History Chapter 5 The American Revolution This Concentrates The Events Leading The American

Unlock access to all the studying documents.

View Full Document

CHAPTER 5 The American Revolution, 1763–1783

This chapter concentrates on the events leading up to the American Revolution and on the war itself. Beginning with the 1765 rioting

at the home of Massachusetts lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson by an angry mob in response to the Stamp Act, the chapter ex-

plains how a crisis in Anglo-American relations grew from taxation policies rooted in Britain’s need for increased revenue because of

the Seven Years’ War. Believing that the Stamp Act was a direct infringement on their liberty, many colonists reacted with indigna-

CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. Introduction

A. Thomas Hutchinson’s home was attacked by protesters of the Stamp Act in 1765.

II. The Crisis Begins

A. Consolidating the Empire

1. Prior to the Seven Years’ War, London had loosely tried to regulate some of the colonies’ economy.

2. After the Seven Years’ War, London insisted that the colonists play a subordinate role to the mother country and help pay

for the protection the British provided.

4. The colonists argued that London could not tax them because they were underrepresented in Parliament.

B. Taxing the Colonies

1. The Sugar Act of 1764 and the Revenue Act threatened the profits of colonial merchants and aggravated an economic

recession.

C. The Stamp Act Crisis

1. The Stamp Act of 1765 was a direct tax on all sorts of printed materials.

a. This was the first time in British North American history that taxes were used to raise revenue.

3. Opposition to the Stamp Act was the first great drama of the Revolutionary era and the first major split between the

colonists and Great Britain over the meaning of freedom.

D. Taxation and Representation

1. American leaders viewed the British empire as an association of equals in which free settlers overseas enjoyed the same

rights as Britons at home.

3. The Stamp Act Congress met in 1765 to endorse Virginia’s House of Burgesses’ resolutions.

a. Parliament had inadvertently unified the thirteen colonies.

5. Most British colonies in the Western Hemisphere protested the tax, but only about half eventually decided to strike for

independence.

6. Most colonists continued to believe that their liberties were safer inside the British empire.

E. Liberty and Resistance

1. No word was more frequently invoked by critics of the Stamp Act than “liberty”:

2. Colonial leaders prevented the Stamp Act’s implementation.

3. A Committee of Correspondence was created in Boston and other colonies to exchange ideas about resistance.

F. Politics in the Streets

1. The Sons of Liberty were organized to resist the Stamp Act and to enforce a boycott of British goods.

2. A stunned Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but issued the Declaratory Act.

a. The new act stated that Parliament could pass future colonial taxes.

G. The Regulators

2. The South Carolina Regulators consisted of wealthy backcountry residents who protested their underrepresentation in the

colonial assembly and the lack of local governments.

4. The North Carolina militia defeated the North Carolina Regulators at the Battle of Alamance (1771), which ended their

protests.

5. Tenants along New York’s Hudson River in the mid-1760s seized land from landlords but were suppressed by British and

colonial troops.

III. The Road to Revolution

A. The Townshend Crisis

2. By 1768, colonies were again boycotting British goods.

3. Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

a. John Dickinson’s pamphlet of essays argues for reconciliation with the mother country.

b. Colonists deserve all traditional rights of Englishmen.

B. Homespun Virtue

1. Rather than relying on British goods, colonists relied on homespun clothing; use of American goods came to be seen as a

3. Urban artisans strongly supported the boycott.

C. The Boston Massacre

1. The March 1770 conflict between Bostonians and British troops left five Bostonians, including a mixed-race sailor named

3. Many American settlers were convinced that England was succumbing to the same pattern of political corruption and

decline of liberty that afflicted other countries.

D. The Tea Act

1. The East India Company was in financial crisis, and the British government decided to market the company’s Chinese tea

in North America.

3. On December 16, 1773, colonists threw more than 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.

E. The Intolerable Acts

1. London’s response to the Bostonians’ action was swift and harsh. The so-called Intolerable Acts:

a. Closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for

2. The Quebec Act granted religious toleration for Catholics in Canada and extended its southern boundary to the Ohio

River.

IV. The Coming of Independence

A. The Continental Congress

2. To resist the Intolerable Acts, a Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in 1774.

B. The Continental Association

1. The Congress adopted the Continental Association, which called for an almost complete halt to trade with Great Britain

and the West Indies.

2 The Committees of Safety were established to take over governing and enforce the boycotts.

a. The Committees of Safety enlarged the “political nation.”

C. The Sweets of Liberty

2. As the crisis deepened, Americans increasingly based their claims not simply on the historical rights of Englishmen but on

the more abstract language of natural rights and universal freedom.

a. John Locke’s theory of natural rights

b. Thomas Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America

D. The Outbreak of War

1. In April 1775, war broke out at Lexington and Concord.

3. The Second Continental Congress raised an army and appointed George Washington its commander.

E. Independence?

1. That the goal of this war was independence was not clear by the end of 1775.

3. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature)

a. A portion of Loyalist minister Samuel Seabury’s pamphlet, “An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province in New–

York” (1775), provides a counterargument to American independence.

F. Common Sense

1. Thomas Paine published Common Sense in January 1776.

3. Paine termed a small island ruling a continent absurd.

4. Voices of Freedom (Primary Source document feature)

a. A selection from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) highlights the reasons for American independence.

G. Paine’s Impact

2. He pioneered a new style of political writing, engaging a far greater audience than anyone before him.

3. His persuasions led the Second Continental Congress to sever the colonies’ ties with Great Britain.

H. The Declaration of Independence

1. The Declaration of Independence declared that Britain’s aim was to establish “absolute tyranny” over the colonies, and, as

such, Congress declared the United States an independent nation.

2. Jefferson’s preamble gave the Declaration its enduring impact.

I. The Declaration and American Freedom

1. The Declaration of Independence completed the shift from the rights of Englishmen to the rights of mankind as the object

of American independence.

J. An Asylum for Mankind

1. The idea of “American exceptionalism” was prevalent in the Revolution.

K. The Global Declaration of Independence

2. Numerous anticolonial movements, such as those in China after the revolution of 1911 and Vietnam in 1945, have

modeled their own declarations of independence on America’s.

3. The Declaration’s principle that political authority rests on the will of “the people” has been influential around the world.

V. Securing Independence

A. The Balance of Power

2. Patriots had the advantages of fighting on their own soil and a passionate desire for freedom.

B. Blacks in the Revolution

2. George Washington accepted black recruits after Lord Dunmore’s proclamation offered freedom to slaves who fought

3. Siding with the British offered slaves far more opportunities for liberty.

C. The First Years of the War

2. He managed a successful surprise attack on Trenton and Princeton.

1. The Battle of Saratoga in October 1777 gave the Patriots a victory and boost to morale.

a. The victory convinced the French to aid the Americans in 1778.

2. Winter of 1777–1778

E. The War in the Borderlands

2. Indians chose the side they felt would advance their own ideas of liberty.

3. The destruction of the “middle ground” would not be completed until after the War of 1812, but its major impetus was

American independence.

E. The War in the South

2. The Continental Congress was essentially bankrupt.

3. The British achieved some victories, but commanders were unable to consolidate their hold on the South.

F. Victory at Last

1. American and French troops surrounded General Cornwallis at Yorktown, where he surrendered in October 1781.

2. The Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783.

a. The American delegation was made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay.

b. In addition to independence, America was granted land in the frontier to the Mississippi River.