Chapter 3: Colliding Cultures Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, and concepts from Chapter 3: Colliding Cultures.

Columbian Exchange

The intermingling and clashing of Old and New World ecosystems, including plants, animals, and diseases, following Columbus's voyages.

Middle Ground

Inland regions where Native Americans and Europeans accommodated one another rather than engaging in direct confrontation.

Giovanni da Verrazzano

Italian explorer who mapped the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas to New York in 1524, becoming the first European to enter New York Harbor.

Jacques Cartier

French explorer who traveled up the Saint Lawrence River to present-day Montreal in 1534.

Samuel de Champlain

French explorer who established Québec in 1608 and formed alliances with the Innu, Algonquin, and Huron-Wendat.

Coureurs de bois

French fur trappers who lived among Native Americans, studied their culture, and often married Native women.

Antoine Cadillac

Founder of Detroit in 1701, established by the French to thwart English settlers moving into the Ohio Valley.

Robert de la Salle

French explorer who traveled down the Mississippi River in 1682 and named the interior basin Louisiana.

Henry Hudson

English explorer hired by the Dutch East India Company who explored Delaware Bay, New York Harbor, and the Hudson River in 1609.

Patroonships

Vast feudal estates granted by the Dutch West India Company to settlers who agreed to establish 50 people on the land.

Act of Supremacy

A 1534 English law that declared King Henry VIII to be the head of the Church of England.

Martin Luther

German monk who initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by nailing his Ninety-five Theses to the Wittenberg castle church door.

Laws of Primogeniture

Legal rules in England specifying that only eldest sons could inherit landed estates.

Joint-Stock Company

An economic organization emerging in the early 1600s that allowed investors to pool capital to limit personal financial risk.

Virginia Company

A joint-stock company chartered by King James I in 1606 that founded the Jamestown settlement in 1607.

Lord De La Warr

New governor sent to Jamestown in 1610 who initiated harsh military tactics and raids against local Native Americans.

First Anglo-Powhatan War

Conflict between Virginia colonists and Powhatan Native Americans that ended in 1614, sealed by the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

Headright System

A policy granting 50 acres of land to a colonist for coming to Virginia, plus another 50 acres for every person whose passage they paid.

House of Burgesses

The first elected legislative assembly in the American colonies, established in Virginia in 1619.

John Calvin

Protestant reformer who outlined the doctrine of predestination and the belief that humans are weak and wicked due to original sin.

Puritans

English Calvinists who sought to purify the Church of England of its Catholic rituals and creeds.

Separatists

Devout Puritans who sought a complete break from the Church of England.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement signed by 41 adult male passengers aboard the Mayflower to form a government and submit to the will of the majority.

William Bradford

Prominent Plymouth leader and self-taught scholar who was elected governor 30 times.

John Winthrop

First governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who called on colonists to build a model holy community, or city on a hill.

Great Migration

The movement of approximately 20,000 Puritans from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1630s.

Visible Saints

Puritan church members in New England who were certain of their spiritual conversion.

New Netherland

Dutch colony established along the Hudson River in 1623–1624 by the Dutch West India Company for quick profits in the fur trade.

John Cabot

Explorer who made the first recorded transatlantic voyage for England in 1497 searching for a Northwest Passage.

Pocahontas

Daughter of the Powhatan chief who married John Rolfe in 1614, converted to Christianity, and was received as a princess in England.