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In the mid-1760s the British government’s fi nances were in a terrible state. A debt of £140 million had been left by the demands of the recent Seven Years’ War. Government ministers searched for a way to start to pay this back and to help pay for further costs, such as stationing troops in North America. The ministers knew that Britain had just saved the American colonies from attack by the French and that they were enjoying the protection of the Royal Navy. Moreover, the British Empire provided a huge market for American goods. They decided that it was time for the American colonists to shoulder their share of the fi nancial burden.

By the late 1760s, the thirteen British mainland North American colonies had a combined population of nearly 3 million people. There were a number of large cities such as New York, Boston and Charleston, while Philadelphia, with a population of around 40 000 people, was the second-largest city in the British Empire. The language and culture of the colonies was English, but in some there were large groups of other nationalities, such as Germans, Scots and Irish. There were also large numbers of black slaves, particularly in the southern colonies. Each colony, with its governor and assembly, like a local parliament, was loyal to the British Crown, but there was little co-operation between the colonies and they sometimes argued with each other, often over their borders.

However, land and religion were to draw these quarrelsome, often selfi sh colonies together.

Immediately after the end of the Seven Years’ War, the British government made the Proclamation of 1763. This was designed to reorganise the British colonies of North America now that the French lands had become British. It recognised Catholicism as a permitted religion in former New France (Catholicism was banned in

2 The American Rebellion and world war

●■ The American colonies in 1770

Atlantic Ocean200 miles

INDIAN RESERVE

PROVINCE OF

QUEBEC

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NORTH CAROLINA

MARYLAND

DELAWARE

NEW JERSEY

CONNECTICUT

RHODE ISLAND

MASSACHUSETTS

NEW HAMPSHIRE

MAINE

PENNSYLVANIA

NEW YORK

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Providence Plantation

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some British American colonies), established a firm border between the thirteen mainland colonies and British Canada, and finally established rules for relations with the Native American tribes and peoples. However, several of the existing British colonies resented the fact that new borders stopped them expanding westward. Many colonists hated Catholicism and wanted it banned throughout North America.

●● The Stamp TaxThe British government angered even more colonists when it claimed that the British Parliament had the right to tax people in the colonies. Previously the governor and assembly in each colony had decided what taxes their residents should pay. After several other taxes, in 1765 the Stamp Tax was passed. This required that legal documents, newspapers, playing cards and dice had to carry a stamp that had been bought from the government.

In Boston, Massachusetts, groups calling themselves the Sons of Liberty used intimidation to prevent anyone from selling the stamps. The outcry against the Stamp Tax caused nine colonies to send representatives to sit in what became known as a Stamp Act Congress in New York City, which then declared:

That the only representatives of the people of these colonies are persons chosen by themselves, and no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally imposed upon them, but by their respective legislatures.

Possibly the most damaging action of all was the boycott of British goods enforced by groups like the Sons of Liberty.

All this protest and violence in the colonies caused the British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Tax in 1766, while at the same time passing (largely unnoticed by the colonists) the Declaratory Act which stated that:

The king and Parliament have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force to bind the colonies … in all cases whatsoever.

●● Tea and massacreThe government saw a need to tighten up Britain’s control of its American colonies, not only by taxing them, but also by stopping the widespread smuggling of goods. The colonies were meant to buy only British goods, but the smugglers brought in merchandise from France, Spain and other countries.

In many American colonists’ eyes the new rules were an attempt to undermine their rights as freeborn Englishmen. Their battle

●■ Part of the heading of an anti-Stamp Act American newspaper, printed in 1765

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cry was ‘no taxation without representation’, meaning that the right to tax in each colony lay with the local colonial assemblies alone, not the distant Parliament in London.

In 1766 William Pitt, now Earl of Chatham, helped form a new government. Although Pitt generally supported the American colonies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, decided to pass a new set of taxes. These Townshend Duties of 1767 were a set of customs duties on goods such as paint, paper, glass and tea.

There was a strong reaction in the colonies against these taxes and in a number of places there was violence against customs officials. Once again, it was a campaign started in the colonies to boycott English goods. In Boston a former tax collector named Samuel Adams stood out as a leader of the Sons of Liberty. The Massachusetts Assembly, with Samuel Adams’s urging, declared the Townshend Duties illegal. So, in response, regiments of British troops were sent to Boston to enforce them. Friction developed between the soldiers and some citizens of Boston, and a propaganda war was fought between those backing Adams, who called themselves ‘Patriots’, and those who supported the government, who were known as ‘Loyalists’.

On a cold night in early March 1770, all the tensions exploded outside the Customs House in Boston, where a group of local men and boys began to taunt the British soldiers on sentry duty. An unknown person – perhaps a soldier, perhaps a member of the crowd – fired a shot. The soldiers, thinking they were under attack, fired into the crowd, hitting eleven men and killing three immediately, with two more later dying of their injuries.

