vocab 176-210

Boston Massacre 1770

The colonials hated the British soldiers in the colonies because they worked for very low wages and took jobs away from colonists. On March 4, 1770, a group of colonials started throwing rocks and snowballs at some British soldiers; the soldiers panicked and fired their muskets, killing a few colonials. This outraged the colonies and increased anti-British sentiment.

Crispus Attucks

He was one of the colonials involved in the Boston Massacre, and when the shooting started, he was the first to die. He became a martyr.

John Adams

A Massachusetts attorney and politician who was a strong believer in colonial independence. He argued against the Stamp Act and was involved in various patriot groups. As a delegate from Massachusetts, he urged the Second Continental Congress to declare independence. He helped draft and pass the Declaration of Independence. Adams later served as the second President of the United States.

Carolina Regulators

Western frontiersmen who in 1768 rebelled in protest against the high taxes imposed by the Eastern colonial government of North Carolina, and whose organization was crushed by military force by Governor Tryon in 1771. In South Carolina, groups of vigilantes who organized to fight outlaw bands along the Western frontier in 1767-1769, and who disbanded when regular courts were established in those areas.

Thomas Hutchinson

A Boston-born merchant who served as the Royal Governor of Massachusetts from 1771 to 1774. Even before becoming Governor, Hutchinson had been a supporter of Parliament's right to tax the colonies, and his home had been burned by a mob during the Stamp Acts riots in 1765. In 1773 his refusal to comply with demands to prohibit an East India Company ship from unloading its cargo precipitated the Boston Tea Party. He fled to England in 1774, where he spent the remainder of his life.

Committees of Correspondence

These started as groups of private citizens in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York who, in 1763, began circulating information about opposition to British trade measures. The first government-organized committee appeared in Massachusetts in 1764. Other colonies created their own committees in order to exchange information and organize protests to British trade regulations. The Committees became particularly active following the Gaspée Incident.

Lord North

Prime Minister of England from 1770 to 1782. Although he repealed the Townshend Acts, he generally went along with King George III's repressive policies towards the colonies even though he personally considered them wrong. He hoped for an early peace during the Revolutionary War and resigned after Cornwallis’ surrender in 1781.

Tea Act East India Company

The Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the trade in tea, made it illegal for the colonies to buy non-British tea, and forced the colonies to pay the tea tax of 3 cents/pound.

Boston Tea Party 1773

British ships carrying tea sailed into Boston Harbor and refused to leave until the colonials took their tea. Boston was boycotting the tea in protest of the Tea Act and would not let the ships bring the tea ashore. Finally, on the night of December 16, 1773, colonials disguised as Indians boarded the ships and threw the tea overboard. They did so because they were afraid that Governor Hutchinson would secretly unload the tea because he owned a share in the cargo.

Coercive Acts or Intolerable Acts or Repressive Acts

All of these names refer to the same acts, passed in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party, and which included the Boston Port Act, which shut down Boston Harbor; the Massachusetts Government Act, which disbanded the Boston Assembly (but it soon reinstated itself); the Quartering Act, which required the colony to provide provisions for British soldiers; and the Administration of Justice Act, which removed the power of colonial courts to arrest royal officers.

Boston Port Act

This was one of the Coercive Acts, which shut down Boston Harbor until Boston repaid the East India Company for the lost tea.

Massachusetts Government Act

This was another of the Coercive Acts, which said that members of the Massachusetts assembly would no longer be elected, but instead would be appointed by the king. In response, the colonists elected a their own legislature which met in the interior of the colony.

Quebec Act, First Continental Congress 1774

The Quebec Act, passed by Parliament, alarmed the colonies because it recognized the Roman-Catholic Church in Quebec. Some colonials took it as a sign that Britain was planning to impose Catholicism upon the colonies. The First Continental Congress met to discuss their concerns over Parliament's dissolutions of the New York (for refusing to pay to quarter troops), Massachusetts (for the Boston Tea Party), and Virginia Assemblies. The First Continental Congress rejected the plan for a unified colonial government, stated grievances against the crown called the Declaration of Rights, resolved to prepare militias, and created the Continental Association to enforce a new non-importation agreement through Committees of Vigilance. In response, in February, 1775, Parliament declared the colonies to be in rebellion.

Suffolk Resolves

Agreed to by delegates from Suffolk county, Massachusetts, and approved by the First Continental Congress on October 8, 1774. Nullified the Coercive Acts, closed royal courts, ordered taxes to be paid to colonial governments instead of the royal government, and prepared local militias. British government if it addressed their grievances (repealed the Coercive Acts, ended the taxation without representation policies). It was rejected by Parliament, which in December 1775 passed the American Prohibitory Act forbidding all further trade with the colonies.

Thomas Paine: Common Sense

A British citizen, he wrote Common Sense, published on January 1, 1776, to encourage the colonies to seek independence. It spoke out against the unfair treatment of the colonies by the British government and was instrumental in turning public opinion in favor of the Revolution.

Natural Rights Philosophy

Proposed by John Locke, it said that human beings had by nature certain rights, such as the rights to life, liberty, and property.

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government

He wrote that all human beings have a right to life, liberty, and property and those governments exist to protect those rights. He rejected the theory of the Divine Right of the monarchy, and believed that government was based upon a "social contract" that existed between a government and its people. If the government failed to uphold its end of the contract by protecting those rights, the people could rebel and institute a new government.

King George III

Became King of England in 1760, and reigned during the American Revolution. The colonists addressed the Declaration of Independence to King George instead of Parliament. King George was a figurehead to direct grievances that everyone knew what he looked like and second if they had directed their letter to Parliament they would have tacitly acknowledged that Parliament (who had passed the Declaratory Act) had authority over them.

Lee’s Resolution of June 7 1776

Stated that the colonies should be independent and sever all political ties with Britain. It was adopted by Congress and was the first step towards independence.

Thomas Jefferson

He was a delegate from Virginia at the Second Continental Congress and wrote the Declaration of Independence. He is known as the Father of the Declaration of Independence. He later served as the third President of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston

These men, along with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, made up the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence.

July 4 1776 and the Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence was signed by the Second Continental Congress on July 4. It dissolved the colonies’ ties with Britain, listed grievances against King George III, and declared the colonies to be an independent nation.

Abigail Adams

Wife of John Adams. During the Revolutionary War, she wrote letters to her husband describing life on the home front. She urged her husband to remember America’s women in the new government he was helping to create.

Edmund Burke

A conservative British politician who was generally sympathetic to the colonists' grievances and who felt that Britain's colonial policies were misguided. He also opposed the early feminist movements. He once said, "A woman is but an animal, and not an animal of the highest order."

Lafayette

Marquis de Lafayette was a French major general who aided the colonies during the Revolutionary War. He and Baron von Steuben (a Prussian general) were the two major foreign military experts who helped train the colonial armies.

Benedict Arnold

He had been a Colonel in the Connecticut militia at the outbreak of the Revolution and soon became a General in the Continental Army. He won key victories for the colonies in the battles in upstate New York in 1777, and was instrumental in General Gates victory over the British at Saratoga. After becoming Commander of Philadelphia in 1778, he went heavily into debt, and in 1780, he was caught plotting to surrender the key Hudson River fortress of West Point to the British in exchange for a commission in the royal army. He is the most famous traitor in American history.

Robert Morris

A delegate to the Second Continental Congress. He agreed that Britain had treated the colonies unfairly, but he didn’t believe that the colonies should dissolve ties with Britain. He argued against the Declaration of Independence