the road to revolution
DESCRIPTION
Causes of the American RevolutionTRANSCRIPT
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.