Chapter 2 Section 2 [The American Revolution (1763-1787)]

Question 1

Writs of Assistance

Answer 1

General search warrants issued to help royal officials stop evasion of Britain’s mercantilist trade restrictions.

Question 2

James Otis

Answer 2

Young Boston lawyer who argued that the Writs of Assistance were contrary to natural law. (1761)

Question 3

Proclaimation of 1763

Answer 3

Forbid white settlements west of the Appalachians.

Question 4

Sugar Act (Revenue Act)

Answer 4

Raised revenue by taxes on goods imported by the Americans.

Question 5

Quartering Act

Answer 5

Required the colonies in which British troops were stationed to pay for their maintenance.

Question 6

Currency Act of 1764

Answer 6

Forbade once and for all any colonial attempts to issue currency not redeemable in gold or silver.

Question 7

Stamp Act of 1765

Answer 7

Required Americans to purchase revenue stamps on everything from newspapers to legal documents and would have created an impossible drain on hard currency in the colonies.

Question 8

Sons of Liberty

Answer 8

An organization formed by James Otis and Samuel Adams in Massachusetts to resist the Stamp Act.

Question 9

Stamp Act Congress

Answer 9

The 165 meeting of delegates from nine colonies in which moderate resolutions against the Stamp Act were passed, asserting that Americans could not be taxed without their consent, given by their representatives.

Question 10

Declaratory Act

Answer 10

Claimed power to tax or make laws for the Americans “in all cases whatsoever.”

Question 11

Townshend Duties

Answer 11

Taxes imposed by the British Parliament in 1776 on items imported into the American colonies.

Question 12

Townshend Acts

Answer 12

Laws by the British Parliament in 1776 that included taxes on items imported into the American colonies and the use of admiralty courts to try the accused of violations, the use of Writes of Assistance, and the paying of customs officials from the fines they have levied; repealed in 1780, except for the taxes on tea.

Question 13

Tea Act of 1773

Answer 13

A law passed by the British Parliament granting the British East India Company concessions, allowing ti to ship tea directly to the colonies rather than only by way of Britain.

Question 14

Coercive Acts

Answer 14

The British Parliament’s response to the 1773 incident in which Bostonians, who were thinly disguised as Indians, boarded British Royal Navy ships and threw the ships’ cargo, tea, into Boston Harbor.

Question 15

Boston Port Act

Answer 15

One of the Coercive Acts, which resulted in the closing of Boston to all trade until local citizens would agree to pay for the lost tea. However, the citizens refused to pay.

Question 16

Massachusetts Government Act

Answer 16

One of the Coercive Acts, it greatly increased the power of Massachusetts royal governor at the expense of the legislature.

Question 17

Administration of Justice Act

Answer 17

One of the Coercive Acts, it provided that royal officials accused of crimes in Massachusetts could be tried elsewhere, where chances of acquittal might be greater.

Question 18

Quebec Act

Answer 18

An act passed by the British Parliament that extended the province of Quebec to the Ohio River, established Roman Catholicism as Quebec’s official religion, and set up for Quebec a government without a representative assembly.

Question 19

Intolerable Acts

Answer 19

The name given by American colonists to the Coercive Acts and the Quebec Act.

Question 20

Suffolk Resolves

Answer 20

Acts passed by the First Continental Congress in 1774 denouncing the Intolerable Acts.

Question 21

Lexington

Answer 21

The village in which seventy Minutemen awaited General Gage’s troops who were on their way to destroy a reported stockpile of colonial arms and ammunition in Concord. The Minutemen did not lay down their arms at the command of a British officer, but, as they turned to disperse, a shot was fired. The British opened fire and killed eight Americans, most of whom were shot in the back, thereby beginning the War for Independence.

Question 22

Concord

Answer 22

The Massachusetts town in which General Thomas Gage led 700 British troops on a mission in 1775 to find and destroy a reported stockpile of colonial arms and ammunition, sparking the Battles of Lexington and Concord, beginning the American War of Independence.

