Time Period 1 & 2 Review

Flashcards for vocabulary terms from lecture notes

Pre-Columbian

Refers to the time period in the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Encomiendas

Land grants given by the Spanish crown that included the right to demand labor and tribute from the local Indigenous peoples.

Columbian Exchange

The transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Joint Stock Company

A business entity where different stocks can be bought and owned by shareholders. Joint stock companies were often used to finance colonial ventures.

Indentured Servants

Individuals who agreed to work for a period of time (typically 4-7 years) in exchange for passage to the Americas and eventual freedom.

Virginia House of Burgesses

The first elected legislative assembly in the New World established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.

Mayflower Compact

The first agreement for self-government to be created and enforced in America, signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620.

Mercantilism

An economic theory that promotes governmental regulation of a nation's economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers.

Salutary Neglect

A British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws meant to keep the American colonies obedient to England.

The Great Awakening

A series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its Thirteen Colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

The Enlightenment

An intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

Signed by Great Britain, France, and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Great Britain's victory over France and Spain during the Seven Years' War.

Proclamation Line of 1763

Issued by the British at the end of the French and Indian War to appease Native Americans by prohibiting colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Stamp Act

An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents.

Boston Massacre

A confrontation in 1770 in which British soldiers shot and killed several colonists while under attack by a mob.

Boston Tea Party

A political protest in 1773 in which American colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act.

Coercive Acts

A series of British measures passed in 1774 designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party; also known as the Intolerable Acts.

Continental Congress

A body of representatives appointed by the legislatures of several British American colonies which met from 1774 to 1789.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the United States, adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777 and ratified in 1781.

Whiskey Rebellion

A tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington.

Alien and Sedition Acts

A series of laws passed by the Federalist Congress in 1798 that restricted the activities of foreign residents and limited freedom of speech and of the press.

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

Political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799, in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional.

Marbury v. Madison

A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1803 that established the principle of judicial review.

Louisiana Purchase

The acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803.

Embargo Act of 1807

A law passed by the United States Congress in 1807 that prohibited American ships from trading in foreign ports.

Missouri Compromise

In 1820, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri was admitted as a slave state. Slavery was prohibited above 36'30'' parallel.

Monroe Doctrine

A U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the American continent in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention.

Nullification Crisis

A confrontation between the state of South Carolina and the federal government in 1832–33 over the former's attempt to declare null and void within the state the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832.

Indian Removal Act

Passed in 1830, presidents could decide to forcibly remove natives, with federal support, if in the way of American advancement.

Trail of Tears

In 1838, forced migration of Cherokee natives to reservations in Oklahoma

Abolition

A movement to end slavery.

Manifest Destiny

A belief that the U.S. was destined to expand across the North American continent.

Compromise of 1850

California became free state, New Mexico and Utah territories would decide slavery based on popular sovereignty, slave trade banned in DC, and Fugitive Slave Law.

Fugitive Slave Law

If slave owners were able to show “evidence” their slave had escaped and could forcibly take them back to their owner in exchange for higher profits.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a bestselling book that described the horrors of slavery and enlightened many Northerners about it’s injustices.

Underground Railroad

Secret system of safe houses that allowed for the travel of runaway slaves to freedom in the north – most notable conductor Harriet Tubman.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed popular sovereignty to decide if Kansas and Nebraska would be free or slave states – split Whig party into Northern Whigs and Southern Whigs (weakened them) and created the Republican Party.

Dred Scott Decision

A slave sued for his freedom b/c his owner took him to a free state and Supreme Court decided that Scott was not a US citizen and could not sue, residence in free territory did not make him free, and SC couldn’t ban slavery.

Emancipation Proclamation

Officially made the war about slavery – freed the slaves in the Conf, but not the border states who had stayed in the Union.

Reconstruction Amendments

13th , 14th , and 15th – all give more rights to former slaves.

Populist Party

Mostly farmers in the Mid-West, wanted to get their voices heard in government specifically involving price inflations/interest rates, sharecropping $ issues, Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

Progressive Era

society is responsible for individuals and should help them.