US History
Mayflower Compact
1620 - 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.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
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.
Half-Way Covenant
1690s *Decision by Puritan colony churches to allow the grandchildren of those who did not have the personal experience of conversion to participate in select church affairs *Previously, only the children of those who had experienced conversion could participate *Reflected the decline of zealous piety among New Englanders *Limited membership for any applicant way to address a growing secular problem in New England.
Protestant Reformation
16th century series of religious actions which led to establishment of the Protestant churches. Led by Martin Luther (Northern Catholic King) Martin Luther wrote 95 Thesis which was a list of questions and propositions for debate.This propounded two central beliefs—that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds—was to spark the Protestant Reformation.
Alexander Hamilton
1789-1795; First Secretary of the Treasury. He advocated creation of a national bank, assumption of state debts by the federal government, and a tariff system to pay off the national debt. Burr Duel - Political opponents
Lewis and Clark Expedition
1804-1806 - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were commissioned by Jefferson to map and explore the Louisiana Purchase region. Beginning at St. Louis, Missouri, the expedition travelled up the Missouri River to the Great Divide, and then down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. It produced extensive maps of the area and recorded many scientific discoveries, greatly facilitating later settlement of the region and travel to the Pacific coast. First to explore the Great Plains, explore the Rockies;cross the Continental Divide, reach the Pacific by land. Lewis was Jefferson's personal secretary and Clark was a skilled mapmaker. The expedition left form Ft. St. Louis. Their translator: Sacagawea
Boston Tea Party
A 1773 protest against British taxes in which Boston colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped valuable tea into Boston Harbor.
Anne Hutchinson
A Puritan woman who was well learned that disagreed with the Puritan Church in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her actions resulted in her banishment from the colony, and later took part in the formation of Rhode Island. She displayed the importance of questioning authority.
Continental Congress
A body of representatives from the British North American colonies who met to respond to England's Intolerable Acts. They declared independence in July 1776 and later drafted the Articles of Confederation. Samuel Adams had meetings
Amerigo Vespucci
A mapmaker and explorer from Florence who said that America was a new continent, so America was named after him.
Puritans
A religious group who wanted to purify the Church of England. They came to America for religious freedom and settled Massachusetts Bay. Believed in the strict reading of the Bible and Sermons. Followers of John Calvin (protestant)
Townshend Acts
A tax that the British Parliament passed in 1767 that was placed on leads, glass, paint and tea
Indentured Servitude
A worker bound by a voluntary agreement to work for a specified period of years often in return for free passage to an overseas destination. Before 1800 most were Europeans; after 1800 most indentured laborers were Asians.
Great War for Empire
Also known as the French and Indian War, this was a showdown between England and France for control of North America. With help from the American colonists, the British won this war fought for 7 years.
Abigail and John Adam
Abigail Adams was one of the revolutionary era's most important women. During the War of Independence, she peppered her husband, John Adams, with questions about the progress of the struggle, kept him informed of events in Massachusetts, and offered opinions on political matters. When Adams served as president during the 1790s he relied on her advice more than on members of his cabinet. In March 1776, Abigail Adams wrote her best-known letter to her husband. She urged Congress, when it drew up a new "Code of Laws," to "remember the ladies." All men, she warned, "would be tyrants if they could." At a time when many Americans—slaves, servants, women, Indians, apprentices, propertyless men—were denied full freedom, the struggle against Britain inspired challenges to all sorts of inequalities. As John Adams's reply demonstrates, not all American leaders welcomed this upheaval. To him, it was an affront to the natural order of things. To others, it formed the essence of the American Revolution. Abigail Adams to John Adams BRAINTREE [MASS.], MARCH 31, 1776 I wish you would ever write me a letter half as long as I write you, and tell me if you may where your fleet are gone? What sort of defense Virginia can make against our common enemy? Whether it is so situated as to make an able defense? Are not the gentry lords and the common people vassals, are they not like the uncivilized natives Britain represents us to be? I hope their riflemen who have shown themselves very savage and even blood-thirsty, are not a specimen of the generality of the people. . . . I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain, that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us. . . . I feel very differently at the approach of spring to what I did a month ago. We knew not then whether we could plant or sow with safety, whether when we had toiled we could reap the fruits of our own industry, whether we could rest in our own cottages, or whether we should not be driven from the sea coasts to seek shelter in the wilderness. But now we feel as if we might sit under own vine and eat the good of the land. . . . I think the sun looks brighter, the birds sing more melodiously, and nature puts on a more cheerful countenance. We feel a temporary peace, and the poor fugitives are returning to their deserted habitations. Though we felicitate ourselves, we sympathize with those who are trembling lest the lot of Boston should be theirs. But they cannot be in similar circumstances unless . . . cowardice should take possession of them. They have time and warning given them to see the evil and shun it. I long to hear that you have declared an independency, and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation. That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex. Regard us then as beings placed by providence under your protection and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness. John Adams to Abigail Adams PHILADELPHIA, April 14, 1776 As to Declarations of Independency, be patient. . . . As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere. That children and apprentices were disobedient, that schools and colleges were grown turbulent, that Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment but you are so saucy, I won't blot it out. Depend on it. We know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obligated to go fair, and softly, and in practice you knew we are the subjects. We have only the names of Masters, and rather than give this up, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave (Foner 106-109) Foner, Eric. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History Volume 1, 5th Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 03/2017. VitalBook file.
