America A Concise History: Chapter 5 – Flashcards

British national debt soared from £75 million in 1756 to £133 million in 1763; British raised taxes on the poor and middle classes; increased size of British bureaucracy to collect taxes; those with little political power (poor, colonists) appeared most vulnerable to increased taxation. John Wilkes (Whig) publicly condemned rotten boroughs as districts controlled by the wealthy who did not face these new fiscal measures.

The decision by Britain to keep 7500 soldiers in colonies during peacetime angered colonists; British wanted to maintain control over colonists, Native Americans, and French in Canada.

Set a 3 pence per gallon duty on French molasses in the colonies; Americans publicly argued that the new tax would destroy the French trade and the American distilling industry; Americans sought ways to evade this new tax (smuggling or bribing officials).

Debate began over whether the Sugar Act was unlawful as the tax did not "originate with the people"; Those accused of breaking the law were to be tried by vice-admiralty courts with a British-appointed judge. Old American fears were revived that the Sugar Act would make colonies "slaves" to Britain Argued that those in the colonies were being treated as less than Englishmen. Points of the act were debated, but reality was that the act revealed new efforts by the British to take more control of the colonies. Some English parliamentarians argued that the colonists did not have the same rights as Englishmen because they were living outside of Britain as "second-class subjects of the king."

Required stamps on all court documents, land titles, contracts, newspapers, other printed materials Intended to cover at least a portion of the cost of keeping troops in the colonies. Grenville held that either colonies pay for their own defense or face a stamp tax British contended that colonies had "virtual representation" because of Parliament members who were transatlantic merchants and sugar planters in the West Indies. House of Commons ignored colonial protest of the Stamp Act and passed the act by an overwhelming majority of 205 to 49. Parliament also passed the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial governments to provide barracks and food for British troops.

In Virginia, Patrick Henry and others publicly condemned Grenville and George III. Nine assemblies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, which met in New York City in October 1765; protested the loss of "rights and liberties"; declared that only representatives elected by colonists could tax the people; petitioned for the repeal of the Stamp Act; some members formed a boycott of British goods.

After the Stamp Act went into effect on Nov. 1, 1765, mobs began to demand that stamp-tax collectors resign. In Boston, "Sons of Liberty" burned a tax collector in effigy and later destroyed the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Encouraged by wealthy merchants and Patriot lawyers (e.g., John Hancock and John Adams) mobs of middling artisans and minor merchants protested British policies by destroying property and intimidating royal officials. These actions spread beyond port cities to nearly every colony.

Mob actions had historic meaning among English, but the goals of the crowds in the colonies were new; some had political motives, while others enjoyed the excitement of the action; protest worked—in most colonies, the collectors gave up their positions as a result of public pressure.

Patriot writers drew on English common law, which protected the lives and property of the monarchs subjects; Enlightenment rationalism, which stressed the ideas of "natural rights" and "separation of powers"; and the republican and Whig strands of English political tradition, which venerated the British constitutional monarchy and opposed arbitrary taxes.

Building on arguments that equated the colonists with slaves, Patriots like Benjamin Franklin and James Otis began to critique the institution of slavery as a violation of slaves' natural rights. In Massachusetts, African Americans submitted at least four petitions to the legislature asking for the abolition of slavery based on their natural rights.

Slaves in Virginia hoped to win their freedom by supporting British troops that they expected to soon arrive in the colony. James Madison and other slave owners worked to suppress connections between revolutionary ideology and slavery.

The Townshend Act of 1767 imposed duties on colonial imports of paper, paint, glass, tea that were expected to raise about £40,000 a year. Some revenue was allocated for cost of military in America, but most was earmarked for salaries of royal governors, judges, and other imperial officials, which would make them loyal to the crown. Was followed by other acts that forced the will of Parliament on the colonists and punished them for noncompliance.

Colonial leaders focused on the intent of the acts. In February 1768, the Massachusetts assembly condemned the Townshend Act, and Boston and New York merchants began a boycott of British goods.

Women became valuable producers of homespun cloth, enabling the boycott to continue. "Daughters of Liberty": women who produced homespun textiles and drank coffee not tea as acts of patriotism; colonists who were not previously politically active felt compelled to participate in the boycott as it spread beyond Massachusetts and New York.

Angry over opposition, British sent General Thomas Gage and 2,000 troops to Boston.

Treaty of Paris included stipulation of a temporary boundary line between colonies and Indian country. Many colonists (land speculators, officers who had served in the Seven Years' War, squatters) hoped to move into that land in the Ohio country. Ohio Indians organized to prevent further colonial expansion. In 1768, British officials wanted to make the temporary Proclamation Line permanent.

Conflicts between colonists and British troops stationed in American port cities escalated; the March 1770 "Boston Massacre" was used to rally sentiment against imperial power after a group of nine British soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors, killing five Americans.

Most colonists remained loyal to the empire, but the fives years of conflict had taken their toll. By 1770, many American leaders believed that British wanted to exploit colonies for their own gain. Benjamin Franklin suggested that the colonies were now "distinct and separate states" with "the same Head, or Sovereign, the King."

Despite repeal of Townshend duties, animosity continued; in Massachusetts radical Patriots organized committees of correspondence in 1772 to "state the Rights of the Colonists of this Province." The Tea Act of May 1773 provided relief for the East India Company's debt (gave the company a government loan and canceled the English import duties on tea). Further debate and resistance on the tea issue caused turmoil.

