Introducing: Founding Fathers: An American Dream - Episode 1

27:40He's feted as an American original all over London and France. He is the person whom Parliament calls in to be their America whisperer. What the hell is going on over there? The person you ask is Franklin. And whether someone who was born as he was could have had that steep an ascent anywhere else in the world, I think the answer is no.

28:07Clarke Peters:Franklin is delighted with his new king. Most Americans are. George III, when he came to power, it was seen as a great breath of fresh air. He wanted to introduce a new type of politics. He felt that governments had become incredibly corrupted. The same people had been in power for ages. And what is interesting is that the caricatures and the press were much less deferential to the monarchy in Britain than the Americans. And they reprinted some of this stuff, but you really don't get criticism of the king in America until 1774.

28:50Clarke Peters:Franklin shares King George's misgivings about the men in government. He's troubled by conversations with certain elder statesmen. One informs Franklin that London calls the shots in the colonies. Their little legislatures, their ideas about self-government, that's all irrelevant. it. Franklin is stunned, as he often is when talking to Londoners about America. Britain in the 1750s and 60s was becoming much more nationalistic and jingoistic. Franklin complained that the ordinary people in Britain knew nothing about America, and he also said that every Englishman feels themselves to be governor of America.

29:34Clarke Peters:Britain's ideas about itself and its empire are crucial to our story. We shouldn't just be looking at changes in America, but also in Britain. That helped make a clash almost inevitable. One is the rise of Britain as what some people have called a fiscal military state. British finances were transformed in the 18th century by the creation of the Bank of England And what that allowed Britain to do was to fight wars and to keep a very expensive navy. And it was the navy that really enabled the British to have a far-flung empire. But superpower status doesn't come cheap. Many Britons are alarmed by the spiraling costs, particularly when the empire is seeing little return on its investments.

30:28Britain was maintaining this empire at great expense, but it wasn't paying for the cost of its administration The customs officers in America didn't actually obtain enough revenue even to cover their salaries

30:47Clarke Peters:In 1763, the French and Indian War officially comes to an end Britain is victorious But defeating France has only piled on the debt The people living in Great Britain are already among the most taxed in the world. Attempts to tax them further lead to rioting. In 18th century Britain, the monarch plays an important role in politics, but it's up to Parliament to pass laws. Colonists aren't represented in Parliament. That's for the people of Great Britain only. Yet Parliament now decides it's time for the colonies to cough up. A tax on sugar is introduced. Then, the Stamp Act, a duty on various paper goods.

31:36Clarke Peters:When news of the Stamp Act reaches America in the spring of 1765, it triggers outrage. The colonies can't stomach being taxed by a body that they have no stake in. They feel their rights as subjects of the British crown are being violated. In Massachusetts, the anger is red hot.

32:18Clarke Peters:We're back in Franklin's hometown of Boston. A 43-year-old man stomps his way, heavy-footed, down the street. He's headed for an elm tree that everybody in town is talking about. Rooted at the corner of Essex Street and Orange Street, the tree was planted by settlers more than a century earlier. A living symbol of the colony's past and present. The man is short, stocky. You might say he has a look of an English bulldog about him. He's scruffy, too. His jacket ill-fitting, as though he's wearing someone else's by mistake. This is Samuel Adams, a prominent player in Boston politics. Like Benjamin Franklin, he's also a newspaper man.

33:10Clarke Peters:In the pages of the Boston Gazette, he insists that American colonists have the same rights as all British subjects. Sixteen years younger than Franklin, Adams is one of many of his generation marked by the Great Awakening. He's powered by an evangelical passion. To him, Parliament's taxes are not only unjust, they are ungodly. I think Samuel Adams had a kind of almost oracular voice, and he was hot-headed. He's impious. He's impolitic. He calls them as he sees them with a plain, clear voice like a bell. Today, on an August afternoon, 1765, he gazes up into the branches of the elm tree. Directly above him, a figure dangles, limply in the sunlight.

