US History Guiding Questions & Vocabulary

Time Period 1 1491 - 1607

Overall Question: To what extent did Native Americans, Europeans and colonists benefit or not benefit from colonization?

Identity: How did the identities of colonizing and indigenous American societies change as a result of contact in the Americas? (Activity 1) (Readings in Primary Sources, Chapter 1 in Zinn, AP Book 16-25)

Work, Exchange & Technology: How did the Columbian Exchange—the mutual transfer of material goods, commodities, animals, and diseases—affect interaction between Europeans and natives and among indigenous peoples in North America? (Pages 15-16 in AP Book

Peopling: Where did different groups settle in the Americas (before contact) and how and why did they move to and within the Americas (after contact)? (Before Contact Reading: AP Book Pages 4-13

Politics & Power: How did Spain’s early entry into colonization in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America shape European and American developments in this period (AP Book 16-24)

America in the World: How did European attempts to dominate the Americas shape relations between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans? (Lowenthal Chapter 2 needs to be cut down 2 pages per kid so need 12 kids)

Environment and Geography: How did pre-contact populations of North America relate to their environments? How did contact with Europeans and Africans change these relations in North America? (Lowenthal - Chapter 2)

Ideas, Belief & Culture: How did cultural contact challenge the religious and other values systems of peoples from the Americas, Africa, and Europe?

Vocabulary: Chapter 1. Canadian Shield, Incas, Aztecs, nation-states, Cahokia, three-sister farming, middlemen, caravel, plantation, Columbian Exchange, Treaty of Tordesillas, conquistadors, capitalism, encomienda, noche triste, mesitzos. Battle of Acoma, Pope’s Rebellion, Black Rebellion, Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabella of Castile, Christopher Columbus, Francisco Coronado, Francisco Pizarro, Bartolome de Las Casas, Hernan Cortes, Malinche (Dona Marina), Moctezuma, Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), Robert De La Salle, Father Junipero Serra

Chapter 2: Protestant Reformation, Roanoke Island, Spanish Armada (1588), primogeniture, joint-stock company, charter,

AP Outline: pueblo, Chinook, Algonquin, smallpox, Zambo, sextant, Juan de Sepulveda, spanish mission system, Juan de Onate, maroon communities in Brazil and the Caribbean, mixing of Christianity and traditional African religions

Period 2 (1607-1754):

  1. Guiding Question: How did the colonial period help to shape America’s five founding ideals?
  1. Identity: What were the chief similarities and differences among the development of English, Spanish, Dutch, and French colonies in America?
  1. Work, Exchange & Technology: How did distinct economic systems, most notably a slavery system based on African labor, develop in British North America? What was their effect on emerging cultural and regional differences? (Chapter 4 – Section 2)
  1. Peopling: Why did various colonists go to the New World? How did the increasing integration of the Atlantic world affect the movement of peoples between its different regions?
  1. Politics & Power: In what ways did the British government seek to exert control over its American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries?
  1. America in the World: How did the competition between European empires around the world affect relations among the various peoples in North America?
  1. Environment & Geography: How and why did the English North American colonies develop into distinct regions?
  1. Ideas Beliefs & Culture: How did the expansion of cultural contact that took place with permanent colonization alter conditions in North America and affect intellectual and religious life, the growth of trade, and the shape of political institutions?

Vocabluary: Chapter 2: Jamestown (1607), First Anglo Powhatan War (1614), Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1644), Act of Toleration (1649), Barbados slave code (1661), squatters, Tuscarora War (1711), Yamasee Indians (1715-1716), buffer, Iroquois Confederacy

Chapter 3: Calvinism, predestination, conversion, Puritans, Separatists, Mayflower Compact, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Great Migration, antinomianism, Fundamental Orders, Pequot War, King Philip’s War, English Civil War, Dominion of New England, Navigation Laws (Acts), Glorious (Bloodless) Revolution, salutary neglect, patroonship, blue laws, Martin Luther, John Calvin, William Bradford, John Calvin, William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, Massasoit, Metacom (King Philip), Charles II, Sir Edmund Andros, William III, Mary II, Henry Hudson, Peter Stuyvesant, Duke of York, William Penn

Chapter 4: indentured servants, headright system, Bacon’s Rebellion, Royal African Company, middle passage, New York slave revolt, South Carolina slave revolt (Stono River), Congregational Church, jeremiad, Half Way Covenant, Salem Witch trials, Leisler’s Rebellion, William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon, Anthony Johnson (1560–1609), Great Awakening (1730-1750), old lights, new lights(1730-50), Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732 to 1758), Zenger Trial (1733), royal colonies, proprietary colonies, Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur, Jacobus Arminius, Johnathan Edwards, Geroge Whitefield

