History Exam Study Guide Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, people, events, and historical concepts for the history exam.

Columbian Exchange

The exchange of plants, animals, diseases, people, and ideas between the Old World and New World after 1492.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement between Spain and Portugal dividing overseas areas of exploration and colonization.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Spanish Dominican priest in the 1500s who criticized Spanish treatment of Indigenous people and defended their rights.

Powhatan Confederacy

A Native political alliance of Powhatan and allied Algonquian-speaking Native groups in the Virginia/Chesapeake region that interacted with the English at Jamestown.

Middle Passage

The forced transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, mainly from the 1500s–1800s.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 rebellion in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley involving frontier policy, Native American conflict, and social/class tensions.

King Philip's War

A 1675–1676 conflict in New England between Metacom (King Philip) and Native allies against English colonists and Native allies.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 rebellion in South Carolina by enslaved Africans associated with Jemmy/Cato who attempted to escape toward Spanish Florida.

Primary Source

A source created during the historical period by someone who experienced, witnessed, or participated in the events.

Secondary Source

A source created later that analyzes or interprets the past.

HAPPY Method

A source analysis framework standing for Historical Context, Audience, Purpose, Point of View, and Why it matters.

Corroboration

Comparing multiple sources to determine where they agree or disagree.

Reliability

Determining how trustworthy or useful a source is for a particular historical question by considering its evidence, perspective, purpose, and limitations.

Turtle Island

A term used by some Indigenous peoples to refer to North America.

Cahokia

A large and complex Mississippian urban center near present-day St. Louis, known for large earthen mounds and complex political and social organization.

Mississippian

A broad Native American cultural tradition in eastern North America known for agriculture, mound building, large settlements, and complex political/social organization.

Three Sisters

Corn/maize, beans, and squash, which were often grown together because they supported each other's growth.

Mansa Musa

Ruler of the Mali Empire around 1312–1337, known for enormous wealth and his pilgrimage to Mecca.

Christopher Columbus

Genoese navigator sailing for Spain who reached the Caribbean in 1492 while searching for a route to Asia.

Taíno

Indigenous people of the Caribbean who encountered Columbus and Spanish colonists and suffered from disease, violence, forced labor, and population decline.

Reconquista

The Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule, completed in 1492.

Conquistadors

Spanish conquerors who participated in the expansion of Spain's empire, motivated by wealth, religion, political power, and glory.

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial labor and tribute system where colonists could demand labor or tribute from Indigenous people while supposedly providing protection and Christian instruction.

Atlantic World

The interconnected world created through the movement of people, goods, ideas, diseases, and cultures between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Black Legend

A negative portrayal of Spanish colonial cruelty promoted especially by Spain's European rivals as propaganda.

Middle Ground

A situation or region, especially associated with the Great Lakes region, where Europeans and Native Americans negotiated, traded, and cooperated because neither side initially had complete control.

Jesuits

Catholic missionaries who worked to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity.

Haudenosaunee

A Native confederacy originally consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (later joined by the Tuscarora), also known as the Iroquois Confederacy.

Great Law of Peace

The political and diplomatic system of the Haudenosaunee emphasizing peace, cooperation, diplomacy, and collective decision-making.

Jamestown

Founded in 1607 in Virginia as the first permanent English settlement in what became the United States.

John Rolfe

Virginia colonist who helped make tobacco profitable as a cash crop.

Puritanism

English Protestant movement seeking to reform the Church of England.

Separatists

Protestants who believed the Church of England was too corrupt to reform and wanted to separate from it.

John Winthrop

Puritan leader in Massachusetts associated with the idea of a 'city upon a hill.'

Pequot War

Conflict from 1636–1638 between the Pequot and English colonists and their Native allies, resulting in the severe defeat of the Pequot.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system in which a person worked for a fixed period (often 4–7 years) in exchange for passage to the colonies and support.

Calvert Family

The family associated with Maryland, which was founded partly as a refuge for Catholics and allowed greater religious toleration.

Dominion of New England

A royal attempt beginning in 1686 to centralize control over several New England colonies, associated with Governor Edmund Andros.

Edmund Andros

Royal governor of the Dominion of New England who represented increased royal control over the colonies.

Glorious Revolution

English political revolution of 1688–1689 in which James II was removed and William and Mary became monarchs.

Anne Hutchinson

Puritan woman who challenged religious authorities in Massachusetts and was banished.

Religious Society of Friends

Also called Quakers; emphasized a direct relationship with God, religious equality, and pacifism, especially in Pennsylvania.

Salem Witch Trials

Occurred in Massachusetts in 1692–1693, where people were accused of witchcraft and several were executed amid religious fears and social conflict.

Yamasee War

1715–1717 conflict in the Southeast involving the Yamasee and other Native groups against South Carolina colonists over land, trade, debt, and Native enslavement.

Walking Purchase

A 1737 land agreement involving Pennsylvania and the Lenape where colonial officials used a deceptive interpretation to claim a large amount of Native land.

Slave Codes

Laws restricting enslaved people's movement, education, assembly, weapons, legal rights, and behavior to make slavery racial, hereditary, and permanent.

Triangular Trade

A simplified model of Atlantic trade involving interconnected routes moving goods, enslaved people, and colonial products between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

American Paradox

The contradiction between colonial ideas of liberty, freedom, and self-government and the simultaneous existence of slavery and denial of freedom.

Esteban the Moor

An African/Moorish participant in early Spanish exploration, showing early African involvement in exploration and colonization.

Anthony Johnson

An African man in colonial Virginia who became a landowner, showing that early colonial racial and labor systems were more complicated before hereditary racial slavery.

Massasoit

Important Wampanoag leader who interacted with the Plymouth colonists.

Squanto

A Patuxet Native man who helped the Plymouth colonists with survival, communication, and agriculture.

Praying Towns

Native communities where Indigenous people were encouraged to adopt Christianity and English/colonial cultural practices.