Unit 2 (Ch 3-5) Terms

Joint stock companies

Business organizations in which multiple investors pooled their money and shared the risks and profits of an enterprise, widely used by European merchants during the 1500s and 1600s

Virginia Company of London

An English joint-stock company chartered by King James I in 1606 to establish settlements along the Atlantic coast of North America. It founded Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded by the Virginia Company in Virginia in 1607

Captain John Smith

English soldier, explorer, and colonial leader who helped establish Jamestown, Virginia, beginning in 1607. As a leader of the struggling colony, he imposed strict work requirements and traded with nearby Native peoples, particularly the Powhatan Confederacy, helping Jamestown survive

John Rolfe

He is credited with being the first to successfully cultivate and cure tobacco in Virginia. He also married Pocahontas, the daughter of the Chief of the Powhatan Indians

Anglo-Powhatan Wars (First and Second)

Conflicts between English settlers at Jamestown and the Powhatan Confederacy in Virginia. The wars reflected growing conflict over land and English expansion

Powhatan

Native American leader who headed the Powhatan Confederacy in the Virginia Tidewater region when the English founded Jamestown in 1607

Pocahontas

Daughter of Powhatan who helped facilitate relations between the English and Powhatan peoples. She married English colonist John Rolfe in 1614, helping produce several years of relative peace

Lord De La Warr

English nobleman appointed governor of Virginia who arrived at Jamestown in 1610, just as surviving colonists were preparing to abandon the settlement. He imposed stricter discipline and pursued an aggressive military campaign against the Powhatan Confederacy

House of Burgesses

A representative legislative assembly established at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, whose elected representatives helped make laws for the colony. It was the first representative legislative body in English North America

Lord Baltimore

Cecil Calvert was the second holder of this title, he was the founder and first proprietor of the colony of Maryland, a colony located in the Chesapeake region that would serve as a haven for Roman Catholics

Maryland Act of Toleration

1649 Maryland law that granted religious protection to Christians who believed in the Trinity. It was an early attempt to reduce religious conflict in the English colonies and became an important step toward the development of religious toleration in America

Charles II

King of England from 1660-1685, restored to the throne after the period of Puritan rule that followed the English Civil War. During his reign, England expanded its North American empire, acquiring New York from the Dutch

English Restoration

The reestablishment of the English monarchy in 1660, when Charles II became king after the collapse of the Puritan-led Commonwealth that had followed the English Civil War. It renewed royal interest in trade and overseas expansion.

James Oglethorpe

He established the colony of Georgia as both a way to reform British prisons as well as to serve as a buffer between the Spanish in Florida and the wealthy English plantations in South Carolina

Protestant Reformation

A religious movement that began in Europe in 1517, when Martin Luther challenged teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. It produced New Protestant denominations and intense religious conflicts, helping motivate English Puritans, Pilgrims, Huguenots, and other religious groups to establish or migrate to colonies in North America

Barbados slave code

A series of laws adopted in the English colony of Barbados beginning in 1661 that defined enslaved Africans as a permanently controlled labor force and gave slaveholders extensive legal authority over them. The code helped institutionalize racialized hereditary slavery

Tuscarora War

A conflict fought from 1711-1715 in North Carolina between the Tuscarora people and European colonists and their Native allies, largely over colonial expansion, trade abuses, and the enslavement of Native people

Buffer colony

A colony established partly to create a protective zone between competing territories or peoples. In British North America, Georgia was founded in 1733 partly as a buffer between the valuable English colony of South Carolina and Spanish Florida

Calvinism

A branch of Protestant Christianity associated with John Calvin that emphasized God’s absolute sovereignty and predestination and strongly influenced groups such as the Puritans

Predestination

A religious doctrine especially associated with Calvinism holding that God had already determined who would receive salvation. The belief became central to Puritan theology

Church of England

Established after King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s and made the English monarch its supreme authority. Disagreements over its beliefs and practices contributed to the rise of Puritans and Separatists

Puritans

English Protestants who sought to reform or “purify” the Church of England during the late 1500s and 1600s rather than completely separate from it. Large numbers migrated to New England beginning in 1630 and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Separatists

English Protestants during the late 1500s and early 1600s who believed the Church of England was too corrupt to reform and therefore wanted to separate from it completely. One group, later known as the Pilgrims, sailed to North America in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony

Mayflower Compact

Signed in 1620, it set the precedent for civil government, rule of law, and government by mutual consent in Plymouth, the second English colony to be established

Massachusetts Bay colony

An English Puritan colony established in New England in 1630 by the Massachusetts Bay Company under leaders including John Winthrop. Centered around Bosoton

Great Migration

Term used to describe the movement of approximately seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies, primarily New England and the Caribbean. They generally had the goal of establishing a model Christian settlement in the New World

Captain Myles Standish

Military officer who traveled with the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and became the chief military leader of Plymouth Colony; he organized the colony’s defenses and played an important role in its survival and relations—sometimes violent—with neighboring Native peoples

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

A framework of government adopted by settlers in Connecticut in 1639 that established an elected governor and representative legislature. Often regarded as one of the earliest written constitutions in colonial America

Pequot War

The first war to be fought in New England was this one in 1637 that began with conflicting claims over land between the English in Plymouth colony and Dutch fur traders. Native American tribes were drawn in, blamed for atrocities and severely attacked

King Philip’s War

Fought in New England from 1675-1678 between English colonists and Native peoples led in part by Metacom. The war caused enormous losses on both sides but ended with colonial victory

New England Confederation

An alliance formed in 1642 by the English colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven for mutual defense and cooperation. It was one of the first attempts by English colonies to work together politically and militarily

Dominion of New England

Administrative union created by King James II in 1686 that eventually combined several New England colonies, New York, and New Jersey under the royal governor Sir Edmund Andros. Intended to strengthen royal control and enforce trade laws, it angered colonists by restricting representative government

Navigation Acts

A series of English trade laws beginning in 1651, following mercantilist principles, that regulated commerce throughout the English Empire, requiring much colonial trade to use English or colonial ships and directing certain valuable goods through England

Glorious Revolution

The overthrow of King James II of England by William of Orange that also emphasizes the overthrow of Catholicism by Protestantism in England

Salutary neglect

Britain’s unofficial policy towards the American colonies whereby the colonies were left to govern themselves and conduct trade with little interference from British policymakers

Quakers

Members of the Religious Society of Friends, a Protestant movement founded in England during the 1600s that emphasized spiritual equality, simplicity, and generally pacifism. Facing persecution in England, many settled in Pennsylvania after 1681

Blue laws

Strict laws adopted in several Puritan New England colonies during the 1600s to regulate religious observance and personal behavior, especially activities permitted on the Sabbath

William Bradford

An early governor of Plymouth colony, he was also well known for his literary works including “Of Plymouth Plantation,” a detailed history of the founding of the colony of Plymouth

John Winthrop

A Puritan leader and longtime governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony who led a large migration of Puritans to New England in 1630. He envisioned the colony as a “city upon a hill,” a model Christian community

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan religious dissenter in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1630s who held religious meetings in her home and challenged the authority and teachings of colony leaders. Banished from Massachusetts in 1637, she later settled in Rhode Island

Roger Williams

A religious dissenter who was forced out of the colony of Massachusetts Bay and ended up founding the colony of Rhode Island

Massasoit

Wampanoag leader who formed an alliance with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in 1621 which helped Plymouth survive its early years and maintained a period of relative peace

Metacom

Native American leader also known as King Philip, who tried to live in harmony with English settlers in the northeast until encroachment on tribal land eventually led to war with the English

Sir Edmund Andros

English colonial administrator appointed by King James II as governor of the Dominion of New England in 1686. He attempted to strengthen royal authority, enforce the Navigation Acts, and restrict colonial self-government, making him deeply unpopular

William and Mary

A Dutch Protestant prince and his wife, who became rulers of England followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689. Their acceptance of the English Bill of Rights in 1689 strengthened Parliament and limited royal authority, influencing political ideas about limited and representative government in the English colonies

Henry Hudson

He sailed for the Dutch East India Company searching for a possible route through the North American Continent. He explored both a river and a large bay that both now bear his name

New Amsterdam

The major settlement in the Dutch colony of New Netherland established during the early 1600s along the Hudson River and surrounding areas, including parts of present-day New York and New Jersey. It was an important trading center until the English seized the colony in 1664 and renamed it New York

William Penn

He would serve as the proprietor of Pennsylvania and establish his colony as a haven for Quakers in particular, and all those who faced religious persecution

Indentured servants

People who agreed to work for an employer for a specified number of years, usually four to seven, in exchange for passage to the English colonies in North America, especially during the 1600s

