Chapter 1: The Collision of Cultures in the 16th Century
1. Explain why there were so many diverse human societies in the Americas before Europeans arrived.
Asian hunter-gatherers came across the Bering Strait by food and settled the length and breadth of the Americas, forming groups with diverse cultures, languages, and customs. Global warming enabled an agricultural revolution, particularly the growing of maize, that allowed former hunter-gatherer peoples to settle and build empires, such as that of the Mexica, whose Aztec Empire included many subjugated peoples and a vast system of trade and tribute. Some North American peoples developed an elaborate continental trading network and impressive cities like Cuhokia; their burial mounds reveal a complex social organization. The Eastern Woodlands peoples that the Europeans would first encounter included both patriarchal and matriarchal societies as well as extensive language-based alliances. The Algonquian, Iroquian, and Muskogean were among the major Indian nations. Warfare was an important cultural component, leading to shifting rivalries and alliances among indigenous communities and with European settlers.
2. Summarize the major developments in Europe that enabled the Age of Exploration.
By the 1490s, Europeans were experiencing a renewed curiosity about the world. Warfare, plagues, and famine undermined the old agricultural feudal system in Europe, and in its place arose a middle class that monarchs could tax. Powerful new nations replaced the land estates and cities ruled by princes. A revival of interest in antiquity led to the development of modern science and the creation of better maps and navigation techniques, as well as new weapons and ships. Navies became the critical component of global trade and world power. When the Spanish began to colonize the New World, the conversion of Indians to Roman Catholicism was important, but the search for gold and silver was primary. The national rivalries sparked by the Protestant Reformation in Europe shaped the course of conquest in the Americas.
3. Describe how the Spanish were able to conquer and colonize the Americas.
Spanish conquistadors such as Hernan Cortes used their advantages in military technology, including steel, gunpowder, and domestical animals such as horses, in order to conquer the powerful Aztec and Inca Empires. European diseases, first introduced by Columbus's voyages, did even more to ensure Spanish victories. The Spanish encomienda system demanded goods and labor from the indigenous peoples. As the Indian population declined, the Spanish began to import enslaved Africans.
4. Assess the impact of the Columbian Exchange between the "Old" and "New" Worlds.
Contact between the Old World and the New World resulted in a great biological exchange, sometimes called the Columbian Exchange. Crops such as maize, beans, and potatoes became staples in the Old World. Native peoples incorporated into their culture such Eurasian animals as the horse and pig. But the invaders also carried infectious diseases that set off pandemics of smallpox, plague, and other illnesses to which Indians had no immunity. The Americas were depopulated and cultures destroyed.
5. Analyze the legacy of the Spanish form of colonization on North American history.
Spain left a lasting legacy in the borderlands from California to Florida. Catholic missionaries contributed to the destruction of the old ways of life by exterminating "heathen" beliefs in the Southwest, a practice that led to open rebellion in New Mexico in 1598 and 1680. Spain's rival European nation-states began competing for gold and glory in the New World. England's defeat of the Spanish Armada cleared the path for English dominance in North America.
Chapter 2: England and Its American Colonies, 1607-1732
1. Identify the economic, religious, and political motivations for the establishment of England's diverse American colonies.
England's colonization of North America differed from that of its European rivals and reflected its unique traditions and developments in the seventeenth century. While chartered by the Crown, English colonization was funded by joint-stock companies or groups of proprietors eager for profits derived from the productive activity of English settlers. Their colonial organization and governments reflected the government model of a two-house Parliament and long-held English views on civil liberties and representative institutions. The colonization of the eastern seaboard of North America occurred at a time of religious and political turmoil in England, strongly affecting colonial culture and development.
2. Describe the political, economic, social, and religious characteristics of English colonies in the Chesapeake region, the Carolinas, the Middle Colonies, and New England prior to 1700.
The early years of Jamestown and Plymouth were grim. The Virginia Company used the headright system of granting fifty acres to any Englishman who bought passage, and in time tobacco flourished but this success also laid down roots for a slave-based economy in the South. Sugar, and later rice, plantations developed in the propritay Carolina colonies, which operated with minimal royal intrusion. Family farms and a mixed economy characterized the middle and New England colonies. Religion was the promary motivation for the founding of several colonies. Puritans drafted the Mayflower Compact and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a Christian commonwealth outside the structure of the English government and the Anglican Church. Rhode Island was established by Roger Williams, a religious dissenter from Massachusetts. Maryland was founded as a refuge for English Catholics. William Penn, a Quaker, founded Pennsylvania and invited Europe's persecuted religious sects to his colony. The Dutch, with their policy of toleration, allowd members of all faiths to settle in New Netherland, but commercial rivalry beteeen the Dutch and the English led to war, during which the Dutch colony of New Netherland surrendered to the English in 1664.
3. Analyze the ways by which English colonies and Native Americans adapted to each other's presence.
Settler-Indian relations were complex. Trade with the Powhatan Confederacy in Virginia enabled Jamestown to survive its early years, but brutal armed conflicts such as Bacon's Rebellion occurred as settlers invaded Indian lands. Puritans retaliated harshly against Indian resistance in the Pequot War of 1637 and in King Philip's War from 1675 to 1676. Among the chief colonial leaders, only Roger Williams and William Penn treated Indians as equals. The powerful Iroquois League played the European powers against each other to control territories from Tennessee into Canada.
4. Analyze the role of indentured servants and the development of slavery in colonial America.
The colonies increasingly relied on indentured servants for their labor supply. European immigrants looking for a better life could pay for passage to America by signing contracts (indentures) that required them to work for several years upon arriving in America. By the end of the seventeenth century, enslaved Africans had replaced indentured servants as the primary form of labor to produce tobacco in the Chesapeake. The demand for slaves in the sugar plantations of the West Indies drove European slave traders to organize the transport of Africans via the dreaded Middle Passage across the Atlantic. With the supply of slaves seeming inexhaustible, the Carolinas soon adopted African slavery to cultivate rice. African cultures fused with others in the Americas to create a native-born African American culture.
5. Explain how the English colonies became the most populous, prosperous, and powerful region in North America by 1700.
By 1700, England had become a great trading empire. English America was the most populous and prosperous region of North America. Minimal royal interference in proprietary for-profit colonies and widespread land ownership encouraged settlers to put down roots for a sustainable future. Religious diversity attracted a wide variety of investors. By relying increasingly on slave labor, the southern colonies provided England with tobacco and other plantation crops.
Chapter 3: Colonial Ways of Life, 1607-1750
1. Explain the major factors that contributed to the demographic changes that took place in the English colonies during the eighteenth century.
Cheap land lured most poor immigrants to America, and the initial shortage of women eventually gave way to a more equal gender ratio and a tendency to earlier marriage than in Europe, leading to higher birth rates and larger families. People also lived longer on average in the colonies than in Europe. The lower death rates led to rapid population growth in the colonies.
2. Describe women's various roles in the English colonies.
English colonists brought their traditional beliefs and prejudices with them to America, including convictions about the inferiority of women. Colonial women remained largely confined to women's work in the house, yard, and field. Over time, though, necessity created new opportunities for women outside their traditional roles.
3. Compare the societies and economies of the southern, middle, and New England colonies.
A thriving colonial trading economy sent raw materials such as fish, timber, and furs to England in return for manufactured goods. The expanding economy created new wealth and a rise in the consumption of European goods, and it fostered the expansion of slavery. Agriculture diversified: tobacco was the staple crop in Virginia, rice in the Carolinas. Plantation agriculture based on slavery became entrenched in the South. New England's prosperous shipping industry created a profitable triangular trade among Africa, America, and England. By 1790, German, Scots-Irish, Welsh, and Irish immigrants and other European ethnic groups had settled in the middle colonies, along with members of religious groups such as Quakers, Jews, Hugenots, and Mennonites.
4. Describe the creation of race-based slavery during the seventeenth century and its impact on the social and economic development of colonial America.
Deep-rooted color prejudice led to race-based slavery. Africans were considered "heathens" whose supposed inferiority entitled white Americans to use them for slaves. Diverse Africans brought skills from Africa to build America's economy. The use of African slaves was concentrated in the South, where landowners used them to produce lucrative staple crops, such as tobacco, rice, and indigo, but slaves lived in cities, too, especially New York. As the population of slaves increased, race relations grew more tense, and slave codes were created to regulate the movement and activities of enslaved people. Sporadic slave uprisings, such as the Stono Rebellion, occurred in both the North and the South.
5. Analyze the impact of the Enlightenment and Great Awakening on American thought.
Printing presses, higher education, and city life created a flow of ideas that circulated via long-distance travel, tavern life, the postal service, books, and newspapers. The attitudes of the Enlightenment were transported along international trade routes. Sir Isaac Newton's scientific discoveries culminated in the belief that reason could improve society. Benjamin Franklin, who believed that people could shape their own destinies, became the face of the Enlightenment in America. Deism expressed the religious views of the Age of Reason. By contrast, during the 1730s, a revival of faith, the Great Awakening, swept through the coloniesg. New congregations formed as evangelists insisted that Christians be "reborn." Individualism, not orthodoxy, was stressed in this first popular religious movement in America's history.
Chapter 4: From Colonies to States, 1607-1776
1. Compare how the British and French empires administered their colonies before 1763.
New France followed the model of absolute power in governing its far-flung trading outposts. Few French colonists settled in the vast geography of Canada and the Louisiana territory, but friendships with Native Americans and a profitable fur trade kept the balance of power in North America. On the other hand, the British policy of salutary neglect allowed the British colonies a large degree of self-government, until the British government's decision to rigidly enforce its policy of mercantilism, as seen in such measures as the Navigation Acts, became a means for the British to enrich its global empire. The Glorious Revolution in Great Britain inspired new political philosophies that challenged the divine right of kings with the natural rights of free men.
2. Analyze the effects of the French and Indian War and how the war changed relations among the European powers in North America.
Four European wars affected America between 1689 and 1763 as the British and the French, joined by their allies, fought each other throughout the world. Worried colonies joined together to create the Albany Plan of Union, which was ultimately rejected but formed an early blueprint for an independent American government. The Seven Years' War (1754-1763), known as the French and Indian War in the American colonies, was the first world war, eventually won by the British. In the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France lost all its North American possessions, Britain gained Canada and Florida, and Spain acquired the vast Lousiana territory. With the war's end, Native Americans were no longer regarded as essential allies and so had no recourse when settlers squatted on their lands. They fought to regain control in Pontiac's Rebellion, and Great Britain, weary of war, negotiated peace in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. But land-hungry settlers ignored the Proclamation Line intended to protect Indian lands. The 1763 Treaty of Paris also set the stage for conflict between the mother country and the American colonies as Britain tried to make the colonies pay for their own defense.
3. Describe how, after the French and Indian War in the 1760s, the British tried to strengthen their control over the colonies and then shummarize the colonial responses.
