APUSH Unit 3 (Period 3) Review: 1754–1800

The big picture

Britain won the Seven Years' War but ended deep in debt, and its taxes, troops, and western limits pushed colonists from protest to independence in 1776. With French help they won by 1783, and their talk of liberty led some Americans to challenge slavery. A stronger Constitution and a Bill of Rights replaced the weak Articles, and in the 1790s Hamilton's program and Europe's wars produced the first parties.

Britain drove France from North America 1754–1763

In 1754 Britain and France, each with Native allies, began fighting over the Ohio Valley. Britain took Quebec in 1759 and pushed France off the mainland in 1763, but the war nearly doubled its debt. With France gone, Pontiac's War struck British forts, so London barred settlement past the Appalachians and kept troops in America.

Colonists resisted taxes they never approved 1763–1776

To pay for the war and those troops, Britain ended salutary neglect and taxed the colonies with the Sugar, Stamp, and Townshend Acts. Colonists insisted that only their own assemblies could tax them, and boycotts forced two repeals. The Tea Party brought the Coercive Acts, Lexington began the war, and Common Sense turned a fight for English rights into a case for independence.

Americans won independence and wrote a constitution 1776–1789

Saratoga brought the French alliance, and in 1783 Britain recognized independence. Liberty talk led northern states to begin ending slavery and justified schooling girls. Fearing tyranny, the states kept their governors weak, and the Articles gave Congress no power to tax. The Annapolis call and Shays's Rebellion led delegates to write a stronger Constitution, and Federalists won ratification by promising a bill of rights.

Leaders split into the first parties 1789–1800

Washington set precedents, and the states added the Bill of Rights in 1791. Fights over Hamilton's debt plan and bank split leaders into Federalists and Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans, and the French Revolution's war with Britain, then Jay's Treaty, widened the gap. In the West, Fallen Timbers forced the Greenville cession. After the XYZ Affair, Federalists turned the Sedition Act on critics, and the backlash helped elect Jefferson in 1800.

What the exam asks about

Colonists said only their own assemblies could tax them. Britain taxed to pay its war debt; colonists boycotted and sought English rights inside the empire until 1775.
The Revolution's ideals reached only some Americans. The North began gradual emancipation and poorer men won seats, but slavery spread south and almost no women voted.
Europe's wars and Hamilton's plan created the first parties. Federalists backed the bank and Britain, Democratic-Republicans backed France and states' rights, and Washington warned against parties and permanent alliances.
Fear of central power shaped the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Articles' Congress could not tax, Shays's Rebellion spurred reform, and Anti-Federalist fears won the Bill of Rights.
Cheap land drew settlers into conflict with Native nations. Settlers defied the Proclamation Line, backcountry farmers resented coastal elites, and Ohio nations resisted until 1795.
Enlightenment ideas turned resistance into a case for independence. Paine attacked monarchy itself, and the Declaration rested government on natural rights and consent.

Timeline

1754 The French and Indian War began; colonies rejected Franklin's Albany Plan
Feb. 10, 1763 Treaty of Paris pushed France off the mainland; Britain gained Canada and Florida
Oct. 7, 1763 During Pontiac's War, the Proclamation barred settlement west of the Appalachians
1764 Sugar Act cut the molasses duty but enforced it to raise revenue
1765 Stamp Act taxed printed paper; Quartering Act made colonies supply troops
1765 Stamp Act Congress denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies
1766 Parliament repealed the Stamp Act; the Declaratory Act claimed power "in all cases whatsoever"
1767 Townshend Acts taxed glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea to pay royal officials
1770 Soldiers killed five colonists in the Boston Massacre
1772 Samuel Adams organized Boston's committee of correspondence
Dec. 16, 1773 At the Boston Tea Party, protesters dumped East India Company tea
1774 Coercive (Intolerable) Acts punished Boston and the Quebec Act reached the Ohio; Congress answered with a boycott
Apr. 19, 1775 Militia fought British regulars at Lexington and Concord
1775 Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition; George III proclaimed a rebellion
1775 Dunmore's Proclamation offered freedom to rebels' enslaved men who joined British forces
1776 Paine's Common Sense attacked monarchy and urged independence
July 4, 1776 Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence
1777 Victory at Saratoga brought a French alliance in 1778
1781 Cornwallis surrendered to American and French forces at Yorktown
1783 In the Treaty of Paris, Britain recognized independence and a Mississippi border
1785 The Land Ordinance laid out western townships and set aside a section in each for schools
1786–1787 In Shays's Rebellion, indebted Massachusetts farmers shut down courts
1787 Delegates in Philadelphia wrote the Constitution; nine states ratified it by 1788
1787 Northwest Ordinance set steps to statehood and banned slavery north of the Ohio
1790–1791 Hamilton funded the debt, assumed state debts, and won a national bank
1791 The states ratified the Bill of Rights
1793 With revolutionary France and Britain at war, Washington declared neutrality
1794 Western farmers resisted a whiskey tax until Washington sent about 13,000 militia
1794 After Fallen Timbers, the Western Confederacy ceded most of Ohio at Greenville (1795)
1794 Jay's Treaty cleared British forts from the Northwest but did not end impressment
1796 Washington's Farewell Address warned against parties and permanent alliances
1798 After the XYZ Affair and during the Quasi-War, Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts
1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions said a state could judge the acts unconstitutional
1800 The House broke a Jefferson–Burr tie, and Federalists handed power to Jefferson peacefully

People

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790): Proposed the Albany Plan (1754) and negotiated the French alliance after Saratoga (1778).
John Dickinson (1732–1808): His Letters from a Farmer accepted trade laws but rejected taxes for revenue.
George Washington (1732–1799): Led the Continental Army; as president set precedents and declared neutrality.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826): Wrote the Declaration; feared Hamilton's plan favored merchants over farmers.
John Adams (1735–1826): Signed the Sedition Act; in 1815 wrote that the Revolution was "in the minds of the people" before Lexington.
Abigail Adams (1744–1818): Asked her husband to "Remember the Ladies"; he replied, "I cannot but laugh."
Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) (1743–1807): Mohawk leader who fought for Britain to save Mohawk land; most Oneidas backed the Patriots.
Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) (c. 1744–1829): Sued her Massachusetts enslaver and won her freedom in 1781.
Judith Sargent Murray (1751–1820): Argued in "On the Equality of the Sexes" (1790) that women's minds equal men's.
Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806): Free Black mathematician who reminded Jefferson in 1791 that he had declared all men equal.
James Madison (1751–1836): Drafted the Virginia Plan and the Bill of Rights; opposed Hamilton's bank.
Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804): Treasury secretary whose plan favored creditors and merchants; he led the Federalists.

Documents

Proclamation of 1763 (1763)

Reserved western land for Native nations; settlers resented and ignored it.

“for the use of the said Indians”

Common Sense (Paine) (1776)

Attacked monarchy in plain words and said an island should not rule a continent.

