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Colonial Timeline
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Jamestown
jamestown was a settlement in the Colony of Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort on May 24, 1607 (O.S., May 14, 1607 N.S.),and considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610, it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Jamestown served as the capital of the colony for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699. -
Virginia House Of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was an assembly of elected representatives from Virginia that met from 1643 to 1776. This democratically elected legislative body was the first of its kind in English North America. From 1619 until 1643, elected burgesses met in unicameral session with the governor and the royally appointed governor's Council; after 1643, the burgesses met separately as the lower house of the General Assembly of Virginia. Each county sent two burgesses to the House; towns could petition to -
Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history. There are no contemporaneous references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth, and it is not referred to in Edward Winslow's Mourt's Relation (1620–21) or in Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation (1620–47). -
Mayflower Compact
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history. There are no contemporaneous references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth, and it is not referred to in Edward Winslow's Mourt's Relation (1620–21) or in Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation (1620–47). -
Fundamental Orders Of Connecticut
The Fundamental Orders were adopted by the Connecticut Colony council on January 14, 1639 OS (January 24, 1639 NS).The orders describe the government set up by the Connecticut River towns, setting its structure and powers.
It has the features of a written constitution, and is considered by some as the first written Constitution in the Western tradition, and thus earned Connecticut its nickname of The Constitution State. John Fiske, a Connecticut historian, was the first to claim that t -
Bacons' Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was the first colonial uprising that involved direct military force but it was not the last. Bacon's Rebellion took place because the colonists were unhappy with the way they were being ruled under then-governor William Berkely. They believed he was incapable of looking our for their interests because he refused to engage Indian raiding parties and protect the people he was governing. -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England. -
Toleration Act
The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England, which received the royal assent on 24 May 1689.
The Act allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and rejected transubstantiation, i.e., Protestants who dissented from the Church of England such as Baptists and Congregationalists but not to Catholics. Nonconformists were allowed their own places of worship. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is an Act of the Parliament of England passed on 16 December 1689. It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 (or 1688 by Old Style dating), inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. It lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement for regular elections to Parliament -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town. -
John Peter Zenger Trial
John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German American printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal.He was a defendant in a landmark legal case in American jurisprudence, known as "The Zenger Trial", in which his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, established that truth is a defense against charges of libel. In late 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal to voice his opinions critical of the colonial government. -
French and Indian War
the French and Indian War (1754–1763) is the American name for the North American theater of the Seven Years' War. The same war is referred to in Canadian history as the War of the Conquest. The war was fought primarily between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, who declared war on each other in 1756. That same year, the war escalated from a regional affair into a world-wide conflict -
Albany Plan Of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress in July 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several northern and mid-Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, in which it forbade settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The purpose of the proclamation was to organize Great Britain's new North American empire and to stabilize relations with Native North Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and li -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act 1765 imposed a direct tax by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America, and it required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. -
Quartering Act
he Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the 18th century. Parliament enacted them to order local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. -
Declatory Act
The American Colonies Act 1766 , commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. The declaration stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American col -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. It was designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering financially and burdened with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea. This tea was to be shipped directly to the colonies, and sold at a bargain price. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, took place when a group of Massachusetts Patriots, protesting the monopoly on American tea importation recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company, seized 342 chests of tea in a midnight raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor. -
1st Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. -
2nd Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 25, 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence -
Declaration Of Independence
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. Here, in exalted and unforgettable phrases, Jefferson expressed the convictions in the minds and hearts of the American people. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of these, and the negotiations which produced all four treaties, see Peace of Paris (1783). Its territorial provisions were "exceedingly generous" to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries.
