Chapter 4: Revolutionary America Study online at quizlet.com/_flcg7 1. Boston A confrontation between a group of citizens 9. Gaspée In June, 1772, the British customs ship ran Massacre and British troops on March 5, 1770, Incident around off the colonial coast. When the during which the troops opened fire on the British went ashore for help, colonials citizens, killing five of them. boarded the ship and burned it. They were sent to Britain for trial. Colonial outrage led 2. Committees of These started as groups of private citizens to the widespread formation of Committees of Correspondence in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Correspondence. York who, in 1763, began circulating information about opposition to British 10. George As Prime Minister, he passed the Sugar Act in trade measures. Other colonies created Grenville 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765 to help their own committtees in order to exchange finance the cost of maintaining a standing information and organize protests to force of British troops in the colonies. He British trade regulations. The groups believed in reducing the financial burden on became particularly active following the the British by enacting new taxes in the Gaspee Incident. colonies 3. Common Sense Thomas Paine's influential pamphlet that 11. Internal Taxes which arose out of activities that forcefully argued for American Taxes occurred within the colonies. The Stamp Act independence, attacked the institution of was considered this tax, because it taxed the monarchy, and defended a democratic colonists on legal transactions they theory of representative government. undertook locally. Many colonists and Englishmen felt that Parliament did not have 4. Continental Created by the First Continental Congress, the authority to levy internal taxes on the Association it enforced the non-importation of British colonies. goods by empowering local Committees of Vigilence in each colony to fine or arrest 12. Intolerable Legislation passed by Parliament to punish violators. It was meant to pressure Britain Acts Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. It closed to repeal the Coercive Acts. the Port of Boston; annulled the Massachusetts colonial charter and dissolved 5. Continental Representatives of the colonies met first in or severely restricted the colony's political Congress Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions institutions; and allowed British officials against British policies; the Second (1775- charged with capital crimes to be tried outside 1789) conducted the war and adopted the the colonies. Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. 13. John Drafted a declaration of colonial rights and Dickinson grievances, and also wrote the series of 6. Declaratory Act Passed at the same time that the Stamp Act "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in was repealed, the Act declared that 1767 to protest the Townshend Acts. Parliament had the power to tax the Although an outspoken critic of British colonies both internally and externally, policies towards the colonies, he opposed the and had absolute power over the colonial Revolution, and, as a delegate to the legislatures. Continental Congress in 1776, refused to sign 7. Edmund Burke A conservative British politician who was the Declaration of Independence. generally sympathetic to the colonists' 14. Lord Official announcement issued by Lord greivances, and who felt that Britain's Dunmore's Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia. It colonial policies were misguided. Proclamation offered freedom to any slave who joined the 8. External taxes Taxes arose out of activities that originated British forces in putting down the American outside of the colonies, such as cusotms rebellion. duties. The Sugar Act was considered an 15. Marquis de He was a French major general who aided external tax, because it only operated on Lafayette the colonies during the Revolutionary War. goods imported into the colonies from He and Baron von Steuben (a Prussian overseas. Many colonists who objected to general) were the two major foreign military Parliament's "internal" taxes on the experts who helped train the colonial armies. colonies felt that Parliament had the authority to levy external taxes on imported goods. 16. Nonimportation A boycott against the purchase of any 23. Sugar Act British tax aimed at imported sugar, molasses, movement imported British goods. and other goods imported into the colonies; it also created a new mechanism for enforcing 17. Olive Branch On July 8, 1775, the colonies made a final compliance with customs duties. Petition offer of peace to Britain, agreeing to be loyal to the British government if it 24. Townshend Parliamentary measures that taxed tea and addressed their grievances (repealed the Acts other commodities, and established a Board of Coercive Acts, ended the taxation without Customs Commissioners and colonial vice- representation policies). It was rejected by admiralty courts. Parliament, which in December 1775 25. Writs of One of the colonies' main complaints aganist passed the American Prohibitory Act assistance Britain, the writs allowed unlimited search forbidding all further trade with the warrants without cause to look for evidence of colonies. smuggling. 18. Patrick Henry An American orator and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses who gave speeches against the British government and its policies urging the colonies to fight for independence. In connection with a petition to declare a "state of defense" in virginia in 1775, he gave his most famous speech which ends with the words, "Give me liberty or give me death." 19. Quebec Act Passed by Parliament, alarmed the colonies because it recognized the Roman- Catholic Church in Quebec. Some colonials took it as a sign that Britain was planning to impose Catholicism upon the colonies. 20. Sons of Liberty A radical political organization for colonial independence which formed in 1765 after the passage of the Stamp Act. They incited riots and burned the customs houses where the stamped British paper was kept. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, many of the local chapters formed the Committees of Correspondence which continued to promote opposition to British policies towards the colonies. The Sons leaders included Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Paul Revere. 21. Stamp Act Legislation that required colonists to purchase special stamps and place them on all legal documents. Newspapers and playing cards had to be printed on special stamped paper. 22. Suffolk Resolves Agreed to by delegates from Massachusetts, and approved by the First Continental Congress on October 8, 1774. Nullified the Coercive Acts, closed royal courts, ordered taxes to be paid to colonial governments instead of the royal government, and prepared local militias..