History 111
Week Six
Oakton Community College
Mitilineos
Fall 2010
Boston Massacre, 1770
Lord Frederick North
Tea Act, 1773
• Frederick North repealed Townshend
Acts, leaving tax on tea
• The Tea Act was designed to help the East
India Company sell more tea
• Tea would be cheaper than the Dutch tea
colonists had been importing (illegally)
• Colonies saw as a to force them to pay a tax
they would not otherwise pay.
• Leads to more colonial protest.
Boston Tea Party, 1773
• Nov. 1773: first ship arrived in Boston
with taxed tea.
• Legally, once a ship entered the harbor, it
could only leave once the duty had been
paid and had 20 days to do so.
• Dec. 16: ship owner still not granted
permission to leave the harbor.
• 60 men boarded 3 ships, dumping 342 chests
into Harbor while crowd watched. Tea
was worth about 10,000 pounds.
Boston Tea Party
Coercive Acts, 1774
• Lord North persuades Parliament to pass Acts
in response to Tea Party.
• 1 : closed Boston harbor until tea paid for
• 2: Altered Massachusetts colonial charter to
expand governor’s powers and
demonstrated Parliament’s supremacy
• 3: Stipulated any royal official accused of a
capital crime would be tried in England
• 4: Permitted quartering of troops, even in
homes
Coercive Acts, 1774
First Continental Congress
(1774)
First Continental Congress
(September to October 1774)
• Every colony except Georgia represented
• Two goals:
– To agree on rights as English, power of Parliament
– Present a united response to the Coercive Acts
• Declaration:
– Colonists not represented only colonies only sole
authority to tax
– Trade regulations okay, but creates system to monitor
boycotting for revenue-producing acts producing
(Called Committees of Public Safety or Inspection)
Second Continental
Congress (1775)
Second Continental
Congress (1775-1781)
• Two contradictory goals:
– To raise and supply an army
– To negotiate peace with England
• Accomplishments:
– First American government
– Governed colonies during war
– Passed the Declaration of Independence and
wrote the Articles of Confederation
George Washington’s “Statement”
Declaration of
Independence (1776)
• July 1: Resolution of Independence voted on
• July 2: Resolution passed; Congress formally
declared the U.S. an independent nation.
• July 4: Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence after debating
the document July 3 and 4.
• July 15: New York delegates changed vote
their July 2 vote to pro-independence making
the vote unanimous.
Declaration of Independence
(1776)
Declaration of
Independence (1776)
• Structure:
– Starts with call to end oppressive governments through
rebellion
– Specifies actions of Crown against the colonies
• Refers to Townshend Acts, Coercive Acts, destruction against the
colonies
– Actions the colonists have taken to end unjust actions
• Refers to peaceful protest such as petitions
– Declares independence
• Argues that rebellion only logical response to injustice
The War (1775-1783)
•
•
•
•
Began before independence declared
Washington tries to keep colonial army intact
Fights a war of attrition
Largely unsuccessful except for a couple of
successes for the colonists
• French join war after the victory at Saratoga
• War essentially ended after surrender of
Cornwallis at Yorktown Oct. 19, 1781
Yorktown (1781)
Yorktown (1781)
Why a colonial victory?
• British had strongest, best-trained army in the
world and a large percentage of the colonial
population supported Crown or neutral
• British misused Loyalist support
• French provided support through
ammunition, troops, navy
• British abdicated power in colonies in 1775.
Continental Congress filled power void
Treaty of Paris (1783)
• Signed September 2, 1783
• What does the treaty do?
– Officially ends the war
– America granted land from Canada to Florida and
west to the Mississippi
– England agrees to remove troops in “timely
manner”
– Stipulated that “His Britannic Majesty
acknowledges the said United States to be free
Sovereign and independent States.”
Articles of Confederation (1781)
Articles of Confederation
(1781)
• War occupies Second Continental Congress
• With French alliance, need for a government
• A draft of Articles emerged in 1777 stating the
U.S. was a “loose confederation of states”
• Congress only granted powers to declare war,
conduct foreign affairs, to make treaties
(powers needed to fight the war)
Northwest Territory
• Northwest Ordinance
– Passed July 13, 1787
– Divides territories
– Set up temporary territorial
governments
– Prohibited slavery in the
Northwest Territory
– Returned slaves who
escaped to their owners
– First instance of national
government regulating
slavery
Disorder of the 1780s
• Revolution provided lessons to deal with
oppressive taxes: rebellion
• Rebellions in 1780s occurred in all 13 states
• Biggest was Shay’s Rebellion from August 29,
1786 to February 3, 1787
• In reaction to disorder, a meeting convened in
Annapolis, Maryland to “regulate trade”
Shay’s Rebellion
Annapolis (1786)
• Convention in Annapolis, Maryland precedes
Constitutional Convention of 1787
• Annapolis convention set out to regulate trade
• Nine states agreed to meet; only five states
send representatives
• Delegates decided to meet in Philadelphia in
May 1787
Constitutional Convention (1787)