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On the frozen banks of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania, 21-year-old Captain Alexander Hamilton wonders if it's possible to be any colder than he is right now and survive. The river below is an obstacle course of ice and slush. It's enough to kill a man within seconds of falling in. Yet the water is exactly where Hamilton is headed, the next stage in the fight for George Washington's Continental Army against the British.
He leads his men down to where a flotilla of small boats is waiting to take them across the river, trying to control his hacking cough. He helps to load cannons into a 60-foot ferry alongside 40 of his men, but as they work, snow starts to fall. Could things get any worse? Less than six months ago, the mood was buoyant after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But now, the King's forces have taken New York City, and the dreams of a new nation have been crushed.
Hamilton's own company has already lost half its men. But tonight's attack, they hope, might turn the tide. The soldiers settle, and the ferryman orders silence as he unties the flat-bottomed cargo boat sitting low in the freezing water. The crossing is only 300 yards, but the river is crammed with other boats carrying soldiers, horses, and cannons. The crew of six jam steel-tipped oars into the riverbed as the northeast wind propels hail into their eyes.
A little upriver, there is the splash of a man falling overboard and panicked, hushed voices as his comrades struggle to haul him back to safety. Eventually, Hamilton's boat reaches the New Jersey side and he clambers up the bank to join those already assembling. There are fewer than he expected, perhaps only 2,000, but then he catches a glimpse of General Washington. The leader welcomes his men as they come ashore, his cloak wrapped around him, powdered hair escaping from under his black tricorn hat.
Washington is twice Hamilton's age, but his power is undiminished, respected by his men who know he'll never ask any sacrifice of them that he would not gladly make himself. As the last artillerymen assemble, it's already hours later than planned. Daylight will make a surprise attack so much harder, but there's no going back. Washington divides his army into two columns to march to Trenton, nine miles away. They take the pitted river road through dense woodland,
Hamilton is grateful for his footwear. Many of the men are shoeless, their injured feet leaving a trail of bright red blood on the snowy ground. At least their feet are numbed by the cold. After four long hours, the forest thins out. There is the smell of wood smoke from houses as they enter the outskirts of the pretty town of Trenton. But there's no other sign of life as the Patriots circle the settlement. Hamilton and his men are just wheeling their two six-pound field cannons into place
when the first mustachioed Hessians emerge from their barracks. Shocked by what they discover, these German troops, here to fight for the British, are perhaps bleary-eyed too from a few festive beers the night before. The Hessians try to fight back. They are tough professionals after all, but they are outgunned. As Hamilton and his men fire cannonballs along the town's cobbled streets, the enemy runs for cover. The battle at Trenton is over within minutes,
Only two Americans and 22 Hessians are killed. One thousand prisoners are seized, along with ammunition, muskets, and barrels of rum. More importantly, Washington's audacious mission raises morale and patriots flock to fight for the cause. The founding of the United States will change the world, inspiring other colonies to control their own destinies.
And the decision makers, Washington, Hamilton, but also Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and more, will become legendary. The phrase "Founding Fathers" will celebrate their almost godlike status. But nearly 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, their legacy is still challenged and debated. So who were the Founding Fathers? How did their talents, ideas, and flaws shape their new nation? And how did the choices they made in the 18th century
still affect the world today? I'm John Hopkins from Noisa. This is a short history of the founding fathers of the United States of America. In 1607, 150 years before the events that lead to the founding of the United States, the first few hundred British immigrants found the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. By the middle of the 18th century, there are 13 British colonies stretching along the Atlantic coast.
Their combined population has swelled to around one and a half million. To the north are the five New England colonies. The middle section includes New York, and at the bottom are the five southern colonies, including Virginia and Georgia. Though each has its own government and identity, they all feel a strong connection to Britain. Dr. Lindsay M. Chavinsky is a presidential historian and author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
They believed that they were the most loyal British citizens. In fact, the cult of monarchy, things like china sets with the royal crest or the family tree, those were so popular and sold out immediately in the colonies. So a lot of the colonists really thought of themselves as very loyal citizens, and they wanted to be a part of the imperial project.
