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French and Indian war
The French and Britain had 3 inconclusive wars that started in europe and traveled across seas the the colonies.The typical French where were young, single men who engaged in fur trade and catholic priests who sought to convert native americans. The french were allied with the natives for the fur trade. The main area of contention was the ohio river valley just west of pennsylvania. and the french built fort Duquesne. The governor of virginia sent militia to evict the french and the war started -
Proclamation of 1763
Proclamation 1763 was a line that was made to keep the colonists from going into the natives territory. Even though the line was made, the greedy colonists wanted expand west onto Native american land. -
sugar act & colonists reaction
The sugar act angered colonists and did three things. It halved the duty on foreign made molasses in hopes the colonists would pay a lower tax rather than risk arrests by smuggling. It placed duties in certain imports that had not been taxed before. Most important it provided a colonial court rather than vice-admiralty. -
stamp act & colonists response
The stamp act Imposed a tax on printed documents, bills, newspapers, and playing cards. The colonists made a resistance called the sons of liberty to protest the act. -
Declaratory act
But on the same day that they repealed the Stamp Act the parliament passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament’s full right “to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever.” -
Sons of Liberty is formed and samuel adams
The Townshend Acts taxed goods that were imported into the colony from Britain, such as lead, glass, paint, and paper. The Acts also imposed a tax on tea, the most popular drink in the colonies. Led by Samuel Adams, one of the founders of the Sons of Liberty, the colonists again boycotted British goods -
Townshed act & colonist response
Britain taxes
certain colonial imports and stations troops at major colonial ports to protect customs officers. Colonists protest “taxation without representation” and organize a new boycott of imported goods. -
Boston massacre
A mob gathered in front of the Boston Customs House and taunted the British soldiers standing guard there. Shots were fired and five colonists, including Crispus Attucks, were killed or mortally wounded. -
Boston tea party
A group of Boston rebels disguised themselves as native Americans and dumped over 18,000 pounds of tea into the harbor. -
Tea act
Lord North devised the Tea Act in order to save the nearly bankrupt British East India Company. The act granted the company the right to sell tea to the colonies free of the taxes that colonial tea sellers had to pay. This action would have cut colonial merchants out of the tea trade by enabling the East India Company to sell its tea directly to consumers for less. -
Intalerable acts
King George III pressed Parliament to act. In 1774, Parliament responded by passing a series of measures that colonists called the Intolerable Acts. One law shut down Boston harbor. Another, the Quartering Act, authorized British commanders to house soldiers in vacant pri- vate homes and other buildings. -
First Contenental Congress Meets
56 delegates met in Philadelphia and drew up a declaration of colonial rights. They defended the colonies’ right to run their own affairs and stated that, if the British used force against the colonies, the colonies should fight back. -
Minutemen
Minutemen—civilian soldiers who pledged to be ready to fight against the British on a minute’s notice quietly stockpiled firearms and gunpowder. -
Midnight Riders
Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott rode out to spread word that 700 British troops were headed for Concord. The darkened countryside rang with church bells and gunshots prearranged signals, sent from town to town, that the British were coming. -
Battle of Lexingtonton
Eight minutemen were killed and ten more were wounded, but only one British soldier was injured. The Battle of Lexington, the first battle of the Revolutionary War, lasted only 15 minutes. -
Second continental congress
Colonial leaders called the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to debate their next move. The loyalties that divided colonists sparked endless debates at the Second Continental Congress. Some delegates called for independence, while others argued for reconciliation with Great Britain. -
Continental army
Despite such differences, the Congress agreed to recognize the colonial militia as the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander. -
Battle of concord
The British marched on to Concord, where they found an empty arsenal. After a brief skirmish with minutemen, the British soldiers lined up to march back to Boston, but the march quickly became a slaughter. Between 3,000 and 4,000 minutemen had assembled by now, and they fired on the marching troops from behind stone walls and trees. British soldiers fell by the dozen. Bloodied and humiliated, the remaining British soldiers made their way back to Boston. -
Battle of bunker hill
Gage sent 2,400 British soldiers up the hill. The colonists held their fire until the last minute and then began to mow down the advancing redcoats before finally retreating. By the time the smoke cleared, the colonists had lost 450 men, while the British had suffered over 1,000 casualties. The misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill would prove to be the deadliest battle of the war. -
Olive branch petition
Congress sent the king the so-called Olive Branch Petition, urging a return to “the former harmony” between Britain and the colonies. King George flatly rejected the petition. Furthermore, he issued a procla- mation stating that the colonies were in rebellion and urged Parliament to order a naval blockade to isolate a line of ships meant for the American coast. -
John Locke’s social contract
Locke maintained that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Furthermore, he contended, every society is based on a social contract—an agreement in which the people consent to choose and obey a government so long as it safeguards their natural rights. If the gov- ernment violates that social contract by taking away or interfering with those rights, people have the right to resist and even overthrow the government. -
Publication of common sense
In a widely read 50-page pamphlet titled Common Sense, Paine attacked King George and the monarchy. Paine, a recent immigrant, argued that responsibility for British tyranny lay with “the royal brute of Britain.” Paine explained that his own revolt against the king had begun with Lexington and Concord. -
Declaration of independnce
Virginia lawyer Thomas Jefferson was chosen to prepare the final draft. The Declaration states flatly that “all men are created equal.” When this phrase was written, it expressed the common belief that free citizens were political equals. It did not claim that all people had the same ability or ought to have equal wealth. -
loyalists & patriots
Loyalists—those who opposed independence
and remained loyal to the British king, included judges and governors, as well as people of more modest means. Many Loyalists thought that the British were going to win and wanted to avoid punishment as rebels. -
washington's midnight surprise attack
Desperate for an early victory, Washington risked everything on one bold stroke set for Christmas night, 1776. In the face of a fierce storm, he led 2,400 men in small rowboats across the ice-choked Delaware River. They then marched to their objective,Trenton New Jersey and defeated a garrison of Hessians in a surprise attack. -
saratoga
American troops finally surrounded Burgoyne at Saratoga, where he surrendered on October 17, 1777. The surrender at Saratoga turned out to be one of the most important events of the war. -
French & American alliance
the Saratoga victory bolstered France’s belief
that the Americans could win the war. As a result, the
French signed an alliance with the Americans in February
1778 and openly joined them in their fight. -
valley forge
Washington and his Continental Army desperately low on
food and supplies fought to stay alive at winter camp in
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. More than 2,000 soldiers died,
yet the survivors didn’t desert. Their endurance and suffering
filled Washington’s letters to the Congress and his friends. -
Friedrich von Steuben and Marquis de Lafayette
February 1778, in the midst of the frozen winter at Valley
Forge, American troops began an amazing transformation.Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian captain and talented drillmaster, helped to train the Continental Army. -
british victories in south
the British began to shift their operations to the South. At the end of 1778, a British expedition easily took Savannah, Georgia. In their greatest victory of the war, the British under Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis captured Charles Town, South Carolina, in May 1780. -
british surrender at yorktown
17,000 French and American troops surrounded the British on the Yorktown peninsula and began bombarding them day and night. Less than a month later, on October 19, 1781, Cornwallis finally surrendered. The Americans had shocked the world and defeated the British. -
treaty of paris
Treaty of Paris, which confirmed U.S. independence and set the boundaries of the new nation. The United States now stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from Canada to the Florida border.