The American Revolution
142 flashcards by MentisLibrary
How a tax dispute became a war and then a country. Covers the acts and protests that lit the fuse, the campaigns from Lexington to Yorktown, the people on every side, and the unsettled years that followed independence.
- What were the Navigation Acts?
- Laws requiring colonial trade to move in British ships and pass through British ports
- What was salutary neglect?
- Britain's long habit of leaving the colonies largely to govern themselves
- Which war left Britain with the debt that led it to tax the colonies?
- The French and Indian War, the North American theater of the Seven Years War
- What were writs of assistance?
- General search warrants letting customs officers search premises for smuggled goods
- What did the Proclamation of 1763 do?
- Barred colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains
- What was Pontiac's War?
- A broad Native uprising against British posts in the Great Lakes and Ohio country
- What was the Sugar Act?
- A duty on molasses and other imports, with tighter enforcement against smuggling
- What was the Stamp Act?
- A tax requiring an official stamp on printed materials such as newspapers, legal documents and playing cards
- Who were the Sons of Liberty?
- An organized network of colonists who protested British taxation, sometimes with intimidation and destruction of property
- What slogan summed up the colonial constitutional objection?
- No taxation without representation
- What did the Quartering Act require?
- Colonial assemblies to provide housing and supplies for British troops
- What was virtual representation?
- The British argument that Parliament represented every subject whether or not they voted for it
- Who was Samuel Adams?
- A Boston organizer who built the committees and crowds that drove resistance
- What did the Stamp Act Congress do?
- Delegates from nine colonies met in New York and petitioned against taxation without representation
- What was the Declaratory Act?
- A statement that Parliament could legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever
- Why was the Stamp Act repealed?
- Colonial boycotts hurt British merchants, who pressured Parliament
- What were the Townshend Acts?
- Duties on imported glass, lead, paint, paper and tea
- What was John Adams's most unpopular act before the Revolution?
- Defending the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre, and winning acquittals for most
- What was the Boston Massacre?
- British soldiers fired into a hostile crowd, killing five colonists
- Who was Crispus Attucks?
- A dockworker of African and Native American descent, the first man killed in the Boston Massacre
- What were committees of correspondence?
- Networks that shared news and coordinated resistance among the colonies
- Who was Mercy Otis Warren?
- A playwright and pamphleteer who satirized royal officials and later wrote a history of the Revolution
- What was the Gaspee affair?
- Rhode Islanders boarded and burned a grounded British customs schooner
- What did the Tea Act of 1773 do?
- Let the East India Company sell tea directly in the colonies, undercutting local merchants
- Who was Phillis Wheatley?
- An enslaved woman in Boston who became the first African American to publish a book of poems
- What was the Boston Tea Party?
- Colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor
- What were the Coercive Acts?
- Punitive laws closing Boston's port and restricting Massachusetts self-government
- What was the Quebec Act?
- A law extending Quebec's boundaries and granting toleration to Catholics there
- What did the First Continental Congress do?
- Delegates from twelve colonies met in Philadelphia and agreed to boycott British goods
- What were the Suffolk Resolves?
- Massachusetts resolutions rejecting the Coercive Acts and urging a boycott and militia training