AP United States History Exhaustive University Study Guide

Unit 1 ($1491-1607$)

Native Societies Before Euro Contact

• Diversity: Native societies were diverse, ranging from nomadic tribes to sedentary civilizations.

• Maize Cultivation: Developed in Central Mexico, maize led to the formation of complex societies revolving around sedentary agriculture.

• Effects of Maize Cultivation: 1. Economic Development through trade. 2. Establishment of permanent settlements. 3. Development of advanced irrigation techniques. 4. Social diversification.

• Great Plains Natives: Primarily consisted of nomadic tribes, such as the Ute.

• East Coast Natives: Settled due to rich soil suitable for agriculture. The Mississippians utilized maize cultivation to build settlements with trade and social hierarchies. The Iroquois were semi-sedentary, living in longhouses built with timber. The Iroquois Confederacy was a group of tribes that discussed governing issues. The Cherokee cultivated maize, beans, and squash, though men still hunted.

• Pacific Coast Natives: Tribes like the Chinook and Chumash settled permanently due to an abundance of food from the ocean.

Euro Exploration in the Americas

• Success Factors for European Exploration: 1. A warmer climate. 2. Improved agricultural practices. 3. Larger populations due to more food. 4. A desire for trade. 5. The Renaissance. 6. Political unification.

• Portugal’s Navigation: Motivated by a desire to trade without using Muslim-controlled land routes. King Henry the Navigator initiated sailing along the African coast. Vasco da Gama successfully rounded the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.

• Spain’s Navigation: Wanted trade access but found Portugal controlling the Indian Ocean. Ferdinand and Isabella approved the voyage of Christopher Columbus, who landed in the Caribbean.

• Primary Motivations (God, Gold, and Glory):     * Gold: The Spanish established the Encomienda System using coerced labor for cash crops such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton.     * God: Motivated by the Religious Crisis (Protestant Reformation). The Church had committed simony (sale of offices) and the sale of indulgences (forgiveness for sins). Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses. Tensions rose between Catholics and Protestants. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand led the Spanish Reconquista and Inquisition to spread Catholicism.     * Glory: Competition for land between Spain and Portugal led to the Treaty of Tordesillas, which split America between the two countries without native input.

The Columbian Exchange

• Maritime Technology: Improvements included the Caravel ship, Lateen sails, the Astrolabe, and the Magnetic Compass. Joint-stock companies funded these ventures.

• Columbian Exchange: The transfer of diseases, plants, animals, and minerals between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

• Diseases: Smallpox was the most deadly, followed by Measles. These contributed to the ‘Great Dying’ of Native Americans and helped the Spanish conquer land.

• Food and Plants: Europe introduced wheat, olives, and grapes. Natives introduced maize and potatoes. Diverse diets led to healthier populations in Europe.

• Animals: Horses were introduced to Natives for hunting and warfare. Sheep caused soil erosion. Pigs and cows trampled crops.

• Minerals: Spanish focus was on mining silver and gold. This prompted a shift from Feudalism to Mercantilism.

Spanish Empire in the Americas

• Authority: Ferdinand and Isabella’s Requerimiento used biblical authority to justify ruling the Americas.

• Conquest: Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs using disease and native alliances. Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas.

• Labor Systems: The Encomienda System involved coerced labor where encomenderos controlled land and forced natives to work in exchange for protection. Indigenous labor failed due to disease and native escapes, leading to an increase in enslaved Africans via the Middle Passage.

• Caste System: Since Spanish nobility did not move to the Americas, a hierarchy was established based on whiteness. This determined residency, employment, and education.

Cultural Interactions in the Americas

• Worldview: Europeans and Natives held fundamentally different worldviews.

• Adaptation: Natives adopted European Christianity, often through syncretism (e.g., the Virgin of Guadalupe). Europeans adopted native agricultural and irrigation techniques.

• Valladolid Debates: Led to the New Laws, which phased out the Encomienda System. However, concepts like the ‘Curse of Ham’ were used to justify slavery.

Unit 2 ($1607-1754$)

European Colonization Models

• Spanish: Focused on power and extracting wealth. Used the Encomienda System (later replaced by the Hacienda System). Forced Christianity on Natives, leading to syncretism and the Pueblo Revolt of $1680$. Maintained a rigid Caste System.

• French and Dutch: Partnership based on trade. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec for France, focusing on the fur trade and intermarriage. Jesuits were less forceful in religious conversion. Henry Hudson founded New Amsterdam for the Dutch ($Dutch\,West\,India\,Company$), which became a trading hub.

