AP U.S. History - Section III. New England Colonies

Massachusetts Bay Colony

In 1629, King Charles gave the Puritans a right to settle and govern a colony in the Massachusetts Bay area. The colony established political freedom and a representative government.

Mayflower Compact

Established in 1620, it the Mayflower Compact was the first agreement for self-government in America. It was signed by the 41 men on the Mayflower and set up a government for the Plymouth colony.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut set up a unified government for the towns of the Connecticut area (Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield). It was the first constitution written in America.

William Bradford

Bradford was a pilgrim and the second governor of the Plymouth colony, 1621-1657. He developed private land ownership, helped colonists get out of debt, assisted the colony in surviving droughts, crop failures, and Indian attacks.

Sir Edmund Andros

Andros was the governor of the Dominion of New England from 1686 until 1692, when the colonists rebelled and forced him to return to England.

Ann Hutchinson

Ann Hutchinson preached the idea that God communicated directly to individuals instead of through the church elders. She was forced to leave Massachusetts in 1637. Her followers (the Antinomianists) founded the colony of New Hampshire in 1639.

Antimonianism

Antimonianism was started by Anne Hutchinson. It was the idea that God communicated directly to individuals instead of through the church elders

Calvinism

Calvinism follows the doctrines and teachings of John Calvin or his followers, emphasizing predestination, the sovereignty of God, the supreme authority of the Scriptures, and the irresistibility of grace.

Thomas Hooker

Hooker was one of the founders of Hartford. He was called "the father of American democracy" because he said that people have a right to choose their magistrates.

Cambridge Agreement

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

Cambridge Platform

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

Roger Williams

In 1635, Williams left the Massachusetts colony and purchased the land from a neighboring Indian tribe to found the colony of Rhode Island. Rhode Island was the only colony at that time to offer complete religious freedom.

King Philip's War (Metacom's War)

In 1675, this was a series of battles in New Hampshire between the colonists and the Wompanowogs, led by a chief known as King Philip. The war was started when the Massachusetts government tried to assert court jurisdiction over the local Indians. The colonists won with the help of the Mohawks, and this victory opened up additional Indian lands for expansion.

Dominion of New England

In 1686, the British government combined the colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut into a single province headed by a royal governor (Andros). The Dominion ended in 1692, when the colonists revolted and drove out Governor Andros.

Brattle Street Church

In 1698, Brattle Street Church was founded by Thomas Brattle. His church differed from the Puritans in that it did not require people to prove that they had achieved grace in order to become full church members.

John Winthrop

John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years of existence. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the government and religion of neighboring colonies.

Massachusetts School of Law

Massachusetts School of Law was the first public education legislation in America. It declared that towns with 50 or more families had to hire a schoolmaster and that towns with over 100 families had to found a grammar school.

Half-Way Covenant

The Half-way Covenant applied to the members of the Puritan colonies who were the children of church members, but who didn't achieve grace themselves. The covenant allowed them to participate in some church affairs.

Scot-Irish

The North American descendants of Protestants from Scotland who migrated to northern Ireland in the 1600s.

Pilgrims

The Pilgrims were separatists who believed that the Church of England could not be reformed. Separatist groups were illegal in England, so the Pilgrims fled to America and settled in Plymouth.

Puritan Great Migration

The Puritan Great Migration was when more than 20,000 puritans journeyed from England to Massachusetts due to belief that the church of England was beyond reform.

Puritans

The Puritans were non-separatists who wished to adopt reforms to purify the Church of England. They received a right to settle in the Massachusetts Bay area from the King of England.

Virginia Company of Plymouth

The Virginia Company formed Virgina as a profit-earning venture. Starvation was the major problem; about 90% of the colonists died the first year, many of the survivors left, and the company had trouble attracting new colonists. They offered private land ownership in the colony to attract settlers, but the Virginia Company eventually went bankrupt and the colony went to the crown.

"City Upon a Hill"

The term "city on a hill" was initially said by John Winthrop. The concept became central to the United States' conception of itself as an exceptional and exemplary nation. Winthrop articulated his vision of the prospective Puritan colony in New England as "a city upon a hill": an example to England and the world of a truly godly society.

New England Confederation, 1643

This formed to provide for the defense of the four New England colonies, and also acted as a court in disputes between colonies.

Congregational Church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. Many Congregational churches claim their descent from a family of Protestant denominations formed on a theory of union published by the theologian Robert Browne in 1592. These arose from the Nonconformist religious movement during the Puritan reformation of the Church of England. In Great Britain, the early congregationalists were called separatists or independents to distinguish them from the similarly Calvinistic Presbyterians. Some congregationalists in Britain still call themselves Independent. Congregational churches were widely established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, later New England. It was the national church of England, founded by King Henry VIII, including both Roman Catholic and Protestant ideas.

John Davenport

Davenport was a puritan clergyman and co-founder of the American colony of New Haven. In 1637 he acquired the patent for a colony in Massachusetts and sailed with much of his congregation for Boston. In March of 1638 he co-founded the Colony of New Haven. He was an important figure in the colony up until his departure to Boston in 1669.

General Courts of Massachusetts

General Courts of Massachusetts is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when the colonial assembly, in addition to making laws, sat as a judicial court of appeals. Before the adoption of the state constitution in 1780, it was called the Great and General Court, but the official title was shortened by John Adams, author of the state constitution, apparently in the name of republican simplicity.[citation needed] It is a bicameral body.

Creation of Colonial Universities

Harvard was founded in 1636 by a grant from the Massachusetts general court. It followed Puritan beliefs.

Church of England

Much of the religious disaffection that found its way across the Atlantic Ocean stemmed from disagreements within the Anglican Church, as the Church of England was called. Those who sought to reform Anglican religious practices—to "purify" the church—became known as Puritans. They argued that the Church of England was following religious practices that too closely resembled Catholicism both in structure and ceremony. The Anglican clergy was organized along episcopalian lines, with a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops. Puritans called for a congregationalist structure in which each individual church would be largely self-governing.

New England Town

New England towns consisted of a common where old buildings and shops were built around an empty field in the center of the town. People utilized this field as a pasture for animals.

Plymouth

Plymouth was the first permanent European settlement in New England, founded by the Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower.

Covenant Theology

Puritan teachings emphasized the biblical covenants: God's covenants with Adam and with Noah, the covenant of grace between God and man through Christ.

Saybrook Platform

Saybrook Platform organized town churches into county associations which sent delegates to the annual assembly that governed the colony of Connecticut.

Separatists

Separatists (which included the Pilgrims) believed that the Church of England could not be reformed, and so started their own congregations.