Transcripts For CSPAN3 Jordan 20240706 : vimarsana.com

To introduce you to mr. Andrew outten. The historical programs manager for the American Revolution institute, the society of the cincinnati who. Will introduce our speaker this evening. Marks a lot taller than i am here. Thank you, mark. And good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us both here in person and virtually from afar. Tonights authors talk program that is made possible in part by a generous gift from the masses. Massachusetts society of the cincinnati features dr. Jordan taylor discussing his new book, misinformation and nation for news and the politics of truth in revolutionary america, published last month by Johns Hopkins University Press fake news is nothing new, just like millions of americans today, the revolutionaries of the 18th century worried that they were entering a posttruth era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. News was the lifeblood of early american politics, but newspaper printers had few reliable sources to on events from abroad, accounts of battles and beheadings, as well as declarations and constant motions often arrived alongside contradictory intelligence, though frequently false the information that americans encountered in newspapers, letters and conversations, oceans framed their sense of reality, leading them to respond with protest boycotts and violence. Tonight, dr. Taylor will reveal how foreign news defined the boundaries of american politic and how the American Revolution was plagued by misperceptions misunderstandings and uninformed overreactions. Jordan taylor is a historian of media and the American Revolution. He has taught at indiana university, bloomington, indiana university, southeast and indiana state university, alongside smith college. Dr. Taylor scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in publications such as the journal of the early american early republic excuse me, early american studies book history, the new england quarterly studies and book culture, and the pennsylvania magazine of history and biography. His public writing has also appeared in the washington post, time, the daily beast and the journal of the American Revolution. So with all of that, without further delay, please join me in welcoming to anderson house. Dr. Jordan taylor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. To the American Revolution institute and society of the cincinnati for bringing me here and to all of you for coming tonight. Im excited to share a bit about the history of news and politics and revolutions in america. And im looking forward to your questions when im finished. So my new book, misinformation nation, is a study of how people in revolutionary gathered and interpreted news about the world and how that affected the arab politics. And i suppose the first point that i need to make by way of providing some background context is that people in early america were obsessed with foreign news. They cared deeply about what was happening abroad. They understood that at that time, they inhabited what most people in the world would have considered to be sort of a dull backwater. They believed that the great events of the day would take place elsewhere. A particularly in europe and unlike today, when sometimes difficult to get americans to care about the world outside of the United States. If anything, in the 18th century, the events that americans were more invested in were those that took place abroad rather than in their own neighborhoods. In fact, if you look at the newspapers from the 18th century, the priority of foreign news is very clear. Depending on the issue, youd often see two thirds or three quarters of the news content of any given issue devoted to foreign news, often extracted from london papers and i know this is actually very frustrating to some historians who who want to read these newspapers to learn about whats happening in in the United States or to find things like political essays, which are very exciting to some people. But unfortunately for them, fortunately for me, these papers are often little more than a digest of news that was being printed in europe, in london, in the 1739 excuse me poem in his pennsylvania gazette. Benjamin franklin explained to readers that he was not particularly interested in sharing news a he wrote, if home occurrences that are well known in which concern but few arealone. The printer sure deserves no blame for this. While in foreign news, hes not rend whatever important ever happens here, he carefully collects and renders clear. In other words, franklin is aware that his readers care primarily, at least about foreign news. Unlike today, these newspapers were generally not sharing information from, you know, sort of a london correspondent, certainly not a london bureau. Instead, newspaper printers were gathering information, usually one of two ways. First, by extracting paragraphs from whatever letters they happened to come in contact. Since the since the last time they published an issue. And second but most importantly by reprinting materials from london newspapers. American printers were able to reprint news from the london press without attribution, without compensation and without remorse. Because at the time there were no International Copyright laws that would sort of restrict the flow of this news. So it was it was kind of a bit of a free for all as the london press expanded at a prodigious rate in the 18th century. American printers couldnt really keep up with the speed of news arriving while americans in the 17th century often sort of complained that they were bored out of their minds, waiting for news to arrive from europe by the late 18th century. Americans faced, if anything, an excess of news that forced newspaper printers to choose between many possible sources and when is an excess of information. As there was in the late 18th century, decisions about what information to share and whats to ignore inevitably became political. What news is significant . What news is most likely to be true . People could not agree on this. And so these decisions, you know, what was accepted, what was sort of tossed aside, those are in some ways the decisions i want to talk to you about tonight. And while my book actually stretches from the early 18th century into the early 19th century, i want to focus tonight on the 1760s. In the 1770s, the era when american colonists first started to question their long standing imperial attachments and began to cook up what would become the American Revolution. Thinking about the political origins of the American Revolution is, i think, something that should be of interest not only to people like me who were very committed to the study of early america, but really it should be of interest, i think, to every american unless understand why the American Revolution came about. We really cant understand the nation that it birthed, the narratives we tell ourselves about the coming of the American Revolution are deeply connected to what it means to be an american. And for that reason, you know, weve been arguing about this question of motives about what caused the revolution, really, since the beginning, since the revolution itself. And i could spend all night, im sure, going through all of the different ways that people have argued about this. But as just sort of a quick two sentence summary, there are kind of two explanations that have predominated for the last century or so among historian. First, that economic interests propelled the colonists into revolution. And second, that the revolution was brought on by colonists commitment to deeply held ideologies. And so thats sort of what historians argue in popular memory. Its often a little bit less complicated. You know, if you pick up a Popular History of the American Revolution or watch a film about the American Revolution, youre likely to encounter a narrative that presents the heroic revolutionaries rising against the oppressions of the villainous british right. And tonight, i want to offer a different way of thinking about the coming of the American Revolution, one that focuses on how information mobilizes the Political Behavior of ordinary. And a lot of the argument about what brought about the American Revolution comes down, really, i think, to what you what you think about a much broader question, which is why do people engage in politics in the first place . I think its a good question. Politics, after all, is is very inconvenient. I have a three month old at home. And i can tell you just getting out the door to vote on tuesday was was quite a challenge. Weve all got busy lives. Its not you know, its very pleasant. Its annoying even to set aside whatever youre doing and, you know, go to vote or sign a petition or even change your consumption habits. And in response to a boycott. Politics can also be really unpleasant as im sure we have all experienced in the last few years. It can alienate you from from friends, from family members, from neighbors. So why dont people just sort of move on . Why dont people just accept things as they are . And so, of course, there are many possible reasons. But the point i want to make is that nobody joins the political fray without developing two important perceptions. First, they need to believe that something is deeply wrong with the world. And second, they need to believe that by taking action, they can help to solve that problem. So the question that ive become interested in is how did the revolutionary generation develop these two perceptions or, as ill suggest tonight, these two misperceptions, perhaps . Because when you look at the premises that guided the American Revolutionaries to action, theyre conjoined beliefs that something was deeply wrong with the world, that they inhabited and that their actions could help to set it right. They were often quite wrong. Their beliefs about the British Government and about their place within it were often founded on misinformation or, you know what we would today often call fake news, as weve seen in recent years, fake news can affect elections. It can guide legislators. It can even lead to violence. This was no less true in the 18th century. Back then, it could even cause a revolution. So story starts in a way, with the beginning of english colonization in north america. And thats because colonization created a problem for the British Empire. Unlike, you know, spain or portugal or france, britain government was supposed to contain some popular republican elements. Decisions were supposed to be made through a process of deliberation rather than through arbitrary rule. That was what the colonies expected. That was what they considered to be one of their rights as englishmen. But the issue was that political deliberation only really works if political leaders are making decisions based on good information. And british leaders generally didnt know that much about the colonies after a few generations of migration, for that matter, most americans didnt really know that chbout britain ther. So the colonies could only participate in the British Government by sending and receiving information through letters, through printed materials and through speech, through rumors they could make themselves known to the empires decision only really through these media. But of course, you know, these forms of communications were often unreliable on both ends, right . Rumors or rumors . Newspapers in a lot of cases were barely worth the that they were printed on. This was before anyone use the term journalism to describe newspapers and letters were really only as trustworthy as the people who were writing them. So the British Government learned to rely primarily on private letters written by officials in the colonies, especially the governors, for news. The colonies, in fact, the various leaders in britain, keeping the various leaders in britain excuse me. Apprized events in the colonies was one of the most important jobs that a colonial governor had. Simultaneously, colonial deliberative body. So legislative bodies in particular learned to rely on their own agents in london for information about events, their colonial agents who were usually merchants or or just a wellconnected individual who would lobby on behalf of colonial interests. And they would transmit accounts of britain back to the colonies. And so, in effect, governors were londons representatives in the colonies, just as agents were, the colonies representatives in london. Ideally, governors and agents helped to bring the british world together by providing a reliable stream of information that would make one side of the atlantic intelligence more to those on the other side. And know the system sort of worked, at least for a while. Colonial colonial governors. Shared news about the colonies because it would take, you know, often four months or more for them to getting responses to their accounts. The london leadership also them room to sort of improvise in response to changing conditions. Ultimately though this empire was tied together by Communications Networks that were much too fragile to survive for very long. And when the seven years war caused the British National debts to balloon, which led the governments to seek revenue in the colonies, the began to point out