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Alessandro

Mia

Mateo

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Liam

Victoria

Abigail

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Erick

Valentina R.

Mariana

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Kaleb

Camila

Valentina C.

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Justin

Ricardo

Santiago U.

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Sebastian

Fernanda

Gracia

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Valeria

Marcelo

Santiago M.

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Ian

James

Rihanna

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End of French and Indian War

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Problems between Britain and the Colonists

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Sons of Liberty

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Paul Revere

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Boston Massacre

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Intolerable Acts

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First Continental Congress

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Boston Tea Party - Colonial Boycott of British Goods

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War began in 1754, when British colonial troops under George Washington tried to drive the French from what is now western Pennsylvania. They failed. British soldiers arrived in 1755. They lost a battle for Fort Duquesne, near what is now Pittsburgh.

The next few years of the war continued to be difficult for the British. The French had a better army, and the Native Americans knew how to fight in the woodlands.

By the end of 1757, however, the British had begun to gain ground. They had collected more money and better supplies than France. They also had become experts in wilderness fighting. By 1760 the British had captured all of New France. The war ended when Britain and France signed the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763.

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War began in 1754, when British colonial troops under George Washington tried to drive the French from what is now western Pennsylvania. They failed. British soldiers arrived in 1755. They lost a battle for Fort Duquesne, near what is now Pittsburgh. The next few years of the war continued to be difficult for the British.

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The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there.

The Treaty of Paris, 1763

During the war, British forces had scored important overseas victories against France: not only had the British conquered French Canada, they also won victories in India, and captured French island colonies in the Caribbean. In March of 1762, French King Louis XV issued a formal call for peace talks.

The British Government was also interested in ending the war. The Seven Years' War had been enormously expensive, and the Government had to finance the war with debt. Creditors were beginning to doubt Great Britain's ability to pay back the loans it had floated on financial markets. In addition, British King George II had died in 1760, and his successor George III was more amenable to ending the war.

Initial attempts at negotiating a peace settlement failed, and instead French and Spanish diplomats signed the Family Compact, a treaty that brought Spain into the war against Britain. British Prime Minister Lord Bute continued secret and informal talks with French diplomat Étienne-François de Stainville, duc de Choiseul, and they came to an unofficial agreement in June, 1762. Bute promised fairly generous terms, and the two countries agreed to an exchange of ambassadors in September.

By the time the formal negotiations began, the situation had changed. News had reached Europe of the British capture of Havana, and with it the Spanish colony of Cuba. Spanish King Charles III refused to agree to a treaty that would require Spain to cede Cuba, but the British Parliament would never ratify a treaty that did not reflect British territorial gains made during the war.

Facing this dilemma, French negotiator Choiseul proposed a solution that redistributed American territory between France, Spain and Great Britain. Under Choiseul's plan, Britain would gain all French territory east of the Mississippi, while Spain would retain Cuba in exchange for handing Florida over to Great Britain. French territories west of the Mississippi would become Spanish, along with the port of New Orleans. In return for these cessions, along with territory in India, Africa, and the Mediterranean island of Minorca, France would regain the Caribbean islands that British forces had captured during the war. The British Government also promised to allow French Canadians to freely practice Catholicism and provided for French fishing rights off Newfoundland.

Choiseul preferred to keep the small Caribbean islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and St. Lucia rather than hold on to the vast territory stretching from Louisiana to Canada. This decision was motivated by the fact that the islands' sugar industry was enormously profitable. In contrast, Canada had been a drain on the French treasury. The loss of Canada, while lamentable to French officials, made sense from a mercantile perspective.

The diplomats completed their negotiations and signed the preliminary Treaty of Paris on November 3, 1762. Spanish and French negotiators also signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso at the same time, which confirmed the cession of French Louisiana to Spain.

Although British King George III and his ministers were in favor of the treaty, it was unpopular with the British public. However, the treaty contained enough concessions to war hawks that the British Parliament ratified the Treaty of Paris by a majority of 319 to 64, and the treaty went into effect on February 10, 1763.

For Anglo-American colonists, the treaty was a theoretical success. By confirming the conquest of Canada and extending British possessions to the Mississippi, the colonists no longer had to worry about the threat of a French invasion. For the American Indians in what had been frontier territory, the treaty proved disastrous. They could no longer pursue what had been a largely effective strategy of playing the French and British against each other to extract the most favorable terms of alliance and preserve their lands against encroachment by Anglo-American colonists.

Despite what seemed like a success, the Treaty of Paris ultimately encouraged dissension between Anglo-American colonists and the British Government because their interests in North America no longer coincided. The British Government no longer wanted to maintain an expensive military presence, and its attempts to manage a post-treaty frontier policy that would balance colonists' and Indians' interests would prove ineffective and even counterproductive. Coupled with differences between the imperial government and colonists on how to levy taxes to pay for debts on wartime expenses, the Treaty of Paris ultimately set the colonists on the path towards seeking independence, even as it seemed to make the British Empire stronger than ever. (see Parliamentary Taxation of Colonies)

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Milestones: 1750-1775 - Office of the Historian

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The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution.

The French and Indian War resulted from ongoing frontier tensions in North America as both French and British imperial officials and colonists sought to extend each country's sphere of influence in frontier regions. In North America, the war pitted France, French colonists, and their Native allies against Great Britain, the Anglo-American colonists, and the Iroquois Confederacy, which controlled most of upstate New York and parts of northern Pennsylvania. In 1753, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Great Britain controlled the 13 colonies up to the Appalachian Mountains, but beyond lay New France, a very large, sparsely settled colony that stretched from Louisiana through the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes to Canada. (See Incidents Leading up to the French and Indian War and Albany Plan)

The border between French and British possessions was not well defined, and one disputed territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The French had constructed a number of forts in this region in an attempt to strengthen their claim on the territory. British colonial forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, attempted to expel the French in 1754, but were outnumbered and defeated by the French. When news of Washington's failure reached British Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, he called for a quick undeclared retaliatory strike. However, his adversaries in the Cabinet outmaneuvered him by making the plans public, thus alerting the French Government and escalating a distant frontier skirmish into a full-scale war.

The war did not begin well for the British. The British Government sent General Edward Braddock to the colonies as commander in chief of British North American forces, but he alienated potential Indian allies and colonial leaders failed to cooperate with him. On July 13, 1755, Braddock died after being mortally wounded in an ambush on a failed expedition to capture Fort Duquesne in present-day Pittsburgh. The war in North America settled into a stalemate for the next several years, while in Europe the French scored an important naval victory and captured the British possession of Minorca in the Mediterranean in 1756. However, after 1757 the war began to turn in favor of Great Britain. British forces defeated French forces in India, and in 1759 British armies invaded and conquered Canada.

Facing defeat in North America and a tenuous position in Europe, the French Government attempted to engage the British in peace negotiations, but British Minister William Pitt (the elder), Secretary for Southern Affairs, sought not only the French cession of Canada but also commercial concessions that the French Government found unacceptable. After these negotiations failed, Spanish King Charles III offered to come to the aid of his cousin, French King Louis XV, and their representatives signed an alliance known as the Family Compact on August 15, 1761. The terms of the agreement stated that Spain would declare war on Great Britain if the war did not end before May 1, 1762. Originally intended to pressure the British into a peace agreement, the Family Compact ultimately reinvigorated the French will to continue the war, and caused the British Government to declare war on Spain on January 4, 1762, after bitter infighting among King George III's ministers.

Despite facing such a formidable alliance, British naval strength and Spanish ineffectiveness led to British success. British forces seized French Caribbean islands, Spanish Cuba, and the Philippines. Fighting in Europe ended after a failed Spanish invasion of British ally Portugal. By 1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains in North America, including all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.

Unfortunately for the British, the fruits of victory brought seeds of trouble with Great Britain's American colonies. The war had been enormously expensive, and the British government's attempts to impose taxes on colonists to help cover these expenses resulted in increasing colonial resentment of British attempts to expand imperial authority in the colonies. British attempts to limit western expansion by colonists and inadvertent provocation of a major Indian war further angered the British subjects living in the American colonies. These disputes ultimately spurred colonial rebellion, which eventually developed into a full-scale war for independence.

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Milestones: 1750-1775 - Office of the Historian

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When did the French and Indian War begin?

What was the main cause of the French and Indian War?

Which treaty made France surrender Canada to Britain?

French and Indian War, American phase of a worldwide nine years' war (1754-63) fought between France and Great Britain. (The more-complex European phase was the Seven Years' War [1756-63].) It determined control of the vast colonial territory of North America. Three earlier phases of this extended contest for overseas mastery included King William's War (1689-97), Queen Anne's War (1702-13), and King George's War (1744-48).

Causes of the French and Indian War

The French and Indian War began over the specific issue of whether the upper Ohio River valley was a part of the British Empire, and therefore open for trade and settlement by Virginians and Pennsylvanians, or part of the French Empire. Behind this issue loomed an infinitely larger one, however: which national culture was to dominate the heart of North America. Settlers of English extraction were in a preponderance in the coveted area, but French exploration, trade, and alliances with Native Americans predominated.

British territorial claims rested upon explorations of the North American continent by John Cabot in the latter part of the 15th century. In the early 17th century, an English royal charter granted land within certain limits between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to both the Virginia Company and the Plymouth Company. In 1663 the province of Carolina was created to the south of Virginia, with a sea-to-sea grant; the Carolina charter was amended two years later, and the expanded territory would come to form the colonies of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Thus, all the lands to the south of French Canada and to the north of Spanish Florida, stretching from sea to sea, were claimed by England. In conflict with this was France's claim to the whole of the Mississippi valley, including the Ohio Valley, based upon the explorations of René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de la Salle. Starting from Canada, La Salle moved through the Great Lakes and then, after descending the Mississippi River in 1682, took possession in the name of the king of France of all lands drained by the river and its tributaries.

For about 60 years, the conflict over which country had the stronger claim to the lands in the great Mississippi basin was to remain in abeyance. The English gradually settled all along the Atlantic seaboard to the south of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where more than a dozen colonies-including British Nova Scotia, founded in 1749-came into existence and flourished. In the course of time, the inhabitants of these colonies in the course of time pushed westward from tidewater areas to establish themselves in the Piedmont country. By the middle of the 18th century, the small cabins of Virginians were to be found even to the west of the Appalachians on the upper reaches of such waterways as the New and Holston rivers. By that period, hundreds of Pennsylvanian traders had likewise settled in the villages of Indian peoples of the upper Ohio Valley, with whom Great Britain was allied. The French, firmly in control of Canada from the early 17th century, gradually began expanding into the Great Lakes region, establishing a permanent settlement at Detroit.

Initial hostilities

A conflict between the two colonial powers over their rival North American claims was doubtless inevitable, but because their areas of trade exploitation were widely separated, that conflict might have been delayed for many years had not the governor-general of New France forced the issue. Although the French had a scant presence in the neighbourhood of the Allegheny River and the upper Ohio River where Pennsylvania traders were concentrated, in 1749 the governor-general ordered Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville to compel the trading houses in that region to lower the British flags that flew above them. The traders, regarded as trespassers on French lands, were ordered to retreat to the eastern slopes of the Appalachians. This directive did not have the desired effect, however, and force was applied in 1752 when the important British colonial trading centre at Pickawillany on the upper Great Miami River was destroyed. That move was followed by the capture or killing of every English-speaking trader that the French and their Indian allies could find in the upper Ohio Valley. Those actions struck directly not only at the people of Pennsylvania but also at those of Virginia.

The government of Virginia took the position that the lands of the upper Ohio were clearly included in the colony's 1609 charter. It argued that this grant gave Virginia a claim to the western lands that was more valid than New France's claim, which was based upon La Salle's much later journey down the Mississippi. In harmony with this point of view, the governor and council of Virginia had by the end of 1752 conditionally granted about 2,300 square miles (6,000 square km) of land in the Ohio Valley to settlers. As a result, almost every important Virginia family-including members of the Washington, Lee, and Randolph families-was vitally interested in the fate of the Ohio area. When news reached Williamsburg, the colonial capital, that the French were driving out English traders and building forts on the headwaters of the Allegheny in order to consolidate their positions, Lieut. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie determined to act. In October 1753 Dinwiddie dispatched young George Washington to the French Fort LeBouef (now Waterford, Pennsylvania) to warn the garrison there that it was occupying land that belonged to Virginia. After that mission failed, the Ohio Company of Virginia, which had received a special grant of upper Ohio Valley land, was encouraged to build a fort at the convergence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers (modern Pittsburgh), with the understanding that troops from Virginia would support the undertaking.

The French, however, were too quick. Descending the Allegheny in large numbers in the spring of 1754, French troops overwhelmed the uncompleted fort before Virginia militia under Col. Joshua Fry could arrive. Upon Fry's death in May 1754, Washington assumed command of the militia and entrenched himself at a post that came to be called Fort Necessity (now Confluence, Pennsylvania), about 40 miles (60 km) from the French position at Fort Duquesne. On May 28 Washington's forces engaged a French scouting party, killing the commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and nine others as well as taking 20 prisoners. The French could not ignore such a provocation and descended upon Fort Necessity, besieging it on July 3. Although Washington had been reinforced with militia troops from Virginia and a company of regular British infantry from North Carolina, the combined French and Indian force outnumbered the defenders roughly two to one. Washington surrendered the fort, which was then burned by the French, and withdrew with his forces to Virginia.

