American History - Things Heat Up

Apparently not having a good sense of pattern recognition, in 1767 the British government passed a series of acts, which later became known as the Townshend Acts, meant to raise money from and assert better control over the Thirteen Colonies.  These included putting an import duty on a number of common goods; such as glass, paint, paper, and tea; creating more stringent laws to enforce said duties, and establishing courts directly controlled by the British government to prosecute smugglers, with the judges paid by the fines they collected.  They as well passed a law barring the New York assembly from making any new laws until they agreed to pay for housing and food for the British soldiers in the colony, to which the New York assembly immediately caved and did as they were told. 

As one can probably imagine, a good chunk of the colonists were every bit not as happy with this turn of events as they had been in the previous go around.  However, this time the Sons of Liberty were limited in what they could do about it.  The goods being taxed were in such high demand that it was impossible to get people to stop using them without turning a good chunk of the population against the Sons of Liberty.  As a result, the boycotts were not as effective as those against the Sugar Act and Stamp Act.  Not able to create economic pressure, they instead pursued a political strategy.  Of all the colonies, Massachusetts was perhaps the most up in arms over the Townshend Acts.  Though small, the colony was wealthy thanks to its merchants, most of whom smuggled goods to one degree or another.  Facing judges who had to find people guilty to pay their salaries and corrupt duty collectors who were more than happy to do a bit of racketeering, these merchants convinced the Massachusetts assembly to send a letter to the king demanding the Townshend Acts be revoked, and to call for all of the other colonies to do the same.  Outraged by this turn of events, and to prove they weren’t fucking around, the British government had the royal governors of Massachusetts and Virginia promptly dissolve their colonial assemblies. 

This proved to be a rather stupid thing to do, for son after a riot broke out in Boston, to which the British responded by occupying the city with soldiers and threatening to haul people back to Britain to stand trial for treason.  Rather than calming the situation, the presence of soldiers and threats further escalated it, eventually culminating in what became known as the Boston Massacre in 1770, wherein a mob attacked a group of British soldiers who responded by firing into the crowd, killing five.  Though the soldiers were later acquitted by a jury, the incident caused outrage across the Thirteen Colonies, which the British tried to calm by removing the duties on all goods but tea.  However, it was too little too late, and some of the more radical amongst the Sons of Liberty, who began to be called Patriots, began to talk of independence rather than a return to the status quo.  In 1772, a group of these radical Patriots in Rhode Island burned a British warship.   

To understand what happened next, you have to understand that throughout this period a number of colonial representatives in England were making the situation out to be a Massachusetts problem, both because they didn’t want Britain bothering them and also because many of them were secretly Patriots.  The colonists were becoming increasingly divided between Patriots and Loyalists and the Patriots figured the more the British fucked up the more it would push people onto their side.  As a result, the British decided to take a heavy-handed approach to Massachusetts, threatening to seize direct control over its judiciary.  In terms of fuck ups, this was a pretty big one, in that it sparked outrage across all of the colonies, which gave the Sons of Liberty the support they needed restart the boycott of British goods and the attacking of British and Loyalist officials.  To make matters worse, at the same time Britain entered into a severe economic recession which threatened to bankrupt its largest corporation, the East India Company.  In order to save a large portion of the British aristocracy from significant financial loss, the British government granted the East India Company the right to ship tea to the colonies duty free, to which the colonists responded by refusing to unload the East India Company ships when they arrived.  When the British tried to force the issue in Boston in 1773, Patriots threw the tea into the harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.

With things quickly spiraling out of control, the British government decided to put an end to things once and for all.  Still see Massachusetts as the primary issue, they passed a series of laws in 1774 which closed Boston harbor, made the governor of the colony a virtual dictator, barred the colonial courts from trying British soldiers, and gave the governors the power to force colonists to host soldiers in their homes.  Branded the Intolerable Acts by the Patriots, representatives from all Thirteen Colonies soon after met in Philadelphia in what became known as the First Continental Congress, where it was agreed to boycott the import of all British goods until the Intolerable Acts were repealed.  The boycotts were carried out by local committees who threatened, beat, and tarred and feathered anyone who wouldn’t comply.  At the same time, Patriots in Massachusetts formed an alternative shadow government and began openly stockpiling weapons and training militia.  In response, the British declared Massachusetts to be in a state or rebellion and preparations began to be made to end the insurgency as quickly as possible.         

