Virginia and the Southern Colonies Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms, significant historical figures, and political, religious, and economic concepts from the Virginia and Southern Colonies transcript.

Joint stock companies

Private corporations funded by individuals purchasing shares in exploration and settlement to pool investments and minimize financial risk.

House of Burgesses

The first representative assembly established in Jamestown in 1619, which is the longest-standing representative government in the United States and known today as the Virginia General Assembly.

Cash Crop

An agricultural good produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower.

Act of Toleration

A law passed in 1649 that granted religious freedom to all Christians, establishing Maryland as a safe haven for Catholics.

Proprietary Colony

A type of colony in the British American colonies where an individual or group was granted land in the New World to rule over.

Jamestown

America's first permanent English settlement in the Americas, established in 1607 and chartered by the Virginia Company of London.

Starving Time

The nickname for the harsh winter of 1609 in Jamestown, which colonists narrowly survived.

John Smith

The forceful leader of Jamestown who took charge during the Starving Time and led the colony through its early survival struggles.

Powhatan Empire

A powerful Algonquian confederacy of thirty native groups with as many as twenty-two thousand people located along the rivers of the Chesapeake.

John Rolfe

A Jamestown colonist who introduced a stronger, profitable tobacco plant to the colony and married Pocahontas.

Pocahontas

The daughter of Chief Powhatan who married John Rolfe, converted to Christianity taking the name Rebecca, and was instrumental in quelling tensions between colonists and Indigenous peoples.

Virginia Company

A joint stock company of London that received a royal charter from the English crown and established Jamestown in 1607.

Lord Baltimore

The individual granted a charter to establish the Maryland colony as a gift for his service to the British crown, creating a safe haven for Catholics.

George Oglethorpe

The proprietor under whom Georgia was established as a proprietary colony in 1732 to serve as a military buffer and a place for English debtors.

Charleston

A South Carolina city named after King Charles II that grew to become the largest port in the colonies.

Encomienda

A centralized system utilized by the Spanish to exploit resources and indigenous labor in their American colonies.