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French and Indian War
The French and British
-seven year war;the france's expansion into the Ohio River Valley repeatedly brought the country into armed conflict with the british.
-French built a Fort Duquesne in the region;t the Virginia govern granted 200,000
-the end of the war in 1763 with signing of the Treaty of Paris keeps possession of west of mississippi and city of new orleans gained from france in 1762
- France retained control of only a few islands & small colonies near Newfoundland, in the West Indies -
Writ of Assistance
-general search warrant that allowed British officials to enter and search colonial homes whether there was evidence if smuggling or not
-the merchants of Boston were outraged -
Treaty of Paris
-ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France as well as their respective allies
-France gave up all its territories in mainland North America;ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies -
Proclamation
-all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains(can not cross)
-eager to expand they ignored the proclamation & continued streaming onto Native American lands -
Sugar Act & colonists response
-colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon(lower tax) on the importation of foreign molasses
-colonists complained that it would reduce their profits,merchants & traders claimed the parliament had no right to tax the colonists body -
Stamp Act & colonists response
-imposed a tax on documents and printing items such as wills,newspapers,and playing cards.
-stamp placed on items to prove that the tax has been placed
-colonists(shopkeepers,artisans,laborer) united to defy the law & organized a secret resistance group "Sons of Liberty" to protest law
-declared parliament lacked the power to impose the taxes on colonies bc colonists were not represented in parliament -
Sons of Liberty is formed & Samuel Adams
-shopkeepers,artisans,and laborers organized a secret resistance to protest the law
-the act also imposed a tax on tea, the most popular drink in the colonies led by Samuel Adam, one of the founders of Sons of Liberty, the colonists again boycotted British goods -
Declaratory Act
-asserted Parliament's full right "to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever." -
Townsend Acts & colonists response
-named after Charles Townsend,leading govern minister
-taxed goods that were imported into the colony from Britain,such as lead,glass,paint,and paper
-British taxes certain colonial imports & stations troops at major colonial ports to protect customs officers
-colonists protest "taxation without rep. &organize a new boycott of imported goods -
Boston Massacre
-British taunted by an angry mob,British troops fire into the crowd,killing five colonists
-colonial agitators label the conflict a massacre& publish a dramatic engraving depicting the violence
-paul revere was not only a patriot, but a silversmith& an engraver who made an image and newspaper of what happened -
John Locke's Social Contract
- one of the enlightenment thinkers, english philosopher -locke maintained that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Furthermore, he contended, every society is based on a social contract—an agreement in which the people consent to choose and obey a government so long as it safeguards their natural rights -government violates that social contract by taking away or interfering with those rights, people have the right to resist and even overthrow the government
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Publication of Common Sense
-Paine attacked King George and the monarchy. Paine, a recent immigrant,argued that responsibility for British tyranny lay with “the royal brute of Britain.”
