Comprehensive U.S. History: From Early Exploration to the Sectional Crisis

A comprehensive vocabulary review deck covering major people, events, laws, treaties, and political concepts from pre-Columbian migrations through the causes of the American Civil War.

Laurentide Ice Sheet

A massive ice sheet that shaped the geography of North America, covering Canada, the Great Lakes region, New England, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Bering Strait Land Bridge Theory

The theory that Paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to North America across an exposed land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska as they followed large game.

Mayan Civilization

A Mesoamerican society characterized by agriculture, permanent settlements, monumental architecture, writing, trade, raw resources, a shared religion, and an advanced calendar for tracking time and crops.

Aztec Human Sacrifice

The ritual killing of war captives practiced by the Aztecs to pay a blood debt to their gods and maintain control over conquered city-states.

Renaissance

A European intellectual rebirth that fostered innovations in science, cartography, ship design, navigation, and maritime exploration.

Prince Henry the Navigator

A Portuguese leader who spearheaded European maritime exploration by funding expeditions to find new trade routes, claim land, and acquire gold.

Capture of Ceuta (1415)

The conquest of a North African port city off Morocco by King John I and Prince Henry the Navigator, granting Portugal direct access to the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean.

Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

A network of trade routes across North Africa wherein Arab traders captured or purchased African captives and transported them to the Middle East.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

A trade system initiated by Portugal that moved enslaved Africans to sugar plantations on the Cape Verde Islands and eventually expanded to the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

Granada War (1492)

A conflict in which Spain defeated the Moors and reclaimed Granada as part of the Reconquista, providing the Spanish monarchy with the wealth, seasoned soldiers, and confidence required to fund exploration.

Christopher Columbus

A Genoese navigator sailing under Spain's Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 who sought a western route to Asia, underestimated the Earth's circumference, established sustained contact between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and brutally subjugated the Taíno people.

Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)

An agreement that divided newly discovered non-European lands between Spain and Portugal, assigning the majority of the Americas to Spain and granting Brazil and African routes to Portugal.

Pedro Álvares Cabral

The Portuguese explorer who claimed Brazil for Portugal around 1500, making it the sole Portuguese-speaking territory in South America.

Fr. Bartolomé de Las Casas

A Spanish Catholic priest who documented Spanish cruelties against Native Americans and petitioned the Spanish Crown, prompting the passage of the protective New Laws.

Spanish Caste System (Sistema de Castas)

A strict racial and social hierarchy in New Spain tracked through church baptismal and ancestral records, placing Peninsulares at the top, followed by Criollos, Mestizos, and indigenous/African people at the bottom.

Predestination

The core Calvinist theological doctrine asserting that God sovereignly chose the saved (the elect) and the damned prior to the creation of the world, independent of individual deeds.

Elizabethan Settlement

An institutional religious compromise under Queen Elizabeth I that established the Church of England using the Book of Common Prayer, blending Catholic liturgical structure with Protestant doctrine.

Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588)

England's naval victory over Spain that ended the immediate threat of invasion and freed financial and maritime resources for English colonization of North America.

Puritans

English Protestant reformers who sought to cleanse the Church of England of Catholic traditions, hierarchy, and corruption, establishing communities centered around biblical governance.

Old Deluder Satan Law

A 1647 Massachusetts Bay statute mandating that towns provide schools and teachers so children could learn to read scripture, laying the historical foundation for compulsory public education.

William and Samuel Vassall

Prominent New England Puritan scholars and merchants who advocated religious toleration while actively investing in the slave trade and owning sugar plantations in Barbados.

Triangular Trade / Rum Trade

A transatlantic commercial network in which enslaved Africans produced Caribbean sugarcane, which was shipped to New England to produce rum, which was then traded back to Europe, Africa, and the colonies.

Joint-Stock Company

A business enterprise in which investors pooled their capital to finance voyages and colonial settlements for commercial profit, such as the Virginia Company.

