Early America
This Native American confederacy in New York State was formed by five (later six) nations to maintain peace and trade.
What is the Iroquois Confederacy (or Haudenosaunee)
This 1776 document, written by Thomas Jefferson, declared the 13 colonies independent from Great Britain based on John Locke’s ideas of natural rights.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, added to protect individual rights like freedom of speech and religion.
What is the Bill of Rights?
President Thomas Jefferson bought this massive territory from France in 1803, doubling the size of the United States.
What is the Louisiana Purchase?
The secret network of routes, safe houses, and conductors that helped enslaved African Americans escape to freedom in the North and Canada.
What is the Underground Railroad?
Before the British renamed it New York, this Dutch colony served as a major center for fur trading along the Hudson River.
What is New Netherland (or New Amsterdam)?
This 1777 battle fought in upstate New York was considered the "turning point" of the Revolutionary War because it convinced France to join as an American ally.
What is the Battle of Saratoga?
The principle of government where power is shared between the federal (national) government and state governments.
What is Federalism?
Completed in 1825, this engineering marvel connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie, transforming Buffalo into a major trade hub and boomtown.
What is the Erie Canal?
The 1852 novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe that exposed the harsh realities of slavery and inflamed anti-slavery feeling in the North.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
The economic policy used by Great Britain that forced the 13 colonies to supply raw materials to the mother country and buy manufactured goods in return.
What is Mercantilism?
American colonists who wanted to break away from British rule were called Patriots, while colonists who wanted to remain loyal to King George III were called this
What are Loyalists (or Tories)?
DAILY DOUBLE America’s first written constitution, created during the Revolution, proved too weak because it lacked the power to collect taxes or enforce national laws.
What were the Articles of Confederation?
The 19th-century belief that the United States was destined by God to expand its territory across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean.
What is Manifest Destiny?
The 1857 Supreme Court decision that ruled enslaved African Americans were not citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in U.S. territories.
What is the Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford)?
This 1620 agreement signed by the Pilgrims established one of the first self-governing frameworks in colonial America.
What is the Mayflower Compact?
This 1770 event in Massachusetts resulted in British soldiers firing into a crowd of colonists, killing five people and sparking intense anti-British propaganda.
What is the Boston Massacre?
This principle ensures that no single branch of government becomes too powerful by allowing each branch to limit or block actions of the other two.
What are Checks and Balances?
The forced displacement and marching of Native American tribes (including the Cherokee) from the Southeast to land west of the Mississippi River under the Indian Removal Act.
What is the Trail of Tears?
DAILY DOUBLE The 1820 agreement that admitted Maine as a free state, Missouri as a slave state, and drew an imaginary line across the territories banning slavery north of 36°30'.
What is the Missouri Compromise?
This global conflict between France and Britain from 1754–1763 left Britain in massive debt, leading to new taxes on the 13 colonies.
What is the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War)?
This treaty officially ended the Revolutionary War in 1783, recognizing the United States as an independent nation with boundaries reaching the Mississippi River.
What is the Treaty of Paris (1783)?
The compromise reached during the 1787 Constitutional Convention that created a two-house (bicameral) legislature with the Senate and House of Representatives.
What is the Great Compromise?
The machine invented by Eli Whitney in 1793 that sped up cotton production and dramatically increased the reliance on enslaved labor in the South.
What is the Cotton Gin?
The first state to secede (withdraw) from the Union in December 1860 following the election of Abraham Lincoln.
What is South Carolina?