APUSH Chapter 8

Privateers

"Legalized pirates," more than a thousand strong, who inflicted heavy damage on British shipping

Treaty of Paris

(1783) peace agreement that officially ended the revolutionary war and established Britian's formal recognition of the US

Olive Branch Petition

(July 1775) professed American loyalty to the crown and begging the king ton prevent further hostilities; was denied by King George III

Richard Henry Lee

(June 7, 1776) Virginian who moved that "these United States are, and ought to be , free and independent states"; motion was adopted on July 2, 1776)

Yorktown

1781; last battle of the revolution; Benedict Arnold, Cornwallis and Washington; colonists won because British were surrounded and they surrended

John Jay

1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, negotiated with British for Washington

What happened to loyalists after the war?

46,000 to Canada 7,000 to England 17,000 to the British West Indies (most notable: Bahamas)

Charles Cornwallis

A British general, he lost to Nathaniel Green in one campaign. He was humiliated by his defeat in the colonies. He finally lost at the Battle of Yorktown, commonly known as the end of the war, in 1781.

Saratoga

A battle that took place in New York where the Continental Army defeated the British and Burgoyne was forced to surrender his entire command. This battle ultimately had France to openly support the colonies which in turn helped ensure American Independence

Fort Stanwix

A fort in the Mohawk Valley of New York that was the site of a twenty-day siege by British forces during the Saratoga campaign in August 1777. The siege ended with the arrival of forces under the command of Benedict Arnold.

Fort Ticonderoga

A fort set up by the British by the scenic lakes of upper New York

Patrick Henry

A leader of the American Revolution and a famous orator who spoke out against British rule of the American colonies "Give me liberty or give me death"

Armed Neutrality

A lineup of almost all the remaining European nuetrals in an attitude of passive hostility towards Britain

Second Continental Congress

A response to Lexington and Concord, appeal grievances to the Parliament. Raised to create army and navy formally appointed Washington as general.

What did America gain and what did it concede in the Treaty of Paris?

America gained its independence from Britain and all the lands westward to the Mississippi River and south to the Gulf of Mexico, with the exception of Spanish Florida, which wasn't acquired until 1819. America did not concede much, except to allow Britain some time to abandon its forts and outposts in the newly independent areas of the Northwest territories, something Britain failed to do, which led to the War of 1812.

Benedict Arnold

American General who was labeled a traitor when he assisted the British in a failed attempt to take the American fort at West Point.

Horatio Gates

American General whose troops defeated the British forces at Saratoga.

What happened to loyalists during the war?

American Loyalists, or "Tories" as their opponents called them, opposed the Revolution, and many took up arms against the rebels. Estimates of the number of Loyalists range as high as 500,000, or 20 percent of the white population of the colonies.

John Paul Jones

American naval commander in the American Revolution (1747-1792) said "I have not yet begun to fight"

Whigs

Another name for revolutionary Patriots.

Why did the French help American win independence?

Because France and Britain were rivals and France would do anything to make things bad for the rivals (and vice versa). Plus they probably thought it would weaken British control over Canada, which they fancied for themselves.

Redcoats

British soldiers who fought against the colonists in the American Revolution; so called because of their bright red uniforms.

Was frontier fighting important in the outcome of the war?

Considering the colonials had no navy to speak of, there really was no 'sea frontier' that was fought between the British and American forces. The only time naval forces became an issue was when the French navy came to join forces with the Americans following the Battle of Saratoga. Also, most of the fighting occurred in either New Jersey or South Carolina, as the British tried to divide the colonies into sections and conquer each section individually. There were relatively few frontier battles, none of which played a major role in the outcome of the war.

Why was foreign aid so important to the American cause?

Foreign aid was essential because the rebels did not have the resources, training, or manpower to fight the British alone. The Revolutionary war would not have been won if it had not been for the french and their aid with soldiers, rations, combat weapons and gear etc

George Rogers Clarke

Frontier military leader in the American Revolution. The brother of William Clark, he worked as a surveyor in Kentucky in the mid-1770s. During the Revolution he raised troops and defended the region against the British and Indians. He captured settlements along the Mississippi River in the Old Northwest (Illinois), and in 1780 he helped defeat a British attempt to capture St. Louis. Appointed an Indian commissioner, he helped conclude a treaty with the Shawnee.

William Howe

General and Washington's adversary during the American Revolution; commander of the British at Bunker Hill

Richard Mongomery

General of an invading British column who pushed up Lake Champlain and captured Montreal

George III "slammed the door on all hope of reconciliation." How and why?

