The American Yawp Ch5-6

Age of Revolution

worldwide trend towards democratic governments
U.S First Democratic Revolution

Ideas vs. practice

Freedom vs. Slavery
Liberty vs. Taxation

Benjamin Rush

Recounted a visit to Parliament
"Felt as if he walked onto sacred ground" with "emotions that I cannot describe"
Colonists developed emotional ties with the British

Long-term causes to the American Revolution

Negation Acts, Enlightenment, and the Great Awakening

Constant War

French and Indian War
Ended with a War debt
Who was going to pay it?

What is the Relationship between the British Empire and the colonies

Some want Britain to rule over the colonies vs. Britain ruling with the colonies - The colonies see the British as equals

"The colonists are entitled to as ample , , and ____ as the subjects of the Mother country, and in some respects more" - James Otis Jr:

Rights, Liberties, and Privileges

Salutary neglect

The English did not strictly enforce laws in its colonies, leading to things like smuggling

Enlightenment

Philosophical movement

Great Awakening

Religious movement

John Locke

Enlightenment thinker -Equality, natural rights, argued that the mind was a blank slate, and individuals were made through their environment.
Greater access = Better

Some Thoughts Concerning Education

An essay John Locke wrote about the importance of Education could produce rational humans capable of thinking for themselves and questioning Authority

George Whitefield

Great Awakening preacher - asked people to challenge Authority
Salvation could only be found by taking personal responsibility for one's own relationship with God

John Locke and George Whitefield….

Empowered individuals to challenge Authority and take their lives into their own hands

Anglicization

Colonists, through trade, become more like the British
Colonists saw themselves as equals

Samual Adams

described the colonies as being a "separate body politic" from Britain

Colonial Assembly

Many of the same duties as the commons exercised in Britain, including taxing residents, managing colonies' spending revenue, and paying salaries to royal officers

Patriot Whigs

Imperial vision on trade and manufacturing instead of land and resources
argued that economic growth would help the national debt instead of taxes
argued that colonists should have equal status to the mother country

Royal Governors

Tasked by the bound of trade to limit the power of assemblies
failed

Ideology of Republicanism

Stressed the corrupting nature of power and the need for those involved in self-governing to be virtuous
i.e. puting the public good over their own self interest

Seven Years War

World War that was fought between multiple empires on different continents
War debt - how/who was going to pay it? - Britain doubled the national debt, 13.5 times the annual revenue
Britain has a larger empire to govern
Reforms are needed
British Empire

King George III

The new king comes to power in 1760
believes the colonies are to be ruled over

Proclamation Line of 1763

prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains
Intended to end violence between the colonists and Native Americans

Sugar Act

War on smuggling (sugar and molasses) - enforcement of the Navigation Act, Vice Admiral Court - a naval court with no jury

Currency Act

Restricted paper money in the colonies

Stamp Act 1765

Tax on printed materials in the colonies.
Internal Tax

External taxes

Taxes on goods imported and exported

Stamp Act resistance

Colonial resistance to the Stamp Act was intense and uniform.
"A right to impose an internal tax… is denied”
Colonial Elites

Virginia Resolve

Anti-Stamp Act resolution, liberty, privileges as being the same as the British people
Passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses
declared allegiance to the king

Meeting of the colonies to unite together

Albany Plan
Stamp Act Congress
1st and 2nd Continental Congress
Continental Army

Stamp Act Congress

Meeting of the colonies to send a united petition - Declaration of Rights and Grievances

Declaration of Rights and Grievances

Declared allegiance to the king and all due subordination to Parliament
reasserted the idea that colonists were entitled to the same rights as Britons

Economic Resistance

Colonists boycotted British goods

Popular Protest

More violent, more intimidating
Tax collectors were scared to collect money

Sons of Liberty

Anti-British organization in Boston

No taxation without representation

New slogan/war cry for the colonists

Virtual Representation

The political theory that a class of persons is represented in a lawmaking body without direct vote.