Declaratory Act
Act passed in 1766 just after the repeal of the Stamp Act. Stated that Parliament could legislate for the colonies in all cases. Parliament could enact any law it wished
Navigation Acts
Acts passed in 1660 passed by British parliament to increase colonial dependence on Great Britain for trade; limited goods that were exported to colonies; caused great resentment in American colonies. Reaction during the 1650s by the English toward the stiff competition of the Dutch.
Sugar Act of 1764
An act that raised tax revenue in the colonies for the crown. It also increased the duty on foreign sugar imported from the West Indies. Tariffs on sugar, wine, coffee
Battle of New Orleans
Andrew Jackson led a battle that occurred when British troops attacked U.S. soldiers in New Orleans on January 8, 1815; the War of 1812 had officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in December, 1814, but word had not yet reached the U.S.
Dutch
Associated with Manhattan Island, New Amsterdam
Britain
Associated with indentured servitude
Thomas Hutchinson
British governor of Massachusetts whose stubborn policies helped provoke the Boston Tea Party "Crown, rather than local legislature would pay my future salary..."
France
Came to the new world for fur trade
Britain
Came to the new world for religous freedom
Spain
Came to the new world searching for the "oro"
Tobacco
Cash crop that made a profit and saved Jamestown- first successful cash crop
Elihu Yale (Yale University 1701)
Connecticut minister who felt Harvard was growing religiously tolerant.
Sending woman to Virginia
English society—stable family life. Given the demand for male servants to work in the tobacco fields, for most of the seventeenth century men in the Chesapeake outnumbered women by four or five to one. The Virginia Company avidly promoted the immigration of women, sending "tobacco brides" to the colony in 1620 and 1621 for arranged marriages (so-called because the husband was ordered to give a payment in tobacco to his wife). The company preferred that the women marry only free, independent colonists. Unlike these women, however, the vast majority of women who emigrated to the region in the seventeenth century came as indentured servants. Since they usually had to complete their terms of service before marrying, they did not begin to form families until their mid-twenties. Virginia remained for many years a society with large numbers of single men, widows, and orphans rather than the family-oriented community the company desired. WE SEND YOU in this ship one widow and eleven maids for wives for the people in Virginia. There hath been especial care had in the choice of them; for there hath not any one of them been received but upon good commendations, as by a note herewith sent you may perceive. We pray you all therefore in general to take them into your care; and more especially we recommend them to you Master Pountis, that at their first landing they may be housed, lodged and provided for of diet till they be married, for such was the haste of sending them away, as that straitened with time we had no means to put provisions aboard, which defect shall be supplied by the magazine ship. And in case they cannot be presently married, we desire they may be put to several householders that have wives till they can be provided of husbands. There are near fifty more which are shortly to come, are sent by our most honorable Lord and Treasurer the Earl of Southampton and certain worthy gentlemen, who taking into their consideration that the Plantation can never flourish till families be planted and the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil, therefore have given this fair beginning, for the reimbursing of whose charges it is ordered that every man that marries them give 120 lbs. weight of the best leaf tobacco for each of them, and in case any of them die, that proportion must be advanced to make it up upon those that survive. . . . And though we are desirous that marriage be free according to the law of nature, yet would we not have these maids deceived and married to servants, but only to freemen or tenants as have means to maintain them. We pray you therefore to be fathers to them in this business, not enforcing them to marry against their wills; neither send we them to be servants, save in case of extremity, for we would have their condition so much bettered as multitudes may be allured thereby to come unto you. And you may assure such men as marry those women that the first servants sent over by the Company shall be consigned to them, it being our intent to preserve families and to prefer married men before single persons. (Foner 26-27) Foner, Eric. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History Volume 1, 5th Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 03/2017. VitalBook file.
