Colonial Resistance to Reorganization

1. Colonial Resistance to Reorganization

2. Overarching Themes • English attempts to increase control over the colonies led to increasing efforts by Americans to resist that control. • These efforts led to increased coordination between the colonies that ultimately led to • growth of a feeling of American identity • creation of institutions that gave representative structure to the revolution. Broadside created by Sons of Liberty after the Boston Massacre

3. Organized Response #1: Committees of Correspondence • Response to the Stamp Act of 1765 • Colonies each formed committees which communicated with each other through letters to coordinate activities • Activists selected to keep open communication within and between colonies • Devised by Samuel Adams, after MA Gov. Hutchinson dismissed colonial assembly Fanuiel Hall in downtown Boston, where the first Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence met

4. Organized Response #2: Sons of Liberty • Began after Stamp Act • Traditionally said to have been founded by Samuel Adams • Loosely organized resistance across colonies. Reality: collection of groups • Primarily active in New England and New York; existed in all colonies • Took direct action to intimidate and frighten English representatives

5. Boston Massacre • Boston crowd protested against customs officer who had shot a child • Crowd led by Crispus Attucks protested British soldiers defending customs office • British opened fire killing 5 and wounding 6. Dubbed a “massacre” by colonial press to foment distrust of English (See Paul Revere’s engraving) • John Adams represented soldiers at trial • British soldiers were later acquitted or punished lightly

6. Response to Tea Act: Boston Tea Party • East India Company (colony) could only pay its own operations by selling tea • Americans purchased smuggled Chinese tea, avoiding taxes • Tea Act of 1773 reduced tax on English Indian tea to make Indian tea cheaper than smuggled tea in America • American agitators feared that Tea Act would lead to Americans accepting precedent of paying British tax • Boston Sons of Liberty staged “Tea Party” by dumping tea into Boston Harbor

7. “Intolerable Acts” • (AKA “Coercive Acts”) • Collection of Acts that responded to Boston Tea Party, seeking to punish Massachusetts. • Revoked MA charter, abolishing its assembly. • Closed Boston Harbor. • British soldiers charged with murder to be tried in England, not America

8. Organized Response #3: First Continental Congress • Response to Intolerable Acts • All colonies but Georgia sent delegates • Adopted “Suffolk Resolutions” which stated: • Colonies did not have to obey Intolerable Acts, • MA set up a provisional government to collect taxes, etc, • Boycott British goods and cease exporting goods to England.

9. Organized Response #4: Second Continental Congress • Drafted “Olive Branch Petition” which asked George III for • cease fire in Boston, repeal of the Intolerable Acts • negotiations to establish basic American rights. • Held out hope that past policies were from Parliament, not from King George III • Established continental Army with Washington as leader. • Second meeting, 1776, • After George rejected petition • Drafted and passed the Declaration of Independence