APUSH Breaking in assignment

In this segment of Revolutionary Roller Coaster, Ayla Ershad takes us back to 18th century America and discusses the events leading up to the American Revolution. She talks about the colonization of the New World by the British, the Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Anglicanization, tensions with the French and Native Americans, the Albany Conference, British policies towards the colonies, the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, protests and resistance by the colonists, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Coercive Act. The colonists initially wanted better treatment but eventually realized that fighting for independence was necessary. Thomas Paine's Common Sense played a significant role in advocating for the colonists' rights. Hey there folks, this is Ayla Ershad delivering to you a blast from the past with a new segment of Revolutionary Roller Coaster. Today we are going to be revisiting 18th century America, everyone's favorite time period. An era of revolution and turning points galore. Are you ready to feel that rebellious spirit that cooked up a revolution? Do you ever wonder how the good old United States got to be this way? Well if you have, we're about to zoom in and find out. So let's start by setting the scene. If you don't remember from your general history knowledge, in the 1600s the British had started to colonize what they coined as the New World. Even though it really wasn't as new as they made it seem, they started off settling in smaller colonies of people. This may surprise you, but at the time if you had asked me to get on a 6-10 week trip away from all I had known, I don't know about you guys, but I would have said absolutely not. Most who made the journey were looking for new opportunities, which we still see today with immigrant groups. However, by the 1700s we had established about 13 colonies. The unlucky number could have been foreshadowing a great break from Britain, but who am I to say? Now that the base is down, let's get into it. In Europe, a new trend of thought called the Enlightenment was gaining traction. The Enlightenment was a movement that emphasized rational thinking over tradition and religious revelation. You have to understand that prior to this religion told you what to think and you'd have to look a fool to not follow it. That is why the Enlightenment was such a turning point in intellectual thought. Now that we've said what the Enlightenment was, let's get into its core principles. We have the social construct, this was coined by Rousseau. It was a type of construct that was meant to protect you. The idea was to sacrifice some of your rights to the government and in turn you would get protection and overall society would be in better state of social harmony. Think about it this way, it's like when you're younger and your parents convince you to eat your vegetables and in turn you and your siblings get to watch your favorite TV show. Secondly, we have natural rights and these are just what they sound like, they are our rights by nature, everyone is entitled to them and this is because no one can take them away because you're born with them. Lastly, we have the principle of checks and balances making an appearance. Through this one, you can really tell how the tension will start to rise in this time period. Checks and balances was all about keeping the government or your leader in check, a leader like King George. With all these new ideas, we also have the emergence of Anglicanization. I know, big word right? But essentially, all it means is colonies were becoming more English, but they were doing so by developing their own mini-governments in the English image, taking a little piece of the central power England had over them. Now that you're in the mind of an English colonist, let's talk about what was actually going on in the colonies. Okay, so picture this, the French, Native Americans, and the British walk into a bar. Just kidding, but on the more serious note, tensions were increasing and that is best seen through the Seven Years' War, which was over territory between the French, and you guessed it, the Indians. Well, you couldn't really call it a dispute since it was really the Indians' land to begin with, but that's for another time. So with that, you have the Albany Conference of 1754. This is where our old pal Benjamin Franklin wanted the colonies to join together to plan the defense of the colonies against France. The plan was to unify 11 of the 13 colonies, but this plan was rejected by, you guessed it, British Parliament. Up until this point, the British had practiced a policy towards the colonies of salutary neglect, and it's, well, how it sounds. It's like what you wish your parents would let you do. The colonies got loose rules that were barely enforced, especially regarding trade. However, now with the British needing more money as they were at war, they pulled a switcheroo and started to pay attention to the Navigation Act, which entailed the colonies could only have imports from Britain, even if they could find a better price elsewhere. This was a great economic policy on Britain's side, so they sought to enforce it to make in some more money, and they needed it since they were at war. They did this through Grenfell's plan, made by Prime Minister George Grenfell. While you might have thought this was already getting a bit strict, just you wait. The British saw the opportunity and decided to create a new tax called the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act in 1764. The Sugar Act taxed molasses and wine, which were luxury goods that colonists liked to indulge in, and the Stamp Act taxed all paper. You heard that right, all paper. Whether you were a lawyer, a banker, or really anybody else, you felt the impact of this tax. If this wasn't bad enough, to enforce these taxes, the Quartering Act of 1765 was put in place. This was a full-on intrusion. British troops now lived in colonists' houses and could come and go as they pleased. Talk about crazy. In response to this, the colonists fought back through protests like one fled by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. They believed that taxation without representation was wrongful. At this point, they were funding Britain, but had no real say in its affairs. Britain did not take well to these acts of resistance, and instead of trying to find rights, they passed yet another act, the Declaratory Act, in which they said they had the right to pass whatever act they wanted. Basically, an act to allow more acts, lol. Also, who would the British be without following up their new act with yet another? This was the Townsend Act, which levied even more new taxes on paper, tea, glass, you name it, it was being taxed. We often don't focus a lot on women during the time period, but they had their own form of household resistance in making their own clothes and goods. This was a way of boycotting British goods to take away some of their power. Now we're getting towards our boiling point. In 1770, tensions reached a high with the Boston Massacre, in which Boston boys got in a dispute with British soldiers, also known as Redcoats. The colonists threw snowballs, and while that may sound harmless, things got out of hand really fast, with the gun firing and four colonists wound up dead. This was a clear sign to the colonists to fuel their revolutionary spirit. Transitioning to another famous event, we have the Boston Tea Party, which was a response to all the high taxes on tea. I don't know about you guys, but if my local coffee shop started upping the prices, I'd be pretty upset too. The way that the colonists expressed this was by dressing up as Native Americans and throwing chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. They dressed as Native Americans because they thought that they were the real Americans and were trying to prove a point. Pretty ironic, right? How do you think the British responded to this one, folks? By now, it should be clear that the British were not going to have this. They responded by putting their foot down and passing the Coercive Act, which shut down the harbor until the tea was paid for. This tea was worth about $2 million in tea in today's money. I don't know about you, but that could last me a while. I hope you good folks have gotten a feel for the tense environment that the colonists were in. At this point, it is important to understand that the colonists wanted better treatment, not necessarily their own country yet. That can be seen through the First Continental Congress, where leaders of some of the colonies expressed a want to stay British subjects, but only protected from British tyranny, meaning that enlightenment principles would be followed, like the ones I went over, like their natural rights. This was a nice hope, but soon it was apparent that fighting for independence was the only thing that would bring the colonists the freedoms they wished for. Thomas Paine had the whole idea down in Common Sense, where he discussed Enlightenment principles and how it was common sense to have the rights that the British had taken from the colonists. And there you have it, folks. We're going to end here while you can still feel the heat of the revolution coming to a boil.