Making of a Revolution

1. Making of a Revolution

2. Changes in British Policy • Proclamation of 1763 • Closed land West of Appalachians • Sugar Act 1764 • Designed to raise $ • New punishments for smuggling • Quartering/Billeting Act 1765 • Stamp Act 1765 • Clearly designed to make $$$

3. Stamp Act Crisis (1765) • Stamp Act passed in March but was to take effect in November • In October, delegates from 9 colonies met • Stamp Act Congress • James Otis of Massachusetts • “No taxation w/out representation” • Petitioned the King and Parliament • Colonial merchants organized a boycott

4. Groups sprang up to enforce the boycott • Sons/Daughters of Liberty • Mob action • By November, most collectors resigned/fled • Stamp Act repealed in March, 1766 • (British Merchants protested Act)

5. Rising Tensions in Colonies • Declaratory Act passed same day as repeal of Stamp Act (1766) • Parliament had authority to make laws “in all cases whatsoever” • 1767, authority reasserted with passage of Townshend Acts • Duties on imports (tea, glass, etc.) • $ used to pay salaries of royal governors

6. Violence Erupts in Boston • March 5, 1770, unruly crowd in Boston threatens squad of British Soldiers • Five colonists are left dead/dying in what becomes known as Boston Massacre

8. Unhappy Boston! fee thy Sons deplore, Thy hallow’d Walks befmear’d with Guiltlefs Gore: While faithlefs and his favage Bands, With murd’rous rancor ftretch their bloody Hands; Life fierce Barbarians grinning o’er their Prey, Approve the carnage and enjoy the Day. - Paul Revere, 1770

9. “The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man” (1774)

10. Parliament Responds to Massacre • Cancels Townshend Acts in May, 1773 except for tax on TEA • 1773, Tea Act provides BEIC right to sell tea in America w/out paying normal taxes • American merchants protested • Several port cities refused ships carrying tea • 1773 Boston Tea Party

12. Parliament Punishes Colonies • Spring 1774, Coercive Acts passed • Bad timing? • Colonists call for a united response to “Intolerable Acts” • June, 1774, Quebec Act • Govt. w/ no representative assembly • Expanded borders into Mississippi Valley • Guaranteed free practice of Catholics

14. 1st Continental Congress • Sept. 5, 1774, convened in Philadelphia • 56 delegates from almost every colony • Agreed to boycott British goods • Called on colonists to arm themselves

15. Delegates 1st appeal to the king “The foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right of the people to participate in their legislative council: and as English colonists are not represented, and…cannot properly be represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved.” -Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, 1774

16. On October 26, the Congress ended • Members vowed to meet again in the spring if the crisis was not resolved • November 18, the King writes: • “The New England governments are in a state of rebellion”

17. “Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace! Peace!’- but there is not peace…. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!...Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but for me, give me liberty or give me death!” - Patrick Henry (1775)

18. Shot Heard Round the World • Americans that King George labeled “rebels” called themselves Patriots • Formed militias (armies of trained civilians) and began to gather guns and ammunition • Concord, 20 miles from Boston • Late at night, April 18, 1775, 800 British troops marched toward Concord

21. Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott sent on horseback to alert Patriot leaders • British forces encountered 70 militia (“minute-men”) at Lexington • Destroy some supplies at Concord, but are met by thousands of Patriots as they return to Boston • Over ¼ killed or wounded • Is war inevitable?

22. Siege of Boston • Following L&C (April, 1775), ~20,000 armed Patriots surround Boston to prevent 6,000 British troops from crushing the rebellion • In May, Vermont’s militia captured Fort Ticonderoga in NY • June, two hills north of Boston occupied • G.B.’s third attempt to capture hills successful • 1,100 of 2,400 British killed or wounded • Patriot casualties numbered 400

24. Second Continental Congress • Convene May, 1775 in Philadelphia • Create Continental Army • G.W. as commander of American forces • Support Olive Branch Petition • T.J. and Dickinson • Rejected outright by King

25. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense • Pamphlet appeared in Philadelphia in January, 1776 • Message to the colonists was blunt: “The Period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide the contest…. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART.”

26. Meanwhile, in Boston… • G.W. placed cannons that had arrived from Fort Ticonderoga on Dorchester Heights • He could shell British forces in Boston and ships in Boston Harbor • British, defenseless, abandon Boston in March of 1776

29. Estimated Population of Colonies in 1770 Total – 2.2 Million • VA – 447,000 • PA – 240,000 • MA – 235,000 • MD – 202,000 • NC – 197,000 • CT – 184,000 • NY – 163,000 • SC – 124,000 • NJ – 117,000 • NH – 62,000 • RI – 58,000 • DE – 36,000 • GA – 23,000 • Great Britain – 6.4M