AP U.S. History
Complete AP U.S. History guide. Covers all nine periods from contact through the present, the AP themes (NAT, WOR, GEO, MIG, CUL, ARC, WXT, SOC, PCE), and exam skills (DBQ, LEQ, SAQ, multiple choice).
Topics Covered
What you get
Period 1 — Pre-Contact Societies & European Encounter (1491–1607)
THE BIG PICTURE. Period 1 covers the diversity of Indigenous societies in 1491 and the first century of sustained contact among Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The exam tests how environment, technology, and ideology shaped contact — Europeans and Africans had centuries of prior trade, but the Americas had been isolated from both — and how the resulting Columbian Exchange reshaped every continent it touched. Period 1 weighs roughly 4–6% of the AP exam — small, but its concepts (the Columbian Exchange, the encomienda system, the casta hierarchy, demographic catastrophe) anchor every later period.
Sample Flashcards
How did the Columbian Exchange transform both worlds?
OLD WORLD → NEW WORLD: • Animals: horses (transformed Plains warfare and Indigenous economies), cattle, pigs, sheep. • Crops: wheat, sugar, citrus, coffee, bananas. • Diseases: smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus — killed 80–90% of Indigenous populations within 150 years. • Settlers: ~5 million Europeans came to the A…
How did Spanish colonization differ from English (and French/Dutch) models?
SPANISH (early 1500s onward): driven by "gold, glory, God." Conquest of Aztec and Incan empires; encomienda system enslaving Indigenous labor; large mestizo populations from intermarriage; Catholic mission system; centralized colonial administration.
Sample Key Terms
Columbian Exchange
Transatlantic transfer of plants, animals, people, and pathogens after 1492. Devastated Indigenous populations through disease; transformed global agriculture and demography.
Encomienda System
Spanish colonial grant of Indigenous labor and tribute to a colonist in exchange for nominal "Christianization." Coercive and brutal in practice — but legally distinct from chattel slavery.
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
Spanish-Portuguese agreement (papal-mediated) drawing a north-south meridian through the Atlantic. Spain claimed lands west of the line (most of the Americas); Portugal claimed lands east of it (which later included east…
What's Covered
- Period 1 — Pre-Contact Societies & European Encounter (1491–1607)
- Period 2 — Colonial Development (1607–1754)
- Period 3 — Revolution & Republic (1754–1800)
- Period 4 — Jeffersonian to Jacksonian Era (1800–1848)
- Period 5 — Sectional Crisis, Civil War & Reconstruction (1844–1877)
- Period 6 — Industrialization & the Gilded Age (1865–1898)
- Period 7 — Progressive Era, World Wars & New Deal (1890–1945)
- Period 8 — Cold War, Civil Rights & Liberation Movements (1945–1980)
- Period 9 — Conservative Ascendancy & Modern America (1980–Present)
- AP USH Skills — DBQ, LEQ, SAQ, MC
10 topics · 78+ flashcards · quizzes & matching games included
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