Unit 1 Test

KEY:

==Definitions==/Sections/Sections Within Sections/%%Explanations%%/@@Trivia@@/$Essay$/^^Everything I Don’t Know^^

THE “BEGINNINGS” OF UNITED STATES HISTORY

• ==Melting pot: Since the first days of colonization, we have a variety of different nationalities, religions, cultures, etc.==
• %%The most diverse country on the planet%%
• $Why did colonists decide to come to this “land of opportunity” in the early years?$

  
  1. $Religious freedom$
  2. $Jobs$
  3. $Equal opportunity to succeed…regardless of one’s social status$
  4. $Land$
  5. $Democracy$

Governing the American Colonies

• Each colony had its own governing body

  
  1. %%Seed of democracy%%

• Ultimate decision-making power came from Great Britain
• “Taxation without representation” became the American Revolution’s slogan

  
  1. %%The colonists felt that they weren’t included in British parliament on any taxes imposed on the colonies.%%
  2. Caused the colonists to revolt

• @@What was signed on July 4th, 1776 that ensured our freedom?@@

  @@The Declaration of Independence@@

Declaration of Independence (Main Ideas)

1. All men are created equal
2. Unalienable rights-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
3. Government should protect these rights
4. Governments exist only with the consent of the governed people

• Slaves still had NO rights

The American Revolution is Successful

• The colonies defeated the British army in 1781
• @@What was the first “Constitution” that was scrapped?@@

  @@The Articles of Confederation@@

  
  1. %%Gave too much power to the states…very little power to the Federal government%%

• The U.S. Constitution was finished in 1787 and has lasted ever since
• ^^Federalism: System of shared power between the state and Federal government^^

3 Branches of Our Federal Government

1. $Judicial (Supreme Court)$
2. ^^Legislative (Senate & House of Representatives)^^
3. $Executive (President)$

• @@What is the system of checks and balances in our federal government?@@

  @@Division of power that is set up to ensure that no one branch becomes too powerful…each branch can check the other two.@@

1. Examples: 2/3 veto override,
2. Impeachment=legislative

• @@What is the “Great Compromise” a nickname for?@@

  @@The Constitution@@

• The “Great Compromise”

1. Balance the interest of “big” & “small” states
2. %%House of Representatives was based on population%%
3. %%Senate…based on equality…each state had 2%%

• The U.S. Constitution also allows for changes to be made called amendments
• @@What are the first 10 amendments called?@@

  @@The Bill of Rights@@

America Grows Up

• The United States expanded its boundaries with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803

  
  1. It cost $15 million
  2. Influenced westward expansion/manifest destiny

Policy of Neutrality in Foreign Affairs

• ==Neutral: Not picking sides==
• Neutrality became impossible in 1812

  
  1. British ships started seizing American ships that were thought to be trading with France and taking our sailors prisoner
  2. The U.S. felt the British were encouraging Indian attacks against our settlers out West

• The War of 1812 was our nation’s first test militarily
• The U.S. proved itself militarily to Britain and the rest of the world
• @@What was the Monroe Doctrine?@@

  @@A warning to all European nations to stay out of the western hemisphere…it became the basis of our foreign policy for decades to come.@@

• The Monroe Doctrine came to be in 1823

The Argument Over States Rights Becomes an Issue

• ==Tariff: A tax on imported goods from foreign countries==
• The Northeast was in favor of high protective tariffs
• @@Why was the South opposed to tariffs?@@

  @@Competition lowers prices@@

• South Carolina claimed that tariffs were unconstitutional and they refused to use them (nullified them)

  
  1. Led by John Calhoun

• The Federal government threatened to enforce tariffs militarily in 1832, which ended with a compromise to lower tariffs, however the issue of States Rights vs. Federal Power remained unsettled
• ^^States rights: Idea that each state and NOT the Federal government should be able to decide for themselves what happens in their own state.^^

