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Chapter 6 – The British Empire and the Colonial Crisis, 1754-1775

I. The Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763 (Slide 2) Page 142

 

A. French-British Rivalry in the Ohio Country

1. French Traders Ally with Indians—French traders had cultivated Indian alliances for decades; the French exchanged manufactured goods for beaver furs on the frontier; in the 1740s, Pennsylvania began to infringe on that territory.

2. British Colonists Form Ohio Company—Virginians formed the Ohio Company and advanced into French-claimed territory; they wanted to secure tracts of land to sell later for profit.

3. French Military Forts Trespass on Virginia Land—French soldiers began building forts to protect their trade routes and to create a western barrier to American expansion; Robert Dinwiddie, royal governor of Virginia, warned the French they were trespassing on Virginia land; he sent George Washington to deliver the message, and Washington returned home with crucial intelligence; Dinwiddie appointed Washington to head a small military expedition to assert and possibly defend Virginia’s claim; Washington was authorized to respond with force only if attacked first.

4. French and Indian War Begins—Washington and 160 Virginians and a small contingent of Mingo Indians set out in the spring of 1754; in May, a detachment of Washington’s soldiers led by Mingo chief Tanaghrisson discovered a small French encampment in the woods; it is unclear who fired first, but fourteen Frenchmen and no Virginians were wounded in the panicked skirmish; Washington did not speak French and therefore could not communicate with the injured French commander; Tanaghrisson and his men killed and scalped the wounded soldiers; first battle of the French and Indian War.

5. Fort Necessity—Fearing retaliation, Washington ordered his men to fortify their position, resulting in the makeshift “Fort Necessity”; in response, French soldiers and one hundred Shawnee and Delaware Indians attacked Fort Necessity in July 1754; they killed one third of Washington’s men, making it clear that the French would not leave the disputed territory.

B. The Albany Congress (Slide 5) Page 144

1. Repair Trade Relations and Secure Indians’ Help against the French—British imperial leaders hoped to prevent a larger war, and they wanted to strengthen alliances with once-friendly Indian tribes; the purpose of the Albany Congress was to repair trade relations and to secure the Indians’ help—or at least neutrality—against the French; the congress occurred in June and July 1754; delegates from seven colonies met with all six tribes of the Iroquois nation.

2. Albany Plan of Union—Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts coauthored the Albany Plan of Union, which proposed a unified but limited government over all the colonies to formulate Indian policy and coordinate colonial military forces; the plan called for a president-general appointed by the crown and a grand council who would meet annually to consider questions of war, peace, and trade with the Indians; the plan still affirmed Parliamentary authority; delegates approved the plan, but no colonies approved it; colonies argued it was too strong or that it would be impossible for all colonies to agree; the British and the Indians rejected it as well.

C. The War and Its Consequences (Slide 8) Page 146

1. Braddock’s March—General Edward Braddock marched his army toward Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania; accompanied by Washington and his Virginia soldiers, Braddock led 2,000 troops into the backcountry in July 1755.

2. Braddock’s Defeat—One day before reaching the fort, the British were ambushed by 250 French soldiers and 640 Indian warriors; the Battle of Monongahela ended with nearly a thousand British soldiers killed or wounded, including General Braddock; the defeat stunned British leaders; they stumbled for the next two years, deploying inadequate numbers of troops.

3. William Pitt—Prime minister of Britain, rose to power in 1757; Pitt turned the tide in the war by paying colonial assemblies to raise and equip provincial soldiers; additional manpower led to a series of victories in the American colonies and in Canada; culminated with the fall of Quebec in 1760.

4. Treaty of Paris (1763)—The British continued fighting with Spain abroad; France and Spain capitulated in 1762 and signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763; the complex peace negotiations rearranged the map of North America; Britain gained Canada and confirmation of the claim to the eastern half of North America; French territory west of the Mississippi went to Spain; France retained Martinique and Guadalupe; Cuba restored to Spain.

5. Aftermath—Britain and the colonies began to eye each other warily; Pitt and others believed American traders were actually traitors for participating in colonial smuggling; colonists were angry that arrogant British commanders had relegated them to grunt work and subjected them to harsh discipline; the war was also very expensive, and costs continued to mount once British leaders decided to maintain a force of ten thousand soldiers in North America; British national debt had doubled since Pitt took office.

