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The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord

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Near the end of this book, the author makes the following statement......

"At Lexington, professional British soldiers fired at a handful of local farmers. This act of violence, allegedly perpetrated by the enemy, gave the Americans the moral high ground and helped mobilize support. The story had been repeated so often that it has effectively muffled the revolution of the preceding year. Leaderless, ubiquitous, and bloodless, the first transfer of political authority from the British to Americans has not been able to compete. It was not lacking as a revolution, it has only lacked an audience to comprehend and appreciate it."

Hopefully this book will help to provide the audience this neglected episode of American History deserves.

Mr. Raphael has done us a wonderful service in putting forth his research into the rebellion that took place in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1774. The "first American Revolution." He builds an impressive case not only for what took place, but also for the possible reasons why this rebellion has not received the recognition it is due. He even refers to what followed at Lexington and Concord as a "counterrevolution" on the part of the British government in an attempt to regain the colony they had already lost.

Examining what lead up to the British establishment of the Massachusetts Government Act, the response of the local farmers to it, how it spread throughout the rural communities of Massachusetts, and the resulting confrontation that came just under a year later at Lexington and Concord, the author gives factual backing to the belief that people can indeed work together without requiring "leaders" or some hierarchical structure to ensure success.

In general, people like to have individuals to hold on to when studying the past. For some this perhaps relieves them from feeling the need to take personal responsibility for their own lives. I have often heard folks say the reason they do not attend local governmental meetings - such as city council, or county commissioner meetings, is that they "elected" these officials to do the work so they wouldn't have to. It is also a bit easier to blame such individuals when things go wrong. Some of us also convince ourselves (or get the message from those who are more comfortable if we remain docile and obedient servants) that we do not have the stuff to make a difference like someone famous could or can.

This is not the story of specific individuals, even though you will learn of people you most likely have never heard of before, neither is it about a faceless mob. These were individuals who saw beyond personal celebrity status and came together with the full intention of their rebellion being based in "the body of the people." Something folks from the whole spectrum of political thought seem to suggest is sorely needed in Washington, DC today. (I happen to agree.)

Or as Mr. Raphael puts it....

" The telling of history cries out for individual protagonists. If an isolated hero or leader doesn't emerge naturally, we try to invent one. In this case, however, none could even be conjured. There was no one person, not even a small group, who could have made the Revolution of 1774 any more or less than it was. This revolution was conducted by and for the participants, giving it both power and legitimacy."

and..........

" Without entrenched leaders, there could be no chain of command. The people of each locality, although communicating with each other through their committees of correspondence, received no orders from a central authority. They did develop some shared motifs - - most notably, forcing officials to recant while passing through the ranks, hats in hand - - but the local groups operated without any coordinating body to plot a strategy or plan the various confrontations."

and finally........

" The Massachusetts Revolution of 1774 was not only decentralized but thoroughly ubiquitous. Both temporally and geographically, it lacked concrete definition. It simply erupted, everywhere and whenever. It has been as confusing, perhaps, to students of history as it was to Governor Gage, who had no idea how to respond. "

It was indeed quite confounding to folks such as Lord Dartmouth who.......

"...........found it difficult to believe that Governor Gage had lost out to ' a tumultuous Rabble, without any Appearance of general Concert, or without any Head to advise, or Leader to conduct.' Dartmouth failed to comprehend the power of the people to act in their behalf, and even today, the revelation that ordinary people, ' without any Head to advise,' toppled the British-controlled government in Massachusetts engenders blank, incredulous states."

Anyone who believes you MUST have clearly identified leaders and a hierarchical structure in order to accomplish something will be challenged by the history told in this book. Those who sometimes feel there is little chance of changing those things which they believe to be wrong with their government will perhaps find hope within these pages. At the very least, the reader will be made much more aware of a chapter of American History that up until now has received far less recognition then it deserves.

One final note.......

For anyone that might be wondering about the author's understanding of how women, Africans (slave or free), and indigenous peoples were involved and effected by the American Revolution, I highly recommend Mr. Raphael's previous book : A People's History of The American Revolution - 2001 - also by The New Press. The two, read together, serve as an excellent introduction or review of the War of Independence.

The author made this book easy to read. He broke down all the chaos in a manner that anyone can enjoy and understand. You learn about what was going on prior to General/Governor Gage sending British troops to Concord. After reading this book about the farmers and artisans of Western Massachusetts getting together and overthrowing British authority you realize why the British had to head for Concord rather than Worcester. As someone who lives in the area and is a Revolution buff, this book is a valuable piece of history. I hope that more such books by any historians are forthcoming and that the history books don't forget...

A well-researched and finely written account of the people's revolution in Massachusetts in the years before Lexington and Concord.

