Events that lead to the American Revolution part 1

Jeff, Luke and Jack discuss the events that lead to the American Revolution. Part 1 of 2.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What's she gonna do? Brother?When Jeff Townsend media runs wild on you
America stories? Alright, alright,alright, welcome back to another story.

(00:29):
It's going to be an America story. I'm Jeff Townsend leading this circus,
joining me and the guys that doall the work because I just show up
the professor Luke and the teachers assistantrecording crazy ass Jackie Blue. Yeah.
So Jack's got a new mic.He's feeling good about it. Yeah,

(00:52):
he's got the fancy mic. Nowyou can't see it that it looks like
an alien spaceship lighting up in thebackground. He's feeling really good about it
RGB lighting. So yeah, soyou guys have been cooking up some good
stuff on the agenda for this episode. Yeah, excited. We just released
the first episode, which was TheHistory on the fourth of July, has

(01:15):
some pretty good feedback, so I'mexcited to dig into some more America stories.
Here where we start. Now,let's set the stage here, all
right, Well, we're going totalk about what led to the Revolutionary War,
Like, you know, what madeeveryone decide we've had enough, we

(01:36):
want our own country. And it'snot a simple yeo answer. It's multiple
things over many years building up,and the one of the first major things
is the stamp backed of seventeen sixtyfive. Oh, you know, I'm

(01:57):
excited about this. I just watchedmel Gibson's The Patriot on the fourth of
July, so I'm all revolutionary wardup. I don't really know the genesis
behind that story, So will thiswill be some interests and stories? Maybe
not is cold budded as the corporatekilling his son mel Gibson's son, But
it's going to be some juicy stuff. Yeah. Although mel Gibson's character and

(02:21):
that he is based off a realrevolutionary war hero we probably should talk about
at some point named Francis Maria.It's not the name of the character in
the show, but he is basedaround Marian. Isn't it like a mixture
of like three or four characters.I think they threw a bunch of it
into it. Yeah, but yeah, there's definitely a large four show as

(02:44):
Francis Marion, who was known asthe swamp Fox because he would hide out
in the swamp and attack a gorillastyle. So I think my challenge for
you this episode is to get usso inspired that we will go get a
tattoo on our chest that says freedom. Well, well, we can do
the best. I was read firstseeing somebody that we know with a freedom
tattoo across their chest. Your listeners, you know who you are, your

(03:07):
lips I know out there. Anyway, Luke, you'd kick us off.
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna startoff with the Stamp Act. As we
were talking u in March of seventeensixty five, the British government was deeply

(03:29):
in debt because of the French andIndian War that they was fought, and
they wanted to recoup the costs thatthey incurred protecting the colonists, and so
they started taxing goods that were beingimported from Britain. They also, at
this point, we're kind of requiringthat the colonists only bought from Britain.

(03:57):
Everything was going to be taxed higher, and you were be forced to buy
for one guy. Was this thepoint in time when we were kind of
like starting to try to buy andsell her own stuff. Yeah, And
so this did not go over well. Everybody was like, you know,
how can you do this to us? But the British were like, hey,
we are we paid blood to protectyou. So it's ours. And

(04:26):
so from that moment on, therewere riots all day long for this and
they actually did not collect a singlescent. The British tax collectors could never
get any of it, and sothey were like any customs agents, y

(04:47):
how when you get them in there. And Brinzera Franklin at the time was
a statesman this still and he wastrying to convince British to just back off
on the stamp act, said,you know, it's not working with a
different tactic. He wasn't trying tolike totally stop it, but he was
trying to counsel moderation. So BenBen Franklin was like that, like you

(05:11):
just said, he was like thatguy that would moderate between both sides.
The British roy looked highly on himto try to be the guy to bridge
that gap with the American settlers.We'll just sew up that there will come
to be the American settlers. Yeah, he was definitely like a very good
middleman. He was, you know, talking to both people. He was

(05:35):
very good at talking to people andgetting him to agree. But after a
good solid run or trying to collectanything off the stampbacked at all, they
finally were just like, all right, we're going to resend at We're not
going to do the stamp back anymore. And this a precedent. The American

