Unit 2 Vocabulary - European Colonization of the Americas 1607-1754

joint-stock company

Short-term partnership between multiple investors to fund a commercial enterprise

charter

legal document granted by a government to some group or agency

Jamestown (1607)

First permanent settlement in North America founded by the Virginia company

house of burgesses

Created by Virginia colonists in 1619, it was the first representative assembly in America

Act of Toleration (1649)

Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed toleration to all Christians but decreed the death penalty

squatters

frontier farmers who illegally occupied land owned by others

Puritans

English protestant reformers who sought to purify the church of England

Mayflower Compact (1620)

Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth

massachusetts bay colony (founded 1630)

Established by non separating puritans, it soon grew to be the largest

Great Migration (1630-1642)

Migration of seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies

Antinomiansim

belief that the elect need not to obey the law of either God or man

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)

drafted by settlers in the Connecticut river valley, the document was the first "modern constitution"

King Philip's war (1675-1676)

Series of assaults by Metacom, King Philip, on English settlements

New England Confederation

in 1643, four new England colonies () organized for their mutual protection

Dominion of New England (1686-1689)

Administrative union created by royal authority

Navigation Acts (1686-1689)

Series of laws passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping

Glorious Revolution (1686-1689)

Relatively peaceful overthrow of the unpopular Catholic monarch

Salutary neglect (1688-1763)

unofficial policy of relaxed royal control over colonial trade

Quakers

A religious group of Christians who called themselves the Society of Friends

indentured servants

Migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer

Headright system

employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Uprising of Virginia back country farmers and indentured servants

Royal African Company

English joint-stock company that enjoyed a state-granted monopoly

Middle Passage

Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies

Half-way covenant (1662)

Agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children