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Proclamation of 1763
the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the "Indians" against them. -
stamp actt
On February 6th, 1765 George Grenville rose in Parliament to offer the fifty-five resolutions of his Stamp Bill. A motion was offered to first read petitions from the Virginia colony and others was denied -
Quartering act
In 1765 the British further angered the colonist by passing the Quartering Act.Ê The act forced American colonist to house and feed British forces who were serving in North America.Ê The act further inflamed tensions between the colonist and the British.Ê The colonist were angered at having their homes forced open.Ê The subsequent close contact with British soldiers did not engender good feelings between the sides.from Britain dropped almost in half. -
Townshend Acts
Taxes on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper, and tea were applied with the design of raising £40,000 a year for the administration of the colonies. The result was the resurrection of colonial hostilities created by the Stamp Act. -
Boston Massacre
Five colonists were killed by British Troops in Boston on March 5th 1770. The event was precipitated by taunts against British soldiers in Boston -
boston tea partyy
On the evening of December 16th, thousands of Bostonians and farmers from the surrounding countryside packed into the Old South Meeting house to hear Samuel Adams. Adams denounced the Governor for denying clearance for vessels wishing to leave with tea still on board. After his speech the crowd headed for the waterfront. From the crowd, 50 individuals emerged dressed as Indians. They boarded three vessels docked in the harbor and threw 90,000 pounds of tea overboard -
1st Continental Congress meets
The first Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, from September 5th to October 26th 1774. The Congress's major accomplishment was agreeing to a new non-importation agreement, -
intolerable acts
The government spent immense sums of money on troops and equipment in an attempt to subjugate Massachusetts. British merchants had lost huge sums of money on looted, spoiled, and destroyed goods shipped to the colonies. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
During the wee hours of April 19, 1775, he would send out regiments of British soldiers quartered in Boston. Their destinations were Lexington, where they would capture Colonial leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock, then Concord, where they would seize gunpowder. -
2nd Continental Congress meets
Times had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Lexington and Concord had changed everything. When the Redcoats fired into the Boston crowd in 1775, the benefit of the doubt was granted -
Battle of Bunker Hill
On the night of June 16, 1775, a detail of American troops acting under orders from Artemas Ward moved out of their camp, carrying picks, shovels, and guns. They entrenched themselves on a rise located on Charleston Peninsula overlooking Boston. Their destination: Bunker Hill.From this hill, the rebels could bombard the town and British ships in Boston Harbor. But Ward's men misunderstood his orders. They went to Breed's Hill by mistake and entrenched themselves there — closer to the British pos -
Olive Branch Petition
John Dickinson drafted the Olive Branch Petition, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5 and submitted to King George on July 8, 1775. It was an attempt to assert the rights of the colonists while maintaining their loyalty to the British crown. King George refused to read the petition and on August 23 proclaimed that the colonists had "proceeded to open and avowed rebellion." -
Publication of 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. -
Signing of the Declaration of Independence
The first draft of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence—already edited by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston—was presented before Congress on June 28. 39 revisions were made on the text before it was adopted on the 4th of July, 1776. -
British retreat from Boston
The British retreated from Boston because the patriots (American colonists) wanted the british out of Boston. so George Washington formed a plan and told Henry knox to go to fort ticonderoga with his men and steall the needed artillery and bring it back to Boston -
sugar act
On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses
