-
103. John Locke (1632-1704), his theories
104. A democratic society or not?
105. Land claims and squabbles in North America
- Locke was an English political philosopher whose ideas inspired the
- American revolution. He wrote that all human beings have a right to
- life, liberty, and property, and that governments exist to protect those
- rights. He believed that government was based upon an unwritten
- "social contract" between the rulers and their people, and if the
- government failed to uphold its end of the contract, the people had a
- right to rebel and institute a new government.
- The Founding Fathers were not sure that democracy was the right form of
- government for America. They feared anarchy and the rise of factions
- whose policies would not represent the true will of the people. Hence,
- the government which they designed contains many aspects of a republic;
- that is, an indirect democracy in which the people do not vote directly
- on the laws, but instead elect representatives who vote for them.
- The British controlled the colonies on the east coast, and the French
- held the land around the Mississippi and west of it. Both the British
- and the French laid claim to Canada and the Ohio Valley region.
- 106. Differences between French and British colonization
- The British settled mainly along the coast, where they started farms,
- towns, and governments. As a general rule, whole families emigrated.
- The British colonies had little interaction with the local Indians
- (aside from occasional fighting). The French colonized the interior,
- where they controlled the fur trade. Most of the French immigrants were
- single men, and there were few towns and only loose governmental
- authority. The French lived closely with the Indians, trading with them
- for furs and sometimes taking Indian wives.
-
109. War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739-1743)
-
Land squabble between Britain and Spain over Georgia and trading rights.
- Battles took place in the Caribbean and on the Florida/Georgia border.
- The name comes from a British captain named Jenkin, whose ear was cut
- off by the Spanish.
-
111. French and Indian War (1756-1763)
-
Part of the Seven Years’ War in Europe. Britain and France fought for
- control of the Ohio Valley and Canada. The Algonquins, who feared
- British expansion into the Ohio Valley, allied with the French. The
- Mohawks also fought for the French while the rest of the Iroquois Nation
- allied with the British. The colonies fought under British commanders.
- Britain eventually won, and gained control of all of the remaining
- French possessions in Canada, as well as India. Spain, which had allied
- with France, ceeded Florida to Britain, but received Louisana in
- return.
-
118. Treaty of Paris, 1763
119. Pontiac’s Rebellion
120. Proclamation of 1763
- Treaty between Britain, France, and Spain, which ended the Seven Years
- War (and the French and Indian War). France lost Canada, the land east
- of the Mississippi, some Caribbean islands and India to Britain. France
- also gave New Orleans and the land west of the Mississippi to Spain, to
- compensate it for ceeding Florida to the British.
- 1763 - An Indian uprising after the French and Indian War, led by an
- Ottowa chief named Pontiac. They opposed British expansion into the
- western Ohio Valley and began destroying British forts in the area. The
- attacks ended when Pontiac was killed.
- A proclamation from the British government which forbade British
- colonists from settling west of the Appalacian Mountains, and which
- required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back
- east.
-
-
A series of British regulations which taxed goods imported by the
- colonies from places other than Britain, or otherwise sought to control
- and regulate colonial trade. Increased British-colonial trade and tax
- revenues. The Navigation Acts were reinstated after the French and
- Indian War because Britain needed to pay off debts incurred during the
- war, and to pay the costs of maintaining a standing army in the
- colonies.
-
126. Sugar Act, 1764
127. Molasses Act, 1733
- Part of Prime Minister Grenville's revenue program, the act replaced the
- Molasses Act of 1733, and actually lowered the tax on sugar and
- molasses (which the New England colonies imported to make rum as part of
- the triangular trade) from 6 cents to 3 cents a barrel, but for the
- first time adopted provisions that would insure that the tax was
- strictly enforced; created the vice-admiralty courts; and made it
- illegal for the colonies to buy goods from non-British Caribbean
- colonies.
- British legislation which had taxed all molasses, rum, and sugar which
- the colonies imported from countries other than Britain and her
- colonies. The act angered the New England colonies, which imported a
- lot of molasses from the Caribbean as part of the Triangular Trade. The
- British had difficulty enforcing the tax; most colonial merchants did
- not pay it.
