3-3.1

It Is Essential For Students To Know

• Great Britain thought that the colonies needed to help pay for expenses related to the protection of the colonies during the French and Indian War.
• Colonists had long paid taxes on imported goods in order to control trade.
• However, the colonists believed that only their colonial assemblies had the right to tax them directly for the purpose of raising revenue.
• The Stamp Act was the first direct tax that Great Britain placed on the colonies and was placed on such items such as newspapers, playing cards, and legal documents.
• Colonists responded with the rallying cry “no taxation without representation.” The colonies had no representation in the British Parliament but they were represented in their own colonial assemblies.
• Colonists did not necessarily want representation in Parliament because, in that assembly, colonial interests would have been overshadowed by the interests of Great Britain.
• Colonial interests were protected in their own colonial assemblies.
• Colonists’ protests included a boycott of British goods which led to the repeal of the Stamp Act.
• The Tea Act was not a tax. Colonists had been boycotting tea as a protest against an earlier tax. These taxes [Townshend duties] also had been repealed as a result of the colonial boycott, except for the tax on tea. The Tea Act allowed the tea company to have a monopoly on the tea trade and therefore they were able to provide tea more cheaply to colonial consumers. When the British shipped this cheap tea to the colonies, colonial leaders feared that colonial consumers would be tempted to buy and the boycott would be broken.
• In both Boston, Massachusetts and in Charleston, South Carolina there were “tea parties.” In Boston, colonists boarded English ships and threw the tea overboard. In Charleston, the tea was stored in a warehouse and not allowed to be sold. Angry over the tea party in Boston, England passed laws to punish Boston [ the Coercive Acts]. The colonist called these laws the Intolerable Acts. The laws closed the port of Boston so that goods could not be shipped in or out. These acts also took the right to selfgovernment away from the people of Massachusetts by dissolving their colonial assembly.
• In response to the Intolerable Acts, the colonists met together in a congress [the First Continental Congress] and sent a letter to the King of England pledging their loyalty but stating their opposition to British actions.
• Meanwhile, South Carolinians sent the Bostonians rice and money to help them survive the closing of their port.
• The First Continental Congress advised the colonies to establish militias and arm themselves. They also started another boycott of trade with Great Britain.
• British troops in Boston, hearing that the people of Lexington and Concord had arms and ammunition, marched to those towns. Shots were fired and the Revolutionary War began. British troops were chased back to Boston and the city was surrounded by American militiamen.
• Representatives of the colonies met again in the Second Continental Congress which named George Washington as Commander of the newly formed Continental Army.
• The King of England declared that the colonies were in a state of rebellion.
• Soon the British troops and the new Continental Army were fighting for control of the colonies.
• In July of 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a declaration establishing the United States of America. This Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and stated the reasons why the colonies should be free and independent states.
• It said “all men are created equal” and have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It listed all of the reasons that the colonies had the right to declare their independence.
• Men from South Carolina signed the Declaration of Independence.

It Is Not Essential For Students to Know:

• It is not essential for students to know the other actions of the British government that led to conflicts with the colonists, including the Proclamation of 1763, the Quartering Acts and the Boston Massacre, or the Townshend Duties.
• Students do not need to know about the early battles of the revolution at Bunker Hill and in New York.
• Students do not need to remember the names of the South Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence, including Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, Thomas Lynch, Jr. and Thomas Heyward, Jr.