One of the many surprises I encountered in researching my book Quaking Dover was the fact that the Puritan authorities in Boston were ready for revolution from the git-go, way before Paul Revere.
I’d like to see more of their history presented from that riotous side.
There were the cannons they set up on Boston Harbor in 1634 to fire on Royal Navy vessels, should they come to follow up on the king’s voiding their charter. As things developed, Charlie the First got distracted from his problems over here and thus those volleys were never fired.
For another example, we can look to the coins John Hull produced from 1652 plus others for the next 30 years, even though the new king, Chuck Two, soon declared the practice treasonous.
Yes, treason. Off with your head or mere imprisonment in the Tower of London, that sort of thing.
Leap ahead, I’m wondering how he would have handled credit cards and their depths of debt and to me, at least, usurious rates.
Looking at some of those figures today, is anyone ready to say “Off with their heads?”
Maybe ancient history isn’t so far back there after all.
On top of it, the colonists had no representation in Parliament. That had to chafe on their identity as Englishmen through and through.
That was compounded by the costs London imposed on the Americans in defending themselves from the attacks by the French and their Native allies in the decades of warfare prompted by petty European royal succession and alliances. The New Englanders were definitely on their own.
A big question is what made the ruling Virginia Cavaliers turn from Loyalist to revolutionaries? Plus, why did it take so long?
Jnana's Red Barn 