The American Colonies Emerge and Come of Age

Vocabulary flashcards focusing on key historical terms, figures, events, and legislation from the early European exploration through the colonial era and the French and Indian War.

Encomiendas

Grants awarded to Spanish conquistadors that gave them the right to force Native Americans into slave labor on farms, ranches, or mines until the system was ended by the Spanish crown in $1542$.

Mestizo

A population of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry resulting from marriages between Spanish settlers and Native American women.

St. Augustine

A settlement established in $1565$ by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, making it the oldest European-founded city in the present-day United States.

Popé

A Native American leader who led a successful $1680$ rebellion against the growing Spanish presence in New Mexico, killing priests, burning churches, and driving out the Spaniards.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in Virginia in $1607$ by investors known as the Virginia Company.

Headright System

A policy introduced by the Virginia Company offering $50\text{ acres}$ of land to anyone who paid for their own or another person's passage to Virginia.

Indentured Servants

Workers who agreed to work on a landowner's farm for $4$ to $7\text{ years}$ in exchange for passage to North America, food, and shelter.

Nathaniel Bacon

Leader of poorer Virginia settlers who led a revolt against Virginia's wealthy governor in $1676$ over lack of support in land disputes with Native Americans.

Puritans

English religious dissenters who wanted to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic beliefs and established colonies in New England.

Mayflower Compact

An agreement drawn up in $1620$ and signed by all $41\text{ men}$ aboard the Mayflower to form a civil body politick, serving as the first written constitution in North America.

Roger Williams

A minister who fled Massachusetts Bay in $1636$ to establish Providence, advocating that government officials should not punish different religious views and that settlers must buy land from Native Americans.

Anne Hutchinson

A dissenter forced out of Massachusetts Bay Colony by church leaders because she questioned their authority.

Metacom (King Philip)

Wampanoag chief who launched attacks throughout New England in $1675$ during King Philip's War until his death in $1676$.

William Penn

Quaker leader granted land by King Charles II to found Pennsylvania as a haven offering freedom of worship, fair treatment of Native Americans, and representative government.

Mercantilism

An economic system pursued by European nations to gain wealth by using colonies as sources of raw materials and markets for manufactured goods.

Navigation Acts

A series of English trade laws passed by Parliament barring colonies from shipping goods to other nations and requiring all colonial trade to travel on English or colonial ships.

Sir Edmund Andros

Royal governor appointed over Massachusetts who angered colonists by outlawing local government and imposing new taxes.

Cash Crop

A farm product raised primarily for sale and profit rather than for a farmer's personal use, such as tobacco, rice, and indigo.

Stono Rebellion

A $1739$ uprising in which a group of enslaved Africans in South Carolina fought for freedom, leading to all involved slaves being killed.

The Enlightenment

An $18\text{th}\text{-century}$ European intellectual movement that affected the colonies by emphasizing reason, logic, and scientific experiment, as demonstrated by Benjamin Franklin.

The Great Awakening

A religious revival in the $1730\text{s}$ and $1740\text{s}$ led by figures like Jonathan Edwards that prompted colonists to question established church authority.

Hernán Cortés

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec empire in $1521$.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca empire in $1532$.

Triangular Trade

A three-part transatlantic trade system involving manufactured goods sent from Europe to Africa, enslaved Africans shipped to the Americas, and plantation produce shipped back to Europe.

Middle Passage

The second leg of the Triangular Trade involving the transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas under overcrowded and cruel conditions.

French and Indian War

A war fought between $1754$ and $1763$ in North America between Great Britain and France (with Native American allies) over control of the Ohio River Valley and surrounding lands.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The peace treaty ending the French and Indian War, transferring Canada and French lands east of the Mississippi to Britain, while Spain received lands west of the Mississippi.

Proclamation of 1763

A British ban that prohibited American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains following Pontiac's uprising.

Sugar Act of 1764

A British trade law that placed duties on previously untaxed imports and altered rules for prosecuting smuggling cases in vice-admiralty courts.

Tituba

An enslaved woman from Barbados interrogated by Judge John Hathorne during the $1692$ Salem Witch Trials, who confessed to interacting with the devil and tormenting children.