James Oglethorpe established Georgia, 1732
Founded by James Oglethorpe as a haven for debtors, and as a buffer colony to protect the profitable Carolinas from attacks by Spanish Florida, Georgia became the last of the original 13 British colonies in North America.
Maryland Colony
Founded in 1634 by Lord Baltimore(George Calvert), founded to be a place for persecuted Catholics to find refuge, a safe haven, act of toleration (Maryland Toleration Act)
Hessians
German soldiers hired by George III to smash Colonial rebellion, proved good in mechanical sense but they were more concerned about money than duty. Fighting the Red Coats
Pilgrims
Group of English Protestant dissenters who established Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620 to seek religious freedom after having lived briefly in the Netherlands. Thought they were going to end up in the South but ended up in Cape Cod. Local tribes welcomed them, and helped them get through.
New England
Half-Way Covenant - Limited memberships for any applicant way to address a growing secular power.
Roger Williams
He founded Rhode Island for separation of Church and State. He believed that the Puritans were too powerful and was ordered to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious beliefs.
Christopher Columbus
He mistakenly discovered the Americas in 1492 while searching for a faster route to India. Wished to trade for Spices, tropical fruit, silk and cotton. He died a confused man never fully grasping that he was in India, but in the New World.
Native Americans
Hunter Gatheres
London Company
In 1603 King James I gave the London Company a charter to settle the Virginia territory. In April 1607, the first settlers from this company settled at Jamestown. This was the earliest formation.
Conneticut (COLONY)
In 1636, the minister Thomas Hooker established a settlement at Hartford. Its system of government, embodied in the Fundamental Orders of 1639, was modeled on that of Massachusetts—with the significant exception that men did not have to be church members to vote. Quite different was the colony of New Haven, founded in 1638 by emigrants who wanted an even closer connection between church and state. In 1662, Hartford and New Haven received a royal charter that united them as the colony of Connecticut.
Aaron Burr
Jefferson's Vice President; killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel Finished 2nd to Jefferson
King George III
King of England during the American Revolution "The Colonies appear to be in the Open Rebellion"
Battle of Yorktown
Last major battle of the Revolutionary War. Cornwallis and his troops were trapped in the Chesapeake Bay by the French fleet. He was sandwiched between the French navy and the American army. He surrendered October 19, 1781.
Bacon's Rebellion (1676)
Nathaniel Bacon and other western Virginia settlers were angry with Virginia Governor Berkley for trying to appease the Doeg Indians after the Doegs attacked the western settlements. The frontiersmen formed an army, with Bacon as its leader, which defeated the Indians and then marched on Jamestown and burned the city. The rebellion ended suddenly when Bacon died of an illness.
French assists Patriots in War
Naval Blockade in the closing months of the Revolutionary War.
Zenger Trial
New York libel case against John Peter Zenger. Established the principle that truthful statements about public officials could not be prosecuted as libel.
