revolutionary war part 1
TRANSCRIPT
Revolutionary War Revolutionary War Part 1Part 1
U. S. HistoryMrs. Rieffel
Chapter 4 Terms • French and Indian War Abigail Adams Lord North• Pontiac’s Rebellion John Adams Chief Joseph Brant/• Proclamation of 1763 Hannah Callowhill Penn Thayendanegea• Sugar Act/Stamp Act Samuel Adams Lexington• Navigation Acts Phillis Wheatley Concord• Embargo/nonimportation John Hancock Germantown • Townshend Duties Ben Franklin Saratoga • Quartering Act Paul Revere Yorktown • Boycott George Washington Marblehead, MA• Effigy Thomas Jefferson Bunker Hill/Breed’s Hill• Boston Massacre Patrick Henry Boston• Sons of Liberty Crispus Attucks Monmouth • Committees of Correspondence Thomas Paine Philadelphia• Tax/duty Peter Salem Treaty of Paris• Tea Act John Locke Valley Forge• Intolerable Acts Nathan Hale Trenton• Boston Tea Party Deborah Sampson Gannet• Natural rights “Gentleman” Johnny Burgoyne• Popular sovereignty George Rogers Clark• Social contract Francis Marion/The Swamp Fox• patriots/minutemen/militia Gen. Gage• Tories/Loyalists General Howe• Redcoats/Lobsterbacks Ethan Allen• Guerilla warfare Benedict Arnold/Major Andre• 1st Continental Congress George III• Hessians/mercenaries Molly Pitcher• 2nd Continental Congress Deborah Sampson Gannet• Common Sense/The Crisis Admiral de Grasse• Olive Branch Elizabeth Freeman/Mum Bett • Declaration of Independence Baron von Steuben• Revolutionary War Gen. Pulaski• American Revolution T. Kosciusko • propaganda General LaFayette • Morgan’s Rifles General Cornwallis• Durham boats Emmanuel Leutze
• Mercantilism—economic policy in which parent country settles colonies in order to exploit them and their resources. England was excellent at this and ruled the world—”the sun never set on the British Empire!” Rule, Britannia!!
• Balance of Trade —favorable on Parent Country’s part—colonies ship everything to them, using their ships, paying their prices and taxes. Colonies can buy and sell only from Parent Country, using parent country’s ships.
• Colonies depend on parent country for all manufactured products.
• Triangular Trade —see map of raw resources leaving America, headed to England, English manufactured goods coming to America, molasses/sugar cane coming from West Indies to be made into rum and sent to England, and slaves coming to America as labor force for tobacco and later cotton plantations.
• Salutary Neglect —The Navigation Laws had been in effect for years, but were not enforced while England was busy fighting wars and all. The Colonies got used to not following them or paying taxes. When Mother England starts strictly enforcing them, after French and Indian War in order to pay off debts—we cry foul!!!!
White settlers and Native Americans traded many items with each other, including food, guns, and blankets. One of the most profitable trading items was fur from animals such as the beaver. Usually Native Americans would trap the animals, skin them, and then bring the fur to the settlers. The settlers would send the fur to Europe, where it was often used for hats.
First Political Cartoons• It's important to note that America's
earliest cartoons were political in nature. The first cartoon appeared in Ben Franklin's newspaper The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. It appeared as part of an editorial by Franklin commenting on 'the present disunited state of the British Colonies.'
• The woodcut drawing entitled 'Join or Die' pictures a divided snake in eight pieces representing as many colonial governments. The drawing was based on the popular superstition that a snake that had been cut in two would come to life if the pieces were joined before sunset. The drawing immediately caught the public's fancy and was reproduced in other newspapers.
HER COLONIES REDUCED.
•'Magna Britannia: her Colonies Reduc'd'. Cartoon designed by Benjamin Franklin in 1767 prophesying Britain dismembered of her colonies in America.
Albany Plan of Union
• The Albany Plan of Union of 1754, was the first plan for uniting the colonies, proposed by Benjamin Franklin at the Albany Congress. Delegates from seven colonies met in Albany, New York, with representatives of the Iroquois tribes to organize a common defense against the French at the onset of the French and Indian War. Franklin's Albany Plan proposed a loose confederation of colonies with a representative grand council with power to levy taxes, raise troops, regulate Indian trade, and provide mutual defense. The crown-appointed council head would have final say about American affairs. To make his point, Franklin published in his Pennsylvania Gazette a sketch of a snake divided into eight pieces, each representing a colony, and entitled it "Join or Die." Although the congress adopted the Albany Plan, it was rejected by the colonial governments and by the British. It served as an important model for inter-colonial union.
Albany Plan of Union• Franklin saw the urgency for the 13 colonies to work together in harmony before the
French and Indian War. He drew up a plan that would call for “a loose confederation of friendship that involved forming a trained American militia, a series of forts and arsenals, to defend the frontier of all colonies against foes. The colonial representatives met in Albany, but rejected the idea, since it was not in each jealous colony’s best interest to join and it would involve contributions of money and men. If they had agreed and formed such a militia, then England would have not had to come in with such strength and at great cost to defend the American colonies against the French and their Native American allies in 1754. England would not have closed the Ohio River Valley/the Old Northwest to settlement in the Proclamation of 1763, or passed acts designed to gouge money from American taxes.
