Towards
Revolution
Colonial Crisis
Study Guide and Identifications
• What events led to crisis in the British
North America?
• Orders of Council
• Sugar Act
• Coercive Acts
• Townsend Act
• Stamp Act
• Boston Massacre
Study Guide Question & ID’s
• How did British Colonists respond to
Imperial authority? What factors led to the
question of independence?
• Son’s of Liberty
• Edenton Ladies Tea Party
• First and Second Continental Congress
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense
Aftermath of Colonial Wars
• Treaty of Paris
– Britain had tremendous national
debt
• Britain alienated colonies
– Left army in America
– Taxes Americans to pay its cost
• Americans insisted that taxation without
representation in Parliament violated their rights as
English men
George Greenville
• Kings Chief administrator in 1763
– Began passing policies to impose greater
control over the colonies
• Extract greater wealth
– Anti-American
– Viewed colonists as spoiled children in need
of punishment
Orders of Council 1763
• Stationed British naval vessels in
American waters
• Intended running down and seizing all
colonial merchant ships suspected of
smuggling
– Goal to end American smuggling
– Compel colonists to pay more in trade duties
Proclamation of 1763
• Goal to avoid costly Indian wars
• Goal to avoid westward settlement for fear
of the establishment of inland markets and
therefore eventual competition
• Garrisoned more British soldiers to keep
control over settlers and Indians
Revenue or Sugar Act 1764
• Regulated loading & unloading of vessels
for the purpose of identifying smugglers
• Placed duties on coffee, indigo, sugar and
wine
– Greenville hoped to gain an annual revenue
of 40,000 pounds
– To pay for costs of colonial wars & stationing
of British troops
– Context of a post war depression 1770s
Crisis One: Stamp Act 1766
• Directly taxed 50 items
– Newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, playing
cards, wills, land deeds, college diplomas
• Expected to yield 100,000 pounds per year
• Britain refused to give representation
– Greenville argued English citizens were
virtually represented in that because they
resided in the Empire enjoyed representation
by parliament
• Continued resistance led to its repeal
Royalist Faction
• Leadership in Massachusetts That
enjoyed political patronage of the crown
– Lt. Governor & Chief Justice, Thomas
Hutchinson
– Governor, Francis Bernard
– Secretary and Councilor, Andrew Oliver
Popular or Country Faction
• Samuel Adams
• Lawyer, James Otis Jr.
– By 1760 Adam’s assumed leadership of the
popular rights faction in Mass. Politics
– Guided the “Loyal Nine” in directing politics
of resistance
– Communicated plans to artisans & Mechanics
who were leaders of the “Leather Apron” or
working associations
Leather Apron “gangs”
• North End and South End gangs
• Fraternal organizations providing
fellowship for artisans, apprentices & day
laborers
– Originally competed and fought amongst
themselves
– Adams fostered unity to defend political
liberties
Secret Society: Son’s of
Liberty
• Led by prominent
citizens’ referred to
as the Associator’s
– Used violence to
resist taxation
– Boycotts,
demonstrations
– Intimidation
– Effigy burning
– Destroyed Andrew
Oliver’s Warehouse
Andrew Oliver
•
•
•
•
Merchant
Loyalist
Tax Collector in Boston
Resigned his post due to intimidation and
destruction of his property
– Rendered office of the stamp collector powerless
– Set a precedent of further resistance
• Augustus Johnston, RI
• Zacahriah Hood, MD
• Jared Ingersoll, CT
Official Petitions to Parliament
• Patrick Henry, Virginian Lawyer
• Proposed 7 resolutions in the House of
Burgess of which endorsed 4:
• No taxation without representation
• Denied King and Parliament all legislative power
over the American provinces
Stamp Act Congress
• New York City, 1765
• James Otis led the movement for the
Massachusetts General Court to call for an
inter colonial congress to draft a joint
statement of grievances
– 9 colonies responded, 27 delegates appeared
in New York
– Significance: demonstrated colonial unity
Economic Boycott
• New York Merchants
– Pledged to stop importation unless the Stamp act was
repealed
• Principal port cities followed
• November 1, 1765 – commerce in the colonies
came to a Halt
• 1766 Stamp Act Repealed
• Passed the Declaratory Act
– Ensuring parliaments full power and authority to tax
colonists and make laws and statutes
Crisis Two:
The Townsend Act, 1767
• Parliament imposed taxes
on imports
– British manufactured glass,
paper, lead products,
painter’s colors, tea
– Projected revenue of 35 –
40,000 pounds/yr
• Colonists :non-importation
& talk of producing cloth
• Britain responded with
sending troops
• Modified act but duty on
tea remained
