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Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer who sailed for Spain in 1492 in search of a western route to Asia, reaching the Caribbean and initiating sustained European contact with the Americas.

Conquistadores

Spanish explorers and conquerors who sought gold, land, and religious converts, utilizing military force and alliances to overthrow large Native American empires.

Hernando Cortés

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire and captured its capital, Tenochtitlán, between 1519 and 1521.

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Inca Empire in present-day Peru.

Joint-stock company

A business entity in which investors pool capital to fund ventures, used by the English to finance early colonial efforts like Jamestown.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in Virginia in 1607, which survived early hardship through the cultivation of tobacco.

Coureurs de bois

French 'runners of the woods' who lived among Native American populations and engaged extensively in the fur trade.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement signed by Plymouth settlers that established a civil government based on majority rule.

John Winthrop

Puritan governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who envisioned the colony as an exemplary religious society, describing it as a 'city upon a hill'.

Headright system

A policy that awarded land to colonists who paid for the passage of incoming settlers, encouraging immigration and expanding plantation agriculture in Virginia.

House of Burgesses

Established in Virginia in 1619, it served as the first representative legislative assembly in the English colonies.

Anne Hutchinson

Puritan woman banished from Massachusetts for challenging religious leadership and emphasizing faith and grace over strict adherence to church laws.

Roger Williams

Dissenter banished from Massachusetts who established Rhode Island on principles of complete religious freedom and separation of church and state.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

A 1639 document establishing a representative government in Connecticut, widely regarded as one of the first written constitutions in America.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 uprising of Virginia frontier settlers against the colonial government, exposing class tensions and accelerating the shift toward enslaved African labor.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage endured by enslaved Africans as part of the triangular trade network.

Mercantilism

An economic system where colonies exist to enrich the mother country by providing raw materials and consuming manufactured goods.

Navigation Acts

A series of English laws designed to enforce mercantilism by requiring colonial trade to be conducted on English ships and routed through English ports.

Dominion of New England

A centralized administrative union created by King James II in 1686 to tighten royal control and enforce trade laws across northern colonies.

Great Awakening

An 18th-century religious revival across the American colonies that emphasized personal faith, emotional preaching, and individual salvation, challenging traditional church authority.

John Peter Zenger

New York printer whose 1735 acquittal in a libel case established the legal precedent that truthful statements cannot be considered libelous, bolstering freedom of the press.

Toleration Act of 1649

Maryland law granting religious freedom to all Christians, enacted primarily to protect the colony's Catholic minority.

Enclosure Movement

The privatization and fencing off of common lands in England, which displaced small farmers and contributed to English migration to North America.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 South Carolina slave insurrection that prompted the passage of harsher slave codes throughout the Southern colonies.