this flaw in the imperial arrangement, the stamp act of 1765 marked the beginning of this critique. And you know, if youve studied the American Revolution in any depth, youre probably bored to death with the stamp act. I know that my students have been when ive when ive talked taught about the imperial crisis. But theres reason we talk so much about, the stamp act. Its important because it was one of those points when the colonies first began to articulate their critique of taxation representation. And it was also the beginning of their fears about misrepresenting nation durin the debate about the stamp act in parliament, members debated how britain could make l the colonies when most them didnt know much about that part of the world. With an almost total unacquainted with the colonies. As one member of parliament put it, how could they be said to represent them . According an account transmitted back to the colonies, a connecticut agents gerard ingersoll, who witnessed debates. A Member Parliament named colonel isaac baret, who was pictured there, explained that it was preposterous for parliament to tax the colonies when they were acting or, quote, acting very much in the dark and knew so little about the colonies. An occasional letter from a governor was not enough to allow them to rule effectively. Governors, other officers in the colonies, according to borrow, did little more than to, quote, spy out their liberty to misrepresent their actions and prey upon them. Baret was one of the few members of parliament who had spent a substantial amount of time in the colonies, having served as an officer there during the seven years war. And boris became a bit of a sensation in the colonies where it was widely printed and read. If its remembered at all today, its usually because baret, the term sons of liberty to describe the colonists, which was obviously adopted by the radical group that was agitating for colonial rights. But the heart of the speech really was its concern that simply didnt have enough information to govern the colonies effectively. Spurred in part by boris speech. This was a charge, this charge about misrepresentation was one the patriot colonies were to again and again in the late 1760s and early 1770s. They believed that british administrators in the colonies were sharing harmful and false accounts of them with london policymakers, which was causing the empire to make bad decisions based on bad information. From this perspective, the imperial crisis was not just a constitutional, it was also a crisis. Communication. The stamp act caused cascade of protests and disobedience toward british authorities, not least of these protesters. By the way, newspaper printers whose business was threatened by the stamp act. The stamp act, which raised the price of pamphlets of newspapers and of all kinds of paperwork. If theres a good chance it could have run many printers out of business, in fact. And so printers helped to create an alternative channel of communications, which often defied the rules of colonial governors. Newspapers helped to incite ongoing protests, particularly in boston, where mob violence became a source of annoyance to british administrators. Bostonians regularly intimidated and threatened the customs sent there to collect taxes. In the summer of 1768, for example, a huge mob of bostonians attacked british officials who tried to collect tariff duties on wine. That had been smuggled aboard the ship liberty was owned by john hancock. And so reports of this and many other sort of similar incidents led london officials to that. The city had become dangerously on stable. And that the government there was unable to enforce the laws and speaking these reports were mostly correct. The extent of mob violence is, something that historians still like to argue about. But no one seriously argues today that boston was a quiet and law abiding place in the late 1760s. No one argues that today in 1760s, bostonians did that, though they had a very different story to tell. According to them, accounts of mob violence were wildly exaggerated and the people were just peacefully, if insistently, pushing for the government to recognize their rights. And so when the British Government sent two regiments to boston to restore control of the city many colonists, were flabbergasted. You can see that attitude in this. This engraving by paul revere, which, b w on e cover of my book. Is a very carefully rendered representation of the landing o british troops in boston for revere and other patriots. The troops we arring to restore order to a rowdy, raer, this image depicts depicts a fairly peaceful okincity rightatedy Church Steeples in the background. The streets are emptynd the city is beset upon by sort of red mass of invading soldiers. So in reveres view, the soldiers are the aggressors. Theyre the ones who are response sible for bringing disorder into boston. And the arrival of british troops in boston mattered. So much to the patriot colonists and preoccupied them for years afterward because it seemed to exemplify how false news was bringing the conflict between themselves, the British Empire, about. John adams later remembered that the arrival of troops in boston was a sign that quote, everything we could do was misrepresented and nothing we could say was credited because patriots maintained their protests were peaceful. The only possible explanation the arrival of these troops was someone was being dishonest about conditions in the colonies. It seemed like governor francis barnard, governor of massachusetts, and his allies were spreading to the boston town, quote, false, scandalous and infamous libels upon inhabitants of this town. This accusation was the simplest way to resolve the seeming contradiction between apparently peaceful conditions and oppressive actions by the empire. This claim allowed the colonists to resist without exactly rebelling. They didnt. The British Empire tyrannical, at least at first. Instead, they they were able to simply think of british leaders being misinformed. Samuel adams, who became one of the sort of chief antagonists of the bernard administration, wrote that quote, interested and false mediums had deceived london about the colonies. He believed that, quote, those persons whose misrepresented actions have procured troops to be quartered among us had also caused the troops to be particularly confrontational. Patriots fixate on the letters that Francis Bernard, whos on the left there, wrote to his superiors, the massachusetts house of representative has directed its agent in london to work to combat bernards or misrepresentations. Massachusetts patriots even