1. What is the event
depicted in this image?
2. What does the image
suggest about who
lived in New York City
at the time of the
American Revolution’s
outbreak?
3. How did the artist
present the British in
this image? How did he
or she present the
Americans? Can you
tell which side of the
conflict the artist
supported?
I. An Empire Transformed
A. The Costs of Empire
1. Britain’s national debt
a) British national debt soared from £75 million in 1756 to £133
million in 1763
b) British raised taxes on the poor and middle classes; increased
size of British bureaucracy to collect taxes
c) those with little political power (poor, colonists) appeared most
vulnerable to increased taxation.
d) John Wilkes (Whig) publicly condemned rotten boroughs as
districts controlled by the wealthy who did not face these new
fiscal measures.
2. British troops in the colonies
a) The decision by Britain to keep 7500 soldiers in colonies during
peacetime angered colonists
b) British wanted to maintain control over colonists, Native
Americans, and French in Canada.
I. An Empire Transformed
B. George Grenville and the Reform
Impulse
1. The Sugar Act
a) Set a 3 pence per gallon duty
on French molasses in the
colonies
b) Americans publicly argued that
the new tax would destroy the
French trade and the American
distilling industry
c) Americans sought ways to
evade this new tax (smuggling
or bribing officials).
2. The End of Salutary Neglect
a) Debate began over whether the Sugar Act was unlawful as
the tax did not “originate with the people”
b) those accused of breaking the law were to be tried by viceadmiralty courts with a British-appointed judge.
c) Old American fears were revived that the Sugar Act would
make colonies “slaves” to Britain
d) argued that those in the colonies were being treated as less
than Englishmen.
e) Points of the act were debated, but reality was that the act
revealed new efforts by the British to take more control of
the colonies.
f) Some English parliamentarians argued that the colonists
did not have the same rights as Englishmen because they
were living outside of Britain as “second-class subjects of
the king.”
I. An Empire Transformed
C. An Open Challenge: The Stamp Act
1. First imperial crisis
a) Required stamps on all court documents, land titles, contracts,
newspapers, other printed materials
b) intended to cover at least a portion of the cost of keeping troops
in the colonies.
c) Grenville held that either colonies pay for their own defense or
face a stamp tax
d) British contended that colonies had “virtual representation”
because of Parliament members who were transatlantic
merchants and sugar planters in the West Indies.
House of Commons ignored colonial protest of the Stamp Act
and passed the act by an overwhelming majority of 205 to 49.
e) Parliament also passed the Quartering Act of 1765, which
required colonial governments to provide barracks and food for
British troops.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion,1765–1770
A. Formal Protests and the Politics of the Crowd
1. The Stamp Act Congress
a) In Virginia, Patrick Henry and others publicly
condemned Grenville and George III.
b) Nine assemblies sent delegates to the Stamp Act
Congress, which met in New York City in October
1765
c) protested the loss of “rights and liberties”
d) declared that only representatives elected by
colonists could tax the people
e) petitioned for the repeal of the Stamp Act
f) some members formed a boycott of British goods.
2. Crowd Actions
a) After the Stamp Act went into effect on Nov. 1, 1765,
mobs began to demand that stamp-tax collectors
resign
b) in Boston, “Sons of Liberty” burned a tax collector in
effigy and later destroyed the home of Lieutenant
Governor Thomas Hutchinson.
c) Encouraged by wealthy merchants and Patriot
lawyers (e.g., John Hancock and John Adams) mobs
of middling artisans and minor merchants protested
British policies by destroying property and
intimidating royal officials
d) these actions spread beyond port cities to nearly
every colony.
3. The Motives of the Crowd
a) Mob actions had historic
meaning among English, but
the goals of the crowds in
the colonies were new
b) some had political motives,
while others enjoyed the
excitement of the action
c) protest worked—in most
colonies, the collectors gave
up their positions as a result
of public pressure.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion,1765–1770
B. The Ideological Roots of Resistance
1. Intellectual traditions
a) Patriot writers drew on English common law, which
protected the lives and property of the monarchs
subjects
b) Enlightenment rationalism, which stressed the ideas
of “natural rights” and “separation of powers” and the
republican and Whig strands of English political
tradition, which venerated the British constitutional
monarchy and opposed arbitrary taxes.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765–1770
C. Another Kind of Freedom
1. Patriot critiques of slavery
a) Building on arguments that equated the colonists with
slaves, Patriots like Benjamin Franklin and James Otis
began to critique the institution of slavery as a violation of
slaves’ natural rights.
b) In Massachusetts, African Americans submitted at least four
petitions to the legislature asking for the abolition of slavery
based on their natural rights.
