The War Years

• The Second Continental Congress: was a de facto government (unofficial government)
  • George Washington was appointed the head of the Continental Congress and head of the Continental Army. He was chosen because he was from the south and from Virginia, which was the most populous state. Washington was nominated by John Adams
  • Olive Branch Petition: sent it directly to the king and not Parliament because they wanted to appeal to the emotions of one person, rather than many. Some people also believed in DRK.
  • Ben Franklin drew up the Articles of Confederation in 1775. These articles were re-drawn by John Dickinson in 1777, but still could not get enough support for. Technically we didn't have any government during the war.
  • Tried to create Committees of Safety and Defense, which would have set up a series of militia all around the country.
  • Also tried to establish a navy, which did not work so well. The navy was made up of mostly privateers, who were motivated by not only patriotism, but were motivated by money. One moment of naval glory by John Paul Jones, who named his boat Bonhomme Richard after Benjamin Franklin (good man Richard after Poor Richard's Almanac). Jones's ship was on fire, so the men swung onto the British boat, the Serapis, and won the battle.
  • The Model Treaty: basically the creation of our foreign policy. Two noted diplomats were Benjamin Franklin (France) and John Jay (Spain). Gained the French support after the battle of Saratoga.
  • Borrowing Money! Haym Soloman was a Jewish immigrant. He donated his entire family fortune to buy cannons and such to help the American Revolution. One guy guaranteed the debts of Continental Congress, which means he would pay any debts that the Continental Congress could not pay.
  • Appointed the Committee of Five.
• Appointed a committee to draft a formal Declaration of Independence, The Committee of Five: Franklin, Roger Sherman (would later propose the Great Compromise), Robert Livingston, Jefferson (plagiarized almost everything! stole from John Locke, fellow Virginian George Mason, Montesquieu, and Rousseau), John Adams. Jefferson took out a bit from the Declaration about how slavery was a warfare against humanity. First person to suggest breaking away from GBR is Henry Lee.
  • First part of the Declaration is the Preamble: states the grievances against the kind
  • Second Part: provides a theory of Government.
  • Third Part: a separation document from England.
    • Included a part appealing to England on how to treat the captured Americans soldiers, as POWs, and not as traitors.
  • Reasons for the Declaration
    • an attempt to commit the one third of the population that was undecided
    • to make something symbolic of what we are fighting for
    • to tell the world that the king was using mercenaries, specifically from Germany, called Hessians. Why would the world even care about this? Their reasoning was if the King was using outsiders to kill colonists, then it wasn't really a family battle anymore.
    • pointed out new ways of government.
  • Outside reason/uses of the Declaration
    • women's' rights groups
    • civil rights movement
    • abolitionist movements
    • the declaration was also used in Vietnam
• American and British Strategies (on Larry's website)
  • American Strategy
    • control the seas
    • keep a fighting army to tire out the British
• Strengths and Weaknesses of both sides
  • British Advantages
    • lots of money
    • the best army/navy in the world
    • stable and admired governement
    • best weapons with better trained army leaders
  • British Weakness
    • 3,000 mies away
    • British was a smaller landmass
    • no headquarters in America (New York was eventually their base)
    • don't have home field advantage
    • didn't have a cause to fight for
  • Colonial Advantages
    • home field advantage
    • Great leaders: George Rogers Clark, George Washington, Nathaniel Greene (the fighting Quaker)
    • had a cause to fight for
  • Colonial Disadvantage
    • no way to pay soldiers
    • no organized government
    • not many supplies
    • no money
• The Germain Plan- The Saratoga Campain
  • George Burgoyne, St. Leger, and Howe were three English generals who were supposed to meet up got separated. Horatio Gates was the commanding american officer who received the surrender.
• The War in the South and the end
  • The Cornwallis Southern Campain
    • Guilford Courthouse: costly victory for the British
    • Yorktown: British surrender, the last big battle in the war. Readouts: a thrown together fortress that the Americans had to attack
• Aftermath of the Revolution and the Significance of the Revolution