And critically, they did not think of themselves as second-class citizens. They thought of themselves as on par with those that lived in London or in England. Until now, the colonies have mostly been left to govern themselves. But that hands-off rule is about to change. It is 1763, and Great Britain has just emerged victorious from a long and bloody territorial war against France.
The American colonists have played an important role, providing soldiers and funds to help win the conflict. But that war has landed Britain with more debt and more lands to defend. So London looks to the American colonies to foot the security bill. Starting in 1764, they pass a series of acts of Parliament creating new taxes, first on sugar and molasses, then on paper.
This was a huge insult because colonists needed paper. They sent letters, they loved to consume newspapers and news, they needed legal documents to run a business or to get married. So that really got at the ideological cause, which is how can Parliament raise funds on the colonists if the colonists don't have any participation in that discussion, if they are not represented?
And that got at this idea of if they are indeed equal citizens within the British Empire, they need to have representation. The phrase "no taxation without representation" becomes a rallying cry. But politicians in London refuse to listen to the colonists' protests. When they double down by introducing still more taxes, resistance grows.
Much of the rebellion is centered around the port city of Boston in Massachusetts, and regiments of British troops, known as "Regulars," are sent to enforce order. Tensions spill over in 1770 when the King's soldiers open fire on protesters throwing stones. Five civilians are killed. The soldiers are brought to trial and defended by a 35-year-old American lawyer named John Adams.
He disagrees with the British military presence, but still manages to get the soldiers acquitted. He felt was an essential demonstration that the nation that they wanted to create was one of laws, not one of men. John Adams also kind of liked being unpopular. If he felt like what he was doing was right, he really liked kind of sticking it to people. If he felt that he was morally correct, and so that didn't really bother him.
As John Adams is defending the British soldiers, his second cousin Samuel Adams is rallying the opposition to the occupation of Boston. Yet Britain presses on with the Tea Act, which floods the colonies with cheap tea, disrupting the independent business of local American merchants and smugglers. In December 1773, Samuel Adams addresses a protest meeting of thousands of people.
But the gathering ends with many participants heading for the harbor, where they dump 342 chests of British-supplied tea into the water. In retaliation for what becomes known as the Boston Tea Party, the London government passes laws designed to ruin the city's economy. It's intended to warn the other 12 American colonies to toe the line, but it backfires spectacularly.
The entire colony of Massachusetts was being punished for the actions of a small handful of individuals. And if that were true, then all of the colonies could be punished for the actions of only a few people. And so that was really worrisome for them and led to a sense that there needed to be more coordinated action. And if there was going to be a widespread economic response, for example, then that needed to be planned and coordinated.
so that it wasn't merchants in certain places taking the hit and really acting on their own. Britain's so-called intolerable acts galvanize the independence movement. This legislation closes Boston Harbor and brings the city under much more stringent colonial control. So, ten months after the Boston Tea Party, a group of 56 men from 12 of the colonies meet to decide what to do next.
The First Continental Congress takes place in September 1774 in Philadelphia. The delegates from the North include Samuel Adams and his lawyer cousin John, and from Virginia in the South, a 42-year-old military hero turned politician by the name of George Washington. They'll spend the next seven weeks thrashing out their options, including a boycott of British imports and establishment of their own military force.
But apart from their desire for change, the men and the colonies they represent have little in common. When the delegates arrived in Philadelphia for the first Continental Congress in 1774,
more delegates had been to London than had been to Philadelphia. And that demonstrates that there were no emotional ties, really, between the colonies. There were very few economic ties between the colonies. They didn't see themselves as a cohesive unit. They saw themselves as attached to the homeland. At the end of the Congress, they stopped short of choosing to pursue independence immediately.
Instead, in a compromise, they issue a petition to King George III asking him to consider their many grievances and repeal the intolerable acts. But they'll have their work cut out to convince the people of the colonies to take action that could lead to war.
What is really important between 1774 and 1776 is they worked in coordinated action to bring the American people along with them to try and build that widespread support. But even then, John Adams later said when he was talking about the revolution that about one third of Americans were ardent patriots.
