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Proclamation Line
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Tea Act
In 1763, the British Empire emerged as the victor of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). Although the victory greatly expanded the empire’s imperial holdings, it also left it with a massive national debt, and the British government looked to its North American colonies as an untapped source of revenue. -
Stamp Acts
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Quartering Acts
The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualing houses, and the houses of sellers of wine. -
Declaratory Act
Parliament Rules was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament rules to pass laws that was binding on the colonies. British trade and the used of declaration to justify the repeal and same people. -
Townshend Acts
They hoped the acts would defray imperial expenses in the colonies. When they was viewing taxation as an abuse on the relationship between constitutional and colonies. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Boston Tea Party
This famed act of American colonial defiance served as a protest against taxation. Seeking to boost the troubled East India Company, British Parliament adjusted import duties with the passage of the Tea Act in 1773. While consignees in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia rejected tea shipments, merchants in Boston refused to concede to Patriot pressure. -
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. -
Committee of Correspondence
The Committees of Correspondence rallied colonial opposition against British policy and established a political union among the Thirteen Colonies. Letter from Samuel Adams to James Warren, 4 November 1775. Massachusetts Historical Society. -
"Shot Heard Around the World"
In April 1775, when British troops are sent to confiscate colonial weapons, they run into an untrained and angry militia. This ragtag army defeats 700 British soldiers and the surprise victory bolsters their confidence for the war ahead. -
Common Sense
Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense in January 1776, but it was not published as a pamphlet until February 14, 1776. He wanted people to think about what was happening. He explained that the people must fight against the unfair and unjust ways of King George III and the British Parliament. -
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.
