History of the Americas Questions

Dred Scott Case - Supreme Court Case in which Dred Scott, a slave that escaped the South, tried and failed to sue for his freedom because it was established that since he was "property," he could not sue

Mexican-American War - Conflict with Mexico over the Southern border, Mexico ceded lands such as New Mexico and California in Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

American Civil War - Southern states secceed from the Union and form the Confederacy, the Union and the Confederacy fight and the Union wins because of better resources and industrialization

Wounded Knee - Massacre of hundreds of Lakota peoples, marked the difinitive end of Indian resistance of encroachment of white settlers

Sherman Antitrust Act - Act that made it illegal for companies to make monopolies and ensures free competition, was mostly just used against workers unions

Uncle Tom's Cabin published - Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, this book outlined the terrible conditions of slaves and strengthened Northern abolitionism

Annexation of Texas - Formally recognized Texas as a part of the United States as a slave state

Market Revolution - Increase in industrial production that transformed American business and trade

Battle of the Alamo - pivotal battle in the Texas Revolution

Fugitive Slave Law - Required that all slaves that had escaped to the North be returned to their owners in the South

Bleeding Kansas and Kansas-Nebraska Act - Bleeding Kansas was a series of violent confrontations between pro-slavery and abolitionist forces for control of Kansas, Kansas-Nebraska act created two separate territories and allowed for popular sovereignty

Louisiana Purchase - Acquisition of Western territory that doubled the size of the United States under Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson was an Anti-Federalist who stretched the limits of the government for this purchase)

Era of Good Feelings - Period characterized by a sense of optimism and positivity during which there was only one main political party under Monroe

Manifest Destiny - Idea that the United States was destined by God to spread Westward

Jackson's election - Andrew Jackson (Democrat) gets elected

XYZ Affair - Diplomatic incident between the United States and France in which French diplomats tried to insist that United States paid them to negotiate, started the Quasi-War

Missouri Compromise - Missouri gets to join the United States as a slave state and Maine joins as a free state, slavery prohibited above 36-30 line

Trail of Tears - Forced migration/ethnic cleansing of Native Americand due to Jackson's Indian Removal Policy

Nat Turner's Rebellion - Violent slave rebellion in Virginia led by Nathaniel Turner

War of 1812 - War between Britain and the United States over impressment of American seamen, ended inconclusively