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Period: to
French and Indian War
a. The cause of the war was that England and the French wanted the same land.
b. The French teamed up with the Iroquois League to fight the British. This caused Benjamin Franklin to declare the Albany Plan of Union. The French started off strong with early victories but Great Britain had their comeback with William Pitt because they captured key cities and the French signaled defeat.
c. The British won and this caused the Treaty of Paris, Proclamation of 1763, and England to tax the colonies. -
Proclamation of 1763
a. It was a document that reserved land west of the Appalachian Mountains for Indians.
b. It restricted colonists from gaining land west of the Appalachian Mountains which made them very angry. -
Sugar Act
a. King George III was responsible for passing this law.
b. This placed taxes on sugar and molasses and sent smugglers to a British court. England did this because they were trying to get money because they were in debt from the French and Indian War.
c. This was the first Act enforced on the colonies.
d. This Act made the colonies think about how England was using their power. -
Stamp Act
a. George Grenville was responsible along with King George III for passing the Stamp Act.
b. This Act made it required for there to be an official government stamp to be on all colonial documents. This was the first direct tax on the colonies.
c. The Stamp Act caused Samuel Adams to from the Sons of Liberty in response to the Stamp Act to protest it. This delayed the start of the Stamp Act policies and made the English repeal the Act. The Act made the House of Burgesses mad and more aggressive. -
Quartering Act
a. This law required colonists to provide food, drink, and living space to British soldiers. -
Period: to
Stamp Act Congress
a., b., c. Colonist delegates met in New York City to discuss the Stamp Act and how to protest this act. They said that Britain couldn't tax them because the colonists had no representatives in Parliament.
d. This meeting caused the British to repeal the Stamp Act, but also to pass the Declaratory Act later on. -
Declaratory Act
a. This law declared that Britain had the right to rule and tax the colonies even after the repealment of the Stamp Act. -
Townshend Acts
a. A man named Charles Townshend introduced this these Acts to Parliament and King George passed them.
b. This law taxed lead, paper, glass, and tea from England. It also enforced writs of assistance which allowed British customs officers to search any house for smuggled goods.
c. The tax money was used to pay the salaries of British officials.
d. The colonists reacted with major resistance with the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. -
Boston Massacre
a.
-Colonists were protesting British soldiers on King Street and tension was very high.
-One of the British soldiers shot into the crowd because he thought someone said "fire" and killed Crispus Attucks.
-Five people were killed in total and others were injured. -
Boston Tea Party
a. The Sons of Liberty, lead by Samuel Adams were responsible.
b. All the acts, but mainly the Tea Act made the colonists angry so they did this to protest.
c.
-The Sons of Liberty came to Boston Harbor dressed as Native Americans.
-They dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into the harbor to protest the Tea Act and the British.
d. The British were furious so they passed the Intolerable Acts. -
Intolerable Acts
a. The colonists were mainly affected by these laws.
b. The Intolerable Acts enforced the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, and the Quebec Act, but the main thing is that it shut down the Boston Harbor.
c. The colonists set up the First Continental Congress in response to the Intolerable Acts. -
Period: to
First Continental Congress
a. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies except for Georgia. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were all there.
b. They met in Philadelphia.
c. The cause of this meeting was the Intolerable Acts.
d. The result of this meeting was that they defended the colonie's rights to run their own government. They also encouraged people to form colonial militias, but agreed there would be no military action unless attacked and that they would meet again. -
Quebec Act
a. This law created a permanent administration in Canada replacing the temporary government that was functioning at the time of the Proclamation of 1763.
b. The colonists got furious because there had already been too many taxes and now the British was taking away even more of their freedom. They really started to resent the British at this point. -
Battles of Lexington & Concord
a. 700 British were sent to Lexington to find hidden weapons and wanted people that had violated British laws like Samuel Adams and John Hancock. 70 minutemen were waiting for the British. 49 were killed, 39 were wounded, and five were missing for the colonists. For the British, 73 were killed, 174 were wounded, and 26 were missing. The Americans won this battle.
b. The significance of these battles were that they were the first battles of the American Revolution and it set the tone. -
Period: to
Second Continental Congress
a. Delegates from each colony except for Georgia came and some of the founding fathers that were there were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and John Hancock.
b. They met in Philadelphia.
c. They met to talk about their independence and the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
d. In this meeting they created the Continental Army, wrote the "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms", and wrote the "Olive Branch Petition". -
Battle of Bunker Hill
a. The Battle occurred in Boston.
b., c. The colonists were on top of Bunker Hill and the Redcoats had to storm the hill three times and were forced to retreat. They eventually won.
d. This Battle gave the colonists the confidence that they could win the war because they gave the British such a hard time. -
Common Sense
a., b., c. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense because he thought America should be independent. He gave them all the reasons they should. The significance of this was that it persuaded undecided colonists to support independence and it made decided colonists to gain confidence. -
Declaration of Independence
a. Thomas Jefferson wrote it.
b. It was signed on August 2, 1776.
c. The significance of this document is that it formally announced the colonist's break from England and America still runs off of this document.
d. The three main ideas included in this document were that people have "unalienable rights", that there were unfair British laws and taxes, and that England had violated the social contract.
e. This caused the colonists to fight the rest of the war, win ,and change America forever. -
Works Cited
-https://www.landofthebrave.info/house-of-burgesses.htm
-http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts
-http://www.hobart.k12.in.us/gemedia/amrev/revwar/townshen.htm
-http://www.ushistory.org/us/9g.asp
-http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-continental--congress-convenes
-https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/lexington-and-concord
