Unit 1: Interactions in North America (1491-1607)

Native American Societies

• Pueblo lived in Arizona and New Mexico areas and farmed maize

• Nomads lived in Great plains, such as Ute, in small egalitarian societies

• Cahokia people had largest settlement in Mississippi River Valley

• Iroquois lived in Northeast in Longhouses

European Exploration

• Population increase, political unification, and desire for luxury goods from Asia led to desire to explore

• Christopher Columbus was sponsored by Isabel and Ferdinand of Spain to sail west to Asia but ran into Caribbean

  • Took natives and their gold back to Spain

Columbian Exchange

• Smallpox from old world wiped out huge native populations

• Europeans got Maize and tomatoes and potatoes from Americas

• Americas got horses, pigs, cows, chicken, rice, wheat, and oats from Europe

• Europeans took silver and gold from Americas

• Africans were brought by Europeans to the Americas via the middle passage

• Spain and other European countries used Mercantilism, or state sponsored exploration

Early Labor Systems

• Slaves already existed in Africa but had rights

• Africans captured other Africans, and sold them for guns

• Europeans misinterpreted the bible to think that Africans were descended from Canaan, who was cursed by Noah to be a servant forever

• Spanish brought slaves to America to fix labor shortage from dying indigenous from disease

• Spanish created caste system to divide society and encomienda system for labor

Cultural Interactions

• Spanish tried to impose their beliefs of Catholicism, private land ownership, and nuclear family on Native Americans who were animists, worshiped land, and lived in tribes

• Pueblo Revolt → Killed Spanish priests who were trying to force them to Worship Christ as the only god

• Bartolome de las Casas was one of the few people who tried to defend Indian sovereignty in Spain

Unit 2: Colonial Society (1607-1754)

European Colonization

• France was more interested in trade than conquest, unlike Spain and Britain

• Henry Hudson established New Amsterdam for the Dutch as a trading post

• English peasants were losing land (enclosure acts) and wanted religious freedom

British Colonies

• Jamestown in 1607 was the first colony

  • Financed by joint stock company

  • Nearly failed until tobacco crop discovered

  • Increasing demand for tobacco led to more Indian land being encroached upon, which led to Indians becoming violent

  • Daniel Bacon led Bacon’s rebellion where he and a bunch of other poor farmers attacked the Indians, and then turned around and attack lands owned by governor Berkley who didn’t help them against the Indians to begin with

  • Had House of Burgesses which was a representative assembly that could levy taxes

• Puritan settlers in 1620 arrived in New England for religious freedom and economic opportunity

  • Mayflower Compact organized them into a self-governing society with participatory town meetings

• Britain grew tobacco and later Sugarcane on islands in the Caribbean such as Barbados and Saint Christopher

  • Used Africans for labor and created strict slave codes

• New York and New Jersey had a lot of rivers and became export economies of cereal crops

• William Penn established Pennsylvania where there was religious freedom for all

Trans-Atlantic Trade

• Triangular Trade

  • New England would carry rum to west Africa for slaves

  • Slaves were traded for sugarcane in the British West Indies (Caribbean)

  • Sugarcane was traded for rum…

• Mercantilism → Fixed amount of wealth in the world, nations want more exports than imports, and wanted colonies

  • Britain passed a series of Navigation Acts that required English merchants to trade with mother country

Interactions between Indians and Europeans

• Spanish conquered Indians and tried to force them to work (Aztec, Inca, Pueblo) using encomienda system

• British colonists lived peacefully with them for a time until the English population growing and more encroachment of Indian land

  • King Philip’s War → Wampanoag Indian Metacom (King Philip) led attack on colonists

    • English ally mohawk Indians attacked Wampanoag and killed Metacom

• French saw Indians as trading allies and married into their society to secure trading rights for fur

  • established trading posts rather than societies

Slavery in British Colonies

• Agricultural estates in the middle colonies like NY and NJ

• Chesapeake and Southern colonies relied more on slavery for their plantation system

  • Slaves were treated as chattel (property)

• Slaves resisted by practicing culture from their homes, speaking native language, breaking tool and damaging crops

