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1. Life in the 13 Colonies, 1650-1750

The small English settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts were only a beginning. By the middle of the 1700s, there were 13 separate English colonies in America. The colonists were alike in many ways. They were all ruled by Great Britain. Most of them were farmers. They grew their own food and made their own clothes. They had to learn to live with the nearby American Indians.

 

1) New England Colonies

In 1750 there were four colonies in New England. New England is in the northeast region of the United States. These colonies were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.

The biggest city in New England was Boston, Massachusetts. It was a town of pretty brick houses and neat flower gardens. There were several schools and churches in Boston.

Much of the land in New England was rocky and poor. Farming was hard. However, off the coast of New England, the ocean waters were filled with fish. Many New Englanders made their living from the ocean. They fished, and they built ships. Fish were caught by hand and in nets. They they were cleaned,

smoked, or dried with salt. Finally the fish were shipped to Europe to be sold.

 

2) The Middle Colonies

The Middle colonies had rich farmlands. They also had forests full of a small but important animal. This was the beaver. In Europe, beaver hats were popular. Fur trappers and traders became rich selling beaver fur to people in Europe.

William Penn started the colony of Pennsylvania. He said there was to be freedom of religion for all. All men who owned land had the right to vote. Anyone accused of a crime could have a fair trial with a jury. People came to Pennsylvania from all over Europe. Pennsylvania became a place where many different people lived together in peace.

By 1750, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the biggest city in the Middle colonies. A visitor from England wrote, "I had no idea of finding such a place in America. It has nearly 2,000 beautiful brick houses."

The colony of New York grew more slowly. In New York, a few rich people owned much of the land. Workers who lived there could not own the land. So people did not want to settle in New York.

 

3) The Southern colonies

The five Southern colonies were Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. In 1750, the one big city was Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston had some of the finest homes in the colonies. Silk and fine china came to Charleston harbor from all over the world.

The Southern colonies were the most "rural". A rural area is one with many farms and few towns or cities. in the South, large farms were called "plantations".

A plantation was like a town. It had a vegetable garden and a flour mill. Carpenters, weavers, shoemakers, and blacksmiths lived and worked there. The main crops were tobacco and rice, which were sold in Northern cities and around the world. Often plantations were built on a river or waterway so goods could travel by water. Plantations needed many workers. Most colonists wanted their own farms and could buy land cheap in the western parts of the colonies. Plantation owners had slaves to work the land. The slaves had been kidnapped from their homes in Africa and brought on ships to America. Here they were bought and sold like pieces of property. By 1750, slaves made up one fourth of the population in the South.

 

4) On the Frontier

The western edge of the 13 colonies was known as the "frontier". Sometimes small farms there were just cleared places in the woods. Life was hard for frontier "settlers". They grew crops like wheat, potatoes, and squash. They hunted for deer and bear. They made most of the things they needed. they baked bread, made jam, spun cloth, and made their own tools.

Imagine living in a town without a mayor, police department, or firefighters. That's what it was like for colonists living in New England villages. You remember that the government of Great Britain ruled the 13 colonies. But Great Britain was too busy to take care of the matters of small towns in New England. It was up to the colonists to find ways to protect themselves and take care of their small towns.

The men of the village figured out one way to solve these problems. They called a "town meeting". Only white men who owned property could vote. At the town meeting,

the men voted for the people needed to run the town. For example, they voted for someone to keep the peace, a man to dig graves, and a town crier to give the news.

Today towns, cities, and states all have their own governments and elections. Some towns still have town meetings. People at town meetings might discuss if a town needs a new school or wants to turn some open land into a park. Anyone who lives in the town can come to the meeting. At the town meeting everyone gets a chance to give his or her opinion. Together, people can decide what would be the best plan for the town. Town meetings help people work together for the good of the town.

 

2. The Dawn of Independence

1) New Problems

Even though Great Britain won, the French and Indian War cost the British a lot of money. They felt that the colonists should help pay the bills. They felt that the colonists would have to pay a "tax" on sugar, molasses, and other goods.

"Parliament" is the lawmaking group in England. In 1765, it passed a law called the "Stamp Act". This law made the colonists buy special stamps for certain goods they bought. The money was used to pay British soldiers in the colonies.

The colonists were already paying taxes to the governments of their colonies. But the Stamp Act was voted for by the Parliament in Great Britain. There were no colonists in Parliament. No one represented them there. Many colonists spoke out against the Stamp Act. These colonists called themselves the "Sons and Daughters of Liberty". England soon repealed, or did away with, the Stamp Act because of what the colonists said.

