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French and Indian War
series of military engagements between Britain and France in North America between 1754 and 1763. -
Albany Plan of Union
a plan to create a merging government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin -
Pontiac's Rebellion
Major Henry Gladwin, British commander of Fort Detroit, foils Ottawa Chief Pontiac’s attempt at a surprise attack. Romantic lore holds that Gladwin’s Seneca mistress informed him of the western Indians’ plans for an uprising. -
Proclamation of 1763 (colonist reaction)
King George III issued a proclamation that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. In so doing, he hoped to placate Native Americans who had sided against him during the recently concluded Seven Years' War -
Currency Act
one of many several Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain that regulated paper money issued by the colonies of British America -
Sugar Act
tax on sugar -
Quartering Act
required that the soldiers from Great Britain be housed in American barracks and public houses. -
Colonist formed Sons of Liberty
an organization that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government -
Stamp Act
an act regulating stamp duty (a tax on the legal recognition of documents). -
Declaratory Act
Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and simultaneously passed the Declaratory Act, which claimed that Britain had the right to tax the American colonies -
Townshend Act
imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies -
Boston Massacre
A squad of British soldiers, come to support a sentry who was being pressed by a heckling, snowballing crowd, let loose a volley of shots. Three persons were killed immediately and two died later of their wounds; among the victims was Crispus Attucks, a man of black or Indian parentage. -
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 punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
Tea Act
A political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, actual dumping of tea into harbors -
Quebec Act
the British Parliament to institute a permanent administration in Canada replacing the temporary government created at the time of the Proclamation of 1763. -
Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts)
the term used by American Patriots for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party -
1st Continental Congress
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 -
Battle of Bunker Hill
the British defeated the Americans in Massachusetts. -
Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech
He was urging the American colonies to revolt against England. Henry spoke only a few weeks before the Revolutionary War began: “Gentlemen may cry Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. -
Battles at Lexington and Concord
Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts.
"FIRST SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD" -
Second Continental Congress
a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy