Causes of the American Revolution

5th Six Weeks

5th Grade Social Studies Study Guide

Sectionalism / Loyalty to one section of a country rather than to the whole country
Plantation System / A system of agriculture developed in the Southern United States where slaves were used to help grow a cash crop
Cash crops / Crops grown to be sold for profit. Examples: tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar and cotton
Abolitionist / Person who wants to abolish, to end, slavery
Suffrage / Right to vote
Harriet Tubman / Abolitionist who escaped from slavery in 1849 and became a conductor of the Underground Railroad. She led more than 300 slaves to freedom.
Underground Railroad / System of secret routes used by escaping slaves that led from the South to the North or Canada
Missouri compromise / Law passed in 1820 dividing the LouisianaTerritory into areas prohibiting slavery and areas allowing slavery.
Compromise of 1850 / Law passed by Congress under which California was admitted to the Union as a free state and the Fugitive Slave Law was passed
Kansas-Nebraska Act / Law passed in 1854 allowing these two territories to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery
Harriet Beecher Stowe / Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which exposed the cruelties of slavery to a wide audience before the Civil War
Frederick Douglass / Former slave who was a writer, editor, and leading abolitionist
Dred Scott Decision / Supreme Court case that stated slaves had no rights because African Americans were not citizens of the United States
Abraham Lincoln / He was the sixteenth President of the United States. He led the United States during the Civil War.
Secede / To break away from a group, as the Southern states broke away from the United States in 1861
Civil War / War between people of the same country
Robert E. Lee / Commander of the Confederate forces in the Civil War
Emancipation Proclamation / Statement issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freeing all slaves in Confederate states still at war with the Union.
Reconstruction / Period of rebuilding after the Civil War during which the Southern states rejoined the Union.
Andrew Jackson / Seventeenth President of the United States. Took office following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Thirteenth Amendment / Ratified in December 1865: Declares slavery illegal
Fourteenth Amendment / Ratified in July 1868: Declares former slaves to be citizens and guarantees equal protection of the law to all citizens
Fifteenth Amendment / Ratified in February 1870: Prevents the denial of the right to voted based on race or previous condition of enslavement

Civil War and Reconstruction