Mobilization

1
Mobilization

• Committees of Correspondence
• County Conventions
• Continental Congress
• Continental Association
• Committees of Safety
• Capturing the Militia

2
Committees of Correspondence

• 1772 Gaspee Affair
• John Brown leads attack on revenue cutter
• Virginia and Massachusetts vote for standing
  committee to keep up and maintain a
  correspondence and communicationto obtain the
  most early and authentic intelligence of all such
  acts and resolutions of the Parliamentas may
  relate to or affect the British colonies in
  America.

3
The gunpowder raids

• Gage attempts to defuse New England by staging
  raids to confiscate powder and arms.
• Salem, Portsmouth, Somerville, Charlestown, etc.

4
Conventions

• When royal authorities prorogued the assemblies,
  the people meet in conventions.
• Governor Thomas Gage felt it unsafe to allow the
  General Court to meet and issued a proclamation
  discharging the members from attendance. But the
  colonists refused to be denied expression at this
  critical moment. Ninety of the delegates
  assembled at the time appointed for the Assembly,
  October 5. 1774, and finding the Governor
  unwilling to recognize them, formed themselves
  into a Provincial Congress. They met in Salem,
  and across the colony the people met in county
  conventions.
• Key actions adopt the Suffolk Resolves, close
  the courts, withold tax collections, and secure
  the militias

5
Suffolk Resolves

• proclaimed the Coercive Acts to be
  unconstitutional and void officials charged with
  the enforcement of these illegal acts were called
  upon to resign
• urged Massachusetts to establish a separate free
  state until the Coercive Acts were repealed
• suggested that future tax collections be retained
  by the new Massachusetts government and not
  passed along to British officials
• called for the creation and enforcement of a
  boycott of British goods and trade with Britain
• advised the people of Massachusetts to appoint
  militia officers and commence arming their local
  forces
• warned General Thomas Gage that efforts to arrest
  citizens on political charges would result in the
  detention of the arresting officers
• announced that subjects no longer owe loyalty to
  a king who violates their rights.
• These resolutions were passed by a unanimous vote
  of the Suffolk County towns on September 9.

6
The Continental Association

• To obtain redress of these grievances which
  threaten destruction to the lives, liberty, and
  property of his Majestys subjects in North
  America, we are of the opinion that a
  non-importation, non-consumption, and
  non-exportation agreement, faithfully adhered to,
  will prove the most speedy, effectual and
  peacable measure.
• British goods imported into the colonies droppede
  90 from 1774 to 1775.

7
Committees of Safety

• The conventions were unwieldy and an executive
  authority was needed to make operational
  decisions to ensure the safety and defense of the
  colonies, thus the election of a committee of
  safety.
• The first committees met in November of 1774.
• On July 18, 1775, the Continental Congress
  recommended to those colonies still without them,
  the appointment of Committees of Safety to direct
  and superintend all matters necessary for the
  security and defense of their respective
  colonies, in the recess of their Assemblies and
  Conventions.

8
Militia

• Forced resignation of all officers and
  re-election of new officers.
• See Neimeyer, case of Timothy Ruggles in Worcester