Identifications:

Philosophes, the Enlightenment, Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Old Lights, New Lights, English Constitution, Magna Carta, Parliament, House of Lords, House of Commons, monarch, Cato's Letters, Trenchard and Gordon, royal governor, colonial assemblies, John Locke, "Of Civil Government," social contract, natural (inalienable) rights

Homework Questions:

1. How did consumption of British goods tie American colonists to British "material culture"? (see p. 108)

2. What factors led to the religious revival in the colonies between the 1730's and 1760's? Why would Americans of the time have been attracted to the preachings of Edwards and Whitefield? How might the "Great Awakening" contribute to the early stirrings of dissatifaction with Britain?

3. How was British government structured? How did it attempt to represent each of British society's major class interests? What were some of the main critiques of the British system as it was practiced?

4. In what sense did the American colonists see their local governments as modeled on the British system? To what extent was that perception accurate? Were colonial governments more or less "democratic" than England's.

5. Why might Threnchard and Gordon's Cato's Letters have been more popular in the American colonies than in Britain?

6. According to John Locke what are the rights of man? From what source do those rights emanate?

Identifications: 
imperial wars, King William's War (War of the League of Augsburg), Queen Anneís War (War of the Spanish Succession), King George's War (War of the Austrian   Succession), Albany Plan, William Pitt, Seven Years' War (French and Indian War) 

  Homework Questions: 
  1. What were the causes of the imperial wars of the late 17th and early 18th centuries? 

  2. Why did the colonists develop their own names for these conflicts? What might this indicate about their attitude towards these wars? 

  3. How did the Seven Years' War impact the way Americans viewed their relationship with Britain? How did it impact the way the colonies viewed each   other? How did the Seven Years' War impact the way the British viewed the American colonies?

Identifications:

Whigs, George III, parliamentary sovereignty, virtual representation, actual representation, John Locke, natural (inalienable) rights, social contract, virtue, George Grenville, Sugar Act (Revenue Act of 1764), Proclamation of 1763, Stamp Act, Sons of Liberty, Stamp Act Congress, vice-admiralty courts, boycott, Declaratory Act, Townshend Revenue Acts, Quartering Act

Homework Questions:

1. What was parliamentary sovereignty? Why were the British so committed to, and the colonists so skeptical of, the notion of parliamentary sovereignty?

2. What did Trenchard and Gordon argue? How did Americans take inspiration from thinkers like Locke and Trenchard and Gordon in expressing their dissatisfaction with British treatment of the American colonies?

3. What practical impact did the imperial wars, and especially the Seven Years' War, have on the economic and military concerns of Britain? How did Americans respond to these developments?

4. What was the Stamp Act? What forms of protest did Americans use to oppose it?

5. In what ways did the Stamp Act transform a movement of discontented elite into a mass political movement?

6. What were the Townshend Acts? How did Americans respond?

Identifications:

Boston Massacre, loyalist, Samuel Adams, committees of correspondence, Tea Act, Boston Tea Party, Coercive (Intolerable) Acts, Quebec Act, First Continental Congress, Battles of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill

Homework Questions:

1. What were the causes of the Boston Massacre? How might British and American accounts of the event differ? Why did Paul Revere's engraving of the event become an instant best seller?

2. How did colonists in Boston react to the Tea Act? Why?

3. What were the Coercive Acts? Why did colonists throughout America react so strongly to acts that primarily affected Boston?

4. What were some of the differences and disagreements among the delegates at the Continental Congress? How did these divisions impact the content and tone of the "Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress"?

5. What events led to the violence between British redcoats and Massachusetts minutemen at Lexington, Massachusetts?

Identifications:

Second Continental Congress, George Washington, Prohibitory Act, Thomas Paine, "Common Sense"

Homework Questions:

1. How were the tone and content of the "Declaration of the Causes of the Necessity of Taking Up Arms" of the Second Continental Congress different from the "Declaration and Resolves" of the First Continental Congress?

2. Why, with American colonies already engaged in battle with Britain, didn't the Second Continental Congress declare independence in 1775?

3. Why was Thomas Paine's pamphlet so effective in rallying Americans towards the cause of independence from Britain? What were his arguments for separation from the mother country?

Identifications:
Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, inalienable rights

Homework Questions:

1. In what ways does the Declaration of Independence reflect the foundations of British political tradition? In what sense does it depart from that tradition?

2. Why was Jefferson's paragraph on the slave trade omitted from the final draft of the Constitution?

Web Inquiry: War of Independence: Radical or Conservative?

Websites:

http://revolution.h-net.msu.edu

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/NewNation.html

http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/video/tea.html

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/index.htm#1751

Identifications:

George Washington, Continental Army, Loyalist (Tory), Patriot, Battle of Staten Island, Battle of Saratoga, General William Howe, Treaty of Alliance (with France), Battle of Yorktown, General Cornwallis, Treaty of Paris (of 1783)

Homework Questions:

1. What factors allowed the British to enter the war confident that they could beat the Americans? What advantages did the British have?

2. What conditions and circumstances helped the Americans to neutralize many of Britain's advantages? What similarities do you see between the Vietnam War and the Revolutionary War?

3. What role did the Continental Army and local militias play in the American war effort?

4. What role did African-Americans play in the war? What led some of them fight for the Americans? Why did some to fight for the British?

5. Why did the military situation look poor for the Americans in late 1776?

6. What led France to support the American cause? What impact did French support for the Americans have on the war?

7. Why did some Americans remain Loyalists? How did they view the Patriot cause? How were they treated by Patriots? By the British?

8. What were the main provisions of the Treaty of Paris of 1783?

The American Revolution was a conservative revolt, aimed at preserving the status quo, rather than expanding liberties in a radical way.

To prepare for the debate study the secondary sources provided in the RN (Wood, Rossiter, and Jensen handouts), primary sources in your classroom copies of American Spirit, the web sites you began studying on Day Six, and all supplemental material. Be prepared with facts and quotations to support your argument.

Secondary Sources:
Jensen, Radicals vs. Conservatives
Rossiter, A Revolution to Conserve
Wood, "Equality," from The Radicalism of the American Revolution
Wood, Mobs in the American Revolution (optional)

Primary Source Documents (FAR)
Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government
Daniel Dulany, "Considerations"
Stamp Act Congress, Resolutions
The Decline of Deference and the Stamp Act Riots
First Continental Congress, Declarations and Resolves
Second Continental Congress, Declaration of the Causes...
Paine, Common Sense
Abigail Adams, "Remember the Ladies"                                   
Declaration of Independence
Revolutionary Period Timeline

Websites:
http://revolution.h-net.msu.edu
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/NewNation.html
http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/video/tea.html
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/index.htm#1751

In constructing your argument consider the following questions:

• How do you define "radical" and "conservative"?
• Is the Revolution internal or external or both?
• Is the Revolution radical/conservative politically? Economically? Socially?
• Is there an important difference between the means and the ends of the Revolution?
• When does the Revolution begin? End? Is it complete?
• Is the Revolution a means of maintaining the status quo?
• Does the Revolution do what its leaders intended?
• Can a revolution be radical without addressing the institution of slavery?

We will split into two teams, one defending(pro) and one refuting(con) the statement above. You may break up responsibilities in whatever way your group chooses. We will follow the standard debate format

There is nothing more common than to confound the terms of American Revolution with those of the late American War. The American War is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution. On the contrary,, nothing but the first act of the great drama is closed.

Dr. Benjamin Rush