The Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1 773 is when many of the colonists threw the tea aboard the Dartmouth into the Boston Harbor. The colonists would not allow the tea to be unloaded onto Boston ground, but the governor wouldn’t allow the ship to leave without unloading the tea. The only plausible solution the colonists could find Was to dress up as Mohawk Indians and dump the tea overboard, so that’s what they did. The Administration of Justice Act and the Massachusetts Government Act were enacted on May 20, 1974.
The Administration of Justice Act pretty much allowed British soldiers to do as they please in the American colonies. The Act stated that the British soldiers would no longer be tried in America for their crimes under colonial law, instead they would be taken to Britain to be tried. The Massachusetts Government Act took away the people’s rights to meet and decide things for themselves. This Act put the governor in charge of the town meetings. This meant he could control what was said and disband the meetings if he so desired. On June 1, 1774 the Boston Port Bill was enacted.
The Boston port Bill loses the Boston Harbor to all ships except the British. After this happened many of the citizens left Boston. The First Continental Congress convened on September fifth and lasted until October twenty-sixth. A few delegates were selected by each colony except Georgia and sent to Carpenters’ Hall in Philadelphia. Peyote Randolph was elected the first president of the Continental Congress as an effort to appease the more conservative delegates. After much discussion and debates, they approved a Continental Association.
This was the delegates attempts to strike UT against the Port Bill and freeze England out through economics. On April 18, 1775 Paul Revere and William Dates embarked their journey from Boston to Lexington. William Dates took the land route from Boston to Lexington. Paul Revere took a much shorter route. He took a boat from Boston to Charleston, then he rode the rest of the way to Lexington. Paul Revere and William Dates went to Lexington to warn Sam Adams and John Hancock that the British were coming to arrest them. The Battle of Lexington and Concord also happened on April 18, 1775. The
British troops were marching from Boston to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock under the cover of night. They were also making their way to Concord to confiscate the ammunitions the colonists had stored there. The British were not expecting much resistance from the colonists, but about forty of the colonists had gathered on the Lexington Green to block the soldiers’ way. The colonists were told to lower their weapons, and they did so. Suddenly someone from inside a house misfired, and the British troops began firing on the colonists. Several colonists died and many of them were mounded.
The British continued onto Concord, where they were forced to retreat by the colonists. Even on the way back to Boston, small groups of colonists would pick off British soldier from the cover of the forests. The Battle of Bunker Hill was on June 1 7, 1775. The colonists lost the battle due to lack of ammunitions. The militiamen were split been Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill. The British took boats from Boston the Charleston Peninsula and attacked the colonists at Breeds Hill first. The colonists at Breeds Hill were forced to retreat to Bunker Hill when they ran out of ammunition.
Bunker Hill was also lost to the British, but the colonists had manage to inflict many casualties on the British. The Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775 at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. The Second Continental Congress was very productive. They created the Continental Army and put George Washington in charge of it. They also put Benjamin Franklin in charge of printing the new colonial money. John Dickinson convinced the congress to try to appeal to the king one last time with the Olive Branch Petition.
King George Ill refused o see the petition and called the Americans traitors. The congress also approved the Declaration of Independence about a year later. On June 7, 1776 Richard Henry Lee proposed the colonies to be “free and independent states”. In doing so, he was asking the congress to separate the American colonies from anything to do with Britain, and therefore, become their own nation, free to govern themselves as they saw fit. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4,1776. A committee had been created to draft the declaration.
The committee was made of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Sherman. Thomas Jefferson was the man who actually wrote out the Declaration of Independence. According to the book, it seems like Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson did most of the work. Part II. John Adams was a very likeable character. It was obvious that he really cared about his family and his country. Maybe one of the reasons that he cared so much about what happened to the colonies was, not only his love for the law, but his love for his family.
I think he was worried about his hillside’s futures under the rule of England, and he wanted a better place for them to grow to be in, a play where they were guaranteed freedom. It thought it was really cool how the author made a point of showing how much Adams loved his family, especially his wife. I thought that in the asses that wives didn’t really matter to their husbands and just did what they were told to do, but it seems like Adams really loved his wife and cared about her opinions. It was admirable that he seemed to truly care about justice and the law because most of the time lawyers are seen in a different light.