History Midterm Test Questions – Flashcards

Cahokia was a city that, at its peak from 1050-1200 A.D., was larger than many European cities, including London. The city encompassed at least 120 mounds and a population between 10,000 and 20,000 people spread out over six square miles (16 square kilometers). Located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis, it was the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico. The inhabitants of Cahokia did not use a writing system, and researchers today rely heavily on archaeology to interpret it.

Smallpox was an infectious disease , brought to America by the colonists. killed many Indians

The warm climate of the southern colonies created a unique economic advantage for colonists, tobacco production, prized by the mother country. Production soured in the 17th century. Allowed for colonists to own their own land rather than just being used as laborers. Increase in indentured servants to tend to crop, influx of immigrants.

is an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Usually skulls, skeletons, Grim Reaper figures, timepieces (candles/hourglasses), even Latin phrases like "vive memor loethi" (live mindful of death) and "fugit hora" (time is fleeting)...many often served as double symbols of death and resurrection, or hope of salvation in the next life

George Fox founded the quaker religion in 1647. They rejected the use of formal sacraments and ministry, refused to take oaths and embraced pacifism. Fleeing persecution, they settled and established the colony of Pennsylvania.

traveling portrait artists, arrived in a community to paint all the well-off families, then leave again Often painted in a very flat, basic style: limited skill, prioritized important details rather than overall composition or human anatomy Portraits intended for family use, not to be exhibited but existed as a record of a family's wealth, values, size, etc. LIMNERS CREATED A SIGNIFICANT VISUAL RECORD OF LIFE IN COLONIAL AMERICA!!!

An English philosopher whose ideas were influenced during the enlightenment. he argued in his essay on human understanding that humanity is largely the product of the environment, the mind being a blank tablet on which experience is written

This pamphlet refocused the blame for the colonists problems on king George III rather than on parliament and advocated a declaration of independence, which few colonists had considered prior to its appearance

In the United States he was honored with the name of the town of Cincinnatus, New York and the Society of the Cincinnati which, in turn, lent its name to the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. George Washington was often compared to Cincinnatus ( a Roman aristocrat and statesman whose service as consul in 460 BC and dictator in 458 BC and 439 BC made him a model of civic virtue) for his willingness to give up near-absolute power once the crisis of the American Revolution had passed and victory had been won, and the Society of the Cincinnati is a historical association founded in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War to preserve the ideals of the military officer's role in the new American Republic.

Dominican friar, writer, and advocate for the humane treatment of the indigenous people of the Americas, was one of the most important religious figures of the 16th-century Spanish world. As Spain struggled to develop a policy regarding the peoples of the New World, Las Casas, spent years attempting to expose the abuses that the native population was subjected to under the encomienda system. He also devoted a great deal of energy trying to convince the Spanish Crown that its mission to spread the Christian faith in the Americas did not have to deprive indigenous people of their freedom, sovereignty, and property rights.

North American Indian leader, father of Pocahontas. Powhatan came to believe that the English could be starved into submission. He cut off all trading with the colonists and attacked any of them who left the Jamestown fort. Some 80 percent of the colonists died. In April 1614 Pocahontas married the planter John Rolfe with Powhatan's approval. The marriage resulted in generally friendly relations between the English and the Powhatan Indians, which persisted for a while after the chief's death.

1. Anne Hutchinson was a woman in early colonial Boston who was persecuted for publicly criticizing Puritan leaders. Because of her gender, she was viewed as particularly dangerous, and was banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1638. She is significant because her controversial outspokenness demonstrates both the fragile state of the Puritan community and the meek, private role that women were expected to occupy in colonial New England.

Indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607. Servants typically worked four to seven years in exchange for passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. While the life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn't slavery. The idea of indentured servitude was born of a need for cheap labor Indentured servants became vital to the colonial economy.

the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were shipped to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods, which were traded for purchased or kidnapped Africans, who were transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the slaves were then sold or traded for raw materials, which would be transported back to Europe to complete the voyage. Voyages on the Middle Passage were a large financial undertaking, and they were generally organized by companies or groups of investors rather than individuals. The "Middle Passage" was considered a time of in-betweenness for those being traded from Africa to America. The close quarters and intentional division of pre-established African communities by the ship crew motivated captive Africans to forge bonds of kinship which then created forced transatlantic communities.These newly established bonds greatly impacted and altered African identity and culture within each community. It was a significant contributing aspect to the slaves survival of the "Middle Passage" and carried into their life in America.

unsuccessful 1676 revolt led by planter Nathaniel Bacon against Virginia governor William berkeleys administration, because it had failed to protect settlers from indian raids.Economic and social power became concentrated in late seventeenth-century Virginia, leaving laborers and servants with restricted economic independence. Governor William Berkeley feared rebellion: "six parts of Seven at least are Poore, Indebted, Discontented and Armed." Planter Nathaniel Bacon focused inland colonists' anger at local Indians, who they felt were holding back settlement, and at a distant government unwilling to aid them. In the summer and fall of 1676, Bacon and his supporters rose up and plundered the elite's estates and slaughtered nearby Indians. Bacon's Declaration challenged the economic and political privileges of the governor's circle of favorites, while announcing the principle of the consent of the people. Bacon's death and the arrival of a British fleet quelled this rebellion, but Virginia's planters long remembered the spectacle of white and black acting together to challenge authority.

Treaty that officially ended the French and Indian War. The British gained control over the area west of the 13 British Colonies to the Mississippi River. The French agreed to no longer support any colonies in North America, including all of Canada. Since Spain had joined the war on the side of the French, the Spanish were also forced to give up their claim to Florida. The area of North America to the north and east of the Mississippi River was now under British rule. But the Spanish still held their territory west of the Mississippi River and in Central and South America.

(1765) Part of Grenville's plan to defray the cost of maintaining the British army along the American frontier. Revenue stamps were attached to printed matter and legal documents, newspapers, and insurance papers etc. For the colonists the main issue was the taxation without representation

The Battle of Saratoga, comprising two significant battles during September and October of 1777, was a crucial victory for the Patriots during the American Revolution and is considered the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The Battle was the impetus for France to enter the war against Britain, re-invigorating Washington's Continental Army and providing much needed supplies and support.

armed insurrection by farmers in W Massachusetts against the state government. Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolution, petitioned the state senate to issue paper money and to halt foreclosure of mortgages on their property and their own imprisonment for debt as a result of high land taxes. rebellion influenced Massachusetts's ratification of the U.S. Constitution; it also swept Bowdoin out of office and achieved some of its legislative goals.

traditional sacred shell beads of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum include the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell; and the white and purple beads made from the quahog, or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam. Woven belts of wampum have been created to commemorate treaties or historical events, and for exchange in personal social transactions, such as marriages. In colonial North America, European colonists often used wampum as currency for trading with Native Americans.When Europeans came to the Americas, they realized the importance of wampum to Native people. While the Native people did not use it as money, the New England colonies used it as a medium of exchange. Soon, they were trading with the native peoples of New England and New York using wampum.

..., The religion of the Enlightenment (1700s). Followers believed that God existed and had created the world, but that afterwards He left it to run by its own natural laws. Denied that God communicated to man or in any way influenced his life.

a Revolution in thought begun in the seventeenth century that emphasized reason and science over the authority of traditional religion.

This document, the nation's first constitution, was adopted by the Second Continental Congress in 1781 during the Revolution. The document was limited because states held most of the power, and Congress lacked the power to tax, regulate trade, or control coinage.

The Great Awakening was a period of great revivalism that spread throughout the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. It deemphasized the importance of church doctrine and instead put a greater importance on the individual and their spiritual experience. •It pushed individual religious experience over established church doctrine, thereby decreasing the importance and weight of the clergy and the church in many instances. •New denominations arose or grew in numbers as a result of the emphasis on individual faith and salvation. •It unified the American colonies as it spread through numerous preachers and revivals. This unification was greater than had ever been achieved previously in the colonies.

A long standing English policy of not enforcing parliamentary laws that were created in order to keep the colonies obedient to England. Prime Minister Robert Walpole's policy. He was more concerned with British affairs and believed that unrestricted trade with the colonies would be more profitable for England than would taxation of the colonies.

Upon the arrival of the Europeans to North America in 1492, there began a massive transformation in the global ecosystem resulting from the exchange of flora, fauna, and disease between the Old World and the New. This interchange of native life-forms was called the Columbian Exchange by historian Alfred Crosby in his book of that title. Centuries of geographic isolation had led to the divergent evolution of flora and fauna in North America and Europe. In the New World, Europeans encountered indigenous plant foods, often cultivated by Native Americans, such as potatoes, beans, squash, and maize (corn), probably the world's most important cereal crop. These plants carried back to Europe so enriched nutrition in the Old World that they stimulated major population explosions. To America, Europeans introduced crops like wheat, rice, bananas, sugar, and wine grapes, many serving as cash crops for export by the colonists. Europeans also brought a number of domesticated animals to the New World, including horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, and fowl, producing mixed results for the Indians since the animals destroyed their croplands but also served as valuable sources of food, clothing, and energy. Disease was another dimension of the Columbian Exchange, with catastrophic consequences for Native Americans who for centuries were an isolated population and thus lacked adequate immunities for diseases introduced by Europeans. Eruptive fevers, like smallpox and measles, proved deadly and often wiped out over half of entire tribes. The European microbe was the ultimate conqueror of America, more than any act of war. In turn, Europeans fell prey to the New World disease of syphilis, generating widespread social and biological effects. The long-term consequences of the Columbian Exchange were mixed. It created enormous increases in food production and human populations, but it also destroyed the ecological stability of vast areas, increased erosion of the land, and led to the extinction of many life-forms.

