Ch. 4 The War for Independence

Essential Questions

Road to Revolution Timeline (4.1)

March 1765

1766

2 Year Relative Calm

1770

2 Year Relative Calm

*Lord Frederick North now P.M.

**By 1773, most taxes have been repealed besides...

Chapter 4 Section 2

February 1776

March/April 1776

July 1776

Chapter 4 Section 1

Stamp Act Congress 1765

Stamp Act 1765

Liberty Affair 1768

Townshend Acts of 1767

Declaratory Act of 1766

1765-1774

Declaration of Independence of 1776

Prohibitory Act of 1775

Feb. 1776 -Thomas Paine's Common Sense

March & April of 1776

Olive Branch Petition 1775

2nd Continental Congress 1775

Battle of Bunker Hill 1775

Lexington & Concord

The Gaspee Affair 1772

Declaration of the Causes & Necessities of Taking Up Arms

Boston Tea Party 1773

Intolerable Acts of 1774

First Continental Congress

• All legal documents, newspapers, advertisements, playing cards must have an official stamp
• First direct tax on the colonies

• Grenville fired by George III and the Stamp Act was repealed
• Lord Rockingham now Prime Minister
• Declaratory Act passed on the same day as the Stamp Act was repealed
• Parliament states it has the right to make laws “to bind the colonies and people of America… in all cases whatsoever.”

• Indirect tax → placed on certain imported materials - tea, glass, paint, lead…
• It would raise about £40,000 per year - would pay royal salaries and defray the military cost
• Sam Adams called for another boycott

• Delegates from 9 colonies form the Stamp Act Congress in NYC
• Issued the Declaration of Rights and Grievances
• Parliament lacked the power to impose taxes on the colonies because colonists weren’t represented in Parliament
• Merchants in NY, Boston, Philadelphia boycott British imports - trade down 25%
• Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, March 1766

Boston Massacre

• Tensions continue to rise
• British agents seize John Hancock’s ship the Liberty
• Accused him of smuggling wine from Madeira & didn’t pay a customs tax
• Riots occurred vs. customs agents & the British stationed 2,000 redcoats in Boston

• July 2nd 1776, delegates voted unanimously that the American colonies were free
• Jefferson chosen to write it – incorporated concepts of John Locke
• “Power from the consent of the governed”
• “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (Prop.)”
• Five delegates wrote statement drafted by Jefferson
• Adopted July 4, 1776
• Colonist must take sides – Colonist vs. Loyalists

King George's Royal Proclamation

• December 22, 1775 - King George declares the colonies in open rebellion
• Parliament forbids shipping and trade between England and colonies
• British plan …burn Boston and every coastal city to NY

• March:
• Petition French for aid
• Congress orders Loyalists disarmed
• April:
• Open all ports to trade with all countries EXCEPT England

• 2nd Continental Congress prepared for war but still hope to return to “former harmony”
• Sent the Olive Branch Petition on July 5th, 1775
• Sent the Olive Branch Petition for peace to King George III & he rejected it with his Royal Proclamation!
• September
• Benedict Arnold raids Quebec & takes Ft. Ticonderoga
• American navy & army organize to attack British shipping

• June 17, 1775- colonial militia of MA fortified Breed’s Hill
• Deadliest battle of the war – 450 colonist died & 1,000 casualties for the British
• General Thomas Gage decides to ferry across the Charles River to Charlestown to remove Americans
• First attempt: failed
• Second attempt: failed
• Third attempt: American colonists are driven from the hill – low on ammunition

• Group of RI colonists attack and burn a British customs schooner off of Narragansett Bay, RI
• King George III wanted suspects to be put on trial
• Colonial response:
• Committees of correspondence gathered primarily by Virginia & Mass to communicate between colonies about the activities of Britain
• *important linking colonial leaders together*

• 1. Common Sense- Thomas Paine
• Become independent, sever all ties with England
• Republican government inherently superior
• Equality of rights is a birthright
• 2. Merchant ships to raid British ships
• 3. Embargo on British goods

• Oct. 26, 1774 -Result of Intolerable Acts
• All colonies (except GA) sent delegates (56) to Philadelphia
• To determine how colonies should react to threat to rights and liberties
• Not independence, but protest of parliamentary intrusions on rights and restore former relationship with GB