“in America THE LAW IS KING”

Declaration of Independence (1776)

Based independence on natural rights and listed grievances against George III.

“deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Prince Hall petition (1777)

Used the Patriots' own natural-rights arguments against slavery; Massachusetts passed no law.

“a Natural and Unaliable Right to that freedom”

Articles of Confederation (1777; in force 1781)

Fear of tyranny kept it weak, yet its Congress made peace and organized the Northwest.

“Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence”

Northwest Ordinance (1787)

Set steps to equal statehood, supported public schools, and promised Indians "utmost good faith," a promise the nation soon broke.

“There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory”

U.S. Constitution (1787)

Created a stronger federal republic and protected slavery without naming it.

“necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”

The Federalist (1787–1788)

Argued for ratification: a large republic tames faction (No. 10); branches check each other (No. 51).

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition”

Anti-Federalist essays (1787–1788)

Feared a distant, powerful Congress and demanded a bill of rights.

“There is no Declaration of Rights”

Washington's Farewell Address (1796)

Warned against parties; isolationists later cited it to reject the League of Nations.

“’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances”

Comparisons

Articles vs. Constitution

	Articles	Constitution
Legislature	One house, one vote per state	Senate by state, House by population
Executive	None	President with veto and treaty power
Courts	No national courts	Supreme Court and lower federal courts
Taxes	Could only ask states for money	Congress levies its own taxes
Trade	Could not regulate trade between states or abroad	Congress regulates trade between states and abroad
Amending	Every state had to agree	Two-thirds of each house, three-fourths of the states

First Party System, 1790s

	Federalists (Hamilton)	Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson)
Constitution	Loose construction; strong central government	Strict construction; states' rights
Economy	Commerce, manufacturing, and a national bank	Farmers; distrust of banks and debt
Abroad	Pro-British; backed Jay's Treaty	Pro-French; opposed Jay's Treaty
Base	Northern merchants and creditors	Southern planters, western farmers, and immigrants

The ratification fight, 1787–1788

	Federalists	Anti-Federalists
Leaders	Madison, Hamilton, and Jay	Patrick Henry, George Mason, "Brutus"
Wanted	A strong national government	Power kept in the states
Rights	At first called a bill of rights unnecessary	Demanded a bill of rights
Support	Merchants, creditors, cities	Small farmers, the backcountry, and debtors

Continuity and change

Slavery

Continuity. Slavery stayed legal in the South, shielded by the three-fifths, 1808, and fugitive slave clauses.

Change. Northern states began abolition; Congress barred slavery north of the Ohio; the cotton gin (1793) began a cotton boom.

Women's roles

Continuity. Coverture still denied wives property, and almost no women voted.

Change. Boycotts and war work raised women's civic role; female academies opened.

Native land

Continuity. Settlers kept pushing west; Native nations shifted alliances to survive.

Change. With France gone and Britain refusing aid after Fallen Timbers, Ohio nations ceded land at Greenville.

Who could vote

Continuity. Most voters were still white men with property.

Change. States lowered property tests, and men of modest means won office.

Ties to Europe

Continuity. Trade still ran mostly through Britain.

Change. The republic made its own treaties and declared neutrality.

Common mistakes

MistakeThe Proclamation of 1763 opened the West or sold land for revenue.
In factIt barred settlement west of the Appalachians to stop frontier wars like Pontiac's, and it raised no money.
MistakeColonists wanted independence from the Stamp Act crisis on.
In factUntil 1775 most wanted English rights inside the empire, as the Olive Branch Petition shows.
MistakeThe Tea Act raised the price of tea.
In factIt made East India Company tea cheaper, tax included; colonists objected to the tax and the monopoly.
MistakeThe Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the Revolution.
In factThe 1763 treaty ended the Seven Years' War; the 1783 treaty ended the Revolution.
MistakeRevolutionary ideals quickly ended slavery or the slave trade.
In factNorthern states freed people gradually, the South kept slavery, and Congress could not ban slave imports before 1808.
MistakeWomen won the vote after the Revolution.
In factOnly propertied New Jersey women voted, and only until 1807; republican motherhood offered schooling instead.
MistakeFederalists, or Loyalists, opposed the Constitution.
In factFederalists backed it and Anti-Federalists opposed it; Loyalists had sided with Britain in the war.
MistakeWashington's Farewell Address banned all foreign alliances.
In factHe warned against permanent alliances and allowed temporary ones for extraordinary emergencies.
MistakeManifest Destiny and the market revolution shaped the 1790s.
In factBoth belong to later periods, after 1800, as do the Whigs; in the 1790s settlers wanted cheap land.

Writing about this unit

Contextualization

For 1754–1776, start with salutary neglect, when colonial assemblies governed themselves, and the war that left Britain in debt.
For the Articles and Constitution, start with colonial fights against royal governors, which left Americans fearing strong executives.

Thesis

Prompt. Evaluate the extent to which the Seven Years' War marked a turning point in American relations with Britain.
Thesis. The war was a turning point: Britain's debt and new land ended salutary neglect and brought taxes, troops, and the Proclamation Line. Yet colonists still sought English rights inside the empire until 1775.
Prompt. Explain the issues that divided Americans during ratification (1787–1788) and how they continued to divide the nation from 1789 to 1809.
Thesis. Ratification turned on how much power the national government should hold, and Anti-Federalists won a bill of rights to limit it. The same question split the parties over the bank, Jay's Treaty, and the Sedition Act.

Moves that earn points

Explain each piece of evidence in a full sentence and keep it inside the prompt's dates; a bare name earns nothing.
In a DBQ, show how purpose, audience, or point of view shapes at least two documents.
For causation, rank the causes and defend the order; for change over time, pair each change with a continuity.
For complexity, show who won and who lost, or link periods: nullifiers in 1832 cited the Kentucky Resolutions.

