Chapter 5 Section 2-3Building Colonial Unity

and A Call to Arms

Uproar over Tea

• Tea tremendously popular in the colonies

• Most tea brought to the colonies by the British East India Company

• Company bought the tea in south Asia then sold it to colonial tea merchants

Uproar over Tea

• The British had maintained a small tax on tea as a symbol of their right to tax the colonies

• By the 1770s the East India Company was in financial trouble

• Parliament tried to help them by passing the Tea Act of 1773

TEA ACT 1773• The act allowed the East India

Company to bypass colonial tea merchants and sell directly to the colonists

• Colonists protested the Tea Act and refused to buy tea

• They believed it was a British trick to make them accept Parliament’s right to tax the colonies

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

• Late November 1773 three ships loaded with tea reached Boston harbor

• The colonial governor of Massachusetts demanded that the ships be unloaded

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY• Sam Adams and

the Sons of Liberty sent a message to the governor demanding that the ships leave.

• The Governor refused

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

• December 16, 1773-Colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded the ships and dumped all of the tea into Boston Harbor

INTOLERABLE ACTS

• 1774-A series of acts passed by the outraged

British Parliament in reaction to the Boston Tea

Party

INTOLERABLE ACTS Shut down the port of Boston-no

ship could enter or leave until colonists paid for the tea

INTOLERABLE ACTS Massachusetts colonists were forbidden to hold town meetings

more than once a year

INTOLERABLE ACTS Customs officers and other British

officials charged with crimes would be tried in Britain not

Massachusetts

INTOLERABLE ACTS New Quartering Act forcing citizens to house British troops

Other colonies unite in support of Massachusetts

• September 1774, colonial leaders call a meeting in Philadelphia • 12 delegates from the colonies meet in what becomes known as

the FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

Other colonies unite in support of Massachusetts

• They agreed to boycott all British goods and to stop exporting goods to Britain until the Intolerable Acts

were repealed• They also urged each colony to set

up and train their own militia

MILITIA

• citizens who serve as soldiers during an emergency

Minutemen

• Massachusetts militia volunteers.

• Called minutemen because they kept their muskets at hand and were ready to fight at a minutes notice

Lexington and Concord • 1775 there were close to 4,000

British troops in Boston• British Commander General

Thomas Gage learns a rumor that the Minuteman have a stockpile of weapons in the town of Concord 18 miles from Boston

• Gage plans a surprise march to Concord and take the weapons

Sounding the Alarm • April 18, 1775-700 British

troops leave Boston heading for Concord

• The Sons of Liberty are watching and sound the alarm that the British are on the move by hanging two lamps from the Old North Church in Boston

SOUNDING THE ALARM

• Riders such a Paul Revere head out into the countryside shouting, “THE REDCOATS ARE COMING!!”

“The Shot Heard Around the World” • April 19, 1775-British

troops reach Lexington, a town near Concord and encounter 70 minutemen.

• One of the minutemen open fire, 8 colonists are killed and 1 British soldier is wounded

“The Shot Heard Around the World”

• British push on to Concord and find no weapons and begin to return to Boston.

• On the return march the British troops meet 300 minutemen near a bridge outside of Concord. Fighting breaks out

“The Shot Heard Around the World”

• This time the British are forced to retreat and run for Boston.

• By the time they return there are 73 British troops dead and another 200 wounded or missing