US History: From Early Settlement to the Progressive Era
Early American History
1- How did early inhabitants reach the American continent? It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first settled the Americas. The prevailing theory proposes that people migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska, and then spread southward throughout the Americas. This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago. These early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.
2- What new materials, articles, and animals did Europeans bring to America? What did they take back to Europe? In the 16th century, Europeans brought horses, cats, cattle, and hogs to the Americas and, in turn, took back to Europe maize, turkey, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash. The disease environment was very unhealthy for explorers and early settlers. The Native Americans became exposed to new diseases such as smallpox and measles and died in very large numbers.
3- Mention some of the most important Spanish, Dutch, and French settlements in North America:
- Main Spanish Settlements: Santa Fe, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.
- Main Dutch Settlements: New Netherland.
- Main French Settlements: Quebec and Acadia.
British Colonization and the Road to Revolution
4- When did the English first arrive in America? Give a brief account of British colonization. The strip of land along the eastern seacoast was settled primarily by English colonists in the 17th century. Colonial America was defined by a severe labor shortage that employed forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and by a British policy of benign neglect (salutary neglect) that permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its European founders. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants.
5- Who were “indentured servants”? Indentured servants were European immigrants who paid for their passage to America by agreeing to work from four to seven years for an employer. Most indentured servants were poor English, Irish, Welsh, and German men. During the indenture period, the servants were not paid wages but were provided with food, accommodation, clothing, and training. After working the required amount of time for a master, they gained their freedom. Most white immigrants arrived in Colonial America as indentured servants, usually as young men under the age of 21.
6- What is meant by “the French and Indian War”? What consequences did it bring about? The French and Indian War: The name of several battles that took place in North America between the French and the British in the mid-18th Century, before the American Revolutionary War.
7- What was the Boston Tea Party? What important event did it cause to happen? The Boston Tea Party: A protest in Boston in 1773 against the British tax on tea, when tea was thrown from British ships into the water. This is often considered to be the event that started the American Revolutionary War. Patriots from all 13 colonies convened the First Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance against the British taxes. The American Revolutionary War began at Concord and Lexington in April when the British tried to seize ammunition supplies and arrest the Patriot leaders.
Expansion and Conflict
8- What was the “Manifest Destiny” theory? Manifest Destiny: The belief that the U.S. people had the right and the duty to take land in America from other people because this was God’s plan. This phrase was used by politicians in the 19th Century when U.S. citizens moved west across North America and the US gained Texas, California, Oregon, etc.
9- What is meant by “western frontier”? What was the Indian Removal Act?
- Western Frontier: The American colonies and the new nation grew very rapidly in population and area, as pioneers pushed the frontier of settlement west. The process finally ended around 1890-1910. Despite the fact that some Native American tribes in some places resisted militarily, they were overwhelmed by settlers and the army and after 1830 were relocated to Indian reservations in the west.
- Indian removal: In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native American tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. President Andrew Jackson was a proponent of the forcible removal of native populations to the West; Whigs and religious leaders opposed the move as inhumane. The act resulted most notably in the Trail of Tears, a forced migration of several native tribes to the West, with several thousand people dying en route. Many of the Seminole Indians in Florida refused to move west; they fought the Army for years in the Seminole Wars.
Early Republic and the Road to Civil War
10- What were the main achievements of Washington’s first government? The major accomplishments of the Washington Administration were creating a strong national government that was recognized without question by all Americans, and, following the plans of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, assuming the debts of the states (the debt holders received federal bonds), creating the Bank of the United States to stabilize the financial system, setting up a uniform system of tariffs (taxes on imports) and other taxes to pay off the debt and provide a financial infrastructure. To support his programs, Hamilton created a new political party—the first in the world based on voters—the Federalist Party. Washington refused to serve more than two terms and in his famous farewell address, he extolled the benefits of federal government and the importance of ethics and morality while warning against foreign alliances and the formation of political parties.
11- Give an outline of the origin and rise of the abolitionist movement in the US. During the first two decades after the Revolutionary War, there were dramatic changes in the status of slavery among the states and an increase in the number of freed blacks. Inspired by revolutionary ideals of the equality of men and their lesser economic reliance on it, northern states abolished slavery, although some had gradual emancipation schemes. States of the Upper South made manumission easier, resulting in an increase in the proportion of free blacks in the Upper South from less than one percent in 1792 to more than 10 percent by 1810. By that date, a total of 13.5 percent of all blacks in the United States were free. After that date, with the demand for slaves on the rise with the development of the Deep South for cotton cultivation, the rate of manumissions declined sharply, and an internal slave trade became an important source of wealth for many planters and traders. After 1840, the growing abolitionist movement redefined itself as a crusade against the sin of slave ownership. William Lloyd Garrison published the most influential of the many antislavery newspapers, The Liberator, while Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, began writing for that newspaper around 1840 and started his own abolitionist newspaper North Star in 1847. The great majority of antislavery activists, such as Abraham Lincoln, rejected Garrison’s theology and held that slavery was an unfortunate social evil, not a sin.
