Unit 2 History Test (Assignment 1-5)

Assignment 1: Immediate aftereffects of the French & Indian War. What’s significant about 1763?

• After the withdrawal of France and Spain in America, the natives were angered at the way these new British intruders were treating them, which caused Pontiac’s Rebellion 1763

• This led to the Proclamation of 1763, in which the British gov said, “This is taking up unnecessary amounts of our time and effort, so you American colonists DON’T go past the Appalachian mountains” but the colonists still did

• This year is imp bc it marks the end of the era of salutary neglect

Assignment 1: What acts did Britain impose and how did the American colonists respond?

• Navigation Act, Molasses Act (loosely enforced)

• 1764 — Sugar Act, Currency Act

• 1765 — Stamp Act, Quartering Act, creation of Stamp Act Congress Sons of Liberty

• 1766 — Stamp Act repealed, Declaratory Act

• 1767 — Townshend Acts

• 1770 — Boston Massacre

• 1772 — Committees of Correspondence formed

• 1773 — Tea Act, Boston Tea Party

• 1774 — Intolerable Acts, Quebec Act, First Continental Congress

Assignment 1: What were the goals of these congresses and committees?

• Stamp Act Congress 1765 — to get Britain to repeal the Stamp Act

  • Repealed in 1766

• Nonimportation agreements — boycotted British goods and was a stepping stone towards unity among colonists

  • Sons of Liberty often violently forced others to follow the boycott

• Although Stamp Act was repealed, it was met w another called the Declaratory Act, which asserted British authority to pass whatever laws they wanted over the American colonists

• And then the year after, they passed the Townshend Acts, which wasn’t a direct tax, but it was on a little bit of everything

• Boston Massacre → the end result of continually piled up tension between deployed British soldiers and colonists

• Formation of the committees of correspondence was an effort of colonies to discuss how to keep resistance alive

• Tea Act 1773 → British East India Co was going bankrupt, so the British decided to sell the tea to the colonists for really cheap and put low taxes on it, but the colonists actually got mad bc they thought this was all a plan to trick them into being ok w paying taxes

  • Reacted w Boston Tea Party 1773

• Boston Tea Party led to the passing of Intolerable Acts 1774 to punish Boston for rebelling so severely

• Same year, Quebec Act was passed → boundaries of Quebec extended and angered colonists bc they viewed it as their land

• First Continental Congress 1774 → RESPONSE TO INTOLERABLE ACTS and created The Association, which was a FULL boycott of ALL British goods

Assignment 1: What is virtual representation?

• Americans demanded that they wouldn’t be taxed if they weren’t ACTUALLY represented, but the British believed that they WERE represented through VIRTUAL representation, which is the idea that the members in the British parliament aren’t representing physical locations, but the classes of the British people, in which the American colonists were a part of

Assignment 1: Why was Lexington & Concord so important?

• British officials sent to seize the rebels shot many colonists

Assignment 1: Start of Rev War and important battles

• Lord Dunmore’s Treaty — Virginian governor who promised all Blacks freedom if they fought for US

• Second Continental Congress 1775 — convey complaints to British gov, create army, but not yet seeking independence

• Battle of Bunker Hill → British W

  • Soon after, colonists sent Olive Branch Petition to say that they are still loyal to the king and wanted to stop attacks

  • Britain ignored this and even hired German mercenaries “Hessians” to fight colonists, but many of them eventually defected

• 1776 Declaration of Independence

  • + Model Treaty used as a model for diplomats sent to France to discuss only economic alliances

  • Ben Franklin successfully allied USA and France

• Battle of Saratoga 1777→ major turning point for Americans with victory

• Battle of Yorktown 1781 → help from France = USA defeats Britain

• Civil war between Loyalists and Patriots were underway, esp in the South and Carolinas

Treaty of Paris, Conditions, & More

• France, when joining this war, agreed to give some land to Spain, and John Jay noticed that France would likely betray US

• So he went to England and hurriedly got the Treaty of Paris 1783 signed since England didn’t want a Franco-Spanish alliance

• Conditions of the treaty included: no prosecution of Loyalists and suggested that confiscated Loyalist properties are returned, but USA gains so much more land from Britain since they didn’t want USA to go to France for extra possible compensation

Immediate aftereffects of the Revolutionary War

• American economy a little low after separating from Britain, Loyalist land that was confiscated was divided into different parts and distributed, ppl encouraged to buy domestic items, and basic state constitutions were arising

• Creation of AoC 1776, but not ratified by all until 1781

Commerce, territorial, and political laws passed by the loose confederation

• Congress had no power to control federal commerce, so all states had different laws on commerce and trade, and even made tax payments optional

• Passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 → Old Northwest (the land that certain states gave up to be fair) must be sold to help pay off national debt

  • + Northwest Ordinance 1787 → land is subject to federal gov until it has 60,000 ppl, in which then it can become a state; also banned slavery except for those already enslaved

Struggles that the US faced as a new country?

• Was able to trade w other nations now, but Spain, France, and Britain were all against them due to territorial disputes

• Individual states were fighting one another regarding boundaries and taxes

  • Ex) Massachusett’s Shay’s Rebellion 1786 → Farmers angry bc taxes are too high and they were losing their land. Was crushed by Massachusetts army, but was a sign of what the elite feared: a possible mobacracy

  • Caused elites to favor a strong, centralized gov and that this AoC was NOT working

Attempts at a REAL Constitution

• Convention of “Demigods” = Philly Convention

• Met next year at Maryland to discuss how to control commerce, and met again at Philly the next year to revise the AoC

• Virginia Plan said that representation in the two houses of Congress should be based on population

• New Jersey Plan said that there should be one house of Congress and each state should have equal representation

• Virginia + New Jersey = Great Compromise → HoR gets rep based on population, while Senate gets rep equally from each state

• 3/5 Compromise = a slave is 3/5 of a person; used to determine population of states, esp those w many slaves (South)

The Road to Ratifying the Constitution

• Slave trade banned everywhere except in Georgia

• Separation of church & state → disestablished

  • In Virginia, the Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom outlined the future “freedom of religion” in the Bill of Rights and stated that there was no one right religion that must be practiced bc this was a natural right to believe in whatever you wanted

• Better benefits for poor: lower property qualifications, trade unions, and a little better view of women

  • Women tasked with civic virtue and republican motherhood — the idea that a mother’s devotion to her family was very imp bc she was the one that would teach her children morals to make them good citizens.