AP US history Flashcards
When and how did the first people come to the America’s?
- Over the Bering land bridge about 40,000 years ago
When was the printing press invented? Who invented it?
- 1439, by Johannes Gutenberg.
How many years did Columbus desk financial support? Who finally backed him?
- Eight years
- In 1492, Spanish monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand
Who were the first two nations in the New World? What did the pope do in 1493? What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?
- Spain and Portugal
- They turned to the pope to settle a land dispute, in 1493 - Pope Alexander vi drew a vertical, north-south line on a world map, giving Spain all lands to the west of the line and Portugal all lands to the east.
- In 1494, they signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, moving the line a few degrees to the west.
- It was later discovered that the line passed through what is now the country of Brazil, and this, together with Portuguese explorations, established Portugal’s claim to Brazil.
- Spain claimed the rest of the America’s.
Why did England not follow up on Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland (1497)
England’s monarchy in the 1500s was preoccupied with other matters, including Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church.
What did England due in the 1570s and 80s?
- England challenged Spanish shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
- Sir Francis drake, for example, attacked Spanish ships, seized the gold and silver they carried, and even attacked Spanish settlements on the coast of Peru.
What was England’s first attempt at colonization in the new world?
- Sir Walter Raleigh,
- Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina in 1587
- Failed
What was the first French settlement in America?
1698 at Quebec, on the St. Lawrence River.
What did Dutch sailor Henry Hudson do in 1609?
- Speaking a northwest passage, in 1609, Hudson sailed up a broad river (later named for him)
- established Dutch claims to the surrounding area that would become New Amsterdam (and later New York).
What happened in 1588?
Britain defeated the Spanish Armada, giving it a reputation as a major naval power.
How did England initially finance the costly and risky enterprise of starting a colony?
Their joint-stock companies (Stock was held jointly by many shareholders).
What was the first permanent English colony in America? When was it settled?
Jamestown in 1607.
What allowed Jamestown to overcome the problem of starvation?
- John Smith: If you don’t work, you don’t eat
- John Rolfe: established a tobacco industry, and by exporting the cash crop, the colony quickly became profitable.
What economic system did the pilgrims practice until 1623? From when to when to Plymouth suffer from famine?
common ownership 1620-23
20-23
When did Africans first arrive in Jamestown?
1619
Did the Pilgrims Intend to land at Plymouth in 1620?
No, they hand been aiming for Jamestown, but decided to stay in Plymouth upon landing.
When did the Spanish first land in Florida?
1565, in St. Augustine.
From when to when we’re the Spanish in New Mexico? What happened?
1609 (Santa Fe) Harsh efforts to Christianity the Native Americans caused the Pueblo people to revolt in the 1680s. The Spanish were driven from the area in the early 1700s.
When did the Spanish settle in Texas?
In the early 1700s after being driven from New Mexico.
When did the Spanish arrive in California? Why?
- In response to Russian exploration from Alaska,
- San Diego 1769 and San Fransisco in 1776. By 1784, a series of missions and settlements had been established along the California coast by members of the Franciscan order.
What was the Spanish approach to Native Americans?
conquer, rule, and intermarry with the Aztecs, Maya’s, and Incas.
What was the English approach to Native Americans?
occupied the land and forced the small, scattered tribes they encountered to move away from the coast to inland territories.
What was the French approach to Native Americans.
looking for furs and converts to Catholicism, tended to treat the Native Americans as economic and military allies.
What happened to Roger Williams? What did he find? How did it differ from other states?
- Boston in 1631 as a respected Puritan minister.
- believed that the individual’s conscience was beyond the control of any civil or church authority.
- in conflict with other Puritan leaders, who ordered his banishment from the Bay colony.
- founded the settlement of Providence in 1636.
- recognized the rights of Native Americans and paid them for the use of their land. Second,
- complete religious toleration by allowing Catholics, Quakers, and Jews to worship freely.
What was the halfway-covenant?
1660s
- people could take part in Puritan church services and activities without making a formal declaration of their total belief in Christ.
What was King Phillip’s war?
