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End of the Seven Years War- February 1763

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End of the Seven Years War- February 1763

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The Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years War (French and Indian War). France surrenders all of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi to Britain. This ends a source of insecurity for the British colonists along the Atlantic Coast. The costs of the war and maintaining an army will lead the British government to impose new taxes on its colonists, with world-shaking results.

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The Stamp Act was imposed to provide increased revenues to meet the costs of defending the enlarged British Empire. It was the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation on a wide variety of colonial transactions, including legal writs, newspaper advertisements, and ships’ bills of lading. Enraged colonists nullified the Stamp Act through outright refusal to use the stamps as well as by riots, stamp burning, and intimidation of colonial stamp distributors.

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Passed by the British Parliament in an attempt to assert what it considered to be its historic right to exert authority over the colonies through suspension of a recalcitrant representative assembly and through strict provisions for the collection of revenue duties. The acts were resisted everywhere with verbal agitation and physical violence, deliberate evasion of duties, renewed nonimportation agreements among merchants, and overt acts of hostility toward British enforcement agents, especially in Boston.

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In Boston, a small British army detachment that was threatened by mob harassment opened fire and killed five people, an incident soon known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers were charged with murder and were given a civilian trial, in which John Adams conducted a successful defense.

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Protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company, a party of Bostonians thinly disguised as Mohawk people boarded ships at anchor and dumped some £10,000 worth of tea into the harbor, an event popularly known as the Boston Tea Party.

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In retaliation for colonial resistance to British rule during the winter of 1773–74, the British Parliament enacted four measures that became known as the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, and Quartering Act.

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First Continental Congress Meets- September 5, 1774

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First Continental Congress Meets- September 5, 1774

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Called by the Commities of Correspondance in response to the Intolerable Acts, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates represented all the colonies except Georgia.

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Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech- March 23, 1775

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Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech- March 23, 1775

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Convinced that war with Great Britain was inevitable, Virginian Patrick Henry defended strong resolutions for equipping the Virginia militia to fight against the British in a fiery speech in a Richmond church with the famous words, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

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Paul Revere's ride and the battles of Lexington and Concord- April 18-19, 1775

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Paul Revere's ride and the battles of Lexington and Concord- April 18-19, 1775

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On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revre rode from Charlestowne to Lexington (both in Massachusetts) to warn that the British were marching from Boston to seize the colonial armory at Concord. En route, the British force of 700 men was met on Lexington Green by 77 local minutemen and others. It is unclear who fired the first shot, but it sparked a skirmish that left eight Americans dead. At Concord, the British were met by hundreds of militiamen. Outnumbered and running low on ammunition, the British column was forced to retire to Boston. On the return march, American snipers took a deadly toll on the British. Total losses in the Battles of Lexington and Concord numbered 273 British and more than 90 Americans.

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Breed’s Hill in Charlestowne was the primary locus of combat in the misleadingly named Battle of Bunker Hill, which was part of the American siege of British-help Boston. Some 2,300 British troops eventually cleared the hill of the entrenched Americans, but at the cost of more than 40 percent of the assault force. The battle was a moral victory for the Americans.

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Thomas Paine's Common Sense is Published

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Thomas Paine's Common Sense is Published

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In late 1775 the colonial conflict with the British still looked like a civil war, not a war aiming to separate nations; however, the publication of Thomas Paine’s irreverent pamphlet Common Sense abruptly put independence on the agenda. Paine’s 50-page pamphlet, couched in elegant direct language, sold more than 100,000 copies within a few months. More than any other single publication, Common Sense paved the way for the Declaration of Independence.

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Declaration of Independence- July 4, 1776

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Declaration of Independence- July 4, 1776

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After the Congress recommended that colonies form their own governments, the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson and revised in committee. On July 2 the Congress voted for independence; on July 4th it adopted the Declaration of Independence.