Tabla de contenidos para TIME 1776 en TIME 1776

A SPY IN THE HOUSE OF LIBERTY

GROUPS INCLUDING THE Sons of Liberty, the Boston Committee of Correspondence, and the Boston Caucus held top-secret meetings at Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern (right), where events such as the Boston Tea Party had been planned. But in 1775, a troubling mystery beset rebel leaders John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, and Benjamin Church Jr. (above). Details about their gatherings, as well as Massachusetts Provincial Congress business, were being leaked to the British. Hancock and Adams were devoted rebels and seemed beyond suspicion. Warren and Church, though less famous, were also highly trusted. Church, for one, gave fiery orations, satirized the British in newspapers, and was the first surgeon general. But in September 1775, the Boston leaders learned the truth. Church had been disclosing their secrets to General Thomas Gage, the…

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

AT A LITTLE AFTER 10 P.M. ON THE night of April 18, 1775, the patriots’ best express rider, Paul Revere, set out from Boston by rowboat, then horseback, to warn the countryside that Royal soldiers were marching toward the towns of Lexington and Concord. By dawn on April 19, those soldiers, the Regulars, had reached Lexington, where they met resistance from provincial forces. The battles of the American Revolution had begun. The following is excerpted from The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, written by Kostya Kennedy. He saddled the horse in Charlestown, and the new knowledge that British officers riding good horses covered the roads ahead, and that these officers might corner him or fire at him, did not diminish Revere’s resolve. As a rider and…

6 min.

FAREWELL TO THE KING

A GRAND, GOLD-LEAFED, 20-TON lead statue of King George III once commanded Manhattan’s Bowling Green. Prior to the Revolution, New Yorkers looked upon their togarobed monarch bestride his horse with a “deep sense of the eminent and singular benefits received from him.” Much, though, had changed since it was set there in 1770. On July 9, 1776, George Washington had the Declaration of Independence read to the Continental troops stationed in the city in order to encourage “every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage.” A crowd fortified by liberty, along with rum and ale, then swarmed down Broadway. They pulled the royal horse from its pedestal, hacked off the king’s head, fired a musket shot into it, pounded away the nose, and pried off the laurel wreath. With…

A MULTI-NATION FIGHT

JOHN HANCOCK Some revolutionaries are known for the battles they fight, while others are known for the legislation they champion. John Hancock (1737–1793) is best known for a signature so memorable, his name became a synonym for all signatures. The nephew of a wealthy Massachusetts merchant, Hancock was an established local politician when the Crown imposed the Stamp Act and the Townshend duties, which he allegedly resisted by smuggling goods aboard his ships. A popular figure in Boston, Hancock was elected president of the Continental Congress in 1775, where he used his individual wealth to bankroll revolutionary efforts. (Congress appointed George Washington as commander of the Continental Army one month later, a role Hancock reportedly wanted for himself.) One year later, the patriot signed the Declaration of Independence that had…

4 min.

BEYOND THE WILDERNESS

THE BRITISH COLONISTS thought of North America mainly in terms of their Atlantic settlements and the vast wilderness to the west. Yet at the start of the American Revolution, another process of settlement was taking place on the distant coast of the Pacific. Just a week before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a weary band of 193 Spanish colonists and their families arrived in upper California, in a spot they christened the Bay of San Francisco. The colonists, who came from settlements in Mexico, included both soldiers and priests. They came with the intent of setting up a mission and presidio and converting the local native population to Catholicism. This was not always successful. In November 1775, a band of Native Americans attacked the mission at San Diego…

The Nimble Envoy

IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE BRITISH, the newly formed United States needed a strong and wealthy ally to assist with money and military aid, so Congress tasked Benjamin Franklin, along with Connecticut’s Silas Deane and Virginia’s Arthur Lee, with seeking a formal alliance with France. Well respected in Europe, Franklin was the obvious choice. He had been to France previously and had been made a foreign associate of the French Royal Academy of Sciences. In late October 1776, Franklin, along with grandsons Temple and Benny, boarded the warship Reprisal. Word quickly spread of Franklin’s arrival in the port city of Nantes, France. As he neared Paris, crowds cheered, many fascinated by this seemingly modest man of science in the marten-fur cap. Staying in Passy, outside Paris, Franklin became the toast of…

7 min.

Preserving America’s Heritage

AS THE UNITED STATES CELE brates its 250th birthday, renovations and restorations have been taking place at historic spots across the land. George Washington inherited Mount Vernon, outside Washington, D.C., in 1754 and five years later brought his bride, Martha, there. The home recently underwent its first major upgrade in more than 150 years, with the aim of restoring the house and the estate’s other 11 buildings to how they appeared when Washington lived there. In the bedchamber where Washington died in 1799, layers of 20th-century plaster and metal lath were carefully removed from the walls and ceiling, and restorers discovered most of the 18th-century lath. The surfaces were restored, and wallpaper was reproduced to match the original. The main work on the estate took place in the cellar. The…

