The American Yawp: U.S. History to 1877

These flashcards cover key concepts, events, and figures from early U.S. history, including Native American cultures, European colonization, the American Revolution, the formation of the new nation, the market revolution, and the sectional crisis leading to the Civil War and Reconstruction.

When did humans first live in the Americas?

Over ten thousand years ago.

What is the Columbian Exchange?

A global exchange of people, animals, plants, and microbes that bridged over ten thousand years of geographic separation, inaugurated centuries of violence, unleashed the greatest biological terror the world had ever seen, and revolutionized the history of the world.

According to the Salinan people of present-day California, how were the first man and woman formed?

The first man out of clay and the first woman out of a feather by a bald eagle.

According to a Lenape tradition, how was the earth made?

When Sky Woman fell into a watery world and, with the help of muskrat and beaver, landed safely on a turtle’s back, creating Turtle Island (North America).

What do archaeologists and anthropologists suggest about the first Americans based on DNA evidence?

Native ancestors crossed the land bridge between Asia and North America across the Bering Strait between twelve and twenty thousand years ago, pausing for perhaps fifteen thousand years in the expansive region between the continents.

When did agriculture arise in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres?

Sometime between nine thousand and five thousand years ago, almost simultaneously.

What were the 'Three Sisters' crops vital to Eastern Woodlands agriculture?

Corn, beans, and squash.

How did most Native American cultures understand ancestry?

Matrilineal: family and clan identity proceeded along the female line, through mothers and daughters.

What were distinct differences in property rights between Native Americans and Europeans?

Native Americans generally felt a personal ownership of items actively used, and the right to use land did not imply permanent possession, unlike European notions.

What artistic and communicative technologies did Algonquian-speaking Ojibwes use?

Birch-bark scrolls to record medical treatments, recipes, songs, and stories.

What were some of the largest culture groups in North America two thousand years ago?

Puebloan groups in the Greater Southwest, Mississippian groups along the Great River, and Mesoamerican groups in central Mexico and the Yucatán.

What significant settlement in the Mississippian culture peaked roughly one thousand years ago?

Cahokia, located just east of modern-day St. Louis, with a population between ten thousand and thirty thousand.

How was Cahokia politically organized?

Around chiefdoms, a hierarchical, clan-based system that gave leaders both secular and sacred authority.

What was the nature of Native American slavery in Cahokia?

Not based on holding people as property, but rather on people who lacked kinship networks; often not a permanent condition, with former slaves potentially becoming integrated community members through adoption or marriage.

What factors led to the collapse of Cahokia by 1300 CE?

Ecological challenges such as deforestation, overirrigation, and a fifty-year drought, as well as mounting warfare or internal political tensions, suggested by defensive stockades.

Which Native American group farmed the bottomlands throughout the Hudson and Delaware River watersheds?

The Lenapes, also known as Delawares.

How were Lenape communities governed?

By one or more sachems through the consent of their people, demonstrating wisdom and experience, contrasting with the hierarchical Mississippian cultures.

What does the word 'Yawp' mean?

1: a raucous noise; 2: rough vigorous language.

Who wrote, 'I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world'?

Walt Whitman, in 1854.

Who reached Newfoundland around the year 1000, long before Columbus?

Leif Erikson, a Scandinavian seafarer.

What events fueled long-term European expansion centuries before Columbus?

The Crusades, which linked Europe with the wealth, power, and knowledge of Asia, leading to the rediscovery and adoption of Greek, Roman, and Muslim knowledge.

Which two Iberian kingdoms consolidated through marriage just before Columbus's voyage?

Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in Spain.

What technological breakthroughs did Portuguese sailors perfect in the fifteenth century?

The astrolabe (to calculate latitude) and the caravel (a ship well suited for ocean exploration).

Where did the Portuguese establish forts during the fifteenth century, inaugurating European colonization there?

Along the Atlantic coast of Africa.

What crop was first cultivated on a large scale by enslaved laborers on the Atlantic islands off Europe and Africa?

Sugar.

Who underestimated the size of the globe by two thirds and sailed west from Spain in 1492?

Christopher Columbus.

Which indigenous people populated the Caribbean islands when Columbus arrived?

The Arawaks, or Taíno.

What legal system did the Spanish use to manage labor relations, tying Indian laborers to vast estates?

The encomienda.

What did the Maya civilization achieve in Central America?

Massive temples, large populations, and a complex civilization with a written language, advanced mathematics, and accurate calendars.

What was the largest empire in the New World when the Spaniards arrived in Mexico?

The Aztec empire, centered around Tenochtitlán.

Who led the invasion of Mexico in 1519, conquering the Aztec empire?

Hernán Cortés.

What factors led to the fall of Tenochtitlán?

A combination of disease (smallpox), dissension among Aztec subject peoples, and European conquerors.

Who conquered the Incan empire in South America in 1533?

Francisco Pizarro.

What was the 'Sistema de Castas' in Spanish New World society?

An elaborate racial hierarchy, regularized in the mid-1600s, based on supposed 'purity of blood' that determined social and political advancement.

