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