New England Colonies
This 1620 document, signed aboard the Mayflower, established a government based on majority rule and the consent of the governed.
What is the Mayflower Compact?
William Penn founded this colony in 1681 as a "holy experiment" in religious tolerance.
What is Pennsylvania?
Founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company, this was the first permanent English settlement in North America.
What is Jamestown?
This economic theory held that colonies existed to enrich the mother country by supplying raw materials and buying finished goods.
Mercantilism
Established in Virginia in 1619, this was the first representative legislative assembly in the English colonies.
What is the House of Burgesses?
1680 conflict that caused reforms to Spanish colonial policies in what is now the American Southwest
What is the Pueblo Revolt
John Winthrop delivered this famous sermon aboard the Arbella, describing the future Massachusetts Bay colony
What is "A shining city upon a hill."
Founded by George Fox and known for pacifism and belief in an inner light, this religious group dominated early Pennsylvania.
Who are the Quakers (Society of Friends)?
Cultivated successfully by John Rolfe starting around 1612, this cash crop saved the struggling Virginia colony economically.
What is tobacco?
Passed starting in 1651, these English laws required colonial trade to travel on English ships and certain goods to pass through England first.
What are the Navigation Acts?
This New England practice of direct democracy allowed church-going men to vote on local laws, taxes, and officials.
What is a town meeting?
The form of settlement most frequently established by the French in the Great Lakes region
What are trading post or missions
Due to poor soil and the prevalence of families in the settlement process, this form of agriculture was prominent in New England
What is subsistence agriculture
Originally the Dutch colony of New Netherland, this colony was seized by England in 1664 and renamed for the Duke of York.
What is New York?
This system granted 50 acres of land to anyone who paid for a colonist's passage to Virginia or Maryland, fueling both immigration and indentured servitude.
What is the headright system?
This transatlantic trade network exchanged manufactured goods, enslaved Africans, and raw materials among Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Triangular Trade
This class of unfree laborers worked for a master for a set number of years, often 4–7, in exchange for passage to the colonies, and dominated the Chesapeake labor force before slavery expanded.
What are indentured servants?
The deadliest conflict per capita in American history, this 1675–1678 war pitted a Wampanoag-led coalition against New England colonists.
What is King Philip's/Metacom's War
Exporting molasses produced on sugar plantations and financing ships were New England's overlooked role in this practice
What is the slave trade
Because their fertile soil and moderate climate supported a variety of crops rather than a single cash crop, the Middle Colonies developed this type of economy, blending family farms, craftsmen, and merchant trade in growing port cities.
What is a diversified economy
Led by a Virginia planter against royal governor William Berkeley in 1676, this rebellion exposed elite-backcountry tensions and accelerated the shift toward race-based slavery.
What is Bacon's Rebellion?
This British colonial policy of loosely enforcing trade regulations before roughly 1750 allowed colonial merchants to prosper, often through smuggling.
What is salutary neglect?
Led by preachers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards in the 1730s–40s, this religious revival emphasized personal salvation and emotional conversion experiences.
What is the First Great Awakening?
Many conflicts between colonists and Native Americans stemmed from a fundamental difference in worldview: colonists generally viewed land as private property to be bought and sold, while many Native nations viewed land in this alternate way.
What is communal use/stewardship (rather than individual ownership)?
The name of the New England Colonies from 1686-1689 when they were reorganized to exert more control from England
What is the Dominion of New England
This 1682 document, written by William Penn, guaranteed freedom of worship and established representative government in Pennsylvania.
What is the Frame of Government?
These two staple crops, requiring specialized labor and knowledge often brought by enslaved West Africans, dominated the economies of South Carolina and Georgia.
What are rice and indigo
The purpose of the mercantilist system (from the perspective of European Powers)
What is to maximize exports and minimize exports
This European intellectual movement, emphasizing reason, natural rights, and scientific inquiry, increasingly influenced colonial political thought during this period.
What is the Enlightenment?
As Native nations increasingly relied on European metal tools, firearms, and cloth, this kind of relationship reshaped traditional economies, alliances, and diplomacy
What is trade dependency (on European goods)?