American Revolution

North American colonies fight for independence.

Introduction

Many North American colonists had left Europe to escape religious persecution or debts or to find work. Settlers came from England, Scotland, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Ireland.

Of course, not all immigrants came willingly. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, millions of Africans were forced on to ships and transported to North America as slaves.

Life in the colonies was different from life in Europe. Colonists were proud to be independent farmers, artisans and merchants. They depended on themselves and on their own hard work and ambition. In the newly settled lands of North America, inherited privileges had little meaning.

The American Revolution (1754–1781)

 Causes of the Revolution:

 Ø Mercantilism

Mercantilism was an economic theory predominant in the 1700s that stipulated that nations should amass wealth in order to increase their power. Under mercantilism, the European powers sought new colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia because they wanted sources of cheap natural resources such as gold, cotton, timber, tobacco, sugarcane, and furs. They shipped these materials back to Europe and converted them into manufactured goods, which they resold to the colonists at high prices.

Ø French and Indian War

By the early 18th Century, the colonies had begun to expand westward. This expansion eventually brought them into conflict with French settlers, who were moving south from Canada along the Ohio River.  TheBritish wanted to take over French land in North America, as they were interested in taking over the fur trade in the French held territory.

This war was fought between the years 1754 and 1763. It was called the French and Indian War because the Indians (Native Americans) helped the French in the war against the British. They had nothing to los: the British were taking their land, the French were not.  In Europe, it was known as the Seven Years War.

In 1763, England defeated France, and Canada became an English possession. The wae in North America was won largely with English troops and ships, and was paid for with English taxes. The English government, thus, had high expenses and large debts and decided that the increasingly prosperous colonies should share the costs of war and administration. England began to enforce old laws more strictly and to pass new laws to raise colonial taxes.

ØThe Proclamation of 1763

Signed by King George III of England, The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited any English settlement west of the Appalachian mountains and required those already settled in those regions to return east in an attempt to ease tensions with Native Americans.  While Britain did not intend to harm the colonists, many colonists took offense at this order.

Ø Acts of Parliament

1764 - Sugar Act:

This act put a three-cent tax on foreign refined sugar and increased taxes on coffee, indigo, and certain kinds of wine. It banned importation of rum and French wines. These taxes affected only a certain part of the population, but the affected merchants were very vocal. Besides, the taxes were enacted (or raised) without the consent of the colonists. This was one of the first instances in which colonists wanted a say in how much they were taxed.

1764 - Currency Act

Parliament argued that colonial currency had caused a harmful devaluation to British trade. They banned American assemblies from issuing paper bills or bills of credit.

1765 - Quartering Act

The Quartering Act was established on March 24, 1765. The King sent lots of British troops to Boston. The colonists had to house and feed the British troops. If the colonists didn't do this for the British troops, they would get shot.

The act was particularly resented in New York, where the largest number of reserves was quartered, and outward defiance led directly to the Suspending Act as part of the Townshend legislation of 1767. After considerable tumult, the Quartering Act was allowed to expire in 1770. An additional quartering stipulation was included in the Intolerable Acts of 1774. 

1765 - Stamp Act

In March, the Stamp Act was passed by the English Parliament imposing the first direct tax on the American colonies, to offset the high costs of the British military organization in America. Thus for the first time in the 150 year old history of the British colonies in America, the Americans will pay tax not to their own local legislatures in America, but directly to England.

Under the Stamp Act, all printed materials were taxed, including; newspapers, pamphlets, bills, legal documents, licenses, almanacs, dice and playing cards. The American colonists quickly united in opposition, led by the most influential segments of colonial society - lawyers, publishers, land owners, ship builders and merchants - who were most affected by the Act, which was scheduled to go into effect on November 1.

In July, the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization opposed to the Stamp Act, was formed in a number of colonial towns. Its members used violence and intimidation to eventually force all of the British stamp agents to resign and also stop many American merchants from ordering British trade goods.

1767 - Townshend Acts

Series of 1767 laws named for Charles Townshend, British Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasurer). These laws placed new taxes on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. Colonial reaction to these taxes was the same as to the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, and Britain eventually repealed all the taxes except the one on tea.Smugglers increased their activities to avoid the tax leading to more troops in Boston.

In the same series of acts, Britain passed the Suspension Act, which suspended the New York assembly for not enforcing the Quartering Act.

To prevent violent protests, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson requested assistance from the British army, and in 1768, four thousand redcoats landed in the city to help maintain order. Nevertheless, on March 5, 1770, an angry mob clashed with several British troops. A group of men started antagonizing British troops. Someone yelled “fire” and the Red Coats (what the British soldiers were called) shot.

Five colonists were killed. These were the first Americans killed in the War for Independence. News of the Boston Massacre quickly spread throughout the colonies.

1773 - Tea Act

In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, granting the financially troubled British East India Company a trade monopoly on the tea exported to the American colonies. In many American cities, tea agents resigned or cancelled orders, and merchants refused consignments in response to the unpopular act. Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts, determined to uphold the law, ordered that three ships arriving in Boston harbour should be allowed to deposit their cargoes and that appropriate payments should be made for the goods. On the night of December 16, 1773, while the ships lingered in the harbour, sixty men boarded the ships, disguised as Native Americans, and dumped the entire shipment of tea into the harbour. That event is now famously known as the Boston Tea Party.

1774 - Intolerable Acts

The Intolerable Acts were laws that were really punishments that King George III put on the colonies. He did this to the Colonists because he wanted to punish them for dumping tea into the harbour at the Boston Tea Party. The Quakers petitioned King George to repeal or end the acts, but he said that the colonies must submit to these English laws.

These were the Intolerable Acts:

• The Boston Port Bill became effective on June 1, 1774. The King closed Boston Harbour to everything but British ships.

• The Quartering Act was established on March 24, 1765. The King sent lots of British troops to Boston. The colonists had to house and feed the British troops. If the colonists didn't do this for the British troops, they would get shot.

• The Administration of Justice Act became effective May 20, 1774. British Officials could not be tried in colonial courts for crimes. They would be taken back to Britain and have a trial there. That left the British free to do whatever they wanted in the colonies and to the Colonists.

• Massachusetts Government Act became effective on May 20, 1774. The British Governor was in charge of all the town meetings in Boston. There would no more self-government in Boston.

• The Quebec Act was established on May 20, 1774. This bill extended the Canadian borders to cut off the western colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia.

 Ø First Continental Congress (1774)

To protest the Intolerable Acts, prominent colonials gathered in Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress in autumn of 1774. They once again petitioned Parliament, King George III, and the British people to repeal the acts and restore friendly relations. For additional motivation, they also decided to institute a boycott, or ban, of all British goods in the colonies. Militias (citizen soldiers) were set up.

Ø Lexington and Concord (1775)

On April 19, 1775, part of the British occupation force in Boston marched to the nearby town of Concord, Massachusetts, to seize a colonial militia arsenal. Militiamen of Lexington and Concord intercepted them and attacked. The first shot—the so-called “shot heard round the world” made famous by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson—was one of many that hounded the British and forced them to retreat to Boston. Thousands of militiamen from nearby colonies flocked to Boston to assist.

 Ø Second Continental Congress (1775)

In the meantime, leaders convened the Second Continental Congress to discuss options. In one final attempt for peaceful reconciliation, the Olive Branch Petition, they professed their love and loyalty to King George III and begged him to address their grievances. The king rejected the petition and formally declared that the colonies were in a state of rebellion.

The Second Continental Congress chose George Washington, a southerner, to command the militiamen besieging Boston in the north. They also appropriated money for a small navy and for transforming the undisciplined militias into the professional Continental Army. Encouraged by a strong colonial campaign in which the British scored only narrow victories (such as at Bunker Hill), many colonists began to advocate total independence as opposed to having full rights within the British Empire.

Ø Common Sense

Common Sense was written by Thomas Paine and published in January of 1776. This document was one of many revolutionary pamphlets that was famous during that time. It advocated complete independence of Britain and it followed the natural rights philosophy of John Locke, justifying independence as the will of the people and revolution as a device for bring happiness. These words inspired the colonists and prepared them for the Declaration of Independence, although the thoughts were not original.

Benjamin Rush, the Philadelphia physician, encouraged Paine, while Paine was writing the pamphlet. Rush read the manuscript, secured the criticism of Benjamin Franklin, suggested the Title, and arranged for its anonymous publication by Robert Bell of Philadelphia. Common Sense was an immediate success. Paine estimated that not less than one hundred thousand copies were run off, and he bragged that the pamphlet's popularity was beyond anything since the invention of printing. Everywhere it aroused discussion about monarchy, the origin of government, English constitution ideas, and independence.

He challenged the idea that democracy is the best form of government:

"The demagogues to seduce the people into their criminal designs ever hold up democracy to them.... If we examine the republics of Greece and Rome, we ever find them in a state of war domestic or foreign.... Apian's history of the civil wars of Rome, contains the most frightful picture of massacres.... that ever were presented to the world."

And he reminded readers of all that Britain had done for them:

"The people of England, encouraged by the extension of their laws and commerce to those colonies, powerfully assisted our merchants and planters, insomuch that our settlements increased rapidly.... It may be affirmed, that from this period, until the present unhappy hour; no part of human kind, ever experienced more perfect felicity. Voltaire indeed says that if ever the Golden Age existed, it was in Pennsylvania."

The Declaration of Independence

Finally, on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress declared the 13 American colonies to be the independent United States of America. The Declaration of Independence claimed that the English King, George III, had harmed his American subjects in a dozen of ways: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” The declaration went on to state that any nation, when treated so unjustly, has the right to make itself free and to create a new government.

Thomas Jefferson, a young lawyer from Virginia, drafted the Declaration of Independence. Arguments were based on John Locke's contract theory of government:

a) All people have natural rights ("Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness")

b) When a government abuses rights, the people have a right to "alter or abolish" it

c) King George has acted tyrannically. Long list of wrongs done by King to colonists.

d) The colonies are independent The United States was born.