Topics

3.1 Contextualizing Period 3
Set the World on Fire
AP US History Topic 3.1, Contextualizing Period 3, covers the years 1754 to 1800, when thirteen British colonies became an independent republic. In 1754 the colonies ran their local affairs through elected assemblies while Britain loosely enforced its trade laws, a habit later called salutary neglect. France, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the Iroquois Confederacy all claimed the Ohio Country, where Lenape, Shawnee and Mingo people lived. A skirmish there at Jumonville Glen on May 28, 1754, began the Seven Years' War. Over the following decades colonists resisted British taxes, won independence, replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution and built a republic divided over slavery, parties and western land.
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3.2 The Seven Years’ War (The French and Indian War)
Set the World on Fire
AP US History Topic 3.2, The Seven Years’ War (The French and Indian War), explains how a clash over the Ohio Country in 1754 grew into a world war that Britain won. In the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France gave Britain Canada and nearly all its land east of the Mississippi, and Spain gave up Florida. Pontiac's War then led King George III to issue the Proclamation of 1763, which barred settlement west of the Appalachians. The war nearly doubled Britain's national debt, so Parliament ended salutary neglect and taxed the colonies from 1764, which started the quarrel that led to the American Revolution.
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3.3 Taxation Without Representation
The Long Fuse
AP US History Topic 3.3, Taxation Without Representation, covers the twelve years from 1763 to 1775 in which British efforts to tax and control the colonies turned a dispute over money into a fight over rights. The Sugar Act of 1764 taxed colonial trade to raise revenue, and the Stamp Act of 1765 taxed colonists directly. Colonists answered with boycotts, crowd protests and the claim that only their own elected assemblies could tax them. The Townshend duties, the Tea Act and the Coercive Acts led to the First Continental Congress in 1774, and fighting began at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.
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3.4 Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution
Self-Evident
AP US History Topic 3.4, Philosophical Foundations of the American Revolution, explains the ideas colonists used to justify independence. Enlightenment thinkers, above all John Locke, taught that people had natural rights to life, liberty and property and that governments needed the consent of the governed. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, attacked King George III and monarchy itself and urged a republic. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, which moved the colonists' case from the rights of Englishmen to natural rights.
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3.5 The American Revolution
The Times That Try Men’s Souls
AP US History Topic 3.5, The American Revolution, explains how the Patriots beat a richer empire between 1775 and 1783. George Washington's Continental Army survived defeats in New York and New Jersey in 1776 and won at Trenton. The American victory at Saratoga in October 1777 convinced France to sign an alliance in February 1778. After Britain shifted the war to the South, a French fleet and the armies of Washington and Rochambeau trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown in October 1781, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 recognized American independence.
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3.6 The Influence of Revolutionary Ideals
Born Free and Equal
AP US History Topic 3.6, The Influence of Revolutionary Ideals, shows how people left out of the Revolution's promises used them to claim rights. Black petitioners such as Prince Hall in 1777 and Elizabeth Freeman, who won her freedom in a Massachusetts court in 1781, used the language of natural rights, and by 1804 every Northern state had ended slavery or set it on a path to end, while slavery grew in the South. Republican motherhood gave women a civic role at home, but coverture still left a wife's property under her husband's control. The French and Haitian Revolutions echoed the same ideals.
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3.7 The Articles of Confederation
Not Worth a Continental
AP US History Topic 3.7, The Articles of Confederation, covers the first national government of the United States, adopted by Congress in 1777 and in force from 1781. Americans who had rebelled against a distant king and Parliament kept Congress weak on purpose, with one house, one vote per state, no executive and no national courts. Congress could not tax, regulate trade or enforce its laws, and it relied on requisitions that states often ignored. It did pass the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, but Shays's Rebellion in 1786 and 1787 convinced many doubters that the Articles needed fixing.
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3.8 The Constitutional Convention and Debates over Ratification
A Rising Sun
AP US History Topic 3.8, The Constitutional Convention and Debates over Ratification, covers the 1787 Convention in Philadelphia and the fight to approve its plan. Delegates met to revise the Articles of Confederation but wrote a new constitution, settling disputes between large and small states and between Northern and Southern states through the Great Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise. Federalists, including Madison, Hamilton and Jay in The Federalist Papers, argued for a stronger national government, while Anti-Federalists such as George Mason and Patrick Henry feared it and demanded a bill of rights. Nine states ratified by June 1788, and Federalists promised amendments to win close votes.
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3.9 The Constitution
A Rising Sun
AP US History Topic 3.9, The Constitution, explains how the document written in 1787 built a stronger national government and also limited it. It gave Congress enumerated powers to tax, regulate trade and declare war, and the Necessary and Proper Clause let Congress carry those powers out. Federalism divided power between the nation and the states, while separation of powers and checks and balances, which Madison defended in Federalist No. 51, divided the national government into three branches. The Electoral College chose the president. After ratification, the First Congress proposed amendments, and the Bill of Rights took effect on December 15, 1791.
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3.10 Shaping a New Republic
The Experiment
AP US History Topic 3.10, Shaping a New Republic, covers the 1790s under Presidents Washington and Adams. Washington took office in 1789 and set precedents such as the cabinet. Alexander Hamilton's financial plan and the First Bank of the United States divided him from Thomas Jefferson and produced the first parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality, Jay's Treaty and Pinckney's Treaty kept the nation out of Europe's wars and opened the West, and his Farewell Address warned against parties and permanent alliances. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions led into the election of 1800.
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3.11 Developing an American Identity
This New Man
AP US History Topic 3.11, Developing an American Identity, covers how Americans built a national culture after the Revolution and who was allowed to belong to it. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur asked in 1782 what the American was, Noah Webster called for an American English, Thomas Jefferson modeled Virginia's Capitol on a Roman temple, and most states ended tax support for official churches. Black Philadelphians led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones built their own institutions, including Allen's Bethel Church, which grew into the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Yet the Naturalization Act of 1790 let only immigrants who were free white persons become citizens.
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3.12 Movement in the Early Republic
This New Man
AP US History Topic 3.12, Movement in the Early Republic, covers the westward migration and conflicts that followed the Revolution. The Treaty of Paris of 1783 set the western border at the Mississippi River, but the Native nations of the Ohio country had not signed it, and settlers crossed the Appalachians anyway. The Western Confederacy beat American armies in 1790 and 1791 before Anthony Wayne won at Fallen Timbers in 1794, and in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville twelve nations gave up most of present-day Ohio. Pinckney's Treaty opened the Mississippi in 1795, and the cotton gin of 1793 spread slavery south and west.
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3.13 Continuity and Change in Period 3
The World Turned Upside Down?
AP US History Topic 3.13, Continuity and Change in Period 3, asks how far the Revolution transformed American society between 1754 and 1800. Independence ended royal rule, created written constitutions, widened voting for white men and began emancipation in the North. Yet the Constitution protected slavery, coverture still bound married women, and settlers kept taking Native land. In January 1800 the House voted 85 to 1 to rebuke a petition from Absalom Jones and 70 other free Black Philadelphians that asked Congress to prepare the way for freedom, and in 1801 power passed peacefully from the Federalists to Jefferson's Republicans.
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Key terms