The government of Virginia appealed to London for assistance. Fearing the renewal of war with France after just six years of peace, George II at first stubbornly refused to consider the request, agreeing with his prime minister, the duke of Newcastle, who said, "Let Americans fight Americans." When it became clear that raw Virginia militia could not make headway against seasoned French regulars, George ordered Gen. Edward Braddock to go to Virginia with a force and eject the French from Fort Duquesne and its environs. Adm. Edward Boscawen was sent into the region of the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a powerful fleet to prevent further reinforcement of French troops from arriving in Canada. The war thus begun to defend British territorial claims in the Ohio Valley spread like wildfire across the continent.

Early French successes

The first four years saw nothing but severe reverses for the British regulars and American colonials, primarily because of superior French land forces in the New World. Braddock was killed and his army scattered in July 1755 when the force was ambushed while approaching Fort Duquesne. In 1756 the defenders of Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario were obliged to surrender, as were the defenders of Fort William Henry near Lake Champlain in 1757. Lord Loudoun's amphibious expedition from New York City against the great French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island ended in dismal failure that year. In July 1758 Gen. James Abercrombie attacked the French stronghold at the northern end of Lake George, Fort-Carillon (later renamed Fort Ticonderoga). Despite outnumbering the French defenders under Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Grozon, marquis de Montcalm, almost four to one, Abercrombie's army was almost destroyed. Moreover, the frontier settlements in what are now central New York, central Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and western Virginia were deserted while thousands of families fled eastward in panic to escape the hostilities.

During those years of defeat, the only notable success scored by the British and colonial forces was the capture in 1755 of the well-fortified Fort Beauséjour on the Chignecto Isthmus, a narrow strip of land connecting Nova Scotia with the mainland. British authorities held the region to be a part of Nova Scotia, ceded by France in the April 1713 treaty of Utrecht. However, the French-speaking Acadians who lived in the region not only steadfastly refused to take an oath of loyalty to the British crown but had provided Fort Beauséjour with provisions and a large labour force to aid the French in consolidating their foothold on the isthmus. As no large contingent of British soldiers was available to garrison the area and subdue the pro-French populace, the British authorities at Halifax decided to disperse the Acadians as a war measure. Transports carried most of the Acadians away from their villages in western Nova Scotia and distributed them among the British colonies to the south. Some returned to the area after the war, while others settled in French Louisiana, where their descendants became known as Cajuns. The exile of the Acadians from Nova Scotia was famously dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem Evangeline (1847).

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French and Indian War | Definition, History, Dates, Summary, Causes, Combatants, & Facts

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French and Indian War, American phase of a worldwide nine-year war (1754-63) fought between France and Great Britain. It determined control of the vast colonial territory of North America. Three earlier phases of the contest for overseas mastery included King William's War, Queen Anne's War, and King George's War.

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The surrender of Montreal on September 8, 1760 signaled an end to all major military operations between Britain in France in North America during the French and Indian War. Although the guns had fallen silent in Canada and the British colonies, it was still yet to be determined just how or when the Seven Years' War, still raging throughout the world, would end. What resulted from this global conflict and the French and Indian War shaped the future of North America.

By 1762, the Seven Years' War, fought in Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines, had worn the opposing sides in the conflict down. The combatants (Britain, Prussia, and Hanover against France, Spain, Austria, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia) were ready for peace and a return to the status quo. Imperialist members of the British Parliament did not want to yield the territories gained during the war, but the other faction believed that it was necessary to return a number of France's antebellum holdings in order to maintain a balance of power in Europe. This latter measure would not, however, include France's North American territories and Spanish Florida.

On February 10, 1763, over two years after the fighting had ended in North America, hostilities officially ceased with the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Britain, France, and Spain. The fate of America's future had been placed on a new trajectory, and as famously asserted by 19 th century historian, Francis Parkman, "half the continent had changed hands at the scratch of a pen." France's North American empire had vanished.

The treaty granted Britain Canada and all of France's claims east of the Mississippi River. This did not, however, include New Orleans, which France was allowed to retain. British subjects were guaranteed free rights of navigation on the Mississippi as well. In Nova Scotia, Fortress Louisbourg remained in Britain's hands. A colonial provincial expeditionary force had captured the stronghold in 1745 during King George's War, and much to their chagrin, it was returned to the French as a provision of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle (1748). That would not be the case this time around. In the Caribbean, the islands of Saint Vincent, Dominica, Tobago, Grenada, and the Grenadines would remain in British hands. Another bug acquisition for His Majesty's North American empire came from Spain in the form of Florida. In return, Havana was given back to the Spanish. This gave Britain total control of the Atlantic Seaboard from Newfoundland all the way down to the Mississippi Delta.

The loss of Canada, economically, did not greatly harm France. It had proved to be a money hole that cost the country more to maintain than it actually returned in profit. The sugar islands in the West Indies were much more lucrative, and to France's pleasure, Britain returned Martinique and Guadeloupe. Although His Most Christian Majesty's influence in North America had receded, France did retain a tiny foothold in Newfoundland for fishing. Britain allowed the French to keep its rights to cod in the Grand Banks, as well as the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off the southern coast.

The inhabitants of the British colonies in North America were jubilant upon hearing the results of the Treaty of Paris. For nearly a century they had lived in fear of the French colonists and their Native American allies to the north and west. Now France's influence on the continent had been expelled and they could hope to live out their lives in peace and autonomously without relying on Britain's protection.

The consequences of the French and Indian War would do more to drive a wedge in between Britain and her colonists more so than any other event up to that point in history. During the Seven Years' War, Britain's national debt nearly doubled, and the colonies would shoulder a good portion of the burden of paying it off. In the years that followed, taxes were imposed on necessities that the colonists considered part of everyday life-tea, molasses, paper products, etc.... Though proud Englishmen, the colonists viewed themselves as partners in the British Empire, not subjects. King George III did not see it this way. These measures were met with various degrees of opposition and served as the kindling that would eventually contribute to igniting the fires of revolution.

That tinder that would eventually be lit the following decade also came in the form of the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, which had been heavily fought over during the war. As British traders moved westward over the mountains, disputes erupted between them and the Native Americans (previously allied with French) who inhabited the region. Overpriced goods did not appeal to the Native Americans, and almost immediately tensions arose. For many in the British military and the colonies, this land had been conquered and rested within His Majesty's dominion. Therefore, the territory west of the Appalachians was not viewed as shared or Native land-it was rightfully open for British trade and settlement. The Native Americans did not respond accordingly.

What transpired next has gone down in history as Pontiac's Rebellion (1763-1764) and involved members of the Seneca, Ottawa, Huron, Delaware, and Miami tribes. The various uprisings and uncoordinated attacks against British forts, outposts, and settlements in the Ohio River Valley and

along the Great Lakes that occurred, ravaged the frontier. Although a handful of forts fell, two key strongholds, Forts Detroit and Pitt, did not capitulate. In an attempt to quell the rebellion against British authority, the Proclamation of 1763 was issued. The French settlements north of New York and New England were consolidated into the colony of Quebec, and Florida was divided into two separate colonies. Any land that did not fall within the boundaries of these colonies, which would be governed by English Law, was granted to the Native Americans. Pontiac's Rebellion eventually came to an end.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 further alienated the British colonists. Many sought to settle the west, and even Pennsylvania and Virginia had already claimed lands in the region. The proclamation prohibited the colonies from further issuing any grants. Only representatives of the Crown could negotiate land purchases with the Native Americans. Just as France had boxed the colonies into a stretch along the east coast, now George III was doing the same.

The French and Indian War had initially been a major success for the thirteen colonies, but its consequences soured the victory. Taxes imposed to pay for a massive national debt, a constant struggle with Native Americans over borders and territories, and the prohibition of expansion to the west fueled an ever-increasing "American" identity. As the years following the French and Indian War drug on, the colonists-already 3,000 miles away from Britain-grew further and further apart from the mother country.

Further Reading:

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The French and Indian War (1754-1763): Its Consequences

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The surrender of Montreal on September 8, 1760 signaled an end to all major military operations between Britain in France in North America during the French and Indian War. Although the guns had fallen silent in Canada and the British colonies, it was still yet to be determined just how or when the Seven Years' War, still raging throughout the world, would end.

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The French and Indian War Explained | History

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The Sons of Liberty were groups of American colonists who disagreed with British rule of the 13 North American colonies. Among the members were many well-known patriots, such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere. Their activities helped lead the colonies into the American Revolution.

The first Sons of Liberty group formed in Boston in 1765. Other groups soon appeared elsewhere in the colonies. The groups took their name from a speech by Isaac Barré, a member of the British Parliament. Barré defended colonists who opposed unfair British laws. He called them the "sons of liberty."

The first goal of the Sons of Liberty was to overturn the Stamp Act. Passed by Parliament in 1765, the act required colonists to pay a tax on newspapers and legal documents. Like many other colonists, the Sons of Liberty thought that they should not be taxed unless they were represented in Parliament.

The Sons of Liberty met in secret to plan their activities. They published explanations of why they thought the Stamp Act was unfair. They organized protests. Some members even destroyed property or used violence against British officials. The Sons of Liberty convinced many colonists to disobey the Stamp Act. They celebrated when Parliament repealed the act in 1766.

After that victory, the Sons of Liberty continued to act out against British rule. Members were involved in many later protests, including the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

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The Sons of Liberty were groups of American colonists who disagreed with British rule of the 13 North American colonies. Among the members were many well-known patriots, such as Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere. Their activities helped lead the colonies into the American Revolution.

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March 15, 1744 - October 1748 - King George's War: Conflict over domination in North America ends with no clear victor with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

1752 - 1753 - Agitation grows: Tension grows between France and England over land and trading claims. Minor skirmishes break out.

Nov - December 1753: George Washington carries Virginia's ultimatum over French encroachment to Captain Legardeau de Saint-Pierre at Riviere aux Boeufs. He rejects it.

May 1754: Washington defeats French in a surprise attack (the first battle) and builds Fort Necessity.

July 1754: The French take Fort Necessity

July 1754: Washington blamed for the loss of Fort Necessity, resigns. He will later return as a volunteer under British authority.

June 1755: The British seize Acadia (Nova Scotia).

July 1755: The Battle of the Wilderness - British General Braddock's forces are defeated near Fort Duquesne in Pennsylvania, leaving the backwoods of British Territory undefended.

July 1755: British Col. William Johnson arrives at the Great Carrying Place to build a fortified storehouse. Work was already underway led by Capt. Robert Rogers. Col. Phineas Lyman takes over to complete construction of Fort Lyman which would later become Fort Edward.

Aug. 1755: William Johnson arrives at Lac du Saint Sacrament and renames it Lake George. Begins work on a fortification to later be named Fort William Henry.

Sept 9, 1755: William Johnson's forces are engaged in several battles that would collectively be named the Battle of Lake George. This would include the Bloody Morning Scout, an ambush that resulted in the death of British Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk King Hendrick. A later engagement would be called the Battle of Bloody Pond. Johnson's forces win the day making him the first British hero of the war.

May 8 - 9, 1756 - Declarations of War: War is officially declared between Great Britain and France.

August 14, 1756 - Fort Oswego: The French capture this fort on the banks of the Great Lakes.

March 1757: St. Patrick's Day attack on Fort William Henry ends with French defeat.

August 3 - 9, 1757 - Fort William Henry: The commander-in-chief of the French forces, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm lays siege to Fort William Henry which Col. Monro finally surrenders. The infamous massacre occurs, later dramatized in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.

July 1758: General James Abercrombie and Lord Howe assemble a force of 16,000 men on the south shore of Lake George. On July 6 th the force arrived at the north end of the Lake and proceeded to head towards Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga). They attacked the fort on July 8 th taking a great number of casualties. The day ended in defeat for the British and a victory for Montcalm defending Carillon. Lord Howe was killed.

July 25, 1758 - Louisbourg: The British seize Louisbourg opening the route to Canada.

August 27, 1758: The French surrender Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, destroying their ability to communicate with their troops in the Ohio Valley.

October 21, 1758: British make peace with the Iroquois, Shawnee and Delaware Indians.

November 25, 1758: The British recapture Fort Duquesne, rename it Pittsburg.

May 1, 1759: The British capture the French Island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.

June 25, 1759: British take Fort Ticonderoga

July 25, 1759: British take Fort Niagara; French abandon Crown Point. British now control entire western frontier.

Sept 13, 1759 - Quebec: British win Battle of Quebec. Montcalm and Wolfe, the commanding generals of both armies, die in battle.

May 16, 1760: French siege of Quebec fails.

Sept 8, 1760: Montreal falls to the British; letters are signed finishing the surrender of Canada.

Sept 15, 1760: Functional end of the war. British flag is raised over Detroit, effectively ending the war.

1761: British make peace with the Cherokee Indians.

Sept. 18, 1762: French attempt to retake Newfoundland fails.

Feb 10, 1763 - Treaty of Paris: All French possessions east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, are given to the British. All French possessions west of the Mississippi are given to the Spanish. France regains Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Lucia.

The French & Indian War marked a turning point in history. The expense of the War caused Britain to raise taxes in the colonies leading to unrest and a resentment of the monarchy. Just 13 years after the Treaty of Paris, the colonies rose up against the King in the War for Independence, leading to the freedom of the colonies and the formation of the United States of America.

