Summary The Minutemen and Their World

The Minutemen and Their World Summary/Notes The Minutemen and Their World Chapters 1-2 - The rich --> prestige --> ofÏces of power - The poor --> no land --> no power - Chapter 1: 1775 was a different year compared to others with increased minutemen drills and increased tensions with British threats - Talked about the shift from a conservative puritan town - Conflicts over religious ideologies - Those on the outskirts of town had less say in political matters - British gov’t refused to take away taxes, led to a division between Concord and the British - For “Yankees” representation and voting meant everything - Concord only provided opposition against affairs that directly affected them, IE (Stamp Act), but did not respond to the Townshend acts Chapter 3-4 - Sam Adams established the Boston Committee of Correspondence - Concord had a united stance against the British imposing on the colonies - Tea Act spurred greater resistance to British actions, Concord became more radical as it recognized the danger the act posed to the colonies - Despite rising radicalism, Concord still wanted to reconcile with the crown - British forces tightened reins over any form of autonomy the colonies had, incited the collapse of gov’t in Boston - Non-consumption Covenant to boycott all British products unified Concord’s political stance - Concord became the central meeting place of the Provincial Congress when General Gage failed to attend - Concord became the birthplace of the minutemen due to necessity and failure to protect early militia attempts - Concord was also a stocking ground for weapons and munitions - Minutemen united Concord through necessity, everyone who was a minuteman was also neighbors with the other men - More and more citizens began to rise up in political standing in resisting British actions like Joseph Hosmer - The division in Concord over churches/religion was trying to be resolved through an open admission back into church, to reunite Concord and the northern parts which had been fighting for years - Minutemen were bound by duty and familial obligation with family often serving in the same unites - As Concord grew, wealth became harder and harder to keep and distribute; too many sons, not enough land - To deal with the lack of land, expansion into the frontier west was made, little by little with entire families moving - Communities cared for its own, those who had fallen on hard times - Rise of Quakers led to opposition of slavery with the rising threat of the Revolutionary movement - The decay of quality of life in Concord and shrinking economic opportunity fed fuel to the fire of revolution with increasing pressure from Britain in the Intolerable acts - Concord had to deal with a shortage of resources - Concord was a conservative town that didn’t necessarily want to fight in the revolution, it simply wanted to defend what it had Chapter 4 - Land drove everything, and Concord was slowly being overused and over-farmed with each successive generation - Rift between younger and old generations in terms of political mindsets and fighting over individual freedoms Chapter 5-6 2 - Concordians became politically involved simply due to the need to protect their own interests - Concord was a major trading post/area for the colonies, held extra interest to the British because of access to trade and weapons - The British (Gage) knew war was impending and tried to prepare for it by sending out spies and talking to informants - Informants (Tories) were often threatened with death and anyone who even helped the British ofÎand were threatened - The Provincial congress would wait until the last moment to raise an army in fear of the British striking first - Gage received orders to arrest all dissenting colonizers through his own discretion, sent 800 men to Concord - Shots were fired in Lexington first, led to alarm in Concord - The march in Concord was to seize all military goods, varying results from Recoats --> some plundered goods, others paid their dues after seizing goods (Pitcairn) - British Colonel Smith was a poor leader and his delays in commands led to bloodshed - Smith’s delay in treating his wounded and hoping for British reinforcements led to further plundering by Redcoats in Concord - Colonists relied on Indian guerilla warfare as the redcoats marched from Concord back to Boston - Redcoat arrival in Lexington proved fatal to some colonist snipers who were found out in houses and killed promptly - Concord feared British retaliation after the bloody encounter - With the siege of Boston, Concord was charged with housing the largest # of its refugees - Among the inflow of refugees was a large majority of Harvard’s students - Flow of refugees created economic problems and shortages - Everyone in Concord contributed to the war’s efforts, either through direct service in the militia or making supplies for the war 3 - Lack of Tory dissent in Concord helped lead to a more united front against Britain in Concord - Rising economic problems led to devaluation of American currency - With the threat and call of war, farm labor was at an all-time low --> less crops --> economic problems getÝng even larger - The longer the war dragged on, the higher prices soared in the colonies with inflation growing higher and higher --> Led to several attempts to regulate prices --> Failed --> Raised the price and necessity of gold/silver --> People couldn’t pay taxes --> Shay’s Rebellion - Concord shifted from a reluctant town to a town that backed the war wholeheartedly to a town that provided forces/men out of obligation w/ no driving force behind their support - Concord used a system of credit and debt based on service in the war to provide for the town, the more time you served, the less taxes you were forced to pay, if the balance was in your favor, the credit went towards a reduction of the next year’s taxes - Post 1778, soldiers in the Continental army were largely composed of landless sons who had nothing to lose and everything to gain - Soldiers in Concord were on the bottom of the social ladder - The outbreak of war and all of its necessities had led to a general feeling of social order and the idea of needing to obey in Concord - Aristocrats and those in power generally had nothing to fear in terms of leading the population pre-revolution, but were continually pressured during the war and near its end if they did not side with popular crowd opinion - Concord began to grow suspicious of those in charge in Boston, where constituents and those in charge of power were away from public view in Concord’s eyes - At the war’s end, Concord was worse off economically and socially - 4