American Colonies: The Settling of North America

For Taylor, it is the pervasive myth that by emigrating to the colonies, white men escaped religious, financial, and social constraints in Europe to create a land of boundless opportunity in the Americas, providing an “uplift” for everyone.

A belief shared by many Indians in the New World that the supernatural is intimately connected to every part of the natural world. It encouraged balance and reciprocity with nature.

Literally “centered on man.” For many denominations of European Christianity, the priority placed on humans above nature implied a divine charge from their God to dominate the wilderness.

A lucrative 30-year contract won by the English after the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) that granted English merchants the exclusive right to provide African slaves to the Spanish colonies.

A propagandistic claim by Spain’s imperial rivals that the Spanish were uniquely brutal in their treatment of the Indians.

A Puritan idea developed by John Winthrop, in which Puritan settlements in the Americas would act as a beacon of proper Christian behavior for England.

Spanish military contractors in the 15th to 17th centuries who conquered Indian civilizations in Central and South America for the Spanish Crown.

A way of thinking about history that argues every historical outcome depended on a series of prior conditions which, if altered, would have produced a different outcome. Compare to teleology.

Independent fur traders in New France who traveled far from European settlements to trade with local Indians.

A belief of late 17th-century Puritans and some modern scholars that the Puritan experiment failed and that Puritan ideals saw a decline in New England at the end of the 17th century. Taylor argues that many tenets of Puritanism had an enduring legacy in English-speaking America.

A “supercolony” combining the colonies of New England and the Mid-Atlantic, formed by King James II of England. The colonists hated it because it revoked their colonial charters and replaced their elective assemblies with a lieutenant governor and appointed council.

A grant from the Spanish government that allowed its holder, the encomendero, to collect tribute and forced labor from subordinate Indians.

An 18th-century philosophical and intellectual movement in Europe that prioritized reason and science over religion and promoted the separation of church and state.

The process of the creation of new cultural groups and identities from the consolidation of native peoples due to changes brought by the European colonizers.

A religious movement that favored an emotional, direct connection with God over organized religion. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it inspired the revivals.

Uneducated laypeople who were moved to preach by revivalism and their New Births. They were distrusted by the Old Lights, who felt religious instruction should be limited to educated clergy.

Detribalized Native Americans who were abducted or traded into servitude by the Spanish in what is now the American southwest. They formed the lowest caste of Spanish society.

A refined and graceful affectation adopted by wealthy colonists in the Atlantic in emulation of England’s aristocratic class, which was used to display superiority over the lower and middle classes.

The deposition of the English King James II by the Dutch Prince William III of Orange in 1688.

A wide-ranging set of religious revivals in the 1730s and 40s in which evangelical Christians (the “New Lights”) strengthened the concepts of individualism and anti-authority sentiment in the colonies.

An intense period of emigration of Puritan families to New England in the 1630s, under the leadership of John Winthrop.

French colonists who settled in the Saint Lawrence River valley, in what is the modern-day Canadian province of Quebec.

A system used in the Chesapeake and the Carolinas that granted land to men who could pay for passage to the Americas.

Indentured servants mortgaged a period of years of labor to wealthy landowners in the Americas in exchange for passage, board, and sometimes property.

A genre of sermon used by the Puritan clergy to catalogue disaster in the colonies and express their belief in the decline of Puritan ideals.

An economic policy adopted by the British which prioritized strengthening trade between the empire and its subsidiaries at the expense of trade with other empires.

A transformative religious experience that brought believers from a nadir of hopelessness to union with God. It was greatly desired by the Puritans and subsequently the evangelical Christians.

Russian workers who sought valuable sable and sea otter pelts in Siberia and what is now Alaska in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Colonies established by private interests, like a company or group of wealthy individuals, rather than owned by the Crown.

Hard-working, radical Protestants who settled in New England in the 17th century. They were united by the belief that the Protestant Reformation had not gone far enough in England.

Also called Friends of God. In the 17th and 18th centuries, an especially radical branch of Protestantism that rejected all accouterments of organized religion (sacraments, clergy, etc.) and believed all Christians to be spiritual equals.

A property fee paid by landowners, not unlike a tax.

A colony that belonged to the Crown. Compare to proprietary colonies.

French nobility who organized and financed emigrants, called habitants, to New France.