 1760s approx. one-quarter of all
British exports were being sent to the
colonies
 March 1766, Parliament repealed the
Stamp Act.
 Non-importation appeared to have
worked
 But boycotts, formal protest, and
crowd actions were less important
than it appeared
 1765 George III
 for reasons unrelated to
colonial politics
 replaced Greenville
 Marquis Rockingham
 new PM
 had opposed the Stamp Act
 Not because he believed
Parliament lacked power
to tax the colonies but
because he thought the
law unwise and divisive.
 Rockingham proposed repeal
 Linked to passage of the Declaratory
Act
 Asserted Parliament’s ability to tax
and legislate for Britain’s American
possessions “in all cases whatsoever.”
 Colonists had accomplished their
immediate aim, repeal of the Acts
 But long-term prospects were unclear
 Summer of 1766, another change
in the ministry in London
brought Townsend to power
 His actions revealed how fragile
the colonists victory had been.
 Townsend proposed new taxes in
1767
 Tax was now to be levied on
goods like
 Paper
 Glass
 Tea
 Townsend Acts drew a
quick response in
America
 One series of essays in
particular
 Letters from a Farmer
in Pennsylvania
 expressed a broad
consensus
 prominent lawyer John
Dickinson
 Eventually all but
four colonial
newspapers
printed
Dickinson’s essays
 In pamphlet form
they went
through seven
American
editions.
 Dickinson contended that
 Parliament could regulate colonial trade
 But not exercise that power to raise
revenue
 Drew a distinction between trade
regulation and unacceptable
commercial taxation
 Dickinson avoided the sticky issue of
consent and how it affected colonial
subordination to Parliament
 After introduction of Townsend Act
 Sons of Liberty and others once again
made a deliberate effort to involve
ordinary folk in the resistance
movement
 They urged colonists of all ranks and
both sexes to sign agreements not to
purchase or consume British
products
 New consumerism that previously linked
colonists economically
 Now linked them politically as well
 “A Tradesman” wrote in a Philadelphia
paper in 1770, it was essential
 “for the Good of the Whole, to
strengthen the Hands of the Patriotic
Majority, by agreeing not to purchase
British Goods.”
 As primary purchasers
 women played a central role in non-consumption
 Boston – 300 women publicly promised not to buy
or drink tea
 “Sickness excepted.”
 Wilmington, NC – Women burned their tea after
walking through town in a solemn procession.
 Women throughout the colonies exchanged recipes
for tea substitutes or drank coffee instead.
 Which leads us to the question
 An American Revolution (for women?)
 for European women in the colonies
there was an ideal that they were
supposed to fit into
 private submissive good-wife
 Era of the American Revolution provided
a turning point in women’s history
 Revolution did not destroy women’s
separate realm of life
 rather, threw it into convulsions
 War years, pushed women
into the turmoil and
conflict of public events
 women began to express
themselves politically
 Both individually and in
groups
 Expressions of patriotism were
novel and varied
 For example:
 Deborah Sampson Gannett
 Enlisted in the fourth MA
regiment and eventually
received a pension for her
service
 After death
 pension was passed on to her
husband
 Gannett’s role as a soldier
 more an indication of the
primitive nature of the rebel
army then of any new option
open to women
 Women played a




traditional role as camp
followers
Washington saw the
presence of female camp
followers as a liability
“The multitudes of women,
especially those who are
pregnant or have children,
are a clog upon every
movement.”
Yet army had almost none
of the support staff that
accompanies a modern
military force
women were an essential
auxiliary
 What Washington did
appreciate however,
was a modern role
women adopted during
the war
 Raising money for the
cause
 Congratulating the Ladies
Association of Philadelphia – an
elite group led by Esther De Berdt
Reed - on their fund gathering, he
awarded its members
 “an equal place with any who
have proceeded them in the
walk of female patriotism.”
 Besides affecting women’s household
roles, the rebel cause sanctioned group
activities for women
 For over a decade, the gatherings of
rebel women received publicity in the
patriot press
 Sometimes, women in groups created
mobs scenes, as 500 women who,
Abigail Adams reported, harassed and
hounded a MA merchant for hounding
coffee
 More commonly,
“association” took
the form of sewing
circles
 Groups as large as
60 or 70 women or
more convened to
spin, weave, and sew
– a political act
 The most famous to
sew is Betsy Ross,
who it is thought
may have sewed the
first American flag
 Many women took great satisfaction in
their new-found role.
 When a New England satirist hinted that
women discussed only “such trifling
subject as Dress, Scandal and
Detraction” during their spinning bees,
 Three Boston women replied angrily:
“Inferior in abusive sarcasm, in personal
invective, in low wit, we glory to be, but
inferior in veracity, sincerity, love of
virtue, of liberty and of our country, we
would not willingly be to any.”