After the French and Indian War, the British government was saddled with an enormous national debt. To reduce that burden, George Grenville's colonial policy tried to implement various taxes to compel colonists to pay for their own defense. Colonists resisted, claiming that they could not be taxed by Parliament because they were not represented in Parliament. Colonial reaction to the Stamp Act of 1765 was the first sign of real trouble for British authorities. Conflicts between Whigs and Tories intensified when the Townshend Acts imposed additional taxes. The Sons of Liberty and the Daughters of Liberty mobilized resistance, particularly through nonimportation agreements. The boycotts of British goods were successful, helping convince Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act.
4. Explain the underlying factors amid the events in the 1770s that led the colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain.
But the crisis worsened. Spontaneous resistance led to the Boston Massacre; organized protestors later staged the Boston Tea Party. The British response, called the Coercive Acts, sparked further violence between Patriots and Loyalists. The First Continental Congress formed Committees of Correspondence to organize and spread resistance. Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense helped kindle revolutionary fervor as well as plant the seed of independence, and conflicts over trade regulations, taxes, expansion now erupted into war. In the heat of battle, compromise became less likely, and finally impossible, and the Continental Congress delivered its Declaration of Independence.
Chapter 5: The American Revolution, 1776-1783
1. Explain the challenges faced by both British and American military leaders in fighting the Revolutionary War.
In 1776 the British had the mightiest army and navy in the world. The Americans had to create an army--the Continental army--and sustain it. To defeat the British, George Washington realized that the Americans had to turn unreliable citizen-soldiers ionto a disciplined fighting force. He decided to wage a long, costly war, wagering that the British army was fighting thousands of miles from its home base and would eventually give up in order to cut its losses.
2. Identify key turning points in the Revolutionary War, and explain how they changed the direction of the war.
The French were likely allies for the colonies from the beginning of the conflict because they resented their losses to Britain in the Seven Years' War. After the British defeat at the Battles of Saratoga the first major turning point, France agreed to fight with the colonies until independence was won. Washington's ability to hold his ragged forces together despite daily desertions and two especially difficult winters in Morristown and Valley Forge, the second and third major turning points. The British lost support on the frontier and in their southern colonies when terrorist tactics backfired. The Battle of King's Mountain drove the British into retreat, and the alliance with France meant that French supplies and the French fleet would tip the balance and ensure the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown, which were the final turning points.
3. Describe the ways in which the American Revolution was also a civil war.
The American Revolution was also a civil war, dividing families and communities. There were at least 100,000 Loyalists in the colonies. They included royal officials, Anglican ministers, wealthy southern planters, and the elite in large seaport cities; they also included many humble people, especially recent immigrants. After the hostilities ended, many Loyalists, including slaves who had fled their plantations to support the British cause, left for Canada, the West Indies, or Great Britain.
4. Examine how the Revolutionary War was an "engine" for political and social change.
The American Revolution disrupted and transformed traditional class and social relationships. American revolutionaries embraced a Republican ideology in contrast to a monarchy, and more white men gained the right to vote as property requirements were removed. But fears of a monarchy being re-established led colonists to vest power in the states rather than a powerful national government under the Articles of Confederation. The states wrote new state constitutions that instituted more elected positions. Most included bills of rights that promoted individual liberties. The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom led the way in guaranteeing the separation of church and state, and religious toleration was transformed into religious freedom for all, including Roman Catholics and Jews.
5. Compare the impact of the Revolutionary War on African Americans, women, and Native Americans.
Northern states began to free slaves after the Revolutionary War, but southern states refused to do so. Although many women had undertaken nontraditional roles during the war, afterward they remained largely confined to the domestic sphere, with no changes to their legal or political status. The Revolution had catastrophics on Native Americans, regardless of which side they had embraced during the war. During and after the Revolution, American settlers seized Native American land, often in violation of existing treaties.
Chapter 6: Creating a "More Perfect Union", 1783-1800
1. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and explain how they contributed to the creation of a new U.S. Constution in 1787.
Despite the weak form of government organized under the Articles of Confederation, the Confederation government managed to construct important alliances during the Revolutionary War, help with the War of Independence, and negotiate the Treaty of Paris (1783). It created executive departments and established through the Northwest Ordinance the process by which new western territories would be organized and governments formed before they applied for statehood. Postwar economic conditions were difficult because British markets were closed to American trade and the Articles of Confederation did not allow the national government to raise taxes to fund its debts. Shay's Rebellion made many Americans fear that such uprisings would eventually destroy the new republic unless the United States formed a stronger national government.
2. Describe the political innovations that the 1787 Constitutional Convention developed for the new nation.
Delegates gathered at the convention in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the existing government, but almost immediately they decided to scrap the Articles of Confederation and start over. An entirely new document emerged, which created a system called federalism in which a strong national government with clear separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial branches functioned alongside state governments with clearly designated responsibilities. Arguments about how best to ensure that the rights of individual states were protected and also that "the people" were represented in the new Congress were resolved by establishing a Senate, with equal representation for each state, and a House of Representatives, the number of whose delegates was determined by population counts.
3. Summarize the major debates surrounding the ratification of the Constitution and how they were resolved.
Ratification of the Constitution was hotly contested. Anti-Federalists such as Virginia's Patrick Henry opposed the new structure of government because of the absence of a bill of rights would lead to a loss of individual and states' rights. To sway New York State toward ratification, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers. Ratification became possible only when Federalists promised to add a bill of rights.
