American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution transformed thirteen scattered British colonies into an independent nation, through a decade of escalating taxation disputes, boycotts, and confrontations that ultimately erupted into armed rebellion. This article traces that path — from the colonies’ early development and Britain’s mercantilist policy, through the chain of taxes and acts from the Stamp Act to the Intolerable Acts, to the convening of the First Continental Congress — a key theme in the UPSC History Optional syllabus on the American Revolution.

Introduction

• The American Revolution, which took place between 1765 and 1783, was a political upheaval during which colonists in the Thirteen North American Colonies of Great Britain rejected the British monarchy, overthrew British authority, won political independence, and went on to form the United States of America.
  • It was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government, and ways of thinking.

The Thirteen North American Colonies of Great Britain

Background up to 1763

• In the 16th century, Englishmen began adventuring across the Atlantic to establish colonies and trade in the Americas, settling there in growing numbers.
  • In North America, colonies were established by France, the Netherlands, Spain, and England. By the 18th century, England had driven France out of the eastern part of the continent and Canada, having earlier taken New Netherlands from the Dutch and renamed it New York.
• America had been settled by dissenters and radicals, whose descendants inherited the spirit of liberty.
  • Most colonists had been driven from England and other European countries by religious persecution; paupers, the unemployed, and convicts had also come to settle there. They had little love for the mother country, enjoying in America more freedom than they could in Europe — and their religious tolerance made them loyal to one another as they settled in.
• By the middle of the 18th century, there were 13 English colonies along the Atlantic coast, settled by landless peasants, those seeking religious freedom, traders, profiteers, and convicts.
  • English institutions transplanted to America developed along different lines, owing to different social, political, and economic conditions — the result being that the two peoples grew apart, unconsciously, to the point of failing to understand one another.
  • Infant industries developed in products such as wool, flax, and leather; in the north, fishing and shipbuilding flourished; in the south, large plantations, resembling feudal manors, grew using slave labour brought from Africa. Trade between the colonists and Europe became lively and prosperous.
• Some colonists sought control over the “purse” — Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Carolina secured these powers between 1703 and 1750, marking a great advance toward self-government: assemblies asserted themselves, and their committees began acting as cabinets.
  • In many assemblies (Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina), self-constituted informal committees of legislative leaders assumed control of government.
  • Each colony had a local assembly, elected by qualified voters, that enacted laws on local matters and levied taxes — though still under the rule of the mother country.
• The American view was that they should manage their own affairs in their own way — a contest between imperialism and colonial home rule.
  • By the 18th century, colonists found the laws imposed by the English government increasingly objectionable; ideas of independent nationhood grew, eventually developing into revolutionary war.

Political Structures in the Colonies

• Colonies established along the coast were governed by charters granted by the King of Britain, with each permitted a substantial degree of self-governance.
  • Royal colonies (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) imitated Britain’s “mixed monarchy” constitutional structure: each had an elected assembly forming the lower house, a council appointed (except in Massachusetts) by the crown forming the upper house, and an appointed governor holding executive powers as the King’s representative.
    • All laws had to be submitted to the home government for approval, though otherwise there was little interference.
  • Proprietary colonies (Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland) also had elected legislatures, but their proprietors, not the crown, appointed the governors.
  • Charter colonies (Connecticut and Rhode Island) elected both their legislatures and governors, and were not required to submit their laws for approval.
• In practice, the British Parliament usually legislated only on matters of genuinely imperial concern.

British Policy in America Before 1763

• The British believed that their colonies and colonists, being English natives, existed to serve the mother country.
  • To this end, colonial government was brought under royal control: governors and military commanders were appointed by the King, and constitutional matters were decided by the Privy Council.
  • The principles of British supremacy and mercantilism were strongly insisted upon in England — under these principles, colonies existed merely to serve the mother country, kept fully controlled so as to provide raw materials and supplies unavailable at home, and to serve as markets for finished goods.
  • Mercantilism was thus opposed to colonial self-government; its other objective was to harm the trade of rival nations.
• This led to a large number of Navigation Acts in the 17th century, restricting colonial trade in line with mercantilist theory:

The Navigation Act of 1651

• Required that all goods entering England be carried in ships owned or manned by British subjects — affecting Dutch trading interests.

