Everyday People and the American Revolution
June 29, 2012
By John W. Whitehead
We elevate the events of the American Revolution to near-mythical
status all too often and forget that the real revolutionaries were
people just like you and me. Caught up in the drama of Red Coats
marching, muskets exploding and flags waving in the night, we lose sight
of the enduring significance of the Revolution and what makes it
relevant to our world today. Those revolutionaries, by and large, were
neither agitators nor hotheads. They were not looking for trouble or
trying to start a fight. Like many today, they were simply trying to
make it from one day to another, a task that was increasingly difficult
as Britain’s rule became more and more oppressive.
The American Revolution did not so much start with a bang as with a
whimper—a literal cry for relief from people groaning under the weight
of Britain’s demands. The seeds of discontent had been sown early on. By
the time the Stamp Act went into effect on November 1, 1765, the
rumbling had become a roar.
The Stamp Act, passed by the British Parliament with no representation
from the colonies (thus raising the battle cry of “no taxation without
representation”), required that revenue stamps be affixed to all printed
materials. It was an onerous tax that affected every colonist who
engaged in any type of business. Outraged at the imposition, the
colonists responded with a flood of pamphlets, speeches and resolutions.
They staged a boycott of British goods and organized public protests,
mass meetings, parades, bonfires and other demonstrations.
Mercy Otis Warren was an active propagandist against the British and a
prime example of the critical, and often overlooked, role that women
played in the Revolution. Historian Nina Baym writes, “With the
exception of Abigail Adams, no woman in New England was more embroiled
in revolutionary political talk than Mercy Otis Warren.” Warren penned
several plays as a form of protest, including The Group in 1775. As Baym writes: “The Group
is a brilliant defense of the revolutionary cause, a political play
without a patriot in it. In letting the opposition drop their masks of
decency, Warren exposes them as creatures of expediency and selfishness,
men who are domestic as well as political tyrants.”
Although Parliament repealed the Stamp Tax in 1766, it boldly moved to
pass the Townshend Acts a year later. The Townshend Acts addressed
several issues. First, any laws passed by the New York legislature were
suspended until the colony complied with the Quartering Act, which
required that beds and supplies be provided for the king’s soldiers. And
duties (or taxes) were imposed on American imports of glass, lead,
paint, paper and tea.
Americans responded in outrage through printed materials and boycotts. In Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer,
which appeared in newspapers and pamphlets, attorney John Dickinson
argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes for revenue. He also
cautioned that the cause of liberty be advanced with moderation. But as
historians George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi write, “Such
conciliatory language led John Adams to dismiss Dickinson as a ‘piddling
genius.’” Samuel Adams responded by organizing protests in Boston. And
in 1768, Samuel Adams and James Otis circulated a letter throughout the
colonies that reiterated their concerns about the illegality of British
taxation and asked for support from the other colonists. When an
official in London ordered that the letter be withdrawn, they refused.
By 1773, Samuel Adams had convinced the Boston town meeting to form a
“Committee of Correspondence,” a group of protesting American colonists.
The Committee issued a statement of rights and grievances and invited
other towns to do the same.
Thereafter, Committees of Correspondence sprang up across
Massachusetts. And in 1773, the Virginia Assembly proposed the formation
of Committees of Correspondence on an inter-colonial basis. A network
of committees spread across the colonies, mobilizing public opinion and
preventing colonial resentments from boiling over. As a result, the
Committees of Correspondence played a critical role in the unification
of the colonies. Author Nat Hentoff writes:
In 1805, Mercy Otis Warren—in her History of the Rise and Progress and Termination of the American Revolutions,
emphasized: “Perhaps no single step contributed so much to cement the
union of the colonies, and the final acquisition of independence, as the
establishment of the Committees of Correspondence . . . that produced
unanimity and energy throughout the continent.” These patriots spread
the news throughout the colonies about such British subversions of
fundamental liberties as the general search warrant that gave British
customs officers free reign to invade homes and offices in pursuit of
contraband.
We would do well to remember that, in the end, it was the courage and
resolve of common, everyday people that carried the day. Courage was a
key ingredient in the makeup of the revolutionaries. The following
vignette offers a glimpse of one man’s strong stand in the face of the
British army.
Two months before the battles of Lexington and Concord, the British
sent Colonel Leslie with 240 men to seize arms and ammunition which the
rebels had stored in Salem. As the troops approached town, residents
halted their progress by lifting the Northfield drawbridge. Several
inhabitants climbed onto the raised leaf of the bridge and engaged in a
shouting match with Colonel Leslie on the other side. William Gavett,
an eyewitness, reported the incident:
In the course of the debate between Colonel Leslie and the
inhabitants, the colonel remarked that he was upon the King’s Highway
and would not be prevented passing over the bridge.
Old Mr. James Barr, an Englishman and a man of much nerve, then replied to him: “It is not
the King’s Highway; it is a road built by the owners of the lots on the
other side, and no king, country or town has anything to do with it.”
Colonel Leslie was taken aback, but he pressed the issue; James Barr
held firm, knowing he was in the right. In the end, Leslie promised to
march only fifty rods “without troubling or disturbing anything” if the
residents of Salem would lower the bridge. The bridge came down, Leslie
kept his word, and the opening battle of the American Revolution was
postponed. Old James Barr had taken on the British empire with a few
simple words.
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