Because the quality of education at
the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is so wretched, I teach my students in the
New Salem Educational Initiative most all of what they know in the major
subject areas. I am now in the process
of bringing two books to completion, one (Understanding
the Minneapolis Public Schools: Current
Condition, Future Prospect) that exposes with exhaustive factual detail
the multiple deficiencies of MPS, the other (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) that imparts to
my students the knowledge-intensive education that they should have but do not
come close to receiving in MPS schools.
I have now actually generated three
versions of (Fundamentals of an Excellent
Liberal Arts Education) for my students, depending on the time for
knowledge acquisition that applies to given students. For example, in its fullest presentation, the
American History chapter runs 65 single-spaced pages. There is an intermediate length (30
single-spaced pages) presentation, and there is a micro-version
that runs eleven (11) single-spaced pages for those students who for various
reasons need to acquire as quickly as possible the essential facts and themes
of American History.
A few days back, I entered this
chapter on the blog. I then presented an
exam covering American History through 1829, inviting my readers to test their
own knowledge of the history of this period in America and the early decades of
the United States.
Having generated an exam featuring my
own answers to serve as a model for my students in understanding the strengths
and weaknesses of their own responses, I now present these answers to my
readers.
Those who have not yet taken the exam
may want to scroll on down to the exam (sans answers).
Otherwise, please consider carefully
these model answers to American History:
Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education >>>>> Exam Covering American Prehistory and History
through 1829.
American History: Micro-Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal
Arts Education
Exam Covering American Prehistory and
History through 1829
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational
Initiative
I.
Identification (2.5
points each)
1.
BCE
This abbreviation stands for “Before
the Common Era” and is chronologically equivalent to the term, BC, in
designating the years conventionally associated with the centuries of history
before the birth of Jesus. The term,
BCE, has gained greater usage in recent decades as a response to those
non-Christian scholars who thought that for practical reasons the time scheme
should be maintained, but that the Christian bias should be eliminated.
2.
CE
This abbreviation stands for the
“Common Era” and is chronologically equivalent to the term. AD, in designating
the years conventionally associated with the centuries of history after the
birth of Jesus. The term, CE, has gained
greater usage in recent decades as a response to those non-Christian scholars who thought that for
practical reasons the time scheme should be maintained, but that the Christian
bias should be eliminated (thus congruent with the logic applicable to the use
of the term, BCE, above).
3.
Bering Strait
This is the body of water between the
Asian landmass and Alaska. Archeological
and geological evidence suggests that at approximately 15,000 years ago, those
peoples who would become Native Americans crossed the land bridge exposed by
contracting waters of the Ice Age, trekking from Asiatic Russia into Alaska and
thence proceeding to expand over North America (including Central America) and
South America.
4.
Christopher Columbus
Columbus was a native Italian (Genoa)
who secured financial backing from Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand and sailed
on four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean between 1492 and 1502. Among the many who had come to perceive the
known world as spherical, Columbus sought an all-water route to the East Indies
(today’s Indonesia) so as to avoid the middlepersons who dominated the overland
trade between those spice-rich islands and the Mediterranean. Columbus sailed four centuries after the
Viking Leif Ericsson had landed in Newfoundland (and explored the St. Lawrence
River region) but had much greater impact.
Though he never realized his geographical error, he had in fact introduced
Europeans to two continents, leading the way for the cruel, adventurous, and
prosperous colonial exploits of Spain, Portugal, France, and Great
Britain.
5.
Divide and conquer
(generally, and then particularly with
regard to organization of slavery on
British-American colonial and
early-United States plantations)
This term applies to those who seek to
rule and abet that desire by playing off the people to be dominated against one
another. On the British-American
plantations of the South, plantation owners used this technique by giving house
slaves and slave drivers (the latter generally African Americans working under
the direction of overseers) superior status and less physically demanding work
than field slaves. Used by many
conquerors in the course of history, this would later be saliently true in the
post-Reconstruction South, whereby the powerful white elite would play off poor
whites and generally even poorer black sharecroppers against each other, thus
minimizing the chance of their forming a political coalition.
6.
Louisiana Purchase
This was a procured territory,
stretching westward from the Mississippi River to the Northeast Pacific coast,
by agreement between France and the United States in 1803. Since by this time, the American Revolution
(1775-1781/1783) had already been fought and the British ousted (to be
confirmed in the War of 1812), the Louisiana Purchase (quickly followed by the
William and Clark Expedition with the assistance of Sacajawea during 1804-1806)
essentially led to the geographical definition of the United States that we now
know, engendering westward expansion of various peoples of European origins and
the encroachment onto land expanses long occupied by Native American peoples.
