Who can doubt that the creation story of our founding in the American Revolution remains valid, vivid and thrilling? Even in 2021, at a moment when national unity is elusive, when our partisan rancor seems ever more toxic, when the simple concept of truth is assailed, that story informs who we are, where we came […]
Serena Zabin, professor of history and director of the American studies program at Carleton College, discusses her book on the personal and political conflicts that erupted in the Boston Massacre. Following the British troops dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to suppress colonial unrest, Dr. Zabin has uncovered the stories of the many regimental […]
Colonel Jeremiah Lee was a fabulously wealthy colonial merchant who turned against the British Empire and became a leader of the rebel movement in Massachusetts. Historian Robert Booth brings this outspoken revolutionary to life as part of the 250th anniversary celebration of Lee’s achievements, hosted by the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and the Marblehead […]
Andrew O’Shaughnessy argues that the drive to centralize control over its growing empire led Britain to adopt authoritarian policies to govern its American colonies and was one of the main causes of the American Revolution. Britain’s North American colonists resisted and ultimately rebelled to avoid the fate of Irish, a people denied the rights enjoyed […]
At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Loyalists traveled to Canada, sailed for Britain, and journeyed to the Bahamas and the West Indies. Some ventured still farther afield, to Africa and India. Wherever they went, this voyage […]
There were twenty-six colonies, not thirteen, in British America in 1776, and the majority of the colonies outside the mainland were in the Caribbean. Even though they shared many important similarities and connections with the mainland colonies, they did not rebel. Dr. O’Shaughnessy examines the British colonies in the Caribbean during the American Revolution and […]
The policies of Lord North, the British prime minister during the American Revolution, united the American colonies in rebellion. The Tea Act and the Coercive Acts solidified many colonists’ objections to what they considered British oppression. Dr. O’Shaughnessy examines the successes and failures of Lord North’s administration, which ended with his resignation six months after […]
Why did the British government pass the Stamp Act, the Townshend Duties, the Tea Act and the Intolerable Acts? Why did they pass a series of measures seemingly calculated to offend and provoke North American colonists? These measures cannot be fully understood without taking into account a profound political economic debate taking place across the […]