Link: https://sbu.zoom.us/j/92889479800
Pitt will present “Why Boston? A New Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution” on Monday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m. as part of St. Bonaventure’s “America’s 250 Series.” The event, which will be held in Walsh Auditorium, is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be served
“The sparks of revolution swirled in Boston, and the language of liberty coursed through its streets in the decade leading up to the Declaration of Independence,” explains Pitt, an associate professor of history who focuses on colonial and Revolution-era America.
According to Pitt, the Stamp Act Crisis, Townshend Acts boycotts and riots, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts reinforced and compounded grievances over economic decline, taxation, Navigations Acts enforcement, impressment, and imperial overreach. The port became the epicenter of resistance with the rise of the Sons of Liberty and eventual converts like John Adams.
“But why Boston? Why not Philadelphia, New York, or Charleston, SC?” Pitt asks. “The answer lies in Boston’s unique and complex religious, political, military, and economic trajectory that promised opportunity but led to frequent disillusionment.”
At every turn, Pitt explains, Bostonians from all classes tried to escape rigged economic systems (sometimes even systems they created), but conflicting internal desires and external forces thwarted their plans and shifted economic power to neighboring ports. By 1775, economic self-preservation propelled Bostonians onto the revolutionary path.
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