APUSH Exam Review Notes

The Americans Before European Contact

  • Southwest: Farmers, maize, irrigation (Pueblo, Anasazi)
  • Great Basin/Plains: Nomadic, hunter-gatherer, buffalo (Ute)
  • Northwest: Permanent settlements, fish, small game (Chumash)
  • Pacific Coast: Plank houses (Chinook)
  • Northeast: Farmers, long houses (Iroquois)
  • Mississippi River: Farmers, trade (Cahokia - centralized govt)

"Old World" Meets "New World"

  • European kingdoms unifying, seeking Asian luxury goods
  • Muslims controlled land routes, prompting sea routes
  • Portugal: Trading posts in Africa, Indian Ocean; maritime tech
  • Spain: Reconquista, ocean exploration

Objectives of Spanish Exploration

  • Wealth (Asian markets)
  • Resource extraction (gold, silver, sugar, tobacco)
  • Spread religion

Columbian Exchange

  • East to West: potatoes, tomatoes, maize, turkeys, gold/silver to Europe
  • West to East: wheat, rice, soybeans, cattle, pigs, horses, people, enslaved Africans, diseases (smallpox) to America

Spanish Colonial Establishment

  • Capitalism and Joint-Stock companies
  • Royal officials
  • Encomienda System: enslaved native labor on farms/mines. Haciendas: plantations, ranches, mines.
  • Casta System: Racial Hierarchy (Peninsulares, Criollos, Castas, Africans, Native Americans)

Role of Religion in Spanish Colonies

  • Conversion of Natives (incentivized and forced).
  • Support for subjugation, treatment, and slavery. Sepulveda vs. Las Casas, "Mark of Ham".

Development of African Slavery

  • Natives familiar with environment, dying from disease
  • Africans unfamiliar, inexpensive slave trade
  • Spain used Portuguese chattel slavery

Comparison of European Colonialism

  • Spanish: Conquest, extract wealth, spread Christianity; sugar, tobacco, silver & gold; Encomienda & Casta system.
  • French: Trade, extract wealth, spread Christianity; fish & fur; intermarriage with natives; Jesuit missionaries.
  • Dutch: Trade; shipping, fur, finance/banking; minimal interaction; New Amsterdam (NYC).
  • English: Extract wealth, new territory, religious freedom; joint-stock companies, tobacco, timber & fur; tension over land with natives.

Comparison of Colonial Regions

  • Chesapeake: Tobacco, Royal charter, House of Burgesses, planters, servants, Africans, Anglican/Catholic
  • New England: Subsistence farming, fishing, timber, shipbuilding, Mayflower Compact, Puritan, family-oriented
  • Caribbean/Carolinas: Tobacco, sugarcane, rice, indigo; Proprietary charters, Anglican, gentry, enslaved Africans
  • Middle: Wheat, barley, corn; Proprietary charters, Quakers (PA), religiously tolerant, diverse

Transatlantic Exchange

  • Mercantilism: Government regulated economics; Navigation Acts.

Indentured Servitude to Slavery

  • Cash crops demanded labor; indentured servitude inefficient; slave trade inexpensive.
  • Bacon’s Rebellion

Development of Political Thought

  • Enlightenment (natural rights, social contract) influenced colonies.
  • Great Awakening (rejecting authority)

Effects of French and Indian War

  • Albany Plan of Union (Franklin): Colonial government for taxes, defense; precedent for congresses.
  • Territorial conflict with Natives (Pontiac’s Rebellion)
  • Proclamation of 1763 (limited westward movement)

Road to Revolution

  • Parliament taxes (pay war debts): "No Taxation without Representation".
  • Colonial reactions: protests, boycotts, Stamp Act Congress, Continental Congress, Boston Tea Party

Timeline (1763-1774)

  • 1763: Treaty of Paris - British territory, end to salutary neglect, new taxes.
  • 1763: Proclamation Line - restricted westward movement.
  • 1764: Sugar Act - tax on sugar, molasses; end illegal trade.
  • 1764: Currency Act - stop paper money.
  • 1765: Stamp Act - tax on printed documents; Stamp Act Congress, repeal.
  • 1765: Quartering Act - housing British army.
  • 1766: Declaratory Act - Parliament can tax.
  • 1767: Townshend Act - tax on imports (lead, paint, paper, tea).
  • 1773: Tea Act - British East India Company monopoly; Boston Tea Party.
  • 1774: Intolerable Acts - punish Massachusetts.

