American Pageant Chpater 4

Indentured servants

Colonists who received free passage to North America in exchange for working without pay for a certain number of years

Headright system

Colonial system of awarding a tract of land, usually fifty acres, to a person who paid for the passage of an indentured servant to the colonies. Some wealthy people in Virginia and other southern colonies accumulated huge tracts of land through this system.

Bacon's Rebellion

An uprising of backcountry farmers who attacked Jamestown in 1676; led by a former indentured servant who wanted the Governor to provide protection against Native Americans; led to the decline of indentured servitude.

Royal African Company

Chartered in 1660s to establish a monopoly over the slave trade among British merchants; supplied African slaves to colonies in Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginia.

Middle Passage

The route in between the western ports of Africa to the Caribbean and southern U.S. that carried the slave trade

Congregation Church

The name eventually applied to the Puritans' established religious institution in Massachusetts and several other New England colonies.

Jeremiad

Type of sermon that Puritan preachers used to scold the people for their waning purity and warn them about Hell.

Half-Way Covenant

A Puritan church policy that allowed partial membership rights to persons not yet converted into the Puritan church; It lessened the difference between the "elect" members of the church from the regular members; Women soon made up a larger portion of Puritan congregations.

Salem Witch Trials

A 1692 scandal where several girls in Massachusetts accused their neighbors of witchcraft. More than 100 people were tried as witches, and 19 women and one man were executed. An example of how paranoia can create hysteria.

William Berkeley

A Governor of Virginia, appointed by King Charles I, of whom he was a favorite. He was governor from 1641-1652 and 1660-1677. He enacted friendly policies towards the Indians that led to Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.

Nathaniel Bacon

Planter who led a rebellion in 1676 against the governor of the Virginia Colony