2. Southerners’ responses
a) Slaves in Virginia hoped to win their freedom by supporting
British troops that they expected to soon arrive in the colony.
b) James Madison and other slave owners worked to suppress
connections between revolutionary ideology and slavery.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion,1765–1770
D. Parliament and Patriots Square Off Again
1. Charles Townshend Steps In (Held position as chancellor
of the exchequer under PM William Pitt)
a) The Townshend Act of 1767 imposed duties on
colonial imports of paper, paint, glass, tea that were
expected to raise about £40,000 a year.
b) Some revenue was allocated for cost of military in
America, but most was earmarked for salaries of
royal governors, judges, and other imperial officials,
which would make them loyal to the crown
c) was followed by other acts that forced the will of
Parliament on the colonists and punished them for
noncompliance.
2. A Second Boycott and the
Daughters of Liberty
a) Colonial leaders focused on the intent of the acts.
b) In February 1768, the Massachusetts assembly
condemned the Townshend Act, and Boston and
New York merchants began a boycott of British
goods. Women became valuable producers of
homespun cloth, enabling the boycott to continue.
c) “Daughters of Liberty”: women who produced
homespun textiles and drank coffee not tea as acts of
patriotism
d) colonists who were not previously politically active
felt compelled to participate in the boycott as it
spread beyond Massachusetts and New York.
3. Troops to Boston
a) Angry over
opposition, British
sent General
Thomas Gage and
2,000 troops to
Boston.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion,1765–1770
E. The Problems of the West
1. The Proclamation Line of 1763
a) Treaty of Paris included stipulation of a temporary
boundary line between colonies and Indian country
b) many colonists (land speculators, officers who had
served in the Seven Years’ War, squatters) hoped to
move into that land in the Ohio country
c) Ohio Indians organized to prevent further colonial
expansion.
d) In 1768, British officials wanted to make the
temporary Proclamation Line permanent.
II. The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765–1770
F. Parliament Wavers
1. The Boston Massacre
a) Conflicts between colonists
and British troops stationed
in American port cities
escalated
b) the March 1770 “Boston
Massacre” was used to
rally sentiment against
imperial power after a
group of nine British
soldiers fired into a crowd
of protestors, killing five
Americans.
2. Sovereignty Debated
a) Most colonists remained loyal
to the empire, but the fives
years of conflict had taken
their toll.
b) By 1770, many American
leaders believed that British
wanted to exploit colonies for
their own gain.
c) Benjamin Franklin suggested
that the colonies were now
“distinct and separate states”
with “the same Head, or
Sovereign, the King.”
1.What did Revere
hope to convey to
his audience
about the
presence of the
British army in
Boston?
2.Examine the
redcoats. What
does their posture
say to the viewing
audience about
their actions?
III. The Road to Independence,1771–1776
A. A Compromise Repudiated
1. The East India Company and the Tea Act
a) Despite repeal of Townshend duties, animosity
continued
b) in Massachusetts radical Patriots organized
committees of correspondence in 1772 to “state the
Rights of the Colonists of this Province.”
c) The Tea Act of May 1773 provided relief for the East
India Company’s debt (gave the company a
government loan and canceled the English import
duties on tea)
d) further debate and resistance on the tea issue
caused turmoil.
2. The Tea Party and the Coercive Acts
a) Committees of correspondence organized resistance to Tea
Act.
b) On December 16, 1773, artisans and laborers dressed as
Indians threw tea into the harbor; Britain was outraged over
this action.
c) Four Coercive Acts passed
a)
b)
c)
d)
1) Port Bill closed Boston Harbor
2) Government Act annulled Massachusetts colony’s charter and
prohibited town meetings
3) Quartering Act mandated new barracks for British troops
4) Justice Act allowed trials for capital crimes to be transferred to
other colonies or Britain
d) the measures were called “Intolerable Acts” by Patriots.
e) In 1774, Parliament also passed the Quebec Act, which
allowed Roman Catholicism in Quebec and extended the
province’s boundaries into the Ohio River Valley.
