Road to revolution

Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years' War. Britain keeps Canada and Florida; France leaves North America east of the Mississippi. The war doubled Britain's national debt.

Proclamation Line bars white settlement west of the Appalachians. Meant to calm Native allies and cut frontier defense costs. Settlers and land speculators (Washington among them) ignore it.

Sugar Act cuts the molasses duty but enforces collection. Colonists used to smuggle cheap molasses; now customs courts try cases without juries.

Currency Act blocks colonies from printing paper money to pay public debts. Hurts farmers who borrowed in depreciating bills.

Stamp Act taxes legal docs, newspapers, playing cards, almost every printed thing. First direct tax aimed at raising revenue in the colonies. Riots, Sons of Liberty, tar and feather. Stamp Act Congress meets in New York and asks the king to repeal it.

Parliament repeals the Stamp Act after merchant boycotts bite in England. Same day it passes the Declaratory Act: Parliament may legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."

Townshend Acts put duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea imported to the colonies. Revenue pays royal governors and judges so they do not depend on colonial assemblies. Writs of assistance let customs search anywhere.

Nonimportation boycotts spread again. British troops land in Boston to back up customs collectors. Sam Adams and committees of correspondence link towns.

Lord North's ministry repeals most Townshend duties except the tea tax, a symbol that Parliament still has the right to tax.

Boston Massacre. A crowd harasses redcoats; five colonists die. Paul Revere's engraving spreads the story. John Adams defends the soldiers in court to show the rule of law.

Tea Act gives the East India Company a monopoly and lets it sell cheap tea in America, still with the import duty. Colonists read it as a bribe to accept taxation.

Boston Tea Party. Sons of Liberty dump East India tea into the harbor. Not about the price. About who gets to tax.

Coercive Acts (colonists say Intolerable): closes Boston's port until the tea is paid for, reshapes Massachusetts government, lets troops quarter in private buildings. The Quebec Act extends Catholic Quebec and blocks expansion into the Ohio Valley. Colonists lump Quebec with the Coercive Acts as one conspiracy.

First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Boycott of British goods, training militias, appeals to the king. Most delegates still want reform inside the empire, not independence.

Gage sends troops to seize militia stores at Concord. Fight at Lexington on the way (April 19). "Shot heard round the world." Militia harass the column back to Boston.

Second Continental Congress meets. Still sends the Olive Branch Petition asking George III for peace. He declares the colonies in rebellion. Congress names Washington commander of a Continental army. War section of Foner starts here (your pages 163+).