The Road to Confrontation

• Charles Townshend: was the chancellor of the exchequer (secretary of treasurer), came up with another approach to collecting money, he passed the Townshend Acts
• The Townshend Acts: tea, paint, paper, lead, glass
  • in order to better enforce the law they passed the writs of assistance. its like a blank search warrant.
  • the townshend act is supposed to raise money to pay for british officials in america
• Response to the Townshend Acts
  • Pamphleteer War
    • John Dickinson: wrote a series of essays called "Letters from a Pennsylvanian Farmer." He wrote that property is liberty and liberty and property. If you tax me without representation you are taking my liberty.
    • James Otis and Sam Adams (and others): wrote a series of protests called the circular letter. A protest statement from the Massachusetts legislature against the Townshend Acts.
    • These pamphlets started the Committees of Correspondence would warn neighbors about incidents with Britain and broaden the resistance movement
  • Boston Massacre: March 5, 1770
    • picture of the BM painted by Paul Revere. was not very accurate and was an example of propaganda
  • Townshend Act were all repealed except the tea tax, which was left behind for symbolic reasons, not for economic reasons.
• Lord Fred North after Charles Townshend died.
  • The Gaspee Incident in 1772: Colonists burned up the ship that was meant to take all the collected taxes back to Britain. It happened because the fires of revolution had died down a bit, and because it was a symbol of British taxes
  • John Wilkes: spoke his mind about the problems with representation in Britain. He got thrown in jail. The colonists loved him and he became a symbol for liberty to the colonists.
• The Clouds of War 1773-1775
  • The Tea Act of 1773: gave a monopoly on the tea empire to the British East India Tea Company (Larry says some of them were probably stock holders). Permitted the Company to sell tea directly to colonists without colonial middlemen
  • Response by the Colonists: even though the price of tea was lower, the colonists did not like this, because they didn't want to be tricked into paying taxes or support the British monopoly.
    • The Boston Tea Party
  • Response by GBR: the Coercive Acts
    • Boston Port Act
    • Government Act- took away all the colonists' rights, like martial law
    • New Quartering Act
    • Administration of Justice Act- all British officials would be tried in England
    • The Quebec Act- some say that it is separate, and some say that its part of the Intolerable acts. The British took away land claimed by the colonists and gave it to French Catholics. This angered the Protestant colonists for administration purposes. Parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin
  • The First Continental Congress: 55 delegates from 12 colonies. How do we respond to the Coercive and Quebec Acts?
    • The Suffolk Resolves: we will do everything we can to help Boston except taking up arms
    • The Galloway Plan: proposed to share power between GBR and the colonies. Called the Council of All Colonies. Got rejected epically by Massachusetts.
  • General Thomas Gage decided to disarm the colonists and take all their ammunition from the city of Concord. Supposedly Paul Revers warned all the colonists that the Regulars were coming. Battles of Lexington and Concord
  • The Colonists got their minute men ready very quickly. Only 8 colonist deaths in Lexington. The real English casualties occurred when the British were marching back to Lexington after finding nothing at Concord.

