Consider:

Was the Revolution simply a swap of British-elite power for a home-grown elite class?

What were the motivating factors leading to America’s revolutionary period?

 

1) Sugar Act (1764)

  • There was an enormous war debt to be paid for
  • In England, belief that colonies should pay for the war effort (it was for them), and also for all administrative costs of the colonies

 

PM George Grenville (chancellor of the exchequer) reduced tax on sugar

·        To enforce payment and to cut down on smuggling

 

Classical poor thinking: also included previously untaxed goods: coffee, wine, clothe

 

  • This further cut into merchants’ profits
  • The tax was not for benefit of Mother Country, but for sheer revenue!

 

  • This was all done by a Representative Government
  • Where is the colonial Representation?

 

James Otis starts slogan, “No taxation without representation.”

 

Smoke screen?  Simply looking for more independent control – this could simply be a move or shift of power?

 

2) Currency Act (1764)

  • Prohibited colonial legislatures from printing money
  • Debts had to be paid in British Currency
  • This plunges colonies into debt (further) – depletes hard currency in the colonies

 

3) Quartering Act (1765)

A)    Required colonials to provide housing and supplies to British troops (and a salary)

B)     Who is burdening the cost of this?

C)    Soldiers needed jobs too! – takes jobs from locals

 

4) Stamp Act (1765)

Direct tax on communication and entertainment

A)    Ordered that a stamp be affixed to:

Legal documents

Diplomas

Newspapers

Play cards

B)     Unlike Sugar Tax, this was not to regulate trade; rather, just to make money!

 

This one leads to violence:

-         Boston: Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s house is destroyed

-         New York: Stamp house ransacked

-         Philadelphia: tar and feathering

Colonists start to boycott British goods!

 

5) Townshend Acts (1767)

  • Charles Townshend (Chancellor of the Exchequer: aka finance Minister)
  • Taxes more things: Glass, silk, lead, and TEA!

 

  • Colonies decide to get together and sign the Non Importation Act

Vows not to import certain goods rather than pay the tax

Significance: first time colonies working together & Colonial goods become fashionable

 

RESULT

ALL of this leads to Britain sending troops into Boston (hotbed of political activity)

4000 troops in a city of 16 000!

 

Boston Massacre

  • Troops competed with colonials for jobs – in an already tight region
  • March 5, 1770 – Waterfront workers (probably drunk) started throwing ice and snow and rocks at a detachment of 9 Redcoats
  • What happened next – No one actually knows
  • Shots fired – 5 Dead – 1st was a black sailor named Crispus Attucks

 

  • Press dubs it – “Boston Massacre”

John Adams is Defense Lawyer and gets all off without death sentence

 

6) Tea Act (1773)

  • British East India Company managed British interest in India
  • By 1760s – EIC fortunes in decline – lots of unsold tea

            Had to sell goods to Britain and not the open market (Mercantilism)

            British Middlemen make a HUGE profit

 

The tax gives the EIC monopoly on importation/sale of tea sales in America

Result:

  • Reduces price of tea in colonies; but,
  • Drives local tea merchants (middlemen who are becoming very wealthy) out of business

 

  • Who is the Elite, eh?

 

  • Therefore: colonies start boycotting English Tea!

 

Boston Tea Party

  • Gov. Hutchinson orders tea into Boston Harbor
  • Samuel Adams and John Hancock (richest men in America) stood to lose the most
  • Night of Dec 16, 1773:
  • 150 men dressed as Mohawk Indians storm the ships
  • dump all cargo in Boston Harbor
  • Sparks similar “tea parties” in other colonies – again, working together

 

7) Coercive Acts (1774)

aka – Intolerable Acts

 

  • Closed Boston Harbor until loses recouped
  • Revokes Mass. Charter and forbids town meetings
  • Passes Quartering Act (Feed and Clothe)!
  • Mandates British officials to be tried in England
  • Passes the Quebec Act

 

8) Quebec Act (1774)

  • Attempts to secure French loyalty to Britain
  • Alliance between church and state in Quebec
  • Reduces threat of Northern neighbour

            Freedom for Catholic practices

            Expands boundaries

 

Colonists see this as a threat of expansion for them, all the while, they are confined by the Royal Proclomation!


French get to go, but not us!

If people did go, they were subject to French Laws, and not British rule.