Ap Essay Brainstorming Lists

AP ESSAY BRAINSTORMING LISTS

1. Causes of European Colonization of Americas

• Spherical Earth
• Christopher Columbus
• Amerigo Vespucci
• Three G's (Gold, Glory & God)
• Hernan Cortes
• The Catholic Church/ Jesuits
• Francisco Pizarro
• Ferdinand Magellan
• Montezuma II
• Prince Henry the Navigator
• mercantilism
• Virginia Company
• Tobacco/ Virginia
• The fur trade
• Puritans
• The compass
• John Cabot

1. Spain/France/Dutch Early colonization contrasts

• SPAIN:
• Law of the Indies and Ordinances of Discovery
• Encomienda system
• indentured servants and slavery
• Christopher Columbus
• Ferdinand II and Isabella I
• conquistadores
• Catholic missions
• Pueblo Revolt - Pope
• FRANCE:
• Samuel de Champlaign - Quebec (1608)
• French-Indian relations
• coureurs de bois – fur trade
• tobacco agriculture
• Mississippi and Arkansas River
• Jesuit missionaries
• DUTCH:
• New Netherland and New Amsterdam
• Dutch West India Company
• Patroonships
• Peter Stuyvesant
• director general Wouter van Twiller
• Charter of Freedom and Exemption

1. English Colonization in 17th Century

• Sir Thomas Moore’s Utopia
• Richard Hakluyt
• Primogeniture
• Enclosure movement – demand for wool
• Overcrowding of London
• Mercantilism
• Elizabeth I
• Sir Walter Raleigh
• Roanoke
• Joint-Stock Company
• London Company
• Virginia Company
• Headright System
• Tobacco – cash crops
• Maryland – Lord Baltimore – Catholics – tobacco
• Plymouth – Separatists – Mayflower Compact
• Massachusetts Bay Company – John Winthrop
• Rhode Island – Roger Williams
• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
• William Penn – Pennsylvania – Quakers
• Carolinas – Tobacco & Rice

1. English Migration

• John Cabot,
• Thomas More (Utopia),
• chartered companies,
• Mercantilism,
• “Enclosure movement” – wool
• primogeniture
• Richard Hakluyt,
• Puritans, Separatists,
• "plantations",
• Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
• Sir Walter Raleigh,
• Roanoke,
• Jamestown,
• London Company,
• Pilgrims,
• Great Migration
• Indentured Servants
• Headright System

1. Puritan New England

• Calvinism
• Salem Witch Trials
• Massachusetts Bay colony
• The Great Migration
• Freemen
• Antinomianism
• Predestination
• Original Sin
• Covenant
• Grace
• Salvation
• Jonathan Edward
• Anne Bradstreet
• Harvard
• Old and New testament
• New England Primer

1. Early Chesapeake Colonies

• London/Virginia Company
• Jamestown (Virginia)
• John Smith
• Starving Time
• Lord De La Warr
• John Rolfe
• Tobacco
• Headright System
• Powhattans
• Pocahontas
• Nathaniel Bacon
• Bacon’s Rebellion
• William Berkeley
• House of Burgesses
• Calverts (Lord Baltimores)
• Maryland
• Proprietary Rule
• Opechancanough
• Act of Toleration

1. Life in Pre-Revolutionary Colonial America

• Jamestown (1607) and John Smith
• Cash Crops- tobacco, sugar, indigo
• Indentured Servants and Headright System
• House of Burgesses (1619)
• Bacon's Rebellion (1676)
• Plymouth Colony (1620) andPilgrims
• Mayflower Compact (1620)
• William Bradford and the Puritans
• John Winthrop and "City upon a hill."
• Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630)
• Halfway Covenant (1662)
• Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson
• Salem Witch Trials (1692)
• King Philip's War (1675-1676) and Metacom
• Pennsylvania; Quakers; William Penn and "The Holy Experiment"
• Charter of Liberties (1701)
• Navigation Acts (1650-1673)
• Triangle Trade- Middle Passage
• First Great Awakening (1730s- 1740s)
• Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield (1730s and 1740s)
• "New Lights" and "Old Lights"
• Dominionof New England (1685-1688) and Sir Edmund Andros
• Glorious Revolution- William and Mary (1688)
• Jacob Leisler and John Coode
• John Peter Zenger (1735)

