APUSH First Semester Exam

“It is to be understood, that the people which now inhabit the regions of the coast of Guinea, and the middle parts of Africa, as Libya the inner, and Nubia, with diverse other great and large regions about the same, were in old time called Ethiopians and Nigritae, which we now call Moores, Moorens, or Negros, a people of beastly living, without a god, law, religion, or common wealth, and so scorched and vexed with the heat of the sun, that in many places they curse it when it rises….There are also other people of Libya called Garamantes, whose women are common: for the contract on matrimony, neither have respect to chastity.”

Jon Lok, Second Voyage to Guinea, 1554

“The Second Voyage of M. John Lok to Guinea, Anno 1554,” in Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1904), 6:167–68.

. In the British North American colonies at the end of the 17th century, the ideas expressed in

• racially mixed populations

• racial stereotyping and the development of strict racial categories.

• problems of slavery and the slave trade.

• labor-intensive production based on white indentured servants.

Objection 5: But what warrant have we to take that land, which is and has been of long time possessed of others, the sons of Adam?

“Answer: That which is common to all is proper to none. This savage people rule over many lands without title or property; for they enclose no ground, neither have they cattle to maintain it, but remove their dwellings as they have occasion, or as they can prevail against their neighbors. And why may not Christians have liberty to go and dwell amongst them in their waste lands and woods….Secondly, there is more than enough for them and us. Thirdly, God has consumed the natives with a miraculous plague, whereby the greater part of the country is left void of inhabitants. Fourthly, we shall come in with good leave of the natives.”

John Winthrop, General Considerations for the Plantation in New England with an “Answer to Several Objections…, 1629

The author of the excerpt above was most interested in

• participating in the fur trade with the native communities.

• . generating great wealth for the king in England.

• converting American Indians to Christianity.

• justifying the takeover of American Indian lands.

“SECTION 1…If any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States…, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding…office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination…, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and on conviction...shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years…

SECTION 2…If any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published…, any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government…or to bring them...into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them...the hatred of the good people of the United States…, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States…, then such person, being thereof convicted…shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.”

The Sedition Act, 1798

Excerpted text from congressional bill, July 14, 1798.

The legislation above was passed in response to which of the following challenges?

• The constant fear of Indian attacks along the border

• he limitations of the Articles of Confederation

• The potential for loyalist criticism and sabotage

• The threat posed by foreign alliances and entanglement

“We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain…That the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities…and, more especially…[the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832]…are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens.…And we, the People of South Carolina…Do further Declare that we will not submit to the application of force, on the part of the Federal Government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act…to coerce the State…to be null and void, inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union…”

South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, 1832

Paul Leicester Ford, The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States (New York: Henry Holt, 1898).

The excerpt above best exemplifies which of the following historical developments or processes in the first half of American history?

• The support or resistance of various American groups or individuals to the expansion of territory

• The reemergence of a two-party political system as various constituencies and interest groups coalesced and defined their agendas

• The assertion of Southern regional pride in slavery and the insistence of many whites in the South that the federal government defend slavery

• Resistance from state governments in the North and the South at different times to federal attempts to assert authority over them

“Thomas J. Ross agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation…on the following Rules, Regulations and Remunerations. The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate,…and to give unto said Freedmen…one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is raised on said place for the year 1866 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen’s labor in harvesting, carrying to market and selling the same the said Freedmen…agrees to and with said Thomas J. Ross that for and in consideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant, cultivate, and raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, a cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866.…We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Ross that we will do good work and labor ten hours a day on an average, winter and summer.…We furthermore bind ourselves that we will obey the orders of said Ross in all things in carrying out and managing said crop for said year and be docked for disobedience. All is responsible for all farming utensils that is on hand or may be placed in care of said Freedmen for the year 1866 to said Ross and are also responsible to said Ross if we carelessly, maliciously maltreat any of his stock for said year to said Ross for damages to be assessed out of our wages.”

Labor Contract, Shelby County, Tennessee, 1866

Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Tennessee, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865–1869, No. M-999.

The practices described in the excerpt above most directly led to

• the judicial principles of the Civil War Amendments.

• the abolition of slavery.

• freed blacks’ development of cultures that reflected their interests and experiences.

• the progressive stripping away of the rights of African Americans.

“For I knew that they were a people who could be more easily freed and converted to our holy faith by love than by force, gave to some of them red caps, and glass beads to put round their necks, and many other things of little value, which gave them great pleasure, and made them so much our friends.…It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything.…They have no iron, their darts being wands without iron, some of them having a fish’s tooth at the end….They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians as it appeared to me that they had no religion.”

Christopher Columbus upon reaching the West Indies, 1492

The Journal of Christopher Columbus (during his First Voyage, 1492–93) and Documents Relating to the Voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar Corte Real (London: Hakluyt Society, 1893), 37–38.

The sentiments expressed by Columbus in the excerpt above best support which future Spanish goal?

• Shifting the Spanish economy from feudalism to capitalism

• Organizing new methods for conducting international trade

• Implementing a plantation-based agricultural system

• Attempting to change American Indians’ beliefs and worldviews

“And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that…no sugars, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic or other dying wood, of growth, production, or manufacture of any English plantations in America, Asia, or Africa, shall be shipped, carried conveyed or transported, from any of the said English plantations to any land, island, territory, dominion, port or place whatsoever, other than to such other English plantations as do belong to his Majesty…under the penalty of the forfeiture of said goods, or the full value thereof, and also the ship, with all her guns, tackle, apparel, ammunition and furniture.”

The Navigation Act of 1660

The policies stated in the above law can best be seen as an example of

• Enlightenment thinking.

• capitalism.

• communism.

• mercantilism.

“These colonies ought to regard the act with abhorrence. For who are a free people? Not those over whom government is reasonably and equitably exercised but those who live under a government, so constitutionally checked and controlled, that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised. The late act is founded on the destruction of constitutional security.… In short, if they have a right to levy a tax of one penny upon us, they have a right to levy a million upon us. For where does that right stop?...To use the words of Mr. Locke, ‘What property have we in that, which another may, by rights take, when he pleases, to himself?’…We are therefore—I speak it with grief—I speak with indignation—we are slaves.”

John Dickinson, Letter from a Farmer, 1768

John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), 75–78.

The passage above was written in response to

• calls for a stronger central government.

• British efforts to tax the colonies.

• debates over the issue of slavery.

• the perceived corruption of the British government.

“This momentous question like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.…But as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Holmes, 1820

Thomas Jefferson Randolph, ed., Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1829), 4:332.

Which of the following events or processes in the 1840s or 1850s most directly contributed to the “irritations” that Jefferson warned about in the letter above?

• . The acquisition of new territory in the West and the U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War

• The growth of violent nativist movements aimed at limiting immigrants’ influence and power

• The movement of African Americans and Asians to the West

• The increased settlement in areas forcibly taken from American Indians

“I stand before you under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted in the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus doing, I not only committed no crime, but instead simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution beyond the power of any State to deny.…If once we establish the false principle that United States citizenship does not carry with it the right to vote in every state in this Union, there is no end to the petty tricks and cunning devices which will be attempted to exclude one and another class of citizens from the right of suffrage.…Establish this precedent, admit the State’s right to deny suffrage, and there is no limit to the confusion, discord, and disruption that may await us. There is and can be but one safe principle of government—equal rights to all.”

Susan B. Anthony, Speech before the Court, 1873

Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Volume II (Indianapolis: The Hollenbeck Press, 1898).

The excerpt above is best understood in the context of

• the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments.

• the end of the Civil War

• Radical Republicans’ efforts to change Southern attitudes.

• efforts to limit the political power of immigrants .