History Final Flashcards
prep for exam
Reconquista
The “reconquest” of Spain from the Moors was completed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.
Columbian exchange
The transatlantic flow of goods and people began with Columbus’s voyages in 1492.
Repartimiento system
Spanish labor system under which Indians were legally free and able to earn wages but were also required to perform a fixed amount of labor yearly; replaced the encomienda system.
Panic of 1837
Beginning of major economic depression lasting about six years; touched off by a British financial crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and currency problems, and speculation in land, canals, and railroads.
John Smith
An English soldier and explorer who became one of the leaders of the Jamestown colony and helped to establish relations with the Powhatans. His narratives describe the early history of Jamestown as well as his explorations of what became New England.
Proslavery argument
The series of arguments defending the institution of slavery in the South as a positive good, not a necessary evil. The arguments included the racist belief that Black people were inherently inferior to white people, as well as the belief that slavery, in creating a permanent underclass of laborers, made freedom possible for whites. Other elements of the argument included biblical citations.
Manifest destiny
Phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage U.S. settlement of European colonial and Native lands in the Great Plains and the West and, more generally, as a justification for American empire.
Indian Removal Act
An 1830 law signed by President Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain Native Americans’ lands in exchange for their deportation to what would become Oklahoma.
Tenochtitlan
The capital city of the Aztec empire; the city was built on marshy islands on the western side of Lake Tetzcoco, which is the site of present-day Mexico City.
Roanoke Colony
Failed English attempt to establish a colony on Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks; the colony disappeared sometime between 1587 and 1590.
Pequot War
An armed conflict in 1637 was fought between the Pequot Indians and an alliance of Narragansett, Mohegan, and English. The Pequot loss led to most of them being killed, enslaved, or incorporated into other Native nations.
Plantation
An early word for a colony, a settlement “planted” from abroad among an alien population in Ireland or the Americas; later, a large agricultural enterprise that used unfree labor to produce a crop for the world market.
Puritans
English religious group that sought to purify the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630.
King Philip’s War (Metacom’s War)
A multiyear conflict that began in 1675 between the English and a Native alliance led by Wampanoags Metacom (King Philip) and Weetamoo. Its result was broadened freedoms for white New Englanders and the dispossession of the Wampanoags and other Indians.
Society of Friends (Quakers)
Religious group in England and America whose members believed all persons possessed the “inner light” or spirit of God; they were early proponents of abolition of slavery and equal rights for women
Natchez War
War begun in 1729 by the Natchez Indians against the French who were building plantations on Natchez land. With help from Native allies, the French won the war and drove the Natchez from their homeland.
Walking Purchase
An infamous 1737 purchase of Native American land in which Pennsylvanian colonists tricked the Delaware Indians, who had agreed to cede land equivalent to the distance a man could walk in thirty-six hours, but the colonists marked out an area using a team of runners
Atlantic Slave Trade
The systematic importation of African people from their native continent across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, fueled largely by rising demand for sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco
Middle Passage
he hellish and often deadly middle leg of the transatlantic “triangular trade” in which European ships carried manufactured goods to Africa, then transported enslaved Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean, and finally conveyed American agricultural products back to Europe; from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, some 12 million Africans were transported via the Middle Passage, unknown millions more dying en route.
Yeoman farmers
Small landowners (the majority of white families in the Old South) who farmed their own land and usually did not own slaves.
Stono rebellion
An uprising by enslaved men in 1739 in South Carolina that led to a severe tightening of the slave code and the temporary imposition of a prohibitive tax on imported slaves.
Republicanism
Political theory in eighteenth-century England and America that celebrated active participation in public life by economically independent citizens as central to freedom
Liberalism
Originally, political philosophy that emphasized the protection of liberty by limiting the power of government to interfere with the natural rights of citizens; in the twentieth century, belief in an activist government promoting greater social and economic equality.
Salutary neglect
Informal British policy during the first half of the eighteenth century that allowed the American colonies considerable freedom to pursue their economic and political interests in exchange for colonial obedience.
Enlightenment
Revolution in thought in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason and science over the authority of traditional religion.
Great Awakening
Fervent religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 1740s that was spread in the colonies by ministers like New England Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards and English revivalist George Whitefield.
Seven Years War/French & Indian War
The last—and most important—of four colonial wars fought between England and France for control of North America east of the Mississippi River.
Cotton gin
Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the machine that separated cotton seed from cotton fiber, speeding cotton processing and making profitable the cultivation of the more hardy, but difficult to clean, short-staple cotton; led directly to the dramatic nineteenth-century expansion of slavery in the South.
Boston Massacre
Clash between British soldiers and a Boston mob, March 5, 1770, in which five colonists were killed.
Pontiac’s Rebellion
An Indian uprising after the French and Indian War, led by an Ottowa chief named Pontiac. They opposed British expansion into the western Ohio Valley and began destroying British forts in the area.
