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Columbian Exchange

Transfer of crops, animals, and disease between the Old and New World after 1492

Encomienda

Spanish forced labor system using Native Americans

Caste System

Spanish racial hierarchy in the colonies placing Europeans at top, natives and Africans at bottom

Salutary Neglect

Britain’s policy of loosely governing the colonies, allowing them to self

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676 revolt by poor farmers; led elites to shift from indentured servants to enslaved labor

Great Awakening (First)

1730s

Mercantilism

Economic policy where colonies exist to enrich the mother country

Enlightenment

Philosophical movement emphasizing reason and natural rights; influenced Declaration of Independence

Articles of Confederation

First U.S. government; too weak because it couldn’t tax or raise a military

Federalists vs Anti

Federalists

Market Revolution

Early 1800s shift to industrialization, wage labor, and urbanization

Second Great Awakening

Early 1800s religious revival that fueled abolition, temperance, and women’s rights movements

Manifest Destiny

Belief that U.S. expansion westward was God

Indian Removal Act

1830 law forcibly relocating Native Americans; led to Trail of Tears

Nullification Crisis

South Carolina’s claim it could void federal law; Jackson refused, previewing Civil War tensions

Popular Sovereignty

Policy of letting territories vote on whether to allow slavery

Dred Scott Decision

1857 Supreme Court ruling that enslaved people were not citizens and Congress couldn’t ban slavery in territories

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship and equal protection to all born in the U.S.

15th Amendment

Gave Black male citizens the right to vote

Black Codes

Southern laws after the Civil War restricting Black Americans’ freedom

Sharecropping

Labor system that kept formerly enslaved people economically trapped after Reconstruction

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South

Robber Barons

Powerful industrialists like Carnegie and Rockefeller who built monopolies

Social Darwinism

Belief that the wealthy deserved success and the poor deserved poverty; used to justify inequality

Populism

Late 1800s farmers’ movement against railroads and banks

Dawes Act

1887 law breaking up tribal lands to forcibly assimilate Native Americans

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court ruling establishing “separate but equal,” legalizing segregation

Jim Crow Laws

Southern segregation laws enforced after Reconstruction

Imperialism

U.S. policy of overseas expansion; Spanish

Progressive Era

1890s

Zimmermann Telegram

Germany’s secret proposal to Mexico to attack the U.S.; triggered U.S. entry into WWI

Wilson’s 14 Points

WWI peace plan including the League of Nations; Senate rejected it

Harlem Renaissance

1920s explosion of Black art, music, and literature in New York City

New Deal

FDR’s programs to provide relief, recovery, and reform during the Great Depression

Internment

Forced imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WWII

Containment

U.S. Cold War policy to stop the spread of communism

Truman Doctrine

Truman’s policy providing aid to countries threatened by communism

Marshall Plan

U.S. program rebuilding Western Europe after WWII to prevent communist takeover

McCarthyism

1950s Red Scare; Senator McCarthy accused many of communist sympathies without evidence

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 Supreme Court ruling desegregating public schools

Civil Rights Act 1964

Banned discrimination in public places and employment

Voting Rights Act 1965

Banned discriminatory voting practices targeting Black Americans

Great Society

LBJ’s domestic programs expanding federal role; created Medicare and Medicaid

Détente

Nixon’s policy of easing Cold War tensions with the USSR and China

Watergate

Nixon’s political scandal involving abuse of power; led to his resignation in 1974

Reagan Revolution

Reagan’s policy of cutting taxes, deregulating industry, and shrinking government (supply

9/11

2001 terrorist attacks leading to the War on Terror, PATRIOT Act, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​