Ch 1   Berengia Paleo-Indians  Archaic Indians Mayans Toltecs  Incas Aztecs Anasazi Adena and Hopewell peoples, about 2,500 years ago Tainos, Caribs Cultures of West Africa Clash of world views Motivations for European Exploration Henry the Navigator Bartholomeu Dias Vasco da Gama sailed to India Columbus Conquistadores Ponce de Leon Balboa Cortes Pizarro Coronado de las Casas The Columbian Exchange Verrazano Samuel de Champlain  Quebec Jacques Cartier Jean-Francois de le Roque John Cabot Humphrey Gilbert Frobisher Roanoke Island Haklyut

Ch 2 Initial European Encounters with the New World French colonies Fur trading Hurons coureurs de bois Virginia Company Powhatans John Smith Tobacco House of Burgesses headright system indentured servants Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 Puritanism Predestination Separatists Mayflower Compact Church of England Covenant Theology Pequots Roger Williams Rhode Island Anne Hutchinson sugar colonies Charles I Oliver Cromwell, Charles II and the "Restoration." Carolina Pennsylvania William Penn First Frame of Government New York Governor Kieft New Netherlands Mercantilism Navigation Acts Glorious Revolution

                     The American Journey: Companion Site    Ch 1     Ch 2    

      Practice Quizzes   
      Early Discovery and Settlement  
      Early Settlements      
      Early Settlements   

      America: A Narative History - multiple choice, maps, flashcards   Collision of Cultures         
      England and its Colonies      
      Colonial Ways of Life    

      European Exploration:  puzzle  /   flashcards    
      English Establish 13 Colonies:  puzzle   /   flashcards    

      The Unfinished Nation: Ch 1   multiple choice  /  image quiz  /  matching  /  interactive maps  / 
                                             Ch 2   multiple choice  /  image quiz  /  matching  /  interactive maps  / 
 
                                                                     Practice Questions           


Glossary
The Act for Religious Toleration was the first law in America to call for freedom of worship for all Christians. Enacted in Maryland in 1649 to settle disputes between Catholics and Protestants, the act failed to bring peace.

Aztecs (Nahuatl) A pre-Hispanic empire that controlled much of central Mexico, with a capital in Tenochtitlan, up until the Spanish conquest. Tenochtitlan:  The capital city of the Aztec empire - Civilizations in America     

John Cabot (Caboto)  a Venetian seaman who explored the New England coastline of the Americas under a license from King Henry VII of England.  Italian explorer who led the English expedition in 1497 that discovered the mainland of North America and explored the coast from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.

Jacques Cartier (1491 - 1557) was a French explorer of Canada. François I chose him to find "certain islands and lands where it is said there are great quantities of gold and other riches". In 1534 he set sail looking for a western passage to Asia. He explored parts of what are now Newfoundland and the Canadian Maritimes and where he learned of a river further west (the St. Lawrence River) that he believed might be the much searched-for northwest passage.

Samuel de Champlain (c. 1567 - 1635) was a French explorer of the Saint Lawrence River and of the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Samuel de Champlain settled in New France and in 1608 founded Quebec City,

Christopher Columbus  an Italian explorer who worked for Spain. He was convinced that one could reach Asia simply by sailing west, but in the process began the invasion of the New World in 1492. 

conquistadores   Spanish for "conqueror." Conquistadores, such as Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, led military expeditions in the New World in order to claim lands and resources for Spain and to subjugate the Native American empires they encountered on their way.

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado (ca. 1510-1554) was a Spanish conquistador, who in 1540-1542 visited New Mexico and other parts of the southwest of the United States.

Hernan Cortes  also known as Hernando Cortes; (sometimes spelled as Cortez), conquered Mexico for Spain. In 1519 Cortés set out from Cuba with 11 ships, 500 men, and 15 horses. Local Indians greeted him with gifts of food, feathers, and gold, and told that the land was ruled by the great lord in the city of Tenochtitlan. Ambassadors from the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II arrived with additional gifts. Cortés learned that he was suspected of being Quetzalcoatl or an emissary of Quetzalcoatl, a legendary man-god who was predicted to one day return. Cortés, aided by the advice of his native translator La Malinche, decided to take advantage of the Quetzalcoatl myth. Cortes ordered all his fleet except for one small ship be burned, effectively stranding the expedition in Mexico. Cortés then lead his band inland towards Tenochtitlan.
 
coureurs de bois   Adventurous French trappers and fur traders who penetrated far into the North American wilderness and developed an extensive trade that became one of the underpinnings of the French colonial economy.

Vasco da Gama  the commander of the Portuguese fleet that rounded the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Arabian Sean and reached the port of Calcutta on May 18, 1498. 

Bartholomew Dias   Portuguese explorer who in 1488 was the first European to get round the Cape of Good Hope (thus establishing a sea route from the Atlantic to Asia)

Francis Drake English naval hero and explorer who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world (1577-1580) and was vice admiral of the fleet that destroyed the Spanish Armada (1588).

Dutch East India Company (1602-1798) a joint stock company chartered by the States-General of the Netherlands to expand trade and promote relations between the Dutch government and its colonies.