Proclamation of 1763
Royal directive issued after the Seven Years’ War and Pontiac’s War prohibiting settlement, surveys, and land grants west of the Appalachian Mountains; caused considerable resentment among colonists hoping to move west.
Albany Plan of Union
A failed 1754 proposal by the seven northern British colonies in anticipation of the Seven Years’ War, urging the unification of the colonies under one crown-appointed president.
Stamp Act
Parliament’s 1765 requirement that revenue stamps be affixed to all colonial printed matter, documents, and playing cards; the Stamp Act Congress met to formulate a response, and the act was repealed the following year.
Virtual representation
The idea that the American colonies, although they had no actual representative in Parliament, were “virtually” represented by all members of Parliament.
Committee of Correspondence
Group organized by Samuel Adams in retaliation for the Gaspèe incident to address American grievances, assert American rights, and form a network of rebellion.
Daughters of Liberty
Organizations were formed by women in 1767 to protest against the British by boycotting British goods, making replacement products such as homespun cloth, and publicizing their efforts to encourage others.
Democracy in America
Two works, published in 1835 and 1840, by the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville on the subject of American democracy. Tocqueville stressed the cultural nature of American democracy and the importance and prevalence of equality in American life.
Missouri Compromise
Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay in 1820 to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri’s admission as a slave state; Maine’s admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri
Intolerable Acts
Four parliamentary measures in reaction to the Boston Tea Party that forced payment for the tea, disallowed colonial trials of British soldiers, forced their quartering in private homes, and reduced the number of elected officials in Massachusetts.
Continental Congress
First meeting of representatives of the colonies, held in Philadelphia in 1774 to formulate actions against British policies; in the Second Continental Congress (1775–1789), the colonial representatives conducted the war and adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.
Battle of Lexington & Concord
The first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775, near Boston; approximately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed.
Battle of Yorktown
Last battle of the Revolutionary War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7,000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17, 1781.
Monroe Doctrine
President James Monroe’s declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs
Nullification crisis
The 1832 attempt by the State of South Carolina to nullify, or invalidate within its borders, the 1832 federal tariff law. President Jackson responded with the Force Act of 1833.
Battle of Saratoga
Major defeat of British general John Burgoyne and more than 5,000 British troops at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777.
Treaty of Paris
Signed on September 3, 1783, the treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, recognized American independence from Britain, established the border between Canada and the United States, fixed the western border at the Mississippi River, and ceded Florida to Spain (without setting Florida’s border).
Republic
Representative political system in which citizens govern themselves by electing representatives, or legislators, to make key decisions on the citizens’ behalf.
Suffrage
The right to vote.
Loyalists
Colonists who remained loyal to Great Britain during the War of Independence.
Abolition
Social movement of the pre–Civil War era that advocated the immediate emancipation of the slaves and their incorporation into American society as equal citizens.
Freedom petitions
Arguments for liberty presented to courts and legislatures starting in the early 1770s by enslaved African Americans.
Lemuel Haynes
A Black member of the Massachusetts militia and celebrated minister who urged that Americans extend their conception of freedom to enslaved Africans during the Revolutionary era.
Coverture
Principle in English and U.S. law that a married woman lost her legal identity, which became “covered” by that of her husband, who therefore controlled her person and the family’s economic resources.
Republican motherhood
The ideology that emerged as a result of American independence where women’s political role was to train their sons to be future citizens.
Articles of Confederation
First frame of government for the United States; in effect from 1781 to 1788, it provided for a weak central authority and was soon replaced by the Constitution.
Ordinance of 1784
A law drafted by Thomas Jefferson that regulated land ownership and defined the terms by which western land would be marketed and settled; it established stages of self-government for the West. First Congress would govern a territory; then the territory would be admitted to the Union as a full state.
Shay’s rebellion
Attempt by Massachusetts farmer Daniel Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, to prevent courts from seizing property from indebted farmers.
Federalism
A system of government in which power is divided between the central government and the states
Fort Sumter
First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two days of shelling.
Second middle passage
The massive trade of slaves from the upper South (Virginia and the Chesapeake) to the lower South (the Gulf states) that took place between 1820 and 1860
Fort McHenry
Fort in Baltimore Harbor unsuccessfully bombarded by the British in September 1814; Francis Scott Key, a witness to the battle, was moved to write the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Federalists & Republicans
- The Federalists, led by George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government.
- The Republicans supported a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which they believed would safeguard individual freedoms and states’ rights from the threats posed by a strong central government.
XYZ Affair
Affair in which French foreign minister Talleyrand’s three anonymous agents (designated X, Y, and Z) demanded payments to stop French plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe was followed by two years of undeclared sea war with France (1798–1800).
Revolution of 1800
First time that an American political party surrendered power to the opposition party; Jefferson, a Republican, had defeated incumbent Adams, a Federalist, for president.
