Unit 3

Topic 2 -The French And Indian War

Question - What were the causes and effects of the French and Indian War?

Conflict between the British and the French (French allied with Native Americans)

Seven Years’ War - Worldwide conflict, French and Indian War was a small part

Cause - British American colonists were encroaching on land in Ohio River Valley, claimed by
French
●​ George Washington
○​ In 1753, appointed Lieutenant Colonel in Virginia militia
○​ Virginia government sent Washington to warn French on encroaching on British
holdings in Ohio River
○​ French commander denied him
●​ 6 months later same commander took control of British post in Pennsylvania called Fort
Duquesne
●​ Washington led surprise attack on the fort in 1754, gained it back
●​ 2 months later French led a larger force against the fort, took it back again
●​ This was cause, territorial disputes between French and British

Before Washington was defeated, Congress was meeting to figure out British colonial defense
against French and Indians
●​ Known as Albany Congress/Albany Convention
○​ Delegates from several British colonies discussed colonial response to frontier
defense, trade, and westward expansion
○​ Invited delegation from Iroquois confederacy, hoped to ally with them
○​ Indian motivation to ally was that if Europeans were fighting, they would have a
chance to maintain control
■​ Feared that one European nation would gain control
○​ Benjamin Franklin introduced his Albany plan of union
■​ Colonies established council of representatives to decide on those
matters
■​ This was rejected, too much taxation
■​ Laid foundation for future revolutionary congress

French was beating Britain initially

●​ 7 years war was expanding to a global conflict
●​ British implemented policies that were unpopular with Americans
○​ Increased forced impressment to join Navy
 ○​ British quartered troops in colonial homes
■​ If this was resisted, they were threatened with violence
●​ War ended in 1763 with signing of Peace of Paris

Consequences
●​ Treaty
○​ Spain gave Florida to the British
○​ French were kicked out of NA continent
○​ Spanish given control of former French land west of Mississippi
○​ Land East of Mississippi River (Ohio River Valley) granted to British
●​ American colonists hungry for more land pushed westward
○​ Intensified conflicts with Native Americans
○​ Pontiac, leader of Odawa, heard about this, he led raids against colonists in
Detroit and other military forts in Virginia and Pennsylvania
○​ British Parliament established Proclamation Line of 1763
■​ Forbade colonists from migrating west across Appalachian Valley
●​ They migrated west anyway
●​ Very expensive
○​ British national debt doubled
○​ Cost of running colonies increased 5x
○​ British Parliament raised taxes on American colonies

Topic 3 - Taxation without representation

Big Idea - Taxation without representation

●​ French and indian war was expensive to wage

○​ To pay for this, British made American colonies pay for it
○​ Salutary neglect
■​ While Britain had political sovereignty, this is not practically true and they
are very far, so Parliament left day to day decisions to colonists.
■​ Trade for example
■​ Parliament passed Navigation Acts which restricted trade to British ships
+ merchants
●​ Colonists avoided by smuggling
●​ British didn’t enforce these laws
■​ More independent than Parliament and King thought them to be
○​ To regain control, George Grenville implemented three prong plan
■​ Stricter enforcement of current laws (like Navigation acts)
■​ Extend wartime provisions into peacetime
■​ Quartering ACt of 1765 - kept British stationed in colonies, colonists
responsible for soldiers’ food and housing
○​ Sugar act
 ■​ Taxes imposed on coffee, wine, and luxury items
■​ Enforced existing taxes on molasses
○​ Stamp act of 1765
■​ Tax on all paper items like newspapers, playing cards, contracts, and
more
○​ Parliament passed currency act
■​ Prohibited colonies from printing own currency
■​ Supply of money restricted
○​ Colonists felt suffocated by these demands
■​ Americans experiencing declining wages, spike in employment

●​ No taxation without representation

○​ Colonists got idea that they were in social contract
○​ Colonists protested no taxation without representation
○​ British officials argued the colonists are virtually represented
■​ Members of parliament represented the interests of all british classes
■​ Colonial leaders argued only people that could represented their interests
are FROM the colonies
■​ Sons of Liberty, Daughters of Liberty and Vox Populi (merchants traders
and artisans) from colonies
●​ Stamp Act Congress in 1765
○​ Included 27 delegates from 9 colonies
○​ Goal was to petition British parliament to repeal Stamp Act
○​ Congress made its petitions acknowledging loyalty to king
■​ Congress repealed stamp and sugar act in 1766
■​ Simultaneously passed declaratory act, established
Parliament could pass whatever laws they wanted
in colonies
○​ 1767 Townshend acts levied taxes on items like paper, tea, and glass
■​ Colonists erupted in protests to fight these taxes
●​ Especially women
●​ For example, women knitted their own cloth and made their own
tea

