A written document from a government or ruler that grants certain rights to an individual, group, organization, or to people in general. In colonial times, a charter granted land to a person or company along with the right to found a colony on that land.

A person represented by an elected official.

A binding agreement made by two or more persons or parties. In Protestant churches during the Reformation, a covenant was an agreement made in the sight of God. The Mayflower Compact was such a covenant.

A person who voluntarily sold his or her labor for a set period of time in return for the cost of passage to the American colonies. Indentured servants provided the most important source of labor in the colonies in the seventeenth century and for a large part of the eighteenth century.

A lower-level judicial officer, usually elected in urban areas, who handles traffic violations, minor criminal offenses, and civil suits involving small amounts of money. More generally, magistrate means public official.

An agreement to form a political body signed on November 21, 1620, by all adult males aboard the Mayflower before the ship landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The signers agreed to submit to "just and equal Laws" put into effect under the compact "for the general good of the Colony."

The right to vote. See franchise

King of Scots (1567-1625). King of England (1603-1625). James was son of Mary, Queen of Scots. He sought to assert the divine right of kings.

Franklin was the oldest delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. With the possible exception of George Washington, Franklin was the best-known man in America. Born into a poor family, Franklin became an inventor, scientist, diplomat, and publisher. His Poor Richard's Almanac was read nationwide. His career in public service was long and varied, and included service as ambassador to England and France and as governor of Pennsylvania. At the Philadelphia Convention, Franklin was a compromiser, using wit to bring delegates together. A staunch advocate of colonial rights, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Paris (1783). He played an important role in creating the Great Compromise. He favored a strong national government and argued that the Framers should trust the judgment of the people. Although he was in poor health in 1787, he missed few sessions, being carried to and from the meeting place in a special chair. Although he did not agree with everything in the Constitution, he believed that no other convention could come up with a better document.

Author and political theorist. Born in England, he came to America in November, 1774. In early 1776, he published the pamphlet Common Sense which stirred many Americans to the revolutionary cause. During the war, his pamphlet, The Crisis, helped support the Revolution and encouraged the soldiers in the Continental Army.

Hamilton was a senior aide-de-camp to General Washington and an artillery captain during the Revolutionary War. He was a delegate from New York to the Philadelphia Convention and one of three authors of The Federalist, written to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He later served as the first secretary of the treasury, put the nation's finances on a firm footing and advocated a strong national government.

The Fundamental Orders describe the government to be established by the Connecticut Colony as a self-governed entity. The document bears many features of a written constitution and is the basis of the state's nickname, The Constitution State.

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The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony, which was established out of a decision not to settle in land granted to the London Virginia Company. Some of the passengers aboard the Mayflower were not Pilgrims and did not want to act in accordance with Pilgrim ideology and, to prevent this, the Pilgrims established a local government.

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A petition by the Northern Company of Adventurers, comprised of the surviving members of the Plymouth Company, to create a new settlement and local government in northern Virginia, in the area they designate as New England.

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A letter to King Charles I, seeking permission to create a local government along the Piscataqua River to achieve better local order and control amid violent religious disputes while remaining faithful to the crown.

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An early constitution, creating a governing council and providing a limited enumeration of rights in the district of East New Jersey, the result of Sir George Cateret's sale of his stake in New Jersey, which divided the colony into two districts after land fees proved unprofitable.

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Official permission from King Charles II for settlers to "have, hold, possess, and enjoy" the land in Pennsylvania for the purpose of expanding the British Empire. William Penn, who sought to create a refuge for Quakers, owned the land but was directly accountable to the king under the agreement.

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Document by King George II establishing a colony for the "poor people" of Britain to relocate to Georgia, which was founded by James Oglethorpe as part of his hopes to relieve those in debtors prisons in England and granted by the king in hopes of creating a buffer region that would defend the British colonies from Spanish Florida.

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Notice from King Charles II, establishing the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England. Charles II, a Catholic sympathizer in a Protestant England, approved of the colony's existing desire for religious freedom as the colony's original founder, theologian Roger Williams, fled the Massachusetts Bay Colony to escape persecution.

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From Wikipedia: Document in which King James I of England grants land rights to the Virginia Company for the purpose of spreading Christianity in the New World. The land remained property of the king, and the Virginia Company's corporate parent, the London Company (consisting also of the Plymouth Company) would be its tenant.

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Believed to be written and delivered en route to Massachusetts, Rev. Winthrop, who would be the first governor of the Masachusetts Bay Colony, warned his Puritan colonists that their new community would be a "city upon a hill," watched by the world and must therefore keep their community strong in faith and thrive against the hardships of their new and untamed land.

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The Star Chamber was a court that heard criminal and civil cases against prominent Englishmen, who, it was believed, would not receive a fair trial in the regular courts. In 1641, it was abolished by Parliament with the Habeas Corpus Act of 1640, after controversial incidents with religious dissenters and having become known for its secrecy, misuse and abuse of power.

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The Maryland Toleration Act, passed by the assembly of the Maryland colony, mandated tolerance for Christians who did not practice Anglican Christianity, as the colony was founded in hopes of creating a refuge for Catholics in the New World. The act marks the earliest legal provision for freedom of religion and against hate speech, though it did make blasphemy punishable by death and was repealed in 1692.

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The declaration issued by wealthy planter Nathaniel Bacon and his army accused Governor William Berkeley of being unwilling to aid the people, having raised taxes, played favorites in appointing government officials and failing to suppress the Native American presence on the frontier.

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Governor Berkeley's response to the allegations against him enumerated in Bacon's Declaration. In it, Berkeley equates Bacon's unsanctioned army an act of treason against the king and says that the Native Americans killed by Bacon and his men were allies.

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From Wikipedia: Constitution adopted in 1669 for the area between Virginia and Georgia, written largely by John Locke. This document was unpopular with early settlers, never ratified by the assembly and mostly abandoned by 1700 but several provisions, including freedom of religion, were incorporated into the governments of South Carolina and later North Carolina.

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The agreement between William Buckland and Thomas Mason granting Buckland would work for Mason in Virginia in exchange for transportation, food and drink, washing and lodging, as well as a salary of 20 pounds per year. Buckland, an architect by trade, would later design Gunston Hall, the home of Thomas Mason's brother, founder George Mason.

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The agreement between Richard Lowther and Edward Hurd, promising four years of labor at Hurd's Virginia plantation in exchange for transportation to the colony, food and drink, and 50 acres of land at the end of his term.

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The First Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Association in 1774 to implement a trade boycott against Britain without severing allegiance to the crown. The intent behind the Association was to get Britain to change its colonial policies but resulted instead in the crown attempting to tighten its control even further.

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The Declaration of Rights from the Stamp Act Congress declared that, as loyal British subjects, taxes imposed upon colonies without formal consent were unconstitutional. Additionally, delegates asserted that they had the same rights as all British subjects, including trial by jury, the right to vote and representation. These points would be drafted into petitions to the king, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, though only six colonies agreed to draft them.

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From Wikipedia: The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms was a document issued by the Second Continental Congress on July 6, 1775, to explain why the thirteen colonies had taken up arms in what had become the Revolutionary War, and represents an important development in the political thought that went into the American Revolution. the declaration insists that the colonists do not yet seek independence from the British Empire, only a self-governing place within it.

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From Wikipedia: The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American Colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

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