AP US History Ultimate Study Guide
1.1 Context: European Encounters in the Americas
Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, marking the beginning of the Contact Period.
The Contact Period lasted until 1607, the year of the first English settlement.
The Norse arrived in modern Canada around 1000, predating Columbus.
Bering Land Bridge
Connected Eurasia and North America, allowing the first people to inhabit North and South America to cross over.
Ancestors of Native Americans walked from Siberia (modern Russia) to Alaska.
The planet was colder during this period, with much of the world's water locked up in polar ice sheets, causing sea levels to drop.
As the planet warmed, sea levels rose, submerging the bridge and forming the Bering Strait.
Native Americans in Pre-Columbian North America
The Pre-Columbian era is the period before Christopher Columbus' arrival in the "New World".
North America was populated by Native Americans.
European settlers brought different culture, religion, and technology, leading to culture clash.
Native Americans had their own complex societies, cultures, and religions.
Conflicts and misunderstandings occurred between the two groups.
Native Americans resisted European colonization and expansion.
Many wars and battles occurred between Native Americans and European settlers.
Enslaved Africans first arrived in 1501 with European settlers.
Policies of forced relocation and assimilation were implemented by the US government.
Native American populations were greatly reduced, and their cultures were suppressed.
1.2 Native American Societies Before European Contact
1491 serves as a division between the Native American world and the world that came after European exploration, colonization, and invasion.
North America was home to hundreds of tribes, cities and societies.
Indigenous societies in North America before Europeans were very complex.
Spread of maize cultivation from present-day Mexico northward into the present-day American Southwest and beyond supported economic development.
Along Northwest coast and in California, tribes developed communities along ocean to hunt whales and salmon, totem poles, and canoes.
In the northeast, the Mississippi river valley, and along the Atlantic seaboard, some indigenous societies developed.
Natives in the Great Plains and surrounding grasslands retained the nomadic lifestyles.
In Southwest, people had fixed lifestyles.
The Great Plains was more suitable for hunting and gathering food sources.
1.3 European Exploration in the Americas
New ships, such as caravel allowed for longer exploratory voyages.
In August of 1492, Colombus used three caravels, supplied and funded by the Spanish crown, to set sail toward India.
After voyage, when reached land and found a group of people called the Taino and renamed their island San Salvador and claimed it for Spain.
Other European explorers also set sail to the New World in search of gold, glory and spread the word of their God.
1.4 Columbian Exchange, Spanish Exploration, and Conquest
Native Americans regarded land as the source of life, not as a commodity to be sold.
Europeans believed that the land should be tamed and in private ownership of land.
Native Americans thought of the natural world as filled with spirits and believed in one supreme being.
Europeans believed in the Roman Catholic Church was the dominant religious institution in western Europe.
Bonds of kinships ensured the continuation of tribal customs for Native Americans.
The basic unit of social organization among all Native American groups was the family, which included aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives.
Europeans respected kinship, but the extended family was not as important to them.
Life centered around the nuclear family (father and mother and their children) for Europeans.
Columbian Exchange was a period of rapid exchange of plants, animals, foods, communicable diseases, and diseases among Native Americans, Europeans.
Europe had the resources and technology to establish colonies far from home.
Flow of Trade: between the Old world and the New world.
Old world refers to Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Old World to New World: horses, pigs, rice, wheat, grapes.
New World to Old World: corn, potatoes, chocolate, tomatoes, avocado, sweet potatoes.
Introduction of new crops to Europe helped to increase food production and stimulate growth.
A colony is a territory settled and controlled by a foreign power.
Columbus arrival initiated a long period of European expansion and colonialism in the Americas.
During the next century, Spain was the colonial power in the Americas.
Spanish founded a number of coastal towns in Central and South America and in the West Indies.
Conquistadors collected and exported as much of the area's wealth as they could.
Assignments were based on gender, age, and status in Native American society.
Depending on the region, some women could participate in the decision-making process.
Men generally did most of the field labor and herded livestock in European society.
Women did help in the fields, but they were mostly in charge of child care and household labor in European society.
1.5 Labor, Slavery, and Caste in the Spanish Colonial System
Extensive use of enslaved Africans began when colonists from the Caribbean settled the Carolinas.