Stamp Act Repeal

Parliament agreed to remove the Stamp Act.
Colonists celebrate

Declaratory Act (1766)

Passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed, it declared that Parliament had the power to tax the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."

American Board of Customs Commissioners

enforce customs law and collect taxes
to catch smugglers
Revenues from customs seizures would be used to pay customs officers and other royal officials, including the governors
Increased the presence of British officers

Townshed Acts 1767

Taxed paper, lead, paint, and tea.
External tax
Strengthened formal mechanisms to force compliance
Not the same outrage

Homespun Movement

Response to the boycott of British goods

brought the colonists together

The woman spun clothes instead of buying British-made clothes

Committees of Correspondence

An unofficial communication network between the colonies to keep others informed of the resistance efforts

Boston Massacre

British troops were sent to Boston to keep order
British troops fired into a chaotic and hostile crowd, killing five colonists

Crispus Attucks

Former slave and Dockwarmer killed at the Boston Massacre

Repeal

Repeal all taxes that were a part of the Townshend Acts except tea

Committees of Inspection

Montiered merchants and residents to make sure no one broke the agreements
offenders would be shamed

nonimportation agreements

Refusal to import British goods
Upwards of 200 principal merchants agreed

nonconsumption agreements

Refusal to buy and consume British goods
British goods were seen as tyrannical

nonimportation and nonconsumption agreements

Helped forge cultural unity and changed the colonists' cultural relationship with Britain

Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson

Publicly argued for submission for the Stamp Act
His home and belongings were destroyed

John Dickinson

Wrote "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania"
"That we may legally be bound to pay any general duties on these commodities, relative to the regulation of trade, is granted; but we being obliged by her laws to take them from Great Britain, any special duties imposed on their exportation to us only, with intention to raise a revenue from us only, are as much taxes upon us, as those imposed by the Stamp Act."
what would stop the British from imposing ever more and greater taxes on the colonists?

East India Company

was going Bankrupt
Parliament passed the Tea act and Regulating act to save it
Had a stockpile of tea - 15 million pounds of tea

Regulating act

Put the East India Company under British Government control

Tea Act

Required colonists to buy tea from the east India company
Price of tea went down
Colonists would indirectly pay the tea tax
upset the colonists

Boston tea party

When the tea arrived, the Bostonians prevented the ships from unloading
Rather than unload and pay a tax the dumped the tea into the harbor
343 crates of tea

Tea Parties

Inspired by the Boston tea party tea was either dumped or seized

Ladies of Edenton

Fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina, signed an agreement in which they promised "to do every Thing as far as lies in our Power" to support the boycotts.

Women could express their political sentiments as consumers and producers. Because women often made decisions regarding household purchases, their participation in consumer boycotts held particular weight

Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

Parliaments response to the tea party
Designed to punish and isolate Massachusetts
Boston Port Act
Massachusetts government act
Administration of Justice Act
Quartering Act

Boston Port Act

Shut down Boston harbor until the tea was paid for
Shut down trade to and from the city

Massachusetts government act

Dismissed the assembly
replaced with a military dictator
under British control

Administration of Justice Act

Soldiers and royal officials charged with a crime are tried in England

Quartering Act

Required colonists to house British soldiers

First Continental Congress, Sept. 5th, 1774

meeting of the colonies to remove the coercive acts from Massachusetts

Declaration of rights and grievances

No taxation without representation

the right to a trail by jury

boycotts

Continental Association

Created by the First Continental Congress, it enforced the non-importation of British goods and the boycott of British goods. It was meant to pressure Britain to repeal the Coercive Acts.

Lexington and Concord, 1775

The first battle in the Revolutionary War (AKA "shot heard round the world") was fought in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775.
British general ordered the siege of all weapons

Minutemen (militia)

Citizen soldiers who could be ready to fight at a minute's notice
Turned up to stop the British force in Lexington

Siege of Boston

American militia surrounded Boston to limit the British ability to resupply their troops.
Approximately twenty thousand colonial militiamen laid siege to Boston, effectively trapping the British
It lasted 11 months and ended with the British withdrawal from the city.

