APUSH: Colonial America & the American Revolution

Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607

Tobacco wore out soil fast, pushing settlers west onto Native lands.

The first elected representative assembly in the English colonies, in Virginia.

An agreement signed by the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower to form a self-governing body and obey its laws.

John Winthrop

Frontier settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon rebelled against Virginia's governor, William Berkeley. Afterward, planters shifted from indentured servants toward enslaved African labor.

The Middle Passage

The economic theory that colonies exist to enrich the mother country by supplying raw materials and buying its manufactured goods, building up its gold and silver.

Colonial trade had to go through England and on English (or colonial) ships; certain goods could be sold only to England.

Britain's loose enforcement of trade laws in the colonies (roughly 1690s–1763), which let colonists grow used to self-government.

A Protestant revival led by preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. It stressed personal faith and encouraged colonists to question established authority.

John Locke

Britain won France's North American lands east of the Mississippi (including Canada), but ended up deeply in debt and began taxing the colonies.

Meant to avoid more wars with Native nations, it angered land-hungry colonists.

The first direct tax on the colonies, on printed materials such as newspapers and legal documents. Colonists protested “no taxation without representation” and it was repealed in 1766.

That Parliament had full authority to make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” It was passed the same day the Stamp Act was repealed.

Import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea. Colonists answered with boycotts (non-importation agreements).

British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, killing five colonists. Patriots such as Paul Revere used it as propaganda.

The Tea Act, which gave the British East India Company a monopoly on tea sold in the colonies.

The Intolerable (Coercive) Acts

Delegates from 12 colonies met in Philadelphia, organized a boycott of British goods and asked the king to restore their rights.

“The shot heard round the world.”

Common Sense

July 4, 1776; Thomas Jefferson

The American victory convinced France to ally with the United States (Treaty of Alliance, 1778).

Yorktown

British recognition of US independence, with a western border at the Mississippi River.

No power to tax No power to regulate interstate commerce No executive or national courts Amendments needed all 13 states

An uprising of indebted Massachusetts farmers. It showed how weak the national government was and pushed leaders to call the Constitutional Convention.

It is the Articles of Confederation's biggest success.