Chapter 3 Flashcards
Representative parliamentary assembly created to govern Virginia, establishing a precedent for government in the English colonies.
House of Burgesses
Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed toleration to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for those, like Jews and atheists, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Ensured that Maryland would continue to attract a high proportion of Catholic migrants throughout the colonial period.
Act of Toleration
First formal statute governing the treatment of slaves, which provided for harsh punishments against offending slaves but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statutes were adopted by southern plantation societies on the North American mainland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Barbados slave code
Armed conflict between royalists and parliamentarians, resulting in the victory of pro-Parliament forces and the execution of Charles I.
English Civil War
Frontier farmers who illegally occupied land owned by others or not yet officially opened for settlement. Many of North Carolina’s early settlers were squatters, who contributed to the colony’s reputation as being more independent-minded and egalitarian than its neighbors.
squatters
Began with an Indian attack on New Bern, North Carolina. After the Tuscaroras were defeated, remaining Indian survivors migrated northward, eventually joining the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth nation.
Tuscarora War
Defeated by the South Carolinians in the war of 1715–1716. The Yamasee defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the southern colonies.
Yamasee Indians
In politics, a territory between two antagonistic powers, intended to minimize the possibility of conflict between them. In British North America, Georgia was established as a buffer colony between British and Spanish territory.
buffer
Dominant theological credo of the New England Puritans based on the teachings of John Calvin. Calvinists believed in predestination—that only “the elect” were destined for salvation.
Calvinism
Calvinist doctrine that God has foreordained some people to be saved and some to be damned. Though their fate was irreversible, Calvinists, particularly those who believed they were destined for salvation, sought to lead sanctified lives in order to demonstrate to others that they were in fact members of the “elect.”
predestination
Intense religious experience that confirmed an individual’s place among the “elect,” or the “visible saints.” Calvinists who experienced conversion were then expected to lead sanctified lives to demonstrate their salvation.
conversion
English Protestant reformers who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic rituals and creeds. Some of the most devout Puritans believed that only “visible saints” should be admitted to church membership.
Puritans
Small group of Puritans who sought to break away entirely from the Church of England; after initially settling in Holland, a number of English Separatists made their way to Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, in 1620.
Separatists
Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth, signed aboard the Mayflower. Created a foundation for self-government in the colony.
Mayflower Compact
Established by non-separating Puritans, it soon grew to be the largest and most influential of the New England colonies.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
Migration of seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies, primarily New England and the Caribbean. The twenty thousand migrants who came to Massachusetts largely shared a common sense of purpose—to establish a model Christian settlement in the New World.
Great English Migration
Belief that the elect need not obey the law of either God or man; most notably espoused in the colonies by Anne Hutchinson.
antinomianism
Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River valley, this document was the first “modern constitution” establishing a democratically controlled government. Key features of the document were borrowed for Connecticut’s colonial charter and, later, its state constitution.
Fundamental Orders
Series of clashes between English settlers and Pequot Indians in the Connecticut River valley. Ended in the slaughter of the Pequots by the Puritans and their Narragansett Indian allies.
Pequot War
Series of assaults by Metacom, King Philip, on English settlements in New England. The attacks slowed the westward migration of New England settlers for several decades.
King Philip’s War
Weak union of the colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut led by Puritans for the purposes of defense and organization; an early attempt at self-government during the benign neglect of the English Civil War.
New England Confederation
Series of laws passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping; the acts provided that only English ships would be allowed to trade in English and colonial ports and that all goods destined for the colonies would first pass through England.
Navigation Laws
Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. Placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.
Dominion of New England
Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. Placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.
Dominion of New England
