Exploration and Colonization
until 1754
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| 210312291 | Cabot | 1450; Italian but sponsored by England; sailed around Ireland, landing place unclear but claimed land for England; believed he had reached Asia so set out once more, shipwrecked; his voyages set the path for the British claim to Canada | |
| 210312292 | Drake | 1540; England; second explorer to circumnavigate the globe; attempted to claim Puerto Rico and failed, died in the attempt | |
| 210312293 | Balboa | 1475; Spain; Sailed to Colombia, founded first stable colony in South America; first European to see the Eastern part of the Pacific Ocean; claimed the Pacific Ocean and land for Spain | |
| 210312294 | Verrazano | 1485; Italy; first European to sight New York; explored the New World | |
| 210312295 | Ponce de León | 1460; Spain; founded a settlement in Puerto Rico; discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth | |
| 210337271 | Pizzaro | 1475; Spain; conquered Incan empire; founded city of Lima, Peru | |
| 210337272 | de Soto | Spain 1496 ·Participated in Central American conquests (conquistador) ·Explored United States ·Discovered Mississippi River | |
| 210337273 | Cortes | 1485; Spain; Farmed on Hispaniola; sailed with Velazquez to conquer Cuba and establish Spanish colony on mainland South America; overthrew Montezuma with aid of Tlaxcalans, became absolute ruler of Mexico; chaos in Mexico, questionable treatment of people lost power | |
| 210337274 | Columbus | 1451; Spain; Visited New World (thought it was Asia) four times, sponsored by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella; established government on Hispaniola; aimed to gain wealth and status for himself and Spain, spread Christianity | |
| 210337275 | Vespucci | 1454; Spain, Portugal ; voyaged to New World; discovered mouth of Amazon river, sailed coast of South America; America named after him; first European to sail as far South as Argentina | |
| 210337276 | Diaz | 1450; Portugal; led the first expedition to round the southernmost tip of Africa; goal was to find a trade route to the East | |
| 210337277 | De Gama | 1460; Portugal; first European to sail to the East by going around the Southern tip of Africa; opened Western European trade routes with India and the East | |
| 210337278 | Magellan | 1480; Portgual and Spain; Magellan sailed West searching for a path through South America to the East (sponsored by Spain); discovered the Strait of Magellan through South America; sailed across the Pacific ocean to the Spice Islands (killed); fleet continued around Cape of Good Hope, first to circumnavigate the world | |
| 210337279 | Coronado | 1510; Spain; exploration of Southwest America; looking for Seven Golden Cities of Cibola | |
| 210337280 | Raleigh | 1554; England; fought against the Irish rebels in Munster, criticized English policy in Ireland; tried to establish colony in North Carolina and Virginia, paved way for future colonies; led expedition to Venezuela looking for El Dorado (city of gold) but failed | |
| 210337281 | Hudson | 1565; England, Netherlands; sailed, failed, in search of a Northeast Passage from Europe to Asia, then New World; found Hudson straight and Hudson Bay instead, basis for Dutch colonization of Hudson River and English claims of Canada | |
| 210337282 | Gilbert | 1539; England; searched for the Northwest passage, instead settlement in Newfoundland | |
| 210337283 | La Salle | 1643; France; first European to travel Mississippi River, established fur-trade routes; claimed Louisiana for France; explored Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario | |
| 210337284 | Champlain | 1567; France; founded Quebec, ran fur trade; established French colonies in New World; sailed St. Lawrence river, mapped and explored northern New York, Ottawa River, and eastern Great Lakes; discovered Lake Champlain | |
| 210337285 | Marquette and Joliet | 1673; France; found the Mississippi River, fed into Gulf of Mexico and not Pacific; explored Wisconsin River, Lake Michigan, Green Bay, Illinois River | |
| 210337286 | Cabrillo | 1543; Spain; sailed from Acapulco to southern California, claimed California for Spain; explored San Diego, Santa Monica, Monterey bays | |
| 212165862 | Armada | Naval fleet sent by Spain to invade England; British make first battle to use heavy artillery; England and Netherlands could have joined Spain | |
| 212165863 | Prince Henry | The Navigator; Portuguese prince, sponsored expeditions to Africa and more | |
