APUSH U1: Chp 2

Protestant Reformation

Movement to reform the Catholic Church launched in Germany by Martin Luther. Reformers questioned the authority of the Pope, sought to eliminate the selling of indulgences, and encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin, which few at the time could read. The reformation was launched in England in the 1530s when King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church.

Roanoke Island

Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonial settlement off the coast of North Carolina.

Spanish Armada

Spanish fleet defeated in the English Channel in 1588. The defeat of the Armada marked the beginning of the decline of the Spanish Empire.

Primogeniture

Legal principle that the oldest son inherits all family property or land. Landowners' younger sons, forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere, pioneered early exploration and settlement of the Americas.

Joint-Stock company

Short-term partnership between multiple investors to fund a commercial enterprise; such arrangements were used to fund England's early colonial ventures.

Virginia Company

English joint-stock company that received a charter from King James I that allowed it to found the Virginia colony.

Charter

Legal document granted by a government to some group or agency to implement a stated purpose, and spelling out the attending rights and obligations. British colonial charters guaranteed inhabitants all the rights of Englishmen, which helped solidify colonists' ties to Britain during the early years of settlement.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America founded by the Virginia Company.

First Anglo-Powhatan War

Series of clashes between the Powhatan Confederacy and English settlers in Virginia. English colonists torched and pillaged Indian villages, applying tactics used in England's campaigns against the Irish.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War

Last-ditch effort by the Indians to dislodge Virginia settlements. The resulting peace treaty formally separated white and Indian areas of settlement.

House of Burgesses

Representative parliamentary assembly created to govern Virginia, establishing a precedent for government in the English colonies.

Act of Toleration

Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed toleration to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for those, like Jews and atheists, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Ensured that Maryland would continue to attract a high proportion of Catholic migrants throughout the colonial period.

Barbados Slave Code

First formal statute governing the treatment of slaves, which provided for harsh punishments against offending slaves but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statutes were adopted by southern plantation societies on the North American mainland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Iroquois Confederacy

Bound together five tribes-the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas-in the Mohawk Valley of what is now New York State.

Tuscarora War

Began with an Indian attack on New Bern, North Carolina. After the Tuscaroras were defeated, remaining Indian survivors migrated northward, eventually joining the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth nation.

Yamasee Indians

Defeated by the South Carolinians in the war of 1715-1716. The Yamasee defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the southern colonies.

Henry VIII

(1491-1547) Tudor monarch who launched the Protestant Reformation in England when he broke away from the Catholic Church in order to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Elizabeth I

(1533-1603) Protestant queen of England whose forty-five-year reign from 1558 to 1603 firmly secured the Anglican Church and inaugurated a period of maritime exploration and conquest. Never having married, she was dubbed the "Virgin Queen" by her contemporaries.

Sir Francis Drake

(ca. 1542-1595) English sea captain who completed his circumnavigation of the globe in 1580, plundering Spanish ships and settlements along the way.

Sir Walter Raleigh

(ca. 1552-1618) English courtier and adventurer who sponsored the failed settlements of North Carolina's Roanoke Island in 1585 and 1587. Once a favorite of Elizabeth I, Raleigh fell out of favor with the Virgin Queen after secretly marrying one of her maids of honor. He continued his colonial pursuits until 1618, when he was executed for treason.

James I

(1566-1625) Formerly James VI of Scotland, he became James I of England at the death of Elizabeth I. James I supported overseas colonization, granting a charter to the Virginia Company in 1606 for a settlement in the New World. He also cracked down on both Catholics and Puritan Separatists, prompting the latter to flee to Holland and, later, to North America.

Captain John Smith

(1580-1631) English adventurer who took control of Jamestown in 1608 and ensured the survival of the colony by directing gold-hungry colonists toward more productive tasks. Smith also established ties with the Powhatan Indians through the chief's daughter, Pocahontas, who had "saved" Smith from a mock execution the previous year.

Powhatan

(ca. 1540s-1618) Chief of the Powhatan Indians and father of Pocahontas. As a show of force, Powhatan staged the kidnapping and mock execution of Captain John Smith in 1607. He later led the Powhatan Indians in the first Anglo-Powhatan War, negotiating a tenuous peace in 1614.

Pocahontas

(ca. 1595-1617) Daughter of Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas "saved" Captain John Smith in a dramatic mock execution and served as a mediator between Indians and the colonists. In 1614, she married John Rolfe and sailed with him to England, where she was greeted as a princess and where she passed away shortly before her planned return to the colonies.

Lord De la War

(1577-1618) Colonial governor who imposed harsh military rule over Jamestown after taking over in 1610. A veteran of England's brutal campaigns against the Irish, De La Warr applied harsh "Irish" tactics in his war against the Indians, sending troops to torch Indian villages and seize provisions. The colony of Delaware was named after him.

John Rolfe

(1585-1622) English colonist whose marriage to Pocahontas in 1614 sealed the peace of the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

Lord Baltimore

(1605-1675) Established Maryland as a haven for Catholics. Baltimore unsuccessfully tried to reconstitute the English manorial system in the colonies and gave vast tracts of land to Catholic relatives, a policy that soon created tensions between the seaboard Catholic establishment and backcountry Protestant planters.

Oliver Cromwell

(1599-1658) Puritan general who helped lead parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and ruled England as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658.

James Oglethorpe

(1696-1785) Soldier-statesman and leading founder of Georgia. A champion of prison reform, Oglethorpe established Georgia as a haven for debtors seeking to avoid imprisonment. During the War of Jenkins's Ear, Oglethorpe successfully led his colonists in battle, repelling a Spanish attack on British territory.

Hiawatha

(dates unknown) Along with Deganawidah, legendary founder of the Iroquois Confederacy that united the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes in the late sixteenth century.