4. Compare the Federalists' vision for the United States with that of their Republican opponents during the 1790s.
Strengthening the economy was the highest priority of the Washington administration, Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists wanted to create a diverse economy in which agriculture was balanced by trade, finance, and manufacturing. Hamilton crafted a federal budget that funded the national debt through tariff and tax revenues, and he created a national bank, the first Bank of the United States. Thomas Jefferson and others, known as Republicans worried that Hamilton's plans violated the Constitution and made the federal government too powerful. They envisioned a nation dominated by farmers and planters where the rights of states would be protected against federal power.
5. Explain how attitudes toward Great Britain and France shaped American politics in the late eighteenth century.
With the outbreak of war throughout much of Europe during the French Revolution, George Washington's policy of neutrality violated the terms of the 1778 treaty with France. At the same time, Americans sharply criticized Jay's Treaty with the British for giving too much away. French warships began seizing British and American ships and an undeclared war was underway. Federalists supported Washington's approach, whereas Republicans were more supportive of France. During the presidency of John Adams, the United States fought an undeclared naval war with the French, which led to the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Chapter 7: The Early Republic, 1800-1815
1. Summarize the major domestic political developments that took place during Thomas Jefferson's administration.
The Jeffersonian Republicans did not dismantle much of Hamilton's Federalist economic program, but they did repeal the whiskey tax, cut back on government expenditures, and promoted what was called republican simplicity whereby they championed the virtues of smaller government and plain living. While Republicans idealized the agricultural world that had existed prior to 1800, the first decades of the 1800s were a period of explosive economic and population growth in the United States, transforming the nation. Large-scale commercial agriculture and exports to Europe flourished; Americans moved west in huge numbers. The Louisiana Purchase, which resulted from negotiations with French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte following French setbacks in Haiti, their colony in the Caribbean, dramatically expanded the boundaries of the United States. Jefferson's Lewis and Clark Expedition explored the new region and published reports that excited interest in the Far West. In Marbury vs. Madison (1803), the Federalist chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, declared a federal act unconstitutional for the first time. With that decision, the Court assumed the right of judicial review over acts of Congress and established the constitutional supremacy of the federal government over state governments.
2. Describe how foreign events impacted the United States during the Jefferson and Madison administrations.
Thomas Jefferson sent warships to subdue the Barbary pirates and negotiated with the Spanish and French to ensure that the Mississippi River remained open to American commerce. Renewal of war between Britain and France in 1803 complicated matters for American commerce with Europe. Neither country wanted its enemy to purchase U.S. goods, so both declared blockades of each other's ports. In retaliation, Jefferson convinced Congress at the end of 1807 to pass the Embargo Act, which prohibited all foreign trade.
3. Explain the primary causes of the American decision to declare war on Great Britain in 1812.
Renewal of war between Britain and France in 1803 complicated matters for American commerce with Europe. Neither country wanted its enemy to purchase U.S. goods, so both declared blockades of each other's ports. In retaliation, Jefferson convinced Congress at the end of 1807 to pass the Embargo Act, which prohibited all foreign trade. James Madison ultimately declared war over the issue of neutral shipping rights and the fear that the British were inciting Native Americans to attack frontier settlements.
4. Analyze the most significant outcomes of the War of 1812 on the United States.
The Treaty of Ghent (1814) ended the war by essentially declaring it a draw. A smashing American victory in January 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans occurred before news of the peace treaty had reached the continent, but the lopsided American triumph helped to ensure that the treaty would be ratified and enforced. One effect of the conflict over neutral shipping rights was to establish the economic independence of the United States, as goods previously purchased from Great Britain were now manufactured at home. During and after the war, Federalists and Republicans seemed to exchange roles: delegates from the waning Federalist party met at the Hartford Convention (1815) to defend states' rights and threaten secession, while Republicans now promoted nationalism and a broad interpretation of the Constitution.
Chapter 8: The Emergence of a Market Economy, 1815-1850
1. Describe how changes in transportation and communications altered the economic landscape during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Canals and other improvements in transportation such as the steamboat that could be used on the nation's rivers and lakes allowed goods to reach markets more quickly and cheaply, helping to create a national market economy in which people bought and sold goods at larger distances. Clipper ships shortened the amount of time to transport goods across the oceans. The railroads (which expanded rapidly during the 1850s) and the telegraph system diminished the isolation of the West and united the country economically and socially. The Erie Canal (1817) contributed to New York City's emerging status as the nation's economic center even as it spurred the growth of Chicago and other midwestern cities. Improvements in transportation and communication linked rural communities to a worldwide marketplace.
2. Explain the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the way people worked and lived.
Inventions in machine tools and technology spurred an Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century. The cotton gin dramatically increased cotton production, and a rapidly spreading cotton culture boomed in the South, with a resultant increase in slavery. Other inventions such as John Deere's steel plow and the mechanized McCormick reaper, helped Americans, especially westerners, farm their land more efficiently and more profitably. In the North, mills and factories, at first water powered and eventually powered by coal-fired steam engines, spread rapidly. They initially produced textiles for clothing and bedding from southern cotton, as well as iron, shoes, and other products. The federal government's tariff policy encouraged the growth of domestic manufacturing, especially cotton textiles, by reducing imports of British cloth. Between 1820 and 1840, the number of Americans engaged in manufacturing increased 800 percent. Many mill workers, such as the women employed in the Lowell system of New England textile factory communities, worked long hours for low wages in unhealthy conditions. Industrialization, along with increased commerce, helped spur the growth of cities. By 1860, 16 percent of the population lived in urban areas.