| 212165864 | Roanoke Island | English settlement; founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, intended to be permanent trading post; colony disappeared | |
| 212165865 | Ferdinand and Isabella | Rulers of Spain during Age of Exploration; supported Columbus | |
| 212165866 | Mayas | Great civilization;occupied Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; advanced (farming, temples, gold, hieroglyphs); polytheistic (human sacrifice); captured by conquistadores | |
| 212165867 | Philip II | King of Spain and Portugal; Spanish empire reached Zenith; lost Netherlands and Armada | |
| 212165868 | Aztecs | Nahuatl-speaking people; Mexico; advanced (agriculture, human sacrifice); conquered by conquistadores | |
| 212165869 | Junípero Serra | Blessed; Spanish Franciscan priest; missionary in California; controversial figure | |
| 212165870 | Incas | Pacific Ocean to Ecuador; stratified society (emperor and aristocrats); agricultural society; conquered by conquistadores | |
| 212165873 | Montezuma | Ninth and last emperor of the Aztecs; killed by Spanish in Cortes' conquest | |
| 212165875 | Northwest Passage | Passage through North America; led through Pacific Ocean to Asia; Drake, Cartier, Cook, Gilbert sought, unsuccesful | |
| 212165876 | Jesuits | Roman Catholic Society of Jesus; founded by St. Ignatius Loyola; devoted to missionary and educational work | |
| 212165880 | neophytes | new converts to a religion | |
| 369841445 | Plymouth | founded for religious freedom, Separatists, Puritans; ruled by elite but elective system and limited rights, Mayflower Compact; key leaders Miles Standish, John Carver, William Bradford, William Brewster; economically subsistence farming (no trading with England); friendly relations with Indians but disease killed many; second successful permanent English settlement in the New World | |
| 369841446 | John Carver | first governor of Plymouth | |
| 369841447 | Pennsylvania | English; Founded as payment of debt from King Charles II to William Penn, center for Quakers; governed by governor, small Provincial Council, General Assembly (ineffective); key leaders William Penn, (founder, governor) William Markham (acting governor); economically agricultural exports, manufacturing (abundant natural resources), trade with Indians (for furs); fair treatment, friendship with local indians, most friendly of colonies | |
| 369841448 | Jamestown | English; founded to spread Christianity, open new areas to trade, guard against Spanish expansion; early problems with Indian attacks, famine and disease; tobacco prosperity, demand for labor led to indentured servants and slaves; fell into debt, became a royal colony; key leaders Christopher Newport (founder), John Rolfe (married Pocahontas) | |
| 369841449 | William Penn | Englishman and Quaker who founded the colony of Pennsylvania (1644-1718) | |
| 369841450 | John Rolfe | One of the English settlers at Jamestown (and he married Pocahontas). He discovered how to successfully grow tobacco in Virginia and cure it for export, which made Virginia an economically successful colony | |
| 369841451 | William Bradford | A Pilgrim, the second governor of the Plymouth colony, 1621-1657. He developed private land ownership and helped colonists get out of debt. He helped the colony survive droughts, crop failures, and Indian attacks | |
| 369841452 | William Brewster | reached Plymouth Colony in the Mayflower, pastor of the Pilgrim congregation | |
| 369841453 | Anne Hutchinson | American colonist (born in England) who was banished from Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony for her religious views (1591-1643); believed faith alone, not deeds, is necessary for salvation; migrated to Providence and then Long Island, killed in an Indian uprising | |
| 369841454 | mercantilism | trade, colonies, and accumulation of wealth as the basis for a country's military and political strength; government should regulate trade and production to enable it to become self-sufficient; colonies to provide raw materials to the parent country for growth and profit of that country's industries; colonies existed solely to enrich the parent country | |
| 369856803 | Bacon's Rebellion | an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony, led by Nathaniel Bacon. It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part; protest against the governor of Virginia, William Berkeley, too friendly towards Native Americans; highlighted sharp class differences between wealthy planters and landless or poor farmers and colonial resistance to royal control | |
