The document summarizes key events leading up to and during the American Revolution, including Britain passing taxes on the colonies without representation which angered colonists and led to protests. The Boston Tea Party and Intolerable Acts further increased tensions, leading to the first battles of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord. After gaining independence, Americans faced challenges in governance under the Articles of Confederation and ultimately created a new Constitution with checks and balances and protections for individual rights in the form of the Bill of Rights.

1. American Revolution: The Birth of a
Republic

2. Britain and its American Colonies
● The combined population of Britain and its colonies were
about 2,150,000 in 1770.
● An increase from the 250,000 in 1700.
● New sense of identity
● Each colony had its own government, and people were
used to a great deal of independence. Seen less British but
more Virginians or Pennsylvanians.
● New laws → Navigation Acts(1651)
● All goods carried on English ships; products such as
tobacco, wood, sugar could be sold only to England or its
colonies; European imports to the colonies had to pass
through English ports; tax colonial goods not shipped to
England, higher taxes on imported French and Dutch
goods
● Colonists resented laws. Difficult to enforce. → led to
smuggling
● Did not truly enforce until after the French and Indian
War

3. Americans Want Independence
● Due to French and
Indian War → huge
debt for the British
● Colonists expected to
help cover the costs
● Stamp Act: colonists
had to pay a tax to have
an official stamp put on
wills, deeds,
newspapers, and other
printed material
● “No taxation without
representation”!!!!
● Growing Hostility
Leads to War
● Other events led to
further hostility

4. Britain passes the Stamp Act (1765), a tax
law requiring colonist to purchase special stamped
paper for printed items (wills, contracts,
newspapers, diplomas).

5. Reaction to the Stamp Act
“NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”
Colonist harass stamp distributors, boycott
British goods, and prepare a Declaration of
Rights and Grievances (petition to the king
protesting the Act). It declared that the right
to tax the colonists belonged to the colonial
assemblies, not Parliament. First time
colonists united in opposition to British
policy.

6. Reaction to Stamp Act
● The colonists’ complaints against Parliament were
bitter, loud and sometimes violent. The most
effective protest was the boycott (refusal to buy
British goods). The colonists’ targeted British
merchants (declining sales).
● Parliamentary Leader William Pitt spoke out
against Stamp Act. “The Americans have not acted in
all things with prudence and good temper. They have
been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish
them for the madness you have caused… My pinion… is
that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and
immediately.”
● Parliament repealed Stamp Act in 1766
(colonists’ tactic worked)

7. Townshend Acts (1767)
British Action
With the Stamp Act
repealed, Britain still
needed to raise
money. A new series of
duties, or taxes on
imports proposed. The
duties were placed on glass,
paper, paint, lead, and
tea. Also, British officers
were able to use search
warrants to enter
homes/businesses for
smuggled or illegal goods.
Britain’s finance
Minister
Charles Townshend

8. Reaction to Townshend Acts
People furious that Parliament, once again,
passed a tax without their consent!!!!
Many people thought the acts were illegal
(against natural rights, as defined by Locke).
“We cannot be happy without being free….we
cannot be free without being secure in our
property…we cannot be secure in our property,
if taxed without our consent.”
John Dickinson, letters from a farmer in
Pennsylvania
Began to BOYCOTT goods once again

9. The Boston Massacre 1770
British troops stationed in
Boston are taunted and
surrounded by an angry
mob of colonists. The
troops, thinking they are
about to be attacked fire
into the crowd, killing five
men, including Crispus
Attucks.
•Are the soldiers
represented fairly in
Revere’s etching?
•What impact would Paul
Revere’s etching have?
Paul Revere’s

11. Reaction to Massacre
“The British officer is said to have ordered the troops to fire,
and to have repeated that order. One gun was fired first; then
others in succession and with deliberation, till ten or a dozen
guns were fired.” Anonymous
Colonial agitators label the conflict a “massacre” and
publish a dramatic engraving depicting the violence.
Colonies flooded with anti-British propaganda.
Attucks and the others seen as heroes and British
soldiers as evil villains.
Soldiers arrested and charged with murder. Acquitted, acting in

12. The Tea Act 1773
Parliament repeals the Townshend Act, but leaves tax
on tea (to show the colonies that it still had the right to
tax)
Colonists stopped buying luxuries from Britain and
began smuggling tea from Holland. British tea
companies lost money.
Britain’s Action
Britain gives the East India company the exclusive
right to sell tea in the colonies and shuts out colonial
tea merchants

13. Reaction to the Tea Act
British Action
BOSTON TEA PARTY
In Boston rebellion: Colonist (disguised as Native Americans)
board three tea ships and dump 15,000 pounds of East India
Company tea into Boston Harbor.

