Causes of the American Revolution
Standard 11.1.2
the road to the revolutionary war
•
•
•
•
•
The French and Indian War
The Proclamation of 1763
Britain’s Financial Woes
The Intolerable Acts
The Declaration of Independence
Preview Questions: The French and Indian War
•What were the
causes of the
French and Indian
War?
• What were the
changes that the
Treaty of Paris
(1763)brought
about?
•How did the war
weaken the
colonists’ loyalty
to Britain?
What were the
causes of the
French and Indian
War?
• The French and Indian War marked the final chapter in a long struggle between France
and England. Both France and England wanted control of eastern North America.
• The war began because both England and France laid claim to the upper Ohio River
Valley. England felt provoked by the French forts popping up in the region which checked
their westward expansion.
• It was called the French and Indian War because the British (England) and their
American colonists fought against the French and their Indian allies.
The war ended with the Treaty of Paris (1763) and
brought about several changes. What were the
changes?
• The Treaty of Paris (1763), officially ended the
French and Indian War in America and the Seven
Years’ War in Europe.
• In the treaty, France turned present-day Canada
over to Britain and surrendered its claim to all
lands east of the Mississippi River.
• Britain also returned Cuba to Spain in
exchange for Florida.
Despite the victory, the
French and Indian War
seriously strained relations
between the British and
the American colonists.
How did the war weaken the
colonists’ loyalty to Britain?
• The British thought the
colonists provided no
support for the long and
costly war that Britain had
fought to protect them.
• The American colonists
were shocked by the
weakness of British military
tactics.
• Many American colonists
loss of respect for Britain’s
military power.
• Colonists no longer believed that
the British shared the same values as
they did.
The Proclamation of 1763
How and why did
British policies in the
colonies change after
1763?
• The French no longer held Canada or the region west of the Appalachian
Mountains, so the colonists saw no reason why they should not expand.
• Being farmers, the British represented a much greater threat to Native
American land and resources than did the French who were primarily fur
trappers.
• In the spring of 1763, the
Ottawa, Huron, Potawatomi,
and other Indians in the Great
Lakes region rebelled against
British occupation.
• The Indian tribes destroyed
every British fort in the region.
• The uprising was called
Pontiac’s Rebellion, after one
of the Ottawa leaders.
The Proclamation of 1763
In the fall of 1763, a royal decree
prohibited the colonists from
establishing or maintaining
settlements west of an imaginary
line running down the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains.
The proclamation acknowledged
that Native Americans owned
the land and white settlers in the
area were to be removed.
There were two motivations for The
Proclamation of 1763:
1. To avoid war with the Indians.
2. To concentrate colonial
settlements on the seaboard
where they could be active parts
of the British mercantile system.
Britain’s
Financial
Woes
• The costs of governing and defending Britain’s vast empire
made the British people the most heavily taxed people in the
world.
• Britain believed the colonists should pay some of the costs of
their government and defense.
• The Sugar Act in 1764 started a new British policy of raising
money in the colonies.
 In March 1765, the British Parliament passed
the Stamp Act.
 This law placed a tax on newspapers,
pamphlets, legal documents, and most other
printed materials.
 The Stamp Act marked the first time the
British government taxed the colonists for the
purpose of raising money.
 The colonists argued that Britain had no
right to force laws on the colonies because the
colonists had no representatives in the British
Parliament.
 The colonists argued, “there should be no
taxation without representation.”
American merchants organized
a boycott of British goods.
In 1765, Britain passed the
Quartering Act. This enraged the
American colonists.
By November 1765, when the
Stamp Act was to take effect, out of
fear for their lives, most stamp
distributors had resigned or fled,
leaving no one to sell the stamps.
In 1766, Parliament repealed the
Stamp Act.
In 1767, Parliament passed the
Townshend Acts. The colonists
protested these acts, which put
import taxes on certain goods, such
as glass and tea.
The Boston Massacre
In 1768, the British crown,
sent troops to police Boston.
The colonists resented the
“red-coats,” and clashed with
them often.
Boston was a powder keg, and
on the evening of March 5th,
1770, it exploded. British
soldiers exchanged insults
with a mob of about 60 unruly
townspeople in front of the
Customs House on King
Street (presently State Street).
No one really knows who
started it, but British soldiers
opened fire and killed five
colonists.
The first man to die
Soon after the Boston Massacre, Parliament
For the flag we now hold high
canceled all the Townshend taxes, except for the tax
Was a Black man (Crispus Attucks) on tea.
• By 1773, King George III realized that raising money in the colonies was failing
miserably. For example, one year the Townshend Acts only raised a net profit of 295
pounds. The cost of having British troops in the colonies during that same period was
170,000 pounds.
• Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts, but left a 3 pence tax on tea.
In May of 1773 Parliament
created the Tea Act to save the
British East India Company from
bankruptcy.
The British East India Company
had a 17 million pound surplus
of tea, which they needed to sell
or go bankrupt.
The British demanded the
colonies buy all their tea from
the British East India Company
at high prices.
On December 16, 1773, thinly disguised colonists
boarded three tea ships in Boston and dumped
all of the tea into the harbor. This incident
became known as the Boston Tea Party.
The Intolerable Acts (aka The Coercive Acts)
The colonies were being pressed with greater taxes without any representation in
Britain, which eventually lead to the Boston Tea Party. In retaliation to the Boston Tea
Party, the British passed what are now known as “The Intolerable Acts” or Coercive
Acts to make the colonies behave the orders of the King.
The Intolerable Acts:
Quartering Act: Established March 24, 1765
This bill required Colonial Authorities to furnish barracks and supplies to British
troops. In 1766, it was expanded to public houses and unoccupied buildings, and was
updated again June 2, 1774, to include occupied buildings.
Boston Port Bill: Effective June 1, 1774:
This bill closed the port of Boston to all colonists until, the damages from the Boston
Tea Party were paid for.
Administration of Justice Act: Effective May 20, 1774
This bill stated that British Officials could not be tried in provincial courts for capital
crimes. They would be extradited back to Britain and tried there. This effectively gave
the British free reign to do whatever they wished, because no justice would be served
while they were still in the colonies.
Massachusetts Government Act: Effective May 20, 1774
This bill effectively annulled the charter of the colonies, giving the British Governor
complete control of the town meetings, and taking control out of the hands of the
colonialists.
Quebec Act: Established May 20, 1774. This bill extended the Canadian borders to cut
off the western colonies of Conn., Mass. and Virginia.
• A direct result of
the Intolerable
Acts was the First
Continental
Congress
On September 5,
1774, a gathering
of 56 delegates met
in Philadelphia in
what became
known as the First
Continental
Congress.
The delegates decided to:
• renew a boycott of British goods
• organize armed militias
• make a direct appeal to the king, outlining their grievances and asking for
understanding, and
• perhaps the most important thing they accomplished was agreeing to meet again in
year’s time.
After the First Continental
Congress the colonies began
to form armed militias.
The Massachusetts Patriots
gathered guns and
ammunition and stored a
major stockpile in Concord,
a town about 20 miles
outside of Boston.
On April 19, 1775, a force of about 800 British troops moved out of
Boston to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams and seize the
weapons. The Boston Patriots learned about the British army’s
plan and confronted them arrived at Lexington, about five miles
from Concord.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord sparked the Revolutionary
War, which became a war for American independence from Britain.