| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Locke’s Two Treatises of Government | a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha and the Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society based on natural rights and contract theory. |
| Thomas Paine | an English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, classical liberal and intellectual. He lived and worked in Britain until the age of 37, when he migrated to the American colonies just in time to take part in the American Revolution. His main contribution was as the author of the powerful, widely read pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), advocating independence for the American Colonies from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of The American Crisis, supporting the Revolution. |
| The Boston Tea Party | an act of direct action by the American colonists against Great Britain in which they destroyed many crates of tea bricks on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as helping to spark the American Revolution. |
| Coercive (Intolerable) Acts | to a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in March of 1774. The acts were met with outrage and resistance in the colonies and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution.Four of the five acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. Lord North said "The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority; yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over"[1]. The British government hoped these punitive measures would, by making an example of Massachusetts, reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp ActMany colonists viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of their constitutional rights, and organized the First Continental Congress to coordinate their response.. |
| The Declaration of Independence | an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies in North America were "Free and Independent States" and that "all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved." |
| The Continental Congress | a body of representatives appointed by the legislatures of twelve North American colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1774. It met briefly then set up its successor, the Second Continental Congress, which organized the Americans into war against Britain. The two bodies together comprise the Continental Congress. The First Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia in 1774, with 55 members representing all American colonies except Georgia. |
| Statute of Religious Freedom | written in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In 1786, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. |
| Abigail Adams | (November 11, 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife of John Adams the second President of the United States and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth. remembered today for the many letters she wrote to her husband while he stayed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses. John Adams frequently sought the advice of his wife on many matters |
| Crispus Attucks | (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was one of the first of five people killed in the Boston Massacre in Boston, Massachusetts. |
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