us history Flashcards
Parliament
England’s national legislature or lawmaking body.
Privy Council
a group of royal advisers that set English policies in
the colonies.
bicameral legislature
a lawmaking body made up of two houses or groups.
House of Burgesses
the Virginia assembly’s second house. The members of this house were elected by colonists to represent Virginia’s plantations and towns. (First representative legislature in the English colonies.)
town meeting
a political body in New England where people talked about and decided issues of local interest, such as paying for schools and regulated other important issues such as the ownership and use of unsettled land.
John Peter Zenger
a man who criticized the royal governor of New York in his newspaper. He was charged with libel (printing a false written statement that damaged the governor’s reputation). His court case dealt with the issue of freedom of the press and was important in establishing the idea in the colonies that they could print information as long as it was true.
Dominion of New England
In 1686 James II of England united the northern colonies under one government which eventually included the colonies of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