| 369856804 | Mayflower Compact | 1620; prior to settlement by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Bay in Massachusetts. It declared that the 41 males who signed it agreed to accept majority rule and participate in a government in the best interest of all members of the colony. This agreement set the precedent for later documents outlining commonwealth rule. | |
| 369856805 | Squanto | Pawtuxet Indian, captured by explorers (learned English); go-between with Wampanoag and pilgrims; pop culture | |
| 369856806 | John Winthrop | governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony; (1588-1649) was instrumental in forming the colony's government and shaping its legislative policy. He envisioned the colony, centered in present-day Boston, as a "city upon a hill" from which Puritans would spread religious righteousness throughout the world. | |
| 369856807 | Massachusetts Bay | settled by Puritans seeking religious freedom, royal charter for colonization not Separatists; led by John Winthrop; Great Migration (civil war in England brought more settlers) | |
| 369856808 | Roger Williams | English clergyman and colonist who was expelled from Massachusetts for criticizing Puritanism, believed individual's conscience was beyond the control of any civil or church authority; founded Rhode Island for separation of Church and State | |
| 369856809 | Calvinism | theocracy in Geneva, Switzerland; rigid; predestination (life already determined at birth, heaven or hell, suspect who good people were - God would bless you, worked hard equals wealthy, those who are successful are favored and going to heaven); adopted by Puritans | |
| 369856810 | Jonathan Edwards | Sinners in the hands of an angry God, fire and brimstone sermons; American theologian whose sermons and writings stimulated a period of renewed interest in religion in America | |
| 369856811 | Great Awakening | Religious revival in the American colonies of the 18th century; emotionalism became a common part of Protestant services, ministers lost authority among those who now studied Bible in their own homes, (question authority, make political decisions without deferring to authority); caused division within churches and call for division of church and state | |
| 369889304 | land bridge | 100-mile wide land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age; allowed people to cross from Asia to America | |
| 369889305 | Olmec | a member of an early Mesoamerican civilization contered around Veracruz that flourished between 1300 and 400 BC | |
| 369889306 | Hopewell | A mound builder society that was centered in the Ohio River Valley from about 200 B.C to AD 400 | |
| 369889307 | pueblos | Hohokam; stone or mud-brick structures | |
| 369889308 | Mississippian | the last Mound Builder culture that lasted from AD 800 to the arrival of the Europeans in the 1500s | |
| 369889309 | Iroquois League | a league of Iroquois tribes including originally the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca (the Five Nations) | |
| 369889310 | conquistador | a Spanish conqueror of the Americas | |
| 369889311 | Columbian Exchange | The exchange of plants, (namely maize) animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages; significantly increased agricultural yields and population growth in other continents | |
| 369889312 | Martin Luther | German theologian who led the Reformation, posted list of indulgences in the church | |
| 369889313 | Navigation Acts | 1650-1673; Laws that governed trade between England and its colonies. Colonists were required to ship certain products exclusively to England; caused New England shipbuilding to prosper, Chesapeake tobacco had a monopoly in England, English military forces protected colonies from French and Spanish attacks; also limited colonial manufacturing, Chesapeake farmers low prices for crops, colonists pay high prices for English imports; unnecessary, England would have been main trading partner, simply created resentment and smuggling | |
| 369889314 | Glorious Revolution | bloodless revolution; the English Parliament and William and Mary agreed to overthrow James II for the sake of Protestantism. This led to a constitutional monarchy and the drafting of the English Bill of Rights. | |
| 369889315 | Adam Smith | Scottish economist who advocated private enterprise and free trade (1723-1790); wrote the Wealth of Nations, advocated laissez-faire economics | |
