1. South Carolina in the American Revolution
CHAPTER 3
South Carolina in the American Revolution

2. Essential Question
What events led to the American Revolution, and what role did South Carolina play in the development of the new nation?

3. LESSON 1
The Road to Revolution

4. Controlling the Colonies
When Charles II became king, Britain was in financial trouble, so a number of trade laws were passed.
These laws were meant to increase wealth by regulating trade and raising taxes on all items transported through Britain.
Britain wanted the colonies to help pay its increasing debt, but the colonist didn’t want to. In response, Britain implemented Mercantilism.

5. Implementing Mercantilism
This economic policy required all goods sold in Britain to be shipped on English ships employing English crews.
Crops grown in the colonies could only be sold in Britain.
The main goal was to increase British profits.
The new policy added to the growing unrest in the colonies. Americans Colonists felt they were being treated unfairly.

6. Controlling the Colonial Economy
Navigation Acts
Trade only with Britain and other British colonies.
Led to smuggling.
Sugar Act
Tax on sugar, molasses, wine, silk, indigo, and coffee.
Violators sent to Britain for trial before British judge.
Currency Act
Colonists prohibited from printing their own money.
Stamp Act
Tax on all printed materials, like wills, contracts, playing cards, and newspapers.

7. Controlling the Colonies
How did colonists react to the new laws and policies?

8. Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty were groups of men who protested Britain’s new laws.
The two most active groups were in Boston and Charles Town.
Sam Adams led the group in Boston, while Christopher Gadsden led the Charles Town group.

10. Daughters of Liberty
Women took part in their own boycott and organized “Spinning Bees.”
Played a key part in organizing boycotts.
Instead of buying and using thread made in Britain, they spun there own thread and yarn to make American fabric.

11. Charles Town Refuses to Cooperate
The colonists in Charles Town seemed to be most upset about the Stamp Act.
They built a 20-foot gallows and hung an effigy of the stamp collector in protest.
The protestors were so persistent that the men who were enforcing the Stamp Act said they wouldn’t tax the colonists until Britain had a chance to reconsider.

12. Effigy

13. “NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!”
Stamp Act Congress
Representatives from the colonies met in New York City to discuss the Stamp Act.
Letters were mailed to Parliament demanding that Britain repeal the law.
Colonists argued that since they didn’t have representatives in Parliament, Parliament couldn’t make laws the directly affected them.
“NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!”
Britain argued that they had virtual representation, so the colonists decided to boycott British goods.

14. What did Parliament mean when it said the colonies had “virtual representation”? Can the same be said for Americans who are not old enough to vote? Are you virtually represented?

16. Effects of the Boycott & Protests
Ships stopped coming in and out of Charles Town, which hurt British trade.
British merchants lost money.
The courts shut down because colonists refused to pay the tax for a court order.
Britain repealed the Stamp Act in 1766.
The colonists threw parades in Charles Town to celebrate.

17. Wilkes Controversy
John Wilkes was a member of Parliament and editor of North Briton; he was critical of the British gov’t.
Parliament kicked Wilkes out for being disloyal to Britain.
South Carolina representatives provided funds to pay Wilkes’s legal fees.
British officials were unhappy with South Carolina’s donation to Wilkes, so they wrote new rules about how the colony could use money from its treasury.
This controversy leads to South Carolina lending support to the Revolution.

18. Declaratory and Quartering Acts
After repealing the Stamp Act, Parliament passed a law declaring that it could make any laws affecting the colonies that it desired. This would be known as the Declaratory Act.
Britain took complete control over the colonies.
The Quartering Act allowed 10,000 British troops to stay permanently in the colonies.
The colonists were angry about the Quartering Act because it required them to house and feed British troops.
British soldiers did not actually stay in the homes of colonists. Instead, they were housed in uninhabited houses, barns, outhouses, public houses (taverns), and other buildings. Even so, colonists were angry that they had to pay for this.

19. Townshend Acts
Britain imposed new taxes on paper, paint, glass, and tea.
These new laws attempted to take away the power of the purse from colonial assemblies.
Colonists responded with a new round of boycotts.
In South Carolina, Britain gave non-native South Carolinians positions of extreme authority.

20. Boston Massacre
Across the colonies, protests were becoming more violent.
On March 5, 1770, a scuffle between colonists in Boston and some British soldiers resulted in the soldiers firing into a crowd of colonists.
Five people were killed. The first being Crispus Attucks, a free black man.
John Adams later represented the British soldiers in court and argued that the soldiers acted in self defense. Adams was successful in defending a majority of them.
Lord North, the new prime minister, took back all the Townshend Duties except for the tax on tea.

21. Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre
Historians identify this as an early example of American propaganda. How so? How could the use of the word “massacre” fit in with the idea that this is propaganda?

22. The Boston Tea Party
Colonists continued to boycott tea because of a duty (tax) imposed by the Townshend Acts.
Parliament passed the Tea Act in an attempt to force colonists to buy tea from the British East India Company.
The law gave the company exclusive rights to sell its tea tax-free in the colonies, making it cheaper to buy.
Lord North thought this would trick colonists into buying the British tea … He was mistaken!
In Boston, a group of colonists dressed up as Native Americans, climbed aboard a ship carrying tea, and dumped all the tea into the harbor. The event became known as the “Boston Tea Party.”

24. The Intolerable Acts
Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing the Intolerable Acts in Massachusetts.
The new laws closed the port in Boston until the tea was paid for.
They suspended the Massachusetts colonial assembly.
They allowed British soldiers to live in private homes.

25. Why do you think the colonists called these new laws the “intolerable”?
These laws were also called the Coercive Acts. Why? What was Parliament trying to coerce from the colonists?

26. The First Continental Congress
In response to events in Boston, colonial leaders, including cousins Sam and John Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee called for a special meeting in Philadelphia.
55 delegates from 12 colonies met for the First Continental Congress. (Only Georgia refused to attend. For what reason did Georgians refuse to attend?)
Delegates agreed to continue their resistance to British policies.

27. The First Continental Congress
The Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, which proclaimed loyalty to Britain, but denied Britain’s right to tax the colonies.
Delegates agreed to stop all trade (imports and exports) with Britain until their demands were met.
Because of South Carolina’s economy, delegates agreed that the colonies could still export rice to Britain.
Before they adjourned, the delegates agreed to meet again in 1775.

28. Why do you think most delegates to the First Continental Congress were not yet ready to discuss independence?

29. South Carolina forms an Independent Government
During a meeting to select delegates to the First Continental Congress, South Carolina leaders created the Committee of 99, which became the de facto government.
The committee raised an army, issued currency, enforced nonimportation, and commissioned the writing of what would become part of the Articles of Confederation (the first US constitution).
Although a new royal governor had not yet arrived, most of the citizens obeyed the Committee of 99.

30. The First Shots of the Revolution
On April 19, 1774, the first shots of the Revolution were fired during a confrontation between British “Redcoats” and colonial Minutemen in the town of Lexington, Massachusetts.
The British were on their way to nearby Concord to seize weapons they believed were stored there.
Fighting took place throughout the day as more Minutemen arrived and faced British reinforcements.
Despite being outnumbered, the colonists managed to kill nearly 300 British soldiers, while fewer than 100 militiamen were killed or wounded.
The British retreated to Boston … The Revolution had begun.

31. The Battle of Lexington