HIST 20 final definitions

Academic history

created for academic audience, advances out knowledge about a particular topic, builds on previous scholarship

Public history

projects created for public audiences, designed to teach about lessons about the past to non-academic audiences

Settler colonialism

A system in which settlers seek to replace Indigenous populations and establish a new society on seized land.

Black Legend

A narrative dictating that the Spanish were sadistic murderers and the most brutal in their treatment of native people

Consumer Revolution

1650s- 1800s expanding transatlantic commerce of the eighteenth century provided greater access to cheaper and more diverse goods, desire to show off belongings and assert British identity

Coverture

Patriarchal legal doctrine transported to the English colonies Required that when a woman married she became a feme covert surrendered her legal identity and because repressed (covered) by her husband

Captivity

Broad range of forcibly detained people in native america. ofeten taken in war, used as sacrificual victims replacemetns forced labor traded, not based on clor

Slave society

salvery as the center of economic prodcution, instrinic to society

Hiring out

tradition of slaveowners hiring out enslaved people to non-slaveowners for a fee

Dual exploitation

Enslaved women exploited as both laborers and reproducers.

Enlightenment

An eighteenth century intellectual movement that emphasized scientific laws, research, and reason

Public sphere

world of politics independent of formal government where citizens discussed political questions

Republicanism

Economically independent citizens should participate actively in public life, able to subordinate self interest to pursuit of public good

Liberalism

Articulated in john locks two treaties of government (168-s), should be limitations on ability of government to interfere with national rights of citizens to life, liberty and property, people had the right to rebel against unjust or oppressive government because authority flowed from men's consent

Proclamation of 1763

Crown policy that attempted to stabilize situation and defeat expenses by preventing British settlement and speculation west of the Appalachian mountains

Salutary neglect

Tradition of leaving the colonies to govern themselves

Virtual representation

The colonists were represented virtually: parliament already considered and represented the interests of all who lived under the British crown 

Homespun

Aka homemade- clothing became a symbol of american resistance 

Committees of Safety

Implement mandate of continental congress, begin process of transferring political power from established governments to extralegal grassroots bodies reflecting will of the people

Loyalists

Retained allegiance to the crown, viewed British rule as critical stability and rule of law

Moderate Patriots

agreed to fight british in short term but reconcile with empire in the long term

Radical Patriots

favored dispensing with the crown and parliament 

Neutrals and disaffected

Rought ⅖ of population wavered between the two sides and/or tried to stay out of it

War of attrition

Wearing down a better equipped, better trained army

Treaty of Paris (1783)

1783- recognition of american independence and fishing rights, us gained control of region between canada and florida east of the mississippi river, made no provisions for native americans

Republican motherhood

Women plated instrumental role in American society as helpful mothers and wives

Disestablishment

Ending public funding and special privileges for churches

Articles of Confederation

First frame of government for united states, balanced national coordination of war with widespread fear of centralized authority

Empire of liberty

Us would expand liberty as it advanced westward and bring new areas as equal states, assumed native americans should be removed/assimilate or would die off

Politics out of doors

Tools of american revolutionaries to oppose government's policies

Federalists

states too responsive to need of common people, advocated for a strong central government 

anti federalists

argued that federal power was dangerous to liberty, emphasized state sovereignty

Three-fifths clause

Strong protection placed for slavery- a slave counted as ⅗ of a vote

Electoral College

Wrtiten in the constituion that the president woud be elected by an electoral college or house of representatives 

Borderland

A place between or near recognized borders where no group has complete political control or cultural dominance, an area of negotiation between groups, nations, and/or cultures

Assimilation agenda

Encouraging native people to become civilized by adopting the economic traditions and gender roles of white Americans (agriculture for male household heads, domestic roles for wives and daughters)

Federalists 2

eared that an anarchical “spirit of liberty” has been unleashed favored a strong central government, envisioned a power commercial republic dominated by urban manufacturing

republicans

concerned about individual freedoms and states rights, envisioned an agrarian nation dominated by small farmers

Strict constructionists

Believed that the federal government could only exercise powers specifically listed in that document.

Alien and Sedition Acts

Laws restricting immigrants and suppressing political dissent.

Louisiana Purchase

An achievement and an irony, made possibly by haitian revolution, jackson was thrilled with the purchase but he was a strict constitutionalist so he worried it was outside of the presidential powers

Embargo Act

Jefferson enacted- banned all american vessels from sailing to foreign ports

Market Revolution

Transition from agricultural society based on self-sufficiency to market-oriented society based on manufacturing - Production moved from the home to the factory

Internal improvements

(transportation and communication infrastructure)

Debate surrounding where the funding of it should come from

Nativism

Xenophobic, anti catholic political movement, prominent in the 1830 and 1840s and reached it zenith in the 1850s

Outwork

Aka piecework- received orders and earned wages for each piece they completed, typified early industrialization

Mill girls

New England textile factories

Mill owens saw unmarried daughters of farm families as idea labor force

Enjoyed their own money and getting away from farm

Later replaced by Irish immigrants

Workingmen’s Parties

Short-lived political organizations that pushed for free public education, end to imprisonment for debt, free land in the West, and limitations on the workday

Family wage

Idea that male workers should earn enough to support a family.

