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The Treaty of Paris
often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War and marked the beginning of an extensive period of British dominance outside of Europe. -
Stamp Act Congress
a meeting of 9 colonies wrote a Declaration of Rights and Grievances; it declared that freeborn Englishmen could not be taxed without their consent, and, since the colonists were not represented in Parliament, any tax imposed on them without the consent of their colonial legislatures was unconstitutional. -
The Townshend Acts
The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial control, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. -
The Boston Massacre
an incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolution. -
The Boston Tea Party
a direct action by colonists in Boston against the British government on December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
First Continental Congress
a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. Called in response to the passage of the Intolerable Acts by the British Parliament. -
Second Continental Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved slowly towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. the Congress acted as the national government by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties. -
Declaration of Independence
a statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Articles of Confederation
the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states, already cooperating through the Continental Congress, into a new federation. Under the Articles the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the central government.