(06:00):
public realized that through revolt and protestthey could deny the British and get their
way, and so the base seedsof what would later be kind of revolution

(06:21):
start to get sewn there. Andthis is also when the Suns of Liberty
form. They form a protest ofthe Stamp Act, and then they they
keep around. The Suns of Libertybecomes a major driving force to push further
and further towards revolution starting with thisdebacle. And that's another interesting thing about

(06:47):
the revolutionary wars that it wasn't likeone event that was like, okay,
that's a you know, we're gonnarevolt now. It was it was a
bunch of things that was of courseseveral years. Uh So like that the
Stamp Act that was in sixty five, seventeen sixty five, and then two

(07:08):
years after that before they essentially didanother tax i. It was like a
series of taxes. There's like onesingular tax and a lot of it was
to do with imports, uh youknow, from Britain. So the next
yeah, I mean it kind oflike the next major event was another another
taxing event. Um. They Ithink they called it Townshend. How do

(07:30):
you how do you pronounce that Townshend'sact not townsend? That would be amazing
though, Yeah, you beat meto that. And again it was another
it was another tax It was anothertax on on on goods, be imported
goods, um. And you know, this time around, it seemed like

(07:51):
the way people were going to dealwith that was just boycott British goods.
You know, it seems like apretty rational thing. You know, it's
like, well, we don't wantto pay these taxes, we don't or
deal with this, so we're justnot going to buy their stuff. And
the British responded, but hey,bringing an army to Boston and yeah,

(08:16):
they kind of, uh, We'relike, yeah, we gotta deal with
this this protest. And so theykind of like occupied Boston with the military
and obviously that may people even moreangry. So they were expecting for this
not to go smoothly. It soundslike, yes, actually a lot of
the events leading up to this umare kind of like major things that maybe

(08:41):
you could deal with over the courseof a lifetime. But these are kind
of like tightly packed within several yearsthat were just like one thing after another,
And I think that that might belike, in my opinion, like
a big deal as far as likethe decision to eventually revolt. Was that
all these sayings kept adding up ina very short, relatively short amount of

(09:01):
time. Oh, of course,several years, but it wasn't like decades
you think it would take forever forlike, first of all, it's going
to take them forever to come overhere with the military. Second of all,
it's going to take forever for theOkay, I say forever, but
it's going to take a long timefor all this news to spread of what's
happening as well, Like today,a lot of these actions could lead up

(09:22):
to like a shorter timeline of hysteriaexactly. Yeah, And that was that
was one thing that I think wasbecause it was a smaller group of people,
Like you know, the Coliades wereconsiderably smaller than the US is now,
and so even though it took takeslonger to get information, you don't

(09:43):
have to spread it to as manypeople. And that was why it was
still spread relatively quickly. Because theSun's liberty had two years at this point
to ingrain themselves into society. Theyactually developed really uh intricate systems of distributing
information and leaflets fast. They're theirwriters, which become a big deal later

(10:09):
on to dispatch information of what theBritish are doing to everyone, and uh
so, yeah, it was.It was interesting how quickly they could spread
information in such a low tech environmentoverseas. Obviously they had to mail stuff
over our ship and stuff like that, but they actually had agents in Britain

(10:33):
writing leaflets defending the American cause andtheir their thought processes. Maybe they convinced
the public to rally against the crownin Parliament to get them to rescind the
law. Did the majority of theBritish people think like about all this like?
Because it was happening they were.It always came down to whether or

(10:54):
not it costs them money to care. If they were going to lose money
bas off of a lack of sales, specifically from the British India Trading Company
which sold tea, they would getreally furious because your livelihood is you know,
if you're an island nation like theBritain, is your livelihood's based entirely

(11:18):
on trade with all your colonies,especially then, and so if the colony
is no longer trading with you andit's hurting your business in some way,
then you would be pretty furious.And so a lot of people were kind
of mad. But they're also like, you know, well maybe we're a

(11:39):
little bit too heavy handed. Sothere was a pretty good split amongst the
British populace about what to do.They knew something had to be done,
but they were kind of split onwhat to do. Like you said,
a lot of frustrations about the costof the war that has finished off as
well, Yeah, because they're allstill paying for this, you know,

(12:00):
Grand War with France and you know, the Indians. But the army didn't
leave and they were there for threemore years, and that brings us to
seventeen seventy and at this point nobodyin the colonies, especially Boston, is
having any of this. They hatethe British Army, they hate the British

(12:26):
customs agents. They don't want anyoneto be there anymore. And then we
have this thing going on that theycan't do anything about. So they take
it out on the rank and fileBritish soldier. If you're a British soldier
and you're walking around it, youknow, by yourself, you're going to

(12:46):
get accosted. And one day aBritish private was trying to He got into
an argument with a wig maker.He wasn't satisfied with what he was doing
his job, and that drew acrowd. The crowd then started ganging up
on this This British price out numberedgreatly. Yes, before all there were

(13:11):
three hundred men there all yelling athim. And then the rest of his
little squad it was a total ofeight British soldiers showed up and they're like,
you know, trying to get thecrowd back, but you have three
hundred people screaming at you, youknow, calling you names. They start
throwing vegetables at you. Anyone anypoint, someone's going to cry. They

(13:33):
have like instructions not to like like, how was the British government telling them
to handle it as far as forcefullylike? Or are their instructions there?
The British military is one of themost professional militaries in the world at this
point. They do not actively,you know, attack civilians there. They
exist mostly as a show of force. Right now in the colonies, they're

(13:56):
not expecting to actually kill anyone.They're there to just be like, hey,
we know we're here, we ownthis place. At this point,
you know, they're not really toldwhat they're supposed to do. They but
they do know that they're supposed todefend their honor. But they also know
that they can't just go killing people. So the sergeant he was, you

(14:18):
know, he was keeping his menin line. All contemporary stories of how
this went down, you know,it's obviously a little hard to say goes
over two hours years ago, butyou know from other eyewitness accounts that came
forward at the time, he wasdoing his best to keep because they want
them to comply. They want themto comply because oh yeah, if not,

(14:39):
it's not going to benefit anybody.So they really do have to try
to keep things in control here.And also if you do kill someone,
then you're you're left with, well, now what we do, and now
they're going to hate us even more. You know, they already don't like
us. And unfortunately that something happened. No one knows for sure how it

(15:00):
happened, but one of the Britishsoldiers opened fire and then that caused everyone
else to fire as well. Now, granted, like I said, these
people were under durest already, andthen all this happening, this huge mob
that could easily kill them, allis you know, staring them down.

(15:20):
Someone's gonna stamp, and that happenedat the time. Three people died immediately,
two more died later on. Now, one of the two that died
later on died actually like seven yearslater, but he was paralyzed at this
point, and so they still listedas a death caused by the what became
to be known as the Boston massacre. But it's also kind of hard to

(15:43):
say that he died because of it. But anyway, total of five people
died, and the crowd is dispersedby the governor showing up with more soldiers
and he helps disperse the crowd beforethese British are killed and they're arrested or

(16:03):
put under locket and key. Anyway, they weren't technically arrested yet. It
was kind of a major problem becausethey had to try these people. But
all the witnesses start clamming up,Yeah, people who are making outlandish stories.
The soldiers just started shooting at themwilly nilly. This was kind of

(16:26):
exacerbated by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. These two at this time we're now
major players in the Suns of Liberty. They had a lot of polly.
Everyone knew they were them and JohnHancock, those three together control of most

(16:48):
of Boston in terms of patriots.Was like Paul Revere well known, I
don't want to butcher like a blacklike what was Paul Revere? What were
these guys in the community still Smithokay? Imna said Blacksmith okay? And
John Hannecock was technically a smuggler,claimed he wasn't he was Uh. Samuel
Adams uh kind of made made hisway as a just known as a firebrand

(17:15):
he was now and as a personwe all this Riley and the people he
was. He had he had means, he had money, but he wasn't
like a professional like Paul Revere was, and he wasn't as rich as John
hand some good beer too, especiallyartober schress Um. Actually kind of like

