The United States Flashcards
American Revolution (1776 - 1783)
Causes
Colonists were inspired by the Enlightenment. They didn’t understand why they should pay a government tax. Britain taxes them without consent after already paying for wars with Europe (1765). The stamp act was about how they had taxation without representation.
American Revolution (1776 - 1783)
Declaration of Independence
Document explains reasons for revolution and beliefs of new country, stating enlightenment principles, like natural rights, freedom of religion, and speech. Creoles were denied top social or political positions in British society.
American Government (1787 - 1789)
Constitution
Recognized as an independent state in 1783. Constitution was based on the Enlightenment ideas.
American Government (1787 - 1789)
Bill of Rights
First 10 amendments of the constitution. About the freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and right to petition the government.
Andrew Jackson (1828-1836)
Expansion of Democracy
Only white, male property owning men could vote. Jackson promoted universal white male suffrage
Andrew Jackson (1828 - 1736)
People not included in the Democracy
Enslaved people, women, Native Americans.
Slavery in America (1750-1865)
Causes
The atlantic slave trade brought slaves from the West African Coast that went ot NA, Mexico, and the Carribean. America needed workers for tobacco cash crops in the South, and Cotton for textile mills.
Slavery in America (1750 - 1865)
Resistance
They would break tools, act dumb, and work slow on purpose. The Rebellion of Nat Turner, 1831, was where Nat Turner had rebelled against slave owners, killing 50 white people in the middle of the night, resulting in 100 slaves killed.
Abolition (1776-1865)
Impact of Enlightenment
They were inspired by the enlightenment about how everybody deserves freedom and basic needs.
Abolition (1776 - 1865)
Civil War (1861-1865) and the Emancipation Proclamation
The war partially ended slavery when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
Reconstruction (1865 - 1877)
13th Amendment (1865)
Abolished slavery in the US
Reconstruction (1865 - 1877)
14th Amendment (1868)
Due to process of law- all persons cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property without cause and provide protection to all people under their jurisdiction including former slaves
Reconstruction (1865 - 1877)
15th Amendment (1870)
During the Reconstruction period. Rights of citizens of the US to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It was the official end to slavery.
Southern Redemption (1876 - 1900)
KKK
The southern Government wants to restore white rule and creates mass segregation. The KKK is a violent group of white supremacists that kill and harass black people based on their skin color.
Southern Redemption (1876 - 1900)
Black Codes
Black Southerners had to sign a labor contract to grow for white southerners. White southerners needed workers, and white northerners needed cotton to be grown for textile mills.
Southern Redemption (1876 - 1900)
Sharecropping
Freed slaves did not receive land grants or any other means of economic support. Slaves worked as sharecroppers for former slave owners, another form of indentured servitude
Southern Redemption (1876 - 1900)
Jim Crow Laws
aw everybody as separate “but equal”. Black and white people were always separate and never equal.
Women in the US
The Cult of Domesticity (gender hierarchy)
upper class women thought that women couldn’t be in politics, commerce, or public service. Thought that women should raise good children and be a good wife.
Women in the US
Suffrage movement and Seneca Falls
The seneca falls convention was where they issued the Declaration of Sentiments, about how all men and women are created equal to include women into the government. Just like the Declaration of the rights of women and citizen. They were not taken seriously because men who where land owners didn’t want them to voice their opinions.
Women in the US
Women led reform movements
They wanted new opportunities for education and employment outside of domesticity and marriage.
Women in the US
Lower class women
Started to work for their rights. Industrialization started getting larger in America, women allowed to work. Lower class women had to work on farms.
Reasons for Industrialization
Raw Materials
The second industrial Rev allowed access to raw materials. Made transcontinental railroads and telegraphs.
Reasons for Industrialization
Immigration
Europeans and Chinese immigrants saw new opportunities in the new world. They were cheap labor.
Reasons for Industrialization
Governemnt
They passed tariffs (taxes on certain goods)
on products to protect US business and passed property laws
Reasons for Industrialization
Capital
Corporations, like the US steel company, and New York stock exchange brought in a lot of capital and money. They had money and resources to industrialize to build more capital
Impact of Transcontinental Telegraph
Allowed faster communication across regions and countys
Impact of Transcontinental Railroad
Allowed faster travel for people, resources, and knowledge.
US Government Promotes Industrialization
US got a lot of money from large companies and didn’t like unions because it disrupted the amount of money and products were being produced. Lots of government officials invested in these large companies so they wanted more industrialization.
Impact of Corporations on the Government
After large companies started to become monopolies, they had to outlaw them because it eliminated small businesses and created competition blocks, known as “Trust busting”
New Practices of Banking and Finance
Large Corporations
Corporations/owners become powerful and the new elite. Larger corporations like Rockefeller had vertical integration, where they did the drilling, processing, refining of oil, and all other processes regarding to the product. It allowed him to undersell competition, cut costs, and operate efficiently.
New Practices of Banking and Finance
New York Stock Exchange
Allows people to buy and sell stocks
Workers
Problems
Workers were paid low wages, worked long hours and under unsafe conditions. They created unions to hopefully get more working rights.
Workers
Knights of Labor
Was an organization founded in 1869 and advocated for the eight hour work day.