Benjamin Franklin
Printer, author, inventor, diplomat, statesman, and Founding Father. One of the few Americans who was highly respected in Europe, primarily due to his discoveries in the field of electricity. Lightning rod, iron stove, public library, post office, bifocal glasses
Verrazano
One of the first European explorers to encounter the Indians of eastern North America, Giovanni da Verrazano was an Italian-born navigator who sailed in 1524 under the auspices of King Philip I of France. His voyage took him from modern-day Cape Fear, North Carolina, north to the coast of Maine. In the following excerpt from his diary, which he included in a letter to the king, Verrazano tries to describe the appearance, economic life, customs, and beliefs of some of the region's various Native American groups. Some, he reports, were friendly and generous; others warlike and hostile. He is particularly interested in their spiritual beliefs, concluding that they have "no religion." Verrazano found the east coast thickly populated. By the time English settlement began in the early seventeenth century, many of the groups he encountered had been all but destroyed by epidemic diseases. SINCE THE STORM that we encountered in the northern regions, Most Serene King, I have not written to tell your majesty of what happened to the four ships which you sent over the Ocean to explore new lands, as I thought you had already been informed of everything—how we were forced by the fury of the winds to return in distress to Brittany with only the Normandy and the Dauphine, and that after undergoing repairs there, began our voyage with these two ships, equipped for war, following the coasts of Spain, Your Most Serene Majesty will have heard; and then according to our new plan, we continued the original voyage with only the Dauphine; now on our return from this voyage I will tell Your Majesty of what we found. . . . Seeing that the land continued to the south, we decided to turn and skirt it toward the north, where we found the land we had sighted earlier. So we anchored off the coast and sent the small boat in to land. We had seen many people coming to the seashore, but they fled when they saw us approaching; several times they stopped and turned around to look at us in great wonderment. We reassured them with various signs, and some of them came up, showing great delight at seeing us and marveling at our clothes, appearance, and our whiteness; they showed us by various signs where we could most easily secure the boat, and offered us some of their food. We were on land, and I shall now tell Your Majesty briefly what we were able to learn of their life and customs. They go completely naked except that around their loins they wear skins of small animals like martens, with a narrow belt of grass around the body, to which they tie various rails of other animals which hang down to the knees; the rest of the body is bare, and so is the head. Some of them wear garlands of birds' feathers. They are dark in color, not unlike the Ethiopians, with thick black hair, not very long, tied back behind the head like a small tail. As for the physique of these men, they are well proportioned, of medium height, a little taller than we are. They have broad chests, strong arms, and the legs and other parts of the body are well composed. There is nothing else, except that they tend to be rather broad in the face; but not all, for we saw many with angular faces. They have big black eyes, and an attentive and open look. They are not very strong, but they have a sharp cunning, and are agile and swift runners. From what we could tell from observation, in the last two respects they resemble the Orientals. . . . We reached another land 15 leagues from the island, where we found an excellent harbor; before entering it, we saw about 20 boats full of people who came around the ship uttering various cries of wonderment. They did not come nearer than fifty paces, but stopped to look at the structure of our ship, our persons, and our clothes; then all together they raised a loud cry which meant that they were joyful. We reassured them somewhat by imitating their gestures, and they came near enough for us to throw them a few little bells and mirrors and many trinkets, which they took and looked at, laughing, and then they confidently came on board ship. . . . These people are the most beautiful and have the most civil customs that we have found on this voyage. They are taller than we are; they are a bronze color, some tending more toward whiteness, others to a tawny color; the face is clear-cut; the hair is long and black, and they take great pains to decorate it; the eyes are black and alert, and their manner is sweet and gentle, very like the manner of the ancients. . . . Their women are just as shapely and beautiful; very gracious, of attractive manner and pleasant appearance; their customs and behavior follow womanly custom as far as befits human nature; they go nude except for stag skin embroidered like the men's, and some wear rich lynx skins on their arms; their bare heads are decorated with various ornaments made of braids of their own hair which hang down over their breasts on either side. . . . Both men and women have various trinkets hanging from their ears as the Orientals do; and we saw that many had sheets of worked copper which they prize more than gold. They do not value gold because of its color; they think it the most worthless of all, and rate blue and red above all other colors. The things we gave them that they prized the most were little bells, blue crystals, and other trinkets to put in the ear or around the neck. They did not appreciate cloth of silk and gold, nor even of any other kind, nor did they care to have them; the same was true for metals like steel and iron, for many times when we showed them some of our arms, they did not admire them, nor ask for them, but merely examined the workmanship. They did the same with mirrors; they would look at them quickly, and then refuse them, laughing. They are very generous and give away all they have. We made great friends with them, and one day before we entered the harbor with the ship, when we were lying at anchor one league out to sea because of unfavorable weather, they came out to the ship with a great number of their boats; they had painted and decorated their (Foner 4-8) Foner, Eric. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History Volume 1, 5th Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 03/2017. VitalBook file.
Tories/Loyalists
People who were against independence and wanted to remain loyal to England. Political Party (Conservatives)
Great Awakening
Religious revival in the American colonies of the eighteenth century during which a number of new Protestant churches were established. Jonathan Edwards -Massachusetts Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards pioneered an intensely emotional style of preaching. Edwards's famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God portrayed sinful man as a "loathsome insect" suspended over a bottomless pit of eternal fire by a slender thread that might break at any moment. Edwards's preaching, declared a member of his congregation, inspired worshipers to cry out, "What shall I do to be saved—oh, I am going to hell!" Only a "new birth"—immediately acknowledging one's sins and pleading for divine grace—could save men from eternal damnation.
