Boston and the Breach with England

The breach with England that preceded the American Revolution fomented primarily in Massachusetts and New England, particularly Boston. In the early 1770s, colonial America was gripped by various tensions linked to increasing animosity between the colony and the Crown. Britain remained the only superpower after 1763, when the Treaty of Paris was signed and France gave up its "rights" to lands in North America, (Noble, 2005, p. 1). Believing in a moral right to self-governance and devoted to the increase of commerce and trade, Bostonians and other colonials grew increasingly resentful of a series of Acts passed by Great Britain that were aimed at raising sorely needed revenues.

Great Britain views itself as a mercantilist nation and all of its colonies as potential sources of new revenue. The Navigation Acts, the Molasses Act, the Sugar Act, the Quartering Act, and the Stamp Act were all passed as a means of increasing revenues by taxing the colonies. The Stamp Act would be the final blow, an Act that taxed about anything left untaxed by the other Acts, including things like dice or playing cards. On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre, in which British redcoats fired on a crowd of angry citizens and killed five men, took place. As Noble (2005, p. 3) maintains, "Tensions exploded in the Boston Massacre, a tragedy and embarrassment to the British government." The incident forced King George III to repeal the Townshend an

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e three ships which contained the tea at the same time. The name of him who commanded the division to which I was assigned was Leonard Pitt," (Hewes, 2005, p. 1). The morning after the Boston Tea rebellion, tea could be viewed floating in Boston Harbor. To prevent anyone from retrieving it for personal use, a number of people rowed into the harbor and began beating the tea until it sank. The Sons of Liberty were organized in part by Samuel Adams, who made an effort the day before the Boston Tea Party to convince Governor Hutchinson to send the tea back to England. At about 6pm on December 16th, 1773, Adams told the assembled patriots at the South Church Meeting Hall that there was nothing left to do but attack, since negotiations were at a standstill. As if his statement was a signal, cries rang out from the back of the crowd: "Boston Harbor a tea-pot tonight! The Mohawks are come!," (Norton, 1990, p. 126). Small groups left the meeting and within a few minutes some 150 men dressed in Indian costumes began their attack. By 9pm, their work was complete: some 342 chests of tea worth about 10,000 pounds sterling were floating in splinters on the ebbing tide, (Norton, 1990). It wasn't just radical thinkers like Sam Adams or

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