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TRANSITION
&
REVOLUTION
EMPIRE IN TRANSITION
•1750s – good relations with British
•1760s – strained
•1770s – broken relations
LOOSENING TIES
• Little control over colonies, except for Navigation Acts
• Navigation acts stated that all commerce was restricted except to and
from England and back
• After Glorious Revolution, the Crown loosens ties
• No stringent laws or offices
• Salutary neglect - hard to govern from 3,000 miles away
• Americans had no currency, so the gold and silver from the
colonies was only going to Great Britain – this led to the
colonists having to print paper money which led to
depreciation!
• By 1775, of the 32 colonies ruled by the Brits, only 13 of them
decided to revolt
• Governors and leaders – often crooked and bribed
• Roads, populations and post office connected the colonies
LOOSENING TIES
• Albany Plan – one general government for all in North
America
• Originally meant to solidify relations with Iroquois, but would have given
power to colonies to raise army, tax, control public territory, etc.
• Failed due to lack of interest from colonists
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
• Struggle for Continent - between England, French expansion,
and Iroquois
• French had Indian allies
• English allied with colonists
• Nova Scotia French moved out by Brits, went down to New Orleans
(Cajuns)
• French claimed Ohio valley
• VA sent George Washington to Fort Necessity George Washington
surrenders and begins French & Indian War
No stringent laws or
offices
• 9 year struggle
• British forces were inconsistent
• British officers often fought with the colonial ‘boor’ soldiers
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
• Americans found unity during this war with language, custom,
life styles, etc.
• Colonists busy defending land against Indians, especially
Western settlements
• British government begins impressments with colonists to fight
French & Indian War
• Quartering troops required – leads to colonial and British conflicts
• By 1760: French surrender due to lack of money and military
• 1763 – Peace of Paris
• French give British some West Indian islands, Canada, all territory east of
Mississippi river, except New Orleans, and Spain (France’s ally) gave
Florida to British
FRENCH & INDIAN WAR RESULTS
Large increase of land (East of Mississippi
River, except New Orleans, and Spanish
Florida), British debt increases, colonial
‘independence’, British dislike colonists
actions, Iroquois confederacy and all Indian
tribes seen as ‘fair game’ after the war,
colonists could now roam freely in the
wilderness without British approval.
ENGLISH IMPERIALISM
• Colonists taxed by Parliament to help pay for new large
territory
• By 1763, colonies were twice the size
harder to govern
• George III becomes King & Greenville becomes prime minister
• Belief that colonists should obey laws and pay empire for protection
• Proclamation of 1763: colonists can’t go past Appalachian
Mountains to avoid Indian wars
angered colonists
• Seen as oppressive to colonists, (even though it was meant to alleviate the
struggles between colonists and Indians,) BUT also, so Crown could control
trade and expansion
• Grenville Solutions
• Mutiny Act – maintain army, Redcoats monitored colonial commerce
•
Customs were strict, colonial manufacturing was united
ENGLISH IMPERIALISM
• Sugar Act 1764
• Eliminate illegal sugar trade between colonies and West Indies
• Raised duty on sugar
• Currency Act 1764 – no paper money issued and all taxes
had to be paid in hard currency
• Stamp Act – 1765 – fell on all colonists, regardless of class
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Tax on ALL paper goods and documents, even wills and marriage licenses
“No taxation without representation” (in Parliament)
Brits had 10 TIMES the revenue by 1765!
