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French and Indian War
Also known as the Seven Years’ War, this New World conflict marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756. Result: Treaty of Paris (1754–1763, British victory) Period: 1754 – 1763 Location: North America -
Albany Plan of Union
Albany Plan of Union, 1754. The Albany Plan of Union was aplan to place the British North American colonies under a more centralized government. On July 10, 1754, representatives from seven of the British North American colonies adopted the plan. Pennsylvania delegate, presented the so-called Albany Plan of Union, which provided for a loose confederation presided over by a president general and having a limited authority to levy taxes to be paid to a central treasury. -
Proclamation of 1763 (colonist reaction)
On October 7, 1763, King George III issued aproclamation that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. In so doing, he hoped to placate Native Americans who had sided against him during the recently concluded Seven Years' War. -
Pontiac's Rebellion
Territorial changes: Portage around Niagara Falls ceded by Senecas to the British
Period: 1763 – 1766
Result: Military stalemate; Native Americans concede British sovereignty but compel British policy changes
Location: Great Lakes region
Combatants: British Empire, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Shawnee, Wyandot people -
Sugar Act
Titled The American Revenue Act of 1764. 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. -
Currency Act
The Currency Act is one of many several Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain that regulated paper money issued by the colonies of British America. The Acts sought to protect British merchants and creditors from being paid in depreciated colonial currency. -
Colonist formed Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty was an organization that was createdin the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society wasformed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. They played a major role in most colonies in battling the Stamp Act in 1765. -
Stamp Act
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. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
Quartering Act
Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. -
Declaratory Act
Declaratory Act, (1766), declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the StampAct. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act(1765). -
Townshend Act
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer CharlesTownshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
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. Three persons were killed immediately and two died later of their wounds. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, fivecolonists were dead or dying: Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell. Three more were injured. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. This was what ultimately compelled a group of Sons of Liberty members on the night of December 16, 1773 to disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians, board three ships moored in Boston Harbor, and destroy over 92,000 pounds of tea. -
Boston Tea Party
On the night of December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts)
The Intolerable Acts was the term used by American Patriots for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. ... In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as theCoercive Acts. -
Quebec Act
1774 Quebec Act, passed by the British Parliament to institute a permanent administration in Canada replacing the temporary government created at the time of the Proclamation of 1763. It gave the French Canadians complete religious freedom and restored the French form of civil law. -
1st Continental Congress
On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native-American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as theFirst Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. Date formed: September 5, 1774
President of Congress: Peyton Randolph; Henry Middleton
Secretary: Charles Thomson
Seats: 56 from 12 colonies (excluding Georgia)
Succeeded by: 2nd Continental Congress -
Second Continental Congress
President of Congress: Peyton Randolph (first); Samuel Huntington (last)
Established: May 10, 1775
Secretary: Charles Thomson
Authority: President of the Continental Congress
Disbanded: March 1, 1781
Seats: Variable; ~60
Succeeded by: 1st Confederation Congress -
Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech
On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry sounded one of the most famous calls to arms in American history. During a meeting of the Second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church in Richmond, the 38-year-old lawyer and politician gave an impassioned plea urging the Old Dominion to form militias to defend itself against the British. -
Battles at Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 inMiddlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln,Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
On June 17, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War (1775-83), the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts. Despite their loss, the inexperienced colonial forces inflicted significant casualties against the enemy, and the battle provided them with an important confidence boost. Although commonly referred to as the Battle of Bunker Hill, most of the fighting occurred on nearby Breed’s Hill. -
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of theBritish 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. Fiction, Non-fiction
