Andrew Jackson
Military hero who became a symbol of expanding American democracy.
Jacksonian Democracy
A policy of spreading more political power to more people. It was a "Common Man" theme.
Spoils Systems
the practice of rewarding government jobs to loyal supporters of the party that wins an election.
Indian Removal Act
(1830) Signed by President Andrew Jackson, the law permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain the Indians' lands in exchange for their relocation to what would become Oklahoma.
Trail of Tears
(AJ) , The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 000 Cherokees di
John C. Calhoun
Formerly Jackson's vice-president, later a South Carolina senator. He said the North should grant the South's demands and keep quiet about slavery to keep the peace. He was a spokesman for the South and states' rights. Supported nullification.
Nullification
the refusal of a state to recognize or enforce any federal law held to be an infringement on its sovereignty
Panic of 1837
First Depression in American history; Banks lost money, people lost faith in banks, and country lost faith in President Martin van Buren; lasted four years; due to large state debts, expansion of credit by numerous, unfavorable balance of crop failures, a
Second Great Awakening
A series of religious revivals starting in 1801, based on Methodism and Baptism. Stressed a religious philosophy of salvation through good deeds and tolerance for all Protestant sects. The revivals attracted women, Blacks, and Native Americans.
Charles Grandon Finney
influenctial evangelical revivalist of the second great awakening
Joseph Smith
A new englander founded the church of Jesus christ of Latter Day Saints.
Dorothea Dix
A reformer and pioneer in the movement to treat the insane as mentally ill, beginning in the 1820's, she was responsible for improving conditions in jails, poorhouses and insane asylums throughout the U.S. and Canada. She succeeded in persuading many stat
Temperance Movement
An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption.
Horace Mann
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he was a prominent proponent of public school reform, and set the standard for public schools throughout the nation.
Nat Turner
United States slave and insurrectionist who in 1831 led a rebellion of slaves in Virginia
Underground Railroad
A secret cooperative network that aided fugitive slaves in reaching sanctuary in the free states or in Canada in the years before the abolition of slavery in the United States
Harriet Tubman
United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913)
Abolitionist
A person who wanted to end slavery
William Lloyd Garrison
1805-1879. Prominent American abolitionist, journalist and social reformer. Editor of radical abolitionist newspaper "The Liberator", and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Frederick Douglass
A self-educated slave who escaped in 1838, Douglas became the best-known abolitionist speaker.
Angelina and Sarah Grimk�
American sisters and reformers, they were the daughters of a slaveholding family from South Carolina who became antislavery supporters and lecturers for the American Anti-Slavery Society. They also took up the women's rights campaign.
Henry David Thoreau
A writer and philosopher who spent a night in jail after refusing to pay a tax that he thought supports slavery. (civil disobedience)
Civil Disobedience
A group's refusal to obey a law because they believe the law is immoral (as in protest against discrimination)
Sojourner Truth
United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)
Lucretia Mott
A Quaker who attended an anti-slavery convention in 1840 and her party of women was not recognized. She and Stanton called the first women's right convention in New York in 1848.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
A member of the women's right's movement in 1840. She was a mother of seven, and she shocked other feminists by advocating suffrage for women at the first Women's Right's Convention in Seneca, New York 1848. Stanton read a "Declaration of Sentiments" whic
Seneca Falls Convention
(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written
Declaration of Sentiments
declared that all "people are created equal"; used the Declaration of Independence to argue for women's rights
Women's Rights Movements
Organized campaign to win property, education, and other rights for women.
Susan B. Anthony
social reformer who campaigned for womens rights, the temperance, and was an abolitionist, helped form the National Woman Suffrage Assosiation
Suffrage
the right to vote
Expantionists
people who believe that their country's prosperity depends on enlarging its territory
Manifest Destiny
A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.
Oregon Trail
2000 mile long path along which thousands of Americans journeyed to the Willamette Valley in the 1840's.
Alamo
A Spanish mission converted into a fort, it was besieged by Mexican troops in 1836. The Texas garrison held out for thirteen days, but in the final battle, all of the Texans were killed by the larger Mexican force.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
(1848) treaty signed by the U.S. and Mexico that officially ended the Mexican-American War; Mexico had to give up much of its northern territory to the U.S (Mexican Cession); in exchange the U.S. gave Mexico $15 million and said that Mexicans living in th
Gadsden Purchase
1853 purchase by the United States of southwestern lands from Mexico
James K. Polk
dark horse" Democratic candidate; acquired majority of the western US (Mexican Cession, Texas Annexation, Oregon Country), lowered tariffs, created Independent Treasury
California Gold Rush
1849 (San Francisco 49ers) Gold discovered in California attracted a rush of people all over the country to San Francisco.