The Enumerated Commodities Act of 1660

• Provided that English colonies could not export certain commodities — sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and dyes — to any country except England or English colonies. This list was further expanded in 1706 and 1772.

The Staple Act of 1663

• Required all European exports destined for American colonies to first pass through English ports, and be reshipped only after payment of duty.

The Duty Act of 1673

• Aimed at enforcing all earlier Acts, through customs collectors.

The Enforcement Act of 1696

• Provided stringent measures to check smuggling, necessitating the registration of all colonial ships, and authorising customs officials to search ships and warehouses and seize unlawful goods.

The Molasses Act of 1733

• Aimed to stop the import of French West Indian molasses into British colonies.
• There were also restrictions on manufacturing certain items in the colonies — such as woollen goods, felts, and other luxury items — which the law required be imported from Britain instead (hence the Wool Act, Felt Act, etc.), bound to cause resentment among colonists.
  • The colonies were unhappy with these measures, believing England was hurting colonial trade for her own selfish interests.
  • Until 1758, these measures were not enforced strictly, and colonists felt little pinch — but once strictly enforced, colonists began to detest them.

The Seven Years’ War and the Treaty of Paris (10 February 1763)

• The Treaty of Paris was signed between Great Britain and France, along with their respective allies, ending the Seven Years’ War in North America — resulting in Britain’s victory over France and Spain.
  • The war ended in 1763 with the conquest of French Canada, and the expulsion of France from mainland North America by British and American forces.
  • By the treaty, French influence over northern and western America was eliminated: France ceded all her mainland North American territories, except New Orleans, in order to retain her Caribbean sugar islands.
  • Britain gained all territory east of the Mississippi River; Spain retained territory west of the Mississippi, but exchanged East and West Florida for Cuba.
• The Seven Years’ War drained a large part of England’s treasury, leading the English to increase taxes in the colonies — Britain also wished to maintain a standing army there, impose taxes to pay pensions to retired officers, and terminate colonial claims to the trans-Appalachian west.

Impact of the Seven Years’ War on the American Revolution

• The war set the stage for the Revolution for several reasons:
  • It left Britain with a heavy financial burden, and Britain expected colonists to help pay off the debts incurred defending them — leading to new taxes, greatly resented by the colonists, and the battle cry of “no taxation without representation.”
  • Americans gained a taste of fighting — and victory — and decided to test their wings against the mother country.
  • The war trained a number of highly capable American officers, including William Prescott, Daniel Morgan, and, above all, George Washington; foreign officers schooled in the war also officered American armies.
  • The French, along with some Native American tribes, had been a constant source of danger for the colonists, who always needed protection that only the mother country could provide — as one French writer remarked: “England will soon repent of having removed the only check [by conquering Canada from France] that could keep her colonies in awe.”
• After the war, relations between England and the colonists changed completely.
  • The danger from France had been one reason Americans sought British help — once the French were defeated, Americans no longer needed British protection against them, setting the stage for a favourable “reversal of alliances.”
  • The war had created enmity between Britain and France (and her allies, Spain and the Netherlands) — hence, France, Spain, and the Netherlands would later help the Americans during the Revolution against Britain.

The Crown’s Proclamation of 1763 (7 October 1763)

• In April 1763, George Grenville became Prime Minister of England, and issued the Crown’s Proclamation with a view to conciliating the Native Americans.
  • Wary of the cost of defending the colonies against Native attacks, and seeking to win them over, King George III prohibited all settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains — intended to check settler encroachment on Native land, and protect colonists from Native attacks.
  • This intervention offended the Thirteen Colonies, closing down westward colonial expansion, and running against colonists’ claims to the exclusive right to govern lands to their west.