Workers
Great Railroad Strike
Shut down ⅔ of the nation’s railroads in 1877. Workers pulled up tracks and blew up a train engine. 100 people died with 10 million dollars in property damage. It disrupted trade along the railroad for months.
Workers
Role of Government in Strikes
Government sided with the owners since they saw the workers as people destroying private property, even if they were were striking for basic human needs.
Workers
Socialists
Socialists strike, called the Pullman Strike, was led by Eugene V. Debs in 1894 after Pullman, owner of sleeping cars on railroads took the wages off of workers. The union asked trainmen to refuse to run trains when Pullman cars were attached and disrupted American railroads. Mail was disrupted, meaning the government needed to intervene with the US army. Eugene was persecuted by the governemnt
Workers
Communists
Bill Haywood was convicted by the government because he was a radicalist for the eight hours of work ,eight hours of play, eight hours of sleep.
Workers
Anarchists
Anarchist attacks led attacks. Lucy and Albert Parson directed a union meeting during the Haymarket square riot. People began to see that communist ideologies were better than capitalism. It started as a union meeting for an 8 hour day. However, it turned violent when police started killing workers. After they all left and held another meeting with only 200 people still attending, not the people who actually organized the meeting, 176 police officers came in and an unknown person threw the first dynamite bomb.
Urban Problems
There was rapid urbanization because if industrialization and global capitalism. Disease from water and air pollution led to cholera/typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis rose. Pollution from the use of fossil fuels and throwing feces outside of the house. Poverty increased since the working poor class lived in overcrowded tenements with pigs, human waste, dirt, filth, and disease. There was a lot of crime.
US Rationales for Expansion
Manifest Destiny
Thought because the US was so great that they deserved everything in the Western Hemisphere. It justified imperialism.
US Expansion (1803-1848)
Louisiana Purchase (1803)
Napoleon couldn’t care less about the land in the united States and sold it to the US to finance Napoleonic Wars. New land helped growing population and allowed intercontinental railroad to continue growing.
US Expansion (1803-1848)
Manifest Destiny (1840s)
The US was destined to expand across the continent, which led them to the Louisiana purchase. They thought they deserved it because they were great, justifying their imperialism
US Expansion (1803 -1848)
Mexican - American War (1846 - 1848)
The US wanted more land in the South West and needed land to move the Native Americans so they can have their good farmland. Texas got independence from Mexico in 1836, the 2 year war ending when Us took possession of ⅓ of Mexico’s territory. The war feuled Mexican Nationalism and made Mexicans displaced.
Spanish - American War (1898)
Causes
The US wanted more raw materials, space, and markets. They did not want Europe in the Western Hemisphere. Their ideas of National Darwinism (survival of the fittest) led ot them competing with france, germany, and justified them going after spain. They went after Cuba, a Spanish colony.
Spanish - American War (1898)
Results
America becomes imperial power with Spanish colonies in Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Cuba was liberated from Spain and annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
Resistance toe Expansion
Comanche (1750-1840s)
Comanche tribe was able to defend itself against the colonial powers of Spain, Mexico, and the US. They had a fighting style perfect for the plains who frightened soldiers.
Resistance to Expansion
Indian Wars (1860s-1880s)
The US needed to force migrate the Native AMericans from the good farmland. This led to the indian wars where they resisted the government from their settlements.
Reservations
They migrated Native Americans to reservations they reserved for them to take their farm land.
Ghost Dance Movement (1890s)
It was the religious beliefs of the Sioux tribe. They wanted to achieve to of purge the evil the whites taught them. They had ceremonies of cleansing, meditation, prayer, chanting, and dancing. Government thought it was militancy and violent rebelling. The ghost dance was actually parallel with Christianity. At wounded Knee Creek, a Sioux man accidentally shot off a gun, the colonists killing 200+ Native Americans
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee-American wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, and battles from 1776-1794
US Imperialism in Latin America
Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Americans were the protectorate of the US, meaning Europe should stay out. They used the Monroe Doctrine as justification to start the Spanish American War and Mexican American War.
US Imperialism in Latin America
US Business Interest in Latin America
They wanted the right to intervene in domestic affairs of nations within the W. Hemisphere that would threaten US economic interests, so they had the Roosevelt Corollary made (1904). Partnered with banana and sugar growers which gave them the right to go in an protect their investments.
US Business Advantages in Latin America
President taft decided to own the plantations instead, giving them more invested interest and make more money.
“Push” factors for increased immigration to US
Europeans and Chinese people leave home areas because of high taxes, revolutions, lack of freedom, not enough jobs, ect.
“Pull” factors for increased immigration to US
They went to the US because of industrial jobs, religion and political freedoms, and cheaper, long distance transportation.
Coerced labor migration (start of time period)
There was limited industrialization in the 1750s. The labor system consisted of indentured servants like African Americans
Free immigrants to US
Some people would pay for travel for immigrants to come work for them for a few months at a time.
Typical immigrant
They were usually men who were looking for work as a way to make money. They were unskilled.
Ethnic Enclaves
They were neighborhoods dominated by one group of people, that creating places like Chinatowns, Little Italy’s, and German towns.
Nativism (xenophobia)
The growth of protecting the interests and culture of native-born or already established inhabitants against those of immigrants.
