English Colonies Part 1 Common Assessment

Starving Time

The winter of 1609-1610. Half the Jamestown colonists died of starvation because they did not possess the skills or exert the effort that was necessary.

Bacon's Rebellion

A rebellion of poor white and black farmers against the elite profiting leaders of Jamestown'; it also involved attacks on nearby Native Americans

Squanto

a Patuxet who had been kidnapped and brought to Spain, made it to England, then back home; befriended the Pilgrims

Salem Witch Trials

1629 outbreak of witchcraft accusations in a puritan village marked by an atmosphere of fear, hysteria and stress. Started by some children who made false accusations and spiraled.

Powhatan Confederacy

provided food and agricultural knowledge to the Jamestown settlers, enabling their survival, although Pocahontas was captured by the English

Puritan Government

linked government and religion, giving church leaders significant influence over the colony’s laws

Puritans

A religious group who came to America for religious freedom and settled Massachusetts Bay. They had a very strict interpretation of the bible and harshly enforced "pure" moral codes.

Slavery

kidnapped and enslaved, Africans were forced to work in harsh conditions on plantations in primarily southern Colonies (where the climate was better for year-long growing) although there was slavery present in the northern colonies too

Toleration Act of 1649

A Maryland law that made restricting the religious rights of different types of Christians a crime; the first law guaranteeing religious freedom to be passed in America

Mayflower Compact

1620 - The first agreement for self-government in America. It was signed by the 41 men on the Mayflower and set up a government for the Plymouth colony.

Indentured Servant

a person who is willing to work for several years in North America in exchange for free passage there and payment in land at the end of their difficult term

Slave Codes

written after Bacon's Rebellion- laws that separated poor whites and poor blacks by making African servitude life-long, permanent, based on race, and passed down to children. Harsh laws intended on controlling and oppressing African people.

Pocahontas

a Powhatan child who befriended the English at Jamestown ; was later kidnapped by them; married John Rolfe

Squanto's Role

helped Pilgrims learn to fertilize the soil with fish remains and established relations with the Wampanoag. (Tisquantum)

Olaudah Equiano

A Nigerian person who survived the Middle Passage, was enslaved, and managed to purchase their freedom and publish a memoir about their life in slavery

Anne Hutchinson

A Puritan woman disagreed with the Puritan Church in Massachusetts Bay Colony. She questioned authority and was then banished by it; however she later helped form the colony of Rhode Island banishment from the colony