Ch. 7: The Road to Revolution

Question 1

Republicanism

Answer 1

A just society in which all citizens willingly subordinated their private, selfish interests to the common good; stability of society and authority of gov’t. depend on virtue of citizenry

Question 2

Radical Whigs

Answer 2

Feared threat to liberty posed by arbitrary power and of the monarch and his ministers relative to elected representatives in Parliament; these people warned citizens to be on guard against corruption

Question 3

Mercantilism

Answer 3

British authorities believed that wealth was power and that a country’s economic wealth (and hence its military and political power) could be measured by the amount of gold or silver in its treasury; country had to export more than they imported

Question 4

Navigation Law of 1650

Answer 4

Parliament passed these aimed at rival Dutch shippers trying to elbow their way into America carrying trade.

• All commerce flowing to and from the colonies had to be transported in British vessels
• European goods destined for America first had to be landed in Britain, where tariff duties could be collected and British middlemen could take a slice of the profits
• American merchants must ship certain “enumerated” products, notably tobacco, exclusively to Britain, even though prices might be better elsewhere
• Inflicted a currency shortage on the colonies; gold and silver coins, mostly earned in illicit trade with the Spanish and French West Indies, drained out of the colonies, creating an acute money shortage

Question 5

Salutary Neglect

Answer 5

Until 1763, the various Navigation
Laws imposed no intolerable burden, mainly
because they were only loosely enforced; enterprising
colonial merchants learned early to disregard or
evade troublesome restrictions

Question 6

John Hancock

Answer 6

One of the first to make American fortunes, amassed by wholesale smuggling

Question 7

Bounties

Answer 7

London paid liberal bounties to colonial producers
of ship parts, VA tobacco planters enjoyed a monopoly
in the British market; colonists benefited from
the protection of the world’s mightiest navy and a
strong, seasoned army of redcoats—all without a
penny of cost

Question 8

[Prime Minister] George Grenville

Answer 8

First aroused the resentment of the colonists in 1763 by ordering the British navy to begin strictly enforcing the Navigation Laws; also secured from Parliament the Sugar Act of 1764

Question 9

Sugar Act

Answer 9

Increased the duty on foreign sugar imported from the West Indies; after bitter protests from the colonists, the duties were lowered substantially

Question 10

Quartering Act

Answer 10

Required certain colonies to provide food

and quarters for British troops

Question 11

Stamp Act

Answer 11

Mandated the use of stamped paper or
the affixing of stamps, certifying payment of tax; required on bills of sale for about fifty trade items and on certain types of commercial and legal documents, including playing cards, pamphlets, newspapers, diplomas, bills of lading, and marriage licenses

Question 12

Admiralty Courts

Answer 12

Both the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act provided for trying offenders in the hated admiralty courts, where juries were not allowed; the burden of proof was on the defendants, who were assumed to be guilty unless they could prove themselves innocent - trial by jury and the precept of “innocent until proved guilty’’ were ancient privileges

Question 13

Virtual Representation

Answer 13

“No taxation without representation” - Americans denied the right of Parliament, in which no Americans were seated, to impose taxes on them. Only their own elected colonial legislatures, the insisted, could legally tax them; elaborating theory of “virtual representation,’’ Grenville claimed that every member of Parliament represented all British subjects, even those Americans in Boston or Charleston who had never voted for a member of Parliament.
The Americans scoffed at the

Question 14

Stamp Act Congress

Answer 14

Brought together in New York City twenty-seven distinguished delegates from nine colonies; members drew up a statement of their rights and grievances and beseeched the king and Parliament to repeal the repugnant legislation - it was one more halting but significant step toward inter-colonial unity.

