Term | Definition |
Manifest Destiny | The belief that the U.S. was destined to spread from coast to coast in North America. |
Louisiana Purchase | France sold Louisiana Territory for $15 million (3 cents/acre) Because of a slave revolt by Toussaint Louverture, Napoleon wanted to sell French lands in North America. |
Monroe Doctrine | Declared by President James Monroe(1823) Told European powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere and stated that the U.S. would protect Latin America from European colonization |
Indian Removal Act | Under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed this law in 1830. It ordered the relocation of all Native tribes east of the Mississippi river |
Trail of Tears | Forced relocation of Native Americans who had refused to voluntarily move to “Indian Territory” (1838-1839). 16,00 Cherokee were relocated (4,00 died on the trial) |
Underground Railroad | Abolitionists who helped slaves flee north (Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave, helped) |
Fugitive Slave Act | All Americans were required to return runaway slaves. Many Northerners disobeyed this law |
Frederick Douglass | Escaped slavery, then wrote and spoke for Abolition. |
John Brown’s Raid | At Harper’s Ferry (1859): a failed attempt to get weapons to kill slave owners; many Northerners saw him as a martyr, most Southerners saw him as a terrorist. |
Martyr | A person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs. |
Emancipation Proclamation | An executive order issued on January 1, 1863, by President Lincoln freeing slaves in all portions of the United States not then under Union control (that is, within the Confederacy). |
Clara Barton | A pioneering nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She worked as a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, and as a teacher and patent clerk. |
13th Amendment | Abolished “involuntary servitude” (slavery) in the U.S. |
14th Amendment | Former slaves were granted citizenship |
15th Amendment | “The right to VOTE shall not be denied because of race, color, or former slavery” |
Freedmen’s Bureau | Established to help former slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. |
Grandfather Clause | A provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. |
Jim Crow laws | Written and unspoken “laws” that reinforced racism in the South. Examples: Poll taxes, literacy tests to vote, racial segregation, banned mixed-race marriage (miscegenation) |
KKK | The Ku Klux Klan a secret society that terrorized Blacks and other groups that fought to stop Reconstruction. Ex. Voter intimidation, lynching, and attacks on whites who tried to help blacks. |
Black Codes | Laws that kept former slaves from becoming equal citizens. Ex. Blacks could not hold meeting unless whites were present, could not travel without a permit, own guns, or sit on juries, and Segregation of society |
sharecroppers | A system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced. |