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Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sugar Act
On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. But because of corruption, they mostly evaded the taxes and undercut the intention of the tax that the English product would be cheaper than that from the French West Indies. -
The Stamp Act
On February 6th, 1765 George Grenville rose in Parliament to offer the fifty-five resolutions of his Stamp Bill. A motion was offered to first read petitions from the Virginia colony and others was denied. The bill was passed on February 17, approved by the Lords on March 8th, and two weeks later ordered in effect by the King. The Stamp Act was Parliament's first serious attempt to assert governmental authority over the colonies. -
The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. The presence of British troops in the city of Boston was increasingly unwelcome. The riot began when about 50 citizens attacked a British sentinel. The soldiers fired into the mob, killing 3 on the spot. -
The Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston.The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes.Colonists in Philadelphia and New York turned the tea ships back to Britain.In Boston the Royal Governor was stubborn and held the ships in port, where the colonists would not allow them to unload.Cargoes of tea filled the harbor. -
First Continental Congress
The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, from September 5, to October 26, 1774.Carpenter's Hall was also the seat of the Pennsylvania Congress.All of the colonies except Georgia sent delegates.These were elected by the people, by the colonial legislatures, or by the committees of correspondence of the respective colonies.The colonies presented there were united in a determination to show a combined authority to Great Britain, but their aims were not uniform at all. -
Second Continental Congress
In May 1775, with Redcoats once again storming Boston, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. It was agreed that a CONTINENTAL ARMY would be created. The Congress commissioned George Washington of Virginia to be the supreme commander, who chose to serve without pay. -
George Washington Commander In Chief
George Washington was much more than the Commander in Chief. He was the one necessary person, whose calm, unswerving, determined sense of patriotic duty to country, and ability put real backbone into the Revolution and kept it from collapsing under the hardships and unexpected privations encountered during the eight years of war.Without General Washington at its head it could never have succeeded.His faith in the cause and his devotion to the ideals it embodied made him the symbol of America.
