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Fast Facts About the Proclamation of 1763 | History

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The American Revolution was precipitated, in part, by a series of laws passed between 1763 and 1775 that regulating trade and taxes. This legislation caused tensions between colonists and imperial officials, who made it clear that the British Parliament would not address American complaints that the new laws were onerous. British unwillingness to respond to American demands for change allowed colonists to argue that they were part of an increasingly corrupt and autocratic empire in which their traditional liberties were threatened. This position eventually served as the basis for the colonial Declaration of Independence.

In 1763, the British government emerged from the Seven Years' War burdened by heavy debts. This led British Prime Minister George Grenville to reduce duties on sugar and molasses but also to enforce the law more strictly. Since enforcement of these duties had previously been lax, this ultimately increased revenue for the British Government and served to increase the taxes paid by the colonists. The colonial governments of New York and Massachusetts sent formal letters of protest to Parliament.

The end of the war had also brought about a postwar recession, and British merchants began to request payment for debts that colonists had incurred buying British imports. Moreover, they wanted payment in British pounds sterling rather than colonial currency of more questionable value. The result was that the British Parliament passed the 1764 Currency Act which forbade the colonies from issuing paper currency. This made it even more difficult for colonists to pay their debts and taxes.

Soon after Parliament passed the Currency Act, Prime Minister Grenville proposed a Stamp Tax. This law would require colonists to purchase a government-issued stamp for legal documents and other paper goods. Grenville submitted the bill to Parliament for questioning, and only one member raised objections to Parliament's right to tax the colonies.

After news of the successful passage of the Stamp Act reached the colonies, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed resolutions denying the British Parliament's authority to tax the colonies. In Boston, colonists rioted and destroyed the house of the stamp distributor. News of these protests inspired similar activities and protests in other colonies, and thus the Stamp Act served as a common cause to unite the 13 colonies in opposition to the British Parliament. In October of 1765, delegates from 9 colonies met to issue petitions to the British Government denying Parliament's authority to tax the colonies. An American boycott of British goods, coupled with recession, also led British merchants to lobby for the act's repeal on pragmatic economic grounds. Under pressure from American colonists and British merchants, the British Government decided it was easier to repeal the Stamp Act than to enforce it.

The repeal of the Stamp Act temporarily quieted colonial protest, but there was renewed resistance to new taxes instituted in 1767 under the Townshend Acts. However, in 1773, the colonists staged more vocal widespread protests against the British Parliament's decision to grant the East India Company a monopoly on the tax-free transport of tea. Although Parliament did lower taxes levied on other tea importers, the tax-free status of the British East India Company meant that colonial tea traders could not compete. Enraged colonists responded by encouraging a general boycott of British goods. On December 16, 1773, American colonists disguised as Indians boarded East India Company ships in Boston Harbor and threw crates of tea overboard. This famous protest came to be known as the Boston Tea Party.

When news of the Tea Party reached England, British officials moved to enforce discipline and order in the colonies. The British Government ordered the closure of the port of Boston until the East India Company was compensated for the destroyed tea. Parliament also passed several pieces of legislation in 1774 which attempted to place Massachusetts under direct British control. In the American colonies, these laws were referred to as the Intolerable Acts. British control was further solidified by the appointment of General Thomas Gage as military governor of Massachusetts.

By 1774, opinion among the colonists was mixed. Some Bostonians felt that the time had come to ease tensions and sent to London a written offer to pay for the destroyed tea. Others put out a colony-wide call for a boycott. However, many colonial merchants were reluctant to participate in a difficult-to-enforce boycott. Despite this disagreement, most colonists agreed that a meeting to discuss an appropriate collective response to British actions was a good idea. Colonial legislatures sent representatives to Philadelphia, and the First Continental Congress convened in September of 1774. The Continental Congress agreed to the Articles of Association on October 20. These Articles listed colonial grievances and called for a locally-enforced boycott in all the colonies to take effect on December 1. The delegates also drafted a petition to King George III laying out their grievances, although by then they doubted that the crisis would be resolved peacefully.

