-
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a British-produced boundary marked in the Appalachian Mountains at the Eastern Continental Divide. Decreed on October 7, 1763, the Proclamation Line prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War. -
The stamp act
The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures and was payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. They had it because the colonies pasted the proclamation line -
The 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. -
The Tea Act
The Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party. 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. -
The Boston Tea Party
To protest British Parliament's tax on tea. "No taxation without representation." The demonstrators boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The British government considered the protest an act of treason and responded harshly. -
The Intolerable Acts
The Coercive Acts of 1774, known as the Intolerable Acts in the American colonies, were a series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party. -
Lexington and Concord
At Lexington Green, the British were met by approximately seventy American Minute Men led by John Parker. At the North Bridge in Concord, the British were confronted again, this time by 300 to 400 armed colonists, and were forced to march back to Boston with the Americans firing on them all the way. -
The Green Mountain Boys
They participated in important battles that helped the Americans defeat forces led by General John Burgoyne in the late summer of 1777. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The American patriots were defeated at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but they proved they could hold their own against the superior British Army. -
Common Sense
Common Sense outlined the need for American independence. Paine presented his arguments in plain language that made political discussion accessible to colonists of all walks of life. -
The Declaration Of Indepndance.
The document announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It was the last of a series of steps that led the colonies to final separation from Great Britain. -
Battle at Trenton/Princeton
The victory set the stage for another success at Princeton a week later and boosted the morale of the American troops. -
Battle of Saratoga
It lifted patriot morale, furthered the hope for independence, and helped to secure the foreign support needed to win the war. -
Continental Army Wintering Valley Forge
The Continental Army's transformative experiences at Valley Forge reshaped it into a more unified force capable of defeating the British and winning American independence during the remaining five years of the war. -
War in the South/Charleston
The surrender left no substantial army in the South, and the colonies were wide open for a British advance -
Battle of Yorktown
Victory at Yorktown led directly to the peace negotiations that ended the war in 1783 and gave America its independence.