Barron's AP US History Flashcards (1607-1754)

House of Burgesses

1619

*Representative assembly in Virginia

*Election to a seat was limited to voting members of the charter colony, which at first was all free men; later rules required that a man own at least fifty acres of land to vote

*First representative house in America

Instituted the private ownership of land but maintained the rights of colonists

Headright System

Introduced in 1618

*System used by the Virginia Company to attract colonists

It promised them parcels of land(roughly fifty acres) to immigrate to America

*Also gave nearly fifty acres for each servant that a colonist brought, allowing the wealthy to obtain large tracts of land

*The system solidified the use of indentured servitude for the time being

The Separatists and Plymouth

1620

*Separatists were Puritans who believed the Church of England was beyond saving and felt that they must break away from it

*One group of Separatists that suffered harassment from the government fled to Holland and then to America

*Members of this group traveled on the Mayflower and became known as the Pilgrims, a term used for voyagers seeking to fulfill a religious mission

*The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, in September 1620 and landed in Provincetown Harbor, settling in what became Plymouth, Massachusetts

*Before landing in the New World, the Pilgrims formed the Mayflower Compact, which provided for a government guided by the majority

William Bradford (1590-1657) served as the Plymouth Colony's first governor

Massachusetts Bay Colony

1629

*Joint-stock company charted by a group of Puritans escaping King James I

*Led by John Winthrop, who taught that the new colony should be a model of Christian society

*These Puritans carefully organized their venture and upon arriving in Massachusetts, did not undergo the "starving time" that had often plagued other first-year colonies

*The government of Massachusetts developed to include a governor and a representative assembly

Delaware

1631

*Dutch patroons established the first settlement in Delaware

*That settlement was destroyed by Native American attacks

*The Dutch West India Company and Dutchmen, including Peter Minuit, began to trade and settle in Delaware during the mid-to-late 1630s

*Between 1664 and 1674, Delaware switched between Dutch and English ownership, ending with English ownership in 1674

Maryland

1632

*Maryland became the first proprietary colony to serve as a refuge for English Catholics

*George Calvert (Lord Baltimore) applied for the charter to create the Province of Maryland

*Calvert's son, Caecilius, helped establish a representative assembly

*Maryland passed its Act of Toleration in 1649, guaranteeing religious freedom to all Christians in the colony; this set an important precedent for later characterization of the United States and its Constitution

Anne Hutchinson

1638

*Claimed to have had special revelations from God that superseded the Bible, contrary to Puritan doctrine

*The leadership of New England accused her of antinomian teachings (antinomianism is the belief that salvation is attained through faith and divine grace and not through strict adherence to rules or moral laws)

*Hutchinson was tried and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony

*With her followers, she founded Portsmouth in the Aquidneck region (1638) in what is now known as Rhode Island

Roger Williams and Rhode Island

Williams (1603-1683), Rhode Island established in 1644

*Williams was a Puritan preacher who fled Massachusetts after his views on religious observance became too extreme for the colonists

*Williams bought land from the Native Americans and founded Providence in 1636, and it was soon populated by his many followers

*Rhode Island formed as a combination of Providence, Portsmouth, and other settlements that had sprung up in the area

*Through Roger Williams, the colony granted complete religious toleration

*It tended to be populated by exiles and troublemakers and was sometimes called "Rogue's Island"

*The colony suffered constant political turmoil

English Civil War

1641-1651

*Conflict was based in the struggle between King Charles I (son of King James I) and the English Parliament

*Charles claimed to rule by divine right; Parliament argues that its membership had rights that were separate from those granted to the king

*Parliament's members were mostly Puritan and had the backing of the merchant class and lesser land owners

*Wealthy nobles tended to support Charles I, who opposed Puritans on questions of religion

*Led to outright conflict between Royalist military forces and forces opposing Charles I

*Parliament's victory in 1651 resulted in the trial and execution of Charles I and the exile of his son Charles II

*The English monarchy was replaced with the Commonwealth of England (1649-1653) and then with a Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell's rule (1653-1659)

Connecticut

Corporate colony established in 1662

*Thomas Hooker led a large group of Puritans to settle in the Connecticut River Valley after they had slight religious disagreements with the leadership of Massachusetts

*The major colonies in the Connecticut River Valley agreed to unite as the Connecticut Colony

*In 1639, the colony formed a set of laws known as the Fundamental Orders; these laws provided for representative government by those who were permitted to vote

*When the corporate colony was established and recognized by England, its charter was founded on the Fundamental Orders

The Fundamental Orders are an important example of the growth of political democracy