A chief of the Wampanoags named Metacom—known to the colonists as King Phillip—united many tribes in southern New England against the English settlers, who were constantly encroaching on the Native Americans’ lands. In a vicious war (1675-1676), thousands on both sides were killed, and dozens of towns and villages were burned. Eventually the colonial forces managed to prevail, killing King Phillip and virtually ending Native American resistance in New England.
When did England take over New Amsterdam/York from the Dutch?
In 1664
Who were the Quakers? What did they believe? Why were they persecuted in England?
- equality of all men and women
- nonviolence
- resistance to military service.
- religious authority was found within each person’s private soul and not in the Bible or any outside source.
- In the 17th century, such views seemed to pose a radical challenge to established authority. Therefore, the Quakers of England were widely persecuted for their beliefs.
What was Penn’s Holy Experiment?
- Penn was a quaker.
- He wanted his new colony (given to him to fulfill a royal debt) to achieve three purposes:
- provide a religious refuge for Quakers and other persecuted people
- enact liberal ideas in government
- generate income and profits for himself.
What was the last colony? When was it chartered? What was it’s purpose?
- George (1732).
- defensive buffer between prosperous South Carolina and Spanish Florida
- gave thousands of English debt prisoners and chance to start life anew (easing the strain on British prisons).
How did mercantilism apply to the colonies early on?
Colonies were to provide raw materials to the parent country for the growth and profit of that country’s industry. Colonies existed for one (main) purpose only; to enrich the parent country.
Mercantilism
the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism.
What did the Navagation Acts (enacted by Britain over time from 1650 to 1673) require?
- Trade to and from the colonies could be carried only by English or colonial ships
- All goods imported into the colonies, except for some perishables, had to pass through ports in England.
- Certain goods from the colonies could only be exported to England. Tobacco originally, but over a period of years, the list was expanded to include most colonial products.
What were the negative effects of the Navigation Acts?
- Colonial manufacturing was severely limited.
- Chesapeake farmers received low prices for their crops.
- Colonists has to pay high prices for manufactured goods from England.
What was the Dominion of New England?
- 1686, King James II combined the New England colonies into the Dominion of New England and place Sir Edmund Andros in charge as governor.
- Andros was instantly unpopular, levying taxes, limiting town meetings, and revoking land titles.
- brought to an end in 1688 when William and Mary deposed James II.
In 1775, what percentage of the colonies were African American? What percentage of them were in the south?
20 percent, with 90 percent of them being in the south.
How religiously tolerant were the colonies in the early eighteenth century?
All of the colonies permitted the practice of different religions, but with varying degrees of freedom. Massachusetts, the least tolerant, excluded non-Christians and Catholics, although it accepted a number of Protestant denominations. Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were the most liberal.
What percentage of the people living in the colonies in the 1700s lived on farms?
Over 90%
What was life like for women in the 1700s in the colonies? How many children? Household work? who educated? Jobs? Divorce? Legal rights?
- bore eight children
- Household work included cooking, cleaning, clothes-making, and medical care.
- educated the children.
- usually worked next to her husband in the shop, on the plantation, or on the farm.
- Divorce was legal but rare, and women had limited legal and political rights.
- Yet the shared labors and mutual dependence with their husbands gave most women protection from abuse (which was legal) and an active role in decision making.
What was transportation like in the colonies?
How did this impact the location of cities?
- Transporting goods by water was much easier than attempting to carry them overland on rough and narrow roads and trails.
Therefore, trading centers like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were located on the sites of good harbors and navigable rivers.
In the 17th century, what two churches were paid for with taxpayer money? How did this change over time? When did it end?
The Church of England (or Anglican Church) in Virginia and the Congregational Church in Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut.
- In Massachusetts and Connecticut, by the time of the Revolution, members of other established religions were exempt from supporting the Congregational Chruch.
- Some direct tax support remained until the 19th century. In Virginia, all tax support for the Anglican Church ended shortly after the Revolution.
What was the Great Awakening?
- a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its Thirteen Colonies between the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion.
