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proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was a British act to prohibit American colonists from settling beyond the Appalachian Mountains--to keep them closer to the seaboard. That way the West would be reserved for the Native Americans and there wouldn't be constant wars in that area. Americans thought they were being shut in by the King. -
sugar act
a law passed by the British Parliament in 1764 raising duties on foreign refined sugar imported by the colonies so as to give British sugar growers in the West Indies a monopoly on the colonial market. -
stamp act
The Stamp Act was a tax imposed by the British government on the American colonies.The primary goal was to raise money needed for military defenses of the colonies.The Act imposed a tax that required colonial residents to purchase a stamp to be affixed to a number of documents. It required the American population to purchase stamps for newspapers, pamphlets, posters and even playing cards. -
boston massacre
The Boston Massacre (the killing of five men by British soldiers on March 5, 1770) was the action of civilian-military tensions that had been growing since troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768. The soldiers were in Boston to keep order in face of the growing anger with the heavy taxation imposed by the Townshend acts. But townspeople viewed them not as order keepers but as threats to independence. -
tea act
The Tea Act of 1773 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on May 10, 1773, that was designed to bail out the British East India Company and expand the company's monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. -
boston tea party
a raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor in which Boston colonists, disguised as Indians, threw the contents of several hundred chests of tea into the harbor as a protest against British taxes on tea and against the monopoly granted the East India Company. -
1st continental congress
The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government on the colonies in response to their resistance to new taxes. -
lexington and concord
Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize a hiding spot of guns and ammunition. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. -
declaration of independence
The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the American political tradition. It articulates the fundamental ideas that form the American nation: All men are created free and equal and possess the same inherent, natural rights. Legitimate governments must therefore be based on the consent of the governed and must exist “to secure these rights.”
