TOWARD
REVOLUTION
Interpreting
Primary Sources
For fire and
water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North
America. Nothing can exceed the
jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other....In
short...were they left to themselves there would soon be a civil war from one
end of the continent to the other, while the Indians and Negroes
would...impatiently watch the opportunity of exterminating them all together.
--Rev.
Andrew Burnaby, 1760
The
revolution was effected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.
--John
Adams, 1818
A colonist
cannot make a button, a horseshoe, nor a hobnail, but some snootly ironmonger
or respectable buttonmaker of England shall bawl and squall that his honor's
worship is most egregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and robbed by the
rascally American republicans.
--Boston
Gazette, 1765
We have
called this a burthensome tax, because the duties are so numerous and
high...that it would be totally impossible for the people to subsist under
it....We further apprehend this tax to be unconstitutional. We have always understood it to be a grand
and fundamental principle of the
constitution,
that no freeman should be subject to any tax to which he has not given his own
consent, in person or by proxy....We take it clearly, there fore, to be
inconsistent with the spirit of the common law, and of the essential
fundamental principle of the British constitution, that we should be
represented in that assembly in any sense, unless it be by a fiction of
law....
--Resolution
of the Town of Braintree, Massachusetts, 1765, opposing the Stamp Act
If we view
the whole of the conduct of the ministry and parliament, I do not see how any
one can doubt but that there is a settled fix'd plan for enslaving the
colonies, or bringing them under arbitrary government....If the ministry can
secure a majority in parliament...they may rule as absolutely as they do in
France or Spain, yea as in Turkey or India....
View now the
situation of America: loaded with taxes from the British parliament, as heavy
as she can possibly support under,--our lands charged with the most exorbitant
quit rent,--these taxes collected by foreigners, steeled against any impressions
from our groans or complaints...our
charters
taken away--our assemblies annihilated,--governors and councils, appointed by
royal authority without any concurrence of the people, enacting such laws as
their sovereign pleasure shall dictate...the lives and property of Americans
entirely at the disposal of officers more than three thousand miles removed
from any power to control them--armies of the soldiers quartered among the
inhabitants, who know the horrid purpose for which they are stationed, in the colonies--to
subjugate and beat down the inhabitants....
--Reverend
Ebenezer Baldwin, 1774
Considering
the utter impracticability of their ever being fully and equally represented in
parliament, and the great expense that must unavoidably attend even a partial
representation there, this House thinks that a taxation of their constituents,
even without their consent, grievous as it is, would be preferable to any
representation that could be admitted for them there.
--Circular
letter, Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1768
The New
Englanders by their canting, whinning, insinuating tricks havepersuaded the
rest of the Colonies that the Government is going to make absolute slaves of
them.
--Nicholas
Cresswell, a Tory, 1774
I have heard
it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her former
connection with Great Britain, that the same connection is necessary toward her
future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this
kind of argument....
Not one
third of the inhabitants, even of this province [Pennsylvania] are of English
descent. Wherefore I reprobate the
phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false,
selfish, narrow and ungenerous....
The injuries
and disadvantages we sustain by that connection are without number; and our
duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the
alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain, tends
directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels; and sets us
at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our friendship, and against
whom, we have neither anger nor complaint.
As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial
connection with any part of it....
[Continued
British rule will lead to] the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.
First. The powers of governing
still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the
whole legislation of this continent.
And as he hath shown himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and
discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper man
to say to these colonies, "You shall make no laws but what I
please"....Secondly. That as even
the best terms, which we can expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a
temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no
longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of
things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising....
O ye that
love mankind! Yet that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand
forth! Every spot of the old world is
overrun with oppression.
--Thomas
Paine, Common Sense, 1776
Questions
to think about:
1. What do the quotations suggest were the
fundamental causes of the American Revolution?
2. Describe the political and constitutional
views of the colonists. What is their
view of Parliament's right to tax the colonies?
3. Do you think colonists from different
sections and different social classes share the same political ideas?
4. Would you describe the colonists' grievances
as calm and carefully reasoned or as exaggerated and paranoid?
INTERPRETING
STATISTICS: COLONIAL SOCIETY
Britain's
New World Possessions, 1763
New England
Massachusetts 246,000
Connecticut 146,000
New Hampshire 53,000
Rhode Island 41,000
Middle
Colonies
Pennsylvania 220,000
(including Delaware)
New York
97,000
New Jersey 61,000
Southern
Colonies
Virginia 346,000
Maryland 164,000
North Carolina 115,000
South Carolina 95,000
Georgia 6,000
Canadian
Colonies
Canada 79,000
(formerly New France)
Newfoundland 9,000
Nova Scotia 8,000
West Indies
Jamaica 210,000
Barbados 88,000
Antigua 35,000
St. Kitts 25,000
Bermuda 11,000
Virgin Islands 7,000
Bahamas 4,000
Others 56,000
Questions
to think about:
1. Which were the largest British colonies in
1760?
