ch 2 vocab

magna carta

1215 An English document drawn up by nobles under King John that limited the power of the king. Its limitation of government power influenced later constitutional documents in Britain and America.

board of trade aka the privy council

1600s-1700s Advisors to the king who regulated British trade during the 1600s and 1700s.

praying towns

1600s-1700s Christianized Native American settlements that were supervised by New England Puritans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

the colony of virginia

1607 The colony was formed by the Virginia Company as a profit-earning venture and many of the settlers were gentlemen and not used to heavy labor.. • Starvation was the major problem; a majority of the colonists died the first year, many of the survivors left, and the company had trouble attracting new colonists. • The company offered private land ownership in the colony to attract settlers, but the Virginia Company eventually went bankrupt and the colony reverted to the Crown. • Virginia did not become a successful colony until the colonists started raising and exporting tobacco.

rhode island/roger williams

1631 Williams, a respected Puritan minister, believed an individual's conscience was beyond control of any civil or church authority. • William was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then founded Providence and Rhode Island that allowed complete religious freedom.

connecticut/thomas hooker

1635 A Puritan clergyman and one of the founders of the Hartford colony in Connecticut. Thomas Hooker was called the "Father of American democracy" because he said that people have a right to choose their magistrates.

fundamental orders of connecticut

1639 Hartford settlers drew up this first written constitution in American history that established a representative government made up of a legislature elected by popular vote and a governor chosen by the legislature.

cavaliers

1642-1647 In the English Civil War, these were the troops loyal to Charles I. Their opponents were the Roundheads, loyal to Parliament and Oliver Cromwell.

new england confederation

1643-1684 A military alliance of four colonies: Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven. The purpose of the Confederation was to protect themselves from Indians. • This was the first step in cooperation among the colonies, although the confederation ended in 1684.

navigation acts

1650-1775 British acts of 1650, 1651, 1660, that along with the Staple Act of 1663 created three primary regulations to govern colonial trade. They provided that 1) all colonial goods imported into England had to be transported on English ships using largely English crews; 2) Specific colonial goods could only be shipped to England or another English colony; and 3) The Staple Act stated all enumerated goods imported into the colonies had to pass through England. The Navigation Act of 1660 also explicitly taxed colonial tobacco two pence on every pound and these tobacco taxes made up about 25% of all English customs revenues in the 1660's. The Navigation Acts created tension between the colonies and monarchy in the decades leading up to the American Revolution.

quakers

1650s Christian sect also called the Society of Friends that originated in mid-seventeenth century England. Quakers believed in the guidance of an inner light from God and rejected formal theology. They believed all human beings were capable of achieving salvation. • Quakers upheld the principles of social equality and pacifism and played an active role in American reform movements, especially abolition.

restoration

1660 Name given to the reign of Charles II, king of England whom Parliament crowned in 1660 after a decade of Puritan rule under Oliver Cromwell. Many Puritan followers of Cromwell immigrated to the New World after Charles took the throne.

antinomian

A person who does not obey societal or religious law. In colonial Massachusetts, Puritan authorities labeled Anne Hutchinson one, accusing her of believing that Christians did not necessarily need to act in accordance with God's law or the laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony but could achieve salvation by faith alone.

congregational church

Puritan churches gradually moved away from the Anglican Church of England and formed a new Protestant sect known as the Congregational Church which was organized around the concept that each individual congregation or local church was self-governing.

miscegenation

Sexual mixing of races, especially between a white man and a black woman. It was common for slave masters to engage in liaisons with their female slaves despite the social stigma and laws against interracial sex. Laws against miscegenation were kept in many states until the 1950's.

elect

The belief that God had decided or "predestined" the fates of all people before they were born and chosen a few "elect" men and women for salvation and condemned the rest to damnation.

charter colonies

founded by a government charter granted to a company or a group of people. • Virginia and Massachusetts Bay Colony were charter colonies. The British government had some control over charter colonies.