petitioned bernard and then eventually the king to over copies of his letters to london. But bernard refused. A few months after the british troops arrived. Boston, though the towns patriot leaders finally obtained six copies of letters that bernard had sent to london. Frustratingly, for these colonists there really nothing new in them. They were generally quite consistent. Bernards public statements. They were mostly just complaining about the way that the massachusetts counsel had been uncooperative with quartering troops in boston. But the colonists nevertheless insist did that these letters unmasked bernards Long Campaign of misrepresent against them. Years a nearly identical process played out after patriots with the help of ben franklin actually got their hands on the letters of thomas hutchinson, whos on the right there, who had succeeded bernard as governor of massachusetts. Again, these letters were not particularly exciting in a lot of. But patriots managed sort of whip up a popular frenzy based on, frankly, some exaggerations and out of context. One of these really my favorite of of these was an account that hutchinson had about the landing of british troops in boston in october 1768. Hutchinson had accused the angry american colonies of organizing to attack the british troops as they landed at boston harbor. He claimed that someone had placed a tar barrel in an elevated place near the harbor so that it could be lit on fire when the troops were approaching and so that the mob would come and attack the soldiers. When this part of hutchinsons letter was made public in 1773, it, you know, understandably infuriated bostonians when he read it in a newspaper a boston shopkeeper named harbottle dorr, one of my favorite names from the revolutionary era wrote, you can see he sort of wrothe margins of his copy alive, a vial of wh know, frustrated by this piece of information, which does seem t have and false bostoni affidavits from the workmen who had removed the barrel years rlr and witnesses who had seen the barrel moved because they wanted to prove this was just an empty barrel, or at least it wasnt full of tar because if it wasnt full of tar, it wouldnt be a very good beacon to bring a mob to attack the british soldiers landing. So this is just one of many, many examples of the kinds of communications that patriot writers and leaders focused on. They were all, you know, in a lot of cases, i should say. They were small things relatively minor a barrel . Right. But in patriot eyes together, they added up to a very dangerous and false narrative about colonial disorder because they feared that hutchinson, bernard and others were sending false and inflammatory accounts of the colonies to london. Patriots went out of their way. Prove them wrong. Patriot colonies frequently sent. We might, you know, today called fact checks to britain in the form of letters to their agents petitions as well as pamphlets composed at the instigation of, colonial, deliberate, deliberative bodies such as the boston town meeting. And the intent of these was to challenge government information sources. Historians have often sort of thought of these as forms of propaganda used to mobilize fellow americans into action. But the audience for these texts, these accounts was not primary early. Other colonists, but was often people in britain. The boston town meetings pamphlet, which was intended to fact check bernards letters, was titled an appeal to the world with a subtitle or a vindication of the town of boston. For many false and aspersions. Likewise, after the boston massacre, a pamphlet was distributed refuting british soldiers accounts of the events. But it was only distributed in england. And to some extent these these fact checks were effective. Patriots could read extracts from london newspapers that britains toasting may the unrepresented americans be no longer misrepresented under the recount from london that was reprinted in patriot newspapers. Much has been said of a virtual representation with which the colonies are supposed to have here. But you know what kind of actual representation or rather misrepresentation is continually made of them by those from whom administration chiefly have their information . This idea that british officials were misrepresenting the americans to london was really the consensus position of the patriots for many years, and it had an important impact on the ways that colonist organized eased their resistance. On the one hand, this this conversation about misrepresentation undermined british Political Authority for than a century. British leaders in the colonies had wielded the power to define what was true, what was false. They had been able to prosecute people for spreading false news and had often been able to restrain printers and other news. Mediators from spreading information that they didnt like. It was rare for colonists to challenge the British Governments ability to. Define truth. If youre familiar with the famous case of john peter zenger, the new york printer who was acquitted on seditious on charges of seditious libel against the colonys governor, thats noteworthy because it was exceptional, right . Not because that was the norm. In fact, similar prosecutions happened four years after that. Really . It wasnt until the 17th sixties that British American colonies started to consistently challenge colonial administrators. Authority as tellers of truth. In 1769, for example one writer in, the patriot newspaper, the boston gazette explained that governor Francis Bernard was the colonies highest authority. But that didnt make him the colonys best authority. In other words, just because the colonists needed to obey bernard and other leaders. That didnt mean that they should trust him. The colonists were undermining british rule, in part by undermining its authority to define what was real in the world, what was true instead of the, quote, bare of a gentleman unsupported by any evidence. As this writer described, describes bernards letters colonies argued that the collective voice of city or the people as a whole should be trusted to describe what was in the colonies. But while the critique of misrepresentation eroded confidence and the British Government conceiving of the conflict as being primarily about misrepresentation, miscommunication and misperception also allowed the colonists to believe that this was a problem could eventually be resolved. A 1768 letter in the boston, for example, suggested that since misrepresents john has been the chief cause of distraction, then a removal of distraction, maybe the means of reconciliation. Colonists thought that if they sent