History Midterm Identifications

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Cohokia

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An American Indian centralized empire from about 1050-1200. This empire was a cultural empire, not a political empire. Cohokia is important because it illustrates the large fortified cities and elaborate social hierarchies that existed in pre-colonial America.

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Atlantic Creoles

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people who were commonly a mix of European and African, always multi-lingual, who at the same time had insider knowledge of both European and African cultures, but were still outsiders of both cultures. They had the fluidity to thrive in the Atlantic World. They usually did not make good slaves, because they were not beaten down and had the skills to get out of slavery.

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Tobacco

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In the early 1700s, after the colonists mastered the growing of tobacco, tobacco came to master the colonists. It structured how they lived. Tobacco not only used up the soil and land, but, because of it being such a labor intensive crop, it also was one of the leading reasons that Virginia turned into such a servant society.

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Indentured Servants

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Indentured servants were people who would go to a merchant and sign an indenture, which meant 7 years of free labor, for their passage to Virginia. The advantage to having indentured servants for the plantation owners in the 1700s was that it was free labor, and the society was not wealthy enough yet to pay the high price that came along with slaves. These indentured servants created a servant society that’s principal division was between free farmers and un-free servants, which produced a strange mix of equality and servitude.

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Slave Society vs. Society with slaves

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Before the 1670s America had a society that had slaves, these slaves were mostly Atlantic Creoles that were very familiar with European culture, and whites and blacks lived in the same houses, worked the same jobs in the same fields. However, from the 1680s-1700, there came to be much more of a slave society. It became harder for blacks and whites to interact, laws were created that banned interracial sex with blacks, and by 1700, free black people basically did not exist.

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The Puritan "Church"

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the denomination that pushed for an even more radical break from Roman Catholicism than the Anglican church. These puritans came to America not to separate from the Church of England, but to clean the Church of England from its corrupted state and transport it back to England. Puritans are important for our class because they were the people that made up early New England, one of the most important states in American history.

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The Navigation Acts

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the restrictions placed on the colonists that said only English subjects could ship and trade with the American colonies, that there were enumerated goods, such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton, that the colonists had to send to England, and that other nations had to send goods to England before they could send them to America. This meant that the colonists commerce flowed absolutely in English Channels. This is important because it shows that at this time the Colonists were part of a bigger English Empire; that they were really English citizens.

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Anti-Catholicism

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In the 1700s Americans as a whole were staunchly anti-Catholic. In New England, Catholicism was even blasphemous, an agent of the devil. This is significant to our class because being Anti-Catholic was a part of being pro-British, and it showed a love for the Protestant King.

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Choice

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By the 1750s, America had widespread prosperity, and this meant that ordinary people could buy what they wanted. Ordinary people could make decisions that determined how happy they were. This is important because individual choice is a key aspect of democracy.

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The Great Awakening

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the period in the mid 18th Century when churches moved to a New Style where people such as George Whitefield, a trained actor, would bring in tens of thousands of people. This Great Awakening furthered the culture of choice, because every person was making a choice about where they would spend eternity. The Great Awakening is important to our class because it was an expression of democracy.

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Dependence vs. Dependency

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Most the interior Native American tribes depended on trade and resources from the big European powers. But this dependence was different from dependency, because being dependent means needing outside sources, but dependency is only having one source to rely on. The idea of dependence is significant because it shows how the Indian societies had evolved from being self-sufficient to relying on the European powers.

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The Seven Years' War

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the war from 1754-1761 in which Great Britain took control of East North America and concreted itself as the world’s most powerful nation. However, this war also led many Americans to question the British Empire because of the moral superiority they felt to the British officers and the way they felt they had been insulted by the British officers. The war is significant because without it the Revolution would most likely not have taken place; the war signified Americanization.

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The Stamp Act

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the law put on America by the British in 1765 that said any public document had to have a stamp bought from the British. Americans reacted with anger, and this brought the American ruling class together. It is significant because it was a turning point where America stopped looking at themselves as British subjects, but they began to worry about Britain imposing a tyrannical dictatorship upon them.

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Competency

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Enough to satisfy you, but not luxury. Trying to find the happy middle ground between too much comfort and too much independence. This is important because it illustrates what the people who first came to New England were looking for out of life.