APUSH Timeline Cause and Effect

1612

Tobacco made a profitable crop by John Rolfe

Cause: Starving time and failure of Jamestown colony.

Effect: Vital role in putting VA on a firm economic footing. Ruinous to soil when continuously planted. Chained VA's economy to a single crop. Tobacco promoted the use of the plantation system. Need for cheap, abundant labor → indentured servitude.

1619

First group of blacks brought to Virginia

TURNING POINT

Cause: Arrival of Dutch ship to Virginia carrying Africans.

Effect: Their status was not clear = perhaps slaves, perhaps indentured servants. Slavery not that important until the end of the 17th century. Sets precedent for Bacon's Rebellion as a source of slave labor.

1676

Bacon's Rebellion

Cause: Rebels resented Berkeley's close relations with Indians. Berkeley monopolized the fur trade with the Indians in the area. Berkley refused to retaliate for Indian attacks on frontier settlements.

Effect: Governor Berkeley driven from Jamestown. It exposed resentments between inland frontiersmen and landless former servants against gentry on coastal plantations. Socio-economic class differences/clashes between rural and urban communities would continue throughout American history. Upper class planters searched for laborers less likely to rebel - black slaves.

1739-1744

First Great Awakening

Cause: Declining church membership. Diminishing role of religion. Enlightenment.

Effect: Faith in Protestantism revived. Evangelical church membership significantly increased. The governments in the Colonies passed laws to keep ecclesiastical order, fueling sentiment for the separation of church and state. Many converts separated from established churches to form churches with stricter membership requirements.

1756-1763

French and Indian War

TURNING POINT

Cause: French and British claims over the Ohio River Valley. Both European countries used Native American claims to the land.

Effect: England felt that a major reorganization of her

American Empire was necessary. It united the colonists against a common enemy for the first time. Proclamation Line of 1763 created bitter feelings towards the British that would only intensify.

1774

First Continental Congress convenes

Cause: Stamp Act Congress precursor to Continental Congress. Committees of Correspondence, which kept the local colonial governments in communication with one another as their common opposition to Britain grew.

Effect: Boycott British goods, cease exports to Britain as long as Intolerable Acts are in place. Intolerable Acts are repealed. Outbreak of war leads to Second Continental Congress.

1776

Declaration of Independence

TURNING POINT

Cause: Outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord. Formation of Second Continental Congress. King George ignores Olive Branch petition. Popularity of Common Sense.

Effect: Justifies American Revolution. Articulates grievances toward the British government. Incorporates Lockean ideals of natural rights in American society. Inspires subsequent revolutions and social/reform movements.

1784-1787

Northwest Ordinance of 1784, 1785, and 1787

Cause: Area around Ohio long desired by colonists. States laid claim to territories following the Revolutionary War. Jefferson proposes territory should be set up as new states.

Effect: Procedure of establishing new states set up. The principle of granting new states equal rather than inferior status to older ones was firmly established. Extending religious liberty to new territories. No slavery allowed in Northwest Territory.

1788

Constitution ratified

TURNING POINT

Cause: Shays Rebellion. No consistency in state currencies. No consistent taxation and trade between states.

Effect: Removed Articles of Confederation. Established three branches of government. Strong central government. Establishment of federalism. Led to debates concerning states rights and role of central government.

1790

Hamilton's financial plan

Cause: Large debt by the federal government. Useless paper money by the Articles of Confederation. No foreign credit available.

Effect: Federal government pays off state debts. Issuance of new government bonds. Establishment of Bank of the United States. Self-sufficiency of manufacturing through subsidies and protective tariffs. Sparks division between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. First Party System.

1798

Alien and Sedition Acts

Cause: Undeclared naval war against France. Congress seeks to give more authority to government to deal with foreign nationals. Desire to stifle D-R opposition.

Effect: Illegalized "treasonous" writings and activities. Arrest and imprisonment of 25 men charged with violating Sedition Act. Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. Popularization of Democratic-Republicans and Jefferson.

1800

Jefferson elected

TURNING POINT

Cause: Establishment of strong central government under Washington and Adams. Alienation of large groups by the Federalists. Alien & Sedition Acts.

Effect: First time that presidential power transitioned from one party to another. Decentralized government.

