Aztecs

• Beginning in about 1325, the Aztecs ruled a vast empire centered around their capital of Tenochtitlan near the site of present day Mexico City
• The Aztecs were an agricultural people ruled by a hereditary system of warrior-priest
• They worshipped several gods and had incorporated human sacrifice into their religious rituals
• At the time of the Spanish conquest in 1519, the Aztecs were ruled by Montezuma II

Bering Strait

Most archaeologist thought that the first humans in the Western Hemisphere were Siberians who crossed the Bering Strait on a land bridge to Alaska during the Ice Age

• In South America, the Incas ruled an empire that stretched along the Andes Mountains from Ecuador to Chile
• A vast system of road and bridges connected the empire through the mountains
•  The Incas were ruled by a priest-king called the Supreme Inca. He was considered a god and was thought to be immortal
•  The Incas recognized a system of reincarnation under which the spirit of the Supreme Inca was reborn in a younger man when he died
•  In a ceremony at Lake Titicaca, the Eldorado would be covered in gold and jewels and would dive into the lake to be reborn while the gold and jewels would sink to the bottom as a sacrifice to the Inca gods

Mayans

• The earliest of the great Indian civilizations were the Mayans, who flourished from 300-900 AD. They were a warlike people who ruled a large area in what is now considered Central America. They developed a system of writing, mathematics and a calendar
•  Like the Egyptians, the Mayans built pyramids although Mayan pyramids were used for religious ceremonies rather than as tomb
•  By 900 AD, the Mayans had declined due to overpopulation, overexploitation of natural resources, and constant fighting among the various Mayan group

•  The weakening of the Mayan civilization led to their eventual overthrow by the warlike Toltecs of the north
• The Toltecs took over the Mayan cities and temples as well as adding their own statues and monuments.
• Continued fighting and rebellions among the other tribes in what was left in the Mayan empire kept the Toltecs from become as strong a civilization as the Mayans and eventually they would collapse somewhere around 1200 AD

Caravel

·      A caravel is a small, highly maneuverable sailing ship developed in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean

Christopher Columbus

• Columbus and his men landed on the island of San Salvador. In all, Columbus would make four voyages to the New World
•  On his second voyage, he attacked and destroyed an Indian village
• On each voyage, Columbus became more and more obsessed with finding gold and began treating the Indians more and more brutally
• Eventually, he would be arrested by the Spanish king and returned to Spain

Columbian Exchange

• This term refers to the exchange of good and services between the native people of America and the Europeans. Food crops like corn and potatoes were taken to Europe by the explorers while tools and implements as well as weapons of metal were given to the Indian
• The Europeans also introduced new diseases to the Indians. Bio-historians believe that disease played as much a role in the conquest of the Indian tribes as technology

Hernando Cortez

• In 1519, Hernando Cortez landed near what is now Vera Cruz, Mexico with 600 men and marched on Tenochtitlan aided by Indian tribes opposed to the Aztecs
• The Aztec emperor was overawed by the Spanish, who he thought were gods, and quickly became a puppet of the Spanish
• After the Spanish began tearing down and defacing Aztec temples, the Aztecs rebelled in 1520, killing Montezuma and about 1/3 of the conquistadores
• By 1521, Cortez and his Indian allies reconquered the Aztecs. The Spanish abolished the Aztec government and ruled the former Aztecs. By 1528, the remaining Indians in Central America had been conquered by the Spanish

St. Augustine

Spanish settlement, oldest city in America 

Treaty of Tordesillas

·      In 1494, the Pope drew up the Treaty of Tordesillas drawing a line dividing the new lands between the Spanish and the Portuguese.  With the exception of Brazil, all of the Americas came under the control of the Spanish. Most of Africa was given to the Portuguese. 