3. Analyze how immigration altered the nation's population and shaped its politics.
The promise of cheap land and good wages drew millions of immigrants to America. By 1844, 14.5 percent of the population was foreign born. Many of those who arrived in the 1840s came not just from the Protestant regions of Northern Europe that had supploed most of America's previous immigrants. The devastating potato famine led to an influx of poor Irish Catholic families. By the 1850s, they represented a significant portion of the urban popul;ation in the United States, constituting a majority in New York and Boston. German migrants, many of them Catholics and Jews, migrated to the country at the same time. Not all native-born Americans welcomed the immigrants. Nativists became a powerful political force in the 1850s, with the Know-Nothing party nearly achieving major-party status with its message of excluding immigrants and Catholics from the nation's political community.
4. Evaluate the impact of the expanding capitalist "market economy" on workers, professionals, and women.
Skilled workers (artisans) in American cities had long formed trade associations to protect their members and to lobby for their interests. As the Industrial Revolution spread, some workers expanded these organizations nationally, forming the National Trades' Union. The growth of the market economy also expanded opportunities for those with formal education to serve in new or expanding professions. The number of physicians, teachers, engineers, and lawyers grew rapidly. By the mid-nineteenth century, women, African Americans, and immigrants began to agitate for equal social, economic, and political opportunities.
Chapter 9: Nationalism and Sectionalism, 1815-1828
1. Analyze how the new spirit of nationalism that emerged after the War of 1812 affected economic policies and judicial decisions.
After the War of 1812, the federal government pursued many policies to strengthen the national economy. The Tariff of 1816 protected American manufacturing from foreign competition, and the Second Bank of the United States provided a stronger currency. Madison, Monroe, and Adams all promoted an active economic role for the federal government, including a national bank, a protective tariff, and federally funded internal improvements, such as roads and canals. Led by John Marshall, the Supreme Court limited the powers of states and strengthened the power of the federal government in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) and McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The Marshall court interpreted the Constitution as giving Congress the right to take any action not forbidden by the Constitution as long as the purpose of such laws was within the "scope of the Constitution." In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Marshall court protected contract rights against state action and established the federal government's supremacy over interstate commerce, thereby promoting growth of the national economy.
2. Summarize the issues and ideas that promoted sectional conflict during this era.
Henry Clay's American System supported economic nationalism by endorsing a national bank, a protective tariff, and federally funded internal improvements such as roads and canals. Many Americans, however, remained more tied to the needs of their partiular sections of the country. People in the different regions--North, South, and West--disagreed about which economic policies best served their interests. As settlers streamed west, the extension of slavery into the new territories became the predominant political concern, eventually requiring both sides to compromise repeatedly to avoid civil war.
3. Explain the emergence of the "Era of Good Feelings" and the factors that led to its demise.
James Monroe's term in office was initially labeled the Era of Good Feelings because it began with peace and prosperity. Two major events spelled the end of the Era of Good Feelings: the financial Panic of 1819 and the controversial Missouri Compromise (1820). The explosive growth of the cotton culture transformed life in the South, in part by encouraging the expansion of slavery, which moved west with Southern planters. But in 1819 the sudden collapse of world cotton prices devastated the southern economy and soon affected the national economy as well, The Missouri Compromise, a short-term solution to the issue of allowing slavery in the western territories, exposed the emotions and turmoil that the tragic system generated.
4. Identify the federal government's diplomatic accomplishments during this era, and analyze their impact.
The main diplomatic achievements of the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the coming civil war concerned the extension of America's contested boundaries and the resumption of trade with its old enemy, Great Britain. To the North, U.S. diplomatic achievements established northern borders with Great Britain. To the south, the Transcontinental Treaty (1819) with Spain extended the boundaries of the United States. The Monroe Doctrine (1823) declared that the Americas were no longer open to colonization and proclaimed American neutrality in European affairs.
5. Evaluate the influence of Andrew Jackson on national politics in the 1820s and the developments that enabled him to become president.
The demise of the Federalists ended the first party system in America, leaving the Republicans as the only political party in the nation. The seeming unity of the Republicans was shattered by the election of 1824, which Andrew Jackson lost as a result of what he believed was a "corrupt bargain" between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. Andrew Jackson won the presidency in the election of 1828 by rallying southern and western voters with his appeal to the common man. His election opened a new era in national politics that reflected the democritization of voting in most states (at least for white men) and the development of political organizations that rallied voters to particular personalities and issues.
Chapter 10: The Jacksonian Era, 1828-1840
1. Describe Andrew Jackson's major beliefs regarding the common man, the presidency, and the proper role of the government in the nation's economy.
The Jacksonians sought to democratize the political process and expand economic opportunity for the "common man" (that is, "poor and humble" white men). As the representative of "the people," he expanded the role of the president in economic matters, reducing federal government spending and eliminating the powerful Second Bank of the United States. His Bank War painted the national bank as full of "vipers and thieves" and was hugely popular, but Jackson did not understand its long-term economic consequences. In addition, his views on limited government were not always reflected in his policies. He left the high taxes on imports from the "Tariff of Abominations" (1828) in place until opposition in the South created a national crisis.
2. Evaluate Jackson's response to the nullification crisis.
The concept of nullification, developed by South Carolina's John C. Calhoun, enabled a state to disavow a federal law. When a South Carolina convention nullified the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832, Jackson requested that Congress pass a "Force Bill" (1833) authorizing the U.S. Army to compel compliance with the tariffs. After South Carolina, under the threat of federal military force, accepted a compromise tariff put forth by Henry Clay, the state convention nullified the force bill. The crisis was over, with both sides claiming victory.
