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Proclamation of 1763
After the end of the French and Indian War in America, the British Empire began to tighten control over its rather autonomous colonies. This royal proclamation, which closed down colonial expansion westward, was the first measure to affect all thirteen colonies. -
Sugar Act
The Act set a tax on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies which impacted the manufacture of rum in New England -
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 and housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. -
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. -
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress, or First Congress of the American Colonies, was a meeting held between October 7 and 25, 1765 in New York City. The men who attended the meeting consisted of representatives from 9 of the British Colonies in North America. The objective of the representatives was to devise a unified protest against new British taxation - specifically the Stamp Act of 1765 -
Repeal of the Stamp Act
After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766. However, the same day, Parliament passed the Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and total legislative power over the colonies. -
Declaratory
The Declaratory Act of 1766 was a British Law, passed in mid March by the Parliament of Great Britain, that was passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed. The colonists celebrated the repeal of the Stamp Act and their political victory but the the passing of the Declaratory Act was the beginning of more trouble -
Townshend
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. Townshend hoped the acts would defray imperial expenses in the colonies, but many Americans viewed the taxation as an abuse of power, resulting in the passage of agreements to limit imports from Britain. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. 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. The British officer in charge, Capt. Thomas Preston, was arrested for manslaughter, along with eight of his men; all were later acquitted. -
Boston Tea Party
On this day in 1773, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships moored in Boston Harbor and dump 342 chests of tea into the water. Now known as the “Boston Tea Party,” the midnight raid was a protest of the Tea Act of 1773 -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts, also called the the Restraining Acts and the Coercive Acts, were a series of British Laws, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain 1774. Four of the Intolerable Acts were specifically aimed at punishing the Massachusetts colonists for the actions taken in the incident known as the Boston Tea Party. The fifth of the Intolerable Acts series was related to Quebec was seen as an additional threat to the liberty and expansion of the colonies. -
Quebec acts
The Quebec Act was passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on June 22, 1774. The Quebec Act was designed to extend the boundaries of Quebec and guaranteed religious freedom to Catholic Canadians. -
Second Continental Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies that met on September 5 to October 26, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War 1775-83. particularly in Massachusetts 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. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire. -
Declaration Of Independence
When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue.
