice or representation.
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:John Adams reply was telling.
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:He dismissed her plea laughing off
her extraordinary code of laws and
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:joking that men knew better than
to repeal their masculine systems.
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:He refused to give up the name
of Masters to what he called
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:the despotism of the petite.
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:This exchange perfectly captures both
the radical potential and the limits
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:of the revolution's promise for women.
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:A new republic was being born, but
its patriarchal structure would try to
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:remain and it would firmly in place.
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:Nowhere was the revolution's hypocrisy,
more glaring than on the issue of slavery.
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:The colonists cried out against
being enslaved by the British and
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:their taxes while they themselves.
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:Held hundreds of thousands of
people in slavery, and this
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:contradiction was not lost on anyone.
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:African slaves seized the moment using
the Patriot's own revolutionary language.
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:To demand their freedom.
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:In 1775 Virginia's Royal Governor, Lord
Dunmore, seeing this contradiction issued
427
:a proclamation offering freedom to any
enslaved man who escaped his patriot
428
:master and joined the British cause.
429
:Thousands of enslaved people
risked their lives to do so.
430
:Turning the war into possibly the
largest slave rebellion in American
431
:history up until that point.
432
:At the same time, thousands
of black men fought.
433
:For the Patriot cause despite George
Washington's initial reluctance to arm
434
:them, black soldiers like Peter Salem
served with distinction from the earliest
435
:battles, including the one in Bunker
Hill and throughout the war people.
436
:Especially enslaved people
submitted petitions to colonial
437
:legislatures, brilliantly turning
the language of the Declaration of
438
:Independence against their masters.
439
:A 1777 petition to the Massachusetts
legislature from a great number of
440
:blacks detained in a state of slavery,
declared that they quote, have in
441
:common with all other men a natural
and unalienable right to that freedom.
442
:They pointedly noted that inconsistency
of acting themselves, the part which
443
:they condemn and oppose in others, stop
being hypocrites, is what they said.
444
:So while the revolution certainly did not
end slavery, it created the ideological
445
:crisis that would lead several generations
later to slavery's eventual demise.
446
:The glaring contradiction
between the New Nation's ideals.
447
:The New Nation's realities
became impossible to ignore.
448
:This pressure from both black and white
Americans produced the world's first
449
:large scale anti-slavery movement.
450
:The first Abolition Society was
founded in Philadelphia in:
451
:During the war, Vermont abolished slavery
outright In:
452
:the first Gradual Abolition Act, and
other Northern States would soon follow.
453
:I.
454
:The Revolution acted
as a powerful catalyst.
455
:It provided the moral and philosophical
language that abolitionists would
456
:wield for the next 80 years, and
force the new nation to confront
457
:the original sin and the lasting
contradiction that lay at its heart.
458
:For most Native Americans, however, the
revolution was an unmitigated disaster
459
:caught between two imperial powers.
460
:Most Native Americans
like the Iwo Confederacy.
461
:Ultimately sided with the British whom
they saw as a more distant and less land
462
:hungry power than the American colonists.
463
:When Britain lost their allies were
abandoned at the peace negotiations
464
:and left to face the full.
465
:Unrestrained expansion
of the new United States.
466
:The Patriot Victory was a
catastrophic one for Native American
467
:peoples east of the Mississippi.
468
:So what was the American Revolution?
469
:As John Adams said, it was a
change in the minds of the people.
470
:It was a constitutional crisis
that became a war for independence.
471
:It was a civil war that pitted
neighbors against each other.
472
:It was a moment of radical
possibility for some, and a moment
473
:of profound betrayal for others.
474
:In the end, the Patriots won.
475
:They had defeated the most powerful
empire on earth, and as the smoke
476
:cleared, they faced a new, perhaps
even more daunting challenge.
477
:They had thrown off the authority
of a king in parliament.
478
:What would they replace it with?
479
:They were no longer colonies, but
13 independent states, jealous
480
:of their own power in their first
attempt at a national government.
481
:The articles of Confederation
would create a government so
482
:weak it could barely function.
483
:It led to debt rebellion and the
terrifying prospect that their hard one
484
:revolution might collapse into chaos.
485
:So how did they pull back from the brink?
486
:How did they create the framework
for the nation we know today?
487
:Well join me next time
on Star Spangled Studies.
488
:As we dive into that Turbulence
:
489
:and the dramatic debates that forged
the United States Constitution.
490
:I'm Dr.
491
:G.
492
:I'll see y'all
493
:in the past.