tobacco

1612 Staple crop of the southern American colonies that was first commercially produced in Virginia in 1612. Tobacco was vital to the economy of the British empire and to the success of Virginia. • Tobacco flourished despite the fact that it was a luxury item and many saw it as harmful to health and family life. • Production and distribution expanded quickly, this ultimately led to a drop in price and profits by the 1640's. After the 1640's colonists continued to grow tobacco, but also added other crops such as cotton, rice, and indigo.

anne bradstreet

1612-1672 A Puritan and the first colonial poet to be published. The primary subjects of her poetry were family, home, and religion.

headright system

1617 Program started by the Virginia Company that granted every head of a household fifty acres for himself and fifty additional acres for every adult member of his family or servant brought into the colony of Virginia. • The headright system was adopted in Maryland and Virginia because of labor shortages.

house of burgesses

1619 The Virginia House of Burgesses was formed in 1619. This was the first representative government group in the colonies.

slavery

1619 The first African slaves in America arrived in the Virginia colony. (See Slavery summary for additional information)

mayflower compact

1620 Document signed by the Pilgrims who came over on the "Mayflower" which established a civil government and proclaimed their allegiance to the King. • The Compact was notable for being one of the earliest examples of self-government in the English colonies.

pilgrims

1620 One of the first Protestant groups to come to America. They desired separation from the Church of England. In 1620, Pilgrims founded Plymouth, the first permanent community in New England.

william bradford

1621-1657 A Pilgrim, he brought settlers over on the "Mayflower." He was the second governor of the Plymouth Colony, and under Bradford's leadership Plymouth developed private land ownership and the colony got out of debt. He helped the colony survive droughts, crop failures, and Indian attacks.

petition of right

1628 A document drawn up by Parliament's House of Commons that listed grievances against King Charles I and extended Parliament's powers while limiting the king's. • It gave Parliament authority over taxation, declared that free citizens could not be arrested without cause, declared that soldiers could not be quartered in private homes without compensation, and said that martial law could not be declared during peacetime.

cambridge agreement

1629 The Puritan stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company agreed to immigrate to New England on the condition that they would have control of the government of the colony.

a model of christian charity aka city on a hill

1630 A Biblical phrase from the New Testament of the Bible used by Puritan leader John Winthrop to articulate his vision for the Puritans' Massachusetts settlement. • Winthrop wanted the emigrants to found an exemplary Christian community, a "city on a hill"- that would serve as a beacon for the Church of England, which they sought to reform from within.

john winthrop

1630 He became the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and served in that capacity from 1630- 1649. • A Puritan with strong religious beliefs, Winthrop opposed total democracy because he believed the colony was best governed by a small group of skillful leaders. • He helped organize the New England Confederation in 1643 and served as its first president. (See NE Confederation below)

massachusetts bay colony

1630 In 1629, King Charles gave the Puritans the right to settle and govern a colony in the Massachusetts Bay area. In 1630, about a thousand Puritans led by John Winthrop sailed for Massachusetts, founded Boston, and surrounding towns. The colony established political freedom and a representative government.

anne hutchinson/antinomianism

1630s An intelligent, charismatic woman from a substantial Boston family, Hutchinson preached against many clergy; led a large group of supporters; finally expelled from Massachusetts Bay, and went to Rhode Island. • Antinomianism was the name given to her teachings, from the Greek "hostile to the law: Hutchinson said people should be ruled by conscience. (See Antinomian on next page)

puritan migration aka great migration

1630s-1640s Approximately 15,000 Puritans migrated from England to America in the 1630's and 1640's, led by John Winthrop. During this period, the population of the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew to ten times its earlier population.

covenant/covenant theology

1630s-late 1600s A politically or religiously based agreement or pact. The Pilgrims used this term in the Mayflower Compact to refer to the agreement among themselves to establish a law-abiding community in which all members would work together for the common good. • Later, New England Puritans used this term to refer to the agreement they made with God and each other to live according to God's will as revealed through Scripture. • Early New England settlers saw their occupation of new lands as a religious pilgrimage ordained by God. Puritan teachings emphasized the Biblical covenants: God's covenants with Adam and with Noah, and the covenant of grace between God and man through Christ.

