Chapter 5

1. Chapter 5
The Road to Freedom

2. The Road to
Freedom
1750-1776

3. Why do we
celebrate July
4th?

4. VOCABULARY FOR THIS CHAPTER
independence
tax
Parliament
repealed
imported
boycotted
commander

5. VOCABULARY GUIDE
Independence is freedom from someone else's
independence control or rules.
A tax is money that people pay for government
tax services.
Parliament Parliament is the lawmaking group in England
repealed A repeal is the removal or reversal of a law
An import is any good brought in from one country
imported to another country
A boycott is when you stop using or buying
boycotted something.
commander a commander is a military leader

6. Every year on July 4th we celebrate
independence day.

7. July 4, 1776 is an important day for
America.

8. On July 4th, 1776, the colonists announced
that they wanted independence, or freedom,
from Great Britain.

9. They decided it was time to rule
themselves.

10. Over the years Great Britain was not fair
to the colonists. Colonists were angry.

11. Why did the
colonists want
their freedom?

12. Why did the
colonists need a war
for their freedom?

13. France had colonies in Canada and
along the Mississippi River.

14. The French and Indian War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dn7UHJLcPp4&feature=player_embedded

15. When the British colonists started
moving west, the French began to
worry.

16. They decided to build forts to protect their
colonies.

17. “But,” said the British, “some of
these forts are built on British Land.”

18. France and Great Britain began a war that
lasted from 1754 to 1763.

19. In the beginning, the war did not go well
for the British.

20. The French had many American Indians
fighting on their side.

21. The American Indians didn’t want the
British colonists to move farther west.

22. The British government finally sent more
soldiers and won the war.

23. In 1763, France and Great Britain agreed
to have peace.

24. As a result, Canada and all of North
America east of the Mississippi River
now belonged to Great Britain.

25. New Problems
Britain

26. Great Britain won the French and Indian
War but it cost the British a lot of money.

27. They felt that the colonists should help pay
the bills.

28. Britain decided that the colonists
would have to pay tax on sugar,
molasses, and other goods.

29. Britain decided that the colonists
would have to pay tax on sugar,
molasses, and other goods.

30. Britain decided that the colonists
would have to pay tax on sugar,
molasses, and other goods.

31. A tax is money that people pay for
government services.

32. Parliament is the lawmaking group in
England.

33. In 1765, it passed a law called the Stamp
Act.

34. This law made the colonists buy special
stamps for certain goods they bought.

35. The money was used to pay British soldiers
in the colonies.

36. How did colonists feel about the stamp act?

37. The colonies were already paying taxes to
the governments of their colonies.

38. But the Stamp Act was voted for by the
Parliament in Great Britain.

39. There were no colonists in the Parliament.

40. No one represented the colonists there.

41. Many colonists spoke out against the Stamp
Act.

42. These colonists called themselves the Sons
and Daughters of Liberty.

43. England soon repealed or removed the Stamp
Act because of what the colonists said.

44. Two years later, Parliament
passed another law.

45. This law taxed many things that the
colonists imported, or bought from
another country.

46. Many colonists boycotted, or stopped
buying, those things.

47. The colonists hoped the boycott
would make Parliament stop taxing
those goods.

48. The British sent troops to see that the taxes
were paid.

49. The colonists did not want soldiers in their
homes.

50. The Boston Massacre

51. Who fought in
the Boston
Massacre?

52. The British soldiers and American
colonists did not like each other.

53. Sometimes they fought but no one was hurt
until March 1770.

54. A boy and a British soldier in Boston got
into an argument.

55. The soldier knocked the boy down and an
angry crowd surrounded the soldier.

56. Other soldiers ran to help him.
Someone yelled, “Fire!”
The soldiers got scared and fired
into the crowd.

57. Five colonist were killed.

58. These killings came to be called the
Boston Massacre

59. The colonists were very angry.

60. Some colonists passed out
small booklets called
pamphlets to people in other
colonies.

61. The pamphlets explained how unfair the
British were to Boston colonists.

62. Some of the pamphlets were not true.
Colonist lied. They wanted other colonists to
get mad at the British too.

63. The Boston Tea
Party

64. After the Boston Massacre the Parliament
decided to end all taxes except for tea.

65. People all over the colonies refused to pay
this tax.

66. They stopped buying and drinking tea.

67. Then, on the night of December
16, 1773, a group of colonists
boarded a British ship in Boston
Harbor. They dressed as indians.

