APUSH unit 3 part 1

Seven Years War

was a global conflict from 1756 to 1763 that pitted major European empires against each other across five continents and the world's oceans. Britain, Prussia, and Hanover fought together. France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony made up the opposing side. In North America, the conflict is known as the French and Indian War. There, British colonists and Native American allies fought against French colonists and their own Native American partners.

Albany Plan of Union

The Albany Plan of Union was a 1754 proposal to create a unified government for the American colonies. Benjamin Franklin during the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754. It aimed to unite the British colonies for collective defense and to manage relations with Native American tribes during the French and Indian War.

Salutary Neglect

Salutary neglect was an unofficial 18th-century British policy that loosely enforced trade laws and allowed North American colonies local self-government. Lasted from roughly 1689 (end of the Dominion of New England) to 1763 (end of the French and Indian War). Britain let the colonies break trade rules (like the Navigation Acts) as long as they stayed loyal and made money for the home country.

Pontiacs Rebellion

an armed conflict launched by a loose confederation of Native American tribes who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region and Ohio River Valley following the French and Indian War. Tribes preferred the French, who had treated them with more respect and provided regular tributary gifts. General Jeffery Amherst ended the practice of giving gifts and imposed harsh new rules. British colonists began moving westward onto ancestral Native lands without permission.

Proclamation Line of 1763

a border drawn by the British government along the Appalachian Mountains that banned colonists from settling on lands west of the mountains. King George III issued the decree on October 7, 1763, right after the French and Indian War. Britain wanted to prevent bloody fights between colonists and Native Americans, such as Pontiac's Rebellion. Britain wanted settlers to stay close to the Atlantic coast where it was easier to tax and govern them. The British were deep in debt from the war and could not afford new frontier wars.

Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) was an American Founding Father, and the first post-colonial governor of Virginia who famously rallied the colonies for independence with the cry, "Give me liberty, or give me death!

Stamp Act Congress

The Stamp Act Congress was a meeting held in New York City in October 1765 where delegates from nine of the thirteen American colonies united to protest direct British taxation.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

The Sons and Daughters of Liberty were secret colonial resistance groups that organized protests and economic boycotts against unfair British taxation leading up to the American Revolution.

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was a Boston political organizer, Founding Father, who led early colonial resistance against British taxation without representation. He bridged abstract Enlightenment philosophy (natural rights) with street-level political action.

Committee's of Correspondence

The Committees of Correspondence were shadow networks of letter-writing groups established by colonial towns and legislatures in the early 1770s to share news of British policies and coordinate anti-British resistance. They bridged the information gap across the thirteen colonies before mass media existed.

Intolerable Acts

a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 to punish the Massachusetts colony for the Boston Tea Party. Great Britain officially called them the Coercive Acts, but American colonists labeled them "intolerable" because they stripped away local self-government.

Sugar Act 1764

The Sugar Act of 1764 was a British law that placed taxes on foreign goods like sugar and molasses to raise money from the American colonies. To help pay off Great Britain's massive debt from the Seven Years' War (the French and Indian War). It actually lowered the tax on foreign molasses from the older 1733 Molasses Act. However, unlike before, Britain strictly enforced the collection and cracked down on smugglers.

Quartering Act 1765

The Quartering Act was a British law passed by Parliament that required American colonists to provide housing, food, and supplies for British soldiers. It fueled colonial anger over "taxation without representation" because local assemblies were forced to fund a standing army that many viewed as a tool of oppression. It directly inspired the Third Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects citizens from having to house soldiers in peacetime.

Stamp Act 1765

The Stamp Act of 1765 was a British law that required American colonists to buy official stamped paper for all printed materials, making it Parliament's first direct internal tax on the colonies.

Townshend Acts 1767

The Townshend Acts (1767–1768) were a series of British laws passed by Parliament that placed indirect import duties on everyday goods like glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea in the American colonies. Named after British Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, these acts aimed to raise revenue to pay royal governors and judges so they would remain loyal to the Crown rather than dependent on colonial assemblies. Parliament mistakenly believed colonists would accept "external" port duties (taxes on imports at harbors) even though they rejected the internal direct taxes of the Stamp Act. Colonists rejected both, arguing that any tax designed to raise revenue without their consent was tyranny ("no taxation without representation")

Tea Act 1773

The Tea Act of 1773 was a law passed by the British Parliament that granted the struggling British East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade in the American colonies. To rescue the East India Company from deep financial trouble by helping it sell millions of pounds of surplus tea stored in London. It allowed the company to ship tea directly to North America instead of first selling it at auction in London.

Coercive Acts 1774

he Coercive Acts of 1774 were a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the Boston Tea Party. Also known as the intolerable acts.

Enlightenment

a 17th- and 18th-century transatlantic intellectual movement that emphasized human reason, science, and individual rights over blind faith, tradition, and monarchical authority. Enlightenment means the state of gaining deep understanding, clarity, or spiritual awakening.

Desim

An Enlightenment-era belief that a Supreme Being created the universe and its natural laws, but then stepped back and left it to operate without supernatural intervention. God created the world like a clock, wound it up, and let it run by natural laws rather than stepping in to perform miracles

Social Contract

the Enlightenment theory that people agree to form a government and follow its laws in exchange for the protection of their natural rights. Individuals give up absolute personal freedom and submit to an authority in return for safety, order, and the protection of basic rights (like life, liberty, and property)

John Locke

John Locke was a 17th-century English Enlightenment philosopher whose ideas on natural rights and the social contract formed the core intellectual foundation for the American Revolution. The belief that all people are born with innate rights to life, liberty, and property, which no government or monarch can take away.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

was an 18th-century Swiss-French Enlightenment philosopher whose ideas on the social contract and popular sovereignty helped shape the intellectual foundations of the American Revolution.

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was an English immigrant and radical pamphleteer whose 1776 work Common Sense translated abstract Enlightenment ideas into plain language to convince everyday colonists to support an independent republic. It shifted public opinion from merely protesting British tax policies to demanding a complete, total break from Great Britain.

Second Continental Congress 1775

a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met in Philadelphia starting in May 1775, acting as the de facto national government during the American Revolutionary War. Represents the transition of colonial resistance into an organized sovereign government and war effort.

Olive Branch Petition

a final attempt by the Second Continental Congress in July 1775 to avert a full-scale war with Great Britain by professing loyalty to King George III and asking him to address colonial grievances. To reaffirm American loyalty to the British Crown, halt military hostilities, and negotiate a peaceful settlement over taxation and self-governance.

Thomas Jefferson

the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, and the third U.S. president (1801–1809) who championed limited government and an agrarian society. Provided foundational democratic rhetoric later reused by abolitionists and women's rights reformers.

Declaration of Independence

the foundational document adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which formally announced the 13 American colonies' separation from Great Britain.

Prohibitory Acts 1775

a British law passed in December 1775 that declared the American colonies in open rebellion, cut off all trade between Great Britain and the colonies, and established a naval blockade against American ports. : Passed by Parliament in response to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (such as the Battles of Lexington and Concord) and the rejection of the colonial Olive Branch Petition.

Treaty of Paris 1783

the official peace agreement signed on September 3, 1783, that ended the American Revolutionary War and recognized the United States as an independent nation.

Loyalists

Loyalists (also known as Tories) were American colonists who remained faithful to the British Crown and opposed the American Revolution.

Patriots

American colonists who supported independence from Great Britain and fought for colonial self-governance during the Revolutionary War.