Violence Erupts in Boston

In respond to the townshends acts all the protests came back . The large riots were in Boston because the big one abused their power . The Massachusetts legislation passed a letter denouncing that the Townshends act was causing problems . The governor resolved the massachusetts legislation and it was called the Massachusetts governor act . This act putted Massachusetts into a new leader . Colonist also lost their power to govern their colonies so the elected assemblies were banned .

Costume officers seized a marcher boat on June 1768 called “the liberty ” . The liberty was captured for smuggling . This ship belonged to a man called John hancock . He was a politician . The siezure of the bite caused riots against costumers so the king sent 400 troops to Boston . Boston at that time has about 16 thousand people . On march 1770 , one night a gropue of colonists started throwing snowballs and rocks to the costume house . Some soldiers opened fire and killed 5 colonists who were : Samule Grey , Crispus Attakus , Patric Carr , James Caldwell and Samule maveric . They called this event the Boston Massacre .

After this , Samuel Adams organized the comities of correspondence . this provided leadership and promoted cooperation , by 1773 mos colonies had settee up comities . The parliament took all of the townshends duties exeption for the one of tea . Colonist continued to boycott the British tea so the buyer the smuggled tea that came from Dutchland . This took them to the Boston tea party , this brought economical problems to the british. The west India company , to help the parliament started selling tea directly . This would be cheaper but tue colonist still denied it because they new that they would still be paying taxes .

Soldiers During The Colonial Period

This post is about the life of the soldiers, especial the ones during the colonial period. As you know the life of a soldier is never easy and has never been throughout history. During the colonial period, two armies existed; The British Army and the Colonial or American Army. Both armies had similarities and differences. The American Army wasn’t a real army it was more like a militia. When the colonies needed to defend from the British, the militia was ready to attack. Of course the training in the British army was rigorous and better but the men in the British army didn’t have what the men in the American militia had, desire to defend their homeland which later became the United States of America. If these men in the colonial militia, together with all the other men in the House of Burgesses, the Sons of Liberty and the patriots in general did not stood up agains the British tyranny, we wouldn’t have the great nation we have today, the United States of America.

The soldiers in the British Army were farmers, low laborers, and thieves who were avoiding to go to prison. Citizens from England enlisted in the army because during times of war, the government offered ten times the money a man could earn at a normal job. Citizens in England earned very little in their jobs, so this opportunity was really hard for a men to pass up. The government provided food and cloth to the British soldiers and even shelter because of the Quartering Act, so the money they earned was completely for their families. Sometimes the British soldiers were allowed to take their family wherever they were sent. The British soldiers received a hard training before they were able to attend a mission or a war. They were also very ordered even to attack! During an attack, one of the rows would kneel down with their weapons ready and the other row would stand behind with their weapons over the heads of the kneeling army. The uniforms were very elegant. They consisted of a red coat, a ruffled shirt, tight leggings, high black boots and a tall black hat. The weapon the British army used was called the “Brown Bess”. The British Army was the most powerful army of the time because of their bravery and hard training.

In the other hand we have the colonial army or Militia. It was composed of common laborers, workers and property owners. Before the Revolutionary War against England, England gave money to the militia to buy supplies. As you can imagine this support was cut off during the war against them. After the support from England was cut, wealthy men like John Hancock and countries who wanted to see British defeated, gave the supplies needed to the militia. The money paid was not that much and it was only paid after the soldiers completed their enlistment time. Most of the weapons the men in the militia used were weapons they personally owned such as hunting muskets. Not everybody in the militia used uniforms as they weren’t enough and officers usually paid for their uniforms. They did not have an special training as the one the British Army had. The fighting methods they used were the ones they learned from the British Army and the Native Americans. These last ones were most effective. These methods consisted in hiding behind rocks and trees to difficult the visibility of the militia to the British soldiers. The British couldn’t shoot at will, while the colonists would shoot or fire at will, then they will run and hide. George Washington discovered this was an effective way of fighting against the British and together with the advantage that they were fighting in their homeland, they used these to win the battles.

British Soldiers.

Colonial Protests Intensify

As we all know life in the colonies in this part of history wasn’t easy. They had a lot going on some started to have intellectual protest this was the time to open their eyes they needed this to move and getting their cause to be heard or force the them to hear. Colonial leaders wrote pamphlets they drafted resolutions and gave speeches to expand their followers they all wanted the same for the place they live in, having meetings and planing economical boycotts was the first thing to do, abstaining of buying or using products that came from england and in this way easily affecting the crown.At some point colonist were coming with all they had, giving violent intimidation to intimidate those that worked for the parliament they were considerate as traitors. This is how a strong movement was built.

A very famous character was John adams( second president of the united states) a very prominent Massachusetts lawyer he contributed by giving ideas for the enlighment. Europeans thinkers were starting to emerge like the famous John lock and Baron Montesquieu they both thought that people were originally born with three natural and important rights: life, liberty and property. This rights were supposed to be protected by the government and he insisted that the government existed for the good of people and if not the people had the right to stand against it he called it the right to protest, it consisted in making their voice and ideas head without discrimination of money society class, believes or any other kind.

