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VOA慢速英语2013--The American Revolution - Program No. 11

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The American Revolution - Program No. 11

From VOA Learning English, this is The Making of a Nation.  American history in Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

This week in our series, we look at the start of the American Revolution.

The road to revolution in the late seventeen hundreds took several years. There were protests against the British policy of taxing the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament.

To prevent trouble, the British sent thousands of soldiers to Boston, the largest city in Massachusetts. 

Jayne Gordon, the director of education and public programs at the Massachusetts Historical Society, explains the mood at the time.

“We’re looking at a time of great tension, we’re looking at a time when there’s an expectation, I think, on both sides that something will happen but nobody knows exactly what or when.”

On March fifth, seventeen seventy, that tension led to violence.

It was the end of winter but the weather was still very cold.  A small group of colonists1 began throwing rocks and pieces of ice at soldiers guarding a public building. They were joined by others, and the soldiers became frightened. They fired their guns.

Five colonists were killed. The shooting became known as the Boston Massacre2.

The people of Massachusetts were extremely angry. The soldiers were tried in court for murder. Most of them were found innocent. The others received minor3 punishments.

Fearing more violence, the British Parliament removed most of the taxes on the colonists. Only the tax on tea remained.

The tensions eased for a while. Imports of British goods increased.  The colonists seemed satisfied with the situation, until a few years later. Then the Massachusetts colony once again became involved in a dispute with Great Britain.

The trouble started because the government wanted to help the British East India Company. That company organized all the trade between India and other countries in the British empire.

By seventeen seventy-three, the company had become weak. The British government decided4 to let the company sell tea directly to the American colonies. The colonies would still have to pay a tea tax.

The Americans did not like this new plan. They felt they were being forced to buy their tea from only one company.

Officials in the colonies of Pennsylvania and New York sent ships from the East India Company back to Britain. In Massachusetts, the British governor wanted to collect the tea tax and enforce the law. When the ships arrived in Boston, some colonists tried to block their way.  The ships remained just outside the harbor without unloading their goods.

On the night of December sixteenth, seventeen seventy-three, a group of colonists went out in a small boat. They got on a British ship and threw all the tea into the water.

Destroying the tea was a serious crime. 

The colonists were dressed as American Indians so the British would not recognize them. But the people of Boston knew who they were. A crowd gathered to cheer them. That incident -- the night when British tea was thrown into Boston harbor -- became known as the Boston Tea Party.

“And all of a sudden, with the Tea Party, they say enough is enough.”

Gordon Wood, a history professor at Brown University in Rhode Island, says the Tea Party made Britain furious with the colonies.

Parliament reacted by passing a series of laws that punished the whole Massachusetts colony for the actions of a few men.

One of these laws closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for.  Other laws strengthened the power of the British governor and weakened the power of local officials throughout the colonies.

The laws were called the Coercive Acts. Historian Gordon Wood says they helped unite all the colonies against Britain, even though not everybody approved of the Boston Tea Party. 

“The Virginians are appalled5 at the Tea Party. They just think that’s just terrible, the destruction of all that property. But when they see what the British do, the Coercive Acts, they say to themselves, 'If they can do that to Massachusetts, the British can do that to us.' And they’re on board. And that really is the turning point.”

In June of seventeen seventy-four, Massachusetts called for a meeting of delegates from all the other colonies to consider joint6 action against Britain.

This meeting was called the First Continental7 Congress. It was held in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September of seventeen seventy-four. All the colonies except one were represented. The southern colony of Georgia did not send a delegate.

The delegates agreed that the British Parliament had no right to control trade with the American colonies or to make any laws that affected8 them. They said the people of the colonies must have the right to take part in any legislative9 group that made laws for them.

The First Continental Congress approved a series of documents that condemned10 all British actions in the colonies after seventeen sixty-three. The delegates approved a proposal by Massachusetts saying that the people could use weapons to defend their rights. They also organized a Continental Association to boycott11 British goods and to stop all exports to any British colony or to Britain itself. Local committees were created to enforce the boycott.

One of the delegates to the First Continental Congress was John Adams of Massachusetts. Years later, he would say that by the time the meeting took place, the American Revolution had already begun.

King George the Second announced that the New England colonies were in rebellion. Parliament made the decision to use troops against the colonists in Massachusetts in January of seventeen seventy-five. 

