APUSH Quiz unit 3 1st timer >:)

Salutary Neglect

An unofficial British policy of lenient enforcement of parliamentary laws in the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries, which allowed the colonies to develop self-governance and economic independence.

Proclamation of 1763

A British royal decree issued after the French and Indian War that prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains to prevent conflict with Native Americans.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Secret patriotic organizations in the American colonies that organized protests, enforced boycotts, and resisted British taxation policies through both peaceful and aggressive tactics.

Stamp Act

A 1765 British legislative act that imposed the first direct tax on American colonists, requiring an official stamp on printed materials such as legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards.

Townshend Acts

A series of British parliamentary measures passed in 1767 that placed duties on imported goods like glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea brought into the American colonies.

Quartering Act

A 1765 British law requiring colonial governments and residents to provide housing, food, and supplies to British soldiers stationed in America.

Declaratory Act

A 1766 British statute passed alongside the repeal of the Stamp Act, affirming Parliament's absolute authority to pass binding laws for the American colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Tea Act

A 1773 British law designed to bail out the East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade, sparking widespread colonial resistance including the Boston Tea Party.

Social Contract Theory

The Enlightenment belief, promoted by philosophers like John Locke, that political legitimacy stems from an agreement among individuals to form a government that protects their natural rights.

Coercive Acts

A series of punitive laws passed by Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party—known in America as the Intolerable Acts—which closed Boston Harbor and suspended Massachusetts' colonial charter.

First Continental Congress

A September 1774 meeting of delegates from twelve colonies in Philadelphia to coordinate a response to the Coercive Acts, resulting in an economic boycott of British goods and a petition to the King.

Boston Massacre

A March 1770 confrontation in which British soldiers fired into an unruly crowd of colonists, killing five individuals and heightening colonial anti-British sentiment.

Second Continental Congress

A convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that began meeting in May 1775, ultimately governing the war effort, creating the Continental Army, and adopting the Declaration of Independence.

Olive Branch Petition

A final attempt at reconciliation adopted by the Second Continental Congress in July 1775, pledging loyalty to King George III and requesting an end to hostilities, which was rejected by the Crown.

Battle of Saratoga

A major 1777 American victory in upstate New York that served as the military turning point of the Revolutionary War by convincing France to formally enter a military alliance with the United States.

Common Sense

A widely read 1776 pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that argued forcefully for American independence from Great Britain and the establishment of a democratic republic.

Articles of Confederation

The first written constitution of the United States (ratified 1781), creating a weak central government with a unicameral legislature that lacked the power to tax or enforce national laws.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

The peace agreement that officially ended the American Revolutionary War, establishing British recognition of United States independence and setting its national borders.

Republicanism

A political ideology centered on citizenship, popular sovereignty, and government by elected representatives, explicitly rejecting monarchy and inherited aristocracy.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

A law that established a structured process for admitting new states from the western territory, guaranteed basic civil rights, and banned slavery in the region north of the Ohio River.

Republican Motherhood

An 18th-century concept emphasizing that women played a vital civic role by raising educated, patriotic, and virtuous republican sons to serve the new American nation.

Shays's Rebellion

An armed uprising of indebted Massachusetts farmers led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays in 1786–1787, exposing the political weakness of the central government under the Articles of Confederation.