1. Rise of Indentured Servitude and Slavery

• Tobacco labor demands – John Rolfe
• Rice plantations – S.C.
• Indentured servants
• Headright System
• Bacon’s Rebellion
• leaders of colonies feared uprising of poor whites
• mostly young adults who could not pay for their ticket in America
• Shortage in labor
• committed themselves for a set number of years
• after Bacon’s Rebellion, a lot less of indentured servants then turned to slavery.
• middle passage
• Atlantic slave trade
• Triangular Trade
• Middle Passage
• Abolition of the Slave Trade Act
• slave codes
• three-fifths compromise
• fugitive slave act
• Slaves worked on plantations
• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin
• Cotton picking
• Virginia was the first colony to use slavery in 1619

1. Culture Clashes & Exchanges: Native American Relations in Colonial America

• coureurs de bois
• John Rolfe
• Pequot War (1637)
• King Philip’s War (1675-1676)
• Metacom & Wampanoags
• Powhatan
• John Smith
• Pocahontas
• Squanto and Samoset
• Roger Williams
• French and Indian War
• Powhattan Confederacy
• Battle of Tippecanoe
• Black Hawk

1. French & Indian War – impact on American/British relations

• 1754-1763
• George Washington
• Fort Necessity
• Fort Duquesne
• Albany Plan - rejected
• William Pitt
• Unifying experience for colonists
• Resentment of British authority as snobby
• British saw colonists as disorganized, spoiled, & inferior
• Treaty of Paris of 1763
• Significant British war debt
• End of “Salutary neglect”
• Pontiac's Rebellion (1763)
• Fort Detroit small pox blankets
• Proclamation of 1763
• Sugar Act

1. Causes of the American Revolution

• -Declaratory Act
• -Townshend Act
• -Boston Massacre
• Committees of Correspondence
• -Boston Tea Party
• -Coercive/Intolerable Acts
• Quebec Act
• Declaratory Act
• -1st Continental Congress meeting
• -Bunker Hill
• -John Hancock
• Virginia Resolves
• -Thomas Paine “Common Sense”
• Lexington & Concord
• King George III
• Samuel Adams
• James Otis
• Patrick Henry
• Samuel Adams
• Treaty of Paris, 1763
• End of Salutary Neglect
• Sons of Liberty
• French and Indian War
• Pontiac’s Rebellion
• Proclamation of 1763
• Writs of Assistance
• Navigation Acts
• Sugar Act, 1764
• Currency Act, 1764
• Stamp Act, 1765
• Quartering Act

1. How American Won the American Revolution

• Lexington & Concord
• Battle of Saratoga – turning point
• French Alliance- money & navy
• Knowledge of homeland
• Guerilla Warfare Strategy
• Crossing the Delaware
• Loans from the Dutch – John Adams
• Valley Forge – Washington kept up morale
• Patriots attacked the main force of British ships
• Motivated- wanted independence from Britain
• Benjamin Franklin- Declaration Of Independence
• Thomas Jefferson - Declaration Of Independence
• John Adams- Declaration Of Independence
• Second Continental Congress- Thirteen states accepted the American independence
• Washington's tactic for not giving up
• Major support role from the farmers, peasants
• Women boycotting British goods
• Treaty Of Paris- signed by the British king for American Independence
• Southern Loyalists turned off by pledge of freeing slaves from British

1. Impact of American Revolution

• French Declaration of the Man and the Citizen- 1789
• Treaty of Paris of 1783
• John Jay
• Declaration of Independence
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin
• John Adams
• Articles of Confederation
• Constitutional Convention- 1786
• Federalist Papers
• Bill of Rights
• Continental Congress
• James Madison
• Shay's Rebellion
• George Washington
• Virginia Plan
• Alexander Hamilton

1. Challenges under the Articles of Confederation

• Confederation Congress
• Impost
• No power to tax
• No Executive
• No power to regulate commerce
• Thomas Jefferson
• John Dickinson
• Richard Henry Lee
• Society of Cincinnati
• George Washington
• War debts & debtors prison
• Shay's Rebellion
• Treaty of Paris
• Land Ordinance of 1784
• Northwest Ordinance
• Annapolis Convention

1. The Constitution – Debates, Controversies & Ratification

• Articles of Confederation
• Shay’s Rebellion
• Society of Cincinnati
• Annapolis convention
• Constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787
• James Madison
• Edmund Randolph
• "Virginia Plan"
• William Paterson
• "New Jersey Plan"
• Benjamin Franklin
• The "Great Compromise"
• Three-Fifths Compromise
• 9 states for ratification
• Federalists v. Anti federalist
• The Federalist Papers “Publius”
• Bill of rights
• New Hampshire 9th state to ratify
• Washington elected 1789

