1. Chapter 6: Conflict in the Empire 1713-1774
Of the People
Chapter 6:
Conflict in the Empire
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

2. Common Threads
What role did the colonies play in imperial conflict? That is, how did they shape that conflict, and how were they shaped by it?
How were Native Americans drawn into imperial conflict? To what extent were they able to shape it for their own purposes?
What did it mean for the American colonies to be peripheral— literally—to the British Empire?
How did the colonists adapt the available political theories to their purposes? What in the American experience made those theories attractive to the colonists?

3. Chapter Overview The Victory of the British Empire
Enforcing the Empire
The British Empire in Crisis
A Revolution in the Empire

4. The Victory of the British Empire Overview
New War, Old Pattern
The Local Impact of Global War
The French Empire Crumbles from Within
The Virginians Ignite a War
From Local to Imperial War
Problems with British‒Colonial Cooperation
The British Gain the Advantage

5. Enforcing the Empire Overview
Pontiac’s Rebellion and Its Aftermath
Paying for the Empire: Sugar and Stamps

6. The British Empire in Crisis Overview
An Argument about Rights and Obligations
The Imperial Crisis in Local Context
Contesting the Townshend Duties

7. A Revolution in the Empire Overview
“Massacre” in Boston
The Empire Comes Apart
The First Continental Congress

8. Conclusion Overview
Review Questions
Critical-Thinking Questions

9. AMERICAN PORTRAIT Susannah Willard Johnson Experiences the Empire
“What to others might seem an imperial struggle was to Susannah Johnson a terrifying assault that took her from her home and family.”
What were the opportunities and risks afforded by Johnson’s family in the northern frontier of New England?
“As families such as the Johnsons pushed at the frontiers, they became actors on a global stage.”
How was this incident (in a land populated by the consumer revolution) a function of the imperial struggle between France and England?

10. Susannah Willard Johnson

11. The Victory of the British Empire
“From 1689 to 1763, Britain and France were at war more than half of the time. These wars gave shape to the eighteenth century and created the international context for the American Revolution in several ways.”
New War, Old Pattern
Pattern: What continuously draws these empires into conflict?
War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739–1744)
King George’s War (1744–1748)
The Local Effect of Global War
How did imperial wars impact colonists—especially New Englanders?
The French Empire Crumbles from Within
What factors made the Ohio Valley the focus of imperial conflict in North America?
Who were the actors on this global stage?
The Virginians Ignite a War
How did Virginians ignite a war?
In what way had they “bitten off more than they could chew”?

12. The Victory of the British Empire (continued)
From Local to Imperial War
What were the advantages of the French army as revealed in Braddock's campaign, 1775?
Problems with British‒Colonial Cooperation
What conflicts emerged between British imperial officials and colonists in their joint effort to defeat the French?
The British Gain the Advantage
William Pitt leads the British to victory
“To a great extent, colonial and imperial objectives coincided. Both Britain and the colonies would benefit from securing the empire’s borders and from expanding British markets. Yet the imperial wars also exposed the growing divergence between the political economy of the colonies and that of the mother country.”

13. Braddock’s Defeat

14. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm
Library and Archives Canada

15. Enforcing the Empire
“Even before the French and Indian War, some in the British government urged tighter control over the American colonies.”
Pontiac’s Rebellion and Its Aftermath
What prompted the rebellion?
Why did the Proclamation of 1763 follow in its wake?
Paying for the Empire: Sugar and Stamps
Following the passing of the Molasses Act of 1733, Prime Minister George Grenville urged Parliament to passes four pieces of legislation:
The Molasses Act of 1733, the Sugar Act (1764); the Currency Act (1764); the Stamp Act (1764); and the Quartering Act (1765)
What was the overarching rationale of these measures?
Why did colonists find the Stamp Act especially objectionable? (Who, among the colonists, was especially affected by it?)
“The American Revolution grew out of Britain’s attempts to draw its American colonies more closely into the imperial system In resisting that policy, the American colonists developed a new and different idea of the purpose of government, one that propelled them to revolution.”

16. The British Empire in Crisis
“All they wanted, they claimed, were the rights of Englishmen.”
An Argument about Rights and Obligations
How did British officials view its colonies?
Accordingly, how did they view the rights of colonists?
The Imperial Crisis in Local Context
What methods did colonists employ for voicing protest?
What language did they employ?
Contesting the Townshend Duties
How did the new notions of Republicanism shape colonial resistance?

17. Tarring and Feathering the Customs Officer, 1774
The Granger Collection

18. A Revolution in the Empire
“The resistance to the Townshend Duties established a pattern that would be repeated again and again in the years before the Revolution Economics and politics became inseparable, as two visions of the empire came into conflict.”
“Massacre” in Boston
What is significant about this massacre in “Boston”?
The Empire Comes Apart
Explain why “the move that led directly to revolution was more accidental than calculated.”
The First Continental Congress
How did the emergence of this governing body alter the rebellion?
“Britain saw the colonies as a small but integral part of a large empire held together by an increasingly centralized and powerful government.”
Gibbes Museum, Gift of Mr. Joseph E. Jenkins ©Image Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association,

19. Boston Massacre
The Granger Collection

20. Review Questions
What were the reasons for the conflicts among the British, French, and Spanish and the various Indian tribes on the North American continent?
How and why did Britain attempt to reorganize its North American colonial empire?
Why did the colonies resist Britain’s attempts to reorganize its North American colonial empire?

21. Critical-Thinking Questions
For much of the eighteenth century, Britain and France were at war involving the American colonies. How did this warfare affect the colonies and their people?
What was the series of events that brought Britain and the colonies to the brink of war by 1774? To what extent were they the product of poor leadership? Differing theories of government? Different social experiences?
At what point did the American Revolution become unavoidable? Until that point, how might it have been avoided?