1. From Empire to Independence
Chapter 6
From Empire to Independence

2. MAP 6.1 The War for Empire in North America, 1754–1763 The Seven Years’ War in America (also known as the French and Indian War) was fought in three principal areas: Nova Scotia and what was then Acadia, the frontier between New France and New York, and the upper Ohio River—gateway to the Old Northwest.

3. MAP 6.2 European Claims in North America, 1750 and 1763 As a result of the British victory in the Seven Years’ War, the map of colonial claims in North America was fundamentally transformed.

4. MAP 6.3 Demonstrations against the Stamp Act, 1765 From Halifax in the North to Savannah in the South, popular demonstrations against the Stamp Act forced the resignation of British tax officials. The propaganda of 1765 even reached the breakfast table, emblazoned on teapots.

5. MAP 6.4 The Quebec Act of 1774 With the Quebec Act, Britain created a centralized colonial government for Canada and extended that colony’s administrative control southwest to the Ohio River, invalidating the sea-to-sea boundaries of many colonial charters.

6. MAP 6.5 The First Engagements of the Revolution The first military engagements of the American Revolution took place in the spring of 1775 in the countryside surrounding Boston.

7. The death of General James Wolfe, at the conclusion of the battle in which the British captured Quebec in 1759, became the subject of American artist Benjamin West’s most famous painting, which was exhibited to tremendous acclaim in London in 1770.
SOURCE:Benjamin West (1738 –1820),The Death of General Wolfe, 1770.Oil on canvas,152.6 •214.5 cm.Transfer from the Canadian War Memorials,1921.(Gift of the 2nd Duke of Westminster,Eaton Hall,Cheshire,1918.) National Gallery of Canada,Ottawa,Ontario.

8. A treaty between the Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo (western Iroquois) Indians and Great Britain, July 13, 1765, at the conclusion of the Indian uprising. The Indian chiefs signed with pictographs symbolizing their clans, each notarized with an official wax seal.
SOURCE:Photo by Carmelo Guadagno.Photograph Courtesy of National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

9. James Franklin began publishing The New-England Courant in Boston in When Franklin criticized the government, he was jailed, and the paper continued under the editorship of his brother Benjamin. The Courant ceased publication in 1726, and the Franklin brothers went on to other papers—James to The Rhode Island State Gazette, Benjamin to The Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia. Before the Zenger case in 1735, few editors dared to challenge the government. SOURCE:Massachusetts Historical Society.

10. Samuel Adams, a second cousin of John Adams, was a leader of the Boston radicals and an organizer of the Sons of Liberty. The artist of this portrait, John Singleton Copley, was known for setting his subjects in the midst of everyday objects; here he portrays Adams in a middle-class suit with the charter guaranteeing the liberties of Boston’s freemen.
SOURCE:John Singleton Copley (1738 –1815),Samuel Adams ,1772.Oil on canvas,127 cm x cm.Deposited by the City of Boston.Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts,Boston.

11. This British cartoon, A Society of Patriotic Ladies, ridiculed the efforts of American women to support the Patriot cause by boycotting tea. The moderator of the meeting appears coarse and masculine, while an attractive scribe is swayed by the amorous attention of a gentleman. The activities under the table suggest that these women are neglecting their true duty.
SOURCE:Library of Congress.

12. In Paul Revere’s version of the Boston Massacre, issued three weeks after the incident, the British fire an organized volley into a defenseless crowd. Revere’s print—which he plagiarized from another Boston engraver—may have been inaccurate, but it was enormously effective propaganda. It hung in so many Patriot homes that the judge hearing the murder trial of these British soldiers warned the jury not to be swayed by “the prints exhibited in our houses.”
SOURCE:The Library of Congress.

13. A British tax man is tarred and feathered and forced to drink tea, while the Boston Tea Party takes place in the background, in this image of 1774.
SOURCE:Christie ’s Images,Inc.

14. The engraving of the first session of the Continental Congress, published in France in 1782, is the only contemporary illustration of the meeting. Peyton Randolph of Virginia presides from the elevated chair, but otherwise there are no recognizable individuals. The Congress had to find a way to form a community among the leaders from each of the colonies without compromising their local identities.
SOURCE:Library of Congress.

15. Soon after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, the artist Ralph Earl and the engraver Amos Doolittle visited the location and interviewed participants. They produced a series of four engravings of the incident, the first popular prints of the battles of the Revolutionary War. This view shows British troops marching to occupy Concord. SOURCE:Concord (Mass)Museum

16. The Connecticut artist John Trumbull painted The Battle of Bunker Hill in 1785, the first of a series that earned him the informal title of “the Painter of the Revolution.” Trumbull was careful to research the details of his paintings, but composed them in the grand style of historical romance. In the early nineteenth century, he repainted this work and three other Revolutionary scenes for the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, DC. SOURCE:The Granger Collection.

17. The Manner in Which the American Colonies Declared Themselves INDEPENDENT of the King of ENGLAND, a 1783 English print. Understanding that the coming struggle would require the steady support of ordinary people, in the Declaration of Independence, the upper-class men of the Continental Congress asserted the right of popular revolution and the great principle of human equality. SOURCE:The Granger Collection.

18. On July 9, 1776, shortly after the Declaration of Independence was signed, General Washington gathered his troops at the present-day City Hall Park in Manhattan and had the document read to them. An unruly group of soldiers and townspeople then marched to the south end of Broadway and pulled down a large gilded lead statue of King George III. The head impaled upon a stake and the rest hauled to Connecticut to be melted down for bullets. The event became a favorite scene for historical painters of the nineteenth century.
SOURCE:William Walcutt,Pulling Down the Statue of George III at Bowling Green ,1857.Oil on canvas,51 5/8” X 77 5/8"Lafayette College Art Collection,Easton,Pennsylvania.