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French & Indian War Timeline | Lake George NY History

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March 15, 1744 - October 1748 - King George's War: Conflict over domination in North America ends with no clear victor with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. 1752 - 1753 - Agitation grows: Tension grows between France and England over land and trading claims. Minor skirmishes break out.

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George Washington's career as a soldier began on the Virginia frontier, where, as a young colonial officer, he helped spark a war for empire that would rage around the world. By the end of the conflict, Washington would be renowned on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for his bravery, leadership, and courage under fire.

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Paul Revere was a hero of the American Revolution. He is most famous for riding his horse through the countryside near Boston to warn the colonists that the British were coming. Revere was also a skilled silversmith (maker of silverware).

Paul Revere was born on about January 1, 1735, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father's family was French and the family name was changed from De Revoire to Revere. Paul learned silversmithing from his father.

As a young man Revere joined the Sons of Liberty, a club for colonists who disliked British rule. Such people were known as patriots. In 1773 he helped lead the Boston Tea Party protest, in which patriots threw British tea into Boston Harbor.

On April 16, 1775, Revere rode to warn the patriots of Concord, Massachusetts, to hide their weapons from the British. Two days later he rode again, from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts. This time he warned the patriots John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were coming to arrest them.

He also warned the Lexington minutemen that the British were coming. The minutemen were fighters who boasted that they needed only a minute to get ready. On April 19, the Lexington minutemen fought the British in the battle that started the American Revolution.

During the war Revere set up a factory that made gunpowder for the military forces. He also served in the army, defending Boston Harbor. After the war, Revere returned to his work as a silversmith. He also manufactured copper sheeting. Paul Revere died on May 10, 1818, in Boston.

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Paul Revere was a hero of the American Revolution. He is most famous for riding his horse through the countryside near Boston to warn the colonists that the British were coming. Revere was also a skilled silversmith (maker of silverware). Paul Revere was born on about January 1, 1735, in Boston, Massachusetts.

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also called:

United States War of Independence or American Revolutionary War

What was the American Revolution?

How did the American Revolution begin?

What were the major causes of the American Revolution?

Which countries fought on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution?

How was the American Revolution a civil war?

American Revolution, (1775-83), insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and a large and influential segment of its North American colonies that was caused by British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after having long adhered to a policy of salutary neglect. Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire, but afterward it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which provided both official recognition of the United States and financial support for it, was engaged in its own war against Britain. From the beginning, sea power was vital in determining the course of the war, lending to British strategy a flexibility that helped compensate for the comparatively small numbers of troops sent to America and ultimately enabling the French to help bring about the final British surrender at Yorktown.

Land campaigns to 1778

Americans fought the war on land with essentially two types of organization: the Continental (national) Army and the state militias. The total number of the former provided by quotas from the states throughout the conflict was 231,771 men, and the militias totaled 164,087. At any given time, however, the American forces seldom numbered over 20,000; in 1781 there were only about 29,000 insurgents under arms throughout the country. The war was therefore one fought by small field armies. Militias, poorly disciplined and with elected officers, were summoned for periods usually not exceeding three months. The terms of Continental Army service were only gradually increased from one to three years, and not even bounties and the offer of land kept the army up to strength. Reasons for the difficulty in maintaining an adequate Continental force included the colonists' traditional antipathy toward regular armies, the objections of farmers to being away from their fields, the competition of the states with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia, and the wretched and uncertain pay in a period of inflation.

By contrast, the British army was a reliable steady force of professionals. Since it numbered only about 42,000, heavy recruiting programs were introduced. Many of the enlisted men were farm boys, as were most of the Americans. Others were unemployed persons from the urban slums. Still others joined the army to escape fines or imprisonment. The great majority became efficient soldiers as a result of sound training and ferocious discipline. The officers were drawn largely from the gentry and the aristocracy and obtained their commissions and promotions by purchase. Though they received no formal training, they were not so dependent on a book knowledge of military tactics as were many of the Americans. British generals, however, tended toward a lack of imagination and initiative, while those who demonstrated such qualities often were rash.

Because troops were few and conscription unknown, the British government, following a traditional policy, purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes. The Lensgreve (landgrave) of Hesse furnished approximately three-fifths of that total. Few acts by the crown roused so much antagonism in America as that use of foreign mercenaries.

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American Revolution | Causes, Battles, Aftermath, & Facts

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American Revolution (1775-83), insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and many North American colonists.

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On November 23, 1765, Francis Bernard, the royal governor of Massachusetts posed this question in a letter in which the answer would result in blows ten years later between the colonies and the mother country. "The question whether America shall or shall not be subject to the legislature of Great Britain.."

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Learn & Explore - Preparing for the Oath

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Learn and Practice for the U.S. Naturalization Test. From the National Museum of American History and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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Why did the Colonies Declare Independence?

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The American Revolution - No Taxation Without Representation

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Sons of Liberty, organization formed in the American colonies in the summer of 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty took their name from a speech given in the British Parliament by Isaac Barré (February 1765), in which he referred to the colonials who had opposed unjust British measures as the "sons of liberty."

The origins of the Sons of Liberty are unclear, but some of the organization's roots can be traced to the Loyal Nine, a secretive Boston political organization whose members included Benjamin Edes and Samuel Adams. The Boston chapter of the Sons of Liberty often met under cover of darkness beneath the "Liberty Tree," a stately elm tree in Hanover Square. The Sons of Liberty rallied support for colonial resistance through the use of petitions, assemblies, and propaganda, and they sometimes resorted to violence against British officials. Instrumental in preventing the enforcement of the Stamp Act, they remained an active pre-Revolutionary force against the crown.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Jeff Wallenfeldt.

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Sons of Liberty | History, Facts, & Significance

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Sons of Liberty, organization formed in the American colonies in the summer of 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty took their name from a speech given in the British Parliament by Isaac Barré (February 1765), in which he referred to the colonials who had opposed unjust British measures as the "sons of liberty."

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Sons of Liberty was a group established to undermine British rule in colonial America and was influential in organizing The Boston Tea Party.

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The Sons of Liberty was a secret underground society created due to the social and political fallout of the French and Indian War. The war, which took place…

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After the Tea Party, Parliament passed four punishing acts in 1774. The first law closed Boston Harbor until the colonists paid for the ruined tea. The second law placed Massachusetts under military rule. The third law protected British officials who were accused of crimes in the colonies. The fourth law said that British soldiers could be housed in colonists' homes. Another law passed in 1774 gave an area of land west of the 13 colonies to Quebec. The colonists called these laws intolerable (unbearable) and coercive (forceful).

The British thought that the strict new laws would bring the colonies under control. Instead, the colonies decided to work together against the British government. They set up the Continental Congress, which issued the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

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The Intolerable Acts (also called the Coercive Acts) were harsh laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774. They were meant to punish the American colonists for the Boston...

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Paul Revere | Biography, Midnight Ride, Boston Massacre, & Facts

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Paul Revere, folk hero of the American Revolution whose dramatic horseback ride on the night of April 18, 1775, warning Boston-area residents that the British were coming, was immortalized in a ballad by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Learn more about Revere’s life in this article.

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In the early 1770s citizens of the 13 British colonies in North America were starting to rebel against Great Britain. A network of patriots, known as the Committees of Correspondence, called together the First Continental Congress to plan future action.

The First Continental Congress met in secret in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1774. All colonies except Georgia sent delegates, or representatives. George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Adams, and Samuel Adams were among them. Each colony had one vote.

The delegates decided not to call for independence from Britain. Instead they demanded such rights as life, liberty, property, public assembly, and trial by jury. They protested having to pay British taxes without being represented in Parliament (the part of the British government that made laws). The congress also called for the colonies to boycott, or refuse to buy, British goods.

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The Continental Congress was the first government of the United States. When the congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it brought the United...

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John Singleton Copley painted this famous portrait of American Revolutionary Paul Revere.
Photograph © August 2021 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

While many people know of Paul Revere as an ardent supporter of the American Revolution and an accomplished master silversmith, there is more to his story. After the Revolution, he established a successful foundry and copper mill. A public-spirited citizen, Revere was also ambitious and often brash, traits which he embraced during both his Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary life.

Born in Boston's North End on December 21, 1734, Revere was the third of nine children and oldest surviving son. ¹ His father, Apollos Rivoire, was a French Huguenot (Protestant) who emigrated to Boston at thirteen. Apollos anglicized his name to Paul Revere, passing his name and goldsmith trade to his son. His mother, Deborah Hichborn, descended from seventeenth-century English Puritan emigrants to Massachusetts. ²

Paul Revere likely finished school at thirteen and became his father's apprentice. When his father died on July 22, 1754, nineteen-year-old Revere could not legally operate a shop for two more years. In February 1756, he instead found a patriotic way to earn money. ³

From February to November 1756, Second Lieutenant Paul Revere was an artillery officer in New York, joining thousands of Massachusetts men who served in New York and Canada during the Seven Years' War. He saw no military action, returning home unharmed, with money to quickly resume civilian life. ⁴

He married Sarah Orne on August 4, 1757. They had eight children between 1758-1773. ⁵ Revere made shoe and knee buckles for fellow artisans and elegant tea pots and sugar bowls for merchants. When he joined St. Andrew's Lodge of Freemasons on September 9, 1760, he gained a steady stream of customers. By 1763, when Great Britain defeated France, Revere owned a thriving business. ⁶

In 1764, Revere's income was £102. In 1765, after Great Britain passed the Sugar and Stamp Acts to pay for the Seven Years' War, his income dropped to £64. This decrease in pay due to new taxes possibly motivated Revere to become a Son of Liberty. ⁷ As he later explained, Great Britain "wanted to make us hewers of wood and drawers of water [enslaved people]." ⁸

In February 1770, Revere bought a home in North Square in the North End. As a Son of Liberty and member of the North End Caucus, Revere engraved political cartoons and helped plan and implement resistance to British policies. ⁹ His career as a "Messenger of the American Revolution" began on December 17, 1773, carrying news of the Boston Tea Party to New York. Thereafter, he regularly relayed information between the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. ¹⁰

On October 10, 1773, five months after the death of his first wife, Revere married Rachel Walker. While her husband was away delivering political information, Rachel Revere cared for six surviving stepchildren and gave birth to eight of her own. ¹¹

Revere's April 18-19, 1775, ride to Lexington was an intelligence mission directed by Boston's Revolutionary leader Dr. Joseph Warren and executed by Paul Revere, William Dawes, and a network of individuals. Based on spying by Revere and others, the likely object of a British expedition seemed to be either the arrest of John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington or the seizure of munitions in nearby Concord. Although British soldiers captured Revere before he got to Concord, he had provided earlier warnings. ¹²

Revere's Revolutionary service as Lieutenant Colonel of the Massachusetts Artillery ended in charges of insubordination, neglect of duty, and cowardice for his role in a massive amphibious assault to take Fort George in Penobscot Bay, Maine. After nearly taking the British fort on July 28, 1779, militia and naval officers spent over two weeks heatedly debating whether to continue the siege. In Councils of War on August 7 and 13, Revere voted with the minority to end the siege. British naval reinforcements arrived on August 13, resulting in a chaotic retreat, with high casualties and enormous cost. ¹³

After the failed assault, a military court charged Revere with two charges of insubordination for ordering his men to retreat without orders from his commanding officer, General Solomon Lovell, and for not immediately turning over a boat to Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth to evacuate the crew of a schooner drifting towards the enemy. Since he considered the siege over, Revere believed he was no longer under Lovell's command. He admitted not immediately obeying Wadsworth's order, saying "he had all his private baggage" on the boat "but afterwards ordered her to go." During his court-martial, Revere aggressively and successfully cross-examined witnesses who testified to his general military ineptitude. His best defense was the panicked retreat of the expedition. He was fully exonerated on February 19, 1782. ¹⁴

The post-Revolutionary Revere became a prosperous entrepreneur and respected citizen, owning a silver shop, hardware shop, foundry, and copper mill. He took pride in making useful manufactures for his country. ¹⁵ Revere held several civic offices, including Grand Master of the Massachusetts Grand Lodge, Suffolk County Coroner, and President of the Boston Board of Health. ¹⁶

Paul Revere died in Boston on May 10, 1818, at the age of eighty-three. The Boston Intelligencer and Evening Gazette called him "cool in thought, ardent in action" and noted both his benevolent character and service "in the early days of our Revolutionary drama...as well as at a later period of its progress." ¹⁷

It would take another forty-three years for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to make Paul Revere a legend. ¹⁸

Learn More...
The Paul Revere House - Paul Revere Biography The Paul Revere House - The Real Story of Revere's Ride Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site - Paul Revere's Ride Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Footnotes

1. When Great Britain began using the "New Style" or Gregorian Calendar, Revere's date of birth became January 1, 1735. Sources count 9-12 children. See Donald M. Nielsen, "The Revere Family," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 145 (1991): 291-296; Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942), 46; Patrick M. Leehey, "Reconstructing Paul Revere: An Overview of His Ancestry, Life, and Work," in Paul Revere-Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot: The Man Behind the Myth (Boston: The Paul Revere Memorial Association, 1988): 6.

2. A master goldsmith worked in gold and silver. Andre J. and Pamela Labatut, "Paul Revere's Paternal Ancestry: The Rivoires: A Huguenot Family of Some Account," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 150 (1996): 277-298; Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, 3-17; Leehey, "Reconstructing Paul Revere," 15-27; Jayne E. Triber, A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere (Amherst: University of Boston Press, 1998), 7-20.

