AP US History Unit 2

Cards · 100

APUSH Unit 2 Time Period

1607 (founding of Jamestown) to 1754 (start of the French and Indian War).

Primary goals of Spanish colonization

Extract wealth (gold/silver), convert Indigenous peoples to Catholicism, and establish encomiendas.

Primary goals of French colonization

Trade furs (beaver pelts) and build alliances and intermarriage with Native Americans, with few settlers.

Primary goals of Dutch colonization

Establish commercial trading posts and fur-trade networks, mainly in New Amsterdam (New York).

Primary goals of British colonization

Acquire land for agriculture, establish permanent settlements, and achieve economic or religious freedom.

Key difference in British vs. Spanish/French native relations

British colonizers settled in families, sought land rather than integration, and pushed Natives outward.

Chesapeake region colonies

Virginia and Maryland; characterized by tobacco plantations and indentured, then enslaved, labor.

Jamestown (1607)

First permanent English settlement in North America, established by the Virginia Company for profit.

Joint-stock company

Business entity where investors pool capital to fund voyages and share profits and colonial risks.

Starving Time (1609-1610)

Winter in Jamestown marked by extreme famine and disease, killing majority of settlers.

John Smith

Imposed discipline and forced labor on Jamestown settlers ('he that will not work shall not eat').

John Rolfe

Introduced sweet-strain tobacco cultivation to Virginia, creating a viable cash-crop economy.

Headright System

Offered 50 acres of land to anyone who paid their own or another immigrant's passage to Virginia.

Indentured servitude

Contract labor where immigrants traded 4 to 7 years of work for colonial passage and freedom dues.

House of Burgesses (1619)

First representative legislative assembly in colonial America, established in Virginia.

Lord Baltimore (George & Cecilius Calvert)

Founded Maryland as a proprietary colony and haven for persecuted English Catholics.

Maryland Act of Toleration (1649)

Granted religious freedom to all Trinitarian Christians; enacted to protect Catholics.

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Armed uprising of poor farmers and former indentured servants against Governor Berkeley in Virginia.

Major significance of Bacon's Rebellion

Accelerated the transition from white indentured servitude to chattel African slavery.

New England colonies

Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; founded mostly for religious purism.

Pilgrims (Separatists)

Religious dissenters who completely severed ties with the Church of England and founded Plymouth (1620).

Mayflower Compact (1620)

First framework for colonial self-government based on a social contract and majority rule.

Puritans (Non-Separatists)

Sought to purify the Church of England; settled Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

John Winthrop

Puritan governor who envisioned Massachusetts Bay as a pious model, a 'City upon a Hill'.

City upon a Hill sermon

'A Model of Christian Charity,' emphasizing community solidarity and moral example.

Puritan town meetings

Direct democracy forum where male church members voted on local laws and selectmen.

Roger Williams

Banished from Massachusetts; advocated complete church-state separation and founded Rhode Island.

Anne Hutchinson

Expelled from Massachusetts Bay for antinomianism (direct revelation over clergy doctrine).

Thomas Hooker

Puritan minister who founded Connecticut and helped draft the Fundamental Orders.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)

First written constitution in North America that established representative self-government.

Half-Way Covenant (1662)

Allowed partial church membership for children of non-converted believers to maintain church influence.

Salem Witch Trials (1692)

Mass hysteria leading to executions, reflecting social tension, religious zeal, and changing demographics.

Middle colonies

New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware; known as the diverse, cereal-producing 'Breadbasket'.

William Penn

Quaker founder of Pennsylvania who promoted religious tolerance and fair relations with Natives.

Holy Experiment

Penn's vision for a tolerant, egalitarian, and pluralistic society in Pennsylvania.

Quakers (Society of Friends)

Pacifist Christians believing in an 'inner light', gender equality, and rejecting formal clergy.

Southern and British Caribbean colonies

Carolinas, Georgia, and Barbados; heavily focused on staple export crops using chattel slavery.

South Carolina staple crops

Rice and indigo, which depended heavily on enslaved West Africans' agricultural knowledge.

Barbados Slave Code (1661)

Defined enslaved Africans as legal chattel property, denying all rights; model for mainland codes.

James Oglethorpe

Founded Georgia (1732) as a penal reform haven for debtors and a buffer against Spanish Florida.

Mercantilism

Economic policy stating colonies exist to enrich the mother country with bullion and raw materials.

Navigation Acts (1651-1673)

British laws restricting colonial trade exclusively to English ships and enumerated English ports.

Enumerated goods

Colonial raw materials (e.g., tobacco, sugar, cotton) allowed to be exported only to England.

Salutary Neglect

Unofficial British policy of weakly enforcing trade regulations, fostering colonial self-rule.

Robert Walpole

British Prime Minister whose tenure institutionalized the practice of salutary neglect.

Dominion of New England (1686)

Royal consolidation of northern colonies into one administrative unit to enforce Navigation Acts.

Sir Edmund Andros

Unpopular governor of the Dominion of New England who curbed town meetings and raised taxes.

Glorious Revolution (1688)

Overthrow of James II; led to the collapse of the Dominion of New England and reaffirmed local charters.

Triangular Trade

Transatlantic trade network moving manufactured goods, enslaved Africans, and colonial raw materials.

Middle Passage

Brutal transatlantic voyage bringing enslaved Africans to the Americas under inhumane conditions.