Viceroys

·      A viceroy  is a royal offical who runs a country, colony, or city province in the name of and as representative of the monarch

• French traders from Quebec and later St. Louis called couriers du bois (runners of the woods) would leave the trading posts in the spring and trade guns, blankets, jewelry and metal implements with the Indians for furs. As winter approached, the couriers would return to the French settlement and sell their pelts to finance their return to the villiages 
• Often the traders would be accompained by Jesuit preiest intent on converting the Indians to Catholicism

John Smith

• The Company named a mercenary named John Smith to control the colony
• Smith instituted a rule that no one who would not work would be allowed to eat. He negotiated with the Indians for food and began exploring the region to establish English rule
• Smith would remain in control until 1609 when an accident forced him to return to England.
•   Without Smith, the colony entered the starving time and by the time relief arrived in 1610, only 60 of the colonists remained
• Legend has it that Pocahontas saved John Smith from being executed by her uncle when he was captured

Joint stock company

• King James VI came up with the idea of joint stock companies where private companies could receive a charter from the King, establish a colony, and share the profits with the king 

John Rolfe

• In 1616, one of the Colonists, John Rolfe succeeded in crossing the native Indian tobacco with Turkish tobacco to develop a smoother tobacco for sale in England
• The success of Rolfe brown gold made the colony prosperous and soon tobacco became the major export of the colony. This led to increased tensions between the Indians and the whites as whites tried to take cultivated lands from the Indians for use as tobacco fields. Rolfe married Pocahontas which helped to lessen the tensions for a bit

Roanoke Island was the site of the 16th-century Roanoke Colony, the first English Colony in the New World. It was located in what was then called Virginia and named after Elizabeth I

•  In 1606, James granted a charter to the Virginia Company to establish colonies in the New World. The Company had two divisions; the First Colony of London and Second Colony of Plymouth. One was to establish a colony at the mouth of the James River and the other later at Plymouth Bay
• The English colonist were expected to follow the plantation system of making the colonies Englang
• In 1607, the First Colony of London established the Virginia colony and the settlement of Jamestown

• In 1618, the Company instituted the headright system . Anyone who purchased shares in the company would be given 50 acres of land and 50 additional acres for anyone he brought with him to the colony
• In 1619, the Company promised the colonists that they would have the same rights as other Englishmen and allowed them to establish a colonial government so they could have a voice in the running of the government

• Established a colony at St Mary’s on the Potomac River
• This was the first proprietary colony given to an indivdual rather than a stock company
• He gave land grants to Catholics gentlemen and in order to draw settlers, he gave land to Protestants 

·      41 of the settlers entered into an agreement called the Mayflower Compact under which they agreed to be bound by rules set up by their elected leaders

·      English religious group that sought to purify the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630 

·      Separatists wanted to practice their religion and were very intolerant of the religious practices of other

• A young minister named Roger Williams objected to the rule of the Puritans and their reluctance to completely break with the Church of England. He called for a complete separation of church and state and objected to ‘forced worship’ and preached that everyone could be his own church
•  After he was removed from his church, he rejected any organized religion

• In 1636, the Pequot Indians were accused of killing a settler in Massachusetts. The settlers retaliated by wiping out a Pequot village on the Mystic River
• Pequot chief Sassacus led the Indians in war against the English. In the Pequot War of 1637-1638, the English ad their Indian allies killed every Pequot they could find. Eventually, the Indians were defeated and the survivors forced into slavery
• The Treaty of Hartford declared the Pequot nation dissolved although the tribe was reinstituted after the American War for Independence

·      The Non Separating Congregationalists had remained in England in hopes that they could reform the Church from within

Is a government that serves the colonies, they elect who serve as the people are granted with rights, and the government protects the people from the government trough the constitution. In consensual government system there are different political parties and there is freedom of speech

• Many poor people in England looked for a way to get to the colonies. Often, they would sell themselves into slaverly for a term of 7-10 years in return for passage
• After his term was up, the servant would be given his freedom, the tools of trade and allowed to take up land in the colonies
• Later it became a policy of the British courts to sentence petty criminals to bond servitude 
• The problem was that if a bond slave ran away, it was difficult to force them to return 

• She began claiming that she had received a revelation from the Holy Spirit and that the Puritan ministers were incompetent and preaching a false doctrine of salvation by works which was in opposition to the Calvinist belief that only God could determine who could be saved. Since God already knew who was going to heaven, why did the people need an organized church? The ministers responded that since no man knew God’s mind, churches were needed to make sure that everyone lived the right way in case they were among the chosen few
• Hutchinson was charged with the heresy of Antinomianism, the belief that a person could receive direct messages from God and was not responsible for following moral laws through faith.
• In 1637, she was banished from the Massachusetts colony. She and her followers settled near Portsmouth in Rhode Island. Hutchinson, who was pregnant, suffered a miscarriage causing the Puritan authorities to claim that God had punished her for her sins
• In 1642, she left Rhode Island for the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam where she was killed by Indians in 1643
• Winthrop and his followers called it divine justice

