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US History Midterm
Ch 1,2,5,,7,10,11,12,13
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Tenochtitlan | The capital city of the Aztec empire. The city was built on marshy islands on the western side of Tetzcoco, which is the cite of present day Mexico City. |
| Aztec | Mesoamerican people who were conquered by the Spanish under Hernan Cortes, 1519-1528 |
| Great League of Peace | An alliance of the Iroquois tribes, originally formed sometime between 1450 and 1600, that used their combined strength to pressure Europeans to work with them in the fur trade and to wage war across what is today eastern North America |
| Caravel | A 15th century European ship capable of long-distance travel |
| Reconquista | the "reconquest" of Spain from the Moors completed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella |
| conquistadores | Spanish term of "conquerors", applied to Spanish and Portuguese soldiers who conquered lands held by indigenous peoples in central and southern America as well as the current states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California |
| Columbian Exchange | The transatlantic flow of goods and people that began with Columbus's voyages in 1492 |
| Creoles | Persons born in the New World of European ancestry |
| Hacienda | Large-scale farm in the Spanish New World empire worked by Indian laborers |
| Mestizos | Spanish word for persons of mixed Native American and European ancestry |
| 95 theses | The list of moral grievances against the Catholic Church by Martin Luther, a german priest, in 1517 |
| Bartolome de Las Casas | Dominican priest who published an account of the decimation of the Indian population whose father sailed on Columbus's second voyage and he himself had participated in the conquest of Cuba. Freed his own slaves and began to preach against it in 1514 |
| 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 |
| Black Legend | Idea that the Spanish New World empire was more oppressive toward the Indian than other European empires; was used as a justification for English imperial expansion |
| Pueblo Revolt | Uprising in 1680 in which Pueblo Indians Temporarily drove Spanish colonist out of modern-day Mexico |
| Indentured Servants | Settlers who signed on for a temporary period of servitude to a master in exchange for passage to the New World; Virginia Pennsylvania were largely peopled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by English and German indentured servant |
| Metis | Children of marriages between Indian Women and French traders and officials |
| Borderland | A place between or near recognized borders where no group of people has complete political control or cultural dominance |
| Virginia Company | A joint stock enterprise that the King James I chartered in 1606. The company was to spread Christianity in the New World as well as find ways to make a profit in it. |
| Anglican Church | The established state church of England formed by Henry VIII after the pope refused to annul to marriage to Catherine of Aragon |
| Roanoke Colony | English expedition of 117 settlers including Virginia Dare the first English child born in the New World; the colony disappeared from Roanoke island in the outer banks sometime between 1587 and 1590 |
| Enclosure movement | A legal process that divided large farm fields in England that were previously collectively owned by groups of peasants into smaller, individually owned plots. The enclosure movement took place over several centuries |
| John Smith | One of the Jamestown colony's first leaders who lead the colony with an iron fist and increased the colony's population. Said if they didn't work, they won't eat |
| Headright System | A land-grant policy that promised 50 acres to any colonist who could afford passage to Virginia, as well as 50 more for any accompanying servants. The headright policy was eventually expanded to include any colonists and was adopted in other colonies |
| House of Burgesses | The first elected assembly in colonial America, established in 1619 in Virginia, Only wealthy land owners could vote in its elections |
| Uprising of 1622 | Unsuccessful uprising of Virginia Native American that wiped out one-quarter of the settler population but ultimately led to the settlers gaining supremacy |
| Dower rights | In colonial America, the right of a widowed woman to inherit one-third of her deceased husband's property |
| Puritans | English religious group that south to purify the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630 |
| John Winthrop | The Massachusetts governor who defined liberty in two ways - Natural and Moral |
| Pilgrims | Puritan separatists who broke complete with the Church of England and sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower, founding Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod in 1620 |
| Mayflower Compact | Document signed in 1620 aboard the Mayflower before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth; the document committed the group to majority rule government |
| Great Migration | Large-scale migration of southern blacks during and after World War I to the North, where jobs had become available during the labor shortage of the war years |
| Dissenters | Protestants who belonged to denominations outside of the established Anglican Church |