enough petitions, letters and pamphlets eastward, it would eventually clear up what even ben franklin, who was living in london at the time, referred to as our misunderstand. It wasnt really until Thomas Paines publication of common sense in early 1776 that the colonists stted to think of this critique of miscommunication and misrepresentation as beingor of a an soable, broader issue for the empire. Paine turned these concern into broader fears about monarchy and empire. He wrote, there is something, quote, exceedingly ridiculous in e composition of monarchy. It first excludes a man from the means information the king. Yet empowers him to act in cases. The highest judgment is required. He also took a dim view of of the Long Distance nature of required in a vast empire like the British Empire. Explaining that would would remain quote very ignorant of us regardless, any petitions the colonists might send to them. He continued to quote, to be always running three or 4000 miles with a tail or a petition within four or five months for an answer which, when obtained, requires five or six more. To explain it was absurd, right . Instead of immediately inciting rebellion against the empire, this conversation about the dangers of fake or false news in the british bred a powerful skepticism among the american colonists about information that they were receiving from britain. But of course, just as today, the colonists did not apply this skepticism evenly, and so did patriots apply great scrutiny toward news sources, associate with the british minister. You can see the heading ofs sort of extract from, a patriot newspaper which referred the brith nistry as newspaper, the london gazette as the london or lyon gazette, more or less teing readers. How to how to interpret the following sentenc. At the time, loyalists aimed the same level of scorn toward news sources produced by the british whig opposition, which was challenging the the policies put by the British Ministry. I actually spent a long time looking at the ways that patriot and loyalist newspapers cited newspapers printed abroad and across thousands and thousands of issues. The pattern is pretty clear. Patriot newspapers skewed heavily towards citing london newspapers with the british whig opposition party, such as the st jamess chronicle, the morning chronicle and the public advertiser. Whereas loyalist newspapers showed a marked for newspapers like the london gazette wrote to the British Ministrys paper or other friendly ministry friendly papers, the london chronicle or the morning herald. In the 21st century here today. The result of this kind of information polarization will probably be relatively predictable to us. Just as someone today develops a different view of the world. If they watch msnbc versus someone watches fox news colonists in the 1770s started to develop separate irreconcilable views of the world based on their different information gathering practices. Colonists were aware that their rivals were gathering different kinds of information from them in 1774 and 1775, for example, debate broke out in a new york loyalist newspaper printed by rivingtonnd neighboring patriot paper printed by john holt. Es accused each other of sharing news that suited their cal. A loyalist accused holt, the patriot p, of having always chosen intelligence that disparaged, quote, the ministry in the pent intended to widen the breach between Great Britain and the colonies. Artiality is so glaring, he wrote that a boy of ten old cannot feel observing. Patriots responded by accusing rin of, quote, publishing such parts of letters from london and elsewhere as can be made to suit their purpose and suppressing the rest. Indeed, if you look at what these two papers were publishing, these accusations are kind of fair enough because holt and rivington published in the same city and because they usually on the same day of the week, you might expect that some of the news that they publish would would sort of overlap, that it would be the same right. But it generally wasnt. And one of the issues publishing these debates, for example, holt published 13 columns of news derived from london papers and almost all of that supported patriot narratives about the escalating conflict. It contained accounts of an english duke in parliament, wishing that patriot colonists well contained a report that france and britain were about to find themselves at war with each other and to describe dissent in the house of lords over the ministries treatment of massachusetts. In the same in the same city. Rivington shared reprints that included a description of how the British Ministry were, quote, determined to stand their own ground with respect to the americans. He also included a direct refutation of the idea that britains broadly supported the american patriots. He also included accounts predicting that native peoples would soon attack virginia. So if you read holts paper, on the one hand, you got sense that the British Ministry was distressed and that london opposition was emboldened. If you read rivington paper, on the other hand, you got pretty much the exact opposite and it it should be said here, by the way, that neither printer was fabricating these reports. Neither of them was just of making them up out of whole cloth. Instead, they just made different choices about what kind of information. They would reprint for their readers, going back to the point i made earlier. By the 17th seventies. News mediators like holt and rivington had news to share than they really knew what to do with. And so they made highly politicized choices about to include for their readers, which tended to support, of course, the preferred narratives that they had about the world. And the result of this kind selection bias, if you will, was that patriots and loyalists developed very different ideas about how the escalating conflict between the colonies and britain would play out. As holts paper indicates, its patriots thought that most people in britain actually supported them in. One month in 1774, for example nnecticut, patriot newspaper shared reportsing variously that two out of three, three quarters and 99 in 100 britain supported the colonial protests. The patriots also believed that the british parliamentary, headed by lord north, was unpopular and was likely to fall from power at any moment. And they believe that their boycotts would cause large scale social disruption that would topple the ministry. Once that happened, they that the new government that would replace the north would reverse the policies that they hated. Loyalists didnt these things. Sometimes made fun of patriots for being deluded