• The Duke of York, younger brother of Charles II was given the Dutch colony of New Netherlands by his brother and provided with an army to take it
• In 1664, a British fleet arrived and when Stuyvesant called on the Dutch to resist, they refused and surrendered to the English
• The English changed the name of New Amsterdam to New York and Fort Orange to Albany.
• In 1664, York gave Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley land between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. The area was known as New Jersey and in 1702, the two holdings were unified as the colony of New Jersey

• In 1642, the struggle between King Charles I and Parliament erupted into a full scale civil war for control of England
• By the end of 1642, the forces of Parliament, led by Puritan Oliver Cromwell had defeated the royalists
• Charles was accused of collaborating with the French and executed.
• During the Commonwealth period, immigration to the colonies slowed and, while the Parliament was occupied with other matters, the colonies were largely ignored and the colonies gained a larger measure of self government

• As the English moved inland, they ran into the most powerful tribe on the east coast, the Iroquois Confederacy. The Confederacy consisted of five tribes, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca and were ruled by 50 chief. Trading with the Dutch had provided them with guns and allowed them to take land from other tribes
• Because warriors gained status in war, they were fearsome warriors who never surrendered. They tortured captives and fully expected the same to be done to them
•  Continued attacks by the Iroquois caused their hereditary enemies the Huron, Erie and Ottowa to ally themselves with the French in Canada

• The remaining five colonies were proprietary or corporate colonies where the charter was held by an individual. In these colonies, both the governor and the colonial assembly were elected by the colonists and the rule of law was found in the colonial charter
•  The proprietary colonies had a large measure of self rule since they answered to the proprietors rather than the king and as long as they enforced British common law, they were left alone by the crown

• In 1660, the monarchy was restored under the rule of Charles II
• Charles began rewarding those who had helped him regain the throne with land grants in the colonies
• This would be the beginning of growth of proprietary colonies and the large scale settlement of the middle and southern colonies
• Charles II wasn’t really interested in the colonies  and was more than willing to allow them to run their own affairs while he spent his time with his mistresses

•  General Sir James Oglethorpe was named resident trustee and in 1733, the town of Savannah was established on Yamacraw Bluff, 18 miles upriver from the ocean.
•   Because the colony allowed freedom of religion, it quickly became a haven for persecuted religious groups from England and the continent

• Founded by George Fox, is always known as the Quakers
• The Quakers believed in individual spiritual inspiration and had done away with formal worship and ministry
• The believed in hard work, simple living, complete religious freedom and equality of the sexes 

• Penn, a member of a prominent family had converted to Quakerism and had inherited a sizeable fortune from his father including the rights to a loan his father had made to Charles II during the Restoration
•   In 1681, Charles II gave Penn a large land grant in the colonies as payment for the loan. The Colony was called Pennsylvania and it soon became a haven for religious dissenters from England and the continent.
• The Quakers had good relations with the Indians based on Penn’s insistence that all land be purchased from them Like most colonies, the colonial assembly was elected by the freemen of the colony
•  In 1682, the Duke of York gave control of the area of Delaware to Penn. Delaware became a separate colony in 1701

• People that were treated as the personal property chattels, of an owner and were bought and sold as commodities, is the original form of slavery

• The Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that began in England, came to America with the English settlers.
• The Enlightenment taught that natural law rather than God’s will controlled the universe.
• Reason began to be prized over emotions.
• The Enlightenment went over big in the colonies where people were chafing under the theocratic rule of the Puritans and where people were more willing to try new things
• Eventually, Benjamin Franklin would become the foremost Enlightenment philosopher in the colonies

•  In the 1730s, there was a reaction to the increased secularization in the colonies. As more people fell away from the church and with no organized religion on the frontier, a movement began among the churches to ‘Awaken’ the people
•  Fear of an uneducated minister after the generation of trained ministers from England died out led George Tennant to found the ‘Log College’ to train ministers

• Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist minister in North Hampton, Mass., began preaching against the licentiousness of the people in the town. He described his job as ‘scaring the Hell out of people
• Edwards launched his own revival and in 1741, delivered his famous ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ sermon. Revivals became more antic with talking in tongues, shouting, swearing etc. as revivalism spread throughout the colonies

• After the Lords of Trade revoked the charter of Massachusetts, James moved to consolidate his power over the New England colonies. He created an administrative unit and place Sir Edmund Andros in charge. Andros used his authority to control Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and East and West New Jersey
• Meanwhile, James had married the Catholic daughter of the King of France and when she delivered a son, Parliament became concerned that if Prince Charles Edward were to become king, he would try to reestablish the Catholic church in England

• In 1688, Parliament decided to invite James’ Protestant daughter, Mary and her husband, Willem of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland to take over the throne in return for recognizing the authority of Parliament, signing the English Bill of Rights and the Acts of Toleration which allowed complete religious freedom
• James’ fate was sealed when John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough defected to the side of Parliament.
• James, his wife and son were exiled to France
•      Andros was removed and the colonial charters restored

• In 1675, Metacom, chief of the Wampanoags, called King Phillip by the English attempted to organize the remaining tribes of New England in one last attempt to drive out the English
• In the end, Metacom and 3000 other Indians were killed and organized resistance to the English died out

• In 1675, Charles created the Lords of Trade to supervise colonial affairs
• The Lords were responsible for trade and administration and appointed colonial governors
• They also made sure that the Navigation Acts were followed and represented the colonies in their dealings with the king and vice versa
•  In 1684, the Lords of Trade won a court decision revoking the Massachusetts charter and putting the colony under their direct control

• Rather than giving the throne to James, Parliament offered it to the Duke of Hanover, a minor German aristocrat with rather tenuous ties to the Tudor monarchy
•  George came to England although he never learned to speak English
• As a result, most of the governing was carried out by Parliament and the King’s cabinet. The power of the prime minister was increased by Sir Robert Walpole as he took over the day to day running of the government

• In 1715, supporters of James Frances Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, rebelled against George in an effort to place James on the throne
• An act signed by Parliament had forbidden a Catholic from taking the throne and an earlier act of Parliament had made George’s mother heir to the throne if both Mary and Anne died without children. However, there were some fifty people in Britain who had clearer claims on the throne than George
• The rebellion failed to stir up the Scottish clans in favor of the Stuarts and failed miserably
•  Although George I was unpopular during his reign, he was seen as a better alternative than the Old Pretender

• In 1715, supporters of James Frances Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, rebelled against George in an effort to place James on the throne
• An act signed by Parliament had forbidden a Catholic from taking the throne and an earlier act of Parliament had made George’s mother heir to the throne if both Mary and Anne died without children. However, there were some fifty people in Britain who had clearer claims on the throne than George
• The rebellion failed to stir up the Scottish clans in favor of the Stuarts and failed miserably
• Although George I was unpopular during his reign, he was seen as a better alternative than the Old Pretender
• In 1745, supporters of Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender rebelled against the rule of King George II
• This time, the Stuarts managed to get most of the Scottish clans to support them
• George’s younger brother, William, Duke of Richmond, defeated the Scots at the Battle of Culloden Moor. In retaliation for the rebellion, the Scottish clans, wearing of Tartans, playing bagpipes were all outlawed. Thousands of Scots had their lands confiscated and were exiled to the colonies
• England and Scotland had been united into the United Kingdoms of Great Britain by the Act of Union of 1704, but the crushing of the 2^nd Jacobite Rebellion made it official
• Charles escaped to France and died in exile

• Where William, Duke Of Richmond, defeated the Scots. They lost their lands and was exiled 

•  Indian troubles would explode in Virginia in 1675 as well. When Indians killed a herdsman on the Potomac River, the colonial militia killed 10 Doeg Indians and 14 Susquehannocks in retaliation. When the Susquehannock chiefs came in to discuss peace, the colonial government arrested and executed them as well.  The Indians began raiding frontier settlements
•  A large landowner named Nathaniel Bacon took command of a group of vigilantes and began attacking and killing Indians indiscriminately. When the royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, ordered an end to the fighting, Bacon and his followers rebelled against the government and attacked Jamestown. When Bacon died, Berkeley and the colonial government quickly took control. In retaliation for the attack on Jamestown, Berkeley hung 23 rebels and confiscated the lands of others
• The king recalled Berkeley and ordered peace to be made with the Indians and the rebellion and Indian war ended in 1676

• Oglethorpe had placed Savannah on Yamacraw Bluff, eighteen miles west of the ocean on the Savannah River. Since Savannah was surrounded by marshes, the only way to attack the city was by coming up river past the forts guarding the port or landing south of Savannah and marching north about 90 miles
•  Oglethorpe had allowed Puritans to settle at Midway and Scots to settle at Darien. He knew that any invader would have to attack those towns first giving the English time to prepare
• The Spanish landed at St. Simons and attacked Fort Frederica and then moved on Darien. Alerted, Oglethorpe moved his men toward the Spanish

• The last and largest of the colonial wars fought by the British was the French and Indian War. Unlike the other wars, this one started in the colonies and spilled over into Europe
• The dispute began over trading in the disputed area of the Ohio Valley which was claimed by both the French and the British
• When the French built a string of forts in the disputed area, the royal governor of Virginia sent a company of militia under the command of Col. George Washington to demand they leave. When the French refused, Washington’s men set up a fort at the forks of the Allegheny and Monogahela Rivers near present day Pittsburgh. The French attacked and forced the British to abandon the fort. Washington’s men retreated back to Ft. Necessity where they were finally forced to surrender and allowed to vacate the area

• Pitt became Prime Minister and set about trying to win the war. He ordered the British fleet to blockade the French cutting off supplies to North America. Without trade goods, the French had difficulty purchasing the allegiance of the Indians
• Pitt also reorganized the army, encouraged the use of colonial militia, purchased the allegiance of the traditional Indian enemies of he French (particularly the Iroquois)

General James Wolfe

•  General James Wolfe, the most competent British commander in the colonies was ordered to move on Quebec.
• Quebec sat on a bluff overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Montcalm, thought that the city could only be attacked from the front and planned his defenses that way
•  Wolfe decided to risk everything on a chance that he could approach Quebec from the rear.
• Meanwhile, he set up a siege in the front of the city to distract Montcalm from what he was actually doing

Ft. Edward Massacre

 The French was accused of killing colonies 

• Governor in Canada moved into upstate NY and captured several British forts
•  In 1756, the colonial militia joined the British and pushed him back into Canada

•  September 12-13, the British, having found a back way to attack Quebec, met the French on the Plains of Abraham outside of the city
• The British soundly defeated the French and took the city, effectively ending French power in North America.
• During the fighting, both Montcalm and Wolfe were killed

The colonies would have united under one government, elected representatives to oversee all matters relating to the colonies 

·      In the 1750s a trader from Carolina named Daniel Boone had found the Cumberland Gap (a passage through the mountains) and by the 1760s the Wilderness Road through the mountains was open and settlers had begun pouring through

• George Grenville, 1^st Lord of the Treasury called for a massive British military presence and demanded that the colonists help pay for it
• He passed the Sugar Acts 

• Under the terms of the treaty the British forced on the French, Britain received all French territory east of the Mississippi including Canada but not New Orleans, several islands in the West Indies, and Florida (from Spain)
• Although the Acts of Toleration would have allowed the Spanish settlers to remain and practice their religion, most of the Spanish left to settle in the Spanish colonies
• In payment for their coming in on France’s side (and then losing), France ceded the Louisiana Territory to the Spanish
• When the treaty was signed, Britain became the most powerful nation in the world

• In order to keep peace in the newly acquired lands, Parliament ordered all British settlers to come back east of the Allegheny Mountains. This was called the Proclamation of 1763
• The problem was that there were already British settlements in the area of Kentucky, which had been promised to the Indians
• In the 1750s a trader from Carolina named Daniel Boone had found the Cumberland Gap (a passage through the mountains) and by the 1760s the Wilderness Road through the mountains was open and settlers had begun pouring through
• Lacking the manpower to force the colonials to return, the British government basically let them stay

• Placed a three pence per gallon duty on imported sugar used to make rum. Grenville felt that the money raised by these customs duties would cover the costs of defending the colonies