INSTRUMENTS OF WAR

DURING AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL excavation at Concord’s North Bridge in Massachusetts, the National Park Service in 2023 uncovered musket balls determined to have been fired by a Minuteman on April 19, 1775, during the first fight between the Americans and the British (above). At Yorktown, where the final battle was won on October 19, 1781, the cannon at right was captured when Lord Cornwallis surrendered and the Revolution ended.…

CHRONOLOGY OF INDEPENDENCE

1763 FEBRUARY 10, 1763 After years of battle, the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years’ War, ends. France cedes to Britain all of its claims in Canada, as well as the Louisiana territories. The war adds £133 million to Britain’s national debt. 1765 MARCH 22, 1765 Seeking to raise £60,000 a year, Parliament passes the Stamp Act, requiring payment for revenue stamps on all newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, legal documents, playing cards, and dice. Sons of Liberty clubs form in Boston and elsewhere to resist the act. OCTOBER 1765 Delegates from nine colonies meet at a Stamp Act Congress in New York City. They protest against taxation without representation and resolve not to import any goods that require the payment of a duty. 1766 MARCH 18, 1766…

America’s Last King Wasn’t the Crazy Tyrant

I LOVED HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSIcal for its foot-tapping tunes and witty libretto, but it’s no more an accurate portrayal of history than Shakespeare’s Richard III or Macbeth. For the cruel prancing camp sadist originally portrayed so memorably by Jonathan Groff is as far removed from the real King George III as it is possible to get. After two centuries of largely deliberate and highly political misrepresentation, people on both sides of the Atlantic think that because George was a tyrant king and moreover mad with porphyria, Britain lost the American War of Independence. In fact, he firstly wasn’t mad with porphyria, secondly he wasn’t a tyrant king, thirdly he was perfectly sane throughout the American Revolution, and lastly, he wasn’t responsible for Britain’s defeat. Four major misunderstandings, all in…

5 min.

Proclaiming and Fighting for a New Nation

BY THE SPRING OF 1775, WAR between the colonists and the British forces seemed possible. The Americans weren’t yet advocating for independence; they merely wanted to be treated fairly as British citizens, especially if they were going to be faced with onerous taxes. Still, tensions were rising up and down the coast, and at the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond on March 23, delegate Patrick Henry delivered a speech that signaled that many Americans were poised to resist. “Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace,” he said. “The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! … Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains…

10 min.

What the British Thought of American Independence

IN THE UNITED STATES, THE FOURTH OF JULY is, for many people, a time to watch some fireworks and eat some hot dogs in celebration of American independence. But in 1776, when news reached Britain of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the atmosphere was anything but celebratory. A look through letters from the period, now held in the archives of the U.K.’s Nottingham University, shows that the British public was divided over the outbreak of war with what were then their colonies—over how bad it was, whose fault it was, and what to do about it. Before the Americans officially declared independence, the British were worried about what King George III’s response to the unrest there would certainly be. After all, the Declaration of Independence was not the beginning…

6 min.

THE MUNITIONS TRADE

OF ALL THE PROBLEMS THAT faced the American war effort, the most immediate at the beginning of the struggle was the desperate shortage of arms and ammunition. “Our want of powder is inconceivable,” General George Washington complained on Christmas Day 1775. “A daily waste and no supply administers a gloomy prospect.” The reason for the need came from Britain’s Prohibitory Act, which banned the export of all arms to America. As a result, the powder in Continental muskets came mostly from France, which had closed its eyes to the activities of both European and American gunrunners. The supply, though, could not keep up with the demand, and American soldiers were severely rationed, with a daily allowance at times of only nine musket rounds per man versus the 60 rounds that…

A Land Takes Its Place Among Nations

AS THE BRUTAL WINTER OF 1777 set in, General George Washington’s battered and war-weary troops dug in for a long and freezing stay at Valley Forge. The punishing battles at Brandywine, Germantown, and elsewhere had left the Continental Army physically exhausted and emotionally spent. The future seemed more uncertain than ever. More than 12,000 soldiers would shiver through the miserable final month of 1777 and into early 1778 in their winter quarters, a strategic patch of Pennsylvania high ground 18 miles northwest of Philadelphia, which was now under the control of the British army’s General William Howe. Short on food, supplies, and hopeful news, the demoralized men fought back darkness, despondency, and death. Malnutrition, exposure, and disease—particularly smallpox and typhoid—spread rapidly through the camp, claiming the lives of nearly 2,000…

10 min.

THE FACES OF BATTLE

ESTHER DE BERDT REED In May 1780, the American troops were in dire need of assistance. Washington appealed to Congress, reporting that his men desperately needed food, clothing, and pay. When the government proved slow in allocating resources, the women of Philadelphia, led by an English-American governor’s wife, came to the general’s aid. The London-born Esther de Berdt (1746–1780) had immigrated as the young bride of Joseph Reed. Initially resisting politically charged debates, she quickly became a patriot. She wrote to her brother in London, outlining the impending rift between her new home and her birth country: “the people of New England … are prepared for the worst event, and they have such ideas of their injured liberty, and so much enthusiasm in the cause, that I do not think…

4 min.

