Chapter 1: New World Beginnings (18 terms)
pages 4-46;
Chapter 2: The Planting of English America (16 terms)
pages 27-45;
Chapter 3: Settling the Northern Colonies (19 terms)
pages 46-67;
Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century (12 terms)
pages 68-87;
Transcribed by Alex Wyllie
Terms : Hide Images
| 1651273616 | Canadian Shield | First part of the North American landmass to emerge above sea level. | 0 | |
| 1651273617 | Incas | Highly advanced South American civilization that occupied present-day Peru until they were conquered by Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro in 1532. The Incas developed sophisticated agricultural techniques, such as terrace farming, in order to sustain large, complex societies in the unforgiving Andes Mountains. | 1 | |
| 1651273618 | Aztecs | Native American empire that controlled present-day Mexico until 1521, when they were conquered by Spanish Hernán Cortés. The Aztecs maintained control over their vast empire through a system of trade and tribute, and came to be known for their advances in mathematics and writing, and their use of human sacrifices in religious ceremonies. | 2 | |
| 1651273619 | Cahokia | Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, home to as many as 25,000 Native Americans. | 3 | |
| 1651273620 | Three-sister farming | Agricultural system employed by North American Indians as early as 1000 A.D.; maize, beans, and squash were grown together to maximize yields. | 4 | |
| 1651273621 | Middlemen | In trading systems, those dealers who operate between the original producers of goods and the retail merchants who sell to consumers. After the eleventh century, European exploration was driven in large part by a desire to acquire Asian goods without paying heavy tolls to Muslim middlemen. | 5 | |
| 1651273622 | Caravel | Small regular vessel with a high deck and three triangular sails. Caravels could sail more closely into the wind, allowing European sailors to explore the Western shores of Africa, previously made inaccessible due to the prevailing winds on the homeward journey. | 6 | |
| 1651273623 | Plantation | Large-scale agricultural enterprise growing commercial crops and usually employing coerced or slave labor. European settles established plantations in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the American South. | 7 | |
| 1651273624 | Columbian Exchange | The transfer of goods, crops, and diseases between New and Old World societies after 1942. | 8 | |
| 1651273625 | The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) | Signed by Spain and Portugal, dividing the territories of the New World. Spain received the bulk of the territory in the Americas, compensating Portugal with titles to lands in Africa and Asia. | 9 | |
| 1651273626 | Conquistadores | Sixteenth century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Incan empires. | 10 | |
| 1651273627 | Capitalism | Economic system characterized by private property, generally free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, and in particular, the discovery of vast bullion deposits, helped bring about Europe's transition to capitalism. | 11 | |
| 1651273628 | Encomienda | Spanish government's policy to "commend," or give, Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to christianize them. Part of a broader Spanish effort to subdue Indian tribes in the West Indies and on the North American mainland. | 12 | |
| 1651273629 | Noche Triste | "Sad night", when the Aztecs attacked Hernán Cortés and his forces in the Aztec capital, Tenochitlán, killing hundreds. Cortés laid siege to the city the following year, precipitating the fall of the Aztec Empire and inaugurating three centuries of Spanish rule. | 13 | |
| 1651273630 | Mestizos | People of mixed Indian and European heritage, notably in Mexico. | 14 | |
| 1651273631 | Battle of Acoma | Fought between Spaniards under Don Juan de Oñate and the Pueblo Indians in present-day New Mexico. Spaniards brutally crushed the Pueblo peoples and established the territory as New Mexico in 1609. | 15 | |
| 1651273632 | Popé's Rebellion | Pueblo Indian rebellion which drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico. | 16 | |
| 1651273633 | Black Legend | False notion that Spanish Conquerors did little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ. | 17 | |
| 1651273634 | Protestant Reformation | Movement to reform the catholic church launched in Germany by Martin Luther. Reformers questioned the authority of the Pope, sought to eliminate the selling of indulgences, and encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin, which few at the time could read. The reformation was launched in England in the 1530s when King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church. | 18 | |
| 1651273635 | Roanoke Island | Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonial settlement off the coast of North Carolina. | 19 | |
| 1651273636 | Spanish Armada | Spanish fleet defeated in the English Channel in 1588. The defeat of the Armada marked the beginning of the decline of the Spanish Empire. | 20 | |
| 1651273637 | Primogeniture | Legal principle that the oldest son inherits all family property or land. Landowner's younger sons, forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere, pioneered early exploration and settlement of the Americas. | 21 | |
