APUSH - Units 1/2 - Vocab

Smallpox Epidemic

A deadly Old World disease brought by Europeans that devastated Native American populations, killing up to 90% in some areas. Smallpox played a major role in European conquest, especially aiding the Spanish in defeating the Aztecs and other large empires.

Encomienda System

A Spanish colonial labor system in which the crown granted settlers control over Native labor in exchange for Christianizing them. In practice, it became forced labor and exploitation, especially in mining and farming. It fueled Spain’s early wealth in the Americas.

Columbian Exchange

The widespread transfer of plants, animals, people, diseases, and technologies between the Old World and the New World after 1492. It led to major changes on both sides

Mexica (Aztecs)

A powerful Native empire in central Mexico, known for advanced agriculture, urban centers (like Tenochtitlán), and human sacrifice rituals. The Aztec Empire was conquered by Hernán Cortés in 1521, aided by disease, allies, and superior weapons.

Caste System (Casta System)

A rigid social hierarchy in Spanish America based on race and birthplace, developed to manage the growing multiethnic population. Spaniards born in Europe (peninsulares) were at the top, while Indigenous, African, and mixed-race people were at the bottom. It enforced colonial control and inequality.

Maize / Three Sisters

Maize (corn) was a staple crop developed in Mesoamerica and spread throughout North America. The “Three Sisters” (maize, beans, and squash) formed the foundation of many Native American agricultural systems, supporting population growth and complex societies.

Joint-Stock Company

A business model where investors pooled money to fund colonial ventures with shared risk and profit. Enabled English colonization, such as the Virginia Company, which founded Jamestown in 1607, the first permanent English settlement.

Maritime Technologies

Advancements like the compass, caravel, astrolabe, and improved maps that made long-distance sea travel possible. These innovations enabled European exploration, especially by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 15th–16th centuries.

Protestant Reformation

A 16th-century religious movement led by Martin Luther that challenged the Catholic Church, leading to the rise of Protestant denominations. It fueled religious rivalry in Europe, encouraging groups like the Puritans to seek religious freedom in the New World.

Black Legend

A term describing the belief that the Spanish uniquely brutalized Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Promoted by rival powers like England to justify their own colonization.

New Laws of 1542

Spanish laws issued to limit the abuses of the encomienda system and protect Indigenous peoples. Pushed by reformers like Bartolomé de las Casas, they reflected growing moral concern but were often ignored or resisted by colonists in the Americas.

Pueblo Revolt

A successful 1680 uprising by the Pueblo people against Spanish rule in New Mexico. They expelled the Spanish for over a decade, resisting religious conversion and forced labor. It remains the most successful Native resistance movement against European colonization in North America.

New France

The French colonial territory in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries, including Canada, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi River Valley. Centered on fur trading, especially with Native American allies. New France had a small settler population and focused more on economic partnerships and missionary work than on large-scale colonization.

Jesuit Priest

A member of the Catholic Society of Jesus, founded during the Counter-Reformation to spread and defend Catholicism. In New France, Jesuit priests were missionaries who worked closely with Native American tribes to convert them to Christianity, often learning Indigenous languages and documenting Native cultures.

Mercantilism

An economic theory practiced by European empires that argued colonies existed primarily to benefit the mother country by supplying raw materials and purchasing finished goods. Each English colony sought to find valuable products, such as tobacco, sugar, timber, or fish, and develop industries that would fit into this system, providing resources or goods that England could profit from.

Proprietary Colony

A colony granted by the English crown to an individual ( ex, William Penn in Pennsylvania) or group ( ex. Virginia Company in Virginia) who retained significant control over governance. These colonies often reflected the founder’s personal ideals, such as religious tolerance or economic opportunity.

Royal Colony

A colony governed directly by the English monarchy through an appointed royal governor. By the early 1700s, most colonies had become royal colonies as England sought greater imperial control.

House of Burgesses

The first representative legislative assembly in the English colonies, established in Virginia in 1619. It allowed white male landowners to elect lawmakers and became a model for self-government.

