Student Question
How did specific actions and ideas from 1763–1776 lead to the dissolution of the relationship between the English colonies into rebellion?
Quick answer:
Events and laws leading up to the Revolutionary War include the Proclamation of 1763, the Grenville Acts of 1764, the Quartering and Stamp Acts of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, the Boston Massacre of 1770, the Tea Act of 1773, the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Coercive Acts of 1774, the First Continental Congress of 1774, and the Battles of Lexington and Concord in of 1775.
To help you answer this question, let's look at some of the events that led to the Revolutionary War.
When the French and Indian War ended in 1763, the American colonists were thrilled. The British (with a good bit of American assistance) had won the war, and the colonists could celebrate and relax. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Only a few months after the war's end, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachians. This land was to be Native American territory, but the colonists were furious that the British would dare to tell them where they could and could not live in their own land. Tensions began to brew.
The French and Indian War had been expensive, and the British believed that Americans should pay their share. After all, the war was fought in America for the benefit of Americans. In 1764, then,...
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the British Parliament passed the Grenville Acts, including the Sugar Act, to raise money by imposing higher duties on products like sugar, molasses, and coffee. Colonists responded by insisting upon no taxation without representation. Americans were not allowed to sit in the British Parliament, so they should not be subject to Parliament's taxes.
Parliament didn't really care what the colonists thought at this point. It passed the Stamp Act in 1765, which directly taxed colonists on everything from newspapers to legal documents to playing cards. To add insult to injury, the British also enacted the Quartering Act, which required colonists to house British troops or at least pay for their housing.
Needless to say, neither of these acts went over well with the colonists, who protested mightily with official meetings, petitions, and riots. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act early in 1766, but it also passed the Declaratory Act, which insisted that Parliament had the right to make laws for the colonies.
And make laws it did. In mid-1767, Parliament imposed new taxes, including a particularly onerous tax on tea, with the Townshend Acts. Colonists, in return, boycotted taxed items and annoyed customs officials (who were trying to collect taxes) to no end. The British sent troops to protect their interests in the colonies, focusing especially on Boston, which was a hotbed of anti-British sentiment. Tensions mounted to the breaking point, and British troops opened fire on Americans in what became known as the Boston Massacre in March 1770. Rather shamefaced, Parliament repealed the Townshend Acts except for the tea tax a month later.
That tax on tea continued to rankle with the colonists, though, and the British made the situation worse in 1773 with the Tea Act, which reinforced the tea tax and gave the East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in America. The colonists were not about to stand for that, and several of them dumped 92,000 pounds of East India tea into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, in the famous Boston Tea Party.
Indeed, the situation was becoming intolerable for the colonists, who were forming committees of correspondence to figure out what to do about it. In retaliation for the Tea Party, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which strictly limited commerce in the port of Boston and imposed more restrictions on colonial freedoms. The First Continental Congress met in 1774, solidifying the colonial position and resolving to fight for colonial rights. The fight began in earnest on April 18 and 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Declaration of Independence appeared the following year as American colonists determined to break ties with Britain once and for all.