One third were ardent loyalists and one third were in the middle just trying to survive, just trying to get by, just trying to avoid a notice by whatever army happened to be closest to them. And while those exact numbers might not be perfectly accurate, I think it does give a pretty good sense of where the continent was at the start of the war.
Thanks to the trade boycott, imports of British goods drop by a massive 97% by 1775. As a next step, the colonies plan to stop exports to the British Empire, unless their grievances are taken seriously. Knowing armed conflict is likely, each colony recruits and trains its own militia. Meanwhile, the British army tries to disrupt the preparations for war by arresting Patriot leaders and seizing stores of weapons and ammunition.
The colonists establish intelligence and warning networks to stay one step ahead of the king's men. Literally hundreds, if not a thousand needles came down like the heavens were falling. I'm Natalia Petruzzella from BBC Radio 4. This is Extreme Muscleman.
When you're muscular, when you're big, you get respect. This is the story of the biggest illegal steroid operation the United States had ever seen and the lengths to which we'll go in pursuit of perfection. Extreme Musclemen. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. It's 10 p.m. on the night of April the 18th, 1775.
In a timber house in downtown Boston, Paul Revere, a silversmith and father of eight, pulls on his thick boots and woolen coat. Knowing the dangerous mission he's about to undertake, his wife kisses him goodbye, warning him to take care. Then the 39-year-old heads outside and walks swiftly towards the river. He keeps an eye out for British soldiers, but this part of the city is quiet tonight.
Word is that the King's men are massing on the Common, from where they'll head to Lexington, 11 miles from here, to arrest the Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams. And it is Paul Revere's job to get there first to warn them. Arriving at the river, he scrambles down the bank to meet some friends who are waiting with a boat to roam across. Night crossings are forbidden, so they move silently, slipping unnoticed past a British warship.
The boat grinds onto the shore and Revere sprints into town. There, his supporters have a horse ready, having already seen the lanterns lit in a nearby church to warn them of danger. It's part of a complex warning system established by the Sons of Liberty group, Revere himself among them. Tonight, the strength of their network will be the difference between success and failure, even between life and death. Starting just after 11, Revere rides along the Neck,
A strip of land where water flows either side, but soon he's spotted by two British officers on horseback. He pushes his horse into a gallop, but one officer overtakes to slow him down, while another tries to unsaddle him. As Revere pulls the reins, his horse turns sharply. His pursuers try to follow, but one officer's horse plunges into a clay pond. As his companion tries to drag him out, Revere escapes.
He rides for another hour to Lexington, stopping along the way to warn other patriots. But he spots more and more King's men. Surely it doesn't take this many redcoats to make an arrest. Just after midnight, he reaches his destination: a timber-framed parsonage. He ties up his horse and knocks quietly on the heavy front door. A servant shows him inside, talking at a table near the fireplace, other men he's been sent to see.
The blunt, roughly-dressed Adams and the debonair and charming Hancock. There are others here too, brought together by the common goal of independence from Britain. The men form a plan, deciding that the leaders should stay put for now, but be ready to fight or to flee. Now, a backup messenger arrives, sent in case Revere was captured along the way. The two riders share food and water. Comparing how many British soldiers they've seen, there must be hundreds.
Between them, the men deduce the British must be headed to the militia weapons store at Concord, further west. So instead of heading home, Dawes and Revere get back in the saddle and head west towards Concord. They are joined by another son of Liberty on the way, a doctor. But they've only traveled three miles when they spot the red coats of British patrolmen. Revere finds himself surrounded, though his companions get away. At gunpoint, he surrenders,
He submits to being searched for weapons. Then, after he's questioned about his mission, he is forced to ride with them back towards Lexington. He can only hope the others have been able to get all the way to Concord to warn the militia in time. But when he arrives back in Lexington, he hears a gunshot. With no way to know who is firing on whom, his British captors abandon their prisoner and race to join their compatriots, forcing Revere to hand over his horse. As he follows on foot, more shots ring out.