The Concept of Manifest Destiny

• Many Americans believed that it was the “destiny” of the U.S. to expand westward and dominate all of North America (“from sea to shining sea”)
• Texans won their independence from Mexico and became a state in 1845
• The Mexican War was fought when Mexico tried to take back Texas

  
  1. The United States defeated Mexico, and so Mexico surrendered even more territory to the U.S. in 1847

• Since the gold rush brought a bunch of people to California, it became a state
• The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had drawn a line across the country to indicate whether or not a new territory would allow slavery-this was done to eliminate the need for balancing “free” and “slave” states every time a new state was added.
• California was cut in two pieces, so the Compromise of 1850 was created, allowing California to become a “free” state and the rest of the Southwest territories to vote on the issue in the future.
• People hoped those compromises would solve the arguments over slavery in the United States

Why Was the Practice of Slavery So Important to the South?

• Important to the Southern economy
• Cotton was in high demand
• %%Plantation owners couldn’t pay for the labor%%
• The plantation owners saw their slaves as “property” and they had NO RIGHTS
• Many took adequate care of their slaves because they were seen as valuable equipment
• Plantation owners had been horrified by slave uprisings like Nat Turner’s Revolt in 1831

  
  1. Nat Turner was a runaway slave who led 75 slaves in an uprising that killed 51 whites in Virginia
  2. %%Slave owner brutality greatly intensified after%%

The Causes of the Civil War

• The North and South would fight a bitter war over slavery and States’ Rights
• Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1861
• Southerners feared that Lincoln would attack the practice of slavery
• ==Secede: Formally withdraw from a political organization…leave the U.S.==
• @@What was the first Southern state to secede from the Union in December of 1860?@@

  @@South Carolina@@

• South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas made up the $Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as their President$
• %%Similar to the Articles of Confederation, the Confederacy would favor states’ rights over Federal power and it would allow slavery%%
• Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12, 1861-the start of the Civil War
• @@What were the border states?@@

  @@Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, & Missouri@@

  
  1. All remained with the union
  2. They allowed slavery

• %%FUKDJ%%

Fugitive Slave Act-1850

• This law made it a crime to assist an escaping slave

  
  1. The Underground Railroad was the cause of this law

• Required Northerners to help slave owners recapture fugitives
• The Fugitive Slave Act was enforced by Federal marshals, which caused great unrest and resentment from Northerners.
• No proof was necessary on the part of the slave owner-they just had to swear that the slave was their property
• Some free blacks were taken back into slavery because Southerners abused the law
• Northerners continued to aid runaway slaves

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin”-1852

• %%Historians say this is the primary cause of the Civil War%%
• This controversial novel was written from a slave’s perspective by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a white woman.
• The book turned many northerners into abolitionists
• It portrayed slaves as people with feelings and emotions, just like whites
• Southerners dismissed the book as “South-bashing” propaganda, and it helped to further separate the North and the South

Kansas-Nebraska Act-1854

• It’s giving Donald Trump
• Kansas and Nebraska wanted to become states in 1854
• Slavery was forbidden in both states by the Missouri Compromise
• Senator Stephen Douglas created a bill which substituted the idea of popular sovereignty.
• ^^Popular sovereignty: The settlers could vote for themselves to decide whether or not to allow slavery in those territories.^^
• @@What were the Northerners opposed to slavery called?@@

  @@“Free Soilers”@@

• The Northerners rushed into Kansas hoping to vote for it to become a “free” state
• @@What were pro-slavery voters called?@@

  @@“Border Ruffians”@@

• Pro-slavery won due to illegal votes
• Fighting broke out from 1854-1861, and that period became known as “Bleeding Kansas”
• %%Many historians say this was the actual start to the Civil War%%
• Lead to more than 200 deaths

Dred Scott Case-1857

• Dred Scott was a slave from Missouri who ended up travelling to Wisconsin where slavery was illegal, and yet was still not free.

