Section 2 Glossary

Aide-de-Camp: military officer acting as secretary and confidential assistant to a superior officer of general or flag rank.

Appointed Council: a political decision-making body made up of members how have been appointed (or selected) by a leader to join him/her in the law-making process. Members of appointed councils are neither elected by the people nor can they be removed through elections.

Assimilate: this occurs when the members of a group take on the customs, lifestyle, and even the ideas of the other group. For example, new citizens may be assimiated into the culture of their adopted country.

Beachhead: a position on an enemy shoreline captured by troops in advance of an invading force.

Bill Gates: Gates is the head of the software company Microsoft and one of the world's wealthiest men. He has often been accused of shadey business practices in terms of how he deals with potential competitors. Gates was responsible for the invention of Microsoft Windows operating systems. He has gained a reputation for fierce competitiveness and aggressive business savvy.

British Land (freehold) System: individuals (as opposed to only landowners) have the legal right to own a piece of land for the duration of his or her life. A landholder may sell the land or pass it on to his or her heirs.

Citadel: a stronghold into which people could go for shelter during a battle.

Civil Laws: these laws protect and regulate the personal rights of citizens. Property rights are one example of civil laws.

Conventional Warfare: wars that took place in open fields between "lines of opposing men" using highly disciplined and structured tactics.

Decree: an authoritative order having the force of law.

Deerfield Massacre: on February 29th, 1704, the small community of Deerfield, Massachusetts was attacked by, a force of several hundred French soldiers and their Native allies. Fifty-six settlers were killed in the fighting and 100 more were taken as prisoner to Montreal and Quebec City.

Demoralize: to put into disorder; confuse.

Dispossessed: no this doesn't mean that they used to have a demon or something and a priest came and exorcised them. Dispossess is a fancy way of saying they were booted out of their homeland and lost all their property.

Dynastic Struggles: a "royal dynasty" occurs when a kingdom or an empire's rulers are taken from the same family. There were numerous dynasties in Europe in the 17th Century, I.e. Bourbon Family in France, Tudors in England, Romanoffs of Russia, and the Hohenzollerns of Austria. In an effort to expand their own power, these families would fight one another and/or inter-marry to expand their lands. Intermarriage often prevented wars from breaking out; however, intermarriage also led to war. This is because kings (who were cousins or even brothers) would claim to be the next in line to succeed an uncle or father, etc. All of the dynasties in Europe were related to one another somehow. In the case of the controversy over the Spanish succession, both Louis XIV of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I were close relatives of the Spanish royal family. Therefore, each sought to acquire the valuable throne at the expense of the other. The result was a general war involving all of the most powerful states in Europe at the time.

Eastern Seaboard: the term refers to the American states along the Atlantic coast.

Elected Assembly: a political decision-making body whose representatives are directly elected by voters. In 18th Century Britain, only British subjects who were white, male, and owned property, were eligible to be a member of such an assembly.

Erwin Rommel: (1891–1944), a German field marshal who became renowned during World War II for bluff, illusion, and lightning strikes.

Feudalism: a system of obligations that bound lords and their subjects in Europe during much of the Middle Ages. In theory, the king owned all or most of the land and gave it to his leading nobles in return for their loyalty and military service. The nobles in turn held land that peasants, including serfs, were allowed to farm in return for the peasants' labor and a portion of their produce. Under feudalism, people were born with a permanent position in society.

Fort William Henry: a shared European sensibility occasionally united the British and French against the natives. When the British surrendered Fort William Henry in 1757 to Montcalm, the natives felt they deserved the spoils of war. When they stripped the English soldiers and began to massacre them, the French leapt to their defense."The Marquis de Montcalm rushed up at the noise," a Frenchman by the name of Bouganville present at the massacre wrote. "Several French officers risked their lives in tearing the English from the hands of the Indians...Finally the disorder quieted down and the Marquis de Montcalm at once took away from the Indians four hundred of these unfortunate men and had them clothed. The French officers divided with the English officers the few spare clothes they had." Vaudreuil managed to ransom some of the prisoners the natives had taken away, though some had been killed and one eaten. Taken from Canada: A People's History, Page 113.

Guerilla Warfare: tactics that emphasize improvisation and spontaneity. There are no set rules to follow. The only guiding principle is inflicting as much damage on the enemy as possible and then leaving as quickly as possible.

Habitant: a term used to describe the French settlers of New France. If you're a Montreal Canadiens fan you would probably have heard the team referred to as the "habs". Well, this is a shortened version of a centuries old term to describe the original in-habitants of Quebec. Aren't you glad you took history?

Holy Roman Empire: was essentially a collection of hundreds of tiny German states in the region known today as the country of Germany. The HRE was run by a guy named the Holy Roman Emperor (who tended to be an Austrian by birth). In fact, the Holy Roman Empire was really just another name for the Austrian Empire.

Hudson's or Hudson Bay? Have you noticed something odd about the name of the company and that of the actual bay? The punctuation is different. The company is called Hudson's Bay but the body of water itself is Hudson Bay. What's the deal with that? Well, it turns out the possessive form actually came first. It used to be standard practice when naming a location after its discoverer. For example, Vancouver Island was originally Vancouver's Island. But about 100 years ago, and on the not unreasonable grounds that these features did not actually belong to the explorers they were named after, the Canadian Cartography Society decided to drop the use of possessives. The HBC did not; it retained its apostrophe, and has been proudly confusing students ever since. Taken from Will Ferguson's Canadian History for Dummies, Page 90.