7.
George Washington
Washington was a Virginia plantation
and slave owner who would lead the army of Americans in rebellion against the
British in the American Revolution (1775-1781/1783). Washington was able to make do with a
generally inexperienced, ragtag soldiery to prevail, with some German and very
significant French assistance, against the British. Washington would go on to serve as the first
President of the United States, serving two terms (1789-1797), bringing
generally Federalist sensibilities to the exercise of government with policies
that brought credibility to the United States as a fledgling nation.
8.
Loyalists (Tories, Redcoats)
These terms refer to those who
remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution. Far from a unanimous proposition, the
Revolution was backed especially by those (such as John Adams and Samuel Adams
of Boston) with mercantile interests most hurt by the taxation policies of the
British Parliament and the obstreperous stances of George III. The Loyalists included a substantial
contingent of backwoods and southern colonialists. Also, although African Americans were
themselves divided as to their loyalties and energies, those African Americans
doubtful as to any advantages that could accrue to themselves in waging the
American Revolution elected to fight on the British side as de facto Loyalists,
hoping that by doing so the colonial power would reverse policies pertinent to
the slave trade and the slave system.
9.
judicial review
This is the term that gained usage in
the aftermath of the Marbury v Madison (1803)
decision, whereby the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Marshall asserted
the right of that highest judicial body in the United States to make the final
determination as to the constitutionality of statutory law passed by the United
States Congress and by state legislatures, and as to the actions of individuals. Although the Constitution generally
establishes checks and balances and a balance of power among the executive,
legislative, and judicial branches of the United States government, this power of
judicial review establishes determinative power of the Supreme Court (at the
apex of the judicial branch) over other governmental bodies with respect to
interpretation of the intent of the Constitution as the “law of the land.”
10.
Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Vice-President John Quincy Adams took
the lead in behalf of President James Monroe (term, 1817-1825) in proclaiming
United States political and military preeminence in North and South
America. By this time, the Battle of
Quebec (1763), the American Revolution (1775-1781/1783), and the War of 1812,
and various revolutions in Mexico and South America had in the main
respectively ousted the French, British, Spaniards, and Portuguese from
occupation of territory in the Americas.
The Monroe Doctrine established the principle that Europeans and others
should not interfere in events in the Americas, asserting an aggressive role
for the United States, furthered by the Roosevelt Corollary in the early 20th
century and leading to multiple intrusions of the United States into the
affairs of Latin American nations during the course of the 20th and
21st centuries.
.
II.
Short Answer (15 points
each)
1. Give an account of the arrival of those people
who became the indigenous peoples of the Americas (Native Americans), their
geographical expansion over the two continents, their individual distinctiveness,
and common features in their way of life.
At approximately 15,000 years ago,
people who had roamed the northern Asian expanses trekked across the Bering
Strait land bridge exposed during the last Ice Age and entered what we now know
as Alaska. From Alaska, these people
took divergent paths across areas now identified as Canada, the United States,
Mexico, Central America, and South America.
These became the progenitors of Native American peoples classified into
at least 35 different tribes or nations, each with distinctive responses to
local circumstances of geography, topography, and climate. Some were warlike, some were peaceful; in either case, they viewed land as sacred,
vital in an animate and inanimate world overseen by
deities identified with the sun, moon, rain, mountains, rivers, and creatures
of Nature. The notion of finely
demarcated land according to borders in the European fashion was not common
among the Native American peoples, leading to one of many misunderstandings and
conflicts with those who came to America many centuries after those who made
that first arrival from Asia.
2.
For the European powers of Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and France,
give accounts of the general pattern of their settlement in the Americas: Explain where each power located colonies,
what economic return occurred as a result of colonialization, and the duration
of colonialization for each of the powers.
Columbus sailed for Spain, looking for
an all-water route to Asia and the source of spices in the East Indies (in what
is now Indonesia). He made four voyages
(1492-1502) without finding what he sought or realizing what he had found, but
he led the way for others from Spain, such as Hernando Cortez (1519) and Francisco Pizarro (1532),
who respectively brutalized and sickened the Aztecs (Mexico) and Incas (Peru)
in route to Spanish dominance over Mexico, Central America, and most of South
America. Silver from South American
mines and plantations throughout Spanish-held territory enriched the crown of
Spain and for a time (until the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the British in
1588) made Spain the dominant colonial power.
