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Document: Let us now trace the apostle’s reasoning in favor of submission to the higher powers, a little more particularly and exactly. For by this…
Author: King George III Date:1763 Annotation: In 1773, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) published a brief history of the British government’s actions during the preceding decade. Its…
Date: 1764 Annotation: To maintain the army and repay war debts, Parliament decided to impose charges on colonial trade. It passed the Sugar Act, imposed…
Date:1764 Annotation: The Currency Act prohibited colonial governments from issuing paper money and required all taxes and debts to British merchants to be paid in British…
Date:1765 Annotation: Parliament approved the Quartering Act, requiring colonial governments to put up British soldiers in unoccupied buildings and provide them with candles, bedding, and beverages….
Annotation: This dissertation, written by John Adams, included one of the first arguments to make informed citizens become a check for government. Document: “Ignorance and inconsideration are…
Date:1765 Annotation: To increase revenues to pay the cost of militarily defending the colonies, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which required a tax stamp on legal…
Author: Archibald Hinschelwood Date:1765 Annotation: Eleven years before the Declaration of Independence, a crisis took place that defined the issue that would help provoke…
Date:1765 Annotation: The Continental Congress’ Declaration of Rights and Grievances. Document: We have several times promised to treat our readers with a correct copy of this venerable…
Date:1765 Annotation: Resolutions on the Stamp Act, Massachusetts Assembly Document: WHEREAS the just rights of his majesty’s subjects of this province, derived to them from the British…
Author: Benjamin Franklin Date:1766 Annotation: His is one of the most remarkable success stories in American history. The eighteenth child of a Boston candlemaker…
Date:1766 Annotation: Examination of Dr. Benjamin Franklin In the House of Commons in 1766. Document: Q. What is your name, and place of abode? — Franklin, of…
Date:1766 Annotation: The Declaratory Act of 1766stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Document: An act for the…
Date:1767 Annotation: Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, imposed new duties on imports of glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea to the colonies. The Townshend Acts…
Author: John Hancock Date:1768 Annotation: Based in part on Benjamin Franklin’s arguments before Parliament, Charles Townshend (1725-1767), the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, believed…
Author: John Easson Date:1769 Annotation: In this selection, James Otis (1725-1783), one of the early leaders in the colonists’ struggle for independence, informs Catharine…
Date:1769 Annotation: The North Carolina Regulators was a popular movement in the 1760s that challenged the colonial government, the powerful landowners, and the officials that dominated…
Author: Charles Thomson Date:1769 Annotation: Born in Ulster, Charles Thomson (1729-1824) came to Philadelphia as a young schoolmaster. During the 1765 Stamp Act Crisis,…
Date:1770 Annotation: On March 5, 1770, a 16-year-old barber’s apprentice named Edward Garrick insulted Hugh White, a soldier of the 29th Regiment on sentry duty in…
Date:1770 Annotation: An anonymous account of the Boston Massacre on the evening of March 5, 1770. Document: It may be a proper introduction to this narrative, briefly…
Author: Deacon John Tudor Date:1770 Annotation: By the beginning of 1770 there were four thousand British soldiers in Boston, a seaport with only 15,000…
Date:1770 Annotation: The leader of the British 29th regiment, Preston was defended by John Adams for his role in the massacre and was acquitted of all…
Author: Thomas Preston Date:1770 Annotation: Captain Thomas Preston’s account of the Boston Massacre. Document: It is [a] matter of too great notoriety to need any proofs…
Author: John Dickinson Date:1770 Annotation: The escalating conflict with Britain after 1763 forced the colonists to define their identity as well as the nature…
Author: Benjamin Franklin Date:1770 Annotation: As late as 1775, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was convinced that the issues dividing Britain and the colonies were “a…
Author: Richard H. Lee Date:1771 Annotation: Even as tension between the colonies and Britain was rising, disputes among colonists continued. In western North Carolina,…
Author: Samuel Adams Date:1772 Annotation: As one of the chief organizers of protests against the imperial policies adopted by Britain after the Seven Years…
Author: George Robert Twelve Hewes Date:1773 Annotation: George Robert Twelve Hewes, a Boston shoemaker who later fought in the Revolution as a common soldier and…
Date:1773 Annotation: Parliament passed the Tea Act that authorized the East India Company to bypass American wholesalers and sell tea directly to American distributors. Cutting out…
Author: John Adams Date:1773 Annotation: In this letter, John Adams (1735-1826) describes the escalating tensions in Massachusetts during the winter and early spring of…
Author: John Adams Date:1773 Annotation: The Townshend duties were a dismal failure. Only 21,000 pound sterling in new duties were collected, while sales of…
Author: John Easson Date:1773 Annotation: A Bostonian named John Andrews (1764-1845) offered the following account of the Tea Party. “A general muster was assembled,…
Author: Thomas Jefferson Date:1774 Annotation: Two years before the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), then 31, distributed an essay to the delegates at…
Date:1774 Annotation: The Administration of Justice Act of 1774 Document: An act for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts…
Date:1774 Annotation: The Continental Congress in 1774 made an address to the Inhabitants of Quebec. This address encouraged inhabitants to resist English threats that went against…
Date:1774 Annotation: Parliament passed the Boston Port Act in hopes to regain control of an unruly Massachusetts. The act closed the ports in Boston until the…
Date:1774 Annotation: The Massachusetts Government Act put the election of most government officials under the control of the Crown, basically removing the Massachusetts charter of government….
