American History Vocab by Jackson Evans _ Student - ApexMS

Columbian Exchange

jeevans21 — 2025-01-24 18:02:44 UTC

The process of transferring plants, animals, foods, diseases, wealth, and culture between Europe and the Americas, beginning at the time of Christopher Columbus and continuing throughout the era of exploration and expansion.

Puritans

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 21:57:42 UTC

Religious reform movement in the 16th and 17th centuries that sought to “purify” the church of England.

Indentured Servant

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 21:58:19 UTC

In an effort to entice English subjects to the colonies, parties would offer legal bonded contracts that would exchange the cost of passage across the Atlantic for up to seven years of labor in America.

Triangular Trade

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:00:24 UTC

Economic exchange amongst three markets and geographies

Encomienda System

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:01:01 UTC

The government in Spain gave away large tracts of conquered land in Spanish America, including whole villages of indigenous peoples, to court favorites, including many conquistadores. These new landlords were supposed to educate the natives and teach them the Roman Catholic faith. The system was rife with abuse, however. Landlords rarely offered much education, preferring instead to exploit the labor of the local inhabitants, whom they treated like slaves.

Mercantilism

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:05:13 UTC

An economic system built on the assumption that the world's supply of wealth is fixed and that nations must export more goods than they import to assure a steady supply of gold and silver into national coffers. Mercantile thinkers saw the inflow of such wealth as the key to maintaining and enhancing national power and self-sufficiency. Within this context, the accumulation and development of colonies was of great importance, since colonies could supply scarce raw materials to parent nations and serve as markets for finished goods.

Chattel Slavery

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:05:39 UTC

Total ownership of one person over another.

Civilization

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:06:10 UTC

state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, and government has been reached.

New England Colonies

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:06:30 UTC

Colonies founded by the Puritans for religious purposes. Goal was to create a society as God intended.

Middle Colonies

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:06:51 UTC

Colonies with a large agricultural base. Because of location they were key distribution centers in the English Mercantile System

Southern Colonies

jeevans21 — 2025-01-28 22:07:15 UTC

Colonies focused on cash crops.

Proclamation Line of 1763

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:06:40 UTC

A proclamation from the British government which forbade British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains and required any settlers already living west of the mountains to move back east.

Articles of Confederation

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:11:51 UTC

Before the American Constitution, this established the United States as a loose confederation of states under a weak national Congress, which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes.

Enlightenment

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:12:31 UTC

An eighteenth-century philosophical movement that began in Western Europe with roots in the Scientific Revolution.

Newburgh Conspiracy

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:13:21 UTC

Near the end of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army had not received pay for many years and threatened to abandon the fight if they were not compensated.

Patriot

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:14:12 UTC

A colonist who rebelled against British rule.

Federalists

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:14:43 UTC

Supporters of the new Constitution and a strong federal government. They feared a weak government and were generally very wealthy.

Albany Plan of Union

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:24:42 UTC

Plan proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 that aimed to unite the 13 colonies for trade, military, and other purposes; the plan was turned down by the colonies and the (British) Crown.

Great Compromise

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:25:50 UTC

The decision to have a bicameral legislature, with one house based on population and one house with an equal number of representatives for every state.

Tory

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:27:15 UTC

A colonist who supported British rule.

Anti-Federalists

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:28:00 UTC

Supporters of the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution. They feared a tyrannical national government with too much power and strongly advocated for the Bill of Rights.

Northwest Ordinance

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:28:32 UTC

One of the biggest accomplishments of the Articles of Confederation. This established a system for setting up governments in the western territories so they could eventually join the Union.

Three-Fifths Compromise

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:28:52 UTC

Determined that each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation.

Salutary Neglect

jeevans21 — 2025-02-07 17:29:18 UTC

A period from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s where British Parliamentary Laws were not enforced on the colonists.

Political Party

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:07:25 UTC

A group of people with similar political beliefs who work to influence government.

Marbury v. Madison

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:08:02 UTC

A Supreme Court case (1803) that established judicial review, meaning courts can declare laws unconstitutional

Temperance Movement

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:08:42 UTC

A movement to reduce or ban alcohol consumption.

Abolition Movement

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:09:11 UTC

The movement to end slavery in the U.S.

Women's Rights Movement

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:10:02 UTC

A movement advocating for equal rights for women, including voting rights.

Cotton Gin

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:10:29 UTC

A machine invented by Eli Whitney in 1793 that quickly removed seeds from cotton, making cotton production much faster.

Steam Engine

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:11:14 UTC

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.

Factory System

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:11:46 UTC

A method of manufacturing using machines and workers in one location.

Canals

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:12:16 UTC

Man-made waterways used for transportation and trade.

