Studied by 26 people
Columbian Exchange
A trans-Atlantic flow of goods and people that began with Columbus's first voyage in 1492
Pueblo Revolt
Successful revolt in New Mexico against Spanish colonizers. Forced and Spanish out of the region in 1680.
Puritans
English religious group that wanted to purify the Church of England; founded Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.
Pilgrims
Puritan separatists who broke completely with the Church of England, sailed on the Mayflower, and established the colony of Plymouth in 1620.
Virginia Company
A joint-stock enterprise that King James I chartered in 1606. The company was to spread Christianity to the New World as well as find ways to make a profit in it.
Mayflower Compact
Document signed in 1620 aboard the Mayflower before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth; the document committed the group to majority-rule government.
House of Burgesses
The first elected assembly in colonial America, established in 1619 in Virginia. Only wealthy landowners could vote in its elections.
King Philips War
In 1675, Indigenous people revolted against English colonists in an attempt to gain back control of their land. The Native nations lost the war, and English settlers actually gained more control and freedom as a result.
Society of Friends
Also known as Quakers; English religious group who believed all people contained the light of God, promoted equality and were against slavery
Salem Witch Trials
A crisis of trials and executions in Salem, MA, in 1692 that resulted from anxiety over witchcraft.
Middle Passage
The hellish and often deadly middle leg of the transatlantic "Triangular Trade" in which European ships carried manufactured goods to Africa, then transported enslaved Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean, and finally conveyed American agricultural products back to Europe.
Salutary neglect
Informal British policy during the first half of the 18th-century that allowed the American colonies considerable freedom to pursue their economic and political interests in exchange for colonial obedience.
Enlightenment
Revolution in thought in the 18th-century that emphasized reason and science of authority of traditional religion.
Deism
Enlightenment approach to religion that emphasized reason and natural law.
Great Awakening (first)
A religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 1740s led by preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.
French and Indian War
The last (and most important) of four colonial wars fought between England and France for control of North America east of the Mississippi River.
Proclamation of 1763
Royal directive issued after the French and Indian War prohibiting settlement, surveys, and land grants west of the Appalachian Mountains; caused considerable resentment among colonists hoping to move west.
Stamp Act
Parliament's 1765 requirement that revenue stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, documents, and playing cards; was repealed the following year.
“No taxation without representation”
The rallying cry of opponents to the 1765 Stamp Act. The slogan decried the colonists' lack of representation in Parliament.
Sons of Liberty
Organization formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radicals in response to the Stamp Act.
Continental Congress
First meeting of representatives of the colonies, held in Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions against British policies; in the Second Continental Congress, the colonial representatives of conducted the war and adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The first shots fired in the Revolutionary War on April 19th, 1775, near Boston; approximately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed.
Common Sense
A pamphlet anonymously written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that attacked the English principals of hereditary rule and monarchical government.
Battle of Yorktown
Last Battle of the Revolutionary War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis, along with over 7000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17th, 1781.
Treaty of Paris
Signed on September 3rd, 1783, the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War recognized American independence from Britain, established the border between Canada and the United States, fixed the western border at the Mississippi River, and ceded Florida to Spain.
republican motherhood
The ideology that emerged as a result of American independence where women played an indispensable role by training future citizens.
Articles of Confederation
First frame of government for the US; in effect from 1781 to 1788 and provided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced by the constitution.
3/5 compromise
Provisions signed to the Constitution in 1787 that 3/5 of the slave population would be counted in determining each states' representation in the House of Representatives and its electoral votes for president.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Law created the Northwest territory and established conditions for self government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights and permanently prohibited slavery.
Shay’s Rebellion
Attempt by Massachusetts and farmer Daniel Shays along with 1200 compatriots seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes to prevent courts from seizing property and in-debt farmers.
Federalists and Republicans (or Democratic-Republicans)
These two political parties were divided over the issue of the strength of the government. The Federalists argued for a strong central government, while Democratic-Republicans believed that the state governments should be stronger than the central government.
Alien and Sedition Acts
Four measures passed in 1798 during the undeclared war with France that limited the freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of non-citizens.
Revolution of 1800
First time that an American political party surrendered power to the opposition party; Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, a Federalist, for President.
Louisiana Purchase
President Thomas Jefferson's 1803 purchase from France of the important part of New Orleans and 828,000 sq miles west of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mts; it more than doubled the territory of the United States at a cost of only $15 million.
Embargo Act
Attempt in 1807 to exert economic pressure by prohibiting all exports from the Unite States, instead of waging War in reaction to continued British impressment of American sailors; smugglers easily circumvented the embargo, and it was repealed two years later.
War of 1812
A conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights.
Erie Canal
Most important and profitable of the canals from 1820-30. Stretched from Buffalo to Albany NY connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York the nation's largest port.
Cotton gin
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1763, the machine that spread cotton seed from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable cultivation handier but difficult to clean short-staple cotton led directly to the 19th-century expansion of slavery in the South.
Manifest destiny
Phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage American settlement of European colonial and Indian lands in the Great Plains and West and most generally, as a justification for American Empire.
Monroe Doctrine
President Jame Monroe's declaration to congress on December 2nd, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs.
Trail of Tears
Cherokees' own term for their forced removal, 1838-1839 from the Southeast to Indian lands; of 15000 forced to March, 4000 died on the way to what is now known as Cincinnati.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion
(1831) A slave rebellion in VA led by Nat Turner which killed 60 whites but was put down by the militia. It made VA and other slave states tighten their control on slavery, rather than getting rid of the institution.
temprence movement
A widespread reform movement, led by militant Christians, focused on reducing the use of alcoholic beverages.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 antislavery novel that popularized the abolitionist position
Mexican War
Controversial war with Mexico for control of California and New Mexico, 1846-1848; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande and extended the United States to the Pacific coast, annexing more than a half-million square miles of Mexican territory.
Compromise of 1850
Complex compromise devised by Senator Henry Clay that admitted California as a free state, included a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.
Fugitive Slave Act
Gave government authority in cases involving runaway slaves, opposition to the North
Know-Nothing Party
Nativist, anti-Catholic 3rd party in 1854 in reaction to German and Irish immigration, elected Fillmore for President in 1856
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Supreme Court ruled that only white people are citizens and it was unconstitutional to bar slavery from a territory.
Fort Sumter
First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14th, 1861, after two days of sailing.
Radical Republicans
One part of the most uncompromising opponents of slavery, who quickly concluded that institution must become a target of the Union war effort. Later, elected Fremont to run against Lincoln for his second term.
Battle of Gettysburg
Battle fought in southern Pennsylvania, July 1-3 1863; the Confederate defeat and simultaneous loss at Vicksburg marked the military turning point of the Civil War.
Homestead Act
Authorized Congress to grant 160 acres of public land to western settlers who had to live on it for 5 years to establish title
Appomattox Courthouse, VA
Site of the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to Union general Ulysses S. Grant on April 9th, 1865, marking the end of the Civil War.
The Freedman's Bureau
Congress initiated an agency to establish schools, provide aid to the poor, settle disputes between whites and blacks, and secure former slaves and white Unionists equal treatment before the courts.
Fourteenth Amendment
1868 constitutional amendment that guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act in 1866.
Fifteenth Amendment
Constitutional amendment ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from discriminating in voting privileges on the basis of race.
Black Codes
Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
White supremacy organization that intimidated blacks out of their newly found liberties
Compromise of 1877
Deal made by a Republican and Democratic special congressional commission to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876; Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who had lost the popular vote, was declared the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from involvement in politics in the South, marking the end of the Reconstruction.
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