III. The Road to Independence,1771–1776
B. The Continental Congress Responds
1. Meeting in Philadelphia
a) Twelve mainland colonies met in Philadelphia in September
1774
b) advocated a boycott
c) New Englanders wanted political union and defensive military
plans
d) Middle Atlantic colonists wanted political compromise.
e) These men of “loyal principles” proposed a new system in
which each colony would have an assembly plus
representation in a continent-wide political body
f) king would appoint a president-general to preside over a
legislative council selected by the colonial assemblies
g) this plan failed by a single vote.
h) A majority wanted a
“Declaration of Rights and
Grievances”
i) called for an end to the
Coercive Acts and gave British
only limited control of trade
j) threatened to cut off all trade to
Britain, Ireland, and British West
Indies if the Coercive Acts were
not repealed by September
1775.
k) Instead, Lord North imposed a
naval blockade on American
trade with foreign nations and
ordered General Gage to end
resistance in Massachusetts.
III. The Road to Independence,1771–1776
C. The Rising of the Countryside
1. The Continental Association
a) Farm families’ concerns rested on the issues of increasing
taxes and their sons having to serve the British military
b) political consciousness of those in the countryside was raised
by the urban rebellions of Boston and New York in the 1760s.
c) In 1774, the First Continental Congress established the
Continental Association to enforce a third boycott of British
goods and quickly set up a rural network of committees to do
its work.
d) In rural Concord, Massachusetts, 80 percent of male heads of
household supported nonimportation
e) Patriots tried to convince farmers that British efforts in the
colonies would hurt individual landownership (which already
was becoming increasingly difficult).
2. Southern Planters Fear
Dependency
a) Southern slave owners
feared British limitations
on land west of the
Appalachian Mountains
b) also feared that legislation
like the Coercive Acts
would be used on other
colonies.
III. The Road to Independence, 1771–1776
D. Loyalists and Neutrals
1. Supporters of the king
a) Fears of anarchy arose
b) both wealthy and poor could be loyal for varying
reasons
c) tenant farmers disliked landlords and supported
the king
d) some feared slave insurrections in support of the
British
e) historians estimate that some 15 to 20 percent of
the white population was loyal to the crown.
f) Loyalists were driven out of their homes or forced
into silence.
2. Proponents of neutrality
a) Pacifist Quakers and many
Germans tried to remain
neutral because of
religious convictions
b) most neutrals simply
hoped to preserve families’
property and
independence, whatever
the outcome of the imperial
crisis.
IV. Violence East and West
A. Lord Dunmore’s War
1. Power vacuum in Ohio
a) In October 1772, the British revenue crisis led it to raze Fort
Pitt, leaving colonial settlers exposed and vulnerable to the
Ohio Indians
b) Pennsylvania and Virginia both claimed the region
c) Virginia’s royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, organized a
local militia to rebuild at the site of Fort Pitt.
2. Colonial action
a) In summer of 1774, Dunmore defied both his royal instructions
and the House of Burgesses, called out Virginia’s militia, and
led a force of 2,400 men against the Ohio Shawnees
b) the battle at Point Pleasant defeated the Shawnees, and
Dunmore’s forces claimed the area of Kentucky as their own.
IV. Violence East and West
B. Armed Resistance in Massachusetts
1. Minutemen
a) General Gage ordered British troops in Boston to
seize Patriot armories in Charlestown and
Cambridge.
b) An army of 20,000 militiamen mobilized to safeguard
other military locations.
c) The Concord town meeting raised a defensive force,
the famous “Minutemen”
d) British claimed that Massachusetts was in “open
rebellion” and ordered General Gage to march
against the “rude rabble.”
2. Lexington and Concord
a) On the night of April 18, 1775, General Gage
dispatched 700 soldiers to capture colonial leaders
and supplies at Concord.
b) Paul Revere warns Patriots of their impending arrival
c) militiamen confront them at Lexington and Concord
and a handful of people die.
d) Militia from neighboring towns repeatedly ambushed
retreating British soldiers.
e) By the end of the day, 73 British soldiers were dead,
174 wounded, and 26 missing
f) British fire had killed 49 colonial militiamen and
wounded 39.
April 18, 1775
9:30 pm- At this time Paul Revere received
an urgent message to visit Dr. Joseph who
assigned him to warn Samuel Adams and John
Hancock in Lexington and the towns people on
his way that the British were coming.
10:00 pm- Revere stops by a friends house on
his way to Lexington and informs him to hang
two lanterns to warn the nearby patriots that
the British were coming by boat.
April 19, 1775
12:00 am- Revere reaches Lexington and
successfully warns Adams and Hancock that the
British were coming. Adams and Hancock then fled
deep into the countryside during the battle.
1:00 am- Revere heads for concord and along the
way he meets Dr. Samuel Prescott who offers to help
spread word around Concord. On their way to
Concord, Paul gets blocked by some redcoat, British,
soldiers who leave Revere deciding that they would
move faster without a prisoner. Revere never makes
it to Concord but Prescott was able to jump his horse
over a fence and got away. He entered Concord later
that morning at 2:00 am.