12- What was the “Louisiana Purchase”? The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America in 1803 of 828,000 square miles of France’s claim to the territory of Louisiana. The U.S. paid a total sum of 15 million dollars for the Louisiana territory. The purchase of the territory of Louisiana took place during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, the purchase faced domestic opposition because it was thought to be unconstitutional. Although he agreed that the U.S. Constitution did not contain provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to go ahead with the purchase anyway in order to remove France’s presence in the region and to protect both U.S. trade access to the port of New Orleans and free passage on the Mississippi River.
13- Explain the War of 1812. Americans were increasingly angry at the British violation of American ships’ neutral rights. Despite strong opposition from federalists in the Northeast, Congress declared war in June 1812. The war was frustrating for both sides. American invasions of Canada were repeatedly repulsed, as the American militia proved ineffective, the British blockade ruined American commerce, bankrupted the Treasury, and further angered New Englanders, who smuggled supplies to Britain. The Americans under General William Henry Harrison finally gained naval control of Lake Erie and defeated the Indians under Tecumseh in Canada, while Andrew Jackson ended the Indian threat in the Southeast. The British raided and burned Washington, carrying away numerous slaves, but were repelled at Baltimore in 1814. In early 1815, Andrew Jackson decisively defeated a major British invasion at the Battle of New Orleans, making him the most famous war hero. After the war, both sides agreed to a peace that left the prewar boundaries intact. Americans celebrated a new spirit of national pride, as the antiwar Federalist Party practically disappeared. The Indians were the big losers; they never gained the independent nationhood Britain had promised.
14- What was the Monroe Doctrine? The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States’ opinion that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. This was a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States. The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in response to American and British fears over Russian and French expansion into the Western Hemisphere.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
15- Give a brief account of the American Civil War. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In response to the attack, on April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and “preserve the Union”, which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. The war soon divided into two theaters: Eastern and Western. In the western theater, the Union was quite successful, with major battles, such as Perryville and Shiloh, producing strategic Union victories and destroying major Confederate operations. The last two years of the war were bloody for both sides, with Grant launching a war of attrition against General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. This war of attrition was divided into three main campaigns. The first of these, the Overland Campaign, forced Lee to retreat into the city of Petersburg where Grant launched his second major offensive, the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in which he sieged Petersburg. After a near ten-month siege, Petersburg surrendered. However, the defense of Fort Gregg allowed Lee to move his army out of Petersburg. Grant pursued and launched the final, Appomattox Campaign which resulted in Lee surrendering his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. Other Confederate armies followed suit, and the war ended with no postwar insurgency. Based on 1860 census figures, about 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, establishing the American Civil War as the deadliest war in American history. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the United States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of the federal government.
16- What major issues were faced by the American government during the Reconstruction? The major issues faced by Washington were the status of the ex-slaves (called “Freedmen”), the loyalty and civil rights of ex-rebels, the status of the 11 ex-Confederate states, the powers of the federal government needed to prevent a future civil war, and the question of whether Congress or the President would make the major decisions. Reconstruction ended after the election in 1876, the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes won the election, the federal government withdrew its troops from the South, and Southern Democrats re-entered the national political scene. After 1890, southern states effectively disfranchised black voters. Blacks were segregated in public and remained second-class citizens until the success of the Civil Rights movement in 1964-65.
The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era
17- What was the Gilded Age? The “Gilded Age” was a term that Mark Twain used to describe the period of the late 19th century when there had been a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity. Reform of the Age included the Civil Service Act, which mandated a competitive examination for applicants for government jobs. Other important legislation included the Interstate Commerce Act, which ended railroads’ discrimination against small shippers, and the Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlawed monopolies in business. Twain believed that this age was corrupted by such elements as land speculators, scandalous politics, and unethical business practices.
18- What was the Progressive Era? What important reforms did it bring about? The dynamic Progressive Movement started in the 1890s. In every major city and state, and at the national level as well, and in education, medicine, and industry, the progressives called for the modernization and reform of decrepit institutions, the elimination of corruption in politics, and the introduction of efficiency as a criterion for change. Leading politicians from both parties took up the cause of progressive reform. Progressives implemented anti-trust laws and regulated such industries as meat-packing, drugs, and railroads. Four new constitutional amendments—the Sixteenth through Nineteenth—resulted from progressive activism, bringing the federal income tax, direct election of Senators, prohibition, and woman suffrage. The Progressive Movement lasted through the 1920s; the most active period was 1900-1918.