Time Period 1 and 2 Vocab

3 Sister Farming

Agricultural system employed by North American Native Americans as early as 1000. Maize, beans, and squash were grown together to maximize yields.

Maize Cultivation

Involves careful land preparation on well-drained, fertile soil, typically starting in the spring.

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of goods, crops, and diseases between New and Old Worth societies after 1492.

Conquistadores

16th century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Inca empires.

Encomienda System

Spanish government's policy to "commend", or give, Native Americans to certain colonists in return for the promise to Christianize them. It was part of a broader Spanish effort to subdue Native American tribes in the West Indies and on the North American mainland.

Mestizos

People of mixed Native American and European heritage, notably in Mexico.

Caste System

A rigid, birth-determined social hierarchy.

Pope's Rebellion

Pueblo Native American revolt that drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico.

Capitalism

Economic system characterized by private property, generally free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, in particular the discovery of vast bullion deposits, helped bring about Europe's transition to this system.

Protestant Reformation

Movement to reform the Catholic Church launched in Germany by Martin Luther. Reformers questioned the authority of the Pope, sought to eliminate the selling of indulgences, and encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin, which few at the time could read. It was launched in England in the 1530s when King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church.

Primogeniture

Legal principle that the oldest son inherits all family property or land. Landowner's younger sons, forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere, pioneered early exploration and settlement of the Americas.

Joint Stock Company

Short-term partnership between multiple investors to fund a commercial enterprise. Such arrangements were used to fund England's early colonial ventures.

Charter

Legal document granted by a government to some group or agency to implement a stated purpose, and spelling out the attending rights and obligations. Ones in the British colonies guaranteed inhabitants all the rights of Englishmen, which helped solidify colonists' ties to Britain during the early years of settlement.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America founded by the Virginia Company.

House of Burgesses

Representative parliamentary assembly created to govern Virginia, establishing a precedent for government in the English colonies.

Act of Toleration

Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed forebearance to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for those, like Jews and atheists, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. It ensured that Maryland would continue to attract a high proportion of Catholic migrants throughout the colonial period.

Barbados Slave Code

First formal statute governing the treatment of slaves, which provided for harsh punishments against offending slaves but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statutes were adopted by Southern plantation societies on the North American mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Iroquois Confederacy

Bound together 5 tribes - Mohawk, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas - in the Mohawk Valley of New York.

Antinomianism

Belief that the elect need not obey the law of either God or man. Most notably espoused in the colonies by Anne Hutchinson.

Half-Way Covenant

An agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children. It signified a waning of religious zeal among second and third generation Puritans.

Quakers

Religious group known for their tolerance, emphasis on peace, and idealistic Native American policy, who settled heavily in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Holy Experiment

William Penn's founding of the Pennsylvania colony. It was created as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities by promoting religious tolerance.

Puritans

English Protestant reformers who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic rituals and creeds. Some of the most devout believed that only "visible saints" should be admitted into church membership.

Separatists

Small group of Puritans who sought to break away entirely from the Church of England. After initially settling in Holland, a number of them made their way to Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts in 1620.

King Phillip's War

Series of assaults by Metacom on English settlements in New England. The attacks slowed the westward migration of New England settlers for several decades.

Mayflower Compact

Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth. Signed aboard the Mayflower, it created a foundation for self-government in the colony.

Bacon's Rebellion

Uprising of Virginia back-country farmers and indentured servants led by planter Nathaniel Bacon. Initially a response to Governor William Berkeley's refusal to protect back-country settlers from Native American attacks, it eventually grew into a broader conflict between impoverished settlers and the planter elite.

Fundamental Orders

Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River Valley. It was the first "modern constitution" establishing a democratically controlled government. Key features of it were borrowed by Connecticut's colonial charter and later, its state constitution.

New England Confederation

Weak union of the colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut led by Puritans for the purpose of defense and organization. An early attempt at self-government during the benign neglect of the English Civil War.

Mercantilism

Economic theory that closely linked a nation's political and military power to its bullion reserves. People who used this system generally favored protectionism and colonial acquisition as means to increase exports.

Navigation Laws

Series of acts passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping. They provided that only English ships would be allowed to trade in England and colonial ports, and that all goods destined for the colonies would first pass through England.

Dominion of New England

Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. It was placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros who curved popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.

Indentured Servants

Migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service, typically 4-7 years. Their migration addressed the chronic labor shortage in the colonies and facilitated settlement.

Headright System

Employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants. It allowed an individual to acquire 50 acres of land if he paid for a laborer's passage to the colony.

Triangular Trade

Exchange of rum, slaves, and molasses between North American colonies, Africa, and the West Indies. A small but immensely profitable subset of the Atlantic trade.

Molasses Act

Tax passed by Parliament on this product that was imported in an effort to squelch the North American trade with the French West Indies. It proved largely ineffective due to widespread smuggling.

Middle Passage

Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies. Mortality rates were notoriously high.

Great Awakening

Religious revival that swept the colonies. Participating ministers, most notably Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, placed an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality.

Subsistence Farming

The practice of growing food primarily for the consumption of the farmer's household, with little to no surplus for sale or trade.

Huguenots

French Protestant dissenters who were granted limited toleration. After King Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism in 1685, many fled elsewhere, including to British North America.

Pequot War

Series of clashes between English settlers and these Native Americans in the Connecticut River Valley. Ended in the slaughter of these Native Americans by the Puritans and their Narragansett Native American allies.

Theocracy

A form of government in which clergy rule in the name of a deity, or a system where the government is based on religious principles and laws derived from divine guidance.

Paxton Boys

Armed march on Philadelphia by Scots-Irish frontiersmen in protest against the Quaker establishment's lenient policies toward Native Americans.

Regulator Movement

Eventually violent uprising of back-country settlers in North Carolina against unfair taxation and the control of colonial affairs by the seaboard elite.