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Underground Railroad
A series of trails and safehouses by which people enslaved in the South could find safe passage to the North. -
Texas Revolution
Texas was still under Mexican control, but they did not like the rules that Mexico had in place for them so they decided to declare their independence and become their own country. Mexico did not like this so they fought against Texas, but Texas would go on to win. -
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Manifest Destiny
The idea that God gave us all this land out west, so anyone living on that land should have to leave since it was our land. -
Republican Party
This party came from the whigs and the free soil movement. They became the main party that ran against the Democratic party. Their first presidential candidate was Abraham Lincoln. -
Oregon Treaty
There was debates between America and Britain over who would control the Oregon Territory, they eventually decided to split the land at the 49th parallel. -
Wilmot Proviso
A proposition that any land gained from the Mexican-American War be off limits for the expansion of slavery. -
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Mexican American War
Texas wanted to be annexed by the US, but at the time the US didn't want to annex Texas, eventually Texas was annexed and the Mexicans didn't like this so they declared war of the US after there was a dispute over where the location of the southern border of Texas and Mexico. -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
It ended the war between Mexico and America. It set the border as the river Rio Grande, it outlined the deal for the Mexican cession where Mexico ceded California and New Mexico to the US. Mexico would lost half of its territory. -
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Free Soil Party
A party composed of Democrats and Whigs that wanted new territories to be a place of free laborers, not enslaved. Stop the expansion of slavery. -
Fugitive Slave Law
Northerners were required to arrest enslaved people who had escaped their plantations and return them to slavery. -
Compromise of 1850
It would further divide Utah and New Mexico, they would practice popular sovereignty, California would be a free state, slave trade would be stopped in DC, and a stricter slave fugitive law would be passed. -
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Indian Wars
It was multiple conflicts between the Native Americans and the US government. The Native Americans fought with the US as a way to resist their land getting taken. -
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Perry Expedition
General Matthew Perry was sent on a voyage to go to Japan to tell Japan to open up their ports to the US, otherwise the US would open up the ports whether or not Japan liked it. -
Gadsden Purchase
A strip of land was purchased in Arizona so that the railroads could avoid going through the Rocky mountains. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
Each territory could decide whether or not to allow slavery through popular sovereignty. -
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Bleeding Kansas
When Kansas had popular sovereignty, many people from surrounding states decided to move there to help sway its vote to be a slave state or a free state. With all these people together, there were conflicts that ended in bloody fights between pro slavery and anti slavery settlers. -
Dred Scott V. Sandford
Dred Scott an enslaved man who lived in Missouri and was taken by his master to live in Illinois and Wisconsin and he was suing his master for his freedom. The supreme said that Dred Scott was a slave an did not have rights. -
Harper's Ferry
John Brown started a rebellion by going to the armory at Harper's Ferry to get weapons that they could distribute to the slaves. -
Election of 1860
It was the election between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. Lincoln would win and this was a reason for most of the South to secede. -
Fort Sumter
The first attack of the Civil war. The South decided to attack Fort Sumter after they had blocked off the fort and refused to let the Union Troops resupply. -
Homestead Act
This gave citizens 160 acres of land as long as they lived on it and paid a small fee. -
Pacific Railroad Acts
It was a series of acts that authorized the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the US. -
Emancipation Proclamation
A document from Lincoln that freed all the slaves in the states that were in active rebellion to the US. So only in the Confederacy. This changed the focus of the war from a war to rebuild the nation to a war on slavery. -
Gettysburg Address
Lincoln's address to a crowd outside of a cemetery at Gettysburg to unify the nation, and to portray the struggle against slavery as the fulfillment of America's founding democratic ideals. -
Sherman's March
When Sherman and his army was marching to Savannah, he choose to destroy everything they came across. They burned fields, razed villages, and destroyed railroads. -
Thirteenth Amendment
It was a reconstruction amendment that abolished slavery. -
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Freedmen's Bureau
An agency to help newly freed African Americans. They provided food, shelter, clothing, medical services and land to displaced Southerners. -
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Black Codes
A group of "laws" that made African Americans not able to buy or rent land, testify against whites in court, and provided for racial segregation. -
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Ku Klux Klan
A hate group that has been founded on the idea that the white race was superior to the black race. They would scare African Americans by lynching them or by burning their homes or buisnesses. -
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Sharecropping
People would sign a contract that bound them perpetually to the plantation and gave plantation owners the right to extract unlimited labor for them. -
Alaska Purchase
The Russian Empire sold Alaska to the US, for $7.2 million since there was not much there at the time and Russian needed money after a defeat in the Crimean war. -
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
The south would be divided into 5 military districts and put them under military occupation with federal troops and it increased the requirements for southern states to join the Union. -