34:10Clarke Peters:It's not a dead body, but a dummy. an effigy of the government official responsible for overseeing the Stamp Act in Massachusetts. It's been placed there by activists connected to Adams. One of them is Ebenezer McIntosh. Locally, McIntosh is known as a bullish tough guy, often seen leading his South End gang in fights versus the rival North End gang. Dust-ups in Boston are no rare thing. As the sun fades, the effigy is cut down from the tree, but not laid to rest. Ebenezer McIntosh arrives. A huge crowd gathers around him. The effigy is held aloft and paraded through the streets. They behead it, then burn it.

35:08When they reach the official's house, windows are smashed. Some of the crowd break in and raid the wine cellar.

35:20The message is pure Boston, a bold, direct statement of resentment and rage. It's not the wealthiest people who are showing up in this mob. There are a lot of sailors, artisans, shipbuilders. It is the working people of Boston who have been worked up by Sam Adams' publications against the stamp tax and against any colonist who has spoken out in favor of the stamp tax.

35:50Clarke Peters:It's unclear whether or not Samuel Adams has direct involvement in planning this protest. But in the Boston Gazette, he later refers to those involved as the Sons of Liberty.

36:06Clarke Peters:It's August 26, 1765. Evening in Boston. Daylight slinks away. In his elegant three-story mansion, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts is settling down to dinner. At 53, Thomas Hutchison occupies a rarefied position in his hometown. Descended from early settlers, he's part of the Massachusetts elite. Harvard educated, well connected, and very wealthy. In Boston, he's a go-to man of influence. As it happens, his brother-in-law is the government official who was recently targeted by Ebenezer McIntosh. Rumor is the man only had his job because of Hutchison. To many in Boston, it seems that far too much power is held by far too few people.

37:08Life for Hutchison is as indulgent as it gets in dour New England. There are no theaters there.

37:15Clarke Peters:The puritanical establishment banned those years ago. But an Anglo-American's home is his castle, and Hutchison's overflows with oil paintings, exquisite furniture, and fine fabrics. Tonight, he takes a seat at his highly polished dining table. Surrounding him are several of his children. From his kitchens, servants deliver trays of rich delicacies. Bottles of delicious French wine are brought from the cellar. But before Hutchinson can fill his belly, a servant hurries in. There's an urgent message. A mob is on its way. led by the pugnacious Ebenezer McIntosh. Hutchison needs no further explanation.

38:07Clarke Peters:These last few weeks have unleashed a popular fury. From his perspective, it's an outbreak of mass insanity, a hive-minded carnival of violence fueled by overheated rhetoric and deranged conspiracy theories. Hutchison orders his children to get out of the house anywhere will do, just as long as it's away from the advancing mob. The house must be secured. Hutchison tears around the place, doors a-locked, windows shut fast. He flees for the safety of a neighbor's house. Soon thousands of Bostonians descend, all intent on popular justice. In a chorus of smashing glass and splintering wood, McIntosh's followers break in.

39:00Clarke Peters:Looting and destruction ensues. The antique furniture is tossed into the street and set a light. Wooden paneling is stripped out. Walls are knocked through. Everything that's not nailed down is either ruined or stolen. Even the servants' clothes are pilfered.

39:23By sunrise, the rioters have made their exit. Hutchinson stands in front of the rubble. It is, he says, the rage of devils that has come to Boston.

39:39Clarke Peters:The trashing of Hutchinson's house is mimicked throughout the colonies. Tax collectors everywhere are in a state of panic. Many quit their posts in the hope that it'll save them from the mob. To harness and control this energy, the colony's political elites attempt to make common cause. Leaders from nine colonies decide to gather in New York City. At the meeting, delegates draw up a declaration of rights and grievances. It adds an official air to the events. There's no doubt. This is not just the bellyaching of a few amped-up Bostonians.

