Unit 2: The Colonies Gain Their
Freedom
Chapter 10: The Road to Revolution
1733
1754
1763 1764 1765 1767 1770 1773
It is true that the British colonies gave their people more freedom than the Spanish or the French.
However, the British lawmakers made a number of laws that were to help businessmen in England more
than the colonists in America.
One such act was the Molasses Act of 1733. This act helped the sugar plantation owners on the islands
in the British West Indies. It put a tax on sugar and molasses coming from any other place. The cost of
rum would go up if the colonists had to pay the extra tax on sugar and molasses.
The law also said that the traders in New England could trade only with these British islands. But the
French and Dutch islands had bought lots of goods from the New Englanders. Many New England
shippers and businessmen would have lost fortunes if they had only traded with the British islands.
Many New Englanders did not like the Molasses Act. They found ways of getting around it and the
British did not always make people obey the law.
From 1754 – 1763 the British and the French fought a war over land in America. In America this was
called the French and Indian War,
War, because many Indians fought on the side of the French. They fought
with the French because many French fur traders and missionaries lived with the Indians. In Europe this
war is called the Seven Years War.
The British won the war. France lost Canada and all of the French territory east of the Mississippi River
except for the city of New Orleans.
For England the war was a way to get more land for expansion (growing outward). For many colonists
the war meant much more.
First of all, many colonists had fought alongside the British Army. They saw that the British Army was
only made of men like themselves. They did not need the British Army for protection as much as they
had before. American soldiers had learned to fight.
Secondly, the colonists saw that they would have to work together. More and more people were coming
to America. They also wanted land. The colonists would have to work together to keep the land they had
and also the land they wanted to move into across the mountains.
Since the English and the colonists had won the war, the French were not a danger to them now. They
could safely move across the mountains and not be attacked by the French.
The King
King Tightens His Control
The British had no idea of moving out and leaving the colonist to themselves. In fact, King George III, the
new king of England, thought that it was time to tighten his control on the colonies.
In the king’s mind, there were good reasons for greater control over the colonies. The French had been
defeated, but the Indians were still enemies of England and the British settlements. The war with France
had also cost the English a lot of money. The king wanted the American colonists to pay for the war with
higher taxes.
The king believed that all this was necessary. The colonists did not think so.
Shortly after the war ended the king put out a proclamation (law). It said that the colonists could not
move westward over the Appalachian Mountains.
This angered many Americans. They saw this land to the west as a place for their colonies to grow.
In fact, many colonies had already claimed land west of the mountains. Some settlers had already
moved there. The Proclamation
Proclamation of 1763 as it came to be called was not obeyed by all Americans.
Then, very quickly, the British passed several more laws which angered the colonists.
In 1764, a new law forbid the colonies from printing or using their own money.
In 1765, the Stamp Act was passed. Tax stamps had to be put on 54 kinds of papers, such as playing
cards, newspapers, wills and licenses. The taxes colonists had to pay on these items went from one cent
for newspapers to ten dollars for a college diploma. Payment had to be made in either gold or silver.
Many colonists began to speak out against the new taxes. Patrick
Henry, a young man from Virginia, was one who spoke the
loudest.
“Parliament (the British lawmakers) made these laws,” Henry
said. “But we have nobody to speak for us in Parliament.
Therefore we cannot be taxed by them.”
In October of 1765, nine colonies sent people to a meeting in
New York City. The meeting was to talk about the Stamp Act.
Colonists protesting the Stamp Act
The people at the meeting made a decision. Parliament had no
right to tax the American colonies as long as the colonies had no
representation (voice) in Parliament. “No taxation without
representation” became the word of the meeting.
The people at the meeting sent Parliament a letter asking it to repeal (do away with) the Stamp Act.
Up until that time there had been little cooperation between the colonies. The meeting in New York was
the first time a large number of colonies acted together.
But the British did not repeal the Stamp Act. In fact, they put new taxes on the colonies.
In 1767 the British passed the Townshend Act. This act put taxes on tea, glass, paper and paint. These
taxes affected every colonist living in America.
Many people were angered when the British would not change the Stamp Act or the new Townshend
Act. Some refused to pay the taxes. Many refused to buy any goods made in England.
The Sons of Liberty
Others decided to take action. They formed
clubs called the Sons of Liberty.
Liberty The motto
(saying) of the Sons of Liberty was Join or Die.
The Sons of Liberty broke into the homes of
tax collectors. They beat them and burned the
hated tax stamps.
British troops were sent to some of the larger
cities. The soldiers were sent to help the tax
collectors do their job. Many were sent to
Boston, where the anger seemed to be the
greatest. They were without places to sleep. American colonists were told that they would have to let
the soldiers live in their homes. This made the colonists even more angry with the British.
Many American traders smuggled goods in and out of American ports to keep from paying the British
taxes. Americans often teased British troops in the streets by throwing rocks or snowballs at them.
Many American settlers moved across the Appalachian Mountains to the west. They did this even
though the British had said they could not.
In these ways individual Americans protested against the British. But the colonies as a group also
protested. Many colonies would not give any tax money to the British. Others refused to follow the rules
of the British governor.
One town, Newburyport, Massachusetts, summed up the feelings of most Americans at a town meeting.
The people of Newburyport voted to say:
“That a people should be taxed at the will of another, be it a man or a nation, without
their own permission to be taxed, is slavery, because, if that man or nation see fit, they
may have everything taken from them.”
The First Shots
In 1770 the first real battle between the colonists and the
British Army took place. In March of that year some British
soldiers got angry at a crowd of colonists who were throwing
snowballs at them in Boston.
This shooting was later to be called the Boston
Boston Massacre.
Massacre It
was not to be the last shots fired between the colonists and
British soldiers.
For the next few years, between 1770 and 1773, there were
not only a few acts of violence in the colonies. Some British
tax boats were burned. The British repealed many of the
taxes the colonists did not like, but the tax on tea stayed.
Boston Massacre
However, in 1773, the peace ended. In that year the British told the British East India Company it could
send tea to America without paying the tax. All other tea traders still had to pay the tax.
The British company now could sell tea in America much more cheaply than anyone else. Americans,
angered at the new rules, refused to buy any tea. They also refused to unload tea from British ships in
American ports.
The Sons of Liberty went even
further. In an action later to be
called The Boston Tea Party, a
group of Sons, dressed as Indians,
boarded a tea ship in Boston
harbor. They threw all the tea into
the water. The 342 chests of tea
that were thrown overboard were
valued at $75,000.
Boston Tea Party
Many say the Boston Tea Party
was the most important event
that led to the start of all-out war
between the colonies and the
British – the Revolutionary War.