AP US History Notes: Period 2 (1607-1754 C.E.)

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Five Things to Know about Period 2:

1. Spanish, French, Dutch, and British colonizers had different goals that impacted the economic, political, and cultural development of their colonies and shaped colonizers’ interactions with American Indian populations.
2. Conflict arose due to competition for resources among European rivals, and between the Europeans and American Indians. Examples of American Indian resistance to colonizers were the Pueblo Revolt, the Pequot War, and King Philip’s War.
3. Early British colonies developed along the Atlantic coast with some regional differences. New England colonies were settled by the Puritans, who lived in small towns. The middle colonies were characterized by the export of cash crops, less social rigidity, and more religious tolerance. The southern colonies developed a plantation-based economy.
4. The African slave trade grew extensively throughout the eighteenth century. The trading of slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between Africa, the Americas, and Europe became known as Triangular Trade.
5. England used its colonies to obtain raw materials for its own manufacturing purposes and wealth creation. There were, consequently, early examples of colonial resentment and resistance. From Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 to the Great Awakening starting in the 1730s, the colonists begin to carve out a distinct American identity.

Key Topics--Period 2 (1607-1754 C.E.)

Remember that the AP US History exam tests you on the depth of your knowledge, not just your ability to recall facts. While we have provided brief definitions here, you will need to know these terms in even more depth for the AP US History exam, including how terms connect to broader historical themes and understandings.

European Colonization in the New World

• Samuel de Champlain: French explorer. Known as the “The Father of New France.” Founded Quebec in 1608. Made the first accurate maps of what is modern-day Eastern Canada.
• Louis Joliet: French-Canadian explorer. He and Jacques Marquette were the first Europeans to explore and map the Mississippi River.
• Jacques Marquette: French Jesuit missionary. He and Louis Joliet were the first Europeans to explore and map the Mississippi River. He founded the first European settlement in Michigan in 1668.
• Sieur de La Salle: French explorer, also known as René-Robert Cavelier. He surveyed the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Gulf of Mexico. Founded a network of forts around the Great Lakes and in the modern-day Midwest.
• Dutch East India Company: The vehicle for the commercial ambitions of the Netherlands in the New World, especially with regards to the fur trade. Led to the founding of New Netherlands and New Amsterdam. See: Henry Hudson.
• Henry Hudson: English explorer. While working to find a Northwest Passage for the Dutch East India Company, he sailed up the Hudson River, establishing Dutch claims for what became New Amsterdam (modern-day New York).
• New Amsterdam: The Dutch capital of their New Netherland colony. Noted for its tolerance of religious practices. It failed to attract enough settlers to compete with the surrounding English colonies. Conquered by the English in 1664, who renamed it New York City.
• Mestizos: A term for people of mixed Spanish and American Indian heritage.
• Catholicism: Adherence to the liturgy and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics believe that the Bible alone is not sufficient for salvation, but that it must be tied to certain rites and traditions. Catholics view the Pope as the representative of Jesus on Earth. Historically, the Catholic Church was a major landowner in both Europe and Latin America, and the Pope was often politically more powerful than most monarchs. Contrast: Protestantism, Puritanism.
• Pueblo Revolt: A 1680 revolt against Spanish settlers in the modern-day American Southwest. Led by a Pueblo man named Popé, it forced the Spanish to abandon Santa Fe. A rare, decisive American Indian victory against European colonization.
• Anglicanism: A form of Protestant Christianity that adheres to the liturgy of the Anglican Church, also known as the Church of England. Founded in the sixteenth century by King Henry VIII. See: Puritanism.
• Protestantism: An umbrella term for various Christian sects that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church following the start of the Reformation in 1517. Constitutes one of three major branches of Christianity, alongside Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox faith. Generally, Protestants believe that faith alone merits salvation and good works are unnecessary. They reject the authority of the Pope and believe the Bible is the sole authority. See: Puritanism.
• Charters: A document which Parliament used to grant exclusive rights and privileges. Required for the legal sanction of a formal colony. Over time, especially after the Glorious Revolution, most colonies surrendered their charters and became royal colonies, which involved more centralized control from England.
• Sir Humphrey Gilbert: English explorer. In the Elizabethan era, he founded the first English colony at Newfoundland, which failed.
• Sir Walter Raleigh: One of the most important figures of the Elizabethan era. Granted permission by Queen Elizabeth I to explore and colonize the New World in exchange for one-fifth of all the gold and silver this venture obtained. Founded Roanoke.
• Roanoke: Nicknamed “the Lost Colony.” First attempted English colony in the New World. Founded in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh on an island off the modern-day North Carolina coast. By 1590, its inhabitants had vanished for reasons that still remain unknown.