Elizabeth I Queen of England and Ireland (1558-1603) who succeeded the Catholic Mary I and reestablished Protestantism in England. Her reign was marked the execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1587) and the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588).

encomiendas   The Spanish right to exact tribute and labor from Native Americans on large tracts of land, granted by Don Juan de Onate to favored Spaniards in what would become the American Southwest. Landlords, or encomenderos, were supposed to educate the natives and teach them the Roman Catholic faith. Landlords rarely offered much education, preferring instead to exploit the labor of the local inhabitants, whom they treated like slaves.
 
feudalism   A political, social, and economic system that existed in Europe during the Middle Ages. Based on the ownership of land and the obligations of tenant to lord, feudalism tended to fragment power and authority. By the end of the fifteenth century, it was being replaced by centralized governments in nation-states, but aspects of the feudal system remained in parts of Europe for centuries.

Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina This complex plan for organizing the colony of Carolina was drafted in 1669 by Anthony Ashley Cooper and John Locke. The plan's provisions included a scheme for creating a hierarchy of nobles who would own vast amounts of land and wield political power; beneath them would be a class of freedmen and slaves. The provisions were never implemented by the Carolina colonists.

Richard Hakluyt was a supporter of English colonization in the New World. He wrote, "Discourse on Western Planting," to convince Queen Elizabeth I to establish colonies, arguing that they would have strategic and economic benefits for England.

headrights   Grants of land donated to new settlers in the Chesapeake by the Virginia Company  -- system of land distribution during the early colonial era granted settlers 50 acres for themselves and another 50 for each "head" (or person) they brought  to the colony. This system was often used in conjunction with indentured servitude to build large plantations and supply them with labor.

Henry the Navigator  the Portuguese prince who sponsored the exploration of the coast of Africa. 
 
high church   The party within the Church of England that retained many of the Catholic ceremonies and practices that the Puritans opposed and wished to purge from the church.

House of Burgesses was established in Virginia in 1619 as an advisory body to the colony's governors. It was the seed of the system of elected representative government in America.

Anne Hutchinson  English-born American colonist and religious leader who was banished from Boston (1637) for her religious beliefs, which included an emphasis on personal intuition as a means toward salvation.

indentured servants  People who had their passage to America paid by a master or ship captain. They agreed to work for their master for a term of years in exchange for cost of passage, bed and board, and small freedom dues when their terms were up. The number of years served depended on the terms of the contract. Most early settlers in the English colonies outside of New England were indentured servants.  Indenture contracts also required masters to provide food, clothing, farm tools, and sometimes land when the term of bonded service had expired, thus allowing former servants the opportunity to gain full economic independence in America.

Jamestown  the first permanent English settlement in America. It was founded in 1607 in modern-day Virginia.

joint stock company  A form of business organization that resembled a modern corporation. Individuals invested in the company through the purchase of shares. One major difference between then and today was that each stockholder had one vote regardless of how many shares he owned. The first permanent English colonies in North America were established by joint stock companies. 

Bartolome de Las Casas  a Dominican friar who championed the Indians and whose publications had much to do with the Spanish government's abolishment of the encomienda system and increased protection for the natives. 

Ferdinand Magellan  the Spanish explorer whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the earth. 

Maya: Indigenous people who today live predominantly in Central America, in the nation states of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and El Salvador. In pre-Columbian times, the Maya lived in distinct city-states, many of which persisted after the arrival of Europeans.

Mayflower Compact  When the Mayflower reached land at Cape Cod and the colonists decided to settle there, they lacked the legal basis to establish a government. The adult males of the colony signed a mutual agreement for ordering their society later referred to as the Mayflower Compact -- an agreement among the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation (1620) to obey the rules of the governors they chose.
 
mercantilism   Economic philosophy popular in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe which argued that one person or nation could grow rich only at the expense of another, and that a nation's economic health depended, therefore, on a "favorable balance of trade" (selling as much as possible to foreign lands while buying as little as possible from them.)

-- prevailing economic theory of European nations in 16th and 17th centuries. It rested on the premise that a nation’s power and wealth were determined by its supply of precious metal which were to be acquired by increasing exports (paid for with gold) and reducing imports to achieve domestic self-sufficiency; mercantilism remained the dominant theory until the Industrial Revelation and articulation of theory of laissez faire.

the economic health of a nation could be measured by the amount of precious metal, gold, or silver, which it possessed
mercantilism dictated a favorable balance of trade
each nation tried to achieve economic self-sufficiency
regulated commerce could produce a favorable balance of trade
sea power was necessary to control foreign markets
colonies could provide markets for manufactured goods and sources of raw material
Adapted from <http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/%7Egrempel/courses/wc2/lectures/mercantilism.html>

mestizos   People of mixed Spanish and Native-American blood, who came to numerically dominate the colonies of the Spanish Empire.