town meeting

1630s-present Political process used in New England to govern towns. A town's inhabitants and freemen elected selectmen and other town officials to handle local affairs. • In the seventeenth century, town meetings offered a striking level of popular participation. Nearly every adult male church member could speak and vote, although women were denied this privilege. • This was the most direct form of democracy in America and town meetings are still held in some New England towns today.

voting granted to church members

1631 The Massachusetts general court passed an act to limit voting rights to church members. This was a prime example of the influence welded by the Puritan church on the political leadership of the colony.

halfway covenant

1662 A Puritan compromise that allowed the unconverted children of Puritans who had fallen away from the church to become halfway members of the church. The Covenant allowed these halfway members to baptize their own children even though they themselves were not full members of the church because they had not experienced full conversion. • Massachusetts ministers accepted this compromise and it signified a drop in the religious zeal or mission that had characterized Massachusetts in its change in the religious character of New England Society.

the carolinas

1663 Colonies founded during the Restoration period in England. As a reward for helping Charles II regain the throne, the king granted this land to 8 nobles in 1663. The southern region of the Carolinas grew rich off its ties to the sugar islands, while the poorer northern region was composed mainly of farmers. The conflicts between the regions eventually led in 1729 to the two Carolinas being formed, North and South.

new york colony/peter stuyvesant

1664 New York belonged to the Dutch, but King Charles II gave the land to his brother, James the Duke of York in 1664. When the British came to take the colony, the Dutch, who hated their Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, quickly surrendered to them. The Dutch retook the colony in 1673, but the British regained it in 1674.

bacons rebellion

1667 Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising in Jamestown against Governor William Berkeley of Virginia because he had not protected frontier settlers from Indians and also because the frontier settlers felt they has little voice in government proceedings. Bacon was also angry at being shut out of the profitable fur trade Berkeley and his associates were conducting with the Indians. • Many former indentured servants, who could not afford to buy desirable farmland, were followers of Bacon. • Bacon died of the natural causes, the Rebellion failed and Berkeley took revenge on the protestors. • The near success of Bacon's Rebellion led Virginia planters to think twice about the dangers of a large white landless group of young men as a labor source (former indentured servants who could not afford to buy land) vs. using African slaves.

king phillip's war

1675 The most prolonged and deadly war between whites and Indians along the Eastern seaboard. A series of battles in New Hampshire in 1675 between the colonists and the Wampanoags, led by chief Metacom or "King Philip." The war was started when the Massachusetts government tried to assert court jurisdiction over the local Indians. The colonists won this war with the help of the Mohawks. • The victory opened up additional Indian lands for white expansion, and inflicted a lasting defeat on New England's Indians.

habeas corpus act

1679 British law had traditionally provided a procedure that allowed a person who had been arrested to challenge the legality of his arrest or confinement, called the Writ of Habeas Corpus, or the Great Writ. The Act imposed strict penalties on judges who refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus when there was good cause, and on officers who refused to comply with the writ. • This began the protection of citizens against arbitrary arrest without just cause.

pennsylvania/william penn

1681 William Penn was a Quaker who founded the colony of Pennsylvania to provide refuge to Quakers and other persecuted people, to promote liberal ideas and to make a profit. (See textbook for city of Philadelphia)

dominion of new england/sir edmund andros

1686 Created in 1686 by King James II, the Dominion combined the government of Massachusetts with the governments of the rest of New England colonies, and in 1688 added those of New York and New Jersey. • The purpose was to streamline effective government and punish the area, especially Massachusetts, for excising too much autonomy. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed as the single commander of the Dominion. • Andros was overthrown in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution in England.

