CAUSES OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION: 1650 – 1774
Two Revolutions?
Anti-Imperialist or Social/Domestic
KEY CONCEPTS
• Prior to 1763, American capital goes across the
pond.
• French and Indian War transformed the
relationship between Britain and the American
colonies.
• American colonists were divided over what
course of action to take.
• The Americans created a government, the
Continental Congress, to address the
deteriorating relationship between Britain and
the colonies.
EUROPEAN
COLONIES IN THE
NEW WORLD
• By mid 1700s, France and Britain in interimperialist struggle for dominance in N.A.
• French allied with Native American tribes (ex.
Algonquin and Huron against Iroquois)
• Focal point of French and Indian War is the Ohio
River Valley (stop westward expand.)
• Albany Congress created
• Led by Benjamin Franklin
• Goal was to keep Iroquois tribes loyal to
Britain
• American colonial response to the French
became known as the Albany Plan of Union
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–
–
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Carryout diplomatic relations with tribes
Control public territory
Raise an army
Tax colonial citizens
• Albany Plan was not accepted:
– Colonists too concerned about their
own interests
– Unwilling to relinquish control to a
provincial congress
– Created a foundation for future
colonial cooperation
• British defeat French in the French and
Indian War
• Results of the Peace of Paris
– Britain receive all of French Canada and all
territory south of Canada and east of the Miss.
– France and Spain lose West Indian colonies
– Britain received Florida from Spain
– Spain receive from France its territory west of
the Mississippi, including control of New
Orleans.
PROBLEMS INHERITED BY
BRITAIN FOLLOWING THE
WAR
• Political and Economic problems for the
British post war
• Large debt and a fiscal crisis, force British
to respond to needs of empire building:
– New land must be governed
– Revenue must be raised to absorb costs
(citizens in Britain were already taxed heavily)
– Native Americans in Appalachian region
– French Canadians need to be assimilated
– Economic competition from colonists
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY WAR
BRITISH POLICY IN THE
COLONIES
• Salutary neglect: 1750-1763
• Limited intervention and management as
long as ‘mercantilist policy is profitable
• Policies not challenged; infrequently
enforced, difficult to implement
British Mercantilist Policies
Pre-1760 Period
• Overseeing trade: British Board of Trade
• Navigation Laws – establishes British
authority to regulate colonial trade
• The Wool (1669), Hat (1732) and Iron
(1750) Acts
• The Molasses Act (1733) – Rum, not well
enforced
1763 – TURNING POINT
• Cost of empire exceeding its benefits
1. King George III appoints George
Grenville as Prime Minister. Under
Grenville, Britain transforms political,
economic and trade relationship w/
colonies.
2. Policy of Salutary Neglect is abandoned
3. Proclamation of 1763
DISCONTENT ON THE FRONTIER
POST PROCLAMTION OF
1763 ACTS
• Sugar (Revenue) Act of 1764 – replaces
ineffective Molasses Act of 1733
• Currency Act of 1764 – Forbade colonies
from printing currency; all taxes had to be
paid in hard (specie) currency
• Quartering Act – Provide food and supplies
to British troops stationed in the colonies
• Stamp Act (1765) – Taxing all virtually all
•
•
•
•
printed material
Virginia’s Patrick Henry, ‘No taxation
without representation’
Raises up the colonial middle class
1765- Nine colonies form the Stamp Act
Congress; issue a Declaration of Rights
Boycotts and rebellion groups like Sons and
Daughters of Liberty and the Loyal Nine
• Declaratory Act (1766) –
Britain repeals the Stamp Act,
but declares right to tax
through:
‘virtual representation’
• Colonial response:
– Boycott
– Circular letter
– John Dickinson, ‘Letters from a Pennsylvania
Farmer’ (1767)
– Tar and Feathering
– Boston Massacre (1770) – Crispus Attucks
– Paul Revere and Sam Adams
– Committees of correspondence- exchange of
ideas and unified response by colonial govt’s.
TEA TIME!!!
• Gaspee Incident
• Boston Tea Party
– Tea prices fall dramatically
– Parliament passes regulations to give British
East India Company monopoly on tea trade
– December 16,1773 – Boston Tea Party
– Governor Hutchinson returns to England
BRITISH RESPONSE:
INTOLERABLE (COERCIVE) ACTS
OF 1774
• The Boston Port Bill –
– closed the port of Boston; relocated customs
house
• The Administration of Justice Act –
– trials for royal officials held in Britain
• The Massachusetts Government Act– limited right to organize freely; Crown
appointments
CHARLES TOWNSHEND
CHARLES TOWNSHEND
• British elites critical of Parliament’s
appeasement of the colonies
• ‘Champaign Charlie’ new Prime Minister
• Townshend Acts (1767)
• Prices inflated to cover taxes
• Suspended New York Assembly
• American Board of Customs; admiralty
courts
• Quartering Act expands to include housing
• The Quebec Act (1774)
–
–
–
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Purpose to incorporate French Canadians
Quebec’s boundary extended to the Ohio River
Catholicism recognized as official religion
Nonrepresentative government was established
• Condemned by colonists:
– Feared precedent of nonrepresentative gov’t.