Navigation Acts the result of the English desire to increase both military power and private wealth, required that goods imported from Europe into England and Scotland be carried on British-owned ships with British crews or on ships of the country producing the article etc. <>

Northwest Passage  Explorers from England, France, and the Netherlands kept seeking an all-water route across North America. The goal was to gain access to Asian goods and riches while avoiding contact with the Spanish empire in Central and South America.

The Pequot War was a conflict between English settlers (who had Narrangansett and Mohegan allies) and Pequot Indians over control of land and trade in eastern Connecticut. The Pequots were nearly exterminated in a series of bloody confrontations, including a deadly English attack on a Mystic River village in May 1637.

Francisco Pizarro  Spanish conquistador In 1531 Pizarro led an expedition to Peru, where he captured the Inca Atahuallpa and conqured the Incan Empire.

Powhatan  Algonquian leader who founded the Powhatan confederacy and maintained peaceful relations with English colonists after the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas to John Rolfe (1614).  (Opechancanough  Brother of Powhatan. In the 1620's, Opechancanough organized a military offensive against English settlers.)

Predestination was the Puritan belief that God had predetermined who was among the saved, and what a person did on Earth had no effect on his or her fate after death. This supported a doctrine of grace--that salvation came as a gift of God.

proprietary colony   A colony whose charter was granted by the king to an individual or a group (proprietors). Although the charter might place certain restrictions on the proprietors, in general they were free to run the colony as they wished--appointing governors, establishing assemblies, dividing and granting land. Because most proprietors were essentially land speculators and concerned with profit (either from the sale of land or from quitrents), they usually relaxed political and religious restrictions so as to attract colonists

The Protestant Reformation was a sixteenth century effort to reform and challenge the authority of the Roman Catholic church.

Puritans  An English religious group that followed the teachings of John Calvin. They wanted a fuller reformation of the Church of England and hoped to replace The Book of Common Prayer with sermons. They wanted to purify the Church of England.

The Quakers were an English religious sect that arose in the mid-seventeenth century. Quakers stressed the doctrine of the Inner Light (or Holy Spirit that dwelt within them), rejected formal theology and an educated ministry, and were important in the founding of Pennsylvania. They were pacifists and tolerant of other religions. The Frame of Government was the plan by William Penn in 1682 for the government of Pennsylvania. It created a relatively weak legislature and a strong executive; it also contained a provision for religious freedom.

Walter Raleigh attempted an English settlement on Roanoke Island in 1587. 

Reconquista  During this struggle (ending in 1492), the Spanish Christians reconquered the Iberian peninsula from Moslem invaders. Moslems had invaded in 711.  The Spanish nobles had developed a tradition of warring against those they saw as infidels. Many conquistadors brought an aggressive attitude with them to the New World and viewed the natives as inferiors.

The "Requerimiento" was a document read to Indians by conquistadors. It demanded that the Indians recognize the sovereignty of the Spanish monarch or face destruction.

Rescate referred to the procedure by which Spanish colonists would pay ransom to free Indians captured by rival natives. The rescued Indians then became workers in Spanish households.

Roanoke England's first attempt to establish a colony in North America was at Roanoke Island in 1585.

royal colony   A colony over which the king of England assumed control, granting it a royal charter in place of the charter it previously held. Not an act of tyranny, as often pictured, royalization guaranteed that England's laws (and English subjects' rights) would apply to colony and colonists. A royal governor was appointed by the king to see that such laws were carried out, and a council, composed of prominent men of the colony (appointed by the king, but with the advice of local leaders), was established to advise the executive. Most important, at least to the colonists in general, was the authorization of an elected legislature (variously known as the Commons House of Assembly, the House of Burgesses, and the like) to pass local laws and deal with problems particular to the colony. This legislative activity was naturally to conform to English law and was subject to royal approval or disallowance. In time, the council came to act as the upper house of the legislature, while the commons functioned as the lower, an arrangement that, to the colonists at least, strongly resembled the relationship that existed between the House of Commons and the House of Lords in England. This system varied from colony to colony and underwent many changes as it evolved; yet, by the end of the colonial era, most of the British-American colonies shared its basic institutional structure.

John Smith  English colonist, explorer, and writer whose maps and accounts of his explorations in Virginia and New England were invaluable to later explorers and colonists.

Slave codes  Sometimes known as "black codes," this series of laws passed mainly in the southern colonies in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries defined the status of slaves and codified the denial of basic civil rights to them. Also, after American independence and before the Civil War, state laws in the South defining slaves as property and specifying the legal powers of masters over slaves.

Spanish Armada (1588) fleet sent by Philip II of Spain against England, In his mind a religious crusade against Protestantism. Weather and the English fleet defeated it.

Taíno: (Taíno) A group of Amerindians inhabiting the Caribbean at the time of the Spanish conquest.

Treaty of Tordesillas  an agreement made in 1494 that divided the newly discovered world between Portugal and Spain.

In 1607, the Virginia Company of London funded the first permanent English colony at Jamestown.

Roger Williams English cleric in America. After being expelled from Massachusetts for his criticism of Puritanism, he founded Providence (1636), a community based on religious freedom and democratic ideals, and obtained a royal charter for Rhode Island in 1663.