Foreign miners tax

miners who were not US citizens required to pay $20 each month for right to mine in California

Era of Good Feelings

an era of one-party government

Democratic-republicans ruled without oppositions, federalist party collapsed, reflected extension of voting rights to the white male working class

Corrupt bargain

accusation that Henry Clay bartered votes in the election for public office

Democratic Party

(outgrowth of Democratic- Republican Party) more effective in drawing the common man into the political process, grassroots campaigning orchestrated by Martin Van Buren

Whig Party

born spring 1834, during Andrew Jackson’s second presidential term (called themselves “Democratic Whigs”)

Grassroots campaigning

A political or social movement that is driven by the active participation of roginary citizens at a local level rather lan poltical elites and or large scale funding

Positive liberty

liberty enhanced by government action, freedom expanded via government involvement

Negative liberty

reeing individual from outside restraint, emphasis on individual self-determination and action

Believed in limited government and limited regulation of personal activity

Bank War

a running battle over political power and economic ideology that raged on and off throughout Andrew Jackson’s presidency

Indian removal

displacement of Native peoples through military force, fraud, and/or policy; a fundamental characteristic of US nation-building before and after Andrew Jackson

Golden Age of the Cherokee Nation

synthesis of Anglo-American “civilization” with Native culture

Adopted farming, enjoyed thriving trade with white people in early 1800s, adopted written constitution in 1827

A prosperous Cherokee elite: western education, Christianity, intermarriage, cotton cultivation, slave ownership

Development of a written language system

Treaty of New Echota

small number led by Major Ridge signed treaty exchanging d lands in Georgia for portion of Indian Territory (what is now northeastern Oklahoma), did not represent the majority position of the Cherokee Nation

Rosses vs Ridges

a decades-long grudge (and episodes of violence) prompted by a “moment of betrayal” in the 1830s

Peculiar institution

a phrase used to refer to slavery without saying the word “slavery”

Plain folk

Small-scale landowning farmers.

Masterless men

Poor whites who experienced long bouts of un/underemplotment

Second Middle Passage

The deportation of enslaved people from the upper South (Virginia and the Chesapeake) to states further south and west

Necessary evil thesis

belief that slavery not compatible with Christianity, natural rights principles, or the future of the nation and would gradually fade away

paternalistic outlook

Positive good thesis

racist belief that Black people were inherently inferior to white people, as well as the belief that slavery, in creating a permanent underclass of laborers, made freedom possible for whites

Second Great Awakening

as a series of revivals in the early nineteenth century that brought new converts into religious organizations w/ a shared commitment to biblical authority, emotional conversion, and missionary fervor

Temperance movement

Participants demanded drinking only wine and beer, drinking in moderation, and/or abstaining entirely

Colonization

argued that enslaved people should be purchased and/or freed and then deported to Africa, the Caribbean, or Central America

Abolition

demanded the complete and immediate end to slavery and the incorporation of African Americans into society as equal citizens, defined freedom as a universal entitlement

Moral suasion

abolitionists used publications, public speaking, and other tactics to convince the American public that slavery was evil and contrary to Christian teachings

Slave narratives

accounts of black people’s experiences in slavery, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) challenged romantic depictions of the South and idea that slavery was a “positive good” for society, enslaved people, and white people

Women’s rights movement

Activists (mostly middle-class women and a few sympathetic men) typically came from other reform movements, gave them the tools to change their gender-based oppression

Voluntary motherhood

right of a wife to refuse sex to her husband

Sarah and Angelina Grimké

daughters of a prominent South Carolina slaveholder who condemned slavery in public speeches and pamphlets in the 1830s, negative response to their activities helped them see comparisons between the plight of enslaved people and of women  sisters who linked slavery to women’s oppression.

Manifest Destiny

belief that the United States had a God- given right to conquer and control North America, Native Americans were “savages” and “obstacles” to be removed

California Genocide

combined massacres, murders, forced removal, and enslavement slashed Native population from 150,000 in the 1840s to 30,000 in the 1870s

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Mexican territory was acquired here, the treaty (1848) exacerbated political debate over slavery

California gold rush

Large cohorts of young men came from Europe, Australia, Mexico, South America, and China

Free Soil Party

formed to oppose slavery in new territorial acquisitions and the “slave power conspiracy,” indicated spread of antislavery sentiment and belief that white men had the right to own land

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

Was the second fugitive slave act - deployed power of federal government to capture and re-enslave black people, expanded reach of slaveowners into the North, gave many white northerners their first connection to slavery

Bleeding Kansas

massive voter fraud prompted widespread violence between pro- and antislavery forces, indicated the failure of popular sovereignty

Republican Party

formed to prevent spread of slavery into western territory, denounced slavery as immoral -Brought together Whigs, Northern Democrats, Know-Nothings (anti-immigrant party), and Free Soilers

Dred Scott decision

Determined that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories and that no black person (slave or free) could be a citizen of the United States

Abraham Lincoln

16 president- during civil war, republican

Raid on Harpers Ferry

an armed attack of 22 black and white abolitionists on federal arsenal, designed to trigger a slave revolt and end slavery entirely - led by john brown

Border states

slave states that did not secede from the Union (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia)

Minié ball

improved range, accuracy, and firing rate, but military tactics slow to change

Rich man’s war poor man’s fight

Criticism of class inequality during the Civil War.

Freedmen’s Bureau

federal agency established to ease transition from slavery to freedom- Activities included land confiscation and redistribution, setting up schools, legalizing marriages, and supervising labor contracts

Special Field Order No. 15

Dedicated class in south carolina and georgia to settlement by freedpeople, origin of 40 acres and a mule

Andrew Johnson

Took presidency after lincoln was killed, democrat from tennessee with pro union sympathies and resented the southern planter class- racist not great politician 

13th amendment

abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime

14th amendment

constitutional amendment guaranteeing “equal protection of the laws”

15th amendment

constitutional amendment prohibiting access to voting on basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

Sharecropping

Farming land in exchange for supplies or share of crops

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the south after the civil war during reconstruction

Black Codes

Laws restricting rights and activities for former slaves, focused on reestablishing white control over black people's labor