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Pontiac's Rebellion
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Sugar Act
This was a law that attempted to disband the smuggling of sugar and molasses in the colonies by reducing the previous tax rate and enforcing the collection of duties. -
Stamp Act
Act of the British Parliament that demanded revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial refusal led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown. -
Declaratory Act
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 as they did not want to give up on the principle of imperial taxation asserting its legal right to tax colonies. -
Townshend Act
Act set to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would remain loyal to Great Britain, to create a more effective means of enforcing trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
A street fight that occurred between a patriot mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a group of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed. -
Committees of Correspondence formed
Created for maintaining communication lines across America in the years before the Revolutionary War. It was set to encourage opposition to Britain’s stiffening of customs enforcement and prohibition of American paper money. -
Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
Declaration of Independence
Written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress, states the reasons the British colonies of North America sought independence in July of 1776. -
Articles of Confederation ratified
The representatives of the thirteen states agree to create a confederacy called the United States of America, in which each state maintains its own sovereignty and all rights to govern, except those rights specifically granted to Congress. -
Treaty of Paris
Negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, ended the revolutionary war and recognized American independence. -
Northwest Ordinance
Created the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British Canada and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. -
Shay's Rebellion
Series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers against state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt. -
Constitution ratified
Established America’s national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. It was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia -
Citizen Genet
A French statesman who came to America in search of monetary aid. He asked for private donations to France and recruited American privateers. -
Whiskey Rebellion
A tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791, during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. -
Jay Treaty
A treaty between Britain and America, which required Britain to withdraw its troops from the Northwest Posts in exchange for many more concession from America. The Treaty was so unfavorable for the U.S. that it barely was ratified by the State -
Alien and Sedition Acts
Four bills that were passed by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, the result of the French Revolution and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. -
Louisiana Purchase
The United States purchased approximately 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. -
Missouri Compromise
An effort by Congress to get rid of the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Monroe Doctrine
A U.S. foreign policy showing the domination of the American continent in 1823. It stated that any attempts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, leading to U.S. intervention. -
Indian Removal Act
The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands. -
Nullification Crisis
A sectional crisis in 1832–33, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, which involved a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government. -
Seneca Falls Convention
the first women's rights convention. A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman. Held in Seneca Falls, New York.
