- "the starving time": it's what the colony called the winter of 1609-1610
- Act of Toleration: act that granted Protestants and Catholics the right to worship freely
- April 1607: Jamestown was established
- armada: war fleet
- Bacon's Rebellion: had shown that the settlers were not willing to be restricted to the coast
- Baltimore: founded in 1729 which was Maryland's port
- burgesses: two representitives
- Cape Cod Massachusetts: Mayflower people planned to land or settle in Virginia. The first land they sighted was this which was well north of their target
- Captain John Smith: an experienced soldier and explorer who led Jamestown
- Charleston: Settlers arrived in Carolina in 1670 and by 1680 they founded a city called Charles Town, later became known as Charleston
- Charters: the right to organize settlements in an area, from King James the First
- constitution: plan of government
- Croatoan: only clue to the fate of settlers who disappeared from Roanoke
- debtors: those who are unable to pay their debts
- Dissented: they disagreed with the beliefs or practices of the Anglicans
- Duke of York: King Charles the Second gave the colony to his brother (this name) who renamed it New York instead of New Netherland/New Amsterdam
- Eliza Lucas: developed another important Carolina crop- indigo
- Fundamental Orders of Connecticut: first written constitution in America and it described the organization of representative government in detail
- Great Migration: a movement in which more than 15000 Puritans journeyed to Massachusetts
- headright: a land grant of 50 acres to those who paid their own way
- House of Burgesses: on July 30, 1619, met for the first time in a church in Jamestown
- indentured servants: laborer who agreed to work without pay for a certain period of time in exchange for passage to America
- Indigo: a blue flowering plat which was used to dye textiles
- James Oglethorpe: received a charter to create a colony where English debtors and poor people could make a fresh start
- Jamestown: first successful colony
- John Locke: an English political philosopher who wrote a constitution for the Carolina colony
- John Rolfe: learned to grow a type of tobacco using seeds from the West Indies. Also he married Pocahontas
- John Wheelwright: led a group of dissidents from Massachusetts to the north in 1638. They founded the town of Exeter in New Hampshire
- John White: a mapmaker and artist who led the group to Roanoke
- John Winthrop: Puritan who was governor of Massachusetts Bay
- joint-stock company: Ex: Virginia Company. Investors bought stock or part ownership in the company in return for a share of its future profits
- Jumipero Serra: In 1769 he, a Franciscan monk founded a mission at San Diego
- King Philip the Second: ruled Spain from 1556-1598
- Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret: The Duke of York gave the southern part of his colony between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers to these people. These people named their colony New Jersey.
- Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette: Joliet: a French fur trader. Marquette: a French priest. In the 1670's they explored the Mississippi River by canoe. Hoped to find gold silver or other precious metals
- Manhattan Island: in 1626 the company bought Manhattan from the Manhates people for small quatities of beads and other goods
- Massachusetts Bay: In 1630, Winthrop led about 900 men, women, and children to this place. Most settled in Boston.
- Massasoit: Wampanoag leader
- Mayflower: the Pilgrims' ship
- Mayflower Compact: a document, pledging the Pilgrims loyalty to bring law and order to the colony before they set food off the ship
- Metacomet: Wampanoag chief was known to settlers as King Philip
- missions: religious settlements established to convert people to a particular faith
- Nathaniel Bacon: a wealthy young planter who was a leader in the western part of Virginia
- New Amsterdam: located on Manhattan Island. The main settlement of New Netherland
- New arrivals in Jamestown in 1619: women
- New France: in 1663 became a royal colony
- New Orleans: In 1718 the French governor founded the port of this near mouth of Mississippi River
- Oliver Cromwell: a Puritan
- pacifists: people who refuse to use force or to fight in wars
- patroons: wealthy landowners who acquired these riverfront estates. They ruled like kings. They had own courts and laws.
- persecuted: treated harshly
- Peter Stuyvesant: governor of New Netherland/ New Amsterdam
- Philadelphia: "city of brotherly love"
- Pilgrims: people who boarded the Mayflower/ Separatists
- Pocahontas: daughter of Chief Powhatan
- Potomac River: Entering Chespeake Bay they sailed to this place through fertile countryside
- proprietary colony: a colony in which the owner or proprietor owned all the land and controlled the government
- Puritans: The Protestants who wanted to reform the Anglican Church
- Quebec: French founded this in place in 1608
- Queen Elizabeth: Protestant
- Rene'-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle: followed Mississippi River all the way to Gulf of Mexico a few years later
- Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: Williams received a charter in 1644 for a colony east of Connecticut called this
- Roanoke Island: off the coast of present-day North Carolina
- Roger Williams: a minister who founded the town of Providence, Rhode Island
- Santa Fe: in late 1609 or early 1610, Spanish missionaries soliers and settlers founded this place
- Savannah: Oglethorpe led people to Georgia in 1733. They built this town
- Separatists: Those who wanted to leave and set up their own churches
- Sir Francis Drake: English adventurer who attacked Spanish ships and ports
- Sir George Calvert, Lord Baltimore: a Catholic who wanted to establish a safe place for his fellow Catholics who were being persecuted in England
- Sir Humphrey Gilbert: claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth in 1583
- Sir Walter Raleigh: Queen Elizabeth gave him the right to claim land in North America. He also sent an expedition to find a good place to settle. His scouts found Roanoke Island.
- Society of Friends: Quakers
- Spanish Armada: mightiest naval force the world had ever seen, yet English ships that were smaller and swifter won the battle
- Squanto & Samoset: Indians who helped the colonists of Pilgrims. Helped the Pilgrims survive
- tenant farmers: the settlers paid their lord an annual rent and worked for him for a fixed number of days each year
- Thomas Hooker 1636: founded Hartford, Connecticut
- toleration: they criticized or persecuted people who held other religious views
- Virginia Dare: first English child to be born in North America
- William Bradford: leader of Pilgrims/ Plymouth
- William Penn: a wealthy English gentleman presented a plan to King Charles.