Two years later, Parliament passed another law. This law taxed many goods that the colonists imported, or bought from another country. Many colonists boycotted, or stopped buying, those goods. The colonists hoped the boycott would make Parliament stop taxing those goods. The British sent troops to see that taxes were paid. The soldiers were allowed to search ships, businesses, and even homes. The colonists did not want soldiers in their homes.

 

2) The Boston Massacre

The British soldiers and American colonists did not like each other. Sometimes they fought but no one was hurt until March 1770.

A boy and a British soldier in Boston got into an argument. The soldier knocked the boy down. An angry crowd surrounded the soldier. They threw snowballs and yelled at him. Other soldiers ran to help him. Someone yelled "Fire!" The soldiers got scared and fired into the crowd. Five colonists were killed. These killings came to be called the "Boston Massacre". The colonists were very angry. Some colonists passed out small booklets called pamphlets to people in other colonies. The pamphlets told how unfair the British were to Boston colonists. Some of these pamphlets stretched the truth in order to stir up anger among the colonists against the British.

 

3) The Boston Tea Party

As a result of the Boston Massacre, Parliament ended all the taxes the colonists hated - except one. That tax was on tea.

People all over the colonies refused to pay this tax. They stopped buying and drinking tea. Then, on the night of December 16, 1773, a group of colonists boarded a British ship in Boston Harbor. They dumped more than 300 chests of tea into the water. This event is now called the Boston Tea Party.

The "tea party" made the British very angry. They wanted the colonists to pay for the ruined tea. Parliament passed several laws that hurt the colonists. One law closed Boston Harbor. No ships could come or go from the harbor. Another law said British soldiers could live in the homes of the colonists. These laws made the colonists begin to think about breaking away from Great Britain and starting their o주 country. They saw that they would probably have to fight for teir freedom.

 

3) Events That Led to War

In September 1774, some colonial leaders met in Philadelphia. This meeting was called the "First continental Congress". The leaders decided to write to the British king to ask him to change the tax laws. At the same time, colonists in Boston were planning to protect themselves. An army of farmers and store owners was formed to fight the British. They would be ready at a minute's notice. Proudly, they called themselves "the Minutemen".

The British soldiers in Boston heard that the colonists were storing gunpowder in the town of Concord. On April 18, 1775, British soldiers left Boston to get the gunpowder. Two colonists, Paul Revere and William Dawes, secretly left Boston on horseback to warn the Minutemen. When the British arrived in Lexington on their way to Concord, the

Minutemen were waiting for them.

The first shots of the American Revolution were fired, and eight colonies were killed. The British pushed on to Concord, but they did not find gunpowder. The colonists had taken it away. As the British marched back to Boston, Minutemen fought them all the way.

 

4) The Call for Independence

News of what had happened at Lexington and Concord spread throughout the colonies. Two months later there was another important battle called the "Battel of Bunker Hill".

The colonists who fought were not professional soldiers like the British. They were mostly farmers who had not had any army training. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, the colonists fought bravely against the British until they ran out of gunpowder. Although the British won, the colonists had fought very well. The colonists had killed almost half of the British soldiers who fought during the battle.

In Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress met in May 1775. They decided the colonies needed regular army. The Congress had to figure out how to train soldiers and pay for war supplies. They made George Washington the "Commander", or leader, of the new Continental Army.

A year later the leaders of the Continental Congress asked Thomas Jefferson and others to write a statement. It was to declare that the colonies were breaking away from Great Britain, and why. It told Great Britain that the colonies wanted to become their own country. It was called the "Declaration of Independence". The declaration was read aloud to the colonists on July 4, 1776.

Until the Declaration of Independence was written, not all colonists were sure they wanted independence. Some just wanted the British to stop passing laws that were unfair to the colonies. Early in 1776, a colonist named Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense". In it, he gave reasons for independence. Many colonists decided to fight for independence because Thomas Paine's reasons were so good.

The Declaration of Independence has become one of the most important statements in American history. It is about the rights and freedoms that all people should have. One of its most famous lines states that everyone should have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

 

EVENTS THAT LED TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

1765 : British Parliament passes the Stamp Act

1770 : The Boston Massacre

1773 : The Boston Tea Party

1775 : Battles of Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Concord

The Second Continental Congress - Continental Army : George Washington(Commander)

1776 : Thomas Paine - Common Sense

The Declaration of Independence - Thomas Jefferson :

"Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness"

 

 

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