George III charged America with incessant treason, thus "closing the door on reconciliation." He also hired many German mercenaries called Hessians. George III went to such drastic measures after he heard the news of Bunker Hill, which showed the power of the colonists as they took down hundreds of redcoats.

Why did Paine want a democratic republic?

He could see the faults of the current system (constitutional monarchy) and thought that they could be remedied by reforming the machinery of government and a more equal distribution of wealth. He was an admirer of the French and American republics and thought that they had found an approach to the best conceivable way of organising public life. Hence his planned reforms were democratic and republican.

Why was Washington chosen as general of the American army?

He was experienced in warfare from his service in the French and Indian War, and he was knowledgeable in the terrain.

Hessians

Hired by King George III because he needed men; most were a German Hesse (the Americans called them Hessians)

What were some of the flaws of General William Howe?

Lack of aggressiveness led Howe to let the Continental Army escape twice, at the battles of Long Island and White Plains. Howe was somewhat lacking in strategic sense. Sluggish and indolent by nature, he missed chances to advance the British cause.

Natural Rights

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. No man or government can take them away

Why did the Americans win the battle of Saratoga? Why was it significant?

Mainly because the British general Burgoyne didn't have the support he was expecting. General Howe was supposed to move north from New York and assist him, but he went off to capture Philadelphia instead and then stayed there. General Barry St. Leger was supposed to move east from Lake Ontario, but his forces were turned back at Oriskany. Cut off from the other armies and bogging down in the wilderness near Albany, Burgoyne was ultimately forced to surrender to the American forces who harrassed him on all sides.

Would an American Patriot, reading news of the war in 1780, have been happy about the way the war was going? Explain?

Not very happy. In 1780 the British launched a fresh invasion & took Charleston & soon controlled most of Georgia & South Carolina

Trenton

On Christmas night, 1776, Washington led 2,400 men across the Delaware River to attack the Hessians who were sleeping

Nathaniel Greene

Quaker-reared tactician and American general who employed tactics of fighting and then drawing back to recover, then attacking again. Defeated Cornwallis by doing just this

Natural Aristocracy

Rule by the members of a long-established ruling class

If the war did not end at Yorktown, then why was it important?

Simply, for all practical purposes, it did actually end the War of Independence. It was some time before the paperwork was completed of course, and there were still some small skirmishes, but it was the last significant battle of that war, and it was that which forced the British to come to terms with the fact that they could not afford to continue to lose armies (remember, they'd lost an entire army at Saratoga, as well) in this effort to subdue the American Colonies. Especially not in the face of French hostility and growing Spanish hostility, as well.

Why was Common Sense so important?

Written in 1776, Common Sense caused a revolution in the way many people thought. Thomas Paine's pamphlet was so important because he expressed clearly and lucidly what so many people were thinking, but were not able to put in words.

Did the fighting go well for Americans before July of 1776? Explain.

Yes the fighting went well.

Did Americans get favorable terms in the Treaty of Paris? Explain.

Yes, America did get favorable terms in the Treaty of Paris. They gained their independence from Britain and they began their national career with a splendid territorial birthright and a priceless heritage of freedom.

Iroquois Confederacy

a powerful group of Native Americans in the eastern part of the United States made up of five nations: the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondoga, and Oneida

Ethan Allen

a soldier of the American Revolution whose troops helped capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British

Princeton

a week after the battle in trenton, Washington burned his camp as a ruse and slipped away to give the same defeat to the British that he had done in Trenton

Benedict Arnold

an American General during the Revolutionary War (1776). He prevented the British from reaching Ticonderoga. Later, in 1778, he tried to help the British take West Point and the Hudson River but he was found out and declared a traitor.

George Washington

commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution

John Burgoyne

leader (actor-playwrite-soldier) of the main invading force of British officers to capture the Hudson River Valley; pushed down the Lake Chaplain route from Canada

What does the declaration of Independence say?

not only did the 13 American colonies declare their freedom from Britain, they also addressed the reasons for the proclamation (naming the "causes which impel them to the separation") and cited the British government's violations of individual rights, saying "the history of the present King 'George III' of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations," which aimed to establish "an absolute Tyranny over these States."

Republic

power flowed from the people themselves, not from a corrupt and despotic monarch

Thomas Jefferson

principle author of the Declaration of Independence and an influential founding father of the US

Bunker Hill

seized by the colonists in June 1775 (actually known as Breed's Hill)

What kinds of people were loyalists?

tenant farmers, royal officials, merchants, clergy of the English church, lawyers

Declaration of Independence

the document recording the proclamation of the second Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the independence of the colonies from Great Britain