Units 1-5 Review Notes

Course Administration

• Lecture is a review of units one through five.
• Recording will be posted and available until the end of the exam season.
• Exam is in 2 days, on May 9th.

Unit 1: 1491-1607

• Time Period: 1491 (symbolic date for the Americas before European contact) to 1607 (founding of Jamestown).
• Focus: Native American societies, their interactions with Europeans, and the subsequent transformations of both societies.

Big Idea 1: Native American Diversity

• Native American populations were diverse, with various ways of life shaped by their environments.
• Pre-European contact America was not a monolithic Native American culture.
• Coastal Regions: Permanent settlements due to abundant fish, small game, and plant life. Example: Chumash people in present-day California.
• Great Basin Region: Nomadic hunter-gatherers requiring large tracts of land to hunt buffalo. Example: Ute people.
• Mississippi River Valley: Agricultural societies that participated in trade networks along the Mississippi River due to rich soil. Example: Cahokia.
• Northeast: Agricultural communities living communally in long houses constructed from timber. Example: Iroquois.

Big Idea 2: European Arrival

• Europeans came to the Americas for various reasons, including political unification, desire for luxury goods, and finding sea routes to Asia.
• Spain sought access to trade in the Indian Ocean and Asia, deciding to sail west to find new paths to Asian markets.
• Spain had just completed the Reconquista, leading to a desire to spread Christianity elsewhere.
• Christopher Columbus was sponsored by the Spanish crown and encountered the Americas.

The Columbian Exchange

• The transfer of people, animals, plants, and diseases from the East to the West (Old World to New World) and vice versa.
• Introduction of new foods and animals expanded diets, leading to longer lifespans and population increases, particularly in Europe.
• Smallpox and measles decimated indigenous populations, significantly impacting society.
• Influx of gold and silver from the Americas into Europe facilitated the shift from feudalism to proto-capitalism.

Spanish Transformation of the Americas

• Encomienda System: The Spanish used indigenous forced labor for plantations and mining; disease outbreaks led to a labor shortage.
• Rise of African Slavery: European powers partnered with West Africans to bring enslaved Africans to the Americas, replacing the dwindling native labor force.
• Casta System: A hierarchical system categorized people based on race and ancestry.

Changing Perceptions

• Interaction between Europeans and Native Americans led to evolving understandings of each other regarding religion, gender roles, family, land use, and power.
• Europeans viewed land as a commodity; Native Americans had a spiritual connection, seeing it as communal.
• Europeans were primarily Christians; Native Americans practiced various pantheistic religions.
• Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argued that Native Americans were less than human; Bartolomé de las Casas argued for their dignity.

Colonization of the Americas

• Motives: Gold, God, Glory.
• Spanish: Focused on growing crops for export, aiming to spread Christianity, resulting in subjugation of native populations and societal reordering via the casta system.
• French and Dutch: Prioritized trade partnerships over conquest, interested in the fur trade, establishing fewer permanent settlements, and less focused on converting Native Americans.
• British Motivations: Inflation in Britain due to the Columbian Exchange, enclosure movement leading to land scarcity, religious persecution of Puritans and Separatists.
• Motivations Included: Social mobility, economic prosperity, religious freedom.

Regional Differences in British Colonies

• Chesapeake Region: Centered around Jamestown, goal was to extract wealth, population mainly men seeking work, initially indentured servants, later replaced by enslaved Africans, and profitable venture was tobacco cultivation.
• New England Region: Settled by Puritans and Separatist families around 1620, highly religious society, goal was to establish a colony based on religious principles and achieve economic prosperity.
• British West Indies and Southern Atlantic Coastal Colonies: Warm climates enabled year-round growing seasons, cash crop economies focused on exporting tobacco and sugar, and increased demand for African laborers on plantations.
• Middle Colonies: Examples include New York and New Jersey; strategic location with sea access and rivers, becoming hubs for trade; economy organized around exporting cereal crops, and attracted a diverse population due to trade opportunities.

Governance in New England Colonies

• Largely self-governing and unusually democratic due to the distance from Britain.
• Examples: Mayflower Compact and House of Burgesses in Virginia.

Transatlantic Trade and Mercantilism

• Driven by the triangular trade, which became global in nature, generating phenomenal wealth.
• Mercantilism: The dominant economic system of European states, relying heavily on establishing colonies to provide the parent country with raw materials.
• Britain aimed to tightly control its colonies through measures like the Navigation Acts.
• Central idea: A finite amount of wealth exists in the world, and states aimed to accumulate as much of that wealth as possible.

Interactions with Native Americans

• European powers had differing policies in their interactions with Native American peoples, often leading to conflict.
• Examples of Conflict: Metacom's War (King Phillip's War) and Pueblo Revolt.

Reliance on Enslaved African Labor

• All British colonies depended on enslaved African laborers to varying degrees; the number of enslaved people increased from north to south.
• Slavery was justified by viewing enslaved people as chattel.
• Forms of Resistance: Covert and overt resistance.
• Example: Stono Rebellion (1739).

Colonial Society and the Enlightenment

• Colonial society was heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement; transatlantic print culture spread Enlightenment ideas.
• Key Enlightenment ideas: Natural rights and social contract.
• Shift: The First Great Awakening led to the shift from regional identity to a broader American identity.

British Colonial Policies and Mistrust

• American colonies were becoming more Anglicized but were also developing autonomous political communities resembling English institutions.
• Increasing frustration among colonists due to British policies like British Impressment.

Unit 3 Overview (1754-1800)

• Time Period: 1754 (French and Indian War begins) to 1800 (Election of Thomas Jefferson).
• Increasing tension between Britain and its American colonies, leading to colonial independence and struggles to form a new government.

The French and Indian War (aka The Seven Years War)

• Led to increased land for the American colonies but a greater burden of taxation.
• Causes: Mutual conflict between the French and the British; British were nervous about French encroachment into the Ohio River Valley and vice versa.
• The French and Indian War was the American part of the larger Seven Years' War between Britain and France.
• Outcome: British victory ousted the French from North America.
• Consequences: American colonists moved west into newly acquired lands, increasing conflicts with Native Americans.
• Proclamation Line of 1763: Prohibited colonists from settling further west; frustrated colonists who felt entitled to the land they had fought for.

Taxes and Colonial Discontent

• The British, burdened by debt from the war and increased colonial costs, levied taxes on the colonies.
• This sparked outrage due to a prior period of salutary neglect.
• Taxation Without Representation: Parliament's crackdown ignited colonial resentment.
• Virtual Representation: Parliament argued that it represented all British subjects, regardless of location; this was rejected by the colonists.

Enlightenment Ideals and Independence

• Enlightenment ideals significantly influenced the American independence movement, particularly through Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence.
• Common Sense: Argued that the American colonies could no longer be tied to Britain and that independence was the only way forward.
• Key Enlightenment ideals present in the Declaration of Independence: Natural Rights, Social Contract, Separation of Powers.
• Victory Despite the Odds: Despite British advantages, the American Patriots won the Revolutionary War.

The Articles of Confederation

• The first Constitution of the United States, but it failed because the federal government was too weak.
• Drafted with state constitutions as models, the Articles placed all federal power in a legislative body, without an executive or judicial branch.
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787: Provided a plan for unformed territories to apply to the Union for statehood; abolished slavery in the Northwestern Territories.
• Shays' Rebellion: A rebellion of farmers in Massachusetts; exposed the weakness of the Articles of Confederation due to the lack of a national military.

Constitutional Convention and Factions

• Originally intended to revise the Articles of Confederation but quickly shifted to drafting a new Constitution.
• Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists: Federalists favored a stronger central government; Anti-Federalists favored more state power.
• Representation Debate and Compromises: Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, Great Compromise, and Three-Fifths Compromise.
• Federalists (Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay) wrote the Federalist Papers, which defended and explained the Constitution to the public.

Constitution: Federalism and Separation of Powers

• :
  Sharing of power between the federal government and the state governments.
• 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights: Unless a power is explicitly given to the federal government, it is reserved for the states.
• Separation of Powers: Divided government into three branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

Impact of the American Revolution

• Slavery Debate Renewed: Ideals of freedom and democracy led to renewed debate on the morality of slavery.
• Republican Motherhood: The idea that women could influence political realities by raising virtuous sons instructed in the principles of liberty.
• French Revolution: Inspired by the American Revolution's emphasis on freedom.
• Haitian Revolution: Inspired by the ideals of freedom and equality.

Precedents Set by Washington and Adams

• Two Political Parties Emerge: Federalists vs. Democratic Republicans.
• Disagreed on nearly everything, leading to disagreements over the Alien and Sedition Acts.
• American National Identity: Ideas about American national identity found expression in art, literature, and architecture.

Unit 4: 1800-1848

• Political parties argued about policy, the Supreme Court established its role in American government, and the US greatly expanded its territorial holdings.
• Expansion of US Territorial Holdings
• The Louisiana Purchase, which was authorized by Thomas Jefferson.
• The Corps of Discovery, led by Louis and Clark, was commissioned to explore and chart this new territory.

