North American Colonies

Flashcards covering the exploration, colonization, and economic structures of North American colonies including Spanish, French, Dutch, and British territories.

Aztecs

A large and powerful empire in Central America that was destroyed by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.

Incas

A large and powerful empire in South America that was destroyed by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.

Columbian Exchange

The introduction of new products between Indians and Europeans, including the exchange of crops like corn and tobacco from Indians, and livestock and diseases from Europeans.

Vasco da Gama

A Portuguese explorer who found a trade route to India by sailing around Africa.

Ferdinand Magellan

The leader of the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe.

Samuel Champlain

The founder of Quebec who established the colony after failing to find a Northwest passage to India.

Conquistadors

Spanish explorers who traveled through North, Central, and South America in search of gold and silver.

Viceroys

Governors sent by the Spanish Monarch to the colonies to exercise royal control.

Encomiendas

Spanish plantations that used Indian and African slave labor to farm cash crops.

Creoles

White colonists living in Spanish colonies who had opportunities for land and wealth.

Mestizos

A mixed-race population in Spanish colonies resulting from the inter-marriage of Spanish men and Indian women.

French Crescent

The French colonial empire in North America that included Canada, the Mississippi River, and New Orleans.

New Amsterdam

A Dutch trade center and colony known for being one of the most diverse in North America due to its open immigration policy.

Salutary Neglect

A British policy in which the government allowed the colonies to create local laws and taxes in their own assemblies, exercising loose control as long as the colonies remained profitable.

Joint-stock companies

Companies formed by investors who pooled their money to fund and profit from new colonies in America.

Jamestown

The first permanent British colony in America, founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company.

John Rolfe

An individual who experimented with a hybrid form of tobacco in 1612, which became a major cash crop for the Jamestown colony.

Indentured servants

Typically poor men from England who agreed to work for a landowner for 4-7 years in exchange for passage to America.

Headright system

A system created in 1618 that gave 50 acres of land to anyone who brought an indentured servant to America.

House of Burgesses

The first legislative assembly in America, created by Virginia colonists in 1619.

Bacon's Rebellion

A 1676 rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon and poor farmers against Virginia's royal governor, which eventually led to an increased reliance on African slaves over indentured servants.

Puritans

A religious group that believed the Anglican Church kept too many Catholic rituals and followed the Calvinist idea of predestination.

Separatists

Also known as Pilgrims, these radical Puritans founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620 after receiving a royal charter.

Mayflower Compact

An agreement created by the Pilgrims to work together as a 'civil body politick,' serving as the first example of self-government in America.

Great Migration

The period from 1630-1640 when John Winthrop led 16,000 Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay colony.

John Winthrop

The Puritan leader who sought to build Boston as a 'city on a hill' to serve as a model to other Christians.

Town meetings

Independent local government gatherings in Massachusetts where adult male church members voted for local laws and taxes.

Roger Williams

An individual banished from Massachusetts for demanding Indians be paid for their land; he subsequently formed the Rhode Island colony in 1636.

Anne Hutchinson

A woman banished to Rhode Island for challenging the authority of Puritan leaders.

King Philip's War

A 1675 conflict between the Wampanoag Indians and New England colonists that resulted in the deaths of 10% of the colonial men in the region.

Halfway Covenant

A compromise that granted church membership to people who had not had a 'conversion experience' in response to declining religious participation in New England.

Quakers

A radical religious sect that believed in the 'Inner Light' and equality of all people; they founded Pennsylvania under William Penn.

Middle Passage

The segment of the trans-Atlantic trade network used to transport African slaves to the American colonies.

Triangular Trade

The pattern of trade between Europe, the American colonies, and Africa involving raw materials, manufactured goods, and slaves.

Mercantilism

An economic policy stating that colonies exist to generate wealth for the mother country through a favorable balance of trade.

Navigation Acts

A series of laws started in 1660 designed to restrict colonial trade to British partners to increase British wealth.