Realizing that further coercive steps would only enrage the colonists and might lead to war, British military governor Gage wrote to London recommending suspension of the Intolerable Acts. Gage hoped to appease many of the colonists and thereby split colonial moderates from radicals. If London was not amenable to his recommendations, Gage stated that he would need significant reinforcements to crush the growing rebellion.

British ministers responded to Gage's suggestions by removing him from his post. They felt that further punitive measures were necessary and pushed Parliament to pass additional trade restrictions on New England. London declared the colonies to be in rebellion, but also offered to stop taxing those colonies that supported the British Government.

By this time, the most astute leaders from both sides viewed armed conflict as inevitable. Gage's attempts to secure his position in Boston only brought him into conflict with local militias and a hostile populace, and it was only a matter of time until open war began in 1775. The opportunity for peaceful negotiation came to an end, and the war for American Independence began on April 19, 1775 when British troops and American colonists clashed at Lexington and Concord.

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Milestones: 1750-1775 - Office of the Historian

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The American Revolution was precipitated, in part, by a series of laws passed between 1763 and 1775 that regulating trade and taxes. This legislation caused tensions between colonists and imperial officials, who made it clear that the British Parliament would not address American complaints that the new laws were onerous.

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Four of the bloodiest years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern "insurrection."

As early as 1858, the ongoing conflict between North and South over the issue of slavery had led Southern leadership to discuss a unified separation from the United States. By 1860, the majority of the slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans, the anti-slavery party, won the presidency. Following Republican Abraham Lincoln's victory over the divided Democratic Party in November 1860, South Carolina immediately initiated secession proceedings. On December 20, the South Carolina legislature passed the "Ordinance of Secession," which declared that "the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved." After the declaration, South Carolina set about seizing forts, arsenals, and other strategic locations within the state. Within six weeks, five more Southern states-Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana-had followed South Carolina's lead.

In February 1861, delegates from those states convened to establish a unified government. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was subsequently elected the first president of the Confederate States of America. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, a total of seven states (Texas had joined the pack) had seceded from the Union, and federal troops held only Fort Sumter in South Carolina, Fort Pickens off the Florida coast, and a handful of minor outposts in the South. Four years after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, the Confederacy was defeated at the total cost of 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead.

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Four of the bloodiest years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort.

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American Identity and Unity - AP U.S. History Sample Essays - Study Notes

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100% Free AP Test Prep website that offers study material to high school students seeking to prepare for AP exams. Enterprising students use this website to learn AP class material, study for class quizzes and tests, and to brush up on course material before the big exam day.

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Britain and the Imperial Crises

Throughout most of colonial history, the British Crown was the only political institution that united the American colonies. The Imperial Crises of the 1760s and 1770s, found England saddled with crippling debt, incurred in large part by wars such as the French and Indian War.

The British government responded by increasing taxes on the American colonists, which drove the colonies toward greater unity. Americans throughout the 13 colonies united in opposition to the new system of imperial taxation initiated by the British government in 1765.

The Stamp Act of that year-the first direct, internal tax imposed on the colonists by the British Parliament-inspired concerted resistance within the colonies. Nine colonial assemblies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress, an extralegal convention that met to coordinate the colonies' response to the new tax. Although the Stamp Act Congress was short-lived, it hinted at the enhanced unity among the colonies that would soon follow.

Did you know? Almost every significant political figure of the American Revolution served in the Continental Congress, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Patrick Henry and George Washington.

Colonial opposition effectively killed the Stamp Act and brought about its repeal in 1766. The British government did not abandon its claim to the authority to pass laws for the colonies, however, and would make repeated attempts to exert its power over them in the years to follow.

Taxation Without Representation

In response to the violence of the Boston Massacre of 1770 and new taxes like the Tea Act of 1773, a group of frustrated colonists protested taxation without representation by dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773 - an event known to history as Boston Tea Party.