Portugal was also a world power, exploring routes to Asia and establishing
a major colony in Brazil. France and
Great Britain contended for influence in North America, with the British
eventually emerging as the victor in the battles of Quebec (Canada) and Plassey
(India), both in 1763. Great Britain,
though still a global power and maintaining a governing presence in Canada into
the 19th century, itself lost to its formerly governed peoples of
the 13 Atlantic colonies in the American Revolution (1775-1781/1783) and the
War of 1812. By 1821, the Louisiana
Purchase (1803) and various Latin American revolutions had induced the exit of
Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal from most all territory in the
Western Hemisphere, excepting locations in the Caribbean islands. The economic advantages that accrued to the
Europeans in the form of control over natural resources, slaves, agricultural
produce, and nascent industry, now became sources of power and contention for
the governments of the United States, Mexico, and the nations of Central and
South America.
3.
Give a brief account of the American Revolution, including reasons for
occurrence, diverse patterns of participation and sentiment among the
colonists, general pattern of the fighting, important associated documents or
declarations, and outcome.
In the late 18th century,
the British Parliament (legislative body in a government led at the executive
level by King George III) passed numerous laws affecting the 13 colonies. Mercantile interests in Boston and other
areas of the Northeast bridled especially at taxation policies. Many colonists (Loyalists, Tories, Redcoats)
remained loyal to the British, but in 1775 rising tensions led to the initial
skirmishes at Concord and Lexington (Massachusetts), and Thomas Jefferson acted
upon the decrees of the Continental Congress by penning the Declaration of
Independence (issued on 4 July 1776).
With some assistance from Germans and significant help from the French,
the colonial army led by George Washington prevailed, with the final battle
coming at Yorktown in 1781. Benjamin Franklin
and others negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783) with the British, and the new nation
of the United States of America gained worldwide recognition. African Americans fought variously for the
American or Loyalist side, vainly seeking to advance interests that they
correctly calculated were not likely to be recognized by either side: The brutal system of slavery would endure
beyond a half-century in the life of the new nation.
4.
Give a careful distinction between the Articles of Confederation (1781)
and the United States Constitution (1789).
The Articles of Confederation (1781)
represented the first attempt on the part of former colonial and now national
leaders to generate a constitutional document for governing the United States
of America. But the resulting government
was extraordinarily weak at the national level, with little power to raise
revenue or even to command unity on military matters. Thus, leaders gathered in Philadelphia for a
Constitutional Convention to produce a new document of national
governance. The result was the
Constitution of the United States of America (implemented, 1789) approved with the
necessary majority by all of the states but Rhode Island. The Constitution sought balance and
compromise, between large states and small, and between government at the
national and at the state and local levels.
The power of the central government, soon established in Washington, D.
C., shared power with the states and
localities but now was given significant powers pertinent to taxation,
commerce, trade, and the military.
5.
Explain the different stances of the Democratic-Republicans and the
Federalists, the two parties that dominated electoral politics in the United
States during the first three decades in the history of the nation.
George Washington had eschewed and
warned against party affiliation, but by the second presidential administration
of John Adams (1797-1801), two contending political forces had emerged. Adams and Treasury Secretary Alexander
Hamilton were Federalists who first in the Federalist
Papers had made the case for approving the United States Constitution and
then had advocated for a very strong central government. The Federalist political constituency was
especially the business and urban interests of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coast. Thomas Jefferson (third United States
president, 1801-1809), by contrast, although an advocate for the United States Constitution
and enhanced central power, had a vision of the United States as an agrarian
nation wherein individuals and states would maintain very firm rights. John Madison (prime author of the United
States Constitution and fourth United States president [1809-1817] had been an
author of the Federalist Papers but
by the time of his presidency had aligned himself with Jefferson and his
Democratic-Republicans. James Monroe
(fifth president, term 1817-1825) presided in a time so dominated by the
Democratic-Republican position that general agreement on political matters
resulted in the “Era of Good Feelings.”
During the presidency of Andrew Jackson (seventh president, term
1829-1837) a new party came into being as the Democrats, which dominated over a
party known as the Whigs (the Federalists had faded from the scene), a
circumstance that prevailed until the establishment of the moderate
anti-slavery party, the Republicans (party of Abraham Lincoln) in 1858.
