-
Proclamation of 1763
This document was sent to the Colonists’ by the King and declared colonists were not allowed to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. Some colonists continued to move west of the Appalachians. -
Sugar Act
This act halved the duty on foreign-made molasses, placed duties on certain imports, and it strengthened the enforcement of the law allowing prosecutors to try smuggling cases in a vice-admiralty court rather than in more sympathetic colonial court.The colonists did not like this act and it eventually led to a rebellion. -
Stamp Act
The stamp act required colonists to purchase special stamped paper for every legal document, license, newspaper, pamphlet, and almanac and imposed special “stamp duties” on packages of playing cards and dice.The colonists protested and created the “Sons of Liberty”. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. -
Repeal of Stamp Act
After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766. However, the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies. -
Townshend Act
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act of 1773 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on May 10, 1773, that was designed to bail out the British East India Company and expand the company's monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. -
Boston Tea Party
Because the colonists hated the taxes imposed 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 punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts (also called the Coercive Acts) were harsh laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774. They were meant to punish the American colonists for the Boston Tea Party and other protests -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies who met from September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania early in the American Revolution. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and the battle provided them with an important confidence boost. -
Second Continental Congress
It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774. The Second Congress managed the Colonial war effort and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.