Chattel slavery

Legal status treating human beings and their offspring as personal, inheritable property.

Partus Sequitur Ventrem

Legal doctrine stating a child's legal status (free or slave) followed the condition of the mother.

Slave codes

Colonial laws strictly limiting rights, movement, and education of enslaved Africans.

Overt forms of slave resistance

Armed rebellions, running away, and physically attacking overseers or masters.

Covert forms of slave resistance

Breaking tools, working slowly, faking illness, and secretly preserving African cultural rituals.

Stono Rebellion (1739)

South Carolina slave uprising where armed Africans attempted to flee to Spanish Florida.

Negro Act of 1740

Strict South Carolina law passed after the Stono Rebellion banning slave assemblies, literacy, and travel.

New York Conspiracy of 1741

Rumored slave plot to burn New York City, leading to mass arrests and executions of enslaved people.

Gullah culture

Distinct African American culture and creole language developed on South Carolina coastal islands.

Powhatan Wars (1610-1646)

Conflicts between Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan Confederacy over encroaching land.

Pequot War (1636-1638)

Conflict in Connecticut resulting in the Mystic massacre and near-extinction of the Pequot nation.

King Philip's War (Metacom's War, 1675-1678)

Devastating conflict between New England colonists and Wampanoags; ended major native resistance in NE.

Metacom

Wampanoag chief known to colonists as King Philip; organized a multi-tribal alliance against settlers.

Pueblo Revolt (Pope's Rebellion, 1680)

Indigenous revolt that expelled the Spanish from New Mexico for over a decade over religion and labor.

Spanish response to the Pueblo Revolt

Upon reconquest, Spanish practiced greater cultural accommodation and reduced forced labor.

Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee)

Powerful alliance of five (later six) Native nations in New York playing British and French off each other.

Covenant Chain

Alliances between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British colonies for trade and mutual protection.

First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s)

Transatlantic evangelical revival emphasizing emotional faith, personal salvation, and egalitarianism.

Jonathan Edwards

Great Awakening revivalist preacher known for his sermon 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God'.

George Whitefield

Dynamic British itinerant evangelist whose open-air sermons drew massive, emotional colonial crowds.

Old Lights

Orthodox clergy who opposed emotionalism and favored traditional theological authority.

New Lights

Evangelicals who embraced emotional conversion experiences and decentralized religious authority.

Sociopolitical impact of the Great Awakening

Promoted individualism, challenged traditional hierarchy, and fostered a common inter-colonial identity.

Enlightenment

18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, science, and human rights over tradition.

John Locke's Two Treatises of Government

Argued for natural rights (life, liberty, property) and a social contract with the right to alter tyrannies.

Social Contract Theory

Belief that legitimate political authority rests on the consent of the governed to protect rights.

Baron de Montesquieu

Enlightenment philosopher who advocated for the separation of government powers into branches.

Deism

Enlightenment belief that God created a rational universe operating by natural laws and does not intervene.

Benjamin Franklin

Foremost American Enlightenment figure known for his scientific discoveries, diplomacy, and writings.

Poor Richard's Almanack

Popular annual publication by Benjamin Franklin offering weather forecasts, aphorisms, and advice.

John Peter Zenger Trial (1735)

New York libel case establishing the precedent that truthful statements cannot be seditious libel.

Significance of the Zenger trial

Laid the conceptual groundwork for freedom of the press in colonial and revolutionary America.

Anglicization

Colonies adopting English cultural norms, fashion, literature, consumer goods, and institutional forms.

Colonial assemblies

Elected legislative bodies asserting power over taxation and budgets ('power of the purse').

Power of the purse

Colonial legislature control over royal governors' salaries and colonial budgetary expenditures.

Scots-Irish immigrants

Presbyterian migrants who settled the frontier backcountry, clashing with Natives and colonial elites.

German immigrants (Pennsylvania Dutch)

Settled in rural Pennsylvania, preserving their language and establishing prosperous farms.

Colonial demographic growth (1700-1750)

Rapid population boom driven by high natural birth rates, cheap land, and forced/voluntary immigration.

Praying towns

Settlements organized by Puritans to convert Indigenous peoples to Christianity and English customs.

John Eliot

Puritan minister who translated the Bible into the Algonquin language to establish praying towns.

Molasses Act (1733)

British tariff on foreign molasses to protect sugar planters; routinely bypassed by colonial smuggling.

Smuggling in colonial America

Widespread evasion of British mercantile trade acts, facilitated by salutary neglect.

Primary economy of New England

Substantive farming, shipbuilding, timber export, rum distilling, and Atlantic cod fishing.

Primary economy of the Middle Colonies

Exporting wheat, barley, rye, and livestock, alongside vibrant port commerce in NYC and Philadelphia.

Primary economy of the Chesapeake Colonies

Large-scale export agriculture dominated by labor-intensive, soil-depleting tobacco cash crops.

Primary economy of the Lower South

Plantation-based agriculture centered on rice, indigo, naval stores, and cattle.

Royal colony

Colony directly ruled by the British monarch through an appointed royal governor.

Proprietary colony

Colony granted to an individual or group with direct governing and land-distribution powers.

Charter colony

Colony established through a royal corporate charter granting settlers substantial autonomy.

Albany Plan of Union (1754)

Early proposal by Benjamin Franklin for intercolonial confederation for defense; rejected by assemblies.