The American Revolution

U.S. History to 1877

Reorganizing Empire

Tightening mercantilism

Molasses Act, 1733

6p tax on French molasses, for trade regulation

Lord Grenville’s Sugar Act, 1764

3p tax on French molasses, for revenue

Tried in Admiralty Courts in Nova Scotia

Stamp Act, 1765

Admiralty Courts to try offenders

Outrage & riots

Sons of Liberty groups

Declaration of Independence

Grievance 17: "For imposing taxes on us without our consent."

Grievance 10: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.“

Grievance 18: "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial."

Conflict in the Empire

Stamp Act Congress

Declaration of Rights and Grievances

Constitutional arguments

Taxation without representation

“Virtual” representation

Parliament: Repeal & Declaratory Act

Power to “bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever”

Troops quietly moved from frontier to cities

Rising tension

Townshend Acts, 1767, & the Quartering Act

“External tax” on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea

Revenue used to pay salaries of governors, judges

Enforcement: admiralty courts;  customs commissioners

Boston Massacre, 1770

Lord North’s tea tax

Tea Act, 1773

Boston Tea Party

Declaration of Independence

Grievance 11: "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures."

Grievance 14: "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us."

Intolerable Acts

Coercive Acts, 1774

Close Boston port until the tea is paid for

All Massachusetts officials appointed; town meetings limited

British officials could be tried only in Britain

Governors could quarter soldiers without assembly’s approval

Quebec Act, 1774

General Gage made governor of Massachusetts

First Continental Congress

Committees of correspondence

Boycott

Declaration of Rights, 1774

Declaration of Independence

Grievance 4: "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."

Grievance 5: "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.“

Grievance 9: "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.“

Grievance 12: "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.“

Grievance 20: "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.“

Grievance 21:  "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments."

Years of Crisis: 1775

New England Restraining Act

General Gage

Lexington & Concord

Years of Crisis: 1775

“Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms”

Bunker Hill

George Washington takes charge

Virginia Gov. Dunmore: freedom to slaves

Years of Crisis: 1776

Olive Branch Petition

George III declares colonies in rebellion

Tom Paine’s Common Sense

Hessians!

July 4: Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Grievance 16: "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.“

Grievance 23: "He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.“

Grievance 24: "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.“

Grievance 25: "He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.“

Grievance 27: "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."

Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Declaration of Independence

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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Declaration of Independence

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Revolution begins

Dilemma: Continental Army

“Virtuous” militias better in theory than in battle

Standing army of hired troops

The Revolution, 1776-1779

Long Island defeat, 1776

Tom Paine, The Crisis

“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

Trenton and Princeton

Howe & Burgoyne attack 1777

Turning point: Saratoga, 1777

Valley Forge, 1777-78

The Revolution, 1780-1781

Southern strategy

Lord Cornwallis

Yorktown

Treaty of Paris
1783