english bill of rights

1689 Drawn up by Parliament and presented to King William II and Queen Mary, it listed certain rights of the British people. It also limited the king's powers in taxing and prohibited the maintenance of a standing army in peacetime. • This was a defining moment in British constitutional history since it clearly limited the rights and privileges of the monarch.

leisler's rebellion

1689 When King James II was dethroned and replaced by King William and Mary of the Netherlands, the colonists of New York rebelled and made Jacob Leisler, a militia officer, governor of New York. • Leisler was hanged for treason when royal authority was reinstated in 1691, but the representative assembly that he founded remained part of the government of New York.

civic humanism

1700s Concept that stressed service to the state and government to promote the good of the community. During the European Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period of renewed interest in learning and the arts, this idea of selfless service was thought to be critical in a republic where control was vested in a politically active and committed citizenry. • The concept was poplar among the Founding Fathers and was an important ideology underlying the American constitutional government.

the charter of liberties

1701 set up the government for the Pennsylvania colony. It established representative government and allowed counties to form their own colonies.

georgia/james oglethorpe

1733 Georgia was formed as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish-held Florida. It was a military-style colony, but also served as a haven for the poor, criminals, and persecuted Protestants. The founder and governor of the Georgia colony was James Oglethorpe. • He ran a tightly disciplined, military-like colony. Slaves, alcohol, and Catholicism were forbidden in his colony. • Many colonists felt that Oglethorpe was a dictator and that, along with the colonists' dissatisfaction over not being allowed to own slaves, caused the colony to break down and Oglethorpe to lose his position as governor.

mercantilism

A set of policies that regulated colonial commerce and manufacturing for the benefit of the mother country. Mercantilist policies resulted in the American colonies in the mid-seventeenth century producing agricultural goods and raw materials that were shipped to Britain, where they increased the wealth of Britain through re-exportation or manufacture into finished goods that were sold to the colonies or other countries.

contrast of pilgrims and puritans

Non-separatists: Puritans were Calvinists who clamored for reform in the Church of England; they wanted to "purify" it. Separatists: Pilgrims were Puritan Separatists who thought the Church of England was too corrupt to reform and so they wanted to "separate" from it, so they left England in search of religious freedom.

john smith/john rolfe

One of the leaders of Jamestown, Smith led the colony through starvation. Fellow settler John Rolfe played a crucial role when he helped start the colony growing tobacco and it became the cash crop of Virginia. Rolfe also married the Indian princess Pocahontas.

visible saints

The "elect" men and women God had "predestined" for salvation and who were members of the church.

manumission

The freeing of slaves by their master. Virginia passed a law in 1782 legalizing manumission and assorted anti-slavery societies gained momentum in the 1780's and 1790's. The majority of slave owners, however, did not free their slaves.

mulatto

The offspring of whites and blacks. Relationships between white male slave masters and black female slaves often produced mulatto children in the eighteenth and nineteenth century South.

sex ratios in the colonies

The ratio of men to women was much higher in the early years of settlement, over 75% of the white population in the Chesapeake were men and even in New England over 60% of the white population were men. • By late seventeenth century, the ratio was becoming more balanced, but it was the early eighteenth century before it matched that of England.

pennsylvania, maryland, rhode island

These three colonies provided protections for various persecuted religions. • Pennsylvania that was founded by William Penn, a Quaker, and provided protection for Quakers. • Maryland, which was founded by Lord Baltimore, was a colony where Catholics were free from persecution. • Rhode Island, which was founded by Roger Williams, was a haven for all persecuted religions, including all Christian denominations and Jews.

conversion

When God infused a soul with grace, the person was "born again" and knew salvation was at hand.

holy experiment

William Penn's term for the government of Pennsylvania, which was supposed to serve everyone and provide freedom for all.

proprietary colonies

created through a grant of land by the English monarch to a person or group, who then organized a form of government largely independent from the monarch's control. • Maryland, the Carolinas, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were all proprietary colonies.

royal colonies

formed by the king, so the government had total control over them and by 1700, the majority of proprietary colonies had become royal colonies.