[Music] what's up history people today we're taking a look at a very important topic the road to the American Revolution what really happened between 1763 and 1775 when fighting breaks out now keep in mind 1763 is a huge Turning Point England gets a major expansion of its territory by defeating France but it comes at a great cost quick rundown remember the end of the Seven Years War the French Indian War England's in debt solitary neglect comes to an end they're not going to have a hands-off approach to the colonies they need to deal with that debt pontiac's Rebellion causes a lot of concern for England because they have to use their military to crush that native resistance and they want to prevent colonists from moving West so they issued the Proclamation Act of 1763 really the first of a series of Acts that England's going to impose on the colonies and all sorts of things are happening following the end of the French and Indian War in fact you get the Two Georges King George III and his prime minister George Grenville over there on the right advocated for acts to increase revenue and to consolidate Colonial control no more solitary neglect so what do we mean by consolidating Imperial control well you get the Sugar Act in 1764 it's passed on on sugar to raise revenue this is the First Act intended to raise revenue and remember there were other acts previously like the Molasses Act of 1733 which the colonists often times ignored or evaded so along with the Sugar Act you get the British stricter enforcement of the Navigation Acts which were being completely ignored and there's a Crackdown on the colonies you're not going to be smuggling like you were in fact violators would be tried in vice admiralty courts and these courts really caused a lot of anger in the colonies because the crown appointed the judges and there was no juries so you get a lot of colonial opposition early on not only to the Proclamation of 1763 but to the Sugar Act and to Old acts being more strictly enforced you also get the Quartering Act in 1765 which colonists were required to provide food and housing for British soldiers in the minds of England you know this was only Fair these soldiers are over in North America protecting these colonies and so therefore they're going to have to pay their fair share this also causes anger in the colonies but the big one the one you better know about is the Stamp Act in 1765 this placed a tax it's the first Direct Tax meaning the tax is collected from those who use the good and it placed a tax on a variety of legal documents and items everything from newspapers to advertising ments to pamphlets to legal documents anybody using any of those items had to pay this stamp tax this really angered the colonial Elite the wealthy especially in the middle class and the commercial class because they're the ones producing these items and so you get a lot of opposition from the Stamp Act and one of the big arguments from the colonist was this was passed without consent of the colonial legislators remember different colonies like Virginia have the house of Burgess they say the colonies say we didn't vote for these taxes therefore we're being taxed without proper representation and you get a whole bunch of colonial responses to the Stamp Act for example in the house of Burgess Patrick Henry a very kind of influential Colonial leader issues something called the Virginia resolves and in it he reiterates the no taxation without representation he talks about only the colonial legislator could tax the colonies he's heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideas coming over from Europe and they're accustomed to a tradition of self-rule the colonies have been kind of doing their own thing for a very long time now England responds to these charges with something very important called virtual representation and they basically say you are British citizens colonist therefore you are represented by Parliament and the colonists don't buy it you have other responses you have the stamp at Congress this meets in New York and representatives from nine colonies meet to oppose British policies especially the Stamp Act this is a move towards intercolonial Unity the colonies are meeting they're working together and this is the first organized resistance amongst the colonies to British policy now it's important to keep in mind intercolonial disunity remaining organizations secret societies like the Sons of Liberty and also the Daughters of Liberty formed the Sons of Liberty were a more radical group because of their attacks on Royal officials their Ing and Feathering that was used to harass Tax Collectors but they were very influential in organizing the boycotts various colonists were issuing non-importation agreements you could see a list of people who violated those agreements against British Imports and this was the most effective form of resistance to British policies there's a huge drop in trade in fact many British merchants over in England are demanding Parliament repeal the stamp back because they were losing tons of money as a result of these boycotts this is a Grassroots movement you have a variety of people in colonial society taking part in it it's not just the colonial Elite and as a result of this failure to actually generate revenue for the crown Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act it wasn't raising the money so you might as well repeal the darn thing but you still have that dilemma you still need to pay off the debt from the French and Indian or the S years war after the stamp back was repealed Parliament does pass something called the decory act in 1766 and it basically is saying to the colonies we still have the power we still have the authority over