U.S. History Honors: Colonial Foundations, Economy, and Key Events

New England Colonies

MA, NH, CT, RI. Rocky soil + short growing season drove diversified small farms, shipbuilding, fishing, and Atlantic trade. Homogenous Puritan population.

Middle Colonies

NY, NJ, PA, DE. Fertile soil supported grain farming ('breadbasket'). Religiously and ethnically diverse: Dutch, Germans, Scots-Irish, Quakers.

Southern Colonies

MD, VA, NC, SC, GA. Long growing season + tidewater rivers enabled plantation agriculture (tobacco, rice, indigo). Depended increasingly on enslaved African labor.

Pennsylvania

Founded 1681 by William Penn as a Quaker 'holy experiment.' Religious tolerance and fair dealings with Native peoples made it the fastest-growing colony.

Mercantilism

Economic theory that a nation's wealth = its gold + silver reserves. Colonies exist to supply raw materials to the mother country and buy back finished goods.

Navigation Acts

Series of laws (1651-1673) requiring colonial trade to move on English ships and pass through English ports. Enforced mercantilism; provoked colonial smuggling.

Triangular Trade

Three-legged Atlantic trade pattern: manufactured goods from Europe to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Americas, raw materials (sugar, tobacco, rum) from the Americas back to Europe.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage that carried enslaved Africans to the Americas. Mortality rate averaged 15%. An estimated 12.5 million Africans were forcibly transported.

Salutary Neglect

Britain's unofficial policy (roughly 1700-1763) of loosely enforcing trade laws in the colonies. Allowed colonial self-governance to develop - later resented when Britain reversed course.

Enlightenment

Eighteenth-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, natural rights, and empirical inquiry. Shaped colonial elites like Franklin and Jefferson.

Great Awakening

Wave of Protestant religious revivalism (1730s-40s) led by Jonathan Edwards + George Whitefield. Democratized religion and produced the first 'American' mass event across colonies.

Consumer Revolution

Eighteenth-century surge in colonial demand for British manufactured goods (tea, cloth, ceramics). Tied colonists to British identity- and later to protest through boycotts.

Jamestown

First permanent English colony in North America, founded 1607 in Virginia. Struggled with disease and starvation until tobacco cultivation made it profitable.

Virginia Company

Joint-stock company chartered by King James I in 1606 to profit from settlement of Virginia. Its investors funded Jamestown expecting gold; got tobacco instead.

John Smith

Military leader whose 'he who does not work, will not eat' rule saved Jamestown from collapse in 1608. Later wrote promotional accounts of New England.

Headright System

Virginia land grant program: 50 acres to any settler who paid their own passage, plus 50 more per servant transported. Concentrated land ownership in the hands of wealthy planters.

Indentured Servants

European laborers who exchanged 4-7 years of labor for passage to the colonies. Dominated Chesapeake labor before enslaved Africans replaced them after 1676.

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Uprising of former indentured servants + backcountry settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor Berkeley. Accelerated the shift from indentured labor to racialized slavery in Virginia.

Pilgrims

English Separatists who left the Church of England, sailed on the Mayflower, and founded Plymouth colony in 1620.

Mayflower Compact (1620)

Agreement signed by 41 male Pilgrim passengers pledging to form a 'Civill body Politick' and abide by majority-rule laws. An early foundation of American self-government.

Puritans

English Protestants who wanted to 'purify' the Church of England from within. Founded Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and dominated New England for a century.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Founded 1630 by Puritans under John Winthrop's leadership. Envisioned as a 'city upon a hill'- a religious model for the world.

John Winthrop

First governor of Massachusetts Bay. His 'A Model of Christian Charity' sermon articulated the Puritan mission as a covenant with God.

Great Migration

Roughly 20,000 English Puritans who moved to New England between 1630 and 1642, seeking religious freedom and escaping Charles I's policies.