Military Rule: the British Army acted as the temporary government until British control of New France and Acadia was confirmed with the Treaty of Paris (1763). The terms of rule were established with the Proclamation of 1763, and military governors were assigned to oversee the colonies.

Parliament: in the British system, this is the law-making body and the highest level of government in a country or colony of Britain.

Pragmatic Sanction: (April 19, 1713), a decree by the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI. (1685-1740) with the intent that all his Hapsburg kingdoms and lands descend as an integral whole without partition. It stipulated that his undivided heritage go to his eldest son, should he have one, or, failing a son, to his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa.

Private Enterprise: business carried on for profit and not owned by the government.

Rapprochement: a re-establishing of cordial relations, as between two countries.

Representative Assembly: members of government are elected by citizens. The elected members are expected to represent the wishes of the voters and make decisions on their behalf.

Salem Witch Trials: many colonists in late-seventeenth-century New England combined their Puritan faith with a belief in witchcraft, and charges that one or another person was one of Satan's agents, bent on bringing harm to the community, were common. By far the greatest concentration of these charges occurred in Salem Village, Massachusetts, in 1692. In February, a group of teenaged girls in Salem began experiencing spectacular fits, during which they thrashed about, wincing and shrieking. At first the girls blamed no one, but under repeated questioning by adults, they began to identify a widening circle of local residents as witches and wizards--mostly middle-aged women but also men and even one four-year-old child. Arrest followed arrest, but the fits increased. By the end of the summer, hundreds had been accused, twenty-seven put on trial, and nineteen executed.

Meanwhile, however, discomfort over the trials had been growing, both within Salem Village and in the wider community, including, among others, the Boston clergyman Increase Mather and the new governor, William Phips. Although few questioned the reality of witchcraft, many were troubled with the chaotic proceedings in Salem. In early October, the governor forbade further trials. In January 1693, he formed a new court, which, working under stricter evidentiary guidelines, acquitted forty-nine out of fifty-two prisoners; the rest were discharged by spring. Accusations of witchcraft decreased dramatically thereafter throughout New England.

A number of historians have linked the witch trials to the painful changes that Puritan society was experiencing at the time. Torn between the communal asceticism of their original goals and the commercial individualism fast overtaking them, some Puritans, the historians argue, responded with guilt and fear, seeking scapegoats on whom they could blame their sense of moral loss. Within Salem Village, a history of bitter factionalism (as well as resentment toward the more prosperous Salem Town, which controlled the village politically and ecclesiastically) may have helped make the witch-hunt in Salem Village the most virulent in New England. Taken from Answers.com.

Seigneurs: the seigneurs were French nobles, army officers, merchants, and government officials who had been granted large portions of land in New France by the French government. These landlords were responsible for farming the land or leasing it to farmers, called habitants. The seigneurs held a high status in the community. Once established, a seigneur would enjoy prosperity and privileges.

Theatre: this is a term used to describe battles localized to a specific region but which are part of a larger war. I.e. In World War II, the Americans fought the Japanese in the Pacific Theatre of operations and the Germans in the European Theatre.

Treaty of Paris (1763): the treaty was signed on February 10, 1763, ending the Seven Years' War. It also put an end to France's empire in North America. The only territory that remained French were the island of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (off the coast of Newfoundland). French fishers were also allowed to land and dry their catch on the northern coast of Newfoundland. Those French people who stayed in North America were allowed to remain Catholic.

War of Jenkin's Ear: one of a series of wars caused by colonial rivalries in the New World. The Spanish excluded English traders from trading with Spanish-American colonies. This led the English to smuggle goods into Spanish colonies illegally. This made Spain justifiably angry. In 1738, Captain Robert Jenkins appeared before Parliament with his ear, which he claimed had been cut off by the Spanish when they boarded his ship seven years earlier. War was declared in 1739, although the conflict was soon swallowed by the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and by 1743 the hostilities in America became part of King George's War (1744-1748). There were English attacks on Spanish colonies in the Caribbean in 1739 and 1740, and attacks of St. Augustine (Florida), then in Spanish hands, in 1740 and 1743, while the Spanish launched an attack on Georgia in 1743.

Under the 1729 Treaty of Seville, the British had agreed not to trade with the Spanish colonies. To verify the treaty, the Spanish were permitted to board British vessels in Spanish waters. After one such incident in 1731, Robert Jenkins, captain of the ship Rebecca, claimed that the Spanish coast guard had severed his ear, and in 1738 exhibited it to the House of Commons - hence the name of the conflict. The British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, reluctantly declared war on October 23, 1739.

One of the key actions was the British capture, on November 21, 1739, of the silver exporting town of Puerto Bello (then in New Granada, now Panama), in an attempt to damage Spain's finances. The poorly defended port was attacked by six ships of the line under Admiral Edward Vernon. The battle demonstrated the vulnerability of Spanish trading practices, and led them to fundamentally change them. Rather than trading at centralized ports with large treasure fleets, they began using small numbers of ships trading at a wide variety of ports. They also began to travel around Cape Horn to trade on the West coast. Puerto Bello's economy was severely damaged, and did not recover until the building of the Panama Canal. In Britain the victory was greeted with much celebration, and in 1740, at a dinner in honour of Vernon in London, the song God Save the King, now the British national anthem, was performed in public for the first time. The London street Portobello Road was named after the victory.