Chapter 4: From Colonies to States

• Spain, England, and France

• English

• Self-governing

• More sense of their rights

English Administrations of the Colonies

• Parliament vs Stuart King distracted England

• Oliver Cromwell

• Navigation Acts: restricts economic freedom in the colonies

• Act of 1651: all goods must be shipped on an English ship, owned by an Englishman, and driver by a mostly English crew. 

• Mercantilism

• More exports than imports

• They believed in limited wealth

• Act of 1660: Must be an English ship with 75% English crew

• Act of 1663: all Europe to America trade must stop in England

• Aroused growing resentment, resistance, and rebellion

• Duke of York (James II): King Charles’s brother

• Dominion of New England: England consolidated the colonies into this

• The Glorious Revolution: rebellion towards the Dominion after James II runs away

The Habit of Self-Government

• Governor, council, and assembly

• King started to have less say as colonies began to self-rule

• Only male property owners; no women, Indians, or African Americans could vote

Troubled Neighbors

• Spanish America

• Failed to create thriving colonies

• Lack of gold and silver

• Distracted by their need to control the unrest between Indians and the mestizos

• Failed to produce a self-sustaining economy

• Emphasized the conversion of non-Catholics (natives) to catholicism

• New France

• Mostly male

• Fewer people came

• Developed cooperative relationships with the Indians

• Fur trading posts

• Integrate themselves with Indian culture

• Many French traders married Indians

• (1603) St. Lawrence river (Samuel de Champlain)

• Iroquois Indians (2 chiefs get killed)

• Only Catholics

• 1663 - King Louis xiv made New France a royal colony and brought a bunch of women

• French Louisiana:

• Pierre Le Moyne (1699) founded Biloxi

• Jean Baptiste Le Moyne founded New Orleans in 1718

The Colonial Wars

• The Glorious Revolution: King William III (protestant) fought the French (catholic) with the help of the Netherlands

• The French and Indian War was the last of this series 

• Britain is the most powerful

• The French and Indian War:

• English and French fight over land in Ohio

• George Washington surrenders, but England later attack Nova Scotia capturing many Acadians

• Cajuns: Acadians that were deported to the English Colonies, but later found French Louisiana

• England dispatches a large number of redcoats

• General Edward Braddock: He and his troops have little experience fighting in the American wilderness

• Braddock’s defeat: English fail to drive the French out of Ohio

• The Seven Years’ War

• The European name for when England and France actually declared war

• Fought on 4 continents and 3 oceans

• 25 Oct. 1760: King George II died

• 22 years old George III takes the throne

• Dismissed innercircle

• Formed “King’s friends”

• Treaty of Paris (1763)

• Ended wars and French Empire in North America

• The French Government encouraged the French to work with the Spanish to prevent further English Expansion

• French outnumbered the Spanish

• Britain was in debt after the wars, so they start to tax the colonies

• Pontiac Rebellion: Indians got mad that France gave their land to the English and raided English towns

• The English didn’t follow the French “line” and crossed into native territory

Regulating the Colonies

• Proclamation of 1763: First of a series of efforts by the British government to regulate the colonies

• George Grenville (new chief minister)

• Charged more taxes on the colonists

• Tightened the Navigation Acts on the colonists

• Salutary neglect

• American Revenue Act of 1764 (sugar act) and taxes on rum

• Currency Act of 1764 limited the amount of printed currency

• The Stamp Act (1765): required stamps to ship things

• Quartering Act: required colonists to house British troops

• Whigs (Patriots aka “Americans”) and Tories (Loyalists)

• “No taxation without representation”

• Riots

• Stamp Act was repealed, but the Declaratory Act came on board

Fanning the Flames

• The king replaced Rockingham with William Pitt

• Charles Townsend

• Witty but reckless

• Died at 42

• Daughters of Liberty

• Samuel Adams

• The genius of revolutionary agitation

• Sons of Liberty

• Adams-Otis letter (James Otis)

• Loyalists = people for the king

• Patriots = those against the king

• Frederick (new chief minister) → Lord North

• Boston Massacre: 5 died and 8 wounded

• Crispus Attucks

• Runaway Indian-African American slave

• First to die of the massacre

A Worsening Crisis

• Gaspee

• British warship

• Set on fire by Patriots

• Committee of correspondence

• Boston Tea Party: Patriots in Mohaws dumped excess tea from the East India Company into the harbour

• “The colonists must either submit or triumph” ~King George III

• Coercive Acts to punish the colonists

• Boston Port Act: 1 June 1774 the port closed

• New Quartering Act: required British troops to be housed in the city

• Lieutenant - General Thomas Gage: new governor of Massachusettes

• Thomas Jefferson → requested fasting on 1 June

• Continental Congress

• 5 September 1774: 55 delegates make up the first continental congress

• The Suffolk Resolves

• Declared the Intolerable Acts null and void

• Encouraged resistance against the Brits

• Declaration of American Rights

• Proclaimed the rights of Americans as English citizens

• Denied Parliament

• Continental Association of 1774: every community to form committees to enforce an absolute boycott of all imported British goods

• Conciliatory Proposition: a letter saying the British will remove taxes if the colonist paid or the “military defence” and royal governors

• “War is at hand” ~ 29 years old Patrick Henry

Shifting Authority

• Lord Sandwich and Major John Pitcairn: didn’t take the idea of war seriously

• General Gage: Wanted to seize militia’s gunpowder

• Paul Revere’s Ride

• Rode to warn the “rebels” of the British plan

• Samuel Prescott was able to slip from the British intervention

• 19 April 1775

• 238 Redcoats found a silent protest led by Captain John Parker (a veteran of the French and Indian War)

• About 70 minutemen

• 8 dead and 10 wounded

• British route back to Boston lead to many casualties

• Fort Ticonderoga fell to the Patriots by the “Green Mountain Boys” led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold (Who oversaw volunteers)

• George Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army

• Battle of Bunker Hill

• On Breed’s Hill

• Bayonets on Brit’s 3rd attempt finished it off

• Brit Commanders

• William Howe

• Sir Henry Clinton

• John Burgoyne

• All able-bodied men enlist in a militia

• Patriots tried to take over Quebec but were unsuccessful

• Smallpox hit them

• Richard Montgomery died

• Gen. Benedict Arnold wounded

• Fighting spread from Canada to Carolinas

• Thomas Pain: Common sense → realisation of the need to declare independence

Independence

• 7 June 1776: “The colonies are of right to be free and independent states” ~Richard Henry (Virginia)

• 4 July 1776: Declaration of Independence

• Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration

• “All men are created equal”

• John Hancock was a smuggler

• “We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to” ~Levi Preston

Timeline:

• 1603: 

• Samuel de Champlain discovers the St. Lawrence river

• New France is a royal colony

• 1651: Act of 1651

• 1660: Act of 1660

• 1663: Act of 1663

• 1699: Biloxi founded

• 1718: New Orleans founded

• 1760: King George II died

• 1763: 

• Treaty of Paris

• Proclamation of 1763

• 1764:

• American Revenue Act of 1764 (Sugar Act)

• Currency ACt of 1764

• 1765: The Stamp Act

• 1774: 

• Boston Port Act

• First continental congress

• Continental Association of 1774

• 1775: 19 April → Silent protest led by Capt. Parker

• 1776: 

• 7 June: “The colonies are of right to be free and independent states” ~Richard Henry (Virginia)

• 4 July: Declaration of Independence

Chapter 5