Who was Our Lady of Guadalupe, and why was she a national icon for mestizo society?

According to Juan Diego, the Virgin Mary appeared to him as a dark-skinned Nahuatl-speaking Indian in 1531; her image became a unifying national symbol.

What was the greatest biological terror unleashed by the arrival of Europeans in the New World?

Diseases like smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, measles, and hepatitis, which decimated Native communities, with some scholars estimating up to 90% population loss.

What key outcome resulted from the Columbian Exchange regarding global diets?

The Americas’ calorie-rich crops revolutionized Old World agriculture and spawned a worldwide population boom.

Who arrived in the area named La Florida in 1513?

Juan Ponce de León.

What was the status of Florida in the first half of the sixteenth century regarding European colonization?

Spanish colonizers fought frequently with its Native peoples and other Europeans, holding the territory tenuously.

Who led four hundred settlers, soldiers, and missionaries from Mexico into New Mexico in 1598, and what brutal act did he commit?

Juan de Oñate; he sacked the Pueblo city of Acoma, slaughtering nearly half its inhabitants and ordering one foot cut off every surviving male over age fifteen.

What became the engine of Spanish colonization in North America after military expeditions?

Missions, primarily led by Franciscan friars.

What did reports of Spanish atrocities in the New World provide for other European monarchs?

A humanitarian justification for European colonization, arguing for a benevolent conquest by non-Spanish monarchies to expand Christianity.

What mythical waterway did early French explorers seek?

A fabled Northwest Passage through the North American continent to Asia.

How did French colonization in North America generally differ from Spanish colonization?

The French placed a higher value on cooperating with Indians for the fur trade, fostering more mutually beneficial relationships rather than extensive permanent settlements.

What term refers to the children of Indian women and French men in New France?

Métis(sage).

What was the 'middle ground' crafted by the French and Algonquian-speaking peoples in the Great Lakes region?

A kind of cross-cultural space that allowed for native and European interaction, negotiation, and accommodation.

What innovative financial organizations did the Dutch create to build their colonial empire?

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange and the East India Company.

Who claimed modern-day New York for the Dutch in 1609?

Henry Hudson.

What was the patroon system implemented by the Dutch West India Company?

Granted large estates to wealthy landlords, who subsequently paid passage for tenants to work their land, to encourage colonization.

By 1660, which city had the largest urban slave population on the North American continent?

New Amsterdam (modern-day New York City).

What agreement divided the New World between Spain and Portugal in 1494?

The Treaty of Tordesillas.

What two industries powered early colonial Brazil?

Sugar and the slave trade.

What defined England’s so-called golden age under Elizabeth I?

Both the expansion of trade and exploration and the literary achievements of Shakespeare and Marlowe.

What innovative financial organization became the initial instrument of English colonization?

Joint-stock companies.

What was 'privateering' during Queen Elizabeth's reign?

A form of state-sponsored piracy where English sailors plundered Spanish ships and towns in the Americas, earning profits for themselves and the crown.

What event in 1588 changed the course of world history by saving England and opening the seas to English expansion?

The destruction of the Spanish Armada.

What happened to the English colony on North Carolina’s Roanoke Island, reestablished in 1587?

It was abandoned, with the word 'Croatan' carved into a tree, and the colonists were never heard from again.

What ultimately saved Jamestown from ruin and incentivized further colonization?

Tobacco.

What was the 'headright policy' established in Virginia in 1618?

Any person who migrated to Virginia would automatically receive fifty acres of land, and any immigrant whose passage they paid would entitle them to fifty acres more.

What limited representative body was established by the Virginia Company in 1619?

The House of Burgesses, which first met in Jamestown.

What was the relationship between the English colonists in Jamestown and the Powhatan Confederacy?

Initially, the Powhatan welcomed the English and traded abundantly, but conflict became inevitable as the English sought a permanent, ever-expanding colony.

What devastating event occurred in Virginia on March 22, 1622?

Opechancanough, Powhatan's successor, launched a surprise attack that killed over 350 colonists, or one third of all the colonists in Virginia.

What belief drove English colonists' sense of entitlement to indigenous lands?

A sense of physical, spiritual, and technological superiority to Native peoples, coupled with outbreaks of violence.

What was the primary motive for Puritans migrating to New England between 1630 and 1640?

To 'purify' the Church of England and form a godly community in America that would be a 'City on a Hill' and an example for reformers back home.

How did the demographics of New England colonists differ from those in Virginia?

New England immigrants generally arrived in family groups and were small landholders, unlike the mostly young, male indentured servants in Virginia.

What environmental factor significantly aided English settlement and relations with Native Americans in New England?

A lethal pandemic of smallpox during the 1610s, which swept away as much as 90% of the region’s Native American population.

What were the primary characteristics of New England society in the seventeenth century?

A broadly shared modest prosperity based on a mixed economy of small farms, shops, fishing, lumber, shipbuilding, and Atlantic trade, with less social stratification.

Who was banished from Massachusetts for religious dissent and created a settlement called Providence in 1636?

Roger Williams.

What social custom regarding married couples meant women lost legal rights to their husbands?

