DEUSH Vocab 121

Tenochtitlan

Definition: The capital of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico, was one of the world’s largest cities

Significance: A city of great wealth, obtained through the spoils of tribute from conquered regions

Treaty of Tordesillas

Definition: An agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th century voyagers

Significance: It defined where each Spain and Portugal could explore and claim lands

Castas System: Peninsulares/ Creoles/ Mestizos/ Mulattoes

Definition: Peninsulares: Spanish born elite, Creoles: Spanish lineage born in the Americas, Mestizos: mixed lineage European and indigenous American, Mulattoes: mixed lineage European and African

Significance: It dictated social status, level of taxation, and legal rights in the Spanish colonies

Encomienda system to Hacienda system

Definition: The hacienda was a land grant from the Spanish crown, usually given to a conquistador. The encomienda system granted people as labor to those who were granted land in the Spanish colonies. The hacienda system evolved from the encomienda system.

Significance: Helped play a role in shaping the social and economic structure of colonial Latin America

Repartimiento system

Definition: A system by which the crown allowed certain colonists to recruit indigenous peoples for forced labor

Significance: It helped colonists to find success in agricultural and mining industries

Pueblo Revolt

Definition: A revolt against Spanish religious, economic, and political institutions imposed upon the Pueblos. (the only successful Native uprising against a colonizing power in North America)

Significance: It was the only successful Native uprising against a colonizing power in North America and it helped ensure the survival of Pueblo cultural traditions, lands, languages, religions, and sovereignty.

Enclosure movement

Definition: A push in the 18th and 19th centuries to change land that had been owned by all members of a village and make it privately owned typically with walls, hedges, or fences around it.

Significance: It greatly improved the agricultural productivity of farms from the late 18th century by bringing more land into effective agricultural use

Uprising of 1622

Definition: Warriors of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom of Tsenacommacah launched a deadly military offensive against English settlers in Virginia

Significance: It led to destruction and suffering and redefined Powhatan-English relations in the colony

John Smith

Definition: English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, and author

Significance: He played an important role in the establishment of Jamestown and its success

John Winthrop

Definition: English Puritan who became an influential governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Significance: Shaped the approach to law and religious governance in the first decades of the colony

Great Migration

Definition: The migration of many English Puritans to the New England Colonies

Pequot War

Definition: 1636 - 1638 in New England between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of colonies

Significance: It led to English control of the Connecticut River Valley

Half-Way Covenant

Definition: Religious-political solution that allowed the children of baptized but unconverted church members to be baptized thus becoming church members and have political rights

Significance: Allowed the children of baptized but unconverted church members to be baptized and thus become church members and have political rights

Metacom/ King Philip’s War

Definition: War of resistance in New England between Natives and colonists

Significance: Considered the bloodiest war per capita in US history

Mercantilism

Definition: An economic system that focused on growing a nation’s wealth by exporting easily produced goods in exchange for limited imports

Significance: It encourage colonists to purchase goods from England instead of other nations.

Society of Friends (Quakers)

Definition: A Christian group that arose in mid 17th century

Significance: They believed in spiritual equality in men and women and played a key role in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements.

Bacon’s Rebellion

Definition: An uprising of farmers, indentured servants, common people, and enslaved people against the wealthy and powerful elites of the Virginia Colony in the late 17th century

Significance: It was the first popular uprising in the American colonies

Salem Witch Trials

Definition: A series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between 1962 and 1963

Significance: A defining example of intolerance and injustice in the early US (women)

Atlantic slave trade

Definition: The buying, transporting, and selling of Africans in the Americas

Significance: The profits gained by Americans and Europeans made possible the development of economic and political growth in major regions of those areas

Middle Passage

Definition: The part of the trade where Africans, densely packed onto ships, were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies

Significance: supplied the New World with its major workforce and brought enormous profits to international slave traders

Stono Rebellion

Definition: Large slave uprising on September 9, 1739 near the Stono River where slaves gathered, raided a firearms shop, and headed south, killing more than 20 white people along the way

Significance: revealed tensions that continued in slave states throughout the next century

Great Awakening

Definition: A religious revival that impacted the colonies

Significance: It severely helped to revive religion in the colonies at a time when the passion had grown stale

Seven Years’ War/ French and Indian War

Definition: The British hoped to stop French expansion on the American continent. French and Indian War started in America, ended as the Seven Years War in Europe.

