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7 Years War between France and England. In the colonies, it was called the French Indian War because the colonists fought with British soldiers against France the Indians who were on side of France. Because of the war, England had a massive war debt began to tax the people in the 13 colonies. -
Hands-off approach by Great Britain; British policy of loosely enforcing laws and regulations in the American colonies, allowing them to govern themselves. -
Beginning in 1763, England's economic policy was followed when it came to the 13 colonies. England saw the colonies as a market for English goods wanted to get money (taxes) natural resources from the colonies. -
In 1765, the British government imposed a tax on the American colonies, requiring a tax stamp on legal documents, newspapers, playing cards, and other paper goods to help pay for British troops after the French and Indian War. -
A 1765 British tax on the American colonies required a tax stamp on legal documents, newspapers, playing cards, and other paper goods to help pay for British troops after the French and Indian War. -
A 1767 series of British parliamentary acts named after Charles Townshend, imposing taxes and duties on goods like glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea to pay for colonial administration and recoup war debt -
A deadly confrontation on March 5, 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts, where British soldiers fired into a crowd of colonists, killing five people and wounding others. -
A political protest that took place on December 16, 1773, in Boston, Massachusetts, where American patriots, disguised as Indigenous people, dumped 342 chests of tea from the British East India Company into Boston Harbor -
A series of four punitive laws was passed by the British Parliament in 1774 to punish the Massachusetts colony for the Boston Tea Party. -
A final appeal from the Second Continental Congress to King George III of Great Britain in July 1775, attempting to prevent the American Revolutionary War by affirming colonial loyalty to the Crown and requesting a reconciliation for grievances -
April 19, 1775, marked the first armed engagements of the American Revolutionary War, initiated by a British attempt to seize colonial military supplies. -
The governing body of the 13 American colonies that met from May 1775 to March 1781 -
A 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775-1776, he called for the people of the 13 colonies to fight for independence from Great Britain -
A document adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, announcing that the thirteen American colonies were declaring independence from Great Britain and forming a new nation. -
The United States' first constitution, in effect from 1781 to 1789, established a weak central government and preserved state sovereignty -
A meeting of delegates from five states in September 1786 to discuss issues of interstate trade and commerce under the Articles of Confederation -
An armed protest by Massachusetts farmers in 1786–1787 against high taxes and unresponsive government under the Articles of Confederation, leading to the call for a stronger federal government and the eventual creation of the U.S. Constitution. -
A gathering in Philadelphia in 1787 where delegates drafted the United States Constitution to replace the weak Articles of Confederation with a stronger federal government.