Repealed in 1766
• Backcountry colonists felt over-taxed, under protected
Paxton Boys - Ben Franklin de-escalated the situation
• Colonists began to want self-government - assemblies
REVOLT AGAINST BRITISH
• Stamp Act anger – purely for British profit, not to regulate
trade
• Patrick Henry – defiance of British
• Virginia resolves – colonists should have to pay no taxes except those that
Virginia House of Burgess clears
• Stamp Act Congress – said colonies only pay taxes outlined by
home rule government
• Sons of Liberty – terrorized stamp and tax agents, riots break
out
• Often targeted wealthy only
• Colonial boycott of British goods
• English Merchants want British government to back down – losing money
• Declatory Act – Parliament has all control – repeals Stamp Act
SONS & DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY
FURTHER AGGRAVATION
• Townshend Program
• Mutiny Act of 1765 – colonists must quarter British troops
• Townshend duties – tariffs on lead, paper, tea to fill up Crown’s purse
colonists boycotted
• Debate between internal and external taxes
• British saw as solution to discord – not direct tax, but colonists still had to
pay for higher prices
• Made cottage industry and barter popular – anti-British
• American Board of Customs was established to crack down on smugglers
• Tar and feathering, propaganda and BOYCOTT followed
FURTHER AGGRAVATION
• Townshend Program
• Mutiny Act of 1765 – colonists must quarter Brit troops
• Townshend duties – tariffs on lead, paper, tea to fill up Crown’s purse
colonists boycotted
• Debate between internal and external taxes
• British saw as solution to discord – not direct tax, but colonists still had to pay
for higher prices
• Made cottage industry and barter popular – anti-British
• American Board of Customs was established to crack down on smugglers
• Tar and feathering, propaganda and BOYCOTT followed
FURTHER AGGRAVATION
• Boston Massacre
• British troops (lobsterbacks) in Boston to guard customs officers
rude, indigent, took colonial jobs
• Reds fired shots into angry mob, Crispus Attucks
• Propaganda and Paul Revere promoted B. Massacre as organized
• Sam Adams, great orator
organized grievances against Great
Britain with committee of correspondence
• Eventually, Lord North, new Prime Minister, said Townshend
duties should be repealed, except tax on tea
MOTIVATION
• Religion, country folk, Scots, J. Locke, Glorious Revolution – all
supports revolution ideology
• People needed safety against corrupt government
• “No taxation without representation”
• Americans believe in local representation
• Propaganda high
• Gaspee affair – Gaspee is British merchant ship burned by
colonists British send colonists to Great Britain for trial
• Tea Act of 1773 – gave East India Company rights to export
goods to America without paying duties that colonists had to
pay – monopolize trade
• Many colonists stole India tea, and sold on black market to help pay for
Continental Army
ACTION
• Angry Colonists
• Linked colonists
• Led to tea boycott
• Propaganda, Daughters of Liberty
• Boston Tea Party
• December, 1773
• Brits closed ports of Boston as punishment, limited self-government, extended
quartering of troops
also called Coercive/Intolerable Acts
• Act also closed Boston port, royal officials be tried in Britain, limited
organization abilities of colonists
• Boston Tea Port Act – Boston harbor was closed until restitution was
paid – upset the merchant class
• Massachusetts Government Act – charter of Massachusetts was
revoked
• Quebec Act – protected French Catholics and extended borders of
Quebec – raised Anti-Catholic sentiment
ACTION
• Committees of Correspondence
• Called for First Continental Congress – met in Philadelphia, 1774
• Decisions:
• Ended colonial union under British Control
• Statement of grievances – ignored by Parliament
• Series of resolutions
make military preparations if British attack
• Meet again next year to reassess
POINT OF NO RETURN
• First Shots - Lexington and Concord
• Minutemen – stockpile ammunitions
• General Gage – supposed to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock
• Paul Revere rode to warn minutemen
• Ended colonial union under British Control
• Statement of grievances – ignored by Parliament
• Series of resolutions
military preparations if British attack
• Meet again next year to reassess
• FIRST SHOTS FIRED IN THE REVOLUTION!
• 8 Americans dead, 10 wounded – Redcoats had to face a gauntlet upon
return to Boston
THE
REVOLUTION
THE REVOLUTION
• Uniting States
• 2nd Continental Congress – 1775, meets in Philly, everyone except
Georgia
• Olive Branch Petition
• Set up de facto government free of monarch
• Sent another list of grievances to Parliament
• Adopted measures to raise money for an army or navy
• Selected George Washington to command the army
• Most Americans thought they were fighting for redress of grievances, not
independence
• Richard Henry urges for complete independence from Great Britain,
which was approved on July 2
• Draft formal declaration – July 4, 1776
•
(John Adams proclaims that fireworks should be used every fourth thereafter
to celebrate independence)
THE REVOLUTION
• Uniting States
• Thomas Jefferson writes most of document
• Life, liberty, and property – King George III had committed crime and
forfeited loyalty of colonists
• Patriotism
• Runs higher because loss of life, Brits begin to recruit slaves and Indians to
fight, Prohibitory Act – limited colonial trade
• Common Sense by Thomas Paine
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January, 1776 – said America should break with corrupt government of Great
Britain
blamed English government as a whole
Idea of Republicanism – senators, governors and judges should have their power
from the consent of the people
He laced his ideas with Biblical imagery, familiar to common folk
100,000 copies sold and distributed!
THE REVOLUTION RESULTS
Most Americans favored independence
Resistance from loyalists – often wealthy
classes.