Crisis Three:
Boston Massacre
• 1769 Son’s of Liberty
clashed with troops
• Troop Baiting
• Resistance to military presence
• 1770 5 civilians killed, 6 wounded
– Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick,
Crispus Attucks, dead
– 2 soldiers singled out for the
murders, thumbs branded sent
back for duty
– Failure of first attempt of military
Coercion
» Military presence ended in
Boston
Holiday,
March 5,
1770
• Samuel Adams
declared the date
of Boston
Massacre a
holiday
• Commemorated
fallen martyrs
• Keep the struggle
for the defense of
liberties alive
Tea Act
• Fourth crisis: Tea
Act of 1773
– Boston colonists
destroyed British
tea
– 45 tons Boston
Harbor
• Increase of
assaults against
tax collectors
• Thomas
Hutchinson of
Boston
“Edenton Ladies’ Tea Party”
• Images of Women’s
Republican Virtue
• Edenton Proclamation
• 52 women of N.C. Boycott
English tea & cloth
• Right & Duty to participate
in political events of their
time & Region
• English Satire of American
Revolutionary Women’s
Meetings
Samuel Adams
• Born Boston, MS
• Prime instigator of protest against imperial
policies post 7 year war
• Published pamphlets warning of power
hungry royal officials
• Tax collector who did not collect 8000
pounds
– Opposed local leader & merchant Thomas
Hutchinson
• Represented elite privilege
Abuse of a tax collector, c. 1774
Coercive Acts, 1774
• Series of legislation passed to address colonial
rebellion
– Boston Port Bill: closed the port until colonists paid
for the tea
– Massachusetts Government Act: expanded powers
of royal governor and abolished the elective council
– General Thomas Cage replaced Governor Hutchinson
– Administration of Justice Act: More protection for
collectors and imperial officers
– Amendment to the Quartering Act of 1765: power to
house imperial troops anywhere
Unity among colonists
Resistance 1765-1775
• British fear
– convinced of organized movement for
independence
• Colonists denied wish for independence
– Feared deprivation of liberty & rights as
Englishmen
• Britain used military coercion
• Americans resisted with violence
Colonial Loyalties until 1773
• Majority of colonists
– Loyal British Subjects
– Vague right to self-government
• 1774
– Began to question relationship with Britain
– Developed clear notion of self-government
• Parliament had little authority in daily lives of
Americans
Escalation of new ideology &
Violence
• Conflict over taxation transformed colonial
relationship
• Language of resistance Groups centered
around ideas of liberty
First Continental
Congress
• 1774 – Philadelphia
• Began to function as
central government for colonies
• 55 delegates of 12 colonies
– Lawyers, doctors, merchants & planters
– John Adams of Massachusetts
– Patrick Henry of Virginia
Role of First Congress
• 3 tasks
– Define American Grievances
– Define constitutional relationship with Britain
– Develop plan to address grievances
– Agreed on laws they wanted appealed
– Did not agree on relationship with Britain
• Some believed they owed allegiance only to King George III
• Other believed Parliaments supremacy over the empire
John Adams compromise
• Parliament had no authority over the
colonies except in the case of trade
legislation
• Legislation was subject to colonial consent
• Legislation only used to regulate
commerce
• Legislation could not be used to raise
revenue for the Empire
Continental Association
• First Continental Congress formed an
association
– Called for a repeal of the Coercive Acts
– Resistance efforts
• Non-importation of British goods
• Total ban on all exports
Daughter’s of Liberty & Mercy Otis
Warren
• Assumed Masculine Name to Publish political
tracts John Singleton Copley
– 1805 history of the Rise, Progress and Termination
of the American Revolution
• Corresponded with Washington, Adams &
Jefferson
• Anti-federalist
– Raised question of independence before the
congress did
– Favored state rights over national government
– The only way to protect against misuse of power
was to put tight restrictions on those who ruled
British Response
• General Cage surveyed level of resistance
• Parliament passed resolution declaring
Massachusetts in a state of rebellion
• Cage arrested leaders of Massachusetts
Provincial Congress
– Led to battles at Concord and Lexington
Towards Independence
• Violence of 1775 led to improvised war
• Second Continental Congress
– Organized forces around Boston
– Formed the Continental Army
• Appointed George Washington of Virginia to
command rebel forces
– Appealed to King George to Intercede to end
crisis and negotiate peace
Congressional Factions
• New Englanders:
• favored a formal declaration of Independence
• Reconciliationist’s or Moderates
– Led by John Dickinson, Pennsylvania
Recruitment Poster for General
