APUSH MCQ

Role of corn in Native American culture

Role of corn in Native American culture

Before AD 1000, maize agriculture began to spread from Central America through North America; especially popular in the Northwest; societies developed vast irrigation systems; led to an increase in population; transformed societies b/c less emphasis on hunting and gathering

New England Colonies

Said they came for religious reasons, but it was actually for farming; Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire; dense forests and hills; cold climate; poor area for large farming operations → small family-owned farms known as “yeoman farmers”; Puritans; harsh slave codes; tobacco

Middle Colonies

Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and New Jersey; warmer climate with fertile soil flat land, easily-navigable rivers, and wide valleys; farming, mining, and trading; religious pluralism + diverse population

Southern Colonies

Virginia, Maryland, Carolinas, and Georgia; fertile soil with broad coastal plains; large plantations to grow tobacco, rice, and indigo; labor force of enslaved Black people; Church of England; indentured servants

Granger movement

Organized in 1868 as a collective aimed at bringing isolated farmers together for socialization and education, but as with everything in America, it got political quick, fast, and in a hurry. As a collective body, it pushed many Midwestern states to pass laws regulating railroad rates for carrying freight and made abusive corporate practices that were hurting farmers illegal. Taken together, these laws became known as the Granger Laws (e.g. Commerce Act).

Progressive Movement

Broad-based reform movement, 1900-1917, that sought governmental action in solving problems in many areas of American life, including education, public health, the economy, the environment, labor, transportation, and politics.

Causes of the Progressive Movement

Growing power of big business, uncertainties in the economy, increasingly violent conflicts between labor groups and their employers, political machine power, Jim Crow segregation in the South, lack of women’s suffrage, and alcohol

Populist Party

Founded in 1892, sought to work for the people and correct the gross concentration of economic power held by elite banks and trusts. They published their beliefs in what was called the Omaha Platform which was replete with economic and political reforms.

Omaha Platform (Populist Party)

Advocated for direct election of senators, use of initiatives and referendums which allowed the people to propose and vote on legislation, unlimited coinage of silver, graduated income tax, eight-hour work day

Isolationism

The desire to avoid foreign entanglements that dominated the U.S. Congress in the 1930s; beginning in 1935, lawmakers passed a series of Neutrality Acts that banned travel on belligerents’ ships and the sale of arms to countries at war.

Causes of isolationism

Disillusioned by outcome of the Treaty of Versailles, failure of Senate to approve membership in League of Nations, nativism of the 1910s and 1920s led to immigration restrictions, economic disruption of the Great Depression

Effects of isolationism

Efforts to reduce arms at Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922), efforts to reject/disavow war (Kellog-Briand Pact 1928), reduce international trade (Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act 1930), officially neutral start of WWII, it took direct attack on Pearl Harbor to pull U.S. into war

1896 Plessy v. Ferguson

The case came from Louisiana which had a law that required separate railcars for black and white passengers. In 1892, a man named Homer Plessy was tasked with challenging this law. Plessy, as it turned out, was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, which meant, under Louisiana law, he was black. So he challenged the law by riding in a whites-only passenger car, and when he was asked to leave, he refused and was arrested. His case went to the Supreme Court which decided to support the legality of Jim Crow Laws that permitted or required “separate but equal” facilities for black and white people.

1954 Brown v. Board of Education

U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public education and declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional. Even if separate facilities were equal in terms of funding etc, the very fact of separation was inherently unequal.

1966 Miranda v. Arizona

Supreme Court case ruling that the Fifth Amendment requires law enforcement officials to tell subjects of their right to remain silent and to obtain an attorney before being interrogated while in police custody.

1978 Regents v. Bakke

a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a dispute of whether preferential treatment for minorities could reduce educational opportunities for whites without violating the Constitution. The Court held that a university's admissions criteria which used race as a definite and exclusive basis for an admission decision violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This decision struck down some parts of affirmative action while upholding other parts.

1803 Louisiana Purchase

Thomas Jefferson abandons his Democratic Republic values (federal gov’t can only do what is explicitly written in constitution), and purchases land owned by the French, including access to the exceedingly valuable trade waterway known as the Mississippi River. Jefferson saw it as an opportunity to gain navigation rights in the Mississippi River. He sent James Monroe to France with $2 million → Napoleon offers whole territory for $15 million → Monroe says yes.