Colonists continued to coordinate their resistance to new imperial measures, but between 1766 and 1774, they did so primarily through committees of correspondence, which exchanged ideas and information, rather than through a united political body.

The First Continental Congress

On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies-except Georgia, which was fighting a Native American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies-met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to the Intolerable Acts (or Coercive Acts) recently passed by the British Parliament.

The delegates included a number of future luminaries, such as future presidents John Adams of Massachusetts and George Washington of Virginia, and future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and diplomat John Jay of New York. The Congress was structured with emphasis on the equality of participants, and to promote free debate.

After much discussion, the Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, affirming its loyalty to the British Crown but disputing the British Parliament's right to tax it without representation in the parliament. The Congress also passed the Articles of Association, which called on the colonies to stop importing goods from the British Isles beginning on December 1, 1774, if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed.

Should Britain fail to redress the colonists' grievances in a timely manner, the Congress declared, then it would reconvene on May 10, 1775, and the colonies would cease to export goods to Britain on September 10, 1775. After proclaiming these measures, the First Continental Congress disbanded on October 26, 1774.

Second Continental Congress

As promised, Congress reconvened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the Second Continental Congress on May 10, 1775-and by then the American Revolution had already begun.

The British army in Boston had met with armed resistance on the morning of April 19, 1775, when it marched out to the towns of Lexington and Concord to seize a cache of weapons held by colonial Patriots who had ceased to recognize the authority of the royal government of Massachusetts.

The colonists drove the British expedition back to Boston and laid siege to the town. The Revolutionary War had begun.

Fighting for Reconciliation

Although the Congress professed its abiding loyalty to the British Crown, it also took steps to preserve its rights by dint of arms. On June 14, 1775, a month after it reconvened, it created a united colonial fighting force, the Continental Army. The next day, it named George Washington as the new army's commander-in-chief.

The following month, the Continental Congress issued its "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms," penned by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, a veteran of the First Congress whose "Letters from a Farmer of Pennsylvania" (1767) had helped arouse opposition to earlier imperial measures, and by a newcomer from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson.

In an effort to avoid a full-scale war, Congress coupled this declaration with the Olive Branch Petition, a personal appeal to Britain's King George III, asking him to help the colonists resolve their differences with Britain. The king dismissed the petition out of hand.

Common Sense, Divided Loyalties

For over a year, the Continental Congress supervised a war against a country to which it proclaimed its loyalty. In fact, both the Congress and the people it represented were divided on the question of independence even after a year of open warfare against Great Britain.

Early in 1776, a number of factors began to strengthen the call for separation. In his stirring pamphlet " Common Sense," published in January of that year, the British immigrant Thomas Paine laid out a convincing argument in favor of independence.

At the same time, many Americans came to realize that their military might not be capable of defeating the British Empire on its own. Independence would allow it to form alliances with Britain's powerful rivals-and France was at the forefront of everyone's mind. Meanwhile, the war itself evoked hostility toward Britain among the citizenry, paving the way for independence.

Declaration of Independence

In the spring of 1776, the provisional colonial governments began to send new instructions to their congressional delegates, obliquely or directly allowing them to vote for independence. The provisional government of Virginia went further: It instructed its delegation to submit a proposal for independence before Congress.

On June 7, Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee complied with his instructions. Congress postponed a final vote on the proposal until July 1, but appointed a committee to draft a provisional declaration of independence for use should the proposal pass.

The committee consisted of five men, including John Adams and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. But the declaration was primarily the work of one man, Thomas Jefferson, who penned an eloquent defense of the natural rights of all people, of which, he charged, Parliament and the king had tried to deprive the American nation.

The Continental Congress made several revisions to Jefferson's draft, removing, among other things, an attack on the institution of slavery; but on July 4, 1776, the Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence.

Waging the War

The Declaration of Independence allowed Congress to seek alliances with foreign countries, and the fledgling U.S. formed its most important alliance early in 1778 with France, without the support of which America might well have lost the Revolutionary War.

