APUSH SEMESTER EXAM

🧾 PERIOD 1: EUROPEAN CONTACT

👉 The Colombian Exchange (Columbian Exchange)

Imagine that Europe and America begin to exchange gifts... but some are good and others are deadly.

• From Europe to America: horses 🐴, cows 🐮, wheat 🌾... and diseases such as smallpox 😷 that killed many natives.

• From America to Europe: corn 🌽, potatoes 🥔, cocoa 🍫, and tomatoes 🍅 (imagine Italy without tomatoes!).

👉 Motivations for imperialism (Spain, France and England)

• Spain: They wanted gold 💰, convert the indigenous people to Catholicism ⛪ and expand their empire.

• France: They focused on the fur trade and had more friendly relations with the indigenous people.

• England: Long-term colonization, seeking religious freedom or new lands.

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🧾 PERIOD 2: AMERICAN COLONIALISM

👉 Indentured servants and slavery

• Indentured servants: they were poor Europeans who worked 5-7 years in exchange for the trip to America.

• When that system was exhausted, African slavery arrived to work on cash crop plantations (such as tobacco).

👉 Comparison of the colonies:

• New England: very religious (Puritans), economy based on trade.

• Chesapeake (Virginia): agricultural economy, many tobacco plantations, slavery.

• South: agriculture and slavery were the total basis.

👉 Key events:

• Bacon's Rebellion: rebellion of poor settlers against elites → shows social tensions.

• Salem Witch Trials: Religious paranoia in Massachusetts led to accusations of witchcraft.

• Great Awakening: religious movement that made people question authority → more independence of thought.

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🧾 PERIOD 3: FRENCH WAR AND INDIA, ROAD TO REVOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE

👉 French and Indian War (Seven Years' War)

• Who fought? England vs. France (with indigenous allies).

For the control of the Ohio River Valley.

• Effects? England wins, but becomes in debt → begins to collect more taxes from the colonies.

• Key events:

• Albany Congress: Failed attempt to unify the colonies.

• Proclamation of 1763: forbids settlers to go west of the Appalachians River → settlers get angry.

👉 Road to the Revolution

• Mercantilism: system where colonies exist to enrich the motherland.

• Laws that anger the settlers:

• Stamp Act: document tax.

• Intolerable Acts: punishment for the Boston Tea Party.

• Colonial answer:

• Sons and Daughters of Liberty: resistance group.

• Common Sense by Thomas Paine: book that convinced many that they should separate from England.

• First Continental Congress: meeting to organize the resistance.

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🧾 AMERICAN REVOLUTION

👉 Advantages and disadvantages

• Colonies: they knew the terrain, defensive war, high motivation. But they had no resources.

• England: strong and trained army, but far from home and little local support.

👉 Key events:

• Declaration of Independence (1776): "all men are created equal" (although in practice not all were).

• Battle of Saratoga: convince France to help the colonies.

• Battle of Yorktown: last important battle, the British surrender.

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🧾 FROM THE ARTICLES TO THE CONSTITUTION

👉 Articles of the Confederation

• First attempt at government → very weak (he could not collect taxes or have a strong army).

• Shays' Rebellion: rebellion that demonstrates the weakness of the system.

👉 Constitutional Convention

• Great debates about representation (small vs. large states).

• Commitments such as the House of Representatives and the Senate are created.

👉 Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

• Federalists: they wanted a strong Constitution.

• Anti-Federalists: they feared the power of the government, they demanded the Bill of Rights.

🧾 PERIOD 4: 1800-1848

👉 Jefferson's Presidency

• Revolution of 1800: peaceful change of power between parties (from Federalists to Democrats-Republicans).

• Louisiana Purchase: doubled the size of the US. U.S. (although Jefferson was of limited government and this was something big).

• Embargo of 1807: stopped all foreign trade to avoid conflicts → failed economically.

👉 Marshall Court

• He strengthened the power of the federal government and established judicial review (Marbury v. Madison): Now the Court can declare laws unconstitutional.

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👉 War of 1812

• Causes: British attacks on ships, British support for indigenous people, pressure from the War Hawks.

• Effects:

• Growth of nationalism 🇺🇸.

• End of the Federalist Party.

• It was from the Good Feelings: there was only one political party.

• American System: proposed by Henry Clay: transport + banks + rates to strengthen the economy.

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👉 Jackson's Presidency

• "Corrupt Bargain": Clay helped John Quincy Adams win and was appointed Secretary of State.

• Spoils System: reward political allies with positions.

• Trail of Tears: forced expulsion of natives (Indian removal law).

• Bank War: Jackson hated the national bank, destroyed it and caused economic panic.

• Tariff of Abominations → annulment crisis in South Carolina.

• Jackson defended federal sovereignty, but also supported the expansion of the rights of poor white men (Universal White Male Suffrage).

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🧾 PERIOD 4-5: 1830s - 1860

👉 Market revolution

• He transformed the economy with:

• Interchangeability of parts (plus production).

• Transport: canals, trains and roads.

• Lowell Mills: young working women.

• Massive arrival of immigrants → nativism.

• Reforms:

• Second Great Awakening: new religious fervor that promoted social movements.

• Transcendentalism: spiritual and individualistic movement.

• Utopias and movements for women's rights (such as Seneca Falls).

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👉 Slavery and sectionalism

• Cotton = king of the south (thanks to the cotton cutter).

• Abolitionists such as:

• William Lloyd Garrison: newspaper "The Liberator".

• Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass: ex-slaves who spoke with eloquence and power.

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🧾 PERIOD 5: 1844-1877

👉 Manifesto Destiny and war with Mexico

• Manifest Destiny: idea that the US USA had to expand from coast to coast.

• Texas Rebellion, annexation → War with Mexico.

• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: EE. The US obtains the current southwest.

• Gold rush in California (1849).

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👉 Conflicts over slavery

• New territories → free or slaves?

• Commitment of 1850:

• Free California.

• Fugitive Slaves Act: the North had to return escaped slaves.

• Kansas-Nebraska Act → violence in “Bleeding Kansas”.

• Dred Scott: Court ruling → slaves are not citizens.

• John Brown: attacks Harper's Ferry.

• Lincoln wins in 1860 → the South separates.

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👉 Civil War (1861-1865)

• Fort Sumter: first battle.

• Advantages of the North: more industry, more population.

• Emancipation Proclamation: freed slaves in rebel states.

• Gettysburg: great victory of the North.

• The North makes "total war" (Sherman's March).

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👉 Reconstruction

• Different plans:

• Lincoln: soft.

• Johnson: racist.

• Radical Republicans: they wanted rights for ex-slaves.

• Freedmen's Bureau: helped ex-slaves.

• Amendments 13, 14 and 15: freedom, citizenship, vote.

• It ends with the Compromise of 1877 (the federals leave the South).

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🧾 PERIOD 6: 1865-1898

👉 New South

• Sharecropping: new form of dependency for African Americans.

• Plessy v. Ferguson: "separate but equal" = legalizes segregation.

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👉 West

• Mining, agriculture, cowboys and transcontinental railways.

• Indian Wars, Custer's Last Stand, and policies like the Dawes Act that tried to destroy indigenous culture.

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👉 It Was Golden (Gilded Age)

• Titans of the industry (Carnegie, Rockefeller).

• Horizontal and vertical integration to control industries.

• Trade unionism: strikes such as Haymarket and Homestead.

• Laws such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act attempt to limit monopolies.

• Cities grow, new immigration arrives ("New Immigrants").

• Reforms: Settlement Houses, leaders such as Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois

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👉 Politics in the Golden Age

• Corruption of political machines.

• Debate: money based on gold or silver?

• Populism: agrarian movement.

• 1896 election: McKinley (gold) vs. Bryan (silver) → McKinley wins.

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🧾 PERIOD 7: 1898-1945

👉 Imperialism

U.S. expands:

• Spanish-American War: EES. The US wins the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

• Diplomatic doctrines: Big Stick (Roosevelt), Dollar (Taft), Moral (Wilson).

• Panama Canal.

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👉 Progressim

• Social and political reforms.

• Muckrakers: journalists who expose corruption.

• 1912 election: Wilson wins because the Republicans were divided.

• Women fight for the vote (they achieve it in 1920).

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👉 First World War

US enters 1917 (for attacks on ships, Zimmermann telegram).

• Schenck v. US: freedoms can be limited in times of war.

• 14 Wilson Points: peace plan (but the Treaty of Versailles is not approved).

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👉 20s

• Consumption economy (cars, radios).

• Clash between modernism and tradition (Scopes Trial).

• Harlem Renaissance: African-American culture flourishes.

• Prohibition and restrictive immigration laws.

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👉 Great Depression and New Deal

• Causes: speculation, inequality, economic policy of the Republicans.

• New Deal (FDR): programs such as CCC, AAA, TVA, FDIC.

• Criticism of left and right (Court Packing plan was controversial).

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👉 World War II

U.S. enters after Pearl Harbor.

• Women and minorities have new roles.

• Internment of Japanese-Americans.

• Great battles: Midway, D-Day.

• Conferences: Yalta, Potsdam.

• Atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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🧾 PERIOD 8-9: COLD WAR AND BEYOND

👉 Cold War

• Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan → contain communism.

• Space race, Missile Crisis in Cuba.

• Vietnam and Korea: wars against communist expansion.

• Protests for Vietnam → “credibility gap”.

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👉 Civil Rights

• First phase:

• Brown v. Board, Montgomery Bus Boycott, March to Washington.

• Second phase:

• Black Panthers, Cesar Chavez, Feminine Mystique (feminism), Occupation of Alcatraz.

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👉 Years 70-90

• Nixon: opens relations with China, but Watergate scandal → resignation.

• Oil crisis, inflation, and Iran takes hostages.

• Reagan: "Reaganomics", conservatism, Star Wars (SDI), and Iran-Contra scandal.

• Gulf War, fall of the USSR, and September 11 attacks.