3. Analyze Andrew Jackson's legacy regarding the status of Indians in American society.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the relocation of eastern Indians to federal lands west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokees used the federal court system in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia to try to block this relocation. Despite the Supreme Court's decisions in their favor, President Jackson forced them to move; the event and route they took came to be known as the Trail of Tears (1838-1839). By 1840, only a few Seminoles and Cherokees remained in remote areas of the Southeast.
4. Explain the causes of the economic depression of the late 1830s and the emergence of the Whig party.
Jackson's arrogant behavior, especially his use of the veto, led many to regard him as "King Andrew I." Groups who opposed him organized a new party, known as the Whig party, thus producing the country's two-party system. Two acts--the Distribution Act (1836) and the Specie Circular--ultimately destablized the nation's economy. Andrew Jackson's ally and vice president, Martin Van Buren, succeeded him as president, but Jacksonian bank polices led to the financial Panic of 1837 and an economic depression. Van Buren responded by establishing the Independent Treasury Act (1840) to safeguard the nation's economy but offered no help for individuals in distress. The economic calamity ensured a Whig victory in the election of 1840.
5. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of Jackson's transformational presidency.
Andrew Jackson's America was very different from the America of 1776. Most white men had gained the vote when states removed property qualifications for voting, but political equality did not mean economic equality. Democrats wanted every American to have an equal chance to compete in the marketplace and in the political arena, but they never promoted equality of results. Inequality between rich and poor widened during the Jackson Era.
Chapter 11: The South and Slavery, 1800-1860
1. Explain the various factors that made the South distinct from the rest of the United States during the early nineteenth century.
The South remained rural and agricultural in the first half of the nineteenth century as the rest of the nation embraced urban industrial development. The region's climate favored the growth of cash crops such as tobacco, rice, indigo, and, increasingly, cotton. These crops led to the spread of the plantation system of large commercial agriculture dependent on enslaved labor. The Southern planter elite sought not only to preserve slavery in the nineteenth century but also to expand it, despite growing criticism of this "peculiar institution" outside the region.
2. Discuss the role that cotton production and slavery played in the South's economic and social development.
Throughout the pre-Civil War era the South became increasingly committed to a cotton economy. Despite efforts to diversify the economy, the wealth and status associated with cotton, as well as soil exhaustion and falling prices from Virginia to Georgia, prompted the westward expansion of the plantation culture to The Old Southwest. Moreover, sons of southern planters wanted to take advantage of cheap land on the frontier in order to make their own fortunes. Slaves were worked harshly as they prepared the terrain for cotton cultivation and experienced the breakup of their families. By 1860, the cotton kingdom stretched from the Carolinas and Georgia through eastern Texas and up the Mississippi River to Illinois. More than half of all slaves worked on cotton plantations.
3. Distinguish among the major groups within southern white society and explain why each group was committed to the continuation and expansion of slavery.
White society was divided between the planter elite, or those who owned at least twenty slaves or more, and all the rest. Planters made up around 4 percent of the white population and exercised a disproportionately powerful political and social influence. Other whites owned a few slave, but most owned none. A majority of whites were "plain white folk"--simple farmers who raised corn, cotton, hogs, and chickens. Southern white women spent most of their time on household chores. The plantation mistress supervised her home and household slaves. Most whites were fiercely loyatl to the institution of slavery. Even those who owned no slaves feared the competition they believed they would face if slaves were freed, and they enjoyed the privileged status that race-based slavery gave them.
4. Describe the impact of slavery on African Americans, both free and enslaved, throughout the South.
As slavery spread and the southern economy became more dependent on slave labor, the enslaved facetd more regulations and restrictions on their behavior. The vast majority of Southern blacks were slaves who served as field hands. They had few rights and could be bought and sold and moved at any time. Their movements were severely liited and they had no ability to defend themselves. Any violation of these restrictions could result in severe punishments. Most Southern blacks were slaves, but a small percentage were free. Many of the free blacks were mulattoes, having a mixed-race parentage. Free blacks often worked for wages in towns and cities.
5. Analyze how enslaved peoples responded to the inhumanity of their situation.
Originally, slaves were treated more as indentured servants, eligible for freedom after a specified number of years, but during the eighteenth century, slave codes codified practices of treating slaves as property rather than people. The enslaved responded to their oppression in a variety of ways. Although many slaves attempted to run away, only a few openly rebelled because the consequences were so harsh. Organized revolts such as Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831) in Virginia were rare. Most slaves survived their harships by relying on their own communities, family ties, and Christian faith, and by developing their own culture, such as the singing of spirituals to express frustration, sorrow, and hope for their eventual deliverance.
Chapter 12: Religion, Romanticism, and Reform, 1800-1860
1. Describe the major changes in the practice of religion in America in the early nineteenth century, and analyze their impact.
Starting in the late eighteenth century, Unitarians and Universalists in New England challenged the notion of predestination and advocated that all humans are capable of good deeds and could receive salvation, not just a select few. Echoing these ideas with their conception of salvation by free will, the preachers of the Second Great Awakening generated widespread interest among Protestants in frontier revivals. The more democratic sects, such as Baptists and Methodists, gained huge numbers of converts, especially among women and African Americans. Religion went hand-in-hand with reform in the "burned-over-district" in western New York, which was also the birthplace of several religious movements, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).
2. Examine the emergence of transcendentalism in American culture in the early nineteenth century.
Transcendentalists embraced a moral and spiritual idealism (Romanticism) in reaction to scientific rationalism and Christian orthodoxy. In their writings, they sought to "transcend" reason and the material world and encourage more independent thought and reflection. At the same time, transcendentalism influenced the works of novelists, essayists, and poets, who created a uniquely American literature. A cultural nationalism emerged with political ideals for a more moral American society.
3. Explain the origins of the major social reform movements in the early nineteenth century, and analyze their influence on American society and politics.
The cult of domesticity celebrated a "woman's sphere" in the home and argued that young women should be trained not for the workplace but in the domestic arts--managing a kitchen, running a household, and nurturing the children. However, the rise of an urban middle class offered growing numbers of women more time to devote to societal concerns. Social reformers--many of them women--sought to improve society and eradicate social evils. The most widespread movement was for temperance, the elimination of excessive drinking. Many were also active in reforming prisons and asylums. At the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, social reformers launched the women's rights movement with the Declaration of Sentiments (1848). In many parts of the country, social reformers called for greater access to education through public schools for the nation's young, which would also offer women an occupation outside the home. One educational reformer, Horace Mann, said that teaching was a way for women to become "mothers away from the home" for the students. Amid the pervasive climate of reform during the early nineteenth century, more than 100 utopian communities were established, including the Shakers, Brook Farm, and the Oneida Community.
4. Analyze the impact on American society and politics of the emergence of the anti-slavery movement.
Northern opponents of slavery promoted several solutions, including the American Colonization Society's call for gradual emancipation and the deportation of African Americans to colonies in Africa. Abolitionism emerged in the 1830s, demanding an immediate end of slavery. Some abolitionists went even further, calling for full social and political equality among the races, although they disagreed over tactics. Abolitionist efforts in the North provoked a strong reaction among southern whites, stirring fears for their safety and resentment of interference. Yet many northerners shared the belief in the racial inferiority of Africans and were hostile to the tactics and message of abolitionists. African Americans in the North joined with abolitionists to create an Underground Railroad, a network of safe havens to help slaves escape their bondage in the South.
Chapter 13: Western Expansion and Southern Secession, 1830-1861
1. Explain how, why, and where Americans moved west of the Mississippi River during the 1830s and 1840s.
In the 1830s, Americans came to believe in "manifest destiny"--that the U.S. expansion to the Pacific coast was divinely ordained. A population explosion and the lure of cheap, fertile land prompted large numbers of Americans to endure the hardships of the Overland Trails to Oregon ("Oregon Fever") and California. Many southerners moved to the Mexican province of Texas with their slaves to grow cotton. The Mexican government would not sanction slavery, however, and in 1830 forbade further immigration. Texans rebelled, winning their independence from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. But Texas would not become a state for another decade because the U.S. was determined to avoid war with Mexico and the divisive issue of adding another slave state to the Union.
2. Examine the impact of the Mexican-American War on national politics.
When the United States finally annexed Texas, the Mexican government refused to recognize the loss of its northern province. President Polk sought to acquire California, New Mexico, and Texas, but negotiations failed. When Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and fired on U.S. soldiers, Polk urged Congress to declare war. U.S. forces prevailed, despite experiencing high casualties. By the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded California and New Mexico to the United States and gave up claims to land north of the Rio Grande.
3. Describe how the federal government tried to resolve the issue of slavery in the western territories during the 1850s.
The Wilmot Proviso (1846) never bame law but, by declaring that slavery prohibited in the newly acquired Mexican territories, stirred anti-slavery sentiment. The new Free-Soil party also demanded that slavery be banned in the new territories. But the California Gold Rush of 1849 escalated tensions. Most Californians wanted their territory to be a free state. Southerners feared losing federal protection of their "peculiar institution" if free states outnumbered slave states. Some political leaders urged the voters in each territory to decide with popular sovereignty. The much celebrated Compromise of 1850 allowed California to enter the Union as a free state, established the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Utah without direct reference to slavery, banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and passsed a stronger Fugitive Slave Act. Tensions turned violent with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which overturned the Missouri Compromise by allowing slavery in the territories where it had been banned in 1820.
4. Analyze what appealed to northern voters about the Republican party and how that led to Abraham Lincoln's victory in the 1860 presidential contest.
Northerners were outraged by violent pro-slavery mobs as the territory of Kansas prepared to enter the Union. Yet anti-slavery zealots were equally violent, such as John Brown in Bleeding Kansas. The Supreme Court's pro-slavery Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision further fueled sectional conflict. Northern voters increasingly gravitated toward the anti-slavery Republican party. Republicans also advocated for protective tariffs and the development of national infrastructure, which appealed to northern manufacturers and commercial farmers. In the 1860 presidential election, Lincoln carried every free state and won a clear electoral college victory.
5. Explain why seven southern states seceeded from the Union shortly after Lincoln's election in 1860.
South Carolina seceded from the Union a month after Lincoln's presidential victory. Before Lincoln was even inaugurated, six other states had joined South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America, claiming a right to secede in order to ensure the preservation of slavery. South Carolinians fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and so the Civil War began.
Chapter 14: The War of the Union, 1861-1865
1. Identify the respective advantages of the North and South and explain how they affected military strategies of the Union and the Confederacy.
Southerners were optimistic when the war began. The Confederates held a geographic advantage in that they were fighting a defensive war on their own territory. Confederate diplomacy also anticipated massive support from Britain and France, support that never materialized. The Union, however, held strong advantages in terms of population and industrial development. The Union quickly launched a campaign to seize the Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. Initial hopes for a rapid victory died at the First Battle of Bull Run. The Union then adopted the Anaconda Plan, which involved imposing a naval blockade on southern ports and slowly crushing resistance on all fronts.
2. Evaluate Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and its impact on the war.
Gradually, Lincoln came to see that winning the war required ending slavery. He justified the Emancipation Proclamation (1862) as a military necessity because it would deprive the South of its captive labor force. After the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, he announced his plans to free the slaves. He hoped that southern states would return to the Union before his January 1, 1863 deadline, when all slaves living in areas under Confederate control were declared free. Many slaves freed themselves by escaping to Union army camps. In July 1862, with the Militia Act, Congress declared that freed slaves could join the Union army. During 1863, blacks, both free and freed, joined the Union army in large numbers, giving the Union military a further advantage over the Confederacy. Although the Emancipation Proclamation announced the war aim of abolishing slavery, it freed only those in areas still under Confederate control.
3. Analyze how the war affected social and economic life in the North and South.
The Union government proved much more capable with finances than did its Confederate counterparts. Through a series of tariffs, income taxes, bond issues, and banking reforms, the Union was better able to absorb the war's soaring costs. In the absence of the southern Democrats in Congress, the Republican-controlled Congress also created a cabinet-level Department of Agriculture, approved a higher tariff, a transcontinental railroad, a Homestead Act, and a Contract Labor Act, all of which accelerated Union settlement of the West and the growth of a national economy. The Confederate finances, on the other hand, were pitiful in the cash-poor South. The Confederate treasury department was forced to print so much money that it created spiraling inflation of consumer prices and civil unrest. Also, most of the warfare took place in the South; thus, although the North had more casualties, the physical impact on the South was much greater.
4. Describe the military turning points in 1863 and 1864 that ultimately led to the Confederacy's defeat.
The Union victories at the Battle of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863 were a major turning point of the war. With the capture of Vicksburg, Union forces cut the Confederacy in two, depriving armies in the east of western supplies and manpower. General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia lost a third of its troops after the defeat at Gettysburg, forcing the Confederates to adopt a defensive strategy. In 1864, Lincoln placed General Ulysses S. Grant in charge of the Union's war efforts, and he initiated a strategy to make the best use of the Union's advantages in manpower and supplies. For the next year, his forces constantly attacked Lee's in Virginia while, farther south, General William T. Sherman conquered Georgia and South Carolina. Sherman's "March to the Sea" across Georgia destroyed plantations, railroads, and morale. Sherman's successes helped propel Lincoln to victory in the election of 1864. After that, southern resistance wilted, forcing Lee to surrender his army to General Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
5. Explain how the Civil War changed the nation.
The Civil War involved the largest number of casualties of any American war. The Union's victory changed the course of the nation's development. Most important, the Civil War brought about the destruction of slavery. Not only did the power of the federal government increase as a result of the war, but the center of political and economic power shifted away from the South and the planter class. The Republican-controlled Congress enacted many pieces of legislation favored by northern voters that would drive the nation's economic development for the rest of the century.
Chapter 15: Reconstruction, 1865-1877
1. Identify the federal government's major challenges in reconstructing the South after the Civil War during the period from 1865 to 1877.
With the defeat of the Confederacy and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, the federal government had to develop policies and procedures to address a number of difficult questions: What was the status of the defeated states and how would they be reintegrated into the nation's political life? What would be the political status of former slaves and what would the federal government do to integrate them into the nation's social and economic fabric?
2. Describe how and why Reconstruction policies changed over time.
Abraham Lincoln and his successor, southerner Andrew Johnson, wanted a lenient and quick plan for Reconstruction. The Freedmen's Bureau attempted to educate and aid freed slaves, negotiate labor contracts, and reunite families. Lincoln's assassination led many northerners to favor the Radical Republicans, who wanted a more transformative plan designed to end the grasp of the old plantation elite on the South's society and economy. Southern whites resisted and established black codes to restrict the lives of blacks. Congressional Reconstruction responded by stipulating that to reenter the Union, former Confederate states had to ratify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order to expand and protect the rights of African Americans. Congress also passed the Military Reconstruction Act, which used federal troops to protect the voting rights and civil rights of African Americans.
3. Assess the attitudes of white and black southerners toward Reconstruction.
Many former slaves found comfort intheir families and the independent churches they established, but land ownership reverted to the old white elite, reducing newly freed black farmers to sharecropping. African Americans enthusiastically participated in politics, with many serving as elected officials. Along with white southern Republicans (scalawags) and northern carpetbaggers, they worked to rebuild the southern economy. Many white southerners, however, blamed their poverty on freed slaves and Republicans, and they supported the Ku Klux Klan's violent intimidation of the supporters of these Reconstruction efforts and the goal of "redemption," or white Democratic control of Southern state governments.
4. Analyze the political and economic factors that helped lead to the end of Reconstruction in 1877.
Scandals during the Grant administration involved an attempt to corner the gold market and the "whiskey ring's" plan to steal millions of dollars in tax revenue. In the face of these troubles and the economic downturn caused by both the Panic of 1873 over railroad defaults and disagreement over whether to continue the use of greenbacks or return to the gold standard, northern support for Reconstruction eroded. Southern white redeemers were elected in 1874, successfully reversing the political progress of Republicans and blacks. In the Compromise of 1877, Democrats agreed to the election Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who put an end to the Radical Republican administrations in the southern states.
5. Explain the significance of Reconstruction for the nation's future.
Southern state governments quickly renewed long-standing patterns of discrimination against African Americans, but the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments remained enshrined in the Constitution, creating the essential constitutional foundation for future advances in civil rights. These amendments gave the federal government responsibility for ensuring equal treatment and political equality within the states, a role it would increasingly assume in the twentieth century.