American Revolution: A Concise Overview of Events and People
Key Events and Figures of the American Revolution
Republicanism: Looking to the models of the ancient Greek and Roman republics.
Mercantilism: Believed that wealth was power and a country’s economic wealth could be measured by the amount of gold or silver.
Radical Whigs: American political thought derived from a group of British commentators.
George Grenville: A Prime Minister who ordered the British navy in 1763 to begin strictly enforcing the Navigation Laws.
Sugar Act 1764: The first law ever passed by that body for raising tax revenue in the colonies for the crown.
1765: A stamp tax, called the Stamp Act, was introduced to raise revenues to support the new military force.
Virtual Representation: Every member of Parliament represented all British subjects, even those Americans in Boston or Charleston who had never voted for a member of Parliament.
King George III: A statue of him was erected for the residents of New York, but it was later melted into thousands of bullets to be fired at his troops.
Townshend Acts: One of the most important regulations was a light import duty on glass, white lead, paper, paint, and tea.
Boston Massacre: In 1770, 60 people, tired of all the new regulations, started throwing snowballs at ten redcoats, which led to the Boston Massacre.
Crispus Attucks: He was considered a ringleader of the Boston Massacre.
Lord North: He was the Prime Minister of King George III.
British East India Company: A company overburdened with 17 million pounds of unsold tea, facing bankruptcy.
Intolerable Acts: The American Patriots’ name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party.
The Boston Tea Party: A political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston on December 16, 1773.
The Quebec Act of 1774: Formally known as the British North America Act 1774, it was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec.
The First Continental Congress: A meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that met in 1774 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution.
The Association: A universal prohibition of trade with Great Britain. Though it made a handful of exceptions, it prohibited import, consumption, and export of goods with England.
The Hessians: German auxiliaries contracted for military service by the British government, which found it easier to borrow money to pay for their service than to recruit its own soldiers.
William Pitt: A British politician who became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24.
Tory: An American colonist who supported the British side during the American Revolution.
Marquis de Lafayette: In the U.S., often known simply as Lafayette, was a French military officer who fought for the United States in the American Revolutionary War.
Valley Forge: The military camp in southeastern Pennsylvania where the American Continental Army spent the winter of 1777–1778 during the American Revolutionary War.
Baron von Steuben: A Prussian-born American military officer. He served as inspector general and Major General of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Casimir Pulaski: A Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander who has been called “the father of the American cavalry”.
Lord Dunmore: A Scottish peer and colonial governor in the American colonies. Murray was named governor of the Province of New York in 1770.