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British/Colonists Win French & Indian War
Brits win because:
-they use $8 million
-they have the colonial militia on their side
-larger army and navy
-Iroquois as allies
Their major victories that led the French to surrender:
-Battle of Quebec (1759)
-Battle of Montreal (1760)
-Seizure of Fort Detroit (1761)
After the war:
-Brits blame colonists for war
-Brits start enforcing old laws to tax colonists, to get $$ and pay back debt
-weakness in Brit military
-large troops left in colony to get taxes/enforce laws (end of SALUTARY NEGLECT) -
Proclamation of 1763
Britain:
-didn't want colonists taking over more frontier b/c it could hurt fur trade w/ Natives
-forbid colonists' settlement in the Ohio River Valley (the land that the colonists helped fight to claim in the F&I War)
-unjust and unfair from the colonists' perspectives -
Boston Tea Party
Tea Act (1773)
-tax on tea b/c British East India Co. almost bankrupt
-granted a monopoly; no one but them could sell tea
-Sons of Liberty assembled to protest
The Tea Party:
-$1-3 million worth damages to cargo
King George III:
-seriously angered; sees the protest as a threat to the British rule
-takes action by reducing colonies to a state of dependency on Britain -a call for an intercolonial meeting -
The Coercive/Intolerable Acts in 1774
-Boston Port Bill, Administration of Justice Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Quebec Act -meant to punish colonies; continue to try to make them excessively dependent on GB
-instead made nation-wide colonists angry; b/c the Acts stripped them of their natural rights: Life, liberty, and property (John Locke's principle) AND b/c only a small group was responsible for the Boston Tea Party and everyone was being punished -
1st Continental Congress
-in response to the Intolerable Acts
-boycotts, non-importation of British goods
-Committees of Correspondence to enforce the protests; almost every colony had a Committee
-the Committees inspected Custom Houses for imported goods to find and blacklist people not following protests -
Lexington & Concord
"The shot heard 'round the world."
-King heard about militia forming in MA; got nervous; immediately responds by commanding troops to seize leaders and ammunition
-poorly planned by GB
-spy network had built up in colonies; they knew what was coming & hid their ammunition
impact:
-British plan=no longer secretive
-squashed morale of British forces; increased morale of colonies -
2nd Continental Congress
-reconciliation OR independence???
-Dickinson for reconciliation; John Adams for independence
-Adams nominates Washington to be commander in chief b/c he was from VA, not MA like Adams; this helped to instill a standard of unity among all colonies -
Battle of Bunker Hill
-colonists lost, but GB suffered more casualties
-Washington soon assumes command over the Continental Army -
Olive Branch petition
-final plea from colonists for reconciliation
requests:
-cease fire in Boston??
-repeal Acts??
-define our colonial rights?? -the King didn't even read it; saw it as a joke; publicly declared colonies to be in state of rebellion -the colonies feel bound together -
"Common Sense" by Thomas Paine
-very popular; widely read throughout colonies
-final consensus was reached among colonists that fighting for INDEPENDENCE was the only option; reconciliation wasn't possible