Washington's Army
Continental Army Recruits
• Economically hard pressed
–
–
–
–
–
Early teens to mid twenties
Landless
Unskilled
Poverty stricken
Expendable
• Un-free
– Indentured servants and slaves
– Stood as substitutes for Masters in exchange for
personal freedom at war’s end
African American enlistment
• Massachusetts: first state to authorize
enlistment of African Americans,
enslaved and free
• Rhode Island: two black regiments
• Maryland & Virginia followed
– Patriot general asked: why “so many sons
of freedom” seemed so anxious to “trust
their all to be defended by slaves”
Enlistment of Women
• Margins of Society
• Given half-rations
• The British Army allowed 1 women in the
ranks for every 10 men
• The Continental army allowed 1 for 15
Women’s Revolutionary Role
•To endow domesticity with political meaning
 Women were politicized during war and so was the domestic
arena.
 Women fought as soldiers
 20,000 marched with soldiers
 Cooks, nurses, doctors, laundresses, guised, porters
 Consumer boycotts infused daily activities and household
production with political meaning.
 Kept economy alive, planted and harvested
 Households provided goods and services to soldiers;
 were places to which embattled came for supplies,
housing, laundry, clothing, nursing.
 The expanded role of households during the war was given a
new twist in early Republic.
 The result was the idea and the image of Mothers of the
Republic, and Mothers of Republicans
Notable Women
• Groton, Mass.
• Dressed in men’s clothing, armed themselves with
muskets and pitchforks to defend the local bridge &
captured British soldiers
• 20,000 women marched with American
armies
– Molly Hays or Molly Pitcher (Penn. Granted her
a Pension)
– Deborah Sampson Gammett (Timothy Thayer &
Robert Shurtleff) joined the army twice
– Federal and Mass. Pension
• British General, Burgoyne
• Even if the British were to defeat all the
men in America, they would still have to
contend with all the women
– British occupation of Charleston
• Why women fat women were coming back thin
– Smuggling food past the enemy occupation
– 22yr Deborah Champion dispatched intelligence to
General Washington in Cambridge Mass. From Ct.
(Spy)
Rebels & Loyalists
• Throughout 1775
– Congressmen and most Americans
advocated reconciliation
• Defensive struggle until peace could be
negotiated
• By 1776 patriots had gained control of all 13
colonies
– British displayed violence
• Threatened turning of slaves & Indians against
settlers
• Continued to alienate colonists
Lord Dunmore’s Declaration of
Emancipation
• Royal Governor in Williamsburg, Virginia
• 1775, Lord Dunmore in response to Rebel
patriots he fled to Chesapeake Bay
• To raise loyalist soldiers he offered freedom
to slaves who would fight
– First Mass Emancipation of slaves
– Fear by Planters that Slaves would turn against
their masters
– Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment
– Lost at Battle of Great Bridge, December, 1775
– Dunmore fled the colonies in 1776
Final Steps
towards
independence
• 1776 Thomas
Paine Common
Sense
– Considered
question of
independence
Final Steps towards
independence
• 1776 Thomas Pained Common Sense
– Considered question of independence
– Stressed Locke an theme of government
• Contractual relationship between the people and the
government
• Give up a little property and natural rights for protection and
civil rights
• Hereditary Kingships and aristocratic titles
inherently unfair
• People should welcome opportunity to severe
ties with oppressive and unequal system of
government
• Basis of colonial loyalties
– Loyalty to the king
• After demolishing this relationship
• Argued independence
– Free American involvement in world wars
– Free trade
– Free economics
– Prosperity & Liberty
English political
cartoon showing
the mother
Britannia
fighting with
daughter
America
Declaration of Independence
July 2, 1776 Continental
Congress passed
resolution favoring
independence
– July 4, 1776 Adopted
Committed new nation
to Republicanism:
government whose
sovereignty was derived
from consent of the
government as
expressed through the
vote
• Limited to property
owning white men
Language of Liberty
• Belief in rights of man
• Human liberty derived from natural rights not
constitution (British in this case)
• Contractual society
• When government breaks its contracts to
protect rights of the people
• Americans justified in resorting to armed
resistance when peaceful means of redress
fail
Language of Sons of Liberty
• Language of liberty
• Stressed rights
– To self government
– To representation
– To trial by jury
– Decried tyranny & slavery when these rights
were violated
• Minorities: African/Indian/Asian/Mexican/Women
bound to hear this
Who would be Included?