• Thus, England may have not needed to raise colonial taxes so heavily to pay off the debts of war, had such a military presence in our country, and treated us as if we were backwater bumpkins and idiot children. We would have continued being loyal Englishmen and produced a ton of money for Mother England.
• The plan failed and this will eventually led to our American Revolution. Previous to the Constitution, when we needed some sort of government in place, the Founding Fathers dust off the Albany Plan of Union, and with some revision introduce it as the Articles of Confederation
Into the Ohio River Valley• The rich lands which lay between and to the west of the French
settlements of Canada and the British colonies along the east coast of North America were inevitably destined to become a battleground between the forces of these two European rivals. From 1754 to 1763, the British and French fought for this wilderness of huge potential in a conflict which, though part of the wider Seven Years War, has come to be known as the French & Indian War.
• Begun in what is now western Pennsylvania with a battle involving a young Virginia officer named George Washington, this conflict waxed and waned in an arc running from that western wilderness, through the Great Lakes, over to Lakes George and Champlain, and as far north as the River and Gulf of St. Lawrence. When the fighting was finished and the Treaty of Paris signed, France had lost all her possessions in North America and Britain was mistress of the entire region extending from the entire Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.
• In the early part of the eighteenth century, the trans-Appalachian region of North America remained much as it had been for the preceding centuries. Some trappers and backwoodsmen—Frenchmen from Canada and Englishmen from the British colonies—traveled through its woods and rivers, but the principal occupants of the region were Native Americans and a great diversity of wildlife.
• As the British colonies became more populated and prosperous, their citizens began to look towards the rich lands across the Appalachian mountains as providing new opportunities for settlement and economic growth. The French, who claimed the entire watersheds of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence Rivers—which included the Great Lakes and the Ohio River valley—became worried about British encroachments into this region and so they moved to set up a series of forts, including at Crown Point on Lake Champlain, and on the Wabash, Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
• The British, meanwhile, built their own forts at Oswego and Halifax, the government granted lands in the Ohio Valley to the Ohio Company and adventurous traders set up bases in the region. In 1750, British and French representatives met in Paris to try to solve these territorial disputes, but no progress was made.
• In 1752, the Marquis Duquesne was made governor-general of New France with specific instructions to take possession of the Ohio Valley, removing all British presence from the area.. The following year, he sent troops to western Pennsylvania where they built forts at Presque Island (Erie) and on the Rivière aux Boeufs (Waterford).
• At the same time, Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, was granting land in the Ohio Valley to citizens of his colony, setting in motion the events which inevitably led to the French & Indian War.
• Dinwiddie, hearing of new French forts on the upper Allegheny River, sent out a young Virginia officer, age 22, named George Washington, to deliver a letter demanding that the French leave the region. This mission was, not surprisingly, a failure, but when passing through the region where the Allegheny and the Monongahela form the Ohio, Washington noted that the point of land at the junction was an excellent spot for a fort. In early 1754, in response to Washington's suggestion, the British started to build a fort there, Fort Prince George, but French troops soon arrived and threw them out. The French completed the fortification, renaming it Fort Duquesne. Washington, meanwhile, had been sent out with a contingent of troops to help establish British control in the west, and when he heard of the surrender of Fort Prince George, he set up camp in Great Meadows, southeast of Fort Duquesne. Washington received a report that a nearby French contingent intended to attack, so he launched a preemptive strike against the French camp.
• This was the first engagement of the yet undeclared French & Indian War. Though Washington won that engagement, he was soon defeated by a superior force sent out from Fort Duquesne, leaving the French in command of the entire region west of the Allegheny Mountains. Washington was captured, but not killed. He was sent home, back to VA.
Braddock’s Defeat
• General Braddock was an experienced soldier, but he was conceited and arrogant, and had no idea of how to fight the enemy in America. He underestimated not only the French, but the Native Americans’ fighting skills. He undervalued and ignored his own Native American scouts’ warnings and thought the American militia were bumpkins. Despite Ben Franklin’s warnings about bringing so many men and materiel through heavy terrain and thick woods (Ben had procured the wagons and stuff for Braddock), Braddock refused to listen, so his group was easy prey for ambush. The French and their Indian pals the Huron attacked in guerilla fashion as the Brits became bunched together in a clearing. and Braddock’s troops were cut to ribbons. The survivors fled—Daniel Boone unhitched a horse from a cannon-wagon and rode off. Daniel Morgan also escaped. George Washington was fired at and narrowly missed death a score of times—his jacket torn by musketballs in many places. He refused to run and Braddock’s last words to him were: “Who would have ever thought it!”
• Early in the year 1755, Major General Edward Braddock was sent to America as commander-in-chief of the British forces in America. He quickly set in motion plans to capture Fort Duquesne, leading his troops west from Virginia in June. Meeting the French 10 miles east of Fort Duquesne, the British were defeated with heavy losses, including Braddock who died four days after the battle.
• Once again the French had maintained their grip on the Ohio Valley. In the north, British luck was better, for they won a battle on Lake George and established two forts just south of the French fortification (Fort Frederick) at Crown Point on Lake Champlain. These were Fort Edward on the Hudson River and Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George.
• 19th century engraving of the death of Major-General Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela.
