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First Navigation Laws to control colonial commerce.
The Standing Council for Trade and the Council of State of the Commonwealth prepared a general policy designed to impede the flow of Mediterranean and colonial commodities via Holland and Zeeland into England. -
Board of Trade assumes governance ofcolonies.
In 1696, King William III appointed eight paid commissioners to promote trade in the American plantations and elsewhere. The Lords Commissioners of Trade and Foreign Plantations, appointed in 1696 and commonly known as the Board of Trade, did not constitute a committee of the Privy Council, but were, in fact, members of a separate body. -
Seven Years' War (French and Indian War) ends.
The British subsidies had been withdrawn by the new Prime Minister Lord Bute, and the Russian Emperor had been overthrown by his wife Catherine the Great who now switched Russian support back to Austria and launched fresh attacks on Prussia. Austria, however, had been weakened from the war and like most participants they were facing a severe financial crisis. In 1763 a peace settlement was reached at the Treaty of Hubertusburg ending the war in central Europe. -
Sugar Act
Also known as the Revenue Act of 1764, this Parliamentary legislation was intended to help customs collectors ferret out smugglers and also to raise revenues to assist in covering the ongoing costs of imperial administration of the North American colonies. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London and carrying an embossed revenue stamp. These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
Quartering Act
These Quartering Acts were used by the British forces in the American colonies to ensure that British soldiers had adequate housing and provisions. -
Declaratory Act
A declaration by the British Parliament in 1766 which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to make laws binding on the American colonies. -
Townshend Acts
A series of laws passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named for Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. -
British troops occupy Boston
British troops land in Boston to enforce the Townshend duties (taxes on paint, paper, tea, etc., passed in June 1767) and clamp down on local radicals. The troops' presence doesn't sit well with locals and leads to street fights. -
Boston Massacre
Also known as the Boston riot, was an incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. -
Committee of Correspondence Formed
Shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of American Revolution. They coordinated responses to Britain and shared their plans; by 1774-75 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials. -
British East India Company granted tea monopoly
The Company took this respite to seize Manila[17] in 1762. By the Treaty of Paris (1763), the French were allowed to maintain their trade posts only in small enclaves in Pondicherry, Mahe, Karikal, Yanam, and Chandernagar without any military presence. -
Governor Hutchinson's actions provoke Boston Tea Party
Governor Hutchinson refused to grant permission for the Dartmouth to leave without paying the duty. Two more tea ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor (there was another tea ship headed for Boston, the William, but it encountered a storm and was destroyed before it could reach its destination. -
First Continental Congress calls for abolition of slave trade.
Slavery existed before in Africa societies that is to say, domestic slavery and internal slave trade, which provided a favourable situation for continuation of the lucrative slave trade. -
Quebec Act
The province's territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, plus Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith.
It guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith. -
Intolerable Acts
names used to describe a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. -
New fersey constitution temporarily gives women the vote
The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 allowed "all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money" to vote. This included blacks, spinsters, and widows; married women could not own property under the common law. -
Philadelphia Quakers found world's first antislavery society.
Portuguese negotiate the first slave trade agreement that also includes gold and ivory. By the end of the 19th Century, because of the slave trade, five times as many Africans (over 11 million) would arrive in the Americas than Europeans. -
Articles of Confederation adopted by Second Continental Congress
On November 15, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation. Submitted to the states for ratification two days later, the Articles of Confederation were accompanied by a letter from Congress. -
Massachusetts adopts first constitution drafted in convention and ratified by popular vote
The Constitution is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States. -
Military officers form Society of the Cincinnati
The Society of the Cincinnati is a historical organization with branches in the United States and France founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the Revolutionary War officers and to pressure the government to honor pledges it had made to officers who fought for American independence. -
Land Ordinance of 1785
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. -
Meeting of five states to discuss revision of the Articles of Confederation
Only five states sent representatives to Annapolis in the fall of 1786 to convene another reform meeting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1787. -
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph. -
Shays's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts (mainly Springfield) from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary war, who led the rebels. -
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom Ordinance) was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. -
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
Grand Convention at Philadelphia took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. -
Ratification by nine states guarantees a new government under the Constitution
The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.