2. How did the 13 American colonies compare in
size to Britain's other New World possessions?
3. Why do
you think 13 of the colonies would band together in 1776 and declare
independence—and not more or fewer?
Largest
Cities in the American Colonies, 1760
Philadelphia 19,000
Boston 16,000
New York 14,000
Charleston,
S.C. 8,000
Newport,
R.I. 7,000
Marblehead,
Mass. 5,000
Salem,
Mass. 4,000
Questions
to think about:
1. How many people lived in the colonies' three
largest cities?
2. Why do you think the urban population was so
low?
Ethnic
Division of the Colonial Population, 1775
English 48.7
percent
African 20.0
Scot-Irish 7.8
German 6.9
Scottish 6.6
Dutch 2.7
French 1.4
Swedish 0.6
Other 5.3
Questions
to think about:
1. What proportion of American colonists were
of English descent in 1775?
2. What were the largest non-English ethnic
groups in the colonies?
3. Why do you think that the colonies were able
to create relatively peaceful multicultural societies?
Distribution
of Wealth in Colonial America
Proportion
of wealth held by
Richest Poorest
10% 30%
Boston
1684-99
41.2 3.3
1766-75
61.1 2.0
Philadelphia
1684-99 36.4 4.5
1766-75
69.9 1.0
Chester,
Pennsylvania
1684-99
23.8 17.4
1766-75
33.6 4.7
Wealth per
free person, 1774 (in pounds sterling)
Total Wealth Slaves Land Other
New
England 33 0.02
28 5
Mid-Atlantic
Colonies 51 2
27 22
South 132 58 55 19
gationalist Reformed Reformed
Connecticut 19 12 155 1
Massachusetts 17 16 231 8
New Hampshire 1 40 5
Rhode Island 7 Questions to think about:
1. How evenly was wealth distributed in the
American colonies, in your view? Was it more evenly distributed in urban or
rural areas?
2. Was wealth growing more or less concentrated
over time?
Churches by
Denomination (1750)
Anglican
Baptist Catholic Congrega- Dutch German Lutheran Presbyterian
gationalist
Connecticut 19 12 155 1
Massachusetts 17 16 233 8
New Hampshire 1 40 5
Rhode Island 7 30 12
Delaware 14
2 1 3 27
New Jersey 18 14 2 2 7 4 19
2
New York 20
4 1 5 48
7 26 35
Pennsylvania 19 29 11 7 64 11 56
(Quaker meetings not included)
Georgia 3 2 1
Maryland 50
4 15 4 3 18
North Carolina 9 13 2 1
South Carolina 16 4 4 5 9
Virginia 96
3 5 5 17
Total 289 132 30 465 79 90 138 233
Growth
of Churches, 1700-1780
1700 1780 1860
Anglican 111 406 2,100
(Episcopal)
Baptist 33
457 12,100
Catholic 22
56 2,550
Congregational 146 742
2,200
Dutch
Reformed 26 127
n.a.
German
Reformed 0 201
1,100
Lutheran 7
240 2,100
Methodist 2,700
19,800
Presbyterian 28
495 n.a.
Quaker 350 725
Questions
to think about:
1. What were the largest religious
denominations in the American colonies?
2. Which were the fastest growing?
CHRONOLOGY: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1763 Treaty
of Paris Ends Seven Years' War
France Cedes Canada to
England
Proclamation
of Bars
settlement west of Appalachian Mountains
1763
1764 Sugar
Act Raises duties on imported sugar
Lowers duties on molasses
Increases power of
vice-admiralty courts
1765 Stamp
Act Requires revenue raising stamps on printed documents
Stamp
Act Congress
Quartering
Act Requires colonies to furnish British troops with housing and
provisions
1766 Declaratory
Act Asserts
Parliament's sovereignty over colonies
Stamp Act repealed
1767 Townshend
Revenue Impose duties on glass paper,
paint, and tea
Acts
1768 British
troops sent to Boston
1770 Boston
Massacre
1773
Tea Act Gives
East India Company right to sell directly to
Americans
Boston
Tea Party
1774 Coercive
Acts Close port of Boston
Restrict government in
Massachusetts
Quebec
Act Extends Canada's boundary to Ohio River; grants Catholics religious
toleration
First
Continental Congress meets
1775 Second Continental Congress meets