Events After 1763: 1764–1766 — Taxes Imposed and Withdrawn

The Currency Act (1764)

• Parliament passed the Currency Act to restrain the use of paper money, which British merchants saw as a means to evade debt payments.
  • It prohibited colonists from designating paper currency as payment for debts, public or private — though it did not prohibit colonists from issuing paper money outright.
  • This tight money policy created financial difficulties in the colonies, where gold and silver were in short supply.

The Sugar Act (5 April 1764)

• Aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies, and at raising revenue to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the Seven Years’ War.
  • Essentially a reinvigoration of the largely ineffective Molasses Act of 1733, the Sugar Act provided for strong customs enforcement of duties on refined sugar and molasses imported from non-British Caribbean sources.
  • It established a Vice-Admiralty Court in Nova Scotia to hear smuggling cases without a jury — measures that led to widespread protest.
• That same year, Prime Minister George Grenville proposed direct taxes on the colonies to raise revenue, delaying action to see if the colonies would propose a means of raising revenue themselves.
  • Colonists objected chiefly not because the taxes were high (they were low), but because they had no representation in Parliament.
  • Benjamin Franklin testified in Parliament in 1766 that Americans already contributed heavily to imperial defence, noting that local governments had raised, outfitted, and paid 25,000 soldiers to fight France — as many as Britain itself sent — spending many millions from American treasuries during the French and Indian War alone.
• More objectionable to colonists were stricter bonding regulations for shipmasters, whose cargoes were subject to seizure by British customs commissioners, and who fell under the Vice-Admiralty Court’s authority in distant Nova Scotia if they violated trade rules.
  • As a result of the Sugar Act, earlier clandestine trade in foreign sugar — and much colonial maritime commerce generally — was severely hampered.

The Stamp Act (22 March 1765)

• The enormous new defence burdens from the Seven Years’ War and Pontiac’s War (a conflict with Native American tribes), together with the cost of quartering additional troops, forced Chancellor of the Exchequer George Grenville to raise taxes through the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act — a revenue device common in England itself.
  • Parliament passed the Stamp Act, imposing direct taxes on the colonies for the first time — requiring all official documents, newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and even playing cards to bear “stamped” paper showing tax payment.
• Completely unexpected was the avalanche of protest: colonists effectively nullified the Act through outright refusal to use the stamps, as well as riots, stamp burning, and intimidation of colonial stamp distributors.
  • Merchants, lawyers, ministers, legislatures, and editors all joined in strong opposition.
  • Colonists passionately upheld their right, as Englishmen, to be taxed only by their own consent through their own representative assemblies — believing taxation for revenue would threaten the foundations of colonial self-government.
• In addition to non-importation agreements among colonial merchants, the Stamp Act Congress convened in New York (October 1765), with moderate representatives of nine colonies framing resolutions of “rights and grievances” and petitioning the king and Parliament for repeal.
  • Bowing chiefly to pressure from British merchants and manufacturers whose colonial exports had suffered, Parliament — largely against the wishes of the House of Lords — repealed the Act in early 1766.
  • Simultaneously, Parliament issued the Declaratory Act, reasserting its right of direct taxation anywhere in the empire, “in all cases whatsoever.”
• The protest against the Stamp Act contributed greatly to the spirit and organisation of unity that would prove a necessary prelude to the struggle for independence a decade later.

The Virginian Resolution (30 May 1765)

• Apart from Massachusetts’s call to delegates of the House of Representatives of other colonies, the Virginia Assembly passed a set of resolutions refusing to comply with the Stamp Act.

The Stamp Act Congress (7–25 October 1765)

• In October 1765, leaders in the Massachusetts colony called together representatives from other colonies to consider common problems, particularly the Stamp Act. Nine colonies sent delegates to the Congress in New York City.
  • Representatives from nine of the thirteen colonies declared the Stamp Act unconstitutional, as a tax levied without their consent — adopting the slogan “No taxation without representation.”
  • Moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances,” stating that taxes passed without representation violated their rights as Englishmen — asserting that “it was an undoubted right of Englishman that no tax be imposed upon them without their own consent, given personally or by their representatives.”
  • They petitioned the King, House of Lords, and House of Commons — while simultaneously rejecting the idea of direct representation in Parliament, declaring it impossible given the distance involved. They also threatened to stop importing British goods.
• The British Parliament at Westminster, meanwhile, saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughout all British possessions, entitled to levy any tax without colonial approval.

