Events that lead to the American Revolution part 2

Jeff, Luke and Jack discuss the events that lead to the American Revolution. Part 2 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, this is Jeff Townsending.

(00:28):
You're training into another episode of America'sStories. Last week we left off diving
into how the Revolutionary War started,and of course by we, I mean
my good friends Luke and Jack.Luke is kind of the professor leading us
through some of this educational experience here, and Jack is just chilling in a
hot tub podcasting guys, And yeah, he's living it up. That's where

(00:50):
I do my podcasting. It's insideof a hot tub. Yeah, he
actually has the cover on too,which is really weird. Yeah, there's
no water, it's just inside ahot too. So the last week we
ended with the Boston massacre and thehand the handstamp act. It wasn't the

(01:11):
hand I made that up, butit might go down as that. I
mean, I mean technically it is. Technically. Can I get a trademark
on that? Yeah? I thinkso. So we talked about the fallout
of that obviously. Okay, therewas a trial. They were found not
guilty of I don't know how you'dphrase it today, murder, but manslaughter.

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Their punishment was they branded there,I must said something else. They
branded their hand and we left offon the tension in the both sides.
Yes, So that took place inseventeen seventy March of seventeen seventy in u
seventeen seventy three. By this pointmost of the Townshend Act has been repealed.

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They were like, all right,this taxation isn't working again, we
all repeal it. We're try againwith a different tactic. So they decided,
all right, we'll pull the armyback out. Yeah, we'll try
to cool things off. But theyweighed three more years to get rid of
them. But they were down therelike slowly ramping it down. They got

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rid of all the taxes on alltheir goods except one idol t T was
the only one they had to attax at this point. The reason why
they had to tax Tea was theywere trying to bail out the British East
India company. It was going underlots of debts at this point, and

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they need to bail out. Andyou might think that seems kind of crazy
to base your entire thing around savingthis one random company. It happened to
be gigantic if you never realized howbig the British East India Company was.
It had its own standing army oftwo hundred and thirty thousand men. It

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was twice the size of the BritishRegular Army. It had fleets upon fleets
of ships too, and employed alarge portion of the British economy. So
they had to save it. Werethey trying to Okay, so they're gonna
weever, this is gonna go withtax? What was the implementations at home?

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But they did they try to taxat home? How is there?
How were they handling the tea athome? They were specifically taxing people importing
the goods. And since the BritishIslands, England itself is where the East
India Company headquarters was, it technicallywas the exporter. And so the different

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colonies of the British this is whereit kind of goes a little bit against
there or you know, I wastalking about last week when they're saying it's
all British Land. It's all Britishland until it comes to taxes. If
you're importing something to your land fromother from the main central hub of the
British Empire, you have to paythe import tax. And at this point

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the one they were taxing everyone onewas tea. They kind of had a
great little like racket. Guy.I guess you caught right because it was
set up all you know. Theytake over a place, set them up
as a colony, or set upa different colony, and then have them
import goods and then tax those goods. And so it was like a constant
stream of taking over places and thentaxing those places. I got a random

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question, so how are the Frenchon the outside looking at like what are
what are they thinking during this time? Like obviously come out of the war.
Are they rooting for them rebels inAmerica? Are they? I mean,
what do you know? French wereWe're definitely getting to trying to get
the American popists rise up suddenly atfirst and then overtly later. They definitely

(05:04):
wanted to weaken the British Empire.They were also doing it in other colonies
too. Basically, the French hatedthe British. They wanted to really hurt
them back, and they their historywith them for all times constant warfare almost
yeah. So yeah, they weredefinitely fro Americans revolting and in seventeen seventy

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three with tea being taxed. TheUS colonists whatever, the colonies did not
want this tea, so they said, we're not buying it. You could
send it back, and the governorin Boston was like, I can't send
it back because I'm pretty sure you'regoing to take me out of position if
they do, and I will beruined. So he was like, no,

