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The Great Awakening
During the early 1730's worries about the erosion of religious fervor helped spark a series of revivals known as the Great Awakening. The revivals spread up and down the Atlantic coast. The congregations split towns and families and fueled popular new denominations, especially the Baptists and Methodists. -
Stono Rebellion
On a Sunday morning, September 9, 1739, some twenty African-born enslaved people attacked a store in Stono, south Carolina. Led by a slave, Jemmy, the slaves seized weapons, killed about two dozen whites and freed enslaved people. Then a well armed militiamen on horseback caught up with the men, and moist were killed, and sixty of the captured were decapitated. -
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Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)
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The Treaty of Paris
Gave Britain control of France's territories East of Mississippi River. Encompassed all of Canada and several sugar growing islands, Spanish Florida. Spain received vast Louisiana territory and New Orleans. Made Great Britain the Greatest empire in the world. -
Sugar Act
George Greenville, Prime Minister, wanted money from the Colonies, and made the American Revenue Act of 1764, more commonly known as the Sugar Act. Which cut tax on molasses in half, which could lower temptation to smuggle French molasses. But it also added taxes on other goods, sugar, wines, coffee, spices, imported into America. Colonists claimed that the Sugar Act taxed them without their consent. -
Quartering Act
Grenville persuaded Parliament to pass the Quartering Act, which required colonists to feed and house many British troops stationed in the colonies. Grenville believed colonists should contribute to the expence of defending the colonies, but it was viewed as another unconsented tax, and a way to bully Americans. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act required colonists to purchase paper from London embossed with a government revenue stamp. It affected all colonists because it applied to paper in every use. The Stamp Act was the first effort by Parliament to place a tax directly on American goods. -
The Townshend Acts
The Act was pushed through Parliament to generate more colonial revenue, which taxed colonial imports of glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. This posed an even more sever threat than Grenville's taxes had. Townshend planned to use the new tax revenues to pay the salaries of the royal governors in the colonies. This was used to pay governors of colonies, which gave leverage over the governors. -
Common Sense Published
Thomas Paine published a pamphlet called common sense which urged Americans to seize their independence. That nothing is more absurd than the things Britain has done to the colonies. Paine directly attacked the King with Common sense, and started changing peoples minds about Britain. -
The Colonies Declared Independence
During 1776 some 90 local governments issued declarations of independence from Great Britain, and one by one the colonies authorized their delegates in the continental congress to take the final step. July 4, 1776, when fifty-six members of Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, creating the United States of America.