Real Photos
Fort Necessity
Braddock's Road & grave site
Braddock’s Burial
George Washington
• At twenty-two years of age, George Washington fired some of the first shots of what would become a world war. In 1752, France began the military occupation of the Ohio Country, a region that was also claimed by Virginia. In 1753, Washington volunteered to deliver an ultimatum to the French from Robert Dinwiddie, the governor of Virginia. The French declined to leave, and Dinwiddie moved to counter the French advance.
• In 1754, Washington, now commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the First Virginia Regiment, led a mission into the Ohio Country. He ambushed a French Canadian scouting party, killing ten, including its leader, Ensign Jumonville. Washington then built Fort Necessity, which soon proved inadequate, as he was compelled to surrender to a larger French and American Indian force. The surrender terms that Washington signed included an admission that he had "assassinated" Jumonville. (The document was written in French, which Washington could not read.) The "Jumonville affair” became an international incident and helped to ignite the French and Indian War, known outside the United States as the Seven Years' War.
• Washington was released by the French with the promise not to return to the Ohio Country for one year. In 1755, Washington accompanied the Braddock Expedition, a major effort by the British Army to retake the Ohio Country. The expedition ended in disaster at the Battle of the Monongahela. Washington distinguished himself in the debacle—he had two horses shot out from under him, and four bullets pierced his coat— yet he sustained no injuries and showed coolness under fire in organizing the retreat. In Virginia, Washington was acclaimed as a hero, and he commanded the First Virginia Regiment for several more years.
This, the earliest portrait of Washington, was painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, and shows Washington in uniform as colonel of the First Virginia Regiment.
• Despite all this military activity, it wasn't until 1756 that war was officially declared between the French and British. The military activity that year and the following was relatively inconclusive, though the French generally had the upper hand, capturing Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario and Fort William Henry. In 1758 the tide began to turn and the British started to take the upper hand. They launched a three part attack on the French, against Louisbourg on the Atlantic Coast, Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) on Lake Champlain, and Fort Frontenac at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. That summer the British finally captured the city of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, establishing control of the Bay of the St. Lawrence. And while they failed in an assault on the Fort Carillon, they did gained control of Lake Ontario by capturing Fort Frontenac with troops under Lt. Colonel John Bradstreet. In July, Brigadier General John Forbes assembled a large force to move against Fort Duquesne. Despite an initial setback, Forbes had great success. He held a council at Fort Bedford with the Indian tribes of region, establishing peace between them and the British. When the French realized they would no longer have Indian allies, and knowing their their communication with Montreal was cut off with the capture of Fort Frontenac, they quickly abandoned Fort Duquesne, destroying the fort as much as possible. Forbes occupied the site, which he soon had rebuilt and renamed Fort Pitt, establishing British control of the upper Ohio Valley for the first time.
• The news in 1759 continued to be positive for the British. Major General Jeffrey Amherst took over from Abercromby as commander-in-chief of the British forces and he soon captured both the forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point and also that summer other British forces captured Fort Niagara. Quebec was the strongest fortress in Canada, the lynchpin of French power in North America and the British knew that if they were able to capture Quebec, the rest of the country would soon fall into their dominion, so in early 1759 they planned the largest attack of the war, a combined force of about 9,000 soldiers under General James Wolfe and a fleet of 20 ships under Admiral Charles Saunders. The British lay siege to Quebec from June 27th until September 18th, when the French surrendered their garrison in the city. This was the turning point of the war, with an eventual British victory all but certain. By the end of the year, the British had control of almost all of North America, other than Montreal and Detroit. By the end of 1760, these two sites fell to the British. Amherst's campaign against Montreal resulted in the surrender of that city in September and one week later Major Robert Rogers took over Fort Detroit. The British had gained all of North America from the French.
• This de facto control was confirmed two and a half years later at the Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, which gave all of North America east of the Mississippi, other than New Orleans, to the British. The French also turned over their claims of New Orleans and the lands west of the Mississippi to Spain, as compensation for Spain's surrendering Florida to the British. Though the European-based war ceased, the Native Americans in the west remained hostile to the British. The Pontiac Rebellion and other Indian hostilities lasted until the end of 1764, at which time peace finally reigned in North America. This peace, however, would last only a decade until a new war, the Revolution, began a new episode in the history of the continent.
• The British victory in the French and Indian War had a great impact on the British Empire.
• Firstly, it meant a great expansion of British territorial claims in the New World. But the cost of the war had greatly enlarged Britain's debt.
• Moreover, the war generated substantial resentment towards the colonists among English leaders, who were not satisfied with the financial and military help they had received from the colonists during the war. All these factors combined to persuade many English leaders that the colonies needed a major reorganization and that the central authority should be in London.
• The English leaders set in motion plans to give London more control over the government of the colonies and these plans were eventually a big part of the colonial resentment towards British imperial policies that led to the American Revolution.
• The war had an equally profound but very different effect on the American colonists. First of all, the colonists had learned to unite against a common foe. Before the war, the thirteen colonies had found almost no common ground and they coexisted in mutual distrust. But now they had seen that together they could be a power to be reckoned with. And the next common foe would be Britain.
• For the Indians of the Ohio Valley, the third major party in the French and Indian War, the British victory was disastrous. Those tribes that had allied themselves with the French had earned the enmity of the victorious English. The Iroquois Confederacy, which had allied themselves with Britain, fared only slightly better. The alliance quickly unraveled and the Confederacy began to crumble from within. The Iroquois continued to contest the English for control of the Ohio Valley for another fifty years; but they were never again in a position to deal with their white rivals on terms of military or political equality.