• British: Partition and separation from Natives. Reasons for migration included: 1. Economic prosperity (Jamestown, $1607$). 2. Social mobility (Primogeniture laws in Britain limited options for younger sons). 3. Religious freedom (Puritans and Separatists/Pilgrims fleeing the Anglican Church). 4. Improved living conditions (Enclosure Laws in Britain pushed farmers off land).

Regions of the British Colonies

• Colony Types: Corporate (Joint-stock), Royal (King’s direct rule), and Proprietary (Individual charters like Maryland and Pennsylvania).

• New England Colonies: Massachusetts Bay (Puritans, Great Migration) and Plymouth (Pilgrims, Mayflower Compact). Focused on family groups, religion, lumber, and fish. Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams (separation of church and state) and Anne Hutchinson (Portsmouth) after they were exiled from Massachusetts.

• Middle Colonies (‘Breadbasket’): New York (ceded by Dutch), New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (William Penn, Quaker, religious refuge, pacifists). Characterized by rich soil and grain exports.

• Chesapeake Colonies: Jamestown ($1607$) and Maryland. Tobacco was the primary export, leading to the plantation system. Initially used indentured servants, transitioning to enslaved Africans. Established the House of Burgesses.

• Southern and British West Indies: Focused on large plantations with enslaved labor. South Carolina focused on rice and indigo. The British West Indies grew sugarcane and established the Barbados Slave Codes, which stripped rights from laborers.

Transatlantic Trade and Mercantilism

• Triangular Trade: Involved New England rum to West Africa, slaves to the West Indies, and sugarcane/molasses to New England.

• Mercantilism: The colony exists to enrich the mother state. The Navigation Acts required goods to be taxed in England and transported on English ships. Distance led to ‘Salutary Neglect’.

• Impact on Natives: Introduction of tools, firearms, and horses but also devastating disease/dependence. Bacon’s Rebellion arose from tensions between former indentured servants and Natives on the frontier.

Resistance and Conflict

• Alliances: Beaver Wars (Iroquois vs. French for fur control). War of Spanish Succession involved European powers and native allies.

• Wars: Metacom’s War (King Philip’s War) was a failed attempt by the Wampanoag to stop New England expansion. The Pueblo Revolt ($1680$) successfully drove the Spanish out of New Mexico for a time before they returned with some concessions.

Slavery in British Colonies

• Reliance: All colonies used slavery, but the South had higher concentrations. Chattel slavery defined people as property by birth.

• Transition: Bacon’s Rebellion ($1676$) led planters to move away from indentured servants to enslaved Africans to prevent future uprisings. New laws created a racial divide to prevent poor whites and blacks from uniting.

• Resistance: Covert (breaking tools, maintaining culture/music like the banjo) and Overt (Stono Rebellion in $1739$, New York Slave Rebellion of $1741$, Maroon societies in Jamaica).

Colonial Society and Culture

• Diversity: Included German and Scott-Irish immigrants. Anglicization led to an imitation of English customs among elites.

• Intellectual/Religious Movements: The Enlightenment (John Locke, natural rights) and the Great Awakening ($1730s-1740s$). Jonathan Edwards (‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’) and George Whitefield emphasized emotional experience. ‘New Lights’ vs. ‘Old Lights’.

• Tensions with Britain: Colonists desired land in the Ohio River Valley. Legal cases like the Zenger Trial established early precedents for freedom of the press.

Unit 3 ($1754-1800$)

The Seven Years’ War

• Origins: Conflicts over French and Indian encroachment in the Ohio River Valley. George Washington’s attack sparked the war.

• Albany Plan of Union: Ben Franklin’s failed attempt to unite the colonies for defense.

• Treaty of Paris ($1763$): Britain gained Florida and French territory east of the Mississippi. Britain faced massive debt, ending Salutary Neglect.

• Proclamation of $1763$: Forbade westward expansion beyond the Appalachians to prevent conflict with Natives (e.g., Pontiac’s Rebellion), angering colonists.

Taxation and Resistance

• Acts: Sugar Act ($1764$), Currency Act ($1764$), Stamp Act ($1765$ - first direct tax), Quartering Act ($1765$), and Townshend Acts ($1767$).

• Reactions: Sons and Daughters of Liberty, Stamp Act Congress, Virginia Resolves. Concepts of ‘Virtual Representation’ were rejected by colonists.

• Violence: Boston Massacre ($1770$) and Boston Tea Party ($1773$) in response to the Tea Act.