Enlightenment Influence

  • Natural rights, social contract -> independence wanted

War for Independence

  • Patriots, Loyalists, Neutrals
  • Battle of Saratoga - colonial victory, French/Spanish support.
  • Battle of Yorktown - victory

New Government (Articles of Confederation)

  • One body legislature (Congress), each state one vote
  • Accomplishments: won war, new states system, outlawed slavery (Northwest Ordinance)

New Constitution

  • Articles too weak (no taxes, army, commerce)
  • Debate: Presidency, Representation (Great Compromise), Slavery (3/5 Compromise)

Shaping a New Republic

  • Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists; Hamilton’s National Bank (“elastic clause”).
  • Washington’s Farewell: no factions, foreign alliances.
  • Indian Trade and Intercourse Act: regulate relations.
  • Regional identities: slavery, rights of free blacks (North)

Jefferson Administration

  • Loose vs. Strict Constructionism
  • Barbary Wars (tribute payments)
  • Louisiana Purchase (controversial - no constitutional provision)
  • Marbury vs. Madison (judicial review)

The Early Republic

  • War of 1812: British impressment -> nationalism, Federalist decline. Monroe Presidency
  • American System (Clay): protective tariffs, 2nd National Bank, roads/canals
  • Missouri Compromise (36°30′ line): Missouri slave, Maine free
  • Monroe Doctrine: no European encroachment in Americas

The Market Revolution

  • Linking industries, farms
  • Cotton gin, spinning machine, interchangeable parts, steamboats, trains -> economic growth
  • Wealth inequality, immigration, middle class

Age of Jackson

  • “Corrupt bargain” (Election of 1824)
  • Democrats vs. Whigs (Second Party System)
  • Nullification Crisis: Tariff of Abominations (1828); South Carolina threatens secession.
  • Native Americans: Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears (despite Worcester vs. GA)

Social Movements

  • Transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau); Utopian communities (Oneida, Mormonism)
  • Second Great Awakening (Finney, Mormonism, Millerites, Southern Baptists)
  • Reform: Temperance, Abolitionism (Garrison, American Anti-Slavery Society) Women’s Rights (Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Convention), asylum/education reform.

Pre-War Expansion

  • Manifest Destiny (westward expansion)
  • Texas: Independent republic after war with Mexico.
  • Polk: Texas, Oregon, Mexican Cession (CA, NV, UT, AZ, NM, CO, WY)
  • Mexican American War: Border dispute (Rio Grande vs. Nueces).
  • Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: Mexican Cession.
  • Gold Rush (1848): California boom.

Path to Civil War

  • Slavery in the West: Pro-slavery, Free-soil, Popular Sovereignty
  • Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854); Fugitive Slave Act;
  • Abolitionists: Underground Railroad, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
  • Dred Scott decision: Slaves not citizens; property rights (Chief Justice Taney).

The Civil War

  • Election of Lincoln (1860) -> Southern secession.
  • Border States: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri (Union, but Slave States)
  • Union strategy: blockade South; Confederate: seek foreign help.
  • Emancipation Proclamation: Freed Confederate slaves.
  • Key battles: Vicksburg, Gettysburg (Gettysburg Address).
  • Total war -> Confederate surrender (Lee to Grant).

Reconstruction

  • Lincoln’s plan (10% Plan): 10% oath, ratify 13th Amendment
  • Radical Republicans: Extend rights to blacks, punish South.
  • Johnson’s impeachment: Vetoes Reconstruction, Radical Republicans take over.
  • Reconstruction Amendments: 13th (abolish slavery), 14th (citizenship), 15th (male suffrage)
  • Continued oppression: Sharecropping, KKK (Forrest), Black Codes -> Jim Crow Laws.
  • Compromise of 1877: Hayes president, troops removed from South.

Post-Civil War Economic Development

  • Railroad expansion: interconnected economy, consumerism
  • Panic of 1893: consolidation into trusts
  • Bessemer Process: steel for tracks
  • Carnegie (vertical integration--Carnegie Steel) vs. Rockefeller (horizontal integration--Standard Oil).
  • Laissez-faire: “hands off” economics (Sherman Antitrust Act failed).
  • Social Darwinism (“survival of the fittest”).
  • Gospel of Wealth (Carnegie’s philanthropy).

Labor in the Gilded Age

  • Unions: Strikes; violently suppressed (Great Railroad Strike of 1877).
  • Haymarket Square Riot: Unions linked to radicals (Knights of Labor).
  • American Federation of Labor (Gompers).

