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Navigation Acts
During this time only British ships could import and export goods to and from the colonies. Also the only people that could trade with British citizens. These acts were put in place to achieve mercantilism in England. Finally, commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton wool which were produced in the colonies could be exported only to British ports. -
Proclimation of 1763
The purpose was to organize the new colonies, and stabilize relations with Native Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. This also stopped westward expansion toward the Appalachian Mountains. -
The Sugar Act
The act put a tax on foreign sugar and increased taxes on coffee, indigo, and certain kinds of wine. It banned importation of rum and French wines. These taxes affected only a certain part of the population, but the affected merchants were very vocal. -
Quartion Act
These acts forces American colonist to provide housing and provisions for British Soldires. -
Stamp Act
The act required that almost all printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
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Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. -
Townshend Act
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. -
Boston Massacacre
The Boston Massacre, called the Boston Riot by the English, was an incident in which British redcoats killed five civilian men. A mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. He was eventualy supported by a small company of troops, who were assaulted by verbal threats and thrown objects. They fired into the crowd, without orders, instantly killing three people and wounding others. -
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. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, -
Lexing ton and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Common Sense, signed "Written by an Englishman", became an immediate success. In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule. -
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Declaration of Independence
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people.
