Period 1: 1491-1607
Major Theme: On a North American continent, controlled by American Indians, contact among the
peoples of Europe, the Americas, and West Africa created a new world.
Key Concept 1.1: Before the arrival of Europeans, native populations in North America
developed a wide variety of social, political, and economic structures based in part on interactions
with the environment and each other.
Key Concept 1.2: European overseas expansion resulted in the Columbian Exchange, a series of
interactions and adaptations among societies across the Atlantic.
Key Concept 1.3: Contacts among American Indians, Africans, and Europeans challenged the
worldviews of each group.
Important Terms:
1. Maize & other forms of Native American Agriculture Subsistence
2. Hunting and Gathering
3. Christopher Columbus
4. Columbian exchange
5. Impact of diseases, such as smallpox on Native peoples
6. God, Gold, Glory
7. Bartolome de las Casas
8. conquistadores
9. encomienda system
10. Spanish and miscegenation
1. How did geography shape the development of Native American Societies? Provide an example or two of
how two tribes, from different regions, were affected by their environments.
2. How did Native societies differ from European societies? In what ways were they similar?
3. What are some common misunderstandings about Native American cultures that have been refuted by
our studies?
4. What impact did disease and forced labor (encomienda/mita) play in the conquest and early settlement of
America?
5. Describe the motivations of the Spanish and Portuguese in conquering the New World, as encompassed by
the phrase, “God, Gold and Glory.”
Period 2: 1607-1754
Major Theme: Europeans and American Indians maneuvered and fought for dominance, control, and
security in North America, and distinct colonial and native societies emerged.
Key Concept 2.1: Differences in imperial goals, cultures, and the North American environments
that different empires confronted led Europeans to develop diverse patterns of colonization.
Key Concept 2.2: European colonization efforts in North America stimulated intercultural
contact and intensified conflict between the various groups of colonizers and native peoples.
Key Concept 2.3: The increasing political, economic, and cultural exchanges within the “Atlantic
World” had a profound impact on the development of colonial societies in North America.
Important Terms:
1. Sir Walter Raleigh & Roanoke
2. Joint stock Company, ie. Virginia Company
3. “Starving time” in Jamestown
4. John Smith
5. John Rolfe and Tobacco
6. Powhatan Wars
7. Maryland Act of Toleration
8. James Oglethorpe & Georgia as a refuge for debtors
9. The Carolinas (settled by Barbadians)
21. New England, middle and Chesapeake colonies
22. headright system
23. indentured servants
24. Bacon’s Rebellion
25. slave codes
26. triangular trade
27. Salem witch trials
28. First Great Awakening - Jonathan Edwards (Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God; George Whitefield
10. Anglican Church
11. Separatists and Puritans
12. The Mayflower Compact
13. William Bradford
14. Massachusetts Bay Co.
15. John Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill”
16. Quakers, William Penn and Pennsylvania
17. Anne Hutchinson
18. Roger Williams
19. Thomas Hooker & Connecticut’s Fundamental Orders
20. King Phillips War (Wampanoag Indians)
29. Old Lights vs. New Lights
30. John Peter Zenger Trial
31. Jesuit missionaries in New France
32. French and Indian War (Sparked in Ohio R. Valley)
33. Albany Congress (Ben Franklin)
34. Treaty of Paris of 1763
35. Pontiac’s Rebellion
36. Proclamation of 1763
Guiding Questions:
1. What factors motivated British colonization of the Western hemisphere?
2. Compare the British pattern of colonization to the Spanish approach. How were they similar and/or
different in terms of motivation, population patterns, race relations and economic development?
3. Consider interactions between the British settlers in the southern colonies and the Native populations
they found upon arrival. How did the Native peoples treat the British? How did the British tend to treat the
Native tribes? What positive and negative results came from these interactions? Why did relations with the
Powhattan Indians & the British settlers break down?
4. Why did the Jamestown struggle so much in its beginning?
5. What is the difference between indentured servitude and slavery? How did the distinction between
indentured servitude and slavery evolve, over time, in the southern colonies?
6. How did reliance on plantation agriculture affect the southern colonies socially, politically and
economically?
7. Did the Puritans really come to America seeking religious freedom? How did they reconcile their own
religious dissent from the Church of England with their persecution of dissenters like Hutchinson and
Williams? Were they hypocrites?
8. How were government and religion (church and state) related in New England and the middle colonies?
9. What aspects characterize the Middle colonies? How were they similar and/or different to the New
England or southern colonies? Which region offered the most religious toleration? The greatest diversity?
10. What were the push and pull factors for immigrants coming to each region of the English colonies?
11. Why was family life in New England so different from family life in the South?
12. What was different about the economies and social structures of the New England and southern
colonies?
13. What is the relationship between tobacco, the headright system, slavery and the strongly hierarchical
nature of the Southern Colonies? How did Bacon’s Rebellion express these dynamics?
14. What were the Salem Witch Trials really about? Describe the social, religious, as well as economic
causes of the hysteria.
15. Which immigrant groups tended to settle in the backcountry? Why did they settle there, as opposed to
the coastal regions?
16. How democratic was colonial American society?
17. What were the central ideas behind the First Great Awakening preachers? What were the religious and
cultural significance of the First Great Awakening?
18. To what degree was a unique “American” nationality developing in the eighteenth-century colonies?
Were regional differences growing more pronounced or retreating in the eighteenth century?
19. Compare and contrast the French & British approaches to colonization. Consider geographic, political,
economic, social and religious similarities and differences. Compare and contrast the Spanish and the
French approach.
20. Why did conflict erupt between the French and the British over the Ohio River Valley?
21. How did the treatment of Americans by British officers and military during the war contribute to
simmering resentment against the “mother country”?
22. From Britain’s perspective, were stationing soldiers in the New World permanently and the issuing the
Proclamation of 1763 good colonial policies? What problems were they trying to address? Why were the
colonists so angry about these measures
23. Should the French and Indian War be considered on of the major causes of the American Revolution?
Why or why not?
Period 3: 1754-1800
Major theme: British imperial attempts to reassert control over its colonies and the colonial reaction to
these attempts produced a new American republic, along with struggles over the new nation’s social, political
and economic identity.
Key Concept :3.1 Britain’s victory over France in the imperial struggle for North America led to new
conflicts among the British government, the North American colonists, and American Indians,
culminating in the creation of a new nation, the United States.
Key Concept :3.2 In the late 18th century, new experiments with democratic ideas and republican
forms of government, as well as other new religious, economic, and cultural ideas, challenged
traditional imperial systems across the Atlantic World.
Key Concept :3.3 Migration within North America, cooperative interaction, and competition for
resources raised questions about boundaries and policies, intensified conflicts among peoples and
nations, and led to contests over the creation of a multiethnic, multiracial national identity.
Important Terms:
1. Mercantilism
2. Stamp Act and Stamp Act Congress 1765
3. Townshend Acts, 1767
4. Boston Massacre 1770
5. Sam Adams
6. Committees of Correspondence
7. Tea Act 1773
8. Boston Tea Party
24. Hamilton’s economic plan
(assumption, bank, tariff)
25. elastic clause
26. strict vs. loose interpretation
of the Constitution
27. Whiskey tax and rebellion
28. First political parties (Democratic-Republican
and Federalists)
9. Intolerable Acts 1773
10. virtual vs. actual representation
11. First Continental Congress
12. Lexington and Concord
13. Second Continental Congress
14. Thomas Paine and Common Sense
15. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
16. Treaty of Paris of 1783
17. Articles of Confederation
18. Land Ordinance of 1785 and NW Ordinance of 1787
19. Shays’ Rebellion
20. Constitutional Convention and the “Bundle of Compromises”:
Great Compromise (NJ v. VA Plans); ⅗ Compromise;
Slave Trade Compromise
21. Electoral College
22. Federalist Papers (Madison, Hamilton, Jay)
23. Bill of Rights
29. Washington’s Farewell Address (beware of
political parties and foreign alliances)
30. John Adams
31. Alien and Sedition Acts
32. VA and KY Resolutions
33. republican motherhood
Period 3 Guiding Questions:
1. Evaluate the system of mercantilism. What were the benefits for Britain and for the colonies? What were
the costs to Britain and the colonies? Was it inevitable that this system would lead to revolt and revolution?