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it stays in the harbor. Youguys are buying this tea. And
so for a good little while itjust sat there in the harbor and uh,
these you know, these trade galleonsfilled with tea. Nobody knew what
to do. So the British Navyblockaded and said, if you don't buy
this tea, you aren't getting anything. That's a That's what I think about

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is the you know, if you'reyou're if let's say you owned a ship
or you're you know, you workfor a company ownership and you're just trying
to dok. You know, youhave nothing to do with any of this.
You're just you're just trying to dockand you can't dock because there's another
ship there. That then that alonewas causing trouble. But then obviously the
fact that trade without being completely blockadedat least in Boston over to this t

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ship mint Again. This seems likea repeating pattern they were seeing over and
over again. This is how theBritish. We're going to behave you what
We're going to import goods you didn'twant them too bad, You're going to
buy them, and you're going topay more and more taxes on them.
And it just becomes like this heavyhanded pressure, over and over and over
again. It seemed would be probablybe viewed as almost every four of trade

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at that point, because you knowso much of it was done overseas that
you know, blockading a port wouldbe like strangling a town. The Sun
Deliberty had a meeting about it oraround this time, and they were trying
to discuss what to do, andSam Adams was kind of coaching civility.
He was trying to figure out away out of this without causing to a

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show. But the meeting got awayfrom him and people started rioting, and
they decided we're going to get ridof that tea once and for all.
At this point they all left themeeting and they dressed in a dress look
like mohawk Indians They chose this fortwo reasons. One they didn't want anyone

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to be able to say who itwas it was there that night, and
the other was it was symbolic thatthey were no longer British citizens and that
they were going to identify with theAmerican continent. At this point, they
made their way to the harbor inthe cover of night, in broke on

(08:07):
board on all these ships, andthey did was a non violent thing.
They actually never hurt anyone involved.And they did break one lot, but
the next day one of them wentback and fixed it, and they threw
all of the tea into the harbor. The total amount of that tea is

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in today's dollars. Who was abouttwo million dollars with the tea. That's
a lot of tea. How totake them a little while to do that?
How many people were doing it,like, that's a lot of tea
to dump? Hell? I thinkI heard at one point it was thirty
men, but I you know,it's the number kind of fluctuates with time.
It's hard to say how many werethere, but yeah, they worked

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over time to do it. Well. Does make you wonder I just saying
that, you know, well,Sam Adams trying to be a voice of
reason with these sons of liberty,and uh yeah, even after they got
on board, through through all thetea out they still fix that lock.
So I almost wonder if you know, John, I had almost had some
kind of effect on Sam by thatpoint as far as like being more reasonable.

(09:16):
God damn it, Sam, yougot to go back there and fix
that lock. Doesn't seem very noblewhen you've dumped out two million larger than
teeth exactly. It seems insulting stressingthe stuff like this is a noble act,
this lock. Yeah, it waslike why million dollars? This was
with some some amount of guilt inthere, mind be like, well I

(09:39):
can I can't, I can't lovewith the one. They felt bad about
the destruction of that ship Captain's property, not so much the East India companies
and British property. And actually thisactually is one reason why this was extra
galling to the British Parliament. Atthis point, most members of the British

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Parliament actually owned shares in the Britishin East India company. Each of them
had about a million dollars in today'sdollars worth of shares, so they take
definitely wanted that money. Yeah,and so they immediately retaliated with you know,
stricter laws, like what was whatwere those stricter laws. They're going

(10:24):
to tax their p now like thev Tax or they called it the Coercives
Act, where they were going todo more than just like strongly suggest things
happen. They were being forced now. So this is when they totally blockaded
the harbors. Only their ships couldget through without being gunned down. So

(10:46):
they're like, they're not doing theUN approach anymore. We strongly. They
then dismissed all talent councils and replacedthem entirely with British officials. But they
also if the current governor, thegoverner of the governor and had Thomas Gage,
the military advisor there, take overeverything. Then they decided they would

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never wanted to a chance a newtrial in Boston in case another Boston massacre
happened. So every single British officialnowhere, if they were a military or
whatever, it was no longer legalto try them in the United States or
what would become the United States.You had to be tried in England.

