Lecture 21: The Path to Revolution, 1763-1773

The Path to Revolution, 1763-1773

Introduction

John Adams believed the American Revolution was in the minds of the people between 1760 and 1775, before any bloodshed at Lexington.
The causes of the Revolution only stretched back 15 years before the fighting.
Before 1763, colonists had a shared Anglo-American imperial identity but after the French and Indian war, the relationship soured rapidly.
This lecture examines the imperial relationship from the end of the French and Indian War through 1773.

The Treaty of Paris (1763)

Britain and France ratified the Treaty of Paris in 1763, ending the French and Indian War and confirming British territorial supremacy in the Western Hemisphere.
France lost its mainland empire, including lucrative trading centers Montreal and Quebec which became British territory.
Spain ceded Florida to Britain.
Britain’s North American empire stretched from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico and west to the Mississippi River.

Colonial Celebrations and Identity

American colonists celebrated France’s defeat as they had struggled for control of the continent for over a century.
Ministers preached sermons and writers composed poetry praising the victory.
France was seen as synonymous with tyranny due to its autocratic, Catholic king, contrasting with Britain's Protestant constitutional monarchy.
Victory symbolized the triumph of "Protestant freedom" over "Popish slavery."
Colonists gloried in their British identity, proud to be free, Protestant Englishmen.

Increased Disdain for British Military

Colonists had prolonged contact with the British army during the war which led to disdain for British military officers due to their harsh discipline and snobbish arrogance.
British officers had a low opinion of American military abilities.

The Proclamation Line of 1763

Britain left 10,000 troops in the colonies to protect the borders of her new empire.
The presence of a permanent, standing army was novel, and seen by colonists as a threat to their traditional rights.
Troops stationed along the frontier attempted to enforce the Proclamation Line of 1763, a royal decree prohibiting western settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
The proclamation aimed to promote peace with Native Americans and ordered Anglo-Americans living west of the mountains to leave.

Mounting National Debt

The French and Indian War resulted in a mounting national debt for Britain, costing $£133$ million pounds.
Yearly interest alone consumed sixty percent of Britain’s total annual revenue.
British policy makers argued that Americans should help pay for the war, as it had been incurred in defending the American colonies.
This signaled a major shift in the economic relationship between Britain and the colonies.

Navigation Acts

Britain had long asserted its right to pass laws governing trade, establishing a precedent for regulating trade in the empire.
The Navigation Acts, beginning in 1651, mandated that certain goods could only be sold to British markets. These "enumerated goods" included sugar and tobacco.
The Wool Act (1699) forbade commercial production of colonial wool.
The Hat Act (1732) forbade commercial production of colonial hats.
The Molasses Act (1733) placed a high tax on imported French molasses.
The Iron Act (1750) forbade the commercial production of colonial iron.
These Navigation Acts represented economic protectionism designed to protect and extend England’s markets by regulating trade within the empire.
The Hat Act, protected English industry from colonial competition.

Salutary Neglect

Britain was less successful in enforcing trade regulations and by 1763, smuggling cost Britain $£700,000$ .
Before 1760, England allowed her colonies freedom to develop their own institutions and laws, known as "salutary neglect".
Colonies developed self-representing legislative assemblies that became the center of political power.
By 1760, the colonies valued self-government more than imperial policy.

Increasing Imperial Centralization

In 1763, Britain ended salutary neglect and began to actively legislate for the North American colonies, passing a series of tax acts aimed at increasing colonial revenues.
This redefined the imperial relationship from one based on colonial self-rule to a more centralized model.

The Sugar Act (1764)

The Sugar Act lowered a tax on British molasses to eliminate smuggling of foreign molasses and raised taxes on foreign goods to promote the consumption of English products.
Unlike previous Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act was strictly enforced with customs agents and prosecutions in vice-admiralty courts (military tribunals without juries).
A major vice admiralty tribunal was established in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Prime Minister George Grenville sent warships to enforce the Sugar Act and colonists would go to jail if they didn't pay.