• Early 1773, colonial boycotts have hurt British East India Company – 17 million lbs not sold
• Tea Act is passed to allow East India Company to sell their tea free of a tax that the colonial tea sellers did have to pay 
• Night of 16 December 1773, led by Sons of Liberty, a group dressed as Native Americans boarded British ships and destroyed the shipments of tea
•  342 chests valued at $800,000 today

• May 10th, 1775
• Two factions that debated:
• New England (John Adams) = independence
• Middle colonies (John Dickinson) = negotiate
• 342 delegates including- Hancock (President), Franklin, Jefferson, Adams

• April 18, 1775- General Thomas Gage sent forces to seize colonial military supplies that were rumored to be in Concord
• Paul Revere and William Dawes warned Minutemen of the Red Coat movement
• April 19, 1775 – First shots of the War fired at Lexington & Concord. Colonists retreat on 1st battle
• When the British reached Concord, they found no military supplies *they were destroyed
• On their march back to Boston, militiamen fired and ambushed them = 250 British casualties

• Declaration of the Causes and Necessities for Taking Up Arms
• July 6, 1775
• Continental Army created- all colonies
• George Washington- commander-in-chief, sent to Boston

• 1) Port Bill: Boston Harbor is shut down until damage is repaid
• 2) Quartering Act(expansion): authorized British to house soldiers in vacant private homes
• 3) Government Act: prohibited most town meetings in MA 
• 4) Justice Act: allowed local trials to be transferred to other colonies or to Britain
• 5)Quebec Act: gave land of Ohio Country to the new British political administration in Quebec
• AND: Gen. Thomas Gage enacted martial law over Boston

• After the preceding events:
• Captain Preston arrives with the rest of his redcoats
• One soldier slips on icy ground & discharges his rifle
• Amid confusion, British sentries open fire
• 5 fall dead including Crispus Attucks who was the first to fall
• Townshend Acts Repealed in April 1770

Ideas Help Start A Revolution

Road to Revolution

April 1775

Additional event info

Declaration of Rights and Resolves

Differing British View of Taxation

Conservatives

• John Jay (NY)
• Joseph Galloway (PN)

Colonial Response

Moderates

• George Washington (VA)
• John Dickinson (PN)

Radicals

• Patrick Henry (VA)
• Samuel Adams (MA)
• John Adams (MA)

The War for Independence

Has this been a perfect relationship prior to revolution?

Chapter 4 Section 2

The Popular William Pitt (F&I War)

• Taxes are “a voluntary gift and grant…”

Long Term Causes of the Boston Massacre

The Hated Lord Grenville

• “protection and obedience are reciprocal”

• 1. Declaration of Rights and Grievances-
• Petition king for redress (make right)
• Restore colonial & personal rights
• did recognize Parliament right to regulate commerce
• 2. Urged creation of committees in every town to enforce economic sanctions of Suffolk Resolves
• 3. If colonial rights not recognized, hold second congress May 1775

VS.

• Samuel Adams & the Sons of Liberty
• Resistance group harassed customs agents, stamp agents → they become a mob (Patriots OR Terrorists?)
• Stamp Act was to become active November 1, none were sold because of disruptions caused
• Patrick Henry & the Virginia Resolves – Virginian Assembly can only tax Virginians
• James Otis - “Taxation without representation is tyranny”

• Quartering Act
• Stamp Act - 2 regiments sent to Boston
• 600 Soldiers in Boston; 16,000 Residents
• Economic competition for jobs
• Soldiers quartered in customs house in the middle of Boston

Maybe no so perfect...

