-
French and Indian war
Also known as the Seven Years’ War, this New World conflict marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was issued by the British at the end of the French and Indian War to appease Native Americans by checking the encroachment of European settlers on their lands. -
Stamp act
The first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies. -
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, ale houses, victualling houses. -
Townshend act
A series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Massacre
It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment and paved the way for the American Revolution. -
Tea act
Was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
Sugar ct
Also called Plantation act or Revenue act U.S. colonial history, British legislation aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies -
First Continental Congress
The Continental Congress served as the government of the 13 American colonies and later the United States. The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Coercive Acts. -
Coercive acts
A series of four acts established by the British government. The aim of the legislation was to restore order in Massachusetts and punish Bostonians for their Tea Party, -
Shot Heard round the world
Hundreds of British troops set off from Boston toward Concord, Massachusetts, in order to seize weapons and ammunition stockpiled there by American colonists. Early the next morning, the British reached Lexington, where approximately 70 minutemen had gathered on the village green. Someone suddenly fired a shot. -
Second Continental Congress
Convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that formed in Philadelphia in May 1775, soon after the launch of the American Revolutionary War. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September and October of 1774. -
Common sense
Writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation’s people asserting their right to choose their own government.