| A | B |
|---|
| assembly | a lawmaking body |
| town meeting | gathering of a town's citizens to discuss and solve local problems |
| Thomas Jefferson | 3rd President of the U.S. from 1801-1809. He was also a political philosopher and the author of the Declaration of Independence who later bought the Louisiana Purchase from France |
| Richard Henry Lee | Virginia planter, patriot, and signer of the Declaration of Independence |
| militia | group of volunteers who fought in times of emergency during the colonial period and the American Revolution |
| delegate | a member of an elected assembly |
| John Adams | 2nd President of the U.S. from 1797-1801. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention and the Continental Congress |
| John Peter Zenger | Newspaper printer whose trial in 1734 helped to establish the idea of freedom of the press |
| Phillis Wheatley | enslaved American poet whose poems called for fair treatment for all people |
| rebel | to oppose those in charge, even to the point of fighting with weapons, because of different ideas about what is right |
| Stamp Act | a law passed by the British Parliament in 1765 requiring colonists to pay a tax on newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents, and even playing cards |
| Patrick Henry | Virginia Burgess who encouraged the colonists to fight for the independence from Great Britain |
| treason | the betrayal of one's country by giving help to the enemy |
| Sons of Liberty | groups of colonists who organized themselves to protest against the British government |
| Samuel Adams | Patriot and leader in the American Revolution. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty |
| repeal | to withdraw or cancel |
| Townshend Act | Taxes passed by Parliament in 1767 for goods brought into the colonies |
| boycott | to refuse to do business or have a contact with a person, group, country, or product |
| Mercy Otis Warren | Patriot, poet, and playwright who urged women to give up tea and other taxable goods from Great Britain |
| Crispus Attucks | Patriot and former slave who was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre |
| Committees of Correspondence | groups organized in the 1770's to keep colonists informed of important events |
| Abigail Adams | 1st Lady to President John Adams. She wrote many letters about the role of women in the new country |
| Boston Tea Party | a protest against British taxes in which Boston colonists, disguised as Mohawks, dumped valuable tea into Boston Harbor |
| Intolerable Acts | the laws passed by the British Parliament that closed Boston Harbor, dissolved the Massachusetts Assembly, and forced Boston colonists to house British soldiers |
| First Continental Congress | the assembly of colonial delegates from every colony except Georgia that met in 1774 in Philadelphia to oppose the Intolerable Acts |
| minutemen | well-trained volunteer soldiers who defended the American colonies against the British at a minute's notice |
| American Revolution | the war between Great Britain and its 13 American colonies from 1775-1783 that led to the founding of the United States of America |
| Lexington and Concord | sites of the earliest battles of the American Revolution |
| John Hancock | Patriot known for his bodly written signature on the Declaration of Independence |
| Paul Revere | Boston patriot and silversmith who, on the night of April 18, 1775, rode to warn the people of Lexington the British troops were coming |
| Willaim Dawes | Patriot who rode with Revere on April 18, 1775, to warn colonists that British troops were coming |
| John Parker | Patriot captain at the Battle of Lexington, where the first shots in the American Revolution were fired |
| Ethan Allen | leader of the "Green Mountain Boys," the Vermont militiaman who captured Fort Ticonderoga in the American Revolution |
| Fort Ticonderoga | a fort on Lake Champlain, New York; site of an important battle in the American Revolution |
| Charlestown | a town in Massachusetts across the Charles River from Boston; the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought near there |
| Israel Putnam | Patriot general at the Battle of Bunker Hill |
| Peter Salem | Patriot and former slave whose shot killed British Colonel Pitcairn at the Battle of Bunker Hill |
| Battle of Bunker Hill | Costly British "victory" over Colonial forces at a site near Charlestown, Massachusetts |
