MR. LIPMAN’S APUS POWER
POINT FOR CHAPTER 7
March towards Revolution
1763-1775

Victory in Seven Years’ War means Britain must
send 10,000 costly troops to keep on the frontier


Britain tries to get America to help pay for the costs
Revolution was not inevitable, but
 colonies and England had grown together
during the war but Disputes over economic
policies would expose irreconcilable
differences over political principles, leading to
revolution
Colonial Life





No aristocracy
Property ownership and political participation
accessible to most
Era of salutary neglect had Americans used to
running their own affairs
England looked vulnerable during 7 year war
Smugglers proved that $ could be made
despite England’s interference

Under mercantilism colonies were supposed to
do the following:
 Furnish products needed in mother country



Not export certain products that would
compete with British industry
Buy imported manufactured goods exclusively
from Britain
Not work towards self-sufficiency or selfgovernment
 Colonies
issued paper money in response
to currency shortage

Money quickly depreciated and British
merchants get Parliament to ban printing of
money

Colonists complained their welfare was
sacrificed for British merchants

Until 1763 – Navigation Laws were loosely
enforced and American shippers smuggled or
ignored some laws

In 1763 the British navy ordered to strictly
enforce Navigation Acts to make up war debts

1764 - the Sugar Act




Tax passed by Parliament to raise $ from colonies
Increased duty on imported sugar (molasses) from
West Indies
Duties lowered after bitter colonial protests
1765 – Quartering Act

Required some colonies to provide food and living
quarters for British troops

1765 – Stamp Act


Required stamp on bills of sale and on certain
commercial and legal documents
• Playing cards, pamphlets, newspapers,
diplomas, marriage licenses, bills of lading
British viewed new laws as reasonable
 For example, British citizens had paid a
higher stamp tax for 2 generations
Tax Stamps
 Americans
saw new laws as a strike
against liberties and their basic rights as
Englishmen
 Americans
saw presence of British army in
America as threat, not a blessing
 Now that French were removed and
Indians were defeated (at Pontiac’s
Rebellion), they believed the British
army was no longer needed
 British


ignored American protests
The power of Parliament was supreme
Americans were represented in Parliament
through “virtual representation”… every
member of Parliament represented all British
subjects (even Americans who were not
allowed to vote for members of Parliament)

Americans and representation
 Didn’t accept theory of Virtual Representation



Did not want direct representation
If they had representation, Parliament could
pass large taxes on the colonies and small
American representation could not stop it
Americans wanted a return to the policy of
salutary neglect
 1765


– Stamp Act Congress
Delegates from 9 colonies meet in NYC and
draw up statement of grievances seeking
repeal of the Stamp Act
Colonists agree to boycott British goods
(economic pressure)

Homespun (homemade) garments became
fashionable to avoid imported British wool
• Mobilized commoners participation by
signing petitions and boycotts
 Violent
colonial protests against the
Stamp Act


Sons of Liberty groups formed to enforce
non-importation, using tar and feathers on
violators
Mobs ransacked houses of British officials
and hanged effigies of stamp agents
Tar and Feathers and the Threat of Hanging
During a Stamp Act Protest
Paying
the
Excise
(Tax)
Man

1765 – on day the Stamp Act was to go into
effect, all the stamp agents resigned & no one
left to collect the tax

English were hard-hit by boycotts
 Merchants, manufacturers, shippers, and
laborers all suffered and demanded that
Parliament repeal the Stamp Act
 PARLIMENT REPEALS STAMP TAX ACT IN
1766 passes the Declaratory Act

1767 – Townshend Acts passed



Light import duties on many items
Colonists had objected to Stamp Act because it was
an internal (direct) tax (collected inside the
colonies, paid directly by the colonists themselves)
In contrast, the Townshend duties were external
(indirect) taxes (paid by the shippers of the
goods, not by the consumers)
Charles
Townshend

March 5, 1770: the Boston Massacre

60 townspeople taunted and threw snowballs at 10
British redcoats
• crowd angry over killing of boy 10 days earlier during protest
• Also angry that part time work being done by British soldiers

Troops fired and killed 5 and wounded 6
• Acted without orders but were provoked
• Crispus Attucks was first to die, a “mulatto”

After trial, only 2 soldiers were found guilty of
manslaughter; they were branded on the hand and
released (Adams was their attorney)