-
-
March 22, 1765 - British legislation passed as part of Prime Minister
- Grenville's revenue measures which required that all legal or official
- documents used in the colonies, such as wills, deeds and contracts, had
- to be written on special, stamped British paper. It was so unpopular in
- the colonies that it caused riots, and most of the stamped paper sent
- to the colonies from Britain was burned by angry mobs. Because of this
- opposition, and the decline in British imports caused by the non-
- importation movement, London merchants convinced Parliament to repeal
- the Stamp Act in 1766.
-
134. Stamp Act Congress, 1765
135. Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
136. Sons of Liberty
- 27 delegates from 9 colonies met from October 7-24, 1765, and drew up a
- list of declarations and petitions against the new taxes imposed on the
- colonies.
- An American orator and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses who
- gave speeches against the British government and its policies urging the
- colonies to fight for independence. In connection with a petition to
- declare a "state of defense" in virginia in 1775, he gave his most
- famous speech which ends with the words, "Give me liberty or give me
- death." Henry served as Governor of Virginia from 1776-1779 and
- 1784-1786, and was instrumental in causing the Bill of Rights to be
- adopted as part of the U.S. Constitution.
- A radical political organization for colonial independence which formed
- in 1765 after the passage of the Stamp Act. They incited riots and
- burned the customs houses where the stamped British paper was kept.
- After the repeal of the Stamp Act, many of the local chapters formed the
- Committees of Correspondence which continued to promote opposition to
- British policies towards the colonies. The Sons leaders included Samuel
- Adams and Paul Revere.
-
139. Declatory Act, 1766
140. Quartering Act
141. Townshend Acts, reaction
- Passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed, the Act
- declared that Parliament had the power to tax the colonies both
- internally and externally, and had absolute power over the colonial
- legislatures.
- March 24, 1765 - Required the colonials to provide food, lodging, and
- supplies for the British troops in the colonies.
- Another series of revenue measures, passed by Townshend as Chancellor of
- the Exchequer in 1767, they taxed quasi-luxury items imported into the
- colonies, including paper, lead, tea, and paint. The colonial reaction
- was outrage and they instutited another movement to stop importing
- British goods.
-
147. Boston Massacre, 1770
-
The colonials hated the British soldiers in the colonies because the
- worked for very low wages and took jobs away from colonists. On March
- 4, 1770, a group of colonials started throwing rocks and snowballs at
- some British soldiers; the soldiers panicked and fired their muskets,
- killing a few colonials. This outraged the colonies and increased
- anti-British sentiment.
-
155. Lord North
156. Tea Act, East India Company
157. Boston Tea Party, 1773
158. Coercive Acts / Intolerable Acts / Repressive Acts
- Prime Minister of England from 1770 to 1782. Although he repealed the
- Townshend Acts, he generally went along with King George III's
- repressive policies towards the colonies even though he personally
- considered them wrong. He hoped for an early peace during the
- Revolutionary War and resigned after Cornwallis’ surrender in 1781.
- The Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the trade in tea,
- made it illegal for the colonies to buy non-British tea, and forced the
- colonies to pay the tea tax of 3 cents/pound.
- British ships carrying tea sailed into Boston Harbor and refused to
- leave until the colonials took their tea. Boston was boycotting the tea
- in protest of the Tea Act and would not let the ships bring the tea
- ashore. Finally, on the night of December 16, 1773, colonials disguised
- as Indians boarded the ships and threw the tea overboard. They did so
- because they were afraid that Governor Hutchinson would secretly unload
- the tea because he owned a share in the cargo.
- All of these names refer to the same acts, passed in 1774 in response to
- the Boston Tea Party, and which included the Boston Port Act, which
- shut down Boston Harbor; the Massachusetts Government Act, which
- disbanded the Boston Assembly (but it soon reinstated itself); the
- Quartering Act, which required the colony to provide provisions for
- British soldiers; and the Administration of Justice Act, which removed
- the power of colonial courts to arrest royal officers.
