Enlightenment, Great Awakening, and Atlantic Slave Trade (Video Notes)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, people, and concepts from the lecture notes.

Enlightenment

18th‑century movement valuing reason over tradition and religious revelation; spread to the American colonies via transatlantic print culture.

Transatlantic print culture

Spread of Enlightenment ideas across the Atlantic through printed materials to the colonies.

Natural rights

Inalienable rights—life, liberty, and property—believed to be granted by a creator.

Social Contract

The agreement between people and government in which people consent to be governed in exchange for protection of natural rights.

John Locke

Enlightenment thinker who argued for natural rights and the social contract in Two Treatises on Government.

Separation of powers (checks and balances)

Idea that government powers are divided among branches to prevent tyranny.

George Whitefield

Anglican evangelist whose preaching helped spread the Great Awakening across the American colonies.

Jonathan Edwards

New England minister whose sermons fused Enlightenment ideas with revival; authored Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

Great Awakening

A widespread Protestant revival (c. 1730s–1740s) emphasizing personal faith and emotional revival, with democratic religious effects.

New Light Clergy

Revivalist preachers during the Great Awakening who emphasized experiential faith and challenged traditional church authority.

German Pietism

Religious movement stressing heartfelt devotion and piety, influencing the Great Awakening.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon warning of divine wrath and illustrating Great Awakening rhetoric.

Impressment

British practice of forcibly recruiting sailors; caused colonial tension and riots, notably during King George’s War era (1747) and broader imperial conflicts.

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676 Virginia uprising of former indentured servants and enslaved people against colonial authorities; contributed to harsher slave codes.

Indentured Servants

European workers contracted to serve for a set period in the colonies; demand declined as slavery expanded and Bacon’s Rebellion occurred.

Harsh slave laws

Laws in the 17th‑century Virginia and Barbados era that defined Africans as chattel, established perpetual slavery, and restricted movement and weapons.

Chattel slavery

A system where enslaved people are considered property (owned outright) and their status is hereditary.

Middle Passage

The brutal sea voyage transporting Africans to the Americas under crowded, inhumane conditions, with high mortality.

Atlantic Slave Trade

System transporting about 3 million Africans to British colonies in the Americas; West Indies led enslaved labor supply; many died en route.

Stono Rebellion (Stono River, 1739)

Slave uprising in South Carolina where enslaved people attacked plantations, seized weapons, killed whites, and marched toward Florida; rebellion was suppressed.

Slave resistance

Ways enslaved Africans resisted oppression, including covert cultural retention and overt rebellions.

House servants vs field slaves

Distribution of enslaved people by region: New York City/middle colonies had more household slaves; Chesapeake and Southern colonies had more enslaved people in fields; West Indies relied on plantation labor.

British West Indies

Region with the largest slave labor force and leading role in the plantation system and transatlantic slave trade.