40:23Across the ocean, Benjamin Franklin grows agitated. Initially, he's somewhat detached from the real view of Americans. He opposed the Stamp Act. But once he thought it was going to go into effect anyway, He arranged for one of his friends to become the stamp collector in Pennsylvania. He was very calculating, but I think it is also a testimony to his fondness for Britain.

40:51Clarke Peters:In Parliament, a place almost as rowdy as Boston, there's more than a little sympathy for the colonies. In January 1766, Franklin buys a pamphlet. He turns its pages eagerly. Inside is the text of a speech just delivered by William Pitt, a leading figure in the Whig Party that pushes the interests of Parliament over those of the monarch. Through his round-framed glasses, Franklin reads Pitt's latest speech, a rebuke of the Stamp Act. After a few weeks, Franklin echoes the sentiment when he's called to Parliament himself. It's the closest Americans will ever get to their demand of representation in this body that seeks to tax them.

41:43Before a committee of MPs, Franklin puts on a show. Over four hours, he fields 174 questions. Each answer presses the colony's case with wit, knowledge, and sound logic. He's asked whether soldiers should be sent to quell the growing rebellion.

42:02Clarke Peters:The military patrolling American streets? Franklin rolls his eyes at that one. They will not find a rebellion, he says, but they may indeed make one. A few weeks after Franklin's testimony, the Stamp Act is repealed. The colonies rejoice. In New York, the local government commissions the Grand Equestrian Statue of George III, an expression of loyalty to His Majesty. But a second statue is also commissioned. This one is of William Pitt, the parliamentarian who led British criticism of the new taxes. It will stand on Wall Street, less than half a mile from the statue of George. It's a telling expression of American sentiments.

42:55Clarke Peters:God save the king and don't tread on me. and two chunks of gilded lead.

43:06But the British haven't learned their lesson. Just a year later, a wave of new taxes are introduced by Charles Townsend,

43:15Clarke Peters:Chancellor of the Exchequer in a new government. What began as an effort to balance the books is now a point of principle. Only Pitt really denied the right of Britain to tax America The others argued you have the right to tax America But it's not expedient to do so The government was determined to assert a token authority The so-called Townsend duties were import duties to America They could easily have just been levered in Britain There was almost no need to do it So it's very symbolic Boston rises again. In the Boston Gazette, Samuel Adams hits out against the British government. To protest the import duties, boycotts of British goods begin.

44:07Many in Boston refuse to buy or sell any materials shipped in from the mother country.

44:13Clarke Peters:This includes British cloth. The only alternative is to buy American. Difficult when the colonies are virtually untouched by the Industrial Revolution. But America's women have the solution. Professor Cal Birkin is the author of Revolutionary Mothers. Gender rules were that women were in charge of the dairy, the garden, the household, and turning raw materials into usable manufactured goods. So now they set up spinning wheels and they spin cloth and they call themselves the Daughters of Liberty. That's a political identity. People often ask me what were the most radical things in the American Revolution.

45:07And I say, well, one of them was the politicization of women. It happened virtually overnight.

45:15Clarke Peters:Of course, for the hundreds of thousands of enslaved women in the colonies, their lives remain unaffected. But free women now find themselves at the center of public life. Suddenly, the newspapers have to address women and say, no, no, no, we were wrong about saying you don't have political opinions, and we value your political opinions, and we need you to produce more cloth. And women start to then express themselves more openly, and some of them start to write in the newspapers to rally other women to this cause of supporting the boycott. It's not only city folk who are politically active. Most Americans live in rural communities, and opposition to Parliament's taxes is widespread there too.

46:03Jim Philbrick is a direct descendant of David Howe, whose story we'll follow in later episodes. In 1766, David is only 10 years old and living in rural Massachusetts, but eventually he'll take up arms against the British Empire. David was born and raised on a farm in Methuen, Massachusetts. His father was born there, from what I could tell, and they had lived there for several generations. That whole part of the family was from New England going back into the 1600s with some of the first groups that came over. David and I both descend from Elizabeth Jackson Howe, who was hanged as one of the witches in Salem in June of 1692.