The day is breaking, and he hopes he has done enough. That first gunfire will later be described as "the shot heard around the world," signaling the start of the American Revolutionary War. During the first skirmish at Lexington, the British kill eight, but the colonists will have their revenge at Concord. The doctor who was riding with Revere manages to get a warning through so the Patriots are ready to protect their weapons and send the British back in retreat to Boston.
British casualties outnumber colonist losses two to one, and both Samuel Adams and John Hancock are free to continue their work. As the military conflict gets underway, more people rally to the cause. And though the Continental Congress sends another petition to George III in a final attempt to avoid all-out war, they know it probably won't succeed. It is time to establish the Continental Army. But who should lead it?
Lawyer John Adams understands how critical the choice will be.
This was a very calculated strategic decision that was largely engineered by John Adams. He understood that the military conflict had started in Massachusetts. In a lot of ways, a lot of people blamed the rebels in Boston for instigating the conflict more broadly. And so the commander needed to be from Virginia, which was the biggest state among the colonies at the time. It was the wealthiest and it needed to be a national effort.
Among the Virginians, George Washington was the obvious choice. He looked the part. He had a lot of military experience, and he had showed up suggestively in military uniform, just in case anyone forgot about his previous military experience. So John Adams engineered the nomination of George Washington, who accepted the command and rode out up to Massachusetts before the end of the Congress.
Now the Second Continental Congress makes a critical decision. In June 1776, the delegates vote for a resolution which declares, in its own words, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. A committee of five drafts the declaration. It includes John Adams, plus a charismatic entrepreneur and inventor called Benjamin Franklin.
But it is Thomas Jefferson, a wealthy 33-year-old Virginian, who writes some of the most famous words in the English language.
He inherited a ton of land from basically the moment he was born because he was his father's oldest son. And so he really was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. There was always an expectation that he was going into politics because that's what men of his class did. He was a beautiful writer. And again, it should come from Virginia. It should be a unified process.
So he spent the next couple of weeks working on a draft. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams then made some tweaks to that draft before they submitted it to Congress in early July. In total, 86 edits are made to the first draft Jefferson writes. But one revision in particular is discussed to this day. By this time, around half a million people of African origin, one-fifth of the population, are enslaved in the colonies.
but almost all of them live in the South, working on plantations growing tobacco, rice, and other crops. Attitudes are divided along regional lines, with politicians in the South defending slavery and many in the North wanting it abolished. Jefferson's original draft included references to the evil of slavery, even though he himself kept hundreds of enslaved people.
He suggests that the British King is to blame for transporting slaves to America and perpetuating a cruel war against human nature itself.
This was a very controversial statement. A lot of people at the Continental Congress felt that it muddied the waters. It made the argument for independence much more complicated because they weren't setting about to eradicate slavery. They were setting about to separate themselves. And so they ended up removing that clause, removing that clause.
offense against the king so that there is no mention of slavery in the ultimate declaration. The final resolution to declare independence is adopted by Congress on July 2, 1776. It's that date that many delegates expect to be celebrated in the future. But the wording is debated for two more days before the new draft is approved. The operation to spread the word starts right away. Overnight, on the 4th of July, 200 copies are printed.
One is dispatched to George Washington and his army in New York City, where he reads it out to the troops to boost morale. In response, his men topple a statue of King George, which is melted down to be turned into ammunition. At just over 1,300 words, the final version of the Declaration of Independence details the many grievances the colonies have against King George III.
but it's the opening preamble that will become world famous and inspire people over the centuries to come. We hold these truths to be self-evident, it says, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The Declaration's preamble is beautiful. It is extraordinary language that inspired other revolutions for many decades thereafter. But in and of itself, it was actually a document that was trying to explain why they were taking this action. It was very much an international-facing document
statement of purpose. It explained to the other monarchies around the globe that they weren't anti-monarchy per se. They were trying to reassure the fears of the French and the Spanish that they weren't trying to destroy all monarchies, but that there were very specific grievances that had not been addressed, and therefore they were justified in taking this action. Soon after the Declaration of Independence, the British occupy New York City.