The Proclamation of 1763
• With France removed from North America, the vast interior of the continent lay open for the Americans to colonize. But The English government decided otherwise. To induce a controlled population movement, they issued a Royal Proclamation that prohibited settlement west of the line drawn along the crest of the Allegheny mountains and to enforce that measure they authorized a permanent army of 10,000 regulars (paid for by taxes gathered from the colonies; most importantly the "Sugar Act" and the "Stamp Act"). This infuriated the Americans who, after having been held back by the French, now saw themselves stopped by the British in their surge west.
Pontiac’s Rebellion Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawa, united
indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region and in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys in an effort to drive white settlers out of the area, and in so doing, to restore their autonomy. During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Pontiac led his confederation to fight on the side of the French against the British. In 1763 he began a two-year siege, known as Pontiac’s War, against British garrisons in the region, which ended in his surrender in 1765. The Native American confederacy fell apart once Pontiac lost a few battles, but it convinced the British to patrol the Ohio Valley and prohibit settlement by the American colonists.
English Colonies
Before 1763
• Pontiac was a powerful orator as well as warrior, and possessed a keen intelligence and skill as a strategist. He believed that the French would back up an Indian revolt to reclaim the forts and restore the former relationship with the tribes. Throughout the winter, Pontiac gathered support. On April 27, 1762, he called a council of more than 400 Ottawa, Huron, and Pottawatomie chiefs and warriors.
• Echoing a prophet of the Delaware Nation, he talked of the wrongs they had suffered under the British and spoke of the Master of Life and his urging for the Indians to turn back to their old ways. Unlike the Delaware prophet, Pontiac did not advocate a return to the primitive ways before guns or powder, but to the days of French control of the region. The warriors embraced the idea, and Pontiac announced his plans to take the fort at Detroit. After the capture of Detroit, others would follow. It was hoped the French troops would rise up and join the Indian rebellion to oust the British. But this was not to be.
• Following Pope’ and Metacomet in fighting the invasion by the Europeans, and although Pontiac never achieved his dream of a united Indian front, his dream lived on and was adopted by other Indian leaders such as Little Turtle and Tecumseh.
• , Pontiac left a store in the company of a seemingly friendly Peoria brave and was clubbed from behind by his companion, who then fell upon him and stabbed him to death.
April 20, 1769 The death of Pontiac at the hands of Peoria tribesman at Cahokia.
Jeffrey Amherst
• Today, perhaps the best-known incident from the war is when British officers at Fort Pitt attempted to infect the attacking Indians with blankets that had been exposed to smallpox. Amherst made the following proposal on about 29 June 1763: "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them."
• During a parley at Fort Pitt on 24 June 1763, Captain Simeon Ecuyer (the commander at Fort Pitt) gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of spreading the disease to the Indians in order to end the siege. Indians in the area did indeed contract smallpox. However, some historians have noted that it is impossible to verify how many people (if any) contracted the disease as a result of the Fort Pitt incident; the disease was already in the area and may have reached the Indians through other vectors. Indeed, even before the blankets had been handed over, the disease may have been spread to the Indians by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white settlements. So while it is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox, it is uncertain is whether or not their attempt was successful.
Boycott=refusal to buy or use a product/service of a company with whom you disagree. Very effective economic weapon; hits company in the wallet. Comes from the Irishman’s real name (who originated the idea) and was perfected by Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.
To show their displeasure with the imposition of taxes, Colonists refused to buy or use many products which were newly taxed. Coffee and chocolate will replace tea in America as drinks of choice.Playing cards, molasses, parchment, glass, lead, sealing wax, and in were taxed, so official documents, drinking rum, and gambling were avoided.This was working so well that England decided to repeal some of the taxes, but try to break the boycott with some inexpensive tea.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONEVENT:
CAUSES:*BRITAIN GAINS NORTH AMERICA
*COLONIES BECOME RESENTFUL OF BRITAIN
*TENSIONS INCREASE OVER TAXES
*OPEN CONFLICTS BEGIN
EFFECTS:*COLONIES UNITE
*CENTRAL GOVERNMENT FORMED
*BRITAIN IS DEFEATED
*AN INDEPENDENT NATION EMERGES
*INTERNAL PROBLEMS BRING DISPUTES
*CONSTITUTION IS WRITTEN
*FEDERAL UNION IS CREATED
Ideas Which Led to the American Revolution
• John Locke—English philosopher• 1. Natural rights—we call them human rights
now—respect and dignity for every person• 2. Popular Sovereignty—power derives from the
people and they decide who their leader should be/what kind of gov’t they want
• 3. Social Contract Theory—a legal agreement between the gov’t and the governed. If the gov’t does not live up to its part, the people have every right/responsibility to change it.
George III• George III ·1732-1792· Hanoverian king
– King of Great Britain from 1760 to 1820Born: June 4, 1738Work: Ascended the throne in 1760 during the Seven Years' War. Concluded the Seven Years' War (Treaty of Paris.) Married Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, September 8, 1761. Prosecuted the American War of Independence, 1776. Prosecuted various war fronts with Revolutionary France, Napoleon.Died: January 29, 1820.
