APUSH Ch. 11 Vocab: PART 1

Slave society

a society in which the institution of slavery affects all aspects of life

Republican aristocracy

the Old South gentry who envisioned themselves as an American aristocracy and feared federal government interference with their slave property

Great American Desert

a term coined by Major Stephan H. Long in 1820 to describe the grasslands of the southern plains from the 95th meridian west to the Rocky Mountains, which he believed was “almost wholly unfit for cultivation.”

Alamo

the 1836 defeat by the Mexican army of the Texan garrison defending the Alamo in San Antonio. Newspapers urged Americans to “Remember the Alamo,” and American adventurers, lured by offers of land grants, flocked to Texas to join the rebel forces

Secret ballot

form of voting that allows the voter to enter a choice privately rather than making a public declaration for a candidate

Gullah dialect

a Creole language that combined English and African words in an African grammatical structure. It remained widespread in the South Carolina and Georgia low country throughout the 19th-century and is still spoken in a modified form today.

Task system

a system of labor common in the rice-growing regions of South Carolina in which a slave was assigned to a daily task to complete and was allowed to do as he wished upon its completion

German Coast uprising

the largest slave revolt in 19th-century North America, it began on January 8, 1811, on Louisiana sugar plantations and involved more than 200 enslaved workers. About 95 slaves were killed in the fighting or executed as a result of their involvement

Manifest Destiny

a term coined by John L. O’Sullivan in 1845 to express the idea that Euro-Americans were fated by God to settle the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean