History Ch. 4

Seven Years' War

Called the French and Indian War in the American colonies, the Seven Years' War was a global conflict between England and France ultimately won by England in 1763.

French and Indian War (Seven Years' War)

Colonists' name given to the Seven Years' War in the colonies that strained the relationship of England to its colonies and marked the decline of relationships between Native Americans and Europeans.

People of European ancestry born in the Americas are known as ______.

Creoles

Boston Tea Party

Dramatic attempt by Boston leaders to show colonial contempt for the Tea Act; they dumped British tea into Boston harbor and triggered similar acts of resistance in colonial cities.

First Continental Congress

Early gathering of colonial delegates in 1774 that called for the repeal of all oppressive laws of Parliament since 1763.

Virginia Resolves

Term used for a group of resolutions passed by the Virginia legislature declaring only the colonies' governments had the right to tax colonists.

Sons of Liberty

Groups of male colonists who organized against England's enforcement of the Stamp Act and who terrorized British officials.

Stamp Act of 1765

Hated act passed by Prime Minister Grenville of England that required an official stamp on all paper documents in the colonies and united the colonies against England.

Boston Massacre

Inflammatory description of a deadly clash between a mob and British soldiers on March 5, 1770, that became a symbol of British oppression for many colonists

Ben Franklin

Inventor, author, diplomat, and one of the most famous people of the 1700s; served as a colonial agent in England during the early part of the conflict between the colonies and England.

The Boston Massacre occurred when Captain Thomas Preston ______.

stationed troops to protect a building

The first phase of the French and Indian War began when ______.

the French attacked Fort Necessity

Sugar Act

British act of 1764 designed to stop sugar smuggling in the colonies by lowering taxes on molasses but enforcing their payment and forcing compliance with trade laws.

virtual representation

British political theory holding that members of Parliament represented all British subjects, not just those from the specific region that had elected them.

Under the Proclamation of 1763, white settlement west of the ______ was forbidden.

Appalachian Mountains

Proclamation of 1763

Attempt by England to reduce violence between Native Americans and English colonists by legally barring settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

Albany Plan

Benjamin Franklin's 1754 proposal for a "general government" to manage relations between the colonies and Native Americans; rejected by the colonies at the beginning of the French and Indian War.

Fort Necessity

Site of the opening skirmish in the French and Indian War, this stockade in the Ohio Valley was unsuccessfully protected by Militia Colonel George Washington.

After Charles Townshend died, Lord North secured the repeal of all of the Townshend Duties except the tax on ______.

Tea

Tea Act

A 1773 act passed by England that gave the British East India Company the right to export tea to the colonies without paying the same taxes that were imposed on colonial merchants; the act enraged American merchants and colonists boycotted tea.

Paxton Boys

A group of Pennsylvania frontiersmen who demanded tax relief and massacred a number of Conestoga.

Creole

A person of European or African ancestry born in the Americas; also, a person of mixed European and African ancestry.

Townshend Duties

External taxes passed by England's Charles Townshend that taxed goods imported to the colonies; hated by the colonists, the taxes were later repealed after a colonial boycott of English goods.

committees of correspondence

First called for by Samuel Adams, the committees formed in Boston and other parts of the colonies to share information about British abuses of power.

George III

King of England in 1760 who wanted to reassert the crown's authority; he was mentally unstable for most of his reign.

William Pitt

Leading English secretary of state and prime minister who ran England's war effort during the Seven Years' War.

Iroquois Confederacy

Organization of five Native American nations that traded regularly with the French and English in the early colonial period, but their relationships with the colonists deteriorated during the mid to late 1700s.

Daughters of Liberty

Organization of women in the colonies that led the boycott against the Tea Act.

Pontiac

Ottawa chief who led a coalition of native nations to war against the British from 1763 to 1766; achieved some gains including pressuring the British to restrain their settlers from the trans-Appalachian west, but eventually was undermined by internal divisions, disease, and the brutal violence of settlers and the British military.

Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

Parliament's retaliation against the Boston Tea Party that was meant to coerce Boston colonists by reducing the colony's self-government.

Which executive wielded the most power in England by the mid-eighteenth century?

Prime Minister

George Grenville

Prime Minister to King George III who increased troops and taxes in the colonies after the French and Indian War and made many colonists believe colonial self-rule was under attack.

Which statements about the Sugar Act of 1764 are correct?

The Sugar Act lowered the duty on molasses and enforced its payment. The Sugar Act established new courts to try accused smugglers.

impressment

The act of forcing people to serve in a navy or other military operation; the term is most commonly used in connection with the actions of British fleets against American sailors in the early 1800s.

sovereignty

The authority to govern; popular sovereignty refers to the idea that the source of this authority is the people, who confer authority through elections.

Which statement about the distribution of power in eighteenth-century England is accurate?

The unwritten constitution called for the distribution of power among the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the people.

Patrick Henry

Virginia politician who lead the fight against the Stamp Act and declared supporters of Parliament taxes were enemies of the colonies.