US History 201 Exam 1 – Flashcards

Flashcard maker : Paula Corcoran
Paleo-Indians
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.
Archaic Era
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.
Aztec
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
Capitalism
An economic system in which the market economy determines the prices of goods and services.
Humanists
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.
REformation
The movement for religious reform started by Martin Luther
Spanish Inquisition
A tribunal devoted to finding and punishing heresy and rooting out Spain’s Jews and Muslims.
Columbian Exchange
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.
Plantation
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).
Privateer
A form of state-sponsored piracy, usually directed against Spanish treasure fleets returning from the Americas
Headright
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.
Proprietor
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.
Quakers
The Society of Friends, who believed each individual possessed a divine spark of grace, an inner light that could lead to salvation.
Restoration
In 1660 Charles II became king of England, restoring the monarchy to power after the Civil War and Cromwellian rule.
Bacon’s Rebellion
A popular uprising in Virginia in 1676 named after it’s leader, Nathaniel Bacon
Glorious Revolution
The relatively bloodless revolution that lead to the ascension of William and Mary, which was widely seen as a vindication for English liberty.
Whigs (English, 17th Century)
The group that supported parliamentary power after the Glorious Revolution.
Mercantilism
Theory of empire that advocated strict regulations of trade between colonies and the mother country to benefit the latter.
Enlightenment
An international philosophical movement that extolled the virtues of reason and science and applied these new insights to politics and social reform.
Great Awakening
A religious revival movement that emphasized a more emotional style of religious practice.
Anglization
The colonial American desire to emulate English society, including English taste in food’s, customs and architecture.
Virtual Representation
A theory of representation in which legislatures do not serve their localities but rather the whole nation.
Old Lights
Opponents of the Great Awakening who favored traditional forms of religious worship.
New Lights
Supporters of the Great Awakening and its more emotional style of worship.
Middle Passage
The harrowing voyage across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas during which slaves endure meager rations and horrendously unsanitary conditions.
Indentured Servants
A form of bound labor in which a number of years of service were specified as payment for passage to America.
Middle Ground
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.
Stamp Act
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.
Nonimportation Movement
A boycott against the purchase of any imported British goods.
Intolerable Acts
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.
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
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.
Common Sense
Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet that forcefully argued for American independence, attacked the institution of monarchy, and defended a democratic theory of representative government.
Declaration of Independence
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.
Patriots
Colonists who supported American independence.
Loyalists
Colonists who remained loyal to the king and Britain.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
Treaty between the newly created United States of America and Britain that officially ended the war between the two and formally recognized American independence.
Articles of Confederation
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.
Old Northwest
The region of the new nation bordering on the Great Lakes
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
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.
Shay’s Rebellion
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.
Virginia Plan
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.
New Jersey Plan
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.
Great Compromise
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.
Federalists
The name adopted by the supporters of the Constitution who favored a stronger centralized government.
Anti-Federalists
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.
Stamp Act
1765
Boston Massacer
1770
Boston Tea Party
1773
French and Indian War
1756-1763
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