(17:42):
kind of coming back to that thequestion earlier about you know, like what
did the British people think? Um? I think it also may have also
had some slight influence over the yearsof like tension as well, because there
was also a little bit of youknow almost like maybe the American colonies were

(18:03):
ungrateful for what, you know,what was going on, what they had
fought for, you know, asfar as the brust were concerned, and
that kind of like uh disconnect betweenthe people was probably also like maybe like
you know, the Americans probably feltthat they were being like talked down to,

(18:25):
or that they were um, notas respected as people who actually lived
in Britain. Um. Yeah.A lot of movies tend to exaggerate a
little bit to the point of likebeing overly foppish, but you know,
there was probably some truth to that. And uh, you know some people

(18:45):
like Samuel Adams, who you know, you could almost look at as like
the test of what the average personwas thinking because he was like very much
a consider a man of the Irishpeople at the time. Um so yeah,
he's kind of like, um yeah, we could say almost a hatred

(19:08):
almost to some degree. Was youknow kind of like that that relationship between
America and Britain was like it's likea step parent. It was. It
was very difficult. You know,people people were just not happy with the
way. What did they think,like we're just gonna start a new Britain

(19:30):
in these colonies, so that it'snot like the thought like we're moved over
there, we're expanding our empire.Yeah, so at the time it was
was very much an empire with BritishThey kind of were like if we it's
it's all part of Britain, Solike the colonies, that's British territory.

(19:51):
That's it's not like, uh,they're just saying our country is this much
bigger now. In fact, atthis point they were called the the Empire
with a sudden never sets because nomatter where you were in the world,
you you were in the British Empirebasically. Yeah yeah, yeah, times
on lies somewhere, and so theyyou know, they saw it all as

(20:15):
part of their land and that guessthey just really want more land. That's
what it was all about then,right, I mean, yeah, it
was their property according to them,and the American people just didn't want to
have to be British citizens anywhere.After a while, yeah, because i
mean you start to like go throughthis thing where generations, you have new
generations coming in and you're slowly butsurely continuing to lose those British values that

(20:42):
the British are still upholding and theystill believe in as time goes by.
Obviously today it's it's there's not awhole lot of it at all. But
then even I'm sure there was aturning point where things were starting to change,
traditions were kind of getting forgot about, etc. Yeah, And because
how long the the American colonies wereyou know it like, like we mentioned

(21:04):
earlier, it takes a little longgood across the sea too to America.
Um, you had like a likea complete cultural divide, and you know,
Americans were, well, the Americancolonies were dealing with things that the
British weren't or were no longer dealingwith, such as just taming the land

(21:29):
itself and kind of, um,you know, the exploration phase of Britain
was over as far as the countryitself was concerned, and uh, the
American colonies were still doing that,and so there is a much more room
there, right well yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you had people

(21:51):
who were born and raised in youknow, in America, and they had
no idea or i had no carefor what was expected of a British civilian.
They were living in the woods andthey were living off trapping and things

(22:11):
like that. Um, they didn'tneed they didn't need Britain for any of
that. And so as far aslike the value that the British provided,
it wasn't really clear or even youknow, existent at that point. And
so we were, as far asthe side of the world was concerned,

(22:34):
we were already kind of like somewhatindependent, and having these additional like force
come in or attacks come in,it was just completely there was just no
no value brought in for it.And uh so, yeah, it's pretty

(22:55):
it's pretty easy to see why someonewould be like why why why would I
ever pay these taxes or import thesegoods. I don't need any of this.
Yeah, that was all a bigpart of why it was so easy
to convince people later on that wedon't need them. And that's why after
all these things started happening and thetemperature was rising on the situation, this

(23:19):
yeah was uh, you know,one of the major catalysts. Anyway,
Paul Revere and Sam Adams both engagedin what could be charitably called propaganda at
this point. They were telling everybodythat the British were massinist citizens in mass
At this point, Yeah, thiswas you know, not going to be