Question 15

Nonimportation Agreements

Answer 15

Widespread adoption of these agreements against British goods; were a promising stride toward union; they spontaneously united the American people for the first time in common action

Question 16

Homespun

Answer 16

[As part of nonimportation agreements] Woolen garments of homespun became fashionable; groups of women assembled in public to hold spinning bees and make homespun cloth as a replacement for shunned British textiles

Question 17

Sons of Liberty & Daughters of Liberty

Answer 17

Took the law into their own hands; crying “Liberty, Property, and No Stamps,” they enforced the nonimportation agreements against violators, often with a generous coat of tar and feathers; patriotic mobs ransacked the houses of unpopular officials, confiscated their money, and hanged effigies

Question 18

Declaratory Act

Answer 18

Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, reaffirming Parliament’s right “to bind” the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” The British government thereby drew its line in the sand. It defined the constitutional principle it would not yield: absolute and unqualified sovereignty over its North American colonies. The colonists had already drawn their own battle line by making it clear that they wanted a measure of sovereignty of their own and would undertake drastic action to secure it.

Question 19

Townshend Acts

Answer 19

Control of the British ministry seized by
Townshend; persuaded Parliament in 1767 to pass these acts; most important of these new regulations was a light import duty on glass, white lead, paper, paint, and tea; Townshend made this tax an indirect customs duty payable at American ports; colonists, didn’t care - the real difficulty remained taxes—in any form—without representation.

Question 20

Indirect Tax

Answer 20

Nonimportation agreements quickly revived against Townshend Acts; proved less effective than those devised
against Stamp Act - colonists, again enjoying
prosperity, took the new tax less seriously than
might have been expected, largely because it was
light and indirect

Question 21

Boston Massacre

Answer 21

A crowd of some sixty townspeople set upon
a squad of about ten redcoats, one hit by a club and another knocked down - apparently without orders but under extreme provocation, the troops opened fire and killed or wounded eleven “innocent’’ citizens; only two of the redcoats were found guilty of manslaughter; soldiers were released after being branded on the hand.

Question 22

George III

Answer 22

Was attempting to assert power of British monarchy - good man in his private morals, but proved to be a bad ruler; surrounded himself with cooperative “yes men”

Question 23

Lord North

Answer 23

George III’s prime minister; gov’t of Lord North, bowing to various pressures, finally persuaded Parliament to repeal the Townshend revenue duties; three-pence toll on tea, the tax the colonists found most offensive, was retained to keep alive the principle of parliamentary taxation

Question 24

Samuel Adams

Answer 24

Master propagandist and engineer of rebellion; ultra-sensitive to infractions of colonial rights - cherished a deep faith in the common people and appealed effectively to what was called his “trained mob’’

Question 25

John Adams

Answer 25

Cousin of Samuel Adams; future president who served as defense attorney for the soldiers after the Boston Massacre

Question 26

Committees of Correspondence

Answer 26

Samuel Adams’s signal contribution; chief function was to spread spirit of resistance by interchanging letters and thus keep alive opposition to British policy; Virginia (1773) created such a body as a standing committee
of the House of Burgesses - within a short time,
every colony est. central committee through which it could exchange ideas and information with other colonies.

Question 27

British East Indian Company

Answer 27

Was overburdened w/ 17 million pounds of unsold tea, facing bankruptcy; if it collapsed, London gov’t would lose heavily in tax revenue; ministry decided to assist company by awarding it a complete monopoly of the American tea business - corp. would now be able to sell leaves more cheaply than ever before, even with the three-pence tax tacked on; many American tea drinkers, rather than rejoicing at the lower prices, cried foul - saw this British move as a shabby attempt to trick the Americans, with the bait of cheaper tea, into swallowing the principle of the detested tax

Question 28

Thomas Hutchinson

Answer 28

He already felt fury of the mob when Stamp Act protesters destroyed his home in 1765; agreed that tea tax was unjust, but believed more strongly that colonists had no right to flout the law; he infuriated Boston’s radicals when he ordered tea ships not to clear Boston harbor until they unloaded their cargoes; sentiment against him further inflamed when his enemies published a private letter in which he declared that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” was necessary for preservation of law and order in the colonies

Question 29

Boston Tea Party

Answer 29

A group of Bostonians, clumsily disguised as Indians, boarded the docked tea ships on December 16, 1773;
smashed open 342 chests and dumped the contents into Boston harbor; silent crowd watched approvingly