The people of Massachusetts formed a provincial12 assembly and began training men to fight. Soon, armed groups were doing military exercises in towns all around Massachusetts and in other colonies.

British officers received their orders in April seventeen seventy-five.  By that time, the colonists had been gathering13 weapons in the town of Concord14, about thirty kilometers west of Boston. 

“It’s a gentle landscape. There are no great mountains, there are no great valleys or waterfalls. It’s a gently rolling hillside, farm landscape. There are two rivers that come together to form another river.

Jayne Gordon from the Massachusetts Historical Society lives in the area. She describes what the scene must have been like.

“The houses are mostly made of wood. Many of them are not painted. In April the leaves would just be budding out, things would be greening up, and actually the first day of the revolution was a very warm spring day.”

The British forces were ordered to seize the colonists’ weapons.  But the colonists were prepared. They knew that the British were coming.

Years later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about what happened. The poem is about Paul Revere15, one of three men who helped warn the colonial troops that the British were coming:

Listen my children and you shall hear

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five

hardly a man is now alive

who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend,

"If the British march by land or sea from the town tonight

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch of the North Church tower as a signal light.

One if by land

And two if by sea

And I on the opposite shore will be

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm

for the country folk to be up and to arm."))

When the British reached the town of Lexington, they found it protected by about seventy colonial troops. These citizen soldiers were called "Minute Men." They had been trained to fight with only a minute's warning. Eight colonists were killed.

Each side accused the other of firing the first shot in that first battle of the American Revolution. It became known as "the shot heard 'round the world."

From Lexington, the British marched to Concord, where they destroyed whatever supplies the colonists had not been able to save.  Other colonial troops rushed to the area. A battle at Concord's north bridge forced the British to march back to Boston.

It was the first day of America's war for independence. When it was over, almost three hundred British troops had been killed. Fewer than one hundred Americans had died.

The British troops had marched in time with their drummers and pipers playing "Yankee Doodle." A Yankee Doodle was a man who did not know how to fight. The song was meant to insult the Americans. But in the end they were proud of it.

Following the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts colony organized a group that captured Fort Ticonderoga. This was a British position on Lake Champlain in New York. The other colonies began sending their own troops to help. And another meeting was called: the Second Continental Congress.  That will be our story next week.


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1 colonists 4afd0fece453e55f3721623f335e6c6f     
n.殖民地开拓者,移民,殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Colonists from Europe populated many parts of the Americas. 欧洲的殖民者移居到了美洲的许多地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Some of the early colonists were cruel to the native population. 有些早期移居殖民地的人对当地居民很残忍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
2 massacre i71zk     
n.残杀,大屠杀;v.残杀,集体屠杀
参考例句:
  • There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中,这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
  • If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀,大屠杀就有可能再次发生!
3 minor e7fzR     
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修
参考例句:
  • The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
  • I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。
4 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
5 appalled ec524998aec3c30241ea748ac1e5dbba     
v.使惊骇,使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的;丧胆的
参考例句:
  • The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
  • They were appalled by the reports of the nuclear war. 他们被核战争的报道吓坏了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 joint m3lx4     
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合
参考例句:
  • I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤,肩膀脫臼了。
  • We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。
7 continental Zazyk     
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的
参考例句:
  • A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
  • The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。
8 affected TzUzg0     
adj.不自然的,假装的
参考例句:
  • She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
  • His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。
9 legislative K9hzG     
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的
参考例句:
  • Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
  • Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。
10 condemned condemned     
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
  • The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。
11 boycott EW3zC     
n./v.(联合)抵制,拒绝参与
参考例句:
  • We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
  • The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。
12 provincial Nt8ye     
adj.省的,地方的;n.外省人,乡下人
参考例句:
  • City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
  • Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。
13 gathering ChmxZ     
n.集会,聚会,聚集
参考例句:
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
14 concord 9YDzx     
n.和谐;协调
参考例句:
  • These states had lived in concord for centuries.这些国家几个世纪以来一直和睦相处。
  • His speech did nothing for racial concord.他的讲话对种族和谐没有作用。
15 revere qBVzT     
vt.尊崇,崇敬,敬畏
参考例句:
  • Students revere the old professors.学生们十分尊敬那些老教授。
  • The Chinese revered corn as a gift from heaven.中国人将谷物奉为上天的恩赐。

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