Prelude to the Revolution
Event/Act | Significance |
---|---|
Salutary Neglect | The colonies were used to governing themselves. |
French and Indian War | Debt led to taxes imposed on the coloniesProclamation of 1763 |
Sugar Act | British try to cut down on smuggling by not giving colonists a jury trial, luxury tax |
Stamp Act | Beginning of protests and organization - first tax to reach all social classes. |
Protest Groups | Communication - newspapers, boycotts, organized protests (Sons of Liberty) |
Declaratory Act | Threat leads to more resistance/protest |
Townshend Act | More protests - smuggling, boycotts ramp up |
Forms of Protest | Non-violent protest - getting larger and more organized, tar and feathering |
Boston Massacre | First violent event of the Revolution - used for propaganda. |
Boston Tea Party | Largest organized protest at this point - Sons of Liberty |
Intolerable (Coercive) Acts | Punished the colonies for the tea party - closed the harbor, new Quartering Act, trials only in England. |
First Continental Congress | The first official unified colonial government |
Lexington and Concord | First official battle of the revolution - “Shot Heard Round the World” |
2nd Continental Congress | George Washington named commander of the army, draft of the Declaration of Independence from Britain. |
Bunker Hill | Bloodiest battle of the Revolution - showed the British that the colonies were not going to give up easily. |
Olive Branch Petition | Last effort for peace from the colonists - the King tore it up. |
Declaration of Independence | Formal declaration or break-up letter between the colonists and Britain. |
Common Sense | Pamplet by Thomas Paine encouraging independence for the colonies |
Thomas Jefferson | Author of the Declaration of Independence. |
John Locke | His Enlightenment ideas on natural rights inspired the Declaration of Indepenence |
No taxation without representation | Reflected the colonists belief that they should not be taxed because they had no direct representatives in Parliament |
Yorktown | Final battle of the Revolution |
Treaty of Paris | Set up the conditions after the war - recognized independence, gave colonists land in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys |
Quartering Act | Required the colonists to provide food, lodging, and supplies for the British troops in the colonies |
Declaratory Act | The British Parliament emphasized its authority to make binding laws on the American colonies |
Proclamation of 1763 | Boundary set up between colonies and the Natives over land west of the Appalachian Mts. |