Moving toward revolution

1. US History 11 – CHEE
Lecture 4 – Moving Toward Revolution
1750-1776
13 British Colonies in
America – 1763
Why were they ready
to revolt?

2. Thirteen Colonies
1. New Hampshire
2. Massachusetts
3. Rhode Island
4. Conneticut
5. New York
6. Pennsylvania
7. New Jersey
8. Delaware
9. Maryland
10. Virginia
11. North Carolina
12. South Carolina
13. Georgia

3. Conflict on the Frontier
Political and Social Tensions
Land Rioters and Demands for Rights
Wars Between France & England
Seven Years’ War
Role of Native Americans
Sugar, Currency, Stamp, and Tea
Declaratory Act/Intolerable Acts
Regulators – Farmers
Thomas Paine & Common Sense
Confederation
Native Americans & the Revolution
Revolutionary War
African Americans, Women

4. Wars between Protestant England and
Catholic France & Spain over the interior
o England attacks France four times in North
America
o 1689-1697
o 1702-1713 aka Queen Anne’s War (War of the
Spanish Succession)
o 1744-48 King George’s War

5. European Claims in
North America, c. 1750
Native Americans played
off the European powers
against each other
British-French claims,
including Ohio
British colonial population
1700 - 250K
1750 - 1.25 million
1775 – 2.5 million (European
melting pot), with 500K Black

6. Join, or Die – 1754 Pennsylvania Gazette

7. The Face of an American?
Portrait of George
Robert Twelves
Hewes, 93 years, a
shoemaker born in
Boston in 1742.
George Cole. The
Centenarian. 1835

8. French and Indian War, 1754-1763
aka Seven Years’ War
o First global war – very
expensive
o Settlers pushing West – fur
traders, land speculators,
farmers
o Virginians shot the French
(Ohio Valley)
o British with Iroquois allies
beat the French!
o Opened more Native
American land to British
colonial settlement
o 1755- French Acadian
relocation

9. Native American involvement
o 1754 – French had half of the
troops that the British had,
and won – mostly because of
Native American allies
o 1758+ British started to win –
because of Iroquois &
Cherokee assistance & other
nations switched alliances
from the French to the British
o 1759-61 – Cherokee/English
conflicts – Cherokee only
defeated because of smallpox
and lack of ammunition/food.

10. Proclamation Line of 1763 Upset Colonial Settlers
o British North American
victory,
o But French & Spanish
concessions
o Native Americans
allowed to keep
territories

11. The Iroquois Creates a Confederacy to
Contain White Settlement
o a Confederacy of the
Mohawks, Senecas,
Onondagas, Oneidas,
& Cayugas… later
adding the Tuscaroras
& Delewares.
o They play a key role in
containing white
settlement
Hiawatha Wampum Belt

12. Chippewa Chief Minevavana Proclaims
“although you have
conquered the French,
you have not yet
conquered us. These
lakes, these woods and
mountains… are our
inheritance; and we will
part with them to no one.”

13. Three Cherokees in London- 1762 – to meet King
George III regarding Cherokee security
One of Britain’s
staunchest Indian
allies in the Seven
Years’ War
1759 - open warfare
with the British,
because of too many
broken promises
Resulted in Cherokee
decimation.

14. Native
Americans
Lost their most
powerful diplomatic
weapon – ability to
play off rival European
powers against each
other: English, French,
Spanish

15. The French and Indian War
The Consequences of War
o French humiliation - Fall of Quebec & Montreal
o English win, but English national debt doubled, from
75-145 million pounds
o Incredibly expensive! Who pays?
o Economic depression, (some made a killing)
o Paved the road for larger conflict
o Local colonial legislative assemblies with political
power
o New colonial military leadership
o New colonial sense of identity after the war

16. French Catholic Acadians –
first relocation project
o Acadians refused to swear
allegiance to the English king
o 6000 French Catholic
Acadians forced to relocate
throughout the English
colonies
o Now 1 million Cajun (Acadian
mispronounced) people in
Louisiana

17. Domestic Class Conflicts
Over Land in the Mid-
Eighteenth Century
Hudson River Valley –
Large landlords raised rent
to small migrant farmer
tenants
1766 – William
Prendergast led a migrant
tenant insurrection
British troops brought in to
suppress, Prendergast
sentenced, but released,
During the revolution,
bitter farmers fought for
the British

18. Henry Dawkins, The Paxton Expedition, 1764
60 Frontiersmen raided a Christianized Indian village,
murdering 20 Indians in Pennsylvania

19. Henry Dawkins, The Paxton Expedition, 1764
To kill the Paxtonians, they they did Advance
With Guns on their Shoulders, but how did they Prance;
When a troop of Dutch Butchers came to help them to fight,
Some down with their Guns, ran away in a Fright.
Their cannon they drew up to the Court House,
For fear that the Paxtons the Meeting would force,
When the Orator mounted upon the Court Steps
And very Gently the Mob he dismis’d.

20. 13 British
Colonies in
America - 1763
Why were they
ready to revolt?

21. Increased Taxation in 1760s
o Bills from the Seven Years’ War
o Tax burden falls to the colonies
– Sugar Act (1764) 6-3 pence, but more strict
– Currency Act (1765) colonists forbidden to print
money
– Stamp Act (1765) taxes on print documents
– Quartering Act (1765) (Housing British Troops)
– Tea Act (1773)
– Townshend Acts

22. The Colonies Reduced – 1767 - Benjamin Franklin in England warned of
alienating the colonies through the Stamp Act.
(p. 182)

23. Protests Against the Stamp & Townshend Acts
Pennsylvania Journal & Weekly
Advertiser. October 24, 1765
1765 Protest Against the Stamp Act
o magazines
o Boycotts of English products –
non-importation of textiles,
teas…
o Growth of radical “terrorist
groups” like the Sons of
Liberty
o Terrorizing royal officials -
tarring & feathering ,
o razing & burning homes of
tax collectors, mob actions

24. Resistance to the
Stamp Act
1766 – the Act was
repealed.
1784 German pocket almanac,
imagining a Boston crowd burning
stamped papers.

