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The policy of building a nation's wealth by exporting more goods than it imports. Colonies are instrumental in this policy as they supply their parent nations with raw materials that are used to produce finished goods, and then exported back to the colonies. Colonies not only served as a source for the raw materials, but also as an exclusive market for the parent country.

A philosophy of limited government with elected representatives serving at the will of the people. The government is based on consent of the governed.

Theory that claimed that every member of Parliament represented all British subjects, even those Americans in Boston or Charleston who had never voted for a member of the London Parliament.

In 1765 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, requiring the colonists to pay for a stamp to go on many of the documents essential to their lives. These documents included deeds, mortgages, liquor licenses, playing cards, and almanacs. The colonists heartily objected to this direct tax and in protest petitioned the king, formed the Stamp Act Congress, and boycotted English imports. In 1766 Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, a major victory for colonists.

In 1767 "Champagne Charley" Townshend persuaded Parliament to pass the Townshend Acts. These acts put a light import duty on such things as glass, lead, paper, and tea. The acts met slight protest from the colonists, who found ways around the taxes such as buying smuggled tea. Due to its minute profits, the Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770, except for the tax on tea. The tax on tea was kept to keep alive the principle of Parliamentary taxation.

A clash between British troops and townspeople in Boston in 1770, before the Revolutionary War. The British fired into a crowd that was threatening them, killing five, including Crispus Attucks.

Samuel Adams started the first committee in Boston in 1772 to spread propaganda and secret information by way of letters. They were used to sustain opposition to British policy. The committees were extremely effective and a few years later almost every colony had one. This is another example of the colonies breaking away from Europe to become Americans.

a raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor (December 16, 1773) in which Boston colonists, disguised as Indians, threw the contents of several hundred chests of tea into the harbor as a protest against British taxes on tea and against the monopoly granted the East India Company.

The Acts passed in 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, that were considered unfair because they were designed to chastise Boston in particular, yet effected all the colonies by the Boston Port Act which closed Boston Harbor until damages were paid.

a convention and a consultative body that met for seven weeks, from September 5 to October 26, 1774, in Philadelphia; it was the American's response to the Intolerable Acts; considered ways of redressing colonial grievances; all colonies except Georgia sent 55 distinguished men in all; John Adams persuaded his colleagues toward revolution; they wrote a Declaration of Rights and appeals to British American colonies, the king, and British people; created the Association which called for a complete boycott of English goods; the Association was the closet thing to a written constitution until the

German mercenaries that were hired by the British for putting down the rebellion of the colonies. The hiring of these men showed to the colonists that the British had only military action in mind as a solution to the current problems.

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. Three delegates added to the Congress were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Hancock. The Congress took on governmental duties. (United all the colonies for the war effort.) They selected George Washington as Commander in Chief. They encouraged the colonies to set themselves up as states. On July 4, 1776 they adopted the Declaration of Independence. The Congress ended March 1, 1781 when a Congress authorized by the Articles of Confederation took over.

On July 8, 1775, the colonies made a final offer of peace to Britain, agreeing to be loyal to the British government if it addressed their grievances (repealed the Coercive Acts, ended the taxation without representation policies). It was rejected by Parliament, which in December 1775 passed the American Prohibitory Act forbidding all further trade with the colonies.

Common Sense written in 1776 was one of the most potent pamphlets ever written. It called for the colonists to realize their mistreatment and push for independence from England. The author Thomas Paine introduced such ideas as nowhere in the universe sis a smaller heavenly body control a larger. For this reason their is no reason for England to have control over the vast lands of America. The pamphlet with its high-class journalism as well as propaganda sold a total of 120,000 copies within a few months.

American colonists who were determined to fight the British until American independence was won; An American colonist who supported the fight for independence.

Turning point of the American Revolution. It convinced the French to give the U.S. military support. It lifted American spirits, ended the British threat in New England by taking control of the Hudson River, and, most importantly, showed the French that the Americans had the potential to beat their enemy, Great Britain.

Formally approved by the Congress on July 4, 1776. This "shout heard round the world" has been a source of inspiration to countless revolutionary movements against arbitrary authority. The document sharply separated Loyalists from Patriots and helped to start the American Revolution by allowing England to hear of the colonists disagreements with British authority.

The British recognized the independence of the United States. It granted boundaries, which stretched from the Mississippi on the west, to the Great Lakes on the north, and to Spanish Florida on the south. The Yankees retained a share of Newfoundland. It greatly upset the Canadians.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was an important treaty between North American Indians and the British Empire. It was signed at in 1768 at Fort Stanwix, located in present-day Rome, New York. It was negotiated between Sir William Johnson and representatives of the Six Nations

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen) is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. ...