about them. London printer named william straight him regularly pointed to an american correspondent that hardly a paragraph of news about london shared in patriot was true. A loyalist printer named hugh gain published a letter from london in his newspaper that pointed out that the patriot faction was by information derived from, quote, false friends who conveyed from pence wrong accounts of the situation of affairs here, which made the americans view them through a false medium. Another writer in the boston newspaper, the the boston wrote to his patriot neighbors, quote, you have no notion how grossly you are imposed upon by friendly accounts, according to this writer. The patriots employ implicit credulity toward congenial news sources, had built a baseless fabric of grievance. Certainly when they looked at the declaration of independence loyalists, numerous examples of in the long list of grievances in the documents, middle section of exaggerations, if not outright fabrications concerning british actions. Loyalists like thomas hutchinson, who mentioned earlier he wrote a pamphlet called strtus upon the declaration of independ ence, whicatmpted to sort of fact check the document and poke some holes in the documents. Seions about british policy and conditions in the colonies. And so i think its actually taking this loyalist critique quite seriously. I think its quite easy for us to dismiss accounts of loyalists as being, you know, anticolonial propaganda and patriot propaganda. I should say, or as just being the result of grapes. But i dont think thats really very fair, because if were being honest with ourselves about how the imperial crisis escalated into revolution, i think the loyalist was in a lot of ways more often correct than the patriot account. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that the patriots were sort of ludicrously misinformed about their place within the British Empire and their impact on british politics. Most historians today would agree that the american boycott didnt cause widespread economic disruption in britain. They would agree that britons outside one did not predominantly support the american colonies, and they would have to agree that the north ministry did not fall from power. It actually gained power in elections held in 1774 and then held on to power until 1782, the longest lasting ministry in decades. So in other words, you know, to put it frankly, the american patriots couldnt have been more wrong about their understanding of the internal politics of britain. And they developed these misperceptions by credulous reading the letters and newspapers created by british opposition whigs who had reason to maintain an anti ministerial view of them, of events. Communication scholars today would describe this kind of thinking as confirmation bias or motivated reasoning. Those are the tendency to accept things that align with your prior beliefs and either ignore or challenge things that dont align with your beliefs. And i would argue that this optimistic misperception fans were essential to patriots escalation of their. When i when i began, i said the politics take place when a group develops these paired perceptions that theres something wrong with the world and that their actions can help to solve that problem. And the news that the patriots encountered gave them reason to think that there was something wrong in the world. It led them to think that the empire was unjustly punishing them on the basis of false news spread by colonial officers. The that they encountered also led them to the misperception that their resistance could solve this problem by overturning the north ministry. And this misunderstanding of conditions in britain gave the patriots the confidence to continue escalating the conflict. Those conjoined beliefs pushed patriot resistance forward gradually, slowly, in hopes that this agitation would have its desired effects. And i think this helps explain, by the way, sort of the weird nature of the that decade between the stamp act in 1765 and the declaration of independence in 1776. It took 11 years, right, for the patriots to decide that reconciling was impossible. Thats a very time. And i think that makes most sense if you think about it in context, where it seemed always that reconciliation was potentially sort of one petition or one fact check away. And its worth asking as well, if the patriots had a more accurate picture of london politics, if they were not so in misinformation. Would their resistance have gone as far as it did . Its also worth asking if the patriots resistance would have been so gradual if they had not believed that the colonial officials govern them, were misrepresented, seeing them abroad. So combined together this fear of misinformation and the effects of misinformation defined the way that patriots organized against the British Empire in the 1760s and 1770s. We often think about the American Revolution as being defined a contest over big, important truths. Right. Truths about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come to mind. But it was also an argument about numerous, smaller, more immediate truths about what was just happening in the world around them. Revolutions, after all, are not just a matter of big ideas playing themselves out. They require people to do things that, you know, in retrospect, often seem a little irrational, maybe even silly, in order to do something as as arrogant and dangerous as taking on the British Empire. The greatest military power in the world at that time, the colonists had to be guided into that, i think, by some inaccurate beliefs. And so as i close want to return to a question i raised at beginning of this talk. The way we think about the causes of the American Revolution is important, i think, because it is so closely tied to americans understanding of their own identity as americans, to think of themselves as exceptional. They need to grasp on to a narrative of hardy heroic colonists overcoming the oppression of the villainous British Empire. If americans want to think of themselves as being connected together by a shared commitment to irath than by membership in sort of a hair and bolt democtheyeed to think that big republican and big liberal, you know, small or small, s lauhed the American Revolution. But if we accept that the American Revolution was quite a bit messier in its origins. And that misinformation, misperceptions and misunderstandings played an Important Role in bringing about that conflict. And what does that mean for american identity identity . Ive struggled with that question. I dont know that i have a great answer. And as i think through