Conflicts
Occurring in 1692 Massachusetts, this wave of trials and executions reflected deep social anxieties, economic divide, Indian war trauma, and factional tension within a declining Puritan religious order.
What were the Salem Witch Trials
Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid spread in this colony, killing over half of the original English settlers within months.
What is Jamestown
Rooted in Calvinist theology and a desire to strip Catholic elements from the Church of England, this religious movement shaped New England's focus on covenant community, high literacy rates, and strict moral governance.
What is Puritanism
This large-scale agricultural unit relied on coerced labor to produce single cash crops for global markets, shaping the economic structure, racial hierarchy, and social order of the Southern colonies.
What is a plantation
Triggered by class friction and frontier conflict with Native Americans in 1676, this Virginia uprising convinced Chesapeake elites to shift away from unstable white indentured servitude toward African chattel slavery.
What was Bacon's Rebellion
This assembly became the first representative legislative body in the American colonies, setting a precedent for colonial self-governance and local taxation control.
What is the House of Burgesses
In his 1630 sermon A Model of Christian Charity, this governor declared Massachusetts Bay must be a "City upon a Hill," establishing an early framework for American exceptionalism and communal religious duty.
Who was John Winthrop
Known for unimaginable mortality rates and brutal shipboard conditions, this forced transatlantic voyage formed the central leg of the Triangular Trade, transporting millions of enslaved Africans to the Americas.
What was the Middle Passage
This 1636–1638 conflict climaxed in the Mystic Fort Massacre, resulting in the near-total destruction of a dominant southern New England tribe and establishing English dominance through total warfare.
What was the Pequot War
Perfected by John Rolfe, this high-yield cash crop saved Jamestown economically, created an insatiable demand for Native lands, and drove the early colonial shift toward indentured servitude and unfree labor.
What was tobacco
Signed aboard a ship in 1620, this agreement among Separatist Pilgrims established a "civil body politic" governed by majority rule, serving as an early milestone in American self-government.
What is the Mayflower Compact
Person who wrote a piece denouncing Spanish cruelty under the encomienda system and sparking early debates over the moral treatment and rights of Indigenous peoples.
Who was Bartolome de las Casas
This series of three bloody 17th-century conflicts pitted Virginia colonists against a local Native confederacy, ending in the destruction of native sovereignty in the Tidewater region and relentless English territorial expansion.
What were the Anglo-Powhatan wars
This unofficial British policy of laxly enforcing parliamentary trade regulations allowed colonial assemblies to build substantial political autonomy and independent economic habits before 1763.
What was salutary neglect?
An 18th century political philosophy that prioritized civic virtue and the common good, among other things
What was republicanism?
Launched in South Carolina in 1739, this uprising led directly to harsher slave codes
What was the Stono Rebellion