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Native Indian Enslavement
An estimate between 24,000 and 51,000 Native Americans were forced into slavery throughout the southern colonies in the early 1700's. -
Yamasee War
Writing from Carolina to London, the settler George Rodd believed the Yamasee wanted nothing less than “the whole continent and to kill us or chase us all out.” The Yamasee would eventually advance within miles of Charles Town. The collapse of Indian power. -
Georgia Colony Established
The colony's was granted to General James Oglethorpe on April 21, 1732, by George II, which was named after him. The charter was finalized by the King's privy council on June 9, 1732. -
The Walking Purchase of 1737
Was emblematic of both colonists’ desire for cheap land and the changing relationship between Pennsylvanians and their Native neighbors. -
Ben Franklin Discovers Electricity
Franklin’s own description of the event appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette on October 19, 1752. -
Treaty of Paris/ Seven Year War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years’ War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war’s expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
Pontiac's Rebellion 1763-1766
Native Americans living in what was once French territory, found the British authorities to be far less conciliatory than their predecessors. In 1762, Pontiac enlisted support from practically every Indian tribe from Lake Superior to the lower Mississippi for a joint campaign to expel the British from the formerly French lands. According to Pontiac’s plan, each tribe would seize the nearest fort and then join forces to wipe out the undefended settlements. -
Proclamation of 1763
After Britain won the Seven Years' War and gained land in North America, it issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited American colonists from settling west of Appalachia. The Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the French and Indian War, granted Britain a great deal of valuable North American land. -
Stamp Act
An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown. -
Townshend Act
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies in 1767. They placed new taxes and took away some freedoms from the colonists including the following: New taxes on imports of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
Tensions ran high in Boston in early 1770. As more than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city of 16,000 colonists and tried to enforce Britain’s tax laws, American colonists rebelled against the taxes they found repressive, rallying around the cry, “no taxation without representation.” -
Boston Tea Party
he Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbor. -
The Intolerable Act
Britain pass four acts, Boston Port Act shut down the harbor and cut off all trade to and from the city. The Massachusetts Government Act gave British control over colonial government, restricting town meetings. The Administration of Justice Act allowed any royal official accused of a crime to be tried in Britain rather than by Massachusetts courts and juries. Finally, the Quartering Act, for all colonies, British army were to quarter newly arrived soldiers in colonists’ homes. -
First Continental Congress
Elected by the people, colonial legislatures, met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, from September 5, to October 26, 1774, in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government on the colonies in response to their resistance to new taxes. -
The American Revolution
Began when tensions between Great Britain’s and 13 colonies disagree to pay for the Seven Year War. France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict. After French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the Americans had effectively won their independence. Ended on Sep. 3, 1783 -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
Started the American Revolutionary War. Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. -
Declaration of Independence
When the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. -
Treaty of Paris
The treaty, signed by Franklin, Adams and Jay at the Hotel d'York in Paris, was finalized on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the Continental Congress in early 1784. In it, Great Britain finally gave formal recognition to its former colonies as a new and independent nation: the United States of America. -
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Constitutional Convention and Ratification
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation. -
The Federalist Paper
The Federalist Papers were a series of eighty-five essays urging the citizens of New York to ratify the new United States Constitution. Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the essays originally appeared anonymously in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788 under the pen name "Publius." -
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George Washington
One of the Founding Fathers, He was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797. -
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Whiskey Rebellion
Uprising of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania in protest of a whiskey tax enacted by the federal government. Following years of aggression with tax collectors, residences in the region confronted President Washington respond by sending troops to quell what some feared could become a full-blown revolution. Opposition to the whiskey tax and the rebellion itself built support for the Republicans, which overtook Washington’s Federalist Party. -
Bill of Rights
The First Congress of the United States proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. Articles 3 to 12, ratified December 15, 1791, by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. -
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John Adams Presidency
Adams was America's first vice president. He then served a term as the nation's second president. He was defeated for another term by Thomas Jefferson. -
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Alien and Sedition Acts
The Federalists believed that Democratic-Republican criticism of Federalist policies was disloyal and feared that aliens living in the United States would sympathize with the French during a war. As a result, a Federalist-controlled Congress passed four laws, known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts.