Writs, Riots, and Redcoats: Hancock’s Spark of the Revolution
In an early confrontation between the customs officials and John Hancock, the British hoped that flexing their muscles would teach the colonists a lesson and cow them into submission. They were wrong. Instead, the crackdown sparked a willingness to physically resist...
No Obedience is Due: The Suffolk Resolves of 1774
โNo obedience is due from this province to either or any part of the acts above-mentioned, but that they be rejected as the attempts of a wicked administration to enslave America.โ Today in history – September 9, 1774 – from the Suffolk Resolves, drafted...
Tax Resistance and the Birth of the American Revolution
On April 18, 1689, eighty-six years and a day before the โshot heard โround the worldโ at Lexington and Concord, the people of Boston and surrounding towns rose up and overthrew the royal governor in a rebellion against taxation and arbitrary power. It was no mere...