U.S. History Domain 1 Flashcards (SSUSH 1 & SSUSH 2)

Vocabulary terms and definitions based on the SSUSH1 and SSUSH2 Georgia Milestones standards covering colonization through the Great Awakening.

Mercantilism

An economic theory dominant in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries that aimed to maximize a nation's wealth by reducing imports and expanding exports.

Trans-Atlantic Trade

The trade network of the 1600s and 1700s linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean where colonies shipped raw materials and England shipped manufactured goods.

Triangular Trade

A three-leg Atlantic trade route: manufactured goods from Europe to Africa; enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas; and raw materials from the Americas to Europe.

Navigation Acts

A series of English laws mandating that colonial goods be carried on English ships and specific products like tobacco be sold only to England.

Middle Passage

The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic from the West African coast to the Americas; approximately two of every ten died during the crossing.

Southern Colonies

Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia; a region defined by warm climate and fertile soil that supported cash-crop plantation agriculture.

Jamestown

The first permanent English colony in North America, founded in 1607 in Virginia as a business venture by the Virginia Company.

Virginia Company

A London-based joint-stock company that funded the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to raise capital and provide financial returns to investors.

John Rolfe

An English colonist who introduced a milder, more marketable strain of tobacco to Virginia, transforming it into a profitable mercantilist colony.

Powhatan / Pocahontas

The paramount chief of an Algonquian-speaking confederacy in Virginia and his daughter, whose marriage to John Rolfe briefly stabilized early relations.

Indentured Servants

Poor English laborers who exchanged a fixed term of labor (4 to 7 years) for passage to the colonies and the promise of land or supplies.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 rebellion in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon, fueled by frustrated former indentured servants, which accelerated the shift toward enslaved African labor.

Cash Crops

Crops grown for export rather than personal use, primarily tobacco in the Chesapeake and rice and indigo in South Carolina and Georgia.

Fall Line

A geological boundary marking where the rocky Piedmont meets the flat coastal plain, determining where commercial plantations versus subsistence farms developed.

Maryland Act of Toleration (1649)

A colonial law that guaranteed religious freedom in Maryland to all Christians, both Protestant and Catholic.

Georgia

The last English colony founded in 1732; established as a military buffer against Spanish Florida and a refuge for English debtors.

James Oglethorpe

An English social reformer and military officer who led the founding of Georgia as a debtor refuge and military buffer.

New England Colonies

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire; a region shaped by thin rocky soil, fishing, whaling, and Puritan religious outposts.

Pilgrims (Separatist Puritans)

English Calvinists who wanted to fully separate from the Anglican Church and founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement signed by Pilgrims to govern themselves by majority rule, forming the foundation for colonial self-rule.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

A Puritan colony established in 1630 led by John Winthrop, intended to be a 'city upon a hill' for the Christian world.

John Winthrop

The leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who delivered the 'city upon a hill' sermon defining the Puritan vision.

Roger Williams

A Puritan minister banished for religious dissent who founded Rhode Island as a colony of broad religious toleration.

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan woman banished in 1638 for challenging ministers' theology, reinforcing Rhode Island's role as a refuge for dissenters.

Town Meetings

Direct-democratic gatherings in New England where male church members voted on local laws and taxes, fostering a habit of local self-government.

King Philip's War

A devastating 1675–1676 conflict between New England colonists and American Indians led by Metacom, ending American Indian autonomy in the region.

Mid-Atlantic Colonies

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; the religiously and ethnically diverse 'breadbasket' known for wheat and corn exports.

William Penn

An English Quaker who founded Pennsylvania in 1681 as a religious-tolerance experiment and paid American Indians for their land.

Quakers (Society of Friends)

A religious group emphasizing the spiritual equality of all people, pacifism, and 'inner light'; settled primarily in Pennsylvania.

New Amsterdam

The main Dutch settlement of New Netherland on Manhattan Island that was seized by the English in 1664 and renamed New York.

German Immigrants

Recruited to Pennsylvania by William Penn, these settlers brought farming traditions and were often called 'Dutch' (a corruption of 'Deutsch').

Scottish and Irish

Migrants who settled the mountainous Appalachian backcountry frontier and defined its regional culture and folk songs.

Gullah

A blended language and culture emerging from slave communities in coastal Georgia and the Carolinas, combining West African and English traditions.

Shotgun House

An architectural style in the colonial South with narrow rooms arranged in a line, traced to West African Yoruba origins.

Rice Cultivation

Agricultural expertise brought by West African enslaved laborers that made the Carolina and Georgia low-country plantations profitable.

African Foodways

Contributions of African origin to colonial diet, including okra, yams, watermelon, black-eyed peas, and grits.

Salutary Neglect

Britain's policy (approx. 1721–1763) of loose enforcement of trade laws, allowing colonies to develop habits of self-rule and local taxation.

Robert Walpole

The first British Prime Minister and architect of Salutary Neglect, reasoning that loose enforcement would make colonies more productive.

House of Burgesses

The earliest elected legislative assembly in the English colonies, established in Virginia in 1619.

Dominion of New England

A short-lived (1686–1689) attempt by James II to centralize control over the northern colonies, rejected by colonists after the Glorious Revolution.

Great Awakening

A 1730s–1740s religious revival emphasizing individual emotional experience and challenging the traditional authority of established churches.

Jonathan Edwards

A Great Awakening preacher famous for the 1741 sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,' which used vivid hellfire imagery.

George Whitefield

A traveling English preacher whose sermons drew enormous crowds across all 13 colonies, helping create a shared colonial identity.

Enlightenment

A European intellectual movement emphasizing reason and natural rights; the Great Awakening was partly a reaction against its rational coolness.

Thomas Paine

Author of the 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, whose appeal for independence reinforced the independent thinking growing from the Great Awakening.