Roots of American History Flashcards
Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther and his followers protested the Catholic teachings and split from the Catholic church
Columbian Exchange
The trade or exchange of food, medicine, government, technology, arts and language between the Americas and Europe. Native Americans were introduced to domestic animals (chickens, horses, cattle) and food (bananas, oranges), but also were killed by diseases brought by Europeans (small pox, flu). Settlers soon joined the Native Americans in their lands.
Northwest Passage - Purpose of
The purpose of The Northwest Passage was to find a shorter route through or around North America to Asia
Lost Colony of Roanoke
English colony founded on an island off the coast of Virginia. The inhabitants disappeared and no one knows what happened to them.
Jamestown colony
The first permanent English colony located in Virginia
John Smith & Pocahontas
Captain John Smith was the leader of Jamestown whose stern rules helped save the colony. No work = no food.
Pocahontas was a daughter of a powerful Indian Chief, Powhatan. She married an English colonist, John Rolfe.
Joint Stock Company
a company whose stock is jointly owned by the shareholders.
John Rolfe & Significance of Tobacco to Jamestown
John Rolfe was a tobacco farmer and the husband of Pocahontas.
Jamestown was struggling economically until they were able to start selling tobacco in Europe. Tobacco helped save Jamestown.
1619 - Slaves first come to Virginia
15 black men and 17 black women were living there
House of Burgesses
A burgess is a Virginia representative elected by Virginia colonist
House of Burgess was the assembly where laws were made along with the governor and his council.
Reasons Pilgrims Migrated to America
Wanted to practice their religion freely (religious freedom)
Escape religious persecution in Europe
The Pilgrims at Plymouth
In November 1620, Pilgrims landed on the bleak shore of Cape Cod. When they landed, it was very cold and they were not prepared. They built homes out of sod and nearly starved to death. Almost 50% of the settlers died because of disease or starvation. In the Spring, the local Indians helped them.
The Mayflower Compact
The Pilgrims were supposed to settle in Virginia which had a government. In Plymouth, there was no government or laws, so they had to create them. This was called the Mayflower Compact. It was a framework for governing their colony.
Squanto and Samoset
Pilgrims met Samoset, a Pemaquid Indian, who along with Squanto, a Wampanoag Indian, taught them to grow crops and catch eel.
Puritans & Massachusetts Bay Colony
In 1629, Puritans landed in Massachusetts Bay Colony. They left England because they thought the Church of England had many practices similar to the Catholic Church. They wanted to start a new society in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Paradox of Religious Freedom in Massachusetts
Massachusetts was settled because people wanted religious freedom. However, the Puritans did not want people to practice any religion but their own and they kicked people out. The Puritans did not want to give religious freedom to others.
Opposition to Puritans (Hooker, Williams, Hutchinson)
Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts Bay Colony (MBC) and founded Connecticut
Roger Williams founded Rhode Island. Both wanted colonies that practiced religious tolerance.
Anne Hutchinson fled to Rhode Island after being tried for breaking Puritan laws. She did not agree with some of the sermons in church. She was ultimately forced to move to Rhode Island.
Indian Resistance to New England Settlers
As more settlers came to New England, they started taking over more and more Indian lands. The Chief of the Wampanoag got mad and started torching villages. Other tribes joined in. The Chief was finally killed and his and his family along with a 1,000 other indians were sold into slavery.
Emergence of the Middle Colonies (NY, NJ, PA, DE)
The Dutch settled New Netherland where New Amsterdam into a thriving port. The English attacked it and took it over. The colony was renamed New York as the King of England gave it to his brother, the Duke of York.
New York was too big to govern, so they split it into two pieces. The other piece was New Jersey.
William Penn, a friend of English King, founded Pennsylvania in 1681. Penn was a Quaker.
A portion of Pennsylvania did not want to send delegates to Philadelphia, so Penn allowed them to start their own colony, Delaware.
Proprietary colonies
A colony the king gave to one or more people in return for a yearly payment (like rent). The owner of the colony could rent the land to other people and make laws for the people there. the owner still had to respect the rights of colonists under English law.
Royal colony
A colony under the direct control of the English crown.
The Pennsylvania Experiment
Penn = William Penn who shocked his friends and turned into a Quaker. He founded Pennsylvania.
Quakers were Protestant reformers who believed everyone (noble, poor, men, women) was equal in God’s eyes.
Tolerance = Penn was very tolerant of all people and thought they were all equal in God’s eyes. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews were all allowed to live in Pennsylvania.
Pacifism = Quakers spoke out against war and refused to serve in the army
Cash Crops
Crops that are sold at a market for cash. Examples: wheat, barley, rye
Emergence of the Southern Colonies (MD, VA, NC, SC, GA)
Colonies south of the Mason-Dixon line were considered southern colonies.
MD was set up initially for a place for Catholics
NC was settled by mostly poor tobacco farmers moving south from VA
SC was settled by 8 English nobles
GA was set up by James Oglethorpe so people who could not pay back their debts could start over.
By 1700, plantations in the Southern colonies had come to rely on slave labor.
The economy of the Southern colonies was based largely on agriculture
Slave codes treated enslaved Africans as property and not as humans
The belief that one race is superior to another is called racism
The Middle Passage
In the 1700s, English sailors called the passage of slave ships from Africa to the colonies as the Middle Passage
Significance of Triangular Trade
The Triangular Trade helped fund the slave trade.
New England would ship/sell livestock, lumber, etc. to the West Indies. In the West Indies, the colonists would buy sugar and molasses, which they turned into rum. They then shipped/sold the rum, guns, clothes, etc. to West Africa where they would use that money to buy slaves. They would ship the slaves from Africa to the West Indies and sell them to buy more sugar and molasses.
Exports & Imports
Exports are goods sent to markets outside a country.
Imports are goods brought into a country (e.g., Toyota car)
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a religious movement that swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.
Preachers told people they should examine their lives and repent for their sins. People who supported the movement separated from their churches and started new ones. Many churches were created and forced colonists to be tolerant of many different religious.
This made people feel more independent and free to challenge authority. Ultimately, this feeling would help fuel the colonists willingness to challenge British authority.
The Enlightenment
in the late 1600s and 1700s, European thinkers believed that reason and scientific methods could be applied to the study of society.
Benjamin Franklin is an example of the Enlightenment spirit. He wanted to improve the world around him. He created devices like a lightning rod, bifocal eyeglasses. He had Philadelphia create fire departments and pave streets.
