The American Revolution
U.S. History to 1877
Reorganizing the Empire
Tightening
mercantilism
Molasses Act, 1733
6p tax on French molasses, for trade regulation
Lord Grenville’s Sugar Act, 1764
3p tax on French molasses, for revenue
Tried in admiralty courts in Nova Scotia
Stamp
Act, 1765
Admiralty courts used to try offenders
Outrage & riots
Sons of Liberty groups
Conflict in the Empire
Stamp
Act Congress
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
Boycotts of British goods
Constitutional
arguments
Taxation without representation
“Virtual” representation
Parliament:
Repeal & Declaratory Act
Power to “bind the colonies in all cases
whatsoever”
Troops quietly moved from frontier to cities
Rising tension
Townshend
Acts, 1767, & the Quartering Act
“External tax” on paper, paint, lead, glass, and
tea
Revenue used to pay salaries of governors,
judges
Enforcement: admiralty courts; customs
commissioners
Boston
Massacre, 1770
Lord
North’s tea tax
Tea Act, 1773
Boston Tea Party
Intolerable Acts
Coercive
Acts, 1774
Close Boston port until the tea is paid for
All Massachusetts officials appointed; town
meetings limited
British officials could be tried only in Britain
Governors could quarter soldiers without
assembly’s approval
Quebec
Act, 1774
General
Gage made governor of Massachusetts
First
Continental Congress
Committees of correspondence
Boycott
Declaration of Rights, 1774
Years of Crisis: 1775
New
England Restraining Act
General
Gage
Lexington & Concord
Years of Crisis: 1775
Congress:
Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms
Bunker
Hill
Years of Crisis: 1776
Olive
Branch Petition
George
III declares colonies in rebellion
Tom
Paine’s Common Sense
Hessians!
July
4: Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Independence
When
in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands 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,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to
throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is
now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
Facts be submitted to a candid world.
The Revolution begins
Dilemma:
Continental Army
“Virtuous” militias better in theory than in
battle
Standing army of hired troops
The Revolution, 1776-1779
Long
Island defeat, 1776
Tom Paine, The Crisis
“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman.”
Trenton and Princeton
Howe
& Burgoyne attack 1777
Turning point: Saratoga, 1777
Valley
Forge, 1777-78
The Revolution, 1780-1781
Southern
strategy
Lord Cornwallis
Yorktown
Treaty of Paris
1783