The Sons of Liberty

• The Sons of Liberty were a secret, underground organisation founded in Boston by Samuel Adams and John Hancock in July 1765, opposed to the Stamp Act, with membership spreading to numerous colonial towns.
  • They prevented people from using stamps, forced British stamp agents to resign, pulled down images of the king, and stopped many merchants from ordering British goods — marching through the streets shouting “Liberty, property and no stamps.”
  • Its members were American patriots, many hot-headed and not averse to violence and intimidation. Formed to protect colonists’ rights and fight the abuses of British taxation, they are best known for organising the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
  • In Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice-admiralty court and looted the home of the chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson.

The Quartering Act (15 May 1765)

• This Act required colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages. (Resentment over this practice is reflected in the Third Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it in peacetime.)
  • The burden of supporting British soldiers was thus shifted from England to the colonies. The Act was passed primarily in response to greatly increased empire defence costs following the Seven Years’ War and Pontiac’s War.
  • Like the Stamp Act of the same year, it asserted British authority over the colonies, disregarding the fact that troop financing had, for 150 years, been exercised by representative provincial assemblies rather than by Parliament in London.
  • Colonies also suspected the standing army was meant to enforce the Stamp Act, as well as to keep colonists in awe.
• The Act was particularly resented in New York, where the largest number of troops were quartered, with outward defiance leading directly to the Suspending Act, part of the Townshend Acts of 1767.
  • After considerable tumult, the Quartering Act was allowed to expire in 1770.

The Declaratory Act (18 March 1766)

• Work in the colonies continued as usual without stamps; no one cared for the Act — customs officers issued clearances, and lawyers and courts of justice transacted business without stamps.
• In London, the Rockingham government came to power (July 1765), and Parliament debated whether to repeal the stamp tax or send an army to enforce it.
  • Benjamin Franklin made the case for repeal; Parliament agreed, repealing the tax on 21 February 1766 — but simultaneously passed the Declaratory Act of March 1766, insisting that Parliament retained full power to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
  • One clause read: “the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are and ought to be subordinate unto and dependent upon the imperial Crown and Parliament of Great Britain.”
• Colonists took little notice of the Act, so long as it wasn’t enforced — the repeal of the Stamp Act nonetheless caused widespread celebration in the colonies.

Events of 1767–1773: The Townshend Acts and the Tea Act

The Townshend Acts (June 1767)

• The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed on the American colonies in 1767, an attempt to assert Britain’s historic right to exert authority over the colonies through suspending a recalcitrant representative assembly and imposing strict provisions for collecting revenue duties.
  • The colonists named the Acts after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, who sponsored them.
• The Suspending Act: prohibited the New York Assembly from conducting further business until it complied with the financial requirements of the Quartering Act (1765) for British troop expenses.
• The Revenue Act: imposed direct revenue duties — duties aimed not merely at regulating trade, but at raising money for the British treasury — payable on arrival in colonial ports, falling on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea.
• The Commissioner of Customs Act: established strict, often arbitrary machinery of customs collection in the colonies, including additional officers, searchers, spies, coast guard vessels, search warrants, writs of assistance, and a Board of Customs Commissioners at Boston, all financed from customs revenue.
• The Indemnity Act: lowered duties on tea imported to England by the East India Company, and gave the Company a refund of 25% duty on tea re-exported to the colonies — aimed at enabling the Company to compete with Dutch-smuggled tea, and incentivising colonists to buy East India Company tea.
• In 1768, the Vice Admiralty Court Act was also passed, setting up new courts in America to prosecute smugglers without a local jury — giving Royal courts, rather than colonial courts, jurisdiction over all matters of customs violation and smuggling.

