American Revolution

• Tasks
• Background
• Teachers' notes
• External links
• Connections to curriculum

On 4^th July 1776, the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. This declaration of independence from British colonial rule has been explained in terms of anger over taxation, fear of losing rights and liberties, and the idea of fundamental corruption within the colonial administration. This lesson focusses on the political thought that inspired the American Revolution, and the ideas that influenced the decision to declare independence.

Use the documents in this lesson to explore the context for the political thought that inspired the American Revolution.

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Tasks

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Background

The Seven Years’ War was fought between Great Britain and France from 1756-1763, primarily on the North American continent. Following the end of the war, in which Britain and her allies were victorious, Parliament passed a series of acts to raise money to pay for the expense of what they saw as a war for the defence of Britain’s American colonies.

The Stamp Act was passed in March of 1765, and introduced a tax on paper goods. There was a precedent that the colonial assemblies, being the direct representatives of the colonists, should pass taxation, and therefore the Stamp Act, which was passed by Parliament directly, faced a severe backlash. There were violent riots across the continent, with looting of British officials’ homes, like Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts. The rallying cry of ‘no taxation without representation’ became well-known. Parliament decided to repeal the Act in March 1766.

Later, in 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Duties, which introduced taxes on multiple commodities, including glass, paper, and tea. In response, complaints were printed in pamphlets and newspapers, including John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. The colonists came together to form non-importation associations, in which they boycotted British goods to pressurise Britain to repeal the duties. This action worked and the Act was repealed in March 1770, although a tax on tea remained.

Several other incidents occurred between the repeal of the Townshend Duties and the next series of Acts in 1774. On the 5 March 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd of Bostonians, killing multiple people. This caused a serious outcry and became known as the ‘Boston Massacre’. Moreover, in 1772, the HMS Gaspee, a ship enforcing the Navigation Acts, ran aground off the coast of Rhode Island. It was attacked and set on fire by a group of men protesting the customs laws.

Furthermore, the 1773 Tea Act, intended to bail out the East Indian Company, sparked the Boston Tea Party, which took place on the 16^th of December 1773. In this, a group of colonists in Boston dumped 340 chests of Tea into Boston’s Harbour.

In response to the Boston Tea Party, Britain passed the Coercive Acts, which came into force in June 1774. This included: The Boston Port Act; The Massachusetts Government Act; The Administration of Justice Act; and the Quartering Act. These closed Boston’s Ports, dissolved the Massachusetts Assembly, allowed trials to be moved to other colonies or Great Britain, and made more stringent provisions for the stationing of British troops on the continent. To protest these, the colonists came together in a series of Continental Congresses, in which they debated how best to respond to British Actions.

Alongside the Coercive Acts, in 1774 the Government of Great Britain also passed the Quebec Act, which granted freedom of religion to Catholics living in the province after the British won it from the French following the Seven Years’ War. Previously, only Protestants had been allowed to practice their religion. However, this act caused widespread opposition in the colonies. The colonists perceived it as a further extension of illegitimate authority. Given their history as religious refugees, they feared that, once it had taken root in Quebec, Catholicism would move into the colonies and exert papal tyranny over Protestant communities. In their critiques, the colonists emphasised fears of arbitrary authority and despotism, and the importance of religious liberty. They feared that the enlargement of the territory of Quebec, which had gained lands from New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, would intensify the tyrannical power that would be established there. It was ultimately unlikely that the freedom of religion granted to Catholics in Quebec would have had any negative influence.

Following an increase in tensions, and the outbreak of fighting in 1775, the Americans issued the Declaration of Independence on the 4 July 1776.

Throughout this eleven-year period, the Americans drew on several different political traditions to articulate their grievances against Great Britain. They were influenced by ideas from classical Greece and Rome; Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Baron Charles Montesquieu, and David Hume; British actors that theorised about the English Civil War and Revolution; and religious ideas. The documents here make contemporary references to British history including Magna Carta and raise questions over the rights of people and responsibilities of government.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet entitled ‘Common Sense’, first published in Philadelphia in 1776 after conflict had broken out between the British and colonists, was widely read by Americans and fed into arguments for independence, making the case for equality, independence and a republic. Paired with all these ideological ideas, the colonists also had pragmatic concerns over trade, taxation and religion.

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Teachers' notes

All documents are provided with transcripts with difficult terms defined in square brackets. Students can work through the questions individually or in pairs and report back to the class. Alternatively, teachers may want to use this lesson in two parts owing to the large number of sources. We would encourage teachers to ask students to explore other original records available online from the links in this lesson.

Finally, although this lesson is aimed at Key Stages 4/5, teachers could use these documents and provide their own questions and/or create simplified transcripts to use with younger students.

Banner image

In 1754, Benjamin Franklin published this political cartoon during the French and Indian War. At the Albany Congress Franklin put forward a plan that the colonies should form a joint congress to defend themselves, a colonial union twenty years before the Revolutionary War. This cartoon, entitled ‘Join or Die’, shows a snake cut up into eight pieces, each piece representing a different colony. The letters stand for: South Carolina; North Carolina; Virginia; Massachusetts; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; New York; [and] New England. The cartoon was based on a common superstition that a snake would come back to life if its pieces were put together before sunset. American newspapers often published the cartoon. It became a symbol of unity, especially during the Stamp Act crisis in 1765. Conversely, other British cartoonists used the image as a symbol of derision.

Task 1: Sources 1a; 1b

The colonists had several critiques of the Stamp Act. The main problem was that it had been passed without the consent of colonial assemblies. Consent to taxation, which secured property, was seen as a fundamental right of the British Constitution. However, the colonists also levied additional critiques. They believed that the local officials imposing the taxes were doing so to increase their own wealth and were therefore prioritising their own self-interest above the common good. Economic corruption was thus a major concern for the colonists.

In Source 1a, students should note concerns regarding taxation and trade, two key elements in colonial political thought. This was linked to a belief that they had a natural right to the property that they had worked hard for, which could not be taken away without their consent. Such ideas can be seen in the phrase ‘life, liberty, and property’, which echoed John Locke’s own use of the phrase in his arguments about the right of an individual to own the products of his own labour. Students should also discuss the ideas of masters and slaves. For the colonists, a slave was one who was dependent on another – usually a master – for his subsistence. Therefore, when they became dependent on British control of their property through taxes that they had not consented to, they saw themselves as political slaves. This remained separate to chattel slavery because the colonists were white Englishmen who had a right to all the privileges from their native land, not enslaved Africans who were seen as natural slaves.

For Source 1b, Thomas Hutchinson’s signs of opulence led to his house being looted by ordinary colonists who felt that he was prioritising his own self-interest. He was seen as a symbol of corrupt British authority, and thus became a target for ordinary people to voice their discontent. The idea that rulers should act in the interests of their people is a prevalent idea across political theories, and references to ideas of contract theory and the right to overthrow rulers who did not act in the public good can be linked to John Locke’s own arguments in his Two Treatises on Government. Students can note the fact that, when they felt that their representatives were not being heard, the people acted directly, rebelling against signs of economic corruption. Therefore, we can see violence and uprisings even before the first shot was fired in 1775, although it should be noted that many elites distanced themselves from these ‘mobbish’ actions.

Task 2: Sources 2a; 2b; 2c; 2d

The sources for this task concern opposition to the ‘Coercive’ or ‘Intolerable Acts’ of 1774.

In 1688, the people of England petitioned William of Orange – married to the heir of the crown, Mary II – to take the throne. We can see how the English criticised intervention into their liberty and property in Source 2a and the way that the Continental Congress condemned Parliament for threatening their Lives, Liberties, and Properties in source 2c. This latter phrase is taken directly from John Locke’s argument that everyone has a natural right, prior to society, to life, liberty, and property. Therefore, there are similar concerns with political despotism and infringements on the people’s liberty, but the colonists follow Locke directly.

Source 2b describes the attack on Fort William and Mary in New Hampshire in December 1774. The fort was part of the British defence system manned by soldiers who reported to the Governor appointed by the Crown. For the colony, it was an obvious symbol of oppression. It is useful for students to appreciate that New Hampshire’s proximity to Massachusetts Bay Colony also fuelled anti-British sentiment in New Hampshire following the Boston Massacre in 1770, the 1773 Boston Tea Party, and legislation in the form of ‘Coercive’ Acts or ’Intolerable Acts’.

Finally, it is worth noting that whilst the English Revolutions were directed towards Kings, until 1776, Americans cited Parliament – not King George III – as the source of their grievances. They believed that the King was being manipulated by a corrupt group of ministers, and that he would act in their interests if he could. This can be seen in sources 2c and 2d.  Right until independence, the Americans wanted to mend their relationship with the King, as they still fundamentally saw themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown. From the introduction of William of Orange, English citizens also remained loyal; they wanted to change who occupied the throne, but not abolish the monarchy like the regicide of the mid-seventeenth century.

