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Settlement of Jamestown
Jamestown was the first permanent British settlement in North America. It succeeded the Roanoke Colony, which was a previous attempt that resulted in the disappearance of all the settlers in that colony. The Jamestown settlers had the task of figuring out how to survive harsh New England winters, and the first five years were very cruel to them. Eventually, natives helped the colonists survive and the colonists discovered tobacco, which was a very crucial cash crop for the future colonies. -
Puritans and Pilgrims Arrive
The Puritans and Separatists were religious minorities in England who sought a fresh start in the New World. The Puritans wanted to purify the existing Church that was supposedly tainted by abuse, and the Separatists wanted to leave the Church completely. These groups were very hardworking and placed a high value on education; they planted these seeds of values that would be rooted within American society for years to come. -
The Great Awakening
After many generations, people didn't feel the same religious fervor as their ancestors. Preachers called the New Lights spoke with emotion and enthusiasm, drawing people back into their faith. They preached ideas such as God loves all equally regardless of race and status. This implanted ideas of equality into the new society and led people to question the divine right of their leaders. New universities were also created to teach new preachers, many of which still exist today. -
French and Indian War
This war occurred in North America between the British and the French. The colonists fought for the British side, and after their victory, they felt immense pride and wanted to be seen as equals to the British. However, the British viewed the colonists as cowards due to their differing military tactics (using guerilla warfare). They felt like the colonists did nothing for the war. This difference in views caused high tensions, ultimately leading to revolution. -
The End of Salutary Neglect
The British were deep in war debt and determined that since the war happened in the colonies, the colonists should pay for it. The government made taxes, such as the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, and wrote the Proclamation of 1763, which said that no colonists could settle west of the Appalachians. The British kept 7500 troops in the colonies to enforce these rules. This marked the end of years of salutary neglect, which meant the British weren't letting the colonies rule themselves anymore. -
Boston Tea Party
The colonists responded furiously to the strict taxes that were placed upon them. One group, the Sons of Liberty led by Samuel Adams, was known to violently protest against the British by burning down tax houses and attacking tax collectors. One such protest was the Boston Tea Party, in which the Sons dressed up as natives, ran to the harbor, and started throwing tea off ships to protest the Tea Act. They lost millions of dollars of tea, and this enraged the British. -
Coercive/Intolerable Acts
In response to rebellions such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, the British government passed the Intolerable Acts, which closed Boston's port. This devastated the colonies because almost everyone's income was tied to this port. The government stated that the port would remain closed until the price of the lost tea was repaid. Local assemblies were also outlawed and royal officials were tried in England, which gave them an unfair advantage. -
Lexington and Concord
As war became inevitable, people began stockpiling weapons in Concord, Massachusetts to keep them away from the British. However, spies leaked this information, and a British army began marching to Concord to destroy the weapons and capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were important Patriot leaders. However, the plan is foiled and the British are forced to fight in a nearby town called Lexington. The "shot heard round the world" is fired , marking the beginning of the American Revolution. -
Thomas Paine Publishes Common Sense
Thomas Paine was a Patriot who wrote Common Sense to stir up a revolutionary spirit amongst the common population. Many colonists had revolutionary ideas but didn't know how to express them; Common Sense articulated many colonists' thoughts. It was written in the vernacular, which made it very accessible, and Paine supported his arguments with logical and emotional claims. Just one year after the book was published, independence was declared. -
Second Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence
During the Second Continental Congress, delegates from all thirteen colonies came together in Philadelphia to discuss further steps after Lexington & Concord. After many discussions and peace attempts such as the Olive Branch Petition, the delegates decided to declare independence. Thomas Jefferson was set to write the first draft; in it, he listed all the unfair things the British had done to them. This document made the American Revolution official. -
Battle of Saratoga
Saratoga was the turning point of the American Revolution. The American army was in a slump and was accumulating many defeats. In Saratoga, the British were going to pinch the Americans from three sides, but due to poor planning, the British surrendered and the Americans gained a victory. This was a big morale boost and leveled the playing field by increasing supplies and boosting American recruitment. It also helped Ben Franklin attain a French alliance by proving to them Americans could fight. -
Articles of Confederation
After independence, delegates created the first governing document of the US called the Articles of Confederation. The system was very ineffective, but it heavily reflected the fear of a tyrannical government. It was tested by Shay's Rebellion, a violent uprising of Massachusetts farmers demanding debt compensation. The mob could only be stopped by an army, but according to the Articles, the government could not legally assemble troops. This document was quickly replaced by the Constitution. -
The Battle of Yorktown
Generals Washington and Cornwallis were facing off in the South. As Cornwallis was pushed north by the Americans, he ended up in Yorktown, where the French cornered him. He was forced to surrender to Washington, marking the war's end. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 officially ended the conflict, leaving America with all the British land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River and up north till Canada. -
