Unit 2: American Origins Flashcards
Dominican priest who in the early 1500s criticized the cruelty of
Spanish policy toward Indians; denounced Spanish actions for their brutality and insensitivity. His criticism helped end the encomienda system.
Bartolomé de Las Casas
Claimed islands in the Caribbean for Spain 1492-1504. He
established Spanish empire as he sought a western passage to the Indies. A poor administrator, he died disgraced in 1506.
Christopher Columbus
Early Spanish colonial system where officials provided protection to Indian populations in return for their labor and production; really a form of slavery that lasted until the mid 1500s; stopped because of exploitation and inefficiency.
Encomienda System
Conquered Aztecs in Mexico. He captured the capital of
Tenochititlán, with its leader Montezuma in 1521; pillaged and
destroyed the Aztec civilization.
Hernándo Cortés
Louis XIV’s minister who rejuvenated the French empire in the
Western Hemisphere. In 1660s, he reorganized and strengthened the colonies of New France.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Mythical water route to Asia. The search for the western path to India and China propelled the encounters and exploration of the Western Hemisphere in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Northwest Passage
Indian uprising in New Mexico in 1680 against Spain and the Catholic Church. Rebels killed 400 colonists, destroyed mission around Santa Fe; held off the Spanish for 14 years.
Pueblo Revolt
British writer who, in the 1580s, encouraged England to explore and settle in North America. His writings prompted England to embark on its North American empire.
Richard Hakluyt
An act passed in Maryland in 1649 that granted freedom of worship to all Christians; although it was enacted to protect the Catholic minority in Maryland, it was a benchmark of religious freedom in all the colonies. It did not extend to non-Christians, however.
Act of Toleration
Charismatic colonist in Massachusetts Bay who questioned whether one could achieve salvation solely by good works; she led the Antinomian controversy by challenging the clergy and the laws of the colony. She was banished from Massachusetts in 1638 and was killed by Indians in 1643.
Anne Hutchinson
Church of England started by King Henry VIII in 1533; the monarch was head of the church, which was strongest in North America in the Southern Colonies. By 1776, it was the second-largest church in America behind the Congregationalists.
Anglican Church
Attacks by frontiersmen led by Nathaniel Bacon against the Native Americans in the Virginia backcountry; when the governor opposed Bacon’s action, Bacon attacked Jamestown, burned it, and briefly deposed the governor before the rebellion fizzled. This revolt is often viewed as the first strike against insensitive British policy, as a clash between East and West, and as evidence of the dangers of the indentured-servant system.
Bacon’s Rebellion
Believed the Anglican Church retained too many Catholic ideas and sought to purify the Church of England; the Puritans believed in predestination (man saved or damned at birth) and also held that God was watchful and granted salvation only to those who adhered to His goodness as interpreted by the church. The Puritans were strong in New England and very intolerant of other religious groups.
Congregationalist (Puritans)
Religious revival in the colonies in 1730s and 1740s; George
Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards preached a message of atonement for sins by admitting them to God. The movement attempted to combat the growing secularism and rationalism of mid-eighteenth century America.
First Great Awakening
Puritan response to the dilemma of what to do with the children born to nonchurch members as fewer and fewer Puritans sought full membership (visible sainthood) in the church; leaders allowed such children to be baptized, but they could not take communion, nor could nonchurch males vote in government/church affairs.
Halfway Covenant
Means of attracting settlers to colonial America; the system gave land to a family head and to anyone he sponsored coming to the colony, including indentured servants. The amount of land varied from fifty to two-hundred acres per person.
Headright System
