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Colonial Time
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Jamestown
Jamestown, Virginia was the first permanent settlement in America. It served as the colony's capital for 83 years (1616 to 1699) -
Virginia House of Burgesses
First legislative system in the new colonies. From 1619 to 1643 the burgeses met with the governer and the royal governer, but after 1643 they started to meet seperately as a lower house of the General Assembaly of Virginia -
Mayflower Compact
First governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Separatists, fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England. They traveled aboard the Mayflower in 1620 along with adventurers, tradesmen, and servants, most of whom were referred to, by the Separatists as "Strangers". It was signed aboard the Mayflower on November 11, 1620. -
Plymouth Rock
The Mayflower landed in Plymouth in 1620, actual date unkown. To commemerate the landing in the "New World" the Pligrims carved the year that they made it to America. -
Bacon's Rebelion
Power struggle between two stubborn, selfish leaders rather than a glorious fight against tyranny. The two main contributors to this rebellion is Governer Sir William Berkeley and Nathaniel Bacon Jr. -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 replaced the reigning king, James II, with the joint monarchy of his protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. It was the keystone of the Whig (those opposed to a Catholic succession) history of Britain. The events of the revolution were bloodless and the revolution settlement established the supremacy of parliament over the crown, setting Britain on the path towards constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy -
Toleration act
Allowed freedom to Noncomformists who pledged oaths of alegiance and supperemacy and rejected transubstantiation, -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights is an English precursor of the Constitution, along with the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right. The English Bill of Rights limited the power of the English sovereign, and was written as an act of Parliament. -
Salem Witch Trials
In January of 1692, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village became ill. When they failed to improve, the village doctor, William Griggs, was called in. His diagnosis of bewitchment put into motion the forces that would ultimately result in the death by hanging of nineteen men and women. In addition, one man was crushed to death; seven others died in prison, and the lives of many were irrevocably changed -
John Peter Zenger
John Peter Zenger was a printer who was charged with being libel, going against the English government through writing. His trail took place on August 5, 1735 with Andrew Hamilton as his attorney. Zenger pleaded not guilty after much deliberation. His trial established no new law with respect to seditious libel, but in unmistakable terms it signaled the public's opposition to such prosecutions. -
French Indian War Begins
The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war’s expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American revolution. -
French and Indian War Ends
By 1763, French and Spanish diplomats began to seek peace. In the resulting Treaty of Paris (1763), Great Britain secured significant territorial gains, including all French territory east of the Mississippi river, as well as Spanish Florida, although the treaty returned Cuba to Spain.Unfortunately for the British, the fruits of victory brought seeds of future trouble with Great Britain’s American colonies. The war had been enormously expensive, and the British government’s attempts to impose -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763 by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Britain's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War.
The signing of the treaty formally ended the Seven Years' War, otherwise known as the French and Indian War in the North American Land, which marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe. -
Proclomation of 1763
The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the "Indians" against them. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
Quartering Act
An act for punishing mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters. This act gave the soldiers a home to stay in while they were in the colonies. -
Declatory Act
"AN ACT for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain. WHEREAS several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, have of late, against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his Majesty's subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have, in pursuance of such claim..." -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. 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. -
Boston Tea Party
Disguised as American Indians, the demonstrators destroyed the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company in defiance of the American boycott of tea carrying a tax the Americans had not authorized. -
First Continental Congress
The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, from September 5, to October 26, 1774. Carpenter's Hall was also the seat of the Pennsylvania Congress -
Second Continental Congress
Lastly, not fully expecting the standoff in Massachusetts to explode into full-scale war, the Congress agreed to reconvene in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. By the time Congress met again, war was already underway, and thus the delegates to the Second Continental Congress formed the Continental army and dispatched George Washington to Massachusetts as its commander.As British authority crumbled in the colonies, the Continental Congress effectively took over as the national government, -
Declaration of Independence
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. It symbolizes our freedom from England to become our own nation
