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1215
Magna Carta
A document that provided the nobles privileges and obtained their authority. It also was a contract that limited power of the monarch and no one would be above the law including the Queen and King.It granted certain rights to all land holders and eventually applied to English people too. These right also included equal rights under the law and trial by one's peer. -
Mayflower Compact
It stated that the government would make equal rights.It was also the first document to establish self-government.It convinced people to support freedom of expression and fight against king. The government would serve the greater people and would agree on laws. -
Mercantilism
It is a theory that countries should sell more goods to other countries than it buys. For it to be successful Great Britain needed the colonies to be a source of cheap, raw materials.British tried to get so much wealth from America and other colonies with this -
English Bill of Rights
Expand power of parliament and rights of people and limit the king's power. This would give more power to the people and parliament. This document stated that monarch could not suspend Parliament's laws. -
Cato's Letters
It was a collection of newspapers. It created a government that could provide order and protection. It also Brought up issues of people's rights. -
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.Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
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 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. -
Stamp Act
Required Colonists to attach expensive tax stamps to all newspapers and documents. The money collected by the Stamp Act was to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains.10,000 troops were to be stationed on the American frontier for this purpose -
Declaratory act
Stated that The Parliament had the right to tax and make decisions for American Colonists.This crisis focused attention on the unresolved question of Parliament’s relationship to a growing empire. It also stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain -
Townsend Act
Laws that levied new taxes on goods imported to the colonies. The taxed goods included basic items, like glass, tea, paper, and lead, that the colonists needed because they did not produce them. These laws were also series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies -
Tea Act
It gave the British East India Company the right to ship tea to the colonies without paying most of the taxes usually placed on tea.The act’s main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company. Colonists boarded East India Company ships and dumped their loads of tea overboard -
Boston Tea Party
A protest because 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.Showed Great Britain that Americans wouldn’t take taxation and tyranny sitting down. Britain was deep in debt, so British Parliament imposed a series of taxes on American colonists to help pay those debts. -
First Continental Congress
It was a meeting of Delegates from 12-13 colonies that later became part f the US.It stated that Americans demand more rights and it lasted seven weeks. Five years later, the Congress ratified the first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation, under which the country would be governed until 1789 -
Intolerable Act/ Coercive Act
Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which Americans called the Intolerable Acts.This restricted the colonists’ rights, including
the right to trial by jury. It also allowed British to practically search and move into the colonists house. -
Second Continental Congress
The governing body of the American colonies from 1775 to 1781. It was founded when the British failed to address the grievances of the First Continental Congress and to organize a Continental Army to fight.The Second Congress managed the colonial war effort, financing the war with borrowed funds and without the support of taxes; states were asked to contribute men, supplies, and funds. -
Lexington & Concord
Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts.Great Britain enacted a series of measures aimed at raising revenue from its 13 American colonies.Many of those measures, including the Sugar Act, Stamp Act and Townsend Acts, generated fierce resentment among the colonists, who protested against “taxation without representation.” -
Common Sense
Limit power of king and protect rights of nobility. It also persuaded many colonists to break away from Great Britain. Thomas Paine argued for independence from England and the creation of a democratic republic. -
The Declaration of Independence
One of the most important documents in the history of the United States. It was an official act taken by all 13 American colonies in declaring independence from British rule.The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence.The only reason to have a government is to protect these basic human rights, which Jefferson lists as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
