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U.S. History 1st Semester Learning Outcomes
Unit 1: Colonial America (1450-1750)
1. The Spanish, British, French, and Dutch all explored the current day U.S. as they searched for trade routes to Asia and
competed globally for territory.
2. Understand the cultural identities and diversity of the American Indians prior to European Colonization (North,
Northwest, West, Peoples of Mexico, Peoples of the Southwest, Peoples of the Great Plains, Peoples of the Southeast)
3. Many explorers claimed land in North America while looking for the Northwest Passage, a water route through North
America to Asia.
4. The Columbian Exchange was the transfer of various plants, animals, and diseases between the Western and Eastern
Hemispheres.
5. Religious freedom, riches, land, and commercial trade were different motivations for the founding of the English colonies
in America.
6. Founded in 1607, Jamestown, Virginia was the first successful English settlement in America.
7. The Mayflower Compact—made up by the Pilgrim Separatists who sailed for America on the Mayflower—set up the
basis for self-government and majority rule in Massachusetts.
8. The first form of representative (or legislative) government in the colonies was Virginia’s House of Burgesses, established
in 1619.
9. After being banished from Massachusetts, Roger Williams founded Rhode Island on the principles of religious freedom,
equality for all, and separation of church and state.
10. James Oglethorpe founded Georgia as a refuge for debtors.
11. European colonists in America turned to Africans (instead of Native Americans) for slave labor because they were
immune to most diseases, didn’t know the land, and were a source of constant cheap labor.
12. The three cultural regions of the colonies were New England, Middle, and Southern.
13. The New England colonies were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, & Rhode Island.
14. The New England colonies were characterized by Puritan religious values, fishing, shipping & commerce, and subsistence
farming.
15. The Middle Colonies were New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware.
16. The Middle Colonies (aka the Breadbasket colonies) were characterized by diverse ethnic groups, commerce & trade, and
cash crops of grain.
17. The Southern Colonies were Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, & the Carolinas.
18. The Southern Colonies were characterized by large plantations with slave labor and cash crops of tobacco, indigo, & rice.
19. The Backcountry was the region in the colonies that ran along the Appalachian Mountains.
20. In order to vote in many of the colonies, one had to be white, male, over 21, a property-owner, and a church-member.
21. European colonization negatively impacted Native Americans through disease, displacement, technology, and
assimilation.
22. The triangular trade was the name given to a trading route in the Atlantic Ocean that involved the exchange of rum, sugar
and enslaved Africans.
23. The Middle Passage was the route of the triangular trade involved the shipping of captured African men, women, and
children to work as slaves in the Americas.
24. Massachusetts established the first public (or universal) schools in the colonies because of Puritan beliefs that everyone
should know how to read the Bible.
25. Benjamin Franklin was a popular American Enlightenment figure who contributed to American society in numerous ways
as an inventor, printer and statesman.
26. The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that emphasized science and reason as ways to gain knowledge and
discover truth, brought about new ideas regarding man’s natural rights.
27. The Great Awakening was a religious movement during the mid 1700s that encouraged ideas of equality and the right to
challenge authority. Religious leaders of this movement were George Whitefield and Jonathon Edwards.
28. Britain’s policy of salutary neglect towards its colonies helped the American colonists to have an autonomous
(independent) nature.
29. Mercantilism, which means exporting more than you import in order to create a favorable balance of trade, was the
economic system used by Britain and her colonies.
U.S. History 1st Semester Learning Outcomes
Unit II: The American Revolution 1750-1783)
30. The rivalry between France and England and conflicting land claims in America led to the French and Indian War.
31. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 that ended the French & Indian War also ended French power in North America.
32. The Proclamation of 1763 banned English settlers from moving west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to prevent
conflict with the Native Americans.
33. The French and Indian War doubled Britain’s debt and led to direct taxes in the colonies.
34. The American colonists believed that it was wrong for Britain to tax them when they had no representatives from the
colonies in Parliament.
35. The Stamp Act was a law passed by Parliament that taxed all sorts of documents including wills, newspapers, contracts,
and even dice!
36. The Sons of Liberty was a secret society that formed in protest to the Stamp Act & other British policies.
37. The Quartering Act required the colonists to quarter, or house, and feed British soldiers stationed in America.
38. Paul Revere was a silversmith and a leader of the Sons of Liberty in Boston. His engraving of the Boston Massacre was
used as propaganda against the British.
39. John Adams was a lawyer and statesman who defended the soldiers after the Boston Massacre and was a central figure in
both Continental Congresses.
40. In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts. These harsh laws eventually
led to the First Continental Congress.