Significance: The war provided Britain with great territorial gains, but ultimately ended up leading to the American Revolution because of the paying of the wars expenses

Pontiac’s Rebellion

Definition: An Indian uprising after the French and Indian War, led by an Ottowa chief named Pontiac

Significance: Enabled Native Americans to endure as major players in the geopolitics of North America by compelling the British to reevaluate their “Native Affairs”

Proclamation of 1763

Definition: A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains and also required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east

Significance: It closed down colonial expansion westward beyond the Appalachia

Albany Plan of Union

Definition: A proposal by the Albany Congress during the French and Indian War which called for a confederation of colonies to defend against attack by European and native foes

Significance: The first important proposal to conceive of the colonies as a collective whole united under one government

Stamp Act

Definition: An act that imposed a tax on all printed materials, including newspapers, legal documents, and even playing cards

Significance: It helped to pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years War

Sugar Act

Definition: An act to more strongly enforce tax on sugar and molasses imported to the colonies

Significance: They used strict penalties to end the smuggling of sugar and molasses, which infuriated the colonists

Committee of Correspondence

Definition: Groups appointed by the legislatures in the 13 British American colonies to provide colonial leadership and aid intercolonial cooperation

Significance: It helped rally colonial opposition against British policy

Sons of Liberty

Definition: A well organized Patriot paramilitary political organization shrouded in secrecy that was established to undermine British rule in colonial America

Significance: Rallied support for colonial resistance through the use of petitions, assemblies, and propaganda

Townshend Acts

Definition: A series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767 that taxed goods imported to the American colonies

Significance: initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea which led to colonies discouraging the purchase of British imports

Boston Massacre

Definition: A riot in Boston arising from the resentment of Boston colonists toward British troops quartered in the city, in which the troops fired on the mob and killed several people

Significance: Helped galvanize Boston and the colonies against Britain

Crispus Attucks

Definition: A sailor of mixed African and Indigenous ancestry that died in the Boston Massacre

Significance: He was the first person killed in the Boston Massacre

Boston Tea Party

Definition: 340 chests of tea destroyed in Boston Harbour as a protest of the taxing

Significance: Shut down Boston Harbour and was one of the key events leading up to the Revolution

Intolerable Acts

Definition: A series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party

Significance: Angered the colonists even more leading to the American Revolution

Continental Congress

Definition: The governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution

Significance: Balanced the interests of the different colonies and established itself as the official liaison to Great Britain

Battles of Lexington and Concord

Definition: First battle in the Revolutionary War

Significance: Marked the started of the Revolutionary War

Common Sense

Definition: A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775-76

Significance: Inspired people in the colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain

Declaration of Independence

Definition: A document written on July 4th by Thomas Jefferson declaring independence

Significance: Summarized the colonists motivations for seeking independence

Battle of Yorktown

Definition: The final battle of the American Revolution where Washington beat Cornwallis

Significance: The colonies victory in this battle led to peace negotiations that ended the Revolutionary War

Treaty of Paris

Definition: Officially ended the war and recognized US independence and granted the US significant western territory

Significance: formally recognized the US as an independent nation

Republic

Definition: A form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the citizen body

Significance: Claims that the people are ultimately the source of authority

Suffrage

Definition: the right to vote

Significance: has a chance to enable political change

The Wealth of Nations

Definition: A text published by Adam Smith

Significance: Describes the industrialized capitalist system that was upending the mercantilist system

Loyalists

Definition: Those in the colonies who still remained loyal to Britain during and after the war

Joseph Brant

Definition: A Mohawk chief who made a big push to get the Iroquois Indians into the Revolutionary War

Significance: He sided with the British during the Revolutionary War

Abolition

Definition: The movement to end slavery and liberate slaves

Significance: Helped create the emotional climate necessary to end the atlantic slave trade

Lemuel Haynes

Definition: The first black man in the United States to be ordained as a minister

Coverture

Definition: A law set in place by the king in the name of God saying that no female had a legal identity

Significance: Made women unable to sue or be sued on her own behalf and unable to create a will without her husbands consent

Articles of Confederation

Definition: The written document

Significance: Established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Definition: It chartered a government for the Northwest Territory, provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory

Shays’s Rebellion

Definition: A violent insurrection in the Massachusetts countryside during 1786 and 1787 that was brought about by a monetary debt crisis at the end of the Revolutionary War

