Period 1
1491-1607
1491-1607
Famous explorer who founded the Americas in an attempt to find a faster sea route to China...
Christopher Columbus
First successful English colony in the Americas...
Jamestown
American military general in the American Revolution who sieged Yorktown and became Americas only unanimously elected President (twice)...
George Washington
The ability of the Court to declare a Legislative or Executive act in violation of the Constitution (unconstitutional)...
Judicial Review
Declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free"...
Emancipation Proclamation
Connected the New and Old Worlds to new plants, animals, and cultural rituals. Also introducing new diseases to one another...
Columbian Exchange
Economic system based on the idea that a nation's wealth and power were best served by increasing exports and reducing imports to benefit the "Mother Country"
Mercantilism
Pamphlet written by Thomas Paine advocating for colonists to support American independence from the British...
Common Sense
Legislative deal that consisted of three large parts: A state would entered as a slave state, Another State would entered as a free state, and the 36'30” line was established as the dividing line regarding slavery for the remainder of the Louisiana Territory...
Missouri Compromise
Constitutional principle used in Kansas allowing the settlers to decide by vote whether the territory would be admitted to the Union as a slave or free state...
Popular Sovereignty
Powerful empire from central Mexico that a population of over 200,000, equivalent to large cities in Europe at that time.
Aztecs
The first democratically-elected legislative body in the British American colonies...
House of Burgesses
Documents which served as a general search warrant, allowing customs officials to enter any ship or building that they suspected for any reason might hold smuggled goods...
Writ of Assistance
Domestic Policy with three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements"
Henry Clay's American System
Ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming
Mexican Cession
A Spanish labor system that rewarded conquerors with labor of the conquered, putting these people into a class system...
Encomienda System
Acts of Parliament intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods...
Navigation Acts
A series of four laws passed by the British Parliament to punish the colony of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party...
Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)
American foreign policy that warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization in the Western Hemisphere
Monroe Doctrine
Provided food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans...
Freedmen's Bureau
Several Tribes living near the Great Lakes region, formed a powerful political Union called the...
Iropquois Confederation
To relax the enforcement of strict regulations, particularly trade laws, imposed on the American colonies..
Salutary Neglect
Condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional and claimed that because these acts overstepped federal authority under the Constitution, they were null and void by the states...
Kentucky - Virginia Resolutions
Was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that defined the scope of the U.S. Congress's legislative power and how it relates to the powers of American state legislatures...
McCulloch v. Maryland
Landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and thus they could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens
Dred Scott v. Sandford