Raphael recounts the people's rising anger towards the Crown because of the Massachusetts Goverment Act (1774). This act, which allowed the King to appoint officials instead of allowing the citizens to elect them, turned the people against the Crown. Through acts of civil disobedience, illegal conventions, and threats against appointed officials, the people of Massachusetts effectively took control of their government from the British.

This is a great book that focuses on an aspect of the Revolution that is usually ignored or lightly touched on in any History class or book about the Revolution. It shows that the Revolution was started and won by ALL the people of America, not just Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc.....

Highly Recommended!

My brother loaned me his copy. We frequently exchange books, but when he asked for the return of this particular one, I identified it among the others as "The Great Book." (This was a spontaneous utterance made during a walk, but I thought about it for a long time afterwards, why I had so described it.)

This is a powerful, disturbing, and beautiful work. It is the sort of book that, after reading a few paragraphs and even sometimes a single sentence, you find yourself with your eyes off the page, wondering at what you have just read, trying to picture it, trying to understand how such remarkable people could have given birth to such a disappointing nation.

There is a spirit somewhere here, I guess, that we should have inherited. I don't know that we have.

... and nowhere is that truer than in the accepted, standardized history of the American Revolution, with its paper trail of historiography backwards though the generations of the Adams Family to colonial Boston and ultimately to the Harvard Yard. It's a history of leaders, written by the heirs of those leaders, suited to the agenda of leadership. As such, it's inevitably a conservative historical discourse, in which the question has been asked again and again whether the "revolution" was in any sense really revolutionary. Since the most literate leaders, and heirs of leaders, were Boston merchants and their attorneys, the proximate causes of colonial dissatisfaction have always been described as taxation and mercantile policies that put colonial ports at disadvantage. Events in Massachusetts and Philadelphia dominate the basic textbook accounts of the War of Independence. Ever since Longfellow, the 'shot heard round the world' at Concord has been the official starting point of the American Revolution.

However, John Adams himself knew better. Somewhere, in his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson if my memory is correct, Adams ruminates to the effect that the "revolution" had already been accomplished in the hearts and minds of the citizenry before the gunfire at Lexington and Concord, even perhaps before the first 'Continental' Congress sessions in Philadelphia. Ray Raphael's book "The First American Revolution" is an exploration of that perception based on events in Massachusetts OUTSIDE Boston, when nearly the whole population of common farmers rose up to obstruct the implementation of the "Massachusetts Government Act", the most explicit effort by the British Parliament to assert overseas authority and discipline the upstart notions of 'home rule.' In the year before the Battle of Lexington, the whole structure of colonial government in Massachusetts - especially the courts - was shut down, by means of massive, mostly non-violent demonstrations, and ad hoc, extra-legal committees of social order had achieved plausibility. In the course of these demonstrations, the elite squirearchy of the Massachusetts townships, the families of wealth and respectability, found their preeminence challenged and their assumptions of proper hierarchy overturned, to a degree that can be truly considered revolutionary. The unsettled squirearchs, of course -- the "River Gods" of the Connecticutt Valley in particular -- as well as some of the prominent Boston merchants who had presented themselves as patriots, soon discovered that the commoners were moving beyond their leaders, in directions that implied a degree of democracy unforeseen in the counting houses. Sic transit, as usual; the provocateurs become the reactionaries. Of the rural elites, many become Tories, placing their bets as it wer on the wrong horse. Others, led by those 'men of means and wisdom' whom we call the Founding Fathers, take full advantage of their positions and abilities to 'ordain and establish' the order based on property that they cherished above all.

This is an interesting perspective -- the democratic revolution betrayed by a conservative backlash. Ray Raphael is far from the first historian to expound this perception. What makes his book special and valuable is the detailed substance of his research. Raphael's narrative of the events of the rural resistance to Governor/General Gage's imposition of the new Government Act is drawn entirely from primary sources -- pamphlets, newspapers, letters, official reports, court documents, etc. -- especially the ample archives of Worchester, where some of the most vivid acts of rebellion took place.

The whole shebang of Revolution wasn't accomplished in Worchester, of course, or in Massachusetts. For insight into the role of the laboring classes of Boston, you might take a look at "The Shoemaker and the Tea Party" by Alfred F. Young. And for the tale of another "American Revolution" entirely, please read "Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia" by Woody Holton. Old John Adams was on the right track; the American Revolution can be best understood 'from the bottom up.'

A very intriguing account of the revolution before the revolution. This is the story of the many small risings and the build up of the local militias and opposition to Britain before Lexington and Concord. An unknown history that is rarely explained in history books. Very fascinating reading this book will be of interest to those scholars of the American revolution and America in general. A much needed addition to understanding the history of the `shot heard round the world' that brought about American independence and thus the first independent colony from Europe.

Seth J. Frantzman

The "Shot heard 'round the World" was a year after the American Revolution began with major force.