Although Washington and his men are victorious when they cross the Delaware at Christmas in 1776, there are many challenges and battles ahead. The colonists are going to war against an imperial superpower. To many, it seems like an impossible fight. To date, no colony has managed to declare and gain independence. The British Navy is the most powerful in the world, and its army is notorious for its discipline and skill. Yet, it's not a one-sided conflict.
Many of the men in the Continental Army have fought alongside the British and understand how they think. And their commander is an exceptional man. Historians generally like to avoid statements like this one person was indispensable. But in the case of George Washington, it is really accurate and we can't overstate his importance to the revolution because...
He was the only person probably that could have held the Continental Army together. By the midway point in the war, Congress was referring to the troops as Washington's troops as opposed to American troops because they were so loyal to him and adored him so much that they probably wouldn't have fought for anyone else.
And he had a very keen sense that his self-sacrifice was essential to this conflict. So he didn't ever go home. He didn't ever leave his troops. He was there the entire time and knew that as long as he didn't die and as long as the army didn't disintegrate, that it was going to be almost impossible for the British to win. His aide to camp, Alexander Hamilton, is young but gifted.
Born in the West Indies, raised by an unwed mother, he is sent to America with the support of business people and plantation owners who spot his incredible potential.
Hamilton had such great communication and organizational skills. He could master and maintain more information than most people would be able to process. And so not only did he very quickly adopt Washington's voice so he could write for Washington and knew what his boss wanted him to say, but he could also manage those around him. And so he almost became like a chief of staff at the headquarters.
In autumn of 1777, less than a year after Washington led the morale-raising crossing of the Delaware, the British have also occupied the capital, Philadelphia. But in October, Washington's army decisively defeats the superior British troops in the Battle of Saratoga. What the patriots need now is more allies and more money to keep fighting. And that diplomatic campaign centers on Europe.
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who worked together on the Declaration of Independence, must now forge critical alliances with France and Spain. Benjamin Franklin was hard at work trying to get supplies and money and funds from the French, which they initially supplied secretly and then supplied officially once the Treaty of Amity in Commerce and Defense was signed in 1778. The French also convinced
Spain to support the United States. John Adams, whose no-nonsense style doesn't go down well with the French, has more luck getting loans from Dutch bankers. And when the European nations back the colonists, it's a turning point. A distant civil war now becomes a globally significant conflict. Washington's army has endured a savage winter in its efforts to reclaim Philadelphia.
His men withdraw to a nearby plateau, but of 12,000 men who quarter there in December, up to 2,000 die of disease. But the survivors emerge as a powerful, united force. They strike again, and in June of 1778, force the British to abandon Philadelphia. As French and later Spanish funds and forces arrive to support the Continental Army, there is a stalemate in the north, as action switches to the southern colonies.
The British are convinced many colonists there are still loyal to the King, but it's not enough. By the autumn of 1781, the King's army, led by General Cornwallis, are under siege on the Yorktown Peninsula in Virginia. Washington leads an army of 14,000 against them, supported by 36 French warships who stop the British getting away. Cornwallis surrenders on October 19 with his entire force of 7,000 men.
And although the war doesn't officially end for another two years, British troops begin to withdraw in 1782. King George sends negotiators to the French capital to work out the details of a peace treaty. Through those negotiations, they were able to come up with the Treaty of Paris.
which was a remarkably generous treaty to the new United States, including fishing rights in the Newfoundlands and recognition of territory. It was signed in 1783 and officially ended the war. One of my favorite depictions of that treaty is a painting that was done partway through the process in which the British ministers were supposed to be depicted and the American ministers were supposed to be depicted. But because the treaty was viewed as
sort of a betrayal of British interests by a lot of the British people, the British ministers refused to sit for it. And so it is a permanently unfinished painting that a copy of which is still in the State Department in Washington, D.C. today. Over 25,000 Americans die during the Revolutionary War, but perhaps fewer than a quarter of those fell in battle. The others perished from disease or as prisoners of war.