(23:41):
a one off incident, and itwas worse than what you guys had an
agenda they did. They had anagenda, yeah, and they didn't really
make any bones about it. Theytold everybody you know, that they wanted
the British gone. Then it camedown to the trial and nobody wanted to
touch this, but they needed thedefense. So there was only one person

(24:03):
who agreed to it, and thatwas John Adams, Sammuel adams cousin and
future president. He was very mucha firm believer in the law above anything
else. He was not one tolike to shy away from something just because

(24:26):
it was taboo in the eyes offirebrands like Sam Adams. And also he
didn't he didn't fear his brother,his cousin, you know. He like
he could deal with him getting angry. Some people couldn't deal with Sam Adam
getting angry. He defended them,and he defended them well. He was
able to track down a few peoplewho were able to give a great witness

(24:51):
testimony, including the surgeon of oneof the people who died later not that
night, but died the next day. And the surgeon talked to the guy
who was dying and he said hegrew up in Ireland. The guy who
died, he grew up in Ireland, and things like this had happened there

(25:12):
where British soldiers were attacked by mobsof people and people were shot. He
said, these soldiers lasted so muchlonger than anyone he had ever seen last
before they finally fired. He alsosaid he saw the man who shot him
when he did, and he saidhe could see his eyes and he knew

(25:34):
there was no malice in it.He was just afraid, and that there
was and there was no intent tomurder him. And there he said that
he forgave him as he was dying. And then the surgeon testified all this
under oath, and then a fewother people came forward. Said a lot

(25:55):
of people were intimidated to not comeforward though. They were basically told that
if you, you know, testifyingon behalf of the British soldiers, there's
a good chance you got to bekilled. Talk about it, start to
interrupt, you talk about a crazytrial. I mean we always hear about
how like the trial, the JerryPool's influence, we need to move the

(26:15):
trial, like there's nowhere to goat this point for the British resides back
in Britain to uh, yeah,this had to be an interesting scenario and
it's it's crazy mister Adams is willingto step up and say I'm going to
be the guy. What do peoplethink about him for stepping up and doing
this? What do they think ofJohn? Yeah? They hated him.

(26:36):
Yeah he was. He was likea social pariah for a good long while.
Talk about a turnaround. Yeah,but you know they he also was
an incredibly influential speaker, Like whatpeople well, he talked, people listened,
Noah, even more so than SamAdams and stuff like that, because

(26:56):
he was he was like a lesslet triss Ben Franklin, because if we
were talking about a bit Franklin specifically, he's a bit of a Berbert syphilist
syphilist at all. Yeah, yeah, people like John Adams. Originally they
hated him after this for a littlebit, but then they came around because

(27:18):
he was just a likable guy andhave a smart person. He talked about
the trial anyway, I guess Ishouldn't skip over the verdict of they were
all found not guilty of murder,Julia were found guilty of manslaughter, and
the punishment from manslaughter was they hada brandy Aaron with but I guess the

(27:42):
letter M branded onto their hands sothe people would know forever that these men
had committed manslaughter. It's intense,it was. It was an intense let's
not skip over a let's let's getover how crazy that is a second man.
But anyway, what a crazy verdictto take place in America. Though

(28:07):
he was a Lamblard trial. JohnAllams was saying that had these men been
put to death because that's what theywere wanted or they wanted to put to
death, it would have been asbad as the Salem witch trials or the
the executions of the Quakers that happenedabout fifty years before. There was a

(28:27):
Quaker group that was all executed fortheir religion. And he said that,
you know, we could not havethis now if we want a real rule
of law, these people were notguilty of murder. They should not have
executed. It's kind of like acivil approach, like what are you really
going to gain over the British bydoing that? Yeah, like it would

(28:48):
have helped nothing. It kind ofmakes you wonder what would have happened if
it would have like tensions tension wise, if it would have went down another
way, I could also probably spoketo the more you know, maybe the
less violent people who also were onthe fence about the you know, the