that question, ive often returned to the words of the founding generation themselves. I think its important to recognize that many members of the founding generation, including some of the leading lights, the people that that we know of, straight people, that that were familiar with, did not see themselves as paragons of reason necessarily. Instead, they recognized that their generation prone to fits of irrationality. Looking back on the era of the American Revolution, in a letter written in 1805, just a few years after, had lost reelection to the presidency, adams grumpily wrote to a friend tt, quote, the age of frivolity would be inappropriate name for thera. The late 18th century, though he, quote, would not object if. You had named it t age of lly vice frenzy fury, brality demons, bonaparte, tom paine or age of the burning brd from the Bottomless Pit or anything but, the age of reason. When i read those words and think about the other arguments about reality that occupy americans during the revolution, i find it hard to accept the view that founding generation erected an inherent fabric of government that we cannot improve upon, but can only accommodate ourselves to. Rather, i think that we honor the founders more when we approach the history of the American Revolution as a story of real human beings, sometimes with great, sometimes making big mistakes, stumbling a lot of ways toward greatness. The generation that founded the United States, were not the honoring titans of virtue that we sometimes are, that theyre sometimes presented as like other humans. The founders were susceptible to motivated reasoning, confirmation, bias, and all kinds cognitive error. They were often confused, deceived or, simply wrong in their understanding of the world. And i think, again, while we sometimes imagine that we live in a posttruth age and that social media have made shared realities impossible, its clear that it was in a lot of ways, even more difficult for people in the era of the American Revolution to understand what was true in the world. And this is, i think, almost counterintuitively kind of a hopeful place to end. Like john adams, we we inhabit anything but the age of reason. I think we would agree. But perhaps like his generation, we can sort of muddle through some extraordinarily challenging circumstances to enliven and strengthen the democracy that the founders set us down the path to. So thank you very much. Ill be happy to take any questions. You may have. Questions. And. Services. Did you detect any british attempts to influence American Public opinion, like subsidizing newspapers clandestinely printing pamphlets, especially in the run up to the war . So were there russian trolls effectively . Is that is that the question in the 18th century . Yeah. I mean, certainly there were a lot of accusations about that and patriots often accused folks like james rivington, hugh and other other loyalist printers of being agents. The british. And, you know, its not far fetched because know that in britain there were some really massive subsidies actually paid out to to government friendly printers. I think the evidence a bit thin on that and i think that in a sense you didnt really need people to to be sort of agents of the British Government because the economic model was changing such that it was profitable already to a newspaper that that served the of the British Government in certain parts of the colonies especially in new york and other sort of like loyalist. Centers. So its sort of a boring answer to say i didnt find anything like that, but theres good reason for that, right. Its how were the patriots able purloin the letters of colonial governors and was there a dispute on their legitimacy or whether they were false propaganda . So the process through which the letters of hutchinson were were taken remains somewhat mysterious. We know that ben franklin serving in london as an agent for a number colonial bodies at that time, was involved. He admitted to this. We know that another agent who died shortly, these letters were made public. He was also involved. But kind of understandably, a lot of people didnt really want admit to having participated in this because it was a fairly duplicitous, underhanded thing to do. And in the 18th century world, letters were usually either as being private or for public reading and to contravene the intentions of a letter writer was sort of beyond the pale. And so there are some folks who we know were involved, but they went out of their way to obscure their involvement. Yeah. So its its one of those things that may never be fully understood. But whats important to recognize is that the patriots did have allies in london who accepted their beliefs about misrepresentation, about the ways that Bernard Hutchinson and others were were communicating to the British Government. There was another part of your question, i think, about about sort of the was it about backlash or an assertion that the letters revealed were false . Right. Right. So again, the letters were so innocuous in some ways that that bernard didnt deny them because he had already said all of those things in public. Hutchinson took issue not with the publication. He didnt claim that the letters had been fabricated. He just believed that the patriot reaction was was unfair because of the way that things were taken out of context. He went to his grave, believing that the patriots had been unfair to him and one particular passage of one letter where he seemed to be for an abridgment of colonial liberties. And he was he claimed he was saying, you know, this is going to happen. Whether they want it or not. Patriots said this is hutchinson saying. You know, i this to happen so its a matter of interpretation but i dont think anyone seriously disputes that these letters were real. Eugene questions. You see very. Their frustrations and lack of power. How how much of a factor this for us when considering the American Revolution. Yeah and in a lot of ways weve been thinking about the relationship between the the whigs in parliament, the sort of radical whig tradition and the American Revolutionaries since the mid 20th century. But primarily weve been thinking about that in terms of the radical ideas that political leaders, like john wilkes articulated and how that appealed to patriots in the colonies. And we havent been looking at the that the whig opposition and britain mobilized a particular set of narratives and a particular like kind of information that that mobilize just american patriots Political Action and. So one of the things that i found when i was doing research for this book was that the