Monroe Doctrine

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:13:13 UTC

A U.S. policy (1823) warning European nations not to interfere in the Americas.

Democratic Party

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:13:39 UTC

A political party founded in the 1820s, originally led by Andrew Jackson.

Whigs

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:14:02 UTC

A political party that opposed Andrew Jackson and supported Congress having more power than the president.

Telegraph

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:16:14 UTC

An invention that allowed for fast long-distance communication using Morse code.

Interchangeable Parts

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:16:50 UTC

Identical machine-made parts that made production and repair easier.

Impressment

jeevans21 — 2025-02-26 17:17:24 UTC

The British practice of capturing American sailors and forcing them to serve in their navy, a cause of the War of 1812.

Manifest Destiny

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:39:30 UTC

19th-century belief that Americans had the God-given right to spread across the whole continent.

Sectionalism

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:39:57 UTC

Loyalty or support of a particular region or section of the nation, rather than the United States as a whole.

Popular Sovereignty

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:40:45 UTC

People of a territory should themselves decide the issue of slavery

Compromise of 1850

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:41:15 UTC

Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. This included that the Fugitive Slave Act was amended, the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was abolished, California entered the Union as a free state, a territorial government was created in Utah, and an act was passed settling a boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico that also established a territorial government in New Mexico.

Fugitive Slave Act

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:41:47 UTC

Required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:42:15 UTC

Passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

Union

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:42:40 UTC

Northern half of the country, a group of states that were generally anti-slavery

Confederacy

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:43:59 UTC

Southern half of the country, a group of states trying to separate over the issue of slavery.

Secession

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:44:29 UTC

When a state attempts to secede from, or leave, the nation it was once a part of.

thirteenth Amendment

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:45:49 UTC

Freed all slaves and abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States.

Fourteenth Amendment

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:46:16 UTC

Granted African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law.

Fifteenth Amendment

jeevans21 — 2025-03-17 19:46:37 UTC

Granted African American men voting rights.

Capitalism

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:35:04 UTC

A system of economic production based on the private ownership of property and the contractual exchange for profit of goods, labor, and money.

Titans of Industry

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:35:57 UTC

Positive name for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age, implying that they helped the United States become strong through their business pursuits.

Social Darwinism

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:36:22 UTC

The idea that the wealthy and powerful were naturally superior and deserved their success.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:36:50 UTC

The railroad owner who built a railway connecting Chicago and New York. He popularized the use of steel rails in his railroad, which made railroads safer and more economical.

Robber Barons

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:37:19 UTC

Negative term for wealthy business owners during the Gilded Age who made fortunes by monopolizing huge industries through unethical business practices.

Gospel of Wealth

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:37:44 UTC

The idea that extremely wealthy Americans had a responsibility to spend their money in order to benefit the greater good.

Andrew Carnegie

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:38:30 UTC

Known as the steel king; he integrated every phase of his steel-making operation. He pioneered "Vertical Integration" to improve efficiency by controlling the quality of the product at all stages of production and eliminating the middleman

Unions

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:38:57 UTC

An organized group of workers that use collective bargaining to improve working conditions.

Muckraking

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:39:24 UTC

When writers sought to expose corruption in big business and government.

John D. Rockefeller

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:39:46 UTC

A man who started from meager beginnings and eventually created an oil empire. In Ohio in 1870, he organized the Standard Oil Company. By 1877, he controlled 95% of all of the refineries in the United States.

Migration

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:40:11 UTC

Patterns of movement across the country, including waves of new immigrants and formerly enslaved people moving toward urban centers.

JP Morgan

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:40:37 UTC

A banker who financed the reorganization of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. He bought out Carnegie and in 1901, he started the United States Steel Corporation.

Gilded Age

jeevans21 — 2025-03-24 15:41:18 UTC

The age between the Civil War and WWI when the American economy grew rapidly and individuals were able to use monopolies to amass great wealth.

Women’s Suffrage

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:05:49 UTC

The campaign to allow female voters

Alfred Thayer Mahan

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:06:21 UTC

A captain and admiral in the Navy who was a prominent supporter of Imperialism

League of Nations

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:06:49 UTC

International organization founded in 1919 to promote world peace and cooperation but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join. Sometimes considered a precursor to the modern UN.

