Discussion Questions # 3
1. Describe fighting tactics of the colonists.
2. What happened during the Boston Massacre?
3. What event did the Sugar, Stamp, and Townshend
Acts lead up to that officially started the American
Revolution?
4. How is the French and Indian War a cause of the
American Revolution?
THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTIONAmerican History I
2.1 – STIRRINGS OF
REBELLION
Setting the Stage…• 1760s – GB deep in debt from French and Indian War
• Parliament passed a series of acts to raise $ by taxing
British goods bought by the colonists.
• 1764 – Parliament passed the Sugar Act
• Lowered tax on molasses
• Increased tax on other goods
• Sent smugglers to British court w/o jury, rather than a colonial
court
Stamp Act
• 1765, Placed a tax on all official documents,
newspapers, licenses, pamphlets, playing cards, dice,
etc
• Had to be printed on stamped paper
• Disobeying colonists were sent to British courts, rather than a
colonial court
Sons of Liberty
• 1765 - Samuel Adams
organized the Sons of Liberty
- a secret resistance group in
started in Boston
• Protested and harassed British
customs workers, stamp agents,
and royal governors
• Led to the resignation of British
employees in the colonies and
delayed implementation of the
Stamp Act policies
British customs official being tarred and feathered,
then having hot tea poured down his throat.
Notice the Stamp Act hanging
upside down on the Liberty tree.
Legislative Resistance
• 1765-66 – colonial
legislative bodies passed
resolutions (statements) in
opposition to the Stamp Act
• VA passed a resolution
claiming that Virginians
could only be taxed by the
Virginian government.
• Patrick Henry helped to write
the resolution – famous for
saying “Give me Liberty or
Give me Death!”
Stamp Act Congress• 1765, delegates from 9 colonies
met in New York City to issue the
Declaration of Rights and
Grievances
• Stated that Parliament had no right
to tax the colonies because the
colonies did not have
representatives in Parliament
JOIN or DIE!
• Delegates at the Stamp Act
Congress reconsidered
Franklin’s Albany Plan of
Union
• 1754, plan devised by
Benjamin Franklin before the
French and Indian War which
called for a unified colonial
council to address shared
colonial issues
• Rejected in 1754, but
influenced colonial thought
before/during the American
Revolution
Collective Boycotts
• Boycott – a refusal to buy goods or services
• Merchants in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York
boycotted goods manufactured in England
• GOAL: hurt GB enough financially to make Parliament repeal the
Stamp Act
• 1766 – Parliament passed the Declaratory Act
• repealed the Stamp Act but declared that Parliament had the right
to rule and tax the colonies
Townshend Acts
• 1767, Passed by Parliament that placed a tax on lead,
glass, paint and tea (imports coming from England to the
colonies)
• Intended to gain more $ in taxes from the colonies
• 3 penny tax on tea (the most popular drink in the colonies)
Reaction to Townshend Acts
• “No taxation without representation!”
• Sons of Liberty called for continued boycotts of British goods
• Women joined in resistance
• Resisted buying feathers, furs, fabrics
• Wealthy women joined with poorer women to form spinning clubs to weave
fabric for colonial clothes
• Exchanged recipes for homemade tea from birch and bark and sage
• British seized and searched a ship belonging to merchant John
Hancock in Boston for smuggling wine from Spain → riots against
British customs officials → increased British soldiers (“Redcoats”) in
Boston
Boston Massacre
• General hostility and frustration in Boston
• Increased presence of Redcoats
• Competition for jobs between colonists and poorly paid British
soldiers
• March 5, 1770
• Colonial mob formed outside of the Customs House in Boston and
harassed the guards
• Turned deadly when someone (unknown) fired a shot → 5 dead
(including Crispus Attucks – young free black man in Boston)
• Samuel Adams labeled the Boston Massacre, presenting it as a
British attack on defenseless colonists
Paul Revere’s Engraving of the Boston
Massacre• Revere did not
witness the
events
• Anti-British
propaganda
• British
commander is
seemingly
ordering
Redcoats to fire
• Colonists look
defenseless
Committees of Correspondence
• A network of
communication (through
meetings and letters) set
up in Massachusetts and
Virginia to inform other
colonies of ways that
Britain threatened colonial
rights
• Formed 1772-74
• Eventually leaders from each
colony participated in the
communication
The Boston Tea Party• 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act
• Granted the British East India Company the right to sell tea directly
to the colonies free of the colonial taxes set by the merchants →
essentially cut colonial merchants out of the tea trade
• Parliament believed colonists would just buy the cheaper
tea, however they protested!
• Agreeing to buy the tea with British tax (even if it was cheaper)
acknowledged Parliament’s right to tax the colonies.
The Boston Tea Party
• December 16, 1773 – a group of 200 colonists dressed as
Mohawks boarded 3 British tea ships and dumped 18,000
pounds of tea into Boston Harbor.
Eyewitness
Account
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/teaparty.htm
Intolerable Acts
• King George III was furious and fearful about the
organized destruction of tea (British property) in Boston
• 1774 – Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts
• Shut down Boston Harbor because colonists refused to pay for the
destroyed tea
• Quartering Act – forced housing of British soldiers in colonial
homes
• Boston under martial law – rules/laws enforced by military power
and force
First Continental Congress
• Committees of correspondence
set up a meeting to discuss the
Intolerable Acts and
how to react
• First Continental Congress
• September 1774
• 56 colonial delegates met in Philadelphia
• Defended colonies’ right to run their own governments
• Supported protests in Boston
• Decided if British used force against the colonies, the colonies
should fight back
• Agreed to meet again in May 1775 if British relations did not
improve
