Period 2 Terms

Question 1

Dutch East India Company

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

Mestizos

Answer 2

A term for people of mixed Spanish and American Indian heritage.

Question 3

Pueblo Revolt

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

Indentured servants

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Bacon’s Rebellion

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Sir William Berkeley

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

House of Burgesses

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

Jamestown

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Triangular Trade

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

Middle Passage

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Stono Rebellion

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

Virginia Company

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Pequot War

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

King Philip’s War

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Headright system

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Proprietary colony

Answer 16

A colony in which the crown allotted land and governmental command to one person. Maryland under Lord Baltimore is an example of it.

Question 17

Lord Baltimore

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Pilgrims

Answer 18

The first Puritans to colonize the New World. Settled at Plymouth. Members of a minority group of Puritans known as separatists.

Question 19

Separatists

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Plymouth

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Mayflower Compact

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

Massachusetts Bay Company

Answer 22

Founded in 1629 by a collective of London financiers, who advocated for the Puritan cause and wanted to profit from American Indian trade.

Question 23

Anne Hutchinson

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

William Penn

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

Quakers

Answer 25

Formally known as the “Society of Friends.” A Protestant church that advocated that everyone was equal, including women, Africans, and American Indians.

Question 26

James Oglethorpe

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Mercantilism

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Navigation Acts

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

Great Awakening

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

Jonathan Edwards

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

George Whitefield

Answer 31

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.