Committees of correspondence organized resistance to Tea Act. On December 16, 1773, artisans and laborers dressed as Indians threw tea into the harbor; Britain was outraged over this action.

Four Coercive Acts passed: 1) Port Bill closed Boston Harbor, 2) Government Act annulled Massachusetts colony's charter and prohibited town meetings, 3) Quartering Act mandated new barracks for British troops, and 4) Justice Act allowed trials for capital crimes to be transferred to other colonies or Britain. The measures were called "Intolerable Acts" by Patriots. In 1774, Parliament also passed the Quebec Act, which allowed Roman Catholicism in Quebec and extended the province's boundaries into the Ohio River Valley.

Twelve mainland colonies met in Philadelphia in September 1774; advocated a boycott. New Englanders wanted political union and defensive military plans. Middle Atlantic colonists wanted political compromise. These men of "loyal principles" proposed a new system in which each colony would have an assembly plus representation in a continent-wide political body. King would appoint a president-general to preside over a legislative council selected by the colonial assemblies; this plan failed by a single vote. A majority wanted a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" Called for an end to the Coercive Acts and gave British only limited control of trade. Threatened to cut off all trade to Britain, Ireland, and British West Indies if the Coercive Acts were not repealed by September 1775. Instead, Lord North imposed a naval blockade on American trade with foreign nations and ordered General Gage to end resistance in Massachusetts.

Farm families' concerns rested on the issues of increasing taxes and their sons having to serve the British military. Political consciousness of those in the countryside was raised by the urban rebellions of Boston and New York in the 1760s. In 1774, the First Continental Congress established the Continental Association to enforce a third boycott of British goods and quickly set up a rural network of committees to do its work. In rural Concord, Massachusetts, 80 percent of male heads of household supported nonimportation. Patriots tried to convince farmers that British efforts in the colonies would hurt individual landownership (which already was becoming increasingly difficult).

Southern slave owners feared British limitations on land west of the Appalachian Mountains; also feared that legislation like the Coercive Acts would be used on other colonies.

Fears of anarchy arose; both wealthy and poor could be loyal for varying reasons; tenant farmers disliked landlords and supported the king; some feared slave insurrections in support of the British; historians estimate that some 15 to 20 percent of the white population was loyal to the crown. Loyalists were driven out of their homes or forced into silence.

Pacifist Quakers and many Germans tried to remain neutral because of religious convictions; most neutrals simply hoped to preserve families' property and independence, whatever the outcome of the imperial crisis.

In October 1772, the British revenue crisis led it to raze Fort Pitt, leaving colonial settlers exposed and vulnerable to the Ohio Indians; Pennsylvania and Virginia both claimed the region; Virginia's royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, organized a local militia to rebuild at the site of Fort Pitt.

In summer of 1774, Dunmore defied both his royal instructions and the House of Burgesses, called out Virginia's militia, and led a force of 2,400 men against the Ohio Shawnees; the battle at Point Pleasant defeated the Shawnees, and Dunmore's forces claimed the area of Kentucky as their own.

General Gage ordered British troops in Boston to seize Patriot armories in Charlestown and Cambridge. An army of 20,000 militiamen mobilized to safeguard other military locations. The Concord town meeting raised a defensive force, the famous "Minutemen"; British claimed that Massachusetts was in "open rebellion" and ordered General Gage to march against the "rude rabble."

On the night of April 18, 1775, General Gage dispatched 700 soldiers to capture colonial leaders and supplies at Concord. Paul Revere warns Patriots of their impending arrival; militiamen confront them at Lexington and Concord and a handful of people die. Militia from neighboring towns repeatedly ambushed retreating British soldiers. By the end of the day, 73 British soldiers were dead, 174 wounded, and 26 missing; British fire had killed 49 colonial militiamen and wounded 39.

Moderates hoped for peace and reconciliation with the king; asked for repeal of oppressive measures; radical Patriots (Sam Adams, Patrick Henry) called for taking up arms; radicals gained support for an invasion of Canada; merchants cut off exports to Britain and her West Indies colonies.

Local skirmishes between Loyalists and Patriots broke out in the southern colonies. In Nov. 1775, Lord Dunmore in Virginia promised freedom to slaves and indentured servants who joined Britain in the war; fears grew that the lower class would rebel against the Patriots; Patriots planned a meeting in 1776 of the Continental Congress and resolved to support independence.

In 1775, in wake of Dunmore's War, settlers began to occupy newly won lands of Kentucky; they petitioned Virginia's rebel government, asking it to create a new county that would include the Kentucky settlements; in 1776, Virginia agreed and sent arms and ammunition to Kentucky, so that settlers could join the fight against Britain.

Americans were still divided, but increasingly were turning against the king. In January 1776, Paine published the Common Sense pamphlet, calling for independence and a republican form of government; Paine assaulted the traditional monarchy in stirring language; this pamphlet helped tip the balance, convincing the majority to get behind the independence movement.

Patriot conventions called for independence. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved; authored by Thomas Jefferson and others; vilified the king; used Enlightenment thinking to proclaim the rights of men; linked individual liberty, popular sovereignty, and republican government.