MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2021 LEADING UP TO THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

 MONDAY, JUNE 28, 2021 LEADING UP TO THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Having colonies was a normal thing over the years.  Spain had most of South American (with the exception of Brazil and some small states).  Great Britain had Canada, the American Colonies, and eventually, India, Australia, and many other areas.  (The statement “The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire” was true).  France stayed closer to home with many African colonies directly south across the Mediterranean Sea - but also had a foothold in Laos, Vietnam.  The Dutch had possessions in Africa and the “Dutch East Indies” (now Indonesia and area) plus Aruba.  The Germans were late mostly because they were not a unified country until later in the 1800s and had some colonies in Africa.  Portugal had Brazil and some other areas.

But, since my blogs this week are leading up to the American Revolution, we’ll focus on Great Britain’s American Colonies.  

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First - let’s think.  Would you be a colonist from Great Britain to the American Colonies? 

First a look at Jamestown: ““The starving time” was the winter of 1609-1610, when food shortages, fractured leadership, and a siege by Powhatan Indian warriors killed two of every three colonists at James Fort. From its beginning, the colony struggled to maintain a food supply. Trade relations with the Virginia Indian tribes were strained because a severe seven-year drought stressed food supplies for everyone in the region.”  

Another source said “In 1608 Smith was chosen to be president of Jamestown's governing council and proved to be an able leader. Yet Smith returned to England in 1609, and only 60 of the 214 colonists survived the Starving Time of the ensuing harsh winter.”

Not an auspicious start - the Indians killing two out of every three colonists and of the rest, winters killed off many.  (Not that “winter” as a season killed people, but lack of food, lack of safe water and housing that would be condemned today led to the deaths)

Likewise in the Plymouth Colony, we have this information: “More than half of the English settlers died during that first winter, as a result of poor nutrition and housing that proved inadequate in the harsh weather.” 

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But, it did get better!!  A source said this: “If there was one inarguable fact about the American colonies in the mid- to late 18th century, it was that they were growing like crazy. In 1730, the population of the 13 colonies was about 655,000. Boston was the biggest city, with a population of about 13,000, while New York and Philadelphia were home to about 8,500 people each.

By 1760, the population had reached 1.6 million, not including African slaves, and by 1775, the white population stood at 2.5 million. Philadelphia was the largest city in that year, with a population of about 34,000.”

That article goes on to suggest: 

“One was the natural birthrate of the colonists. Partly because of the time-honored farm family tradition that large families meant more people to work (and maybe because there wasn’t much else to do on those long winter nights in the country), the size of many American families was astounding.”

“Benjamin Franklin wrote of a Philadelphia woman who had 14 children, 82 grandchildren, and 110 great-grandchildren by the time she died at the age of 100.”

“The growth rate was even more astounding when you consider the high infant mortality rate. One woman was reported to have lost 20 children at birth or soon thereafter.”

“Although the colonists shared problems common to people all over the world in the 18th century, such as nasty epidemics, they generally ate better, lived longer, and were more prosperous than any of their European counterparts. Land was cheap and had to sustain fewer people because the population was smaller. Because labor was often in short supply, wages were higher, which raised the standard of living.

While enjoying the protections of the formidable British Empire’s military, the average American colonist, if he paid any taxes at all, paid far less than his British cousin.” (source: https://www.dummies.com/education/history/american-history/the-population-explosion-in-1700s-america/) 

And, infrastructure had improved - better roads (although not by today’s standards), better housing, and local food changed the bleak world of Jamestown and Plymouth Colonies into prosperous areas.  

But, today you can fly from Boston to Philadelphia in under two hours, but that trip from Boston to Philadelphia would have taken John Adams about four weeks.  (But, back on the continent, a similar trip would also have been about four weeks!!)

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So, life in the colonies was ‘reasonable’ by the 1770s as compared to standards in the rest of the world.  No electricity, no computers, no cars, no television, no modern conveniences.  

Most of the citizens of the “new world” (aka United States area) were of British background (about 85% from one source).  

So, why would the American people want to break off from England?

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The Declaration of Independence has some statements:

Quoted from the Declaration - I will return to this this week.

“To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

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Sorry to have copied such a long passage. 
“Obviously the writer Thomas Jefferson is considered the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, although Jefferson's draft went through a process of revision by his fellow committee members and the Second Continental Congress.”

“The document was drafted by a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Jefferson, recognized for his ability with words, wrote the first draft; then it was edited by the others, and then edited again by the whole Congress.”

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Was this enough to go to war to create a separate American State?  We’ll look at that this week leading up to the Fourth of July next Sunday!!

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But, as always, LOVE WINS!!!

Karen

(Comment on the painting - "The Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull" is in the Yale University Art Gallery - and I have seen it!!! A cropped version is on the Two-Dollar bill!!)