AP U.S. History: Chapter Guides
Chapter 5
America’s History, Chapter 5: The Problem of Empire, 1763-1776
Key Concept: British attempts to assert tighter control over its North American colonies and
the colonial resolve to pursue self-government led to a colonial independence movement and
the Revolutionary War.
Key Concept: The American Revolution’s democratic and republican ideals inspired new
experiments with different forms of government.
An Empire Transformed
The Costs of Empire (p. 152-155)
1. How did the Great War for Empire lead to changes in Britain’s tax policies and procedures?
2. List 3 reasons British leaders decided to station 7,500 troops in North America after the war was over.
3. Why did British officials feel they were justified in expecting the colonists to pay a greater share of the tax
burden?
George Grenville and the Reform Impulse (p. 155-157)
4. How did colonists react to the Sugar Act of 1764?
An Open Challenge: The Stamp Act (p. 157)
5. In what ways did the Stamp Act impose “parliamentary supremacy” over the colonies?
AP U.S. History: Chapter Guides
Chapter 5
The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765–1770
Formal Protests and the Politics of the Crowd (p. 157-159)
6. Identify 2 specific objections voiced by the Stamp Act Congress in 1765.
7. Name 2 specific resistance actions taken by colonists who opposed the Stamp Act.
How successful was this resistance?
The Ideological Roots of Resistance (p. 159)
8. Complete the table below to describe the intellectual traditions that helped Patriot writers give the resistance
movement an intellectual rationale.
Intellectual tradition
Key ideas of the tradition
Examples of Patriots’ use
English common law
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Enlightenment
rationalism
The republican &
Whig tradition
Another Kind of Freedom (p. 159-160)
9. How did the resistance movement help convince some colonists to oppose slavery?
AP U.S. History: Chapter Guides
Chapter 5
Parliament and Patriots Square Off Again (p. 160-163)
10. When the new British prime minister took office in late 1765, what steps did he take to resolve the Stamp
Act Crisis in favor of the colonists?
What did he do to “save face” for the British government?
11. What did the Townshend Act of 1767 do?
How did this revive the debate over taxation in the colonies?
12. Give 3 specific examples of actions taken by colonists in support of a new boycott of British goods.
13. What fateful action was taken by the British official Lord Hillsborough in 1768?
The Problem of the West (p. 163-166)
14. Why did the Proclamation Line become a source of tensions between Britain and the colonists?
Parliament Wavers (p. 166-167)
15. Cite one piece of evidence that points to the success of the colonists’ nonimportation agreement.
16. How did the events of March 5, 1770 in Boston help the Radical Whigs gain support for their goals?
The Road to Independence, 1771–1776
A Compromise Repudiated (p. 168-169)
17. What was the purpose of “committees of correspondence?”
AP U.S. History: Chapter Guides
18. Why did Patriot leaders object to the Tea Act?
What actions were taken to block its implementation?
19. List the 4 elements of the Coercive Acts (aka “Intolerable Acts.”)
The Continental Congress Responds (p. 169-170)
20. What steps did the First Continental Congress agree to in 1774?
The Rising of the Countryside (p. 170-174)
21. How was debt a factor in persuading the southern gentry to support the Patriot movement?
Loyalists and Neutrals (p. 174)
22. Give 2 reasons why some colonists sided with Britain rather than with the Patriot movement.
Violence East and West
Lord Dunmore’s War (p. 174-175)
23. What territory did Dunmore’s militia claim after defeating the Shawnees at Point Pleasant?
Armed Resistance in Massachusetts (p. 175)
24. Why did fighting break out on April 18, 1775, in Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts?
The Second Continental Congress Organizes for War (p. 176-177)
25. Identify 2 actions taken by the Second Continental Congress in support of the war effort.
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Chapter 5
AP U.S. History: Chapter Guides
Chapter 5
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (p. 177-178)
26. Briefly describe one of Paine’s arguments for American independence.
Independence Declared (p. 178-179)
27. What doctrines did Thomas Jefferson establish as America’s “defining political values” when he linked them
together in the Declaration of Independence?
SUMMARY: Use the chapter summary on p. 179 to fill in the blanks.
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Chapters 4 and 5 have focused on a short span of time — a mere two decades — and outlined the
plot of a political drama. Act I of that drama, the ______ ____ ____ ___________ discussed in Chapter 4,
prompted British political leaders to implement a program of ______________ ______________ and
_______________. Act II, discussed in this chapter, is full of dramatic action, as ______________
______ _______, colonists chafe against _________________ on _______________ ________, Patriot
____________________ articulate ideologies of resistance, and British ministers search for compromise
between claims of _______________________ __________________ and assertions of _____________
_________________. Act III takes the form of tragedy: the once-proud British Empire dissolves into civil
war, an imminent nightmare of death and destruction.
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Why did this happen? More than two centuries later, the answers still are not clear. Certainly, the
_______ ___ __________ __________________ in Britain was a major factor. But British leaders faced
circumstances that limited their actions: a huge _______________ ________ and deep commitments to
both a powerful _________________________ state and the absolute ___________________ of
______________________. Moreover, in America, decades of ______________ _____________
strengthened Patriots’ demands for political _________________ and economic ____________________.
_____________, farmers, and aspiring _______________ settlers all feared an oppressive new era in
imperial relations. The trajectories of their___________________ __________________ and _________
placed Britain and its American possessions on course for a disastrous and fatal collision.