1. First 2-Party System: Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans

• The Election of 1796
• John Adams, Federalist
• Thomas Jefferson, Democratic-Republican
• “Elastic Clause” controversy
• Separation of powers
• Checks and balances
• Constructionism- loose vs. strict
• The Federalist Papers
• Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
• Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798-99)
• James Madison, Democratic-Republican
• Alexander Hamilton, Federalist
• rise of “factions”
• The 12th Amendment
• Aaron Burr, Democratic-Republican
• Thomas Pinckney, Federalist
• Jays’ Treaty (1794)
• newspapers and campaigning
• Revolution of 1800, “Midnight Appointments”
• The XYZ Affair (1798)
• The Quasi-War (1798-99)

1. The Federalists: Washington & Adams Years Foreign & Domestic

• -French Revolution
• -Citizen Edmond Genet
• -Neutrality Proclamation
• -Whiskey Rebellion
• -Pinckney's Treaty
• -Executive privilege
• -XYZ affair
• -Alien and Sedition Acts
• -Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
• -Economy is based on commerce
• -believed in strong federal government
• -Jay's Treaty
• -The Quasi War
• -National Bank
• -Hartford Convention

1. The Decline of the Federalist Party

• War of 1812
• Era of Good feelings (1815)
• John Marshall
• Royal Navy Blockade
• Hartford Convention (Dec. 1814)
• Rufus King
• Richard Stockton
• Westward Migration & expansion
• Embargo Act of 1807
• Daniel Webster
• Henry Clay
• John C Calhoun
• Democratic-Republican Party
• National Republican Party
• Whig party
• Jefferson

1. The Marshall Court

• John Marshall
• Federalist
• Federal supremacy over the states
• Pro-business, regulation of commerce, and contracts
• judicial review
• Marbury v. Madison
• Dartmouth College v. Woodward
• Cohens v. Virginia (federal power stronger than state)
• McColloch v. Maryland
• implied powers
• loose constructionism
• Gibbons v. Ogden (interstate commerce)
• Johnson v. McIntosh (Native Americans rights to their tribal land)
• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia
• Worcester v. Georgia (tribes political entities)
• 1801-1835

1. Jefferson and the “Revolution of 1800”

• -"Revolution of 1800"- referred to Jefferson’s election 1801 and his attempt to restore the course in 1776
• -"democratic simplicity"
• -"peoples president"
• -appointments as political weapons
• -abolishment of internal taxes
• -Judiciary Act repeal
• - establishment of U.S. Military at West
• Point (1802)
• -Jefferson allegations
• - Marbury v. Madison(1803)
• - Louisiana Purchase
• -Pickering impeachment
• -Lewis and Clark
• - Burr and Hamilton Duel (1804)
• -British seize ships (1805)
• -Battle of Trafalgar
• -Burr Conspiracy
• -Monroe Pinckney Treaty
• -Chesapeake - Leopard incident
• -Embargo Act (1807)

1. Development of Nationalism in early 19th Century

• 4th of July
• Noah Webster – American Spelling Book
• McGuffey Reader
• Cultural Nationalism
• James Fennimore Cooper
• Parson Mason Weems – Washington bio
• Washington Irving
• War of 1812
• Star Spangled Banner
• Internal Improvements
• Erie Canal
• National Road

1. Impact of First & Second Great Awakening

• George Whitefield
• Jonathan Edwards
• Old lights vs. New lights
• Revivalists
• Traditionalists
• “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God“
• "American revival"
• Conservative theologians
• Cane Ridge
• Peter Cartwright
• Methodist Camp Meetings
• Black revival meeting in Virginia
• Neolin
• "freethinkers"
• Handsome Lake

1. Antebellum American Society

• Romanticism and Nationalism in Art and Literature
• - beginning to match British in art
• - revealing nature of the nation's landscape
• Hudson River School - first great school of American painters
• - express wild nature in America
• James Fennimore Cooper - early 19th century novelist
• - independent individualism
• - fear of disorder
• Romanticism Era Writers
• - Walt Whitman
• - Edgar Allan Poe - exploring more emotions than ever before
• - Herman Melville - Moby Dick (1851)
• Transcendentalists
• - Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Self Reliance" (1841)
• - Henry David Thoreau: "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849)
• - not conforming to what society wants. goal to develop reasoning
• New Trends:
• Revivalism, Mortality, and Order
• - Unitarians and Universalism
• - Charles Finney (Revivalist) - predestination
• Rise of Feminism (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dorothy Dix, Seneca Falls)
• - Gender Roles (Margaret Fuller 1844, Shaker society, Oneida Community)
• Mormons (Joseph Smith-Book of Mormon 1830, Brigham Young)
• Utopias (Brook Farm 1841, New Harmony w/ Robert Owen 1825) - Nathaniel Hawthorne connects writing to utopias
• Temperance (1826 beginning, 1840 Western Temperance Society)
• Improving Medical Science - knowledge of diseases and treatments
• Health Fads and Phrenology (Fowler brothers, Sylvester Graham)
• Rehabilitation - Asylums
• Indian Reservation
• Education Reform (Horace Mann 1850s)
• Abolitionism (William Lloyd Garrison 1831 Liberator)
• - Whites and Blacks
• - Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth

1. Immigration and rise of Nativism

• German Industrial Revolution/Collapse of Liberal 1848 Revolution
• Irish “Potato Famine”- 1845-1849
• Pennsylvania Nativist Riots- 1844
• Nativists- Those against foreigners and immigration
• Native American Association- 1837
• Native American Part- 1845
• Supreme Order of the Star-Spangled Banner- 1850’s
• Before 1870- largely Western and Northern; After 1870- largely Eastern and Southern (Lots of Jews)
• Know Nothings
• American Party- Success in 1954 East elections
• Dennis Kearny
• “Coolies”
• Page Act of 1875
• Chinese Exclusion Act- 1882
• Immigration Restrictions League- 1890’s
• Immigration Act of 1891
• Dillingham Commission- 1907
• Emergency Quota Act of 1921
• Immigration Act of 1924

1. Market Revolution

• Transportation Revolution
• National Road
• Turnpikes
• Erie Canal – DeWitt Clinton
• Steamboat – Robert Fulton
• Clipper ships
• Eli Whitney’s cotton gin
• King Cotton
• Eli Whitney’s Gun Factory
• interchangeable parts
• Textiles
• Samuel Slater
• Francis Cabot Lowell
• Lowell-Waltham System
• Lowell, Massachusetts
• Immigrant workforce (mostly Irish)
• Oliver Evans – locomotive engine
• John Deere – steel plow
• Cyrus McCormick – mechanical reaper
• Samuel F. B. Morse – telegraph
• Howe & Singer’s sewing machine
• Marshall Court rulings
• general incorporations laws
• laissez faire
• Workingman’s Party
• Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842)

1. Antebellum Utopia and Reform Movements

• Shakers (Utopian Community-Abstinence)
• Robert Owen (Social Reformer-Established New Harmony)
• Temperance Movement (Alcohol is bad)
• Second Great Awakening (String of Religious Revivals)
• Hudson River School 1835 (Art School-Famous Artists Emerged from here)
• Seneca Falls Convention 1848 (First Women's Rights Convention)
• Transcendentalism (Importance of Individual Conscience)
• Lucretia Mott 1793-1880 (Antislavery and Women's Rights Leader)
• Brook Farm 1841 (Utopian Experiment in Communal Living)
• Oneida Community – Noyes (Very Open Utopian Community-Sexual Life and Marriage Very Open)
• Abolitionist Movement (Concentrated on Ending Slavery)
• Communitarianism (Emphasis on Connection Between Individual and Community)
• Mother Ann Lee 1736-1784 (Leader of United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing AKA Shakers)
• Brigham Young & Joseph Smith (Leaders of Mormonism)
• Cult of Domesticity 1820-1860 (Women Should Stay at Home, More Religious than Men, Pure in Heart-Body-Mind, Submit to Husband)
• “Burned-over-district” (Western & Central Regions of NY that Religious Revivals Took Place at)
• American Temperance Society 1826 (Society against Alcohol-Spread Across Country)
• Romanticism and Nationalism in Art and Literature
• - beginning to match British in art
• - revealing nature of the nation's landscape
• Hudson River School - first great school of American painters
• - express wild nature in America
• James Fennimore Cooper - early 19th century novelist
• - independent individualism
• - fear of disorder
• Romanticism Era Writers
• - Walt Whitman
• - Edgar Allan Poe - exploring more emotions than ever before
• - Herman Melville - Moby Dick (1851)
• Transcendentalists
• - Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Self Reliance" (1841)
• - Henry David Thoreau: "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849)
• - not conforming to what society wants. goal to develop reasoning
• New Trends:
• Revivalism, Mortality, and Order
• - Unitarians and Universalism
• - Charles Finney (Revivalist) - predestination
• Rise of Feminism (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dorothy Dix, Seneca Falls)
• - Gender Roles (Margaret Fuller 1844, Shaker society, Oneida Community)
• Mormons (Joseph Smith-Book of Mormon 1830, Brigham Young)
• Utopias (Brook Farm 1841, New Harmony w/ Robert Owen 1825) - Nathaniel Hawthorne connects writing to utopias
• Temperance (1826 beginning, 1840 Western Temperance Society)
• Improving Medical Science - knowledge of diseases and treatments
• Health Fads and Phrenology (Fowler brothers, Sylvester Graha)
• Rehabilitation - Asylums
• Indian Reservation
• Education Reform (Horace Mann 1850s)
• Abolitionism (William Lloyd Garrison 1831 Liberator)
• - Whites and Blacks
• - Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth
• - Anti-abolitionists

