APUSH Period 2.4-2.9 Vocab Terms

Imperialism

a policy of expanding the border and increasing the global power of a nation typically via military force.

Subsistence Farmers

farmers who grow crops for their own needs rather than for profit.

Leisler's Rebellion

689 class revolt in New York led by merchant Jacob Lesiler. Urban artisans and landless renters rebelled against new taxes and centralized rule.

Redemptioners

Immigrants who borrowed money from shipping agents to cover the costs of transport to America, loans that were repaid, or "redeemed," by colonial employers. Redemptioners worked for their "redeemers" for a set number of years.

Walking Purchase

1737 treaty that allowed Pennsylvania to expand its boundaries at the expense of the Delaware Indians. The treaty, likely a forgery, allowed the British to add territory that could be walked off in a day and a half.

Mercantilism

Economic system centered on maintaining a favorable balance of trade for the home country, with more gold and silver flowing into that country than flowed out. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British colonial policy was heavily shaped by mercantilism.

Navigation Acts

Acts passed by Parliament in the 1650s and 1660s that prohibited smuggling, established guidelines for legal commerce, and set duties on trade items.

Consumer Revolution

A process through which status in the colonies became more closely linked to financial success and refined lifestyle rather than birth and family pedigree during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The consumer revolution was spurred by industrialization and increased global trade.

Middle Passage

The brutal second leg of the forced journey of enslaved Africans from Africa to the Americas. Historians estimate that millions of enslaved Africans died before they arrived in the Americas.

Slave Laws

a series of laws that defined slavery as a distinct status based on racial identity and which passes that status on through future generations.

Gang labor

A system of work discipline used on southern cotton plantations in the mid-19th century in which white overseers or black drivers supervised gangs of enslaved laborers to achieve greater productivity.

Stono Rebellion

1739 uprising by enslaved Africans and African Americans in South Carolina. In its aftermath, white fear of slave revolts intensified.

Anglo-Powhatan Wars

Series of conflicts in the 1620s between the Powhatan Confederacy and English settlers in Virginia and Maryland.

Covenant Chain

an alliance between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British colonies of North America.

Tuscarora War

War launched by Tiscarora Indians from 1711 to 1715 against European settlers in North Carolina and their allies from the Yamase, Catawba, and Cherokee nations. The Tuscaroras lost their lands when they signed the peace treaty and many then joined the Iroquois Confederacy to the north.

Yamasee War

A pan-American Indian war from 1715 to 1717 led by the Yamasee who intended, but failed, to oust the British from South Carolina.

Queen Anne's War

1702-1713 war over control of Spain and its colonies also known as the War of the Spanish Succession. Although the Treaty of Utrecht that ended the war in 1713 was intended to bring peace by establishing a balance of power, imperial conflict continued to escalate.

Treaty of Utrecht

a treaty between the British and the French and their Spanish allies ending Queen Anne's War (1702-1713).

King Geroge's War

1739-1748 war between France, Spain, and England fought in North America. King George's War secured Georgia for the English, Though Louisbourg was ceded to the French in return.

Enlightenment

European cultural movement spanning the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century emphasizing rational and scientific thinking over traditional religion and superstition.

Original Sin

the doctrine that holds that human nature has been morally and ethically corrupted due to the disobedience of mankind's first parents.

New Light Clergy

Colonial Clergy who called for religious revivals and emphasized the emotional aspects of spiritual commitment. The New Lights were leaders in the Great Awakening.

Old Light Clergy

Colonial clergy from established churches who supported the religious status quo in the early eighteenth century.

Pietist

An evangelical Christian movement that stressed the individual's personal relationship with God.

Methodism

a movement of protestant Christianity

Great Awakening

series of religious revivals in colonial America that began in 1720 and lasted to about 1750.

Impressment

The forced enlistment of civilians into the army or navy. The impression of residents of colonial seaports into the British navy was a major source of complaint in the eighteenth century.

Seditious

Behavior or language aimed at starting a rebellion against a government.

Libel

A false written statement designed to damage the reputation of its subject.