Unit 4: Road to the Revolution Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the French and Indian War, British mercantilist policies, colonial taxes and acts, and the key events leading up to the American Revolution.

An economic policy based on the principle that a country can only make money if it exports more than it imports, where colonies exist to provide raw materials and markets to the mother country.

Mercantilism

England's policy of leaving the American colonies alone without strictly enforcing British laws because the thirteen colonies were located so far away from Great Britain.

Salutary Neglect

A contested region fought over by the French and English because controlling the Ohio River granted control over the Mississippi River and the highly valuable fur trade.

Ohio River Valley

A makeshift fort built in haste along the Ohio River by George Washington after he was tasked with delivering a message instructing the French to leave the Ohio River Valley.

Fort Necessity

A proposal introduced by Benjamin Franklin to organize the American colonies under one central government in order to defeat the French.

Albany Plan of Union

The agreement that ended the French and Indian War, resulting in France losing its power and territory in North America, Britain acquiring all land east of the Mississippi River, and Spain receiving land west of the Mississippi River.

Treaty of Paris 1763

A colonial grievance expressing outrage over British laws and taxes imposed to recover war debt without the colonists having any voice or representation in the English government.

No Taxation Without Representation

A British law designed to prevent expensive conflicts with Native Americans by forbidding colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, which colonists mostly ignored.

Proclamation of 1763

A British law that placed a tax on foreign sugar and molasses imported from countries other than England, which were essential ingredients for manufacturing rum.

Sugar Act 1764

The first direct tax placed on the colonists following years of salutary neglect, requiring a tax on all printed materials such as newspapers, books, and pamphlets.

Stamp Act 1765

A law obligating colonists to feed and house British soldiers without compensation, build barracks, or permit them to stay rent-free in taverns, public inns, and stables.

Quartering Act 1765

Legislation that taxed colonial imports of glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea, permitted British soldiers to search private homes for smuggled items without permission, and was later repealed except for the tea tax.

Townshend Acts 1767

A 1770 confrontation where British soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed colonists throwing snow and objects, resulting in five deaths including Crispus Attucks.

Boston Massacre

An African American colonist who was among the five individuals killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre.

Crispus Attucks

A law requiring colonists to purchase tea exclusively from the British East India Company, enacted because England was losing revenue to colonial smuggling.

Tea Act 1773

Colonial protest organizations established to oppose British policies through boycotts and direct action.

Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty

A colonial protest staged by the Sons of Liberty in which 342 chests of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor from British cargo ships awaiting unloading.

Boston Tea Party

A 1774 assembly of delegates from the colonies held in Philadelphia to deliberate on escalating tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies.

First Continental Congress

Punitive measures passed by Britain in response to the Boston Tea Party that shut down Boston Harbor, abolished town meetings, closed the Massachusetts government, and enforced the Quartering Act.

Intolerable Acts

A method of economic protest utilized by American colonists refusing to buy British goods, which frequently compelled England to repeal objectionable tax laws.

Boycott