Beyond the Powder Alarm: Mobilizing to Restore America

Many Americans like us have probably forgotten more about the Revolutionary War than students in today's schools learn about it. We know of the Tea Party in Boston Harbor in 1773. We know of Paul Revere's ride, the cold bitter winter at Valley Forge, and the battle at Yorktown. Perhaps what is often lost in history's great moments are the pivotal events that led to the birth of our nation. Long before the Declaration of Independence was drafted but after our famous high tea in Boston Harbor, events like the Powder Alarm of 1774 shaped a revolution.

In the months following the Tea Party, the British Government imposed a series of acts on the colonies including the Massachusetts Governments Act. This legislation was described as, "an act for the better regulating the governments of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England". This act had a devastating effect on the existing governments in the Massachusetts colony. It removed the selection of the governor from the general courts or assemblies of the colony and vested that authority in the Crown. It further provided that all counselors, judges, commissioners, the attorney general, provosts, marshals, and justices of the peace, would be appointed by the Governor and approved by his Majesty. The final indignation came when the act required that all agenda items from town meetings had to have approval of the royal Governor, and that only the annual town meetings, in March and May, may be held, without permission of the Governor. Business as usual was no longer an option. The impact of this second act, the Massachusetts Government Act, was felt more severely in the rural communities outside of Boston. The people of Boston were preoccupied with the occupation by the British troops, and though their governments had been suspended, their concerns were other than those of the farmers. Suddenly, these small communities were unable to conduct the business of keeping their government functioning.

In response to these actions, the local communities formed a governing body known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Part of the congress' mission was to raise money, supplies and men for the local militias. Readying the militias and keeping all units informed involved clandestine meetings, intricate and dangerous message delivery systems and bravery. Many of the patriots in the Massachusetts Bay Colony whose names are so familiar to us today ran the risk of being hanged for treason if their plans were discovered. The successful organization of the militia was proven on when they issued a powder alarm.


The local militias had stores of gunpowder throughout the colony. This, in itself, was not illegal, nor was the forming of militia. It was its intended purpose that rankled with the General. One such store of gunpowder was kept in Charlestown. On September 1, 1774, General Thomas Gage ordered 260 regulars to go to the storehouse and remove 250 barrels of gunpowder. This caused some rebels to believe that they British were preparing to attack and they sounded the alarm. Discontent began that evening when colonists streamed into Cambridge and began to wonder what had transpired. As the hours pressed on, rumors and speculation took on a life of their own. Stories of soldiers firing on civilians and warships bombarding Boston spread quickly. Beacon fires, which had not been used since the French and Indian War, were lit by local residents to summon the surrounding country to action. The following morning a crowd of approximately 4,000 gathered in Cambridge. Throughout the countryside, tens of thousands of men armed themselves and marched for Boston.

As the members of this spontaneous colonial army approached Boston, they passed inhabitants of other towns who spurred them on towards their goal. According to Ezra Stiles, one witness who "passed thro' the whole at the very time of the convulsion," noted that "all along were armed Men rushing forward some on foot some on horseback." Many communities surrounding Boston "scarcely left half a dozen Men in a Town, unless old and decrepit, and in one town the Landlord. . .was the only Man left." Marching toward Boston and an impending civil war, the men of the New England countryside were encouraged not only by their brethren in arms, but by the entire community. "At every house [there were] Women and Children making Cartridges, running Bullets, making Wallets, baking Biscuits. . .animating their Husbands and Sons to fight for their Liberties." Even after the men left their own homesteads, "Women kept on making Cartridges and after equipping their Husbands, bro't them out to the Soldiers which in Crowds passed along and gave them out in handfuls." 1

Out of the Powder Alarm of 1774 arose a widespread movement with a single shared objective: to fight for the common liberties of the body of people. The significance of this militant uprising was obvious. The Yankees flexed their collective muscle and successfully achieved all they desired that day. Their success begged the question: Would they now return to their homes and allow the normal political players to do what they would with the situation? Or, would the actions of that day live on, and the agency they displayed continue in similar forms in the future? What was the enduring legacy of that impressive mobilization?