Mercantilism: 1600s–1700s; Parliament wrote it into the Navigation Acts from 1651 · Topic 3.1
The economic theory that colonies existed to make the mother country rich by shipping it raw materials and buying its manufactured goods.
Navigation Acts: Parliament passed them 1651–1696; Britain tightened enforcement after 1763 · Topic 3.1
Parliament's trade laws that made colonists ship goods in English or colonial vessels and sell tobacco, sugar, and other listed goods only to England or its colonies.
John Locke: 1632–1704; *Two Treatises of Government*, 1689 (title page 1690) · Topic 3.4
English philosopher whose Two Treatises of Government argued that people had natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that government needed their consent.
Social contract: Locke, 1689; Rousseau, 1762; colonists used it in the 1760s–70s · Topic 3.4
The idea that people create government by agreement, so its power comes from the people's consent instead of a king's divine right. Americans knew it mainly from John Locke.
Salutary neglect: c. 1720s–1763; Edmund Burke used the phrase in 1775 · Topic 3.1
Britain's long habit of loosely enforcing its trade laws and letting colonial assemblies run local affairs and tax their own voters.
Great Awakening (First Great Awakening): 1730s–1740s · Topic 3.4
A wave of Protestant revivals in which preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield stressed a personal, emotional conversion and urged ordinary people to question unconverted ministers.
Enlightenment: Late 1600s–1700s; peaked in the mid-1700s · Topic 3.4
A movement of European and American thinkers who trusted reason and science over tradition to explain nature and improve government and society. Colonial leaders drew above all on John Locke.
Deism: 1700s · Topic 3.4
Belief in a Creator who made the universe to run by natural laws and then rarely, if ever, stepped into human affairs. Many Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and America held it.
Ohio River Valley: Rival claims in the 1740s and 1750s; the war began there in 1754 · Topic 3.1
The region colonists called the Ohio Country, in today's western Pennsylvania and Ohio. France, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Six Nations all claimed it, though Lenape, Shawnee, and Mingo people lived there.
Benjamin Franklin: 1706–1790; Albany Congress delegate, 1754 · Topic 3.2
The Philadelphia printer and scientist who drafted the Albany Plan and printed Join, or Die, a cartoon of a snake in eight pieces urging the colonies to unite.
Seven Years' War (French and Indian War): North American fighting from 1754; formal war from 1756; peace February 10, 1763 · Topic 3.2
The last of four Anglo-French wars since 1689, stretching from the Ohio Valley to Europe, West Africa, and India. Britain defeated France and its Native allies, and later Spain.
Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee): Six Nations from about 1722; met colonial delegates at Albany, June–July 1754 · Topic 3.2
The six-nation league of upstate New York, from the Mohawk in the east to the Seneca in the west. Britain called the Albany Congress mainly to hold them as allies.
Albany Plan of Union: Albany Congress adopted it July 10, 1754; no colony or London approved it · Topic 3.2
Franklin's plan for a joint colonial government that could raise troops and taxes for defense, under a president-general the Crown would appoint. Delegates from seven colonies adopted it at the Albany Congress.
Anthony Benezet: 1713–1784; *Observations*, 1759 · Topic 3.6
A French-born Quaker teacher in Philadelphia whose pamphlet Observations on the Inslaving, Importing and Purchasing of Negroes argued that the slave trade and slavery itself harmed enslaved and enslaver alike.
Neolin: Preached c. 1760–1763 · Topic 3.2
The Lenape prophet who preached in the Ohio Valley that Native peoples should give up European goods and alcohol and live apart from the colonists.
Treaty of Paris (1763): Britain, France, and Spain signed it February 10, 1763 · Topic 3.2
The peace with France and Spain that gave Britain Canada, Spanish Florida, and French lands east of the Mississippi except New Orleans. France had already given Louisiana, with New Orleans, to Spain.
British war debt: About £75 million in 1756; about £133 million by 1763 · Topic 3.2
Britain's national debt, which climbed from about £75 million to about £133 million during the war. London also chose to keep about 10,000 troops in America.
Pontiac's War (Pontiac's Rebellion): Began May 1763; Pontiac made peace in 1766 · Topic 3.2
A war in which the Odawa leader Pontiac and allied Great Lakes and Ohio nations, angry at settlers on their land and at cuts in diplomatic gifts, captured eight British forts.
Proclamation of 1763 (Proclamation Line): King George III issued it October 7, 1763 · Topic 3.2
King George III's order barring colonial settlement and private land purchases west of the Appalachians and reserving that land for Native nations.
Proclamation of 1763 (Proclamation Line): October 7, 1763 · Topic 3.3
King George III's order barring colonial settlement and private land purchases west of the Appalachians and reserving that land for Native nations.
Paxton Boys: Killings December 1763; march on Philadelphia February 1764 · Topic 3.2
Armed frontier settlers from Paxton, Pennsylvania, who murdered 20 peaceful Conestoga people living under the colony's protection, then marched on Philadelphia demanding frontier defense and more assembly seats.
Sugar Act (Revenue Act of 1764): Passed April 5, 1764; in force September 29, 1764 · Topic 3.3
George Grenville's law that halved the duty on foreign molasses to 3 pence a gallon and tightened enforcement. Accused smugglers now faced vice-admiralty courts, which had no jury.
Rights of Englishmen: Core of colonial protest, 1764–1775 · Topic 3.3
The liberties colonists claimed as British subjects, above all the right to pay only taxes their elected representatives approved, along with trial by jury and no peacetime army without their assemblies' consent.
Virtual representation: British defense of colonial taxation, 1760s · Topic 3.3
The British argument that Parliament represented the whole empire, colonists included, just as it represented big towns like Manchester that sent no members.
Stamp Act: Passed March 22, 1765; in force November 1, 1765; repealed March 18, 1766 · Topic 3.3
Parliament's first direct tax on the colonists, which required revenue stamps on newspapers, wills, licenses, and even playing cards and dice.
Quartering Act: First act May 15, 1765; new act June 2, 1774 · Topic 3.3
A law that made the colonies house and supply British troops in barracks, inns, and empty buildings. Neither it nor the 1774 version put soldiers in occupied homes.
No taxation without representation: From 1765; Dartmouth petition, February 10, 1780 · Topic 3.6
The Patriot principle that only the colonists' own elected assemblies could tax them, as the Stamp Act Congress argued against Parliament.
Sons of Liberty: From 1765 · Topic 3.3
Local resistance groups of artisans, laborers, and merchants whose crowds forced stamp distributors to quit and later enforced boycotts of British goods.
Stamp Act Congress: October 7–25, 1765, New York · Topic 3.3
A meeting of delegates from nine colonies in New York. Their Declaration of Rights and Grievances said that only colonial assemblies could tax colonists.
Nonimportation agreements: Boycotts in 1765–1766, 1768–1770, and 1774–1775 · Topic 3.3
Pledges by colonial merchants to stop importing British goods, which crowds enforced and households backed by refusing to buy. The main waves followed the Stamp, Townshend, and Coercive Acts.
Coverture: English common law; Blackstone, 1765 · Topic 3.6
