First Settlements
The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607.
What is Jamestown?
The main cash crop of the Virginia colony, which drove its economy and led to a high demand for labor.
What is tobacco?
This series of four wars, fought between 1689 and 1763, was a major source of conflict between Great Britain and France for control of North America.
What were the French and Indian Wars?
This 1765 act required colonists to pay a tax on all legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards.
What is the Stamp Act?
This event in 1770 resulted in British soldiers firing on a crowd of colonists, killing five people.
What is the Boston Massacre?
This group of separatists from the Church of England sailed on the Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony.
Who were the Pilgrims?
The name given to the dangerous sea journey enslaved Africans were forced to endure across the Atlantic.
What is the Middle Passage?
This 1676 rebellion in Virginia was led by a man of the same name against the governor's policies toward Native Americans.
What was Bacon's Rebellion?
This act, which taxed items like glass, lead, paper, and tea, led to widespread protests and boycotts.
What are the Townshend Acts?
This pamphlet, written by Thomas Paine, argued forcefully for American independence from Great Britain.
What is Common Sense?
This term refers to the difficult and often deadly first winter experienced by the Jamestown colonists.
What is the "Starving Time"?
This colonial region, known for its rocky soil and long winters, relied on trade, shipbuilding, and fishing rather than large-scale farming.
What is New England?
The final and decisive conflict in North America between Britain and France, also known as the Seven Years' War.
What is the French and Indian War?
This famous protest in 1773 saw colonists, disguised as Native Americans, dump 342 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor.
What is the Boston Tea Party?
The first two battles of the American Revolution, fought on April 19, 1775.
What are the battles of Lexington and Concord?
This Native American tribe, led by a chief of the same name, had complex and often tense relations with the Jamestown colonists.
Who were the Powhatan?
A system where an individual would work for a set number of years in exchange for passage to the colonies and a grant of land.
What is an indentured servant?
The Native American confederation that allied with the British during the French and Indian War.
Who were the Iroquois?
The rallying cry used by colonists to protest the lack of representation in the British Parliament.
What is "No taxation without representation"?
The official document, adopted on July 4, 1776, that declared the 13 colonies independent from Great Britain.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
The first legislative assembly in the American colonies, established in Virginia in 1619.
What is the House of Burgesses?
The name of the intellectual and religious movement in the mid-18th century that emphasized reason, science, and individual rights.
What is the Enlightenment?
This order from the British King in 1763 forbade colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.
What is the Proclamation of 1763?
The name for the series of four punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party.
What are the Intolerable Acts?
The name given to the American colonists who remained loyal to the British crown during the revolution.
Who were the Loyalists?