• Stono rebellion stole weapons from white store owner and burned plantations until white militia stopped them

Colonial Society and Structure

• Enlightenment ideas spread to Americas which emphasize thinking over tradition

  • John Locke → Humans had rights such as life, liberty, and property

  • Social Contract → People gave power to government in return for security, and could remove the government if they weren’t providing security

• Loss of belief in tradition led to Great Awakening

  • New Light Clergy were inspired by German Pietism and led to Christian spread throughout the colonies

  • Jonathan Edwards combined enlightenment ideas and religions

  • George Whitfield preached magnificently up and down the colonies

• Population growth in the colonies led to them being unable to be control by parliament and forming their own governments

• Impressment → British could seize American sailors and force them to fight as British soldiers i.e. King George’s War

Unit 3: (1754-1800)

French and Indian War

• Started due to conflict over Ohio River Valley

• Benjamin Franklin proposed Albany Plan of Union to make the colonies more united in their fight, but the taxes to raise troops were too expensive

• British won, nearly ousted French from North America, gained land East of Mississippi

• Americans moving West intensified conflicts with Indians

  • Proclamation of 1763 → Forbade taking land west of Appalachian mountains

Taxation without representation

• Britain taxed America to pay for expensive French and Indian War

• Change from Salutary neglect

• Quartering Act of 1765 → British troops would remain in America and they were to be fed and housed by the colonists

• Sugar Act → Tax on coffee, molasses, and wine

• Stamp Act → tax on all paper items: playing cards, contracts

• Britain argued it was fair because America had virtual representation from people of the same class, just not the same location

• Stamp Act Congress resulted in a formal petition to repeal the Stamp Act sent to Britain

  • Stamp Act and Sugar Act repealed

  • Declaratory Act → Britain had the right to pass any law they wanted to

• Townshend Acts → Taxes on imports such as paper and glass

• People relied on women to find alternative to purchasing British textiles as a form of protest

• Events came to a head in the Boston Massacre where 11 Americans died

• Boston Tea Party in reaction to Tea Act

  • Coercive Act → Boston Harbor was closed until the tea was paid for

  • Another quartering act

  • These acts as well as others became known as intolerable acts

• Leaders from colonies gathered at the Continental Congress (1774)

  • Agreed they must continue to protest, but not for independence

• Enlightenment Ideals of Inalienable rights, social contract, and separation of powers

Independence and War

• Second Continental Congress agreed independence was needed

• Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense pamphlet

• Declaration of Independence filled with enlightenment ideals and written by Thomas Jefferson

• Continental Congress approved Continental army with George Washington as its General

• War did not go that well for the underfed underequipped Continental army

• Battle of Saratoga convinced French to assist them

• British surrender at Yorktown

Government

• Articles of Confederation → All power was in legislative, no national military force, no ability to enforce

• Northwest Ordinance of 1787 → Planned for how territories could apply for statehood and abolished slavery in the NW territory

• Daniel Shay returned to his farm from the war to find himself poor and tried to arm himself and other poor farmers before they were crushed by the local militia

  • Revealed weakness of articles of confederation

• Constitutional Convention took place where a new constitution was made

  • Federalists wanted strong federal government and anti-federalists wanted states to have power

  • Virginia Plan → Representation by population

  • New Jersey Plan → States represented equally

  • The Great Compromise → Bicameral legislature

  • 3/5 compromise → 3 out of every 5 slaves counted for state population

  • Stronger but more divided gov’t

• Federalists papers → Papers by Hamilton, John Jay, convincing public to agree with constitution

• Federalists agreed to add a bill of rights for anti-federalists

Society

• Republican Motherhood → Women best served society by raising virtuous sons

Washington

• Established Departments of treasury, state, war, and justice

  • Alexander, head of treasury, wanted to combine states debts and create a national bank, under the elastic clause

• Whiskey Rebellion: Tax on whiskey was not agreed with and poor farmers attacked tax collectors until Washington federalized four state militias and used them to crush the rebellion

• Washington told the nation to steer clear of political parties and avoid foreign affairs in his farewell address

• Pickney Treaty → Decided where Florida border was with Spain

Adams

• XYZ Affair

  • French kept seizing American trade ships that were going to Britain bc French and Britain were at war again

  • Adams went to France and 3 Frenchmen demanded a bribe before even talking with him

• Alien and Sedition Acts → Could easily deport any non-citizen easily, and couldn’t criticize the government

  • Virginia and Kentucky resolution was passed by the states: Any Law that was unconstitutional could be ignored by states

Unit 4 (1800-1848):

Expanding Role of United States in World Affairs

• Barbary Pirates

  • Federalist Presidents Washington and Adams paid tribute to the pirates in North African so they wouldn’t attack merchant ships

  • Jefferson stopped paying tributes, and sent the navy when the pirates started attacking American merchants

    • Led to an agreement of reduced tributes

• America declared war on Britain in 1812 due to continued impressment policies

  • Democrats supported, federalists opposed

  • Victory led to increased nationalism, demise of Federalist party

  • Beginning of “Era of good feelings” with unity under democratic- republican party

• James Monroe sent John Quincy Adams to establish U.S. border of Canada at the 49th Parallel

• Adams-Onis Treaty → Spain sold Florida and a southern border for the U.S. was agreed upon

• Monroe Doctrine (1823) → The Western Hemisphere is for the United States and will not be subjugated to European influence

Transformation of society and economy

• Democratic-Republicans let national bank charter expire in 1811 which made it difficult to raise funds for reliable infrastructure, making it difficult to move troops during the war of 1812

• Henry Clay’s American System

  • Federally funded internal improvements like roads and canals

  • Tariffs that protect U.S. manufacturers

  • New National Bank

  • Madison vetoed the first and allowed the other two

• Market Revolution → The linking of northern industries with western and southern farms due to advances in agricultural, industry, communication, and transportation

  • Cotton gin and spinning machine made cotton much easier to farm and produce

  • Interchangeable parts made production much quicker and required less skill

  • Steam boats allowed travel up and down stream

  • Erie Canal stretched across New York State, and its benefits prompted other canals

  • Railroads replaced canals in the 20’s and 30’s and the government helped railroads with tax breaks and loans

• Cities in the North exploded with immigrants who lived in tenements

• Middle class grew with jobs such as doctors and lawyers becoming more popular , especially in the North

• Women had to conform to the Cult of Domesticity

  • Home was haven of rest for husband and home and work were separate spheres

  • Only applied to middle class women since lower class women had to work

• Webster dictionary standardized American English

• Transcendentalism

• Utopian Communities

  • Oneida Community in New York believed Christ had already returned and they must live in equality

• Second Great Awakening → Evangelical preachers preached days on end to white people and black people wealthy and poor

  • Preached about the moral reformation of society, which led to the temperance society, which tried to ban alcohol

  • Ex. Finney

How Americans came to terms with growing Democracy

• Democrats believed the government could only do what was explicitly written in the Constitution (strict constructionists)

  • Thomas Jefferson, after sending James Monroe to France who made the Louisiana Purchase, struggled to justify this because no where in the constitution did it say he could buy land

    • Claimed it cut off European Influence and Indians could be moved

• Federalists believed the federal government had more flexibility when it came to what was written in the constitution (loose constructionist)

• Marbury v Madison → Adams’ midnight appointments are not legal, Supreme Court gives itself Judicial Review, or the final interpretation of the constitution

• McCulloh v Maryland → Maryland tried to tax national bank in its borders, supreme court rules Federal Law trumps state law

• Missouri Compromise by Henry Clay → Missouri comes in as a slave state, Maine as a free state, the 36 30 line decided whether a state is slavery or not from here on out

• Only property owning white men could vote in the east, while in the frontier all white men could vote, so eventually by 1825 most Eastern States granted universal male suffrage

  • New influx of voters led to split in 1824 in Democratic-Republican Party

    • National Republicans were lose constructionists: John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay

    • Democrats were strict constructionists: Andrew Jackson

• Corrupt Bargain → In 1824 election there were 4 Democrat Republicans, Henry Clay got the least electoral votes and put his support behind John Quincy Adams, who after winning named Henry Clay secretary of state

• Andrew Jackson

  • Tariff of abominations (1828) → Very high tariffs, south gave it its name

  • Jackson’s V.P, John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian developed doctrine of nullification, which said states can nullify federal laws in their territory, and South Carolina applied this to the tariff and said if they were forced to pay it they would secede

  • Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the force bill, which allowed federal troops to be used to enforce federal law

  • Jackson vetoed renewal of second national bank

  • Indian Removal Act (1830) → Indian tribes had to move West of the Mississippi

  • Worcester Versus Georgia → Cherokee refused to relocate, supreme court agreed with them

    • Cherokee eventually traded there land, and those who disagreed were subjected to forced removal along the trail of tears

• Abolition was growing during this time

  • William Lloyd Garrison’s Newspaper the Liberator

  • Northern Merchants and white working men in the north didn’t want abolition since they might lose their raw materials or jobs

  • Women found it impossible to advocate for slavery because they have no rights

• Seneca Falls Convention

  • First meeting of women calling for more rights

  • Drafted Declaration of Sentiments which called for right to vote

• Southern planters continued to control their slaves tightly due to fear of loss of way of life and uprising

  • Nat Turner’s Rebellion → Killed over 50 white people

  • Even Yeomen farmers (no slaves) supported slavery because then they weren’t on the bottom of society

  • Over cultivation of soil led to farmers and therefore slavery moving west

Unit 5: 1844-1877

Manifest Destiny

• Term coined by John O’Sullivan

• God given right

• California Gold Rush caused people to move west

• Preemption Act → Vast tracts of land cheap

• Moving West was expensive so mainly the middle class did it

• People also moved for religious freedom

  • Mormons moving to Utah

• James K. Polk was a believer in Manifest Destiny

  • Texas, which was made up largely of slave owning protestant Americans, two things Mexico tried to outlaw of immigrants to Texas, revolted when Mexico clamped down on said outlawing behind Sam Houston

  • Texas captured Mexican general and became an independent republic that struggled to gain statehood due to presidents’ fear of causing a war

  • Oregon annexed at the 49th Parallel

Mexican-American War

• Polk sent diplomat Slidell to determine Texas border and to try and buy New Mexico and California

  • Border dispute abt which river, and states not for sale

• Polk sent general Zachary Taylor to disputed land and Mexicans met them, 11 Americans died

  • “Mexicans killing Americans on American Soil” phrase used by Polk to go to war

• General Winfield Scott eventually occupied Mexico City

• Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo (1848)

  • Rio Grande was the Southern Border of Texas

  • Mexican Cession → Purchase of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and California for $50 million

• Wilmot Proviso → No lands gained from Mexico would be slavery

  • Never passed, very contentious

• Mexicans and Indians living on land had few protections

Compromise of 1850

• Southern Position

  • Slavery was a constitutional right

  • Slavery had been decided in Missouri Compromise (1820)

• Free Soil Movement

  • Northern Democrats and Whigs

  • Wanted new territories acquired to be the domain of free laborers

• Abolitionists

  • Wanted to ban slavery everywhere

  • Founded free soil party

• Popular sovereignty

  • People living in each territory decide whether slavery be there

• Compromise proposed by Henry Clay

  • Utah and New Mexico would practice popular sovereignty

  • California admitted as a free state

  • Slave trade banned in Washington D.C.

  • Stricter Fugitive Slave Law

Sectional Conflicts

• Immigration

  • Irish immigrants settled in cities

    • Were catholic and drinkers

  • Led to increase in Nativism and creation of Know Nothing Party

• Slavery

  • North objected on economic grounds → Free laborers couldn’t compete with slaves

  • Free Soil Party wanted to keep slavery out of new territories

  • Abolitionists wanted to ban slavery everywhere

    • William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator

    • Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin

    • Frederick Douglas was an escaped slave who spoke out

    • Underground railroad allowed slaves to escape

    • John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry federal arsenal in a an attempt to supply slaves wit weapons they could use to revolt

