EVENTS PRIOR TO AND DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
French and Indian War
1754 The portion of a war between England and France (the Seven Years War) that took place in colonial America. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The English victory doubled their colonial territory since France ceded much of its North American claims, but the cost of thewar left the British treasury depleted. The Indian tribes allied with the French. In order to gain money to repay war debts (and to reassert authority over British colonies), the British government passed laws and taxes that were unpopular in the American colonies. Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts: British laws that placed taxes on almost everything that colonists needed or used in their daily lives |
Boston Tea Party
1773 A band of American colonists led by Samuel Adams (and the Sons of Liberty) boarded British ships (East India Company) and dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act. As a result, Boston port was closed and town meetings were banned. The Tea Party led to a crackdown by the British government, including the punitive Intolerable Acts (e.g., the Boston Port Act that closed the Port of Boston, the Massachusetts Government Act that essentially put the Massachusetts colonial government directly under British control and limited town meetings, the Administration of Justice Act that allowed trials to Great Britain, the Quartering Act that allowed British governor to house soldiers in private homes). |
Declaration of Independence
1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote that when a form of government destroys the rights of people it governs, they have a right to abolish it. A declaration for the independence of the American colonies from Great Britain was written, and this led to a war between the colonists and Great Britain. |