The American Revolution

U.S. History ch.4 notes

1) The French and Indian War began in 1754 with fighting between the British and the French in the Ohio River valley. This war would indirectly lead to the American Revolutionary War.

2) The Albany Plan of Union, which was proposed during the Albany Conference in 1754, suggested that the American colonies unite to form a federal government in order to better protect themselves.

3) The Treaty of Paris of 1763 brought an end to the French and Indian War. The treaty eliminated French power in N. America.

4) King George issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which drew a line from N. to S. along the Appl. Mtns and declared that colonists couldn’t settle west of the line without permission from the British Gov’t.

5) Beginning in 1764 the British gov’t enacted a series of taxes upon the American colonists in order to gain back revenue lost during the French and Indian War.

6) The Sugar Act of 1764 changed the tax rates levied on raw sugar and molasses imported from foreign colonies. It also placed new taxes on silk, wine, coffee, pimento, and indigo.

7) The British Parliament passed the Currency Act of 1764, which banned the use of paper money in the colonies.

8) The Sugar Act wasn’t producing enough money for the British Gov’t, therefore Parliament passed the Stamp Act that required a stamp to be placed on most printed materials.

9) Along with the Sugar, Currency, and Stamp Act Parliament passed the Quartering Act in 1765, which forced the colonies to pay more for their own defense.

10) The Stamp Act led to mass meetings and protest demonstrations within the American colonies by the summer of 1765. American colonists were finally fed up with British Parliaments taxes!

12) Representatives from nine colonies met in Oct. 1765 for the Stamp Act Congress. A wealthy farmer named John Dickinson from PA drafted the Declaration of Rights and Grievances at the meeting.

13) In the Declaration of Rights and Grievances Dickinson argued that only the colonists’ political representatives and not Parliament had the right to tax them.

14) In 1766 to demonstrate its authority over the colonies Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament had the right and the power to make laws for the colonies.

15) In the winter of 1767 and 68, John Dickinson published a series of essays titled Letters From a Pennsylvania Farmer. In these essays Dickinson reasserted that only assemblies elected by the colonists had the right to tax them.

16) Salutary Neglect of American colonists =Colonists were the freest people in the world - thus attempts to regain

administrative control of the gov’t were bound to be resisted.

17) After 1763 British colonial policy will alienate every group in the colonies so that they feel they have more in common with each other than with England.

18) ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE - From 1763-1776 British attempts to reexert control over the colonies resulted in organized, violent, successful resistance by the colonists.

19) Sam Adams initiates the idea of Committees of Correspondence. Purpose was to keep lines of communication open even in non-crisis times, and to create an organization of inter-colonial leaders to keep alive the issue of the defense of colonial liberties.

20) Results of the Stamp Act =creates a degree of unity, alienated all groups in the colonies, Stamp Act Congress presents a unified front, Circular letters serve to create channels of comm., non-importation agreements become widespread, coordinated activities of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty in different colonies.