Chapter/Packet 7 Flashcards
Second Continental
Congress
They established a Continental army and elected George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, but the delegates also drafted the Olive Branch Petition and sent it to King George III in hopes of reaching a peaceful resolution. The king refused to hear the petition and declared the American colonies in revolt.
Battle of Bunker Hill
Massachusetts | Jun 17, 1775. The American patriots were defeated at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but they proved they could hold their own against the superior British Army. The fierce fight confirmed that any reconciliation between England and her American colonies was no longer possible.
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition, written in 1775, was the final effort of the Second Continental Congress to persuade King George III of England to respond to the concerns of the American Colonists and to settle their differences amicably.
Hessians
German soldiers who served as auxiliaries to the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. The term is an American synecdoche for all Germans who fought on the British side, since 65% came from the German states of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau
Common Sense
published in 1776, inspired American colonists to declare independence from England. “We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth,” Paine wrote. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Written by Thomas Paine
Declaration of
Independence
By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists’ motivations for seeking independence.
Declaration of the Rights
of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France’s National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution.
Loyalists
loyalist, also called Tory, colonist loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution. Loyalists constituted about one-third of the population of the American colonies during that conflict.
Patriots
also known as Whigs, were the colonists who rebelled against British monarchial control. Their rebellion was based on the social and political philosophy of republicanism, which rejected the ideas of a monarchy and aristocracy – essentially, inherited power.
Long Island, Battle of
initiated the British campaign of 1776 to seize control of New York and thereby isolate New England from the rest of the colonies.
Trenton, Battle of
New Jersey | Dec 26, 1776. After crossing the Delaware River in a treacherous storm, General George Washington’s army defeated a garrison of Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. The victory set the stage for another success at Princeton a week later and boosted the morale of the American troops.
Saratoga, Battle of
The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The American defeat of the superior British army lifted patriot morale, furthered the hope for independence, and helped to secure the foreign support needed to win the war.
Model Treaty
The Model Treaty was a template for commercial treaties that the United States Continental Congress sought to make with France and Spain in order to secure assistance in the struggle against the British in the American Revolution. Congress approved the treaty on September 17, 1776.
Fort Stanwix, Treaty of
This treaty opened lands that would eventually become parts of western Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and northeast Tennessee, and the future states of Kentucky (1792) and West Virginia (1863) which seceded from Virginia during the American Civil War.
privateers
is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms.
