Chapter 2: Balancing Liberty and Order (1753-1820)
Section 1: The Road to Independence
l. The French and Indian War
1. In 1754 the English colonists of Virginia took a French fort at the forks of the Ohio River and had marked the beginning of the French and Indian War.
2. In June 1754, Benjamin Franklin came up with the Albany Plan of Union, which got rejected but later on was helpful for the government of the United States.
3. The British was doing poorly in the war until the British troops began to overwhelm the French, which lead them to move to New France and later on switch to support the British because they were hopeless.
4. In 1763 The Great Britain, France, and Spain made a treaty to end the French and Indian War, also the treaty made Great Britain, Spanish, France to exchange land.
5. After the war Britain and American Colonists relation were strain due to the British didn’t get enough support from colonist and the colonist wanted a colonial officer to lead.
II. Issues Leading to the Revolution
1. At the end of the French revolution and the Indian war, British colonist wanted to be treated as citizens.
2. When the French and Indian war ended, The British wanted to take the great lakes region and the Ohio river valley, In 1763 the Indians rebelled against the British and in order to bring peace the king of Britain George the third issued the proclamation of 1763.
3. The British during this time were in huge financial debt due to war expense.
4. The sugar act in 1764 was a British policy to raise more money from the colonies; Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to provide house and suppliesfor British troops after war.
5. In March of 1765, The British passed a law known as the Stamp Act, which was a tax on newspapers, legal documents, and other printed materials to show that tax had been paid on it.
6. In October 1765 delegates from nine colonies held the Stamp Act Congress the person who organized the meeting was James Otis he protested the “no taxation without representation.”
7. They added colonial merchants and other organized a refusal to buy certain products or use certain services this is know as boycott group known as the Son of Liberty enforced boycott.
8. The colonists celebrated wildly because the news arrived that the Stamp Act had been repealed on the same day the Stamp Act was abolished Parliamentpassed the Declaratory Act.
9. Parliament reasserted his authority in 1767 he would do that by passing the Townshend Act placed duties on certain imported goods, including glass and tea the colonists were being taxed without them knowing, Britain would use this money for the salaries of royal governors inAmerica this change would weaken the legislatures and undermine self government in the colonies.
10. In march 5, 1770 an unruly crowd threatened a squad of British soldiers that opened fire leaving African American named Crispus Attucks and four other colonists dead or dying in the snow this is known as the Boston Massacre.
11. Soon after the Boston Massacre, parliament canceled the Townshend taxes.
12. Parliament passed the tea act, which gave the British East India Company the right to sell its tea in America without paying normal taxes.
13. To punish Boston and Massachusetts, parliament passed a series of harsh measures known as the coercive acts.
14. Committees of the correspondence in several colonies called a meeting to plan a united response to the intolerable acts.
15. The patriots followed advice of the first continental congress and stored weapons in concord, a town 20 miles from Boston, later that night 800 troops moved out of Boston and marched toward concord.
III. The Shot Heard Round the World
1. The Massachusetts Patriots gathered weapons and stored them in Concord (a town about 20 miles from Boston).
2. On April 18, 1775 British troops left Boston and headed to concord to destroy some of the weapons, they encountered minutemen (Armed Militia) and a fight broke out and a total 18 Americans were dead/injured, the British reached Concord and destroyed the weapons.
3. The Revolutionary War began after the Patriots sabotaged the British troops, which became a war for America’s independence from Britain.
4. Patrick Henry wants peace and doesn’t want slavery and he is willing to die for his beliefs.
5. Ralph Waldo Emerson said the significance of the Battle of Lexington would be an important part in the future for everyone in the war and also all over the world.
IV. Revolutionary Ideas
1. The American Revolution was a struggle between American colonists and Great Britain.
2. Thomas Paine’s pamphlet had a message for both levels of the revolution.
3. Within a year, some of the 25 editions of Common sense were sold , the pamphlet had convinced readers.
4. June 1776 the congress decided it was time for the colonies to cut their ties with Britain by appointing a committee to prepare a statement for the Separation- a Declaration of Independence.
V. Fight the Revolutionary War
1. Clash of Lexington and concord, patriots surrounded Boston, and Vermont militia captured Fort Ticonderoga.
2. In June 1775, The Americans occupied two hills in the north of Boston, After two attempts the British failed to take over the hills and then succeeded but it came with a cost of 1,000 out of 2,400 British soldiers died or got wounded.
3. George Washington fortified Fort Ticonderoga, giving him a higher chance to shell the British forces in Boston.
4. Britain’s army was strong, big, well disciplined, and trained. And they had the world's finest navy and had help from a number of source and made promises with natives and slaves.
5. British citizens resented paying taxes to fight the war and support the Americans.
6. British weaknesses were of course, America strength, British promise African American freedom in the war.
7. The continental Congress lacked the power to force states to provide resources.
8. British and German troops under General William Howe drove Washington poorly trained and poorly equipped army out of New York City and into Pennsylvania.
9. Washington order a surprise attack on Hessian forces in Trenton, the victory greatly boosted patriots moral and convinced more Americans to support the patriots cause.
10. General John Burgoyne led a British force in an effort to cut New England off from the rest of the colonies, and later Burgoyne would eventually surrender his army because he face an army much larger than his own.
11. The Americans had been seeking help from France, and the victory at Saratoga finally convinced the French that the Americans had a real chance of winning the war giving the Americans more resources.
VI: Winning Independence
1. George Washington never lost his determination to overrule British Colonies; he was so determined to overrule the British that he & his troops endured the harsh winter of 1777-1778 with little resources.
2. In summer of 1778, the patriot militia captured all British host located in present day Indiana & Illinois with the help of French settlers.
3. In 1774, the focus of the war for the British shifted to the south where they hoped to gain loyalist, with the help of the Royal Navy British forces seized Savannah, Georgia in December 1778 & Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780.
4. Washington recognized an opportunity to deal with the British in Yorktown, by surrounding them in both American & French troops, Cornwallis found himself surrounding without escape which lead him to surrender to Washington.
5. In September 1783, the treaty of Paris ended the RevolutionaryWar; Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States, the treaty also set the northern border between the U.S. & Britain & made the Mississippi River the border between the new U.S. & Spanish territories to the west.
6. The revolution didn’t just establish American independence, it also helped inspire American patriotism & love for the country.
7. The Revolution spread the idea of liberty; Jefferson said, “all men are created equal”.