Until then, indentured servants and, in some situations, enslaved Native Americans had mostly satisfied labor requirements.
As tobacco-growing and, in South Carolina, rice-growing operations expanded, more laborers were needed than indenture could provide.
Events such as Bacon’s Rebellion showed landowners it was not in their best interest to have an abundance of landless, young, white males in their colonies either.
Native Americans knew the land, so they could easily escape and subsequently were difficult to find.
In some Native American tribes, cultivation was considered women’s work, so gender was another obstacle to enslaving the natives.
Europeans brought diseases that often decimated the Native Americans, wiping out 85 to 95 percent of the native population.
Southern landowners turned increasingly to enslaved Africans for labor.
Unlike Native Americans, enslaved Africans did not know the land, so they were less likely to escape.
Removed from their homelands and communities, and often unable to communicate with one another because they were from different regions of Africa, enslaved Black people initially proved easier to control than Native Americans.
Dark skin of West Africans made it easier to identify enslaved people on sight.
English colonists associated dark skin with inferiority and rationalized Africans’ enslavement.
Majority of the slave trade, right up to the Revolution, was directed toward the Caribbean and South America
More than 500,000 enslaved people were brought to the English colonies (of the over 10 million brought to the New World)
By 1790, nearly 750,000 Black people were enslaved in England’s North American colonies
The Middle Passage: Shipping route that brought enslaved people to the Americas
The end of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Mounting criticism (primarily in the North) of the horrors of the Middle Passage led Congress to end American participation in the Atlantic slave trade on January 1, 1808.
Slavery itself would not end in the United States until 1865.
Slavery in the South flourished due to nature of land and short growing season.
Chesapeake and Carolinas farmed labor-intensive crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo.
Plantation owners bought enslaved people for this arduous work.
Treatment at the hands of the owners was often vicious and at times sadistic.
Slavery in the North did not take hold in the North the same way it did in the South.
Used on farms in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Used in shipping operations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Used as domestic servants in urban households, particularly in New York City.
Northern states would take steps to phase out slavery following the Revolution.
Still enslaved people in New Jersey at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Only the very wealthy owned enslaved people.
The vast majority of people remained at a subsistence level.
1.6 Cultural Interactions Between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans
During the next century, Spain was the colonial power in the Americas.
Spanish founded a number of coastal towns in Central and South America and in the West Indies.
Conquistadors collected and exported as much of the area's wealth as they could.
Under Spain's encomienda system, the crown granted colonists authority over a specified number of natives.
Colonist was obliged to protect those natives and convert them to Catholicism.
In exchange, the colonist was entitled to those natives' labor for such enterprises as sugar harvesting and silver mining.
This system sounds like a form of slavery because it was a form of slavery.
Other European nations were inspired to try their hands at New World exploration due to Spain colonization.
The vast expanses of largely undeveloped North America and the fertile soils in many regions of this new land, opened up virtually endless potential for agricultural profits and mineral extraction
Improvements in navigation, such as the invention of the sextant in the early 1700s, made sailing across the Atlantic Ocean safer and more efficient.
Intercontinental trade became more organized with the creation of joint-stock companies, corporate businesses with shareholders whose mission was to settle and develop lands in North America.
The most famous ones were the British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, and later, the Virginia Company, which settled Jamestown.
Increased trade and development in the New World also led to increased conflict and prejudice
Europeans debated how Native Americans should be treated.
The belief in European superiority was nearly universal.
Some Native Americans resisted European influence, while others accepted it.
Intermarriage was common between Spanish and French settlers and the natives in their colonized territories (though rare among English and Dutch settlers)
Many Native Americans converted to Christianity.
As colonization spread, the use of enslaved Africans purchased from African traders from their home continent became more common
Africans adapted to their new environment by blending the language and religion of their masters with the preserved traditions of their ancestors.
Religions such as voodoo are a blend of Christianity and tribal animism.
Enslaved people sang African songs in the fields as they worked and created art reminiscent of their homeland.
The English sent large numbers of men and women to the agriculturally fertile areas of the East
English intermarriage with Native Americans and Africans was rare.