46:52It was rural. It was hilly, hardwood forests with open meadows and lots of running streams and water. Very ideal place to set up a homestead. It would take a day to get to Boston from where they were living. Parliament was across the ocean, and they started to get a little unhappy with some of the things that were being asked of them to send this money. For what reason? I don't understand. You're telling us to do these things. And I could definitely see where the king started to seem much further away. In the fields and farmlands, to the streets and the shipyards, anger is rising. Protests continue, and colonists dig in.

47:39As does the British government. A thousand soldiers are sent to Boston. Before the Seven Years' War, there were almost no British troops in North America. So for British troops to be sent into an American seaport city, Boston, in large numbers to occupy the city and essentially to enforce the laws of parliament in the most militant, radical, resisting city in the colonies. It's a major escalation.

48:18Clarke Peters:On October the 1st, 1768, the first of the soldiers stream off British ships. From his family home near the docks, Samuel Adams is able to see the new arrivals at close quarters. They are far from inconspicuous. Every one of them is decked out in a bright red coat. If there's any intention of blending into the background, it's not going to happen. Inexplicably, no proper arrangements have been made for housing the redcoats in Boston. Soldiers are forced to cram themselves into government buildings, attempting to sleep in gaps between the furniture. They even spill onto Boston Common. When Adams takes a walk in the center of town, there they are, an entire regiment camping out in the autumn chill.

49:16Eventually, someone has the bright idea of commandeering Manufactory House. It's a large vacant building, adequate for billeting soldiers. But Adams and his gang are one step ahead. When the local sheriff arrives, he discovers a place full of people. The doors are triple-bolted, the windows barred and boarded. Boston's message is clear. The soldiers are not getting in.

49:51Clarke Peters:In the early afternoon of October the 20th, the sheriff returns with his deputy. and a plan. He's been tipped off that some residents are sneaking in and out of Manufactory House via a small basement window. It's shut tight right now, so he waits. Eventually, the window opens. A young man climbs through it. The sheriff hurries over. As the young man goes to close the window behind him, the sheriff jams his fingers beneath the sash. The two wrestle over the frame. At 65, the sheriff would be forgiven for thinking he's too old for this nonsense. Instead, he draws a sword. Sensibly enough, the young man flees.

50:44The sheriff pries the window open. He and his deputy clamber inside Manufactory House. In the basement, they encounter another resident. A fight breaks out. What happens next is contested. By one account, the sheriff thrusts and parries like Errol Flynn. According to another, the sheriff and his deputy are overpowered and briefly taken hostage. Either way, the sheriff soon emerges in one piece, but the building is still full. Time for a different tactic. Soldiers now gather and surround the building. Nobody and nothing is to enter. The occupants will be starved out. But this new plan proves no more effective than the last one.

51:35Standing outside the building, townspeople literally chance their arm and fling loaves of bread at those leaning out of windows on the upper floors. Chairs go up every time a loaf is caught. The redcoats stand still as mannequins, powerless to intervene. When the Massachusetts governor hears of this, he decides to end the circus. The soldiers give up on Manufactory House. Alternative accommodation is eventually found. With no blood spilled, ordinary Bostonians have defeated the world's most powerful military.

52:20Samuel Adams writes a report of the drama. These days, not much of importance happens in Boston without it being captured by his pen.

52:30Clarke Peters:At Purchase Street, he works late into the night. Cocooned in the soft glow of candlelight, he writes and writes. The Protestant work ethic never dims. With the arrival of the Redcoats, Adams publishes a torrent of critical pieces. Each is written under an assumed name. Tonight, as his wife hears the scratching of his pen on the page, he's at work on a new venture. This one is called the Journal of Occurrences. It details the most sickening, hateful abuses committed by the British against the innocents of Boston. Much of the content is exaggerated or simply made up. The Redcoats are accused of every sin imaginable.