Significance: It was proof that the Articles were too weak to govern the country

Constitutional Convention

Definition: This convention in Philadelphia decided how America was going to be governed

Virginia Plan

Definition: The plan outlined a strong national government with three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial and that called for 2 branches of legislation

Significance: Provided us with the government we use today

New Jersey Plan

Definition: A plan, unsuccessfully proposed at the Constitutional Convention, providing for a single legislative house with equal representation for each state

Significance: It was designed to protect security and power of small states

Federalism

Definition: The division and sharing of power between the national and state governments

Significance: Protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power

Three-fifths Compromise

Definition: Determined that three out of every five slaves were counted when determining a states total population for legislative representation and taxation

Significance: Gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives

Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

Definition: Federalists were those that supported the constitution and a stronger national republic. Anti-Federalists were those that opposed the ratification of the Constitution in favor of small localized governments

Bill of Rights

Definition: The first 10 amendments of the Constitution

Significance: Guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual

Treaty of Greenville

Definition: The treaty aimed to end the hostilities between the US and an Indian confederation that had engulfed the Great Lakes

Significance: Ended violence temporarily, and established Indian lands

Bank of the United States

Definition: Bank chartered in 1791 by the U.S. Congress, conceived by Alexander Hamilton to pay off the country’s debts from the American Revolution and to provide a stable currency

Significance: Helped fund debt from the war and establish a mean of currency in the US

Jay’s Treaty

Definition: An agreement by the United States and Great Britain

Significance: Helped avert war between the two nations in 1794

Federalists and Republicans

Definition: Federalists believed in a strong central government, a strong army, industry, and loose interpretation of the Constitution. Republicans believed in a weak central government, state and individual rights, and strict interpretation of the Constitution

Whiskey Rebellion

Definition: In 1794, farmers from Western Pennsylvania rose up in protest of what they saw as unfair taxation and provided the new nation, and George Washington, with a looming crisis

Significance: The first test of federal authority in the US

XYZ Affair

Definition: A diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats

Significance: Resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War

Alien and Sedition Acts

Definition: Tightened restrictions on foreign born Americans and limited speech critical of the government

Significance: was in anticipation of a war with France

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions

Definition: When Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition acts were unconstitutional

Significance: Argued that states should be able to authorize the nullification, cancellation, of laws they felt were harmful to their states

Revolution of 1800

Definition: The presidential election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson

Significance: Thomas Jefferson won

Haitian Revolution

Definition: A series of conflicts between 1791 and 1804 that was the overthrow of the French regime in Haiti by the Africans and their descendants who had been enslaved by the French and the establishment of an independent country founded and governed by former slaves

Gabriel’s Rebellion

Definition: A plan by enslaved African American men to attack Richmond and destroy slavery in Virginia

Significance: One of the most important rebellion plots in slavery history

Marbury v. Madison

Definition: Legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court first declared an act of Congress unconstitutional

Significance: Established the doctrine of judicial review

Louisiana Purchase

Definition: The purchase of imperial rights to the western half of the Mississippi River basin from France by the United States in 1803

Significance: Practically doubled the size of the US, greatly strengthening the country

Barbary Wars

Definition: The first major American war fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World

Significance: Established the early US Navy reputation and set the stage for future American involvement in the Mediterranean

Embargo Act

Definition: Legislation by the U.S. Congress in December 1807

Significance: Closed U.S. ports to all exports and restricted imports from Britain in response to British and French interference with neutral US. merchant ships during Napoleonic Wars

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa

Definition: Tecumseh: A Shawnee leader, who fought against the United States expansion into the Midwest and opposed any surrender of Native American land to whites. Tried with his brother, Tenskwatawa, in uniting the tribes from American customs, especially liquor

War of 1812

Definition: A war between the U.S. and Great Britain caused by American outrage over the impressment of American sailors by the British, the British seizure of American ships, and British aid to the Indians attacking the Americans on the western frontier

Significance: Established clear boundaries between eastern Canada and the US

Hartford Convention

Definition: A meeting of New England Federalists held in Hartford Connecticut in the winter of 1814-15. Convention was held to discuss and seek redress by Washington for their complaints and wrongs that they felt had been done.

Significance: It drafted constitutional amendments strengthening state controls over commerce and militias