Deck 4: The American Revolution

Question 1

The British commander who sent his troops to capture Patriot supplies in Concord in April 1775 was General

A) Thomas Gage.
B) William Howe.
C) Thomas Hutchinson.
D) John Burgoyne.

Answer 1

Thomas Gage.

Question 2

The purpose of the British army's march on Concord, Massachusetts, in April 1775 was to

A) train their troops for what appeared to be inevitable war.
B) force Massachusetts leaders to pay for the tea destroyed in the Boston Tea Party.
C) track down the persons responsible for burning the Gaspee.
D) seize the war supplies stored there.

Answer 2

seize the war supplies stored there.

Question 3

In May 1775 shortly after it convened, the Second Continental Congress

A) declared independence from Great Britain because of the battles at Lexington and Concord.
B) formed the Continental Army under the leadership of George Washington.
C) organized the Continental Association to force England to repeal the Intolerable Acts.
D) refused to take any action that might be seen as disloyal to England.

Answer 3

formed the Continental Army under the leadership of George Washington.

Question 4

The first major battle of the Revolutionary War was the Battle of

A) Concord.
B) Valley Forge.
C) Lexington.
D) Bunker Hill.

Question 5

After the Battle of Bunker Hill, Congress and the bulk of the American people were

A) still reluctant to declare independence.
B) ready to surrender on any terms the British offered.
C) convinced that the war could not be lost.
D) forming local militias to fight the British.

Question 6

In January 1776, the British pushed the colonists toward independence by hiring ________ mercenaries.

A) Hessian
B) Swiss
C) Prussian
D) Bavarian

Question 7

The author of the tract, Common Sense, which boldly called for complete independence and attacked not only King George III, but also the idea of monarchy itself, was

A) John Adams.
B) Thomas Jefferson.
C) George Washington.
D) Thomas Paine.

Question 8

"We have it in our power to begin the world again. A government of our own is our natural right. O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth."
This statement is typical of the ideas of

A) John Dickinson.
B) Thomas Hutchinson.
C) William Franklin.
D) Thomas Paine.

Question 9

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The above statement was a part of

A) a Quaker pamphlet denouncing slavery.
B) Jefferson's general statement of the right of revolution.
C) an early petition by the South Carolina assembly demanding an end to the slave trade.
D) Thomas Paine's Common Sense.

Question 10

Thomas Jefferson's general statement of the right of revolution in the Declaration of Independence

A) rejected the assumptions of most 18th century liberals.
B) has had little historical impact.
C) was intended by Jefferson to be an expression of the American mind.
D) was primarily intended to influence domestic opinion.

Question 11

An American advantage in the war for independence was

A) an incompetent and unprofessional British army.
B) a strong centralized government capable of organizing the war effort.
C) British reluctance to engage in full-scale war against the colonies.
D) the undivided loyalty of Americans to the patriotic cause.

Question 12

A major British advantage in 1776 was their

A) control of both Boston and New York City.
B) ability to rely on loyal Americans for supplies and troops.
C) far larger population than the colonies'.
D) strong public support for sending their crack troops for a full-scale attack on the colonies.

Question 13

The best estimate of the proportion of Patriots and Tories during the war for independence is that

A) Patriots were more numerous than Tories, but large numbers of Americans were indifferent.
B) Tories constituted less than one percent of the American population.
C) the population was about evenly divided between the two groups.
D) Tories were more numerous than Patriots, but large numbers of Americans were indifferent.

Question 14

As a group, the Tories in America

A) came from every social and economic class and geographic area.
B) were tightly organized through a central committee of loyalists.
C) refused to fight for England.
D) were treated fairly and tolerantly by Patriots.

Question 15

Battles in and around ________ in August and September of 1776 were ignominious defeats for Washington's forces and seemed to presage an easy British triumph in the war.

A) Boston
B) Philadelphia
C) Baltimore
D) New York City

Question 16

The battles of Trenton and Princeton in December 1776 were important because

A) the British were forced to open peace negotiations.
B) the American army's morale was boosted after a series of defeats.
C) American victories caused the British to shift the center of military operations to the southern states.
D) France decided to become an open ally of the United States.

Question 17

The major British defeat of 1777 at ________ was caused mostly by the extremely poor coordination of the campaign.

