Thematic Timeline - AMERICAN AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

Example of a thematic timeline for "American and National Identity"

1450

~Castile and Aragon joined to create Spain; the Inquisition helps create a sense of Spanishness

~John Calvin establishes a Protestant commonwealth in Geneva, Switzerland

1550

~English conquest and persecution of native Irish

~Growing Protestant movement in England

1600

~Pilgrims and Puritans seek to create godly commonwealths

~Powhatan and Virginia Company representatives attempt to extract tribute from each other

1660

~Restoration makes England a monarchy again; royalist revival

~The Glorious Revolution makes England a constitutional monarchy

~Massachusetts loses its charter (1684) and gains a new one (1691)

1690

~Colonists gain autonomy in the post-Glorious Revolution era

~Tribalization developing among Native American peoples

1700

~Social mobility for Africans ends with collapse of tobacco trade and increased power of gentry

1720

~African American community forms in the Chesapeake

~Planter aristocracy emerges in the Chesapeake and South Carolina

~Culture of gentility spreads among well-to-do

1750

~Victory in the Great War for Empire sparks pro-British pride in the colonies

~Desire for political autonomy and economic independence strong

1763

~Concept of popular sovereignty gains force in the colonies

~Colonists lay claim to rights of Englishmen

1776

~Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776) causes colonists to rethink political loyalties

~States rely on property qualifications to define citizenship rights in their new constitutions

1787

~Indians form Western Confederacy (1790)

~Second Great Awakening (1790-1860)

~Emerging political divide between South and North

1800

~Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh revive Western Indian Confederacy

1810

~War of 1812 tests national unity

~State constitutions democratized

~American Colonization Society (1817)

~Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography (1818) spreads notion of the self-made man

1820

~David Walker's Appeal... to the Colored Citizens (1829) attacks slavery

~Rise of southern sectionalism

1830

~W. L. Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society (1833)

~Female Moral Reform Society (1834) defines gender identity

~Texas gains independence (1836)

1840

~Antislavery Liberty Party (1840)

~New African American culture develops in Mississippi Valley

~Whites migrate to Oregon and California

~Arrival of millions of Germans and Irish causes social conflicts

~Wars against Seminole peoples in Florida (1835-1842, 1855-1858)

1850

~Black and white preachers promote Christianity among slaves

~Free blacks in North become politically active

~Conflicts of Hispanics and Anglos in the Southwest

~White diseases and brutality kill most California Indians

~Comanches and Sioux dominate Great Plains peoples and control trade in horses and buffalo hides

1860

~Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and Thirteenth Amendment (1865) free blacks from slavery

~Aided by Freedmen's Bureau, African Americans struggle for freedom, land, and education

1870

~U.S. wars against Plains Indians (Cheyennes, Sioux, Apaches, and Nez Perce) open their lands to white miners, ranchers, and farmers

~Dawes Act (1887) seeks Indian assimilation

1890

~"American exceptionalism" and rise of imperialism

~Alfred Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890)

1900

~Insular Cases establish noncitizenship status for new territories (1901)

~California, Washington, and Hawaii limit rights for Asian immigrants

1910

~New Ku Klux Klan founded (1915)

~Post-WWI race riots

~Wartime pressure for "100% loyalty"; dissent suppressed

1920

~National Origins Act limits immigration (1924)

1930

~Bonus Army (1932)

~Indian Reorganization Act (1934)

~Social Security created (1935)

1940

~Internment of Japanese Americans

~To Secure These Rights (1947)

~Segregation in armed services until 1948

~Desegregation of armed services (1948)

~Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)

1950

~Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

~Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

~Little Rock - Central High School desegregation battle

~Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded (1957)

1960

~Greensboro sit-ins

~The Feminine Mystique (1963)

~Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts (1964-1965)

~National Organization for Women founded (1966)

~Alcatraz occupation (1969)

~Black Power

~Student and antiwar activism

1970

~Equal Rights Amendment (1972)

~Roe v. Wade (1973)

~Bakke v. University of California (1978)

~Harvey Milk assassinated (1978)