AP United States History - Comprehensive Review Flashcards

A collection of high-yield vocabulary terms and definitions spanning the nine periods of AP U.S. History based on the provided lecture notes.

Mayas (300-800 AD)

A civilization that built remarkable cities in the rain forests of the Yucatán Peninsula, including present-day Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico.

Tenochtitlán

The capital of the Aztec empire in central Mexico which was home to about $200,000$ people.

Iroquois Confederation

A powerful political union of tribes including the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and later the Tuscaroras.

Encomienda System

A labor system in which the Spanish crown granted colonists control over native populations to be exploited for labor in agriculture and mining.

Asiento System

A system that allowed the Spanish to import enslaved Africans, who were taxed per individual by the Spanish crown.

Bartolomé de Las Casas

A Spanish advocate who argued for better treatment and legal reforms to protect Native Americans, influencing the New Laws of $1542$.

Mayflower Compact (1620)

A pioneering form of self-government created by the Pilgrims that pledged decision-making by majority rule.

Quakers

A religious group whose ideals of equality, religious tolerance, and non-violence founded Pennsylvania under William Penn.

Act of Toleration (1649)

A Maryland law that granted religious freedom to all Christians but was later repealed during a period of Protestant dominance.

The Great Awakening

A period of intense religious fervor and evangelical zeal in the mid-$18th$ century that reshaped Protestantism to be more personal and emotional.

Zenger Case (1735)

A legal case involving John Peter Zenger that established a significant precedent for freedom of the press by arguing that truth is a defense against libel.

Salutary Neglect

A British policy of loosely enforcing parliamentary laws regarding the American colonies, allowing them a significant degree of autonomy.

Albany Plan of Union (1754)

A proposal aimed at creating a unified government for collective colonial defense and taxation, which set a precedent for future revolutionary congresses.

Proclamation of 1763

A British decree that banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains to prevent further conflicts with Native Americans.

Stamp Act (1765)

The first direct tax on the colonies, requiring stamps on all printed materials and sparking the formation of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty.

Common Sense (1776)

A pamphlet by Thomas Paine that argued it was irrational for a vast continent like North America to be ruled by a small distant island and a corrupt monarch.

Articles of Confederation

The first constitution for the United States, which focused on protecting state powers and created a weak national government with no executive or judiciary.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Legislation that created a process for admitting new states in the territory between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River and prohibited slavery in the region.

Shays’s Rebellion (1786-1787)

An uprising of Massachusetts farmers that demonstrated the critical weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation in maintaining public order.

Great Compromise

A plan proposed by Roger Sherman that established a bicameral Congress with equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House.

Bill of Rights (1791)

The first ten amendments to the Constitution, designed to protect individual liberties and address Anti-Federalist concerns.

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

A Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review, giving the Court authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

A ruling that stated a state could not tax a federal institution, affirming the constitutionality of the national bank using the doctrine of implied powers.

Missouri Compromise (1820)

A legislative agreement that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery north of latitude $36^\text{o} 30'$.

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

A U.S. policy declaring that the American continents were no longer open for colonization by European powers.

Eli Whitney

The inventor of the cotton gin ($1793$) and the developer of the concept of interchangeable parts for mass production.

Nullification Crisis

A sectional crisis during Jackson's presidency when South Carolina declared federal tariffs unconstitutional and advanced the theory that states could nullify federal laws.

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

The first women's rights convention, which issued the 'Declaration of Sentiments' stating that 'all men and women are created equal'.

Manifest Destiny

A term coined by John L. O'Sullivan in $1845$ describing the belief that it was the divine mission of the United States to expand across the continent.

Wilmot Proviso (1846)

A legislative proposal that aimed to prohibit slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

Popular Sovereignty

The approach proposed by Lewis Cass suggesting that the residents of a new territory should decide the slavery issue themselves by vote.

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

A Supreme Court ruling that African Americans were not U.S. citizens and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories.

Anaconda Plan

A Union military strategy devised by Winfield Scott to blockade Southern ports and control the Mississippi River to suffocate the Confederacy economically.

Emancipation Proclamation (1863)

An executive order by Abraham Lincoln declaring freedom for all enslaved people in Confederate-held territories.

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

A constitutional amendment that granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and required 'equal protection of the laws'.

Sharecropping

A labor system that emerged after the Civil War in which landlords provided seed and supplies in exchange for a share of the harvest, often trapping freedpeople in debt.

Populist Party

An agrarian-based political party formed in the $1890s$ that advocated for the unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and government ownership of railroads.

The Gospel of Wealth

An article by Andrew Carnegie arguing that the wealthy had a moral responsibility to use their fortunes for philanthropy to benefit society.

Standard Oil

A corporate monopoly founded by John D. Rockefeller that controlled $90\text{\%}$ of U.S. oil refineries through horizontal integration.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

A Supreme Court decision that upheld 'separate but equal' accommodations, legally endorsing racial segregation in public facilities.

Open Door Policy (1899)

A policy proposed by Secretary of State John Hay to ensure equal trading rights for all nations in China.

Muckrakers

Journalists during the Progressive Era who exposed societal issues such as political corruption and poor working conditions.

Fourteen Points

President Woodrow Wilson's vision for post-WW1 peace, which included the self-determination of peoples and the creation of a League of Nations.

New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's program of relief, recovery, and reform designed to address the economic crisis of the Great Depression.

Social Security Act (1935)

A cornerstone of the Second New Deal that established a social insurance system for retirees, the unemployed, and the disabled.

Korematsu v. United States (1944)

A Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a valid exercise of war powers.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret U.S. initiative led by Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer that developed the world's first atomic weapons.

Containment Policy

A U.S. Cold War strategy aimed at preventing Soviet expansion and the spread of communism without provoking a direct war.

Marshall Plan (1948)

A large-scale U.S. economic aid program that provided $12\,billion$ to help Western European nations recover from World War II and resist communism.

Sputnik Shock (1957)

The public anxiety in the U.S. following the Soviet launch of the first satellite, leading to the creation of NASA and increased funding for science education.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

A landmark Supreme Court ruling that declared segregating children in public schools was unconstitutional because 'separate facilities are inherently unequal'.

The Great Society

President Lyndon B. Johnson's domestic reform agenda aimed at ending poverty and racial injustice through programs like Medicare and the Voting Rights Act.

Watergate Scandal

A major political scandal involving a break-in at the Democratic headquarters and a subsequent cover-up that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in $1974$.