Causes for the American RevolutionDubbs World

1. French and Indian War (1754-1763)

At the end of the seventeenth century, North America was an extremely valuable for the beaver fur trade and was claimed in part by the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish, as well as by the king of England.

The Seven Years’ War, was fought as the “French and Indian War” here in America. Previous wars had largely pushed out the Spanish and the Dutch. France and England were fighting for supremacy of the continent.

The early years of the war went poorly. The 90,000 French in America, vastly outnumbered by 1.5 million English colonials, were better organized, more experienced fighters and had the most Indian allies. To the Indians, the French were the lesser of two evils; there were fewer French than English, and they seemed more interested in trading for beaver pelts than did the English, who were pushing the Indians off their lands.

The colonial war became linked to a global clash that commenced in 1756, the first true world war. The English emphasized naval warfare and the conquest of North America. One of the British tactics, when negotiating with some attacking Indians, was to give them blankets from the smallpox hospital.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris brought peace and, with it, a complete British triumph. The English now owned all of Canada, America east of the Mississippi Valley, Florida, and a number of Caribbean islands. France lost its American colonies, except for a few islands in the French West Indies.

2. Paying back the War Debt• In the short space of thirteen years, how did the

colonies go from being loyal subjects of King George II, flush in their victory over the French, to becoming rebels capable of overthrowing the most powerful nation on earth?

• The French and Indian War gave Americans pride in helping to fight for their country, but left Britain in massive amounts of debt; debt that would be forced to be repaid through American taxes.

3. Sugar Act (April 5, 1764)•Placed tariffs on sugar, coffee, wines, and

other products imported into America in substantial quantities.▫A postwar colonial depression—economic

doldrums typically following the free spending that accompanies wartime—sharpened the act’s pain for American merchants and consumers.

•Almost immediately, negative reaction to the tax set in, an economic dissent that was summed up in a new political slogan, “No taxation without representation.”

4. Stamp Act (March 22, 1765)• Set stiff tariffs on virtually every kind of printed matter

from newspapers and legal documents to playing cards.

• While the Sugar Act reflected Parliament’s power to tax trade, the Stamp Act was different. It was a direct tax, and the protests from America grew louder, stronger, and more violent. Riots broke out, the most violent of which were in Boston, where the house of Governor Thomas Hutchinson was destroyed by an angry mob. In New York, the home of the officer in charge of the stamps was also ransacked. A boycott of stamps, widely joined throughout the colonies, was followed by a general boycott of English goods. Hit hard by the economic warfare, London’s merchants screamed, and the law was repealed in 1766.

5. The Stamp Act Congress Oct 7-25, 1765•This congress was created in direct

response to the Stamp Act. The public outrage over this matter encouraged the colonists to form a congress to create a direct response to the British crown over the matter. The crown repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 but then quickly passed a new law that expressed the British crown was superior to the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

6. The Townshend Act (June 29, 1767)

• These acts were a series of laws that placed new and additional taxes on glass, lead, paper, paints, and tea. The colonists responded to these taxes with just as much disgust and anger as the previous taxes.▫An American boycott cut imports from England

in half.• Once again, the crown was forced to repeal

the taxes with the exception of tea. Colonial anger and unrest lead Britain to a typical superpower response—they sent in troops.

7. The Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)• 4,000 British troops were stationed in Boston, a town

of 16,000. Those troops competed for work with the laborers of Boston’s waterfront. Tensions mounted until on March 5, a mob confronted soldiers and began throwing snow, ice, and stones at the soldiers. Someone yelled “fire,” most likely yelled by one of the crowd, to ignite the situation. The soldiers killed 5 Americans.

• The event was declared a “massacre” and British troops were withdrawn from Boston. The troops were mostly acquitted and two were branded and discharged, after being defended by John Adams.

8. Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773)

• In 1773, Parliament had granted a legal monopoly on tea shipment to America tot eh nearly bankrupt East India Company. The injury was made worse by the insult of funneling the tea business through selected loyalist merchants, including the sons of Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts. The East India Company could now undercut the American merchants, even those using smugglers, on the sale of tea. Tea first, thought the colonists, what next?

• Three ships loaded with tea reached Boston in November. The patriots vowed the tea would not be landed. The tea was still there until the night of December 16, 1773, when about 150 men from all layers of Boston’s economy, masters and apprentices side by side, blackened their faces with burnt cork, dressed as Mohawk Indians, and boarded the three ships.

• The men worked for nearly three hours, hatcheting open 342 cases of Darjeeling tea into the harbor. So much was dumped that the tea soon piled up in the waters and spilled back onto the decks, where it was shoveled back into the water.

9. First Continental Congress (Sept 5- Oct 26, 1774• Several groups of people from twelve colonies

convened in Philadelphia to discuss the concept of liberty. This meeting occurred in secret and led to a second congress which met in 1775 once the war started, which then composed the Declaration of Independence.

• The Congress adopted a resolution opposing the Coercive Acts (which closed down Boston harbor and basically nullified the Massachusetts colony charter), created an association to boycott British goods, and passed 10 resolutions enumerating the right of the colonists and their assemblies.

10. “Shot Heard ‘round the World”• April 18-19, 1775• “One if by land, two if by sea,” Paul Revere and Billy

Dawes, and Samuel Prescott rode to warn their fellow colonists of the incoming troops of General Gage, who came by sea.

• 700 British troops march on Concord, Massachusetts, to secure a rebel arsenal. They are met on the Lexington village green by a small force of colonial Minutemen, and an unordered shot—the “shot heard ‘round the world”—leads to the killing of eight Americans. During a pitched battle at Concord and on their return to Boston, the British are harassed constantly by colonial snipers and suffer heavy losses.