AP US History - Full Course Review

Joint Stock Company

A business venture in which a group of investors pooled their money to start a colony.

Imperial/Empire

A country, usually ruled by a king or queen which often has many colonies.

Witch

A person who made a pact with the devil. This was a Puritan belief.

Indentured Servant

A person who worked for a set period of time (usually a few years) in order to pay off his or her debt for passage to America. They were often cheated and became a growing, disaffected, landless, class of people.

Puritanism

A political and religious movement that stressed that an omnipotent god predestined some people for salvation and others for eternal damnation. The followers of this movement helped found colonies in America and began the English Civil War.

Staple Crop

A primary plant that is grown for food.

Great Awakening

A revival of interest in religion in the 1750s and 1760s that shook up the established churches in the American colonies.

Resistance

Actions that push back against unwelcome laws or policies.

Alliance

Agreement between groups or nations.

Quaker

Know to themselves as "Friends" this religious group rejected the idea of ministers and religious leaders, believing instead that every person had and equally valid interpretation of Christian scripture. They were followers of William Penn in America.

Navigation Acts

Laws passed by the British parliament establishing the mercantilist system.

John Smith

first leader of Jamestown

Sir Francis Drake

from England; attacked Spanish ships to seize their gold and silver; also attacked Spanish settlements on Peru's coast

Sir Walter Raleigh

from England; tried to establish a settlement at Roanoke Island in 1587 but failed

Jacques Cartiers

explored St. Lawrence River from 1534-1542

Woodland Native Americans

tribe east of the Mississippi River; rich food supply

Incas

tribe from Peru

Aztecs

tribe from central Mexico; its capital is Tenochtitlan

Mayans

tribe from the Yucatan Peninsula (Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico)

League of Iroquois

tribes that formed a political confederacy in present-day NY; attacked by Europeans and NA in 1600s and 1700s

Southern Colonies

(MA, VA, NC, SC, GA) Plantations, tobacco, slavery, cavaliers

New England

(NH, MA, CT, RI) Puritans, Small Farms, Commerce, Families

Middle Colonies

(NY, NJ, PA, DE)

Mayflower Compact

An document signed by the men of the Pilgrims in Plymouth that agreed that they would be ruled by representative government.

Mixed Economy

An economy based on the production of various crops and goods.

Export Economy

An economy which relies on the production of goods that will be transported to other markets for sale.

James Oglethorpe

British member of Parliament who worked to establish Georgia as a colony for indebted people who would otherwise end up in prison.

Seven Years War/French and Indian War

Conflict between England and France (including Native Americans who fought on both sides) between 1756-1763 that ended with the defeat of the French and the loss of all her American colonies to the English.

Bacon's Rebellion

Conflict led by Nathaniel Bacon alternatively fighting Native Americans and the British colonial governor of Virginia. The rebels had a very loose set of objectives, but were supported in large part by angry workers who were suffering during a period of economic depression.

Dissent

Dissatisfaction, usually shared openly.

John Winthrop

Early leader of the Puritan colonies in New England.

House of Burgesses

Ellected assembly of representatives in the colonies.

Henry Hudson

English seaman who sought a northwest passage; sailed up a broad river in 1609 and claimed land that would be New Amsterdam; Dutch West India Company took control of this region

Samuel de Champlain

Father of New France; founded the first permanent French settlement in America in 1608 at Quebec

Benjamin Franklin

First "American." Enlightenment thinker, writer, publisher, political leader, inventor, face on the $100 bill.

Plymouth

First New England colony settled by the Pilgrims in 1620

Jamestown

First successful English colony, established as a for-profit business

In Perpetuity

Forever

John Smith

Founder of Jamestown

Lord Baltimore

Founder of Maryland who wanted to create a safe haven for Catholics.

Peter Stuyvesat

Founder of New Amsterdam (New York)

Roger Williams

Founder of Rhode Island who advocated religious tolerance, fair treatment of Native Americans and the abolition of slavery.

Sioux and Pawnee

Great Plain Tribes

Autonomous/Autonomy

Having self-government while remaining associated with a larger political body.

Economic

Having to do with business and commerce.

Cultural

Having to do with cultural differences and identities.

Geographic

Having to do with land and locations.

Demographic

Having to do with people and populations.

Racial

Having to do with racial identities.

Philosophical

Having to do with thinking and ideas.

Christopher Columbus

Italian explorer who founded the New World in 1492, after he got the support of Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain.

John Cabot

Italian sea captain; explored the coast of Newfoundland in 1497 under contract by King Henry VII

Homogeneous

Mixed

Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian

Mound-building societies that evolved in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys among others.

St. Augustine

Oldest city of America (Spanish)

Chattel

Personal positions or property. Often used to describe slavery in the Americas.