1. Causes of the War of 1812

• -Anti-British sentiment
• -Napoleonic wars 1803
• -Conflict in the Atlantic
• -America's Predicament with trading with British and French 1806-1807
• -Chesapeake-Leopard incident 1807
• -Impressment of American sailors and deserted British Naval crew(s)
• -Embargo and "Force" Acts 1807
• -Depression of Northeast merchants
• -Madison elected as President 1808
• -Non-Intercourse Act 1810
• -The "Indian Problem"
• -Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (Prophet)
• -Battle of Tippecanoe 1811
• -War Fever 1810
• -American North wants British Canada Territory and South wants Spanish Florida
• -War Hawkish representatives fill the American political parties 1810
• -Appointment of Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun
• -President Madison gives into pressure and asks Congress to declare war with Britain 1812

1. Impact of the War of 1812 (A 2nd Revolution?)
2. Hartford Convention – Downfall of Federalists
3. Era of Good Feelings
4. Rising Nationalism – 4th of July
5. Andrew Jackson & William Henry Harrison as War Heroes
6. Battle of the Thames weakened Native Americans of Northwest
7. Second Bank of the United States
8. American System – Internal Improvements
9. Steam Boats
10. Treaty of Ghent of 1814
11. Battle of New Orleans
12. Britain in debt
13. Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817)

• Improved Anglo-American relations
• Although the treaty of Ghent called for America to return land to Indians, they did not. The Native Americans were left susceptible to white expansion.
• Westward migration
• Exposed deficiencies in transportation and financial systems

• National Road (1811-1818)
• Economic Expansion – stimulated manufacturing
• Textile Industry
• The Factor System
• Expansion of Slavery
• Second Bank of the United States
• Recognized by Britain/world as a true nation
• Protective Tariff (1816)

1. Era of Good Feelings

• Virginia Dynasty
• James Monroe
• Death of Federalists
• Republicans
• Nationalism
• Henry Clay’s American System
• John Quincy Adams
• Andrew Jackson
• John C. Calhoun
• Seminole War
• Luis De-Onis
• Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819
• Bank of the United States
• Panic of 1819
• “Corrupt Bargain”
• Rise of the 2nd 2 Party System
• Napoleonic Wars
• Boom and Bust of Expansionism

1. Age of Jackson

• "Dorr Rebellion"
• "President of the Common Man"
• “King Andrew”
• universal white male suffrage
• Nullification Crisis
• Black Hawk War
• Indian Removal Act – Trail of Tears
• Bank of the US/ Nicholas Biddle
• “pet banks”
• Whigs
• Anti-Masons
• Democratic Party – Martin Van Buren
• Spoils System
• John C. Calhoun
• Peggy Eaton Affair
• "Kitchen Cabinet"
• Worcester v. Georgia
• Henry Clay
• The Seminole War
• Specie Circular
• Panic of 1837

1. States’ Rights vs. Federal Power

• Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions
• John C. Calhoun
• -his theory of nullification
• John Marshall as chief justice
• Fletcher v. Peck
• Dartmouth College v. Woodward
• McCulloch v. Maryland
• Cohens v. Virginia
• Gibbons v. Ogden
• Democrats and Southerners favored states' rights
• Supremacy clause
• Whigs and Northerners favored federal power
• Webster-Hayne Debate
• -Robert Y. Hayne
• -Daniel Webster
• "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!"
• tariff of abominations 1828
• nullification crisis
• Force Bill
• Hartford Convention
• Dred Scott v. Sandford
• Strom Thurmond States’ Rights Party (Dixiecrats)

1. 2nd Two-Party System: Democratic & Whig Party

• 1824 “Corrupt Bargain”
• Election of 1828 Jackson years
• Whigs - anti-Jackson forces
• Democratic Party
• Daniel Webster - Massachusetts
• nullification
• Locofocos
• Anti-Masons/Whigs
• German Catholics - democrats
• evangelical protestants - Whigs
• Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun
• American System
• election of 1836 - Van Buren – “The Little Magician”
• distribution act
• Specie Circular
• Panic of 1837
• van buren's "sub treasury"
• Log Cabin Campaign
• Tippecanoe & Tyler Too!
• Whig Diplomacy
• Treaty of Wang Hya