Chesapeake and New England Colonial History

Vocabulary practice flashcards generated from lecture notes covering the English colonization of the Chesapeake and New England regions.

Charter of the Virginia Company

A foundational colonial document that guaranteed to colonists the same rights as Englishmen as if they had stayed in England.

Powhatan Confederacy

An alliance of a few dozen small tribes in the James River area dominated by Chief Powhatan when English settlers first arrived.

First Anglo-Powhatan War

A conflict from 1610 to 1614 where De La Warr raided Indian villages and burned cornfields, ending in a peace treaty sealed by the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe.

Peace Treaty of 1646

A treaty ending the Second Anglo-Powhatan War that removed the Powhatans from their original land and formally separated Indian and English settlement areas.

Headright System

A land distribution system in Virginia where colonists received 50 acres of land for each person whose passage to the colony they paid.

House of Burgesses

A representative assembly established in 1619 that began to assume the role of the English House of Commons by controlling finances and militia in Virginia.

Slave Codes

Statutes beginning in Virginia in 1662 that made Black people and their children chattel property for life under white masters.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1670 conflict led by Bacon against Governor Berkeley that exposed class resentments between inland frontiersmen/former servants and coastal plantation gentry.

Maryland Toleration Act of 1649

A law supported by Maryland Catholics that guaranteed toleration to all Christians, but decreed death to anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.

Puritans

English religious reformers who sought to totally purify the Church of England of its Catholic elements and practices.

Separatists

Puritans who believed only "visible saints" should be admitted to church membership and called for a complete break from the Church of England.

Mayflower Compact

An agreement signed on November 11, 1620, by 41 adult males to form a crude government and submit to majority rule.

Covenant Theology

A Puritan framework consisting of a "Covenant of Grace" with God and a "Social Covenant" among community members requiring mutual watchfulness and zero tolerance for deviance.

William Bradford

A self-taught scholar chosen as governor of Plymouth 30 times in yearly elections, who feared nearby non-Puritan settlements would corrupt Puritan society.

Great Migration

A wave during the 1630s driven by political turmoil in England that brought approximately 70,000 Puritans to the Americas.

John Winthrop

The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who served for 19 years and authored "A Modell of Christian Charity," declaring "we shall be as a City on a hill."

Roger Williams

A Salem minister exiled in 1635 for preaching "newe & dangerous opinions" who denied the civil government's authority to regulate religious behavior and later settled Rhode Island.

Antinomianism

A theological doctrine, meaning "against the law," championed by Anne Hutchinson, which asserted that the truly saved did not need to obey the laws of God or man.

Pequot War

A 1637 conflict in which white settlers and Narragansett allies attacked a Pequot village on the Mystic River, virtually annihilating the Pequot tribe.

King Philip's War

A 1675–1676 war led by Metacom (King Philip) who united native groups to attack New England settlements, ending in failure for the Indians and Metacom's execution.