American Revolutionary War

David Head

• Publisher: QuickStudy Reference Guides
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781423224860
• eBook ISBN: 9781423237471
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Students, history buffs and anyone interested in our founding fathers and crucial people and events that led to the formation of America can easily find answers at their fingertips. This 6-page timeline contains many facts that come up today in everything from news stories to casual conversation. Get the facts. Suggested uses:
• Students - Review before relevant history tests, support class lessons and textbook, impress your teachers & professors
• Teachers/Professors - fact bank to build tests & quizzes, lesson plan support, reference for documentary film viewing, supplement to the textbook
• Politics & Government – Facts for referencing roles of the Founding Fathers and the creation of the U.S. Constitution

From Colonies to Independence, 1771–1776

1771

In North Carolina, violence erupts as a group known as the Regulators clashes with the royal governor.

1772

In the Gaspée Affair, the Gaspée, a Royal Navy vessel enforcing customs laws, runs aground in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay while chasing smugglers. Rhode Island sea captain Abraham Whipple leads a party to burn the British ship.

1773

1. Parliament gives its assent to the Tea Act, which aims to prop up the struggling British East India Company while raising revenue from the colonies. The act provides that:
   1. The East India Company will ship tea directly to North America without first stopping in Britain.
   2. The tax on tea would be reduced, to take away the incentive to buy smuggled tea.
   3. The East India Company could choose which agents (called “consignees”) would sell tea in America.
2. Dressed as Mohawk Indians, a group of Bostonians protest the Tea Act by seizing the tea aboard three ships and dumping it into the harbor. The event is later remembered as the Boston Tea Party.

1774

1. 
   Benjamin Franklin is called before the Privy Council to explain himself after confi dential letters of Thomas Hutchinson that had come into his possession were published.
2. Parliament passes a series of laws called the Coercive Acts in Britain but known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts. They include:
   1. The Boston Port Act, which closes the port of Boston until the destroyed tea is paid for.
   2. The Massachusetts Government Act, which expands the power of the royal governor to control the appointment of public officers and curtails the ability of the colonial legislature to meet.
   3. The Administration of Justice Act, which provides that offi cials or soldiers accused of crimes could be tried in Britain.
   4. The Quartering Act of 1774, which holds that soldiers could be lodged on private property if it were otherwise unoccupied.
3. Parliament approves the Quebec Act, which:
   1. Reorganizes the western Indian territories to become part of Quebec.
   2. Guarantees religious liberty for Roman Catholics.
   3. Recognizes French civil law as binding.
   4. Angers American colonists, who believe it favors French Catholics, the traditional enemies of Protestant Britain.
4. The First Continental Congress gathers in Philadelphia, with delegates from 12 colonies meeting in the city’s Carpenters’ Hall.
   1. The simple fact of meeting demonstrates a growing unity among the traditionally fractious colonies.
5. 
   Galloway’s Plan of Union, presented to the Congress by Pennsylvania delegate Joseph Galloway, offers a way to revise imperial government that would feature:
   1. A new colonial legislature, called the Grand Council, chosen by the individual colonies and empowered to make laws for the colonies in tandem with the British Parliament.
   2. A president general to be appointed by the king who would head the Grand Council.
6. The Suffolk Resolves, sent to the Congress by representatives of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, calls for aggressive resistance to British policy. It encourages colonies to boycott British goods, refuse to recognize the Boston Port Act and the Massachusetts Government Act, withhold taxes, and raise militias.
7. The Continental Congress creates the Continental Association, a body to enforce boycotts of British goods.
8. 
   Writing as “A. W. Farmer,” Samuel Seabury, a Connecticut Anglican bishop, defends British policy and attacks the colonists’ forming of extralegal governing bodies such as the Continental Congress.
   1. A teenaged Alexander Hamilton responds to Seabury in A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, from the Calumnies of their Enemies.
9. General Thomas Gage is appointed governor of Massachusetts, exercising both military and civil authority.
   1. When Gage dissolves the Massachusetts Assembly, colonists form their own Provincial Congress.
10. Boston silversmith Paul Revere organizes a network of artisans to gather information on British movements in the city.
11. The Powder Alarms begin in New England as General Gage orders colonial stockpiles of munitions seized.
    1. British troops square off against angry colonists in Cambridge, MA; Portsmouth, NH; and Salem, MA (1775). Joseph Galloway Samuel Seabury

1775

1. Parliament sends the Conciliatory Resolution in an attempt to reconcile with the colonies. Addressed to the individual colonies rather than the Continental Congress, it promises tax relief to colonies that support the British government.
2. During a debate on colonial policy, Member of Parliament Edmund Burke delivers his “On Conciliation with America” speech, in which he characterizes the period before 1763 as a time of British “salutary neglect” toward the colonies.
3. The Battles of Lexington and Concord are the first major armed confl ict between the British and the colonists.
   1. Receiving word from London to “meet force with force,” Gage determines to lay hold of munitions stored in Concord, MA, and arrest Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock.
   2. As British troops move from Boston, Paul Revere rides to alert colonists that “the Regulars are coming out.” He is arrested by a British patrol, but associate Samuel Prescott continues the mission.
   3. Massachusetts militiamen turn out in Lexington to oppose the British march and exchange fire.
   4. Finding most of Concord’s munitions already removed, the British return to Boston under withering fire.
4. 
   Patrick Henry encourages the Virginia Convention to support Massachusetts in his “Give me liberty or give me death!” speech.
5. Ethan Allen unites his Green Mountain Boys from today’s Vermont with a party of Connecticut militiamen, led by Benedict Arnold, to capture Ft. Ticonderoga, in New York’s Hudson Valley.
6. The Second Continental Congress meets at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, with delegates from 13 colonies. It undertakes such measures as:
   1. Creating the Continental army, with George Washington as commander.
   2. Approving the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, drafted by John Dickinson, with assistance from Thomas Jefferson.
   3. Agreeing to send the king the Olive Branch Petition drafted by John Dickinson and seeking reconciliation. King George refuses to read it.
7. Gage wins a Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
   1. Aiming to control the Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston, the British are opposed by Americans dug in on Bunker and Breed’s Hills.
   2. The British drive their enemy from the field but suffer heavy casualties.
   3. According ...

Table of contents

• The Crumbling Colonial Relationship, 1763–1770
• From Colonies to Independence, 1771–1776
• Three Armies of the Revolutionary War
• Winning Independence, 1777–1781
• The War at Sea, 1775–1783
• Governing an Independent Nation, 1775–1787
• A New Constitution, 1787–1789