Who was Jonathan Edwards? What did he teach?
- He initiated the Great Awakening with a series of sermons, including “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God” (1941).
- He taught that each individual who expressed deep penitence could be saved by God’s grace, but the souls who paid no heed to God’s commandments would suffer eternal damnation.
Who was George Whitefield? How large were some of his audiences? What did he teach?
- Whitefield ignited the Great Awakening with his rousing sermons on the hellish torments of the damned.
- He preached in barns, tents, and fields, sometimes attracting audiences of 10,000 people.
- He stressed that God was all-powerful and would save only those who openly professed belief in Jesus Christ; those who did not would be cast to hell. He taught that ordinary people who had faith and sincerity could understand the Christian Gospels without depending on ministers to lead them.
What were the economic/leisure differences between the 1600s and the 1700s in the colonies?
- In the early 1600s, the chief concern of most colonists was economic survival. People had neither the time nor the resources to pursue leisure activities or create works of art and literature.
- One hundred years later, however, the colonial population had grown and matured to the point that the arts and other aspects of civilized living could flourish, at least among the well-to-do southern planters and the merchants of the northern cities.
What was the first colonial college? When was it created?
Harvard, 1636
What was the first nonsectarian college in the colonies/US? When was it created?
The College of Philadelphia (eventually the University of Pennsylvania), founded in 1765
Could Newspapers attack political authorities in the early colonial days?
What happened to John Zenger in 1735? What did his lawyer argue? What did the jury do? How did this impact the newspaper industry? What was this the first example of?
- According to English common law at the time, injuring a governor’s reputation was considered a criminal act, no matter whether a printed statement was true or false.
- In 1735, John Zenger, a New York editor and publisher, was brought to trial on a charge of libelously criticizing New York’s royal governor.
- Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argued that his client had printed the truth about the governor.
- Ignoring the English law, the jury voted to acquit Zenger. - While this case did not guarantee complete freedom of the press, it encouraged newspapers to take greater risks in criticizing a colony’s government (it is a famous example of jury nullification).
What were the main forms of entertainment for the well-to-do in the 1700s?
- cardplaying and horse-racing in the south, theatergoing in the middle colonies, and attending religious lectures in Puritan New England.
What did the government of each of the 13 colonies consist of by 1750?
By 1750, the 13 colonies had similar systems of government, with a governor acting as chief executive and a separate legislature (2 houses) voting either to adopt or reject the governor’s proposed laws.
How did the French and Indian War begin?
- Hoping to stop the French from completing work on Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) and thereby win control of the Ohio River Valley, the governor of Virginia sent a small militia under the command of a young colonel named George Washington.
- After gaining a small initial victory, Washington’s troops surrendered to a superior force of Frenchmen and their Native American allies on July 3, 1754. With this military encounter in the wilderness, the war began.
How did the French and Indian War initially go for Britain? What happened in 1755? 1756/1757?
At first, the war went badly for the British.
- In 1755, another disastrous expedition from Virignia, led by General Edward Braddock, ended in disastrous defeat, as more than 2,000 British regulars and colonial troops were routed by a smaller force of French and Native Americans near Ft. Duquesne. The Algonquin allies of the French ravaged the frontier from western Pennsylvania to North Carolina. A British invasion of French Canada in 1756 and 1757 was repulsed.
Why was the Albany Congress called? What came out of the Albany Congress? How many states ended up ratifying the plan?
- Recognizing the need for coordinating colonial defense, the British government called for representatives from several colonies to meet in a congress at Albany, New York in 1754.
- The delegates from seven colonies adopted a plan–the Albany Plan of Union–developed by Benjamin Franklin that provided for an intercolonial government and a system for recruiting troops and collecting taxes from the various colonies for there common defense.
- But, not a single colony ended up ratifying the plan.
How did the British turn around the French and Indian War? What was the end result? 1758? 1759? 1760? What happened in 1763? What was the end result?