Debate of local state and national
government starts
IMPERIAL STRENGHTS
Britain has 7.5 million people compared to
America’s 2 million, superior naval power,
and great wealth
Some 30,000 Hessians (German
mercenaries) were also hired by George III
50,000 professionally trained militia
50,000 American loyalists & Indians
WAR MOBILIZATION
• Armies, supplies, money - 3 BIG problems for colonists
• Got supplies and foreign aid from France
• HOWEVER! We were in desperate need of clothing, wool,
and wagons to ship food, and other supplies
• Congress could not tax Americans for war, so:
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Sold long term bonds
Issued paper money – caused inflation
Heavy borrowing
Led to inflation, which made many American families poor for the
duration of the war and years after
FIGHTING
• Very few volunteers, mostly drafted
• We were better marksmen – hunters and farmers using
everyday life skills against Redcoats
• Lacking in Unity – still not “American,” but rather a Carolinian,
a Virginian, Rhode Islander, etc.
• 1775 – Continental Army (patriots) led by George
Washington
• Low pay, inadequate supplies
• By the war’s end, more than 5000 blacks had enlisted in the
armed forces
• U.S. advantages: own turf, high motivations, French monetary
and military aid, British had to transport across ocean
FIGHTING
• Phases
• First – Bunker Hill – British win
• Second – 1776-1778
•
Saratoga – led to American/French/Spanish alliances AND seen as turning
point
• British humiliated with loss – offer Americans everything they ask for with
home rule, EXCEPT official independence from the empire
• Howe (British general) let Americans retreat several times – Hudson ‘half’
strategy of colonies
• Indians – some allied with U.S., others with British
• Ben Franklin goes to France and they end up recognizing the U.S. as an
independent nation (French Navy alliance too)
FIGHTING
• Phases
• Third
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British tried to recruit loyalists from South
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Patriots outnumbered, Loyalists fear support to British
Americans defeated British at the Battle of Cowpens (January, 1781)
Cornwallis defeated at Yorktown (October, 1781)
• Treaty of Paris – September, 1783
• Canada to Florida, Mississippi River
to Atlantic reserved for the U.S.
• Formally recognized our independence
AFFECTED GROUPS
Patriots, who supported rebellion, and
were called Whigs
• Often younger and lower to middle class –
farmers…
AFFECTED GROUPS
Women
• Took control over homes and businesses while men
were fighting
• Helped in army camps – Molly Pitcher
• Abigail Adams – ‘remember the ladies’
• Married women – all property belonged to
husband - no divorce/voting
• Republican motherhood – women were supposed to
elevate the nation’s conscience in our young
citizens
AFFECTED GROUPS
Indians
• Increase white expansion
• 1777 was known as ‘bloody year’ – Indians
went on scalping spree of colonists
• Noble savages
• Certain Indian alliances with British
harmed land claims
BUNKER HILL - TRUMBALL
MOLLY PITCHER
THE TURTLE
AFFECTED GROUPS
Africans
• Some served – gained freedom in states
• Revolutionary feelings started anti-slavery
sentiments
• Limited, but very important changes seen
towards slaves and Africans Cottage
industries
AFFECTED GROUPS
Loyalists
• Supported the king, often went into battle
against Americans, and were called Tories
• 100,000 emigres
• Left lots of land behind, some returned to
Great Britain
AFFECTED GROUPS
Economy
• Privateering with British
• Homespun cloth and goods
• Ammunition factories
A NEW COUNTRY
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• Republicanism
• “All power comes from people”
• Property owners with civic virtue = stable nation
• Equality of opportunity needed
• State Constitutions – 10 new by 1777
• Rhode Island and Connecticut first states to adopt Constitution – simply
deleted British sovereignty from law
• Executive powers must be limited
• Separate branches of government
• Religious freedoms promoted – Separation of Church and States
• Most included a ‘bill of rights’
• Slavery continues in South – fear of ‘freed’ population
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• Ordinance of 1784 – 1785
• Resolved land disputes – Western lands divided into 10 self governing
districts, the GRID
• Was supposed to pay off the national debt accrued in the war - surveys
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787 – created single territory in
Ohio and Indiana – 60,000 population required and no
slavery were required for statehood
• Process for becoming state after population requirements
• Abolished slavery north of Ohio River
• Abolished slavery North of Ohio river, surveying and selling land
• Indians – Confederation tries to buy their land for expansion
Ordinances probably most significant thing to
come out of Articles
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
RESULTS
Major debt in 1780s and 90s
inflation – the rich became poor
BUT, overall the Revolution was good for American trade
and industry – diversification!
Shay’s Rebellion – Shay demanded tax (set to pay off war) and
debt relief shut down courts so judges could not seize property
proved US needed stronger national government
Called for constitution to be finalized !
Britain still refused to recant the Navigation Laws, and closed
down its trading with the U.S.