ace. The British were marching to destroy a colonist’s arms depot near Concorde, Boston but were intercepted at Lexington. The colonists avoided a set battle with the British but harried them, guerrilla-style, from the cover of hills and trees. The British were forced to retreat.
18/4/1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes rode through the night from Charlestown to Lexington to warn the Massachusetts colonists of the arrival of British forces at the start of the War of American Independence.
22/3/1775. Statesman Edmund Burke urged the House of Commons to adopt a policy of reconciliation with the Americans. However on 13/4/1775 Lord North extended the scope of the Restraining Act from New England to cover South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. The Act forbade trade with any other country except Britain and Ireland and was bitterly resented by the Americans. On 14/4/1775 General Gage was ordered to implement the Coercive Acts and halt the colonial military build-up.
9/2/1775. The UK Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. On 21/2/1775 Massachusetts voted to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.
26/10/1774. A meeting of colonial leaders at Philadelphia criticised British influence in America and affirmed the American’s right to ‘life, liberty, and property’. Colonists began to step up their boycott of British goods, tarred and feathered traders and burnt their homes, and began to raise militias for a war against Britain.
10/10/1774, The Battle of Point Pleasant. Shawnee Indians were defeated when they attacked frontiersmen on the Ohio River..
5/9/1774, America’s first Continental Congress was convened, at Philadelphia.
13/6/1774, Rhode Island became the first US State to ban the importation of slaves, and to free those already in the State.
2/6/1774. The UK Parliament reactivated the Quartering Act (passed 24/3/1765), requiring that all British colonialists provide housing for British troops.
27/5/1774, American community leaders met unofficially in a tavern and decided upon the need for annual inter-colonial congresses.
20/5/1774, Because of the Boston Tea Party incident, London passed the Coercive Acts to punish the American colonies. Boston port was closed down and the powers of the Massachusetts legislature was reduced. The British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, prohibiting the use by any ships, of the port of Boston, USA. This simply served to inflame the passions of American colonists against the British further in cities from Pennsylvania to New York.
16/12/1773. The Boston Tea Party. See 28/10/1767, 5/3/1770 and 17/3/1776. American colonial rebels, dressed as American Indians, boarded three British tea ships anchored in Boston Harbour, opened 342 tea chests worth UK£ 9,000, and threw their contents overboard. The colonists vowed not to pay the British-imposed tax of 3 pence a pound on tea. This tax was intended to capitalise on a ‘tea mountain’ which had built up in London and threatened to bankrupt the East India Company. The East India Company faced financial problems because British demand for Indian goods exceeded Indian demand for British goods, so there was an outflow of British gold bullion, perceived to be against British interests (mercantilism). The East India Company failed to make money, whereas it had been hoped that the Company would be able to contribute to British public funds. Therefore the East India Company was given permission to export tea directly to the American colonists.
In 1765 the Stamp Act was imposed by Britain to help pay for the costs of the Seven Years War; this was rejected by the American colonists. Repealed, this was replaced by the Townshend Acts, imposing duties on a range of goods including tea, lead, glass, paper and paint. In 1770 the Townshend Acts were in turn repealed, except for the Tea Tax.
9/6/1772, The British schooner Gaspee was set on fire and destroyed by American colonists after it had run aground near Providence, Rhode Island. The schooner had been stationed to prevent a profitable smuggling trade in the reg