Road to Revolution

“If this be treason, make the most of it!” –Patrick Henry

French and Indian War• French claim Ohio

Valley• British order them

out• French attack British

forts• French pull back

support after a few years

• British win territory back and gain all land East of the Mississippi

So What?

• American colonists help the British win the war

• They never receive payment for their work

• British troops mistreat American colonists

• Colonists feel underappreciated

Ban of Settlement west of Appalachians

The Sugar Act

• In order to pay back debt from the French and Indian War, Britain started taxing the colonists

• They began with sugar, molasses, coffee, wine, indigo (blue dye)

• There was also harsh punishment for smugglers

The Quartering Act

• Designed by the British to save money

• To enforce the proclamation of 1763, 10,000 British soldiers were stationed in the colonies

• Colonists were forced to provide them with food, supplies, and a place to sleep

The Stamp Act

• In 1765, Parliament passed a law requiring all colonists to pay for a special stamp that would have to be placed on newspapers, wills, licenses, insurance policies, land titles, dice, playing cards, and contracts.

• Colonists were so outraged that they threatened to tar and feather any tax collectors that came their way.

• By Nov 1, 1765, the day the Stamp Act was to go into effect, no stamp collectors were left in the colonies

• Parliament repealed the law because the colonists petitioned for change. However, Britain made a new law stating that they had total authority over the colonies.

Sons of Liberty

• Formed in July 1765.• Underground organization

formed by a number of colonial towns in opposition to the Stamp Act.

• Violence and intimidation was used by its members to force the British stamp agents to resign and encourage Americans to boycott- which is to stop ordering British goods

Townshend Acts

• Were a series of acts created to enforce British authority in the colonies.

• To help customs officers find illegal goods, Parliament allowed them to use writs of assistance- court orders that allowed officials to make searches with out saying for what they were searching.

• This was viewed by colonists as a violation of rights

• The Townshend acts were named after Charles Townshend- the British treasurer who wanted to weaken the colonies

The Boston Massacre

• Because the Colonists protested the Townshend acts, Parliament repealed all of them except one on tea. The tax was left in force to demonstrate Parliament’s right to tax the colonies

• On March 5, 1770 an angry crowd of workers surrounded British troops and threw snowballs and rocks at them

• Frightened, the troops fired into the crowd killing five young men and wounding six others

• Do you believe this is a true account of what happened?

• What is the message of the artist?

Committees of Correspondence

• As tensions between the British and the Colonists grew, colonial leaders saw the need to keep in closer contact with people in other colonies

• Samuel Adams established the first C C

• Soon, committees all over the colonies published pamphlets and wrote letters to inform the people of unpopular British laws

The Tea Act• The British East India Tea

Company had lost a lot of money by Colonial boycotts

• Britain decided to help the company by allowing them to sell directly to the colonies instead of going to Britain first

• This allowed the BEITC to hold a monopoly on selling tea- and it was cheap

• This saved the colonies money but hurt some colonial businesses because the sold more expensive Dutch tea

• Even though the price was lower- they still had to pay tax on the tea.

The Boston Tea Party

• The Sons of Liberty organized an effort to stop ships from unloading tea

• No tea was unloaded in New York and Philadelphia. The governor of Massachusetts ordered that tea be unloaded in Boston

• On the night of Dec. 16, 1773 a crowd gathered in the harbor to watch a large group of men dump more than 342 cases of tea in the harbor

• More than 90,000 pounds were unloaded which were worth thousands of dollars

Intolerable Acts

• The Boston Tea Party outraged the British government

• In response, Parliament passed four laws that were so harsh that colonists called them the Intolerable Acts

• The laws took away town meetings and colonial self-government in Mass., closed the Boston harbor, and increased the power of the Quartering act

• Americans from all the colonies sent supplies to Boston to help them

“Bostonians in Distress”

• This was a picture published in a British Newspaper

• It showed what was happening because of the Intolerable Acts

First Continental Congress

• The Committee of Correspondence organized a meeting to discuss what to do

• Leaders from 12 of the 13 colonies gathered in Philadelphia to discuss the Intolerable Acts including Patrick Henry, George Washington, Samuel Adams, and John Adams

• They declared that the colonies had the right to govern themselves and that they could also train militias to stand up to British troops if necessary

• The congress called for a new and stronger Boycott of British goods• If things weren’t better by May 1775- they would meet again

Lexington and Concord

• Colonists started to form bands of Minutemen

• In April, the governor of Mass. heard that bands of minutemen were storing arms

• He sent 700 troops to Concord to seize the arms and arrest colonial leaders

• As the troops were leaving, two men named Paul Revere and William Dawes rode from Boston to warn the minutemen

Paul Revere’s RideSo through the night rode Paul

Revere;And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,---A cry of defiance, and not of fear,A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,And a word that shall echo for evermore!For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,Through all our history, to the last,In the hour of darkness and peril and need,The people will waken and listen to hearThe hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

From Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By the time the troops arrived…..• 77 minutemen of Lexington had gathered

on the green• The commander of the British troops

ordered the minutemen to go home- they refused

• Suddenly, a shot was heard• The British began to fire into the crowd

and killed 8 colonists• The first mysterious shot is now called

the “Shot heard around the world” because it started the first “battle” of the American Revolution- no one knows which side fired first

• On the way back to Boston, 4,000 minutemen gathered to shoot the British from behind the trees and fences along the way. By the time they arrived in Boston, 300 British soldiers had died

Road to Revolution

Dissatisfaction

Revolt

Revolution

Upset

UnrestProtest