Constitutional Convention
To create a new government, delegates from all the states came together in Philadelphia. There were many conflicts in producing the new document. One such conflict was representation in Congress. It was resolved by the Great Compromise, which included both equal and population-based representation in two separate groups. Some states also refused to ratify the document without a Bill of Rights that protected all citizens from the government. -
The Whiskey Rebellion
During his presidency, George Washington set important precedents for the country, with many firsts. The Whiskey Rebellion sprouted from small farmers' anger about an unfair whiskey tax that targeted them. They were rebelling against their state governments, and Washington had to gather troops and go against his people with the army. This was the first test of the Constitution, and its success showed that the new government was stable enough to last a long time. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
During Adams' presidency, a failed diplomacy attempt raised discontent in the country. Many wanted war. However, Adams went against the public to protect the new country. To suppress new protests, he angrily created the Alien and Sedition Acts, which allowed him to deport "dangerous" immigrants and arrest anyone who spoke against him. People started questioning their president's power because Adams had blatantly violated the Constitution and had gone against most of the founding ideas of the US. -
Revolution of 1800
Jefferson's election was considered a revolution because it would be the first time a leader from one party handed power over to the opposing party. Although the transfer was peaceful, it wasn't without unrest. Adams began appointing last-minute "midnight judges" the night before the inauguration to conserve power in the Supreme Court. A case was raised called Marbury v. Madison, which was won by Madison and established the Court as the main interpreter of the Constitution (judicial review). -
Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson worried the US could lose control of New Orleans Mississippi when the Pinckney Treaty expired. He sent James Monroe to buy the city from France. Napoleon was desperate for money and offered the Louisiana Territory for $15 million. Jefferson was hesitant about the decision because it went against his strict construction beliefs, but he eventually accepted. Since it doubled the size of the country, he sent the Lewis Clark expedition to map the new territory and find the west coast. -
The War of 1812
The British were impressing American sailors and stealing ships, and British-allied natives attacked American frontier towns. These causes drew Americans into a pivotal war against Britain. One of the key events was the British attack on the White House, and the attack on McHenry inspired the national anthem. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, but while the message was being delivered to the US, Andrew Jackson led a sweeping battle in New Orleans and emerged a war hero. -
Era of Good Feeling and the Market Revolution
After the war, James Monroe became president. His rule was known as the "era of good feeling" because the US was at peace and experiencing economic growth. New inventions such as Eli Whitney's cotton gin and interchangeable parts made farming and manufacturing much more efficient. Increased stability encouraged European investors to start putting their money into US businesses. This marked the beginning of the Market Revolution, which describes how the US became a modern market-based economy. -
The Tariff of Abominations
After a controversial election and a boring first term, John Quincy Adams wanted to do something to get himself reelected. In 1828, he passed a tariff to promote industrialization that unfairly impacted the South. Jackson won the election but was faced with a nullification crisis due to the tariff. SC nullified the tariff because they deemed it unfair and threatened secession if forced to comply. Henry Clay was able to create a temporary compromise. This event showed how the US was very fragile. -
The Indian Removal Act
When Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act, the Cherokees filed a Supreme Court case to become independent. They lost and were labeled a dependent domestic nation. Another case was filed in which the court determined that the US could not encroach upon native territories. However, since Jackson opposed the Supreme Justice's political party, he decided to ignore the rulings and pass laws on the natives to force them into reservations through the Trail of Tears, leading to the deaths of thousands. -
The Great Schism of 1841
Preachers from the 2nd Great Awakening began speaking about equality and abolition, leading to the rise of women's suffrage and abolition ideas. People started forming abolition societies to figure out how to end slavery. As abolition grew in popularity, people wanted to create a national society to grow their power. However, when it was created, women were not allowed into the group, which caused a great divide and led many women to quit the cause and leap into suffrage, boosting that cause. -
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
Polk sent delegates to discuss the border of Texas but he also sent troops into the disputed territory. Mexico sent many more troops than the US, which led to a brutal American loss. Polk used this loss to spur anger toward Mexico, which encouraged people to fight in the Mexican-American war. The US eventually conquered most of Mexico, but they didn't want to deal with all of their problems. They signed the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which let Mexico keep their land but gave the US California. -
The Seneca Falls Convention
As women's suffrage was on the rise, leaders such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton rose up. In 1848, they organized a convention in New York to discuss women's suffrage. Here, they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which stated all the times women were discriminated against in society. As the movement grew, women came together to create NAWSA, which was a society that helped them expand their spheres of influence into politics and places where they traditionally weren't present. -
The Compromise of 1850
