Road to the
American Revolution
Learning Target
• Britain’s victory over France in the imperial
struggle for North America led to new
conflicts among the British government, the
North American colonists and the American
Indians culminating in the creation of a new
nation, the United States.
French & Indian War
• The French & Indian War had represented a
change in relations with England for the
American colonists. In all previous colonial
wars, England had required the colonists to
fight the war for themselves.
French & Indian War
• In the French & Indian War, for the first
time, English soldiers were sent to fight side
by side with colonial soldiers & militia.
• From the colonial point of view, this
changes things.
Proclamation Line of 1763
• The French & Indian
War had opened up a
great deal of Western
Land, but England
would not allow the
Colonists to settle any
of it.
• The English knew
someone had to help
pay for that war, but
how…
Taxes
1763: The Proclamation of 1763
1764: The Sugar Act
1764: The Currency Act
1765:The Stamp Act
1765: The Quartering Act of 1765
1765: Virginia Stamp Act Regulations
1766: The Declaratory Acts
1767: The Townshend Acts
1768: Boston Non-Importation
Agreement
1770: The Boston Massacre
1772: The Gaspee Affair
1773: The Tea Act
1773: The Boston Tea Party
1774: The Boston Port Act
1774: Administration of Justice Act
1774: Massachusetts Government Act
1774: The Quartering Act of 1774
1774: The Quebec Act
• In response to the
Proclamation of 1763
& taxes…
• In response to the
Proclamation of 1763
& taxes…
Taxes
• King George placed
Lord Greenville in
charge of raising
revenue from the
colonies.
• The first tax
Greenville came up
with to hit the colonies
was the Sugar Tax.
• A tax placed on molasses from the Caribbean.
Sugar Tax
• The plan was to drive
up the cost of
Caribbean molasses
and make English
molasses (that was
taxed) cheaper to buy.
Sugar Tax
• But the colonists decided it was even
cheaper to just smuggle in molasses from
the Caribbean and avoid the tax altogether.
• By the way, the tax the English wanted the
colonists to pay on one gallon of English
molasses (to pay for a war to eliminate the
French threat in the Ohio Valley)…
• From England’s point
of view, the taxes
were perfectly
reasonable.
• The French & Indian
War had been fought
for the benefit of the
colonists, to protect
them from the threat
the French forts in
the Ohio Valley
represented.
• The English decided
that since the war had
been fought for the
colonists, they should
help pay for it.
• But the colonists…
Tax Burden
Colonies
Public Debt:
England
Public Debt:
Tax Burden
Colonies
Public Debt:
£2.6 million
England
Public Debt:
£140 million
Tax Burden
Colonies
Public Debt:
England
Public Debt:
£2.6 million
£140 million
Interest:
Interest
£104,000 / year
£ 5,000,000 / year
Tax Burden
Colonies
Public Debt:
England
Public Debt:
£2.6 million
£140 million
Interest:
Interest
£104,000 / year
Per Person debt:
18 schillings / person
£ 5,000,000 / year
Per Person debt:
£18 / person
Sugar Tax
• The English were stunned by the colonial
reaction to the Sugar Tax.
• They knew they were already paying more
in taxes!
• But the King had a problem, he had told
the colonists to do something and they
were refusing to do it.
• He could not let them get away with that!
Vice Admiralty Courts were set up to deal with
people who broke the Sugar Tax.
• There were no juries,
offenders were dealt
with by a judge
appointed by the King.
• In the wake of the Sugar Tax came the
rallying cry throughout the colonies:
“No taxation without representation”
Stamp Tax
• Greenville then came
up with the Stamp
Tax.
– A tax on legal and
other documents.
– Had already been in
place in the colonies
and had not been a
problem.
Stamp Tax
• In England, a Stamp
Tax raised £100,000 /
year
• Greenville wanted to
raise £60,000 / year
from the colonists.
• Greenville was fired
and replaced by a man
named Charles
Townshend.
• He simply added more
taxes to the colonists.
Paper
Glass
Tea
Taxes
• The colonists decided not to buy any of the
taxed items. They either smuggled it in, or
did without
– – but they would not pay those taxes!
Taxes
• People living in England got upset at this.
The colonists would not pay their share of
the French & Indian War. The the costs
were being shifted back to England.
• Since Parliament was responsible for collecting
the taxes, people in England turned their
attention to Parliament to make the colonists pay.
Parliament
• Parliament is an elected body. They did
what the voters wanted and they wanted
more taxes, fines & penalties for nonpayment of taxes by the colonists.
Parliament
• Only men living in England could vote for
members of Parliament.
– Not the colonists!
• In order to ensure these new taxes are being
paid, England sent more troops over to
enforce them.
Boston Massacre
• In Boston, there were 4,000 British troops
to strictly enforce the tax laws.
– They looked down on the colonists because
they weren’t what they considered to be “real
Englishmen”.
Boston Massacre
• On March 5, 1770 a
crowd gathered at the
Customs House in
Boston to protest taxes
and the treatment they
saw as unfair by
British soldiers.
Boston Massacre
• British soldiers who had been stationed
there fired into the crowd, this was the
Boston Massacre.
Boston Massacre
• In response to the Boston Massacre, two
things happened:
– British troops all moved from Boston, to an
island in Boston Harbor.
– All taxes repealed on colonial imports
except the tax on tea!
Boston Tea Party
• The colonists drank
tea like Seattleites
drink coffee today.
Boston Tea Party
• To avoid paying tax
on tea, the colonists
simply smuggled it in.
– Up to 90% of the tea
consumed in the
colonies was smuggled
and untaxed.
Boston Tea Party
The Intolerable Acts
• The Intolerable Acts were laws that were
really punishments that King George III put
on the colonies. because he wanted to
punish them for the Boston Tea Party.
The Intolerable Acts
• The Boston Port Bill closed Boston Harbor to everything but
British ships.
• The Quartering Act The colonists had to house and feed the
British troops. If the colonists didn't do this, they could be
shot.
• The Administration of Justice Act British Officials could not
be tried in colonial courts for crimes.
The Intolerable Acts
• • Massachusetts Government Act The British Governor was in
charge of all the town meetings in Boston. There would no more
self-government in Boston.
• • The Quebec Act Extended the Canadian borders to cut off the
western colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia.
First Continental Congress
• September 1774, 55 delegates from 12
colonies (not Georgia) met and decided to
work together to do anything short of war to
help Boston.
First Continental Congress
• Came up with a plan to resist the Intolerable
Acts.
– They would not import English goods, or
export goods to England.
– Mostly important because it was the first time
the colonies came together to act together as
one.
Boston
• England decided the
main problem in the
colonies was in
Boston.
• So they focused their
attention there.
Boston
• General Gage, the British official in charge
of Boston realized that the situation was
much more serious than it appeared.
Boston
• Gage called for a repeal of the Intolerable
Acts, or 20,000 more troops to keep things
under control.
Boston
• However, the Intolerable Acts stayed and he
got 3,500 more troops.
• This didn’t help him at all. Not enough men
to help and more than enough to make
people of Boston even more upset.
Lexington & Concord
Olive Branch Petition
• The colonies tried one
more time to avoid
war with The Olive
Branch Petition.
– Appealed to the King
directly to remove the
Intolerable Acts and
they would avoid war.
Second Continental Congress
• Became the
first American
government
Second Continental Congress
– They took all state militias and combined them
into one American Army.
Second Continental Congress
– Named George Washington as commanding
general of the American Army
Second Continental Congress
– Printed American currency.
Second Continental Congress
– Established a method to deal with foreign
countries.
• The two sides were now set…