Highlights From Revolutionary Period

Front 1

Battle of Saratoga

Back 1

A turning point of the Revolution in October 1777. An army of 6000 British soldiers surrendered in New York. The battle resulted from a British attempt to divide the colonies through the Hudson River Valley. The American victory convinced the French to ally with the colonies and assured the ultimate success of independence.

Front 2

Battle of Yorktown

Back 2

A siege that ended in October 1781 when Washington trapped 8000 British soldiers on a peninsula in Virginia after a British campaign in the southern colonies. This defeat caused the British to cease large-scale fighting in America and to start negotiations which eventually led to the colonies' independence.

Front 3

Ben Franklin

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Americca's leading diplomat of the time who served as a statesman and advisor throughout the Revolutionary era. he was active in all the prerevolutionary congresses and helped to secure the French aliance of 1778 and the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolution in 1783.

Front 4

Boston Massacre

Back 4

Confrontation between British soldiers and Boston citizens in March 1770. The troops shot and killed five colonials. American radicals used the even to roil relations between England and the colonies over the next 5 years.

Front 5

Coercive Acts (1774)

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British actions to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party including closing the port of Boston, revoking Massachusetts's charter, trying all Britihs colonial officials accused of misdeeds outside the colony, and housing British troops in private dwellings. They were known as the Intolerable Acts and they brough on the First Continental Congress in 1774.

Front 6

Declaratory Act (1776)

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Passed as the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. It asserted Parliament's sovereignty over colonial taxation and legislative policies.

Front 7

George III

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King of England during the American Revolution. Until 1776, the colonists believed he supported their attempt to keep their rights. In reality, he was a strong advocate for harsh policies toward them.

Front 8

George Washington

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Commander of the colonial arm. While not a military genius, his integrity and judgment kept the army together. Ultimately, he was indispensable to the colonial cause.

Front 9

John Dickinson

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Conservative leader who wrote "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania". He advocated colonial rights but urged concilation with England and opposed the Declaration of Independence. Later, he helped write the ARticles of Confederation.

Front 10

John Jay

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Lead diplomat in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783). He secretly dealt with the Britihs representatives at PAris and gained all of America's goals for independence despite the deviousness and meddling of France and Spain.

Front 11

John Locke

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English philosopher who wrote the governments have a duty to protect people's life, liverty, and property. Many colonial leaders read his ideas and incorporated them into their political rhetoric and thinking.

Front 12

Loyalists (Tories)

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Colonists who remained loyal to England. They often were older, better educated people who were members of the Andlican Church.

Front 13

Patrick Henry

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An early advocate of independence who was a strong opponent of the Stamp Act and a great defender of individual rights.

Front 14

Pontiac's Rebellion (1763)

Back 14

Indian uprising in the Ohio Valley region that killed 2000 settlers. As a result, the British sought peace with the Indians by prohibiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains (the Proclamation of 1763). The Americans saw this ban as an unlawful restriction of their rights and generally ignored it.

Front 15

Samuel Adams

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Agitator and leader of the Sons of Liverty who supported independence as soon as the British veered from alutary neglect. He was the primary leader of the Boston Tea Party and later a delegate to the Continental Congress.

Front 16

Seven Years War

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Fought between England and France from 1756-63. It was known as the French and Indian War in the colonies. It started as a result of Pontica's Rebellion and resulted in France's withdrawal from North America. It was the impetus for Parliament's taxing policy that led to the American Revolution.

Front 17

Sons of Liberty

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Street gangs that formed during the Stamp Act crisis to enforce the boycotts and prevent the distribution and sale of the tax stamps. They were the vanguard of the revolution as they intimidated British officials with violence.

Front 18

Stamp Act (1765)

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A tax on over 50 items such as pamphlets, newspapers, playing cards, and dice. It set off a strong protest among the colonists, who claimed it was an internal tax designed only to raise revenue and therefore unlawful for Parliament to levy.

Front 19

Stamp Act Congress (1765)

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Met in New York City to protest the Stamp Act; 9 of the 13 colonies petitioned the king and organized a boycott that eventually helped to froce the repeal of the tax. This meeting and action was a major step to colonial unity and resitance of British authority.

Front 20

Sugar Act (1764)

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Designed to raise revenue by stiffening the Molasses Act (1733), establishing new customs regulations, and trying smugglers in British vice-admiralty courts. This was teh first attempt to tax the colonies in order to raise revenue rather than regulate trade. It actually lowered the tax on imported sugar in hopes of discouraging smugglers and thereby increasing collection of the tax.

Front 21

Thomas Jefferson

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Lead author of the Declaration of Independence. In it, he explained the colonists' philosophy of government and the reasons for independence. He wrote that governments that did not protect unalienable rights should be changed.

Front 22

Thomas Paine

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Writer of "Common Sense", and electrifying pamphlet of January 1776 calling for a break with England.

Front 23

Townshend Acts (1767)

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Levied taxes on imported items such as paper, glass, and tea. These taxes were designed to address colonial resistance to "internal taxation" like the Stamp Act, which had no connection to trade and was intended only to raise revenue.

Front 24

Virtual Representation

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Idea offered by Britain to colnists' demands of representation in Parliament and to establish lawful authority to tax them. The explanation was that Parliament was a collective representation of all Englishmen regardless of where they lived. According to this argument, a group's interest was represented in London by virtue of it being English.