APUSH Period 2: 1607-1754 Flashcards
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 West 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.
Henry Hudson
A Dutch 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 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.
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.
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.