Question 23

Bunker Hill

Answer 23

The scene of what turned out to be the bloodiest battle (1775) of the War of Independence in more than 1,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded as they attempted-ultimately successfully-to remove the colonists from their Boston fortification.

Question 24

Prohibitory Act

Answer 24

An act of the British Parliament, approved by the king (who ignored the Olive Branch Petition) declaring the colonies in rebellion and no longer under his protection, essentially declaring war on America.

Question 25

Olive Branch Petition

Answer 25

A resolution adopted by the Second Continental Congress Pleading with King George III to Intercede with Parliament to restore peace.

Question 26

Common Sense

Answer 26

A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that called for the immediate independence of the American colonies.

Question 27

Declaration of Independence

Answer 27

primarily the work of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and formally adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is a restatement of political ideas that were by then commonplace in America, explaining why the former colonists felt justified in separating from Great Britain.

Question 28

Hessians

Answer 28

The name given by the colonists to troops from various German principalities that were hired by the British to supplement their own army.

Question 29

William Howe

Answer 29

The general with top command of the British army during the War of Independence.

Question 30

Richard Howe

Answer 30

The brother of General William Howe and the British army during the War of Independence.

Question 31

Battle of Long Island

Answer 31

The 1776 defeat of General George Washington and his undertrained, underequipped, and badly outnumbered American army by British General William Howe and Admiral Richard Howe.

Question 32

Battle of Washington Heights

Answer 32

A 1776 battle on Manhattan in which General George Washington was forced to retreat across New Jersey pursued by the aggressive British General Lord Cornwallis, a subordinate of General Howe.

Question 33

Lord Charles Cornwallis

Answer 33

The British General who first served under General William Howe and later continued the Southern Campaign.

Question 34

Saratoga

Answer 34

The site of the 1777 defeat of the British by American forces, under the command of General Benedict Arnold, which convinced the French to join openly in the war against England.

Question 35

Valley Forge

Answer 35

The site of the 1778 defeat of the British by American forces.

Question 36

Yorktown

Answer 36

The site in Virginia at which General George Washington, with the help of French army and naval forces, trapped British General Cornwallis and forced him to surrender in 1781.

Question 37

The Treaty of Paris of 1783

Answer 37

The final agreement to the War of Independence, in which, among other terms, the United States was recognized as an independent nation by the major European powers, including Britain.

Question 38

Articles of Confederation

Answer 38

A framework for a national government devised in 1776 by a committee appointed by the American Congress, which provided for a unicameral Congress in which each state would have one vote, essentially preserving the sovereignty of the states and creating a very weak national government.

Question 39

Land Ordinance of 1784

Answer 39

A law that provided for territorial government and an orderly system by which each territory could progress to full statehood.

Question 40

Land Ordinance of 1785

Answer 40

A law that provided for the orderly surveying and distribution of land into townships six miles square,each composed of 36 one-square-mile (640 acre) sections, one of which was to be set aside for the support of education.

Question 41

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Answer 41

A law that provided a bill of rights for settlers, forbade slavery north of the Ohio River, and provided for the creation of three to five territories that could be admitted as states to the Union when they had reached sufficient population.

Question 42

Jay-Gardoqui Negotiations

Answer 42

Negotiations begun in 1774 between Congress’s secretary of foreign affairs, John Jay, and Spanish minister Gardoqui for a treaty that would have granted lucrative commercial privileges to large east-coast merchants, in exchange for U.S. acceptance of Spain’s closure of the Mississippi River as an outlet for the agricultural goods of the rapidly growing settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee

Question 43

Shays’ Rebellion

Answer 43

During economic hard times in 1776 coupled with high taxes intended to pay off the state’s war debt, the revolt in which desperate western-Massachusetts farmers, led by war veteran Daniel Shays shut down courts to prevent judges from seizing property or condemning people to debtors’ prison for failing to pay their taxes.