Key Terms in Early American History

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57 Terms

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Cahokia

A major city that emerged as a result of trade near present-day St. Louis, which at its peak in 1200 CE had a population of about 10,000 and featured a complex of large earthen mounds.

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Christopher Columbus

An Italian-born explorer in the service of Spain whose voyages, beginning in 1492, led to his encounter with the Americas, which he believed to be the fringes of the Far East. His travels were motivated by a combination of geographic, commercial, and deeply religious passions.

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African Slave Trade

A commerce in enslaved people that began long before European migration to the New World and grew dramatically in the sixteenth century due to the rising European demand for sugarcane. By the eighteenth century, the English dominated the trade, which had spread from the Caribbean and South America into the English colonies to the north.

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Biological and Cultural Exchanges

The increasing levels of exchange between Europeans and Native Americans following contact, which included the devastating importation of European diseases to the Americas, the introduction of new crops and domestic livestock in both directions, and the blending of cultures and religions.

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Corn (Maize)

The most important farm crop throughout much of the Americas, which became a staple food for both Native American civilizations and European settlers. European settlers learned cultivation techniques for corn from Native Americans, and it soon spread through much of Europe after Columbus brought it back from his first trip.

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Conquistadores

Spanish 'conquerors' who, lured by dreams of treasure, descended on the American mainland and established a vast empire for Spain through military force. They are known for their great military daring as well as their great brutality and greed, nearly exterminating indigenous populations through warfare and disease.

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Encomienda

A system of licenses first used by the Spanish in dealing with the Moors, which Oñate distributed to Spanish settlers in New Mexico to exact labor and tribute from the Native Americans in specific areas.

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Henry Hudson

An English explorer employed by the Dutch who in 1609 sailed up the river in present-day New York that was later named for him. His explorations led to a Dutch claim on territory in America and the establishment of a permanent Dutch presence in the New World.

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Fur Trade

An extensive trade developed by the French coureurs de bois deep inside the continent, which became an underpinning of the French colonial economy. The trade was more of a Native American enterprise, with French traders forming partnerships with the Algonquins and Hurons, often living among them and marrying Native American women.

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Tenochtitlan

A city established by the Mexica people around 1300 CE on an island in central Mexico, which became the greatest city in the Americas to that point, with a large population and impressive public buildings.

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Separatists

Radical Puritans who were determined to worship as they pleased in their own independent congregations, in defiance of English law. Many Separatist sects, including the Quakers, permitted women to serve as preachers.

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Puritans

Ardent Protestants who believed the English Reformation did not create enough theological change and hoped to 'purify' the Church of England. They followed the doctrines of John Calvin and sought the freedom to worship without interference from England's established church.

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Iroquois

An important language group centered in what is now upstate New York, which included at least five distinct northern nations: the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk. The Iroquois assumed a central role in the English fur trade and were ancient enemies of the Algonquins.

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Pueblo Revolt

An uprising in 1680 led by a Native American religious leader named Pope, which killed hundreds of European settlers, captured Santa Fe, and temporarily drove the Spanish from the region.

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Revolt

Sparked by efforts to suppress tribal rituals, a major drought, and raids by neighboring Apache groups.

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Atlantic World

A historical concept that views early American history as part of a vast network of exchanges and interactions—including trade, migration, and religious and intellectual exchange—among all societies bordering the Atlantic: western Europe, western Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America.

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Samuel de Champlain

The founder of Quebec who, in 1609, led an attack on a band of Mohawks at the instigation of his Algonquin trading partners, which brought the French into conflict with the Iroquois.

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Agricultural Technological Exchange

The process by which English settlers learned better-adapted agricultural technologies from Native Americans, such as the cultivation of maize (corn) and the technique of growing beans alongside corn to enrich the soil.

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Jamestown

The first enduring English settlement in the New World, established in Virginia in 1607. After a disastrous start, the colony survived due to the leadership of Captain John Smith, the assistance of neighboring Native Americans, and the discovery of tobacco as a marketable crop.

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Anne Hutchinson

An intelligent and charismatic woman in Massachusetts Bay who antagonized colonial leaders by arguing that clergy who had not undergone a 'conversion experience' had no right to spiritual office.

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Bacon's Rebellion

The largest and most powerful insurrection against established authority in the history of the colonies, which occurred in Virginia in 1676. It began as an unauthorized assault against Native Americans led by Nathaniel Bacon but became a military challenge to the colonial government, revealing deep social and political tensions.

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Congregational Church

The form of parish organization in both Plymouth and Massachusetts where each congregation chose its own minister and regulated its own affairs, with each church having 'complete liberty to stand alone'.

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Dominion of New England

A single entity created by James II in 1686 that combined the government of Massachusetts with the rest of the New England colonies, and later with New York and New Jersey.

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Headright System

A system used in Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas to attract settlers by offering fifty-acre grants of land.

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Glorious Revolution

The bloodless coup in 1688 in which Parliament forced the openly Catholic King James II from the English throne and replaced him with his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband, William of Orange.

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John Smith

A famous world traveler who, at age 27, imposed work and order on the struggling Jamestown settlement and created a shaky relationship with the local Native Americans.

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John Winthrop

The first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, an affluent and pious gentleman who led the great migration of 1,000 Puritans to New England in 1630.

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King Philip's War

The most prolonged and deadly encounter between whites and Native Americans in the seventeenth century, beginning in 1675.

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Massachusetts Bay Company

A company formed by Puritan merchants who obtained a charter from King Charles I to establish a colony in the New World. A faction within the company bought out the other investors and organized the migration of 1,000 people to New England in 1630, creating a haven for Puritans.