Jamestown (1607)

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded along Virginia's James River by 104 mostly single male adventurers facing disease, brackish water, and conflict with native tribes.

John Rolfe

The Jamestown colonist who cultivated a profitable strain of tobacco that secured Virginia's economic viability and who married Pocahontas.

Headright System

A land-distribution system created by Sir Edwin Sandys awarding 50-acre parcels to anyone who financed the transportation of an indentured servant, fostering large plantation estates in the South.

House of Burgesses

Virginia's elected legislative body established in 1619, representing the first representative legislative assembly in colonial America.

Quakers (Society of Friends)

A religious group led by William Penn that settled primarily in Pennsylvania, rejecting war, established clergy, and social hierarchies in favor of gender equality, pacifism, and racial tolerance.

White Lion (1619)

An English privateer ship that landed at Jamestown, Virginia, carrying approximately 20 captured Africans seized from a Portuguese slaver bound for Veracruz, Mexico.

Mercantilism

An economic doctrine holding that global wealth is finite, prompting nations to acquire gold, silver, and colonies to export raw materials exclusively back to the mother country.

Navigation Acts

British laws requiring the American colonies to ship enumerated goods (sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, and ginger) exclusively on English vessels to English ports.

Salutary Neglect

The British administrative policy from roughly 1607 to 1763 characterized by lax enforcement of trade laws, allowing the American colonies to develop self-government and independent economies.

Sugar Act of 1764

Parliamentary legislation that halved the tax on British molasses to curb smuggling, while raising taxes on various other goods and enforcing collection strictly through Vice Admiralty Courts.

Currency Act

British legislation that prohibited American colonial assemblies from printing paper currency, mandating the use of hard British money instead.

Quartering Act

A British statute that obligated colonial assemblies and residents to provide food, housing, and supplies for stationed British military personnel.

Stamp Act of 1765

The first direct internal tax imposed by Parliament on the colonies, requiring paid revenue stamps on paper goods, legal contracts, and publications.

Internal Tax

A domestic tax assessed directly on products, transactions, or sales occurring within the colonies, distinct from external import customs duties.

Virtual Representation

The British doctrine asserting that members of Parliament represented the interests of all subjects across the British Empire, regardless of whether colonists had voted for them.

Virginia Resolves

Resolutions introduced in the Virginia legislature asserting that colonists possessed all rights of Britons and could only be taxed with the consent of their own elected representatives.

Pope Night

An annual anti-Catholic holiday in colonial Boston whose crowds were redirected by the Sons of Liberty toward protests against the Stamp Act and royal tax collectors.

Nonimportation Agreements

Colonial boycotts against purchasing British goods designed to pressure British merchants and Parliament into repealing the Stamp Act.

Declaratory Act (1766)

A parliamentary act passed immediately after the Stamp Act's repeal declaring that Parliament held absolute power to legislate for the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever.'

Boston Massacre (1770)

A violent altercation between a hostile crowd and British soldiers guarded by a sentry that resulted in five colonial deaths and was widely publicized as propaganda by the Sons of Liberty.

Tea Act of 1773

An act granting the financially distressed British East India Company a monopoly to sell tea directly to America at lower prices, bypassing colonial merchants and triggering the Boston Tea Party.

Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)

British punitive laws that shut Boston Harbor, curtailed town meetings, suspended the Massachusetts charter, and expanded the quartering of troops.

Suffolk Resolves

Resolutions approved by the First Continental Congress urging Massachusetts citizens to refuse obedience to the Coercive Acts, boycott British imports, and drill local militias.

Battle of Lexington and Concord

The opening military clash of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775, in which colonial militiamen engaged British regulars, forcing them to retreat under heavy fire back to Boston.

Battle of Bunker Hill (1775)

A bloody battle fought primarily on Breed's Hill where colonial militiamen repelled two British assaults before running out of ammunition during the third charge, boosting colonial confidence despite an eventual retreat.

Paradox of Freedom

The moral and political contradiction of American Patriots waging a revolution for natural liberty and equal rights while actively maintaining chattel slavery.

