American Revolution and Imperial Policies Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on the lecture notes covering British taxation policies, colonial protest movements, key historical figures, and events leading to the American Revolution.

Great War for Empire

A conflict that left Great Britain as the master of eastern North America, leading to high war debt, a doubled tax bureaucracy, and an end to colonial self-management.

Radical Whigs

A British political faction, also known as the Country Party, that complained war debt put the nation at the mercy of banks and monied interests.

John Wilkes

A Radical Whig politician who demanded political representation for property-owning classes and criticized aristocratic rotten boroughs.

Revenue Act of 1762

A British law requiring absent customs officers to take up their posts in the colonies to curb bribery and instructing the Royal Navy to seize colonial vessels trading food to the French West Indies.

Currency Act of 1764

Legislation passed under George Grenville that banned American colonies from using paper money as legal tender to boost British profits.

Sugar Act of 1764

A British law that lowered the duty on French molasses, raised penalties for smuggling, and mandated that smugglers be tried in vice-admiralty courts.

Stamp Act of 1765

A British law imposing a tax on all paper used in the colonies, triggering the first major imperial crisis over representation.

Quartering Act of 1765

A British act requested by General Thomas Gage requiring colonial governments to provide barracks and food for royal troops.

Stamp Act Congress

A meeting in New York City where delegates from nine colonial assemblies protested imperial taxation and declared that only elected colonial representatives could tax them.

Sons of Liberty

A patriot protest group originating in Boston that targeted loyalist officials, burned effigies, and blocked British tea shipments.

Declaratory Act of 1767

A law passed under the Earl of Rockingham affirming Parliament's full authority to make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Townshend Act of 1767

British laws that established duties on colonial imports of tea, glass, lead, and paper to fund the salaries of royal governors.

Nonimportation movement

A colonial protest strategy where women manufactured homespun goods and reduced consumption of imported British merchandise.

Scioto Confederacy

An alliance formed by Ohio Indians and Shawnees on the Scioto River to oppose further colonial expansion into the Ohio country.

Crispus Attucks

A casualty of the Boston Massacre who became known as the first black martyr of American liberty.

Committees of Correspondence

Networks created among colonial assemblies, initiated at Samuel Adams's urging, to rapidly share news regarding political developments.

Dunmore's War

A conflict in which the Earl of Dunmore organized a Virginia militia to defeat the Ohio Shawnees at Point Pleasant and claim Kentucky.

Minutemen

Massachusetts colonial militia members trained to mobilize at a moment's notice for local defense.

David Boone

An explorer who established Boonsborough on the Kentucky River, where colonists constructed protective cabins and stations.

Olive Branch Petition

A resolution promoted by John Dickinson at the Continental Congress pleading with King George III to negotiate and prevent further warfare.

Common Sense

A political pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that criticized the British system of mixed government and called for American independence.

Tea Act

A British act that eliminated import duties for the East India Company, enabling it to sell cheap tea directly in America and bypass local wholesalers.

Coercive Acts

Four punitive measures enacted by Parliament to force Massachusetts to pay for dumped tea, including the Boston Port Bill and the Massachusetts Government Act.

Quebec Act

A British law permitting Roman Catholicism in Quebec and extending its boundaries into the Ohio River Valley.

Joseph Galloway's Plan

A compromise proposal at the Continental Congress suggesting a colonial council and a king-appointed president-general, which was defeated by one vote.

Continental Association

A system created by the First Continental Congress to enforce a widespread boycott of British goods throughout the colonies.