History of the Fourth of July

Note: The Nevada Department of Veterans Services will be close Thursday, July 4, 2019. We will return Friday, July 5th. Have a safe and happy Independence Day!

By Josh Loftis
(Reno) – On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, the formal document officially absolving all ties between Great Britain and the American Colonies. But this was not a decision made on a whim. The American colonists had tolerated decades of mistreatment before resorting to declaring their independence.

The first permanent settlement, Jamestown, was established in 1607. With new settlements established from there, the American colonists also started to trade with other nations across the globe, for needed supplies. One of the earliest trade relationships was with the Dutch. The Dutch had already settled near the Hudson Bay around 1609 and had their own ships importing and exporting – so other American Colonies started to use them for their import and export. This angered Great Britain, who wanted exclusive trade rights to the American Colonies. So, in 1651 Parliament passed the Navigation Acts – a series of documents primarily aimed at Dutch trading ships, basically prohibiting anything but English or colonial ships from carrying trade to the Colonies. This led to the Anglo-Dutch War in 1652.

After Great Britain won the Seven Years War and the French and Indian War, the British Crown issues the Royal Proclamation of 1763, restricting colonists from settling west of the Appalachian range.

What followed were a rapid-fire series of Acts by the British throne to restrict free trade and autonomy within the American Colonies. These taxes on the colonists would become unbearable. The Sugar Act, the Currency Act, the Stamp Act, and the Quartering Act were all taxes and impositions forced upon the colonists, but it wasn’t until 1770 that things really started to heat up.

British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 to enforce the above-stated (and many more) British Regulations. On March 5, 1770, a mob of colonists started harassing a unit, leading to a skirmish that left three colonists dead, and many others wounded. Today we call this event the Boston Massacre.

The British government continued their mistreatment of the American colonists and, in 1773, Parliament issued the Tea Act – not a tax, but setting up the East India Trading Company as the only authorized importer of Chinese tea to the Colonies. This was, in many ways, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” that would become evident on December 16, 1773, when the Sons of Liberty  (A secret organization assembled to advance the rights of the colonists) boarded ships of the East India Trading Company and destroyed an entire shipment of tea, throwing it into the Boston Harbor. In all, 340 chests of tea, weighing over 92,000 pounds, or the equivalent of about $1.7 million dollars today was damaged. To provide one more visual, some estimate that the destroyed tea could have made over 18.5 million cups.

By 1776, the colonists had suffered much mistreatment and abuse. So, in June of 1776, seeing no other solution, the Second Continental Congress commissioned a group of five men to draft a document, officially declaring their independence from Great Britain.

These five men were: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Robert Livingston of New York. Although these five men were charged with this task, the majority was drafted by Thomas Jefferson. In fact, what we read today is, largely, what Jefferson originally wrote, with very little alteration. By a 12-1 vote, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

Although many other documents had been presented, and even accepted, up to this point that restricted the ruling authority’s power and protected the citizens of a particular nation from abuses of power – like the Magna Carta of 1215 – this would be the first of its kind, asserting a people’s right to choose their own government.

Even today, the Declaration of Independence, together with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, are considered the three primary, essential, documents of our nation and its government today – almost 250 years later. We owe these men a debt of gratitude, for bearing with abuses and seeking other ways to find peace but, ultimately, for being courageous, standing against a tyrant and declaring these Colonies independent of Great Britain. This is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July – that brave men stood up for those who would come after them. These men believed that all men were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that they were willing to fight for those rights. As you celebrate with your families this Fourth of July with a BBQ, and fireworks, with beautiful colors exploding in the night’s sky, remember these men. And we should also remember the sacrifices that have been made in the centuries since then to protect your rights and freedoms and how it all started with a single declaration – “We Are Free”.