25. Samuel Adams
Not the beer…
Journalist,
politicker,
with deep
labor roots

26. Freedom Fighters? Or Terrorist groups?
Or trained mobs?
o Artisans
o Shopkeepers
o Farmers
o Religious leaders
o Wealthy merchants
Tarred and feathered
British Tax Collectors
Samuel Adams
Sons of Liberty
Boston Radicals

27. The American Colonial Rebellion:
Tarring & Feathering Tax Collectors
The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or
Tarring & Feathering. 1774.
Boston Tea Party in the
background, while Customs
official Malcolm is being tarred
and feathered.

28. Ladies’ Patriotic Guild
Edenton, North
Carolina
1775 British print – mocking
a group of 51 women who
signed the declaration to
boycott British imports.
How does this artist portray
American women?

29. British response?
o Repealed the Stamp Act in 1766
o Passed the Declaratory Act 1766 –
Parliament declared the right to “make
laws and statues..to bind the colonies
and people of America …in all cases
whatsoever.”

30. “Battle of the Golden Hill”
NY Riot – winter 1770
c. 1884 engraving

31. “How Blest is That Interpreter of Laws”

32. Patriot version of
events – Redcoats
murdered 4 Bostonians
Two views of the Boston Massacre
Paul Revere’s plagiarized Patriot
version: The Bloody Massacre. 1770

33. Two views of the Boston Massacre (1770):
Alonzo Chapel. The Boston Massacre, c. 1868
Reality – Bostonians
provoked.& soldiers
panicked
- Not just white men
but Crispus Attucks,
an African-Indian
American sailor
starts the conflict

34. How do news spread
in the colonies?
Drinking houses, hotels like this one
Pine Tree Inn – 1768 sign

35. Tea Act to Continental Resistance
o The Tea Act (1773)
o Decrease in the tea tax, cheaper tea to assist the
near bankrupt British East India Company
o Colonists upset about their smuggled Dutch tea
o Colonial response – “Boston Tea Party” (1774)
in Indian dress
o British response – Coercive or Intolerable
Acts (1774) – occupied Boston & closed ports

36. The American Colonial Rebellion:
Tarring & Feathering Tax Collectors
The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or
Tarring & Feathering. 1774.
Boston Tea Party in the
background, while Customs
official Malcolm is being tarred
and feathered.

37. The Boston Tea Party - 1774
Boston Tea Party – colonists dressed in Native American
costume dumped tea into the Boston harbor to protest the
Tea Act or taxes

38. The Able Doctor or America Swallowing the Bitter
Draught, London Magazine, April 1774
France & Spain
look, Britannia
averts her eyes
in shame
British Prime
Minister Lord
North forcing
tea down
America’s throat

39. Regulators – Farmers & Revolution
Pre-revolutionary
protests from wealthy
farmers became part of a
larger revolutionary
struggle.
1768 & 1771 – NC Governor Tryon sent
troops to suppress, Regulators lost the Battle
of Almanac

40. First Continental Congress
Philadelphia - 1774
Samuel Adams,
John Adams,
George Washington,
Patrick Henry,
John Hancock,
Thomas Jefferson…

41. The Continental Congress or the “Necessary Politicians”
(Britain laughing at colonial demands)

42. Amos Doolittle. The Battle of Lexington (1775)
o British sent troops to Lexington & Concord – April 1775 – to seize colonial
gunpowder
o Paul Revere & other riders warn Lexington
o Shots fired…battle

43. How does this sketch portray the Colonial Perspective?
Unknown artist. The Retreat. (1775 Lexington battle)
Inaccurate picture – colonial fighters – chaotic guerrilla warfare
British evacuates Boston

44. Second Continental Congress - 1775
o Issues the “Declaration of
the Causes and Necessity
of Taking Up Arms”
o prints paper money
o Selects George
Washington
o Authorizes a Continental
army of 20K

45. People Take Sides
o Patriots – mostly in
Virginia & New England
o Tories or Loyalists (pro-
British) – everywhere else
o Virginia slaves run to the
British side because they
promised freedom

46. Virginian legislator
Patrick Henry
“I am not a Virginian,
but an American.”
“Give me liberty, or give
me death.”
1775 famous speech

47. Abigail Adams
Attempt to Include Women in the Revolution
“Remember the Ladies…”
Abigail Adams to husband John
Adams, one of the writers of the
Constitution
“We know better…than to repeal
our masculine systems…”
John Adams responds, despite
the fact that he loved and adored
his wife

48. The Destruction of the Royal Statue
(King George III statue in NY melted for ammunition?)

49. Thomas Paine.
Common Sense. 1776
Very popular - 150,000 copies,
plain language for artisans &
farmers
Ridiculed the idea of a monarchy
Advocated for an independent
America under a Republican
government

50. The Declaration of Independence –
July 4, 1776
Argument to sever ties with
England
“…a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations,
all having in direct object
the establishment of an
absolute Tyranny over
these States… It is their
right, it is their duty, to
throw off such
Government.”

51. The Declaration of Independence –
July 4, 1776
“…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…”

52. John Trumbull. Declaration of Independence, 1817 painting

53. Grace Chee Copyright 2015
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