The Carolinas

Granted in 1663

*King Charles II rewarded loyal noblemen with these lands after the twenty-year Puritan revolution in England

*In hopes of attracting settlers, the proprietors planned for a hierarchical society

*They experimented with silk manufacturing and with crops such as rice and indigo, but this provided unworkable and the Carolinas grew slowly as a result

*Large groups of colonists in the Carolinas came from Barbados; form of slavery that this group employed proved to be very harsh

While North Carolina became a separate colony in 1712, the same proprietors retained ownership

*Rebellion against the proprietors in 1719 led to royal intervention, and both North and South Carolina became royal colonies in 1729

New York and New Jersey

Established 1664

*Last Dutch governor of New York was Peter Stuyvesant

*After the British conquered the Dutch lands in America, English King Charles II gave the title to the lands between New England and Maryland to his brother, James, Duke of York

*James was adamantly opposed to representative assemblies

Residents continued to call for self-government until James relented, only to break this promise when he became James II, King of England

*The region that would become New Jersey was ruled as a separate proprietary colony; it eventually became a royal colony

Quakers

Around 1680

*Quakers believed human religious institutions were largely unnecessary

*They thought they could receive revelation directly from God and placed little importance on the Bible

*They were pacifists and declined to show customary deference to their alleged social superiors

*Quakers' aggressiveness in denouncing established institutions brought them trouble in both Britain and America

*They opposed slavery and favored decent treatment of Native Americans

*Elements of this culture would play a role in shaping the characterization of a United States that values independence and social equality

William Penn

1644-1718

*Founded Pennsylvania as a refuge for his fellow Quakers

*Penn advertised his colony widely in Europe and offered generous terms on land

*Guaranteed a representative assembly and full religious freedom

Settlers flocked to Pennsylvania from all over Europe

Black Slaves in the 1600s

1600s

*Because black slaves were only a small percentage of the population, they began at almost the same level as indentured servants

*Later in the century, increased importation and population of blacks in the southern colonies began

*Slaves, called "chattel," came to be seen as lifelong property whose status would be inherited by their children

John Locke and Natural Law

1632-1704

*Locke was a major English political philosopher of the Enlightenment

*Isaac Newton theorized Natural Law in the realm of science, and Locke followed him, trying to identify Natural Law in the human realm

*Prior to Locke, there existed a theory of social contract in which people would accept certain restrictions on themselves for the benefit of their society, and these restrictions would be upheld by a sovereign power

*Locke's assertion of Natural Law changed the perspective of the social contract theory; he believed that if life, liberty, and property were not protected, governments could be overthrown justly

*Locke's ideas became the indirect theory of American political activity for leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, and they influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing Declaration of Independence

Triangular Trade (Atlantic Trade)

1600s

*Created as a result of mercantilism

*European merchants purchased African slaves with goods manufactured in Europe or imported from Asian colonies

*These merchants sold slaves in the Caribbean for commodities (sugar, cotton, tobacco)

*Caribbean commodities were later sold in Europe and North America

*Trade thrived because each partner could get the resources it wanted by exchanging resources that it had available

Navigation Acts

1650-1673

*Dictated ther certain goods shipped from a New World from a New World port were to go only to Britain or to another New World port

*Served as the foundation of England's worldwide commercial system; came out of the economic philosophy of mercantilism

*Though it was meant to benefit the whole British Empire, its provisions helped some New World colonies at the expense of others

*Intended as a weapon in England's ongoing struggle against its rival, Holland

*Led to increased tension between Britain and the colonies

Effects of the Navigation Acts

1650-1673

*Boosted the prosperity of New Englanders, who engaged in large-scale shipbuilding

*Hurt the residents of the Chesapeake by driving down the price of tobacco

*Transferred wealth from America to Britain by increasing the prices Americans had to pay for British goods and lowering the prices Americans received for the goods they produced

*Mercantilism also helped bring on a series of wars between England and Holland in the late 1600s

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676

*Virginia's Royal governor, William Berkeley, received strict instructions to run the colony for the benefit of Britain

*Nathaniel Bacon was a leader of colonial frontiersmen in Virginia

*Bacon objected to the rights granted to Virginia's wealthy inner circle and was angered by Governor Berkeley's inability to protect Virginia from attacks by the Native Americans

*Bacon commanded two unauthorized raids on Native American tribes, increasing his popularity; Berkeley had him arrested

*Soon after, Bacon gathered his forces, opposed the Royal governor, and set fire to Jamestown to defend his forces' position

*Berkeley ended the rebellion with the aid of British military forces

*After Bacon's rebellion, American colonies turned increasingly away from indentured servants and toward slave labor