As supporters of Gov. Palin and ultimately as a body of people desiring 'sudden and relentless reform' to restore America, the same questions might be asked of us. We have successfully engaged, or perhaps enraged those wanting to expand the reach of our federal government under the auspices of a Palin run for President, but now that Gov. Palin has decided not to run, do we just return home to our quiet lives content to let the GOP establishment do what they will with the situation? Or will the actions we have taken thus far live on?

The spark of ordinary individuals, an engaged citizenry throughout the colonial countryside all those years ago created a movement. That movement sparked the War for Independence and birthed a new nation; a republic. Even though the Powder Alarm consisted of a singular event confined to two days, its effect on the future course of events in New England and America proved significant. The actions and lessons learned during that time energized the country people and hardened their resolve to resist English rule. The moves taken by General Gage and the British Parliament were intended to isolate Boston and reduce the provinces' ability to resist English rule. These efforts backfired. The acts mobilized New Englanders to resist the authority of Britain at all costs.

What will history say of our movement? Will it be that we put everything into one moment - getting Gov. Palin elected President, that we forgot the larger picture? No, I would like to think not and I don't think Gov. Palin would want us to pack up and go home. That is not who we are. We have kept our powder dry long enough. Now is the time to use it. The reality is as Palin has said all along - it is not about her. It is about "We the People". We need to press our demands, make our voices heard, and effect political change. All of us, not just the elite political class, but we farmers, artisans, merchants, and housewives need to continue our efforts. We can't hide behind someone else's skirts and wait for them to do the hard work of returning America to her glory. Today's Powder Alarm has come and gone. We are the driving force and we need to get involved in all levels of government, not just concern ourselves with the top of the ticket. We need to write letters to the editor, attend Central Committee Meetings, and even run for office ourselves. We need to stay focused, energized, and ready to restore America.

1 Primary accounts of the troop movement can be found in the Boston Gazette, Sept 5, 1 774; Dexter, ed., Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles p 480

Gov. Palin's Decision: The Wrong Road Leads to the Right Place

Ever have one of those moments when something comes to you in a dream? In the wee hours of the morning after I had fed our 6-month-old son and drifted off again to sleep, I woke up energized with the thought of Robert Frost running through my head. Well, not Robert Frost in a jogging suit readying for a marathon type of running, but Robert Frost's piece "The Road Not Taken" pulsing through my thoughts and more specifically a quote from it:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I pondered for a moment and then thought almost immediately of Gov. Palin's decision not to run for the GOP nomination for the 2012 Presidential Election. There is some debate in literary circles as to whether Frost was glad he took the road less traveled or regretted not taking the more traveled, more acceptable path. A lot of people think Gov. Palin has chosen the wrong path by not throwing her name in the hat this time around. However, I am a firm believer that wrong roads can often lead us to the right place.

From the dawn of creation, man's story has been marked by people who took wrong turns. At the fork in the road, they went the wrong way but ended up right where they were supposed to be. The Bible is full of stories of people who seemed to be at the wrong place at the right time. A gangly teenager named David was told by his father to carry some food to his big brothers who were fighting a war, and on that road, young David discovered his destiny to be the King of Israel. Think back to the Bible story of the Israelites who made the most famous wrong turn in all of history and zigged and zagged for forty years in the wilderness before arriving in the land of milk and honey. Indeed, almost every Bible character could say, "You know, a funny thing happened to me on the way to (fill in the blank)." It almost seems everyone who gets to the right place spends some time on the wrong road.

