indentured servants
Servants who signed a contract to work four to seven years for those who paid for their journey to America.
slave codes
Laws to control slaves.
immigrants
People who have left the country of their birth to live in another country.
staple crops
Crops that are always needed, like wheat, barley, and oats.
triangular trade
A system in which goods and slaves were traded among the Americas, Britain, and Africa.
Pocahontas
This woman was the daughter of a Powhatan leader, she saved John Smith's life, and married John Rolfe in 1614.
John Rolfe
This colonist of Jamestown saved Jamestown from failing to make a profit by introducing a new type of tobacco to the other colonists of Jamestown that sold well in England. He also married Pocahontas in 1614.
Nathaniel Bacon
He attacked Jamestown over trade issues.
Puritans
A Protestant group that wanted to purify, or reform, the Anglican Church. They were led by John Winthrop.
Pilgrims
A Separatist group that left England in the early 1600's to escape persecution. They first moved to the Netherlands in 1608 and then later moved to North America and settled in Virginia.
Squanto
A Patuxet Indian who had at one time lived in Europe and spoke English. He taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize the soil with fish remains and helped them establish relations with the local Wampanoag Indians.
John Winthrop
He led the Puritan colonists who left England for Massachusetts in 1630. He also helped to found Massachusetts.
Thomas Hooker
This minister left Massachusetts with his followers in 1636 to help found Connecticut. He is also called by some historians the "father of American democracy" because he wrote the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which made Connecticut's government more
Roger Williams
This minister believed in seperate church and state and was kicked out of Massachusetts for it. Afterward, he and his followers set up a new settlement called Providence which later became the colony of Rhode Island.
Anne Hutchinson
This woman publicly discussed religious ideas that some leaders of Massachusetts did not tolerate, such as the belief that people's relationship with God did not need to be guided by a minister. She was put on trial by the Puritan leaders and was kicked o
Quakers
A religious group, also called the Society of Friends, who believed in the equality of men and women before God, nonviolence, and religious tolerance for all people.
William Penn
A Quaker who was a proprietor of New Jersey. He founded Pennsylvania as a safe place of Quakers. He also set up an elected assembly and promised religious freedom to all Christians in his colony. He named the capital of his colony Philadelphia, which mean
Jamestown
The first permanent English settlement in North America set up in the colony of Virginia on May 14, 1607.
Bacon's Rebellion
Nathaniel Bacon and his followers attacked and burned Jamestown in this uprising against the govenor of Virginia's policies promoting trade with Native Americans.
Toleration Act of 1649
A bill presented by George Calvert that made it a crime to restrict the religious rights of Christians in Maryland.
Mayflower Compact
A legal contract that was signed by 41 of the male passengers of the Mayflower on November 21, 1620. In it the Pilgrims agreed to have fair laws to protect the general good in the colony that they would found.
English Bill of Rights
An act passed by the English Parliament in 1689 that reduced the powers of the English monarch and increased the Parliament's power.
Middle Passage
The voyage across the Atlantic ocean from Africa to the Americas that enslaved Africans had to endure.
Great Awakening
A religious movement that swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.
Enlightenment
This movement, that took place during the 1700s, spread the idea that reason and logic could improve society.