Yearly Archives: 2013

The majority of the colonists did not want the breakdown of law and order these gangs and their leaders would bring, so determined Loyalists covertly supplied the British with good intelligence, including that rebels were amassing small arms and cannon at Concord.

Lt. General Gage commander of British forces who thought with good reason that the rebels were sly, artful, hypocritical, and cruel, knew that any wrong move would spark a civil war, so wishing to avoid bloodshed, devised a counter revolutionary plan to confiscate the rebel’s stockpile of gunpowder, musket balls and cannons.

On Monday morning, July 1, 1776, just as delegates to the Continental Congress were assembling in the East Wing of the Pennsylvania State House to resume debate on declaring independence, a currier handed John Adams a letter from Samuel Chase. The Maryland Convention had suddenly reversed its position, Chase informed Adams. Three weeks earlier, in response to Richard Henry Lee's momentous resolution in favor of independence, the Maryland delegation had stormed out. Then Chase and others sent the matter back to the county conventions, and at least four of these instructed their delegates to the Maryland Convention to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote in favor of Lee's resolution. In an emergency session on Friday evening, June 28, the Maryland Convention finally conceded to the dictates of the county conventions. "See the glorious effects of county instructions," Chase now boasted to Adams. "Our people have fire if not smothered."

A Declaration of Independence ­21 months before July 4, 1776 On October 4,1774, the Worcester Massachusetts Town Meeting issued instructions to blacksmith Timothy Bigelow, whom it had chosen for its representative to the forthcoming Provincial Congress: You are to consider…

Boston and the Dawn of Independence "Required Reading" By Brian Deming BostonDawn Hardcover, 508 pages, Westholme Publishing The world of colonial Boston packed up and sailed away long ago, but it left quite a mark. That town of just eight…

The rebel insurgency, in their quest for independence, resisted government control in many illegitimate ways and orchestrated the cruel, unfair treatment of America Loyalists. They were involved in the smuggling of goods and many other corrupt illegal acts. Groups such as the Sons of Liberty, intimidated government officials through vicious propaganda, performed cruel acts such tarring and feathering of Loyalists in many of the States and violently resisting any form of control.

Their propaganda said they were fighting for the inalienable rights of life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, but the colonists were living, King George had given them the freedom to live in America, to virtually self-govern, to own property, to set up businesses and allowed them to trade.