The British losses are less well recorded, though around 24,000 are thought to have been killed, injured, or captured, along with around 7,500 mercenaries. But history has been made, and a precedent has been set for other colonies hoping to break free from larger empires. What's left for those who so believed in their vision of freedom is a completely different task, that of founding a new nation.
In a lot of ways, declaring independence and winning the war was the easy part, and actually existing was much, much harder. Because when the colonies had a common enemy of Great Britain, they could kind of focus on that. And once they lost that common enemy, they kind of became each other's enemy. The new government already has some ground rules in place, known as the Articles of Confederation, which were adopted during the war. But these have one big flaw.
Congress did not have the right under the Articles to enforce the collection of taxation, so it had no money. So it couldn't pay any of its officials. It couldn't pay off its debts from the war. It couldn't pay for an army to defend its new borders. It could do nothing.
The states were squabbling with each other over economic principles and defense of its borders, over the right to navigate different rivers and set taxes, all of these things. And all of the international empires, as well as the native nations on the western borders, were ready and waiting for the country to fall apart and to pick off the pieces to tuck back into their territories. So it was a very calamitous situation.
After being ruled for so long by a distant king, many Americans are hugely resistant to centralized power. They fear losing the individual freedoms so many died defending. But with the economy suffering, drastic measures are needed. In the summer of 1787, members of the new government ditch the old Articles. Their convention creates a document that becomes the U.S. Constitution. It brings the states together, creating a common currency and military force.
But even those behind the new agreement know it's far from perfect. It was really a series of compromises that had been patched together to try and address some of the problems that they had seen, to try and give future generations flexibility to solve problems that they could not yet possibly foresee, or problems like slavery that they understood were going to be a huge issue but didn't know yet how to solve.
criticism immediately focuses on the issues they've avoided, including that question of slavery. There were a lot of people at the time who were very opposed to slavery. And there were a lot of people who understood the hypocrisy of talking about liberty and freedom while owning other human beings. And many British observers actually talked about that the loudest yelps for liberty were coming from those that owned people.
There were a lot of people who wanted to give the federal government more power to regulate slavery. There were a lot of people who felt that it was wildly unfair to give southern states more representation in Congress while they were depriving other people of their liberties. But South Carolina and some of the other states threatened to leave the Constitutional Convention if any effort was made to curtail slavery. Enslaved people are not the only ones whose rights are ignored.
Women don't get to vote. Native Americans are also at a huge disadvantage. Native nations, in theory, had the right to negotiate with the United States as another sovereign nation. But in practice, the United States often trampled over those rights or forced nations into very detrimental agreements that ceded a lot of their land to the United States. There were also a lot of wars fought against Native nations.
So it was a deeply flawed document. Many also fear the power granted to the new federal government is too great. So the Constitution is amended almost immediately, when the Bill of Rights sets out individual freedoms that must be protected. The First Amendment establishes the right to freedom of religion, speech, and the press, while the Second deals with the right to bear arms.
Later amendments guarantee fair and speedy trials and prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. Finally, in April 1789, George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States. His Secretary of State is Thomas Jefferson, and the first Secretary of the Treasury is his former wartime aide, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton takes charge of the economy, paying off massive war debts and finding funds to grow the country.
But tensions soon erupt over an unexpected commodity: whiskey. Hamilton decides to tax spirits distilled in the US, arguing that they are a luxury. But the people of western Pennsylvania don't see it that way. Roughly 17,000 people eke out a difficult living in its remote plains and valleys, cut off by poor transport and the vast Appalachian mountain range. Whiskey in these parts is a much more reliable currency than cash.
The spirit is used for everyday purchases and services. So the 1791 tax will hit almost every family and shows how little the fancy urban politicians know about real life here. Anger spills over into violent protests against the men who are collecting the new tax. It's early in the morning on the 16th of July 1794.
As the sun rises over the Bower Hill estate near Pittsburgh, dozens of enslaved men and women are already at work. Among them is 21-year-old carpenter Will, repairing the roof of the building that houses the whiskey still. He learned his craft from his father, who helped to build this luxurious mansion house for its owner, General John Neville. All around are fields swaying with rye, almost ripe for harvesting.
