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French and Indian War
War between the French and British empires that began over colliding territories, namely the Ohio River Valley.
1754: French build Fort Duquesne in the River Valley despite Virginia claims. Starts the war that would last 4 years.
French and Native Americans allied together to fight the British. Later, William Pitt allied with Native Americans, the Iroquois, to counter the French assistance. The war ended in 1763 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. -
Writ of Assistance
-general search warrant that allowed
British officials to search any colonial ship or building
they believed to be holding smuggled goods
-because
many merchants worked out of their residences, the writs
enabled British officials to enter and search colonial homes
whether there was evidence of smuggling or not
-the merchants of Boston were outraged -
Treaty of Paris
BRITISH GOT: Canada, virtually all of North Amer east of the Mississippi River, Florida.
SPAIN GOT: Land west of Mississippi River, New Orleans.
FRANCE GOT: Control of only a few islands + small colonies near Newfoundland, the West Indies, and more.
NATIVE CHANGES: Pontiac attacks British colonies, defeated by smallpox. -
Proclamation of 1763
Established a Proclamation line across the App. Mts that colonists weren't allowed to cross. BRITISH ACTION: Prohibit colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mtns.
COLONIST ACTIONS: Ignored the law and continued to expand westward into Native Land. -
Sugar Act + Colony Respsonse
SUGAR ACT:
-meant to lower debt
- halved the duty on
foreign-made molasses in the hopes that colonists would pay
a lower tax rather than risk arrest by smuggling.
- put duties on certain imports that had not been taxed before.
-provided that colonists accused of violating the act would be tried in a vice-admiralty court rather
than a colonial court. no sympathetic colonists, just 1 judge.
RESPONSE: merchants complain of reduced profits, "no right to tax!", mostly affected merchants/traders -
Stamp Act + Colony Response
STAMP ACT:
-imposed a tax on documents and printed items such as wills, newspapers, and playing
cards
-stamp would be placed on the items to prove that the tax had been
paid
-first tax that affected colonists directly bc it was levied on
goods and services
-prev taxes had been indirect, involving duties on imports.
REPLY:
-shopkeepers, artisans,laborers organize secret resistgroup called the SonsOfLiberty
-colonial assemblies "parliament cant do that 2 colonists bc they arent repped" -ended l8r -
Declatory Act
-same day stamp act was repealed
-established parliament’s full right “to bind the colonies and
people of america in all cases whatsoever.” -
Sons of Liberty formed + Samual Adams
Led by men such as Samuel Adams, one of
the founders of the Sons of Liberty, the colonists again boycotted British good after the Declatory Act. -
Townshend Acts + Colony Response + Why Repealed
-mamed after Charles Townshend, the leading government minister.
-taxed goods that were imported into the colony from
Britain, such as lead, glass, paint, and paper. The Acts also imposed a tax on tea,
-Led by men such as Samuel Adams, one of
the founders of the Sons of Liberty, the colonists again boycotted British goods.. -
Boston Massacre
WHAT HAPPENED: Taunted by an angry mob, British troops fire into the crowd, killing five colonists. REACT: Colonial agitators label the conflict a massacre and publish a dramatic engraving depicting the violence. -
Tea Act
save the nearly bankrupt British East India Company. The act
granted the company the right to sell tea to the colonies free of the taxes that
colonial tea sellers had to pay. This action would have cut colonial merchants out
of the tea trade by enabling the East India Company to sell its tea directly to consumers
for less. North hoped the American colonists would simply buy the cheaper
tea; instead, they protested dramatically -
Boston Tea Party
-December 16, 1773, a large group of Boston rebels
disguised themselves as Native Americans and proceeded to take action against
three British tea ships anchored in the harbor. In this incident, later known as the
Boston Tea Party, the “Indians” dumped 18,000 pounds of the East India
Company’s tea into the waters of Boston harbor. -
Intolerable Acts
PART 1: shut down boston harbor
PART 2: Quartering Act authorized British commanders to house soldiers in vacant private
homes and other buildings
PART 3: General Thomas
Gage, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, was appointed the
new governor of Massachusetts. To keep the peace, he placed Boston under martial
law, or rule imposed by military forces -
First Continental Congress meets
56 delegates met in
Philadelphia and drew up a declaration of colonial rights. They defended the
colonies’ right to run their own affairs and stated that, if the British used force
against the colonies, the colonies should fight back. -
Minutemen
Colonists in many eastern New England
towns stepped up military preparations. Minutemen—civilian soldiers who
pledged to be ready to fight against the British on a minute’s notice—quietly
stockpiled firearms and gunpowder. General Thomas Gage soon learned about
these activities. In the spring of 1775, he ordered troops to march from Boston to
nearby Concord, Massachusetts, and to seize illegal weapons -
Battle of Lexington
-70 minutemen drawn up in lines
on the village green. The British commander ordered the minutemen to lay down
their arms and leave, and the colonists began to move out without laying down
their muskets. Then someone fired, and the British soldiers sent a volley of shots
into the departing militia. 8 minutemen were killed & 10 hurt,
1 British soldier was injured.
-first battle of the Revolutionary War -
Battle of Concord
The British marched on to Concord, where they found an empty arsenal.
