MERCANTILISM & THE CAUSES OF THE

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONAmerica’s History Ch. 5

- AUTHOR- PLACE & TIME

- PRIOR KNOWLEDGE- AUDIENCE- REASON- THE MAIN IDEA- SIGNIFICANCE

• I. Mercantilism – a nation’s power depends on its wealth

• More exports than imports

• Colonies produce agricultural goods & raw materials & buy manufactures

• GB pursued policies that subsidized (funding) & charters to stimulate manufacturing & foreign trade

• Ex: East India Tea Company; Royal African Company

• Lords of Trade (1621) created to promote colonial trade & plantations

• 1624, makes Virginia a Royal Colony

• 1686, approves the Dominion of New England

• II. Navigation Acts

• 1651 –Prevented French & Dutch from using American Ports

• Ships had to be owned by GB or American colonial merchants

• 1660 –Colonists export sugar & molasses only to GB

• 1663 –All imports to the colonies must pass through GB first

• Vice-Admiralty Courts established to punish violators

• Seldom enforced in the colonies

• Naval Warfare

• Attacked Dutch ships & forts in West Africa

• 1664 –drove Dutch out of New Amsterdam

• Rise of Merchant Shipping

• The amount of tonnage shipped b/w the colonies & GB double b/w 1640 - 1690

AP PARTS• By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

• The foe long since in silence slept;Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;And Time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward creeps.

• On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day a votive stone;That memory may their deed redeem,When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

• Spirit, that made those heroes dareTo die, and leave their children free,Bid Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and thee.

EFFECTS OF THE F&I WAR

• IV. Salutary Neglect ends -1763

• replaced by imperial administration

• More than 10,000 troops left in the colonies after F&I war

• ‘To secure the dependence of the colonies on GB’

• GB comes to terms with the fact that Royal governors often had less power than colonial assemblies

• many assemblies paid the governor’s salary

• Assemblies often decided whether or not to call out the militia

• Bureaucracy doubles (to administer new empire)

• GB debt climbs from 75 million to 133 million

• Debt is 60% of national budget

V. Legislation

• Revenue Act, 1762 –enforces trade duties

• Currency Act, 1764

• Paper money no longer legal tender; only gold or silver accepted

• Sugar Act, 1764

• Customs duty added to French molasses

• Custom enforcement tightened

• Vice-admiralty courts in the colonies for smugglers –no jury trials

VI. COLONIAL REACTION TO UNJUST AUTHORITY (SCOTS-IRISH)

• Regulator Movement, 1766-1771

• NC farmers in debt due to falling Tobacco prices

• Merchants & other creditors used courts to confiscate property

• Mobs of farmers attacked judges, closed courts

• Asked for lower property taxes

• Gov. Tryon refused; Used eastern NC militia & British soldiers to defeat Regulators

• Paxton Boys,1763

• Non-Quakers want Natives expelled, Quaker controlled gov’t refuses

• Western PA farmers attack peaceful Conestoga tribe & march towards Philadelphia declaring to burn it

• Ben Franklin negotiates truce

• Failed to be brought to justice due to lack of witness

• VII. Political Factions

• Tories –Typically members of the House of Lords

• Pro-Empire; expansion of government

• Whigs –Typically members of the House of Commons

• Republican ideals; sympathy w/Commonwealth, Puritan gov’t (Oliver Cromwell)

• Anti-empire (too expensive)

• *Typically the faction out of power

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

• VIII. Stamp Act , 1765 -tax on printed items (documents, newspapers, cards)

• Purpose

• To raise $ to support the army in the Americas

• Similar to one in England

• Lack of Success

• The Mob; urban resistance

• Boycott –Sons & Daughters of Liberty

• Stamp Act Congress, NYC, 1765

• Letter of grievances

• Eventually Repealed

• IX. ‘No taxation, without representation’

• Declaratory Act, 1766 –Parliament has the authority to pass any law of regulation on trade on the colonies

• Townshend Acts, 1766

• Tax paper, paint, tea, glass

• Restraining Act –limited colonial legislatures

• Purpose

• Pay the salaries of royal officials in the colonies (governors, no longer controlled by colonial legislatures

• Resistance

• Raised revenue, instead of regulated trade

• Colonists argued that taxing to raise revenue, should only be done if the people are represented in the decision

• Boycott hurt British merchants

• Boston Massacre, 1770

• –repealed in 1770, except tea tax

• X. From Englishmen to Americans (1770 – 1775)

• Committees of Correspondence, 1772

• ‘to state the rights of English men’

• Organizer Samuel Adams (Boston chapter, led to 80 more in MA w/in a year –spread to SC within a year)

• Attack of the Gaspee, 1772 – British Customs ship destroyed off the coast of RI

• Tea Act, 1773

• East India Tea Co. gets a monopoly of tea

• Lowers prices –makes ‘English’ tea cheap, even w/ new tax

• Boston Tea Party, 1773

• Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, 1774

• Boston Port Bill

• Quartering Act

• Justice Act

• Quebec Act* Catholicism allowed in former French territory

• 1st Continental Congress, 1774

• 12 colonies

• Asked for redress & removal of Coercive Acts

• King George III unresponsive

• Battle of Lexington & Concord, April 1775

• Rural farmers come to support the cause later

• Begin hiding guns, powder from British troops

• Train ‘minutemen’

• 2nd Continental Congress

• Olive Branch Petition, Summer 1775

• Attempt to make peace after the hostilities

• George III refuses to read document

• By July 1776 produces the Declaration of Independence