Author: George Read Date:1774 Annotation: Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party with outrage. Convinced that rebels in Boston had to be taught a…
Date:1774 Annotation: Established June 2, 1774, the Quartering Act of 1774 was similar to the Quartering Act of 1765. This act allowed troops to be quartered…
Date:1774 Annotation: Leaders of the patriot cause repeatedly argued that imperial policies would literally make the colonists slaves of the British. As the historian Bernard…
Author: Caesar Rodney Date:1774 Annotation: A signer of the Declaration of Independence from Delaware, Caesar Rodney (1728-1784) served as a major general in the…
Date:1774 Annotation: The Quebec Act enlarged French Quebec to cover the area as far west as the Mississippi River and as far south as the Ohio…
Date:1774 Annotation: Declaration and Resolves of the Continental Congress Document: Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament, claiming a power, of right, to…
Date:1774 Annotation: Many members of the Continental Congress blamed the imperial crisis on the acts of malevolent ministers and implored King George to intercede with…
Author: John Adams Date:1774 Annotation: In the following letter, in which he describes the grievances he feels threaten to reduce the colonists to political…
Author: Patrick Henry Date:1775 Annotation: A speech made by Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgesses in order to raise support for the American…
Author: Ezra Stiles Date:1775 Annotation: Ezra Stiles (1727-1795), a future president of Yale College, was serving as pastor in Newport at the time he…
Author: Isaac Merrill Date:1775 Annotation: In February 1775, Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. This declaration permitted soldiers to shoot…
Author: Thomas Gage and Laurence Fishburne Date:1775 Annotation: In British eyes, the Revolution was the work of a small group demagogues and radicals who…
Author: Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson Date:1775 Annotation: This was prepared by the Second Continental Congress to clarify why the British colonies had taken up…
Date:1775 Annotation: Two copies of this petition were sent to King George in hopes of settling amicably. But, King George would not accept the petition which…
Date:1775 Annotation: This is a royal proclamation issued by George III, responding to increasing hostilities in the American colonies. Document: A Proclamation, by The King, for Suppressing…
Author: Mercy Otis Warren Date:1775 Annotation: In May 1775, shortly after the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia….
