Protestant Reformation
Religious reform movement within the Latin Christian Church beginning in 1519. It resulted in the 'protesters' forming several new Christian denominations, including the Lutheran and Reformed Churches and the Church of England.
Roanoke Island
English colony that Raleigh planted on an island off North Carolina in 1585; the colonists who did not return to England disappeared without a trace in 1590
Spanish Armada
the Spanish fleet that attempted to invade England, ending in disaster, due to the raging storm in the English Channel as well as the smaller and better English navy led by Francis Drake. This is viewed as the decline of Spains Golden Age, and the rise of England as a world naval power.
primogeniture
right of inheritance belongs exclusively to the eldest son
joint-stock company
A company made up of a group of shareholders. Each shareholder contributes some money to the company and receives some share of the company's profits and debts.
charter
a document incorporating an institution and specifying its rights
Jamestown
The first successful settlement in the Virginia colony founded in May, 1607. Harsh conditions nearly destroyed the colony but in 1610 supplies arrived with a new wave of settlers. The settlement became part of the Virginia Company of London in 1620. The population remained low due to lack of supplies until agriculture was solidly established. Jamestown grew to be a prosperous shipping port when John Rolfe introduced tobacco as a major export and cash crop.
First Anglo- Powhatan War
1610- Lord De La Warr of the Virginia Company initiated war with the Indians, ended with the marriage of John Rolfe to Pocahontas
Second Anglo-Powhatan War
Indians last effort to dislodge Virginians, they were defeated. Peace treaty of 1646 stopped any hope of creating native peoples into Virginia society or peace with coexisting.
Act of Toleration
A legal document that allowed all Christian religions in Maryland: Protestants invaded the Catholics in 1649 around Maryland: protected the Catholics religion from Protestant rage of sharing the land: Maryland became the #1 colony to shelter Catholics in the New World.
barbados slave code
Established in 1661, it gave masters virtually complete control over their slaves including the right to inflict vicious punishments for even slight infractions.
squatters
Poor farmers in North Carolina and elsewhere who occupied land and raised crops without gaining legal title to the soil
Tuscarora War
1711, Carolinas, Tuscarora Indians tire of British abuse and rise up but are put down by the British (with the help of the Cherokee Indians). Many of the Tuscarora are later used as slaves.
Yamasee Indians
Defeated by the south Carolinans in the war of 1715-1716. The Yamasee defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the Southern colonies.
Georgia Buffer
Georgia was started as a barrier to keep out, French, Spanish and Indians from the other colonies
Iroquois Confederacy
An alliance of five northeastern Amerindian peoples (after 1722 six) that made decisions on military and diplomatic issues through a council of representatives. Allied first with the Dutch and later with the English, it dominated W. New England.
Henry VIII
(1491-1547) King of England from 1509 to 1547; his desire to annul his marriage led to a conflict with the pope, England's break with the Roman Catholic Church, and its embrace of Protestantism. Henry established the Church of England in 1532.
Elizabeth I
ruled from 1558-1603; followed a policy that was a middle course between Catholic and Protestant extremes. She sets up a national Church, is declared head of the Anglican Church, establishes a state Church that moderates Catholics and Protestants, allowed priests to marry, allowed sermons to be delivered in English, and made the Book of Common Prayer more acceptable to Catholics.
Sir Francis Drake
English explorer/pirate who circumnavigated the globe from 1577 to 1580 and was sent by Queen Elizabeth I to raid Spanish ships/settlements for gold
Sir Walter Raleigh
An English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas. In 1585, Raleigh sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. It failed and is known as " The Lost Colony."
James I
the first Stuart to be king of England and Ireland from 1603 to 1625 and king of Scotland from 1567 to 1625; he was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and he succeeded Elizabeth I; he alienated the British Parliament by claiming the divine right of kings (1566-1625)
captain John Smith
Organized Jamestown and imposed a harsh law "He who will not work shall not eat".
Powhatan
Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy and father to Pocahontas. At the time of the English settlement of Jamestown in 1607, he was a friend to John Smith and John Rolfe. When Smith was captured by Indians, Powhatan left Smith's fate in the hands of his warriors. His daughter saved John Smith, and the Jamestown colony. Pocahontas and John Rolfe were wed, and there was a time of peace between the Indians and English until Powhatan's death.
Pocahontas
A native Indian of America, daughter of Chief Powahatan, who was one of the first to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe, and return to England with him; about 1595-1617; Pocahontas' brave actions in saving an Englishman paved the way for many positive English and Native relations.
Lord De La Warr
New governor of Jamestown who arrived in 1610, immediately imposing a military regime in Jamestown and declaring war against the Powhatan Confederacy. Employed "Irish tactics" in which his troops burned houses and cornfields.
John Rolfe
He was one of the English settlers at Jamestown (and he married Pocahontas). He discovered how to successfully grow tobacco in Virginia and cure it for export, which made Virginia an economically successful colony.
Lord Baltimore
Founded the colony of Maryland and offered religious freedom to all Christian colonists. He did so because he knew that members of his own religion (Catholicism) would be a minority in the colony.
Oliver Cromwell
English military, political, and religious figure who led the Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War (1642-1649) and called for the execution of Charles I. As lord protector of England (1653-1658) he ruled as a virtual dictator.
James Oglethorpe
Founder and governor of the Georgia colony. He ran a tightly-disciplined, military-like colony. Slaves, alcohol, and Catholicism were forbidden in his colony. Many colonists felt that Oglethorpe was a dictator, and that (along with the colonist's dissatisfaction over not being allowed to own slaves) caused the colony to break down and Oglethorpe to lose his position as governor.
Hiawatha
A Mohawk leader who called members of five groups together forming the Iroquis Confederacy around 1570.