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Proclamation Line of 1763
After the French- Indian war, a line was drawn at the Appalachain Mountains from north to south. This declared that colonists could not settle west of the lines without the permission of the English Government. -
American Revenue/Sugar Act
. The Sugar Act reduced the rate of tax on molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon, while Grenville took measures that the duty be strictly enforced. The act also listed more foreign goods to be taxed including sugar, certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. -
Quartering Act
Quartering Act is the name of at least two 18th-century acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. These Quartering Acts were used by the British forces in the American colonies to ensure that British soldiers had adequate housing and provisions. These acts were amendments to the Mutiny Act, which had to be renewed annually by Parliament. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III, c. 12) was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London and carrying an embossed revenue stamp.These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
Virginia Resolves
The resolves claimed that in accordance with long established British law, Virginia was subject to taxation only by a parliamentary assembly to which Virginians themselves elected representatives. Since no colonial representatives were elected to the Parliament the only assembly legally allowed to raise taxes would be the Virginia General Assembly. -
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress was a meeting on October 19, 1765 in New York City of representatives from among the Thirteen Colonies. They discussed and acted upon the Stamp Act recently passed by the governing Parliament of Great Britain overseas, which did not include any representatives from the colonies. Meeting in the building that would become Federal Hall, the Congress consisted of delegates from 9 of the 13 colonies. -
Townshend Acts
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. -
Circular Letter
The Massachusetts Circular Letter was a statement written by Samuel Adams and passed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in February 1768 in response to the Townshend Acts. Reactions to the letter brought tensions between the British Parliament and Massachusetts to a boiling point, and resulted in the military occupation of Boston by the British Army, which contributed to the coming of the American Revolution. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, also known as the Boston riot, was an incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British redcoats on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. A heavy British military presence in Boston led to a tense situation that casued tension. 5 civillian died and 11 were injured. -
Comittee Of Correspondance
The Committees of Correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of American Revolution. They coordinated responses to Britain and shared their plans; by 1774-75 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials. The Maryland Committee of Correspondence was instrumental in setting up the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia. These served an important role in the Revolution -
Gaspée Affair
Gaspée, a British revenue schooner that had been enforcing unpopular trade regulations, ran aground in shallow water on June 9, 1772, near what is now known as Gaspee Point in the city of Warwick, Rhode Island, while chasing the packet boat Hannah. In a notorious act of defiance, a group of men led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown attacked, boarded, looted, and torched the ship. -
Tea Act
The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
Quebec Acts
The French were guaranteed their Catholic Religion and some old customs and institutions. This was a way of leading the conquored French Canadians. -
Boston Port Act
A response to the Boston Tea Party, it outlawed the use of the Port of Boston (by setting up a barricade/blockade) for "landing and discharging, loading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise" until such time as restitution was made to the King's treasury (for customs duty lost) and to the East India Company for damages suffered. In other words, it closed Boston Port to all ships, no matter what business the ship had. -
Coercive Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
Massachusetts Provincial Congress
On May 20, 1774, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Massachusetts Government Act in an attempt to better assert its authority in the often troublesome colony. In addition to annulling the provincial charter of Massachusetts, the act prescribed that effective August 1, the members of the Massachusetts Governor's Council would no longer be elected by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and would instead be appointed by the King and hold office at his pleasure. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. The Congress was attended by 56 members from all of the colonies exept Georgia. -
Suffolk Resolves
The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration made on September 9, 1774 by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, of which Boston is the major city. The convention that adopted them first met at the Woodward Tavern in Dedham, which is today the site of the Norfolk County Courthouse. -
Non Importation Act
In the Non-Importation Agreement, colonists cite their opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Coercive Acts of 1774. -
Lexington And Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America.
