Term
| Great Awakening (1739-1744) |
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Definition
| Puritanism had declined by the 1730s, and people were upset about the decline in religious piety. The Great Awakening was a sudden outbreak of religious fervor that swept through the colonies. One of the first events to unify the colonies. |
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| Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a Careful and Strict Inquiry Into...That Freedom of Will |
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| Part of the Great Awakening, Edwards gave gripping sermons about sin and the torments of Hell. |
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| Credited with starting the Great Awakening, also a leader of the "New Lights." |
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| Several accusations of witchcraft led to sensational trials in Salem, Massachusetts at which Cotton Mather presided as the chief judge. 18 people were hanged as witches. Afterwards, most of the people involved admitted that the trials and executions had been a terrible mistake. |
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| strong Presbyterian minister and leader during the Great Awakening. Founded a college for the training of Presbyterian ministers in 1726. |
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| William Tennant’s son. Developed a theology of revivalism |
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| The "New Lights" were new religious movements formed during the Great Awakening and broke away from the congregational church in New England. The "Old Lights" were the established congregational church. |
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| Founded the colony of Maryland and offered religious freedom to all Christian colonists. He did so because he knew that members of his own religion (Catholicism) would be a minority in the colony. |
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Maryland Act of Toleration (Act of Religious Toleration)
(1649) |
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| Ordered by Lord Baltimore after a Protestant was made governor of Maryland at the demand of the colony's large Protestant population. The act guaranteed religious freedom to all Christians. |
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| The religion of the Enlightenment (1700s). Followers believed that God existed and had created the world, but that afterwards He left it to run by its own natural laws. Denied that God communicated to man or in any way influenced his life. |
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| French Protestants. The Edict of Nantes (1598) freed them from persecution in France, but when that was revoked in the late 1700s, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled to other countries, including America. |
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| SPG - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (in Foreign Parts) |
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| A group which worked to spread Christianity to other parts of the world through missionaries in the late 1800s. |
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| Mercantilism: features, rationale, impact on Great Britain, impact on the colonies |
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Definition
| Mercantilism was the economic policy of Europe in the 1500s through 1700s. The government exercised control over industry and trade with the idea that national strength and economic security comes from exporting more than is imported. Possession of colonies provided countries both with sources of raw materials and markets for their manufactured goods. Great Britain exported goods and forced the colonies to buy them. |
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| Navigation Acts of 1650, 1660, 1663, and 1696 |
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| British regulations designed to protect British shipping from competition. Said that British colonies could only import goods if they were shipped on British-owned vessels and at least 3/4 of the crew of the ship were British. |
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| British courts originally established to try cases involving smuggling or violations of the Navigation Acts which the British government sometimes used to try American criminals in the colonies. Trials in Admiralty Courts were heard by judges without a jury. |
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| The backbone of New England’s economy during the colonial period. Ships from New England sailed first to Africa, exchanging New England rum for slaves. The slaves were shipped from Africa to the Caribbean (this was known as the Middle Passage, when many slaves died on the ships). In the Caribbean, the slaves were traded for sugar and molasses. Then the ships returned to New England, where the molasses were used to make rum. |
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| These were the two British legal doctrines governing the inheritance of property. Primogeniture requried that a man’s real property pass in its entirety to his oldest son. Entail requried that property could only be left to direct descendants (usually sons), and not to persons outside of the family. |
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| market is the area or group of people which needs a product. Colonial merchants took goods produced in the colonies to areas of the world that needed those goods. Also, the colonies served as a market for other countries’ goods. |
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| One company sells another company’s products, and then gives the producing company most of the profits, but keeps a percentage (a commission) for itself. |
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| British legislation which taxed all molasses, rum, and sugar which the colonies imported from countries other than Britain and her colonies. The act angered the New England colonies, which imported a lot of molasses from the Caribbean as part of the Triangular Trade. The British had difficulty enforcing the tax; most colonial merchants ignored it. |
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Declared that wool produced in the colonies could only be exported to Britain.