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Mayflower Compact

A document signed by forty-one male passengers on the Mayflower before they settled at Plymouth, which established a civil government and proclaimed their allegiance to the king. This was necessary because the Pilgrims had landed outside the territory of the London Company and thus had no legal basis for settling there.

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Mercantilism

An economic concept that guided European nation-states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, resting on the assumption that the nation, not the individual, was the principal actor in the economy. It held that the world's wealth was finite, and a nation's goal should be to extract as much wealth as possible from foreign lands while exporting as little as possible from home.

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Pequot War

The first major conflict between English settlers in the Connecticut Valley and the Pequot Indians, which broke out in 1637 over competition for trade and land. The war, in which the English allied with rival tribes, was marked by great savagery from the English and resulted in the Pequot tribe being almost wiped out.

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Quakers (Society of Friends)

A Protestant sect that originated in mid-seventeenth-century England, followers of George Fox and Margaret Fell who rejected predestination and believed all people had an 'Inner Light'. They were anarchistic and democratic, had no church government, granted women equality, and were pacifists.

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Roger Williams

A controversial young minister in Salem who advocated for a complete separation of church and state and argued that the Massachusetts church should abandon all allegiance to the Church of England. After being banished, he took refuge with Narragansett tribesmen and founded the town of Providence, which became the colony of Rhode Island.

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William Penn

The son of a Royal Navy admiral who was a Quaker and founded Pennsylvania as a 'holy experiment' and a place of asylum for his fellow believers. He carefully reimbursed the Native Americans for their land and maintained peaceful relations with them during his lifetime.

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House of Burgesses

The first meeting of an elected legislature within what was to become the United States, which convened on July 30, 1619, in the Jamestown church.

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Enlightenment Ideals

A movement that stressed the importance of science and human reason, suggesting that people had substantial control over their own lives and societies. These ideals encouraged education, a heightened interest in politics and government, and challenged the notion that all answers must come directly from God.

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Stono Rebellion

The most important slave revolt in the colonial period, which occurred in South Carolina in 1739, where about 100 enslaved people rose up, seized weapons, killed several white people, and attempted to escape south to Florida.

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George Whitefield

A powerful open-air preacher from England and an associate of the Wesleys who made several evangelizing tours through the colonies, drawing tremendous crowds and helping to spark the Great Awakening.

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Jonathan Edwards

An outstanding New England Congregationalist preacher and orthodox Puritan theologian of the Great Awakening. From his pulpit in Northampton, Massachusetts, he attacked doctrines of easy salvation and preached traditional Puritan ideas with vivid descriptions of hell.

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John Peter Zenger

A New York publisher whose 1734-1735 trial for libel established that criticisms of the government were not libelous if factually true. This verdict removed some restrictions on the freedom of the press.

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Jeremiad

Sermons of despair preached by New England ministers who were concerned about the decline in religious piety in their society.

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Great Awakening

The first major American revival, which began in the 1730s and reached its climax in the 1740s, bringing a new spirit of religious fervor to the colonies.

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Covenant

A binding agreement made by the settlers of a New England town among themselves, committing all residents to a religious and social unity and harmony.

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Triangular Trade

A term often used to describe the complex network of commerce that linked the North American colonies with England, continental Europe, and the west coast of Africa. This trade included routes where rum and goods were carried from New England to Africa, exchanged for enslaved people who were then transported to the West Indies, who were in turn exchanged for sugar and molasses shipped back to New England.

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Middle Passage

The dreadful journey of enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas, where they were chained in the dark, filthy holds of ships for weeks or even months.

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Scots-Irish

Scottish Presbyterians who had settled in northern Ireland (Ulster) in the early seventeenth century and later emigrated to America in large numbers. Facing economic and religious persecution, they pushed out to the edges of European settlement and were ruthless in their displacement of Native Americans.

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Slave Codes

Laws passed by colonial assemblies in the early eighteenth century to limit the rights of enslaved people and ensure almost absolute authority to slaveholders.

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Cotton Mather

A Puritan theologian who, after hearing about the practice from his enslaved servant and from experiments in England, urged the inoculation of his fellow Bostonians against smallpox during an epidemic in the 1720s.

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Old Lights

Traditionalists in congregations who were opposed to the revivalist fervor of the Great Awakening.

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New Lights

Revivalists who supported the new spirit of religious fervor during the Great Awakening.

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Salem Witch Trial

A widespread hysteria in the 1680s and 1690s over supposed witchcraft in New England, with the most famous outbreak occurring in Salem, Massachusetts. The crisis led to hundreds of people, mostly women, being accused of witchcraft, and nineteen residents of Salem being put to death before the trials ended in 1692.

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John Rolfe

A Jamestown planter who, in 1612, began experimenting with and cultivating a harsh strain of tobacco that local Native Americans had been growing for years, which became the colony's first profitable crop. In 1614, he married Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan chief.

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Pilgrims

A group of Puritan Separatists who, after leaving Holland, sailed from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower in 1620 and stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock to establish a settlement. Their survival depended crucially on assistance from Native Americans, with whom they celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

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Proprietary Rule

A form of colonial governance where proprietors, like Lord Baltimore in Maryland, were granted vast territory and held almost kingly powers over their province, acknowledging the king only by paying an annual fee.

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The 'Starving Time'

A period during the severe winter of 1609-1610 in Jamestown when colonists, barricaded by Native Americans and unable to hunt or farm, survived on 'dogs, cats, rats, snakes, toadstools, horsehides,' and even human corpses. By the time relief arrived, only 60 of the original settlers were still alive.

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William Bradford

The leader and historian of the migrating Puritans, whom he called 'pilgrims,' who served as the governor of the Plymouth colony for over twenty years. He ended the communal labor plan, distributed land among the families, and eventually paid off the colony's debt to its English financiers.