World History in Credo: United States

Original North American colonies that signed the Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1776.

Begun as colonial muscling for control of the Ohio River valley, the French and Indian War (1754-1760) ignited the worldwide conflict between the British and French known as the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and ended France’s North American empire. The French and Indian War was the last and largest North American conflict between Britain and France and their respective Native American allies.

Settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620.

Union for "mutual safety and welfare" formed in 1643 by representatives of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven.

Plan formulated by John Law for the colonization and commercial exploitation of the Mississippi valley and other French colonial areas.

The eldest of the five children of a weaver, Columbus probably first entered his father’s trade, but before 1470 he went to sea and for some years voyaged and traded for various employers based in Genoa, his birthplace.

The original inhabitants of the American continent, who arrived during the last glacial period (according to some estimates, 14–40 000 years ago). Collectively, these original peoples have been called Native Americans, American Indians, or Amerindians. These terms are European American inventions that obscure the diversity of peoples indigenous to the Americas.

A movement culminating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed first to end the slave trade, and then to abolish the institution of slavery and emancipate slaves. The movement took place in Europe, mainly in the UK, and in the USA.

Institution based on a relationship of dominance and submission, whereby one person owns another and can exact from that person labor or other services. The institution of slavery extends back beyond recorded history. The enforced servitude of one person (a slave) to another or one group to another. A slave has no personal rights and is considered the property of another person through birth, purchase, or capture. Slavery has been found among many groups of low material culture, as in the Malay Peninsula and among some Native Americans; it also has occurred in more highly developed societies, such as the southern United States.

Loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks.

In US history, the belief that Americans had a providential mission to extend both their territory and their democratic processes westwards across the continent.

The right of women to vote; Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism.

US scientist, inventor, and statesman.

American silversmith and political leader in the American Revolution.

American statesman.

American inventor and manufacturer whose invention of the cotton gin (1793) revolutionized the cotton industry. He also established the first factory to assemble muskets with interchangeable parts, marking the advent of modern mass production.

American actor, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln , b. near Bel Air, Md.; son of Junius Brutus Booth and brother of Edwin Booth.

Although he was born a slave in Maryland in 1818, in 1895 he died a free man who not only had bought his own freedom with the money he earned from his publications and public speaking tours but also had risen to the highest position an African American had ever held in the U.S. government. Author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, a profoundly influential African American text during his era, Douglass rose through the ranks of the antislavery movement to become the most electrifying speaker and compelling writer produced by black America in the nineteenth century.

US antislavery and women's-suffrage campaigner. A former slave, she ran away and became involved with religious groups.

US abolitionist; Born a slave in Maryland, she escaped to Philadelphia (where slavery was outlawed) in 1849. She helped set up the Underground Railroad, a secret network of sympathizers to help slaves escape to the North and Canada.

Women’s rights leader and feminist pioneer; She was drawn to the abolitionist, temperance, and women’s rights movements through visits to the home of her cousin, the reformer Gerrit Smith.

US naturalist and author; leader of the Transcendentalist movement in America. His experiment in living in solitude was recorded in Walden (1854), while his thoughts on the individual in society in Civil Disobedience (1849). Born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817, Thoreau developed his attachment to words and ideas at an early age. At ten years old he composed his first known work, “The Seasons”; at eleven he attended Concord Academy with his beloved older brother John; by sixteen he had matriculated at Harvard College; and two years later he was already teaching school between college terms.

A Native Virginian and General in chief of the Confederate armies in the American Civil War.

American statesman, President of the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War; b. Fairview, near Elkton, Kentucky.

Born in Litchfield, Connecticut; American writer whose antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), one of the most controversial books of its' time, had great political influence and advanced the cause of abolition.

Full and formal declaration adopted July 4, 1776, by representatives of the Thirteen Colonies in North America announcing the separation of those colonies from Great Britain and making them into the United States.

1775–83, struggle by which the Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic seaboard of North America won independence from Great Britain and became the United States. It is also called the American War of Independence.The casualty rate was roughly 120 in 10,000, the second heaviest of any large-scale American war. One way or another everybody within what became the United States took part in the conflict and felt its effects: Natives; Africans; patriots; loyalists; neutrals; Northerners; Southerners; and backcountry folk, both men and women.

The 1787 meeting in which the Constitution of the United States was drawn up.

First Federal constitution of the USA, drafted by the Continental Congress in 1777. Ratified in 1781 and superseded by the Constitution of the United States in 1789.

First 10 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, adopted as a group in 1791.

Adopted by the Congress of Confederation for the government of the Western territories ceded to the United States by the states.

US religious evangelical revivalist movement, lasting from about 1800 to 1870.

The largest civil engineering project in western history to that date, the railroad was over 4,800 km/3,000 mi long and crossed deserts, canyons, and mountains, requiring the development of new construction techniques.

Bill that became law on May 30, 1854, by which the U.S. Congress established the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. By 1854 the organization of the vast Platte and Kansas river countries W of Iowa and Missouri was overdue.

Forced march of Indian tribes, particularly Cherokee Indian tribes, from their ancestral lands in eastern United States to Oklahoma.

Series of conflicts between the Plains Indians and the US Army 1850-90, during the era of US westward expansion.

Slaughter of 450 Cheyenne and Arapaho by the 3rd Colorado Volunteers under Col John Chivington, during an unprovoked attack on Cheyenne peace chief Black Kettle's camp at Sand Creek, Colorado, on 29 November 1864.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place on 25 June 1876. It resulted in the death of about 265 officers and troops of the 7th Cavalry under the command of General George Armstrong Custer. The battle was the most serious defeat of the US army during the war for the Great Plains.

Major westward migration route in the USA used by pioneer settlers in the 19th century.

Began in April 1861 and ended in April 1865. Sometimes called ‘the War Between the States’ or ‘the Second American Revolution’, a conflict in the USA which resolved two great issues: the nature of the Federal Union and the relative power of the states and the central government; and the existence of black slavery. Those four years transformed American society.

Name commonly given to the Confederate States of America (1861-65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union.

Generally dating from 1865 to 1877, Reconstruction is the term describing the period of readjustment following the American Civil War.

In 1803, the United States acquired from France the formerly Spanish region of Louisiana.

Armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain, fought chiefly along the Canadian border from 1812–15; also called the Anglo-American War. The war was ostensibly fought for freedom of the seas, to end impressment, and for territory in Canada; yet the eventual peace treaty changed these circumstances little.

Principle of American foreign policy enunciated in President James Monroe's message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823. It initially called for an end to European intervention in the Americas, but it was later extended to justify U.S. imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.

The influx of prospectors to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, following the discovery of gold in the American River by US surveyor James Marshall in January 1848.

Case decided in 1819 by the U.S. Supreme Court, dealing specifically with the constitutionality of a Congress-chartered corporation, and more generally with the dispersion of power between state and federal governments.

A series of seven debates between the Democrat senator Stephen A Douglas and Republican Abraham Lincoln held August-October during the 1858 race for Illinois State senator.

In U.S. history, the executive order abolishing slavery in the Confederate States of America.

A movement culminating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed first to end the slave trade, and then to abolish the institution of slavery and emancipate slaves. The movement took place in Europe, mainly in the UK, and in the USA.

Loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks.