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Apr 22, 1491
Native Civilizations in the US
Description: Before the Natives made contact with the Europeans, each set of tribes lived in its own distinct region. Each region had different resources as well as climate which had different effects on the Natives.
Signficance: It is important because each region had its own identity. The Northwest was known for the sea identity and the Great Plains were known for being nomadic. As a result, each region had its own identity. -
Oct 12, 1492
European Exploration
Description: The Europeans went West in order to find India in order to trade. However, they discovered the Americas. They traveled to different regions and conquered and installed new ideas on the natives.
Significance: The sense of European nationalism and competition caused the Europeans to start exploring the world. It also helped start new civilizations which further expanded the sense of nationalism in the Europeans. -
Jan 2, 1493
Encomienda System
Description: Spanish system which allowed the government to give land grants or give Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to try to Christianize.
Significance: It is important because the Europeans forced the Natives to convert to Christianity. As a result, there was a new idenity that was created in the Natives. Some Natives were christianized fully while others used some aspects of Christianity in their customs or religion. -
Oct 29, 1502
Spanish Caste System
Description: Was a social hierarchy based on how European you were. Wealth, education, and physical appearance helped determine how an individual might be viewed. It included
peninsulares, creoles, indios, negroes. mestizo and mulattos.
Significance: It was significant because it created a class system which was based on race. It made racial identity prominent because the more Europeans you were the higher up you would be on the system. It also led to spread of slavery and racism to America. -
Apr 22, 1512
Maroons
Description: Maroons were Africans who escaped from slavery in the Americas and formed independent settlements.
Signficance: It was important because it created a new identity. The runaway slaves were created new settlements with new customs that in the end emphasized the idea of group identity. -
Tobacco Cultivation
Description: John Rolph began to experiment with tobacco since there was a demand for it.
Significance: The demand for tobacco led to a need for labor. As a result indentured servants were used because they were poor men who could work for 4-7 years. It created a new class in the United States which formed the caste system in the US. -
Plymouth
Descriptions: The Pilgrims founded Plymouth when they came over to the United States in order to escape religious persecution in Europe.
Significance: It was significant because it created a new identity in the US since the pilgrims were religious. It brought religious ideas over to the US which were not as prominent before. It emphasized the idea of group identity because the pilgrims were different from the people that were in the US. -
Great Migration (Puritans)
Description: 16,000 Puritans migrated from Europe because they were being religiously persecuted. They were very strict christians who were separated when the church of England emerged.
Significance: It was significant because it led to a spread of christianity to the new US. It also created a new religious identity in the New England colonies because of the introduction of the religion. -
Establishment of Rhode Island
Description: Roger Williams who was banished founded the
Rhode Island Colony because he believed in religious toleration and separation of church and government. He also believed that individuals could have relationships with God.
Significance: It was important because it created a new idenity because it created a society filled with religious toleration. Most colonies were fighting with Natives while Williams believed in a friendly relationship with the Natives. It created a regional identity -
Beginning of Chattle Slavery
Description: Chattle Slavery was when slaves were being used as property which made it almost impossible to get rights since they were seen as property instead of people.
Signifiance: It created a new racial identity for African Americans because they were being seen as property instead as of people. This created a lower status for the slaves because they were given a new identity which dehumanized them. -
Holy Experiment
Description: People of all religions came together, religious tolerance, friendly relations with the Natives, and no slavery. It was the ideal society in the eyes of William Penn.
Signficance: It was important because it stregthened the idea of nationalism and patriotism because it went against the British ideas of government. It also created a regional identity because this region was distinct from other regions because of all the toleration. -
Middle Passage
Description: It was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of Africans were shipped to the New World as part of the Triangle Trade over the Atlantic.
Significance: It was significant because the Europeans were dehumanizing the slaves. The slaves were given an idenity that made them no longer a person. -
Great Awakening
Description:The evangelical religious movement which swept America in the 18th and 19th centuries. The first wave began shortly after the arrival of European settlers in the early 1700's.
Significance: It was important because it led to a rise of religion which was not important in the US at the time because the colonists resisted being converted. As a result, it created a new identity and it led to colonists assimilating to the new culture. -
The Enlightenment
Description: It was the intellectual movement that brought up the idea of self-rule. It started in Europe, but it quickly spread to the US.
