SSUSH1
Established in 1607 as a joint-stock venture by the Virginia Company, it became the first permanent English settlement in North America.
What is Jamestown?
This 18th-century religious revival emphasized a personal, emotional connection to God and challenged established religious and political authorities throughout the colonies.
What is the Great Awakening?
This 1763 treaty concluded the French and Indian War, forcing France to surrender Canada and its territorial claims east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain.
What is the Treaty of Paris of 1763?
Geography favored the Americans at this 1781 battle when combined French naval power and American ground troops trapped General Cornwallis on a Virginia peninsula.
What is the Battle of Yorktown?
Added to the Constitution to address Anti-Federalist concerns over federal overreach, these first ten amendments guaranteed individual civil liberties.
What is the Bill of Rights?
This Quaker leader founded Pennsylvania in 1682, establishing a colony renowned for its religious tolerance and fair compensation to American Indians for land.
Who is William Penn?
This 1676 uprising of poor frontier colonists against Virginia’s governor established the expectation that local government should protect all citizens, not just the wealthy elite.
What is Bacon's Rebellion?
Intended to prevent further conflicts with American Indians, this British proclamation angered colonists by forbidding settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.
What is the Proclamation of 1763?
Drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, this 1776 document relied heavily on John Locke’s Social Contract Theory to justify severing ties with Great Britain.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
Serving as America's first national constitution, this document deliberately created a weak central government that lacked the power to tax.
What are the Articles of Confederation?
Passed in the mid-1600s, these English laws mandated that colonial goods travel on English ships and required European imports to pass through English ports first.
What are the Navigation Acts?
This brutal middle leg of the trans-Atlantic trade routes forced hundreds of thousands of captive West Africans to the Americas under crowded and deadly conditions.
What is the Middle Passage?
Published anonymously in January 1776, this wildly popular pamphlet by Thomas Paine shifted public blame away from Parliament directly to King George III.
What is Common Sense?
During the harsh winter of 1777–1778 at this Pennsylvania site, European military officers Baron von Steuben and the Marquis de Lafayette helped train Washington's Continental Army into a professional force.
Where is Valley Forge?
This 1787 legislation established a path to statehood for western lands, required public funding for schools, and banned slavery in the region north of the Ohio River.
What is the Northwest Ordinance of 1787?
This economic theory, aimed at reducing imports while expanding exports, motivated Great Britain to acquire raw materials from its American colonies.
What is mercantilism?
Initiated by Prime Minister Robert Walpole in the 1720s, this unwritten British policy allowed colonies internal self-governance and flexible trade rules in exchange for economic productivity.
What is Salutary Neglect?
Enacted in 1765, this direct tax on all printed materials and legal documents affected virtually every colonist and sparked widespread "no taxation without representation" protests.
What is the Stamp Act?
This peace agreement officially ended the Revolutionary War in 1783, establishing the Mississippi River as the new western border of the United States.
What is the Treaty of Paris of 1783?
The Three-Fifths Compromise determined how enslaved populations would be counted to calculate a state's representation in this chamber of Congress.
What is the House of Representatives?
Signed aboard a ship in 1620 by separatist Pilgrims, this agreement established a pledge to govern their new Plymouth colony through majority rule.
What is the Mayflower Compact?
Established in Virginia in 1619, this body was the first elected legislative assembly in the American colonies.
What is the House of Burgesses?
Enacted by Parliament in 1774 to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, these five acts closed Boston Port and placed the colony under direct military control.
What are the Intolerable Acts?
American victory at this October 1777 battle in New York convinced the French government to formally enter a military alliance with the United States.
What is the Battle of Saratoga?
Led by indebted Massachusetts farmers in 1786–1787, this armed rebellion exposed the weakness of the central government under the Articles of Confederation and spurred calls for a Constitutional Convention.
What is Shays' Rebellion?