Indentured Servitude

• Indentured servants: People who offered up five to seven years of their freedom in exchange for passage to the New World. Limited rights while servants, but considered free members of society upon release. During the seventeenth century, nearly two-thirds of English immigrants were indentured servants. Declined in favor of slavery, which was more profitable to planters.
• Bacon’s Rebellion: A failed 1676 rebellion in Jamestown. Led by Nathaniel Bacon, indentured servants and slaves revolted against the Virginia Colony’s aristocracy. It led to a strengthening of racially coded laws, such as the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, in order to divide impoverished white and black slaves, thus safeguarding the planter aristocracy from future rebellions.
• Sir William Berkeley: Virginia governor during Bacon’s Rebellion (1676). Ruled the colony based on the interests of the wealthy tobacco planters. In addition, Berkeley advocated for good relations with the American Indians in order to safeguard the beaver fur trade.
• Nathaniel Bacon: A young member of the House of Burgesses who capitalized on his fellow backwoodsmen’s complaints by mobilizing them to form a citizens’ militia. Burned Jamestown during Bacon’s Rebellion. Died of dysentery in 1676.
• House of Burgesses: The first elected legislative assembly in the New World. Established in 1619. It served as a political model for subsequent English colonies. Initially, only landowners could vote, and only the Virginia Company and the governor could rescind laws.
• Jamestown: Founded in Virginia in 1607, it was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. After the statehouse was burned on four separate occasions, the capital was moved to what became modern-day Williamsburg. See: John Smith, Roanoke.

Slavery

• Triangular Trade: A transatlantic trade network. New World colonies exported raw materials such as sugar and cotton to England. There, these materials were transformed into rum and textiles. Europeans sold these manufactured goods, including at African ports, in exchange for slaves, who would then be sold in the colonies as farm workers, thus completing the triangle.
• Middle Passage: The leg of Triangular Trade which transported Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. Approximately 20 percent of enslaved Africans died before reaching the New World due to poor conditions, dehydration, and disease.
• Stono Rebellion: A 1739 slave uprising in Stono, South Carolina. Led to the deaths of more than four dozen colonists and as many as 200 African slaves. Prompted South Carolina’s proprietors to create a stricter slave code.

English Conflicts with American Indians

• Virginia Company: Chartered in 1606 by King James I in order to settle the North American eastern coastline. Established a headright system (1618) and the House of Burgesses (1619). By 1624, a lack of profit forced the company to concede its charter to the crown, who appointed a royal governor.
• John Smith: A pivotal leader at Jamestown. Negotiated peace between the settlers and local American Indians. Famously stated “He that will not work shall not eat,” forcing the Jamestown colonists to work to save their then-failing colony. Returned to England in 1609 after being injured in a gunpowder explosion.
• Powhatan: The name for an American Indian tribe neighboring Jamestown. Also the common name for its chief (formally known as Wahunsenacawh) in the 1610s, who was father to Pocahontas and brother to Opechancanough.
• Pocahontas: American Indian woman who brokered peace between her tribe and the early settlers at Jamestown, such as John Smith. Married John Rolfe in 1614.
• Opechancanough: Planned and executed a surprise attack in 1622 on Jamestown that massacred a fourth of the total Virginia colonists in one day. The resulting retaliation by the English settlers devastated his tribe, altering the regional balance of power. See: Powhatan.
• Roger Williams: A Protestant theologian in during the 1630s. Believed American Indians should be treated justly. Advocated the then-radical notion of separation of church and state, believing government involvement in religion amounted to forced worship. Banished from Massachusetts in 1636, he and his followers went on to found Rhode Island.
• Pequot War: A war in New England in 1636–1638. Fought between the Pequot tribe and the English colonists with their American Indian allies. A catastrophic defeat for the Pequot tribe. Famous for the Mystic massacre, where over 500 Pequot were slaughtered in a blaze.
• King Philip’s War: Also known as Metacom’s War, King Philip’s War (1675–1678) was an ongoing battle between English colonists and the American Indian inhabitants of New England. The English victory expanded their access to land that was previously inhabited by the natives.