Nathan Hale

An American schoolteacher and intelligence officer who was captured by British forces during the New York campaign and hanged as a spy.

Culper Spy Ring

A clandestine intelligence operation organized by George Washington that used numerical codes, aliases, and secret messengers to report British movements in New York.

Battle of Trenton (1776)

A surprise Christmas attack executed after Washington crossed the icy Delaware River, routing Hessian mercenaries and reversing sagging American military morale.

Battle of Saratoga (1777)

A pivotal American victory resulting in the capture of General John Burgoyne's British army, which convinced France to formally ally with the United States.

Haitian Chasseurs-Volontaires at Savannah

A detachment of 150 free men of color from Saint-Domingue who fought alongside American and French troops at the 1779 Siege of Savannah, whose veterans later helped inspire the Haitian Revolution.

Benedict Arnold

A prominent Continental Army general who turned traitor by plotting to surrender the strategic American fort at West Point to the British, later fleeing to Canada in fear of retaliation.

Battle of Yorktown (1781)

The decisive siege where combined American and French land armies and the French navy cornered General Cornwallis, forcing the British surrender and redirecting British priorities to defending the Caribbean.

Articles of Confederation

The first national constitution of the United States, which established a unicameral Congress without an executive branch, federal court system, or the authority to tax and regulate commerce.

Jay-Gardoqui Treaty

An unratified 1786 proposal in which the U.S. would have relinquished navigation rights on the Mississippi River to Spain for 25 years in exchange for commercial privileges in Spanish ports.

Northwest Ordinance of 1785

Federal legislation establishing a standardized system for surveying, dividing into townships, and auctioning western public lands to raise government revenue.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

A foundational law that established the procedural pathway for western territories to achieve statehood with equal status and banned slavery within the Northwest Territory.

Virginia Plan

James Madison's constitutional proposal advocating a strong central government with three branches and a bicameral legislature whose representation was apportioned by state population.

New Jersey Plan

William Paterson's constitutional counterproposal favoring smaller states, featuring a unicameral legislature with one vote per state and a plural executive.

Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise)

The constitutional agreement establishing a bicameral Congress consisting of a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate granting two seats to every state.

Three-Fifths Compromise

The constitutional provision counting three out of every five enslaved persons for the purposes of congressional representation and direct taxation.

Electoral College

A constitutional system designed as an institutional buffer against direct mass democracy, wherein state electors cast official ballots for the president.

Federalism

A system of governance that divides and shares sovereign authority between the national government and state governments, with the national government possessing supreme powers in designated spheres.

Anti-Federalists

Opponents of the proposed 1787 Constitution who feared consolidated federal power and refused ratification until promised a Bill of Rights protecting individual liberties.

Report on Public Credit (1790)

Alexander Hamilton's fiscal strategy recommending federal assumption of Revolutionary War state debts, redeeming public bonds at face value, funding debt through excise taxes, and establishing a national credit system.

Coinage Act of 1792

A federal law establishing the United States Mint and giving the Treasury Department the power to coin national currency.

Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8)

The constitutional provision permitting Congress to enact laws required to execute its enumerated powers, invoked by Alexander Hamilton to justify creating the First Bank of the United States.

First Party System

The initial political division between Alexander Hamilton's Federalists (commercial interests, merchants, strong federal state) and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans (agrarian republic, states' rights).

Jay's Treaty (1794)

An agreement with Great Britain in which the British promised to abandon their northwestern military forts and open limited trade, which drew fierce French hostility.

Quasi-War

An undeclared maritime conflict fought between the United States and France from 1798 to 1800 following diplomatic fallout and French seizures of American merchant vessels.

Fries's Rebellion

An armed 1799 tax insurrection by Pennsylvania German farmers protesting the Direct Tax of 1798 levied by the Adams administration to fund naval defense.

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Four federal statutes enacted by Federalists during the Quasi-War that restricted immigrants and criminalized speech criticizing the federal government, deeply damaging the Federalist Party's reputation.