  
  1. When his owner died, Dred Scott felt that he should be free, so he sued his owner

• The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
• The Court’s ruling:

  1. Dred Scott was not a citizen because he was black, so he could not sue in Federal court

  2. The Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional because slaves are “property” and the 5th amendment states that citizens cannot be deprived of their property without due process of law.

• Northerners protested this decision
• Southerners were overjoyed by the Court’s ruling
• Dred Scott was eventually transferred to another owner, who let him live free
• %%Huge win for the South!%%

John Brown’s Raid

• John Brown was a white abolitionist who led a group of 22 men (5 African-American) in an attempted slave uprising at the Federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
• His aim was to seize the weapons, arm the local slaves, and start a revolt
• Local troops led by Robert E. Lee quickly captured John Brown and his men
• 10 of the men were killed in a shoot-out
• John Brown was later hung

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Discuss 3 specific reasons why people crossed the ocean to live in this “land of opportunity,” which became the U.S.

   
   1. Religious freedom, land, & jobs

2. Why was the period of immigration from 1865-1918 referred to as the “Gilded Age” by the famous author Mark Twain? (Must first define Gilded)

   
   1. To “gild” means to cover with a thin layer of gold to give something an attractive outer appearance. Mark Twain called it the “Gilded Age” because there was a lot of prosperity, causing an uprising in rich culture.
   2. Mark Twain said that despite it’s “dazzling” appearance, once immigrants arrived, they realized that America was not what they expected

3. Why did many native-born American workers resent the mass number of immigrants who came to America during the Gilded Age?

   
   1. They were taking their jobs

4. Name the three branches of our Federal government and include the person or group who heads up each branch.

   
   1. Legislative-House of Representatives & Senate, Executive-President, Judicial-Supreme Court

5. Explain the idea of “checks and balances” & give a specific example from the Reconstruction Period that we have discussed in class

   
   1. Congress overrode a lot of Andrew Johnson’s decisions, and even impeached him. Most famous decision was that congress overrode his veto of the Reconstruction Acts

6. Discuss the story behind the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896: What happened to Plessy? What did the Supreme Court eventually decide? How did the decision affect the African-Americans for many years to come?

   
   1. Plessy sat on the white side of the train car and was forced to the black side due to Jim Crow laws-segregation
   2. Went all the way to the Supreme Court
   3. Judge Ferguson said that it was “separate but equal” and ruled legalized segregation

THE CIVIL WAR

Introduction

• Hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed or maimed
• Billions of dollars worth of property was destroyed
• When the fighting was over, slavery was no more and the Union was destroyed

Advantages of the North

• 23 states, 22 million people, 4 million combat age

1. ^^Overwhelming edge in population & wealth^^
2. ^^90% of the nation’s factories^^
3. ^^Better transportation systems (Railroads)^^
4. ^^Better weapons (Spencer repeating rifle…7 shots to 1)^^

Advantages of the South

• 11 states, 9 million people, 1.2 million combat age

1. “Homecourt” advantage…North had to invade them…forced the South back in…knew the land better
2. Motivation…fighting for their homes, independence…would fight a lot harder
3. ^^Better generals…Robert E. Lee & Stonewall Jackson^^

• Some of the generals and officers for both the Union and the Confederacy had even trained as classmates at West Point, and fought together in the Mexican War.
• Bloodiest war in American history

Strategies

• %%Quick victory was impossible%%
• ^^North: (Had to attack…called the “Anaconda Plan”)^^

1. ^^Blockade Southern parts…cut off supplies^^
2. ^^Seize control of the Mississippi River (transportation)^^
3. ^^Take Richmond, Virginia (ie. Capital of the Confederacy)^^

   
   1. %%They didn’t capture it%%

• South: (Chose to fight a defensive war…drag it out)

