The bell of liberty
that never rang, once.
Events leading up
to the revolutionary war
The
French & Indian War
1756-1763
(The
Seven Years War)
The French and Indian
War, the final Colonial War, 1689-1763, was given the name, the seven year war,
a conflagration that involved Austria, England, France, Great Britain, Prussia,
and Sweden. The English ultimately won the war but at a financial cost so
staggering the resulting debt nearly destroyed the English government.
With the victory the English
retained its mantle of Empire and self proclaimed, greatest nation and military
power on the earth. They held on to their colonial holdings but the long
campaign and liabilities assumed, temped the chest thumping victory dance, down
to near zero. It was more like a collective sigh of relief.
The war left the Empire
in complete shambles and England had no way of recouping the loses from the
wreckage so with vigor they turned their full attentions to the only colonial
holdings they held not affected by the French Indian war, the American colonies.
Their objective was to use the monies exacted from the Americas and invest it back
into the East India Company and get it back in the black and profitable as
quickly as possible. Simple enough.
But
enough is enough
In 1765 a group Englishmen land/slave owners, living in the colonies, angry
over the exorbitant taxes extracted from them, all without representation, formed
a alliance and called for revolution.
King George III, hearing reports of a
burgeoning rebellion responded to the grievances
of the Son’s, in the same manner George III addressed all such disputes, by education.
The lessons would be given by British troops in Boston on the morning of March
5th 1770.
Lesson number one, England
was still a formidable military power to reckon with and lesson two, they, the
colonist, were still and would always remain, British subjects, under British
law.
The schooling, thereafter
called the Boston Massacre as intended, a horrific display of England military
power and insurmountable cruelty. Customarily
the slaughter would have continued forward until the last vestiges of any opposition
were all dead, but that time it was different.
England had always
considered the colonies to be an extension of England’s mainland itself and
because, until now, the colonies posed no military threat the Crown found no
need to spend the money to ensconce a heavy military presence there to maintain
stability and give periodic lessons.
But after Boston.
England proceeded with haste to put such a force in place thereby assuring any civil disobedience ever happened again. England’s
lack of troops and near bankrupt coffers didn’t allow England to sustained the butchery
to its desired conclusion.
Subsequently the
uprising and protest continued and England’s inability to quickly respond with unremitting
brute force the protest continued. And each time the military left its job undone
it became more costly and longer to eradicate the next time.
But the massacres left
no doubt in the minds of the land/slave owners and the people, that Boston was just
the opening salvo.
If
I can’t have it then I will have it all!
With the French and
Indian War winding down, the most feared troops on the planet, the British real
army, many of whom mercenaries who salaries derived strictly from the booty
they looted, pillage, plundered while dispatching with savage abandonment the
most indescribable carnage imagined, their next destination would assuredly be
the American colonies.
The people watched in
dread, the ever increasing presence of British troops marching across their
farm lands, taking food from their store houses to feed their troops without paying
for it and at the first sign of any form of protest, ruthlessly cut through the protestors like a warm knife
through soft butter.
But for most of
the people there was a unsatisfying but safe way out. Long live the King!
The people hated George
III as much as the l/s owners but they hated
the l/s owners as much as they did George III and reconciled themselves to the
sobering conclusion, to fight for the l/s owners and win would leave the l/s owner,
the law of the land.
For many living under the rule of the l/s-owners, was considered
to be a fate far worst than George III and likened it to, going from the frying
pan, straight into the fire.
All
alone and their backs against the wall
With no trained army to
fight against the formidable Red Coats the l/s-owners relied on
sympathetic supporter or private armies they paid to defend their estates. All
the while the insurrection was quickly becoming exclusively, the rebellion of
the l/s-owners and their paid army was iffy at best.
The
Protestants
Descendants
of Plymouth Rock
In 1770’s Boston of the
top 1% of the population, 44% owned all
the city's wealth. This disparity of affluence was the norm throughout the
entire the thirteen colonies.
The bloody massacre of
March 5th 1770 confirmed for the Son's that they were still very much
under British law despite distance and there was more than enough money in
England’s near empty war chest to obliterate them, many, many times over.
