| A | B |
|---|
| Indentured Servant | Person bound to serve another person for a stated period of time as an apprentice in exchange for transatlantic passage |
| Jamestown | First successful English colony in North America; named for King James I; established by the Virginia Company of London in 1607; colonists guaranteed the same rights as English citizens |
| Massachusetts Bay Company | Established Massachusetts Bay Colony; English charter gave land in New England to Puritans which provided cheap land to colonist in 1629; John Winthrop became first governor; allowed all church men to vote for governor even if they did not own land; later male church members elected representatives to an assembly called the General Court |
| Puritans | Former members of the Church of England; known as Separtists; received charter to form the Massachusetts Bay Company; between 1629 and 1640 more than 20,000 people journeyed from England; many settled in the Boston area; first group in the colonies to require a free, public school education for all children |
| Quakers | Members of a Christian denomination founded in the Seventeenth Century; settled in the middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania |
| Triangular Trade | Colonial trade route between New England, the West Indies, and Africa; shippers willing to "trye all ports" with all kinds of freight; common commerce for the time: rum from New England ports to west coast of Africa for slaves, then to the Caribbean for sugar which was taken north to trade for more rum |
| Beadbasket Colonies | Agricultural middle colonies; exporters of grains |
| Mason-Dixon Line | Boundary separating Pennsylvania and Maryland; regarded as the line separating the northern colonies and the southern colonies; surveyed between 1763 and 1767 |
| Gentry | Colonial landowners of a high social standing |
| Boston Massacre | Shooting of five Bostonians by British soldiers on March 5, 1770; a spark of the Revolutionary War |
| Boston Tea Party | Protest over British colonial policies and taxes, Bostonians, dressed as Indians, dumped British tea into the harbor in 1773 |
| First Continental Congress | Meeting of representatives from twelve colonies in Philadelphia in 1774; encouraged the boycott of trade with Great Britain until British taxes were repealed |
| French and Indian War | Conflict between the French and the British in North America; fought from 1754-1763; British won the war and acquired territory in North America from the French |
| Loyalists | Colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution |
| Patriots | Colonists who supported the American Revoluation and independence from Great Britain |
| Proclamation of 1763 | British law that prohibited American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains |
| Quartering Act | Law passed in 1765 by the British Parliament that required colonist to provide housing, candles, bedding, and food to British soldiers stationed in the colonies |
| Stamp Act | Law passed by the British Parliament in 1765 that taxed legal documents, newspapers, almanacs, playing cards, and dice |
| Townshend Acts | British laws passed in 1767 which taxed goods such as glass, paint, paper, silk, and tea |
| Adams, John | Second President, 1791 to 1826; Vice President under Washington; ammassador to England and a strong supporter of American independence; a Federalist who supported a strong central govenment |
| Adams, Samuel | Leading Massachusetts' patriot; organized committees of correspondence which wrote letters and pamphlets reporting on events taking place in the colonies |
| Bunker Hill | Overlooks Boston Harbor; site of the first major battle of the American Revolutionary War |
| Cornwallis, Lord | British general whose surrender to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ended the American Revolution in 1781 |
| Franklin, Benjamin | American writer, inventor, scientist, and statesman; helped prepare the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; secured the military support of the French for the colonies during the American Revolution |
| George III | British king whose policies led to the American Revolution |
| Henry, Patrick | American patriot and Virginia statesman who gave the famous "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" speech; led the movement for the creation of a Bill of Rights; first governor of Virginia |
| Jefferson, Thomas | Third President, 1801-1809; author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; ambassador to France; served as the nation's first Secretary of State; negotiated the Louisiana Purchases in 1803; donated his large collection of books to begin the Library of Congress; founder of the University of Virginia |
| Lexington & Concord | Site of the first clash between minutemen (colonist) and British troops in 1775 where the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired |
| North, Lord | British Prime Minister whose policies angered the colonist and led to the American Revolution |
| Paine, Thomas | British-born author of the pamphlet called Common Sense, published in 1776, which urged the colonists to declare their independence from England |
| Revere, Paul | American patriot; a silversmith who, in 1775, rode to warn colonial militia at Lexington and Concord that the British were coming |
| Saratoga | City in eastern New York; site of a battle in 1777 that was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War |
| Second Continental Congress | Second meeting of delegates from the colonies held in Philadelphia in 1775; voted to reunite with Great Britain if the Parliament would repeal the Intolerable Acts; created the Continental Army with George Washington as commander |
| Valley Forge | Winter headquarters of the Continental Army in 1777-1778, located near Philadelphia |
| Washington, George | Colonial leader; first President of the United States, 1789 to 1797; commanded the Continental Army during the American Revolution; rejected a proposal to make him king after the American Revolution |
| Yorktown | Town in Virginia on the York River where General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington in 1781 |
| Blockade | Closing of a port with ships to keep people and supplies from moving in or out; tactic used by the colonist, with the help of France and Spain, to defeat the British |
| Treaty of Paris | Peace treaty signed in 1783 that officially ended the American Revolution |