(29:10):
whole thing, and they realized thatyou know, um, yeah, we
don't want to charge these people frommurder. We just don't want to be
a part of that country anymore.You know that the talks didn't actually come
up right around that time murder,least not immediately. But I think that
that trial was a very important thingbecause if he was just like, you
know, murder Mayhem, Yeah,I think it may have actually even maybe

(29:37):
like some people would be like,you know, I don't know, I
want to be a part of thismovement. It was almost like a civil
saying that kind of like bridge thegap between just yeah, just told Mayhem
and being like you now, thisis like a serious thing we need to
put into it. Afterwards, JohnAdams also said that of all the things
he ever did, this was hesaid this well after his presidency, said
all the things he ever did inservice of the country, defending those men

(30:02):
was his greatest ass Yeah, it'slike a great achievement. It's like the
oj trial here. I mean liketo talk about overcoming the odds and yeah,
yeah, do not fit. Ohyeah, I mean he would really,
yeah he would really Johnny cocktro andthat yeah, mad Man, that
trial up. He also said thoughthis was a warning to having a standing

(30:26):
army in cities. He said,every time you have a standing occupation force
for a long period of time,stuff like this will happen. And he's
not wrong, but you know that'sthe thing. You're here, are there?
But yeah, that was the theBoston massacre. Uh. That that's
when thing started to get to beuntenable. That's when everyone was just everyone.

(30:52):
It was. It was so significantthat when we hear the term massacre,
you think that's like gonna be suchlike a high death count almost,
but it was beyond that. Itwas like a deeper meaning really exactly.
It was the end of a relationshipof these countries. Yeah, it was

(31:14):
like the uh, the beginning ofthe boiling point. I guess you can
call it that. It was thejust the beginning of it, but it
was. It was a big event. It's really interesting, Like we were
trying saying, that's over like adecade now, betweens. Yeah, the
beginning until seventeen seventy six. Allthese events one after another, a domino

(31:37):
effect of tragedy and easily avoidable mistakesthat changed the course of history permanently.
Is this a spot where we soughtfor the week or what I mean?
You guys tell me. I don'tknow. I think so, because it
gets it gets significantly more intricate fromhere, there's yeah, there's quart a

(31:59):
bit left and but yeah, Ithink this would be a good place to
kind of I would see it's almostlike the middle, the middle point,
and I think that's a good placeto kind of take a break, all
right, Well, end on thenote of someone's hands being brand Yeah,
I can only think of two otherspots to be worse than that. One's
my forehead and the other ones.Yeah. So yeah, so let's change

(32:22):
the subject. I wonder why we'llgive someone's up too during this time.
I guess that's all we got thisweek, though we can just leave that
as a thought exactly. Yeah.The podcast, what's the email if you
want to contact? This is anAmerica stories Pot at gmail dot com.
So I want to set it upas eleanor I have so many podcasts,
hard to remember moment Jack's job needsto be to plug all this stuff here

(32:42):
at the end, Yes, becauseI can't keep track. Yeah. Yeah,
we also have a Twitter page.What is it? I don't even
know what that is. Jack thesocial media guy are social media manager?
Yeah? Manager? Yes, let'ssee here America's Stories Pod. He's a
terrible social media manager. He hasn'teven logged onto the social media yet at

(33:07):
gmail dot com. That's the sum. Take a little chanst of that is
America Stories Pod at gmail dot com. Of course, it's available wherever you
listen to your podcast. We're justhaving a fun time doing They're sharing some
stories with you. We hope you'reenjoying it, because we certainly are.
I will sign us off. I'mJeff. They are Luke and Jack.

(33:28):
We are sharing with you some amazingAmerica stories and we will see you next
week. We'll hear you next week. Whatever you want to say, we'll
be there next week. Jack,All right, Yeah, keep being you,
keep being great, and don't litterkind of face everybody like you do

(33:57):
wrong. People gotta thankle the dangersinside the best of us. Take it
once they wrong. Eisode to Someonemust do the best weekend. Someone must
do Jeff Townsend. Media sees yougood night, and the question is do

(34:45):
I stay here? Will you beback? Are you gonna come back?
Will you be back? Are youcoming back?