In London, William Pitt, the new British Prime Minister concentrated the government’s military strategy on conquering Canada. This objective was accomplished with the retaking of Louisbourg in 1758, the surrender of Quebec to General James Wolfe in 1759, and the taking of Montreal in 1760. With these victories and the signing of a peace treaty in 1763, the British extended their control of North America, and French power on the continent virtually ended.
What was salutary neglect? What changed after the French and Indian War?
- the 17th and 18th century British Crown policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws meant to keep British colonies obedient to England.
- This earlier policy ended after the French and Indian War as the British saw a need to adopt more forceful policies for taking control of their expanded North American dominions, and making them cover the British debt created by the war.
What was Pontiac’s Rebellion? What caused it? How did the British respond?
The first major test of the new British imperial policy came in 1763 when Chief Pontiac led a major attack against colonial settlements on the western frontier. The Native Americans were angered by the growing westward movement of European settlers and by the British refusal to offer gifts as the French had done. Pontiac’s alliance of Native Americans in the Ohio Valley destroyed forts and settlements from New York to Virginia. Rather than relying on colonial forces to retaliate, the British sent regular troops to deal with the “rebellion.”
What was the Proclamation of 1763? What did it hope to achieve? How did the colonists feel about it? What was the result?
- prohibited colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.
- Such a measure, it was hoped, would help to prevent future hostilities between colonists and Native Americans.
- But the colonists reacted to the proclamation with anger and defiance. After their victory in the French and Indian War, Americans hoped to reap benefits in the form of access to western lands. For the British to deny such benefits was infuriating. Defying the prohibition, thousands streamed westward beyond the imaginary boundary line drawn by the British.
Sugar Act (1764)? What was its purpose?
Placed duties on foreign sugar and certain luxuries. Its chief purpose was to raise money for the crown?
Quartering Act (1765)
This act required the colonists to provide food and living quarters for British soldiers stationed in the colonies.
Stamp Act (1765). What was its purpose? What did it do? What was it the first of?
- To raise funds to support British military forces in the colonies.
- required that revenue stamps be placed on most printed papers in the colonies, including all legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, and advertisements.
- This was the first direct tax–collected from those who used the goods–paid by the people in the colonies, as opposed to the taxes on goods that were imported into the colonies, which were paid by merchants.
Stamp Act. How did Patrick Henry respond? What did James Otis call for? What was formed as a result? What did they resolve?
What other group formed as a response? What did they do?
What was the most effective form of protest? What did this lead to?
- A young Virginia lawyer named Patrick Henry expressed the sentiments of many when he stood up in the House of Burgesses to demand that the king’s government recognize the rights of all citizens–including no taxation without representation. In Massachusetts, James Otis initiated a call for cooperative action among the colonies to protest the Stamp Act. Representatives from nine colonies met in New York in 1765 to form the so-called Stamp Act Congress. They resolved that only their own elected representatives had the legal authority to approve taxes.
- The protest against the stamp tax took a violent turn with the formation of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, a secret society organized for the purpose of intimidating tax agents. Members of this society sometimes tarred and feathered revenue officials and destroyed revenue stamps.
- Boycotts against British imports were the most effective form of protest. It became fashionable in the colonies in 1765 and 1766 for people not to purchase any article of British origin. Faced with a sharp drop in trade, London merchants put pressure on Parliament to repeal the controversial Stamp Act.
Declaratory Act (1766). What was it accompanied by? What did it do?
- In 1766, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act. At the same time, Parliament also enacted a face-saving measure known as the Declaratory Act.
- asserted that Parliament had the right to tax and make laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”
Townshend Acts (1767). What were their purpose? What did they enact duties on? What else did they do?
- To raise revenue to pay crown officials in the colonies
Parliament enacted new duties to be collected on colonial imports of tea, glass, and paper. The Townshend Acts also provided for the search of private homes for smuggled goods. All that an official needed to conduct such a search would be a writ of assistance (a general license to search anywhere) rather than a judge’s warrant permitting a search only of a specifically named property.
Colonial reaction to the Townshend Acts (1767). How did James Otis and Samuel Adams respond? How did British officials react to this? How did the colonists react to this?