| Captivity Narratives | Accounts written by colonists after their time in Indian Captivity, often stressing the captive's religious convictions |
| Pequot war | An armed conflict in 1637 that led to the destruction of one off New England's most powerful Indian groups |
| Half-way Covenant | A 1662 religious compromise that allowed baptism and partial church membership to colonial New Englanders whose parents were not among the Puritan elect. |
| English Liberty | The idea that English people were entitled to certain liberties, including trial by jury, habeus corpus, and the right to face one's accuser in court. These rights meant that even the English king was subject to the rule of law. |
| Act Concerning Religion (Maryland Toleration Act) | 1649 law that grated free exercise of religion to all Christian denominations in colonial Maryland |
| 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 |
| Writs of Assistance | One of the colonies' main complaints against Britain; the writs allowed unlimited search warrants without cause to look for evidence of smuggling |
| Sugar Act | 1764 decision by Parliament to tax refined sugar and many other colonial products |
| Committee of Correspondence | Group organized by Samuel Adams in retaliation for the Gaspee incident to address the American grievances, assert American rights and form a network of rebellion |
| Sons of Liberty | Organizations formed by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radicals in response to the Stamp At |
| Regulators | Groups of backcountry Carolina settlers who protested colonial policies |
| Townshend Acts | 1767 parliamentary measures that taxed tea and other commodities and established a Board of Customs Commissioners and Colonial vice admiralty courts |
| Boston Massacre | Clash between British soldiers and Boston mob, March 5, 1770, in which five colonists were killed |
| Crispus Attuks | During the Boston Massacre, the individual who was supposedly at the head of the crowd of hecklers and who baited the British troops. He was killed when the British troops fired on the crownd |
| Boston Tea Party | The incident in 1773 in which the sons of liberty dressed as Indians and dumped hundreds of chests of ea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea act of 1773. Under the Tea Act. the British exported to the colonies millions of pounds of cheap, but taxed tea |
| Intolerable Acts | 4 parliamentary measures in reaction ot 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 2nd continental congress (1775-89) |
| Battle of Lexington and Concord | The first shots fired in the Revolutionary war on April 1775, near Boston; approximately 100 minutemen and 250 British soldiers were killed |
| Battle of Bunker Hill | First major battle of the Revolutionary War; it actually took place at nearby Breed's Hill, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1775 |
| Continental Army | Army authorized by the Continental Congress in 1775 to fight the British; commanded by General George Washington |
| Lord Dunmore's proclamation | A proclamation issued in 1775 by the early Dunmore, the British hat offered freedom to any slave who fought for the king against the rebelling colonist |
| Common Sense | A pamphlet anonymously written by Thomas Paine in January 1776 that attacked the English principles of hereditary rule and monarchial government |
| Declaration of Independence | Document adopted on July 4, 1776, that made the break with Britain official; drafted by a committee of the Second continental congress, including principal writer Thomas Jefferson |
| Hessians | German soldiers most from Hesse-Cassel principality paid to fight for the British in the Revolutionary War |
| Battle of Saratoga | Battle of Major defeat of British general John Burgoyne and more than 5000 British troops at Saratoga, New York |
| Benedict Arnold | A traitorous American commander who planned to sell out the American garrison at West Point |
| Battle of Yorktown | Last battle of Revolutionary War, General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17, 1781 |
| 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 United states, fixed the western border at the Mississippi River and ceded Florida to Spain |
| Articles of Confederation | First frame of government for th 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-gov for the West. First Congress would govern a territory entering as a state |
| Ordinance of 1785 | A law that regulated and sales in the Old Northwest. The land surveyed was divided into 640-acre plots and sold at 1$ per acre |
| Northwest Ordinance of 1787 | Law that created the Northwest Territory, established conditions for self-government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery |
| Empire of liberty | The idea, expressed by Jefferson, that the United States would no rule its new territories as colonies, but rather would eventually admit them as full member states |
| Shay's rebellion | An attempt by Massachusetts farmer, Daniel Shays, and 1200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through the issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, to prevent courts from seizing property from indebted farmers |
