British Policies & Colonial Resistance
Colonists used this economic protest tactic by refusing to purchase British imports
Protest
This 1754–1763 conflict left Britain with significant war debts and helped lead to new colonial taxes.
French & Indian War
This 1776 document declared that all men are created equal and have natural rights.
Declaration of Independence
This 1787 convention met to address weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation and ultimately drafted a new Constitution.
Constitutional Convention
During the Revolution, women supported the Patriot cause by producing supplies and doing this kind of work for soldiers.
Domestic production and supplying the war effort
This 1765 British law taxed printed materials such as newspapers, legal documents, and pamphlets.
Stamp Act
This 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine helped persuade colonists to support independence from Britain.
These Enlightenment ideas influenced African American petitioners who argued that freedom was a natural and inalienable right.
Natural rights and equality
This 1794 agreement with Great Britain sought to resolve disputes and improve trade relations, but generated major controversy.
Jay's Treaty
This ideal held that women should educate their children in the civic virtues needed for a republic.
Republican Motherhood
This principle held that colonists should not be taxed by a legislature in which they had no elected representatives.
Taxation without Representation
This 1774 meeting brought representatives from 12 colonies together to coordinate a response to British policies, including the Intolerable Acts.
First Continental Congress
This group opposed ratification of the Constitution partly because it feared a powerful central government and inadequate protections for individual liberties.
Anti-Federalists
The controversy over Jay’s Treaty helped encourage the development of these organized groups in American politics.
Political Parties
What side did slaves' side with during the American Revolution & why?
Great Britain: Promises of freedom
These 1774 laws punished Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party and helped unite the colonies against British authority.
Intolerable Acts
In 1764, most colonist do not want independence from Great Britain. By 1776, a majority of them do. Explain one factor that led to this change in mindset.
Answers will vary
This set of amendments was added to the Constitution to protect individual liberties and address concerns about federal power
Bill of Rights
What was the name of the event that led to the Articles of Confederation being deemed as "weak"?
Shay's Rebellion
Explain why Revolutionary-era participation by women did not immediately result in nationwide voting rights for women.
Women’s contributions were often interpreted through traditional domestic roles, and political rights remained largely restricted to men.
After the French and Indian War, Britain sought greater colonial revenue and control. Explain how these policies helped move colonists toward revolution.
British taxes and restrictions increased colonial opposition, encouraged boycotts and protests, and strengthened arguments that British policies violated colonial rights.
A historian claims that British attacks on colonists were entirely unprovoked. Identify one type of colonial action that could challenge this claim and explain why.
Colonial boycotts, mob protests, or violence against royal officials could challenge this claim because colonists also took confrontational actions against British authority.
Explain how African Americans used the ideals of the American Revolution to challenge slavery, even though those ideals were not applied equally.
African Americans argued that natural rights and equality applied to enslaved people as well. They petitioned for freedom, contributing to gradual abolition in northern states and later debates over slavery.
Explain one major weakness of the Articles of Confederation that led American leaders to support creating a stronger federal government.
The national government could not effectively collect taxes, making it difficult to pay war debts and fund government operations.
Abigail Adams urged her husband John Adams to “remember the ladies” when creating new laws for the independent United States. What does this request reveal about the limits of the American Revolution’s ideals of liberty and equality?
Although the Revolution promoted liberty and natural rights, women (and slaves) continued to face political and legal inequalities. Abigail Adams’s request highlights the gap between revolutionary ideals and women’s limited rights in the new nation.