41. The 1st Continental Congress was a meeting of representatives from each of the colonies. It met in response to the
Coercive (Intolerable) Acts and united the colonies in promoting their rights.
42. Patrick Henry was a Virginia lawyer whose speeches in the House of Burgesses called for independence from Great
Britain.
43. Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense convinced many colonists that a complete break from England was necessary.
44. The 2nd Continental Congress created the Declaration of Independence, put into action an interim government, and
created the Continental army.
45. The English philosopher John Locke argued that all men had natural rights of life, liberty and property. His ideas
became the foundation for the Declaration of Independence.
46. The Revolutionary War was the colonial fight for independence from Great Britain.
47. The first shots of the American Revolution (the “shot heard ‘round the world”) were fired at Lexington and Concord in
Massachusetts.
48. Colonists and citizens of Britain were divided for the colonial drive for independence in three ways: loyalists (stay loyal to
England), patriots (break away from England), and neutral (many religious pacifists).
49. George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
50. General Washington’s surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas Day boosted the morale of the weary
Continental forces.
51. The Marquis de Lafayette came from France to help Washington’s army.
52. The great hardships during the winters at Morristown and Valley Forge and the influence of foreign officers such as
Baron von Steuben united the Continental troops into a more effective & disciplined fighting force.
53. Naval officer John Paul Jones inspired Americans with his thrilling successes against the best navy in the world.
54. Benedict Arnold was a Continental officer and hero at Saratoga who became a traitor when he turned over an American
fort to the British.
55. A private who eventually became commander of the Continental Army in the South, Nathanael Greene, effectively used
the strategy of dividing his forces and eluding the enemy to help the Americans win the war.
56. Colonists, like Francis Marion “The Swamp Fox,” often used unconventional (guerilla) military tactics to neutralize the
highly trained British regulars.
57. The last major battle of the Revolution occurred at Yorktown, Virginia where the British general Lord Cornwallis
surrendered his entire army.
58. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris forced Britain to recognize the independence of the colonies and granted the new nation
land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.
59. Better leadership, French assistance, knowledge of the land, and the motivation of liberty helped Americans to win the
Revolutionary War.
U.S. History 1st Semester Learning Outcomes
Unit III: Framing the American Government (1783-1791)
60. The American Revolution brought an end to mercantilism. Free enterprise is when business can be conducted freely by
individuals, not because of government controls.
61. The colonies modeled their representative government after Parliament, Britain’s legislative body.
62. Our first national government—under the Articles of Confederation—was characterized by a weak central government
that caused commercial and political problems within the country.
63. The Land Ordinance of 1785 called for surveyors to measure and divide the Northwest Territory into townships.
64. The Northwest Ordinance determined how the Northwest Territory was to be governed and described how territories
could become states.
65. Shay’s Rebellion, an armed revolt of Pennsylvania farmers, helped America’s leaders realize that a change in the national
government was needed.
66. The Constitutional Convention was originally called in 1787 in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of
Confederation. Eventually, the Articles were abolished altogether, and a new Constitution was written.
67. The Virginia Plan, which provided for three branches of government with a 2-house Congress (Senate & House of
Reps.), was the basis for the new Constitution.
68. Because his Virginia Plan became the basis for the Constitution, James Madison is widely considered the “Father of
the Constitution.”
69. Compromises dealing with slavery as well as political representation enabled the Constitution to be written.
70. The Great Compromise at the Constitutional Convention settled the issue between large and small states on how
they would be represented in Congress.
71. The 3/5 Compromise settled the issue of how slaves would be counted for representation in Congress and
taxation.
72. The legislative branch makes the laws (Congress).
73. The executive branch enforces the laws (the President).
74. The judicial branch interprets the laws (the Supreme Court).
75. Popular sovereignty means that the people are the most important source of governmental power.
76. A republic is a government in which people elect representatives to govern for them.
77. Federalism exists when there is a strong national government, and power is divided between federal and state
governments.
78. Separation of powers divides the government into 3 branches, which help prevents any one group or individual
from becoming too powerful.
79. Checks and balances is a system that allows each of the 3 branches to exert some control (check) over the other
branches.
80. Federalists, such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, favored ratification of the Constitution because they
favored a strong central government.
81. Hamilton, Madison and John Jay united to write The Federalist Papers, essays describing why citizens should ratify
the Constitution.
82. Anti-Federalists oppose ratification of the Constitution because they believed it made the state governments too
weak, and it had no bill of rights.
83. The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, guarantees inalienable rights and freedoms to
Americans.
84. The five basic rights guaranteed to citizens in the first Amendment are freedoms of speech, press, religion, petition,
and assembly.
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