US History 201 Exam 1 – Flashcards

The name given by scientists to the first inhabitants of the Americans’ an Ice Age people who survived largely by hunting big game, and to a lesser extent by fishing and collecting edible plants.

Period beginning approximately 9,000 years ago lasting an estimated 6,000 years. it was marked by more intensive efforts by ancient societies to shape the environment to enhance food production.

Led by the Mexica tribe, the Aztec created a powerful empire whose capital, the great city of Tenochtitlan, was built on an island in Lake Texcoco in 1325 CE

An economic system in which the market economy determines the prices of goods and services.

Individuals who advocated a revival of ancient learning, particularly ancient Greek and Roman thought, and encouraged greater attention to secular topics including a new emphasis on the study of humanity.

The movement for religious reform started by Martin Luther

A tribunal devoted to finding and punishing heresy and rooting out Spain’s Jews and Muslims.

The term used by modern scholars to describe the biological encounter between the two sides of the Atlantic, including the movement of plants, animals, and diseases.

An English settlement or fortified outpost in a foreign land dedicated to producing agricultural products for export. (Later the term would become synonymous with a distinctive salve-based labor system used in much of the Atlantic world).

A form of state-sponsored piracy, usually directed against Spanish treasure fleets returning from the Americas

An incentive system to encourage additional immigrants by giving acres to any man who would pay his own fare to Virginia and additional Acre for each person brought with him.

This English legal title carried with it enormous political power, giving its possessor almost king-like authority over his domains. Colonial proprietors carried similar powers.

The Society of Friends, who believed each individual possessed a divine spark of grace, an inner light that could lead to salvation.

In 1660 Charles II became king of England, restoring the monarchy to power after the Civil War and Cromwellian rule.

A popular uprising in Virginia in 1676 named after it’s leader, Nathaniel Bacon

The relatively bloodless revolution that lead to the ascension of William and Mary, which was widely seen as a vindication for English liberty.

The group that supported parliamentary power after the Glorious Revolution.

Theory of empire that advocated strict regulations of trade between colonies and the mother country to benefit the latter.

An international philosophical movement that extolled the virtues of reason and science and applied these new insights to politics and social reform.

A religious revival movement that emphasized a more emotional style of religious practice.

The colonial American desire to emulate English society, including English taste in food’s, customs and architecture.

A theory of representation in which legislatures do not serve their localities but rather the whole nation.

Opponents of the Great Awakening who favored traditional forms of religious worship.

Supporters of the Great Awakening and its more emotional style of worship.

The harrowing voyage across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas during which slaves endure meager rations and horrendously unsanitary conditions.

A form of bound labor in which a number of years of service were specified as payment for passage to America.

A cultural and geographical region of the Great Lakes in which Indians and the French negotiated with each other for goods neither side could impose its will on the other.

Legislation that required colonists to purchase special stamps and place them on all legal documents. Newspapers and playing cards had to be printed on special stamped paper.

A boycott against the purchase of any imported British goods.

Legislation passed by Parliament to punish Bostonians for the Boston Tea Party. It closed the Port of Boston; annulled the Massachusetts colonial charter and dissolved or severely restricted that colony’s political institutions; and allowed British officials charged with capital crimes to be tried outside the colonies.

Official announcement issued by Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia. It offered freedom to any slave who joined the British forces in putting down the American rebellion.

Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet that forcefully argued for American independence, attacked the institution of monarchy, and defended a democratic theory of representative government.

On July 4, 1776, Congress approved the final text of the Declaration of Independence, a public defense of America’s decision to declare independence from Britain that was to be printed and sent to the individual states.

Colonists who supported American independence.

Colonists who remained loyal to the king and Britain.

Treaty between the newly created United States of America and Britain that officially ended the war between the two and formally recognized American independence.

America’s first constitutional government in effect from 1781-1788. The articles created a weak decentralized form of government that lacked the power to tax and compel state obedience to treaties it negotiated.

The region of the new nation bordering on the Great Lakes

One of several laws adopted by the Confederation Congress designed to provide a plan for the orderly settlement of the Northwest Territory (the area north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania). In addition to providing for a plan for self-governance, the Ordinance also prohibited slavery from the Northwest Territory.

Uprising in western Massachusetts in which farmers organized themselves as local militia units and closed down courts to prevent their farms from being seized by creditors.

A plan framed by James Madison and introduced in the Constitution Convention by Edmund Randolph that called on delegations to abandon the government of the Articles and create a new, strong national government.

Proposal made by William Patterson of New Jersey as an alternative to the more nationalistic Virginia Plan that would have retained the principle of state equality in the legislature embodied in the Articles of Confederation.

Compromise plan proposed by Rodger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut that called for equal representation of each state in the upper house and a lower house based on population.

The name adopted by the supporters of the Constitution who favored a stronger centralized government.

The name implied to opponents of the Constitution who insisted that they, not their opponents, were the true supporters of the ideal of federalism. Anti-Federalists opposed weakening the power of the states and feared that the Constitution yielded too much power to the new central government.

1765

1770

1773

1756-1763