| Constitutional Convention | Meeting in Philadelphia in 1787 of representative from 12 colonies (no RI) to revise the existing Articles and soon resolved to produce the Constitution |
| Virginia Plan | planned for strong central government and a bicameral legislature apportioned by population |
| New Jersey Plan | plan for legislative body with equal representation for each state |
| federalism | A system of government in which power is divided between the central government and the states |
| division of powers | The division of political power between the state and federal governments under the constitution |
| checks and balances | A systematic balance to prevent any one branch of the national government from dominating the other two |
| separation of powers | Feature of the constitution sometimes are called checks and balances in which power is divided between executive, legislative and judicial branches of the national government so that no one can dominate the other 2 and endanger citizens' liberties |
| 3/5 clause | A provision signed into the constitution in 1787 that three fifths of the slave population would be counted in determining each states representation in the house and its electoral votes for president |
| The Federalist | Collection of eighty five essays that appeared in the NY press in 1787-88 in support of the constitution; written by Hamilton, Madison and Jay and published under the pseudonym "Publius" |
| Anti-Federalists | Opponents of the constitution who saw it as a limitation on individual and states' rights; their demands led to the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document |
| Bill of Rights | First 10 amendments to the US constitution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights against infringement by the federal government |
| Treaty of Greenville | 1795 treaty under which 12 Indian tribes ceded most of OH and IN to the federal government, and which also established the "annuity" system |
| annuity system | System of yearly payments to Native American tribes by which the federal government justified and institutionalized its interference in indian tribal affairs |
| gradual emancipation | A series of acts passed in state legislatures throughout the North in the years following the Revolution that freed slaves after they reached a certain age, following lengthy "apprenticeships" |
| Letters from an American Farmer | 1782 book by Hector St. John de Creveoeur that popularized the notion that the united states was a melting pot while the excluding people of color from the process of assimilation |
| Open immigration | American immigration laws under which nearly all white people could immigrate to the United States and become naturalized citizen |
| Notes on the State of Virginia | Jefferson's 1785 book that claimed, among other things, that black people were incapable of becoming citizens and living in harmony alongside white people due to the legacy of slavery. |
| the Dorr war | A movement in RI against property qualifications for voting, The movement formed an extra legal constitutional convention for the state and elected Thomas Dorr as a governor, but was quashed by federal troops dispatched by President John Tyler. |
| Democracy in America | Two works published in 1835 and 1840, by the French thinker Aleis de Tocqueville on the subject of American democracy - he stressed the cultural nature of American democracy, and the importance and prevalence of equality in the American life |
| Franchise | the right to vote |
| American System | Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by speaker of he house henry clay in his presidential campaign of 1824: his proposals formed by the core of whig ideology in the 1830 and 1840s |
| Tariff of 1816 | First true protective tariff intended to protect certain American goods against foreign competition |
| Panic of 1819 | Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports and reckless western land speculation |
| McCulloch v. Maryland | 1819 us supreme court decision where government said that Maryland could not tax the branch of the second national blank in Maryland because it supported the authority of the federal government versus the states |
| Era of Good Feelings | Contemporary characterization of the administration of popular republican president James Monroe 1817-1825 |
| 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 not allowed LA terr. north MO |
| Monroe Doctrine | President Monroe's declaration to congress in 1823, that the American continents would thenceforce closed to European colonization, and that the US would not interfere in European affairs |
| Spoils System | The term meaning the filling of Federal government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the president; originated in Andrew Jackson's first term |
| Tariff of Abominations | Tariff passed in 1828 by parliament that taxed imported goods at a very high rate; aroused strong opposition in the south |
| Exposition and Protest | Document written in 1828 by VP Calhoun of south Carolina to protest the Tariff of Abominations, which seemed to favor northern industry; introduced the concept of state interposition and became the basis for South Carolina's Nullification Doctrine of 1833 |
| Webster-Hayne debate | US senate debate of Jan 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullification and states' rights |
