Events leading up to the American Revolution

1. Events leading up to the American Revolution Devon Anable

2. Navigation Acts 1650 - 1696 • The Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1696 restricted American trade in the following ways; • 1. Only British ships could transport imported and exported goods from the colonies.2. The only people who were allowed to trade with the colonies had to be British citizens.3. Commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton wool which were produced in the colonies could be exported only to British ports. • Colonists stopped following the laws.

4. Proclamation of 1763 • In the fall of 1763, a royal decree was issued that prohibited the North American colonists from establishing or maintaining settlements west of an imaginary line running down the crest of the Appalachian Mountains.

6. Stamp Act of 1765 • These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War. Colonial assemblies sent petitions and protests

8. Sons of Liberty • In Boston in early summer of 1765 a group of shopkeepers and artisans who called themselves The Loyal Nine, began preparing for agitation against the Stamp Act. As that group grew, it came to be known as the Sons of Liberty.

10. Declaratory Act of 1766 • The Declaratory Act of 1766 asserted that Parliament “had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.” It was issued the same day as the Repeal of the Stamp Act and was the work of the very same man, William Pitt.

12. Quartering Act of 1774 • doubts have been entertained, whether troops can be quartered otherwise than in barracks, in case barracks have been provided sufficient for the quartering of all officers and soldiers within any town, township, city, district, or place, within his Majesty’s dominions in North America: And whereas it may frequently happen, from the situation of such barracks, that, if troops should be quartered therein, they would not be stationed where their presence may be necessary and required: be it therefore enacted by the King’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and • consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same.

14. Townshend Acts of 1767 • Taxes on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper, and tea were applied with the design of raising £40,000 a year for the administration of the colonies. The result was the resurrection of colonial hostilities created by the Stamp Act.

16. Boston Massacre of 1770 • Tensions between the American colonists and the British were already running high in the early spring of 1770. Late in the afternoon, on March 5, a crowd of jeering Bostonians slinging snowballs gathered around a small group of British soldiers guarding the Boston Customs House. The soldiers became enraged after one of them had been hit, and they fired into the crowd, even though they were under orders not to fire. Five colonists were shot and killed.

18. Tea Act/ Tea Party of 1773 • 1773 Act that gave a monopoly on tea sales to the East India Company. In other words, American colonists could buy no tea unless it came from that company. The East Indian Company wasn't doing so well, and the British wanted to give it some more business. The Tea Act lowered the price on this East India tea so much that it was way below tea from other suppliers.

20. Coercive Acts in 1774 • The British were shocked by the destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor and other colonial protests. To the British, the colonial actions were clearly undermining their authortiy in the colonies, which had to be maintained at all costs. The British parliament gave its speedy assent to a series of acts that became known as the "Coercive Acts"; or in the colonies as the "Intolerable Acts". These acts included the closing of the port of Boston, until such time as the East India tea company received compensation for the tea dumped into the harbor.