Haitian Revolution
A revolution by enslaved people that led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent country in 1804
Gabriel’s rebellion
An 1800 uprising planned by Virginian slaves to gain their freedom. The plot led by a blacksmith named Gabriel was discovered and quashed
Marbury v. Madison
First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law—the Judiciary Act of 1801—unconstitutional
Dred Scott v. Sanford
1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no Black person could be a citizen of the United States.
Barbary Wars
The first wars fought by the United States, and the nation’s first encounter with the Islamic world. The wars were fought from 1801 to 1805 against plundering pirates off the Mediterranean coast of Africa after President Thomas Jefferson’s refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships.
Tecumseh
Shawnee diplomatic and military leader who followed the teachings of his brother Tenskwatawa and tried to unite all Indians into a confederation to resist white encroachment on their lands; his beliefs and leadership made him seem dangerous to the American government. He allied with the British during the War of 1812 and was killed at the Battle of the Thames.
War of 1812
War fought with Britain, 1812–1814, over issues that included impressment of American sailors, interference with shipping, and collusion with Northwest Territory Indians; settled by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814
Bleeding Kansas
Violence between pro- and antislavery settlers in the Kansas Territory, 1856.
Popular Sovereignty
Program that allowed settlers in a disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves; most closely associated with Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois
American System of Manufactures
A system of production that relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts that could be rapidly assembled into standardized finished products; first perfected in Connecticut by clockmaker Eli Terry and by small-arms producer Eli Whitney in the 1840s and 1850s.
Nativism
Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling especially prominent from the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group of its proponents was New York’s Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American (Know-Nothing) Party in 1854.
Fugitive Slave Act
1850 law that gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; aroused considerable opposition in the North.
Second Great Awakening
Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion; began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches.
Compromise of 1850
Complex compromise devised by Senator Henry Clay that admitted California as a free state, included a stronger fugitive slave law, and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.
Gold rush
The massive migration of Americans into California territory in the late 1840s and 1850s in pursuit of gold, which was discovered there in 1848.
Texas Revolt
The 1830s rebellion of residents of the territory of Texas—many of them American emigrants—against Mexican control of the region.
Mexican War
Controversial war with Mexico for control of California and New Mexico, 1846–1848; the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande and extended the United States to the Pacific coast, annexing more than a half-million square miles of Mexican territory
Thirteenth amendment
Constitutional amendment adopted in 1865 that irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States.
Sea Island experiments
The 1861 pre-Reconstruction social experiment that involved converting slave plantations into places where former slaves could work for wages or own land. Former slaves also received education and access to improved shelter and food
Battle of Vicksburg
The fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, to General Ulysses S. Grant’s army on July 4, 1863, after two months of siege; a turning point in the war because it gave the Union control of the Mississippi River
Sanitary Fairs
Fund-raising bazaars led by women on behalf of Civil War soldiers; the fairs offered items such as uniforms and banners, as well as other emblems of war.
Navajo’s Long Walk
The forced removal of 8,000 Navajos from their lands by Union forces to a reservation in the 1860s.
Homestead Act
1862 law that authorized Congress to grant 160 acres of public land to a western settler, who had to live on the land for five years to establish title.
Emancipation Proclamation
Declaration issued by President Abraham Lincoln; the preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, freed the slaves in areas under Confederate control as of January 1, 1863, the date of the final proclamation, which also authorized the enrollment of Black soldiers into the Union army.
Bargain of 1877
Deal made by a Republican and Democratic special congressional commission to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876; Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who had lost the popular vote, was declared the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from involvement in politics in the South, marking the end of Reconstruction
Redeemers
Post–Civil War Democratic leaders who supposedly saved the South from Yankee domination and preserved the primarily rural economy
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The last piece of Reconstruction legislation, which outlawed racial discrimination in places of public accommodation such as hotels and theaters. Many parts of the act were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1883
Ku Klux Klan
Group organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in the 1910s and 1920s that stressed white, Anglo-Saxon, fundamentalist Protestant supremacy; revived a third time to fight the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the South.
Impeachment
Bringing charges against a public official; for example, the House of Representatives can impeach a president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” by majority vote, and after the trial the Senate can remove the president by a vote of two-thirds. Although three presidents, Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, were impeached and tried before the Senate, none were convicted
Reconstruction Act
1867 law that established temporary military governments in ten Confederate states—except Tennessee—and required that the states ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and permit freedmen to vote.
Fourteenth Amendment
1868 constitutional amendment that guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 antislavery novel that popularized the abolitionist position
Black Codes
Laws passed from 1865 to 1866 in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to nullify the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Sharecropping
Type of farm tenancy that developed after the Civil War in which landless workers—often former slaves—farmed land in exchange for farm supplies and a share of the crop
Freedmen’s Bureau
Reconstruction agency established in 1865 to protect the legal rights of former slaves and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and landowning.
Sons of Liberty
An organization formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radical men in response to the Stamp Act.