you we could still tax you so don't get all giddy and happy and things of that nature they still need to raise revenue they still need to find a way to get that coin get that money and Charles Townsen becomes the new Chancellor of the ex Checker basically the money guy and he proposed his own Revenue plan this is of course named after him the townin ACT which puts a tax on Imports such as paper tea glass and other items this created a lot of controversy because the money raised by the AE would be used to pay Royal officials in the colonies previously their salaries were paid by the colonial assemblies and if you're a colonist you feel like if they're getting paid by officials in England they're going to rule in favor of the English versus the colonist interest so you have once again tension mounting another part that really angered people did this kind of like shock to a lot of colonists the British could search private homes for goods by getting a RIT of assistance rather than having to get a warrant they could search for smuggled or illegal Goods with just a simple RIT of assistance and as you could see shock spread amongst the colonist there was resistance to the townin ACT tax not to the same degree as the stampex since this was an indirect tax paid by Merchants there's not a huge widespread resistance but there is still some really important to know is John Dickinson writes letters from A farmer in Pennsylvania in his writing he talks about that these taxes are against English law and that colonists as British subjects have rights as individuals he uses a lot of the ideas coming over from the enlightenment to once again denounce the taxes and imposed by parliament of course England argues that the colonists are represented with virtual representation but this does not quiet the anger amongst many colonists colonists once again created non-importation we're not going to buy any British goods and non-consumption agreements and it really has a huge blow on British trade colonists are boycotting British goods you have the Daughters of Liberty a group made up of colonial women organizing spinning bees where they would rather make their own clothes than purchase those sold by British merchants and you have a whole variety of groups mobilizing including women Artisans laborers and so on unfortunately for the British England was losing more money than it was generating by these taxes because of all the colonial resistance and as a result rather than continue to lose money the townin duties are repealed in 1770 England backs down again now around this same time tensions are really high there's a lot of troops in the Boston area an incident occurs in early 1770 and that is of course the Boston Massacre what happens is British troops open fire near the customs house on a group of colonist some would call it a mob and this event leads to the death of five colonists Paul Rivier uses this engraving you see right there as Pro Colonial propaganda kind of showing the British soldiers gunning down these innocent colonist the reality was much more complicated in fact John Adams one of the preeminent colonists at the time second president of the United States he actually defends the British soldiers against murder charges because he feels it's the right thing to do following this massacre there is kind of a chill moment no one wants people to die you know there's no calls for Independence at this point so keep that in mind you do have the colonist once again meeting again and this is the Committees of Correspondence they're led by Samuel Adams another prominent colonist and they're used to keep up communication and resistance amongst the colonists to British policies this is another example another movement towards intercolonial Unity they're exchanging letters they're talking but once again no independence from around 1770 to 1773 there's no real big protest going on but that all changed es with tea time the Tea Act was passed in 1773 once again by Parliament and it gave a monopoly to a British company the British East India Company the company was near bankruptcy and Parliament kind of wanted to bail them out in spite of the fact that the British tea was still cheaper than smuggled tea the colonists were still opposed to it because the principle they have not consented to be taxed they still oppose the te act and once again that idea that Parliament could tax the colonies was unfathomable for them we all know how this story ends because in 1773 you have the event known famously as the Boston Tea Party members of the Sons of Liberty some of them Loosely dressed up as Native Americans board some ships and dumped tea into Boston Harbor this event was not without controversy Not only was the British East India Company parliament in England and the crown mad but also some colonists resisted the action because this was a destruction of private property and no no no you don't do that that was considered too Radical by some even in the colonies as a result of the Boston Tea Party England Parliament passes the coercive acts in 1774 and these acts are really intended to be punitive they're intended to punish the colonies we're going to spank their butts and they do a variety of things to accomplish this goal Boston Port was closed until the property was paid for in fact you could see by 1775 where the British troops are being sent and a huge amount of them are in the Boston area that's where a lot of this early protest was taking place it drastically reduced the power of the Massachusetts legislature and it banned the town hall meetings that kind of big Democratic institution in the New England colonies they are banned the Quartering Act was expanded so once again four British troops are being