1. Issues Behind the Revolution

2. Colonies Grow Discontented  1760 change in British leadership  King George III at age of 22 assumes leadership of empire  Replaces Wm Pitt as Prime Minister with John Stewart

3. Colonies Grow Discontented  The British victory caused enormous British debt.  King George III promised to get Britain of debt.  Britain looked to the colonies to pay for the war.

4. Colonies Grow Discontented  In the spring of 1763, Pontaic, Ottawa chief, united several other Native America groups to go to war against the British.  They attacked settlements along the frontier.  “Racist Europeans try to slaughter Indians as brave frontiersmen try to make peace with the tribes.”

5. Proclamation Act of 1763  British did not want to pay for another war.  This order closed the region west of the Applachain Mtns to all settlement by colonists.  Land off limits-Act angered many settlers and land speculators.  Colonists continued to move into area.

6. Britain’s $ Problems  The British, led by Prime Minister George Greenville, felt that the colonists should share some of the continued burden of sustaining British troops in the colonies

7. Sugar & Quartering Acts  The Revenue Act of 1764 (The Sugar Act)  “If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without ever having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves?”  —excerpts from a Boston Town Meeting, May 24, 1764

8. Sugar & Quartering Acts  The Revenue Act of 1764, also known as the Sugar Act, was the first tax on the American colonies imposed by the British Parliament.  Tax was designed to raise $ from the colonies.

9. Sugar & Quartering Acts  Tipping point- smugglers were to be tried in British court rather than colonial court.  Why is this such a big deal?

10. Sugar & Quartering Acts  That the Act came from an external body rather than a colonial legislature alarmed a handful of colonial leaders in Boston who held that the Act violated their “British privileges”. Their principle complaint was against taxation without representation

11. Sugar & Quartering Acts  1765 Quartering Acts Required the colonies to provide housing and supplies for British troops stationed in colonies

12. Stamp Act 1765

13.  Stamp Act required colonists to purchase special stamped paper for every legal document, license, newspaper, pamphlet, …  Why the tax? PM Greenville estimated that this tax would raise enough $ to pay the cost of keeping British troops in America

14. Stamp Act Congress & Protests  Reaction to the Stamp Act was widespread & extreme b/c it touched nearly every American colonist.

15. Stamp Act Congress and Protests  James Otis organizer of the Stamp Act Congress  Taxation without Representation is Tyranny"  "If we are not represented, we are slaves" and "A man's house is his castle".

16. Stamp Act Congress and Protests  Oct 1765 Stamp Act Congress issued a Declaration of Rights and Grievances Parliament lacked the power to pass taxees Colonial merchants signed a non importation agreement