Unit 1: Contact, Colonization, and Settlement

Sovereignty

The power of a nation to govern its own land and decide who may enter it.

Borderlands

Areas where the territories of different nations meet and overlap.

Anticipatory geography

Drawing future borders, such as U.S. state lines, onto maps of the past, which makes Native land look empty.

Pacific Northwest

Forested coastal region of North America known for salmon fishing, whaling, and cedar plank houses.

California

Region of varied climates that held one of the densest Native populations north of Mexico, with acorns as a staple food.

Great Basin

Dry inland region of North America where small mobile groups gathered seeds, roots, and small game.

Southwest

Desert region of North America known for irrigation farming, adobe villages, and corn as a staple crop.

Great Plains

Grasslands region of North America centered on bison hunting, where horses reshaped daily life after Spanish contact.

Mississippi River Valley

Region of North America known for large mound-building societies and long-distance trade networks.

Southeast

Warm, fertile region of North America with farming towns and large confederacies such as the Creek and Cherokee.

Northeast

Woodlands region of North America known for farming, hunting, longhouses, and political confederacies.

The Caribbean

Islands where the Taíno lived, and the first region Europeans colonized after 1492.

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy

Alliance of separate Northeast nations that governed themselves together under a shared council.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator sailing for Spain in 1492 who believed until his death that he had reached Asia.

Taíno

Indigenous people of the Caribbean whom Columbus encountered in 1492 and whom Spain soon enslaved.

Colonization

Settling and taking control of land already occupied by other people.

Mercantilism

An economic system from the 16th to the 18th century where governments increased national power and wealth by maximizing exports, minimizing imports, and accumulating gold and silver from colonies

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492.

The Great Dying

The collapse of Native populations after 1492, caused mainly by European diseases and forced labor.

Encomienda

Spanish system that granted colonists the forced labor of Native people living on a piece of land.

Conquistador

Spanish soldier-explorer who claimed land and wealth in the Americas for the Spanish crown.

New France

French colonial territory in North America built around the fur trade rather than large farming settlements.

Plantation system

System of large farms growing a single crop for export, worked by forced labor.

Cash crops

Crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo grown for sale rather than to feed the household.

Triangular trade

Atlantic trade routes that linked Europe, West Africa, and the Americas in a three-way exchange.

Transatlantic slave trade

The forced shipment of millions of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold and enslaved.

Middle Passage

The ocean crossing of the transatlantic slave trade, which was overcrowded, violent, and often deadly.

Olaudah Equiano

Formerly enslaved writer whose 1789 narrative described the Middle Passage and supported ending the slave trade.

Chattel slavery

A system that treated enslaved people as property who could be bought, sold, and inherited.

Southern Colonies

Warm-climate colonial region whose economy was built on cash crops, plantations, and enslaved labor.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America, founded in Virginia in 1607.

Charter

A written grant from the king giving a company or group the right to settle and profit from land.

Virginia Company

Joint-stock company that funded the settlement of Jamestown in hopes of profit for its investors.

Powhatan

Confederacy of Native nations in Virginia whose relations with Jamestown shifted between trade and war.

Starving time

The winter of 1609 to 1610, when most Jamestown colonists died of hunger and disease.

Indentured servitude

Labor system in which a person worked a set number of years in exchange for passage to the colonies.

Nathaniel Bacon

Wealthy Virginia planter who led an armed uprising against Governor William Berkeley in 1676.

William Berkeley

Virginia governor whose refusal to attack Native nations helped spark Bacon's Rebellion.

Bacon's Rebellion

1676 uprising in Virginia that united poor white and Black laborers and alarmed the colony's wealthy planters.

Slave codes

Colonial laws that restricted the movement, gathering, and education of enslaved people.

Stono Rebellion

1739 armed uprising of enslaved people in South Carolina that was followed by harsher colonial laws.

Resistance

Actions taken against enslavement, ranging from escape and work slowdowns to preserving culture and armed revolt.

Middle Colonies

Colonial region known for grain farming, mills, trade, and unusual religious and ethnic diversity.

Quakers

Religious group led by William Penn in Pennsylvania that practiced tolerance and welcomed other faiths.

New England Colonies

Colonial region of rocky soil and deep harbors whose economy relied on fishing, shipbuilding, trade, and small farms.

Puritans

English Protestants who settled Massachusetts Bay to build a strict religious community.

Pilgrims

English Separatists who left England seeking religious freedom and founded Plymouth in 1620.

Salem Witch Trials

1692 trials in Massachusetts in which fear and suspicion led to accusations and executions.

King Philip's War

1675 war in New England between colonists and Native nations led by Metacom, known to the English as King Philip.

Ohio River Valley

Region claimed by both Britain and France, and the flashpoint that started the French and Indian War.

French and Indian War

War fought from 1754 to 1763 between Britain and France over territory and trade in North America.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

Agreement ending the French and Indian War that gave Britain nearly all French land east of the Mississippi River.

Proclamation of 1763

British order barring colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, which angered many colonists.