 Women’s associations also
 passed resolutions to patronize
merchants who supported the rebel
cause
 and took oaths renounce marriage
with men who did not support the
patriot cause
 The best known protest was the so-called
Edenton Ladies Tea Party (it actually had little
to do with tea.)
 A group of prominent North Carolina
women met
 pledged to work for the public good and to
support resistance to British measures
 “A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in
North Carolina”
 a 1775 British mezzotint that shows
contempt and scorn for the colonial tactic of
involving commoners and women in
politics.
 How?
1. It represents the signing
of a non-importation
(boycott) agreement by
a meeting of well-to-do
colonial women. The
women are ugly, cavort
freely with low men and
drink from bowls.
2. Beneath the table a
young child, untended
by the women who are
neglecting their duties,
is licked by a dog that is
simultaneously
urinating on a tea caddy
 At left, a women is pouring tea
into a hat.
 Document reads
 "We the Ladys of Edenton
do hereby solemnly engage
not to conform to that
Pernicious Custom of
Drinking Tea, or that we the
aforesaid Ladys will not
promote ye wear of any
manufacture from
England, until such time as
all Acts which tend to
enslave our Native Country,
shall be repealed."
 War also disrupted families.
 mixed effects.
 Women were sometimes able to assume
new authority and larger roles
 for example, by taking over and managing
farms and businesses
 Women’s competent management of the
home front, made some men pay more
attention to their wives’ roles
 a new view, since household work was
customarily regarded as trivial and
inconsequential
 For enslaved women
 war against England
initially allowed an
avenue to freedom
 In November 1775
Lord Dunmore, the
Royal Governor of
VA, offered
liberation to any
slaves who fled to
join the British army
 Some slave women
 persuaded that the presence of British
redcoats made it possible to run away
without abandoning their families eagerly
seized the opportunity
 23 slaves departed from Thomas
Jefferson’s VA lands
 over half were women and girls
 all but 2 leaving in family groups
 Many former slaves found freedom in
Britain, Canada, and Africa
 Indian women in coastal nations
found no real sources of hope or
transformation in the Revolution
 Warfare touched them when both
sides competed for Indian loyalties
 For women, it meant increased
mobility, traditional war
preparations, and the loss of
husbands and son
Boston complaints continue…
 Origins of the
event the patriots
called the Boston
Massacre
 Repeated clashes
between customs
officers and the
people of
Massachusetts
 At the same time
 Sam Adams
 Mass Legislature
 Circular letter
 Gov Bernard told
 Dissolve legislature
 Refusal
 Closed down
 June 1768
 Customs officer seize
the Liberty on
suspicion of
smuggling
 Ship was owned by
patriot leader John
Hancock
 Caused a riot in which
prominent customs
officers’ property was
destroyed
 The riot helped convince the
ministry
 troops were needed to maintain
order
 The assignment of two
regiments of regulars to their
city confirmed Bostonians’
worse fears
 14 & 29 regiments
 September 1768
 Redcoats constant
reminder of oppressive
potential of British power
Bostonians found themselves
hemmed in:
 Boston Neck
 entrance to the city
 all travelers and goods
checked.
 Patrols roamed the city
day and night
 questioning and harassing
people
 Military concerts held on
Boston Common
 on Sunday
 Greatest potential for violence lay in
 uneasy relationship between the
soldiers and Boston laborers.
 Many redcoats sought employment
in their off-duty hours
 competing for unskilled jobs with the
city’s ordinary workingmen.
 Soldiers ordered to show restraint
 Feb 1770 Child killed
 Early on the evening of March 5, 1770, a
crowd of laborers began throwing hardpacked snowball at a soldier guarding the
Commons House
 Hearing the noise a few reinforcements
arrived
 Goaded beyond endurance, the sentries
acted against express orders to the contrary
and fired on the crowd
 Four killed and eight wounded, one of whom
died a few days later.
 Resistance leaders idealized the dead




rioters as martyrs for the cause of liberty
A funeral was held
March 5th observed annually with
patriotic orations.
Paul Revere’s engraving of the massacre
was part of a propaganda campaign.
Revere wasted no time in capitalizing on
the Massacre
 Issued print three weeks after the incident
 Despite political benefits patriots
derived from the massacre
 unlikely that they approved of the crowd
action that provoked it
 Ever since destruction of Hutchinson’s
house in August 1765
 Men allied with the Sons of Liberty
had supported orderly demonstrations
 and expressed distaste for uncontrolled
riots
 Soldiers were defended by
Josiah Quincy, Jr., & John
Adams
 both unwavering patriots.