1. North will tire…(ie. “War of attrition”)

• Instituted a draft of soldiers
• Draft riots

  
  1. Draft riots & people complained that the drafts favored the rich

• ^^What are the two ways the draftees in the North could get out of fighting?^^

  ^^Hire a substitute & pay a fee, exempting them of service^^

• North & South suffered economically from the war
• South struggled with shortages of supplies
• Inflation affected both sides, but the South suffered more
• Despite many difficulties, the South was still winning the war
• The bloodiest day of the war was at the victory of the Battle of Antietam

  
  1. President Lincoln used that as inspiration for the Emancipation Proclamation
  2. “All persons held as slaves within any states…in rebellion against the U.S. shall be forever free.”
  3. %%Turning point in the war%%

String of Union Victories

1. Gettysburg
2. New Orleans
3. Vicksburg
4. Atlanta

• Following the victory in Atlanta, Union General William T. Sherman began what became known as “Sherman’s March.”

  
  1. His troops burned down parts of the city and then marched through the state of Georgia and up through the Carolinas destroying virtually everything in their path.
  2. This strategy of “total war” was designed to break the enemy’s will to fight completely, by destroying civilian targets, not just military ones.

• The North’s unlimited supplies wore down the South
• On April 9th, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at a place called Appomattox Courthouse, and the Civil War was over.
• ^^Why do some historians call the Civil War a war of attrition?^^

  ^^Defense of war…waiting for the enemy to tire out (ie. South’s strategy)^^

• At the same time, the “wounds” caused by sectional differences still needed to be healed before the country could truly form a “union” again.

  
  1. %%Still working on it%%

• Abraham Lincoln

  
  1. Served for four terms in the Illinois state legislature and a single term in Congress
  2. Lincoln-Douglas debates
  3. Re-elected in 1864
  4. Died six days after the surrender of Appomattox
  5. Served as a U.S. Senator until 1861, when he was chosen president of the Confederacy
  6. Indicted for treason & imprisoned for two years but was never brought to trial

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION

• The secession of the southern states had challenged the nation’s very existence. In many ways, American society would never be the same.
• What would happen to the 4 million newly freed slaves now that the war was over?

  1. %%How would they fit into society?…Economically? Socially?%%

• How would the country deal with the huge costs of the Civil War?

  
  1. %%Lives? Property? Economy?%%

• What would life be like for white southerners without slavery?

  
  1. %%Loss of land, wealth, labor source?%%

• The man who was charged with the great task of rebuilding the Union was Abraham Lincoln
• John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln on April 14th, 1865

  
  1. Terrible timing for the nation…%%five days after the Civil War was over%%
  2. Other plans?

     
     1. Others were supposed to die too
     2. Secretary of State William Seward (Cut his throat, but he lived)
     3. Vice President Andrew Johnson
     4. General Ulysses S. Grant (Never carried out)

• The Radicals were determined to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves and wanted to punish the South for the damage caused by the Civil War
• The Moderates were more forgiving toward the South. They wanted to allow the South back into the Union without any punishment, and they really were not all that concerned about the rights of the blacks.
• President Lincoln prepared a Moderate plan for Reconstruction to “bind the nation’s wounds quickly”
• ==Amnesty: A pardon/forgiveness==
• Moderates liked President Johnson’s plan for amnesty for most of the ex-Confederates
• Johnson angered Radicals by suggesting that the former Confederate states could hold elections and send Senators and Representatives back to Congress.
• Radicals like Thaddeus Stevens believed that the U.S. should seize the property of the large plantation owners and give it to the ex-slaves.

  
  1. He was a Congressman from Pennsylvania
  2. His plan was called “40 acres and a mule” was %%just an idea, and never happened%%

• Johnson’s amnesty program ratified the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, officially abolishing slavery.
• Southern states passed repressive state laws called Black Codes, to keep blacks in a state of semi-slavery

Black Codes Examples:

What was the Freedman’s Bureau?

• Created to care for for refugee slaves…gave them food, clothing, education, shelter, etc.
• Congress would eventually pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in an attempt to do away with the Black Codes
• What were the two main provisions the Civil Rights Act of 1866 made?