Religious language was also prevalent throughout the Revolution. In Source 2d, we can see the Provincial Congress use their Christian religion in their discussion of God, ‘the Righteous Governor of the World’, fearing that there had been a divine allowance of a conspiracy against them. This contrasts with their belief in their God-given natural rights.

Task 3: Source 3

Source 3 describes proceedings by the town of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire. It is an example of popular response. Town meetings were a common feature across eighteenth-century America, and a way for ordinary people to discuss and vote on matters of the day. Only propertied white men were allowed to vote, reflecting the idealisation of landed freeholders in colonial life, but this still allowed a broad segment of free society to participate. We can see in this source the way that the town accepted the measures of the Continental Congress, reflecting the widespread popular participation in decisions of how to respond to British actions.

The town resolves not to participate in gaming and drinking, but instead emphasise industry and frugality. This harkens back to the non-importation agreements of the late 1760s, in which the colonists pressured the British government to repeal duties on trade by refusing to import any goods from abroad. These taxes, known as the ‘Townshend Duties’ or ‘Revenue Acts’, were heavily criticised in John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. In 1774, the colonists refused to engage in any luxurious activities, which included tea, an item which had been taxed in 1773, and instead focus on hard work to ensure that they grew and made their own goods to maintain their independence from Great Britain. This also linked to concerns about economic corruption and vice during the Stamp Act Crisis, as seen in source 1b. Therefore, ordinary people could not only participate in town meetings, but strive for independence in agricultural or manufacturing spheres.

Task 4: Source 4

This proclamation from the Governor of Georgia reflects debates among the authorities over the legitimacy of popular action, and the controversial place that popular sovereignty played in eighteenth-century political thought. Here we can see the Governor contesting the people’s argument that they were protesting grievances, instead asserting that these were ‘imaginary’. This was, therefore, a contest over the narrative of opposition to the Coercive Acts, with collective popular action, including town meetings, being seen as riotous exercises against legitimate authority by the elite, against the people justifying their right to voice their opinions and hold their leaders to account.

As representatives of British authority, this condemnation of the people’s right of protest would have inflamed the colonists and intensified their belief that they were governed by an arbitrary authority that wanted to quench all opposition to it.

Task 5: Source 5

On the 4 July 1776, America declared her independence from Great Britain. This document emphasised several important political concepts. The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ emphasised the importance of John Locke’s ideas of natural rights from God, and re-iterated American concerns over placing one man in charge in the position of a monarch. Students may wish to critique this statement, noting both the existence of slavery in America, and the fact that only propertied men were given political equality. Women, slaves, and poor white men were excluded. Locke’s ideas of the importance of consent to government is confirmed in this source. If rulers are unable, or refuse, to secure the people’s rights, then the latter have a right to withdraw their consent to the leader and replace him. In this case, rebellion is legitimate. Therefore, the colonists used Locke’s idea of legitimate resistance to justify independence and the war that followed.

Finally, despite these Lockean influences, we can see a shift away from his ideas as the Declaration of Independence emphasised ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’, rather than ‘life, liberty, and property’. Property was still fundamental to living a life of ease, but the idea of happiness reflected the more modern movement towards pleasure and satisfaction, rather than simply having a right to property.

Task 6: Sources 6a; 6b; 6c

As referenced in Sources 6a and 6b, the American colonists saw themselves as fundamentally British. They believed that they had a shared history with their fellow citizens in the Mother Country, and were entitled to the same rights, liberties, and privileges, guaranteed in the English Constitution and Magna Carta. Having fled from persecution in the seventeenth century, they were ever vigilant against the potential for further arbitrary authority being exercised from across the Atlantic. They thus evoked their British identity and sense of a shared past to warn those at home and abroad against the oppressions that could result when rulers transgressed their constitutional bounds. Consequently, the English Civil War and Revolution were cited as examples of legitimate rebellion by a people whose liberties had been infringed upon by an absolute monarch. They used this shared past to appeal to the British public, in the hopes that they could be mobilised into pressuring their representatives to treat the colonists, their brothers, more leniently.

One difference, as already discussed, is that arguments of corruption in seventeenth-century England were directed towards the monarch. Conversely, until 1776, the Americans focused on Parliamentary, not monarchical, corruption.

The American colonies had a very high literacy rate, and they cherished the ideal of a free press. This created receptive conditions to a flourishing print culture, in which newspapers and pamphlets were circulated with the most recent news of the day, political opinions, and announcements from colonial and imperial leaders.

The press was vital to the spread of political ideas throughout the Revolutionary period. People engaged with events by writing letters to the printers, leading to a ‘republic of letters’ whereby the public could engage with each other across the pages of their colony’s Gazettes. Of course, often it was still the more educated elite who wrote pieces for newspapers, but the middling and lower classes could still read or listen to the articles in local town halls, taverns, or coffee houses.

Here, we can think about the diversity of actors that influence politics: it is not only statesmen and political leaders, but also those on the ground. Printers spread political ideas, with newspapers circulating between colonies, which helped to create a sense of colonial unity.

There was also a strong transatlantic print trade, with people like Benjamin Franklin establishing links with printing houses in London. Thomas Paine’s two pamphlets, Rights of Man and Common Sense, were two extremely influential works that inspired the Revolution. They show the importance of the circulation of ideas, with Paine articulating the reasons why opposition to a monarch could be justified. Furthermore, they also reveal the role that British writers played in the development of the American Revolution.

In line with the previous point, Source 6c, the British cartoon engraving by an unknown artist entitled ‘The Political Cartoon for the year 1774’ from the ‘Westminster Magazine’, offers a similar perspective to the colonial newspaper sources. It is critical of the British state for ignoring the historical significance of the Constitution and Magna Carta. George III is satirised for saying ‘I glory in the name of Englishman’. Teachers can encourage students to explore how the revolutionary war was perceived by different factions in Britain.

Sources

Illustration image: Benjamin Franklin’s cartoon warning to the British colonies in America to “Join or Die.” Illustration in ‘The Pennsylvania Gazette’ 9 May 1754. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.

Source 1a: Extract from an article published in the Boston Evening Post on the 28 October 1765, Catalogue ref: CO 5/755 f.391

Source 1b: Extract from inventory property from the house of Thomas Hutchinson. Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts Bay, 26 August 1765, Catalogue ref: CO 5/755 f.373

Source 2a: Extract from a letter of invitation to William of Orange to become King, 30 June 1688, Catalogue ref: SP 8/1 f.224v.

Source 2b: Extract from a Deposition [by Captain John Cochran concerning the attack on Fort William and Mary in New Castle, New Hampshire, 29 December 1774, Catalogue ref: CO 5/939 f.64

Source 2c: Extract from the ‘Proceedings of the Grand Continental Congress’, 5 September 1774, Catalogue Ref: CO 5/939 (3 of 4)

Source 2d: Extract from ‘In Provincial Congress, Exeter, New Hampshire, 6 June 1775’ by Matthew Thornton, President, Catalogue ref: CO 5/939 f.164

Source 3: Extracts from the New Hampshire Gazette, 8^th Day of December 1774, Catalogue ref: CO 5/939

Source 4: A proclamation from Sir James Wright Governor of Georgia, 1774, Catalogue ref: CO 5/663

Source 5: Extract from the Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776, Catalogue ref: EXT 9/76

Source 6a: Extract from the Boston Evening Post, 28 October 1765, Catalogue ref: CO 5/755 f.391

Source 6b: Extract from The New Hampshire Gazette, entitled ‘Continental Congress to People of Great Britain’, 2 December 1774, Catalogue ref: CO 5/939 (2 of 4)

Source 6c: Cartoon engraving entitled ‘The Political Cartoon for the year 1774’ from the ‘Westminster Magazine’. Artist unknown. Image courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Cartoon Prints, British.

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External links

• John Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations – The American Revolution
  An online document exhibition from the Library of Congress.
• Treason against the state: America declares independence
  Find out more about the Declaration of Independence from this National Archives blog.
• Explore a timeline from Library of Congress from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774 to 1789.
• Milestone Documents: Revolution and the New Nation
  Milestone documents of the American Revolution from US The National Archives in Washington D.C.
• More detail on the inventory (Source 1b) and looting of Thomas Hutchinson’s House at the Time of the Stamp Act Riots
• The Massachusetts Historical Society has uploaded thousands of Bostonian newspapers from during the Revolution that would be a great way to introduce students to primary source material.
• The Avalon Project digitises more legal, government documents.
• The Rockefeller Library has a lot of sources from Virginia especially, including newspapers and some digital exhibits.

Connections to curriculum

Key Stage 4

• Edexcel GCSE History:
  • British America: Empire & Revolution 1713-83.

Key Stage 5

• AQA GCE History:
  • The origins of the American Revolution, 1760–1776
  • Enforcing the Colonial Relationship, 1763–1774
  • Ending the Colonial Relationship, 1774–1776
• Edexcel GCE History:
  • Britain: losing and gaining an empire, 1763–1914: The loss of the American colonies, 1770–83.
• OCR GCE History:
  • The American Revolution 1740–1796: Causes of the American Revolution.

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