If the Franco-American alliance was one of Congress's greatest successes, funding and supplying the war were among its worst failures. Lacking a pre-existing infrastructure, Congress struggled throughout the war to provide the Continental Army with adequate supplies and provisions.

Exacerbating the problem, Congress had no mechanism to collect taxes to pay for the war; instead, it relied on contributions from the states, which generally directed whatever revenue they raised toward their own needs. As a result, the paper money issued by Congress quickly came to be regarded as worthless.

The Articles of Confederation

Congress's inability to raise revenue would bedevil it for its entire existence, even after it created a constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation, to define its powers. Drafted and adopted by the Congress in 1777 but not ratified until 1781, it effectively established the United States as a collection of 13 sovereign states, each of which had an equal voice in Congress (which became officially known as the Congress of the Confederation) regardless of population.

Under the Articles, congressional decisions were made based on a state-by-state vote, and the Congress had little ability to enforce its decisions. The Articles of Confederation would prove incapable of governing the new nation in a time of peace, but they did not seriously undermine the war effort, both because the war was effectively winding down before the Articles took effect, and because Congress ceded many executive war powers to General Washington.

Treaty of Paris

Congress's final triumph came in 1783 when it negotiated the Treaty of Paris, officially ending the Revolutionary War. The Congressional delegates Franklin, Jay and Adams secured a favorable peace for the U.S. that included not only the recognition of independence but also claim to almost all of the territory south of Canada and east of the Mississippi River.

On November 25, 1783, the last British troops evacuated New York City. The Revolutionary War was over and Congress had helped to see the country through.

However, the Articles of Confederation proved an imperfect instrument for a nation at peace with the world. The years immediately following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 presented the young American nation with a series of difficulties that Congress could not adequately remedy: dire financial straits, interstate rivalries and domestic insurrection.

Legacy of the Continental Congress

A movement developed for constitutional reform, culminating in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. The delegates at the convention decided to scrap the Articles of Confederation completely and create a new system of government.

In 1789, the new U.S. Constitution went into effect and the Continental Congress adjourned forever and was replaced by the U.S. Congress. Although the Continental Congress did not function well in a time of peace, it had steered the nation through one of its worst crises, declared its independence and helped to win a war to secure that independence.

Sources

Continental Congress, 1774-1781. U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian.
First Continental Congress. George Washington's Mount Vernon.
The Continental Congress. PBS: American Experience.
Continental and Confederation Congresses. U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives.
The Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence. National Park Service.

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Continental Congress: First, Second & Definition - HISTORY

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The Continental Congress was the first governing body of America. It led the Revolutionary War effort and ratified the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

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On March 25, 1774, British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city's residents pay for the nearly $1 million worth (in today's money) of tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773.

The Boston Port Act was the first and easiest to enforce of four acts that together were known as the Coercive Acts. The other three were a new Quartering Act, the Administration of Justice Act and the Massachusetts Government Act.

As part of the Crown's attempt to intimidate Boston's increasingly unruly residents, King George III appointed General Thomas Gage, who commanded the British army in North America, as the new governor of Massachusetts. Gage became governor in May 1774, before the Massachusetts Government Act revoked the colony's 1691 charter and curtailed the powers of the traditional town meeting and colonial council. These moves made it clear to Bostonians that the crown intended to impose martial law.

In June, Gage easily sealed the ports of Boston and Charlestown using the formidable British navy, leaving merchants terrified of impending economic disaster. Many merchants wanted to simply pay for the tea and disband the Boston Committee of Correspondence, which had served to organize anti-British protests. The merchants' attempt at convincing their neighbors to assuage the British failed. A town meeting called to discuss the matter voted them down by a substantial margin.

