Last week, anyway, we put a graph up here showing the result you probably get if you went around and asked everybody in the colonies in 25 year intervals, do you want to be independent of britain . And if you remember, the graph shot up kind of like. Like this. Over the words. In other words, as colonies move along from jamestown in 1776, more people as time passes, decide that they are able to handle this on their own. They dont need to be ruled from westminster and of course, enough of them decide that to produce a declaration of independence. So that graph would make the revolution pretty easy to understand, right . Its just like you growing up. When youre 2, the last thing you want is your parents to dump you out the door and say, now youve got to run your own life. By the time youre 12, you can see it might look pretty good. By the time youre 18, here you are. So if this graph is right, then the colonies are just going through the normal process of maturing. And a smart parent, of course, keeps an eye on things and as the child gets more confident, ease up on the strengths. In that case, separation can come about reasonably nicely. If the parent doesnt see whats happening and doesnt accommodate, the changing competence of the child, theres likely to be argument and maybe some kind of explosion. This graph would make the revolution pretty easy to explain. Its just one case of what normally happens with people and with societies. Unfortunately, thats not the way the graph looks at all. The graph looks more like this. Nobody wants to be independent until almost the very winter of 1775 and 76. After the firing of lexington and concord, after tom paynes common sense comes out and spreads around the colonies. This makes the revolution much harder to figure out because the coel colonists are probably never happier to be british than at any time before or after 1776. They just won this great war. The french are gone. The indians temporarily are quelled. These people are celebrating. They are glad to be part of the most powerful and freest country in the western world. So what we have to explain then is not how a society gradually gets more and more interested in breaking away from the Apron Strings and getting independent but we have to figure out, how did the englishmen in 1763, how did so many of them turn out to be traitors and rebels 10 or 12 years later against a government they would have said a few years before was the best and freest in the world . There are longterm trends in colonial history that, if you think about it, make colonial more possible as the years go by. It doesnt mean people want to be independent. But population, for instance, you start out with a couple hundred people on the coast and by the 1790s, youre looking at 250,000 people maybe. Double the population of Lebanon County stretched out over 1500 miles of coast. By 1776, a couple of Million People. A fourth of the population of england herself. More people than you have in some european countries. Now, if you had to do it, you can certainly imagine, you could make a go of it as your own nation. Along with growing population comes a growing sense of what would we call it . Political competence. The local elite people like ben franklin and william bird. We talked about a couple of weeks ago. These are the folks who dominate the local elected assemblies and if you remember, the assemblies are getting more and more powerful and the governors who are appointed from overseas are having less and Less Authority as the years go by. By the time you get to the middle of the 1700s, youve got pretty much local selfgovernment in almost every colony. Not only is population reaching the level where you can imagine an independent country would work, youve got a governing class that thinks, by george, if theyve been running their colony for the last few decades, they ought to be able to run a country. The economy has also, of course, been growing. As population increases, as people push the indians out and occupy more land, as they exploit the labor of more slaves. The prosperity of the colonies grows. By the time of the revolution, a third of all the ships built right here on these shores. A fifth or a sixth of all the iron in the world produced in the american colonies. So while you might have a city like london or a really fancy dukes mansion or estate in england, if you average people out, the white population of the colony is probably the most prosperous part of the whole empire. So growing population, growing political competence, improving economy, all of these things if you had for unforeseen reason to go off on your own, you might be able to do it. It doesnt mean you want to be independent. These people are intensely proud of being british. Theyre even trying to imitate how the British Population of their class lives. So, again, it becomes tough to figure, why do so many of these people, a dozen years later, take up arms against their own government . Now, there are probably three fairly new developments in the colonies, again, dont make independence likely or even desirable, but at least lay the groundwork for something. Great awakening, remember, for a hundred years, people in the colonies from the very beginning had been thinking of themselves as provincials. Looking back across the ocean with admiration and with envy at this glittering metropolis over there. Here they are on the edge of civilization, staring out at an endless forest and back home, theres london, by itself, has more people than all the colonies for many decades. There are great universities, other than harvard, where are the great universities in the colonies . Where are the shakespeare plays . Wheres the philosophers . Even he knows perfectly well the really snazzy people in britain has hundreds and more houses. Its a sense of youre country bumpkins. Always trying to be like them and matching but not quite coming close. Youre definitely no second class citizens no your mind in the own empire. And then theres a huge wave of evangelical religion sweeping through the colonies. Pretty much faded out by the 1750s but its left behind it a whole lot of evangelical christians who have been told by their faith that britain is not necessarily the best model for them. What matters in this world is not how educated you are, how cultured you are, how good your family is, how much wine you