Immigration in the Gilded Age

  • "Old" immigrants (N. Europe) vs. "new" immigrants (E/S Europe).
  • Nativist backlash (American Protective Association)
  • Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

Westward Expansion

  • Homestead Act (1862): settlement incentives
  • Reservation system: assigned land to tribes (Grant)
  • Native American response: wars, Ghost Dance Movement
  • Dawes Act (1887): forced assimilation
  • National Grange Movement: regulated railroads (Interstate Commerce Act)

Society and Reform in the Gilded Age

  • Political machines: urban corruption (Tammany Hall).
  • Working-class problems: settlement houses (Addams’ Hull House).
  • Women in reform: suffrage (NAWSA), temperance (W.C.T.U.,Anti-Saloon League).
  • Social Gospel: social justice through reforms

The "New South" and Race in the Gilded Age

  • New South vision: economic diversity, but relied on sharecropping
  • Plessy vs. Ferguson: "Separate but Equal" (Jim Crow laws).
  • Black activists: Ida B. wells, Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. DuBois, NAACP

Politics in the Gilded Age

  • Progressives: addressed patronage (Pendleton Act).
  • Populist Party: direct election of senators, coinage of silver (Bryan’s "Cross of Gold" speech).

Manifest Destiny to New Imperialism

  • Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”: American identity forged through westward expansion
  • Motivations: economic expansion, white superiority (Social Darwinism, “White Man’s Burden”).
  • Anti-imperialist criticisms: denied self-determination, isolationism.
  • Spanish-American War: Cuban independence, US acquisitions
  • Open Door Policy: US trade rights in China (Boxer Rebellion).
  • Roosevelt: Big Stick Diplomacy, Roosevelt Corollary, Panama Canal.

Progressive Era

  • Issues: Big business, economic uncertainty, labor conflicts, political machines, Jim Crow, women’s rights
  • Muckrakers: Exposed corporate corruption, mistreatment of workers Riis, Sinclair
  • Political reforms: secret ballots, direct election of senators (17th Amendment)
  • Washington vs. DuBois: differing approaches to civil rights differ.

World War 1 - Warfare and the Homefront

  • Causes: German unrestricted submarine warfare and Zimmerman Telegram
  • Effect of US entry: balance tipped in favor of Allies
  • The Great Migration: movement of blacks out of the South to North, Midwest, and West urban centers.
  • Government: limits on free speech (Espionage & Sedition Acts)
  • Treaty of Versailles: exacted severe punishment on Germany
  • First Red Scare was driven by post-WWI anti-communist sentiment

The 1920s

  • “Return to Normalcy” (Harding): rollback of Progressive regulations.
  • Assembly line -> productivity (Ford)
  • Women challenged traditions (Flappers)
  • National Origins Act placed quotas on immigration
  • Radio, Motion Pictures, shared culture (Pop Culture)
  • The Scopes “Monkey Trial” reflected a broader clash between modernism and religious fundamentalism

The Great Depression

  • Farmers hurt -> stock market crash -> bank failures
  • Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal aimed for Relief, Recovery, and Reform
    Public Works Admiration, Tennessee Valley Authority, FDIC, Social Security Act
    *Numerous criticisms of the New Deal

World War 2

  • The US was the “arsenal for democracy” and shipped supplies to Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
    *The attack at Pearl Harbor led to the swift declaration of war
    *Japanese Americans faced internment and incarceration due to heightened suspicion and prejudice
    *Success with the island-hopping campaign and the eventual dropping of atomic bombs on Japan led to victory

The Cold War

  • Conflict absent of military conflict
  • The US democratic capitalist system clashed with the USSR
  • US Strategy = The Containment of Marxist-Leninism.
  • Collective security = the notion of countries entering mutual defense pacts such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization*
  • Arms Race = advancement and stockpiling of weapons

Society and Culture in the 1950s

  • GI Bill = Provided Veterans with free education and low home/business loans
  • Postwar population spike in US
    Massive, planned communities rose out in the South and West Suburban Areas from young men returning from war and thriving in prosperous economy.
    *Increased Mass Culture and Consumerism due to the success of the radio by the television.
    *Literature rejected social norms and conformity

African American Civil Rights Movement

  • Brown v. Board: overturned Plessy v Ferguson.
    *Civil Rights leaders threatened school closures due to massive pushback and protest
  • Civil Disobedience: 1950s and 1960s protests such as the Montgomery Bus BoyCott and Sit-ins such as SCLC Greensboro
    *Marches such as on Washington created Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.

The Civil Rights Movement and Protests Expand

*Movement focused on legislation women's rights
*Legislation aimed to protect the economic rights for various communities and the LGBTQ community such as Stonewall Riots.
*Contraculture aimed to cast societal restraints.
*Civil Liberties addressed. Baker v Carr, Engel v. Vitale

Conflicts such as the cold war continued into the 1960s

  • Cuban Missile Crisis emerged
    *The US aided the Middle East where the CIA assisted in the overthrew of a socialist program.
    *The Vietnamese War led to many deaths and massive protest in America, The war caused tension for political parties and new elections took place to attempt to bring balance to the power.
  • Legislation addressing government led social and economic reforms happened with the Great Society
    *