Early American History Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering core terms, people, places, and events from early American history notes.

Black Death

An epidemic of bubonic plague that devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, wiping out roughly a third of the population.

Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer who sailed across the Atlantic in 1492 under the Spanish flag, initiating European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

Conquistadors

Spanish conquerors who explored and subjugated indigenous civilizations across the Americas during the 16th century in search of wealth.

Enclosure Movement

An economic transition in England where common farmland was enclosed for sheep grazing, displacing agricultural tenants and encouraging colonial emigration.

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial system that granted settlers royal rights to extract forced labor and tribute from specific Native American populations.

Henry Hudson

English navigator employed by the Dutch who explored the Hudson River in 1609, establishing Dutch claims in New Netherland.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in Virginia in 1607.

Mercantilism

An economic policy holding that a nation's wealth and power are boosted by maximizing exports and acquiring colonies for raw materials.

Meso-Americans

The complex indigenous societies, including the Olmecs, Mayas, and Aztecs, that inhabited central and southern Mexico and Central America.

Mestizos

People of mixed European and Native American descent in the Spanish colonial hierarchy.

Protestant Reformation

A 16th-century movement initiated by Martin Luther challenging Catholic doctrines, leading to the creation of Protestant churches.

Puritans

English religious dissenters who aimed to reform the Church of England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in search of religious purity.

Roanoke

An early English colonial settlement sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh off the coast of North Carolina that mysteriously vanished, known as the Lost Colony.

Separatists

Radical English Puritans who completely severed ties with the Church of England and established Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Sir Walter Raleigh

English courtier and explorer who sponsored the failed attempts to establish an English colony at Roanoke Island.

Tenochtitlan

The ancient capital city of the Aztec Empire, built on an island in Lake Texcoco in modern-day Mexico City.

"Act Concerning Religion"

A 1649 Maryland law, also known as the Maryland Toleration Act, granting religious freedom to all Christian denominations in the colony.

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan dissenter in Massachusetts Bay who questioned colonial religious authority and gender roles, resulting in her trial and banishment.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley over frontier security and royal governance.

Dominion of New England

A short-lived administrative union created in 1686 by King James II to consolidate administrative control over the New England colonies.

Glorious Revolution

The 1688 bloodless overthrow of King James II of England, leading to the restoration of colonial self-governance.

Headright

A land grant policy in Virginia that awarded 50 acres of land to anyone who paid for their own or another person's transportation to the colony.

House of Burgesses

The first elected representative colonial assembly in English North America, created in Virginia in 1619.

James Oglethorpe

English politician and military officer who founded the colony of Georgia in 1732 as a refuge for debtors and a defensive buffer against Spanish Florida.

John Smith

English soldier and colonial leader who imposed strict discipline and organization at Jamestown, helping the settlement survive its early years.

John Winthrop

The long-serving Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who famously envisioned the settlement as a spiritual "city upon a hill".

King Philip's War

A 1675-1676 war between New England settlers and a Native American coalition led by the Wampanoag leader Metacomet (King Philip).

Massachusetts Bay Co.

A joint-stock business enterprise chartered in 1629 that facilitated the Puritan migration to and colonization of New England.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement drafted by Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower establishing a self-governing civil body politic for Plymouth Colony.

Middle ground

A cultural and political borderland where Native Americans and European colonists interacted, negotiated, and coexisted without either side maintaining total authority.

Pequot War

A 1637 armed conflict between New England colonists and the Pequot tribe over trade dominance and territorial control.

Plymouth

The colony established in 1620 by Separatist Pilgrims who landed at Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts.

Cotton Mather

A prominent Puritan minister in Boston known for his writings on theology and witchcraft, as well as his advocacy for smallpox inoculation.

Halfway Covenant

A 1662 religious policy in New England allowing children of non-full church members to receive partial church membership and baptism.

Enlightenment

An 18th-century philosophical movement that stressed scientific inquiry, reason, individual rights, and human autonomy over traditional dogma.

George Whitefield

A prominent English preacher whose charismatic outdoor sermon tours inspired widespread religious enthusiasm during the First Great Awakening.

Great Awakening

A major wave of evangelical religious revivals that swept through the American colonies during the 1730s and 1740s.

Indentured servitude

A labor arrangement in which individuals contracted to work for a master for a fixed term in exchange for passage to America and room and board.

Jonathan Edwards

An influential theologian and preacher of the First Great Awakening, famed for his vivid sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God".

Middle Passage

The forced transatlantic voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas as part of the slave trade.

Primogeniture

The legal practice of inheriting all family real estate exclusively through the eldest son.

Slave codes

Strict legal frameworks enacted in American colonies defining the legal status of enslaved people and granting masters total authority.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 slave revolt in South Carolina where armed slaves marched toward Spanish Florida before being intercepted and defeated.

Triangular trade

A transatlantic trading network linking Europe, West Africa, and the Americas through the exchange of goods, enslaved people, and raw commodities.

Quakers

A Protestant Christian sect, formally known as the Society of Friends, that emphasized peace, religious freedom, equality, and the inner light.

Roger Williams

A religious dissenter who was banished from Massachusetts Bay and founded Rhode Island, advocating for religious freedom and church-state separation.

Theocracy

A political system in which religious leaders hold state authority and civil law is derived from religious doctrine.

William Bradford

A Separatist leader and longtime governor of Plymouth Colony who authored the historic account "Of Plymouth Plantation".

William Penn

A Quaker leader who founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681 as a sanctuary for religious tolerance and peaceful governance.