-
North American conflict between the British and the French, fighting over Native American land, part of a larger imperial conflict between France and Britain. The Native Americans allied with the French but the British ultimately won and claimed the French land in Canada and East of the Mississippi River at the Treaty of Paris.
-
A boundary line established by the British government to prevent American colonists from settling lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
A direct tax imposed by the British government on all printed materials in the American colonies. The colonists responded by organizing the Stamp Act Congress, which argued the tax was wrong because colonists had no say in its passage. The Congress issued petitions calling for the repeal of the Stamp Act.
-
A law that stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain.
-
A British policy that enabled the Dutch East India Company a monopoly on selling tea in the colonies, complicating the colonists’ ability to by cheaper tea elsewhere.
-
A direct response to British taxation policies and the Tea Act in which the colonists expressed their opposition by throwing 342 crates of British tea into the Boston Harbor.
-
Document approved by the Continental Congress announcing the 13 colonies' separation from Great Britain.
-
Written document adopted by the Continental Congress which served as the United States' first constitution, establishing the function of the national government of the USA.
-
Treaty signed by the American colonies and Great Britain, ending the American Revolution and formally recognizing America as its own country.
-
Convention in Philadelphia to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation, and replaced them with the United States Constitution.
-
Established a government for the Northwest Territory, outlined the process for admitting a new state to the Union, and guaranteed that newly created states would be equal to the original thirteen states.
-
Document which replaced the Articles of Confederation, established a federal government with an executive branch, a legislative branch and a judicial branch. The basis of the United States Government. Each state was given six months to meet and vote on it, and they all voted in favor, or ratified, it.
-
The United States government purchased 530,000,000 acres of territory in North America from France for $15 million.
-
Law which authorized the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi River in exchange for Native American lands within existing state borders and to relocate the Native Americans who lived there by force. Began the Trail of Tears, the deadly route they were forced to follow as they were pushed off their ancestral lands. Causing hunger, disease, exhaustion, death and more.
-
American invasion of Mexico following the US' annexation of Texas, where they disputed that it ended at the Rio Grande rather than the Nueces River. US forces had better resources and won, acquiring more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory extending west from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.
-
Legislative branch tried to compromise between the North and South, amending the fugitive slave act, abolishing slave trade in DC, and stating that the new states, Utah and New Mexico, would decide wether to have slavery through popular sovereignty.
-
Act which stated new states Kansas and Nebraska could decide wether to have slavery based on popular sovereignty, attempted compromise between the North and South.
-
The Supreme Court ruled that enslaved people could never become citizens.
-
President Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election without a single electoral vote from a Southern state.
-
War between the Northern and Southern states of the USA as the South tried to rebel and form a separate nation, the Confederacy, so they could keep the institution of slavery in place. Became the war with the most American deaths ever.
-
Issued by President Abraham Lincoln stating that all enslaved people in Southern States were to be freed.
-
Amendment to the US constitution which abolished slavery across the entire country.