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• The colonists did not trust the British!
(Remember the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Declaratory Act)
• A new act, the Tea Act, forced colonists to buy
British East India Company tea at bargain prices to bail out the company.
• Even though the price of tea was less, the colonists still had to buy BRITISH TEA.
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• The colonists were tired of mercantilism.
• Some colonists dressed as Native American
Indians and boarded a British ship.
• They dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea.
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• In order to punish the colonists, the British passed the Coercive Acts.
• Coercive means “using force or threats to make someone do something.”
• The British were going to make the colonists pay for the tea and obey!
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• The colonists called the Coercive Acts (1774) the “Intolerable” Acts.
• Intolerable means “too bad, harsh, or severe to be accepted or tolerated.”
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• The Boston Port Act
- Closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid the British East India Company for the destroyed tea
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• The Massachusetts Government Act
- Gave Britain greater control over the colony and severely limited self-government
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• The Administration of Justice Act
- In cases of crimes committed by officials enforcing British laws, the trial could be moved to Great Britain
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• The Quartering Act
- Gave British officials within the colonies broad authority to quarter, or house, troops wherever they chose
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• The Quebec Act
- Allowed Catholicism and French civil law in
Canada and established boundaries of Quebec as the Ohio River on the south, and the
Mississippi River on the west, and the
Proclamation Line of 1763 on the east
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- And the Protestant colonists strongly disliked
Roman Catholicism
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• The colonies organized quickly in response to the Intolerable Acts
• In September 1774, 12 of the 13 colonies sent representatives to the First Continental
Congress in Philadelphia, which then sent a
Declaration of Rights and Grievances to the king, urging him to correct wrongs done to the colonies while acknowledging Parliament’s rights to regulate commerce.
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• Meanwhile the Governor of Massachusetts ordered soldiers to seize colonists’ arms and arrest rebels in Concord, Massachusetts.
• Minutemen, members of a colonial militia, assembled in Lexington to stop the British soldiers, to stop the Redcoats.
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• “The British are coming!”
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• On April of 1775, they fired “the shot heard round the world” that started the American
Revolution.
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• Outnumbered by the British, the Minutemen were forced to retreat.
• Though the British were able to march to
Concord, they were then forced back and had to retreat to Boston, losing about 250 men in the process.
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• The Second Continental Congress met in May of 1775, with representatives from all 13 colonies in attendance.
• Northern delegates shrewdly agreed to put
George Washington of Virginia in charge of the Continental Army, because his leadership would ensure Southern support of the war effort.
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