Colonial America and the American Revolution

A comprehensive vocabulary review of the Thirteen Colonies, colonial conflicts, the French and Indian War, mounting revolutionary tensions, and the American Revolutionary War.

Sir Walter Raleigh

A court favorite of Queen Elizabeth I who sponsored the English expedition to settle Roanoke Island, which ultimately failed as the 'lost colony' and resulted in his major financial ruin.

Virginia Company

A joint-stock venture founded in 1603 in which investors pooled capital by purchasing shares of stock to fund New World colonization, sharing any profits or distributing losses.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in 1607 along the Chesapeake Bay forty miles inland and named in honor of King James I.

Capt. John Smith

A leader of Jamestown who imposed strict military discipline requiring settlers to work if they wished to eat, and who claimed to have been saved from execution by Pocahontas.

John Rolfe

A Jamestown businessman who introduced the profitable cultivation of the sweet Nicotiana tabacum tobacco strain to Virginia and married Pocahontas in 1614.

Indentured Servants

Laborers primarily recruited from the poor of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Europe who signed contracts to work for a master for a fixed term in exchange for transatlantic passage and the opportunity to receive land upon completion.

Charter Generation

The initial group of enslaved Africans arriving in Virginia in 1619 who held an indeterminate legal status, were familiar with European culture, and of whom nearly one-fifth secured their freedom.

Plantation Generation

The eighteenth-century cohort of enslaved Africans brought directly to the Southern colonies during the expansion of cash crops, characterized by rigid race-based slavery and harsher living conditions.

Southern Colonies

The British colonial region consisting of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, characterized by large-scale agricultural production of cash crops like tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton.

Mayflower Compact

A formal agreement signed in 1620 by Separatist Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower to abide by laws established by chosen leaders, creating an early framework for self-government.

Squanto

An English-speaking Native American who assisted the Plymouth Pilgrims by teaching them to cultivate corn, catch fish, forage wild foods, and negotiate with the local Wampanoag tribe.

Puritans

English religious reformers who sought to purify the Church of England from within through pious example, migrating to Massachusetts to establish a model Christian community described as a 'city on a hill.'

Puritan Theocracy

The governmental structure of the Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Governor John Winthrop, where church leaders administered a legal system derived directly from Biblical scripture.

Roger Williams

A religious dissenter banished from Massachusetts Bay who established Rhode Island as a colony upholding individual liberty, complete separation of church and state, and respect for Native American land rights.

Salem Witch Trials

The 1692 outbreak of mass hysteria in Salem Village, Massachusetts, ignited by accusations of witchcraft by young girls that led to the imprisonment of over 150 individuals and executions of accused witches.

New England Colonies

The colonial region consisting of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, characterized by small-scale farming, deep-sea cod fishing, whaling, shipbuilding, and dominant church communities.

New Netherland

A Dutch commercial colony established around 1614 following Henry Hudson's explorations, centered on the fur trade with the Iroquois and known for religious diversity before being taken over by England as New York.

William Penn

A wealthy English Quaker nobleman who received a royal charter to found Pennsylvania as a haven of religious tolerance and nonviolence for persecuted European Quakers.

Middle Colonies

The colonial region comprising New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, known for fertile soil producing grains and livestock, thriving fur trade rivers, and ethnic and religious pluralism.

French and Indian War

The North American theater of global conflict between Great Britain and France from 1754 to 1763, sparked by competing colonial claims over the Ohio River Valley.

Fort Necessity

A hastily erected defensive fort in southwestern Pennsylvania where young Virginia militia officer George Washington was overwhelmed by French forces in 1754 and forced to surrender.

Braddock's Defeat

A July 1755 battle in western Pennsylvania where more than one thousand British regulars under General Edward Braddock were ambushed and routed by French soldiers and their Native allies.

Join, or Die

A famous 1754 political cartoon designed by Benjamin Franklin showing a severed snake, created to rally the American colonies to unite under the Albany Plan of Union for collective defense.

Albany Plan of Union

A 1754 proposal conceived by Benjamin Franklin calling for eleven colonies to form a unified colonial government led by a king-appointed president and a grand council, though rejected by assemblies and the Crown.

William Pitt

The British Prime Minister who turned the French and Indian War in Britain's favor by treating colonies as military equals, subsidizing colonial forces, and capturing key strongholds like Quebec.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The treaty ending the French and Indian War in which France ceded all continental North American possessions east of the Mississippi to Great Britain and territory west of the river to Spain.

Sugar Act (1764)

Parliamentary legislation placing duties on imported sugar, molasses, wine, coffee, and spices, directing smugglers to vice-admiralty courts operating without juries.

Stamp Act (1765)

A direct British tax requiring revenue stamps on printed materials such as newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents, and playing cards, inciting fierce colonial protests over taxation without representation.

Quartering Act

A British parliamentary act requiring colonial communities and legislatures to furnish housing, food, and supplies for stationed British military garrisons.

Sons of Liberty

Colonial activist organizations formed in 1765 to resist British imperial taxation policies through demonstrations, boycotts, and organized agitation.

Pontiac's Rebellion

A 1763 armed uprising led by the Ottawa chief Pontiac against British frontier forts and settlements across the Ohio River Valley following the transfer of French-claimed lands to Great Britain.

Boston Massacre

A March 5, 1770 confrontation in which British soldiers fired into a crowd of harassing Bostonians, killing five colonists and wounding eight.

Tea Act (1773)

British legislation granting the financially troubled British East India Company a monopoly to sell tea directly to the colonies without customary duties, undercutting local colonial merchants.

Boston Harbor Act of 1774

One of the Coercive or 'Intolerable' Acts that closed the port of Boston to all maritime commerce until the town compensated the British East India Company for destroyed tea.

Edenton Pledge

An organized political resolution in North Carolina led by Penelope Baker (Barker) in which local women formally signed an agreement to boycott British tea and manufactured goods.

Minutemen

Colonial militia members trained to deploy and engage hostile armed forces at a minute's warning during the onset of the Revolutionary War.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

The opening military engagements of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775, initiated when British regulars marched inland to seize colonial military munitions.

Battle of Bunker Hill

A June 1775 engagement outside Boston where entrenched colonial militia inflicted heavy casualties on charging British troops before retreating when their ammunition was exhausted.

Common Sense

An influential January 1776 pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that attacked hereditary monarchy, condemned King George III, and argued that total American independence was a moral imperative.

Declaration of Independence

The formal document drafted by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Continental Congress in July 1776, proclaiming the colonies free and sovereign states founded upon the consent of the governed.

Hessians

Approximately 30,000 professional German auxiliary soldiers hired as mercenaries by the British Crown to fight against American forces during the Revolutionary War.

Battle of Long Island

An August 1776 battle in New York where British forces under General Howe routed Washington's Continental Army, capturing New York City before fog enabled the Americans to evacuate.

The American Crisis

A series of pamphlets penned by Thomas Paine beginning in December 1776 with the line 'These are the times that try men's souls,' intended to restore morale to Washington's retreating army.

Battle of Trenton

A surprise American victory on December 26, 1776, launched when George Washington ferried Continental troops across the icy Delaware River on Christmas night to overwhelm 1,500 Hessians.

Battle of Saratoga

A major American victory in October 1777 where General Horatio Gates surrounded and defeated British General John Burgoyne in New York, serving as the turning point that brought France into the war as an ally.

Valley Forge

The winter encampment site of the Continental Army in Pennsylvania during 1777–1778, where soldiers suffered devastating food and clothing shortages and thousands died of illness.

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

A Prussian officer who joined Washington at Valley Forge and systematically drilled the volunteer Continental troops in tactical field maneuvers and bayonet handling.

Marquis de Lafayette

A young French nobleman who volunteered for the Continental Army, earned the rank of general, and served as a vital liaison securing French troops, supplies, and naval forces.

Battle of Kings Mountain

An October 1780 frontier battle where Patriot 'Overmountain Men' armed with rifles annihilated a Loyalist army in the Carolina backcountry, halting the British Southern campaign.

Battle of Yorktown

The climactic 1781 Virginia siege where combined American and French land armies and the French navy trapped British General Lord Cornwallis, forcing the surrender of more than 7,000 troops and ending major warfare.