Chapter 7 Study Guide

1. The American desire to gain rights and liberties led them to fight for independence from Britain.
2. Today those same rights and liberties are protected by the U.S. Constitution.
3. Most Americans did not support the Revolution.
4. Native Americans such as the Iroquois fought with the British and others with the Americans
5. At first slave owners feared that African Americans who had guns might lead slave revolts.
6. In all, about 5,000 African Americans served in the Continental Army.
7. Benjamin Franklin's son William took Britain's side the father and son stopped speaking.
8. In June 1775, George Washington became the commander of the Continental Army.
9. Congress's inability to supply the army also frustrated Washington.
10. Mary Hays earned the nickname "Molly Pitcher" by carrying water to tired soldiers during a battle.
11. One British goal was to occupy coastal cities so that their navy could land troops and supplies in those cities.
12. On December 25, 1776, Washington's troops rowed across the icy Delaware River to New Jersey, marched in bitter, early morning cold to Trenton to surprise and defeat the Hessians British forces.
13. The British strategy called for the three main armies to meet at Albany, New York and seize the Hudson River Valley.
14. Instead of going to New Your Howe invaded Pennsylvania in September 1777, and defeated but did not capture Washington at the Battle of Brandywine.
15. Burgoyne's army was forced to surrender at the battle of Saratoga.
16. The victory at Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolution.
17. The battle of Saratoga caused European nations to think that the Americans might win their war for independence.
18. The French hoped to take revenge on the British by helping Britain's American colonies break free.
19. After hearing of the American victory at Saratoga, King Louis XVI of France recognized U.S. independence.
20. Lafayette was a 19-year-old French nobleman who volunteered to help the Americans cause.
21. The German, Baron von Steuben, helped turn the inexperienced Americans into a skilled fighting force.
22. The winter at Valley Forge came to stand for the great hardships that Americans endured in the Revolutionary War.
23. Washington appealed to Congress to send the soldiers supplies, but it was slow in responding.
24. George Rogers Clark led the American troops to several victories against the British defending the Western frontier.
25. A privateer is a privately owned ship that a wartime government gives permission to attack an enemy's merchant ships.
26. James Forten was a 14-year-old son of a free African-American sail maker who volunteered to serves as a privateer.
27. Though outnumbered, the Continental Navy scored several victories against the British.
28. In 1779, Jones became the commander of a ship named Bonhomme Richard.
29. The American Naval hero John Paul Jones is famous for coining the phrase, "I have not yet begun to fight!
30. Jones's success against the best navy in the world angered the British and inspired the Americans.
31. The British believed that most Southerners were Loyalists.
32. The British expected large numbers of Southern slaves to join them because they had promised to grant them freedom.
33. The defeat at Charles Town is considered to be the worst American defeat of the war.
34. Francis Marion, called the “Swamp Fox.” provided General Horatio Gates with helpful knowledge of South Carolina’s coastal swamplands.
35. This second defeat in the South at Camden ended Gates’s term as head of an army and caused American spirits to fall to a new low.
36. In the Battle of Kings Mountain, the Americans killed and hung the British in revenge for Loyalist raids.
37. Nathanael Greene, was one of Washington’s most able officers in put charge of the Southern army.
38. A large French fleet pinned downed the British general Cornwallis forces at Yorktown.

39. Washington had enough men to trap Cornwallis on the peninsula because a large French force led by General Jean Rochambeau had joined his army.

40. Although some fighting continued, Yorktown was the last major battle of the American Revolution.

41. In November 1783, the last British ships and troops left New York City, and American troops marched in.
42. British generals were overconfident and made poor decisions.
43. Britain's rivals, especially France, helped America.
44. The Americans knew the land where the war took place and used that knowledge well.
45. The Treaty of Paris 1783 ended the American Revolution.
46. Under the Treaty the United States boundaries would be the Mississippi River on the west, Canada on the north and Spanish Florida on the south.
47. Many people began to see a conflict between slavery and the ideal of liberty.
48. Elizabeth Freeman sued for her freedom in a Massachusetts court and won.
49. One cause of the Revolution was the colonists’ resentment of British economic system of mercantilism.
50. The end of Britain’s mercantilist control allowed free enterprise to begin to develop in the United States.