Failure of Compromising

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) → A section of land from Louisiana purchase be split into two sections and each one uses popular sovereignty to answer the slavery question

  • Essentially overturned Compromise of 1820

  • Bleeding Kansas → People fought to get control of Kansas

  • 2 legislatures were established in Kansas, Pres Franklin Pierce backed the pro slavery

• Dred Scott Case → Because he, a slave, lived in a free state for 2 years, he should be free

  • Supreme Court rejected him, and said people should not have fear property being taken away

  • Every state essentially becomes a slave state

• Whig Party split into Cotton Whigs and Conscience Whigs

• Republican Party formed in 1854

  • Consisted of Know Nothings, Free Soilers, conscience Whigs

Election of 1860

• Abraham Lincoln, a republican, ran on free soil platform

• Democrats were divided

• Lincoln won presidency without a single electoral vote from the South

• South Carolina and then other states seceded in Dec 1860

• Confederate States of America → Southern States who created a pro slavery and small federal government

• South seceded due to slavery, which is clearly outlined in each of their articles of secession

Civil War

• Abraham Lincoln tried to resupply Fort Sumter, a Federal Fort surrounded by southern troops, in South Carolina, but provisions were fired upon

• Emancipation Proclamation → All slaves in rebelling states are free

  • Slaves in Confederacy were more tempted to escape

  • Made British not want to help south

  • Turned war from saving Union to stopping Slavery

• Sherman March to the Sea → General Sherman marched from Atlanta to Savannah, destroying crops and railroads

• Gettysburg Address → Lincoln unified the nation and portrayed the struggle against slavery as fulfillment of America’s founding democratic ideals

Reconstruction

• 10% Plan → Proposed by Lincoln, only 10% of political loyalty from state electorate was needed for states to return to the Union, and the 13th amendment, which banned slavery, needed to be ratified

  • Lincoln assassinated before he could enact this plan, and Andrew Johnson, a southern sympathizer, became president

• Johnson did not stop the South from creating Black Codes → Restricted freedom of Sothern Blacks and forced them to work for low wages

• Radical Republicans wanted South to pay

  • Established Freedmen’s Bureau, an organization to help newly freed Blacks

  • Civil Rights Act of 1866 → Protected citizenship of black people

  • Johnson vetoed both laws, but the veto was overruled

• Radical Republicans passed 14th amendment → All citizens get equal protection under the law

• Reconstruction act of 1877 → South divided into 5 military districts that were occupied by federal troops to enforce reconstruction

  • Ratification of 14th and universal male suffrage would be required (15th amendment)

• Congress tried and failed to impeach Johnson, but the act rendered him powerless

• Women not happy they didn’t get the right to vote

Reconstruction Failure

• Black people set up black colleges and some got elected to government

• Plantation owners set up a system of share cropping that bound former slaves to plantations and put them in debt

• KKK founded in 1867

• Black codes → Series of laws that oppressed black people in ways such as: not letting them borrow money, not letting them testify against white people, and allowing segregation

• Compromise of 1877 → After an undecided election between Tilden and Hayes, democrats ceded victory to Hayes if federal troops got removed from the south

Unit 6 (1865-1898)

Westward expansion

• Mechanical Reaper and combine harvester led to crop surpluses, industrial farms buying out small farms, and decreased prices

• High prices on manufactured goods and very high railroad rates led to economic problems for farmers

• National Grange movement brought farmers together who made states pass laws preventing corporate practices that hurt farmers

  • Commerce Act of 1886 → Railroad rates had to be reasonable and just

  • Interstate Commerce Commission → Committee to enforce commerce act

• Pacific Railroads Act → Federal government granted land to railroad companies to build a transcontinental railroad

• Homestead Act → 160 free acres for migrants who would farm and settle the land

• Gold Rush led to people moving out west and the creation of boomtowns

• Frederic Jackson Turner argued the “closing of the frontier” was concerning since moving west was apart of the American identity

• Government created reservation system to deal with Indians

• Indian Appropriation Act (1871) → Ended federal recognition of Indian Sovereignty

