🇺🇸APUSH Unit 2, Vocab #3

Enlightenment

An intellectual movement of the 1600s–1700s that emphasized reason, science, natural laws, and individual rights, influencing political thought and challenges to traditional authority.

Great Awakening

A series of religious revivals in the American colonies during the 1730s–1740s that emphasized personal faith, emotional preaching, and challenged established churches.

Salem Witch Trials

A period of mass hysteria in 1692 in Massachusetts during which people, mostly women, were accused, tried, and executed for witchcraft.

Zenger Trials

A 1735 court case in which John Peter Zenger was acquitted of libel, establishing the principle of freedom of the press in the American colonies.

Indentured Servant

A person who agreed to work for a fixed number of years in exchange for passage to the colonies, food, and shelter.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against the colonial government over land policies and Native American relations.

Patriarchy

A social system in which men hold primary power in political leadership, moral authority, and control of property.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic journey that enslaved Africans endured while being transported to the Americas.

Slave Codes

Laws passed in the colonies that defined enslaved people as property and severely restricted their rights and freedoms.

John Locke

An Enlightenment philosopher who argued that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that governments exist to protect those rights.

Jonathan Edwards

A Puritan preacher and key figure of the Great Awakening known for emotional sermons such as Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

Cotton Mather

A Puritan minister in Massachusetts involved in the Salem Witch Trials and an influential religious and political leader.

George Whitfield

A powerful evangelical preacher during the Great Awakening who drew large crowds and helped unify the colonies through shared religious experience.

Gullah

A distinct African American culture that developed among enslaved people in the coastal South, preserving African languages, traditions, and customs.

Triangular Trade

A transatlantic trading system connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas, involving manufactured goods, enslaved people, and raw materials.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 slave uprising in South Carolina, one of the largest in the colonies, which led to harsher slave laws.