3. He may have worked under his mother's name. Triber, A True Republican, 15-17, 20; Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, 39-41.

4. Revere's reminiscences of military service, fragment, second copy, April 27, 1816, Roll 3, Revere Family Papers (loose manuscripts and undated materials, 1814-1964), Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS); Triber, A True Republican, 22-25; Fred Anderson, A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

5. Two children died young. Nielsen, "The Revere Family," 296-301; Triber, A True Republican, 25.

6. On Revere's customers, range of work, income, and critical assessment, see Waste Book and Memoranda, Vol. I (1761-1783), Roll 5, Revere Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Janine E. Skerry, "The Revolutionary Revere: A Critical Assessment of the Silver of Paul Revere," and Deborah A. Federhen, "From Artisan to Entrepreneur: Paul Revere's Silver Shop Operation," in Paul Revere-Artisan, Businessman, and Patriot: The Man Behind the Myth, 41-64, 65-93; Triber, A True Republican, 15-17, 25-27. On how Freemasonry influenced his business and leadership opportunities, see Triber, A True Republican, 27-31.

7. On British taxation as cause for colonial resistance, see The Sugar and Stamp Acts; Anger and Opposition to the Stamp Act; Revere's Waste Book and Memoranda, Vol. I, Roll 5, Revere Papers (MHS).

8. The quote is from Joshua 9:21 of the Old Testament. In Paul Revere to Cousin John Rivoire, July 1, 1782, Revere Papers, Roll 1 (MHS).

9. His most famous engraving was of the Boston Massacre in 1770. See Clarence S. Brigham, Paul Revere's Engravings (New York: Atheneum, 1969). Revere's Hichborn cousins and many of his artisan friends, neighbors, and fellow Freemasons were also Sons of Liberty and members of the North End Caucus. See Alan Day and Katherine Day "Another Look at the Boston Caucus," Journal of American Studies 5 (April 1971): 19-42.

10. Triber, A True Republican, 37-100; Appendix D, "Paul Revere's Role in the Revolutionary Movement," in David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere's Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 301-307.

11. The majority of the children were born during the Revolution. Five of the eight survived to adulthood. See Nielsen, "The Revere Family," 298-302.

12. Hancock and Adams were staying in Lexington at the parsonage of Reverend Jonas Clark while attending the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Concord. Revere rode to Concord on April 8 and Lexington on April 16. On April 18, Warren ordered Revere and Dawes to ride to Lexington. They continued to Concord on their own, aided by Dr. Samuel Prescott of Concord. Revere wrote three accounts of his ride: a deposition for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, written within a month of the event, a slightly revised deposition, and a more detailed 1798 letter to Jeremy Belknap of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in Paul Revere's Three Accounts of his Famous Ride: A Massachusetts Historical Society Picture Book (Boston: MHS, 1976). The most complete analysis of his ride is in Fischer, Paul Revere's Ride. See also, Triber, A True Republican, 101-105; Christian Di Spigna, Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero (New York: Broadway Books, 2018), 163-167.

13. Orderly book (containing orders of General Solomon Lovell, commanding officer of the Penobscot Expedition, correspondence between Lovell and the Massachusetts Council and Council of War minutes), Solomon Lovell's Letterbook, July 7-12, 1779, and "State of facts respecting the Penobscot Expedition" by William Todd (one of Revere's chief accusers), all in Solomon Lovell Papers, MHS; Revolution: Penobscot Expedition, Vol. 145, Massachusetts Archives Collection, passim; Eldridge Henry Goss, The Life of Colonel Paul Revere (Boston: Joseph George Cupples, 1891), Vol. 2, Chapter 10 ("Penobscot Expedition), Chapter 11 "Revere's Diary of the Penobscot Expedition; Russell Bourne, "The Penobscot Fiasco," American Heritage 25 (October 1974): 28-33, 100-101; William M. Fowler, Jr., "Disaster in Penobscot Bay," Harvard Magazine 81 (July-August 1979): 26-31; Triber, True Republican, 133-139.

14. After two civilian inquiries did not completely vindicate him, Revere spent nearly three years petitioning for a court-martial. He believed he was the victim of a "deep laid" plan by two accusers, disgruntled former members of his regiment. Revere's brash personality may have caused tension in the regiment and during the Penobscot Expedition. Disobeying the order from General Wadsworth was a perfect example of insubordination. Ironically, Wadsworth was the maternal grandfather of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who made Revere famous. On Penobscot and the "deep laid plan," see Revere to General William Heath, October 24, 1779, William Heath Papers, MHS Collections, 7th ser., 4 (1904): 318-326; Revolution: Penobscot Expedition, Vol. 145; Massachusetts Archives Collection; Goss, Life of Paul Revere, Chapter 12 ("Investigation, Testimony, and Vindication"); Frederic Grant, Jr., "The Court-Martial of Paul Revere," Boston Bar Journal 21 (April 1977): 5-13; Michael M. Greenburg, The Court-Martial of Paul Revere: A Son of Liberty and America's Forgotten Military Fiasco (Lebanon, N.H: ForeEdge Press, 2014); Triber, A True Republican, 133-139.

15. After a brief foray as a hardware merchant in the early 1780s, he opened a foundry in 1788. He opened a copper mill in 1801, after several years of experimentation and a $10,000 loan from the United States government, which he repaid in copper sheeting. In his letters, he often bragged about the quality of his works, claiming they were equal to British manufactures. His trade card, c. 1796-1803, lists his work, including "Cast Bells and Brass Cannon...Manufacture Sheets (copper sheeting)...Bolts, Spikes, Nails, etc...." The most complete account of Revere's post-Revolutionary industrial career is Robert Martello, Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2010.) See also Triber, A True Republican, 141-146, 158, 165, Chapter 10, passim.

16. Triber, A True Republican, 168-176.

17. Revere sold his North Square home in 1800. He and Rachel spent winters in Boston at their Charter Street home and summers in Canton, Massachusetts, site of his copper mill. Rachel died on June 13, 1813. His oldest son, Paul, Jr., died five months earlier. See Triber, A True Republican, Chapter Eleven ("In My Last Stage, How Blest Am I, To Find Content and Plenty By"); Nielsen, "The Revere Family," 296-304; Boston Intelligencer and Evening Gazette, May 16, 1818, 2.

18. Longfellow visited the Old North Church steeple on April 5, 1860. Inspired by his visit, he began writing "Paul Revere's Ride" the next day. The poem appeared in Atlantic Monthly magazine (January 1861) and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). See Triber, A True Republican, 1.

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Paul Revere (U.S. National Park Service)

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While many people know of Paul Revere as an ardent supporter of the American Revolution and an accomplished master silversmith, there is more to his story. After the Revolution, he established a successful foundry and copper mill. A public-spirited citizen, Revere was also ambitious and often brash, traits which he embraced during both his Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary life.

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Paul Revere was born January 1, 1735 in the North End of Boston to Apollos Rivoire, a French Huguenot who would soon anglicize his name to Paul Revere, and Deborah Hitchborn of a well-known Boston family. Paul Jr. was the third of twelve children. He spent his early life around the Hitchborn family, and therefore, he never learned his father's native language of French. At the age of thirteen, Paul left school to apprentice in the silversmith trade under his father. His father died in 1754, but Paul was not old enough to inherit master of the silver shop, so he enlisted in the provincial army in 1756. Commissioned a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment, he spent time at Fort William Henry on the southern tip of Lake George. He did not stay in the army long and returned to Boston in 1757 to assume control of the silver shop in his name.

In 1765, British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which taxed paper documents in the American colonies. This is when Revere first began his political involvement, especially with the Sons of Liberty. Revere often produced engravings, paintings, and other depictions with an anti-British theme. He created one of his best-known productions after the Boston Massacre in 1770 called The Bloody Massacre on King Street Boston which showed an organized line of British regulars firing into a crowd.

Along with producing propaganda for the Sons of Liberty and the Patriot cause, he also took a more direct approach when possible. When the merchant ship Dartmouth came into Boston Harbor carrying East India Company Tea in 1773, Revere and Joseph Warren organized a watch over the ship so that it could not be unloaded. Revere himself took his turn at guard duty. During the Boston Tea Party, he was one of the ring leaders when colonists boarded the ships in the harbor to dump the tea. After the tea party, Revere served as a courier for the Boston Committee of Public Safety.

In April 1775, after discovering that the British planned to march inland to capture Patriot leaders, weapons, and supplies, Revere and his cohorts sprang into action to spread a warning. On the night of April 18, Robert Newman put lantern signals in Boston's North Church, while Revere and William Dawes rode to Lexington and Concord. Though it soon become known as Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, both men rode that night, covering different routes. The war for American Independence began the next morning.

During the war years, Revere found ways to help the rebel cause. He manufactured gunpowder, which was in short supply during the early years of the war and eventually built a gunpowder mill in present day Canton, Massachusetts. Revere returned to Boston in April 1776, served as an officer in the Massachusetts militia until being transferred to artillery a month later and was stationed at Castle William defending Boston Harbor. He and his unit continued serving in numerous roles in New England during the war.

After the war, Revere remained in the metal industry, adding goldsmithing to his already thriving silversmith trade. He opened an iron foundry in Boston's North End in 1788 and was one of the first in the industry to hire wage laborers. In the 1790s, he expanded his business to include casting church bells, cannons, and other copper products. Thanks to the Second Great Awakening and the formation of the U.S. Army and Navy, Revere had plenty of work. He was also a Freemason, eventually rising to Grand Master of Freemasons of Massachusetts. Along with business, Revere remained politically active in the new United States.

Paul Revere's legacy is known well in American history, and his midnight right has been enshrined in poetry and legend. Revere died on May 10, 1818 at the age of 83 at his home in Boston. He was buried at the Granary Burying Ground.

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Paul Revere was born January 1, 1735 in the North End of Boston to Apollos Rivoire, a French Huguenot who would soon anglicize his name to Paul Revere, and...

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Paul Revere was born in the North End of Boston on December 21, 1734. Although Revere originated from the middling sort, through his membership in St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons, he made connections with a number of people who later became the founding members of the Loyal Nine. Although he was not a member of the Loyal Nine, it is believed that he assisted this predecessor organization of the Sons of Liberty in leading political protests against Parliament's authority to tax the colonies. While he was not known for exceptional oratory, he was a master of propaganda, and his works helped the Sons of Liberty galvanize support for their dissident cause.

Resisting Taxation Without Representation

In August of 1765, Paul Revere participated in the Stamp Act Riots in response to the impending Stamp Act that was to take effect in the coming months. During these riots, the mob tore down the houses of government officials, including the house of Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson. While these riots were viewed in a negative light by Parliament, the now apparent unpopularity of the Stamp Act in British North America forced its repeal. Following swiftly on the heels of the Stamp Act's repeal was the passage of the Declaratory Act in 1766, further asserting Parliament's right to tax the colonies. From this point forward, Paul Revere dedicated himself to the production of engravings which highlighted the excesses of the British government, and the unpopularity of their laws in Boston.

On October 1, 1768, two thousand British regulars arrived in Boston. Paul Revere rendered his first of many engravings which, in a subtle manner, detailed the ill effects of British imperial policy in North America. In his engraving of the arrival of British troops, Revere included towering church steeples along Boston's skyline as evidence of the town's orderly and religious origins. To the viewer of the eighteenth century, this made the arrival of British regulars even more offensive. If Boston was capable of managing its own affairs, then why were two thousand regulars quartered in the town?

The Boston Massacre

As time passed, tensions between the occupying force of British regulars and the town of Boston mounted. On March 5, 1770, these tensions resulted in the deaths of five unarmed Boston civilians on King Street. This tragedy later became known as the Boston Massacre. Henry Pelham produced an engraving that was later copied and sensationalized by Paul Revere entitled the Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street. In this engraving, Revere depicted Captain Thomas Preston standing behind his soldiers of the 29th regiment, implying that he ordered them to fire into the crowd-which was later refuted during the Boston Massacre Trial. In addition, Ebenezer Richardson was shown firing his buckshot into the crowd (which had happened only a few weeks prior on February 22, 1770, resulting in the death of Christopher Sneider), and a storefront labeled "Butcher's Hall" as to appeal to the viewer's perception of the British Army as brutal oppressors.

Revere's Revolutionary Propaganda

These examples of propaganda did much to convince the public of Parliament's flawed colonial policies. In the years that followed, Paul Revere, and the leaders of the Sons of Liberty did everything in their power to keep the memory of the Boston Massacre alive. On March 5, 1771, only one year after the massacre, Paul Revere staged an elaborate public demonstration from his home in the North End. From the windows of his home, he displayed various scenes of the Boston Massacre. In one of his windows, he displayed the ghost of young Christopher Sneider along with the names of the five men that fell on King Street. A second window depicted the soldiers of the 29th regiment firing into the crowd, and the third window displayed lady liberty with one foot on the head of a British Grenadier, and her finger pointing toward the window displaying the massacre.

Paul Revere's Ride

These various forms of propaganda had a profound effect on the people of Boston, and were instrumental in persuading the citizenry that the struggle for liberty was a just cause. In the years that followed, the leaders of the patriots would discover other useful talents in Paul Revere. Following the Boston Tea Party, he was dispatched to New York and Philadelphia to inform the Sons of Liberty in those towns of Boston's resistance to the Tea Act. In addition, he was sent by Dr. Joseph Warren to alert the countryside of British regular troop movements on the evening of April 18, 1775, the day before the Battle of Lexington-Concord. While Paul Revere has widely been credited with the midnight ride, other riders were dispatched to raise the alarm of the approaching British Army. His place in history would be solidified by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who canonized Revere as the lone midnight rider in an 1860 poem entitled "Paul Revere's Ride."

