US History - DUE in 4 Hours

The Road to the American Revolution The French and Indian War (1754–1763) redrew the map of the world. It was sparked by competing claims over the Native American lands in the vast Ohio Valley. The military defeat of France and Spain made Great Britain the ruler of an enormous world empire. American colonists celebrated the British victories with as much excitement and pride as did the British themselves. The British victory gave them control of most of the North American continent, although Native Americans still claimed most of it as their own. The following timeline highlights important features in the British government’s attempts to manage its empire in North America after the French and Indian War, leading up to the American Revolution.

W H AT ’ S IT A LL A B O U T ?

Stamp Act; Quartering Act ■ Stamp Act orders colonists to pay a tax on all printed materials.

■ Quartering Act requires colonies to feed and house British troops.

Boycotts, Protests; Stamp Act Repealed; Declaratory Act ■ A humiliated Parliament repeals the Stamp Act after widespread colonial protests and boycotts of British goods but issues the Declaratory Act announcing that it has authority to pass any law regulating the colonies.

Townshend Acts; Revenue Act ■ Townshend Acts shut down the New York colonial assembly in retaliation for its defiance of the Quartering Act (the assembly quickly yields).

■ A new Revenue Act imposes taxes on the colonies’ glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea imports.

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Treaty of Paris; Royal Proclamation Line ■ In the Treaty of Paris, Britain acquires all of France’s North American possessions east of the Mississippi River as well as Spanish Florida (Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi), but Native Americans refuse to recognize the treaty and fight for their lands.

■ King George III ends fighting with Native Americans and issues the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to prevent American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains; colonists defy the proclamation.

American Revenue Act (Sugar Act); Currency Act ■ Sugar Act cuts the import tax on molasses in an attempt to deter colonial distillers from smuggling molasses from the French but also imposes new import duties on textiles, wine, coffee, indigo, and sugar in order to raise new revenue from the colonists.

■ Currency Act prohibits colonies from printing more paper money in order to ensure the payment of colonial debt to British merchants in gold and silver coins.

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■ British soldiers clash with Massachusetts Minutemen at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts.

■ The Second Continental Congress appoints George Washington to lead a new Continental army.

■ While suffering terrible losses, British forces defeat Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill outside of Boston.

■ King George III rejects the Continental Congress’s Olive Branch Petition urging reconciliation.

Declaration of Independence ■ The Continental Congress authorizes all thirteen colonies to form independent state governments.

■ The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.

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Revenue Act repealed; Boston Massacre ■ Parliament repeals all taxes imposed by the Revenue Act except for that on tea.

■ Tensions with British troops spark the Boston Massacre.

Tea Act ■ Parliament, in an effort to bail out the British East India Company, passes the Tea Act, which allows the company to sell its tea to the colonists without paying any taxes.

Boston Tea Party; Coercive Acts ■ Bostonians defy the Tea Act by destroying the British East India Company’s tea at the Boston Tea Party.

■ Parliament passes the Coercive Acts, which close the port of Boston, direct local authorities to house and feed British troops, repeal the right of Massachusetts colonists to elect many civic officials, and ban all town meetings held without the royal governor’s permission.

Continental Congress; Conciliatory Proposition; Continental Army; Olive Branch Petition ■ The First Continental Congress meets to oppose the Coercive Acts and to assert the colonies’ autonomy from Parliament.

■ In response, the British prime minister sends to each colony a Conciliatory Proposition to eliminate all of Parliament’s revenue-generating schemes in any colony that volunteers to pay its share for the defense and governance of the colony.

QUES T IONS F OR A N A LYSIS 1. How did British citizens in Britain and in the

American colonies respond differently to the British Empire’s acquisition of Native American lands after the Treaty of Paris?

2. What were the overall goals of Britain’s colonial policy after the French and Indian War?

3. How did British policy change in response to the colonists’ opposition?

4. Judging from this timeline, were there opportunities for a compromise between the British and American colonists before the colonists declared independence?