They believed that man existed for the glory of God; that his first concern in life was to do God's will and so to receive future happiness The Puritan culture of the New England colonies of the seventeenth century was distinctive in its attitudes to the arts and recreation. Calvinist Theology that believed in a "just, almighty God"[1] and a lifestyle that consisted of pious, consecrated actions. The doctrinal emphasis on work instead of leisure led to the development of a mindset adverse to sport and recreation. The Puritans were a group of people who grew discontent in the Church of England and worked towards religious, moral and societal reforms. The writings and ideas of John Calvin, a leader in the Reformation, gave rise to Protestantism and were pivotal to the Christian revolt. They contended that The Church of England had become a product of political struggles and man-made doctrines. The Puritans were one branch of dissenters who decided that the Church of England was beyond reform. Escaping persecution from church leadership and the King, they came to America. The Puritans believed that the Bible was God's true law, and that it provided a plan for living. The established church of the day described access to God as monastic and possible only within the confines of "church authority". Puritans stripped away the traditional trappings and formalities of Christianity which had been slowly building throughout the previous 1500 years. Theirs was an attempt to "purify" the church and their own lives. What many of us remember about the Puritans is reflective of the modern definition of the term and not of the historical account. Point one, they were not a small group of people. In England many of their persuasion sat in Parliament. So great was the struggle that England's Civil War pitted the Puritans against the Crown Forces. Though the Puritans won the fight with Oliver Cromwell's leadership, their victory was short-lived; hence their displacement to America. Point two, the witchcraft trials did not appropriately define their methods of living for the 100+ years that they formed successful communities. What it did show was the danger that their self-imposed isolation had put them in. Most of the Puritans settled in the New England area. As they immigrated and formed individual colonies, their numbers rose from 17,800 in 1640 to 106,000 in 1700. Religious exclusiveness was the foremost principle of their society. The spiritual beliefs that they held were strong. This strength held over to include community laws and customs. Since God was at the forefront of their minds, He was to motivate all of their actions. This premise worked both for them and against them. The common unity strengthened the community. In a foreign land surrounded with the hardships of pioneer life, their spiritual bond made them sympathetic to each other's needs. Their overall survival techniques permeated the colonies and on the whole made them more successful in several areas beyond that of the colonies established to their south. Each church congregation was to be individually responsible to God, as was each person. The New Testament was their model and their devotion so great that it permeated their entire society. People of opposing theological views were asked to leave the community or to be converted. Their interpretation of scriptures was a harsh one. They emphasized a redemptive piety. In principle, they emphasized conversion and not repression. Conversion was a rejection of the "worldliness" of society and a strict adherence to Biblical principles. While repression was not encouraged in principle, it was evident in their actions. God could forgive anything, but man could forgive only by seeing a change in behavior. Actions spoke louder than words, so actions had to be constantly controlled. The doctrine of predestination kept all Puritans constantly working to do good in this life to be chosen for the next eternal one. God had already chosen who would be in heaven or hell, and each believer had no way of knowing which group they were in. Those who were wealthy were obviously blessed by God and were in good standing with Him. The Protestant work ethic was the belief that hard work was an honor to God which would lead to a prosperous reward. Any deviations from the normal way of Puritan life met with strict disapproval and discipline. Since the church elders were also political leaders, any church infraction was also a social one. There was no margin for error. The devil was behind every evil deed. Constant watch needed to be kept in order to stay away from his clutches. Words of hell fire and brimstone flowed from the mouths of eloquent ministers as they warned of the persuasiveness of the devil's power. The sermons of Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan minister, show that delivery of these sermons became an art form. They were elegant, well formed, exegetical renditions of scriptures... with a healthy dose of fear woven throughout the fabric of the literary construction. Grammar children were quizzed on the material at school and at home. This constant subjection of the probability of an unseen danger led to a scandal of epidemic proportions. Great pains were taken to warn their members and especially their children of the dangers of the world. Religiously motivated, they were exceptional in their time for their interest in the education of their children. Reading of the Bible was necessary to living a pious life. The education of the next generation was important to further "purify" the church and perfect social living. Three English diversions were banned in their New England colonies; drama, religious music and erotic poetry. The first and last of these led to immorality. Music in worship created a "dreamy" state which was not conducive in listening to God. Since the people were not spending their time idly indulged in trivialities, they were left with two godly diversions. The Bible stimulated their corporate intellect by promoting discussions of literature. Greek classics of Cicero, Virgil, Terence and Ovid were taught, as well as poetry and Latin verse. They were encouraged to create their own poetry, always religious in content. For the first time in history, free schooling was offered for all children. Puritans formed the first formal school in 1635, called the Roxbury Latin School. Four years later, the first American College was established; Harvard in Cambridge. Children aged 6-8 attended a "Dame school" where the teacher, who was usually a widow, taught reading. "Ciphering" (math) and writing were low on the academic agenda. In 1638, the first printing press arrived. By 1700, Boston became the second largest publishing center of the English Empire. The Puritans were the first to write books for children, and to discuss the difficulties in communicating with them. At a time when other Americans were physically blazing trails through the forests, the Puritans efforts in areas of study were advancing our country intellectually. Religion provided a stimulus and prelude for scientific thought. Of those Americans who were admitted into the scientific "Royal Society of London," the vast majority were New England Puritans. The large number of people who ascribed to the lifestyle of the Puritans did much to firmly establish a presence on American soil. Bound together, they established a community that maintained a healthy economy, established a school system, and focused an efficient eye on political concerns. The moral character of England and America were shaped in part by the words and actions of this strong group of Christian believers called the Puritans. ROGER WILLIAMS - one of the first to cause problems. "purest of the puritans" Championed liberty and promoted mercy and why bother with churches at all? All faiths should be equal radical views and he was expelled. He established Providence Rhode Island, first American to allow freedom of religion and prohibited residents from "invading or molesting" the Indians. Became a refuge for dissenters.