Legacy & Leadership

While Paul Revere is best remembered for his horsemanship, his most important contributions came from his hammer and chisel. His ability to appeal to the sensibilities of colonial subjects through the works of his copper engravings, and vigils demonstrated the power of propaganda. After the War of Independence, Revere expanded his business to open an iron foundry in the North End of Boston making utilitarian cast iron products that were useful and widely consumed by the local populace. He also opened a copper mill which produced bells for churches, rolled copper for the hulls of wooden ships, along with copper bolts and spikes that were useful to Boston's burgeoning ship industry. All of this demonstrated that Paul Revere was a man of many talents and a true revolutionary, and was therefore indispensable to Boston's success in resisting the authority of the British Parliament, and King George III.

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Paul Revere was an early revolutionary from Boston who made a number of key connections with leaders of the Loyal Nine and Sons of Liberty.

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Paul Revere and the American Revolution - Fast Facts | History

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The incident known as the Boston Tea Party occurred in December 1773 when a group of colonists from Boston boarded ships owned by the British East India Company and threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The colonists were revolting against a tea tax and the persistent efforts of Great Britain to legislate taxes without colonial representation in the British Parliament.

In 1767 Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which levied taxes on British commodities imported in the colonies. In opposition to these measures colonial merchants boycotted British imports, and citizens staged riots in the streets. By 1770 colonial resistance to the taxes was so strong that Parliament repealed all of the Townshend Acts except for a tax on tea.

To evade the tea tax, merchants in Boston bought tea smuggled into the colonies by Dutch traders. In 1773 Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the East India Company exclusive rights to export tea to the colonies. The company was having financial problems and had a surplus of tea that needed to be sold.

The Tea Act granted the East India Company a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies and exempted the company from an export tax. The company carried the tea in its own ships and sold the tea through its own agents, which enabled it to sell the tea at a lower price than its competitors.

In cities such as New York and Philadelphia, colonial merchants resisted the East India Company's monopoly on tea exports by canceling orders and refusing consignments. In Boston the royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, allowed three East India Company ships to unload their cargoes of tea and required that the Boston merchants pay the appropriate taxes for the shipments.

On the night of Dec. 16, 1773, a group of nearly 60 colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded these ships and tossed 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to protest the taxes and the monopoly. Great Britain reacted to this event by instituting a series of punitive measures in the colonies known as the Intolerable Acts.

One such act was the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston Harbor to trade until payment was made for the destroyed tea. Great Britain continued to impose strict control over the colonies with oppressive laws and taxes that created further hostilities toward the British government.

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The incident known as the Boston Tea Party occurred in December 1773 when a group of colonists from Boston boarded ships owned by the British East India Company and threw chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The colonists were revolting against a tea tax and the persistent efforts of Great Britain to legislate taxes without colonial representation in the British Parliament.

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The Boston Massacre was one of the events that led to the American Revolution. In 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts, a group of British soldiers shot their muskets into a crowd. Five colonists were killed.

The massacre happened at a time of tension between the American colonies and Great Britain. In 1767 the British Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. These acts placed taxes on goods such as tea, paper, and glass. The taxes angered many colonists. They felt that the Townshend Acts were unfair because the colonies were not represented in Parliament.

British soldiers arrived in Boston in 1768 to keep order. On the night of March 5, 1770, a group of British soldiers were trying to quiet an angry mob. Colonists were shouting and throwing things at the soldiers. Captain Thomas Preston, the leader of the soldiers, did not order his men to shoot. But in the confusion the soldiers began firing into the crowd. One of the five men killed was a former slave named Crispus Attucks. He is remembered as one of the first people to die for American independence.

Only two of the British soldiers were found guilty of the killings, and they were not punished harshly. The massacre caused many colonists to speak out against rule by Britain.

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The Boston Massacre was one of the events that led to the American Revolution. In 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts, a group of British soldiers shot their muskets into a crowd....

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Tensions in the American colonies were rising. For one, the British Parliament's 1765 Stamp Act required colonists to pay an extra fee for every piece of printed paper. And the 1767 Townshend Act imposed taxes on imported goods such as china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea. Resentful toward their lack of representation in Parliament and desirous of the same rights as their fellow British subjects, the colonists agitated for relief from the burdensome levies.

In response, George III dispatched roughly 1,000 troops to the Massachusetts town of Boston to curb the colony's ongoing unrest. The soldiers had been stationed in Ireland for years, some close to a decade, establishing roots and families there. Concerned that this deployment to the American colonies would result in an overflow of needy children draining the resources in Dublin, the British government allowed for hundreds of wives and kids to accompany their husbands and fathers on the 1768 journey.

And for the next two years, British and Irish families lived alongside colonists in Boston. They assisted each other when in need and established neighborly relationships, only for those relationships to be irreparably damaged when British troops fired upon Bostonians, killing five, in what became known as the Boston Massacre. In her new book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History, Serena Zabin, a professor of history at Carleton College, explores these lesser-known stories, examining the lives of this community during a tumultuous time in American history.

Among the stories Zabin tells is that of Jane Chambers, wife of soldier Mathew Chambers, who while caring for her ailing baby needed a place to perform an emergency baptism. Her husband, a strong opponent of the Stamp Act, pleaded with the minister of the West Church to approve the hurried naming. In the midst of this fraught political battle, the minister and father found common ground. In other instances, British soldiers who didn't have families found wives in Boston.

The soldiers and Bostonians didn't always get along, however. The men who served as the official neighborhood lookout often complained that inebriated ("in Licker") British officers verbally harassed the watchmen. And Bostonian John Rowe found his usual social club flooded with British officers.

What exactly happened on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired their rifles and killed five colonists on Boston's King Street, is a matter of historical debate. The next day, British Captain Thomas Preston turned himself in to the justices of the peace. Throughout the month, in a trial with John Adams as the soldier's defense attorney, public depositions were held at Faneuil Hall as Bostonians attempted to piece together a coherent story of the events.*

As the case continued, Preston's reputation shifted from a "benevolent, humane man" in the eyes of Bostonians to "a military criminal," reflecting how these now severed connections between soldiers and colonists-and Preston's long-standing relationship with his civilian colleagues-became a rallying cry for the revolutionary Sons of Liberty.

The Boston Massacre uncovers the inevitable human bonds between these two groups, presenting a new angle to an often-told narrative of the American Revolution. On the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Smithsonian spoke with Zabin about her new book and showing the personal side of a political event.
What role does now-ubiquitous sketch of the Massacre by Henry Pelham play in how people remember the event? Your opening anecdote of the book has Paul Revere crafting his engraving based on his own personal interpretation of the massacre - that of the British as the aggressors. What does that tell us about recounting history?
The Paul Revere engraving is probably the only thing that people really know about the Boston Massacre. Party because it's fabulous, partly because it is one of the very few images from 18th-century America we have that is not a portrait. It's reproduced in every single textbook; we all know it, we've all seen it. But I wanted to show the way in which this picture itself really constitutes its own sleight of hand.
Why does the Boston Massacre matter? Why are we still talking about it today?
We've made it part of our history. There are many incidents that we do and don't remember about the 1770s that are part of the road to revolution. And this is a pretty early one. It's a moment when no one's thinking yet about a revolution. But what's really interesting about the Boston Massacre is that even though no one's thinking about a revolution in 1770, it's really only a couple of years before people take this incident and remake it so that it becomes part of the story. So [the story] itself is able to create part of the revolution, although in the moment, wasn't that at all.
What inspired you to write this very different examination of what happened that day?
It came from happening on just one little piece of evidence from the short narratives that are published the week after the shooting. We have an original copy here at Carleton, and I've been taking my class to see them. But after a few years, I really read the first one for the first time. Someone repeats that he had been hanging out in a Boston house with a [British] soldier's wife and is making threats against Bostonians. And I thought, soldier's wives? I thought, oh, I don't know anything about soldier's wives; I've never thought about them. I started pulling on the thread, and then I went to Boston. And my very first day in, I was looking in the church records, and I found the record of a marriage between a [British] soldier and a local woman. I thought, I have a story. Here's a story. So stuff was hidden right there in plain sight, things we all should have been looking at but weren't really paying attention to.
What does this book teach us that's different than other historical accounts of the Boston Massacre?
That politics are human, and the things that divide us are maybe up to us to choose. Whether or not we still continue to live in a world that is divided, in the ways that Revere might have pointed out in that [engraving]. Or, whether we can actually think about and remember the messiness of what it means to be connected to other people and remember that [this bond] is part of our politics.

We think of the American founding as such a guy story, and we spent so much time trying to figure out how all the rest of us who are not John Adams fit into the making of our past. Once I saw the story, I thought I owed it to some of these people whose names we'd forgotten, especially some of the soldier's wives, to try to tell their story and realize that they're also part of our past.
You write about "the range of people and the complexity of the forces that led to the dramatic moment." I'm curious, how does our understanding of the Boston Massacre change when we learn about it from this perspective of individual families?
When we talk in these political terms about revolution, about the end of the colonial relationship, or anything that we don't really know how to express in a meaningful way, [individual perspectives] help us understand that when an empire breaks up, there are implications for people and families do get torn apart. And this particular way of thinking about the Boston Massacre as a family story helps us see is that we don't always know the political and larger world in which we live. Looking back at this moment through the lens of a family history helps us see these individual stories, but also the larger structures in which they lived that they couldn't recognize themselves.
What has your research revealed to you about history today-the state of history and the way we understand history? How is the past connected with the present?
People love stories. They love to both see themselves and to see the ways in which they are different from people in the past. There's a tension over these 250 years between the past and the present that we're trying to work out as we write about it. There are of course parts of 2020 that are in this book where we wonder, "What is this big world in which I live? What control do I have over the politics that seem to be shaping my world that I can't do anything about?" And I think in that way, many of us feel like these soldiers and their families that are being re-deployed without any ability to say anything about the world that they live in were also making history. And that's the piece that I think is good for us to appreciate-our own lives are part of the past.
What surprised you most when writing?
One is how much of the story was just lying around, waiting for someone to pick up. I felt like every time I turned around, there was more evidence to prove the presence of all of these families, their relationships and the ways in which they were neighbors. I couldn't believe how easy it was to tell this story. I was also really surprised by the enormous numbers of men who deserted the army, more than in other places and other times, and how clear it was that they left to be with locals. They didn't just leave because they hated the army, I thought that was piece of it. But I was really surprised that their connections with locals had this impact on the larger army itself.
What do you hope readers take away from reading the book?
I hope people read it and think sometimes all you have to do is re-adjust your vision a little bit. What happens when we look differently, when we pay attention to things that we don't know. And instead of saying to ourselves, well that's something I don't know and I must be ignorant, to say, "That's something I don't know and it makes me wonder." So really just keeping our eyes open, whether we're professional historians are not, to be anomalies in the world and thinking how I can make sense of that.
*Editor's Note, March 5, 2020: In an earlier version of this piece, we incorrectly referred to John Adams as Capt. Preston's defendant. He was his defense attorney.

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A Fresh Look at the Boston Massacre, 250 Years After the Event That Jumpstarted the Revolution

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The five deaths may have shook the colonies, but a new book examines the personal relationships forever changed by them too

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On March 5, 1770 an angry altercation between British soldiers and American colonists inflamed passions that would eventually lead to revolution.

Boston, Massachusetts was a hotbed of radical revolutionary thought and activity leading up to 1770.

In March 1770, British soldiers stationed in Boston opened fire on a crowd, killing five townspeople and infuriating locals.

What became known as the Boston Massacre intensified anti-British sentiment and proved a pivotal event leading up to the American Revolution.

Boston, cradle of revolution

Even before the event that went down in history as the Boston Massacre, Boston, Massachusetts was a center of radical revolutionary ideas and sentiment. The colonists had endured years of conflict with British officials, and the number of people living in poverty and/or unemployed was growing in the city. With so many idle young men competing for work, there was bound to be trouble as British rule became more onerous.

After the Seven Years' War had drained Britain's coffers, the royal government imposed tighter controls over its North American colonies in order to raise revenues. When customs officials complained about the difficulties of collecting from disobedient colonists, Britain sent troops to impose order. The arrival of British soldiers in October 1768 heightened tensions in a city already on the edge of an uprising.

Over the next two years, Boston existed in a state of virtual British military occupation-one out of three men in the city was a Redcoat, a common nickname for British soldiers due to the color of their uniforms. Radical townspeople and idle young men harassed the soldiers, leading to numerous skirmishes and scuffles.

The Boston Massacre

In March 1770, British officials ordered the removal of all occupants of the Boston Manufactory House-a halfway house for people living in poverty, those who were ill, and those who were homeless-so that a regiment of British soldiers could be garrisoned there. The Manufactory House's homeless occupants put up a resistance, and the British backed down, but other confrontations ensued.

On March 5th, one such confrontation turned violent. As a mob of angry townspeople encircled a British sentry shouting insults and throwing rocks and sticks, nervous Redcoats opened fire into the crowd, killing five Bostonians and wounding several others. One of the victims was Crispus Attucks, a free sailor of African and Native American descent who has gone down in history as the first casualty of the American Revolution.

