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aka the 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.
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hands off approach by Great Britain; British policy of loosely enforcing laws and regulations in the American colonies, allowing them to govern themselves.
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a series of British parliamentary laws requiring American colonists to provide housing, food, and other necessities for British troops stationed in the colonies, though not forcing private homes for billeting troops under the 1765 act
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a 1765 British tax that required colonists to purchase specially stamped paper for legal documents, newspapers, and other printed materials, including playing cards and dice
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a 1767 series of British laws imposing duties on goods like tea, glass, paper, and paint imported into the American colonies to raise revenue and assert Parliamentary authority after the repeal of the Stamp Act -
British soldiers, provoked by an unruly crowd of colonists in Boston, fired into the group, killing five people, including Crispus Attucks
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a political protest on December 16, 1773, when American colonists, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor
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a series of four punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 to punish the colony of Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, which included closing Boston Harbor, restructuring Massachusetts' government, allowing royal officials to be tried in England, and mandating the quartering of British soldiers in colonial buildings
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an attempt to avoid war by affirming American loyalty to the Crown and appealing for a peaceful
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marked the start of the American Revolutionary War on April 19, 1775, when British troops clashed with colonial minutemen
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an influential pamphlet advocating for American independence from Great Britain by using clear, accessible language to argue against monarchy and for a democratic republic based on popular consent
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a document that announced the separation of the 13 American colonies from Great Britain during the American Revolution
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a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that served as the de facto national government of the United States from May 1775 to March 1781
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an armed insurrection in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays, a former Continental Army captain, protesting high taxes, debt collection, and unfair economic policies following the American Revolution
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a meeting of delegates from five states to discuss interstate trade issues, but it revealed the deeper weakness of the Articles of Confederation
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delegates from thirteen states drafted the United States Constitution to replace the weak Articles of Confederation, establishing a stronger federal government with checks and balances among three branches
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the United States' first constitution, a "league of friendship" between 13 sovereign states from 1781 to 1789, during and immediately after the American Revolution