• One of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty in Boston was Samuel Adams.
•  A Harvard graduate, Adams had become involved in colonial politics. Along with James Otis, Adams led the boycotts of British goods until the tariffs and taxes were repealed. A Puritan, Adams felt that Parliament had no power to legislate for the colonies
• Adams and other members of the Sons of Liberty were engaged in a program of intimidation against the tax collectors. As a result, the royal governor asked for troops to help keep the peace. The British commander in New York sent troops to keep order
• In Virginia, a new set of Virginia Resolves were passed

• In June 1765, a meeting was called in New York. Nine of the colonies responded and in October the Stamp Act Congress met and issued a Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the Colonies. The petition was sent to the king for relief and a request was sent to Parliament asking for repeal of the Stamp Act. The Congress also offered to agree to Parliament’s power to regulate colonial trade in return for taxing power being given to the colonial assemblies
•  A boycott of the stamps began in the colonies which extended to any British goods that would require purchase of a stamp

A series of taxes called the Townshend Acts were passed to raise revenue. After the New York colony had its charter revoked for refusing to follow the Quartering Act, Parliament decided that leniency toward the colonies was causing them trouble. Townshend had the Revenue Act of 1767 passed levying tariffs on a host of imported goods, setting up a Board of Customs Commissioners to handle smuggling cases

• Tensions boiled over in Boston in March of 1770 when a crowd of protesters faced off with British soldiers outside the Customs House in Boston. The crowd refused to leave and began throwing rocks and sticks at the soldiers.
• One soldier fired into the crowd after being knocked down by a rock (some say he slipped and his gun accidentally went off). Other soldiers began firing into the crowd. One of the first killed was a freed slave named Crispus Attucks
• Five British soldiers were indicted for murder by the colonial courts. At their trial, their lawyer was John Adams. Two were convicted and returned to Britain
•  In order to calm things down, Parliament rescinded the Townshend Acts in April except for the tea tax

·      In response to the British, the Sons of Liberty formed Committees of Correspondence in the towns of the Massachusetts colony to keep up with the actions of the British colonial administration. In 1773, the Virginia assembly called for the formation of committees in all of the colonies

Loyalists 

·      The Loyalists, supporters of the King condemned the actions of the Sons of Liberty

• In 1772, a British customs schooner called the Gaspee ran aground while chasing smugglers near Providence
• When the British returned to refloat the ship, they found that someone had set the ship on fire and burned it to the waterline
• When the colonial authorities claimed they had no idea who had burned the ship or when it had happened, the British removed the salary of the royal governor and the judges from the colonial assembly and made it payable from the customs duties

·      In the colonies, a group calling itself the Sons of Liberty organized mass protests of the Stamp Act and even burned the Stamp Office in Boston

·      Stamp Act of 1764 which required a tax stamp on all printed matter and legal documents 

•  In May of 1765, the Virginia House of Burgesses issued the Virginia Resolves demanding that the colonies be given all of the rights they were entitled to as Englishmen and reiterating that only the colonial assemblies had the right to lay and collect taxes in the colonies

• In 1773, King George named his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord North to be Prime Minister
• North decided that the British government should bail out the financially troubled East India Company which was losing money due to the smuggling of tea into the colonies
• North then suspended the requirement that the company deal with the tea wholesalers and allowed them to deal directly with the colonial merchants
• ·      Fearing that the British government was attempting to set up a monopoly on the tea trade, the colonials called for a boycott of British tea

•  Removed all British officials from the jurisdiction of the colony

• The Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston until someone paid for the tea that was destoryed 

• Early in December of 1773, three shiploads of tea arrived in Boston Harbor. In spite of protests by the Sons of Liberty, colonial governor Hutchinson ordered the tea off loaded
• On December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Indians snuck aboard the three ships, took the crews hostage and tossed 342 cases of tea into Boston Harbor
• Although some in the colonies praised the Sons of Liberty, others were upset at the destruction of private property

•  In response to what he saw as continued defiance in the Massachusetts Colony, King George ordered the passage of the Coercive Acts or the Intolerable Acts as the colonies called them.
• The four acts were aimed at forcing obedience to Parliament’s will on the Massachusetts colony.
• The Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston until someone paid for the tea that was destroyed. The Administration of Justice Act removed all British officials from the jurisdiction of the colony. The Quartering Act increased the number of soldier in the colony and required the local government to pay for their housing, The Massachusetts Government Act replaced all elected officials with appointed officials and made General Thomas Gage military governor of the colony

• Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773 under which the governement would suspend the 12 pence per pound duty on tea and collect only 3 pence import duty, making East India tea cheaper than the smuggled tea

•  In 1760, George II died of a stroke and the throne passed to his grandson, George III.
• George III was the 1^st of the Hanoverian kings to be born and raised in Britain rather than Germany.
• He was young (20s) when he became king and was determined to bring all of Britain under his control

• Rejected the authority of Parliament to lay and collect internal taxes and called for the removal of British troops unless required by the colony 

• Also known as the Coercive Act consitied of 4 acts were aimed at forcing obedience to Parliament's will on the Massachusette's colony 

• Replaced all elected officals with appointed officials and made General Thomas Gage military governor of the colony 

A common belief among the colonial

The colonies were subject only to the king and that Parliament had no jurisdiction over the colonies 

• The British decided to break the siege of Boston rather than waiting on Washington to arrive and organize the troops
• Since Lexington and Concord, both sides had reinforced their positions. The British had sent three general with their troops and on June 17, Gage ordered a full assault on Breed’s Hill to break the siege lines
• The colonials pushed back two assaults, but by the third one they were out of ammunition and forced to retreat
• Even though the British won the battle, they lost over 1000 men and killed around 400 colonials. Sir Henry Clinton remarked ‘another such victory would have ruined us

• The Continental Congress named him commander in chief of the Continential Army
• With the aid of the French he defeated the British
• The Electoral College chose him to be the nation’s first president 

• Tensions between the Loyalists and Sons of Liberty were at a boiling point. Supporters of the British were being beaten and tarred and feathered by the Patriots.
•  On April 14, 1775 General Gage was ordered by Parliament to put down the rebellion in Massachusetts even at the risk of combat. He was also ordered to arrest the leaders of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress
• On April 18, Gage ordered 700 British regulars under Lt. Col Frances Smith and Major John Pitcairn to Lexington with orders to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock and then capture or destroy the Massachusetts’ militia supply depot at Concord

• The Minutemen, so called because they were supposed to be ready to respond in a minute to any threat, were sent to delay the British
• On April 19, the British met the Minutemen outside of Concord. Pitcairn ordered them to ‘Disperse, you damned Rebels’. Capt. Parker, badly outnumbered, began withdrawing toward Concord. Someone fired at the British who returned fire, killing eight colonials
• A brief skirmish at North Bridge outside of Concord left fourteen British soldiers dead and Smith decided to return to Boston.
• In a series of hit and run attacks, the colonials killed 250 British soldiers between Concord and Boston
• As more militia units arrived, the Colonials laid siege to Boston

• Early in 1776, a pamphlet by an anti monarchist Puritan named Thomas Paine appeared. The pamphlet, called Common Sense, accused the king of causing all of the problems in the colonies. This placed the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the king rather than Parliament
• Paine said that it was ‘Common Sense’ that a country should not be ruled by a tyrant 3000 miles away and called for the colonies to declare themselves to be independent of the British
• The pamphlet became very popular among the colonials, especially those who were leading the call for independence

• Congress also passed the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms in an attempt to explain to the king why the fighting had occured. The delcaration also rejected the calls for independence from some of the colonists

Congress decided to take a conciliatory tone with the king

John Dickinson authored the Olive Branch Petition of 1775 urging the king to suspend all hostilites until a conciliation could be reahched 

• Based on John Locke’s contract, in Jefferson’s words, governments derive their justice of powers from the consent of the people, who are entitled to “alter or abolish” those that deny their “unalienable rights” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness  

• Signer of the Declaration of Independence and a delegate of the First and Second Continental Congress
• He negotiated the peace treaty with Britian
• He served as the minister to Britian as well as vice president and second president to the US
• As president he passed the Alien and Sedition Acts and endured a stormy relationship with France, which included the XYZ affair 

• Introduced a resoultion stating that the united colonies are and out to be free

• He wrote out the first draft of the Declaration of Independence
• According to him, the king had violated the agreement with the colonies and therefore they had a right to break their contract