Significance of the Louisiana Purchase

Doubled American territory, stimulated belief in Manifest Destiny, contradicted Jefferson’s commitment to a limited/restrained federal gov’t, hundreds of new plant and animal species catalogued for economic exploitation, by ending French presence in North America it set stage for conflict in the West/Native Americans

1845 Annexation of Texas

Led directly to the Mexican-American War, after which the victorious United States obtained the northern half of Mexico’s territory, including what was quickly made the state of California. This additional Westward expansion further pronounced the question of slavery.

Federalist Papers

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay anonymously published a series of essays in newspapers that explained the nature of the Constitution and why the states needed to ratify it.

Bill of Rights

Proposed by anti-federalists because the Constitution had no provision for the protection against the federal government’s intrusion on individual liberties.

Federalists

Led by Alexander Hamilton, proponents of a strong central government, favored urban and elite interests

Democratic-Republicans

Led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, champions of state rights, favored rural and agricultural interests

transcendentalism

Believed that God lives in each individual and that each person possessed an inner light or soul and capacity to find truth, which can be found in nature. Romantic view of transcendent power and beauty of nature, belief in human perfectibility, inspired by German romanticism.

Anti-imperialism

Opposition to colonialism, colonial empires, hegemony, imperialism and the territorial expansion of a country beyond its established borders.

Manifest Destiny

The idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America. The ideology of Manifest Destiny inspired a variety of measures designed to remove or destroy the native population. Inspiration for Westward Expansion.

Significance of Washington’s Farewell Address

In it he warned against the dangers of factions and political parties. He also warned against the dangers of getting involved in entangling alliances with European nations.

Significance of the Monroe Doctrine

President James Monroe’s declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs. It limited European power, challenging them for authority in the Americas.

Significance of Calhoun’s theory of nullification

Argued that if a state judged a federal law to be unconstitutional, that state could just pretend like it didn’t exist — it was non-binding, and therefore they could nullify it.

Significance of the Embargo Act

Limited trade with France and England to pressure them into respecting American interests. It was one of the major factors leading up to the War of 1812 as it ended up increasing the hostilities that already existed between America and Britain.

Emancipation Proclamation

In its text, it freed all enslaved people in the Confederacy. More of a military tactic than a moral proclamation because while it’s true that it DID free SOME enslaved people, it didn’t free all of them. It did NOT end slavery in the border states, which were slave states that remained in the Union, it only ended slavery in the Confederate states.

1. Effectively cut off all hope of European diplomatic support for the South, which was a huge part of their plan to win

2. Created the occasion for many enslaved people in the South to escape their bondage into the safety of Union camps

The Spanish-American War

The Spanish-American War Treaty

Apart from guaranteeing the independence of Cuba, the treaty also forced Spain to cede Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States. Spain also agreed to sell the Philippines to the United States for the sum of $20 million. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on February 6, 1899, by a margin of only one vote.

New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign promise, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention of 1932, to combat the Great Depression with a “new deal for the American people”; the phrase became a catchword for his ambitious plan of economic programs. The New Deal as a whole transformed the United States into a limited welfare state and seriously expanded the aims of modern American liberalism. Criticized by both liberals and conservatives: Liberals griped because the New Deal did too much for big businesses at the expense of the unemployed and the poor (i.e. not liberal ENOUGH). Conservatives criticized the New Deal because of the extreme federal overreach that it represented.

Square Deal

President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.

New Frontier

The campaign program advocated by JFK in the 1960 election. He promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights.

Great Society

Term coined by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union address, in which he proposed legislation to address problems of voting rights, poverty, diseases, education, immigration, and the environment. 

Dawes Act of 1887

Law meant to encourage adoption of white norms among Native Americans; broke up tribal holdings into small farms for Native American families, with the remainder sold to white purchasers.

Stokely Carmichael

A black civil rights activist in the 1960's. Leader of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.

SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee)

Organization founded in 1960 to coordinate civil rights sit-ins and other forms of grassroots protest.

Black Panthers

An African-American organization established to promote Black Power and self-defense through acts of social agitation. It was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s.

“Vietnamization”

The removal of American troops from Vietnam while still lending financial aid ammunitions to carry out the war for themselves.

Detente

Period of improving relations between the United States and Communist nations, particularly China and the Soviet Union, during the Nixon administration.

Native American societies before contact

Developed around their natural environments, using the resources that were available to them. For example, the Southwest, Plains, and Great Basin were quite dry. And so societies in these regions adapted to this environment either by continuing hunting bison, following the herds of animals in teepees (Plains).

“Three-sister” farming

Planting corn, beans, and squash together → nutritious diet → high population density