Patrick henry was another character of The colonial history who contributed to the cause and boycotts that were about to take place, he was a very young virginian colonial representative who helped by using the enlightment new ideas to write several drafts a radical important documents called “Virginian Resolves” he didn’t know the effect this was about to have in the american revolution. He soon presented the drafts at the Virginian house of Burgesses in May 30 of 1765. The house of burgesses accepted four of the six documents that Patrick Henry proposed, by some error the colonial News paper published all six including the two that weren’t accepted so now they had nine colonies writing results to boycott the parliament’s stamp act. Sounds like mistakes took a positive part in human political history.

New Taxes Upset The Colonies

The seven year war , had doubled the Britain’s debt . People in Britain were paying for the cost , they were actually paying more than the consist so the parliament decides that the colonies should and would pay more taxes. Colonial merchants had been growing rich from trade . They were bringing the costume officers or them not to lay taxes , this was called smuggle. In 1764 George Grenville , the prime minister of England , protested and proposed The idea of raising money by enforcing the law to pay costume duty . On that same year the sugar act was passed by the parliament ,this tax imposed taxes on molasses . When this act went to effect all the prices lowered be causes taxes were less . Grenville assigned costume officers ton take care of the duties and create courts to collect taxes .

Grenville presided the smugglers and told them that all this measures would encourage the colonies to pay taxes . In early 1765 the parliament passes another law called the Quartering Act . This act required the colonist to provide shelter and supply to the army men . No one was safe that the army soldiers wouldn’t stay at their house . In 1765 the parliament passed another law called the Stamp Act . This act required the colonist to pay taxes for all printed papers . This was the first time the parliament had imposed direct taxes on the colonies . This led to taxation without representation .

The Stamp Act would come to effect on November . The colonist protested and claimed that with all those taxes , they were only threatening the improvement of the colonies . Some colonist believed that if they accepted this tax , parliament would place more taxes on them . Colonist also believed that England was ripping away their property and rights so they decided to talk against this taxes and make boycotts .

Differences in Colonial Governments

 

The British did not have a formal constitution. They only had traditions and non of them was written unlit the Mayflower compact. When the voting period came only 2/3 of free colonial men who were wealthy enough to own land properties were able to vote. For a period of time the colonist started becoming powerful because in Europe he wars were overwhelming England’s attention so the assembly payed their own governor. In order for them to do what they wanted, the hold the governors salary in order to control him. Aristocrats didn’t exist in the colonies, instead they had the merchants and the rich ones attended the assemblies. In this society they were al considered equal. Some time later new taxes were imposed and caused many problems.

So here goes the story: People of the colonies started loosing their money because of the expansion of their territory. Indians were still attacking the colonies so the British government thought that paying for the war was unfair. Sailors were getting outside of the line and tried too smuggle things to the port so they putted the famous taxes on molasses. George Grenvill was the prime minister and he assigned taxes collectors to persecute smuggling. Meanwhile in Europe people made an agreement with the new monarchs king George. This agreement took a great deal of power from the monarchs and gave it the parliament. The parliament in those times was governing and controlling England. This was called the Glorious Revolution. It was an easy transition of power.

The England treasury was in a really bad shape. Money have been spend more than england they could afford, the main reason was dealing with colonists and its protection from the indian and spanish attacks. King George thought that if money was being spend on the colonists than the colonists need to make a profit by paying taxes for all those services they were receiving, one of the taxes that king george promoted was the famous ”stamp act” this act said would pay an extra amount of money for every printed paper the got. The colonists couldn’t get along with this new law and they thought that british citizens had a protection against unfair taxes so they asked themselves why can’t they have a law that protects them against unfair taxes, in this is the way the Stamp Act was passed.

The French and Indian War

One of today’s post is about The French and Indian war which was also called The 7-Year War, because as its name says so it lasted 7 years. This war was fought in The Ohio River Valley near the Canadian territory. In here, the French fought against the British, which the commander of the British army was George Washington. Yes, the man who was the first president of the United States when it declare independence from the British, also fought in favor of the British back then. You may be asking why was it called The French and Indian War if it was between the French in the Canadian territory against the British? It was called this way because the Indian allied with the French to fight against the British. The Indians did not like the British because the British took away their land, the native Indian land. This war was not only fight in the new American territory were the colonies were settled but in every part of the world were British and French where

 

The British suffered losses at first during the years 1756 to 1757. During these years, the French destroyed British forts at lake Ontario. Indians raged frontier settlements located in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Suddenly the next year in 1758 the war shifts in favor of the British. During the years 1758 to 1759, the British dominated the war. The British cut off the shipping of the French supplies to America, as a result the Indians deserted the French and this allowed the British to capture some mayor French ports that secured the entrance to Saint Laurent river. In 1759, the British troops advanced and took Quebec. They continued to advance and in 1760, the British took over Montreal. After they took over Montreal they ask the governor to surrender all Canada.

Before the war ended, Spain joined the French war in 1762, they failure and surrendered Florida to British. Due to this lost, France gave to Spain the Louisiana territory west of the Mississippi after signing the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau. In the 7 year war, the British succeeded. The war in North America ended in 1761 but fighting continued in other parts of the globe for two more years. Finally in 1763 the war came to an end after signing The Treaty of Paris. The British, who won the war, claimed Canada and all French territories east of the Mississippi River excepting this famous city of New Orleans. These was the French and Indian War but remember it was also called the 7-Year War. Visit the blog later for more history of the famous American Revolution.