  
  1. It made blacks citizens of the United States-which overturned the Dred Scott case
  2. It denied states the power to restrict the rights of blacks-basically outlawing the Black Codes.

• President Johnson vetoed this bill because he thought African Americans should have to go through a period of probation receiving the “prize” of total freedom.

  
  1. Congress overrode this

• The Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law
• They passed and sent the 14th amendment to the states for ratification. This would basically out the Civil Rights Act of 1866 into the Constitution.

14th Amendment

• Declared that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the country & the state they live in
• Guaranteed equal protection of the law to all citizens
• This amendment did not outlaw segregation
• ==Segregation: The legalized separation of the black and white races.==
• Jim Crow laws replaced the Black Codes

  
  1. They were the basis of segregation
  2. This allowed southern state legislatures to get around the Constitution and still discriminate against African-Americans

What Were the Reconstruction Acts?

• Divided the “rebel” states into 5 military districts
• Stationed 200,000+ military soldiers in the south
• @@What would each state have to do to end military rule?@@

  
  1. @@Ratify the 14th amendment@@
  2. @@Draw up a new state Constitution that would guarantee black men the right to vote@@

• Congress was going to force the South to comply through military occupation

  
  1. Congress passed three more Reconstruction Acts to put pressure on the South

• Military rule would remain until 1877, for a total of about 10 years

President Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment

• Did not want to ratify the 14th amendment
• He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 & all of the Reconstruction Acts
• Congress got tired over overriding his decisions, so they tried to impeach him
• ==Impeachment: To charge the President formally with wrongdoing while in office.==
• @@How does the impeachment process work?@@

  
  1. @@House of Representatives brings charges (majority vote)@@
  2. @@Senate holds the trial (2/3 vote majority)@@
  3. @@Chief justice from the Supreme Court runs the trial@@

• The Radicals brought 11 charges against President Johnson

  
  1. He violated the Tenure of Office Act in 1867 when he fired his Secretary of War (Edwin Stanton) without the consent of Congress

• He was out of impeachment by 1 vote
• Andrew Johnson’s big downfall in the end was his prejudice and bigotry toward the newly freed slaves. He could not see African-Americans as equal members of society.

Reconstruction: 1868-1877

• Ulysses S. Grant became President in 1868
• He was a well-respected war hero from the Civil War
• Ulysses S. Grant lacked knowledge in politics
• The addition of black votes helped Ulysses S. Grant win the election

  
  1. %%12% of the total vote%%

• %%Reconstruction Acts/military presence…temporarily comes to an end in 1877%%
• African-Americans voted Republican because Lincoln abolished slavery and he was Republican

  
  1. Republicans guaranteed the right to vote for African-Americans to help win in future elections as well

• 15th amendment states: “Vote shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
• @@What were the Civil War Amendments?@@

  
  1. @@13th, 14th, & 15th amendments@@

• The Civil War Amendments improved the lives of African Americans by giving them more opportunities like education
• The Freedman’s Bureau helped set up and oversee black schools in the South

  
  1. Many black colleges were created at this time

• During military rule, blacks not only voted, but they also held some offices in the former Confederate states

  1. Many of the former slaves were uneducated and illiterate (making them unprepared for those jobs) and easily exploited by whites from both the North and the South

• Newly-freed slaves politically were called Carpet Baggers

  
  1. Derived from the fact that they usually carried their belongings in luggage made of a carpet material
  2. Seen as “invaders” who were looking to get themselves rich by using black votes to gain political positions

• Southern white Republicans were called scalawags

  
  1. Seen as traitors by the Southern Democrats

• Some merely attempted to win power for themselves by controlling the black votes
• Accomplishments of the Southern state governments:

  
  1. Improved public education
  2. Rebuilt roads, bridges, railroads, and buildings (damaged during the Civil War)
  3. Began to rebuild the southern economy

     a. %%Sharecropping%%

• One of the ways that the Southern economy got back on its feet was through sharecropping
• Nearly all the former slaves continued to work on the same land after they gained their freedom
• The idea “40 Acres and a Mule” created by Thaddeus Stevens was not very supported by the community
• Free blacks needed land to get started, but they had a tough time getting it because it was too expensive and they lacked tools
• Southern whites were poor after the war and they could not afford to pay wages so blacks were stuck

How Did Sharecropping Work?

