Key Events and Figures in Colonial American Revolution

Albany Plan of Union

Definition: A proposal made at the Albany Congress (1754) — promoted by Benjamin Franklin — to create a unified government for the British colonies in North America. Significance: The plan failed to gain colonial support but is important as an early effort at intercolonial cooperation and union.

Salutary neglect

Definition: A period of lax enforcement by the British government that allowed the colonies a measure of self-government. Significance: It helped the colonies develop practices of self-government; its end (after the French and Indian War) contributed to colonial resentment as Britain attempted tighter control.

Pontiac's Rebellion

Definition: An Indigenous uprising (cited in the textbook timeline as occurring in 1763) led by Pontiac against British postwar policies and settlement west of the Appalachians. Significance: It prompted British policy responses (including the Proclamation of 1763) and signaled the limits and consequences of wartime expansion for imperial-colonial relations.

Proclamation of 1763

Definition: Royal decree that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian crest, establishing a boundary line to limit settler-Indian conflict. Significance: It was the first in a series of British efforts to regulate the colonies after the French and Indian War; colonists resented it and many defied the line, contributing to later tensions.

Stamp Act Congress

Definition: A 1765 meeting (nine colonies attended) in New York where delegates formulated a Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies opposing the Stamp Act. Significance: It represented one of the first coordinated intercolonial political responses to Parliament's taxation and asserted the principle that taxes required colonial consent.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

Definition: Male activists calling themselves Sons of Liberty who organized protests (e.g., against the Stamp Act); women activists (Daughters of Liberty) who supported nonimportation by making homespun cloth and boycotting British goods. Significance: Both groups played key roles in popular protest and in sustaining boycotts/nonimportation that pressured Britain politically and economically.

Samuel Adams

Definition: A Boston agitator and organizer of the Sons of Liberty who helped stir colonial resistance and coordinate protest actions. Significance: Adams was a central figure in building revolutionary sentiment and organizing intercolonial appeals (letters, committees), helping transform scattered grievances into organized resistance.

Committees of Correspondence

Definition: Local committees (Boston's formed under Sam Adams after the Gaspee incident) that issued statements of rights and grievances and invited other towns to do likewise. Significance: They created an intercolonial communications network that spread information, coordinated resistance, and helped lead to the Continental Congress.

Intolerable Acts of 1774 (American POV)

Definition: The colonial label for the Coercive Acts — a cluster of harsh British measures (e.g., Boston Port Act, new Quartering Act, Massachusetts Government Act) passed to punish Boston. Significance: Colonists saw them as intolerable violations of rights; the measures galvanized colonial solidarity, led to the First Continental Congress, and escalated the crisis toward revolution.

Sugar Act of 1764

Definition: Also called the American Revenue Act (1764); it reduced the molasses duty but strengthened enforcement and levied new duties on imports (textiles, wine, coffee, indigo, sugar). Significance: It marked Parliament's adoption of duties intended to raise revenue (not just regulate trade) and helped spark colonial objections about taxation without representation.

Quartering Act of 1765

Parliamentary act requiring the colonies to house and feed British troops stationed in America.

Stamp Act of 1765

A direct (internal) tax requiring purchase and affixing of revenue stamps to printed materials (newspapers, legal documents, playing cards, etc.).

Declaratory Act of 1766

Law passed simultaneously with repeal of the Stamp Act that asserted Parliament's authority to make laws binding the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.'

Townshend Acts of 1767

A series of measures (including the Revenue Act) imposing duties on imports such as glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea and providing that these revenues would pay colonial governors.

Tea Act of 1773

Parliamentary measure allowing the East India Company to ship tea directly to America (duty-free), enabling it to undersell colonial tea merchants.

Coercive Acts of 1774 (British POV)

A set of punitive laws (the Coercive Acts) enacted to punish Boston for the Tea Party — including the Boston Port Act, an enhanced Quartering Act, and the Massachusetts Government Act.

John Locke

English philosopher (1632-1704) influential in the Enlightenment; the textbook notes his argument that the mind is a 'tabula rasa' and his broad influence on Enlightenment thinking.

Social contract

No definitional entry or explicit discussion labeled 'social contract' was found in this textbook's chapter on the road to revolution or in the glossary/index searches I ran.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I could not find an entry or discussion of 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau' in this textbook.

Thomas Paine

Revolutionary pamphleteer; the textbook cites Common Sense (published 1776) and references Paine's role in revolutionary propaganda.