US history part 1
review questions
Unit 1: Three Worlds Meet:
1. What European countries were players in the Atlantic world?
2.
What regions were claimed by what countries?
3.
How did the Protestant Reformation contribute to European rivalries?
4.
What impact did the English defeat of the Spanish Armada have on exploration?
5.
What country led the Protestant cause? Catholic cause?
6.
Why did the Roanoke colonies fail?
7.
Why were early English colonies usually chartered as corporations (joint stock companies)?
8.
Where was the first successful English colony in North America?
9.
Why was 1619 an important year in Virginia?
10. Why did the English and the Natives misunderstand each other?
11. How were the English colonies different from their competitors?
12. How did John Rolfe help ensure the success of Virginia?
13. Who saved that colony during its early operation?
14. What factors caused the starving time?
15. Until about the 1670’s, who did most of the work in Virginia?
16. How did Bacon’s rebellion lead to the adoption of chattel slavery?
17. Why did the Separatists come to what is now Massachusetts?
18. How was New England social structure different from the social structure in Virginia?
19. Why did the Puritans come to New England in 1630?
20. What did John Winthrop mean when he wrote of a City upon a hill?
21. Why were Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts Bay?
22. Why did Lord Calvert establish a colony on the northern Chesapeake Bay?
23. What was the significance of the Maryland Toleration Act?
Unit 2: British Colonial America:
24. How did the English Civil War impact the American colonies?
25. What colonies were established during the reign of King Charles II? (Restoration colonies)
26. What was purpose behind the establishment of the Dominion of New England?
27. What was the purpose of the 1660 Navigation Act?
28. What caused both Bacon’s Rebellion and King Philip’s War?
29. What impact did the Glorious Revolution have on the American colonies?
30. Who was John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and what did they believe?
31. What other Enlightenment philosophers were there and what did they believe?
32. What were the 3 types of colonies?
33. What happened in the Stono Rebellion?
34. What was the goal of James Oglethorpe in founding Georgia?
35. What was the Triangular Trade?
36. What is Mercantilism and how does it work?
37. What were the main religious beliefs in British North America?
38. How did the Great Awakening affect the American colonies?
39. Why was life expectancy higher in New England than in the southern colonies?
40. What does the term salutary neglect refer to?
41. Why was slavery much more common in the southern colonies than in the north?
42. Generally who could vote in colonial America?
43. Despite some minor differences, how did colonial government operate?
44. Why was there usually friction between the assemblies and the governor?
45. What was the cause of the French and Indian War ( Seven Years’ War)?
46. How did the American colonies participate in the war?
47. Why did the Albany Plan fail?
48. Why did Pitt’s plan cost so much?
49. Why did we oppose the Proclamation of 1763?
Unit 3: Road to Revolution and War for Independence:
50. Why did the Brits pass the Stamp Act?
51. Why did we oppose the Stamp Act?
52. How did we oppose the Stamp Act?
53. Why was the Stamp Act seen as constitutionally dubious?
54. How did the Declaratory Act change the British Constitution for the colonies?
55. What did they mean by virtual representation?
56. What kinds of things were taxed by the Townshend Duties?
57. Why did we find the Duties so offensive?
58. What were committees of correspondence?
59. Who would have been in the Sons of Liberty?
60. Why were most American merchants also smugglers?
61. What events led to the Boston Massacre?
62. Why did the Brits repeal the Townshend Duties and pass the Tea tax?
63. How did the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) punish Boston for the Tea party?
64. What did they decide at the Frist Continental Congress?
65. Why did the shooting begin at Lexington and Concord?
66. What was the impact of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense?
67. What was the significance of the Declaration of Independence?
68. What was the significance of the battles of Bunker Hill, New York, Trenton, Germantown, Saratoga, Guilford Court House and Yorktown?
69. Why did the French come to our aid?
70. According the Treaty of Paris (1783), what were the boundaries of the new United States?
Unit 4: Shaping a New Nation: AOC and Constitution:
71. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation?
72. Why was the Congress so ineffectual?
73. What does the Newberg Conspiracy tell us about the new nation?
74. What was the significance of the Northwest Ordinance?
75. Why did Shay’s Rebellion encourage people to attend the Constitutional convention the next year?
76. Who is considered the father of the Constitution?
77. What is the technical term for our form of government?
78. What are the 3 branches of government outlined in the Constitution?
79. Basically how are laws passed?
80. Why did they add a Bill of Rights?
Unit 5: Building a Better Republic: Washington through Madison 1789-1815:
81. Why did we choose George Washington as our first president?
82. What impact did the Napoleonic Wars have on American domestic politics?
83. What were the differences in the beliefs of the Republicans and the Federalists?
84. Who were the leaders of those 2 political parties?
85. Why did Hamilton want to maintain a permanent debt?
86. What was the significance of the Whiskey Rebellion?
87. Why was Jay’s Treaty so controversial?
88. What was the significance of the Battle of Fallen Timbers?
89. What advice did Washington give us in his Farewell Address?
90. How did the Sedition Act lead to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions?
91. Why did we find the XYZ Affair so offensive?
92. Why has the election of 1800 been called the Revolution of 1800?
93. Why did Jefferson send Lewis and Clark to explore the region west of the Mississippi?
94. What message did Jefferson send to the Barbary Coast “Pirates?”
95. Why did New England hate the Embargo Act?
96. Why did the Hawks want war with England?
97. What impact did the War of 1812 have on the Native Americans?
Unit 6: Age of Jackson and a changing America:
98. How did the Second Great Awakening impact American society?
99. What was the goal of the American Colonization Society?
100. What were the 3 main parts of the Missouri Compromise?
101. Why was the period from 1815 – 1824 called the Era of Good Feelings?
102. What was the significance of the Monroe Doctrine?
103. How did the rise of the common man make it possible to elect Andrew Jackson?
104. What was the impact of the Indian Removal Act?
105. Why did Jackson kill the Bank of the United States?
106. What caused the Nullification Crisis?
107. What was the spoils system?
108. Who were Dorothea Dix, Fredrick Douglass, Clara Barton, Catherine Beecher, Horace Mann, and William Lloyd Garrison? What was
temperance?
109. What did the ladies at Seneca Falls decide?
Unit 7: Manifest Destiny and Road to Civil War:
110. What is the idea of Manifest destiny? What were some ramifications of manifest Destiny for the nation?
111. In what ways did Anglo’s claim their Manifest Destiny?
112. What events lead to Texas independence and then the Mexican American War?
113. What did the US get from the Treaty of Guadalupe – Hidalgo?
114. How did we handle the controversy over the admission of California to the Union?
115. How did the Kansas-Nebraska Act try to implement the ideals of popular sovereignty?
116. How did Popular sovereignty lead to Bleeding Kansas?
117. Why was the north outraged by the Dred Scott case?
118. Why was the south outraged by the exploits of John Brown?
119. How did the election of Abraham Lincoln lead to the formation of the Confederacy?
Unit 8: Civil War:
120. Why was the Union strategy called the Anaconda Plan?
121. What was the significance of the battles at Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Petersburg and Appomattox?
122. What was Lincoln able to accomplish with the Emancipation Proclamation?
123. What did the 13th Amendment do?
124. What economic changes occurred during the war?
125. What political changes occurred during the war?
Unit 8: Reconstruction:
126. How did Black Codes lead to the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment?
127. What happened to any state that refused to ratify the 14th Amendment?
128. Why did the KKK appeal to many southern whites?
129. Why did white southerners hate carpet baggers and scalawags?
130. What did they mean when they said they had been redeemed?
131. How did the 1876 elections help end reconstruction?