• The landowner would give the sharecropper a house, seed, tools, and other supplies and in return, the sharecropper would work the land and harvest the crops.
• The harvest would then be shared. with half to 2/3 going to the landowner, and the rest going to the sharecropper.
• Sharecroppers could be black or white
• Most African-Americans preferred sharecropping to working for wages, and they hoped to eventually save enough money to buy their own land and truly be free

  
  1. Southern whites would not allow this to happen because they wanted to keep African-Americans dependent on them for survival, and keep their labor source in place.

• How did whites prevent African-Americans from becoming independent?

  
  1. Black Codes
  2. Jim Crow
  3. Sharecropping
  4. Violence & intimidation

• Sharecropping gave African Americans some power, and even gave them food, clothing, and housing, though %%extremely minimal%%

Resistance to Reconstruction

• How did whites resist?

  
  1. Black Codes
  2. Secret organizations like the Ku Klux Klan

     
     1. Determined to prevent African-Americans from voting through violence and intimidation
     2. From 1868-1871, there were an estimated 20,000 lynchings

• ==Lynchings: Torture…ending in murder==

Election of 1876

• Northern whites were beginning to lose interest in controlling the South militarily
• Troops were gradually withdrawn, and once they left, groups like the KKK kept African-Americans from voting throughout the South
• The election of Hayes vs. Tilden was highly disputed because Hayes had more electoral college votes, but Tilden won the popular vote

Compromise of 1877

• Settled the disputed election of 1876
• Hayes & the Republicans agreed to:

  
  1. Remove the remaining troops stationed in the South and effectively and military rule
  2. Appoint a conservative Southerner to his cabinet
  3. Support building a railroad from Texas to California to strengthen the Southern economy

• The Democrats agreed to:

  
  1. Accept Rutherford B. Hayes as President

     
     1. Guarantee African-Americans equal rights and allow them the right to vote in particular
     2. %%They did not get the right to vote%%

• It ended any hope for Federal protection for the newly freed slaves, and their struggles would last for decades

Life for African-American Citizens After the Compromise of 1877

• The southern states deprived the African-Americans of the right to vote and essentially reduced them to second-class citizens

3 Ways to Prevent African-Americans From Voting in the South

1. Poll taxes…charged a fee to vote…fee accumulated if it was not paid
2. Literacy tests…must be able to read to vote…even added insane trivia
3. Grandfather Clause…you can vote if the grandfather can vote

• Segregation=Jim Crow
• Jim Crow laws would eventually be challenged in a court case that made it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896

Plessy vs. Ferguson

• What was the background to this case?

  
  1. Plessy was a black man arrested for sitting in the first class “white only” section of a train car…argued that segregation violated the 14th amendment

• What did the U.S. Supreme Court decide?

  
  1. They agreed with the lower court (ie. Judge Ferguson)…court said there were “separate but equal” train cars for colored people=legalized segregation
  2. Problem…things were separate…but 100% unequal

• Many African-Americans in the late 1800s chose to accept the “separate but equal” principle and basically go along with whatever the whites told them to do
• Who was Booker T. Washington?

