Unit 3: Chapter 5

British law that decreased the duty on French molasses, making it more attractive for shippers to obey the law, and at the same time raised penalties for smuggling. The act enraged New England merchants, who opposed both the tax and the fact that prosecuted merchants would be tried by British-appointed judges in a vice-admiralty court. (p. 155)

A maritime tribunal presided over by a royally appointed judge, with no jury. (p. 156)

British law imposing a tax on all paper used in the colonies. Widespread resistance to the Stamp Act prevented it from taking effect and led to its repeal in 1766. (p. 157)

The claim made by British politicians that the interests of the American colonists were adequately repre- sented in Parliament by merchants who traded with the colonies and by absentee landlords (mostly sugar planters) who owned estates in the West Indies. (p. 157)

A British law passed by Parliament at the request of General Thomas Gage, the British military com- mander in America, that required colonial governments to pro- vide barracks and food for British troops. (p. 157)

A congress of delegates from nine assemblies that met in New York City in October 1765 to protest the loss of American “rights and liberties,” especially the right to trial by jury. The congress challenged the constitutionality of both the Stamp and Sugar Acts by declaring that only the colonists’ elected representatives could tax them. (p. 158)

Colonists—primarily middling merchants and artisans—who banded together to protest the Stamp Act and other imperial reforms of the 1760s. The group originated in Boston in 1765 but soon spread to all the colonies. (p. 158)

The centuries-old body of legal rules and procedures that protected the lives and property of the British monarch’s subjects. (p. 159)

The rights to life, liberty, and property. According to the English philosopher John Locke in Two Treatises of Government (1690), political authority was not given by God to monarchs. Instead, it derived from social compacts that people made to preserve their natural rights. (p. 127)

Law issued by Parliament to assert Parliament’s unassailable right to legislate for its British colonies “in all cases whatsoever,” putting Americans on notice that the simultaneous repeal of the Stamp Act changed nothing in the imperial powers of Britain. (p. 160)

British law that established new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper, and painters’ colors imported into the colonies. The Townshend duties led to boycotts and heightened tensions between Britain and the American colonies. (p. 161)

Colonists attempted nonimportation agreements three times: in 1766, in response to the Stamp Act; in 1768, in response to the Townshend duties; and in 1774, in response to the Coercive Acts. In each case, colonial radicals pressured merchants to stop importing British goods. In 1774 nonimportation was adopted by the First Continental Congress and enforced by the Continental Association. American women became crucial to the movement by reducing their households’ consumption of imported goods and producing large quantities of homespun cloth. (p. 161)

A communications network established among towns in the colonies, and among colonial assemblies, between 1772 and 1773 to provide for rapid dissemination of news about important political developments. (p. 168)

British act that lowered the existing tax on tea and granted exemptions to the East India Company to make their tea cheaper in the colonies and entice boycotting Americans to buy it. Resistance to the Tea Act led to the passage of the Coercive Acts and imposition of military rule in Massachusetts. (p. 168)

Four British acts of 1774 meant to punish Massachusetts for the destruction of three shiploads of tea. Known in America as the Intolerable Acts, they led to open rebellion in thenorthern colonies. (p. 168)

September 1774 gathering of colonial delegates in Philadelphia to discuss the crisis precipitated by the Coercive Acts. The Congress produced a declaration of rights and an agreement to impose a limited boycott of trade with Britain. (p. 169)

An association established in 1774 by the First Continental Congress to enforce a boycott of British goods. (p. 171)

A 1774 war led by Virginia’s royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, against the Ohio Shawnees, who had a long-standing claim to Kentucky as a hunting ground. The Shawnees were defeated and Dunmore and his militia forces claimed Kentucky as their own. (p. 175)

Colonial militiamen who stood ready to mobilize on short notice during the imperial crisis of the 1770s. These volunteers formed the core of the citizens’ army that met British troops at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. (p. 175)

Legislative body that governed the United States from May 1775 through the war’s duration. It established an army, created its own money, and declared inde- pendence once all hope for a peaceful reconciliation with Britain was gone. (p. 176)

A document containing philosophical principles and a list of grievances that declared separation from Britain. Adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, it ended a period of intense debate with moderates still hoping to reconcile with Britain. (p. 178)

The principle that ultimate power lies in the hands of the electorate. (p. 179)