Transcript for:
The Crisis Leading to American Independence

[Music] come on give me liberty fans we got chapter 5 for you today this one coming from the fourth edition of the textbook but if you got another one it'll match up make sure you check the description right now I have so many videos that relate to this chapter lots that are lots of topics that are broken down and very important to understand to succeed in a push a really any history class all right let's get started so we're talking about the crisis between the colonies and Britain and a lot of this really goes back to the end of the seven years war that ended in 1763 Britain is in a tremendous amount of debt this is a turning point this is actually the essay topic from the 2015 AP exam so Britain and so to neglect they begin to take a more hands-on approach on the colonies and this really drastically alters the relationship between the British and the colonists so new acts were passed to regulate trade and keep in mind prior to 1763 trade was loosely enforced yes there was a navigation acts for the most part they weren't really enforced and Americans got around it by smuggling Britons were heavily taxed and they felt that the burden should be extended to the colonists as well now some colonists were upset that they didn't have representation so the British government argued yeah bro you're virtually represented and this means that all the people living in the British Empire were represented in Parliament even if they could not vote and this was rejected by colonists they didn't like this Rhett's of assistance were created and these were essentially open-ended search warrants that allowed British officials to search homes and especially ships for smuggled goods and if somebody was caught smuggling they would be tried in an admiralty court where they were guilty until proven innocent there was no trial by jury lots of tension this creates between the colonists and the British as well currency Act was created in this prohibited colonies from printing paper money and they must use hard currency or gold and silver all right stay in fact you see it start wicked wicked important Stamp Act this was a direct tax on the colonists to raise right this was not approved by the colonial assemblies so this is an example of taxation without representation it was a tax on 50 commonly used goods paper goods like carts newspapers marriage licenses you name it if it's made out of paper chances are it was taxed and this affected virtually all colonists this was the first tax that no matter where you were living as a countess you would be affected by this so Americans begin to view themselves as equals to the British counterparts and the bridge covers like no borough Parliament supreme you guys ain't equal sorry in America we have this rallying cry of no taxation without representation and this was used by the car by the countess to say hey we want representation in Parliament and here is how the Stamp Act was viewed in America you see it as a symbol of death or awfulness so stamp collectors were hanged in effigy effigy is when you make like a straw man or a a fake person and you hang them and you label them as let's say a stamp collector and committees and organizations emerge to resist the Stamp Act most nobly the Stamp Act Congress which was a colonial organization to boycott the Stamp Act and we'll see that it's successful in the colonies so Sons of Liberty's this was a Sons of Liberty was a new group that emerged and they emerged to resist British taxes and they would harass stamp collectors and they had support from craftsmen laborers and merchants and after much American resistance Parliament will repeal to stay up act in 1776 because economically it is hard to enforce now this is a turning point this is hugely hugely important the countess realized if they resist or put up a fight with any tax or act that the British will eventually give in now in the 1760s we have a movement called the regular later movement and these people were upset about under-representation for Western settlements in the South Carolina Assembly so you have poor people living out on the western frontier they're upset about under-representation kind of a similar idea to beacon to rebellion they criticize the wealthy and eventually in 1771 they were suppressed by the South Carolina militia present-day Vermont we have conflicts that emerged between New Yorkers in New England over land and colonial elites really these two these two issues helped illustrate the Kodi elites feared challenges to British Authority might also result in challenges to a two colonial authority so these are kind of movements of lower-class individuals that are resisting elites colonial elites okay Townsend X these were created by Charles Townsend here he is it was a tax on Glee and glas.t lead and paint john dickinson writes his very famous book letters from a Pennsylvania farmer and he argued for a reconciliation with Britain and that the cow should be treated like Englishmen basically he's arguing for let's go back to the days of salutary neglect where we all got along so well this was a very very popular best-selling book many colonists encouraged purchasing of homespun clothing or clothing as made in the United States as a way of boycotting British made goods daughters of Liberty were women who made homespun clothing it became very helpful in this movement and artisans benefited greatly from the boycotts because their products were now being bought instead of British ones now in Boston we have the very famous of Boston Massacre and understand this let's go back a little bit and many British soldiers wanted second jobs besides being soldiers and they would compete with colonists for these jobs which would increase tensions now in March of 1770 there's a colonial crowd that is very upset and they are pelting the British soldiers with snowballs with rocks and they're yelling things at them now nobody really knows why the British fired but they began to fire under the crowd killing five Americans including Crispus Attucks who was african-american and generally considered to be the first person killed in the American Revolution now Paul Revere he was a famous printer Lee jumps on this and he creates this engraving any titles that you can see up here the bloody massacre so really portrays the colonists as these innocent group here just peacefully standing there in the British shooting at them and this really really really helps increase tensions as well John Wilkes as a member of parliament that was critical of the king he really became like a folk hero or rallying cry in the colonies many people looked up to him the Tea Act was created to bail out the near bankrupt British East India Company and what it does was it puts a tax on tea now interestingly enough the price of tea was cheaper than smuggled tea but the colonists still boycotted it because they hated taxes so much so they were against all taxes they were willing to pay more for smuggle tea because there wasn't a tax on it and as a result of the Tea Act we have the Boston Tea Party that occurred now in response to that Britain passes the Intolerable or the coercive acts they closed the port of Boston they instituted a new quartering act in which the soldiers could stay in the homes of people living there and they also revoked a Massachusetts Charter at the same time they passed something known as the Quebec Act which extended the boundary of Canada to the Ohio Valley so American colonists