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The French and Indian War
A reignited conflict between the French and the British after three inconclusive wars. The Virginia governor had already granted 200,000 acres of land in the Ohio country to wealthy planters and the French built Fort Duquesne there. The Virginia governor then sent militia there to evict the French and started The French and Indian War. -
Writ of Assistance
A general search warrant that allowed British officials to seearch any colonial ship or building they believed to be holding smuggled goods. -
Treaty of Paris
Symbol of the end of the French and Indian War. Britain claimed Canada and almost all of North America east of the Mississippi River. They also took Florida from Spain, which was allied with France at the time. Permitted Spain to keep possession of its lands west of the Mississippi and New Orleans. -
Proclamation of 1763
Established a Proclamation Line along the Appalachians, which the colonists were not allowed to cross. The colonists however, ignored it and continued exploring. -
Sugar Act & Colonists Response
Halved the duty on foreign-made molasses in the hopes that colonists would pay a lower tax rather than smuggling it. Placed duties on certain imports that hadn't been taxed before. Lastly, it provided that colonists accused of violating the act would be tried in a vice-admirality court rather than a colonial court. -
Stamp Act and Colonists Response
Imposed a tax on dosuments and printed items such as wills, newspapers, and playing cards. -
Sons of Liberty is formed & Samuel Adams
Secret resistance made to protest the law of the British. The boycott they made worked too. -
Declatory Act
Parliament passed the Declaratory Act. This asserted Parliament’s full right “to bind the colonies and
people of America in all cases whatsoever.” -
Townshend Acts & Colonists Response + Why the were Repealed
The Townshend Acts taxed goods that were imported into the colony from Britain, such as lead, glass, paint, and paper. They also imposed a tax on tea, the most popular drink in the colonies. The colonists coined the phrase "No taxation without representation." They also organized a new boycott of imported goods. -
Boston Massacre
Five colonists die in front of Boston Customs House -
Tea Act
Britain gives the East India Company special rights in the colonial tea business and shuts out colonial tea merchants making the colonists very angry and they dump 18,000 pounds of tea into the ocean. -
Boston Tea Party
The colonists or "Indians" dumped 18, 000 pounds of tea into the ocean. -
First Continental Congress Meets
56 delegates meet in Philadelphia and draw up a declaration of colonial rights. Defended the colonies' right to run their own affairs and stated that, if the British used ofrce against the colonies, the colonmies would fight them. -
Intolerable Acts – all 3 parts
- Shut down the Boston Harbor 2. The Quartering Act authorized British commanders to house soldiers in vacant private homes and other buildings. 3. General Thomas Gage, a British general, was appointed the new governor of Massachusetts.
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Minutemen
Civilian soldiers who pledged to be ready to fight against the British on a minutes notice. They were stockpiled with firearms and gunpowder as well. -
Midnight riders: Revere, Dawes, Prescott
Spread word that 700 British troops were headed for Concord. -
Battle of Lexington
The first Revolutionary War and it lasted only 15 minutes. -
Battle of Concord
Between 3,000 and 4,000 minutemen gathered and fired on marching British troops. They defended Boston successfully. -
Second Continental Congress
A group of colonial leaders called together to debate their next move against the British. Some called for independence, while others argued for reconciliation of Britain. -
Continental Army
Congress agreed to recognize the colonial miltia as the Continental Army and also appointed Cearge Washington as its commander. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
General Gage of the British sent 2,400 soldiers up the hill and the colonists held their fire until the last minute and then mowed down the British. The colonists lost 450 men and the British lost over 1,000. It was the deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War. -
Olive Branch Petition
Congress sent the king the so-called Olive Branch Petition urging a return to "the former harmony" between Britain and the colonies. -
John Locke’s Social Contract
John Locke's social contract was an agreement in which the people consent to choose and obey a government so long as it safeguards their natural rights. If the government violates that social contract by taking away or interfering with those rights, people have the right to resist and even overthrow the government. -
Publication of Common Sense
A 50-page pamphlet titled Common Sense. In it, Paine attacked King George and the monarchy. Paine, recent immigrant, argued that responsibility for British tyranny lay with “the royal brute of Britain.” -
Loyalists and Patriots
Loyalists were people who opposed independence
and remained loyal to the British king. This included judges and governors, as well as people of more modest means.
Patriots were people who the supporters of independence—drew their numbers from people
who saw political and economic opportunity in an independent America. Many Americans remained neutral. -
Redcoats push Washington’s army across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania
British sailed into New York harbor in the summer of 1776 with a force of about 32,000 soldiers. The British were trying to take New York and ended up pushing the colonists into Pennsylvania. The British ended up also taking the capital of Philadelphia. Washington then attacked on Christmas night crossing over the Deleware River and launching a surprise attack on the Hessian troops. -
Declaration of Independence
Written by Thomas Jefferson, the document declared the
rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” to be “unalienable” rights— ones that can never be taken away. -
Washington’s Christmas night surprise attack
Washington risked everything on one bold stroke set for Christmas night, 1776. In the face of a fierce storm, he led 2,400 men in small rowboats across the iceed Delaware River. They then marched to their objective which was Trenton, New Jersey and defeated a garrison of Hessians in a surprise attack. The British soon regrouped, however, and in September of 1777, they captured the American capital at Philadelphia. -
Saratoga
General John Burgoyne plan was to lead an army down a route of lakes from Canada to Albany. He would then meet British troops as they arrived from New York City. The two regiments would then join forces to isolate New England from the rest of the colonies. American troops finally surrounded
Burgoyne at Saratoga. While he was fighting off the colonial troops, Burgoyne didn’t realize that his fellow British officers were preoccupied with holding Philadelphia and weren’t coming to meet him. -
French-American Alliance
As a result of the victory of Saratoga, the
French signed an alliance with the Americans in February
1778 and openly joined them in their fight. -
Valley Forge
Washington and his Continental Army, who were desperately low on food and supplies, fought to stay alive at winter camp in
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. More than 2,000 soldiers died. -
Friedrich von Steuben and Marquis de Lafayette
Steuben was a Prussian captain and talented drillmaster, who
helped to train the Continental Army. Marquis Lafayette lobbied France for French reinforcements in 1779, and led a command in Virginia in the last years of the war. -
British victories in the South
A British expedition easily took Savannah, Georgia in 1778.
Under Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis, the British captured Charles Town, South Carolina, in May 1780. -
British surrender at Yorktown
A French naval force had defeated a British fleet and then
blocked the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, thereby obstructing British sea routes to the bay. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris confirmed U.S. independence
and set the boundaries of the new nation. These boundaries went from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from Canada to the Florida border.
