Throwback Thursday: The Road to Revolution, April 1776

As we get closer to July, when our country turns 250-years-old, Throwback Thursday will have one segment each month that highlights what was happening in the colonies leading to the American Revolution. We start in April 1776, exactly 250 years ago.

The Revolution was already underway, but the colonies had not yet declared independence. British troops had already evacuated Boston by late spring. During this time, they said “The sun never set on the British empire,” because of its colonial rule from the Americas to Asia. For the first time, the colonies forced the world’s most powerful army to retreat. The impending question was not just about resistance, but separation.

Following the Boston victory, George Washington made a big move. On April 4, he marched the Continental Army to New York City, expecting the British to strike there next. New York’s harbor made it the next battleground and both sides were preparing.

Politics was starting to cut deeper into the issue. On April 12, North Carolina adopted the Halifax Resolves, ultimately becoming the first colony to officially support independence from British rule. The second Continental Congress was meeting in Philadelphia at the time, and this sign shows the tide turning.

Just three months earlier, Thomas Paine had published a pamphlet called Common Sense, with themes saying monarchy was outdated, than an island should not rule a continent, and that America had the rare chance to create something new. This could be a government built by the people. By April, Common Sense pamphlets made it to all the colonies.

Meanwhile, the Continental Army couldn’t pay its soldiers and Washington warned the Continental Congress of those consequences. Enlistments were expiring and the troops needed more support.

As for Bowling Green in all this, Kentucky was still part of Virginia’s frontier wilderness. The Virginia leaders debating to support independence were shaping the future of land that would ultimately become our state 16 years later. Many of the settlers who would eventually move into this region were revolution veterans, including Bowling Green’s founding family.

Next month we visit May 1776, when the colonists’ ideas of freedom and self government would become a movement and begin shaping even the future of places like Kentucky.