Unit 2 Study Guide: The Revolutionary Era

Chapter 4: The Imperial Perspective

British Wars for Empire

King William’s War (1689-1697)

Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)

War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739)

King George’s War (1744-1748)

French and Indian War (1754-1763)

Mercantile system

Navigation Acts and their enforcement

Dominion of New England

Leisler’s Rebellion-1691

Examine the effects of the Glorious Revolution on the American colonies

John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government

Salutary neglect

What were the powers of the colonial assemblies?

George Washington

Ft. Duquesne

Ft. Necessity

Benjamin Franklin

Albany Congress

Albany Plan of Union

William Pitt

Plains of Abraham/Battle of Quebec

Treaty of Paris of 1763

What were the effects of the French and Indian War on both the British and the colonists?

Pontiac’s Rebellion

Possible essays:

  1. From 1600-1763, several European nations vied for control of the North American continent. Why did England win this struggle?
  1. Britain’s wars for empire, far more than its mercantilist policies, dictated the economic fortunes of Britain’s North American colonies in the eighteenth century. Assess the validity of this statement.
  1. Analyze the cultural and economic responses of TWO of the following groups to the Indians of North America before 1750.

British, French, Spanish

  1. Analyze the impact of the Atlantic trade routes established in the mid-1600s on economic development in the British North American colonies. Consider the period 1650-1750.
  2. For the period before 1750, analyze the ways in which Britain’s policy of salutary neglect influenced the development of American society as illustrated in the following:
  3. Legislative assemblies
  4. Commerce
  5. Religion
  1. In what ways did the French and Indian War (1754-1763) alter the political, economic, and ideological relations between Britain and its American colonies?

Chapter Five: From Empire to Independence

George III

George Grenville

Sugar Act (Revenue Act of 1764)

Currency Act

Stamp Act

Quartering Act

Nonimportation agreements

Virginia Resolves

Patrick Henry

Stamp Act Congress

Declaratory Act

Townshend Acts

John Dickinson

Samuel Adams

Sons/Daughters of Liberty

Boston “Massacre”

Vice-admiralty courts

Paxton Boys

Regulator Movement

Gaspee affair

British East India Company

Tea Act

Committees of Correspondence

Boston Tea Party

Intolerable (Coercive) Acts

First Continental Congress

“no taxation without representation”

General Thomas Gage

Lexington and Concord

Second Continental Congress

Battle of Bunker Hill

Oliver Branch Petition

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms

Common Sense

What causes for independence were articulated in the Declaration of Independence? How/why did Jefferson’s first draft differ from the final document?

Possible essays:

  1. “During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, British colonists in America charged Great Britain with violating the ideals of the rule of law, self-government, and ultimately, equality of rights. Yet the colonists themselves violated these ideals in their treatment of blacks, American Indians, and even poorer classes of white settlers.” Assess the validity of this statement.
  1. In the two decades before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, a profound shift occurred in the way many Americans thought and felt about the British government and their colonial governments. Assess the validity of this statement in view of the political and constitutional debates of these decades.
  1. The American Revolution should really be called “The British Revolution” because marked changes in British colonial policy were more responsible for the final political division than were American actions. Assess the validity of this statement for the period 1763-1776.
  1. Despite the view of some historians that the conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen North American colonies was economic in origin, in fact the American Revolution had its roots in politics and other areas of American life. Assess the validity of this statement.
  1. “This history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States.” Evaluate this accusation made against George III in the Declaration of Independence.
  1. Evaluate the relative importance of the following as factors prompting Americans to rebel in 1776:
  2. Parliamentary taxation
  3. Restriction of civil liberties
  4. British military measures
  5. The legacy of colonial religious and political ideas
  1. To what extent had the colonists developed a sense of their identity and unity as Americans by the eve of the American Revolution?

Chapter Six: The American Revolution

Continental Army

George Washington

Battle of Long Island

The American Crisis

Battle of Trenton

Hessians

Loyalists/Tories

How unified were Americans in their support of the revolutionary cause at the outbreak of the American Revolution?

How was the Continental Congress able to finance the war effort? What effects did their actions have on the economy?

What were the effects of Washington’s decision to inoculate the Continental Army against smallpox?

Battle of Saratoga

Treaty of Amity and Commerce and Treaty of Alliance with France

What role did the French play in securing an American victory in the Revolution?

Valley Forge

Baron von Steuben

George Rogers Clark

Joseph Brant

Nathanael Greene

Benedict Arnold

Lord Cornwallis

Yorktown

Treaty of Paris (1783)

How did the state constitutions created during and after the Revolution impact the eventual structure of the American national government?

Articles of Confederation

What effects did the Revolution have on the rights of poorer citizens?

How did Americans deal with the paradox of slavery in the Revolutionary era?

In what ways did the Revolution affect the status of American women?

Judith Sargent Murray

Abigail Adams

What effects did the Revolution have on various religious sects such as Anglicans, Quakers, and Catholics?

Possible essays:

  1. Analyze the extent to which the American Revolution represented a radical alteration in American political ideas and institutions. Confine your answer to the period 1775 to 1800.
  1. Analyze the impact of the American Revolution on both slavery and the status of women in the period 1775-1800.
  1. To what extent did the American Revolution fundamentally change American society? In your answer, be sure to address the political, social, and economic effects of the Revolution in the period from 1775 to 1800.