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The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years’ War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war’s expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
Friedrich von Steuben and Marquis de Lafayette
He was a Prussian officer who is credited with forming the amateur Continental Army into a professional fighting force. -
Proclamation
This 'No Trespassing' sign was known as the Proclamation Line of 1763. Issued by King George III, the proclamation prohibited settlers from crossing west over the Appalachian Mountains in order to prevent further conflicts between settlers and Native Americans. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there. -
Writ of Assistance
The British officials in the colonies called for a crackdown on smuggling. Governor Bernard of Massachusetts authorized the use by revenue officers of writs of assistance. Writs of assistance were documents which served as a general search warrant, allowing customs officials to enter any ship or building that they suspected for any reason might hold smuggled goods. -
Sugar Act & colonists response
The Sugar Act or the Molasses Act was passed in 1764. The British Parliament, government, taxed the colonists because they wanted money to pay for the cost of the French and Indian War. Also parliament wanted the colonists to pay the security for the colonies. The colonist were upset because they were being taxed extra because of the war. -
Stamp Act & Colonists response
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. What made the law so offensive to the colonists was not so much its immediate cost but the standard it seemed to set. -
Sons of Liberty & Samuel Adams
The Sons of Liberty was a secret organization that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies to advance the rights of the European colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. Samuel Adams was one of the founders of the sons of liberty. -
Declaratory Act
The Declaratory Act was a measure issued by British Parliament asserting its authority to make laws binding the colonists “in all cases whatsoever” including the right to tax. The Declaratory Act was a reaction of British Parliament to the failure of the Stamp Act as they did not want to give up on the principle of imperial taxation asserting its legal right to tax colonies. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies They placed new taxes and took away some freedoms from the colonists including the following new taxes on imports of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea, They also Established an American Customs Board in Boston to collect taxes. They also Set up new courts in America to prosecute smugglers. They gave British officials the right to search colonists' houses and businesses. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. Along with tea, the Townshend Revenue Act also taxed glass, lead, oil, paint, and paper. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party happened in 3 British ships in the Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party took place because the colonists did not want to have to pay taxes on the British tea. They were afraid that Britain would take over America, and they wanted to rule their own country. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of colonial goods. -
Minutemen
Minutemen were civilian colonists who independently organized to form well-prepared militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. The minutemen were among the first to fight in the American Revolution. -
First Continental Congress Meets
On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native-American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. -
John Locke's Social Contract
John Locke's social contract theory includes the idea that life, liberty and property are given to us by nature and shouldn't be taken away. Locke's theory states that people form governments in order to protect these rights, but in order for that to work, people have to follow the laws the government makes. -
Battle of Lexington
They happened because the British commander in Boston had heard of supplies of powder and weapons being kept by Patriots in the towns of Lexington and Concord. -
Battle of Concord
Hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire -
Second Continental Congress
he Second Continental Congress was a 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. -
Continental Army
The Continental Army was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the ex-British colonies that became the United States of America. General George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the army throughout the war. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in the battle. -
Olive Branch Petition
John Dickinson drafted the Olive Branch Petition, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5 and submitted to King George on July 8, 1775. It was an attempt to assert the rights of the colonists while maintaining their loyalty to the British crown. -
Declaration of Independence Summary
All men are created equal and there are certain unalienable rights that governments should never violate. When a government fails to protect those rights, it is not only the right, but also the duty of the people to overthrow that government. -
Publication of common sense
Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. -
Washington's Red coats
On December 25, 1776 George Washington and the Continental Army crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey in a surprise attack on the British. They had a decisive victory that helped turn the war back to the American's favor. It was the cold of winter. -
Washington's Surprise attack
Washington crossed the Delaware River so that his army could attack an isolated garrison of Hessian troops located at Trenton, New Jersey. ... Washington hoped that a quick victory at Trenton would bolster sagging morale in his army and encourage more men to join the ranks of the Continentals come the new year. -
Loyalists and Patriots
The Revolutionary War split the people of the American colonies into two groups: the loyalists and the patriots. Patriots were people who wanted the American colonies to gain their independence from Britain. They wanted their own country called the United States. -
Saratoga
Battles of Saratoga were a turning point in the American Revolution. On September 19th, British General John Burgoyne achieved a small, but costly victory over American forces led by Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold. -
Valley Forge
Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight military encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington. In September 1777, British forces had captured the American capital of Philadelphia. -
French and American Alliance
t was a military pact in which the French provided many supplies for the Americans. -
British Victories in the South
The British shifted their war effort to the South in 1778 because there the British hoped to rally loyalist support, reclaim their former colonies in the region, and then slowly fight their way back north. How were colonists able to reverse British advances in the South? They used gorilla warfare. -
British surrender at Yorktown
General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his troops in Yorktown, Virginia. General Cornwallis brought 8,000 British troops to Yorktown. They expected help from British ships sent from New York.
