US History Units 1 & 2 Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key periods from 1491 to 1754, including Spanish colonization, the British colonial economic system, and the growth of independent thought.

Three-Sister Farming

A farming technique used by North American tribes like the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee in the Southeast.

Caravel

A new technology during the age of exploration that helped Europeans look westward.

Conquistadores

Spanish explorers motivated by God, Glory, and Gold, including individuals like Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro.

Encomienda System

The Spanish labor system used in the empire to control and regulate American Indian labor.

Bartolome de las Casas

Author of History of the Indies (1528) who wrote about the Spanish treatment of the Indians.

HIPP

A method for analyzing documents by explaining the Historical situation, Intended Audience, Point of View, and Purpose.

The Columbian Exchange

The biological and cultural exchange of food (Sugar, maize, etc.), animals (Pigs, horses), and germs between the Old and New Worlds.

Smallpox

One of the germs, along with yellow fever and malaria, brought from the Old World to the New World.

Middle Passage

The route of the Triangular Trade used to transport slaves to the Americas.

Mercantilism

The economic theory that the government should regulate economic activity to promote national power, exports should exceed imports, and wealth should flow back to the mother country.

Jamestown

The colony established on May 24, 1607, after the Virginia Company received a charter.

Philipp Wilhelm von Hornick

A famed Austrian theorist who argued that a country's power is based on its own wealth and resources, striving for self-sufficiency.

Navigation Acts (1651-1751)

A series of laws passed by the British parliament to regulate colonial trade and protect wealth according to mercantilistic principles.

Enumerated goods

Colonial products permitted to be exported only to specific destinations, with tobacco being the first.

Staple Act of 1663

An act that required European imports to the colonies to go through England first.

Dominion of New England

A merger of New England colonies with Andros as governor, established after the MA Bay charter was annulled.

Salutary Neglect

An atmosphere created by the erratic enforcement of trade laws due to distance (3000 miles), corruption, and conflict.

Mayflower Compact

An agreement by Pilgrims to form a government and submit to the will of the majority, setting a precedence for democracy.

House of Burgesses

The first representative assembly in Virginia, part of the uniform colonial government structure.

John Peter Zenger

A newspaper publisher whose trial and acquittal on libel charges set the stage for freedom of the press.

John Locke

An Enlightenment philosopher who argued that natural laws governed the power of monarchs.

Act of Toleration

A religious law in Maryland associated with Lord Baltimore that represented the tradition of religious independence.

King Philip’s War (1675)

A conflict that slowed English settlement in New England but resulted in a lasting defeat for the Native Americans.

The 1st Great Awakening

An early 18th-century religious movement that undermined the power of the old clergy and became the first spontaneous mass movement in the colonies.

Jonathan Edwards

A preacher who started the Great Awakening by teaching that relying on 'good works' was folly and is known for the sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'.

George Whitefield

A key figure of the Great Awakening known for his emotionally based preaching style.

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and technologies between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres after 1492; it transformed global diets and economies while diseases devastated many Indigenous populations.

“God, Gold, Glory”

A phrase summarizing European motivations for exploration: spreading Christianity, acquiring wealth and trade opportunities, and gaining personal and national power.

Transatlantic Slave Trade

The forced transportation of millions of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to provide labor in the Americas; it expanded plantation agriculture and established hereditary racial slavery.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

A Spanish priest who condemned the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and argued that they deserved humane treatment and conversion through peaceful means.

Christopher Columbus

An Italian explorer sponsored by Spain whose 1492 voyage reached the Caribbean and initiated sustained contact between Europe and the Americas.

Hernán Cortés

A Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire from 1519 to 1521 by using superior weapons, Indigenous alliances, and the effects of disease.

Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda

A Spanish scholar who argued that Indigenous peoples were inferior and that Spain was justified in conquering and forcibly converting them; Las Casas challenged his views in the Valladolid Debate.

Treaty of Tordesillas

A 1494 agreement, supported by the pope, that divided newly claimed lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal without recognizing Indigenous sovereignty.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in Virginia by the Virginia Company in 1607; it survived through tobacco cultivation and the labor of settlers, indentured servants, and enslaved Africans.

headright system

A system that granted approximately 50 acres of land to colonists who paid for their own or another person’s passage to Virginia; it encouraged immigration and the growth of large plantations.

indentured servants

People who agreed to work for a colonial employer for a set number of years, usually four to seven, in exchange for passage to America, food, and shelter.

joint-stock company

A business in which investors pooled money to finance colonial ventures and shared the risks and profits; the Virginia Company used this model to establish Jamestown.

Massachusetts Bay Company

A Puritan-controlled joint-stock company that established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and supported the Great Migration of Puritans to New England.

mercantilism

An economic system in which colonies supplied raw materials and markets to strengthen the wealth and power of their mother country; Britain regulated colonial trade to benefit its own economy.

Pilgrims

Separatists who wanted to leave the Church of England entirely and established Plymouth Colony in 1620 to practice their religion independently.

Puritans

English Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England of Catholic traditions; many established communities in New England based on strict religious and social values.

Quakers

Members of the Religious Society of Friends who believed in an “inner light,” spiritual equality, and pacifism; they established Pennsylvania as a colony known for religious toleration.

salutary neglect

Britain’s unofficial policy of loosely enforcing colonial trade laws before 1763; it allowed colonists to develop greater economic independence and traditions of self-government.

town meetings

Local assemblies in New England where eligible male colonists discussed and voted on community matters; they encouraged direct participation in colonial government.

triangular trade

A network of Atlantic trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the exchange of manufactured goods, raw materials, and enslaved people.

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan dissenter who challenged Massachusetts religious leaders by teaching that faith, rather than good works, determined salvation; she was banished and later helped settle Rhode Island.

Metacom

The Wampanoag leader called King Philip by the English who led a Native alliance against New England colonists during King Philip’s War.

William Penn

A Quaker who founded Pennsylvania in 1681 as a “holy experiment” based on religious toleration, representative government, and relatively peaceful relations with Indigenous peoples.

Pocahontas

The daughter of Powhatan who served as an intermediary between the Powhatan people and Jamestown settlers; she later converted to Christianity and married tobacco planter John Rolfe.

John Rolfe

A Jamestown colonist who developed a profitable variety of tobacco and married Pocahontas; tobacco made Virginia economically successful and increased demand for land and labor.

George Whitefield

An English preacher whose emotional sermons attracted large colonial audiences and helped unite the colonies during the First Great Awakening.

Roger Williams

A Puritan dissenter who founded Rhode Island after being banished from Massachusetts; he supported religious freedom, separation of church and government, and fair dealings with Indigenous peoples.

Bacon’s Rebellion

A 1676 Virginia uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley over frontier security, political power, and access to Indigenous lands; afterward, planters increasingly relied on enslaved African labor.

Enlightenment

An intellectual movement emphasizing reason, scientific inquiry, natural rights, and the idea that government should serve the people; it influenced colonial resistance and later American government.