George III was one of the longest reigning British Monarchs. He oversaw the conquest of an empire in the Seven Years' War, and the loss of the American Colonies in the War of Independence. The British Empire was the leading model of Industrial and economic development in an era when the whole world was to be mapped and conquered. The face of Europe changed dramatically, as Britain and France struggled for domination. Britain emerged from that struggle as the world's leading power, but it was a nation faced with a fragile governmental structure and deep social strife.
The King was poorly suited for the demands presented by the age. It was widely know that his intellectual abilities were limited. A long chain of ineffective appointments to parliament and an over-dependence on people whom he merely felt unthreatened by, resulted in terrible instability in policy both at home and abroad. Tom Paine pointed out, tellingly, in his treatise Common Sense, that a major failure of Monarchy was the specter of the people presented with "an ass for a lion" in the person of the King. Finally, George apparently suffered from a hereditary disease that rendered him practically insane for several long intervals, and then ultimately lasted until his death in 1820.
TIMELINE
Of The Revolution
Events leading up to the WarThe French and Indian War (1754-63)The Sugar Act (4/5/1764)The Stamp Act (3/22/1765)Patrick Henry's "If This Be Treason" speech (5/29/1765)The Stamp Act Congress (10/7-25/1765)Townshend Act (6/29/1767)Sons of Liberty and Committees of Correspondence begin boycotts in VA and MA—it spreads
The Boston Massacre (3/5/1770)The Boston Tea Party (12/16/1773)The First Continental Congress (Philadelphia, 9/5-10/26/1774)
Proclamation of 1763
• The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the "Indians" against them. The first thing on the minds of colonists was the great western frontier that had opened to them when the French ceded that contested territory to the British. The royal proclamation of 1763 did much to dampen that celebration. The proclamation, in effect, closed off the frontier to colonial expansion. The King and his council presented the proclamation as a measure to calm the fears of the Indians, who felt that the colonists would drive them from their lands as they expanded westward. Many in the colonies felt that the object was to pen them in along the Atlantic seaboard where they would be easier to regulate. No doubt there was a large measure of truth in both of these positions. However the colonists could not help but feel a strong resentment when what they perceived to be their prize was snatched away from them. The proclamation provided that all lands west of the heads of all rivers which flowed into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest were off-limits to the colonists. This excluded the rich Ohio Valley and all territory from the Ohio to the Mississippi rivers from settlement.
Stamp Act• Bostonians tar and feather John
Malcolm, Customs officer, 1774. "The Bostonians Paying the Excise Man" is a British view, portraying the Sons of Liberty as relishing in Malcolm's pain. Note the hangman's noose dangling from the "Liberty Tree" and the overturned copy of the Stamp Act.
• Tarring and feathering dated back to the days of the Crusades and King Richard the Lionhearted. It began to appear in New England seaports in the 1760s and was most often used by patriot mobs against loyalists. Tar was readily available in shipyards and feathers came from any handy pillow. Though the cruelty invariably stopped short of murder, the tar needed to be burning hot for application.
By November 1, 1765, the day the Stamp Act was to officially go into effect, there was not a single stamp commissioner left in the colonies to collect the tax.
• Stamps were required for any legal documents—deeds, wills, licenses, marriage certificates, newspapers…
We Hate Taxes!!!!
• The Colonists felt they were Englishmen treated as slaves by Parliament’s imposition of taxes.
• The truth of the matter was that the average American colonist paid much less taxes (1 shilling) than the average Englishman in London (26 shillings).
Bostonians in Distress
Tax Collectors were hanged in effigy or tarred and feathered
• Two more views of 1774 Customs officer, John Malcolm, tarred and feathered.
Non-importation Agreements
• Colonial resistance to British control took many forms, perhaps the most effective was the general success of the non-importation agreements. Such agreements appeared as early as 1766. They had a chilling effect on the British Merchants who traded with the colonies. The Stamp Act was repealed, eventually, based on appeals from Merchants who lost money shipping goods to a land that would not receive them. Not incidentally, the customs offices in the colonies could not collect taxes on goods that were either not allowed ashore at all, or were never sold. Non-importation agreements reached ultimate effect in response to the Townshend Revenue Act, when in 1768 Boston passed the act seen below. Every port city and nearly every region would soon adopt acts like this one. Finally, in 1774, the first Continental Congress of the colonies would pass The Association, a colony-wide prohibition against any trade with Great Britain.
Patrick Henry is widely known as a major figure at the beginning of the Revolution. His name was synonymous with radicalism and dissent by colonist and English alike. It is said that his Stamp Act Resolutions were the first shots fired in the Revolution. His radical dissent did not end with the winning of freedom though. Henry’s concern for individual liberties and state sovereignty made him the chief dissenter for the Anti-Federalist during the debate concerning the Constitution.
Sam Adams• One of the leaders of
the Sons of Liberty in Boston and a firebrand in the Committee of Correspondence. He was a professional rabble-rouser (rebel-rouser?) and had failed at almost every other trade he had tried, included brewer.
Mercy Warren Otis
In a time when virtually no American women were formally educated, Mercy Otis Warren made a name for herself as a great political mind and author. She picked up reading and writing by watching her older brother James study and became knowledgeable about politics through conversations with educated family members.
Before the Revolution had even begun, Warren anonymously published three plays. Each one was full of a political fervor that would come to define her public life. The plays were satires in which the villain represented a local political figure.
When the American Revolution ensued, Warren was the first to pick up her pen. She wrote a three-volume series chronicling the war. It was published under the name “History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.” Not only did the work provide an important view of the Revolution, it also cleared the way for women writers in America. Up until that point, women who wrote did not do so with the intention of becoming professional writers. Warren’s publication made that concept a reality. Other women followed in her footsteps, and Warren spent much her energies to arguing against restrictions placed on women. She felt they were artificial, imaginary and went against the principles America fought for in the Revolution.
Paul Revere's Engraving - Explained
When Paul Revere first began selling his color prints of "The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street" in Boston, he was doing what any like-minded patriot with his talents in 1770 would have done. Only, Paul Revere did it faster and more expeditiously than anyone else, including two other artist-engravers who also issued prints of the Massacre that year. Twenty-one days before-- on the night of March 5, 1770-- five men had been shot to death in Boston town by British soldiers. Precipitating the event known as the Boston Massacre was a mob of men and boys taunting a sentry standing guard at the city's customs house. When other British soldiers came to the sentry's support, a free-for-all ensued and shots were fired into the crowd, although Capt. John Preston had given the order “Don’t Fire!”
Four died on the spot and a fifth died after four days. Six others were wounded. Their names: Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr.
The presence of British troops in Boston had long been a sore point among Boston's radical politicians. Paul Revere wasted no time in capitalizing on the Massacre to highlight British tyranny and stir up anti-British sentiment among his fellow colonists. As you will see, Revere's historic engraving is long on political propaganda and short on accuracy or aesthetics. John Adams will defend the soldiers in court and all but two privates will be acquitted.
Notice how the British Grenadiers are shown standing in a straight line shooting their rifles in a regular volley, whereas when the disturbance actually erupted both sides were belligerent and riotous.
Notice also that Revere's engraving shows a blue sky. Only a wisp of a moon suggests that the riot occurred after nine o'clock on a cold winter night. The Customs House carries the name Butcher’s Hall.
Notice too the absence of snow and ice on the street, while Crispus Attacks-- a black man lying on the ground closest to the British soldiers-- is shown to be white. As an aside, it should be noted that as a result of his death in the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks would emerge as the most famous of all the black men to fight in the cause of the Revolution, and become its first martyr.
Documentation has come to light over the years indicating that Revere copied engraver Henry Pelham's drawings of the Massacre, produced his own engraving, and three weeks after the occurrence was advertising his prints for sale in Boston's newspapers. By the time Pelham's prints hit the street,
Revere's print had flooded the market. A third engraving was executed by Jonathan Mulliken , who also issued prints depicting the event. Except for a number of minor differences, all three prints appear alike.
In his rush to produce his engraving Revere employed the talents of Christian Remick to colorize the print. Remick's choice of colors is simple yet effective. Notice the use of red for the British uniforms and the blood. The other colors-- blue, green, brown and black-- all contribute to make this print what is arguably the most famous in America.
Few historians would deny that the "BM" proved to be a milestone in America's road to independence. By popularizing the tragic event, Paul Revere's print became "the first powerful influence in forming an outspoken anti-British public opinion," one in which the revolutionary leaders had almost lost hope of achieving.
The Boston
Tea Party...
• No taxation without representation!
• Don't buy British!• Give me liberty, or
give me death!
• These were the anti-tax, anti-British cries from Bostonians as a fleet of British warships anchored in Boston Harbor in 1768. British cannons pointed toward the city. British soldiers pitched their tents on Boston Common. Tensions grew, and 18 months later 5 Bostonians would die in the Boston Massacre (and Paul would engrave his famous poster).
• In the face of the growing anger of the colonists, Britain backed down. They repealed all of their taxes except the tax on tea. They sailed their warships out of Boston Harbor.
Boston Tea Party
• But the colonists continued to protest the tax on tea. • December 16, 1773, a group of colonists, including Paul
Revere, dressed as Mohawk Indians and boarded 3 tea ships in Boston Harbor. They threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This event became known as...
The Boston Tea Party • The British moved quickly to punish this act of defiance.
In May, 1774, they sailed their gunboats back into the harbor and prepared to close off the entire port.
• Pay for the ruined tea, the king told Boston, or starve.• In England, Ben Franklin offered to pay for the tea out of
his own pocket, (over a million pounds), but George III wanted Boston punished.
• The time for a showdown was coming. In less than one year, Paul would make his famous Midnight Ride, and the American Revolution would begin.
The Boston Tea Party
The Intolerable Acts
• The government spent immense sums of money on troops & equipment in an attempt to subjugate Massachusetts. British merchants had lost huge sums of money on looted, spoiled, and destroyed goods shipped to the colonies. The revenue generated by the Townshend duties, in 1770, amounted to less than £21,000. On March 5, 1770, Parliament repealed the duties, except for the one on tea. That same day, the Boston massacre set a course that would lead the Royal Governor to evacuate the occupying army from Boston, and would soon bring the revolution to armed rebellion throughout the colonies. Tea Act of 1774After the French and Indian War the British Government decided to reap greater benefits from the colonies. The colonies were pressed with greater taxes without any representation in Britain. This eventually lead to the Boston Tea Party. In retaliation the British passed several punitive acts aimed at bringing the colonies back into submission of the King.