From AP Outline: Beaver Wars, Chicksaw Wars, Wool Act, Molassess Act, smuggling, republicanism, (Catawba nation, population collapse and dispersal of Huron Conferacy, religious conversation among Wampanoag in New England leading to outbreak of King Phillip’s War), republicanism

Period 3 (1754-1800):

  1. Identity: How did different social group identities evolve during the revolutionary struggle? How did leaders of the new United States attempt to form a national identity?
  1. Work, Exchange & Technology: How did the newly independent United States attempt to formulate a national economy?
  1. Peopling: How did the revolutionary struggle and its aftermath reorient white-American Indian relations and affect subsequent population movements?
  1. Politics & Power: How did the ideology behind the revolution affect power relationships between different ethnic, racial, and social groups?
  1. America in the World: How did the revolution become an international conflict involving competing European and American powers?
  1. Environment & Geography: How did the geographical and environmental characteristics of regions opened up to white settlement after 1763 affect their subsequent development?
  1. Ideas, Beliefs & Culture: Why did the patriot cause spread so quickly among the colonists after 1763? How did the republican ideals of the revolutionary cause affect the nation’s political culture after independence?

Vocabulary: Chapter 5: Paxton Boys (1764), Regulator movement(1768), triangular trade (1770), John Trambull, John Singleton Coplay, Phyllis Wheatley

Chapter 6: Huguenots, Edict of Nantes (1598), coureurs de bois, voyageurs, King William’s War (1689), Queen Anne’s War (1702), War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739), King George’s War (1744), Acadians, French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War), Albany Congress, regulars, Battle of Quebec, Pontiac’s uprising, Proclamation of 1763

Chapter 7: republicanism, radical Whigs, mercantilism, Sugar Act, Quartering Act, stamp tax (Stamp Act), admiralty courts, Stamp Act Congress, nonimportation agreements, Sons of Liberty, Declaratory Acts, Townshend Acts, Boston Massacre, committee of correspondence, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Quebec Act, First Continental Congress, The Association, Battles of Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge, John Hancock, George Grancille, Charles Townshend, Crispus Attucks, George III, Lord North, Samuel Adams, Thomas Hutchinson, Marquis de Lafeyette, Baron von Steuben, Lord Dunmore

Chapter 8: Second Continental Congress, Battle of Bunker Hill, Olive Branch Petition, Hessians, Common Sense, Declaration of Independence, Declaration of the Rights of Man, Loyalists, Patriots, Battle of Long Island, Battle of Saratoga, Model Treaty, Armed Neutrality, Treaty of Fort Stanwix, privateers, Battle of Yorktown, Treaty of Paris, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Richard Montgomery, Thomas Paine, Richard Henry Lee, Lord Charles Cornwallis, William Howe, John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne, Benjamin Franklin, Comte de Rochambeau, Nathanael Greene, Joseph Brant, George Rogers Clark, Admiral de Grasse

Chapter 9: Society of Cincinnati, disestablished, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, civic virtue, Articles of Confederation, Old Northwest, Land Ordinance of 1785, Northwest Ordinance, Shay’s Rebellion, Viriginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, Great Compromise, common law, civil law, three-fifths compromise, antifederalists, federalists, The Federalist

Chapter 10: Bill of Rights, Judiciary Act of 1789, funding at par, assumption, tariff, excise tax, Bank of the United States, Whiskey Rebellion, Reign of Terror, Neutrality Proclamation, Battle of Fallen Timbers, Treaty of Greenville, Jay’s Treaty, Pinckney’s Treaty, Farewell Address, XYZ Affair, Convention of 1800, Alien Laws, Sedition Act, Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, George Washingon, Alexander Hamilton, Louis XVI, Edmond Genet, Little Turtle, “Mad Anthony” Wayne, John Jay, John Adams, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Chapter 14:Eli Whitney, cotton gin,

AP Outline: Chief Little Turtle and the Western Confederacy, Mercy Otis Warren, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Abigail Adams, Pennsylvania Gradual Emancipation Law, corridos, vaqueros,

Period 4 (1800-1848)

  1. Identity: How did debates over American democratic culture and the proximity of many different cultures living in close contact affect changing definitions of national identity?
  2. Work, Exchange & Technology: How did the growth of mass manufacturing in the rapidly urbanizing North affect definitions of and relationships between workers, and those for whom they worked? How did the continuing dominance of agriculture and the slave system affect southern social, political, and economic life?
  3. Peopling: How did the continued movement of individuals and groups into, out of, and within the United States shape the development of new communities and the evolution of old communities?
  4. Politics & Power: How did the growth of ideals of mass democracy, including such concerns as expanding suffrage, public education, abolitionism, and care for the needy affect political life and discourse?
  5. America in the World: How did the United States use diplomatic and economic means to project its power in the western hemisphere? How did foreign governments and individuals describe and react to the new American nation?
  6. Environment & Geography: How did environmental and geographic factors affect the development of sectional economics and identities??
  7. Ideas, Belief & Culture: How did the idea of democratization shape and reflect American arts, literature, ideals, and culture?