When California asked to become a state, Congress wasn't sure whether it should be slave or free because it was both north and south of the Missouri Compromise line. Henry Clay proposed a compromise that allowed California to be free and the slave trade in DC to be abolished, but it also enacted a strict national fugitive slave law. Also, slave laws would be voted on by popular sovereignty instead of the compromise line, which meant some people started moving to new states to influence the vote. -
Bleeding Kansas
The South desperately wanted Kansas to vote for slavery to restore the balance between slave and free states in Congress. On election day, a proslavery group named Border Ruffians rode into the state and laid siege on Lawrence, Kansas. They filled out fraudulent pro-slavery ballots, which tipped the state into slavery. The abolitionists in Kansas disagreed with the new pro-slavery constitution and created their own. Violence broke out, and some say it was the premature start of the Civil War. -
The Dred Scott Case
Dred Scott argued that he wasn't a slave anymore because the place where he lived was free under the Missouri Compromise. He was initially given freedom, but his case was appealed until it reached the Supreme Court. The court was very pro-slavery, and it ruled against Scott, declaring that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and since slaves weren't citizens, they weren't automatically given freedom in a free state. No state was free anymore, which further increased Civil War tensions. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
During Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, who believed God had told him to be the one to rid the US of slavery, massacred a group of pro-slavery families near Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas. He went into hiding from the authorities, and he planned to break into the national armory in Harper's Ferry, murder plantation owners, free their slaves, and lead an uprising. However, he was caught and executed. The North regarded him as a legend and a hero, and he became a symbol of anti-slavery rebellion. -
Lincoln's Election
Lincoln was running against Stephen Douglas, and this time, Lincoln was gaining ground. Douglas demanded the first-ever presidential debate. Lincoln did very well, so Southern papers portrayed him as a monster to stop people from voting for him. The Democrat's vote was split, and Lincoln, who was backed by the new Republican party, won the election. South Carolina seceded from the Union because it refused to be ruled by Lincoln. By the time he was inaugurated, the entire South had seceded too. -
Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter was a federal fort that was deep into the Confederacy. However, the government was not able to send any supplies to or communicate with the soldiers in that fort because the Confederate army was blocking off any shipping from the North. When the North sent a peaceful ship in an attempt to send food for their soldiers, the South Carolina troops bombarded the fort because they thought it was going to attack them. This marked the beginning of the Civil War -
The Homestead Act
Lincoln wanted to reduce overcrowding in northern cities. He incentivized people to move out by offering free western land to any individual who lived on it and developed it. It was open to white black men and women, which allowed families to obtain several plots to create huge farms to create a living from. This caused a huge influx of settlers into the Great Plains, and tensions began rising between settlers and the natives that lived there as people began encroaching on their sacred lands. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
To stop slavery from spreading to new states, Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation. It didn't immediately free the slaves; the border Union states were allowed slaves to keep them from seceding. The clause was that if southern states returned peacefully, they could keep their slaves. If they didn't, the Union would conquer them and abolish slavery. The document helped persuade Europe to stop recognizing the Confederacy because the Civil War was now a conflict between slavery and freedom. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
Confederate General Lee decided to abandon his defensive stance in the South because it was causing a lot of harm to the residents, so he invaded the North in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He met General Meade in the war's deadliest battle, which lasted three days. It inspired the Gettysburg Address, which emphasized the war's purpose of fighting for liberty and democracy. It was a turning point for the Union Army because it destroyed the Confederacy's chances of winning and raised Union morale. -
The Siege of Vicksburg and the Anaconda Plan
The siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi completed the Union's Anaconda Plan. It split the Confederacy in half by fully blocking off the southern coast and main cities and capturing the Mississippi River and New Orleans. Previous Union generals were too timid to execute the plan properly, but Grant's aggressiveness in the campaign helped promote him to general-in-chief. Combined with the very recent Gettysburg victory, the siege was a turning point that secured the overall win for the Union. -
Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan
As the war was waging, Lincoln was focused on reconstructing the South. He proposed a plan that would pardon any Confederate leader who swore loyalty to the Union. Any state with 10% loyal voters and outlawed slavery would be readmitted. Radical Republicans thought this was too lax; they proposed a bill with stricter rules. Lincoln refused to sign the bill, causing outrage amongst Republicans. Lincoln's policies heavily influenced Andrew Johnson, who became president after the assassination. -
Sharecropping
After slaves were freed, southern plantation owners struggled. They had no one to work their land, and they couldn't afford to pay wages. However, free blacks needed jobs, so through a mutual need, sharecropping emerged; it was comparable to economic slavery. Workers would farm sections of land and pay half their crops as rent to the owner. It took decades for families to pay off their "debt", and due to unfair taxes negotiations, it trapped many families into an unbreakable cycle of poverty. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