| 1651273638 | Joint-stock Company | Short-term partnership between multiple investors to fund a commercial enterprise; such arrangements were used to fund England's early colonial ventures. | 22 | |
| 1651273639 | Charter | Legal document granted by a government to some group or agency to implement a stated purpose, and spelling out the attending rights and obligations. British colonial charters guaranteed inhabitants the rights of Englishmen, which helped solidify colonists' ties to Britain during the early years of settlement. | 23 | |
| 1651273640 | Jamestown | First permanent English settlement in North America founded by the Virginia Company. | 24 | |
| 1651273641 | First Anglo-Powhatan War | Series of clashes between the Powhatan confederacy and English settlers in Virginia. English colonists torched and pillaged Indian villages, employing tactics used in England's campaign against the Irish. | 25 | |
| 1651273642 | Second Anglo-Powhatan War | Last-ditch effort by the Indians to dislodge Virginia settlements. The resulting peace treaty formally separated white and Indian areas of settlement. | 26 | |
| 1651273643 | Act of Toleration | Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed toleration to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for those, like Jews and atheists, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Ensured that Maryland would continue to attract a high proportion of Catholic immigrants throughout the colonial period. | 27 | |
| 1651273644 | Barbados slave code | First formal statute governing the treatment of slaves, which provided for harsh punishments against offending slaves but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statutes were adopted by Southern plantation societies on the North American mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries. | 28 | |
| 1651273645 | Squatters | Frontier farmers who illegally occupied land owned by others or not yet officially opened for settlement. Many of North Carolina's early settlers were squatters, who contributed to the colony's reputation as being more independent-minded and "democratic" than it's neighbors. | 29 | |
| 1651273646 | Tuscarora War | Began with an Indian attack on Newbern, North Carolina. After the Tuscaroras were defeated, remaining Indian survivors migrated northward, eventually joining the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth nation. | 30 | |
| 1651273647 | Yamasee Indians | Defeated by the South Carolinians in the war of 1715-1716. The Yamasee defeat devestated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the Southern colonies. | 31 | |
| 1651273648 | Buffer | In politics, a territory between two antagonistic powers, intended to minimize the possibility of conflict between them. In British North America, Georgia was established as a buffer colony between British and Spanish territory. | 32 | |
| 1651273649 | Iriquois Confederacy | Bound together five tribes - the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas - in the Mohawk Valley of what is now New York State. | 33 | |
| 1651273650 | Calvinsim | Dominant theological credo of the New England Puritans based on the teachings of John Calvin. Calvinists believed in predestination - that only "the elect" were destined for salvation. | 34 | |
| 1651273651 | Predestination | Calvinist doctrine that God has foreordained some people to be saved and some to be damned. Though their fate was irreversible, Calvinists, particularly those who believed they were destined for salvation, sought to lead sanctified lives in order to demonstrate to others that they were in fact members of the "elect." | 35 | |
| 1651273652 | Conversion | Intense religious experience that confirmed an individual's place among the "elect," or the "visible saints." Calvinists who experienced conversion were then expected to lead sanctified lives to demonstrate their salvation. | 36 | |
| 1651273653 | Puritans | English Protestant reformers who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic rituals and creeds. Some of the most devout Puritans believed that only "visible saints" should be admitted to church membership. | 37 | |
| 1651273654 | Separatists | Small group of Puritans who sought to break away entirely from the Church of England; after initially settling in Holland, a number of English Separatists made their way to Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts in 1620. | 38 | |
| 1651273655 | Mayflower Compact | Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth, signed aboard the Mayflower. Created a foundation for self-government in the colony. | 39 | |
| 1651273656 | Massachusetts Bay Colony | Established by non-separating Puritans, it soon grew to be the largest and most influential of the New England colonies. | 40 | |
| 1651273657 | Great Migration | Migration of seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies, primarily New England and the Caribbean. The twenty thousand migrants who came to Massachusetts largely shared a common sense of purpose - to establish a model Christian settlement in the new world. | 41 | |
| 1651273658 | Antinomianism | Belief that the elect need not obey the law of either God or man; most notably espoused in the colonies by Anne Hutchinson. | 42 | |
| 1651273659 | Fundamental Orders | Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River Valley, document was the first "modern constitution" establishing a democratically controlled government. Key features of the document were borrowed for Connecticut's colonial charter and later, its state constitution. | 43 | |
| 1651273660 | Pequot War | Series of clashes between English settlers and Pequot Indians in the Connecticut River valley. Ended in the slaughter of the Pequots by the Puritans and their Narragansett Indian allies. | 44 | |
| 1651273661 | King Phillip's War | Series of assaults by Metacom, King Philip, on English settlements in New England. The attacks slowed the westward migration of New England settlers for several decades. | 45 | |
| 1651273662 | English Civil War | Armed conflict between royalists and parliamentarians, resulting in the victory of pro-Parliament forces and the execution of Charles I. | 46 | |
| 1651273663 | Dominion of New England | Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. Placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced the navigation laws. Its collapse after the Glorious revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control. | 47 | |
| 1651273664 | Navigation Laws | Series of laws passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping; the acts provided that only English ships would be allowed to trade in English and colonial ports, and all goods destined for the colonies would first pass through England. | 48 | |
| 1651273665 | Glorious (Bloodless) Revolution | Relatively peaceful overthrow of the unpopular Catholic monarch, James II, replacing him with Dutch-born William III and Mary, daughter of James II. William and Mary accepted increased Parliamentary oversight and new limits on monarchical authority. | 49 | |
| 1651273666 | Salutary Neglect | Unofficial policy of relaxed royal control over colonial trade and only weak enforcement of Navigation Laws. Lasted from the Glorious Revolution to the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. | 50 | |
| 1651273667 | Patroonships | Vast tracts of land along the Hudson River in New Netherlands granted to wealthy promoters in exchange for bringing fifty settlers to the property. | 51 | |
| 1651273668 | Blue laws | Also known as sumptuary laws, they are designed to restrict personal behavior in accord with a strict code of morality. Blue laws were passed across the colonies, particularly in Puritan New England and Quaker Pennsylvania. | 52 | |
| 1651273669 | Indentured servants | Migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service, typically between 4 and seven years. Their migration addressed the chronic labor shortage in the colonies and facilitated settlement. | 53 | |
| 1651273670 | Headright system | Employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants, the system allowed an individual to acquire fifty acres of land if he paid for a laborer's passage to the colony. | 54 | |
| 1651273671 | Bacon's rebellion | Uprising of Virginia backcountry farmers and indentured servants lead by planter Nathaniel Bacon; initially a response to Governor William Berkeley's refusal to protect backcountry settlers from Indian attacks, the rebellion eventually grew into a broader conflict between impoverished settlers and the planter elite. | 55 | |
| 1651273672 | Royal African Company | English joint-stock company that enjoyed a state-granted monopoly on the colonial slave trade from 1672 until 1698. The supply of slaves to the North American colonies rose sharply once the company lost its monopoly privileges. | 56 | |
| 1651273673 | Middle passage | Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies. Mortality rates were notoriously high. | 57 | |
| 1651273674 | New York slave revolt | Uprising of approximately two dozen slaves that resulted in the deaths of nine whites and the brutal execution of twenty-one participating blacks. | 58 | |
| 1651273675 | South Carolina slave revolt (Stono River) | Uprising, also known as the Stono rebellion, of more than fifty South Carolina blacks along the Stono river. The slaves attempted to reach Spanish Florida but were stopped by the South Carolina militia. | 59 | |
| 1651273676 | Congregational church | Self-governing Puritan congregations without the hierarchical establishment of the Anglican Church. | 60 | |
| 1651273677 | Jeremiad | Often-fiery sermons lamenting the waning piety of parishioners first delivered in New England in the mid-seventeenth century; named after the doom-saying Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. | 61 | |
| 1651273678 | Half-way covenant | Agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children. It signifies a waning of religious zeal among second and third generation Puritans. | 62 | |
| 1651273679 | Salem witch trials | Series of witchcraft trials launched after a group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women of the town. Twenty individuals were out to death before the trials were put to an end by the Governor of Massachusetts. | 63 | |
| 1651273680 | Leisler's Rebellion | Armed conflict between aspiring merchants led by Jacob Leisler and the ruling elite of New York. One of many uprisings that erupted across the colonies when wealthy colonists attempted to recreate European social structures in the New World. | 64 |
