Period 5: 1844 - 1877

  • Period 5 is worth 13% of the AP Exam. This period will be covered in approximately 8 class periods.
    The College Board uses key concepts to denote the testable material for each period. The full, detailed version of these concepts are located here. Please take the time to know these concepts, as anything mentioned is fair game for the AP Exam.

    Key Concept 5.1— The United States became more connected with the world, pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, and emerged as the destination for many migrants from other countries.

    Key Concept 5.2— Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.

    Key Concept 5.3— The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession, but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights.


Period 5 Key Terms
Key terms that will be an invaluable study tool as we get closer to the AP exam in May. Each term should include the information provided on Quizlet.
Chapter 11

    1. Manifest Destiny

    2. Overland Trail

    3. Mexican American War

    4. Mexican Cession

    5. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    6. Wilmot Proviso

    7. Popular sovereignty

  • Chapter 12

    1. Compromise of 1850

    2. Fugitive Slave Act

    3. Underground Railroad

    4. Kansas-Nebraska Act

    5. Know-Nothings

    6. Bleeding Kansas

    7. Dred Scott v. Sandford

    8. Lincoln-Douglas debates

    9. John Brown’s raid

    10. Crittenden Compromise

    11. Election of 1860

  • Chapter 13

    1. Border states

    2. Cotton embargo

    3. Trent affair

    4. Peninsular campaign

    5. Emancipation Proclamation

    6. Copperheads

    7. Conscription Act

    8. Draft Riots

    9. Sherman’s March to the Sea

    10. Special Field Order No. 15

  • Chapter 14

    1. 10% Plan (Presidential Reconstruction)

    2. Freedmen’s Bureau

    3. Black Codes

    4. Jim Crow laws

    5. Carpetbaggers

    6. Scalawag

    7. Reconstruction Amendments

    8. Congressional/Radical Reconstruction

    9. Mississippi Plan

    10. Redeemers

    11. Civil Rights Act of 1875

    12. Compromise of 1877

    13. New South

  • Chapter 15

    1. Homestead Act

    2. Transcontinental Railroad

    3. Exodusters

    4. Grange

    5. Battle of Little Bighorn

    6. Dawes Severalty Act

    7. Wounded Knee Massacre

    8. Frontier Thesis