Parliament finally repealed Townshend Acts
as a failure
However, a tax on tea left to keep the
principle of parliamentary taxation alive
Committees of Correspondence between the
colonies established to discuss ways to resist
taxes. These would evolve into the meeting
of the First Continental Congress
– the British East India Company
had 17 million pounds of unsold tea and
was facing bankruptcy
 1773



If company failed, Britain would lose tax $
Britain awarded company a monopoly to sell
tea in America which meant cheaper tea for
America (even with the tax)
Americans believed government was trying to
tax them by trick, made them angrier

Because of protests, not a single chest of tea
shipped ever reached buyers in America



New York and Philadelphia – mass
demonstrations forced ships to return to
England
Maryland – ship and cargo burned
Massachusetts Governor Hutchinson orders
tea, which had already arrived in Boston Port,
not to leave without it being unloaded.

December 16, 1773 – Bostonians, disguised as
Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea into river

Reactions to the Boston Tea Party




Radical colonists supported action
Conservatives complained of the destruction
of private property and anarchy
Gov. Hutchinson returned to England
disgusted
British chose to punish the colonists
1774“Intolerable Acts” passed in response to
“tea party”

Passed to punish Massachusetts - especially
Boston
 Known as the Coercive Acts in Britain

Boston Port Act closed Harbor until tea was
paid for and order restored

New expanded Quartering Act

Restrictions on town meetings

Royal officials who killed colonist in line of duty
would be tried in Britain, not America
Boston
After the
Coercive
Acts

1774 – Quebec Act passed same time as
Intolerable Acts
 Incorrectly seen by Americans as part of the
British reaction to Boston Tea Party


Dealt with problem of 60,000 French in
Canada
French in Quebec guaranteed the Catholic
religion, to keep old customs, and the
boundaries of Quebec were extended to the
Ohio River
Quebec
Before
and After
1774
 September
1774 – First Continental
Congress meets in Philadelphia as a
response to the Intolerable Acts


12 of 13 colonies (Georgia absent)
John Adams and Patrick Henry, among
others, begin to argue that independence
might be the only recourse
First
Continental
Congress 1774
Agree to meet
again in May,
1775, if
demands not
met
Bloodshed in Massachusetts

April 1775 – first shots of the Revolution were
fired

British troops in Boston were sent to
Lexington and Concord to seize colonist
weapons stores and capture rebel leaders
and colonial militiamen refuse to disperse
Lexington and Concord, April 1775
British Empire Strong but it had Weaknesses

British army difficulties in America


British had to conquer Americans


Second-rate generals, soldiers brutally treated, and
poorly provided for
Restoring situation to pre-1763 (without
Parliamentary taxes) would be victory for Americans
British fought 3,000 miles away from home


Problems in supplying and running war
America’s geography was enormous
Advantages of the Americans
 Great

leaders
Washington, Franklin, Adams
– eventually from France
 Foreign fighters
 Aid


Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben
Fighting defensively
 Agriculturally

self-sustaining
Advantage of believing in a just cause
American Disadvantages
Badly organized and disunited
 Weak
leadership from Continental
Congress
 No
written constitution (Articles of
Confederation) until almost the end of the
war (1781)
 Jealousy
between states

American Economic difficulties included:




Metallic money drained by England (mercantilism)
Congress was not willing to pass taxes, instead they
printed paper money (“Continentals”) that quickly
depreciated (“not worth a Continental”)
States issued worthless paper money
Inflation of currency led to higher prices, causing
problems in the economy because it is hard to fight a
war without money
1777 Continental, Front and Back
Depreciation of Continental Currency
OTHER AMERICAN PROBLEMS

Lack of food for soldiers led to starvation
 Goods, clothing, shoes all in short supply
•
•
•
American farmers who were poorly trained soilders
Only a minority of Americans actually fought on
behalf of the colonists
Baron Van Steuben from Germany and Marquis de
Lafayette from France would eventually arrive to
help train the men
 Blacks



fighting for the British
Royal governor of Virginia promised freedom
to enslaved blacks who fought for the British
Thousands of blacks fled to British side for
emancipation
At the end of the war the British evacuated
14,000 blacks to Nova Scotia, Jamaica and
England
KEYS TO REMEMBER

1. No taxation without representation (the issue
of money is always important)

2. Smarter course for England would have been
to allow representation in Parliament and then
just outvote the colonists on monetary issues

3. Shots fired 1775 but war delayed until
1776 so opportunity existed to avoid war but
egos and distance prevented opportunity
from being exercised.