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| 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. |
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| Declared that hats made in the colonies could not be exported. |
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| Declared that no new iron forges or mills could be created in the colonies. |
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| This act applied only to Massachusetts. It was an attempt to ban the production of paper money in Massachusetts, but it was defeated in Parliament. |
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| This act applied to all of the colonies. It banned the production of paper money in the colonies in an effort to combat the inflation caused by Virginia’s decision to get itself out of debt by issuing more paper money |
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| Poor Richard’s Almanack, first published 1732 |
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Definition
| Written by Benjamin Franklin, it was filled with witty, insightful, and funny bits of observation and common sense advice (the saying, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," first appeared in this almanac). It was the most popular almanac in the colonies. |
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| Nominal taxes collected by the crown in crown colonies, or by the proprietor(s) of proprietary colonies. |
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| Phillis Wheatly (1754-1784) |
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| An African domestic in the colonies, and a well-known colonial poet. Her poetry was ornate and elaborate. |
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| Ann Bradstreet (1612-1692) |
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| Puritan and the first colonial poet to be published. The main subjects of her poetry were family, home, and religion. |
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| An English document draw up by nobles under King John which limited the power of the king. It has influenced later constitutional documents in Britain and America. |
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| A document drawn up by Parliament’s House of Commons listing grievances against King Charles I and extending Parliament’s powers while limiting the king’s. It gave Parliament authority over taxation, declared that free citizens could not be arrested without cause, declared that soldiers could not be quartered in private homes without compensation, and said that martial law cannot be declared during peacetime. |
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| British law had traditionally provided a procedure that allowed a person who had been arrested to challenge the legality of his arrest or confinement, called the Writ of Habeus Corpus, or the Great Writ. The Act imposed strict penalties on judges who refused to issue a writ of habeus corpus when there was good cause, and on officers who refused to comply with the writ. |
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| Drawn up by Parliament and presented to King William II and Queen Mary, it listed certain rights of the British people. It also limited the king’s powers in taxing and prohibitted the maintenance of a standing army in peacetime. |
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| Board of Trade (of the Privy Council) |
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| Advisors to the king who regulated British trade during the 1600s and 1700s. |
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| Prime minister of Great Britain in the first half of the 1700s. His position towards the colonies was salutary neglect. |
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| Prime Minister Robert Walpole’s policy in dealing with the American colonies. He was primarily concerned with British affairs and believed that unrestricted trade in the colonies would be more profitable for England than would taxation of the colonies. |
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| A philosophical movement which started in Europe in the 1700's and spread to the colonies. It emphasized reason and the scientific method. Writers of the enlightenment tended to focus on government, ethics, and science, rather than on imagination, emotions, or religion. Many members of the Enlightenment rejected traditional religious beliefs in favor of Deism, which holds that the world is run by natural laws without the direct intervention of God. |
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| Theories of representative government in legislatures: virtual representation, actual representation |
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| Virtual representation means that a representative is not elected by his constituents, but he resembles them in his political beliefs and goals. Actual representation mean that a representative is elected by his constituents. The colonies only had virtual representation in the British government. |
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| Most of the colonial legislatures had two houses: a lower house elected by the people of the colony and an upper house appointed by the governor. Over time, the lower house became more powerful because it reflected the needs and desires of the people, while the upper house was merely a figurehead. |
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| Proprietary, charter, and royal colonies |
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Definition
| Proprietary colonies were founded by a proprietary company or individual and were controlled by the proprietor. Charter colonies were founded by a government charter granted to a company or a group of people. The British government had some control over charter colonies. Royal (or crown) colonies were formed by the king, so the government had total control over them. |
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| These were representatives sent to England by the colonies during the 1600s and 1700s. They served as a link between England and the colonies. |
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| purely democratic form of government common in the colonies, and the most prevalent form of local government in New England. In general, the town’s voting population would meet once a year to elect officers, levy taxes, and pass laws. |
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