The English common-law rule, which Blackstone described in 1765, that a husband's legal identity covered his wife's. He controlled her property and wages, and she generally could not sue or sign contracts.
Declaratory Act: March 18, 1766 · Topic 3.3
The law Parliament passed the same day it repealed the Stamp Act, declaring its full power to bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
Townshend Acts (Townshend duties): Passed 1767; in force November 20, 1767; all but tea repealed April 1770 · Topic 3.3
Charles Townshend's duties on imported glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea, whose revenue paid royal governors and judges and freed them from colonial assemblies that had controlled their salaries.
Daughters of Liberty: Name in use by 1766; spinning bees peaked 1768–1770 · Topic 3.3
Patriot women who spun homespun at public spinning bees and gave up British tea and cloth, especially during the boycott of the Townshend duties.
Spanish missions in California: First mission at San Diego, July 16, 1769 · Topic 3.10
A chain of Catholic missions that Junípero Serra and other Spanish friars founded along the California coast. Friars and soldiers forced baptized Native people to stay and work there.
Boston Massacre: March 5, 1770, King Street, Boston · Topic 3.3
The shooting in Boston where British soldiers fired into a crowd pelting them with snowballs, ice, and sticks. Five men died, among them Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native descent.
Committees of Correspondence: Boston, November 2, 1772; intercolonial from March 12, 1773 · Topic 3.3
Letter networks that shared news of British actions and planned resistance. Samuel Adams started Boston's committee, and in 1773 Virginia's assembly began linking the colonies.
Freedom petitions: Massachusetts, 1773–1777 · Topic 3.6
Petitions in which Black Massachusetts residents asked lawmakers to end slavery. The best known, from Prince Hall and seven other Black men in January 1777, cited natural rights and the Patriots' cause.
Tea Act: May 10, 1773 · Topic 3.3
Parliament's law to rescue the East India Company by letting it sell tea through its own colonial agents. The Company's tea now undersold smuggled Dutch tea but still carried the Townshend duty.
Boston Tea Party: December 16, 1773 · Topic 3.3
A protest in which Bostonians, mostly artisans and laborers in Mohawk disguises, dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor after Governor Hutchinson refused to let the ships leave without unloading it.
Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts): Passed March 31–June 2, 1774; Boston port closed June 1, 1774 · Topic 3.3
Four laws that punished Massachusetts for the Tea Party by closing Boston Harbor, cutting self-government, letting accused royal officials stand trial elsewhere, and widening the quartering of troops.
Quebec Act: June 22, 1774 · Topic 3.3
A law to govern conquered French Canada that protected Catholic worship, kept French civil law, set up no elected assembly, and stretched Quebec's border south to the Ohio River.
First Continental Congress: September 5–October 26, 1774, Philadelphia · Topic 3.3
The assembly of delegates from twelve colonies, all but Georgia, that met in Philadelphia to answer the Coercive Acts. It declared colonists' rights and created the Continental Association to boycott British goods.
Galloway's Plan of Union: September 28, 1774 · Topic 3.5
Joseph Galloway's proposal to the First Continental Congress for an American legislature inside the British Empire, with a Grand Council the assemblies would elect and a president general the king would appoint.
Patriots: 1775–1783 · Topic 3.5
Colonists who backed resistance to Britain and, from July 1776, independence. About 40 percent of the population actively supported the cause, most strongly in New England and Virginia.
Militia: 1775–1783 · Topic 3.5
Part-time citizen soldiers, such as the Massachusetts minutemen, whom the colonies and later the states called out for short terms of service.
Pennsylvania Abolition Society: Founded April 14, 1775; revived 1784; reorganized 1787 · Topic 3.6
America's first antislavery society, which mostly Quaker Philadelphians founded days before the war began. Benjamin Franklin later served as its president and signed its 1790 antislavery petition to Congress.
Lexington and Concord: April 19, 1775 · Topic 3.5
The first battles of the war, when militia fought British troops who had marched from Boston to seize colonial arms and gunpowder at Concord, Massachusetts.
Second Continental Congress: Met from May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia · Topic 3.4
The colonies' congress that met in Philadelphia from May 1775, created the Continental Army under George Washington, sent the Olive Branch Petition, and declared independence in 1776.
Continental Army: Created June 14, 1775 · Topic 3.5
The regular army that Congress created in June 1775 under Washington's command. Early recruits signed up for a year or less, and it rarely had more than about 20,000 men at once.
George Washington: 1732–1799; commanded the army 1775–1783 · Topic 3.5
The Virginia planter whom Congress named to command the Continental Army in 1775. After nearly losing his army on Long Island in 1776, he avoided staking the war on one big battle.
Continental currency: Authorized June 22, 1775; rated 40 to 1, March 18, 1780 · Topic 3.7
Paper money the Continental Congress printed to pay for the war, more than $200 million in all. By March 1780 Congress itself valued 40 paper dollars at one silver dollar.
Continental currency: Congress approved the first issue June 22, 1775 · Topic 3.5
Paper money the Continental Congress printed to pay for the war, more than $200 million in all. By March 1780 Congress itself valued 40 paper dollars at one silver dollar.
Olive Branch Petition: Adopted July 5, signed July 8, 1775 · Topic 3.4
Congress's July 1775 appeal to George III, mostly John Dickinson's work, which professed loyalty, blamed the king's ministers, and asked him to help restore peace.
Dunmore's Proclamation: November 7, 1775 · Topic 3.5
An offer by Virginia's royal governor, Lord Dunmore, to free enslaved people and indentured servants who left rebel masters to fight for the king. It left out anyone Loyalists enslaved.
Hereditary privilege: Enlightenment writers challenged it; *Common Sense* attacked it in 1776 · Topic 3.4
Rank, office, or power that people inherited, such as a king's crown or a noble's title. Enlightenment writers argued that talent and merit should count for more.
Thomas Paine: 1737–1809; *Common Sense*, January 10, 1776 · Topic 3.4
English-born writer who reached Philadelphia in late 1774 with a letter from Benjamin Franklin. In January 1776 he published Common Sense, the pamphlet that made the popular case for independence.
*Common Sense*: January 10, 1776, Philadelphia · Topic 3.4
Thomas Paine's January 1776 pamphlet urging immediate independence. In plain language it attacked George III and monarchy itself and called it absurd for an island to rule a continent.
Republicanism: 1760s–1770s; the Patriots' goal by 1776 · Topic 3.4
The belief that power comes from the people, who govern through elected representatives, with no hereditary king. Its supporters held that a republic needed virtuous citizens who put the common good first.
Loyalists: Opposed independence, 1775–1783 · Topic 3.4
Colonists who stayed loyal to George III, by most estimates 15 to 20 percent of white colonists, strongest in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and the port cities.
Abigail Adams: 1744–1818; letter of March 31, 1776 · Topic 3.6
A Massachusetts Patriot who wrote to her husband, John Adams, in March 1776, urging him to “Remember the Ladies” and not put “unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands.”