Revolution of 1800

The presidential election in which Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans defeated John Adams and the Federalists, demonstrating the first peaceful transfer of party power in U.S. history.

Louisiana Purchase (1803)

The purchase of extensive western territory from Napoleon Bonaparte for $15\text{ million}$, providing agricultural land and control of the Mississippi River despite strict-constructionist constitutional questions.

Embargo Act of 1807

A law championed by Thomas Jefferson prohibiting American merchant vessels from engaging in foreign overseas trade, intended to prevent maritime harassment but devastating the U.S. economy.

Rush-Bagot Treaty (1817)

A diplomatic pact between the United States and Great Britain that demilitarized the Great Lakes by limiting the number of armed naval vessels on both sides.

Black Seminoles

Africans who escaped slavery, were incorporated into the Seminole nation in Florida, and fiercely resisted U.S. attempts at recapture and military subjugation.

Adams-Onís Treaty / Transcontinental Treaty (1819)

A treaty between the United States and Spain whereby Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. for $5\text{ million}$ and established an official border between U.S. and Spanish territory stretching to the Pacific.

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

A unilateral U.S. foreign policy declaration warning European powers against further colonization, recolonization, or interference in the Western Hemisphere.

Stephen F. Austin

An American empresario granted authority by Mexico to recruit and settle hundreds of American families in Texas during the 1820s.

Election of 1824

A fractured contest among four Democratic-Republicans in which no candidate gained an electoral majority, prompting the House of Representatives to award the presidency to John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson.

American System

An economic program promoted by Henry Clay that utilized high protective tariffs to subsidize internal improvements, including roads, bridges, canals, and railroads.

Tariff of Abominations (1828)

An exceptionally high federal protective tariff enacted on foreign manufactured goods that benefited northern industrialists while outraging southern cotton planters.

Spoils System

The patronage practice championed by Andrew Jackson of rewarding political partisans, loyal campaign workers, and party loyalists with appointed federal government jobs.

Maysville Road Bill Veto (1830)

President Andrew Jackson's veto of a federally funded highway project located entirely within Kentucky, asserting that federal revenue should not pay for purely intrastate improvements.

Bank War

Andrew Jackson's successful campaign to dismantle the Second Bank of the United States by vetoing its recharter and shifting federal funds into state-chartered 'pet banks,' contributing to the Panic of 1837.

Nullification Crisis

A constitutional showdown in which South Carolina declared federal tariffs unconstitutional and void within its borders, prompting Andrew Jackson to threaten armed force until a compromise tariff was enacted.

Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

A landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the state of Georgia had no authority to extend its laws over Cherokee territory because Indian relations were exclusively under federal jurisdiction.

Trail of Tears

The forced march of the Cherokee Nation from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma), resulting in widespread suffering and death.

Second Party System

The nationwide two-party competition from the late 1820s through the early 1850s between Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party and the opposition Whig Party.

Whig Party

A political party formed in the 1830s by a diverse coalition of National Republicans, Anti-Masons, and anti-Jackson politicians who opposed executive tyranny and supported Henry Clay's American System.

Treaties of Velasco (1836)

Agreements signed by captured Mexican general Santa Anna recognizing Texas independence and establishing the Rio Grande as the southern border, which Mexico rejected as illegitimate.

Missouri Compromise of 1820

An agreement that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude $36^\circ 30'$.

Annexation of Texas (1845)

The incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the United States via a joint congressional resolution approved under President John Tyler, provoking immediate outrage from Mexico.

Buchanan-Pakenham Treaty (1846)

An agreement negotiated between the United States and Great Britain establishing the 49th parallel as the official northern boundary separating the Oregon territory from British Canada.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

The peace treaty ending the Mexican-American War that formalized the Rio Grande boundary and ceded California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and part of Wyoming to the U.S.

Wilmot Proviso

A legislative amendment proposed in 1846 to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico; it passed the House but died in the Senate, sharpening sectional tensions.