- John Locke was a key figure of the Enlightenment who argued that human beings are born as blank slates and shaped by environment, experience, and reason rather than fate or God's will. He also asserted that kings do not have divine right to rule and that political authority comes from social compacts made to preserve natural rights like life, liberty, and property. - Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor, author, publisher and statesman who helped found many Philadelphia institutions while publishing widely, including Poor Richard's Almanac. He played a central role in the American Enlightenment. - William Pitt was the British Minister of War who orchestrated the mid-war strategy that allowed Britain to

1. Chapter 4 – Growth, Diversity, and Conflict, 1720-
1763
The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann, 1992

2. John Locke, the Prophet of the American
Revolution
Locke was the premiere figure of the
Enlightenment, rejecting the superstitious
worldview of the past. He argued that all human
beings are tabula rasa (blank slates) at birth, and
that no man’s fate is predetermined. It is
environment, experience, and reason that shape
men’s lives, not predestination or God’s will.
Further, he asserted that the divine right of
kings was nonsense, and that the only true
political authority came from social compacts
that people made in order to preserve such
natural rights as life, liberty, and the ownership
of property.
Locke also argued that it was people, not princes,
that confer political legitimacy, and the will of
the majority had the right and the power to
change governments.

3. TIME Magazine, 2003
Benjamin Franklin, still relevant,
more than two centuries after his
death.
Franklin was the fifteenth of
seventeen kids, and ambitious. He
was apprenticed to a printer and
at the age of twenty-four went
into business as a printer and then
started the Pennsylvania Gazette;
not long after he won the
commission to print Pennsylvania’s
currency. By the 1750s he had
helped to found the fire
department, police force, the
University of PA, and America’s
first public library. He invented
the Franklin stove, the bifocals,
and the lightning rod. He wrote a
great deal of popular literature,
including Poor Richard’s Almanac,
but few people today know that
his single most popular publication
in his lifetime was an essay
entitled, simply: “On Farting.
And, oh yeah, he was the central
figure of the Enlightenment in the
United States.

4. This map and the one following are here to give you some visual insight into the
French and Indian War, 1754-1763. This map gives a slightly better sense of the
French presence in the interior of North America; the next map is better on the
disputed territories that England, France, and Spain were wrangling over at the
time.

6. William Pitt, the brilliant Minister of War who
orchestrated the mid-war strategy that
ultimately allowed Britain to defeat France in
the French and Indian War

7. Here you have a more simplified map of North America, before and after the French and Indian
War. When you look at the map to the left, you can see that the French, in terms of territorial
control, were far superior to the British and, one would guess, much the stronger; but that
advantage was illusory – by the end of the war, the French had not only been defeated, they had
been driven out of North America entirely.

8. The state of the colonies in 1763, at the time of the Royal Proclamation Line.