The Development of English Colonial Societies in North America

• Headright system: A policy where a colonial government grants a set amount of land to any settler who paid for their own—or someone else’s—passage to the New World.
• John Rolfe: An influential Virginian leader. In 1611, he introduced his fellow farmers to tobacco cultivation, which provided the economic basis for their colony’s survival. Married Pocahontas.
• Proprietary colony: A colony in which the crown allotted land and governmental command to one person. Maryland under Lord Baltimore is an example of it.
• Lord Baltimore: The noble title for Cecilius Calvert. He founded Maryland in 1632 as a haven for his fellow Catholics, and advocated for peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Protestants. Overthrown during the Glorious Revolution by Protestant rebels.
• Puritanism: A religious code and societal organization that split off from Anglicanism. Puritans believed that their religious and social structures were ideal. They thought that the Church of England’s ceremonies and teachings were too reminiscent of Catholicism and that true believers ought to read the Bible for themselves and listen to the sermons of an educated clergy.
• Pilgrims: The first Puritans to colonize the New World. Settled at Plymouth. Members of a minority group of Puritans known as separatists.
• Separatists: A minority Puritan faction that wished to abandon the Church of England and form their own independent church cleansed of any lingering Catholicism. After a failed 1607–1608 effort in the Netherlands, that failed due to fears over the local culture corrupting their children, they boarded the Mayflower and founded Plymouth colony.
• Plymouth: A colony in modern-day Cape Cod, founded by the Pilgrims in 1620. By 1691, it was merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony to form the crown colony of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
• Mayflower Compact: The first written form of government in the modern-day United States. Drafted by the Pilgrims, it was an agreement to establish a secular body that would administer the leadership of the Plymouth colony.
• Squanto: An American Indian who learned English after having been captured and transported to England. Later returned to the New World. He showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn and where to fish, enabling them to survive early on.
• Massachusetts Bay Company: Founded in 1629 by a collective of London financiers, who advocated for the Puritan cause and wanted to profit from American Indian trade.
• Body of Liberties: Issued by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641, it delineated the liberties and duties of Massachusetts settlers. It also allowed for free speech, assembly, and due process; it also authorized the death penalty for the worship of false gods, blasphemy, and witchcraft.
• Great Migration of the 1630s: A period where many Puritan families moved across the Atlantic. By 1642, approximately 20,000 Puritans had immigrated to Massachusetts.
• Anne Hutchinson: A Puritan colonist in Massachusetts. Tried and convicted of heresy in the 1630s. She asserted that local ministers were erroneous in believing that good deeds and church attendance saved one’s soul. She believed that faith alone merited salvation.
• Thomas Hooker: Puritan leader. Founded a settlement at Hartford, Connecticut (1636) after dissenting from the Massachusetts authorities. See: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut: The first “constitution” in colonial America, fully established the Hartford government in 1639. While it modeled itself after the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the document—in a key innovation—called for the power of government to be derived from the governed, who did not need to be church members to vote.
• Charter of Liberties and Privileges: Drafted in 1683 by a New York assembly, following the colony’s takeover by the English. It mandated elections, and reinforced traditional English liberties such as trial by jury, security of property, and religious tolerance for Protestant churches.
• Fundamental Constitution of Carolina: Issued by the proprietors of Carolina in 1669, who aimed to create a feudal society composed of nobles, serfs, and slaves. Four-fifths of the land was owned by the planters. Colonial leaders established an elected assembly and a headright system to attract immigrants, who were allowed to own the remaining land. It allowed for religious tolerance, both for Christian dissenters and Jewish people.
• William Penn: Founded Pennsylvania in 1683. A Quaker, Penn believed in equality between people. He owned all the colony’s land and sold it to settlers at low costs, instead of developing a headright system. The religious tolerance, excellent climate, and low cost of land appealed to immigrants from across Western Europe. See: Quaker
• Quakers: Formally known as the “Society of Friends.” A Protestant church that advocated that everyone was equal, including women, Africans, and American Indians. See: William Penn.
• James Oglethorpe: A wealthy reformer who founded Georgia in 1733 as a haven for those who had been imprisoned in England as debtors. He initially banned slavery and alcohol from the colony, which led to many disputes among settlers. In 1751, however, the colony was surrendered to the crown, which repealed both bans.

Characteristics of English Colonial Societies

• Mercantilism: The theory that a government should control economic pursuits to further a nation’s national power, especially in the acquisition of silver and gold. Prominent in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Replaced by free trade. See: laissez-faire.
• Navigation Acts: Laws passed in 1651 as measure to supersede Dutch control of international trade. Colonial commodities such as tobacco and sugar had to be exported to England in English ships and sold in English ports before they could be re-exported to other nations’ markets. Spurred colonial resentment in the long-term. See: mercantilism.
• Glorious Revolution: The 1688 overthrow of the Catholic King James II by the English Parliament. He was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange. Led to both celebration and unrest throughout the American colonies.
• Toleration Act of 1689: An English law that called for the free worship of most Protestants, not only Puritans. Forced on Massachusetts in 1691 after it was made a royal colony, revoking its earlier Puritan-centric charter.
• Great Awakening: A Protestant religious movement that took place across the Thirteen Colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. It indirectly helped spur religious tolerance and led to the founding of many universities. See: Second Great Awakening.
• Jonathan Edwards: A preacher credited for sparking the (First) Great Awakening. His sermons encouraged parishioners to repent of their sins and obey God’s word in order to earn mercy. He delivered his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in 1741.
• George Whitefield: A traveling New Light preacher during the Great Awakening. Known for his sermons on the “fire and brimstone” eternity that all sinners would face if they did not publicly confess their sins. Undermined the power and prestige of Old Light ministers by proclaiming that ordinary people could understand Christian doctrine without the clergy’s guidance.