The Road to Revolution: Enlightenment, Great Awakening, and Colonial Resistance

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, the French and Indian War, and the British taxes and acts leading up to the American Revolution.

The Enlightenment

An intellectual and scientific movement beginning in 17th-century Europe that spread to the Americas, emphasizing reason, science, and individual liberty over tradition.

Natural Rights

Fundamental rights belonging to individuals simply for existing—including life, health, liberty, and possession—which cannot be taken away by any government.

Consent of the Governed

The principle that political authority derives from the people who unite to form one body politic, challenging the concept of a monarch ruling by divine right.

Social Contract Theory

The political doctrine stating that people consent to give power to a government in exchange for protection of their natural rights; if the government turns tyrannical, the people have the right to overthrow it.

The Great Awakening

A series of intense Protestant religious revivals that swept through the American colonies, challenging traditional church authority and emphasizing personal salvation, emotion, and revival meetings.

Jonathan Edwards

The first revival movement leader to achieve a national spotlight during the Great Awakening, known for delivering terrifying sermons that depicted an angry God who did not judge kindly.

George Whitefield

A British minister and prominent Great Awakening leader whose preaching differed from Edwards by delivering spontaneous, energetic, and theatrical sermons rooted in passion rather than fear.

The Zenger Trial

The 1735 legal case involving German immigrant printer John Peter Zenger, which established the principle that truth is a defense against libel, laying the groundwork for freedom of the press in the First Amendment.

Andrew Hamilton

The attorney who defended John Peter Zenger, arguing that a printer should only be found guilty of libel if the published criticisms of public officials were demonstrably false.

Fort Duquesne

A strategic French outpost established in 1754 at the convergence of three major rivers in the Ohio River Valley, built on land previously granted by Britain to wealthy colonial farmers.

Albany Plan of Union (1754)

A proposal formulated by a committee led by Benjamin Franklin recommending that the colonies unite under a central government with taxing power and an army to fight against the French.

William Pitt

The British Prime Minister who took power in 1757, prioritized victory in North America to prevent a French domino effect, and committed massive resources by reimbursing colonial military expenditures.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The peace treaty that concluded the French and Indian War, requiring France to surrender Canada and all territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain, while Spain acquired Louisiana and ceded Florida to Britain.

Pontiac's Rebellion

A 1763 uprising of allied Native American tribes led by Chief Pontiac of Ottawa resisting British settler encroachment, launching coordinated assaults along a $1{,}000\text{-mile}$ frontier against forts like Detroit and Pitt.

Proclamation of 1763

A royal decree issued by King George III following Pontiac's Rebellion that prohibited colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, designating the western territory as Indian Territory.

Quartering Act of 1765

A British statute compelling colonial legislatures to provide food, housing, and supplies for royal troops, utilizing barracks, public houses, inns, and taverns.

Sugar Act (1764)

A revenue law championed by Prime Minister George Grenville that lowered the tax on imported molasses while strictly enforcing collection, taxing items such as wine and coffee, and ending salutary neglect.

Vice-Admiralty Courts

British maritime military tribunals that operated without colonial juries and were presided over by a single Crown-appointed judge to prosecute smugglers.

Writs of Assistance

Broad search warrants authorizing British customs agents to enter and search colonial ships, warehouses, businesses, and private residences for illicit contraband.

Stamp Act (1765)

The first direct tax levied on the American colonies by Parliament, mandating purchased revenue stamps on legal documents, newspapers, bills of sale, and commercial papers.

Stamp Act Congress

An intercolonial assembly of delegates from nine colonies convened in New York City in 1765 that drew up a petition to the British Crown and Parliament urging the repeal of the Stamp Act.

Nonimportation Agreements

Widespread commercial boycotts against British manufactured products adopted by colonists to resist parliamentary taxation, which united the colonies in organized common action.

Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty

Colonial activist organizations that enforced nonimportation agreements against violators, engaged in direct resistance, and promoted domestic manufacturing such as homespun cloth.

Declaratory Act (1766)

A parliamentary statute enacted immediately after the repeal of the Stamp Act, affirming Parliament's absolute authority to bind and legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Townshend Acts (1767)

A series of indirect revenue duties placed on imported glass, lead, paper, paint, and tea, designed to pay the salaries of royal governors and judges independently of colonial assemblies.

Boston Massacre

A violent confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers fired into a hostile crowd of colonists throwing snowballs, killing or wounding eleven civilians.

The Gaspee Affair (1772)

An incident in Rhode Island where a group of colonists led by merchant John Brown boarded, attacked, and burned the stranded British customs schooner HMS Gaspee near Providence.

Committees of Correspondence

Intercolonial networks organized by Samuel Adams and other colonial leaders to circulate political information, organize boycotts, and coordinate resistance across the colonies.

British East India Company

A financially struggling British corporation granted a tea monopoly in America through the Tea Act of 1773, enabling it to undercut colonial merchants despite retaining a three-pence import tax.

Boston Tea Party (1773)

A direct action protest against the Tea Act where approximately 100 townspeople disguised as Native Americans boarded British vessels and dumped $342$ chests of tea into Boston Harbour.

Intolerable Acts

Punitive measures passed by Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party, which closed Boston Harbour, annulled Massachusetts charter rights, curtailed town meetings, expanded troop quartering, and instituted martial law.

Martial Law

The temporary replacement of civilian government with direct military rule and control, as imposed upon Massachusetts under British military commander General Thomas Gage.

First Continental Congress (1774)

A gathering of delegates from 12 colonies in Philadelphia convened to address British parliamentary violations, author the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, and mandate unified economic resistance.

The Association

A strict pact established by the First Continental Congress calling for a complete and total boycott of British goods through nonimportation, nonexportation, and nonconsumption.

Battles of Lexington and Concord (1775)

The initial armed clashes of the American Revolutionary War, triggered when British troops marched to confiscate colonial munitions and arrest patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock.