Time Period 1 and 2

Three 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 World 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 forbearance 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.

Halfway 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 Philip'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 English 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.

Head-Right 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.

Hernan Cortes

Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico from 1519-1521 for Spain. Helped create Mestizos culture by intermarrying with Native Americans.

Francisco Coronado

Spanish soldier and commander who from 1540-1542 led an expedition north from Mexico in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold, but only found Adobe Pueblos. He did, however, find the Grand Canyon and enormous herds of buffalo.

Bartolome De Las Casas

Spanish missionary who supported peaceful conversion of the Native American population. Opposed forced labor and advocated for Native American rights. Argued against Juan Gines de Sepulveda in the Velladolid Debate.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

Thought that the Native Americans should be slaves because of their crimes against nature and God. Thought they were barbaric and inhumane. Argued against Bartolome de Las Casas in the Valladolid Debate.

Francisco Pizzarro

Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas in Peru, added a great amount of money and valuables to Spanish coffers, and founded Lima.

Ferdinand and Isabella

Married king and queen of Spain. Their marriage marked the beginning of the modern state of Spain, and the capture of Granada from the Moors in 1492 united Spain as one country. Together they instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 and supported the expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator who discovered the New World in service of Spain while looking for a route to China.

Moctezuma

Aztec emperor defeated and killed by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes.

Sir Francis Drake

English explorer, admiral, and non-first-born son who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. Was financially backed and knighted by Elizabeth I. Helped defeat the Spanish Armada and looted Spanish ships.

Elizabeth I

Finalized England's break with the Roman Catholic Church (reestablished Protestantism). Her troops crushed Catholic Irish uprisings. Financed Sir Francis Drake and led the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Henry VIII

English king that left the Catholic Church and started the Church of England. Launched the English Protestant Reformation.

Sir Walter Raleigh

An English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas. In 1585, he sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in North Carolina.

Captain John Smith

English army captain whose strict discipline helped the Jamestown settlement survive.

John Rolfe

One of the English settlers at Jamestown who married Pocahontas. He discovered how to successfully grow tobacco and cure it for export, which made Virginia an economically successful colony.

Lord De La Warr

New governor of Jamestown who arrived in 1610, immediately imposing a military regime and declaring war against the Powhatan Confederacy. Employed "Irish tactics" in which troops burned houses and cornfields.

Powhatan

Native American leader who ruled tribes in the James River area of Virginia.

Lord Baltimore

Founded the colony of Maryland and offered religious freedom to all Christian colonists because he knew that members of his own religion (Catholicism) would be a minority in the colony. He wanted to provide refuge to his fellow Catholics who were still being persecuted in Protestant England.

James Oglethorpe

Soldier-statesman and philanthropist who founded Georgia in 1733. Started Georgia as a haven for people in debt because of his interest in prison reform. Saved Georgia with his energetic leadership and by mortgaging his own personal fortune.

John Cabot

Italian explorer who led the English expedition, giving England claim to the land, in 1497 that discovered the mainland of North America and explored the coast from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.

Jacques Cartier

French explorer who explored the Saint Lawrence River and laid claim to the region for France.

Samuel de Champlain

French explorer who sailed to the West Indies, Mexico, and Panama. His greatest accomplishment was his exploration of the Saint Lawrence River and his later settlement of Quebec.

Henry Hudson

English explorer who disregarded orders to sail northeast and instead discovered the Hudson River and made a Dutch claim to a nicely wooded and watered area.

Hohokam

A sedentary culture that consisted of elaborate irrigation systems, permanent settlements, and confederations.

Anasazi

"Ancient Outsiders" that originated in the Four Corners region. They were sedentary peoples who made elaborate arts and developed kivas which were pits serving as religious temples. They're the Pueblo Native American ancestors.

Pueblos

Tribe that was located in the Southwest who lived in apartment-like structures, had extensive agriculture, and derived from the Anasazi. They made many arts and had successful revolts against the Spanish.

Lakota Sioux

Sedentary dwellers who migrated to the plains and eventually evolved into a society based off of building mounds. They became nomadic hunters when they encountered horses and began the tradition of buffalo hunting that engraved into their culture.

Algonquian

North American Native Americans that were located near Canada, Lake Superior, and the Ottawa River. They allied with the French against the Iroquois confederation during the Beaver Wars.

Roger Williams

Founder of Rhode Island for separation of church and state and total religious tolerance. Did this after he was ordered to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious beliefs. Challenged the legality of the Bay Colony. Built what was likely the first Baptist church in America.

Anne Hutchinson

A female colonist who held unorthodox views that challenged the authority of the clergy and the very integrity of the Puritan experiment in the Bay Colony. She was eventually banished from Boston for her religious views.

William Penn

A Quaker that founded Pennsylvania to establish a place where his people and others could live in peace and be free from persecution.

