The Road to Revolution

Causes of the American Revolution

Navigation Acts – 1600s• Colonies could

trade only with England

• Upset colonies who counted on trade and shipping for their economy

French and Indian War 1754-1763

England taxed the colonists to help pay for the war

Fought between England and France over the Ohio Valley, England won

Land ceded to Britain after the French and Indian War

1. It increased her colonial empire in the Americas.

2. It greatly enlarged England’s debt.

3. Britain’s contempt for the colonials created bitter feelings.

Therefore, England felt that amajor reorganization of her

American Empire was necessary!

Effects of the War on Britain?

Effects of the War on Britain?

1. It united them against a common enemy for the first time.

2. It created a socializing experience for all the colonials who participated.

3. It created bitter feelings

towards the British that would only intensify.

Effects of the War on the American

Colonials

Effects of the War on the American

Colonials

This political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin encouraged the colonies to

work together during the French and Indian War.

During this era, there was a superstition that a snake which had been cut into pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.

Proclamation of 1763Created the Proclamation Line to keep colonists

from moving into the Ohio ValleyFurther upset colonists

Stamp Act - 1765• A special tax put

on all paper goods to pay for the F & I War

• Colonists refused to pay the tax and would not buy (boycott) the items that were being taxed

Tar and Feathering

Tea Act - 1773• Colonists were

forced to buy tea from a British Company, so they boycotted the tea.

The Boston Tea Party- 1773• Sons of liberty

(a protest group) boarded British ships filled with tea and dumped the tea into the harbor.

Intolerable (or Coercive) Acts - 1774

•England punished colonies for the Tea Party by closing Boston’s harbor until tea was paid for.

The Coercive or Intolerable Acts (1774)

Lord North

1. Port Bill

2. Government Act

4. Administration of Justice Act

3. New Quartering Act

First Continental Congress (1774)

55 delegates from 12 coloniesAgenda How to respond to the Coercive Acts & the Quebec Act?

1 vote per colony represented.

They also listed the problems they had with King George III

Second Continental Congress -1776

• The Declaration of Independence was written.

• Explained WHY the colonies were breaking away from England.

When in the Course of human

events it becomes necessary for

one people to dissolve the

political bands which have

connected them with another

and to assume among the

powers of the earth, the

separate and equal station to

which the Laws of Nature and of

Nature's God entitle them, a

decent respect to the opinions of

mankind requires that they

should declare the causes which

impel them to the separation.

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…

The Declaration

The Enlightenment and The American Revolution

Chain of Events

Parliament levies taxes on stamps to pay for the French and Indian War.

The Virginia House of Burgesses votes on a resolution claiming Parliament is practicing "taxation without representation"

because Americans are not represented there.

Stamp tax collectors arrive, but resistance is strong. Some Americans burn tax collectors’ houses.

The British repeal the Stamp Act and Parliament passes customs duties on lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea.

Colonists boycott British goods and smuggle foreign goods.

As imports decline ten thousand British troops arrive in America to help enforce tax laws and catch offenders.

A crowd of men and boys throw sticks and snowballs at British soldiers outside the customs house in Boston.

British troops kill five men, and colonists spread news of the "Boston

Massacre."

Angry colonists join the Sons of Liberty, the Daughters of Liberty, and Committees of Correspondence to create more active revolt.

To break Americans’ resistance to taxes, Parliament gives the British East India Company a monopoly on tea that helps lower the price.

Americans refuse to buy tea and colonists disguised as Indians throw 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor.

Parliament removes Boston’s self-government by passing the Intolerable Acts.

The colonies unite to aid the people of Massachusetts who are arming themselves, and the First Continental Congress meets.

General Thomas Gage in sends British troops from Boston to Lexington and Concord to destroy colonial military supplies.

Americans kill 250 British soldiers on their march back to Boston and begin to gather on hills around the city.

General Gage sends his men to capture Bunker (Breed’s) Hill. Forty

percent of his men die. The war is on.