Glossary

Asiento

Obtained by Britain from Spain by the Treaty of Utrecht, the Asiento was a trading pact allowing the English to sell 4800 slaves annually in New Spain.

coureurs de bois

Some of the 75,000 settlers of New France were farmers and fishermen; others were fur traders, known as coureurs de bois.

Enlightenment

During the eighteenth century, colonial leaders were fascinated by the Enlightenment. This intellectual movement was secular in its approach to learning and stressed scientific inquiry and the systematic collection of information. Following the lead of Sir Isaac Newton, one of its major goals was to unlock the physical laws of nature.

era of salutary neglect

During the first six decades of the eighteenth century, British imperial officials were not overbearing, and home leaders did not tamper with the mercantilist system, which worked quite well. Colonists gladly accepted this approach to colonial affairs, which many have called the era of salutary neglect.

New Light

During the Great Awakening, New Light preachers like Gilbert Tennent expressed the feeling of many revivalists in advising their flocks to shun clergy who, while well educated in formal theology, showed no visible signs of having gained God's saving grace.

Old Light

During the Great Awakening, traditional or Old Light clergymen began to denounce the Awakening as a fraudulent hoax perpetrated by unlettered fools of no theological training. In New England they persuaded colonial assemblies to adopt anti-itinerancy laws, which barred traveling evangelists Tennent from preaching.

patroonships

The company that established the colony of New Netherlands encouraged local agricultural production by making patroonships, vast landed estates, available to wealthy men who transported at least 50 families to the colony. The migrants would became tenant farmers for their masters, called patroons, who hoped to live like medieval lords.

rationalism

The key watchword of the Enlightenment was rationalism, meaning a firm trust in the ability of the human mind to solve earthly problems and much less faith in the centrality of God as an active, fundamental force in the universe.

Treaty of Utrecht

The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ended the War of the Spanish Succession, known in the American colonies as Queen Anne's War. The treaty was a virtual declaration of Britain's growing imperial might. In addition to major territorial gains, the British secured from Spain the Asiento.

William Penn

A Quaker, Penn founded Pennsylvania as a sanctuary for oppressed religious groups and as a source of personal income through quitrents. His utopian vision of this enterprise was captured in the phrase "holy experiment." His hope was that people of diverse backgrounds and religious beliefs could live together harmoniously.

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