US History: Unit 1 Vocabulary – Flashcards

A group of London investors who sent ships to Chesapeake Bay in 1607.

Cash crop that made a profit and saved Jamestown.

An Indian chieftain who dominated the peoples in the James River area. All the tribes loosely under his control came to be called Powhatan’s confederacy. The colonists innacurately called all of the Indians powhatans.

1619 – The Virginia House of Burgesses formed, the first legislative body in colonial America. Later other colonies would adopt houses of burgesses.

1676 – Nathaniel Bacon and other western Virginia settlers were angry at 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.

A system of enforced servitude in which some people are owned by other people.

1675 – A series of battles in New Hampshire between the colonists and the Wompanowogs, led by a chief known as King Philip. The war was started when the Massachusetts government tried to assert court jurisdiction over the local Indians. The colonists won with the help of the Mohawks, and this victory opened up additional Indian lands for expansion.

A dissenter who clashed with the Massachusetts Puritans over separation of church and state and was banished in 1636, after which he founded the colony of Rhode Island to the south.

A Puritan church document; In 1662, the Halfway Covenant allowed partial membership rights to persons not yet converted into the Puritan church; It lessened the difference between the “elect” members of the church from the regular members; Women soon made up a larger portion of Puritan congregations.

1629 outbreak of witchcraft accusations in a puritan village marked by an atmosphere of fear, hysteria and stress.

A settlement established by the Dutch near the mouth of Hudson River and the southern end of Manhattan Island.

A Quaker that founded Pennsylvania to establish a place where his people and others could live in peace and be free from persecution.

First permanent French settlement in North America, founded by Samuel de Champlain.

An economic policy under which nations sought to increase their wealth and power by obtaining large amounts of gold and silver and by selling more goods than they bought.

A three way system of trade during 1600-1800s Africa sent slaves to America, America sent Raw Materials to Europe, and Europe sent Guns and Rum to Africa.

A voyage that brought enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and the West Indies.

American intellectual, inventor, and politician He helped to negotiate French support for the American Revolution.

The series of religious revivals among Protestants in the American colonies, especially in New England.

(1754-1763) War fought in the colonies between the English and the French for possession of the Ohio Valley area. The English won.

Ended French and Indian War, France lost Canada, land east of the Mississippi, to British, New Orleans and west of Mississippi to Spain.

A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalacian Mountains, and which required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east.

1765; law that taxed printed goods, including: playing cards, documents, newspapers, etc.

A series of laws set up by Parliament to punish Massachusetts for its protests against the British.

Organizations that led protests, helped American soldiers, instated a boycott, and generally resisted the British.

A network of communicaiton set up in Massachusetts and Virginia to inform other colonies of ways that Britain threatened colonial rights.

1776: a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine that claimed the colonies had a right to be an independent nation.

A 1776 document stating that the 13 English colonies were free and a Independent nation.

Stated that it was the government’s duty to protect life, liberty, and property.

(1689-1755) wrote ‘Spirit of the Laws’, said that no single set of political laws was applicable to all – depended on relationship and variables, supported division of government.

3rd President of the United States.

French soldier who served under George Washington in the American Revolution (1757-1834).

1st President of the United States; commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution (1732-1799).

…, Place where Washington’s army spent the winter of 1777-1778, a 4th of troops died here from disease and malnutrition.

Battle that gave Americans victory in the war.

British General who surrendered at Yorktown.

This treaty ended the Revolutionary War.