Chapter 2 England's Colonies - Vocabulary Flashcards

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key people, places, events, and concepts from Chapter 2: England's Colonies and related colonial developments.

Divine Right of Kings

The belief that monarchs derive their authority directly from God, not from the people or Parliament.

Puritans

English Protestants who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices.

Separatists (Pilgrims)

Puritans who believed the Church of England could not be purified and chose to separate, founding settlements in America.

Mayflower Compact

The 1620 self-government agreement signed by Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in 1607 by the Virginia Company.

Virginia Company

A joint-stock company that funded Jamestown in hopes of gold and new opportunities.

Headright System

Policy granting 60 acres of land to settlers or to those who financed a voyage to America.

Indentured Servants

Laborers who exchanged several years of service for passage, shelter, and sustenance.

Pocahontas

Powhatan woman who aided John Smith and helped establish relative peace between settlers and Native Americans.

Bacon's Rebellion

1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against colonial policy toward Native Americans and frontier defense.

Powhatan Confederacy

Alliance of Native American tribes led by Powhatan around the Jamestown area.

Maryland Toleration Act of 1649

Law guaranteeing religious tolerance to Christians in Maryland (not full religious liberty).

Plymouth Colony

Separatist settlement founded in 1620; established self-government via the Mayflower Compact.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Puritan colony founded in 1629; known for a model 'city upon a hill' and Congregational church governance.

Anne Hutchinson

Puritan dissenter who challenged gender roles and church authority; banished from Massachusetts.

Roger Williams

Puritan minister who founded Rhode Island and argued for separation of church and state.

Rhode Island

Colony founded for religious liberty and separation of church and state.

Connecticut (Hartford/Hooker)

Colony founded by Puritans led by Thomas Hooker with early self-government.

New Haven

Puritan settlement later absorbed into Connecticut.

Massachusetts Bay Representative Government

MB charter established a provincial government with elected officials; voting tied to church membership.

1619 arrival of Africans (first enslaved)

Arrival of Africans at Jamestown; marks beginnings of African slavery in English colonies.

Restoration Colonies (New Netherland, NY, NJ, PA, DE)

After 1660, England’s monarchs expanded colonies, seizing New Netherland and creating New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

New Netherland → New York

Dutch colony seized by the English (1664); became New York; key trading posts at Manhattan and Albany.

New Jersey (East/West Jersey)

Lands granted by the Duke of York to Carteret and Berkeley; later unified as a royal colony.

William Penn

Quaker founder of Pennsylvania; established generous land treaties, religious freedom, and democratic governance.

Pennsylvania

Colony founded by William Penn; emphasized religious tolerance, civil liberty, and assembly by 1704.

Delaware

1682 land granted to Penn; merged with Pennsylvania; became a distinct colony later with its own assembly.

Georgia

Colony founded in 1732 as a debtor refuge and buffer against Spanish Florida; Savannah as a port.

Carolinas (SC & NC)

Established in the 1670s from Albemarle and South; eight Lords Proprietors; rice and indigo economies; later split into two royal colonies (SC 1719, NC 1729).

Triangular Trade

Atlantic trade network linking Africa, the Americas, and Europe, including enslaved people and goods.

Slavery in the colonies

Racialized, hereditary chattel slavery; by 1700, enslaved people formed a significant portion of the population.

Transatlantic Slave Trade (Middle Passage)

Voyage forcibly transporting Africans to the Americas; brutal and deadly conditions.

Stono Rebellion

1739 slave rebellion in South Carolina that led to harsher slave laws (Negro Act of 1740).

Salem Witch Trials (1692)

Mass hysteria in Massachusetts leading to many imprisonments and executions for witchcraft.

Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee)

A powerful alliance of five (later six) Native nations; Great Law of Peace influenced regional diplomacy.

Puritan Covenant & Townships

Puritans believed in a covenant with God; land was divided into townships for communities.

Devil in New England

Religious zeal and fear of witchcraft—fuel for events like the Salem trials.

The Enlightenment

18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, science, and individual rights.

Deism

Religious philosophy that God set the universe in motion but does not intervene in daily life.

Benjamin Franklin

American Enlightenment figure; inventor, writer, and statesman who promoted science and education.

The Great Awakening (First)

Religious revival in the 1730s–1740s emphasizing personal faith and emotional conversion.

Jonathan Edwards

Leading Great Awakening preacher; famous sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'.

George Whitefield

English evangelist who toured the colonies, known for dramatic, emotional preaching.

Old Light vs New Light

Division within churches over revivalist preaching versus traditional doctrine.

Harvard, Yale, Princeton

Colleges founded in the colonial era to train ministers (Harvard 1636, Yale 1701, Princeton 1746).

Zenger Trial

Legal case that promoted the idea of freedom of the press in colonial America.

Backcountry (Pennsylvania)

Rural frontier region with rapid immigration and tightly knit communities.