Resistance to the Townshend Acts

• The Acts posed an immediate threat to established traditions of colonial self-government, especially the practice of taxation through representative provincial assemblies.
  • They were resisted everywhere through verbal agitation and physical violence, deliberate evasion of duties, renewed non-importation agreements among merchants, and overt hostility toward British enforcement agents, especially in Boston.
  • Colonial assemblies condemned taxation without representation, and colonists organised boycotts of British goods to pressure English merchants and manufacturers economically — an agreement was signed at Boston to refuse purchase of certain English items.
  • John Dickinson wrote a letter to the inhabitants of British colonies raising a constitutional issue, denying Parliament’s right to tax colonies for revenue and declaring the Townshend duties unconstitutional.
• In February 1768, the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay issued a circular letter (prepared by Samuel Adams) assailing the Acts as an “infringement of their natural and constitutional rights,” sent to other colonies urging coordinated resistance.
  • The governor dissolved the assembly when it refused to rescind the letter. The assemblies of Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia endorsed the circular, and the King ordered the dissolution of these assemblies too.
  • Parliament responded to colonial officials’ requests for protection by dispatching the British army to Boston, arriving in October 1768 — heightening tensions in an already anxious environment (leading directly to the Boston Massacre).
  • In January 1769, Parliament reactivated a statute permitting subjects outside the realm to face treason trials in England; the governor of Massachusetts was instructed to collect evidence of treason, and though this threat was not carried out, it caused widespread outrage.

The Boston Massacre (5 March 1770)

• British troops had been stationed in Boston since 1768, following the Townshend Acts and the resulting civil unrest.
  • Angered by their presence and Britain’s colonial policy, a radical crowd began harassing soldiers guarding the customs house; a soldier, knocked down by a snowball, discharged his musket. Though there was no order to fire, the soldiers fired, killing five civilians — the event became known as the Boston Massacre.
• The guilty soldiers were tried but received only light punishment, deepening bitterness and soon becoming propaganda against the British.
  • The term “Boston Massacre” was coined by the patriot Samuel Adams, used in propaganda campaigns, and commemorated annually in Boston until 1780.

Effects of the Boston Massacre

• Its effects were far-reaching, leading to the creation of the Committee of Correspondence.
  • The Sons of Liberty, and patriots like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, used the Massacre as calculated political propaganda, designed to rouse antagonism toward the Crown across the colonies.
  • Widely publicised, it contributed to the unpopularity of British rule in America, playing a major part in events leading to the Revolution — including the 1773 Tea Act, which led to the Boston Tea Party on 16 December 1773.
  • The Massacre was a signal event leading directly to the Royal Governor evacuating the occupying army from Boston, and soon brought the Revolution to armed rebellion throughout the colonies.

Repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act (12 April 1770)

• In 1770, Lord North became Prime Minister, adopting measures to reconcile the colonists.
  • Responding to protests, Parliament withdrew all taxes except the tax on tea, abandoning its wider effort to raise revenue — temporarily resolving the crisis, with the boycott of British goods largely ceasing.
• During the following two years of relative peace, two schools of thought emerged in the colonies: Radicals and Conservatives.
  • Radicals were in strained relations with the British and sought further resistance — including merchants, lawyers, ship-workers, artists, newspaper publishers, and advocates of independence, such as Samuel Adams and Charles Thomson (Pennsylvania), and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (Virginia).
  • Conservatives — professional politicians, royal officials, many merchants, and much of the rural population — were interested in restoring good feeling.
• The withdrawal of the Townshend Acts led to the virtual collapse of the non-importation movement, as merchants eagerly resumed trading; only the more radical patriots, like Samuel Adams, tried to keep resistance alive — resulting in the formation of the Committee of Correspondence in Boston in 1772.