Paul Rever's Midnight Ride
Sent by Dr. Joseph Warren; warned the Patriots y the time the Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775, war had broken out between British soldiers and armed citizens of Massachusetts. On April 19, a force of British soldiers marched from Boston toward the nearby town of Concord seeking to seize arms being stockpiled there. Riders from Boston, among them Paul Revere, warned local leaders of the troops' approach. Militiamen took up arms and tried to resist the British advance. Skirmishes between Americans and British soldiers took place at Lexington and again at Concord, known as the Battles of Lexington and Concord. By the time the British retreated to the safety of Boston, some forty-nine Americans and seventy-three members of the Royal Army lay dead.
Salem Witch Trials
Several accusations of witchcraft led to sensational trials in Salem, Massachusetts at which Cotton Mather presided as the chief judge. 18 people were hanged as witches. Afterwards, most of the people involved admitted that the trials and executions had been a terrible mistake.
Roanoke Island (Colony)
Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonial settlement off the coast of North Carolina
Order of Colonialism
Spanish - First to arrive in the New World France - Fur trapping, waterways (St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers) - New Orleans became the major port under the French Britain - Came to the New World for Religous Freedom. Sir Francis Drake helped defeat Spanish Armada.
Native Americans
The Bering Strait Theory is possible explanation for the arrival in North American continent
Leif Ericson
The Viking explorer believed to be the first European to reach the New World (in about 1000 AD). Landed in Newfoundland which was called Vinland.
Bering Strait Theory
The belief that the earliest inhabitants came over via the Bering Strait continued from present day Alaska, all the way through North, Central, and South America
Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill)
The colonists fought the British until they ran out of aminition here. The first major victory for the patriots (defeating the British), and ends any type of peace between the colonists and British. This battle leads towards the discussion of the Declaration of Independence.
Boston Massacre
The first bloodshed of the American Revolution (1770), as British guards at the Boston Customs House opened fire on a crowd killing five Americans Snowballing taunting turned ugly
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The first military engagement of the Revolutionary War. It occurred on April 19, 1775, when British soldiers fired into a much smaller body of minutemen on Lexington green. "Shot heard Round the World" (Concord) Poet
Pennsylvania (COLONY)
The last English Colony to be established in the 17th Century. The proprietor, William Penn, envisioned it as a place where those facing religious persecution in Europe could enjoy spiritual freedom, and colonists and Indians would coexist in harmony. A devout member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, Penn was particularly concerned with establishing a refuge for his coreligionists, who faced increasing persecution in England. PHILADELPHIA
Coercive Acts
This series of laws were very harsh laws that intended to make Massachusetts pay for its resistance. It also closed down the Boston Harbor until the Massachusetts colonists paid for the ruined tea. Also forced Bostonians to shelter soilders in their own homes. Colonists call the Coercive Acts the "Intolerable Acts"
Mercantilism
an economic system (Europe in 18th C) to increase a nation's wealth by government regulation of all of the nation's commercial interests A loosely related set of policies designed to make a country as self-sufficient as possible - Companies that work together.
The Constitution
a body of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is acknowledged to be governed. Bill of Rights Ammendments
Treaty of Paris
agreement signed by British and American leaders that stated the United States of America was a free and independent country France relinquishes all claims in the New World
Stamp Act
an act passed by the British parliment in 1756 that raised revenue from the American colonies by a duty in the form of a stamp required on all newspapers and legal or commercial documents "Taxation Without Representation"
New Amsterdam (New York)
founded by the Dutch but in 1664 it was captured and renamed by the British
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
powerful pamphlet telling the colonists to break free. British were trying to destroy colonies' natural rights. Government is there to protect life liberty and property. Power came from people, not kings. Colonies don't benefit from British Empire. Called for complete Independence and was heavily critical of the monarchy
John Harvard
started the first college in the New World
Slavery
the condition of being owned by another person and being made to work without wages. In 1670 slavery became sociologically and economically accepted.
Declaration of Independence
the document recording the proclamation of the second Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the independence of the colonies from Great Britain Chief authors: Jefferson. 1st part critical of King George, 2nd part is for us and all future Americans.
Burning of the Gaspee
was in response to British attempts to curb smuggling. Ship that for caught in low tide