78 Chapter 2 American Society in the Making
1619 First Africans are sold in Virginia
1636 Puritans found Boston Latin School and Harvard
College
1657 Half-Way Covenant leads to rise in puritan church
memberships
1676 Western planters launch Bacon’s Rebellion in
Virginia
1684– Edmund Andros rules Dominion of
1688 New England
1689 Leisler’s Rebellion in New York seizes control of
government
1692 Salem Village holds witchcraft trials
1696 Virginia colonists found College of William
and Mary
Rice cultivation is introduced in South Carolina
1701 Connecticut ministers found Yale College
1733 George Oglethorpe leads settlement of Georgia
Milestones
Chapter Review
Key Terms
Bacon’s Rebellion An armed uprising in 1676, led
by Nathaniel Bacon, against Virginia governor Sir
William Berkeley. Initially the rebels attacked Indian
settlements but later moved against Berkeley’s
political faction and burned Jamestown, capital of
the colony. After Bacon’s death that year, the
rebellion collapsed, 62
Glorious Revolution The peaceful accession of
William II, a Protestant, and Queen Mary to the
British throne in 1688, ending the Catholic rule
of James II. Many colonists rebelled against gover-
nors who had been appointed by James II and
demanded greater political rights, 68
Half-Way Covenant A modification of puritan
practice, adopted by many Congregational
churches during the 1650s and afterwards, that
allowed baptized puritans who had not experi-
enced saving grace to acquire partial church mem-
bership and receive sacraments, 67
headright A system of land distribution, adopted
first in Virginia and later in Maryland, that
granted colonists fifty acres for themselves and
another fifty for each “head” (or person) they
brought with them to the colony. This system was
often used in conjunction with indentured servi-
tude to build large plantations and supply them
with labor, 58
indentured servants Individuals working under a
form of contract labor that provided them with
free passage to America in return for a promise to
work for a fixed period, usually seven years.
Indentured servitude was the primary labor system
in the Chesapeake colonies for most of the seven-
teenth century, 58
Leisler’s Rebellion An uprising in 1689, led by Jacob
Leisler, that wrested control of New York’s govern-
ment following the abdication of King James II.
The rebellion ended when Leisler was arrested and
executed in 1690, 74
triangular trade An oversimplified term for the
trade among England, its colonies in the Americas,
and slave markets in Africa and the Caribbean, 71
Review Questions
1.How did the strategies used by Spain, France, and
England differ in peopling their colonies in North
America? Why did the English prevail?
2.How did the English colonies along the Atlantic
coastline differ from each other? What were the
strengths and long-term weaknesses of each pat-
tern of settlement and development?
3.Why did slavery supplant indentured servitude in
the South? Why didn’t slavery take hold in the
northern colonies?
4.This chapter outlines the ways in which the area
that now constitutes the United States was settled
by people who differed in terms of nationality and
religion, race and ethnic group, and even by con-
tending classes. What did they share in common?