Colonial North America: Comparative Settlement Models, Community Life, and Conflicts (1588–1701) Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards covering comparative colonial settlement models, community structures, key historical figures, and regional conflicts in North America between 1588 and 1701.

Acoma Pueblo

A pueblo known as the 'sky city' that was founded in the thirteenth century and attacked in 1598 by Juan de Oñate, resulting in the deaths of 800 inhabitants and the enslavement of 500.

Frontier of Inclusion

A colonial model exemplified by Spanish New Mexico and New France that relied on incorporating native peoples into colonial society through intermarriage, trade, or alliance.

Samuel de Champlain

The French agent of a royal monopoly who helped establish Port Royal in Acadia in 1605 and founded Québec in 1608 to control the northern fur trade.

Arquebus

A muzzle-loading firearm used by Samuel de Champlain in 1609 during a Huron attack on the Iroquois, killing two Iroquois leaders.

Engagés

French 'hired men' who migrated to New France to work in the fur trade or fishery, nine out of ten of whom returned to France after their service ended.

Coureurs de bois

Independent French fur traders or paid agents of fur companies who lived in the woods, often marrying native women and raising mixed-ancestry families.

Robert Sieur de La Salle

A French fur-trade commandant who navigated the Mississippi River to its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico in 1681–1682 and claimed its entire watershed for France.

Dutch West India Company

A Dutch trade monopoly that established North American settlements on the Hudson River and negotiated a commercial alliance with the Five Nation Iroquois Confederacy.

Beaver Wars

A series of military expeditions launched in the 1640s by the Iroquois against neighboring native groups to establish themselves as strategic middlemen in the fur trade.

Powhatan Confederacy

A politically sophisticated union of approximately 14,000 Chesapeake Indian inhabitants led by Chief Wahunsonacook.

Pocahontas

The nickname of Matoaka, a daughter of Powhatan captured by the English in 1613, who converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe in 1614.

Headright Grants

Awards of large plantations given to wealthy colonists who agreed to transport workers from England at their own expense.

Frontier of Exclusion

A colonial model, such as English Virginia, that focused on plantation agriculture and pushed native populations off their land rather than incorporating them into society.

House of Burgesses

A representative legislative assembly created in Virginia in 1619 to encourage immigration, which property-owning colonists continued to elect after Virginia became a royal colony in 1624.

Maryland

A proprietary colony granted in 1632 by King Charles I to the Calvert family (Lords Baltimore), established as a haven for English Catholics.

Indentured Servants

Men and women who contracted to labor for a master for a fixed term (typically two to seven years) in exchange for the cost of transportation to the Chesapeake.

Freedom Dues

Clothing, tools, a gun, or a spinning wheel provided to indentured servants after they successfully completed their terms of service.

Puritans

English followers of John Calvin who wished to purify and reform the Church of England from within.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement drafted by William Bradford in which male members of the Plymouth expedition combined into a 'civil body politic,' serving as the first document of self-government in North America.

Massasoit

The sachem (chief) of the Pokanokets who offered food and advice to the Plymouth settlers in exchange for an alliance against the Narragansetts.

John Winthrop

The leader and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who envisioned the settlement as a 'city on a hill' to serve as a model of reform for England.

Roger Williams

The minister at Salem banished from Massachusetts in 1636 for advocating religious tolerance, who went on to establish Rhode Island.

Anne Hutchinson

A Boston dissenter who criticized Puritan ministers for emphasizing good works and was excommunicated and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Thomas Morton

The leader of the Merrymount trading outpost who established good relations with local native groups, hosted a Maypole celebration in 1628, and was arrested by Captain Standish.

Quitclaims

Deeds obtained from Indian leaders by New England colonists, often through pressure or legal fines, relinquishing native claims to specified lands.

Pequot War

A 1637 conflict in which English soldiers and their Narragansett allies attacked and burned a main Pequot village along Long Island Sound.