The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association, which was passed by the First Continental Congress, was an agreement between twelve of the thirteen colonies to enforce nonimportation. This means that the colonies would boycott goods imported from Great Britain, and after a year stop exports as well, in order to try and force Parliament to repeal the Intolerable Acts.
Indignation against England’s colonial policy reached fever pitch in the colonies after the passage (1774) of the Intolerable Acts, and the Sons of Liberty and the committees of correspondence promoted the idea of an intercolonial assembly similar to the one held (1765) at the time of the Stamp Act.
The session’s most important act was the creation of the ContinentalAssociation, which forbade importation and use of British goods and proposed prohibition of colonial exports.
A Continental army was created to oppose the British and, through the agency of John Adams, George Washington was appointed (June 15, 1775) commander in chief.
The First Continental Congress convened in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774, to consider and act on the situation arising from the so-called Intolerable Acts, passed by the British Parliament in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.
Extralegal bodies known as Committees of Safety were charged with enforcing the association; they soon became revolutionary spearheads in the towns and counties, creating the first effective union among the colonies and silencing Loyalist opinion.
When the Second Continental Congress convened on the appointed date, the battles of Lexington and Concord had recently taken place in Massachusetts, and militiamen were besieging the British occupying force within Boston.
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