Vocabulary: Chapter 11: Revolution of 1800, patronage, Judiciary Act of 1801, midnight judges, Marbury v. Madison, Tripolitan War, Louisiana Purchase, Corps of Discovery, Orders in Council, impressment, Cheseapeake affair, Embargo Act, Non Intercourse Act, Marcon’s Bill No. 2, war hawks, Battle of Tippercanoe, Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemmings, Albert Gallatin, John Marshall, Samuel Chase, Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert R. Livingstone, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Aaron Burr, James Madison, Tecuseh, Tenskwatawa “the Prophet”)

Chapter 12: War of 1812, Battle of New Orleans, Congress of Vienna, Treaty of Ghent, Hartford Convention, Rush-Bagot Agreement, Tariff of 1816, American System, Era of Good Feelings, Panic of 1819, Land Act of 1820, Tallmadge amendment, peculiar institution, Missouri Compromise, McCulloch vs. Maryland, loose construction, Cohens vs. Viriginia, Gibbons vs. Ogden, Fletcher vs. Peck, Dartmouth College vs. Woodward, Anglo-American Convention, Florida Purchase Treaty (Adams Onis Treaty), Monroe Doctrine, Russo-American Treaty

Chapter 13:corrupt bargin, spoils system, Tariff of Abominations, Nullification Crisis, Compromise Tariff of 1833, Force Bill, Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears, Black Hawk War, Bank War, Anti-Masonic Party, pet banks, Specie Circular, Panic of 1837, Alamo, Goliad, Battle of San Jacinto, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Denmark Vesey, John C. Calhoun, Black Hawk, Nicholas Biddle, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, Stephen Austin, San Houston, Santa Anna, William Henry Harrison

Chapter 14: “Self-Reliance”, rendevous, ecological imperialism, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Molly Maguires, Tammany Hall, Know Nothing Party, Awful Disclosures, Patent Office, limited liability, Commonwealth vs. Hunt, cult of domesticity, McCormick reaper, turnpike, Eric Canal, clipper ships, Pony Express, transportation revolution, market revolution, Samuel Slater, Elias Howe, Isaac Singer, John Deere, Cyrus McCormick, Robert Fulton, DeWitt Clinton, Cyrus Field, John Jacob Astor

Period 5 (1844-1877):

  1. Identity: How did migration to the United States change popular ideas of American Identity and citizenship as well as regional and racial identities? How did the conflicts that led to the Civil War change popular ideas about national, regional, and racial identities throughout this period?
  2. Work, Exchange & Technology: How did the maturing of northern manufacturing and the adherence of the South to an agricultural economy change the national economic system by 1877?
  3. Peopling: How did the growth of mass migration to the United States and the railroad affect settlement patterns in cities and the West?
  4. Politics & Power: Why did attempts at compromise before the war fail to prevent the conflict? To what extent, and in what ways, did the Civil War and Reconstruction transform American political and social relationships?
  5. America in the World: How was the American conflict over slavery part of larger global events?
  6. Environment & Geography: How did the end of slavery and technological and military developments transform the environment and settlement patterns in the South and the West?
  7. Ideas, Beliefs & Culture: How did the doctrine of Manifest Destiny affect debates over territorial expansionism and the Mexican War? How did the Civil War struggle shape Americans’ beliefs about equality, democracy, and national destiny??

