Chapter 6 Key Terms

Question 1

confiscation acts

Answer 1

state-wide acts that made it legal for state governments to seize Loyalists’ property

Question 2

Continental currency

Answer 2

the paper currency that the Continental government printed to fund the
Revolution

Question 3

Dunmore’s Proclamation

Answer 3

the decree signed by Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, which
proclaimed that any slaves or indentured servants who fought on the side of the British would be
rewarded with their freedom

Question 4

Hessians

Answer 4

German mercenaries hired by Great Britain to put down the American rebellion

Question 5

Mecklenburg Resolves

Answer 5

North Carolina’s declaration of rebellion against Great Britain

Question 6

minutemen

Answer 6

colonial militias prepared to mobilize and fight the British with a minute’s notice

Question 7

popular sovereignty

Answer 7

the practice of allowing the citizens of a state or territory to decide issues based on
the principle of majority rule

Question 8

republicanism

Answer 8

a political philosophy that holds that states should be governed by representatives, not a
monarch; as a social philosophy, republicanism required civic virtue of its citizens

Question 9

thirteen colonies

Answer 9

the British colonies in North America that declared independence from Great Britain in
1776, which included Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, the province of Massachusetts Bay,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, South Carolina, and Virginia

Question 10

Yorktown

Answer 10

the Virginia port where British General Cornwallis surrendered to American forces