U.S. History I

Main

House of Burgesses

1619

The purpose of the house was to give settlers a representative assembly to ensure they had the same rights as citizens back in England.

King Philip's War

1675

Metacomet, a Wampanoag Indian chief who felt increasingly threatened by the growing number of colonists, led a war against New England colonists.

Bacon's Rebellion

1676

This was the first time frontiersmen started an uprising in the colonies; this occurred in the Virginia Colony. Poor white farmers and poor black indentured servants united against Virginia’s Governor Berkley in an attempt to demand that Native Americans be driven out of Virginia.

French and Indian War

1754 - 1763

Began with skirmishes intended to oppose French control of the Ohio Valley and western Pennsylvania; a.k.a. Seven Years' War. The Treaty of Paris ended France's land holdings in North America. As a result of war debt, Britain imposed taxes on its N.A. colonies

American Revolution

1775 - 1784

Shay's Rebellion

1786 - 1787

Rebellion to close down courts so farmers could not be foreclosed on or sent to debtor's prisons.

Second Great Awakening

1790 - 1840

Whiskey Rebellion

1794

Over a tax that was part of Hamilton's revenue program

Yazoo Land Controversy

1795

Georgia's governor and legislators sold tracts of land to insiders at enormously low prices.Jefferson’s Republican opponents, known as “Quids,” accused Jefferson for involvement in this scheme, resulting in a great deal of strife within the Republican Party and weakening of Jefferson’s effectiveness in his second term.

Louisiana Purchase

1803

Purchased from Napoleon; prompted westward exploration. :o)

Era of Good Feelings

1812

Started around the War of 1812

War of 1812

1812 - 1814

Technically the war ended in 1814, although the Battle of New Orleans took place in 1815.

Hartford Convention

1814

During this convention, Federalist delegates from New England became so dissatisfied with the war of 1812 that they discussed secession of the New England states from the US.

Barbary Wars

1815

Between the U.S. and pirates off Northern Africa; America gained free access to the Mediterranean basin.

Adam-Onis Treaty

1819

Spain sold America Florida in exchange for U.S. assumption of $5,000,000 in Spanish debts to the U.S. The boundary of Mexico went all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Adams-Onis Treaty

1819

Gave U.S. Spanish Florida

Missouri Compromise

1820

In 1820 Henry Clay worked out the Missouri Compromise, allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state.

Indian Removal Laws

1830

Under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, who ignored the Supreme Court

Panic of 1837

1837

After Andrew Jackson's Specie Circular Act, the fall of the Second Bank of the United States, and the distribution of "soft" money (surplus funds)

Election of 1840

1840

First "modern" political election; focus on portrayals, not actual issues

Annexation of Texas

1845

One of the causes of the Mexican War

Mexican War

1846 - 1848

Causes include Texas border disputes, the American annexation of Texas, and U.S. interest in Mexican-held lands

Seneca Falls Convention

1848

"Beginning" of feminist movement

Compulsary school attendance laws

1852

Free public education was now available for the elementary level

Gadsden Purchase

1853

Southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona were purchased from Mexico for the purpose of establishing a transcontinental railroad.

Civil War

1861 - 1865

11 states ceceded (

Purchase of Alaska

1867

Also known as Seward's Folly; Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7,200,000 after Russia feared war with Britain in which it would lose Alaska anyway.

Gold Standard Act

1900

Established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money and stopped bimetallism.

Worldview shifts

Romanticism

1800 - 1840

Famous authors include Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlett Letter, The House of the Seven Gables), Emily Dickinson (I Heard a Narrow Fellow in the Grass, I Heard A Fly Buzz By), and Herman Melville (Moby Dick, Billy Budd)

Transcendentalism

1840 - 1855

Famous authors include Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass), who wrote at the end of this movement, Margaret Fuller (Summer on the Lakes, Woman in the Nineteenth Century), L. M Alcott (Little Women, Hospital Sketches), H.D Thoreau (Walden, Civil Disobedience), and R.W. Emerson (Nature, Self-Reliance). Transcendentalism was an American literary and philosophical movement that originated in New England and emphasized going beyond the bounds of intellect and reason and seeking emotional understanding and unity with God through nature.

Realism

1865 - 1915

A famous author is Mark Twain