JACKSONIAN AMERICA
This seventh president became the symbol of a new, more populist political era centered on the “common man.”
Who was Andrew Jackson?
This belief held that the United States was destined—even divinely chosen—to expand across North America.
What was Manifest Destiny?
This war between the United States and Mexico lasted from 1846 to 1848 and dramatically expanded U.S. territory.
What was the Mexican-American War?
This secret network of routes, guides, and safe houses helped enslaved people escape toward freedom.
What was the Underground Railroad?
This 1854 law allowed settlers in Kansas and Nebraska to vote on slavery, effectively overturning the Missouri Compromise restriction.
What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
This expansion of voting rights allowed most white men to vote even if they did not own property.
What was universal white male suffrage?
This newspaper editor helped popularize the phrase “Manifest Destiny” in 1845.
Who was John L. O’Sullivan?
This 1848 treaty ended the Mexican-American War and transferred vast western lands to the United States.
What was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
This formerly enslaved woman repeatedly returned south to guide others to freedom and became one of the Underground Railroad’s most famous conductors.
Who was Harriet Tubman?
This principle held that settlers in a territory should decide for themselves whether slavery would be legal.
What was popular sovereignty?
This political struggle pitted Jackson against supporters of the Second Bank of the United States.
What was the Bank War?
Mexican forces under Santa Anna destroyed the Texan defenders of this mission fortress in 1836.
What was the Alamo?
This failed proposal attempted to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico.
What was the Wilmot Proviso?
Within Underground Railroad terminology, safe houses were called this.
What were stations?
This name describes the violent 1850s conflict between proslavery and antislavery settlers in Kansas Territory.
What was Bleeding Kansas?
This 1830 law authorized the federal government to force Native nations east of the Mississippi westward.
What was the Indian Removal Act?
At this decisive 1836 battle, Sam Houston’s army defeated Santa Anna and secured Texas independence.
What was the Battle of San Jacinto?
James Marshall’s 1848 discovery of gold at this California location triggered the Gold Rush.
What was Sutter’s Mill?
This formerly enslaved abolitionist published his famous autobiography in 1845 and became one of the nation’s leading antislavery speakers.
Who was Frederick Douglass?
In this infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision, the Court ruled that Black Americans could not be U.S. citizens and Congress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories.
What was Dred Scott v. Sandford?
Although Jackson created the removal policy, this president actually oversaw the Cherokee Trail of Tears in 1838–1839.
Who was Martin Van Buren?
After defeating Mexico in 1836 in a war for its independence, this independent republic existed for nearly a decade, sought diplomatic recognition abroad, maintained its own government, expanded slavery, and eventually pursued annexation by the United States.
What was the Republic of Texas?
Gold seekers who flooded into California during 1849 became known by this famous nickname.
Who were the Forty-Niners?
In 1863, Harriet Tubman helped plan and guide this Union operation in South Carolina, where gunboats destroyed Confederate supplies and plantations while freeing more than 700 enslaved people.
What was the Combahee River Raid?
In 1859, this radical abolitionist attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry hoping to seize weapons and spark an uprising against slavery.
Who was John Brown?