The Confederate Army, which was heavily outnumbered and low on supplies, was retreating into the deep South to acquire more supplies so that they could recover. However, Grant's army followed close behind and continued to harass and drive back the Confederates. Hence, instead of destroying his army and sacrificing his soldiers for no reason, Lee decided to surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, which was the signal to the nation that the Civil War was officially over and the Union had won. -
The 13th Amendment
Andrew Johnson had very similar reconstruction plans to Lincoln. However, a key difference was that Johnson could grant personal pardons to former Confederates. Within 8 months, all the Confederate states were back in the Union, and former Confederates were getting voted back into Congressional positions. To fight back against slavery coming back, Radical Republicans pushed for the 13th Amendment, which made it unconstitutional to allow slavery in the United States. -
The Ku Klux Klan Forms
As southern military control weakened, ex-Confederates seized power in the South and led an insurgency called the Redemption. One of the new groups at this time was the Ku Klux Klan. Its main determination was to uphold white supremacy by striking against Republican government and unleashing campaigns of terror. They burned schools, beat teachers, attacked Republicans, and cut funding for schools. The group became a for southern resistance to Reconstruction-era policies and black equality. -
Johnson's Impeachment
Using their supermajority to overturn Johnson's ruling, Congress passed an act that divided the conquered South into five military districts under a US general. To take back some of his power, Johnson desperately began firing many Radical Republicans in Congress. Congress created the Tenure of Office Act, making it illegal for the president to remove any Congress-approved official. However, Johnson still dismissed the Secretary of War, which led to him being the first president ever impeached. -
The 14th Amendment
Hurrying to end Reconstruction, Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bill, which helped free blacks safely find jobs and settle down. In the 1866 election, Republicans won a supermajority in Congress, and they began overturning Johnson's decisions and pushing for black rights. They created the 14th Amendment: All people born in the US were full citizens and had protection under the law. This ensured that no one could take away freedmen's rights and try to bring back slavery. -
Americanization
To increase assimilation, churches and the government came together to fund schools for native American children. Their motto was "Kill the Indian Save the Man". They wanted to remodel children into the American standard, so they captured them at very young ages and forced them to disregard all of their previous traditions. Children were exhorted, bullied, and bribed. Many natives struggled with poverty and dislocation. The tribes slowly broke until they couldn't ever return to their past glory. -
The Transcontinental Railroad
The Pacific Railroad Act was signed by Lincoln in 1862 to help westward expansion in order to create huge economic and social benefits for the nation. As the railway was being built, towns populated by workers began developing along the lines. The construction effort provided numerous jobs for immigrants, and it connected the two coasts of the US. The effort increased international trade, increased western settlement and development, and significantly reduced travel times for citizens. -
The 15th Amendment
In the upcoming election, Republicans wanted to ensure African Americans could vote. They pushed for a new amendment that prevented any state from denying citizens the vote based on their race or condition of servitude. However, this effort was very unpopular in the North where hatred for immigrants was growing, and Democrats gained a lot of support. However, although they lost the supermajority, Republicans remained in power and were able to pass the Amendment after Ulysses S. Grant's election. -
The Rise of "Jim Crow" Laws
Jim Crow laws were a system of rules that ensured social segregation in almost every aspect of daily life such as transportation, accommodations, schools, courts, and public places. They rose quickly in every southern state, and they legalized segregation and restricted black civil rights. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were trapped under the title of second-class citizens, and anti-black racism was legitimized. -
The Election of 1876
In the first election since the war that everyone could vote in, Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden were running. After counting southern votes, it was clear that there was fraud because 100% of votes had gone to Tilden. After a recount, there was no clear winner, which created a constitutional crisis. Eventually, Congress made a committee of 15 people to decide the president, and Hayes won. Many thought he didn't deserve the role, so his policies never took hold and Reconstruction ended. -
The Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Act was proposed by reformers appointed by Grant to try and create peace between settlers and natives. Congress proposed severalty, which was the division of tribal lands into individual landholdings just like homesteads. It was supposed to help natives assimilate, but it was really just an attack on their culture and strength. They became separated from each other and stripped away over half of their ancestral lands, which weakened the tribes beyond return. -
The Ghost Dance Movement
As settlers moved out west, they began hunting bison for their hides, and the bison population dropped to almost zero. This affected the lives of many natives who depended on bison for food, so they began a movement called "ghost dancing", which was supposed to drive out the white people and bring back the bison. It was frowned on by the government because they saw it as natives preparing for battle. The army sent out many forces to try and suppress the dancers, which often ended in massacre. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
A Black man named Homer Plessy bought a first-class train ticket and boarded the only first-class car, which happened to be "whites only". He was unfairly arrested, and he brought this case to the Supreme Court. The court decided that it was okay to have segregation as long as it was "separate but equal". Basically, this legalized racial segregation; many school districts and public places ignored the ruling and neglected "colored" areas, while the "white" areas were fancy and well-kept.