American History Chapter 4-1 Answer

American History
Section 4-1

•Stamp Act: The Stamp Act required colonists to purchase special stamped paper for every legal document, license, newspaper, pamphlet, and almanac, and imposed special “stamp duties” on packages of playing cards and dice.

•Samuel Adams: One of founders of Sons of Liberty was Harvard-educated Samuel Adams, who, although unsuccessful in business and deeply in debt, proved himself to be a powerful and influential political activist.

•Townshend Acts: Unlike the Stamp Act, which was a direct tax, these were indirect taxes, or duties levied on imported materials—glass, lead, paint, and paper—as they came into the colonies from Britain. The acts also imposed a three-penny tax on tea, the most popular drink in the colonies.

•Boston Massacre: Instantly, Samuel Adams and other colonial agitators labeled this confrontation the Boston Massacre, thus presenting it as a British attack on defenseless citizens.

•committees of correspondence: The assemblies of Massachusetts and Virginia set up committees of correspondence to communicate with other colonies about this and other threats to American liberties.

•Boston Tea Party: the “Indians” dumped 18,000 pounds of the East India Company’s tea into the waters of Boston Harbor.

•King George III: King George III was infuriated by this organized destruction of British property, and he pressed Parliament to act.

•Intolerable Acts: One law shut down Boston Harbor because the colonists had refused to pay for the damaged tea. Another, the Quartering Act, authorized British commanders to house soldiers in vacant private homes and other buildings.

•martial law: To keep the peace, he placed Boston under martial law, or rule imposed by military forces.

•minutemen: Minutemen, or civilian soldiers, began to quietly stockpile firearms and gunpowder. General Gage soon learned about these activities and prepared to strike back.

Conflict Grows: Forming the Sons of Liberty; Protesting Stamp Act; Seizure of the Liberty; Boston Massacre; Boston Tea Party; Closing Boston Harbor; Quartering Act; Stockpiling arms; British troops at Concord; Battle of Lexington; Colonists’retaliation at Concord; Placing Boston under martial law Forming Sons of Liberty: When word of the Stamp Act reached the colonies in May of 1765, the colonists united in their defiance. Boston shop-keepers, artisans, and laborers organized a secret resistance group called the Sons of Liberty.

3. Soldiers may have felt vulnerable, surrounded by a hostile crowd; they may have been physically provoked; they probably resented the term “Boston Massacre’ because, although some deaths occurred, there was no massacre; they may have felt that they were unfairly taunted.

4. • Parliament only clamped down when colonists became too rebellious. • Taxing tea to save the East India Company was politically naive. • Parliament should have avoided confrontational tactics such as the Intolerable Acts.