England’s first attempt to settle North America came a year prior to its victory over Spain, in 1587, when Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored a settlement on Roanoke Island.
The colony had disappeared by 1590, which is why it came to be known as the Lost Colony.
The English did not try again until 1607, when they settled Jamestown.
The company was called the Virginia Company—named for Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen—from which the area around Jamestown took its name.
The settlers, many of them English gentlemen, were ill-suited to the many adjustments life in the New World required of them, and they were much more interested in searching for gold than in planting crops.
Within three months, more than half the original settlers were dead of starvation or disease.
Jamestown survived only because ships kept arriving from England with new colonists.
Captain John Smith decreed that “he who will not work shall not eat,” and things improved for a time, but after Smith was injured in a gunpowder explosion and sailed back
John Rolfe pioneered the practice of growing tobacco, which had long been cultivated by Native Americans, as a cash crop to be exported back to England.
The English public was soon hooked, so to speak, and the success of tobacco considerably brightened the prospects for English settlement in Virginia.
The introduction of tobacco would also lead to the development of plantation slavery.
As new settlements sprang up around Jamestown, the entire area came to be known as the Chesapeake (named after the bay).
That area today comprises Virginia and Maryland.
English colonies in North America, such as Jamestown, were largely motivated by financial reasons and the desire for wealth and resources.
Indentured servitude, in which individuals agreed to work for a period of time in exchange for passage to the colonies, was a common way for people to migrate to the Chesapeake.
Over 75% of the 130,000 Englishmen who migrated to the Chesapeake during the 17th century were indentured servants
The success of tobacco as a cash crop in the Chesapeake led to rapid expansion and the development of plantation slavery.
In 1618, the Virginia Company introduced the headright system as a means of attracting new settlers to the region and addressing the labor shortage created by the emergence of tobacco farming.
A "headright" was a tract of land, usually about 50 acres, that was granted to colonists and potential settlers.
In 1619, Virginia established the House of Burgesses, in which any property-holding, white male could vote.
Decisions made by the House of Burgesses, however, had to be approved by the Virginia Company.
French colonized Quebec City in 1608
French Jesuit priests attempted to convert native peoples to Roman Catholicism but were more likely to spread diseases
French colonists were fewer in number compared to Spanish and English and tended to be single men
French settlers intermarried with native women and tended to stay on the move, especially if they were coureurs du bois (“runners in the woods”) who helped trade for furs
The group decided to settle where they had landed and named the settlement Plymouth.
Signed the Mayflower Compact
Created a legal authority and assembly
Government's power derived from consent of governed
Settlers of Massachusetts Bay Colony were strict Calvinists.
Calvinist principles dictated their daily lives.
Protestant work ethic and relationship to market economy.
Plantation economy dependent on slave labor developed in Chesapeake and southern colonies.
New England became commercial center.
Slavery: Was rare in New England, but farms in middle and southern colonies were much larger, requiring large numbers of enslaved Africans.
English regulated trade and government in its colonies but interfered in colonial affairs as little as possible..
England set up absentee customs officials and colonies were left to self-govern.
British government encouraged manufacturing in England and placed protective tariffs on imports that might compete with English goods.
Navigation Acts passed between 1651 and 1673, required colonists to buy goods only from England, sell certain of their products only to England, and import non-English goods via English ports and pay a duty on those imports
Navigation Acts also prohibited the colonies from manufacturing a number of goods that England already produced
Wool Act of 1699, forbade both the export of wool from the American colonies and the importation of wool from other British colonies
Molasses Act of 1733, imposed an exorbitant tax upon the importation of sugar from the French West Indies
Each colony had a governor appointed by the king or proprietor
Except for Pennsylvania, all colonies had bicameral legislatures modeled after British Parliament
Autonomy allowed eased transition to independence in following century
No real power, but offered advice to northeastern colonies when disputes arose
Puritan Immigration Near halt between 1649 and 1660 during Oliver Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector of England
Received charter in 1635
Produced Fundamental Orders, considered first written constitution in British North America
Calvert intended to create haven colony for Catholics and make a profit growing tobacco
Offered religious tolerance for all Christians but tension between faiths soon arose
Penn established liberal policies towards religious freedom and civil liberties
Pennsylvania had natural bounty and attracted settlers through advertising, making it one of the fastest growing colonies
Penn attempted to treat Native Americans more fairly but had mixed results
Proprietary colony (English-owned)
Split into North and South in 1729
Arrival of settlers from Barbados marked the beginning of the slave era in the colonies
Georgia initially banned slavery
By the time of the Revolution, only Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were not royal colonies.