Regional Interests and Federal Power

• A good example is the War of 1812, which was fought over Britain's impressment of American sailors.
• The New England Federalists opposed the war and suggested that New England secede from the Union at the Hartford Convention in 1814.
• :
  Henry Clay's American System aimed to unify the American economy through Federally funded internal improvements, Protective tariffs, Establishing the Second Bank of the United States
• President Madison vetoed some provisions, arguing that it would disadvantage the South.

Westward Expansion and the Missouri Compromise

• The balance between free and slave states in the Senate was crucial for both the North and the South.
• Missouri Compromise (Compromise of 1820), brokered by Henry Clay, included Missouri would enter as a slave state.
• The southern border of Missouri, the 36°30' line, would extend through the Louisiana territory to the Pacific Ocean; and states below this line could be slave states.States above this line would be free states.

Establishing Independence on the World Stage

• Claiming territory
• Consolidating control over the Western Hemisphere.
• Establish the United States sphere of influence, preventing European powers from meddling in the region.

The Market Revolution

• The linking of the northern industry with the western and southern farms, which created advances in technology and had significant effects on the society and culture of the United States.
• Interchangeable parts: Became the basis for the American system of manufacturing, allowing for repeatable tasks by unskilled laborers, which is what makes mass production possible.
• Government's Role: The government aided development by introducing legislation that fostered quicker transportation paths.
• Immigration: A significant wave of immigration occurred between 1820 and 1840, with approximately 2 million immigrants arriving.
• Rise of the Middle Class: The middle class emerged in the North due to growing prosperity from the Market Revolution.
• Cult of Domesticity: Defined separate spheres for men and women.

Expanding Democracy

• The demand for expanding democracy manifested itself in universal white male suffrage and the growing influence of political parties.
• Andrew Jackson and Federal Power: President Andrew Jackson made significant use of federal power on issues such as the national bank, tariffs, federally funded internal improvements, and forcible removal of American Indians from their lands.

Political Conflicts and Federal Power

• During the Jacksonian era, significant political conflicts arose between the Whigs, led by Henry Clay, and the Democrats, led by Andrew Jackson.
• Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina encouraged the state to nullify the law that advocates a state can invalidate a federal law it deems unconstitutional.
• Indian Removal Act: The Supreme Court attempted to check Jackson's power by ruling the Indian Removal Act unconstitutional.

Defining American Identity

• Transcendentalism emerged as a key philosophy, influenced by European Romanticism and the belief in human perfectibility.
• Hudson River School exemplified national identity in art; their paintings romanticized landscapes.
• The Second Great Awakening differed from the First Great Awakening and it helped nationalize an identity for Americans.

Social Reform Movements

• The temperance movement sought to curb alcohol consumption and abolitionism gained momentum during this period.
• Nat Turner's Rebellion, a slave revolt, resulted in the deaths of over 50 white people and intensified white plantation owners' fears, leading to harsher conditions for enslaved people.
• The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 marked a significant event in the women's movement.

Southern Culture and Slavery

• Though most southern white people did not own enslaved people, southern culture upheld slavery as a part of their way of life.
• The southern economy and culture were defined by agriculture, particularly cotton led cotton farmers to seek new arable land in the West.

Unit 5 (1844-1877)

• Focus: Civil War, its causes, events, and aftermath.

Manifest Destiny & Westward Expansion

• Belief in Manifest Destiny, access to resources, economic opportunities, superiority of American Institutions.
• Facilitated by legislation and the Gold rush.

Mexican-American War

• Caused by annexation of Texas, resulting in territorial gains.

Compromise of 1850

*Three main positions on slavery: Southern Position, Free Soil Position, and Popular Sovereignty

Immigration & Nativism

• Irish stayed mostly in eastern urban centers and germans moved westward to farm
• Nativism and Anti-Catholic sentiment: Emergence of Know Nothing Party

Slavery & Regional Differences

• Tension increased due to conflicting labor Ideologies, abolitionist movement, and arguments on the constitutionality of slavery.
  *Contrasting Economies: The North and South had vastly different economic systems.

Failure of Compromises and Rise of Sectionalism

• The slavery question would be decided by popular sovereignty.
• All attempts to compromise over slavery ultimately failed, leading to the rise of sectional political parties.
• Election of 1860: Led to the secession of Southern states.

Civil War: North vs. South

• The North prevailed due to its advantages in population, industry, railroads, and leadership under Abraham Lincoln.
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Gettysburg Address

Reconstruction Era

• Constitutional Amendments: 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
• Debate among Republicans on how to treat returning Southerners.

Failure of Reconstruction

• Challenges include sharecropping, white supremacy, and Black Codes.
• The system of sharecropping emerged as a replacement for slavery and legalized the segregation known as Plessy v. Ferguson The Supreme Court case