• Mercantilism

US--- England- lumber, fur, fish, tobacco

England---US- manufactured English goods

• 1651- Navigation Acts

- No trade except by British/colonial ships

- Crews ¾ English or colonial

- Export certain products only to England

- Pass through British port

Suffolk Resolves

Reactions to the Declaration of Rights and Resolves

Hang in Effigy

• 4. Suffolk Resolves:
• rejected Intolerable Acts, called for repeal, boycotts, military build-up
• boycott British imports, curtail exports, and refuse to use British products
• ignore punitive measures of Boston Tea Party
• support a colonial government in MA free of royal authority until Intolerable Acts repealed
• urge colonial militias

• 1684-

- New England disobeys (smuggling)

- charter revoked by King Charles II

- become Dominion of New England= royal colony (Governor Andros)

- Change from colonial courts to Admiralty courts

• 1689- Glorious Revolution- King James II

- Andros arrested

- King now appoints governor of MA

- Salutary Neglect lays seeds for self-government

• British reaction:
• Dismissed petition of First Continental Congress
• Declare MA in state of rebellion, order more troops
• American reaction:
• Provincial Congress- purchase military supplies
• John Hancock head of Committee of Safety- call out militia
• “minutemen” stockpiled weapons & munition*** leads to the first major conflict of the Revolution at Lexington and Concord

Short Term Timeline of the Boston Massacre

• Hanging of a representation of a person
• Popular figures hung were Andrew Oliver (chosen by George III to impose the Stamp Act) & later Benedict Arnold for being a trader & moving to Britain
• Sons of Liberty would do this

• February 27
• 11 year old Christopher Seider shot in mob
• March 2
• British soldiers looking for a job at Grey's Ropewalk
• "Go clean my outhouse" = fight
• Soldier gathers friends - second fight, one soldiers ends up with a fractured skull
• Soldiers threaten "who would eat their dinners on Monday...?"

Short Term Timeline of the Boston Massacre

Liberty Tree

• March 5
• There is one British sentry at the custom's house & a wig maker's apprentice demands payment from the British sentry for a wig that was made and he is hit with a musket
• Colonist gathered at the custom's house, snowballs thrown & taunting
• Fire Bell begins to ring!

Chapter 4

John Adams HBO Series - Tar & Feather Scene

• This is the tree in which colonist gathered under to protest the Stamp Act
• Became a symbol of resistance against England
• Hung in Effigy
• Tar & Feather

Salutary Neglect

Essential Question #1

Essential Question #2

“The time may come…when the colonies may become populous and with the increase of arts and sciences strong and politic, forgetting their relation to the mother countries, will then confederate and consider nothing further than the means to support their ambition of standing on their own legs.”

- Nehemiah Grew, British Mercantilist

Let's Re-cap:

Context/Background

• More Like “beneficial” neglect for the colonists
• Attention drawn to France= Relaxed enforcement of Navigation Acts in exchange for economic loyalty
• Smuggling common in NE- but ignored

How did the French and Indian War set the stage for colonial discontent against British policies that would lead to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution?

How did American victory change territorial claims in North America? (½)What were the factors that led to American victory over the British?

History of Rights Between Colonist & British Gov.

King of England & Financial Situation by 1760

The Quartering Act of 1765

1760

• King George III is King of England
• He appoints Lord George Grenville as P.M.
• Their perspective:
• It costs 200,000 pounds to protect the colonies
• Should not the colonies pay and contribute as well?

• Magna Carta- 1215
• King John of England bound himself and "heirs, for ever" to grant "to all freemen of our kingdom" the rights and liberties the great charter described- constitutional liberty
• Rights and legal procedures
• Guarantee against tyranny
• English Bill of Rights- 1689 (Rights of Englishmen)
• That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;

• At the request of Gen. Thomas Gage, the commander of troops in Boston, Parliament passes the Quartering Act of 1765
• Colonies must provide housing and food for British troops
• * all colonial petitions of protest to Parliament are ignored
• Private property infringement

The Sugar Act 1764

1763

• French and Indian War is over and Britain has accumulated a great amount of debt...

• Lg. rum trade during the Triangular Trade Route
• Colonist Make The Rum But Need Sugar
• Duties on foreign sugar and luxuries passed in 1764
• Vice Admiralty courts if caught smuggling – Judges would get paid for a guilty verdict
• Purpose- revenue & stricter enforcement of Navigation Acts

• Never a standing army before…why now?
• But if it protects the colonists …. They must pay
• 12 colonies refuse to fund...

Colonial Reaction to the Sugar Act...

• Colonial POV: This is an economic issue, not Constitutional (less profit on rum)
• August 1764 - Samuel Adams and James Otis employ embargo (NE and NY)
• 11 colonies protest- Initial Committees of Correspondence born – **committee that started colonial communication