(11:31):
So that would they assumed at thispoint it's going too far. They'll never
get a fair trial, so wejust won't let them do a trial anymore.
This was followed by one more coerciveact. The British soldiers normally would
build like encampments in the in thewoods and like I kind of like live

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in like a little shanty towns.So they would build yeah, look like
like campgrounds. Yeah. Yeah,Well, they decided to enforce a law
that required every unoccupied building it wasowned by somebody, you had to let
the British soldiers stay there, andthen you had to feed them. So

(12:13):
people of means, people who hadlarge estates and stuff like that, sudden
they found that they had to paydirectly to house and feed British soldiers.
That's worse than taxes. It's actuallyin the Declaration of Independence it specifically mentions
the Quartering Act as one of themajor reasons. And then the third right

(12:39):
in the Bill of Rights that wehave now says that the army can never
be forcibly quartered in the property ofthe UAH. So that just shows you
how pissed off it made people.Yeah, it really got to people.
This was like when the people whowere you know, very wealthy who didn't
have as hard a time pain likethese taxes up to this point then never

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really felt as much as like thecommon person did. Suddenly they are now
feeling it, and so everyone iscoming together. That's uh, I guess
every one of these steps you canalmost look at it be like. And
then the British pissed the Americans offby doing this. It was like one
thing after another that they just keptpissing everyone off. At any point,

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had anyone let off the gas backedup and just said, you know,
we're done, it would have fizzledout. But it just kept going and
going. It's it's also years offrustration for the British as well, right,
I mean, they've just been becauselike nothing's working. Can form just
just follow the follow the process,and it's not happening exactly. So the

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next thing that pissed off the Americans, this one was the big one.
This is the big one because thisactually leads into the actual war. In
April seventeen seventy five, Thomas Gageknows that between the sons of Liberty,
you know, l rallying up morepeople, these wealthy landowners, you know,

(14:11):
stockpiling weapons and other things like that, that scenes are not looking good.
He knows that if he doesn't stopsomething, it's going to go from
bad to oh my god, we'reon fire. And so he decides he's
going to have to capture John Hancockand Samuel Adams. He's got to take

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them out because they won't stop,you know, protesting, they won't stop
getting people angry. But decided hewas going to launch an expeditionary force to
seize him the sons of Sons Libertythey could find and all the weapons and
gunpowder and everything that was being stockpiledin Concord. They knew sam Adams was

(14:56):
in lex Lexington, and so theyPatriots knew they were coming. They knew
that that the British were got tocome for them. They just didn't know
which route they were gonna take.And this is like you know the whole
one if by land, two ifby sea thing, right, Yeah,
everyone's kind of heard that. Butso there was a Paul Revere knew a
a sexton a church and knew thathe was definitely on their side and he

(15:22):
would be able to light a fireand like the steeple saying yea or two
lights would be if the British werecoming by sea and if it was by
land, and so when he foundout, because he found out for people
nearby, Paul Revere led himself somegossip, didn't he He did. He
was all in on everything going on. He was technically what you can almost
consider the earliest spy master. Heknew a lot of people who knew other

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people, and so he was definitely, you know, uh connected. So
he got that sexton to like thething, and he lit two beacons saying
they were coming from the sea thenext day, and that's when they set
out on the famous midnight ride.Now it wasn't just him he started it.

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He met up with some other sonsof Liberty, and by the end
of it all, there were morethan fifty horse riders riding throughout the entire
county going to different areas where militiamenwere being prepared, had been prepared in
secret. They knew that they hadto be ready at a minute's notice.
They were the minutemen. Yeah,that's how that comes along, the minute

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men. So it says this isthe whole famous the British airtcum mean the
retishy I mean, actually there's alittle bit debate there, I believe because
so many people still some people stillconsider those to be British citizens. What
he was actually saying it was theregulars are coming, according to some historians

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right now, but it's so muchher sound to say the British are coming.
And that's where it knows. Everyone knows the British a coming.
And it's possibly also had you know, they already had their own terms,
like you know, when when they'resaying British, they're referring to the British
army, especially considering that they havebeen occupations for the past several years,