have in your basement, how well you can read philosophy. What matters in this world is how well are you getting ready for the next world. Not how do you live this life, but how are you going to live the next one . And so the example these people are told to follow, the people theyre told to admire arent so much the local elite or the entire country of england back home. What theyre supposed to model themselves on is who is the most godly person. It isnt necessarily going to be the merchant with the fancy house. It isnt necessarily going to be the guy like william bird with his plantations and slaves and his wine and his fancy clothes. It could be your husband or your wife. It could be the slave in william birds tobacco field. The carpenter in town. Not likely the person you used to empire and your place in the empire. You could look across the coast to britain and see, at least in your mind, here is a group of people who arent as godly as we are. Here are people who do put the focus on the good things of this life on the luxuries, the corruptions that either way, are immortality. And maybe, were not so bad then compared to them. In fact, what the great awakening is telling you is that you people on this side of the atlantic should stop being embarrassed and ashamed of who you are and stop being envious of those people over in britain because you are better than they are in the one thing that matters. And that is the question every christian has to ask, of course, what must i do to be saved . So imagine how youd feel, if youd grown up your whole life, and always felt inferior to your older sister. And someone comes along and gets you to realize, wait a minute, in the ways that really matter, youre actually better than your sister. Its going to change the way you think about your relationship. So theres one thing. Second thing thats going on, remember, is a lot of the elite in the colonies are reading these whig writers who are telling them history is a constant struggle between power and liberty and liberty, regretly, always loses. And that liberty is in danger in britain, itself, the freest country in the western world because corruption is eating away at the vitals of the country. Offices are sold, votes are bought, government operates not according to policy but according to what office can i get, what salary can i make, how can i get some goodies for my relatives, and that sort of thing. And that allows the ambitious wouldbe caesars in any government to use that sort of attitude, whats in it for me, to corrupt the house of commons by saying, hey, you support me, get you a good office. You support me, your agent aunt can have a government pension, your son can get into college. Weve got a little clergyman post here for your nephew. And the more and more people who are bought off by the government, the less and less likely the house of commons is to be against liberty. So liberty is safest, the whigs are telling these folks, in a country with a big, broad, landholding middle class. Farmers who are independent economically. They dont need anything from government. They dont have to get a bribe because what good would it do them . And of course, where do you find the society with the big, broad, landholding middle class . Right here in america. Not in england. Which can never have that kind of society because its just not big enough for every family to have a decent chunk of land. And so if the core of being english is to be free, and if liberty is safest in a society with this big landholding middle class, then the colonies are the best part of the empire. The most english part of the empire and the freest part of the empire. So stop thinking of yourselves as a bunch of backward bumpkins. Think of yourselves as more english than people in england. Youre the ones leading the way for the whole empire and perhaps all of europe and maybe the whole world toward a future where freedom is more and more secure and the wouldbe caesers have less and less chance to destroy it and exalt themselves. So here are two ways in which the colonies are learning to think not of themselves as inferiors, not even as equal, but actually the best part of the empire. Thats going to change how they look at things. And then theres a growing sense of american identity. The whole idea of what community you think of yourself as belonging to is kind of iffy for people to try to figure out. But one enterprising historian decided 50 years ago or so, lets look at newspapers. And lets ask ourselves, what do people mean when they use words like we and us and our . The word of inclusion. What do they mean when they use words like they, them, and those, the words for the other . Well, up through, oh, about 1730s or 40s, most people talk about we they mean we pennsylvanians or we britons in the empire. Your colonial identity, your british identity. When you talk about they and them, you mean, those foreigners over in france and spain. Or sometimes, those people in the next colony down the road who we dont know about and dont really much care about. But increasingly, as you get into the 50s and the 60s, when you look at newspapers and see how people use those pronouns, a lot of times, now, when they say we, they mean we americans. More than just we in our colony, less inclusive than we in the whole empire. Now youve got this intermediate identity. The sense that you have some things in common with people in other colonies on this side of the atlantic that you dont share with people in england or jamaica or other parts of the empire and now when you talk about the outsiders, they and them, a lot of times now, its not just those foreigners. Its also those people over in england. Now, this doesnt mean, of course, that if you think of yourselves as americans you think of yourselves as less british any more than someone who says im a new englander is any less american by thinking that. But it does mean for the first time you can imagine that something binds you to the people in the other colonies. That, again, is different from what binds you to people in the rest of the empire. And you can see a greater sense, not just of american identity, but a greater sense of american unity. You know, the first three wars against the french and the indians, the government in britain is just banging its head against the wall to get the colonies to see you face a common