They agreed, things
were going to get worst so with little recourse they boldly declared themselves
to be, no longer British subjects or even Englishmen nor even colonists, they
were now, ‘Sons of Liberty’. and called to all men, who were white who longed to be free, to join them in the fight. A call the people found laughable
since most of the l/s owners were way past fighting anything but a mild cold.
And they said,
Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and
let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole
earth.
And the Son's, set
about to the task of forging a new society built on a foundation of
‘multi culture ethnics’ comprised of,
English, Dutch, German, Scots-Irish and other Europeans.
Also by contact with Native Americans and African
slaves.
The constitution
submitted by the landowners came pouring in but the would be constitutions all
essentially proposed or said the same exact things, namely.
Example
Article 1: Everything
will stay faithfully the same, with the exception, the rich Protestant
landowners will govern, as they see fit in the stead of England’s King Georage
III.
Article 2: The
landowners shall keep all their land, their power, their wealth, their slaves.
Article 3: The people
will have the right to fight and die for their country thus fulfilling God’s
divine work to establish His will on earth.
Or something to that
effect.
No
time left
How’s this? All
for one and one for all?
Doesn’t address
the realities.
Then how about, We
all hang together or we all hang separately?
The Son's, by now were
exclusively identified as the genesis for the revolt, realizing it was only a
matter of time before the kings forces gained a decisive footing, track each
and everyone of the Son’s down, joyfully
confiscate all of their property, hang each and everyone of the rebels their
families, friends and anybody else the King remotely thought to be sympathetic
to their cause.
Reconciled that writing
an inspirational constitution wasn’t as
easy as the Son’s had imagined they struggled with questions of, who would
govern the new ‘kingdom’? Where will the capitol be placed? and so on, until
the whole quest just melted into a pool of nondescript wrangling among the
Son’s, threatening to tear the fragile alliance asunder.
All the while the people
remained unmoved by any of their propagandistic proposals, but they continued
to hope. The people continued to listen to speeches and asked questions at town
hall meetings, held in secret, read the myriad of treatise, underground posters,
news letters, and papers distributed published and paid for by the landowners whose
rhetoric grew more desperate and
ridiculous with each passing day.
But a unifying constitution
that would entice, compel the people to the cause to their struggle that would ultimately
put the Son’s in the preeminent seat of authority and law, proved to be
elusive.
In a tight squeeze the Son’s
faced the fact their constitutional renderings failed to galvanize the people
and accept the dreaded realities that ultimately the constitution itself had to
come from the people themselves concluding, if the peoples composed the constitution
then in turn, it would be the peoples government and law and not the Son’s.
The descendants of
Jamestown the law in southern states had already composed a declaration of
independence, they were going to deliver
to the British King, in their good time. However the ill timed, ill conceived, blundererous stupidity of the northern protestants, the Son’s pushed
the timetable up considerable.
North
goes south to the Big house
The House of Burgesses ***
In April, 1619,
Governor George Yeardley arrived in Virginia from England and announced that
the Virginia Company had voted to abolish martial law and create a legislative
assembly.
It became the House of Burgesses the first legislative assembly in the American colonies.
The first assembly met on July 30, 1619, in the church at Jamestown. Present were Governor Yeardley, Council, and 22 burgesses representing 11 plantations (or settlements) Burgesses were elected representatives. Only white men who owned a specific amount of property were eligible to vote for Burgesses.
On 12 March 1773 the House of Burgesses resolved to establish a Committee of Intercolonial Correspondence. Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, and several other Virginians held a secret meeting at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg.
They discussed how to
organize public opinion against the British, and they realized that they needed
a better way to share information with the other colonies.
They began to form a
plan of action, starting with a series of resolutions calling for the
restoration of colonial rights and liberties.
The House of Burgesses
passed the resolutions unanimously, including one that established an
eleven-man standing committee to keep tabs on Parliament. One year later,
delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. ***
***http://www.ushistory.org/us/2f.asp
ISamuelyea
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