Early American History: Exploration, Colonization, and Revolution

Vocabulary terms and definitions covering European exploration, colonial settlement, labor and racial dynamics, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution.

Mercantilism

An economic system based on the accumulation of wealth in the form of precious metal through a favourable balance of trade, rooted in the idea that wealth is finite and does not reproduce.

Christopher Columbus

Italian-born trading agent and businessman funded by King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain who sought a direct westward trade route to Asia across four voyages between 1492 and 1502.

Columbian Exchange

A gradual, long-term exchange of goods, germs, and ways of life between Europe and the Americas that laid the foundation for the future of North America.

Conquistadores

Spanish conquerors focused on obtaining gold who conquered Indigenous empires like Tenochtitlan and established Spanish rule.

The Great Dying

The catastrophic demographic collapse of Indigenous populations across the Americas, triggered primarily by infectious diseases introduced by European conquerors.

Viceroyalty of New Spain

The Spanish imperial governing territory established in 1521 following the conquest of Tenochtitlan.

Pays d’en Haut

The French upper country where colonizers actively engaged Native Americans, traded furs, and intermarried outside of urban centers like Quebec.

Assimile el metissage

The French colonial process of cultural engagement, intermarriage, and race mixture primarily with the Algonquians alongside conversion to Catholicism.

Joint Stock Companies

Commercial business entities first introduced in 1580 that pooled capital to fund English exploratory and colonial ventures in the Americas.

Roanoke

A planned English colony established in 1585 by Richard Grenville to challenge Spanish dominance, which disappeared by 1590, leaving only the word CROATOAN carved on-site.

Starving Times

A critical period of severe famine and deprivation suffered by the Jamestown colonists between 1609 and 1611.

Rebecca Rolfe

The English Christian name adopted by Pocahontas following her assimilation into British-hood and marriage to John Rolfe.

Uprising of 1622

An armed conflict initiated by Powhatan leader Opechancanough against English colonial encroachment in Virginia.

The Mayflower Compact

The 1620 governing agreement drafted by William Bradford and the Pilgrims establishing a civil body politic at Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Proprietary Colony

A territory granted by the monarch to an individual proprietor with governing rights, exemplified by William Penn receiving Pennsylvania from King Charles II in 1681.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system peaking between 1615 and the 1650s where debtors, orphans, alcoholics, or entrepreneurs contracted to work for 7 years outside society in exchange for passage.

White Lion

An English trading ship arriving by way of the Dutch in 1619 that brought 20 unfree Africans from the Upper Guinea Coast to Virginia on open-ended indentures.

Bacon’s Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia that coincided with the shift toward legally defining and racializing African slavery in the colony.

Polygenism vs. Monogenism

The intellectual debate in Enlightenment Europe contrasting whether human varieties originated from multiple distinct creations (polygenism) or a single shared lineage (monogenism).

Age of Reason

An intellectual movement spanning from the mid-1600s to the mid-1800s asserting that all things are knowable and explicable through human rationality rather than superstition or religious dogma.

Reticulum Mucosum

A 1665 anatomical work by Marcello Malpighi investigating the biological layer and physical roots of human racial variation.

French and Indian War

A conflict from 1754 to 1763 fought by American colonists alongside Britain, resulting in British victory and the total expulsion of France from North America.

Calvin’s Case (1608)

A landmark English legal decision cited during revolutionary debates regarding the principles of subjecthood and the primacy of republicanism over monarchical authority.

Stamp Act (1765)

British legislation imposing direct internal taxes on all paper products in the American colonies, which prompted the Virginia Resolves and the Stamp Act Congress.

Declaratory Act (1766)

An act of Parliament that repealed the Stamp Act while simultaneously declaring its complete legislative autonomy and authority to bind the colonies in all cases.

Boston Massacre

A 1770 confrontation in Massachusetts where British soldiers fired on a crowd, killing 5 colonists and intensifying anti-monarchical sentiment.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

The formal peace treaty signed on September 3, 1783, concluding the American Revolutionary War and recognizing the independence of the United States.

Declaration of Independence

The July 4, 1776, document authored by Thomas Jefferson stating unalienable rights and declaring separation from Great Britain as a mandate of nature and natural law.

Common Sense

A 1776 political pamphlet by Thomas Paine that shifted popular colonial interest toward independence by addressing concepts of popular consent and the displacement of power.

Articles of Confederation

The first national framework of government for the United States, ratified in 1781, designed with a weak central authority due to universal fears of tyranny.

Federalist No. 10

An essay written by James Madison arguing that a well-constructed Union provides the best political mechanism to break and control the violence of faction.

Federalist Party

A political faction formed in 1782 that contested the efficacy of the Articles of Confederation and advocated for a federal republic with centralized authority.