Period 1-2 APUSH Terms (best)

Juan de Sepúlveda

Spanish thinker who defended Spanish conquest and Native enslavement, arguing Natives were inferior and needed control.

Coureurs de bois

French fur traders who lived among Native tribes, forming alliances and shaping France’s cooperative colonial model.

Seigneuries

French feudal-style land grants along the St. Lawrence River, supporting settlement and agriculture in New France.

Mestizos

People of mixed Spanish and Native ancestry, reflecting the racial blending central to Spanish colonial society.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Spanish priest who condemned Native abuse under the encomienda system and advocated for Native rights.

Juan de Oñate

Spanish conquistador who brutally suppressed the Acoma Pueblo in 1599, symbolizing violent Spanish expansion.

Enclosure Movement

English land privatization that displaced small farmers, pushing many to migrate to the New World.

John White

Leader of the Roanoke colony whose return to England left the settlement vulnerable

Glorious Revolution

1688 overthrow of James II leading to increased parliamentary power and inspiring colonial resistance to authoritarian rule.

John Peter Zenger

Printer whose 1735 trial established early precedent for freedom of the press in the colonies.

English Civil War

Conflict between Parliament and Charles I that disrupted colonization and encouraged some Puritans to migrate.

Encomiendas

Spanish labor system granting colonists the right to Native labor in exchange for “protection,” leading to severe exploitation.

Antinomianism

Belief that moral law is unnecessary for salvation

Joint Stock Company

Business structure allowing investors to pool money for colonial ventures like Jamestown.

Headright System

Land grant system giving settlers 50 acres per person transported to Virginia, encouraging migration and indentured servitude.

Jacob Leisler (Leisler Rebellion)

New York uprising (1689–1691) where Leisler seized control after the Glorious Revolution, later executed for treason.

Act of Toleration (1649)

Maryland law granting religious freedom to all Christians, protecting Catholics from Protestant majorities.

Dominion of New England

James II’s centralized colonial government merging several New England colonies under strict royal control.

Sir Edmund Andros

Royal governor of the Dominion of New England whose harsh rule provoked widespread colonial anger.

House of Burgesses

Virginia’s representative assembly founded in 1619, the first elected legislative body in English America.

Anne Hutchinson

Puritan dissenter who challenged church authority through her religious meetings and was banished for her views.

Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)

Uprising of frontier settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor Berkeley, highlighting tensions over land, Native policy, and class.

Huguenots

French Protestants barred from settling in New France, limiting its population growth.

Phillis Wheatley

Enslaved African poet in colonial America whose works challenged assumptions about African intellect.

Primogeniture

Inheritance system where eldest son inherits property, pushing younger sons to seek opportunity in the colonies.

Cotton Mather

Puritan minister known for promoting smallpox inoculation and supporting the Salem witch trials.

Stono Rebellion (1739)

Major slave revolt in South Carolina that led to harsher slave codes.

Enlightenment

Intellectual movement emphasizing reason, natural rights, and scientific thinking, influencing colonial elites.

Great Awakening

1730s–1740s religious revival stressing emotional faith and challenging traditional church authority.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

Early colonial constitution (1639) establishing a representative government