American Revolution + Events leading up to it

Sugar Act

Taxed sugar, wine, indigo, molasses

Stamp Act

First direct tax; it taxed most printed goods

Quartering Act

Colonists had to provide living quarters (barracks) for British soldiers

Townshend Act

Taxes on everyday items like glass, lead, paper

Tea Act

Allowed a monopoly on tea, British East India Company could directly export tea. Tea tax remained in place aswell

Intolerable Acts

Acts as punishments for Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party.

Closed Boston Harbor (where they had dumped tea) and prevented exports.

Battle of Saratoga

Battle with colonial victory over British troops trying to cut off New England in the Revolutionary War.

Convinced French to aid colonists in weakening Britain

Battle of Yorktown

Last battle in the revolutionary war. Decided the outcome of independence

Proclamation of 1763

Colonists couldn’t settle westward of the Appalachians. Set in place by British to avoid native and colonial conflicts

Letter from a Pennsylvania Farmer

Argued Parliament could regulate colonial commerce, but needed approval of colonial assemblies for taxation

British customs ship that caught several smugglers and ran aground off the shore of Rhode Island

the Gaspee

Deism

Belief in God who established natural laws but never intervened directly

Social Contract

Agreement among people to form a government to promote liberty and quality

Rationalism

Trust in human reason to understand the natural world and to respond to many problems of life