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French and Indian War
The French and Indians fought in a war against British for seven years. They were fighting over land, specifically the Ohio Valley which had a ton of resources that the 13 Colonies could use. The Colonists and sided with the British in the war and helped fight against the French and Indian. After a long war Britain ended up winning and gained a ton of land including the Ohio Valley. However, they were bankrupt from the war and decided to tax the colonists in order to get their money back. -
Sugar and Stamp Act
The Sugar and Stamp Acts were a set of duties, or taxes, on molasses, sugar and stamps. These taxes where put into place by the British after the war because they were bankrupt from all of the expenses of the war. They also wanted to crack down on smugglers. The colonists were very upset and disagreed with it and started protesting and boycotting using this phrase, "Taxation without representation." In result, Britain ended up lifting the Stamp Act but then put the Declaratory Act in place. -
The Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a group of taxes on lots of everyday things such as glass, lead, paint, paper, lead, and tea. The money from these taxes was used to pay for military costs. The patriots responded by having large scale boycotts on British goods while Sam Adams wrote to many people explaining why they should be a patriot. Loyalists would have supported these taxes and thought they were for a good reason and tried to catch smugglers. Britain responded by putting more troops in the colonies. -
The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a turning point. A colonist and a soldier got into a fight in front of the customs house. More colonists came over and then a colonists threw a rock and hit a soldier causing him to fire which made the other troops fire into the crowd. Britain responded by pulling out all of the troops in Boston and repealed taxes except for the tea tax. This event made a lot of "on the fence" people, patriots. Later, six British troops were found innocent and two were found guilty. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a very important event in the American Revolution. This was when about one hundred colonists dressed up as Native Americans and went onto a boat and dumped all of the tea on it into the harbor. All together, the tea was worth about 350 million dollars. They didn't like the tea on tax as it hurt a lot of tea smugglers. Britain was very mad at the colonists for doing such and outrageous thing so they decided to lay down the hammer and put into place, the Intolerable Acts. -
The Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were put into place because of the Boston Tea Party. They tried to be nice but were now very mad at the colonists for doing this. The Intolerable Acts were made up of five new laws: the Quebec Act, which took away some of the colonists land, the Quartering Act, the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Administration of Justice Act. This made the colonists mad and decided to form the Continental Congress -
The First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress formed and had their first meeting on September 5th. They formed so that they could discuss what was going on and what to do about it, whether they should be peaceful or they should rebel against Britain. They decided on three actions: Write to England affirming their rights as Englishmen, stand up for Massachusetts by including a threat that they would boycott British goods if they didn't repeal the Intolerable Acts, and advised the colonists to form a militia.