State constitutions: 1776–1780 · Topic 3.6
Written plans of government that most former colonies adopted as they became states, many opening with a bill of rights. They usually put power in elected legislatures and kept governors weak.
Thomas Jefferson: 1743–1826; drafted the Declaration, June 1776 · Topic 3.4
Virginia planter and lawyer who drafted the Declaration of Independence for a committee of five in June 1776. Congress then cut and revised his draft.
John Adams: 1735–1826; in Congress 1774–1777; letter to Jefferson, 1815 · Topic 3.4
Massachusetts delegate who served on the committee that chose Jefferson to draft the Declaration. In 1815 he wrote Jefferson that the Revolution was "in the minds of the people" before Lexington.
New Jersey suffrage: Constitution July 2, 1776; restricted November 16, 1807 · Topic 3.6
A clause in New Jersey's 1776 constitution that let all adult inhabitants worth £50 vote. It named neither sex nor race, so some propertied women and free Black men voted.
Natural rights: Locke, 1689; the Declaration, 1776 · Topic 3.4
Rights people have simply by being human, which no government grants. Locke named life, liberty, and property, and the Declaration listed "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Declaration of Independence: Independence vote July 2; adopted July 4; most delegates signed August 2, 1776 · Topic 3.4
Congress's statement of July 4, 1776, which based government on natural rights and the consent of the governed, charged George III with a long list of abuses, and declared independence.
Property qualifications: Kept, and in some states lowered, after 1776 · Topic 3.6
Rules in most state constitutions that let a man vote only if he owned property or paid taxes, and set a higher bar to hold office.
Disestablishment: 1776–1833; First Amendment ratified December 15, 1791 · Topic 3.11
State laws that ended tax support for an official church. Virginia went furthest with Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), which barred forcing anyone to attend or pay for a church.
*The American Crisis*: December 1776 · Topic 3.5
A pamphlet Thomas Paine wrote after marching with the army in its retreat across New Jersey, urging Americans to stand by the cause in defeat.
Prince Hall petition: January 13, 1777 · Topic 3.4
A January 1777 petition in which Prince Hall and seven other Black men asked the Massachusetts legislature to free enslaved people, citing the principles Americans had used against Britain.
Camp followers: 1775–1783 · Topic 3.5
Thousands of women, many of them soldiers' wives, who traveled with the army and cooked, washed, and nursed in return for rations. Some carried water and ammunition in battle.
Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee): 1775–1783; split in battle at Oriskany, August 6, 1777 · Topic 3.5
A league of six nations in what is now New York. The war split it, with most Mohawk and Seneca fighting for Britain and most Oneida and Tuscarora joining the Patriots.
Battle of Saratoga: September 19 and October 7, 1777; surrender October 17 · Topic 3.5
An American victory in upstate New York, where British general John Burgoyne, marching south from Canada to cut off New England, surrendered about 6,000 men to Horatio Gates.
Articles of Confederation: Drafted 1776; adopted November 15, 1777; ratified March 1, 1781 · Topic 3.4
The first national constitution, which joined the states in a "firm league of friendship" under a weak Congress. John Dickinson wrote its first draft, and the Articles took effect in 1781.
Valley Forge: December 19, 1777–June 19, 1778 · Topic 3.5
The Continental Army's winter camp, about 20 miles from British-held Philadelphia, where roughly 2,000 soldiers died, mostly of disease, as food and clothing ran short.
French alliance: Signed February 6, 1778 · Topic 3.5
France's treaty with the United States, which recognized American independence and promised that neither ally would make a separate peace with Britain. Benjamin Franklin and two other commissioners negotiated it in Paris.
African American soldiers: 1775–1783; Rhode Island act February 1778 · Topic 3.5
About 5,000 Black men who served on the Patriot side, most of them free Northerners in mixed units. In 1778 Rhode Island promised freedom to enslaved men who enlisted.
Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act (Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery): Passed March 1, 1780 · Topic 3.12
The first state law to end slavery gradually. It freed no one already enslaved, and children later born to enslaved mothers had to serve their mothers' enslavers until age 28.
Gradual emancipation (gradual abolition): Pennsylvania 1780; Connecticut, Rhode Island 1784; New York 1799; New Jersey 1804 · Topic 3.6
Northern state laws that freed children born to enslaved mothers after a set date, but only after years of service. Pennsylvania's 1780 act, the first, made them serve until age 28.
Unicameral legislature: Under the Articles, 1781–1789 · Topic 3.7
The one-house Congress that made up the whole national government under the Articles, with no executive branch and no national court system. Each state cast one vote, whatever its size.
Requisitions: Under Article VIII, 1781–1789 · Topic 3.7
Bills that Congress sent each state for its share of national costs, because the Articles gave Congress no power to tax. State legislatures decided whether to pay.
Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett): Died 1829; jury verdict August 1781 · Topic 3.6
An enslaved woman known as Mum Bett who, with a man named Brom, sued their Massachusetts enslaver, John Ashley. A county jury freed them, and she took the name Elizabeth Freeman.
Battle of Yorktown: September 28–October 19, 1781 · Topic 3.5
The siege in Virginia where American and French armies under Washington and Rochambeau trapped Cornwallis while a French fleet blocked any rescue by sea. Cornwallis surrendered more than 7,000 men.
*Letters from an American Farmer*: Published in London, 1782 · Topic 3.11
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's essays on American life. Letter III asks, "What then is the American, this new man?" and answers that Europeans of many nations melt into one people.
Quock Walker case: 1781–1783; Cushing's jury charge, April 1783 · Topic 3.6
Massachusetts court cases over Quock Walker, an enslaved man whom Nathaniel Jennison beat for leaving him. In 1783 Chief Justice William Cushing told the jury slavery was inconsistent with the state constitution.
Noah Webster: 1758–1843; speller 1783; *Dissertations* 1789 · Topic 3.11
A Connecticut teacher whose spelling book (1783) taught generations of children to read. His Dissertations on the English Language (1789) called for an American standard of English.
Treaty of Paris (1783): Preliminary terms November 30, 1782; signed September 3, 1783 · Topic 3.5
The peace treaty in which Britain recognized American independence, with a western border at the Mississippi River. Americans gained fishing rights off Canada, and no Native nation took part.
British frontier posts: Held 1783–1796; given up under Jay's Treaty · Topic 3.7
Forts on U.S. soil around the Great Lakes, including Detroit and Niagara, that Britain kept after the Treaty of Paris (1783) and used to supply its Native allies.
Spanish closure of the Mississippi: Closed to Americans 1784; reopened by Pinckney's Treaty, 1795 · Topic 3.7
Spain's ban on American ships using the lower Mississippi, which Spain controlled from New Orleans. It cut western farmers off from their route to market.
Interstate commerce: Outside Congress's power, 1781–1789 · Topic 3.7
Trade among the states, which the Articles left outside Congress's power. States taxed one another's goods, and New York's import duties fell on New Jersey and Connecticut buyers.