American History - Don't Tax Me Bro

At the end of the French and Indian War, the British government had a bit of a problem.  The rapid growth of the British army during the conflict had resulted in a large number of politically well connected nobles serving in the army, who rather enjoyed getting paid to wear fancy coats and hats and yell at people all day.  Not wishing to piss them off, it was decided to retain the now larger army, but stationing said officers and their troops in Britain during peacetime was a no go.  Luckily, the outbreak of Pontiac’s War gave them the perfect excuse to station some 10,000 troops in the American colonies, officially to protect the colonies from future native attacks, but in reality to assert greater control over the colonies, which for many British officials were getting a bit too big for their britches.  To finance these troops, the British government passed the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act by 1765.  The Sugar Act put greater restrictions on the trade of molasses and other goods, and also made it so smugglers would be tried in Britain rather than the colonies.  The Stamp Act required all sorts of documents to be notarized by an official government notary, everything from legal documents, to newspapers, to almanacs, to pamphlets, to even playing cards. 

As can probably be imagined, all of this didn’t go down too well in the Thirteen Colonies.  Aside from the appointment of a Royal Governor, who in turn appointed various judges and tax collectors, the colonies had largely been left to run themselves, which meant that the wealthy folks who controlled the colonial assemblies basically did whatever the fuck they wanted.  However, the tightening grip of the British put at risk many of their more lucrative money-making schemes, such as buying and selling native lands and smuggling to name a few.  Ultimately, what the colonial elite wanted was to either be left alone, or barring that, seats in the British Parliament, which wasn’t a completely ridiculous idea given the population of the Thirteen Colonies was one third that of Britain at the time.  The notion that the British troops were there to protect the colonies was viewed as rather ridiculous given the French were no longer a threat and the fact that the colonies had always seen to their own defense until the French and Indian War.  To apply pressure these wealthy colonials had the colonial assemblies send letters of protest to Britain, formed committees to coordinate responses amongst neighboring colonies, and began printing numerous pamphlets and newspaper articles deriding the notion of taxation without representation.  Thanks to the colonies having the highest literacy rate in the world at the time and the wealthy colonists owning all the printing presses, this strategy was pretty damn effective in gaining support from the general population, especially in New England, which had been pushed deeper into an economic depression by the new British policies, and amongst the colonists living along the frontier who wanted to push further westward. 

While the war of words was playing out, groups of colonists in every colony increasingly decided to take more direct action.  Though many groups formed independently in every colony, they eventually collectively became known as the Sons of Liberty, which would probably be called anarchists or terrorists if they existed today.  While they did lead some more peaceful actions, such as protests and the boycott of the import of British goods, they also relied heavily on violence to get what they wanted.  Tax collectors, judges, loyalist newspaper printers, and random folks who refused to go along with the boycotts were threatened, beaten, tarred and feathered, and/or had their property smashed or burned.  Government buildings and documents were also destroyed. Though the leaders of these groups were often of the middle or upper class, the rank and file were often of the lower class, who being given an opportunity to strike out against those higher on the socio-economic scale, gladly took it.  As a result, demonstrations often turned into riots which quickly grew out of control. 

Rather alarmed by outbreak of mob violence, and facing increasing pressure from British merchants who were losing a shit ton of money due to the boycotts, the British government repealed the Sugar Act and Stamp Act in 1766.  This quelled the violence, but it did not remove the need to finance the British troops in the colonies, nor did it reverse the level of organization which had grown amongst the various Sons of Liberty groups.  By the time of the repeal, most groups were in regular contact with groups throughout each colony and neighboring colonies.  As well, representatives from nine colonies had met in the so-called Stamp Act Congress in 1765 to help coordinate resistance.  Though it’s estimated that only a third of the colonial population supported the actions of the Sons of Liberty, with another third loyalists and the remaining third neutral, resistance to the taxes had formed a sense of commonality amongst the colonies which had not existed before.  It was the beginning of something new.      