| 369889316 | Middle Passage | the route in between the western ports of Africa to the Caribbean and southern U.S. that carried the slave trade | |
| 369889317 | Stono Rebellion | The most serious slave rebellion in the the colonial period which occurred in 1739 in South Carolina. 100 slaves killed several whites, tried to escape to S. Florida; uprising crushed and the participants executed; frightened whites cut slave exports and tightened plantation discipline | |
| 369889318 | William Byrd | wealthy plantation owner in colonial Virginia whose diary gives a vivid picture of colonial life; used his wealth to rule over white yeoman families and tenant farmers, relied on violence to exploit enslaved blacks; frustrated with inferiority to British citizens | |
| 369889319 | House of Burgesses | the first elected legislative assembly in the New World established in the Colony of Virginia in 1619, representative colony set up by England to make laws and levy taxes but England could veto its legistlative acts | |
| 369889320 | salutary neglect | 1714-1727; Allowed the rise of American self-government; royal bureaucrats, pleased by growing trade and import duties, relaxed their supervision of internal colonial affairs | |
| 369889321 | Sir Robert Walpole | Whig Leader in the House of Commons from 1720 to 1742; patronage to win support, filled the British government with do-nothing political hacks; undermined legitimacy of political system | |
| 369889322 | Molasses Act of 1733 | allowed mainland colonies to export fish and flour to the French islands, but gave a price advantage to British sugar planters, placed a high tariff on French molasses; Americans protested it would cut off molasses imports, slashing colonial income; Americans smuggled sugar in response | |
| 375818279 | nation-state | country in which the majority of people share both a common culture and common political loyalties toward a central government | |
| 375818280 | asiento | Spanish brought slaves from the West Indies; required Spanish to pay a tax on each slave they imported to the Americas | |
| 375818281 | Virginia Company | joint-stock company that established the first permanent English colony in America at Jamestown in 1607 | |
| 375818282 | joint-stock companies | pooled the savings of people of moderate means and supported trading ventures that seemed potentially profitable | |
| 375818283 | effects of European colonization | destruction by disease and war of large segments of the Native American population; establishment of a permanent legacy of subjugation | |
| 375820999 | Spanish policy | incorporated the conquered peoples of Central and South America into a highly organized empire; explorers intermarried with Indians and Africans because of limited Spanish immigration; rigid class system dominated by pure-blooded Spaniards | |
| 375821000 | English policy | initially coexisted, traded, shared ideas; later conflict and open warfare; no respect for Native Americans, who felt their lifestyle threatened | |
| 375821001 | French policy | maintained good relations with the Native Americans; fur trade, limited settlement did not pose a threat | |
| 375851807 | Renaissance | the revival of learning and culture in Europe; creation of the printing press, compass, gunpowder | |
| 376162904 | charter | document granting special privileges | |
| 376162905 | corporate colonies | Jamestown; operated by joint-stock companies, at least during these colonies' early years | |
| 376162906 | royal colonies | Virginia after 1624; under the direct authority and rule of the king's government | |
| 376162907 | proprietary colonies | Maryland and Pennsylvania; under the authority of individuals granted charters of ownership by the king | |
| 376162908 | Lord Baltimore | granted control of Chesapeake Bay by King Charles I as a reward for the Catholic nobleman's loyal service to the crown; Maryland first of proprietary colonies; died before he could fulfill ambition of achieving great wealth and providing a haven for Catholics | |
| 376162909 | Maryland | proprietary colony granted to Lord Baltimore, died; Lord Baltimore II; Act of Toleration, Protestant revolt caused Act of Toleration to be repealed, Catholics lost the right to vote | |
| 376162910 | Act of Toleration | 1649; the first colonial statute granting religious freedom to all Christians; called for the death of anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus | |
| 376162911 | headright system | 50 acres of land to each immigrant who paid for his own passage or any plantation owner who paid for an immigrant's passage | |
| 376162912 | Rhode Island | founded by Roger Williams; recognized the rights of Native Americans and paid them for the use of their land; religious freedom; | |
| 376207012 | Connecticut | Thomas Hooker; settlers unhappy with Puritans, Fundamental Orders of Connecticut; formed with New Haven, royal charter granted a limited degree of self-government, including election of governor | |
| 376207013 | Fundamental Orders of Connecticut | 1639; Hartford settlers, first written constitution in American history; established a representative government consisting of a legislature elected by popular vote and a governor chosen by that legislature | |
| 376207014 | New Hampshire | originally part of Massachusetts Bay, royal colony; subject to the authority of an appointed governor | |
| 376207015 | halfway covenant | people could take part in Puritan church services and activities without making a formal declaration to their total belief in Christ; other ministers rejected, denounced | |
| 376207016 | New England Confederation | created against threat of Indians, Dutch, French; Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New Haven; formed a military alliance; directed by a board comprised of two representatives from each colony, limited powers to act on boundary disputes, return of runaway servants, dealings with Native Americans; lasted until colonial rivalries and renewed British control in 1684; established a precedent for colonies taking unified action toward a common purpose | |
| 376207017 | King Philip's War | 1675-6; Wampanoags united tribes against English settlers, who were encroaching on land; thousands killed, colonial forces prevailed and ended Native American resistance in New England | |
| 376207018 | South Carolina | founded 1670; initially based on trading furs and providing food for West Indies, later large rice-growing plantations worked by African slaves resembled the economy and culture of West Indies | |
| 376207019 | North Carolina | small, self-sufficient tobacco farms; poor transportation and bad harbors, so fewer large plantations and less reliance on slavery than South Carolina; reputation for democratic views and autonomy from British control | |
| 376207020 | New York | 1664, Duke of York; took control from Dutch, treated Dutch well and allowed freedom; new taxes, duties and rents without talking to representative assembly; taxation without representation resisted by Puritans, allowed governor to grant broad civil and political rights, including a representative assembly | |
| 376207021 | New Jersey | Lord John Berkeley, Sir George Carteret; generous land offers and allowed religious freedom and an assembly to attract settlers; sold to various groups of Quakers, confused but eventually combined into a single royal colony | |
| 376207022 | Delaware | 1702; Penn granted lower three counties of Pennsylvania their own assembly | |
| 376207023 | Georgia | 1732; only colony to receive direct financial support from the home government in London; British wanted to create a defensive buffer to protect prosperous South Carolina plantations from invasion threat of Spanish Florida, to send debtor's prisoners to start life over; James Oglethorpe, no rum or slavery until 1752, became a royal colony | |
| 376207024 | triangular trade | rum from New England to West Africa; rum traded for captive Africans; Middle Passage to West Indies, traded for a cargo of sugar; ship would return to English port, sugar sold to be used in making rum | |
| 376217439 | slavery | increased demand due to reduced migration (increased wages in England), dependable work force (large plantation owners disturbed by political demands of small farmers and indentured servants, Bacon's rebellion); cheap labor | |
| 376217440 | slave laws | 1641 Massachusetts recognizes slave status as inherited | |
| 376323399 | George Whitefield | Great Awakening; preacher, ignited Great Awakening with fire and brimstone speeches; ordinary people who had faith and sincerity could understand the Christian gospels without depending on ministers to lead them | |
| 376388927 | Zenger case | New york editor and publisher put on trial for libelously criticizing New York's royal governor; lawyer argued that it was the truth, common law considered any injurious statements a criminal act regardless of truth, but jury voted to acquit, encouraged newspapers to take greater risks in criticizing a colony's government |