Unit 4 US History

Headright system

A system that allowed an individual to acquire fifty acres of land if he paid for a laborer’s passage to the colony.

Indentured servants

Migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service, typically between four and seven years.

Royal African Company

English joint-stock company that enjoyed a state-granted monopoly on the colonial slave trade from 1672 until 1698. The supply of slaves to the North American colonies rose sharply once the company lost its monopoly privileges.

Bacon’s rebellion

Protest against Berkeley’s refusal to protect frontier settlers from Indian attacks.

Middle passage

Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies.

Congregational church

Self-governing Puritan congregations without the hierarchical establishment of the Anglican Church.

Slave codes

Set of laws beginning in 1662 defining racial slavery. They established the hereditary nature of slavery and limited the rights and education of slaves.

Jeremiad

Fiery sermons lamenting the waning piety of parishioners first delivered in New England in the mid-seventeenth century.

Half-way Covenant

Agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children

Salem witch trials

Series of witchcraft trials launched after a group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women of the town. Twenty individuals were put to death

Leisler’s Rebellion

Armed conflict between aspiring merchants when wealthy colonists attempted to re-create European social structures in the New World.

William Berkeley

(1606-1677) Royal governor of Virginia, member of Virginia’s seaboard elite, drew the ire of backwater settlers for refusing to protect them against Indian attacks.

Nathaniel Bacon

(1647-1676) Young Virginia planter who led a rebellion against Governor William Berkeley in 1676 to protest Berkeley’s refusal to protect frontier settlers from Indian attacks.