Chapter 04: American Life In The Seventeenth Century (1607-1692)

Question 1

William Berkeley

Answer 1

• Virginian governor who disliked wretched bachelors (poor, indebted, discontented, and armed)
• disliked by wretched bachelor’s for friendly relations with the Native Americans

Question 2

Nathanial Bacon

Answer 2

• 29-year-old planter who led a 1676 rebellion of frontiersmen (wretched bachelors) against Berkley’s friendly relations with Natives
• in Virginia
• died suddenly of disease

Question 3

Anthony Johnson

Answer 3

• 17th-century black slave who bought his own freedom and became a slave owner himself

Question 4

Indentured Servents

Answer 4

• a person who agreed to work for a colonial employer for a specified time in exchange for passage to America

Question 5

Headright System

Answer 5

• a system employed in Virgina and Maryland to encourage the importation of servant workers
• whoever paid the passage of a laborer the right to acquire fifty acres of land

Question 6

Bacon’s Rebellion

Answer 6

• a rebellion of indentured servants (white) led by Nathaniel Bacon in response to Governor Berkley’s friendly policies with hostile natives, which destroyed the Virgina colony and created dissent among indentured servants

Question 7

Middle Passage

Answer 7

• The transatlantic sea voyage that brought slaves to the New World
• the long and hazardous “middle” segment of a journey that began with a forced march to the African coast and ended with a trek into the American interior

Question 8

Jeremiads

Answer 8

• a new form of a sermon in the Puritan Churches in the mid-17th century
• preachers scolded parishioners for their waning piety

Question 9

Leisler’s Rebellion

Answer 9

• an ill-starred and bloody insurgency that rocked NYC from 1689 to 1691
• fueled by animosity between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants

Question 10

Half-Way Covenant

Answer 10

• 1662
• arrangement in Puritan churches which modified the covenant to admit to baptism the unconverted children of existing members
• weakened the distinction between the elect and others
• led to a widening of the church membership
• women became a majority in Puritan churches

Question 11

Royal African Company

Answer 11

• chartered in 1672 by the English government to establish a monopoly over the slave trade among British merchants
• supplied African slaves to colonies in Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginia

Question 12

Stono Rebellion

Answer 12

• the most serious slave rebellion in the colonial period which occurred in 1739 in South Carolina
• 100 African Americans rose up, got weapons, and killed several whites then tried to escape to South Florida
• the uprising was crushed and the participants executed

Question 13

Congregational Church

Answer 13

• democratic town meeting to decide how to run the village or town
• led to democracy in political government

Question 14

Salem Witch Trials

Answer 14

• the late 17th-century judicial event that inflamed popular feelings
• led to the deaths of twenty people
• weakened the Puritan clergy’s prestige

Question 15

New York Slave Revolt

Answer 15

• revolt in New York that caused the execution of 21 slaves
• they tried to march from South Carolina to Florida and were stopped by militia
• major middle colonies rebellion that caused thirty-three deaths

Question 16

Slave Codes

Answer 16

• laws that controlled the lives of enslaved African Americans and denied them basic rights

Question 17

Yeoman Farmers

Answer 17

• family farmers who hired out slaves for the harvest season
• participated in local markets alongside slave owners
• self-sufficient

Question 18

Town Meetings

Answer 18

• A purely democratic form of government common in the colonies
• the most prevalent form of local government in New England
• The town’s voting population would meet once a year to elect officers, levy taxes, and pass laws
• Only male, white, landowning Puritans could vote

Question 19

Yankee Ingenuity

Answer 19

• Originally fostered by the flinty fields and comfortless climate of New England
• came to be claimed by all Americans as a proud national trait

Question 20

Scarlett Letter

Answer 20

• disturbing New England masterpiece about adultery and guilty in the old Puritan Era
• referred to the red “A” that was stitched to every piece of clothing the convicted adulterer had

Question 21

Freedom Dues

Answer 21

• The dues of a master to his indentured servitude

- they included simple clothing, tools, one barrel of corn and sometimes a parcel of land

Question 22

Harvard

Answer 22

• the oldest college in America
• reflected Puritans commitment to an education ministry
• focused on preparing children to be ministers

Question 23

Social Classes

Answer 23

1. ) Planters
2. ) Small Land Owning Farmers
3. ) Free Laborers
4. ) Indentured Servants
5. ) Slaves