Transcript File

Chapter 8, 10, and 11
Middle Class – Social and economic level between
the wealthy and the poor, arose during the early
1800’s.
Factory System – System that cuts costs and
increase output by relying on machines to help do
everything under one roof.
Strike – Refusal of workers to perform their jobs
until employers meet union demands.
Nativism – Favoring native-born Americans
over foreign-born.
Know-Nothings – American Party; political
organization founded in 1849 by nativists who
opposed the Catholic Church and supported
measures making it difficult for foreigners to
become citizens and to hold office.
Cyrus McCormick – Developed the mechanical
reaper.
Cotton Gin – Device developed by Eli Whitney
in 1793 to separate short-staple cottonseed from
the bolls.
Antebellum – Pre-Civil War.
Yeoman Farmers – Small landowning farmers
who made up the majority of southern white
society in the late 1800’s.
Eli Whitney – Invented the cotton gin.
Overseers – People who supervised slaves on
large plantations.
Drivers – Slaves who helped overseers supervise
other slaves.
Gang Labor – Work system in which groups of
slaves performed specialized jobs.
Spirituals – Songs sung by slaves in the South;
mixed African rituals and musical forms with
Christian hymns to express slaves’ religious
beliefs.
Nat Turner – Led a violent slave uprising in
Southampton County, Virginia.
Harriet Tubman – Famous “conductor” of the
Underground Railroad.
Underground Railroad – Network of
abolitionists who helped slaves escape to the
North and Canada.
Manifest Destiny – Belief of many Americans in
the mid-1800’s that God intended the United
States to expand westward.
Empresarios – Agents who contracted with the
Mexican government to bring settlers to Texas
in tahe early 1800’s.
Tejanos – Native Mexicans who lived in Texas.
Steve Austin – Assumed a grant from his father
and established a colony on the gulf coast of
Texas.
Texas Revolution – Revolt against Mexico by
American settlers and Tejanos in Texas.
Sam Houston – The first President of the
independent Republic of Texas.
Sam Houston – The first President of the
independent Republic of Texas.
Captain John Freemont – Led forces into
California in 1845 and helped lead a revolt that
threw off the Mexican rule in northern province.
Bear Flag Revolt - Revolt against Mexico by
American settlers in California who declared the
areas of an independent republic.
Sarah Bagley – Textile mill worker who urged
other workers to form a union.
Francis Cabot Lowell – Designed and
constructed a power loom to produce cotton
textiles.
Denmark Vesey – Free African American
carpenter who planned a massive slave uprising
in the Charleston area.
Factory Workers – In 1832, 40% of all factory
workers in New England were children.
Rise of the Middle Class in City-Urban Areas –
This social class developed in northern society in
the early 1800’s.
Market Revolution – Creation of a profitable
national markets during the 1800’s; brought
about by new transportation systems and
regional specialization.
Cotton in the South – This product dominated
the Southern economy, but although it was
basicly an agricultural economy, there was not
a great demand for manufactured products as
most products were made in the home.
Indentured Servants – Colonist who received
free passage to North America in exchange for
working for those who paid his or her passage
for a certain number of years.
.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – Treaty that
ended the Mexican War and gave the United
States much of Mexico’s northern territory.
Mexican Cession – Land that Mexico gave to the
United States after the Mexican War through
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; includes
present-day California and Nevada.
Lone Star Republic – The independent republic
of Texas.
Gadsden Purchase – U.S. purchase of land from
Mexico that included the southern parts of
present-day Arizona and New Mexico.
Juan Cortina – A member of a prominent Tejano
family who engaged in skirmish with Texas law
enforcement in response to discrimination against
Mexican Americans living in Texas.
Californios – Spanish settlers who lived in
California.
Mariposa War – Raids by American Indian tribes
against White settlers in the West.
Chinese Immigration – Faced discrimination in
mining camps, often chose to work on the
railroads, and after taking jobs, developed
associations with other Chinese immigrants.
