Colonial America: Slavery, Great Awakening, and Enlightenment

75 vocabulary flashcards covering slavery, the Great Awakening, and the Enlightenment in British North America.

Atlantic Slave Trade

Four-century commerce that brought roughly 11 million Africans to the Americas as enslaved labor.

Sugar Islands

West Indian colonies whose brutal sugar plantations relied almost entirely on enslaved Africans.

Chesapeake Region

Virginia–Maryland area where tobacco created heavy demand for slave labor.

Carolinas

Southern colonies with rice and indigo plantations that quickly embraced large-scale slavery.

Georgia Colony

Southernmost British colony that adopted plantation slavery alongside the Carolinas.

Staple Crops

High-profit agricultural products such as tobacco, rice, sugar, and indigo grown on colonial plantations.

Mediterranean Slavery

Earlier practice in Europe that served as a model for racial slavery in the Atlantic world.

African Warlords

Local military leaders who captured and sold rivals to European traders for profit.

Tribal Leaders

African chiefs who negotiated slave deals with Europeans in exchange for foreign goods.

European Goods Exchange

Trade of manufactured items to Africa for enslaved people.

Cloth, Rum, and Guns

Typical European commodities offered to African suppliers in return for slaves.

Indentured Servants

Contracted European laborers gradually replaced by enslaved Africans in colonial fields.

Chattel Slavery

Legal system making enslaved Africans property for life and for inheritance.

Stono Rebellion

1739 South Carolina uprising of 40+ slaves, the largest colonial slave revolt.

Slave Resistance

Acts of rebellion, sabotage, escape, and cultural preservation by the enslaved population.

Colonial Slave Codes

Laws defining slaves as property and prescribing harsh punishments for resistance.

Anti-Literacy Laws

Statutes that forbade slaves from learning to read or write after revolts like Stono.

Birth Rate Increase

Natural population growth among colonists that fostered a shared American culture.

Emerging Colonial Culture

Blending of regional customs into a more unified identity as colonies expanded.

Rising Literacy

Rapid growth in reading ability that kept colonists abreast of European trends.

Colonial Colleges

Early institutions such as Harvard and Yale founded to educate clergy and leaders.

Intercolonial Roads

New overland routes that physically linked the colonies and sped communication.

Native American Trails

Existing pathways adapted by colonists for wagon roads and trade.

Ideological Connectivity

Exchange of ideas across colonies enabled by travel, mail, and print.

Old Light Conservatives

Traditional clergy who opposed emotional revivalism and favored established practices.

New Light Evangelicals

Revivalist ministers promoting fervent preaching and personal conversion.

Religious Revival

Renewed enthusiasm for faith typified by the Great Awakening.

Puritanism

Strict Protestant faith that dominated New England but was seen as cold by revivalists.

Calvinism

Theological system emphasizing God’s sovereignty and human depravity adopted by Puritans.

Predestination

Calvinist belief that salvation is determined by God before birth.

Great Awakening

1730s-1760s movement that reshaped colonial religion with emotional preaching.

Jonathan Edwards

Yale-educated theologian whose sermons sparked revival in Massachusetts.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Edwards’s famous 1741 sermon warning of damnation without sincere faith.

George Whitefield

Charismatic English preacher who toured colonies igniting mass conversions.

Itinerant Preaching

Traveling ministry style used by Whitefield and other revivalists.

Evangelical Fervor

Intense enthusiasm for spreading the gospel characteristic of New Light preachers.

Anglican Church

Church of England, the established faith in many Southern and middle colonies.

Established Religion

Denomination officially supported by colonial taxes and law.

Tax-Supported Churches

Congregations financed through government levies on colonists regardless of affiliation.

Religious Dissenters

Colonists outside the established church who sought permission to worship publicly.

Methodists

Evangelical Protestant group emerging from the Great Awakening.

Baptists

Revivalist denomination emphasizing adult baptism and individual conversion.

Personal Faith

Great Awakening ideal that salvation depends on one’s own heartfelt belief, not ritual.

Undermining Church Hierarchy

Effect of revivalism that weakened power of established clergy.

Egalitarian Gospel

Message that God’s mercy is available to all social ranks, even slaves and the poor.

Enlightenment

18th-century intellectual movement stressing reason, science, and human progress.

Age of Reason

Alternate name for the Enlightenment emphasizing rational thought over tradition.

Benjamin Franklin

Leading American Enlightenment figure, inventor, and advocate of public education.

Public Libraries

Franklin-sponsored institutions providing shared access to books and knowledge.

University of Pennsylvania

Nonsectarian college founded by Franklin to promote practical education.

Lightning Rod

Franklin’s invention protecting buildings from electrical storms.

Bifocal Lenses

Dual-focus eyeglasses created by Franklin to aid vision.

Glass Armonica

Musical instrument invented by Franklin using spinning glass bowls.

Deism

Belief that God created natural laws but does not intervene in daily life.

Natural Laws

Universal principles governing the physical and moral world, discoverable by reason.

Virtue

Enlightenment ideal of moral excellence and civic responsibility.

Scientific Inquiry

Systematic investigation of nature encouraged by Enlightenment thinkers.

High Colonial Literacy

Nearly 90 % of white males could read, surpassing rates in England.

Postal Service

Improved mail system that sped intercolonial communication.

Colonial Newspapers

Rapidly expanding press distributing news and Enlightenment ideas.

Tavern Culture

Social hubs where colonists read papers, discussed politics, and drank, irritating Puritans.

Scientific Revolution

Earlier European movement that inspired colonial interest in experimentation.

Individual Liberty

Enlightenment principle asserting personal freedoms and rights.

Intellectual Activity

Flourishing of debate, writing, and experimentation in colonial America.

Challenging the Status Quo

Common aim of both Enlightenment thinkers and revivalist preachers.

Revolutionary Ideas

Political concepts bred by Enlightenment thought that fueled independence.

Triangular Trade

Atlantic exchange linking Europe, Africa, and America in goods and slaves.

Plantation Economy

System of large estates relying on slave labor to grow export crops.

African Diaspora

Forced dispersion of Africans across the Americas through slavery.

Anti-Gathering Laws

Colonial rules limiting slave assemblies to prevent organized revolt.

Revivalist Colleges

Schools founded to train New Light ministers, e.g., Princeton and Dartmouth.

Road Network Expansion

Rapid building of highways that accelerated travel and trade among colonies.

Printing Presses in Colonies

Machines that multiplied pamphlets, sermons, and newspapers for a growing literate public.

Mail Routes

Scheduled postal paths that improved reliability of letter delivery.

Communication Revolution

Combined impact of roads, mail, printing, and taverns on colonial information flow

Middle Passage

The horrific transatlantic sea journey that forcibly transported enslaved Africans to the Americas, characterized by extreme overcrowding, disease, and high mortality rates.

John Locke's Philosophy

English Enlightenment thinker's influential ideas of natural rights (life, liberty, property) and popular sovereignty, which greatly informed American revolutionary thought.

Salutary Neglect

Britain's unofficial policy of loosely enforcing trade laws and governing the American colonies, allowing them significant self-rule and economic independence.

Religious Pluralism

The increase in diverse religious denominations and a decline in the dominance of established churches, spurred by the Great Awakening's emphasis on individual conversion.