1803

Marbury v. Madison

TURNING POINT

Cause; Adams appoints midnight judges on his departure from the presidency. Madison, Jefferson's Secretary of State, refuses to deliver William Marbury's commission.

Effect: First time Supreme Court declares something unconstitutional. Establishes the concept of judicial review in the United States.

1812-1815

War of 1812

Cause: British interference with American shipping. Impressment. Americans believe British are pushing natives against settlers. War Hawks want to expand into Canada.

Effect: Increase in American patriotism/Era of Good Feelings. Native Americans weakened. Growth of U.S. manufacturing. U.S. survives a war against a global power. Growth in confidence in country's ability to survive.

1819

McCullough v. Maryland

TURNING POINT

Cause: Panic of 1819. Maryland tries to impede a branch of the BUS by taxing it.

Effect: Established two principles: 1) Constitution gives Congress implied powers (ex. BUS). 2) A state cannot impede action by the federal government.

1820

Missouri Compromise

Cause: Louisiana Purchase. Unresolved questions about slavery in Louisiana Territory. Missouri attempts to join Union as slave state, exposing the question to Congress for the first time regarding the West.

Effect: Missouri is a slave state, Maine is admitted as a free state. Prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30' north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. Presaged sectional debates about slavery that would emerge in the 1840s and 50s.

1828

Andrew Jackson elected/Jacksonian Era begins

TURNING POINT

Cause: Election of 1824/corrupt bargain. Growth of political machines under Van Buren. Expansion of white male suffrage in the states.

Effect: Ended rule of notables. Established an era of distrust of the elites. Dawn of a populist era. Indissolubility of the Union declared. Expansion of presidential powers to rival Congress. Second Party System established.

1848

Seneca Falls Convention

Cause: Second Great Awakening challenges women's traditional roles, since more women are leading reform movements. Female involvement in abolition movement inspires women to fight for rights.

Effect: Begins women's rights movement. Reformers draft Declaration of Sentiments and Rights. Increasing cooperation between women's rights groups and abolitionists. Paved way for suffrage movement in Progressive Era.

1846-1848

Mexican-American War

Cause: No establishment of Southern boundary of Texas. Manifest Destiny ideology because aggressive and expansionist. Border skirmishes between U.S. and Mexico over southern Texas border.

Effect: Mexico ceded California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada to U.S. Subsequent attempts to regulate slavery in territory contribute to sectional crisis.

1850

Compromise of 1850

TURNING POINT

Cause: Victory in Mex-Am War. Mexican Cession opens up lands in the West for settlement. Gold Rush of 1849 makes southwestern lands attractive to South. California wants to be admitted as free state, but will upset free/slave state balance.

Effect: California admitted as free state. Borders of Texas and New Mexico established. New Fugitive Slave Act causes increased tension between North and South.

1854

Kansas-Nebraska Act

TURNING POINT

Cause: Transcontinental railroad system through established territory to connect East to newly acquired Western lands. Stephen A. Douglas proposes bill to establish Kansas and Nebraska territories and proposes popular sovereignty to determine fate of slavery.

Effect: K-N bill becomes law. Bleeding Kansas as a result of pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces clashing in Kansas. Reversal of Missouri Compromise. Leads to establishment of Republican Party, death of Whigs, and the start of the Third Party System.

1860

Lincoln elected

TURNING POINT

Cause: Republicans field Lincoln, but Democratic Party is split. Fire-eaters compete with moderate Democrats over control of the party. South becomes increasingly hostile to anti-slavery Northerners as a result of Republican Party platform, Harper's Ferry, and attempts to limit slavery.

Effect: Lincoln wins with 40% of popular vote. South refuses to submit to Republican rule. Crittenden Compromise fails to placate South. Southern states begin to secede. Leads to Civil War.

1861-1865

Civil War

Cause: Election of 1860, Republicans and Lincoln. Secession of Southern states between December 1860 and early 1861. Attack on Ft. Sumter by Confederate forces. Establishment of Confederate States of America.

Effect: Division of West Virginia and Virginia. Union victory. Reconstruction amendments (13, 14, and 15) which forbid slavery, extended equal protection under the law, and prohibited discrimination based on race, color, or previous servitude. Federalism emerges victorious over states rights. Wartime demand spurs industrialization. Reconstruction begins.