Land Ordinance of 1785: Passed May 20, 1785 · Topic 3.7
Congress's plan to survey land north of the Ohio into townships six miles square, each with 36 one-square-mile lots, before selling it at $1 an acre or more.
Western Confederacy: c. 1785–1795; council address to Congress, December 18, 1786 · Topic 3.12
An alliance of the Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, and other nations that fought U.S. settlement north of the Ohio River. With British guns, it beat U.S. armies in 1790 and 1791.
Neoclassical architecture (Federal style): 1780s–1790s; Virginia Capitol begun 1785; First Bank finished 1797 · Topic 3.11
A building style that borrowed the columns of ancient Greece and Rome. Jefferson modeled Virginia's Capitol on a Roman temple, and Philadelphia's First Bank used the lighter Federal style.
Specie (hard currency): Scarce in the 1780s · Topic 3.7
Gold and silver coin, which was scarce after the war, especially in farm towns. Private creditors still demanded it, and Massachusetts required it for part of its heavy 1786 tax.
Shays's Rebellion (Shays' Rebellion): Courts closed from Aug. 29, 1786; Springfield arsenal, Jan. 25, 1787 · Topic 3.7
An armed uprising of western Massachusetts farmers, many of them veterans, who closed courts to stop seizures for debts and taxes. Militia cannon killed four at Springfield in January 1787.
Annapolis Convention: Sept. 11–14, 1786 · Topic 3.7
A meeting of 12 delegates from five states at Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss interstate trade. Too few came to act, so Alexander Hamilton drafted a call for a broader convention.
Constitutional Convention (Philadelphia Convention): May 25–Sept. 17, 1787 · Topic 3.8
A secret meeting in Philadelphia, with George Washington presiding, where 55 delegates from every state but Rhode Island wrote a new constitution. Congress had approved the meeting only to revise the Articles.
Virginia Plan: Presented May 29, 1787 · Topic 3.8
Madison's plan for three branches and a two-house Congress, with seats in both houses based on free population or taxes paid. Virginia's governor, Edmund Randolph, presented it to the Convention.
New Jersey Plan: Presented June 15, 1787; rejected June 19 · Topic 3.8
William Paterson's small-state plan to keep the Articles' one-house Congress, with one vote per state, while letting it tax imports and regulate trade.
Northwest Ordinance: Passed July 13, 1787 · Topic 3.7
The law that set up the Northwest Territory, with an elected assembly at 5,000 free adult men and statehood on equal terms at 60,000 free inhabitants. It banned slavery and encouraged schools.
Three-Fifths Compromise (Three-Fifths Clause): Agreed July 12, 1787; replaced by the 14th Amendment, 1868 · Topic 3.8
The rule in Article I that added three-fifths of a state's enslaved people, whom the text called "all other Persons," to its count for House seats and direct taxes.
Great Compromise: Adopted July 16, 1787 · Topic 3.8
The Connecticut delegates' plan for a two-house Congress that based House seats on population and gave each state an equal vote in the Senate.
Republican motherhood: 1780s–1790s · Topic 3.6
The ideal that women served the republic by raising their children to be virtuous citizens. It justified more schooling for girls but gave women no vote and left coverture in place.
Slave Trade Clause: Agreed Aug. 25, 1787; federal ban took effect Jan. 1, 1808 · Topic 3.8
Article I's promise that Congress would not ban the import of enslaved people before 1808. Congress's ban took effect January 1, 1808, the first day the clause allowed.
Fugitive Slave Clause: Agreed Aug. 29, 1787 (Art. IV, Sec. 2) · Topic 3.8
A clause in Article IV that barred a state from freeing anyone "held to Service or Labour" who fled there, and said that person "shall be delivered up" to the claimant.
Electoral College: Proposed Sept. 4, adopted Sept. 6, 1787 (Art. II) · Topic 3.9
A body of electors that chooses the president. Each state gets as many electors as it has House and Senate seats, and its legislature decides how to pick them.
Three-Fifths Compromise (Three-Fifths Clause): Constitution signed September 17, 1787 · Topic 3.13
The rule in Article I that added three-fifths of a state's enslaved people, whom the text called "all other Persons," to its count for House seats and direct taxes.
Enumerated powers: Article I, Section 8, 1787 · Topic 3.9
The powers the Constitution lists for Congress, mostly in Article I, Section 8, including the power to tax, regulate trade, coin money, raise armies, and declare war.
Necessary and Proper Clause: Article I, Section 8, 1787 · Topic 3.9
The last power in Article I, Section 8, which lets Congress make all laws "necessary and proper" for carrying out the government's powers.
Federalism: Built into the Constitution, 1787 · Topic 3.9
The division of power between the national government and the states. The national government handled defense, foreign affairs, and interstate trade, while local matters stayed with the states.
Separation of powers: Written into the Constitution, 1787 · Topic 3.9
The Constitution's split of government into three branches, giving lawmaking to Congress, enforcement to the president, and judging to the federal courts.
Checks and balances: Written into the Constitution, 1787 · Topic 3.9
Tools such as the president's veto, Congress's two-thirds override, Senate approval of appointments, and impeachment, which let each branch block the others.
Federalists: Ratification debate, 1787–1788 · Topic 3.8
Supporters of ratifying the Constitution and a stronger national government, strongest among merchants and creditors in port cities. Their leaders included Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, and Washington.
Anti-Federalists: Ratification debate, 1787–1788 · Topic 3.8
The Constitution's opponents, strong among backcountry farmers, who feared that a distant "consolidated" government would swallow the states and threaten liberty. Patrick Henry, George Mason, and George Clinton spoke for them.
*The Federalist Papers* (*The Federalist*): Published Oct. 1787–May 1788 · Topic 3.8
A series of 85 newspaper essays, signed "Publius," that Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay wrote to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution. Hamilton wrote most of them.
Federalist No. 10: November 22, 1787 · Topic 3.8
Madison's essay on faction, a group that unites around a passion or interest against others' rights or the common good. He argued that a large republic would control faction.
Ratification: Dec. 7, 1787 to May 29, 1790; ninth state June 21, 1788 · Topic 3.8
The approval of the Constitution by special conventions in the states, nine of which had to say yes before it could take effect. New Hampshire became the ninth on June 21, 1788.
French Revolution: 1789–1799; fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789 · Topic 3.6
The revolution that overthrew France's monarchy. Its 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man said men “are born and remain free and equal in rights,” much as Americans had.
Cabinet: Congress created the departments in 1789 · Topic 3.10
The president's council of top advisers, a body the Constitution never names. Washington chose Jefferson for State, Hamilton for the Treasury, Knox for War, and Randolph as attorney general.
Hamilton's financial plan: Reports of January 1790 to December 1791 · Topic 3.10
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's program to fix the nation's credit by paying the war debt at face value, taking over the states' debts, taxing whiskey and imports, and chartering a national bank.
Judith Sargent Murray: 1751–1820; essay published 1790 · Topic 3.6
