APUSH Period 2.1-2.3 Vocab Terms

Vocabulary flashcards for APUSH Period 2.1-2.3.

Huguenots

French Protestants who fought for religious liberties and were heavily persecuted during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the predominantly Catholic nation of France.

Colonization

The process of settling and controlling an already inhabited area for the economic benefit of the settlers, or colonizers.

Calvinism

Developed in Switzerland by John Calvin, a version of Protestantism in which civil magistrates and reformed ministers ruled over a Christian society.

Iroquois Confederacy

A group of allied American Indian nations that included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later the Tuscarora. The Confederacy was largely dissolved by the final decade of the 1700s.

Pueblo revolt

1680 uprising of Pueblo Indians against Spanish forces in New Mexico that led to the Spaniards’ temporary retreat from the area. The uprising was sparked by mistreatment and the suppression of Pueblo culture and religion.

Inflation

Market-wide increase in prices, leading to the devaluation of currency.

Enclosure movements

The privatized use of common land for personal or financial gain by noblemen, who evicted commoners who relied on the land for subsistence. This led to increased social conflict, famine, inflation, and immigration to North America.

Indentured servitude

Servants contracted to work for a set period of time without pay. Many early migrants to the English colonies indentured themselves in exchange for the price of passage to North America.

Joint-stock companies

Companies in which large numbers of investors own stock. They were able to quickly raise large amounts of risk and reward equally among investors.

Powhatan confederacy

Large and powerful confederation of Algonquian-speaking American Indians in Virginia. The Jamestown settlers had a complicated and often combative relationship with the leaders of the Powhatan Confederacy.

Headright system

Created in Virginia in 1618, it rewarded those who imported indentured laborers and settlers with fifty acres of land.

House of Burgesses

Local governing body in Virginia established by the English crown in 1619.

Veto

The right to block a decision made by a governing body.

Privy Council

A powerful group of advisors appointed to provide guidance to the British monarch.

Church of England

National church established by King Henry VIII after he split with the Catholic Church in 1534.

Act of Religious Toleration

1649 act passed by the Maryland Assembly granting religious freedom to all Christians.

English Civil War

(1642–1651) Series of civil wars fought to determine who should control England’s government.

Slave Code

Laws restricting enslaved peoples’ rights, largely due to slaveholders’ fears of rebellion.

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon and his followers, many of whom were former servants, were upset by the Virginia governor’s unwillingness to send troops to intervene in conflicts between settlers and American Indians and by the lack of representation of western settlers in the House of Burgesses.

Protestant Reformation

Widespread break from the Roman Catholic Church due to its perceived abuses of power throughout the sixteenth century. It spurred the creation of many Protestant religions and was a source of conflict throughout Europe and North America during the seventeenth century.

Theologians

People who study religious beliefs or theology.

Indulgences

Payments to the Catholic Church as penance in exchange for the forgiveness of sins.

Predestination

Religious belief that God has pre-determined who is worthy of salvation, and thus it could not be earned through good works or penance.

Pilgrims

Also known as Separatists, a group of English religious dissenters who established a settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. Unlike more mainstream Protestants, the Pilgrims aimed to cut all connections with the Church of England.

Puritans

Radical English Protestants who hoped to reform the Church of England. The first Puritan settlers in the Americas arrived in Massachusetts in 1630.

Mayflower Compact

Written agreement created by the Pilgrims upon their arrival in Plymouth. It was the first written constitution adopted in North America.

Puritan Migration

The mass migration of Puritans from Europe to New England during the 1620s and 1630s.

Anglicization

Adoption of or becoming English in character and tradition. In colonial America, this took the form of English legal and social traditions dominating colonial institutions by the eighteenth century.

Common Law

Law established from custom and the standards set by previous judicial rulings.

Patriarchal family

Model of the family in which fathers have absolute authority over wives, children, and servants. Most colonial Americans accepted the patriarchal model of the family, at least as an ideal.

Pequot War

1636–1637 conflict between New England settlers, their Narragansett allies, and the Pequots. The English saw the Pequots as both a threat and an obstacle to further English expansion.

Metacom’s War

1675–1676 conflict between New England settlers and the region’s American Indians. The settlers were the eventual victors, but fighting was fierce and casualties on both sides were high.

Dominion of New England

The consolidation of Northeastern colonies by King James II in 1686 to establish greater control over them, resulting in the banning of town meetings, new taxes, and other unpopular policies. The Dominion was dissolved during the Glorious Revolution.

Glorious Revolution

1688 rebellion that forced James II from the English throne and replaced him with William and Mary. The Glorious Revolution led to greater political and commercial autonomy for the British colonies.

King William’s War

1689–1697 war that began as a conflict over competing French and English interests on the European continent but soon spread to the American frontier. Both sides pulled American Indian allies into the war.

Household mode of production

A system of exchange, managed largely through barter, that allowed individual households to function even as they became more specialized in what they produced. Whatever cash was obtained could be used to buy imported goods.