Road to Revolution

• Elected officials

• Freedom of Speech

• Right to own land

• Vote

• Jury Trials

What went wrong?

The French and Indian The French and Indian WarWar

1754 – 1760 Cost a huge amount of

money

Stamp Act (1765) was not just economic, it was political and most important cultural

“We have an old Mother who peevish is grown.She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone.She forgets that we’re grown with sense of our own.If we don’t obey orders, whatever the case.She frowns and she chides and loses all patience.And sometimes she hits us a slap in the face.Her orders are so, we often suspect,That age has impaired her of sound intellect:But still, an old Mother should have due respect...”Untitled poem by Benjamin Franklin

1770 Boston Massacre

Is this picture fact or fiction?

Symbolic for breaking cultural ties with England (tea) ( a new identity forming) and moral symbolism of the “noble savage” the Mohawk Indian.

Result (Effect)

The Intolerable Acts, Closing the Port of Boston

Suspending state legislators etc.

Boston Tea Party 1773Cause

Reaction from the Tea Act which required Colonists to get tea from the East India Co. exclusively.

1775 Lexington/Concord British Soldiers move to find stolen cannons. Fighting breaks out. “Shot Heard Round the World.”

Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson: Drafter of the Drafter of the Declaration of Declaration of Independence, Independence, Secretary of Secretary of State, 3State, 3rdrd President, President, Founder of the Founder of the University of University of Virginia, Author Virginia, Author of the Virginal of the Virginal Declaration of Declaration of Religious Rights, Religious Rights, Inventor, Planter, Inventor, Planter, Slave ownerSlave owner

Built directly on John Locke’s ideas of Natural Law

The draft of the Declaration was revised first by Adams and Franklin, and then by the full committee. A total of 47 alterations, including the insertion of three complete paragraphs, were made to the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28. After voting for independence on July 2, Congress continued to refine the document, making 39 additional revisions to the committee draft before its final adoption on the morning of July 4.