Significance: It was important because it created a strong sense of nationalism in the colonies which led to the colonies declaring independence from England. It also created a new national identity for the US. -
American Revolution
Description: It was a war between the British and the colonies because the colonies wanted their independence. The colonies eventually won the war which led to independence for the US.
Significance: It was important because it created a sense of nationalism because the colonists united as one force (except the loyalists) to defeat the British. -
Thomas Paine's Common Sense
Description: Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies.
Significance: It was important because it created nationalism in the colonists which led to the colonies declaring independence from the British. It created a new environment or national identity for the colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
Description: A document written by Thomas Jefferson which was the declaration of independence from Britain. It listed everything that the British had done wrong.
Significance: It was significant because it created nationalism fro the UNited States. It led to the Revolutionary War because the US was tired of the British. As a result, a new national identity was created. -
3/5 Compromise
Description: It stated a slave would only count as 3/5 of the slave population counted towards taxation and representation.
Significance: It was significant because it led to a new identity for African Americans. The African Americans were used as representation in Congress which changed the racial identity. -
Republican Motherhood
Description: It is a 20th-century term for an attitude toward women's roles present in the emerging United States before, during, and after the American Revolution.
Significance: It was important because it created a new role for women to play which was to be educated, so that her children can grow up to become good US citizens. -
Missouri Compromise
Description: Debate over slavery led to Missouri being admitted as slave state. States North would be admitted as free states and states south would be admitted as slaves states.
Significance: It was significant because it created two distinct regional identities since the US split into the North and South. The North had no slaves while South had a lot of slaves. -
Second Great Awakening
Description: It was a Protestant religious revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States.
Significance: It was important because it created a new identity in the US because new branches of Christianity were being formed. -
Transcendentalism
Descritpion: It was a movement that encouraged to self-rely and think more idependently. It also emphasized the observance of nature of truth, life, and the universe.
Significance: It was important because it led to a new identity because of the new group of people that spurred from this movement such as Emerson and Thoreau. It created a new group identity for people in the US. -
Abolition Movement
Description: It was a movement that attempted to end slavery in order to promote equality for African Americans. It was trying to free African Americans.
Significance: It was important because it led to change in racial identities because the movement was used to free African Americans. Eventually, African Americans would be freed, so it changed racial identities. -
Temperance Movement
Description: It is a movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Significance: It was important because it was one of the first times that women took the lead role in a movement. Women were the main people that were involved in this movement. -
Seneca Falls Convention
Description: It was the first women's rights convention which was associated with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.
Signficance: It was important because it was the first women's rights which helped set the path for changing in gender roles and new rights for women. -
Secession of South
Description: The South seceded from the US after the election of Lincoln who was against slavery.
Significance: It was important because it created two distinct identities because the Confederacy had slaves while the Union really did not have slaves. It created nationalism for both parts of the split US. -
Civil War
Description: It was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy.
Significance: It was important because the Union/North was fighting to reunite the US as whole. The Civil War had to distinct regional identities because the the South was based on agriculture and slaves while the North was more industry. -
13th Amendment
Description: It ended slavery in the US, so African Americans were free.
Significance: It gave African Americans a new identity because they were able to be free and not be slaves anymore. -
14th Amendment
Description: Every person born or naturalized in
the United States is a citizen. States must follow due process of law before taking away any citizen's rights or property.
Significance: It was important because it gave a new identity for African Americans because they were citizens of the United States, -
15th Amendment
Description: A citizen's right to vote cannot be taken away because of race, the color of their skin, or because they used to be slaves.
Significance: It was important because it allowed African Americans to vote for the first time, There was a new role that African Americans played which led to the new identity that continued from after the Civil War. -
Hull House
Description: It was a settlement house opened by Jane Addams. It helped immigrants assimilate into the American culture.
Significance: It was important because it led to the assimilation of imimgrants to the American culture. They were taught English, so that life in the US would be easier. -
Urbanization
Description: A shift from rural areas to urban areas which leads to the increase in urban centers like the cities in the North.
Significance: It is significant because it changed the American Identity because rural areas were decreasing and urban areas were increasing. More people were working in factories which led to a decrease in farmers. -
Westward Expansion
Description: African Americans expanded west in order to escape Jim Crow Laws.
Significance: It was important because African Americans were seeking independence since Jim Crow Laws in the South allowed segregation to occur. -
Plessy v Furgeson
Description: It was the court case that validated the South's segreationalist social order, ruling "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional under the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment.
