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Treaty of Paris (French and Indian War)
Treaty that officially ended the French and Indian War. The British gained control over the area west of the 13 British Colonies to the Mississippi River. The French agreed to no longer support any colonies in North America, including all of Canada. Since Spain had joined the war on the side of the French, the Spanish were also forced to give up their claim to Florida. The area of North America to the north and east of the Mississippi River was now under British rule. -
Proclamation of 1763
Proclamation by Britain at the end of the French and Indian War that prohibited settlement by whites on Indian territory. It established a British-administered reservation from west of the Appalachians and south of Hudson Bay to the Floridas and ordered white settlers to withdraw. It formalized Indian land titles and forbade land patents without a purchase from, or treaty agreement with, the title-holding tribe. -
Stamp Act
The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. A law passed by the British Parliament requiring all publications and legal and commercial documents in the American colonies to bear a tax stamp, a cause of unrest in the colonies. An act of the British Parliament for raising revenue in the American colonies by requiring that documents, newspapers, etc., bear an official stamp. -
Quartering Act
A name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the 18th century. Parliament enacted them to order local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations. Like giving them a place to sleep and food to eat and supplies. -
Tea Act
British legislation giving a tea monopoly in the American colonies to the British East India Co. It adjusted the duty regulations to allow the failing company to sell its large tea surplus below the prices charged by colonial competitors. The act was opposed by colonists as another example of taxation without representation. Resistance to the act resulted in the Boston Tea Party. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable (Coercive) Acts was the Patriot name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party. The acts stripped Massachusetts of self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. A few examples are the Tea Acts, Stamp Act, and Quartering Act. -
Boston Tea Party
Demonstration (1773) by citizens of Boston who (disguised as Indians) raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor; organized as a protest against taxes on tea. -
The Sugar Act
The earlier Molasses Act of 1733, which had imposed a tax of six pence per gallon of molasses, had never been effectively collected due to colonial evasion. By reducing the rate by half and increasing measures to enforce the tax, the British hoped that the tax would actually be collected. These incidents increased the colonists' concerns about the intent of the British Parliament and helped the growing movement that became the American Revolution. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. The Congress was attended by 56 members appointed by the legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies, the exception being the Province of Georgia, which was hoping for British assistance with Indian problems on its frontier. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord. Through intelligence gathering, Patriot colonials had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 25, 1774, also in Philadelphia The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence. -
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. Washington read it to all his troops. -
Declaration of Independence
The document recording the proclamation of the second Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the independence of the Colonies from Great Britain. -
American Crisis by Thomas Paine
The American Crisis is a pamphlet series by 18th century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine. Often known as The American Crisis or simply The Crisis, there are sixteen pamphlets in total.The pamphlets were contemporaneous with early parts of the American Revolution, during a time when colonists needed inspiring works. They were written in a language that the common man could understand, and represented Paine's liberal philosophy. -
Battle of Trenton
The Battle of Trenton took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, after General George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey. The hazardous crossing in adverse weather made it possible for Washington to lead the main body of the Continental Army against Hessian soldiers garrisoned at Trenton. After a brief battle, nearly the entire Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans. -
Battles of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga have two main results:
-Convinces European nations that America might win the war.
-Benedict Arnold angry about lack of reconition, betrays his army. -
Winter at Valley Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the military camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 during the American Revolutionary War. It is approximately 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Starvation, disease, and exposure killed nearly 2,500 American soldiers by the end of February 1778. -
Battle of Yorktown
Washington and French join troops ended up being 18,000 troops against 8,000 troops of Cornwalls all trapped and they were forced to serender. Cornwalls knew he was in a dangerous place but his captain in New York did not believe him. They out numbered him. -
Treaty of Paris Revolutionary War
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of these, and the negotiations which produced all four treaties, see Peace of Paris (1783). Its territorial provisions were "exceedingly generous" to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries.