The Stamp Act (1765)

Prime Minister Grenville believed that Parliament had the authority to pass tax laws for the colonies.
The Stamp Act of 1765 was a direct tax on paper, requiring that all sorts of printed material produced in the colonies carry a stamp purchased from authorities.
This tax affected everyone in the colonies and threatened the power of local assemblies.

Colonial Opposition

American lawyers opposed the Stamp Act, arguing that only colonial legislatures could pass colonial taxes.
Daniel Dulaney argued that Parliament couldn't take away the colonists rights.
Patrick Henry introduced resolutions against the Stamp Act in Virginia’s House of Burgesses; saying that all attempts to tax the colony outside of laws passed by its elected legislature, had “a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."
Henry's proposals were considered "violent resolutions."
Other colonial legislatures spoke out against the Stamp Act, including Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut.
Massachusetts said “Your Excellency will acknowledge that there are certain original inherent rights belonging to the people, which the Parliament itself cannot divest them of, consistent with their own constitution; among these is the right of representation in the same body which exercises the power of taxation.”

Street Protests and The Sons of Liberty

Average people protested across colonial America.
Samuel Adams and Ebenezer MacIntosh led Boston’s protests against the Stamp Act.
The Sons of Liberty hung an effigy of stamp distributor Andrew Oliver.
The Sons of Liberty paraded the effigy, marched on Government House, and destroyed a building Oliver planned to use as an office.
They demolished Oliver’s house.
Stamp collectors resigned in response to mob violence.
Eleven days later, the mob ransacked and completely destroyed lieutenant governor Hutchinson’s house.
“Gentlemen of the army, who have seen towns sacked by an enemy, declare they never saw such fury."

Further Resistance

A mob in Newport, Rhode Island ransacked the home of loyalist Martin Howard.
Crowds threatened Benjamin Franklin’s home in Philadelphia.
The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City, including delegates from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina.
Delegates drafted a Declaration of Rights stating that Parliament had no power to tax the colonies.
The Sons of Liberty and the Stamp Act Congress opposed the Stamp Act because it represented taxation without representation and subjected violators to vice admiralty courts.
Colonists considered representative government and trial by jury to be “ancient rights of Englishmen”.
Radical Whig Ideology beliefs resonated, championing the rights of self-government and fought against the corrupting influences of the English bureaucracy.
The political questions of the 1760s went deeper than just representation.
British legislators claimed Americans were represented virtually in the British Parliament. However, Parliament believed that the colonies were dependent upon the mother country and as a result, colonists were subject to the authority of Parliament.

Repeal of the Stamp Act

By December 1765, no stamps had been purchased or used in the colonies.
Lord Rockingham, repealed the tax, worried about the impact continued colonial resistance would have on the imperial economy.
Parliament passed the Declaratory Act in 1766, declaring that Parliament had the power to pass laws "for the colonies and people of America . . . in all cases whatever."

The Townshend Duties (1767)

Parliament passed the Townshend Duties, that did not tax goods at the point of sale (as in the stamp tax) but at the point of importation (as in the Navigation Acts).
These taxes targeted select items: paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea.
Customs agents collected the tax and violators faced prosecution before vice-admiralty courts without juries.

Colonial Response to the Townshend Duties

Massachusetts took the lead in protesting the Townshend Duties.
Massachusetts towns called for the non-importation of British goods.
Samuel Adams initiated a circular letter to other colonial legislatures urging them to oppose the new taxes.
Non-importation focused on male merchants, non-consumption focused on the individual buyers of British imports.
Women signed communal pledges not to purchase British goods until the taxes were lifted, and were dubbed, “Daughters of Liberty”.
Hannah Griffiths described women’s role in non-consumption by noting, For the sake of Freedom’s name (Since British wisdom scorns repealing) Come, sacrifice to Patriot fame And give up tea, by way of healing.
John Dickinson published Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, that argued that any form of taxation without consent was illegal.
Dickinson maintained that the Townshend Duties demonstrated the “system of oppression” and the “tyrannical designs” of a British government out to crush the ancient rights of Englishmen.

