Ch 5, Sec 3: A Call To Arms

Key Questions

• How are the colonies going to come together?• What role will the colonial government play in

the fight against the King of England?• Who are the major players?• How did the fighting begin?• What were the results of the first battles?

Review: Angry Colonists

• Angry about taxation without representation– Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Act

• Angry about smuggling courts• Angry about soldiers living in their homes• Angry about soldiers stealing their jobs• Angry about the Boston Massacre• Angry about not being able to move to new

lands

New Ideas

• Some colonists wanted to break away from England

• The colonies started working together

First Continental Congress• 55 men came together in 1774 in Philadelphia• Represented all of the colonies except Georgia• Wanted to challenge British authority• Georgia supported Britain in return for military help

against the natives and outside groups

Key People of the Continental Congress

• Samuel Adams-helped create local colonial govt’s• John Adams-lawyer• John Jay-lawyer• Richard Henry Lee-congressman, proposed to

leave England• Patrick Henry “I am not a Virginian, but an

American”• George Washington-military soldier, land owner,

leader of the Virginia Militia

Actions by the Continental Congress

• 1. Asked the king/parliament to take away 13 acts of Parliament which violated the colonists’ rights

• 2. Started a boycott of British goods• 3. Stopped trading with England• 4. Endorsed the Suffolk Resolves by starting

militias• Organized citizen armies• First responders to war

Militias• Soldiers known as minutemen• Trained in every town in the northern

colonies, especially around Boston• Started collecting ammunition and guns• Scared British troops

British Response

• General Gage sent 1000s of troops to Boston• King prepared for war• Soldiers ordered to take away colonists’

weapons• Tried to arrest the colonial leaders

Fighting at Lexington and Concord

• British soldiers sent from Boston to take away the huge pile of weapons in Concord

• Paul Revere and William Dawes saw this and rode horses overnight to warn everybody in the countryside

• Both men got to Lexington before the British and the town was ready for the troops

Fighting at Lexington and Concord

Fighting at Lexington and Concord• At Lexington– 70 minutemen vs. 1,000 British troops– Minutemen here were used to buy time for the

rest of the colonists at Concord to move the guns and ammo

– 8 minutemen died

Fighting at Lexington and Concord

• At Concord– The guns and ammo were moved before the

British troops arrived– British troops destroyed whatever was not moved– Minutemen ambushed the British Troops on their

way back to Boston• 174 British wounded, 73 dead

• “Shot heard around the world”-start of the American Revolution

Results of the Battles of Lexington and Concord

• Colonial militias attacked Fort Ticonderoga to get more military supplies

• Build up of troops on both sides• Committees of Correspondence– Used to get people to join the militias– 20,000 people joined the colonial military

Battle of Bunker Hill

• Bunker Hill– Overlooked Boston– Military advantage of colonial militia– Wanted by the British military• Attacked three times• Colonists ran out of ammo/had to retreat• 1,000 British soldiers died that day but the British won

the battle• Showed the strength and heart of the colonists

Who to support?

• Problem for colonists: Who should they support?

• Two groups were represented:– 1. Loyalists– 2. Patriots

Loyalists

• People who did not care about the taxes by the king

• People who got rich from the king• People who had power because of the king• People who were afraid to lose what they had

if the colonists lost• People who thought British troops would win

and wanted to get rewarded by the king for staying loyal to him

Patriots

• People who wanted to fight the king• People who hated the unfair taxes• People who had been bullied by the king• People who wanted a new country separate

from England