53:18According to Adams' account, sadism comes as naturally to them as breathing. But accuracy isn't the point. This is pure propaganda. Adams intends only to underscore the outrage of placing British soldiers on American streets. His words spread like lightning through the colonies. The revolutionaries were able to mobilize support because they produced all this printed material. And it was totally over the top. It would levy the most extreme accusations against the British government, but it moved very quickly. It also helps to explain how a small series of protests became a national revolution. And one of the things we see is that the northern colonies joined the movement more quickly.

54:11The southern colonies joined more slowly. One of the reasons is that there are fewer printing presses. So the news didn't circulate as quickly. But these pamphlets were also read aloud. So people didn't just read them, they heard them. Some of Boston's tales travel all the way to London. Benjamin Franklin can barely believe how things have developed in just the last five years. To many Americans, Franklin seems like the colony's best hope of making the British see sense. Already an agent for Pennsylvania, in 1768, Georgia recruits him to represent them in London too. New Jersey and Massachusetts follow soon after.

54:59Franklin himself, however, is unsure of where things are heading. In early 1769, he confides to a friend that Meanwhile,

55:22Clarke Peters:with his pen, Samuel Adams keeps alive the spirit and the language of protest. The word patriot becomes loaded. Many use it now to describe those who pick a fight with Parliament, not those who celebrate the empire. But Boston is a city where individual thought is prized. When it comes to relations with Britain, there's plenty of disagreement. Not everyone, for instance, aligns with the boycott of British goods. Ironically, because they were patriotic. They were British subjects. They felt an attachment to the king. Some of them had been born in the British Isles or their parents had been. They felt a strong connection there.

56:05They were worried. They knew that the British Empire had done a lot for them. The British Empire was the root of the economy. So that is the political argument. That is the economic argument. All these benefits they'd gotten from the British Empire. Why would you give any of that up? Yet, the longer the British Redcoats roam the streets of Boston, the less patience there is with the boycott holdouts. In early 1770, the threat of violence feels ever-present. Protests form outside the homes of local merchants who continue to import British goods. windows are smashed, walls caked in manure.

56:55Clarke Peters:On February the 22nd, a group of boys and young men arrive outside a merchant's shop. There's a hundred of them, maybe more. They erect a sign, it simply says, imported. An indignant neighbor named Ebenezer Richardson attempts to knock the pole to the ground. He drives a horse and cart straight at him. But it won't budge. The crowd turns. They harass Richardson, who runs to the safety of his house. Insults are hurled, then sticks and stones. The windows of Richardson's house are smashed. Through a shattered pane of glass, Richardson pokes the barrel of a gun. He fires off a shot.

57:48And in doing so, it's Christopher Sider, an 11-year-old boy.

58:01A protest over unfair taxation has spiraled to this, the death of a child on the streets he called home.

58:11Clarke Peters:But there are no British soldiers involved in this tragedy. This is American versus American, the first shot of a civil war that will become a global conflict, and the first casualty of a revolution that, even now, almost nobody can see coming.

58:44Next time on Founding Fathers, An American Dream, Boston is rocked. Unrest grows. An exchange of insults snowballs into a bloody clash between locals and redcoats. A young lawyer named John Adams steps up to do the least popular job in the city, defending British soldiers accused of perpetrating a massacre. As Parliament attempts to reassert its authority, a dispute over tea imports results in one of history's most memorable acts of defiance. And as colonists gather in their first ever Congress, we meet a tall, composed war veteran from Virginia who will go on to become quite possibly the most famous founding father of them all.

59:33That's next time.

59:42Thanks for listening. To hear more episodes of Founding Fathers and American Dream right now, find the show in your podcast app and hit follow, or listen at noiser.com.