| nullification crisis | the 1832 attempt by the state of SC to nullify, or invalidate within its orders the 1832 federal tariff law. President Jackson responded with the Force Act of 1833 |
| Force Act | 1833 legislation, sparked by the nullification crisis in South Carolina, that authorized the president's use of the army to compel states to comply with federal law |
| Indian Removal Act | 1830 law signed by president Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain Indians lands in exchange for their relocation to what is now Oklahoma |
| Worester v. Georgia | 1832 supreme court case that held that the indian nations were distinct peoples who could not be dealt with by the states - instead, only the federal government could negotiate with them. President Jackson refused to enforce the ruling |
| Trail of Tears | Cherokees' own term for their forced removal, 1838-39, fro the southeast to indian lands (later Oklahoma); of 15,000 forced to march, 4000 died on the way |
| Bank War | Political struggle in the 1830s between president Jackson and financier Nicholas Biddle over the renewing of the second bank's charter |
| soft money | paper currency issue by banks |
| pet banks | Local banks that received deposits while the charter of the Bank of the US was about to expire in 1836. The choice of these banks was influenced by political and personal connections |
| Panic of 1837 | Beginning of major economic depression lasting about 6 years; touched off by a british financial crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and currency problems and speculation in land, railroads and canals |
| the "peculiar institution" | A phrase used by whites in the antebellum South to refer to slavery without using the word slavery |
| 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 the 1820s and 1860s |
| "Cotton is King" | Phrase from Senator James Henry Hammond's speech extolling the virtues of cotton, and, implicitly, the slave system of production that led to the bounty of the south. It became a shorthand for Southern economic and political power |
| Paternalism | A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century that claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own good. Such a rationalization was adopted by some slaveowners to justify slavery |
| Proslavery Argument | The series of arguments defending slavery in the south as a positive good, not a necessary evil. the arguments included the racist belief that black people were inherently inferior and slavery made freedom possible for whites. Also used biblical citations |
| Fugitive Slaves | Slaves who escaped from their owners |
| Underground Railroad | Operating in the decades before the civil war, a clandestine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the north |
| Harriet Tubman | Abolitionist who was born a slave, escaped to the north, and then returned to the south nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom |
| The Amistad | Ship that transported slaves from one port in Cuba to another , seized by the slaves in 1839. They made their way northward to the US, where the status of the slaves became the subject of the celebrated court case; most were able to return to Africa |
| Denmark Vesey's Conspiracy | An 1822 failed slave uprising in Charleston South Carolina, purported to have been led by Denmark Vesey, a free black man |
| Nat Turner's Rebellion | Most important slave uprising in nineteenth century America, led by a slave preacher who, with his followers, killed about 60 white persons in VA in 1831 |
| Utopian communities | Ideal communities that offered innovative social and economic relationships to those who were interested in achieving salvation |
| Shakers | Religious sect founded by mother Ann Lee in England. The united society of believers in Christ's second appearing settled in Waterivet, New York, in 1774, and subsequently established eighteen additional communes in the Northeast Indiana and Kentucky |
| Oneida | Utopian community founded in 11848; the perfectionist religious group practiced "complex marriage" under leader John Humphrey Noyes |
| Brook Farm | Transcendentalist commune in MA populated from 1841-47 principally by writers and intellectuals (like Nathaniel Hawthorne) |
| communitarianism | Social reform movement of the nineteenth century driven by the belief that by establishing small communities based on common ownership of property a less competitive and individualistic society could be developed |
| New Harmony | Community founded in IN by British industrialist Robert Owen in 1825; the short-lived New Harmony Community of Equality was one of the few nineteenth century communal experiments not based on religious ideology |
| Perfectionism | The idea that social ills once are considered incurable could in fact be eliminated, popularized by the religious revivalism of the 19th century |
| temperance movement | A widespread reform movement led by militant Christians focused on reducing the use of alcoholic beverages |
| common school | Tax-supported state schools of the early nineteenth century open to all children |
| American Colonization Society | Organized in 1816 to encourage colonization of free blacks to Africa; West African nation of Liberia founded in 1822 to serve as a homeland for them |
