CH 4 Section 1

Colonial Times

The Stamp Act (1765)

The colonists declared that Parliament could not tax them because they were not represented in Parliament. They boycotted British goods.

It was the first tax that affected the colonists directly because it was placed on the everyday goods they bought.

Samuel Adams

• One of the founders of the Sons of Liberty, the organization that organized the tax boycott.

King George III

King of England during the American Revolution

Laws passed by Parliament in 1767 that set taxes on imports to the colonies. These were protested by

boycotts and riots in Boston.

Townshend Acts :

The Boston Tea Party: The government gave a British company the right to all the trade in tea. Several colonists snuck aboard a British ship carrying tea, and dumped it all in the Boston Harbor.

The Intolerable Acts

Britain closed Boston Harbor and placed Boston under martial law (rule by the military). Britain’s actions prompted colonial leaders to form the First Continental Congress. The group met in 1774 and drew up a declaration of colonial rights.

Committees of Correspondence :

Groups set up by colonial assemblies to communicate with each other about various threats to American

liberties.

In 1775, the British marched to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize the colonial militia’s weapons.

They killed several colonists at Lexington before finding no weapons in Concord. On their trip back to

Boston, between 3,000 and 4,000 Minutemen ambushed them. The colonial soldiers killed dozens of

British soldiers.

Paul Revere

Colonial patriot who warned the colonies in New England that the British were on the march to seize the militia’s weapons.