A) Yorktown
B) Saratoga
C) Trenton
D) Valley Forge

Question 18

In which of the following was there a mutual agreement that the signatories would aid each other in the war or the event of war with Great Britain, while also recognizing the United States as a sovereign and independent state?

A) Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Germany
B) Treaty of Alliance between Spain and the United States
C) Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the United States and Holland
D) Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States

Question 19

During the winter of 1778, Washington's army endured severe shortages of food and clothing while camped at

A) Valley Forge.
B) Germantown.
C) Trenton.
D) Princeton.

Question 20

In 1778, fighting in the northern states practically ceased; thereafter, most of the engagements were in the

A) Ohio River Valley.
B) Canadian frontier.
C) Mississippi River Valley.
D) South.

Question 21

The most overwhelming American defeat in the war was General Clinton's May 1780 capture of

A) Boston.
B) Philadelphia.
C) Trenton.
D) Charleston.

Question 22

The British defeat at Yorktown resulted largely from the

A) inability of the British to persuade Tories to join them.
B) French fleet winning control of Chesapeake Bay and preventing Cornwallis from escaping from the peninsula by sea.
C) ability of Washington to outmaneuver Cornwallis' much larger army and force him to retreat to the peninsula.
D) failure of Cornwallis to receive General Clinton's orders to withdraw.

Question 23

The American negotiators at the Paris Peace Conference violated their instructions from Congress by

A) rejecting any attempt to restore Tory property seized during the Revolution.
B) agreeing to continued British control of Canada.
C) refusing to rely on the Comte de Vergennes and negotiating a separate treaty with Great Britain.
D) surrendering American rights to fish on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

Question 24

The United States received very favorable terms in the Peace of Paris (1783) because the

A) American commissioners skillfully played rival European powers against each other.
B) French insisted that the United States must be a powerful nation.
C) rioting and looting in Great Britain by irate citizens convinced Great Britain that she must end the war immediately.
D) Spanish and French threatened to attack British shipping if they did not agree to American terms.

Question 25

According to the map, "The United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1787," one state which claimed that its western boundary extended to the Mississippi River was

A) North Carolina.
B) Pennsylvania.
C) Florida.
D) New York.

Question 26

The union of American states under the Articles of Confederation was a

A) centralized system in which the national government held the most power, but the states had control over purely local matters.
B) federal system almost exactly like the later union under the Constitution.
C) league of friendship, in which the states were sovereign and the national government had only weak delegated powers.
D) centralized system with power vested solely in the national government.

Question 27

Which of the following was NOT a way in which the American government financed the Revolutionary War?

A) borrowing from France
B) taxing American citizens directly
C) printing paper money
D) requisitioning funds from the states

Question 28

In the new state governments created during the Revolution, power was concentrated in the

A) governors.
B) courts.
C) executive councils.
D) legislatures.

Question 29

The most significant change in the new state governments was the

A) elimination of the office of governor in most states.
B) general rejection of the British system as a model.
C) elimination of property qualifications for voting and office holding.
D) removal of outside control, making them more responsive to public opinion.

Question 30

During the Revolutionary War, the new constitution of ________ replaced the office of governor with an elected council of twelve members.

A) South Carolina
B) Pennsylvania
C) New York
D) Massachusetts

Question 31

What happened to social reform when many states wrote constitutions during the Revolution?

A) It was neglected because of wartime necessities.
B) Many states seized the occasion to introduce important political and social reforms.
C) It focused on limiting the ability of the powerful to exploit the powerless.
D) It became identified with Loyalism.

Question 32

As part of the social reforms accompanying the Revolution, all states which still had them abolished

A) primogeniture and entail.
B) property qualifications for voters.
C) public taxes to support religion.
D) slavery and apprenticeship.

Question 33

The movement to separate church and state during the writing of the new state constitutions was most successful in

A) Massachusetts.
B) South Carolina.
C) New Hampshire.
D) Virginia.

Question 34

"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry. Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself." The author and state of this 1786 statute was

A) John Adams, Massachusetts.
B) Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania.
C) Thomas Jefferson, Virginia.
D) Alexander Hamilton, New York.

Question 35

The immediate effect of the American Revolution upon slavery was that

A) slavery was abolished throughout America as inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence.
B) northern states moved toward emancipation of their slaves, and most southern states restricted the importation of slaves.
C) slavery came to be justified as a "positive good" by its defenders in the North and South.
D) because slavery was still too economically important in both the northern and the southern states, the movement to abolish it failed everywhere.