From Loyalists to Revolutionaries

ON FEBRUARY 10, 1763, A BATTERED and bloody curtain finally closed on the French and Indian War with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The British Army, with the incalculable assistance of loyalist militias from the American colonies as well as the Iroquois Confederacy, had triumphed over the French in their mutual quest for empire. After nine long winters of freezing hardship that had claimed the lives of more than 11,000 soldiers, victory in what is also known as the Seven Years’ War was at hand. But rather than ushering in an era of lasting peace and prosperity in the new world, the closing act of one conflict simply marked the prelude of another. As its spoils of war, the British Crown had taken possession of nearly all of Canada,…

9 min.

REVOLUTIONARY PERSONALITIES

ISAAC SEARS Known as King Sears, the merchant Isaac Sears (1730–1786) helped found the Sons of Liberty in New York and actively incited protests against British troops. Defenders of the Crown called the group the “Sons of Licentiousness,” and on January 18, 1770, Sears and Walter Quackenbush stopped soldiers from posting a handbill that insulted their organization. Other soldiers came to their comrades’ aid. When a group of New Yorkers confronted the redcoats on Golden Hill (present-day John Street in lower Manhattan), an officer ordered his men, “Draw your Bayonets, and cut your Way through them!” The troops chased citizens armed with sticks, clubs, and sleigh rungs, and the scuffle, six weeks before the Boston Massacre, resulted in numerous bayonet stabbings. After Parliament enacted the Tea Act in 1773, Sears…

4 min.

Free to Be Happy

SITTING IN HIS SMALL TWO-ROOM suite in the bricklayer Jacob Graff’s house at Seventh and Market streets in Philadelphia—he hated the flies from nearby stables and fields—Thomas Jefferson used a small wooden writing desk (a kind of 18th-century laptop) to draft the report of a subcommittee of the Second Continental Congress in June 1776. There were to be many edits and changes to what became known as the Declaration of Independence—far too many for the writerly and sensitive Jefferson. But the fundamental rights of man as Jefferson saw them remained consistent: the rights to life, to liberty and, crucially, to “the pursuit of happiness.” To our eyes and ears, human equality and the liberty to build a happy life are inextricably linked in the cadences of the Declaration, and thus…

7 min.

George Washington: First and Foremost

FIRST, LET’S DISPENSE WITH THE folklore. All historians agree: George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree and then fessed up to his father with the words “I cannot tell a lie.’’ And he never threw a silver dollar across the Potomac; from Mount Vernon, that can’t be done. But his life needs no fictional trimmings. The man who led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, who presided over the debates of the Constitutional Convention and became the first president of the United States, lived one of the most eventful, colorful, and consequential lives of all time. It began on February 11, 1732, by the old Julian calendar—February 22 by the one adopted during his lifetime in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The first child of Augustine Washington, a prosperous…

13 min.

The Army’s Four Horsemen

Major General Charles Lee Washington’s chief deputy was a former British lieutenant colonel of infantry from Cheshire, England, who took up soldiering at the age of 15, learned six languages, once served as major general to the King of Poland, was an adopted son of a Mohawk tribe, and was celebrated for his writings against the British Crown. A gaunt, unkempt figure racked with gout, Lee was highly critical of other men’s soldierly skills. “Our booby-in-chief’ and a “stupid blunderer” was his nickname for Major General James Abercrombie, under whom he served during the French and Indian War. For the benefit of Lee’s detailed grasp of military drill, maneuvers, and planning, the more conservative Washington willingly put up with Lee’s eccentricities, which included profanity, a sarcastic style in writing reports,…

DIARY OF A SURGEON

SOON AFTER WAR BROKE out in 1775, Albigence Waldo (1750–1794) left his medical practice in Pomfret, Connecticut, and was commissioned a surgeon’s mate. He was soon made a chief surgeon, and in September 1777, after the defeat at Brandywine Creek, George Washington ordered him to join the Continental Army. Waldo kept an invaluable diary of army life, which during the winter of 1777–78 recorded the privations the army suffered after arriving at Valley Forge on December 19. DECEMBER 21, 1777 Preparations made for hutts. Provisions Scarce … my Skin & eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke. A general cry thro’ the Camp this Evening among the Soldiers, “No Meat! No Meat!” DECEMBER 22 I am ashamed to say it, but I am tempted to steal Fowls if I could…

The Hypocrisy of Enslavement

ENSLAVEMENT IS AMERICA’S ORIGInal sin, an evil that stamped with shame and hypocrisy the Founders’ professed embrace of liberty and equality for all, and one that left an anguished racial legacy that still torments the nation. Efforts failed to insert anti-enslavement clauses into the Declaration of lndependence and the Constitution. It would take more than 75 years, a bloody Civil War, and a good deal of political courage to end the institution of enslavement. A majority of those who signed the Declaration of Independence enslaved people. Some found the practice abhorrent but, particularly in the South, told themselves that it was a necessary evil. Others openly embraced abolition, perhaps incrementally, or else evolved in that direction. Most at least saw the inherent paradox in fighting a revolution to escape tyranny…

5 min.