Key Terms

• Mercantilism


  Economic and political theory by which 17th and 18th century European powers governed their overseas colonies
• Navigation Acts


  Set of Parliamentary laws, first passed in 1650, that restricted colonial trade and directed it to the benefit of England
• Salutary Neglect


  Time period whee Parliament largely did not enforce regulations in the North American colonies
• Ohio River Valley


  Inland river territory, scene of fierce competition between the French and English colonists
• Albany Plan of Union 


  Proposal supported by Benjamin Franklin that called for greater unity and home rule among Britain’s North American colonies
• Treaty of Paris


  Ended the French and Indian War, giving England uncontested European control of Northeast North America
• Pontiac’s Rebellion


  Uprising on the frontier that caused the British to attempt to limit colonial expansion
• Proclamation of 1763


  Legislation in 1763 that prohibited the American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains
• Stamp Act


  Legislation passed in 1765 that directly taxed the colonists
• Stamp Act Crisis


  First major negative response to British enforcement of Parliamentary regulation and taxing in the colonies
• Sons/Daughters of Liberty


  Male and female organizations that enforced the nonimportation agreements, sometimes by coercive means
• Committees of Correspondance


  Underground networks of communication and propaganda, established by Samuel Adams, that sustained colonial resistance
• Declaratory Act


  Asserted Parliament’s power to tax and make laws for colonies
• Townsend Acts


  Series of laws passed by Parliament that taxed certain items such as glass, lead, paper, and tea
• Writs of Assistance

  Blank search warrants used by British authorities to regulate smuggling in the North American colonies
• Tea Act


  Legislation that granted a monopoly to the British East India Company
• Boston Tea Party


  Event staged by disguised “Indians” to sabotage British support of a British East India Company monopoly
• Quebec Act


  Legislation in 1774 that extended the southern boundary of the French-speaking settlers past the Great Lakes and to the Ohio River
• Coercive Acts


  Also known as the Intolerable Acts, they were harsh measures of retaliation by Parliament that included the Boston Port Act
• Continental Congress

  Body led by John Hancock that issued a Declaration of Rights and signified growing unification among the colonies
• The Continental Association


  Effective organization created by the Continental Congress to provide a total, unified boycott of British goods
• Lexington and Concord


  Site where hostilities commenced between colonial militia and British regulars
• Common Sense


  Inflammatory pamphlet that demanded independence and heaped scorn on the “Royal Brute of Great Britain”