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February 10, 1763
Treaty of Paris Is Signed
The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War in North America, granting the Britain control of all land to the east of the Mississippi River.
Spring-Summer 1763
Pontiac’s War Begins
An Indian leader, Pontiac, led Ottawa Indians in attacks against British forts near the Great Lakes, eight of which they sacked successfully. However, the British ultimately prevailed, and the Indians were forced to make peace.
October 7, 1763
King George III Signs the Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 declared that all land transactions made to the west of the Appalachian crest would be governed by the British government rather than by the colonies.
April 5, 1764
Sugar Act Is Passed
The Sugar Act lowered the import tax on foreign molasses in an attempt to deter smuggling, and placed a heavy tax on Madeira wine, which had traditionally been duty-free. The act mandated that many commodities shipped from the colonies had to pass through Britain before going to other European countries.
March 1765
Stamp Act Is Passed
To be enacted on November 1, 1765, the Stamp Act required all colonists to purchase watermarked, taxed paper for use in newspapers and legal documents. The Stamp Act was the first internal tax ever imposed on the colonies by Parliament and aroused great opposition.
March 24, 1765
Quartering Act Takes Effect
The Quartering Act required colonial legislatures to pay for certain supplies for British troops stationed in each colony. The Quartering Act became controversial during 1766, when New York refuses to comply with it.
May 30, 1765
Virginia House of Burgesses Passes the Virginia Resolves
The Virginia Resolves denied Parliament’s right to tax the colonies under the Stamp Act, igniting opposition to the act in other colonial assemblies.
October 7, 1765
Stamp Act Congress Meets in New York City
The colonial legislatures sent representatives to New York, where they agreed broadly that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies or to deny colonists a fair trial.
March 4, 1766
Stamp Act Is Repealed
In response to colonial resistance, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, and passed the Declaratory Act on March 18, which states that Parliament may legislate for the colonies in all cases.
July 2, 1767
Townshend Duties Are Enacted
The Townshend duties was the popular name for the collected import taxes imposed by the Revenue Act of 1767. The Revenue Act taxed glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea entering the colonies. The duties were clearly passed in an effort to raise revenue for the British treasury rather than to regulate trade.
December 1767
John Dickinson Publishes Letters From A Pennsylvania Farmer
Dickinson’s series of 12 letters are published in almost every colonial newspaper. The letters exhorted Americans to resist the Townshend duties, enumerating the political arguments against the constitutionality of the Revenue Act.
February 11, 1768
Circular Letter Adopted by the Massachusetts House of Representatives
The circular letter, drafted by Samuel Adams and sent to all of the other colonial legislatures, condemned taxation without representation and decried British efforts to make royal governors financially independent of the elected legislatures as a further deprivation of representative government. It spurred some other legislatures to draft similar letters, but most remain apathetic.
October 1, 1768
Troops Begin to Land in Boston
In response to growing political unrest in Massachusetts, Britain sent troops to occupy the city in the final months of 1768. Tensions mounted between the troops and the civilians.
March 4, 1770
Boston Massacre
Troops in Boston squared off with a crowd of sailors led by Crispus Attucks. When the crowd knocked one soldier to the ground, the soldiers fired and killed 5 men, including Attucks.
April 12, 1770
Townshend Duties Are Repealed
Under financial pressure from the colonists’ non-importation policy, Parliament repealed all of the Townshend duties except for the tax on tea.
June 9, 1772
The Burning of the Gaspee
In an act of open defiance against British rule, more than one hundred Rhode Island colonists burn the corrupt customs ship Gaspee to the waterline after it runs aground near Providence.
July 1773
Samuel Adams Publishes The Letters of Thomas Hutchinson Through the Committees of Correspondence
Massachusetts’ royal governor, Hutchinson, in his letters, advocates “an abridgement of what are called British liberties,” and “a great restraint of natural liberty” in the colonies. The publication of these letters convinces Americans of a British plot to destroy their political freedom.