Samuel Adams and his followers branded this the ‘Boston Massacre’ and accused the British of deliberately murdering colonists. The soldiers involved were put on trial and found not guilty. However, Adams and the Patriots still used the incident to whip up anti-British feelings.

●● More trouble with tea

In Britain there was a new government headed by King George III’s favoured politician, Lord Frederick North. North had repealed all the Townshend Duties, except for the import duty on tea. George III had decided:

I am clear there must always be one tax to keep the right, and as such I approve the Tea Duty.

●■ An engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere, silversmith, and a member of the Sons of Liberty

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For the next four years there was little trouble in the American colonies. Lord North had other problems to deal with. Most pressing was that the large and powerful East India Company was almost bankrupt. The government decided to sell the millions of tons of East India tea to the American colonies at knock-down prices. This would boost company funds, and the government would collect import tax on the tea as well.

The Tea Act of 1773 sparked a major confrontation between the British government and the Patriots, who resented the imposition of a tax from London. Again, they demanded ‘no taxation without representation’. In Boston, three tea ships waited to be unloaded. On the night of 16 December 1773 Samuel Adams and the Patriots held a large public meeting, after which they decided to take direct action.

John Andrews, a Boston merchant, wrote the following to a friend in Philadelphia about what happened next:

They mustered, I’m told, upon Fort Hill, to the number of about two hundred, and proceeded, two by two, to Griffin’s wharf, where Hall, Bruce and Coffin [the three merchant ships] lay, each with 114 chests of the ill-fated article [tea] on board; … and before nine o’clock in the evening, every chest from on board the three vessels was knocked to pieces and flung over the sides. They say the actors were Indians … Whether they were or not, to a transient observer they appeared as such, being clothed in blankets with heads muffled … being each armed with a hatchet or axe, and a pair of pistols.

The event became known as the ‘Boston Tea Party’. The British Parliament was outraged and decided to bring the troublesome colonists to heel. Lord North believed it was no longer a dispute about a tax on tea, but about who had the right to rule in the colonies.

Even friends of the colonists, like William Pitt, believed the destruction of the tea had been ‘certainly criminal’. Parliament passed a set of acts the Patriots were to call the Coercive Acts: the port of Boston was to be closed, a military governor named General Gage was to take over and the authority of the colonial assembly would be reduced.

Samuel Adams and other Patriots summoned the colonies to send delegates to a Continental Congress in September 1774 to discuss the situation. Delegates arrived from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Georgia preferred to stay away from a meeting that appeared determined to cause trouble with Britain. The congress declared that the colonies were still loyal to Britain, but then set out a list of demands that the British government would not accept.

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●■ The able Doctor, or America Swallowing the Bitter Draught, a cartoon in The London Magazine, 1 May 1774. This shows that there was some sympathy in Britain for the American colonials. Tory ministers are forcing the Coercive Acts on the helpless figure representing America. Lord North is pouring tea down America’s throat, while Britannia is in the background hiding her face in shame. To the left, Spain and France look on.

Exercise 2.1Write two or three significant things you have discovered about each of the following terms, events or people.

The Proclamation of 1763

The Stamp Tax

The Sons of Liberty

The Townshend Duties

Samuel Adams

The Boston Massacre

The Boston Tea Party

The Coercive Acts

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Exercise 2.2Propaganda played an important role in raising the tensions in both Britain and the American colonies before the outbreak of war.

1 Write a newspaper article for a Boston or London newspaper about either the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party. Write either in support of the Patriots or defending the position of the British Crown in the way you describe the event.

2 Draw a cartoon in the style of the one on page 17 that comments on either the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party from either viewpoint.

●● War breaks out: Lexington, Concord and BostonGeneral Gage in Boston did not trust the local militias of Massachusetts to be loyal to Britain. On 19 April 1775, he planned to disarm them by marching to the town of Concord and seizing military supplies stored nearby. He also hoped to arrest Samuel Adams and fellow Patriot John Hancock at Lexington on the way.

The British soldiers marched through the night and early morning. They heard muskets being fired in the distance as the Patriots raised the alarm. At 5 a.m. the British advance guard, under Major Pitcairn, arrived at the village of Lexington Green, to find 70 armed militiamen drawn up on the green. Pitcairn ordered the militia to lay down their weapons and go home. Instead the militia commander, Captain Parker, told his men to go home but to keep their weapons.

Suddenly a single shot rang out, apparently from near the village tavern. In reply, the British infantrymen fired two volleys and then charged the retreating militia with bayonets. The fight was over in less than two minutes: eight American militiamen lay dead and ten wounded, while one British soldier was slightly hurt.

The British troops marched on and reached Concord at 7 a.m. They seized and destroyed a few military supplies and set some buildings in the town on fire. This alerted

Where was tea grown and how did it end up in the homes of colonists living in America?

●■ The clash between British soldiers and American militia at Lexington Green, wood engraving, 1883, after Howard Pyle

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