Several colonies were owned by one person, usually received land as gift from king
Population in 1700 was 250,000 and by 1750 it was 1,250,000
Substantial non-English European populations (Scotch-Irish, Scots, Germans) started arriving in large numbers during the 18th century
Black population in 1750 was more than 200,000
Over 90% of colonists lived in rural areas
Population in 1700 was 250,000 and by 1750 it was 1,250,000
Opportunities for social interaction outside the family were limited
Patriarchy society, children and women were subordinate to men
Children's education was secondary to their work schedules
Used as domestic servants in urban households, particularly in New York City Southern life
As a result of the Stono Uprising, many colonies passed more restrictive laws to govern the behavior of enslaved people.
Fear of slave rebellions increased, and New York experienced a "witch hunt" period
Historians have different explanations for why the mass hysteria started and ended so suddenly.
Franklin also tried to negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois
Plan was rejected by the colonies as they did not want to relinquish control of their right to tax themselves or unite under a single colonial legislature
The Sugar ActActually lowered the duty on molasses coming into the colonies from the West Indies
Parliament imposed new regulations and taxes on colonists
First was the Sugar Act of 1764, established new duties and provisions aimed at deterring molasses smugglers
Colonists bristled at British attempts to exert greater control
Colonial protest was uncoordinated and ineffective
The Stamp Act Passed in 1765 by Parliament Aimed at raising revenue specifically
Demonstrated that colonies' tradition of self-taxation was being unjustly taken by Parliament.
Otis put forward the “No taxation without representation” argument Argued for either representation in Parliament or a greater degree of self-government for the colonies.
British scoffed at the notion, arguing that colonists were already represented in Parliament through the theory of virtual representation
Wanted the right to determine their own taxes.
Virginia, Patrick Henry drafted the Virginia Stamp Act Resolves, asserting colonists’ right to self-government Boston, mobs burned customs officers in effigy, tore down a customs house, and nearly destroyed the governor’s mansion.
Opposition was so effective that no duty collectors were willing to perform their job
George III replaced Prime Minister Grenville with Lord Rockingham, who had opposed the Stamp Act
Rockingham oversaw the repeal but also linked it to the passage of the Declaratory Act, which asserted British government's right to tax and legislate in all cases anywhere in the colonies
Drafted by Charles Townshend, minister of the exchequerTaxed goods imported directly from Britain, the first such tax in the colonies
created even more vice-admiralty courts and several new government offices to enforce the Crown’s will in the colonies
Assemblies sent letter (Massachusetts Circular Letter) to other assemblies asking that they protest the new measures in unison.
Made the colonists responsible for the cost of feeding and housing them
Heightened tensions
On March 5, 1770, a mob pelted a group of soldiers with rock-filled snowballs Soldiers fired on the crowd, killing five Propaganda campaign that followed suggested that the soldiers had shot into a crowd of innocent bystanders
British grant East India Tea Company monopoly on tea trade in colonies, colonists see new taxes imposed.
resulting in British response with Coercive/Intolerable Acts tightens control over Massachusetts government, Quartering Act)
Quebec Act grants greater liberties to Catholics, extends boundaries of Quebec Territory) further impeding westward expansion, causing further dissatisfaction among colonists.
3.3 Congress
Goal enumerate American grievances, develop strategy for addressing grievances, formulate colonial position on relationship between royal government and colonial governments
Came up with list of laws colonists wanted repealed Agreed to impose boycott on British goods until grievances were redressed. Formed Continental Association with towns setting up committees of observation to enforce boycott
The British Underestimated the Pro-Revolutionary Movement. Government officials believed if they arrested ringleaders and confiscated weapons, violence could be averted
Dispatched troops to confiscate weapons in Concord, Massachusetts in April 1775