Headright system

A system in which a grant of land was given to anyone who paid for passage of a settler to the New World, usually 50 acres of land person person arriving in the colonies

Bacon’s Rebellion

Uprising led by Nathaniel Bacon in Virginia in 1676 involving frontier settlers angry about Native American policies, political favoritism, and the government of Governor William Berkeley

Middle passage

The forced Atlantic voyage of enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas, primarily from the 1500s through the 1800s, as part of the transatlantic slave trade

Slave codes

Laws that defined the legal status of enslaved Africans and restricted their movement, rights, and activities. These laws made slavery increasingly racial, permanent, and hereditary

Half-War Covenant

A policy adopted by New England Puritan churches beginning in 1662 that allowed the children of baptized but unconverted Church members to receive partial Church membership and have their own children baptized

Salem Witch Trials

A series of accusations, trials, and executions for alleged witchcraft in Salem and surrounding communities in Massachusetts in 1692-1693. More than 200 people were accused and 20 were executed

William Berkeley

Royal governor of Virginia during much of the mid-1600s whose policies favored wealthy planters and attempted to limit frontier conflict with Native peoples. Opposition to his government helped produce Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676

Nathaniel Bacon

Virginia planter and frontier leader who led a Rebellion in 1676 against Governor William Berkeley’s government in Virginia. They attacked Native communities and eventually burned Jamestown

Leisler’s Rebellion

Uprising in New York from 1689-1691 following the new of the Glorious Revolution in England that revealed the political, economic, and ethnic divisions in the colony

Paxton Boys

A group of Pennsylvania vigilante frontiersmen who attacked Native American villages, killing many of the inhabitants in response to Native American attacks on colonists’ homes

Regulator movement

A series of protests by North Carolina Backcountry settlers, during the 1760s and early 1770s, against corrupt local officials, high taxes, and unequal political representation between western farmers and wealthy eastern colonial elites

Triangular trade

Atlantic trading routes linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas during the 1600s and 1700s. Manufactured goods, agricultural products, raw materials, and enslaved Africans moved through these networks

Molasses Act

1733 British law that placed heavy duties on molasses, sugar, and rum imported into the British colonies from non-British Caribbean islands, especially the French West Indies. Intended to protect British sugar producers and enforce mercantilism

Stono Revolt

Uprising of enslaved Africans in South Carolina in 1739, when a group of enslaved people near the Stono River seized weapons and marched toward Spanish Florida, where freedom had been offered to some escaped British slaves

Harvard College

The first institution of higher education to be established in the colonies was designed to produce ministers of the Puritan faith

Great Awakening

Protestant religious revival during the 1730s and 1740s, that emphasized emotional religious experiences and individual faith, challenged established churches and traditional authority

Poor Richard’s Almanac

Annual publication by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia from 1732-1758 under the name Richard Saunders. It contained calendars, practical advice, humor, and memorable sayings about thrift and hard work, it became one of the most widely read publications in colonial America

Royal colonies

British colonies that were governed directly under the authority of the English Crown, usually through a governor appointed by the king. Some started out this way, others like Virginia, were taken over by the crown

Proprietary colonies

English colonies in North America during the 1600s and 1700s that the monarch granted to an individual or group, who received broad authority to govern and distribute land

Jonathon Edwards

Congregational minister and theologian who became one of the leader figures of the Great Awakening during the 1730s and 1740s, particularly in Massachusetts. His powerful sermons, including “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” emphasized personal conversion and helped spread the religious revival

Benjamin Franklin

He published Poor Richard’s Almanac on an annual basis; it was a pamphlet that contained a calendar, weather predictions, poems plus popular sayings and proverbs

George Whitefield

Evangelical preacher who traveled throughout the colonies and became the most famous traveling preacher of the Great Awakening. His dramatic sermons attracted enormous audiences and helped turn the revival into an intercolonial movement

John Trumbull

American painter who became famous for paintings depicting important events and leaders of the American Revolution. Works such as his painting of the Declaration of Independence earned him the nickname “Painter of the Revolution”

Phillis Wheatley

In 1773, she became the first African American and one of the first American women to publish a book of poetry, challenging contemporary assumptions about race, slavery, intellect, and literary achievement in colonial America

John Peter Zenger

He was the printer of The New York Weekly Journal who was accused of libel for criticizing the royal governor of New York, but the jury acquitted him and he became a symbol for freedom of the press