Start date: October 20, 1774
End date: April 18, 1775
Timeline
- December 16, 1773
At Boston, men disguised as Mohawks destroy the East India Company's tea rather than pay the duty on it.
- March 31, 1774
In London, the King assents to the Boston Port Act, shutting Boston's port from June 1 until the tea is paid for. In May and June Parliament also remakes the Massachusetts charter and passes acts on trials and quartering.
- May 26, 1774
Lord Dunmore dissolves the Virginia House of Burgesses for calling a fast day for Boston; the former members propose a general congress.
- June 1, 1774
Boston's port is closed. Fast days for Boston are kept in Virginia and elsewhere.
- June 22, 1774
In London, the King assents to the Quebec Act, which extends that province's bounds into the Ohio country and confirms the Roman Catholic Church there.
- August 1, 1774
The first Virginia Convention meets at Williamsburg, adopts an association against importing British goods, and chooses delegates to the general congress.
- September 1, 1774
General Gage's soldiers remove gunpowder from the provincial powder house near Boston; a false rumor that Boston has been fired upon sends thousands of New England militia marching.
- September 5, 1774
The Continental Congress meets at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. Peyton Randolph of Virginia is chosen president.
- September 17, 1774
Congress endorses the Suffolk Resolves of Massachusetts, which urge resistance to the new acts.
- October 10, 1774
At Point Pleasant, where the Kanawha meets the Ohio, Virginia militia defeat the Shawnee under Cornstalk, in the war Lord Dunmore has led on the frontier.
- October 20, 1774
Congress adopts the Continental Association: no British imports after December 1, and no exports to Britain after September 1775 unless grievances are redressed. Committees are to be chosen in every county and town to enforce it.
- October 26, 1774
Congress adjourns, having petitioned the King and agreed to meet again in May 1775 if grievances are not redressed.
- December 1, 1774
Nonimportation under the Continental Association begins. County and town committees inspect merchants and publish the names of those who break it.
- December 14, 1774
At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a crowd seizes powder and arms from Fort William and Mary.
- February 9, 1775
In London, Parliament declares Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. News takes six to ten weeks to cross.
- March 20, 1775
The second Virginia Convention meets at St. John's Church in Richmond, out of the governor's reach.
- March 23, 1775
At the Richmond convention, Patrick Henry moves that Virginia be put into a posture of defense and speaks for arming the militia; the motion carries narrowly.
- March 30, 1775
In London, the King assents to the New England Restraining Act, limiting New England's trade and barring its fishermen from the Newfoundland banks. News takes six to ten weeks to cross.
Prevailing mood
Most colonists still think of themselves as loyal subjects of King George III. Congress has petitioned the King directly, over the heads of Parliament and the Ministry, and many trust that he will hear his American subjects. Almost no one speaks openly of independence.
But the colonies are now bound together by the Continental Association, and it is enforced. Committees chosen in each county and town watch the merchants, inspect cargoes, and ask neighbors to sign. Those who refuse or are caught trading may have their names published in the newspapers as enemies to American liberty, and be shunned. To friends of the cause this is lawful, peaceful resistance; to its critics it is tyranny by committee, worse than anything Parliament has done. Pamphlets for and against Congress are printed and argued over.
In many places men are mustering more seriously than before. In Massachusetts the towns are training their militia and gathering arms and powder, and in other colonies gentlemen form volunteer companies and drill. People speak more often of a civil war and pray it may be averted.
Live questions
These are open questions. Your character does not know the answers and may be anxious, hopeful, or divided about them.
- Will the King answer Congress's petition? Will Parliament repeal the late acts?
- Will the Association hold, or will merchants and planters break it? Must the colonies really stop exporting in September 1775, ruining the tobacco and wheat trade?
- Are the committees a lawful defense of liberty, or a new tyranny?
- Should the colonies arm? Is it prudent, or a provocation?
- Will General Gage march his troops out of Boston against the country people? Will there be bloodshed?
- If grievances are not redressed, Congress will meet again in May. What will it do then?
Money, prices, news, and vocabulary
- Money: pounds, shillings, and pence (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound). Each colony has its own currency, worth less than pounds sterling, and the rate of exchange varies from colony to colony and year to year. Spanish silver dollars (pieces of eight) and gold pistoles circulate widely, and prices are often reckoned in them. Coin is scarce; much trade runs on credit, notes, and accounts at the store. Under the Association, British goods grow scarce and dear, and homespun cloth is worn as a mark of virtue.
- Time: people tell time by the clock where there is one, by the sun, and by the meals: breakfast in the morning, dinner (the main meal) in the early or middle afternoon, and supper in the evening.
- News: weekly newspapers, read aloud in taverns and passed from hand to hand: the Virginia Gazette (two rival papers of that name are printed at Williamsburg), the Pennsylvania Gazette and Pennsylvania Journal, the Boston Gazette, and Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, which favors the government's side. Also letters from friends and merchants, ship captains' reports, sermons, broadsides, pamphlets, and the talk at church, court day, and the tavern.
- Political words: the friends of liberty; the Ministry; Lord North; the late acts of Parliament; the Port Bill; the Bostonians; the Continental Congress; the Association; the committee (of inspection, of observation, of safety); enemies to American liberty; volunteer or independent companies; the Sons of Liberty; "Tory" as an insult for the government's friends, and "Whig" for its opponents. Do not use the later historians' names "Coercive Acts" or "Intolerable Acts."