Henri Dunant was a wealthy Swiss banker in the 19th century. He was sent by the Swiss government to work on a business deal with Napoleon in Paris. He arrived in Paris only to find Napoleon was off fighting a war against the Austrians in Solferino, Italy. So Henri Dunant got back in his carriage and giddy-upped his horses down to the battlefront, arriving just in time to hear the bugle's blast and see the thundering charge of the battle. Henri Dunant had never seen the ghastly carnage of war before. In utter horror he watched the cannon balls tearing through flesh, leaving acres of maimed and dying men. So devastated was he that he stayed for weeks, assisting the doctors as they cared for the wounded in churches and nearby farmhouses. Even when he got back to Switzerland, Henri Dunant could not keep his mind on his banking business. His thoughts kept running back to what he’d witnessed in Solferino. He became so distracted he lost his fortune; his business failed. But even with his career in shambles, he never lost his sense of personal duty to make a difference. He wrote, “I was aware of an intuition, vague and yet profound, that [this was] God’s Will; it seemed to me that I had [something] to accomplish… as a sacred duty and that it was destined to have fruits of infinite consequence for mankind.”You can say that again! Out of his depression and failure Henri founded the International Red Cross, which has since saved millions and millions of lives in war and disaster,for which he was awarded the first-ever Nobel Peace Prize – all because he followed that wrong road to Italy.

The founder of the International Red Cross had no idea where that road to Italy would lead. He had no idea it would change his life so drastically or the lives of countless others impacted by his choice to take that road. We have yet to know what extent Gov. Palin's decision to go down the unconventional, untrodden path will mean for her, for us, and ultimately for America. We can learn from history an important lesson though, the less traveled road often produces life-changing results.

Irena Sendler (aka Irena Sendlerowa) was a member of Zegota, the clandestine Polish Rescue Organizatio lang="en-US">n, who, at great risk, rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto and placed them with Christian families. She buried jars containing their real and assumed names in the garden, so that they could be one day learn the names of their biological families after the war. Sendler has been called the female Oskar Schindler, but she saved twice as many lives as the German industrialist, who sheltered 1,200 of his Jewish workers. Unlike Schindler, whose story received international attention in the 1993 movie "Schindler's List," Sendler and her heroic actions were almost lost to history until four Kansas schoolgirls wrote a play about her. The lesson Sendler taught them was that "one person can make a difference," Megan Felt, one of the authors of the play, said. Sendler was honored by the Polish Senate and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which brought dozens of reporters to her door. "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth," she said, "and not a title to glory." Irena chose a path, not tread on by everyone and she changed lives and made a difference in this world.

Coach Ed Thomas also impacted this world by choosing a path less traveled. He was the local high school football coach in Parkersburg, Iowa, when a tornado struck the south side of town killing seven people and destroying 280 homes. Ed Thomas, fueled by his faith and sense of hope, helped motivate the community to put their lives back together. Only 13 months later, another tragedy struck, this time involving a former student and his tragic decision. Coach Thomas was shot and killed by a former player. Though his life was cut short, the path he chose continues to impact lives in those small Iowa communities. In the wake of devastation, Parkersburg maintained the magnanimous attitude that Thomas once exemplified. The most striking example of that mentality came in April of this year, after a tornado decimated Mapleton, Iowa, a town 180 miles west of Parkersburg. A group of more than 85 students -- there are only about 250 in the entire school -- immediately volunteered to help clean up the destruction. No local newspaper or television station organized the effort. The kids arranged it themselves, unprompted.

Ed Thomas and Irena Sendler are two people who didn't need titles to get them onto that road less traveled. They made a difference and impacted the way numerous people live their lives today. Gov. Palin is proving too that she is traveling down the road to making a difference without being the GOP nominee for President. I have no doubt history will show her to be one of those who return America to its Constitutional roots. We might all be disappointed with her decision not to run, but ultimately I think we will get to the point to see that what might seem like the wrong road is going to put Gov. Palin in the right place to change history and make a huge difference for all Americans.

The question for us as people who espouse all that Gov. Palin stands for is this: Will we continue on the path with her? Will we follow her example and take the road less traveled? Will we take that road that everyone else sees as wrong? Will we stand up and continue to fight to restore America? The wrong road will lead us to the right place, if we just have the courage to step onto the path and blaze a new trail.