14. Reaction to Tea Act
“We then were ordered by our commander to
open the hatches and take out all the chests of
tea and throw them overboard… In about
three hours from the time we went on board,
we had thus broken and thrown overboard
every tea chest to be found in the ship; while
those in the other ships were disposing of the
tea in the same way, at the same time.”
George Hewes, A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party
Why did the colonists react so
violently to the Tea Act?

15. 1774 Intolerable Acts
After the Boston Tea Party: King George declares, “We
must master them or totally leave them to
themselves and treat them as aliens.
Britain chose to “master” the colonies.
●Closed port of Boston, until colonists paid for tea
●Banned town meetings
●Replaced elected council with appointed council
●Increased governor’s power
●Allowed British officers to house troops in private
homes

16. Colonial Reaction to the
Intolerable Acts
● Colonial leaders form up the First
Continental Congress (1772) and draw up
a declaration of colonial rights. Voted to
ban all trade with Britain until intolerable
acts repealed. This meting planted the
seeds of a future independent
government.

17. 1775 Lexington and Concord
●“Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, peace-but there
is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next
gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our
ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren
are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? I
know not what course others may take; but as for
me, give me liberty or give me death.”
● Patrick Henry, the Patriots
●British Action:
● General Gage learns (from his spies) that the
Mass. militia was storing arms and ammunition
in Concord. He orders troops to march to
Concord, MA, and seize colonial weapons.

18. Colonial Reaction
Paul Revere and William Dawes (“midnight
ride”) were sent to spread the news; “The
British are coming.” Minutemen intercept the
British and engage in battle -- first at
Lexington, and then at Concord.

19. The Shot Heard
'Round The World
Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the
Revolutionary War.
Americans would now have to choose sides and back up
their political
beliefs by force of arms.
Loyalists: supported Britain
Patriots: supported rebels

20. Americans Win Independence
● Enlightenment Ideas
Influence American
Colonists
● Enlightenment ideas
used to justify
independence
● King George III broke
the social contract
● July 1776: Declaration
of Independence
● Written by this man →
● Firmly based on the
ideas of John Locke
● List of George’s
abuses and the
colonies absolving
of allegiance to
Great Britain.

21. Americans Win Independence
● Success for the Colonies
British surrender at
Battle of Yorktown 1781
● Washington’s ragtag
army beat the strongest
army in the world
● Why?
1. Americans’ motivation
stronger than British
2. Overconfident British
generals made mistakes.
3. Time was on Americans
side.
4. Americans did not fight
alone.

22. Americans Create a Republic
● Articles of Confederation (1781)
● Created a loose confederation in which each state
held most of the power.
● No executive or judicial branches, only one body of
government → Congress
● Created problems: Congress needed $$ to operate so
asked for contributions → states create their own $$
and tax goods from other states
● Led to rebellions such as Shays’s Rebellion
● A New U.S. Constitution is ratified 1788
● February 1787: Constitutional Convention to REVISE
the AOC
● The 55 delegates were well-rehearsed in the theories
of Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau
● Created a new system of government

23. Americans Create a Republic
● The Federal System
● Established three separate branches – legislative, executive, and
judicial.
● This provided a built-in system of checks and balances
● Set up a federal system where powers were divided between
national and state governments.
● The Bill of Rights
● Needed to be ratified by 9 out of 13 states
● Federalists (those who support new Constitution) provided better
balance
● Antifederalists (those who don’t support new Constitution) feared the
Constitution gave too much power to central government
● Wanted a Bill of Rights to protect rights of citizens.
● Federalists approved the idea of ten amendments that would be
called the Bill of Rights (i.e. freedom of speech, own guns, etc.)

24. THOMAS PAINE:
“Common Sense”
“But where, say some, is the king of America? I’ll
tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make
havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great
Britain… Let a day be solemnly set apart for
proclaiming the charter (constitution); let it be
brought forth placed on the divine law, the Word of
God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the
world may know, that so far as we approve of
monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For
as in absolute governments the king is law, so in
free countries the law ought to BE king, and there
ought to be no other”
What did Paine believe should be the highest power in a
new American?