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Road to Revolution
These are the main events leading up to American independence -
Sugar Act
First law passed by parliament to raise revenue for the crown from the colonies. It also increased the duty on sugar from the West Indies. After protests, duties were lowered down and it all died down. -
Quartering Act
This act required the colonies to provide food and housing for the British soldiers. This caused and renewed a lot of anger from colonists towards the British. -
Stamp Tax
It aimed to raise revenue for military forces. It mandated the use of stamp paper on or affixing of stamps, certifying tax payments. Stamps were required on bills of sale for about 50 trade items. -
Sons and Daughter of Liberty
The sons and daughter of liberty were a group formed to fight the stamp act. They took law into their own hands. They were shaken by colonial commotion, the machinery for collecting the tax broke down. By the the time the act was going in effect, the all of the stamp ages had been forced to resign. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of acts, passed on by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. Although, American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Massacre
This started out when the British were minding there own business in Boston. Afterwards, the colonies saw them there so they started “harassing” them by throwing snowballs at them. Then, someone yelled “fire” and a redcoat shot his gun and killed colonists, and wounded others. The first person that died in the attack was Crispus Attucks. -
Boston Tea Party
On this day there was about 100 Bostonians, loosely disguised as Indians, that boarded the ships. They smashed opened about 342 chests of tea and dumped the contents into the harbor. The amount of tea they dumped could’ve been enough to fill up about 18.5 million teabags. The Boston tea party was an act committed by the sons of liberty. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were a series of punitive laws that were passed by the British Parliament in 1774. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists. The British even instated that the acts were set to make an example of the colonies after the Boston Tea Party, and the outrage they caused became the major push that led to the American Revolution. -
First Continental Congress
It drew up a Declaration of Rights as well as a solemn appeal to other British colonies, to the king, and to the British people. Two major achievements of the first continental congress were, one, a compact among the colonies to boycott British goods beginning on December 1, 1774. They also called on the British to repeal the intolerable acts. -
Lexington and Concord
At Lexington, “minute men” refused to disperse. Shots were fired killing 8 Americans and wounding several more. Afterwards, redcoats pushed on to concord, where they were ambushed by the colonies. The colonies were smart by hiding in the tall grass until the redcoats marched by and then the colonists fired. Many British soldiers died when the colonists had shot them and the remaining all ran away. On that day, the British and colonies knew it was war time. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is a document that is a formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the second continental congress on July 4th, 1776 it was signed by a member of each of the thirteen colonies.
