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Writs of Assistance
The "Writs of Assistance" were general warrants allowing officials to search for smuggled material within any suspected premises. This angered the colonists, who challenged its legality. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763: British Parliament passed a law called The Proclamation of 1763. The Proclamation was an attempt to establish a western border of the 13 colonies in America. That border was the Appalachian Mountains.
The Proclamation made it illegal for colonists to settle west of the Appalachians, Parliament was hoping this would satisfy the Native Americans in the area, and reduce the need for troops along the border to protect colonists. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act was the first tax on the American colonies imposed by the British Parliament. The Act put a tax on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies which impacted the manufacture of rum in New England. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. -
The Quartering Act
This act provided that Britain would house its soldiers in America first in barracks and public houses, It required colonists to to provide troops with food and alcohol, and providing for fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, and utensils for the soldiers.There was another similar quartering act passed in June of 1774; it was part of the Intolerable Acts. -
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty, a well-organized Patriot paramilitary political organization shrouded in secrecy, was established to undermine British rule in colonial America. It was led by Samuel Adams. They rallied support for colonial resistance through the use of petitions, assemblies, and propaganda, and they sometimes resorted to violence against officials of the mother country. They organized the Boston Tea Party, among other protests. -
Declaratory Act
The Declaratory Act of 1766 was a British Law that was passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed. Passed by the British parliament to affirm its power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever”. The declaration stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies. The colonies did not dispute the notion of Parliamentary supremacy over the law. But the ability -
Townshend Acts
Series of 1767 laws named for Charles Townshend, British Treasurer. These laws placed new taxes on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea. Colonial reaction to these taxes was the same as to the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, and Britain eventually repealed all the taxes except the one on tea. In response to the sometimes violent protests by the American colonists, Great Britain sent more troops to the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and began taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation. Crispus Attucks was the first to die in this attack. -
Mercy Otis Warren
Mercy Otis Warren was a political writer and propagandist of the American Revolution. In the eighteenth century, topics such as politics and war were thought to be the province of men. Few men and fewer women had the education or training to write about these subjects. During the years before the American Revolution, Warren published poems and plays that attacked royal authority in Massachusetts and urged colonists to resist British infringements on colonial rights and liberties. -
The Tea Act
The was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its principal objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea, smuggled into Britain's North American colonies.Colonists were only allowed to buy tea from the East India Company. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct protest and act of civil disobedience by colonists in Boston against the Tea Tax that had been imposed by the British government. Boston patriots, dressed as Mohawk Indians, raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped 342 containers of tea into the harbor. The Boston Tea Party arose from the resentment of Boston colonists towards the British which had been fuelled by protest activities by patriots in the Sons of Liberty organization. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerabe Acts, also called Coercive Acts, were four punitive measures enacted by the British Parliament in retaliation for acts of colonial defiane, including the Boston Tea Party. The Acts shut down Boston Harbor until the tea wasted in the Boston Tea Party had been paid for, forbid town meetings in Massaschussets, and allowed British officials to be tried for crimes in Britain. -
First Continental Congress
Representatives from all colonies, except GA, met after the Intolerable Acts. They wanted find a solution to their issues with Britain, NOT to seek independence.They had 3 objectives: to compose a statement of colonial rights, to identify British parliaments violation of those rights, and to provide a plan that would convince Britain to restore those rights.
They agreed to boycott British goods and passed resolutions asserting colonial rights. They also agreed to meet again in May of 1775. -
Patrick Henry
"Give me liberty, or give me death!" is a quotation attributed to Patrick Henry from a speech he made to the Virginia Convention in 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. He is credited with having swung the balance in convincing the convention to pass a resolution delivering Virginian troops for the Revolutionary War. Among the delegates to the convention were future U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. -
The Midnight Rides
On the night of April 18, 1775, two Sons of Liberty, Paul Revere and William Dawes, raced on horseback from Boston to warn residents that the British regulars were on the march toward Lexington and Concord. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a British military action for some time. Along the way, Revere and Dawes roused hundreds of Minutemen, who armed themselves and set out to oppose the British. -
Lexington and Concord
First battle of the American Revolution. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress established the militia as the Continental Army to represent the thirteen states. They also elected George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. Some delegates still wanted to avoid war and came up with a petition, known as the Olive Branch Petition, and sent it to Parliament to express their wish for peace and to appeal to the king to respect their rights. After it was rejected they drafted and approved the Declaration of Independence. -
Common Sense
Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain." I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain."
