The Rights of an Englishman

The Rights of an Englishman

Magna Carta

• 1215 document signed by King John• Limited powers of king• Rule of law for “freemen”

We’re the Best

• Balance of power: Parliament and Monarchy• (a little) representative government• Catholic despotism, “popery”

• John Locke (1632-1704)• “Life, liberty, and property”

The Seeds of Discontent

• Colonists pretty okay until 1760s• Consumerism

The Seeds of Discontent

• Colonists pretty okay until 1760s• Consumerism• French Indian War shows problem of western

expansion/conflict• English colonists not alone

7 Years War

• aka French and Indian War (1756-63)• British try to push French out of western PA

• 1753: Washington asks French to leave• 1754: routed at Fort Necessity• General Braddock attacks Fort Duquesne (now

Pittsburgh)

Spread of War

• French captured forts in NY• Indians kill PA colonists• British kick Acadians out of Nova Scotia• Conflict erupts in Europe (1756)

"It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to explain the causes of the famous Seven Years' War in which Europe was engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble my reader with any personal disquisitions concerning the matter.”

- William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)

End of War

• British take Fort Duquesne, Ticonderoga, etc.• Occupy mouth of St. Lawrence River• Montreal surrenders, 1760

• First world war?– Involved European empires, Native American

tribes, India, etc

Peace (Sort of)

• Peace of Paris (1763)– Britain gets Canada, Florida– France gets islands back (Martinique and

Guadeloupe)– Spain gets Louisiana– France basically screwed

Winning Ain’t Easy

• Pontiac’s Rebellion• French gave away a lot of Indian lands to

Britain• Britain bigger threat to Indians now• Neolin, Delaware religious prophet• Indians fight back, capture Detroit

Proclamation of 1763

• Angers settlers and speculators• Exacerbates long-running tension between

frontier and coast• Britain needed peace

Shit Gets Real

• Britain to colonies: Pay up• Mercantilism– Colonies should supply Brit w/ raw materials– Discouraged colonial industry– Prevented colonists from trading w/ French,

Spanish

I Fought the Law (and the Law Won?)

• Hence, Navigation Acts– Tobacco had to be transported through British

ships and sold through mother country

• Sugar Act (1764)– tried smugglers in admiralty courts

Stamp It Out

• Stamp Act of 1765• Gov’t stamp on all printed materials• Affected everybody• Funded British Army

“The Rights of the Freeborn Englishman”

• Boycott of British goods• Committee of Correspondence in Boston• Sons of Liberty march in NYC (1765)• Parliament repeals Stamp Act in 1766

Freedom?

• Regulators in SC fight for representation• Small farmers rise up in NC• Tenant farmers fight landowners in NY’s

Hudson River Valley• Dangerous implications of dissent

Another Fine Mess

• 1767: new taxes• More boycotts• “Homespun virtue”• Boston riot in 1768• Snowball fight in 1770…

The Boston “Massacre”

• Soldiers and laborers fight in Boston• 5 Bostonians killed• Mixed race sailor Crispus Attucks• John Adams defends soldiers

Tea and Intolerability

• British lift taxes again• Scheme to held East India Company• Dumping cheap tea in American market• Hurts merchants and smugglers• Boston Tea Party

Tea and Intolerability

• British close Boston port• End many elected offices in MA• Gives rights to Catholics in Quebec• Collectively, the Intolerable Acts

Continental Congress

• Meets in Philly in Sept. 1774• John Adams• Samuel Adams• George Washington• Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me

death!”)

Important Points• Greater sense of shared identity

Important Points

• Resistance encompasses English, Germans, Scotch-Irish; lawyers, merchants, mechanics, laborers

• Appeal to natural rights, not just English identity

“claiming their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate”

- Jefferson