AP U.S. History: Pre-Columbian Societies to Colonial America

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering early Native American societies, European colonization, colonial regional economies, slave rebellions, mercantilism, and cultural movements.

Columbian Exchange

The transatlantic transfer of crops, animals, diseases, and human populations between the Americas and Europe, Africa, and Asia following European arrival in 1492.

Sedentary societies

Communities settled permanently in one geographic location, made possible primarily by the cultivation of stable crops like maize.

"Three Sisters"

The agricultural companion triad of corn, beans, and squash that enriched the soil, thrived together, and sustained permanent farming settlements in North America.

Matrilineal

A social structure in which family descent, property, and power are passed down through generations along the mother's line.

Pueblo Revolt

A 1680 uprising of the Pueblo people against aggressive Spanish efforts to christianize them, which drove the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692.

Longhouse

A large rectangular wooden dwelling up to 200 feet long used by Woodland and Northeast cultures, such as the Iroquois, that housed multiple generations related through a mother.

Corporate colony

A colony operated and financed by joint-stock companies, such as Jamestown during its initial settlement under the Virginia Company.

Royal colony

A colony placed under the direct authority, control, and governance of the English monarch, such as Virginia after King James I revoked its charter in 1624.

Headright System

A colonial land-grant policy that offered 50 acres of land to each immigrant who paid for their own passage or to each plantation owner who paid for an immigrant's passage.

House of Burgesses

The representative legislative assembly established in Virginia that guaranteed colonists the same representation in lawmaking as residents of England.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 armed uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley's colonial government, fueled by resentment of wealthy planters and western frontier neglect.

Puritans

Moderate English Protestant dissenters influenced by John Calvin who sought to reform or "purify" the Church of England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Great Migration

The movement in 1630 during which approximately one thousand Puritans, led by John Winthrop, sailed to Massachusetts to escape religious persecution.

Antinomianism

The theological idea preached by Anne Hutchinson that faith alone, rather than outward moral deeds or observance of religious law, is necessary for salvation.

13 Colonies

The British colonial regions established along the Atlantic coast of North America, divided into New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies.

Bread colonies

A term for the Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware), referencing their rich soil and large-scale agricultural export of wheat and corn.

Proprietary colony

A colony granted by the English monarch to an individual or group—such as Maryland granted to George Calvert (Lord Baltimore)—endowed with governing authority.

Act of Toleration

A 1649 Maryland statute that granted religious freedom to all Christians while mandating the death penalty for anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.

Quakers

Members of the Religious Society of Friends who believed in human equality, nonviolence, resistance to military service, and that religious authority resides within an individual rather than in external sources.

Charter of Liberties

The written colonial constitution created by William Penn for Pennsylvania that guaranteed freedom of worship for all and unrestricted immigration.

Mercantilism

An economic policy that looked upon trade, colonies, and the accumulation of gold and silver as the basis for a nation's military and political power, requiring colonies to enrich the parent country.

Navigation Acts

A series of English mercantilist trade laws establishing that colonial commerce could only use English or colonial ships, all colonial imports must pass through England, and specified enumerated goods could only go to England.

Middle Passage

The treacherous transatlantic voyage from West Africa to the West Indies and the Americas, which formed the second leg of the triangular trade and transported enslaved Africans under brutal conditions.

Security Act of 1739

A South Carolina law requiring all white men to carry firearms to church each Sunday, passed due to planter anxieties over being outnumbered by the enslaved black majority.

Stono Rebellion

A major September 1739 slave uprising in South Carolina led by an enslaved man named Jemmy, who led a march toward Spanish Florida before being overtaken near the Edisto River.

Louisiana Rebellion of 1811

The largest slave revolt in American history, also called the German Coast Uprising, in which hundreds of armed enslaved men led by Charles Deslondes marched toward New Orleans.

Zenger Trial

A 1735 legal case in which New York printer John Peter Zenger was acquitted of libel for criticizing the royal governor, establishing the precedent that truth was a defense against libel charges.

Great Awakening

A religious movement in the 1730s and 1740s characterized by emotional Protestant sermons, personal repentance, home Bible study, and a democratizing challenge to established religious and political authority.