  
  1. Born a slave…mother black & father white

• Tuskegee Institute: Booker T. Washington made it…a place for blacks to learn a trade in Alabama
• Accommodation: “Going along”-don’t fight the system…if you want to survive, keep your mouth shut…learn a skill trade, work hard, and DON’T challenge whites

  
  1. %%Very passive philosophy%%

RECONSTRUCTION

Civil War Amendments

• 13th Amendment

  
  1. Abolished slavery
  2. Ratified in 1865

• 14th Amendment

  
  1. Declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the country and the state they live in: guaranteed equal protection of laws to all citizens
  2. Ratified in 1870

• 15th Amendment

  
  1. Declared that the right of citizens to vote should not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude

THE BATTLE FOR THE PLAINS

• The West was a freely available piece of land that was waiting to be settled

  
  1. %%Manifest destiny%%

• Very little white settlement prior to the 1850s
• Buffalo were walking Walmart to Indian tribes-food, shelter, tools, etc.
• The Plains Indians rarely came into conflict with settlers before the 1850s
• Settlers rushed out to California for the “Gold Rush” of 1849
• With this settlement came the railroads that would cut right through Plains Indian territory

What Was the Homestead Act?

• Act of Congress that enabled settlers to claim government land if they farmed it for 5 years

  
  1. %%Free land!%%
  2. Fueled European immigration
  3. Fueled the fire of manifest destiny

• Eventually the U.S. government decided to make plans to remove the Plains Indian tribes

  
  1. Initially done with concentration treaties

• ==Reservations: Land set aside for Native Americans to live on==
• ==Manifest Destiny: Settle from “sea to shining sea”==

The Indian Wars

• The SandCreek Massacre in 1864 was the beginning of the Indian Wars
• Who was George Armstrong Custer?

  
  1. Extremely vain…sometimes would deliberately lead his men into difficult situations…looking for glory…refused reinforcements…would not retreat

Fort Laramie Treaty-1868

• The Black Hills of South Dakota were sacred to the Sioux…U.S. signed a treaty with Chief SittingBull at Fort Laramie…saying the Black Hills would “forever” belong to the Sioux
• “Forever” lasted 6 years…gold was discovered in the Black Hills
• Thousands of miners came to the Black Hills…the Sioux attacked
• These skirmishes lead to the battle of Little Big Horn
• The Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 is thought to be the end of the Indian Wars
• This massacre brought an end to any significant armed Indian resistance to white demands
• The U.S. felt that assimilation was the only way to ensure Native American survival in America

  
  1. Natives had to act like white people basically

• Congress hoped to achieve assimilation by passing the Dawes Act in 1887

  
  1. Reservations
  2. Could not sell the land for 25 years…then they would own it…& become U.S. citizens

Causes of the Defeat of the Plains Indians

1. U.S. Army had superior weapons
2. The buffalo herds, the Indians’ main source of food, were destroyed
3. The Transcontinental Railroad brought soldiers and workers
4. Settlers and gold miners moved west, and the Indians were outnumbered
5. Concentration treaties moved the Indians into reservation lands

THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL AMERICA

• 1860: 80% lived on farms & less than 5% (1.5 million) worked in factories
• 1890’s: Over 5 million Americans worked in factories
• Manufactured goods increased rapidly
• Americans moved to cities looking for factory jobs

The Rise of the Railroads

• The various men who were able to make a fortune by financing and organizing these new railroad networks were referred to as Railroad Barons
• The Transcontinental Railroad was complete in 1869
• Many of the laborers used to work up, over and through the Sierra Nevada mountain range were immigrants from China

Advantages of the Railroads

1. Less time to move goods & passengers
2. Thousands of new jobs (laborers, train crews, repair workers, sales clerks, etc.)
3. Stimulated the national economy (wood, copper, steel, coal, prices dropped-easier to let items, fruits & vegetables could be sold to other regions)

Problems

1. Introduced standardized time zones in 1883
2. Extremely expensive to build & operate
3. Developers hated to lose individual profits, but they could not risk going into it alone
4. Had to raise money from other investors in the form of corporations…(stockholders buy shares & together they own the corporation)
5. Land sell their shares to anyone for any price…(how do they make money?)
6. Investors had limited liability