• Intolerable Acts ($1774$): Included the Coercive Acts (closing Boston port, increasing royal governor power) and the Quebec Act.

The American Revolution

• Foundation: Enlightenment ideas (Social Contract, Natural Rights - Life, Liberty, and Property). Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ using biblical and anti-monarchal arguments.

• Continental Congresses: First ($1774$ - boycott) and Second ($1775$ - Olive Branch Petition, Continental Army).

• War: British naval power and Hessians versus the Continental Army. Key victories at Trenton and Saratoga (securing French alliance). Final surrender at Yorktown ($1781$).

• Treaty of Paris ($1783$): Recognized US independence with the Mississippi as the western boundary.

Ideals and New Governments

• Social Effects: Dunmore’s Proclamation (British promise of freedom for slaves), Republican Motherhood (women raising virtuous citizens), and gradual abolition in the North.

• State Constitutions: Focused on legislatures and Bill of Rights. Most required property ownership for voting.

• Articles of Confederation ($1781$): Intentional weak central government. Achievements: Northwest Ordinance ($1787$ - prohibited slavery in new territories). Weaknesses: No power to tax, regulate interstate trade, or quell rebellions (Shays’ Rebellion).

The Constitution

• Convention ($1787$): Great Compromise (Bicameral legislature), Three-Fifths Compromise, and Commercial Compromise. Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances.

• Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists: Federalists supported a strong central government (Federalist Papers). Anti-Federalists demanded a Bill of Rights.

The New Republic

• Washington’s Presidency: Organized the Cabinet and Judiciary Act of $1789$. Hamilton’s Financial Plan (National Bank, assuming debt, tariffs, excise tax on whiskey). Proclamation of Neutrality ($1793$). Pinckney Treaty (New Orleans access). Whiskey Rebellion suppressed.

• Adams’ Presidency: XYZ Affair and Quasi-War with France. Alien and Sedition Acts prompted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (Nullification).

• National Identity: Growth of meritocracy and the cotton gin ($1793$) furthering slavery. Slave trade banned in $1808$.

Unit 4 ($1800-1848$)

The Era of Jefferson and Madison

• Election of $1800$: First peaceful transition of power. Democratic-Republicans (strict construction) vs. Federalists (loose construction).

• Louisiana Purchase ($1803$): Doubled US size; justified via the ‘necessary and proper’ clause.

• John Marshall’s Supreme Court: Established judicial review (Marbury v. Madison) and federal supremacy (McCulloch v. Maryland, Gibbons v. Ogden).

• War of $1812$: Caused by impressment and Native revolts (Tecumseh). Ended with the Treaty of Ghent and triggered the downfall of the Federalist Party (Hartford Convention).

Nationalism and Sectionalism

• Era of Good Feelings: Under James Monroe. Acquisition of Florida (Adams-Onís Treaty). Henry Clay’s American System (Tariffs, Bank, Internal Improvements).

• Missouri Compromise ($1820$): Main as free, Missouri as slave; $36^\circ 30'$ line as boundary for slavery in Louisiana territory.

• Monroe Doctrine ($1823$): Prohibited new European colonization in the Western Hemisphere.

Market Revolution

• Technology: Interchangeable parts, Steam engine, Steel plow, Mechanical reaper, and Cotton gin. Telegraph for communication.

• Infrastructure: Erie Canal, Lancaster Turnpike, Cumberland Road, and Railroads.

Society and Reform

• Urbanization: Mass Irish and German immigration. Nativist backlash (Know-Nothing Party). Middle-class Cult of Domesticity.

• Jacksonian Democracy: Expansion of franchise to all white males. Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of Abominations. Indian Removal Act ($1830$) and Trail of Tears.

• Second Great Awakening: Revivals emphasizing innate goodness and societal reform. Impact on Temperance, Abolition (William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass), and Women’s Rights (Seneca Falls, $1848$). Transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau).

• Southern Identity: King Cotton and the view of slavery as a ‘positive good’ used to uphold White Supremacy.

Unit 5 ($1844-1877$)

Manifest Destiny

• Expansion: Annexation of Texas, Oregon Territory ($54^\circ 40'\,or\,fight$), and California Gold Rush. Homestead Act and Preemption Act.

• Mexican-American War ($1846-1848$): Caused by disputed Texas borders. Ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Mexican Cession.

Pre-Civil War Sectionalism

• Compromise of $1850$: California as free, Utah/NM popular sovereignty, banned DC slave trade, and enacted a strict Fugitive Slave Law.

