Unit 3 - The Revolutionary Era: 1754-1800

Committees of Correspondence

Emergency provisional governments set up in the 13 American colonies in response to British policies leading up to the Revolutionary War. Was formed to keep each colony informed of the resistance efforts throughout the colonies

King George III

King of England during the Revolutionary War

Sugar Act

law passed by the British Parliament setting taxes on molasses and sugar imported by the colonies

vice-admiralty courts

unpopular with Americans because their purpose was to enforce Britain's control over the colonial economy. It was particularly galling that the courts were staffed by imperial place-men who exercised summary jurisdiction over local merchants

Stamp Act

an act passed by the British parliment in 1756 that raised revenue from the American colonies by a duty in the form of a stamp required on all newspapers and legal or commercial documents

Stamp Act Congress

group of colonists who protested the Stamp Act, saying that Parliament couldn't tax without colonist' consent

Nonimportation agreements

Merchants in major port cities would hope that their refusal to import British goods would lead British merchants to lobby for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Colonists also reverted to domestic products rather than British goods. This changed colonists' cultural relationship with the mother country and helped forge colonial unity.

Sons of Liberty

were a grassroots group of instigators and provocateurs in colonial America who used an extreme form of civil disobedience—threats, and in some cases actual violence—to intimidate loyalists and outrage the British government.

Declaratory Acts

An act for the better securing the dependency of his majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain. This act was passed to assert the authority of the British government to tax its subjects in North America after it repealed the much-hated Stamp Act.

Townshend Acts

Imposed duties on British china, glass, lead, paint, paper and tea imported to the colonies. This also created and strengthened formal mechanisms to enforce compliance, including a new American Board of Customs Commissioners and more vice-admiralty courts to try smugglers

homespun

meaning being made at home, was a movement that included the boycott of manufactured goods from England and encouraged women to make their own clothes at home, a peaceful way that the women could show patriotism

Boston Massacre

incident in 1770 in which British troops fired on and killed American colonists

Tea Act

granted the company the right to ship its tea directly to the colonies without first landing it in England, and to commission agents who would have the sole right to sell tea in the colonies.

Boston Tea Party

A 1773 protest against British taxes in which Boston colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped valuable tea into Boston Harbor.

Coercive Acts

also known as the intolerable acts, they were a series of laws that restricted trade and increased British control in Boston and the rest of Massachusetts designed to scare and silence the colonists, but they actually brought the colonies closer together-- and closer to outright rebellion.

First Continental Congress

First met in Philadelphia after Britain implemented the Intolerable Acts. A compact among the colonies to boycott British goods beginning on December 1, 1774, unless parliament should rescind the Intolerable Acts.

Continental Association

A document created to boycott all contact with British goods. By reversing the economic sanctions placed on the colonists, the delegates hoped Britain would repeal its Intolerable Acts. The colonists also recommended a committee be chosen in every county, city, and town, in which they would observe the conduct of all people touching the association.

Lexington and Concord

the first battle of the American Revolution (April 19, 1775)

Minutemen

A small hand-picked elite force which were required to be highly mobile and able to assemble quickly. They were selected from militia muster rolls by their commanding officers. Typically 25 years of age or younger, they were chosen for their enthusiasm, reliability, and physical strength.

George Washington

an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797

Common Sense(1776)

one of the most potent pamphlets ever written. It called for the colonists to realize their mistreatment and push for independence from England. The pamphlet was considered high-class journalism as well as propaganda and sold a total of 120,000 copies within a few months.

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation

the decree signed by Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, which proclaimed that any slaves or indentured servants who fought on the side of the British would be rewarded with their freedom

Declaration of Independence

1776 statement, issued by the Second Continental Congress, explaining why the colonies wanted independence from Britain.

Seven Years' War

Began when a force of British colonists and Native American allies, led by George Washington, killed a French diplomat. Resulted in Britain defeating the French, allowing the British to all of French America.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

Ended the Seven Years' War. British received much of Canada and North America from the French, while the Prussians retained the important province of Silesia. This gave the British a larger empire than they could control.

Neolin

A prophet that received a vision in 1761 from the Master of Life, his religion's main deity, that the only way to enter heaven would be to cast off the corrupting influence of Europeans by expelling the British from Indian country.

Pontiac's War

Began when Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, began an uprising after hearing Neolin's vision. The war lasted until 1766. Though the western Indians did not win the war, they succeeded in fundamentally altering the British government's Indian policy.

Proclamation of 1763

Britain's first major postwar imperial action targeting North America, in which the king forbade settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to limit costly wars with Native Americans. However, colonists protested and demanded access to the territory for which they had fought alongside the British.

John Locke

He was an Enlightenment thinker who introduced radical new ideas about the importance of education. Said that education produced rational human beings capable of thinking for themselves and questioning authority rather than tacitly accepting tradition.