●​ Boston Massacre of 1770

○​ Group of boys and young men harassed British soldiers
■​ Number was growing
○​ Threw stones/snowballs
○​ Someone fired a gun
○​ British soldiers fired guns into crowd, 11 colonists shot and 4 dead
○​ This enraged the colonists
○​ They went to trial, defended by John Adams, 6/8 acquitted
○​ Most Americans saw this as miscarriage of Justice
 ●​ Boston Tea Party in 1773
○​ Parliament passed tea act, gave permission to British East India Company to buy
and ship tea to colonies
○​ December of that year, 50 members of Sons of Liberty dumped 45 tons of British
tea Boston harbor
○​ Worth about 2 million dollars in today’s currency

●​ Consequences
○​ In response to this, Boston passed coercive acts
■​ Closed down Boston harbor until tea was paid for
○​ Passed another Quartering act
○​ Both this legislation known as “intolerable acts”
○​ Colonists began to arm themselves to prepare for British tyranny

Topic 4 - Philosophical Foundations of American Revolution

Big Question - How and why did colonial attitudes about government change in the years before
the American Revolution?

●​ Revolution was not a conclusion to most colonists during fight against taxes
○​ Wanted what was due to them as British citizens
○​ Still true when they met in Continental Congress in 1774
■​ Delegates from all colonies except Georgia thought about what colonists
should do about tyranny
■​ Agreed that colonies needed to resist further violations of liberty
■​ Hoped that reconciliation could be negotiated
■​ King and parliament refused to negotiate with colonies
■​ Learned desire for liberty from Enlightenment

●​ John Locke/Enlightenment
○​ Legitimate government can only happen with consent of the governed
■​ Power to govern is in hands of people
○​ People will it and allow it to exist
○​ Humans are endowed with natural life by the Creator
■​ Rights, liberty and property
○​ Locke argued that path to liberty is self-rule (elected representatives)

●​ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
○​ Given that power to govern is in the hands of the people then…
○​ People agree to willingly give up power
○​ Government agrees to protect natural rights

●​ Montesquieu
 ○​ Led colonists to believe that Republican government was best way to conserve
liberty
○​ Argued that government should be split to three branches:
■​ Executive
■​ legislative
■​ Judicial
○​ Checks and balances on power

●​ Common Sense by Thomas Payne

○​ Payne used language to argue powerfully for independence
○​ Called monarchy a falsity imposed on mankind
○​ Adorn these ideas to common population (not just elite)
○​ Adam believed that Common Sense was terrible (too simplistic)

●​ Second Continental Congress

○​ Put idea of independence on floor
○​ Thomas Jefferson tasked with composing Declaration of Independence
○​ Accepted on July 2, 1776
○​ 2 days later it was made public

Topic 5 - The American Revolution

Big Question - What factors contributed to the American victory in the Revolutionary War?

●​ America should not have won the war (most powerful nation in the world)

●​ Not everyone was on board

○​ Patriot cause embodied by continental congress + common sense
○​ Despite this, no more than ½ of colonists supported independence
○​ Some were neutral
○​ Those that opposed independence known as loyalists
■​ Opposition from without and within

●​ Continental Congress appointed George Washington as general of Continental army

○​ First 6 months they did not win a single conflict
■​ Soldiers were poorly armed, trained, and possibly coerced into service
○​ People thought regionally, so when George Washington led soldiers out of
Boston to New York they refused
■​ Many deserted
○​ British General William Howe landed in New York with 10,000 experienced well
trained troops
■​ 60,000 American loyalists joined their ranks
○​ Washington realized only way to win the war was to keep battle going as long as
possible so British would tire out
○​ Black Americans fought in this war too
■​ British offered freedom for those who fought for British
■​ Washington made same offer
■​ 5,000 black men fought for patriot cause (free blacks from North, some
from South)
○​ Washington led troops across Delaware River on Christmas Eve
■​ Attacked group of Hessian soldiers
●​ Germans that British paid to fight for them
■​ They won
○​ Most important victory - September of 1777 at Battle of Saratoga
■​ Big turning point
■​ Benjamin Franklin was in France trying to convince them to join patriot
cause
●​ Hesitant because British seemed to be winning
●​ After win at Saratoga, Franklin convinced French to join war and
ally with Americans
■​ French saw this as opportunity to weaken Britain
■​ A year later Spain and Holland entered war against Britain
■​ Spread out resources and increased cost of conflict
■​ With aid of French guns and ships, final battle was in Yorktown, Virginia in
1781
●​ Supported by French naval and military forces
●​ Washington and Continental Army forced Britain to surrender
○​ In 1783 Paris Peace Treaty was signed
■​ Britain officially recognized America as independent nation
■​ Western boundary was Mississippi river