| American Anti-Slavery Society | Founded in 1833, the organization that sought an immediate end of slavery and establishment of equality for blacks. Split in 1840 after disputes about the role of women within the organization and other issues |
| moral suasion | The abolitionist strategy that sought to end slavery by persuading both slaveowners and complicit northerners that the institution thought was evil |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 antislavery novel that popularized the abolitionist position |
| "gentlemen of property and good standing" | Well-to-do merchants who often had commercial ties to the south and resisted abolitionism, occasionally inciting violence against its adherents |
| gag rule | Rule adopted by House in 1836 prohibiting consideration of abolitionist petitions; opposition, led by John Quincy Adams, succeeded in having it repealed in 1844 |
| Dorothea Dix | An important figure in increasing the public's awareness of the plight of the mentally ill. After a two-year investigation of the treatment of the mentally ill in Massachusetts, she presented her findings and got support of reformers. |
| Woman Suffrage | Movement to give women the right to vote through a constitutional amendment, spearheaded by Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's National Woman Suffrage Association |
| Feminism | Term that entered the lexicon in the early 20th century to describe the movement for full equality for women, in political, social and personal life |
| Liberty Party | Abolitionist political party that nominated James G Birney for president in 1840 and 1844; merged with the Free Soil Party in 1848 |
| Tejanos | Texas settlers of Spanish or Mexican descent |
| Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna | Mexican military leader who became a dictator. In 1835 Texans rebelled against him and he led his army to TX to crush them He captured the missionary called the Alamo and killed all its defenders, inspiring them. signed treaty for TX independence |
| the Texas Revolt | the 1830s rebellion of presidents of the territory of Texas - many of them Americans emigrants - against Mexican control of the region |
| Mexican War | Controversial war with Mexico for control of CA and NM 1846-48; the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo fixed the border at the Rio Grande and extended the US to the Pacific coast annexing more than a half million square miles of Mexican territory |
| Gadsden Purchase | 30000 sq mi in present-day Arizona and New Mexico bought by congress from mexico in 1853 primarily for the southern pacific railroad's transcontinental route |
| gold rush | The massive migration of Americans into CA territory in the late 1840s and 1850s in pursuit of gold, which was discovered in 1848 |
| Commodore Matthew Perry | US Naval officer who negotiated the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. That treaty was the first step in starting a political and commercial relationship between the US and Japan |
| Wilmot Proviso | Proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican war; defeated by southern senators led by Calhoun in 1846 and 1847 |
| Free soil party | Political organization formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848. By 1854 most of the party's member had joined the Republican party |
| 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 |
| Fugitive Slave Act | 1850 law that gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; aroused considerable opposition in the north |
| popular sovereignty | Program that allowed settlers in disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves; most closely associated with Stephen A Douglas |
| Kansas Nebraska act | 1854 law sponsored by Illinois senator Stephen A Douglas to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over bringing back MO compromise and made republican party |
| Know Nothing Party | Nativist, anticatholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to large-scale german and irish immigration; the party's only presidential candidate and Millard Fillmore in 1856 |
| the Slave Power | The republican and abolitionist term for proslavery dominance of southern and national government |
| "Bleeding Kansas" | Violence between pro- and antislavery settlers in the Kansas territory, 1856 |
| Dred Scott v. Sandford | SCOTUS decision where slavery was prohibited in territories on the grounds that such a prohibition who would violate the 5th amendment rights of slaveholders, and that no black person could be citizen of the US |
| Lincoln-Douglas Debates | Series of senatorial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slaver in territories; held in Illinois between republican Abraham Lincoln who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic Stephen Douglas who managed to keep seat |
| Harpers Ferry, Virginia | Site of abolitionist John Brown's failed raid on the federal arsenal, October 16-17, 1859; Brown became a martyr to his cause after his capture and execution |
| Fort Sumter | First battle of the civil war in which the federal fort in Charleston, south Carolina harbor was captured by the Confederates after 2 days of shelling |
| hard money | gold and silver currency, also called specie |
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