William Bradford

Pilgram and founder of the Plymouth colony.

Albany Plan

Plan put forward by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 to unite the American colonies under one leader, appointed by the King, to establish common defense and relationships with Native Americans. The plan failed to gain support from the various colonies.

King William's and Queen Anne's Wars

Political wars between the great powers of Europe. The American colonies were drawn into these conflicts but little came of them except hardship.

Vaso da Gama

Portuguese sea captain who was the first person to reach India by Prince Henry the Navigator's sea route in 1498

Henry the Navigator

Prince of Portugal who founded a sea route along south Africa's Cape of Good Hope

WIlliam Penn

Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania

Commodities

Raw materials or primary agricultural products that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee.

Spectral Evidence

Reports of dreams as evidence in a trial. Used especially in the trial of witches.

Massachusetts Bay

Second, larger and more successful New England colony founded by the Puritans of the Great Migration.

Accommodation

Something that is given to satisfy a grievance.

Triangle Trade

The trade of goods between the Caribbean Islands, Africa and New England including rum, slaves and molassas.

Ferdinand Magellan

Spanish explorer who circumnavigated the world

Hernan Cortes

Spanish explorer who conquered the Aztecs in Mexico

Francisco Pizzaro

Spanish explorer who conquered the Incas in Peru

Father Junipero Serra

Spanish explorer who established nine settlements along the California coast in 1784

Vasco Nunez of Balboa

Spanish explorer who sailed from Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean

Protestant Reformation

Split in the Catholic church in Europe in the early 1500s

Catholicism

The Christian church based in Rome that is the direct successor to the founders of Christianity. The movement is lead by the Pope.

Parliament

The body of elected representatives that, together with the King, ruled England and its colonies.

Middle Passage

The crossing from Africa to the Americas that was traveled by slave ships.

Colonization

The establishment of cities, settlements, farms, etc. in a distant land.

Penn's Holy Experiment

The foundation of Pennsylvania by William Penn in which he created a government that included personal liberties such as freedom from persecution, no taxation with representation, elected representatives and due process of law.

City on a Hill

The idea that the Puritan colonies in New England should serve as an example of a godly settlement on Earth.

Great Migration

The movement of thousands of Puritans to New England in the early 1600s.

Protestantism

The movement to reform the Catholic church and also to separate from it. Calvinists, Puritans, Pilgrims, Lutherans, and many others are part of this movement.

Hierarchical/Hierarchy

The order or ranking of things.

Racial Hierarchy

The ordering of society based on race (usually Whites on top and Blacks and Native Americans at the bottom)

The Enlightenment

The period of new thinking that took place in Europe and spread to America in the 1700s. Often called the "Age of Reason" thinkers of this time included Locke, Newton, Voltaire.

Anglicization/Anglo

The process of making something more English.

Enumerated Goods

The products of the American colonies that were considered so valuable in England that the law specifically stated they could only be shipped to British ports.

Glorious Revolution

The removal of the unpopular Governor Andros in New England when his supporter, the Catholic King James II, was removed from power. In other colonies the rebellion was less peaceful.

Headright

The right of first born sons in England to inherit all of the family's property.

Racial Gradation

The system of assigning names to various combinations of racial backgrounds, which was especially common in Spanish America.

Mercantilism

The system of trade in which a colony only does business with the "mother country."

Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty in which the pope draw a vertical line through dividing the world between Spain and Portugal, A 1494 agreement between Portugal and Spain, declaring that newly discovered lands to the west of an imaginary line in the Atlantic Ocean would belong to Spain and newly discovered lands to the east of the line would belong to Portugal. The line cut through South America which is why Brazilians speak Portuguese.

smallpox and measles

Two European diseases which killed more than 90% of Native Americans

King George's War

War from 1743-1748 between the English and French that demonstrated that the American colonists could fight when they captured the French fort at Louisbourg, but ended with dissatisfaction when the English government gave the fort back to the French as part of the peace treaty that ended the conflict.

Religious Tolerance

When groups of people who follow different religious live together without fighting over those religious differences.

Giovanni da Verrazano

When the French monarchy sponsored this explorer in 1524, this was the first sign of French interest in the New World. They had hoped to find a passage to Asia.

1492

Year Isabella and Ferdinand defeated the Moors of Granada and Columbus first sailed to America

Nation state

a country in which the majority of the people share both a common culture and a common political loyalty toward a centralized government

encomienda system

a system developed by the Spanish in which the king of Spain gave grants of land and Indians to individual Spaniards; NA were basically slaves

Cahokia

largest settlement (near-east St. Louis)

Pueblos

southwest tribe that lived in multi-storied buildings with intricate irrigation systems