American History - Pontiac's War

By the start of 1761, the British army had managed to occupy all the French forts and trading posts in the Ohio Country and along the Great Lakes.  With Quebec conquered and the local Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples seemingly subdued, they began the process of integrating the new territory into the British Empire.  While the French had treated the various native nations and groups as allies and trading partners, the British, led by generals who had zero experience dealing with the natives, saw them as a conquered people.  As such, they stopped the practice of giving gifts to local leaders and restricted the sale of gunpowder.  Basically, they tried to swing their dicks around and ended up looking like a bunch of assholes.

Overall, the British couldn’t have chosen a worst time to act like a bunch of jackasses.  Smallpox was still ravaging the region, which combined with the French losing the war, was having a significant destabilizing affect on the political situation.  Native nations and towns were becoming increasingly divided between the old guard who did not wish to return to war and the more hawkish who wanted to get shit started again.  The end of the gift giving and the restriction of gunpowder, which many natives relied upon to hunt for both commerce and food, only pushed more natives into the let’s fuck some shit up side of things.  Several prominent native leaders, foremost amongst them a member of the Odawa nation named Pontiac, began to openly call for the various nations and tribes to unite to force the British out, and a religious movement swept across the region, combining native and European religious practices and calling for a return to a more traditional way of life.  For nearly two years tireless efforts by people on both sides managed to keep the peace, but it all came to an end in the spring of 1763 when the French formally surrendered all claims to the region.  The end of the possibility of the more amicable French returning tipped the scales and what had been a tinder box blew up into a fiery shit storm.  Pontiac and his followers attacked an important fort, an act which spurred others to attack forts and trading post across the Ohio Country and Great Lakes region, while others began raiding frontier settlements in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. 

What became known as Pontiac’s War was a real clusterfuck.  Caught by surprise, the British regulars in the area found themselves besieged and divided, while the colonies were quickly overwhelmed by thousands of refugees fleeing eastward.  Who exactly was doing the attacking was rather confusing.  Rather than specific nations or bands declaring war, the attackers were collections of individuals from across the Midwest and Great Lakes led by whichever leader happened to inspire them the most.  Having learned how to fight effectively together during the French and Indian War, they coalesced again, though often with very differing goals ranging from trying to force the British out, to revenge for past wrongs, to just wanting to raid and plunder.  As a result of this confusion, the British and colonists were unsure how to attack back, resulting in them just beating the crap out of any native they came upon.  Many colonies also enacted bounties, paying for any native scalp delivered.  In Pennsylvania, a paramilitary group known as the Paxton Boys slaughtered multiple native villages throughout the colony before being stopped by the colonial militia, most of whom were peaceful and largely assimilated into European culture.     

Not understanding the political situation across the Atlantic, many of the native fighters hoped their attacks would inspire the French to return or at least provide aid, which resulted in most French traders and settlers being left alone, but of course this was a hope in vain.  The chaos lasted for over a year, until the summer of 1764, when a combined force of British regulars and colonial militia marched into the Ohio Country, destroying every sign of native habitation they came upon.  The various nations and towns quickly did everything they could to show they were peaceful, including handing over those who had participated in the war, leading to most participants fleeing west for the relative safety of the Illinois Country.  Unwilling to pursue them, the British instead looked for a diplomatic solution.  First, the British re-established the old French way of doing things, providing gifts and generally recognizing the sovereignty of the native nations over their lands.  Second, the area between the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River were declared an Indian Reserve, where no Europeans could settle outside of sanctioned forts and trading posts.  As a result, the war was effectively over by 1765.

Though the natives were placated by the changes, they made others decidedly unhappy.  French settlers along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, forced to leave, largely re-settled around the now Spanish trading post of St. Louis, turning it into a burgeoning town.  Further east, colonists living along the Appalachian frontier, reacting with contempt, continued pushing deeper into what is today West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.  Unwilling to use force to stop the illegal settlements, the British instead negotiated treaties with the Cherokee and Iroquois Confederacy to buy the disputed territory, followed by a second treaty with the Cherokee in 1770 which purchased land in what is today eastern Tennessee.  Of course, in all of this the Shawnee and several other native groups, who actually lived in the area, were not consulted.  As a result, a short but violent conflict called Lord Dunmore’s War broke out in 1774, which ended with the Virginia militia forcefully pushing the natives west across the Ohio River.  Overall, the British attempts to create an Indian Reserve did little to end conflict, instead just setting as standard the belief that assimilation and peaceful coexistence between colonists and natives was impossible.