Key Vocabulary List

• Andrew Carnegie: Most important producer of steel in America, he also invested in oil, captured the largest share of the railroad industry, went from a poor immigrant to a millionaire-the “American Dream,” gave away a lot of his money.
• Division of labor: Each worker specializes in making one particular part, all the parts are then brought together and assembled, made mass production possible through the assembly line.
• Samuel Morse: Invented the telegraph in 1837, sent electronic signals over wire, made it possible for people to communicate over great distances in seconds.
• Alexander Graham Bell: Invented the telephone in 1876
• Thomas Alva Edison: Greatest inventor of his time, probably best known for inventing the phonograph in 1877 and the electric light in 1879-harnessing electricity
• Entrepreneurs: Business leaders and financiers, wealthy investors who took risks, many built businesses out of nothing, new American “hero” of the time.
• Horatio Alger Jr.: Wrote over 130 “rags to riches” motivational stories for boys, told the same story: poor boy works hard and receives good fortune
• John D. Rockefeller: Richest man in America, went into the oil business, organized the Standard Oil Company, controlled over 90% of the oil in the United States, fiercely competitive.
• Trust: Legal agreement under which several companies group together to regulate production and eliminate competition.

THE “GILDED” AGE

• Millions of immigrants came to America to find work
• Mark Twain said that on the surface, America looked dazzling, but once immigrants arrived, life was not as they expected'
• Gilded: Covered in gold
• Immigrants had to pass through Ellis Island

• The challenges of immigrants:

  
  1. They were still poor…

     
     1. Father might make $9.00 per week in a factory, mother might make $6.00 cleaning houses
     2. Children needed to work
  2. They had little or no education

     
     1. No time to get one (factory work was 12-16 hours a day)
  3. They did not speak English

     
     1. No time to learn
  4. Cultural differences were hard to adjust to

     
     1. Not just language, but clothing, social customs, etc.

• Immigrants tended to live in “ethnic neighborhoods”
• Nativists: People who wanted immigration to be slowed down or stopped completely

Resentment From Native-Born Americans

1. Immigrants were willing to work long hours for lower wages
2. Nativists claimed immigrants were physically & mentally inferior
3. Nativists blamed hard economic times on the mass immigration

• What are the words written on the Statue of Liberty?

  
  1. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe fire.”

• Most employers did not support excluding immigrants in any way

  
  1. There were boatloads of immigrants coming in every day, so it was a never-ending stream of cheap labor, they were desperate for a job & would work for less money without complaining if they got hurt & could not work the employer would just get another immigrant-very expendable.

Chinese Exclusion Act: 1882

• Chinese immigrants helped build the first Transcontinental Railroad
• At this time, an economic depression swept the United States and many Californians feared that Chinese workers would “steal” their jobs at lower wages
• The Chinese Exclusion Act:

  
  1. Prohibited Chinese workers from entering the U.S. for 10 years
  2. Later the ban was extended and it was not lifted until 1965

Problems of City Life

• %%American farmers & European immigrants…factory jobs%%

  
  1. Overcrowding
  2. Wide-spread disease
  3. Impure city water
  4. Primitive plumbing
  5. High property cost…entire family would work to pay rent (tenements)…slum
  6. Inadequate police & fire protection
  7. High crime rates

• Social & religious workers established community centers called settlement houses
• The most famous settlement house was called the Hull House-founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams

THE ANTI-TRUST MOVEMENT

• Trusts spread throughout the U.S. from the oil industry to numerous other businesses, which allowed a small number of large producers to dominate the manufacturing business
• Americans were afraid that trusts would destroy small companies
• Charging higher prices because competition would be eliminated
• Americans wanted more government regulation, so agencies were set up to protect the public interest by regulating competition and breaking up monopolies or trusts
• Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate the railroad industry and ensure that rates were reasonable
• Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 that banned all combinations that restricted interstate trade or commerce. Anyone attempting to monopolize could be fined or sent to jail for up to a year.
• These acts had little effect on big business at the time, but both are still in effect today and have been strengthened