Coverture.

What period of religious revivals reignited Protestant spirituality in the early nineteenth century?

The Second Great Awakening.

What idea emerged as one of the most important transformations from the Second Great Awakening regarding salvation?

Spiritual egalitarianism, the idea that all souls are equal in salvation and that all people can be saved by surrendering to God.

What was the most successful social reform movement of the antebellum period?

The temperance crusade, which aimed to curb the consumption of alcohol.

What was the 'Cult of Domesticity' or 'Cult of True Womanhood' that developed in the early nineteenth century?

A set of expectations that confined middle-class white women to the domestic sphere, where they were responsible for educating children and maintaining household virtue.

What was the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848?

A two-day summit in New York state where women’s rights advocates, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, discussed problems facing women and issued the Declaration of Sentiments.

What was the Declaration of Sentiments?

A document written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton for the Seneca Falls Convention, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, outlining fifteen grievances and eleven resolutions, including property rights, access to professions, and the right to vote for women.

What was the 'Manifest Destiny' concept articulated by John Louis O’Sullivan?

A belief in the God-given mission of the United States to lead the world in the peaceful transition to democracy and to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of its multiplying millions.

What were the three core claims of Manifest Destiny?

American values and institutions justified claims to hemispheric leadership; lands west of the Mississippi River were destined for American-led improvement; God and the Constitution ordained global redemption and democratization.

What federal policy facilitated westward expansion by dispossessing American Indians?

Indian removal, culminating in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

What was the 'Trail of Tears'?

The tragic, forced removal of sixteen thousand Cherokee from their eastern lands to territories west of the Mississippi River in 1838, resulting in thousands of deaths.

What was 'Comancheria'?

A vast territory in the trans-Mississippi west where Comanche power peaked by the 1840s, controlling the flow of commodities and assimilating diverse peoples.

What treaty ended the U.S.-Mexican War in 1848?

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

What lands did the United States gain from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

Future states of California, Utah, and Nevada; most of Arizona; and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, plus Mexican claims to Texas with the Rio Grande as its southern boundary.

What phenomenon sparked rapid growth of towns and cities in the West, notably San Francisco?

The discovery of gold in California, leading to the Gold Rush.

What was the Monroe Doctrine, and what were its goals?

An ultimatum issued by President James Monroe in 1823, declaring the entire Western Hemisphere off-limits to new European colonization, with overriding goals of expanding economic opportunity and protecting from foreign pressures.

What was 'filibustering' in the antebellum period?

Privately financed schemes directed at capturing and occupying foreign territory without the approval of the U.S. government, particularly in the Caribbean.

What was the central issue in American politics from the very start of westward expansion?

Battles over the westward expansion of slavery and the role of the federal government in protecting slaveholders' interests.

What was the long-standing assumption about African-descended slaves shattered by the Haitian Revolution?

That they could not also be rulers, as the revolution turned France’s most valuable sugar colony into an independent country administered by formerly enslaved people.

What agreement in 1820 addressed the question of slavery's expansion into the Louisiana Purchase lands?

The Missouri Compromise.

What were the three parts of the Missouri Compromise of 1820?

Missouri admitted as a slave state, Maine admitted as a free state, and slavery prohibited in new states north of the 36°30’ line of latitude in the Louisiana Purchase territory.

What did the Missouri Crisis reveal about American politics?

The undeniable sectional controversy over slavery, splitting the Democratic-Republican party and demonstrating the volatility of the debate.

What were 'Doughfaces' during the Missouri debates?

Northerners seen as especially friendly to the South, often accused of serving southern slave oligarchs over their own northern communities.

What were 'personal liberty laws' passed by northern states in protest against federal fugitive slave laws?

Laws in northern states in 1843 that provided additional protections for alleged runaway slaves beyond what federal law mandated.

What significant book in 1852 helped move antislavery into everyday conversation for many northerners?

Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

What act, introduced by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas in 1854, further exacerbated sectional tensions?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened western lands to popular sovereignty regarding slavery, effectively overturning the Missouri Compromise.

What was 'Bleeding Kansas'?

A period of violence in Kansas where pro-slavery and antislavery militants clashed over the territory's status as slave or free, demonstrating the sectional crisis exploding into a national crisis.

What Supreme Court decision in 1857 ruled that black Americans could not be citizens of the United States?

The Dred Scott decision (Scott v. Sandford).

What was John Brown's raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859?

An attempt to seize a federal weapons arsenal in Virginia to lead a slave revolt, which was crushed by federal troops.

What was the outcome of the 1860 presidential election?

Abraham Lincoln won with less than 40% of the popular vote and no southern electoral votes, leading directly to the secession of South Carolina and other southern states.

What was the 'Anaconda Plan' adopted by the Union to suppress the rebellion?

A strategy to strangle the Confederacy by cutting off access to coastal ports and inland waterways via a naval blockade, alongside ground troop incursions.

What was the significance of the Battle of Antietam?

The bloodiest single day in American history with over twenty thousand casualties, and it provided Lincoln with enough of a victory to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.