Local newspapers eulogized Attucks and the others as martyrs to British tyranny. Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, two of Boston's most influential revolutionaries, proved adept propagandists. Revere is known for producing the most famous depiction of the incident-though in reality he merely copied the original engraving by young Boston-area artist Henry Pelham. The image was published in the Boston Gazette and circulated widely, stoking the flames of anti-British anger and revolutionary righteousness. Pro-British Loyalists promoted an alternate narrative, accusing agitators in the crowd of deliberately provoking the incident. Nevertheless, the radical narrative proved far more influential.

The colonists did not want to give the British a pretext for retaliation, and so preparations were made to ensure a fair trial. A young lawyer named John Adams, despite his commitment to the revolutionary cause, agreed to defend the Redcoats, all but two of whom were acquitted.

Even though British troops were recalled from Boston, the incident inflamed hostilities and intensified revolutionary sentiment among the colonists. For the revolutionaries, the so-called massacre demonstrated the corrupting influence of standing armies and the tyranny of the British. It was a major signpost on the road to revolution; indeed, John Adams later claimed that the "foundation of American independence was laid" that fateful day of March 5, 1770.

What do you think?

Why do you think the incident in March 1770 happened in Boston and not somewhere else?

In your opinion, was the Boston Massacre truly a massacre? Who do you think was at fault for the incident?

How important was the Boston Massacre in the events leading up to the American Revolution?

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The Boston Massacre (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The Boston Massacre marked the moment when political tensions between British soldiers and American colonists turned deadly. Patriots argued the event was the massacre of civilians perpetrated by the British Army, while loyalists argued that it was an unfortunate accident, the result of self-defense of the British soldiers from a threatening and dangerous mob. Regardless of what actually happened, the event fanned the flames of political discord and ignited a series of events that would eventually lead to American independence. John Adams believed that "on that night, the foundation of American independence was laid."

Following the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain began to levy taxes on her colonies to defray the cost of the expensive war. However, colonies who had been in charge of taxing themselves began to openly resist Great Britain. Decades of self-rule and benign neglect had many colonists feeling their liberty was being stripped away by their mother country. Boston was the home to some of the most radical opponents and largest protests. In an attempt to use an excessive amount of force to crack down on these upstart colonials, Great Britain passed the Townshend Acts in 1767 and dispatched the British Army to restore order in Boston. On October 1, 1768, the British fleet arrived, and hundreds of British soldiers marched into the hostile city.

Rather than restore order, this maneuver proved to only worsen relations between the British and Americans. The presence of British regular troops in the streets of Boston enraged colonists, who now felt they were being occupied by a foreign army. British soldiers faced numerous insults and taunting as they patrolled the streets. The verbal abuse soon became physical as fights between civilians and British soldiers became common in the streets of Boston. Angry mobs would frequently protest British soldiers or American loyalists who supported the British policies. In February of 1770, Christopher Seider, an 11-year-old boy, was killed while protesting with a group in front of the home of a loyalist. Thousands of Bostonians turned out for the boy's funeral and the tension and distrust between the civilians and the British grew larger.

It was just eleven days after Seider's death, on March 5, 1770, when Private Hugh White of the 29 th Regiment of Foot took up a sentry post outside of the Customs House on King Street. The Customs House had taken on symbolic meaning as the center of British taxation. As a young wigmaker's apprentice, Edward Garrick, passed the sentry, he yelled at a British officer that he had not paid his bill for a wig. The sentry, White, reprimanded the young man. The two engaged in a heated conversation when Private White swung his musket at Garrick, hitting him on the side of the head.

Word traveled through the streets about the altercation and a large mob began to descend on the lone British sentry at the Custom House. As the mob of people began to grow larger and larger, the sentry called for reinforcements. Seven British soldiers of the 29 th Regiment of Foot, under the command of Captain Thomas Preston, marched to the sentry's defense with fixed bayonets. As the nine British soldiers stood guard near the steps to the Custom House, passions enflamed and dozens of more people joined the crowd surrounding the soldiers. Bells began ringing in the city and more people came out of their homes and into the streets. The crowd was estimated to have grown to as many as 300 or 400 people. They were yelling at the soldiers, shouting profanities and insults at the soldiers. Others threw rocks, paddles, and snowballs at the besieged men. One of those protestors near the soldiers was a former slave named Crispus Attucks. The crowd continued to hurl verbal abuse and challenged the soldiers repeatedly to fire their weapons. Preston's men loaded their muskets in front of the crowd.

The crowd became angrier and angrier. At one point a club or stick was thrown at the soldiers and struck one of the British soldiers. The soldier fell to the ground. He stood back up and yelled, "Damn you, fire!" and fired his musket into the crowd. The musket ball struck Attucks who fell dead to the ground. A few seconds later, the other British soldiers fired into the crowd. Eleven people were hit, five men were killed and six were wounded. After the smoke cleared, Preston ordered his men to cease fire and called out dozens of soldiers to defend the Custom House.

Most of the crowd of civilians left the area immediately around the soldiers as others ran to help the wounded. American blood had been spilled at the hands of British soldiers for the first time. Royal governor Thomas Hutchison arrived on the scene and calmed the anxious and angry colonists and promised justice for what had just occurred. The next day Preston and the eight soldiers involved were arrested and sent to trial for murder.

Following the event, patriot Paul Revere made an engraving based on an illustration by Henry Pelham of the event and labeled it with the provocative title: "The Bloody Massacre." The image depicted a line of British soldiers firing in unison on an unarmed crowd in front of the State House. This incendiary image outraged many colonists as the event soon became known as a massacre. Broadsides depicting black coffins for the men killed in the incident appeared in newspapers. The funerals for these victims became large public events where patriots displayed their anger at the occupying soldiers.

As public sentiment against the British soldiers grew, Massachusetts placed the soldiers on trial for murder. It became very difficult to find someone who would be willing to publicly defend the British soldiers. Then patriot John Adams agreed to defend them. Despite the public backlash to his defense of the British soldiers, Adams believed it was important to show the British that a fair trial could be held in the colony of Massachusetts, despite the inflamed passions. After a heated trial, Adams was ultimately victorious in showing the British soldiers were not at fault and had acted in self-defense. Six soldiers were found not guilty and two were found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

The Boston Massacre was one of the most important events leading up to the Revolutionary War. The tragic event was commemorated annually in Boston with orations that further fueled negative views of the British soldiers living amongst them. With the large amounts of distrust between the colonists and British soldiers, Massachusetts citizens would need to look to their own defense against possible aggression by the British Army. The two would finally clash five years after the event at Lexington and Concord outside Boston. Almost 50 years after the fact, John Adams described the importance of these events: "How slightly however, historians, may have passed over this event, the blood of the Martyrs, right, or wrong, proved to be the seeds of the Congregation. Not the Battle of Lexington or Bunkers Hill; not the surrender of Burgoyne, or Cornwallis, were more important events in American history than the battle of King Street, on the 5th of March 1770."

Want to learn more?

Further Reading

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The Boston Massacre marked the moment when political tensions between British soldiers and American colonists turned deadly. Patriots argued the event was the...

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The Boston Massacre, or the Incident on King Street, occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, on 5 March 1770, when nine British soldiers fired into a crowd of American colonists, ultimately killing five…

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The Boston Massacre | Road to the Revolution

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The Boston Tea Party Museum offers you a wide variety of information, primary sources, and multimedia items on the people and events associated with the causes and the results of the Boston Tea Party. The opening page provides you with an introduction and the links to the details about the Boston Tea Party.

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Intolerable Acts, (1774), in U.S. colonial history, four punitive measures enacted by the British Parliament in retaliation for acts of colonial defiance, together with the Quebec Act establishing a new administration for the territory ceded to Britain after the French and Indian War (1754-63).

The cumulative effect of the reports of colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773-74 was to make Parliament more determined than ever to assert its authority in America. The main force of its actions fell on Boston, which seemed to be the centre of colonial hostility. First, the British government, angered by the Boston Tea Party (1773), passed the Boston Port Bill, closing that city's harbour until restitution was made for the destroyed tea. Second, the Massachusetts Government Act abrogated the colony's charter of 1691, reducing it to the level of a crown colony, replacing the elective local council with an appointive one, enhancing the powers of the military governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, and forbidding town meetings without approval. Third, the Administration of Justice Act was aimed at protecting British officials charged with capital offenses during law enforcement by allowing them to go to England or another colony for trial. The fourth Intolerable Act included new arrangements for housing British troops in occupied American dwellings, thus reviving the indignation that surrounded the earlier Quartering Act, which had been allowed to expire in 1770. Passed on June 2, 1774, the new Quartering Act applied to all of British America and gave colonial governors the right to requisition unoccupied buildings to house British troops. However, in Massachusetts the British troops were forced to remain camped on the Boston Common until the following November because the Boston patriots refused to allow workmen to repair the vacant buildings General Gage had obtained for quarters.

The Quebec Act, under consideration since 1773, removed all the territory and fur trade between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from possible colonial jurisdiction and awarded it to the province of Quebec. By establishing French civil law and the Roman Catholic religion in the coveted area, Britain acted liberally toward Quebec's settlers but raised the spectre of popery before the mainly Protestant colonies to Canada's south.

The Intolerable Acts represented an attempt to reimpose strict British control over the American colonies, but, after 10 years of vacillation, the decision to be firm had come too late. Rather than cowing Massachusetts and separating it from the other colonies, the oppressive measures became the justification for convening the First Continental Congress later in 1774.

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Intolerable Acts | 1774, Definition, Summary, Significance, & Facts

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Intolerable Acts, four punitive measures enacted by Britain in 1774 against the American colonies. They included the Boston Port Bill, which closed Boston Harbor, and the Massachusetts Government Act, which abrogated the colony's charter of 1691. Learn more about these and the other Intolerable Acts.

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In 1774, Great Britain decided to use brute force to deal with the rebellious American colonies, particularly the colony of Massachusetts. Following the blatant insubordination of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Great Britain aimed to use a heavy hand on the rebellious colony of Massachusetts. In 1774 Parliament passed four acts that they described as the Coercive Acts but quickly became known in America as the Intolerable Acts because they perceived as being so cruel and severe.

Since the end of the French and Indian War, Great Britain had sought to find a way to get the American colonies to pay for the cost of the expensive war. After repeatedly passing laws such as the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Tea Act, the colonists had protested, disobeyed, or boycotted to avoid paying the taxes. When a group of Bostonians destroyed hundreds of crates of British tea on December 16, 1773, rather than pay taxes on them, Britain reacted by passing these Coercive Acts.

The first act passed was the Boston Port Act which closed the port of Boston. Britain determined that the business of the city would be stopped entirely until the people of Boston paid for the tea that had been destroyed. This act not only caused fear and panic among many of the city's merchants, it punished the entire city for the actions of the radicals who destroyed the tea. The move also flexed the power of Great Britain, demonstrating their ability to shut down an entire city's port with their navy.

Next, they passed the Massachusetts Government Act which essentially revoked the charter of the royal colony and placed them under the direct control of Great Britain. The British would now exercise complete control over the colony while they limited the number of town meetings that could be held in the colony, effectively removing their capability of self-rule and self-government.

The Administration of Justice Act removed the ability of the colonists to hold trials of British officials in the colonies. Despite the fact that in 1770, the British soldiers who committed the " Boston Massacre " were given a fair trial and acquitted of the charges of murder, this showed the British still did not trust the colonists in administering justice. By having British soldiers sent back to England for trial, many patriots saw this as a way for British officials and soldiers to avoid justice.

Finally, a Quartering Act allowed royal governors, rather than colonial legislatures, to find homes and buildings to quarter or house British soldiers. This applied to all the colonies and only further enraged colonists by having what appeared to be foreign soldiers billeted in American cities.

The Crown had hoped these strict and punitive acts would be used as a punishment for the colony of Massachusetts and as a warning and threat to the other American colonies as well. The hope was that other colonies would soon submit to British authority and resume their place as subordinates to Parliament and the Crown out of fear of similar reprisals.

However, these measures backfired on the British. Other colonies recoiled in horror at what they witnessed. After seeing the power Great Britain leveled on Massachusetts, other colonies quickly became sympathetic with their fellow colonists and began to wonder how much longer it would be before the same type of actions would be done to their own cities or colonies. The other American colonies soon sent aid and supplies to the beleaguered people of Boston.

On top of the fear these acts caused in colonies throughout America, they also forced the colonists to begin asking more important questions. These questions included: where had Great Britain received its authority? And to what degree did they have the right to use such force on the colonies? The word tyranny was used to describe the actions of Parliament and the Crown. Men like George Washington in Virginia would write, "Shall we supinely sit, and see one province after another fall a sacrifice to despotism?"

Throughout the American colonies, in the summer of 1774, days of fasting and prayer were held for the people of Boston. Pamphlets, treatises, and resolves were published across America demonizing the Intolerable Acts and asserting the rights of American colonies to self-government. These harsh acts only seemed to make the colonists more resistant to British rule.

In many of the American colonies, citizens created extra-legal Committees of Correspondence that operated as unofficial governments of people opposed to the laws being passed by the Parliament and royal governors. The colonies became fearful that the British may pass more punitive laws on their own colonies. They decided to form a Continental Congress where representatives from all the American colonies could gather and discuss how they should collectively respond to the Intolerable Acts.

