Road to Independence

1. Road to Independence

3. Revenue • Incoming money

5. Writ of Assistance • a legal document that enabled officers to search homes and warehouses for goods that might be smuggled

7. Sugar Act • lowered the tax on molasses imported by colonists

9. Stamp Act • placed a tax on almost all printed material in the colonies • Ignored the colonial tradition of self government

11. Patrick Henry • convinced the Virginia burgesses to pass a resolutionabout the Stamp Act saying only Virginia could tax Virginians

13. Resolution • a formal expression of opinion

15. Samuel Adams • Organized the Sons of Liberty • Sons of Liberty were a group that took to the streets to protest the Stamp Act • Participated in the Boston Tea Party

17. Effigies • Rag figures

18. Stamp Act Congress • declared that the colonies could not be taxed except by their own assemblies

19. Boycott • Refuse to buy

20. Nonimportation • The act of not importing or using certain goods

21. Repeal • cancel

23. Declaratory Act • stated that Parliament had the right to tax and make decisions for the colonists “in all cases.”

24. Townshend Acts • Taxed all goods being imported to the colonies, with the tax being paid at the port of entry

26. Daughters of Liberty • Protested the Townshend Acts • Urged Americans to wear homemade fabrics and produce goods usually only available from Britain

28. Crispus Attucks • African American dock worker killed in the Boston Massacre

30. Boston Massacre • Incident between colonists and British Red Coats on King Street • 5 colonists were killed • Engraving by Paul Revere helped strengthen anti-British feelings

31. Propaganda • information designed to influence opinion

32. Committee of Correspondence • An organization that spread political ideas through the colonies • Restarted by Samuel Adams

33. Tea Act • gave East India Company the right to ship tea to the colonies without paying most of the taxes and to sell directly to colonial shopkeepers at a low price

35. Boston Tea Party • Men disguised as Mohawks threw chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act • Many colonists celebrated the act of defiance • Included Samuel Adams

37. King George III • The King of England during the American Revolutionary War

38. Coercive Acts • closed Boston Harbor until the Massachusetts colonists paid for the destroyed tea • stopped the arrival of food and other supplies • prevented town meetings or any form of self government • forced Bostonians to shelter British soldiers in their homes • colonists referred to these laws as the Intolerable Acts

40. (First) Continental Congress • Delegates sent to Philadelphia to establish a political body to represent American interests and challenge British control • Every colony was represented except Georgia • Called for boycott of all British goods and trade with Britain

41. Suffolk Resolves • called on the people of Suffolk County to arm themselves against the British

43. Militias • Civilians trained to fight in emergencies

44. Minutemen • Companies of civilian soldiers who boasted that they were ready to fight on a minutes notice • Led by Captain John Parker

45. Concord • Town where Massachusetts minutemen stored arms (weapons) • British General Thomas Gage was ordered to take the Massachusetts militia’s weapons

47. “The regulars are out!” • Paul Revere and William Dawes rode to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams (both members of the Sons of Liberty) that the British were coming

49. Shot Heard Round the World • A line in a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem called “Concord Hymn” describing the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. • Later used in other parts of the world to describe the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that began WWI

50. Concord’s North Bridge • Sight of the Battle of Concord in which minutemen repelled the British Army