1. The Enlightenment and the
Beginning of the American
Revolution

2. How to pay for the Seven Years
War?
 The British had spent a great deal of money
fighting the French.
 The war began in the American Colonies and the
British blamed them for it. They began pushing
for the Americans to pay back for the war.
 Also, the British had made an agreement with the
Indians to keep the Americans out of Indian
territories.
 The Americans wanted the freedom to go where
they wanted to go, regardless of what the British
said.
 The colonists wanted the British to keep them
safe from the Indians.

3. How to raise the money
 King George III and Parliament raised taxes on
the colonies to pay for:
 War debts
 Protection from the Indians
 Colonists weren’t happy though because they
had no say in Parliament. “No taxation without
representation!”

4. Colonists’ response and the “Boston
Massacre”
 The colonists began
protesting.
 One day, a collection
of protesters began
throwing snowballs
(and some say rocks
and sticks) at British
soldiers.
 Something happened
(no one knows) and
the British fired on the
people. Five people
died.

5. Boston Tea Party
 After the “massacre,” the British began tightening
down on the Boston.
 Taxes increased. Soldiers were in control of the
city.
 A group of colonists called the Sons of Liberty
disguised themselves as Indians and began
throwing British tea in the sea.

6. And the Enlightenment?
 Colonists became
interested in the
Enlightenment.
 Locke taught everyone
had a right to life,
liberty, and property.
This greatly influenced
Thomas Jefferson.
 He also taught that a
government that
tramples these rights
should be replaced.

7. The end of the beginning
 The colonists wrote a letter to the king asking for
rights and freedoms. This was called the “Olive
Branch Petition.”
 The king ignored this.
 At that point, Thomas Jefferson and several
others were tasked with writing a “Declaration of
Independence.”
 It borrowed many of Locke’s ideas (specifically:

8. Jefferson, Franklin, and the
Enlightenment
 Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, two of
the authors of the Declaration of Independence,
spent a great deal of time in France learning from
the Enlightenment philosophers.