Starting a Revolution

Parliamentary Acts

• Sugar Act (1764)• Quartering Act (1765)• Stamp Act (1765)

– Stamp Act Congress– Repealed by Parliament (1766)

• Declaratory Act (1766)• Townshend Acts (1767)

Sugar Act

• Lowers tax from Molasses Act– George Grenville hoped to stop

smuggling• Enforced by Royal Courts• James Otis – “Taxation

without Representation”

Stamp Act

-placed a direct tax on the colonists

-required stamp on all legal documents, newspapers, license, and cards

-affected many colonists rich and poor

Stamp Act Congress

• First united movement• Helps lead to repeal of Stamp Act• Declaration of Rights &

Grievances– Colonists owe to the crown "the same allegiance" owed by "subjects

born within the realm".– Colonists owe to Parliament "all due subordination".– Colonists possessed all the rights of Englishmen.– Trial by jury is a right.– The use of Admiralty Courts was abusive.– Without voting rights, Parliament could not represent the colonists.– There should be no taxation without representation.– Only the colonial assemblies had a right to tax the colonies.

Colonial Reactions

• “No taxation without representation.”• “Virtual Representation”-felt unrepresented in Parliament• Sons of Liberty organize boycotts• Committees of Correspondence

– Organized colonial resistance against the crown• Merchants create non-importation associations not buy

British goods

Declaratory Act

• Accompanies repeal of Stamp Act• Parliament can legislate for colonies

Townshend Acts

-new tax placed on imports such as tea, glass, paper, paint

-colonists again reacted with protests

-British reacted by sending more troops

-Partially repealed on same day as…

Boston Massacre

Boston Massacre

-March 1770

-protests by colonists

-British troops fire on crowd

-5 colonists killed

Crispus Attucks

-Most soldiers found not guilty

John Adams served as attorney for the soldiers

The Revolutionary Cause

• Boston center of colonial protest and rebellion (strained heavily by acts)

• British Army sent to enforce laws• Boston Massacre (1770) Townshend

Acts repealed

The Tea Act

• Tea actually at lower price than before• “The right of taxing Americans” – Lord North, Prime Minister

Boston Tea Party

-tax on tea still remain in effect

-monopoly on tea given to British company

-Sons of Liberty

-Dec. 1773 colonists raided Boston harbor and threw the tea overboard and burned the ships

Coercive Acts

• Intolerable Acts-harsh acts imposed to punish Boston

-closed Boston Harbor

-military governor over Boston

-housed troops in peoples’ homes

1st Continental Congress

-Committees of Correspondence had been communicating with other colonies

-militias begin to form

-minutemen

-after Intolerable Acts they call for a meeting

-late 1774 1st meeting held in Philadelphia

-discussed rights of colonies

-agreed to meet again in 1 year

Lexington & Concord

• The war begins-April 1775

-British try to seize weapons stored in Concord

-Paul Revere, William Dawes, Samuel Prescott warn colonists

-minutemen met British at Lexington

-shots fired and colonists killed

-colonist conduct guerilla battle along road to Concord