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Honors U.S.

History 2009/10 Name:


Mr. Irwin
Week 3 Period:

Lecture 4
Severing the Bonds of Empire

Student Reading Assignments:


• Day 1 – Begin Reading Chapter 5 by reading “Severing the Bonds of Empire;
pages 120 – 129.
• Day 2 – Continue reading Chapter 5 from page 129, “Sugar and Currency Acts,”
to page 137, “Confrontations in Boston.”
• Day 3 – Complete reading Chapter 5 by reading from page 137, “Confrontations
in Boston, “ to page 143, the end of the chapter.

Lecture:
The American Colonies Come of Age:
John Adams identified the period between 1760 – 1775 as the era of the true American
Revolution.” This way of thinking illustrated a definite shift from the colonist’s allegiance
to Britain, to that of an allegiance to America.

In the 1750s, a series of events began to draw the colonists’ attention from their own
domestic matters to their relations with Great Britain. It started with the Seven Years
War.

Territory Squabbles:
By the mid-1700s. the British colonies along the Atlantic were surrounded by the French
in the major inland river valleys and the Great Lakes, by the Spanish to the South, and
by a variety of Native American Indian tribes, in practically every direction. By this time,
Spain’s overall power was declining, but the French on the other hand, had established
a network of forts and settlements in the North American interior.

Throughout the 1700s, the Iroquois Confederacy had come to realize that they could
take advantage of the rivalry between England and France by playing one European
power against the other. As the result of this, and other factors, the Iroquois had
become a very powerful force that had control over much of the interior north of Virginia
and south of the Great Lakes.

After Pennsylvania was established in 1682, the Quaker colony eventually negotiated
with the Iroquois for the rights to settle on the land (however the Iroquois really did not
have control of that territory). The land upon which Pennsylvania was established was
actually the territory of the Shawnee and the Delaware, tribes that were enemy to the
Iroquois. As Pennsylvania began to get established, the Shawnee and the Delaware
were pushed off of their land in a southerly direction. This in turn brought them into
conflict with colonists in Virginia.

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In 1749, a group of Virginians were establishing the Ohio Company. The goal of this
company was to exploit the area where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to
form Ohio. The “Ohio country” was important to the French because it gave them water
access to their posts on the Mississippi River (which is accessible through the
connections of the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers). By the time that territorial disputes
between the English and the French were launching the French & Indian War, many
groups were vying for Ohio, including the Shawnee and Delaware, who by this time
were allies of the French.

As the 1750s unfolded, there were a series of raids carried out by the English against
the French, as well as raids carried out by the French against the English. Both sides
used Native American Indians in their raids.

The Albany Congress:


In June 1754, delegates from seven New England and Middle Colonies held a congress
in Albany, New York, to discuss territorial issues. Out of this meeting, the English
colonists hoped to persuade the Iroquois to abandon their neutrality, and to help them
defend against the French. The Iroquois chose to remain neutral and did not give the
colonies the support that they were seeking.

Also at the Albany Congress, the colonists called for a union of the English colonies,
under an inter-colonial legislature. This “Plan of Union” was rejected because most
colonies did not want to give up any autonomy.

The Fight For Ohio:


While the Albany Congress was in session, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent
a small militia group to build a fort on a contested area along the Ohio River. When a
larger French force arrived, the Virginians surrendered. The French took over this site
and improved upon it, creating Fort Duquesne.

George Washington, who at that time was a young Virginia militia officer, attacked the
French in this area, but ended up being forced to withdraw to his own “crudely built”
“Fort Necessity” at Great Meadows, Pennsylvania.

The Seven Years War:


On July 3, 1754, after having one third of his men killed or wounded, Washington
surrendered. In a gentlemanly gesture, the French allowed Washington and his men to
return to Virginia. When word of these skirmishes made their way back to England, the
government of Britain officially declared war against France (in 1756), thus one could
say that George Washington inadvertently helped start the Seven Years War (which
among the colonies was called the French and Indian War)!

With England and France officially at war, William Pitt, a civilian, was placed in charge
of the colonial war effort against the French, in 1757. Pitt said that the colonies would
be reimbursed for their wartime expenses. He used a combination of British troops and

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colonial militiamen to fight the French.

Defeat of the French in North America:


In 1758, British forces recaptured a fort at Louisbourg, which gave them control of the
St. Lawrence River. Eventually, the French were forced to abandon Fort Duquesne,
and in 1759, English General James Wolfe defeated the French at Quebec. One year
later, the British captured Montreal, which was the last major French territory to fall to
the British during the French and Indian War.

The Treaty of Paris followed (1763), in which France ceded its major North American
territories to Britain.

Britain’s overall victory in the Seven Years war, forever altered the balance of power in
North America, as France was ousted from much of the North American continent, and
in a separate matter, Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain in 1763.

Britain Establishes New Boundaries For Its Colonies:


In 1763, The British government issued the Proclamation of 1763, which spelled out
boundaries of England’s holdings in North America, in essence, the Proclamation of
1763 established a western boundary for the North American colonies of England (see
map 5.1 on page 123 of textbook, A People & A Nation on this).

A Series Of Acts Are Imposed Upon the Colonies:


It cost Britain millions of dollars to fight the Seven Years War. King George III’s Prime
Minister, George Grenville, suggested that the colonies be taxed in order to help pay for
their share of the war expense. The Sugar Act of 1764 was born from this idea.

After the French & Indian War, British colonists did not have to worry about the French
or the Spanish as a threat to territory. A number of Grenville’s ideas however, created
new issues for the colonists to address. One of which was the issue of “taxation without
representation.”

Tensions Rise:
In a relatively short period of time (about 20 years) tensions arose and gradually
increased between the government of King George III and the English colonists in North
America. Below is a list of key events that ultimately set the stage for the Declaration of
Independence, in 1776:

Continue On To Next Page:

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Chronology
Events Which Led to the American Revolution

1754 - The Sugar Act

1765 The Stamp Act

1765 – The Declaratory Act

1767 – The Townshend Acts

1770 – The Boston Massacre

1773 – The Tea Act

1773 – The Boston Tea Party

1774 – The Coercive Acts


(also known as the Intolerable Acts)

1774 – The First Continental Congress

1775 – The Battles of Lexington and Concord


(First shots fired in the Revolutionary War)

1775 – Second Continental Congress

1776 – The Declaration of Independence

- End of Lecture -

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