THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE By Robert Carleton

FACTS OF THE WAR • The American Revolution was a political battle that began in 1773 and ended in 1783. • Colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy. • Aristocracy overthrew the authority of Great Britain and founded the United States of America.

THE WAR BEGINS… • The American Revolution, also known as the Revolutionary war began in 1775. • British soldiers and American patriots started the war with battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. • Colonists in America wanted independence from England.

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY • Boston Tea party (December 16 th, 1773), incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbour by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. • The Americans were protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company. • The Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767 and imposing duties on various products imported into the British colonies had raised such a storm of colonial protest and noncompliance that they were repealed in 1770, saving the duty on tea, which was retained by Parliament to demonstrate its presumed right to raise such colonial revenue without colonial approval.

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY #The merchants of Boston circumvented the act by continuing to *receive tea smuggled in by Dutch traders. #In 1773 Parliament passed a Tea Act designed to aid the financially troubled East India Company by granting it (1) a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies, (2) an exemption on the export tax, and (3) a “drawback” (refund) on duties owed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession. #The tea sent to the colonies was to be carried only in East India Company ships and sold only through its own agents, bypassing the independent colonial shippers and merchants. #The company thus could sell the tea at a less-than-usual price in either America or Britain; it could undersell anyone else. The perception of monopoly drove the normally conservative colonial merchants into an alliance with radicals led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty.

THE WAR FACTS CONTINUE… • The British government attempted to pass some laws, enforce several taxes and increase more control over the colonies. The colonies strongly objected to these laws and taxes. They wanted England to have no control over them. • For ten years before the war actually started, there was a lot of tension between England the colonies.

THE WAR FACTS INCREASE… • The colonies had no central government at the beginning of the war, so delegates from all the colonies were sent to form the first Continental Congress. • George Washington, a former military officer and wealthy Virginian, was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE • Members of the Continental Congress wrote a letter to king George of England outlining their complaints and declaring their Independence from England. • On July 4 th, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the declaration of Independence, in which the colonies declared their independence from England. • The war ended in 1783, and the United States of America was born.

CREDITS • A Robert Carleton Production. • Directed by Robert Carleton. • Scenery by Robert Carleton. • Written by Robert Carleton. • Slides by Robert Carleton. • Animations by Robert Carleton. • Designed by Robert Carleton.

CAST • Robert Carleton. • ROBERT CARLETON!!! • This information was original written by Thomas Jefferson, with the help of Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, John Adams and Robert R. Livingston ( I got all the information off Kids. Konnect. com/ the american