Battle of Bunker Hill

The British attempt to break the siege
British victory - lots of casualties
The British abandoned Boston - never returned
Breeds hill

Second Continental Congress (May 1775)

They organized the Continental Army
met because of the fighting in masssachuseets

Continental Army

The Army was formed in 1775 by the Second Continental Congress and led by General George Washington, a southerner

Olive Branch Petition (July 1775)

Last effort to find peace with Britain
dismissed by parliament
The colonists are misled by dangerous and ill-designed men, who are traitorously preparing, ordering, and levying war against us, for the purpose of establishing an independent empire. - King George III's response

Thomas Paine and Common Sense

A political pamphlet that makes an argument for independence
denounced monarchy
written so that everyone could understand
"There is something absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island."

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775)

The Governor of Virginia, who offered freedom to enslaved men to fight in the British army
Colonists saw it as an attack on slavery
Ethiopian regiment
500-1000 slaves joined

Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson) 1776 July 4th

List of grievances the British Empire has forced on the colonists written by Jefferson edits by John Adams and Ben Franklin outlines founding principles and ideas for what this country should be

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.

Rhicard Henry Lee

Offered the following resolution:
Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

New York

The British captured New York
Washington was defeated and had to retreat

Colonist Advantage

fought on home soil
more moral - fight for independence

Hessians

German soldiers for hire
mercenary - fight for money
tens of thousands
largest expeditionary force in British history,

Loyalists and Patriots

Loyalists - Wanted the British to win
Patriots - Wanted the Americans to win
Neutral - Don't care
almost a civil war with how divided they were

Battle of Trenton

Washington's army surprised the Hessians on Christmas Day by crossing the frozen Delaware River at midnight
Unconventinal
Success boosted morale

Battle of Saratoga

The American victory over the British army in New York
Turning point of the war
Influenced the alliance treaty with France

Benjamin Franklin - France

Ben Franklin was in France trying to get French support. The U.S. victory in Saratoga convinced France to help the U.S.

A Treaty of Amity and Commerce

Treaty of Alliance with France
Turned a colonial rebellion into a global war between Britain and France, which broke out in Europe and India

Philadelphia

Captured by the British

British invasion of the South

The British occupied and terrorized the Southern colonies
exploited the loyalists
enlisted colonists into the British army

Yorktown

Washington and the French army coordinated a trap for the British army. The
British army surrendered
last battle of the Revolutionary war

Valley Forge

2,500 Americans died of disease, exposure to disease, and the elements

Woman

Took on traditional male responsibilities
property, business, and spies
thousands of women had been widowed

Black Americans

The chaos of the war provided an opportunity for some enslaved people to escape
Thirty thousand and one hundred thousand slaves deserted their masters during the war.

Patriots

new country
Bad economy - inflation, I.O.U., No trade/Embargo for 8 yrs

Consequences of the American Revolution

Created new governments and 14 Constitutions - 13 states and 1 national
Increased Political Participation - Democracy
Legalized religious toleration
open western settlement - Abolished the Proclamation line
New economic opportunities

State Constitutions

All written, popular sovereignty
by the people for the people
weak governors and strong congressmen

Virginia Constitution

had a Bill of Rights - contains the powers of the government

Pennsylvania Constitution

Most radical - one unicameral congress with no governor
All free men could vote; no property was required

Massachusetts Constitution

Balanced - Branches: Executive, Legislative, Judicial

Articles of Confederation

- First national Government in U.S. history - 1st Constitution
1 Congress in each state had one vote (13 votes)
No power: to tax, regulate the economy, no federal judicial, no executive, no conscription
failed - too weak
Fear of centralized power

Women

excluded from voting and holding office
not much change

Republicain motherhood

Women serve the new nation as mothers to raise and educate the next generation of patriots