AP U.S. History Key Terms: Early Contact to Colonial Rebellions

Maize cultivation

The agricultural practice of growing corn, which originated in Mexico and spread throughout the Americas, allowing tribes to transition into settled, large-scale, agriculturally advanced societies.

Columbian Exchange

The massive, historic intercontinental transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, and technology between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres following Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage.

Small Pox

A highly contagious European disease accidentally brought to the New World; because Native Americans lacked immunity, it caused a catastrophic demographic collapse and weakened resistance to colonization.

Feudalism

A rigid medieval European political and economic system based on land allocations in exchange for labor and military service; its breakdown helped fuel the commercial push for overseas exploration.

Matrilineal

A social and kinship system where inheritance, family lines, and tribal status are passed down through the mother's side rather than the father's.

Catholic Missions (Spanish)

Religious settlements established by Spanish priests (Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans) to forcibly convert Native Americans to Catholicism and secure agricultural labor.

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial labor system that granted conquistadors and favored settlers the legal right to extract forced labor and tribute from specific Native American villages.

Spanish Caste System

A rigid, racially determined hierarchy (sistema de castas) where status and legal rights were based entirely on birth and blood purity, ranking peninsulares at the top.

Joint-Stock companies

Private business enterprises where multiple investors pooled money to fund voyages of exploration and settlement, allowing England to colonize America without direct royal funding.

Headright System

A land-grant policy in Virginia awarding a 50-acre plot to any settler who paid for their own passage, plus 50 acres for every indentured servant they brought.

Pilgrims

A radical group of English Puritans (Separatists) who completely broke away from the Church of England and established the Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Mayflower Compact

A formal agreement signed in 1620 by male passengers aboard the Mayflower establishing a civil government based on majority rule.

Puritans

Moderate English religious reformers who wished to 'purify' the Church of England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a 'City upon a Hill.'

Quakers

Members of the Society of Friends who settled in Pennsylvania; they rejected church hierarchies, practiced pacifism, and believed in an 'Inner Light' in all people.

Praying Indians

Native Americans in New England converted to Christianity by Puritan missionaries and relocated to supervised, European-style 'praying towns.'

Mercantilism

Economic philosophy stating a nation's power depends on maximizing gold and silver and maintaining a favorable balance of trade, treating colonies as sources of raw materials.

Navigation Acts

A series of strict trade laws passed by the English Parliament beginning in 1651 to enforce mercantilist policies by requiring colonial trade to be carried on English ships.

Anglicization

The process by which diverse American colonies gradually adopted English social, cultural, legal, and political institutions during the 18th century.

Toleration Act

The Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 which protected the Catholic minority by guaranteeing freedom of worship to all Trinitarian Christians.

Chattel Slavery

A legal form of enslavement where individuals are treated as personal property; this status was lifelong and automatically inherited from the mother.

Slave Codes

Sets of provincial laws passed to legally define the status of enslaved people and strip them of basic rights to prevent rebellions.

Triangular Trade

A transatlantic trade network linking New England, Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, involving the trade of rum, enslaved Africans, and sugar/molasses.

Enlightenment

An 18th-century European intellectual movement emphasizing reason, science, and individualism over faith and traditional authority.

Great Awakening

A massive wave of religious revivals in the 1730s and 1740s that challenged traditional church hierarchies and created new, democratic religious denominations.

Bacon’s rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley, which accelerated the transition from white indentured servitude to racialized African slavery.

Pueblo Revolt

A successful 1680 uprising of Pueblo Indians