Roots of the Revolution

• The American Revolution before 1763
  Was the American Revolution inevitable?
  • The Virginia Charter: no matter where you go, you will always be Englishmen. Most Americans felt like they were being treated more like step-sons than sons
  • The colonists were already people who were unhappy with the situations in England ie they were religious, poor, or discontented.
  • The Voyage itself took at least three months and changed us some historians say.
  • distance from BNA (british north america) to england
  • Virginia and North Carolina is bigger than the UK. "Can a continent be governed by an island?"
  • "The Frontier Thesis" we are unique creatures, and americans are different than anyone in the world because they were constantly living on a frontier, on the edge of wilderness. You had to be a Jack of all Trades, and either do everything for yourself or you die. The Frontier led to:
    • individualism
    • self-reliance
    • independence
• Anglo-American relations to 1607-1775 the roller coaster effect of mercantilism
  • 1607-1640: the British cared less about us. Jamestown was more of a chore/burden. An increase in interest because of the Great Puritan Migration (most went to the West Indies to grow sugar)
  • 1642-1660: Very little interest because of the English civil war. The cavaliers (the king) versus the roundheads (protestants). The roundheads/Protestants won with Oliver Cromwell that crazy guy. They stuck his head on a pike to warn Charles II
  • 1660-1720: Charles II took lots of interest in the colonies since they were so successful and rich! A short decline when he left the throne and then a return with William and Mary. The reorganization of 1696 was important, and the Brits started to crack down on stuff.
  • 1721-1763: In 1721 A new leader comes to the Parliament: Sir Robert Walpole. Everyone was smuggling and breaking the rules. He thought the laws were too hard on the colonists so he started to use salutary neglect.
  • 1763-1775: Frightening interest because of the end of the French and Indian war that put the British £55 million in debt.
• Tightening the Reigns of the Empire 1763-66
  • New Leader George Grenville became Prime Minister in 1763. He thought he was a monetary genius because he was ex chequer. Had all sorts of ideas about how to make the colonists pay the £55 million pounds in debt.
    In short, he wanted the colonists to pay one third of the £55 million pound of debt.
  • Proclamation of 1763, "Don't pass the green line (the tops of the Appalachian Mountains)!" said George Grenville.
    • He didn't want the colonists to rub elbows with the Indians
    • wanted to reestablish the fur trade
    • didn't want to need to built more forts for defence, which would cost more money
    • why was this passed when it was? the Pontiac's Rebellion which occurred around the Ohio River Valley
  • Sugar or Revenue Act of 1764: basically what this act did was put a tax on non-british goods coming from the West Indies and other islands (mainly sugar but also indigo). Barbados and Jamaica had tax-free sugar because they were British islands. Enforced by the british navy.
    • Whats wrong with the tax? its an indirect tax- hidden in the price of the product, like gas in North Carolina.
    • British navy used- Vice Admiralty Courts with no jury. If they found you guilty they took your ship
    • The British said that it wasn't a tax it was just TRADE REGULATION
  • The Currency Act of 1764
    • Not allowed to print paper currency
    • Taxes needed to be payed in gold and silver
  • (First) Quartering Act of 1765
    • required to provide "necessities." ie salt and empty barns
    • the british weren't building barracks.
    • most people were just pissed off because why?? why are they even here? eventually people started saying that the british were there to take their liberty
  • The Stamp Act of 1765: an old idea that had been around a long time
    • This tax was not indirect like the sugar tax
    • if disobeyed you were subject to the vice admiralty courts- no jury trial
  • Taxation without representation: the battle between actual representation and virtual representation
    • the colonists didn't even want taxation with representation like they said they did, they wanted taxation with their own home representation. Britain had lots of rotten boroughs and would not mess around with actual representation because many of its own people were not represented accurately.
    • Country thinkers- Trenchard and Gordon were convinced that Robert Wapole was highly corrupt, "power tends to breed more power." the founding fathers were aware of these writers. your loyalty goes to your country first, before your leader/president
    • Stamp Act Congress oct 1765
      • arranged to boycott everything with the stamp on it. less peaceful organization was the Sons of Liberty (Sam Adams, J Otis, J Waren)
      • tar-ing and feathering of tax collectors
      • Committees of correspondence also came about under the Stamp Act: they would spread ideas and keep everyone informed about what was going on in Massachusetts
    • New Prime Minister Lord Rockingham- was only repealed because the merchants were complaining about the boycott
    • The Declatory Act of 1766: hardly noticed, but Parliament sent a letter that said they could tax, legislate, and do anything they wanted at any time they wanted.
      Lord Rockingham got fired because he was too nice to the colonies