(17:15):
for multiple years that yeah, yousee redcoats or you see the British Army,
you might just refer to them asthe British. That's pretty telling too
though, right like you're going tocall them the British. Yeah, that
means that we're not the British atthat point as far as they're concerned.
All told, Thomas Gage brought sevenhundred British regulars to get Sam Adams and

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John Hancock and then too said someof them to go to Concord to get
the guns. Well, they showup in Lexington and when they got there
there was seventy seven militiamen. Theyare stand in there and saying that you
cannot take them. No one knowsexactly who opened fire first, kind of

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much the bust of Masaker. Noone knows why that first shot was fired.
That first shot at Lexington is nowknown as the shot heard round the
world because it's the first shot ofthe official war. They started shooting each
other and seven militiamen died. Almostthe exact same time, a group of
the British soldiers were going to Concordand they get there and there's no guns

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left. There's like a few left, the no one near the amount they're
supposed to be there. So theygot tipped off. Yeah, they tipped
off. They knew ahead of timeto move those guns, and so they
set fire to the storehouse because that'swhat they're supposed to do to get rid
of the last few guns. Anyway, wind kicked up weird. They wasn't
supposed to catch anything else on fire, but the wind kicked up and it

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caught up nearby building on fire andthey were trying to put it out,
but it looked like the British werejust torching the whole town. At this
point, everyone was you know,came out and droves and this point two
thousand Minutemen show up and they startblasting and charging. So the British soldiers

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at Concord retreated back to Lexington andthen they're followed by those minutemen by retrieve
you mean walking, yeah, runwhatever. All this is all on foot.
That's what blows my mind. Yeah, all on foot. Yeah,
and then they chased them all theway back to the ships that they came
over on to go back to Boston. By the end of it, seventy

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three British were dead and one hundredand seventy four wounded. And this told
the British army that the Americans knowhow to fight, and on top of
that, they have the will tofight. They're not going to back down
anymore. That's that's a That's aTom Petty song, isn't it. Yeah,
well back down. I think hebased it off of the battle Lexington

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and Concord, he did. That'swhat I we just we just discovered something
really significant on this poduct. Absolutelyyou heard it here first and got to
listen to some Tom Petty. Actuallythis oh yeah, it's always good time
for Tom Petty. This was,you know, the official start. Now
the war is on. There's nothingthat could stop it. All these bad

(20:21):
events that could have stopped it couldhave been you know, we could still
actually be a British you know,protectorate at this point he had someone just
said let's not do it, butthey did, and now the stage is
set for one of the greatest warsin the history of mankind, the one

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that will totally change the perspective ofthe invincible British Army, changes the history
of the colonies to change them intoa war forged nation, and on top
of that, it changes how warsare bought. Many too many times,
the wars are not fought the sameway after a major American war because of

(21:07):
various industrializations and things like that.This war is actually one of the first
wars to involve rifled barrels. Beforethen, it was all smooth bore muskets.
There were some American sharpshooters who werethe first to use rifled barrels so
that the bullet spins and it's moreaccurate on the way out. Long range.

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Yeah, yeah, you always hearstories about how the range was so
increased because of this. This isalso the start of major spy operations.
I always said the spies operations startedalready. It gets insignificantly more so.
And some things are invented during thiswar that don't see fruition for a long

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time, but submarines. Wow,things change and the world is completely changed
because of avoidable acts. And that'skind of how everything happens. Completely avoidable
acts happen, and how the outcomeis something that cannot be calculated. This

(22:12):
is a where mel Gibson comes intolays the mel Gibson Uh. They called
the mel Gibson defense. I thinksome some of the some of the armis
not some mel Gibson uh, notthe mel Gibson voicemail. But this is
the mel Gibson fighting style, fightingstyle you see deplicted in the Patriots,

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So as you refer to that,Luke, a lot of this different change
in the way for the wars willbe fought happens here. Yeah. It's
a tremendous uh stories involved in theIt's the revolutionary war in and of itself,
but the lead up to it isinteresting. It's like it's chaotic at