are very concerned because they think the Canadian border is encroaching on their land and the Quebec Act also provided legal protection for Catholics which many Protestant American colonists were very weary of and many colonists feared that Britain was strengthening Catholicism at their expense so the Quebec Act angered many American colonists as well let's jump over to the Continental Congress this was passed in response this was created in response to the Intolerable Acts the Suffolk resolves encouraged disobedience to laws encourage people not to pay taxes and ultimately to help prepare for war the Continental Congress was made up of all colonies except for Georgia and included people like John Adams in George Washington Patrick Henry gave his very famous speech give me liberty or give me death that really became a rallying cry as well now the Association encouraged no trade with Britain in the West Indies and Committees of safety developed and that they were created to help transition power from colonial governments in which the British government had control to grassroots organizations and Kawas based their arguments on natural rights their rights to elect individuals to not pay taxes without consent many many many colonists wanted to be seen as equals in the British Empire which the British did not share the same view gives jump on over to of Lexington and Concord April of 1775 more than one year prior to the American Declaration of Independence there is a conflict between the colonists and the British now Britain sought to seize colonial arms stationed there and this was known as the shot heard round the world in the colonists push the British soldiers back now in June of that same year 1775 Weah breeds Hill which was incorrectly called breeds Hill it's actually called Bunker Hill this is the Battle of Bunker Hill in which the colonists took a surprisingly high number of British casualties now in 1776 the Second Continental Congress was created and they'd like to George Washington as commander of the colonial military they're going to be the ones who ultimately push for the Declaration of Independence now throughout 1775 it's very important to know most Americans did not want independence rather they simply want to go back to the days of solitary neglect the governor of Virginia seen that war was kind of imminent offered freedom to slaves that fought on behalf of the British and this really angered a lot of plantation owners some of which were loyal to the British crown now in January of 1776 a very famous book is written common sense it starred you got to know it I have a video on it check the description below but before we get to that we're going to talk about the Olive Branch petition which sought reconciliation with King George a third and Great Britain this was after the fighting in King George the third says no Thomas Paine or T pain comes along he argues that it's common sense for America to break away from England and this pamphlet becomes a best-seller in the county so hundreds of thousands of copies so is ready to appeal to common people it avoided complex language was not written to thee to the audience of the elites but rather to the average everyday colonists this was issued as I mentioned in January 1776 and independence happened six months later in July so the Declaration of Independence was written primarily by this dude Thomas Jefferson who wrote it when he was 33 years old I am 33 years old I'm having a mini midlife crisis because I haven't done it like that now what this does did was it provided a list of grievances against King George in third and it drew on him a lot of Enlightenment ideas like natural rights John Locke's life liberty and property he changed to life liberty and you know it the pursuit of happiness so laws of nature he argue justified independence and and there was even some inspiration from John Locke's a social contract that rulers have responsibility to the ruled so American exceptionalism is this belief that America really served as a symbol of freedom for the rest of the world and this really has been a major idea throughout most of American history the Declaration of Independence inspired people from around the world you see it in present-day Belgium and in many areas of Latin America and this dude's emo Boulevard if you took AP World History any world history class you learned about him Maddi independence movements were inspired in Latin America and many people around the world began to believe in the belief that you know what average everyday people do have rights that the government should protect all right let's talk about British advantages during the war they had a better trained army with more men than Hessian soldiers who were these really bad German shoulder soldier dudes that were hired to fight and they had an elite Navy the basa Navy in the entire world America had home-field advantage that a stronger will and they had really good leadership by people like George Washington some slaves acquired freedom through fighting on behalf of the Americans during the Revolution and blacks under Washington fought an integrated unit so they were fighting side by side with whites the next time this would happen would be the Korean War in the 1950s the Virginia legislature emancipated some slaves or freed some slaves that fought in the American Revolution and Washington's surprise attack on the Hessians in the early years of the war really increased the morale of the troops battle Saratoga starred know this bad boy here's a painting of it and check it out in the rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington DC Denis Norman's painting check it out it'll be a great time October 1777 general but going of the American side defeated the British this was a turning point because France entered the war on behalf of the American colonists they began to provide aid to them and the reason they did this was they hope to regain lost land from the Seven Years War now they never got it back but they did hope for in 1780 it was a really bad year Congress it was almost bankrupt Benedict Arnold he defected to the British side became known as America's most famous traitor an American colonists engaged in guerrilla warfare throughout much of the south now Marquis de Lafayette he was as French Dube became buddies with George Washington he played an instrumental role in the war the battle Yorktown this was the last major battle of the war concered the final battle of the Revolutionary War and the Americans win and the Treaty of Paris provided that the British would recognize us independence the u.s. gained control all the way to the Mississippi River and they also gained fishing rights off of Canada all right let's do a quick recap and if so we turn neglect why did that happen what were its impacts no the stamp back stayed back Congress the Townsend acts what were those taxes on the Tea Act how that led to the Boston Tea Party and held the Boston Tea Party led to the Intolerable Acts homespun movement what was it what was the goal common sense who wrote it what was the message was it influential if so how the impacted the Declaration of Independence on the world the British and American advantages during the war and finally the Battle of Saratoga all right guys look forward to seeing right back here for chapter six thank you very much for watching if you have any questions or concerns feel free to leave them in the comment section below and thank you guys very much for watching have a good day