68. They dumped more than 300 chests of tea
into the the water.

69. The Boston Tea Party was a protest against
the tea tax.

70. The “tea party” made the British very
angry. They wanted the colonists to pay for
the ruined tea.

71. Parliament then passed laws that
hurt the colonists.

72. One law closed Boston harbor.
No ships could come or go from
the harbor.

73. Another law said that British soldiers could
live in the homes of colonists.

74. They laws made colonists upset. They started thinking
about how they could break away from Great Britain.

75. They wanted to start their own country.
They then thought about how they could
do this. They realized they must fight!

76. Events that Led
to the War

77. In September 1774, some colonial leaders
met in Philadelphia.

78. This meeting was called the First Continental Congress.
The leaders decided to write to the British king to ask him
to change tax laws.

79. At the same time of the letter to the king
colonist in Boston planned to protect
themselves.
Minutemen could be ready at a minute’s notice .
An army of farmers and store owners formed
to fight the British. They were called
Minutemen

80. The British soldiers in Boston heard that the colonists
were storing gunpowder in the town of Concord.

81. On April 18, 1775, British soldiers left
Boston to get the gunpowder.

82. Two colonists, Paul Revere and William
Dawes, secretly left Boston on
horseback to warn the Minutemen.

83. When the British arrived in Lexington on their
way to Concord, the Minutemen were waiting
for them

84. The first shots of the American Revolution

85. The Brittish pushed on to Concord, but

86. The colonists had taken it away

87. As the British marched back to Boston,

88. The Call of
Independence

89. All the colonies learned about what
happened at Lexington and Concord.

90. Two months later there was another battle.
It was called the Battle of Bunker Hill.

91. The Colonists who fought were not
professional soldiers like the British.

92. They were mostly farmers who did not have
any army training.

93. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, the colonists fought
bravely against the British until they ran out of
gunpowder.

94. The British won but the colonists fought
very hard.

95. The colonists had killed almost half of the
British soldiers who fought during the battle.

96. In Philadelphia, the second Continental
Congress met in May 1755,

97. They decided the colonists needed a
regular army.

98. The congress had to figure out how to train
soldiers and pay for war supplies.

99. They made George Washington the commander, or leader,
or the new continental Army.

100. A year later the leaders of the Continental Congress asked
Thomas Jefferson and others to write a statement.

101. This was to declare, or tell, that the colonies were breaking
away from Great Britain, and explain why.

102. It told Great Britain that the colonies
wanted to become their own country.

103. It was called the Declaration of
Independence.

104. The declaration was read aloud to the
colonists on July 4, 1776.

105. Until the Declaration of Independence was written, not all colonists were sure
they wanted independence. Some just wanted the British to stop making laws that
were unfair to the colonies.

106. In early 1776, a colonist
named Thomas Paine wrote
a pamphlet called Common
Sense. It explained why
reasons the colonists should
fight for independence.
Many colonists agreed with
Thomas Paine.

107. The Declaration of Independence has become one of the
most important statements in the world. It is about the
rights and freedoms that all people should have.

108. One of its most famous lines states that everyone should have
the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

109. VOCABULARY GUIDE
Independence is freedom from someone else's
independence control or rules.
A tax is money that people pay for government
tax services.
Parliament Parliament is the lawmaking group in England
repealed A repeal is the removal or reversal of a law
An import is any good brought in from one country
imported to another country
A boycott is when you stop using or buying
boycotted something.
commander a commander is a military leader

110. .