STUDY GUIDE: Inventing the U.S.

STUDY GUIDE: Inventing the United States – a Condensed Timeline

1607 – Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, is established in southeast Virginia.

1619 – The House of Burgesses, the first representative group of any kind in America, meets for the first time.

The first African slaves are brought to Jamestown.

1620 – The ship Mayflower arrives at Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Before they get off the ship, 41 male passengers sign The Mayflower Compact, a simple agreement that forms the basis of the Colony’s government.

Life for the colonists was under British rule from the early 1600s until the Revolutionary War was over.

                                                                         

1770 – Boston Massacre: British troops fire into a mob, killing five and leading to public protestors. The colon1ists were reaching a breaking point with British rule.

1773 – Boston Tea Party – Groups of colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three ships in Boston Harbor and dump more than 300 crates of tea overboard, as a protest against the British tea tax. The incident becomes a symbol of protest against unfairness in general.

1774 – The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia.

1775 – 1783 - War of independence fought between Great Britain and the 13 British colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America.

1776 – The Second Continental Congress passes the Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776

1781 – Articles of Confederation are ratified and formally establish the first American government.

1783 – Great Britain formally acknowledges American Independence in the Treaty of Paris, which officially closes the war.

>> Government under the Articles of Confederation was not working well because there was no central power (federal government.) Differences between the states in laws, taxes, policies etc. were creating chaos, with no central power to coordinate them. <<

1787 – First meeting of the Constitutional Convention, for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, adding a central, federal government.

1787 – Congress sends its draft of the U.S. Constitution to the states for ratification.

1781 – Constitution ratified by all the states except Vermont.

#