AP US History: Colonial Economy, Society, and Resistance

Indentured Servants

Poor Europeans who worked 4-7 years in exchange for passage to America; main labor before slavery expanded.

Puritan Town Meetings

Local New England assemblies where male church members voted; early example of self-government.

Elite Planters

Wealthy Southern landowners controlling plantations, politics, and the economy through enslaved labor.

Atlantic Economy

Triangular Trade: Europe (goods), Africa (enslaved people), Americas (raw materials).

Metacom's War

1675-76 conflict between New England colonists and Native tribes led by Metacom; crushed Native power in the region.

Pueblo Revolt

1680 Native uprising in New Mexico; expelled Spanish for over a decade, showed successful Native resistance.

First Great Awakening

Religious revival (1730s-40s) stressing personal faith, emotional preaching, and challenging traditional churches.

Enlightenment

Intellectual movement promoting science, reason, and natural rights; influenced ideas of liberty and government.

Anglicization

Colonists adopting British customs, culture, and politics while still forming unique identities.

Protestant Evangelicalism

Emphasized personal conversion, Bible authority, and emotional worship; spread in the Great Awakening.

Mercantilism

Economic system where colonies provided raw materials and markets to enrich the mother country.

Imperial Goals

Spanish: wealth & Christian conversion; French: fur trade & Native alliances; Dutch: profit & tolerance; English: settlement & land.

Atlantic Slave Trade

Forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas for plantation labor; part of triangular trade.

Racial Superiority Theory

European belief that Africans and Natives were inferior, used to justify slavery and conquest.

African Resistance

Resistance through rebellion (like Stono), escape, sabotage, and preserving culture/religion.

Colonial Regions

New England: Puritan towns, subsistence farms. Middle: diverse, tolerant, mixed economy. South: plantations, slavery, elite planters. All tied to trade and self-rule.

British Imperialism

Colonists saw British rule as corrupt and exploitative, fueling distrust and resentment.

Colonial Resistance

Early pushback against mercantilism, like smuggling and resisting Navigation Acts.

Self-Government

Colonial assemblies and town meetings gave citizens a say, building expectations of rights.