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Citizenship Test There are two ways to become a United States citizen- either by law or by birth. If you are a citizen by birth, which most of us are, then we never have to, “prove” our knowledge and understanding of U.S. history or information about our government to become a citizen, it is implied that we will learn those values and institutions.
Setting the Stage The influence of the Scientific Revolution soon spread beyond the world of science. Philosophers admired Newton because he had used reason explain the laws governing nature. People began to look for laws governing human behavior as well. They hoped to apply reason and the scientific method to all aspects of society- government, religion, economics and education. In this way ideas from the Scientific Revolution paved the way fo a new movement called the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason- this movement reached its height in the mid-1700s.
When George III became the King of Britain in 1760, his Atlantic colonies were growing by leaps and bounds. Their combined population went from about 250,000 in 1700, to 2,150,000 in 1770. Economically, the colonies thrived on trade with nations in Europe.
In 1760, when King George III took the throne, most Americans had no thoughts of either revolution or independence and most saw themselves as British citizens loyal to the king. That was until issues started over who should pay for the French and Indian War… This was Britain’s War with the French, yes it was on American soil, but the colonists saw this as their war! Parliament passed an law called the Stamp Act- colonists would now have to pay a special tax to have an official stamp placed on wills, deeds, newspapers or any other printed material.
No Taxation QUARTERING ACT, 1765 STAMP ACT, 1765 without representation
Colonists POV We pass our own laws and establish and regulate our OWN taxes, because we are separated by the Atlantic Ocean and have no colonists represented in Parliament. You decided when to declare war and regulate trade! The Stamp Act violates the right of British subjects not to be taxed without representation you are depriving us of OUR rights and OUR freedoms!!! So, we will not buy British goods! We will riot in the streets united under the group, the Sons of Liberty! Our local assemblies will declare the Stamp Act a violation and we will not enforce your, “law”
Repeal or No Deal! The colonial boycott was so effective that commerce between Great Britain and America came to a standstill. In October 1765 delegates from nine colonies met in New York City in the Stamp Act Congress and formally requested the British government to change. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in March 1766, yielding not to the colonists’ demands to taxation, but to the difficulties of the broke British merchants who had close ties with the government.
British POV Repeal of the Stamp Act did not solve the British problems of the cost of keeping an army in America. Parliament still believe it had the right and the need to tax the colonies and in 1767, it passed the Townsend Acts, which imposed taxes on lead, glass, tea, paint, and paper. These were the main goods the Americans imported from Britain.
British East India Tea Company Company Headquarters
Sons of liberty During the Parliamentary debate over the Stamp Act (1765), Isaac Barré referred to the American opponents of the new tax as the "Sons of Liberty." Secret radical groups in the colonies adopted this name and worked to oppose the stamp tax and later parliamentary revenue programs.
A Party in Boston On a cold December night in 1773, a group of rebellious American colonists some 5,000 strong marched from the Old South Meeting House to Griffin's Wharf on Boston Harbor in protest of the British tax on imported tea. As the crowd watched, men dressed loosely as Mohawk Indians boarded ships, chopped into crates with their hatchets and dumped thousands of pounds of tea into the bay. This celebrated uprising, long hailed as the Boston Tea Party, was the spark that ignited the Revolutionary War, unifying Patriots across America.
First Continental Congress In 1774, representatives from every colony except for Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. The King cared very little about any concerns brought about at this meeting or the colonists reaction to the Coercive Acts. Thus they reconvened at The Second Continental Congress to discuss the matter further.
Despite the anger that the American public felt towards the United Kingdom after the British Parliament established the Coercive Acts, Congress was still willing to assert its loyalty to the king. In return for this loyalty, Congress asked the king to address and resolve the specific grievances of the colonies. The petition, written by Continental Congressman John Dickinson, laid out what Congress felt was undo oppression of the colonies by the British Parliament. Their grievances mainly had to do with the Coercive Acts, a series of four acts that were established to punish colonists and to restore order in Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party.