Vocabulary: Chapter 14: Samuel F.B. Morse,

Chapter 15: The Age of Reason, Deism, Unitarian, Second Great Awakening, Burned-Over District, Mormons, lyceum, American Temperance Society, Maine Law of 1851, Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New Harmony, Brook Farm, Oneilda Community, Shakers, Hudson River School, minstrel shows, transcendentalism, “The American Scholar,” Peter Cartwright, Charles Grandison Finney, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix, Neal S. Dow, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer, Robert Owen, John J. Audubon, Sephen Foster, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Francis Parkman

Chapter 17 (I put this chapter BEFORE Chapter 16 because it helps to see how the expansion of new territory brought on the Civil War): Tariff of 1842, Caroline, Creole, Aroostock War, Manifest Destiny, “Fifty-four forty or fight, Liberty Party, Walker Tariff, spot resolutions, California Bear Flag Republic, Battle of Buena Vista, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Conscience Whigs, Wilmot Proviso, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Stephen W. Kearny, John C. Fremont, Winfield Scott, Nicholas P. Trist, David Wilmot

Chapter 16:West Africa Squadron, breakers, black belt, responsorial, Nat Turner’s rebellion, Amistad, American Colonialization Society, Liberia, The Liberator, American Anti-slavery Society, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Mason-Dixon Line, Gag Resolution, William T. Johnson, Nat Turner, William Witherforce, Theodore Dwight Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, David Walker, Sojourner Truth, Martin Delany, Fredrick Douglass

Chapter 18: popular sovereignty, Free Soil Party, California Gold Rush, Underground Railroad, Seventh of March speech, Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law, Clayton Bulwar Treaty, Ostend Manifesto, Opium War, Treaty of Wanghia, Treaty of Kanagawa, Gadsden Purchase, Kansas Nebraska Act, Lewis Case, Zackary Taylor, Harriet Tubman, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, William Walker, Caleb Cushing, Matthew C. Perry

Chapter 19: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Impending Crisis of the South, New England Emigrant Aid Company, Lecompton Constitution, Bleeding Kansas, Dredd Scott v. Stanford, Panic of 1857, Tariff of 1857, Lincoln-Douglas debates, Freeport question, Freeport Doctrine, Harpers Ferry, Constitutional Union party, Confederate States of America, Crittenden amendments, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Buchanan, Charles Sumner, Preston S. Brooks, Dred Scott, Roger B. Taney, Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, John C. Breckinridge, John Jordan Crittenden

Chapter 20:Fort Sumter, Boarder States, West Virginia, Trent affair, Alabama, Laird rams, Dominion of Canada, writ of habeas corpus, New York Draft Riots, Murrill Tarriff Act, U.S. Sanitary Commission, Charles Francis Adams, Napoleon III, Maximilian, Jefferson Davis, Elizabeth Blackwell, Clara Barton, Sally Tompkins

Chapter 21: Battle of Bull Run, Peninsula Campaign, Merrimack, Monitor, Second Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Antietam, Emancipation Proclamation, Thirteenth Amendment, Battle of Fredericksburg, Battle of Gettysburg, Gettysburg Address, Battle of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Siege of Vicksburg, Sherman’s March, Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, Copperheads, The Man without a Country, Union Party, Wilderness Campaign, Appomattox Courthouse, Reform Bill of 1867

Chapter 22: Freedman’s Buraeu, “10 Percent” Reconstruction Act, Fifteenth Amendment, Ex parte Milligan, Redeemers, Woman’s Loyal League, Union League, salawags, carpetbaggers, Ku Klux Klan, Force Acts, Tenure of Office Act, Seward’s Folly, Oliver Howard, Andrew Johnson, Thaddeus Stevens, Hariam Revels, Edwin M. Stanton, Benjamin Wade, William Seward,

Period 6 (1877-1898):

  1. Identity: How did the rapid influx of immigrants from other parts of the world than northern and western Europe affect debates about American national identity
  2. Work, Exchange & Technology: How did technological and corporate innovations help to vastly increase industrial production? What was the impact of these innovations on the lives of working people?
  3. Peopling: How and why did the sources of migration to the United States change dramatically during this period?
  4. Politics & Power: How did the political culture of the Gilded Age reflect the emergence of new corporate power? How successful were the challenges to this power? Why did challenges to this power fail?
  5. America in the World: How did the search for new global markets affect American foreign policy and territorial ambitions?
  6. Environment & Geography: In what ways, and to what extent, was the West “opened” for further settlement through connection to eastern political, financial, and transportation systems?
  7. Ideas, Belief & Culture: How did artistic and intellectual movements both reflect and challenge the emerging corporate order??

Vocabulary: Chapter 23: “waving the bloody shirt”, Tweed Ring, Credit Mobilier Scandal, Panic of 1873, Gilded Age, patronage, Compromise of 1877, Civil Rights Act of 1875, sharecropping, Jim Crow, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Chinese Exclusion Act, Pendleton Act, Homestead Strike, grandfather clause, Jay Gould, Horace Greenley, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Thomas R. Reed, Tom Watson, Williams Jennings Bryan, J.P. Morgan