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The Navigation Acts were acts of Parliament intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods.
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The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain huge territorial gains in North America, but paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and eventually to the American Revolution.
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The Stamp Act was a law passed by the British government in 1765. It meant that all legal documents and printed papers used in the American colonies had to have an official stamp. The result was that all the pieces of paper the colonists used was taxed by the British.
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The Quartering Act required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were not big enough to house all of the soldiers, then localities provided the soldiers with lodging in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses and the houses of sellers of wine.
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The Townshend Acts, passed in 1767 and 1768, were designed to raise revenue for the British Empire by taxing its North American colonies. They were met with widespread protest in the colonies, especially among merchants in Boston.
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Tensions began to grow, and Boston in February 1770 a patriot mob attacked a british loyalist, who fired a gun at them killing a boy. In the ensuing days fights between colonists and British soldiers eventually culminated in the Boston Massacre.
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The Boston Tea Party was an incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. It gave the colonists the motivation to stand up for their rights and to ultimately risk their lives by going to war for their independence.
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The Intolerable Acts were disciplinary laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British Government.
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The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5th, 1775 to be sent to the king as a last attempt to prevent formal war from being declared. The Petition emphasized their loyalty to the British crown and emphasized their rights as British citizens.
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The Battles of Lexington and Concord signaled the start of the American Revolutionary war on April 19, 1775. The British Army set out from Boston to capture rebel leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington as well as to destroy the Americans store of weapons and ammunition in Concord.
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In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convene after the American Revolutionary War had already begun. In 1776, it took the momentous step of declaring America's independence from Britain.
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On January 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet "Common Sense," setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. His pamphlet was an instant best seller; nearly 120,000 copies were in circulation by April. Paine's brilliant arguments were straightforward. He argued for two main points: 1) independence from England and 2) the creation of a democratic republic.
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The Declaration of Indepence, the founding document of the United States, was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. Its goals were to rally the troops, win foreign allies, and to announce the creation of the new country.
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The Articles of Confederation were created by the Second Continental Congress. The purpose of the Articles of Confederation was to plan the structure of the new government and to create a confederation kind of government.
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Shay's Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes. Shays' Rebellion exposed the weakness of the government under the Articles of Confederation and led many, including George Washington, to call for help, strengthening the federal government in order to put down future uprisings.
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The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point was to decide how America was going to be governed. Many delegates had bigger plans even though the convention had been officially called to revise the existing AOC.