John Winthrop

A governor of the Bay Colony who served for 19 years. He helped make industries such as fishing and shipbuilding prosper, which led to the colony becoming very large and influential in New England. He believed that the Bay Colony would serve as a holy society that would be a model for humankind.

Thomas Hooker

Minister in the Bay Colony who founded Hartford, Connecticut and wrote the Fundamental Orders.

Metacom

Massasoit's son who forged a Native American alliance that attacked 52 Puritan towns and slowed westward movement of English settlement in New England for several decades, but drastically decreased Native American populations. Eventually captured and beheaded.

Sir William Berkley

Governor of Virginia who monopolized the fur trade, held friendly policies toward the Native Americans that were resented by the colonists, and refused to retaliate against a series of brutal Native American attacks, which led to Bacon's Rebellion, which was later crushed by him.

William Bradford

A pilgrim who was chosen 30 times as governor of Plymouth. As governor, he worked hard to maintain friendly relations with Native Americans and was largely responsible for keeping the Plymouth Colony independent from the Bay Colony. Signed the Mayflower Compact.

Sir Edmund Andros

Governor of the Dominion of New England from 1686-1692, when the colonists rebelled and forced him to return to England. He was unpopular because of his restrictions on the courts, press, and schools. He revoked all land titles, taxed without consent, curbed town meetings, and enforced Navigation Acts.

John Copley

Massachusetts-born artist best known for his portraits of prominent colonial Americans. A loyalist during the Revolutionary War, he spent the rest of his life in London, painting portraits of British aristocrats and depicting scenes from English history.

Jacob Leisler

German-born American colonist who led an insurrection in 1689 in colonial New York, seizing control of the colony until he was captured and executed in New York City for treason against William and Mary.

Ben Franklin

American public official, writer, scientist, and printer. After the success of his "Poor Richard's Almanac", he entered politics and played a major part in the American Revolution. His numerous scientific and practical innovations include the lightning rod, bifocal spectacles, and stove.

Phillis Wheatley

American poet born in Africa who was the first recognized black writer in America.

Jonathan Edwards

The most outstanding preacher of the Great Awakening. He was a New England Congregationalist and preached in Northampton, Massachusetts. He attacked the new doctrines of easy salvation for all. He preached anew the traditional ideas of Puritanism related to sovereignty of God, predestination, and salvation by God's grace alone. He had vivid descriptions of Hell that terrified listeners.

George Whitefield

He was a great preacher who had recently been an alehouse attendant. Everyone in the colonies loved to hear him preach of love and forgiveness because he had a different style of preaching. This led to new missionary work in the Americas in converting Native Americans and Africans to Christianity, as well as lessening the importance of the old clergy.

Cotton Mather

Minister in Puritan New England who strongly believed in witches and encouraged the Salem Witch Trials.

John Peter Zenger

Journalist who questioned the policies of the governor of New York in the 1700s. He was jailed, but later sued and his not-guilty ruled court case was the basis for our freedom of speech and press.

How'd people come to settle in North and South America?

Through a landbridge, frozen over during the Ice Age.

What caused nation-states, like the Incas and Aztecs, to grow and flourish in their environments?

They were able to adapt and advance quicker. They had a much larger population than most civilizations.

Why'd North American tribes develop differently?

They all lived in different regions with different challenges to overcome.

How'd tribal differences lead to tribes being more easily "conquered" by the Europeans?

Some weren't as united or advanced as others.

What were all of the factors that allowed Europeans to make more far-flung environments?

Expulsion of Moors from Grenada, trying to find a new route to Asia because of middlemen expenses, new technology (compass, caravel, astrolobe), Treaty of Tordesillas, and the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella.

What led to Christopher Columbus' "discovery" of America?

Finding a westward route to Asia to avoid middlemen, spread Christianity, new technology, and royal sponsorship by Ferdinand and Isabella.

Products from the New World to Old World

Maize, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, chili peppers, cocoa, sweet potatoes, tobacco, pineapples, squash, turkeys, llamas, and guinea pigs

Products from the Old World to New World

Wheat, rice, barley, sugar cane, coffee, olives, peaches, bananas, citrus fruits, onions, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, wheels, steel, guns, religions, languages, laws, and diseases

How'd Spain become the dominant exploring power?

Unification by Ferdinand and Isabella, wealth brought in by the Columbian Exchange, and Spanish Armada.

Who'd Ferdinand and Isabella send and where'd they go?

Francisco Pizzarro, Hernan Cortes, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Hernando de Soto, and Juan Ponce de Leon. They all traveled around the New World.

How'd discoveries in the New World fuel European capitalism?

Created an influx of metallic wealth because of gold, silver, and copper discovered in the New World.

How was the Encomienda System devastating for the Native Americans?

It overworked and underfed them, while they were also being transmitted diseases to them. Their population decreased dramatically.