Indian Freedom and European Freedom on the Eve of Contact

Vocabulary flashcards covering the contrasting concepts of freedom, authority, social structure, and legal doctrines between Native Americans and Europeans on the eve of colonial contact.

Iroquois Concept of Liberty

A social organization observed by colonial officials wherein inhabitants held absolute notions of liberty, allowed no superiority of one over another, and banished all servitude from their territories.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues

A participant in a 1564 French Huguenot expedition to Florida who escaped when the Spanish destroyed the outpost in 1565 and created a painting of Indian life later engraved by Theodor de Bry.

Giovanni da Verrazano

An explorer who described Native Americans as living in 'absolute freedom,' a description intended not as a compliment but as an observation of their lack of European-style order and discipline.

Indian Concept of Freedom

A view of freedom centered on group autonomy, self-determination, kinship ties, spiritual values, and mutual obligations, rather than individual personal independence or private property ownership.

Christian Liberty

A European concept defining freedom as a moral or spiritual condition of abandoning a life of sin to embrace the teachings of Christ, making individuals simultaneously free from sin and servants to God.

Established Church

A state-recognized church existing in premodern European nations that decreed acceptable religious beliefs and worship, while dissenters faced state persecution and church condemnation.

Gabriel Sagard

A Catholic friar and early missionary to New France who published The Great Voyage to the Country of the Hurons in Paris in 1632 and compiled a dictionary of the Huron language.

Coverture

A legal doctrine in European societies under which a woman surrendered her legal identity to her husband upon marriage, preventing her from owning property, signing contracts, controlling wages, or seeking a divorce.

Liberties

In medieval and early modern European legal tradition, formal and specific privileges—such as tax exemptions or trade rights—granted to specific individuals or groups by contract, royal decree, or purchase.

Masterless Men

Individuals in early modern European society who lacked regular jobs or lived outside the control of social superiors, whom authorities viewed as a threat to public order.