• Dawes Act (1887) → Indians could become American citizens if they farmed land given to them specifically on their reservation

• Wounded Knee was the last violent Indian resistance, where the army killed 200 people after one man performed the ghost dance, which was believed to summon the spirits of ancestors to drive white people from the land

New South

• Henry Grady coined the term the “New South” and envisioned a more industrial, north-like, south

• In a few cities, textile production, railroads, and populations grew

• Still mostly remained agricultural and racist through sharecropping

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) → Segregation is legal as long as separate but equal facilities are maintained

• Resulted in Jim Crow Laws which segregated as many public facilities as possible (bathrooms, water fountains, public transport)

• Ida B. Wells, Henry Turner, and Booker T. Washington all fought Jim Crow Laws

Industrialization Tech

• Previously, Americans made things for themselves or to be sold locally

• The railroad created a national market for goods

  • Federal government provided land grants and loan subsidies to railroad companies to facilitate building

• Bessemer process allowed for much stronger steel to be created

• Telegraph was improved which allowed for longer communication

  • Trans-Atlantic cable was laid

• Graham Bell invented the telephone

Industrial Capitalism

• Small businesses crushed by large corporations and trusts

• John D. Rockefeller → Oil, horizontal integration, buying out competitors

• Carnegie → Steel, vertical integration, owning all aspects of production

  • Gospel of Wealth → Wealthy had obligation to donate back into society

• Lazarre Faire policies meant the government wasn’t intervening despite these people owning entire industries and looking for foreign markets to take over

• Social Darwinism → Poor people were deemed not fit

Labor

• Conspicuous Consumption → The wealthy of this age displayed their wealth

• Mass production meant wages decreased, but so did price of goods, so gap between rich and poor as well as standard of living for everyone grew

• Unions came into existence for safer working conditions

  • The Great Railroad Strike shut down 60% of the Nations Railways until it got violent and President Hayes sent in troops to shut it down

• Knights of Labor → Open to all people for the destruction monopolies and of child labor

  • Ended after they were blamed for a bomb going off during the Haymarket Square Riot

• American Federation of Labor → Crafts workers for higher wages and safer conditions

Immigration and Migration

• Europeans still arrived in great numbers to the East Coast

• Chinese people continued coming to the west coast (since the gold rush)

• Immigrants and workers were crammed into tenements

  • Disease spread, but ethnic enclaves were created

• Led to a rise of nativism

  • Labor unions feared that immigrants would take their jobs while they went on strike

  • Panic of 1873 was blamed on Chinse workers int he west being willing to work for such low wages

  • Chinese exclusion act (1882) → Banned all Chinese immigration

• Jane Addams opened a Hull House to help immigrants assimilate

Middle Class

• Larger corporations needed middle managers to oversee workers

• Men and women worked middle class, women mainly on the typewriter and as teachers

• Larger wages and less working time than lower class people led to increase in leisure activates

  • Coney Island (amusement park)

  • Barnum circus

  • Football and baseball

Reform Movements

• Henry George called for a land tax

• Socialism gained popularity

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pushed for women’s suffrage

• Women’s Christian Temperance Movement → Wanted men to abstain from alcohol

• Carrie Nation took a hatchet and hacked at liquor barrels

Role of Government

• Very laissez faire, did not regulate

• helped overthrow Hawaii natives to open door to new markets

• Open Door policy established with China

Politics

• Democrats were southerners who wanted states rights and segregation

• Republicans were northerners who supported industry

• Pendleton Act (1881) → Replaced patronage (spoils) system with a competitive civil service exam

• Farmers and entrepreneurs wanted to expand money supply from gold standard to include more paper money and silver coinage which would make debt less severe since it would be paid with inflated dollars

• Populist party created and sought to correct the economic power concentrated in banks and trusts

  • Omaha Platform → Direct election of senators, unlimited coinage of silver, graduated income tax, eight-hour work day

  • Democrats agreed to coinage of silver to get their vote

• Boss Tweed ran Tammany Hall in NYC, a corrupt political machine in which people voted for him in exchange for jobs