US history unit 1 vocabulary

City Upon a Hill

name for Mass. Bay Colony coined by Winthrop to describe how their colony should serve as a model of excellence for future generations

House of Burgesses

Elected assembly in colonial Virginia, created in 1618.

Push & Pull Factors

Conditions that draw people to another location (pull factors) or cause people to leave their homelands and migrate to another region (push factors)

Royal Colony

colony under the direct control of the English crown

Puritans

A religious group who wanted to purify the Church of England. They came to America for religious freedom and settled Massachusetts Bay.

Virginia Colony

This colony got a charter, or right to organize a settlement in 1606. Jamestown was the first town in this new colony.

John Smith

Helped found and govern Jamestown. His leadership and strict discipline helped the Virginia colony get through the difficult first winter.

John Rolfe

Jamestown colony leader who showed that tobacco could be grown successfully in Virginia

Salutary Neglect

British colonial policy during the reigns of George I and George II. Relaxed supervision of internal colonial affairs by royal bureacrats contributed significantly to the rise of American self government

Indentured Servants

People who could not afford passage to the colonies could become indentured servants. Another person would pay their passage, and in exchange, the indentured servant would serve that person for a set length of time (usually seven years) and then would be free.

Pocahontas

A native Indian of America, daughter of Chief Powahatan, who was one of the first to marry an Englishman, John Rolfe, and return to England with him; about 1595-1617; Pocahontas' brave actions in saving an Englishman paved the way for many positive English and Native relations.

Starving Time

The winter of 1609 to 1610 was known as the "starving time" to the colonists of Virginia. Only sixty members of the original four-hundred colonists survived. The rest died of starvation because they did not possess the skills that were necessary to obtain food in the new world.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Colony founded in 1630 by John Winthrop, part of the Great Puritan Migration, founded by puritans. Had a theocratic republic. "City upon a hill

Mayflower Compact

A legal contract in which they agreed to have fair laws to protect the general good

Mercantilism

belief in the benefits of profitable trading; commercialism.

Triangle Trade

the extensive exchange of slaves, sugar, cotton, and furs between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that transformed economic, political, and social life on both sides of the Atlantic