Committees of Correspondence

• A Committee of Correspondence consisted of leading patriots providing leadership and communication networks among colonists at town and colony level.
  • Their objective was to warn one another of British actions and plans detrimental to colonial America, and to plan resistance and countermeasures.
  • Initially temporary, these committees evolved into permanent features of colonial America — the earliest were invented by Samuel Adams, when a committee was first appointed in Boston, Massachusetts.
• A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on Committees of Correspondence at the colonial and local levels, excluding Loyalists.
  • In early 1773, Virginia, the largest colony, set up a permanent Committee, on which Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served.
  • By 1774, all colonies except Pennsylvania and North Carolina had such committees, which became leaders of American resistance, largely determining the war effort at state and local levels — when the First Continental Congress decided to boycott British products, these Committees took charge of examining merchant records.

The Burning of the Gaspee (10 June 1772)

• The HMS Gaspee, a British customs ship, ran aground in Rhode Island, and a Sons of Liberty group attacked and set fire to it.
  • The British government threatened to send the perpetrators for trial in Britain, appointing a special commission of investigation — but no one provided evidence, and the commission failed, with no arrests made.
  • Their threat to try Americans in England nonetheless sparked alarmed protests in the colonies, informed of the affair via the Committees of Correspondence.

Publication of the Thomas Hutchinson Letters (July 1773)

• In these letters, Hutchinson, the Massachusetts governor, advocated a “great restraint of natural liberty,” convincing many colonists of a planned British clampdown on their freedoms.
  • The letters, used as evidence of a systematic plot against American rights, discredited Hutchinson, and the Assembly petitioned for his recall.
  • Benjamin Franklin, postmaster general for the colonies, acknowledged leaking the letters — which led to his being fired from his post.

The Tea Act (10 May 1773)

• The Tea Act of 1773 was designed to bail out the British East India Company, expanding its monopoly on the tea trade to all British colonies, allowing it to sell excess tea at a reduced price.
  • The Townshend Acts had set new import duties on paint, paper, lead, glass, and tea — but due to protests from British merchants whose trade suffered from the colonial boycott, Parliament repealed all these duties except the tax on tea.
  • Since only the tea duty remained, American colonists had continued to boycott tea. As a result, the East India Company was left with vast unsold stock, and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
  • By 1772, the Company held 18 million pounds of unsold tea and £1.3 million of debt — the Tea Act was passed to bail it out.

Major Provisions of the Tea Act

• It gave the East India Company a tea monopoly in the American colonies, allowing it to sell its large surplus below prices charged by colonial competitors.
  • It allowed tea to be shipped directly from China to the American colonies in Company ships.
  • The new import tax of 3 pence was considerably less than the previous 12 pence per pound charged on tea shipped via Britain — meaning American colonists would get tea cheaper than people in Britain itself.
  • It also allowed the British to undercut tea smuggled into the colonies via the illegal Dutch tea trade.
• The British government, led by Lord North, hoped to reassert Parliament’s right to impose direct revenue taxes on the colonies through this cheap tea, anticipating a good reception in America, since colonists would get tea more cheaply than ever before.

Effect of the Tea Act on the American Colonists

• Merchants who had acted as middlemen in legally importing tea stood to lose business to East India Company agents; those dealing in the illegal Dutch tea trade would also be undercut by the Company’s lower prices.
  • The Act directly impacted shopkeepers, who would only be permitted to purchase tea from merchants selected by the Company’s monopoly, while only Company-owned ships could carry tea, rendering American ships in the trade redundant.
• Favouritism: the consignees chosen to receive and resell the tea were generally favourites of the local governor.
  • The Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, was part-owner of the business hired by the Company to receive tea shipped to Boston — and was disliked by Boston patriots, with whom he had clashed during the Boston Massacre of 1770.

The Colonists’ Reaction

• The colonists’ reaction to the Tea Act came as a shock: buying the tea would mean accepting payment of the British import tax, and colonists had not forgotten their outrage at the Stamp Act of 1765.
  • Since the colonies were unrepresented in Parliament, they saw the Tea Act as unconstitutional — their cry of “No taxation without representation!” had not been forgotten.
  • The Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty, who had experienced a relatively calm period since the Stamp Act’s repeal and the Boston Massacre, saw the Tea Act stir up all their old resentment toward the British.