 Adams both condemned the
action and criticized the
presence of the soldiers
 All but two of the accused
men were acquitted, and
those convicted were released
after being branded on the
thumb
 The dog in the
engraving is a symbol,
meaning
 that the soldiers’
actions were “going to
the dogs.”
 favorable outcome prevented London
officials from taking further steps
against Boston
 No one yet advocated complete
independence from the mother country
 continued to acknowledge British identity
and allegiance to George III
 Patriots increasingly convinced they
should seek freedom from
parliamentary authority
 Fall 1772 North ministry began
to implement the Townsend
Act
 provided for governors and
judges to be paid from customs
revenues
 Early November
 voters at a Boston town
meeting established a
Committee of
Correspondence
 to publicize decisions by
exchanging letters with other
Massachusetts towns
 Such committees
 eventually established throughout
colonies
 Next logical step in the organization
of American resistance
 Until 1772 protests largely confined
to
 Seacoast, primarily to major cities and
towns
 Samuel Adams realized time to
widen geographic scope
 involve the residents of the interior in
the struggle
The statement of
colonial rights
prepared by the
Bostonians
declared that
American had
absolute rights to
 life
 Liberty
 property.

 and that
 “a British house of commons, should have a right,
at pleasure, to give and grant the property of the
colonists’ was “irreconcilable” with “the first
principles of natural law and Justice . . . and of the
British Constitution in particular.”
 List of grievances
 taxation without representation
 presence of unnecessary troops and customs officers
 use of imperial revenues to pay colonial officials
 expanded jurisdiction of vice-admiralty courts
 nature of the instructions given to American governors
by their superiors in London
 Document
 printed as a pamphlet for distribution to the towns
 exhibited none of the hesitation in colonial
claims against Parliament in 1760s
 No longer were patriots
 at least in Boston
 preoccupied with defining the precise limits
of parliamentary authority
 Committed to a course that placed American
rights first
 loyalty to parliament a distant second.
 June 9, 1772, sloop Hannah left
Newport for Providence
 British Customs ship Gaspee
gave chase
 Hannah's Captain Lindsey
deliberately lured her across
the shallows off Namquid
Point
 Gaspee Point
 left the British ship hard
aground on a sandbar
 unable to move until flood tide
following day.
 Upon arrival in Providence
 Captain Lindsey reported the event to
John Brown
 prominent and respected merchant in Rhode
Island
 sent out town crier inviting all interested
parties to meet at Sabin's Tavern
 to plan the Gaspee's destruction
 Under the leadership of Abraham
Whipple
 small band of patriots rowed eight
longboats with muffled oars to the
stranded ship
 Lt. Dudingston and his crew were taken
prisoner and removed to Pawtuxet
Village.
 Near daylight June 10th
 Rhode Islanders set fire to the Gaspee
 burning her to the waterline
 powder magazine exploded.
 Efforts of the Crown to learn the names of the culprits
were unsuccessful, although a sizable reward had been
offered.
 Only one
Townsend duties
in effect by 1773
tax on tea
 Consumption in
the colonies had
fallen from
900,000 lbs. in
1769 to 237,000
lbs. just 3 years
later
 Problems for East
India Company
 TEA ACT 1773
 Net result
 cheaper tea for American
consumers.
 Resistance leaders
interpreted the new
measure as a
 device to make them admit
Parliament’s right to tax
them
 less expensive tea would
still be taxed under the
Townsend law.
 Residents of four cities designated to receive
the first shipments of tea
 prepared to respond to what they perceived as a
new threat to freedom
 New York City
 ships failed to arrive on schedule
 Philadelphia
 governor of Pennsylvania persuaded the captain
to turn around and sail back to Britain
 Charleston
 tea was unloaded, stored under the direction of
local tradesmen and later destroyed.
Back to Boston
 Dartmouth
 first of three ships arrived in the harbor on November
28, 1773.
 Customs required cargo to be landed and
appropriate duty paid by its owners within
twenty days of a ship’s arrival
 otherwise the cargo had to be seized by customs
officers and sold at auction
 After a series of mass meetings
 Bostonians voted to post guards on the wharf to
prevent the tea from being unloaded.
 Thomas Hutchinson
 refused to permit the
vessels to leave the
harbor
 ordered tea unloaded
 December 16
 one day before the cargo
would have been
confiscated
 five thousand people
 nearly a third of the city’s
population
 crowded into Old South
Church.
 Meeting
 chaired by Samuel Adams
 made a final attempt to persuade Hutchinson
to send the tea back to England
 But governor remained adamant
 In the early evening Adams reportedly
announced
 “that he could think of nothing further to be
done – that they had done all they could for
the Salvation of their Country.”
 Cries than rang from the back of the crowd:
“Boston harbor a tea-pot tonight! The
Mohawks are come!”
 Small groups pushed their way out of the
meeting.