D. Pontiac’s Rebellion and the Proclamation of 1763 (Slide 10) Page 147

1. Indians Excluded from Treaty of Paris Negotiations—The major powers failed to include Indians in negotiations; Indians noted that the British never sent gifts, which symbolized honor and obligation; unlike the French, the British did not understand significance of gifts in Indian culture.

2. Antagonism toward the British Grows among Indians—The British enlarged Fort Duquesne and renamed it Fort Pitt; Indians grew alarmed as American settlers clustered there; an Indian religious revival further magnified feelings of antagonism toward the British; the Delaware prophet Neolin urged a return to traditional ways, without the influence of whites.

3. Pontiac’s Rebellion—A renewal of commitment to Indian ways and the formation of tribal alliances led to what the British called Pontiac’s Rebellion, named for the chief of the Ottawa tribe; Indians waged attacks on British forts across the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region; killed more than four hundred British soldiers; another two thousand colonists were killed or taken captive; the uprising faded in early 1764; new military leader Thomas Gage began distributing gifts among the Indians.

4. Proclamation of 1763—British issued the proclamation to minimize violence; it forbade colonists to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains, limited trade with Indians to licensed traders, and forbade the private sale of Indians lands; it did not, however, identify western lands as belonging to the Indians; it proved impossible to enforce; settlers had already moved west of the line, and land speculators would not give up opportunities to resell the land.

II. The Sugar and Stamp Acts, 1763–1765 (Slide 12) Page150

 

A. Grenville’s Sugar Act

1. Grenville Enforces Customs Duties—Prime Minister George Grenville sought revenue to pay for Britain’s war debt; he scrutinized the customs service to cut down on bribery, insisting on attention to paperwork and strict accounting of collected duties; the hardest duty to enforce was the one imposed by the Molasses Act; it was designed to discourage trade with French Caribbean islands, but French molasses was cheap, abundant, and easily smuggled.

2. Revenue Act of 1764—Dubbed the Sugar Act; lowered the duty on French molasses in hopes of making it more attractive for shippers to obey the law; at the same time, the act increased the penalties for smuggling; appeared to be within the tradition of navigation acts meant to regulate trade, but Grenville’s actual intent was to raise revenue; naval crews could act as customs officials; smugglers would be prosecuted by a vice-admiralty court in Nova Scotia.

3. Tension between British Officials and American Shippers—The act did not offset the attractions of smuggling; Americans engaged in the shipping trades raised objections to the act; saw it as a disturbing intrusion into colonial practices of self-taxation by elected colonial assemblies.

 

B. The Stamp Act Page 151

1. Another Attempt to Alleviate National Debt—To alleviate national debt, the Stamp Act imposed a tax on all paper used for official documents—newspapers, licenses, and more—and required a stamp to prove the tax had been paid; the act was clearly designed to raise money.

2. Taxation with Consent?—English tradition held that taxes were a gift from the people to their monarch, granted by the people’s representatives; citizens could use and enjoy property without fear of confiscation; the king could not demand money; only House of Commons could grant it.

3. Virtual Representation—Grenville argued that colonists were taxed by consent because they were “virtually” represented in Parliament; the House of Commons, he argued, represented all British subjects, wherever they were; colonial leaders argued virtual representation could not withstand the stretch across the Atlantic.

C. Resistance Strategies and Crowd Politics (Slide 13) Page 152

1. Patrick Henry and the Virginia Resolves—Virginia’s assembly, the House of Burgesses, was the first to oppose the Stamp Act; it passed the Virginia Resolves, a series of resolutions written by Patrick Henry; inched the assembly toward radical opposition to the Stamp Act; logical conclusion was that the Virginia Assembly alone had the right to tax Virginians; even though assembly rescinded their vote on the most radical measures, newspapers across the colonies had already printed the resolves in their entirety.

2. Samuel Adams and Others Organize the “Sons of Liberty”—Political debate went beyond the assemblies; in Boston, Samuel Adams mobilized artisans, tradesmen, printers, and other members of the middling and lower orders into the “Sons of Liberty”; Sons of Liberty staged a large street demonstration on August 14, 1765; highlighted by a mock execution designed to convince stamp distributor Andrew Oliver to resign; two thousand to three thousand demonstrators participated; Oliver resigned the next day; two weeks later, crowds attacked the homes of customs officials and lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson; the excessive violence of that demonstration brought a halt to the protests.