Parliament hoped that the Coercive Acts would isolate Boston from Massachusetts, Massachusetts from New England and New England from the rest of North America, preventing unified colonial resistance to the British. Their effort backfired. Rather than abandon Boston, the colonial population shipped much-needed supplies to Boston and formed extra-legal Provincial Congresses to mobilize resistance to the crown. By the time Gage attempted to enforce the Massachusetts Government Act, his authority had eroded beyond repair.
READ MORE: American Revolution: Causes and Timeline

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We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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On March 25, 1774, British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city's residents pay for the nearly $1 million worth (in today's money) of tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773.

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Boston, Massachusetts is known as "the birthplace of the American Revolution" because many historic events took place there during the revolution.

Boston played an important role in the American Revolution because it was the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the home of the colonial government, and the center of trade and commerce of the colony.

Once the Revolutionary War started in April of 1775, Boston became an important military objective to both the British and the colonists.

Boston harbor was the main port for importing and exporting goods and supplies in the region and was a vital maritime transportation center. Having control of Boston and the harbor was a great strategic advantage.

The following is an overview of events that happened in Boston during the American Revolution:

Acts of the American Revolution:

The historic events that took place in Boston during the American Revolution were a direct result of the various acts that Parliament passed during this time period.

These acts were designed to give the British government more control of the American colonies trade industry in an effort make money off of them and help pay down the debt occurred during the French and Indian War.

Port cities like Boston were a vital part of the social, economic and political fabric of the British colonies. The various Parliamentary acts passed to regulate trade in the colony directly affected the port and merchants in Boston, which is what prompted their strong reactions and protests in the city.

The acts were also met with much resistance in the colonies because the colonists had been allowed to self-govern for so long, particularly during the period of Salutary Neglect from the early to mid 18 th century, that they were resistant to suddenly give up their control to the crown.

Each new act that was passed sparked protests, revolts, riots and acts of rebellion in Boston that eventually led to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

The Boston Massacre:

The Boston Massacre was a riot that occurred in Boston in March of 1770. The riot occurred when a group of protestors showed up outside the State House in Boston to protest the increased presence of British troops in Boston that occurred after the Townshend Acts were passed.

On the night of March 5, a scuffle occurred between one of the protestors and a guard at the State House which angered the protestors even more and prompted them to throw rocks, sticks and snowballs at the guards.

The scene quickly became chaotic and the guards fired several shots into the crowd, killing five civilians. The guards stood trial for the massacre and all but two were found not guilty. The other two were convicted of manslaughter and were branded on the hand.

The Boston Tea Party:

The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the Tea Act in 1773. The Boston Tea Party took place in Boston harbor in December of 1773 when several hundred protestors rowed out to three cargo ships in the harbor, climbed aboard and dumped over 300 crates of British tea into the harbor.

According to the book Historical Cities-Boston, Massachusetts, it was the Boston Tea Party which forced the British government to act on the growing rebellion, which in turn escalated the conflict:

"It was the Boston Tea Party which confronted the British cabinet with the choice of capitulation or force, replied to by the Port Act, which marked the beginning of a policy of coercion and led swiftly to open warfare."

The Siege of Boston:

The Siege of Boston marks the early phase of the Revolutionary War and began in April of 1775 when British troops retreated from the Battle of Concord to Boston where they were then trapped inside the city by the local militiamen.

A number of battles took place during the siege, such as the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Battle of Chelsea Creek, the Battle of Gloucester as well as the Battle of Dorchester Heights, which is the last battle of the siege as it prompted the British to finally abandon Boston and move on to New York. The British force's failure to break the siege was the first significant loss for the British in the Revolutionary War.

For more information on this topic, check out the following article Massachusetts in the American Revolution.
Sources:
Wilkerson, Lyn,Historical Cities-Boston, Massachusetts. 2010

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Boston, Massachusetts is known as "the birthplace of the American Revolution" because many historic events took place there during the revolution. Boston played an important role in the American Revolution because it was the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the home of the colonial government, and the center of trade and commerce of the colony.

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The French and Indian War saw two European imperialists go head-to-head over territory and marked the debut of the soldier who would become America's first

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1607

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He was the first person to be killed in the revolution.