APUSH Period 2 Test Review (1607-1754)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, events, and concepts for APUSH Period 2 (1607-1754).

Atlantic Slave Trade

The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to labor in the Americas. It connected Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and North America through trade and slavery.

Middle Passage

The brutal transatlantic voyage enslaved Africans were forced to endure from Africa to the Americas. Captives faced overcrowding, disease, starvation, violence, and high death rates.

Chattel Slavery

A system of slavery in which enslaved people were legally treated as property for life. Enslaved status was generally inherited through the mother, making slavery permanent and hereditary.

Slave Laws / Slave Codes

Laws that restricted the movement, education, legal rights, assembly, and behavior of enslaved people while protecting slaveholders' control and property rights.

Stono Rebellion

A 1739 uprising of enslaved Africans in South Carolina. Rebels attempted to escape to Spanish Florida, where Spain sometimes offered freedom to escaped enslaved people. The rebellion was suppressed and led to stricter slave laws.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system in which people agreed to work for a specified number of years in exchange for transportation, food, shelter, or the opportunity to receive land or other benefits after completing their contracts.

Labor System

The way a society organizes work. Colonial labor systems included family labor, indentured servitude, wage labor, and African chattel slavery.

Cash Crops

Crops grown primarily for sale and profit rather than for the farmer's direct consumption. Tobacco, rice, and indigo were important Southern colonial cash crops.

Tobacco

A profitable cash crop that became the economic foundation of Virginia and much of the Chesapeake. Its cultivation increased the demand for land and labor.

Elite Landowners

Wealthy colonists who owned large plantations or estates, controlled substantial labor forces, and often held political offices.

Mercantilism

An economic system in which colonies were expected to enrich the mother country by supplying raw materials, purchasing manufactured goods, and participating in trade controlled by the imperial government.

Navigation Acts

British laws regulating colonial trade. They required certain goods to be transported on English or colonial ships and directed valuable colonial exports through England.

Triangular Trade

A general term for Atlantic trade routes connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Manufactured goods, enslaved Africans, and colonial products moved along different routes in this system.

Imperialism

The policy of extending a nation's power through territorial expansion, colonization, political control, or economic influence.

Atlantic World

The interconnected economic, political, cultural, and demographic system linking Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

Virginia

England's first major permanent colonial region in North America. Its economy became centered on tobacco, plantation agriculture, and eventually African chattel slavery.

Jamestown

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in Virginia in 1607 by the Virginia Company.

House of Burgesses

Virginia's representative legislative assembly, established in 1619. It was the first elected representative assembly in English North America.

Head-Right System

A land-grant system that gave land to settlers who paid for their own passage or paid to transport laborers to the colonies. It encouraged immigration and helped wealthy planters acquire large estates.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 uprising in Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley's government. The rebellion reflected conflicts over land, Native policy, taxation, political power, and class inequality.

Nathaniel Bacon

A Virginia planter who led Bacon's Rebellion against Governor Berkeley in 1676. He represented frontier settlers who wanted more aggressive action against Native peoples and greater political influence.

Governor William Berkeley

Virginia's governor during Bacon's Rebellion. Rebels accused him of favoring wealthy landowners and failing to protect frontier settlers from Native resistance.

Chesapeake

The colonial region surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, especially Virginia and Maryland. Its economy was heavily influenced by tobacco, plantation agriculture, and labor exploitation.

Virginia Company

An English joint-stock company that founded Jamestown in 1607 in order to establish a profitable colony.

Plantation

A large agricultural estate that produced cash crops, often with the labor of enslaved people or indentured servants.

Georgia

The last of the original 13 English colonies, founded in 1732. It initially served as a military buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

James Oglethorpe

Founder of Georgia and a member of the group that received a charter to establish the colony. He envisioned Georgia partly as a place for debtors and poor settlers.

Buffer Colony

A colony established to protect another colony or imperial territory from attacks or rival European powers. Georgia served as a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

Maryland

An English colony founded by the Calvert family. It was established partly as a refuge for English Catholics but became religiously and politically diverse.

Refuge for Catholics

A place where Catholics could escape religious discrimination. Maryland was founded partly to provide this opportunity for English Catholics.

Act of Religious Toleration

A Maryland law passed in 1649 that protected Trinitarian Christians, including Catholics and most Protestants, from religious persecution. It did not create complete religious freedom for everyone.

Pilgrims

English Separatists who wanted to leave the Church of England completely. They founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Plymouth Colony

The colony founded by the Pilgrims in present-day Massachusetts in 1620. It was established primarily for religious reasons.

William Bradford

A leader and longtime governor of Plymouth Colony. He helped guide the colony through its early difficulties and wrote about its history.

Mayflower Compact

An agreement signed by the Pilgrims and other settlers in 1620. It established a basic form of self-government based on cooperation and consent.

Squanto

A Patuxet man who helped the Plymouth settlers by teaching them agricultural techniques and assisting communication with nearby Native communities.

Puritans

English Protestants who wanted to reform or "purify" the Church of England. Many migrated to New England to create a godly society.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

A major Puritan colony founded in 1630. It developed around towns, churches, communal institutions, and a strong religious mission.

John Winthrop

A Puritan leader and governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. He promoted the idea that Massachusetts should become a model Christian society.

"City Upon a Hill"

John Winthrop's description of Massachusetts Bay as a community whose religious success or failure would be observed by the world.

Harvard University

An institution founded in Massachusetts in 1636. Its original purpose was largely to train ministers and clergy for Puritan churches.