Why or why not?
2. What were the core grievances of the British colonists? Which ones do you feel were justified? Which
ones do you feel were overreactions?
3. Were the colonists very unified in 1764? What changed over time? How & why did they to become more
unified? Provide specific evidence to demonstrate a pattern of growing unity in between 1764-1775.
4. What caused the British to end the policy of salutary neglect after the French and Indian War?
5. What arguments did Thomas Paine put forth in, Common Sense? Were these arguments valid? How did
this work cut the psychological ties to England for many?
6. What evidence shows that even the most outraged colonists and colonial leaders continued to feel a
strong sense of loyalty to the crown, prior to the Declaration of Independence? Which events were key in
severing that loyalty among those who would become revolutionary “Patriots”?
7. Aside from declaring independence, what else was Jefferson trying to achieve with the Declaration of
Independence? From whom did Jefferson get many of the ideas embodied in the document?
8. In the end, what forces combined to create victory for the United States of America in the war?
9. What did the American Revolution fundamentally change about American society and government?
What was left unchanged? How revolutionary was the war?
10. Considering the context of the times, in what ways were the Articles of Confederation the best possible
form of government for the new nation, at the time? What were its crowning achievements? In what ways
was it an insufficient form of government?
11. Did those who were pushing for a stronger, more centralized government, such as Alexander Hamilton,
exaggerate the dangers of continuing with the Articles of Confederation. Could the nation have survived or
thrived under the Articles?
12. What were the key issues that delegates to the Constitutional Convention grappled with? How were they
resolved at the time?
13. Explain both the Federalist arguments for ratifying the new U.S. Constitution and the anti-Federalist
arguments for not ratifying the Constitution.
14. Why did Hamilton move so rapidly to create large financial commitments by the federal government?
Why did he think of a “reasonable” federal debt as something good and necessary for the national welfare?
15. Whose vision for the nation was better; Hamilton’s British aligned foreign policy that focused on the
wealthy and well-educated, as well as a strong manufacturing and banking underpinning to the economy, or
Jefferson’s French-leaning foreign policy, his strong belief in the common man, and an agricultural-based
society and economy. Which one ultimately prevailed?
16. Why were political parties viewed as so dangerous by the Founding Fathers? Why did parties come into
being at all?
Period 4: 1800-1848
Major Theme: The new republic struggled to define and extend democratic ideals in the face
of rapid economic, territorial, and demographic changes.
Key Concept: 4.1 The United States developed the world’s first modern mass democracy and
celebrated a new national culture, while Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals
and to reform its institutions to match them.
Key Concept: 4.2 Developments in technology, agriculture, and commerce precipitated
profound changes in U.S. settlement patterns, regional identities, gender and family relations,
political power, and distribution of consumer goods.
Key Concept: 4.3 U.S. interest in increasing foreign trade, expanding its national borders, and
isolating itself from European conflicts shaped the nation’s foreign policy and spurred government
and private initiatives.
Important Terms:
1. Revolution of 1800
2. Marshall Court (major characterstics)
3. Marshall Court, major decisions: Marbury v. Madison;
McCulloch v. Maryland; Gibbons v. Ogden;
Dartmouth v. Woodward; Worcester v. Georgia
4. judicial review
5. Louisiana Purchase
6. Embargo Act 1807
7. The War of 1812
8. war hawks
9. Wm. Henry Harrison and the Battle of Tippecanoe
10. Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans
11. Treaty of Ghent
12. Hartford Convention
13. Era of Good Feelings
14. Henry Clay and the American System
15. Missouri Compromise
26. Market Revolution
27. Interchangeable parts
28. Eli Whitney’s Cotton gin
29. cult of domesticity and “separate spheres” ideology
30. transportation revolution
31. Erie Canal
32. Second Great Awakening
33. Burned Over District (along Erie Canal)
34. Reform Movements (ie. prison reform,
temperence, education)
35. transcendentalism (Thoreau, Emerson, Fuller,
Whitman)
36. Seneca Falls Convention and Declaration of
Sentiments
37. Susan B. Anthony and Eliz. Cady Stanton
38. Utopia communities (Shakers, Oneida, etc)
39. King Cotton
16. Monroe Doctrine
17. “corrupt bargain” (election of 1824)
18. universal white male suffrage
19. Tariff of Abominations and nullification theory
20. John C. Calhoun’s SC Exposition and Protest
21. spoils system
22. “King Andrew”
23. Force Act
24. Specie Circular and Panic of 1837
25. Trail of Tears
40. Slave Rebellions: Gabriel’s, Vesey, Nat Turner
41. American Colonization Society
42. Abolitionists: ie. Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Grimke sisters,
Frederick Douglas, David Walker, Sojourner Truth
43. Gag rule
44. Manifest Destiny
Period 4 Guiding Questions:
1. Why did Jefferson refer to the election of 1800 as the “Revolution of 1800”? What was “revolutionary
about it?
