APUSH Ch. 5 Vocab: PART 1

Sugar Act of 1764

British law that lowered the duty on French molasses and raised penalties for smuggling. New England merchants opposed both the tax and the provision that they’d be tried in a vice-admiralty court.

Stamp Act of 1765

British law imposing a tax on all paper used in the colonies. Widespread resistance to this act prevented it from taking effect and led to its repeal in 1766.

Quartering Act of 1765

a British law passed by Parliament at the request of General Thomas Gage, the British military commander in America, that required colonial governments to provide barracks and food for British troops.

Stamp Act Congress

a congress of delegates from 9 assemblies that met in New York City in October 1765 to protest the loss of American “rights and liberties.” The congress challenged Parliament by declaring that only the colonists’ elected representatives could tax them.

Sons of Liberty

colonists — primarily middling merchants and artisans — who banded together to protest the Stamp Act and other imperial reforms of the 1760s. The group originated in Boston in 1765 but soon spread to all the colonies.

English common law

the centuries-old body of legal rules and procedures that protected the lives and property of the British monarch’s subjects.

Natural rights

the rights to life, liberty, and property. According to John Locke, governments derived from social compacts that people made to preserve their natural rights.

Declaratory Act of 1766

law asserting Parliament’s unassailable right to legislate for its British colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

Townshend Act of 1767

British law that established new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper, and painter’s colors imported into the colonies. This act’s duties led to boycotts and heightened tensions between Britain and the American colonies.

Nonimportant movement

the effort to protest parliamentary legislation by boycotting British goods. This occurred in 1766, in response to the Stamp Act; in 1768, after the Townshend duties; and in 1774, after the Coercive Acts.

Committees of correspondence

a communications network established among colonial assemblies between 1772 and 1773 to provide for rapid dissemination of news about important political developments.

Tea Act of May 1773

British act that lowered the existing tax on tea and granted exemptions to the East India Company to make their tea cheaper in the colonies and entice boycotting Americans to buy it.