A Massachusetts writer whose On the Equality of the Sexes, which she wrote in 1779 and published in 1790, blamed unequal schooling for any gap between women's and men's minds.
Naturalization Act of 1790: Passed March 26, 1790 · Topic 3.11
Congress's first rule for making immigrants citizens. It let any alien who was a "free white person" become a citizen after two years' residence by proving good character in court.
Westward migration: 1780s–1790s; Kentucky a state June 1, 1792; Tennessee June 1, 1796 · Topic 3.12
The rush of settlers across the Appalachians after 1783, by Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road and down the Ohio River, into Kentucky and Tennessee. Most came for cheap land.
Strict and loose construction (strict and loose interpretation): Bank opinions of February 15 and 23, 1791 · Topic 3.10
Two ways of reading the Constitution. Jefferson's strict construction allowed Congress only its listed powers, while Hamilton's loose construction read the Necessary and Proper Clause to allow implied powers.
First Bank of the United States (Bank of the United States): Chartered February 25, 1791; expired 1811 · Topic 3.10
Hamilton's national bank, which Congress chartered for 20 years. Private investors owned four-fifths of it, and it held the government's money, made loans, and issued paper notes.
Benjamin Banneker: 1731–1806; letter to Jefferson, August 19, 1791 · Topic 3.6
A free Black mathematician and almanac maker from Maryland whose 1791 letter reminded Thomas Jefferson that he had declared all men equal yet held people in slavery.
Haitian Revolution: Began August 1791; independence January 1, 1804 · Topic 3.6
A revolt of enslaved people in France's sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. They ended slavery there, defeated Napoleon's army, and in 1804 founded Haiti, the first Black-led nation in the Americas.
Bill of Rights: Congress proposed Sept. 25, 1789; states ratified Dec. 15, 1791 · Topic 3.9
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution, which Madison steered through the First Congress. They protected freedom of religion, speech, and the press, the right to a jury trial, and other rights.
Federalist Party (Federalists): 1790s–1810s · Topic 3.10
The party of Hamilton and Adams, which wanted a strong national government, Hamilton's bank and tariffs, and close ties with Britain. Merchants, creditors, and New Englanders formed its base.
Democratic-Republican Party (Republicans): 1790s–1820s · Topic 3.10
Jefferson and Madison's party, which stood for strict construction, states' rights, farmers' interests, and friendship with France. Its strength lay in the South and West.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: Signed February 12, 1793 · Topic 3.12
A federal law that let an enslaver seize a person who had escaped to another state and, after a brief hearing with no jury, take that person back.
Proclamation of Neutrality (Neutrality Proclamation): April 22, 1793 · Topic 3.10
Washington's announcement that the United States would be “friendly and impartial” toward Britain, France, and the other warring powers, despite the 1778 French alliance.
Impressment: Chiefly 1793–1812 · Topic 3.10
Britain's practice of forcing sailors into the Royal Navy. From 1793, British captains stopped American merchant ships and seized sailors they claimed as British, many of them American citizens.
Cotton gin: Built 1793; patented March 14, 1794 · Topic 3.12
Eli Whitney's machine for pulling the seeds from short-staple cotton. It made upland cotton profitable, first in inland South Carolina and Georgia and after 1800 farther west.
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church): Bethel dedicated July 29, 1794; AME Church founded 1816 · Topic 3.11
Richard Allen's Bethel Church in Philadelphia and the national denomination it formed with other Black congregations in 1816. Allen, a formerly enslaved preacher, opened Bethel after white Methodists segregated worship.
Whiskey Rebellion: Federal whiskey tax 1791; rising ended fall 1794 · Topic 3.7
An uprising of western Pennsylvania farmers against Hamilton's 1791 whiskey tax, which they had to pay in scarce cash. Rebels burned the house of the federal tax inspector, John Neville.
Battle of Fallen Timbers: August 20, 1794 · Topic 3.12
Anthony Wayne's victory over the Western Confederacy near present-day Toledo, Ohio, in a campaign that used Chickasaw and Choctaw scouts. Retreating warriors found the gates of nearby British Fort Miamis shut.
Jay's Treaty (Jay Treaty): Signed November 19, 1794; Senate approved June 24, 1795 · Topic 3.10
Chief Justice John Jay's treaty with Britain. Britain agreed to leave its forts in the Northwest by 1796 but said nothing about impressment, and the Senate approved it by exactly two-thirds.
Domestic slave trade (internal slave trade): Grew from the 1790s; much larger after 1808 · Topic 3.12
The sale of enslaved people from Virginia and Maryland to cotton lands farther south and west, which often split families. It was underway by the 1790s and grew much larger after 1808.
Treaty of Greenville: August 3, 1795 · Topic 3.10
The treaty in which 12 Native nations gave up most of present-day Ohio for $20,000 in goods and yearly payments. They also agreed to sell other land only to the United States.
Pinckney's Treaty: October 27, 1795 · Topic 3.10
Thomas Pinckney's treaty with Spain, which opened the Mississippi to American shipping, granted a three-year right of deposit (duty-free storage) at New Orleans, and set Florida's northern border at the 31st parallel.
Washington's Farewell Address: Published September 19, 1796 · Topic 3.10
The public letter in which Washington, with Hamilton's help, announced he would not seek a third term. It warned against political parties, sectional splits, and permanent foreign alliances.
XYZ Affair: Demands October 1797; papers released April 1798 · Topic 3.10
A scandal in which agents of Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, demanded a bribe and a loan as the price of talks with three American envoys.
Quasi-War: 1798–1800 · Topic 3.10
An undeclared naval war between the United States and France, mostly in the Caribbean. Congress created a Navy Department in 1798, but Adams never asked for a declaration of war.
Alien and Sedition Acts: June 18–July 14, 1798 · Topic 3.10
Four Federalist laws that raised the wait for citizenship to 14 years, let the president deport noncitizens, and punished “false, scandalous and malicious” writing against the government, Congress, or the president.
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions): Kentucky, November 1798 and 1799; Virginia, December 1798 · Topic 3.10
Resolutions that Jefferson and Madison wrote in secret for the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures. They called the Constitution a compact among the states and declared the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional.
Gabriel's Rebellion: Planned for August 30, 1800; Gabriel hanged October 10, 1800 · Topic 3.12
A plan by Gabriel, an enslaved blacksmith, to lead enslaved men in seizing Richmond, Virginia's capital, in August 1800. A storm and two informers stopped it before it began.
Election of 1800 (Revolution of 1800): Fall 1800; House chose Jefferson February 17, 1801 · Topic 3.10
The election in which Jefferson and his fellow Republican Aaron Burr tied with 73 electoral votes each, ahead of Adams's 65. The House of Representatives chose Jefferson on the 36th ballot.
Latin American independence movements: c. 1810–1826; Haitian aid to Bolívar, 1816 · Topic 3.6
Wars in which most of Spain's American colonies won independence by the mid-1820s. Simón Bolívar led the fight in northern South America, with weapons and money from Haiti's president, Alexandre Pétion.

Unit 3 Review: 1754–1800