He's almost done when another man calls for him to hurry. The general wants everyone to gather outside the house. That can only mean trouble. In front of the mansion, Will joins a score of other men. Laid out on the ground are rifles. The general, a white man in his 60s, orders him to grab one and load it. He explains that a local group of militia are on their way, angry that he has worked alongside a federal marshal to collect the new whiskey taxes.
General Neville demands that Will and the others defend his property with him, though the enslaved women and children can shelter inside the mansion until the danger passes. Now Will's younger brother Putnam is running up from the field, waving and shouting, they're coming. Will can make out their silhouettes against the sun, 40 or so men charging up the hill, fanning out. Neville orders defensive positions and Will and Putnam flank him, rifles cocked.
The two young men are crack shots, often boasting of the 100-pound wolf they shot and killed as kids. This, though, is completely different. Will doesn't want to fire on people, but with no choice, he'll do what he's told and protect Bower Hill. Not for the General's sake, but for his mother and sisters who are sheltering in the house his own father built. The men demand Neville hands over the Marshal. When the General tells them he's not here, they say they're coming in to make sure.
The general raises his rifle and aims into the crowd. He fires, a man drops, and then all hell breaks loose. Bullets fly from both directions, and several of the mob fall. Soon, the militia retreat, but Will knows they'll be back. Ten soldiers arrive as reinforcements from a local barracks, but their major insists the general leave for his own safety. For the rest of the day, the brothers take their turns keeping watch. That night, no one sleeps.
After 36 tense hours, the mob returns. 600 or more drunken, angry men ready for revenge. Massively outnumbered, the army major asks that the women and children are allowed to leave, and Will's mother and sister run for their lives. They have barely taken cover in the woods when the attack begins. Soon, Will can't see where he's shooting for the smoke, or hear himself think. He fires, reloads, fires again, until abruptly, the battle stops.
Maybe thinking that the defenders have surrendered, the rebel leader strides confidently towards the mansion. Except now, there's another single shot and the man drops to the ground. For a moment, the rebels can't take in what's happened. But then the fury of betrayal takes hold. The renewed onslaught is ferocious. Even after the Major does surrender, the mob swarms over the mansion like locusts, throwing out paintings and fine furniture, ransacking the whiskey.
In the chaos, Will drags his brother away towards the woods. When he spots his mother and sister sheltering in the ravine, he is overcome with relief. He looks back up at the house, expecting the gunpowder smoke to clear. Instead, it thickens. It's the mansion going up in flames. None of the enslaved men are hurt defending Bower Hill, but the burned-out mansion will never be rebuilt, and Will and the others will live on a different estate for another nine years.
Finally, on his deathbed, General Neville orders their freedom or manumission. When word of the attack on Bower Hill reaches Philadelphia in August 1794, Washington prepares to send in 13,000 troops to suppress the rebellion. But critics rail against the idea of the first president taking up arms against his own citizens. Faced with such overwhelming force, the movement fizzles out within months.
150 rebels are arrested, and though 20 stand trial, only two are found guilty of treason. They are sentenced to hang, but the president pardons them, having already made a critical point about how the nation will operate. If the federal government could not pass taxes and could not raise revenue, it would fail. It was an essential moment because it was a demonstration that the nation could indeed survive and do what it needed to
to exist on the world stage. In 1797, Washington surprises his people by stepping aside after serving only two four-year terms. It's an astonishing act in an era when men cling onto power for as long as possible. His decision sets a precedent for the future, though the two-term limit isn't made official until the 22nd Amendment takes effect in 1951.
The second president is Boston lawyer and former Vice President John Adams. He invests in the nation's defenses and is the first leader to move into the White House. But Adams serves just one term before losing to Thomas Jefferson. In 1803, during Jefferson's presidency, the size of the nation doubles after he agrees to buy the Louisiana Territory from the French for $15 million. The Native Americans who live there are not part of the negotiation.