Stocks on margin

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:07:27 UTC

The practice of allowing investors to purchase a stock for only a fraction of its price and borrow the rest at high interest rates

Prohibition

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:07:52 UTC

The prevention by law of the manufacture and sale of alcohol between 1920 and 1933

Open Door Policy

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:08:18 UTC

The principle that all countries should have equal access to any of the ports open to trade in China

Treaty of Versailles

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:08:47 UTC

The resolution to WWI that squarely blamed Germany by demanding billions in reparations and destroying German military infrastructure

Tariffs

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:09:11 UTC

Tax on imports

Isolationism

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:09:39 UTC

The traditional belief that the United States should refrain from involvement in overseas politics, alliances, or wars, and confine its national security interest to its own borders

Militarism

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:10:06 UTC

The political orientation of a people or a government to maintain a strong military force and to be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests

Great Migration

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:10:34 UTC

The movement of African Americans from the South to the industrial centers of the Northeast and the Midwest

3 Rs

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:11:29 UTC

A popular way to describe the New Deal, referring to relief, recovery, and reform

Imperialism

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:11:54 UTC

A policy in which a strong nation seeks to dominate other countries politically, socially, and economically

Nationalism

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:12:21 UTC

Political ideology that stresses people's membership in a nation

Zimmerman Telegram

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:12:47 UTC

A message from Germany to Mexico—decoded and shared by the British—that urged Mexico to invade the US to keep the US occupied in exchange for German support for Mexico taking back parts of the Mexican Cession

Island Hopping

jeevans21 — 2025-04-16 16:13:23 UTC

American military strategy in WWII to slowly claim territory across the Pacific, leading to the eventual defeat of Japan

Holocaust

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:50:32 UTC

The death and destruction of six million Jews and five million other people by the Nazis during WWII.

International Organizations

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:51:00 UTC

Globally centered groups that try to solve world problems.

United Nations

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:51:21 UTC

Successor to the League of Nations. Exists to solve the world’s political problems.

Bretton Woods System

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:52:01 UTC

Created the World Bank and IMF to solve the world’s economic problems.

Nato

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:52:27 UTC

Military alliance primarily between the USA and Western Europe.

Iron Curtain

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:52:53 UTC

Named by Winston Churchill. This is the metaphorical demarcation between communism and democracy in Europe.

Warsaw Pact

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:53:23 UTC

Military alliance between countries in Eastern Europe and the USSR.

Containment

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:53:55 UTC

Theory that communism must be prevented from spreading to other countries and that the USA must use military force to stop it if necessary.

Domino Theory

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:54:18 UTC

Belief that if one country becomes Communist its neighbors would also become communist.

Mutually Assured Destruction

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:55:39 UTC

Theory that if one country uses nuclear weapons other countries will use them as well effectively ending the world as we know it.

Atomic Bomb

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:56:48 UTC

Significantly more powerful than past weapons. First used in Hiroshima.

Nuclear Weapons

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:57:08 UTC

Vastly more powerful than atomic bombs. Capable of destroying entire cities and permanently irradiating countries.

Great Society

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:57:29 UTC

Created by President LBJ to improve the social welfare safety net in the USA.

Brown v. Board

jeevans21 — 2025-05-19 15:58:10 UTC

Supreme Court Case that ended the segregation of schools.

Reaganomics

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:55:29 UTC

refers to the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, emphasizing tax cuts, reduced government regulation, and a belief that stimulating economic growth among the wealthy would benefit the entire economy.

Liberal

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:55:53 UTC

individuals or policies advocating for social and economic equality, government intervention in the economy, and progressive social values.

Conservative

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:56:16 UTC

individuals or policies favoring limited government intervention, traditional values, and a free-market approach to economic issues.

Moral Majority

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:56:40 UTC

a political movement in the 1980s, led by religious conservatives, advocating for socially conservative policies and seeking to influence American politics based on moral and religious principles.

Trickle down economics

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:57:07 UTC

an economic theory asserting that benefits provided to the wealthy and businesses will eventually "trickle down" to the rest of the population through job creation and economic growth

Monetary Policy

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:57:25 UTC

actions by a central bank to control the money supply and interest rates, influencing economic activity by managing inflation, employment, and overall economic stability

Fiscal Policy

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:59:20 UTC

government actions related to taxation and spending to influence the economy, aiming to achieve economic goals such as full employment and stable prices.

Laissez-Faire

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:59:35 UTC

an economic philosophy advocating minimal government interference in the marketplace, allowing natural market forces to determine prices, production, and distribution.

Inflation

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:59:49 UTC

the general increase in the prices of goods and services over time, reducing the purchasing power of currency.

Deregulation

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 01:59:59 UTC

reducing or eliminating government restrictions and regulations on industries, with the goal of fostering competition and economic efficiency.

Terrorism

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 02:00:21 UTC

the use of violence or threats to intimidate and create fear for political, religious, or ideological purposes

Globalization

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 02:00:34 UTC

the process of increased interconnectedness and interdependence among countries, economies, and cultures through international trade, communication, and cultural exchange

GDP (Gross Domestic Product)

jeevans21 — 2025-06-05 02:00:47 UTC

the total value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, serving as a key indicator of economic performance.