Question 36

The text notes that during and after the Revolution, slavery

A) was immediately abolished in the northern states.
B) was abolished in all British colonies.
C) increased rapidly throughout the colonies.
D) died where it was not economically important.

Question 37

How did the Revolution affect attitudes toward the education of women?

A) The British tried to undermine the Patriots by encouraging female education.
B) Women were told their place was in the home, not in schools.
C) The idea of female education began to be accepted as important in a republic.
D) Because most states granted women the right to vote, they encouraged their education also.

Question 38

When analyzing the relationship between the American Revolution and nationalism, your text concludes that a feeling of American nationalism

A) provoked the movement toward American independence.
B) was actually an obstacle the Patriots had to overcome.
C) emerged out of the necessity to unite in order to win the war.
D) had been very strong since the founding of the colonies.

Question 39

A major source of the new feeling of nationalism after the Revolutionary War was the

A) common sacrifice by soldiers and civilians during the war.
B) inspiration from the patriotic novels of James Fenimore Cooper.
C) strong central government created by the Articles of Confederation.
D) common dedication to freedom embodied in the attacks on slavery.

Question 40

The law which divided the western territories into 6-mile-square townships was the

A) Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
B) Homestead Law of 1793.
C) Land Ordinance of 1785.
D) Township Act of 1784.

Question 41

The measure which established governments for the western territories was the

A) Land Ordinance of 1785.
B) Treaty of Paris, 1783.
C) Proclamation of 1763.
D) Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Question 42

In comparing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 with the system by which Great Britain governed her colonies, it would be most accurate to say that the British system was

A) adopted in its entirety as the permanent form of government for the territories.
B) rejected completely in favor of immediate statehood for the territories because of the injustices the colonies experienced.
C) adopted for the intermediate stage of territorial development, which would give way to statehood in the third stage.
D) adopted only for the initial stage of territorial development.

Question 43

As a general, George Washington

A) was a marvelous tactician, like Caesar.
B) failed miserably.
C) lacked genius but was a remarkable organizer and administrator.
D) was a brilliant strategist, like Napoleon.

Question 44

George Washington's greatest strength as a national hero was his

A) warm, outgoing personality.
B) brilliant strategic and tactical abilities as a military commander.
C) powerful oratorical and literary abilities.
D) personal sacrifices and his obvious disinclination toward becoming a dictator.

Question 45

How did historians react to depiction of the Revolution in The Patriot?

A) They praised the accurate historical costumes.
B) They were critical of many aspects of the film, especially the totally fictionalized British incineration of an occupied church.
C) They thought the Battle of Cowpens was depicted with considerable historical accuracy.
D) They praised the nuanced portraits of both the British and the Patriots.

Question 46

Even after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Continental Congress and most Americans were reluctant to declare independence because they doubted the common people's capacity for self-government.

Question 47

The first draft of the Declaration of Independence was prepared by Benjamin Franklin.

Question 48

Most Anglican clergy supported the Patriot cause.

Question 49

The drafting of a commercial treaty and a treaty of alliance with France was the outstanding diplomatic outcome of the Battle of Saratoga.

Question 50

In the fighting in the South, General Horatio Gates avoided major battles with the superior forces of General Cornwallis and instead harassed his forces with hit-and-run raids.

Question 51

The governments created under the new state constitutions were actually less democratic than their colonial predecessors.

Question 52

Martha Washington is famous for warning her husband that the rebels should "remember the ladies" as well as the men when they reformed society.

Question 53

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited governments in new Western states from allowing slavery.

Question 54

Describe the major events of the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. Why did the Patriots win?

Question 55

Summarize how the Declaration of Independence was written. Explain why it was written. Evaluate its major features and values.

Question 56

Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the Americans and the British in 1776. In addition to military factors, examine political, economic, and social factors as well.

Question 57

Describe how the results of the Revolutionary War affected the lives of women in America.

Question 58

Describe specific examples of the growth of a national culture in America promoted by the Revolutionary War and the government under the Articles of Confederation.

Question 59

What is the definition of the following key term:
-Continental Army:

Question 60

What is the definition of the following key term:
-nationalism :