Mountain Men – Men who hunted for fur in the
Far West.
Rendezvous System – System devised by William
Ashley to have fur trappers gather once a year to
sell furs and buy supplies.
Santa Fe Trail – Route that ran from Missouri
to New Mexico.
Oregon Trail – Route to the Oregon Territory in
the late 1800’s.
Donner Party – Group of travelers to California
who were stranded in the Sierra Nevada during
the winter; some 42 members of the party died.
Treaty of Fort Laramie – Agreement that set
boundaries for American Indians and allowed
the U.S. government to build roads and forts in
Indian Territory.
Brigham Young – The leader of thousand of
Mormons to Utah.
Forty-Niners - Gold seekers who traveled to
California during the gold rush.
John Sutter – Owner of a mill on the California
Trail where “gold” flakes were discovered in
1848.
James Marshall – Discovered gold in 1848 at
Sutter’s Mill.
Popular Sovereignty – Practice of allowing voters
in a territory to decide whether to permit slavery
in their area.
Fire-Eaters – Southern political leaders who held
extreme pro-slavery views.
Frederick Douglass – Abolitionist and former
slave who urged “forcible resistance” against
slavery.
John Breckenridge – A Southern Democrat who
ran unsuccessfully for president, believing that he
had a duty to protect slavery in the territories.
Lewis Cass – Michigan Senator who favored
“popular sovereignty”, along with Senator
Stephen Douglas of Illinois.
Wilmot Proviso – Proposal to outlaw slavery in
the territory added to the United States by the
Mexican Cession; passed in the House of
Representatives; but was defeated in the Senate.
Free-Soil Party – Political party formed by
antislavery Whigs and Democrats in 1848;
opposed the expansion of slavery into the
territories.
Compromise of 1850 – Agreement proposed by
Henry Clay; allowed California to enter the Union
as a free state and divided the rest of the Mexican
Cession into two territories where slavery would
be decided by popular sovereignty; also settled
land claims between Texas and New Mexico,
abolished the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, and toughened the fugitive slave laws.
Fugitive Slave Act – Law that made it a federal
crime to help runaway slaves and allowed for the
arrest of escaped slaves even in areas where
slavery was illegal.
Harriet Beecher Stowe – Author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin; published in 1852; used to fuel antislavery arguments.
Kansas-Nebraska Act – Law that created the
territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed
voters there to choose whether to allow slavery.
Gag Rule – A rule established first during the
administration of John Quincy Adams that
prohibited “all petitions, memorials, and
papers, relating to the abolition of slavery”
from consideration by Congress. It was again
passed in 1837 (by a Vermont petition)
The Lecompton Constitution – Kansas
constitution; gave voters the right to decide
whether more slaves could enter the territory,
but not whether slavery should exist there;
failing to uphold the policy of “popular
sovereignty”.
The Free State Party – Political party formed
aby antislavery settlers in Kansas.
John Brown – Abolitionist who led attacks
against a pro-slavery settlement in Kansas and
a federal weapons arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in
Virginia.
Republican Party – Political party formed in
1854 by antislavery Whigs and Democrats,
along with some Free-Soilers.
Dred Scott Decision – Supreme Court ruling
that African Americans were not U.S. citizens,
that the Missouri Compromise’s restriction on
slavery was unconstitutional, and that Congress
did not have the right to ban slavery in any
federal territory.
Freeport Doctrine – Statement made by
Stephen Douglas during the Lincoln-Douglas
debates arguing that people in the territories
had the power to ban slavery by refusing to pass
laws to protect it.
Annexation of Texas in 1845 – This addition to
the United States was feared by some because
they felt this would tip the balance of power in
Congress to the slave states.
Secession – The act of leaving the Union.
Confederate States of America – The
Confederacy; nation formed by seceding
southern states in 1861.
Jefferson Davis – Chosen president of the
Confederate States of America.