Lesson 5: A Changing Situation
CLASS NOTES
Before 1763
 The Colonies prosper
 Promises of cheap land and religious freedom attract
settlers to America
 Population expanded greatly
 Each colony creates its own assembly to solve their
own problems and manage local affairs
 Over time, Britain takes a “hands-off” approach to
governing its American colonies
 England enacts Navigation Acts to control and profit
from colonial trade
 The Crown appoints governors to govern the colonies,
BUT many don’t enforce the Navigation Acts
 Conflict in the colonies
 British and French BOTH claim land west of the
Appalachian Mountains
 French built Fort Duquesne (near present-day
Pittsburgh) escalating the situation resulting in the
French and Indian War (called the 7 Years War in
Great Britain)
 Americans support the British during the French
and Indian War expecting to gain more land
 The British won and France gave Canada to Britain
Early British Actions
 New king, George III, persuades Parliament to pass new laws
 Proclamation of 1763
 cannot settle west of Appalachian Mountains
 The PURPOSE of this?
 Sugar Act (1764)
 tariff (tax) on imported sugar products
 Stamp Act (1765)
 tax on every piece of paper
 The PURPOSE of these two?
 Quartering Act (1765)
 King George convinces Parliament to station a
permanent army in the colonies so he sends
10,000 more troops to the colonies
 pass debt of the soldiers onto the colonial
assemblies
 colonial assemblies must provide British soldiers
with quarters (housing)
 Declaratory Act (1766)
 Parliament is supreme to the colonial assemblies
 The PURPOSE of this?
 Colonists protest new laws
 demonstrations
 effigies
 story of Andrew Oliver, the Boston stamp distributor
(on the counter by the right windows)
The Townshend Acts
 Townshend Acts
 A duty (tax) was placed on imports from Britain
 Colonists protest by boycotting British goods
 Women were a KEY to colonial success
 Due to the colonial boycott, the Townshend Acts was a
big money-loser
 The new prime minister, Lord North, convinced
Parliament to repeal all of the duties of the Townshend
Acts EXCEPT one, the tax on tea