AP World Units 5&6 Vocab (1750-1900)

Declaration of Independence

1776 U.S. document that officially declared the 13 American colonies independent from Great Britain

Creoles

People of Spanish descent born in the Americas; socially elite but often excluded from top government positions (led Latin American independence movements due to social and political exclusion)

Miguel Hidalgo and Jose Morelos

Two priests who led a peasant insurrection driven by hunger for land and high food prices 

Simon Bolivar

A “great liberator” and Creole general who freed Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru from Spain

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

1789 French document establishing universal individual rights and legal equality 

Olympe de Gouges

French playwright and journalist who challenged the exclusion of women from the “Rights of Man”

Napoleon Bonaparte

 French general who seized power and spread revolutionary laws through conquest but rules as an autocrat

Toussaint Louverture

A former slave who led the Haitian Revolution, successfully defeating European colonial armies

Jean-Jacques Dessalines

Louverture’s successor who formally declared Haiti’s independence and became its first leader 

“Independence debt”

Debt imposed on Haiti by France for lost slaves in exchange for its freedom

Seneca Falls

The first organized women’s rights convention, held in New York to demand suffrage

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Key organizer of Seneca Falls and author of the Declaration of Sentiments

National American Woman Suffrage Association

The primary organization formed to secure the right to vote for American women

Kartini

A young Javanese woman who advocated for the education and emancipation of women in colonial Indonesia

Huda Sharawi

 Founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union; removed her veil publicly as a protest against restriction

Steam Engine

The defining invention of the first Industrial Revolution; used coal to power machinery and transport

Second Industrial Revolution

A late 19th-century boom focused on chemicals, electricity, precision steel, and the telephone

Middle Class

A growing social class of professionals and managers who valued education, morality, and respectability

Robert Owen

A British utopian socialist who built model communities where workers and their families would be well treated

Karl Marx

Philosopher who argued that class struggle would lead to worker-led revolution and a classless society

Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party

Marxist political party aiming to organize the Russian working class

The Crimean War (1854-1856)

Russian defeat by Western powers (Britain + France) that forced Tsar to begin industrializing and modernizing

Caudillos

Military strongmen who dominated Latin American politics through force and personal loyalty

Mexican Revolution of 1910

A violent social revolution against dictatorship that led to major and land reform and a new constitution

King Leopold of Belgium

Monarch who oversaw the private exploitation of the Congo for rubber and ivory

Taiping Uprising

A massive Chinese civil war led by Hong Xiuquan seeking radical social reform and the end of the Qing

Opium Wars

Conflicts where Britain forced China to open its markets to opium which led to unequal treaties

Self-Strengthening

A Chinese policy of adopting Western technology and industry while trying to keep traditional values 

Boxer Uprising

A violent, anti-foreign, and anti-Christain rebellion in China against foreign imperialist expansion

Hundred Days of Reform

A brief attempt to modernize China’s government and education, crushed by conservative elites in late Qing Dynasty