1. Chapter 5, Section 2 Building Colonial Unity
American History
Chapter 5, Section 2
Building Colonial Unity

2. Vocabulary and Timeline
Vocabulary: Propaganda, Committee of Correspondence
Timeline
1770 A.D A.D A.D A.D.
Boston Massacre Samuel Adams sets Boston Tea Parliament
takes place up a committee of Party occurs passes the
correspondence Intolerable Acts
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3. Trouble in Boston
In the summer of 1768, British customs officials seized the Liberty, a ship belonging to John Hancock (a merchant and protest leader).
The customs officials believed Hancock was smuggling.
The news of the seizure angered the people of Boston and they filled the streets and protested.
Protests like these made the British officials nervous. They sent word back to Britain that the colonies were on the brink of rebellion.
In response, Parliament sent two regiments of troops (often referred to as redcoats) to Boston.

4. Trouble in Boston
The redcoats set up camp in the heart of the city of Boston.
These soldiers were in some cases rude and violent towards the colonists.
Because most soldiers were poor men (they earned little pay), some of them stole goods from local shops and scuffled with boys who taunted them.
Bostonians were angry about the series of laws passed that violated their rights and now they resented the presence of the soldiers.
Therefore, fighting broke out between the redcoats and the Bostonians and continued throughout the next year.

5. The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770 was a result of the heated tension between the redcoats and the Bostonians.
Townspeople wielding weapons marched through the streets toward the customhouse.
The sentry on duty panicked and called for help. In response the crowd threw stones, snowballs, oyster shells and pieces of wood at the redcoats.
They screamed, “Fire, you bloodybacks, you lobsters. You dare not fire.”
After a soldier was knocked down, the redcoats did fire and they killed five colonists. Among the dead was Crispus Attucks, an African and Native American dockworker.

6. The Boston Massacre
Colonial leaders used the killings as propaganda—information designed to influence opinion—against the British.
Samuel Adams put up posters describing the Boston Massacre as a slaughter of innocent Americans by bloodthirsty redcoats.
Paul Revere made an engraving showing a British officer giving the order to open fire on an orderly crowd.
All of these things strengthened anti-British feelings.
The Boston Massacre also led colonists to call for stronger boycotts of British goods.
Aware of this growing opposition, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts except the tax on tea. The colonists saw this as a victory and it ended their boycott of British merchants except on the taxed tea.

7. Continued Resistance
Even after the Townshend Acts were repealed, some colonial leaders still called for resistance to British rule.
In 1772, Samuel Adams revived the committee of correspondence—an organization used in earlier protests—in Boston to circulate colonists’ grievances against Britain.
Other committees of correspondence sprung up in other colonies and they continued to bring together protestors against the British.

8. A Crisis Over Tea
In the early 1770s, some Americans considered British colonial policy a “conspiracy against liberty.”
What Parliament did next confirmed their beliefs.
In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act in order to save the British East India Company from going under.
This act gave the East India Company a favorable advantage over colonial merchants because it was able to ship its extra tea to the colonies without paying most of the tea taxes.
Because its tea was sold directly to the shopkeepers at a lower price and bypassed colonial merchants, the tea from the East Indian Company was cheaper than any other tea.

9. Colonial Demands
The colonists again boycotted British goods to denounce the British monopoly.
Samuel Adams and others denounced the British monopoly and argued it was another way for them to crush the colonists’ liberty.
The Daughters of Liberty marched through town and burned the East India Company’s tea. They stated that “we’ll part with our tea” rather than our freedom.
Colonists in Boston and Philadelphia planned to stop the company’s ships from unloading the tea.
The British were warned by officials that this may lead to another crisis with the colonies. However, they ignored the warnings and sent the tea anyway.
In all colonial ports except Boston, colonists forced the company’s ships to return to Britain.

10. The Boston Tea Party
In Boston Harbor in December 1773, three ships entered. The royal governor, whose home had been destroyed by Stamp Act protestors, refused to let the ships turn back as the colonists wished and ordered the tea unloaded.
In response, at midnight on December 16, the Boston Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, disguised themselves as Mohawks and boarded the ships.
They threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This became known as the Boston Tea Party.
The word spread and many colonists celebrated the bravery of the Sons of Liberty.
However, no one was yet speaking about challenging British rule. Colonists still considered themselves British citizens.

11. The Boston Tea Party
George Hewes was a member of the band of "Indians" that boarded the tea ships that evening. His recollection of the event was published some years later. We join his story as the group makes its way to the tea-laden ships:
"It was now evening, and I immediately dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained the tea. When I first appeared in the street after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped and painted as I was, and who fell in with me and marched in order to the place of our destination.
When we arrived at the wharf, there were three of our number who assumed an authority to direct our operations, to which we readily submitted. They divided us into three parties, for the purpose of boarding the three ships which contained the tea at the same time. The name of him who commanded the division to which I was assigned was Leonard Pitt. The names of the other commanders I never knew. We were immediately ordered by the respective commanders to board all the ships at the same time, which we promptly obeyed. The commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship, appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles.

12. The Boston Tea Party
I made the demand accordingly, and the captain promptly replied, and delivered the articles; but requested me at the same time to do no damage to the ship or rigging. We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.
In about three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.
...The next morning, after we had cleared the ships of the tea, it was discovered that very considerable quantities of it were floating upon the surface of the water; and to prevent the possibility of any of its being saved for use, a number of small boats were manned by sailors and citizens, who rowed them into those parts of the harbor wherever the tea was visible, and by beating it with oars and paddles so thoroughly drenched it as to render its entire destruction inevitable."

13. The Intolerable Acts
King George III and Parliament vowed to punish Boston and the people of Massachusetts for using the Boston Tea Party to resist British rule.
They also realized that they were losing control of the colonies.
King George III stated, “We must master them or leave them to themselves.”
Therefore, in order to control the colonies, the king and Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in the spring of 1774 in order to punish the people of Boston and Massachusetts.
The acts were very harsh.

14. The Intolerable Acts
First, they closed Boston Harbor until the colonists paid for the ruined tea. Closing the harbor prevented Bostonians from receiving food and other supplies.
Second, the laws banned town meetings.
Third, they forced Bostonians to house British soldiers in their homes
Finally, the laws allowed royal officers to be tried in other colonies or in Britain if they were accused of any crimes.
The purpose of the Coercive Acts was to isolate the Bostonians. But, instead the acts united the colonists.

15. The Intolerable Acts
The colonies sent food and clothing to Boston to show their support.
The colonists also argued that the acts violated their rights as British citizens—the right to no quartering of troops in private homes and no standing army in peacetime without their consent.
Another problem was the Quebec Act passed at the same time as the Coercive Acts. This act set up a permanent government for Quebec and granted religious freedom for French Catholics. The act also gave Quebec the area west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River.
This ignored the colonists’ claims to land in the area. Therefore, the colonists renamed these acts the Intolerable Acts.