Benchmark #2 Study Guide - U.S. History

Vocabulary flashcards covering early colonial settlement, the American Revolution, constitutional formation, antebellum expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction based on the Benchmark #2 Study Guide.

Virginia Company

The joint-stock company that founded the Jamestown colony in Virginia for economic reasons to make money.

Jamestown Colony

The first permanent English colony, established by $100$ English men who faced extreme hardship, resulting in $90\%$ of settlers dying from disease, Native American attacks, and starvation during the first couple of years.

House of Burgesses

The first representative law-making body established in the American colonies, whose members were elected by wealthy landowners in Virginia.

Brown Gold

A nickname for tobacco, the highly profitable cash crop that saved the Jamestown colony financially.

Puritans

A religious group that settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony to escape religious persecution in England.

Religious Dissenters (Puritan New England)

Individuals who disagreed with strict Puritan religious beliefs and were expelled or kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Halfway Covenant

A religious measure allowing children and grandchildren of the original Puritans to participate as partial church members in response to declining church attendance.

Quakers

A religious group settled in Pennsylvania that was the most religiously tolerant, treated others fairly, accepted people from all faiths, and purchased land directly from Native Americans.

Quebec

The first French colony founded in North America, whose $17\text{th}$-century economy was primarily based on the fur trade.

Mercantilism

An economic policy where a mother country exports more than it imports; colonies supply raw materials to create finished goods that are sold back to colonies or other nations to build national wealth.

Triangular Trade

A transatlantic trade network linking America (exporting raw materials to Europe), Europe (exporting manufactured goods to Africa and America), and Africa (sending enslaved people to America).

Plantation System

An agricultural economic structure in the South driven by the demand for raw cash crops, creating a heavy reliance on cheap enslaved labor.

African Cultural Preservation

The means by which enslaved Africans retained their heritage in the $1600\text{s}$ and $1700\text{s}$, through agricultural techniques, music, foods, language, dance, and basketweaving.

Salutary Neglect

The British practice of ignoring the colonies and allowing them to self-govern through institutions like the House of Burgesses, the Mayflower Compact, and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.

First Great Awakening

A colonial-era religious revival characterized by emotional, fire-and-brimstone preaching led by ministers such as Jonathan Edwards.

French and Indian War

A conflict over control of the Ohio River Valley between Great Britain and France that ended in a British victory, forcing France to surrender all land in North America.

Ohio River Valley

A contested territory desired by France for the fur trade and connecting Canada to Louisiana, and sought by Britain for fertile land expansion and control of the Mississippi River.

Treaty of Paris (1763)

The treaty ending the French and Indian War, in which France lost all North American territory, Britain gained all land east of the Mississippi River including Florida, and Spain acquired land west of the Mississippi.

Stamp Act

The first direct tax placed by Britain on American colonists to help pay war debts, levying a tax on all legal documents and affecting everyone.

Townshend Acts

British laws that levied duties on everyday colonial household goods including glass, paint, paper, and tea.

Proclamation of 1763

A royal decree prohibiting American colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains, signaling the end of Britain's policy of salutary neglect.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

The opening confrontation of the American Revolutionary War where the first shots were fired.

Battle of Saratoga

The turning point battle of the Revolutionary War that boosted American morale and convinced France to openly enter the war as an ally.

Battle of Yorktown

The final major battle of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in the surrender of British forces.

Battle of Trenton

A significant Revolutionary War battle in which General George Washington crossed the Delaware River to surprise and capture Hessian troops, providing a major morale boost for the Continental Army.

Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben

European military figures and close aides to George Washington who trained the Continental Army into a disciplined, professional force.

Valley Forge

The brutal winter encampment where the Continental Army suffered major casualties, but survivors received crucial military training under Lafayette and von Steuben.

Benjamin Franklin (Diplomatic Role)

The American ambassador to France who negotiated an alliance that brought French military and financial support to the Revolutionary War.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

The peace agreement ending the American Revolutionary War that formally recognized American independence and set the nation's western border at the Mississippi River.

Articles of Confederation

The first national framework of government for the United States, which had a weak central structure with only a legislative branch, no national executive, no federal courts, and no power to levy taxes.

Shays' Rebellion

An armed uprising by Massachusetts farmers that revealed the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and demonstrated the necessity of a stronger national government to protect rights and property.

Great Compromise

A constitutional agreement combining the New Jersey and Virginia plans to establish a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Three-Fifths Compromise

A constitutional agreement counting three out of every five enslaved individuals toward state population totals, granting Southern states greater representation in the House of Representatives.

