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Navigation Acts
Passed by the English Parliment. These acts required that only English shipd (including ships of its colonies) be used for trade within the British empire. -
Proclimation of 1763
Declared that no colonial settlement could be established west of the Appalachian Mountains -
Sugar Act
Imposed a tax on all sugar imported into the American colonies. The tax revenues helped pay for wars that the British had waged. These taxes were also used to support British troops in North America. -
Stamp Act
Placed the first direct tax on the colonies. Required the use of tax stamps on all legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, and playing cards and ceratin business agreements, -
Stamp Act Congress
The delagates prepared a declaration of rights and grievances (complaints) against the new British actions. This action marked the first time that a majority of the colonies joined together to oppose a British Law. As a result of the colonists' grievances, the British Parliament relealed the Stamp Act. -
Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party was the result of anger over taxation. Colonists dresses as Mowhak Indians and dumped 350 chests of British tea into the Boston Harbor as a gesture of tax protest. -
First Continental Congress
Held at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. Of the 13 colonies, only Georgia did not decide that the colonies should send a petition to King George III to explain their grievances. Other resolutions were passsed to comtinue the bocott of British goods and to require that each colony start an army. Almost immediately, after recieveing the petition, the Gritish government condemed the congress's actions as open acts of rebellion. -
Coercive Act
British Parliament responded to the Tea Party by passing the act called Coercive Act (sometimes called the Intolerable Act). This act closed the harbor and placed the government of Boston under direct British control. -
Lexington and Concord
British soldiers, called Redcoats, faught with colonial citizen-soldiers, called Minutemen. These were the first battles of the American Revolution. Battle of concord was later described by the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson as the "shot heard around the world." -
Second Continental Congress
Congress immediately assumed the powers of a centeral government. One of it's main actions was to establish an army. Colonial citizen-soldiers had gathered around Boston, and the congress declared them an army. It names George Washington-a delagate to the Second Continental Congress who had some military experience-as the army's commander and chief. -
Resolution of Independence
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced the Resolution of Independence. July 2, congress adopted the resolution. "RESOLVED, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, that they are absolved from allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between then and the state of Great Britian is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." This was not a legally binding document, but was one of the first steps to establish the legitimacy. -
Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration and in time asked John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to look over his work. They made few changes and his condemnation of slavery was eliminated to satisfy delegates from Georgia and North Carolina, where slaves were held on many farms and plantations. After this was done 13 of the 13 colonies were for the Declaration of Independence.
