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Navigation Acts
Declared that only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, to England. -
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French-Indian War
The costs of the war contributed to the British government’s decision to impose new taxes on its American colonies. (1756-1763) -
Stamp Act
Imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire; legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp -
Quartering Act
Required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables and ale houses -
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Townshend Acts
A series of 4 acts by the British government including a tax on tea, lead, glass, paper and paint. -
Boston Massacre
In Boston, a small British army detachment that was threatened by mob harassment opened fire and killed five people. -
Boston Tea Party
Protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company, a party of Bostonians thinly disguised as Mohawk people boarded ships at anchor and dumped some £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor. -
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Intolerable Acts
Series of laws passed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. -
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Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies in America which united in the American Revolutionary War. -
Olive Branch Petition
Final attempt by the colonists to avoid going to war with Britain during the American Revolution. It was a document in which the colonists pledged their loyalty to the crown and asserted their rights as British citizens. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
Founding document of the United States, was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. -
Articles of Confederation
An agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution. It was approved, after much debate, by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. -
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Daniel Shays´ Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. -
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Constitutional Convention
Called to decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans.