Key – Video Notes: Conflict Ignites
Lexington and Concord
1. How did Samuel Adams and John Hancock hear the British were looking for them? They were warned
by Paul Revere.
2. Why were the British going to Concord? The British thought colonists were storing weapons and
ammunition.
3. The Minutemen were 1/3 of the militia group ready to move at a moment’s notice.
4. The confrontation at Concord Bridge started a nineteen- mile long running battle.
5. Only 1 in 300 musket balls made their mark.
6. At the end of the day, 73 British had been killed. The struggle for America had begun. It would
eventually involve all of the greatest military powers in the world in a global war.
Before the War
1. In the early 1700s, the colonies had only 2.5 million people spread from Maine to Florida. Only four
cities had a population of 10,000.
2. The colonists saw themselves as the freest people in the world.
3. Nearly 70% of the colonists were English or of English descent.
4. Slavery was practiced throughout the colonies. The description of the rum and slave trade routes in the
video is known as the Triangular Trade.
5. The West was a place of constant conflict with the Indians. In 1754 the frontier became the
battleground for a full-scale conflict known as the French and Indian War.
The Early Enemies
6. The British sent an untried major from Virginia into Pennsylvania to tell the French they were invading
British land. His name was George Washington.
7. What was George Washington falsely accused of that helped ignite the French and Indian War?
assassinating a French diplomat
8. The British won the war and once the French threat is removed the colonists began to think, “do we
really need to be run by the British”?
9. The French and Indian War caused a debt in Britain, and King George III believed the colonists should
pay their fair share for British defense.
10. Colonists paid $1.20 a year in taxes. British citizens paid 25 times that.
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Boston: The Seeds of Revolt
11. Sam Adams became the closest thing we had to a professional revolutionary.
12. In 1765 the Stamp Act affected everyone.
13. Sam Adams organized the Sons of Liberty, a political action group that protested British policies.
14. How were loyalists treated in the colonies? Their homes were destroyed and they were tarred and
feathered.
15. To protect their tax collectors and government officials, Britain began to quarter permanent troops in
Boston.
16. A soldier being hit by a snowball led to the Boston Massacre. Five colonists died in the riot.
17. Three men including John Adams defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.
18. Not so much the taxes but the sense that the British were trying to control the colonies angered the
colonists.
19. The Boston Tea Party resulted in Britain striking back with the Intolerable Acts.
20. Patrick Henry proclaimed that “taxation without representation” is tyranny (unfair government).
21. Actually, colonists did not want representation because they knew they would be outvoted. “No
taxation without representation” was strictly a slogan.
The Oldest Revolutionary
22. The American Revolution was also a civil war.
23. Write four or five facts about Ben Franklin: He was a genius, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. He
was estranged from his son who remained loyal to England. He was the most famous man in
the world.
Bunker Hill: The First Great Battle
1. Some of the soldiers thought that one big battle would settle it all.
2. What was the reason for the building of a fort on Charlestown Peninsula (Breed’s Hill)? The Americans
could attack British ships in the harbor.
3. Why did Putnam command, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”? The weapons were
inaccurate and the Americans were low on gunpowder.
4. The main thing any soldier would see in battle was smoke.
5. Why were uniforms designed with stock around the neck? The stock kept the soldiers’ head from
turning so that they were focused on the battle and not thinking about other things going on
around them.
6. The British won control of Breed’s Hill, Bunker Hill, and the Charlestown Peninsula, but nearly half of
their landing force had been killed or wounded.
© 2004 Plano ISD, Plano, TX
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7. After Breed’s Hill, both sides came to the conclusion that a full-scale war was inevitable.
© 2004 Plano ISD, Plano, TX
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