Colonies

Understanding Colonial Unrest

  • Proclamation of 1763

    Proclamation of 1763
    The proclamation of 1763 was put into action on October 7. This was issued by King George III. He declared that all land west of the Appalachian mountains was forbidden for the colonist. With that act there was no way for any colonist to trade with the indians besides licensed traders.
  • Sugar Act of 1764

    Sugar Act of 1764
    The Sugar Act of 1764 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764, that was designed to raise revenue from the American colonists in the 13 Colonies. The Act set a tax on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies which impacted the manufacture of rum in New England.
  • Currency Act of 1764

    Currency Act of 1764
    The currency Act of 1764 regulated paper money. This was put into action to prevent traders and merchants from being scammed with depreciated money. It was considered a grievance by colonist.
  • Stamp Act of 1765

    Stamp Act of 1765
    The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source.
  • Quartering Act of 1765

    Quartering Act of 1765
    The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies.
  • Stamp Act Taken Away of 1766

    Stamp Act Taken Away of 1766
    After four months of widespread protest in America, the British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, a taxation measure enacted to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. The Stamp Act was passed on March 22, 1765, leading to an uproar in the colonies over an issue that was to be a major cause of the Revolution: taxation without representation. Enacted in November 1765, the controversial act forced colonists to buy a British stamp for every official document they obtained.
  • Declaratory Act of 1766

    Declaratory Act of 1766
    The Declaratory Act of 1766 was a British Law, passed in mid March by the Parliament of Great Britain, that was passed at the same time that the Stamp Act was repealed.The declaration stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies.
  • Townshend Act of 1767

    Townshend Act of 1767
    The Townshend Act imposed tax on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. It happened because the British didn't have enough money to supply their own people from the other war that just happened.
  • Writs of Assistance

    Writs of Assistance
    The Writs of Assistance were search warrants issued by superior provincial courts to assist the British government in enforcing anti-smuggling provisions, trade and Navigation Laws in Colonial America. Writs of Assistance also authorized customhouse officers, with the assistance of a sheriff or a constable to search any house for smuggled goods without specifying either the house or the goods. And in a case of resistance, to break open doors, chests, trunks, and other packages.
  • Townshend Act Repealed; Tax on tea kept

    Townshend Act Repealed; Tax on tea kept
    In an attempt to calm the outraged colonist the British Government repealed most of the clauses of Townshend Act.The colonists even decided not to import British goods until the act was repealed.
  • Boston Massacre of 1770

    Boston Massacre of 1770
    The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. A squad of British soldiers, come to support a sentry who was being pressed by a heckling, snowballing crowd, let loose a volley of shots. The Boston Massacre is remembered as a key event in helping to galvanize the colonial public to the Patriot cause.
  • Intolerable Acts

    Intolerable Acts
    The intolerable acts where the series of punitive laws passed after the Boston Tea Party. They were creative in order to punish the colonists for dumping their tea into the ocean. They hoped this would calm the violence and resistance by the colonist but the colonists only viewed this as a violation of their rights and started to think if whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all.
  • Tea Act

    Tea Act
    The Tea Act of 1773 was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War(1775-83). The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, in which colonists boarded East India Company ships and dumped their loads of tea overboard. Parliament responded with a series of harsh measures intended to stifle colonial resistance to British rule; two years later the war began.
  • Boston Tea Party

    Boston Tea Party
    Demonstrators dressed as Native Americans (in defiance of the tea act) boarded the ships and dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water. They did this because they believed it violated their rights as Englishmen to "No taxation without representation".
  • First Continental Congress

    First Continental Congress
    The First Continental Congress a meeting containing 56 delegates from the 13 colonies. Georgia did not send delegates hoping to stay on Britain's good side. They had the meeting in the Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia.The meeting was help in response to the Intolerable acts by British parliament.
  • Lexington and Concord

    Lexington and Concord
    The battle of Lexington and Concord were the first battle of the revolutionary war. The battle took place in in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay. The two sides consisted of the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen of its colonies.
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