-
The French and Indian War was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. -
Enacted on April 5, 1764, to take effect on September 29, the new Sugar Act cut the duty on foreign molasses from 6 to 3 pence per gallon, retained a high duty on foreign refined sugar, and prohibited the importation of all foreign run. -
Parliament's first direct tax on the American colonies, this act, like those passed in 1764, was enacted to raise money for Britain. It taxed newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, broadsides, legal documents, dice, and playing cards. -
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. The British sent troops to America to enforce the unpopular new laws, further heightening tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies in the run-up to the American Revolutionary War. -
Boston National Historical Park. On March 5, 1770, seven British soldiers fired into a crowd of volatile Bostonians, killing five, wounding another six, and angering an entire colony. -
In 1770, the Boston massacre ignited intense scrutiny of the British Regular Army on American shores. Although British Parliament removed government soldiers from Boston and walked back many of their unpopular actions, in 1773 they granted the struggling East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in North America. -
The four acts were (1) the Boston Port Bill, which closed Boston Harbor; (2) the Massachusetts Government Act, which replaced the elective local government with an appointive one and increased the powers of the military governor; (3) the Administration of Justice Act, which allowed British officials charged with. -
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their trades. -
The New Jersey Plan was designed to protect the security and power of the small states by limiting each state to one vote in Congress, as under the Articles of Confederation. Its acceptance would have doomed plans for a strong national government and minimally altered the Articles of Confederation. -
On September 17, 1787, 39 of the 55 delegates signed the new document, with many of those who refused to sign objecting to the lack of a bill of rights.