These slides detail some key events leading to the American Revolution and a couple facts about the Revolution itself.

1. Ch. 5: Bottom Line
• Mercantilism returns: British need to make colonies pay
• Colonies not used to this. Add ideas of liberty and stir, get
resistance.
• Resistance brings colonies together, lays groundwork for revolution.
• Americans were major underdogs in the Revolution. French troops,
weapons, and $$ make victory possible.
• Why does all this matter? Uh, we’re a country now. Why else?
We’ll see more with Ch. 6 and the “revolution within”… next week?
After the midterm?

2. The Crisis Begins

3. 1763:A Turning Point
• British win in French and
Indian War - Americans
feel super-British
• Britain needs $$$
• Decides to tax colonies,
crack down on smuggling
• Leads to conflict,
independence

4. European Empires ca. 1750
Map 4.3 European Empires in North America, ca. 1750

5. Battle for the Continent:
French vs. British
• “middle ground” -
uneasy coexistence of
British, French, N.
Americans in Midwest
• Broken by British
expansion into Ohio
Valley
• Sparks French and
Indian War: 1754-1763
• British win, end up
with N.America east
of Mississippi R.

6. Map 4.4 Eastern North
America after the
Peace of Paris, 1763

7. The Stamp Act Crisis
(1765-1766)
• Stamp Act requires stamp
- essentially a tax - on all
kinds of paper goods
• Provokes protest:“no
taxation without
representation”
• In England, this concept
doesn’t make sense to
people or to government

8. The Stamp Act Crisis
(1765-1766)
• Important because
people organize
effectively to protest:
• Stamp Act
Congress (1765)
• Committees of
Correspondence
• AND get the act
repealed

9. Stamp Act Protests,
1765-1766

10. The Road to Revolution

11. Townshend Crisis
(1767-1770)
• British govt.: Stamp Act
failed, let’s try “external”
taxes
• Townshend Duties: tax
on imports + new
customs board
• Response: boycotts of
British goods

12. Benjamin Franklin
and his fur cap,
France, 1776?

13. From John Adams (2008)

14. Boston Massacre (1770)
• Conflict
between
crowd and
British troops
escalates
• 5 colonists
are killed:
most famous
= Crispus
Attucks

15. Boston Tea Party
and Intolerable Acts
• Boston Tea Party: tea
dumped into Boston
Harbor
• In response:
• British close Boston
Harbor
• reduced democracy in
Massachusetts
• required housing of
troops in people’s
homes
• Important because
colonists see this as
“intolerable”
Illustration, 1846

16. Recap
• Why does the French and Indian War matter to American
independence?
• What are some of the key events leading up to the
Declaration of Independence?
• How did colonists resist new taxes? How were women and
poor people involved in the protests?
• Why were those taxes important to England? Why did the
colonists feel like they shouldn’t have to pay?
• IDs: French and Indian War; Stamp Act; Intolerable Acts

17. The Coming of
Independence

18. “American” Government
• Continental Congress
(1774, 1775):
coordinates resistance
• Continental
Association: local
government
committees created by
Continental Congress
• Why do we care?

19. War!• Breaks out
1775
• Debates over
independence
• Common Sense
(January 1776)
by Thomas
Paine -
convinces
many
Americans

20. Common
Sense

21. To turn in: Common Sense
(p. 157, Brief -VoF Ch. 5)
• For your assigned paragraph:What do you think this
is saying? Write down what you get out of this.
• Add notes from our discussion afterward so that
you’ve got notes from each paragraph to turn in.
(Don’t cross out your ideas - I want to see that you
tried to figure it out. That’s more important than if
you “got it right” or not.)

22. Securing Independence

24. Fighting the
Revolution• British most powerful
military in the world
• Americans are not trained,
do not have $$
• But:
• Americans fought for
home and freedom
• Get help: France and
Spain
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Joseph Plumb
Martin in PBS’s Liberty! (1997)

25. Soap,Vinegar and other Articles allowed by Congress we see none of
nor have [we] seen [them] I believe since the battle of brandywine
[four months ago]; the first indeed we have now little occasion of
[for] few men having more than one Shirt, many only the Moiety of
one, and Some none at all; in addition to which as a proof of the little
benefit received from a Cloathier Genl., and at the same time as a
further proof of the inability of an Army under the circumstances of
this, to perform the common duties of Soldiers (besides a number of
Men confind to Hospitals for want of Shoes, and others in farmers
Houses on the same Acct.) we have, by a field return this day made
no less than 2898 Men now in Camp unfit for duty because they are
bare foot and otherwise naked…
Washington Describes the Continental Army atValley Forge,Winter 1777-1778

26. Josh Brolin Reads Joseph Plumb Martin, Revolutionary Soldier

27. Black Soldiers in
the Revolution
• Fought both sides:
• 800+ for British: Lord
Dunmore’s proclamation
• 5,000 black soldiers
enlisted in American
military
• Integrated troops under
white officers
Detail, Drawing ofYorktown Soldiers (1780)

28. The War,
1775-1783
• Battles happen
• Continental Army
wins by surviving
• French and
Spanish provide
decisive military
aid
• 1781 victory at
Yorktown,VA
leads to end of
war
• 1783 Treaty of
Paris completes
American victory
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull (1820)

29. Map 5.3 North
America, 1783