Chapter 4 Social Studies

Thomas Hooker

A Puritan minister who led about 100 settlers out of Massachusetts Bay in May 1636. Pushing west, they drove their cattle, goats, and pigs along Indian trails that cut through the forests. When they reached the Connecticut River, they built a town, which they called Hartford. This person left Massachusetts Bay because he believed that the governor and other officials had too much power. He wanted to set up a colony in Connecticut with strict limits on government.

Pilgrim

A band of English settlers that sailed for the Americas in 1620. Unlike the Virginians or the Spanish, these colonists sought neither gold nor silver. All they wanted was to practice their religion freely. They belonged to a group known as the Separatists. They wanted to separate from the Church of England. They made the journey to Cape Cod in November of 1620 with over 100 men, women, and children. They named their colony Plymouth, and received help from different Native Americans. Soon, Plymouth was thriving.

Royal Colony

A colony under control of the English crown. New Jersey became one of these in 1702. The colony's charter protected religious freedom and the rights of an assembly that voted on local matters.

John Winthrop

A lawyer and a devout Christian. He led the group of people on the Arbella. The passengers on the Arbella were among more than 1,000 people who left England in 1630 to settle in North America. They set up their colony on Massachusetts Bay, north of Plymouth. Over the next 100 years, English settlers would build towns and farms throughout New England. This person and his followers were known as Puritans. He was chosen first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as the Puritan settlement was called. Once ashore, he sent an example for others. Although he was governor, he worked hard to build a home, clear land, and plant crops. One colonist wrote, "He so encouraged us that there was not an idle person to be found in the whole colony."

Charter

A legal document giving certain rights to a person or company. In 1606, the Virginia Company of London received one of these from King James I. It gave the Virginia Company the right to settle lands to the north of Roanoke, between North Carolina and the Potomac River. The land was called Virginia. It also guaranteed that the colonists of Virginia could have the same rights as English citizens.

Pennsylvania Dutch

A name for the large numbers of German-speaking Protestants, who came to settle in Pennsylvania because Penn sent pamphlets describing the colony to places all over Europe. They were given this name because people could not pronounce the word Deutsch (doich), which means German.

Breadbasket Colonies

A name that the Middle Colonies were called. The Middle Colonies received this name because they exported so much grain. The Middle Colonies produced surpluses of wheat, barley, and rye.

Parliament

A representative government that the Great Council grew into. By the 1600s, this was divided into the House of Lords, made up of nobles, and an elected House of Commons. Still, the English had established that their king or queen must consult this on money matters and must respect the law.

Toleration

A willingness to let others practice their own beliefs.

General Court

An assembly of representatives who were elected by male church members. Before this, Winthrop and other stockholders quickly realized that the colony would run more smoothly if a greater number of settlers could take part. At the same time, Puritan leaders sought to keep non-Puritans out of government. As a result, they granted the right to vote for governor to all men who were church members.

House of Burgesses

An assembly where the burgesses got together. In 1619, the Virginia Company sent a governor with orders to consult settlers on all important matters. Male settlers were allowed to elect the burgesses. This marked the beginning of representative government in the English colonies.

Great Wagon Road

An old Iroquois trail that settlers used to find the backcountry. These settlers were thousands of German and Scotch-Irish settlers that arrived in Philadelphia in the 1700s.

Roger Williams

Another Puritan who challenged the leaders of Massachusetts Bay. A young minister in the village of Salem, this person was gentle and good-natured. Most people, including governor Winthrop, liked him. This person's ideas, however, alarmed Puritan leaders. He believed that the Puritan church had too much power in Massachusetts. In his view, the business of church and state should be completely separate. The role of the state, he said, was to maintain order and peace. It should not support a particular church. He also believed in religious toleration. In Puritan Massachusetts, non-Puritans were not permitted to worship freely. Puritan leaders viewed Williams as a dangerous troublemaker. In 1635, the General Court ordered him to leave Massachusetts. He fled to Narragansett Bay, and stayed with the Indians, who sold him land. He turned this land into Rhode Island. Before long, settlers who disliked the strict Puritan rule of Massachusetts flocked to Providence and other towns in Rhode Island.

Town Meeting

At these, settlers discussed and voted on many issues. What roads should be built? How much should the schoolmaster be paid? These meetings gave New Englanders a chance to speak their minds. This early experience encouraged the growth of democratic ideas in New England.

Cash Crop

Crops that are sold for money at market. These came from surpluses of wheat, barley, and rye, which were supplied by the Middle Colonies.

Sabbath

Day of rest. The Puritans took this day very seriously. On Sundays, no one was allowed to play games or visit taverns to joke, talk, and drink. The law required all citizens to attend church services, which on Sunday lasted all day. During the 1600s, women sat on one side of the church and men on the other. Blacks and Indians stood in a balcony at the back. Children had separate pews, where an adult watched over them. If they "sported and played," they were punished.

