Howard Zinn - A Young People's History Of The United States - Chapter 4: Tyranny Is Tyranny lyrics

Around 1776, some important people in the British colonies of North America made a discovery. They found that by creating a nation and a symbol called the United States, they could take over land, wealth, and political power from other people who had been ruling the colonies for Great Britain. When we look at the American Revolution this way, it was a work of genius. The Founding Fathers created a new system of national control that has worked very well for more than two hun­dred years. Control was desperately needed. The colonies boiled with discontent. By 1760 there had been eighteen uprisings aimed at overthrowing the gov­ernment of one or more colonies. There were also six black rebellions, from South Carolina to New York, and forty other riots. But by the 1760s the colonies also had people we call local elites. These were political and social leaders in their city, town, or colony. Most of them were educated people, such as lawyers, doctors, and writers. Their thoughts carried weight. Some of these elite colonists were close to the ruling cir­cles, made up of governors, tax collectors, and other officials who represented Great Britain. Other elite colonists were outside the ruling cir­cles, but their fellow colonists looked up to them anyway. These local elites were disturbed by the rising disorder. They feared that if the social order of the colonies were overturned, their own property and importance could be harmed. Then the elites saw a way to protect themselves and their positions . They could turn the rebellious energy of the colonists against Britain and its officials . This dis­covery was not a plan or a simple decision. Instead, it took shape over a few years as the elites faced one crisis after another. Anger and Violence In 1763 the British defeated the French in the Seven Years' War {called the French and Indian War in the colonies). France no longer threatened Britain's colonies in North America. But after the war, the British government tight­ened its control over those colonies, because they were valuable. Britain needed taxes from the colonists to help pay for the war. Also, trade with the colonies brought large profits to Great Britain every year. But unemployment and poverty were rising in the colonies. Poor people wandered the streets, begging. At the same time, the richest colonists controlled fortunes worth millions in today's dol­lars. There were many very poor people but only a few very rich people. Hardship made some colonists restless, even rebellious. In the countryside, where most people lived, poor and rich came into conflict. From the I740S to the 1760s, tenants rioted and rebelled against landlords in New York and New Jersey. White farmers in North Carolina formed a "Regulator Movement" in 1766. The Regulators called themselves poor peasants and laborers. They claimed to stand for the common people against rich, powerful officials who governed unfairly. The Regulators were angry about high taxes. They also resented lawyers and merchants taking poor people to court over debts. When Regulators organized to keep taxes from being collected, the governor used military force against them. In May 1771, an army with cannon defeated several thousand Regulators. Six Regulators were hanged. In Boston, the lower cla**es started using town meetings to air their complaints. One governor of Ma**achusetts wrote that Boston's poor people and common folk came regularly to the meetings. There were so many of them that they outvoted the "Gentlemen" and other Bostonians close to the ruling circle. Something important was happening in Boston. It started with men like James Otis and Samuel Adams. They belonged to the local elite, but they were not part of the ruling group that was tied to Britain. Otis, Adams, and other local lead­ers recognized the feelings of the poorer Bostonians . Through powerful speeches and writ­ ten articles, they stirred up those angry feelings and called the lower cla**es into action. The Boston mob showed what it could do after the British government pa**ed the Stamp Act of 1765. This law taxed the colonists to pay for the Seven Years' War. Colonists had already suffered during the war, and now they didn't want to pay for it. Crowds destroyed the homes of a rich mer­chant and of Thomas Hutchinson, one of those who ruled in the name of Britain. They smashed Hutchinson's house with axes, drank his wine, and carried off his furniture and other belongings. Officials reported to Britain that the destruc­tion of Hutchinson's property was part of a plan to attack other rich people. It was to be "a War of Plunder, of general leveling and taking away the Distinction of rich and poor." But such outbursts worried local leaders like James Otis. They wanted the cla** hatred of the poor to be turned only against the rich who served the British-not against themselves. A group of Boston merchants, shipowners, and master craftsmen formed a political group called the Loyal Nine. They set up a march to protest the Stamp Act. The Loyal Nine belonged to the upper and mid­dle cla**es, but they encouraged lower-cla** people such as ship workers, apprentices, and craftsmen to join their protest (but they did not include blacks). Two or three thousand people demonstrated out­ side a local official's home. But after the "gentle­ men" who planned and organized the protest left, the crowd went further and destroyed some of the official's property. Later, the leaders said that the vio­lence was wrong. They turned against the crowd and cut all ties with the rioters. The next time the British government tried to tax the colonies, the colonial elites called for more demonstrations . But this time leaders like Samuel Adams and James Otis insisted, "No Mobs-No Confusions-No Tumults ." (A "tumult" was a riot.) They wanted the people to show their anger against Britain, but they also wanted "Persons and Properties" to remain safe. Revolution in the Air As time went on, feelings against the British grew stronger. After 1768, two thou­ sand British troops were stationed in Boston. At a time when jobs were scarce, these soldiers began taking the jobs of working people. On March 5, 1770, conflict between local workers and British soldiers broke into a tumult called the Boston Ma**acre. Soldiers fired their guns at a crowd of demon­strators. They k**ed a mixed-race worker named Crispus Attucks, and then others. Colonist John Adams, a lawyer, defended the eight British sol­diers at their trial. Adams called the crowd at the ma**acre "a motley rabble" and described it in scornful terms. Two of the soldiers were dis­ charged from the army.The other six were found not guilty, which made some Bostonians even angrier. Britain took its troops out of the city, hop­ing things would quiet down. But the colonists' anger did not go away. Political and social leaders in Boston formed a Committee of Correspondence to plan actions against the British. One of their actions was the Boston Tea Party of 177}To protest the tax on tea, a group of colonists seized the cargo from a British ship and dumped it into Boston Harbor. Britain's answer to the Boston Tea Party was a set of new, stricter laws. The British closed the port in Boston, broke up the colonial government, and sent in troops. Colonists held ma** meetings of protest. What about the other colonies? In Virginia, the educated elite wanted to turn the anger of the lower orders against Britain. They found a way in the speech making talents of Patrick Henry. In inspiring words, Henry told the colonists why they should be angry at Britain. At the same time, he avoided stirring up cla** conflict among the colonists. His words fed a feeling of patriotism, a growing resistance against Britain. Other inspiring words helped turn the resist­ance movement toward independence. In 1776 Thomas Paine published a pamphlet, or short book, called Common Sense. It boldly made the first claim that the colonies should be free of British control. Paine argued that sticking to Great Britain would do the colonists no good and that separat­ing from Britain would do them no harm. He reminded his readers of all the wars that Britain had dragged them into-and of the lives and money those wars had cost them. Finally he made a thundering statement: Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'TIS TIME TO PART.' Common Sense was the most popular pam­phlet in colonial America. But it caused some alarm in elite colonists like John Adams. These elites supported the patriot cause of independ­ence from Britain, but they didn't want to go too far toward democracy. Rule by the people had to be kept within limits, Adams thought, because the ma**es made hasty, foolish decisions. Thomas Paine did not belong to the elite cla**. He came to America as a poor emigrant from England. But once the Revolution started, he sepa­rated himself from the crowd actions of the lower cla**es. Still, Paine's words in Common Sense became part of the myth of the Revolution-that it was the movement of a united people.