US1 MR. LIPMAN

CHAPTER FOURTHE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The Tax Uproar

• 1764 - the Sugar Act– Passed by Parliament to raise tax revenue from

colonies– Increased duty on imported molasses from West

Indies – Duties lowered after bitter colonial protests

• 1765 – Quartering Act– Required some colonies to provide food and living

quarters for British troops

• 1765 – Stamp Act– Stamps certify payment of the tax {direct tax}

– Required on bills of sale and on certain commercial and legal documents

• British saw tax as reasonable - Americans to pay fair share of their own defence, through taxes already familiar to British – British citizens had paid a higher stamp tax for 2

generations

Tax Stamps

• Violent colonial protests against the Stamp Act

– Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty groups were formed to protest

– Mobs ransacked houses of British officials and hanged effigies of stamp agents

Tar and Feathers and the Threat of Hanging Used During a Stamp Act Protest

Paying the

Excise (Tax) Man

• 1765 – Stamp agents forced to resign – No one to sell the stamps meant the Stamp Act

had been nullified by colonists

• English were hard-hit by boycotts

– PARLIMENT REPEALS STAMP TAX ACT IN 1766 but also passed the Declaratory Act at the same time

• 1767 – Townshend Acts passed

– Named after Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer

– Import duties on glass, white lead, paper, paint, tea

– Colonists had objected to Stamp Act because it was an internal (direct) tax

– Townshend duties were external (indirect) taxes (paid by the shippers of the goods, not by the consumers)

March 5, 1770 the Boston Massacre took place

– Towns people threw snowballs at redcoats • Angry over killing of 11-year-old boy 10 days

earlier during a protest

• Also angry that part time work being done by British soldiers costing colonists their chance for additional income

– Troops fired and killed 5 and wounded 6 • Crispus Attucks was first to die

– At trial, only 2 were found guilty of manslaughter; they were branded on the hand and released

• 1773 – British East India Company facing bankruptcy

– If it failed, Britain would lose tax revenue

– Britain gives company a monopoly to sell tea in America meaning cheaper tea for America

(even with the tax)

– Americans believed government trying to tax them by tricking them and “tea parties” are organized with largest one in Boston

Boston Tea Party: 1773

• 1774 – Parliament passed laws to punish Boston for the tea party

– Known as the Coercive Acts in Britain, but labelled the Intolerable Acts in America

– Closed Boston Harbor until tea was paid for

– British officials who killed colonist in line of duty would be tried in Britain, not America, and this angers the colonists

Boston After the Coercive

Acts

• Fall 1774 – First Continental Congress called as a response to the Intolerable Acts

– Meet in Philadelphia

– 12 of 13 colonies go to the meeting (Georgia absent)

– John Adams and Patrick Henry, among others, begin to argue that independence might be the only recourse

Lexington and Concord, April 1775

• July 1775 – Olive Branch Petition sent by 2nd Continental Congress

– Symbol of peace

– Americans professed loyalty to crown and asked for an end of fighting

– After Bunker Hill, the London government refused to consider peace

• January 1776 – Common Sense is published– Written by Thomas Paine, who had just come

from England 1 year earlier

– Widely circulated

– Called separation “common sense”

– “Nowhere in the heavens did a smaller body (like Britain) control a larger body (like America)”

• Jefferson writes Declaration as part of committee of 5

• Abigail Adams wants women’s rights included but they are not

• Argument for freedom of slaves is dropped

• Formally adopted on July 4th, 1776

• Loyalists (“Tories”) – People in America loyal to the crown

• Patriots (“Whigs”)– People who fought for the revolution

Revolution only supported by a minority of the population; many colonists stayed neutral

Campaigns for New York and New Jersey

• Fall of 1777, the British lose at Saratoga

- Burgoyne surrenders to American General Horatio Gates after being bogged down in the mud

• The importance of Saratoga, N.Y.– Known as the turning point of the war – France enters the war on the side of the

Americans - now believes America could win (before were hedging their bets)

• June 1778 – Monmouth (New Jersey) – Washington attacked British troops retreating

from Philadelphia back to New York

– Extreme heat led to many soldiers collapsing

– Battle was indecisive, but Molly Pitcher becomes famous

Value of Continental Currency Drops 1777 – 1781 Due to Inflation

• Treaty of Paris of 1783 ( What US Gets)

– Britain recognized the independence of the US

– Generous boundaries were granted to the US • Mississippi to west; Great Lakes to north • To Spanish Florida (recently captured from British

by Spain) to south

America After the Treaty of Paris

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