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Back to Classroom-tested Lesson Plans and Handouts
Toward
Revolution
Reading 1:
For fire and water are not more
heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America.
Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess
in regard to each other....In short...were they left to themselves
there would soon be a civil war from one end of the continent
to the other, while the Indians and Negroes would...impatiently
watch the opportunity of exterminating them all together.
Rev. Andrew Burnaby, 1760
Reading 2:
The revolution was effected
before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds and
hearts of the people.
John Adams, 1818
Reading 3:
A colonist cannot make a button,
a horseshoe, nor a hobnail, but some snootly ironmonger or respectable
buttonmaker of England shall bawl and squall that his honor's
worship is most egregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and
robbed by the rascally American republicans.
Boston Gazette, 1765
Reading 4:
We have called this a burthensome
tax, because the duties are so numerous and high...that it
would be totally impossible for the people to subsist under
it....We further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional.
We have always understood it to be a grand and fundamental
principle of the
constitution, that no freeman should be subject to any tax
to which he has not given his own consent, in person or by
proxy....We take it clearly, there fore, to be inconsistent
with the spirit of the common law, and of the essential fundamental
principle of the British constitution, that we should be represented
in that assembly in any sense, unless it be by a fiction of
law....
Resolution of the Town of Braintree, Massachusetts, 1765,
opposing the Stamp Act
Reading 5:
If we view the whole of the conduct of the ministry and parliament,
I do not see how any one can doubt but that there is a settled
fix'd plan for enslaving the colonies, or bringing them under
arbitrary government....If the ministry can secure a majority
in parliament...they may rule as absolutely as they do in France
or Spain, yea as in Turkey or India....
View now the situation of America: loaded with taxes from the
British parliament, as heavy as she can possibly support under,--our
lands charged with the most exorbitant quit rent,--these taxes
collected by foreigners, steeled against any impressions from
our groans or complaints...our
charters taken away--our assemblies annihilated,--governors
and councils, appointed by royal authority without any concurrence
of the people, enacting such laws as their sovereign pleasure
shall dictate...the lives and property of Americans entirely
at the disposal of officers more than three thousand miles removed
from any power to control them--armies of the soldiers quartered
among the inhabitants, who know the horrid purpose for which
they are stationed, in the colonies--to subjugate and beat down
the inhabitants....
Reverend Ebenezer Baldwin,
1774
Reading 6:
Considering the utter impracticability of their ever being fully
and equally represented in parliament, and the great expense
that must unavoidably attend even a partial representation there,
this House thinks that a taxation of their constituents, even
without their consent, grievous as it is, would be preferable
to any representation that could be admitted for them there.
Circular letter, Massachusetts
House of Representatives, 1768
Reading 7:
The New Englanders by their
canting, whinings, insinuating tricks have persuaded the rest
of the Colonies that the Government is going to make absolute
slaves of them.
Nicholas Cresswell, a Tory,
1774
Reading 8:
I have heard it asserted by
some, that as America hath flourished under her former connection
with Great Britain, that the same connection is necessary toward
her future happiness, and will always have the same effect.
Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument....
Not one third of the inhabitants,
even of this province [Pennsylvania] are of English descent.
Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country
applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and
ungenerous....
The injuries and disadvantages
we sustain by that connection are without number; and our duty
to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to
renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependence
on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in
European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations,
who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we
have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for
trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part
of it....
[Continued British rule will
lead to] the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.
First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands
of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation
of this continent. And as he hath shown himself such an inveterate
enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary
power; is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies,
"You shall make no laws but what I please"....Secondly.
That as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain,
can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind
of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than
till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state
of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising....
O ye that love mankind! Yet
that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!
Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression.
Thomas Paine, Common Sense,
1776
1. What do
the quotations suggest were the fundamental causes of the American
Revolution?
2. Describe
the political and constitutional views of the colonists. What
is their view of Parliament's right to tax the colonies?
3. Do you
think colonists from different sections and different social
classes share the same political ideas?
4. Would
you describe the colonists' grievances as calm and carefully
reasoned or as exaggerated and paranoid?
 Colonial Society
|
Britain's New World
Possessions, 1763
|
| New
England |
Massachusetts |
246,000 |
| Connecticut |
146,000 |
| New Hampshire |
53,000 |
| Rhode Island |
|
| Middle
Colonies |
Pennsylvania
(including Delaware) |
220,000 |
| New York |
97,000 |
| New Jersey |
61,000 |
| Southern
Colonies |
Virginia |
346,000 |
| Maryland |
164,000 |
| North Carolina |
115,000 |
| South Carolina |
95,000 |
| Georgia |
6,000 |
| Canadian
Colonies |
Canada
(formerly New France) |
79,000 |
| Newfoundland |
9,000 |
| Nova Scotia |
8,000 |
| West
Indies |
Jamaica |
210,000 |
| Barbados |
88,000 |
| Antigua |
35,000 |
| St. Kitts |
25,000 |
| Bermuda |
11,000 |
| Virgin Islands |
7,000 |
| Bahamas |
4,000 |
| |
Others |
56,000 |
1. Which were
the largest British colonies in 1760?
2. How did the 13 American colonies compare in size to Britain's
other New World possessions?
