Early America Flashcards
Land Bridge
The theory that Native Americans reached North America by walking across a land bridge made of ice
Encomienda System
A formal system of forced labor in spanish colonists in Latin America under this system indigenous americans were forced to pay tribute to colonists with food, cloth, minerals, and laborers
Columbian Exchange
Trade between the old world and the new world. Americas got sugar cane, pigs, horses, iron implements, small pox and measles. Europeans got corn, tobacco, potatos, tomatos
Conquistadores
Spanish explorers
Treaty of Tordesillas
1494 The agreement between Spain and Portugal dividing the right to colonize all the land outside of Europe
Colonists Motives
Colonists wanted political liberty, religious freedom, and economic opportunity
Growth of Slavery
Slavery grew in the colonies because the colonists needed workers who were natives to work on the cash crop fields this led to an influx of African slaves because they were already exposed to European diseases making disease less of an issue
Bartolome de las Casas
An early spanish historian who was the first to expose the oppression of the indigenous people by Europeans in the Americas and called for the abolition of slavery in the Americas
Valladolid Debate
A moral and theological debate held in Valladolid about the conquest of the Americas and the justification of catholicism conversions
Juan Ginés de Sepúlved
A humanist lawyer who justified the treatment of natives saying they were “natural slaves” and that spanish presence would benefit them in New World
Black Legend
A style of propaganda that criticized the Spanish Empire which accused them of cruelty and intolerance
Puritan Beliefs
Puritans believed that God expected them to live according to scriptures and set a good example that would cause those in Europe to change their sinful ways
Religious Tolerance
Unlike Europe in the Americas there was religious tolerance hence why people fled to the Americas to flee religious persecution
Roger Williams
Went from England to Boston to Rhode Island.
he founded the community of Providence (part of Rhode Island). Started one of the first baptist churches.
Jonathan Edwards
A congregationalist pastor in one of the most significant churches in New England and remained an influential philosophical theologian
George Whitefield
He ignited the first Great Awakening, a major religious revival that changed the way people experienced and viewed God
Colonial Government
Colonial legislature was elected by property holding men while governors were appointed by the kind and had almost complete authority
Jamestown
Economic empire most grew tobacco (in Virginia)
Plymouth
Used for agriculture, fishing, and trading (Southeast of Boston)
Indentured Servants
A form of labor where an individual is contracted to work without a salary to repay an indentured loan within a certain timeframe (many people worked as indentured servants to work off having their passage to America paid for)
Navigation Laws
Acts of Parliament intended to promote self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial export to England decreasing the colonies dependence on foreign imported goods
Mercantilism
A form of economic nationalism that is used to increase the prosperity and power of a nation through restricting trade practices
Headright System
A legal grant of land that is given to settlers during the period of European colonization
Bacon’s Rebellion
The first uprising in the American colonies (it happened in Virginia because Bacon wanted to remove all the natives from the colony)