Second Great Awakening

A nationwide religious revival during the $1840\text{s}$ that inspired numerous social reform movements prior to the Civil War.

Temperance Movement

A social reform movement led by figures like Neal Dow that aimed to limit or completely ban the consumption and sale of alcohol.

Abolition Movement

The reform movement dedicated to putting an end to slavery, led by prominent figures including John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman.

Women's Rights Movement (19th Century)

A reform crusade led by activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to secure equal rights and the right to vote for women.

Mental Health Reform

An effort led by Dorothea Dix to remove mentally ill individuals from prisons and establish specialized asylums for their treatment.

Common School Movement

An educational reform movement led by Horace Mann to establish and expand free, universal public schools.

Revolution of 1800

The presidential election in which Federalist John Adams peacefully transferred power to Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson, demonstrating that the American constitutional system could endure.

Washington's Farewell Address

George Washington's parting message establishing presidential precedents and warning the nation against permanent foreign alliances, regional sectionalism, and political parties.

Whiskey Rebellion

An armed protest by western farmers that was put down when President Washington led approximately $13{,}000$ militiamen, demonstrating the authority and executive strength of the new federal government.

Louisiana Purchase

An $1803$ land treaty in which Thomas Jefferson bought expansive western territory from France, doubling the physical size of the United States.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

A government-sponsored expedition commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore and map the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase territory.

Henry Clay's American System

A three-part economic plan designed to unify the country through internal improvements (infrastructure), protective tariffs, and a national bank.

Erie Canal

A major waterway connecting the East to the West that spurred rapid economic growth, faster transportation, and the founding of cities along its route.

Monroe Doctrine

A key American foreign policy statement warning European nations not to interfere with or colonize countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Jacksonian Democracy

A political era defined by expanding universal white male suffrage, allowing more common citizens to participate directly in the political and voting process.

Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney's machine that rapidly sped up the processing of cotton, dramatically increasing Southern cotton production and intensifying the demand for enslaved labor on plantations.

Manifest Destiny

The widely held $19\text{th}$-century belief that the United States had a God-given right to expand westward across North America.

Trail of Tears

The forced relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes (including the Cherokee) from their southeastern homelands to designated Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

A major slave revolt in Virginia that struck terror among white slaveholders and led Southern states to pass much harsher and stricter slave codes.

Nullification Crisis

A standoff led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who claimed the state could nullify the Tariff of Abominations and threatened secession if the protective tariff was not lowered.

Missouri Compromise

An $1820$ agreement admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while establishing the $36^\circ 30'$ line north of which slavery was prohibited in remaining territories.

California Gold Rush

A massive influx of settlers to California following the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in $1849$.

Compromise of 1850

A sectional compromise that admitted California as a free state and enacted a stricter Fugitive Slave Act to satisfy Southern demands.

Popular Sovereignty (Kansas-Nebraska Act)

A principle embedded in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of $1854$ allowing the residents of each territory to vote directly on whether to allow or ban slavery.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

A landmark Supreme Court decision ruling that enslaved persons were property rather than U.S. citizens and therefore lacked the legal right to sue in court.

John Brown's Raid

An $1859$ raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by radical abolitionist John Brown in an attempt to ignite a slave rebellion, ending in his capture, execution, and martyrdom.

Wilmot Proviso

A failed congressional proposal that sought to ban slavery in all lands acquired from Mexico following the Mexican-American War.

Battle of Fort Sumter

The opening confrontation of the American Civil War where the first shots of the war were fired.

First Battle of Bull Run

The first major land engagement of the American Civil War.

Battle of Antietam

The single bloodiest one-day battle in American military history.

Sherman's March to the Sea

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive total-war campaign from Atlanta to Savannah aimed at breaking the civilian will of the Confederacy.

Battle of Gettysburg

The bloodiest multi-day battle of the Civil War and the critical turning point in the Eastern theater that ended Confederate offensives into Union territory.

Battle of Vicksburg

A decisive Union victory serving as the Western turning point of the Civil War, giving the Union complete control of the Mississippi River.

Presidential Reconstruction (Ten Percent Plan)

Abraham Lincoln's lenient plan for readmitting Southern states to the Union upon only $10\%$ of their voting population taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.

Radical Republicans

A faction in Congress that strongly opposed Lincoln's lenient reconstruction strategy, demanding strict penalties for the South following the Civil War.

Thirteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States.

Fourteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment granting citizenship and equal legal protection to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.

Fifteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote for all male citizens, prohibiting voter discrimination based on race or prior condition of servitude.

Compromise of 1877

A political resolution awarding Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the contested presidency in exchange for the complete removal of federal troops from the South, ending military Reconstruction.