The real losers in this situation were the native nations that had been allies with Spain or allies with France. They still retained a lot of their own power, both their military power and their economic powers. But there was a sense by some that it was only a matter of time before white settlers started to encroach on their land. As time passes, the founders' influence wanes.
After a short illness, George Washington dies in 1799, aged 67, prompting an outpouring of national grief. But it is the shocking death of Alexander Hamilton, five years later, that reveals how violent politics can still be. Now living in a country house in Manhattan and running a newspaper, Hamilton continues his involvement in government.
In July 1804, animosity between him and a rival, Aaron Burr, leads to the two men meeting for an illegal duel on the banks of the Hudson. Burr comes from a privileged background, while Hamilton has never quite shaken the feeling of inferiority about his own humble origins. It's not clear who fires the first shot, but while Hamilton misses, Burr doesn't. Hit in the abdomen, Hamilton dies the next day. He was 47 years old.
Hamilton's death is premature, but many of the others who formed the first government are now aging. In a stranger-than-fiction coincidence, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on the same day, July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence.
The Founding Fathers have overcome the immediate challenges of unifying the colonies, forging international alliances, and forming the financial and defensive institutions an independent country needs. But with the cracks that will lead to civil war already beginning to show, the loss of those elder statesmen is deeply felt. There was a recognition of this great generation was no longer with us.
And in the 1820s, the first of a series of battles over the future of slavery started to crop up. And so there was a lot of anxiety and fear about what the future of the nation was going to be and how was the loss of this generation and its leadership and its stewardship going to affect the future of the nation. We see an explosion of the cult of the founding generation after the Civil War.
It's not until the 20th century that the label "Founding Fathers" is adopted. President Warren G. Harding is the first person recorded as using it in speeches from 1916 onwards. The phrase catches on. That's where you start to see this almost worship of figures like Washington.
and Benjamin Franklin and the other people who had led the nation. So in the 1870s, in the 1970s, or when the nation is in a particularly tense moment, it is helpful for a lot of people to have this touchstone that they can refer to as either something that is calming or as a justification for their actions.
Though the term recognizes the critical role the politicians played, it also draws criticism for excluding so many who also fought for independence.
Other people played a really important role and supported those efforts, supported those work, whether it was getting the word out to neighbors or sewing uniforms or assisting with diplomacy, that women and people of color and a much broader range of what we would think of as Americans were part of this process. I think if we want to use more accurate terminology, there are two options. One, if we're talking about the Constitution and
the example set out to us by the first generation, then framers is most accurate because those were the people in the room that were actually crafting the language on the text. If we're talking about the people that fought in the war, the founding generation is, I think, most accurate because that does encompass all of the people that were alive at that point and their various roles, whether they were conflicting or supporting or central to the project.
The legacies of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and their contemporaries still affect how Americans see themselves, and how the world sees America. Washington and Jefferson are literally set in stone, memorialized in granite at Mount Rushmore. But the legacies of all the founding fathers are constantly being reinterpreted, in everything from political rallies to Broadway shows.
Yet, ultimately, the men who won independence for their nation in the Revolutionary War would themselves have admitted they were simply human beings with talents and limitations. That is actually a much more inspirational story because it suggests that flawed people doing the very best that they can, can create something extraordinary, can inspire future generations
both in the United States and in nations across the world to create extraordinary things and to never give up trying to create something better or to improve what they already have. It is much less impressive to me if we think of them as these demigod figures because then of course you expect extraordinary heroics from godlike figures, but if it's flawed men, that's really very inspirational and suggests that
we can have future generations that also do extraordinary things. Next time on Short History, I will bring you a short history of the Battle of the Somme. It's not futile and we can't say they never should have done it because war, dispassionately taking away the human suffering, war is all about concentrating all of your resources and learning as you go until you have enough answers.
And we didn't have all the answers, but we wouldn't have had all the answers in 1918 if we hadn't made these mistakes in 1916 and we hadn't learned from them. So I think it's really important to remember that the Battle of the Somme is a staging post that does guide the Allies towards victory. That's next time.