Series of taxes imposed
Sugar Act
Called for enforcement of customs laws in admiralty courts
Quartering Act
1765
Colonists must provide quarters and supplies for British troops
Stamp Act
1765
Tax stamps must be purchased and placed on all legal documents, liquor,
college diplomas, newspapers, almanacs, playing cards and dice
Reaction
Patrick Henry-Virginia
No taxation without representation
Stamp Act Congress-New York
9 colonies
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
No taxation without representation
Repeal of admiralty courts
Repeal of Sugar and Stamp Acts
Sons of Liberty
Mob action threatened stamp agents
Nonimportation-boycott
Stamp Act was repealed
1766
Declaratory Act passed at same time
Asserted Parliament’s right to "bind the colonies and the people
of America in all cases whatsoever"
Quartering Act renewed
Townshend Acts
Enacted by Charles Townshend
Colonial minister
Taxes on certain imports of manufactured goods
No sense according to mercantilistic theory
Meant to teach colonists a lesson
Created Board of Customs Commissioners
Paid from fines imposed by admiralty courts
Reaction
Nonimportation
Letter by Samuel Adams and Massachusetts Assembly
Encouraged colonies to unite for common defense
Assembly dissolved
Crowds forced commissioners out of Boston
More troops called for
Competition for jobs
Boston Massacre
Crowd taunting soldiers
Crispus Attucks grabbed a soldier and through him down
Shots were fired
5 colonists dead(including Attucks), 3 wounded
More troops sent
Lord North replaced Townshend
Repealed all taxes except one on tea
Let Quartering Act expire
Relative calm from 1770-1773
Committees of Corespondence
Set up by VA and Mass. to communicate with other colonies about threats
to liberties
By 1774 most colonies had one
Boston Tea Party
British gave East India Company a monopoly on the sale of tea
1773
Colonists dressed as Indians and threw tea into Boston Harbor in protest
Intolerable Acts
Boston placed under martial law
General Thomas Gage new royal governor
Assemblies dissolved
Harbor closed
Quartering Act renewed
First Continental Congress-Philadelphia
September 1774
Denounced Intolerable Acts
Urged colonies to form militias and suspend trade with the British Empire
Agreed to meet again in May 1775
Battle at Lexington and Concord
Gage prepared to strike armory at Concord
21 miles west of Boston
Paul Revere
Warned of British coming
Minutemen
Lexington
Minutemen and British met here 5 miles short of Concord
Someone fired a shot
Shot heard round the world
8 colonists killed
Nothing at Concord
Colonists had removed all the arms
March back to Boston
British attacked continuously on way back
Numerous British casualties
Second Continental Congress
Washington, Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson
Declared support for the colonials in Massachusetts
Declared that those fighting in Boston were the Army of the United
Colonies
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys
Fort Ticonderoga, New York
Washington named commander in chief of the Continental Army
Issued paper money
Named a committee to deal with foreign powers
Established a postal department
Franklin
Authorized creation of navy
Battle of Bunker Hill
Breed's Hill?
American loss?
British took hill but lost 1000 men compared to American 400
9 months later Americans drove British from Boston into Canada
Olive Branch Petition
Loyalty to George III
Ministers' fault
Urged return to former harmony
Rejected by king
Ordered blockade of American coastline
Early American success
Boston
Charles Town
Thomas Paine
"Common Sense"
Attacked King George and monarchy in general
Urged independence
Second Continental Congress(May 1776)
Colonies advised to form new state governments
Committee chosen to write formal declaration
John Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston
Jefferson actual author
Attack on slave trade
Abigail Adams
Status of women
Preamble
Locke
All men are created equal
Inalienable rights
List of complaints
Not approving laws passed by colonial assemblies
Dissolving assemblies that disobeyed royal governors
Not calling for elections to replace dissolved assemblies
Discouraging settlement of the west by raising land prices
Insisting that judges serve at the king’s pleasure
Leaving standing armies independent of civil authorities
Violating civil rights
Passing the Declaratory Act
Blockading coastline
Hiring foreign mercenaries to fight Americans
Declaration
Adopted by Congress on July 4
British
Nation of 10 million backed by a worldwide empire
Largest navy in the world
Factories able to turn out weapons on a large scale
Trained and experienced soldiers and engineers
Army short of manpower
Spread all over the world
Low pay and bad living conditions
Press gangs
Mercenaries
Hessians
Hesse Cassel
3000 miles away
Unfamiliar country
Less accurate muskets
American
2.5 million people
20% slave
Familiar country
More accurate rifles although slow to reload and no bayonets
Lack of a sizable navy
Difficult keeping army together
Short enlistments then back to the farm
Two kinds of soldiers
Militia
From individual states
Continental Army
Served longer
Better trained
Paid by Continental Congress
Washington’s greatest achievement was keeping army together 8 years
Role of women
Took husbands’ places on farm or at trade some on battlefield
Molly Pitcher
Almost no munitions factories
Arms had to be smuggled from Europe
Poor financing
Difficulty paying and supplying troops
British took New York
General William Howe and Admiral Richard Howe arrive in summer of 1776
with 32,000 men and 10,000 sailors
Washington met them with 23,000 men
By Fall 1776 Americans had been pushed out of NY, across NJ and into PA
8000 men left-the rest left captured or killed
Apathy
Thomas Paine-"These are the times that try men’s souls"
Washington won in New Jersey
Christmas night 1776, Washington crosses the Delaware with 2400 men
Marched to Trenton and surprised Hessians
Killed 46, captured 900
5 casualties
Boosted morale
Camped for the winter at Morristown
British took Philadelphia
Howe let NY by sea, sailed up Delaware River and landed near Philadelphia
Washington tried to stop him but lost
Victory at Saratoga
General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne led a major army south from
Canada to link up with Howe’s army at Albany
Unaware that Howe had gone to Philadelphia
Burgoyne was attacked the whole way
Too much equipment and lack of experience in the woods
Surrendered to General Horatio Gates at Saratoga in October 1777
Turning point
British now kept their men along the coastline where they had naval
support
First time Americans had beaten British regulars
French support
Formal treaty signed in February 1778
Valley Forge
Winter of 77/78-out of 10,000 men 2500 died
Sir Henry Clinton replaced Howe
Spring 1778
Took the army from Philadelphia back to NY
Americans followed and camped outside NY
The South
Spring of 1779 Georgia fell into the hands of the British
Clinton and General Charles Cornwallis moved south and took SC
Clinton went back to NY and left Cornwallis to take NC
Cornwallis ran into trouble in NC against guerrilla warfare
General Nathaniel Greene was sent by Washington with 1000 men to the
Carolinas
Forced Cornwallis to move north to unprotected VA
Cornwallis moved 8000 man army to Yorktown
Surrender at Yorktown
Marquis de Laffayette devised plan to move French and American troops
south to Yorktown on land while the French fleet sailed north from the West
Indies to block the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay from the British fleet and
trap Cornwallis between land and sea
Cornwallis surrendered October 18, 1781