Question 30

Boston Port Act

Answer 30

Closed the tea-stained harbor until damages were

paid and order could be ensured

Question 31

Intolerable Acts

Answer 31

Many of the chartered rights of colonial Massachusetts swept away; restrictions placed on the precious town meetings; contrary to previous practice, enforcing officials who killed colonists in the line of duty could now be sent to Britain for trial - there, suspicious Americans assumed, they would be likely to get off scot-free

Question 32

Quebec Act

Answer 32

French guaranteed their Catholic religion; permitted to retain many of their old customs and institutions, which did not include a representative assembly or trial by jury in civil cases; old boundaries of the province of Quebec now extended southward all the way to Ohio River

Question 33

Continental Congress

Answer 33

One of the most memorable of the responses to the “Intolerable Acts’’ in 1774; to meet in Philly to consider ways of redressing colonial grievances. Twelve of the thirteen colonies (Georgia missing) sent fifty-five distinguished men (among them Samuel Adams, John Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry); inter-colonial frictions were partially melted away by social activity after working hours

Question 34

Declaration of Rights

Answer 34

First Continental Congress - not a legislative but a consultative body, a convention rather than a congress; John Adams helped defeat by the narrowest of margins a proposal by the moderates for a species of American home rule under British direction. After prolonged argument the Congress drew up several dignified papers like this one

Question 35

Tar and Feathers

Answer 35

Most significant action of Congress was creation of The Association; called for a complete boycott of British goods, unlike previous nonimportation agreements; (delegates not yet calling for independence); violators of The Association were tarred and feathered

Question 36

Minute Men

Answer 36

Members of teams of select men from Amer colonial militia; provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats, hence the name

Question 37

Lexington and Concord

Answer 37

April 1775 the British commander in Boston
sent detachment of troops to nearby Lexington and Concord; were to seize stores of colonial gunpowder and bag the “rebel’’ ringleaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock; at Lexington the colonial “Minute Men’’ refused to disperse rapidly enough, and shots fired & killed eight Americans and wounded several more. The redcoats pushed on to Concord - forced to retreat by the rough and ready Americans; British, fighting off murderous fire from militiamen crouched behind thick stone walls, finally regained the sanctuary of Boston - had war on its hands.

Question 38

Hessians

Answer 38

Some thirty thousand Germans employed by George III as soldiers to build his army

Question 39

Tories

Answer 39

The term Tory or “Loyalist” was used to include those who remained loyal to the British Crown

Question 40

George Washington

Answer 40

Outstanding leadership; a giant among men

Question 41

Benjamin Franklin

Answer 41

Master diplomat

Question 42

Marquis De Lafayette

Answer 42

Wealthy young French nobleman; was made a major general in the colonial army at nineteen; commission was largely a recognition of his family influence and political connections, but the services of this teenage general in securing further aid from France were invaluable

Question 43

Continentals

Answer 43

(Economy suffering) Continental Congress, unwilling to raise anew the explosive issue of taxation, was forced to print “Continental’’ paper money in great amounts; as this currency poured from the presses, it depreciated until the expression “not worth a Continental’’ became current

Question 44

Valley Forge (Pennsylvania)

Answer 44

Shivering American soldiers went without bread for three successive days in the cruel winter of 1777–1778; during one anxious period, twenty-eight hundred men were barefooted or nearly naked - woolens desperately needed against the wintry blasts, and in general the only real uniform of the colonial army was uniform raggedness. During a grand parade at Valley Forge, some of the officers appeared wrapped in woolen bed covers

Question 45

Baron Von Steuben

Answer 45

Stern drillmaster, organizational genius, German, spoke no English when he reached America; as they gained experience, these soldiers of the Continental line more than held their own against crack British troops

Question 46

Dunmore’s Proclamation

Answer 46

Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, issued proclamation promising freedom for any enslaved black in Virginia who joined Brit army; news of Dunmore’s decree traveled swiftly; Virginia and Maryland tightened slave patrols, but within one month, three hundred slaves had joined what came to be called “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment.” In time thousands of blacks fled plantations for British promises of emancipation