Ch. 17: The American Revolution

Vocabulary:

revolution, boycott, imports, massacre, loyalist, patriot, minutemen, grievance

After the French and Indian War

• In 1763, the French surrendered to the British and the French and Indian War was over.

• But the war had been expensive.• King George III decided that

since the war had been fought in the colonies, the colonists should be the ones to pay for most of it.

• The new taxes made the colonists angry, because they didn’t have anyone in Parliament (England’s Congress) to represent them.

• The colonist’s slogan was “No Taxation Without Representation!” King George III

New Taxes from England

• Stamp Act: tax on every piece of printed paper (stamps, books, magazines, newspapers, legal documents, licenses, ship’s papers, playing cards, and others.)

• Townsend Acts: tax on all imports (glass, lead, paint, paper, tea, and other things)

Under the Stamp Act, all paper products had to have this stamp.

Colonist Response to Taxes

• At first, colonists decided to boycott the new taxed goods.

• Eventually, the people in Boston became very angry.

• This was because of the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party.

• They tarred and feathered tax collectors, and burned politicians in effigy.

• People broke into two groups: patriots and loyalists.

The Boston Massacre

• On March 5, 1770, on a snowy night a few boys in Boston decided to throw snowballs at some soldiers who were standing guard.

• The guards ignored them, but other people began to show up and started throwing chunks of ice and snow at the soldiers.

• The soldiers were afraid that the mob was going to attack them, so one soldier fired a shot into the air.

The Boston Massacre

• The rest of the guards got confused and shot their rifles at the crowd.

• The colonists picked up any weapon they could find (rocks, sticks, knives) and attacked the soldiers.

• When it all ended five colonists had been killed.

• A reporter for a newspaper called it a massacre.

• It made some people in Boston very angry.

The Boston Tea Party

• After the Boston Massacre Britain lifted the taxes on everything, except tea.

• Tea was very popular, and the government thought the colonists wouldn’t mind paying the tax.

• When a shipment of tea came into Boston harbor, a group of patriots decided to dress up like Native Americans and attack the ships.

• When they got on board, they threw the crates of tea into Boston Harbor.

• The tea was worth about 10,000 pounds ($19,000.)

The Boston Tea Party

• The British Parliament was furious!

• They passed a group of laws called the Intolerable Acts.

• One of the acts ordered Boston Harbor closed, until the townspeople paid for he tea that they had destroyed.

• Another act gave more power to the Governor of Massachusetts, who was a loyalist.

• Many people thought this was unfair and that if Great Britain continued to rule them, they would always be treated unfairly.

British Parliament: House of Lords

The First Continental Congress

• In 1774, the patriot leaders met to talk about the Intolerable Acts.

• They wrote the Albany Plan of Union, and hoped that if the colonists worked together then Parliament would listen.

• They also decided to form an army in case there was going to be a war.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere• King George III thought that if he

could crush Massachusetts, the other colonies would back down.

• He ordered 600 troops to arrest patriot leaders in Lexington, Massachusetts.

• He tried to keep the march a secret, but the patriots found out that the troops were coming, they just didn’t know how.

• Paul Revere and William Dawes waited in the Old North Church to see if the British were going to march by land or sail by sea into Lexington.

• They devised a system, where they put one lantern by land and two lanterns by sea in the window of the church.

• When they saw the ships, they rode out to warn the patriot leaders that “The British are coming!”

The Battle of Lexington• The patriot leaders called in 70 minutemen to stand against the British

soldiers on Lexington bridge.• Both the soldiers and the minutemen knew that 70 men were no match for

600 soldiers, so the minutemen fled.• While the minutemen were running, a single shot was fired.• No one knows who shot the first bullet, but the English soldiers began

shooting after they heard the shot.• The British commander screamed for his men to stop, but by then 6

minutemen had died.• The British marched onward to Concord.

The Battle of Concord

• In Concord, the patriots had heard what happened in Lexington.

• They gathered together 500 minutemen and outnumbered the British soldiers on the bridge outside of town.

• The patriots forced the British to retreat from Boston.

Declaring Independence• On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of

Independence and had it approved at the Second Continental Congress.

• The Declaration of Independence has three main parts: – Part one says that all men are created equal, have the right to life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and when those rights are lost they can rebel against the government who took them away.

– Part two was a long list of grievances that the colonists thought were unfair.

– Part three said that the colonists were no longer part of England and were now the United States of America.

• The Second Continental Congress hoped that European countries, like France, who had a problem with England, would help the colonists against the British armies, so he asked for their help.

• They also decided that the army needed a general, and they chose George Washington to be the commander of the American forces.

Questions about Chapter 17

1. How did Great Britain plan to pay for the French and Indian War?

2. What started the Boston Massacre?3. Why did Parliament impose the Intolerable Acts on the

colonists?4. How did King George III think he was going to stop the rest

of the colonies from rebelling?5. Who warned the patriot leaders about the soldiers who were

coming to arrest them?6. What was the first battle of the American Revolution?7. What are the three parts of the Declaration of Independence?