After a brief skirmish with minutemen, the British soldiers lined up to march back
to Boston, but the march quickly became a slaughter. Between 3,000 and 4,000
minutemen had assembled by now, and they fired on the marching troops from
behind stone walls and trees. British soldiers fell by the dozen. Bloodied and
humiliated, the remaining British soldiers made their way back to Boston that
night. -
Second Continental Congress
In May of 1775, colonial leaders
called the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to debate their next
move. The loyalties that divided colonists sparked endless debates at the Second
Continental Congress. Some delegates called for independence, while others
argued for reconciliation with Great Britain. Despite such differences, the
Congress agreed to recognize the colonial militia as the Continental Army and
appointed George Washington as its commander -
Continental Army
Congress agreed to recognize the colonial militia as the Continental Army and
appointed George Washington as its commander. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
COLONISTS: lost 450 men
BRITISH: lost over 1,000 men
-Deadliest battle of the war -
Olive Branch Petition
-Congress hoped to restore harmony
-King George rejected
-issued a proclamation
stating that the colonies were in rebellion and urged Parliament to order
a naval blockade to isolate a line of ships meant for the American coast. -
John Locke’s Social Contract
-an agreement in which the people consent to choose
and obey a government so long as it safeguards their natural rights. If the government
violates that social contract by taking away or interfering with those
rights, people have the right to resist and even overthrow the government -
Midnight Riders: Revere, Dawes, Prescott
Colonists in Boston were watching,
and on the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel
Prescott rode out to spread word that 700 British troops were headed for Concord.
The darkened countryside rang with church bells and gunshots—prearranged signals,
sent from town to town, that the British were coming. -
Publication of Common Sense
-responsibility for British tyranny lay with “the royal brute of
Britain.”
- independence would allow America to trade more freely. He
also stated that independence would give American colonists the chance to create
a better society—one free from tyranny, with equal social and economic opportunities
for all. -
Redcoats push Washington’s army across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania
WHEN: Summer of 1776
WHERE: New York
SUCCESS CONTRIBUTED BECAUSE: Hessians, colonial troops were untrained. -
Loyalists and Patriots
LOYALISTS: opposed independence + loyal to British king. inc judges and gov'nrs, thought Brit was going to win. some thought the Crown would protect their rights better than colonial gov'ts.
PATRIOTS: independence support, saw political/economic oppurtunity in independent 'Merica. many stayed neutral.
AFRICAN AMER: many = patriot, some = brit
NATIVE AMER: british b/c colonists were seen as a bigger threat -
Declaration of Independence
AUTHOR: Thomas Jefferson
IDEAS: Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, gov'ts power can only come from the consent of the governed, when
a gov't denies their unalienable rights, ppl can abolish/change that gov't, all men created =
ADOPT DATE: July 4th, 1776 -
Washington’s Christmas night surprise attack
WHEN: Christmas Eve, 1776
WHERE: Delaware River
SUCCESS CONTRIBUTED BECAUSE: Use of surprise attacks. -
Saratoga
BURGOYNE'S PLAN: lead an army down a route of lakes
from canada ---> albany, where he would meet British troops as they arrived from NYC. they'd then forces and isolate new england from the rest of the colonies
FAILED BECAUSE: fellow brits were occupied w/ holding philadelphia, couldn't meet up with burgoyne
OUTCOME: after being surrounded, the british surrendered oct. 17th, 1777 -
French-American Alliance
The Saratoga victory bolstered France's belief that Americans would win the war, and thus they signed an alliance in Feb. 1778 to join them in their fight. -
Valley Forge
American soldiers fought to stay alive, due to food shortages and disease. More than 2k soldiers died, but the survivors didn't desert. -
Friedrich von Steuben and Marquis de Lafayette
FRIEDRICH: Feb 1778 -- Prussian captain, talented drill master that helped train the Continental Army.
MARQUIS: 1779 -- offered help, lobbied France for French reinforcements, led command of Virginia in the war's last years. They made the Cont. Army a formidable fighting force. -
British victories in the South
1778 - Savannah, Georgia
May 1780 - Henry Clinton + Charles Cornwallis got Charles Town, South Carolina
1781 - colonists continue to fight Cornwallis despite defeat. Cornwallis took the fight to Virginia, camped @ Yorktown. -
British surrender at Yorktown
WHEN: October 19, 1781
SUCCESS CONTRIBUTED BY: French naval force blocked entrance to Chesapeake Bay, obstructing British sea routes there. French and Amer troops surrounded the Brits @ Yorktwn, bombarded them day and night. -
Treaty of Paris
NEGOTIATING TEAM: Ben Franklin, John Adams, John Jay.
TREATY DID: Confirmed US Indepdendence, set boundaries of the new nation. US now stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, and from Canada to the Florida border.
