APUSH Vocab - Unit 3 chapter 5

First Continental Congress

• Group of delegates from 12/13 colonies

• Met in Philadelplia in 1774 to determine a course of action in response to the Intolerable Acts

  • Demanded that the Acts be repealed and that the crown recognizes the rights of the colonists

John Adams

• Federalist

• 2nd President of the US

• Served in France & Holland in diplomatic roles

• Helped negotiate the treaty of peace

Economic Sanctions

• Boycotts, embargoes, and other economic measures that one country uses to pressure another country into changing its policies

  • Colonists used boycotting and rioting to get many taxes repealed.

    • It was highly effective for them

Declaration of Rights and grievances

• Document written by the Stamp Act Congress

• Passed on October 14, 1765

• Declared that taxes imposed on British colonists without their formal consent were unconstitutional

  • basically said that all Colonists had the rights of Englishmen

Second Continental Congress

• A convention delegated from the 13 Colonies

• Met on May 10, 1775 in Philadelphia, Pendylvania

  • Occurred just after the ‘warfare’ of the American Revolution

  • Its basic task was funding the revolution

Olive Branch Petition

• July 8, 1775

• Colonies made a final offer of peace to Britain

• Agreed to be loyal to the British gov. if it addressed their grievances

• Sent just after Lexington and Concord

Thomas Jefforson

• Credited with writing the Declaration of Independence

• 3rd President

• Approved the Louisiana Purchase

• Promoted ideals of republicanism

Declaration of Independence

• Formal document where the Continental Congress stated their reasons for breaking away from Great Britain

• Drafted by Thomas Jefferson & was influenced by John Locke

Land Ordinance 1785

• Law passed by the U.S. Congress under the Articles of Confederation.

• It established a plan for surveying and selling federally owned lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.

• Set up a grid system for surveying the land into townships and sections

  • Facilitated the sale and settlement of the Northwest Territory

• This system became the basis for land ownership and settlement in the western United States.

Northwest Ordinance 1787

• Laid out the process by which lands west of the appalachian mountains were to be surveyed and sold

  • method of creating townships and sections within townships was used to all US land after 1785

Lexington and Concord

• Started the war

• Attempt by the British to seize weaponry to stop the revolution before it started.

  • Ended up actually starting the war

Battle of Bunker Hill

• first major battle of the Revolutionary War

• “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”

Battle of Saratoga

• Turning point in the war

  • Most battles after were American wins (because America is the best and we never lose)

Battle of Yorktown

• Last major battle of the Revolutionary War

• Fought in Yorktown Virginia

• Forced British to surrender (surrounded on all sides) and sign articles of Capiutlation

  • October 19, 1781

Treaty of Paris 1783

• Treaty signed by Great Britain, France and Spain that ended the revolutionary war

Articals of Confederation

• First written constitution of the US

• Adopted in 1781

Thomas Paine - Common Sense

• Argued that the colonists should free themselves from British rule

• protect mans natural rights

Patriots

The people who were rebelling against Britain during the war

Loyalists

Those in the colonies who remained loyal to the British crown during the American Revolution

Minutetemen

• Small hand-picked elite forces that were part of the revolution

• said they would be ready to fight within a minute

Continental

• Associated to the two congresses

  • First in 1774 & the second in 1775

• Continental Army formed after the revolutionary war

Valley Forge

• Encampment where George Washingtons poorly equipped army spend a long freezing winter

Shay’s rebellion

• a rebellion by debtor farmers in western Massachusetts

  • Led by Revolutionary War Captain Daniel Shays against Boston creditors