Continental Congress

The First Continental Congress: The Patriots React To The Intolerable Acts

September to October 1774
As the name suggests, the Intolerable Acts were not received well amongst the colonies. Before the shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, the colonies made an attempt to settle the concerns and frustrations raised with the Intolerable Acts through debate and discussion. Thus, the First Continental Congress was called to order on September 5th, 1774. 55 colonial representatives, including famous Patriots like John Adams, Samuel Adams, George Washington, and Patrick Henry, from twelve colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to formulate a plan of action. Georgia was the only colony that did not send representatives. Virginia’s representative, Peyton Randolph, was elected president of the First Continental Congress. It was decided that each colony would be allotted one secret ballot.

Negotiations did not necessarily come easily. While many of the delegates were known for their debate and leadership skills, each colony was accustomed to debating in independent environments at home in their individual colonies. Therefore, some degree of distrust and discomfort was present. Furthermore, while each representative believed in the heinous and unjust nature of the Intolerable Acts, they differed with respect to proper solutions. Some preferred more defensive and potentially violent courses of action, such as the Suffolk Resolves, while others believed in peaceful protest like the Declaration of Rights. Despite these difficulties, the delegates overcame such obstacles and produced several highly significant results of the First Continental Congress.

These results included:

Colonial Raids: Britain Attempts to Quell the Rebellious Colonists

Following the aftermath of the Intolerable Acts and the First Continental Congress, rumors began to circulate that war was imminent. The Second Continental Congress was preparing to meet in May since the Intolerable Acts had not been remedied or retracted. While most colonies felt a great deal of distrust towards Britain, Boston had perhaps the strongest anti-British feelings. These sentiments concerned General Thomas Gage as he pondered ways to remedy the situation and reassure those in Britain that the colonies were secure. One such way was to conduct routine raids on colonial military supplies.

The British Continue to Concord

Now alerted of a fairly organized colonial militia’s presence, the British forces continued on to Concord with caution. When they reached Concord, grenadiers began searching for supplies while the light infantry acted as guards in the event of open fire. Open fire was soon to come. After the Patriots had time to rouse more minutemen, a surprisingly large number gathered to fight the British. At the North Bridge, an unexpected shot was fired from a British soldier. Colonial commander Major Buttrick yelled, “fire!” in response and a fight began. Approximately 400 minutemen fought 700 British soldiers. Although the numbers were still in favor of the British forces, the minutemen successfully forced a British retreat back to Boston. During this retreat, minutemen (many of whom were snipers and could pick off British soldiers from hidden locations) repeatedly besieged the British troops until the Earl of Percy arrived with his British reinforcements and offered shelter to Smith and Pitcairn’s battered forces.