us history unit 1 - american independence

New England Colonies (MA, NH, CT, RI)

Rocky soil, harsh winters; shipbuilding, fishing, whaling, trade; Puritan; town meetings

Middle Colonies (NY, NJ, PA, DE)

Fertile soil; the 'Breadbasket' (wheat, rye, barley); diverse, religiously tolerant; Quakers and William Penn

Southern Colonies (MD, VA, NC, SC, GA)

Warm climate; plantations growing tobacco, rice, indigo; wealthy planter elite; enslaved Africans over 40% of population

Salutary neglect

British policy (1689-1763) of loosely enforcing trade laws, giving colonies lots of self-government

Mercantilism

Theory that wealth is limited and a nation gains power by exporting more than it imports; colonies supply raw materials and buy British goods

Navigation Acts

Laws (1651-1733) forcing colonial trade to benefit England, e.g. trade on English ships and certain goods only to England

Triangular Trade

Europe to West Africa (goods for captives), Middle Passage to the Americas, then raw materials back to Europe

Magna Carta (1215)

Limited the king's power by law; guaranteed due process and trial by jury

English Bill of Rights (1689)

Parliament over the king; no taxes without Parliament's consent; no cruel and unusual punishment

John Locke

Natural rights (life, liberty, property); social contract; people can overthrow a government that violates their rights

Montesquieu

Separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial) to prevent tyranny

Great Awakening

1730s-40s religious revival (Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield) that challenged established authority and increased religious diversity

French and Indian War (1754-1763)

North American part of the Seven Years' War; Britain beat France and gained land east of the Mississippi (Treaty of Paris 1763)

Why Britain taxed the colonies after 1763

War doubled British debt, and Britain wanted colonists to help pay to keep 10,000 troops on the frontier

Sugar Act (1764)

Duties on foreign sugar, molasses, and other goods to raise revenue

Stamp Act (1765)

Tax on printed paper (documents, newspapers, licenses, playing cards); first major direct internal tax; repealed 1766

Quartering Act (1765)

Colonies had to house and supply British troops

Townshend Acts (1767)

Import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea; money paid royal governors, so they didn't depend on assemblies

Declaratory Act (1766)

Passed when the Stamp Act was repealed; Parliament claimed power to make laws for the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever'

No taxation without representation

Colonial argument that only their own elected representatives could tax them, and they had none in Parliament

Stamp Act resistance

Boycotts, pamphlets (Dickinson, Bland, Thacher), Sons and Daughters of Liberty, and mobs forcing stamp distributors to resign

Daughters of Liberty

Women who boycotted British goods and made homespun cloth and herbal tea instead

Boycott / non-importation

Colonists refusing to buy British goods to pressure Parliament

Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)*

British soldiers fired into a Boston crowd and killed five colonists (including Crispus Attucks)

Paul Revere's Boston Massacre engraving*

Propaganda: shows soldiers firing in an orderly line at a peaceful crowd to stir anger at the British

Tea Act and Boston Tea Party (1773)*

Colonists dumped British tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act

Intolerable (Coercive) Acts (1774)*

Britain's punishment for the Tea Party: closed Boston Harbor and limited Massachusetts self-government

Lexington and Concord (April 1775)*

First battles of the Revolutionary War

Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)

Adopted by the Second Continental Congress; written mainly by Thomas Jefferson

Four ideas in the Declaration

Equality; unalienable rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness); government by consent of the governed; right to alter or abolish a bad government

Declaration of Independence: grievances

List of complaints against King George III, such as taxes without consent, quartering troops, dissolving assemblies, cutting off trade

Treaty of Paris (1783)*

Ended the Revolutionary War; Britain recognized U.S. independence