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National Grange Movement
A collective movement aimed at bringing isolated farmers together for socialization and education. -
Fourteenth Amendment
All persons born or naturalized in the US were citizens of the US, and that every citizen enjoyed equal protection of the laws on the state level. -
Knights of Labor
A national union that welcomed all who wanted to join. They opened their ranks to black laborers and women as well. They wanted to break up trusts and monopolies and abolish child labor. -
Fifteenth Amendment
The government cannot deny a person's vote based on race, color, or previous servitude. So all men could vote now. Women couldn't vote though. -
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Social Gospel
A movement whose purpose was to apply Christian ethics to social problems such as poverty, temperance, and economic inequality. -
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Poll Tax, Literacy Tests, Grandfather Clauses
All things done in the South to prevent African Americans from being able to exercise their voting rights. -
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Jim Crow Laws
De facto "laws" that were put in place to scare African Americans and to control them. These "laws" would be "enforced" by the Klan. Anyone who did something that the Klan deemed bad would probably get lynched. -
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Standard Oil Trust
A company started by John D. Rockefeller and it controlled almost 90% of the oil market. He bought out many of his competition causing him to have a control over the oil market. -
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Social Darwinism
The idea of survival of the fittest with races. So the stronger races would take over the weaker races. Basically just a justification for imperialism and racism. -
Compromise of 1877
The Democrats decided to concede the election to Hayes, but they the North had to remove all the federal troops from the South. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
This law banned Chinese immigration into the US. People were afraid that the Chinese were going to take their jobs so they wanted to excluded them from coming into the US. -
Pendleton Act
In an effort to combat the Spoils system, the government mandated that all government employees were to take a competitive examination. -
Wabash V. Illinois
The Wabash railroad company sued the state of Illinois and the Supreme court determined that the states had no power to regulate railroad rates for interstate shipments. -
American Federation of Labor
It was an association of craft workers led by Samuel Gompers. Their goals where much the same as the Knights of Labor: higher wages, and safer working conditions. -
Interstate Commerce Act
This law was to regulate the railroad industry. It required the railroad companies to publish uniform rates and outlawed rebates and pools. It gave the federal government authority over the railroads. Again not very effective due to lack of funding. -
Dawes Severalty Act
The federal government officially abandoned the reservation system and divided the reservation lands into 160 acre plots to be farmed by the Indians. -
Gospel of Wealth
A book written by Carnegie that said that the wealth had a duty from God to give back to society through philanthropy. Carnegie gave away $350 million to build libraries, concert halls, and universities. -
Hull House
A house set up by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. It was set up to help new immigrants find a place to live, a job, and education opportunities. -
Wounded Knee
The last major battle between the Native Americans and the US. The army was trying to disarm the natives but then a shot rang out and the US killed over 200 Native Americans. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
This law prohibited monopolies in order to promote new business growth. It did not really help break up the monopolies at the start though. -
Ghost Dance Movement
The last decisive resistance movement to the American Government. The Natives would participate in this ritualistic dance and then the ghosts of their ancestors would return to drive away the white man. -
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Ashcan School
The ashcan school was an artistic movement that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York. -
Homestead Strike
The workers at Carnegie's Steel plant went on strike by locking themselves in the plant. Richard Frick, Carnegie's man left in charge, hired Pinkertons to go break up the union. Ultimately the National Guard had to step in to stop the strike. -
Omaha Platform
A book where the Populist Party was able to publish their beliefs and where they called or political and economic reforms. -
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Carnegie Steel
Carnegie owned a large portion of the steel industry as well. He would buy up all the parts of making steel rather than buying out his competitors. -
Turner Thesis
It was the idea that the settlement of the American frontier was a key factor in the development of American democracy and culture. -
Panic of 1893
This was caused by President Grover Cleveland doing nothing to alleviate the economic disaster for many Americans making it worse. It was one of the worst financial crises before the Great Depression. -
Pullman Strike
The workers at the Pullman Company had lowered wages due to a panic and they did not like this so they decided to have a strike by not working on any trains that had a Pullman cart on them. This was resolved by the government when they attached mail cars to trains so they could arrest anyone who was stopping the train since they were stopping mail. -
Coxey's Army
It was a movement that was led by unemployed workers who went to Washington DC to demand that Congress legislate the jobs program back into law. -
Plessy V. Ferguson
Plessy a man from Louisiana was suing Ferguson because he was forced to sit in the second car since he was 1/8 black. This case made separate but equal policies legal and federal. Basically made segregation legal. -
Cross of Gold Speech
It was a speech made by William Jennings Bryan where he was saying that staying with the gold standard would make us be held back by it but we would have prosperity from silver back currency.