Chapter 5 The Strains of Empire

1
Chapter 5The Strains of Empire

• The American People, 6th ed.

2
The Climactic Seven Years War
3
War and the Management of Empire

• Four times between 1689 and 1763, England and
  France engaged in wars that had far-reaching
  effects on their colonial governments in America.
• Besides warmongering, the English Parliament
  designated a long list of colonial exports that
  had to pass through English ports before sale.

4
Outbreak of Hostilities

• English encroachment into the western territories
  of the French continued unabated into the 1740s
  with the establishment of the first English
  outpost on the Ohio River.
• Resistance by the French was swift a line of
  French forts appeared along the river to Lake
  Erie.
• The European powers reinforced themselves in
  preparation for a final conflict in the New World.

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
Tribal Strategies and Consequences of the Seven
Years War

• Native tribes, especially the Iroquois,
  understood that their best chance for survival
  was to play the European powers against each
  other.
• The 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Britain control of
  Florida Spain got New Orleans and French
  territory west of the Mississippi the Indians
  got nothing.
• The wartime economy and English victory
  strengthened the colonies and assured their
  continued growth

9
(No Transcript)
10
II. The Crisis with England
11
Sugar, Currency, and the Stamp Act Riots

• Sugar Act of 1764 increased the list of items
  that could only be exported from the colonies via
  English ports.
• Currency Act of 1764 Parliament prevented any
  of the colonies from printing their own currency.
• Stamp Act of 1765 Parliament imposed duties on
  a wide range of items within the colonies such as
  playing cards, legal documents, or college
  degrees.
• Violent protests within the colonies followed.
• Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 but
  reserved power to subjugate colonies to British
  law under the Declaratory Act.

12
Gathering Storm Clouds

• Townsend Duties of 1767 on paper, lead, pigment
  and tea.
• New York assembly dissolved for defiance of
  Quartering Act of 1765 mandating colonial support
  for British garrisons.
• Protest against the Townsend duties gradually
  took the successful form of economic boycott of
  English goods.
• Growing tensions led to the Boston Massacre,
  increased boycotts and the Boston Tea Party.

13
(No Transcript)
14

• In response to the boycotts and wanton
  destruction of English tea in Bostons harbor,
  Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (Intolerable
  Acts) closing the port of Boston and prohibiting
  most town meetings.
• This action prompts the call for a First, and
  then Second, Continental Congress to deliver
  colonial grievances to an unsympathetic king.
• By 1774, most of the colonies had defied the
  crown and appointed new assemblies.

15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
The Ideology of Revolutionary Government

• Gradually, the colonists constructed a political
  worldview constructed from English political
  thought, the constructs of the Enlightenment, and
  aspects of their own unique experiences as
  colonists.
• Every despised Act of Parliament became viewed as
  an attack on traditional English liberty and
  colonial economic independence.

18
The Turmoil of a Rebellious People

• Although cities contained only five percent of
  the total colonial population, they were the
  birthplaces of revolutionary theory.
• Patriot women facilitated meaningful boycotts of
  English goods.
• Rural rebellion from farmers under the guise of
  the Regulators demanded the attention of English
  troops on the colonial frontier.

19
(No Transcript)