sent over the colonies the colonists were expected to provide for them Royal officials accused of a crime would be put on trial in England rather than the colonies and the colonists were outraged by this because they felt this would not ensure Justice would be served the colonists were outraged and called the coercive acts the Intolerable Act so if you see Intolerable Acts Cove acts they're the same thing the colonists respond to the Intolerable Acts by a DEC a known as the suffk resolves this was made by a county in Boston and it called on the colonies to boycott British goods until the Intolerable Acts were repealed so tensions are mounting again between England and the colonies now something that has nothing at all to do with the colonies but yet stirs up trouble nonetheless is the Quebec Act in 1774 it's England trying to figure out what to do with the Canadian lands they acquired from France as a result of the Seven Years War there's something like 60,000 French subjects in Canada and England needs to figure out what to do with them in the territory that they got so here's what they do Under the Quebec Act it extended the boundary of Quebec into the Ohio Valley so you could see the before and the after Roman Catholicism was established as the official religion and the government was allowed to operate without representative assemblies no Colonial legislators or trial by jury now all of these things were kind of the way France ran its Colony anyhow and England continues to allow it to occur from the colonist perspective they are pissed off the colonists claim the land in the Ohio Valley was for them remember that kind of sparked the war how dare they allow these French Catholic Canadians to have that land Protestant colonists are not happy about Catholicism being kind of granted free reign in this territory remember there was a lot of anti-catholic feelings in the colonies and they're worried that England will try to take away representative government in the colonies they already saw their Town Hall meetings and their legislators being shut down is this what's going to happen permanently many colonists view the Quebec Act as a direct attack on them and once again it's another thing that adds to the pressure and the tension between the two sides and as a result of all this tension and really as a result of the Intolerable Acts you you get the First Continental Congress meeting in 1774 all colonies except Georgia they're too far they're not interested send representatives to meet in Philadelphia in September of 1774 you get a diverse group of people coming together you got Patrick Henry Sam Adams John Adams George Washington and this is another example of colonial Unity this is largely made up of the colonial Elites they disagreed about things but for the most part they wanted to repair their relationship with England they wanted to figure out how to respond to their perceived violations of their Liberties but they want to bring the relationship between the English and the colonies back to the way it was pre 1763 it's important to note they're not calling for Independence this was not a movement towards independence not yet they adopted the Declaration of Rights and grievances in which once again they talk about taxation without representation they said Parliament you have the right to regulate commerce but you can't be doing these other things but King George dismisses these grievances they endorsed the suffk resolves they created the association which sounds really official to coordinate an economic boycott amongst the colonies and they also start making military preparations remember there's a lot of British soldiers especially in the Boston area so they're getting ready to defend themselves in case things get even worse and finally they plan to meet again in May of 1775 so what's the response of England well King George III dismisses their grievances he declares Massachusetts in rebellion and more troops are sent to North America to try to get these colonists in check and that leads us to the opening shots of the American Revolution at Lexington and conquered the first fights of the American Revolution actually occur well over a year before independence is even declared and here's the background British troops led by general Gage leave Boston to seize Colonial weapons and to try to arrest Rebel leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock as they're heading out of Boston they head to a place called Lexington and the Minutemen which is what the colonial militia were called they're warned by two individuals Paul rir and William Daws that the British are coming and at Lexington the shot herd around the world takes place as British soldiers kill eight colonist in April of 1775 now once again just like the Boston Massacre no one really knows kind of all the details there's the British side there's the colonist side and there's probably somewhere in the middle some truth there but nonetheless eight colonists are killed once again notice the date April 1775 we will not declare independence until July of 1776 no one anticipated this fighting to occur at this moment but it does in fact another battle took place at conquer as the British troops are Marching back to Boston they're attacked by Colonial militia they're shot at and they're shocked because the colonial militia are fighting them and they're holding their ground and we have the start of fighting of the American Revolution in our next video we'll take a look at how we actually end up declaring independence but until next time make sure if the video helped you out you click like if you haven't already done so subscribe if you have any questions post them in the comments and have a beautiful day peace