•
•
•
•
Who would equality be applied to?
Slaves?
Women?
Inequalities of slavery came under attack
for the first time in the 18th Century
• Quakers first prohibited slavery
Abigail Adam’s letters to John
• The Constitution… what About the Women?
• Abigail to John 1776
– “I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be
more generous and favourable to them than your
ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into
the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men
would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care
and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are
determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no
voice, or Representation.”
• John to Abigail, 14 April 1776
– “We know better than to repeal our Masculine
systems…. which would completely subject Us to
the Despotism of the Peti-coat…. A fine Story
indeed.”
Focus Questions/Identification
• In what ways can the Revolutionary war
be characterized?
• To whom did the question of increased
liberty and freedoms apply, and to whom
did they not apply?
• What was women’s role in the Revolution
and how did their status change socially
and politically following the war?
• Republican Motherhood
Most Americans
• Equality not the issue
• Ideas of liberty Restricted
• Liberty – meaning freedom from British
control
The Unequal
• The Enslaved:
• Boston slaves made it clear to British and patriots they would
serve which ever side supported freedom
• Women
• Increased political awareness and empowerment as result of
participation and contributions to war efforts
• Working Men
• Sailors, artisans, traders, farmers
• Called on to support boycotts, demonstrations, riots etc
• Concept of life and politics bound to change
Revolutionary War
• British
• believed loss of colonies would fatal blow to empire
• Raised more soldiers and larger fleets
• Spain
• Colonized California in an effort to stabilize claim over
territory
• French aided Patriots
– Without it patriots would not have won
– Treaties:
• generous trade terms with France
• Alliance bound the two nations in perpetuity
– Committed France to fight until Britain conceded independence
• France disavowed all territorial ambitions in North America
Declaration of Independence
• 1776 Revolutionary leaders made 2 decisions of
enduring importance
• 1. Declared Independence & adopted the
Declaration of Independence
• 2. Committed new nation to Republicanism
– A government whose sovereignty was derived from
the consent of the governed as expressed through
the vote
– Input limited to landed white males
1770’s-1820’s Liberty Rhetoric
Republican Womanhood
• Early republic view that
women were at least partly (or
even mostly) responsible for
fostering republican virtues
and ideals of democracy and
liberty
– Origins in Enlightenment ideas
– Enlightenment debate over
women’s rights
• patriotic duty to educate her
sons to be moral and virtuous
citizens.
Jane Stuart, “An interior
scene at Boston,” ca. 1835
3 wars
• Characterized in 3 ways
– 1. Civil war between patriots and loyalists
– 2. War of Conquest of First Nations peoples
– 3. Revolutionary in the ideas that would
challenge social arrangement
– Initially only a political break
Civil War
• Large proportion of Americans did not
support war or its aims
• Some supported rebels and continuation
of British Rule
• Others sympathetic to pre-war movement
against taxation did not support armed
resistance
• Some neutral & wanted to avoid conflict
Revolutionary War
• Political break with Britain
• Led to creation of United States
• First colonial war of liberation of the 20th
century
– Combatants motivated by ideology and desire
for self-determination
– A peoples war
War of Conquest
• Americans fighting to free themselves of
British rule
• First nations fighting to free themselves of
Colonial Rule
– Siding with those perceived to be in their best
interests
Native Americans
• Outside body politic of white America
– White racism and Prejudice = lack of political
access
• Nations sovereign, independent nations, did not
want to operate with the American system or world
– preserve territory, political, economic and social
institutions of Nations
• Wars of resistance continued
Alliances
• Many nations allied with the British
recognizing threat of rebel victory
– Continued removal and genocide
• Once no longer useful British abandoned
tribes to the mercy of the Rebels
– Many attempted to form ill devised and
honored treaties with the United States