Virginia & Bacon’s Rebellion
What event led to years of warfare between the English and Native Americans, eventually bankrupting the Virginia Company and turning it into a Royal Colony?
The Powhatan attack on Jamestown / Indian Massacre of 1622
Who were the “strangers” in the Mayflower Compact?
The “strangers” were the common folk who were not Pilgrims, including merchants, craftsmen, indentured servants and orphaned children.
ame three cash crops harvested on colonial plantations.
What was one reason for conflict between English colonists and Native Americans?
English expansion into Native lands.
What war was fought between Britain and France over land, trade, and power in North America?
The French and Indian War / Seven Years War.
Name two groups of people who joined Bacon's Rebellion.
Poor white frontier farmers
Former indentured servants
Small landowners
Some enslaved Africans and indentured servants who hoped the rebellion would improve their lives
What was the purpose of the Mayflower Compact?
It established laws and a functioning system of self-government. The colonists agreed to create and enact laws for the good of the colony.
What was mercantilism?
World powers formed colonies that existed to benefit the mother country through the gain of clout, money, or resources.
-These colonies could ONLY trade with their mother country (sparked later revolutions)
Colonists could only sell key goods like tobacco, sugar, and cotton to or through England.
European goods sent to the colonies had to stop in England first to be taxed, raising prices for buyers.
European goods sent to the colonies had to stop in England first to be taxed, raising prices for buyers.
Many colonial merchants ignored the rules and smuggled goods to make better profits with other countries.
Name one conflict that occurred because the English kept expanding into Native territories.
What was the goal of the Albany Plan of Union?
To create a unified colonial government to coordinate defense and relations with Native nations.
Why did many Virginians become angry with Governor William Berkeley?
They believed Governor Berkeley was corrupt, favored wealthy elites, and failed to protect frontier settlers.
They believed the colonial government spent most of its resources benefiting wealthy eastern landowners instead of protecting frontier communities against their Native neighbors.
Frontier settlers also complained that the government was not using tax money to provide enough military protection.
What was the purpose of “Praying Plantations”?
Puritans established 14 “Praying Plantations” to convert native people to Christianity and assimilate them into English/Puritan practices.
What was the Triangular Trade?
Triangular Trade - system of Trans-Atlantic trade from the 1500s–1800s connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
1. Europe → Africa: European ships carried manufactured goods such as guns, cloth, and metal to trade for enslaved Africans.
2. Africa → Americas — Middle Passage: Enslaved Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic in crowded, brutal conditions, with many dying during the journey.
3. Americas → Europe: Enslaved labor produced cash crops and raw goods such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, molasses, and rum, which were shipped to Europe.
New England colonial merchants imported molasses from the Caribbean, used it to make rum, and traded the rum throughout the Atlantic world, including to Africa.
*Triangular trade made European countries and colonial merchants wealthy by allowing them to profit from the trade of manufactured goods, enslaved people, and colonial products. The colonies became heavily dependent on plantation agriculture and enslaved African labor, while British mercantilism and the Navigation Acts controlled colonial trade.
What caused tensions between Native Americans and the British after the French and Indian War?
Native nations feared British settlers would take their lands.
Britain also reduced trade and supplies that Native communities had received from the French, including guns and ammunition.
What was Salutary Neglect?
Britain's informal policy of loosely enforcing many trade laws and regulations in the colonies, especially during the late 1600s and early 1700s.
What requirements did a person have to meet to be a voter or representative in the House of Burgesses?
They had to be a white male who owned land. This excluded a large percentage of Virginias population as they were indentured servants.
What did John Winthrop mean by “city upon a hill”?
The goal was to create a Christian society in North America that would serve as a model Christian community and a shining example to Christians elsewhere.
How did slave codes help create a race-based system of slavery?
Provide one example
Slave codes gave enslavers extensive control over enslaved people and restricted their movement, assembly, ability to possess weapons, and behavior, helping establish slavery as a racial and hereditary system.
1619 — Virginia: The first recorded enslaved Africans in the British mainland colonies arrived in 1619, when 30 enslaved Africans from Angola were taken from a Portuguese slave ship by English privateers and sold to Virginia Governor Sir George Yeardley and other colonists in exchange for food and supplies.
1639 — Virginia: Virginia required colonists to have arms and ammunition, but specifically excluded “Negroes”, creating an early legal distinction based on race.
1661 — Barbados: The Barbados Slave Code gave enslavers extensive control over enslaved people and established harsh punishments; it became a model for later slave laws in mainland colonies.
1662 — Virginia: Children inherited the legal status of their mother, making slavery hereditary and allowing enslaved status to pass from generation to generation.
1667 — Virginia: Christian baptism did not make an enslaved person free, preventing conversion to Christianity from being used as a claim to freedom.
1682 — Virginia: Virginia declared that certain non-Christian people brought into the colony as servants could be enslaved for life, further connecting African identity with permanent slavery.
1690 — South Carolina: The “Act for the Better Ordering of Slaves” established chattel slavery, required enslaved people to carry written passes to travel, allowed severe physical punishments, and gave enslavers broad control over their movement and behavior.
1696 — South Carolina: South Carolina enacted the first comprehensive slave code in British mainland North America, heavily based on the earlier Barbados Slave Code. It gave enslavers extensive control over enslaved people and restricted their movement, assembly, and ability to possess weapons, further establishing slavery as a racial and hereditary system.
1705 — Virginia: Virginia combined earlier laws into a comprehensive slave code, legally defining enslaved people as property and further establishing racial, hereditary slavery.
How did Pontiac’s War lead to the Proclamation of 1763?
What was the Proclamation of 1763?
The rebellion showed Britain that westward settlement could lead to costly and violent conflicts with Native nations.
In response, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, which banned British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.
What was the most important consequence of the French and Indian War for the colonists?
The war left Britain with massive debt, leading Britain to seek more tax money from the colonies, enforce laws more strictly, keep troops in the colonies, and heavily tax colonists.
How did Bacon's Rebellion change Virginia's labor system?
Colonial leaders shifted away from relying on indentured servants and increasingly relied on enslaved Africans for plantation labor.
Virginia also passed laws that strengthened race-based slavery, making slavery hereditary.
How was Massachusetts Bay Colony a theocracy?
Massachusetts Bay developed a theocracy, where church/religion and government are the same authority.
Church membership was required for full political rights, and Puritan leaders expected colonists to follow Puritan religious beliefs and moral rules or face punishment.
What did the 1696 South Carolina slave code restrict enslaved people from doing?
It restricted movement, assembly, and weapons and strengthened racial and hereditary slavery.
Why did William Berkeley refuse to launch a large-scale war against Native Americans?
He wanted to avoid the high cost of war, protect peaceful Native allies, and preserve the profitable fur trade.
According to the Albany Plan, what power would the Crown have and what power would the colonies have?