Author: John Adams Date:1775 Annotation: By the end of 1775, compromise between Britain and its colonies was becoming a less viable option. Richard Henry…
Author: George Washington Date:1775 Annotation: In this letter to Congress, Washington recounted information that he had heard from a sailor: that British Gen. William Howe…
Author: Adam Smith Date:1776 Annotation: In his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, the Scottish economist…
Author: Thomas Jefferson Date:1776 Annotation: More than a year past between the outbreak of fighting at the battles of Lexington and Concord and the…
Annotation: Image shows the first page of the original four page “first draught” of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. This early draft, which…
Author: Thomas Paine Date:1776 Annotation: John Adams called him “the first man of the Revolution.” Teddy Roosevelt called him a “filthy little atheist.” His name…
Date:1776 Annotation: The Resolutions and Recommendations of Congress. Document: Continental Congress May 10-15, 1776 Friday, May 10, 1776 A letter of the 7, from General Washington, and…
Annotation: This is the only surviving fragment of the earliest draft of the Declaration of Independence. This fragment demonstrates that Jefferson heavily edited his first draft…
Author: Richard H. Lee Date:1776 Annotation: Richard Lee (1732-1794), writing to a fellow Virginian, calls for American independence, a goal suddenly and effectively popularized…
Author: John Hancock Date:1776 Annotation: In a message to patriots in Maryland, John Hancock (1737-1793), the President of the Continental Congress, recounts British hostilities…
Author: Richard H. Lee Date:1776 Annotation: The Lee Resolution prompted by Richard Henry Lee was put forth June 7, 1776. Three parts of the resolution…
Author: George Mason Date:1776 Annotation: The Virginia Constitution, written by George Mason, is significant in that it was the first constitutions dividing the government into…
Date:1776 Annotation: Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously June 12, 1776 at the Virginia Convention of Delegates. Drafted by Mr. George Mason. Document: I That all men…
Date:1776 Annotation: During the Spring of 1776, as the historian Pauline Maier has shown, colonies, localities, and groups of ordinary Americans–including New York mechanics, Pennsylvania…
Date:1776 Annotation: “How is it,” the English essayist Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) asked at the start of the Revolution, “that we hear the loudest yelps for…
Date:1776 Annotation: Town Meeting Resolution, Concord, Massachusetts, 1776 Document: At a meeting of the Inhabitents of the Town of Concord being free and twenty one years of…
Author: John Jay Date:1776 Annotation: Toward the end of 1776, when John Jay (1745-1829) made this appeal to the inhabitants of New York, a…
Author: Thomas Paine Date:1776 Annotation: Thomas Paine wrote this collection of articles to represent his support for the independence of America and also to describe…
Author: Josiah Bartlett Date:1777 Annotation: The Continental Congress faced serious problems financing the Revolution. Lacking the power to tax, Congress made assessments of the…
Author: Lucy Knox Date: 1777 Annotation: Wartime conditions thrust new responsibilities upon American women. With many husbands absent, women assumed heightened responsibilities for managing family…
Author: George Washington Date:1777 Annotation: At first glance, George Washington (1732-1799) might seem to be an unlikely choice to lead the Continental Army. His…
Author: George Washington Date:1777 Annotation: In May 1777, Washington had an army of only about 10,000 men, of whom fewer than 7,400 were present…
Author: Juan Agustin Morfi Date:1778 Annotation: In 1777 and 1778, a Franciscan father, Juan Agustín Morfi, traveled into northern New Spain, and offered the following…
Date:1778 Annotation: The Treaty of Alliance was a formal treaty with France that established cooperation against Great Britain. In this treaty, France officially recognized the United…
Author: Henry Clinton Date:1778 Annotation: In May 1778, General Henry Clinton (1738-1795) became commander of chief of British forces. He replaced William Howe (1729-1814),…
Author: Henry Laurens Date:1780 Annotation: France’s entry into the Revolution in 1778 altered the entire nature of the conflict. No longer was the Revolution…
Author: Edmund Pendleton Date:1780 Annotation: In 1781, the 13 original states ratified the first United States constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The Articles served…
Author: Edmund Pendleton Date:1780 Annotation: Toward the end of 1780, morale within the Continental Army reached a low point. Troop strength fell to just…
Author: Thomas Jefferson Date:1780 Annotation: Few Americans realize that much of the Revolution’s bitterest fighting took place in the South. To replace the army…
Author: Charles Cornwallis Date:1781 Annotation: British policy in the South was based on several miscalculations. Britain had decided to concentrate its military efforts in…
Author: George Mason Date:1781 Annotation: In October 1780, Major General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) replaced Horatio Gates as commander of the American army in the…
Author: Edmund Pendleton Date:1781 Annotation: Convinced that he could not suppress the rebellion in the Carolinas, Lord Cornwallis retreated to Virginia in 1781. Sir…
Author: Edmund Pendleton Date:1782 Annotation: Although Americans often treat their history in isolation from other countries’, in fact foreign events have played a shaping…
Annotation: On September 3, 1783–Two years after the Revolutionary War–The United States of America was officially considered a free nation by Great Britain. Delegates from America…
Author: Peter Kiteridge Date:1806 Annotation: African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In November 1775, however, Congress…