The Intolerable ActsQuartering Act Quebec Act Massachusetts Government Act Administration of Justice Act Boston Port Act
• The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia from Sept. 5 to Oct. 26, 1774, to protest the Intolerable Acts. 55 representatives attended from all the colonies except Georgia. The leaders included Samuel Adams and John Adams of Massachusetts and George Washington and Patrick Henry of Virginia. The Congress voted to cut off colonial trade with Great Britain unless Parliament abolished the Intolerable Acts. It approved resolutions advising the colonies to begin training their citizens for war. They also attempted to define America's rights, place limits on Parliament's power, and agree on tactics for resisting the aggressive acts of the English Government. It also set up the Continental Association to enforce an embargo against England. By the time the first meeting of the Continental Congress ended, hostilities had begun between Britain and the colonies.
First Continental Congress
The Liberty Bell
Symbol of American
Freedom
Liberty Bell HoaxFrom The New York Times, section A, page 13, Monday, April 1, 1996
HEADLINE:Taco Bell Buys the Liberty BellTEXT:In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country's most historic treasures. It will now be called the "Taco Liberty Bell" and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country's debt.Some people found this hoax mean-spirited and very unpatriotic, others thought it was funny. Some didn't realize the date and took it seriously.
The Liberty Bell•
Tradition tells of a chime that changed the world on July 8, 1776, with the Liberty Bell ringing out from the tower of Independence Hall summoning citizens to hear the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence by Colonel John Nixon.
• The Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the Bell in 1751 to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges.
• Penn's charter, Pennsylvania's original Constitution, speaks of the rights and freedoms valued by people the world over. Particularly forward thinking were Penn's ideas on religious freedom, his liberal stance on Native American rights, and his inclusion of citizens in enacting laws.
• As it was to commemorate the Charter's golden anniversary, the quotation "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," from Leviticus 25:10, was particularly apt. For the line in the Bible immediately preceding "proclaim liberty" is, "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year." What better way to pay homage to Penn and hallow the 50th year than with a bell proclaiming liberty?
• Also inscribed on the Bell is the quotation, "By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pensylvania for the State House in Philada." Note that the spelling of "Pennsylvania" was not at that time universally adopted. In fact, in the original Constitution, the name of the state is also spelled "Pensylvania." If you get a chance to visit the second floor of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, take a moment to look at the original maps on the wall. They, too, have the state name spelled "Pensylvania" (and the Atlantic Ocean called by the name of that day, "The Western Ocean"). The choice of the quotation was made by Quaker Isaac Norris, speaker of the Assembly.
• Centered on the front of the Bell are the words, "Pass and Stow / Philada / MDCCLIII."
On November 1, 1751, a letter was sent to Robert Charles, the Colonial Agent of the Province of Pennsylvania who was working in London. Signed by Isaac Norris, Thomas Leech, and Edward Warner, it represented the desires of the Assembly to purchase a bell for the State House (now Independence Hall) steeple. The bell was ordered from Whitechapel Foundry, with instructions to inscribe on it the passage from Leviticus.
The bell arrived in Philadelphia on September 1, 1752, but was not hung until March 10, 1753, on which day Isaac Norris wrote, "I had the mortification to hear that it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper without any other viollence [sic] as it was hung up to try the sound."
The cause of the break is thought to have been attributable either to flaws in its casting or, as they thought at the time, to its being too brittle.
Two Philadelphia foundry workers named John Pass and John Stow were given the cracked bell to be melted down
and recast. They added an ounce and a half of copper to a pound of the old bell in an attempt to make the new bell less brittle. For their labors they charged slightly over 36 Pounds.
The new bell was raised in the belfry on March 29, 1753. "Upon trial, it seems that they have added too much copper. They were so teased with the witticisms of the town that they will very soon make a second essay," wrote Isaac Norris to London agent Robert Charles. Apparently nobody was now pleased with the tone of the bell.
Pass and Stow indeed tried again. They broke up the bell and recast it. On June 11, 1753, the New York Mercury reported, "Last Week was raised and fix'd in the Statehouse Steeple, the new great Bell, cast here by Pass and Stow, weighing 2080 lbs."
• In November, Norris wrote to Robert Charles that he was still displeased with the bell and requested that Whitechapel cast a new one.
• Upon the arrival of the new bell from England, it was agreed that it sounded no better than the Pass and Stow bell. So the "Liberty Bell" remained where it was in the steeple, and the new Whitechapel bell was placed in the cupola on the State House roof and attached to the clock to sound the hours.
• The Liberty Bell was rung to call the Assembly together and to summon people together for special announcements and events. The Liberty Bell tolled frequently. Among the more historically important occasions, it tolled when Benjamin Franklin was sent to England to address Colonial grievances, it tolled when King George III ascended to the throne in 1761, and it tolled to call together the people of Philadelphia to discuss the Sugar Act in 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765.
• In 1772 a petition was sent to the Assembly stating that the people in the vicinity of the State House were "incommoded and distressed" by the constant "ringing of the great Bell in the steeple."
• But, tradition holds, it continued tolling for the First Continental Congress in 1774, the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and its most resonant tolling was on July 8, 1776, when it summoned the citizenry for the reading of the Declaration of Independence produced by the Second Continental Congress. However, the steeple was in bad condition and historians today doubt the likelihood of the story.
