9.1 Summary & Structure Terms

To Begin the World Over Again 9.1 – Declarations of Independence 9.1 Summary & Structure Terms

In Sum

Session 9.1 – Declarations of Independence

Parliament’s punishment for the Boston Tea Party came in the form of the Coercive Acts, called in the colonies the “Intolerable Acts,” which effectively cut Boston off from the world while also depriving Massachusetts of its own government. A groundswell of support for the beleaguered colonists of Massachusetts developed throughout the colonies. Influenced in part by Jefferson’s Summary View, the First Continental Congress adopted the radical Suffolk Resolves, among other things organizing a general boycott of British goods. Events escalated into a shooting war at the Battles of Lexington and Concord after British troops attempted to seize militia supplies. A Second Continental Congress met in 1775, issuing a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. While the Congress met, the Battle of Bunker Hill demonstrated that the unfolding war was likely to be a very bloody one. By early 1776, Tom Paine’s Common Sense was converting agitators for English rights into agitators for American independence, and by May Virginia had actually declared its own independence. In early July, the Continental Congress adopted the Jefferson-penned Declaration of Independence as thirteen “States,” united in federation. The states had seceded from the British Empire, and each now claimed “full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do…” “[W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” the Declaration’s signees “mutually pledge[d] to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor.”

Early 19th-century engraved vignette of Trumbull’s painting Declaration of Independence

Structure Terms

Try to match each of the following terms from the text to its proper definition below. Next, try to connect each term to at least one other term. Thus, your first task is to define, and your second task is to connect. When you are finished, you should have a mastery-term-based “structure” that includes all of the items on the following list.

For help getting started, listen to the professor introduce the technique below.

9.1 Terms

Hessians
Continental Army
Prohibitory Act
Common Sense
Suffolk Resolves
Second Continental
Congress
Declaration of Independence
Coercive Acts
A Summary View of the Rights of British America
First Continental Congress
Battle of Bunker Hill
Siege of Boston
Revolutionary War
Battles of Lexington and Concord
Fifth Virginia Convention

Definitions

German mercenaries hired by the British during the Revolutionary War
a 1775 act prohibiting all trade by England with the American colonies—and removing all royal protection from American merchants
a 1774 declaration made by a Massachusetts county to nullify several of the “Intolerable Acts,” urging the raising of colonial militia, supporting a Massachusetts government free of royal authority, and calling for non-payment of taxes
joint 1776 declaration by thirteen colonies—now “states”—of their political separation from Britain
1774 meeting of ambassadors from twelve of the thirteen colonies that adopted the Suffolk Resolves and organized the Continental Association (with its Committees of Inspection)
lasting from April 1775 to March 1776, this was the Revolutionary War’s first episode—characterized by a Boston occupied by British troops but surrounded by colonial militia preventing any sort of inland movement
an unsuccessful British attempt to seize militia supplies in April 1775 led to these two confrontations, signaling the opening of the Revolutionary War
Thomas Jefferson’s tract outlining the colonial position on the relationship between the colonies, their assemblies, Parliament, and the King
armed struggle between the British and “Patriot” revolutionaries—the latter by 1776 organized into “united States”—that began in 1775 and ended with the revolutionaries’ victory in 1783
June engagement between the British and Massachusetts militia after the latter had secured Breed’s Hill and placed fortifications thereon; though the British emerged victorious, the victors suffered far heavier losses
also called the “Intolerable Acts,” these were mostly designed to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party—but ended up instead fueling a Revolution
The revolutionary convention that declared the independence of the most powerful of the thirteen colonies
meeting of ambassadors from thirteen colonies (after 2 July, 1776 “States”) that organized a Continental Army, coordinated the war effort, declared joint independence, and drew up the Articles of Confederation
essay by Thomas Paine that seems to have been pivotal in turning many American colonists from agitators for their rights as freeborn Englishmen into revolutionaries seeking complete secession from the British empire
military force created by the Second Continental Congress, with George Washington as its head

Battle of Lexington – 19 April, 1775

9.1 Flashcards

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