-
65. Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1774
-
General Gage, stationed in Boston, was ordered by King George III to
- arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The British marched on Lexington,
- where they believed the colonials had a cache of weapons. The
- colonial militias, warned beforehand by Paul Revere and William Dawes,
- attempeted to block the progress of the troops and were fired on by the
- British at Lexington. The British continued to Concord, where they
- believed Adams and Hancock were hiding, and they were again attacked by
- the colonial militia. As the British retreated to Boston, the colonials
- continued to shoot at them from behind cover on the sides of the road.
- This was the start of the Revolutionary War.
-
167. Second Continental Congress
168. George Washington
169. Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed’s Hill)
170. Olive Branch Petition
171. Thomas Paine: Common Sense
- It met in 1776 and drafted and signed the Declaration of Independence,
- which justified the Revolutionary War and declared that the colonies
- should be independent of Britain.
- He had led troops (rather unsuccessfully) during the French and Indian
- War, and had surrendered Fort Necessity to the French. He was appointed
- commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and was much more
- successful in this second command.
- At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the British troops were based
- in Boston. The British army had begun to fortify the Dorchester
- Heights near Boston, and so the Continental Army fortified Breed’s Hill,
- north of Boston, to counter the British plan. British general Gage led
- two unsuccessful attempts to take this hill, before he finally seized
- it with the third assault. The British suffered heavy losses and lost
- any hope for a quick victory against the colonies. Although the battle
- centered around Breed’s Hill, it was mistakenly named for nearby Bunker
- Hill.
- On July 8, 1775, the colonies made a final offer of peace to Britain,
- agreeing to be loyal to the British government if it addressed their
- grievances (repealed the Coercive Acts, ended the taxation without
- representation policies). It was rejected by Parliament, which in
- December 1775 passed the American Prohibitory Act forbidding all further
- trade with the colonies.
- A British citizen, he wrote Common Sense, published on January 1,
- 1776, to encourage the colonies to seek independence. It spoke out
- against the unfair treatment of the colonies by the British government
- and was instrumental in turning public opinion in favor of the
- Revolution.
-
191. French Alliance of 1778, reasons for it
192. Major battles: Saratoga, Valley Forge
193. Yorktown, Lord Cornwallis
- The colonies needed help from Europe in their war against Britain.
- France was Britain’s rival and hoped to weaken Britain by causing her to
- lose the American colonies. The French were persuaded to support the
- colonists by news of the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga.
- In 1777, British General John Burgoyne attacked southward from Canada
- along the Hudson Valley in New York, hoping to link up with General Howe
- in New York City, thereby cutting the colonies in half. Burgoyne was
- defeated by American General Horatio Gates on October 17, 1777, at the
- Battle of Saratoga, surrendering the entire British Army of the North.
- Valley Forge was not a battle; it was the site where the Continental
- Army camped during the winter of 1777- ’78, after its defeats at the
- Battles of the Brandywine and Germantown. The Continental Army suffered
- further casualties at Valley Forge due to cold and disease. Washington
- chose the site because it allowed him to defend the Continental
- Congress if necessary, which was then meeting in York, Pennsylvania
- after the British capture of Philadelphia.
- Because of their lack of success in suppressing the Revolution in the
- nothern colonies, in early 1780 the British switched their strategy and
- undertook a series of campaigns through the southern colonies. This
- strategy was equally unsuccessful, and the British decided to return to
- their main headquarters in New York City. While marching from Virginia
- to New York, British commander Lord Cornwallis became trapped in
- Yorktown on the Chesapeake Bay. His troops fortified the town and
- waited for reinforcements. The French navy, led by DeGrasse, blocked
- their escape. After a series of battles, Cornwallis surrendered to the
- Continental Army on October 19, 1781, which ended all major fighting in
- the Revolutionary War.
-
194. League of Armed Neutrality
195. Treaty of Paris, 1783
- Catherine I of Russia declared that the Russian navy would defend
- neutral trade throughout the world. They were not successful.
- This treaty ended the Revolutionary War, recognized the independence of
- the American colonies, and granted the colonies the territory from the
- southern border of Canada to the northern border of Florida, and from
- the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.
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