Colonial America to Revolution and Literary Analysis

Vocabulary flashcards covering the literary analysis of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (Okonkwo's tragedy) alongside United States History Chapter 4 concepts spanning colonial governance, the French and Indian War, British imperial taxation, and the road to the American Revolution.

Okonkwo

The tragic hero of Umuofia whose fatal flaw is an unyielding adherence to masculinity, hatred of gentleness, and an inability to adapt to cultural and social change, ultimately resulting in his suicide.

Amalinze the Cat

A renowned wrestler who had not been thrown for seven years until he was defeated by Okonkwo, proving Okonkwo could gain fame and reverence without a titled father.

Agbala

An Igbo term meaning both 'woman' and a man who has held no titles; Okonkwo lives in mortal fear of being considered this effeminate figure.

Ikemefuna

A hostage boy from the neighboring village of Mbaino entrusted to Okonkwo; Okonkwo cuts him down with a machete in a panic out of fear of appearing weak, ignoring elder Ezeudu's warning.

New France

French royal colonies established starting in 1605 in Canada, the Mississippi River Valley, and the Caribbean; maintained with few settlers, no elected assemblies, and access to inland rivers for trade.

Black Robes

French Jesuit missionaries who traveled from Quebec to convert indigenous populations to Catholicism, inadvertently killing large numbers of Native Americans by introducing smallpox.

Mercantilism

An economic theory and nationalist policy from the 16th to 18th centuries holding that national power depends on maximizing exports, minimizing imports, regulating trade, and accumulating precious metals like gold and silver.

Navigation Acts

A series of English laws intended to control colonial trade, requiring all goods to be shipped on English-owned vessels and mandating colonial staples like tobacco be sold only to England.

Glorious Revolution (1688)

A coup by English aristocrats that deposed King James II, installed William of Orange and Mary, ended absolute royal power in England, and led to the 1689 revolt in Boston against the Dominion of New England.

John Locke

English philosopher who published Two Treatises on Government in 1690, rejecting the divine right of kings and arguing that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property and the right to revolt if government fails to protect them.

Salutary Neglect

An informal British policy during the first half of the 18th century that allowed the American colonies substantial economic and political autonomy in exchange for colonial obedience and raw materials.

The Wealth of Nations

The influential 1776 economic book written by Adam Smith that advocated for free trade among nations and marked the beginning of the end of mercantilist dominance.

Join, or Die

A famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin showing a snake severed into sections representing the colonies, urging colonial unity in the face of the French and Indian War.

Seven Years' War (French and Indian War)

A global conflict from 1756 to 1763 sparked by clashes in the Ohio River Valley between Great Britain and France (with Spanish allies) for control of North America east of the Mississippi River.

Albany Plan of Union (1754)

A failed proposal drafted by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Morison to create a unified colonial government administered by a crown-appointed President-General and an elected Grand Council.

Grand Council

The legislative body under the Albany Plan of Union consisting of 48 total delegates chosen by colonial assemblies to regulate Indian trade, raise soldiers, build forts, and levy duties and taxes.

President-General

The crown-appointed executive administrator designated in the Albany Plan of Union to hold Indian treaties, direct military commissions, and govern newly formed settlements alongside the Grand Council.

General Edward Braddock

British Commander in Chief in America who dismissed Native American warfare and was fatally defeated at the Battle of Monongahela, where 63 out of 86 British officers were killed.

Battle of Quebec (1759)

A decisive British surprise attack victory during the French and Indian War that paved the way for France's loss of Canada by 1761.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The February 1763 treaty ending the Seven Years' War, in which France surrendered its North American territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain and Spain received the Louisiana Territory.

Pontiac's Rebellion

An uprising by Native American tribes led by an Ottawa chieftain against British forts after France ceded ancestral lands to Britain without consulting native allies, met with biological warfare by General Amherst.

Proclamation Act of 1763

A British royal order establishing a boundary line along the Appalachian Mountains from Canada to Georgia, prohibiting American colonists from settling or speculating on lands west of the crest.

George Grenville

The British Prime Minister who ended Salutary Neglect by strictly enforcing the Navigation Acts and introducing the Sugar, Currency, Quartering, and Stamp Acts to force colonies to pay for imperial defense.

Sugar Act (1764)

Officially titled the American Revenue Act of 1764, it halved the tax on imported molasses to deter New England smuggling while adding duties on sugar, wine, coffee, and spices to raise revenue.

Currency Act (1764)

An act prohibiting the American colonies from printing or issuing paper money and requiring all payments for imported British merchandise to be made in gold, silver, or specific cash commodities.

Quartering Act (1765)

A parliamentary law requiring American colonies to provide food, provisions, and housing for many of the 10,000 British soldiers stationed within the colonies.

Stamp Act (1765)

A controversial direct internal tax requiring revenue stamps bought only with British currency on all colonial printed paper, including newspapers, legal documents, diplomas, and playing cards.

Declaratory Act (1766)

An act passed by Parliament upon repealing the Stamp Act asserting Parliament's supreme power to govern and make laws for the American colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.'

Townshend Acts

A revenue-generating package pushed by Charles Townshend in 1767 that placed duties on colonial imports of glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea, igniting renewed cries of taxation without representation.

Boston Massacre (1770)

A violent confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers fired into a heckling Boston crowd, killing five colonists and leading to the branding of two soldiers' thumbs for manslaughter.

Gaspée Incident (1772)

An event off Rhode Island in which an anti-smuggling British warship ran aground and a group of colonists shot the captain and burned the vessel after the crew seized local livestock.

Committee of Correspondence

An intercolonial communications network founded by Samuel Adams in Boston that issued statements of American rights and grievances to coordinate unified resistance against British policies.

Tea Act of 1773

An act designed to bail out the British East India Company by allowing it to ship 17 million pounds of surplus tea directly to the colonies tax-free, undercutting American merchants.

Boston Tea Party (1773)

A colonial protest on December 16, 1773, in which the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dumped hundreds of chests containing 46 tons of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.

Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

Four punitive measures passed by Parliament in 1774 to punish Massachusetts, comprising the Boston Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Imperial Administration of Justice Act, and an updated Quartering Act.