- In 1768, James Otis and Samuel Adams jointly wrote the Massachusetts Circular Letter and sent copies to every colonial legislature. It urged the various colonies to petition Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts.
- British officials in Boston ordered the letter retracted, threatened to dissolve the legislature, and increased the number of British troops in Boston.
- Responding to the circular letter, the colonists again conducted boycotts of British goods. Merchants increased their smuggling activities to avoid the offensive Townshend duties.
Repeal of Townshend Acts (1770). Why was it repealed? What was kept? How did the colonists react?
- The act was mostly repealed in 1770 because it damaged trade and generated only a disappointing amount of revenue.
- A small tax on tea was retained as a symbol of Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. The repeal ended the colonial boycott.
Boston Massacre. What did colonists in Boston resent? What did they do? How did the British respond? Who defended the British and what was the decision? Who called it a massacre? How was this later used?
- The people of Boston generally resented the British troops who had been quartered in their city to protect customs officials from being attacked by the Sons of Liberty.
- On a snowy day in March 1770, a crowd of colonists harassed the guards near the customs house.
- The guards fired into the crowd, killing five people including an African American, Crispus Attucks.
- At their trial for murder, the soldiers were defended by colonial lawyer John Adams and aquitted.
- Adams’ more radical cousin, Samuel Adams, angrily denounced the shooting incident as a “massacre.”
- Later, the episode was often used by colonial leaders to inflame anti-British feeling.
What was The Gaspee? What happened in 1772? How did the British respond?
- A British ship that had been successful in catching a number of smugglers.
- In 1772, the ship ran aground off the shore of Rhode Island. Seizing their opportunity to destroy the hated vessel, a group of colonists disguised as Native Americans ordered the British crew ashore and then set fire to the ship.
- The British ordered a commission to investigate and bring guilty individuals to Britain for trial.
Tea Act (1773). What caused it? What did it do?
- The colonists continued their refusal to buy British tea because the British insisted on their right to collect the tax. Hoping to help the British East India Company out of its financial problems, Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773 which made the price of the company’s tea–even with the tax included–cheaper than that of smuggled Dutch tea.
Boston tea Party. How did Americans respond to the tea act? Why? What happened here?
- Following the Tea Act (1773), many Americans refused to buy the cheaper tea because to do so would, in effect, recognize Parliament’s right to tax the colonies.
- A shipment of the East India Company’s tea arrived in Boston harbor, but there were no buyers. On December 16, 1773, before the royal governor could arrange to bring the tea ashore, a group of Bostonians disguised themselves as Native Americans, boarded the British ship, and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.
What percentage of tea in the colonies around 1773 was smuggled in?
About 86%
What was the Colonial reaction to the Boston Tea Party
The colonial reaction to this incident was mixed. While many applauded the Boston Tea Party as a justifiable defense of liberty, others though the destruction of private property was far too radical.
The Coercive/Intolerable Acts (1774) (4 of them) Why were they created? What did they do?
- directed at punishing the people of Boston and Massachusetts and bringing dissent under control.
1. The Port Act closed the port of Boston, prohibiting trade in and out of the harbor until the destroyed tea was paid for.
2. The Massachusetts Government Act reduced the power of the Massachusetts legislature while increasing the power of the royal governor.
3. The Administration of Justice Act allowed royal officials accused of crimes to be tried in England instead of in the colonies.
4. A fourth law expanded the Quartering Act to enable British troops to be quartered in private homes. It applied to all colonies.
What was the colonies response to the Intolerable acts? What was this convention later referred to as?
- All colonies except Georgia sent delegates to a convention in Philadelphia in September 1774 to determine how they should react.
- The first Continental Congress
What three main measures were adopted by the First Continental Congress?
The Suffolk Resolves rejected the Intolerable Acts and called for their immediate repeal. It also called for military preparations and boycotts.
- The Declaration of Rights and Grievances petitioned the king urging him to redress colonial grievances and restore colonial rights. It recognized Parliament’s authority to regulate commerce.
- It called for a second meeting in May 1775 if colonial rights were not recognized
