Early American History: From Pre-Columbian Cultures to the Early Republic

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical events, economic systems, and political concepts from early American history through the Founding era.

Pueblo Bonito

A massive pre-Hispanic 'great house' structure in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, serving as a political and cultural center for ancient Puebloan societies.

Cahokia

The largest settled city-state in pre-Columbian North America, established near present-day St. Louis along the Mississippi River by mound-building cultures and reaching its peak around 1200 CE.

Three Sisters

The primary agricultural crops—corn, squash, and beans—cultivated together by Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands.

Columbian Exchange

The transatlantic transfer of plants, animals, diseases, human populations, and cultures between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World following Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.

Peninsulares

Spanish colonists born on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) who occupied the highest rank in the socio-racial hierarchy of Spanish colonial America.

Spanish Casta System

A strict race-based social hierarchy established in Spanish American colonies classifying individuals according to their Spanish, Indigenous, and African heritage.

Pueblo Revolt

A successful 1680 uprising led by the Indigenous leader Popé that expelled Spanish colonizers and religious authorities from New Mexico for over a decade.

Métis

People of mixed French and Native American ancestry who emerged in French colonial America primarily through the fur trade network.

Joint-Stock Company

A business entity funded by private investors pooling capital to share financial risk, utilized by the British to sponsor ventures like the Virginia Company at Jamestown in 1607.

Virginia House of Burgesses

The elected legislative assembly established in Virginia in 1642, serving as the first representative legislative body in colonial America.

Proprietary Colony

A colonial grant given by the English Crown to a single individual or family with complete governing authority, such as Maryland under Cecil Calvert or Pennsylvania under William Penn.

Puritanism

A Calvinist Protestant movement in England that sought to 'purify' the Church of England of Catholic elements, placing strong emphasis on predestination, divine grace, and the Protestant work ethic.

King Philip's War

A 1675–1676 conflict between New England colonists and a Native alliance led by Wampanoag Chief Metacom (King Philip) over territorial encroachment.

Quakers

Members of the Society of Friends, a Protestant group led by William Penn who established Pennsylvania in 1681 as a sanctuary dedicated to religious freedom and peaceful coexistence.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 armed uprising of Virginia small farmers and former indentured servants led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor Berkeley, accelerating the colony's reliance on African enslaved labor.

Salem Witch Trials

The 1691–1692 legal proceedings in Salem, Massachusetts, resulting in the execution of accused witches and exposing severe flaws in the colonial judicial system.

Mercantilism

An economic doctrine from the 16th to 18th centuries in which imperial governments regulated colonial trade to ensure exports exceeded imports and maximize gold and silver accumulation.

Navigation Acts

A series of English laws enforcing mercantilism by requiring colonial goods to be transported exclusively on English ships and routed through English ports.

Salutary Neglect

An unofficial British policy of loose enforcement of parliamentary trade laws in the American colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries to promote trade and productivity.

Triangular Trade

The Atlantic trade system linking Europe, Africa, and North America in exchanging manufactured goods, raw agricultural products, and enslaved human beings.

The Great Awakening

A major 1730s–1750s religious revival movement across the American colonies characterized by impassioned outdoor meetings, personal emotional conversion, and challenges to traditional church authority.

Seven Years' War

A global 1754–1763 conflict between Britain and France (known in North America as the French and Indian War) that ended with British domination of North American lands.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The peace accord ending the Seven Years' War that ousted France from North America, expanded British territory, and prompted Great Britain to abandon its policy of salutary neglect.

Deism

An Enlightenment religious viewpoint holding that God created the universe according to natural scientific laws but does not actively intervene through miracles or divinely inspired scriptures.

Classical Liberalism

A political philosophy pioneered by thinkers like John Locke advocating limited government intervention, individual liberty, protection of private property, and natural rights.

Republicanism

An 18th-century political ideology advocating self-governance without a monarch, dependent on the civic virtue and active public participation of landowning citizens.

Stamp Act

A 1765 direct tax levied by the British Parliament on printed materials, legal documents, and playing cards in the American colonies, sparking wide colonial boycotts.

Boston Massacre

A 1770 confrontation in Boston in which British soldiers fired into a crowd of colonial protesters, killing five men and igniting anti-British sentiment.

Coercive Acts

Punitive statutes enacted by Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party—including the closure of Boston Harbor—referred to by colonists as the Intolerable Acts.

Declaration of Independence

The document approved on July 4, 1776, formally severing the thirteen American colonies' political ties to Great Britain based on principles of natural rights and popular consent.

Articles of Confederation

The initial government framework of the United States (1781–1789) that created a decentralized union of 13 states with a unicameral legislature lacking executive and judicial power.

Northwest Ordinance

A 1787 enactment under the Articles of Confederation outlining the structured process for admitting new states from the Northwest Territory while prohibiting slavery in the region.

Shays' Rebellion

A 1787 rebellion of debt-ridden farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays, highlighting the central government's weaknesses under the Articles of Confederation.

Great Compromise

An agreement at the 1787 Constitutional Convention establishing a bicameral legislature with state representation apportioned by population in the House and equally in the Senate.

Hamilton's Financial Program

A five-point economic strategy drafted by Alexander Hamilton comprising state war debt assumption, creation of the Bank of the United States, a whiskey tax, and protective tariffs.

Whiskey Rebellion

A 1791–1794 armed protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against a federal excise tax on whiskey, suppressed directly by President George Washington leading a federalized militia.

Alien and Sedition Acts

Four 1798 measures passed during John Adams's administration that lengthened naturalization residency requirements and penalized speech or press critical of the federal government.

Louisiana Purchase

The 1803 land acquisition from France authorized under President Thomas Jefferson that doubled the territorial expanse of the United States.