# data[].attributes.body
The nine-year global battle that raged from 1754 to 1763 included the French and Indian battle. France and Great Britain fought each other for control of the huge colonial region that is now North America. The precise question of whether the upper Ohio River valley belonged to the French Empire or the British Empire, making it accessible to trade and settlement by Virginians and Pennsylvanians, was what sparked the outbreak of the French and Indian War.

# data[].attributes.body
British legislation during the American colonial era sought to curb the smuggling of sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and to raise more money to finance the expanded duties of the British Empire after the French and Indian War. The Sugar Act of 1733 was essentially a resuscitation of the relatively ineffectual Molasses Act of 1733. It mandated strict customs enforcement of the charges on refined sugar and molasses brought into the colonies from sources outside the British Caribbean. America had sent protests against the Molasses Act's implementation and a request that the tax be reduced to one penny per gallon. The administration of Prime Minister George Grenville disregarded warnings that the traffic could not handle any more than that.

# data[].attributes.body
Though the exact beginnings of the Sons of Liberty are unknown, some of the group's ancestors can be found in the Loyal Nine, a covert Boston political group that included Samuel Adams and Benjamin Edes. Under the shade of the magnificent elm tree in Hanover Square known as the "Liberty Tree," the Boston chapter of the Sons of Liberty convened frequently. The Sons of Liberty occasionally used violence against British officials in order to garner support for colonial resistance through petitions, meetings, and propaganda. They played a crucial role in impeding the Stamp Act's implementation and continued to be a formidable adversary of the monarchy before to the Revolution.

# data[].attributes.body
First British parliamentary attempt in American colonial history to tax all commercial and legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, cards, almanacs, and dice directly in order to generate income. The massive increased defense responsibilities brought about by Great Britain's triumph (1763) in the French and Indian War were compounded by the catastrophic impact of Pontiac's War (1763–1644) on colonial frontier settlements. Sir George Grenville, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, thought that the combined revenue from the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act would cover at least half of these costs.

# data[].attributes.body
a set of four acts that the British Parliament passed during the colonial era of the United States. These acts were an attempt to assert what the British Parliament believed to be its historic right to exercise control over the colonies by suspending a rebellious representative assembly and enforcing strict rules for the collection of revenue duties. The acts were named for their backer, Charles Townshend, by the British American colonists.The Suspending Act forbade the New York Assembly from holding any more sessions until it fulfilled the financial obligations outlined in the Quartering Act (1765) about the costs incurred by the British soldiers stationed there. The second act imposed direct revenue charges, sometimes known as the Townshend duties or the Revenue Act, which were levied with the intention of funding the British government rather than just controlling trade. They fell on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea and were payable at colonial ports. It was the second occasion in the colonies' history that a tax had been imposed purely for financial gain. The third act created a rigid and frequently arbitrary system of collecting customs in the American colonies. This system included more officers, searchers, spies, Coast Guard ships, search warrants, writs of assistance, and a Board of Customs Commissioners in Boston. All of these elements were to be paid for with money collected from customs. The goal of the fourth Townshend Act, also referred to as the Indemnity Act, was to give the East India Company the ability to compete with Dutch-smuggled tea.

# data[].attributes.body
a legislative ploy used by Lord North's British ministry to make English tea commercially viable in America during the colonial era. When all of the Townshend Act's charges were removed in 1770—apart from the duty on tea, which had already mostly been supplied to the colonies by Dutch smugglers—a prior crisis was avoided. The Tea Act restructured excise restrictions to enable the financially ailing British East India business to undercut its rivals while still paying the Townshend duty, in an attempt to assist the business sell 17,000,000 pounds of tea stockpiled in England. The North administration simultaneously sought to reaffirm Parliament's authority to impose direct revenue taxes on the Colonies.

# data[].attributes.body
The precise question of whether the upper Ohio River valley belonged to the French Empire or the British Empire, making it accessible to trade and settlement by Virginians and Pennsylvanians, was what sparked the outbreak of the French and Indian War.

# data[].attributes.body
The passage of the Tea Act (1773) by the British Parliament gave the East India Company exclusive rights to transport tea to the colonies and empowered it to undercut all of its competitors. The leaders of other major cities in the colonies cancelled their orders in protest, but the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony allowed tea to arrive in Boston. In response, several colonists stormed the tea ships and tossed the cargo overboard.

# data[].attributes.body
With the Massachusetts Government Act, Parliament changed a colonial charter for the first time, giving the governor and council more powers and replacing the elective council that had been in place since 1691 with an appointive one. The well-known town meeting—a venue for radical intellectuals—was forbidden.

# data[].attributes.body
declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp act. It stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the sugar act(1764) and the Stamp Act (1765). Parliament mollified the recalaceint colonists by repealing the distasteful Stamp Act, but it actually hardened its principle in the Declaratory Act by asserting its complete authority to make laws binding on the American colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” This crisis focused attention on the unresolved question of Parliament’s relationship to a growing empire. The act particularly illustrated British insensitivity to the political maturity that had developed in the American provinces during the 18th century, partly in response to Parliament’s unwritten policy of salutary neglect toward the colonies during the first half of the century. Parliamentary Suspension of the New York Assembly as part of the Townshend Acts of 1767 increased colonial alarm, and each new regulatory act added to the colonists’ fear of the parliamentary threat to well-established colonial institutions of self-government.

# data[].attributes.body
The majority of the congressional delegates signed a "engrossed" version of the Declaration of Independence at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on August 2, 1776, about a month after the Continental Congress approved it (engrossing is rendering an official document in a large clear hand). On August 2, some of the delegates were not in attendance. 56 of them eventually signed the paper. John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston were two delegates who never signed.On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States and declared the independence of the thirteen British colonies in North America from Great Britain. That clarified why, on July 2, the Congress acted "unanimously" (by the votes of 12 colonies, including New York) had resolved that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.”