Oct 5-9, 2015

Independence!

Summary

• Samuel Adams led a group of men who called themselves the “Sons of Liberty.”

• Colonists, upset with Britain’s Tea Act, refused to buy and drink British tea sold by the British East

India Company. Eventually the Sons of Liberty led a group of Boston colonists in an attack on tea ships in the harbor.

• Following the Boston Tea Party, Great Britain passed a series of laws to punish the colonists. The port at Boston was closed and many people lost jobs. Colonists called these laws the Intolerable Acts.

• Fifty-six delegates met in September 1774 as the First Continental Congress.

• On April 19, 1775, British soldiers were ordered to Lexington to arrest colonial rebels and seize weapons. Word of the impending attack reached the rebels first. Though eight colonial Patriots were killed immediately, later in the day more than 1,000 militia Patriots charged against the British at Concord. Nearly one-third of the British force was killed or wounded.

• In May 1775 the Second Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia. Sixty-five delegates met and established a Continental Army to be led by George Washington. They hoped a peace could be reached with Great Britain.

• Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” pamphlet argued that America deserved the right to govern itself. Paine’s ideas changed the way many people felt about the way Great Britain was treating the colonies.

• George Washington grew up on a Virginia plantation. Washington worked as a surveyor and a soldier in the French and Indian War. While living on his own plantation Washington became increasingly upset at the British treatment of colonists. He became a leader at the Continental Congresses. At the Second Continental Congress Washington was appointed as leader of the Continental Army. He was an excellent military leader, and his successes on the battlefield later led to his election as the first president of the United States of America.