(22:56):
how random things happen and this isthe outcome. Yeah. I also think
that the start of the Revolutionary Waris kind of the perfect companion piece to
the our first episode of you know, July four celebrations. So yeah,
it's really interesting to go over,you know, the beginning of the Revolutionary
War and the events that led upto it. Yeah, so to some

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things up here for this episode.We we didn't like the taxation. Paul
Revere rode on a horse said,the regulars are coming, which met the
British. We prepared ourselves, Weready to fight. We hid some weapons,
and the militia is ready to go. Did I sum it up?
Yeah? At thirty seconds, everywhich sums it up at thirty seconds,

(23:41):
Yeah, that's the Revolutionary War,and thirty seconds the beginning to the Revolutionary
War, right at the beginning.Yeah, that's a good any point.
Obviously, I don't know what episodecomes next, but man, we're on
a roll here at this Revolutionary War, which we are because I know Luke's
favor is the Civil War. Mind'sactually the War of eighteen twelve, but
the Revolutionary is my second, theSols my third. So I love this
topic, I definitely. I meanI like the Revolutionary War. Two some

(24:04):
of the war I don't know somethingabout it is so bleak that I shoy
reading about it. But yeah,it's a it's definitely a very interested out.
I like trains, so well,that's a guy. I guess that
was a big part of it.It was a part of Uh, we'll

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go ahead and wrap this episode up. Sorry, can't here over the laughter
here our social media manager Jack theworst social media manager ever this week because
I can remember the email, clearlycan't remember the He clearly can't remember the

(24:49):
email. Tell us what everything whenyou get this email? America stories Pod
at gmail dot com. We dohave a Twitter account and I'm going to
look it up since your failing isthe sostal media. Andrew It's America story
Pod on Twitter at America's story Pod. Yeah, and uh, there's lots

(25:11):
of different subjects to cover uh throughfor American Stories. Um, you know
if you contact us on Twitter andhow many suggestions for us for certainly like
that as well that we have plentyof stories already kind of cooking up in
our brains. Do you enjoy trains? So what I mean, what do
you enjoy? People? Let usknow which is everybody enjoys trains. I'm

(25:37):
gonna make that posts. Jack lovestrains. It's exciting. It makes sense
with the Civil War. There's atrain war. Yeah. Eventually we're going
to get to ULSS Grant, whichis uh Jack's twinter ye. Yes,
yeah, we'll get to talk aboutJack's other favorite guy, John Brown.

(25:59):
John Brown. Oh, how didwe go another? How do we go
an episode without mentioning John Brown?He should be mentioned in every episode moving
forward, Jack, that's another jobto make sure John Brown gets mentioned in
every episode. Something you put himin like our logo somewhere. I don't
know. I think we can.I certainly. Yeah, that's a challenge

(26:19):
accepted there. I like that.We still will have a John Brown T
shirt one day, don't We don'tknow who owns the right to Minister Brown.
Well, we negotiate the public domain. John Brown's in the public domain.
Well I better get us out ofthis episode where we get us in
trouble. All right, Well,yeah, thanks for listening to America Stories.

(26:41):
We'll be back, I say nextweek. It's actually a bi weekly
podcast. I think maybe we canrelease episodes weekly when we want too.
We can do whatever we want.It's a podcasting. That's that's the best
thing about podcasting. It's a free, free country. It's a John Brown
go John Brown, go crazy.You can do whatever you want. And
until then I'll be doing whatever iwant. They'll be doing whatever they want.
You'll be doing whatever you want.Keep being you and keep being great.

(27:11):
You got the kind of face everybodyknows. Run around man, fluid
snoop, go into your hair andyou like it. Finding the road and
you do that's wrong. People gota thing for the dangers, find it
inside. Do best to us,takeing what they wrong. Like you said

(27:33):
to someone must do the best wecan. Someone must do the best.

(28:00):
Yeah, Jeff Townsend, media seesyou. Good night. And the question
is do I stay here? Willyou be back? Are you gonna come
back? Will you be back?Are you coming back