History 12-15 Flashcards
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Why was Uncle Tom’s Cabin so important?
In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe shared ideas about the injustices of slavery, pushing back against dominant cultural beliefs about the physical and emotional capacities of black people. Stowe became a leading voice in the anti-slavery movement, and yet, her ideas about race were complicated.
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophy started in the early 19th century that promotes intuitive, spiritual thinking instead of scientific thinking based on material things.
Native American Reservation
Removal and settlement on reservations served two purposes for the United States. First, it cleared land of Native Americans for western expansion. Second, it permitted the United States to carry out a program of Americanizing Tribes into communities of small farmers.
William Lloyd Garrison
Founder of The Liberator, a newspaper that focused on the harsh truths of slavery and argued for the immediate release of the enslaved and extension of citizenship to all.
Mormonism
Mormonism is a term defining the religious beliefs and practices of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons. Mormonism describes the doctrines of the Church that were restored to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Herman Melville
Author of the 1851 classic Moby Dick that captured harsh aspects of nineteenth-century American culture.
Manifest Destiny
An ideology holding that God or fate intended the United States to expand its dominion across the North American continent.
US-Mexican War
The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 was a combination of Mexican unwillingness to recognize Texas independence, the desire of Texans for statehood, and American desire for westward expansion.
Compromise of 1850
Seeking to diffuse tensions over slavery, this series of bills admitted California as a free state, abolished slavery in Washington, D.C., and established the Fugitive Slave Act.
Gadsden Purchase 1853
The 1853 American acquisition from Mexico of nearly 30,000 acres of land that now form modern southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.
Free Soil Ideology
The Free Soil Party’s slogan was “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” The Free Soilers opposed slavery’s expansion into any new territories or states. They generally believed that the government could not end slavery where it already existed but that it could restrict slavery in new areas.
Abraham Lincoln
Lawyer and diplomat originally from Kentucky who served as the 16th president of the United States during the Civil War.
Election of 1860 – The Southern view
In the election no candidate won a majority of the popular vote, but Lincoln won a solid majority of the Electoral College. Between his November election to the presidency and his leaving for the White House in February 1861, 7 Southern states seceded from the Union.
First state to secede
South Carolina
North and Southern resource/advantages
The Union had many advantages over the Confederacy. The North had a larger population than the South. The Union also had an industrial economy, where- as the Confederacy had an economy based on agriculture. The Union had most of the natural resources, like coal, iron, and gold, and also a well-developed rail system.