 By 9PM their work was done
 342 chests of tea worth approximately £10,000 pounds
floated in the water
 Among “Indians” were
 Paul Revere
 Five masons, eleven carpenters builders, three
leatherworkers, a blacksmith, two barbers, a
coachmakers, and twelve apprentices
 also included four farmers from outside Boston,
ten merchants, two doctors, a teacher, and a
bookseller
 Mythology portrays a wild scene of Indian-painted, warwhooping colonists hurling tea chests into the harbor
 In fact operation carried out quietly and without
interference from officers and crew
 Once the cargo had been jettisoned
 Indians quietly climbed back into their boats and rowed ashore.
 Disciplined Sons of Liberty action
 without disorder of any kind
 Response to Tea Party, in March 1774
 Parliament adopted the first of four laws known as the
Coercive Acts
 or Intolerable Acts
 June 1775, engraving reached colonies
 copied and reproduced by Paul Revere
Coercive Acts
 Administration of Justice Act
 May 20, 1774
 Massachusetts Government Act
 May 20, 1774
 Boston Port Act
 June 1, 1774
 Quartering Act
 June 2, 1774
Administration of Justice Act
 British officials accused of capital
crimes
 In execution of duties suppressing riots
or collecting lawful taxes
 Sent to England for Trial
 To avoid hostile local juries
 Colonists - Murder Act
Massachusetts Government Act
 Abrogated the colony’s charter
 Provided an unprecedented amount of royal
control
 limits were placed on the number of and
powers of town meetings
 essential ingredient of American self-government
 Most elective offices in the colony to be filled
with royal appointees
 not with popularly elected officials.
Quartering Act
 Amended Quartering acts of 1765 and 1766
 Under previous legislation
 colonies required to provide soldiers with
living accommodations in public facilities
 inns and taverns or unoccupied buildings.
 Revised law authorized billeting soldiers in
occupied facilities
 including private homes.
 Quartering Act applied to all of the American
colonies, not Massachusetts alone.
Port Act
 Closed port facilities in Boston
 Until city reimbursed East
India Company for the cost of
the tea destroyed in the
Boston Tea Party
 and paid for damage caused to
the customs offices
 Crown insisted on recognition
from Massachusetts that
duties were within the purview
of Parliament.
Port Act
 most odious of all Intolerable Acts
 intended to sever radical Boston from the rest
of America
 had precisely the opposite effect.
 No danger of blockaded Boston starving
 other New England colonies shipped foodstuffs into
the city overland.
 From as far as low-country South Carolina
came rice
 Delaware sent cash
 And – most astoundingly – Quebec sent down
huge amounts of wheat.
 55 delegates from 12 colonies
 Heeded call of the Massachusetts Assembly for a Continental
Congress.
 Delegates convened in Philadelphia in September 1774
 knew that any measures they adopted
 likely to enjoy support among many of their fellow
countrymen and countrywomen
 That summer
 open meetings held throughout the colonies endorsed
the idea of another non-importation pact.
 Committees of Correspondence publicized these
meetings so effectively that Americans everywhere
knew about them
 Most of the congressional delegates were chosen
at such local gatherings
 governors had forbidden regular assemblies to conduct
formal elections
 Very act of designating delegates to attend the
Congress involved Americans in open defiance of
British authority.
 Every February, across the country,
candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged
between loved ones, all in the name of
St. Valentine.
 Worldwide estimated one billion valentine cards sent
each year
 Valentine's Day is the second largest card-sending
holiday of the year
 estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.)
 In addition to the United States, Valentine's Day is
celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom,
France, and Australia.
 But who is this mysterious saint and why do we
celebrate this holiday?
 The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is
shrouded in mystery.
 We do know that February has long been a month of
romance.
 There have been three different Valentines who
became saints
 All three were martyred
 One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who
served during the third century in Rome.
 When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made
better soldiers than those with wives and families, he
outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential
soldiers.
 Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius
and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
 When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered
that he be put to death.
 According to another legend, Valentine
actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting
himself.
 While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in
love with a young girl -- who may have been his
jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his
confinement.
 Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a
letter, which he signed 'From your Valentine,' an
expression that is still in use today.
Pope Gelasius declared February 14
St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D.
 The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a
poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife
while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London
following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.
 The greeting, which was written in 1415, is part of the
manuscript collection of the British Library in London,
England
 In Great Britain, Valentine's Day began to be
popularly celebrated around the seventeenth
century.
 By the middle of the eighteenth century, it was
common for friends and lovers in all social classes
to exchange small tokens of affection or
handwritten notes.
 By the end of the century, printed cards began to
replace written letters due to improvements in
printing technology
 Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in
the popularity of sending Valentine's Day greetings.
 Americans probably began exchanging hand-made
valentines in the early 1700s.
 In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began to sell the first
mass-produced valentines in America
 Approximately 85 percent of all
valentines are purchased by women.