Americans responded to the Stamp Act by comparing it to which past event?
A. The Dominion of New England
At the First Continental Congress in 1774, New England delegates advocated which of the following plans?
D. Political union and defensive military preparations
At the same time that Parliament imposed the Stamp Act, it also passed the Quartering Act, which required
C. colonial governments to provide barracks and food for British troops sent to America to protect them.
By 1770, after five years of crisis and debate over American sovereignty,
D. outspoken colonial leaders had repudiated Parliament and claimed equality for their own assemblies under the king.
For which of the following reasons did the British government resolve to punish the boycotters and enforce the Townshend Duties by 1769?
D. Hard-hit by the boycott, British merchants and manufacturers petitioned Parliament to repeal the Townshend Duties.
George Grenville conceived the Sugar Act of 1764 to replace which of the following acts?
C. The Molasses Act of 1733
George Grenville designed the Sugar Act of 1764 to accomplish which of the following?
B. Improve colonial merchants' compliance with customs laws
How did Britain's skyrocketing national debt affect its government in England and America in the 1760s?
B. The need for higher taxes spurred Britain to increase the size and power of its bureaucracy in England and America.
How did British politicians respond to the American's cry of "no taxation without representation"?
C. Politicians argued that the colonists already had virtual representation.
How did the authorities in Great Britain respond to the American boycott of 1768-1769?
D. Lord Hillsborough--secretary of state for American affairs--dispatched British troops to Boston
How did the Daughters of Liberty contribute to the American boycott of British goods in the late 1760s?
D. They promoted nonimportation by making and wearing homespun cloth.
How did the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 compare to the crisis over the Townshend duties in 1768?
D. The stakes had risen: In 1765, American resistance to taxation had provoked an argument in Parliament; in 1768, it produced a British plan for military coercion.
In the 1760s and early 1770s, lawyers and other educated Americans used common-law arguments mainly to
B. assert the colonists' rights and liberties as Englishmen.
In the decade before the American Revolution, the colonists' achieved the greatest effect by using which of the following means of protest?
A. Boycotts
In which of the following ways did the Rockingham ministry in Britain fashion a compromise to the Stamp Act crisis in 1766?
B. It repealed the Stamp Act, lowered the molasses tax, and crafted the Declaratory Act.
John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania was a response to which of the following policies?
A. The Stamp Act
Members of activist groups, such as the Sons of Liberty, were typically which of the following?
D. Artisans, shopkeepers, poor laborers, and seamen
On what basis did the American colonists object to the vice-admiralty courts in which violators of the Sugar Act were tried?
A. The courts were run by British-appointed judges and did not involve juries.
Patriots' widely publicized use of natural rights arguments to protest British actions in the 1760s inspired which of the following?
D. African American slaves to petition the Massachusetts legislature for the abolition of slavery
The 1774 Coercive Acts applied to which of the following colonies?
D. Massachusetts only
The colonists' real objections to the Sugar Act stemmed from which of the following?
D. The growing administrative power of the British government over the colonies
The Stamp Act was instituted by Parliament in the colonies in 1765; it was
Select one:
A. part of England's plan to create a more centralized imperial system in America.
The Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed duties on which of the following goods?
Select one:
B. Paper, paint, glass, and tea imported into the colonies
What percentage of the average American colonists' income in the 1760s was typically spent on taxes?
B. 25 percent
What prompted many southern yeomen and tenant farmers finally to support independence from Britain in 1775?
C. Virginia's royal governor's promise to free any slave who joined the Loyalists
Which aspect of the Townshend Acts posed a great danger to American political autonomy, according to the colonists?
D. The use of its revenue to pay royal officials
Which of the following actions did Lord North's government take in response to the First Continental Congress in 1775?
B. Labeling the Continental Congress an illegal assembly
Which of the following actions did the First Continental Congress ultimately decide to implement in 1774?
D. Threatening to cut off almost all American exports to Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies
Which of the following describes the First Continental Congress of 1774?
B. The group united representatives from all of the British colonies in North America.
Which of the following events took place during the Second Continental Congress in 1775?
A. George Washington became head of the Continental army.
Which of the following factors was among those that motivated many merchants, artisans, and journeymen to protest against the Stamp Act?
B. Fear that their personal liberty would be undermined
Which of the following individuals would have been an unlikely Loyalist in 1776?
A. A yeoman farmer in Connecticut
Which of the following outcomes resulted from the Continental Congress' approval of the Declaration of Independence?
D. Loyalists and anti-independence moderates left the Congress.
Which of the following statements characterizes responses to the planned Stamp Act?
C. British politicians, with the exception of William Pitt, refused to consider the idea of American representation in Parliament.
Which of the following statements characterizes the British government's attempts to meet its war debt following the Great War for Empire?
A. Parliament increased import taxes on items used by the poor and middling classes such as sugar and beer.
Which of the following statements characterizes the participation of farmers in the Patriot movement by 1774?
C. Farmers, angered by high taxes and Britain's demands that their sons do military service, increasingly backed the rebel cause.
Which of the following statements describes the Boston Massacre, which took place on March 5, 1770?
A. Five Bostonians were shot and killed by British troops who were later exonerated of the crime.
Which of the following statements describes the historical significance of the April 1776 Battle of Lexington and Concord?
B. The bloodshed that took place made further compromise impossible.
Which of the following statements describes the Stamp Act Congress, which was held in New York in 1765?
C. The delegates protested loss of American liberties and challenged the act's constitutionality.
Which of the following statements most describes the colonial boycott efforts of 1768-1769?
D. Support began in seaport cities, then spread to more major population centers.
Which of the following was one reason the British sent 7,500 troops to North America after the end of the Great War for Empire in 1763?
B. The British government sought to prevent future Indian uprisings on the frontier.
Which of the following was part of British Parliament's effort to govern the colonies after the Great War for Empire ended in 1763?
C. The seizure of American vessels carrying supplies from the mainland to the French West Indies
Which of the following was the purpose of the Tea Act imposed by Parliament on the colonies in May 1773?
B. The British needed to bail out the financially strapped British East India Company.
Which Patriot leader persuaded Bostonians to create the first committee of correspondence?
A. Samuel Adams
Who led the moderate faction at the Second Continental Congress and won approval of a petition expressing loyalty to George III and asking for a repeal of oppressive parliamentary legislation?
D. John Dickinson
Why did Chesapeake slave owners increasingly rally to the Patriot cause?
A. They feared the British would seize control of courts and assemblies in the South if they succeeded in doing so in Massachusetts. Correct
Why did New Englanders resent the Quebec Act of 1774?
D. It recognized Catholicism as the official religion of Quebec
Why did radical Patriots in the colonies object to the Tea Act of 1773?
A. They saw it as a bribe to eliminate colonial tax resistance. Correct
Why did the British General Gage refuse to use his military force to protect the stamps that were to be used once the Stamp Act took effect?
C. Gage believed that military force would disperse the protests but spark an insurrection.
Why was the popular pamphlet entitled Common Sense significant?
D. It called for republicanism and convinced many colonists of the need to fight for American independence.
Sugar act of 1764
British law that decreased the duty on French molasses, making it more attractive for shippers to bey the law, and at the same time raised penalties for smuggling
vice-admiralty courts
a maritime tribunal presided over by a royally appointed judge, w no jury
stamp act of 1765
British law imposing a tax on all paper used in colonies
virtual representation
british claim that the interests of the American colonists were adequately represented in Parliament
Quartering Acts of 1765
a british law passed by Parliament at the request of General Thomas Gage that required colonial governments to provide barracks and food for troops
Stamp Act Congress
a congress of delegates from nine assemblies protested the loss of American 'rights and liberties'
Sons of Liberty
colonists, mostly artisans, and merchants who banded together to protest the stamp act and other reforms
English common law
the centuries old body of legal rules and procedures that protected the lives and property of the British monarch's subject
natural rights
the rights to life, liberty, and property
Declaratory Acts of 1766
law issued by Parliament to assert Parliament's unassailable right to legislate for its British colonies "in all cases whatsoever" putting Americans on notice that the simultaneous repeal of the Stamp Act changed nothing in the imperial powers of Britain
Townshend Act of 1767
est. new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper, and painters' colors imported to the colonies
non importation movement
colonists attempted non importation agreement 3 times
committees of correspondence
a communication network established among towns in the colonies and among colonial assemblies between 1772 and 1773 to provide rapid dissemination of news and about important political developments
Tea Act of May 1773
British acts the lowered the exisitng tax on tea and granted exemptions to the East India company to make their tea cheaper in the colonies
Coercive Acts
4 british acts of 1774 meant to punish Massachusetts for destruction of shiploads of tea (also known as Intolerable Acts)
Continental Congress
sept. 1774 gathering of colonial delegates in Philadelphia to discuss the crisis precipitated by the Coercive Acts The Congress produced a declaration of rights and an agreement to impose a limited boycott of trade with Britain
Dunmore's War
a 1774 war led by Virginia's royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, against the Ohio Shawnees who had a long claim to Kentucky as a hunting ground
Minutemen
colonial militiamen who stood ready to mobilize on short notice during the imperial crisis of 1770s
Second Continental Congress
Legislative body that governed the US from May 1775 through the war's duration. It established an army, created it own money, and declared independence
Declaration of Independence
a document containing philosophical principles and a list of grievances that declared separation from Britain
popular sovereignty
the principle the ultimate power lies in the hands of the electorate
George Greenville
...
John Dickenson
...
Charles Townshend
...
Lord North
...
Samuel Adams
...
Lord Dunmore
...
Thomas Paine
...
Thomas Jefferson
...