2. What was the significance of the Marshall Court establishing “judicial review” in the Marbury vs. Madison
Supreme Court case?
3. What were Jefferson’s political, economic and social reasons for the Louisiana Purchase? What were the
constitutional issues?
4. How does the period 1800-1812 look if viewed through American Indian eyes? What were Tecumseh and
the Prophet attempting to do? Why weren’t they successful?
5. Was the War of 1812 avoidable or necessary to establish respect for the still new United States of
America?
6. What was behind the strong spirit of nationalism that appeared from 1815-1824? What things came out
of this wave of nationalism?
7. What kinds of tensions were simmering underneath the surface of the “Era of Good Feelings”?
8. What were the provisions of the Missouri Compromise? Did the Missouri Compromise effectively deal
with the sectional conflict over slavery or merely put a band-aid on the issue?
9. Did the Supreme Court decisions under John Marshall’s leadership extend federal power too much?
10. Was the Monroe Doctrine a valuable assertion of the principles of liberty and self-determination in the
Americas against intrusion by European colonial powers, or was it an early manifestation of patronizing and
potentially imperialistic attitude by the United States toward Latin American nations?
11. What were the advantages and disadvantages of the new politics of mass democracy during the
“Jacksonian Era”? Who benefitted? Who was left out of the “new democracy”?
12. Why were tariffs such a dividing issue in the 1820’s and 30’s?
13. To what extend did Andrew Jackson change the balance of power between the three branches of
government? Did he dramatically expand the power of the executive branch?
14. Who were the Whigs and what did they stand for & against? Why did their appearance on the American
political scene mark the end of the Era of Good Feelings and the beginning of the second party system in
America?
15. What were the causes and consequences of the Texas revolt? Why did Texas remain for a time and
independent nation rather than quickly become a state of the Union?
16. Consider the Irish and Germans. What were some key factors that pushed these immigrants out of their
homelands? What factors pulled them toward the United States?
17. Why was transportation – such as roads, canals and railroads – so important in the early stages of
industrialization and American economic development?
18. How did the cult of domesticity arise out of the economic changes during the Market Revolution?
19. What effects did the movement from subsistence to a market economy have on American society,
including farmers, laborers, and women? What were the pros and cons?
20. How did Evangelical religion influence American culture? Why did it inspire so many reform
movements? What other factors inspired the reform movements of the early 19th century? Why then? Which
were inspired by fear, xenophobia or concerns about the direction of America?
21. Why did women play such an important role in so many reform movements?
22. What obstacles & limitations did women face at this time? What did the women’s rights movement &
the Seneca Falls Convention hope to achieve for the status of women in American society?
23. Why so many utopian movements? To what were they responding?
24. How did various abolitionist efforts differ?
25. How did slavery affect white Southern Society – including those who owned slaves & those who did not?
26. How did it affect both the slave and the slave owner?
27. How did blacks respond the condition of slavery?
28. Why did Thomas Jefferson say, “With slavery, we have a wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him
nor safely let him go”?
29. Why did the South move from slavery as a “necessary evil” to proclaiming it a positive good?
30. How had the U.S. Constitution contribute to the controversy over slavery? How could both slavery
advocates and abolitionists use the Constitution to support their viewpoints? Be specific.
31. Was American expansion across North America an “inevitable” development? How was the idea of
Manifest Destiny used to justify expansionism?