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Proclamation Line
The British won a lot of territory in North America after the Seven Years of War. Under the treaty, Canada and the entire present-day United States east of the Mississippi came under British control. British officials made the situation worse by alienating American Indians who had been allied with France during the Seven Years of War. -
Stamp Act
Tax placed on all paper goods by the British to help pay for the French and Indian War; later repealed. Many colonist did not like taxes on stamps and other paper goods. Every newspaper, pamphlet, and other public and legal document had to have a Stamp, or British seal, on it. -
Quartering Act
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 or housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. The British sent an additional 40,000 soldiers to the colonies in 1765 to protect the borders of the colonies and also to help to collect taxes from the colonists it was a British show of force. -
Declaratory Act
Stated Parliament had the right to tax the colonists at anytime.
Also known as the American colonies act. The colonists also rebelled against this act. -
Boston Massacre
Incident where five colonist were killed by British Soldiers. The way people described it was the colonists got shot for no reason but the colonists provoked them. They called it a massacre so that the other colonies would come together with them against the British. -
Committee of Correspondence
Network of Individuals that kept people informed throughout the colonies; created after Boston Massacre. Many correspondents were members of the colonial assemblies and also were active in the secret sons of liberty. -
Tea Act
Protest by a group of Massachusetts colonists, disguised as Indians , led by Samuel Adams, against the Tea Act and mostly against “taxation without representation”. The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
Incident where the Sons of Liberty dumped large amounts of British Tea into the Boston Harbor. The Boston tea party was led by Samuel Adams. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. -
Intolerable or Coercive Acts
The Intolerable Acts were the American Patriots' term for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. -
"Shot Heard Around the World"
The "Shot Heard Around the World" occurred in Lexington and Concord. No one exactly knows who fired the first shot. Word spread from town to town, and militias prepared to confront the British and help their neighbors in Lexington and Concord. -
Declaration of Independence
Document that Declarations the independence of the United States from Great Britain; written by Thomas Jefferson. The authors of the declaration of independence: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, John Adams, and Robert Livingston -
Townshend Act
passed by Parliament in 1767, placed taxes on imported materials such as glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. The Townshend act reignited the anger that colonists had against England. Townshend acts are names after Charles Townshend. -
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. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine argues for American independence. His argument begins with more general, theoretical reflections about government and religion, then progresses onto the specifics of the colonial situation.