Second Continental Congress In 1776, The Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence . This document, written by Thomas Jefferson, was firmly based on the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment. The Declaration reflected these ideas in its eloquent argument for natural rights. Since Locke had asserted that people had the right to rebel against an unjust ruler, Jefferson listed King George’s abuses and broke the ties between the colonists and the British.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the 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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
An Absolute Tyranny Over These States To gain support, Jefferson also stated that King George was the one who was committing , “crimes”. He included a long list of the King’s abuses, and claimed that George was unfit to rule over the colonists.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear • Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, • On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five; • Hardly a man is now alive • Who remembers that famous day and year
SYBIL LUDINGTON Sybil Ludington was a typical 16 year old girl in 1777. She was the eldest of 12 children and was often responsible for taking care of her younger siblings. She was putting the younger children to bed on the night of April 26, 1777, when word reached her house that the British were burning the town of Danbury, Connecticut, which was only 25 miles away. Her father was a colonel in the local militia. His men were scattered over a wide area around the Ludington house in Fredericksburg, New York (now Ludington). Sybil convinced her father to let her ride and summon the men. She rode on horseback over 40 miles on dark, unmarked roads to spread the alert. She rode alone with only a stick to prod her horse Star and to knock on the doors spreading the alert in time. The men whom she helped to gather arrived just in time to help drive the British
Fighting Begins Lexington and Concord – April 19, 1775
Bunker Hill Bunker Hill is the name of a battle fought near Boston, Massachusetts, on June 17th, 1775 between the Americans, led by Colonels Putnam and Prescott, and the British led by Generals Howe and Clinton. The Battle of Bunker Hill is misnamed. The battle actually took place on Breed's Hill, not Bunker Hill. The Americans repelled the first two attacks by the British, but were forced to retreat from the third attack when they ran out of ammunition. The battle was a costly victory for the British who lost more than 40% of their force. Even though the Americans were defeated, it proved that the British could suffer great losses, too, giving encouragement to the growing rejection of British rule.
Green Mountain Boys The Green Mountain Boys were a citizens' militia founded in Fay's Tavern in Bennington in 1770. This militia could be called up to protect, by force if necessary, the ownership of the land in the New Hampshire Grants. Ethan Allen was its first, and by all accounts very charismatic Colonel-Commandant. Some of the methods of coercion used by the Green Mountain Boys are questionable at best, violence and intimidation often occurring as they defended their lands against the hated "Yorkers". However, this group of Yankee Vigilantes was very instrumental in resisting New York's claims to land in what is now Vermont. It is worth noting that the Green Mountain Boys took no lives.
When General William Howe and his British troops took Philadelphia in September of 1777, General Washington was forced to make winter camp about 20 miles from Philadelphia at Valley Forge. It was a miserable winter for the 10,000 soldiers of the Continental Army at Valley Forge. Many soldiers lacked shoes and warm clothing. Food was scarce. Diseases such as smallpox and typhoid fever swept through the camp. 2500 men died that winter from the cold, disease and malnutrition.
Marquis de Lafayette He was a wealthy French nobleman whose beliefs in liberty led him to America's fight for Independence. He agreed to serve without pay in the American army and was made a major general and served on George Washington’s staff. He persuaded the French government to send more aid to the Americans. He fought in both the American Revolution and the French Revolution.
An important addition to the Continental Army was Baron Friedrich von Steuben. He knew how to train an army. Even under the hardships of the camp, he drilled the soldiers repeatedly during the winter so that by springtime the Continental Army had become a strong and disciplined fighting force.
Defeat in New York On August 27, 1776, the Americans and the British armies met in Brooklyn New York, for what promised to be a decisive battle, The American were defeated by General Howe’s experienced forces. Howe assumed that Washington would have to surrender, but instead he retreated.
Treaty of Paris 1. Great Britain had to recognize the United States as an independent nation. 2. Britain had to give up all of it’s land holdings between the Atlantic Coast and the Mississippi River, from Canada south to Florida. 3. The United States agreed to return all rights and property taken from the Loyalists during the war.
Rousseau Montesquieu • Believed that the government needed to reflect the will of the people • Believed the only valid government were those that were created through the consent of the people • Believed people should vote for the best leader for the whole community • Believed that any person or group in power would want more power • Wanted to keep government under control • Believed in separation of powers Locke Voltaire • Believed the people had the right to life, liberty and property, “natural rights” • Believed that if the government was treating the people unfairly then the people could rebel • Believed in tolerance, freedom of religion, and free speech
U.S. Constitution: An Enlightened Document Enlightenment Idea U.S. Constitution Locke A government’s power comes from the people. Montesquieu Separation of powers Rousseau Direct Democracy Voltaire Free speech; religious toleration Beccaria Accused have rights no torture • - Preamble states, “We the people of the United States”. • Creates representative government • Limits government powers. • Federal system of government • Three branches with checks and balances • Public election of President and Congress • Bill of Rights provided freedom of speech and religion • Bill of Rights protects the accused and prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
What if? Using your knowledge of the American Revolution you will be rewriting history for your extension. You will create a page for a history book detailing the effects of the American Revolution if the American colonists had lost the war to the British. How would history be different today? What would have happened instead? Extension