Significance: It was important because it allowed racial segregation. This made it possible for places to be separated based on skin color. It broke the national identity of the US because segregation mainly occurred in the South. -
Ethnic Enclaves
Description: It is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity.
Significance: It is significant because it led to different regions with different identities. Each enclave had a different ethnic identity which changed the American Identity because the US was becoming more diverse. The ethnic enclaves also led to an increase in the urban centers which also impacted the American identity. -
Great Migration
Description: It was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban North
and West.
Significance: It was important because African Americans began to work in cities factories. Also, it gave African Americans a new identity because they were doing jobs that they had not really done before. -
Women migrate to cities
Description: Since the WWI begun, the women moved to cities to jobs that men typically did.
Significance: It is significant because it changed the role of women because they worked in typically male dominated jobs. -
Harlem Renaissance
Description: It was a period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished.
Significance: It was significant because it changed the American Identity. There was a flourish of African American art, music, literature which changed the identity of African Americans. -
19th Amendment
Description: It was the amendment that gave women the right to vote. It prohibitted discrimination based on sex.
Significance: It ws important because women were finally allowed to vote which changed the gender role and american identity. -
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
Description: Since the amount of immigrants coming into the US was so large, this act was passed in order to restrict immigration into the United States.
Significance: It was significance because it changed the American Identity. It decreased the amount of foreigners being let into the US which led to a continuous increase in ethnic enclaves because the few immigrants in the US united based on ethnicities. -
War Mobilization
Description: Since WW2 had begun, the US at home was making sure the troops had enough weapons, food, cloths, and support in order to win the war.
Significance: It was significant because the American Identity changed. The US was becoming even more industrialized as a result of the war. There was a migration of African Americans again to urban centers and women also began to work in factories. Gender roles changed once again. -
Cold War
Description: The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between the US and the Soviet Union over communism and democracy.
Significance: It is important because it led to acts such as the National Defense Education Act were passed in order to help win the Cold War. The atmosphere of the US was changed which ultimately led to a change in american identity during the war. -
Brown vs Board of Education
Description: It is the court case that overturned the decision in Plessy v Ferguson. It made segregation unconstitutional.
Significance: It was important because it changed american identity because it gave African Americans back rights. It also desegregated all schools which was important. -
McCarthyism
Description: McCarthy accused people in the US government and people in Hollywood of being communists. He said that communists had infultrated the US which made the Second Red Scare occur.
Significance: It is important because it affected the American identity because the US went into the Second Red Scare. It also made the US send communist hunts in order to find the suspected communists. It also created nationalism because it caused the US to unify in order to get rid of communism. -
Suburbanization
Description: It is the increase in the suburbs.
Significance: It is important because it changed the american identity. Suburbanization led to conformity which meant that everything was the same. More people were living in the same house with the same cars and same televisions. -
Feminine Mystique
Description: It is a book by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States.
Significance: It is important because it chnaged the American identity because it sparked a feminist movement. It also helped to change the gender roles which made women a little more close to equal with men. -
Reaganomics
Description: Ronald Regan's policy which called for widespread tax cuts, decreased social spending, increased military spending, and the deregulation of domestic markets.
Significance: It was importante because there was a major shift into conservatism which changed the american identity. There were tax cuts and increased militray spending. There was a new economic system which changed american identity. -
Affirmative Action
Description: It is policies of the government aimed at increasing access to jobs, schooling, and oppurtunities to people previously discriminated against.
Significance: It is important because it allows more people to go to school which affects the american identity. Also, education is being pushed more in today's society. There is less discrimination. -
Outsourcing
Description: It is the practice of making products outside the US borders which allows the US to become a service based country.
Significance: It is important because it changes the American identity. Instead of having factories and building all our products in the US. The goods are made outside the US for cheaper and the US becomes a service based country, -
War on Terrorism
Description: The US decalred war on terrorism because of the 9/11 attacks that occured on the World Trade Center.
Significance: It is important because there has been raised questions about the protection of civil liberties and human rights. The american identity has changed because of the war on terror. -
Affordable Care Act
Description: An expansion of Medicaid, most of employers must provide health insurance, have insurance or face surtax, prevents rejection based on pre-existing condition.
Significance: It is important because the role of the government is changing. It changed the American Identity because more people are going to have health insurance if it is required.