Actions Taken by the Colonists

• Colonists in the ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston had time to plan their responses before tea-laden ships arrived:
  • The press became more politically active, and circulars and handbills were printed and distributed.
  • The Sons of Liberty organised public demonstrations, and public meetings were held, producing a strong anti-British attitude.
  • Americans resolved to continue boycotting British tea, enforcing non-importation agreements among merchants.
  • A public meeting in Philadelphia agreed that anyone aiding in “unloading, receiving, or vending” the tea was an enemy of the country; colonists demanded that consignees “resign their appointment.”
  • The Sons of Liberty reorganised, warning shop owners against harbouring the tea, and threatening anyone who bought, sold, or handled it as an enemy of the country. Colonists resolved to prevent the tea’s landing and sale, insisting it be sent back to England.
• When ships arrived, confrontation followed: at New York and Philadelphia, the first tea consignments were compelled to sail back to England.
  • In Massachusetts, ships entered Boston Harbour; the consignees were two sons and a nephew of the Governor, who was determined the ship be unloaded despite protest — setting the scene for the Boston Tea Party.

The Boston Tea Party (16 December 1773)

• The Boston Tea Party was a direct protest by Boston colonists against the tea tax.
  • As the Governor of Massachusetts remained determined to unload the ship despite protest, more than 180 Boston patriots, dressed as Mohawk Indians, raided three British ships from China in Boston harbour and dumped 342 containers of tea (worth £10,000) into the harbour.
  • The organisers were the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere — disguised as Mohawks to hide their identities, since destroying the tea was a risky act of treason punishable by death.

Effects of the Boston Tea Party

• Many participants fled Boston immediately afterward to avoid arrest. Only one, Francis Akeley, was caught and imprisoned — the only person ever arrested for the Boston Tea Party, and he was released for lack of evidence.
  • Despite hundreds of eyewitnesses, none would cooperate with the authorities.
• British ministers decided to punish the town of Boston as a whole: Parliament ordered the Royal Navy to blockade Boston Harbour, and British army regiments were sent to enforce the closure — preventing supplies from entering, and Massachusetts merchants from selling their goods.
  • These measures were implemented under the 1774 Intolerable Acts, comprising the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, the Quartering Act, and the Quebec Act.
  • American colonists responded by convening the First Continental Congress in September and October 1774, petitioning Britain to repeal the Intolerable Acts.

Significance of the Boston Tea Party

• The constant stream of new British laws and taxes was like a slow-burning fuse to a keg of dynamite that would explode into the American Revolutionary War.
  • The Battles of Lexington and Concord followed, fought on 19 April 1775 — the first battles of the Revolutionary War.
  • In January 1776, Thomas Paine anonymously published the 50-page pamphlet Common Sense, supporting American independence from Britain and its monarchy.
  • The National government emerged from the Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army, appointing George Washington as its commander-in-chief.

The Intolerable Acts / Coercive Acts (1774)

• The British government responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing several Acts that came to be known as the Intolerable Acts, further darkening colonial opinion toward Britain. They comprised five laws:

The Massachusetts Government Act

• Altered the Massachusetts Royal charter: council members were now to be appointed by the Crown, powers of other appointments vested in the Governor, and town meetings forbidden without the Governor’s prior permission.

The Administration of Justice Act

• Ordered that British soldiers accused of crimes be tried in Britain, rather than in the colonies.

The Boston Port Act

• Closed the port of Boston until the British had been compensated for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party.

The Quartering Act

• Resumed, allowing royal governors to house British troops in citizens’ homes, without requiring the owner’s permission.

