Standard – SSUSH 3
The student will explain the primary causes of the American
Revolution.
a) Explain how the end of Anglo-French imperial competition
as a seen in the French and Indian War and the 1763
Treaty of Paris laid the groundwork for the American
Revolution.
b) Explain the colonial response to such British actions as the
Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp Act, and the Intolerable
Acts as seen in the Sons of Liberty and Daughters of
Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence.
c) Explain the importance of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
tothe movement for independence.
French and Indian War 1754-1763
Ohio River Valley
George Washington - 22 years old
British and American Colonists
Vs.
French and Indians
French & Indian War
British in war with
French/Indian
alliance
British wins war/wins
French land all the
way to the
Mississippi River
British tax colonies –
Stamp Act
British have war debt
COLONISTS fear
British Tyranny
through taxes, a step
toward Revolution
1763, Treaty of Paris
• Treaty officially ended French and Indian War
• France lost most of its North American
territories
• Britain gained Canada and all the land East of
the Mississippi River
• Britain becomes dominant power in the world
Tension in the Colonies
British Actions
Proclamation of 1763
(Colonists can’t settle west
of App. Mtns.)
Stamp Act
(Required colonists to
purchase a stamp for all
printed materials)
Intolerable Acts
(British troops can be
quartered in colonial homes;
closes the port of Boston;
blatant tyranny that other
colonies feared would happen
to them]
Colonial Reactions
Sons and Daughter of Liberty
(printed pamphlets, gave
speeches – rallied people for
colonial cause)
Committees of
Correspondence
(formed to pass
information from colony to
colony regarding British
aggression)
Proclamation of 1763
•British law that prohibited colonists from settling lands west of
Appalachians
•Colonists angry and disobeyed law frequently leading to clashes
with Indians
Stamp Act
•First time – British Parliament directly taxed American
colonists
•First Time – All thirteen colonies protested a British policy
•Led to tensions between England and the colonies that
eventually led to American Revolution
Sons of Liberty
Tree of
Liberty
• Began in Boston and spread to every colony
• Started as a protest against the Stamp Act
• Tactics
– Effigies, vandalism, tar/feather loyalists
Tar and
feathering by
Sons of
Liberty
Daughters of Liberty
• American women involved in protest movement
• Supported Boycott of British Goods
• Made Fabric – “Homespun” instead of buying
British cloth
• Abigail Adams – best example
Committees of Correspondence
• Groups committed to writing letters about
British actions and their colony’s response
• Thomas Jefferson suggested that every colony
have one
• Way of communicating and uniting the colonial
response to British actions – example - Boycott
Intolerable Acts
• Series of Laws designed to punish Boston for the Tea Party
vandalism.
• Impartial Administration of Justice Act,
– Allowed governor to move trials to other colonies or even to England
• Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act
– banned all town meetings
• Boston Port Act
– closed the port of Boston until the price of the dumped tea was
recovered
– moved the capital of Massachusetts to Salem
– made Marblehead the official port of entry
• Quartering Act
– allowed royal troops to stay in houses or empty buildings
• Quebec Act
– granted civil government and religious freedom to Catholics living in
Quebec.
Thomas Paine’s
“Common Sense”
•Most influential Pamphlet in history
•Convinced Americans to declare independence after Lexington
and Concord