Headright System

A land distribution policy in Virginia that granted 50 acres of land to anyone who paid for their own or another’s passage to the colony. It encouraged immigration, supported the growth of tobacco plantations, and contributed to the expansion of forced labor systems.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system in which poor Europeans, often young men, agreed to work for a fixed term (usually 4–7 years) in exchange for passage to the American colonies, room, and board. Indentured servants were the primary source of labor in the 17th-century Chesapeake colonies, helping to establish tobacco plantations, before African slavery became dominant.

Bacon’s Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon, made up of landless former indentured servants and frontier settlers. They protested the Governor’s refusal to protect them from Native attacks and challenged elite planter authority. The rebellion led to a shift toward greater use of African slave labor.

Chattel Slavery

A system in which enslaved Africans were legally defined as property (chattel) to be bought, sold, and inherited. Codified through slave codes in the late 1600s, this system established racialized, lifelong slavery.

Anglican

The Church of England, established in the 16th century during the English Reformation when King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church. It became the official Protestant denomination in England and its colonies, several colonies, especially in the South (like Virginia and South Carolina), combining elements of Catholic tradition with Protestant theology.

Pilgrims

A group of English Separatist Puritans, those who wanted to separate from the Church of England, who sailed to North America aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and established Plymouth Colony seeking religious freedom from the Church of England.

Mayflower Compact

A 1620 agreement created by the Pilgrims establishing a self-governing colony based on majority rule. It was a foundational moment in the development of democratic governance in the colonies.

Puritans

Non-separatist Protestants who wanted to reform (not break from) the Church of England. They established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, aiming to build a "city upon a hill" and enforce a strict religious and moral code in society.

Halfway Covenant:A 1662 Puritan rule letting children of partial church members be baptized without a full conversion. It aimed to keep church membership growing but Jonathan Edwards and other Great Awakening preachers criticized it for lowering spiritual standards.

Quakers

Also known as the Religious Society of Friends, they were a Protestant group that rejected formal clergy, promoted pacifism, and emphasized peace and equality. Under William Penn, they founded Pennsylvania in 1681 as a refuge of religious tolerance and diversity.

Anglo-Powhatan Wars

A series of three conflicts (1609–1646) that led to the near-destruction of the Powhatan Confederacy and solidified English dominance in the Chesapeake region. The First began during the Starving Time and ended with the temporary peace created by the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. The Second followed a surprise Powhatan attack that killed over 300 colonists. The Third ended in the defeat of the Powhatan, the death of Chief, and the forced removal of Native peoples from their lands.

Metacom’s War (King Philip’s War)

A devastating 1675–1676 conflict between New England settlers and Native American tribes led by the Wampanoag chief Metacom (King Philip). It resulted in thousands of deaths, destruction of Native villages, and the near-total collapse of Native resistance in the region.

Navigation Acts

A series of British laws starting in 1651 and expanded in the 1660s that restricted colonial trade to benefit the mother country. These acts required colonial goods to be shipped on British vessels and often had to pass through England, reinforcing mercantilist control.

Transatlantic (Triangular) Trade

A three-part trade system connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas. It included the shipment of enslaved Africans via the Middle Passage to work in the Americas, forming the backbone of the Atlantic economy and plantation labor.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 slave uprising in South Carolina where a group of enslaved Africans attempted to escape to Spanish Florida. Dozens of slaves and colonists were killed, and the rebellion led to harsher slave codes and increased white fears of resistance.

New York Trials of 1741

A mass panic in New York City over a rumored plot by enslaved Africans and poor whites to burn the city. The trials led to the execution or exile of dozens, revealing racial and class tensions and fears of rebellion in urban areas.

First Great Awakening

A widespread Protestant revival in the 1730–1740s caused by declining church attendance. It emphasized emotional preaching, personal salvation, and a direct relationship with God. The movement challenged traditional church authority and led to the growth of new denominations such as Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.