• Escalation: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Kansas-Nebraska Act (Bleeding Kansas), Dred Scott v. Sandford (slaves are property), and John Brown’s Raid.

• Election of $1860$: Abraham Lincoln’s victory led South Carolina and the Confederacy to secede.

The Civil War

• Dynamics: Union (industrial superior, population) vs. Confederacy (King Cotton, generals like Lee). Total War strategy.

• Turning Points: Battle of Antietam (led to Emancipation Proclamation), Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. Use of Black troops and ‘contrabands’.

Reconstruction

• Plans: Lincoln’s $10\%$ Plan vs. Radical Republicans (Wade-Davis Bill). Johnson’s lenient Presidential Reconstruction.

• Amendments: $13th$ (Abolition), $14th$ (Birthright citizenship/Equal protection), and $15th$ (Black male suffrage).

• Failure: Rise of KKK, Sharecropping, Jim Crow laws (Black Codes), and the Compromise of $1877$ removing federal troops from the South.

Unit 6 ($1865-1898$)

Westward Expansion and Industrialism

• West: Transcontinental Railroad, destruction of bison, and Native displacement (Wounded Knee, Dawes Act). Farmers organized via the Grange and Populist Party (Ocala Platform).

• Gilded Age: Rise of corporations, trust/monopolies (Carnegie, Rockefeller, JP Morgan). Vertical and Horizontal integration. Laissez-faire capitalism and Social Darwinism.

• Labor: Knights of Labor, AFL, and strikes (Pullman, Haymarket). Deskilling of labor.

The New South and Urban Change

• New South: Focus on industry (steel, lumber) but remained agricultural. Plessy v. Ferguson ($1896$ - ‘separate but equal’).

• Immigration: ‘New Immigrants’ from Southern/Eastern Europe and Asia. Chinese Exclusion Act ($1882$). Settlement Houses (Jane Addams).

• Middle Class: Growth of ‘knowledge workers,’ consumer culture (catalogs, department stores), and higher education (Morrill Acts).

Unit 7 ($1890-1945$)

Imperialism and Progressivism

• Imperialism: Spanish-American War ($1898$), acquisition of Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam. Panama Canal and Roosevelt Corollary.

• Progressives: Muckrakers (Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell). Amendments $16$ ($Income\,Tax$), $17$ ($Senators$), $18$ ($Prohibition$), and $19$ ($Women’s\,Suffrage$).

World War I and the Interwar Years

• WWI: Neutrality to intervention (Zimmerman Telegram, U-boats). Homefront suppression (Espionage/Sedition Acts). Wilson’s $14\,Points$ and League of Nations (rejected by Senate).

• $1920s$: Mass culture (radio, cinema), Flappers, Harlem Renaissance, and the Scopes Trial.

• Great Depression: Caused by stock crash, overproduction, bank runs. FDR’s New Deal (Relief, Recovery, Reform - FDIC, Social Security, WPA, CCC).

World War II

• Mobilization: Ended Great Depression. Pearl Harbor ($1941$). Japanese Internment (Korematsu v. US). D-Day, Island Hopping, and the Atomic Bombs (Hiroshima/Nagasaki). Holocaust discovery and the Yalta/Potsdam Conferences.

Unit 8 ($1945-1980$)

The Cold War

• Containment: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO vs. Warsaw Pact. Korean War and Vietnam War (Domino Theory). Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Red Scare II: McCarthyism and HUAC. Lavender Scare.

Society and Movements

• Economy: GI Bill, Suburbia (Levittown), Baby Boom, and Sunbelt migration.

• Civil Rights: Brown v. Board, Montgomery Bus Boycott, MLK Jr. (Non-violence), and Black Power (Malcolm X). Civil Rights Act ($1964$) and Voting Rights Act ($1965$).

• Liberalism: LBJ’s Great Society (Medicare, Medicaid). Expansion to Latino/Native/Gay rights.

• Identity: Counterculture (Hippies), New Left/SDS, and Environmentalism (EPA, Silent Spring). Stagflation and Iran Hostage Crisis.

Unit 9 ($1980-Present$)

Conservatism and Globalization

• Reagan Era: Reaganomics ($Supply-side\,economics$), deregulation, and high military spending. Strategic Defense Initiative ($SDI$). End of Cold War ($1991$ - Berlin Wall fall, Gorbachev reform).

• $21st$ Century: NAFTA, digital age (Internet, computers), and the War on Terror ($9/11$, Patriot Act). Issues of Climate Change and increasing political polarization.