Chapter 5
Reform, Resistance, and Revolution!
25 slides
3 slides non writing
I.
IMPERIAL REFORM
II.
INDIAN POLICY
III. THE ACTS
IV. RESISTANCE
V.
LIBERTY AS A DISEASE
VI. REGULATORS
VII. 1st CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
VIII.BRITISH RESPONSE
IX. 2nd CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
X.
BRITISH RESPONSE, again.
XI. GRIEVANCES
XII. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
I. Imperial Reform

Consequences of War
– Always about money
– John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute was Prime Minister 17621763

Miserable failure
– Under Bute, Greenville had been the Minister of Treasury
– Britain would station troops in colonies to protect colonists
from French and Indians
– Consequently, Britain’s policy toward colonies after 1763 was
one of increased centralized control.
II. Indian Policy

Pontiacs Rebellion - 1763
– Pontiacs Conspiracy

Indian uprising against British during
French Indian War.

Proclamation Line of 1763.
– Prohibited colonial settlements west of the
Appalachian mountains

Paxton Boys
– December 14, 1763
Vigilante
 Murdered Indians

During the French Indian War (7 Years War) 1754 - 1763:
Last of the colonial wars pitting Britain against France and Spain. In
Europe known as 7 Yrs War.
- British troops were disciplined, Americans undisciplined volunteers.
- British followed orders, Americans obeyed reasonable orders.
- British enlisted for long terms, Americans for one campaign.
Peace of Paris in 1763, ended the French Indian War:
Britain acquired all of North America east of Mississippi except New
Orleans.
France left with lands west of Mississippi river.
Paint

III. The Acts!!
Sugar
Sugar Act 1764
– Angered New England merchants the most!
– Primary purpose was as a revenue raiser
TEA!
dice

Currency Act 1764
– Affected wide range of peoples in colonies: plantations to merchants

Quartering Act 1765.
– 1765 – 1766
 Antagonized most colonists.
Cards
Wills
Paper
Molasses
Paint

Paper
More Acts!!
Sugar
TEA!
Stamp Act 1765
– wills, bills, bill of sale, licenses, deeds.
– Added: playing cards, newspapers, hand bills, ships papers, insurance policies.
– Opposed because it was first direct internal tax passed by Parliament for NA colonies.
dice
– Made worse by appointment of colonists as tax collectors
Wills
Molasses
Cards
Paint

Paper
More Acts!!
Stamp Act Crisis
Wills
– Factors precipitating the crisis
 Novelty of a direct tax by Parliament and fear of what was to
come
 Tax hit everyone in all areas of the colonies (not sectional)
 Affected lawyers, tavern owners, printers most
 Right of jurisdiction to admiralty courts and fear among
colonists that their right to trial was being taken away
 Tax came at a time of economic stagnation
– Nullification, Sons of Liberty
– Stamp Act Congress – October 1765

TEA!
dice
Molasses
Declaratory Act 1766
– Repeal Stamp Act.
– Asserted Parliaments absolute right to legislate for the colonies and
then repealed the Stamp Act.
Cards

Meanwhile in Britain
– Parliament v Colonies
Colonies
 Parliament

– George III

Not tyrant – power restricted by Parliament
Policy inconsistent
Didn’t like anyone smarter than he was

Mental issues from 1765 until he died


Paint
Paper
More Acts!!!
dice

Revenue Act 1766
– Molasses, reduced duty to 1 pence per gallon on all imports – British
or other

Townshend Act 1767
– New duties on tea, paper, glass, lead, colors
– Within 1 year, trade with England fell 25%, by end of 2nd year trade
had fallen off by 50%.
TEA!
Wills
Molasses
Cards

Tea Act 1773
– Britain would undersell Dutch et al.

December 1773 – Boston Tea Party

Intolerable or Coercive Acts (4) 1774 March
–
–
–
–
–
Boston port closed until tea paid for
new quartering act
admin of justice – British soldiers would go home if they did any wrong,
MA Government Act – annulled MA colonial charter
Quebec Act 1774 : est. French civil law and recognized Roman
Catholicism
Courier and Ives engraving
IV. RESISTANCE!!

Initially – 1765 – colonists not willing to accept new duties

1766, colonists willing to accept minor increases. Acts mainly hit
merchants and lawyers

Stamp Act

Boston Massacre Monday, March 5, 1770.
– Customs house
– Single guard called for help. Corporal and 7 soldiers returned
and came to his aid.
– Soldier slipped
– 5 died, 6 wounded: Crispus Attucks

Gaspee Affair – June 10, 1772

Tax on tea – Tea Crisis 1773
– Boston Tea Party – Dec 16, 1773
 Sons of Liberty
– British Response
 Coercive Acts – 1774
– Boston Port closed
– Quartering Acts (new and improved)
– Reorganized the government of Massachusetts.


Declaratory Act – asserted Parliaments absolute right
to legislate for the colonies.
In response to the Coercive Acts, colonists initiated the 1st
Continental Congress!
V. Liberty as a Disease
Colonists took up arms, not because they liked war/death or
to avoid paying taxes … they wanted to restore the empire
to what it had been before 1763 when Parliament/King
began taxing and imposing itself upon the colonists without
respect.
VI. Regulators

Carolina backcountry 1767 - 1769
– Rebelled against colonial assembly to set up county
governments in West. Assembly was made up of wealthy
planters.
– Revival of old proprietary claims to land by Easterners –
angers back country folks
– Immigrants angered Indians (Scots-Irish/Presbyterians and
Lutherans), most immigrants came from Philadelphia – they
squatted on Indians land
– 1765-67 – respectable sorts organized and called themselves
Regulators
 To restore order, to provide law where none previous
V II. First Continental Congress
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September 5, 1774 - in response to the Coercive Acts
Philadelphia
12 colonies (not GA)
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Declaration and Resolves – all colonists sprang from same common
tradition and enjoyed rights guaranteed by the immutable laws of nature
and the British constitution, several charters and compacts
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Debated response – non-importation

Set up - Committees of Correspondence
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Petitioned King
VIII. BRITISH RESPONSE
April 18-19 1775
- Troops under Lt Col Francis Smith were
sent to Concord to destroy weapons and to arrest
John Hancock and Sam Adams (all done in secret)
- 700 grenadiers +
Lexington – first stop
then Concord
IX. Second Continental Congress

Met May 10, 1775 until 1789

In 1781, it was known as the Confederation Congress

Creation of Continental army

Congress rejected Lord North’s Conciliatory Proposal on 7/31/75

George Washington

Declaration of Causes and Necessities in taking Up Arms

Olive Branch Petition

June 1775 attack on Quebec

War was inevitable by that time
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June 7, 1776 – Richard Henry Lee proposed that the colonies “are, and of right
ought to be, free and independent states.”
X. British Response, again.

Fits and starts
– Outraged the colonists would behave as they were
– Resentful of the colonists
– British offered freedom to slaves who supported
British
– Spring 1776 – colonists had virtually complete
control of colonies
XI. Grievances

Thomas Jefferson selected to
write up a list of grievances.

Thomas Paine’s COMMON
SENSE – denounced the
monarchy as a degenerate
institution.
XII. Declaration of Independence
Proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia
Adopted July 4, 1776
Signed in August, Ratified in Sept
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate an equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.