Team 4Key People

Henry Knox

• He was an American bookseller from Boston, who at 24 became the chief artillery officer of the continental Army and later a close adviser of George Washington during the American Revolution. He was instrumental in formingthe Society of Cincinnati. He also was a staunch backer of the Constitutional Convention.

Loyalist (Tories)

• They were British North America colonists who remained loyal subjects of the British crown during the American Revolution. They were also called Tories, King’s men or Royalists.

Patriots (Whigs)

•Describes the colonists of the British 13 United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution.

Hessians

• They were German mercenaries who fought with the British forces in North America during the Revolutionary War. The German mercenaries represented about 1/3 of all British forces in America.

Marquis de LaFayette

• He served as a major-general in the Continental Army under George Washington. He also was a leader of the Garde hationale during the French Revolution.

General John Burgoyne

• The British surrender at Saratoga was a great turning point in the American Revolution and John Burgoyne’s failure to defeat Horatio Gate’s forces is to thank. His surrender brought France into the American Revolution.

General Horatio Gates

• He was very successful, both in the French and Indian war and in the Revolutionary War. He is most noted for being in regular competition with General George Washington and hatching a plan to have him removed as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

Frederick von Steuben

• He was a Prussian-born military officer who served as inspector general and major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary war. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual and served as General George Washington’s chief of staff in the final years of the war.

George Rogers Clark

• He was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. Clark is often hailed as the “Conqueror of the old Northwest.”

Joseph Brant

• He fought for the British in the last French and Indian War. He led four of the six Iroquois nations on the British side in the American Revolution. He also was a Christian missionary.

Daniel Boone

• He is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He founded the village of Boonesborought, Kentucky. Before the end of the 18th Century more than 200,000 European people migrated to Kentucky/ Virginia by following the route marked by Boone.

Focus Question

• Between 1775 and 1776 the Second Continental Congress reversed itself on the question of independence because they realized that they were no longer a part of the British Empire.

• Why did the Second Continental Congress reverse itself on the question of Independence between 1775 and 1776?