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First Continental Congress

• Representatives from all colonies except Georgia

• It voiced their objections to the recent acts of Parliament

• Declared loyalty to the king• Agreed not to import anything from Britain and

not to export anything to Britain• Decided to meet again if their pleas were not

answered

• Colonists expected Britain to repeal the Intolerable Acts

• Britain was determined to force the rebellious colonists to submit

• British General Thomas Gage heard about a stockpile of arms and ammunition in Concord, Massachusetts

• He ordered his men to find it and destroy it• British troops left on April 18, 1775 at night• Paul Revere, Samuel Prescott and William

Dawes saw them and warned the colonists.

William Dawes

• The British met up with the minutemen at Lexington

• Someone shot and then the British opened fire

• This is the “shot heard around the world”• 8 colonists were dead

• British continued to Concord and burned the stockpile

• The colonists stop them at Concord Bridge and force the British to retreat

• They had to retreat through the colonists.• This started the Revolutionary War