Fears of Corruption and Conspiracy

The idea that a corrupt British government was actively conspiring to deprive Americans of their liberties was a central tenet of the Radical Whig ideology fueling colonial protests.
Patriots lambasted corrupt politicians in England and turned their sites on colonial governors who remained loyal to the king.
Mercy Otis Warren’s 1773 play the Adulateur featured an attack against Governor Thomas Hutchinson.
Patriot writers came to believe that Britain was out to destroy their freedoms and liberties, eventually expressing these fears by equating them with slavery.
Colonists benefited enormously from British economic and political policies; Britain, after all, protected the thirteen colonies from the threat of French invasion in the French and Indian War.
The British were simply trying to raise revenue and make the colonies pay their fair share of the costs of empire.
Edmund Burke questioned the colonies actions and asked, “Why is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of [slaves]?”

The Boston Massacre (1770)

The British government sent 2,000 British troops to Boston because colonists were unwilling to pay the Townshend Duties.
The presence of a standing army convinced many Patriots that the British were willing to seize colonial liberties by force.
On March 5, 1770, tensions reached a boiling point when British soldiers fired on civilians.
Paul Revere published an engraving which he called the, “the Bloody Massacre”.
Three men were dead and two were mortally wounded, including Crispus Attucks.
John Adams and Josiah Quincy defended Captain Preston and his men during the trial.
Two of Preston’s men were found guilty of manslaughter but historians state that Boston's sheriff (who was loyal to the crown) packed the jury in the defendants’ favor.

Repeal of the Townshend Duties and The Civil List

Lord North repealed all the Townshend Duties except the tax on tea because he was worried about the effects of American nonimportation and non-consumption on the British economy.
Lord North sought to remove the assemblies’ hold over governors by having them paid directly by the Civil List or the British government’s payroll.
Massachusetts again led the way in protests to a revised Crown policy.
The assembly voted to impeach any judge who took an English salary and juries openly refused to sit with English paid judges.

Committee of Correspondence

In 1772, Samuel Adams devised a permanent Committee of Correspondence for the Boston Sons of Liberty.
This group’s sole responsibility was to share information, and Patriot propaganda, with other like-minded groups of Sons of Liberty throughout the colonies.

The Tea Act (1773)

By 1773 the British East India Company, the British importer of the product, was close to bankruptcy.
Lord North gave the British East India Company a monopoly to sell tea directly to the colonies; in effect, lowering the price of tea and, simultaneously, ensuring it was taxed tea.
Lord North hoped the reduction in cost would make the tax innocuous to American consumers.
The Sons of Liberty mobilized nonimportation and non-consumption agreements and pressured American merchants to stop importing taxed tea.

The Boston Tea Party

Samuel Adams led a mob of men disguised as Native Americans to the ships.
They dumped tea into the harbor, and the event was dubbed the Boston Tea Party.

The Coercive Acts (1774) and the Continental Congress

Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts which Patriots referred to as the “Intolerable Acts."
The punishment of Boston galvanized support for the Patriot Cause throughout the colonies.
Events in Boston prompted the convening of a Continental Congress in September 1774.
Thomas Jefferson wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British Americans that argued that the colonies belonged not to Parliament but to the king.
Jefferson appealed directly to the king in the hopes that he would recognize the damage done to colonist’s innate rights and rectify the situation.

Conclusion

By 1774, many Americans questioned the viability of a continued relationship with Britain.
The fundamental questions that divided colonies and the mother country in 1774 was where does sovereignty lie? Who has the power to tax and who does not? Who are full citizens in the empire?
These questions led to a violent civil war between 1763 and 1773.