| A | B |
|---|
| Continental Congress | group that decided to continue boycotting British goods and prepare a militia in case violence broke out with the British |
| siege | military blockade of a city or fort |
| Continental Army | army organized and funded by the 2nd Continental Congress in 1775 to defend the American colonies from Britain |
| Lexington and Concord | two northeastern Massachusetts towns where the first fighting of the American Revolution took place in 1775 |
| Second continental Congress | group that organized and funded an army to defend the colonies |
| First Continental Congress | meeting of colonial delegates in Philadelphia to decide how to handle increased British taxation and abuses by British authorities. |
| minutemen | members of colonial units who were supposed to be ready to fight on a minute's notice |
| Redcoats | name given to British soldiers by the colonists because of the uniforms worn by the British |
| Olive Branch Petition | peace request sent by the Second Continental Congress to Britain's King George III, who rejected it. |
| Common Sense | anti-monarchy pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that convinced many American colonists of the need to break away from Britain |
| Declaration of Independence | document that defined what the colonists believed to be their rights, spelled out their complaints against Britain and declared that the colonies were free and independent |
| Patriots | colonists who chose to fight for indpendence |
| Loyalists | Colonists who considered it their duty to side with Britain during the colonial fight for independence |
| mercenaries | hired foreign soldiers |
| guerrilla warfare | military tactic of engaging in swift hit and run attacks |
| Treaty of Paris | peace agreement signed in 1783 that officially ended the Revolutionary War and established British recognition of the United States |
| George Washington | commander of Continental Army |
| Thomas Paine | author of "Common Sense" |
| Thomas Jefferson | author of the Declaration of Independence |
| William Howe | British general who could have ended the war but gave his troops a holiday and allowed Washington to bring in troops from Canada; took New York and Philadelphia for the British |
| Battle of Princeton and Trenton | Patriot victories in New Jersey |
| Marquis de Lafayette | Frenchman who helped the Americans and gave $2000 of his own money to support the Revolution |
| John Paul Jones | person who was responsible for most of the naval successes for the colonists |
| Baron Von Steuben | Prussian army officer who trained American troops at Valley Forge |
| George Rogers Clark | skilled frontiersman who organized a western campaign against the British |
| Francis Marion | Patriot who excelled in guerilla warfare - known as "The Swamp Fox" |
| Thomas Gage | British general in commond of troops at Boston who ordered the attack on Concord |
| Ethan Allen | Patriot who awakended the British commander and demanded the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga; leader of the Green Mountain Boys |
| Benedict Arnold | Patriot military leader who joined the British because he didn't like his treament by the Continental Congress. |
| Hessians | mercenaries from Germany who were hired to fight for the British. |
| General Cornwallis | British general who fought at the battle of Princeton and leader of the British campaign in the south; surrendered at Yorktown |
| Bunker Hill | early battle that demonstrated that the colonists could withstand a frontal assault from the British army |
| Fort Ticonderoga | strategic fort in northern New York that Patriots secured from the British in 1775 |
| Montreal and Quebec | 2 Canadian cities where Patriots fought the British |
| New York | state in which British troops led by Howe drove the Patriots out and they suffered more than twice the casualties |
| Saratoga | turning point of American Revolution that marked the greatest victory up to that point for the American forces and led to the surrender of British general Burgoyne |
| Yorktown | battle in which Washington's Patriots defeated the largest British force on the continent |
| Philadelphia | city where the First Continental Congress was held |
| Valley Forge | where Washington wintered his troops in 1777-78 |
| Battle of Bunker Hill(Breeds) | early battle that demonstrated that the colonists could withstand a frontal assault from the British army |
| Battle of Saratoga | 1777 battle that marked the greatest vicotry up to that point for the American forces and led to the surrender of General Burgoyne |
| Paul Revere | colonist who warned the Minutemen that British troops were marching toward Concord; developed a spy system for the Patriots |
| Deborah Sampson | patriot who disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Revolution |
| Battle of Saratoga | turning point of the Revolutionary War; battle that persuaded European countries to publicly support America |
| Abigal Adams | author of an appeal to include the rights of women in the Declaration of Independence |
| William Dawes | along with Paul Revere, this colonist rode to warn people that the British were coming |
| John Paul Jones | person who was responsible for most of the naval successes for the colonists |
| King George III | ruler of England during the Revolutionary War |
| General John Burgoyne | British General who surrendered at Saratoga |
| John Adams | did not attend the Constitutional Convention because he was serving as amgassador to Great Britain |
| Quamino Dolly | Georgia Slave who showed the British a secret trail that allowed them to sneak up on the Patriots and capture Savannah |
| Thomas Jefferson | didn't attend the Constitutional Convention because he was serving as ambassador to France |
| Roger Sherman | proposed the Great Compromise |
| Casimir Pulaski | officer from Poland who helped the Patriots by organizing and training cavalry units |
| Bernardo de Galvez | Governor of Spanish Louisiana who helped the Patriots by letting them use the port of New Orleans |
| Thaddeus Kosciusko | Polish officer who brought army engineering skills to the Patriot cause |
| Mary Ludwig Hays | known as Molly Pitcher; brought water to thirsty Patriot toops and later took her husbands place loading cannons when he was wounded in battle |
| Horatio Gates | General who led patriot troops in their victory at Saratoga |
| Horatio Gates | General who led the Patriots in their serious loss at Camden, South Carolina |
| Mum Bett | Massachusetts slave who sued for her freedom in 1781 |
| Dorchester Heights | Hill south of Boston and battle in which Patriots drove the British out of Boston |
| April 19, 1775 | Date that the first shot was fired at the beginning of the Revolutionary War |
| October 19, 1781 | date that the British surrender at Yorktown; it secures the American victory in the War |
| 1. established British recognition of the United States 2. laid out America's new borders: the Great Lakes to the north, the Mississippi to the west and 31 degrees north latitude to the south 3. British formally accepted American rights to settle and trade west of the original 13 colonies | terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1783 |
| Florida | A separate Treaty at the end of the war between Britain and Spain resulted in the return of ________ to Spanish control |
| Robert Livingston, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson | members of the five-person comittee to write the Declaration of Independence |
| Lord Dunmore | gave a procamation that offered slaves freedom in exchange for their service during the war |
| Trenton | battle in which George Washington planned a surprise attack the day after Christmas |
| Kaskashia, Cahokia | towns that surrendered to George Rogers Clark in his western campaign |
| Concord | battle in which the Patriots were able to hide their weapons arsenol and chase the British back to Boston |
| Princeton | battle won by Washington by using his campfire decoy |
| 6 1/2 years | length of the Revolutionary war |
