APUSH Key Figures

Christopher Columbus

Italian navigator, with support from Spain, who looked for a faster water route to Asia, mistakenly found Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic).

Bartolomé de Las Casas

A Dominican priest and critic of Spanish brutality against the natives. His published accounts of the decimation of the Indian population basically ended enslavement of the natives but also allowed other European countries to portray Spain as uniquely brutal (i.e. Black Legend)

John Smith

Saved Jamestown colony with no work/no food policy

John Rolfe

Perfected Tobacco cultivation in Virginia, husband to Pocahontas

Anne Hutchinson

Antinomianism (if predestination is true- you do not have to obey the law); banished to Rhode Island, family murdered by Indians

Roger Williams

Puritan who believed that the purity of the church required a complete separation between church and state and freedom from coercion in matters of faith. In 1636, he established the town of Providence, the first permanent settlement in Rhode Island and the first to allow religious freedom in America.

John Edwards

American revivalist preacher, philosopher, and Congregationalist Protestant theologian. Edwards is widely regarded as one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

George Whitefield

Interant English preacher whose rousing sermons throughout the American colonies drew vast audiences and sparked a wave of religious conversion, the First Great Awakening; Whitefield's emotionalism distinguished him from traditional, "Old Light," ministers who embraced a more reasoned, stoic approach to religious practice

Thomas Paine

American political philosopher and author, he urged an immediate declaration of independence from England in his anonymously and simply written pamphlet, Common Sense.

George Washington

1st President of the US (freakin rockstar); Commander In Chief of Continental Army

Alexander Hamilton

His belief in a strong federal government led him to become a contributor to the Federalists. As the first secretary of the Treasury, he laid the foundation for American capitalism through his creation of a federal budget, funded debt, a federal tax system, a national bank, a customs service, and a coast guard. He died in a duel against Aaron Burr.

John Adams

The second president of the United States. He was a representative to the First and Second Continental Congresses. Served eight years as vice president to Washington before his election as president.

Abigail Adams

Wife of the second President of the United States, she is an example of one kind of life lived by women in colonial, Revolutionary and early post-Revolutionary America. She is known for the stance she took for women's rights in letters to her husband, she should also be known as a competent farm manager and financial manager.

Thomas Jefferson

The third president, he was a founding father and principal author of the Declaration of Independence which rationalized the break with Britain. He also approved the Louisiana Purchase which nearly doubled the area controlled by the United States.

James Madison

Father of the Constitution, 4th President of the United States

James Monroe

Fifth president of US, got Florida, Missouri Compromise, Monroe Doctrine

John Marshall

Justice of supreme court, judicial review

Henry Clay

American System and many compromises, war hawk

Andrew Jackson

7th President of United States, President for the common man, Indian Removal Act, nullification crisis

Joseph Smith

Mormon guy, wrote book of mormon

Eli Whitney

Inventor of cotton gin

Robert Fulton

Invented Steamboat

William Lloyd Garrison

A militant abolitionist, he became editor of the Boston publication, The Liberator, in 1831 and founded the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Frederick Douglass

A self-educated slave who escaped. Douglass became the best-known abolitionist speaker. He edited an anti-slavery weekly, the North Star.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Connecticut-born abolitionist and author of best-selling Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel that awakened millions of Northerners to the cruelty of slavery.

Dorthea Dix

Part of the reform movement of the first half of the 19th century. Dix played a major role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill.

Horace Mann

Part of the reform movement of the 1800s. Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he was a prominent proponent of public school reform, and set the standard for public schools throughout the nation.

Nat Turner

Nat Turner (1800-1831)
United States slave and insurrectionist who in 1831 led a rebellion of slaves in Virginia.

Harriet Tubman

A former escaped slave, she was one of the shrewdest conductors of the Underground Railroad

Dred Scott

United States slave who sued (and lost) for liberty after living in a non-slave state

John Brown

Abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia

Abraham Lincoln

Served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War. In doing so, he preserved the Union, paved the way for the abolition of slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.

Ulysses S. Grant

an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States. He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union General who destroyed South during "march to the sea" from Atlanta to Savannah, example of total war

Thaddeus Stevens

Radical Reconstructionist who engineered the impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Thomas Edison

One of the most prolific inventors in U.S. history. Among other things, he invented the phonograph, first practical light bulb, electric battery, mimeograph, and the moving picture. Menlo Park was his laboratory.

Andrew Carnegie

A Scottish-American businessman, a major and widely respected philanthropist, and the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company which later became U.S. Steel. Later in his life, he gave away most of his riches to fund the establishment of many libraries, schools, and universities worldwide. His book, The Gospel of Wealth, argued that the wealthy had an obligation to give something back to society.

John D. Rockefeller

He founded the Standard Oil Company, which was his first step in creating his vast oil empire. Became one of the richest people of all time and a symbol of American capitalism.

Sitting Bull

Sioux chief who organized the defeat of Custer at Little Bighorn

Chief Joseph

Nez Perce leader who eluded the Army for 15 years

Booker T. Washington

Advocated for Education for African Americans, economic freedom v.s. equality

William Randolph Hearst

Newspaper publisher, yellow journalism helped Spanish-American War

Theodore Roosevelt

26th president, Progressive, Bull Moose

Woodrow Wilson

28th president, “He kept us out of the war”, League of Nations

Franklin Roosevelt

32nd president, took office during great depression, New Deal, was president majority of WWII, elected four times

Eleanor Roosevelt

Wife of FDR, most active first lady, devoted to impoverished and oppressed

Harry S. Truman

FDR’s vice president, became 33rd president after his death, straight-talking and no nonsense, ordered bombs dropped on Japan to end the war

Joseph McCarthy

Senator from Wisconsin; accused numerous individuals of being communists including members of the Army. His tactics led to the Senate officially censuring (publicly disapproving) him.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973)

36th President of the US; took over after JFK's assassination. Architect of the Great Society social programs to eliminate poverty. Signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. Escalated war in Vietnam, ruining his presidency.

Ronald Raegen

40th President; "Reagan Revolution" viewed as payoff of the rise of conservatism