Introduction to American History: Early Settlement and Religious Reformation

Vocabulary flashcards covering early English settlement attempts at Roanoke and Jamestown, the English Reformation, and the foundations of New England.

Virginia Dare

The first English child born in the New World, born in 1587 during the settlement attempt at Roanoke.

John White

The governor of the Roanoke colony who was forced to return to England in 1587 for supplies and was delayed by the outbreak of the Spanish Armada.

Croatoan

The single word carved into a tree at the abandoned Roanoke settlement, which was the name of both a local Native American tribe and a neighboring island.

Forensic Genealogy

A modern technique using deep DNA comparisons to trace descendants of original Roanoke colonists to living individuals in North Carolina and Virginia.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in the New World, founded in Virginia in 1607 by a commercial corporation.

The Starving Time

The dire period of existence at Jamestown where conditions deteriorated so severely that half the population died in the first year and evidence of cannibalism occurred.

John Smith

A Jamestown leader who required all colonists to pull their weight to produce food and urged the colony's company to stop sending incompetent bankers and accountants.

Pocahontas

The daughter of the chief of the Wampanoag tribe who met the English at approximately 11 years old, later married John Rolfe, was baptized into the Church of England, and died in England in her early twenties.

Spanish Armada

The largest naval fleet in European history up to that point, launched in 1588 by the king of Spain in an attempt to invade England and kill Queen Elizabeth I.

Foggy Bottom

The nickname for the U.S. State Department building, named after the drained swamp on which it was built in Washington D.C.

Church of England

The state church formed when King Henry VIII severed ties with the Catholic Church in Rome and declared the English monarch as head of the church.

Henry VIII

The King of England who established the Church of England after Pope Clement VII denied his request for an annulment from Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon

The daughter of the king of Spain and first wife of King Henry VIII, who failed to produce a surviving male heir after nearly twenty years of marriage.

Anne Boleyn

The woman King Henry VIII married after obtaining an annulment from Catherine of Aragon through his newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

Separatists (Pilgrims)

A group of English Calvinists who completely broke away from the Church of England, briefly lived in Leiden, Netherlands, and established Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Puritans

A group of English Calvinists who attempted to remain within the Church of England to reform and purify it of Catholic influences before emigrating to establish Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

First Amendment

The 1791 constitutional provision in the Bill of Rights stating that 'congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'