1. Civil War in the Colonies

2. End of Benign Neglect
British government deep in debt after the Seven Years War
Parliament votes to increase taxation
Burden spread to British colonies
Colonies had been taxed previously
Indirect taxation (tariffs)
Colonist had either avoided taxation or saw it as the cost of doing business with Britain
Proclamation of 1763
Marks British reversal of previous policies in North America

3. End of Benign Neglect
Parliament decides to leave a standing army in the colonies
Tremendous cost to Britain (6% peacetime budget)
Justified the increase in colonial taxation
Increased British interference
British revise previous colonial regulations (Navigation Acts)
Sugar Act
Writs of Assistance
New measures didn’t raise desired revenues

4. Why would the colonists not react strongly to changes in the Navigation Acts?

5. Direct Taxation Stamp Act 1765
Turning point for British colonists already angry over increasing tax burden
Passed along with Quartering Act (Mutiny Act)
Colonists rejected new form of direct internal taxation
“No taxation without representation”
Virtual vs Actual Representation
Colonists organize to resist Stamp Act
Stamp Act Congress
First successful intercolonial meeting
Domestic terrorism
Loyal Nine/Sons of Liberty
Stamp Act repealed/Declaratory Act passed in 1766
Colonist fears increase
Colonists pay 2-6% what the British pay in taxes (1-1 1/2 shillings vs. 26)

6. Direct Taxation Next step: Townshend Acts (Revenue Act) 1767
Also seen as direct internal taxation
Resulted in a boycott of British goods
Subsequently repealed by Parliament (except tea duties)
Only the taxes on tea generated significant revenue
Tea Act 1773
Passed to help failing East India Company
Seen as Parliament aiding a corrupt monopoly at the expense of colonial taxpayers
Leads to Boston Tea Party

8. Organized Resistance to British Policies
In Print
Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer
by John Dickinson
Series of essays: opposed direct taxation
Pamphlets
“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine
Committees of Correspondence
Linked New England towns to Boston revolutionaries
Later, link colonial legislatures together
Propaganda
Boston Massacre engraving by Paul Revere (1770)

10. Why was Revere’s engraving effective propaganda at the time?

11. Organized Resistance to British Policies
In action
Boston Tea Party 1773
Results in passage of Coercive (Intolerable) Acts 1774
1774 Massachusetts uprising begins revolution
In government
First continental Congress meets 1775
Adopt Suffolk Resolves (response to Coercive Acts)
Boycott British trade/cut off colonial exports
Agree to resist British if attacked
Agree to meet again

12. Revolutionary War Has Begun
“Shot Heard ‘Round the World”
Lexington and Concord 1774
Bunker (Breed’s) Hill
Showed British resolve
Second Continental Congress 1775
Issued paper money to support the war
Appointed George Washington commander of the continental army
Olive Branch petition (rejected)
Divide into three committees
1. Explain reasons for declaring independence
2. Draft a colonial constitution
3. Draft a Declaration of Independence
Bunker Hill 1,154 casualties (British) 311 (Patriots)

14. Film Clip

15. Fighting the War Colonial difficulties
Large Loyalist population (1/5-1/3 total population)
Low morale in continental army/colonial militias
Lacked supplies/funding (faced difficult conditions)
French Alliance
Critical support for colonial war effort
Colonists had to demonstrate an ability to win
Saratoga 1778
British Surrender
Cornwallis surrenders in 1781 at Yorktown
Sign Treaty of Paris #2 1783
British recognize independence
Never fully settles territorial boundaries

16. What was Washington’s greatest advantage over the British?

20. Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson was assigned to the least important of the committees
Assumed that revolutionary principles were already very well known
Jefferson “borrowed” many of his ideas
Virginia had already drafted their own resolution of independence
Ideas from European Enlightenment
Specifically John Locke
Although document was not seen as important at the time it was brought to prominence by nineteenth century idealism
In particular, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Overhead Jeffersion vs. Locke
Film reading Declaration of Independence

21. Film Clip

22. Next task for the new government?