The First Continental Congress convened on September 5, 1774. Men from twelve American colonies (Georgia did not send anyone to the First Continental Congress) gathered in Philadelphia to determine a response. After weeks of discussions, the delegates decided to take a cautious approach and simply boycott British goods and send a petition to King George III begging that the Intolerable Acts be repealed. However, the petition would receive no reply from King George III.

A few months later blood would be spilled outside Boston at Lexington and Concord. The battles there would be the first shots of a bloody war that would last eight years and cost thousands of lives and result in the independence of the United States of America. Clearly the passage of the Intolerable Acts was a key moment in the lead up to this war. The Intolerable Acts were meant to force the rebellious colonies back into place, but the opposite happened and only further fueled the flames of rebellion in North America. What started out as protests over taxes and authority led to the self-realization of Americans that they were not subject to British control, but were indeed, free and independent.

Further Reading

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In 1774, Great Britain decided to use brute force to deal with the rebellious American colonies, particularly the colony of Massachusetts. Following the...

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In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament attempted to punish Boston and isolate the colonies. But response to the Intolerable Acts began to unify the colonies instead.

In the spring of 1774, the British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which quickly became known in the North American colonies as the Intolerable Acts.

The Intolerable Acts were aimed at isolating Boston, the seat of the most radical anti-British sentiment, from the other colonies.

Colonists responded to the Intolerable Acts with a show of unity, convening the First Continental Congress to discuss and negotiate a unified approach to the British.

Radical Boston and the Intolerable Acts

By 1774, there had been almost a decade of revolutionary fervor in Boston. British taxation policies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, had sparked a debate in the North American colonies over the constitutional meaning of representation. Leading radicals like Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock argued that because the colonists weren't represented in Parliament, that legislative body had no right to tax them. The stationing of British troops in Boston had infuriated townspeople, setting the stage for the Boston Massacre in 1770. In 1773 Boston radicals led by the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships filled with thousands of pounds of East India Company tea. They dumped nearly 350 crates into the harbor.

After the Boston Tea Party, the British adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that sought to isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies, which leaders in Parliament believed were merely tagging along with Boston's radicals. In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which were aimed solely at Boston and envisioned as punishment for its radical opposition to British policies. The Coercive Acts, which quickly became known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, consisted of four separate legislative measures:

1. The Boston Port Bill fined Boston for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party and closed the harbor until the fines were paid.

2. The Government Bill rewrote the Massachusetts colony's charter granting broadly expanded powers to the royal governor.

3. The Administration of Justice Act authorized the governor to send indicted government officials to other colonies or to London for trial.

4. The Quartering Act, which applied to all of the North American colonies, was designed to provide shelter for the British troops, allowing them to be housed in private buildings.

Forging unity: the First Continental Congress

Instead of isolating Boston from the other North American colonies, the Intolerable Acts had the opposite result. Delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the autumn of 1774. The purpose of the Congress was to show support for Boston and to work out a unified approach to the British.

Nevertheless, divisions plagued the colonies. Though the congress agreed to implement a boycott of British imported goods, the northern and southern colonies argued fiercely over a measure to ban all exports to Britain. The southern colonies were economically dependent on revenues from their exports of raw materials such as cotton and rice to the motherland. The delegates ultimately reached a compromise, agreeing that all exports to Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies would be banned after a year, starting in September 1775. This would give the southern colonies some time to prepare for the economic impact of the export ban.

On October 14, 1774, the First Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Colonial Rights and Grievances. The declaration denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies and lambasted the British for stationing troops in Boston. It characterized the Intolerable Acts as an assault on colonial liberties, rejected British attempts to circumscribe representative government, and requested that the colonies prepare their militias. Despite its harsh tone, the declaration did affirm Parliament's right to regulate trade, and did not challenge colonial loyalty to the British monarch, King George III.

Although some of the more radical delegates, particularly Samuel Adams, already believed that war was inevitable, the congress did not seek or declare independence from Britain at this time. The delegates agreed to meet again the following May if Anglo-American relations did not improve.

What do you think?

Was Britain's divide-and-conquer strategy effective? Why was Boston singled out for punishment?

Why did Boston's radicals refer to the Coercive Acts as the Intolerable Acts? Why couldn't the legislation be tolerated?

What do you think was most significant about the First Continental Congress?

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The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party.

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party.

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Continental Congress, in the period of the American Revolution, the body of delegates who spoke and acted collectively for the people of the colony-states that later became the United States of America. The term most specifically refers to the bodies that met in 1774 and 1775-81 and respectively designated as the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress.

In the spring of 1774 the British Parliament's passage of the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts, including the closing of the port of Boston, provoked keen resentment in the colonies. The First Continental Congress, convened in response to the Acts by the colonial Committees of Correspondence, met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. Fifty-six deputies represented all the colonies except Georgia. Peyton Randolph of Virginia was unanimously elected president, thus establishing usage of that term as well as "Congress." Charles Thomson of Pennsylvania was elected secretary and served in that office during the 15-year life of the Congress.

To provide unity, delegates gave one vote to each state regardless of its size. The First Continental Congress included Patrick Henry, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, John Jay, and John Dickinson. 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. The declaration also denounced taxation without representation and the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent. Parliamentary regulation of American commerce, however, was willingly accepted.

In October 1774 the Congress petitioned the crown for a redress of grievances accumulated since 1763. In an effort to force compliance, it called for a general boycott of British goods and eventual nonexportation of American products, except rice, to Britain or the British West Indies. Its last act was to set a date for another Congress to meet on May 10, 1775, to consider further steps.

Before that Second Continental Congress assembled in the Pennsylvania State House, hostilities had already broken out between Americans and British troops at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. New members of the Second Congress included Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. John Hancock and John Jay were among those who served as president. The Congress "adopted" the New England military forces that had converged upon Boston and appointed Washington commander in chief of the American army on June 15, 1775. It also acted as the provisional government of the 13 colony-states, issuing and borrowing money, establishing a postal service, and creating a navy. Although the Congress for some months maintained that the Americans were struggling for their rights within the British Empire, it gradually cut tie after tie with Britain until separation was complete. On July 2, 1776, with New York abstaining, the Congress "unanimously" resolved that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Two days later it solemnly approved this Declaration of Independence. The Congress also prepared the Articles of Confederation, which, after being sanctioned by all the states, became the first U.S. constitution in March 1781.

The Articles placed Congress on a constitutional basis, legalizing the powers it had exercised since 1775. To underline this distinction, the Congress that met under the Articles of Confederation is often referred to as the Congress of the Confederation, or the Confederation Congress. This Congress continued to function until the new Congress, elected under the present Constitution, met in 1789.

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Continental Congress | History, Members, & Significance

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Continental Congress, in the period of the American Revolution, the body of delegates who spoke and acted collectively for the people of the colony-states that later became the United States of America. The term most specifically refers to the bodies that met in 1774 and 1775-81 and respectively designated as the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress.

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The First Continental Congress convened in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between September 5 and October 26, 1774. Delegates from twelve of Britain's thirteen American colonies met to discuss America's future under growing British aggression. The list of delegates included many prominent colonial leaders, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, and two future presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams. Delegates discussed boycotting British goods to establish the rights of Americans and planned for a Second Continental Congress.

The First Continental Congress was prompted by the Coercive Acts, known in America as the Intolerable Acts, which Parliament passed in early 1774 to reassert its dominance over the American colonies following the Boston Tea Party. The Intolerable Acts, among other changes, closed off the Boston Port and rescinded the Massachusetts Charter, bringing the colony under more direct British control.

Across North America, colonists rose in solidarity with the people of Massachusetts. Goods arrived in Massachusetts from as far south as Georgia, and by late spring 1774, nine of the colonies called for a continental congress. Virginia's Committee of Correspondence is largely credited with originating the invitation.

The colonies elected delegates to the First Continental Congress in various ways. Some delegates were elected through their respective colonial legislatures or committees of correspondence. As for Washington, he was elected with the other Virginia delegates at the First Virginia Convention, which was called in support of Massachusetts following the passage of the Intolerable Acts. Georgia was the only colony that did not send any delegates to the First Continental Congress. Facing a war with neighboring Native American tribes, the colony did not want to jeopardize British assistance.

When Congress convened on September 5, 1774, Peyton Randolph of Virginia was named President of the First Continental Congress. One of the Congress's first decisions was to endorse the Suffolk Resolves passed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The Suffolk Resolves ordered citizens to not obey the Intolerable Acts, to refuse imported British goods, and to raise a militia. Congress's early endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves was a clear indication of the mood and spirit in Carpenters' Hall.

Furthermore, the delegates promptly began drafting and discussing the Continental Association. This would become their most important policy outcome. The Association called for an end to British imports starting in December 1774 and an end to exporting goods to Britain in September 1775. This policy would be enforced by local and colony-wide committees of inspection. These committees would check ships that arrived in ports, force colonists to sign documents pledging loyalty to the Continental Association, and suppress mob violence. The committees of inspection even enforced frugality, going so far as to end lavish funeral services and parties. Many colonial leaders hoped these efforts would bond the colonies together economically.

Virginia secured the Continental Association's delay in ending exports to Britain. Before the Continental Congress, Virginia had passed its own association that delayed ending exports to avoid hurting farmers with a sudden change in policy. The delegates from Virginia showed up to the Continental Congress united, and refused to waiver on the issue of delaying the ban on exports to Britain.

The idea of using non-importation as leverage was neither new nor unexpected. Prior to the Continental Congress, eight colonies had already endorsed the measure and merchants had been warned against placing any orders with Britain, as a ban on importation was likely to pass. Some colonies had already created their own associations to ban importation and, in some cases, exportation. The Virginia Association had passed at the Virginia Convention with George Washington in attendance.

Washington's support of using non-importation as leverage against the British can be traced back as far as 1769 in letters between him and George Mason. When the colonies first started publicly supporting non-importation, Bryan Fairfax, a longtime friend of Washington's, wrote to him urging him to not support the Continental Association and to instead petition Parliament. Washington dismissed this suggestion, writing "we have already Petitiond his Majesty in as humble, & dutiful a manner as Subjects could do." ¹ Washington, like many delegates at the First Continental Congress, no longer saw petitioning as a useful tool in changing Parliament's ways.

Many delegates felt that using the Continental Association as leverage would be impractical without explicit demands and a plan of redress. However, Congress struggled to come up with a list of rights, grievances, and demands. Furthermore, to only repeal laws that were unfavorable to the delegates without a list of rights would be a temporary fix to the larger issue of continued British abuse. To address these issues, Congress formed a Grand Committee.

All debate was stalled for weeks while a statement of American rights was debated at length. Producing this statement required answering constitutional questions that had been asked for over a century. The hardest constitutional question surrounded Britain's right to regulate trade. Joseph Galloway, a conservative delegate from Pennsylvania, insisted on releasing a statement clarifying Britain's right to regulate trade in the American colonies. However, other delegates were opposed to giving Britain explicit rights to colonial trade.

During this debate, Galloway introduced A Plan of Union between the American Colonies and Britain. The Plan of Union called for the creation of a Colonial Parliament that would work hand-in-hand with the British Parliament. The British monarch would appoint a President General and the colonial assemblies would appoint delegates for a three-year term. Galloway's plan was defeated in a 6-5 vote. Congress put aside the debate over Britain's right to regulate trade and focused on the Continental Association.

Congress later returned to the discussion of Congress's right to regulate trade and settled on the original suggested text by the Grand Committee and included it as Section 4 in the body's Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Section four states the "the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council." ² This allowed for Congress to move forward in their discussion and assert their right to participation in their government, but did not explicitly place limits on Parliament's regulation of colonial trade.

The First Continental Congress's most fateful decision was to call for a Second Continental Congress to meet the following spring. Congress intended to give Britain time to respond to the Continental Association and discuss any developments at the Second Continental Congress. Washington went shopping for muskets and military apparel before leaving Philadelphia for Mount Vernon. Furthermore, he placed an order for a book on military discipline. Though war had not been declared and many delegates were still hoping for redress, there was no doubt that the American colonies and Britain were on the brink of conflict. Many delegates learned of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775), in route to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress.

Katherine Horan
George Washington University
Notes:
1. "From George Washington to Bryan Fairfax, 20 July 1774," Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0081. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774?-?15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 128-131.]

2. United States Library of Congress, "Declaration of Rights and Grievances," - The American Revolution, accessed October 29, 2018, http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/amrev/rebelln/rights.html.
Bibliography:
Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774. New York: Norton, 1975.

Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. New York: First Vintage Books, 2004.

Irwin, Benjamin. Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors. New York: Oxford, 2011.

Middlekauff, Robert. Washington's Revolution: The Making of America's First Leader. New York: Random House, 2015.

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The First Continental Congress convened in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between September 5 and October 26, 1774. Delegates from twelve of Britain's thirteen American colonies met to discuss America's future under growing British aggression.

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The Continental Congress was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. The Congress balanced the interests of the different colonies and also established itself as the official colonial liaison to Great Britain. As the war progressed, the Congress became the effective national government of the country, and, as such, conducted diplomacy on behalf of the new United States.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed a series of laws collectively known as the Intolerable Acts, with the intent to suppress unrest in colonial Boston by closing the port and placing it under martial law. In response, colonial protestors led by a group called the Sons of Liberty issued a call for a boycott. Merchant communities were reluctant to participate in such a boycott unless there were mutually agreed upon terms and a means to enforce the boycott's provisions. Spurred by local pressure groups, colonial legislatures empowered delegates to attend a Continental Congress which would set terms for a boycott. The colony of Connecticut was the first to respond.