– Resented territorial expansion
– Offended by Crown’s recognition of
Catholicism
THE FIRST CONTINENTAL
CONGRESS
• 12 colonies represented – most want peace
• 3 distinct groups of delegates form
– Radicals; force Britain to accede to their demands or
declare independence
– Moderates; relationship between colonies and Great
Britain could be repaired
– Conservatives; colonial ‘grand council’ Galloway
• Galloway Plan rejected opening way to radicals
• Use Thomas Jefferson's, A Summary View of
the Rights of British America as
philosophical inspiration
– Parliament possessed no inherent authority to
tax colonists
– The British Empire was a compact between the
itself and the colonies
– Each colony possessed its own legislature
independent of Britain’s legislative authority
– Collective allegiance to the king.
• Delegates adopted a statement of rights:
– The Declaration of Resolves (originally enacted
in Massachusetts as the Suffolk Resolves)
– Declare Intolerable Acts null and void
– Recommend colonists arm themselves and
militias be formed
– Boycott of British goods (“Associations”
formed in each colony)
THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION: 1774 - 1783
• KEY CONCEPTS:
– Both British and Colonists had military,
political and economic disadvantages and
advantages in the war
– The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of
the war; brings in French support.
– Black Americans played an important role in
the war
– American victory did not fundamentally change
the condition or status of blacks or women
• Thomas Gage, royal governor of Mass.
dispatches troops to seize military supplies
in Lexington and Concord.
• 8 militia killed at Lexington; over 300
British killed during battle at Concord
• Lexington and Concord has a lightning rod
effect over the colonies
• Colonists begin organizing to confront the
British
• Second Continental Congress assembles in
Philadelphia
• Congress draws up military plans in the
Declaration of the Causes and Necessities
for Taking Up Arms
– Army to be organized and led by George
Washington
– Navy to be created to disrupt British shipping
– Military expedition to be led by Benedict
Arnold to wrest Canada from British Empire
• Troops from both sides pour into Boston
• Battle of Bunker Hill – British overtake and
drive-out Americans, but not after fierce
battle.
• Colonists able to stand ground against
European power
• Olive Branch Petition to King George III
• Prohibitory Act:
– Declared all of the colonies in open rebellion
and suspended all trade
DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
• Richard Henry Lee (VA.) introduces
resolution
• Thomas Jefferson– Influenced by Enlightenment thinkers
– Preamble explains the necessity of
independence for the preservation of basic
natural laws and rights (John Locke, Two
Treatises of Government and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s, Social Contract)
• Second part of the document lists a series of
‘abuses and usurpations’ by the king and his
government
• King violated the social contract justifying
the actions of the colonists
• Ends with informal declaration of war
• Second Continental Congress appointed
committee to draft the first constitution of
the United States – the Articles of
Confederation
THE TREATY OF PARIS (1783)
• American diplomats: John Jay, Benjamin
Franklin and John Adams
• Concerned over French interests
• Terms:
– Britain formally and unconditionally recognizes
independence of United States
– Boundaries established
• American fishing ships were given
unlimited access to the waters off
Newfoundland
• U.S. gov’t would not interfere legally with
British creditors and merchants seeking to
collect debts owed to them by Americans
• United States would compensate loyalists
whose property had been confiscated during
the war
• WOMEN and the REVOLUTION
– Women’s rights not addressed by a major
reform movement until the mid-1800s
– Will not get right to vote until 1919
– Abigail Adams voices concern for lack of rights
for women
– Women play major role in maintain economy
– Ran family farms and businesses
– Provided essential supplies
– Nurses
– Patriarchic Hal society survives
• BLACKS and the REVOLUTION
– Many Founding Fathers (i.e. Washington and
Jefferson) owned slaves
– Dr. Samuel Johnson, “How is it that the loudest
yelps for liberty come from the drivers of
slaves?”
– Blacks fought on both sides of the war
– Some had fought in French and Indian War
– Continental Congress prohibited blacks from
serving in the Cont. Army (south pressure)
– 5,500 fought for the American side (segregated)
Two Revolutions?
Anti-Imperialist or Social/Domestic