About 5:00 am- The men of Lexington have waited
four hours by the time the lookout, traveling by
horse, comes into Lexington shouting, "The
lobsterbacks are down the road!" Approximately
seventy men were gathered within minutes. Many
were fathers and sons, others were 19 years of age,
like drummer William Diamond. Some were 62 years
of age, such as Robert Munroe. One of the soldiers
was even a slave promised with freedom if he fought
the British. His name was Prince Estabrook.
Captain John Parker encouraged his men with
what is now a very famous quote, "Don't fire unless
fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it began
here!"
About 5:20 am- Being led by Major John Pitcairn, the British troops
approached Lexington.
"Disperse, ye rebels," Major Pitcairn yelled. "Disperse in the name
of the king! Lay down your arms!"
At that Captain Parker decided to back down. There were just to many
to face. "Go home but remain armed," he demanded of his small militia.
Most of the men began to walk away but some did stay-Captain Parker's cousin, Jonas Parker, a grandfather who vowed to never
flee from the British, and Robert Munroe. The first shot rang out. Robert
Munroe was shot to death where he stood and Jonas Parker became
wounded but continued to fight till he was killed by a bayonet. Jonathan
Harrington, who was walking home, got shot only yards away from his
doorstep and craws a few yards before dyeing in front of his horrified
wife and son.
The full battle only lasted a total of ten minutes. In the end
eight Americans lay dead and ten wounded. Following the battle the
British forces head to Concord, five miles west, where they expect the
same thing.
7:00 am- ninety minutes had passed since the Battle
of Lexington and Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith
leads his force of 700 redcoats into Concord. As they
marched into town the several hundred person troop
led by 65-year-old Colonel James Barret became just
as terrified as the Lexington men and run.
Three hours pass and the Americans only stand
and watch the British troops take over their town,
seizing weapons and gunpowder.
About 10:00 am- A man overlooking the town covered in a smoke
cloud asked Colonel Barret, "Will you let them burn the town down?"
On that note Colonel Barret orders his troops to advance toward the
100 redcoats guarding Concords north bridge. When the
Americans had about 200 feet between them and the British the
redcoats fired at them. Two Americans were killed and several were
wounded but they did not run.
"Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" An American
officer called.
The American soldiers began to chant, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Fifteen redcoats were killed or wounded by the time they began
retreating toward Boston. The American troops pursed the redcoats,
shooting at them from behind trees and stone walls. About 3,600
patriots from forty different towns joined the fight. The Americans
fought the British down a twenty-mile-long road. The fiercest
fighting occurred in Menotomy. In the end, the British retreat to
Boston. Nearly 300 redcoats were wounded or killed.
IV. Violence East and West
C. The Second Continental Congress
Organizes for War
1. Congress Versus King George
a) Moderates hoped for peace and
reconciliation with the king
b) asked for repeal of oppressive
measures
c) radical Patriots (Sam Adams, Patrick
Henry) called for taking up arms
d) radicals gained support for an
invasion of Canada
e) merchants cut off exports to Britain
and her West Indies colonies.
2. Fighting in the South
a) Local skirmishes between Loyalists and
Patriots broke out in the southern colonies.
b) In Nov. 1775, Lord Dunmore in Virginia
promised freedom to slaves and indentured
servants who joined Britain in the war
c) fears grew that the lower class would rebel
against the Patriots
d) Patriots planned a meeting in 1776 of the
Continental Congress and resolved to support
independence.
3. Occupying Kentucky
a) In 1775, in wake of Dunmore’s War, settlers
began to occupy newly won lands of
Kentucky
b) they petitioned Virginia’s rebel government,
asking it to create a new county that would
include the Kentucky settlements
c) in 1776, Virginia agreed and sent arms and
ammunition to Kentucky, so that settlers
could join the fight against Britain.
IV. Violence East and West
D. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
1. Call for independence
a) Americans were still divided, but increasingly were
turning against the king.
b) In January 1776, Paine published the Common
Sense pamphlet, calling for independence and a
republican form of government
c) Paine assaulted the traditional monarchy in stirring
language
d) this pamphlet helped tip the balance, convincing
the majority to get behind the independence
movement.
IV. Violence East and West
E. Independence Declared
a) Patriot conventions called for independence.
b) On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of
Independence was approved
c) authored by Thomas Jefferson and others
d) vilified the king
e) used Enlightenment thinking to proclaim the
rights of men
f) linked individual liberty, popular sovereignty,
and republican government.