political. Scene, i mean, certainly in britain, the political scene was always shifting. But the the strength of the whig opposition was centered in london. London of course, has an outsized role in colonial communications. Its where so many newspapers are printed and the whigs right, had i dont know. I dont know if it was half, but at certain times they had about many prominent presses as the as the ministry. And so when you have. This mix of what the newspapers that on the one hand is is very easy to discount as being ministry propaganda and. On the other hand, you have this group of opposition newspapers associated with the whigs. You, you know, you can sort of see what the patriots were thinking there, the sort of calculations they were making. They were looking not just through the lens of the whigs, but also really primarily through the lens of london politics, where the whig opposition was overrepresented and where support for the patriots was more significant than it was in the rest of britain. And one other question. We had a attendee commenting on the the fact that ben franklin took a Printing Press to france during, the American Revolution, to print a french language on the german french borders, you know, basically denouncing the across is that were committed by the hessians over here in north america. Can you comment on that a little bit . Its a great story. So as persons referring to a fake issue of a newspaper that ben franklin wrote when, he was serving as an american commissioner during the the negotiations for the treaty of paris. And he thought that if he could he wanted to influence the he wanted to push his fellow commissioners to not sort of settle for terms that were favorable to british. And so he invented these stories about the ones im most familiar with. You know, he printed an entire fake issue, but the ones i most familiar with are accounts of native allies of the british scalping villages of american colonists and he described it as its really brutal, actually he describes. Bags and bags of, scalps of of colonists. And its like very thoroughly to sort of give it the sheen of authenticity. But, you know, he just made it up entirely. He was in paris. He was he was not drawing on any colonial sources, but it actually circulates back to the colonies and is reprinted in some american newspapers despite being, you know, completely forged by franklin in in in outside of paris. And yeah, that is a fascinating story. And just an example, the ways that the circulation of these materials made it so difficult to to determine what was. People looked at this account, which appeared to have been taken from, i think, a new jersey newspaper. I could be wrong about that. And, you know, werent able to sort of trace things back in the way that we we can but often choose not to do today on the internet. So. So. So. Yeah. Thats a great story. Rob. Parkinsons book, the common cause goes into that a bit more. I think his other 13 clocks does as well. Thank you. How much did those outside of london even care about what was going on in the colonies or during the american . Thats a good question. So outside of london. But within britain, i guess thats a good question. Im not sure i know the answer to that. My sense is that less than we might think right at . Least until war broke out during that the imperial crisis states that i mostly focused on tonight because the colonies were, as i said, sort of a backwater, not necessarily a place that most people in europe considered to be, particularly interesting or important place. I think it would have been very easy for people to ignore what was going on there, whether in london or outside of london. I mean, there was a lot going on in the 18th century and no one knew that these these angry bostonians and, other other patriot groups were going to were going to keep escalating things and escalating things to the point where you had a revolution. Right. This is of the point that all historians love to stress about about historical contingency. And i think its probably not until the war that this starts to impact less engaged britons in a substantial way. But i could be wrong about that. Well, are there any other questions. And i was wondering something, similar to that last question, only in in america surely there were vast numbers of People Living in the colonies who just wanted to go about their ordinary lives and everyday business without associating themselves with either the patriots or or the royalists. They might. I just wonder if the people were politically involved at the time and might have been just, you know, a small of the population. I think thats a really important point. And its something that we dont talk about enough sometimes. Historians refer to that group as the disaffected in a lot cases, these were folks who would sort of pretend to be a patriot when the patriot was in town and then pretend to be a loyalist when when the british army was in town and focused on preserving their own their own families. And, you know, feeding each other and taking care of each other. Right. And one of the great tasks that patriot leaders had during the especially in the 1770s, was to sure that the disaffected kind of kept quiet about. Right. And they able to preserve a sense that they spoke for. A consensus of the community. Right. And i its really easy because the patriots often spoke as if they were the voice of everyone in the colonies except for maybe a few rogue loyalists. Right. Because they spoke that way and because they we have so much preserved information, so many accounts from from patriots we can its really easy to to just accept that. But we have to we have to sort of look beyond that. And think more about, you know, it means to be a woman, right. Who was expected to be politically engaged or a child or a farmer who was already on the edge of subsistence before the revolution came. And so theres theres some interesting work being done by other historians about that right now. I always think, though. About the ratification of the constitution. And pauline, theres a great book. Ratification discusses this. And she she points out that there were some ratifying inventions where people just couldnt be bothered to even really vote. You know this event that is so essential, so seminal and americas history was not exciting enough to compel to overcome those barriers to Political Action that i talked about. So i totally agree with you that thats thats an important and understudied thing. It just so happens that its kind of difficult to to study people not doing, you know what i mean. All great points. Well, lets give a round of applause to dr