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Albany Plan of Union
"The Albany Plan of Union proposed that “one general government … be formed in America, including all the said colonies.” It would have created a continental assembly to manage trade, Indian policy, and the colonies’ defense. Though it was attractive to a few reform-minded colonists and administrators, the plan would have compromised the independence of colonial assemblies and the authority of Parliament. It never received serious consideration, but that did not stop the push toward war." -
The Spread of the French and Indian War
By 1756, the American conflict (known as the French and Indian War) had spread to Europe, where it was known as the Seven Years’ War, and pitted Britain and Prussia against France, Spain, and Austria. When Britain mounted major offensives in India, West Africa, and the West Indies as well as in North America, the conflict became the Great War for Empire. -
Treaty of Paris
Ending the Seven Year’s War, also known as the French and Indian War in North America. France surrendered all mainland North American territories, except New Orleans, in order to retain the Caribbean sugar islands. Britain gained all territory east of the Mississippi River; Spain kept territory west of the Mississippi but exchanged East and West Florida for Cuba. -
Royal Proclamation
Wary of the cost of defending the colonies, George III prohibited all settlement west of the Appalachian mountains without guarantees of security from local Native American nations. The intervention in colonial affairs offended the thirteen colonies' claim to the exclusive right to govern lands to their west. -
Sugar Act
This act in U.S. colonial history, British legislation aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and at providing increased revenues to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the French and Indian War. Actually a reinvigoration of the largely ineffective Molasses Act, the Sugar Act provided for strong customs enforcement of the duties on refined sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. -
Stamp Act
Seeking to defray some of the costs of garrisoning the colonies, Parliament required all legal documents, newspapers, and pamphlets required to use watermarked, or 'stamped' paper on which a levy was placed. -
Quartering Act
Colonial assemblies required to pay for supplies to British garrisons. The New York assembly argued that it could not be forced to comply. -
Stamp Act Congress
Representatives from nine of the thirteen colonies declare the Stamp Act unconstitutional as it was a tax levied without their consent. The congress met from October 7-October 25. -
Declaratory Act
It stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament finalises the repeal of the Stamp Act, but declares that it has the right to tax colonies. -
Townshend Acts
They were a series of four acts (from June 5-July 2) passed by the British Parliament in an attempt to assert what it considered to be its historic right to exert authority over the colonies through suspension of a recalcitrant representative assembly and through strict provisions for the collection of revenue duties. The British American colonists named the acts after Charles Townshend, who sponsored them. -
British Troops Arrive in Boston
The actions of the colonist in response to the Townshend Act convinced the British that they needed troops in Boston to help maintain order. Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies, dispatched two regiments (4,000 troops) to restore order in Boston. The daily contact between British soldiers and colonists served to worsen relations. -
Boston Massacre
A mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation. -
Tea Act
The act’s main purpose wasn't to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company. The British government granted the company a monopoly on the importation and sale of tea in the colonies. The colonists had never accepted the constitutionality of the duty on tea, and the Tea Act rekindled their opposition to it. Parliament responded with a series of harsh measures intended to stifle colonial resistance to British rule; 2 years later the war began. -
Boston Tea Party
This midnight raid was in protest of the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians dump £9,000 of East India Company tea into the Boston harbour. -
Intolerable Acts
Four measures which stripped Massachusetts of self-government and judicial independence following the Boston Tea Party. The colonies responded with a general boycott of British goods. -
Continental Congress
Colonial delegates meet from September 5-October 26 to organise opposition to the Intolerable Acts. -
Paul Revere's Ride
On Joseph Warren’s orders, he crossed the Charles River and rode to Lexington to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were coming through on their way to Concord. Revere got the word to the radical leaders, but a British patrol prevented any further progress. -
The Battles of Lexington and Concord
First engagements of the Revolutionary War between British troops and the Minutemen, who had been warned of the attack by Paul Revere. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The first major battle of the War of Independence. Sir William Howe dislodged William Prescott's forces overlooking Boston at a cost of 1054 British casualties to the Americans' 367. -
Olive Branch Petition
Congress endorses a proposal asking for recognition of American rights, the ending of the Intolerable Acts in exchange for a cease fire. George III rejected the proposal and on 23 August 1775 declared the colonies to be in open rebellion.
