Chapter 3: Exploration and Colonization – Key Terms (VOCABULARY)

Vocabulary flashcards covering major terms and concepts from sections 3.1–3.4 on Spanish, French/Dutch colonization, English settlements, and the impact of colonization.

Encomienda system

Spanish labor system that granted Native workers to colonial landlords to mine or farm, with supposed Christian instruction; exploited Native peoples and later replaced by repartimiento.

Repartimiento

Spanish labor system requiring Native towns to supply a pool of labor for colonial needs; replaced the encomienda system.

St. Augustine

Oldest continuous European settlement in what is now the United States (founded 1565); site of Castillo de San Marcos and conflicts with rival powers.

Pascua Florida

Name given by Ponce de León to the Florida region, meaning Feast of Flowers (Easter).

Fort Caroline

French Protestant (Huguenot) outpost north of St. Augustine; destroyed by Pedro Menéndez in 1562.

Timucua

Native people of Florida displaced by Spanish settlement; suffered severe population decline due to disease and conquest.

Castillo de San Marcos

Stone fortress built (1672–1695) to defend St. Augustine against European rivals.

Santa Fe

Capital of the Kingdom of New Mexico; established 1610; center of Spanish missionary activity among Pueblo peoples.

Pueblo Revolt

1680 uprising led by Popé against Spanish rule in Santa Fe, temporarily expelling Spaniards; reasserted control in 1692.

Juan de Oñate

Spanish explorer who led up the southwest borderlands; hoped for gold; established Santa Fe region as New Mexico outpost.

New France

French fur-trading empire in North America (Canada, Great Lakes); sought beaver pelts; Jesuit missionaries promoted Catholicism.

Beaver Wars

Conflicts over the beaver fur trade among French/Dutch allies and various Native groups, especially Iroquois and Algonquian.

New Netherland

Dutch colony centered on Manhattan; Fort Amsterdam and New Amsterdam; governed by the Dutch West India Company.

Patroonships

Dutch system of large land grants in New Netherland where patroons promised to settle and govern tenants and bring settlers.

Beaver pelts

Fur highly valued in Europe, driving the fur-trade economy in New France and New Netherland.

Puritans

English reformers seeking to purify the Church of England; settled Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay with a “city upon a hill” ideal.

Mayflower Compact

1620 agreement aboard the Mayflower establishing a civil body politic and self-government for the Plymouth colony.

Plymouth Colony

First Puritan Separatist settlement (1620) seeking religious freedom away from the Church of England.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Puritan colony established in the 1630s; led by John Winthrop; aimed to create a model reformed Protestant society.

King Philip’s War

1675–1676 war led by Wampanoag leader Metacom (King Philip) against Puritan frontier towns in New England.

Powhatan

Algonquian confederacy in the Chesapeake; Wahunsonacook; site of Anglo-Powhatan Wars and Pocahontas’s role.

Pocahontas

Daughter of Powhatan; married John Rolfe; symbolically helped ease early tensions between settlers and Native peoples.

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon; contested frontier expansion and contributed to shift toward racial slavery.

Indentured servant

Worker bound by a contract to work for a set number of years in exchange for passage, shelter, and land later.

Headright system

Land-grant program offering 50 acres (plus 50 more for each servant) to settlers who paid their own way.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage that enslaved Africans endured to reach the Americas (roughly 1–2 months).

Slavery (chattel)

Lifelong, heritable, property-based status of enslaved people, increasingly codified in American colonies by the late 17th century.

Maroon communities

Communities of enslaved Africans who escaped bondage and formed self-sustaining settlements.

Wampum

Shell beads used by Native peoples in ceremonies and as currency and symbolic gifts.

Jesuits

Society of Jesus; Catholic missionary order in New France that sought to convert Native peoples; produced the Jesuit Relations.

Kateri Tekakwitha

Mohawk convert to Catholicism; later regarded as a saint (canonized in 2012).