Civics Notes - Key Terms

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from the Civics lecture notes dated Sep 23, 2026.

Enlightenment

A time when people used reason and new Ideas

Natural rights

Rights everyone is born with

Social contract

An actual or implicit agreement between people and the government where individuals give up certain personal freedoms in exchange for security, social order, and protection from a governing authority

Mayflower compact

the first written framework of self-government in the American colonies

House of burgesses

the first democratically elected legislative body in British North America

Proprietary colony

a type of settlement in British America where the Crown granted vast tracts of land and governing authority to a single person or a small group of proprietors

Royal colony

a territory governed directly by the reigning monarch or crown of the parent country through an appointed governor and council

Representatives

a person or thing that speaks, acts, or stands for another person, group, or larger whole.

Debtor

someone who owes money and are in dept

Cash crop

an agricultural product grown specifically to sell for profit, rather than to feed the farmer's family or livestock

Puritans

a person who follows a very strict moral or religious code and disapproves of physical or sensual pleasures

Pilgrams

English Separatists who sailed on the Mayflower and founded the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620

Consent

agreement or permission

Religious freedom

a fundamental human right that protects an individual's or community's right to think, practice, express, and live out their religious beliefs—or to hold no religious beliefs at all—without government coercion or interference

Colonial region differences

distinct economic, social, and political patterns that developed across the British American colonies, shaped by each area's unique geography, climate, and reasons for settlement

Civil body politic

an organized group of citizens who join together under a single government and agree to live by shared laws for the common good

State of nature

a concept in moral and political philosophy that describes what human life would be like before the creation of organized government, laws, and civil society.

Purpose of government

to maintain social order, protect individual rights, and provide essential public services that a community cannot manage on its own