The Congress first met in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, with delegates from each of the 13 colonies except Georgia. On October 20, the Congress adopted the Articles of Association, which stated that if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed by December 1, 1774, a boycott of British goods would begin in the colonies. The Articles also outlined plans for an embargo on exports if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed before September 10, 1775.

On October 21, the delegates approved separate statements for the people of Great Britain and the North American colonies, explaining the colonial position, and on October 26 a similar address was approved for the people of Quebec.

Furthermore, on October 26, the delegates drafted a formal petition outlining the colonists' grievances for British King George III. Many delegates were skeptical about changing the king's attitude towards the colonies, but believed that every opportunity should be exhausted to de-escalate the conflict before taking more radical action. They did not draft such a letter to the British Parliament as the colonists viewed the Parliament as the aggressor behind the recent Intolerable Acts. Lastly, not fully expecting the standoff in Massachusetts to explode into full-scale war, the Congress agreed to reconvene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775.

By the time Congress met again, war was already underway, and thus the delegates to the Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army and dispatched George Washington to Massachusetts as its commander. Meanwhile, Congress drafted the Olive Branch Petition, which attempted to suggest means of resolving disputes between the colonies and Great Britain. Congress sent the petition to King George III on July 8, but he refused to receive it.

As British authority crumbled in the colonies, the Continental Congress effectively took over as the de facto national government, thereby exceeding the initial authority granted to it by the individual colonial governments. However, the local groups that had formed to enforce the colonial boycott continued to support the Congress. The Second Congress continued to meet until March 1, 1781, when the Articles of Confederation that established a new national government for the United States took effect.

As the de facto national government, the Continental Congress assumed the role of negotiating diplomatic agreements with foreign nations. The British Parliament banned trade with the colonies and authorized the seizure of colonial vessels on December 23. These actions served to further erode the positions of anti-independence moderates in Congress and bolster those of pro-independence leaders. On April 6, 1776, Congress responded to Parliament's actions by opening American ports to all foreign ships except British vessels. Reports from American agent Arthur Lee in London also served to support the revolutionary cause. Lee's reports suggested that France was interested in assisting the colonies in their fight against Great Britain.

With a peaceful resolution increasingly unlikely in 1775, Congress began to explore other diplomatic channels and dispatched congressional delegate Silas Deane to France in April of 1776.

Deane succeeded in securing informal French support by May. By then, Congress was increasingly conducting international diplomacy and had drafted the Model Treaty with which it hoped to seek alliances with Spain and France. On July 4, 1776 the Congress took the important step of formally declaring the colonies' independence from Great Britain. In September, Congress adopted the Model Treaty, and then sent commissioners to France to negotiate a formal alliance. They entered into a a formal alliance with France in 1778. Congress eventually sent diplomats to other European powers to encourage support for the American cause and to secure loans for the money-strapped war effort.

Congress and the British government made further attempts to reconcile, but negotiations failed when Congress refused to revoke the Declaration of Independence, both in a meeting on September 11, 1776, with British Admiral Richard Howe, and when a peace delegation from Parliament arrived in Philadelphia in 1778. Instead, Congress spelled out terms for peace on August 14, 1779, which demanded British withdrawal, American independence, and navigation rights on the Mississippi River. The next month Congress appointed John Adams to negotiate such terms with England, but British officials were evasive.

Formal peace negotiations would have to wait until after the Confederation Congress took over the reins of government on March 1, 1781, following American victories at Yorktown that resulted in British willingness to end the war.

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Milestones: 1776-1783 - Office of the Historian

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The Continental Congress was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. The Congress balanced the interests of the different colonies and also established itself as the official colonial liaison to Great Britain.

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The First Continental Congress: The Patriots React To The Intolerable Acts

September to October 1774
As the name suggests, the Intolerable Acts were not received well amongst the colonies. Before the shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, the colonies made an attempt to settle the concerns and frustrations raised with the Intolerable Acts through debate and discussion. Thus, the First Continental Congress was called to order on September 5th, 1774. 55 colonial representatives, including famous Patriots like John Adams, Samuel Adams, George Washington, and Patrick Henry, from twelve colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to formulate a plan of action. Georgia was the only colony that did not send representatives. Virginia's representative, Peyton Randolph, was elected president of the First Continental Congress. It was decided that each colony would be allotted one secret ballot.

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Continental Congress | First Continental Congress 1774

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The Continental Congress was a result of the Patriots' frustration with the Intolerable Acts; they included Sam Adams, George Washington & John Adams.

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The First Continental Congress | Road to the Revolution

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Boston Tea Party, (December 16, 1773), incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. The Americans were protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company.

The Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767 and imposing duties on various products imported into the British colonies had raised such a storm of colonial protest and noncompliance that they were repealed in 1770, saving the duty on tea, which was retained by Parliament to demonstrate its presumed right to raise such colonial revenue without colonial approval. The merchants of Boston circumvented the act by continuing to receive tea smuggled in by Dutch traders. In 1773 Parliament passed a Tea Act designed to aid the financially troubled East India Company by granting it (1) a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies, (2) an exemption on the export tax, and (3) a "drawback" (refund) on duties owed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession. The tea sent to the colonies was to be carried only in East India Company ships and sold only through its own agents, bypassing the independent colonial shippers and merchants. The company thus could sell the tea at a less-than-usual price in either America or Britain; it could undersell anyone else. The perception of monopoly drove the normally conservative colonial merchants into an alliance with radicals led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty.

In such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, tea agents resigned or canceled orders, and merchants refused consignments. In Boston, however, the royal governor Thomas Hutchinson determined to uphold the law and maintained that three arriving ships, the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, should be allowed to deposit their cargoes and that appropriate duties should be honoured. On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of about 60 men, encouraged by a large crowd of Bostonians, donned blankets and Indian headdresses, marched to Griffin's wharf, boarded the ships, and dumped the tea chests, valued at £18,000, into the water.

In retaliation, Parliament passed the series of punitive measures known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, including the Boston Port Bill, which shut off the city's sea trade pending payment for the destroyed tea. The British government's efforts to single out Massachusetts for punishment served only to unite the colonies and impel the drift toward war.

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Boston Tea Party | Facts, Summary, & Significance

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Boston Tea Party, precursor to the American Revolution in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians on December 16, 1773. They were protesting a tax on tea and the East India Company's perceived monopoly.

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The Boston Tea Party, which involved the willful destruction of 342 crates of British tea, proved a significant development on the path to the American Revolution.

The Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773 and was known to contemporaries as the Destruction of the Tea, was a direct response to British taxation policies in the North American colonies.

The British response to the Boston Tea Party was to impose even more stringent policies on the Massachusetts colony. The Coercive Acts levied fines for the destroyed tea, sent British troops to Boston, and rewrote the colonial charter of Massachusetts, giving broadly expanded powers to the royally appointed governor.

British taxation policies

After the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British Empire was in financial distress. Though the British had won the war, they had spent vast amounts of blood and treasure in the process. At the end of the war, the British Parliament sought to replenish its depleted coffers by taxing the North American colonies.

When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed the Tea Act in May 1773, he was not even thinking of the North American colonies, but rather of the East India Company, which had assumed control over India. In exchange for the power to appoint its governors, North loaned the company £1.5 million-the equivalent of about $270 million today. North also granted the company a monopoly on the right to sell tea in the North American colonies.

The Boston Tea Party

As the British authorized the shipment of thousands of pounds of tea to its colonies in North America-Boston, Charleston, New York City, and Philadelphia-colonial tea merchants protested.

In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a pro-British Loyalist, demanded that the ships be allowed to dock and that colonial merchants pay the duties on the cargo. Boston was the center of colonial revolutionary fervor, and its radicals did not take kindly to Hutchinson's demands. The Sons of Liberty, a secret society formed by radical colonists to protest British taxation policies after the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, spearheaded the opposition to the Tea Act.

On December 16, 1773 at Griffin's Wharf, a group of approximately 50 Bostonians disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor, and proceeded to dump 342 crates of tea into the Boston harbor. In doing so, they destroyed almost 10 thousand pounds sterling worth of tea-worth about $1.7 million today-that belonged to the British East India Company. The incident, referred to at the time by John Adams as the Destruction of the Tea, would not become known as the Boston Tea Party for another fifty years.

Paul Revere carried the news of the destruction of the tea to New York, which in turn refused to allow the British ships to unload. In Philadelphia, as well, townspeople gathered to turn the British ships away from harbor. In Charleston, the ship was docked, but customs officials seized the cargo.

The British empire strikes back

Instead of reforming their tax policies or accommodating the demands of the colonists, the British responded to the incident by passing the Coercive Acts, which shut down Boston's port, modified the charter of Massachusetts-effectively shutting down the colony's legislative assembly-and sent British troops under General Thomas Gage to occupy Boston.

Gage was appointed governor, with broadly expanded powers to appoint local sheriffs, lodge troops in private homes, and deny townspeople permission to hold meetings. In response, the colonies called for a continental congress. The First Continental Congress convened in the autumn of 1774 and approved a general boycott of British goods. The stage was set for the ultimate showdown between the British and the colonies in the American War for Independence.

What do you think?

How would you describe British tax policies in the colonies?

How important do you think the Boston Tea Party was in the ultimate outbreak of war between Britain and its North American colonies?

Why do you think the British refused to back down in the face of opposition to its policies?

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The Boston Tea Party (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The Boston Tea Party - Bill of Rights Institute

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What does “no taxation without representation” mean?

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Introduction

On 5 March 1770, Parliament rescinded the Townshend duties on four of the five commodities that had been taxed; the duty on tea remained in force. Outraged patriots sought to shore up sagging efforts to boycott tea by appealing to merchants (nonimportation) and the citizenry (nonconsumption). But people loved their tea, and their resolve weakened.

In the spring of 1773, the East India Company had a large amount of surplus tea on hand. To aid the failing company, thwart the smuggling of Dutch tea, and reassert its authority to levy taxes on the colonies, Parliament authorized the Tea Act on 10 May 1773. Tea sold in America would carry no duty for the East India Company; instead, the tea would be taxed at the point of entry in colonial ports. Consignees, or special agents, were appointed in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston to receive and sell the tea.

In the fall of 1773, as newspapers publish the particulars of the East India Company plan, colonists learn that the tea is coming. Protests soon circulate. Writing out of Philadelphia, "Scaevola" rebukes the tea agents, calling them political bombadiers. Refusing a summons to resign their commissions, Boston's tea agents counter that they are the true sons of liberty. Demonstrating its decided disagreement, a patriot mob storms Richard Clarke's King Street shop on 3 November.

Boston's consignees petition the governor to safeguard the tea once it arrives, but with British forces confined to Castle William since the unfortunate events of the Boston Massacre, Hutchinson is powerless to oblige. The streets belong to the opposition.

On Sunday, 28 November, the Dartmouth, carrying 114 chests of tea, arrives in Boston Harbor. A meeting, open to all Bostonians and anyone from neighboring towns who chooses to attend (a group identified as the Body), is called at Faneuil Hall. When the crowd swells, it adjourns to Old South Meeting House. The Body speaks, demanding that the tea be returned, and the assembly appoints a watch of 25 men to guard Griffin's Wharf.

From Philadelphia and New York, news arrives that anyone attempting to land the tea in those ports should beware an unwelcome visit. By 2 December, consignees have resigned in three port towns, and the taunt goes forth: Will you shrink at Boston?

By 15 December, the Eleanor and the Beaver, also both laden with tea, arrive at Griffin's Wharf. The law is clear: if the duty on the Dartmouth's tea is not paid by 17 December, the customs officer is authorized to seize the ship and its cargo. The governor, the ships' owners, and the tea consignees all refuse to return the tea to England. Voting at a 16 December meeting at Old South, the Body resolves to prevent the East India tea from being landed, stored, sold, or consumed. At the conclusion of the meeting, the crowd streams out onto the street, chasing 30 to 60 men dressed as Indians down to Griffin's Wharf. In what John Adams calls an intrepid "exertion of popular power," the men proceed to dump 342 chests of tea into the sea.

Governor Hutchinson is incensed, calling the dumping of the tea high treason. Energized by their victory, boisterous patriots urge Bostonians, "keep up your courage." When news of the event arrives there, New York celebrates Boston's Indians, as does Philadelphia. Boston, once suspect, is now praised for its steadfast opposition to tyrannical English policies.

Not all, however, applaud the Destruction of the Tea (later designated the Boston Tea Party). At the end of January, the town of Marshfield urges good and loyal subjects to speak up against the Bostonians' unlawful act. Still, in March, Indians are found destroying the tea-again. And in April, another episode raises questions whether the perpetrators are good Indians or bad Indians.

In February, the tea ship captains arrive in England and are summoned to testify before the Privy Council; since they are not able to identify individuals responsible for the destruction of the tea, the government decides to punish the entire town of Boston. Until the East India Company is reimbursed for its loss, the port of Boston will be closed.

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Coming of the American Revolution: Boston Tea Party

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On 5 March 1770, Parliament rescinded the Townshend duties on four of the five commodities that had been taxed; the duty on tea remained in force. Outraged patriots sought to shore up sagging efforts to boycott tea by appealing to merchants (nonimportation) and the citizenry (nonconsumption).

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The story behind the Boston Tea Party - Ben Labaree

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The Boston Tea Party | Road to the Revolution

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The Boston Tea Party 1773, (The American Revolution)