Chapter 2 - US History

Virginia Company

Joint-stock charter company that established the Virginia colony in 1607 as a private business venture to make money from gold.

Indentured Servants

Contract laborers who worked for their master for 10 years then were promised land to start their own farms.

Headright System

Policy that encouraged settlement by granting land to colonists who brought families to America.

Puritans

English Calvinists who wanted to purify (change) the Church of England and sought religious freedom in America.

Pilgrims

Puritan Separatists who wanted to completely leave the Church of England and founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Mayflower Compact

First effective constitutional document created by Pilgrims while at sea, establishing a covenant for civil government chosen by the people.

Proprietary Colony

Land grants by the King to a wealthy person or group for various reasons, eventually transitioning to Royal Colony status.

Quakers

Religious dissenters who could not openly practice their faith in England and established Pennsylvania as a religious haven.

New Netherland

Dutch colony established in 1626 with New Amsterdam (Manhattan) as center, America's first multi-ethnic community with 18 different languages by the 1640s.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement established in 1607 on the James River in Virginia, which barely survived the first two winters.

Bacon's Rebellion

rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon and landless indentured servants against wealthy Virginia landowners, wanting land taken from Indians because there was a shortage of available land for former servants.

King Philip's War

Most violent conflict between English colonists and Native Americans in the 1600s, fought in Massachusetts and Connecticut with devastating losses on both sides.

John Smith

Captain who led the Virginia colony, kept it together, brought more colonists including women, and established stable relations with Powhatan Indians.

Powhatan

Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy of about 14,000 Indians in the Virginia region who initially traded with English colonists and introduced them to tobacco.

John Winthrop

Effective leader of Massachusetts Bay Colony who established a self-governing theocratic (religious government) colony run by Congregational Church leaders.

William Penn

Prominent English Quaker who was granted Pennsylvania in 1681 as a proprietary colony and religious haven for Quakers.

Roger Williams

True Puritan separatist who believed in complete separation of church and state, was banned from Massachusetts and founded Rhode Island in 1636.

Anne Hutchinson

Woman who was tried, convicted, and banished from Massachusetts in 1638 for preaching without permission and challenging male church authority.

Virginia

Created in 1607 by Virginia Company to make money, primarily from gold (found none), later succeeded with tobacco as cash crop.

Massachusetts (Plymouth)

Founded in 1620 by Pilgrims seeking a place to practice their Puritan Separatist faith free from persecution

Massachusetts (Bay Colony)

Established in 1630 as religious colony for Puritans who were not welcome in England, run as theocratic government.

Rhode Island

Founded in 1636 by Roger Williams as haven for religious dissenters who believed in separation of church and state.

Connecticut

Founded in 1636 by Thomas Hooker who believed all men, not just church members, should vote and resented Massachusetts leadership.

New York

Originally Dutch New Netherland (1626), conquered by English in 1664, created as corporate colony to make money through fur trading.

Pennsylvania

Created in 1681 as proprietary colony and religious haven for Quakers who were not welcome in England.

Maryland

Established in 1634 as proprietary colony and haven for Catholics, but failed as religious haven and became tobacco colony like Virginia.

South Carolina

Established at Charleston by wealthy planter elites from Barbados who wanted to expand their slave-based plantation system to colonial America.

Georgia

Last colony created in 1733 as military buffer against Spanish Florida and social experiment welcoming European refugees and poor debtors.