-Paine explained that his own revolt against the king had begun with Lexington and Concord -
Tea Act
-British gives the East India Company special concessions in the colonial tea business& shuts out colonial tea merchants
-colonists in Boston rebel,dumping 18,000 pounds of East India Company tea into Boston harbor -
Boston Tea Party
-a group of rebels on December 6,1773 disguised themselves as native americans& proceeded to take action against three British ships in the harbor dumping tea into the water -
Intolerable Act
-King George III tightens control over Massachusetts by closing Boston Harbor& quartering troops
-colonial leaders form the First Continental Congress& draw up a declaration of colonial rights
-56 delegates met in Philadelphia -
First Continental Congress meets
-in September 1774, 56 delegates met in Philadelphia& drew up a declaration of colonial rights -
Minutemen
-civilian soldiers who pledged to be ready to fight against the British on a minute's notice-quietly stockpiled firearms& gunpower
-General Thomas Gage soon learned about these activities, spring 1775; he ordered troops to march from Boston to nearby Concord,Massachusetts,& seize all illegal weapons -
Battle of Concord
-marched to Concord& found empty arsenal
-British soldiers lined up to march back to Boston, but marched became a slaughter(3,000-4,000)minutemen has assembled by then,fired at troops from behind stone walls and trees
-British fell -
Second Continental Congress
-loyalties that divided colonists sparked endless debates at second continental congress, some delegates called independence;while others argued for reconciliation the colonial militia as the continental army& appointed General Washington as its commander -
Continental Army
-colonial militia, commodore General Washington -
Midnight riders: Revere,Dawes,Prescott
-rode out to spread word that 700 British troops were headed for Concord
-the darkened countryside rang with church bells& gunshots- prearranged signals,sent from town to town,that the British were coming -
Battle of Lexington
-General Gage orders troops to march to Concord,Massachusetts,& seize colonial weapons
-70 minutemen intercept the British& engage in battle first at Lexington
- lasted 15 minutes -
Battle of Bunker Hill
-strike at militiamen on Breed's Hill, north of the city and near Bunker Hill
-Gage sent 2,400 British soldiers up the hill;colonists held fire until last minute then backed down
-colonists had lost 450 men while British suffered 1,000 casualties
-deadliest battle of the war -
Olive Branch Petition
-congress sent the king a petition,urging a return to "the former harmony" between Britain and the colonies
-King George rejected the petition, issued proclamation stating that the colonies were in rebellion& urged parliament to order a naval blockade to isolate a line of ships meant for american coast -
Declaration of Independence
-Thomas Jefferson
- document declared the rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” to be “unalienable”rights—ones that can never be taken away
-power can only come from the consent of governed,, and that when
a government denies their unalienable rights, the people have the right to “alter or abolish” that government -
Redcoats push Washington's army across the Delaware river into Pennsylvania
-took place in 1776
-he led 2,400men in small rowboats across the ice-choked Delaware River
-They then marched to their objective Trenton, New Jersey&defeated a garrison of Hessians in a surprise attack.
-The British soon regrouped, however, and in September of 1777, they captured the American capital at Philadelphia -
Washington's Christmas night surprise attack
-led small rowboats across Delaware river
-defeated a garrison of Hessians in a surprise attack the British soon regrouped -
Loyalists and Patriots
-loyalists,those who opposed independence& remained loyal to the British king,included judges and governors, as well as people of more modest means
-thought they were going to win
-patriots,the supporters of independence drew their numbers from people who saw political and economic opportunity in an independent America many Americans remained neutral -
Saratoga
- planned to lead an army down a route of lakes from Canada to Albany, where he would meet British troops as they arrived from New York City the two regiments would then join forces to isolate New England from the rest of the colonies
- his fellow British officers were preoccupied with holding Philadelphia and weren’t coming to meet him,American troops finally surrounded Burgoyne at Saratoga, where he surrendered on October 17, 1777
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French -American Alliance
- the French had secretly aided the Patriots since early 1776
- the Saratoga victory bolstered France’s belief that the Americans could win the war,as a result the French signed an alliance with the Americans in February 1778 and openly joined them in their fight
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Valley Forge
-Washington and his Continental Army desperately low on
food and supplies
-fought to stay alive
- 2,000 soldiers died -
Friedrich von Steuben and Marquis de Lafayette
-a Prussian captain and talented drillmaster,helped to train the Continental Army( Fried.)
-Lafayette lobbied France for French reinforcements in 1779& led a command in Virginia in the last years of the war
-With the help of such European military leaders, the raw
Continental Army became an effective fighting force -
British victories in the south
-Savannah, Georgia
-British under Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis captured Charles Town, South Carolina, in May 1780,Clinton then left for New York, while Cornwallis continued to conquer land throughout the South
-British general moved fight ti Virguna -
British surrender at Yorktown
- French naval force defeated a British fleet and then blocked the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, thereby obstructing British sea routes to the bay -17,000 French and American troops surrender
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Treaty of Paris
-American negotiating team included John Adams, John Jay of New York, and Benjamin Franklin
-delegates signed in 1783
- U.S. independence and set the boundaries of the new nation,the United States now stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from Canada to the Florida border