 

D. Liberty and Property Page 154

1. Crowd Violence Proliferates throughout the Colonies—Boston’s crowd actions sparked similar eruptions by groups calling themselves the Sons of Liberty in nearly fifty towns throughout the colonies.

2. Stamp Act Congress—Some colonial leaders sought a more moderate challenge to parliamentary authority; in October 1765, twenty-seven delegates representing nine colonial assemblies met in New York City as the Stamp Act Congress; delegates affirmed their subordination to Parliament and the monarch, dismissed virtual representation, and advanced a radical potential—the notion of intercolonial political action; white Americans adopted the rallying cry of “Liberty and Property”; some Americans began to speak and write about a plot by British leaders to enslave them.

3. Britain’s Response to American Demonstrations—British politicians and merchants were distressed by American demonstrations; merchants pressured Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act, which it did in March 1766, but parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever

III. The Townshend Acts and Economic Retaliation, 1767–1770 (Slide 16) Page 156

 

A. The Townshend Duties

1. Revenue Act of 1767—Called Townshend duties; passed by Britain’s chief financial minster Charles Townshend; established new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper, and painters’ colors imported into the colonies; the duty was paid by importers but passed down to consumers in retail prices; not particularly burdensome, but taxation extracted through trade duties looked different to the colonists in the wake of the Stamp Act crisis.

2. Controversial Provisions—Townshend duties directed that some of the revenue generated would pay the salaries of royal governors; Townshend believed the measure would strengthen the governors’ position and curb the growing independence of colonial assemblies, which to that point had set the salaries of their own officials, giving them significant influence.

3. Colonial Assemblies Protest—Massachusetts took the lead in protesting the duties; its assembly circulated a letter of grievances written by Samuel Adams; argued any form of parliamentary taxation was unjust because Americans were not represented in Parliament; royal officials ordered Massachusetts governor Francis Bernard to dissolve the assembly once it refused to repudiate the letter.

 

B. Nonconsumption and the Daughters of Liberty Page 157

1. Boycott of All British-Made Goods—Nonconsumption agreements called for a boycott of all British-made goods; agreements passed in dozens of towns in 1767 and 1768; they were aimed at hurting trade so that London merchants would pressure Parliament to repeal the duties.

2. Nonconsumption and Nonimportation Agreements Difficult to Enforce—Boycotting all British goods required serious personal sacrifice; merchants continued to import goods in readiness for the end of nonconsumption or to sell to people who ignored the boycotts; in Boston, these merchants were blacklisted; merchants also feared that merchants in other colonies would continue to import goods and make handsome profits at their expense.

3. Daughters of Liberty—Doing without British products provided an opportunity for women; many of the products specified in nonconsumption agreements were household goods traditionally under the control of the “ladies”; the concept of Daughters of Liberty gave shape to the new idea that women might play a role in public affairs; women could express patriotism through conspicuous boycotts of British goods; homespun cloth became a prominent symbol of patriotism; spinning bees occurred in sixty New England towns; women, although patriotic, were not the equivalent of the marching and protesting Sons of Liberty; on the whole, boycotts were a success, as imports fell by more than 40 percent.

C. Military Occupation and “Massacre” in Boston (Slide 18) Page 159

1. British Troops Occupy Boston in 1768—Britain sent three thousand uniformed troops to occupy Boston; soldiers drilled conspicuously on the town Common and in general grated on the nerves of Bostonians; tensioned reached heightened levels in 1770.

2. The Boston Massacre—On March 5, 1770, a crowd taunted British soldiers guarding the customs house; soldiers fired on the small crowd, killing five colonists; became known as the Boston Massacre; Sons of Liberty staged elaborate martyrs’ funerals for the five victims, including the one nonwhite victim, Crispus Attucks; eight jailed British soldiers and their Captain Thomas Preston were defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, who were committed to the idea that even unpopular defendants deserved a fair trial; Preston and six soldiers were acquitted; the other two were convicted of manslaughter, branded on the thumbs, and released.

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