• In October 1777, the British occupied Philadelphia. Weeks earlier all bells, including the Liberty Bell, were removed from the city. It was well understood that, if left, they would likely be melted down and used for cannon. The Liberty Bell was removed from the city and hidden in the floorboards of the Zion Reformed Church in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which you can still visit today.
• Throughout the period from 1790 to 1800, when Philadelphia was the nation's capital, uses of the Bell included calling the state legislature into session, summoning voters to hand in their ballots at the State House window, and tolling to commemorate Washington's birthday and celebrate the Fourth of July.
The Crack
• There is widespread disagreement about when the first crack appeared on the Bell. However, it is agreed that the final expansion of the crack which rendered the Bell unringable was on Washington's Birthday in 1846.
The Bell As An Icon
• The Bell achieved an iconic status when abolitionists adopted the Bell as a symbol for the movement. It was first used in this association as a frontispiece to an 1837 edition of Liberty, published by the New York Anti-Slavery Society. In retrospect, it is a remarkably apt metaphor for a country literally cracked and freedom fissured for its black inhabitants. William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery publication The Liberator reprinted a Boston abolitionist pamphlet containing a poem about the Bell, entitled, The Liberty Bell, which represents the first documented use of the name, "Liberty Bell."
• In 1847, George Lippard wrote a fictional story for The Saturday Currier which told of an elderly bellman waiting in the State House steeple for the word that Congress had declared Independence. The story continues that privately he began to doubt Congress's resolve. Suddenly the bellman's grandson, who was eavesdropping on the doors of Congress, yelled to him, "Ring, Grandfather! Ring!"
• This story so captured the imagination of people throughout the land that the Liberty Bell was forever associated with the Declaration of Independence.
• Starting in the 1880s, the Bell traveled to cities throughout the land "proclaiming liberty" and inspiring the cause of freedom. The Liberty Bell Center was opened in October, 2003. On every Fourth of July, at 2pm Eastern time, children who are descendants of signers of the Declaration of Independence symbolically tap the Liberty Bell 13 times while bells across the nation also ring 13 times in honor of the patriots from the original 13 states.
Liberty Bell Facts
• Location: Liberty Bell Center, Market Street & 6th, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania •
Bell Originally Cast: Whitechapel Foundry 1752
Bell recast: Pass & Stow Philadelphia 1753 and again later that year
Bell owned by: The City of Philadelphia (not the Park Service)
Center opened: October, 2003
Center architect: Bernard J. Cywinski of Bohlin, Cywinski, Jackson
Tourism information: Daily 9am-5pm with extended hours July and August. The bell is visible 24 hours a day. 215-597-8974
Strike note: E-flat
Composition: 70% copper, 25% tin, small amounts of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold and silver
• Size of Crack: The crack is approximately 1/2 inch wide and 24.5 inches long.
Bell Stats • circumference around the lip: 12 ft. • circumference around the crown: 7 ft. 6 in. • lip to crown: 3 ft. • height over the crown: 2 ft. 3 in. • thickness at lip: 3 in. • thickness at crown: 1-1/4 in. • weight (originally): 2080 lbs. • length of clapper: 3 ft. 2 in. • weight of clapper: 44-1/2 lbs. • weight of yoke: 200 lbs. • Length of visible hairline fracture: approx. 2' 4" (this and next measurement made by Park curator Bob Giannini in
1993) • Length of drilled crack: approx. 2' 1/2" • yoke wood: American Elm (a.k.a. slippery elm)
Liberty Bell Triviata• The Bell was sent from England on the ship Hibernia, captained by William Child.
Note: It is in error, though commonly believed that it came on the Myrtilla. Dennis R. Reidenbach, Acting Superintendent Independence National Historical Park, wrote, "According to newspaper accounts of port activity, the Myrtilla docked in Philadelphia at the end of September 1752. However, Pennsylvania's Speaker of the Assembly, Isaac Norris (the man who ordered and oversaw the installation of the bell in the State House), wrote on Sept. 1 that the bell had recently arrived. The only ship from England that docked in Philadelphia during the month of August that year was the Hibernia, captained by William Child. The Hibernia was of modest size, transporting dry goods and passengers regularly between England, the colonies and Ireland. No known records identify the Hibernia's owner either before or at the time it transported the bell." (Philadelphia Inquirer 9/22/02)
• The bell cracked the first time it was rung. • The bell weighed 2080 pounds when it was cast. • The strike note of the Bell is E-flat
• On June 6, 1944, when Allied forces landed in France, the sound of the bell was broadcast to all parts of the country
• There are three known recordings of the Bell. Two were made in the 1940s for radio stations to play; the third is currently owned by Columbia Records.
• About 1,500,000 people annually make a pilgrimage to the Bell. • On the bell, "Pennsylvania" is spelled "Pensylvania" • When the Liberty Bell first cracked, it was given to Pass & Stow to recast. A replacement bell was
ordered from Whitechapel Foundry in England. The Pass & Stow bell was completed and installed before the new one came from Whitechapel.
• As an April Fools (1996) joke, Taco Bell ran a full-page ad in various newspapers, including The New York Times, claiming to have bought the Liberty Bell.