3. Why do you
think 13 of the colonies would band together in 1776 and declare
independence-and not more or fewer?
| Largest
Cities in the American Colonies, 1760 |
| City |
Population
|
| Philadelphia |
19,000 |
| Boston |
16,000 |
| New York |
14,000 |
| Charleston,
S.C. |
8,000 |
| Newport, R.I. |
7,000 |
| Marblehead,
Mass. |
5,000 |
| Salem, Mass. |
4,000 |
1. How many
people lived in the colonies' three largest cities?
2. Why do
you think the urban population was so low?
|
Ethnic Division of the
Colonial Population, 1775
|
| English |
48.7 % |
| African |
20.0 % |
| Scot-Irish |
7.8 % |
| German |
6.9 % |
| Scottish |
6.6 % |
| Dutch |
2.7 % |
| French |
1.4 % |
| Swedish |
0.6 % |
| Other |
5.3 % |
1. What proportion
of American colonists were of English descent in 1775?
2. What were
the largest non-English ethnic groups in the colonies?
3. Why do
you think that the colonies were able to create relatively peaceful
multicultural societies?
| Distribution
of Wealth in Colonial America |
| Proportion
of wealth held by |
Richest
10%
|
Poorest
30%
|
| Boston |
| 1684-99 |
41.2
|
3.3
|
| 1766-75 |
61.1
|
2.0
|
| Philadelphia |
| 1684-99 |
36.4
|
4.5
|
| 1766-75 |
69.9
|
1.0
|
| Chester,
Pennsylvania |
| 1684-99 |
23.8
|
17.4
|
| 1766-75 |
33.6
|
4.7
|
| Wealth
per free person, 1774 (in pounds sterling) |
| |
Total
Wealth |
Slaves |
Land |
Other |
| New England |
33 |
0.02 |
28 |
5 |
| Mid-Atlantic
Colonies |
51 |
2 |
27 |
22 |
| South |
132 |
58 |
55 |
19 |
1. How evenly
was wealth distributed in the American colonies, in your view?
Was it more evenly distributed in urban or rural areas?
2. Was wealth
growing more or less concentrated over time?
| Churches
by Denomination (1750) |
| |
Anglican |
Baptist |
Catholic |
Congrega-
tionalist |
Dutch
Reformed |
German
Reformed |
Lutheran |
Presby-
terian |
| Connecticut |
19 |
12 |
|
155 |
|
|
|
1 |
| Massachusetts |
17 |
16 |
|
233 |
|
|
|
8 |
| New
Hampshire |
1 |
|
|
40 |
|
|
|
5 |
| Rhode
Island |
7 |
30 |
|
12 |
|
|
|
|
| Delaware |
14 |
2 |
1 |
|
|
|
3 |
27 |
| New
Jersey |
18 |
14 |
2 |
2 |
7 |
4 |
19 |
2 |
| New
York |
20 |
4 |
1 |
5 |
48 |
7 |
26 |
35 |
Pennsylvania
(Quaker meetings not included) |
19 |
29 |
11 |
7 |
64 |
11 |
56 |
|
| Georgia |
3 |
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
1 |
| Maryland |
50 |
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
3 |
18 |
| North
Carolina |
9 |
13 |
|
|
|
|
2 |
1 |
| South
Carolina |
16 |
|
|
4 |
|
4 |
5 |
9 |
| Virginia |
96 |
3 |
|
|
|
5 |
5 |
17 |
| Total |
289 |
132 |
30 |
465 |
79 |
90 |
138 |
233 |
| Growth
of Churches, 1700-1780 |
| |
1700 |
1780 |
1860 |
| Anglican (Episcopal) |
111 |
406 |
2,100 |
| Baptist |
33 |
457 |
12,100 |
| Catholic |
22 |
56 |
2,550 |
| Congregational |
146 |
742 |
2,200 |
| Dutch Reformed |
26 |
127 |
n.a. |
| German Reformed |
0 |
201 |
1,100 |
| Lutheran |
7 |
240 |
2,100 |
| Methodist |
0 |
2,700 |
19,800 |
| Presbyterian |
28 |
495 |
n.a. |
| Quaker |
0 |
350 |
725 |
1. What were
the largest religious denominations in the American colonies?
2. Which
were the fastest growing?
| Chronology:
The American Revolution |
| 1763 |
Treaty of Paris |
Ends Seven Years'
War
France
Cedes Canada to England |
| Proclamation
of 1763 |
Bars settlement
west of Appalachian Mountains |
| 1764 |
Sugar Act |
Raises duties
on imported sugar
Lowers duties on molasses
Increases power of vice-admiralty courts |
| 1765 |
Stamp Act |
Requires revenue
raising stamps on printed documents
Stamp Act Congress |
| Quartering Act |
Requires colonies
to furnish British troops with housing and provisions |
| 1766 |
Declaratory
Act |
Asserts Parliament's
sovereignty over colonies
Stamp Act repealed |
| 1767 |
Townshend Revenue Acts |
Impose duties
on glass paper, paint, and tea |
| 1768 |
British troops
sent to Boston |
|
| 1770 |
Boston Massacre |
|
| 1773 |
Tea Act |
Gives East India
Company right to sell directly to Americans |
| Boston Tea Party |
|
| 1774 |
Coercive Acts
|
Close port of
Boston
Restrict government in Massachusetts |
| Quebec Act |
Extends Canada's
boundary to Ohio River; grants Catholics religious toleration
|
| First Continental
Congress meets |
|
| 1775 |
Second Continental
Congress meets |
|
|
|