The Quebec Act

• Designed to extend the boundaries of Quebec and guarantee religious freedom to Catholic Canadians, its purposes were to:
  • Extend the Province of Quebec to include territory west to the Mississippi, north to Hudson’s Bay territory, and the islands at the mouth of the St. Lawrence.
  • Provide a permanent civil government for Canada — though without an elected legislative assembly, since Quebec was to be governed by a Royally appointed governor and council.
  • Pass religious reforms highly favourable to the Catholic majority in Quebec, allowing Catholics to hold public office — reforms designed to boost the loyalty of the king’s Canadian subjects amid growing resistance in the American colonies.
• The Quebec Act was perceived as a new model for British colonial administration; as a result, American revolutionaries failed to gain the support of the Canadians during the Revolution.
  • Much of the land in question was claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and other colonial land speculators were furious, since the Act limited opportunities for colonies to expand on their western frontiers, depriving them of rights to land in the region.
  • The Act’s recognition of Roman Catholicism was seen to threaten the unity, security, and territorial ambitions of British America; many colonists viewed it as a measure of coercion. The Act thus became a major cause of the Revolution, and helped provoke an invasion of Quebec by the revolting colonies’ armies in the winter of 1775–76.

The First Continental Congress (September 1774)

• The First Continental Congress (established 5 September 1774, disbanded 10 May 1775) convened, consisting of elected representatives from all 13 colonies, serving as a vehicle for deliberation and collective action — delegates gave one vote to each colony, regardless of size.
  • Prior to the Congress, some representatives had met with delegates from different colonies, but not all 13 had been involved.
  • The Congress included Patrick Henry, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, John Jay, and John Dickinson.
• Virginians Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Peyton Randolph invited delegations from all other colonies to meet in Philadelphia on 5 September 1774, to debate a response to the colonies’ grievances against Great Britain.
  • The grievances concerned laws passed by the British Parliament, the “last straw” being the Intolerable Acts, which had punished Boston for the Tea Party.
• Meeting in secret session, the body rejected a plan for reconciling British authority with colonial freedom.
  • Instead, it adopted a declaration of personal rights — including life, liberty, property, assembly, and trial by jury — also denouncing taxation without representation, and the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without colonial consent.
  • The Congress appealed to the British King to remove restrictions on industries, while willingly accepting Parliamentary regulation of American commerce.
• The King declared their action a mutiny, ordering troops to suppress it; the colonies planned military defence with local troops and militia.
  • In 1775, the first battle of the Revolution was fought when a thousand British soldiers met the colonial militia at Lexington, Massachusetts.

The Articles of Continental Association (20 October 1774)

• The Articles of Continental Association were adopted on 20 October 1774 by the First Continental Congress, created in response to the Intolerable Acts passed to restore order in Massachusetts following the Boston Tea Party.
  • The Association imposed a universal prohibition on trade with Great Britain — with a handful of exceptions, it prohibited the import, consumption, and export of goods to and from England.
  • Unlike most individual associations, it established citizen committees to enforce the Act throughout the colonies.

Galloway’s Plan (1774)

• In September 1774, as the First Continental Congress debated means of coercing Parliament toward accepting colonial sovereignty, Joseph Galloway, a Pennsylvania delegate and prominent supporter of reconciliation with Britain, devised a plan to avert the escalating crisis, presenting it to Congress on 28 September 1774.
  • He rejected claims against Parliament or independence, looking instead to written and common law, seeking a new imperial constitution to protect colonial interests.
  • He proposed establishing an American legislature functioning as a branch of the British Parliament, with legislation passed by the American house requiring Parliament’s approval — but the plan failed to address the crux of colonial grievances: excessive parliamentary power.
• Opponents, led by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, assailed the plan as a ruse to secure England’s dominance over colonial affairs; delegates rejected it by a margin of one vote.
  • Following his defeat, Galloway became an outspoken critic of the Continental Congress, eventually becoming a Loyalist during the Revolution.

Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death” Speech (23 March 1775)

• This famous speech was delivered by Patrick Henry at the Virginia Convention in 1775, at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia.
  • He is credited with swinging the balance in convincing the Convention to pass a resolution committing Virginian troops to the Revolutionary War.
  • Among the delegates to the Convention were future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.