APUSH Unit 2 Vocabulary

Treaty of Tordesillas

how the Pope divided up the New World to be conquered by Spain and Portugal; Spain got most of South and North America, and Portugal got Brazil and parts of Africa.

America

named after explorer Amerigo Vespucci, another name for the New World

Pilgrims

Separatists who saw the church as hopelessly corrupt and believed it ot be better to establish a new religious community, settled Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, the second permanent English colony. First went to Holland and then to the New World

Mayflower Compact

one of the first forms of government, established by the 102 voyages on the Mayflower in 1620, created to organize their split group into a civil body politic

The Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company

a more detailed version of the Mayflower Compact, a legal charter given to the London

Halfway Covenant

adopted in 1662 by New England clergy to allow adults who had been baptized because their parents were church members but who had not yet experienced conversion to have their own children baptized; it was a significant compromise in a community where church membership was central

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

The 1639 charter that Massachusetts authorities allowed a new separate colony based in Hartford, Connecticut to adopt, confirming its independence from Massachusetts; offered men more rights to vote than Massachusetts did

Proprietary colony

a colony created when the English monarch granted a huge tract of land to an individual as his private property, owned by one person and heirs who were true and absolute lords and proprietaries; can allow others to won land but the whole colony was considered private property

Headright system

a system by which land was distributed; each adult was granted 100 acres, and each child 50 acres if they moved to the colony

Patroons

Dutch settlers who were given vast tracts of land along the Hudson River between New Amsterdam and Albany in return for bringing at least 50 immigrants to work the land

Indentured servants

an individual contracted to serve for 4-7 years in return for payment of passage to America

Pequot War

a conflict between English settlers and the Pequot Indians over control of land and trade in eastern Connecticut, began when a trade vessel captain was killed

Mestizo

people of mixed bloodlines, usually born of European father and Native American mothers and their descendants

King Philip's War

1675; A war in New England between Wampanoags, Narragansetts, and other tribes against the English settlers after tensions grew too high about the rapid growth of European communities and their effects on the land; King Philip was the English name for Metacomet, a powerful chief who wanted Europeans to leave native people alone, bloodiest war in American history

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676, a rebellion in Virginia that was led by former indentured servant Nathaniel Bacon; he once freed did not have many options and was forced to expand into native territory, the governor limited expansion abilities to ban conflict with Native Americans; Bacon organized a rebellion against Governor Berkeley and Jamestown because he refuse to let them drive the native people out to make room for their expanding colony, attacking it in August 1676 and burning the town

Pueblo Revolt

A rebellion in 1680 of the Pueblo Indians, descendants of the Anasazi in New Mexico against Spanish overlords; Spanish forced them to disown their own culture and language and forced them to speak Spanish, convert to Christianity, and do excessive labor. They had independence for 12 years before the Spanish returned

Glorious Revolution

a bloodless revolt of 1688 when parliamentary leaders invited Prince William of Orange of Scotland, a Protestant, to rule with his wife Mary, the daughter of King James II, to take over the throne from the King and rule as joint sovereigns.

Divine right of kings

the belief that the king or queen was selected by God through birth in the royal family; it was irreligious to question the monarch’s fitness to serve or their decisions. Two monarchs were overthrown in the 1600s in England, also declining the belief in the right of the monarchy’s inheritance to the throne.

Natural rights

John Locke’s philosophy that said that individuals had the inherent right to life, liberty, and property and that they had to give consent to be governed and could rebel if not satisfied.

Middle Passage

the horrendous and horrific voyage from Africa to the Americas that slaves journeyed; they were packed in extremely tightly and disease and starvation killed a quarter of them before they even arrived to the colonies

Stono Rebellion

1739, the largest slave uprising in the colonies before the American revolution; w hen Spanish Florida offered Carolina slaves freedom in exchange for conversion to Catholicism if they fled to Florida; runaways increased, hurting the British by embarrassing them and demolishing Carolina economy, gave Florida a new line of defense. Terrified slave masters throughout the colonies and a battle occurred in Stono SC highlighting the event.

Act of Union

formerly united England and Scotland to create Great Britain, though they were still ruled with separate Parliaments, became one country in 1707 and the colonies became British North America, extended political stability of the Glorious Revolution

Salem Witch Trials

1692-1693, an event of mass hysteria in the colony of Salem, Massachusetts. The daughter of a reverend suffered fits and accused their Native American slave of bewitching them, beginning the witchcraft accusations. Others had similar experiences and were formally charged with being witches and making pacts with the devil, leading to the executions of 6 men and 14 women.

Mercantilism

an economic system whereby the government intervenes in the economy to increase national wealth

Capitalism

economic system described by Adam Smith in 1776 where trade is the source of wealth instead of exchanging of goods; wealth can continually expand as trade expands

Triangle Trade

a pattern of trade developed in the 1700s in which slaves from Africa were sent to the West Indies and the mainland North America while goods and other resources were shipped between the West Indies, North America, and Britain.

The Age of Enlightenment

The major intellectual movement that happened in Europe starting in the 1600s that led to many scientific advancements because science and human reason were turned to instead of religion to understand the world

First Great Awakening

a series of religious revivals that swept all of the North American colonies in the late 1730s, began with the preaching of Solomon Stoddard and Jonathan Edwards and expanded by tours of evangelical minister George Whitefield

Albany Plan of Union

a plan put forwarded in 1754 by Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin, and other leaders, calling for an intercolonial union to manage defense and affairs with native tribes