AP U.S. History: Early America, Colonial Development, and the American Revolution

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering early geography, Native American societies, European colonization, colonial labor and regional economies, and the events leading to the American Revolution.

Cahokia

A major urban and ceremonial center near present-day St. Louis characterized by large earthen mounds and evidence of complex social and political organization.

Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy

A political alliance that united Native tribes in the Eastern Woodlands prior to European arrival.

Ancestral Pueblo

An indigenous culture in the Southwest that cultivated maize, beans, and squash, utilized complex irrigation systems, and constructed multistory cliff dwellings.

Columbian Exchange

The extensive transfer of plants, animals, culture, populations, and communicable diseases between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres following 1492.

Encomienda

A Spanish colonial labor system granting colonists the legal right to extract tribute or forced labor from Native Americans in exchange for protection and Christian instruction.

Repartimiento

A Spanish colonial labor system requiring Native American communities to provide a specified quota of labor for colonial enterprises.

Cash Crops

Agricultural crops grown primarily for commercial sale in domestic or Atlantic markets rather than for personal consumption by the grower.

Indentured Servitude

A labor system in which individuals entered into a legal contract to perform labor for a fixed term of years.

Chattel Slavery

A system of bonded labor in which enslaved persons were legally classified as personal property and their enslaved status was inherited by their children under colonial law.

Mercantilism

An economic and imperial policy framework designed to enrich the mother country by regulating and channeling colonial trade strictly for imperial benefit.

Navigation Acts

A series of English laws designed to regulate colonial trade and shipping to protect English commerce, though enforcement often varied.

Salutary Neglect

Britain's unofficial imperial policy prior to 1763 characterized by loose and lax enforcement of colonial trade regulations.

French and Indian War (1754–1763)

The North American theater of the imperial conflict between Britain and France, fought primarily over territorial control of the Ohio River Valley.

1763 Treaty of Paris

The diplomatic agreement ending the French and Indian War in which Britain gained mainland French North American territory east of the Mississippi River.

Proclamation of 1763

A British royal order prohibiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in an effort to prevent costly conflicts with Native Americans.

Sugar Act (1764)

A British parliamentary statute that revised import duties on foreign goods and strengthened customs enforcement, prompting colonists to challenge Parliament's authority to raise revenue.

Stamp Act (1765)

British imperial legislation requiring colonists to purchase tax stamps for printed materials, sparking widespread opposition as taxation without representation.

Declaratory Act (1766)

A parliamentary act passed alongside the repeal of the Stamp Act affirming Parliament's full power and authority to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

Townshend Acts (1767)

British parliamentary legislation imposing import duties on glass, paper, paint, lead, and tea entering the North American colonies.

Virtual Representation

The British constitutional argument that members of Parliament represented the interests of all British subjects, including colonists who lacked the power to vote for them.

Sons of Liberty

A colonial protest organization that mobilized resistance to British imperial policies through demonstrations, intimidation, and property destruction.

Boston Massacre (1770)

A confrontational incident on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, killing five colonists including Crispus Attucks.

Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

Punitive legislation enacted by Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party that closed the port of Boston and altered Massachusetts' colonial government.

Olive Branch Petition

A petition adopted by the Second Continental Congress in July 1775 as a final attempt to reconcile with King George III, which was rejected by the Crown.

Common Sense

A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that challenged hereditary monarchy and made an accessible public case for declaring independence.

Social Contract

The political philosophy holding that government derives its legitimate authority exclusively from the consent of the governed.

Right of Revolution

The Enlightenment principle asserting that the people have the moral right to alter or replace a government when it persistently abuses its authority.

Popular Sovereignty

The constitutional doctrine that ultimate and legitimate political power rests with the body of the people.