threat. You should all be pulling together. Indians are attacking massachusetts, people in South Carolina say, whats it to me . Indians are bothering people in virginia. People in rhode island, its none of their business. Finally in this last war, the french and indian war, finally the colonies begin to see, yes, maybe were all in this together. Maybe we share something in common and that is a common enemy and a common threat. Ben franklin, remember, tries to get the Colonial Leadership together in albany in 1754 to work out not just a common approach to the indian problem but even a Colonial Government with one governor for the whole of the colonies, one assembly for the whole of the colonies. Nothing comes of it, but just the fact that it could be thought of and that some of the cloolonial leaders would come a talk about it and think its a good idea is something brandnew. So youve got these longterm developments, growing population, growing political competence, a growing economy. That while they dont make people want to be independent does mean that if independence should, fortunately, come, we probably could handle it. And then youve got this sense of, hey, wait a minute, were no longer the backward provincials in this empire looking with envy at the great metropolis across the seas. We are not even just the equal but, perhaps, superior in some ways to those poor folks because here we are more religious, more devout. Here, freedom is safer because we have a huge group of middleclass farmers who need nothing from anyone. Now, with that as background, lets take a look at 1763. Here you are in america. You just won this big war against the french and the indians. And you think that you won it. It kind of slips your mind that the British Government sent 25,000 regular troops across the atlantic to capture montreal and quebec and drag the french out of canada and, of course, a british navy commanded the seas. What you remember is radock marching his army, pelmel, through the forest of pennsylvania being ambushed and practically destroyed by the indians and the french, saved only by the courage of the colonial troops led by george washington. So you dont have a terribly good impression of the part that the British Military played in winning this war. You think more of it being a colonial victory. And since the victory has been won, the future looks great. Oh, that dark, brooding, presence out there in the forest that is a shadow over your future is gone now. The french are out of america, theyre not coming back as far as youre concerned. The french without the indians without french help are less able to oppose colonial expansion. The future looks great. All the way to the mississippi, this is your world now. Well, across the atlantic in westminster, things dont look quite that good. I mean, theyre glad to have won the war, of course. Who wouldnt be glad to beat the french . Your traditional enemy but the very completeness of the victory means the french are going to be all that more anxious for revenge. So you cant just say, hot dog, we won the war, peace is here, lets go home. Everybody in britain who knows about the state of the world knows theres going to be another war every generation or so. And you have to be ready to defend what you won. So victory is great, but victory brings its own problems. For one thing, a bigger empire to defend. Youve got more land in america to defend. Youve got more land in india to defend. And youve got a couple of islands here and there, extra to worry about. So you need to keep the navy and you need to keep the army at higher than the levels than you had before the war. That costs money. So the three big problems facing america that worried british policymakers after they finished drinking their toasts to victory, one is, what in the world do we do about these indians . The native American Population has been the enemy for 75 years and they looked on you as the enemy. Now these people have to learn how to live as good, loyal, british subjects. Thats not going to be very easy considering that there are a lot of white loyal british subjects who want nothing more than to get more indian land. So, lets think about this. If you were a native american leader in 1763 and your great fear is that the english colonists are going to get more of your land, what are you going to do about it . When they say, hey, wed like to carve out a nice big chunk of your territory. Yeah . Not going to be happy with it. If they persist . Probably going to fight back, retaliate. Well, and this is exactly, of course, what happens in pontiacs rebellion. Pontiac leads the northwest indians even before the war with france is over to besiege almost every single british outpost between detroit and pittsburgh because theyre worried that without french help, they face a pretty dismal future. The government doesnt want to have to fight indian war after indian war in the interior of north america. Theyve got to figure out a way to deal with that. The second problem theyre looking at is law enforcement. Like almost all the colonial empires, the british try to follow Economic Policy of mercantilism, which means, basically, you need to accumulate wealth in your country because theres going to be another war coming along soon and you need money to fight wars. And the idea of the mercantilists, wealth is basically gold and silver. Theres only a limited fixed amount, more or less, in the world. If your country has more, some other country has less. Countries, nations acquire wealth the same way families do. You bring in more money than you spend. Or in trade terms, you sell more to other countries than your people buy from other countries. So you have to manage your trade policy in a way that helps prepare the country for the next war, reduces the amount of foreign goods your people buy and helps spur exports. Well, theres a lot of smuggling going on in the colonies because its a whole lot better from the merchants point of view if you can sneak your products in, dont have to pay the import duty on them, sell them at a lower cost to your customer. The government hasnt been able to do much about this because of other things like wars that push themselves to the forefront of policy. But now that the war is over, nows the chance, maybe, to crack down on smuggling and get the trade of the colonies moving more in tune with the