New Hampshire

Corporate colony established 1677

*King Charles II established it as a Royal colony

*The colony remained economically dependent on Massachusetts, and Britain continued to appoint a single person to rule both colonies until 1741

*Weeks before the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress, New Hampshire established a temporary constitution for itself that proclaimed its independence from Britain

Dominion of New England

1686-1689

*An administrative body created by King James II that oversaw British colonies in the New England region

*Put in place to implement the Navigation Acts and to assist the colonies in defending themselves against hostile French and Native American forces

*The Dominion Governor-in-Chief, Edmund Andros, outlawed town meetings, disputed titles to certain colonial lands, and proselytized on behalf of the Church of England

*New England colonists had originally been in favor of some sort of voluntary association, but the Dominion was very unpopular because of these types of impositions

Half-Way Covenant

1690s

*Decision by Puritan colony churches to allow the grandchildren of those who did not have the personal experience of conversion to participate in select church affairs

*Previously, only the children of those who had experienced conversion could participate

*Reflected the decline of zealous piety among New Englanders

Salem Witch Trials

1692

*Several young girls in Salem Village claimed to be tormented by the occult activities of certain neighbors

*Some twenty persons were executed

*Puritan ministers finally intervened to stop the executions

*Different theories about the reasons that the trials occurred: political and class divisions in Salem; economic stresses from providing for growing families; the gender-biased view that women were more likely to follow evil

*Writer Arthur Miller produced The Crucible (1953), a retelling of Salem Witch Trials and a reflective commentary on the witch-hunts of Joseph McCarthy

The Enlightenment

1700s

*Connects to the idea of Deism, in which the universe was created by God and then abandoned; no supernatural controls would be exerted and all things were explainable by reason

*Enlightenment philosophy dictated that human reason was adequate to solve mankind's problems and, correspondingly, much less faith was needed in the central role of God as an active force in the universe

*Idea moved from Europe to become the New World's seed of cultures intellectualism, and society

*Some important Enlightenment writers include Isaac Newton (Principia Mathematica, 1687), John Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689), and Rene Descartes, whose basic tenet of philosophical theory existed in the phrase "I think, therefore, I am."

Georgia

Chartered in 1732

*James Oglethorpe, an English philanthropist and soldier, charted the colony

*Settlers included those who paid their own way to receive the best land grants

*Some settlers were financed by the colony's board of trustees, including bands of prisoners from British jails

*After wars between the European empires began, the colony served as a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish-held Florida

*Elaborate and detailed regulations resulted in relatively little settlement

John Peter Zenger

1697-1746

*German American newspaper publisher and printer

*His acquittal of libel charges in New York City(1735) established a legal precedent for freedom of the press

*The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren (1953-1969) would later reinvigorate free press rights

*The case of New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) strengthened the protection of the press against libel cases brought by public figures

The First Great Awakening

1720s-1740s

*A series of emotional religious revivals that occurred throughout the colonies (prevalent in New England)

*Preachers spread a message of personal repentance and emphasized faith as a way to avoid hell

*Suggested an equality between God and the Bible

*George Whitefield and Jonathon Edwards became its most dynamic preachers

*While the Awakening created conflict among those who argued about religion, its ideas helped build connections between the colonies

*More denominations of Christianity were formed

*A number of colleges were founded by those who accepted the Great Awakening, including Princeton, Brown, and Rutgers

Jonathan Edwards

1703-1758

*Preacher of the Great Awakening who emphasized personal religious experience, predestination, and dependence of man upon God and divine grace

*One of his widely read sermons was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

*While Edwards is known for being one of the most prominent Calvinists, the Great Awakening was partially responsible for refuting the idea that salvation was only possible with predestined election, an important Calvinist belief

French and Indian War

1748-1763

*Rivalry between France, Britain, and various Native American tribes over land in the Ohio region

*It was one of a series of wars fought between France and England throughout the world at the time

*Battles continued on European and American fronts until Britain gained control of Canada

*It was in these conflicts that George Washington first appeared as an able military leader

Albany Plan

1754

*Delegates of seven colonies met in New York to discuss plans for collective defense

*The Pennsylvanian delegate, Benjamin Franklin, proposed a plan for an intercolonial government, but the plan was rejected by the colonial legislatures as demanding too great a surrender of power

*While the other colonies showed to support for Franklin's plan, it was an important precedent for the concept of uniting in the face of a common enemy

William Pitt

1708-1778

*Britain's capable and energetic prime minister

*After several humiliating defeats, he led Britain to virtually destroy the French empire in North America by focusing on the French headquarters in Canada

*The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended hostilities