Magna Carta

Great Charter. In 1215, English nobles forced King John to sign this. This document said that the king could not raise taxes without first consulting the great Council of nobles and church leaders. This established the principle, or basic idea, that English monarchs had to obey the laws of the land.

Quakers

Like Pilgrims and Puritans, these people were Protestant reformers. Their reforms went farther than those of other groups, however. This group was one of the most despised religious groups in England. These people believed that all people- men and women, nobles and commoners- were equal in God's sight. They allowed women to preach in public and refused to bow or remove their hats in the presence of the nobility. They also spoke out against war and refused to serve in the army. To most English people, these peoples' beliefs seemed wicked. In both England and New England, these people were arrested, fined, or even hanged for their ideas.

Anne Hutchinson

One of the people who fled to Rhode Island. A devout Puritan, she regularly attended church services. After church, she and her friends gathered at her home to discuss the minister's sermon. At first, she merely related what the minister had said. Later, she began to express her own views. Often, she seemed to criticize the minister's teachings. Puritan leaders grew angry. They believed that her opinions were wrong. They said that a woman had no right to explain God's law. In November 1637, this person was ordered to go to the General Court. At her trial, she made it impossible for the court to prove her guilty, but after 2 days, she made a mistake. She said, "God spoke directly to me, by the voice of His own spirit to my soul." The Puritans were shocked and kicked her out of the colony. She left for Rhode Island with her friends and family.

Patroon

Owners of huge estates. These owners were a part of rich families. Dutch officials granted large parcels of land to these families to encourage farming in New Netherland. One single land grant could stretch for miles. Indeed, one grant was as big as Rhode Island. In return for the grant, these people promised to settle at least 50 European farm families on the land. Few farmers wanted to work for these people. These people had great power and could charge whatever rents they pleased.

Proprietary Colony

The Duke of York gave his land to his friends, Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. They set up one of these and called it New Jersey. At the time of the English takeover, New York stretched as far south as the Delaware River. The Duke of York realized that it was to big to govern easily. In setting up this, the king gave land to one or more people. These people, called proprietors, were free to divide land and rent it to others. They made laws for the colony but had to respect the rights of colonists under English Law.

Backcountry

The area of land along the eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. In the 1700s, many settlers arrived in Philadelphia. From there, they traveled west to this place. To form this area, settlers had to clear thick forests. From Indians, settlers learned how to use knots from pine trees as candles to light their homes. They made wooden dishes from logs, gathered honey from hollows in trees, and hunted wild animals for food. German gunsmiths developed a light weight rifle for use in forests. Sharpshooters boasted that the "Pennsylvania Rifle" could hit a rattlesnake between the eyes at 100 yards.

Common

The center of each village, and an open field where cattle grazed. Nearby stood the meeting house, where Puritans worshipped and held town meetings. Wooden houses with steep roofs lined the town's narrow streets

Metacom

The chief of the Wampanoag Indians. In 1675, he led the Indians and attacked villages throughout New England. Other groups of Indians joined the Wampanoag Indians. Fighting lasted for 14 months, and this chief destroyed 12 towns and killed more than 600 settlers. In the end, Metacom was captured and killed. The English sold his family and about 1,000 other Indians into slavery in the West Indies. Other Indians were forced from their homelands. Many of them starved to death.

William Penn

This person founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682 (south of New Jersey). He came from a wealthy English family, and King Charles II was a personal friend. At age 22, however, this person shocked his family and friends by joining the Quakers. Penn became convinced that the Quakers must leave England, so he turned to the king for help. King Charles II made this person proprietor of a large tract of land in North America. The king named the new colony Pennsylvania, or Penn's woodlands. This person thought of his colony as a "holy experiment." He wanted it to be a model of religious freedom, peace, and Christian living. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews went to Pennsylvania to escape persecution. Later, English officials forced him to turn away Catholic and Jewish settlers. This person's Quaker beliefs led him to speak out for fair treatment of Native Americans. He believed that the land belonged to the Indians. He said that settlers should pay for the land. Native Americans respected Penn for this policy. As a result, colonists in Pennsylvania enjoyed many years of peace with their Indian neighbors. This man sent pamphlets describing his colony all over Europe. Soon, settlers from England, Scotland, Wales, the Netherlands, France, and Germany began to crow the Atlantic Ocean to Pennsylvania. He carefully planned a capital city along the Delaware River. He named it Philadelphia, a Greek word meaning "brotherly love." Philadelphia grew quickly. By 1710, a visitor wrote that it was "the most noble, large, and well-built city I have seen."

Puritans

Unlike the pilgrims, these people did not want to separate entirely from the church of England. Instead, they hoped to reform the church by introducing simpler forms of worship. They wanted to do away with many practices inherited from the Roman Catholic church, such as organ music, finely decorated houses of worship, and special clothing for priests.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

Written by colonists in 1639. This created a government much like that of Massachusetts. There were, however, two important differences. First, these orders gave the vote to all men who were property owners, including those who were not church members. Second, these limited the governor's power. In this way, these orders expanded the idea of representative government in the English colonies.